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Rob-O-Cop
Reviews
Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Home Again (2017)
bit average with dark undercurrents which don't bear thinking about.
I'v quite enjoyed the stories presented so far and the good natured way in which they present them.
It's nice to have a tv series which doesn't rely on violence and body counts to fill the time, and they've come up with some great twists to keep us entertained.
Yes there's cheese and the romance department is 'ok' but the cheese does taste like cheese on occasion.
Last episodes secret squirrel carry on with Shane whipped away to do secret hacking work for the military completely overlooked the fact that Shan was doing "secret hacking work for the military". Like that was some sort of normal sacred behaviour for any country to be doing.
This episode had some royalty vase being returned to a 90 year old rich elite like it was some sort of happy ending. Got to make sure that unearned wealth stays with the elite, even if the wealth is needed elsewhere.
Luckily Oliver's unearned inheritance from his father who didn't care about him saves the day and a trite eco farm deal is made.
This is the least appealing episode they've made and one which seems out of step with the otherwise decent writing which side steps most divisive details.
Keep it light, keep it fun, and keep it funny.
Time Bandits: Mansa Musa (2024)
Quite funny
Still not really much to do with the original Movie other than name and broad premise and still Lisa Kudrow playing Phoebe from friends or maybe she's just playing herself and always does, regardless it still pulls you out of the world a bit every time she's on screen.
That said this was a fun episode. We had a couple of great guest star roles in Mansa Musa who was great and his offsider Balla Kouyate repeating all his words in different ways. They really delivered fun interesting and appealing characters and bucked the stereotypical portrayals of arabic characters.
While this show still nowhere near comes close to the mad genius of the original it still has watchable charm although I'm fairly certain I won't be quoting lines from this show or fondly remembering it.
Kevin was his usual good, as were Bettlig, Alto and Widgit and we were spared Judy this episode. It's hard not to read something into that.
Time Bandits: Medieval (2024)
still Phoebe from friends in a time travel 'comedy'
The series is not all bad. But certain aspects of it drag it way way down.
I like Lisa Kudrow but her acting range is paper thin as it is displayed here. She might just as well have walked off the set of central perk onto this one. It's the same character, the same mannerisms, nuances, accent, delivery. Why is she here? She doesn't add anything to the world building, she just breaks the story.
The writing is not bad. I quite like some of the twist and turns we've seen so far. It's not laugh out loud funny but it is amusing, stonehenge construction, mayas, and now Medieval. This is the closest they've come so far to some real montypython set ups, and to be honest there were lots of missed opportunities to take it somewhere hilarious. The witch was good, the discussion on who the boss really is was good, kings accent was good
Roger Jean Nsengiyumva as widgit, gets a lot of the darker funny lines and he's pretty good in his role.
Charlyne Yi's Judy while not as much of a let down as Kudrow is still pretty disappointing. I've seen her do way better stuff than this, Her Paperheart film was great.
Rachel Stamp is also completely wasted as the makeup clad Fianna. I can hardly understand her lines, see her face or register much of what she is doing.
Jemaine Clement pure evil is funny and well acted as we'd expect, but he's done the same joke for 3 episodes (Damon/Demon). It is still funny but is it going to get to the one too many times. I think it's almost there.
That said I'm not 'not' entertained by the show, I just feel let down by perhaps the directing, and definitely the casting.
Car Share (2015)
A lot happens in a small space
On the surface not much happens in this series but if you peel back the layers there's a lot going in.
Firstly a nostalgic tribute to shared personal transport with sound system. In the modern age of climate concern and public transport or bicycles the simple joy of sitting next to someone idling chatting with background music is mostly forgotten. But Ride Share triggers that warm remembrance of the luxury of personal travel in a quickly overpopulating world.
And there's a lot of nostalgia going on in this series.
Before playlists we'd happily listen to FM radio and all their inanity dumb down our taste to allow for the mediocrity they played in the hopes of the odd good track or 2.
And then there's the long arch of the story. 2 people getting to know each other and become friends in a world that increasingly removes the opportunities to do so.
Some reviewers have commented that nothing happens, and if you're looking for car chases and shoot outs this will disappoint, but there's warmth and depth to this show and something definitely does happen. There's a lot of detail in it, and a lot of things talked about and casually dropped into the conversation. It is very UK culture loaded and all the better for it. The action is in the conversation.
