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At first sight, Whiplash seemed to me as another talent movie, which features the same clichés, no matter it's about music, dancing or sports. But the great reviews made me really curious about it, and I can honestly say, that it's nothing like your usual film about music.

Damien Chazelle's work, like every beginner director's is full of raw power and energy. Every moment of Whiplash has so much dynamics and tension. You wouldn't expect surprising twists from these kind of movies, but Whiplash has the quality to show you something unexpected in every minute. The director incorporates a few small, but clever twist in the narrative, and these aren't twists for the twists' sake. Chazelle is unlike any other young director: his work is unbelievably calculated, there's not a single unnecessary frame in this picture, and he can always capture the essence of the moment or the actors' performances.

And that's a good thing, because Whiplash relies hugely on those actors. Simmons' presence rules every scene he's in, he has clever lines, but the actor is doing most of the work. Miles Teller is a bit shadowed by him, but the young actor also does a great job, and the chemistry between the two of them is the absolute highlight of this movie. And with that, Chazelle can achieve that the songs are not just some promotional material, but important storytelling devices in the conflict of the main characters. The director is also great at capturing emotions through these song.

Which takes us to my only problem with Whiplash: the scenes of the rehearsals or the musical performances are so intense and strong, that they make every other scene disappoint you a little. That's exactly the case with the storyline of the love interest or the middle part of the runtime.

Whiplash is not the film of great words, act or emotional effects. But I think, nobody's going to care about that, because Chazelle's perfectionist storytelling is going to compensate everybody for that. It's not an flaming improvisation, it's not a shitty, but catchy pop song, but it's an artistic symphony. It may not be a classic, but it's brilliant cinema.

Hercules wants to follow the footsteps of the self-proclaimed "historically accurate" movies like King Arthur or Kingdom of Heaven: it strips down the legend of the mythical-creature-fighting demigod to a skilled mercenary, who uses the help of his fellow warriors creating his fame. But at the same time the movie has a similar design to a 300- copycat: cheap dialogs, cheap sets, cheap costumes, weak characters, horrible acting (I mean, what the hell was Joseph Fiennes doing???) and pretentious slow-motion. Most of the battle are like they're from the pages of a comic book (of course, it IS a comic book adaptation, but still...): every swing of Dwayne Johnson's sword kills two or three of his enemies, one of his warriors can shoot 3 lethal arrows at the same time, and most of these things are just simply laughable. Although I must admit, while Brett Ratner's action scenes might not be the most creative, they look cool, and they deliver a little fun in this weak film.

So the main problem is, that while the movie wants us to take it seriously, and not to look like an immature fable, that's exactly what it turns out to be: a shallow, dumbed down, generic fantasy-blockbuster.

Most movies about revenge tend to focus on the spectacle of cruelty and bloodshed, delivering a film filled with somewhat morally justified killings, but no meaning behind them. This one is not like them. Like other Scandinavian masterpieces, In Order of Disapperance delivers a deep and meaningful story. In Hungary, the distributor tried to advertise the movie as a dark comedy, however, besides a few morbid jokes, there is nothing funny about it. Instead, the script tries to focus on the conflicts and the person tragedies behind the murders and the shootouts, which makes it not just a great gangster flick, but also a great drama. In Hans Petter Moland directing style, every gesture, look, sentence has a meaning, and this is the reason, why for example the main character can function in the story without merely saying any words. Of course, this impact is helped by some performances by Skarsgard, Bruno Ganz and Pal Sverre Hagen.

My only problem with this movie was that it has a somewhat slow pace, and because of that, sometimes it struggled to keep up my attention, but nonetheless, it's a quality piece and I'd definitely recommend it.

This movie strikes at some interesting subjects as a dramedy, but besides a couple of nice twists, it offers nothing to enjoy. It never really picks up a pace, hasn't got more than 2 or 3 funny moments, so basically it's like a very light drama. The main storyline featuring the protagonist, who learns how to stand up for himself, is not the most original one, but is written well, and would have worked well in a comedy with actual jokes. But this way it's more like a corny and shallow drama. The actors are doing a great job, especially Rockwell and Monaghan, but it's all for nothing. Basically this movie isn't satisfying as a comedy nor as a drama.

If you're searching for something unique and original, this might not be your movie. But if you're looking for entertainment and a couple of good laughs, this one can easily satisfy your needs. The movie's about Dani, a 30-something man with a boring and overbearing fianceé (I told you, it's not original), who bangs Tímea, his old high- school classmate at the 15th reunion. What they don't suspect, that Bögőcs, another classmate of theirs, takes the whole thing on video, and blackmails Dani. And what he wants in exchange, is to get laid with Tímea. Despite that every twist in this movie is quite predictable, the director can use the tiny details to make them look less worn-out. A couple of jokes fell flat for me, but luckily the script builds on funny one-liners instead of situation humor. And the actors are doing quite well at delivering the jokes.

There's not much to say about this film, it's not the greatest comedy in the world, but entertaining enough.

