Change Your Image
julsepsom
Reviews
The Menendez Brothers (2024)
Fascinating
I was always of the opinion that the brothers had murdered their parents out of pure greed. I can't remember but I assume that I had only been aware of the second trial where none of the abuse allegations came out because they were disallowed.
During the first trial, the media and the likes of Jay Leno etc mocked and belittled the brothers - it was awful. The fact that their mother knew about the abuse and did nothing was truly shocking.
If the trial was held now in 2024, they would have been listened to sympathetically as victims of their father's pedophilia and the cohersive control he had over them. They would have been prosecuted for manslaughter, not murder without parole. They have already served 34 years.
The person who did not come out of this well was Pamela, the Prosecutor in the first trial. She loathes one of the Defence Attorneys. She loathes the brothers and has no sympathy for them at all. She was annoyed that she hadn't won her case. She despises the fact that "teenagers on TikTok" are talking about this case and are campaigning for an Appeal. It would seem that She is right, everyone else is wrong and any potential miscarriage of justice should not be looked at, ever.
This documentary completely changed my view of the Menendez brothers.
Lift (2024)
Implausible heist movie / fun buddy movie
Did I find Kevin Hart plausible as a massively wealthy billionaire criminal? Nope
Did I like his team of good looking, far too young to be so impossibly good experts in their field? Yes.
Was the heist impossible to achieve? Yes
Were the gadgets required to do the heist completely ridiculous? Yes
Would a private plane like that actually be built? No
Would a commercial plane actually have a bathroom a) with a window in it and b) with 3 windows in it and be big enough for at least 5 people to move at ease in? I somehow doubt it.
And why did Sam Worthington look so washed out?
Somewhere amongst all that I totally lost the reason why the baddie did what he did, why he wanted what the good-at-heart criminals had to steal, and what was the point of the 5 baddie side-kicks on the plane.
It was an Oceans 11 to 27 style movie. Actually, was this supposed to be an Oceans film at one time?
For me, the scenes in Venice stole the film.
Not the greatest film but entertaining nonetheless.
The Lovecraft Investigations (2018)
Brilliant, just brilliant
I listened to this "podcast" out of order because I didn't realise that there was a first series and thought they were stand alone stories so I started with Series 2, then 3, realised I should go back to 1 to get the background and am about to start Series 4. I've been listening non-stop on every car journey I do. It is utterly brilliant.
If you like other worldly phenomena like UFOs, witches and evil reincarnations then this is the Series for you. There are a lot of characters spread throughout the first 3 series (and I assume No.4 once I get to it) so sometimes it's a bit hard to keep track of who is who. Some of the history in the drama involves real people like John Dee, Aleister Crowley - so are the stories based on fact or is it all pure imagination? It makes you want to do some internet sleuthing yourself. And the cliff hangers! You've just GOT to listen to the next episode immediately.
Someone has got to make this into a TV series.
Wolfs (2024)
Hmmm, I really don't know
It's very slow and not particularly amusing for a black comedy. The best actors and characters by far are Amy Ryan and Austin Abrams - his constant burbling as he runs from Pitt and Clooney is the funniest part of the film. Although Clooney's dealing with the problem and how to get that problem from hotel floor and into his car boot is very inventive and also quite amusing.
Wolfs is one of those films where a simple operation gets worse and worse and worse and at the end Pitt and Clooney talk over each other working out what happened and coming to the same conclusion. I was none the wiser as to how they reached that conclusion - but perhaps we weren't supposed to.
The film was OK but I felt a bit cheated because it could have been so much better.
Colin from Accounts (2022)
It's OK
Watched 2, don't think I'll bother with the rest as the misunderstandings are so annoying. Seriously, would a Vet make it the responsibility of 2 strangers bringing in a stray to choose and pay for euthansia or an operation without making any effort to trace the owner beyond "it hasn't got a collar and it hasn't been micro chipped therefore it's a stray". It was a well cared for dog for goodness sake!
Catastrophe was heaps better with 2 mismatched people getting together over an incident - in that case a one night stand leading to pregnancy. For all those loving Colin from Accounts, watch Catastrophe instead.
Argylle (2024)
Yawn fest after 60 minutes
I liked the idea of the film. I didn't like Bryce Dallas Howard's character. I liked Sam Rockwell's character. Henry Cavill was great as the smooth alter ego despite the absolutely awful haircut. The cat - no idea why it was there in the film - surely being in that backpack (sorry, Catpack) all the time could be classed as animal cruelty. Some of the gags were funny but not many. The best parts were the spoof action with Henry Cavill and John Cena, who was barely in the film.
