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The Acolyte (2024)
Same Ol' Same Ol'
Not buying it. Murky photography I suppose is to make it appear edgy and serious. It's just visually flat. Dialog is as all recycled. Stenberg plays both sisters exactly the same. Might've got some actors who were good at character. The good actors that are here are given very little to do. It's going for the dark, more adult feel of "Andor" but the story telling doesn't match up. We're digging through the same "historical" remnants of SW canon that been done to death already. The only difference is kung fu fighting in place of light sabers. Probably only going to please rabid and desperate SW fans.
Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)
Every Horror Cliche in the Book
There clearly is some talent lurking in the ever present darkness of this franchise, but everything is so layered with tired cliches that it just becomes laughable. This kind of film is scary only if you haven't been watching horror movies the past 40 years. Nothing here comes as a surprise, nothing is truly frightening. It's all too familiar-everything lives in the world of film, not the real world. Wan and Whannell have some good ideas, they just bring nothing original to the telling of the story. You feel like you're watching a copy of a copy of a copy. If that's your taste, dig in. There are talented actors working hard to bring some credible resemblance of life to these films, and for that they're worth watching. That being said, Chapter 2 feels overlong and even more strained to bring the scares than the original, and thus fails more often. Makeup, camerawork, costumes, lighting, music, editing; it's all straight out of the horror film playbook. It's been done much better.
We Are Lady Parts (2021)
Best Comedy Since Schitt's Creek
Quite simply, brilliant in every aspect: the infectious charming performances by the main cast, the cheeky satire and loving humanity of the writing, the intelligence in its approach to portraying women as real people with both flaws and genius, and the ass-kicking punk music Ladyparts plays. Not a false note anywhere. Plus, it's hilarious. Not only an anthem to the looo m m rebellion of rock, but a well-observed look at the family-love affair that bands are.
Invasion: Home Invasion (2021)
Terrifying. Hold your breath.
This episode was the best horror movie I've seen in years. Makes "Quiet Place" look tame. This show often loses momentum by jumping around to characters who aren't doing much. This one sticks to one location and lays on the suspense.
The ABC Murders (2018)
Not Poirot, Not Christie, Not Entertaining
This is Sarah Phelps' fourth attempt at adapting Agatha Christie to TV. By now you'd think she knew something about the writer. Apparently not. She seems to have never read a Poirot novel. The character in this mini-series is nothing like anything Christie ever wrote, Phelps makes up an absurd back story that is a major violation of everything we know about Poirot, and he is absent is famous mustaches. Really, what is the point of using a famous character then completely abandoning everything about him. In this story he is barely even a detective. We never see his mind in motion, he just stares blankly at murder scenes, as though he's thinking.
Christie's basic murder plot and most of the characters are here, but they resemble nothing Christie ever wrote in tone or personality. Phelps seems out to prove that she is her own writer, and not just an adapter of Christie. Well, then stop adapting Christie and write something new. It's as though she is writing this for people who are not Christie fans and have never read her books. But WHY??? Captain Hastings is missing, Japp is missing. I can accept that, but when stretching out a story into three hours you don't want to cut out characters forcing you to include long close-ups of objects that just slow the pace down and become unbearably boring after the first 30 minutes. The mystery never begins to come together until the final ten minutes of the third episode. By then it's too late.
There is no reason for this series to exist. I guess the main draw was John Malkovich. But he is horribly miscast. He never masters a Belgian accent, he has no wit or charm, barely seems alive half the time, and allows a policeman to tell him he had a good hunch. Poirot would have bit his head off at that one.