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Master Gardener (2022)
Thank you, Mr. Schrader
Thank you, Mr. Schrader, for rescuing me from myself. I too was spellbound by the main character's tragic body art, virility, and meticulous nature. Just when I thought I was beginning to know him, you thankfully played it safe by adhering to Hollywood tropes of love and redemption. I am so glad you did not lead me down the anti-hero path. I mean Eastwood did it with Unforgiven, Thornton with Sling Blade, and Scott with Blade Runner, but you so artfully dodged judgement. It would have been unspeakably absurd to create an anti-hero out of a main character with such a past. I do not know if I could have ever respected a director who would make such a gutsy move.
Patriot (2015)
First Season Awesome, Second Season Not So Much
The first season of Patriot was unbelievable. I thought the story was original and the acting was spot on. It was darkly funny and the first time I'd seen Michael Dorman in a series and I thought he did an awesome job. I actually downloaded some of the songs from the series from Amazon. I found it strangely touching; more than any series I'd seen to date. I couldn't wait for the second season, but how disappointed I was when it did premier. It seemed as though there was either a different writing team for the second season or they all got drunk and decided to throw something together after a party one night. The second season did not follow the first in originality, the music lost its effect...it just plain went off the rails. They would have done better to have left the first season on its own. I just don't think they knew how to follow the success of the original. I would have probably given this 9 or 10 stars, but given the bombing of season 2, I lowered it to 7, which still says a lot for the first season. If you haven't watched the first season, I highly recommend it.
The Crown (2016)
One of Netflix's Best!
I'm watching this series for the second time. Obviously the Royal Family have its problems with the series, but I don't feel the writers have taken ridiculous liberties with the royal family's history. The acting, set creation, and locations are awesome. I'm no Royal Family history buff, so I can't really speak to the accuracy of the storyline, but I don't think it would have such great reviews if it were way off-base. I think it's only gotten better with each season. I binge-watched the latest one and started watching the entire series over again. I rarely re-watch a series, but this one is an exception. I'm looking forward to the next season.
Troll (2022)
Great Special Effects, Weak Story
I gave this two stars because I thought the special effects were pretty good. But the acting was terrible and the storyline was just a carbon copy of run of the mill disaster movies. All the usual players are there; the idealistic scientist, the government, and the military (that is almost never portrayed correctly). I didn't even finish watching this. I wish for once directors for these types of movies would learn a key point. Once you fire tank rounds and shoulder-launched rockets at a giant and they have no effect, small arms are not going to do anything to bring it down. Yet every soldier is firing rifles and pistols at the giant like one is going to be the lucky shot I guess. You see this in just about every "boss fight" in the movies, dare I say most recently in the Marvel franchise.
Terrifier 2 (2022)
Creepy, But No Way Scary
The hype for this movie had it being the scariest bit of cinema in the last decade. It was not scary. Gory, yes...creepy, yes; but that does not equal scary. I mean the story was ridiculous in that some psycho clown is walking around slicing people up with impunity while somehow not getting shot. Yes...I realize it's a horror movie, but if the events took place in some sort of alternate reality or dreamscape, I would have found it more plausible. But no, he's walking around in a clown costume carrying a black trashbag in broad daylight and no one takes notice...whatever. I know some people who are into the gore and slasher stuff probably think it was on par, "...that's how it's supposed to be, bruh." I guess I don't get it because I thought it was a low-budget, ridiculous tale and excuse to use buckets of fake blood.
Ray Donovan (2013)
One Of the Best Series
Ray Donovan was a great series. I don't understand why it was cancelled except that maybe some thought Ray was too much of a "toxic" male. It was also somewhat disparaging of the Catholic church, so maybe that had something to do with it. But the characters were great and the acting was superb. To end the series with a two-hour movie did not do it justice. I did not think Ray's character was an "over-the-top" tough guy ala John Wick. It had plenty of tough-guy elements (I mean we're talking about Irish mobsters), but there were also elements of family drama and Ray juggling his life as a fixer, while trying to manage his family problems. There were some seasons where I felt like the writers made incongruent changes to the story line from one season to the next, but overall the story lines remained lineal and in-tune with audience expectations.
