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Neon (2023)
Wish version of Entourage.
I feel like this was written by millennials. In what world would these people get a music contract, their action, the claims, the idealism of how the industry works...it's the writing< it's so bad. Shame because everything else is fine. There's two ways of looking at this, either you use it to show why writers today don't deserve the pay they claim, or you use it to show what you get when you don't pay for professional writers.ironically, it portrays an internet star trying to make his way in the "real" world of the music industry, while not being taken seriously by his peers. If this was made for YouTube, written staring and directed by a tuber then you could say it had potentials for such a person. To find out this had real producers, etc. Well! So my conclusion, is as the headline says "the wish version of Entourage" if you haven't seen entourage< skip this and go watch that, unless your particularly into the music scene, because Entourage is the actor version.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022)
God damn awful.
This is not Star Trek, its some pathetic imagining of the worst elements of all the worst of modern forced idealisms.
I have been a fan of all the treks for over 40 years. And this is just a sequence of dragging the most guttural of clichés from every part of the quadrant together to make a very forgettable, out of context waste of time.
I give it 2 stars rather than 1, because there is some good in it, the effects some of the acting, none of the actors are to blame...Well one is, one character will make you grind your teeth everytime she opens her mouth. She doesn't fit...please quit...go, leave, you are responsible for -5 of the 8 stars removed from this show. I'm certain I don't even have to name her...we all know who it is!
So apart from the terrible storylines, which admitedly do try to emulate some of the earlier TOS feeling, TOS did this for concession to budget and for technological reasons. This doesn't have that excuse while still trying to portray these forgiven expectations for its time, with a decent budget, and modern FX abilities there is no reason to do this.
But why I say this is not star trek! It's all the characters assemved to make the show.
You see Star Trek has always been woke, but woke in the right way!
What is wrong with the current super-woke movement this is embodying, is the way it wants everybody to be equal in all things and it does so by mere lies that we are. And it whitewashes over our beautiful and natural differences...
Roddenberry's wondefully crafted and truthful way of being woke was to make all the characters as we truly are, with unique strengths and traits, sometimes weaknesses, same as Tolkien, same as even original Dungeons and Dragons when you assemble your party, you have requisites that are uniqur to each character. And he shown that by working together as a collective, a team, a crew of all these unique talents which everybody has at differing levels we can overcome all obstacles...we represent humanity as a collective of differences like a jigsaw of differing peices combine to the solution, you dont make an interesting jigsaw, whee all the pieces ate the same in both shape and picture.
Also the stories of TOS parodied the issues of the time to show how this works, racism, slavery, sexism, government overreach, fascism,addiction, war... Hell, he famously aired the first interacial kiss on TV, so don't assume I'm some conservative fuddy daddy, to me It makes total sense to ci tinue that tradition and any new star trek should follow in these steps with the similar issues people face today in prejudice and lack of empath for those with different lives and lifestyles, let's push those boundaries of conservative ideas of the previous generations...I'm all up for that!
But when the characters no longer have their unique talents and characteristics that they used to bring to the table, and every character is a scientist/fighter/engineer/expert in everything....you create a hot mess of nobody being essential to the crew, forgettable and replaceable.
Roddenberry proved that diversity in all its spectrum was humanities greatest strength, not clones of superheros, all with the same ideals, personalities and l abilities.
And this premise has been repeated in all star treks up until very recently with this fashion wokism which is sweeping the world were we have to deny our own eyes and experiences, where we pretend we're all exactly the same so that nobody brings an essential unique talent.
Ted Lasso (2020)
Loses its way in season 3
Of course it's hard to review a series, with its component episodes, of ups and downs, some will be enjoyed more than others. But season 3 has fell fowl of losing its way entirely. It's now less about a group of people, working together through a struggling football club. But now a generic relationship program, one of a billion. Throwing in any cliche they can to stay relevant. Instead of a fun show, taking the angle that you don't have to be cutthroat to win, but sometimes compassion, love and understanding of others can win the day. Now it's taking us on the tired same old moral stories, shove it in our faces that prejudice exists, same sex couples are now a thing. Pllllleeeeaasse. Ok...we know, we very program now on tv has that message, the originality of ted lasso, was that it was unique in its simple message. I won't be wantching as Eason 4, and I don't think many will. It's gone generic. Move along, nothing new to see here any longer.
La Brea (2021)
The biggest sink hole in the world...is the plot hole
Huge Holes Everywhere
Looks good in the trailers doesn't it, I mean who wouldn't want to watch a time travel version of Lost with Walking dead character types...
everyone, because that's all it is a remake of Lost with scenarios stolen from the formulaic guff that's being pumped out of the streaming channels nowadays.
And guess what...its season finale simply sets up season 2...dint see that coming from a mile away...I did, I did we see all the plot twists and reveals.
And as for spoilers...who in this day and age writes a time travel paradox show, without understanding high school causality? I mean has none of teh writers seen back to the future? Or at least Rick & Morty?
So its seems they're quite happy to use paradox consequences that suit the plot, but ignore the same paradoxes that would also be affected by those very same actions>
Here's the spoilers as an example
if mom, has to take her young version of her husband to a portal which puts him back in 1984 from 10,000bc so he can grow up and become her husband otherwise her son who is with her in 10,000BC will cease to exists....then the fact that she only fell into the portal in the sinkhole was because she ran back to save that very same son in present day, would also fail to be a part of that causality, ergo she wouldn't be in 10,000bc to put the son in the portal..one could argue that its cyclic, but then if its cyclic as one of the cast tries poorly to explain then linearity overlaps the cyclic states...meaning she could not fail to put him into the portal...even if she didn't try...because she's there in 10,000BC
also some guff about what starts off as her husband having these psychic visions, which turn out to be memories from his youth in 10,000BC cannot include the plot reveal that he knew were her ring was buried when she lost it...because he wasn't there as a child when she lost it to remember that. Not to mention that ring surviving 10,000 years in the found and coming out as shiny as the day it was made..seems the writers at this stage hadn't decided this particular reasoning, so again fail!
