Reviews

This is one of the all time great bad movies and I adore it with every ounce of my being.

Really liked what was here but wanted it to go further, it felt so slight!

There's been this weird Zac Snyder 'moment' happening recently (powered by nerd tears no less) and I am so NOT here for it.

That scene of them sneaking up on the walrus is wild. That sentinel was asleep on the job smh.

Whatever these people were paid to act in this, it was too much.

Rewatch :: Part of my brain doubted this was as good as I remembered it being. Surprise, it's even better!

This might be the closest thing to a Fallout movie we ever get, which is kinda sad. On the other hand it's actually a surprisingly solid popcorn flick.

Klaus Kinski is a terrifying human being. There isn't enough money in the world to make me get on a raft with that man.

The octopus itself and its anthropomorphised story is gripping but the guy is so wrapped up in himself and his own epic journey it ultimately ends up feeling quite self serving.

This was like watching a rich kids wanderlust vlog. It was painful. Also, they definitely tried to kill that dog.

This film made me actively dislike a child. I wanted it to be good bad (there is some of that) but it was mostly just bad bad.

I watched Minari before this and it cured my anxiety. This film brought it all the way back up to 11. Every time it went into a dream sequence I felt like I was holding my breath for a minute straight lol. May change my score on it in future, but if we're going purely by the "instant excitement to rewatch it" meter, this might be one of my favourite releases of the year so far.

If you like moody atmospheric sci-fi, banging synth soundtracks and are interested in dreams, give this a watch. It'd feel right at home in the 80's Cronenberg catalogue. The ending is a bit of a curve ball (and not necessarily in a good way) but that weirdness can't ruin all the good cache it's built to that point.

Lol at trying to make Tom Holland look like a man in his 30's by giving him a moustache. It's the equivalent of 3 kids in a trench coat trying to sneak into a cinema, it ain't fooling nobody.

Jokes aside though, Holland is a very likeable actor and without him this movie would be a much tougher watch. In fact, he's the best thing about all of these so-so movies he's been in lately (chaos walking, devil all the time). Please, can we get this man a better agent.

This has all the window dressing, the aesthetic markers, of a good modern horror (think Hereditary, Relic etc) but with literally zero of the heart, story or backbone. It feels like a pastiche of those movies that doesn't understand what truly makes them work.

PS I literally burst out laughing when Lena Dunham showed up.

"Did we feed the monster, did we help create it? AND YOU *points finger and stares into the viewers soul* Are you complicit?"

Firstly, I literally just got here, there ain't no "we". I didn't even know who this man was 3 hrs ago! Secondly, then why did ye make the doc Baudi, why did ye make the doc?

These shocking allegations aside, this is better than the average Netflix true crime doc. Following the history of the group trying to track this guy down and the ensuing cross continental chase is kinda wild and doesn't fall into the problem of being overly dragged out.

They do be walking. Some likeable star power here but it ends up being a bit of a wet blanket. Add it to the list of high concept sci-fi with an interesting idea.... that fails to do very much with it. I would have loved them to explore more the psychological effects of being unable to hide your thoughts but it's used almost exclusively as a plot device and comic relief.

The premise of this is not fully capitalised on by the screenplay, which is a little too obvious and is dragged down by an awkward gang/drug subplot.

Them: "So and so is a rockstar of Mormon document collector circles"

Me: "So literally not a rockstar in any way then"

Even when I find the subject(s) interesting, I generally don't really like Netflix's approach to true crime. The interviews are always so self-canonising and nobody is ever challenged.

This in particular also suffers from something I really dislike, which is purposely misleading the audience with red herrings to make a story appear more scandalous than it actually is. It just makes the inevitable twists and shifts in direction so less interesting, they just come across as cheap and unearned.

Wong Kar-Wai makes films you can feel in your bones. That's partly down to the general atmosphere he creates but after watching this one, I found myself thinking specifically about how fantastic he is at creating a sense of location and place, both physically and emotionally.

You become so familiar with these locations; the bar, the sidewalk, the apartment. The feelings associated with them, and what transpired there. The endings of his films are usually bittersweet, in a way that reflects our own sadness of having to part ways with these worlds. But like the characters of his movies, we're always longing for a way back, longing to be reunited again.

Surprise surprise the best Transformers movie is also coincidentally the only one that doesn't have Michael Bay's grubby paws all over it.

This film isn't a world changer by any means - it's a very simple, cartoony story, but it works in the context of what it is, a Transformers movie.

This is fine. It alternates between campy Goosebumps episode and some unexpectedly gnarly gore. In either case I was never really scared or creeped out.

Between this and Undine, magical realism as a genre is really putting in the work in 2021 😤

While not amazing, Beyond Skyline (2017) was a breath of fresh air in the overly dour modern action landscape. This follow up just goes off the cliff. The writing this time around is so bad; now combine that with a wholly unlikeable set of characters and it becomes almost unbearable.

Between this film, Zodiac and Nightcrawler I feel like Jake Gyllenhaal has cemented himself as perhaps the go-to actor for (handsome) obsessive neurotic types. And for good reason too, he's great at it.

This is expertly directed, like everything Villeneuve does. He manages to keep you on edge for the entire film, building this uniquely unsettling atmosphere that just kind of lingers. Like you need to go watch a Pixar movie after it, to rid yourself of the anxiety. Overall, a great little thriller that really leaves its mark.