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The Nest (2020)
It works
Jude Law and Carrie Coon star as a couple whose marriage is unraveling. They are both great in this movie, as are the supporting cast. The acting is very good, as you feel the tension in the house between family members whose lives are taking a downturn. At the center of this story is Law who plays Rory, a man who is chasing money at all costs. We have all probably met a Rory, slick, handsome, phony, and intelligent. Law plays him to a T, and allows the viewer to actually empathize with him as he takes his family on a disastrous journey. Not satisfied with how his career (money hunt) is going in America, he talks his wife into returning to Great Britain where he thinks his prospects will be better. This move is based on a fabrication, one which his wife Allison finds out about at a shi-shi party given by his boss. She seems to repress this discovery, and that is a theme throughout this movie. Allison's repression keeps building until it reaches a heart-wrenching conclusion as she tries to unearth her beloved horse Richmond, who died and was buried but whose carcass was strangely unearthed. The horse represents Allison's repression she is trying to bury but comes to the surface. I think maybe Richmond could also symbolize a marriage that dies and is buried, but may be able to be salvaged as residual feelings rise to the surface.
I know this movie received some negativity, but really this movie delivers on it's intent; the story is a taut drama depicting a family coming apart. And the razor's edge of a woman willing to subjugate her needs in order to keep her family together mirrors the struggle of many marriages that are falling apart. At what point do you throw in the towel? When do individual needs trump the needs of the family unit?
Deducting 3 stars, as the pacing is slow and it can sometimes drag. Also, the elements of supernatural (a door opening on its own, strange noises in the house) were unnecessary IMO.
Peaky Blinders (2013)
I tried to like it
I am a fan of historical movies, fiction or non-fiction. I had just come off of Boardwalk Empire, which was a really great series with some really bad people, and I was looking for something similar.
In both Boardwalk and PB, it is difficult to get into watching deplorable characters succeed/prosper, but if the plot and acting are good, then I can follow along. I do not root for these deplorables, but if their story is done with a sense of realism, that can go a long way towards telling the story.
I just finished season 3/episode 1 of PB, which contained Grace and Tommy's wedding. This episode is what ended the series for me. So far I have gotten used to the slo-mo, the posing, the endless smoking and drinking, and too many scenes where the main characters looked like they were shooting a fashion spread. Although I have enjoyed Cillian's work in the past, his cold, fish-eyed, endless staring scene after scene is getting to me. And I can't really buy into their rise to wealth, as there are waay too many plot-holes along the way. Doubtful that Winston Churchill was in kahoots with this kind of trash to further the British cause. I could write a book about the plot holes, but the average viewer can figure them out on their own.
Also, I could not keep up with all the political back and forth since I am not familiar with Irish history. But really, to believe that this gang family gets away with what they get away with is a little far-fetched.
The soundtrack was way too distracting as well, sort of a steam-punk modern vibe that took me out of the story time and again. It honestly reminded me of A Knight's Tale, and that weird court dance scene to Bowie's Golden Years (didn't work in that movie either). But really, all of the Shelby family just become sort of cartoonish as the series drags on. They aren't deep or conflicted (well maybe Arthur, just a smidge), they are just too one-dimensional. They all lack a sense of humanity I guess. The endless violence and killing and just basic immorality gets tiresome after a while. So to watch their rise to power is something I am not planning to continue, I will see if I can find another series to binge watch.
The Switch (2010)
Are you kidding me
Let me preface this review by stating romcoms are not my favorite genre. When I came across this movie, I was looking for some mindless fluff to watch before bedtime, and most of the romcoms I have seen definitely fall into the mindless fluff category.
I didn't read about the premise of the movie, so went in blind. I was motoring along fine, enjoying the first part of the movie, getting to know the Kassie and Wally characters. We also have the annoying, over-the-top friend in this one with Debbie, for reference see the Judy Greer character in 23 Dresses. I do like Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston, so no problems there, as they were doing an adequate job. And as is the case with most romcoms, the characters are very successful people, the two mains in this are good to go with burgeoning careers living the good life in NYC. Makes for nice scenery so makes sense, we can't have our romcoms set in podunk Nebraska, I get it.
