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Film Festival Returns to the Czech Republic’s *Other* Spa Town!

Way back in the 1940s, in the the post-war years following WWII, organizers in the newly (re)established Czechoslovakia were seeking a suitable town for what would become a prominent film festival intended to showcase the country’s burgeoning film industry.

They settled on two options, both spa towns in Western Bohemia: Karlovy Vary and Mariánské Lázně, better known by foreign guests as Carlsbad and Marienbad at the time.

In 1946, the country’s very first International Film Festival was held in Mariánské Lázně, with an accompanying program that screened some of the films in Karlovy Vary. For the next four years, the festival was primarily held in Marienbad.

But in 1950, the event was moved permanently to Karlovy Vary, which was deemed a more suitable location for the growing film festival, which was screening more film and attracting more guests.

The rest is history: the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is now one of the oldest and most respected in Europe, and recently celebrated its 52nd edition earlier this summer.

This year, however, film fest atmosphere will finally return to Mariánské Lázně under the banner of the Marienbad Film Festival, which will take place next week from August 29 until September 2. It’s only the second edition of the Marienbad Film Festival, which began in earnest last year.

The beginnings are humble, with this year’s festival focused on discovering new talent by primarily showcasing a number of new short films alongside a few Czech and Hollywood classics. Fourteen new Czech films will screen during the festival, which also includes a section dedicated to Austrian experimental films.

It all kicks off on Tuesday with a selection of Czech avant-garde shorts from the 1920s through the 1940s, followed by an opening night screening of the classic Hollywood musical Singin’ in the Rain.

Among the highlights at this year’s festival will be the presentation of a newly-restored print of Gustav Machatý’s silent classic Erotikon, which will be accompanied by a live score courtesy of the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra of Mariánské Lázně (Západočeský symfonický orchestr Mariánské Lázně).

Machatý’s 1931 film From Saturday Till Sunday will also be screened in a newly-restored print unveiled this year by the Czech National Film Archive.

The 1957 Audrey Hepburn-Fred Astaire classic Funny Face will be presented to close out the festival next weekend.

Festival passes and tickets for each individual event can be purchased from the official website and at goout.cz.

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Daisy Ridley, Naomi Watts, Clive Owen to Shoot New Movie in Prague

Daisy Ridley, who stars as Rey in J.J. Abrams’ new Star Wars movies The Force Awakens and the upcoming The Last Jedi, will be in Prague in May to shoot a new movie for Australian director Claire McCarthy.

The film is titled Ophelia, and it’s a twist on Shakespeare, telling the familiar Hamlet story from the point of view of the titular character, Hamlet’s potential wife.

"It's faithful to the original Hamlet in many ways but we're retelling it from her point of view," the director told The Sydney Morning Herald.

"It's a mythic retelling – a drama with a lot of action and a lot of edge-of-your-seat elements to it."

In the traditional storyline, Ophelia is driven mad by the murder of her father at the hands of Hamlet, and eventually drowns.

Ridley, who stars as Ophelia, will be joined in Prague by an impressive supporting cast that includes George MacKay (Captain Fantastic) as Hamlet, Naomi Watts as his mother Gertrude, and Clive Owen as his father Claudius.

Owen was previously in Prague during 2014 while shooting the critically slammed Last Knights with Morgan Freeman.

Details of the Prague shoot have yet to be revealed, but McCarthy is already in the Czech Republic in preparation for the May start date.

The director is best known for her 2009 drama The Waiting City, which starred Joel Edgerton and Radha Mitchell. Ophelia will be her third feature film.

Lead photo: Daisy Ridley in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Naomi Watts in Shut In, Clive Owen in Shadow Dancer.

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Prague-Shot Personal Shopper Debuts in US

Personal Shopper, a Paris-set ghost story starring Kristen Stewart, premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival to general acclaim (along with some scattered boos) and eventually won Olivier Assayas a prize for Best Director.

Set in the underworld of the Paris fashion scene, Personal Shopper “is irrefutably one of the most original and unsettling ghost flicks ever made and certainly the nerviest this century,” wrote Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells from Cannes.

It was primarily filmed in Paris in the second half of 2015, but shooting for interior locations was moved to the Czech Republic in November.

The Prague sets, which included a haunted house location, were created in studio, with The Daily Mail catching the star outside during a smoke break.

Cast and crew had just relocated to Prague when the deadly Bataclan attacks were carried out in the French capital on November 21.

