xacebop-09424 Reviews

I accuse (1941)

Propaganda aside, great film.

[9/10 · 12 February 2019]

This film explores the nature of suffering a long and painful death. At the time this movie was made, Multiple Sclerosis was untreatable and slowly caused the immune system to eat away at the nerves. Today, it has little impact on life expectancy thanks to the evolution in medicine. The main character is forced into a moral, ethical and legal dilemma when his wife, who suffers from the disease and is slowly dying, accepts her fate and asks to die. Unfortunately for her, no doctor or court would allow this. Her husband, a doctor himself, struggles with the idea, his decision, and the defense of that decision.

This is truly an eye-opening film and a lot of the ethical and moral stigma surrounding the issue to this day are based in religion, not in reason. This film helps you to understand that and rethink your stance.

The problem with the film though is that it was commissioned by Joseph Goebbels to coincide with the Nazi implementation of Aktion 4. This film deals with the patient and family's decision and coming to terms with the idea. Aktion 4 however, exploited the sympathy garnered from the film and removed the need for consent at all.

Why this film was so good is because we actually witnessed such a change in attitude toward the issue and the manipulation of public opinion which ensued. Some might see this as a negative, pure propaganda piece. What I see is a film so good that it was able to make such an argument but that it itself was not propaganda, but rather was used as such.

9/10 - speaks to the quality of German filmmaking during Hollywood's Golden Era

All or Nothing: New Zealand All Blacks (2018)

Very entertaining

[9/10 · 19 August 2018]

I don't know anything about rugby, never even seen it. This show greatly educated me on the sport. I can't really explain why this was such a good show, but it is worth checking out. Don't let the other seasons of this show throw you off it, they are all very different in terms of direction and entertainment value. I found the Rams series boring, and I enjoy football and live in the area, so that says a lot about this season.

The Mountain (2012)

Something fishy is going on here....

[3/10 · 2 July 2018]

Out of nowhere I came across dozens of films I had never heard of before with ridiculously high imdb scores and the votes to back them up. This film "Dag" (2012) is among them.

Do you ever see a movie's score beforehand and then go watch the movie with a bias towards thinking it will be good because so many others thought so? It might be shameful but I think we all have done it regardless of how small of an expectation it influences. With this film in particular I was extremely optimistic and in a hurry to watch it because the sequel - The Mountain (part 2) was rated significantly better.

I was disappointed entirely. There were some areas of the film that were much better than the final overall score but those were few and far between.

The first thing I noticed was that this film was shot with modern equipment and looked like something that might come out of Hollywood as opposed to a lot of times foreign films are a generation or two back and their film quality looks comparatively worse than what is the current standard by about a decade. I was surprised by this, off to a good start.

Right off the bat it hits you, this film is trying to speak to YOU, the audience. Ingrained within its dialogue is nothing short of propaganda. The overly dramatic death scenes; The main character, despite having significant financial resources and a woman he loves is just like NOPE, I am going to make my family proud and prove them wrong and go join the obligatory military duty - so they break up. This might be believable but the manner in which they did it exhibited no logic beyond the character trying to "prove" something to his family (why?).

Ok not a big deal, I can give them that. The next part really pissed me off. One of the more experienced officers is running along a ridge where there is one sniper shooting at the squad (not a very good one) and instead of evacuating along with the other men he stops dead in his tracks and walks toward the sniper and shouts out some obligatory nationalistic phrase before he is shot and killed in an overly dramatic fashion. This course of events would be required to set up the plot for the rest of the film, however the manner in which it was executed was overtly tangible and really changed whatever predisposed expectations I had from the imdb reviews. So far, we're about 10 minutes in.

The story continues in the same manner with scenes being executed seemingly just to set up the plot of the film: two men are stranded and must hold out against terrorists (maybe?) who are in control of a strategic radio tower on top of a mountain.

Upon reaching their destination they find the tower seemingly abandoned until... surprise! an enemy combatant is inside (watching tv). An overly dramatic scene plays out in which the main character is pinned down and the enemy soldier is slowly trying to press his knife into the hero's heart. As he does this, he whispers: "Shhhhh....". Well now that looks familiar... In fact, it is an exact ripoff of the film Saving Private Ryan, albeit with no emotional response whatsoever from the audience. Truth be told, it was embarrassing to watch.

