Change Your Image
koudielolz
Reviews
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
BRILLIANT
I'm not going to get into symbolism or break down the themes of the movie in this review. All I have to say so that this movie has everything you could want. Great acting, directing, visuals, HILARIOUS comedy, beautiful drama, stellar action, fantastic fantasy, amazing commitment to quirky weirdness, original and captivating creativity, beauty in the benign. This film made me cry twice during the runtime and then it had me literally crying in the street about 10 minutes after I left the theatre from just reflecting and taking in what I just saw, I even cried while trying to have a sit down lunch with my partner and the beauty and emotions and themes from the movie were just so visceral that I couldn't keep in the tears. It's so beautiful and it takes you on such a ride and you feel every emotion. When nothing matters, you find out what truly matters.
Michelle Yeoh is someone I've always admired for her baddassery and talent, and here she is at her best and she shows that she is a versatile and incredible talented actress to the world that might not already know of her amazing abilities. This movie is special, and entertaining, beautiful, meaningful, and such a fun ride. I can't rave about it enough. Just go see it! Let it take you on this journey and you maybe you will also cry on the street and while trying to order lunch after the movie. I'm eating a 10/10 which I RARELY do! I usually save 10/10 for just my personal faves that I love. This is my new favorite and I don't know how or if it'll ever be topped.
Scream (2022)
It's honestly JUST okay.
To start off, I am a HUGE Scream fan. And I was really rooting for this movie but it was just subpar for me.
This movie isn't horrible, it's just okay.
Pros to the movie:
-I did enjoy some of the death scenes. I liked that it showed a little more gore although I think the 4th scream was still more brutal.
-Enjoyed the modern horror references, and I love some of the cameos, especially the Dead Meat YouTube/podcast cameo. BUT I did feel some of the Meta "ness" was forced.
-I enjoyed revisiting the original scream house.
-The comedy scenes were pulled off well.
Cons
-The writing is subpar. The dialog is equal to the third scream for cheesiness. Where as Scream 3 knew it was campy, this one tries to be more serious so it doesn't really work.
-I didn't care about any of the characters (except the legacy characters) except the main girl, and even then I could take her or leave her.
-they kept using the SAME jump scare over and over and over again. Ghost face suddenly coming out of a door/doorway behind the person. It seriously happened at least 6 times. I know that's kinda his thing and he does it at least once in each movie but this movie I swear had that same jump scare more times than the rest of the franchise combined.
-some of the fan service was just too on the nose. And even though the legacy characters where in this, they were kind of an after thought it seemed like. Or they just wrote them in because they knew fans wanted them there. This did get better during the climax though.
-One of the killers was trying a little too hard to be like stew in scream.
-not even real tension. Just cheap tricks to try and build tension but without enough of a payoff.
-really stupid characters that make really really terrible decisions.
Overall this is my least favorite out of the franchise and I think it really was kind of unnecessary. I found myself shaking my head a lot. And I know we have to suspend logic for horror movies, but many moments in this were just too illogical. It wasn't terrible but given the hype and the love for the franchise I think it did miss the mark in quality. You can definitely tell that Wes Craven did not direct this, though I did love the "For Wes" at the end. Scream 4 was worlds better.
The Night Shift (2014)
Show is cute and mindless.
This show is very medically inaccurate on a level that's almost comedic. Doctor says "don't worry it's a superficial wound" then pulls a huge steak knife out of someone haha. The drama is fun, but the acting is usually bad except for a few scenes here and there. The scenes that hit well really hit well. But it's not the regular. I cannot believe this show is rated almost as high as Greys Anatomy. Greys isn't the most accurate either but at least the acting and character development is awesome. This show is like the dollar store version of greys. Not totally unwatchable but not fantastic. Just kinda eh.
Game of Thrones (2011)
One of the greatest tv shows suffers from what will go down as one of the worst ending fails in tv history.
Easily one of the greatest TV shows of all time IF you don't watch the 8th season. It's rare that a show or film is so great and because of its ending it then loses its greatness and great reputation. This is one of those cases. This show had everything, and because of the writers not having enough respect for the audience, the characters, the story, and not even enough respect for THE CRAFT of writing, they genuinely put a giant stain onto this show. If you watch GoT, I genuinely recommend stopping at the end of season 7. Or stop after season 8 right after the battle of winterfell. I know almost everyone that rewatched the show will probably stop there to avoid the anger and disappointment of the last season, in hopes of holding onto the greatness that once was.
