Change Your Image
roshanpromo
Reviews
The Little Matchgirl (2006)
Beautiful animation, coupled with horrific story
The animation and score are exquisite. But the story is horrific. An innocent child longing for love, and care gets ignored by all of the adults in the world around her. She finds herself cold and hungry in an alley after no one would except her match stick offerings. She longs for a family of love. But instead the world abandon her in the alley. She dreams of simple things, a warm stove, a sumptuous meal, an inviting and loving home with her grandmother. Instead, the world ignores her, gives her no relief, and imposes incredible suffering. In the end, we see a sweet and innocent child starve and freeze to death in the heart of winter in the midst of a city full of indifferent adults, alone and abandoned in an alley. What is the point of this stupid story? Where is the ark and redemption after injustice and unfair suffering? What a shame! Such beautiful and exquisite animation coupled with a beautiful score wasted upon a cheap and poorly crafted story. Shame on Disney for making this. Movies should be uplifting and redemptive. There's nothing redemptive about seeing an innocent child freeze to death while being abandoned by the world.
Logan (2017)
Had potential to be so much more
Interesting use of various plot devices: Professor X with Alzheimer's/dementia, Logan's daughter, Logan's death. But once again, the writers and Director stick to generic superhero movie tropes, create gaping plot holes and use plot manipulation. It's the same old story. Dumb bad guys mess with the wrong guy, someone capable of unbridled masculine rage (pretty much every Denzel Washington movie these days). In fact, that's exactly how the movie starts out. Unsuspecting thugs try to steal wolverine's limousine wheels and shoot him a few times. Well, what do you think happened after that?
The filmmakers don't do anything to explain how Professor X and Logan have gotten to this point in life. How did things become so desperate? Logan has become an alcoholic, has to procure drugs illegally for professor X, can barely pull it together each day, and everything feels like it's on the verge of falling apart. How did it get to this point where things are so desperate? THAT'S an interesting story! But instead they fast forward 10 to 15 years into the future and never really explain how things got so bad. Why do they have to be in exile? Professor X was a decent human being who lived on the right side of the law. He tried to do the right thing and cooperated with the government when needed. Surely, he made friendships and caring relationships along the way in his life. How did he become abandoned in this way? It makes no sense.
Logan always drank, but how did he become an alcoholic on the verge of collapse? He seem to be doing well at the end of the last movie. What happened that things became so desperate for him that he has shut out the entire world and seeks refuge in alcohol? It just doesn't seem right.
These are the plot devices that the movie starts with. So we accept it and try to watch. But once again, the writers and directors through lazy writing and filmmaking create one dimensional bad guys. Who is the bad guy anyway? Does he work for the government or an independent company? How could such military force be used, so indiscriminately without a bigger internal investigation and public news exposure? Here's another key question to ask these stupid writers: What is the point of torturing/killing the gas station attendant? We hear it only through his screams. What did he do to deserve that? Why gratuitously murder the three innocent family members? Other than to develop a sense of outrage for the audience, and a reason for revenge for wolverine. Cheap garbage adolescent amateur writing!
Why would the agency graft metal onto a 10 year old girls body? It makes no sense. She's still growing. Her bones will outgrow the metal. Again, nonsensical writing.
But in the rush to produce another movie in order to make money, the studio pushed out a second rate movie that could've been top notch had they taken the time to write the plot correctly.
In spite of the bad writing and bad directing, the acting was excellent. Hugh Jackman was terrific, probably his best portrayal of Wolverine. But for me, Sir Patrick Stewart gives one of the great performances of his career. What a stunning portrayal of a once strong and powerful individual who must come to grips with old age and dementia! Very touching portrayal sensitively wrought. Award-winning quality really. What an amazing actor and amazing human being. For me, the highlight of the movie.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Waste of 3 hours
Matt Damon as a fatter version of himself, playing a general with jokes. Totally unconvincing. Just doesn't have the gravitas to play a military general. Miscasting.