Haunted (2018)
Cinematic embellishing
The show's producers are really reaching to make each of these stories as scary as they can. The "based" on a true story concept is very much exploited here. It appears the people on the show are real and not actors, but their stories don't support the detail in the shows. The personal stories are really vague, yet Netflix introduces its own characters or creatures into the shows that the victims never mention. I sort of watched this while I was doing work on my laptop and that's about all the attention it garnered from me.
Cherry (2021)
An Emotional Journey
Holland really stood out here. If your kids are fans of Spiderman, this isn't even close to that, so I wouldn't recommend it for family movie night because it's gritty. I mean Holland is great as Spiderman, but thank goodness he's been willing and successful really to branch out and not be pigeonholed into the Marvel stereotype. I'd rather see movies like this than the super hero played out genre anyway. This movie is a great character-following story much to me like "Goodfellas" where we're along for the ride, which includes all of the good and bad that the character endures, even though a lot of it is due to the character's own fault and disastrous decisions. But we still sympathize with them because the actor can successfully reveal the flaws within humanity that we all have through the character. I imagine this reverberated with Iraq war vets and although I did not go to Iraq, I did serve in the military and a lot of the inferences were spot on. I'd even say that the war portrayal was better than "Hurt Locker" (gasp!), which I have always thought was ridiculous and overblown and never understood why it garnered so much fanfare. The cinematography and subtle scene inferences in Cherry as the characters endure Iraq were awesome. The story flows very well, is quite funny at times, and I wasn't sure how it was going to end, but I thought it overall very satisfying.
You Were Never Really Here (2017)
Phoenix is a Natural
I think Joaquin Phoenix has only gotten better over the years. I mean his Oscar for Joker was no accident and I thought it was well deserved. To me he's one of those actors that once he's played a part, I could imagine no one else in the role...Freddie Quell in PT Anderson's "The Master" was just brilliant and I don't think anyone could have matched PS Hoffman in that film the same way. In this film he's the hero, but not like we're used to seeing heroes portrayed in most played-out vengeance movies with bodies that took 12 months prior to filming to sculpt, or Special Forces Navy SEaL backgrounds. Instead his background represents trauma, pain and regret, which has been the subject of films many times before, but the lack of flashiness works in this movie because I think it makes his role more believable and realistic. Which when you add the acting, I don't think anyone could have played it better than Phoenix.
Black '47 (2018)
Fantastic Sleeper
This is one of those titles I caught on Netflix late one night and have watched it four times since. I've never seen the lead character in anything before, but his performance was outstanding. Hugo Weaving is just as awesome. I don't know much about the history here, so I'm not reviewing as to how it balances with actual events, but the actors, the storyline and the ending were all very satisfying.
The Killing of Two Lovers (2020)
Heartache, emotion, and despair through tension
This film was great in my opinion. I didn't watch the series Lethal Weapon with this actor Clayne Crawford, but I have seen a couple of movies recently with him in them, including this one and I'm impressed with his style. I like the Indie "feel" of this film and others like it and prefer them over the ones that are so cinema-hyped these days, like the Marvel movies, or whatever is "trending". Whatever is trending or "hot" in Rotten Tomatoes is generally not good cinema to me, although I think even this one got above average marks on RT. There is a lot of emotion in this film that I think is presented as true as could be in cinema between a separated couple. Even though the opening scene presents a moment of heightened tension, it carries throughout the film successfully but it isn't exhausting in my opinion because its drama and superb acting facilitates a connection with the characters and I found myself sympathizing with them. Even though I'm not going through a similar situation, I do have a teenage daughter whose behavior closely resembles one of the main characters'. Anyone out there with teenage daughters will probably say amen. This reminded me of a somewhat recent film out there called 'Blue Ruin'. Although this was much less violent, the tension created at the start of it was carried through in much the same way without turning me off the characters. I look forward to more of Crawford's work and perhaps more collaborations with this director.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021)
Great on storyline and character continuity; failing for socio-political soapboxing
One of the rare bonding opportunities between me and my daughter is watching the Marvel movies and series together (she's 12 so I take what I can get). But if it hadn't been for her, I'd have stopped watching this after the first two or three episodes.
