Change Your Image
duzt-52804
Reviews
Self Reliance (2023)
Seemed like a terrible version of Surviving the Game
Normally I would get excited at an Andy Samberg appearance, but he was literally on screen for under 10 minutes. This was a jokey movie making light of a game to the death where a bunch of unknowns can hunt you down and kill you - on the surface it sounds very akin to the Ice T movie Surviving the Game which I would argue is a classic and very well done. But instead they really only clarify one rule, which is that as long as you're within reach of another person then the ninja secret people can't kill you. And to top it off they try to turn it into a love story. Overall a very blah movie that just wasn't very funny. The best part was the relationship he developed with the hobo.
Leave the World Behind (2023)
So much talking, so little action, with some deer running rampant and periodic tooth pulling
I was not impressed. I can understand allusions to events and being intentionally vague, but this seemed excessively pointless at times and with no real "survival mode" behind it and eons of yammering to no end. The transition to the (zombie) apocalypse would of course take some time, maybe a period of years depending on specific details, before a Rick would arrive in an insane but stable world, whereas this movie is arguably just the first handful of days of uncertainty and no information.
It seems to be some weird melding of a crazy hacking incident that somehow results in an oil tanker getting beached, 100+ deer randomly gathering in the yard, and a kid getting bit by a bug which results in him pulling out a half dozen of his own teeth. Watching Kevin Bacon explain about the new world, it makes me wonder if with some better writing to make this all actually make sense instead of it being a big unknown question mark, maybe this would have worked better with some unknown actors. It has some allusions or references to The Happening, in my opinion, with weird nature stuff coming out of the blue and the animal odd behaviors. They could have thrown in some wind blowing for no reason.
Ironically, with the pandemic we recently had several events and shortages that stretched our supply lines pretty thin - and, fortunately, most of us seem to have survived without too much insanity. The housing/rent crisis and economic inequality was all that's left out of this movie to make it fully PC and relevant...
The ending finale of Friends was downright hilarious though.
Chronicle (2012)
Thoroughly enjoyable realistic acquired superpower film
This movie is essentially about three high school boys who go down a big hole and find some alien tech that gives them various superpower abilities that makes their noses bleed after using those powers - but instead of a spidey type scenario where they are immediately almost fully aware of all of their abilities and how to use them and the moral ramifications, these kids continue down their daily paths of family and school life and relationships. They are hornballs, one is regularly abused and beaten up and picked on - and the fun begins when they react accordingly to the fullest of their newfound ability. I kept thinking "origin story" as this could apply to many superheros. It was quite fun seeing a young MBJ even though he came to an end too abruptly, and then the remaining duo descend into a brutal battle as the green goblin goes completely batty and tries to destroy everything while the other tries to do some semblance of fighting for justice but never enforcing it until the very end. These superheros are absolutely nowhere near perfection at all - they are completely flawed which makes it so much more real and spectacular. Very enjoyable in how different it was than most cliche superhero films.
A Good Person (2023)
Moments of greatness but disjointed at times
I have been listening to the Scrubs pod for awhile now and was aware of this movie - I'm mid S2 and Zach just made a reference to getting a phone call from his agent and hoping it was positive news about getting an older actor to join the cast...I could only assume it was Freeman. That finally tipped me over to watching the movie.
Overall, I'd give it about 6.5 stars. Maybe it's because of the substance abuse topic but this is a hard one to stomach at times for various reasons - mostly to watch someone with great potential at a successful life spiral downwards and to not have great redeeming value. And there is no real happy ending or otherwise cliche scenario where the lovers get back together. It's brutal at times and at others it seems like the writing was done poorly - I simply couldn't buy Ry's uber naive attempts that were so right down the middle between being well-intended and cruel.
I'd say the primary driver for this movie is a philosophical or moral question of culpability for her phone distraction leading to the death of two other individuals. She obviously denied it and buried it in pills, maybe arguably for her own survival as she may have otherwise off'd herself. Flo pretty much carries the film, with some contributions from Freeman. It does get quite disjointed at various times with some clunky writing/acting but there were also a couple times where I was bawling heavily for a minute. They gloss over plenty of scenes that maybe depend on a super sophisticated viewer to fill in the blanks - the Ry and Flo party escalated way too quickly to gunplay and concluded with a Nate punch, followed quickly by her finding out Freeman had resumed drinking. And not much later he had passed...just way too clunky there.