No sympathetic characters in the entire movie. No one that's really likable. Except for Albert Einstein, who has may be a total of five minutes of screen time. All the other characters are dull, one dimensional, greedy, self interested, authoritarian. Such a bleak view of humanity.
The Oppenheimer scenes of madness borrowed way too much from A Beautiful Mind, which is a much better movie than this is.
The worst part - what was the whole point of this movie? Three hours of dogmatic, professorial, authoritarian white people topping each other with their arguments and their insights. Who cares? Hat the movie was about Oppenheimer losing his security clearance and what a pivotal moment in history that is. Again, who cares? It's simply doesn't matter and it certainly doesn't justify three hour movie.
Also, what is the point of all of that grating, heightened music and sound effect? Every moment isn't climactic. Yet the music would have you believe something as simple as Oppenheimer putting on a hat and picking up his smoking pipe is something to key in on. Who cares?
I learned a few things. I can't trust IMDb ratings. This was not an 8.8 movie. This is may be a 4.5 at best. There just wasn't any point to this movie. There was no substance, and the style was mediocre at best.
The other thing that I learned- Christopher Nolan ain't got it anymore. Momento was very good. The Batman trilogy, especially part one and two, was excellent. Inception was top notch. But that was over 10 years ago. I haven't seen interstellar, but it might be the last good movie he's made. His use of the beehive Sound effect at the beginning of the dark night was superb. But it's been copied and overdone by just about every action thriller out there. And he's overdone it himself and all of his movies sense. I just hate that he needed to use it every other minute during Oppenheimer. What a waste of time. But it is very hot right now, and I did get three hours plus of air conditioning at the theater. I guess that's something. Paying for three hours of air conditioning in a theater.
Complicity (2018)
Excellent film - beautifully wrought and directed
Wonderful, settle depictions of nuanced emotions. Beautiful story struggle, hope, loss. Questions of family and loyalty. So many wonderful themes weaved together amidst the heart of every day life struggles. Also, exquisite attention to detail. The patience of making the Japanese soba noodles is mirrored with the careful long takes depicting those scenes. Quality film by a quality filmmaker. Wish there were more movies like this with genuine feeling and honest emotions that are not looking to pull at your heartstrings. Highly recommend this film to anyone who likes quality independent movies. Can't go wrong.
Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022)
Manipulative garbage
So much Director manipulation! Where do I start? Episode one, the Jedi in the saloon is surrounded by three powerful hunters, but somehow he manages to escape by causing a tarp to fall. What trash! Flea somehow manages to penetrate the security of the organa palace with his henchmen. No security. Just like that, LeahI gets kidnapped. Episode two was decent until we were manipulated again. Obi-Wan is surrounded on the roof. Third sister is bearing down hard on him. He looks like he's trapped between bountyhunters and third sister. The next thing you know, the Director has cut to a scene where he's safely on the ground with Leah. Such garbage.
Then there's the torture of a child. Why would you even go there? Because you're a terrible Director and you have a terrible screenplay written by horrible writers. But that's what they wanted to do. Get you thinking about the torture of a 10 year old girl.
And we are supposed to believe that third sister, who displays so many characteristics of a sociopath - torturing a child, severing the handoff of an innocent woman - that she suddenly has a good heart at the end, and decides to spare Luke. How did she even survive getting pierced by a light saber? Everyone else dies when they get pierced by light saber. What trash!
And what happened to the third partner of the grand inquisitors party? The Asian guy. He just disappears after episode five. We never get to see him do anything except show signs of jealousy. These characters are so one dimensional.
If third sister could cut through the doors with her light saber, why didn't she just do that from the start? Why waste time with the cannons to get through the door?
Then, when Darth Vader had Obi-Wan burning in the flames, how is it that Obi-Wan could've possibly escaped? Just because there was a fire? Darth Vader could've easily cleared that or pulled Obi-Wan through that. But suddenly because a fire was lighted by a ray gun, Darth Vader was helpless to do anything. Again, such a trash!
In the final fight scene, such terrible Director manipulation. Why would Darth Vader leave Obi-Wan buried underneath rocks? And how, I after coming out of those rocks, does Obi-Wan suddenly have superstrength capable of beating Darth Vader? He was a tired old man. All of a sudden, he can do anything.
