josechr Reviews

Mountains of the Moon (1990)

A review

[5/10 · 15 July 2023]

English chaps travel to exotic Africa, and wants to find the source of the Nile. They shoot wildlife, saves slaves, paints African nudes and drinks tea. Spends weeks or months of walking in the desert and over rock beds. Gets a bug in the ear and determines the solution is to pierce the eardrum and become deaf. Gets oedema, and determines the best solution is to cut off the legs. I'm just glad no one got a headache.

After walking through endless dry land, without seeing any streams of water, they find a lake, and decides this must be the source of the Nile. Instant fame. And now I have to write some bullcrap to make the review long enough to pass the im db word limit.

Extraction II (2023)

Extraction II, now it's updated!

[4/10 · 17 June 2023]

Extraction was a fun anomaly, a pure action movie with good guys fighting bad guys, and bad guys turning out good and vice versa.

This time, our suicidal hero Tyler gets a second chance by his boss, Nik Khan. A chance to retreat into the wilderness to heal and to find himsell, maybe even forgive himself for his past.

A surprise visit upends his droll days of self-pity and budding realization that he may have been reduced to just an average man after all, when a man named Alcott comes with news that his former Wifes sister and her kids lives are in peril, in a dank, Georgian prison.

So he sets his employers machinery in motion to save them, backed up by a team consisting of some anonymous, disposible mercenaries, his boss, and her brother.

After they locate the little family unit, minus the dad, the prison turns into a war zone. Que a lot of action, and a believable interaction between our killing machine and his siter-in-law. She can't handle a 130 kg beefed up criminal of course, but she dishes out some effective blows with shovels and whatever she finds, and she is badass!

Then, of course, Hollywood politics and American gender fantasy enters the decision making. Men are evil, corrupt or plain stupid (like the son and his uncles), or sad doormats and killing machines. Women are good, smart and powerful, or eternal victims of men's evil. So yet again we are asked to believe a 50 kg woman can toss men twice her size around like it's nothing, that she can run as fast, kill as effectively and be as remorseless as her mercenary employees. Of course she was melanin richer than most, because she was the hero. The pale woman must be the victim in need of saving, as per post-2015 Hollywood convention.

Granted, at this point all realism is gone. The bad guys, petty drug smugglers, has the capacity of a medium sized country, they control the politics, the police, prison system and the army, so they throw everyting against or heroes. Helicopter, motorcycles (How is that effective? Apparently it's pretty much the most effective assault vehicles known to man..) and they have international reach.

And I could no longer invest in this movie. Of course escapism and suspension of belief is a factor in all action movies, but when politics, feminism, forced representation and social indoctrination trumps a decent script with entertaining visuals, most audiences lose interest pretty soon.

We don't pay for a lecture in marginalized, fringe theory, we pay to be entertained. IF you have an original and insightful lesson, the better, but it is not at all a requisite. And let's face it, Hollywood is not the platform for insightful and nuanced politics. The sooner the movie industry remembers that simple fact, the sooner they can make some good money again, and reclaim their relevancy.

Evil: Exorcism Part 2 (2019) Season 1, Episode 9

Now it veers into religious propaganda...

[23 April 2023]

I liked the show, it was goofy and fun, with the "Scully and Mulder" interaction between David and his two associates.

The creators doesn't particularily shy away from where they stand in this matter, they are very clear about religion being just as a valid model of the world as anything science finds. A bit comical and archaic in this day and age, when most have access to higher education and information is widespread. But it was ok. People have different viewpoints. Kristin often acted as the shill for David and the creators version of "reality"

This time, however, the propaganda gets a bit more aggressive. Now we got full on anti-psychiatry, as well as the usual misandric drivel we are expecting from American shows today with the side story of the incel wannabe mass murderer. But led to do this by a demon, you see. Because we should accept that some things are driven by metaphysical forces, and stop trying to understand the human mind by looking at wider societal changes, upbringings, the role of mass media, untreated mental illness, gun control or any other "worldly" causes. And religion is argued to be just as correct at explaining the world as scientific models, because science keep changing because it is always improving, challenged, new effects and causes uncovered and always move towards more precision over time, while religious dogma stays the same through centuries....

