erikstuborn Reviews

Fallout (2024– )

Dystopia for fourteen-year-olds.

[4/10 · 17 April 2024]

I am not a fan of this video game or any other. This is a dystopian fantasy series and I am a sci-fi consumer. To analyze it from the perspective of the minimum necessary to interest an adult audience is pointless. This is a product for uncritical spirits.

There is a lot of blood but the action scenes are poorly choreographed, with no sense of pacing or continuity. It's all just a bunch of gags about exploding heads, shattered legs and explosive gunfire but lacking in narrative.

The director (sorry, Jonathan) has no sense of story flow and splashes fades to black here and there because the script is full of holes and the stories don't string together.

The plot wanders between supposed comedy and bloody space thriller without deciding on either option.

The premise of the young girl leaving the shelter to find her father who has been kidnapped is as absurd as the very fact that head-busting Neanderthals have kidnapped her father.

A disappointing failure for adults who love speculative fiction, science fiction and dystopias.

Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)

An implausible story

[5/10 · 9 April 2024]

Film adapted from a novel (I presume for young adults) that swings between rural romantic drama, teen adventure, dysfunctional family movie with an alcoholic father, trial movie, criminal investigation and love of nature that is not convincing in any of its aspects.

An implausible story of a nine-year-old girl who lives in the marsh alone, barefoot, uneducated, collecting mollusks, for more than ten years.

The pale protagonist grows up graceful as a gazelle without her feet, hands or skin suffering any trace of the wild life she has led and transforms into a teenager like all the others, only she is as free as the wind because she has neither mother nor father who has cared for her or educated her.

That there is a plot twist almost in the end credits does not save this bland story full of recognizable clichés.

Bergman Island (2021)

No ideas, no movie

[1/10 · 30 January 2022]

A weak, simple, mediocre and soporific film that takes advantage of Bergman's name (simplifying his work and his life in three strokes), to fill the emptiness it boasts.

Even the island scenery is not well used, with boring and tedious cinematography.

The only interesting thing is to discover (in case it is true) that the inhabitants of the island could not stand B and still can't stand him after his death.

A monumental disappointment. Not at all recommendable movie, if you like cinema.

Annette (2021)

One of the worst movies ever (and I'm a Carax fan).

[2/10 · 14 September 2021]

A project that was going to be an album by the band Sparks, who put a song to the great film 'Holy Motors' by the same director, and that, by the grace of European production aid, has become Carax's American film and the worst idea that the brilliant French director could have had.

The film is a headless musical dreck, with a score indebted to the worst Andrew Lloyd Weber, with a pitiful and stiff performances, and some pathetic tribute to David Lynch.

It's also the worst of Adam Driver, that actor who is starting to get tired of being in every movie, now playing a miserable stand-up comedian who tries to get a smile by making Jewish jokes (Something we've already seen too many times, Leos Carax, and in Jewish comedians! Man, we go to the movies too!).

Cotillard, practically invisible, tiptoes past, reaches out to pick up the check with her usual elegance and disappears without a trace of her supposed performance.

And the pitiful icing on the cake is put by Simon Helberg (the 'Jew' from Big Bang Theory) cloning to the millimeter the role he already played in 'Florence Foster Jenkins'... Jeez, for me that was already too much! As if there were no actors who play the piano and as if there were no movies to play the brilliant shy guy, they choose him to do the same, exactly the same thing, he did five years ago. A real shocker.

Not recommended at all, not at all, and even less in music. And it's a musical!

Dear Comrades! (2020)

Much suffering but no criticism

[5/10 · 13 August 2021]

In 1962, during the Kruchev era, a mature woman with an important local position and nostalgic for the Stalin era, who lives with the privileges of having a Party card, will suddenly discover what the Soviet revolution has become, and how this unknown world affects her closest environment.

The film accurately reconstructs the aesthetics and characters of the Soviet cinema of the 50's. Watching it I was reminded of that jewel that is still 'When the storks pass by' (Letiat zhuravlí) (1957) by Mikhail Kalatozov, a clear, simple film, with pristine images, that is very critical of the war but that in the end recovers from its pain to raise its fist and defend the conquests of the Soviet people. In other words, it's a film without twists and turns, that's just the way it is and that's the way it is. However, the resemblance to 'Dear Comrades' ends there, in the aesthetics.

