Change Your Image
albertchessa
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)
Quite simply one of the most stunning works of art and storytelling.
The Fall of the House of Usher is a masterpiece in every aspect. Foremost, the writing - of a quality that I genuinely thought we'd never see again. The editing. The performances. The music. The commentary on this world, on us as a species. The merciless, ruthless, delicious and vicious effectiveness of its symbolism - a magnificence to behold. Flanagan and his team have made a work to sit on the shelf aside Kubrick, Hitchcock and Argento. 10/10 is far too low a score. Some of the most beautiful and haunting moments and monologues evert captured on camera. Beyond transcendent. Will surely watch many more times to come. A timeless masterwork of sequential cinema.
The Tomorrow War (2021)
I really enjoyed the film! There's an anti-originality attitude infecting the internet nowadays
I applaud the creators of TTW for going all out on this.
The plot made enough sense for me too.
It's corny.
It's unabashedly hammy.
It's FULL of ridiculous coincidences.
But it's also a clever,
**completely original** science fiction story,
Which is increasingly rare!
They say if you've been separated from something long enough,
Even something that's good for you,
You'll see it as the enemy, as something wrong.
The anger being shown towards the film is emblematic of this, and it brings me so much dismay.
That people would actively discourage others to support original storytelling.
I really hope people come round to it,
And vote with their money for original storytelling to come back again!
A solid 7/10 from me 🤘
Also, take Blomkamp and Oats Studios:
Who are on a determined crusade to create *only* original features.
It's disheartening to see how many people are just happy to lap up the conveyor belt franchises forever.
It's so shortsighted.
What are we on, our seventh Batman adaptation now?
And look I love Batman, but surely the world is big enough for a bit more variety?
Anyway, that's my little soapbox there. Here's to The Tomorrow War crew and cast, and the Blomkamps and Oats Studios of the world too!
More from you all, please!🤘
Face/Off (1997)
A meta-masterpiece
A meta-masterpiece. Is it good? Is it bad? Is the acting good? Is the acting bad? Did both men step through their shadows to heal deep parts of themselves only reachable by seeing themselves in the other's lives? The innovative/pioneering/unceasingly brilliant, endlessly generous and fresh action. Both men, hero and villain, becoming a bit of one another, their spouses and children's dynamic shifts that accompany that change, us as an audience conflicted about so many layered scenes - Castor with Archer's daughter Jamie, Archer with Castor's son Adam. The true hero of the piece, Eve, believing her husband's spirit over his appearance. The symbolism of a man healing so fully as to open his heart to the innocent son of his son's killer, entrusted to him by her dying mother, his son's killer's partner. The absolutely schlocky-horrible corny bad sooooo bad acting with an absolutely brilliant, perennially masterful film underneath. And yet perhaps it was a mask to deceive us into trusting it's message? It's all this, and so much more. It's Face/Off. 10/10.
Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (2020)
Inexcusably intelligence-obliterating trash
This series completely has no respect for the viewer's intelligence.
Every conflict is manufactured and done solely to bring about a certain sequence of events.
Every interaction, with the exception of 1-2 scenes between Darius and his father,
Are completely nonsensical.
And don't give me that excuse of 'well the whole premise is nonsensical, just go for the ride' -
No. We have collectively lowered our standards for entertainment, and the praise this series is getting is a sign of the end times,
Because by saying this is acceptable, the creators will feel enabled to keep zero quality standards for what they create.
If you like this series, you are either a very small child, or you have no brain.
What's upsetting is that it didn't used to be this way - you used to have children's entertainment that still had a sense for what would happen naturally,
What a character would say and do naturally -
This entire series and to be honest, every film or piece of media after the first is completely contrived crap that dilutes what made the original film a true masterpiece.
Please don't deaden your brain cells with this mindless pile of stupidity.
Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)
This movie is directionless nostalgia, plus feet.
Cold trash. Didn't even deserve hot trash.
Don't get suckered into the group-think out there telling you this film is good on any level.
Character introductions that go nowhere.
Pointlessly long scenes.
Literally just pointless scenes.
Zero tension.
Unearned, well, nothing is earned.
The whole movie goes essentially nowhere.
Misogyny, and plenty of it. Distressing levels of it.
And endless shots of feet, feet, FEET!!!
We GET it Tarantino, you like women's feet.
It honestly seems like the whole impetus to make this film was QT waking up one day and deciding,
'You know, I want to get my feet on. And also my directionless nostalgia on.'
This movie is directionless nostalgia, plus feet.
Hitokui no ôwashi toriko (2016)
A Meta Masterpiece (a fairytale about learning to trust)
To this day, The Last Guardian is my favourite work of art/entertainment/storytelling for one simple reason:
The realism with which the process of trust-building is portrayed and implemented into the core mechanics and narrative.
No other arc is as important, or effective, as that of two beings learning to trust each other.
Sadly the most common critique for this title is that 'it does not control well'.
It seems to have completely soared over the heads of these people that that the boy's frantic, flapping (and yes, non-video gamey) and anxious animations,
As well as the stop-start, sometimes incongruous, and ultimately unknowable (in the same way that we could never fully control or predict the behaviour of a cat, for instance) behaviour of the creature,
Were not only designed intentionally that way,
But serve double-duty as powerful metaphors for the development of the title itself.
The boy *is* Fumito Ueda, and the beast *is* the game itself.
As we know from TLG's prolonged development, the boy/Fumito really and literally struggled with getting the beast/the game to go where he wanted it to go.
So much so that a whole other platform - a whole other approach - was needed.
This turning point, from PS3 to PS4, is actually noticeable in-game.
After about 5 hours of gameplay, one notices that the creature does respond more keenly to your cries. In turn, you as the young adventurer also have grown more patient of and respectful towards the creature,
Who is just as young and just as scared as you.
I believe this was the moment that Ueda and his team 'cracked' The Last Guardian - when developer/boy and game/beast stopped fighting each other,
And instead listened, compromised, and strived forward together.
Just revisiting my memories of the title makes me want to experience this singularly master-crafted work of art once again.
Could not recommend enough, but it is only for those who are patient and have the capacity for understanding, surrendering to and appreciating *not* being handed everything immediately, no-lag, give-it-to-me-right-now.
This title will one day be used (if it isn't already) to help people who have the obsessive need to control everything in their lives, or who have succumbed (as far to many of have) to entitlement and instant-gratification.
The Last Guardian gently and powerfully invites you to let go of what you think a video game should be (namely super snappy controls, for the impatient and simple), and allow yourself to be literally swept off on the back of an unforgettable adventure,
One that becomes more and more powerful each time you revisit it.
30 Rock (2006)
It is unfair that I cannot rate this higher than 10
Simply the highest-quality series of all time.
Fey is a masterful saga-builder, yet is equally masterful at filling every scene, every character line with so much cleverness and authenticity. Everything about this show is generosity - fun, earnest, surreal, hilarious through and through. Fey makes a 7 year series without a bad episode seem effortless, but we who know how rare this is will cherish it for years to come. Like the (spoilers) immortal Kenneth, Fey and this show will always be infinity/10