paulhfromthedeep Reviews

Grace: Not Dead Enough (2022) Season 2, Episode 1

Definitely a murder mystery.

[6/10 · 3 May 2022]

There are some enormous coincidences going on here. Grace just happens to be right next to where the first body turns up, completely unconnected to the others, except we find it isnt. A doppelganger twin who looks sounds and acts entirely like the original (no linguistic/accent differences, identical body shape etc). I know they are triplets, but that triplet thing was merely there to string the episode out another 20mins and has no bearing on the story. A murderer, who has never murdered before, but is still capable of carrying out several near perfect murders. Then, when he is insulted by a policeman, is capable of instantly tracking a lady who Grace has had one date with and creating a car bomb to try and hurt said copper. Just like that. I mean, it was one date, how sad would he have been?

It was all a bit too... glib, and easy.

Bloods (2021–2022)

Okayish, if you've got some spare time.

[4/10 · 6 May 2021]

I checked this out mainly cos of. Horrocks, but sadly I cant see it being worth much of a dedicated watch. It is one of the TV 'comedies' that substitutes actual jokes with silly characters doing daft things, and we're supposed to laugh about them. Some of the attempts to establish character, in ep1, are very heavy handed. Barrats character is the subtlestly played one, somewhat surprisingly. The lead however is an unbelievable buffoon, even giving that the show is of a farcical nature anyway. The co-lead, Samson Kayo, does his best gurning and yelling to try and liven things up, but like his colleagues, I just dont like his character very much. Maybe later eps will improve this, but probably not enough.

Pig Hag (2019)

An interesting concept, but the central figure was appallingly handled.

[3/10 · 16 October 2019]

This move has some interesting elements, but there were some very poor decisions made in the writing.

The movie is largely a one woman show for Anna Schlegel, and she carries off the part wonderfully.

However, and this a big however, the character she plays is at her core a largely unpleasant character. At 36 years of age she is a real woman-child, intensely focused on herself and largely oblivious to the needs of those her around. While I wanted to like her, partly because large ladies are rarely given such prominence in the media, I really struggled to connect to her. She is aggresively belligerent, she yells conversations, she's emotionally entitled, she makes a vast range of frankly stupid life choices and seems to have no idea what people other than her want in the world. There is zero personal arc in this movie either, she ends it the same person she starts it as, this is just Chapter 174 in her miserable life.

In one scene she cries like a baby, she spits out the sandwich she was eating and lets it rest on her shoulder while she cries and cries. I get that she's probably deeply sad, but this movie finds no way of showing you how or why or what about the sadness. It justs plain self pity. Somewhere in here they could have made me care, cos I wanted to, but I just didnt.

If one of my buddies went out with Jodie (and the move is all about Jodies need for a partner to solve all her problems) I would advise him with all the vigour I have about the massive red flags she waves at full mast. She does have one brief encounter in the movie and very wisely the man heads for the hills the first chance he gets. It was a smart move, nothing convinces me that he would have been sensible to pursue this. Her interaction in a partnership would be emotionally greedy and intensely juvenile in nature. What, didnt look at your phone for 30mins and answer her 5 texts? Well theres gonna be a screaming match the moment you see her next.

She just isnt worth it, the movie shows us that, all relationships require a certain quid-pro-quo to work, she would be all quo and no pro (yeah yeah.. i know, but you get the point).

So ultimately, what was the point the writer was trying to make?

That unpleasant and unappealing personalities deserve love? Cos once you reach adulthood they dont, no one really 'deserves' it, you earn it in some way.

And I struggled to see how poor Jodie could earn it.

Interesting idea, interesting filming, very poorly executed in my opinion.

Its like the insult Pig Hag was taken literally by the people writing about her. Which is sad.

Back to Billy (2018– )

Amateur Central. Literally.

[3/10 · 8 June 2019]

Shot with a 1990s video camera, edited by enthusiastic high school students, written on a slow rainy afternoon by someone with little or no prior script writing experience, cast by the the creators spare family members and the entire set rented for a day from the local Wild West Ghost Town Tourist Experience, this would be a perfectly adequate first attempt if indeed made by the aforesaid high school students. Sadly however it seems to be.. um serious.

I mean, its not bad per se. I guess. If it was indeed made by kids. I'd certainly applaud at their effort. It is now however what I'd call broadcast quality or something I'd expect to see on any sort of commercial network. SOME of the actors are ok with their roles, as in one or two of them, however ALL of the rest are really really.. wooden. Really.

I probably couldnt do better.

An extra point for using a Wilhelm Scream..Then I took it off for the accidental 'shakey cam' effects.

