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Ozark (2017)
Strong start, weaker end
First two seasons were really good with interesting setup and plot twists. But now in 4th season the plot is starting to be just silly. Low level money laundry guy Marty Bird is suddenly moving billions of dollars, his teen age son is still riding a bike but also washing billions of dollars. People might rip out babies from pregnant women, kill priests, kidnap and torture family members, but all this seems to be mysteriously reset between each season. Also FBI seems to be reduced to one agent on maternity leave.
Honestly, the series should've been two season long and that's it. Last two drop the rating from 9 to 7 stars from me.
P..s God I wish they'd stop writing annoying illogically behaving teenagers into TV series.
Lead Me Home (2021)
Nice garnish but the beef is missing.
This documentary is basically a collection of beautiful, vibrant, and colorful scenes from some city. Closeups of peoples faces and some timelapse footage. But what they forgot is the actual beef: Where's the story? The makers to my knowledge have been filming for three years but there's only about 40 minutes of material. Over half of the footage is filler scenery parts.
Black Summer (2019)
Doesn't really make sense (2nd season)
Let's say this first: The first season was amazing. The second season starts off great too with a fast paced zombie chase and unpredictable events. But then things come to grinding halt. I am now at episode 5 and still somewhat confused. The storytelling relies relies on jumping back and forth in time, replaying the same events through different characters. At first it feels cool but starts to get weary.
The biggest problem is the behavior of the characters. The stare quietly each other, don't speak, when they speak they make no sense and eventually (and usually initially as well) they just want to kill each other. For apparently no reason. A lot of the situations would be solved right away if the characters would just speak normally to each other. Tell who they are and where they come from. But instead, the dialogue is often single worded and short. A good example is the episode where three groups are inside the same big house. There's no food, there's plenty of space for everyone, yet they are stuck in the same living room holding guns on each other. And of course they kill everyone.
I do like the fast and aggressive zombies.
Nomadland (2020)
I was expecting more
I was expecting more. Why? Because of the Oscars. I was expecting something unique, exiting, different. But after this experience I started wondering the whole basis of giving nominations to movies.
But if we set aside the Oscars, what is the problem with this movie? Well, it's not really a movie. It feels like a slow documentary with few professional actors. There's no plot, no development. Just a lady in a van going from place to place and listening to monologues of actual nomads.
I would take away the actors, add Louis Theroux and call it a documentary.
The House of Magic (2013)
Standard issue animation
Kitten is abandoned, finds its way to a magicians house with other wacky characters, fights against evil man etc. and that's it. This is a movie with standard script without real surprises. Animation quality is good and on par with DreamWorks. But the problem? The movie is boring. Graphics are good but the characters are unforgettable. And the humor is so politically correct that it fails to amuse anyone. I watched the flick with 5 and 9 year old kids and neither laughed a single time. I myself started reading a book after the first 45 minutes.
It's a shame that obviously there's a lot of effort used for the movie, but once again the script would have to be re-done. And next time hire someone who can actually write funny dialogue. And since the movie is European, then please bravely use the an European angle and the Belgium twists for visuals and gags. Now it's just watered down Dreamworks copy.
The Dyatlov Pass Incident (2013)
Pleasant surprise
Just saw this movie from the cable. Unknown title with unknown actors - at least to me. But I though to watch it anyway. Basically the movie is a video journal about a bunch of young people who go after a mystery and then of course things go wrong. So nothing new in this. First I thought that this would another lame Blair Witch flick with some creepy noises, few jolts and then the ending without any explanation. But no, this was actually a really good flick!
Unlike in most of the horror movies, the people actually behave logically. There are no stereotypes on neither side and things don't happen just out of luck. The latter one is a sure sign of poor script writing. Instead the movie builds up smoothly adding suspense and twists in the plot. Things also go SciFi which is always a big plus. And like said, the end did not leave audience wondering what they just saw and what the heck was the movie all about.
The acting and the dialogue are plausible and even the Russian characters don't speak this weird evil-English-Russia-movie language.
So great movie to watch even for main stream movie fans.