The Colossus of Destiny: A Melvins Tale (2016)

Good idea, poorly executed

[6/10 · 12 February 2022]

Colossus of destiny is the chronicle of the mighty Melvins.

A pretty significant band in the underground of metal, and in the underground they thrive.

It's pretty standard in the story telling. The beginnings, the "big break" but fortunately not the downfall. Showing the resilience of talent, business sensibility and knowing enough to never have to compromise, and still make a living of what you love.

It is a text book example of how to survive int the modern age without having to sell your soul and either go out with a bang or a whimper. Plenty of cool interviews of their peers, like the remainders of Nirvana, the late Chris Cornell, members of Sunn 0))), L7, High on fire etc.

Unfortunately, the people who filmed this did not have a clue of how to operate their equipment. The sound is atrocious to say the least. Would have thought people interested in music would have known about external microphones to their cameras, but nooo... Some shots are out of focus, there's horrible reverb and on and on. It's not really punk rock, just pure lack of skills. You'll want to watch this as a Melvins fan, but all others would most probably just be annoyed most of the time.

Midsommar (2019)

A jewish perspective on folk horror

[7/10 · 6 November 2021]

Midsommar, the second installment in auteur Ari Aster's mainstream break into elite horror.

It is really structured into three layers, level one is a folk horror about a group of american friends travelling abroad and getting stuck in a deadly conspiracy, level two is a story about a bad relationship that implodes following a traumatic event, then ruptures into nasty second degree revenge, and thirdly, it's a folk horror about the long term anxieties of holocaust.

The first level, about which most people will judge the movie's effectiveness about, is kind of working. Ari do know how to create a certain nervous, anxiety filled atmosphere. The thing that makes this folk horror a bit different is the psychedelic imagery, although other folk horror movies have explored this theme before (A field in england)

The second level, the effect of a toxic relationship on two people, is perhaps the most interesting. How do you relate to trauma in a dying relationship, who is to blame (which is fairly obvious in this case) and would you behave differently? Most would like to say yes, but I don't think anyone can say anything for certain before they were in the same situation.

The third level, which Ari Aster is reluctant to talk about, is perhaps at the very core of what this movie is about. Already at the beginning we are subjected to various horrific imagery of the holocaust. First, there is a gassing wiping out a family, then there is xenophobic slogans on a banner over the road to the village. And throughout the movie, there is quite unsubtle clues about the anxieties both explicit about the holocaust, but also about xenophobia in europe, real or imagined. The giant yellow triangle that makes up the sacrificial house, which corresponds to the jewish mark in german concentration camps, the giant othala rune that makes up the tables, which is often used by neo-nazis, the killing of the couple with darker complexion, euthanasia of old and "useless" people, and not the least the literal "burnt offering" at the end, which is the direct translation of holocaust. The death pants were a bit silly, but ok

All in all it is an effective horror movie about the anxieties of people on the outside, people who don't share the history and culture of their chosen country, and the anxieties of a people who have witnessed the worst outcome of their host countries rejection.

As such, it is very effective, but on the other hand it seems weirdly rushed. Weirdly because the level of details and layering is insane, but the story at the core seems more like a pastiche, a flurry of ideas that would benefit for some maturation an cohesiveness granted by time.

All in all, I liked it. And Ari will surely become our times master of our darker corners of consciousness, like Kubrick or Hitchcock before him.

Squid Game (2021– )

Worth your time

[7/10 · 8 October 2021]

"Squid game" is a Korean mystery/thriller tv-series about a group of people selected to participate in a sinister game of survival.

Every participant is selected because they are out of luck and in debt, and desperate enough to do what it takes to escape their fate in the outside world.

We follow deadbeat dad and gambling addict Seong Gi-Hun, as he continue to fall into bottomless debt, and after a fateful late night gamble at the subway, gets an invitation to a final game where everything will change.

What follows is a series of games, where the stakes are final if you lose, but the price is a chance to redeem yourself financially and for some, morally.

The show is really nothing more, or less, than a solid script, with no forced finger pointing or animosity based on race or sex. There are assholes and villains, and there are good people, and people in between. Regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation. There's no bigotry outside of that, which U. S. TV-shows are unable to write or make anymore.

It's exciting, but there is a certain amount of over-acting and a bit of melodrama that can be somewhat grating to a western palate, but when the script is that good and engaging, it's easy enough to stomach. Other than the aforemented, the actors do a stellar job.

