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Reviews
Civil War (2024)
Photographer's Perspective
As a photographer myself, I appreciate the photographer's perspective of this movie, which is really how the story is told. The movie is about a bunch of journalists who travel across country to document the civil war. Kirsten Dunst plays Lee, a well-known photo journalist. I was originally put off by her blah appearance in the trailers. However, this is actually appropriate. She's been down the road documenting war scenes from around the world, and she's tired of it. That blah appearance of hers in the previous shows her tiredness of the war scene. She mostly shoots with a digital Sony Alpha camera.
In contrast, Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) is new to photo journalism. She's in her early 20s, about the same age Lee was when she got started. She admires Lee and aspires to be a war photo journalist. She's given that opportunity in this movie, and is baptized by fire in the process.
I could have done without some of the music at the start of the movie, but thankfully, that musical style didn't last, and I pretty much forgot about it by the end.
Homicide: New York (2024)
The aspect ratios are extremely distracting
Many of the scenes are shot with anamorphic lenses producing wide-screen shots. However, this is totally ruined by the fact that the wide screen shots are letter-boxed into a narrower aspect ratio. Why shoot with an anamorphic lens if you're just going to letterbox it later? That is totally absurd. Better would have been to release the series in 2.38:1 or 2.4:1 or 2.35:1 aspect ratio and letterbox the clips from narrower aspect ratio. Those clips have lower resolution anyway, so don't suffer from letterboxing.
Instead, what we have is narrow aspect ratio clips occupying the full height of the screen with poor resolution, so we see a blurry picture. Then, when we see wide scenes with more modern equipment, it is letterboxed top and bottom, and if viewing on a widescreen device, also right and left. So both original low res clips and new higher res. Clips are shown in low res.
Either they should have shot all scenes in 6:9 or they should have produced a final product in wide-screen.
Unfortunately, the aspect ratio changes so frequently, the switch is very distracting.
Silent Night (2023)
Excellent almost dialogless movie
You will probably see reviews stating this movie has no dialog. That's not entirely true. There is dialog heard over the radio. And there is a line spoken by someone who has been gagged. But on the whole it's pretty much true that there is no dialog, and that's a good thing in my opinion.
Early in the movie the main character loses his voice by having been shot in the neck. Rather than show what it's like for someone to try to live in a world of speaking people without being able to speak yourself, the movie simply goes with no dialog. Dialog is not actually necessary. Everything you need to know is clear from what happens visually.
Early in the movie you see a single red balloon floating up in the air. You figure that's symbolic of something but you don't know what at first - maybe something corny.
After a few scenes, it becomes clear it's because the main character's son was killed by stray gunfire by gang members. The balloon scene is repeated, this time with the context in place.
The rest of the movie is about the main character plotting his revenge. He first prepares himself, doing appropriate calisthenics, gun practice and practice driving. This all, of course, foreshadows what is to come in the rest of the movie.
Lots of believable gun shot scenes as well as chase scenes, not as over-the-top as in the Fast and Furious franchise.
In my opinion, this is one of the best films of the year.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Disappointing
I was expecting there to be more about the development of the bombs. One thing I was certain was going to be in the movie, for example, was not even mentioned: tickling the dragon's tail. That is the sort of content I was hoping for in this movie. If you are not familiar with this, do a search for Slotin, Daghlian, and tickling the dragon's tail. Essentially, what Slotin did was to carefully move two hemispheres of nuclear material ever so slightly closer together in an attempt to see what happens just before criticality. Oops! Yeah, major oops. I suppose these things weren't include because they actually happened after Hiroshima and Nagasaki by which time the movie was mostly over. That's fair, I guess. Still, that is the type of thing I was hoping for.
Instead, what was shown was basically a soap opera. And the music was annoying. Music is masterfully done in such movies as the Star Wars movies, where the music plays a large role in the production value of the film. Here, though, it's mostly used to fill dead air. Almost all dialog in the movie is nearly overwhelmed by meaningless music. I think the movie would have been far better with at least half the music removed entirely. Let us hear what people are actually saying.
I can't fault the acting. It was superb.
