tim-arnold-987-145031 Reviews

First Reformed (2017)

Church, meet environmental clap-trap

[3/10 · 3 August 2018]

Not a bad movie, considering it was probably written or inspired by an environmental activist as opposed to a person of faith. I actually became a fan of the pastor-turned-activist. I wanted the church-full of whited sepulchres to be blasted into oblivion by the C4. The Magical Mystery Tour sequence was a little DMT-ish and inconsequential, but what gave me my WTAF moment was the end. Bombing aborted because Mary came to the ceremony anyway in defiance of Tollert's harsh admonition. So instead of blowing up a church full of polluters to save dear Mary, he wraps himself in barbed wire and prepares to chug 8-10 ounces of Drano. Not quite getting how that is going to affect the whole "save-the-planet" narrative if the good reverend just comes off looking like a complete loonie. But hark, Mary. He runs to make out with her madly after dropping his whole suicide plan? The only thing polluted about this film is the writing. Holy crap!

Hostiles (2017)

Nice. If you enjoy ASMR westerns.

[3/10 · 24 April 2018]

Couldn't follow half the dialog because the director evidently told the actors to whisper their lines. This is a beef I have with too many films these days. Is it perceived by "professionals" that audible dialog is considered over-acting? I had to boost the volume to 85% to hear the actors. Seriously, were they striving for "Best ASMR" western genre? Then when there was some actual audible dialog, or God forbid, gun fire, I had to scramble to turn down the volume to avoid breaking my own eardrums and being reported to the county noise abatement enforcement by neighbors three blocks away. I find this style of audio minimalism distracting if not downright infuriating.

I was so pissed off trying to constantly adjust the levels to hear the dialog I gave up on this shitburger 20 minutes from the end. So cheesed off I don't give a roasted prairie dog's scrotum how this movie ended. Maybe I "Bale'd" out just as well to miss the preachy "White man make heap big trouble for all human people and spirits in the sky!!".

Plebs (2013–2019)

Big Bang Theory Goes to Rome

[2/10 · 10 April 2018]

Less than 1 minute in I was thinking Big Bomb, Thoroughly, Going to Roam. Why do so many people think if it has a British cast it is somehow comedy genius? In my opinion this series has floated four years solely on the lift provided by sheer flatus. P.U. Switching to BBC2.

You Were Never Really Here (2017)

I Was Never Really There Either

[2/10 · 10 April 2018]

I realize it was going for the Taxi Driver for a new millennium, and I suppose from an art film perspective it probably did it for a lot of people. I just found Phoenix's portrayal to be a little tedious. It's probably just me, but films with minimal dialogue tend to make me want to check out almost as quickly as films with subtitles. In foreign language films, I grow weary of having to read dialogue and feel like I cannot focus on the visual aspects of a film. In a similar vein, minimal dialogue films force me to closely study the smallest incidental visual aspects of a film to winnow out storyline and character development. Joaquin Phoenix alone should have been a warning to me that this was going to be an oddball film, and it certainly delivered on that level. However it was just slow and exhausting in my opinion and left me bored 30 minutes into the film. Sort of glad IMDb got rid of their review response threads. I'm sure mine would have drawn the ire of tens of art film fans eviscerating me for not being cultured enough to appreciate what they love about this piece.

The Revenge of Robert the Doll (2018)

There are other Robert The Doll films?

[1/10 · 24 March 2018]

My God. And this one is light years ahead of the others. I really did try to be fair and give this film a chance considering it was touted as having an IMDb rating of 6.2. But after sitting through the embarrassingly tedious dialog and acting, not to mention the shoddy After Effects blood splatter when the highway criminal dispatched the first two guards, I began to lose hope. I also can't for the life of me understand what SS Reich Marshall Heinrich Himmler would want with an ancient book of Egyptian incantations that would cause tiny toy dolls to animate. Did the Nazis think they could turn the tide of the war by outfitting an army of baby dolls with machetes and daggers to stab their way across Europe?

The whole premise is as weak and laughable as the production quality. That old 1930's car kept rolling 5 mph down that same piece of farmland road as though it had no drive train and was being pushed from behind by the film crew. Thank God for the drone footage (circa 1939) that removed any doubt that the car wasn't being pushed by the film crew.

I got more than halfway through and the Toy Maker appears seated on a train with his family of animated dolls, looking to be almost as much of a doll as his non-frightening creations. The pale contact lenses...the beard and hair that looked like bits of cotton ball stuck to his face and head with 3M spray mount. I mean...was this a serious attempt at a horror film, or were they going for something so over-the-top schlocky that they hoped it would gain TRHPS-style popularity?

Great God in heaven, how many people actually paid money to see this? People who read these reviews want to be warned about spoilers, but this movie was one big fat stinky turd wrapped in a cocoon of dried vomit. I don't think anything could spoil something that smelled worse than a five year case of chronic vaginitis.

Cell (I) (2016)

Cusack has become cinema leprosy

[2/10 · 19 November 2017]

However, seeing that Sam L Jackson was second billing, I gave it a chance even with the low IMDb rating. I don't understand what happened. The movie was actually not too bad until it got to the end. Did they lose the Stephen King book they borrowed the story from? Granted, I never read this one, but King doesn't write disjointed drivel. And the last quarter of this film was drivel. The story began dropping connection about as bad as these cellular zombies. I understand that the Ice Cream Truck was a mobile bomb intended to take out some "Mother Cell Tower" that droves of these cellular zombies were doing laps around. And the number on the cell phone that the head- bomber gave Cusack was a detonator trigger. But WTF was the ending? Did the cell tower go down or not. We see Cusack, the son, and the cell tower being consumed in a virtual mushroom cloud. But then we see Cusack and his boy walking the railroadtracks following the the TJD markings on the trees. Then we see cellular zombie Cusack jogging laps around the cell tower with the rest of the hoard. Was this whole movie supposed to be a story in his head? If so WHO put it there? And how? Son of a bitch. I really hate a movie that isn't too bad through most of it, but then it seems as though the writers smoked some poisoned crack and died so the director gathered various ideas from the film crew on how to end the film, but decided each of the three ideas were so kick-ass they put them all in and let the viewer figure it out....or drive them absolutely bat-schidt insane. F#©k this movie. F#©k the cast. And f#©k the idiot producers and directors. Go eat a big cargo freighter full of rubber dog schidt from North Korea!

Hap and Leonard: Savage Season (2016) Season 1, Episode 1

Didn't pull me in

[2/10 · 13 April 2017]

Not horrible, mind you. I just have a standard for what I consider good television. If it can hook me in during the first 15 minutes, they are worth watching. In the case of Hap and Leonard's premier episode, there was far too much boring dialogue and the one-dimensional characters were very forgettable. Maybe things pick up in subsequent episodes, but based on the first one, I have no interest in seeing any more.