whotheff

That's it. Nice story, told in a entertaining way, excelent visual style, camera angles, colors. Clear, audible speech and good sound effects. And then it just ends. As if the writer got tired and decided that is long enough for a viewer to get the picture and quit. I can easily say that the props and the atmosphere are the leading character here. The old tube monitors, the analog / mechanical sounds, the clothes from the 80s and so on, were so nice to see and feel (again) that the story went a bit further away. Final credits were also done in the typical 8-bit graphics which I really enjoyed. If the makers can bring this quality to the big screen, I'll will surely watch anything they make.

Story is nice, but there were too many flaws for more than 6 out of 10. Acting was mediocre (with some exceptions). Uncle Claus was barely present in the film. Music was terribly loud compared to actor's voices. Camera work was ok, but unimpressive. Editing was too rough. There were too many minor roles and all the action was scattered across the entire film. As if the Director was trying to create a role for every Bulgarian actor there is. This resulted in many weak side stories which were drawing away viewer's attention from the main one. There are around 20 secondary roles. Writers tried to create background for all of them by spending screen time for all. A regular viewer cannot even remember 20 character names for a 2 hour movie, let alone to try following the constant switching between them.

The film started slow and this resulted in a quite rushed ending, because all the side stories had to be concluded. And somewhere around them they stick the main story, which felt more of a side story. There were many unnecessary scenes which brought zero value. Instead of a movie, It would look much better if it was a theater play or a TV series.

The director tried to include too much of everything, but it only takes 2-3 "things" for a movie to be good.

Watching this film in 2022 I can say it must have been quite an innovation 50 years ago. It has nice visuals, very ordinary, even realistic shootings (in today's age of SFX pumped films this is a plus). However there are many many strange decisions, poor editing, lack of motivation for many of the characters actions. It starts good but then all these illogical events and decisions slowly ruin it.

I now understand it was a low-budget film, but the things I mention are not affecting cost at any point.

The things I liked is the old school colors, the laid back tempo and the main character acting. And on top I can add that I listened the main theme for hours after this!

If you want to see a heavily surrealistic, beautifully shot, Terry Guilliamish movie with incredibly well selected scenery, props and characters, see this one. What I did not like was the majority of sound was on the left channel only. Story was a bit too far fetched and there were some inconsistencies of the world Ushev was trying to convince us in. Main strength is the symbolism, starting from beginning and ending in the last frame. Since there is no more communist regime in Bulgaria, the story could be more clear and not have to be hidden as in Kin-Dza-Dza. In my eyes Phi 1618 is quite similar to Brazil and... Star Wars, mashed up togehter!

Yeah, unfortunately that is the true Eastern Europe. The more you go towards the East, the worse it gets and vice versa. Now the movie: very fresh, very contemporary, very real. Dimo Aleksiev did more than anyone expected from him. I can only imagine where he did his inspiration. I loved the script, I loved the camera work, I loved the acting of main character (top notch!). What I did not like was that the madness and pace were steady throughout the whole movie. There was no culmination and around the middle you already have idea what the MC is capable of and can be hardly surprised. This made me a bit bored of getting a lot from the same the whole time. Nevertheless, It was a fun and gruesome and the director made sure to rub in your face several times the fact that if you want to succeed in this part of the world, you have to be at least similar to Dimo Aleksiev's character.

Briliant cinematography, excelent sound and music, extremely original story and... Zero acting, zero dialogues and tons of "wait for it.." moments. Well, in my book that is not good enough for a masterpiece. I can remember the original story and nice cinematography. Nothing more. Dialogues were senseless rubbish, main characters had zero motivation. Protagonist was totally unemotional and he just dragged along after whatever somebody else says. If there were better actors this could have been an Oscar worth movie! The horses had a more remembering roles god damn it! So the best I can afford to give to it is 7.

It hits agoraphobia hard, followed by fear of heights, fear of birds. Unfortunately, it does it with the classic: characters do a huge amount of obvious, stupid things in a row. This makes the movie unconvincing and often breaks the reality it tries to create. On top of that there are quite often character image/mood swings, where character is totally devastated by something and in a few seconds she acts as if it didn't happen. This kills the immersion even more. But that's not all! Then we add the mistakes and bugs caused by the illogical character decisions, which then writers try to hide with newer, even more illogical ones. What I liked are the breathtaking views and the tension. And I wish there would be more of them.

I was intrigued to find out if it was really possible to reach anyone in the world through not more than six connections. Well, this movie is about that - old, proven, humane way of connecting with people. I was mesmerized by the good camera work and how it was telling the story. I found confusing the non-linear way of story telling, the amount if characters which are interesting, but confuse me on how are they connected to all this. After a lot of brain work I was able to assemble most of the pieces together. Luckily, the camera work and the huge amount of pure emotion captured, compensated a lot of that confusion.