Extraordinary (2023)
Pretty hilarious comedy with some Xanth-esque spots on wall powers
This seems like the second movie/series I've seen recently that reminded me of Xanth - I've given in already that a Piers Anthony Xanth movie/series may never come to fruition for a variety of reasons but it's nice to see elements of that come to life here.
This series is basically ordinary people who get a very simple magic power, ranging from instant hair changes to spots on walls - with a few higher level powers like flying and speed and rewinding time and even instant orgasms. All of that is combined with some clever comedic writing and some likable/dislikable characters...with the usual film trick of people seeming doofish in one instant and then when another character is being doofish they are the epitome of all that is wise. Great series, we need more episodes.
Imawa no Kuni no Arisu: Episode 8 (2022)
Fun series even for those who haven't seen the manga origin story
I have not read the manga of Alice in Borderland, so I don't know half of the detail involved - in my mind, having forgotten much of S1 in the years since it was released, this came off to me as maybe an early version of Squid Games, combined with some other movies and elements. I read a few more articles and watched a few spoiler videos after finishing S2 and more fully understand how this was essentially a purgatory/simulation that took place within a mere timespan of a minute after the meteor destruction - then throwing players into a chaotic game world with some Alice in Wonderland death matches that determines whether they die or are able to return to the real world. Such a unique idea in a lot of ways, it's very clever. I do think there are some points to detract from the series, as being ignorant of the source material it felt to me like they glossed over so much detail that maybe it could be assumed the viewer already knew. I didn't know, combined with feeling like maybe the dubbing took away further detail, but a lot of times being left primarily with just watching glorified violence. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty glorious violence and fun to watch. But some of the dialogue was left feeling incomplete or dull, maybe due to translation. Still, overall a pretty awesome series.
Violent Night (2022)
It's not terrible but also not as great as some might have you *believe*
I'm giving this a solid 6, maybe a hair over but I don't feel it deserves being rounded up to a 7. It felt to me like they heisted so many elements from other christmas movies just be-claus they wanted to. I made a joke the other day that this movie was made solely because of the argument that Die Hard isn't a Christmas movie - so they recreated it WITH a Santa Claus to put that argument to rest. First of all even though it's not a bank heist they are literally breaking into a vault to steal millions with a brilliant safe-cracker. The barefoot scene literally had me thinking "Schieße den Fenster" aka "shoot the glass!". Santa is talking on a walkie talkie to a good person on the other line, and the only thing missing there was the FBI and someone making a "blow the roof" comment. You could kind of see him being John Mc and starting to knock out the bad guys and telling them how many are left. The Home Alone stuff with the kid was more blatantly obvious and can be excused because it was pretty quick and they did it so intentionally with Home Alone in mind, but also added some extremely violent elements to it.
John Leg was a pretty solid bad guy, he seemed tough and good for the role without being too campy. The movie overall did have a bit of cheese to it, but also threw in some solid violence to make you recoil a bit. They had some unique violent sequences that fit well with the christmas/santa/kill theme but it either wasn't enough or it was countered by being not serious enough. I throw out the "well, that's too unrealistic!" card just to get a laugh...and I know this isn't intended to compete right next to Die Hard for ratings...but I prefer the simple things like physics and reactions being as realistic as possible (even while excusing necessary magic). The chimney finale was pretty awesome but they stretched it quite a bit to have the sled knock a guy off a snowmobile and santa take over, to throw a snowmobile into the barn, etc.
McFarland, USA (2015)
Apparently the new standard is to condense 8 years into one
Costner lent some decent authenticity to this movie and it was pretty good overall and had some cliche tearing up moments, but that didn't stop a few of the bad cliches from coming through either. It has become the norm these days for movies to condense what would otherwise take a decade or so and make it seem like a one-year turnaround miracle. I've watched some similar shows lately like Big Shot and even Glory Road...with some basis on true events just like this movie. Maybe the simplicity of it is because you can't condense time down so far in a movie or even a series to show the first four years as complete failures where the players have to put in the time and see nothing as a result but a loss. People want a feel-good story and a miracle story, and apparently that also translates into never losing. At least in McFarland they came in 4th out of four during their very first race...only to never lose again. That kind of stuff gets to me and rings as lazy writing and an inability to script a longer running show/series.
