robertopoletti Reviews

Loch Ness (1996)

Very disappointing

[4/10 · 28 May 2021]

Considering that it is not a low-budget film, that the cast (or at least a part of it) is good, i have been very disappointed by the flimsy story and script.

Not sure what is the target audience of the film: Not horror- or sci-fi lovers.

The main topic seems to be the love story between the male and the female main characters. The Lochness myth is just a side story and unnecessary addition.

Sleepless Beauty (2020)

Excellent Russian film (in English)

[7/10 · 25 February 2021]

I cannot make sense of the current rate at IMDB. This is an excellent film from the point of view of both plot and acting. It is, essentially, a thriller, or psychological horror, about the murder of a russian embassador, which we will never actually see. It is perhaps a bit slow-paced if compared with Hollywood movies. But definitely worth watching.

No Solicitors (2015)

Not as terrible as other reviews suggest

[6/10 · 15 February 2021]

I enjoyed it. The acting is good. The story holds well together. I especially liked the contrast between the family's perfect manners and their job (cutting people alive), which is of course deliberate, not 'bad acting', and which gives a comedy twist to the film.

The Last Apartment (2015)

not so good, but still useful

[2/10 · 31 December 2020]

I started watching this film, and was not impressed at all. So I started playing games on my computer while letting it go on on the telly, and this is the perfect role for it. If you are bothered by the grey tv screen while reading a book, sleeping, sitting in another room, making sexy-time with your partner, this is the film for you. Images and sounds appear on the screen.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020)

Still a very good film. Great actress. Too politically biased.

[8/10 · 4 December 2020]

The first Borat used to make fun of everybody. The second specifically targets Trump and his supporters, and it ends with an invitation to go to vote at the elections, implicitly but inequivocally in favour of Biden. I am not a Trump supporter. (I am not a USA citizen). But I found the film too politically oriented, as if Baron Coehn were a Dem activist.

This is not the only issue. it is also less funny than the first, which was so ingenious and fresh that no sequel could probably measure up to it

Having said that, Borat 2 remains an excellent film, defintely worth watching, and not just once (i have watched it 3-4 times). The Covid theme is very well played. It was obviously not planned from the beginning, but it fits very well into the story.

Maria Bakalova, of whom I have never heard before, is so good as to cast shadow on Baron Cohen himself in certain scenes. She is not as beautiful and sexy as Hollywood actresses, but her acting (in a very difficult role) is absolutely amazing, magnificent, 100 times better than Hollywood actresses

Deadlocked (I) (2020)

very good low-budget film.

[7/10 · 2 December 2020]

Considering it is a super-low budget film, i think it is very good. Good acting, good script. If you start watching it, you won't be able to stop until the end.

Becky (II) (2020)

Reminds me of I spit on your grave

[4/10 · 24 July 2020]

Same idea applied to a different story. Unrealistic as the original, but far less original. Good acting from the main actress, though.

The Legend of Rita (2000)

Most welcome different approach to leftist guerrilla in Western Europe

[9/10 · 8 April 2020]

In the 70s in western Europe, especially in Italy and Germany, a part of the left movement thought that the time of a violent system change had come, and they engaged themselves in 'armed struggle' to that effect. But they were wrong and were defeated. As it always happens, the history is (re)written by the winners, and so members of armed organizations such as Brigate Rosse and RAF came to be depicted as bloodthirsty psychopaths in mainstrean, State-controlled historiography. This film has the merit of doing justice to these modern Don Quixotes.

Creatures the World Forgot (1971)

Unbelievingly boring

[3/10 · 4 March 2020]

Hammer did very good films. But this is really below the Hammer standards. Moreover, blonde and blue-eyed primitive men are very unlikely.

Wolf (I) (2019)

female soldiers in the Roman army?!?

[1/10 · 3 March 2020]

This film has opened a new horizon for me. I just discovered that women were hired as soldiers in Roman legions. But i cannot make sense why the soldiers in the film are not driving cars or using mobile phones. If we want to be anachronistic, let's be consistent.

Alone (II) (2020)

One the worst films I ever watched. Stay away!

[2/10 · 18 January 2020]

The plot is so unbelievable as to have comic effects.

Flu (2013)

Good film but the love story is out of place

[5/10 · 17 January 2020]

Good film but the love story is out of place and deeply implausible. It spoils the good things of the film. By the way, I was not aware that South Korea has no sovereignity on its own territory. USA emissaries decide for them, at least according to this film.

