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Nope (2022)

Boring. Long-winded.

Man, I should have learned from watching Get Out and not liking it. Somehow I figured all the good reviews can't be wrong, right? Wrong.

This movie is about 30m too long. It's way too slow. It's boring. When something finally happens, it's a stupid, laughable reveal that makes me wonder why I even bothered. There is no real scare, no real payoff, just ho-hum mediocrity with several glaring loopholes and plot errors that are begging to be called out.

The acting is good. The cinematography is good. The music is great. But the story - oh boy. Why do they give this director the freedom to write, produce, AND direct? Clearly he can't handle the freedoms.

Don't waste your time.

Radius (2019)

Disjointed

This starts off promising, but the last minute is a letdown. The entire premise that the first 8 minutes leads up to, seems to be discarded. The movie is set in the future, but it could've been any time, any place. The idea of a dystopian society where criminals are confined to a certain location by means of a monitoring bracelet or necklace is interesting, and you're wondering what will happen. It's pretty clear to foresee what the main character will end up doing before his sentence runs out, but once it happens, there's no payoff. The movie just ends, and it feels empty and useless. I was expecting some interesting plot twist but it never came.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Atrocious disrespect of a franchise

This movie was terrible. Is starts out well enough with maybe 15 minutes of action with a de-aged Indiana Jones fighting the nazis at the end of world war two.

Then it all falls apart. Fast forward 25 years and Indy is a bitter old divorced loser who has nothing to live for and nothing to look forward to. But wait, here comes his goddaughter (from a supposed best friend we never knew about until now)! She's smart, much smarter than this pathetic old man. She's snotty. She's arrogant. She's beyond annoying. Kathleen Kennedy, is that you???

So yeah, for the rest of the movie Indy serves as the pale reflection to make this annoying woman look good. He's stupid and slow, she's fast and smart and strong.

To add insult to injury, they bring back Sallah from the previous movies (Gimli from Lord of the Rings) for a few minutes. He wants to adventure with Indy, and asks if he can join him. Wouldn't that be great? That's what fans want to see! But nope, the writers can't let that happen of course. It would take away from their annoying stupid new main character, the snotty girl! So Indy tells Sallah to get lost, and that's the last we see of him. Pathetic.

If Disney thinks this kind of drivel is what fans want to see, they're mistaken. Nobody wants their childhood idols toppled and made into pathetic old fools, who were never even good to begin with apparently, says Disney. Nobody wants to see your annoying virtue-signaling messaging, your Mary Sue replacement characters, your bad CGI, and your obvious seething hatred at having to make a movie in a franchise that you either despise or don't understand, or both.

May Disney lose hundreds of millions on this piece of fan disrespect.

Troll (2022)

Waste of time

This is pretty lousy.

• Long periods of blah blah between anything exciting happening. This would be OK if it moved the plot forward, but a lot of it seems just intended to fill time so the movie is long enough.

• Woke casting (a Muslim soldier in the Norwegian army, everyone important is a woman, men are portrayed as fools).

• Stupid, giant plot errors (it goes from pitch dark night to full daytime in 10 seconds, the royal castle's chamberlain knowing about the giant cave full of troll remains but nobody else in the government having any clue).

• Deus ex machina ("hacking" into a fighter plane from the ground in about two minutes of time, the right people always being in the right place, and more).

Avoid.

Barbarians (2020)

S1 is good, S2 is woke garbage

Season 1 is great. It takes some liberties with historical events, but generally leads up to and portrays a battle between the Romans and German tribes. Acting is good, costumes are excellent, and the sets are nice. The story is a bit simplified and overly dramatized but it's a good watch.

Season 2 is a big disappointment. Episode 1 is decent enough but be sure to turn it off after that. Episode 2 introduces the entire gamut of woke identity politics. I'm sure Netflix got their quotas met but it completely ruined any immersion or enjoyment. Vote changed from 8/10 to 2/10. What a disappointment.