So many implausibilities. I don't mind films which stretch the truth - like foot chases over Tower Bridge and ending up at Big Ben - but this film was too ridiculous. Aidan and Elly drive out of London and she falls asleep, only waking up when they are in deepest, rural France. She slept through the ferry or train crossing and 8 hours of driving?! She already told her Mother she had no passport (so how did she get to France?).
Implausibility No. 2 - talking to her mother at home in America and then walking into her parent's hotel room in London within minutes.
After about an hour and a half, the last 15 minutes of which my husband and I had been asleep on the sofa, we paused the film to see how much longer there was to go. Thirty six minutes! We turned it off and went to bed.
Will I watch the end? I really, really don't think so.
The Winter King (2023)
Hmm, good ish but also boring
I read the books a long time ago and my memory of them is that they were not my favourite Bernard Cornwall books and I am a huge fan so I was intrigued to watch this series.
The first episode is tedious but is scene setting and character introducing so I gave it the benefit of the doubt. The 2nd episode was a lot more exciting, and thereafter it alternated between being dull and I fell asleep, to being exciting, back to dull, on to interesting and so on. Merlin is barely around, Nimue is really annoying but I think that was like the book. Derfel's mullet is perhaps historically accurate but is very distracting, the French loyal sidekicks are great, Arthur veers from brilliant to terrible tactician, Eddie Marsan was brilliant and the scenery was stunning.
The Winter King is OK but is very hit and miss and nowhere near as good as The Last Kingdom.
The Out-Laws (2023)
AWFUL
Adam Devine's acting is out of the school of Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell i.e. Very, very annoying. It's just face pulling and silly voices. Stupid.
Pearce Brosnan has a thick Belfast accent - why? It brings nothing to the part unless he's supposed to be really hard and scary, but he's too gorgeous looking for that.
For a "comedy" it's not funny at all - I think I laughed once at a bit of slapstick from a minor character.
As a bank heist plot - it would have been good if played entirely straight with a much more switched on FBI agent tracking them down.
The best characters were Owen's parents.
Tayna pechati drakona (2019)
Awful
I like Jackie Chan, I like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I like Rutger Hauer. What were they thinking? We watched about 5 minutes of actors, including Jason Flemying, in dubbed english which clearly didn't match what they were speaking. Had the script been re-written after the scenes had been shot and edited? Were some of the actors speaking a different language altogether? We turned it off. I would rather the actors spoke their natural language with subtitles added. Unwatchable.
The Gray Man (2022)
Seen it all before but it's fun
How many films are there where a rough diamond is taken out of his surroundings/prison/wherever and turned into an expert figher/computer hacker/whatever? This is another one.
How many films have a back story involving a child and father figure mentor? This is another one.
How many films have a protagonist who is a murderous psychopath? This is another one.
How many films have improbable car chases, crashes involving multiple vehicles which are all done on CGI because they are so improbable? This is another one.
How many films have good but unrealistic fight scenes? This is another one.
How many films have scenes all over the world for no reason at all? This is another one.
However, the story line makes sense even if it's not realistic at all. It's entertaining and there are some good one liners. It's worth a watch if you like this sort of film.
Pieces of Her (2022)
Why did we bother
Lordy, this was frustrating.
Andie, a 30 year old woman I kept forgetting wasn't a teenager.
The young Jane Queller played by an actress who could only pout, act sulky and walk around like a wet blanket was out-acted by the 4 year old playing her daughter, the young Andie. Younger Jane looked so far removed from her older self played by Toni Collette that I had to keep reminding my husband who she was - to be fair he did fall asleep throughout most of this.
Everything was so long drawn out over the 8 episodes that I lost track of what Nick wanted to do to Queller Senior in Oslo and why. What was the motiviation for the imposter woman being there? Who was sending people to attack Andie and her US Marshall protection officer?
In the last episode Andie lay some flowers outside a restaurant in memory of 2 people - they obviously died there, and there was a flashback to someone being shot in a restaurant - but we don't recall any of that. I suspect we had both fallen asleep at the relevant moment - you can tell it really gripped our attention.
We had to finish the whole series but at the end were left asking several questions because it just didn't make enough sense.
Things Heard & Seen (2021)
So frustrating
This is a slow burner and gradually the wife discovers things about her husband which are not good. He begins to be found out for being a fraud and reacts. The last 10 minutes makes no sense whatsoever and completely spoil what could have been a good film. Film makers, here's a thought. Think about how the film ends first and then write the rest of the script. Even the end of Stephen King films are rubbish.
The Midnight Sky (2020)
Slow paced but intense
If you want a natural disaster film where a young beautiful scientist saves their family and/or the world, don't watch this film. If you want to see London, Paris, Cairo and Washington lose their iconic buildings in a tsunami, meteor strike, sudden ice age or shark tornado, don't watch this film. If you want everything tied up neatly, don't watch this film.