Outside of that, Kevin was Kevin and he performs to his usual standard...interesting to think this came out just a few years prior to Yellowstone. This one doesn't seem like a blockbuster runaway like many of his movies end up being, but on the other hand it also isn't a throwaway movie either. It's pretty good quality overall with good performances all around - but it's also about cross country which is generally not that exciting! There's not much to watch except people running and there's not much to watch from a coaching perspective...just go run. This movie is more about the relationships. The kids are great actors overall, loved the familiar nature of McFarland. Overall a decent movie.
Big Shot (2021)
Teenage highschool drama with some pretend basketball on the side
I somehow have actually made it through 9 episodes so far and I'm not quite sure why I'm still watching except maybe because this will likely be a similar vibe once my girls get older. But let's get this out of the way immediately - the basketball in this series is absolutely horrific and quite honestly a joke. I know it's pretty standard these days to go all Mighty Ducks and expect a team to be turned around in under a season, but this escalates it by going D2 by literally never losing a game. I know this is all for show but it's hard to imagine any of these girls have any kind of background in basketball. This show is about mocking Korn because he threw a chair Bobby Knight style and is punished into the realm of girl's basketball, his daughter moving to live with him and their relationship being built from the ground up, and then every episode is some world-ending disaster for one of the girls - whether it be the dad being found guilty of fraud, the one girl coming out to her crush, another girl living tik tok lies, etc. So the basketball is just a background for the story. If you don't give a fig about bball then maybe I give it a rounded up to 7, otherwise this is rounded up to 6 overall with zero expectation of watching good fundamentals.
Bluey (2018)
I regularly tout this as the highest rated show on IMDB
This is very simply the best show ever created, and I tout it as such with every chance I get. It is not only an amazing show for the kids with a plethora of life lessons and behavioral lessons for them to learn along the way, but cute mannerisms and great family antics all over the place that don't seem to get old. But the extra bonus with Bluey is that it appeals to adults/parents as well - the other day we were watching a handful of episodes and I swear I cried or at least teared up on four straight episodes and could easily tell you several others that do the same, including Camping. The closest other kids show in this vein that I might compare it to is Daniel Tiger, which for the longest time was the creme of the crop for me, with songs and lessons all over the place. Maybe the length of that show has deteriorated it a bit over time, and who knows maybe the same will happen with Bluey if they ever get to season 25! But for now this is literally the best show ever created.
Don't Worry Darling (2022)
This movie had a vague first half and actually made me angry at the end
The featured review of this movie is pretty solid. This movie looks amazing on many levels and has some fun music - it's an idealistic super utopian period type of piece that is colorful and magical in a lot of ways with some degree of mystery about the secret/unknown element. And that's the point of the movie which they successfully kept hidden for about half of the movie. The women slave away keeping the house clean while the men run away on their secret mission (to return to the real world and pay for their wives' blissful slavery of cleaning and making dinner).
Beyond that this movie left a LOT to be desired. Florence and Pine and even Harry were pretty great all around, but there's no way I can get into full detail about the silliness of this thing and either the poor writing or lackluster directing. The way she sees things go wrong with another character and immediately thinks everyone else should believe her without any proof, about how she miraculously finds the shining beacon of "return to the real world with a touch to the glass", the rampant and disgusting abuse and conditioning of women manipulation moves that is taking place behind the scenes in every scenario except for Olivia's "I miss my children" situation, and finally the ridiculous fast final car chase where she hits the brakes and the three other cars hit and destroy each other.
