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The Penguin (2024)
Sopranos
This is a massive let down if you expect the traditional Gotham characters. It's basically a gangster series and almost all Soprano and very little Penguin. There's none of the atmospheric magic of the comics, but perhaps that's deliberate, in which case why bother building your series on a comic book? This might as well have been any crime story of a million out there.
It's OK if you take it for what it is, a gangster story. It's slow, turgid and doesn't really go anywhere. Colin Farrell is excellent but that's about it. I tried really hard to live it but it just didn't cut the mustard for me.
Starve Acre (2023)
Head nor Tail
One of those movies that should be good but lacking in real depth and with absolutely no coherent story. Odd kids. An even odder hare. Lots of lingering meaningful looks, long shots and dreary weather. Tree stumps. Funny fen folk. The hare at least doesn't look like roadkill but even so there's a kind of bloated Pipkins-esque nightmare so sluggish you yearn for an hour of Herod.
I'm surprised Matt Smith even auditioned for this never mind starred in it. None of it makes any sense and the final denouement of Hartley being given bitty just about sums up the whole sorry film. I don't even know how I managed to sit through it. A heap of steaming, folks!
Shogun (2024)
What a huge disappointment
Shogun is one of my favourite books, a sweeping saga of intrigue, murder, plots within plots, great characterisation. The 1980s series stayed true to all that and more. This 2024 version is like a mouthful of dead sea fruit - green and lush to look at but hollow and lacking in any real substance where it matters.
I'm sure why some important key elements of the plot were changed or omitted. What's the point of taking a great story and reducing it to a shadow of what it should be?
The romance between Blackthorn and Mariko lacked any depth or passion - it feels more casual, like a one night stand or two.
There's little to no coverage of the manipulative evil that was the Catholic church, most of the Jesuits and their machinations were left out of the series completely. We hardly see any of Blackthorn's crew and their degeneration in a land that should have elevated them.
Mariko's sacrifice had no impact because there was no build up nor explanation for it until after she was gone. Why was she buried when she was cremated in the book? In the book she states that she is Christian but samurai first. Oh, yeah, let's twist the narrative to suit our 21st century mindsets.
As for the change in plot to indicate that Ochiba changed her mind about supporting Ishido, why? She and the heir die which enables Toranaga to become Shogun.
What a pile of rubbish. Honestly, this could have been awesome. Instead it's just a rushed version that absolutely annihilates what could have been a masterpiece.
Manhunt (2024)
Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.
Why they make historical movies/series and then mess around with the history and facts is beyond me. One lives in hope that one day a production company will do the right thing and make something so historically accurate it takes the breath away. But no.
Casting is pretty dire. Edwin Stanton's beard is missing. Lewis Powell was 6 foot 2, handsome and not the dumb thicko he's made out to be. Lincoln is way too young to be Lincoln at that time, though they got his voice right which was said to be high pitched.
Lewis Powell did not have a hood put on until he tried to kill himself by beating out his own brains aboard the Saugus where he was held for a short time.
Shame that this should fail on accuracy as the look of it is very good.
Das Signal (2024)
The entire series is ruined with bad dubbing
I have no idea why Netflix continue to use American voice artists with thick American whiny accents for their foreign productions. It totally ruins the whole experience. Not only that, but give the work to the indigenous people so that we have English speaking Germans in Germans productions etc, not some silly Americans who can't even emote properly and are wooden as hell.
I really tried to get into this but the voices just ruined it all. I've just go to stop watching shows and movies that are dubbed this way. Shame as though a slow burn this series might could have been better if they'd used German voice actors.
Centigrade (2020)
More holes than rotten ice
Couple get trapped in car in blizzard. Couple argue. Couple have baby. Couple choose to stay in car despite a day of blazing sunshine and the passing of a snow plough. Woman wraps baby in blanket instead of holding baby next to her skin beneath her own clothing for extra warmth. Cell phones are not charged. They have no idea where they are. Man get hypothermia and dies. Woman and baby get rescued. Fin
Ugh, what a mess. I don't believe for one minute that anyone could be so stupid as to not try to get help and walk to keep up the body heat. The only hot air they seem to survive on is their own silly arguments.
Lady Macbeth (2016)
Inaccurate Tosh
If you're going to make an historical film at least make it authentic. Don't put 21st century characters and situations in a setting where it just would not have happened. Victorian societal strictures would never allow a white woman to be dictated to or raped by a person of colour.
As a movie trying to depict 'girl power' it fails. What woman watches the sexual abuse of another and then has sexual relations with the abuser?
The only realistic event is when Sebastian owns up to the killing of the boy and Katherine pins the blame on him and everyone believes here. Shades of Deep South. ......
