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Ronnie O'Sullivan: The Edge of Everything (2023)
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner
We all know Ronnie is a special breed. I used to dislike him, I thought he was arrogant, immature and obnoxious. But then I started watching him play and developed a respect for him as a sportsman. Only after that did discover enough about this tortured soul that changed my mind about him.
He is still the little boy who is looking for approval from his larger than life father. And thought that being successful was the key to happiness. He found out it wasn't.
This documentary captures his struggle perfectly. A man driven to find the horizon that is always moving away. It shines a light into his nature and those who orbit him.
It's entertaining, masterfully photographed and edited, with a beautiful score. A huge payoff in the finale too.
Blue Lights (2023)
This gets over the line. Just.
If you go into this knowing that it is coming from the BBC and are aware of the obligatory mandates that come with that, then go for it. I enjoyed, but at the same time I had to use mind over matter to ignore the blatent agenda that is pushed on us from anything from this organisation. All the women are heroes, even the bad ones. The males are mostly foils for those women or cartoon characters. They will dedicate an episode to racism because we haven't heard that before. And many other things. That said, some of the acting is top notch, the story is fairly fast moving with twists and turns. And I enjoyed it. I will probably watch the 2nd series but with my filter back on.
What Is a Woman? (2022)
Enough rope...
Ask a simple question, you'd expect a simple answer. Not here though. In this documentary, Matt asked the question "What is a woman?" countless times and by the end of the it we have nothing. All of those who stand on the side of transgenderism side step continually and simply cannot answer that question. Which is at the heart of the issue. So all we are left with is that all of their claims are based on nothing. This single documentary should put the debate to bed finally. Watch it and you will agree.
Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (2022)
Great insight into a corrupt organization.
I thought they did a great job in breaking down the problems with Hillsong. We are led progressively through the issues until in episode 3 the rot is exposed. This church was never created for God. It was a money making venture by men who have zero morals. This is just one of them and they all stink. So we need more documentaries like this to expose them. It's easy to spot them too if you remember what God said. "That which is highly esteemed amongst men is cursed in the eyes of God." The world loved this church at one point which was enough for me to smell a rat.
Vanquish (2021)
Poor old Ruby Rose
This film was well and truly slammed in the reviews but i watched it anyway. It is not a good experience but the worst thing about it is not the actors. It is the style of the thing. It is trying so hard to be original but is just so disjointed and confused. Like a movie version of the worst kind of modern art from the 70's. Morgan Freeman does his best and Ruby Rose is fine considering what she has to work with. I feel bad for the girl being slated all the time, she doesn't deserve it. Hopefully her agent will take care to give her a better platform to work with next time.
Nobody (2021)
So much fun, don't take this seriously.
Who decided that every single movie had to make a political statement? It is so tiring and I for one am sick of being lectured. This movie was none of that, it was just a really fun action movie. It didn't take itself too serious and neither should we. The tone is just right, the casting and the performances were spot on and the action sequences were clever and inventive. Buckle up and prepare to to go for a ride.
Midway (2019)
Wow, no agenda in this one!
I didn't expect much with this and 3 minutes in a thought the script was a bit lame and cliched. But I stuck it out and I am so glad I did. This is basically a very compressed historically accurate account of the engagement at Midway. Nothing is deep and meaningful, there are no romantic subplots. No long winded speeches, just solid dialogue, decent performance and a shedload of action all crammed into 2 hours plus change. The CGI was pretty good and there were stages where I was tensing up as the planes were diving. But the overall best thing about this movie is it doesn't have a political agenda. They didn't cram a ton of historically inaccurate diversity into the ranks, it just got on with business and told an epic tale. Give it a chance and ignore the bad reviews. They are missing the point.
Relic (2020)
You can't please all of the people all of the time...
There are very few movies that everyone loves. Some of the best ones are hated as well as loved. This is one of them. I thought this was a great way of exploring dementia in a very visceral way. It takes the audience on a journey and makes them explore the mind of someone who is a victim of this degenerative condition. It all seemed to be very straightforward and easy to understand . I can't understand why so many are scratching their heads. Give this a chance. It has something to say.
LOL: Last One Laughing Australia (2020)
Cringefest.
I don't know any of these "comedians" and that's not a surprise considering how rubbish they are. It seems that Oz is a few decades behind the West in what is considered humour. Mostly they resort to slapstick and profanity with the volume turned up. But bottom line, this show was just cringe inducing. The idea may have worked if they had a structure like "whose line is it anyway?" But these people are just left to improvise and stumble about with lame ideas. It doesn't work at all and the only laughing you hear is very forced and from the host.
