splurben Reviews

The Black Demon (2023)

In the Beginning, This Seems Dirivitive. It's Actually Not, It's Good

[8/10 · 18 December 2023]

We started this and stopped after 20 minutes, but I had an inkling that I wanted to see how it played out.

Watching this through, it is a very strong film with excellent performances. It's not just a "Meg" rip-off. There are complex characters, an unique story and elements of spirituality and culture that are inspired.

I believe strongly that many of the reviews of this film have been submitted by those that gave up after 20 minutes and didn't actually watch the whole film.

The cultural references are accurate. The deities are real and are properly recognized. The feeling of being in an uncomfortable situation in a foreign town are well portrayed.

Give it 40 minutes, don't assume you have the whole story after the first 20 minutes, you may find it's better than it's average rating!

Verotika (2019)

I wish I could go lower than 1, I'd give it a -3 if I could

[1/10 · 7 October 2023]

Ok. I love schlock.

I often love to love a D-listed Movie as the characters of the performers are transparent and entertaining.

Nope, none of that.

Horrendously written. Poorly directed.

The actors should have been better instructed on emotional engaement. It's not a porn movie. A majority of porn actors are better than many popular Hollywood actors - they have to be.

Give the actors something in which to invest their performance. These actors were given nothing.

I respect anyone that goes before the camera on a set. I feel the actors were performing to the best of their direction.

Give any performer what they need and the information and background they desire, and you'll get a great performance. This project had great potential.

Asteroid City (2023)

Oh It's not real... thank the Gods. Who watches a Wes Anderson film for stark reality? I am blown away by the number of a-hem 'people' that can't see the analogic discourse...

[10/10 · 28 August 2023]

A Nuclear Desert, or as some Americans would like to say "A Nukular Dessert" - why can't we just stop that hurricane by exploding it with a nukular missile? (id est 'Uh oh!? Nukular Missile", Sigue Sigue Sputnik, F1-11, 1986)

Deserts are filled with life - life that is simply not as obvious as a Michael Bay digital pyrotechnic displa y- just as this film is filled with talent and nuance. All of these consumate performers are laughing their asses off and enjoying a truly unique and complex cinematic experience. Maybe it makes more sense to those that can and do actually perform their art treading the boards and in front of the camera, rather that those that sit in their enormous overstuffed easy-chairs drinking Château Margaux '47 and imagining that dictating the quality of unique talent to the most talented creative minds and performing intellects and artists of our time is their supreme right.

This is an excellent film.

Grandmother's Gold (2018)

The Ghost of Christmas Gold

[10/10 · 12 August 2023]

You can put the gold anywhere.

You can walk the Pacific Highway from Malibu to Winter Solstice.

Take your friends and laugh, and laugh, and laugh...

This cast of expert witnesses of the miracle of comedy has transgressed every genre. We want more.

Jesus is your Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather. You have to guess who he impregranted, while giggling and oops, just a little fart. We can trace the genes from Silverlake to the North African Tribes of Libya on the Mediterranean Coast 7,000 years ago. And what was Moses thinking?

As a primarily matriarchal form of comedy/religion, let us just laugh, and laugh..... and laugh - like Jackie Washington at Liza's piano bar sing-a-long.

Don't Worry Darling (I) (2022)

Incomplete Denouement, Dirivitive Script Rather Than Inspired

[5/10 · 19 July 2023]

Florence Pugh, Harry Styles and Chris Pine and the rest of the cast are hot with excellent immersive acting all around. We feel like this script is literally a pitch called "Matrix (1999) meets Suspiria (1977) meets Stepford Wives (1975) meets Far From Heaven (2002)" and nothing transcends any of these storylines to the extent that it is more than derivitive. Better hair, costumes and make-up and an over-arching theme such as trans-dimensional forces or alien intervention would have improved this scenario. When a script honours other concepts but fails to exceed them, it becomes ultimately disappointing.