The plot is riddled with this nonsense contrived plot holes, which suit a very basic narrative...to the point you spend most of it screwing your face up saying,,,how can that happen?...if?...that doesn't make sense?
If you don't understand basic causality...don't write a time travel film.
'Lost' in the plot holes is the tagline to this howler.
Don't get invested,, they were running out of ideas by episode 5 and budget it seemed as despite the fx budget being spent in the opening scene and from that point on its one poorly animated bear and one woolly mammoth...other than a couple of birds its mainly just some people stood in a field hapless at basic survival skills who keep getting themselves injured, shot or dying only to be perfectly well an episode later. Oh, not to mention they are in the ice age, but its beautiful sunny weather apart from 1 episode where the snow doesn't even last that episode out...
also ask yourself since at least 1 mile of buildings fell into this hole, skyscrapers the works...why is there only like 30 people down there in episode one, filtering out to about 12 by episode 5...did they just wander off...no buildings fell through, despite seeing at least 40 fall in, and a few cars and a bus....honestly lame!
...there's not two seasons in this formulaic guff.
Dune: Part One (2021)
dismal drivel
On the plus side, compared to the David Lynch version, I could actually follow the plot...on the down side, now I understand the plot, I realise why David Lynch avoided following it.
The suspension of disbelief in the logic and scale of this drawn out tooth extraction, is your old trope about a prophesied special Harry Potter/jesus/avatar/king Arthur/endless other "you're a wizard harry" coming of age and finally their powers and destiny are revealed story.
Combine this with the darkest dismal grey but over scaled cinematography supposedly set on a desert planet which has a super hot sun...you'd expect to actually feel the major issues that are supposedly the adversaries of life and development of this planet done so well many times in any desert based film, sadly not really explored other than telling you its dry. So how about letting us feel like its a dried out hot planet, not just an inconvenient plot hanger when it suits.
I'll give it scale...for some reason everything is built huge, from walls to doors which are neither aesthetically pleasing or serve functional design purpose. So why did anyone bother building halls and rooms with 200 foot tall doors that they can walk down in ceremony like kings in GOT??? 10 people who walk through them a day? Why on a resource tight planet, are you building pointless empty grand gery and drab palaces???...because its the future...Erm ok!
Theres these sandworms, what 300m long did they say? The size of tall buildings anyway, who survive on this planet and manage to grow to that size by eating what???? The occasional desert lost soul, and huge building size mining tanks...tasty! These creatures hear sound vibrations of your footprints on the desert as long as you walk with a stable beat...in which case they ignore you and carry on swimming through the sand crapping out spice. Which is easily avoided by maybe not walking, and using some of the endless hovering anti-grav tech, but for some reason people tend to prefer to walk across this desert. Because...well plot requires it.
Theres the opportunity to terraform the planet we're told, but they decided not to and to live in a wasteland while they mined the spice, because "Spice". Yes, they couldn't terraform tthe whole thing because they found spice and that was a better commodity, however nobody thought to terraform a small part of an entire planet they live on for some reason, so they live in hell.
There's some spice hooked natives whoiare in the millions, but need rescuing by the boy, even though they are better fighters than any man has ever seen, and outnumber the bad guys like a million to one...but they take the inhumanity and suffering while awaiting our Harry potter to finaly arrive and rescue them from the tirrany....because...well prophecy, they need him to lead them, without him they're busy recycling spit, because water is so scarce.
This is set around an emperor "of theknown universe" with millions of planets under his command, double crossing the growing power of "house atraidees" (sp) which he fears (about 100 people I reckon, lead by our Harry Potter, his mum and dad. So being so powerful Emperor ruling over planets and solar systems he sets them up to fail, loyal subjects that they always were and seemingly not plotting against him, they need to die anyway (but not mum and boy thats part of the agreement). The army of miners who had been plundering the planet and being bad guys in general to the locals are in on the plot, they hand over the keys to the fiefdom of the spice planet to house atraidees. With crap mining materials so that the good guys will fail, and tehy swoop in and kill off whos left, which have not been killed by the harsh nature of the planet. After like 5 die by a worm eating one spice harvester, house artraidees are sufficiently weak enough for Hakkans to return and launch an attack of their 1,000 vs Atraidees what 50? (remember this is the emperor of the universe and an interstellar battle were meant to believe), with ships the size of moons, and millions of crew. (off camera for convenience).
The tech, wow I love the dragon fly ships, awesome, nice original concept...despite being 10,000 ADish, people fight hand to hand with knives and tiny assasin drone needles that look like beetles, because guns are not suited to the plot.
Oh, the agreement not to kill atraidees mum and son because theyre part of some matriarchal dynasty, but just because the Hakaans agreed not to kill them, there's no reason they shouldn't just keep letting them go assuming their dead in a Austin Powers Dr Evil assumption, where they use their super powers of "telling people what to do" Jedi mind trick is developing. And used to convince baddies to let them go. Yawn!
But yes, its huge budget and huge scale spent badly so you know your seeing a lot of money and therefore something so expensive should be great...but its really not, when you look through the cracks, its superficially awesome in scale.. but cannot live up to the grandeur it pretends to be.
