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Glass Onion (2022)
Still Good, But Not As Good As The Original
I presume most people who come to look at this will have seen the original Knives Out mystery first, so you should know the ingredients. The perceptive detective with a few personal flaws, the rather eccentric cast of characters with their own relationships with each other, the equally eccentric setting and roughly about halfway through, a flashback sequence turns the entire thing entirely on its head. What is a bit different is that, whereas last time there was one obvious "crime" very early on and heavily focused on, this time it's not exactly clear what the mystery is going to be until quite a lot of time has passed. Everything is just "generally mysterious" for a while but it does still manage to be fascinating.
The one thing that's very obviously different, very quickly, is that everything here is much bigger and more in-your-face. Previously it was about an inheritance; this time it's WORLD-CHANGING. Everything is heavily stylised, massively arty, each of the characters is heavily stereotyped for what they're supposed to be, the set is all hugely expensive looking. It's as if everything's been super-charged for the sequel.
Comparisons aside, for the most part, this is a hugely entertaining ride. It hooks you in and keeps you interested as it weaves about all over the place. As with the first one, it manages to be occasionally and (usually) subtly hilarious with some of the antics that happen and some of the dialogue. It's absolutely NOT a laugh a minute, just an occasional element thrown in that does work. Performances and dialogue overall are pretty on it. Also a couple of unexpected and cool cameos! Loved seeing Hugh Grant in that role.
Where I thought it went awry was the ending. Yes, it seems the aim was to supercharge it all, but the ending was just TOO ridiculous, too drawn-out, too silly. I honestly think you could have sliced off the last twenty minutes and stopped it without that tacked on ending. It just sent it south for me and.... didn't really ruin it as such, but meant that I came away with a worse impression of it than it really deserved.
Still recommended, it's very entertaining and good ride overall.
Knives Out (2019)
Great Fun
I absolutely loved this - it's one of those films you go into expecting it to be good and it doesn't disappoint.
This has a vintage sort of theme to it, like an old-timey sort of whodunnit and not only because it's set in a quaint, slightly other-worldly house. Here's a murder, here's a cast of suspects, here are the police with one stand out detective played by Daniel Craig. However it does play with your expectations. Having been all whodunnit to begin with, it will - very unexpectedly - suddenly give you the answer less than halfway through, leaving you to wonder if it's actually a Columbo-esque howcatchem. But it's not really that either because there's more to the plot. It will keep you guessing about how it unfolds.
In the end, it's less about a murder than the dynamics of the family surrounding it and the family are a fairly memorable bunch, especially Jamie Lee Curtis. The not-very-well-disguised greed they all exhibit whilst trying to twist things their own way is very entertaining and makes them all a properly loathsome bunch, especially in contrast to the deceased who comes across as more likeable, well aware of what his family is like and somewhat lonely.
It's a subtly amusing film too. Some of it comes from the feuding family but a lot of it's just unexpected events suddenly happening. I know it's intended as a dark comedy, but I'd mostly say it's about unravelling a mystery. It's a bonus that the humour thrown in just happens to also work really well.
Go and enjoy. It's as good as you think it's going to be.
RoboCop (2014)
Okay.... just okay
I've now gone through the Robocop films in order and didn't realise this one was as old as 2014. It's obviously a remake of the original, but the story does sufficiently diverge to really make this a film in its own right, so I'll try and avoid too many comparisons.
Very basically, the plot this time is that superhero detective Alex Murphy is investigating a major criminal figure, and is thwarted by corrupt/managerial types in the department. He is targeted and seriously wounded but survives; however as he is severely disabled, he is volunteered by his family to become the cyborg police officer of the title. This one swings things around a bit; rather than being a huge advance, there are already robots in this world quite capable of policing but with no "human" sense of judgement, and so prohibited by law in the US. Robocop is their attempt to square that circle. He still largely retains his personality, so he's very much a human brain in a cyborg's body, but also very much under the thumb of parent company OCP. It's quite a nice spin on making this a story in its own right. The setting here isn't a dystopia either, everything generally seems to be okay and set a little into the future.
I didn't find the Murphy of this movie all that likeable because he's already super-cop at the beginning. Top-cop, loving wife, brilliant father, he's already a bit of a cliche before anything bad happens. Nothing here is his fault and his judgement can't be questioned, bad things just happen to him by bad people. As he's either Murphy or, depending on the section of the movie, more of a straightforward robot, it doesn't feel like there's much to root for. Robocop is also kitted out in black for a lot of the movie and it gives him a kind of Marvel superhero look, which I really disliked.
I'm not sure why, but in 2014, the special effects just look okay, average. They're not bad, but they just don't really catch your attention. It's also got a lot of fast moving, high octane action, car chases, gun-fights etc that you've already seen loads of times in action movies before, so don't expect anything much to blow you away here. Most of the characters are pretty forgetable as well, with the exceptions of the Chief Of Police, Gary Oldman's Dr Norton, who comes across as quite likeable, and Mattox who was villainously unlikeable. Samuel L Jackson's Novak is a bit of a mystery because although he was a memorable Fox News knock-off, he seemed pretty incidental to the story, and it could have worked pretty well if he hadn't been in it. The major crime lord of the title, the corrupt police officers, Murphy's partner, the head of OCP, there's just not much to say. Murphy's wife was an exception; although the character wasn't memorable of herself, the family scenes were fairly tender and well-handled.
