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Reviews
Fallout (2024)
Wonderful
Having enjoyed Fallout 2, 3, New Vegas, and 4, I was curious about this show but not hopeful. There are so many ways they could have messed it up. Instead, it's almost perfect. The people who worked on it have clearly played the game and know what makes it fun. The details are spot on, from the peeling paint in ruined houses to the leather armor of the raiders, from the fifties crooner music to what a player actually says while fighting a yao guai.
They also made the right choice in not trying to adapt a story from the game, but making a new story in the world of the game. And the characters are a lot better. I shouldn't be surprised that professional actors can bring a character to life better than game coders -- and yet, some adaptations fail at this.
The show is great in ways that are easy to take for granted. They didn't have to make it with the offbeat humor of Repo Man, the casual brutality of The Boys, or the eye-popping scruffiness of Terry Gilliam. But they did. From dialogue to set design, the little things are full of creativity.
My only complaint is that the plot feels forced, less what would really happen and more what has to happen to get the story where they already decided it's going. And I would have liked to see more random wasteland encounters and less politics, because that's how I play the game.
This is the best video game adaptation so far, and will probably remain the best video game adaptation for a long time to come. I'm excited about what they might do with a higher budget in season 2.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Epic dud
This is a three hour movie that feels constantly in a hurry. Someone could have made a good movie about just the Manhattan Project, or just the political intrigue, or even Oppenheimer's early years. Instead, Nolan tried to tick every box and ended up ticking most of them badly. The science, the politics, and the people are all dumbed down to Hollywood boilerplate. Somehow it's both boring and melodramatic, and every point it's trying to make is an obvious sentiment made in an obvious way.
The music is too loud, the pacing is like a washboard road, and it's completely humorless. Some of the acting is very good, and clearly a lot of technical skill went into getting at least a fizzle yield from this clunky script. But the only edge-of-your-seat moments are the detonation of the bomb, and Gary Oldman's performance as Truman.
Dream Scenario (2023)
Good but not trippy
If I'm seeing a movie about weird dreams, I want to be held in suspense about whether a scene is a dream or real. I want the line between dreams and reality to become ever more uncertain and complex. I want a larger story to be revealed, in which the dreaming makes sense. This is not that kind of movie. If you want that, I recommend Paprika (2006).
This is a subtle, low-key character-based comedy-drama, that happens to be about weird dreams. Nicolas Cage is brilliant as a meek, bland, and self-centered professor who people start dreaming about. The suspense is not about what happens in the dreams or where they come from, but about how he reacts out in the world to people treating him differently. It's a feast of subtext and awkwardness, and on that level, it succeeds.
Saltburn (2023)
Promising but ultimately dumb
I went into this knowing nothing, and at one point it reminded me of Jordan Peele's Get Out, and also Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract: A guy goes to stay with some very rich people, and the atmosphere is bizarre and creepy.
The early part of the film is promising, and the middle is quite good. The social subtext is subtle and cutting, the characters are well defined and well acted, and I had no idea what kind of movie it would turn into.
Where it goes after that is just kind of trashy and unsatisfying. This kind of thing has been done better in movies that I can't name without a spoiler. And in hindsight, the protagonist is the least believable character, and even the other characters do some implausible things to serve the plot.
Oculus (2013)
Nice idea, dumb story
This is one of those movies that's a lot better while you're watching it, than looking back from the ending.
The premise is interesting: there's an evil mirror that can control the minds of people around it, so they think they're doing one thing when they're doing another. And this is used to create some good suspense and some good gore.
But the story doesn't develop at all, except the gradual revelation of what the mirror has done. The ending is so easy and so obvious that in hindsight you haven't been watching an interesting conflict, just a series of routine horror scenes.
Also, in a movie that everyone knows is about an evil mirror, they waste a lot of time with one character arguing that there's nothing strange going on. That time could have been spent in exploring the mirror's backstory, or adding a twist that's not just another case of people being wrong about what's real.
