Change Your Image
Reviewer32
Reviews
Shôgun (2024)
Huge potential that fails in realization
This TV show hit me hard after the pilot episode. Great effects, perfect atmosphere, beautiful scenery, perfect casting on japanese's part - everything was working out. Same with the second episode, and a bit weaker with the third. And that's it. The series should have ended there, or just fricking utilize the potential it had. But it didn't. I felt tricked as the episodes went on, as they are making you to believe some perfect storm is coming to brace yourself for action. But it doesn't!!! And it makes you feel tricked. Instead, you are getting more and more inconclusive dialogue that seems to lead nowhere. And it DOES lead nowhere. Or at least they are saving the efforts for the final episode. I would like my time invested here back, thank you very much!
Oppenheimer (2023)
A movie made for theaters
Everything goes in line here. Acting, directing, scenes, music, ambient, effects both visual and sound. This review is subjective as I watched the movie in cinema and it impressed me a bit more that if I'd watched it at home (I think so). Regardless, the reason I did not give this movie a 10 is that I would hardly if ever watch it for another time. It just doesn't make sense to rewatch. It should be felt as live experience occuring only once, but be prepared - this movie is packed with dialogue.
Some would say overpacked, as it can be dull at times due to the way of portraying the events that had happened, making it seem 'bueracratic' (you will know after watching) without so much of an organic purpose other than 'cheap' exposition...
The Holdovers (2023)
Artistic, warm, but not a masterpiece
This movie is good. It is above average. It is nicely set encapsulating the spirit of nostalgic times for those who lived it as well for those who weren't. It portrays the average humans and their emotions delivering warm feeling especially when watching at home during holidays or winter times. BUT... and this is huge but, this is not a masterpiece. And I was not happy for that. It could have been. It has potential to press more firmly at out basic insticts and emotions, yet it just failed to do so. At least to some extent that I was expecting to. On the contrary, they went with more secure way of making a 'good movie' and they did that, but at what cost?! To make a movie that changes people's lives or perceptions, it requires taking a risk. They took none with this film. And that's okay...If you are into objectively good films that are for anybody.
The Office (2005)
The show that should be our reality
I think it just does not get any better than this when encompassing humor, drama, surreal character development and joy that this show brought to so many viewers. I'm subjective of course, but that is the very point of this whole show...if you could stay 'objective' and not fall in love with its witiness and normality, than you are really missing something. I cannot speak of acting for this show, because I don't perceive it as a written screenplay but as a parallel world existing for itself, somewhere during the 2000s in the middle-class america. Because this show succeeded to make 'average' lifes of 'average' humans seem so fricking extraordinary!
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
It just does not get any better than this. Period.
I've watched this movie the first time it was released when I was young (my father took me to cinema theater in my hometown) and I watched it now in 2024 for the roughly of total 20th time during the past years until now. As I've made a longer pause between my last watch and this one, just to see whether this movie is really a masterpiece now that I'm older than before - and it fricking is! I cannot stress this enough. This movie has made my life better and more dreamy at times whereas it stands alone as one of the best cinematic experience (and overall artistic pieces) that made an impact on me. Moreover, for a great number of years I even didn't perceive it as a cimema (for example, forgetting to mention it as one of my favorite movies) but it felt almost surreal for me. At the moment, it is the nostalgia that hits the hardest with this last watch. I've recalled my childhood memories, emotions, imagination that I had after swallowing the fairytale content from this movie and everything that this masterpiece was delivering to me throughout all these years.
Bravo movie!
Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare (2023)
Lacks substance and fails in drawing social conclusion
One should not be disappointed after learning that the 'child well-being' cannot be obtained on the free market, but must know better in the first place.
This documentary rides on a moderately engaging story with some rough and illegal outbursts by adults during the organized 'wilderness therapy'. However, as you are introduced in the story, you are expecting a lot more (check out the Netflix documentary Scouts Honor - its a far better one on the similar topic) but you get lots of the same stories told by different people. This would be relevant if they went with proving some patterns or structural issues within these types of therapies, but they failed to deliver any such conclusion worth of social impact. If the goal was to portray these horrible events than they should be covered with more focus and content. Moreover, you are left unsatisfied with some of the stories which ironically prove everything contrary of what the documovie was trying to prove in the first place - for example, parents commenting on the issue of organizers gaining money and them paying for this endeavors. In my opinion, this emphasizes the lack of substance of a 'modern american family' and shows one more time how misplaced people's focus could be. Not to mention that this was obscure notions as these types of organizations really requires significant funds, but it puts out of the place the very essence and rather systematic issue of capitalistic society (that hapiness and child well-being can be obtained on the free market and be left with shock when you learn the harder way that it cannot).
On the other hand, I must confer that the underlying concerns portrayed in this docu are extremely important and that's the main advantage of this film.
Stamped from the Beginning (2023)
Informative but butchered with awful editing
I rarely if ever post on this platform, but this one really went on my nerves. The perception provided in this documentary is great. The information you get is educational and at times mind blowing (especially for those ill-informed of USA history).
However, the production, editing, scene cutting, jumping from animation to another and then leaving viewers longing with the animated scenery mixed with some modern songs that just do not sit right is something that diminished the very purpose of this ever so important narrative. It is almost impossible to endure such editorial horror without some skips. I think it requires more formal and serious approach corresponding to the knowledge of acting narrators and topic itself.