Story is incoherent. Writing is horrible. Acting is phoned in. Action is okay. Tenor switches between serious and comical almost instantaneously. Makes a movie like Escape From New York seem like a magnum opus, an Oscar worthy cinematic masterpiece.
Reviews
13 Reviews
Robin Hood
(2018)
Storytelling is dead
6 April 2019
Warning: Spoilers
This whole movie is nonsense. The questionable decisions by this director have stacked up so high that this whole movie has just become outrageous. Marion, the strong woman, who still needs to show off cleavage. The completely inaccurate Middle East crusade battle scene which is taken out of Black Hawk down. Jamie Foxx's character whose motivations make no sense, talks robin of Locksley into stealing, when really he just wants to get Marion back. The soldiers uniforms which look like 21st century tactical vests. The crossbows which they wield like assault rifles. The riot shields, why? The mine, what are they mining? Why does fire keep shooting out of the ground? The clothing scheme is wild. The bourgeoisie party, so much money, haha poor people suck, we're so rich. The evil church that is paying Muslim Moors to fight Christian Europeans in some outrageous scheme to overthrow the king. Why is a English church in Nottingham trying to overthrow the King of England? The sheriff is just a pawn, and he hates nobles because they used to beat him when he was in an orphanage. Is broomstick a euphemism for something else? This movie is so all over the place I don't know why they don't they don't just add in dragons, evil wizards shooting fireballs, a goblin invasion, maybe some World War Z style zombies just for good measure. All the 10 ratings for this movie quote the action scenes. Well why not I have a Robin of Loxley face off with some zombies and dragons using his moves ripped off from DC's The Arrow? The action scenes would be so dope!
Lincoln
(2012)
The 13 Amendment
18 March 2018
This movie was a good, historical look into the 13 Amendment, the sentiments at the time, the military and political factors affecting it's adoption. In fact the title of the movie should have just been "The 13th Amendment" as it is the central story here, not Abraham Lincoln's presidency.
Daniel Day Lewis did a good job playing Lincoln, a stark contrast from his roles in "There Will Be Blood", "The Gangs of New York" and "Last of the Mohicans" showing his versatility at adapting to different roles.
Daniel Day Lewis did a good job playing Lincoln, a stark contrast from his roles in "There Will Be Blood", "The Gangs of New York" and "Last of the Mohicans" showing his versatility at adapting to different roles.
Frontier
(2016–2018)
Great try but falls a little short
30 November 2017
Warning: Spoilers
I love shows set in this time period. The intro to the show is really cool with the maps, native American song, and images. It always gets me excited for the show! The acting is decent and they did a good job with the historical settings. The story is definitely over the top. The protagonists are unstoppable and the antagonists are hopelessly inept. One would wonder how the HBC was so successful and the British built the largest empire in history when a few protagonists can oppose them with such ease. I did enjoy some stunning views and some compelling moments in the acting.
Alien: Covenant
(2017)
Why do all of Ridley's protagonists have to be stupid?
1 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers
As in Prometheus, the plot in this movie can't advance without one of the protagonists being completely incompetent or stupid.
In Prometheus the SME (subject matter expert) is always bad at what the one thing they are supposed to do well. E.g. The biologist/zoologist touches strange living worm and gets bitten. The navigation and mapping expert gets lost. You get the idea.
In this movie the leader is incapable of making decisions. The soldiers/security team suck at providing security, panic in the middle of combat. The pilot can't fly straight. Everyone wanders off alone immediately after being attacked by hostile alien organisms. No one asks straight questions when they are huge elephants in the room: holy sh*t, there is an ancient city full of cadavers here!? Who built the city? Are they still here? Are they a threat? Do they have radios we can use? How about space ships or weapons? No, instead they mope about their poor decisions and wander off one at a time to be killed.
My point being is that it sucks that for the plot to advance, the protagonist has to be incompetent or stupid. Not only is this implausible (NASA picks the absolute best candidates for space missions, people that won't panic or make stupid decisions) but unnecessary. I really don't think it's so hard to setup a challenge in the plot where the protagonists suffer at challenges despite giving it their best. In Aliens (Alien 2), the space marine company enters in the facility and gets ambushed by aliens. Despite their firepower and blasting the crap out of every alien they see, they still get overwhelmed and take casualties. They didn't all need to stumble around, trip and fall into a pit in order to get in trouble; the aliens laid a trap and overwhelmed them. In Alien the crew of the Nostromo gave it their damnedest and still got taken out one by one.
