Change Your Image
eakogan
Reviews
A Man Called Otto (2022)
Don't believe the trailer!
No wonder the trailer had all the scenes with the furry cat - they were the highlights of the entire movie. The rest is unbelievable drivel consisting of all the requisite cliches-du-jour.
Just a couple of extra cringey moments.
Parkinson's disease cannot be hidden from anyone. It is obvious from the start, there is no way to obscure the symptoms. They should have chosen some other condition.
Girls playing with wrestler dolls? Really? Pleeeeeease.
The rest is just as contrived and unreal. May be the message of the film is nice, but when every scene does not jibe with reality, it was lost on me.
D.B. Cooper: Where Are You?! (2022)
What a joke. Give it up already.
1. The hijacker was most probably an out of work Canadian fighter pilot, so the efforts of thousands of people to find DB Cooper in the US are all in vain. He was never there.
The name "Dan Cooper" being the name of the hero pilot/parachuter in the French comic series cannot be just a coincidence. One of those pilots laid off from Canadian Airforce in the prime of his life had a difficult time getting a job and decided he's got nothing to lose. Hence the hijacking.
2. The hijacker died upon landing. The point where he jumped is virtually certain. The money found in the sand years later were upstream of where he should have landed. The only way for the money to get to that sand was if a barge carried the bag with the bills upstream. If the money bag ended up in the river, the hijacker probably did, too.
The only people who made money from that daring stunt were various and sundry authors, movie makers, and CooperCon organizers.
Unknown: The Lost Pyramid (2023)
This is NOT a documentary
This should be filed under drama, not documentary. All the sequences are obviously staged, the emotions are rehearsed, the script is predictable.
You will learn nothing about Egyptian history or its timeline, or how what they are "trying to discover" fits into it. The entire movie is a glorification project for the main archeologist who fancies himself Indiana Jones.
What really upset me was how the poor laborers were treated. Men digging into limestone and sand all day long, for months - had no shoes, no gloves, no dust masks, no eye protection, nothing! How did this get past the editors? I am sure workers that mined that limestone and built the pyramids 4 thousand years ago had better working conditions. Carter probably gave his workers shoes and gloves, why can't an Egyptian so proud of his country treat his diggers like human beings?
I Shot My Parents (2017)
I think I know why he did it.....
This is an excellent documentary that does what documentaries should do: documents the facts. Everyone watching it will interpret those facts according to their own worldview and their own culture.
The overarching question on everyone's mind is, WHY? It took me watching the film twice to have an idea. The movie only gives us a glimpse into the boy's life, and if this life was what I think it was, it's hard not to have sympathy for the guy. Parents had suffocating control over his life. No privacy, cameras watching your every move inside the house. Constant punishment for the slightest indiscretion. I got the feeling that the mom used the punishment system instead of hiring a housekeeper. I am sure the parents will say that they love their son and that they would give their lives for him. No matter. Life under that roof was torture. I suspect that he feels freer inside the prison than he did at home. I also would love to hear the daughter's opinion of what was going on in that house. To this day he refuses to say, why he did what he did. He is still under his parents' spell and under their control.
Other part of this household was love for hunting (the grandma is quick to put in a disclaimer: hunting is not murder; it's our way of life!) Well, if legalized killing of a living being that cannot put up a defense is your way of life.... There is a very short distance from murdering animals for fun to murdering humans for your freedom.
Fall River (2021)
Riveting documentary
I was glued to my seat for the entire binge-watch. Like in every great detective story, the truth becomes crystal clear at the very end.
Plus, an atmosphere of New England of the 70s/80s is beautifully recreated. A pleasure to watch.
Two Shallow Graves: The McStay Family Murders (2022)
Excellent documentary
I am a documentary buff, and hard to impress, but this documentary is one of the best. It kept me on the edge of my seat for all episodes.
It is with great sadness that I conclude for myself that an innocent person is rotting on death row. The prosecutors are a bunch of power hungry liars and cheaters, not interested in the truth but only interested in winning. The defense team was a joke, a vicious one at that. I am not a lawyer, but I think I would have done a better job. They bundled this case from the start, by allowing their client to go on CNN, and kept bungling it every day. The judge was biased, and sided with the prosecution.
There are two people that I strongly suspect did this crime. They may have acted in concert, both had giant financial motives, but we will never know the truth because they were not thoroughly investigated. Looks like the police was protecting one of them.
No One Saw a Thing (2019)
Warped fantasy masquarading as a documentary
Yes, technically, it is a documentary. Interviews of real people, actual footage of the place. But the way it is structured comes from some really far out imagination.
First, they gloss over the crimes of Ken Rex McElroy. He inflicted so much suffering on people of Skidmore, he was nothing short of a domestic terrorist, and his violence was escalating (in no small part because the law enforcement and the justice system were powerless to stop him). What's a people to do? Yes, take the problem into their own hands and solve it. Which they did, kudos to the brave men who got the world rid of this menace, and to all the people that protected them.
Second, third, forth..... all the subsequent events. None of them have anything to do with KRM or with his killing. None whatsoever. There is a river running through town? Someone is going to drown. There are teenagers? Some of them are going to commit suicide. There are drugs? Someone is going to end up silenced (i.e. Dead). Domestic violence is everywhere, including Skidmore. The depraved sociopath that killed a pregnant woman to harvest her fetus? She is from a different state! How is any of this connected to KRM?
Interviews with his progeny should have been left out. I do feel sorry for them, primarily because they had a violent piece of crap for a "father" who sired 19 kids with 5 different wives by his mid-40s, but to blame the vigilantes for "taking a loving dad away from their children"? Sorry, not sorry. The vigilantes had a right to protect their own children.
Finally, please take away the "crime author". She should never be on TV.
Crazy, Not Insane (2020)
What a bunch of boloney
Is this a documentary, or an advertisement for a person? Alex Gibney has really gone downhill as of late. This "Dr." is a pusher of junk science, and a super gullible individual to boot. Even I could tell that the criminals she interviewed were playing with her, how could she not notice that?
Also, Johnny Frank Garrett is an almost certainly an innocent man wrongfully executed by the State of TX. There is a ton of material on line about him, yet she keeps talking about him as though he were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt! Has she not kept up with the cases that she participated in? That is shoddy work at best.
Perry Mason (2020)
Warning: Don't Waste Your Time
2 stars only because I am sure there is something even worse out there.
With this cast (Matthew Rhys from The Americans!!!) my expectations were high. Instead, I was treated to one cringe-worthy hour of disgusting, revolting scenes that had no redeeming qualities. Matthew Rhys, what happened to you??? You lost all your muscle, aged 20 years and left your acting skills behind. You had the same facial expression in every scene. On top of that, I had a hard time hearing the words, it seemed like the producers did not care if actors are understood at all. Definitely will not be watching the rest of the series.
And the skin-and-bones animals! I thought Hollywood has an organization that supervises treatment of animals in movies. Were they out to lunch? Those poor cows!