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dontreadwelldon
Reviews
The Batman (2022)
Excellent
I enjoyed this more than any other Batman movie ever. The acting was top notch, and that goes all around. There wasn't a single role to sneer at, everyone did splendidly. And I must say, Zoë Kravitz stole the entire show. Hands down. What this young lady is doing still making superhero movies, I have no idea. She is easily the finest talent in acting right now. If she wants to keep doing films like this - so be it. I gonna keep on watching!
This incarnation of Batman takes some different takes, uses some different looks for our familiar characters, but I didn't find any of it jarring or distracting. I felt Pattinson wasn't the best choice, yet he still did an excellent job. My opinion was that he made an okay Batman and a very poor Bruce Wayne. They really should've gotten someone taller and with broader shoulders for The Batman lol. Pattinson looked a bit comical in all that body armor, and he moved around with difficulty, lacking the height and physical strength to pull it off. He literally looked like a little kid in a puffy Halloween costume at times. Oh well. Not his fault. His acting was fine.
The story itself went long. But the superb acting made the entire movie enjoyable all the way through. Dano was a surprise villain, and there was something extra sinister in his baby-faced presentation. Colin Farrel freaked me out in his role, but I loved it! He nailed his part quite well.
The music and filming was also all well done. Again, nothing was jarring or distracting, leaving the movie to flow along and tell its story. The Nirvana tribute was nice hehe. OLD MAN ALERT!
Bottom line. I don't care if this was a superhero movie. It is a 5 star movie, and I am a brutal critic. I find things to pick at with pretty much every movie I see, but this one makes so few mistakes that I'll not mention any. Except maybe they should've gotten a bigger guy to play Batman. Sorry. Not sorry. 5 stars times 2 equals 10 star movie.
Raising Cain (1992)
Lifetime Channel Masterpiece
Ha. Ha. Ha. But for real though. Surely this was made for tv? Like 1990s tv? Lightgow was about as scary as a tissue box. And his wife was THE MOST unsympathetic wench ever. She was pathetic to be more precise. What a horrible wife. And the daughter... absolutely nothing. They could've used a stuffed dummy to equal effect. I'm shocked how this still has 6 stars. I feel bad giving it 4 - because it probably doesn't deserve that many. Needless to say I've never been able to watch this movie all the way through. Cold french fries are more enjoyable. I've always lost interest and gave up. A movie you give up on for 30 years. That's bad man. Not scary. Not thrilling. Quite silly. Droll, dull, passionless - and not in a good way.
Clean (2021)
I gave up on it
I liked the scenery - usually. For some reason the visual scenes just seemed really disjointed and didn't flow smoothly. The entire movie, very little dialogue. I didn't enjoy the whole "12 Step" thing either. Seemed extremely lame. I do not know why directors continue to try and make it such a focus in a movie. Like... who cares really? Lame.
As for the "hero" he really seemed pretty lame himself. There was NOTHING about him I found interesting or redeeming. He wasn't clever. He wasn't smart. He wasn't attractive. He was very plain and ordinary, and in every single way. The entire first 2/3 of the movie - nada. All that time and almost no development whatsoever. Just random flashbacks, all of which were short and fairly repetitious - and told almost no background at all.
And pretty much all the other characters were fairly lame, some were way too forced, to the point of being campy. So yeah, cliché, cliché, cliché. And not well done either.
Once the "action" got started, it did not pay off, not at all, not at all. The "hero" just went on being unspectacular, boring, lame, actionless, with no flair and no oomph. He really didn't seem very adept at anything at all. Mostly he just walked up behind folks and brained them, or hacked them, or whatever. He made A LOT of stupid mistakes. So he must not have been a very astute... whatever it was. I never found out. I gave up and turned it off. And I'm quite positive I didn't miss not one thing. I'll never fire that pile up again lol.
My bottom line? Not worth a watch. Not at all.
Old Henry (2021)
Not a perfect movie but a welcome one
(There are no reveals in this review)
I kinda wanted to give this a "6" but I went ahead and gave 7 stars. Not only are good westerns hard to come by these days - a good movie in any genre is getting hard to find. I watched this from beginning to end, which is a rarity for me these days. I get bored, lose interest and find other things to do. This kept my interest, even with some of the strange mistakes that were made. Pros:
First of all, I really liked Tim Blake Nelson cast in this role. A fairly unlikely protagonist that really did cause me to pause. Tim maintained his role all the way to the end, paying off very well. So props there. It was refreshing to see this sort of different approach. And Stephen Dorff was very convincing as the antagonist. Most all the men looked and acted the part, and the costumery was tops - neither over-the-top nor distracting. The environment was also nicely captured, keeping a rather dreary but picturesque scene for the entire film.
I really don't want to get into the mistakes that were made, because I really do not want to encroach upon a potential viewer's experience, but I felt like the climax was too long. If your film is holding its own, up to the end, it's okay to end it sharply and decisively. The directly milked it a little to much for me, but ultimately the movie ended well enough. It resolved.
Bottom line, I did enjoy Old Henry. I appreciate the effort and the differing style. It was not "guns blazing" and moved slowly - but it moved along a steady course all the way to the end. Let the movie lead you there. It paid off for me.
Old (2021)
Wouldn't be attractive even as a tv show
Seriously though - how can I appear in one of these films? I mean, this is Universal Pictures! I have ZERO acting experience and I know I could've done better than most of the slops in this one. It's like a majority of the "actors" had never acted before. They were worse than hometown commercial actors. Stunted. Awkward. Embarrassing.