Night Drive (2019)
Weak protagonist, cheap ending
This is a well-paced low-budget film about a driver who has a crazy night. There are movies like this that are completely serious, and the thing that saves Night Drive from total lameness is its humor.
The night before watching this, I watched Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps". In both films, a guy meets a dangerous woman who plunges him into a series of adventures. One reason that film is great is the spirit of its hero. He's impulsive, dangerous, highly competent, and has a series of narrow escapes against more powerful foes.
Night Drive's protagonist just goes along weakly with whatever's happening. Every decision he makes is either bad or obvious, if not both. He doesn't even do any good driving. This dude is playing on easy level, and at the end you're like, that's it?
There's also a big twist into another kind of movie, and all it does is make the audience say, "Wow, I didn't see that coming." Beyond that, hardly anything is done with the idea, and I think if this had been a straight crime thriller, the writer would have had to come up with a better story.
Hungry Wives (1972)
Fascinating slow-burn drama
This is an art film by a horror director. It's low budget, heavy with dialogue, and doesn't really get going for more than an hour. So it's not surprising that it failed to find an audience and was almost forgotten.
And yet, it's really good. Made at a time when the changes of the sixties were making their way into mainstream culture, it's about a tightly wound suburban housewife who feels trapped in her life, and tries increasingly crazy stuff to get free.
Because the film is so genre-ambiguous, we're not even sure what KIND of thing is about to happen. These days when you hear "witchcraft", you expect dumb CGI, but Season of the Witch gets it right. Weird stuff exists in the space of your own uncertainty.
The Novice (2021)
Dark Journey
Isabelle Fuhrman has been on my radar since The Hunger Games, where she was the only young actor whose character was better than in the book. She has a rare vibe, hard and sharp and brittle, fiery and stormy, and is perfect for this role as an insanely driven college student.
This movie is a lot like Whiplash, except that her coach is always telling her to relax. This novice has JK Simmons inside her! Between emotional breakdowns and inspiring training montages, we're not sure what kind of movie we're watching. Is this a triumph or a tragedy? Karate Kid or They Shoot Horses Don't They?
In the end, it all makes sense. This is a well-crafted film with great acting all around, a solid story arc, and even a surprise reveal. It also reminds me of Todd Haynes' Safe, another psychological drama with a horror film vibe, about a woman trying harder as she becomes more isolated.
Orphan: First Kill (2022)
Wasted potential
First I want to point out that Isabelle Fuhrman is more plausible at age 23, than at age 11, playing a character who is actually over 30 and only posing as a 9 year old. She's a major talent, but if you're interested in her acting, watch The Novice.
This movie has a solid first half, and then a really good twist. It creates a situation that good writers could turn into a whole series. Instead, the plot just gets more and more trashy as it rushes to its obvious conclusion.
Station Eleven (2021)
Good ideas, poor execution
Having read the book, I actually agree with most of the changes. They've made more connections between the characters, and given several of them more depth, especially Tyler.
I also love how they broke the trend of visually bleak postapocalypse scenery, by making the colors green and saturated.
But they've written a lot of new material to flesh out the new plotlines, and the writing is not very good. The best scenes are during and immediately after the flu, and the scenes 20 years in the future are mostly clunky and uninspired.
A traveling symphony, a museum of civilization, a cult that wants to destroy the past, are all good ideas, and the show fails to bring them to life. Telling the actors to show strong emotions is no substitute for making us care about what's happening.
Another Earth (2011)
Wonderful indie film
I would tag this as magic realism rather than sci-fi. The other Earth is only loosely inspired by astronomy, and it's not just a metaphor -- it's a real other world that's easy to see but hard to get to, where things are impossibly similar to this Earth, but enticingly, maybe a little different.
