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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
In this Case, the Audience Disdain is Well-Deserved
As many other reviewers have pointed out, there are some plusses to this show: special effects, costuming and soundtrack. Sadly, they all amount to very little emotional impact.
It is nearly impossible to orient yourself into this particular era of Middle Earth. What the characters want, what are the stakes and what is the central theme - these questions are virtually ignored. There's no real point of entry, and there's no real gravity. Making matters worse, the central characters, Galadriel specifically, are not very engaging. In strong fantasy, there are typically characters you want to get behind, characters you'd like to be. But Rings of Power? Well, there's a reason why you're not seeing Rings of Power trick-or-treaters or cosplayers near you. These aren't memorable heroes ... or villains.
If this were not connected to Tolkien's work, it might be fine - a middling fantasy show that serves equally well as a screensaver and a time waster. But for Tolkien? And a billion-dollar investment? No, this series falls far short of its expectations and its potential. Not Recommended.
The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)
Half Lovely, but Half Painfully and Dreadfully Contrived
Truly, I admire Mike Flanagan. I think that Midnight Mass and The Haunting of Hill House are excellent examples of long-form genre storytelling. Flanagan understands that tall-tale horrors are usually allegories for real-life agonies, and that a frightening show is more about the tingles of what we can't see than the shock of what we can. On one hand, The Haunting of Bly Manor is both a love letter to Jack Clayton's The Innocents and a tender exploration of caring for a loved one suffering from dementia.
But on the other, it's so precious about its social messaging that, like the show's central spectre, it becomes repetitive and featureless. It's one thing to be inclusive - the cast is excellent and the performances are consistently compelling - but it's another thing to wrap your marginalized characters in a sort of golden gauze of endless virtue. In David Mamet terms, The Haunting of Bly Manor too often feels more like a "problem play" than a puzzling thriller. It has the feel of being made by someone trying to be an "ally" first and a storyteller second. That's nothing terrible, of course, but it does limit the impact of an otherwise chilling story.
As a result, what could have been a masterpiece series is reduced to something that feels trapped in its time. One can imagine a modern and socially-conscious audience absolutely raving about this series in 10-star reviews, though they may find that they've forgotten nearly everything about it within a week.
Ahsoka (2023)
Painfully Close to Being Genuinely Good
For months, I held off from watching Ahsoka. I had read the reviews, watched the snipes, gripes and story breakdowns on YouTube. I knew that the fanbase was split between diehard Filoni fans and those who've had just about enough of Disney SW. And then I set it all aside, and I watched the entire season in a two-day binge.
And the funny thing? Everybody is right about this show.
As far as negatives go, there are many. It's often stunningly poorly scripted. SW fans are usually pretty forgiving to clunky dialogue and goofy plot contrivances, but Ahsoka routinely pushes this tolerance past the limit. It feels like we're watching a hasty second draft, and not a cohesive, completed screenplay.
It's also too often poorly directed. Why would anyone allow their main actors to so often appear so lifeless, constantly folding their arms, puffing out frustrated sighs and pausing for interminably long breaks between dialogue exchanges. It's not for lack of talent - the main cast is excellent, but the direction of their work is amateurish at best.
So why a seven? Why give this sorry little show such a reasonably solid score? First, let's be honest. Disney has probably lowered our expectations. For all of Ahsoka's faults, it's light years ahead of The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mandalorian Season 3. If you love SW, these can be strange times. We get a lot of content, but not a lot of very good content.
But second - and here's perhaps the most important factor to me - Ahsoka is sincere and genuine and very Star Warsy. It's a space opera. It's optimistic. It's occasionally quite rousing and fun. And while the direction and script are flawed, the visual and sound effects and musical score are virtually flawless. This FEELS like Star Wars. The LOOKS like Star Wars. This SOUNDS like Star Wars. Filoni clearly cares about this universe, and in Ahsoka, he and his crew gently begins to expand it.
Ultimately, I enjoyed Season 1 - much, much more than I thought I would. Sometimes, an earnest attempt at something great still wins the day, star warts and all. Recommended.
Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)
"This Isn't About Us"
There's a line, late in Jurassic World: Dominion, delivered by Jeff Goldblum. Caught between two ridiculous CGI dino titans, Ian Malcolm says, "This isn't about us." Our heroes realize they can just slink away unnoticed, and they do. The dinos keep stomping and snapping without them.
This line is more about the audience than the film. What Spielberg and Crichton created as a contemporary Frankenstein fable about HUMAN BEINGS and the dangers HUMAN BEINGS face when HUMAN BEINGS attempt to play God. Jurassic Park was about HUMAN reactions to dinosaurs: awe, wonder, dread, fear, terror.
And now, here we are, a film as close to Artificial Intelligence as anything you'll see. There's no warmth of humanity here. Humans don't act like human beings, not even characters we loved in 1993 - they all act like automatons, thrust forward from one meaningless action set piece to another. And the audience doesn't get to think like human beings (why are dinosaurs thriving globally, why can an insect fly after its wings have burned off, how can characters find other characters in seconds, despite miles of tunnels).
I hated JW and despised JW:FK. So why did I come to this one? I'm a human being. I loved JP, I liked JP:TLW, aI chuckled through JP3. I loved Malcolm, Sattler and Grant as characters. I love dinosaurs. As human being, I love the thought of seeing these majestic creatures alive. Times are hard for human beings, and I had hope for a good story to ease my mind and give me a thrill.
But Malcolm is right at the end of JW:D. This movie isn't about us. It's about grabbing cash, pulling nostalgia strings and throwing nonsense on the screen until it sticks. We can all slink away now - this monstrous trash will continue with or without us. Human beings with human hearts and human minds are no longer necessary.
See (2019)
Excellent and Totally Under-Rated
I'm not a huge fan of apocalyptic cinema, and I might not even be the target audience for this series, but I think it's quite a gem. It builds suspense and interest very well, and it's absolutely cinematically brilliant to behold.
Very, very excited for Season 2. Hoping it finds a wider audience. It's a winner. I came to Apple TV+ for Ted Lasso, but I'm staying for well-produced genre shows like See and the upcoming Foundation.
The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (2019)
Everyone is Invited to the Best Series of 2019
You might think that the Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is not for you. You might think it's only for fantasy nerds, puppetry geeks, or middle-agers addicted to our 80's nostalgia. I'm here to tell you ... this series is for you, too.
There is a lot of stuff out there today, on TV, cable and streaming channels that falls short of telling compelling stories. This series doesn't fall short. It's made by craftspeople and artists, and the characters are voiced by actors at the top of their game. Though the story is about "resistance," this is not about partisan politics - it's about any cultural or money elites and the way they can divide and take advantage of the "little people" for their own gain. And it's about what to do when you realize what they've been doing to you. It's about how to build alliances through bravery - and even how to win while hating what your enemy does, but not hating who they are.
You might this show is for Dark Crystal fans only. It's not. You didn't have to read some additional comic series or read up on some fansite to understand what's happening. This is just beautiful storytelling. This is maybe the best series you'll see in 2019. You're invited - please join us geeks and nerds and give it a try. It's a hero's journey, brilliantly told and made for EVERYONE.
Fleabag (2016)
A Standout in an Era of Great Short-form Series Filmmaking
You know that moment when you watch something, and you get the sense that everything converged into this one project at exactly the right moment, for exactly the right reasons, in exactly the right way? That's Fleabag. The entire two-season series.
But that's selling it short. Series creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge has clearly put tremendous work and skill behind this cosmology. It's breathtaking storytelling that holds its own in every single moment. Years from now, it will be heralded as a form of literature, as compelling today (and perhaps tomorrow) as the novels of Jane Austen were when their audience was found. It's fundamentally about human beings, for human beings - and you can't say that about all entertainment these days.
And in a world where a lot is going wrong, here we have shows like Fleabag and Russian Doll, created and performed by women who may not have had access or creative control over a series like this at any other time. It's a signal for how much we have missed over the years ... and perhaps how much promise there is to come as cinematic storytelling becomes more democratic and where visionaries have access to the tools and talent to bring their visions to their audience.
Fleabag is heart-aching, disgusting, hilarious, so brutally tender and so immediate. Often, it's all of these at once. As for plot, look elsewhere, but let me be another voice just to push you to give the series a go.
