callalily-61774 Reviews

Rattlesnake (2019)

Boring

[4/10 · 27 October 2019]

Why do these movies keep leaving out all the interesting bits? Why did that lady appear? Why is she living in a magical trailer? Why does she do this? What does she gain? Are the souls of the people that were traded to keep the saved people alive trapped? They all appeared in that canyon. Is she drawing energy from them? Forming a ghost army? For what purpose? Unless it's a fun game to see how ethical people are (and not just a poorly fleshed out premise) I see no reason for any of this. The woman didn't seem to be helping for the sake of helping. She was benefiting somehow, but you know, why tell the audience? It's so arbitrary. Why before sundown? Why did they all care so much if she did it or not? Just to add another soul to their entourage? But why? I feel like this movie was so focused on the ethical conundrum this lady was facing that they forgot about everything else. I got to the point where I was like just kill someone already, forget ethics, this is so boring let's just get it over with. But really she should have been trying to solve this. Followed up on all those newspaper articles. Figured out what this lady wanted and how to defeat her. Or you know, just drive out of town like nothing happened. Super ethical. She tried so hard not to kill anyone, or at least anyone that wasn't already half dead or a bad person, but she's fine with this happening to people over and over again in the future.

Every Day (2018)

Could have been better.

[4/10 · 27 October 2019]

The premise was good, and there was a lot ethically to explore, and interesting perspectives this whole concept opened up. A way to see and understand people better. To determine what it is that makes you fall in love with someone. But I don't even mind the ending, in that I don't mind that they didn't end up together, as first loves. That was kind of refreshing. She could go on to live a normal life and A could have someone in his life. l do wish she had put up a bit more of a fight. Had insisted they try to find out why A is like this in the first place. He mentioned he thought he was from Arizona. That there may be others like him. If he had gone to Arizona and tried to find someone else like him, maybe he could have found his family, or answers. It's just too interesting of a thread to have left hanging. Maybe this happened to his family too so they kept him alive all this time and the medial community thinks he is just in a comma. And so he has a body to go back to. And now that he knows how to stay in a body he can go back to it. Maybe when he was a child he changed bodies before anyone could explain it to him, and then they couldn't find him. I don't know, but that's the point. It's literally the most interesting part of the whole thing, and there is nothing at all said about it. Even if he doesn't have a body I want to know if he ever did. What happened to it. Why is he like this?

Chambers (2019)

I enjoyed it

[7/10 · 27 April 2019]

I thought the acting was good, the plot was good, although it did get kinda weird by the end. Some of the plot was obvious, some over done tropes, but there was a sense of having no idea what exactly happened to Becky, and who did it (although most of my guesses ended up being correct), so it kept me guessing, and there was enough original material to make it worth the watch. I felt that the acting was good. There were one or two graphic scenes where I had to look away, but otherwise was pretty tame in that sense. The ending leaves it very open for a season 2. I could see this going too far, I feel like it would have been the perfect miniseries. I can see her grappling with if she wants to undo what was done to her because she's enjoys the power, but also a lot of plot spent on trying to undo it, and facing all the people that stand in the way of that (and are super creepy and need taken down).

Winchester (2018)

Nothing new here

[3/10 · 25 April 2019]

I have never been so bored during a "horror" movie in my entire life. It literally took me 3 days to get through this because I kept giving up and going to bed. I'd wager that's not exactly the engaging movie they were aiming for. There was an over reliance on jump scares. And not much else. I guess the ghosts looked kinda gross, but if you feel the need to add startling sound effects with each appearance, that might tell you that it isn't enough. Just basic cheap thrills. Even some of the things that might have been creepy, like the white eyes, have been done before so often that it no longer had the impact that it should have. For some reason I was anticipating an atmospheric ghost tale that was more creepy and haunting than the pitiful attempts to be scary that I was left with. And the overdone black costume that stood out for all the wrong reasons. The plot wasn't terrible, they connected the pieces of their story with the real life story in an interesting way. I thought the niece was a good actress. There isn't anything else good to say. It's such an interesting story in real life, while the movie was anything but. It could have been so much more.

