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Black Adam (2022)
Arab Superheroes v. Colonizing Villains
That's why there are so many awful reviews for pretty nitpicky & bizarre reasons. FINALLY, a movie from the perspective of the oppressed.
I couldn't help but notice how the checkpoints for the "Intergangs" (ooh, bad bad gangs) directly reflect the Israeli oppression of the (bad/evil terrorists) Palestinians
just trying to get home, or to a hospital to deliver their (fututre terrorist) babies. Teth Adam rules. SPOILER ALERT! Even though the wyt Savior Superman, ostensibly keeps Teth Adam in check in the future? Lol. Gotta keep those angry Brown people in line, right? Let them know that even if they achieve the ultimate power, there's an alien wyt savior in reserve to thwart them. But I loved how Teth Adam rejected the imperial throne! Who does that? A self-sacrificing hero, that's who.
Archive (2020)
UBIK
Phillip K. Dick wrote UBIK in 1969. If you haven't read it, do so. But watch this first, maybe. It's very slow moving, to me it dragged, but there is a "surprise twist" at the tippy top end. Is it enough? Not for me. I had trouble having sympathy for the main character and staying interested.
Mortal Engines (2018)
It was much better when Charles Stross wrote it years before Philip Reeve.
I haven't seen it. I probably won't. But I loved the award winning short story called 'Rogue Farm', which was written by fellow Brit, Charles Stross in 2003. And the animated short in 2005.
Buzzard (2014)
Interminable Boredom
This is a movie by a middle class white boy for middle class white boys. It's a superficial and juvenile depiction of what a comfortable office worker imagines "deprivation" to feel like. And the ending? Carol conveniently getting fired in the last few seconds, problem solved everyone can go home now? Ugh.
Parental Guidance (2012)
Unlikable characters
I'm a Progressive, but this was just upper class flakiness gone too far and too wrong.
I tried really hard, because I love the lead actors, to find some tiny redeeming quality in them to like. But they, and their weirdly pretentiously named children (HarpER, TurnER, and (B)(P)arkER{?} were just obnoxious, selfish, sheltered, and unlikable.
I just don't care enough to comment further.
The only reason I"m posting a review is that I really liked the credits. The inclusion of family photos with the names of the producers, etc. was a very clever and enjoyable experience.
But if one has to endure a bad film and get to the final credits to find something positive to say about a film, well, that speaks for itself, doesn't it?
The Girl on the Train (2016)
Biggest Surprise was my own Bias
You've seen the movie because why else would you read a review of a mystery with a spoiler alert?
I realized how readily I was willing to cast suspicion on the women characters, as though the men were innocently responding to the craziness of the women. Halfway through I happily suspected Anna of setting Rachel up.
When Megan cheated, I judged her harshly. But silently forgave the psychiatrist as being weak,but only because he was susceptible to her womanly wiles. (Even though, he's doubly culpable by exploiting a patient's vulnerability). He wasn't to blame.
But even when Anna was in the bedroom saying how she sometimes wished they were still having an affair, and we were reminded that HE was the cheater in his marriage to Rachel, it was still Anna whose behavior was unpalatable. Tom's never entered my mind as blameworthy.
That's why it was surprise when we find out that Tom is the perpetrator of the misery of all 3 women.
The writer, and director were relying on this bias to exist in their audience, or it wouldn't have worked at all.
Maybe in the not too distant future, people will watch this movie as an example of how deeply our biases are entrenched in men and internalized by women.
La La Land (2016)
Fell Flat
I feel cheated. I adored Emma and Ryan in Crazy Stupid Love, and came in already biased to love it. It's like the writer thought of every cheesy hook that would appeal to an aging,monochromatic academy yearning for former glory days. Then compiled a flat-lined formula, but set the gauge wrong, so that even that ended up being off kilter a bit.
There was a barely discernible arc, way too late in an already glacially paced series of badly shot and neglectfully choreographed pretty young things in colorful clothes.
I just couldn't muster up the energy to care about the leads, let alone the 1 dimensional characters orbiting their lonely planet.
I DID learn one thing. Black folk love jazz, and they have soul, so Ryan must too!
When the film, incongruously skips ahead 5 years,(do people really abandon each other so thoroughly in the age of cellphones?) and we find that fame, has it's price. I thought, well, there's isn't even the emotional payout this film's formula surely promised.
Then there was! I ALMOST felt something for a moment.
Even though it was a derivative montage of fabulous old musicals badly replicated in the alternative universe, still I could have finally cared about the character's fate a smidgen.
Whups, then there wasn't again. I really tried to feel the bittersweet pangs of regret I know I was SUPPOSED to feel.
But that too, flat-lined. Then I was just kind of mad.
Warm Bodies (2013)
Surprisingly thoughtful
I was expecting a slightly dark Rom-Com and got a little more.
What piqued my interest, was the angst filled,hapless R,shuffling through the airport lamenting on how humans used to interact and connect, which switched to the same airport, filled with disconnected humans, alienated and engaging only with their cell phones.
I thought, well , that's an astute observation.
Hought's was a compelling performance, I loved his repulsion at his own inhumanity when he ate the brain of Perry, as seen through Perry's memory. That's some good acting.
I also like that twist, it reminded me of Robert Heinlein's Michael Valentine Smith,(Stranger in a Strange Land) who ate the bodies of the dead in order to absorb their spirit, all in the name of love. You grok?
I LOL'd in real life when the zombies were geared into action, to 'Rock You Like a Hurricane', and we were treated to the (now iconic) Reservoir Dogs slow-mo, except it was in real time- because...hey, they're zombies! They're already in slow-mo!
Also when the makeover to human montage was cut short by the friend shutting off Pretty Woman and saying "It's funny". It is.
And of course, the redemption of the zombies (and humans) and the bonding experience of reconciliation through the love of killing a common enemy.
Yay!
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007)
Contrived and lacking
It was difficult to finish watching this. Busyness, does not equal imagination. I'm sorry I wasted my time on it. I think I confused this with The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus which I saw a trailer for. Thank goodness I took this out of the library, and didn't pay anything for it.
The ostensibly "childlike wonder" the leads are trying to convey is trying way too hard, forced,contrived,unconvincing, and positively wooden in their execution.
Even the emotional payout when "magic" returns fell leadingly flat.
Night Gallery: The Diary/A Matter of Semantics/Big Surprise/Professor Peabody's Last Lecture (1971)
Professor Peabody's Last Lecture
A science fiction fan all of my reading life, of course I'm also a fan of Rod Serling's various TV incarnations. And the stories and writers from which he ploughed his scripts. The most voluble student was named Lovecraft, enough said about that.
But, i LIVE IN 2014-and with the benefit of hindsight and present sight-was really saddened to see "all evil and chaos and destruction of humanity" laid at the feet of an "Arab" and his philosophy out of nowhere and for no good reason whatsoever.
Lovecraft certainly made no such intimation.
It really shocked me to my core- to see how deep, how pervasive, how easily accepted the evilness of Arabs have been inculcated into the American consciousness for,at least, demonstrably- 43 years.