Reviews

Is there anyway to get my time back? Is there a score lower than one? Has there ever been characters more unlikable?

Just finished netflix brand new true crime mini series on the Yorkshire ripper. It has brilliant archival news footage, crime scene photos and interviews I haven't seen before but beyond that I think it's a super ballsy documentary that really hammers home (no pun intended) how incompetent the police were and what a mess they made of the entire investigation. More importantly though the focus on systemic sexism and misogyny! On how some of these victims were villified and portrayed is not only sickening but heartbreaking, they were chastised, disbelieved and in some cases plain ignored so it wouldn't bend the narrative of the completely incompetent patriarchal policing that was going on. Let's not forget it was pure luck that caught him in the end, not the big wig,smiling, useless figure head police that were splashed all over the TV. Well done to film makers Jesse Vile and Ellena wood, stellar job of capturing the true story of the victims.

To date I don't think there's been a series that has infuriated me so much. Following cases taken on by the innocence project to clear the names of falsely accused and wrongfully imprisoned. I was actually open mouthed listening to the details of what had been done to these victims by people who abused their power, or hid behind the label of "expert" to get convictions and let people languishing in jail for decades, knowing full well they were innocent. They not only destroyed the lives of the people they imprisoned but the byproduct of their lies and deceit was letting the true perpetrator of these horrendous acts be free to commit more crimes. It perfectly addresses racism, cultural lines and social issues, all in all it's a very well made documentary that is tragic and heartbreaking but manages to project a message of hope. Side note. I wanted to throat punch that fat dentist so bad!!!!! How does he sleep at night!!!

Finally The sexualisation of Bundy is over. This female strong documentary, lead by Liz Kendall, Bundy's long term girlfriend and her Daughter (essentially his step daughter) focuses on Bundy's crimes through the stories of the people who were fooled into loving him, the surviving victims and the families and friends of the young women who were tragically murdered by him. There's plenty of archival footage of Bundy from various news channels and lots of rare pictures of him from his home life with Liz. It also takes a look at the social climate of the time, at how women were second class citizens giving worrying advice about how to stay safe. Instead of focusing in on how slick, clever and sexy Bundy was, which most documentaries about Ted have done in the past, this lets all the victims of Bundy paint the story, which at the end of the day is about a deplorable, filthy murderer and child rapist.

Okay, so the end of breaking bad to me was breathing taking, pure tv magic so when they announced this I was excited because I was such a massive fan, but slightly nervous as to where they were gonna take a story which was wrapped up perfectly. Unfortunately I was right to be nervous. This didn't offer anything new, we knew what awful things Jessie had been subjected to, although I didn't find they really explored his PTSD. Some people had questions when BB ended like is Walter really dead, did they find Hank? Would we see Marie packing up his rock collection (they're minerals Becka!) what happened to Skylar? Was Walter Jr (sorry Flynn's) favourite meal still Breakfast? I'm here to tell you nothing new was brought to the table. All this movie served as was pure nostalgia of seeing a lot of very familiar faces for no real reason or to add anything to the story other than them literally just being there. It felt like a filler episode of Breaking bad, no stand out moments for me. It was nice to see Jessie again but it wasn't an amazing performance by Aaron Paul, the script wasn't strong enough in my opinion, the whole thing just felt phoned in.

Joker spoiler free review. So no surprise I'm another person singing it's praises. It's true, Joaquin Phoenix is phenomenal. I'm the person that always routes for the bad guys in films, psychos are always more fun to watch, but this left me with the moral dilemma is he actually the bad guy. I'm not advocating victim blaming in anyway but it did make it hard to feel sorry for the supposed "victims" The whole tone of the film felt very current in this capitalist, fat cat era we live in. The rich get richer and nobody cares about the little guy. Add to that the way society treats and deals with mental health issues and it makes for a thought provoking two hours. It's definitely a film of many layers and will need another watch to fully digest it. I'm not the best person to comment on the whole "DC" of it all as I'm not a Batman fan, so it's best I leave that element to someone who is but I was fully immersed into it by just knowing the bare minimum. I could have happily have watched it for another hour. Believe the hype.

IT CHAPTER TWO, SPOILER FREE REVIEW. I'll start with the positive. IT is basically Goonies for horror fans. Pure nostalgia. Wanting that last adventure with your friends before you're too old. (God that's depressing) Anyway, my biggest fear for this movie was that it would fail purely because let's face it in the book and the original mini series, the switch over to the kids from the adults is pretty boring. So I'm super happy to announce I needn't have worried, this switch over was seamless , it was cast perfectly to the point they looked like the kids had made a wish on Zoltar to be big, and I actually enjoyed this more than part one. The chemistry between the cast was spot on and I it felt like watching real friends. I was totally immersed in the story from start to finish, I didn't find myself zoning out for any of the run time. Look out for the cameos and the nods to all your favourite 80's horror. Ok now for the bad, same criticism as I had for the first one, TOO HEAVILY RELIANT ON CGI!! I thought there was missed opportunities for scares that were ruined by the heavy heavy CGI. Skarsgard has perfect control of Pennywise but when the CGI kicks in it becomes cartoonish. I don't wanna spoil it so I'll just bullet point the dodgy. 1. CGI 2. The first 15 minutes felt like a totally different film, that's not to say it wasn't good, just different. (And yes I've read the book) 3. CGI 4. Angel of the morning??? 5. Small Pennywise 6. CGI 7. Too much Georgie 8. How much I cried in the end 9. The de-aging CGi and voice overs, especially Eddie. 10. Oh and as I final point did I mention the CGI?

This was an uncomfortable but necessary watch. I was very familiar with the case, even more so that I actually thought but to see it acted out and shot so tremendously was gut wrenching. Sadly injustice has been and will be part of life until the end of time, undoubtedly there's people fighting through it right now. I've seen quite a few negative reviews that this is just a puppet show to stomp on Trump and if that's your belief fine, but in my view facts speak for themselves and I knew about Trumps involvement in this case before this series, but there's no doubt the writer/director really wanted that message out there. Putting all politics, corruption and media aside, it's a truly harrowing, gut wrenching story about how five normal BOYS, lost their freedom, youth and innocence and how all of them including the victim never saw justice served correctly. A hard watch but a must watch.

Ok as much as it pains me to write this I am extremely bored, shockingly disappointed and sad. I may have a different view to some of you as I've been super into the Bundy story for decades (yes I'm that old) Bundy was the person that got me into true crime in a big way, so to say I'm very familiar with the story is a huge understatement. So to start, I couldn't get passed the Efron, apart from his similar looks, all the while being way too buff to properly emulate Bundy, he also didn't nail any of his characteristics or charm. I felt like the pacing of the film was all wrong, I understand that Berlinger tried to get across that it was coming from Liz's point of view and complete denial that Ted had done anything wrong but he seemed to abandon that half way through and if you aren't Familiar with the Bundy crimes and timeline you aren't quite sure what he's really done and the magnitude of his crime, e.g the Carol Derauch story just being explaining as "attempted abduction" but that was nothing to how quickly they brushed over the Chi Omega massacre. I didn't for one minute get immersed into the story and forget that it was Zac Efron, it felt like watching a lifetime movie on channel 5, it was also a strange to show actual Bundy pictures when he was on the TV instead of Efron. Compared to the performance of say Cameron Britton as Ed Kemper in mindhunter where I actually feel that he embodied every part of him, this was totally amateur hour. The four part documentary that Berlinger made was bang on the money, as was his paradise lost documentary about the west Memphis three, so I know Berlinger has serious talent when it comes to showcasing true crime it's just a real shame that he couldn't transfer that to film as I really feel this didn't work on any basis.