xtianarsonist Reviews

Priscilla (2023)

I can't help falling asleep on you

[1/10 · 26 February 2024]

If these are the two actors who won the starring roles I would hate to see how terrible the others who auditioned for this film were. They have zero chemistry and zero charisma. They act quite lethargic through the entire film. Most of the dialog is whispered and mumbled. The cinematography is dark and difficult to discern as well. The film is clearly a cheap attempt at Priscilla trying to stay relevant and ride on the coattails of the rock star she cheated on and divorced fifty years ago. There was another made for television mini series based on the same book that was released back in the 1980s. It is FAR SUPERIOR to this cinematic turd. The 2023 version leaves out a lot of stuff from the book and the original tv film. She really tries to sanitize her behavior during these years by leaving out the threats she made to her parents, the lies she told to them, failing in school and her obsession with Elvis and basically stalking him once he returned to the states. It also replaces the heavy glass vase she threw at Elvis with a flimsy newspaper...I guess she doesn't want to be called out for assault on top of the temper tantrum. It also leaves out how she didn't want to be pregnant with Lisa because she didn't want to be "fat". She paints herself as some little innocent in all of this. As a result the film is just flat and boring. Save the time and just find the original film in youtube or dailymotion. It is called "Elvis And Me", much more fun to watch and more honest.

Reba (2001–2007)

Reba is the worst part

[5/10 · 21 June 2023]

Yes. I said it. Reba is the worst character of her own darn show. She is loud, obnoxious, rude, nosy, spiteful, controlling, childish, petty, self-righteous, boring, awkward, unappealing, a know it all, a goody two shoes, and completely un-relatable. Seriously, seriously un-relatable. She comes across as frigid and sexless. From the Karen hairdo, right down to the episodes with her boyfriend where she refuses to engage in sex in the most juvenile way possible. She can't just explain like an adult that she isn't ready to take that step yet in their relationship, nope, instead she acts like a 16 year old virgin who has barely even kissed a boy. Ridiculous, considering she is a divorced mother of three and a grandmother of one. The other episode that stood out was the anti drug episode where she acts like she has never even smoked weed. Give me a break. She is just uninteresting and unrealistic as a character of her age and known experience. One dimensional as heck. The other characters make the show worth watching to pass time if nothing better is on.

The Lost Girls (2022)

Adult Wendy must be some exec's daughter

[2/10 · 28 October 2022]

That actress is just unwatchable. She looks nothing like the first two actors playing the role and she is not nearly as charming or convincing. She is terrible. It is as if she has serious mental disabilities. I think part of it is that she is Italian and trying to sound American. Whatever the case, she should stop acting immediately and get a job working at a grocery store or something instead. This film may have had some potential if a better lead had been hired to carry the film. Somebody else here said she seems autistic and I agree. Her performance is not consistent with the other actresses who played Wendy. How did she get this damn job???

Blonde (2022)

Don't believe any review rated more than 5 stars

[1/10 · 1 October 2022]

This cinematic piece of caca is not worth the three hours of your life that it will steal from you. Do something else, hell, ANYTHING ELSE. Just don't invest in this godawful movie. The only positive thing I can say about it is at least it wasn't four hours. Ana de Armas continues to be overrated with her made for television acting chops. This is a woman who has built a career off of being pretty. Clearly this is the case, as her acting is terrible. Her American accent was laughable. She supposedly studied for almost a year to perfect it....maybe she should have taken two years to get it right. It honestly did not even sound like she was trying to sound American most of the time. This film makes MM look like an infantile, airhead with zero emotional or mental stability. I doubt she was like this 24/7. She would never have made it into the movie in the first place if she had.

Lightyear (2022)

Should have made a Combat Karl film

[2/10 · 7 August 2022]

This movie was really boring. I am glad I screened it on Disney plus and didn't pay extra to see it. The cat was great. Taika Watiti tried. They were not enough to save this godawful snooze fest. I like Chris Evans as an actor, but he was a lackluster Buzz. I felt like I was watching a very uninteresting side story about Steve Rodgers. Keke's was unfunny and boring. The lady convict was kind of funny, but just meh. I really feel that the main cast from Toy Story is played out at this point. Not much else to be said about them. Combat Karl would have been a fun direction to take a spinoff into. A relatively small side character with so much more potential. Pixar missed the mark this time.

Blossom (1990–1995)

I only watch it for the nostalgia.

[3/10 · 16 March 2022]

As a child of the 90s, I really enjoyed binge watching Blossom just for the fashion and the pop culture references. The guest stars that turn up are also fun to see 30 years later. There are few funny moments. I think It only ever made me laugh six or seven times. I don't dislike any of the characters except for Blossom. She is self righteous and over bearing. All she ever does is argue with everybody and act like an insufferable brat when they don't agree with her. She comes across a know-it-all and a snob. She genuinely thinks she is smarter than everybody else and looks down her nose at them. In real life she would never have so many cute boys chasing after her. NOPE. She is not all that physically attractive and her attitude is negative and toxic.