The socio-political racial inequality browbeating just became unbearable. The writers have carefully crafted into the storyline that the audience is supposed to take the same journey of "realization" as the Falcon character. His original reasons for not wanting to take on the Captain America mantle have nothing to do with injustice; he just feels as though the original Captain America shield belongs with its original bearer and that he is not that character. But as the story progresses, he is being told that the shield embodies social injustice and that he is not meant to have it because he's black.
So now we are expected to apologize for not understanding the "woke" reason Falcon did not want to take the shield, just as Bucky did toward the close of the next to last episode.
Are the writers going to make Falcon a super soldier or are we expected to believe he's just superhuman out of the box?...cue scene from "The Winter Soldier" where Steve Rogers is running laps near the Lincoln Memorial and Falcon can't match him. I had no problem with Falcon taking the Captain's shield but now I do since it's become a soapbox for politics. The Captain and the colors of his uniform embodied our Nation's sense of pride and victory in WWII and Falcon could have done that as well, but that storyline doesn't fit the progressive mold.
Honeydew (2020)
Good setting of mood and creepy vibe, but almost funny at times
I thought the cinematography and sound effects lended to the movie's creepiness, but the positive aspects don't go far beyond that. Like many reviews have stated, the pace of the movie is extremely slow. I kept waiting for something to happen but I was dragged from scene to scene till the final plot reveal ...to absolutely nothing original in horror. The female lead seems to be the only one conscientious enough to realize they've landed in a f-ed up scenario and her companion just wonders about aimlessly taking in everything like, "What's the big deal?" There were elements of the film that had me wondering if there was some kind of supernatural entity at work, but those were dumb plot points that remained unanswered at the end of the film.
Bloodthirsty (2020)
Nice refresh of the werewolf movie, but fell short eventually
I look forward to any "new" take on werewolf or vampire movies, so I rented this really looking forward to the story. It was a nice original take on the genre with the Indie-singer/songwriter vibe and kept me intrigued as to how the plot was going to play out. For me, the debut of the monster, or how the werewolf would be presented is a big part of the movie as I hoped it wouldn't just be the actors wearing heavy make-up. Well to me the special effects really fell short here because they looked like something from an 80s werewolf movie. I mean the transformed human wore a little bit more body hair, some fake nails, face make-up and fake teeth and that's it. With today's special effect abilities I guess I was expecting more. The acting wasn't terrible and the male lead certainly held a creepy vibe throughout the show, but the story became predictable. What started as a fresh take to me ended as run of the mill.
Come True (2020)
A tribute to great directors, but disappointing
I found this to be a great tribute to Nicholas Winding Refn (the director even uses his full name) and Ridley Scott (Blade Runner) in the areas of lighting, score, and character similarities (Eldon Tyrell - The Tyrell Corp).
It started well and it was easy to understand what the research team was doing; however the recording of dreams or what the mind "sees" even after death has been explored in cinema, so I was hoping for something better. But this was just another take on the genre in the same pretense.
There were too many flaws between scenes also; for example - when the main character goes sleepwalking for who knows how long toward the end of the movie, she is barefoot after leaving the hospital, but suddenly appears walking in slippered feet. So did they clandestinely slide her slippers on in the middle of the trek all the while trying to view the dream?
It was never fully explained who the shadowed beings were supposed to be. I understand that viewer interpretation is a major concept of cinema, but I don't think there was even enough substance to the story to allow the viewer any concrete conclusions. Were the beings good or evil, or neither? Were they angelic or extraterrestrial (which could be one and the same depending on interpretation)? In my opinion it offers too many unanswered questions.
It started well, but in the end it's too fantastic and ethereal and expects too much mental reach from the viewer.
The Interior (2015)
Funny at times; but overall disappointing
Yeah, the preview for this movie had me believing it was the scariest thing out in a while, but it isn't. A lot of the parts in the beginning were funny as the main character is deciding to make his exit from the corporate world. But the "terror" in the woods I found silly. I couldn't piece together how the characters were related unless we are to think that they too came to the woods to escape the confines of the business world and became savages in the process. I didn't get it and hated to have wasted even .99 on this title. I'm sure there is a deeper meaning I'm missing somewhere.
