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Reviews
Oppenheimer (2023)
What an absolutely disappointing snoozefest
That is the first time I have legitimately fell asleep in the movie theatre. I am the biggest Nolan fan but I honestly can't see what the appeal of this movie was. It's a painful slog with zero entertainment value, should have just been a documentary. I am not sure who the target audience is for this movie, how is it getting such high ratings?
What's more it has somehow the most pointless nudity and jump scared I have perhaps ever seen in a movie, which is so strange because Nolan films in the past distinctly did not rely on such cheap tricks. Seriously why is a film about a physicist chock full of nudity and jump scares? Do people not have a criticial bone in their body anymore? Even Tenant was better than this trash.
1 Mile to You (2017)
Most accurate portrayal of distance running in cinema
Most will probably not appreciate how accurately portrayed so many aspects of high level high school distance running are on display in this film. The workouts (10x400 at pace, etc.) the cross countrh course scenery, the eccentric "running hippy" coach, the 100 mile weeks, and other finer details such as cross country lining up with football season and track coming later. This is a must see for runners!
But the crazy thing is even with all of that attention to detail, at its heart this isn't really some sports movie primarily, really it's a beautifully written wonderfully acted drama that explores a teenagers exploration of the emptiness inside himself after losing a ton if people he loved and not being able to say goodbye. Highly recommend this, the 6 rating is criminally low, this is easily an 8 or above even if you know nothing about running, but for me it's a ten.
Wrath of Man (2021)
If Snatch is a 8 or 9 then this can't be higher than 6
My introduction to Jason Statham was through Snatch, and I thought he was incredible in that movie. Every role I have seen him in since then was the same Steven Seagal type zero range action star unfortunately, no exceptions. I thought maybe a reunion with Guy Ritchie might breathe capture the lightning in a bottle, but pretty much all around the entire film just had uninspired performances and amateur level writing. An ok forgettable action flick is all it amounts to in the end.
The first half of the film was promising to be honest. Still not on the level you'd expect from
Guy Ritchie but there was decent setup and suspense. And the as the main heist unfolds it just falls apart quickly and to almost emberassing levels. Several of the key villains are written quite poorly and make zero sense with their actions. On the other hand several other side characters on the "good" side are built up to serve quite literally zero purpose to the plot. Shame really.
There is no way this film is above a 6 or below a 4. I lean toward 6 overall but that's being generous.
The Last of Us: Long, Long Time (2023)
Could have been a standalone movie
This was my favorite episode so far in the series, overall such a beautifully done and masterfully crafted work of art from start to finish. I'll be frank I normally kind of cringe at "forced gay" cliche hollywood tropes and for a few minutes it did seem the episode was going to go down that path, but it quickly blossomed into something truly unique and they managed to make me care more about this couple than anyone else in the show. The final scene shown from the view of their window and the song from when they first met will go down as one of my favorite scenes in television.
My only reason I don't give it a 10 is because one scene in particular broke immersion as was head scratchingly horribly written - the scene where they are ambushed by raiders. This is a gun expert who has carefully crafted his entire perimiter, yet we see him just standing out in the open with a rifle fighting the enemy? On TOP of that - the very video game the freaking show is based on is a game that specifically you always have to be behind cover while in a firefight or else you get lit up. How in the world does that scene get written? Then to add salt in the wound as he is carried off the field it turns out he didnt need to be out there at all, he even claims he knows the fence alone will finish them all off. This was such a dumb scene in an otherwise masterpiece of an episode. I don't understand how this crap gets let through and it boggles my mind truly.
Bill Burr Presents: Friends Who Kill (2022)
Guess he's lost it
His and the unfunny other comedians he brought on for this are just the standard milquetoast pandering bs that you could find circlejerked on any of the main subreddits of reddit. Yawn, borrrrring. I'm here to laugh, not cringe.
Windfall (2022)
Yet another forgettable modern movie
At least it attempted to be unique for a few minutes with a nice aesthetic and eerie music score. The it is all down hill from there. What's the barrier for entry to write scripts for movies these days? I mean my GOD the plot is such trash. Not worth watching and it wasn't worth making. Too bad because Todd was doing a great job acting.
Dave Chappelle: The Closer (2021)
Losing his touch
Feel it's just becoming a political thing at this point. You either are solidly on the right and just will love anything that take a stance somewhat aligned with your views like this special is, or you will be solidly on the left and just hate anything that doesn't go along with your stance. But what about just judging this by the merit of its comedic value? On that, I can't help but feel this is Chapelle's lowest effort yet. Where were the jokes? Where was the wit? Just felt like storytime (like a lot of the other specials but even moreso this time). Some ok moments overall but just felt like he's phoning it in and potentially grifiting. Kinda disappointing.
Dota: Dragon's Blood (2021)
A good show on its own, but a disservice to the game
It's not that it is bad per se... if you don't know dota it will probably be fine, but my main qualm is that this really he almost nothing to do with dota at all. Dota is not a story about dragons and medieval fantasy, it is a unique universe that is insired by Warcraft and evolved to be its own thing.... and this isn't remotely it. This is closer to Dragon's Dogma than it is to Dota. Aside from Terrorblade none of the characters in the show are non-human, but fans of the game understand well over half the characters aren't human. There are so many characters in the game that it blows my mind they feel the need to create so many non-canon characters, like seriously there is zero need for this.
