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Pervert Park (2014)
Uses emotional appeal when it should've been more factual
As some of the other reviews will unintentionally tell you, if you don't already feel sympathetic to registered sex offenders who are shunned by society, this documentary will do little to change any of that.
Sure, flashing children on the street is not the same as molesting your own child for years on end. They don't merit the same reaction from society - that is true.
But this documentary does nothing but present a narrative with which we aren't already familiar. Sex offenders were so often victims of trauma themselves, violence breeds violence, when in Rome, etc., etc. But child abuse is wrong!, etc., etc.
To make matters worse, the offenders didn't seem to care about the victims, they only wanted to protect their own reputation - leading me to ask the wrong questions, the ones the documentary wanted me to avoid. Like, what kind of therapy they were receiving? How can they move along without true regret? What exactly have they learned? The place was only run by other sex offenders, should they even be giving each other therapy?
What I really wanted from this documentary, was a more objective look at what happens to the offender ones they have served their time in prison. I wanted the documentary to tell us how poor - on average - their chances of living a normal life afterwards would be. Maybe compare this to what happens murderers, or drug dealers, etc., to present this as the complex moral issue it truly is.
Sure, we can torment the offenders 'till the day they die, but what good will it do? Is it really that reasonable to prevent these people from becoming contributing members of society? Isn't it a waste of human life, or just plain ressources, to let them be outcasts forever and ever?
I think so. This problem won't be solved by looking away, no problem ever will, no matter how ugly it is. I wish people would talk about pedophilia more often. I wish there were ressources for people who had these wrong thoughts, I wish they were allowed to talk about them - so we could prevent them from taking actions, so we could give them the mental strength to do right.
But the documentary made a bad case for this, focused on the wrong ways to emit sympathy, and a murky way of presenting facts. It didn't provoke the kind of rational thought that would counter the terrifying feeling of knowing, that you are looking at a room full of people who have probably raped someone. Quite a shame, really. This documentary gets 6 stars, primarily because it is one of the only ones of it's kind.
Beautiful Darling (2010)
No sympathy
Candy was an intelligent, but super vapid person, whose main dream in life was not so much to become an actual woman, but to be desired and admired - just like a female movie star.
Oh, I'm sure the pain of not "living the dream" was intensified by her being born a man - but down to it's very essence, this story is not about transsexual rights, or their all too real struggles; it's just a story about wanting to be famous.
I admire the passion of people like this, but it's usually all they have. The only thing special about Candy from every other hopeful woman who moves to Hollywood, is that she was born a man. I get that any person who devotes their life to getting this kind of attention, is a hurt person indeed; but the additional hindrances doesn't make this kind of struggle anymore beautiful, or any less narcissistic.
It annoys me to hear those diary entries read out loud as words of insight, when clearly, they were only meant to dazzle an audience. It's the opposite of an actual diary, more a product to be sold later on when she got "famous", than an inner expression of self.
There's no real Candy, because the desire to be someone else(not of gender, but of status and superficial "image") consumed what was left of her her long before she even met Andy Warhol. So she never achieved her dream! Boo hoo. Her happy way of dying young and "glamorous" sent shivers down my spine.
I feel sorry for this man who always took care of her, who loved her so deeply. Was he in love with the image as well? It seems to be, as we never get any other insight from him than what was shown on screen. I wonder what drove him towards her, given how unable she must have been at telling a warm hug from the blitz of a camera.
Candy, the beautiful thing about your story, is that you never amounted to anything more than a Warhol art prop. I hope most of the people who surrounded you, were people exactly like yourself.
Mr. Robot (2015)
Cynical, opportunist and silly - with unexpected moments of brilliance
Everybody steals - and I don't see the problem with this show being a Frankenstein of good ideas done in the past. "Fight Club/Kubrick/Shyamalan did it first!" doesn't matter to the new generations enjoying this, and I don't know why it should. Many movies have dated badly and are products of their time, and without permission to steal, all of their ideas and experimentation would remain in the past.
But this series never succeeds in stringing these parts together, in order to achieve greatness - is simply a mess. I'm ashamed to say I secretly watched the entirety of the first season, and much of season two. Not because I liked the show, but because of Elliot Alderson, a person anyone with a family history of severe mental illnesses can relate to.
I say "ashamed" because I actually hated the show in and of itself. So much of it makes me cringe, and I'm not just talking about the monologues. No, almost every plot twist was either incredibly easy to predict, or they threw me off because of how ridiculous they were. So many of them just sent the plot progression and character development back to square one, making it very clear that the time spent on leading you on was simply wasted. "Haha, she was his sister all along! Be confused and frustrated along with Elliot, because you just wasted hours of your life being lead on and thinking it would be something else entirely!"
The acting ranges from bad to brilliant, but the script and plot are so ridiculous that you don't know who to blame. What exactly is Tyrell supposed to mean? What is his incompetence trying to get across? His kinky psycho wife?
These references(American Psycho with Tyrell, Breaking Bad with Shayla, etc.) can all coexist in the same series, but they need to be coherent, and they need to either drive the plot, or stay subtly in the background. It is possible to do, but it requires better planning than what the show has, and it requires consistency and respect for the main storyline. You can't just play out the plot lines inspired by brilliance for the sake of it, and then drop them again, and expect people to think that this is greatness, this is art.
Rami Malek sometimes has a problem with over acting, but because of the direction and the script, I don't blame him. In fact, I have no idea what this actor is doing on this show, because he acts and looks like exactly what he is supposed to be, all the time. I sometimes forgot that he wasn't real, because his realistic immaturity and frequent mistakes do not belong on a show like this, at all. I wish there wasn't so much explaining going on in his monologues("I am insane, do you get it? I'm a schizo! Now I feel this, and that - this is why I am scared right now!"). But then again, if the show wasn't trying so hard to make you "get it", I maybe wouldn't have realised why this character is so deplorably done.
Many people have tried to play armchair psychologist, not realising that his suffering is only a cynical marketing ploy - he is not meant to be understood.
While the narration of the protagonist would have you believe that he is so severely socially inept that he'll never understand the basic rules of social interaction, he comes across as merely shy and paranoid when shown actually talking to people. He also doesn't have any other autistic traits to speak of - safe for his fear of touch - yet the show keeps making you think "aspergers!", because that is the fashionable syndrome of the moment, and it knows that everyone likes to think they get it.
The show also has fun with psychosis, multiple personality disorder and depression in the exact same way. This is "Mental Illnesses are Fascinating and Entertaining" - the show! It keeps throwing random disorders at you, not because it wants to give an accurate portrayal of what they are actually like, but to ensure one ridiculous twist after another.
I hate this. I absolutely loathe it. Everyone is trying to analyse Elliot, but the show itself clearly couldn't care less about the illnesses they are exploiting for entertainment - Elliot was never created to be coherent or authentic, he is only there as a vessel to always feel bad in a way that creates the most tragedy-inducing situations possible.