One thing I don't understand is why every guy who she is involved with is a Jersey Guido. They live in an LA suburb. Wtf?

Don't Look Up (2021)

Climate change disguised as a comet

[2/10 · 27 December 2021]

This is just a preachy climate change allegory from hypocrites that fly in private jets

I agree that climate change is real and we need to make positive changes, but Hollywood phonies are not the ones to be teaching us this lesson.

Being the Ricardos (2021)

Kidman sparkles as Lucy, but the rest is pretty lackluster

[4/10 · 21 December 2021]

I am a huge fan of the show "I Love Lucy", so most of the material featured in this film I was already aware of, as I am sure most Lucy fans are. The timeline of the film was odd. They talk about things that happened very early in the process of making the show, yet the set is from later seasons. This film focuses on the turbulent relationships on the set, as well as the philandering of Desi in his marriage to Ball. Bardem is not at all convincing as Desi Arnaz. The supporting cast is just meh. I actually found the whole thing kind of boring. The only stand out is Nicole Kidman, who does a wonderful job as Lucille Ball. I think they over analyze how silly the content of the show was. It seems more like modern day assessment of the writing, rather than what people back in 1952 might have thought of the asinine story telling. All in all I found this disappointing and I am glad I did not pay to see it in the theater.

She's the Man (2006)

The three stars are for Channing Tatum, everything else stinks

[3/10 · 7 November 2021]

Amanda Bynes' acting in this film is the worst. She talks like she is doing a really horrible imitation of Billy Crystal imitating Sammy Davis Jr, or something. It is the cringiest thing to watch. In no way is she convincing. I get that it is a silly film, but her performance makes it plain asinine.

Harry & Meghan: Escaping the Palace (2021 TV Movie)

That was nauseating

[1/10 · 7 September 2021]

They were clearly consulted on this film. They had to. Harry and Meghan are one dimensional protagonists in this melodramatic farce. Everybody is out to get them while they are just trying to live their best lives. I stopped paying attention to it after the first forty minutes or so.

Hacks (2021– )

Entertaining, but nothing new.

[7/10 · 21 August 2021]

I will just say it right now. The WORST part of this series is the obese receptionist. She is just an unfunny, grating rip off of Rebel Wilson in, um, EVERYTHING she has been in. So stupid and lazy writing to an otherwise solid show. It is mostly familiar and seems like other things that have already been done, but it is still fun.

Cake (2019–2021)

Liquid Television for the 21st century.

[1/10 · 9 July 2021]

I was trying to figure out what this show reminds me of and I finally figured it out.... Liquid Television on MTV. It was a show in the 90s, which featured similar animation and live action segments. I believe Beavis and Butthead actually made their debut in a short on that program. The major difference I see between Liquid TV and Cake, is that the former was edgier and more entertaining. Cake is just disjointed and unfunny.

Lisa (1990)

Lifetime style film about teenage hormones and murder...

[7/10 · 24 June 2021]

This is definitely one for Lifetime movie fans, and I mean that in the best possible way! It is a movie that is pretty simple, yet still very relevant today with our heavy dependency on social media and the whole "catfishing" phenomena. It could easily be rebooted to fit today's world with internet. That said, this movie kept me entertained the entire time. It is about a mother who got pregnant by a man who abandoned her. Since that traumatic experience she decides to be cold to men and forbids her 14 year old daughter from dating. The teenage girls in this film are obsessed with older men (the guys all look to be 30 or so), and do odd stalkerish stuff. Like breaking and entering and snapping photos without consent. YeAh. It is pretty weird. Anyway, Lisa is obsessed with Richard (who is actually hot), and follows him all over town and calls him anonymously. They form a relationship over the phone and she convinces him that she is her mother. Long story short, dude is a sexy psycho killer and stalks her mom and tries to murder both of them like his previous victims. This film is a reminder that hot dudes will kill you if they are messed up, same as ugly guys. I liked this movie, but one thing I found odd was how they keep trying to paint Cheryl Ladd as a young mother. She looks close to middle age. Maybe they should have gotten an actress about 8 or 9 years younger. She just looked to me like any other mother raising a 14 year old. Not close in age at all, as they obviously intended.

Paparazzi Princess: The Paris Hilton Story (2008 TV Movie)

Unintentional comedy gold

[1/10 · 20 June 2021]

This film was very obviously produced by Hilton, or one of her friends. She comes off like a slightly less bubbly version of Elle Woods, in Legally Blonde. The whole film is about how she was supposedly unfairly treated by the media and the law. They try to play down the fact that she is a spoiled brat and notorious mean girl, who loves to party and snort cocaine. This awful film keeps trying to make it seem like she was just targeted for being rich and "beautiful". Everybody is just jealous of her. Suuurrrrre.

