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Dune: Part Two (2024)
garbage.
This is one of those films that is overrated by a whole 5 stars because people who don't get it or fall asleep blame themselves rather than the film. Their inclination is to follow the herd... or the emperor in this case. Only problem is that the emperor has no clothes. It's a cultural phenomena whereby if something seems or has the pretence of being intelligent, half the population is scared to call it out as dumb.
It's just a bunch of nonsense art-house type scenes thrown together without any particular order or purpose.. and they could do some decent CGI because, thanks to the abundance of sand, there is really very little on screen at any one time.
There's really nothing else here and nothing that works.
Waterworld (1995)
Ulysses Cut.
You have to watch the Ulysses cut. It's a different movie.
Forget 3 hours, the high-concept premise of this film could easily fill 4-6 hours. It should have been LOTR-type length.
Mad Max in the sea, yes, but with more character development, world building, story arc and intrigue.
The Ulysses cut is so good because there are many parts in it where you understand why Hollywood cut it out, but it's so valuable to the story in building characters and adding depth to the world. For instance there is a part where the little girl is ribbing KC and he just gets up and pushes her over. You'd NEVER see that in a modern movie, but it shows how vulnerable he is in that he can be threatened by a child enough to act out like that. It does amazing things for the character. There is also even a part where they come across a boat with an odd man in it, and he wants to trade a map for 30 minutes with the -7 year old daughter. He is obviously Not Of Normal Criminal Element. You would never see that in Hollywood today, but y'know what? You WOULD see it in a post apocalyptic world and the inclusion of these scenes does so much to build the world and provide a real sense of danger in a way that modern movies are a million miles away from mimicking.
The ending is still stupid. It gets stupid around the time the girl is kidnapped but the 'mother' and KC are so worried about her that they have sex, twice, seemingly within 15 minutes after she was taken. But this just shows that the film needed even more than 3 hours to fulfil its premise.
The world and characters are rich with detail and depth. It's a genuinely great movie.
Naked and Afraid: Castaways (2023)
Insulting my intelligence
Yeah, each group happens across a novel item to start a fire with and a different wrecked vehicle to scrap for parts.
One gets a lens, one gets a mirror, one gets a broken lighter. Come on. Rather than pretend that this is all by chance which only demonstrates a contempt for your audience, you should be honest and just openly give them these items, or say that you've placed these items around their camps to find.
There is a lot of nonsense in Naked and Afraid but until now it has always been questionable how far they go. It's obvious that everyone always gets fed on the days before extraction. Obviously these creatures are placed down and survivors are directed to them or given hints.. but this show goes beyond that to straight-up insulting.
Glad to see the barehanded killer though.
Episode 3 edit: My goodness.. The group that is struggling the most just randomly happened to find a machete under some junk scrap metal. You've got to be kidding me. What are you doing, Naked and Afraid? Totally undermining your legitimacy.
You're even undermining survival. Naive city-dwellers might believe that they will find everything they need randomly lying about out in the wilderness. You are totally implicitly and dangerously misinforming these people. Why can't you just stick to the rules?
Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing (2023)
An interesting study in group dynamics, and the most compelling N&A yet.
I love Naked and Afraid XL and don't want to see it swapped out for this, mainly because I think this could only be a one-hit-wonder. But I would by lying if I said that this special isn't the most compelling N&A series yet.
My main criticism is just that I don't like the challenges. Too much is dependent on luck, both on whether the contestant happens to see something in a tree, and luck as to whether the contestant is following a path someone might have already gone down. I'd like to see a more organic elimination structure if possible. Perhaps this would require 60 rather than 45 days.
The most compelling part by far are the group dynamics under duress. This whole season has been Jeff vs the rest and it's fascinating. There is a lot that could be said here, but I just want to say that I'm totally on team Jeff.
Jeff came to barter. Like small communities have done with each other for thousands of years. Totally fair outlook. A couple of characters jumped on this, and thought it could help them if they put Jeff in a bad light by sharing what they find. To create a contrast between them and Jeff. They succeeded in this and turned all of the weaker characters against Jeff, creating their own herd where the weaker characters were bullied and put in line if they helped Jeff at all.
