spewy29167 Reviews

The Wheel of Time (2021– )

The icing on the cake without the cake.

[4/10 · 25 December 2021]

A real lack of any interesting narrative and abysmal acting and casting that reminds you of Laurence Fox.

However cinematography, sets, music costumes etc are movie big budget standard, which makes it a complete waste. As theater proves, a good story delivered by strong actors is all you need, the rest is just icing on the cake. The wheel of time is icing with no cake.

Dexter: New Blood (2021–2022)

Sometimes people just get it right.

[10/10 · 25 December 2021]

Excellent plot, stellar acting, so good I re-watch every episode twice. Loved the original series, but this is even better.

The only thing is Dexter might not be for everyone, so read up what it's about before you watch.

Naked and Afraid XL (2015– )

I want survival, not whining and fighting

[3/10 · 4 July 2020]

The producers seem to have turned this show into a high-school popularity contest. They've clearly told the cast to reject the 'weak links', of course what happens when people get hungry and tired they fight anyway so this is the last thing you need to do to actually stoke this antagonism and actually choose a cast to achieve it. Partner ex-military with back-country hippies, put in un-likeables, headstrong alpha males and people that didn't make it through 21 days to hype up the fighting - 'insert name' 'isn't pulling their weight'. Clearly this has been done to create conflict, controversy and views which means advertising revenue. If I wanted that I'd watch a soap opera.

Artemis Fowl (2020)

Harry Plotless

[2/10 · 13 June 2020]

Lame Harry Potter type of idea thing. Except for worse story and hammy acting. Better than nothing if stuck indoors with children. Many TV shows are actually much better. Meh.

7500 (2019)

Very accurate thriller

[9/10 · 1 June 2020]

This is a real anti-hollywood movie. A gritty movie that is thrilling and suspensful without the glitz and shine, the need to embelish real life and have super happy endings. Just solid performances and what could actually happen. They clearly had pilots, pschologists and police advise them. There may be holes, but they were inaccurancies above my level of knowledge. Had me enthalled, better than its reviews, but not for everyone, if you like your movies realistic and/or like planes this one is for you.

RoboCop (1987)

Serve the Public Trust, Avoid all Sequels, Uphold the Law

[9/10 · 6 May 2020]

This movie is one of my favorite of all time. It's comedy, black comedy, satire and horror rolled into one. Way ahead of it's time.

However everything else with Robocop on it is pure junk. Do yourself a favor watch this, and if you like it watch it again, do not waste your time or money on sequels, cartoons, or anything else Robocop.

Planet of the Humans (2019)

Nonsense that doesn't even use data, just opinions cherry picking and jump cuts

[1/10 · 1 May 2020]

This documentary is truly awful. If you want to attack something you need to use data, find an expert, point out the problem. But this does none of that. The makers have trawled the internet and found everything negative they can find against renewables and made a documentary out of it. So someone wants to build a wind farm in a forest on a hill, that is because the people doing it are evil or stupid, it doesn't make wind power bad. If someone need to destroy Joshua trees to build solar plants doesn't make solar bad just that people are putting one in the wrong place. They used discordant music and montages to try and make their points, but it all falls flat without numbers. It's very much like you might expect a pro-vegan or pro-paleo documentary minus actual claims of data and interviews with experts. I can agree with a few points that renewables won't save the world, and humans have to use less energy and live sustaianably now. But to prentend wind and solar are terrible becuase they are manufactured, but without comparing them to what they are replacing, is nonsensical. It's like saying a bicycle is terrible because the aluminium has to be dug up and smelted and then built in a factory. Yeah, but compared to their enemy the pick-up truck with a 3 liter diesel engine they are a million times better, but don't mention that if it damages the point you are desperately trying to find one side of only, there is no balance, utterly one sided. The end of the documentary is the worst crime as they then offer no solutions to the Earth problems at all, the idea of planting a tree., not even mentioned once. It's so bad it shouldn't be free, they should pay you to watch it, it's that bad. This must be pulled from youtube or re-edited, it's factually misleading.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019)

