benjaminlupton Reviews

Civil War (2024)

Melodrama

[2/10 · 30 May 2024]

Four journalists (the cautious one, the seasoned one, the cocky one, the newbie one) make their way to the eastern white house to interview the president, while western forces advance as the backdrop for this melodrama.

If you expected Cloverfield style action from the trailer, you will be disappointed; it has even less action, subtext, and drama than The Purge series. Every scene feels like watching actors dry like paint in a tiny confined and contrived set box. There is no larger than life scale, no sense of scale beyond the immediate set where you could walk an inch and notice the crew and their caravans. Even low budget movies like Monsters (2010) a film also about journalists during a war, packs more punch and scale and even subtext than this movie with a fraction of the budget and only a handful of crew.

This is an abysmal remake of Monsters (2010) that lacked everything good, rewritten to sell tickets for American audiences with the only plot points being the tropes of journalists don't have souls, and the West representing the brotherhood of mankind, conquers the East, once again.

Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe (2023)

Brilliant comedy

[9/10 · 15 December 2023]

One of the best comedies I've ever seen. Every single moment is a face palm. Every character is a quack. The journalist found the goldmine.

We have a black American who thinks her blackness is loneliness while believing every person is lonely and depressed, the irony and offence escapes her. We have a taro reading transgender woman who is obsessed a conservative man, again the irony.

What they all share in common, is that they all identify as "spiritual" people who believe in "energies" and believe that with enough obsession (choosing love) then their idol (twin flame) will reciprocate their obsession and they'll manifest each other as each other's super spiritual soul mates who will complete each other, all by paying a monthly subscription that they can't afford, and delegating their autonomy to some cult leaders, who they worship because the leaders embrace their cashcows, are attentive, and speak the same mumbo jumbo the subjects believe but with conviction instead humility; which for people who only have the facade of confidence, means and is the world to them.

They are moths who are drawn to the flame, and then blame the flame. Don't be a moth, and you won't worship the flame. Don't idolise, and you won't worship false idols. Don't believe everyone is secretly flawed like you, and you'll start becoming someone worth being.

Dear Evan Hansen (2021)

So much potential

[1/10 · 11 July 2022]

I had so much hope for this movie, after the brilliant first act, covering the problem. There was so much brilliantly done, we had tremendous self and societal awareness that is so rare, sincere character tension and situational tension. The problem: students and adults, all feel alone behind the avatars they carry, and never truly understood by their personifications (the noise vs signal in understanding someone, even ourselves, generated by difference between observing and being).

The second act, covering the initial solution and its test, felt as though possibly deliberately as if a magical soap opera, where the solution to alienation is to grandstand and profiteer our own causes on the grave of a dead kid, whose personal narrative is reinvented for social narratives; where courage is medication, honour is lying, and strength is weakness. You are left watching this act in disbelief! There are only a few inklings of foreshadowing into its hopeful unravelling (such as the mishap with the electric saw in removing the cast, yet his uncovered arm appearing unharmed).

The third act, the unraveling, is finally where the humanity of the movie comes alive again. Adults are shown as flawed yet powerful, children are shown as momentous yet misguided, and we are left eagerly longing to what conclusions it will draw from its still dangling threads.

The fourth act, the rebuilding, we see the characters finally try to understand the dead kid from his own point of reference, rather than our own; we see the mother and son rekindling their relationship (although jaw drop how we are meant to believe the mother knew his son has no friends, sent him to therapy for years, was concerned for his wellbeing, yet somehow is aloof that her son is depressed!), however no other character has a rebuild; what about the connor project grifters, what about the girl's family and their interpersonal deceptions. Despite this, social satirical pieces are scattered within, such as the girl who professed she likes him for him, who dumps him immediately upon unveiling himself.

The fourth act, the conclusion, shows us that they must have run out of budget or the editor killed the alternative plotlines, as the conclusions left are terrible, in that they perpetuate many of the terrors that are still left dangling by the end. The boy and girl wish they only met now, atop the memorial built upon grandstanding and exploitation and grift, and we are told it's beautiful. The morale of this movie is lie, deceive, and exploit but do it calculatedly; will sharing a suicide note get you the extra social credit and donations, then do it; will lying get you temporary girlfriend, then do it; hide yourself and take meds to function in sickening social norms, sure, go for it, you can do a philanthropy grift to offset your shame.

I just hope they ended the film with as much self awareness and ambition as it started. "Pretty Persuasion", "Excision", "Druid Peak", "Breakfast Club" did much better with these themes.

How to Be a Billionaire (2014 TV Movie)

An hour long advert

[1/10 · 17 April 2022]

There is nothing here to better the viewer. It's just "influencer/guerrilla" marketing for those interviewed, in what seems to be an attempt to validate their whims.

Blue Valentine (2010)

Anthem for MGTOW

[8/10 · 7 February 2022]

The film is a big "wrong way go back" sign on how to avoid a completely insufferable woman, the meandering sacrifice of Dean's 20s, and the destruction of a daughters youth; all because a woman and man rebelled against their elder's cultural warnings and ultimately imitating their failures, with the woman believing sleeping around and choosing deadend loverboy is sustainable, and a man believing his love is all that is needed to usher in the utopia. It's all false hope called in for the ravens. For her to have her hypergamic fantasy, she either needed to embrace the feminine archetype and abstained investing in her wifey capital, or embraced the masculine archetype and had her tubes clamped and accept the consequences of abortion against unsuspecting swathes of wallets. Whereas he needed to enact his hypogamic fantasy in a country where the enculturation ensures marriage is for life, such that they have no recourse but to decide once and for all with the hedging of their entire life and social standing dependent upon marriage partner, rather than in the West where marriage is as whimsical as a woman's sexual partners.