God Friended Me (2018–2020)

Touched by an Angel for the millennial crowd. Predictable Miracle of the week show.

[3/10 · 2 October 2018]

OK, so a low quality Atheist (who only became so because God upset him, not from any reasoned logic) is contacted by god and engages in a series of heart-warming shenanigans that both prove God exists and that he is a nice fellow.

This show will literally devolve rapidly into saccharine miracle-of-the-week series where tear-jerking stories end with instant happiness and resolution. Hooray!

It LOOKS like it might become cool and edgy, but I think thats to attract the younger crowd, not because anywhere under the surface there will anything cool or edgy about.

I mean if you like the sort of show that makes you feel sad then happy in the exact same formula week to week, then this is probably an 8/10,

But for people seeking something more interesting, it starts off as a 3/10 and I think will sink lower pretty soon.

Perfectly attractive cast, no-one ugly, or too ethnic, or scary, or old or anything and they all did a perfectly adequate job.

Arizona (2018)

Not really a comedy, not quite a serious drama.

[5/10 · 29 August 2018]

Yah yah, I like Black Comedys. I do. But this doesnt quite get there.

It starts out fine enough but moved from 'dark' to just 'ugly sinister' fairly quickly. Its one of the aspects of our culture that violence among males is more acceptable and understandable, violence among women can also be, but to a lesser level, but violence from women unto women just doesn't work much for me, and I suspect many viewers.

This is mostly a two-person play with all the others merely being side characters. A brutal careless Danny McBride plays his part well enough, but doesnt seem to take anything much seriously, others lives, his fate, the movie itself? Rosemarie DeWitt is a standout and does a great job within the limits of the script, thoroughly convincing.

One of its underlying messages is how the 2009 crisis devastated peoples lives and how this could impact on their choices. However this message is thin, subtle and not well explored.

The main problem is, as I said, the violence feels bad, not funny, and the jokes are thin and loaded almost entirely in the first 30minutes. After which its the same standard creepy 'bad person hunts the good guys' plot, sans humour.

Where it really falls apart is probably when a 14 year old child is kidnapped and threatened with being executed, then has her father that she cares for shot to death outside the house she is being hunted in. Does that sound funny? Cos it didnt seem like it to me.

Was it watchable, yeah, especially for Rosemarie, who as a bonus to lechers spends the last 30 minutes running around in a bra. She's a good actress with our without a blouse, that seemed a touch unnecessary but I guess realistic as well. Did the movie seem to have a clear idea of what it was and where it was going? No. Started out dark comedy, ended as a b-grade horror.

Boar (II) (2017)

Second best Australian Pig Monster Movie EVAR!!

[6/10 · 16 August 2018]

Ok. It is what is, and it does what it does perfectly fine. Its a stock standard plotted monster animal story. A fair few deaths, most which you don't care about toooooo much, and a few you do. Most of those you think will make it , do. Some perfectly ok dialogue and some cheesy stuff, but nothing too bad.

Some of the aussie country speak is a bit overdone and forced, but it works fine.

Ernie Dingo is wasted in an unimportant back role. Probably an ancient looking Chris Haywood too.

The Boar looks decent, but quite inert most of the time. The close up 'model' Boar is very inert but scary. The CGI 'distant' boar looks acceptable. It also looks a bit over-large, theres no way it'd stay hidden for so long. It IS the size of a combi.

It has none of the weird surealness of Razorback, none of its fantastic soundscapes, none of it bizarre OTT characters, its all largely conventional.

Its certainly no 10/10 movie, but its not bad either. Its.. um.. fine. Go see it, soon.

High & Dry (2018)

I really tried but I couldnt....

[2/10 · 7 May 2018]

Q. What do you do when you are writing a comedy but can't think of any actual jokes or humourous bits?

A.Make characters so ineffably stupid and vapid that their every word and action make you laugh at them, not with them.

I've watched most of the first episode of this 'idiots stranded on an island' comedy and I really dont mind if they all die on that island, humanity would be better off. There seems to be no centre of normality around which the farcical activities can occur, no anchored observer, just.. idiots being .. idiots..

The writer/main actor, Marc Wooton seems to have some experience in writing but it just doesnt seem to show here.

I get that farcical characters means people acting in over the top in farcical ways, but this just takes it to the limit and leaves us with no character to align with. Imagine Fawlty Towers where EVERYONE was as bad as Basil. Or that the reason that Blackadder 2-4 was better than Blackadder 1 was because Edmund himself became the island of sanity surrounded by a sea of morons.

Not this show, its Morons all the way down.