Upside to the movie: I like the way they brought the over-arching plot of the aliens to completion, explaining the variation in the different types.
Still they left more questions unanswered: In Prometheus, after a spacecraft leaves the planet an Engineer kills himself and then dissolves into Earth's water giving way to life. At the end of the movie Elizabeth Shaw heads to the Engineer home planet to find out why they are hostile towards humans.
Why did the Engineer kill himself on Earth in Prometheus thereby "seeding" the planet? Was the seeding done intentionally?
Did the Engineers ever return to the habitable planet where they just left an Engineer who dissolved into the water and discover the human civilization that grew from his seed?
If the "seeding" of Earth with Engineer intentional then why did the Engineers never bother to communicate with their creation?
How did early human civilizations get the "star maps" that lead the Prometheus to a LV-223?
Why is the Engineer on LV-223 in Prometheus hostile towards humans?
Are all the Engineers hostile towards humans?
Why did the Engineers create the weaponized virus that becomes the aliens? Why did the Engineers store the weaponized virus on a LV-223 in unsecured and fragile containers?
Why was there a video of Engineers running away from aliens on LV-223?
Why did the Engineers never send a recovery team to LV-223 to recover the Engineers who died in the installation?
Why did the Engineers allow a long lost and potentially rogue ship to return to their home planet without first being screened by any sort of security (given the potential for weaponized viruses at least a bio-scan/quarantine procedure should be in place for an advanced space faring civilization)?
Were no Engineers off-planet or in a spaceship when David released the weaponized virus on their home planet?
Why are all of the Engineers located only on one city on their planet?
One of the Engineers in David's lair was flayed, not destroyed by the virus. Did some of the
Engineers survive the initial attack?
If some Engineers survived the initial attack, how was David able to defeat the them?
Why did the advanced-space faring Engineers not have any satellites or space stations in orbit?
Why did Covenant crew only pick up Elizabeth Shaw's lingering transmission and no lingering transmissions from any of the Engineers who lived on the planet?
Why was there wheat on the Engineers' planet?
Did Elizabeth plant the wheat before she was killed by David, did she have seeds? Or does this mean that Engineers visited Earth and brought it back? Or does this mean that the Engineers visited Earth and bestowed wheat on the humans, only later wanting to destroy them and creating a weaponized virus to do so?
Why was Walter removing a sole embryo in the beginning of the movie? Was he conducting his own side experiments?
Why did the Covenant crew not have access to the same or better technology than the Prometheus crew (e.g. the geo-mapping drones, dune buggies, and space suits)?
If Mother and Walter(David) could track the alien through the ship and funnel it by opening and closing doors why confront it at all?
Why not just funnel it to an airlock and blow it into space without sacrificing heavy industrial equipment that will be needed for the future colony?
In Prometheus the SME (subject matter expert) is always bad at what the one thing they are supposed to do well. E.g. The biologist/zoologist touches strange living worm and gets bitten. The navigation and mapping expert gets lost. You get the idea.
In this movie the leader is incapable of making decisions. The soldiers/security team suck at providing security, panic in the middle of combat. The pilot can't fly straight. Everyone wanders off alone immediately after being attacked by hostile alien organisms. No one asks straight questions when they are huge elephants in the room: holy sh*t, there is an ancient city full of cadavers here!? Who built the city? Are they still here? Are they a threat? Do they have radios we can use? How about space ships or weapons? No, instead they mope about their poor decisions and wander off one at a time to be killed.
My point being is that it sucks that for the plot to advance, the protagonist has to be incompetent or stupid. Not only is this implausible (NASA picks the absolute best candidates for space missions, people that won't panic or make stupid decisions) but unnecessary. I really don't think it's so hard to setup a challenge in the plot where the protagonists suffer at challenges despite giving it their best. In Aliens (Alien 2), the space marine company enters in the facility and gets ambushed by aliens. Despite their firepower and blasting the crap out of every alien they see, they still get overwhelmed and take casualties. They didn't all need to stumble around, trip and fall into a pit in order to get in trouble; the aliens laid a trap and overwhelmed them. In Alien the crew of the Nostromo gave it their damnedest and still got taken out one by one.