There are a couple of extra outtakes episodes out there and they do demonstrate that the series is the perfect length, and that it did need the 'structure' of the destination to make it work. It could have gone on as 2 people chatting in a car for longer and there probably are some added episodes that could easily work, but it's pretty perfect with the 11 core episodes that exist. I would like to have seen the christmas team do their thing though.
The Chills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Martin Phillipps (2019)
More triumph than tragedy
I guess in the modern dark world of content you've got to have the negative so you can pull out your positive. Unfortunately this documentary falls for the trap of dwelling too much on the misfortunes however much they may appeal to modern audiences tastes for the darkness of the world, and not nearly enough time exploring the wonderful things Martin Phillipps achieved in his life time.
We get the boring alcoholism and drugs thing which we've seen in a million shows on musicians and actors. We hardly need to see it again, and importantly they waste time on it when we could be looking into Phillipps as a charming and interesting thinker. How, coming from the tyranny of distance he managed to achieve so much and kept at it again and again when around him fellow travelers fell off?
Martin and the Chills is a story of success and overcoming difficulty to keep doing the thing he seemed destined to, and doing it well in a local climate that predominately thinks of success in arts as irrelevant, even to the level of government. If it's not sport or farming it doesn't matter. That's the location where The Chills had to hone their craft in.
For me Phillipps life won't be defined by this film or all the cliche multi band member fluff. It will be defined by the body of work he left and by the unique person he was and the way he carried himself. I hope we get to see something that shows us that.
Death in Paradise: The Last Case (2024)
Unnecessarily convoluted with massive logic defying plot holes
What seemed to be an interesting conundrum sadly unraveled itself into "hey wait a minute, this makes no sense".
Affordable staff writer James Hall has shown he didn't have a lot of good ideas to start with but the cupboard was well and truly bare for this episode as far as the murder mystery was concerned. This is the 3rd time we've had an "I pulled the trigger, I meant to kill them, I killed them" admission only to find out that it wasn't them after all.
S13E01 written by James Hall had it with someone else coming up behind a drunk guy and encouraging them to shoot then helping them squeeze although there's no way our team could have known that.
Then again in this season S13E05 there's a the "first shot didn't kill him but a second one did" plot line.
S11E02 also had the same first "shot" didn't kill second did with the golf driver (also a James Hall script)
S11E07 where someone is paid to shoot a fake bullet at someone while another person fires a real one at exactly the same time, (James Hall again) and also S10E08 thankfully not written by Hall which has a "I shot her but I can't remember", and then Neville going on to reject the obvious and deduce some other 'truth' that has no evidence to back it up. So it's a reoccurring theme for Neville's run and a trope for Writer James Hall who reused the same idea multiple times in series 13 alone.
Nice to see Catherine's real life son get a slot on the show so he could spend time with his mum in paradise, and he was pretty decent although his character made very little sense. As some one else mentioned, why pay him $50,000, the only one that would have needed to be paid was the pilot to get the plane to stop. There was no need to deny he was on the plane then not, and they weren't paid to do so anyway.
Hiding the gun on the plane cos it had already been searched instead of hiding it absolutely anywhere else on the island at all??
The murdered guy after not getting shot by the wife 'doesn't' pick up the gun and Scarper as fast and as far as he can and instead waits for the hubby to walk on up pick up the gun, attach the silencer so his wife who thinks she just murdered him anyway and execute him in silence so his wife doesn't know, cos,..... who knows.
Our head hurts from the illogical stupidity of it.
The final scene with the whole police force coming to tell Neville to go hook up with Florence was just weird. They shot it like they were all in different locations. No 3 shot, no wide shot establishing them. Just a bunch of medium close ups. Then like a limp squid Florence and Neville halfheartedly sail off into the sunset an awkward hug, but they couldn't manage to act a kiss with any credibility so they left that out. Good decision.
Leaving a pretty much clean slate for season 14. Hope they get some good new cast and a decent writer.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: RFK Jr. (2024)
part of the problem hit pieces - False dichotomies
In where comedy front man John Oliver and his single focus predictable writing team, come out swinging at a guy who has a life time history of combating corporate level crime, taking them to court and winning, but let's listen to John and his young opinionated team who have spent the last 5 years erasing any level of trust from us in them having a clue what their talking about. I mean, they might hit a truth occasionally but how are we supposed to know which ones are made up by their mood swing politics and which ones actually have substance. They've made themselves part of the problem. False dichotomies and black or white presentations.