The Rise of the Rehash - Part 3

[2/10 · 16 March 2020]

I really have to wonder what is the point of remaking films with nearly the exact same story but with different actors in each role. Sure, you can have better effects and a more gender and racially diverse cast, but a film's quality rests on the narrative. The narrative here is so entirely unoriginal, just one character replaces another from the original trilogy. Even the Emperor is reused as they could think of a better baddie. Even watching with very low expectations the movie still fails to deliver anything substantial, the acting is clunky, the music seems hammy and the narrative could have been better written by a group of children.

The Lighthouse (I) (2019)

Steptoe and son do the Shining in lighthouse in black and white

[6/10 · 5 January 2020]

It's shot in black and white for the effect, it's not amazing, it's a old technology that we had because there was nothing better before, using it for effect is, it's a hackneyed mode that's been used in depressing heavy metal videos and 101 other things before. Making winter black and white and summer techicolor, is just too contrived. If was done on a shoestring budget by up and coming film makers, well fine, but this title has household name actors.

Anyway loads of tense things happen, some between the two lighthousemen who are sometimes friends sometimes enemies, but both are repulsive. The acting is excellent, filming good and but the story meh and is mostly just a collection of incidents. They seem to go mad from isloation, but in reality lighthousmen are introverts that are more than happy on their own. One man's bleak and depressing is another man's rugged and invigorating. Plenty of lighthouses are actually near villages, only a few are on some rocky island cut off from civilization. The music is overly tense, at times the music sounds like someone should be being stabbed or strangled, but a character is just walking down a rugged path or pulling a rope with a lobster pot on the end.

Probably best viewed in an arthouse cinema when high.

The Witcher (2019– )

Somewhat disjointed and incoherent

[6/10 · 22 December 2019]

It's a weird TV show. There's great acting, great CGI, good music, fabulous sets, amazing costumes and a sense of magic with movie quality filming. Then there's hammy acting, cringeworthy dialogue, every colour of obvious contact lenses and odd narratives where the characters are not behaving logically or rationally, but seemingly do things to attract viewer attention with gratuitous nudity, blood or sex. Personally I like the story to drive the work, not tits and blood to direct the story. Most characters have varying levels of narcissism, nobody has any altruism, and life is incredibly cheap.

I disliked Game of Thrones, I find The Witcher to be generally more watchable, but it's still a weak pastiche on Tolkien's original fantasy world, as with nearly all things in the fantasy genre.

It has redeeming features, and worth a watch, but it's all over the place, like it's directed by five different directors and only two speak English. Some scenes are generally absorbing, others stupid, gratuitous or cringe-making.

The Aeronauts (2019)

Posh people fly in a balloon, 'based on true events*' (*completely made up twaddle)

[5/10 · 20 December 2019]

We've got two posh people with a dream. They have a balloon, they fly in it.

Obviously they nearly die a few times, because people don't fly in balloons when there is blue sky and no wind they choose a cloudy day with isolated storms, makes sense. In those days they didn't have weather forecasts so that meant people couldn't look up and see what it was like, lol.

They also seem to get up to at least 39,000 feet, but of course a thin jacket that will be enough at -30c or more, hat or gloves? Not me mate. They also have Indian and other friends of different ethnicities to fill in a token diversity quota, it's not as if people were fighting inequality in those days. Also in real life the woman in the story was a man. Where does 'based-on real events' end and 'completely made up twaddle' begin? Why not make it totally fictional rather than air-brushing fake characters into and real ones out of history? What's next a story about the first climbing of Everest with Emily Hillary the bee-keeper from Nigeria and her Sherpa lesbian transgender lover Tina-zing?

Obviously the in-basket tension isn't enough so they cut in and out to flashbacks with rich people being posh and rich to help rope-in some of the Downton Abbey market, the whole story could have been told in the balloon without the need to play dress-up.