Good visual effects does not make a great film, this is not great film and this idea that throwing money at effects means something is good is becoming all to common, its disappointing that people nowadays are so easily tricked into believing they're seeing something significant. Please look through that veil of effects and scale, and look at the drivel you are actually watching.
Lykke-Per (2018)
3 hours of wasted celluloid.
I just knew that this is exactly the kind of pretentious indulgence that will have high credited reviews which it does not deserve, and knew this would be one I needed to redress a balance from the con artists that write such reviews on this kind of film, in attempts to elevate their own egotism.
It's the plot, the dialogue, the whole execution is terrible, and if this had been a first language English film, it would have been slighted as such and been sent to room 101 with countless other Hollywood celluloid cuttings which the financiers try to distance themselves from at haste.
It's the same old pretentious idiots who want to support art house European garbage as though some great literary example of European intellect. In truth, it's garbage. I implore people to objectively view it on its merits as a film, not as a European, classy dub/subtitle.
It is so poorly written, and a hammed story line you can only feel sorry for the poor actors who had to work with it. The dialogue drags out the story from the lips of the actors like a dentist extracting stubborn teeth. You are literally spoon fed exposition from moment to moment and the story isn't sufficient to carry out it, it's the intellectual equivalent to a poor manga comic, based in fiddler on the roof Europe. The dialogue is so, so ,so ,so bad. I like foreign films, well good ones at least. it's not a language barrier, it's poor writing in any language.
Example..(paraphrased from actual scene)
She: I wish I had lots of money and was rich.
He: well you don't, you're poor.
She: but if I did I could fund your project
He: well you aren't rich and never will be.
This is used to show the protagonist has an idea, but it needs financing.
That's the child like, level of exposition, which is why I knew the pseudo-intellectuals would jump all over this; because it's 3 hours longs, subtitled, and they could get their minds around this single layered, literalistic extraction of a non-event, from beginning to end. Not to mention it virtue shames modern day ideologies of renewable energy forms, into a fake historic context, ignoring any efforts in making the timeline fit within the works of Edison and Tesla, it's like these guys didn't exist and we jump to fake timeline with this balloon as the leader in the fields of al, energy distribution.
The exposition instead of acting, or direction is relentless from beginning to end. Of course, being such a master of verbosity, he wins over every woman he likes.
My god it is awful, then with a sledgehammer wedges in pseudo-intellectual axioms every now and again, just to further massage the ego of anyone who has touched upon any classic literature with an esoteric homage to in a feeble attempt at placing itself within their ranks.
It's like the essence of Tolstoy, being executed with the subtlety of Akira, dragged out over 3 hours, with the pace of walkabout. Which individually all have greatness, but combined is an acidic compound which destroys all in its vicinity.
Love Sarah (2020)
Bad dynamics, bad writing..no point..truly awful.
What is going on here? The characters are all borderline bipolar, one minute there's dislike and distrust, next undying commitment.
There's no fluidity or relationship building. Everything is ham fisted and forced into the next dynamic, with little consideration of making your hook onto any particular thread.
If you've never seen this film before...don't worry you've seen it all before.
Even the whole bakery arch goes on the predictable odds against, to all that is needed is someone to believe, to no customers, all looks dire, followed by a review in a magazine....then happy ending with little development.
The whole film is just a series of barely connected scenes and even barely-er connected characters. The only one with a decent character is killed off in the opening sequence.
Throw in some filler scenes like the grandmothers circus act??? What? Why? What did this lead to...oh nothing, much like every other scene.
Then don't mention it again...throw in a love scene that comes out of nowhere, then drop that...tick checkbox romance, was there anything funny? Nope, not that I remember, rule out comedy, oh and drama....nothing dramatic because there was zero investment in any development of anything.
oh, then there was the paternity test scene, like they decided a subplot of could she be the male leads daughter...but that's mentioned twice before, then they're at the most ridiculous paternity test clinic you've ever seen, but you don't really care one way or the other if these two are related, because it's not been a feature of the film.
In short, too much money spent by the investors on a film without any originality or substance. Three stars is being kind, because I have to credit the performances would be fine, given a half decent script... this is a long way from half decent.
Alan Bennett's Talking Heads (2020)
Dull, unimaginative and repetitive.
"If you've seen one, you've seen them all", mother used to say as we sat at the breakfast table.she always sat there for serious discussion.
"It's all sex and that, unrequilted love" she said, of course she meant unrequited, but I knew what she meant.
"Have you been to the allotments?", she was right of course, about seeing one, seeing all.
"aye, I went yesterday" I said, I hadn't, but she wouldn't know.
That's Alan Bennett. Rinse and repeat, throw in some thing out the ordinary usually some narrative of a forbidden sexual encounter that he's trying to mitigate, and a passive aggressive dig at some racial grouping, just once mind, as not to make it the feature of the ramble, usually Indian, harping back to the 60s mindset he never really left behind, casual racism that were meant to think comes from the mind of some suburban housewife, so he can maintain cognitive dissonance from his own narrative,
There must be one in every episode, then he will make some statement as thought the character is accepting of that culture....at a distance, as though he has the right to be a judge and then benevolent with his acceptance, "applaud me, I'm live and let live". while he projects this abstract acceptability of mitigation for perceived societal sexual deviations for his own middle class mind.
Meanwhile you've set up a minor twist, that comes as no shock to anyone, as you reveal it in quarterly sections, little hint a quarter of the way in, a little reinforcement of if halfway, big confirmation 3/4 of the way through, followed by quiet reflection of the shock, opinion, and acceptance of the last act.
