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Reviews
Divinity (2023)
DISAPPOINTING EXPLORATIONAL RETRO-FUTURISTIC FLICK
This movie seemed a bit hard to rate, but not impossibly so.
Let's list the positives:
First of all--Scott Bakula and Stephen Dorff. Sad that they've aged, who who doesn't. They're still great actors. (This film doesn't seem to fit either one of them too well, for reasons outlined below.)
Second--It's B&W. Edgy, but it fits the cool desert, retro-futuristic, mid-century sci-fi vibe. All the scientific equipment looks 1960ish and the vehicle we get to see reinforces this. Oh, and casette tapes. There's ads on the telly for WW2 British commodities you can buy with ration cards (like powdered eggs). The rest seem to be steeped in sex and excess, including the most disgusting breakfast cereal commercial ever created.
Third--Cool, mid-century avant-garde desert palace homes. The scientist's lair sort of blends into the rock outcroppings. Not my taste, but this is unique. His brother's home is a boxy, glass affair in the middle of the desert plain, also of similar provenance.
Now for the negatives:
This film had really bad dialogue and the plot was all chopped up. Imagine a bad mortal kombat, stop-motion fight sequence, gratuitous violence, scene progression that makes no sense, bizarre and unclear moties and other movie tropes thrown in together. It doesn't seem to hold up.
Later, I discovered that aside from the basic plot outline, there was NO script (imagine that) and it doesn't feel like the actors were actually directed too closely at all.
It's avante-garde and experimental and throwback. Interesting CGI effects where leotard clad women sort of appear into the landscape (bones first) and then carry off fertile women to join their cult to 'save' humanity. That was cool, but strange.
The basic premise is that an immortality serum engineered by the scientist's father and perfected by his son has so thoroughly corrupted the world that everyone lives for pleasure. Oh, and it sterilises all the women who take it. Not a great plan.
Scientist decides to ratchet it up to not only grant immortality, but to dial back the clock and grant eternal youth for those who aged prior to the original serum. It has a dark side to how it's produced.
Can't figure out who the dream girls or the semi-supernatural brothers are supposed to be, either, but the brothers took on human bodies and then gave them up. They give the pleasure-girl a mental enema so she can see stars and her eyes can light up, too. She's pure, so she gets 'saved' by dream girl cult and bears a tree with living sausages all the girls in dream girl cult seem to love. The father is apparently one of the supernatural brothers who fell in love with her and with being human. There's lots of sex in this film and most of it is kinda' gross. Scientist's brother is a body-builder and has a body-builder 'companion' and a body-builder servant who fawns over him and seems to have an electric-shock fetish. Truly bizarre character development.
Old doc becomes an incredible hulk because the supernatural brothers force-feed him his new serum to punish him (or 'free' him, they can't seem to make up their minds).
Everything comes to a head on the scientist's birthday and it gets really gross and nasty.
One word: disappointing.
Boss Level (2020)
PROPER MOVIE WITH A GREAT PLOT, GREAT EFFECTS, PLENTY OF FIGHT SCENES...AND A REAL HERO FOR A CHANGE
Didn't know what to expect from this flick. Frank Grillo and Mel Gibson were in it, so I thought maybe it would be a Special Forces kind of foray into Sy-Fy with a 'Ground-Hog Day' twist. ( Naomi Watts as the heroine kind of pulled me in, finally. She shares a certain competent, caring, but hard-edged quality that Nicole Kidman has. )
After trying to watch two other bad movies, I finally clicked it on. Pleasantly surprised, I was.
This film has a real hero who repeatedly sacrifices himself to get at the truth of things, so save his family and possibly the world. Great acting from everyone, even from the over-the-top bad guy assassins and the supporting actors.
The special effects were spot on and the fight and action sequences were well-choreographed, especially the sword fight at Evil HQ with Guan Yin and Roy Pulver. I'm thinking Frank Grillo did all his own stunts, so he was probably pretty beat up at the end of the month-long shooting.