The Assistant (2019)
We get it.
A movie about the feewings of a office gopher who can't keep her emotions in check. Who also has the IQ of a potato in deciding to snitch on her boss to HR. If you boss is a low life who is banging young wannabees then don't work for him. Simples. But using a movie budget to inform us all that this goes on seems a bit late in the day considering. As for the execution, watching paint that is already dry would be more entertaining. 2 stars for the production though which was gorgeous.
Little Woods (2018)
Great acting, bad story.
More propaganda, life is so tough for the poor and there's no help. Yeah right! it is also very hard to get an abortion apparently. Whoever wrote this script has a very strange view of the world. Having said all of that, the acting was great from all. That merited 4 stars.
Midsommar (2019)
Greenpeace goes horror.
The most disturbing thing about this movie for me was how much it reminded of the unhinged left. If you think for a moment about how they view humans in terms of the ecology of the planet or a pregnancy and the career path of women then you can see what I mean. The smiling face with the bubbling menace, the dreamy attitude with dark underpinnings. And willingness to commit to violence for a cause. I doubt this was intended but I could not shake that feeling 2/3rds of the way in. I also doubt this review will see the light of day.
The performances were incredible especially Florence Pugh. And the location was stunning too. Well worth a watch.
Bill Burr: Paper Tiger (2019)
Fantastic as always.
You know what you are getting with Bill, it's not so much the material because that could have died in the hands of a lesser comedian, it is his incredible delivery that's funny. I mean this guy could talk about carrots and make you laugh. The best bit though by far is the lefties all getting riled up, as you can see by the 1 star ratings on here. Go check them out, they are hilarious.
Angel of Mine (2019)
More people should know of this gem!
What a fantastic movie. You know the synopsis by now and you have heard complaints of slow paced first half. Ignore that because the pay off is worth it. I am not going to give you a clue just trust me. The one point I will make is that in the wrong hands and with the wrong cast this could have backfired but this is in perfect tune with incredible performances by all. I mean stunning, award winning level. Not just Noomi Rapace but Yvonne Strahovski too. I suspect they helped each other tremendously because their interactions are so believable to watch. If you are deciding to watch it just do it, it is a little gem.
American Woman (2018)
There is a lot to see here if you are paying attention.
I have noticed several reviewers claiming nothing happens in this movie. They couldn't be more wrong. Although just like reality the audience is not served up gruesome flashbacks of a murder or even a description. That is left to our own imagination. I felt the point here is that the audience is sensing a feeling of the need for closure. We are in the shoes of a mother who has lost her only daughter and we yearn for the loose ends to be tied up. They are, but we still do not feel settled and there are a thousand questions left to be answered.
I think this was expertly done and I could happily watch the whole thing again, the performances were flawless from the entire cast. The story is also so believable I had to check that it wasn't based off of a true crime. 8/10 because the pace could have been increased ever so slightly. But a top notch piece of work.
Cold Blood Legacy (2019)
Ignore this one.
Someone wasn't paying attention to the script, this feels like too many people were involved in the writing, all throwing in their own ideas which ended up as a disjointed mess. I won't bore you with specifics but one example of how lame this is. The daughter of the assassinated guy locates her father's killer and to get close to him fakes an accident on a snow bike and seriously injures herself so that the assassin will take her in and fix her up. This particular assassin likes to sit at the end of a jetty fishing for hours. So, if she knows his location and he is in plain sight for hours, why not take him out with a sniper rifle? No instead she'll crash into trees and nearly kill herself. Now that is a preposterous script. Probably some moron who likes John Wick was trying to think of a super tough way to get close to a killer. Don't bother with this one.
Suspiria (2018)
Finish off those little jobs around the house instead.
More pretentious garbage here. Arty morons who have disappeared up their own asses and think they can fool audiences into thinking confusing nonsense is clever. If you have seen Hereditary then you have seen the movie this dreams of being. That was clever, intelligent and as creepy as f**k. This is just a mish mash of scenes that make no Earthly sense and could've been shot in any order. You are no wiser to what it is about at the end. So I suggest you go and deal with all those little household tasks you have been putting off instead.
Werk ohne Autor (2018)
Crescendo masterclass.
