rparman Reviews

Deadstream (2022)

A love letter to The Evil Dead (1981)

[7/10 · 3 September 2023]

A love letter to The Evil Dead (1981). More ridiculous than spooky. Funnier than it probably intends to be. It felt like The Evil Dead, but for the streamer/influencer generation.

NOTE: There are other movies made "for the streamer/influencer generation", and they pretty much all suck because they're made by people who are not part of the streamer/influencer generation. This one has a main character who is a streamer/influencer, but it's not as tone-deaf as most of those other films.

This film is NOT "meta", meaning that they break-down everything that's going on -- the film plays along, with a wink and a nod. It's a found footage-style film, but in a tongue-in-cheek way. It recognizes what it is, instead of pretending that it doesn't know what it is. Some of the ghost's actions are obviously a send-up of The Evil Dead and other Sam Raimi films. It makes a passing reference to The Blair Witch Project (1999).

Some people won't get it, and think it's just a plain-ol' bad horror movie. That's fine. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it realize that it's just a horse.

Bride of Chucky (1998)

Exactly what I expected.

[2/10 · 10 May 2021]

Going through a Child's Play marathon, which includes watching the films in the series I've missed.

This was precisely as bad as *any* Part 4 of a horror franchise.

The Rookie (2018– )

Being good cops isn't a political agenda

[8/10 · 13 April 2021]

Discussing how to improve policing in the US should be welcome... and it is. Thank you for making an intelligent show where nuance matters, and you don't grossly oversimplify complex issues just to make it more palatable to the unintelligent. The thinking aspect of this show is greatly appreciated.

Watchmen (2019)

Enjoyed it, wish there were more

[8/10 · 9 March 2020]

For starters, I haven't yet forgiven Lindelhof for LOST or Prometheus. He's on my {profane} list just like M. Night after Last Airbender. Also, I've only liked one Zack Snyder film, and that was 300. So the 2009 movie had no impact on my perspective.

The behavior of certain people in power over race was jarring, but reasonably accurate for the time period (I understand that this is an alternate universe). In the American south, including Texas and Georgia, I have first hand experience observing abhorrent behavior towards people of another race. Same in California and Arizona. It's not everyone, and it's not all the time, but it still happens and it's unjust. In the 1930s and 1940s, it was more pronounced. Go read Huck Finn if you're unconvinced. It's not a conspiracy, and there's no such thing as the liberal agenda.

Now, the script was not a dumpster fire like I had originally worried it would be. The main characters were solid, and Regina King was amazing. I don't know much about the world of the Watchmen, so I simply took each episode as it came. I thought the generational piece n the last few episodes was interesting, and was mesmerized by the blue guy talking to a girl in a bar, experiencing all of time at once. It took a little longer than it should have to start tying connections together in the story, but hey - LOST, amirite?

I went to check when the next season was coming out, only to learn it was a miniseries. That ending was pretty inconclusive. Anyway, not a bad way to spend a Saturday. 4/5 stars.

Halloween (I) (2018)

Not as good as Rob Zombie's

[7/10 · 21 October 2018]

It wasn't as deep or psychological as Rob Zombie's Halloween (2007), but still a decent movie.