Everything's Gonna Be All White (2022)

Divisive, racist trash

People who make this kind of trash should be ashamed. The entire episode, and I only watched one, consists of black people calling white people the worst names in the book, accusing them of all the evils in the world, and mocking and ridiculing the very people who created the standard of living they enjoy here in America. Hypocrites.

This is disgusting, it does nothing to unite the country, it only divides and angers people and causes resentment and hatred. Racism would have been long dead in this country if it weren't for shows and people like this who constantly pick off the scab because it benefits them while they pretend to want to "help end racism."

Shame on Showtime, shame on everyone who made this, and shame on the people they interviewed.

The Hunt (2020)

Bad filmmaking

I don't care about the political part... but this is just a really bad movie.

The plot is idiotic. As in, these rich people fly their targets into Croatia to hunt. Because??? It's easier to sedate and fly people halfway across the planet to hunt them in a tiny European country? And the flight attendant doesn't care when she finds out?

Then, they go through the trouble of building a fake gas station, under the assumption that the one random direction the victims would flee in after waking up happens to be the one leading to the gas station?

And even worse, they assume that the victims will jump on a movuing train, on which one of the hunters is hiding? OMG, how many trains are running on that track, and how do they know they'd come across it or jump on that one? Then the army guys don't care that the hunter had a bag full of grenades and gets blown up - everyone just goes about their business?

Just really sloppy, pathetic, stupid writing. The jokes aren't funny, the action is boring, the plot is idiotic and nonsensical. Nothing redeeming except that Hilary Swank is nice to look at.

Jusqu'au déclin (2020)

Great start then gets predictable and SJW stupid

Great start. Nice cinematography, good story setup, tension building - then it all falls apart in the second half of the movie. Of all the survivalists, of course the hero turns out to be a black woman (who ever heard of a survivalist like that?). She's stronger than all the men, easily beats them up despite the 70lb weight and 8" height difference, doesn't ever fail, can survive falling into an ice-cold frozen lake, etc. Etc.

So much potential just flushed down the drain. I was really interested the first 40 minutes... then it was all thrown away in the interest of wokeness.

Santa Inc. (2021)

Not funny, anti-American hatred

Sitting through these is torture.

I've seen better animation on Adult Swim, which has almost no budget. Let alone the "comedy" part... this isn't funny, if only it was unfunny though, then it would just be bad. It's actually anti-American, anti-male, anti-straight, anti-Christmas ranting and lecturing on psycho level.

This is what Hollywood has become.

Should've been a 3 minute short, so you could move on and just shake your head. At 3 hours of non-stop hatred... these people should be in an asylum.

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (2019)

Made with LOVE!

Wow, in an age of MCU garbage super hero movies, dime-a-dozen cinematic abominations with CGI and shaky cam everywhere, and casting terrible voice actors just because they are "famous real actors" this little gem comes along.

Every scene shows the care and love that went into its making. Sets are beautiful and glorious, costumes are intricate and beautiful, the puppets are very well done, voice acting is spot on (love the Chamberlain's voice), and so forth. Just every little detail shows this was made by people who take pride in their work and don't take the easy way out (CGI, stupid plots, explosions, "funny" one liners, etc.) but want to make something beautiful.

Absolutely refreshing.

Army of the Dead (2021)

So dumb and brainless even zombies would give this a pass

1. Apparently Vegas is a port city, and the most efficient way to wall off the city is using shipping containers.

2. The army wouldn't hermetically seal off the perimiter right? Rag-tag bandits and volunteers and refugees can hang around and walk in and out of the city at will.

3. Clearly the best way to take care of the zombies is to nuke Vegas. You know, regular ammunition wouldn't suffice. Or, you know, since you sealed off the inner city, maybe killing them with snipers or from helicopters or with special incursion teams...

4. Rather than walk through the mostly empty streets, the best strategy is to head into pitch-dark buildings where zombies are "hibernating" by the hundreds. Brilliant!

Don't even waste your time. Stupid, boring, brainless, not fun.

The Losers (2010)

This piece of garbage has a 6.3?