Which probably mentions the original opening clue as a closing statement, to show you that the clues were there all along.
As for the wooden, predictable staring out of the windows of the actors. Clearly none of them got to see any of the others works, and all opted to go for the same basic drama 101.
Deep in thought, pause, look off from the camera, wait, 3,2,1, next line. Or juicy gossip you have to say with immediacy. Look into the camera, say the line, pull face afterwards to reflect smaller or "what do you think of that?" expression.
It is great to return drama to the tv, play for today is long missed. But it's about time the world woke up to the fact that Alan Bennett has one story, that he's been piping out for his, and our lifetimes.
The tragedy is, most people can't see it.
I clicked contains spoilers, but that's an understatement, I've just about spoiled everything Bennett has ever written.because it's all the same, made more evident by watching this series in quick succession.
Independently, if no other er Bennett work was around, then for sure, excellent, imaginative. Cutting and thought provoking. It's when you see all these works together, and reflect on them and his others, you suddenly realise...they're all the same.
"Aye, you've seen one, you've seen them all".
Ad Astra (2019)
Dont bother buying a turkey this xmas, watch this! The most dull, self indulgent boring film of this century
Wow! does this thing drag out. with the narrative provided by Brad seemingly self indulgent vanity writing of the worst dialogue writer in the world. Its like a 1950s dectective noir, set in space. you could almost hear the words pumped from a terrible pulp fiction novel where the writer tries to be deep and metaphorical in almost everything down to his cup of coffee.."a coffee so dark, it could shake the shadow off a windswept moonless evening"...adlib, but that kind of terrible, terrible writing. the fact iit was written and directed by the same guy once would assume he also had funding in it. To say it's boring is the excite people into redefining their previous expecations of tedium. As for the film itself, well Brad pit would never qualify as a space pilot thats for sure, well he wouldnt get insurance cover. He crashed onto something more times than Mr Magoo! it was like re-watching Armageddon without the cool soundtrack or the thrill of caring about a character, let alone the earth. The plot was dijointed, we struggled to work out why anybody did anything..so the direction was as bad as the writing. No word of a lie, you could take out all the scenes in editing room, throw the snippets up in the air, splice them where they fell and still end up with the same film. This is going to bomb..biggest turkey I've seen in 10 years!
The Hustle (2019)
If you are going to remake a film...make it better!
There is no point to this film whatsoever.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a classic, brilliantly executed. So who in their right minds thought to pick up that script, almost do a "search and replace" on some of the tags to bring it into 2019 by replacing "inherited fortune" with "internet app designer" and one or two other simple updates that really, really didn't work purely for the sake of making this yet another millennial "lets do it for the girls" flick
I like Rebel Wilson, it seems almost to be a trend to dislike her, she has her place in the market for her "lost all hope, but I am what I am/slob" character, I think her best film is yet to come with good comedy writers shes not yet had and this film is no exception..I blame the writer who has made no effort to modernized the original drawing on the shift in the modern culture.
That would be Jac Schaeffer as all other credited writers stem from the original, it can only be Jac who used her search and replace feature in word and whatever ideas were on the cover of the magazines on her coffee table.
If that's what it takes to be a writer in Hollywood nowadays someone better book me a first class ticket as I can do 100x better!
There's a wave of idealism now which is to recreate characters with different requisites so as to create a sense of forced equality as Hollywood tries to absolve itself for the woeful lack of representation of women and alternative races to their mainstream white cultures historically, and instead of allowing a natural evolution of new and wonderful identities that we can say belongs to them, they're just literally overwriting well established characters to the disappointment of all franchises involved.
STOP IT!
Make new films, new characters, new worlds where these underrepresented social types can establish themselves. It's almost a reverse whitewash, which just shows that Hollywood haven't learned anything, they think tipping the scales the other way will bring balance...it wont, and you will just get your audience disenfranchised with the whole thing. The mores is crying out for such things, but not in the way you are doing it.
With female confidence tricksters and the reversing of the roles sexually, it doesn't work for this film and they have to go to painstaking lengths to fit the dynamics the other way around.
Sorry Rebel could not pull off the deviously vulnerable part played by Steve Martin simply because the sexual dynamics the orignal had.
Anne, had the easier role of the straight man originally played by Micheal Cain and it being comedy we wont land any failing at her door for the fact that it was without a laugh throughout, as it will onto Rebels shoulders, this is unfair, they both did what they do...well!
Also the development of a connection between the rivals went from none existent to "were friends" in the flip of a coin, which left you wondering why they became friends, the original unfolded at a good pace. The army scene was replaced with some mature Essex ladies didn't work. The mentally challenged sibling rouse was replaced with I don't know what, it was the biggest comedy element in the film, left unexplored where Steve's silliness was replaced with Rebel just being clingy and annoying.
Even the scams seemed that the hustlers would need to spend more money in their construction than they could've reaped from the rewards, with subterranean princess palaces behind Hannibal Lecter like containment cells replacing the locked basement in the original.
I gave it a 4, but I think that's mainly nostalgia.from the original.
this film should NEVER have been made.
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
Series one..best Star Trek ever. Series to, a return dreary repetition of themes rehashed.
I gave up on Star Trek after being a huge fan in the 90s with the next gen, Ds9, Voyager because it really went nowhere.
Then this came along in series one, and I was amazed, finally a StarTrek which engaged adults and had a sense of characters who weren't pretent , holier than though, diplomats, but swearing, killing, procreating people I could sense a state of familiarity with.
StarTrek grew up.
Season two...return to the drivel, pumped out episode after episode, emotional, predictable, happy endings.