Now I've ranted about the ending, but let me say that the first 6-7 seasons are genuinely incredible (season 7 loses some quality and is rushed but it still was at least good). This was a fantastic show until the end and I wish that the writers had kept some small morsel of their integrity and gave us a well done ending. (I don't even mind each characters fates, I don't like how poorly the story was told, it was genuinely thrown away with no care in the world) I would have rated this show a 9 or even a 10 had the last season been up to par on its story telling, but due to the last season literally throwing away everything that the first 7 seasons had built up, I am only rating the show a 7 out of 10 because I genuinely felt disrespected. I'm still upset about it.
Let's raise a glass to what was and what could have been!
Big Legend (2018)
I really wanted to like it.
!!Warning spoilers!!
This movie is about an ex army ranger that goes on a camping trip to propose to his girlfriend. But at night she is taken by a monster and a year later the man is released from a psych ward and decides to revisit the same woods to find the answers to what exactly attacked them that night.
So I am a fan of cheesy monster movies and animal movies such as Anaconda and Lake Placid and Abominable. I don't judge too harshly on low budget movies because when you have a low budget you gotta work with what you have. As long as there is decent writing, has it has something fresh and interesting to offer, and if decent decisions are made, then I'm usually pretty happy. Low budget does NOT have to mean low quality in story telling.
Now with Big Legend there are a few decent things about it, but also a lot of just terrible things about it as well.
Positives:
-The movie has a beautiful setting. The forest they chose to film in is absolutely stunning and is very nice to look at throughout the film. The greenery is practically neon and it reminds me of the forests I grew up near.
- The acting, at least in the first 1/3 is pretty decent. But it does go down hill the longer the movie goes on. And I mean DOWN HILL.
- The movie uses practical effects which is always nice. The effects are low budget for sure but not terrible. I've seen way worse in other movies.
- the movie has a couple decent jump scares.
- the monster is overall creepy looking though it is obvious it's a guy in a suit, BUT they still pull it off decently when the full monster and it's face is revealed. It's low budget but I buy it.
Negatives:
- like I've mentioned before, the acting in the second half or so of the movie just gets awful, almost unbearable. The hospital scene at the end is just cringeworthy. Lance Hendrickson does a decent job with his little monologue but I think that's because his voice is so low and cool.
- the lead character is supposed to have been an army ranger for 12 years and yet he makes very little smart survival or tactical decisions throughout the movie. He seems like he has no more knowledge than a regular person that just enjoys the outdoors and has taken a hunter safety course.
- NO ONE MAKES A SMART DECISION THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE MOVIE. NOT ONE SMART DECISION. LITERALLY NOT ONE. I'm serious, it's just series of bad bad bad bad decisions the entire movie. The lead has AMPLE opportunities to shoot and kill the monster, and chooses not to shoot, so many times that it becomes laughable. He does decide to shoot it at one point, which does legitimately hurt the creature, and then he chooses NOT to shoot it again and instead let's it walk away. LETS IT WALK AWAY YOU GUYS. And let's not mention the fact that he walks past his own WORKING CAR to another camp site, a mile away, to then be disappointed that there is no keys for the other guys truck. And even if he needed to use the other guys truck, you are telling me an army ranger Of 12 years doesn't know how to hotwire a vehicle?
- The big fight scene/confrontation at the end is just laughable and riddled with bad decisions. He chooses not to use his gun (which has proven to hurt the creature) until the end, and even then, the writers decide to have him blow up a propane tank THAT IS LIKE 20 FEET AWAY from the monster. The monster happens to light on fire and then he does not shoot it to kill it but let's it run off. He used spears and a knife before he chooses to utilize the gun he has. Makes zero sense.
- the dialog is weak. There are a couple decent lines here and there but it's just weak and amateur writing that is not compelling.
