1229 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into Czech (Page 43)

Blaise Pascal invented a philosophical concept that came to be known as Pascal’s Wager. He presented a pragmatic argument for belief in God. Pascal held that if you believed in the Lord and He did, in fact, exist, you would gain the infinite rewards of Heaven. And if He turned out to be a myth, well then you’ve lost nothing, or comparatively little. If you don’t believe, though, and the Creator is real, you risk the infinite horrors of Hell, the prospect of which would, in Pascal’s estimation, outweigh any meager reward disbelief might grant you on this mortal coil. Continue Reading →

The final installment in the Fear Street trilogy takes things back. Way back. While the first two entries were set in the 1990s and 1970s, Fear Street Part 3: 1666, as the title implies, shifts the backdrop to 1666. Going this far backward allows the audience to discover the true story of Sarah Fier (Elizabeth Scopel), a local woman who was reportedly a witch and still curses the town of Shadyside. However, as you’d expect if you’ve seen anything ranging from ParaNorman to The VVitch, this origin yarn reveals that Fier was a much more complicated figure who was doomed due to society’s innate desire to punish women perceived as “different.” Continue Reading →

Dr. Death borrows its tantalizing title from the Wondery podcast, which similarly breaks down a harrowing true story about a neurosurgeon who — for whatever reason — keeps killing or permanently harming his patients on the operating table. Continue Reading →

The sense of rot in Pig is almost constant. There’s progression but no real growth for much of its short runtime, no feeling of true human connection through its first half. For a while, its empathy only comes from within. It comes within its hero; its intimacy only blossoms when there’s no one else to dry it from the roots up. The man in question is Robin (Nicolas Cage). He was a well-known chef but has since jumped ship, living in a shack in the Oregon wilderness and hunting truffles with his foraging pig. His only consistent human interaction is with a yuppie-type named Amir (Alex Wolff), but that’s strictly transactional. Continue Reading →

Let’s get one thing out of the way: the original Space Jam, released in 1996, isn’t a good movie. It’s an extended Nike commercial with an iconic soundtrack that tricked the brains of '90s kids into keeping it warm with nostalgia. So, it’s only fair that 25 years later, a new generation of children are forced to experience a similar kind of cash grab. Continue Reading →

When someone chooses to end their life, even if they’re open about their mental health struggles, it’s still often a shock to their friends and loved ones, who will then wrack their brains and agonize over whether they missed a sign that it was coming. The question always arises: how could they do that? They had so much to live for. They had so many people who cared about them. We’ve learned some pretty harsh lessons in the past decade about “what kind of person” commits suicide, first with Robin Williams in 2014, and then someone else who truly seemed to know how to grab life by the balls, Anthony Bourdain, in 2018. Morgan Neville’s Roadrunner is a moving film about Bourdain, arguably the most important modern travel documentarian, and his internal conflict over having a life most people only dream of, while feeling like he didn’t really deserve it. Continue Reading →

It’s time once again to return to Sherman Oaks High as Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher’s bittersweet teen comedy Never Have I Ever returns to Netflix. Picking up right where season one left off, we reunite with Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), her friends, family, and the surprisingly rich cast of secondary characters.  Continue Reading →

HBO’s six-part docuseries Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes doesn’t have any shocking new revelations or unheard evidence. Some might ask what was the point of rehashing a story that broke in The New Yorker, which then became a book, which then became a podcast. Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s take on Ronan Farrow’s already well-trod ground is clearly just for those folks who prefer visual media over books and podcasts (hey, no judgments) or for those obsessed with the investigation into Hollywood monster Harvey Weinstein.  Continue Reading →

Eleven months ago, nearly exactly to the day, I first fell in love with Ted Lasso—the show and, I suppose, the man too. As several people, including myself, have proclaimed, it seemed the perfect show for a population battered by the isolation and fear of what felt like a possibly endless pandemic at the time and, for Americans especially, the ugliness of a looming election. Lasso proved the wonderful good-hearted surprise so many of us were so in need of. Continue Reading →

