In an alternative version of 1969, the Soviet Union beats the United States to the Moon, and the space race continues on for decades with still grander challenges and goals.

It’s a nice TV series, with a lot of what ifs, using many points of counterfactual history based on real life events.

The story goes on and picks up in the further seasons and pushes the story further in interesting ways. A very good watch. Six popcorns and a rocket 🚀

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Maybe it’s time you questioned the nature of your own reality.

Westworld is back, after more than two years. I assume it’s going to be another season of 7 episodes of plot-building and an eight episode that wraps everything up, blows your mind and makes you re-watch the season again.

The production quality is superb, as always, the music by Ramin Djawadi is once again top notch. Only one episode aired, and I’m intrigued and can’t wait to see the next episodes. 7 popcorns.

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The best Star Trek in a lot of years is not a Star Trek at all. The Orville is a great TV show, a great homage to all sci-fi dramas (like Star Trek TOS and TNG) Seth MacFarlane managing to bring together two immense ideas, blending cosmic challenges, social and personal issues, all these while putting a smile on our faces. The series is putting ordinary people into extraordinary situations and seeing how they respond, but be aware, this is not “Family Guy” in space, and even if the action happens in space, the people are still grounded in the normal daily life, with normal problems. And this is awesome.

After Disney bought 20th Century Something, The Orville moved from Fox to Hulu, to benefit from the platform’s advantages in terms of production scheduling, deadlines, and (most importantly) episode durations, as Seth MacFarlane puts it:

“The biggest difference for me being on Hulu is that I don’t have to tell a story that’s exactly 43 minutes long every week because I have to make room for a certain number of commercials. That’s not how storytelling works — different stories are different lengths, and you start to fall into this cadence where you’re shaving scenes down, you’re cutting things that don’t need to be cut. The best part about being on Hulu is that those moments where you want to linger on an actor’s face because it’s meaningful and it helps to tell the story? You can do that. You have the time; you can be indulgent in that way.”

At the moment, only the first episode is up, it’s very good and it seems that the tone has changed a bit, moving from easy to digest light hearted comedy into a more serious space drama with comedic hints, like a fine wine.

As I said earlier, this is not “Family Guy” in space, and it’s great for what it is. Six popcorns and a space shuttle.

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Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi watches over young Luke Skywalker and evades the Empire’s elite Jedi hunters during his exile on the desert planet Tatooine.

The cinematography looks nice, the series feels like a Star Wars, the set resembles a lot with the one in The Book Of Boba Fett, most likely because the action happens on Tatooine as well.

However, the great stuff ends here, the story is pretty shit, and as someone else said:

The Force Awakens neutered Han Solo, The Last Jedi neutered Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett has been neutered in his own series and now it’s time for the Disney character assassination of Obi-Wan, in the next in the systematic destruction of legacy characters.
But let’s be clear: this is the Reva show. Obi-Wan has been made utterly incompetent to prop up Reva and Leia. The pattern is getting tiresome.

Watchable? Yes. Legendary status? Hell no. Three popcorns and it will be forgotten by Monday.

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This movie is madness. Think Monty Python, but Romanian. It’s filled with intentional errors, (factual errors as well – they have pawn shops, mailboxes, angle grinders and bicycles), obscene product placement, jokes about the Romanian society, patriotic fanatism and others.

It’s dumb, it’s very dumb, it’s so dumb it make a 180º turn, then a 360º, then a 720º one and lands somewhere.

Some of the jokes are very low effort, some are so dry, one can only wonder how on Earth they get to them.

Not sure if this is shit or gold, but it’s a good watch before going to sleep. Four popcorns.

- Voi vedeti ca nu e niciun sacrificat pe altarul lui Zamolxes astazi? O fi ziua mortilor deschise.

- E zi cu lup rosu in calendar!

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I don’t need to say too much about this, as it speaks for itself. The cast is amazing, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel all doing great performances.

The story is very good, keeps you glued to the screen, and the small hints towards the other of Hitchcock’s movies are brilliant. I loved that it focused a lot on Alfred’s relationship with his wife.

Six popcorns, this is a movie that I’ll always enjoy watching.

