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alexanderhaleem
Reviews
Dazed and Confused (1993)
Relatable and Realistic
This movie is one of the few "perfect movies" to me. I do not often give 10/10 reviews to anything, but Dazed and Confused deserves that honour. Despite the fact that this movie was set in the 70's, people in high school still can relate to the themes and situations our various cast of characters find themselves in. I watched this movie in high school and it was one of the only movies I could really truly relate my life to at the time. I graduated high school back in 2016, but re watching this movie always takes me back to a simpler and more care free time.
What I love so much about this movie is its accurate depiction of high schoolers. Something that too many movies and television shows do, which I find to be extremely annoying is the separation of social circles. There is always a group of nerds, sports guys, popular girls, stoners etc. The problem with so many movies is that this is so detached from reality. Yes, these various groups exist, but often times many people from one group will interact and be friends with people from the other, and that is what I love about this movie.
This is apparent with the characters of Pink and Don, everybody knew guys like this. They are football players but they get high and party with pretty much anyone. The same goes in the other direction of Kevin and Slater being potheads whose best friends are these football guys. To further add to my point, the "nerdy" characters of Tony, Mike and Cynthia are all part of this network of people that get involved in the night's wacky antics. I love this so much because this movie exposes the amount of depth in the characters from various groups that most movies oversimplify and thus make unrelatable.
It is not one big kumbaya however, just like in real high school there will be people who are part of one group that do not wish to branch out of their bubble. I believe this is apparent in the character of Benny, another high school football player who unlike Pink and Don shows obvious signs of not wanting to be mixed in with the "wrong crowd" still a hilarious character non the less, and another reason why I find this movie so realistic.
This leads me to one of the best characters and that is Mitch and his buddies Carl, Tommy and Hirschfelder. These guys along with hundreds of others are transitioning from junior high kids to high schoolers after the summer and the abuse they escape or attempt to escape is positively hilarious. One of my friends from high school actually reminds me so much of Mitch it just made it that much funnier. Basically, these junior high schoolers need to be initiated, how are they initiated, by being spanked as hard as possible with a paddle. Anyway, the character of Mitch gets it so bad but takes it like a champ that Pink wants to take him out partying for the night, and this is where the movie really escalates in the best possible way.
Back to this idea of relatability, when you are a 10th grader just starting high school so many people had those older guys that took you under their wing. You partied and got high and caused mischief, the type of thing you could do only in high school. Which leads me to another point and that is the movie's accurate depiction of alcohol and drug use among high schoolers, yes it is accurate, even when I was in high school we did the same.
Undoubtedly this movie might not be entirely relatable to everyone, but there are elements within it that anyone could relate to. The characters in this movie just make sense and are the reason why the movie so good, there is someone here for anyone. The characters are so plentiful that it is not necessary for them to each be given in depth attention, if you can relate to this movie you can characterize certain characters yourself.
This movie does not necessarily have a main character either. Pink is arguably the main character, but so many others are given attention, that you can really choose who or what you think this movie is about.
Ultimately this movie captures the rebellious spirit of mine and so many others youth, with extremely relatable characters, situations and themes. I want to keep writing because I could go in depth on so many other aspects of this movie such as the phenomenal soundtrack but I will leave here. Do yourself a favour and watch this movie at least once in your life and if you've already seen it, give it a re-watch.
A forever classic.
Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
So Much Potential
This movie could have been the one to revitalize the franchise but it fell so short, with all the right pieces just waiting to be put together.
We get Chris Rock playing the detective role typical of a Saw movie and I think this is an unpopular opinion, but I actually really liked this take on that role. In a lot of Saw movies the detective side of the story often feels like the B plot, but this time they flipped it and made it the A plot with the character of Zeke. Also, the angle of a Jigsaw killer going after corrupt cops I found to be a departure from typical saw movies where the victims do not always tend to be that bad. With all this being said the movie just can't capitalize on what they set out to do, it's almost as if they created this movie for the sole purpose of making a part 2 and by doing that they made an unsatisfying experience.
They introduced all these corrupt cops but only a few of them actually experience Jigsaw's ire. Samuel Jackson was underused significantly in this movie, and the final trap with him was so over the top stupid. Zeke's partner being Jigsaw was also just ok, when they didn't even play the tape at his apparent death it just felt lazy.
Ultimately, having a character like Zeke is actually not a bad thing at all, the issue is that this movie spent too much time on Zeke and the corrupt cops and not enough time on the horrifying element of the death traps. This movie could have been better served with a 2 hour run time with more emphasis on the victims and their traps. I think a really cool idea would have been to have one of the worst cops actually escape his trap and live to fight another day and maybe make the new Jigsaw disciple a little for fleshed out.
There's a lot more things I can nitpick but for the sake of keeping it short I'll end it here. Ultimately I think if you are a Saw fan or B horror fan it is worth one watch all the same. Part of me does wish for a part 2 so we can get the closure we need from this particular story.
Resident Evil 4 (2023)
What A Game
This was hands down one of the best Video Game experiences of my life up to this point. I recall when RE2 first appeared and I was taken aback by the phenomenal gameplay and fantastic characters. RE4 just amplified everything by a wide margin. CAPCOM have outdone themselves. Fans of Survival Horror will not be let down by what they are getting themselves into with this game.
With that being said, this is Resident Evil at it's most "action paced" and that means there's a great deal of "run and gunning" however, the gameplay mechanics are so well done that you still experience that level of anxiety and fear that Survival Horror is meant to induce. Yet perhaps the most intriguing part of the game for many will be the strong story telling alongside some of the most iconic characters in video game history.
This game really took my breath away. I've been playing games since I was a kid, I am only 25 but it's been many years since a game made me feel this excited and fun- filled, so much so that I had to write a review. I hope fans of 3rd person games and the Horror genre give the game a chance because it is well worth the time.