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Reviews
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)
Tarantino is wasted talent
To spend so much on production to draw a stunning backdrop of 1969 Hollywood and then bore you death for 2.5 meandering hours with nothing story about nothing people with no purpose is a crime against cinema. Someone needs to take Quentin's pencil away. He's forgotten how to write an interesting plot.
Cop Car (2015)
Solid film, the type I wish they'd make more of.
Great characters. Their back stories are hinted at and your imagination fills in the gaps.
Great writing. The dialogue has weight and sounds natural.
Great scenery. It's on the outskirts of an old dusty town, way out in the back-roads of somewhere and it looks beautiful.
Great storyline and a great score all at a nice pace and under a one and half hour running time. It has no need for flashy, gimmicky explosions or a convoluted and overly-complicated plot.
This is the best film I saw this summer.
It's a simple original story that keeps you wondering what will happen next. I don't know how a film like this can get made any more.
Kevin Bacon was pretty great too.
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
An uninteresting story you endure but the pay-off never comes
Inside Llewyn Davis is a story about an uninteresting folk singer in the 60s.
During the long first act of the movie, he has an uninteresting time in New York so he decides to head out to Chicago.
I thought things were going to pick-up at this point as John Goodman tags along for the ride and there are a couple of incidents which I thought would be developed but the journey turns out to be as uninteresting and his subsequent short stay in Chicago.
This is a movie you endure because it is a Coen brothers movie so you keep thinking there will eventually be a pay-off especially as it has been rated so highly but there isn't one.
The film ends as uninterestingly as it begins, literally. I would call this their most mediocre movie to date. The dialog isn't clever and there isn't even one decent tune.
I actually read somewhere that the Coen brothers were worried that the movie was too uninteresting so they added a cat. It does not redeem the movie.
Skyfall (2012)
Not the Bond movie you were led to believe by the critics
Mad spoilers ahead. If you don't want to know the story line, don't read on..
Only went to see this movie in the theatre because of the reviews. Here's what I though the plot was going to be based on the trailer:
Bond dies due to M's error except he isn't dead, just self-retired living on an island banging a local hottie.
Back in England, M gets in trouble for the cock-up and is fired. However she gets wind of a plot that MI6 has been infiltrated by a badman. Nobody believes her, so she turns up on Bond's door step one morning saying she knew he wasn't really dead because 'you're so cool and all' and they have a funny scene together and then get to business chasing down the badman, discovering what his grand scheme is and all the while being targeted by MI6 who think she and Bond have gone rogue. The badman is ultimately killed and M redeems herself in the process. Bond gets laid. The end.
That's what I was looking forward to.
That's not the film you get. You all see the trailer — people think Bond is dead, except he is not. But is it integral to the story? Nope. He just comes home in the next scene when he sees an explosion on news at MI6 headquarters and everything is back to normal again except he can't shoot straight.
So then it's off to china to find the badman behind the attack. This should be good right? NOPE. The badman turns out to be a flamboyant clichéd gayman in a bad wig who used to work for MI6 and wants to kill M because she got him arrested and tortured by the Chinese. Why is he Spanish? Because Mendes wanted Bardem for the role because he reckoned the badman in this plot was going to be iconic and wanted a top actor. He was wrong. Bardem is a pretty good actor but this badman is extremely unoriginal. One reviewer already mentioned the similarity between him and the joker and I think that's where they were influenced a little. Why is he gay? I guess the writers though that would give him depth.
Someone on team bond seems to have watched the second batman reboots and just decided to copy the themes. As next-up...the badman is caught....except (drum roll PLOT TWIST!!!!) he really wanted to be discovered and caught by Bond so he would be brought to England and then escape using his leet haxor skills and kill M.
Here's an idea...if he wanted to kill M so badly, then get on a plane to England, enter M's house and when she comes home, kill her. It's pretty easy to break into her house. Bond did it. You're supposed to be his equal right? You don't need to make it so convoluted.
So anyway, he escapes, goes after M and Bond then takes her to his old Wayne mansion, cough I mean Skyfall, which is being looked after by Alfred, cough..I mean kincade. Along the way, they attempt to give Bond some depth to his character by mentioning something about the death of his parents - the waynes...cough I mean the Bonds. But this fails because Bond just tells M to shut up about it so we don't hear what happened.
Anyway, they Mcguiver up some weapons and booby traps and wait for the badman to arrive who somehow now has henchmen and helicopters in Britain to help him. M does not call for backup because that would be too obvious. They just have a big old A-Team shoot out, wayne manor burns down and it's all pointless because she dies anyway because she was grazed at some point in the battle. The end.
What a waste of time. Next time you want a plot team Bond, call me.
I'm giving this movie a one just to cancel out some of top scores. In reality it deserves about 2 for sets, camera work, special effects etc.
If the film doesn't have a good storyline, it's all pointless though.