It has some flaws of course. It's not groundbreaking or terribly original in it's constituant parts, but as a whole, it works perfectly fine for what it is.

It's well shot, well paced, engaging, but with some overplaying that draws you out of the story a bit, as mentioned. Overall an enjoyable, exciting and somewhat gory and bloody good series, with added societal criticism and a message that doesn't label any specific demographic as inherently evil.

Old (2021)

Could everyone stop giving funds to Shyamalan, please?

[1/10 · 29 September 2021]

"Visionary" filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan is at it again... He started his career with a bang, with the fantastic "Sixth Sense" and has somehow managed to live on that movie to thorougly prove to the world that this was pure dumb luck.

I get it, he can film, but he is simply unable to write anything coherent, and unable to direct. It's like he never heard a real conversation in his life, or never seen real people react to something.

This film has a typical "twilight zone"-derivative premise, we all expect that from visionary filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan by now. And it's gorgeously shot, and then the characters starts to talk, this weird sort of pretentious, but childishly stupid, clunky, nonsense dialogue, they have conversations that could never be held outside a Shyamalan, or Ed Woods or Tommy Wiseau movie, and when something happen, they react in a ways that noone other than characters in said filmmakers movie would ever react.

I'm dumbfounded how little grasp he has on this after so many years of making movies. In the beginning it's like he's trying to emulate the dialogue as in a Yorgos Lanthimos movie, but whereas the dialogue is weird in the former filmmakers movies, they serve a specific purpose, the should make you uncomfortable, and you can tell where it is meant to be funny. And the script supports it. In Shyamalan's case it becomes funny because they are soo incredible poor written, it almost alway clash with the script, and to top it of, the pretentiousness makes it evident that he is really proud of how clever he is, when we, the audience can see clearly how incompetent and ignorant he is.

So please, don't let him write another script, don't let him direct, at most they can let him produce. It is just embarrassing to let him continue making movies now... He's not "visionary", he's a pretentious hack.

The 13th Warrior (1999)

A fantasy movie, with vikings

[5/10 · 17 September 2021]

The 13th warrior is a fantasy movie based on the american author Michael Crichtons 1976 novel "the eaters of the dead".

We follow an arab named Ahmad ibn Fadlan, who follows the "savage" norsemen to the exotic north. The character Ahmad is very loosely inspired by the historical character Ahmad ibn Fadlan, who travelled to the north, and reported from the life of the Volga vikings, Swedish pirates, traders and mercenaries situated in modern day Russia.

The rest of the movie is a mess of native american, stone-age, iron-age, british knights tales and speculative mythology. It is quite entertaining for what it is, an old fashioned, silly adventure movie. But as a movie with any historical merits, it is abysmal. Names are fantasy, mythology and religion is fantasy, Islam came 600 years after Christianity, and most of the late vikings were christian. And they had a writing system, heard of runes?

The Third Day (2020)

A story of grief

[6/10 · 26 July 2021]

The third day, starring Jude Law as husband Sam in the first part, and Naomie Harris as Helen in the second.

The series start with a distressed Sam in a personal crisis involving some shady scheme to bribe an official, on the same day he is visiting the place where his son had been found dead, by the hands of a stranger. He stumbles across a girl that tries to hang herself, and offers himself to drive her home, on an island called Osea which can only be reached during low tide.

The inhabitants and the island is where this delves into folk horror territory, complete with strange customs and insular beliefs, with only two outsiders, Sam, and an American woman named Jess. This whole first part is filmed in a way that give it a dreamy and fantastical look, and we learn that Sam is not exactly a reliable narrator. This blurring of delusion and reality is not helped by the islanders own set of beliefs, and their's and Sam's delusional world views eventually merges into something sinister.

The second part introduces Sam's wife, Helen, and their two daughters. This time the cinematography is realistic and grounded. We learn more about what happened to Sam, their missing son and their marriage.

I guess the name of the series is because missing persons in the UK gets status as official after 72 hours, 3 days.

The island is torn apart, and Helen has to try to find the answers she needs, salvage what is left and finally get closure.