So very smart of the producers to hire a good psychologist in the creation of this character - he may not be completely authentic, but he is authentic enough. His personality traits and actions themselves always add up, and you believe everything about his stunted demeanour and the way he talks. But it is only to ensure you check in for the next episode, where you can marvel at him losing grip on reality once again.
I find it hilarious that the most universally sympathetic trait of Elliot, is how much he wants to break free of these ridiculous twists and the stupid world he lives in. He alternates between looking confused, sad, exhausted and paranoid, which is exactly what you are going to feel watching Mr. Robot from beginning to end. You are also going to feel hope, because you suddenly see something incredibly well done, and then you are going to lose it and become jaded, because it never lasts or works out in the end. Like Elliot, staring psychotically ahead as he enters a new disaster, the only thing we can all know for sure, is how bad it is going to be.
Tokyo Idols (2017)
Don't look for closure
This is a documentary that will seem disturbing to most westerners, and Japan is such a rapid- evolving and unique society that it will always seem weird to people outside of Asia. If you are looking for something that will "explain" Japan, this is not the documentary.
If you know much about the fan culture of Japan, this is not the documentary, either. It is well made, but I don't think I learned anything new. It takes the arguably the worst side of Japanese fan culture(middle-aged single men who adore dancing teenage girls in school uniforms) and explores the different takes on what caused this fringe trend to go mainstream in the first place.
Sitting in a room surrounded by fan merchandise from the Idols and various teddy bears of cartoon characters, the middle aged men tries to explain their obsession. All the themes are explored; the cultural cleft between men and women in Japan, old-fashioned beliefs about women, natural inclination towards obsession, issues with intimacy, loneliness and pedophilia. The documentary never picks one answer, and I think that was a wise decision. All men are there for a different reason, and so it seems with the Idols on stage.
The Idols of Japan are forced to act like they are almost in love with each and every fan in order to keep their business running. This is not new to me, as I've seen how girls in Kpop groups are punished quite severely by their fan base if it is revealed that they are dating a guy(Japan is not the only Asian country obsessed with female innocence). They wear costumes that are clearly having a cutesy children theme, yet they always show their legs. They send letters to their fans in which they write stuff like "You are special" and "I love you".
Men even pay for being allowed to shake hands with the girls and talk to them; which sounds like nothing special, until you hear that people in Japan only started shaking hands 10-20 years ago - so it is still seen as something quite intimate, sometimes erotic. So a 13 year old girl shaking hands all day with middle aged guys... yeah.
I read in an interview about this documentary that a female journalist has received major backlash for speaking up in the comments she added in this documentary. She said that the reason it is seen as acceptable for middle-aged men to idolise girls as young as ten years old, is because the Japanese society cares about pleasing men the most. That they idolise these girls and almost view them as their girlfriends, because real women are too demanding to them, and too hard to dominate.
I'm disappointed that she's apparently not allowed to say her opinion, when the gender dynamic in this Idol setup is so obvious. Of course, a person knowing nothing about Japan is going to leave with a negative impression after watching this - that doesn't mean that it's not an issue to be explored.
I know the issue is more complex than that - but it is essential to include the hard-to-ignore gender dynamic of current Japan, where the expectations from either gender are so different that neither can live up to the other's ideal. So many men and women in Japan can't even stand the thought of living with someone of the opposite sex, let alone have children with them. I don't think the country can afford to just look the other way and freak out every time someone points at the obvious sexism.
Dead End (2003)
Best horror I've seen in a while
I gotta admit: in the beginning, I got distinct B-movie vibes due to the weird dialogue from the brother, and the styling of the woman in white. I thought she was supposed to be a ghost, but she didn't seem that scary to me, so I thought I was in for a disappointment. Luckily, I was dead wrong.
This is one of those movies where the less you know, the better. You have to go in as a blank slate and figure the movie out for yourself. Knowing the - extremely simple - plot is just going to suck the fun out of it.
So, the spoiled story goes(yes, the entire movie is spoiled): a family of four and the daughter's boyfriend is driving on a highway through the woods, when the father spots a woman in a white dress. He stops the car and tries to help her and the baby she's presumably carrying. Chaos ensues. Each time they for whatever reason stops the car, one of them will be "kidnapped" by a mystery driver in a black car, and later found on the road horribly disfigured(and dead).
The actors do what the movie demands, and I thought they were perfectly casted. The atmosphere is fitting, and I was so concentrated on what was going on at the screen that I for once didn't notice any music. The camera is fine; it's not trying to be an art movie, and neither should it. Action-packed movies rarely work when there's too much artsy angles to distract you from the fun.
Some people have complained about the ending, calling it a cop out, or out of place - that they don't want the mystery resolved in such a bad way. While I think the execution was a little cheesy, I don't understand the rest of these complaints. It's like we were watching a different movie; wasn't the mystery driver revealed to be Death himself? It's literally the only thing that ties this movie together for me - otherwise it would've just been another mystery horror with an empty plot.
The father was supposed to have fallen asleep while he was driving the car, so he crashed into another car with a woman and her baby inside. So, because there's a moment where they are between life and death, they all exist together on this purgatory-like never-ending highway, until Death comes and picks them up. When he is done, he leaves them on the road as they died(the brother burned up by car explosion, the mother due to a trauma in her head, the dad because of glass shards, etc.) and moves on to take the next life. That's why, at the end, Death leaves the daughter alone; she only got hit in the head, and didn't completely die, so she was allowed to leave.
Sorry for the long explanation, but the ending is partially why this movie gets such a high rating from me. Why else would the movie in any way make sense? And not only was the plot increasingly scary to me as it progressed,(one of the few horror movies with actual horror) it even left me something to think about. Like how the family members were all confessing terrible things to each other and acting all hedonistic; in some way, those that were dying knew what was happening to them, so they were doing their last deeds, and saying their last words. It at least made sure that not all of this weird dialogue and actions could be considered for shock value only, and it made the movie seem less mean-spirited at the end than it seemed to me at the beginning(which is usually a good thing in a horror movie).
The movie does lose a few points, however, for dragging out the off-screen gore a bit too much. As an example, the moment with the mother and her brain was creepy at first, but then she became a maniac and it lost the horrific feeling I was starting to get. Or the brother's loud jerking off... Not normally squeamish, but it didn't advance the plot at all. I also don't understand why the woman in white bit his lip off; the woman in white was supposed to be fleeing from death, too, with her dead baby in her arms... Why was she suddenly acting like Death's little helper? Why was she never found left for dead? It felt like they were trying to lead us on with a ghost story, and they created a plothole in doing just that. I think there were other ways they could've done that without losing it's integrity, so it loses a couple of stars for that, too.
All in all, though, I can only recommend.