(Konchalovskiy is a director in tune with the current neo-Soviet system and one of its pampered artists. On IMdB we can read that the president of Russia took his film about Michelangelo Buonarroti on his visit to the Pope in Rome and organized a private screening as a gift to the pontiff. )

From the first hour of 'Dear Comrades' the director subjects his leading actress to an ordeal of pain and suffering, collapse of her values, fear for her own and for her own life, to show us the corruption of power, until the penultimate minute. What happens at the end? This is where you get the shock: when all seemed lost... Tachaaan! Things are fixed, as in a sweetened movie of the worst Hollywood. In fact the final sentence is 'Everything is going to be better'.

To make a political film without getting into politics (and especially without being critical) is a stylistic exercise, from which one can come out more or less successful, but it will never be a solid and brilliant work.

What we see is a long and tortuous journey to end up landing on Dorothy's yellow brick road. A disappointment.

Sin (2019)

As if Pasolini had returned

[10/10 · 9 August 2021]

This movie has left me without blinking during the more than two hours it lasts. With beautiful photography, a hard and dry plot, and hypnotic images for its approach to an Italian Renaissance as it must have been in reality, dirty, poor and tremendously unfair.

The actors seem sculpted against the beautiful background of Tuscany with the same rawness that we find in Pasolini's films. We must not forget that Konchalovskiy collaborated with Tarkovsky in the birth of the story of another tormented artist, 'Andrei Rublev', one of his masterpieces.

From the beginning of the film we see Michelangelo in his maturity, when the intense and fierce compulsion of his sculptural works, which seem to relax only in his 'Pieta', are those of a man pursued by 'the devil' -as his character says-, obsessed by money, in a purely masculine world, far from femininity, compassion and subtlety.

The central scene of 'Il Peccato' has been compared to a certain scene in the movie 'Fitzcarraldo' and they are not wrong, because there is dementia linked to the search for a goal that constantly escapes, no matter how much effort is made, and all this is told in a way that takes your breath away. Although it is not a drama, it is the life of someone at the limit of his strength.

Highly recommended.

Motherless Brooklyn (2019)

Whodunit?

[5/10 · 3 September 2020]

Having a more or less clever script, ugly enough supporting actors to be in a 50's movie, excellent costumes and vintage cars is not enough to create an epic film. And what does it take to create an epic film? Good cinematography and excellent photography. That is, lighting, texture, atmosphere. Neither with a hundred smoke machines nor with yellow filters you get that, you get that with a good technician-creator behind the cameras and Norton didn't know that. Or did he forget? Without that actors are well dressed and better combed toys moving on an empty stage. You leave them without resources. They are left naked of their character. They are left with nothing. And there is no sharp story, no freaky character with Tourette's syndrome to save him.

Parasite (2019)

Everyone already knew that rich people are stupid. Why make a whole movie just about this?

[2/10 · 22 January 2020]

I think it was a film director who said that fiction is asked to make sense, when reality often doesn't. This film must be very real because it is absolutely senseless. Where does the parasite family get the fancy clothes and the cultured and educated ways? Where do they learn, from one day to the next, to behave like refined people? How do they foresee the reactions of the parasite victims to the millimeter and not fail in their plan? Wait, by the way... where does the plan come from? The plan is never created, never plotted, simply the sister takes off her panties (by the way, a hundred dollar panties) in the car and everything is already organized and everyone agrees. That's nonsense to me. There is only one thread, which must have seemed interesting to the writer, which is the smell, but then nobody pulls that thread and it gets lost. Everyone already knew that rich people are stupid. Why make a whole movie just about this? It reminds me of those movies from the 1940s where the woman protagonist to fool someone only had to dress in men's clothes, hide her hair and put on a false moustache. I think that globally people's credulity is at an all-time low and all those who consider it a masterpiece should start reviewing Cantinflas' filmography. They would find several films in it with themes very similar to this one.

Ad Astra (2019)

An insult to intelligence

[1/10 · 22 January 2020]

I'm not a space specialist but I've seen a lot of good films about the conquest of space and this one seemed to me to be a pastiche of a hundred different space films, most of them mediocre, to reach the absolute nothing. A supposed emotional discourse, without emotion, a result without transcendence and above all zero originality. The film 2010 (not to mention the great legends of the genre that it doesn't even touch) contains itself in one minute more accuracy about the trips to space that is in all this footage. Moon vehicles that run at over 100 kilometers per hour! Raising dust on their trajectory! People falling from a space station (initial antenna scene) to Earth by parachute! Astronauts moving through space and going from one ship to another unattached and without the aid of devices and landing exactly where they wanted to go! What a complete nonsense. Why would they do this? Who are they trying to fool? If there is a movie I would like to erase from the space travel genre, this is the first one on the list. I end up with the feeling that I have wasted my time and that I am wasting it now by writing this.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: Hands! (2019) Season 3, Episode 4