Director Assayas recounted the moment in a recent interview with the Washington Times.

“Very early I realized that the right decision was to do things at planned,” he said. “We had this sense [of being] detached from where it was happening. But at the same time, we were incredibly connected.”

Personal Shopper opened in France last October to largely positive reviews, and debuted on four screens stateside this past weekend before a planned rollout in cinemas across the country.

A Czech release date has yet to be announced.

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New Robin Hood Movie to Shoot in Prague

A new Robin Hood reboot, set for release in 2018, is currently filming in Croatia with plans to move on to Hungary and the Czech Republic at later dates, according to a source close to the production.

The new film stars Taron Egerton (Eddie the Eagle, Kingsman: The Secret Service) as Robin Hood, Jamie Foxx as Little John, Jamie Dornan as Will Scarlet, and Ben Mendelsohn as the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Production on Robin Hood is currently underway in Dubrovnik, where the city’s historical center, which also served as the famed location of the King’s Landing in HBO’s Game of Thrones, has been transformed into Nottingham Castle.

Later, the film is expected to move to locations in or around Budapest and Prague for subsequent scenes.  

Details of the potential Prague shoot have yet to be released, but could potentially include interiors on sets at Barrandov Studios.

The new film is being made by Otto Bathurst, a UK director best known for his work on TV shows including Peaky Blinders, Black Mirror, and Criminal Justice, which was remade by HBO as the highly-acclaimed The Night Of.

The script is from Joby Harold, who also wrote the new Guy Ritchie King Arthur reboot, due out in cinemas this May.

Robin Hood is currently scheduled for a March 23, 2018 release date in the USA.

Footage of the Croatian set via the Dubrovnik Times:

Lead photo: Wikimedia / Georges Biard | Sebaso

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Review: ‘Ice Mother’ a Chilly but Effective Comedy-Drama

In Ice Mother (Czech: Bába z ledu), the latest film from director Bohdan Sláma (Štěstí), a doting grandmother and widow takes a literal dive into the Vltava river after a chance encounter with some winter swimmers, a group of senior citizens who take to Prague’s near-freezing waters of during the chilly winter months.

It’s a surprisingly touching comedy-drama that veers more to the dramatic than most Czech films in this genre, detailing a side of old age that we don’t often get to see at the cinema.

One sequence in particular - a no-holds-barred sex scene between two seniors that recalls Last Tango in Paris in its use of kitchen products - is bound to draw reaction from audience members who don’t know whether to laugh or cringe.

But Ice Mother is an incisive look into the life of Hana (Zuzana Kronerová), who lives alone after the death of her husband, as well as her young grandson Ivan Jr. (Daniel Vízek), who is bullied at school and ignored at home, and takes refuge in grandma's arms.

Hana is already an ‘ice mother’ before she ever dives into the Vltava, both in literal and metaphorical senses: she lives in a family home with a faulty coal furnace unable to keep it warm, and is largely neglected by her spoiled children, who turn to mom for practical necessities rather than love.

One son, the successful Ivan (Václav Neuzil, who played one of the Czech paratroopers in last year’s Anthropoid), wants mom to sell the family home so she can move closer to them and serve as housemaid for his ice-queen wife (Tatiana Vilhelmová); the other (Marek Daniel), uses mom’s home to hide his vice (antique books) from his hard-luck wife (Petra Špalková) and repo men.

With the exception of Špalková’s sympathetic presence, each of these characters is contemptible in their treatment of Hana. So when she and her grandson, struggling with his own issues, stumble upon the friendly, down-to-Earth polar bears, they see a potential escape.

The ice swimmers include Brona (Pavel Nový), a towering presence often glimpsed in a tiny black speedo, who comes to serve as a grandfather-figure for young Ivan and a romantic interest for the Hana. But Brona’s gruff presence comes to clash with Hana’s refined dysfunctional family, and he has his own past that he’s been running from.

Among a strong cast, Kronerová and especially Nový thrive in roles that contain unusual depth and nuance for senior citizens, typically cast as background scenery or comic relief in most mainstream movies.

We can see why: at this stage in life, there are no easy answers for character haunted by the ghosts of the pasts. While Ice Mother is rife with subtle drama, clear resolution is much harder to come by.

Writer-director Sláma mines the material for all its worth, and comes away with a consistently engaging (if somewhat low-energy) drama with some dark comedic overtones. Ice Mother works best as a culture-clash kind of affair, but the film has more to offer bubbling beneath the surface.