The end of this film is a mess. Murphy starts to investigate his own death as you might expect, but all of a sudden over about five minutes, it suddenly seems to encompass just about every single other character in the story in some vague way. At least towards the end he seemed to regain his silver suit rather than the silly black of most of the film, although the Clash's contribution to the end credits was a bit misjudged. I love that song, it just didn't fit where they put it.
So some comparisons: needless to say, it's way behind the original, which outperforms it in every way. The satire, the politics, the memorable characters, the black humour combined with the uber-violence. Robocop 2 is also better than this, however this does at least pick things up from the dire mess that was Robocop 3. So at the end of the day, it's okay. No better, no worse, just okay. I hope they don't try and remake it again.
RoboCop 3 (1993)
Painfully Awful
My perception of this film may have suffered a bit because I watched the Robocop movies in succession, and because I honestly did previously avoid this one because its poor reputation. It is fairly usual for sequels to maybe decline in quality a bit as they go on, and I was prepared for that here, but what I wasn't prepared for was just how god-awful this 100 minutes would be. It is staggering just how much a franchise can decline from such a high over only three films.
The subtlety and shades of grey, and clever nuances and commentary, was heavily present in the first film and declined a little in the sequel. In this one, all of that is GONE. Everybody is now either a goodie or a baddie, to a comical degree. Seriously, every good guy (cops and civilians) is now 100% pure; all the bad guys (OCP, Japanese people, rehab paramilitaries, spies) are now unremittingly evil. Anyone who makes even a wayward comment, for example, doubting Robocop, is instantly in the baddie category. The whole thing plays out like a cartoon aimed at 12 year olds, and even that doesn't work because it was violent enough to pick up a 15 certificate. The bleak ultra-violence of the previous films has gone, but it's a huge step down in a bad attempt at attracting a wider audience.
OCP of the first two movies was impressive, because of the characters that made it up. They were a fairless complex bunch; you may have hated Dick Jones but ended up liking Johnson and Bob Morton, even though they were part of a fairly villainous setup. Here, I don't know if it was playing on American paranoia about the rise of Japan at the time, but think of some uber-Japanese stereotypes. Samurais, swords, meditation blah blah, yep, all of that's here! If you can imagine sterotype Japan, then you've already seen this film. The Old Man has been replaced by Rip Torn, but him and Johnson are just caricatures of evil corporates now. There is one possibly interesting new edition, Jeff Fleck, so of course he's written out of the script at the earliest opportunity. Even the new paramilitaries bear an uncanny resemblance to Nazis in the way that their leader dresses. Everything now is just right in your face.
One thing that should have rung alarm bells is that Peter Weller and Daniel O'Herlihy declined to do it. In an attempt to disguise the different actor playing Robocop, his voice now sounds like he's permanently talking in an echo-chamber (which is very irritating), although otherwise he does look fairly similar even with the face visor removed. However, any of that interesting previous struggle between his robotics and previous humanity is all gone. He's now basically a human in a robot suit, complete with unbelievably lame dialogue. The script in general is incredibly cringey and reads like a comic book. The contrast with the first, and even the second movie, is just night and day.
The sloppiness when you read into this film is just amazing. They couldn't even get the actors to speak actual Japanese dialogue? Robocop is pretty much bulletproof but apparently he can be picked up by two men and a child now? We have that cliche of a child computer genius here too; her brilliant skills seem to extend to plugging in a small laptop to a port in an ED209 and typing commands in English and instantly taking control of it? It's a wonder every child isn't a computer genius in this universe. There's also no limit to what this kid can do. From a basic laptop for a kid that lives in a poor area of Detroit, it apparently can broadcast messages to every TV in the city from the location of an air duct.
Is there anything good to say about it? It does have a few nice touches. There are a few unexpected turns in the story, so at least it's not entirely predictable, even if the scene is usually butchered with terrible dialogue. And there are a few moments of genuine comedy, such as the lift-door, or the gunshot in the background. It's never as good as it was, given that humour was a big part of the first film too, but it does genuinely make you laugh out loud here and there. The unfortunate thing is that you also end up regularly laughing out loud at how cringingly awful the entire rest of it is.
Go watch the original Robocop, it's brilliant. Have a look at the second one, it's still worth a watch. Then just leave it and pretend this one doesn't exist because it's 1 hour and 40 dreadful minutes you will never get back.
RoboCop 2 (1990)
Still Quite Good
Following the original Robocop movie, which is deservedly a classic, is a hard act to follow but I thought this film made a pretty good effort to do so.
