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Reviews
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
3h 26 min movie? Bring it on! I got time!
I watched and rewatched it and never once did i think the movie is too long. I ll happily take the length if it means i get to enjoy the acting and how the story unfolds which i do.
Robert De Niro gives an awesome performance of the bad ass guy William Hale that takes advantage of the Osages and even Leonardo Di Caprio's character. He truly is only after one thing. Money. The rest are secondary so not just the Osages are expendable in his eyes, anyone in his circle can be expandable if it is at the expense of his freedom and way of living. He is smooth and effortless in wearing his compassion hat, seemingly putting his concerns for the welfare of the Osages first in public but in front of Ernest Burkhart he just takes the compassion hat off without hesitation showing how little the truly cares about them. He has no difficulty manipulating people to 'build a bridge' for him to cross to get to the money he desires and also manipulating others to make witnesses disappear. Hale has the entire Fairfax region under his thumb especially Ernest and rather skillfully i might add and De Niro as usual makes William Hale compelling and intriguing with his knack of disappearing into the characters he plays.
Speaking of Leonardo Dicaprio's character Ernest Burkhart, i love how he navigates between his love for his wife Mollie Burkhart even though he agreed with his uncle to assist in killing her and his lack of regard for the rest of her family agreeing without much hesitation to be involved in killing her loved ones to get money for his uncle and himself. I was hoping for him to take the additional step to tell the truth to his wife that he poisoned her given that he choose to tesify but i ll happily go along with the story accepting that such a person that do horrible things to the one he loves most is not likely to admit such truth due to his fear of losing her as he knows deep down she has the right to leave him under such circumstances. In his mind if he tells her the truth, she's not going to accept him anymore. I do think that he is wrong. Even if Mollie hears that her husband tried to kill him, she just needs him to be honest with her and she will still choose to forgive him because of the love she has for him. I think in Ernest's mind he justifies killing her by believing that he is putting an end to her pain so he probably thinks his actions are out of love. He feels that her death is inevitable so why not take away her pain? I understand his motives even though i dont think he is entirely doing it out of love, i believe greed is also involved so his actions are not so innocent as he would like to believe. Just like what Ernest says " I love money almost as much as my wife" which speaks what his intentions are. Dicaprio performance makes this love for Mollie tangible and thus making him more human and sympathetic than his actions would suggest making a seemingly deplorable character worthwhile to invest emotionally in.
Lily Gladstone who plays Mollie Burkhart gives a very tender, vulnerable, and enduring performance choosing love even though she has alot of hate in her heart from what has been done not only to her family but to the Osages in general. She is the engine that drove the justice train, headstrong, determined and full of love. Her decision to stick to her husband for so long shows how much she values family and how much hope and love she holds for him. I admire her resolve and her goodness in heart to deal with evil not with violence but with patience and understanding. I think that even though she divorced him, she never stopped loving him. Her heart was just broken too much for her to take it. Gladstone's subtle performance is the highlight of the movie for me.
A notable mention is Brendan Fraser who does such a good job of being Hale's Lawyer, a character i dislike. I dont even really dislike De Niro's character despite the evil he has done. This shows what Scorsese is capable of in terms of getting the best from actors who on paper might not seem compatible for the role.
I am also delighted to see Jesse Plemons in the movie as Tom White who shows understanding and great compassion towards Ernest Burkhart. I think Tom sees that Ernest is being used and feels for him even though what he is still complicit in the many bad deeds that are piloted by the seeming untouchable King Hale. Jesse Plemons makes Tom White multi demensional and not just someone sent by J Edgar Hoover to investigate the matter of missing Osages.
But of course its not just the acting of the top stars but from everyone who i feel did a great job collectively in bringing the story to life.
On top of the acting, there is the camera movement, visuals, style, story flow and the creative ending touch in which Martin Scorsese pays tribute to real life Mollie Burkhart's daughter.
All in all, i think the movie length fits the way the story is meant to be told, there is not a scene which i feel does not contribute to telling the story. The depth of characters is partly derived from Scorsese and the actors conviction in staying truthful to what happened and also the quality of the script which makes the dialogue really enjoyable.
Worth my time so too long? I dont think so. Its a slow burn but a wonderful slow burn indeed for me.
Paranormal Witness: The Fireplace (2015)
Why expose your daughter to such danger?
Because of her pride, she chose to push through to live in the house with her daughter putting her daughter in danger. If she wanted to fight through this on her own, I would understand but she chose to expose her daughter to unnecessary danger even when she knew very early on that her house was haunted. She just chose to block it out not thinking about the harm she put her daughter in. Such a irresponsible mother who just can't see that she's to blame.
Hoping that this all will go away is dangerous postive thinking that does not confront the issue. People need to stop putting blinders on and leave something like this that needs resolving on one side, waiting for things to get better ,not taking proper action and just let the situation deteriorate further. She had the choice to let her daughter stay at her parents house but she chose not to do that. Just really bad decisions being made out of pride, stubbornness and denial. Her actions resulted in her daughter being attacked and that was totally avoidable.
Her husband also need to take responsibility for not paying attention to her concerns but he is outside working for a living and is not in the house himself so I can understand why he would not be responsive to her even though I feel that he should have taken her concerns more seriously.
She on the other hand knew and experienced it first hand and yet just wouldn't ask for help when help is available. She just chose to believe conveniently that there is nothing she could do and just allow herself to get more and more stuck, so she bears more responsibility for sure.