It’s the first feature film in five years for the director, who previously made Four Suns in 2012, The Country Teacher in 2007, and Something Like Happiness in 2005. Those latter two are also well worth catching.

Ice Mother is currently playing throughout Prague cinemas, including in an English-subtitled version at select venues (Kino Světozor and Kino Pilotů). In April, it will premiere internationally at the Tribeca film fest in New York. 

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One World Film Festival Kicks Off Today in Prague

Tonight, March 6, Prague’s long-running international human rights documentary film festival One World begins festivities with a screening of The Good Postman at Cinemas Lucerna and Světozor.

The movie, a Bulgarian-Finnish co-production that looks at a small village on Bulgaria’s border with Turkey that serves as a transit point for Syrian refugees entering Europe, will be followed by a discussion with producer Kaarle Aho at both venues.

One World (Jeden svět in Czech) is one of the largest film festivals of its kind, and in its 19th year organizers will bring 114 films from 70 countries to the Czech capital alongside accompanying projects and events.

All films will be screened with English subtitles. Over the next week, Prague cinemas Kino Lucerna, Kino Světozor, Kino Atlas, Bio Oko, Kino Ponrepo, Kino Evald, and the Municipal Library will almost exclusively feature films from the One World festival.

Many of the screenings will be followed by discussions with the filmmakers or other special speakers, as the festival welcomes nearly 150 special guests from countries across the world.

With ‘fake news’ a topical buzzword in 2017, the One World festival presents a unique opportunity to view films from a wide variety of topics and viewpoints. This year, many of the features take a look at conflicts in the Islamic world and the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe.

Five films will be having their world premieres at the 2017 festival: Children Online (from director Kateřina Hager), a look a Czech teenagers and social media, Epidemic of Freedom (Tereza Reichová, Hynek Reich Štětka), a local take on the mandatory vaccination debate, We Are Humanity (Alexandre Dereims), which focuses on the last 400 members of the Jarawa tribe on the Andaman Islands, I’m not Afraid (Fadi Hindash), about euthanasia in the Netherlands, and Grab and Run (Roser Corella), a look at the marriage practices in Kyrgyzstan.

A full schedule of films and events can be found on the website of One World 2017.

After the Prague screenings finish next Wednesday, March 15, the festival will continue at venues in 32 other cities across the Czech Republic.

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‘Masaryk’ Named Best Czech Film of 2016 at Czech Lion Awards

Julius Ševčík’s excellent WWII-era biopic Masaryk took home a record 12 statuettes tonight at the Czech Lion Awards, the Czech Republic’s version of the Oscars awarding the finest achievements in Czech film over the preceding year. 

Masaryk’s awards include Best Picture, Director (Ševčík), Actor (Karel Roden), Supporting Actor (Oldřich Kaiser), Best Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Music, Sound Editing, Production Design, Costume Design, and Makeup. 

It was a near-sweep tonight at the Rudolfinum in Prague as Masaryk won awards in 12 out of the 13 statutory categories it was nominated.

It’s also a Czech Lion record, topping the high of 11 awards won by Burning Bush in 2014.

It’s a deserved victory for the wonderfully-produced feature, which has yet to open wide in the Czech Republic but screened at Prague’s Kino Lucerna for a five-day qualifying run at the end of last year. You can read my 3.5-star review of Masaryk here. 

The big win should be good news for Masaryk’s box office: it opens wide across the Czech Republic from next Thursday, March 9. 

The English-language (and also excellent) Anthropoid received little love from local jurors, taking home no awards despite 11 nominations. Also shut out was Jan Hřebejk’s The Teacher, which had been nominated in 9 categories.

In fact, the only other dramatic feature to take home a statue was I, Olga Hepnarová, an account of the final days of the infamous Czech mass murderer who killed 8 people in 1973 by driving a truck through a crowded Prague tram stop. 

Polish actress Michalina Olszanská won Best Actress for her take on the lead character, and Klára Melíšková won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Hepnarová’s mother. 

The final statue was awarded to Miroslav Janek's Normální autistický film, a look at five Czech children that fall under the label of autism, for Best Documentary. 

Jiří Bartoška and Eva Zaoralová, who produce the annual Karlovy Vary International Film Festival,  received an Honorary Award for their Contribution to Czech Cinema, which they dedicated to all the organizers at the festival. 