Safe (1995)

Vapid

[1/10 · 10 October 2021]

If you like to spend 2 hours watching hollow characters fall into a contrived abyss at the pacing of paint drying, this is the movie for you. Those who are antisocial enough to entertain that vacuousness exists beyond our projections of personas onto persons, should receive our pity, not our budgets nor time. The film's statement of metaphysical disintegration at audacious cultic tedium is bound to be shared by viewers, allowing the film to succeed in participatory irony, at the expense of its characters, viewers, and hopefully its creators, just as Infinite Jest did to its characters, readers, and dutifully to the grave conscience of its author. Fortunately, we as people are larger than our characterisations as personas trapped in insipid plots of antisocial hoorah, and if you don't believe you are, then that's your problem.

Paris, Texas (1984)

Promising introduction, whimpering conclusion

[3/10 · 13 August 2021]

The movie starts off well, posing the question "what tragedy was so serious it could not even be spoken", and as the movie continues there are more and more hints revealed that every single character in the movie has the maturity of a child, and finally the tragedy is given words in its entirety, of which it confirms the entire movie was founded on every character being adult children; not facing anything at all that justified any of the tragedy, only their own immaturity which continues to perpetuate the tragedy even more into the future for no reason beyond arthouse tropes for arthouse accolades. If you want a movie where tragedy occurs to adults and not just adult-children then this is not the movie for you. Go watch eyes wide shut, or any lars von trier, gaspar noe, or sion sono movie which have similar feels. This movie is merely a suburban western; where woman can do no wrong, man is to blame for everything, redemption is the man coming from then returning back to the wilderness rather than ever claiming a seat in adulthood. Dream on teenagers and adult children, mature up.

BoJack Horseman (2014–2020)

Acrimony or satire, who knows

[4/10 · 26 May 2021]

This show can either be a great piece of satire of progressivism and progressives, showcasing the shallowness of their worlds and worldviews, or if watched passively then its just a way of absorbing that shallowness as sermon.

Before I Wake (2016)

Lady is a horrible person

[4/10 · 1 March 2021]

In her happy ending she revives everyone killed by the canker man except for the foster parents of who both died, and for her husband. For some reason, the two foster parents stay in limbo, and the dad who was happy with moving on with his new family is the one stuck behind in her happy ending. I get the movie is meant to be a female empowerment movie like all netflix junk, but do they have to make them so narcissistic and unpleasant, keeping your husband dead so you can be the strong independent woman on the block is deplorable. Babadook was an infinitely better execution on the mother-son horror movie. Other than that, the movie could have gotten a 6 or so, what can you expect from a progressive propaganda platform. Will need to check who has signed and produced the movie before I watch, so I don't waste my time.

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Potential was there, but bellyflopped

[3/10 · 23 February 2021]

I feel Ewan tried his best, and was let down by the director not connecting the emotion he displayed to the viewer. The friend was a great actor. The tortured boy was fantastic in that scene. Everything else just felt rushed and mediocre. Nothing registered, everything was monotone, the girl jogs from room to room while she is being chased by an axe; which is the metaphor for this movie. It jogs along to another and another room of licking vampires, sucking any ability to feel anything for the movie, as they just move from scene to scene without emotion, doing only what seems the first take every time. It seemed it had potential, but the director made some poor casting decisions and never brought any life out of the characters except the tortured boy. Just seems it is made for early teenagers who haven't experienced enough realness in life to recognise it. However, then again, apparently this is a netflix movie, and nothing on there seems real at all. Bring back movies where the characters were real. Don't just bring them back from the dead as zombies for our enjoyment as this movie did. Martyrs did a way better job, they should have got that director for this movie, that would have connected some real trauma to this story.

Palm Beach (2019)

Great movie but poor arcs

[6/10 · 29 August 2020]

The setup for this movie is great, and I wish to see more movies featuring dramas of the aged population. However, the reconciliations made no sense at all; and who was the blonde the daughter of, and was the red head Leo's blood? Why did Leo suddenly not want to be a father when the potential son had his injury. Not a single reconciliation made sense.

Lucent (2014)

Educational footage, misfitting narration

[9/10 · 25 January 2015]

I still give this 10/10 as it is a must see movie for the practices of Australia. However, when compared to Joaquin's compassionate and moving narration of Earthlings, the narration of Lucent is not compassionate and moving but sensationalised and excited, like an arrogant 60 minutes news reporter.

The movie could have been reduced by about 1/3 of the length at least. It dragged on, and the clips of the activists woven in was not fitting of the progression of the story - they could have been left out, or shown during the credit sequence as a call to action perhaps.

I just wish they did this with the editing and compassion that Earthlings followed, instead it is just like a long 60 minutes piece with more graphic footage and true events.

Despite this, it's still worth putting on for doubters of Australia's practices, as well as for informing yourself.