At this point in the film there was no going back. The film was irredeemable in my eyes. Looking back on it, the film consists mostly of stolen content executed in a way that would be disrespectful to the original material.

After this experience my eyes really opened up to what was going on. Turkish people are swarming onto this site in massive numbers and rating all of their movies 10/10. This is evident by going into the details of the votes of these films and seeing the origin and numbers of the location of where the votes came from. Because of this terrible experience the 6 or so other Turkish films which I intended to watch afterwards have long-since been removed from my mind. I will probably never watch another Turkish film as long as I live and that is such a travesty because it is not fair that other films have to suffer because of its inhabitants inflated the votes in order to... honestly I am not sure why. There is nothing to gain from doing this other than to promote the message embedded within the film - an unnecessarily nationalistic message for the citizens and to recruit soldiers to fight against "terrorists".

DO NOT WATCH.

Money Heist (2017–2021)

Saw this before I could find any reviews any on here. It was called "La Casa de Papel (The House of Paper)". Here is my unbiased review.

[7/10 · 2 March 2018]

Nowhere near a 9. This show is a great example of when the netflix hype-train runs off the tracks and I will tell you why.

The two main female characters are supposed to be tough and assertive but both become stereotypical "I have feelings too" characters you so often see in generic tv/movies. In the case of the police officer, we are talking about a career defining case that will take at most a couple weeks. We're talking about a 24/7 hostage situation which she is solely responsible for. Meanwhile you have a very young child at home who has said she doesn't want to live with you anymore. This is infuriatingly unrealistic. Let's just say for the sake of argument that the character is 42, and that she won't be having any more kids. She is a single parent, her mom who lives with her has Alzheimer's and both her mom and daughter's safety are basically in jeopardy by leaving them unsupervised. Now add in the 24/7 hostage crisis, working (for argument sake) around 18 hours a day. Instead of going home and checking on both of the only loved ones in her life, she frequently goes to get coffee instead of going home. So far, ok, people do shit like this, I can understand. The thing that really crossed the line is that she not only neglects her home life, but willingly divulges unnecessary information to a complete stranger. Again, we are talking about maybe a few weeks of what is really going to either define your career, or ruin it. The few weeks that will decide if your daughter will ever see you again. This entire course of events just seemed forced and unrealistic. She practised no discretion whatsoever (how did she get to the position that she is in in such a field?), her judgment is along the lines of a drunk college girl - spending more time thinking about getting laid then being an adult.

The other main female character (the robber), portrays this stone cold vicious attitude, and while other characters also exhibit that, she seems to be ruthless. Guess again. The one person she loved was killed in front of her but that didn't seem to phase her. Her mother even turns her in, still nothing. So she gets involved in this seemingly too good to be true heist and all you have to do is be professional, and don't form inappropriate and personal relationships with your co-workers (which applies to literally any job). Again, ok we are all human she lost a loved one, had her mom flip on her etc. I could understand something like this if she fell in love, but nope. She certainly doesn't love the guy, and I can't imagine how she ever would. He is naive, and practices poor judgment, doesn't have the heart to do what needs to be done, is basically a liability. It just doesn't fit her character to A. act so unprofessionally, and B. risk everything for someone she isn't serious about. Same rules apply to the robber as the cop, we are talking a 24/7 heist, a couple weeks at most, a life-time of either glory, or ruin. And yet again we get the "I have feelings too" story-arch superseding an unfathomable amount of money. It just doesn't fit the character to jeopardize that, be a professional thief/robber, and exhibit this kind of behavior during such a critical small amount of time.

As you can see this is beginning to become a pattern, and we see it again with the professor to a lesser extent. Basically (aside from the tough exterior) he jeopardizes years of work to get laid. I won't go into detail on the professor, but he really isn't that smart, but neither are the police, so I guess that's okay. I am not sure how the police do things in Spain, but the level of fuck-ups just seems uncharacteristic. We're talking about rogue officers jeopardizing dozes of lives, lack of discretion, poor police-tactics specifically during the raid(s), poor judgment (how the fuck can you not sweep for bugs when the government is sitting in and you obviously have a mole), and on top of that just overall incompetence from everything to PR to gross mishandling of evidence handling. The other detective drinking and driving to such an extent because he is emotional. It is all just so unbelievable, again though I am not Spanish so maybe that is the level of competence that their police show.