It's an stupid airbrushed version of history, what's even more stupid that they could have made it totally fictional and about people actually fighting discrimination, but they just pretend everyone is thinking as 2019, but wearing top hats. People fought for trade unions, the womens right to vote and not being spat at in the street because their skin had the incorrect pigment. How does this airbrushing help anything? It's the worst kind of denial, like saying the holocaust didn't happen because it's depressing and disturbing. We can't let truth get in the way of fun times. This movie is for smiles on faces bums on seats and money in our pocket.

Might be good to pass an few hours on a long haul flight. The acting is good, the music is good, the visual effects are stunning, could have been much better, but it wasn't terrible. A marshmellow of a movie, nice to look at and to eat, but nutritionally lacking and can make you feel sick if you over indulge.

Connect (2019)

Doesn't really connect, but a worthy effort

[7/10 · 26 November 2019]

It's a film it's hard to dislike, set in a beautiful part of Scotland, with solid direction, and music and about very important subject material.

It would have been better to have gone the extra mile and really dig much deeper into the causes, feelings of and symptoms of depression. It seems the protagonist wants to off himself at everthing that doesn't go perfectly in his life.

The film is also structured in a very sober and boring manner with awkward pauses which somewhat seems like it's a bit of a soap opera, ready for TV and not really a big screen work.

Joker (I) (2019)

Not to be missed

[9/10 · 28 October 2019]

It's not particularly scary or disturbing as I feared. It is a logical character development of how a real person could become so distrurbed that they could become a super-villian. Almost surprisngly The Joker not a psychopath or sociopath, but someone mentally ill in other ways, and just pushed too far by society and unlucky circumstance.

Anyone intersted in high-level acting, direction, character development or psychology must see this film, you don't need to like it, but it can spark so such interesting discussion.

Not seeing it puts you somewhat out of step with modern conciousness. Highly recommmended.

The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019)

Made by worthy humans, not sure about the dog thoughts

[6/10 · 25 October 2019]

I think dogs think and feel, maybe more simplistically and certainly without deep human language and philosophy, but if you're into smells and positive thinking, they are experts. They speak and think dog, nothing wrong with that, but it's just not human. However I don't think they are interested in human failures or successes or what's on TV or who wins a car race. Maybe they are more into eating lunch and catching rabbits.

The acting is fine and the story is fine, but the Tom Hankish overdubbed dog commentary is a bit much.

I think the people that made this have their heart in the right place, but if you are into something with substance then give this a miss. If you want a fluffy tear-jerker then this might be what you're into.

I gave this a six because it's the level of interest it provided me with, but someone else could really enjoy it.

Cuck (2019)

Over-played caricature of alt-right

[5/10 · 6 October 2019]

This film is a character study of an alt-right man that's a sexist, gun obessed incel that lives in his mother's basement. He takes life far too seriously and blames everyone else for his failures including left of center politics, women and especially immigrants and minorities.

This movie seems to want to ridicule people that are on the right, or at least trigger them, and vilify them as little better than psychopaths wound up by a ocean of online hatred. When dealing with this thorny subject it would be much better to attempt to analyse why the world has become so polarized, as to why these people blame so many others for their lack of social and economic mobility and how they are so bound up in a internet opinion echo chamber seige mentality of hate. Instead of finger point and laugh and condemn, it's far better to try to understand and discuss.

Even though the movie does not offer any real insights or understanding on a political or social level the acting and direction are all beyond satisfactory. Worth a watch and good for sparking discussion, but I'm not sure what this movie is really trying to achieve, so I feel it's somewhat exploitative. If there was a resolution in which the protagonist was able to come to a new outlook as American History X it would be a more deserving piece of cinema. I worry this work will harden divides instead of soften them.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Finally over - thank god.

[1/10 · 30 April 2019]

I just don't get it. I tried to like this vacuous American drivel, but just can't. The whole thing is a stupid train wreck of nonsensical characters. hammy acting, loud thuds, baloney quasi-science and space effects. Just act well, have a worthwhile narrative, but no.