F9: The Fast Saga (2021)

Unforgivably bad, plotless, annoying portrayal of a narcissistic wankfest.

[1/10 · 1 January 2023]

It's not the actors, writers or performers. I like Vin Diesel. This film is unwatchable, vapid, and utterly unbelievable even as "suspension of disbelief" full-on fiction.

We kept setting a timer for nine minutes, after twenty-seven minutes we could not continue.

It's interesting that millions of dollars can't produce a good film.

What is the market for this film? What is the demographic source of this market demand?

We really all need to be thinking about this often because all these performers would probably enjoy not just working, but producing art and these guys are all capable of creating beautiful film art that could be memorable.

A Very British Scandal (2021)

Good Performances, Weak Direction and Editing

[4/10 · 23 April 2022]

Although the performances are strong. There are very many holes in the storytelling particularly in the first and second episode where it is impossible to discern aspects of plot development without prior knowledge of the story which took place decades before the preponderance of the audience was born.

Nana (1934)

Poor Nana (Anna Sten) never stood a chance...

[3/10 · 19 January 2022]

When producer Samuel Goldwyn hired Travis Banton (who costumed Marlene Dietrich for Paramount) AND Adrian (who costumed Greta Garbo for MGM) to do the costumes for his new international actress of mystery and glamour Anna Sten, who could have guessed that it would be a recipe for disaster?

This film tries SO HARD to be a Dietrich or Garbo vehicle with that "Lubitsch Touch" but oh my dear sweet Aunt Betsy it doesn't work. The script is rubbish, the titular author Zola is pretty much nowhere other than character names and some situations. There's no Von Sternberg lighting or atmosphere. The Banton costumes come off as a parody of Dietrich which was probably an assassination plot by Banton and Dietrich. Dorothy Arzner's direction was undoubtedly constricted and hampered massively by Goldwyn's constant interference.

And although she tried valiantly, Anna Sten was left with nothing but a mish-mash of hackneyed Hollywood plots with which to try and imbue some vitality. The rest of the cast, including many capable and veteran players, are just along for the ride whilst trying to keep their heads above water.

Poor Miss Sten's Hollywood career was over before it began. Safe to say that "Goldwyn's Folly" as this production was known, would not have ruffled any feathers of international mystery and glamour in 1934.

A Serious Man (2009)

'K' was this Meshugana's mentor.

[4/10 · 6 January 2022]

If you don't get the reference, then you need to read more.

I normally get, understand and often enjoy the Coen Brothers.

I am Goy. I fell in love with a Jewish boy after high school and was invited into the family forever after. I get it. It's complicated. It's tight.

In this film - gornisht helfn. I suppose if one was raised in Jewish Hell, the world might seem this way. In all the families I knew and interacted with I never saw such empty, vague, selfish, demoralising abuse of the family and acquaintances. I wasn't just there on the odd occasion. I was there for extended periods, day and night, meeting the various groups from synagogue, family members that weren't as 'well liked' as others, this portrayal is so unfaithful.

Production design, direction, cinematography, art department, period detail, performances - it's all spectacular.

But if there can't be a single fleeting moment; if everyone is irredeemable or miserable; if punishment is followed by punishment garnished with abuse and then topped off with disgust, horror and debasement; well, then you're just plagiarising Franz Kafka. It's been done too many times. It's not interesting, nor is it thought provoking.

I had to give this four stars because of the stunning technical achievement of this production - but I found the story insulting - insulting to Jews, and insulting to Goy.

If this narrative has a place, it's lost without a single morsel of context.

If you're suicidal and you need that last little push to encourage you to swim out to sea, or suffocate yourself with a necktie on a doorknob, then this film is for you.

Titans (I) (2018–2023)

Wow, did some supervillain lobotomize the entire writing room?

[2/10 · 19 September 2021]

Season 1 was fun. And then? OMG I feel so sorry for these actors having to walk through this dumpster fire.