I just watched my last episode, serum gets a cold, then miraculously gets better, "seeing th light" after an inevitable death build up.
Yawn...
They ruined it AGAIN....the evolution of StarTrek into the 21st century, now sadly returns to where every episode has unboldly been before, over and over again.
I don't know who was behind this change of direction, form a long awaited originality back into mediocrity, but whoever it is...we'll done you're dullness is exemplary. Sadly the great score this series has, probably came from series one, and the reviewers have not yet come back to correct their score. Why? It makes no sense.
Aquaman (2018)
The Aquaman Game
While watching this film my sone and I devised the Aquaman game. The premise is simple. You watch this film with a timer running and a pen and notepad. Every time you see a line, concept, scene or cliche which is undeniably stolen from another film you write the time and the reference down. The person with the most wins.
The whole film is just scenes from some of the most successful films of all time, strung together in some sort of "guaranteed formula" concept of ensuring success, that patently has failed to work.
IIt'snot a bad film, it's not as terrible as people make out, but it has too many plot holes and failures to allow yourself to escape into the universe and put the faults behind you to make any real constructed frame which makes the film whole. But, no joke its like watching every film you have ever seen before strung into one, with scenes from star wars, Warcraft, harry potter, game of thrones, how to train your dragon,"King Arthur", Avatar, Finding Nemo, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribean, Hercules....and I don't mean these are similar themes, they are full identifiable scenes!
Throughout the film you question choices of rational, like why did the mother stay away so long? it tries to explain, but the answer doesnt make sense?
Overall switch your brain off and enjoy the ride, if you bother to think in the film you will quickly turn into dispising it,
Stan & Ollie (2018)
Heart rendering beauty
Steve Coogan has catapulted himself into a different class in this film, John C Riley, well you kind of expect and he never disappoints, solid and dependable.
With such distinguished and recognisable cast, you kind of expect to see the familiar characters of the actors themselves playing parts that you cannot suspend disbelief. Clint Eastwood for example, you see a Clint Eastwood film, you have no idea who he's playing, it's just Clint Eastwood. But here, Steve Coogan disappears from the screen and becomes Stan Laurel, you are aware there are some slight physical appearance which make you know it's not quite right, but you are not seeing Steve Coogan, that's for sure. The film is engaging, enlightening into the real people that existed behind the alter egos of Laurel and Hardy, and is a beautiful dip into their personal relationship without portraying any dirty dark revelations that a sensationalist may be tempted to put into a film.
Instead it remains for the most, a journey you take with the boys, and their struggle to remain relevant in a fast changing world after some not so good decisions in hindsight, and decisions which were presented well enough for you to subscribe to the reasoning of each possibility and probably make the same mistakes yourself. What im trying to say is that some films will present such bad career decisions as painfully obvious to the viewer, but this film left you taking both sides with equal validity.
But most of all, the film presents their deep and loving friendship. I wept, I wiped the tears and weaped some more. The kind of tear when you are simply moved by such genuine love.
The film seemed to be over too quickly, I could've stayed another hour and half.
Well done all concerned.
Now this, this is award winning stuff.
The Favourite (2018)
Hype over substance
A disappointing film, I honestly cannot see what everybody's is banging on about.
Seemingly filmed on security cameras with wide angled lenses which distorted the vision, cut with on obtuse period of a single piano key alternating a beat with a rusty saw being played with a violin bow, this fastly became the most uncomfortable film I have ever had to endure. I noticed that I was physically furrowing my brow in subconscious distain for the filming. Which spent too long in the beginning jumping around between the characters for you to comfortably establish any sense of direction.
Nothing original in the script, typical follies of the period, a little jealousy and skullduggery between rising factions of the established order and the new. The film seemed to make its entire story based on those simple concepts that are usually an overplayed stereotype in all royal household films...pick any, it's there...how this became such a phenomena eludes me entirely. Olivia Coleman, whome I love, was wonderful, but her character which was a version of blackadders queen Elizabeth but with a weaker temperament and vulnerability.
It seems that when we brits make a period drama, which is nothing more than a film for tv, some forces come into play which destine all concerned for globes, oscars and awards that are totally undeserved. It just proves the sewn up, hypocrisy and old boy network that these awards really are.. they need scraping and replacing with genuine, unprogramed awards for invocation, creativity and delivery...not yet another rehash of a period drama, or holocuast cliche that seem to be guaranteed award candidates by the mere fact of making them.
SuperBob (2015)
Unoriginal uninspired and "super" underwhelmed.
If you cast your mind back to the 1970s we had spoofs like super gran, bananaman and super kid.
They were primarily aimed at eight year olds, where actual comedy was replaced with clumsy foolishness in a step which was the one above slapstick. Comedy, like technology evolves, and while we look back at these things with a nostalgic reverence, we often find that trying to reproduce that type of innocence in a world where society is more adult...it just fails, always.
I'm so disappointed as I love most of the cast, especially Catherine Tate. So when I saw this listed on Amazon Prime, I jumped at the chance to watch it. I wondered how I had never heard of it?
That reason was quickly was revealed, the promoters probably watched its final cut and went...".lets play this one down, lets not spend any more on advertising...we've wasted enough money."
The Superbob character is depicted as a bit of a failing man, one with no personality. I think one of the "jokes" was when someone who had encountered him describes her disappointing experience, she says "he's a bit of a dullard". Which could possibly be the greatest achievement in this film, as they portrayed the main character as a dullard so well, so accurately...that the film was unwatchabley dull. I had to turn it off.