I can buy that super attractive Kassie is not having any luck in the men department so has decided to forego the traditional route of motherhood and go with the artificial insemination route, sure. Cut to the moronic party to kick off the insemination, and the anointed inseminator leaves his sample in the bathroom. Suuure, have never heard of this type of party before, but sure.
Then we get to the part where Wally accidentally disposes of the anointed's offering, and decides to replace it with his own (via Diane Sawyer stimulation). Well, this is where the movie went off the rails for me. This is just so so wrong on ANY ethical level. Is the vapid viewer supposed to buy into the idea that smart attractive Kassie, when finding out about the switch, would be okay enough with it to MARRY the schmuck who did this? Has Hollywood completely lost it's collective mind? On no planet would this happen. NO woman would be ok with this switch, not a one. Good grief. I went ahead and watched the remainder of this schlock just to finish the movie, but the whole premise of the plot is disturbing, to say the least. But hey, they lived happily ever after, so good for them.
3 stars for the kid, he was fantastic, and always good to see Jeff Goldblum in anything.
Barbarian (2022)
Nothing to see here
I watched this last night cold (without knowing anything about the move or reading any reviews). I gave it four stars for the two lead characters Campbell and Skarsgard. On the fence about Justin Long, he always seems to overact, and plays the same note in everything I see him in. Aside from that, this movie defies any logic and is therefore hard for a rational adult to buy into. Let's go down the list, as so many others have:
1. Tess does not vet the rental before arriving
2. Tess does not notice the abysmal neighborhood before she goes inside the first night.
3. Tess decides to bunk with a complete stranger.
4. After noticing the abysmal neighborhood the next morning, she goes back to the rental to stay another night.
5. This clean, well-maintained rental would not exist in the abysmal neighborhood. Squatters/homeless would have trashed the place when it sits empty.
6. Cops don't act like these Detroit cops when an upset woman runs up to them telling them what Tess did.
7. Why is "mother" a superhuman? She has lived in a dark cellar most of her life, only coming out at night to terrorize people.
8. How did "father" create such an elaborate underground living area? Complete with wiring? Not sure about plumbing.
9. Didn't the management company notice the utilities were a little high for an AirBnB?
10. What did the "Father" and "Mother" eat? How did they get out to buy groceries?
11. Why didn't the "Father" just keep his house? Why would he sell it and then go live in the basement?
12. Where to start with the final scene, Tess would not be able to get up and walk away after that fall. "Mother" would not jump after Tess. Etc. Etc.
Also, the metoo plotline with Justin Long was not well integrated. I am thinking this thread was put in to elaborate on what kind of a person he was, but somehow it seemed like it belonged in another movie. It took you out of the main storyline, and it was hard to get back into the dark theme of the flick once you left it.
I could go on and on, there are so many problems with the story, but most of them are covered in other reviews. Kind of a dumb movie, and I love scary movies, even B movies.
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
Shallow waters
Having seen the first Avatar movie, I went into this one knowing what to expect. TBH, I wanted to see the sequel based on the reviews of the special effects. The CGI and action scenes are worth going to a theater to experience the full 3D effect. This is a gorgeous movie for the eyes, but Avatar: TWOW is not a full movie experience for the adult brain.
The Na'vi are back, specifically the Scully family. There is a thin plot of a Colonel who gets implanted into a blue-man body to capture Jake and get revenge for Jake killing him in the 1st movie.
This movie does hit you over the head with stereotypes and themes. The natives (Na'vi, get it?) are one with the planet, and in this one even talk to the whales. Ouch. There is not one likeable Na'vi as they are all two-dimensional. And the humans are not any better, the evil Colonel, the pillaging colonial white guys, the military complex bent on stripping the new pristine planet of valuable resources.
