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Reviews
Memphis Belle (1990)
Dated Nonsense
I wonder why this film has a kind of honoured status. 34 years after its release, the movie now seems undramatic, flimsy, filled with tired war movie clichés, soap-opera characterisations, and unrealistic action sequences consisting of about a fifth of the aircraft these bombing missions had. And that's massively understating it: some of these missions had hundreds of bombers. The only part that credits mentioning is a very short scene using actual footage. It includes voice-overs of letters from the families of men KIA, thanking the commander for his letter about their sons and husbands. Disturbingly, this history of the US daylight bombing crews deserves to be told to venerate the young crews who flew these deadly missions with courage and fortitude. Instead, we are served up this drivel. The mini-series Masters of the Air is far, far better and even the much older Twelve O'clock High pays greater homage to the crews by dramatising the incredible stress they were under.
Revenge (2017)
A Coralie Fargeat Film
Having just seen the Substance, I went back to watch this earlier work. She has a very distinct style with so much gore and blood, you have to suspend reason and what you know about anatomy. The advantage is that scenes can go on like a carnival ride despite feeling sick. And, yet, her stories work. There's a kind of professionalism from those in front of and behind the camera that has a magnetic effect on the viewer. Holding your attention is something that conventional film often lose with incoherent action scenes and dialog that's chock full of cliches. What i have to say is I think she's getting better. As for this earlier work, the title says it all, but it's a good ride.
Agatha All Along (2024)
Juvenile
I watched the third episode of season 1 because of the high ratings elsewhere and was sorely disappointed. It's badly written with predictable dialogue that's eye-rolling. The sets and special effects belong in the 60s. There's no element of the plot that suggests each episode is going anywhere other than a merry-go-round of vignettes towards a cliff-hanger to hook you into season 2. There's nothing for the actors to exercise any skill other than speaking their lines aloud. Most of the characters are caricatures, with Disney's predictable selection that caters for everyone. Suspense is non-existent, humour is absent, interest is minimal and I wanted to give a zero star rating, but IMDB won't let me. At the very end was the song "Heads will Roll." So my star belongs to. Yeah Yeah Yeah's great song.
Wolfs (2024)
Awfully Boring
Imagine you like lemon pie. The lemon is just one ingredient. By itself it's not the pie. In the Ocean films Clooney and Pitt had this great repartee that spiced the movie. But it was only one aspect. Wolfs takes the repartee and fills the film. After a while it becomes tiresome, then boring. The plot is convoluted and held together with chases and shot-outs. The supporting character "kid" is annoying because he provides exposition bogged down with irrelevance. That's suppose to be amusing, yet it's annoying and only adds to irritation to boredom. A third of the way through i became distracted. At the half way point i didn't care anymore and wished i was watching something else.
Uglies (2024)
YA distopian films have had their time
This film is all over the place in a pointless attempt to capture the book. That's bad enough, because the tone flips and flops denying characters development. What's left is an story that becomes so simplistic as to not only be predictable (and it is) but painfully dull. The CGI is weak, but that could have been excusable were it not for the giant holes in logic. Why does society in the film's world want to control the population and make them something like social media morons? Why use an unsustainable energy source when that's what destroyed the world? Why are the villains scientists? Why are the "uglies" not ugly?
Return to Paradise (2024)
recommended for lovers of Death in Paradise
Beautiful scenery backdrops a murder mystery show led by a quirky detective with a shady past. The humor is light although the first episode didn't have the intriguing plot that the French/British series it's based on has. It's passable, but the lead actress doesn't seem' comfortable in her role as a weird police officer with commitment issues and an emotional retinue understaffed. Her facial expressions tend towards pantomime. She over does the confusion of other's responses to her which seems unlikely given it's a personality trait. The second episode was better and the lead seemed more convincing in her role as a sociopath. This is an ok show but lacks the Caribbean vibe of the original. Recommended to soft mystery fans.
A Discovery of Witches (2018)
Overblown Soap Opera
The first three episodes introduced an intriguing story that stalled and crashed the further it went. Count how many "goodbye" scenes there are. The story relies upon other ideas and gave a distinct sense of having been seen before, which it has. What is original is trapped in a treacle plot that oozes forward at glacial speed while diversions to sugary love stories and "ooh aah" moments of horror. I think if i was a young female adult i would have enjoyed it more, but as it stands, it was rather disappointing and bloated much like the Twilight films. Oddly, if this was edited down to a film's length, it may have been much better.