The plot here is a bit more loosely defined - it mixes between a drug epidemic of "nuke", and also OCP's attempts to build a successor to Robocop. All of the same components are here but everything is a bit simpler, if anything. Robocop spent a good deal of the first movie grappling with his humanity, whereas other than a quick diversion at the start, this doesn't feature quite so much here. It's more of a straightforward fight with OCP's attempts to mess him up. The police are still straightforwardly the good guys here, the one exception is flagged up so heavily that it's impossible to miss. The memorable villain here is Cain, the dealer of the drug gangs distributing nuke, and I have to say I think his performance is massively underrated. His delusions of grandeur, weird philosophical statements and calm creepiness are really well done. His gang are straightforwardly loathsome, and you never feel much but contempt for Angie and Hob. OCP are more straightforwardly the villains here, and the Old Man (plus new character Dr Faxx) has moved much more towards being a straightforward supervillain. Johnson is perhaps the exception. He has become more Smithers-like, but as with the first film, he seems to be the one force for good in this film even if his motives are not pure, much like Bob Morton in the first film. The mayor of Detroit is an interesting nuanced character; he's a bit more like the OCP executives of the original as he considers ways to get the city out of the hole it's in.
The humour is still there, but it's much more in-your-face now. It is still genuinely funny, for instance when Robocop is reprogrammed by OCP, or OCP's early attempts at Robocop 2 (or the one-liners: "This could look bad for OCP Johnson!"), but there's not much subtlety there anymore. Neither is there with some aspects of the plot, and this is where it can sometimes start to feel a little too comic-book. Robocop's directives need resetting? No worries, he sorts that, somehow avoids damaging himself in the process and then functions as a policeman despite having no directives at all. Police in a long bitter strike? No worries, a quick talk from Robocop is enough to sort that out. Also, by this point, there is quite a lot of people standing in the open endlessly firing machineguns at quite obviously bulletproof entities, yet somehow not bothering to seek cover when they are fired back at. This is much the same as the original, but by now it's starting to get a bit old.
The violence this time somehow manages to not quite be so shocking. There is one sudden rather nasty scene somewhere in the middle, but otherwise, imagine most gunfights in movies you've seen of a police vs machines variety, and you'll get the idea. The plot does take a sudden and rather interesting twist about halfway through as OCP develop Robocop 2, and its own unpredictable behaviour is quite an interesting watch too, taking over as the ED209 equivalent from the original. The special effects still hold up pretty well. Overall, I think there is a bit to criticise about it, and it's not as good as the original, but this is still a pretty good sequel and worthy of the name Robocop. Recommended as a solid sequel.
RoboCop (1987)
Really Very Good
It's been ages since I watched Robocop and I'm not sure exactly what put me in the mood to look at it again (possibly seeing Peter Weller in Cabinet Of Curiosities). But I was a lot younger when I last looked at it, so this seemed like a good chance to look at it anew.
I think it's aged quite well, given that it's not far from its 40th birthday. To me, this is a film mostly about the characters in it, who are by far the most memorable takeaway. Robocop himself is a complicated character, theoretically supposed to be a cyborg but haunted by memories and eventually clinging on to rather more humanity than intended. Clarence Boddicker is a very memorable villain, not least because his sneering and arrogance sits behind a balding, bespectacled bank manager's face; his gang manages to be repulsive but all of them are quite distinctive and some effort seems to have gone into making them all individuals. The cops are a bit more straightforward - Sgt Reed is a tough superior who you've seen in a lot of films, and Lewis is a tough, incorruptible equivalent to a beat officer in this world. By far the most interesting are the executives of OCP, who are many shades of grey. None of them has a good motive; the Old Man wants to keep his company making money at all costs, Dick Jones wants to keep his power and enrich himself, Bob Morton is personally ambitious. But somehow you draw distinctions between them. The Old Man is smart and calm, Jones is more straightforwardly villainly, and you end up rooting for Morton - who abuses the police and takes cocaine with prostitutes - because he goes up against Jones and in pursuit of his ambitions, ends up spearheading something great. Although he's not seen so much here, Johnson is set up as erring more towards the forces of light, even if again, his motives are never pure.
We're a fair bit more into the future than we were when this was made, so some things do stand out. Landline phones are still a thing. Fashion got stuck in an 80s timewarp. Cars still use combustion engines. One thing to note is that I don't think the robots seen in the film - Robocop and ED209 - have actually aged badly at all. They maybe don't look as futuristic as in 1987, but the movements, fights and everything all still stand up pretty well. But perhaps the biggest standout is the casual violence. This is a staggering violent film, even now, but that's part of it; the violence is casually accepted. The suits at the top of OCP witness at least two people gunned down in their own boardroom and never seem particularly phased by it. It works because it's so NORMALISED - every person for themselves, no mercy and no pity. It's also made more shocking by how casually it's combined with genuinely funny humour, for instance when Boddicker is aiming his gun at Murphy, somewhat early on.
I know this was made partly as a satire of the Reagan years, but to be honest I only know that because I read it. It doesn't come across too strongly to me. I know it's meant to be represented by the rise of mega-corporation OCP to be more powerful than seats of government, but anything like this was drowned out partly by the violence (not something I particularly associate with the 80s to the level it's seen here) and also because OCP isn't just straightforwardly villainous. They're shades of grey, some worse than others, most of them ambiguous.
It does have some more straightforward flaws to me too - what doesn't someone shoot Robocop in the chin? - but overall this still stands as a great film all these years later. The ending is just perfect. Highly recommended.
