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Reviews
The Crowded Room (2023)
Possibly the first miniseries written by AI?
If you ask ChatGPT to write a script for a thriller inspired by Silence of The Lambs, Fight Club and Almost Famous you may get something very close to The Crowded Room.
There's so much going on here my head was spinning and not in a good way.
But then I thought that perhaps I was watching the first miniseries entirely written by a Large Language Model, and from that perspective I actually started to enjoy the show.
Also acting is good, music is good and and Amanda Seyfried is cute, and that helps a lot in making this miniseries tolerable (definitely not for more than one season).
Perfectly ok for a lazy rainy Sunday.
Band of Brothers (2001)
Masterpiece
Band of Brothers is an amazing story, impecably directed and acted.
Some of the actors are a lot older than the veterans they play, which IMO takes away some perspective about how unbelievably brave and talented these guys where.
We are talking about 26 years old commanders parachuting in the middle of Normandy, middle of the night, anti aircraft artillery everywhere, no communications, no support, few weapons and a team of 20 years old well trained but inexperienced soldiers, and still these "men" manage to pull out some crazy, totally improvised tactical assaults that still today are studied and taught at military academies in the US and Europe.
NUTS!
Only Murders in the Building (2021)
Great cast, story and direction
A bit predictable and silly yes, but this show never tries too hard to be a hit and by doing so is brilliant. The acting and synergy of the characters is so good that you can tell they are having a great time together making this show, something rarely seen in TV today. The chemistry reminds me of Friends. The are some nice touches in the direction as well, I really liked the muted episode and the imaginary theatrical performances of Oliver when brainstorming to break the case.
Coming Home in the Dark (2021)
How much longer?
This is a boring movie. Predictable plot with some gore sequences, ok acting and lazy dialogs. I kept checking how much longer until done. I wanted to like it so I watched until the end which was unsurprisingly predictable and boring. Three stars for acting, the bad dude was good. That's pretty much it with this movie, never develops, if it's not for the violence it will put you to sleep.
Operation Odessa (2018)
Three gangster-wanna-be tell some exaggerated crazy stories
This "documentary" is like listening to three old men in a bar telling some crazy story, probably very embellished, about some stupid stunt involving the corrupt ex soviet military and some cartel guys. The director keeps showing images of Venezuela everytime they mention Colombia (?) . So take this for what it is, cheap and lazy entertainment with no real historical value and pretty exaggerated stories told by three losers. I give it three stars just because Tarzan is kind of funny.
Life Itself (2018)
Not bad and definitely not terrible as "critics" rated it
Critics were a bit disappointed about this movie to say the least. The reviews in Rotten Tomatoes are merciless, my favorite is one comparing the movie to a 120 minute reel of big pharma ads. I don't believe it was that bad, but I'm not a critic and I lack the IQ to really appreciate an intelligent script, so does over 90% of Google reviewers apparently. Some of the worst reviews come from the UK, a region that has given the world more than their fair share of pretty lame movies and whose population likes to snack on jelly eels. Just saying. So my non critical score is a solid 7. I believe the acting was good as well as the cinematography ( just trying to sound like a film connoisseur, I don't even know what cinematography is, I believe what I liked was how it was edited). As the story goes, it does the job entertaining, triggering some laughs and producing a couple of tears. It's a cheesy but good hearted movie perfectly fine for a lazy rainy Sunday night.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)
This is exactly what you would expect from Will Ferrell...and much more.
I was not sure about this movie during the first ten minutes. You really need to be in the mood to watch Will Ferrell's movies. But as the story develops and Rachel McAdams starts to shine and the music plays, it quickly becomes a very watchable movie that ends actually pretty good. If you have watched Eurovision before you may understand some of the jokes better, but even if you never heard of it before you can still enjoy this movie a lot. Just don't expect an amazing plot and and great script, it's a silly uplifting comedy with the characteristic weirdness and over the top jokes by Ferrell. The cinematography is good, the music and performances, particularly by Rachel McAdams, is excellent. Watch it with an open mind and an open heart. This is a movie to forget for two hours about the stream of recent bad news everywhere.
Downhill (2020)
Why?
Why do they need to take a pretty good movie and remake it (trash it) like this? What's wrong with watching the original version with subtitles? If I gave the original 10 stars this one cannot possibly have 5, so I give it 3 only because Will Ferrell is in it.
Space Force (2020)
How come this show has so many poor reviews?
The reason I'm giving it 10 is because after reading so many bad reviews about this show I still decided to give it a 5 minute chance just because I could not believe Steve Carrel and John Malcovich could suck so much together.
So with my expectations so low I was surprised the show is actually pretty damn good and Carrel and Malcovich deliver a great performance.
Critics are comparing this show to The Office, which makes no sense at all, the only thing they have in common is Carrel, but the actual characters can't be more different.
So give it a try and don't listen to the bad reviews, I'm on episode 3 and so far so good.
It is absurdly brilliant; if you ever worked for corporate or government and were involved in large and complex projects managed by pirates (aka risk takers), you will find it even more hilarious as many of the situations will seem very familiar.
Lost in London (2017)
A crazy project flawlessly executed.
If you have any basic knowledge of film making, acting, lighting, sound engineering and broadcasting, after watching this film you might agree it was an incredible achievement given the limited budget and schedule and all the obstacles and circumstances in which it was put together. When judging all the elements in the film, but particularly acting, it is fair to consider the EXTREME emotional and physical endurance all the actors and crew needed in order to materialize this (crazy) project, specially Woody who also served as director and, as he later explained during the QA session at the end of the movie, couldn't stop thinking about all the details while the camera was rolling. Remember, this movie was broadcast LIVE in one camera shot with no opportunity for screwing up, with the constant threat of technical glitches in sound (150 microphones) and video streaming, bad timing of actors and scenes, falls (the cameraman was running up and down staircases and other obstacles) and even bad weather, given that in London it can rain at any time and great part of the movie was shot outdoors. If you factor all these elements in, then Woody's performance was Academy Award ( or Tony? or both? ) winner. So for this reason, I am giving this movie a solid 10. What Woody and the rest of the crew have achieved is short of impossible. The plot and dialogues were good and entertaining, not a deep and thoughtful story, just a fun and silly comedy based on Woody's mostly-true recount of an awkward night in London. If you didn't have the opportunity to watch it live and would like to watch it now, please do so with an open mind and remember, this was an experimental project with incredible odds of not going well at all, and yet somehow it did!.