It becomes apparent after a very short time of watching this movie that someone has been watching Churchill - the Hollywood years and concluded that albeit the premise is pure genius, taking the real character Winston Churchill, and spinning a completely fabricated and exaggerated yarn around him is a grand idea but that the reason that film is a turd is that it is a comedy. The person in question has then persuaded herself and others that the way to go would have been to remove the comedy and only spin the bullshit yarn and that a new attempt must be made thusly. Somehow someone in the room must have mistakenly pressed the green light button instead of the trap door under her feet, or the alarm that would have had security remove her instantly, and no doubt the rest of the room applauded in sycophantic appreciation. The result is this movie. The whole premise of it, as others have noted, being utter and complete poppycock. May I therefor humbly submit my suggestion for a follow up in which we see Franklin D Roosevelt, played by Sylvester Stallone, deciding he has had enough of this mucking about during the Munich conference in 1938 whereupon he throws off his blanket, jumps out of his wheelchair whilst grabbing an M-16 automatic rifle from a nearby marine and promptly taking the presidential helicopter to Normandy with a bunch of the White House servants, all coincidentally former special forces. Once there they successfully storm the Normandy beaches, defended by Nazi zombies, and thus secure a crucial beach head. They then hold out just long enough for General Patton, portrayed by Jennifer Lopez, to arrive with her underwater tanks and together they take all of Nazi occupied Europe. By this movies standards it too could be billed as based on a true story. Oh, and did I mention that none of the actors look or act even remotely like the historical figures they "portray"? Well, that is only because out of all the wrongs with this movie, that really is quite insignificant... Shame on you, movie makers! Someone could perhaps have interjected in the writing stage of this movies script that incidentally Churchill did not plan or initiate the Gallipoli landings, merely the naval assault that preceded it, but hey, who cares, right?
Reviews
5 Reviews
Spectre
(I) (2015)
Ronald Bond
4 April 2016
Warning: Spoilers
This movie is somewhat watchable if you manage to convince yourself that the hero is Ronald Bond, brother of the more famous and successful James Bond. Ronald of course, unlike his brother, is not the suave charmer and rascal type, but has more of a polish wrestler look and demeanor. This makes for some light comedy when Ronald is shown to be one of the few men that can't look smart and elegant wearing a suit, which incidentally only make him look more silly and distinctly out of place. Ronald also has to rely on fools luck more than skill and intelligence to save his ill conceived ways of handling things. At the start of the movie for instance, he manages to raze two entire blocks of houses whilst trying to perform the simple task of taking out a bad guy with a snipers rifle. Not only that, but he also manages to miss the intended target.
He then proceeds to chase said villain into a helicopter that takes off and flies around over a huge crowd of people. Unlike his brother James, who would simply have disposed of the bad guy and then asked the pilot to land at some convenient location, Ronald finds it a good idea to also try and take out the pilot at the same time although should he succeed, the heli would undoubtedly crash into the crowd. Fools luck saves him this time though.
We get another show of his ineptness later on when he escapes out of a window. Since the bad guys chasing him would have no option but to follow him the same route, his brother would undoubtedly just turned around, wait for them to exit and them pick them off one by one with his Beretta. Ronald here of course just continues running and tries to speed off in his car resulting in a car chase. Fortunately someone must have called in a bomb threat because the city, Rome, is almost completely devoid of people. I know this, because I have been in Rome, and there's people and cars everywhere.
Later on when a woman he has, like only an idiot can, fallen in love with at first site gets kidnapped by bad guys he proceeds to go after them in an aeroplane. His brother would of course just kept his distance, landed close to where the kidnappers cars stopped, and then snuck over to take care of business. Not so Ronald, he proceeds to attack them with the plane itself, seemingly without a plan. After failing miserably, as predicted, the plane crashes through a wood. Sheer luck however, not skill, eventually makes it so that he ends up at the same place as the baddies, most of them disposing of themselves in a crash, and thus lets him save the girl.
Ronalds plan for the end game has to be seen to be believed. After finding out somehow where the bad guy has his bad guy compound, Ronalds plan is simple; even though the villain knows his name, what he looks like and who he is, he will just go there, waltz right in, hope to be taken to the villain, tell him that he has come to kill him, and then do so. That's it, that's the whole plan. For some reason bringing a girl along also seems like a good idea.
