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Black Mirror: San Junipero 2016 ★★★★
At first, the mood in this episode reminded me of a short story by Ray Bradbury. Something about people time travelling to escape a war. Can't remember the title. It then turns into this love story and, while not as dark as some of the previous stories, does still hint at the time travelling aspect. All while unfolding a charming love story. This, again, is where BM's major strength kicks in. Once you get your “twist” (it was old people travelling in VR all along), one character delivers a powerful monologue about things like choice, dealing with pain, euthanasia and eternal life. Leaving the viewer stunned. It then tacks on a happy ending, from where I stand partly still to counter the bleakness of the previous episode. Excellent writing and very good cast nonetheless. Four stars well deserved. Bella Mafia 1997 ★★ An epic mob tale of murder, betrayal, revenge, a whole bunch of arranged marriages and a lot of drama. In just under two hours. One star for the idea of having women run a mob family. Add a half for Jennifer Tilly as the comic relief. And a half more for Vanessa Redgrave as the mater familias. Dennis also does his usual shtick here. The rest feels so fucking rushed. Give me some to breathe, movie. It hardly takes time to flesh out the characters. It's just kill after marriage after kill. With a venging angel with such a cartoonish psycho look it becomes funny. This should have been a (mini) series. Night Swim 2024 ★★ PG13 horror with all the flaws that come with the territory. A few good visuals earn the second star, but Blumhouse can do and has done better. Desolation 2016 ★★½ Okay for a found footage. Okay tension wise. You can tell the makers took a cue from the hands on the wall in Blair Witch. Also liked the shots of the nurse, they looked okay. Half star extra for the last shot with the straightjacket. |
Life of Belle 2024 ★★½
A bit divided about this one. It does have scary moments. The mom going crazy makes for some eerie imagery and the idea of having children as a main character in a found footage turns out to work quite well. The main cast is certainly better at acting than the folks we see at the start. Especially the reporter. Looks less like a reporter and more like a speech from a middle management person who spent the last few minutes… more The Mechanical Dancer 2020 ★★★★ Doctor Caligari meets Edward Scissorhands. With a bit of Phantom of the opera-ish melodrama thrown in. Excellent animation, likable characters, a great classical score and a good pace. Well recommended. Sam and Doug 2023 ★★★½ One of the better shorts and one of the better zombie films. With Doug reminiscent of Brendan Gleeson's character in 28 Days Later. The minimalistic setting makes for the budget for credible special effects. And there is at least a happy end. Hurrah! Donnie Brasco 1997 ★★★★ Depp as an undercover Fed who brings down a good part of the mob. Does this explain why he has such good lawyers? All jokes aside, this is a very good crime movie. About the people on the ground, the people who get their hands dirty and who are not always equally stable. Suiting Michael Madsen's style perfectly. And when the plot calls for it (ie things are going too easy), red tapes and bumbling colleagues get in his way. You want me to do a chicken coop joke now? Fuhget about it! Oh yeah, there's an entire scene devoted to the meaning of that. And as funny as it is, you are still hardly any wiser by the end. The two main stars excel above the others. Pacino as the hurt soul, broken after many years of unrewarded loyal service. Even getting to Pascone so much at one point that he's willing to give him a lot of money to realize his dream. Depp as your typical undercover cop with a broken psyche and a, shall we say, difficult family life. Separate mentions for Anne Heche as the neglected wife and Bruno Kirby as the kiss ass mobster. Four stars well deserved. And it's on Netflix. Fuhget about it. |
Black Mirror: Men Against Fire 2016 ★★★
BM do their take on District 9. With a bit of Holocaust like mood thrown in and a few games with a bit of a video game like feel to it. A young soldier finds out that roaches that they are chasing are, in fact, people. And by the time the psychologist-like characters, played excellently by Michael Kelly, gets to him, he's already too far away in order to really get back. Solid story. Solid cast. Solid across the board. Triangle 2009 ★★★★½ I must agree with some of my friends here. At the end, this demands a rewatch. This is an awesome psychological horror that relies on atmosphere and tension and even more so on the full-circleness of it all. Hardly any scene goes to waste here and the cherry on top is that you only realise that at the end. Melissa George is simply amazing as Jess. You completely buy into her character and her plight. Four and a half stars. Well recommended. Audition 1999 ★★★★★ On a rewatch, I was mostly struck by the excellent build up. All the red flags that popped up throughout the film. Though some of it could attributed to hindsight as well. Still... a five star classic of Asian horror. With a torture scene that will you squirm in your seat. And the glee in Ashami's eyes while at work just adds an extra layer. Bob Marley: One Love 2024 ★★★½ For some reason, I came into this one thinking it would be a documentary. It turned out to be a biopic, with the flaws that come with the genre. You could tell that the family was involved in the production process. In any case, we get a lot of Bob's music and that's always a plus. It also made me realize how little I know about the person Bob Marley. How I mostly look at him the way a lot of Europeans do. In the first place as a music icon with legendary songs. So I cannot exactly pinpoint a specific scene and say “this and this is inaccurate”. That said, throughout the movie, Marley nearly always looked just a little bit “too good to be true”. For most of the film, he seems careless and happy go lucky to a point where you as a viewer get somewhat sceptical, while his darker sides (like the infidelity) are mostly glossed over. Or perhaps even forgotten. What they do right, though, is make Bob look good. I'm not talking image wise, but cinematically. They use all the tricks in the book to make Kingsley Ben-Adir look as charismatic as the real Bob Marley was. That way, thee movie gives an insight into his god like status in Jamaica and other parts of the world. Three stars for an entertaining film and a half star for Marley's music. If you can look past the flaws of the standard biopic, this is a solid piece of cinema. If you can't, I'm sure there are documentaries that more accurately depict Marley's life. |
Excellent Cadavers 1999 ★★
A TV movie I got in a DVD box under the name Falcone. In short, it's a story about a huge investigation that brings down a large part of the Italian maffia. Chazz Palmentieri (a man that can drop a coffee mug like it's nobody's business) stars as Giovanni Falcone, while sporting a Mario-stache that does not really become him. Judging from the pictures at the end, he does kind of resemble the real life Falcone, but that's about it. The rest is the song and dance we know by now from Maffia movies with revenge and executions and the infamous omerta. Speaking of which, here's an interesting question: Can someone name me a mob movie without a marriage scene or talk of marriage? The actors do what they can, but there's only so much they can do. As far as I am concerned, mob movies is a subgenre where you can easily stick to the classics by Puzzo and Scorsese. Nothing exceptional, but an okay tv movie. When the Time Comes 2022 ★★★★ A pretty bleak post apocalyptic zombie flick. We open with a man sitting at a CB radio trying to contact the outside world. Throughout the story, we get a clear look at how somber their situation is. Combined with hints to an earlier, more worryless life. Very solid as a short, but not something to cheer you up after a long day. Crocodile Swarm 2024 ★★★ This one was more fun than it ought to be. On a surface level, it looks like a shitty low budget horror with terrible CGI. But it somehow ends up working as a campy romp reminiscent of the monster movies and creature features of the fifties. Unintentionally funny like when Sam is in tears for the umpteenth time. Or the moment when Lily lights the flare. Oops! Or the effects when the croc shakes Faith around like she's a rag doll (though the effects make it look like he's holding a mannequin between his teeth). It's still entertaining in a weird way. With a few fun chase sequences towards the end and moments with Sharknado levels of bollocks. One at the end with Mike and the one with the jumping crocodile. If you know, you know. Crocodile Swarm. Perfect for one of them tubi trash nights. |
The Nun 2018 ★★★½
Glad I finally got around to this one. While the story – a secret entity that needs to be contained – is not very original, The Nun does manage to come with good moodsetting and some great visuals like the turning and burning cross at the burning cross. Jonas Bloquet is good as Frenchie, floating back and forth between charming and flirty. Why they made him French Canadian is unknown to me. Taissa Farmiga delivers a well dosed performance. She does not take over the screen as in “here I am”, since her character is not written that way. But when necessary, she does command your attention. Good stuff overall. Pretty entertaining with some good moments. Makes me want to watch The Conjuring 2. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba -To the Hashira Training- 2024 ★★★ I wonder what the anime definition of overacting is. When do they say “this was a tad too much”? With all the screaming and crying and giggling. My impressions as someone not too familiar with the genre: 1) it's better to catch up before dropping in in an ongoing series. Sometimes, I had a bit of hard time following and sometimes, I had no idea what was going on. 2) The fight scenes are still filmed within an inch of their lives, feeding into my nostalgia for the time when I watched Dragon Ball and Saint Seiya on TV. 3) The comedy works and that plays in this movie's favour as well. 4) A fun watch inviting to start this series some time. |
The Last Voyage of the Demeter 8/10
I really enjoyed it! |
YELLOWBRICKROAD (2010). The population of a small New Hampshire town walk onto a trail after seeing THE WIZARD OF OZ and dying off with one or two survivors. Many decades later, a group decides to hike the trail in their search for answers with all sorts of odd occurences coming their way.