Biosphere (2022)
Predicatable and unbelievable
The title itself is a lie. The location of the film is a dome, but it cannot be considered a biosphere. A biosphere should contain an ecosystem. I really was expecting that when I went to see the film. Instead of that, what we see is a handful of plants (some plastic) and a few fish. The books outnumber the plants by at least an order of magnitude. This is not a biosphere. It is a couple rooms in a house.
When the first fish died, I pretty much knew what was going to happen in the rest of the movie. Some fish can change gender, and I was well-aware of that fact. I figured that was going to happen in this case, and, indeed it happened. And of course, as soon as it happened, I knew it was going to happen with our heroes as well.
Some things glaringly missing from the film:
More plants, a history of how they got into that situation, where the unlimited electricity is coming from, etc.
This would have been better as a 15 minute short.
Night on Earth (2020)
Fabulous Documentary Ruined by Sound
The foley artists should be fired. The music accompaniment is distracting. I see another reviewer criticized the narration. I had less of an issue with that then the other items I mentioned. I'm watching it streaming on Netflix, and the compression algorithms used there cause artifacts most strongly in very dark portions of the picture. Since the whole series is based on low light scenarios, that means you're likely to see significant artifacts - things like blocks of color or banding. Some of this may also be a result of overly aggressive noise reduction in the production of the video. These artifacts could be largely reduced by preserving some of the noise that is naturally present in dark scenes.
Having said all that, if you can ignore opening flowers making noise, barn owls making flapping sounds, to name just two of the annoying foley artifacts and disruptive music, the cinematography is superb. One wonders, though, how disruptive the film crew were with a camera following a cheetah stalking her prey at night, for example. In any case, we see a world from a perspective seldom seen before - not just because of being filmed in the dark but also because of being filmed in infrared. Some things look extremely interesting in infrared.
Now if they would just release a version with more natural sound....
Knock at the Cabin (2023)
Waste of Time
Firstly, the premise is not believable. I was expecting the film to somehow make an effort in making it believable. That did not happen. Character development was lacking so that I had no sympathies for any of the characters, except the little girl.
The acting was mediocre but that is probably in part because of the very bad script writing. Dialogs did not follow the way people would really react in such situations.
The film credits are accompanied by various visual blobs. The house lights stay down making the viewer expect an Easter egg. There is, indeed, such an Easter egg. The credits end with five knocks. Is that supposed to be scary or ominous? It wasn't. It just put an exclamation point on the lameness of this movie.
Amsterdam (2022)
So boring I walked out
I was really looking forward to this movie from the previews. After struggling to stay awake from the boredom after sitting through about 1/2 to 2/3 of the movie, I decided, you know what? Movies are supposed to be entertaining, not a chore. I typically pay for my food with cash, and this show was no exception. I waited until I received my bill, paid for it and then walked out, happy that I could salvage some of the rest of my afternoon with something else. If you don't mind wasting an afternoon, or if you're short on sleep and have insomnia, go ahead and watch. Otherwise, spare yourself and give this one a pass. The terrific cast does not help to salvage the movie.
Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)
Excellent movie but could use better CGI
This movie was good enough to see twice so far, but the CGI is below par for current technology. The owl in Labyrinth was done much better, and how long ago was that? Bottom line, almost all bird scenes in the movie (and there were several, including the opening scene) looked fake. Some of those scenes could have been filmed with real birds, e.g., the snow geese scene. It's not that hard to find flocks like that of snow geese. That said, it's possible to overlook this and enjoy the movie. I've not read the book, so the ending was an interesting surprise for me.
Crimes of the Future (2022)
An interesting idea that was not realized well
I think the main problem with this film is that the vision was not thought out completely enough. The result was what appeared like bad acting, but which was probably really just a result of a director not really knowing what to direct the actors to do. The plot also was muddy. It basically comes down to this: surgery is high art, and not just art but erotic art.
Several people in the theater I went to walked out before it finished. I stayed until the end, but it would have been a similar experience had I left half way through.
The movie starts out with a mother observing her son playing outside. She chides him not to eat anything he finds. Later she spies him in the bathroom munching on the plastic trash can. Exasperated, she smothers him to death.
Apparently, this pica-like behavior is a result of humans' evolution in the future. In the boy's case, he's evolved digestive chemicals that allow him to digest plastic (and apparently to crave it).