This group mentality just kept on feeding into itself until Jeff became some kind of dark lord/demon in the eyes of this group. It was stunning to watch how quickly these otherwise totally competent adults devolved into completely irrational behaviour and beliefs.
There was some real nastiness in all of this. It just like school-yard bullying. The lackies to the bullies. (Dan, Cheeny), were regularly particularly spiteful, as if to try and prove their loyalty to the bullies (Waz, Matt). Meanwhile, other characters went along with the bullying despite knowing it was wrong, and you could see it affecting them (Steven, Sarah).
But the 'terrible thing' Jeff did (bartering) which caused all the bullies to succeed in making him a pariah was shown not to be such a terrible thing at all when Steven knowingly jumped onto the same path as Sarah in a challenge and stole from in-front of her what she had been looking for, effectively eliminating Sarah. The bullies paid absolutely no heed to this at all, because Steven was in their group, and useful to them. It just really demonstrated how shallow and double-dealing those people really were.
There would be a lot more to say, especially on Jeff's behaviour, but I'm not here for an essay. He was really quite remarkable, and I'm not saying he's a great guy or anything, he's manipulative for sure, but not nearly as snide and spiteful as a number of the other characters. He had by far the most difficult challenge. He ate the least, was by himself practically the entire time, and had the psychological aspect of being hated on by everyone else to overcome. I'm not sure what it would feel like to have your own team leave you and sneak off to go and eat with the other team, but I respect him immensely for how he responded. Always courteous and civil and never letting it beat him. I don't think anyone else would've lasted as long as Jeff, under those conditions. Most people would crumple as soon as the group turned against them. He made little psychological buoys for himself, like tricking the group into believing that all of the stashes has been taken, just so that he can get a 'win' in his mind. That's some enormous mental strength. There's no malevolence in that, just psychological survival.
And all of this is why this series has to be a one-hit-wonder. Alot of the characters here are mainstays of teh show, and they've been destroyed. I'm not even sure if you could have an XL anymore with these characters. Bridges are well and truly burned. Yet without these characters, this show would've been very average.
Equilibrium (2002)
Cringy action flick but exceptional dystopian thriller/drama.
Equilibrium was released soon after The Matrix and obviously some board member/marketing hotshot decided that there should be Matrix-like gun fights in this movie. This is the Equilibriums only sin, which really damaged its reception and advertising.
The reality is, Equilibrium is a deep dystopian drama/thriller about a man fighting against his brainwashing and the dangers of non-conformity to allow himself to feel. The message becomes more pertinent with every passing day.
Beyond the cringy action pieces, everything is exceptional. Bale and the rest of the cast is great. The writing is thoughtful and nuanced. The direction is immaculate.
It's due to our culture becoming more like the dystopia of this movie that we don't get films like this anymore.
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Wonderful everything..
... except the point.
Great acting, directing, location and characters.. It was certainly interesting for the extent of the run-time, but that was on the assumption that the film would have something interesting to say. It doesn't.
This is an example of a movie that gets everything right and would probably have been great if it were made any time before the last decade, but despite being set in early 20th century Ireland, 21st century nihilistic post modernism seeps its way in and the writer/director is under the delusion that the film would be saying more if it said nothing. So really you're just spending 2 hours watching two main characters go through... something.. with no purpose or resolution.
It's like one of those splatter painting where the artist thinks it's great if he leaves it to the viewer to see what they want in it. Same philosophy. I prefer a bowl of fruit.
Deadstream (2022)
Too much like watching an annoying youtuber.
I knew a bit about this movie before watching, and was dubious because I can't bear the loud and obnoxious, screamy, soy-bearded youtubers. I had hoped that this movie would show us a break-down of one of these people. Show the progression from fake screaming and sh-- talking to real terror..This would be the most interesting thing to make of the premise, but this movie doesn't achieve that. The fake screaming and insincerity just continues to escalate to farcical proportions, and then the movie overtly becomes a farce, and then it finishes.
It not that bad if you like super campy horror. But if you want anything with a modicum of real horror, or you're looking for more of an insightful examination of how one of these annoying youtubers might really break down under true terror, you won't find it here. The actor screams and talks like he's playing Silent Hill on Twitch for the whole film. Never once a glimmer or real tension in his eyes.