Perhaps the worst part of it for me, is how they wrote Darth Vader into being a sociopath too. He would have no reason to kill, defenseless innocent villagers. It was all done for emotional manipulation. He is above such things. But they decided to write him into being a sociopath. And that is a great travesty and injustice to the original Star Wars.
4 1/2 hours of my life I can't get back. I do not recommend watching this garbage, this drivel. I gave it two stars instead of one, just because some of the cinematography was excellent. They got a lot of the set pieces right too. But the story, the dialogue, and the directing were horrible. I hated it. The filmmaker, Debbie Chow, I hope she never makes another movie again.
Hesher (2010)
Mostly garbage aside from the acting and background music
In short, the script and directing in this movie are terrible, third-rate, and manipulative. The acting is very good which you could reasonably expect with such high-caliber actors as Gordon-Hewitt and Portman.
There are so many problems with the script that lead to emotional manipulation of the audience. Let's look at those:
Why is a 10-11 year-old boy going to school with high schoolers twice his size who can drive? Of course, he has no chance of defending himself in physical confrontation when the odds are so heavily against him.
We see a stern disciplinarian leading the classroom (Oha from Coming to America) who calls out the slightest movement in any student, yet there is no one available to police the hallways to step in when a bully knocks down and climbs on top of a much smaller boy.
The bullying scenes are extremely graphic and violent, physically and emotionally. When the reckoning eventually comes for the bully, which it must in order to remain true to cheap, generic writing standards, the violence is equally as brutal and unsatisfying. The bully's whole character is non-existent. He simply serves as vehicle for the director to show on screen incredible violence that no one asked for or needs to see. Cheap sensationalism.
Why does Natalie Portman's character have no friends or family? The movie portrays her as a nice, caring, hardworking person (evidenced by her stepping in to protect TJ and working at the grocery store), yet the world has abandoned her and sentenced her to poverty and isolation. What sense does that make?
Why is she only working 15 hours a week? If that is all the hours she could get at the store, couldn't she a second job somewhere else? Instead, the writers would have you believe that this is all the world allows her, that she is sentenced to poverty and isolation while being a nice caring person. More senseless victimization. It would be one thing if the film's premise were about a capitalistic society that relegates a certain part of the population to poverty level wages. But that is not at all the premise of the film.
Instead the film tries to leverage the familiar trope of the non-conformist who bucks the system and wakes people up to a deeper, more meaningful reality (Al Pacino - Scent of Woman, Robin Williams - Dead Poets Society). But it fails tremendously because the character Hesher makes no sense. In one moment, he is a non-conformist who doesn't care about anyone or anything other than creating chaos wherever he goes. Yet he is shown to care about TJs feelings towards the end and save him from assault as well. Why would he care about TJ's feelings? If the character were written properly, he wouldn't care. You can't have it both ways. He either cares or he doesn't.
How has Hesher, someone so anti-authority and violent that he surely would have run into the law at some point, managed to stay out of prison? In the opening of the money, he was able to escape the security cop in his van. How? What chance is there of him being able to get away and stay free of law enforcement when he set off a Molotov cocktail and drives off in an easily identifiable van?
When he sets the bully's car on fire and the police show up at the house, how is it that they don't bring Hesher in for questioning too? Instead, they take the 11 year old boy. And when they do take him, how are the police so incompetent that they are not able to get the truth from TJ, that it was Hesher who committed the arson all along. Instead, we as the audience are asked to accept this meaningless injustice and move on while watching TJ keeping all the pain and confusion to himself. Again, the theme of the movie is NOT how brutal life and society can be in ignoring the pain of a child forsaken by adults. No one would say that is the premise of the movie. Yet we are supposed to accept this senseless victimizing of nice people as viewers, while Hesher saves the day as the anti-hero. Such drivel.
There are simply no strong competent adults in TJs world and meanwhile he is vulnerable to extreme violence and neglect. Ok, that can be a start. That happens in life. But where is the redemption? Where is the arc? All we see is senseless violence happening to victims. How is that a movie? It isn't. It's garbage.