I do think they at least did the Miranda character justice, and to some extent Luna, but I am not at all a fan of how they handled Dragon Knight, or that they seem to center the entire story around him.
I could keep going on and on but you get the picture, it's a solid anime that I guess felt the need to ride the coattails of Dota'a success to generate traffic to an otherwise completely unrelated story.
Chernobyl (2019)
Very well done from film perspective, but sensationalist and pointlessly inaccurate from a historical perspective
This is a beautiful miniseries from a perspective of picture, writing, and acting, but what limits it from a perfect rating from me is the historical inaccuracies.
And I don't even mind some of the changes that collapse certain things for the sake of film, they call out the fact that a single female scientist represents hundreds of scientists that essentially her character represents. They call this out and I'm fine with this.
Furthermore they call out the common misconception that the group that volunteered to go into the radioactive water died (they did not) so they even get more points from me for being correct on things like those.
But then there are just some real head scratchers in there, and there are too many for me to even name here. For instance, the engineer that held the door open during the incident - he did do this, but he survived, why do they have him dying on the spot? And furthermore, they show him and several others just immediately developing gaping wounds, this is so far from accurate, and just pure sensationalist and misleading. In general all the scenes of people being affected by the radiation is comically blown out of proportion. In reality those affected would have mostly internal symptoms with the external symptoms resembling that of a sunburn, they wouldn't have their skin falling off the bone and gaping bleeding wounds everywhere.
So all in all pretty cool but weird Hollywood stuff limits the experience for me.
The Midnight Sky (2020)
This movie sucks dick just to make it thick
And you can take that one the bank, this movie is the worst like Hayden Hurst. Thank you for attending my TED talk.
American Anarchist (2016)
Someone should do a documentary where they ambush this filmmaker
Someone should do a documentary where they ambush this filmmaker, and question them for 80 minutes with a bunch leading questions wanting them to admit they're responsible for the early death of William Powell.
Like holy hell there's so much more you could have gotten from this man, but you just went in circles the entire time trying to make him feel guilty for writing a book when he was 19. The filmmaker is a disgusting human being.
At least it's some of the only footage we have into the author, and for that I'll give it a 50% rating.
Game of Thrones: The Iron Throne (2019)
*THIS* is the season that took 2 years to release????
Every other season was completed within a year and the first 4 in particular were probably the best television ever created, better than Breaking Bad even.
Fast forward to this season, and you have zero consistency, lazy writing, it's like the writers literally just cashed in and didn't care. How do you have 2 years to not come up with anything of actual relevance to everything the story had set up in prior seasons?
So Arya wasted all that time learning how to fight blind, how to wear the faces of others just to.... kill the Frey's? She literally never wore another face ever again in the show. Sooo many missed opportunities for this character. And why oh WHY is she the one to kill the Night King? The writers claim it was to "subvert expectations" which is just such cheap cliche hollywood trash, the exact opposite reason we fell in love with this show. Arya had NOTHING to do with the story north of the wall, her entire story and countless hours of screentime developing foreshadowing was involved with exacting revenge on her "list", and she literally killed no one on the list other than Maryn Trant and Polliver, several seasons ago.
What was the point of pointing out that there were all these valerian steel weapons? You had Jorah wielding heartsbane, Jaime and Brienne wielding the reforged Ice, Jon with Longclaw, and not a single one of them ever engaged a white walker?
I just don't get it.... It's like they were purposely trying to just give a big "F you" to the fans that initially watched their show and promoted it to everyone singing its praises.
The final episode wraps literally nothing up. Bran becomes king... WHY? We don't see any utilization of his warging or greensight in the final season, we don't really get much of anything from him really... and he makes a good leader why? He didn't even rule in Winterfell when given the choice, so why now is he suddenly open to ruling King's Landing and why is he a good choice?
Why did they establish that the dothraki are somehow miraculously still alive and numerous despite episode 3... just to have them literally do nothing following their khaleesi being stabbed in cold blood? Why did they show a scene of grey worm seconds earlier slitting Lannister throats with no issue at all, yet he is fine just holding Jon and Tyrion prisoner instead of immediately killing them?
Why does Grey Worm tell Tyrion he can't speak, then literally let him speak for the next 10 minutes and even choose the next leader for his people?
Why why why why... so many questions and the only answer I can come up with is "the writers don't care anymore"
Such a sad ending to an otherwise great series.
The Leftovers (2014)
Very much like the final seasons of LOST but worse
There were about 3 or 4 episodes that were incredibly well done in this series, and a few very powerful scenes.
Unfortunately, those are overshadowed by very lazy writing as a whole. The show basically gets worse as each of the 3 seasons progresses, with the final episode being by far one of the most disappointing I have ever seen in a series.
Next to none of the loose ends are ever even remotely tied up in this series. So many cool concepts and mysteries get introduced but literally get forgotten by the writers. They focus on the wrong characters and end up wasting a lot of time going in circles instead of progressing the story forward.
Overall, I'd say don't waste your time on this one, you'll end up frustrated and disappointed. I have to give credit where credit is due though there are definitely some very well done scenes and a handful of very well done episodes.