Change Your Image
SmudgeSmill
Reviews
Elijo creer (2023)
The picture of mediocrity and safe documentary-making
I love a documentary that explores the different perspectives of an event, or a historical story. This was not that.
This documentary was solely focused on Argentina, and in presenting Argentina in a positive light -- most notably evinced by the fact that, multiple times, they referenced Diego Maradona and the 1986 World Cup and even showed footage of that tournament, entirely without mentioning the Hand of God moment. This was a missed opportunity as documentarians, but also as Argentines.
I enjoy watching a bit of 'soccer', but I don't worship it. As such, I found this to be overly emotive and taking itself way too seriously with the evocative narration and music.
If you have a couple of hours to spare, just rewatch the world cup final rather than watching this.
Survivor: One Thing Left to Do... Win (2021)
The blandest of seasons, but touted as 'a new age'
As a survivor fan, this season was ... merely watchable. This season was touted as being 'a new era', but that doesn't seem to be a good thing -- if this is the beginning of a new era, I think I might prefer to just rewatch the old era.
The gameplay twists were pointless or uninteresting. Erika's 'decision' was never really a decision; Jeff basically gave her an option between something that was massively to her own benefit, or something that was not. Why would she ever have chosen not to smash the hourglass? The new 3-way 'beware' idol was poorly-implemented, and poorly used by the contestants. The 'false merge' was still a merge -- the only difference was that half the contestants were immune.
There was so much talk about how difficult this season was -- no food, breakneck speed ... but it felt just like any other. We didn't see them enfeebled by starvation, nor desperately trying to hunt or fish or forage.
The focus on race and sex is either indicative of a really bigoted cast, or of some truly woeful editing. So what if there have been 7 male winners in a row? And why on Earth is it okay for 4 black players to be shown as heroic for forming an alliance based solely on their skin colour -- that's precisely the kind of thing that is called supremely racist if done by light-skinned players, but because they're dark-skinned, it is cheered as progressive and empowering.
The finale was a massive letdown. And not because Erika won, but because:
1. Erika's win didn't seem justified by the jury. There was a lot of talk about how Erika's game was respected ... but why? I couldn't tell you. And why was it deemed to be so much better than Xander or Deshawn? I couldn't tell you that either.
2. The back-and-forth between the jury and the final 3 was ... mind-numbingly boring. The questions were bland, the answers were bland, and the emotions were bland.
3. The production seems so unprofessional. Maybe this is what they're intentionally going for, but having crew members walking around (on camera) handing out pizza and drinks is the sort of thing that would normally be considered an editing failure. And having the cast all fussing with pizza while Jeff is busy asking one of them a question -- it completely ruined the immersion of the process, for me.
All-in-all, it was a weak finale to end a weak season. Nowhere near bad enough to deserve 1/10 or 2/10, but solidly lackluster.
America's Forgotten (2020)
Not a well-made documentary
I don't have an issue with the message, but I do with the way it was evidenced.
Spending 90 minutes laying out a handful of anecdotes is not sufficient to make a substantial and coherent argument.
One of the anecdotes is simply a case of someone being accidentally killed in a car crash -- but the driver of the car was an "illegal alien". The argument that's rammed down our throats is that 'this never would have happened if there weren't any illegal aliens', which is as useful an argument as saying we would never have anyone killed by guns if we just rename guns as 'bullet propellers'.
If an anecdote of an illegal immigrant causing someone's death is evidence of how bad illegal immigration is, then an anecdote of an illegal immigrant saving someone's life is evidence of how good illegal immigration is.
One of the other anecdotes is about a homeless veteran and his wife. As far as I can tell, this has absolutely nothing to do with illegal immigration other than the curious and baseless assertion that these people wouldn't be homeless if it weren't for "illegal aliens".
In summary: even if this is an important message for Americans to hear, this documentary is not the way it should be heard.
Sorry, I Didn't Know (2016)
Distastefully dull
Having just watched Episode #1.1, I'm filled with regret.
Half the show consists of women objectifying one of the male guests, while squealing, giggling and cackling. And the other half consisted of a purposely black-centric quiz show, the kind that would never be allowed to air if it were white-centric.
And perhaps its biggest failing was the simple lack of humour.
I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
After 18 minutes, I ended things
I pulled the plug after only 18 minutes. At that time, I had sat through 18 minutes of two characters sitting in a car having a fairly mundane conversation.
Movies are supposed to entertain me. This is not entertainment.
Escape from Pretoria (2020)
Spoiler alert: they escape. Is that a spoiler, or just the movie's title.
I spent the first 15 minutes cringing at the accents and wondering why they chose to use Australian and British actors filmed in Australia to portray a South African story.
Once I got over that, I was able to tolerate the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, the moments of tension were never tense because the title has already given away the fact that the escape was successful.
As such, I found this movie watchable, but barely more than that. If you have a spare 106 minutes and you've already watched all the good movies, you could do worse than this.
Curiously, the escape itself was only part of the story. I would've liked to see less about the keys and more about how the escapees were communicating with the outside world, then how they covertly travelled from South Africa through Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania before making it to England.
H Is for Happiness (2019)
Surprisingly decent for an Australian movie
I seldom enjoy Australian films. This one was quite decent.
It's certainly not a 9/10 or 10/10 like the other reviews suggest, but I also didn't regret watching it.