Upside to the movie: I like the way they brought the over-arching plot of the aliens to completion, explaining the variation in the different types.
Still they left more questions unanswered: In Prometheus, after a spacecraft leaves the planet an Engineer kills himself and then dissolves into Earth's water giving way to life. At the end of the movie Elizabeth Shaw heads to the Engineer home planet to find out why they are hostile towards humans.
Why did the Engineer kill himself on Earth in Prometheus thereby "seeding" the planet? Was the seeding done intentionally?
Did the Engineers ever return to the habitable planet where they just left an Engineer who dissolved into the water and discover the human civilization that grew from his seed?
If the "seeding" of Earth with Engineer intentional then why did the Engineers never bother to communicate with their creation?
How did early human civilizations get the "star maps" that lead the Prometheus to a LV-223?
Why is the Engineer on LV-223 in Prometheus hostile towards humans?
Are all the Engineers hostile towards humans?
Why did the Engineers create the weaponized virus that becomes the aliens? Why did the Engineers store the weaponized virus on a LV-223 in unsecured and fragile containers?
Why was there a video of Engineers running away from aliens on LV-223?
Why did the Engineers never send a recovery team to LV-223 to recover the Engineers who died in the installation?
Why did the Engineers allow a long lost and potentially rogue ship to return to their home planet without first being screened by any sort of security (given the potential for weaponized viruses at least a bio-scan/quarantine procedure should be in place for an advanced space faring civilization)?
Were no Engineers off-planet or in a spaceship when David released the weaponized virus on their home planet?
Why are all of the Engineers located only on one city on their planet?
One of the Engineers in David's lair was flayed, not destroyed by the virus. Did some of the
Engineers survive the initial attack?
If some Engineers survived the initial attack, how was David able to defeat the them?
Why did the advanced-space faring Engineers not have any satellites or space stations in orbit?
Why did Covenant crew only pick up Elizabeth Shaw's lingering transmission and no lingering transmissions from any of the Engineers who lived on the planet?
Why was there wheat on the Engineers' planet?
Did Elizabeth plant the wheat before she was killed by David, did she have seeds? Or does this mean that Engineers visited Earth and brought it back? Or does this mean that the Engineers visited Earth and bestowed wheat on the humans, only later wanting to destroy them and creating a weaponized virus to do so?
Why was Walter removing a sole embryo in the beginning of the movie? Was he conducting his own side experiments?
Why did the Covenant crew not have access to the same or better technology than the Prometheus crew (e.g. the geo-mapping drones, dune buggies, and space suits)?
If Mother and Walter(David) could track the alien through the ship and funnel it by opening and closing doors why confront it at all?
Why not just funnel it to an airlock and blow it into space without sacrificing heavy industrial equipment that will be needed for the future colony?
Californication
(2007–2014)
Looks cool on the cover, empty inside.
23 May 2017
Warning: Spoilers
I get the premise of this show and was hooked for the first two seasons. After that I realized the over-arching story never changed. Frank Moody is a selfish human being who can't ever say no to any of his indulgences, even when he knows it's going to hurt his daughter or friends. While each season had some unique themes and story development the primary recipe remained the same: A woman or drug (or both) tempts him, he can't say no, close friend or family gets hurt, and then they forgive him. Rinse and repeat. It got to the point that I started loathing the protagonist for his repeated and wanton transgressions. I also stopped feeling any sympathy for his friends and family after they let him burn them or the 29th time. At some point you're the one to blame for allowing him to walk all over you. By the final season I was hoping all the characters' karma would dump back them in a fitting ending. I hoped Frank Moody was killed in a fiery car accident (SPOILER ALERT: he doesn't), his agent would get HIV, and his family would all live meaningless, empty lives, befitting their meaningless, empty characters. Also the sheer volume of sex he and his agent has is ludicrous. Every woman they meet, regardless of circumstance, throws themselves at them (SPOILER ALERT: Even underage girls). It's like a 14 year boy's fever dream.
