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Reviews
Control (2022)
A fun premise spoiled by abysmal, breathtakingly stupid writing
The dialogue is so transparently contrived you cannot take seriously that a human being, let alone a pair of them, could possibly be so deliberately unhelpful, obfuscating and unreasonable.
Reminiscent of The Cube but infinitely less self-aware, bluntly, the writing is too stupid to allow even the most credulous of audiences to enjoy the premise.
The performances are emotionally convincing, and camera work is laudable given the budget, nothing can save the film from writing so disingenously unlike a real person. You spend the entire time frustrated that the characters won't utter a single coherent sentence. Beyond that, the exposition is blunt and choppy, the characters' decisions make no sense, the emotionality feels like the writer has never actually met a human being.
No decision in the entire film, either by the characters, writer or driector make any sense. It's incoherent from opening to close.
Just a disasterous waste of decent acting and a potentially interesting idea.
Being Canadian (2015)
Terrible, insulting, shallow.
This "documentary" is a parade of inferiority complexes that belong to the idiosyncrasies of comedians that drive them to do comedy and not to Canadians. It was deprecating to the point of absurdity, made no sincere attempts to answer any of it's questions and didn't dare to tread near a critical answer except by accident when a few of our more philosophically minded celebrities happened upon an thoughtful answer. I was embarrassed and angered to have watched this, it felt like a mean-spirited American mockumentary about Canada.
It completely elided our native population, was wildly dismissive of our French population, and, frankly, displayed Alberta's particular brand of narcissism.
Again, I was embarrassed to have watched this episode of One Guy Musing About His Personal Inadequacies and flabbergasted that he dared to present it as representing an entire country. Literally, shame on Mr. Cohen for this lazy pastiche of clichés presented in exaggerations of their worst framing.