Wow. Just proves how shallow people are now.

1. Cardboard characters.

2. Stupid "cool" pop/rap music plays every time an "action" scene starts.

3. "Funny" jokes.

4. Absolutely ridiculous plot.

5. Terrible CGI.

6. "Action" scenes are non-stop shaky cam so you can't see a thing.

Really, this is just drivel. Garbage. Shame on the people who make this and call themselves "filmmakers."

Blood Moon (2014)

Blah blah blah boring

If you're going to make a horror movie, make it a horror movie. Not 90 minutes of stupid talking and drama between "bank robbers" and "hostages" in what's mostly a single room, and 10 minutes of action.

Megalodon (2018)

Utter garbage

I watched this movie for 5 minutes (after watching a real movie, just for laughs) by fast forwarding through 95% of it. It's the usual SyFy drivel... zero acting, zero budget, pathetic CGI, awful direction.

I honestly don't know who watches this. It's drek. Garbage. They don't even try. They pay some over-the-hill actor whose expiration date was 15 years ago to get a "big name" and then probably film it in no more than 3 days.

The "submarine" and "navy" sets are the usual for these movies - the interior of some sixty-year old factory or ship with some gauges. Yeah, reeeeeeally realistic. LOL. Then the ship never actually moves - for the on deck scenes they just rented some scrap ship that's docked or grounded, and they film there. You always see water only on the one side they film toward.

The crewmen who salute from their "life boats" at the end - they film their upper body only, toward the sky, because you know they are just standing on the ground, and actually filming normally would expose that. Michael Madsen is fat, uncaring, and old, and just wants the 100K or whatever it is they are paying him for a day's work.

Utter trash.

Highlander (1986)

Terrible acting and a joke of a plot

I like this when I was younger, but after watching it again after 20 years, I'm either more observant or cynical.

1. The swordfights are terrible. Incredibly fake. 2. The acting is horrible. Christopher Lambert has one look - like he's been sedated and lobotomized. 3. The bad guy can't be a real bad guy without walking around with a scar on his neck or wearing skull helmets. Of course. 4. Wouldn't you want to be low key? You may be immortal but can skill be arrested, and then either be discovered as you sit in prison for 50 years without aging or go to death row and be discovered. Yet the bad guy just runs in clothing and acts in ways that make him stand out sorely and would attract any cop in a mile radius to him. 5. The swords are stupid. I get it, you can't be a Hollywood bad guy without wielding a big badass two-handed sword. But that's literally the last sword you want to wield in a 1v1 fight. There's no way you would kill someone wielding a quicker sword like a katana or rapier. 6. Casting a French guy as someone who's supposed to be Scottish... oof man, really? Every time he opens his mouth it's painfully inaccurate.

Saints and Soldiers: The Void (2014)

Stupid social justice nonsense and terrible props and anachronisms

I can't believe I spent an hour on this drivel.

You know, I'm OK with putting black people in movies, as is probably everyone else. I'm also OK with you showing how the army was segregated and that they had a lousy time.

What I'm not OK with is using this movie as a vehicle solely to "address injustice" and switch the roles and have the black soldier overcome the stereotypical bigots in the tank crew to take charge and command everyone, kick the Nazi's butts, and lead them to supreme victory and yadda yadda yadda.

If you're going to make a war movie, make a war movie. Don't make it a preachy social justice drama movie masquerading as something else.

Outside of that - the movie is garbage. They spend five minutes on filler scenes like a flashback to a Russian Roulette scene, and other time wasters that have nothing to do with the plot itself. Speaking of Russian Roulette, I'm pretty sure that wasn't a common term in 1945. Nor was speaking of "IQ tests." The movie is full of this kind of stupid anachronosims.

Finally, the budget was so low the only German tank they could get or mock up was a panzer 3? This is 1945, they were no longer in operation because they were obsolete and the chassis had been converted to sturmgeschutz.

I also like how the hellcats look like they were just painted. Come on man, at least TRY to make it look real - cover them with mud, dirt, grime, oil, rust, bullet marks, etc.