The Grand Tour: The Grand Tour: Eurocrash (2022)
Tonight, Jeremy realises he's fat, Richard wees on the track and James laughs at some wax
The Grand Tour is back and Central and Eastern Europe is where they re at.
It starts off with them driving interesting cars that leads to interesting breakdowns (of one of them) and interesting modifications (the other two) stopping at interesting places.
A nice road trip across an interesting part of Europe that most dont think off that is sprinkled with humor, interesting challenges, track tests of some exotic cars, a brief look back at the history of car making in those regions, a race, and a twist in the end.
Its well made and worth the long wait and although it does not have actual accidents and more outrageous happenings like in the Scandi Flick, it is nevertheless a fun one to watch.
Eurocrash is mostly about the enjoyment of the road trip. You get to see nice scenery, places that you may not have known are there, cars you may not have known existed and the usual interaction between those three. They are more grown up now so the humor is different and less of it compared to old top gear.
I m more about the overall enjoyment of the episode. I still find quite a few parts funny but i m greatly entertained by the car history narration interspersed in the show and the ending is a nice touch to top it off.
Its not their best work and i prefer Scandi Flick but its still stellar. I was expecting a good episode and i m more than happy about it. It shows what Clarkson Hammond and May and the crew can do when you give them time, money and resources to do something.
A great episode overall.
Music Box: Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage (2021)
We are prisoners of our own experiences.
When young people experience something that meant a lot to them, they trap their mind around that experience and are still stuck in the past even when they become adults because their memories are so deeply rooted to their youth and because they ve entered the reality that adulthood means that their youth is lost, they try to recover their youth by forcing a new generation of youth to relive past experiences on their behalf and since the new generation obviously grew up in a different culture they dont and can't appreciate what the adults used to appreciate and so the adults blame the lack of appreciation solely on the youth because they are too delusional,naive,ignorant and prideful to acknowledge, appreciate and respect the differences. Instead, they just expect their experiences to equate with how the youth should respond to what is force fed to them.
Typical human flaw, adults who just cannot accept things that are not the same with their expectations and play the blame game card from their deck of options. Because its just so much easier to say that the new generation just don't get it when it is actually them who do not get it. As human beings, we just can't deal with what we don't expect and we lack the capacity to accept with an open mind why those younger than us don't experience what we experience. This weakness in mindset is what makes us imprison our experiences around ourselves and what makes us imprison those younger than us with our experiences expecting that things don't change when they obviously do. But it's not only the adults that make this mistake, it's the youth that make the same mistakes when they become adults.
Its just a repetitive cycle of generational blaming and judging. We just don't seem to have the patience to sit down and understand that what the adults have done to us is exactly what we are doing to our young when we become adults. We just store our youth in our mind permanently and repeatedly reinforce this youthfulness in our expectations of how life should be even when we grow old and thus not being able to free ourselves from these outdated expectations. We trap ourselves unnecessary and just fall into the same trap of embracing the same old thing that is gradually diminishing in compatibility in relation to the changing reality.
Evil Lives Here: Poisoned by Love (2019)
The selfish nature of people living in fear.
It's very telling how cold people can be when they re made to fear for their lives. Self preservation kicks in making them willing to disregard other people's lives to save their own. Being scared for one's life does not take away from the selfishness of letting someone poison another person to death. Nor is it any valid reason that will absolve one's responsibility in allowing another's death. The mother is not the only person guilty of bad things, the daughters are guilty as well of doing nothing . In times of great fear, human beings often lack the courage to not be selfish. We only focus on ourselves ignoring the well being of others especially those whom we re not so close to.
Rick and Morty: Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion (2021)
An experiment that did not work
They tried something new with the characters narrating and stuff. It has the vibe of several Martin Scorsese movies and other gangster films with some other random stuff they just peed on. They ve stumbled badly on this one. Its boring and while its not bad enough for me to stop watching halfway, it is bad enough for me to not watch it again. No solid storytelling, no emotion and psychological depth. Its superficial and a mess. Much like a popcorn movie except you won't have the mood to eat the popcorn you ve prepared. All that fluff and no tangible stuff .Not their best work but you could say that the new writers themselves are also not the best quality. Its a new low for this one. The ratings for the next few episodes seem to suggest that they ve learned their lesson from this fiasco. I ll cross my fingers and hope that I get back some of the enjoyment I had watching earlier episodes.
Breaking Bad (2008)
This is it, there is and will never be anything on TV that is more than this.
Fargo and House of Cards have been my favorite shows, and watching this up to season 4, I still did not rate this as high as them. Then there is season 5.
Now after watching everything. Breaking Bad is truly untouchable. SEASON 5 left me so impressed that I have to say, no show will ever Breaking the Badass barrier like this show. If there ever is a show that is the best show I ve watched in my life time, this is it. Nothing else I watch in the future will ever be this good.
There is only one mountain that will is the highest in the world, it is Mount Everest.
There is only one mountain in TV that is the highest in the world, it's Mount Heisenberg.
Now I ve climbed it, I say that it has been a real privilege getting to the highest TV peak. I m forever grateful that I got to watch Breaking Bad. It is an eternal gift that I will treasure the rest of my life.
Cursed Films (2020)
Trying to make documentaries unique can be a breath of fresh air.....
....or they can end up an aimless mess. Cursed Films is a documentary that is not sure what point its trying to make and does not know its own identity. On the outside it tries to be informative but on the inside, its nothing but fluff. In the end, it is nothing but a waste of information, waste of resources, waste of effort and most importantly a waste of time.