Kiddie Kai (2022)
I like it.
This documentary follows a dozen or so kids and their respective families and their Dojos and Sensei's as they progress through Karate training.
As an ex Karate-Ka, I enjoy watching their training, the tournament drama, and the characters and training methods of the teachers.
Each kid has their family and life outside of Karate covered a little bit, so you can become attached to them and more enjoy their highs and lows of training and tournaments.
There's not much more to say. It's down to earth, clean and honest in its portrayal. Not cringy at all.
I'm sure some internet warriors will criticise some of the Sensei's, but I appreciate the honesty of what is presented here. The show does a good job of allowing you to observe their mind-set and methods without trying to commentate on them. It fully allows you to draw your own conclusions, which is very refreshing these days.
Frozen Planet II (2022)
Same nonsense, just another day.
Just another vehicle for global warming propaganda. I used to love nature documentaries but all it is these day, is a means to promote global warming and evolution.
I can't stand the way these are narrated - particularly Attenborough documentaries - because you really learn very little about the animals themselves. They try to put stories together like little zoological soap operas. Little 10 minute narratives covering a portion of the life of a bear or lion or whatever animal that has been covered a zillion times before in nature programs (another issue with Attenborough.. always the same animals), but it's all fake; they're not teh same animals in these sequences like they pretend, and it's all anthropomorphised through the idiot lens.. but that's what you've got to do, I suppose, when you are trying to grab the attention of Coronation St viewers. It's sad.
I did see a great nature series recently. It was called- Extreme Africa. Grab a breath of fresh air and remind yourself how great nature documentaries can be when they drop all the ideology and politics and deception.
Tekken: Bloodline (2022)
Great
If this were a film it would probably the best film adaptation of a video game to exist. I binged it in one sitting, and found it was everything I could want from a Tekken anime.
Sentimentality, detailed animation, gritty and explosive action, a well designed training arc, a full tournament, compelling characters, and everyone showing off their signature moves from the game. It took me back 20 years watching my favourite, Xaioyu, doing her moves, because I've not played tekken since the ps1 era.
One weakness because apparently my review isn't long enough: The shading on every character creates a weird triangle on everyone's head. I don't know why they did that and it becomes distracting once you've noticed it.
Extreme Africa (2015)
Good
So refreshing to have a nature program which isn't abused to just be a vehicle for pushing evolution and climate ideology. This one is just about facts: the creatures and the geology that forms their habitat.
Forged in Fire: Beat the Judges (2020)
Fun show
Fun show. I think I prefer it to the basic Forged in Fire; the judges seem more relaxed and casual. Their character flows out a bit better, and they all have something about them that makes them interesting and come off as friendly and warm.
Alone (2015)
OK if you wanna watch people crying on a beach whining about missing their family.
It's a decent show. I respect the competitors, but it can be so tedious. I think far too much is dedicated to people sitting and whining about their family and home. It would be okay if it were used to punctuate certain moments, but filling each episode with 20+ minutes of it is tiresome.
And it's not as if there aren't more interesting things to talk about. Often you don't even get a real good look at the homes people build. If the camera work isn't great then you can animate a 3d model and highlight the features that make it good for survival, etc. Same thing with everything they make and do, and it could be narrated and interesting.
Whether you like that idea or not, i'm sure you can agree that we don't need 20 minutes of missing wife and kids each episode. I understand that emotions are part of survival, but as i said.. you can use these cuts for emphasis occasionally. Because otherwise it gets old, fast.
SAS: Who Dares Wins (2015)
Umm.. Season 6 is utter rubbish
What happened? The first seasons were great.. but things have taken a massive slide. Season 6 is more like school sports day with psychological support groups. There is nothing there!
3 absailing/dropping type challenges.. Jumping across a 3.5 foot gap in the cliffs (with ropes). Being picked up by a boat by grabbing a hoop. Attacking a man in full padded armour who doesn't fight back. Being stuck in a dark cave (with a film crew about).. If this is what is expected of the SAS these days then my god, standards have fallen. What a farce! Even the instructors have given up the act, constantly patting people on the shoulder and telling them what a wonderful job they've done for not bursting in to tears when they're asked to absail down a cliff. Christ.