This movie makes a strong case for reading books instead of watching film.
11 May 2017
The movie just doesn't do service to the real events. If you're really interested in the story just read the Wikipedia page. You'll learn more about the events and it'll save you from wasting 2 hours and ten minutes of your life to this awful movie.
I always expect that Hollywood will bungle the details in military movies and usually give them a pass for those. There are SOOO many anachronisms and inaccuracies in this movie though. EVERY scene has something wrong with it. The ship itself, the uniforms, the orders given, the weapons, the lingo, even the sharks. It's beyond distracting. The most glaring example is that they the used a battleship to represent a cruiser. You can have a movie like U-571, which is fictional, and they have more accurate depictions of the submarines and even a German destroyer. Mario Van Peebles is like "hey, the USS Alabama is located in Mobile, let's go film on that." "It's the wrong type of ship though." "It's only a film based on true events, accuracy doesn't matter."
On top of that the writers couldn't have stuffed more cliché, trite military lingo into this movie if they tried. The focus they have on the sharks is weird, and inaccurate. The captains speech made me groan out load. Nicholas cage don't ever do another war movie again! If you've seen Windtalkers you know what I'm talking about. Again, if you really want to know what happened to the USS Indianapolis, take 10 mins and read the Wikipedia or better yet go to the library and find a book about it.
I always expect that Hollywood will bungle the details in military movies and usually give them a pass for those. There are SOOO many anachronisms and inaccuracies in this movie though. EVERY scene has something wrong with it. The ship itself, the uniforms, the orders given, the weapons, the lingo, even the sharks. It's beyond distracting. The most glaring example is that they the used a battleship to represent a cruiser. You can have a movie like U-571, which is fictional, and they have more accurate depictions of the submarines and even a German destroyer. Mario Van Peebles is like "hey, the USS Alabama is located in Mobile, let's go film on that." "It's the wrong type of ship though." "It's only a film based on true events, accuracy doesn't matter."
On top of that the writers couldn't have stuffed more cliché, trite military lingo into this movie if they tried. The focus they have on the sharks is weird, and inaccurate. The captains speech made me groan out load. Nicholas cage don't ever do another war movie again! If you've seen Windtalkers you know what I'm talking about. Again, if you really want to know what happened to the USS Indianapolis, take 10 mins and read the Wikipedia or better yet go to the library and find a book about it.
Criminal
(2016)
Awful.
23 February 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Awful. Just awful. From start to finish. The plot is based on everyone being stupid and inept except for Kevin Costner. Kevin plays a criminal who's been locked away for most of his life, but he bests everyone in the movie: doctors, police officers, criminal masterminds, Russian KGB, U.S. federal agents. Everyone. Oh and apparently the U.S. connected their entire nuclear arsenal to an easily hack-able Wi-Fi network. Submarines too, they have Wi-Fi that you can hack even when they're under water.
Good People
(2014)
Home Alone, R-rated version
8 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Move starts off slow, with a couple that's hard on their luck and then something shocking happens. There is un convincing b level acting by A level actors. You would think that the performance would be a lot better considering their other movies, but I have a feeling they were just doing this movie just because it was paycheck and their schedules had some gaps so they signed on. Bad guys come looking for something they find in their house. Soon the movie becomes Home Alone, the R-Rated version. In this version of Home Alone, the bad guys don't just fall down stairs and burn their hands, the bad guys die horrible, ruthless deaths.
In the Valley of Elah
(2007)
Soooo slow and boring
9 December 2013
This movie is SO boring! The plot has some intense moments, but mostly just long awkward silences with the actors staring at each other with blank stares or doing the thousand yard stare off into the distance. The score for this film is like 4 keys on a piano played at a snails pace. Ding.... bomm.....ding.... bomm..... If I hadn't drank a cup of coffee I would have fallen asleep watching this movie. This movie really is 2 hours of long pointless periods of emptiness, interspersed with slow conversations. I can appreciate a pause for effect as you reveal another revelation in the plot, but this is too much. They walk into a restaurant, pause as the camera pans for 60 seconds. They walk out into the parking lot and sit in the car. Stare off into the distance for 30 seconds. There's nothing to digest, no plot development, just them sitting there.... not talking... The pace was so slow it was actually annoying. Unless you have nothing better to do with your time, and you've already watched every other movie, you should pass on this one.