Reminiscence (2021)

A Shimmering Pile of Detritus

[3/10 · 12 September 2021]

A thin line of almost plot, struck from the tiniest concept of a worm, baited on a blunt hook and hoping to catch a tiny minow and yet fails at that as well.

Wrong Turn (2021)

Wrong Stupid Turn

[1/10 · 26 March 2021]

Wow! It is simply ridiculous and stupid.

Blow by blow, these characters beg for a writer that doesn't hold their audience in disdain.

1. Even a New Yorker, in New York, knows they could walk into the wrong bar and behave badly and get the regular patrons pissed off enough to get the crap beat out of them, let's not even talk about hillbillies in Virginia! We're asked to care about these people? This is 'stupid villains' vs 'pagan viking villains'. Who do we care about in this mess?

2. These poorly written badly realised characters are lost in the woods after leaving the trail to find a "well-preserved confederate fort" or some bull. Well, they're without a map, they aren't accessing a GPS app on a phone, and there is no plot development as to when and where they got this information, not even a whiff, to help the audience become interested in this detour.

3. In fact, mobile phones in general - not one of these morons tries to access the GPS on their phones at any point while they still had them, unbelievable. Also, lost in the woods, sleeping in a tent, before going to sleep all these guys would have been trying their phones and their phones would have been with them in their tents. There could have been excellent and believable scenes in which their phones don't work for some reason, and some apparently supernatural element allows the Foundation to get their phones away from them.

4. If a giant log is rolling toward you, run to the side. Running away from the log in the same direction the log is rolling will ensure your death, DUH! If the writer cared to try, there would have been a Foundation local in a tree or something that strikes one of the hikers with an arrow so that he ends up trapped between the tree and the rolling log while the rest of the group narrowly escapes sensibly by running perpendicular to the rolling log's path. Are we to believe the giant rolling log is a 'deer trap'?!

4. They guy that's trussed up after being snared on a chain and dragged through a pit of venomous snakes has every right to strike out at his apparent attackers. The writer is asking for sympathy in a situation that couldn't have garnered any toward characters that everyone already thoroughly hates. That's just dumb.

5. These radical pagan apparently iron-age Foundation people sure have a lot of makeup and 'salon hair' going on. Not believable.

6. Oh yeah, and, "Don't kill us -- You need non-profit administration and infrastructure!" I'm not joking here, they really try to be addressed by the pagan viking Foundation people with the promise of skills in non-profit administration and infrastructure!?

7. Stupid Dad has a gun with no extra ammo and he's outnumbered so he shoots three of his six rounds into the air? Bad writing and directing.

8. I hope these actors got paid all the money because this script isn't worth $2 without another $150,000 worth of re-writes.

9. Oh yeah, and inexplicable eye-less cannibal cave dwelling zombies, just because?

Beast Mode (2020)

Green Baby...Flower Cream...Elevator Sandwich - It makes so much sense.

[1/10 · 6 March 2021]

The premise had potential.

Really the biggest problem here is that the jokes don't land. Most of the jokes just don't relate to the situation or the characters. It's like someone had a list of gags and they just picked them out of a hat and made no attempt to adapt them in any way to the scenario i.e. the "Elevator Sandwich" scene.

Also, characters come and go with no background, introduction or explanation.

Vulgarity can be hilarious, but there has to be a way to relate to it in any way.

And the finale is a "Wrap Party" for a film that apparently hasn't been made?

White Woman (1933)

We love Lombard, and She Was White...

[3/10 · 21 February 2021]

I love pre-code Hollywood and Carole Lombard is a stunningly wonderful actress. Charles Laughton is seriously overacting this part even for a "B" movie melodrama of this era although he did make this villain thoroughly unlikable. I really wanted to care, but just didn't find it anywhere in this film. It's important to note that there was something about the play upon which this film is based (and re-made over and over again), "The Hangman's Whip" 1933 which played for one month in New York at the St James Theatre, that seemed to entrance Paramount, maybe because they got it real cheap. To see a story like this done properly, Marlene Dietrich directed by Tay Garnett and with a young and handsome John Wayne in Seven Sinners (1940) is the height of this genre.

