yehma Reviews

The Jurassic Games (2018)

Jurassic Park meets the Hunger Games! A good B movie, well worth watching.

[8/10 · 26 May 2020]

This is a good movie, which you can watch more than once without getting bored. I think some people on here have been way too harsh. I think the movie was edited to make it shorter, and as a result background information about the characters is missing, which makes it a bit difficult to follow at times (for example, trying to keep track of the male contestants): what type of murders they committed, what the recruitment process both to take part in the Games and to work for the Jurassic Games show was like etc. For example, at one point, information about the two brothers' mother having cancer is 'dropped' like a bombshell, during a confrontation with a third contestant, called The Wasp. It's done so clumsily, I'm pretty sure this would have been mentioned earlier in the movie, if it had not been edited out. My favourite character isn't one of the contestants, it' Erika Daly's character (Laura). I've been in the very same situation, where I worked for a company whose ethics (or rather, lack of) conflicted with mine... and where I'd routinely get threatened with dismissal if I didn't wear a permanent grin of silly happiness on my face (like Bryce Dallas Howard's character, Lacie, in Nosedive, an episode of the Black Mirror series which I strongly recommend to everyone), or if I made a director look bad, or contradicted them, or pointed out a mistake (either one they'd already made, or one they were about to make. Mistakes were just brushed under the carpet, and if a client spotted one, the duty of 'the team' was to 'show loyalty' to their boss and deny that a mistake had been made... At least we didn't work in a hospital...). I thought the movie showed what it is like to work in an office really well. The scene when Savannah is being asked questions she doesn't like during a videolink interview, and as soon as they are disconnected, she bursts out... I've seen people act like this after talking to a customer or a supplier on the phone... All reassurance and smiles on the outside... and seething with anger and contempt on the inside... I didn't feel the plot was unbelievable, on the contrary. Go on the social media of the French 'Foulards Rouges' (the 'elite') and read what they write about the 'Gilets Jaunes'. Like other viewers, I thought that the demographics of the contestants were not representative of American prisons, and if the Jurassic Games were a world wide thing (with all countries that have the death penalty taking part) then there should have been contestants from China, Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia. I'd love to have had more background on the Japanese (not Chinese!) guy. I thought that the maze was a grand idea, it enabled the producers to keep the budget down, and it was still interesting and suspenseful. It was also reminiscent of video games, and of dreams, or rather nightmares, at least my nightmares. So many times I'm fleeing down alleys, or corridors, pursued by someone or something... and I end up trapped: a locked door, or a dead end! One of the scene which annoyed me was when Joy uses her body as a counterweight to hang an adult man. I've used ropes to hoist things up (on sailing ships) and unless she had a pulley system, this is simply not feasible: she is way too light (I have that problem too). I thought Katie Burgess' acting was quite good, though, she is quite believable. I loved the twists at the end (there are quite a few of them). Especially the very last one, when you see a happy family sitting down for breakfast while in the background, the TV is going on about... the new, upgraded Jurassic Games! At least they are not paying any attention to the screen, but it will (or should) make you think: the problem is us...

The Jordan Chance (1978 TV Movie)

A nice surprise!

[8/10 · 12 May 2020]

This movie is quite fast paced, with quite a few twists and turns. I got hooked at the very beginning, when the experienced sheriff arrives on the scene of a crime, just after the departure of the coroner (who went for breakfast - a detail that is very true to life!), moves the body, and finds evidence that had been ignored up to then. I've spoken to an undertaker who had a similar experience happen to him, when coming to pick up the corpse of a young man who had died in his home: the coroner had put the cause of death down as suicide... It was murder, all he needed to do was to move the body to find that out! It's small details like that which makes a plot more believable. The other reason I really liked watching this movie is that it discusses the issue of anti Mexican racism... and that movie was released in 1978. Already...

Final Assignment (1980)

Totally unbelievable.

[5/10 · 11 May 2020]

An acquaintance of mine worked in the USSR at the time when this movie was shot. No way a journalist would have turned up in Moscow so unprepared... and so trustful of her 'minder'. Trying to people on the street would get them arrested indeed, so it would have been rather a selfish thing for a journalist to do.