Crumbles like a sandcastle when the tide rises

[3/10 · 17 December 2019]

Just as the first two seasons reached the top in dynamism and fun, this third season is disintegrating before our eyes. There seems to be a desire to transform this comedy into a tragedy, without first going through the tragicomedy. There is no more black humour, there are no more powerful phrases, and I am not only referring to the monologues that have been shortened more and more, but also to the very plot of the secondary ones. Everything is resolved with beautiful sets and eternal musical numbers. The main characters have been losing their strength and their structure to be diluted in erratic characters. I miss Mrs Maisel's fiancé and Lenny Bruce, who each in their own way gave at the end of the second season a rare and peculiar power. I miss Joel's parents as two difficult but endearing and sympathetic people and not that which they have become, I miss the safety Rose Weissman and the poise of the father. Sophie Lennon exceeds as nemesis because she is not even nemesis anymore. It would have been better to have allowed more time to make this third season before deciding that filling each and every one of the characters in each episode with problems would fill creative gaps. It's a comedy, for God's sake!

The Emperor of Paris (2018)

No strength

[3/10 · 14 September 2019]

A historical film well done in aesthetics but with a script full of clichés and with a mediocre direction. Vincent Cassel, the main actor, badly directed, bases his interpretation on shouts and grim looks, in his character there are no nuances or low voice, everything seems to be said by hitting the table, with what ends up being the caricature of a tough guy. The best interpretation is that of Fabrice Luchini (an actor I didn't know) in the brief role of Minister Fouché, tense, cynical and transmitting true authority without screaming. The best of the film are undoubtedly the digital effects, especially the architecture of the city and the interiors, really achieved. It's a pity that the result is like this because Vidocq's historical character deserved a splendid updated revision and what he has received is a film to forget the next minute to be seen.

Barry (2018–2023)

Finally disappointing...

[5/10 · 26 August 2019]

I'm disappointed that a different comedy with remarkable scripts, full of unexpected twists and turns, played by funny actors, in its second season led to an action movie more like Tarantino's Kill Bill (including Tibetan temple) than a comedy to make people laugh. The fact that the character didn't find redemption and that he wasn't able to come out of his destructive and violent inertia denotes that the Barry series is more at the service of the audience ranking than the creative line of its creators (who said in the interviews that it was hard not to make jokes in the middle of dramatic situations). The final chapter is as if it were another series and if Bill Hader wants to start a career making characters at the height of The Rock, is on the right track. It's a pity.

At Eternity's Gate (2018)

Brilliant and full of texture (like Vicent's paintings)

[10/10 · 26 May 2019]

Magnificent and emotional version of Vincent's last months. I would like to highlight the physicality of the interpretations. How Theo embraces his brother (especially), how Vincent applies the painting on the canvas, how he rests on Paul's back or how he suggests a posture to a model, using his hands rudely. It is a very physical film in the sense of bringing you closer to the humanity of all the characters, those who understand it and those who don't, those who know that he is an artist and those who doubt him. Defoe is impressive (despite the huge age difference with the character) could not have been a better bet. Schnabel's direction, with very short shots, handheld camera, with a blur at the lower part of the screen in the moments of loss of reason, is superb. I think Schnabel has met again with the same guy who directed "Basquiat", leaving everyone speechless. Highly recommended for its intensity and for its deep narrative and no waste of shots despite containing many silences is a compact and solid film like few independent films are seen in these days. A jewel to add to the biographies alternatives to those of the majors studios, and as necessary as breathing.

Cold War (2018)

Good music, beautiful photography, loose script.

[5/10 · 12 December 2018]

After watching the film 'Ida', the impression produced by this second film known outside Poland by Pawel Pawlikowski is that it is a commission in the shadow of his success and not a quiet and meditated work of which the author can feel proud father. Probably in Ida's creation the author easily spent five years of his life, in this one it is obvious that the script are some brushstrokes sketched on the basis of fused in black and label of 'A few years later' that slow down the rhythm and burden a story that in this case is conventional in itself but typical and not very credible. The first twenty minutes it seems that he was going to be satisfied with making a Carlos Saura type film about Flamenco, only that applied to Polish folklore, and to the specific time in which they were under the yoke of the Warsaw Pact, it would have been a worthy effort because both the music and the interpretations in that first part are really outstanding, but the melodrama enters the scene and spoils everything. A lost opportunity and a downturn in the trajectory of this author that we hope will give us much more 'Idas' than 'Cold Wars' in the future.