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Lots of good stuff, slow burn with payoff, a few problems

[7/10 · 7 February 2021]

I appreciated the unglorified Old West portrayal, excellent storytelling, and fine acting.

A few odd things that didn't make sense to me as far as direction:

1. Considering the excellent period costuming for the men, and even for Sean Young's character, why the hell was Samantha's (Lili Simmons) hair and makeup straight out of 2015? This sort of thing is always so infuriating, hair and make-up is often not period so that stupid people will more easily identify with characters and this isn't a film that needs to make that appeal at all.

2. I'm sick and tired of the portrayal of almost every single gun shot completely instantly killing someone. Anyone who's seen someone get shot knows that it almost never instantly kills someone (unless you're a black person confronted by a white policeman in the US). Even a gunshot to the head will precipitate seizures, twitching and involuntary movement. In a film like this which is meant to be disturbing and gory, this inaccuracy is very frustrating.

3. The stone age cannibals' portrayal was quite good, however their 'loincloths' were obviously way too conveniently attached in a very unlikely way. It's another strange detail as the actors obviously weren't shy and the story certainly didn't predicate modesty.

Still an excellent film.

Assassin 33 A.D. (2020)

A Travesty of Heresy, Biblical Inaccuracy, and Ignorance.

[1/10 · 24 January 2021]

This really appalling depiction of heresy should be an complete insult to anyone with any knowledge of the teachings of Jesus or Mohammad, be they religious or secular.

The sheer ignorance/heresy of the writer/director is astonishing.

Whether killing the Son of God, or a Prophet of Islam, it is just so insulting to everyone concerned.

It was painful to sit through this bizarre distortion.

Greed (I) (2019)

More (and less)

[9/10 · 5 January 2021]

We don't have enough mainstream interjection about the disparity of wealth and opportunity in the current era (1980 to 2020).

Creating comedy around that disparity is nearly impossible. But it is necessary to bring this issue above the surface.

It's a superficial film, because there's no other way to make this statement as a comedy without surpassing superficiality.

In the end, anyone with a conscience or a heart will cry when reminded of the statistics that rule our current global economy -- and that's a tough sell for a comedy.

The current Macroeconomic model will destroy the Earth. Period.

When 0.1% of the population hold 98% of the wealth, up from 10% holding 80% of the wealth at the beginning of the Reagan administration, what the hell are we doing people!?

I laughed at the rich a$$h0les in this movie, and I've met quite a few and this guy wasn't even close the the worst of them. I cried when reminded how profligate the expanse between the super-rich and most of the rest of us has become. I cheered when the Lion mauled and killed the billionaire (possibly imagining Trump in the same position, but Trump is too much of a coward to even be in the sight of a caged lion).

More like this please. And fewer mega-rich El Stupidos, por favor.

Bee Movie (2007)

Not a good movie for children, not funny for adults.

[1/10 · 31 December 2020]

I'm all for kids' movies that are fun and imaginative, colourful and playful -- even better when nature is involved

I am an egalitarian man.

In a bee hive, ALL of the worker bees are female, in fact, bee hives have about 15% drones (males). As well, the queen rules the hive -- female.

This film literally places almost all it's female characters in diminutive and/or subservient positions. Roles of power and efficacy are completely inverted to masculine. In nature all the bees collecting pollen are female. The male chauvinism of this script really bothers me and I feel that reversing nature in a child's mind to this extent is unkind.

In this case it seems that all the imagination has been employed to impress upon young plastic minds that only males can carry out important roles, even when that is exactly the opposite of the truly archetypal reality of bee hives.

Reversing an archetypal aspect of nature in this way is dangerous.

The Midnight Sky (2020)

It had potential, however, glacial pacing and a _very_ heavy script, along with bad science sent this film to an icy death.