Glinty effect hard on the eye visuals, like you just ate a kilogram of gummy bears, and now nature wants revenge. The acting is the worst, good actors that are aware of the camera and crew, so actually direction fail. Make a some cringe joke to try to distract.

Just listen to the dialogue: I know, we'll use ether to time travel to go back in time to Asguard on board the muppet ship to get to the Smurf nano-crystals from Dr Oddface. Or something like that.

Individually a character like Spiderman is fine, but with a Norse God and a talking chipmunk? It's like having a 'bonus' Hawaiian pizza. Not only do you get pineapple but you get chocolate and anchovies because more 'must' simply be better?

Save it for a long haul flight or download it to your phone so you can watch it when you're on the throne. Well possibly your cell phone game might be more fun. If your IQ is under 70 or you are under 14 you might like it. Avoid the 3D version unless you like migraines and blurred vision, the gimmick that just won't die.

The House That Jack Built (2018)

Revolting, pompous and gratuitous.

[4/10 · 15 December 2018]

We have fictional Jack. He's supposed to be a psychopath serial killer.

Unfortunately the director also seems to be a psychopath and the whole film remains sub-zero in charisma and interest. Either understand the victims or the killer and their motivations. It's not enough to suggest the killer is the way he is because he's odd.

Dillon and many of the cast play their parts very well and the filming is very good. However the whole thing is let down by medicore writing and directing. Making a film in an orginal style isn't the same as genius. Go fly on a plane.

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

Vacuous and Predictable

[3/10 · 16 November 2018]

A silly Chinese Singaporean romance movie about stupidly a stupidly wealthy family. The acting is slightly rigid but the location filming is wonderous, in fact the Singapore tourist board must have been very happy, basically just moving postcard images. Expensive cars are driven up and down the nicest road in SIngapore again and again. The only thing that surprised me was that Sinagapore Airlines missed a massive product placement opportunity.

If you are an incrediably materialistic person that itches for fast fashion, the latest iphone, judges everything by its appearance, and likes an easy romance fick, this movie will be right up your alley. If you are looking for some kind of meaning, life lessons or why we, evolved monkies exist flying on a rocky ball through the galaxy exist - look elsewhere, very far away.

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Total narrative failure

[3/10 · 12 August 2018]

What happened to a good story and character development? Constant big, small, normal, micro, quantum. Pathetically the whole story relies on impossible size shifting and nonsense neo-science garbage talk to explain it. It even had product placement, and the local cine-plex even subjected me to 15 minutes of planet killing car ads before the main feature. I just feel they missed a trick not advertising industrialized beef patties and rainforest timber wardrobes. I fell asleep in a dystopian nightmare for 15 minutes in the middle.

This garbage would have been satire 30 years ago. This film is in the same vein as Transformers, for children or the incredibly dumb, to make incredibly wealthy people even wealthier. Like pop music, the function of this movie isn't to be good, but make money. If you're over 16 or maybe 15 avoid this drivel.

Fasting (2017)

Too many personal anecdotes, and poorly constructed

[5/10 · 28 June 2018]

Lots of people running on beaches like a sanitary towel commercial, meandering, chatting about random medical health numbers, personal ancedotes and 2nd hand anecdotes, drone shots, random yoga 'how this worked for me - miracle' 'my hob-o-diba-doblin is down from 300 to 25'. (I made that last bit up).

This film really does little to push forward the science of fasting - all that is being said is a similar thing some of the recent vegan documentaries are saying. Like the makers just watched 'What the Health' and decided to put out a fasting version.