Lets face it. Channel 4 have ruined this show. They made the majority of challenges psychological rather than physical because they REALLLLLLY want female/lgbt winners. The show no longer deserves it's name. Nothing here is serious or reflects real SF training. The staff should reject any season 7 because they're becoming a disgrace and harming the reputation of SF with this rubbish.
The Grand Tour: The Grand Tour Presents: Lochdown (2021)
Fun, but ungrounded and disjointed
Big fan but this was quite a poor special.
It's disjointed - They do pointless things like all get caravans that they will pretend to sleep in, but unlike other episodes they don't kit the caravans out, they don't do anything with them, don't sleep in them.. you don't even get to see inside any of them and then they disappear half way through the show.
Then, randomly as they're cussing American cars there is a single line "but we must never forget that some American cars are great" (or to that effect), and this cues off a pointless montage of good American cars, then suddenly they're in good American cars for 10 minutes. The whole episode is weird like this.
Then there is the ending - they're heading to some America commune on a Scottish island, and the camera cuts and they've obsiously left the island to film them entering a bar as though it was on this island.. but it's not an American bar, it's Chinese, and somehow that's the bombshell that ends the show.
.. just weird.
Also, it's ungrounded. This special really lacked a grounding in the place they're at. For instance in Vietnam they have the driving exam and the visit to the tailors. Cultural moments are usually littered throughout these episodes, but there were none here. I thought there would be, with the castles, but barely a single room was shown. No people were spoken to (covid obviously) no culture was explored.
Still better than most things on TV, but disappointing for a special.
A Quiet Place Part II (2020)
Overrated rubbish with perhaps the most ridiculous premise in movie history
The biggest problem with this film is that it takes itself seriously. The premise is ridiculous. No creature hunts indiscriminately by sound - attacking the source of whatever they hear, because that's retarded. They'd all fall in to a volcano, or noisy meat grinder, or run towards bombs, or bite off more than they can chew with a stronger creature that, I dunno.. can SEE?! No creature would ever evolve like that, and cetainly none would ever be created like that. Before you talk to me about bats, recognise my use of the word "indescriminately". Bats bounce sound off objects to see their size and their movement. They don't go chasing tin cans that a human knocks over, but inexplicably not tin cans the wind knocks over, or rock-falls, or anything else that happens to be dangerous and noisy - which is the vast majority of dangerous things.
To compound the problem the movie is filled with ambient noise. The noise of crickets and birdsong are constant. These monsters will hunt down inanimate objects because a human makes a noise with them yet they won't hunt down noises made by other living creatures or natural noises. In the real world these creatures would just be running around in desperate, frantic circles between creaking trees, birds and and tin cans rolling in the wind, until they die of exhaustion. Humans would watch them kill themselves for a laugh. You'd be perfectly safe walking around with 5 pebbles in your pocket to throw and make noise if you ever run in to one, but apparently none of the characters in this movie are smart enough to figure this out, and instead whenever one makes a noise they choose to run - inevitable creating more noise. All they'd need to do is sit on their asses and shut up.
None of this would be a great issue if the movie didn't take itself so seriously. It wants to be a serious drama about how people would live in such a scenario, with long, tedious shots and drawn out dialogue and evocative music. Who in their right mind could buy in to that?! Apparently alot of people, but remember, half the people in the world are idiots, and most of that group watch Hollywood movies.
The characters, writing and script are all awfully dull. The little deaf girl isn't gonna die, theres no point even placing her in "danger" because this is a Hollywood movie and nothing bad would ever happen to a little deaf girl in a Hollywood movie. Any tension the movie tries to manufacture is fatally flawed from the out-set.
There is really nothing here. Even the design of the monsters is uninspired. The best I can say is that it's competently produced and acted, and for that it gets 4 stars, but it's a profoundly dumb movie.