All of Us Strangers (2023)
Beautiful, poignant, spiritual
Right from the get go all you need is Andrew Scott's face to convey all the sadness, loneliness and reticent yearning to know this is going to be very special movie. People are complaining that it's slow or turgid. They miss the point and most likely miss the whole spiritual message embedded within...that we live in a world so lacking in personal introspection about who we are and why we're really born into the lives we have.
What struck me most was the aching sorrow of Scott's character, Adam. The fatalistic acceptance of his lot in life, then his childlike wonder when he has a chance to meet with his dead parents and rectify the past in order to heal.
Is it such a bad thing that this is fundamentally a ghost story? Loneliness can render people into living ghosts. And we see both the dead and living coming together by some Divine permission in order to facilitate healing.
I did wonder at some point if Adam was already dead, but living in a purgatory dream state where his soul had to heal in order to pass into the light, hence is parents being 'allowed' to meet with him in order to finally share how much they loved and love him.
However you interpret this movie, the ending is a lesson to us all, particularly in a world where it's too easy to shut ourselves off and others out.
Relic (2020)
If you get this movie, you get the true meaning of horror
I had no idea when I watched this what it was other than a haunted house movie, and it took until the final denouement to release what was really going on, and then it hits you like a ton of bricks, particularly if you know anyone or have had any experience of someone suffering with dementia.
This is real horror. The metaphors are all there, and you may have to watch it twice to really appreciate what's going on.
From the black mould (the crawling invasive disease of dementia) to the silent lurking horror under the bed (the impending insidious progression of the disease) to the maze like claustrophobic dead end corridors of what turns out to be the mind of the mother trapped within the disease. To the final peeling away of the mother's identity and humanity to reveal the black shell of the monster of full blown dementia. Ugh! It really hits home.
To all those who posted bad reviews, you can see none of them get the movie, or its message. One day they might.
Tenet (2020)
How can you complicate a movie so much it becomes boring?
Massive fail. I've tried to watch this twice, and each time it bored the pants off me. It's a mishmash of fancy terminology, time hopping and a plot so concertina'd you yearn to give it a good shake to get the wrinkles out.
A huge disappointment in spite of a good cast and great special effects. There's just something missing, something vital and necessary....it's called pacing and plot. This movie has only got a 3 star from me because of the great locations. It's one long boring, tedious confusing mess. Don't bother unless you've had a few drinks and have good company to liven up the tedium.
Bird Box: Barcelona (2023)
Very good spin off
I was pleasantly surprised at how good this movie is. The production is high, and the acting and script good. It wasn't predictable in any way either. The perspective is from a very different angle that you're used to for a movie like this. I think it stands alone apart from the original as a very good suspense movie with the same emotional impact.......
The actual story is good with twists and turns. I liked it, and most people might be expecting a below par copy of the original but it's not. It does stand out as a movie you can watch without having seen the original
I watched it on Netflix.
Interview with the Vampire (2022)
Oh Dear....
The usual woke twisting of a classic. What can be said other than Ms Rice would be turning in the proverbials. A crass rewrite that enhances nothing and insults all Rice's fans. Why take some elements of the original and ditch others? Is it supposed to give a new edgy feel to the whole thing? If so, this is a massive fail. It's like these writers have absolutely nothing to bring to the table save for taking someone else's creativity and bastardising it. They have no ideas of their own and no vision with which to create or recreate the beauty and refinement of the original. This truly is a rip roaring stinker of a series.
Dangerous Liaisons (2022)
Another non historical historical woke attempt at being historical
I'm not sure why a decent historically accurate for its times movie or series can't be made where 21st century mindsets, morals and language are put aside in favour of reality. It actually just looks ridiculous. I guess you may enjoy it if you're OK with a mish mash of Home and Away meets Jane Austin meets writers who haven't a clue how the people of pre-revolution gay Paree behaved. Judging from the rest of the reviews on here I'm not alone in thinking there's a big fat void for a really accurate and gritty historical drama in the making to come forwards.
Don't bother with this one it stinks.
Nanjing! Nanjing! (2009)
No words really....
Brutal and heartbreaking. It perhaps does not even fully capture what went on, I suspect it was much worse. A real stain on Japan and a horrible depiction of the worst that humans can do to each other. Not an easy watch but perhaps one that's necessary because we have to learn lessons from war and hope that we all rise above the hatred that seems so inherent in some people. One has to ask would it, could it, ever happen again?
Not a movie I'd ever want to watch a second time but brilliantly done.
It captures all the cruelty and bleakness of war and those involved in the atrocities............
Hold the Dark (2018)
Makes absolutely no sense
This movie is like trying to knit a scarf with spaghetti. Impossible. It's utterly baffling and makes absolutely no sense. Disjointed and pointless. And that's me being kind. God knows how this got made into a movie, but they say the book is better and explains more, so perhaps read that before you watch this.