To be honest, I've only watched the first 30 minutes of the film, because I haven't seen a single plot point or character intriguing enough to make me continue. But during these thirty minutes there were heist/con movie clichés enough for 3 other films. It's got a kind of a comedic undertone, which would go well with the not- so-serious mood of these con movies, except that it hasn't got any good laughs, which makes the movie feel a little childish. The main storyline involving forging and stealing artworks is exactly like every other film about stealing artworks. The characters are unoriginal too, and I couldn't care less about them. So don't repeat my mistake, even 30 minutes is too much time to waste on this one.

This movie is really as crazy as you would think based on the synopsis. The world and the atmosphere of the film is unique in every aspect, which makes it quite enjoyable and fun. Something I can't say about the whole story and the humor. The main storyline is pretty thin, which would be okay in a comedy, but there are no laughs to compensate that. The bizarre characters and the world are funny in some way, but there are no actual jokes written in the script to laugh at. Anyway, this movie remains true to its title, and it's extremely awesome and badass, something which just makes it better than an average comedy.

It's a must-see for geeks, but for everyone else it's still a decent comedy with an interesting (and cool) setting.

Lots of thing will seem familiar in this one, including the sympathetic criminals with a strict moral code, the conflict between the brothers. There isn't much depth in the characters, the flashback scenes are just there for the sake of telling the story.

But there's one thing why should see this movie: everything is just so elaborately made in it. The sets, the cinematography, the dialogues show a huge amount of works. And Salvatore's directing can make even the most pretentious scenes effective. Among the actors, there's no difference between the young Litvanian ones and stars like Malkovich, they're all great. (The only thing that bothered me was the forced and unrealistic Russian accent.)

It's less about its characters and more about guilt and morals, but it's atmosphere makes you forget about all of the weaknesses. It's not really original, but the atmosphere makes it a unique film.

I really liked Ozon's last film (Dans la maison), but this one was a disappointment for me. It's hard not to see this story as a bunch of first world problems. But at its core, there are several good ideas and stories - and none of them gets the spotlight. The director goes from one subplot to the other, without really developing the characters, and seemingly has no idea what to do with this story. (And this makes the ending even worse.) But time to time, some settings or the actors' performance can tell us more than a thousand words.

Anyway, it's a thoughtful and basically a good movie, but it's too unfocused, unbalanced to go anywhere. If you haven't seen Dans la maison from Ozon, I'd recommend that one instead.

There are a couple of problems with this movie, the characters are lacking a proper backstory, the actors aren't good either, but after all it doesn't matter. Because these are minor issues in a much better story.

The most surprising thing for me was that there's no right or wrong in this movie. There are no moral winners, the director let's the story flow and it's up to the viewer to decide what to think. Another positive aspect of the film is, that it's very down to earth. It's about current social issues in Europe like immigration, ethnic tensions and radical movements based on the inability of the justice. (Maybe this would make difficult for non-European viewers to connect, but it worked for me.)

So if you're tired of movies about slavery and oversimplified topics that are way beyond us, here's a film about the world we're living in and the issues we have to deal with.

Growing up in Central Europe, I've seen a thousand local movies about poor and naive people chasing the "American Dream", and this is just another one. (Only this time it's a Swedish one with Iraqi kids). The director is trying so hard to create a movie like "Life Is Beautiful" or "Slumdog Millionaire", that it's almost laughable. The characters can't read a map, they think that the USA is beyond the next mountain, and scene-by-scene the film tried harder to make me feel sorry for these kids. But it was so forced, that eventually I couldn't.

The dialogues are quite weird, the actors are actually bad, and one of them is really annoying with his continuous shouting. But to write something positive, the cinematography and the scenery is beautiful, and it sometimes made me forget about the rest of the movie.

Director Karzan Kader basically re-shot his short film (also called "Bekas") from 2010. I mean, literally. The shots, the sets are all the same, only this one is one hour longer. But all for nothing, because the additional story material (e.g. the love interest of one of the characters) just makes it worse. So if you're interested in this one, I'd recommend watching the short film instead, you'll lose nothing.

I'm always skeptical about Hungarian movies, because one in every five years meets the standards of other European films, but "A vizsga" left me amazed. The script is written by Norbert Köbli, who's known for translating Syd Field's work to Hungarian, and apparently he took Field's advices. Köbli is outstanding at creating conflicts, exposing character backstories and he's written a couple of great twists. The directing is also great, building up tension nicely, but Köbli's script is making this movie a masterpiece. Gergely Parádi's score is also worth mentioning, only the actors seem a bit unprofessional in this movie.

Foreign viewers, who are unfamiliar with the communist regimes in Central Europe, may struggle with understanding the historical background, but the film is a great portrayal of these times.

I've only given a rating of 10 maybe 10-15 times in my life to a movie, but this one is a 10. It's as good as the Oscar-winning "Das Leben der Anderen" (The Lives of Others), which revolves around a quite similar topic.