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Watching the first one two days before the sequel made this movie a treat. There are a ton of mirror shots of the first movie, as a tribute, the action scenes are wonderfully done, especially considering that most of them lack CGI and it’s all camera work. A good movie, a pretty good cast, an goosebumps appearance of Val Kilmer and a pretty good story. Definitely worth seeing in the cinema.

The story itself brings a few twists, but it’s pretty intuitive. However, the movie is very good, and doesn’t feel like a nostalgia money grab.

Final score? Six popcorns and can’t wait to see it at home as well.

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Something something airplanes, something something Tom Cruise, something something Danger Zone.

There’s not much that needs to be said about Top Gun, the cast is filled with A-listers, the direction is great, the visuals are incredible. Rewatching this after a few years, it remains one of the best movies of the 80s, for sure, it sometimes takes your breath away.

Can’t wait for the sequel, but until then, this gets six popcorns and goes into the vault.

PS: The real Top Gun School imposes a $5 fine to any staff member that quotes the film.

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Great insight on the peak and the decline of Romanian football. It features great footage from historical matches, videos from fans celebrations and trips, interviews from back in the day, blended masterfully with interviews taken today.

It speaks about each stage of decay of the football scene in Romania, from big teams fading away or being taken over by money-hungry investors, to glorious former players getting old that couldn’t be replaced by the lack of training centers for kids.

Still brings goosebumps and even tears.

Even if this documentary was made in 2016, now, six years later, nothing changed, teams with more than half a century of tradition still disappear, junior centers are still too few and don’t have enough funding.

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From Danny Boyle, director of Trainspotting, here comes a great adventure movie. I know, this was pretty big at the turn of the millenium, but it only took me 22 years to see it.

Leonardo DiCaprio is young and Oscar-less, Tilda Swinton is almost not creepy, the French girl is French, and Robert Carlyle does a great short performance of mad man Begbie Daffy. The other actors play nice, but nothing special worth noting.

The soundtrack is filled with great summer music, and now feels like a “Best of 2000 Throwback” album, with bangers from the best of electronic stage in UK: Faithless, Leftfield, Underworld, Orbital, Moby, Chemical Brothers and UNKLE. Oh, and some All Saints, for that extra 2000 kick.

All in all, a good film, well paced, at times a bit unrealistic (that’s a lot of swimming), but it makes for a very good watch. Four popcorns and a map.

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Bounty hunter Boba Fett and mercenary Fennec Shand navigate the underworld when they return to Tatooine to claim Jabba the Hutt’s old turf.

The setting is just as you’d expect from a Star Wars TV series based on Tatooine, the acting is very good, Ming-Na Wen (Agents of SHIELD) is brilliant, and a great appearance of Jennifer Beals (Flashdance, Four Rooms), which at 59 looks like 25. Guess time flows differently on Tattooine. Also, it was nice to see a lot of familiar faces in small roles, expected, as the series is written by Jon Favreau and partly directed by Robert Rodriguez.

All in all, great short series, you can watch it in a rainy day.

May the force be with you.

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Not gonna say too much about how the story is different from the book, although many complained about it. I’m fine with adapting a well known and loved story, when it’s properly done. And this is more than properly done. It’s a kids movie that also grownups will love. The music, the tension, the writing are great. The voice cast is absolutely bonkers, whenever a live action movie has such a great cast, the result is crap. But this is not the case:

• Jeff Bridges as The Aviator
• Mackenzie Foy as The Little Girl
• Rachel McAdams as The Mother
• Marion Cotillard as The Rose (in both the English and the French version)
• Riley Osborne as The Little Prince
• James Franco as The Fox
• Benicio Del Toro as The Snake
• Ricky Gervais as The Conceited Man
• Paul Rudd as Mr. Prince
• Paul Giamatti as The Academy Teacher
• Vincent Cassel as The Fox (in the French version)

I mean, there haven’t been so many good actors together since The Expendables. But this movie is so different. I’ve seen it several times since it was released back in 2015, and it’s always a pleasure to re-watch it. Six popcorns and it stays in The Vault.

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