If you want to watch a fleshed out simulation movie, there are many better ones to watch. My personal favorite, perhaps because it's lesser known, is The Thirteenth Floor. It has a fun philosophical slant to it, on top of jacking into your own personal character in 1937...a much preferred option over that of manipulating your spouse and physically controlling her so you can destroy her body and live out your own personal fantasy (apparently of her doing nothing but cleaning the house and making dinner while you're away). There are some other elements of Stepford Wives and Truman Show but I personally see a lot of pieces heisted from (or in common with) The Thirteenth Floor.
The Northman (2022)
Didn't even come close to the hype
This was terribly disappointing. Maybe because it felt like such a hyped up movie that did nothing but let you down constantly. Ethan Hawke was great but only on screen for a very brief period. There's no buildup at all, it's just things that happen...he flees on a boat repeating his silly three chants and then they flash forward to his grown up character. And then he simply jumps on another boat to return to his old tribe as a slave and meets Anya's character who supposedly is a self-proclaimed manipulator that never manipulates anyone. Then he starts enacting his unspoken plan of murdering some people in a weird style that never explains how he could have possibly had any time to do it. He doesn't have any special abilities, just a claim to the throne and a lust for vengeance, so it doesn't connect any dots to how he planned anything. This is nowhere near as engaging as Vikings, not even the terrible Vikings years with the sons.
Samaritan (2022)
Like watching an old Rocky/Rambo character aging with superpowers
This is a bit of an odd one for me - it felt like I was really just watching the character of Rocky or Rambo as he ages while losing his abilities in a superhero world that is nowhere near as fleshed out as Marvel or DC. And the rules simply weren't well-defined on what he could and couldn't do. One minute he's invincible and bullets can't hurt him and the next everyone has guns pointed at him and he runs to hide behind a wall. It had a bit of a twist towards the end where they reversed his character as they played it vague up until that point. It also builds in some remorse as he does some sort of grappling with who he was as the bad guy and who he wants to be with the life he has left. It was nice to see the capability of a person to change who they are, to better themselves and whatnot, which is hard to come by in today's "no second chances" society. This is probably a one-off movie that we'll never see anything else come of it. I'll mark it a solid 6 as it never really had a moment where I thought it needed to be turned off. The kid was pretty dumb, and the Moises gangster character with dreads was horrifically bad...but Pilou Asbæk (Greyjoy) was a pretty awesome bad guy. I didn't quite understand how these nimrods thought they could take on either mister invincible samaritan/nemesis...or some weird thought that Greyjoy could somehow become Nemesis in that he might develop superpowers when in reality all he really had was a hammer that someone else built. He didn't have the strength and his army meant nothing. That storyline inconsistency was a detraction for me.
American Satan (2017)
Average satanic rock band movie
Maybe it goes without saying given that the cast includes Denise Richards and Goldberg, but this takes an otherwise cliche satanic rock band sells out to the devil in exchange for infamy theme and delivers a pretty weak-handed slap. Cue the analogies to Vince Neil's murder incident and throw on some Skid Row music on the band bus with the vocalist taking a fan's virginity, then litter it with young pups who are super clueless about anything besides self indulgence, peppered with awkward conversations between all the cast interactions - and you are pretty lucky to escape with an average movie. The biggest sell for this movie is having the band manager be from GoT. Otherwise you just have the usual tripe involving drug overdoses. Don't get me wrong, if you're a 12 year old boy you might really dig the hedonistic nude scenes, but otherwise only put this on in the background to scare people who think Satanism is scary.
Asking for It (2021)
Not great but not as bad as the reviews
This one had some glimmers of being a good movie - it had some elements of a Purge theme while being more realistic, but maybe delved too much into a toxic male culture without even giving that more than a few cliche lines and only giving life to the main baddie with a social media following - the real holdout was that it didn't really develop most of the characters on either side of the clash. It is based in a random unnamed small town where the main character Joey experiences a date rape event that takes her quickly down a rabbit hole of empowered survival women that decides to take on a global white male group that wants to pretend life is hard for them and to take back control by using alpha force. This movie is worth it just to see a gorgeous Vanessa strap on a pink floppy dildo but getting punched in the face by a gal pal before being able to victimize the bad guy who had just been tasered. Aside from that, you have Thor's brother who again gets stuck on security detail just like in West World before being killed off, plus a pretty lame performance by David Patrick Kelly as a big talking governor type who talks big and shoots quicker than his mouth. The purpose of the movie seemed to ultimately be the evolution of Joey to the cause and they wrap that up at the end...but it just takes too long in between.