As you can see, this is just the characters alone I have I outlined, and why I feel this show doesn't deserve to be rated as high as shows like Westworld, Mad Men, House of Cards, etc. It is actually rated higher than a few of those and just absolutely does not even belong in the same league.

The list goes on and I could make the case for other elements, other characters, etc. However, I will say that there are a lot of great things about this show. The plot is great, the 'idea' behind certain aspects of things like characters, methodology, behaviors, even things small things like the masks and fake gun rotation are excellent. The positives do outweigh the negatives, but not to the degree that warrants a near-perfect score.

The point of this review was not to bash the show, but to provide a more unbiased opinion (imo) because I experienced it in it's infancy with no real information available (I actually had trouble finding it on imdb). Also, because I feel that someone needs to speak up as the show has obviously been put on a pedestal because Netflix put their name on it.

I do recommend this show because on the surface it is something different, and has a lot of unique qualities. It is entertaining, but nowhere near perfect.

7/10 at most.

Thumper (2017)

Not bad

[9 February 2018]

There were some aspects of this film that I thought were really interesting and showed glimpses of brilliance but in the end they were often unexplored. The character development itself was my biggest complaint. The main character's family struggle really just doesn't feel invested enough. The thin line between law and criminality, again, glimpses are shown but don't really emphasize but more lightly tread. The law enforcement pressure on their own, and later the circumstances surrounding the characters who are involved in crime was almost frustrating to watch because you are given a tease of how that could have been a major breakthrough, but to no avail.

I will say that the setting, characters, and a few individual performances really kept me interested. The guy who played Wyatt ("pornstache") was sort of another level, and he really sold the performance. The main character seemed awkward in the beginning but that (to my surprise) is resolved later on.

Overall I'd put this at around 6.5, nothing groundbreaking but some people with a niche for this subject will enjoy it.

Inhumans (2017)

Somewhere in the middle, but a slap in the face to the source material.

[5/10 · 10 January 2018]

I had never heard of this show but ended up seeing the reviews for it. I checked IMDB and the score was ridiculously low, especially by anything with Marvel in the name. I am very familiar with the comics, games, etc. and the Inhumans universe.

I watched this show because of the bad reviews only, I thought it can't be as bad as people say (think sharknado, and wanting to watch just to see how bad it is). Many characters were changed, abilities, etc. and not for the better. The show is modernized enough that it will keep the casual audience entertained but anyone who is a fan of the marvel universe will be disappointed.

The one saving grace of the show is Ramsey Bolton AKA Maximus. It is very hard to establish yourself once you are renowned for particular character, especially a GoT character, but he definitely proved himself capable.

It's not good, and not as bad as it could have been, but it's probably worth skipping.

Dark (2017–2020)

One of the best shows I've ever seen

[10/10 · 26 December 2017]

Very prolific, intelligent and thought provoking story with time travel being the main theme. If you have any interest in time travel this is a must watch.

Oh, watch it German with subtitles, not English. I won't even go into that whole ordeal, but trust me.

Amy Schumer: The Leather Special (2017 TV Special)

How is Amy Schumer famous?

[1/10 · 7 October 2017]

From what I have seen of Amy Schumer she is trying to utilize other successful comedians formulas and try to apply it to herself. You can't just go watch Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and then say yeah I think I should take something great and try to make it my own and remake it my own way. No. Just because someone else has done something great doesn't mean you can use that successful formula and idea and try to copy it and have it work.

Amy Schumer is the physical embodiment of this. She takes comedians like Sarah Silverman and Bob Saget and tries to do what they did. Only problem is they were funny and she is not. She tries to be vulgar just for the sake of being vulgar. I won't even go into her joke stealing.

This is probably the worst standup act I have ever seen after watching about 40 years worth of material. Amy Schumer I wouldn't go so far as to say is the worst comedian of all time, but she is easily in the top 3. Hollywood continues to surprise me and give money and opportunities to people like Amy Schumer and it sickens me.

