kirstenholmes-23716 Reviews

Gods of the Deep (2023)

Low Budget and Terrible Acting

[2/10 · 9 February 2024]

It's possible to make a decent low budget movie with this storyline. These filmmakers did not make a decent low budget movie, though. It's illogical, poorly-acted, and embarrassing. It repeatedly cuts to the same terrible animation in the hope that you don't notice it's exactly the same terrible animation you saw two minutes ago. The "god" in question doesn't do anything beyond shake its head around in a ridiculous fashion as you might expect from a filmmaker who's younger than 12. The craft appears to have been built out of corrugated iron and pipes. Amazingly, none of these world-class experts were bothered by the leak when they first set off. This isn't merely a low budget movie. It's an unintelligent movie.

Suitable Flesh (2023)

Film Makers didn't even bother to fact check their script

[2/10 · 27 October 2023]

The tone is silly. The acting is sketchy. The psychiatric diagnoses are a mess. If you want to write a movie about DID (still calling it by its defunkt name, multiple personality disorder) at the very least learn that it is not schizophrenia or a schizotypal disorder. These are three different things, and if you keep using them as synonyms, you look a bit silly. SURELY you would check this kind of thing before spending god knows how much money making an arse of yourself?

It wouldn't have helped, anyway. The movie was boring, primarily because it leaned too heavily into the story without bothering to develop any of its characters. Every character feels like a paper cutout. It's very hard to take them seriously.

I also found the perpetual score a bit distracting. If you're playing your music over 90% of your scenes, it's going to lose its power. That effect becomes even worse when you're using Nineties "Oh my gosh" music.

But you should have fact checked your script. This is just humiliating.

Master Gardener (2022)

Lots of thinky thoughts, but no real substance

[5/10 · 6 June 2023]

Master Gardener has lots of thinky thoughts, but it's too wooden to make you feel anything about them. It's competent enough, but I left this movie no richer than I was when I sat down to it. This is a character-driven piece that should have flourished as a study, but none of the characters felt organic or fully-formed. That's a pretty damning failure when all you *have* are character developments, particularly when you've hired some of the best actors in the business. This could have been so much more. It should have been so much more. The cliche goes that you can make a bad movie out of a good script, but never a good movie out of a bad one. I think this script was too poorly-handled to support greatness.

A Lot of Nothing (2022)

Comedy of Errors with a Point

[6/10 · 8 April 2023]

I'm not sure where all those one-star ratings come from. This is an entertaining comedy of errors with an important premise. It has its flaws, but it's well-handled and well worth a little forgiveness. The acting is mostly competent, if not for the male lead. The production value is right up there, and the screenplay does a good job of carrying a number of different approaches to its political premise. I hope the director keeps evolving. I'll certainly watch more from him if he keeps churning them out.

My expectations were low given the ratings, but it's definitely not worthy of those one-star reviews.

Stranger (2022)

Incompetent and pointless

[1/10 · 27 January 2023]

I'm giving this one star despite the decent production values because the rest is just that bad. You'll spend most of the movie watching two bad actors work through fascinating dialogue like, "One egg or two." If that's not thrilling enough, the actress does quite a lot of posing, occasionally on yoga mats, and occasionally in front of mirrors. Occasionally, a creepy person will turn up, giving the actress an opportunity to cry. Then it will all end without any explanation whatsoever. It's like watching paint dry, only more irritating. A C movie would probably be more entertaining, so don't bother.

Barbarian (2022)

Riproaring entertainment

[7/10 · 26 October 2022]

There's a dearth of originality in the horror genre, so I'm always happy to find a movie like Barbarian. It might not have any grand goals of becoming elevated, but it's as entertaining as hell. It twists all the way through to the end, and it stays away from all the dull old tropes that leave everyone's eyes rolling in the aisles. There were a few holes that left me wondering, but beyond that, it's a tight horror.

We have two short storylines and a third to bring them together, but there were a few loose ends that would have been intriguing if followed through. The characters are gorgeously developed, too. In a way, I wish this was a limited series so we could really delve into every element of the film.