Decent script (Yes, very similar to The Green Mile, Showshank Redemption, etc.), poor directing, some hit and miss camera work (excelent ending shot btw). Terrible sound (as if I was watching a pirate copy, recorded in a movie teather). The worst part are the dialogues. Terribly unconvincingly written, as if translated from English to Bulgarian. The only words which sounded natural from actors mouth are the curse words.

On the other hand, all this was shot in 21 days with almost no budget. They even forgot to mention it is based on a real story (!). I hope they read this and next time make much more real film and stop stealing lines and cliches from Hollywood. They even stole the FBI/ US Police constant fight for dominance in US movies and mirrored it in 1978 Bulgarian film. And I didn't even try to count the plot holes. I hope the next one is better!

All actors did very good, especially Wasikowska. The story is pretty regular, but told in a intersting way. However, the long scenes which bring zero value for the viewer, the long takes featuring Opel made it a pretty boring film. There is a constant piling up of expectations, but eventually nothing happens. Tim Roth's character it totally undeveloped. Only a few hints here and there. I can easily cut off 30-40 minutes of driving a ca, walking back and forth, riding a bike and nobody would even notice it. In it's current form it is a sleep fest. I gave it 3 stars for Wasikowska and the nice landscape. Camera work is good, but nothing intriguing.

Dynamic cuts, rushing through events, back and forth cuts, flashbacks, comic book frames.. it looks more like the whole thing is a single music video. While I can live with that, the two terrible R&B songs from nowadays broke the movie for me. You are in the previous century and you suddenly hear modern hip-hop or R&B music about asses and stuff, which has nothing to do with the visuals on the screen. As if someone payed the producers for advertisement.

Since this is not Captain Marvel, but a real historic figure, it felt as a terrible spit in the face of Elvis.

Other than that the camera work was excellent, screenplay missed Elvis' fat period and for the first time Tom Hanks made me hate him!

Without the bad covers and the hip-hop I would have given it a 9.

It's well written, it's well shot, played and with good music. What else do you want? Ghost Busters? Spiderman 14? What is sci-fi to you defines if you will like this movie or not. The story is original, unpredictable, minimalistic. It is shows you all the details very slowly and gradually, so it does not spoil it before the last minute. Definatelly worth the watch if you're a real sci-fi or cinema fan.

Mediocre, cold acting, annoying music. The usual (for Bulgarian cinema) citing of dialogue lines with zero emotion, masked as stuttering. The scenario was filled with plot holes so big, that you can be sure the outcome for the family would be the same, even if they remain in the same country. I can close my eyes for the blue jeans everyone had. Now the good part: excelent camera work! Simple, yet fine shots. Careful picking of angles and colors. Too static and distant for my taste, but still very good.

This documentary shows how Bulgarian people perceived the end of WW2 through by old historic records. In a well structured way it shows details which were long forgotten or masked by the followed communist regime. I wish more Bulgarians could see it so they can avoid repeating the same mistake. Excellent work by the archivist who gathered all the document data and historic video. This documentary also contains a lot of old, black and white footage from that period (1944).

Danzel does a great role of playing nerdy, weird, socially awkward, but at the same time - very wanting to help the society, person. However, as if someone stopped writing the script in the middle and gave it to some kid to finish it in a hurry. I mean - the kid did great.. for a kid.

The is no background info on many of the motivation on Roman's decisions. Which breaks his character. He decides to do something which is totally opposite of what the film convinced us he would do.. for an hour. No explanation why, how, etc. Too bad for the wasted actor performances both from Farrel and Washington. BTW, the woman's role in this film is a total mystery. No idea what she was doing there.

It is sad to see that todays's cinema makers are so limited (both from outside and the inside), that the only way they can create a new good movie is by killing, demoting and humiliating it's previous heroes. Instead it promotes political, gender (and probably others) correctness. Story, action and director vision are now less important.

Hey, let's mix some history characters, WW1 events, some drama here and there, then add monotonous dialogs with zero meaning to the movie, some funny English jokes and a little bit of messages, like: War is bad, everybody but the UK are cool (okay, and alittle bit less cool is USA). All others are either evil, stupid, coward or short. We have a black guy and a woman, better than the men in the movie, so all is by the rules. Yay, and we even have enough hogwash for part 2! Finally, we finish with a rap song credits.

There is literar nothing in this film. No story, no dialogue, no characters. It's, however, full of empty words and senseless scenes. The only good thing was the beautiful scenery. Shooting locations were marvelous.

I gave 5 stars to this movie only because of the camera man. There are impressive outdoor shots which kept the film going. Other than that - disastrous director and editor work. Everything is so chaotic. Many characters with senseless dialogues which bring no value to the film, except explaining who they are. The different stories were shown in a so mixed up manner, that it was hard to grasp who does what and why. It would be a much more watchable movie and an enjoyable experience if they were shown one after the other, combining them all at the end. I have to mention the notoriously bad dialogue sound of most Bulgarian movies. Interestingly, the problem is present only when Bulgarian actors speak. Another mess which added to the total mix is the use of Bulgarian subtitles (60% of the film), English language, French, Russian and Bulgarian languages. I understand that they tried to be historically correct, but there are better ways to do it.

