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Spaceman (2024)
What a mess
Certainly one of the least mature and silly movies I have seen in years. Half baked adolescent, psycho, drama. Marriage counseling for juniors. There's some wisdom here about intimacy and risk, but it is buried under insipid and utterly inane reflections about relationships, guilt, atonement, and a goofy looking Alien
Rather than a "embarrassment of riches, "this movie is just an embarrassment.
I liked the music by Max Richter. But just when the climax was supposed to be moving, dragged on, and they became more and more superficial and corny. The leads are pretty good. But the script needed massive help.
The Holdovers (2023)
Dull and oh so predictable
Just scene after scene we seen before done better elsewhere. And many things simply ring phony. I stayed on just assuming it must get way better and then it ended before it went anywhere.
I found the return to the 1970s kind of enjoyable. And a life inside a supposedly demanding Academy somewhat interesting. The three leads do OK work although Paul G has been far more compelling and in-depth other places.
Looking at the reviews here, I'm amazed by the number of continuity errors, historical mistakes, and other lapses in attention to what's going on on screen. I am just very underwhelmed by the whole affair.
Flight (2012)
Upside Down Manipulation
Movies central drama and corny ending is overcoming addiction and alcohol abuse. The preachiness is embarrassing. John Goodmans character and climactic turn is all about how cool drugs are, Denzel is, and the 70s music amps up so we can dig their clever rising to the occasion of the testimony at trial.
Denzel is great. Effects good. Plot points are BS.
Lupin (2021)
Embarrassing throw back to the 70s
Just came to find out if me and my family were crazy for thinking the same thing found here! Lazy and very dated writing. Huge plot holes and unbelievable lapses. Reminds me of a Disney caper flock aimed at kids. Far far from compelling.
I see another season on the way. Not for us.
Da 5 Bloods (2020)
Remarkably horrid
Had a white girl of 12 written this the insights about black Americans, war, Vietnam, race, greed, and being Bloods could not have been any more hackneyed and predictable.
Worst movie I have seen in years.
Run (2013)
plenty of better things to watch...
It isn't that all art has to say something I suppose...but the relentlessly downbeat quartet of stories here seems to have little to recommend it. Yes, I know there are lives this grim. So? Am I looking too hard for morals in stories?
There is no significant link between these stories, as though there were enough "art" in a couple happenstance connections (that lead nowhere) to warrant telling them together. I was unmoved and unimpressed. There is some fine acting in episode one, but the other stories were hard to make it through. This portrayal of lower classes in London will always stick with me (and maybe that is enough for making a series?) but there is nothing here to recommend passing along
Fast & Furious 7 (2015)
why are people raving about this piece of junk?
Which is worse, the writing (which is borrowed from a hundred other movies) or the acting (this crew has nary an actor among them?
This predictable joke has an utterly unbelievable series of wonderful action sequences. That is, you can't take your eye off em. But they make this cornball fluff too long and eventually even boring. There is an interminable fight scene during the last 20 minutes that was just pointless.
The guys I was with were laughing at the wrong places, the hackneyed plot, set-ups, fights, everything but the car chases.
Don't go. Let poor Paul rest in peace.
Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)
Don't waste your time
With a very few surprises (that make this a 3 and not a 2) this is a crass, violent, poorly thought out movie. Sending up the spy genre has been done better elsewhere many times. The acting by Firth is enjoyable, but everybody else much less so. Jackson's lisp helps add some levity, but there is nothing else redeeming to it.
The gadgets are predictable, the side plots underwritten and unbelievable. The plot points revolving around hacking computers just interminable. 30 years ago this would have seemed clever, now not so much.
a movie for kids with nods to Hunger Games team competition that go nowhere. wait for a slow evening and redbox it...
Boyhood (2014)
An interesting experiment turns out dull, dull, dull.
This picture should be excluded from any Oscar consideration simply due to the almost unwatchable opening 10 minutes. We considered leaving in shock. Kids and parents shrieking at each other from some bad 1980s Disney comedy, and utterly predictable reliance throughout on hip music to make up for how little emotional impact is being relayed on screen.
A scene of boys camping out in an unfinished house is unintentionally laughable in dialog and acting, throwing believability out the window. Some of Arquette's lines as well fall astoundingly flat - were there any editors here?
The lead is fantastic, and to see him change over the 12 years is a treat, a reason to note this experiment in film. But stories worth retelling require more continuity, forethought, PACING, and some sort of arc that it seems Linklater didn't bother with (or couldn't due to the limitations of the experiment?). The longest feeling movie I have sat through in years...
A Most Wanted Man (2014)
Nothing without PSH
He looks pale, overweight, terrible...which helps us relate I guess? If you took out all the silent scenes of him smoking, or drinking, or eating...this would be a 15 minute film. All atmosphere but no development of characters.
Very little happens, though I understand that espionage is like this! And suspicions are hard to measure clearly. There is a grown-up sense of this movie that makes it not a "2" for me.
Robin Wright looks ridiculous in start black hair. A complex story that failed to hold our interest, though we stayed through the end. I miss Philip, but not for lazy film making like this...
Noah (2014)
Letting the mythic story speak in a Faithful manner
I was pretty shocked to see the rock monsters - they felt comic to me. Was it straight out of that sci-fi spoof with rock monsters "Galaxy Quest"? If the Watchers could have been less goofy/Disney/maudlin I would have loved this movie more. Still...
I believe the Noah story (borrowed from the Epic of Gilgamesh a millenia earlier) to be a mythic short story designed to teach our Judeo- Christian tradition about some important themes; obedience, difficulty of faithfulness, blessing vs. curse, propagation...and I think this wonderful movie honors the Bible and intent in this way. Having just seen the utterly predictable, unoriginal and dull "Son of God" I am glad for the vision on the screen in Noah.
Great (if weird for the orthodox) plot, wonderful writing and dialog, and incredible performances by the leads especially. Powerful movie that made me glad to count Noah as part of my own back story!
Oxygen (1999)
One of the worst I've seen lately
Just so poorly done! Amateur hour in the plot full of holes. Dialogue and action sequences (including the most dull car chase ever) from 1970s TV shows.
Maura does the best to pout her way through but Adrian is hard to watch. None of the other characters feel remotely believable. The writing feels remarkably immature, including a too-long scene supposedly full of psychological revelation that simply doesn't work.
Pacing leads nowhere and even at a brief 90 minutes we were wishing it were all over. Tried to get my wife to quit a number of times but she talked me into waiting through the end (which includes some astoundingly unrealistic developments and a supposed twist that left us laughing and wishing we hadn't wasted our time. Really a mess...