[3/10 · 26 December 2020]

Missing: even a hint, even 30 seconds of elucidation of how or why the Earth is decaying in a radioactive disaster, just a few drops of rational science here.

Wrong: centrifugal gravity - we built great imaginative sets for the spinning artificial gravity areas of the ship - then we stick the furniture and actors on the sides of the rooms perpendicular to where the centrifugal gravity would be available.

Silly: what are a single Mom and Dad with one baby going to do to progress the human race? Cut 45 minutes out of the script and put enough people on the ship to provide any hope that there might be enough genetic diversity for a number of generations.

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Schlock, Copious Continuity Errors, Repeatedly Faithless to Canon, Bad Filmmaking

[2/10 · 26 December 2020]

We had a moment with Lynda Carter, so I gave this a two instead of a one.

All canon is broken, blasphemed upon, or ignored. The effect for the lasso is ridiculous and poorly conceived. We were counting continuity errors like it was a drinking game. Curiously, no-one is credited as Continuity and YOU CAN TELL.

This was made for children.

Very disappointed.

Breach (IV) (2020)

MFCB It'll Never End, Please Don't Do This To Us!

[1/10 · 23 December 2020]

Watched the whole thing so that my review would be utterly 0, that's ZERO, lower than one and worse than a funny bad D movie. Bad on every level. Direction couldn't evince a performance from ANYONE. Editing made you wonder if the editor was stoned, drunk, smoking crack, snorting PCP, masturbating on the console, stuffing large objects into his nether regions . . . someone please tell us how or why anyone would have stayed on this production past the first day of shooting. Props: piano hinges and laminated particle board for 'Future Cryogenic Chambers'?! What in the Hell is Bruce Willis getting for this . . . 98% of the budget?! Cause there wasn't ANY budget spent on sets, editing, production, script, props, script, ANYTHING.

Spiral (I) (2019)

A Bad Script Written in Rotten Possum Blood

[2/10 · 19 November 2020]

Hey, let's move to a small town and paint targets on our foreheads, then we'll get a camera flash and strobe flash the targets on our foreheads while we shine spotlights on the strobe flashing targets on our foreheads. Then we'll follow that with targets on our backs, rinse and repeat. Maybe you should have insisted on keeping the security system installed? Maybe talk to your partner about stuff and show them stuff so you don't seem crazy? Bad writing choice after bad writing choice, over and over again, monotonously regular systematic bad writing choices.

Polaroid (I) (2019)

This film should have been called, "No Lights Allowed"...

[2/10 · 1 November 2020]

Production value is okay. But the idea over and over again people that are in a scary situation, being threatened by something shadow-like in a dark space doesn't try to turn on any lights or get to a place where there is light is just stupid. Over and over again, dark, dark, dark, even sometimes in daylight, the production is so dark. I can't think of anyone that doesn't go for lights when afraid in the dark, or at least try and fail to turn on the lights. Any other aspect of this film is over-shadowed by the lack of any common-sense reaction to horrific situations and as far as I'm concerned that is a fundamental necessity of horror: bad things happen even when people respond mostly reasonably or intelligently in a given situation.

2067 (2020)

Whine and Whinge Oh Child of Time for your Script is - simply bad.

[2/10 · 30 October 2020]

First of all, the score is totally, hopelessly, distractedly bombastic. Every two minutes the score flies up and hits you in the face like Mandingo at a trampoline orgy; the music is also so loud that one often can't hear the actors delivering their unfortunate lines and thus, also the editing is weak. Not even gonna go into the science: temporal spaghetti.

The Mortuary Collection (2019)

Horror Museum Collection is a better title

[3/10 · 22 October 2020]

No attention to any form of detail, not period, not simple direction, not set decoration, not costume. This is trying to ride the shirt-tails of The Goonies because of a location, and nothing more. Boring and insulting. If one is going to reboot something one ought to care if it raises any bar, even a low bar. Even the technical aspects are under the bar, of 'Creepshow' etc.