The Squid and the Whale (2005)
Boys will be boys
Being misled by the description of this movie, I believed that this was an indie movie about how children deal with their parent's divorce. What I got was what happens when children are raised by two moderately selfish parents - one a giant douche, the other an indecisive cheater - and what then happens when that situation culminates into a divorce. Big difference.
Because one shows what so many children has gone through, and the other is a very personal autobiography, which(I hope) most people can't completely relate to. Of course, that also comes down to perspective; the intro of the father as an unbelievably selfish person made me view a lot of situations as a result of that selfishness, and not a result of the divorce. Like how they started hiding their personal belongings from each other and stealing stuff, etc. Yeah, kids experiencing divorce has probably seen stuff like that and they will relate to it - but the movie presented it as "because these parents are awful!" and not "because these parents have stopped loving each other and can't live together, and here are all the subtle ways this will hurt the children".
As for the characters, people have mostly talked about how the little brother likes to jerk off and spread his sperm on every surface in school, and about how utterly shocking that is(plus the foul language). I was more disturbed by Walt, who instantly becomes an abusive misogynist from day one of his parents divorce. Maybe you'd expect a "girls are kinda shallow and can't be trusted" time after finding out your mother is a cheater. But this guy full-on hates his mother and every woman in sight, no matter how they act. Again, those traits were too severe and must have existed already, so it was not really about divorce.
It's almost like the dude who wrote and directed this movie saw the divorce as the reason for why everything in his life sucks - every warped view of humanity, every single feeling of sorrow and neglect. And when Walt runs away at the end of the movie and sees a museum exhibition of a whale swallowing a squid, you can tell how moved he is by these figures. Well, I too saw those sharp teeth on that huge whale against the tiny squid, and they seemed more like symbols of horrible parenting and how their selfishness was "eating Walt alive" than how he was hurt by their actual divorce.
As for the mother, I'm don't doubt that she is a terrible person, but I waited in vain for a scene that would make me truly hate her. Instead, she came across as wishy-washy in every way. Hardly any strong emotions, no passion, nothing - not even for her writing did she seem to care, and she had a blossoming writing career. A truly bland character. The father was more like I'd expect a professional, selfish writer would be like, but he was highly caricatured. The acting was fine, and I liked how they captured his pathetic clinging to "intellectualism". But he seemed so out of place in relation to the other characters. The naturalistic acting of the sons and mother didn't gel with his style at all.
The Square (2017)
Timely social commentary, though not very entertaining
Major spoilers.
I don't believe this movie to be a commentary on Swedish society only, but on society as a whole - at least, recent real life events mirrors those in the movie so well that I'd imagine it's themes are relevant everywhere.
We follow Christian, an art curator who's the leader of a modern art museum that struggles at creating hype for it's new exhibition, The Square. He's arrogant and narcissistic, but not anymore so than any other person he meets. While everyone is in love with the idea of a loving society, none of them possess the empathy to demonstrate exactly that. Too caught up in their own dramas, they all do their best to avoid helping each other, thus creating situation after situation that snowballs out of control. Christian, especially, will be the victim of this.
And living in a Nordic society, I can't get over how realistic some of the situations were; how people will not help those clearly in need, unless the victim(s) literally make too much of a fuss for the receiver to bear. There are several examples of this in the movie; Christian is not really worried when his children are fighting violently - he will only truly react when one of them slams the door. Or how a woman is quietly begging for help whilst she is being sexually assaulted during a piece of performance art - and everybody keeps their head down 'till she starts screaming loudly.
Stuff like this all rang too true to me, and I see people do this every single day, albeit in more subtle ways. A weak example, but I think most people has overheard a conversation where someone is trying to say something, but because they aren't talking loudly enough - or aren't "important" - everyone pretends they didn't hear and keep cutting them off. It's a special, and sadly very prevalent, kind of narcissism; "You didn't cry loud enough and/or are weak, thus I'm not obligated by society to help you - and I won't, even though I know in the back of my head that you are in pain".
This is the core of this movie, the message; we are just not that selfless or likely to even help someone, unless the person is either a) bothering us somehow by being in pain, or b) asking us loudly and directly, so that saying no will reflect badly on us. Thus, most people in this movie are clearly in pain, yet they only get help when they break the social contract. It goes both ways, but that doesn't prevent inequality to happen. According to this movie, the person of authority - or the power of the many - has more impact on people than truth or justice, so you better be born into privilege if an accident were to happen. But the homeless people staring into space on the streets, the problems of some kinds of political correctness, and the many immigrants in this movie are only a small part of this. Everyone suffers because of the narcissism of others. And yes, everybody lose.
Watching it, I kept thinking "Maybe a little misanthropic, an exaggeration of humanity's dark sides". But then I thought of the recent sexual allegations against people in the entertainment industry. So many of them. And the most gruesome acts,(the pedophilia of Woody Allen, the rape of so many others) ignored, simply because it served the people surrounding them better at the moment. And now, everybody knows. Only now are they upset. How many times have similar things happened throughout history? How much of our conscience really comes from the inside?
The strong message and it's great execution aside, this is not a perfect movie. I found it way too slow and drawn out in parts, and the repetitive music was annoying me to the extreme nearing the end. I liked the cinematography, and I loved the many metaphors. It had a consistent tone and some occasional humor(if you like it deadpan, and dry as a desert). It would've been completely mediocre, though, if it didn't make me think the way it did. It made me view all too common situations in a new light, and even though it's been several hours since I left my seat, I'm still depressed about it. All those hours people can spend in an art museum pretending to be aware, when this! This is what truly needs to change about humanity. The boring Christian(pun intended) message of loving thy neighbour.
The Glass Castle (2017)
Strains believability
People have called this movie cheesy because of Harrelson's "overacting" performance, and his character's "unbelievable" shifting between cruelty and genuine love - while others will recognise the twisted logic and menacing stares. You can't even call him "a broken person", "an emotional cripple" or "a childhood PTSD victim" anymore, because those terms have been used too frequently to keep their true meaning. But this is what "messed up, not evil" used to mean. And let me tell you with outmost certainty that men like him exist.
I was left disappointed with this movie, and it was not because of the supposed shallowness of Hollywood - rather, is was because it felt like the director didn't quite "get" the emotional core of the story. There was clearly a lot of heart and earnest passion behind this movie, but it struggled with tone and editing - so much that you are never left with a clear feeling of what growing up in a family like this is really like.
It not only sugarcoated the ugliness that spurs inside of everyone,(yes, even the children) who are exposed to an environment like this for too long - it also ignored arguably the most inspirational part of the movie. What extreme struggle it must have been to rise above poverty like our main character did! Yet almost her entire education and "from rags to riches" career as a journalist was left to be explained through a short montage.
Performances are great, but the scenes are drawn out too long, and thus kept losing some of their spark. The jump between time is hard to bear at times, because it spends too little time at crucial moments in the main character's life, and too much at others. And despite the great acting, a lot of the emotional scenes did not move me like they should - I think, in part, because the tone was too light as compared to what was portrayed.