Ma compagne de nuit (2011)

A beautiful movie on terminal cancer and end of life care.

[9/10 · 6 May 2020]

I was diagnosed with cancer myself several years ago, when I was not yet in my 40s, I spent a lot of time researching death and dying issues (I recommend Sherwin B. Nutland's book, as well as Barbara Ehrenreich's book Natural Causes, as well as YouTube channels and articles featuring death doulas), asking questions to people (several of them medical professionnals, who therefore steered well clear of ICUs and resuscitation at all cost, and went for palliative care instead) who had lost someone to cancer and who had been involved in their care until the end, and discussing my own preferences for my end of life care with the doctors I selected, especially my GP of now 20 years, who I nominated as my medical proxy. I made a will and specified my wishes for my funeral, and I also made a living will, a quite detailed one at that. This movie shows very well what the end of life of a cancer patient is like: the cachexia and the absence of appetite, the weakness and the falls, the difficulty to focus on anything and the sleepiness, and the pain. I really liked the character of the GP. Family doctors like that do exist, my own GP is pretty much like that and has accompanied quite a few terminally ill patients. He's the kind of GP who makes the time to go to some of his patients' funeral. I found it really helpful to discuss with him what dying is like, as he's seen it happen numerous times : the worst thing is not knowing, or knowing very little, the more you know what to expect, what it's going to be like, and the less afraid you are. At the end, your body is busy shutting down, so you are no longer really there, you are withdrawn in yourself, uncommunicative, and, unfortunately, often in pain... and it takes a really strong and courageous person to stay there and hold you in their arms, or sit at your side, until the end. I also liked the character of Marine very much. Like her, I am quite a foodie and like cooking, and if I'd been lucky to have a partner and a few kids, I would have cooked for them a lot... same thing if I'd had a dog or a cat. There is an association in the UK which pairs up young(ish) people in need of a cheap place to live and older people who have a nice house or flat with a spare bedroom but are not in the best of health (cancer, Alzheimer's, stroke, MS... or just the frailty of old age) and would like someone to live with them, do the housework, do the grocery shopping, prepare meals, run errands... in exchange for a low rent (it's not full time caring so the tenants still need to have a source of income). I'm considering doing that but I'm not chunky (I look more like Emmanuelle Beart's character than like Hafsia Herzi's) so I'd be unable to help a patient with activities of daily living, and I have cancer myself... and if I'd been working throughout the Covid-19 crisis I would have brought the virus home to the fragile person I would have been living with... What wasn't very realistic in the movie was the age of Julia: cancer patients tend to be much older, usually in their 60s. Also she really wasn't thin enough, and she should have been jaundiced but I guess hiring an actress who really had cancer (or anorexia, if they really wanted a young woman to play the part) wouldn't have been possible. Last of all, most families really don't care when one of them has cancer, final reconciliations etc. only exist in movies... and even if people really do love one another, if life has separated them, it's often not going to be possible to reconcile before a death by cancer: lack of time, and, most of all, lack of energy, and unability to think clearly when your brain is addled by very strong painkillers, as well as chemotherapy before that. Most cancer patients get very, very, very little done during the last months of their life, so do not procrastinate and postpone that reconciliation, or it will never take place, and the survivor is left with regrets and a deep sorrow 'If only I'd insisted... if only I'd told him/her... if only I hadn't listened to X's advice... if only I'd understood earlier what he/she meant/wanted... if only...'

Ties of Blood (2007 TV Movie)

Hackneyed

[5/10 · 5 May 2020]

The kind of story which makes the bourgeoisie fantasize: respectable married Parisian lawyer has a short affair with a waitress while staying in province to work on a case, waitress becomes pregnant, illegitimate child ends up in foster care, foster carers beat up and exploit the child, child becomes a criminal once grown up... except that there's a twist. It's as if these movies were made to order, to discourage married men from having affairs, or convince them to use a condom at least... Most of the movie isn't very realistic, for one thing French people love their paperwork, whether you're looking for a place to live or trying to find work... you simply cannot steal someone's identity that easily, even if the victim is a nobody. Also foster children are often taken to the psychiatrist and fed drugs, so they're definitely not learning to drive a motorbike or keeping such a slim waist that they get a job as a gigolo!