Inside Out 2 (2024)
Disney blocks a potential good story
The first Inside Out was charming in presenting a moral tale showing how "sadness" acts in a person's emotional retinue to facilitate empathy and regret. I was intrigued with how the writers would deal with the potent emotion of lust in its dawn of puberty. The blank canvas promised much. Well that was the original script. Then Disney execs meddled. Overcome with a conflict of the Disney fantasy of life with reality they expunged "lust" from the story. And it shows. Imagine Lust being the villain instead of Anxiety, who is rightfully Lust's companion. The finished film has been gutted and it doesn't ring true. It's obvious something is missing. Lust's substitute is ennui - a clever substitution of names for Boredom. Anyone with more than a passing acquaintance with children, know they get bored from about age 2 - it's not something that comes along in puberty and it's arguably not an emotion.
Fly Me to the Moon (2024)
outdated romance
Like the moon landing, this film belongs to a long past time. It would only appeal to audiences craving a hallmark romance tale with the NASA mission-control as background. For others, there's little to be excited or interested in. The characters are forgettable despite the best efforts of Johansson who throws herself into the role. Tatum is true to the dull stoic character he plays, which makes him drab. For the first half, it doesn't offend and there's a half hearted interest in where the story will take us. After an hour, the trip has gone on too long. At this stage it morphs into intrigue with nonsense borrowed from Capricorn One. This is supposed to be hilarious, but thuds under the weight of disbelief. The ending is predictable and leaves a bad taste of time wasted.
A Field in England (2013)
Psilocybin Art Film
Much is written about the brave artistic lunge forward the director took and the richly dense film born for a script probably written on the back of a coaster after a night of booze and shots to boot. The story is threadbare with failed attempts at humour interspersed with scene breaks and artistic shots stolen from better directors, who actually knew how to use both. The director presumably uses them to give the impression he knows what he's doing. The mood music is irritating in that it replicates the logic of the script and the emotional response you're likely to feel while watching this junk. The most remarkable thing is that someone actually financed this film, although i doubt it cost much at all. Others have mentioned the disturbing quality as if confusion one feels can be projected onto the intention of the director. This pile of garbage finds itself on "folk horror" best lists undeservedly. It's not folk horror, it's a bad acid trip being passed off as entertainment.
Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver (2024)
The Horror, the horror
To say this film is juvenile is to insult the intelligence of young people. Strongly based on The Magnificent Seven and incorporating ideas poached from Star Wars, this is a Saturday morning cartoon with live actors. It should be treated with contempt because it suggests that a group of seven heroes allied by a small community of farmers can defeat an army with all its forces marshaled for combat with superior weaponry, discipline and training. The utter stupidity of this idea is matched by dialogue that normally comes from the mouths of poorly drawn animation of the 1970s. This is not the worst film ever made because it doesn't deserve the name of "a film." I beg you, if you cherish life, waste it not and do something, anything else than watch this garbage.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
overun its course
When original ideas are cast aside in favour of nostalgia or by the moronic idea that people only want to see what they are familiar with, the gaps are filled with mediocrity. Rusted on fans of the original will enjoy their stroll down memory lane, others not so. There are occasional quips, but the story is flat save for the relationship developing between the younger Spengler and a chess playing ghost. However, the decision to dilute this to a point where not even a kiss is shared counters the important role this character plays in the plot. Otherwise, the plot is paper thin: A new ghost is in town, and the gang defeat it. The suspense on whether they will succeed is non-existent. Mckenna Grace dominates the film with her performance and invests the only discernible emotion present.
Kalahari (2024)
this is a Z grade film
The story is the worse collection of cliches about Africa and "the natives" (that's what the script calls the local people) made after1950. The story follows a spoiled rich kid and his friend with their guide and a missionary doctor and his wife who crash in a light aircraft in an unspecified African country. Apparently there are lions so the rich kids and pilot go off to a nearby village, but the pilot who apparently can't read a map "makes a wrong turn." That's word for word. They return to the crash site and get jumped by a couple of "natives" with AK47 wearing Day of the Dead make-up. There's lots of shouting, unseen lions leaving blood trails from missing passengers and a happy ending for at least one. The dialogue is moronic, the acting even from the two names stars is so wooden, they could have built a glider to escape the lions, who we see very little of. Overall the film is very weak, not scary at all, dull and stupid. There's nothing positive to say about it, except when the plane crashes, it looks like it was shot down in the Battle of Britain.
Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (2024)
Ignore the Critics
Some critics seem to think this movie should have followed the typical "who done it" story line. That's not this film, which intertwines three stories to explain tragic events in the lives of all the players. The film's entertainment is the unraveling of the twists which revels their interconnection.
At the centre of this film is the protagonist and his connection to the events in the rain forest where a woman has become separated from her work companions. During the race to find her before she dies, we view his history with the location which introduces an element of horror regarding a mass murderer who stalked the woods decades ago.
The women who become lost have their own stories and are employed by a corrupt company. Their histories give depth to the events which unfold. The Plot is everything and the acting is top notch. The beauty of the location and cinematography captures the mood of foreboding and victimization that adheres the character's stories. This film is highly recommended for those who yearn for a story built on layers.
Planet Earth III (2023)
Spoilt by inane narration
It has to be admitted that the filming of this series is exceptional. All credit goes to the tireless camera people who toiled in the harshest of circumstances and due to superhuman patience and dedication, captured imagines that are some of the best wildlife pictures ever made. Such quality of work deserves a narrative that is both informing and entertaining. Alas, the script falls very short indeed.
Criticism should not be leveled at David Attenborough, who narrates not presents the monologue. His reputation is deserved, but as age has advanced, his contribution to later documentaries that markets his name is less and less.
The fault lies with the script writers who present an inane account of what is seen. The words do little more than describe what you see adding, if anything, a cringing emotional anthopomorphism. It does disservice to the marvellous work of the camera crews. Worse, it leaves many questions unanswered.
For those who are too tired to think and want incredible images, this documentary is the ticket. If you want more, you'll be disappointed.
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)
The not so magnificant seven
It's difficult to say anything good about this nonsense, except that the actors are top notch and the CGI is good enough for streaming. I felt sorry for the actors having to give voice to the script which vacillates from comic speech bubbles to giant chunks of exposition. There's little emotional connection between characters which is the tell of AI writing. Whether it is or not, it's just disjointed guff. Part one had in it's core a story-line pinched from Seven Samurai, which was re-used in the Magnificent Seven. Both those films were excellent. Rebel Moon takes the story into space where it dies. As it jumps from warrior to warrior to save the simple farmers there's enormous gaps on logic. The decision to go from one to another is random and has a element of aimlessness - decisions are not made based on reason, just "oh, that's a good idea." There's no suspense, no tension, no investment in characters or their quest, no coherent history of the universe where this occurs; there's nothing but noise.
Ancient Civilizations (2017)
Mumbo Jumbo
Imagine blending the "aliens started life on earth" from Scientology with the crass "lizard-aliens are amongst us." It sounds like bad science fiction and is. Now imagine this being claimed to be scientifically proven with reliance on stories and plots of tv shows and movies. If you think this looks like fun or might be true, watch this nonsense. The 'experts' place heavy reliance in episode one on Sumerian language being an isolate - "the only one!!" Well, it isn't, and even if it were, the other members of its family are likely to have died out as with other languages. The Attempt to explain the existence of human chromosome 2 is gob smacking and inane. I gave it one because of the pretty landscape shots and the selection of still photos from other sources (incl. Wiki) which gave it the air of authenticity.
Burning Questions: Star Trek: Picard (2022)
Soap
The first episode of season 2 was a hook. From thereafter it devolved into contradictions of ST science and characters, then crow-barred in unimaginative events to stretch out the plot. Yeah! Lets go from warp 6 to 9.5 and still be flying over the sun's surface. The whole Borg queen intrusion in episode 3 opened my mouth in utter disbelief.
Settlers (2021)
Unremarkable
The film is told from the perspective of the young girl Remmy as she grows into a young woman and endures tragic events. This leaves us in the dark about what's going on and why - which is a daring idea that either works magic or becomes dull or irritating. The stage of this story is the emptiness of Mars, so it has to rely on characterization to hold our interest. Despite some good acting, it sinks into blandness and even as i type this, its memory is slipping away.
Harrow (2018)
disappointing due to 20th century plotlines
With the cast and subject matter, i was eager to see this program. On the positive side, the central plot of solving a "cold case" was entertaining with sufficient diversions to maintain interest. The acting was of a high calibre and the sets were well done. What crashed it for me was the lazy reliance on a personal problem in the life of the protagonist to hook the audience with a soapy and laboured subplot. It seemed to have been written by a committee with a history of 20th century shows in hand. This lacked imagination and undermined the quality work performed by those in front and behind the camera. Shame on you.