Hellboy (2019)
Purgatory for Hellboy Fans ...
The only real saving grace of the 2019 Hellboy is this: it makes the many talents of Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman abundantly clear. Now we know that cinematic Hellboy without them is charmless, witless, artless and passionless. Everything in this reboot is less than the sum of their parts - characters have been added, and yet everything comes up short. The only possible exception are the Lobster Johnson scenes - clearly, he should have been the focus of this reboot.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
JW: Fallen Standards ...
There's a moment in the Tim Burton film Ed Wood, when Sarah Jessica Parker interrupts Wood's wrap party celebration by screaming "You're wasting your lives making s***. Nobody cares! These movies ... ARE TERRIBLE!"
Oh, if only nobody cared. JW:FK is going to make it's money. It's going to draw in huge summer crowds internationally. But we, the audience, should raise our collective voices, and have the courage to do what Parker's character did. This film ... really IS terrible.
Personally, I don't fault director J.A. Bayona. I've seen his other work, and I think that the film's only mildly positive qualities (gothic tension and color palette) are probably his doing. But I've seen Colin Trevorrow's work too, and this disaster of a story has his footprints all over it.
It's stupid to think that Hammond and his team of scientific geniuses built the park on the site of an active volcano. It is idiotic to send a team through some huge underwater, remotely controlled gate to recover a piece of the Indominus Rex skeleton. Time and time again, from US Senate hearings to black market auctions in the CLUE mansion to lava that behaves more like warm JELL-O than molten rock, this film chooses the path of brain-dead absurdity. If you had the bad luck to watch The Last Jedi, the feeling you have watching this film will be ... well, familiar.
Not even the dinosaurs, which should be at the heart of a JP/JW film, feel at all real. In Jurassic World, they were clumsy action figures; here they're little more than an afterthought. Gone are the brilliant colors and slow, lumbering entrances of the first three films. Now they are all muddy, pixelated and hard to tell apart. The new Indoraptor is a sleek exception, but apparently is so well-engineered by Henry Wu that it understands comedic timing. Wink, wink.
If there is any real horror in the film, it is unintentional. For a film supposedly so progressive, smart and liberal (yes, the presidency of Donald Trump deserves all kinds of thoughtful critiques and pointed commentary; two stupid joke-jabs about "nasty women" and science denial don't cut it), it has an unsettling weak sense of morality. We're supposed to weep when a dinosaur is left on the shore, when even a fang is poached by an unscrupulous contractor. But the "bad-guy" humans? They get sliced and diced in the third act without even so much as a moment of cinematic empathy. Even at the end, our five leads decide to just let the dinosaurs roam, despite that they've all seen first-hand the carnage that these animals wreak. Incredulously, they are willing parties to the suffering of the surviving dinosaurs (what will they eat? where will they go?) and every living thing that crosses their path.
And the music swells, and classic Jurassic image beats are repeated, as though we've got ourselves a happy ending and a billion dollars at the box office.
Ed Wood didn't deserve much of the criticism he got. His films were the right kind of dumb: small affairs of the heart, built around a loyal team of misfits, trying to restore a sense of humanity in whatever goofy way they could do it. His films were terrible, but the best kind of terrible.
JW:FK? This is the worst kind of terrible.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
The Parallels to the 2016 US Election are Uncanny
So, so painful to watch. Star Wars: The Last Jedi will evoke many of the same emotions as the 2016 election in the US. It has all of the contrived inauthenticity of the Clinton campaign, and all of the infuriating brainlessness of the Trump campaign. Disney has absolutely destroyed a once-beloved franchise. Don't get me wrong - this film will make it's money, but at the cost of the franchise's spirit. Storytellers are needed for a new generation, and it's time to say a fond farewell to Star Wars.
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Alien Origins Exposed in Bleak and Joyless Film
What a slog. Opening night, and not many in the audience. The Alien franchise is getting a little long in the tooth. If you thought Prometheus was oversold and underdeveloped, well ... it gets quite a bit worse.