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022)
Recommended
I've not knowingly looked at anything by Guillermo del Toro before, so went into this one with a fairly open mind and wanting to like it. And by and large, I did. It's split into eight individual episodes with no connection, other than GdT introducing each one with reference to his cabinet. So I would say each one deserves a line in its own right:
1. Lot 36: My favourite one, felt fairly Lovecraft-esque at least in how it ended. The main character is utterly unlikeable, as he's supposed to be, and the environment is well-done in being made to look so run-down and like the back end of nowhere. There's some level of suspense in terms of how it unfolds too, it doesn't necessarily do what you think, without resorting to dramatic twists.
2. Graveyard Rats: A bit more of a straightforward monster flick really. Very much enjoyed it, my main thought was that the rats could have been used a bit more to a horrific end. I also thought there was a decent end bit of acting/writing as our "hero" was climbing up a shaft, and his outpouring of joy as he went.
3. The Autopsy: I liked the opening, and there is a certain creepiness, but the pace abruptly changes about halfway through and it becomes a different tale entirely. I thought the end was quite clever.
4. The Outside: Probably the most unusual one, and arguably the least horrific, but perhaps the most original one from my point of view. I actually found it somewhat sad, as someone that comes across as quite decent just longs to fit in, and pretty much turns everything upside down in the process. I felt the most sorry for her husband, who I think was well-portrayed as loving and well-intentioned.
5. Pickman's Model: You've seen something like this one before, somehow. There is an object, or objects, and they gave out evil (here it's paintings). Having said that, the paintings are visually very striking, I thought the actor playing Pickman was very good and the make-up was spot on. It did portray a sort of gradual descent to hell very well.
6. Dreams in the Witch House: This is where I thought the series started to lose steam, because this just wasn't quite as good. The stand-out to me was Rupert Grint, who was superb, but just not much to the story and the villains were more comical than villainous.
7. The Viewing: The lowpoint. It still was okay, but just okay. Visually pretty stunning and psychedelic, but it took about an hour to slowly tell a story that could have been done in maybe 20 minutes? The ending also felt totally unconnected to anything that had gone before.
8. The Murmuring: Something of a return to form. Arguably the creepiest one, overall the most isolated, and the characters felt mostly sympathetic, as a loving couple still dealing with a tragedy that's gradually unfolded.
One other high point is that these stories all jump around the calendar a lot, and each one does a great job of looking very like the time-period it's supposed to. And also be warned: this IS a horror, and some of the stuff in it is pretty gory and grisly. It's used more in some than others, sometimes it's sparing, but whenever it's there, it's always right in your face.
Recommended overall.
House of Secrets: The Burari Deaths (2021)
Really Quite Good
I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, as it was a case I'd never heard of, so I went into it completely open-minded.
If you don't know the case, it gets to the point very quickly, and immediately and raises the intrigue level with the details it goes into. It's a baffling case, even after you've finished. The pacing was also quite nice and it divided up the subjects quite nicely. Episode 1 very much covers the discovery, the reaction, the bafflement and what became almost the backlash against the prevailing theories, and the media sensationalism. Episode 2 goes very much more into the investigation and how it unwound, and also the level of understanding that is gradually provided behind the event - to the extent that it can be understood. If there is any criticism to be made, Episode 3 felt like it stretched things out a little, covering the wider societal reaction to the crime and its longer-term effects.
It's generally handled quite sensitively. Though it's obviously shocking, the mental health aspect that gradually unfurls is treated quite delicately, and isn't judged. Lalit's background is gone over, and he somehow does come across as quite a sympathetic character.
A recommended watch.
Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)
Still Really Good After 30 Years
This one had me intrigued enough to get round to watching the first two Bill and Ted movies, and wonder what on earth they'd be doing having gotten to middle age. I really enjoyed both of them, so.... would Face The Music work as well?
Broadly, yes. Given the titular role of our two main characters, my take was different for them both individually. Alex Winter was exactly the same Bill as you remember from the original movies, even looking pretty much the same! However, Keanu Reeves's Ted felt somehow like he'd aged a lot more, and didn't quite have the same level of goofiness as his teenage self had had. It just didn't seem to be quite the same.
Unlike the first two, which focused heavily on Bill and Ted, this time equal billing is given to their daughters, who seem to have magically transitioned from sons at the end of the Bogus Journey. But this actually works pretty well. Their sons would probably have been identikit copies of themselves, but having daughters means they can have their own identities. In the event, I thought it was mixed. Brigette Lundy-Paine as Billie was absolutely spot-on, she REALLY worked as Ted's daughter. Samantha Weaving as Thea..... not so much. She was a little wooden and came across more as a stoner. The princesses weren't seen so much.
The dual narratives - Bill and Ted on one journey and their daughters on another for most of the movie - does work quite well. Even down to the props. The dads get their original phone booth, whereas the daughters have a much updated version. The effects in the originals were not bad for their day, and in this one too, they've managed to update them nicely without completely overdoing it. It works.