Here’s the full list of winners and nominees:

Best Film: Masaryk (A Prominent Patient)

Nominees:  Anthropoid I, Olga Hepnarová Rodinný film (Family Film) Učitelka (The Teacher)

Best Director: Julius Ševčík, Masaryk

Nominees:  Sean Ellis, Anthropoid Tomáš Weinreb, Petr Kazda, Já, Olga Hepnarová  Olmo Omerzu, Rodinný film Jan Hřebejk, Učitelka

Best Actress: Michalina Olszanská, Já, Olga Hepnarová

Nominees:  Lenka Vlasáková, Nikdy nejsme sami Vanda Hybnerová, Rodinný film Eliška Balzerová, Teorie Tygra Zuzana Mauréry, Učitelka

Best Actor: Karel Roden, Masaryk

Nominees: Ivan Trojan, Anděl Páně 2 Cillian Murphy, Anthropoid Karel Roden, Nikdy nejsme sami Jiří Bartoška, Teorie Tygra

Best Supporting Actress: Klára Melíšková, Já, Olga Hepnarová 

Nominees: Simona Stašová, Lída Baarová Arly Jover, Masaryk Daniela Kolářová, Polednice Zuzana Kronerová, Rudý kapitán

Best Supporting Actor: Oldřich Kaiser, Masaryk

Nominees:  Boleslav Polívka, Anděl Páně 2 Jamie Dornan, Anthropoid Hanns Zischler, Masaryk Miroslav Hanuš, Nikdy nejsme sami

Best Screenplay: Masaryk – Petr Kolečko, Alex Koenigsmark, Julius Ševčík

Nominees:  Anthropoid – Anthony Frewin, Sean Ellis Já, Olga Hepnarová  – Tomáš Weinreb, Petr Kazda Nikdy nejsme sami – Petr Václav Učitelka – Petr Jarchovský

Best Cinematography: Masaryk – Martin Štrba

Nominees:  Anthropoid – Sean Ellis Já, Olga Hepnarová  – Adam Sikora Nikdy nejsme sami – Štěpán Kučera Polednice – Alexander Šurkala

Best Editing: Masaryk – Marek Opatrný

Nominees:  Anděl Páně 2 – Jan Mattlach Anthropoid – Richard Mettler Učitelka – Vladimír Barák Zkáza krásou – Jakub Hejna

Best Sound: Masaryk – Viktor Ekrt, Pavel Rejholec

Nominees:  Anděl Páně 2 – Radim Hladík jr. Anthropoid – Yves Marie Omnes Lichožrouti – Jan Čeněk, Richard Müller Polednice – Petr Šoupa, Martin Jílek, Viktor Prášil

Best Music: Masaryk – Michal Lorenc, Kryštof Marek

Nominees:  Anthropoid – Robin Foster Lída Baarová – Ondřej Soukup Rudý kapitán – Petr Ostrouchov Učitelka – Michal Novinski

Best Set Design: Masaryk – Milan Býček

Nominees:  Anthropoid – Morgan Kennedy Lída Baarová – Zdeněk Flemming Lichožrouti – Galina Miklínová Učitelka – Juraj Fábry

Best Costume Design: Masaryk – Katarína Štrbová Bieliková

Nominees:  Anděl Páně 2 – Katarína Hollá Anthropoid – Josef Čechota Já, Olga Hepnarová  – Aneta Grňáková Učitelka – Katarína Štrbová Bieliková

Best Makeup: Masaryk – Lukáš Král

Nominees:  Anděl Páně 2 – Andrea McDonald Anthropoid – Gabriela Poláková, Linda Eisenhamerová  Já, Olga Hepnarová – Alina Janerka Učitelka – Anita Hroššová

Best Documentary: Normální autistický film

Nominees:  Bratříček Karel FC Roma Zákon Helena Zkáza krásou

Magnesia Award for the Best Student Film (Non-statutory prize): Kyjev Moskva – Anna Lyubynetska

Nominees:  3. poločas – Jiří Volek Benny – Michal Hruška Černý dort – Johana Švarcová  Vězení – Damián Vondrášek

Best Film Poster (Non-statutory prize): Já, Olga Hepnarová – Lukáš Veverka

Nominees:  Masaryk – Rudolf Biermann, Julius Ševčík Polednice – Petr Skala Učitelka – Michal Tilsch Vlk z Královských Vinohrad – Tereza Kučerová, Jakub Suchý   Best TV Film or Miniseries: Zločin v Polné

Nominees:  Hlas pro římského krále Modré stíny

Best TV Drama: Pustina (Wasteland) 

Nominees: Kosmo Rapl

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Xavier Dolan Shooting New Movie in Prague with Kit Harington, Natalie Portman

Xavier Dolan, the French-Canadian enfant terrible who made a splash in Cannes with films like Mommy and Laurence Anyways, is in Prague this month shooting his latest film and English-language debut, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.