Succession (2018)
I've just started S3 and so far I'd say it's interesting but doesn't live up to the hype
Unless this is way over my head, it just seems like a family of rotten and despicable people with very few redeeming qualities. It is essentially a bunch of people who are simply not allowed to say what they actually mean, instead only being able to use obscure metaphors that leave you wondering what is actually being discussed. The company is a giant media conglomerate but all you ever see is a super-high level owner and management type of presentation with a non-stop family bickering battle over who gets to take over the company. And yet despite all the internal struggle and hatred towards each other they cannot escape the gravity of big daddy Logan, who keeps pulling them back with some odd familiar loyalty coupled with teases of increased power in the company. I'm left wondering a lot of times how this could even appeal to most people, given most of society's lack of business sense - it must be due to the drama and backstabbing aspect of it all.
Mixtape (2021)
Cheesy fun movie with feelgood vibes
Good gravy, Carol Vessey is supposed to be a grandma in this? That's a crazy notion! This is an otherwise fun little movie - the girl club is a bit beyond my interest, but I continued watching because of the mixtape vibe to it and hunting down various punk songs. That was lots of fun. It's a good adventure for this gal to try to find more of her identity. I enjoyed it, it did go by quickly.
Mayor Grom. Chumnoy Doktor (2021)
Pretty great new superhero addition
This isn't cosmic stuff, but it's a pretty fun addition to an overly done superhero genre. Pretty well acted with parallels to a lot of Batman stuff - you got the commish and a poor Batman who simply sticks to his morals of not killing anyone. I like the unique aspect of Igor thinking through and them showing onscreen various outcomes...it's more forethought than parallel universe type stuff, but it's great to see that stuff in action. You get the little sidekick guy and a love interest and a villain who seems eerily similar to the Joker who first comes out as a firestarter and then gets sent to an asylum where he shows some other crazy personality and potential powers for sequels. Overall pretty good movie.
Black Summer: Heist (2019)
They left out the weeks of recon and planning
I started rewatching this series once S2 was released because of several positive reviews from friends. I can't even say this is the only episode that does this, but this might be the most "dramatic" twist from out of nowhere. It's as if someone said once that they need some weapons and then they cut to this episode where there's a fully developed plan that they execute to perfection aside from one person turning at the end escape run. In a show like this almost nothing goes according to plan, which you'd expect in the beginnings of a zombie apoc. It's just baffling at times how little communication there is between the characters. In the next episode one of the members of the group simply calls his dog over and leaves, he never talked anyway and didn't tell the group anything, he just left and was never seen again. Some of this is baffling.
The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers (2021)
This Ducks series is a metaphor for the world today
This Ducks series is the same level of entertaining as the original movies with a pretty solid cast of kid actors. And I did thoroughly enjoy it even with its campiness.
It's got all the usual cliches about teamwork and inspiration, with a variety of players who discover their random talents that of course translate to instant success on the ice and often equate one-for-one with a victory. Including the one who can't skate at all until the last regular season game - hey look he learned to skate and in the next game he scores the winning goal! And of course it's all versus the evil arch enemy Ducks team headed by a coach that makes command decisions without even consulting any of his players. They do throw in some comical middle school teenager drama with some more cliche romance troubles just for fun, but fortunately they didn't let those distract much from the main hockey story.
It is complete in its silliness with the downtrodden terrible team that goes about a half dozen games without a win before rallying to become a powerhouse that embraces fun...JUST IN TIME to get enough victories to claim second place in the league to go to the postseason and then comes within one busted knee of winning a championship all in the same single season of their team formation! I find that to be a metaphor for our society today where everyone expects instant results to go along with their two day free shipping, where they get to skip the hard work and years of toiling and instead all get to do their lap in the winners circle without even playing a game or often even lacing up. I know it's a movie, and disney at that, but seriously how unrealistic of a message can they send to people that they could start up their own "just play hockey for fun" team and instantly compete against all the other teams within less than 10 games and almost instantly cancel all those bad guys.
