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Reviews
Stalingrad - Mythos einer Schlacht (1992)
Don't bother
Once again I got sucked into watching garbage on The Roku Channel. I have always been interested in the battle for Stalingrad so this looked interesting. I was soooo wrong.
1. The first 2/3 of this movies is a travelogue shot by a young German soldier describing his trip from France to Stalingrad. The 8mm home movies are the only thing keeping me from a one star review because at least it was new, even though it was intensely boring and had nothing to do with the battle.
2. This first part has a sound track of German oompah music played on a loop just in case you have forgotten how bad it is. And you can't mute it because there are no subtitles.
3. The last third of this move is just a mishmash of newsreel footage of the battle (or other battles) with no explanation of what is going on, just lots of shots of cannons firing, rockets being launched and tanks driving through the snow. It's like they dumped the footage in a blender and spliced together the result. You will learn NOTHING about the battle.
So if you want to watch some home movies about traveling to Stalingrad go ahead. Otherwise skip it entirely.
Where does the Roku channel find this crap? This is the third thing they've advertised that was absolute garbage. I won't get sucked in again.
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities: The Outside (2022)
Waste of talent
Kate Micucci and. Martin Starr are amazing actors whose talents are completely wasted in this overlong, over-preachy, badly paced story. The point trying to be made (the cosmetics industry preying on vulnerable people's insecurities) is made in about 5 minutes and then the rest is just hammering it home over and over and over. This whole episode could have easily fit into a 15 minute segment of "Night Gallery". This had me reaching for the fast forward about 10 minutes in. It really suffers compared to other episodes of this show. Skip this one and re-watch "The Autopsy" or "Lot 36" as a better use of your time.
Archive 81 (2022)
Too many unanswered questions
In general I enjoyed this series. The acting was OK but not fantastic, the cinematography was good and the pacing mostly fine (it drags a bit in the middle).
But here are some unanswered questions that really bothered me:
1. Is Calego good or bad? A benevolent deity or "force of destruction"? Is he bent on invading/conquering our world or just lonely? His treatment of the people bought into his world is generally decent and he never tries to enter ours. Why does Iris make no attempt to leave, as Annabel claims she wants to, when she had the opportunity?
2. If Samuels brother is dedicated to preventing Calegos summoning why did he either build or maintain a facility specifically designed to summon him? All he had to do was blow up the room and destroy or bury the book and it would be Adios, Calego.
3. If Dan went into the past where has he been for 13 years?
4. What happened to the other people who were involved in the summoning? Some mention was made that they were used as "psychic batteries", but did they die or cross over? All we know is they disappeared.
5. What happened to the medium? Why did she try to claw her own eyes out? If Calegos was so horrifying why did we see no sign of it?
Given how long this was they could have answered these questions and dropped some of the repetitive stuff in the middle?
Dirty John (2018)
The real stories are much more interesting
I had seen documentaries about both of the real stories and they are way more interesting.
Season 1: The mother is an imbecile and the daughters are spoiled, entitled, self-absorbed harpies. The real story is more believable. The only good part is it does a good job of showing how horrifying the experience was to the victims.
Season 2: If this were the only source of information you had you would think Betty was a saint and Dan deserved to be murdered. Not one scene shows Betty in a less than favorable way and Dan as anything but a sociopath. The real Betty Broderick was the monster, not Dan.
The acting was good but the writing completely unbelievable.
Jolt (2021)
Mostly good
I liked this move right up until the last 15 minutes. It was a pretty standard action film with an interesting premise. At the very end it just ceases to make any sense.
The Vast of Night (2019)
Why all the hate?
OK, I realize that this movie may not be everyone's cup of tea. It's mostly dialog with little action and the main character talks a mile a minute and can be hard to follow for the first few minutes. I also thought the Twilight Zone-type intro/exit really didn't add anything but for the most part it was an excellently paced gripping drama that held my attention from start to finish. For a movie done on a limited budget I thought they delivered an amazing movie. The cinematography with the long single takes and drone footage worked extremely well with the overall feel. If you want to see what a 1 Star movie looks like watch Mystery Science Theater 3000. They have a ton of them and this certainty isn't one.
A Killing in a Small Town (1990)
Hershey good, facts no so good
Barbara Hershey does an amazing job here but the movie mis-portrayed several facts from the book:
1. It showed Peggy Blankenship as physically much larger than Candy Morrison and therefore more threatening. The reverse is actually true. This substantially undercuts Candy's claim of self defense.
2. It showed the killing happening in late winter/early spring. It actually took place in June. This is important because Candy was wearing flip-flops she later destroyed to hide them from the police. This was left out completely.
Epoch: Evolution (2003)
Much worse than original
Wooden acting and a non-sensical plot kill this remake. If you like the first one, skip this. Multiple plot lines all jumble together to no satisfactory conclusions. David Keith, one of my favorites, acts like he never read the script until just before they call "Action".
Deathlands (2003)
Peaks out at mediocre
Unfortunately, this film doesn't sink to the level of truly horrendous, which would have made it much more enjoyable. The characters aspire to be cardboard cutouts but don't rate quite that high. The occasional scenery chewing actually comes as a relief. The dialogue could have been generated by a word processor set to "bland". The kingdom, or "ville", being fought over resembles an abandoned shoe factory. The henchmen, or secman as they are known, couldn't put a beat down on a sack of kittens. One of the heroes, the Armorer, looks like an accountant going to a Halloween party dressed an Indiana Jones, and is about as dangerous.
One of the only barely original touches is to kill the sound whenever there is an explosion or action sequence. After discovering I hadn't accidentally muted my TV this was interesting for 5 seconds or so, then just became annoying. The ending credits were probably the best done part of the movie.
All in all, go to your local community theater instead of watching this. It'll be time much better spent. I just don't understand how movies like this get made.
Contaminated Man (2000)
Doesn't anyone pay attention?
For God's sake people, let's try to get it right. The Weller character isn't carrying a virus or a pathogen or anything else biological and the Hurt character isn't a disease expert. Hurt plays a hazardous waste clean-up guy for the UN. Weller gets a dose of pesticide in the face that metabolizes into a chemical that causes instant fatal allergic reaction to anyone he touches.
This may seem like a trivial difference but at least it's a new idea, not just a recycling on any number of other movies, dating back at least to the Satan Bug in 1965 if not earlier. I'll pass up judging the rest of the film as everyone else has, but you've got to wonder about the validity of anyone's attention who apparently didn't pay any attention to the freakin' movie.