Movies like this are leaving Hollywood looking less and less relevant. This is not a paint by numbers cash generator but a beautifully woven story. I won't lay it out because others have already done that, but if you commit to the three hours it has an incredible payoff. I was crying like a baby near the end. I don't think this would have had the impact if the pace was faster it was a perfectly timed crescendo. I will watch again at some time but I know the initial impact won't be there. This story has multiple threads all colliding to make a perfect tapestry. Movies like this are becoming rare which is a shame. Do not miss this one.
Dragged Across Concrete (2018)
The pay off when you sidestep Hollywood.
Ignore the low reviews, we live in a world where the average attention span is about 40 seconds. Those people are not wrong they are just not equipped to enjoy a slow burn thriller like this. It is the pace of this movie that is essential for the visceral reaction that one will experience in the latter half of the story. I genuinely felt my heart rate increase and my body tensing.
You will be left unsure of where the plot is heading because early on there are some shocking moves made. As my header suggests, what you see here does not follow the unwritten rules that leftwing Hollywood has imposed on so many movies to date. But flows with a sense of pure freedom taking the watcher wherever it pleases.
Many have compared this director to Tarantino but I was picking up far more Coen Bros, it reminded me of NCOM or Fargo, it was quite laden with heaviness but the script, which was sharp as a tac, needed that. The other aspect I liked was the lack of incidental soundtrack which I feel removes reality way too much these days. It can be quite condescending and show weak direction when the background scorte needs to signal the moves as they go.
All the acting was top notch, and throughout the movie was some serious violence but that added to the drama. I will watch this movie a few times more I am sure and that is saying something for a film that is 2 hours and 40 minutes long. Thoroughly enjoyed it, keep your eyes on this writer/director.
Mother! (2017)
An intense film about the refugee crisis in Europe.
I know it's not really about that and I got all the references to God, Eden, Adam and Eve etc. But then imagine, Jennifer Lawrence in white conservative, Javier Bardem is the politicians and the guests are the immigrants and refugees then you get an accurate take on the future.
The Bookshop (2017)
Awkward, cringy, creaking mess.
I hated this movie, but more so for the direction and editing. The pace is so slow and creeping, probably to add gravity where there is none. Those prolonged pauses just filled me with a sense of awkwardness much like a moment where nobody has anything to say. They were pronounced and forced. Pretty cringy to watch and they probably could have been dealt with by a faster pace and keener edits. There is also the fact that you felt the production completely missed the mark on 1950's England and did the usual caricature. Quaintness to the point of ridiculous. The performances from the main cast were decent enough but the some of the other roles were school play level. I would avoid this one. It doesn't even have a good payoff.
Hereditary (2018)
An incredible piece of work
I can only assume the people who are rating this movie low are not understanding it. I have read several reviews where they admit to not understanding the ending. I had to watch this twice to fully grasp it and now it makes complete sense. All that aside. This is a very unsettling movie, extremely creepy and tense. I also think it is very realistic. I won't go into how I know that. The performances are outstanding, Toni Collette serving up a masterclass and portraying just about every human emotion in the process. I will see this a third time. But probably when the sun is out.
From a House on Willow Street (2016)
Avoid at all costs.
Within the first few minutes you'll realise you this going to be terrible. The acting is on par with a school play, every line is overdone, the cast are so aware of the camera and seem to be playing to it, I think one of them was trying to do a Jack Nicholson shining copy even the nasally voice. The script was terrible as well. Each line is unoriginal, just badly written junk. I continued watching however because I find bad movies amusing. Then comes the story. Some bizarre nonsense about the Codex Vaticanus (A bible manuscript held in the Vatican) basically the script writer just cooked up something to sound clever but made himself sound like an idiot in the process. Anyway, an excuse to bring in all the demons and special FX which were okay but not scary at all. By this time I was fast forwarding through the rest of the movie to key parts. I refuse to waste my time on this garbage and it is a shame people are conned into watching it because of faked IMDb ratings. This movie is a 3/10 at best.
Bait (2014)
Small budget big movie.
Now considering the budget of this movie was a tiny 180k this puts some of the movies that Hollywood is producing to shame. The script is sharp and the characters are well formed, a little too well formed maybe. The lead psychopath does an excellent job in luring the audience in with his charm, while disguising an underlying darkness that is truly reprobate. His counterparts play their parts equally well with a mixture of desperation and fear. Bottom line the story is very simple but there is enough thrills to keep your attention all the way. Would definitely recommend this. I'm sure everyone in the cast will glean bigger roles thanks to this.