Change Your Image
beherenow3
Reviews
House of Gods (2024)
Good series
Very good acting by all the main actors. Well written plot line. Good dialogue. Good drama. All characters are complex, the good ones and the 'bad' ones. Until you realise they're all good and tortured, in their own way. Not lunch more to say. One doesn't need to be Muslim to like it. It's the narrative that leads it. So yes it's great that it helps build bridges between cultures in Australia etc etc etc, but that has zero to do with why i think it's good. It's actually good in its own right and not for politically correct reasons.
The only slight gripe is a little bit of new age politics rammed in there in certain moments. The elder daughter's (Batul) character has some weird feminist moments planted in there, that don't really logically align with the character otherwise. In the fourth episode, while speaking of her life's plans to her dad the Sheik, she proudly exclaims "it's my *choice*!". All else she needed was a soapbox and a girl power t shirt to be truly vomit inducing. I mean save us the cliches. This was not necessary to the plot or the show, at all, but I still give the show a good rating as I figure this is the abc demanding more feminist stuff in the narrative in a show about Muslims, so Osamah probably had not much choice. That said it's a minor gripe and it confines itself to episode four only so can all be looked past.
I hoping for a second series. I know it came to an end, be it a very open end, but a second series would be great if they can please steer clear of trendy politics. (What's great about Islam is that is doesn't follow trends, it's eternal and proud. So stay true to that please.) And I've seen plenty of shows manufacture second series from less than this.
Ghasideyeh gave sefid (2020)
Had potential. But a seriously lazy ending
I am really disappointed. What was well written and had a good plotline for the first 95 mins of the movie is ruined by lazy weird writing at the end. Great cinematography. Well written dialogue. But honestly what's with the ending? Let's go back to the beginning. A man is executed for murder. His wife is the movie's protagonist. She finds out he's unequivocally innocent (of course) and wants the court and the judges held accountable. The one judge who actually feels extremely bad about making the wrong decision, has extreme guilt. On the pretext he use to be friends with the dead man, he gives her money and sets her up in a decent apartment. He even uses his court connections to make sure she keeps custody of her daughter. Which is seriously nice work by him. But he never quite has the guts to tell her who he is. (although he almost does a couple of times). It's a cool plotline. And well filmed. So, when she finally finds out (through someone else) who he is, what does she do? Well, she poisons him of course and he dies gasping for air on her dining room floor. Seriously?? What was a proper sensible mature adult movie until this point ends in this ridiculously unrealistic way? I Felt so ripped off. Where did she get the poison? Would this nice woman really *Murder* someone?? Did she not realise it's all shades of grey and this man had been a huge help to her? That his execution-judgment was based on the evidence presented to him at the trial and that other judges came to the same decision? That the system is to blame, and even if he was personally to blame, somehow poisoning him was not the answer? That she really (if she was real and not a movie character) would never do this in a million years? What was subtle and nice and enjoyable for 95 minutes ends up being as subtle as a sledgehammer. Didn't even feel right. Let alone seem real within the disbelief suspended of the movie.
Black Mirror: Metalhead (2017)
Waste of my time
The episode isn't misunderstood. Because there's not much to understand. It's one chase scene - machine v human - which is rather boring. At one point she climbs a tree. The machine can't climb so it goes to sleep. She throws pebbles (or something) at it and hits it 100% of the time. I fast forwarded. Then she gets into a house thinking she's alone, and handily finds a rifle. We see shots of her washing her hands and face in slomo, blissfully unaware she may possibly be in danger, spliced together with shots of the machine getting closer and closer to the house. Oh man that's deep, so scary. It gets inside and goes after her. In some utterly terrifying scene for the ages, with loud dramatic music and slomo, she throws... some paint at it! My god, the drama! Still hasn't bothered using the rifle yet. Not sure why. She runs outside to a car, waits for it to chase her, then decides to shoot it. Which works on second go. Then at the end we see that she was trying to get a teddy bear. I think. But by this point I was just hanging for it to end. This has to be THE stupidest idiotic try-hard premise I've ever seen in my life. To sum up: the story is stupid, the acting is not great, and we don't give two hoots about any character. Let alone the main one.