Most of the movie involves cutting open bodies to access organs. There's no longer any pain, and discovering and exhibiting newly evolved organs has become an artform. Early in the movie, we see someone dancing. He's nearly nude, exposing the dozens of ears growing all over his body. It's an exhibition of dance, but more importantly an exhibition of the odd ears. There's a discussion about the relative merits of these two kinds of art, with someone offering that the dance is better than the ears. But later in the movie, the surgery itself seems to become part of the art. One of the things done is to tattoo the organs while they are still in the body. Performing surgeries in front of audiences is an art exhibit of performance art.
There are some strange devices used, like a squishy remote controller to control a device that actually does the surgery and/or tattooing.
The scenes are all rather dark and dreary and don't at all appear to be clean rooms like you would expect surgeries to be performed in. But maybe that's part of the point. People don't experience pain, and apparently, they also don't get infections. To my mind, that's just another example of how the vision wasn't thought through carefully.
Petite maman (2021)
Beautiful Film
I skimmed through the reviews here, and I'm a bit surprised at the ones with low ratings. So let me just start out by saying that if you want a movie with a killer sound track, lots of action, explosions, super heroes, sex, and violence, this is not the film for you.
If you can't be bothered to take a couple minutes to enjoy the world, maybe pay attention to little details, play in the rain, and so forth, skip this film.
If, on the other hand, you enjoy life, enjoy nature, built a fort or a treehouse as a child, don't need sound blasting in your ears all the time, and like to ponder a unique mystery, maybe this film is for you.
It's not exactly clear whether what we're seeing is the imagination of a little girl or actual time travel or a world that has folded back on itself intersection across generations. That can remain a mystery.
There's not much character development among the adults, but the movie isn't about the adults. It's about the girls. I thought their acting was superb. Nothing seemed forced to me. There were poignant scenes, and there was humor, and sometimes it's just mannerisms that are funny. The film was not what I expected (not sure what I was expecting), but it was unique and very enjoyable.
Old (2021)
What a horrible movie!
A waste of time of however long it was. The acting was terrible. Character development was lacking. The plot did not follow in a way that made much sense - mostly rambling. The supposed aging that happens to everyone on the beach was not even very evident, unless you count the change of actors for the children. This is easily the worst movie I've seen so far this year.
Cruella (2021)
Entertaining if you don't suffer from motion sickness
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. However, one aspect of it really bothered me: the moving camera angles. One of my pet peeves in movies is when the camera angle moves in a circle so that the main subject stays in the center of the frame and the background moves around, so you get to see varying angles of the subject. That's not exactly what happens in this movie, but it's similar. The movements are more complex than that. In some places, the feeling is that you are exploring, for example, the interior of a building by riding a roller coaster through the interior, the camera sometimes pointing to the side as the coaster rolls past something. If the director was trying to trigger motion sickness in the audience, I have no doubt he was partly successful in that regard. But why? There is no reason for this. It's very disruptive.
The CGI dogs were mostly pretty good, but you could tell they were CGI.
I will probably see this movie again. Perhaps I'll take a Dramamine first.
Possessor (2020)
Great premise - bad execution
The premise of this movies is that through (needlessly gory) operation of some sort, one person is able to control another person. I say needlessly gory because that sort of operation in truth would need to be done by a skilled brain surgeon. Instead, it looks like it was performed by an amateur handiman. Thus, although it's gory, it is completely unbelievable.
Character development is almost completely lacking. There's a bit of information exchange when preparing to target the next victim. Apparently, although the possessor can target a victim and control them, they nevertheless have no access to their life experiences, etc. - until, contradictorily, later in the film, when they are mixed together.
There's an odd scene that I still haven't figured out where the possessor, occupying the body of a victim goes to his job site. What in the world is his job? Apparently, it's identifying curtains, blinds, etc., while trying to ignore pornographic scenes. There's no rhyme or reason to the scene - just gratuitous pornography.
I mostly agree with the longer review by Rendanlovell. The movie had a lot of potential, but I give it a D for execution. It should be redone from scratch.
Anna (2019)
Disappointing Time Travel Movie
Let me explain my title. This movie jumps forward and backward in time frequently, with titles like "3 Months Earlier" separating the scenes. People in the audience I was in started laughing after about 3 of these jumps. They continue through the whole movie. That was very distracting and doesn't help the film at all. Sometimes the same scene is repeated. The first time you see it you don't know what's going on. The second time you see the very same scene, you have some information you didn't have before, so it comes across differently. That's a device that doesn't really work here.