He’s assembled quite a cast for the project, which features Game of Thrones star Kit Harington as the titular character alongside Jessica Chastain, who previously filmed The Zookeeper’s Wife in the Czech capital back in 2015.

Natalie Portman, Susan Sarandon, Thandie Newton, Kathy Bates, Michael Gambon, Bella Thorne, Ben Schnetzer, and Jacob Tremblay also feature in the impressive cast.

The Death and Life of John F. Donovan began shooting in Montreal last summer before a six-month hiatus. This month, filming has resumed with European location shoots in both Prague and London.

The plot of the film surrounds an aspiring Hollywood actor whose career takes a turn when a journalist exposes his correspondence with an 11-year-old boy.

It’s unclear which actors might be in town for the Prague shoot, but Newton let slip in a recent interview that she was currently in the Czech capital for filming along with Portman, Chastain, and Gambon.

Behind-the-scenes video from the Montreal shoot:

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Digitally Restored Machatý Film to Premiere in Prague

From Saturday to Sunday, a 1931 movie from famed director Gustav Machatý and one of the earliest Czechoslovak sound movies, will have its very first screening in digitally restored form on Wednesday, March 8 at Prague’s Ponrepo cinema.

Machatý is best known for his 1933 German-language film Extase, which was one of the first mainstream productions to feature full-frontal nudity, and turned young actress Hedy Lamarr into a Hollywood star.

The director would later emigrate to the United States, where he worked in Hollywood as an uncredited co-director on films including Madame X and the Oscar-winning The Good Earth.

From Saturday to Sunday, a landmark film in Czech cinema, stars L. H. Struna and Magda Maděrová as a pair of office workers who escape the daily grind, if only for a single night.

The March 8 screening at Ponrepo will contain English subtitles. 

Plot description from the Czech National Film Archive:

The psychological drama tells the story of two lady stenographers who, after a week of monotonous work at the office, spend Saturday night looking for an escape from the prosaic routine of their daily lives. Gustav Machatý’s first talkie joins realism with the poetry of everyday life in the city and boldly experiments with the use of sound as part of modern cinematic expression. Based on a motif by Vítězslav Nezval and tinted with the jazz melodies of Jaroslav Ježek, it was a thematically and stylistically progressive motion-picture for its time.

Among early sound films, it appears to be pretty unconventional and inventive. One of the film’s only YouTube clips is a 75-second sequence centered on a leaky faucet:

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Review: 'Masaryk' One of the Classiest Czech Productions in Years

In its opening scenes, Julian Ševčík’s new film Masaryk details the much-loved titular character (played by top Czech actor Karel Roden) snorting coke and screwing supermodel Eva Herzigová, who portrays unspecified 1930s actress-turned-mistress to the Czech diplomat.

We know from the start: this may not be a cautious, respectful biography of the storied Czech figure, one of the most prominent and mysterious in the young country’s history.

While blandly titled A Prominent Patient for foreign audiences who may not be familiar with the lead character (including those at the recent Berlinale, where the film received a scathing review from Variety’s Jay Weissberg), the titular Masaryk has a double-meaning: it refers to both Roden’s Jan Masaryk and his father, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, whose presence looms over both the film and it’s lead character like an albatross.

T. G. Masaryk was the first president of the newly-formed Czechoslovakia in the years following WWI, and one of the most beloved figures in all Czech history: in a popular 2005 poll of The Greatest Czechs, he came in second only to King Charles IV.

His only surviving son Jan Masaryk (brother Herbert died of typhus during WWI), who served as the Foreign Secretary for the Czech government in exile during WWII and was murdered by communists in 1948, came in at number 50. During Jan’s life, as told in this new movie, he seemed to struggle with his role in his country's fate in the years leading up to WWII.

Director Ševčík’s film, which he co-wrote with Petr Kolečko and Alex Koenigsmark, deals mostly with the late-1930s events leading up to the Munich Agreement and its aftermath, in which Europe’s leaders handed over most of the Czech lands to Nazi Germany without putting up a fight.