You do not see the mother shaking in fear near her violent husband when he's in a bad mood - you see her paint and act feeble-minded. You do not see any evidence of the children growing feral amongst each other, raised on starvation, violence and homelessness - you watch them cry, then grow up like normal kids do. And according to this movie, what are the consequences of huge open sores + alcoholism + poverty? Scars! That's it.
What happened here is that the director rightly so realised that the story was too dark for a big audience; so he tried to water it down. But the story was so black in the first place, that removing too many of it's truths left us with something that covers a heavy subject, yet feels too artificial, and too palpable. Yet so wrong, because the funny parts are still too dark to laugh at - and it's still too heavy a subject to give it a "quirky family" twist.
I was also lightly disturbed by the movie's message and how the climax was where she realises that daddy was right all along. If it was up to me, the movie should've focused on how she broke free of the abuse and became a normal person - to revel in her independence and anger, leaving us with a sense of clarity and relief when she finally chooses to forgive her family. Instead, it focuses on the "family union above all!"-message, making the conclusion feel more disturbing than happy.
Arrival (2016)
Ambitious movie squandered by improbability and plot holes
The entire movie is spoiled in this review.
The movie starts with Amy Adams being a linguist professor, who's so unimportant that students doesn't even pay attention to her in the university lessons she teaches. Then, an alien invasion happens, and she's suddenly the first person the government can think of, when they need someone to decipher alien language. I don't have to explain why this doesn't make sense.
Then, she meets these aliens, who look like squids. (Much have been made by the design of the space ship and the aliens, and I'm probably the only person on earth who was satisfied by their minimalist appearance. It was meant to look otherworldly, yet not enough to be a distraction to the story, and I think they did a fine job. Aliens can look like anything, so why not a giant black squid, with other little black squids for hands? The filmmakers know nothing about what an alien looks like, but neither do you) This is where to movie truly falls apart, and the reason for all of the hyperbolic one-star reviews:
At the end of the movie, you know that the language of the aliens allow them to understand time as non-linear(which apparently also means that they can see the future). But for some reason - sometime in 3000 years - the aliens are going to need our help. And to assure loyalty, they give us the gift of understanding time, by forcing us to decipher their language; taking their time to ensure that the conflicts around world leaders are resolved in the process.
But WHY did Amy Adams possess the ability to see the future without having learned the language at first? What made her so special? There's no explanation for any of this, and I also think it's lazy to not tell us whether we are in control of our future or not.
It seems minor, but this is a sci-fi movie that clearly places emotions and character above colorful, advanced space-ships. And soooo much time is being spent on tricking you into feeling sorry for the main character, by showing what appears to be flashbacks of a child growing up and dying of cancer - only to realize at the end, that she doesn't know what's going on, either, because everything she saw was something that happened in the future.
I also don't think that romance is the most beautiful thing that ever happened in the entire world, or even the most touching thing about humanity. This may be why I also wasn't impressed with the reveal that one of the guys from The Avengers turned out to be her future husband. I don't care! I want to know about the aliens!
The movie could make the romance-thing interesting, but it never takes the obvious chances to do so. Best example I can think of is, that our main character knows that if she gets a child with future husband, then that child will die of cancer. But she also knows that in the future, she will keep this a secret her husband, and chooses to have the child anyway. When she eventually tells him the truth, he will leave her and the child.
So many things could've been done with this. It's an interesting moral question, because even though the daughter's life was very beautiful and valuable, her husband might think otherwise. And why shouldn't he? Why should she be born, only to die before her life begun? But the movie never tells us outright what our main character will do with this knowledge, or if it condemns/applauds her for her actions.
In short, it's annoying to watch a movie that has such an emotional feel to it, but never takes a stand regarding it's characters. It also doesn't always make sense. I think someone very brilliant behind this movie wanted to do too much, and lost their way.
Grave Encounters (2011)
The beginning shows the real talent of The Vicious Brothers...
... And it does not belong in the horror genre.
The first 30 minutes or so of this movie is a perfect - and intentional - parody of the many reality TV "haunted house" shows like Ghost Adventures, and the like. It is expertly done compared to other movies of the "mockumentary" genre, and it would've gotten great critical acclaim if it had stayed that way. The Vicious Brothers obviously hate stuff like Ghost Adventures with a passion, which I guess is why the acting was only great in this part. Not only is a parody easier to do acting-wise, the actors all seemed to know exactly the level of ridiculousness they were supposed to express, and the purpose of each scene.
Now, I know mockumentaries aren't as popular as found footage horror movies, so it wouldn't have gotten as many viewers. But at least it would've earned some integrity(and a cult following). This could have been the Spinal Tap of the "reality TV haunted house" genre, is what I'm saying.
But no, it had to try to be genuinely scary. This is quite sad, since The Vicious Brothers(judging by this one) does not possess great talent for when and how to scare people, making the movie less and less enjoyable the further away you get from the intro. It also displays an incredible amount of missed opportunities to scare you, so that it could've at least been scary in the cliché jump scare way, instead of just downright boring.
The acting is atrocious at the end, and their idea of what a crazy person is supposed to be like is offensive. Realistically, "Losing your mind" =/= Homer Simpson in The Shining-episode of The Simpsons. This stood out to me, since the directors seemed to dislike the exploitation of dead insane people as entertainment, given that the joke is always on the reality TV-crew. But why even mock the crew for their deceptive strategies, when you are going to stoop to their level anyway? (speaking of obvious attempts at deception, what a horrible job they did on those ghost people. I could've made more realistic scary stuff in Photoshop myself)
It makes for a jarring tone,(my main pet peeve) but worst of all it makes for a lack of scares. Due to bad acting, bad scares, and sometimes unrealistic forms of character motivation, this movie can never be considered scary(unless you think Ghost Adventures is scary - yes, I know you exist. And I'm judging you). At the end, I actually felt sleepy. Despite great potential, I can't recommend this movie to anyone.
The One I Love (2014)
Weighed down by leaving too many questions not answered
6.5, so above average. I'd recommend never reading the reviews for this movie before you watch it. I barely read the description, because I was told "the less you know, the better", and it's extremely important for this movie. I think it'll even be boring upon a second watch, now that I don't have to think and guess as I had upon the first.
So, major spoilers. You have been warned.
I have many complaints and many great things to say about this movie, but like the miserable couple in it, I will focus on the bad parts. So, what I gather from the premise is, there are always one couple in the house/quest house that can't leave, because their relationship is not strong enough. And, when some new couple come visit,(guided by some psychopath Doctor Who-ish therapist) the trapped couple tries to switch places with them. They do so, by taking on an idealized form of the new couple, the female seducing the male and so on... And then, when the new couple's relationship is weakened because the trapped couple's fake personalities appears to be so much more awesome than their partner's, the trapped couple can leave, making the "new" couple become the trapped ones instead.