The pace is slow, but given that slowness, the pacing is perfect. Within the constraints of a tiny budget, the vibe is both dreamy and edgy. I can't find a single thing wrong with this film, and it's full of beautiful moments, like Rhoda visiting her friend in the hospital, and John drawing celestial voices out of a musical saw. The ending reminded me of Solaris, a great film that I actually didn't like as much as this.
By the way, if you're avoiding spoilers, don't watch the trailer.
Midnight Mass (2021)
God of my day, Lord of my night
The basic idea is so good that I have to do spoilers. Just as the Godfather movies never used the word Mafia, this show never uses the word vampire, but it's one of the most interesting things ever done with vampires.
An old priest visits the holy land. Suffering from dementia, he wanders into a sandstorm and takes shelter in a strange cave. There he meets, not a sparkly teenager or a brooding aristocrat, but an old-time primal blood-sucking gargoyle. Under its spell, he believes it's an angel, and he takes it back to his parish on an island in New England, where he uses his new vampire powers to perform miracles.
Hamish Linklater is brilliant as the priest, a good person whose weakness leads him into evil. Conveniently, he belongs to a religion in which drinking blood leads to eternal life. And one of the big themes of Midnight Mass is how far people can go doing bad things, while rationalizing themselves as doing good.
I wish the show were weirder, and tighter. While the overall story is great, a lot of the scenes are by-the-numbers, and too long. I don't mind the slow pace, but the characters tend to keep talking long after they've made their point.
My favorite thing about the show is its use of Neil Diamond. Soolaimon and Holly Holy are his two most spiritual songs, and both of them are played in full.
Ted Lasso: Beard After Hours (2021)
My favorite episode
The other episodes of Ted Lasso are about ongoing relationships between normal people, and they're very well done. But this episode sends one of the weirdest characters on a journey into deeper weirdness.
In the other episodes, the plot develops pretty much the way you expect. In this one, there's a new surprise every minute. You can't always tell what's real and what's in Beard's head. The overall effect is disorienting and magical.
Not a lot of shows and movies have pulled this off. There are references to two 1985 movies, After Hours and Into The Night. Another with a similar vibe is They Might Be Giants (1971).
Eli (2019)
Superior horror film
I didn't go into this expecting much. It starts out slow, there are jump scares and mysteries, and the surprises keep coming.
It's really hard to keep raising the stakes, raising the intensity, and bringing it all together in a good ending, but this film pulls it off.
The only flaw is in the motivations of Eli's mother. Her behavior always fits what you think is going on at the time, but in the end it doesn't add up.
The Night House (2020)
Solid Horror Mystery
Rebecca Hall does the best acting I've seen in a horror film. Where protagonists are often weak and predictable, she's confident and makes interesting decisions in how she delivers her lines.
The film is well-shot, well-paced, and watchable all the way through. I'm just a little disappointed in the ending. It's not bad, but I feel like the writers could have come up with something tighter and more inspired.
If you liked Rebecca Hall in this, I highly recommend The Awakening (2011).
Katla (2021)
The glacier moves faster than the plot
Seriously, it keeps spitting out sooty people, while the characters keep stumbling around and failing to deal with the problem in an intelligent way.
Katla is well-made, and it raises issues similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Solaris. But it most reminds me of The Witch (2015). At the far edge of civilization, weird stuff happens, and people are wrecked by their own inability to communicate.
That's the actual point of the show. It's not about the phenomenon, but about thick-headed, taciturn, secretive people, and how much crazy stuff has to happen before they finally make good decisions.
Safe (1995)
The Yellow Wallpaper in California
In the classic short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", a woman in victorian England gets a mystery illness and goes into a creepy bedroom. In this update, in 1980's California, she goes to a new age retreat center.
The ending is carefully ambiguous. We never get a clear answer about what's wrong with her or whether she'll recover. And the atmosphere is a lot like a horror movie, except that every character is trying to be nice, and the horrifying thing is the alienation of modern life.