The villain first does the obvious to thwart this "plan": send someone to dispose of this idiot en route. When this fails (on a train, incidentally also most likely bomb threatened, because like Rome before it, it's empty) this villain changes his mind for some reason, and instead of shooting the fool right in the face on sight when he arrives, proceeds to house him, give him a guided tour of his lair and then hit him over the head and torture him for a while whilst revealing some back story so ridiculous it must have had the writers rolling on the floor with laughter. One can't help wonder what Ronalds contingency plan was throughout all this.
The plot on it's whole is incomprehensible and stupid, apparently all the intelligence agencies in the world are about to pool into one giant data base that NONE of all the experts that thus must have been involved, with all their vast resources, have managed to find out is controlled by the bad guy. Incidentally, on the plus side, the bad guy also turns out to be an idiot who makes it only through luck. (watch how he miraculously survives not only the explosion of a hand grenade type watch (don't ask) thrown at him, but also the explosion of his whole bad guy hideout. (no explanation is of course given as to how he managed this) There's a fun sequence near the end that can only work if we assume that said bad guy spent some time printing out Ronald Bonds passport photo, as well as those of various friends and colleagues of his, and spent what must have been a considerable amount of time walking around a building taping these up presumable to unnerve Ronald when he arrives there. He also apparently went out to buy a spray can so the could spray "Bond" and an arrow on the wall. The latter implies that his plan actually hinged on the certainty that Bond would escape from the henchmen that captured him earlier on. There is however nothing that shows that the henchmen were intended to let him go so that he could reach this target, so why anyone would bother with the printing, spraying and taping when the odds of Ronald Bond actually getting there are extremely slim, is any ones guess.
All great fun though but watching James Bonds brother clown and clumsy his way through an adventure like this makes one long for an actual James Bond movie, it has been too long!
He then proceeds to chase said villain into a helicopter that takes off and flies around over a huge crowd of people. Unlike his brother James, who would simply have disposed of the bad guy and then asked the pilot to land at some convenient location, Ronald finds it a good idea to also try and take out the pilot at the same time although should he succeed, the heli would undoubtedly crash into the crowd. Fools luck saves him this time though.
We get another show of his ineptness later on when he escapes out of a window. Since the bad guys chasing him would have no option but to follow him the same route, his brother would undoubtedly just turned around, wait for them to exit and them pick them off one by one with his Beretta. Ronald here of course just continues running and tries to speed off in his car resulting in a car chase. Fortunately someone must have called in a bomb threat because the city, Rome, is almost completely devoid of people. I know this, because I have been in Rome, and there's people and cars everywhere.
Later on when a woman he has, like only an idiot can, fallen in love with at first site gets kidnapped by bad guys he proceeds to go after them in an aeroplane. His brother would of course just kept his distance, landed close to where the kidnappers cars stopped, and then snuck over to take care of business. Not so Ronald, he proceeds to attack them with the plane itself, seemingly without a plan. After failing miserably, as predicted, the plane crashes through a wood. Sheer luck however, not skill, eventually makes it so that he ends up at the same place as the baddies, most of them disposing of themselves in a crash, and thus lets him save the girl.
Ronalds plan for the end game has to be seen to be believed. After finding out somehow where the bad guy has his bad guy compound, Ronalds plan is simple; even though the villain knows his name, what he looks like and who he is, he will just go there, waltz right in, hope to be taken to the villain, tell him that he has come to kill him, and then do so. That's it, that's the whole plan. For some reason bringing a girl along also seems like a good idea.
The villain first does the obvious to thwart this "plan": send someone to dispose of this idiot en route. When this fails (on a train, incidentally also most likely bomb threatened, because like Rome before it, it's empty) this villain changes his mind for some reason, and instead of shooting the fool right in the face on sight when he arrives, proceeds to house him, give him a guided tour of his lair and then hit him over the head and torture him for a while whilst revealing some back story so ridiculous it must have had the writers rolling on the floor with laughter. One can't help wonder what Ronalds contingency plan was throughout all this.
The plot on it's whole is incomprehensible and stupid, apparently all the intelligence agencies in the world are about to pool into one giant data base that NONE of all the experts that thus must have been involved, with all their vast resources, have managed to find out is controlled by the bad guy. Incidentally, on the plus side, the bad guy also turns out to be an idiot who makes it only through luck. (watch how he miraculously survives not only the explosion of a hand grenade type watch (don't ask) thrown at him, but also the explosion of his whole bad guy hideout. (no explanation is of course given as to how he managed this) There's a fun sequence near the end that can only work if we assume that said bad guy spent some time printing out Ronald Bonds passport photo, as well as those of various friends and colleagues of his, and spent what must have been a considerable amount of time walking around a building taping these up presumable to unnerve Ronald when he arrives there. He also apparently went out to buy a spray can so the could spray "Bond" and an arrow on the wall. The latter implies that his plan actually hinged on the certainty that Bond would escape from the henchmen that captured him earlier on. There is however nothing that shows that the henchmen were intended to let him go so that he could reach this target, so why anyone would bother with the printing, spraying and taping when the odds of Ronald Bond actually getting there are extremely slim, is any ones guess.