Character development was very poor. You're just as likely to jump into a scene without proper development as not. The music sometimes does not mesh well with what's going on on screen.
Overall, I got the impression that this movie was a compilation of notes/sketches for what the movie really should be, as if it just passed round one of editing. It needs a lot of work. I think it could be salvaged with a director's cut that rearranges the order of things, improves character development, improves the sound track, and just overall is made more cohesive.
Having said all that, the movie has a fairly interesting ending. I won't spoil it, but should you go see the movie and want to leave, don't. You'll miss the best part.
Mile 22 (2018)
Too Many Clips
I had high hopes for this movie, but I was very distracted by the short duration of the clips. Just like in Amadeus, where Mozart's music is criticized for having "too many notes", my criticism of this movie is too many clips. I'd really like to see a count of how many clips there are, but I will not take out the daunting task of doing that myself. This must have been a huge task on the part of the editors. I estimate that the average clip length is something like 1 1/2 seconds, which means there are nearly 4000 clips making up the movie. It's tiring to watch.
So, while I was distracted with this, I wasn't really following the incoherent plot, and I found the acting to be pretty poor as well.
Damsel (2018)
Failed comedic farse
I went into the theater having not even watched a trailer, so I didn't know what to expect. One of the first scenes showed two men waiting for stage coaches going in opposite directions in a landscape that was hot, dry, and windless (although there was wind whistling in the background). Perhaps that wind noise should have been a hint to me that the movie was supposed to be a farce.
The movie fails as a western. Unfortunately, it also fails as a farce. A farce is supposed to have humor. I didn't laugh or even smile once during the movie. I didn't hear anyone else in the theater laughing either.
Were there any redeeming qualities to the movie? Sure: picturesque cinematography and a nice dance scene.
Don't read further if you intend to see the movie. What follows is spoilers of some of the intended farcical elements. In my opinion, they all fell flat.
Were there farcical moments? Yes: the saloon pianist is Landon Weeks (watch some youtube videos of him for better entertainment), the miniature horse carried a load: a bird cage containing a chicken, a laughing man dressed in a barrel hanged on the gallows (still in his barrel), a man shot from behind in the head while urinating continues urinating after falling backward, bent double-barreled shotgun effectively used as a threat, Bible pages being used for hygiene, man shot through chest with arrow falls on dynamite plunger thus exploding himself....
I found none of these funny or amusing. This movie was easily the worst movie of the year so far for me.
Jeannette, l'enfance de Jeanne d'Arc (2017)
Weird, Unique, Emotional Piece
If you are contemplating seeing the movie, I suggest watching the trailer first. It gives a very good taste of what you're setting yourself up for. If you've seen the trailer and watch the movie anyway, don't bash it. You had an accurate forecast of what you were going to see. OK. So much for my criticism of other reviews.
The movie is a musical. I thought the musical performances of all the actors was mostly very good. There were a couple of spots where the singing seemed discordant with the accompaniment. But it wasn't grating. I had an idea from reading about the movie before I saw it what kind of music I was in for, so it didn't bother me. Not my preferred style of music, but it works in a sort of weird way.
The basic story line of the movie is that Jeanette is a shepherd girl who spends most of her time thinking/singing/praying about the war - how the French are being defeated by the English and that someone needs to do something about it. She prays to God for a war lord to save the French. Of course, God chooses her. But she's slow to answer God's call, taking several years to muster up the decision to follow God's will, something she does at the end. We don't see the result. The movie is about her struggle leading up to that point.
Furious 6 (2013)
Utterly Ridiculous
I'm sorry, but suspension of disbelieve is not possible for me with this movie. There's only so far you can stretch a rubber band before it snaps, and with this movie, they stretched the rubber band about a hundred times past snapping point and expect the audience to believe it won't snap.
Take the scenes (yes, plural) involving the plane near the end of the movie. After it had achieved takeoff speed, it was still struggling to take off for the next, what, 15 minutes? Was that run strip really 50 miles long? Note I didn't time the sequence, so my numbers might be off, but that's just an example of the extent of the ridiculousness. I don't give it a spoiler, because part of this was in the trailer I saw.