30 minutes of my life that on my death bead I will cry....please...in the name that is all just, at least give me those 30 minutes back!
It has one joke...the 70sesq concept of a useless superhero...and then they just show that as a sequence of events in the already grotesqly overdone documentary format.
There's sections of the bible with more up to date material than this.
Lifechanger (2018)
More plot holes than ted bundys back yard.
I couldn't suspend my disbelief at any point in this movie.
It makes no sense. It's basically the "taking lives" premise where a soul passes from one person to the next adopting their lives. But due to terminal decay the person, who is at heart some sort of vampiric good guy has to jump from one person to the next killing each host as he goes, but only manages it seems to cups the host body for a day or two.
Despite this, he seems to attempt to continue the hosts lifes normal daily routines..why?
He also wastes time disposing of the life drained corpses...which would appear to be in a state of severe decay...and by doing so. Makes their deaths looks more suspicious...why?
This of course wastes most of the day he has in each host. He also seems concerned that the cops are catching him up...yet he would never have the same body, so could easily provide allibys for all the previous deaths...why?
It reminded me of a low budget student getting his first big budget script.
Dialogue was poor.
It wasn't a terrible film, it was quite well made...but the conceptual plot, story and the dialogue really let it down.
Hereditary (2018)
A New Classic!
About time!
its been a long wait for m to find a horror genre film which was worthy of note, I had all but given up on them. Back in the 90's I went through a phase as a movie enthusiast, particularly in horror, so I watched a lot! Dated horrors such as Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, Hellraiser, The Shining all spring to mind as a comparison to the originality of this film. It has something, an edge, an x factor that these other classics have. Finally, a writer and director who understands the true nature of what makes a good horror film isn't simply jump-scares, log cabin gore and "found cam footage" as per the flood of horror bilge over the past twenty years. This film is a modern classic fully deserved of all the praise it gets from now and for the next thirty years. Being an occultists myself (and noted authority, not that I'm bigging myself up, just assuring you of my credentials) I am also impressed with the authenticity of the subjects, to an extent, there is a little liberty for the benefit of entertainment. The film pulls no punches, and often leaves you asking what the...? just happened? Love it!
I'm hoping Ari Aster, doesn't leave it there....I want more, same world, same cult...here take my money! I only give it 8 stars as I always like to leave room for something beyond my experience. Its top notch...and if you read my other reviews, you will quickly see positivity does not come easily from me!
restored my faith that horror films can be good..thank you!
Hotel Artemis (2018)
shallow and obvious
There is not one aspect or moment of this film that in not cliche. Every character, every moment, every concept, every scene has been done almost every film ever made. Somehow this film has managed to bring to screen the epitome of action film, cliche.
This is not a film for a movie enthusiast. If in the unlikely event, you have never ever seen any film before, you'll love it.
It would be impossible to really give spoilers in this film by revelation definition, yet I am loathed to tick the box, because I have to point out my major issue with it, which is its whole seen before theme, nothing happens that you wouldn't expect. If it was some 14yo boys home made script that he put on at a film festival, I would give him a very patronising "well done". The fact that Hollywood have now reached the stage where they are financing this drivel regularly makes me fear for the whole industry and the "dumbing down" of humanity.
Even the soundtrack, as good as it was, classic black-woman soul which was totally what you expect to give the character (Jodi's nurse) some sort of melancholy, which was the only layer of a very thin onion of her one dimensional character. Other than that every other character was absolutely one dimensional and seen in a thousand films before; you have the good guy at heart bank robber, his not so smart brother that ropes him "back in", the old woman that is long in the tooth seen it all before, the giant muscle guy that is loyal but not smart, the whiny rich guy who always gets his own way (obviously deserves to die just for being mouthy), the dumb Oedipus son trying to please his dad who knows hes dumb, the rich (father) megalomaniac who rules the city...OMG the list goes on but ultimately concludes with the Russian femme Nikita assassin...typing this list of characters is giving me nausea! and an endless supply of dumb henchmen who seem to get killed for merely being henchmen, even though the people killing them are meant to be the people you ingratiate with. And, of course their interactions with each other are playing into that personality in every sense of the word.
You neither like nor hate any of the characters, they all coma and go at a whim, oh, speaking of which there was wedged in some "cop" that carried the story nowhere, had no purpose, revealed no bigger story that for some reason despite being a 20+ storey hotel, had to be hidden from the guests (all three of them) by wheeling her between rooms before she wanders off...was she the girlfriend of the writer or something and promised a part? did she will it in a Facebook competition? what, why? never mind, I've wasted too much thought on this film already.
This film could not get more predictable, cliche and opiatic for the mindless zombies who will give this anything more. don't waste your time...you will, because, the trailer makes it look great, I couldn't wait... take my work...nothing to see here!
Await Further Instructions (2018)
So bad, so, so bad!
Where to even begin, respectable cast, good basic premise...so poorly executed and poorly written that no amount of quality casting can save it. I am so surprised that actors like Grant Masters took this role. His role is particularly bad. Usually films like this put together a set of random individuals which don't know or trust each other, and that just about works. But to say that this is a family behaving like irrational, paranoid freaks, uncaring when any of them die, often being the cause of each others suffering. Its not in any way credible. Not a single character was relatable. they all behaved ridiculously and unsuitably to the situation. Which begs the question why did they accept the roles of the most one dimensional, stereotypes of amateur film making, its clear from the outset its a ridiculous film with dialogue and development.