If there were more original movies in the genre, I would have given this a six, but there isn't, so I didn't. It deserves at least one star for the discipline involved in refusing to be lazy like most horrors are.

Silent River (2021)

Great cinematography but not much else

[1/10 · 26 October 2022]

These filmmakers clearly have a talent for cinematography, but the other components of the movie just don't hold up. It's slow to the point of stasis, so you will spend endless minutes watching the view from a car pass by or of a wall from various angles. The acting is passable--it might have even been adequate had the script been well written. It was not well written AT ALL. Clumsy, unnatural phrasing and a complete absence of coherent story give it an amateur edge that's constantly pushing you out of the film. I imagine this director will one day make a passable film, but that day is not today.

Where Are You (2019)

Pretentious fever dream

[2/10 · 21 October 2022]

This is the pretentious fever dream of an incompetent screenwriter who thinks they're saying something profound. It's full of demonstrably untrue statements and immature lines. The production value is spectacular. The acting is fine, or it would be if the director wasn't determined to make the audience say, "Deep, man." There is nothing "deep" about this movie, man, partly because there isn't a scratch of authenticity in it. The plot is predictable and diluted with shots of pretty people walking prettily while wearing pretty things. Other filmmakers have handled this subjectmatter with depth. These ones did not.

Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)

Lazy writing

[3/10 · 4 December 2021]

I think Kirsten Wiig is the best thing that ever happened to comedy, but this movie is just lazy. Seems as though they're all just reaching for the worst idiocy they can come up with. There is a great divide between funny and dumb, and Barb and Star ain't funny.

Promising Young Woman (2020)

Brilliant wit

[8/10 · 24 October 2021]

Honestly, there is no end to the love I feel for this movie. The wit alone is worth all my stars. Carey Mulligan is superb, and this script was made for her.

A Brixton Tale (2021)

The story arc is a flat line

[3/10 · 24 October 2021]

If you like watching ordinary people do ordinary things for two hours, this is the film for you. Or you could just go sit at a coffee shop and stare at the tables. The effect will be the same. This movie maker might have a future if he pays attention to his mistakes, but he's not there yet. You can't make a good movie out of a bad script.

Like Dogs (2021)

Embarassing

[1/10 · 3 October 2021]

This movie is embarassingly bad. At one point, the female lead finds the male lead's acting so ridiculous she has to physically restrain herself from laughing when she's supposed to be facing certain death. They didn't even bother fixing the scene. A smashed in head looks like a piece of flat, white plastic with a crayon face. Whoever made this movie needs to spend his time learning how to make movies instead of on generating fake reviews.

Sound of Metal (2019)

My favourite 2020 movie surprise.

[9/10 · 20 December 2020]

I would have given this movie nine stars if Riz Ahmed's performance was the only asset to this movie. It is not. I hope it's not too unassuming to win Oscar attention.

Trump 2024: The World After Trump (2020)

Not the most intelligent or accurate documentary I've seen

[1/10 · 4 November 2020]

Even as a Trump hater, I can't give this one any love. Its premise is that Trump is Revelation's antichrist. (head desk) and we're headed for the apocalypse. It tries to comment on nationalism but has no idea what nationalism even is. Come on, folks. Surely you can check your own basic definitions if they're the crux of your entire film?

Painter (2020)

Adolescent

[2/10 · 18 October 2020]

This is an adolescent film with an adolescent script and adolescent opinions about art. The acting is horrendous. The story is predictable. The premise is just plain embarassing. Don't bother, and don't fall for the marketing spam masquerading is 10/10 reviews under this title.

Hippopotamus (II) (2018)

Takes itself extremely seriously

[2/10 · 13 September 2020]

I don't have much faith in the screenwriter's maturity and even less in his intellect. Add horrible acting to the box and you have a barely-endurable B-grade slog. The entire premise crumbles under its own self-importance. The title comes from the fact that the lead refers to her hippocampus as a hippopotamous, and that should tell you all you need to know about the quality of this awful, awful film.