Man, Escape from New York. What a picture. It's one of the standouts of director/co-writer John Carpenter's damn-near-unmatched 1976-1988 run of stupendous filmmaking, a man-on-a-mission film with a driving sense of urgency that still makes time to breathe in its mood and world. Dean Cundey’s widescreen cinematography captures the ruined prison island of New York in deep blacks and dense color and gorgeous widescreen framing. Carpenter and Alan Howarth’s score is cool and moody. The main theme alone is best described as “indelible.”The ensemble is a murderer's row of great actors with fantastic faces: Adrienne Barbeau, Isaac Hayes, Donald Pleasance, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, and the one-and-only Harry Dean Stanton. Each does unforgettable work. Continue Reading →

The appetite for true crime stories can seem insatiable. Mountains of podcasts, TV series, and movies, the latter two sent directly to streaming services, have been released over the last decade, making it more difficult for these narratives to find a wider audience. Netflix’s newest documentary series, Heist, attempts to cash in on this trend to mixed results, telling three stories over the course of six episodes. Continue Reading →

Within the opening scene of The White Lotus, it’s revealed that someone will die at some point during the show. But the question of who that someone is and how will they die isn’t really the central plot, as the six-part miniseries is much more interested in the characters and their fascinating dynamics than the mysteries and all the events leading up to the impending death. Continue Reading →

Nadja (Peri Baumeister, The Last Kingdom), a cautious, brittle woman battling a terrifying illness, boards an overnight flight from Germany to the United States. With her is Elias (Carl Anton Koch), her sweet, precocious son. They're hoping to make a new start in America, where a talented team of doctors wait to help Nadja find a cure for her sickness. While at the gate, Elias befriends Farid (Kais Setti, Dogs of Berlin)—a kind young man bound for a conference. Continue Reading →

Not all entertainment is for everyone. Continue Reading →

Son suffers from its own ubiquitousness. It’s part of a timely revival in cult horror. It’s at least the third horror film in the past several months in which someone is forced to kill for a loved one. Right out of the gate, writer/director Ivan Kavanagh is challenged with having to set his film apart from the rest of the pack and mostly succeeds, thanks largely to excellent performances from his cast. Continue Reading →

TV shows based on hit movies are nothing new. However, programs like The Real Ghostbusters and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command had only the barest connection to their source material and had no chance of scoring any of the performers from the original features. In the age of interconnected cinematic narratives, though, the new Disney+ cartoon Monsters at Work, a sequel to Monsters Inc., goes in the opposite direction.  Continue Reading →

Even I have to admit that being trapped in a classic musical sounds like a waking nightmare. That’s exactly what happens to Melissa (series producer Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) when they find themselves in the isolated titular town of Schmigadoon. After getting lost on a couples retreat, the pair pass a magical barrier only to find they are unable to leave until they find True Love. They’ll have to sing and dance their way into love, or risk being stranded in Schmigadoon forever. Continue Reading →

Much like the Backstreet Boys or white nationalism in American politics, the Fear Street movies are technically “back” even though they never had a chance to leave. Fear Street Part 2: 1978 is the second in a trilogy of Fear Street films being released weekly on Netflix. While its predecessor was a pastiche of both Amblin and Kevin Williamson horror, this next entry is directly inspired by slasher movies of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The summer camp setting alone makes it so clear that the project is paying tribute to Friday the 13th that one may be surprised Kevin Bacon doesn’t show up for a quick cameo. Continue Reading →

*Peter Cullen Voice: On* Continue Reading →

Our coverage of Tribeca closes out with two international films that handle everything from the power of cinema to parental sacrifice. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival.) Last Film Show and Brighton 4th represent two international films of the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival dedicated to sons that have disappointed their fathers. While Indian director Pan Nalin’s Last Film Show focuses on nine-year-old Samay, a boy falling in love with film, Georgian director Levan Koguashvili’s Brighton 4th eyes Kakhi, a father who travels to Brooklyn to aid his son. Two films about tradition and fatherhood, these movies paint different pictures of the father-son relationship in their respective cultures.  Continue Reading →

The Purge franchise, spanning five films and a now-canceled two-season television series, was never one to traffic in nuance or subtlety, or even optimism. Its premise is born of a kind of didactic, Shirley Jackson-esque thought experiment: what if all crimes, even murder, were legal for 12 hours? How would people react, and who would they become, when they could let out their raging ids just for a night? From its second film, the Carpenter-esque The Purge: Anarchy, series creator James DeMonaco tacked on a third question: What if *gasp* the rich and powerful were just using the Purge as a means to cull the poor, the marginalized, and nonwhite? Continue Reading →