But as Roden’s Jan Masaryk scrambles around London to garner support for his country from dignitaries that include Lord Halifax (Dermot Crowley) and Neville Chamberlain (Paul Nicholas), we know all too well where this will lead. Eventually, even his own president and his father’s successor, Edvard Beneš (solemnly played by Oldřich Kaiser), fails him.

These events, which take up roughly half of the film, are related via flashback; a peculiar framing device has a suicidal Masaryk checking in to a New Jersey psychiatric ward while in the US following the Munich Agreement, and relating his woes to a German-immigrant doctor (Hanns Zischler).

These scenes, which take up an usually large amount of screentime for a framing device, are peculiar because in a film of otherwise such historical import, they appear to be wholly invented. They seemed to drive Weissberg over the edge, as he states that scribe Kolečko’s ‘alternative interpretation of history’ would “make Sean Spicer proud.”

But here’s the thing: truth or total fiction, they’re the best scenes in the movie. The script’s stark tearing-down of Masaryk’s mental fabric gives us an unusual and most-welcome window to the character, and an exploration of the man himself rather than the circumstances that came to define his life.

Rather than the familiar The relationship between Masaryk and his doctor comes to define the film, giving us a picture not about Masaryk’s struggle to save Czechoslovakia but about his struggle to repair himself as the states as war rages in Europe.

Zischler, an accomplished German actor who featured in Spielberg’s Munich, is excellent as the doctor, an initially stern man who comes to earn his patient’s trust and respect. His story, too - as a German immigrant in the US on the eve of WWII - lends the film some unexpected gravitas.

But it’s Roden, no stranger to portraying Czech characters of great historical import (he even played T.G. Masaryk last year in the TV miniseries Zločin v Polné) who carries the movie. His deft portrayal of Jan Masaryk from Czechoslovakia to London to the shores of New Jersey, through two languages (even on Czech screens, the majority of the film in in English) and from strong-willed sanity to madness and back, is one of the actor’s finest accomplishments.

Less effective is Spanish actress Arly Jover as Marcia Davenport, the American writer Masaryk meets while in the US (the two were reportedly planning to marry at the time of his murder in 1948). To American ears, her scattershot New England accent is… a distraction, in an otherwise first-rate production.

Masaryk recreates late 1930s period detail, across two continents and multiple cities and locations, absolutely exquisitely - this modestly-budgeted feature puts many Hollywood films to shame. (Writing for Variety, Weissberg claims that location work in New Jersey and London “couldn’t look more Czech if it tried.” I wonder where he thinks those beach scenes were shot; perhaps his knowledge of the Bohemian landscape comes from Shakespeare.)

Other technical specs, including the elegant camerawork by Martin Strba (who also lensed Burning Bush for Agnieska Holland) and the sweeping score by Michał Lorenc and Kryštof Marek, are similarly first-rate. Only do a few late shots in New York City feel less than fully convincing.

Masaryk, which opens in the Czech Republic on March 9 after an awards-qualifying run at the end of last year, has been nominated for 14 Czech Lion awards.

Unless jurors choose to award the equally-exquisite (but predominantly foreign-produced) WWII drama Anthropoid, it ought to win many of them. This is one of the classiest Czech productions in years.

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New Reinhard Heydrich Biopic Wraps Filming, Gets New Title

June 4, 2017 will mark the 75th anniversary of the assassination of Nazi Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich in Prague, one of the turning points of WWII and one of the most significant events in Czech history.

Last year, the excellent, procedural-like Anthropoid - shot entirely on location in Prague - opened to mild acclaim and a rather lukewarm reception. It was a first-rate production, however, and deserved better.

That movie focused primarily on the assassins, Czech paratroopers trained by the RAF and dropped back into the country to carry out the assignment. Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík were played by Jamie Dornan (Fifty Shades of Grey) and Cillian Murphy.

While Anthropoid was rolling out in cinemas, another Heydrich film was in the middle of production: HHhH, which has now been re-titled The Man with the Iron Heart, wrapped shooting earlier this year.

Key difference: this movie focuses primarily on Heydrich, played by Jason Clarke, and his wife, Gone Girl’s Rosamund Pike.

Jack O'Connell (Unbroken) and Jack Reynor (Macbeth) star in supporting roles as the Czech assassins; Alice in Wonderland’s Mia Wasikowska also features in the cast in an unspecified role.