JonBenet: An American Murder Mystery (2016)
Rehashed, theories everywhere, and very biased
There has been so much written about the Jonbenet murder case that it's hard to come up with anything new. So this is really a rehash of the facts and the investigation story, with interviews with a few people to give us commentary. But the problem with it is how biased it is. (That is, in its editorial line that the Ramseys did it and covered it up.) Michele Wood, a detective and one of the interviewees, is horrendously biased. She gives running commentary about how suspicious the Ramseys are and how they colluded in their police interviews, which are not borne out by the facts and Ramsey soundbites which accompany her interview snippets. But when her running commentary is carefully edited in with the facts, then everything suddenly has an eerie and ominous feel to it. I certainly would not want her investigating any murder around me. Everything she says is based on the assumption that the Ramseys did it, and is interpreted that way, to the extent that Patsy telling detectives that she did not kill her daughter is, in Michele Woods's mind, further proof for us all that she obviously did do it - I mean, look at her, she is denying it! exactly what a guilty person would do... Seriously. This woman is a detective?
Another bit of clear bias is the handwriting sample. Cina Wong is the one handwriting specialist they interview for the show. She happens to be the only handwriting specialist who states that Patsy in all likelihood wrote the note. Most handwriting experts concluded that Patsy could have written it - i.e. they wouldn't rule her out - but Cina is very decisive on the matter. Why does this documentary only interview her and not even mention the other experts' opinions?
Watch the Dr Phil or CBS shows if you want to watch an informative and intelligent review of facts on this case. Watch this one if you believe the Ramseys did it and do not want to entertain any real notion that you may be wrong.
30 for 30: Marion Jones: Press Pause (2010)
Disappointment
This documentary does not go very deep into Jones's issues and wrongdoings, and is rather soft- hitting. Although one man interviewed informs us at one point that Marion Jones is a tough woman who knew exactly what she was doing and don't buy into the idea that men around her got her into something she didn't want to be a part of, most of the rest of the interviews which made the cut are making excuses for her; blaming her persecution not on her cheating and lying, but her race and her trainers.
Watching this documentary you'd think that she only got into trouble because while being interviewed by the authorities she actually answered some of the questions honestly instead of walking out of the room for a break. You'd think she was a naive woman whose coach hoodwinked her and media targeted her. We are told that she didn't really need steroids to win, and that even without them, she would have still won two gold medals in Sydney instead of three. (This is just included without any possible retort.) These sorts of ridiculous statements which the documentary is more than happy to promote may make her fans feel warm and fuzzy, but really they just demonstrate the type of whitewashing it is trying to do. Unlike the rest of the 30 for 30 series, this one does not go deeply into the topic and frankly does not sit well alongside most of the other (excellent) films in this series.
Tre solar (2004)
Not utterly detestable but a complete waste of time
I came here and read the reviews before I watched this on TV last night. After reading the bad reviews here I thought "it can't be that bad surely, it is at least watchable for novelty value... I like nordic films so from that perspective sure I can get something out of it...". I wish I hadn't wasted my time. It is 100 mins of really badly scripted, utterly irrational nonsense about someone who the script writers can't decide how her emotions and actions should resemble each other, in a continuous manner with regards to the plot, and therefore ends up looking ridiculous and being forgettable. (Forgettable other than the fact I will continue to rue wasting 2 hrs of my life).
There is just no point to this movie. And no I don't "not get it", but what's it about? A woman loves her husband? not overly deep. Human relationships? The weakest movie on this topic I have seen for quite a while. A history movie? The era and the plague don't come in to it at all other than excuses to make the ridiculous script lines excusable on the basis of something like "it's set centuries ago, people talked crazily back then". A middle-ages Odyssee? Stick with the ancient Greek one.
I am just glad I can't speak Swedish (and had to read subtitles), when you listen to the talking you can just tell it would be even more embarrassing to listen to it proper than it would be reading the subtitles.