This deserves a 9-star rating and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to watch a good Sy-Fy action flick with some dark humour and a really good plot.
And...it's nice to see something that's not trying to shove social narratives down our throats. Holly-Weird is still capable of producing really good movies.
Yearly Departed (2020)
COMEDY'S DEPARTED
I thought comedy was supposed to be funny.
Sarah Silverman seems to suck the life out of comedy ( and pretty much everything else she takes a stab at ). Enough said about her.
This was so bad that Hollyweird just make a sequel v2.0 so they could rub our noses in it all over again...as if the past two years we've endured weren't bad enough all by themselves. A real comedy wind-up for the year would have at least permitted us some gallows humour relief--but NO. I think they actually just want us to feel even more miserable about things. ( Kudos to them: mission accomplished. )
I remember when comedy was about making wry observations and pointing out the flaws of yourself, other people, society and current events in a humorous way. Apparently that's now completely given way to disgusting comments, woke preachiness and toxic ideological ramblings that leave no room for laughing at yourself or others--with room to grow and connect.
Humour left the room a long time ago.
Lost Child (2017)
AMAZING FILM WITH AMAZING PERFORMANCES
I gave this movie 9 stars. It really is just that good in every way. ( There's only a handful I gave 10 stars, such as Dark City and 2001: A Space Odyssey ).
The script was amazing, the dialogue utterly true and believable. Each character was fully fleshed and all the actors gave wonderful performances. This was a very well researched film, as well.
Jim Parrac is a great actor and ever since I first saw him ( in Supernatural ), he's always done a great job. Landon Edwards, as the 'lost boy', Cecil, was just spectacular and Leven Rambin, in the lead role as Fern Sreaves, was excellent. I'm not familiar with her work, but evidently she cut her teeth on Daytime Soaps and has done other TV series. She's one to watch, now.
The sub-story--one where people are trapped by their superstitions and preconceptions and then must learn truer things to rise above them--is actually an ascendant theme, masterfully woven in an out of the rest of the human drama and regional realities.
This is one of the best films I've seen, and just has one small mistake...which also turned out to be a plot device:
I recognised the paw-paw flowers from the orchard when Cecil picked some off the trees for her. She smelt them and seemed to like the scent. Paw-Paw fruit does taste great, but the plants themselves kind of reek. The flowers are pollinated by flies and beetles because they smell like rotten meat ( if they smell at all which in newer varieties they do not ). Some people do have violent allergic reactions to the plant and some people just cannot eat the fruit at all. Had the doctor in town not initially diagnosed her with a 'virus' and then immediately declared the Cecil was a fairy child sucking the life out of her, then he might have investigated further, ordered tests and realised she was just sensitive to the plant.
Pay the Ghost (2015)
PAY SARAH AND PUT NICK IN A CAGE
Sarah Wayne Callies was brilliant in this film...and that was about the only thing I liked. Without her, this film would have only rated 3 instead of 4 stars. She spun a completely believable persona as a strong mother who just her son kidnapped.
Nicholas Cage played his usual role with his usual frenetic, but strangely incoherent and weird movie personality. If he doesn't kick out all the stops and if he doesn't have a good script with lots of kick-arse action... watching one of his flicks is like cleaning the bathroom--it's gotta' be done and you gotta' pay attention, but you'd rather be doing just about anything else. Now for the various plot elements:
1. The strange Celtic celebration at the old church doesn't seem researched all too well and wow, how convenient that an aging school-marm they immediately meet just happens to be an expert on how to retrieve kidnapped kids from the ghost...but only if they do it within the next hour-and-a-half.
2. The medium that goes to their home just happens to get supernaturally murdered because she got too close to the truth, along with a historian at the university, but lots of other people hot on the trail doesn't seem to be in any sort of danger. The ghost isn't paying attention maybe or was taking a nap at the timer, perhaps.