This left so many questions, that will frustratingly never be answered.
1) How do the trapped couple shape shift into the idealized forms of the other couple? Is it magic? Quantum mechanics? I don't know, and neither does the movie.
2) So at the end, the male lead realizes that he has escaped with the idealized version of Moss by mistake. He decides to just roll with it, since his original wife coldly and knowingly decided to stay with his fake version - I totally get that. What I don't get is the fake Moss-character's decision to stay with him after she escaped. What's in it for her? She must've gone insane trying to keep up the idealized act forever, given that she is also a real person, who had another life before.
3) Related to the one above, are the shape shifting permanent? Do they have permanent fake personalities as well, never being able to reclaim the life they had before? Are they forced to do this, simply because they wanted a better relationship?!
4) What point is the therapist trying to make? After all, all of the couples entering the house/guest house, will have their relationship destroyed, and then be forced to shape shift into a stranger's idea of perfection. They don't get anything fixed, only cruel punishment awaits.
Some people say this movie would've been better as a short. I say this movie would've been better as a horror. It was, in fact, recommended to me, because I was searching for a scary movie(damn you, Metafilter, and your ever so tame idea of "scary stuff"). I'll never forget the creeped out feeling I got when I saw Kate Moss holding a babushka, realizing that this would be about doppelgängers, but sadly not knowing that it was intended to be a drama-mystery- comedy.
Thus, I sat there waiting in glee for some revelation of the terrible creatures behind the perfect facades, or some build-up to an incredibly freaky psychological horror. They could've done so much with this! I wish they were aliens or something, with a slow, scary revelation of creepy habits, that would make the couple regret their decisions. Or maybe they could've just played around with the surreal feeling of being with your partner, but not really, and the surreal states and psychology that follows living with a fantastic being, that knows it's not real. Yet the simple concept of the movie stayed as minimalist as it was when it begun. Shame.
And one last thing. The Kate Moss-character was surprisingly, well, stupid - the fact that she turned out to be "right" in the end didn't prevent me from strongly disliking her, in all her "but if it feeeeels right"- pretensions. I actually thought what she did was worse than the male character cheating, but most of all, I just couldn't connect with her. She lacked both curiosity and fear in a way I found unbelievable, and I actually understood her shape shifter-version much better.
Jeepers Creepers (2001)
... Deeeeerp!
This movie was above average as just a movie(not really a horror) and it was genuinely funny. It's the only horror that I've ever seen that has comedy elements at the right timing, so as to not ruin the scares - but the scares, in and of themselves, were not good enough.
I know it's a tired complaint that "people act stupid in horror movies", but most of the time I disagree, or at least understand the character's motivation. But in this one, the lack of suspension of disbelief - on behalf of stupidity - actually managed to ruin much of the movie for me.
An example, early spoilers: so the siblings is harassed by some creepy dude in a car, and they later see him throwing some suspiciously lumpy sheets down a pipe. They decide to go back and check if those were really dead people - that's fine, I understand being curious. But then the brother gets stuck down the pipe with a bunch of bodies, and instead of yelling at his sister to go get some help, he demands that she waits at the road for someone else to drive by, so that she can tell them to go get the police. This is completely unbelievable; nobody would ever leave their car out in the open like that, when it is clearly established that an apparent serial killer is one of the only ones who frequents the place. And since the creepy dude previously saw that they were two in the car, he'll just go kill them both the second he spots it - so it's not even in the brother's own selfish interest that she stays. Why not just hide, and wait for his sister come back with the police? I know they actually got away, and I know it's minor, but it just bugged me.
Adding to that, when the brother sees the first body, he takes minutes to even react, and when he finally starts looking for an exit, he stops to do stuff like properly tie his shoes, and further stare at all the bodies. A real non-fictional human would instantly panic at the first sign of death, and get the hell outta there, because stuff like like this are what helped us survive as a species. "I'm not seeing this" - no, cause you'd be gone right now.
Situations like these happens all the time in this movie, and that's sad. Because it doesn't mean that the jump-scares are not perfectly timed, and that this movie is not exciting, or original. It also has a lot of indie-charm to it. It just ruins much of the great pacing and atmosphere, when the only time you will ever see a character just standing there, is in the face of immediate danger.
And one last thing. The description for this movie - ritual murder monster - is a huge spoiler, and only first revealed by the second half of the movie. I spent the first twenty minutes being scared of the person in the car, and then I read the description and spent the rest of the time waiting for the monster to appear, killing the suspension. That said, the simple lore behind the monster was great. I just wish it didn't look at stupid as it did, and that it had eaten someone's hair as a first priority.
Darkness Falls (2003)
For entertainment purposes only
I only watched this because the mere concept made me laugh, and because I felt like watching a horror movie that wouldn't leave me all depressed like the good ones usually do. I got exactly what I wanted that day, so maybe this review isn't completely objective; and truth to be told, what this movie does best is delivering simple jump-scares of the kind we know. But I still thought the idea of an evil tooth fairy was well executed, and like the top reviewers state, it really isn't THAT bad.
I gotta warn you, though, this movie is extremely 90s. It's right down from the styling to the sound effects to the coked up shifting camera angles, and lets not forget the Beverly Hills-style acting. I especially loved it when our troubled hero, Kyle, lines up his medicine for various mental illnesses on the table, and swallows them to a loudly blasting grunge-soundtrack, while the camera goes crazy. The only way this could've been less subtle, is if a TV screen had shown a Kurt Cobain-lookalike shoot himself in the background. The camera also later pans to show that Kyle has dedicated an entire wall to drawings of the mask the tooth fairy was wearing when he first saw it - in case you were still in doubt that our protagonist is haunted and has got them feels, maaaan.
The amateurish feeling is quite sad, because this movie has some genuinely scary things to offer - it's sound effects from the fairy is quite good, some mix between that girl from The Grudge and a particularly ravenous witch. It also mostly knows what it has to offer,(action, mysterious creature and scares) and I thought it had great timing when it came to scares. It also didn't waste it's time in it's 80 minute runtime*coughtwohourmodernmoviescough*.
The movie only goes truly flaccid and unintentionally hilarious, when it breaks from it's ghost- story mold at the middle, and becomes more like an Alien-style creature feature. The witch still screams and flies around, but you aren't scared of her anymore, because of the addition of what I think were actual assault rifles. There's a reason scary dead women usually chooses to haunt naive young people in old mansions, and not some action hero like Kyle, who stands ready to protect "his girl" with bullets, red necks and access to stuff like light houses. The final nail in the coffin was the inclusion of a kid, because we know they won't die, so you'd wish he wasn't included at all.
That's not to say that this movie isn't entertaining. It IS. But be prepared for the gradual shift from ghost story to action flick. Even the hard rock ending song doesn't match the foreboring music at the beginning of this movie.
Rick and Morty (2013)
Burp, fart, "Life is meaningless!"