Oh and she is also the reason we can no longer give star ratings on Netflix and instead have that stupid thumbs up/thumbs down system. It was THIS special that caused that. It was promoted by Netflix and was hated on so hard that they had to actually change the voting system.

Thanks Amy.

0/10

Young Sheldon (2017–2024)

Hollywood has officially ran out of ideas

[30 September 2017]

We've seen how well shows can do with and without a great idea. This show was never going to be a great idea and was a last ditch effort to squeeze money out of what's left of the big bang theory. take a look at what shows are successful on television and are talked about everywhere. you got game of thrones, walking dead, etc. if you're trying to make a comedy i can understand how with the restrictions of basic TV it is going to be much more difficult but TV has evolved since the big bang theory.

sometimes i wonder who is hiring these TV executives who act like they have never watched a day of TV in their life and solely focused on business school. it's whats wrong with Hollywood. look at broad city, fresh off the boat, nathan for you, rick and morty, curb your enthusiasm, always sunny, south park, (literally any successful comedy) etc. the projects have heart and people who are driven to want the shows to succeed. young sheldon feels like someone said "here, we're gonna spin off big bang and hope you can leech off it's viewers" but does nothing original or interesting to define itself in it's own right, and it's clear there is really no drive or soul.

Death Note (I) (2017)

I went into this movie unbiased, but was ultimately disappointed (spoilers)

[2/10 · 25 August 2017]

Death Note is my favorite anime of all time, even still watching it annually despite having outgrown the phase. It is one of the most original ideas that you rarely see anymore and was allowed to breathe due to it's long run time of 50+ episodes. The characters were highly developed, you felt an attachment to Kira despite their sadistic and murderous nature. There was actual development, from the FBI agent Raye Penbar, and his wife, to Misa, whose plot line was absurdly absent from the movie.

When I first heard about the American remake I knew it was going to be literally impossible to hold up to the original because it was being made as a film. It just cannot be done. There is too much depth to the story that would inevitably have to be ignored. I was willing to leave that aside though due to Netflix's stellar reputation, but may in the future have to reconsider what they are capable of.

Light was horrendous, plain and simple. He did not come off as intelligent at all, and the only sliver we see of that was literally the last scene of the film, and even then, it was disappointing. The cat and mouse game we knew and loved was expedited and mostly ignored in an attempt to cram everything together in under two hours.

Mia, his girlfriend just seemed completely unnecessary. She was involved right out of the gates, which was just foolish. So much for an "intelligent" protagonist. Furthermore, she was unable to see Ryuk, which could have easily been added and could have at least helped the plot a little. No sympathy whatsoever for the character, who turned out to be the real antagonist.

L. The reason I am giving this film a star at all. The actor, with what little screen time he had and despite my reservations about his race actually captured a lot of the neuroses about L. With all of the things they managed to leave out I was surprised to see that they nailed his posture, and sitting, among other things.

Ryuk, I felt Defoe was really the saving grace of this film and the only real reason I was able to sit through it. While it wasn't near his best role, he did a great job with the horrible script that was available to him.

The entire story moves along way too fast, there is no development, no cat and mouse, no explanation as to how L was able to isolate and track Kira which was a central plot of the anime (putting out localized stories in every era and seeing who Kira kills). There was also no character with death eyes, or even multiple death gods. I was disappointed when there was no backstory behind Ryuk, where he came from, the other death gods and their gambling etc.

In summary, one point for L, one point for Ryuk, everything else was a disgrace and shame to the original. While I understand the limitations present in having this made with the restraints of a film, I thought almost everything could have been better adapted. I am thoroughly disappointed with Netflix for ever picking this up. They could have made an amazing series out of this, (EVERYTHING IS ALREADY SPELLED OUT FOR YOU IN THE MANGA/ANIME) but chose to do a film instead, big mistake. Netflix's resources could have been better spent bringing back Firefly or any number of shows rather than waste their time on ruining a great masterpiece.

This film really has no place, as it is not appealing and entertaining to average viewers, and is a slap in the face to fans of the original. Do yourself a favor and skip this altogether if you haven't already watched it.