4. That blind 'psychopomp' guide homeless wise guy at the hobo encampment inside the abandoned building...kind of detracted from the plot. (Everything happened way too conveniently and just on time and all the players just happened to know exactly what to do. Yeah, seems a bit too contrived.)
3. ¿ Why couldn't the casting director find any young kids who could act ?
Being (2019)
NOT BEING KIND
Not even Ben Browder or Lance Hendrikson could save this drek. The dialogue was stilted, the storyline was hard to follow and none of the Local LEOs or the FibEYEs were written credibly. ¿ What was this 'being' ? ¿ Was it extraterrestrial, a daemonic or angelic entity, a faerie...or just a poorly written, poorly executed, amorphous plot device that was mis-engineered to confuse us even more ?
The 'family' dynamic was just as bewildering. Maybe the people gathered together at the house and the pastor and sheriff were a mix half-brothers, step-brothers and true brothers, but it really was difficult to piece it all together. One father had apparently died and maybe the other side of the family was trying to strong-arm the sale of his house. One brother had been 'disappeared' for six ( 6 ) years by the faeries / ETs / daemons and then 'un-disappeared' a coupla' days before the movie starts. ( Even HE doesn't seem to know what this 'Being' is and can't talk to it anyway. ) There's also the elder half-brother / step-brother / full-brother who seems to be a religious fanatic and starts shooting at anything that moves...with the pretext of setting bear-traps for 'raccoons' in the barn that sets off the mayhem. At the very end of the film, Ben Browder's FBI Agent character turns out to be a G-Man operative and is being directed by his handler much higher up the food chain to 'resolve the threat'. Sounds more like an ET intrusion, after all, but it's all just too difficult to make sense of. The cheating wife is found in a field apparently spiritually possessed ( she was spouting some sort of New Age bullcrap earlier in the movie with her eyes rolled up into her skull ). She was found next to her dead husband, where they'd dumped him after he got shot.
I like the premise for this movie--really, I do. It's a good conceit and theme for a good movie. Unfortunately, good ideas don't automatically make good movies and this movie just tanked.
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH SUPERHERO MOVIES
This film was all flash, all glitz, all special effects and all unbelievable and endless fight scenes. It also lasted FOREVER. In other words...perfect for 15 year old boys hopped up on energy drinks and bored stupid who need a release from endless video games and being shot down by unobtainable females.
Watched it because of insomnia and didn't realise it would last OVER FOUR HOURS, but after an hour, wanted to see it through. This also seemed to be written by the population demographic it was aimed at.
Forget science, forget physics, forget interpersonal dynamics and just 'suspend' all disbelief whilst watching it and you'll probably be OK.
I have a couple questions:
1) ¿ When did Ben Affleck become so stupid and dull and was he on pain meds during the filming ?
2) ¿ Why is a seasoned, professional actor like Jeremy Irons associated with this awful crap ? If it was purely for the money, I have to say that he was the only thing about this film that I liked. and this is the only reason it even got two ( 2 ) stars outta' me. His Alfred was entirely believable and a breath of pure oxygen in what was otherwise a funeral pyre to all Superhero films.
Of course, the only other matter was the obligatory WOKE insertions ( and intrusions ) into this 'experience'. So perfectly tiresome--but inescapable--at this point.
This should be named 'Zack Snyder's INJUSTICE League'.
Contactee (2021)
INTERMINABLE
This movie was interminable. I could only watch about 35 minutes before I finally killed it. The vacation 'cabin' is nice, some of the other kitchen and living interiors shown are nifty, high-style urban design and the Pacific-Northwest woods are spectacular. BUT...wooden, unbelievable acting, unimpressive laptop 'interference' that's supposed to reference 'otherworldly' activity and the slow, dull, plodding pace and weak premise don't make for a positive viewing experience. Interminable.
