I watched Blood and Money last night on Hulu and thought it was quite good. It was reportedly made on a budget of just $475,000 - a number that my fellow low budget indie filmmakers can appreciate - it stars Tom Berenger, mostly alone in the north woods of Maine. It has aspects of both Wind River and Nomadland, and a pretty good ending.
7/10
I watched The Woman in the Window on Friday night on Netflix, and liked it better than I expected based on the reviews. It's also fairly low budget at about $5 million, and also leans heavily on one actor - in this case, Amy Adams. It's certainly a genre movie but does what it does quite well. Again, it kept my attention to the end.
7.5/10
I saw Blood and Money. It's my kind of pacing. That Noir/Fargo pacing. So I enjoyed it. That's also one of the reasons I enjoyed a couple episodes or True Detective. But I'm not big on TV so didn't ever get into it.
Disney movies have enough budget to virtually insure those first 5 points as a default. Looks good, sounds good, casting good, story lacking. I felt that this is one of the crop of modern films that included more copy paste Facebook political philosophy that it did original story.
The last film I watched was "Split", yesterday with a friend.
We love watching films that we have already seen, but making comments about it. We analyze characters, decissions that they take, their intellectual possition, etc. And I gotta say, this movie is a 10/10.
First time that I saw it I would have given it 6/10, but because that was like 3 years ago, and in 3 years I've learnt A LOT about both movies and mind, and well, James McAvoy did an AMAZING job giving life to all those personalities. No make-up, no VFX, just his facial expressions and professional acting. Underrated actor.
Am I getting too excited about this movie? Sorry about it!
All that Glitters: Britain's Next Jewellery Star. Utter trash. Most (not all) of the soundtrack's music, the bit I got through, was just atrocious, almost unbearable. Then, in Episode One, presenter Katherine Ryan, speaking to a South Asian female contestant who finds herself in a difficult position, says, "Do you know how confident a straight white man would be right now?" (Funny enough, her virtue signaling could be interpreted as a backhanded compliment for straight white men and disparagement for a brown woman—but obviously that was not the intention.) I quit the show exactly then. Life is too short to willingly subject myself to more white trashing in the entertainment I consume. Forget it. I was hoping to learn something about jewelry making. But you know, how-to-YouTube is probably a far better source for that, anyway. I do not recommend. —Grade F
Chernobyl: TV Mini Series (2019). This is really good. The whole cast is great. Jared Francis and Stellan Skarsgård are easily two of my favorite actors, and they shine as usual here. Emily Watson is also great as Ulana Khomyuk. Khomyuk, though, is one of those fictional, amalgamation characters used to represent many people who worked for/with Valery Legasov (Jared Francis). That gives me some reservation. I think it's great Watson was given this role and it works fine, but I find myself wishing they had made some attempt to portray those bunches of people involved. Khomyuk could have still been front and center, with smaller roles and extras portraying the many others. I think for that reason I will shy away from giving this a 10. Oh well. This is really well made and interesting stuff. An easy recommend. — 9.75
Mean Man. I'm a sucker for showbiz documentaries. I eat them up. Yum yum. This is not that spectacular of a story; I don't want to oversell it. It's a mild, palatable, and rather affectionate story (all of which makes it good). I liked it. It's competently produced and well enough done, and the subjects and interviewees are likeable people I didn't mind spending time with. I recommend it. — 8
Ondine. This is a fairly nice romantic drama I found to be worth watching. — 8
Take Shelter. Ahhh, this one. I finally saw it. This is good. And no, it is not a
it was all just a dream (or mental illness)
piece of garbage film, otherwise I would likely give it an F. I felt relief and some satisfaction they didn't go there. — 8
PIG 10/10 best movie of the year 2021. Best performance by Nicolas Cage since leaving las vegas. Strong Editing. Powerful movie that will never reach the status of masterpiece because people want and expect a john wick movie.... Deceiving trailer
Nobody is going to review Free Guy here? Ok, Free Guy, 9/10. Great fun movie. Not a masterpiece, but a fun time, and good example of what a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously can be. I didn't learn anything about life, but I had a good time for a couple of hours. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Most of it was okay but I have to say it was made by some sort of moron who doesn't understand the very cliches this movie was discussing.
They discuss the "magical negro" cliche, such as whoopie goldberg in the film Ghost. The magical negro is a seemingly ordinary black person that has unexplainable magical powers and uses those powers to help white folk. Legend of Bagger Vance, the green mile, etc
but then in this film, attack of the hollywood cliches, while discussing the magical negro they say that morgan freeman playing god is an example of the magical negro.. like... wtf. You morons!! God is clearly not a magical negro, god is not some dude. God is GOD, he is not a seemingly ordinary black person, with unexplained powers, he is GOD. This dumb movie doesn't understand the very cliches it is discussing. Might as well say black panther is a magical negro too, the fools.
in 64 Debunker James Randi offered one million dollars to anyone who could prove any kind of aspect of religion or magic was real. Over 1000 people have tried to take the money, no one ever succeeded. The contest was open to magical people of any race or creed. lol.
