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michaelfarkas-74190
Reviews
Kodachrome (2017)
Same exact movie that we've all seen before, except worse casting and acting
The movie would have been fine if that same movie hadn't been made every odd numbered year since the beginning of time.
I'll mark it for spoilers as a courtesy, but you cannot possibly use this site and not know how this movie goes.
I got to about six minutes in and called the plot, point for point, the rest of the movie and didn't miss one. To the point of even calling lines before they happened.
Typical pathway for this style of film:
Tough break for main character.
Uh oh, dad is dying!
"I don't like my dad!"
Barely plausible scenario to team up with him and a love interest (to the film's credit, they laid out the whole movie in one 30 second conversation)
Old man vs son road trip where they look at the world slightly differently, woooooo oooooo
Absolutely not subtle love connection between younger leads
"Sage" advice from old man ends up saving son's problem (until the father, who for some reason is also backstage at a huge concert with his nurse, pisses it away)
Male/female bang
Uh oh, dad is even closer to dying, better hurry!
Dad has his last moment in the sun...***** off.
Son loses girl for almost an entire scene.
"OMG, he did love me after alllllllllllllllllll...ooooooooooohhhh"
Girl returns to complete the "all characters love the protagonist" circle
Ugh, yuck...I mean, sure if they made this film first or second in like 1922 or something...it would have been more than fine. But this is like the 10,000th time this exact movie has been played out except the casting and, in turn, acting in this are rough-at-best (Sudeikis as an a-hole? Ed Harris - who is ****** ripped - as a dying cancer patient in his final days? Are you guys ****** high?) so there was exactly nothing interesting or even remotely gripping about one thin second of this...yuck...
Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee (2022)
I'm surprised that Netflix put their name on this attempt at a "Making of..." a fake documentary
This isn't really a documentary, as it's founded on lies. It's also not *really* a crime story, because it's hard to tell if anyone is actually chasing the subject for any alleged crimes.
John McAfee has already skipped town by the start of this. He allegedly kills his neighbor and then wants to move away. Vice sends these two incompetent boobs to follow his escape from the law - which is exactly what you don't want when running across international borders, possibly ducking a murder charge, is a "film" "crew"...both terms are charitably used in this case.
For trying to be a fugitive, there's a lot of documentation, exact coordinates, and announcing what a fugitive he is to anyone who will listen (18 year old hookers to wig shop flunkies). Which makes sense, because even those who can suspend disbelief for these kinds of things is asking questions about the veracity of this about 25 minutes in. By the halfway point, you just go, "oh, this is all made up." While the vice guys continue to make it about themselves - despite how uninteresting and slack-jawed they are (no one surprised you man, the best interviewee outfit you had was overalls? Stop it.) - this other also-ran comes along in the form of a ghostwriter. He ends up having pathetically superficial sound bytes while being blissfully aloof to his subject...so he's just as worthless as the vice clowns. One of which goes, "someone told me I take a nice picture" while detailing his life - irrelevantly, as the film isn't about him - but that's not obvious considering how poorly this is all shot. I've seen better cinematography and production value when Bob Saget was voicing over confused children on America's Funniest Home Videos.
For Netflix to try to stretch this over 100 minutes is more daring than anything revealed in the mock doc (I guess?). There's really nothing appealing here other than it's a story I've never heard before - but then you realize it's mostly fake, and all you have is an old drug abuser who is on a long bender but has no interesting friends.
Pig (2021)
Oink! The only redeeming thing about this movie is off-screen for 98% of it
*Nothing but spoilers*
I've seen both Inception and Night at the Roxbury in theatres and this is the worst movie I've ever paid to see. The movie starts out like Taken, but dressed down into an indie film with an incredible A/V budget. Adorable pig with a nearly unrecognizable, homeless Nicolas Cage roaming the forest for truffles. Cage never gets the chance to be over-the-top "Nic Rage" with the relatively few words he mumbles out, so he makes up for it by looking like he's been living on a garbage barge for the last ten years with a series of giant, constantly-open wounds all about his face and head.
Cue the beginning of the dreadful performance turned in by Amir (Alex Wolff). A failed mock-up of a city slicker, while attempting the punchy commentary of Roman Roy from Succession. The writing does him no favors and he still finds enough screen time to undercut that. Amir buys truffles from the crotchety Robin "Rob" Feld (Cage) who lives in a unabomber-style shack in the woods - but yet the buyer is surprised that the obviously-pungent Feld doesn't want to make small talk (The "good talk" line after a slammed door, woo! Cutting edge stuff there...it's a shame the camera didn't pan out and have a bunch of birds fly away too).
Anyway...random strangers break in, steal the pig - even though it's very clear that Feld sells these to the marketplace openly already. So, Feld hitches a ride in Amir's fancy car and, uh oh, mismatched buddy crime film! Look out for these guys, they're different and out of their element...but not really!
Feld mutters "I just want my pig back" about six times in seven lines with slightly different backdrops. He creates a quick manic episode for a local highly-regarded chef - who somehow recognizes Feld, despite not being in the game for 15 years. Then Feld navigates his way into an underground fight club for restaurant workers (yeah...). I guess they're winking at the notion that being a high-end chef is really hard...but this is ground that Gordon Ramsay has long covered (I paid $16 to see this, I'm an idiot sandwich, chef Ramsay).
Predictably, they end up at Amir's father - Darius (Adam Arkin) who has a "final boss" aura but with none of the exposition or context (or interest) that one normally has. Darius offers Feld a bunch of money to just leave him the pig and get on his way. Feld says his catch phrase. Bam. Stalemate. Feld then texts Amir a shopping list of things to get - including a specific wine...from a cemetery (why?) where Feld's wife is buried (why/how?).
*Food cooking montage*
The only three non-pig characters eat dinner together. Darius starts crying after - like - the third bite for some reason. Feld tells him that he remembers ever meal he's ever cooked for every person ever (so...Taken meets Rain Man...?). Then Darius tells Feld that the pig is dead due to injuries sustained in the pig-napping. Feld cries for a minute and then he's cool with it. He goes home and plays audio cassette tapes of dates he had with his wife (why/how?) and we never know what her role is or what happened to her or who she is really - at all. Amir sleeps in the driver's seat of his car at a diner in rural Oregon (why?) and then, uhh, that's it...
tl;dr: Cage wants his pig back, makes dinner, and moves on.
For the people that are straining and contorting themselves to make this obvious hoax of a movie into a thinkpiece - I assume you have bid on that "Invisible Sculpture" as well. Keep fighting the good fight. Everyone finds you so deep and interesting.