The Alchemist Cookbook (2016)
DRUG-ADDLED BRAIN DAMAGE PACKED LOOSELY IN A FULL-LENGTH MOVIE
A meth-head makes a movie about a meth-head, starring a meth-head playing a meth-head. Oh, there's a rotting trailer, a beat-up copy of a book about summoning daemons and the plot-line suggests he take a clumsy swipe at it. A drug-addict cooking up meth in a trailer ? How'd we get from that to Alchemy ? This ain't 'Breaking Bad'...but it is badly broken. Giving this piece of drek a '1' is being generous.
Skylines (2020)
ANOTHER FORMULAIC HACK JOB
I was quite disappointed with this flick. Rhona Mitra didn't have a real role, so her character was basically throw-away. Alexander Siddig gave the worst performance of his life ( he usually has an excellent screen presence ). The lead character was a 'Mary Sue' with glowing eyes and a weird killing hand ornament. The script didn't hold together. The character development was essentially non-existent. Too many movie tropes thrown in for no apparent reason. Lots and lots of bad acting. The film relied on lots of ugly special effects , but too many scenes were nearly black. One strange fight scene to another and a martial arts duel thrown in that made no sense and was completely unrealistic. The main driving force of the movie seemed to be deciding when stuff was going to start glowing blue or glowing red. The first Skyline movie was quite good. The second was OK. This one totally bit the dust. The ONLY thing I liked about this movie was Jonathan Howard. How is this boyo not an A-List actor ?
Monochrome: The Chromism (2019)
I FEEL KINDA' MONOCHROME ABOUT THIS ONE
Interesting concept. Been done before--and better. ( Pleasantville this ain't ).
Nice way to find work for a bunch of iron man bodybuilders and extras, but doesn't really hang, the script sucked and if it wasn't for trite over-acting, there wouldn't be any.
Low budget ? If the budget were any lower...it would all be in black-and-white.
H.P. Lovecraft: Two Left Arms (2013)
INCOMPREHENSIBLE & INCOMPREHENSIBLY DISAPPOINTING
I toughed this one out and watched the entire movie. WHY !? There was no single, understandable plotline and nothing made sense. The dialogue also shuttled back and forth between heavily accented English and Italian without benefit of subtitles. None of the characters were either well-developed or particularly believable and the scenes kept changing with astonishing irregularity; I could never figure out what was going on. Bad shooting, bad script, bad acting. At lease, if they were shooting in the Italian countryside, they could have given us some beautiful shots of architecture and local scenery. Unfortunately, aside from a couple quick shots inside a generic church, everything was drab, decayed and downright ugly. We were also offered up the obligatory quick shot of Paolo Stella's wee-willie-winkie. Again...WHY !? The only barely suggestive Lovecraftian element in this drek is the strange suggestion of cephalopod tentacles in silhouette towards the end. If throwing an odd tentacle or two into a movie is all it takes to claim connexion to H.P. Lovecraft, then I get more horror fare and satisfaction every time I go to the marina and order calamari and fried octopus. The only reason I couldn't give this movie a perfect zero is because the ratings system on IMDB ? It doesn't have a basement.
Synchronic (2019)
GREAT CONCEPT, BEWILDERINGLY AWFUL PRODUCT
This was a highly original film with a great concept. Unfortunately, every aspect of the production fell quite short of the mark.
Jamie Dornan seemed a bit bewildered and never seemed to be able to deliver his lines believably, but this was fine since the script was just awful. None of the characters were believable and their dialogue was stilted and unnatural.
Low budget shouldn't mean low quality; this should just be an opportunity to get creative and do more with less. Sadly...they managed to do less with less.
The sole exception was the development of Anthony Mackie's character, Steve. He came across as genuine, even if the circumstances of the story were bizarre: ( In the Antebellum South, people didn't look or act as they were portrayed here, for starters. Blue-eyed White folk didn't live in Louisiana during the Ice Age and Louisiana was NOT an Arctic wasteland populated by wandering mammoths ). The other characters were all throw-aways and I could care less what happened to any of them.