- some of the editing makes no sense. They will jump from day to night and night to day but it's not jumping time. Like it's just showing two separate scenes that take place at two separate times that have nothing to do with each other in a montage that just makes no sense. It would normally be to show a time jump as a few days pass, but they keep showing the same scenes of the same day so it doesn't make sense at all.
- there is a moment where the monster does a jump scare in the woods at night as they are sitting around a campfire. They had just been attacked earlier that day and one man is shining a flashlight through the darkness and the men see it duck behind a tree. One man then says "it doesn't like the fire" and the other man says as he is looking around "it must be gone for the night". Ummm no I'm pretty sure it's right behind that tree.
- the blood throughout the movie IS ORANGE. Like blatantly orange. Why? There is no reason and it is very distracting and brings you out of the story. I know it's low budget but fake blood is not hard to make. Literally corn syrup and red food coloring works wonders. It's genuinely laughably orange. Looks like they killed the Oompa Loompa's from the chocolate factory.
Final thoughts: Overall the movie looks very nice due to a good quality camera and a beautiful setting. But the writing is just so weak once the story really gets going. The best writing and acting in the movie is when he gets out of the hospital in the beginning and is looking at memories of his girlfriend. Unfortunately it begins to go downhill. The set up of the movie isn't the most original but it's also not terrible, and you could do a lot with it. The overall idea of the movie and the ideas of some of the scenes isn't bad but the execution just falls completely flat. There are way too many illogical decisions ESPECIALLY since they make such a big deal of him being an army ranger. The writers have a blatant lack of survival knowledge and so the character just doesn't make any real great survival decisions. The characters are alright, but you stop caring about them with each terrible decision and it really kills the film.
I honestly wouldn't recommend the movie to friends. It doesn't have anything, not even one especially great scene that is worth sitting through the film for. If you want to see a cheesy low budget kinda not great Bigfoot movie, I recommend Abominable from 2006. It's also has some weak writing but it has a compelling set up with interesting character limitations and it has a pretty decent monster and some good gore and tension. It's a great example of a low budget cheesy kinda bad movie, but they have some really interesting things going for it that make it worth a watch. Unfortunately this is not the case with Big Legend. It has the cheesy low budget kinda bad movie vibe. But with nothing to make it worth watching. With the exception of the cinematography, It's not that far beyond a student film.
I give it two stars. One for the beautiful setting throughout and decent acting in the beginning of the movie. And two, for the decent effects and overall decent monster. There are way worse monster movies out there, but there are much better monster movies as well.
The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018)
Very honest review-a memoir
Okay so I have never written a review on here before but it is time!
I LOVE the original film of The Strangers as it is a modern horror classic, and I was very excited and open minded for a sequel.
Let it be known, that as I write this I am not angry, but laughing by how ridiculous this movie was.
The film started off well with a good opening and good emotional set up for the family. Then once things started getting "scary" literally ALL thought and reason went out the window to some long lost universe in which it was never called upon again.
It was laughable. Like comedy laughable. And what I don't understand is that it had some good acting and some really good cinemetophraghy in many scenes, and it had a good soundtrack.
This is clearly a case of too many ideas they thought they could squeeze into one short horror movie. It was a hot mess. Just all over the place, like how many times are you going to kill he bad guy? Are you going for the "oh he is immortal" route? Or did you just not know which death would be best so you threw them all in?
The parents were ridiculous and unhelpful! The teenagers were literal pussies and I CANNOT accept that they would survive. Why did the mother just allow herself to be just killed like a little sad duck? Was I supposed to feel sad about it? Because I just get anger that she had ZERO self preservation skills.
Now it did have a few good moments but those moments were ruined by the ridiculousness and blatant stupidity that both proceeds and follows those moments.
It's literally stupid people making stupid decisions in a stupid trailer park across a stupid bridge with stupid writing and stupid death scenes. #Sorrynotsorry.
Oh and the last minute of the movie? What was that knocking at the door? STUPIDITY! That's what!
If you think this review is a mess and all over the place just WAIT until you see this movie!
Watch it for s good laugh, I wouldn't pay to see it, thank God I have movie pass! I gave it three stars because of the good cinemetography and some decent acting from a couple of the characters.
2nd worst horror movie I've ever seen, proceeded only by that ridiculous mess known as Torment.