All great fun though but watching James Bonds brother clown and clumsy his way through an adventure like this makes one long for an actual James Bond movie, it has been too long!
Vinyl
(2016)
Good heavens, WHY?
23 March 2016
If you've been longing for a show where all the main characters are unpleasant idiots, then this is the show for you. If, like me, that is not normally what you turn to for entertainment you will be rather disappointed.
Since the things our "protagonists" seem to want are either unclear, revolting or just plain stupid, it's also boring beyond belief. They say Martin Scorsese directed the pilot but after watching it I'm convinced they just made that up, or he phoned it in from a mobile with very bad connection. The odd thing is that the only people you care for, and would be more than happy to follow as protagonists, are the bit parts. For some reason someone decided it would be a good idea to not follow them, but instead the psychopaths that in any other movie or TV-series would be the antagonists or villains.
Being an optimist I kept hoping throughout the pilot that they would get a bullet right in the face, all of them, but alas that never happened. Why anyone cared to put what is clear to be a good amount of cash into this drivel is beyond me. Just to think what a great series could have been made with the period and subject makes me sick. Your time will be better spent bringing out your turntable and listening to some old vinyl.
Since the things our "protagonists" seem to want are either unclear, revolting or just plain stupid, it's also boring beyond belief. They say Martin Scorsese directed the pilot but after watching it I'm convinced they just made that up, or he phoned it in from a mobile with very bad connection. The odd thing is that the only people you care for, and would be more than happy to follow as protagonists, are the bit parts. For some reason someone decided it would be a good idea to not follow them, but instead the psychopaths that in any other movie or TV-series would be the antagonists or villains.
Being an optimist I kept hoping throughout the pilot that they would get a bullet right in the face, all of them, but alas that never happened. Why anyone cared to put what is clear to be a good amount of cash into this drivel is beyond me. Just to think what a great series could have been made with the period and subject makes me sick. Your time will be better spent bringing out your turntable and listening to some old vinyl.
Happy Valley
(2014–2023)
None better
16 March 2016
The fact that Sgt Catherine Cawood is not a real person but a character played by an actress is completely 100% inconceivable. The portrayal is SO real in every aspect. It's real in every mannerism, in the shift between her persona as a private person and police officer, in the way she dresses, the way she wears her hair, her make up, the choices she makes and how she behaves. I've never seen a performance like it in my life. So extremely vulnerable, yet so extremely strong and when push comes to shove so extremely brave and tough. I for one would not want to cross her, for she would surely kick my behind severely, at the same time I sure would want her to talk to if ever I was victimized.
As for the series, both one and two, the plot squeezes the characters so hard that it's sometimes unwatchable because you relate so intensely to the psychological pressures their under, both the good guys and the bad.
An absolute must to watch!
As for the series, both one and two, the plot squeezes the characters so hard that it's sometimes unwatchable because you relate so intensely to the psychological pressures their under, both the good guys and the bad.
An absolute must to watch!
Adaptation.
(2002)
don't believe the hype...
31 March 2003
what am i doing, i'm putting myself in my script?! asks the main character at one point in the movie. the point of course being that the main character is the guy who wrote the script, thus putting himself in his move even though in the movie he says etc etc etc you get the picture. is this funny? is this clever? unfortunately not, it's just pointless. in fact the whole movie is utterly meaningless although some would have you believe it's a revolutionary, creative and completely new way of filmmaking. well folks, it is not. bad and boring movies have been made before albeit mostly by worse directors and with a worse cast. breaking rules can in very few instances be effective and creative but mostly just renders the film unwatchable. don't believe the hype, this movie is a piece of s*** and those who say the contrary probably just do so to cover up the fact that they didn't get it either or more likely slept right through it...
so, don't believe the hype, friends, go se a real clever movie by a real talent with a real story, like "the hours" for instance...
so, don't believe the hype, friends, go se a real clever movie by a real talent with a real story, like "the hours" for instance...
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