Adapted from Laurent Binet'’s novel HHhH, an acronym for Himmlers Hirn heißt Heydrich ("Himmler's brain is called Heydrich"), the new title for the movie seems confusing.

The Man with the Iron Heart refers to another novel about Heydrich, Harry Turtledove’s 2008 book. Turtledove, however, presents an alternate history of Operation Anthropoid - one in which Heydrich survives the attack only to lead a guerrilla war against allied forces after the death of Hitler.

Directed by Cédric Jimenez, The Man with the Iron Heart was primarily filmed in Budapest, with exterior location work done in Prague. Release date TBA.

Lead photo © 2017 - Légende Films - All Rights Reserved

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Review: 'John Wick 2' Bigger, But Not Better, Than Original

After grappling with two of these movies now, I think the best explanation is that the John Wick films take place in an alternate reality similar to ours in every way, except everyone is a contract killer, and the Code of the Hitman governs all life on Earth.

The plot of John Wick 2 involves the title character (played by Keanu Reeves) pulled back into the hitman game after Italian mafioso Santino D'Antonio (a slimy Riccardo Scamarcio) shows up with a mysterious blood-stained token that requires Wick to perform One Last Job before he can go back into retirement.

Wick declines, and D'Antonio blows up his house (hey, at least they didn’t kill his dog this time around), and as global hitman empire CEO Winston (Ian McShane) explains to him: hey, thems the breaks.

So Wick takes the job to get out of it all. To “tie up loose ends,”  the mafioso then puts out a contract on Wick that sends hundreds of assassins after him, and Wick has to kill his way out of this predicament to earn back his freedom.

And wouldn’t you know it, that pesky hitman hotel - where no when can kill anyone else while staying on hotel grounds - keeps getting in the way of the bloodshed, with characters stepping into the boundaries and taunting Wick. 'Nah, nah, nah, you can't kill me!' 

This is silly stuff. Improbable, illogical, ridiculous stuff that separates itself from our reality entirely. And the filmmakers take it seriously. Not completely seriously, but more seriously than they should.

Would it end with the screenplay, the John Wick films would be throwaway nonsense. But here’s what’s not nonsense: the slam-bang-brutal action scenes, which involve gunplay, knifeplay, chases on vehicle and on foot, and lots and lots of hand-to-hand combat. And copious amounts of blood. 

The action takes up roughly half of the film, and it’s all impeccably staged and shot and executed by director Chad Stahelski, a former stuntman. He gives the film ballet-like fight choreography, impressive practical effects work, and shots so long that we wonder how the filmmakers fit all those moves in a single take.

Highest praise: the action scenes in John Wick: Chapter 2 are better choreographed than anything in the Oscar-winning musical La La Land.

Of course, the skill involved in executing those action scenes is in direct contrast with the silliness of the screenplay. I gave the first film a mild recommendation, and I’ll split the difference here and edge in the other direction.

Chapter 2 is 20 minutes longer than the original Wick, clocking in at an unreasonable 2+ hours. While it contains longer and perhaps better action scenes, it also has more of the gratingly silly hitman stuff.

[thepraguereporter-blog]

Review: Creature Feature ‘The Void’ a Nostalgic Treat

Seen at the 2017 Shockproof Film Festival

Take one part John Carpenter’s The Thing, one part Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, a dash of Aliens, a pinch of Re-Animator and From Beyond, and you’ve got The Void, a cinematic equivalent of the kind of 1980s sci-fi horror nostalgia offered up by the Netflix series Stranger Things.

Only the nostalgia here leans towards bloody splatter flicks, the kind only accomplished practical effects technicians can create.

Here, those technicians are co-writers and co-directors Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski, who previously collaborated on production company’ Astron 6’s Manborg and Father’s Day. They also did effects work on Hollywood features like Total Recall and the Oscar-winning (don’t it feel good to say that) Suicide Squad.

In The Void, police officer Daniel Carter (Aaron Poole) comes across a barely-conscious junkie (Evan Stern) on the side of a rural road in the middle of the night. He brings him to the local hospital, an underpopulated locale recovering from a fire that boasts only a handful of doctors including Daniel’s wife Allison (Kathleen Munroe), head surgeon Richard (Kenneth Walsh, a standout) and intern Kim (Ellen Wong).

Soon, there’s a problem. Make that multiple problems. Within the film’s first act, there’s cannabalism, re-animated corpses, a bloated monster, and possibly some kind of portal to another dimension within the hospital grounds.