Cold War (2018)

Good music, beautiful photography, loose script.

[5/10 · 12 December 2018]

After watching the film 'Ida', the impression produced by this second film known outside Poland by Pawel Pawlikowski is that it is a commission in the shadow of his success and not a quiet and meditated work of which the author can feel proud father. Probably in Ida's creation the author easily spent five years of his life, in this one it is obvious that the script are some brushstrokes sketched on the basis of faded in black and the label 'A few years later' that always slow down the rhythm and burden a story that in this case is conventional but typical and not very credible. The first twenty minutes it seems that he was going to be satisfied with making a Carlos Saura film about Flamenco, only that applied to Polish folklore, and to the specific time in which they were under the yoke of the Warsaw Pact, and it would have been a worthy effort because both the music and the interpretations in that first part are really outstanding, but the melodrama enters the scene and spoils everything. A lost opportunity and a downturn in the trajectory of this author that we hope will give us much more 'Idas' than 'Cold Wars' in the future.

Drinking Buddies (2013)

Drunken Buddies

[2/10 · 18 August 2018]

A supposed comedy without surprising moments or funny situations, predictable and without romantic tension, in which the only interesting characteristic of the male 'handsome' is that he plays cards and wins. Plus it's one of those movies where the prettiest girl is the loser. Where have I seen this? Seems like all the fun is in drinking all the time. It looks like a promo of a beer brand rather than a movie in which its creators want to transmit some of their creativity. Flat and boring.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

Not as bad as they say

[6/10 · 25 January 2018]

It's not as bad as they say. I've seen worse. It does not reach the excellent level of Guardians of the Galaxy I and II (the best movies that have been to the moment of entertainment and sci-fi) but it's saved. What's sappy about the wedding and honeymoon thing? Yeah. Yeah. But you can no longer blame Hollywood for that... now you will have to blame the Chinese and see who can take the opposite to those. Ha ha ha ha ha. The future -yes, the future of Chinese productions- is here, boys! Hold on, coming (moralist) curves!

The Trip to Spain (2017)

It's not a vision of the gastronomy of Spain although it's fun.

[8/10 · 12 January 2018]

Excellent continuation of "The Trip" (in England) and "The Trip to Italy" and at the height of the first, which was undoubtedly the best. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon make a gastronomic program on TV visiting restaurants that was extended in the cinema and now we are going for the third installment, all directed by that irregular genius that is Winterbottom. If you like British actors and appreciate a good impersonation, this is your film because improvisations based on rivalry between the two comedians, rather than what they eat, is the main course of their meals so that what was initially a gastronomic program has become humorous movies about both talents. I know there are people who don't like these movies very much. They've hooked up with me and now I'm an unconditional fan of both of them. I laugh out loud with their imitations of Michael Caine, Mick Jagger, Robert de Niro, Marlon Brando, Roger Moore or Anthony Hopkins. I can't help myself. Must be my weakness for British humor. As I live in Spain I have to add that the images of the landscapes and the choice of sites is different from the usual tourist guide, which is to be thanked specially for the number of topics that are handled talking about this country. A failure is perhaps how unbelievable the complementary stories are (families, loves, jobs) and I think it would be a good idea to talk more about food, restaurants, flavors, because that's supposed to be the very object of the trip, to do a gastronomic chronicle. It is a pity that they have missed the opportunity to do so in Spain, which is by far the best country I have ever eaten in my entire life.

Genius (2016)

A great little movie

[9/10 · 29 April 2017]

An exceptional film, especially for a first movie by a director who has been a television actor and not too prolific. With several moments of intense emotion perfectly developed and interpreted by the three main actors —Firth, Law and Kidman— that are superb all of them. Precious staging, music, lighting, recreation of the ambient of the beginning of the century and all those words, always those beautiful words, at its right time and in its proper place. Probably, over time, it will become one of the best films of the past year. Also I think every writer should see it.

The Family Fang (2015)

I wish there were more movies like this

[9/10 · 29 May 2016]

A film diametrically opposite to the conventions of American cinema approach.

I do not know the book on which it is based but all the story of this film seems to me an undeniable success, both in the type of characters, outsiders creators, and the plot -strange and twisted-, with a touch of humor, also with many moments of deep reflection on performance art, action-art, and the limit of consequences lead to (as did the performers of the 70s and no doubt inspired by them). Very interesting, and ironic, the critical commentary to one of this movement's leaders, Chris Burden.