This movie caused a huge controversy in Hungary, and I don't understand why. Of course the integration of the gypsy minority is a big problem here, but Benedek Fliegauf's film has got nothing to say about it. The director doesn't have a message, he just portrays the life of a family, he doesn't want to deal with any issues regarding the gypsies or racism. I mean, for example Crash was able to show 6-7 sides of racism, Fliegauf doesn't even wants to show one. The Hungarians majority are racist in this movie for no reason, but in one scene, there are gypsies attacking innocent people (also for no reason), so I wouldn't say it's one sided, but the main problem is that everything happens for no reason, revealing how shallow this film is. And because there are no thoughts to fill this movie with, most of the scenes are a bit overdrawn. The lighting and the acting seems amateur, but the overall quality of the movie is good.

So by "shallow" I don't want to mean it's bad (that's why I gave it a 7 out of 10), but this movie seems dumb compared to movies like Crash or Tropa de Elite.

In The Fog is a film about a Soviet man, who gets released by the Germans instead of hanging him for sabotage, so everybody among the Soviets thinks he's a traitor. But he also can't cope with his guilt, so he's willing to be executed by the Soviet guerrillas.

In The Fog is unlike any other war movie. It's based on a very interesting moral dilemma, and actually has a pretty good story to back that up. The cinematography and the atmosphere are also great. But it's so boring, that it almost hurt. And I don't mean by that, that it's slow, because it's not just that. There are a lot of scenes, where nothing happens. Literally minutes, when the camera is just tracking the characters walking or staring into nothing. I think half of the movie consists of walking through the woods. I feel sorry for this film, because it could have been even an all-time classic, but most of the time I was just bored to death.

1992. Milan Kolarov (András Ötvös) escapes from Yugoslavia to Hungary. Shortly after that, he gets recruited by paramedics, who are making big money of selling identities of the people died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Because Milan wants to get his fiancée out of Sarajevo, he needs money and he's eager to take part.

Márk Bodzsár's grotesque black humor is quite unique, but the movie is also serious and tragical at the same time. It made me laugh, but the meaning of most scenes still haunts me. The direction and the cinematography is amazing, something which you don't see in many Hungarian films. The actor are perfect at delivering the jokes, and they make most of scenes memorable.

It's an unusual movie experience, but it's worth it. Only Martin McDonagh's works had the same effect on me before, so if you're looking for something like In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, I would recommend this one!

It's like the Russian version of a typical Hollywood disaster movie. ("Daylight" is very similar to this one.) So the characters are clichéd, the escape at the end is quite unrealistic, there are no conflict between the characters, everybody just wants to survive. The acting is almost amateur.

On the contrary, the directing, the cinematography and the visual effects are amazing, they're even better than in many Hollywood movies. The main catastrophe and the immediate consequences are shown in a quite impressive way, almost better than in any other disaster movie before.

Because of this, I can recommend this one for watching, but don't expect anything better than a clichéd story.

Sean Ellis draw a beautiful picture about the cruelty of the third world life. He's great at portraying the poverty of Manila and the pain of the characters (even when most of the acting are bad). But there's nothing else in this film besides this. The first act is literally one and a half hour long, but after that, the movie turns out great. However, we get to see the characters suffer too much before the main plot gets started.

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10, because the setting and the world was interesting, and I liked the ending very much, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone would find it boring overall.

Dom Hemingway is trying to add something new to the heritage of the great gangster-comedies of Guy Ritchie and Martin McDonagh, but it's trying too hard, and eventually it fails. Every scene is trying to be more bizarre and shocking than the last one, but they're rarely funny. The dialogues want to be witty and to be remembered, but actually they're just over-the-top curses and insults by the characters. Dom Hemingway (played amazingly by Jude Law) is not a hero, but also not an anti-hero: he's just a pathetic man who's getting drunk and high for the most part of the movie. They're waiting too long to add some dramatic depth to his character.

It has a couple of funny moments, but this movie is just too forced to be naturally funny. If you want to watch a film with a similar mood, but done better, I would recommend Filth for you.

I think nowadays there's a shortage of these kind of movies, the last good one was The Lincoln Lawyer (which is quite similar to this one). It's the same recipe again: let's add a little personal drama (Cate could lose her daughter due to her alcoholism), an almost impossible case (female murderer from death row appeals, and Cate gets to defend her), an old case, where the character made the wrong decision, and the courtroom drama is ready.

But I think, this movie is using these "clichés" very well to create a good story. The main character has motivations, inner conflicts, and these are very well correlating with the main storyline and the whole message of the story. It's not something I should praise, but frankly, most movies are lacking this.

Anyway, the courtroom case is interesting, both the mood and the pace of the movie are satisfying, so I think it's quite enjoyable and also makes you think. And last, but not least, Kate Beckinsale convinced me, that she's not a bad actress, she just needs a good character to play.

If you liked Fracture or The Lincoln Lawyer, this one is for you.