All in all I would say this is a series of how a family deals with loss and serious mental illness, but with the backdrop of a folk horror and religious mania. It is really a good series, but with some pacing problems in the first act. Almost gave it up, but glad that I watched it to the end.

Strange Angel (2018–2019)

It's ok. But formulaic.

[5/10 · 19 April 2021]

It's a nice series about fascinating real history. The problem is that the series creators doesn't trust the story enough, and feel the need to shoehorn it into the same formula you've seen a million times before. There's this idealist see, he has a vision that no one else shares, but he is erratic and reckless. His wife stands by him at first, until the lies and dishonesty rears it's ugly head.. His friend is the smart one, but he lacks imagination. He is dependable and does the actual science, where our "hero" is reckless and has the "vision" The professors does't believe his vision. Soon hubris takes hold of our hero, but he wills his way into history, because he's a genious that sees something no one else can. You know where this is going, you've seen this tired story many, many times before. Other than that, it is filmed beautifully, the actors are good, it could have been a fascinating story if only the writer woukl trust the real story enough. Now it's a predictable, and fairly boring show.

Utopia (2020)

Doesn't compete. At all.

[1/10 · 10 October 2020]

The differences. Well, Jessica Hyde in the original was like a person. She had lived an extreme life, but you believed the character. The american version was a total cartoon character, abnormal in every way, not possible to invest any feeling at all into her. Ooh, she pees standing up, she's like a guy! She crawls into a cupboard and screams, she's cooky! The "gang" in the original was believeable, every one of them were portrayed as realistic persons. They had their flaws, and behaved from self-interests- But they were HUMAN. The american versions are portrayed like weird cartoon-people that has never existed outside american tv. Like sitcom-leprechauns fom planet B, thrust into a ketchup filled, unfunny universe. The bad guys in the original were cartoonish but believeable, and truly terrifying. Arby in particular, was like a psychotic "it follows"-spectre.. The americans made them like sitcom-characters, like teddybears with guns. Should be scary, but is not. The ones that have rewritten this had no clue at all about the source materierial. "But it's woke and shieet!" No it's not. It just a poorly written cash-grab. Had HBO given David Fincher the money he asked, this could have been an awesome show. But this is just pathetic. I'll give it this one season before it gets cancelled. The original show is weirdly relevant as well, and was still able to problematize the issue. Think not? Just google "population increase" between when you were born, and today....

American Sniper (2014)

Just another triggerhappy hillbilly.

[5/10 · 28 May 2020]

Yeah, it got some action, some dude who loves killing brown people. But it's just another american self-aggrandizising wannabe hero. Oooh he's doing it all for his country, ooh he want to protect his woman from the evils of the world, Just a regular Joe, sacrificing his life for the good of his nation. He likes killing people, that's all. He loves guns, and the eagle, and his pickup, he's no hero. He's a redneck who loves his guns, and a chance to kill people without repercussions. Moron, glad he died.

Back to the Future (1985)

Yeah.. no...

[4/10 · 31 December 2019]

I digged this movie as a kid. It was crazy scientists and fun action. And nobody could envision what the future would look like. Now, I'm in my fourties, the era they travelled to has passed, and I watched this again.

First, nothing in this movie feels realistic. The family of Marty feel like a bad fever dream of a horrific past. Caricature dynamics that hammer in how crap of a life the "kid" has (Michael J. Fox was in his middle thirties at he time). The professor angle, well, nobody over 10-years old buy into that guy. He build a fantastical time machine out of a car for crissakes, an doesn't seem to understand anything about how something works, except through magic and unbelievable "epinaphies". They have an adventure, albeit, magical in nature, and learn a thing or two (banal) things about life. It's filmed really good, the actors are for the most part ok, but the story doesn't really make any sense if your'e not a kid born in the eighties with poor understanding of physics and science.

Departures (2008– )

First season review

[2/10 · 21 September 2019]

Departure is a travel series about two (plus one, behind the camera) friends that decides to travel the world. One is of average intelligence, but think he is subgenious because of his companionship, the other is borderline retarded but happy and fun, it helps to regard him as a happy little monkey. They travel to their "friends" (people the have an e-mail address to) and do the local stuff. They drink and frolic as human monkies do. You know, vandalize their property, and molests animals. No really deep truths given or experienced, just basic dudes experiencing somethin different than their american everyday stuff.