Mulan (2020)

Just okay

[3/10 · 5 December 2020]

The film looks beautiful and has some decent action sequences, but giving Mulan magical Jedi-like powers was a HUGE mistake. It defeats the message at the heart of the story, which is that even an ordinary girl can make a difference. Giving her this new magic takes away the feeling of impending danger. She is a Mary Sue who is just better than the men, not by hard work, but by this magic power that she was born with. It's absolutely terrible. Mulan just Mary Sues her way through the entire film, basically. Save yourself the dissatisfaction and watch the cartoon again.

Mank (2020)

Too art house for me

[1/10 · 5 December 2020]

This film starts out very slow. It's shot in a stylistic fashion, reminiscent of Citizen Kane. I would have preferred a straightforward telling of this story. If you're looking for something more to the point, I suggest RKO 281. Liev Scheiber is amazing as Orson Welles and John Malkovich is a fine Mank.

The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (2020)

Unnecessary and unwatchable

[2/10 · 26 November 2020]

The first film was fun to watch. I really enjoyed it when I didn't actually expect much from it. This time around it was just painful. The story is boring, the acting is really bad, the fat evil elf was cringey. I don't have anything nice to say about this stinky movie, save for the fact that I really like Kurt Russell and it was nice to see Goldie sharing the screen with him again. Other than that, this film is not worth your time. You're better off watching the first film again and forgetting that this one even exists.

Lady and the Tramp (2019)

Reinventing the wheel.

[2/10 · 14 November 2019]

This film is lackluster and completely unnecessary. I had no problem with an interracial couple, except that they are still living in the early 1900's. I'm pretty sure that sort of thing was illegal in most states at that time. Why not update the story to 2019? Or even the 80's or 90's? It's difficult to be culturally diverse when you are setting a film in lily white turn of the century midwestern society. At the end of the day this is just a watered down copy of the original. Is the Siamese cat depiction offensive? Sure. It is what it is for the times, though. I think it's important to see stuff like that and remember how myopic society was not so long ago.

The Predator (2018)

I ain't got time to bleed.....

[1/10 · 16 June 2019]

Or finish watching this godawful film. It is so bad. Everything about this film stinks like a dumpster in August, except for the soundtrack, as it's the original from the Schwarzenegger classic. The acting is bad, the storyline is ridiculous, the cast is terrible (aside from Sterling L Brown, who acts circles around everyone). I can't even suggest this film as a mindless bit of popcorn fluff. It's too awful even for that.

Aladdin (2019)

A diamond in the rough!

[8/10 · 25 May 2019]

Don't listen to the negative reviews. You know the ones I'm talking about. The reviewers that ask questions about whether or not it was necessary. The ones that compare it to the original 1992 classic, featuring a Robin Williams. The reviewers that moan about all our favorite Disney animated films being made into live action films, then proceed to complain that it has somehow ruined our childhood. Don't listen to those guys. They are a miserable lot! Guy Ritchie's interpretation of 'Aladdin' is faithful to the original, without feeling like a boring rehash. Will Smith adds his own personality to the Genie, and it feels very genuine and refreshing. He makes the roll his own, rather than a cringeworthy imitation of Williams' performance. Mena Massoud brings both swag and adorable awkwardness to the roll of Aladdin. Naomi Scott gives us a confident princess Jasmine. The supporting cast is delightful, as are the costumes and musical numbers. It manages to feel familiar and warm, whilst allowing itself to be its own thing. I quite appreciate that. 'Aladdin' Is just as magical in 2019, as it was in 1992.

Leaving Neverland (2019)

Jarring and disturbing

[4/10 · 5 March 2019]

This film is troubling on so many levels. The behavior of Jackson was bizarre and questionable, to say the least, but what I find most cringeworthy is the parasitic character of these parents. It seems as though they sold their sons out for lavish vacations and extravagant gifts. I was just appalled by these women, who have the gall to call themselves mothers! It's a disturbing look at predators, victims, and the parents who pimp them out for a taste of fame and the food life. It's not just a portrait of child abuse, but a chilling look at what blond ambition and greed does to families.

Hollywood Love Story (2018)

Vapid and pointless....

[1/10 · 18 August 2018]

We already know Hollywood is a cesspool of the phony and self absorbed. Why does this horrible program need to exist? It's a bunch of brain damaged kids talking about how they want to be rich and famous while the only skills they have are taking selfies and giving oral sex. I couldn't even finish watching the episode titled "Mei and Remy", because it was awful. That one fat stripper talking about all of her sugar daddies made me chuckle for all the wrong reasons. Vice sucks.