You're not sure whether it's werewolves, you kind of hope so because that might make some rhyme and reason from this garbled mess.
If there's one thing I can't stand it's movies that have no plot or reason for even getting funded.
There are better movies out there but don't waste your time with this one.
Hellraiser (2022)
An Effete Pinhead
The movie starts off OK, the acting is fine and the characterisation builds nicely....until the Cenobites make a show.
Hellraiser movies all hinge on the dark, eldritch menace of these dimensional horrors. Only in this movie, they're a bunch of mincing nonentities led by an effete shadow of the tall, imposing and powerful character created by Doug Bradley. Changing the sex of the lead Cenobite, or making it asexual, might have worked if the person playing the part had some charisma as in Mel Gibson's version of Satan in The Passion of the Christ. All we get here is a lisping WAG type Pinhead who'd look more at home in the salon getting a manicure than flaying infidels alive. There's none of the lingering shots or slow menacing movements of the originals...these Cenobites prance around in a horribly girly way that just ruins the whole movie. Bad costumes and worse make up. What a let down.
The Drowning of Arthur Braxton (2021)
Hadn't a foggiest what was going on
The whole movie drowns in a bad script, terrible plot and turgid attempts at being a bit scary. None of it made much sense to me, though you're able to pick out that the main character is getting bullied but then suddenly the bully is his best friend and the girl in the swimming pool is the daughter of the other girl who is scared of some bloke called Silver who we never know who he is or what he wants or who or what are the water goddesses, and and and.....do they all die at the end? Not sure. It's never made clear. Don't hold your breath for a supernatural riveting movie. It's a puddle.
FIN.
Resurrection (2022)
Perhaps you have to understand psychological abuse to understand this movie
This is a movie about a psychological abuser who controls and dominates the woman he groomed as a teenager. Tim Roth captures the creepy, controlling energy of the covert narcissist to perfection. He knows what buttons to push and how to pull the strings of his enabler. When she was a young girl completely in his thrall, she falls pregnant. The baby boy isn't welcomed by its father, whose narcissistic condition demands full possession of the main character played by Rebecca Hall, so he kills the child. It's intimated that the baby was cooked and eaten, and Roth's character tracks Hall's character down and tells her the child is still alive within him, a twisted abhorrent pregnancy that needs its mother. Once more Hall's character feels her sanity slipping away, the familiar tell tale hallmarks of abuse - gaslighting, triangulation, coercion.
Many reviews just don't get the ending. But I saw it as Hall immersed in the safety of her subconscious, her murdered baby resurrected, her daughter home, everything normal and safe. As the camera pans in the golden comforting light dims and Hall's expression begins to change intimating that she's living in a world of her own creation.
This was a more than just a horror film. It lifts the hatch on the darkest human emotions.
The Girl on the Mountain (2022)
Fantastic Scenery and that's about it.
The disgraceful thing about this movie is it should be good but the acting is cheesy and the script is worse, and the main baddie is so cliched that it's toe curling. One minute the mute kid is mute, the next she speaks then she's mute again. There's no depth to anything in this movie other than the mountains and wilderness.
Night Sky (2022)
Slow Burn but Brilliant
Why on earth Amazon cancelled this series is beyond me. Sure, it's a slow burn about an elderly couple hiding a big secret, and perhaps it didn't appeal to the teen viewers who rave over Stranger Things but I think these huge producers forget there are plenty of older people who love sci fi and don't always want to have teen leading characters.
Each episode revealed a little more of the characters and the ending was intriguing. Then bam! No more series 2. Yep, I feel cheated.
American Horror Story (2011)
Sum it up
Heads get blown up, then heads get blown up, followed by heads being blown up, until heads get blown up, and finally, heads get blown up.
In between there's lots of unnecessary weird sex stories and teenage angst written by middle aged writers.
FIN.
Monstrous (2022)
Cheapo Productions presents Home Made Stew
Finely chop some disjointed and muddled, mix in a soupçon of poor acting and flavourless script. Simmer for just over an hour until nearly dry, then add a twist of predictable and a pinch of tedious, you've got one great big steaming bouillabaisse of boring.
Jacob's Ladder (2019)
Rubbish
There's no other words really. All you need is that one ....Rubbish. Don't take a classic cult horror movie and try to remake it. It won't work. It doesn't work. It never would. The strength of the original movie lies in the spiritual message.
Cold Moon (2016)
Sadly not as good as the book
Michael McDowell was a master of creepy horror. Sadly this movie captures very little of the atmospheric crawling dread of the novel. It's OK, as far as B movies go, but doesn't quite capture the essence of the book.
The Suicide Squad (2021)
Why is this film depicting animal cruelty?
It's all tongue in cheek we know, but there's too much animal cruelty in this movie. It's irresponsible because there are nutters out there and this gives them ideas.