The once-visionary Ridley Scott tries to mash every high concept from both his Alien and Blade Runner universes, and yet nothing congeals. So concerned with promoting his "new" xenomorph, he overexposes it with poorly-filmed sequences and truly regrettable computer graphics. We never get to know a fraction of the too-large cast, and their viciously gruesome deaths leave us feeling numb and hollow. James Cameron created characters out of entire squadron of space marines; Scott can barely get us to cheer for a pair of ill-fated colonists.
Bludgeoned is really the right word here. The audience gets battered by the gore and goo, yes, but also by the uninventive idea that an android would seek vengeance on its creator. And the logic of the plan is shaky at best. David (the android from Prometheus) unleashes the black goo on the Engineers, and rather than spread their DNA as it did in Prometheus, now it burns them like volcanic ash. David clearly could have used the ship and the remaining weaponized sludge to destroy humanity on Earth, but instead he stays and tinkers with the substance, miraculously landing on the facehugger egg form (yet with no creature permutation to lay it).
In short, it's a film that asks a lot of the viewer, yet gives so little in return.
Kong: Skull Island (2017)
A Truly Great Ape
Movies used to be fun. Genuinely fun. Kong: Skull Island is a throwback to the era when movies were fun - like, Stars Wars fun. Like Jaws fun. That kind of fun. The leads embody characters that are all understandable and genuinely likable. The plot isn't stuffed with technical geek references and "easter eggs" that weigh down other universe-building films. From the fire- singed Kong fur to the slick skull crawler tongues, the special effects are brilliantly detailed and animated. And it's genuinely refreshing to watch an action/monster film in which native peoples are depicted with dignity and respect, and where black and Asian characters aren't used as props or fodder for violence (admittedly, the film could have gone further with this, but I sensed some progress being made). Kong: Skull Island isn't Life is Beautiful. It isn't Casablanca. But it is genuinely, thrillingly, rigorously fun. It has heart, scales, teeth and a ferocious roar. Monster movies are back. Get in line. Hail to the King.
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
As the Franchise Grows, the Stories Weaken ...
The progression was natural, really. The thrust of the first Star Wars trilogy (now known as episodes IV-VI) was mythological. The thrust of the second trilogy, the prequels, was political. It only makes sense that the driving force behind the third trilogy is commercial. We're moving further and further away from the resonant, the sacred, the meaningful.
Look, I get it -- these are Hollywood films. And they are always made for the love of money, always bankrolled because executives believe they will turn a profit. But, for many of us raised in the late 70's and early 80's, Star Wars pulled us in with the power of universal themes. They were human stories set in allegorical landscapes with archetypal figures and creatures. They delighted us, and inspired many of us to tell stories and to make films.
It's hard to imagine The Force Awakens having that impact on today's young people. This is a film almost entirely without gravity, where human history isn't cleverly alluded to but crudely pantomimed. It's a film where deep themes are reduced to interpersonal crises. It's a film that, despite it's massive universe canvas to paint upon, comes out feeling as small as a shoebox and as insular as family reunion. It's art direction, with it's odd mix of retro repaints and boxy new designs, merely borders on plagiarism during its best sequences. It reads like a piece of fan fiction, or rather, like fan fiction edited by Disney's corporate committee.
Perhaps nothing good could have come out of this. To be fair, there are some good things happening in The Force Awakens, things that could have been expanded upon. Ridley, Boyega, Isaac and even Driver to a lesser extent are clearly talented actors, and do what they can with the weak sauce they're given. At times, here and there, the film feels lovingly crafted. But in the end, it all comes to nothing, or at least nothing we haven't seen before. The total of the film is far less than the sum of its parts.
Jurassic World (2015)
Monstrous Mistakes Make JW a Complete Disaster for JP Fans
What a shame, and a waste. If you loved Jurassic Park, you could skip Colin Trevorrow's mishmash sequel/reboot. In fact, you should skip it. What made the first Jurassic Park (even the two sequels, really) work so well is that Steven Spielberg clearly decided not to make a monster movie. Genetically engineered or not, the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park were living animals, skillfully brought to life with personality and gait, pace and vigor. They were neither heroes nor villains. Get in front of them and you're in trouble, get behind them and watch in awe. They, like all wild animals, were dangerous if you didn't respect or understand them, but they were also entirely capable of all the other things living creatures do: resting, rearing young, hunting, etc.