Marc Wooton plays the most ridiculous campiest flight attendant this side of Dick Emery sketch. Harry Peacock is his romantic foil or something. Vikki Pepperdine does her Appallingly Rude Middle Age Harridan schtick, again. And the rest are also morons but have yet to develop their full moronity.

If you secretly browse IMDB.. please put some actually comedy in your next show, don't use this ultimately lazy path.

Back (2017– )

Pedestrian and predictable, sadly.

[3/10 · 15 September 2017]

Oh dear, the authors of some of the funniest shows of 5-10 years ago are now back, with a show, but not with a funny show.

Well, that's a slight lie, there are some funny lines in it, how could there not be, but overall the level of humour and its methodology are enormously middle-aged, like the actors and like the setting.

Set in a twee English village (pub) everyone in it is so totally daft, dotty and mad you'd wonder how their world even functions. Blissfully unaware of the things they say and do they are effective passive-aggressive torturers for our protagonist (Mitchell). He himself phones in his performance as a bog stock middle-classed English suppressed neurotic, essentially he simply plays his on screen persona, but with the smarts and clever dialled down to 1/10 (an older duller Mark Corrigan). A large part of the jokes are based on Mitchell determined to sail one course in life but being completely incapable of preventing the world forcing (with little effort) the opposite on him.

If a stranger gave you a dog you didn't like and didn't want in a pub would you a/source out the problem to a pet rescue or b/ reluctantly and bitterly let it live with you where it almost immediately wees and defecates everywhere and forces you to pay 1000 quid on vet bills? Well guess which path Mitchell takes. Not hard is it? Next we have Webbs character turn up,he is, peculiarly enough a slick glib lying narcissistic sociopath ( a bit like Peep Show's Jeremy) who we think, so far, is there to destroy Mitchells life and replace him. Its a standard sort of plot device and is naturally assisted by no-one (almost) BUT Mitchell being even vaguely suspicious. Essentially his over-eccentric family and friends will happily allow the slick antagonist his way through a combination of sheer idiocy and perversity.

It just needs some sort of kick and a far lower reliance on cringe humour.

The Man Who Couldn't Get Enough (1974)

Largely worthless, dull and outdated.

[2/10 · 10 September 2013]

I mainly watched this to see Roger Lloyd-Pack, Owen from Vicar of Dibley, in a 'sexy' movie. I can see why he never made it as a main actor and has largely worked in comedies and/or as a character actor, cos his performance here is more wooden than almost anything I've seen in actual pornographic movies (not that I admit to seeing any of course). His character is charmless and dull and he seems to reciting the script in the same manner a kidnap victim recites his captors message to a video camera.

Along with a incredibly implausible story line not even worth mentioning we mainly get a dreary cavalcade of breasts and the occasional flash of bushy 1970s girly parts, as our hero, a sort of early Ron Jeremy minus any personality or wit, grudgingly ploughs through them apparently in alphabetical order or something. The climax (hah) has our bland lothario win the day by designing the most ludicrously inept and unprofessional architectural design, based on a womans breast, AND get married, a goal totally at issue with the tone of the rest of the movie but obviously the secret goal of all modern young sexually liberated post-hippy person, according to the writers.

Not worth seeing unless a/ its free b/you are particularly perverse in your viewing habits and c/ in this modern age unable to find any better 'adult material' for your own perusal. Only if all 3 conditions are met should you watch this.

A Dangerous Place (2012 Video)

Enormously average film that sinks into sticky sap at the end.

[3/10 · 24 February 2013]

I thought I'd counter the suspicious number of single review users who give this a 9 or 10 and say its the bestest movie ever by giving a more neutral review. Whilst not totally appalling, the production standards are good for an independent and the acting, at the start at least, is tolerable enough, this film sinks, somewhat like the Titanic, rapidly and ferociously by the end. It has a bioterror plot combined with two sideplots, one high finance one (sorta), and the other about the emotional effects of death of a loved one during the 9/11 attacks. None of these are particularly convincing although the bioterror one starts off semi-intriguingly. However it all comes across both a bit weak and forced as well obvious, i knew that the perp was one of either two major candidates. There's also a minor storyline about the 'spirit' of the husband, killed in 9/11, who hangs around the house looking either morose or slightly disinterested.

As I mentioned, this film largely fails in the end, where it rapidly descends into predictability and cloying sentiment. Any interest in the plot elements rapidly vanishes as they complete in a long-winded and banal final 'fight' scene and then the, aforesaid, excessively simplistic emotional tie up ending. If I was stuck in a motel, late one night and had nothing much to do, Id watch this at least 1/2 way through before probably nodding off, or maybe I'd watch to the end, whereupon I'd then wish I'd nodded off. Or done something else.