Then we move on to the water scenes. It is almost like Cameron is showing off here. The scenes are awesome, but they are too long. It is like an episode of Blue Planet meets a video game. The water scenes make this movie 45 minutes too long.
Let's move onto the plot issues. So the Na'vi are relatively primitive people, yet they use sat-com headsets and laptops. Last time I looked, Pandora did not have technical support or engineers on the planet.
Not sure of the purpose of Spider, and the Scully children who kept getting into trouble started getting on my nerves. As did the simplistic messages about family and fighting for what is yours.
All in all, this felt like a movie for the kids, even with the super violent fight scenes. I will probably rent the 3rd installment as long as it clocks in under 2.5 hours, just to see what happens.
I suppose those reviewing this above an 8 may be looking at it through a simplistic lens or basing their review mainly on the blockbuster CGI effects. For me, a great movie has to have a strong plot and characters with nuance and depth. The special effects (if any) should not be the driving factor for the strength of the movie itself.
On a side note, Sam Worthington's one-note narration gives you insight into the fact that the writers needed this device to explain things since they didn't use plot and character exposition to get the story across.
Im Westen nichts Neues (2022)
Reviewed as a movie, not as a book adaptation
Having not read the AQOTWF book, I am approaching this review simply on the merits of the movie. I understand other reviews that are critical of the lack of faithfulness to the source material. People who read the book are going into this movie expecting something close to the experience of the book.
For me this movie ran long. There were artsy scenes that could have been left out, like the drone shots of landscapes, or the drawn-out scenes of non-dialogue focusing in on character's faces. And the battle scenes, while good, were overly gory. I felt after a time that the movie was relying too much on these scenes to depict the bleakness and futility of war, and not on character exposition and plot. And perhaps that is where the movie fell short for me most of all. The characters were not well fleshed-out. I didn't care much about any of them. I do wonder if this may be because they were German; Germans were the ruthless aggressors of WWI and the French were defending their land. So a bit hard (for me) to sympathize with the Germans. I get the soldiers were heavily propagandized puppets, so there is that.
And a couple of scenes were just dumb, IMHO. When the French farmboy snuck up on Kat and shot him, it was not believable. How did he reach the soldier undetected, get by Paul, and find Kat in the woods? Also, the scene with the overzealous general's order to attack the French in the 11th hour (literally) makes no sense. If this were historically accurate (it isn't), I would suspect you would have a soldier uprising, instead the infantry just follows his orders.
The cinematography was great, the overall feel that war is hell, and trench warfare is horrifying, are very well done. And yes, the movie does make it's point that war is not glory, and soldiers pay the price for their leader's hubris and misguided agendas.
I plan on watching the original next in order to compare.
Crimson Peak (2015)
Great gothic horror with a few flaws
I loved del Toro's Pan's Labarynth and disliked The Shape of Water. I am lukewarm on Crimson Peak. The visuals are stunning - old New York, the Allendale mansion. The costumes and music are fantastic. The movie for me had a steampunk vibe as far as feel.
The acting is great, to be expected from the lineup. For me where the movie lost me a bit was in the continuous bleed of clay into the sets (snow, mansion). I get the symbolism of blood and gore in the red clay, but you don't really need to hit the viewer over the head with it. The decaying mansion was a bit much, are we led to believe the Sharpes would have remained in that hovel?
Also, the exposition via the gramophone, recordings, and photographs was a little silly. The Sharpes kept an old trunk in the lower level with damning evidence in it? Hmmm. I would have preferred to find out the mystery through Edith's eyes, not a trunk full of the answers neatly divided into envelopes. Also, Lucille's expository speech to Edith at the end was not needed and long-winded. Again, let the viewer find out through the protagonist's eyes rather than spelling it out for them.