The Wind (2018)
Great setting but poor casting; difficult to follow
The only actor who even looked halfway hearty enough to be believable as a person living on the frontier was the main character (lead female). The others looked as if they'd just stepped out of the dressing rooms for the scenes. To me, if the characters had been more believable in appearance as people attempting to carve out a living on the plains, the movie would have had more spunk. The timelines were difficult to follow since there were a lot of flashbacks. At least the monster or evil being wasn't just an actor in a suit. The quiet loneliness of the prairie was a great setting for a horror movie, but the actors didn't pull it off well, and it was difficult to follow at times. I'd add it to a stack of mediocre horror movies.
Joker (2019)
Phoenix did not disappoint
I was really looking forward to Joker, mainly because Joaquin Phoenix was starring and really knows how to play a demented character. He played it better than I can adequately describe...and dare I say better than Ledger's Joker IMO. The only part of the movie that I feel didn't adequately gel with the character was the shooting of the talk show host played by DeNiro. There was almost an anit-hero sentiment for Joker and how outside forces built the monster, until the on-air shooting. I mean if he already had a following built from the Subway shootings, to me the on-air killing was incongruent with the character as I thought it was stupid. To me, any talk show host would have cut the show well before anyone was shot. That piece could have been better represented to keep with the other two hours of the movie. Anyway, I give it 9/10 stars because of the on-air shooting.
Arrival (2016)
I don't see the big deal...
So many reviewers are heralding this movie and I'm not sure why. Amy Adams' performance was good, but I'd say she did just as good a job in "The Fighter" opposite Walberg. I'll give the film points for originality. At least the aliens didn't take on human form. I'm so tired of the Star Trek and Star Wars aliens that are just actors walking around in alien masks and gloves. Although to me the Arrival aliens looked like they just used someone's hands walking around in smoke. Seriously...their joints just look like knuckles. I liked the twist on their language and that the film showed deciphering it took some time and not just some lightning strike moment when the protagonist has a genius attack and suddenly knows how to speak to them. There were unexplained plot points, though. Why were the aliens returning in three thousand years? What was the gift they were leaving...that we understood their concept of time? Why was their relationship to Adams' character so personal? Whatever. I guess you have to be a real intellectual film student to get it. And what has Renner done to get to the forefront of the acting world? The Hurtlocker? The guy is deadpan. I didn't think it was the breakthrough movie of the year.
The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Yawn...
I haven't seen the original Magnificent 7, so I can't judge this from a 'remake' standpoint, but I can say it had so many clichés that before I was halfway through I was debating not finishing it. The random gathering of unbelievably quick and accurate gunmen, a knife expert and an archer; the reluctant hero (Hawke) who you know is going to reappear to help save the day once his conscience gets the best of him...just tired old overdone characters reciting tired old overdone lines. I'm glad I didn't pay to see this in the theater, but I feel I even wasted the $5.99 on iTunes. There was nothing original about this film. It was boring and predictable...townspeople rise up against maniacal oppressor, maniacal oppressor comes back for revenge and is killed. The only character with any depth is Hawke's...the others are so hum-drum and overdone it was almost comical. The story has plenty of issues as well. Toward the end when the 'bad guys' come back to enact revenge on the town, their main weapon is a wagon-mounted gatling gun. So they fire what seems like a thousand rounds into the town's buildings and persons and then pause to change magazines. This pause is at least five to ten minutes long, yet no one on the friendly side uses this time gap to their advantage to attack. Instead Pratt's character decides to take on the gatling gun solo. Meanwhile Hawke's character is reputed to be some sort of hero Rebel sniper spends his time picking off riders chasing Pratt's character. Why didn't the sniper simply take out guys behind the gatling gun? No depth...just run of the mill ridiculous and unbelievable.
The Strain (2014)
Not bad for a horror series
I haven't watched too many horror series apart from Penny Dreadful, but I found this one feasible. I would guess you'd have to be a fan of vampire lore to appreciate this since that's the premise. I like the way they have described the transformation into a vampire as a virus. I feel that's a fresh take on an old genre. I mean how many ways have vampires been explained and versed in film...plenty. This to me was an new and modern take on the old Dracula, Van Helsing, Salem's Lot caricatures. I've watched all seasons that I can for free and am looking forward to season three on Hulu. I haven't bothered with Vampire Diaries, or any of the others, so I can't comment on those. I did watch a few episodes of True Blood, but the fake southern accents were ridiculous.
