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OCarlisle
Reviews
Feel Good (2020)
First season an interesting 7, second season a navel-gazing 5
I've liked Mae Martin for years as a random person searching for and watching her bright and quirky standup on YouTube.
The first season of this self-created series showed a bit of promise, but descended into narcissism in the second season. That may have been purposeful, but it's not fun to watch pure shallowness.
I felt little chemistry or love or even like in her so-called romantic life, and barely a single line of the stand-up scenes is funny.
Oh dear. I'll watch the third season to see if it gets slightly funnier or less self-absorbed.
Bombshell (2019)
I'll give a point each for Charlize, Nicole and Margot...
... wonderful actors, all of them, and then two points for the topic.
But there is no structure to this film, zero entertainment value. The creators took an awesome premise and cast and did nothing with it. I like that it exists in the world, that Fox and this behaviour is held under a microscope, but so wish it had been done better.
Dam (2021)
Almost unwatchable
I tried to like this.
I made it to the third episode, but that ever-present and loud atonal music, the fake melodrama in non-dramatic situations, the complete overwroughtness of everything, all make it a series that I simply cannot continue watching.
I understand what it's trying to do, bringing in themes like South African land restitution and rainbow-nation dynamics.
But by episode three, I haven't found a single character to care about. That is the very basis of storytelling, and sadly this series fails at that.
I truly don't care what happens at the end.
Tiger King (2020)
This is quality documentary-making
Filmed over the course of several years by clearly passionate and committed filmmakers, this superb series takes many gripping twists and turns. I watched for seven hours straight, only breaking to Google every now and then.
Although it's about the exotic animal business in the USA, it actually has multiple layers of interwoven themes.
Populated by flawed humans interacting with magnificent animals, nobody is presented as a pure goodie or a baddie - every real-life character has elements of both, presented in such an insightful way that you'll find your opinions and loyalties shifting as you get carried along on this interesting journey.
Perfectly paced, great soundtrack, interesting bonus to have the main protagonist's "own" music featured. I finished this feeling educated and entertained, sad and conflicted, curious and fascinated.
It's a highly recommended experience.
Inside Man (2006)
So much promise, so unsatisfying
There are elements of Inside Man that make it a watchable movie. Great acting from a stellar cast as well as some of the supporting characters, interesting flash-forwards to interrogation of hostages while they all remain suspects. Actually, that's about it.
I could have done without so many stereotypes, an annoying misfit of a soundtrack, timing that didn't fit (police find out everything about the safe deposit box and Nazi backstory in real time, seriously?) but most of all, a plot that ultimately doesn't make any sense.
I finished this film feeling robbed.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
A polarising film for sure - watchable but ultimately tiresome
This is clearly a love-it-or-hate-it film - one seldom sees so many 1s and 10s on IMDb for an Academy Award-winning film. I give it a solid 7 for being watchable to good, somewhat thought-provoking, made me google a few things, made me think once or twice, laughed a similar number of times.
Loved:
Interesting cinematography. The single-take process is captivating in places, most notably Michael Keaton's quite astonishingly long (though inaccurate and a tad contrived) lapping of the outside of the real-life theatre through Times Square, as well as the technically excellent long day-night shot of the environment. Both scenes had me going, "Wow, that was very nicely done indeed."
Themes. Raymond Carver's take on love in the protagonist's Broadway adaptation of Carver's famed short story had me reading up a bit. Emma Stone's Sam's excellent monologue that ties that somewhat shaky narrative together.
Honesty. Keaton and Norton sort of play themselves, their perceptions by their industry, though vamped up.
Didn't love:
The neurotic and chronically self-congratulatory introspection on the craft of acting, by insiders for insiders. Hollywood blockbusters versus 'serious' Broadway is oversimplified, too easy, too unsubtle, too navel-gazing for outsiders.
Could have done without:
The tired tropes. A nasty too-powerful newspaper critic, "I'm gonna kill your play," seriously? Daughter just out of rehab.
Gratuitous lesbianish and attempted rape scenes. Name-dropping George Clooney and Farrah Fawcett in script that simply didn't work.
Length. Two hours feels too long for a film with no real plot or character development to speak of.
Pretentiousness. What does "The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance" even mean?
Birdman is a somewhat interesting portal into a schizophrenic world occupied by some American actors - money-making comic-book franchises versus "a thousand rich old white people whose only real concern is going to be where they go to have their cake and coffee when it's over." It's a niche schizophrenia.