If you found the originals funny, then much of this has the same style of humour. Some of it is genuinely laugh out loud funny, like their latest version of their attempted hit song at the start, or the line "Yeah, the Sahara desert's just shown up..." It is all still quite gentle, and suitable for all audiences. And it's extremely wacky, plot included. It goes to just as many madcap locations for one reason or another as the first two did. Death also makes a welcome return; I thought he was a bit redundant as Bogus Journey went on, but his appearance here is funny, as they go through the same motions as other warring band members in the past.
The ending does well in wrapping it all up again, even though you're wondering exactly how it's going to do it up to about the minute before it happens. It's just as feel-good as the first two, so it retains that same Bill and Ted-ness. If you're not a fan of the originals, then give this a miss - and I definitely wouldn't look at this without at least having seen Excellent Adventure. But otherwise, highly worthy and great fun.
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)
Great Sequel
Having not seen them before, I went on a Bill & Ted movie-fest recently and having already looked at Excellent Adventure, watched this and then Face The Music straight after. My initial impression was that I liked this better than the (better rated) Excellent Adventure.
First of all, it retains the most loveable elements of the original, which are the main characters. They're still the ultimate good-guys, being well-meaning, taking things as they come, trying to figure out how it is they save the world when they're struggling to find their way in it or marry their loyal girlfriends. Extremely goofy, yet they don't swear or act violent or even mean towards anyone much. The fact that these two drop-outs from much of society are so pivotal in the future of it is what keeps these films together.
It also keeps the surreal plot, never really letting on which wacky direction it's about to head in next. Thus like the original, they head all over the place. A sort of purgatory, meeting Death, Heaven, their own personal Hell. Also, although you can tell it's early 90s, I don't think it's aged too badly at all. Bill and Ted would be misfits in any society, which is why the series works. Also the memorable elements from the original like the phone booth, Rufus, Ted's Dad.
I thought this one had a lot more laugh out loud moments. For example, they're completely unfazed when they meet the robot versions of themselves - "Dude, it's us again!" Also their appearances right at the end, after a final bit of time travelling. When Ted "takes over" his Dad's body and spoke to an audience of police officer, I really laughed hard. Which is ultimately the point after all. Brilliantly done.
Having said that, I also thought it had a few more misfires than I remember of the original. Some of the humour, like spitting, is more disgusting than humorous. Also, even though he becomes pretty important in the sequel, Death hung about the plot quite a lot towards the end without seeming to have much to do.
It did end satisfyingly for its time, given that the second sequel didn't appear for nearly 30 more years, this one would appear to wrap things up somewhat. And it feels churlish to criticise at all such a generally positive and funny movie. Admittedly, if you didn't like the original then you might not like this one, but it's otherwise a worthy sequel.
Midsommar (2019)
Simultaneously thought it was really good, and yet didn't enjoy it. Maybe that's the intention.
This is intrigued me from the DVD shelf at the supermarket, and alas, I already knew how it ended (I caught the ending from other people having played it in a communal location that I then ended up sitting down in). So, I can't really judge how effective the ending was because it wasn't too much of a surprise. But still. It looked intriguing.
The first thing to me to think of, is that it's a sort of Wicker Man clone - physically isolated community who are other-worldly and actually pretty primitive and even can be eventually monstrous, but somehow outsmart the outsiders who come into their midst. This holds true to some extent, but whereas the community in that film was pretty hostile to the outsider, in Midsommar, the community is extremely welcoming. The constant radiation of happiness, from most of the community members most of the time, combined with the beautiful and isolated landscape, the constant sunshine, actually makes it all the more unsettling. It stays all positive and outwardly nice looking even as the events of the film escalate. It's also contrasted very much with the opening scenes that take place in the US, which are all dark, and alternately full of sorrow or awkward silences.
One warning is that it can be relatively explicit, both sexually (including imagery, from early on) and in terms of violence. The brutality is sporadic but when it does happen, it seems to ramp up from 0 to 100 very very quickly, acting a bit like a punch to the gut. Part of the formula for these movies, including this one, is to try and disturb the audience to contrast it with how normal/happy all the commune members seem to be, and it's the same here.
The characters are a mixed bunch. None of the commune members really stand out much, which I think is intentional, because they are a collective. The outsiders come to them as individuals. Josh is researching and mostly respectful; Mark seems to be perpetually moaning about whatever situation he's in. Dani is clearly trying to cope with grief that she's not yet come to terms with, and it's fairly effective how much she seems to be trying (and failing) to get others to tolerate her presence, always proclaiming things to be her fault when they're not, apologising when she doesn't need to etc. And Christian is the perfect foil for the story, mostly trying to be supportive of her as he can whilst not sure he wants to be with her at all when he's young and should be enjoying themselves.
I feel like it went on too long, at nearly two and a half hours. It's not because there's ever-so-much to fit in, it just moves really, really slowly, and the longer it goes on, the slower it seems to go. I was, unfortunately, willing it to end by the time it did, and Dani gyrating about in slow-motion whilst dressed as the may queen was unintentionally amusing.
It does definitely make you think about if there was any sort of message it was trying to push. It's difficult to go into them much without loads of spoilers, but I don't think it was trying to say anything about individualism vs communalism, or toxic masculinity, or modernity. Logic stacks against these arguments without too much thought. Having said that, it does work really well as a study of grief in the form of Dani - mostly. It's quite strong at the start and seems to fall away a bit as the movie goes on.