Don't Breathe (2016)
Decent thriller with too many plot holes
I would certainly classify this as more of a thriller than a horror film. Horror films can get away with stretching the imagination more than most films and since this was more of a thriller, in my opinion, there were too many such "stretches". Some plot elements were adequately covered early in the film. For instance, Rocky wants the money so she can escape to the west coast...check. The antagonist can drag a person down the middle of the street because it was established via GoPro camera that there is no traffic in that neighborhood...check. He keeps the girl in the cellar to give birth to a new daughter...check. But the bad points outweigh the good...1 - Why is it assumed that the guy has a huge amount of cash in his house just because he got a settlement for his daughter's death? Oh, he's weird so he doesn't have a bank account? The cash in his home should have been based on a better premise. 2 - The guy is in the same room with two of the kids that break into his home and even passes by them in the hall, but can't smell them. However, he walks into the kitchen and discovers they're there by smelling their shoes...ridiculous. 3 - In most of the film the guy is feeling the walls and stumbling around the house as a blind person would normally have to, but he appears out of nowhere fairly quickly to corner the thieves...whatever. 4 - The guy has a person trapped in his basement, yet he has an alarm to trigger the police in case of a break-in...good Lord. 5 - Despite the lack of sterilization and proper obgyn attention, he impregnates this girl with a basting syringe and sperm he keeps in a basement fridge...come on. I could name more, but I'll stop there. Yeah...yeah...yeah, it wouldn't be a thriller without those elements, you say? Nonsense. These are implausible twisting of facts, yet most accept this as good, if not great, filmmaking. Please.
Sling Blade (1996)
My favorite movie of all time
Despite Billy Bob Thornton's "Carl" voice being mocked ad nauseum, this IMO is one of the best movies ever made. The originality of the story and the main character are genius. Plot points are backed, not so much by established story lines, but by the richness of the characters from Frank's need for a father figure, Karl's need to be accepted, Doyle's redneck prejudices and Vaughn's identity as a gay man in a small southern town. These are very shallow explanations for the richness of each character, but the story line cannot be beat down to the somewhat tragic but salvational ending. If you haven't seen this movie, it is the best of BB Thornton's directorial efforts and extremely tough to beat for filmmaking.
Blood Father (2016)
Meh...
I've always liked Mel Gibson even though the PC police hung him out to dry a few years back. So I was looking forward to this movie. It was okay, but it is no Lethal Weapon, nor Taken (as some have described it). Not that I wanted Blood Father to be copies of those films, but it could have borrowed some better cues from both. To me, the sappiness of Gibson's character subtracts too much from what is supposed to be his grittier side. There's too much of a roller coaster ride between his character's emotions and whining to, "okay, now I'm a badass!" Pick one side or the other, gritty or sappy, but attempting to mix the two is tough. We know titles that have done it well...Lethal Weapon, Taken, The Outlaw Josey Wales, etc. But this film fails at it, much like the writers of TWD's last season attempting to make Rick Grimes this romantic with Michonne while maintaining his near sociopathic edge. Mel still makes a great movie and people, like me, will go to see this because they're fans. But overall there's nothing refreshing nor original about this film. It was good to see Mel back in action, but overall I thought it was run of the mill.
Jason Bourne (2016)
Way overboard with technological capabilities
There were some good fight scenes in here, which have made the Bourne franchise successful. Apart from that, I didn't find much entertainment in this movie. I can't believe overall this movie has garnered an average rating above 4 or 5. To start, there's no way they could do half the stuff from that CIA operations center they claim...shutting down the power grid in another country?...shutting down a computer in a room just because there's a 1990s cell phone there?...tapping into the security camera feed in another country?...and they do this all in seconds. Way too unbelievable. That foolishness went out with 24 and their super-duper control room in Los Angeles. And the story line on the premise that they have to "stop" the CIA from running black ops? And after all this time he starts remembering the circumstances in his father's death? Too unbelievable...too many plot holes.