This show is a 5, so I find it both average and watchable. I mostly like the characters and I love the show's creativity and most of it's humor. This will still be mostly negative critique, and there will be spoilers.
Despite what some people are suggesting, you do not have to be smart in order to enjoy this show. This may seem like a weird opening statement to make, until you come to know the online fanbase of this show. Skip this paragraph if you are not one of them. But really, one of my best friends love this, and she truly hates abstract thinking and intellectual discussions of any kind. She's also neither depressed, or particularly smart; in fact, she's a popular person primarily because of her pleasant, easygoing personality. She won't get the majority of the scientific references,(who are very basic, and not very "deep") but there are equally as many references to popular culture - like the movie series "The Purge" - so it's not like people who are not geeky won't "get" most of it. Liking this show =/= smart.
I don't get the outrage about season 3, after the show got new writers. I do agree that the first episodes were worse than usual, but after that, I don't find it to be better or worse than it used to. Though I dislike the increased ham-fisted exploration of various characters, I actually appreciate that the new episodes as much as the old.
In fact, Rick and Morty has always had a slightly "off" feeling to me, because of it's lack of tone. It wanted to have all the advantages of a chaotic, nihilist show of sci-fi madness and creativity, which would primarily be interesting because it's cynical, crude and riddled with references - but it also wants to dip into depression, philosophy and other stuff that would demand a more dramatic mood. The latter part does not work, since the entire series is built on an extremely short sketch.
This is especially confusing with Rick, a sociopathic genius, who thinks the lack of a predetermined meaning in life, means that you should never create your own: thus you are destined to wander around in suicidal aimlessness and engage in mostly selfish but joyless escapades, because "some stuff has to be done, I guess". He murders humanoid creatures left and right, is constantly abusive to everyone around him and shows zero remorse. This is presented as funny
It wouldn't be a problem to me, if the show just went ahead with the wacky meaninglessness and let you enjoy the ride. Instead, the characters(Rick especially) are constantly at odds with themselves and spouts philosophical ideas, that are clearly supposed to be deep. Suffering and being mean is romanticized, and there are actual therapy sessions. This is rarely done well, and the show seems to suggest depth and intelligence, without being able to pull it off in a satisfying way.
I'm also tired of the smart = superior message of the show. When the joke is not on Rick or Morty, it is usually "look at these dumb people being dumb", which seems arrogant the more I think about it. It also equals being smart with being depressed, and since the show thinks smart = superior, it promotes a weird kind of self pity. The downright evil Rick is supposed to be a villain/antihero, but the moments he gets portrayed as cool by far outweighs those in which he gets called out or suffers any kind of consequence. The fact that he always wins and has godlike powers makes him more of a power fantasy than an actual anti hero, which makes me feel immature for even watching it. I sometimes cringe at his supposed coolness, and I think other shows like Bojack Horseman is much better at creating sympathetic antiheroes.
All in all, a decent show that could've been much more, had it tried to settle for less.
Game of Thrones (2011)
If I rated with my emotions, this would be a 7
I loved this show at the beginning, with the best episodes being those with Joffrey on the throne. I realized through the slow pace, the naked chicks, the shock value torture and the irregular quality of acting, that this was to be considered light entertainment, but I still enjoyed the show. What it lacked in actual quality at times, it made up for as a cultural phenomenon - I still follow the show just because my friends do, and I love how it brings people together.
The main issue is far too little material being stretched out over several seasons, and now, without George R. R. Martin's plot to back it up, it has completely failed to keep the viewer's suspension of disbelief, and to build up any of the tension there was before. I did get afraid of Jon Snow dying at some point, because he couldn't realistically get out of the situation - but then he got saved in the most immersion-breaking way possible. It's not that I want more blood, only realism. If Jon Snow couldn't believably be saved and needs to be alive for the sake of plot, don't put him in an impossible situation to begin with. There are too many times in the late seasons where a character should've(realistically and tragically) died, but instead we get Theon's Personal Victory at the Beach, and other such fairy tales that lowers the stakes.
Game of Thrones also doesn't feel like an actual Game of Thrones, when the victory of House of Lannisters from season 1 still lasting, despite everyone wanting to kill them. Also, what's so great about being on the iron throne, when a religious group can easily sway the idiotic peasants, and take away their power? I sure wouldn't want that kind of "power".
The Lannisters are my favourites, though, because they by far have the most interesting character arcs. My favourite is Cersei, an alcoholic dumb - but wickedly sadistic - blonde, who wants so badly to be the scheming genius her daddy wanted; and what she does is basically failing at this over and over, and in the most hilariously karmic ways. In the end, she always has to resort to brute and dumb methods to get her way, and is on a constant quest trying to regain her dignity. She is the only character in which the drawn-out GoT-style works, because it's in line with her character to never amount to more. Her love for her twin brother is interesting, the omen with losing all her children was great, and I love how she drunkenly snarks at everyone. Best villain ever!
I think Cersei and early season Tyrion showcases what GoT could be, but won't, because fewer seasons with tight writing and high-concept characters mean less money. There's too many scenes of people staring at fireplaces and repetitive conversations, that does nothing to plot or character development.
I especially hate the character Sam, whose version of "character development" is par for the course in GoT. So, he had book smarts and no courage at the beginning, and you won't believe what happens, he remains that way. I think well over five hours has been spent on him reading books and talking to scribes. Seriously. He has beady eyes and rosy cheeks for personality, and he only looks like a real-life smart person, because he has a stupid, inbred wife(and that's the extent of her personality, btw).
Opening a can of worms, the much-debated misogyny: I personally find the "GoT is misogynist because such were medieval times!"-excuse to be both simplistic, and ignorant of history. Yes, I know that all the depicted things on screen really did happen, but hear me out! In the case of the character, Ser Loras Tyrell, people reading this should look up on Google Images what medieval religious groups realistically did to torture gay men like him. After you have, ask yourself the question: do you think the inclusion of these rape torture devices would make a better show? Would showing stuff like this graphically - like they do with women - give you a better understanding of the hardships of medieval times? Or would it feel more like exploitative shock value?
For the record, I'm not interested in seeing gay people further marginalized in GoT, and I don't wish all instances of misogyny on the show deleted. Tyrell's sad fate was treated with taste, and it still got the point across perfectly. But why does GoT grab each and every opportunity there is, to show women being raped and degraded, when it clearly avoids giving the same intense/graphic treatment to other oppressed groups? Why is it so hard to treat women the same? As a history buff, it's jarring to hear the "back in the day" argument, because women getting naked were not the situations in which the most gruesome happenings took place. More creativity, less misogyny, please.
(and don't give me that "men gets killed on the show, that is worse than rape!"-excuse - there are equally graphic deaths of women, and in this universe they even go to war - where do you see a huge outrage for that? ... Yeah, that's what I thought)
It saddens me to give it a 5, when I followed the show from beginning, and will follow to the end. But there's not enough quality and substance in the show to make it above average. It's a money-machine, and despite beautiful costumes and great production values, I still suspect that people twenty years from now will be left confused with it's popularity. It's cheap, it's opportunist, and quality-wise, it was already starting to die a long, drawn-out death several years ago, entertainment-wise.