Terrible waste of time.

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Beyond awful. Do not watch!

I can't believe this has a 5.8 rating. It's the most nonsensical, stupid, pathetic movie I've seen in over a year... and I watch 3+ movies each week.

It's essentially non-stop slow-motion fight ripoff scenes copied from The Matrix. But then, you know, ten times worse.

Everyone has infinite ammunition. Gravity doesn't exist. You don't kill people the most efficient way... you do it with some stupid impractical move that "looks good." Plot? What plot? We'll make it up as we go. Stupid techno music every time fighting starts (which is every other 30 seconds).

Holy cow. I can't believe the same guy directed Mortal Kombat and Event Horizon... neither was great, but they were entertaining and decent enough. This is just fifth-rate garbage that should never have been released and which should've ended his career permanently.

AWFUL. DO NO WATCH.

The Grudge (2004)

Unbelievably bad

Holy cow, I see a lot of bad movies, but it's been a long time since one was this awful. There is literally nothing redeeming about this movie - I kept looking at the clock and asking myself when something would actually happen, other than the pitiful not-scary ghost nonsense I'm watching. After 90 minutes, it was over, and I was left wondering what nonsense I sat through: jump scares, not-really-scary sounds, an incomprehensible story about some deaths in a house that created a ghost?!

Not scary. Not funny. Not interesting. Not gory. Not exciting.

BORING.

The Professor and the Madman (2019)

Slow, boring, cliche

All the people giving this 10 stars should have their head examined.

The best thing about this movie is what's in the trailer - Mel Gibson listing his qualifications for the job of editing the dictionary. The rest? Trite, boring, slow, stupid. "Oh hey, let's insert a love angle." Really?! I guess Hollywood can't just make a movie without some stupid forced romance inserted for no reason other than, well, to have some stupid romance. Sean Penn's acting is terrible, the guy is just a clown. I like Gibson but having to watch Sean Penn's stupid facial contortions as he pretends to act... ugh.

Graveyard Shift (1990)

Criminally underrated practical effects horror

I don't get it. People will give a high rating to all kinds of boring, cliché movies with terrible CGI, blood, predictable characters, zero plot twists, tropes everywhere, and hand-holdingly feel-good endings.

Then a movie comes along that's gritty, dirty, dark, dare I say it even evil? A movie with excellent practical special effects, blood, gore, and slime, a movie that doesn't back away from killing off characters, and it gets maligned and mocked and given terrible ratings.

Well, you can all have your stereotypical Hollywood garbage. I'll take this cult gem, even if it's based on a short story by Stephen King, whom I otherwise can't stand. The director really stepped up and made something that stands the test of time, that's original, and that's not afraid to be dark and dirty.

Stephen Macht is great as the tyrannical foreman, and Brad Douriff is having the time of his life as a Vietnam vet turned exterminator.

Be sure to watch the end titles with a great little song that has many samples from the movie.

Highly recommended.

Extinction (2015)

Utterly unwatchable shaky cam

I couldn't get past the first 15 minutes. Honestly, my time is too valuable to waste on garbage like this. So is yours.

The first two minutes are promising. Tension. Mystery. Why did the bus stop?! Then they hit you dead-center in the face with the worst shaky cam and editing that I've seen in ten years. If you were violently thrown around in a washing machine that itself is inside a tornado or an earthquake, you would have a more stable picture than this.

To make it worse, you don't get more than half a second of a frame before it's cut and you are shown something else.

Whomever thinks this pathetic style of film making is great, should never be allowed to touch another device with a "record" button on it.

Avoid. Utter and total garbage by amateur film makers hiding their lack of skills behind "cool" shaky cam and microsecond editing.

The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020)

Absolute utter garbage

I don't often give a movie 1 star, but this one I did. While the first Babysitter was mildly amusing, this sequel has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

It tries SO hard to be funny, but all it achieves is making you cringe. It's not even remotely scary. It apparently thinks all black people are obnoxious and loud and wisecracking. The killings and gore are worse than a Syfy channel movie with a $500 budget. The story is utterly garbage and makes no sense. Just for that extra kick in the nads, it retcons and ruins the first movie at the end.

