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Reviews
Ritmo Salvaje (2022)
A need for weed...
Time seems to pleasantly stand still when you're high. Time seems to stop when you watch this film... and not in a good way. I like Latin music, great rhythm and dance. I wanted to like this film and tried three of these novellas before I was burnt out. All roaches!
The story is tissue thin, the acting is plastic and the editing is tragically messy. Either way, the story is too disjointed to follow the tempo or a scene is so limp it falls short of any pace. In defense of the actors, they were attractive kids and fairly capable dancers, but the choreography was repetitive and lacks imagination. The director was frequently angry at the players in the story. The actual film director should have listened to that story character.
If the boys in this film had been actual drug dealers, they would have been 'punked' frequently, robbed or dead. The narcissism of the characters is as thick as pancake makeup, and the real makeup is clownish at best. Street kids in South Dakota would be tougher and more hip than these posers, much less Bogata! This movie cast was just out of acting class or it was a final graduation project. The implied sex was juvenile and the faux violence was a fight in the parking lot after dance practice.
Save yourself time and go to a hooka lounge or get wasted and stare at a blank screen.
Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)
Some stylistic evening...
Slick production values, good looking women and actor talent. If it weren't for the money, I imagine the cast would have been embarrassed. A poorly written script with plastic cutout characters doing "action stuff" and a nice set with wasted space and time. Don't waste yours.
The Woman in the Window (2021)
Rear Window wannabe
Excellent cast, reasonably good script writing, good acting and art direction. The bad taste in my mouth was that it announced it wanted to immitate ("pay homage" to) Rear Window in the opening credits with a quick reference in the stills.
The setup scenes and watching through binoculars across the street was a direct ripoff of Hitch's direction. It left me wanting Hitchcock to direct. It lost all credibiity with a clumsy plot device that Adam's character was a 'child psychologist'. She had no interpersonal insight and left the impression she'd learned nothing as she interacted with the her supervising psychiatrist. That script element stole any remaining credibility Adams would have had as an addict/manipulator. It was not her fault, she acted as directed and scripted. It just could have been so much more effective otherwise.
The few twists and "jump scares" made me stay with it until the end. I was relieved when she left finally the house. I could go to bed and sleep it off.