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themurphile
Reviews
Bombshell (2019)
If it's a bombshell, then it was a dud.
Make-up, styling, and acting all come together for a visually striking movie. Powerhouse performances from a star-studded cast who were all well-selected for their roles. This was a necessary story to tell, seeing as we're still very much at the beginning of understanding the depth of harassment that occurs in the business world. Unfortunately, this one just doesn't pack the punch you want it to.
The story very accurately depicts the nuances of experiencing harassment and the impossible situation one faces in how they choose to deal with it. We see stories of women who chose to stop being a victim and fight back. We also see stories of women who want to remain silent and just put the horrific experience behind them. Then there are the women who attack the victims for standing up for themselves, or standing up for themselves too late. A lot of victim shaming, a lot of misdirected anger. It's all important to build a message around, and this movie does well showing the intricacies of the experience.
Where the movie fails is in providing hope for people who have to through this. By the end of it, none of the aggressors really face any consequence that you'd be satisfied with. The two men who got fired were paid a combined sum that was 30% more than what was paid to their victims in total. The culture remained the same. The women who spoke up lost their jobs and ended up in worse positions. The takeaway from the movie is essentially, "you should speak up, but if you do then you should know that you're going to get a pittance for your efforts and life will get harder in new ways for you."
I get that this is all based on true events, but if they weren't going to frame it differently, they perhaps should have taken different source material to create their movie. This offers and accurate depiction of the woman's plight in a man's world, but it ends basically by saying, "well it sucks to be you."
Leave the World Behind (2023)
The biggest dry hump of a suspense movie you'll ever see.
This movie was quite riveting for the first hour, I was very heavily invested. Some extremely unique cinematography going on, combined with a lot very clever details in the set design. The plot is very intense and the director certainly did a good job of hooking you into the story and making you feel the sort of anxiety the characters are feeling.
As you move into the second half it starts to feel like they got lost telling a story and didn't know where to go with it. The pacing is a bit off late in the movie leaving you feeling like "is this going to come to a conclusion anytime soon?" Then they start developing I guess what the message is they intended to convey to you, which is a vaguely political statement on the people of the U. S. in doing that, you start to feel a little cheated that they started with a great suspense movie and turned it into some statement of morality the film maker wanted to preach to you.
The last 20 minutes really kind of just falls apart completely. Your left with a couple of pretty big unresolved matters from the plot, and the only thing they really sum up is what the 13 year old girl wanted to accomplish, which you see coming from miles away.
To summarize: this movie starts with a fantastic build of layers upon layers only to forget about lost of them so they can make their statement which comes at a great sacrifice to the quality of the final 2 acts of the story.
Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (2023)
If the boys from Workaholics went on a treasure hunt
While the movie has some funny dialogue and it's worth finishing once you get far enough in to realize it isn't that good, those are the most complementary things I can say about this flick.
On the face this movie is just Without a Paddle redone 20 years later. Group of friends since childhood are growing apart as adults and one of them decides to rekindle the once flourishing friendship by having the group go on a hunt for a fabled treasure they heard about when they were kids. Absolutely the same story as Without a Paddle.
The only thing that sets this apart from the movie it rips off is that the group of guys is more like a direct copy of Mail Order Comedy, the guys who brought you Workaholics and Game Over, Man!
Overall the movie isn't the worst thing you'll ever watch, but it offers zero originality and mostly cheesy humor. Do yourself a favor and plan on spending 90 minutes of your life on something more entertaining. Like re-grouting your shower.
Speed (1994)
LAPD allows $40 million in damages to avoid paying a $3.7 million ransom
This is a classic 90's action flick. Super fun, action all the way, cheesy catch phrases. Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves delivering performances that defined what we've come to expect from them, and Dennis Hopper playing a yet another role with powerhouse acting that makes you ask, "what is he doing in this movie?"
Just a fun romp the whole way through. I definitely recommend anyone give it a watch, it's mostly held up against aging outside of old cell phones and phone booths. But the plot and the action sequences are great, aside from a flying bus at one point. A quality action movie indeed.
God's Favorite Idiot (2022)
New age religious nonsense doubling as a "Good Omens" knock-off
Ben Falcone is an incredibly mediocre entertainer. He isn't the worst out there, he's just "that guy" everybody knows who thinks he could write a movie. Ben just has the incredible opportunity of being married to an actually talented comedy actress who has coat tails for him to ride. This series is yet another of Melissa McCarthy's coat tails. I fear that if she keeps working her husband's movies she's just going to fade away and be stuck in B movie land forever.
It's worth addressing the standard holier than thou finger wagging approach to religion that seems to be getting popular these days. The whole concept of "everybody is right" is insanely contradictory. We always seem to lean on Christians as the nemesis I'm this philosophical viewpoint. That if everybody is right, and Christians think only Christians are right, then Christians are wrong. So this basically boils down to "do whatever feels good."