Great job Netflix. You must be proud.

The Day (2011)

Stupid plot and stupid movie making

Not a great movie. So many plot holes you can drive a truck through them.

• One of the women is wearing a summer dress. Really?! Apparently weather is not an issue, nor are potential scratches/cuts/scrapes which can lead to infection and death in a post-apocalyptic setting.
• Rather than run as soon as they set off traps and fight off the initial scouts, they decide to stay "because there's no point in running." Then they proceed to sit around for oh, almost a full day, before the rest arrives. All the time in the world to flee and never be found if they wanted to.
• The heroes had no food, only ate 1/3rd can of beans or whatever the day before, yet they have the energy to go running around, boarding up the house, reinforcing things, lifting heavy stuff, building a funeral pure... rofl, yeah, right.
• The attackers want the protagonists' meat, and are willing to sacrifice 20-30 of their own people just to get 5 bodies? Really? Rofl. They could've taken their first own dead and just moved on.
• The attackers think that running right into a boarded-up window, howling and screaming, is the best plan of attack. Then they get stabbed through a gap two seconds later. Err yeah, brilliant. Nobody, NOBODY would be so stupid.
• The heroes are just aimlessly wandering in a rural environment, and have all of two cans of food. Really? Where are you going to get more food? Wouldn't it make more sense to be in a city, where you have more means to scavenge?
• None of the heroes looks underfed. Yeah, I guess you'd be healthy and hale eating 1/4th of a can of beans each day.

Blood and gore is done by means of CGI... very poorly. You know, someone gets impaled and it's a CGI spike. Their body twitches a bit and the spike doesn't move... or the cut on someone's neck is at the wrong angle as they fall down. Just basic cheap mistakes.

The lack of color is stupid and annoying. I'm watching a movie and want to see it in color. I'm not watching a 1950s movie now am I? I guess the director felt that he could best convey a post-apocalyptic setting by setting colors at 15%... you know, as opposed to actually making a good movie and post-apocalyptic setting in color.

Skip. Amateur hour.

Beneath Us (2019)

Dragged down by its pathetic political message

You know, they could have just made a movie about two psychos who hire day laborers and taunt/torture/kill them. It could've been entertaining. Instead, the director/producer/whatvever decided to add this ridiculous notion that somehow all white folks are scared, bigoted racists who hate illegals. It seeps through in everything, e.g. the way the third guy is killed and the laughably stupid talk show at the end where some white guy asks "well what's wrong with slavery?"

Thumbs down for another stupid SJW piece of garbage from the hypocrites in Hollywood.

Blood Vessel (2019)

Not scary, cardboard characters, boring

I really had high hopes for this. I love Nazi horror movies and shelled out $5 to rent this on-demand.

Five minutes in, I started having doubts and an hour in, I just wanted it to be over.

It starts with some text about how at the end of the war, the Nazis tried to sink allied vessels and kill all survivors. It then cuts to a life raft full of... survivors. Sigh.

Said life raft is floating on completely calm and flat water (the North Atlantic should be really rough). The survivors have no exposure damage from sun, salt, and look like they were told to fall asleep by the director. There's a woman, a black guy, an Australian, an even a Russian. LOL yeah, as if a ship would have been carrying one of everything... so bad.

The Russian soldier speaks perfect English. Because clearly Russian peasant soldiers are very worldly. He just omits "a" and "an" for extra-dramatic effect. Wow!

The black guy mouths off the white guys, because clearly that's what people did back in 1945.

I can go on and on, but that's just the first 10 minutes. The dialogue is cringe-worthy and painful.

Clearly this isn't a high-budget production, but the vampires look like Mickey Mouse with comically stupid fangs.

Don't waste your time. Go watch Dead Snow 2, Shock Waves, our Outpost instead.