I would like to see this concept redone with better actors, delivering better lines and with much more attention to detail.
This was disappointing. There was one thing nagging me after I watched the film and I just now realised what it was: whatever happened to that damned shaggy dog, because I DID care what happened to it.
In the Shadow of the Moon (2019)
In the Shadow of the Moon...deserves to stay in the shadows
The poster for the movie shows a shot of Boyd Holbrook which makes him look vaguely South Asian and dark skinned. That's your first clue. As soon as I started watching, the true purpose of this film oozed out like melted brains (the calling card of the murders). No subtlety here at all. The story--in a nutshell--is about a cross-time causality and a White cop's struggle to seek justice on the surface, but this is a thin vehicle for the actual purpose of this film: social justice multiculturalism and Leftist indoctrination. Central to the plot is the notion that some ideas mustn't ever be allowed to exist and that wiping out the people who have this 'Wrong-Think' is somehow justified. Instead of sending back an agent to just shot these folks to prevent an future American Civil War, the script-writer introduces a highly-convoluted technical bit of mayhem: the assassin injects them with a glowing blue goo that a Silicon Valley Technark in the future activates to melt their brains (he practices on pigs first in the present). Seems a bit unnecessary and stupid, doesn't it? Also the plot conceit of having the Moon in phase every 9 years to 'permit' time travel because of gravitational irregularities? Ridiculous. Seems forced, like they liked the title so much they just had to include it. Of course, all the victims are White and the implication is that they are drug-addled rebel inbreds worthy of extermination for no other reason than that. The keystone is the inter-racial marriage of the protagonist cop's daughter and his mulatto grand-daughter turning out to be the assassin. His partner is Black and the blue-goo creator/scientist is a very dark skinned South Asian. If you like weak science, weaker dialogue and stunningly pedestrian performances (even by Boyd Holbrook and Michael C. Hall)--and great heaping dollops of brain-melting gore and Leftist Indoctrination then--by all means--force yourself to watch this drek...and hope your brain doesn't start melting, too.
Overlord (2018)
COMPLETELY INACCURATE AND COUNTER-FACTUAL
Truthfully, I could only watch the first ten minutes of this film. From the very first scene, I realised we would be subjected to a gross rewrite of history. If you have a historical fiction narrative, it need to hew to actual history enough to be believable.
If one is creating a set piece within a wartime conflict, one has a duty to history to make the background and the circumstances real. We were immediately challenged to believe that there were American paratroopers landing at Normandy...with an African American commanding the plane full of paratroopers and another African American as a paratrooper in that unit.
To be sure, one million African Americans did service during World War II...in segregated units only and frequently only in logistics and supply functions. This is one primary reason why only 700 to 800 African American military personnel lost their lives during World War II.
The film-makers 'reset' history to show a scenario more typical of the Vietnam War, when troops and command functions were quite happily mixed.
After ten minutes, I paused the movie, then chequed the poster, which showed Black soldiers, White Soldiers and Female Soldiers all busily engaged in what would prove to be merely another frightfully sanitised, integrated and 'woke' Holly-Weird fiasco.
No. No thank you, very very much.
Superstition (2017)
A pathetic riff on Supernatural starring a wonderful actor
Mario Van Peebles is one of the most under-appreciated actors of the past 20 years. Unfortunately, he chose this series to make a comeback of sorts.
This series is an attempt to piggyback on Supernatural. Even the name of the TV show is a riff on Supernatural. They even make reference to 'Sam and Dean' 10 minutes into the show as they throw Sonny Spoon's weapons into the boot of their classic car.
This feels like an attempt to make an 'authentically' Black version of Supernatural for no other reason than there somehow should be one. I watched 15 minutes of the show and the last five minutes I was basically forcing myself to do so.
Most newer TV series simply don't work for one reason or another--lower production standards, bad acting, bad script-writing or stupid premise. Rarely do you see one that meets all four criteria of awful.
I'm vetoing this one, Mario Van Peebles or no....