Ultimately, it's not really scary and it's not that sort of film anyway. Jump-scares aren't really on offer (although there is at least one from memory). I think it's more meant to disturb you a bit and mess with your head about what you just saw. It does become unnerving towards the end especially, when the previously welcoming commune members start behaving in a subtly hostile way towards Christian; likewise when they get what they want from him, he is casually discarded, and even he realises it from his reaction. On the other hand, the way the characters react towards some of the events doesn't really ring true. People disappear, yet despite some of the things they've seen, it seems to be accepted or disregarded. Also Dani seems to learn Swedish in about three days. The idea, I think, is about her moving towards the community she's visiting, but it just seems a bit unbelievable.
Despite thinking it was really good, I can't say I enjoyed being weirded out and disturbed by it much. I think that's the idea of it, and it succeeds as an experience, but I can't imagine wanting to look at it again anytime soon.
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
Really Enjoyed It
I've been wanting to watch this for a while. It's very well known culturally, I remember the cartoon from when I was a kid and I feel like it's a bit of a blot that I've somehow not seen it yet. I think seeing that the second sequel had emerged recently spurred me to want to see where it all started.
So, because Bill & Ted is a pretty well-known series already, the film doesn't deliver anything you don't expect even if you've ever seen it. Two pretty likeable, if somewhat useless, teenagers who unexpectedly become venerated gods because of their music so many years in the future becomes the foundation of society - IF they can keep, somewhat, on the straight and narrow and deliver a book report.
It is very funny. I think you maybe do have a appreciate "silly" humour, because it's not really a movie you can judge with logic. Probably the funniest bits just come from the way our titular characters talk which can seem a bit other-worldly, and the way they describe things and interact with the other characters in their world. It also, somehow, managed to do it without making them into stoners, which seemed refreshing.
I actually really liked the effects, even for the 80s they seemed pretty good. The telephone booth time travel and the circuits of time. Bill & Ted look and dress kind of like you'd expect them to, but the futuristic society (mostly as exemplified by Rufus) have an interesting look. Everything they dress in is kind of grey with sunglasses, which despite how it sounds, somehow does radiate "cool".
You do very much have to suspend your disbelief with how the figures borrowed from history react, but there again, this is a movie about a time-travelling phone booth. So even though everyone from Napoleon to Genghis Khan seem pretty passive and content to be transported to the future, just take it as it is, sit back and enjoy without thinking too much about it.
Ultimately to me, it's just a sit-back, switch-your-brain-off movie to just enjoy and laugh at the characters and the situations they get themselves into. It made me very much look forward to looking at the sequels - part 3 in particular looks like it could have an interesting twist.
The Game (1997)
Loved it!
This is the sort of film that appeals to me a great deal. The plot reminds me a bit of Shutter Island - the subjects of these movies are completely different, but the similarity is that they twist and turn, and repeatedly turn the world on its head, to keep you guessing and make you doubt what in the movie is real. This film seemed to promise that from the description.
And my goodness, did it deliver. I watched it in two chunks, and had to try REALLY hard not to look up what was coming next. It was massively gripping and kept me wanting to watch to find out what was happening.
Michael Douglas does put in a solid performance here. He convincingly carries off the cold, and always-in-control lead character. You can see that he is very used to getting his own way, very used to being in control and in environments he is comfortable in, and how he gradually starts to lose his cool as he finds that control being taken away with nothing he can do about it. Later on, as he is reduced to a very pitiful state, and again it's carried off well, as a man coming to terms with what he has lost.
The ending has apparently gotten some stick, but I actually enjoyed it. I must admit, I didn't guess it at all. Quite often these sorts of movies seem to end either badly, or in a sort of "it was all a dream" kind of way, but this one took its own route. I thought it pulled it off well, and it kept me guessing!
My only real gripes were that there is a backstory about the lead character's father, but it's hardly explored and mostly mentioned but then discarded again. I'm not sure it added much. Also, as well as Michael Douglas, pretty much everyone in this gave a really good performance. I just felt that Sean Penn was a bit wasted. He turned in a good show as well but was hardly in it.
If mysteries/conspiracies are your thing and you don't like predictability, this should definitely be your thing.
Space Force (2020)
Enjoyed it. Funny.
I went through the entire series over the course of a couple of weeks, on the basis that it looked like a funny premise and because of Steve Carrell. And by and large it lived up to expectations. It was generally funny, occasionally very laugh-out-loud funny, but maybe stopped short of being a classic.
Steve Carrell was actually remarkably restrained altogether, I felt, but this somewhat reflected the strait-laced, unintentionally funny character he was playing. One of the things that surprised me was that I thought the stand out actor/character wasn't Steve Carrell but John Malkovich playing Dr Mallory There really were a couple of stand-out hilarious moments, mostly in season 1 but in both. Brad singing in front of a committee in support of Naird is a stand-out moment in my mind.