The thing is everybody can't be right. Many of these religions are in direct conflict with one another. You must accept Christ as your savior as a requirement of Christian salvation. Conversely, the Christian worship of Jesus is worshiping a false idol in Islam and Judaism, and would likely get you sent to hell. Not to mention the many gods of Hinduism, Shinto, etc. Then we have to mention laveyan satanism. If everybody is right, then there definitely is a god AND there definitely isn't one. There is no god, there is one god, and there are many gods. It's okay to sin according to the principles of any particular religion because there both is and is not such a thing as sin.
This absurd approach to religion and philosophy is nothing more than just anxiety avoidance. People don't want to accept the serious nature of the question of whether there is a god, and so they avoid it altogether with this vague and insane notion that there's a possibility the answer is yes and no, so you're covered either way.
Hollywood really needs to stop pushing this garbage. It is total nonsense.
Till (2022)
A story that deserves to be told better
It's nice to see this story getting the attention is deserves, but this screen offering seems almost rambling and lost when trying to establish the narrative. Powerful performances from the cast; very well performed. You'll cry, you'll be shocked, but you'll also be left feeling like the movie was more of a collection of moments and less like a cohesive script.
There are truly award worthy deliveries from various members of the cast and the movie was shot well with its lighting, cinematography, and set & costume design. But between powerhouse performances you're left with 10 minute stretches of obvious filler that don't do much to add to the story or draw you into it. I found my mind wandering and losing interest, even though these real life events are so worthy of attention for so many reasons.
In short, this movie is okay and deserves a watch for what's good about it, but viewers should set the bar a bit in mediocre territory if they want to avoid coming out of it dissatisfied. Editing is probably the single point of failure here. The story as-is could be 30+ minutes shorter and it would flow a lot better. Else, they could have included more elements of the NAACP's involvement, elements of the political environment, or anything other than a series of prolonged, silent scenes of brooding introspection. It feels almost like the filmmakers had a goal to make the movie last a certain amount of time, and then in post-production figure out how to do it.
All in all, it's worth a single view, but probably one of those movies you remember 10 years from now that it once existed and you vaguely recall having seen it.
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022)
Cheesy and Too Ambitious for the Budget
Overall, it's at least watchable. That's about as complementary as I can be. Some episodes are okay, but needed to be longer in order to feel like a good story. Episode 1 is a perfect example. It's a decent enough plot, if a bit predictable, but this story doesn't fit well as a 45 minute episode of a show. There's no time to care about any of the characters, and no opportunity to be drawn into the suspense.
Then you have some episodes which are quite honestly just garbage through and through. Conveniently, episode 2 is a good example. It may have been better if they had the budget for what they attempted, but heavy emphasis on "may have been." We establish a good platform at the beginning of the episode to establish the character's motives and a tiny bit of background, then 25 minutes of a prolonged chase sequence. When the first boss monster arrives it's an absurd choice, but if you're going to go with it, have the money to go with it. Clearly they didn't. The second boss monster is better, though totally predicted if for no other reason than the fact that it's making clearly visible micro movements while we're supposed to believe it's inanimate. Greenscreening the lower half out was a bit amateurish and at times the physics of the upper torso creates a special effect that could be done by freshman year film students.
Guillermo waddling around to introduce each episode is a throwback to Alfred Hitchcock, and it would play better if he wasn't such an oddly shaped man. With the quality of the content, it's hard to know if this bit is an homage to the prolific director or if the show runner honestly thought this was an original idea.
With how campy this series is, I would have expected John Waters to have been involved. Walking away, I don't hate myself for having watched this, but if given the chance to reclaim a few hours of my life, I would opt to erase this memory and write myself a note to watch something more worthwhile such as a Pauly Shore movie or the "Friday" music video with Rebecca Black.
Big Little Lies (2017)
What is Nicole Kidman doing?
She looks 55 passing for 50, trying to play 39. It's a little disgusting. Own your age. She's a hot 50, but a terrible anything under that.
The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)
Ed Wood Phoned in Better Garbage
This movie has only one quality worthwhile and that's the actress portraying Cheryl. The mother shows zero emotion and the law enforcement characters have clearly no idea how law enforcement agents speak. One of them gives a pretty detailed description of a victim who they later show who looks absolutely nothing like the description. Mention is made of intestines being strewn about "like Christmas lights" but when shown the victim we see a small smudge of blood on his face and that's pretty much it.
A lot of obvious things happen which you see coming from a mile away and the details of the story are not altogether original to begin with. Understanding that the poor quality of the footage is deliberate and part of the story, most of it is so bad you can't even tell what's supposed to be going on in he scene.
One of the worst movies I've seen in a while but as my title alludes, if you like Ed Wood style terrible movies then it is entertaining for that purpose. If you think you're getting a good story with remotely tolerable acting then buckle up for the rocky road ahead. My only regret is the inability to give fewer than zero stars to this horrendous piece of garbage.