Magnotta43 Reviews

Primal: Plague of Madness (2020) Season 1, Episode 7

A Truly Horrifying Piece Of Media

[9/10 · 1 May 2021]

The only reason I didn't give it 10 stars is because of how relentlessly unpleasant it is.

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)

Completely unnecessary...

[8/10 · 18 March 2021]

...but VERY good. Two things can be true at once. We didn't NEED to see what happened to Jesse, but here we are. I can't imagine it being done better than how it's been done here. Some familiar faces pop up, and the feel of the show is Breaking Bad all the way. If there's one complaint it's that they waited too long. A couple folks have obviously aged, and it takes place immediately after Breaking Bad ends.

Rick and Morty (2013– )

The most overrated show of all time...

[8/10 · 14 March 2021]

...but still VERY good. The episodes are brimming with details, many of which won't be noticed until a subsequent viewing. Pop nihilism aside, the show does try too hard to be needlessly offensive on occasion, and those are the worst moments.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)

Honest take

[5/10 · 20 February 2021]

I'm a massive fan of 80s comedies, and somehow never got around to this until about two months ago. I was honestly taken aback by how low-effort this was. Steve Martin plays the straight man who has to get home for reasons, Candy plays the fat goofy guy who keeps getting stuck with Him for reasons. The problem is that none of their escapades, with the exception of a car catching on fire, are that funny. The twist at the end also is extremely out of place, and tonally inconsistent with the rest of the movie. Everything, and I mean EVERYthing on display here was done much better in 2010's Due Date.

Ready Player One (2018)

Fundamental flaws

[5/10 · 2 January 2021]

This is a movie about a video game made by people who fundamentally misunderstand video games. The fact that characters in The Oasis (the video game) look worse than current video games on current game systems, and you have an idea of what's wrong here.

The screenplay is predictable and average. The acting is predictable and average. I never, at any point after the first ten minutes had any doubt as to how the movie would end, and I was right.

The best part of the movie is the part that takes place within the Overlook hotel from The Shining, and that's just because that movie is so much better than this one. It's sad to see that this is what passes for latter-day "fun" Spielberg these days.

Monsterland: Eugene, Oregon (2020) Season 1, Episode 5

So, SO far beneath the story it's based on

[5/10 · 10 October 2020]

This is based on the short story S.S. by Nathan Ballingrud, but in truth it is based in name only. I don't know if the people who wrote this episode thought they were making something relevant or frightening, but this episode is neither. The histrionic characters are shrill and unlikeable. The story meanders from scene to scene attempting to build dread, and then tries to make a statement about...not listening to what people online tell you? Maybe?

The Wailing (2016)

The Death Stranding of Korean horror

[5/10 · 28 December 2019]

I don't understand the remarkable amount of praise being heaped on this movie.

One of the problems that I have found with Korean movies in general, and specifically Korean horror over the last decade or so, is the prevalence of slapsticky characters. I'm not even sure if this is deliberate on the part of the filmmakers, or if it is just part of how the general Korean acting style has evolved over decades. The protagonist is this chubby cop who is constantly falling down and shooting goofy looks directly at the camera. He also cries in every other scene, and by the end of the movie, I was thoroughly annoyed and couldn't care less about what he was going through. And he goes through some REALLY bad s-t at the end.

This is subjective though, as some people won't have a problem with this. Some people won't care about crying and falling over. But I think MOST people WILL care about the fact that this movie is almost 2 1/2 hours, and almost 90 minutes of this runtime is a red herring.

Without spoiling anything, there is also a very familiar horror trope that pops up in the second half of the movie; one that I'm pretty sure no one is impressed by, much less scared by.

The movie does look really nice, the cinematography and scenery are beautiful, and it has generally good performances, the one caveat being the lead actor.

Deep Web (2015)

Good story, not about the deep web

[7/10 · 11 August 2015]

I really liked Alex Winter's Downloaded, as I thought it gave a very good synopsis of the Napster story. When I saw that he was doing one about the deep web, I was pretty stoked, especially sine this is a subject that is in it's early stages, unlike Napster. I heard Winter on Adam Carolla's podcast talking about it, and he spent most of the time talking about the Ulbrecht trial, which I was unfamiliar with. Still, since Ulbrecht was a major figure in the deep web, I thought it was going to be a substantial part of the documentary. I was mistaken. Ulbricht's story comprises 90% of this documentary, with various opinions on the war on drugs comprising another 8%. The remaining 2% actually talks about the deep web, and that merely serves to provide a framework and reference point for Ulbrecht's story. I hope that someday there will be a documentary about the deep web that isn't about one particular story or person, unfortunately this isn't it. That said, this is still really interesting, especially to people who have never heard of Ulbrecht's case or the deep web in general.

Cleanskin (2012)

A harder, more thought-provoking "Taken"

[8/10 · 13 September 2012]

The first thing that I took away from it was how powerful and poignant it was. It took it's time to develop the antagonist as a person, to the point that I thought I may start rooting for him before everything was over. Bean's amazing as usual, and this kind of a role is seeming more and more like something he was born to play. Nothing is wasted here, everything adds up, which is such a rare occurrence in movies these days. I'm sure people will take issue with how the terrorists are portrayed, but considering how much violence England has seen, I thought it was pretty fair. It definitely pointed more fingers than anything coming out of America in the last few years, and I think that's a good thing. The fact that writer/director Hadi Hajaig is Pakistani also lends some credence to it's message.

The Tall Man (2012)

Horror/not horror

[7/10 · 18 August 2012]

Following Martyrs, I can only imagine, was an extremely daunting task. This is why I'm assuming Laugier said "fuck it". and went another route: making a mystery, rather than a horror flick. Once it was revealed what was happening, I couldn't help feeling cheated. This film is marketed as a horror film, from it's promotion on horror websites, down to the design of the poster, but when the credits started rolling, I felt as if I had been lied to. On it's own merit, this is a pretty good movie, with damn solid performances. Biel is pretty much the antithesis of her Texas Chainsaw character, and she does a great job. It was also cool to see every Canadian actor on the planet play Washingtonians, which is an interchangeable skill. I think the expectations were probably unrealistically high for Laugier, which could only hurt this film. That said, it's a shame I won't be thinking of this film years down the road (as I do with Martyrs), or even weeks, for that matter.