Having said that, I thought all the actors did a great job, and pretty much every character is memorable. There may have been actual budget cuts in season 2 because a couple of the love interests - Naird and Erin's - disappeared without trace, and there were a lot less space-based sequences in general. It also tried to move with the times a bit. Season 1 had an unnamed POTUS that was clearly Donald Trump, sticking in an unwanted oar. Season 2 seemed post-Trump and a new administration and also, 7 episodes rather than 10.
Each episode has its own plot with an ongoing backstory across both series. They cover quite a lot of what you might expect in series 1 especially, then they have to get a little bit more creative in season 2 when it looks like they have less money to spend. There are a couple of moments however that I thought really did defy cliché; the fate of Maggie Naird quite early on was unexpected, and Erin's planned party, where the cliché would have been to have everyone turn up and trash the place - it didn't do that. So it'll throw in a couple of surprises too.
In all, overall funny with a few stand out hilarious moments, and I'd happily watch it again. Entertaining, mostly well-made, well-acted, memorable characters and a decent enough set of storylines. Not a classic in the annals of history, but I was sad to see it had been cancelled nonetheless.
Fright Night (1985)
Enjoyed it a great deal
I was pretty surprised with how much I enjoyed Fright Night, given that I really expected a run-of-the-mill, trashy horror with vampires in it. There is an awful lot to like.
Our hero is in some pretty typical teenage angst with his love life as the movie kicks off, and it manages to not be cringey and awkward, but is an interesting backdrop, as our hero also discovers who's moved in next door. The hero in question, his love interest and the best friend are a generally likeable bunch, and the way they fight and wind each other up is quite endearing altogether. However, the show is rather stolen by the characters of Peter Vincent and Jerry Dandridge. Vincent is hilariously eccentric, and his frequently scared and often puzzled expressions about what's going on are brilliant. Dandridge also is an interesting take for a vampire - he is quite suave and something of a magnet to females, despite obviously being a monster to ourselves as viewers. His exterior occasionally cracks revealing his more savage side underneath. I also thought his "room mate" was played extremely well, as a sort of ordinary everyman but enthusiastically participating in something monstrous.
The story can feel like it wanders about a bit before getting to the point, but it really is an enjoyable ride. It isn't really all that scary or menacing, more sort of comedic and enjoyable. It also doesn't rely at all on jump scares, which I think are a cheap way of trying to get shocks. The make-up on the vampires also looks pretty good, especially on Evil Ed.
Enjoyable, well-done, doesn't take itself remotely seriously. I would say, take it more as entertainment and comedy than horror. Performances are good, and there are some very memorable characters in there. I can certainly see why it's viewed as a cult classic.
The Lost Boys (1987)
Menace And Enjoyable Hokum
I feel somewhat late to the party. Not only have I never seen this, but I seem to have missed all of the vampire movies that became fashionable in the 80s. Only one thing I must add upfront, I did accidentally catch the ending of this movie ages ago so knew in advance what happened - so I can't really judge the effectiveness of the ending here, alas.
I would say the movie had two main strands running through it. The first was the menace of the gang themselves, and the sort of mystery that surrounds them. It works extremely well, and they somehow remain mysterious, and David remains "cool", even though you know so far in advance what they are. It really works. It's never exactly scary, but the way they can appear out of nowhere, the motorcycle lights that flash by the window, the shouted taunts. I also liked the way some of the effects were quite understated. The vampire attacks are often represented only by a camera moving towards the target and them running from it screaming. I also liked the make-up effects. They were pretty simple, especially I would imagine by modern standards of vampire movies, but there was no doubting just how monstrous they were. "You're dead meat!!"
If somehow had told me in advance that this could be mixed with a movie that never seems to take itself terribly seriously, I'd have really doubted it, but it worked here very well. The Grandpa character is a bit of a running joke; the Frog brothers trying to be very gravel-voiced and grown-up throughout; the mess that eventually gets made of the house. It was set just enough to make it rewarding to watch and thoroughly enjoyable at the same time.
It's very good for what it is. It's no epic or anything, but it's well made for what it is. If well-made and fun is your thing, give it a try, even if you're no fan of the vampire genre. I wasn't, but enjoyed it a lot.
Bag of Bones (2011)
Wouldn't recommend it
Like a lot of the reviewers on here, I also read the book first but seemingly unlike a lot of them, I didn't think it was that great. It started strongly, but tapered off considerably as it progressed. It still wasn't bad - 3/5 score perhaps, but I think Mr King has written much better. Even so, I was curious to see how an adaptation of it would pan out, especially because I feel like it's challenging source material.
Alas, I can't really recommend it. Firstly, the whole thing lasts about 2 hours 40 minutes, so from a 500+ page book, they will have to cut it down considerably - this is a given. However, I felt they tried to fit too much of it in, and this was the big shortcoming. To touch on the major points of the story, the plot ricocheted around like a pinball - throw in a required character, and then you might not see them again until the end. By the time a possible romance is on the cards between two characters, I'm fairly sure they've only met twice beforehand. There is a memorable line about "Cease your legal manoeuvrings!" - what legal manoeuvrings? They are present in the book, sure, but all that had happened by that point was the character in question had attended a hearing. Alternatively to the zooming around and rapid-fire plot would be, theoretically, to make it a longer series.