If I Hadn't Met You (2018)

Ok

[4/10 · 31 March 2019]

Kind of boring. Mostly because thing seemed to drag on with footage of driving and walking etc that wasn't necessary, and repeats of whole segments leading up to a minor change. I remember what happened before, just show the change and get on with it. I mean if I had to watch that wedding scene, or hear that song, one more time I was going to loose my mind. I saw the "big reveal" coming nearly from the start. The ending was 'eh.' We know why she was there, but what was the point in sending him to alternate realities? should have just allowed him to recover and move on. He just messed up multiple realities for other versions of himself, but it was never going to change anything in his own reality. I guess he realized that he loved his version of Eliza more than any of the others, and he belonged in his own reality, but if he didn't know that going to another reality was even a possibility then he wouldn't have needed to learn that lesson in the first place. The acting was good. It always picked up near the end of each episode and I'd end up watching another, but it still felt more like a chore rather than enjoyment at times. Mostly I wanted to see if it got better, what happened, and if I was right about what happened. But it wasn't a show that captured my attention and held it till the end. I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but I wouldn't say to avoid it.

Mirage (2018)

Best movie I've seen in a long time

[10/10 · 26 March 2019]

Short: watch it. Long: I am so glad to not have to write a negative review for once. I feel like I've watched a string of terrible movies, and I was beginning to think that I'm just not a movie person, but this proved me wrong. This movie is pretty much perfect, except it could have been just a bit longer, which is crazy to say because it's already a long movie. There was a particular confrontation I would have liked to have seen play out, and more of the reunion. And where the length is concerned for once it wasn't a case of boring, boring, boring, then a sudden rushed ending with a plot twist that is so twisty that it feels like a ploy, and not the logical conclusion. This had a twist, and not just for the twist sake, and it still led to a logical conclusion. It can be done! The plot was somewhat complicated, but there was nothing that I felt could have, or should have, been cut. It was all necessary. I feel like so many movies I watch start plot lines and then seem to just forget about them, but with this movie, I'd think, 'but what about...' and that would be the next scene. It was a tight plot. Perfect ending, what you want, without it being overly contrived, and not what you thought you wanted for most of the movie. You can have your cake and eat it too, and not feel like it's merely a guilty pleasure. The MC gets everything she wanted in the end, it's all wrapped up, but not without heartbreak and complication on the horizon. It makes it feel more like reality, despite it being anything but. And it was the perfect impossible choice. But as any mother knows, it may have been hard, but in the end there was really no choice at all.

De 12 van Oldenheim (2017)

Pointless

[2/10 · 25 March 2019]

I thought was going to be an atmospheric thriller, but in the end it was just slooow, and nothing much, aside from misdirection, happened. The reveal at the end was so trite. Everyone dies, there is no real reason for it. People were mean to the killer's mother because they felt like she conned people with a pyramid scheme of some sort. For all the empty hours that is never fully explained. Basically she thought she was helping people (yeah ok), or didn't know better, so that should have excused it all, and everyone should have just treated her as though nothing happened when she got out of jail. The killer was a therapist, you'd think he would have understood why that goes against human nature, and never would have happened. Because the people were justified in feeling that way. So instead of moving, he just kills 12 people in retribution. Makes total sense. Then you have the cop who just tells his whole case to the MC Peggy, which is rediculous. And Peggy actually guessed the motive behind the killings earlier on, and was brushed off. I don't blame them for not taking that seriously, it's a stupid reason to kill people. And Peggy kept having boring flashbacks, which was just a part of all the pointless character development that didn't make up for the sad plot, so by the end I still didn't really care about any of the characters. I was maybe a little sad that they were all really dead, but it was mostly because of how pointless it all was, and how I'd just wasted my time. Only a tiny bit was because I'd come to know and care about the characters. I also couldn't remember any of their names, and that's never a good sign. But the biggest travesty of all was Peggy's pants. Every. single. pair.

Hidden (2018–2022)

Ok

[6/10 · 1 March 2019]

Scenery was the real main character. The rest was bogged down by plot issues. Perhaps was trying to make the characters seems real, but the family drama of the MC, and her partner's crisis of conscious over being unsure if wanted the family he already started, had nothing to do with the plot. Neither did the family of the woman's body that was found. We already knew who the culprit was, so it wasn't misdirection, it was just pointless. I didn't care about the younger sister, or her dad, or the character that that the dad ended up killing, and. I'm not even sure why. The police were idiots. Use the news. Send out the pictures of the suspect, and his truck. Ask about the truck, if know anyone that has one. Cross reference the papers you have, already neatly correlated. His name was in each category, classmate of the kids whose name he used to buy truck, having worked at the scrap yard, fits the age group and lives in the radius. There was more, but if they'd looked they would have known before the one cop told about her instinct that Dylan seemed off.