A Cure for Wellness (2016)
Wonderfully ridiculous
From the scene in the beginning with the mirrored train driving into the darkness of a tunnel, and right until the end, I was completely swayed by the visual language of this movie. I really couldn't believe the so-so ratings, but things started to get weirder and weirder, and I realized that only a particular type of movie-goer would be in on it. You really need a certain openness to experience, and I don't mean this in a "if you are smart or dumb" way. It's... Really out there.
I won't spoil the plot, as I don't even think it's an important part of this movie. Yes, it has a twist in the end that's supposed to be shocking, but isn't, yet this never hindered my enjoyment. The music is great, the cinematography is too beautiful to not be a total distraction, and I loved the acting; it was caricatured in just the right places, helping the already surreal tone of the movie. The mystery was so original and well done, and so was the symbolism and the visual style.
Did I find this movie scary? Yes, very much so, but in the psychological way. It's not really concerned with jump scares or gore, and I can't say that I've ever watched a horror movie quite like this. It has a sort of "sensual" creepiness to it, and it really takes advantage of the hydrotherapy part. It seems to focus on assumptions from the viewers own imagination, suggesting some body horror here, or some ghost story there - depending on who you are. It does this deliberately, and I found it quite effective.
Speaking of style, people have called this style over substance, but I don't consider this movie to be empty in the slightest. Yes, it's ridiculous and not exactly subtle with about half of it's points, but it's meant to be dramatic, and it still left food for thought. Safe for the end, there was always something to take away from every scene, and I felt rewarded by analyzing and trying to figure out what was going on. Most important of all, I felt as if though there was passion behind this movie, in a way that I almost find it insulting that anyone would call it empty.
I did feel a slight disappointment at the end, because this movie did stuff so that it could never be called an outright masterpiece. It's still great, though, and people who love a good psychological horror and surrealism should still give it a try.
This movie loses 1.5 stars for the ending, and for the fact that I couldn't entirely suspend my disbelief as the plot progressed; it also loses half a star for being a bit slow nearing the ending. The rest of it is pure awesome.
Spring (2014)
The only true horror of this is the stupidity
Oh, the horror! I love indie movies, I love intellectual artsy movies, and I especially love psychological horror. Why didn't I like this critically acclaimed movie, then?
Well, for starters, this movie is offensively dumb, and also in and of itself offensive(but in a dumb way). And it manages to not be particularly entertaining at the same time. Only in this world, in this specific time, with this specific view on women, can this be considered part of high culture, whilst the female equivalent(Twilight) is rightly considered to be what it is; unbelievably idiotic.
I can't completely one-star it, because it's execution was original, and it didn't give me a headache in quite the same way Troll 2 did - but the plot, oh the plot! It's the kind of offensive story some drunk dude will tell you at a bar, and because he currently lacks the self-insight that would prevent it, he actually thinks stuff like this is categorized as "romance" - instead of the horribly misogynist, weirdly specific fantasy that it actually is. And you try to smile, because you can tell that he's just being self-involved, and not deliberately creepy, and you hope he's the only man who thinks like this. This is the horror movie equivalent of that.
And to those that enjoy anti-PC culture and thinks it's hilarious, you will too be bored! It's a soft core angelic succubus fantasy romantic, and since the creators were not aware of the offensiveness, none of it was executed in a particularly blunt or hard-hitting way. As for the rest, (cinematography, music) it is equally meh.
I'm not going to get further down to specifics, because there are other reviews for that(both the positive and negative reviews). I'm just going to say that I really did try to enjoy this and find the good parts, since people used to rave about it. But I came away with nothing. If not for the misogyny, I would've forgotten it immediately after.
Gaga: Five Foot Two (2017)
Nothing personal
I don't know what went wrong. I'm not a huge fan of her music, but any documentary that involves artists and music usually pass as "good" to me. People have criticized Gaga's personality, mentioning how she comes across as self-absorbed, and how this documentary is just an act of self-indulgence. For me, the biggest issue was how this documentary seemed to promise real "intimacy" with a world-famous superstar, and gave none of that.
How can you judge someone's personality on this material? I know she just compared making music with having open heart surgery,(??) and she does seem to be oblivious to other people - but maybe it was just an attempt to get enough material about her, so that she could finish the damn documentary. She didn't seem into it at all.
The intense music, the artsy slow-motion camera, Gaga being massaged, Gaga with her family, Gaga feeding her dogs; it seems as if though every single person on the crew tried their very best to suggest something deep, but it all amounts to nothing. It is probably the most forced documentary I have ever seen.
Early on, Gaga complains about sexism in the industry, and how she's forced to always be sexualized; and that, in order to not go crazy, she'd always manage to "twist" things just a bit - add an obscure element on her shows, like blood - in order to feel like she was in control. Did she not feel in control when she made this documentary? Because all you get from her, is a few blanket statements, repeated over and over again with different choices of words. Yes, you'll get to see her exhibit authentic state fright, and you'll see her in physical pain, but most of all, you will see her talking about deep stuff in a shallow way, or watch her dance around in skimpy Instagram outfits, with brows to match.
Maybe she really does have nothing else to offer - I have seen people's brains and empathy slowly melt away before, simply because they couldn't smoke weed in moderation. And everyone knows what fame does to one's sense of self. But maybe Gaga just didn't feel like giving what it takes for a documentary like this to be good. Maybe she thought that if she just talked about women's issues in front of her stoned friends - who are either bad actors, bad friends, or simply hated how staged it was - and maybe if she had enough conversations about nothing,(but they all end with a hug!) it would come across as if she actually let us in close.
Well, she didn't. It just comes across as a failed experiment.
Prisoners (2013)
Deserves it's high critical acclaim(minor spoilers, warning)
Something I need to get out of the way first - there are certain people who should stay away from this movie, if they don't want their evening ruined. It also demands a certain mood. Because sometimes, you don't want to think and analyze, sometimes you just want popcorn and a feel-good, black and white whodunit. I know the feeling. And it's impossible to tell on the description which way this one it will play out. It's not that it's a pretentious, wordy, artsy-fartsy snooze fest - but it is heavy, it is dark, and it is a thriller/drama. Be warned. If you liked the first episodes of True Detective, you can go right ahead.
I could start by summarizing all the action that takes place and who the characters are, but this movie is at its heart only about crime-solving and kidnappings on the surface. Behind all of this, it is about evil, and what happens to people's psyche when they become victimized by it. How everyone needs a scapegoat, and how people will judge/punish other people for various forms of perceived evil - swiftly, emotionally, without thinking things through - simply because they have an instinctive need for doing so. And how this traps them in a vicious cycle,(a "maze") of evil, that none of them can find their way out of.