For me, a fatal flaw of del Toro's is he is fantastic at telling a story and creating a mood, but his characters can be too one-dimensional. As in Pan's Labarynth's evil general, or in The Shape of Water's evil military character Strickland, these characters are somewhat one-sided, and we lack some nuance of characterization. The childhood doctor friend is handsome and true blue, Lucille is dark to the core (yet somehow Edith cannot pick up on this), Edith herself is a little too saccharine. Perhaps the best drawn character is Hiddleston's Thomas, at least we get a little conflict there.
Oh - the spectres/ghosts are spooky as well, and the movie doesn't rely on cheap jump scares so that helps.
Crimson Peak is a good scary movie, just not great.
Counting Bullets (2021)
Just...don't
I generally don't select movies with such low ratings, but I was at someone else's house who likes westerns and wanted to see a free movie.
I gamely sat through this truly terrible movie to be polite, thank goodness it only ran 73 minutes. The acting was truly atrocious, the action scenes were cringeworthy, and the plot was just plain stupid. This seemed like a college film project tbh. The older lieutenant came the closest to actual acting. I can't decide if the younger lieutenant, the injured soldier, or the scout was the worst. Really a toss up. This is easily THE WORST movie I have ever suffered through. And I am 53 with many movies under my belt. Do not subject yourself to this movie. You have been warned. The 10 ratings are fake.
Girl in the Picture (2022)
Pacing and direction are solid in this sad tale
I am a sucker for any crime documentary and have watched many.
This recounts the story of Suzanne, a woman abducted as a child by an evil sexual predator. Fortunately the producers did not try and stretch this story out into more than one episode. The story is engrossing and well-paced. The victims (as there are always multiple in any child abduction, not just the abducted) are treated respectfully and with care. The story unfolds and is fascinating. I too had the same questions, like why did the birth mother not try harder to find her child? But that is the rub, so many victims of sexual predators are targeted BECAUSE they will not be searched for (the homeless, prostitutes, neglected children). That is why they become easy prey. It is an unfortunate reality, The predators are bent on finding and grooming their prey and getting away with it.
I did gasp when her high school best friend at the end of the show literally said "I've got your back" in referring to Suzanne. Really? You were present when Franklin raped Suzanne at gunpoint during a sleepover and said/did nothing. Ever. I would beg to differ about you having her back.
That is the hard part of these terrible stories, thinking "why didn't one of these people do something, do more, do anything, to stop the abuse?" Nonetheless, this is an excellent retelling of the tragedy of this resilient woman's short journey.
Tell Me Who I Am (2019)
A Tale of Two Burdens
Just finished this documentary and boy howdy was it good. Powerful. Thought provoking.
**Spoiler alert**
The story follows the aftermath of a man losing his memory following a motorcycle accident when his is 18. This man, Alex, has a very close relationship with his twin Marcus. Having amnesia, Alex relies completely on Marcus to help him fill in who he is and what his life has been like. Marcus selectively chooses what to share, and crafts an alternate reality for Alex to spare him from the painful upbringing they have both endured. They were both sexually abused by their mother from an early age, and this is recounted by Marcus in a cathartic scene (for both) at the end of the documentary. What you don't know is their mother had two more children with their awful stepfather and their half brother was also abused by their mother, but is not part of this documentary.
Marcus carries a terrible burden and was in his mind protecting Alex. But Alex needed to know the truth in order to construct his own identity. Not the identity Marcus crafted form him, but HIS OWN identity, flaws and all. To truly know ourselves we have to completely know and face our past. So Alex's burden was that he knew he wasn't getting the whole story from Marcus, but still loved him despite his suspicions he was being lied to. Conflict right there.
Marcus and Alex are remarkable people, and their story serves as an example of human frailty and courage. Ultimately though it is a story of the power of love, that love can overcome evil and heal people.
Although I will never meet either of these two people, I have said a prayer for them both that the rest of their life journeys be filled with joy and love and healing, and that they can both lay the pain to rest. They both deserve this.