Down a Dark Hall (2018)

I didn't think it was all that bad.

[7/10 · 8 January 2019]

I read the book as a kid, and I loved Lois Duncan in general, so I was excited to see this. I'm not longer a teen by any means, so not the targeted audience, but I really didn't think, for what it was, it was all that bad. Certainly not as bad as all the reviews are making it out to be. The worst thing about it was Uma Thurman and her godawful accent. It was nails on a chalkboard bad.

Blind Date (2015)

Enjoyable

[6/10 · 8 December 2018]

It's a silly, light-hearted film, with a good cast. You just have to suspend your belief or the whole plot falls apart, and I'm not even talking about the idea that two people who have never seen each other would agree to be in a relationship, but the fact that an inventor couldn't invent a way to add sound proofing to his side of the wall. I figured eventually he was going to bust through (though I thought their relationship would be more advanced, would've been living together, and decided together to put in a door), so clearly he didn't care about destruction of property. I guess the fact that he broke the wall with the creation he was working on for 7 years, instead of the hammer he had right there, was supposed to be symbolic. Also, the scene of her playing the piano when her hair fell down, and her glasses flew off was cringe worthy, and I was like please don't let her shirt pop open...it did, but I think was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. The part at the end when she head butted her piano teacher (that I thought was her Dad) was unexpected and great. So all-in-all a bit cheesy, but also kind of great for that exact reason.

Tabula Rasa (2017)

Really enjoyed until the end

[7/10 · 4 December 2018]

The show was really good until it devolved into a bad lifetime movie at the end. Still worth a watch.

The Kettering Incident (2016)

Atmospheric

[8/10 · 4 December 2018]

The scenery was amazing, and the premise interesting. There are a lot of negative reviews on here, but I enjoyed it. The biggest negative was the set up a second season that doesn't appear to be happening. I read articles that mentioned plans for season 2, but haven't seen any updates in a long time. Even so, enough is explained that I didn't feel like I wasted my time, and I still think it's worth a watch.

The Living and the Dead (2016)

Love

[9/10 · 30 March 2018]

Love this show, wish they were bringing it back. But still worth watching even knowing that it is cancelled. Colin Morgan is amazing as always; he is so good at becoming his characters. Atmospheric, great plot, good music. Can be kind of slow. But loved when the pieces started falling into place, and you could see the connections they had been setting up. Very well plotted. I would have loved to see where it was going next.

The Open House (2018)

Don't watch. Really. Just don't.

[1/10 · 30 March 2018]

Slow, cheap tricks, fairly graphic violence to wake you up for the ending that...never came. Here is the entire movie idea: let's try to trick people in a way that they will never see coming. We will flesh out these characters in excruciating detail, misdirect them with boring backstory that seems like it is going somewhere, and then we will kill them all. The end. The point is that anyone could come in during an open house and stay behind. And do whatever they want. Like kill people for no reason. They got one thing right...there is no reason. No reason for this movie, no reason for anyone else to waste their time watching it, no reason for Netflix to buy such garbage.

Bokeh (I) (2017)

Pointless.

[1/10 · 30 March 2018]

Don't read if you don't want to know the ending. But don't worry, it's just as boring as the rest. Nothing really happens. Other than a couple finding out that they are the last people on earth. Seems like that revelation should pick up the pace. Nope. They fight over yogurt. Go sight seeing. Take pictures. Ride around on a cart in the grocery store. Try on clothes. Make lattes. The description of this movie made it sound like it had action - don't be fooled. They only thing they were fighting to survive was boredom. I wasn't overly invested in the characters, which turned out to be a good thing, as I was more annoyed than sad when the girl killed herself. The man then proceeded to fall all over her in the mud trying to carry her, and then, after all that, just leaves her behind and drives off. I hear you buddy, I don't really care about her either. In the end he is (maybe) the last person on earth. There may be more people, but why clue us in? Why bother to give this mess a plot? It wasn't really even that artfully done, so there wasn't anything I even enjoyed to make up for all the rest. No, wait, I'll end on a good note, unlike this movie. The scenery was pretty. I think I would like to visit Iceland.