Oh, and a mysterious cult of robed Illuminati-like figures with tactical knives keeping the protagonists pinned inside the building.

It’s the old Rio Bravo/Assault on Precinct 13 setup, but here the dozens of faceless robed figures don’t seem to attack the characters unless they wander outside. Still, there’s that pesky monster inside the building to deal with. Not to mention a young woman who’s about to give birth. And the fact that that characters can’t trust each other, given that some of them have already been monsterfied.

Carpenter’s classic The Thing is clearly a huge influence here, from the gooey practical f/x work to the plot mechanics. The monster(s) can be anyone, and the characters never know who they can really trust.

That monster is a hulking mass of flesh and viscera, gooey and dangly with a vaguely human face and tentacles that shot out to grab victims. It moves slow, and goes down after enough shotgun blasts and axe chops. But is it truly dead?

While slow to start, once the plot mechanics are in place The Void never lets up for a second. The cast is constantly subject to multiple threats, and the directors never allow us to catch our breath.

The film never explains what’s going on with the cult and the monsters and the otherworldly stuff, which may not sit well with some viewers. But that’s a good thing. This kind of horror is more effective when we don’t know the rules of the game, and The Void is an intense and terrifying ride.

[thepraguereporter-blog]

Review: Downbeat, Hard-R ‘Logan’ is Definitive Wolverine

After the ribald box-office success of the hard-R Deadpool last year, Fox is apparently no longer shy about allowing graphic bloodshed, foul language, adult themes, and nudity into their premium franchise content.

Still, color me surprised when Hugh Jackman’s titular character slices off limbs and rams his claws through the skulls of some Bad Hombres in the first five minutes of Logan, drenching the screen in blood with carnage that rivals The Walking Dead.

I didn’t expect it to go there.

Unlike the comedic Deadpool, Logan has a thoughtful, downbeat, distressingly realistic tone to match its adult rating. Part road movie, part psychological western, part post-apocalyptic drama, this isn’t anything like the superhero movies that have preceded it, and yet it does better justice to the Wolverine character than any of them.

It’s 2029, and Jackman’s Wolverine, whose healing abilities have allowed him to live for centuries, is now Old Man Logan, with a scraggly grey beard and rusty adamantium claws. He doesn’t heal so well any more, and may well be dying of cancer.

He keeps Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) locked up and sedated in an overturned water tank south of the border following a cataclysmic event that wiped out most of their fellow mutants. The good Professor, too, has a death sentence. He appears to be battling dementia.

The rest of the X-Men are, well, they are no more. Save for Caliban (played by Stephen Merchant), a mutant whose ability to track other mutants does him little good in this world. He helps Logan take care of the professor, while niggling him about their inevitable future.

Logan’s been driving a limo in El Paso to pay for the Professor’s meds - which prevent Charles from having Earth-shaking seizures that paralyze anyone in his vicinity - while stashing a little on the side to buy a boat and sail out their final days on Earth in peace.

But the appearance of a pre-teen girl with special abilities (impressively played by the young Dafne Keen) puts a kink in his death plans and sends him on a journey to north while pursued by the mysterious Transigen organization, led by an evil doctor (Richard E. Grant) and a catty bounty hunter (Boyd Holbrook).

And the endless waves of other goons that get sliced and diced along the way.

The setting is familiar - heck, it’s only 12 years away - but for these last few mutants, the world has become something of a post-apocalyptic reality. Logan’s Mexican compound looks like something from Mad Max, and the lead characters are still recovering from the end of their world while waiting to leave it.

After Rogue One, I didn’t think these Hollywood blockbusters could get any more downbeat. I was wrong.

Following the diverting-but-inconsequential one-off The Wolverine, director James Mangold seems to have been given the reigns to do whatever he wants with the character, and boy, does he do it. The result is something that resembles the director’s Walk the Line or 3:10 to Yuma more than it does any of the previous X-Men movies.

Scenes from the Alan Ladd classic Shane are used to underline the film’s theme - you can’t escape from who you are - and Johnny Cash belts out When the Man Comes Around over the closing credits.

Over the course of nine feature films, Hugh Jackman has come to define one of Marvel’s most celebrated characters. Ditto Patrick Stewart, who has played Professor X in six movies.

And both Jackman and Stewart have said that Logan is their last X-Men movie. If that’s the case, it a most fitting sendoff.