The direction of the film (the first of Jason Bateman as director) is firm and convincing and the exquisite sobriety of interpretations, especially Kidman, Bateman and Walken, transform it into a film that it's almost certainly going to have a long run, especially in these times of artistic misery and cheap creative ideas.

City Island (2009)

That high score is undeserved

[4/10 · 22 May 2016]

Well, well, in this movie are so many coincidences meeting together to be credible, but apparently is one of those movies that Americans love (just look at that score on IMDb, which seems a bit undeserved).

***BIG spoiler***

A dysfunctional family —that really is not so— in the midst of a lot of happy coincidences that lead them to... well, to the usual place. Four members family, boy, girl, mom, dad; beautiful (and kind of exotic) urban landscape, nice house, everything seems to be wrong but —don't worry, because, as you expected...— it will be fixed, magically.

***END of the BIG spoiler***

Sometimes wants to be a comedy, but I do not laugh at all, sometimes intended to have the realistic touch of family drama, but fails.

To spend an hour and a half lightly, after suspension of disbelief.

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

French maddening slowness

[6/10 · 21 May 2016]

Well, it's a classic of French cinema and it has many things going for it: debut feature of the great Louis Malle, with Jeanne Moreau —one of the most important muses of Nouvelle Vague—, and music of Miles Davis, so, this film could be perfect, but... It's a French movie of the sixties (even been from 1958)... that's mean, slow, maddeningly slow, in that case with important failures in the plot (that other reviewers have already commented), and most of the performers making unconvincing interpretations.

The best, the extraordinary black and white photography and, of course, Miles' music.

The worst, the hour and a half of footage, you can spare thirty minutes, that being generous.

Classic cinema fans —as me— should not miss it, in any case, for Malle, Moreau and Miles.

Knight of Cups (2015)

Agonizing Cinematographic Art

[2/10 · 16 May 2016]

Is it a good cinematographic work? Yes. Is it Cinematographic Art? Definitely not.

That is the bland and vacuous portrait of a privileged rich man (played by an autistic Christian Bale) in spectacular locations, visiting and dwelling houses that only can allow a very restricted elite and surrounded by beautiful women (yes, I'm sorry, but in this film women are mere decorative objects), that is, more or less, the same content as perfume ads show at Christmas time.

The performers, that in this case do not act, seem imbued with this strange mystique of being under the orders of this "author" without speech and you can see, while they are on camera, they're thinking "Oh, I'm in this Malick's movie. How cool (and good for my CV)".

Yes, I think it shows that I am one of those who hate Terrence Malick's movies and I think that since "The Thin Red Line" he has been in decline and this film is the scariest of confirmations. Why he doesn't do as Scorsese do that, when he ran out of ideas, dedicated himself to making documentaries about his friends? Why he doesn't do as Coppola, dedicated to their hotels and their wines? Why he doesn't do as Lucas that... (I don't know what he do)? And I'm comparing him with some of the greats of the second part of twentieth century...

Finally, the most interesting of this obnoxious experiment that is «Knight of Cups» are the crepuscular tours across the empty lots of one of the majors film studios, something I would be privileged to enjoy.

Bunny and the Bull (2009)

An unpleasant nightmare

[2/10 · 13 May 2016]

I think that film it's not funny as most comments on IMDb said.

The movie aims to be a sort of Amelie, but remains in a failed attempt to create an aesthetic kind Michael Gondry (cheap sets, much cardboard painting with pen and funny cartoons that here are not), about an agoraphobic and his memories before to be. The actors are not funny, the story has no interest and also the script is silly and without any sense of humor.

All the work of all that digital retouching, pretending not to be, is crass and without wit, all the aesthetic of the movie is so distasteful that makes you want to wake up because this world seems more an unpleasant nightmare than a dream.

Nina Forever (2015)

Funny love triangle with much blood

[7/10 · 8 May 2016]

Surprising small British black comedy of horror, undead, with surreal touches, which highlights the performances of the three young protagonists, specially Fiona O'Shaughnessy, the dead chick. Good script, good acting and interesting game in the editing of scenes, sometimes anticipating what will happen.

With funny (and creepy) moments, it is remarkable that this is the first film of the two directors. It reminded me in a way that other British jewel, fantasy genre, called "Cashback", perhaps only because the work environment at the supermarket...

A very interesting movie, except at the ending, in the resolving of the love triangle situation, maybe because I expected something more brilliant...