baresimian Reviews

The Oak Room (2020)

Nice, but overrated

[6/10 · 2 January 2024]

This movie has a lot of reviews expressing how excellent it is. Not sure why.

Basically, a guy walks into a bar with a bartender behind the bar. They have some bad blood between them so one guy starts telling the other a story about a childhood experience. It's well-written and very "atmospheric", but honestly not very interesting. Then he tells another story that's also "atmospheric", but (purposefully) incomplete. The 2 guys argue some more, then the other guy tells a kinda sad story, then the first guy tells another story that completes his second story which sort of ties everything together. All the while there's intermittent shots of snow falling from the night sky and someone driving a car with gloves on and smoking. There's a couple of minutes of intense and implied violence.

The cinematography is not astounding, pretty much the entire movie takes place in two dive bar rooms. The soundtrack was appropriate, but nothing to write home about.

Overall, I give a rating of "meh". It's not something that I would watch again or recommend anyone else to watch. It's an okay, slightly interesting movie, but at the end of the day I didn't really care much about what happens to the characters. For what it is, it's well-made, just not particularly interesting.

Thunderbird (2021)

Good try

[5/10 · 29 November 2023]

It seems like they were trying to tell a couple of different stories here. There's the whole kidnapping thing and then the Native American mythology angle and the hallucinations. I feel like they were trying to communicate something deep and profound, but it seriously misses the mark.

The cinematography is beautiful and the score is appropriate, the acting is very good. But so much of nothing happens for the first two-thirds of the film as the protagonist searches for his sister. The ending feels like it should be deeply meaningful, but it's just kinda "meh".

Not a bad movie for a rainy afternoon if can't decide between a movie and a nap, but you're leaning towards the nap.

Cloverfield (2008)

Wuuut???

[4/10 · 30 August 2023]

Creature attacks New York (because aliens and monsters just can't seem to resist The Big Apple). Twenty-something's are forced to abandon relationship angst and run for their lives. But one dude has to go back into the city that's being decimated to search for his ex-girlfriend. AND for some reason all of his friends think that it's a good idea to go back with him! What?? Although the movie starts with a good premise, it fails to explain why the group keeps making dumber and dumber decisions. The special effects were pretty good, but the ridiculous decisions the characters keep making make this a movie you can skip.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

BORING!

[3/10 · 24 October 2022]

Cannot figure out why so many people are loving on this movie. The original Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies. The universe created there was amazing and plausible. This one? Not so much. Lots of reviews here comment on the visuals and the score. True, both added to the atmospherics of the movie, but. . . IT WAS A SNOOZER! Plot uninteresting and fails to hook the viewer into rooting for the protagonist as the original did. Had to stop myself from falling asleep a few times. And seriously, the movie has hundreds of actors and extras: why is almost everyone white? Did some plague hit future Los Angeles and wipe out all of the black, brown and Asian people? Not really sure why most of the positive reviews don't seem to notice that. And that might even be something to overlook if this was an awesome and engaging flick, but it's not. If you can stream it for free maybe watch it on a cold or rainy afternoon when it doesn't matter if you fall asleep.

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

No. No. No.

[3/10 · 18 September 2022]

This was supposed to be a western horror, but it was way more western than horror and not particularly good at being either.

It starts out promisingly with some old-fashioned western brutality when these unknown things show up and dispatch some brutality of there own. So far, so good. Then a stable hand is gutted by some mysterious creatures in the middle of the night and a few people get kidnapped from the town, so it feels like everything is about to begin.

Except it doesn't.

For almost an hour and a half we tag along with a small rescue party walking through the wilderness and basically getting to know each other. No horror is in sight.

There's some gruesome stuff towards the end, but nothing that could actually be called scary. It wasn't a bad movie so much as it felt kind of pointless. I was bored for most of it and the goriness at the end really couldn't make up for it. This wouldn't be a bad movie to have playing in the background while you do your taxes or something. But until tax season rolls around, I'd recommend you skip it.