I admit I didn't watch the movie. I skipped through it, sampling it. I've long learned my lesson about what I waste my time on. Decent movies are extremely hard to find. They always have been. But modern flops look different. In the old days you could pass it off as camp. But this film was totally trying to pass off as legit. Ha. Ha. Ha. Try finding some actors outside of lawn and garden commercials. Or give me a call! I'll work cheap and proved an equal ineptitude!
Bottom line: the fact that there are a sizeable number of people actually defending this farce - well that's why they keep making them. Saps gonna keep giving them money. Not me!
Cinderella (2021)
Seems like an agenda to bury this movie?
Usually it's fake reviews raving a movie. This one has tons of the opposite. 1 star reviews from people with only one review. Highly suspicious. I'm kind of an old fart and would never watch a movie in this genre. But all these suspicious reviews made me curious.
Sheesh, there is NO WAY this movie is as bad as all those reivews make it. My guess is that some blog or forum whipped people up and they came here in droves to dis the flick. Actually, that Camila gal really did a good job. Again, I do not like musicals. Not at all. But this film really had some gorgeous sets, very interesting, with tasty colors and such. And there was also an effort to make some things look dingy and realistic - in a storybook sort of way.
All in all, this is indeed a musical. I found the songs jolting and it seemed to me it was just singing for the sake of singing, meaning it didn't really serve to move the story along. But, hey, some people like singing, and dancing, and pretty sets. My suggestion is this: if you like attractive sets and costumes, dancing, modern pop, etc. - give it a try. If you're an old fart like me, ha ha ha, you probably not gonna like it. Even though I did kind of like it regardless.
Last line: somebody give Camila Cabello another shot. I got a very strong feeling about her. I think she could fulfill a role in a legit movie (aka non-pop-musical). She had excellent presence and very believable expression. She also had confidence. I'd check a movie out if I knew she was going to be in it in the future.
Howard's Mill (2021)
I quit before 8 minutes had elapsed
I hate television shows. Modern ones anyway. And that is what this was. An indie film trying to be a documentary style tv show. Why on earth would anyone try so hard, create all the fiction, bring in all the fake sidekicks, just to mimic something so lame and abhorent? And who would would be interested in watching it? It isn't real, so where is the fascination? This is "found footage" going in a brand new and detestable direction. I'm unsure how it got released and propagated to the degree in which it did. If this somehow becomes some new genre in movie-making - We're all screwed.
Gaia (2021)
I quit at about 12 minutes
Girl trips a booby trap, gets impaled through the top of her foot??? Asinine. If directors want to do booby traps, at least go online and look up a makeshift booby trap. Don't just make up a fake one on your own. What are the odds that a trip wire (twine) is gonna release a stick, with a HUGE spike, and manage to hit the TOP of a person's foot? With enough force to drive it all the way through the boot, and foot, and out the rubber sole on the bottom? Asinine. I lost all hope after that. Movies making such stupid mistakes never pay off. The director is lazy, ignorant, and has no business making such movies. Try a different genre fool.
The Empty Man (2020)
Finally a film I can make all the way through
Maybe this isn't an "8" star movie, but for me it was nice to able to sit and watch an entire NEW movie and not turn it off in disgust. Is this horror? I would say it was. It is also weird, intriguing, involved... and it is also very slickly put together.
The cinematography is very good, from start to finish. Very slick camera work. Very good efforts from most all the actors. And as others have mentioned, the beginning of this film is very good, which is crazy because the rest of the movie is in a completely different setting. Ha! But after the first scene, there was plenty to keep me interested all the way through to the end.
Did this movie have flaws? Yes some. Was it kinda hard to keep up with at times? Maybe. Was the "terror" and "gore" mishandled occasionally? Yeah. But there were some genuinely good stuff here and there. Some very creepy moments, and convincing too. And this did not rely on jump scares at all, or at least it certainly did not overuse them.
Bottom line: this may be a bit too off-the-wall for some people. It might be a little hard to follow for others. However I thorough enjoyed it from start to finish, and for a change I might very well watch this one again. In fact, I fully intend to! Give it a shot. There is a ton of material here to find interest in.
The Little Things (2021)
Not Worth the Watch
The movie went along okay. I was expecting a decent finish so I kept watching, even though the movie (and the music) was quite bland. Jared Leto was excellent in his role, but his character suffered at times from poor writing and poor scripting.
My bottom line - the entire end scene was asinine. The whole damn thing just got stupid, and there was no payoff. The movie ends leaving you feeling rather sick and frustrated - and not because of any cliffhanger or suspense. It just ends really, really badly. Poorly. I watched this streaming, so maybe they'll include an alternate ending at some point. LMAO. If you watch it, don't get too involved. Not that there's much hope in that, as the entire film is lackluster. Four stars: for Leto, and some fine cinematography at times.
(actually I wanted to give 1 star, but it wasn't awful. Just fairly worthless.)
The Interview (1998)
Non Ending
It took me some time to get involved in this film but it did manage to become interesting. I truly became intrigued and began guessing at possible endings. Unfortunately the movie suddenly ended. No resolution. No answers. No twist. Didn't previous interviewers mention a twist at the end? Well they lied. This movie simply stops, abruptly, over. Done. Nothing. Nada. The End. No wonder it took me all these years to watch this - on Netflix. It isn't worth the investment. Just a nice little intro. Not exactly a movie at all. Just some scenes to get you started. Then done. How did this even end up on Netflix? It's half a film?