I loved the themes of this movie. There's a lot of Alice in Wonderland-references,(LSD, mazes, rabbits) and the atmosphere is at once heavily realistic, and very surreal. There's a lot of prayers and preaches throughout the movie, especially about how we are all born sinners, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for the characters hit by sorrow and despair. But Christianity is not at all the point; in the very beginning, a criminal detective is shown judging other people by the year they are born, simply because he believes in astrology. It follows the same message without tying itself to one religion.
The only innocents are the children,(whom also come in the shape of severely damaged "adults") who understands the metaphorical "maze" - which, to many reviewer's annoyance, is not completely literal - and finds their way out of it, time and time again. The children tries to communicate what they know with the adults several times, but these so-called crime-solvers are too busy finding sinners to actually listen.
I loved the performances,(save for Hugh Jackman, who did not seem to connect with his grieving father-role very well) I loved the music, and I loved how this movie was about the "victims" for once, not the often boring perpetrators. It's atmosphere and mysterious tone was something out of the first episodes of True Detective, and it stayed consistent the entire way.
But because it was so concerned about message, symbolism and character, it sometimes lost the realism in the form of a few plot-holes, and was not always completely realistic regarding the actions of several characters. For example(early spoiler) some detective finds the door to a hidden cellar behind a fridge by obscure coincidence, and it strains the suspension of disbelief. I can forgive most of the other stuff, though, and I'm not quite convinced some parts are as illogical as other people have stated; to me, it was believable for certain characters to become trapped in their own bad decisions, and to lose their way in a misguided attempt to do right.
It (2017)
Tries to do everything at once
I loved Stephen King's It, as I am such a cultured critic, and I'd always wanted to watch it in movie form blah blah, on to the real review:
This movie was not really that scary. I love horror movies and sat in the theater surrounded by teenagers too young to even be here. I refuse to believe that they could in any way be scarred by this experience, as each scare was undercut by humor, and the scares themselves were not really that intense. In fact, I'd recommend this movie to people aged 12-15, as the toilet humor and sexual jokes seemed to be right up their alley, and I'm saddened to hear that the language apparently was enough to warrant this movie an R-rating. One of the problems is that this movie - beautifully shot and heart-warming as it is - fails to both build up the tension and provide something genuinely scary as a pay-off. Sometimes, it did manage to do one or the other, but never at the same time. It doesn't help that the monster appears way too often, and with all the kids fighting, running, throwing rocks and what-not, it often felt like I was watching a particularly gritty action movie, not an actual horror.
As for the music, it sucked. Not because it was exclusively bad, but because it was too loud to have any subtlety, and because some of it didn't match the tone of the scene(the loudness making it even more grating).
Now, the kids. As others have stated, their acting was great, in fact I found them better than most of the adults. They had actual screen presence, and the casting and dialogue between them is where this movie shines - their personalities and actions really did ring true most of the time, at least for me.
One thing I continuously took issue with, though, is the treatment of the character, Beverly Marsh. I've read the gross-out controversial scene between her and the boys in the book, and was thankful that they left this out of the movie - but this is still no excuse.
I know we are supposed to watch her through the eyes of the teenage boys, but they overdid it. The collective sum of the many full body shots, the red lipstick and the way the camera follows her around is not only kinda gross, it also hinders and changes her character development. They could have chosen to make her just as much a part of the group as she was in the book, but instead they made her almost exclusively an object of desire, and - in the end - a damsel in distress. Beverly is still presented as a complex and brave girl - but unlike the book, she is first and foremost a "woman". Like how they changed her father from a controlling physically abusive man, to a hair-sniffing pedophile. What's the issue with this, you say? Oh, nothing, save for the fact that the boys also continuously point out her hair, writes poems about it, and so on. It's supposed to be cute, but it can't be, because of the newly introduced context of sexual abuse. When Beverly is unconscious and is awaken by a passionate kids from one of the boys, how can you feel anything other than uncomfortable, when you've just seen her crying over the sink, cutting off her hair in deep shame and fear of being desired? So many situations here reminded me of the book Lolita, but in a bad and exploitative way.
I also did find it strange that they didn't just set the movie in the 50s, as I think the unsupervised children and the dark violence the entire city inhabits, had more to do with an era gone by. I know, I know, things like this still happens now, as it does in the 80s, but it would've just been more believable this way, what with the evil cop and people getting burned to death just because they're black. Besides, It is a story of innocence lost - and what era has been viewed more through rose-colored lenses, as the 50s? I really wish they would've avoided the 80s trends here, and just focused on the truth of the story.
In fact, this is the reason why It never completely works, and you can't fully blame them. They had the running time of a movie, and they tried to do it all - but it's impossible to sum up a 1000-page book with 8 fully-developed main characters, even when you split it in half. And it is crucial that you get inside the character's heads in this particular horror story, because their personal deepest fears is all you ever get to see. And how can you be scared by this, if you don't understand them? They would've been better off sacrificing even more of the source material, in order to have a more consistent tone, and more well-developed characters. It was doomed to be a mess from the beginning.
Ghostbusters (2016)
The only honest review
Even though this review is called the only honest review, I am sure that the majority of people here are going to agree deep down, a sort of summing up the general experience.
I'll start out by saying that I am tired of the political stigma surrounding this movie - I don't give a rat's ass about most of the stuff people choose to be offended about, so I'll just steer clear of that. In this way, I am probably like most guys on IMDb, so I am confident that this will reflect the user base.
And just to be clear, I not in no way bothered by the fact that it is women who play the major roles in this movie - it's just that men play all the minor ones. Also, they tend to be portrayed as downright stupid, or they only say silly stuff, which is not very common when we're speaking of a comedy. This was slightly harrowing to me, and I can only describe the experience by using the term 'reverse sexism', a choice of words which clearly shows how little I care when the 'ism's are directed at anything other than what is white and male. (otherwise, I would know that the correct term is simply 'sexism').
The acting sucked, even though I usually like Kristen Wiig. I'd say that Chris Hemsworth saved the movie and should be the lead actor in the next Ghostbusters, where they will make America great again.
The music and CGI was fine, though I was a bit bothered by all of the neon lights. I wasn't alive when the original Ghostbusters came out, but it was truly a masterpiece that I of course cared about way before I saw all the headlines advertising a "female Ghostbusters".
The plot was a bit meandering, and I probably wasn't the only one who was a bit bored by the time they got to portray the villain as a male basement dwelling nerd.
All in all a sour experience. Look up the ratings for this movie, and you will see how it was subjected to a down voting brigade before it even came out in theaters,(I'd tell you the password to my 4chan account if it wouldn't put me in immediate danger, as I am very proud of my contribution to keep the SJWs from taking over the world) and now, the ratings are slowly being re-balanced.
Worrying, it is. If only people could take entertainment for what it is, huh?