The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015)
An art film, not a horror film
Robert Eggers is the most interesting director to come along since Terry Gilliam, and his debut is one of the best films of the 21st century, slow-paced and meticulously crafted, with top-notch acting and a radical personal vision.
Where a normal film might keep the audience in suspense about whether witches are real, we find out right away, when a baby vanishes and the next shot is a hunched figure carrying it through the forest.
Then, where a normal film might have a balanced conflict between the two sides, the overly moral Christians and the amoral forest creatures, The Witch gives us a total curbstomp by the baddies. The family fails to score a single point, except against each other, falling into suspicion and conflict as they're destroyed.
It's also interesting that Thomasin, the most benign member of the family, is the one most suspected of being in league with Satan.
Future Man: Beyond the TruffleDome (2017)
Best episode of a great show
The James Cameron episode is funnier, but my two favorite things about Future Man are the characters of Tiger and Wolf, and this is the episode where they really shine.
Disenchantment: Last Splash (2021)
Best episode of the show
I love the whole show, but this episode is especially good for its slow pace, beautiful animation, and deep exploration of Bean's character.
Devs (2020)
Beautiful and empty
It's depressing that such amazing set design was wasted on such a weak script and lame acting. Sonoya Mizuno was great as a quirky side character in Maniac. Here, she's the blandest protagonist ever, and her boyfriend is hardly better. The only likeable character in the whole show is the hobo.
SPOILER: The Devs project is a quantum computer that can see the future. The obvious next move is for someone to do the opposite of what the machine showed. Then you've got multiple timelines, which your characters can jump between in crazy hijinks.
And yet, even though Devs carefully explains the multiple timeline interpretation of quantum physics, nobody tries to contradict the machine until the final episode, and the result is not interesting.
I Care a Lot (2020)
Not a black comedy,
Just a joyless and humorless drama full of implausible events.
Nobody likes a good female villain more than I do. But this is a protagonist so relentlessly unlikeble that she never even seems to be having fun. Nothing that she does, or that's done to her, is satisfying, and while the plot is not exactly predictable, it's never inspired.
I feel like, if they had just brainstormed a bunch of crazy things to do with the premise, they could have come up with something a lot better. Imagine if Marla came into the convenience store late in the movie, and the guy behind the counter was the guy from the beginning. Nothing that interesting happens.
Ms .45 (1981)
Still the best female revenge movie
It's not as classy as A Promising Young Woman, or as funny as Teeth, but Ms .45 is artistically ambitious, morally ambiguous, and surprisingly watchable. The script is tight, the sax-heavy soundtrack is awesome, and for a low-budget film, the casting is exceptional. Zoe Lund is not a great actress, but she nails her character's transition from timid to confident to psychotic.
WandaVision (2021)
Great idea, mediocre execution
The idea is, a woman with supernatural powers creates a pocket universe, which takes the form of a TV show, in which each episode is a different decade. So the show makers get to do a tribute to the styles of the 50's, 60's, 70's, and so on, as they develop the plot of why this is all happening.
Unfortunately, the big plot takes place in the Hollywood Superhero universe, in which everything is dumb and predictable except for the inevitable Big Twist about who is on which side of a dumb black-and-white morality.
Also, none of the episodes are as good as the shows they're paying homage to, which makes me think we aren't really in a golden age of television.
The best thing about Wandavision is Kathryn Hahn's performance as the nosy neighbor, and she's done a lot of stuff better than this.
Afternoon Delight (2013)
A very serious comedy
Don't watch this expecting a fun little movie. It's a complex and challenging character study about a group of neurotic affluent people, who have their lives upended by someone who is more real.
The script is impeccable. It doesn't judge anyone. The characters are who they are, they make interesting choices, and the choices have consequences, leading to a surprising yet inevitable climax.
I watched this because Kathryn Hahn was the best part of Wandavision and I wanted to see her in a lead role. She totally nails it, taking a character who could be just annoying, and making her deep and even likeable.