The dinosaurs of Jurassic World? The film can't quite decide. Characters pay lip service to the idea that they are complex, living creatures, but on screen they're ultimately little more than toothy action figures, placed clumsily into scenes to bonk around gyrospheres, bite the bad guy or rumble against one another. They don't behave the way animals would behave, nothing they do confounds, intrigues or surprises. Instead, the little monsters snap and slash and are completely tamed by Trevorrow's limited vision, doing exactly what he and the scriptwriters want them to do -- exactly what the audience expects.
And that might have even been okay, if only it had been a good script. It's not. Nostalgic touches intended to link the film thematically to the franchise only serve to remind us that a better film was made out of this material over two decades ago. The relationship between characters is wafer thin and, even from the start, stale. There is absolutely no chemistry between Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, at least partially because Howard is forced into a prehistorically sexist role as corporate yes woman/damsel in distress. And yet, even when she transforms into an action hero and rescues Pratt from a flying reptile attack, her nephews ignore her completely, championing Pratt as a "bad ass" and their chosen hero of the film. The villain of the show, played by a husky Vincent D'onofrio, is even less interesting, chewing out his motives for a dino military force in a constant stream of GI Joe-meets-Halliburton chatter. His exit is absurdly staged, and serves as a marker for when the film is going downhill at full speed.
I won't give away the ending. I don't need to -- everyone in the theater knew exactly what was coming. It's a wreck of CGI and pyrotechnics, insulting to the eye and ear. It clearly was meant to honor the titans of the original Jurassic Park, but it ends up being a poor kind of parody. I found myself wishing that all of the creatures involved could have just been put down, and met a more humane ending than the one they're left with: the prospect of more of this kind of franchise re-engineering to come.
Mak Dau: Bo lo yau wong ji (2004)
The Nominal Phenomenal
He's short, he's pudgy and his leg shakes too much. If there's a sweet, neurotic porker on the screen, it's got to be McDull and what a joy it is to see him again.
If you've seen the first McDull film, then you'll be somewhat familiar with the aesthetic magic of these films the external veneer of expressive cuteness, set within a photo-realistic CG backdrop of urban decay and construction. The plot this time is a little less straight forward; whereas the first film was an autobiographical backward-glance at McDull's life as seen through his sometimes-stormy connection with his mother, this time around the child McDull begins to uncover the real story of his father through his mother's attempts at fantasy fiction a la J. K. Rowling.
It's hard to comment on this sequel without commenting on the first as well. There is something that is happening in these films that speaks to the joy of great art. Perhaps it's the great contradictions that are alive in these films: the childish cartoon style that somehow carries a wealth of serious adult emotions; the biting satire of popular culture, and yet the sincere embrace of the follies of humanity; the overwhelming feeling of being lost, of being mediocre, of being erased, and yet the celebration of the little talents that make us unique, and the determination of the human spirit that refuses to collapse; the sharp sense of laugh-out-loud humor, and yet the quiet moments that bring good cause for a tear or two.
McDull: Prince de la Bun is certainly every ounce as good as its predecessor. It's a tale within tale, a bit difficult to unravel, but worth every moment. Congratulations to director Toe Yuen for crafting another complex masterwork out of such a seemingly simple set of characters. I hope these films get the audience they deserve.
Princes et princesses (2000)
Exquisite! Succulent!
As the Egyptian Queen eats her winter-ripe figs in Story Two (Le Garcon des Figues) she declares, in succession: "Exquisite! Delicious! Succulent!" These accolades should be taken out of context and applied directly to this film.
This is a MASTERPIECE! A man and woman use a fantastic machine to stitch them into the costumes of various ancient and future royalty. In each tale, love is hard-fought and dearly won. Brimming with joy, beauty, wisdom - every one of the six short stories is as good as the last. Created in a style of silhouette animation, it captures the essence of intricate shadow puppetry, lending a magic to the film that invites the viewer's imagination to join right in with the characters.
COLOR! SOUND! MOVEMENT! WOW!
If you have any love of animation, or of film, seek this one out. Don't miss it!