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Very disappointed

[5/10 · 23 December 2019]

I am a fan of Shining. Obviously I had certain expectations. However, the problem is not that it is bad sequel, but that it is no sequel at all. Kubrick's Shining was a psychological thriller. You were not asked to buy the story of ghosts. Everything could be explained in terms of Jack's cabin fever and delusions. Here you asked to buy the story of some kind of vampires somehow, unintelligibly, related to the hotel, which has no ground whatsoever in Shining. Awful acting from the the interpreter of Dan young. Just to omologate 6 for the film itself: 3 as a sequel of Shining. I give 5 being very generous

Darlin' (2019)

anti-catholic film

[4/10 · 2 December 2019]

Not a great film, but the main actress is skilled and certainly has a bright future. My problem, however, is with the depiction of catholic priests as corrupt paedophiles. I live in Italy and i can witness that there is significant number of gay priests who are not pedophiles as well as priests with a female partner, either occasional or permanent. There is also a number of priests, albeit small, who actually do what they say and refrain from sex.

Stay Out Stay Alive (2019)

Bad bad bad

[2/10 · 28 November 2019]

Everything is poor in this film. It is not just that it is amateurish and low budget. There are good low-budget films, if the director has any skill. Here there is not one original idea. Special mention for the awful acting of the male main character.

The Shining (1997)

Useful watching in order to fully appreciate Stanley Kubrick's own adaptation

[4/10 · 17 November 2019]

I watched Stanley Kubrick's adaptation several times, both before and after watching the series. In any possible respect, not just the acting, Stanley Kubrick's version is hundred times better. Since Kubrick's version has come out around 20 years earlier, I wonder how the director of this uninspired remake could think he could avoid losing badly, very badly, the comparison.

'71 (2014)

Cannot make sense of so many critical reviews

[8/10 · 22 October 2019]

I cannot make sense of so many critical reviews. Two criticisms are made: 1) the plot gets convoluted as the film goes on; 2) it would be a good thriller if the director did not want to make political points. The 'convulsion' is in the reality itself the film depicts, with the British army and intelligence playing both the role of third-party arbiter and of military hand of the unionist terrorists. Funny to complain about the politics, since the film is not a thriller, but a political film. Maybe this criticism comes from unrepented supporters of the Unionists? Surely the film does not offer a favourable portrait of therm. Excellent screenplay, acting, music. I give 8 and i am being not generous.

Rabid (2019)

Better than the original except for the ending.

[6/10 · 14 October 2019]

The building up of the story is definitely better than in the original (everything there is too quick). The actors are fine. The disappointing bit is the ending, different from the original, and with a very very unbelievable twist. Pity because it spoiled an excellent remake.

Magellan (2017)

One of the most boring films i have ever watched

[2/10 · 9 September 2019]

Almost the entire film (at least of the part I watched) takes place in a small room (spaceship), with the main, and almost only, actor speaking to the computer. After half hour, i stopped watching it. If you manage to end watching it, you are a hero.

Beloved Beast (2018)

Not bad at all

[7/10 · 9 September 2019]

At the beginning it is a little confusing. If one has the patience to continue watching it, it turns out to be a good film. There is something of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction in the dialogues. The end could have been better, though. Actors play fine. Considering it is an independent, low-budget film, i would defintely reccomend it.

The Man from Earth (2007)

From a scientific point this film is crap

[5/10 · 20 January 2018]

A group of anthropologists came to know that one of their colleagues is supposedly a man from prehistory who survived through 14.000 years. They claim that the story he tells cannot be proven to be true but also cannot be proven to be false. So they believe it and they maintain that this is consistent with science. This is pure crap. We cannot prove to be false that vampires exist, still no scientist would ever give in to existence of vampires, not even as an hypothesis. Science requires that a claim is verifiable, not that it cannot be proven to be false. If i claim that I am the reincarnation of Napoleon, nobody can prove my claim to be false, still, nobody would waste a second on my claim,

Vikings (2013–2020)

The role of women in the film is completely anachronistic

[5/10 · 23 September 2017]

It's enough a quick google search 'vikings women' in order to find out that women were not allowed to partake in raids and to play any role in political life. This film has no historical plausibility whatsoever. If this was meant to please feminists, it doesn't do the trick very well either: if women throughout history had the same rights and did the same things as men, then feminism is the most stupid thing in the world, because it relies on the very opposite premises.