Except for the huge nostalgia hit I took by this series, it could not move me much. Dialogues are unnecessarily long and sometimes dull. Sitting in the same room for 10 minutes, after witnessing time travel, with no emotion is bad acting and quite boring for the viewer. Velislav Pavlov's acting improves a bit in the second episode, but not by much. Slow, emotionless, "slick", talking lazy, with boredom in his voice. When I mentioned voice, I have to also mention the infamous bad sound of the Bulgarian cinema. Most younger actors were just spitting out their lines without acting. Voice sound was pretty quiet and hard to hear. Luckily it improved in episode 2. The beginning credits are too long, but this maybe intentional. There are several seconds in almost each shot which can be cut without harming the story. It would speed up the otherwise slow pace. Now the good part - excellent nostalgia trip throughout the 1979 communist Bulgaria: cars, props, communist slogans, clothes, toys, places.. A lot of small details to remind/picture the social and political situation at the time. Excellent use of the 2019 protests and the blend of old video footage and today's video shots. I hope next episodes to become better.

An ordinary heist story, told by the most weird way. There is a lot of senseless crap in this movie. If you can manage to dump it from your mind and you prefer visual story telling instead of a talking heads movie, this one is for you! Visuals are stunning, camera work is on a godly level, acting is also good. What I did not like is the tons of senseless moments which do not bring any added value, nor they are visually appealing, neither they tell some of the story. Some of the character's decisions also seemed a bit senseless too. It's basically a drug infused spaghetti western with an excellent camera work.

Exelent story with terrible writing and directing. It had everything a disaster movie needed, but they ruined it. The main problem is the total lack of logic. Various people, services, firemen, rescuers, helicopters do nothing. Suddenly everybody forgets that cars can also be used to move, not only stay in them. Fans blow without any effect, firemen suddenly forget they can use vehicles to enter a tunnel, traffic control does not control anything, just logging phone conversations. Almost nobody uses cloth to cover his mouth and nose, people give advises to others, but then they do exactly the opposite of what they advised others. Random actions of professionals without any contact between them. A disaster movie by any means.

This is a standard template driven type of movie.

1. Innocent "little" creatures 2. Bad, bad man who wants to make money 3. Brave action team to save them

You can apply this to any scenario and with little adjustment it will work.

Leading character was a lipstick driven (Bryce Dallas Howard), which was backed up for everything she could not handle by a macho type Chris Prat. But he could be easily replaced by anyone. The most annoying of the cast was the butch "scientist" Daniella Pineda and the squealing like a girl, data scientist Justice Smith. They are thrown in whirlwind of dinosaurs, lava and good intentions by the filmmakers, while being filmed in the process. Then everything was stitched together by the great gods of CGI (which is the only thing they did good). Everything else is a cliche after cliche, template after template. As if it was made by a 12 year-old AD HD kid. No character development, not much sense in character actions. They tried to use the famous Spielberg wide open eyes close-up, but they did it not for the need of it, but to have something in common with first Jurassic Park movie. And it looks cheesy.

Recently I shot a short movie in just 2 hours. Because I had limited time, I did half of the stuff on the fly. This is what it looks like here too. They had general idea, a few actors + donators and made up a role for everybody. Usually this ends bad, but in this case they showed great imagination, great camera skills to transform the lack of budget into something enjoyable to watch. First half of the movie is incredibly well shot. Fast paced, tight action scenes, combined with nice gunfights, clever camera angles and good locations does wonders. The pigs were the best idea of all! The image of human pigs was so believable, that it held me till the end. Sex scenes were explicit and natural, as they were in the 90s, not as they are (lacking) in 2020s. Combine that with a gruesome, gory type of visuals and all that covered with a "dirty" looking filter, applied to the whole movie. Baang! You got a pretty good slasher with a "Hot Shots" type of humor and "Borat" crazyness!

Now the bad part: acting is mostly bad. However, the things happening on screen are so crazy and hard to grasp at times, characters were so unique and detailed (robot guy), that poor acting somehow does not interfere that much. Then it comes the middle of the movie. As if the script was stolen and they had to add some more scenes. The tricky part is that some of it was actually good (Red Vulva scene, "wall hack" scene..), but as if they were disconnected from the main plot. And finally - the END. It is as hilarious as it can get!

Story is indeed very solid, but unfortunatelly it is like as if there is a teen reality show inside the movie. All teens running around, screaming: "OMG, srsly?" all movie long. Every bit of the story is explained through dialogues and video playbacks. This means zero acting and zero cinematography. This is becoming more and more nowadays ADHD director's style. Not enough creativity and patience to show the story. Instead, just tell it in smart-ass one-liners, comined with a lot of "OMG, srsly?", running around. That's it... Yesterday's teens making today's movies. I should watch again Idiocracy.