The big major plus with it is that pretty much all the characters and settings look absolutely perfect. The house, the area, the lake, they all look much as I would imagine, so the visuals are great. The one exception is potentially the villain, Max Devore himself, who didn't come across as all that twisted and villainous. He looked more like a grandpa in a wheelchair who occasionally said unpleasant things, and I feel like an opportunity was lost to create a more grotesque and twisted villain. But still, overall, they got the visuals right.
Alas, this can't really save the pretty broken and confused plot. Even the tagline, "Beware the lake", gives away how much they were trying to cram in - the lake doesn't even feature much in the story here! Yes, in the book it does, but not if you take this as a story in its own right. I will compliment the ending though, in that the last few lines were touching and did basically tie it all together. But overall, I'd give it a miss.
The Queen's Gambit (2020)
HATED it
Sorry, I despised this. I wouldn't normally review because I can't bring myself to watch the final episode, but I imagine it's more of the same rubbish that went before it. And it started so well.
I really enjoyed the first couple of episodes, as Beth grew up. Alas, she grew up into such a thoroughly unpleasant individual who happens to be good at chess, and then spends several excruciating episodes associating with thoroughly hateful individuals who usually also happens to also be good at chess. The only remotely likeable character was her adoptive mother. Towards the end it turned into a sort of "This is your life" as every character she'd ever previously met turned up, one after the other; I rather hoped they'd all get together and all be killed by a simultaneous lightning strike. It didn't seem likely, so I stopped watching.
Good opening episodes, and very well done in the mid-century settings are the redeeming features. Other than that, the cast of utterly loathsome characters made it difficult to watch for more than 15 minutes; then 10 minutes; finally I couldn't stomach more than 2 minutes before switching on the news.
Uncut Gems (2019)
A Brilliantly Made, Compulsive, Difficult Watch
This was an absolutely terrific film. I can't compliment enough the writing, direction and acting, and it doesn't give the impression of having been put together on a huge budget. However, even though I watched it compulsively, I don't think I actually enjoyed it at all! And that itself is a testament to how good it is.
The story is like a giant pincer of events, constantly threatening to overtake the main character, jeweller Howard Ratner and his attempts to stay ahead of them. The movie is extremely claustrophic, and the tension ramps up and up towards the end. It's an extremely uncomfortable watch and makes you squirm in your seat.
The main driver of the story is the main character, Howard. His main attribute seems to be his ability to absolutely mess up, thoroughly, every single situation he's in. Even when he's doing well, he ends up pushing his luck just that bit too far and then losing - one misstep after another. He is a pretty unlikeable guy; when given the chance, he is weasely towards anyone that might be able to do him harm, yet does not shrink from treating else with utter contempt when he can. But you end up sympathising with him. The entire movie follows him as he is repeatedly insulted and slapped around by absolutely everyone, and as everything repeatedly explodes in his face. When he finally breaks down some way into the film, you actually feel bad for him. It's brilliant writing to make you feel bad for such a reprehensible individual.
I will acknowledge that I would, ordinarily, avoid any film with Adam Sandler in, because he's in it. I really hope he's able to do more films like this. He's brilliant.
The tension ramps up and does keep you guessing as it builds to the finale. You feel cynicism that it's going to go the same way as everything else that has gone before, but you may be surprised at the twists it takes. Overall, very highly recommended.
House of Cards (2013)
Starts Strong And Gradually Declines
I started out as a fan of the British version of House Of Cards and, to a lesser extent, its two sequels, and was curious to see its American equivalent. All six series had already been released on Netflix before I began at series 1, episode 1.
What are the positives? This series has a pretty decent cast and throughout I thought all the acting was really good. Also the way it looked. The set designs always seemed really good throughout; I always thought it was visually pretty good to look at, and the attention to detail was excellent, even to Underwood's gradually greying hair. It made a few nods to the original like the one line of "You might very well think that, I couldn't possibly comment". And to begin with, the writing was very good as well. The story was fairly complex with a large cast of characters, and it was subtle. Underwood tries to manipulate everything like a giant chess game going on, and it was a slow burn.
The series gets gradually more flawed as it goes on, and the gradually ever-more fatal glaring flaw is that the writing gets worse and worse. By series 6, it barely resembles how it started. Kevin Spacey's public disgrace is just one of those things that the show's writers couldn't do much about - it lost its star, but it should have been more than compensated by Robin Wright, who arguably had a more compelling and interesting character all along anyway. But the writing is really bad. All the subtlety is gone; the characters pretty much just speak loud slogans at each other. The main antagonists are such caricatures; for people that haven't been mentioned before series 6, they seem to pretty much control the whole of the American economy and government (I half expected them to be labelled Dr Evil And Sister). And the writing seems to very much be predicated on "Which main character shall we randomly kill of this week?" Every time one of them gets in a car, you expect it to explode.
It's still worth a watch, maybe up to the end of season 4. The big "twist" at the end of season 5 is utterly nonsensical and season 6 is just endurance; I nearly switched it off after episode 4 (mercifully it was only 8 episodes rather than 13). It's a shame that the lingering sense I felt of it was just how disappointing it ended up being, when considered as to how well it all started.