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Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
WoW
I knew next to nothing about this movie before seeing. I think I know even less after seeing it.
It was a wild ride or space and time hopping madness that made me laugh, cry and even applaud.
One of the most original, adventurous and mind altering movie experiences I've had for some time. Highly Recommended.
Four Lions (2010)
Dumb and Dumber with a Jihadi Twist
This is a comedy about topics that are very difficult joke about.
The only way the comedy style be even attempted is by creating an alternative absurd universe where basically everyone is stupid and serious issues are taken very lightly.
The movie takes the absurd and embraces it- from discussing plans for suicide bombing with a wife and young child to being blowing up while tripping over a sheep- the plot is simply ridiculous.
The stupidity of the characters is on full display throughout but given the subject matter it was probably a necessary move as if they had any intelligence it would be a very different type of movie.
The 6th Day (2000)
A Poor man's Minority Report
Play's with some interesting moral and ethical concepts. Stylistically it's of its time, explores technological ideas and fears society had at the turn of the millennium. Mostly B-rate acting. Plot is mostly ok but gets a bit absurd and drags a towards the end.
Kick-Ass 2 (2013)
Such a Let Down
Because of where it's come from I can't forgive this movie for what's it's done. Kick Ass was exceptional, Kick Ass 2 was exponentially poor. From start to finish it tried and failed. Littered with poorly delivery clichés it was a betrayal of its original movie in so many ways.
There's only some continuity with the characters and where they we're at at the end of Kick-Ass. Hit Girls grown up way too fast while everyone else hasn't grown up or even emotionally matured just a little bit. Some have in fact gone backwards.
After where the first movie left off it's just not believable where this one begins. Emotionally I just didn't connect with the story this time, old characters and past events are forgotten or quickly dismissed on a whim while new ones get a free pass with hardly any background or development.
It's a fiction that's ruined a fiction.
Game of Thrones: The Iron Throne (2019)
Game Over
While I couldn't say I was happy with how either the finale or the final season of GOT panned out I think most of the reactions to them that I've seen so far have been far too negative. This episode on it's own merits is ok, a little far fetched in places and maybe a bit too sentimental with the 'and they all lived, relatively, happily ever after' ending.
The reason we're seeing such strong reactions from the public now is because the show went in an unpopular direction after 'The Long Night'(S8 e3). A lot of people haven't found the story enjoyable or believable in respect of certain characters. This is ironic given it is after all a fictional show based in a world where demons, dragons and other creatures of fantasy are common place.
While there are valid criticisms to be made of the show and it's writing in this final season I feel too much of this sudden unpopularity and poor ratings are down to people simply having tantrums because the show sent one of the audiences favorite characters into a story arc that could only end one way.
I think those asking for the shows final episodes to be rewritten and filmed again are the ones now truly living in a fantasy world of their own. It's denialism and as much as I hate to use the term a real example of modern day snowflake-ism.
The Silent Teacher (2017)
Death is a part of life
An interesting documentary that touches upon many sensitive and difficult themes. Framed by the director a love story of sorts it feels at times like a long goodbye as a widowed husband and his family go through the extended and unusual process of granting the final wish of his wife- having her body donated to science and used in the training of the next generation of doctors and surgeons.
Through this unusual juxtaposition of the medical and the religious it hints throughout at the difficulty humans face in reconciling the physical world and our materially defined reality and existence within it with our social selves and the spiritual world of existence and extended meaning we hope or pray exist beneath and beyond it at a deeper level. The silent teachers hope to bridge that gap as in death they give the ultimate noble sacrifice of their physical bodies to the next generation. Through this, in a way, they go on living via the invaluable learning they enable.
Matar a Dios (2017)
God's an atheist???
I saw this recently at the Leeds International Film Festival. Thoroughly enjoyable, this quirky comedy is actually rather inoffensive given the title. With such deep religious and moral undertones the movie does well not to take itself too seriously. While offbeat and occasionally gory, on the whole it is a genuinely unique and humorous offering.
The film begins a bang, a scene which gives an unusual and shocking introduction to 'GOD', far from benevolent he's angry and in no mood for messing about.
Cut to a spooky Spanish chateau on a stormy night and a miss matched husband and wife preparing dinner while they await the arrival of his father and brother for a holiday get together. Little do they all know they'll soon be entertaining another unexpected and ,as it turns out, unwanted guest.
With flush of an upstairs toilet the direction of their night,the rest of their lives and, it seems, the small matter of the fate of humanity are thrown into chaos.
Westworld (2016)
Too many cooks- not enough quality ingredients.