Everyone in this movie is friendless except Grandmother and even she is mostly alone. Are they all such terrible people that no one wants to be friends with them? TJ no friends, Dwight, Natalie, even Hesher and Bully. Nobody has any friends.
What was the point of the group therapy scene? We are taken into one family's story of how they lost their teen daughter to a senseless murder. Then, we are left with horror of that emotion as the therapist simply moves onto Dwight as the next person in the group to speak. How was that a necessary scene in the movie?
Then, there's the Hesher character. Again Hewitt is a great actor and I imagine the role was a lot of fun for him to break from type so viscerally. But the character's life and motivation make no sense.
How does he make money? Is he a drug dealer? Because he clearly has money to afford a van and a car and cigarettes.
Why does a 30 year old man hang out in a high school? How are there no security guards to prevent him from getting in and roaming around?
In the movie, there is not a single person strong enough to stand up to him. He is able to overpower and dominate everyone. So does he just choose people who he can subjugate and take advantage of them. He's available to control TJ, Nicole, TJs household, the bully, the funeral parlor director. And the authority figures in the police when they arrive at TJs house leave him alone.
It would have been far more interesting to see Oha (stern teacher) and Hesher have an interaction. But that would have meant seeing Hesher back down, and the writers were not mature enough to allow such a thing happen to their anti-hero. Instead he is allowed to take anything he wants from anyone who comes along his path - food and shelter from TJs house, sex from Nicole, fear and control over TJ.
The sex scene is especially disturbing. Hesher knows that TJ likes Nicole. Yet Hesher seeks her out and uses his charm to have sex with her, and not only sex, but rough violent railing. This is not a rape scene of Nicole. Rather it is the raping of TJs innocence. It is simply not believable that Hesher would possibly care about TJ and meanwhile take from him the one that he cares about. It is believable that Hesher is a sociopath without a conscience able to do anything to anyone. But that is not what we are meant to believe about Hesher. We are made to believe that underneath that rough grunge exterior lies a heart of gold in how he saves the day at the end. Such trash.
I mentioned the poor directing too. Notice the excess use of close camera work to allow for frightening, uncalled for jump-scares. The multiple bully attacks. It's repeated so often that the car crash montage at the end is completely telegraphed.
This movie is a reminder that we as viewers have the right to stop watching garbage at any moment we so choose. We have the right to turn off a movie or walkout of a theater when the movie is terrible. We don't have to subject ourselves to being emotionally manipulated and cheated with cheap writing and directing.
If there is a theme to this movie, it is that horrible things happen to people everyday and there is nothing that can be done, so be like Hesher. Don't care about anyone, take whatever you can from whomever you can whenever you can. Lie, cheat, and steal. Fight anyone and everyone. Be willing to hurt anyone at any time. Use sex brutally. Commit brutal violence at the drop of a dime. Be willing to move on. Then you can hurt society for having hurt you.
As mentioned at the beginning, the acting is very good. But it's almost a detriment. You don't want great acting and quality actors bringing to life such fake, cheap drivel.
Metallica was just an add-on, another manipulation. The creators of this garbage make it seem like Metallica is central to story. They even borrow from Metallica's lettering for the film's title. But the music could have easily been Pantera and Slayer. Anything hard and aggressive here. Instead, they wanted to play off Metallica's popularity to draw more viewers, which is exactly how I got drawn to the title.
It is another cheap stereotype to depict Metallica listeners as Hesher, as if he represents them. If anything Hesher being so non-conformist would probably be listening to something less mainstream and popular, something kind of obscure independent death metal.
If you do watch this movie, do so to see what types of cheap writing and directing tricks to avoid. Do so to understand how film can be made to manipulate and cheat. Do so to also understand how great acting can pull you into a terrible movie. Try to get a better sense of the urge to turn off and walk-away, so that you can do it the next time and save yourself hours of your life.
Personally, I hated it. So much. I wish I could sue the filmmakers for such garbage.