This really had such potential...an interesting idea, lovely scenery (I thought the area they were hiking in was actually New Hampshire and was right, up in the Northern part of the state) and a couple of creepy moments. But soon, a BLAIR WITCH PROJECT ambiance takes over and it becomes a bunch of noisy irritating people meeting well deserved send offs. **1/2 |
BORIS KARLOFF:THE MAN BEHIND THE MONSTER (2021). Very good doc on the Horror icon with good input by David Skal, Greg Mank, Peter Bogdonavich, Guillermo Del Toro, Dick Miller, Roger Corman and his daughter Sara Karloff, who is older than he was when He passed and looking very much like him. Plenty of clips from his better known films with some TV shows and audio interviews. Some good history of a somewhat contentious family background and info on how He help found the Screen Actors Guild. ****
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The Nun doesn't have the Warren's or Wan, and the previews made the film look disjointed and unnecessary. I saw a review saying it had "inconsistent logic and narrative slackness", which grates on my nerves. Quote:
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That looks really good. I see azm prime has it with ads.[/QUOTE]
Check it out, Sculpt..I'm sure You will like it. My wife has so much saved on TUBI, ROKU etc, it's sometimes difficult to make a choice. FULL BODY MASSAGE (1995)>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>SPOILERS>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> A successful yet unfulfilled Art dealer is looking forward to visit from her regular masseuse (who she may have romantic feelings for) but finds a replacement waiting for her (Bryan Brown). As He works her over, they talk about past relationships, family backgrounds, differing views on art, etc and that's it for about an hour and a half, Being from SHOWTIME and the title, You would expect this to be an "Erotic Thriller", but while there is nudity, there's more conversation than anything else, sort of along the lines of MY DINNER WITH ANDRE. Depending on your outlook, this may interest You with the topics discussed or put You to sleep, but there are two good reasons to watch FBM and they are Mimi Rogers. All I could wonder is how Tom Cruise could have given up on a body like that::confused:: **1/2 |
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Road House (2024)
8/10 Really well-made fun action drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal. It's a simple story told tightly with Gyllenhaal providing some fun depth of expression as a kindly ex-MMA fighter who takes a job as a bouncer. Sort of a troubled Shane character. Conor McGregor does a feisty job as a fist for hire. Available as part of azm prime. |
MIMESIS: NOSFERATU (2018). A good premise-A young man with an extremely unhealthy obsession for the 1922 film NOSFERATU-that lose steam as the action shifts to a school planning to make a play of the film with lots of audio-visual support, but there are conflicting personalties and odd goings-ons behind the scenes.
I found this sort of compelling at first, especially with series of "In-jokes" involving the characters names, but the film can't seem to decide if it wants to be Art House or Teen movie . Trying to mesh the two just doesn't work. Also, MN is kind of a cheat with cast billing as the two "stars" should be classified as cameos. ** |
Destroy All Neighbors 7/10
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DARK BLUE (2002). Pretty good look at corruption and coercion in the Los Angeles Police Department on the days leading up to the 1992 riots over the Rodney King verdict. Quite gritty and profane, but Kurt Russell is superb as the alcoholic ask-no-questions loose cannon Third Generation Policeman. ***1/2
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The Old Ones, 2024
https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w300//lSb...vJpnO44wXw.jpg The First Omen, 2024  Baghead, 2023  |
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