To begin with I'll admit that one of the reasons I started watching Westworld was its positive IMDb rating (yes I'm one of those people) but having watched just the first few episodes I must unfortunately conclude that it has been rather over hyped. While the futuristic premise is interesting and it is something I usually love as with the likes of Humans, Black Mirror, The Matrix, Inception etc it's delivery here is quite poor. When dealing with technology and future worlds attention to detail is IMO THE most important thing to get right- I can take poor individual character development as long the big picture is made clear-that's why I'd actually rate Surrogates (the movie 2009- with Bruce Willis) on a par with this series because where it lacked character depth it didn't over complicate the story or bring in too many elements and it at least gave us some idea of how and why people and society became how they were through the evolution of the surrogate technology involved and showed how this in turn had real world effects that were both good and bad for society and the individual people in it. Unfortunately Westword doesn't really do this.
As I see it this series has two main problems. First of all the cast is way too big, too many characters and not enough depth mean its very difficult to really care about or get to know any of them. There's a full medium sized cast inside the western themed fictional world- some 'real' some not and this is fine but the most annoying and at times confusingly aspect is that outside of this in the 'real' world of the operations/ command center there's also a medium sized cast and they too have their stories going on and overlapping (although only on a superficial level as I mention below).
We see two sets of characters but half of them supposedly aren't even real, yet the unreal characters seem to have more life and emotion in them than the other half who supposedly are real but walk around half the time acting like robots repeating the same scenes with one another over and over while never really being developed in terms of their background or motivations or personality beyond the usual self- interested and ego driven superficial plotting, scheming and double crossing aimed at some unnamed, unknown, unexplained and what seems like pointless end within what is essentially a tiny sphere of influence within what is actually a huge complex of a command/ operations center where they work, live and plot against one another. With so many big name actors involved in this show I feel they've tried to throw too cooks at this but left them with very little in terms of quality ingredients with regards to individual character development needed early on to draw people in and make them care enough to continue to pay attention to and follow their story arc. IMO the characters, even the major ones, all sort of seem to over ride and confuse one another to a point where your not really sure why they're doing/ saying the things they are and frankly you start to not really care. IMO they need to both cut minor characters and focus on developing major secondary characters while I feel Anthony Hopkins character should have had more of a central role in shaping and developing the backstory of Westworld- which leads me on to my other problem with this show. So far there's been no real explanation of how or why this world exists as it does. How did it come to be developed in the fist place and why? How about having some expansion on the technology involved and it's theoretical and practical wider implications and consequences for the world and society. Aside from creating a fantasy western themed play world for the rich deep under ground in some strange Hunger Games type zone, what else has or could have been done with this technology to help humanity? And what are the consequences of this? Equally how is this underground world maintained and sustained, how is/was it financed (apart from the money from visitors)? In fictional futuristic worlds its the details that are most important in determining how believable the story is- here they're sadly lacking and to add insult to injury none of the many many characters are developed enough to make them all that very likable.
A History of Violence (2005)
Unrealistic and poorly delivered despite Fargo-Esque themes
Despite sitting through this film to its conclusion I have to say it is currently overrated on IMDb and while I didn't quite hate the film I didn't quite like it enough to rate it much higher than I have. I found some of the scripting to be quite cringe worthy and unrealistic and some of the early scenes were quite poorly acted out especially in relation to those stories that relating to the family and children. On the plus side in the action/violent scenes and the development of the main character,who was acted more bearably than other characters throughout, was interesting. The one plus in terms of the story and style of presentation in violent/ tense scenes was that there were some minor reflections of the movie and TV series Fargo which kept me just about interested enough to stay watching to the end.
Surrogates (2009)
Positively Cartesian
I rated this film a little better than it's current IMDb rating (6.3). The premise of a futuristic world where people now live their lives in an almost wholly virtual manner is positively Cartesian and for this alone it deserves some credit in my opinion. The film tries to flesh out (pun intended), through Bruce Willis's character, some sort of lesson with regards to what it means to be real, to be human and to truly live and feel. In a strange new world where almost everyone is now living their actual lives in a reclusive state, hidden in their own homes but continuing to venture out into the real world in virtual form through the use of a robot or Surrogate, one cop(Bruce Willis) is forced to go rouge/off grid in order to track down a murder who has somehow gotten hold of a device that can destroy/kill both robots and the person controlling them at the time. The case leads him to come into contact both directly and indirectly through various surrogate forms with the father of one of the victims, who as it tuns out is a reclusive billionaire and the father/inventor of Surrogate technology. As the story unfolds, we learn that the cop has also lost a son in the past and that this is one possible reason he and his wife choose to live their lives in robot form. We see too that once he goes off- line there is a personal desire on his part to reconnect with his estranged wife (who happens to live/ exist in the very same apartment as him) in her human form rather than her robot form but she like most people is resistant to the idea and fearful of how real her feelings of loss and fear will become if she unplugs. Through a couple of expected twists the film ends with a him saving the day but then being given a choice between making the world/ peoples experiences of it 'real' again (despite the pain, suffering and inconvenience it may cause some people) and allowing it to continue in the vain, superficial /artificial and emotionally and physically removed form it has taken. The lesson I think it that it is this pain as well as the joy we experience that makes life unique, life was never meant to be this easy. Ultimately it is only in the doing, the being and the experiencing of all of it ,both good and bad, that life becomes 'real' and so worth living.