StartUp (2016)
Better in the early seasons but a few questionable pieces
Overall, this was a pretty good series, but I still have some issues with it. Generally I love Martin Freeman but his casting choice in that role seemed way off to me - he's usually the goofy guy with a weird obliviousness, not a hardcore corrupt cop type and it just seemed like a big stretch. The general theme of the show was pretty fun with an unusual trio core, but it seemed like it kept wanting to get more explosive and focus solely on the business side of things. The early seasons were better than S3, in my opinion.
Mortal Kombat (2021)
Not as good as the trailer
I'm confused with the attempts at turning this video game into not only a single movie but a franchise series - it is literally based on a tournament where the characters die. There's at least six deaths in this one and everyone's now talking about a sequel where you can't bring those guys back. Reptile is in hell and the tournament hasn't even started yet. The video game allowed for spawn scenarios but this movie takes on some semblance of reality even if there's a supernatural element to it. And of course there's such a wide swath in the ability levels of the characters. Clearly Raiden and Shang Tsung are the god-level ones, with Sub-Zero on the next peg down arguably with Reptile, and somewhere down the line are the more simple supernatural beings like Goro and Mileena and Kabal/Flash, then some martial artists with special powers, and then for some reason they continue to pursue regular humans like Sonja and Jax and now Cole in some weird hero role that they realistically can't fulfill.
So essentially you need to suspend all belief in order to watch some one-off battles that generally involve one lucky stroke to decide it. And in this movie many of the characters don't even know what their power is until the last second (and Sonja finds hers out in 2 seconds upon getting her symbol).
That said, it was a little more than an okay movie. I agree with many of the other reviewers:
(1) Cole is kind of a waste and that was a pretty terrible acting job;
(2) Don't expect an actual tournament or really an extensive storyline, though I did think they fleshed it out more than was given credit for. Clearly Shang Tsung was trying to sabotage and win by killing everyone before the tournament;
(3) Just watch it for the fight scenes. But really you could just stop watching after the first 15 minutes after you see the throwback fight and know you've seen the best part.
Fargo (2014)
Great series, minus S4
There's a large chunk of Fargo that gets a bit formulaic after a few seasons, but it's mostly top notch and they like to try to tie the seasons together with an "aha". It all mostly revolves around a podunk Fargo town, but the first season bleeds into the second with the cop Molly, whose dad works at the restaurant and is the lead cop in S2. Season 3 was mostly them throwing a Wrench in the works for a fun return. Season 4 was the most disappointing as it was more of a departure from the literal Fargo location and the entire purpose seemed to be to work up to it being a background story for Milligan from S2. Given the arc of the entire series, that may well just be a shrug event because they may not return to flesh out his character any further, so all they did was tell about Rock's mafia days and only briefly even used Milligan except to show some of his upbringing in that lifestyle. It's still mostly a fun series and most folks aren't safe, so don't play any favorites.
The Old Guard (2020)
A Highlander reboot without the appeal
While we're actually hearing rumors about a Highlander reboot, somebody came up with the grand idea of trying to modernize the idea and give it some cred with Charlize as the introductory face. I don't hate the idea, and in fact there's a lot they could do with it, and judging merely by one movie is a tall order given the world that Highlander created. But aside from the expanded firearm usage it fell fairly flat. They tweaked a couple of the rules, lost the tingle sense and the final game combativeness of the immortals, and dwelled forever on the philosophical horribleness that living forever (or even a few centuries) would actually bring upon people. That's the age-old question and Queen song - who wants to live forever? All in all the movie did some cliche action scenes and then brought in a new immortal and that was about it. They made the FBI into the Watchers toward the end. They set it up for a sequel, so we'll see if it takes off and has a chance to create a new world similar to that of the MacLeod's.
Assassination Nation (2018)
Average at best - promises lots of violence but is mostly just all talk.
The trailer was pretty great but the movie itself didn't impress much. The four gals don't even do their girl power march until the last 20 minutes, and even then it's pretty lame. Kind of a Purge wannabe without all the gruesome violence.