Zeitgeist: Addendum
(2008 Video)
A good story, not a very good documentary
7 September 2013
Warning: Spoilers
!Warning, some spoilers contained!
I didn't really care for this documentary because it's format is not very academic. Jacque Fresco seeks to educate and inform, but his method is not very professional. He simply asserts an idea as truth, and then moves on the next idea, to build his case against the practice of fractional-reserve banking. I don't entirely disagree with all of his ideas (I would even support banking reform based off of this documentary), I just wish he would go about it in a more professional and academic method.
The foundation for the modern form of education, debate, and critical viewing of ideas goes back to Socrates, Plato, and earlier philosophers. One of the most important maxims that has evolved is the idea of "citing your sources." I have watched Zeitgeist and Zeitgest Addendum and Mr. Jacque Fresco is terrible at citing sources. If I lived in 1200 A.D./C.E. and someone simply stated the world was round, it would be really easy to dismiss them. If someone told me that they had done research, and based on their calculations, which were based on the calculations of other respected mathematicians that they believed the world was round, it would be a lot harder to dismiss.. That's because now I'm not just dismissing the idea, I'm dismissing the persons work, their research, other respected mathematicians, and quite possibly scientific thought up until this point. That's a much larger hurdle than just dismissing a statement. Mr. Fresco's ideas are fairly easy to dismiss because he doesn't cite his sources well. Mr. Fresco does occasionally use references to academic journals, magazines, quotes, and even cites a court case, but he uses them as they suit his argument, sometimes out of context, and ignores evidence that doesn't concur. For example, he uses the First National Bank of Montgomery v. Jerome Daly case to highlight that making money out of thin air is illegal and unconstitutional. He fails to highlight that the court case was later nullified by a higher court. That's a pretty important aspect for someone who is going to use that as evidence for building an argument, but it's inconvenient so he fails to mention it.
Mr. Fresco's ideas are definitely intriguing and cause pause for thought, but they just do not hold up to the bombardment of critical thinking.
I didn't really care for this documentary because it's format is not very academic. Jacque Fresco seeks to educate and inform, but his method is not very professional. He simply asserts an idea as truth, and then moves on the next idea, to build his case against the practice of fractional-reserve banking. I don't entirely disagree with all of his ideas (I would even support banking reform based off of this documentary), I just wish he would go about it in a more professional and academic method.
The foundation for the modern form of education, debate, and critical viewing of ideas goes back to Socrates, Plato, and earlier philosophers. One of the most important maxims that has evolved is the idea of "citing your sources." I have watched Zeitgeist and Zeitgest Addendum and Mr. Jacque Fresco is terrible at citing sources. If I lived in 1200 A.D./C.E. and someone simply stated the world was round, it would be really easy to dismiss them. If someone told me that they had done research, and based on their calculations, which were based on the calculations of other respected mathematicians that they believed the world was round, it would be a lot harder to dismiss.. That's because now I'm not just dismissing the idea, I'm dismissing the persons work, their research, other respected mathematicians, and quite possibly scientific thought up until this point. That's a much larger hurdle than just dismissing a statement. Mr. Fresco's ideas are fairly easy to dismiss because he doesn't cite his sources well. Mr. Fresco does occasionally use references to academic journals, magazines, quotes, and even cites a court case, but he uses them as they suit his argument, sometimes out of context, and ignores evidence that doesn't concur. For example, he uses the First National Bank of Montgomery v. Jerome Daly case to highlight that making money out of thin air is illegal and unconstitutional. He fails to highlight that the court case was later nullified by a higher court. That's a pretty important aspect for someone who is going to use that as evidence for building an argument, but it's inconvenient so he fails to mention it.
Mr. Fresco's ideas are definitely intriguing and cause pause for thought, but they just do not hold up to the bombardment of critical thinking.
Tell Your Friends