James Randi One Million Dollar Paranormal challenge 10/10 stars
I'm an athiest too but god as a movie character is not a human at all. not a person but rather some kind of omnitpotent entity.
particularly the "magic negro" trope has to leave the viewer questioning why does this black person have magic powers?
nobody is going to watch god perform a miracle in a movie and then ask why the god character has powers.. it just doesn't fit in the trope
Kate on Netflix. Pretty good action thriller!
Loved the slow motion muzzle flashes in the end fight, i haven't been able to find anything like that online for sale. most gun fights with slow motion still have the muzzle flash be a single frame but Kate had sparks flying and everything it was sweet.
Only negative thing is that the twist in this movie was something Ive seen a hundred times and thus saw it coming just from the trailer lol
I've been re-watching (or just watching) slasher franchises. I just finished Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, and boy oh boy was it such a wacky misfire.
The entire movie felt like a Looney Tunes episode. It seems as if the writer/director Rachel Talalay was just given a brief description of the Nightmare franchise: "Freddy's a funny guy! But he also kills people in their dreams.", and she completely missed the mark with the tone.
This was the sixth movie in the Nightmare franchise. Similarly, the sixth Friday the 13th movie ALSO went with a more comical approach. The thing that made it work for Friday the 13th, was that they took Jason seriously despite all the comedy surrounding him. Freddy is just straight up a comedian in this film. Everything from his extra-rubbery prosthetics to his watered down one-liners. It was amazingly terrible..
Also, comedy movie through and through until.. one of the teenage girl characters almost gets molested by her father? It's like they just threw everything they thought made a good horror comedy at the wall, and none of it landed. The tone is muddled, the kills are overly cartoon-ish, and the Twin Peaks reference in the movie makes me want to just watch that instead.
I've been re-watching (or just watching) slasher franchises. I just finished Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, and boy oh boy was it such a wacky misfire.
The entire movie felt like a Looney Tunes episode. It seems as if the writer/director Rachel Talalay was just given a brief description of the Nightmare franchise: "Freddy's a funny guy! But he also kills people in their dreams.", and she completely missed the mark with the tone.
This was the sixth movie in the Nightmare franchise. Similarly, the sixth Friday the 13th movie ALSO went with a more comical approach. The thing that made it work for Friday the 13th, was that they took Jason seriously despite all the comedy surrounding him. Freddy is just straight up a comedian in this film. Everything from his extra-rubbery prosthetics to his watered down one-liners. It was amazingly terrible..
Also, comedy movie through and through until.. one of the teenage girl characters almost gets molested by her father? It's like they just threw everything they thought made a good horror comedy at the wall, and none of it landed. The tone is muddled, the kills are overly cartoon-ish, and the Twin Peaks reference in the movie makes me want to just watch that instead.
I watched Lighthouse in a dream last night and at the end of the movie the dude got on a X-Wing that was hidden on the island and he flew off.
It felt like the worst ending ive ever seen to any movie.
I watched The Electrical Life Of Louis Wain and it was fairly good. While I liked the movie a lot, I also felt like they were scraping the bottom of the barrel for people to do biographies about. There was a guy who drew 50 pictures of cats over 70 years, that sounds like what I did in April of this year. Honestly though, I enjoyed it. Cant wait to see a 20 million dollar film about the guy who came up with the idea for setting up those florescent orange road cones on the highway. "Swerve: a man and his vision"
I would also accept a netflix film about how Little Wayne used to pour cough syrup in his vodka. "In a world of people that saw a glass half full, he saw it half empty (fade to black, gurgling pouring sound of cough syrup) (fade up from black to arena crowd throwing bundles of hundreds on stage) (fade up from black, lil Wayne in hospital with IV in arm, doctor leans over with notepad "you have to stop drinking cough syrup" lil Wayne "my genius comes out of those bottles, I got to do it, for the fans") (an orchestra that cost more than a normal person makes in a lifetime swells up with inspirational music and we see a slow motion shot of a drunk guy trying to play a single guitar note with his thumb, as thousands cheer)
"Push down and Turn: the story of a modern visionary"
Then I watched "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" It was also a good movie, really well done in fact. It was kind of a flowers for Algernon type story, where a mentally handicapped couple were vaulted to superstardom by an idiot, and then eventually became smart enough to buy expensive coats. one of them went to prison and the other one got face tattoos. It made me feel like I could have been a lot more successful if instead of reading thousands of books, I had just read the same book over and over a thousand times. 3/4 stars! After the movie I watched a show about what one of the main characters was doing today, which I posted here. This year he is being paid my lifetime income every week, for lying to people on tv and taking their money. A job he was given as a reward for being released from prison for lying to people on tv and taking their money. I feel like the world outside has so much to teach me!
I watched a movie called The Wipers Times, which I really enjoyed. Ben Chaplin stars and it's based on the true story of a group of WWI soldiers who published a satirical newspaper behind the lines/in the trenches. It has a nice, brisk run time (just over 90 minutes) and the writers & director creatively used skits to showcase some of the published pieces. It's streaming free on Tubi and on the subscription-based Acorn. It may be in other places as well.