And then, just towards the end, it turns from a suspense thriller into some sort of alien, satanic horror film. If this had been some amateur filmmakers attempted entry into a film festival, you could accept it as a good foot in the door to progress into real film making. But since this clearly has budget, well known actors and expensive filmography...what the hell? there's good scripts out there that will never get made while some idiot is throwing financing at this tosh!
Well I'm sure they will have learned their lesson, this film is a bust!
It will be a financial flop, and every actor has took a step back in their career.
Tag (2018)
Really?
Old men, playing a childish game. Ok I get that concept, could be funny....if they had another single joke or comedy sequence in the entire film. It has one joke....old men playing tag. That's it. Seemingly they all have nothing else in their lives, characters are one dimensional which would normally do in a film with leading characters to make the rest of the film. All we have here is five supporting actors, no lead, no direction. Poor writing in that it has a sequences, but no dialogue of any merit.
This is what happens when you get bankable comedy actors, and a reasonable budget and make a film thinking that's all you need.
It surprises me this has a total of six points by people who give it nines, I means SERIOUSLY! You think films don't get much better than this? You leave yourself only one point to place all the better films you will ever see in your life?
There is nothing redeeming about this film, nothing I would say saves it, no acting, no cinematography, no soundtrack quality.
I leave one star in the same vein as people who give it nine. There's room for worse. Barely.
The 15:17 to Paris (2018)
Bad writing
I'm not going to pull apart the acting of the three stars of this film. I think, given the dire construction of flawed contrived conversation they did alright. The film itself however was terrible. I think Mr Eastwood was quite keen to jump on the story of this, then when the task came to it of creating a background and a whole film of this event, the realisation that there isn't a film that can be made, the writers padded this event into a montage of wasted conversation. The childhood development part was fine, the military training was fine, all that was left was the incident, and about an hour to turn this into feature length, so we had a monotonous hour of three guys walking around the sights of Italy, going into bars and taking selfies that did nothing to develop the characters, plot or entertainment.
The conversations were dire, falsified and barely could flow from the lips of the most professional of actors, let alone three guys in their first attempt...I actually think they did very well, sometimes a worksman can blame his tools.
If anyone to blame it's Eastwood, and the dialogue writers.
The Week Of (2018)
Somebody please stop this guy from making any more films
The winey voiced, stale humour of sandler has not managed to pull anything out of the hat for many years. I have to ask who is funding these insults to entertainment. Is he funding them himself? I thought I'd give it a chance for the sake of Chris Rock and Steve Buscemi, as a gave up on sander years ago. But even they couldn't get either me or the wife beyond the 25 minute mark. Sandler is the biblical anti-funny, the prophesied coming of the holy state of unfunny. He is a cancer to comedy. The whole Happy Madison franchise is some form of metaphysical media death.
They only way a film could get worse is if he paired up with Tyler Perry to make some form of cross dressing Jewish thanksgiving homecoming movie....set in the ghetto. If sandler read that insult, he'd probably turn it into a script...and it would still be better than this shocker.
There's people pushing shopping carts around collecting cans that could get together and write, perform and produce better than this, give them a shot before sandler ever gets another chance.
The only camera he should ever be in front of again, should be his driving licence renewal. And even then...he couldn't raise a smile.
Apart from all the bits between the moment it started, and I assume the very last credit...it was great. More of that please.
You know when people say one star is to much...this one star I had to put on this review has too many pointy bits, too much yellow, and is too big if it was viewed from Saturn..
In case I haven't made myself clear...this film sucks.
Mary Magdalene (2018)
Boring, and not much to do with the title character.
Twenty minutes in to an empty auditorium. I was ready to go. I have in my fifty years only ever walked out on one movie. This would've been the second, but my wife insisted we made the most of our evening out together and stuck with it. Forty minutes later she had fell asleep and I was stuck watching it.
The self indulgence of the director was overwhelming, the script had no inspiration, you kind of literally expect "inpsiration" in a religious film.
The scenery... was it filmed in Ireland or something, I can't remember a scene with sand or sun. Making it a miserable film even more miserable by its dull Northern European weather.
So, how about the story of Mary Magdelane. Nothing...not a jot, no intrigue, no character development, just a stale one sided cardboard woman who decides to join a bunch of travelers passing through her town because they wanted to put some sort of woman's rights swing into the film to connect with modern movements that simply didn't fit in the movie. It picked out key points in the forty plus year old Jesus...didn't he die at 33? He,s looking rough for a 33 year old. Maybe they should have gone for the cultural appropriation angle instead of the women's movement one to apease it pc wallies, since not a single character had correct features for that part of the world.
Don't get me wrong, actors act and play people who are not them, so I don't cave to this nonsense. But it did stand out that all the characters wer western, even the extras virtually.
So yeas, basically about five seminal moments from the Jesus story, blind man made to see, Lazarus raised from the dead, last supper, betrayed with a kiss, crucified and saw in the garden at gethsemane....that's the Jesus story, we all know that... in between you would have thought they would've kind of created at least some interesting stuf about Mary Magdalene ?
You'd have thought. No 5his one dimensional, "I will be faithfully by your side" character basically opposes any credit they had at women's individuality as she follows Jesus around like a sheep, listening to him whine about his lot in life...I wouldn't want hang around with him for ten minutes, let alone follow him and launch a new era of religious doctrine.
The only really information that developed MM in any way was at the end, after the film, where it does the what happened next text on screen, where it tells us that MM was recognised by the Vatican as an apostle recently and not as the whore she is popularly credited as, as that now becomes documentary evidence that she or any of the others even existed.