If you want to be a grown up and watch a film which starts after the apocalyptic event, which makes YOU fill in the gaps and the back story rather then be spoon fed them, then do watch this film. Its about relationships, life ending, life starting, decisions made, regrets, and resignation of those decisions. For those commenting saying it's bad science, be honest, has any film set in space or one which shows the destruction of the world had any basis in science? Watch a documentary if you want facts. Watch this film if you want to see good acting, beautiful other world scenery, the raw elements on earth and a fictional story.
Il primo re (2019)
Slow, ponderous and dull
I don't know how other reviewers gave this an average of 7 stars. The film starts with 2 shepherds in a valley with woods either side who are suddenly swept away by a tsunami wave! No establishing shot to show they were near the sea. Already ridiculous. The story continues. Apart from the very graphic fight scenes all the characters actions are so, so slow and laboured. Everyone walks and does things as if they were in a trance. Romulus looks like a neanderthal. They dress like cavemen but have swords, knives, bows and arrows. Lots of moody looks from Remus staring into the distance. He tells his band of fellow escaped slaves and villagers who he "won" by killing their warriors that they would leave and build a city. They'd just left a village of a few crude wooden teepees so how does a shepherd suddenly get such an idea? Oh yes, a witch foresaw it, sort of. Suddenly Remus proclaims himself King, not Chief or leader, but King. His self imposed power goes to his head and he becomes a despot, leaves the witch tied to a tree to be mauled by wild beasts. The film ends on the banks of the River Tiber, surrounded by marsh, woods and the 7 hills with Romulus declaring the city, yet even to have a lean-to shelter built, to be called Rome. The end.
Gaslit (2019)
1 star for giving people a job
Spoilers - to save you from losing 90 minutes of your day.
From the first minute you just know that this is a bad, low budget, made for TV film. A wife is kicking out her husband for cheating on her. The "teenage" daughter, who looks about the same age as her mother is a terrible actress. Really terrible. A policeman arrives later to tell them that the husband is dead in a car accident. Then a few days later the daughter doesn't come back from a camping trip with the neighbour Mary and her own daughter, who tell the mother that they've never met her daughter. Mother rings the policeman to tell him about the missing daughter and he takes her to a therapist who tells her that her daughter died in the same car crash. For some reason they are all obsessed with keeping the mother warm because they say it's cold even though they are all wearing T-shirts and it's the summer??!!
It's all a convoluted plot concocted between the neighbour, who is the husband's mistress, the policeman and therapist who are the husband's best buddies, and the husband who is not dead and it's all to make the mother appear mad. Why?
The husband wanted to be with his mistress and the wife was kicking him out? So, why?
The penultimate 10 minutes is without doubt THE worst part of a film I have ever ever seen. Honestly, do yourselves a favour and pass this one by.
The Bone Hunter (2003)
Why bother?
I shall admit right from the start - we couldn't get passed the first few minutes and turned the film off. We saw a lovely rugged landscape, a few roman soldiers walking in a line, wearing very clean clothes - not a rip or stain in site. And all to the background of incongruous 1970s style wispy romantic music. Then they are attacked by a small band of tribe people, yelling not convincingly and the music gets a bit more frantic but only by half a notch. There was some very half hearted "fighting" ...and then we switched off. Why bother making a film if the start of it, to get the audience interested, is so dreadful?
Off-Piste (2016)
Not what I was expecting
I came to this film expecting to see a revenge movie with an ex SAS soldier remembering his training and skills to take out an avenging enemy. A bit like a budget version of any number of Hollywood blockbusters with INSERT ACTION STAR OF YOUR CHOICE with the enemy dispatched in a number of different, improvised ways. Well, if that's what you want to watch don't watch this film.
Other reviewers have said the Northern Irish accents are terrible - well they didn't jar with me, they were strong, presumably Belfast, accents so not a cod Irish accent like Tom Cruise's in Far Away.
A soldier did a terrible thing and has been suffering with the consequences ever since. He hides away in the mountains and seeks help from psychiatrists wanting them to wave a magic wand to absolve his sins but he seems to want to continue punishing himself.
An Irish girl goes to find him for revenge but it doesn't quite work out that way. Meanwhile her unstable, obsessed with her friend chases after her with his equally dangerous mate. Here the film gets slightly silly. The 2 Irish men find her very quickly, she spurns the obsessed one - again - and the 2 men make an unbelievable decision. Cue sequence of events which is probably what you thought the film was about anyway.
This may be a low budget film but it's done well. I've seen a lot of really, really terrible American films with bigger budgets which have dreadful scripts, awful CGI and are badly acted with known actors only doing it for the pay cheque. This film isn't perfect but it's not dreadful either.
This film is about revenge and understanding. Wanting to die and wanting to live. It's about humanity.