amh-98307 Reviews

Roma (2018)

Pointless "life was hard" tale

[2/10 · 10 February 2019]

As a Mexican-American, I am always happy to see other Latinos succeeding--but we can do better than this. This film is about the life of women in the 70's in semi-rural mexico--hard, little options, often dictated by the whims of men. And, nothing much else. I suppose that for those that have little knowledge of challenges women would face in Mexico at that time, it may be groundbreaking. In fact, that's the only way I could make sense of this winning so many awards. But as I found nothing shocking, it was a waste of time to watch. Boring, such basic character development, and only paints the women as victims with some slight autonomy at some points. Skip it.

Ingrid Goes West (2017)

I cringed the whole time!

[9/10 · 31 July 2018]

This film is not a light fluffy take on social media addiction--it gets creepy and heavy at times, but through a darkly comedic lens. The characters have complexity and depth, and have sympathetic qualities without being blameless. It is very relatable to younger generations, and shows how damaging taking social media personas so seriously can be.

My only quibble is I wish the characters' epiphanies could have been more fleshed out. 10 stars go out to O'Shea Jackson, who gave such relief with his absolutely lovable character.

A Prayer Before Dawn (2017)

Like an extended episode of Banged Up Abroad

[6/10 · 31 July 2018]

This movie's visuals and acting we were done, at an Thai actual prison no less, but it was a bit thin on substance. I saw that it was based on a true story so I expected something truly exceptional to have happened, but I was ultimately a bit let down. Basically it's just what you'd expect if you've seen an episode of "Banged Up Abroad" in a third world country. Not the most interesting film but I suppose shocking if you're completely oblivious to how some poor parts of the world work. There are some good parts and characters that make it better than average.