Besides the ridiculous overly exaggerated action scenes, I thought the acting left much to be desired.
It would, though, make a good video game.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Terrible waste of time
I should start out by saying that I have a very bad grasp of learning names, and I think that is sorely needed in order to follow this movie.
With all the hype preceding this film, I expected something great. I was very much disappointed. For the first half hour or so I was waiting for the movie to get going. Gradually, I realized it never was going to. As others have pointed out, there were scenes where people were apparently supposed to be giving each other deep, meaningful looks. Interestingly, the music clashed with this device.
In fact, I would say that the sound track was actually pretty good, and was looking for a good movie to accompany it. I found my mind wandering about such things as whether it would be possible for a sound crew to get awarded on a film that was otherwise a dud rather than paying attention to the film itself. Having said that, even the music seemed to sort of peter out before the end of the movie.
I was also bothered by some technical issues. Near the beginning of the film, we are presented with a scene of Budapest. Apparently, the traffic must have been edited, because it bounces up and down relative to the city. No excuse for that, and I found it distracting. I grant that most people probably wouldn't notice it, though.
It was all I could do to stay awake. Should I also point out that I fell asleep during "Harry Potter"?
Your Highness (2011)
Virtually no redeeming value to this movie
I've never seen a bad movie starring Natalie Portman -- until now. This is by far the worst movie I've seen so far this year. It was a complete waste of time. If you think things like minotaur penises being worn as necklaces is funny, then this movie may be for you. It's chock full of that level of material. Contrary to other reviewers here, I didn't find a single thing funny in the movie. Can't cut off a minotaur's horn, so sever his penis for a souvenir instead. Bwahahahah! NOT!
So was there anything positive in this movie? Sure, but nothing to make the movie worth watching. We get to see Natalie Portman from behind diving into a pool wearing nothing but a chastity belt. A couple special effects were kind of cool. For example, a sort of muppet-operated character smoking a bong had a head that was animated in a sort of way that could have been his psychedelic visions projecting through his skull. On the other hand, some of the CGI was pixellated -- swarms of something were flying around in an unrealistic-looking grid. Overall, the effects were good.
If it weren't for the very good sound and the decent effects, the movie would have looked like a bunch of college kids getting together and horsing around at some Renaissance festival. (yawn)
Red Riding Hood (2011)
What a disappointment
The concept was a good one, but it didn't work. There were problems all over the place, from the set design to the story line to character development. Save your money and watch "Cat People" instead. you'll get a much better value.
From the start, sets looked fake. Things simply looked slapped together, with little effort taken to build a cohesive whole.
Amanda Seyfried delivers a great performance. Unfortunately, it isn't equaled by the rest of the cast. Gary Oldman acted as well as one would expect, but his character didn't seem to fit the story. Where did he come from? Why did he have black servants? He simply seemed out of place.
The cinematography wasn't great either. Even scenes designed to be picturesque, for example, a panoramic high perspective scene with the red cape flowing in the wind was destroyed when the wind changed direction blowing the cape into a pile.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)
Just a short note on 3D
I won't cover the story. That is done nicely by others. This review is specific to the 3D aspect of the film. It is full of distracting artifacts. For example, scenes on board the ship where you can see the far deck through subject matter on the near deck are placed inaccurately. Borders around objects are messed up. Faces even have incorrect perspective sometimes, especially when there are rapid transitions between camera angles where two different focal lengths were apparently used. The list goes on.
The main point is that the 3D not only did not add to the film, it is a major distraction. I've seen worse, but if you have the choice between 2D and 3D, don't see the 2D version just to save money, see it to avoid the post-processing artifacts.
In my opinion, movies that have been converted to 3D should not be marketed as 3D movies.
Clash of the Titans (2010)
Spoiled by Effects and Artifacts
The opening imagery of this movie, showing Greek gods in the constellations of the universe was very nice. After that, the movie failed miserably. Artifacts of 3D processing, rendering halos around characters, etc., were so distracting the movie was very difficult to watch.
If you must see it, sit in the back row where these artifacts will hopefully be not quite so apparent. Try to avoid a 3D version if you can.
If you have to see it in 3D, at least wear your glasses upside down. That way, you'll at least get a trippy experience.