A Quiet Place Part II (2020)
Overrated rubbish with perhaps the most ridiculous premise in movie history
The biggest problem with this film is that it takes itself seriously. The premise is ridiculous. No creature hunts indiscriminately by sound - attacking the source of whatever they hear, because that's retarded. They'd all fall in to a volcano, or noisy meat grinder, or run towards bombs, or bite off more than they can chew with a stronger creature that, I dunno.. can SEE?! No creature would ever evolve like that, and cetainly none would ever be created like that. Before you talk to me about bats, recognise my use of the word "indescriminately". Bats bounce sound off objects to see their size and their movement. They don't go chasing tin cans that a human knocks over, but inexplicably not tin cans the wind knocks over, or rock-falls, or anything else that happens to be dangerous and noisy - which is the vast majority of dangerous things.
To compound the problem the movie is filled with ambient noise. The noise of crickets and birdsong are constant. These monsters will hunt down inanimate objects because a human makes a noise with them yet they won't hunt down noises made by other living creatures or natural noises. In the real world these creatures would just be running around in desperate, frantic circles between creaking trees, birds and and tin cans rolling in the wind, until they die of exhaustion. Humans would watch them kill themselves for a laugh. You'd be perfectly safe walking around with 5 pebbles in your pocket to throw and make noise if you ever run in to one, but apparently none of the characters in this movie are smart enough to figure this out, and instead whenever one makes a noise they choose to run - inevitable creating more noise. All they'd need to do is sit on their asses and shut up.
None of this would be a great issue if the movie didn't take itself so seriously. It wants to be a serious drama about how people would live in such a scenario, with long, tedious shots and drawn out dialogue and evocative music. Who in their right mind could buy in to that?! Apparently alot of people, but remember, half the people in the world are idiots, and most of that group watch Hollywood movies.
The characters, writing and script are all awfully dull. The little deaf girl isn't gonna die, theres no point even placing her in "danger" because this is a Hollywood movie and nothing bad would ever happen to a little deaf girl in a Hollywood movie. Any tension the movie tries to manufacture is fatally flawed from the out-set.
There is really nothing here. Even the design of the monsters is uninspired. The best I can say is that it's competently produced and acted, and for that it gets 4 stars, but it's a profoundly dumb movie.
Sakasama no Patema (2013)
Missed opportunity
Loved the start of this movie and the great premise. Everything was developing nicely until the point where, during Patema's rescue, Patema grabbed the boy and they shot up in to the sky. Like.. What? How? The boy is heavier.. they should float gently down to the ground on the rules established by the movie thus far, but they shoot in to the sky. Then, when they get there, they find a city that seems to be inhabited, filled with lights and skyscrapers, but before exploring it for even a second, they find an aircraft made by the boys dad and use it come back down to earth. Eh? This 10-15 minute portion of the film was just too incongruent and jumped too many steps for me to continue taking it seriously.
It's still better than what Hollywood is pushing out, though.
Mortal Kombat (2021)
Great
Don't know what people want from a MK movie if this isn't it.
If you have lots of characters then you must accept they won't all be developed. If you don't have alot of the characters then people would whine too.
If you took a MK character and made them the star, lead or hero, then that would ruin the franchise, hence you have Cole, but the movie really doesn't focus on him too much, he is just the grounding pin it revolves around.
Writing is good enough, some of the jokes were laugh out loud funny. CGI is good and the fight scenes are presented with gore and creative lustre, similar to the game.
Oldeuboi (2003)
Overrated schizophrenic art-house flick.
I've tried at-least 3 times to watch Oldboy. Each time, by 30 minutes, I decide that it's simply impossible that there is anything here for me worth my time. It's just a violent art-house flick with barely coherent direction, dialogue or story. Korea has produced far better thrillers than this.
The Woman (2011)
Good acting and decent script prop up awful editing and sound track.
Better than average thriller with a compelling premise, good acting, direction and script. It's almost ruined by amateur hour in the editing room and a poorly implemented sound track but, frankly, in 2021, I am just happy to watch something that kept my interest 'till the end..
Goodbye, Butterfly (2021)
Not a 4.8 at all.
This movie isn't a 4.8. The weakest scene in the film is the first one, where you just can't buy the father character in his interaction with the daughter. If you can get over that weak acting, the rest of the film is really quite good.
This movie is very similar to 'Prisoners' with Hugh Jackman. The lead is not as strong but the rest of the cast is pretty much on a par, as is the writing and execution.