Snowpiercer (2013)
Not good
I am a fan of sci-fi, it is my favorite genre. I am adept at suspending disbelief, since sci-fi usually asks you to use your imagination to truly join the movie. And dystopian, steam-punk based sci-fi? Count me in!
I wanted to like this movie. The scenery and sets were fantastic, really the best part of the movie. As so many reviewers have done before me, I will number the problems I had with this title (SPOILER ALERT):
1. So all the world's countries agreed to allow magic fairy dust to be sent into the atmosphere to cool the planet down from global warming? Really? Countries can't even agree within their own borders (Brexit, U.S. border wall) let alone between each other (Korean tension, Russian mafia government, Middle East unrest). C'mon.
2. The people in the back caboose are living off of ground up cockroaches for 17 years? And some of them are actually fat? The human diet requires nutrients beyond protein, otherwise we end up with deficiencies (scurvy, malnutrition).
3. People are chopping off their own limbs to feed each other? Honestly this is ludicrous. It would be every man for himself after a while. The Donner party did not self-sacrifice, other than some starving to death for refusing to become cannibals.
4. I get this was some allegory. Was I supposed to understand that fighting to the top of the pile could result in disillusionment when you finally get there? That it is lonely at the top and decisions weigh heavy on the powerful?
5. Why did all of the junkies suddenly get sober enough to fight the two Asian junkies?
6. So father junky was so stoned he could barely open doors in the beginning, and then he turned into super ninja warrior?
7. Genius Ed Harris character build a train that would never die, but could not fix the problem down below that required child slave-labor to fix?
8. Everything needs fuel, everything. A perpetual motion engine that does not require fuel is stupid, unless it is solar or something.
9. Where were the livestock and chickens? What did they live off of? Last time I checked you are not supposed to feed cows with cows or chickens with chickens. Ask a farmer what happens when you do this.
10. The entire premise was based upon planned uprisings to control the train population? Why not just make everyone equal, and carefully control the birth/death rate. Seems like sane people in a desperate situation would agree to this.
Gah, I really could go on and on, but there are just too many problems with the story. If you want to torture yourself for 2 hours, go ahead and find them all yourself. A 7 rating is silly, This is a 1 or 2, 2 being generous. Fortunately for me I found this in the free movies in On Demand. SO glad I did not pay for this experience.
The Shape of Water (2017)
The Shape of Disbelief
I am always game for a good fantasy movie. Some of my favorites are the LOTR releases and Pan's Labarynth, which del Toro also directed. I was excited to see this movie because I believe in his vision. I didn't read any reviews but just went in blind.
This movie for me was a major disappointment. The characters are totally two-dimensional. I get it, Strickland is a baddie and Elisa is a lonely woman with a heart of gold. This movie is mainly about society's broken things. People who are achingly lonely inside of their own lives, I get it. You don't have to hit me over the head with this angle by showing Elisa feverishly masturbating in the tub or Giles getting rebuffed angrily by the pie-shop hottie. Or Zelda constantly complaining about her significant other. I understand, people will go to extraordinary, even bizarre measures, to find companionship and love. Human beings for the most part want to connect, to belong.
But no, I cannot fathom any woman having sex with the amphibian creature. This whole part of story line made me so uncomfortable I really wanted to turn the movie off. The only reason I didn't was because I wanted to see how it ended. Should not have bothered because the ending was the most absurd part of the movie.
So Elisa learns to exist underwater with fish-man? How exactly would THIS work? The answer is it would not, on any level. This movie would have worked had Elisa and fish-man connected on a platonic level. I could have totally bought it. Still trying to figure out why the laughable dance/song sequence was thrown in. Was the movie not long enough?
The sets and filming are gorgeous, 50's cold-war era meets steampunk. The film score is magical. The rest of the movie is a complete waste of time. del Toro, and other directors, need to learn the whole idea of nuanced characters. People are (generally speaking) not all good nor all bad. When two-dimensional characters are developed and poor dialogue is written it is just plain laziness.