underavioletmoon Reviews

Girl (1998)

If you want a 90's movie, watch anything else. This is trash.

[2/10 · 17 April 2021]

The script is very weak, 90's TV movie levels, acting is poor, drama is not there, even the music is unconvincing, there are no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

If you want some 90's nostalgia, almost any teenage movie is better than this one, which lacks a point or a real story. The main story feels like a subplot that was stretched to 1 hour 40 minutes.

There's nothing for anyone here. Don't even bother reading more reviews. Close the tab and move on.

A Tale of Winter (1992)

Objectively a bad movie.

[2/10 · 29 March 2021]

The script is bad, but good dialgoue could have rescued it. Instead, it made things worse. It's almost like watching a first year lit student collaborate with a first year film student with a very good budget.

Even the pacing and presentation are bad, presenting someone making life decisions (for herself and her child), changing jobs, schools, apartments, etc. With absolute banality, as if changing socks, and everyone around her seems to think nothing of it.

The behavior of the main character is of someone who is mentally ill, but the movie presents it as normal, not even as someone with a quirky personality.

Not good enough to be enjoyed as a serious film, not bad enough to be laughed at as a "so bad it's good" comedy.

True Story (I) (2015)

Incredibly underwhelming

[25 February 2017]

I went into this film thinking it would be about a conman stealing someone's identity and then living an alternate life. Maybe a life on the run. Maybe a life of conning others. Or a life of other more major crimes. I was disappointed that it was just a guy who basically borrowed someone's identity for a bit. The film never explains why and I'm not interested enough to search for the real story.

This is a true story but it's not necessarily a good one. Just like real life, it's filled with loose threads that go nowhere and are just pointless. We follow journalist's career as he lies to make his story more interesting. The lie causes him to lose his job. Then a murderer uses his name, they get in touch and he writes a book about the murderer. We don't hear much about the book or the journalist's career after, so it's just a dead-end. There was a scene in a bookstore where he reads part of his book, but that was just a dream.

What is the main point of this film? If it's the story of a journalist, then it's a dead end that never gets explored. If it's about the murders, we don't get to know. We only get a text overlay that tells us his confession. If it's about journalism and honesty, then that also doesn't get explored.

Nothing gets explored. True Story is the equivalent of me giving you random chapters of my life on film and you go from scene to scene following the chronology, but not really the story.

There are so many interesting fictional stories that there's no need to pick a real life story, but even if you do, real life is filled with interesting stories. There's no need to pick a boring one. The biggest mistake was deciding to make this story into a film.