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UberShell
TV never used to be my thing, in fact for many years, you name it, I'd not watched it. I was out living life rather than watching other people pretend to live but in the last few years I've started to watch more films and TV and have also started watching more films outside of my preferred go-to genres of Dystopian Sci Fi.
Rather alarmingly I've discovered I no longer hate rom coms or feel-good movies and I'm watching more historical stuff and non-fiction.
I also enjoy offbeat quirky indie films and anything that's surreal and utterly bizarre. I don't read film reviews. I couldn't care less what other people think generally, much less what the critics think - I like to watch with an open mind and no preconceptions wherever possible, though I'll gratefully take film recommendations from friends.
I live by the wisdom of not being a dick and think kindness matters. A lot.
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Moonfall (2022)
Moonfail - Utter Drivel
Without doubt one of the worst films I've ever seen.
Zero story or plot development, poorly paced, disjointed and some bloke working in a fast food drive through somehow is the best brain available to help divert disaster.
I mean, obviously, the whole premise of the film is daft, but with a half decent cast, I hoped it would at least be a half decent, brain-off disaster movie. It wasn't.
It's one of those films where you get to the end and all you can think about is what you could have chosen to do instead, and seriously, I'd recommended doing anything, anything else at all rather than watch this.
It's complete and utter, anger-inducing drivel with absolutely nothing at all good I can say about it and it didn't even work as an amusing, ironically crap film.
Absolute fail of a film.
Stay Close (2021)
Good Story But Naff Script Makes It Feel Poorly Adapted
The story is interesting and kept me engaged and guessing throughout but it feels like it has been really poorly adapted from the book (which I haven't read).
The script is clunky, making the dialogue between characters feel clumsy and like it's all taken from the "how to write a gritty drama" playbook, entirely unoriginal and the naffness of the script throughout Impacted my engagement with key characters.
If you live in the North West of England, you can't fail to spot the many bizarre flips between filming locations which is a bit jarring, but can easily be ignored.
In E3 when the girls drive over to Vipers, the dialogue between them when they get out of the car is really poor and it really does seem like the actors are constrained by the script and direction throughout.
It's like the writers of something like Casuality were given a bigger budget and have tried to do a gritty drama. This combined with the stifled acting and unimaginative direction means it's definitely watchable, but it's not great.
Renegade (2019)
Propaganda carefully designed to make him look more credible.
I found this documentary extremely unbalanced.
He makes lots of claims, some of them plsusable I should add, but there's never any evidence or counter arguments.
The focus and number of topics covered appear to have been very carefully chosen to seem most plausible and as such there was absolutely no mention of some of his more, let's say 'out there' claims, beliefs and frankly absurd predictions.
He comes across as surprisingly articulate and the coercive control element of modern society is of course rooted in truth, but this documentary felt more like a fawning love letter to the man rather than a serious deep and objective look at his beliefs and theories.
I was left with the feeling that at heart, he's an anorchist who wants everyone to be free.
Whilst freedom is of course an illusion, true freedom, by which we are not governed and are able to do anything we want whenever we want is an ideology rooted in extreme naivety.
He argues that we are controlled through divisions, us vs. them, which creates a continual unrest and friction. This is of course unrefutable, it's the basis of all conflict.
However his own very conspiratorial theories are doing exactly the same thing, causing a division between those who believe that they are 'enlightened' and can see what's really going on and those that side on the scientific!
Not a good documentary at all. It feels like propaganda, carefully designed to make him look more credible.
The Greatest Showman (2017)
The music everyone loves? Awful. Great sets & costumes though
Let's not beat around the bush here. I hated this film. With a passion.
It has received such acclaim that I actually watched it a couple of years later to see if I'd been having an off day when I formed my opinion the first time around. Nope. Still hated it.
I'm so utterly baffled by my response to it. I feel as though I must perhaps be watching a different film as my view on it varies so greatly from the view of all my friends on it who all loved it and think the songs are great.
I wanted to like it, I really did and there are elements of it that I do like.
I adored the costume and sets.
The story is OK and Hugh Jackman is really good in it.
Performance wise he does a great job, but I hated the songs with a passion and as it's pretty much all songs, it totally ruined it for me.
If you're the kind of person who likes TV talent shows and generic pop music then you'll probably like this music too, but the music left me cold.
There is one song in the entire film that didn't make me want to reach for the ear plugs (the song and dance routine in the bar which I could tolerate) and visually it is very lovely, but for me, the songs were just utterly awful - to the point that I couldn't help myself from groaning every time a new song started!
Perhaps if my daughter was still young and I'd shared the watch with her and seen her get swept away with it (it's a grand production that's for certain) then I might have liked it more, but as an adult who hates pop music, I could find a few redeeming features, but not enough for me to regard it as a good or enjoyable film by any stretch.
Instant Family (2018)
A lovely engaging feel-good film with wit and charm
I'm usually not one for this kind of feel-good family film, but even this jaded cynic found this an engaging and enjoyable watch and yeah, although I hate to admit it. It did make me feel good.
It's sensitive and thoughtful, funny in places thanks to a strong script and cast, and it's heart warming too.
I am mixed race and have white parents.
I found this film nothing but lovely and anyone reading anything negative race wise into the film (the white couple adopt 3 Hispanic kids), then perhaps you need to just take a step back and get off your soap box.
White people foster kids of other races with different colour skin. Brown and black people foster kids of other races with different colour skin. Whatever. It's no big deal, it's just the way it is.
The film is not implying anything other than fostering is a really amazing thing to do, in fact it encourages watchers not to see skin colour or race as a barrier to adoption.
It does a good job of showing the good and bad and it was a lovely afternoon watch that I enjoyed enough, and was surprised enough by to prompt me to write this review which I almost never do as I usually have more important things to do, but hey, lockdown so I don't really have anything more important to do right now...
The Closer (2005)
Wow, talk about stereotypes! A well written show with an awful lead character and incredibly annoying almost constant background music.
Police Chief Brenda Johnson is portrayed as disorganised, bumbling idiot who seems to crack cases more by luck than design. The episode I've just seen shows her spending several minutes trying to reverse park a car and failing, of course, because all women are terrible drivers! *sigh* Of course her team has zero respect for her because she is an idiotic caricature, reinforcing every negative female stereotype I can think of.
As well as a dreadful lead character there is almost constant background music which is incredibly annoying, distracting and completely unnecessary. Does your average U.S. viewer really not even have the attention span to watch and listen to dialogue (which actually isn't too bad at all and to its credit, the show is well written) without needing the added stimulation of constant background music?
If you like Castle, you'll probably like this, but in my opinion this show is spoilt by the awful lead character.