There is a lot to fasting, as there is to plant based diets. Essentially you are eating less and eating better quality foods- cutting out the terrible junk processed food. What is the difference in effect to a plant based diet? What different types of fasting are there? Fast Mimicking? Water fasting? Fruit fasting? Intermittent fasting? How long for? Hours? Days? Weeks? What are the dangers of each one? Do you need medical supervision? Which could be done safely on your own? And for whom? That could have been covered in much more detail, they have an interview Dr Valter Longo, an expert who could shed real insight but he needed more screen time. Like the makers left out the hard bits that might confuse the intellectually weak in the audience or not get sued - fasting is great, but don't do it as it couldbe dangerous for some people.

I think this documentary could be re-edited, and actually be much better. An opportunity missed.

Dunkirk (2017)

Overrated, but solid.

[6/10 · 22 March 2018]

A solid watchable film that doesn't really try to rewrite history. However it's emotionally vacuous and overrated.

Darkest Hour (2017)

Yawntastic historical rewrite

[1/10 · 5 March 2018]

Winston Churchill was a total hawk and not a hero as many people believe. Most of the things he did killed innocent soldiers with ill-advised war strategies. He was also a pompous git. He never asked ordinary people what they thought on the 'tube' during the war, he was an elitist buffoon. He simply got lucky and was by chance the right man at the time during the early 1940's.

Also Gary Oldman is not a genius actor, Churchill is about the easiest person to play in the world, be grumpy, grunt and smoke cigars, almost anyone could have done it. The makeup was competent but nothing special.

All in all this wasn't even a patch on the also massively overrated Dunkirk. Darkest Hour was boring, nationalistic history rewrite of history. If you have any dignity avoid at all costs. If you are some Brexit loving gibbon this film might appeal to your jingoistic stupidity.

Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)

No inventinveness whatsoever

[3/10 · 31 January 2018]

I'm not a 'Comic book store guy' fan Star Wars. I simply liked the first few movies. The original movies were good because they were inventive. The Last Jedi simply has no inventiveness. They are supposed to be creating a Galaxy far away, but we get the tired old Naziesque 'Axis' Empire and obviously 'Allied' resistance rebels. That was adequate in the 1980's but now we need more depth of thought, intelligence and spirituality.

They seem terrified to do anything new except appeal to Asian audiences a little more so it sits tediously in no-mans land. What if the Empire wasn't purely dark and the Rebels weren't entirely good? What of the only location filming wasn't a small Scottish Island?

Is this all we get to the end of time? Anything inventive and popular just gets remade every 20 years with new actors?

This is all becoming a cash cow formula.

American Satan (2017)

Watchable, but lip-syncing is irritating

[6/10 · 17 January 2018]

I quite liked American Satan, most of the actors did a good job. The cinematography was nice and the songs were mostly solid but some of the material could have been more classic rock instead of modern 'sounds a bit like Nickelback' rubbish. The story was predictable, but this is a film about rock and roll, no real surprises are expected. This movie didn't have any live music. All the music was obviously studio recorded and then played along to by the band and lip-synced. At one point there is a guitar solo that sounds very much like a Stratocaster, but is played on a Les Paul! I really think they should have tried a bit harder with the sound performance believe-ability.

The whole Satan thing was a bit daft, it's great to include a good actor like Malcolm McDowell in the role but it all seemed more Marilyn Manson than Morbid Angel. It was good to see that drugs and sex positives and negatives weren't sanitized or removed.

Worth a watch if you are or were into rock music or are fairly open-minded to the music and lifestyle. I wish the music had been more raw.

Food Unwrapped (2012– )

Food partially unwrapped

[5/10 · 5 January 2018]

This show is better than most magazine shows, it is quite informative. You can learn the differences between the reasons for different colored olives and where dates come from for example, usually hosted by an overly flirty Kate Qilton.

There are some issues. Mainly that they are very mainstream, some myths are busted, but only if they are positive. This means never delving into too much detail. Negatives that might put viewers off or worse advertisers are never mentioned. Look at these delicious Almonds! Don't mention the water shortage. Look at these happy cattle, don't mention the short painful life and death or the enormous carbon footprint.

An OK show, but watch it with a huge pinch of salt.