There is so much interesting and great esoteric concepts in many books about MM that could've at least been posed...but they left this all out for a boring film discussing the most boring in between gaps of the key points of Jesus story mentioned above that without that context could've easily been about Brian, or any other prophet wandering around "Ireland" 2000 years ago...I can't be bothered looking where it was filmed, but Blackpool beach would've been more convincing.
Nothing, but nothing interesting or new, or dynamic about this film. It's quite possibly the dullest film ever made.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
The Last Jedi - Lets hope so!
To say this was a peice of crap is to insult all the great craps I have had in my life.
I have two points to make here. one about the film, and secondly to support the people complaining about the credibility of IMDB in its ratings. you only have to look at the reviews to know that something is awry with a HUGE majority of people giving this 1* to attempt to give people a true notion of this film.
Back to the film. Currently with a rating of 7*+ on IMDB, despite...well Ive gone down two pages and not seen a positive review or one that scored more than 4, I suspect shenanigans.
When Disney first got this franchise I thought, oh well, there goes Star Wars, but I ate my words, they did a great job previously.
But this, this is EXACTLY everything you thought Disney would do wrong with the franchise.
I can see the scriptwriters now at the beginning of this project. A bunch of 30 something marketing executives who simply have not lived a world where star wars is almost like a right of passage.
One sparks up, ok "Empire Strikes Back Was the greatest Star Wars film of all time, lets watch it and do that again!"
they sat and watched it, quite possibly their first star wars experience and then in fan fiction style took all the elements, juggled them around and applied it to new characters.
most of the poorly sequenced bits can be recognised as bits from the original films, we have a new Lando Calrisian character, who does what lando does. we have a Snow battle, but in salt...we have brother sister connections.., we have betrayal....... and then we have...."put the characters in a scenario where they run out of options and all hope is lost, and then as luck would have it, someone turns up to save the day"...repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...and keep repeating as that is ALL you have for the film, change scenario, change the characters as it darts between expositions and has split the story into a weave of subplots each with their own duo. throw in some weird love triangle between Rey, Finn and the new "Token asian" IMO Rose.
so many things wrong its hard to avoid spoilers by avoiding specifics.
All goes well until "That Scene"...you'll know it when you see it, but I'll just say "superman scene", only those who have seen the film will get it. from there out its downhill all the way.
Oh, and if you didnt like JaJa Binks...get ready for merchandise overload. In classic disney fashion. They have toys galore going to poor out of this and I hope they have pre-ordered billions of them, and that the public see this film and its merchandise for what it really is..not worth your time.
To leave this film as Carrie Fishers legacy, well words cannot express how angry I am. And I think most of the world will share this sentiment. The producer, directors and writers should never be allowed near a studio again.
if disney had any sense of moral decency they should give this franchise away to anyone else, anyone in the world.
is there a single positive?
A couple of jokes, were well placed.
Some sentimental speeches in light of Carrie's passing were well placed.
Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), stole the show, wasnt keen on him in the last one, didnt think he suited the role. In this he really showed he could have been a great new Darth Vader. If I ever watch another one?
Wooden Oscar to Domhnall Gleeson..seriously dude! I know the lines were terrible, but it was almost like watching a school nativity where you played joseph.
I say from the bottom of my heart, there was so much wrong with this film, anything they got right was smothered. Please do not go to the cinema and pay cinema prices to see this garbage, even die hard fans, wait till its on TV. A message needs to be sent from the fans.
A Hologram for the King (2016)
Time better spent cutting toenails
What was the point? This film is a section from a man's life, as most films are, but in the vast majority of cases the reason it forms entertainment is that the section of a man's life in films usually chronicles the unusual or extraordinary. Hologram for a king does not. It simply tells of a man who goes to do some work in Saudi and has a benign cyst on his back that he expresses a very slight concern for. He seemingly has a problem with rest and can't get up on time for three days, this may be anxiety and jetlag, meets a woman and decides to take a job there. That's it! There's your spoiler, not that there is anything to spoil. Usually that part is just the underlying premise upon which you build the extra-ordinary story, the writer in this case has chosen to omit that part. Of course the performances are solid, you can't go wrong with Hanks and the ensemble that accompanied him was equally good at delivering a convincing "I'm a normal person", but then how hard can that be, most of us practice this all our lives. Most frustratingly was the sub-plots that went nowhere, and believe me there was lots of them, loose ends that the viewer clings on to hoping that there is some significance to these characters, it is only as the film ends you realise there was not, they were pointless! These would be his estranged ex-wife who is trying to force him to sell some house to pay for his Daughters College, this subplot ends there with no resolution. There's his daughter who is dropping out, and is sympathetic to the dad (Hanks), he chats to her through skype, that's the full development of that plot. Most interestingly is the Saudi cab driver (Alexander Black) great character, you think
this is going somewhere
you think. No, his plot is being accused of an affair that he is not having. He initially instils intrigue, as though he knows something about the development that Hanks has been brought across to work on, intimating that it is some kind of false project or scam, turns out that plot doesn't get developed, and he doesn't have any more light to shed than that. Oh, then there's the love interest who throws herself at Hanks, but it turns out he's not that interested and there's another sub-plot dropped, instead he falls for his doctor, an in-divorce proceedings Muslim woman doctor (Sarita Choudhury), who despite the strict protocol of women's behaviour in Saudi and the fact she has shown him no interest what so ever, is very Americanised and simply begins an affair as the result of an e-mail he sends her
if only it was that easy! Ooh, in one particular gripping bit, he goes and gets his team some Wi-Fi
get your popcorn ready for that bit!
And there you have it, that's the film, sorry to spoil it but spoilers alerted, although I firmly believe there is nothing to spoil, there is no film here, it's just actors doing what they do.