That said Kennedy is not without fault as his conflicting and confounding world politics ideas will demonstrate, and it's sad that is the case, as he presentns many of his other ideas well, with details and facts that make sense.
Olivier and his writing team drop the line that RFK jnr's points "take a lot of effort to debunk", while pretty much failing to conclusively do that for a single one of his actual points. Just saying it louder and with sarcasm doesn't make a counter point land, that's the fatal flaw of the program. They get too involved with topics they can't deliver on, think that a good debunking of someone or a group of people is to dismissively call them 'stupid'.
The show also seems to have forgotten they're supposed to actually be entertaining us. They fail to do that even though Oliver is quite capable of delivering good laughs when given actual funny material.
It's all black and white in Team John Oliver's world, at least it is to them. The rest of live in a world of nuance shade and colour. Sorry that's too complicated for the team to get their head around.
The fact they didn't mention a single one of the many good points RFK jnr is presenting, and he does in fact have many shows exactly where this writing team is coming from. Blinkered Cart horse style all the way for them.
Death in Paradise: Episode #13.6 (2024)
Change of pace
Nice to have a different writer for an episode. The story was still convoluted but at least it was different.
Things really are getting the shake up staff wise around Saint Marie.
Nice to have some skilled comedy injection in the show with the return of Dwayne. Not sure if he can make up for the loss of Marlon, but there's some drama to be had with Dwayne's dad's limited time and Danny John-Jules is a talented actor if he's given the material to work with.
The mystery was ok, The set up was good. A moving lift with 15 seconds time window.
Officer Darlene still doesn't bring much to the show but at least she offered some tension for Dwayne so that was more than usual.
The next two episodes look primed for some big action so lets hope Writer James Hall doesn't fumble it.
Death in Paradise: Episode #13.5 (2024)
Big loss for the series
Marlon has most of the best lines, best delivery and best character development for this show. It's also an interesting and innovative plot to have and it was interesting to see a guy from the edges of society make the effort to be a better person, and enjoy his change.
He was self confident and charming and they let the character lean into that aspect without having to take it away from him with cheap shots. He was a unique and fun character with something to say and the skill to deliver it.
Should have given him a pay rise.
The murder mystery was convoluted as we've come to expect and solving it was just multiple leaps in logic and faith. I wish they were more intuitive but the show has chosen the writer they can afford and I guess we'll have to live with that.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Migrant Crime (2024)
Pick a side why don't you
Comedy news at its worst. When it just comes right out and does a ten minute political propaganda endorsement disingenuously misrepresenting their way through a long winded and complex political landscape. I'm not saying their chosen target isn't bad, but then there are no winners in the game there. Just terrible partisan rants with a childish overtone. Why is this on TV? Who thinks this is entertainment? The show is unwatchable when it goes off on this tangent. Oliver is quite capable of doing good comedy but this material isn't that. Stop letting the bad writers take over the show. Do they really think this is what we need to get the world back on track?
Hit Man (2023)
Messes with genres and perceptions
I enjoyed this film on first viewing but I got it a lot better on the second viewing.
Glen Powell surprises with his acting chops, it kind of creeps up on you and suddenly you're buying it. Not only that but you buy his motivation and how he gets to where he goes.
So too with Adria Arjona and her Madison character. She sells it well and keeps you guessing, and that was the core thing of this film, to keep it fresh and moving and not being able to guess what happens next, and it succeeds. But on top of that it's also playing with the genre and the artifice of 'true story' films. We've all become accustom to enjoying a true story (Argo, The Lost King I'm looking at you) only to find most of the story was changed for dramatic purposes but changed so much it barely resembled the source material.
This film finds a fresh way to address the obligation to entertain and does it well, although I note it rubbed a number of reviewers up the wrong way who too it very at face value. Hollywood has been feeding you criminal anti-heroes who get away with it and we bawk at this twist on it?
I liked the tone of the film and the love story, how it looked at identity and the people we pretend to be. The ending was in keeping with those themes. This was good film making, and importantly it was fun.
Time Bandits (2024)
Who cast Phoebe from Friends???
Seriously bad, she didn't even bother putting on a decent accent. She's just playing her one note, one colour, one trick character as she destroys the time bandits world. It ruins every scene she's in.
Jemaine Clement appears to have seen and understood the humor of the original film and importantly can convey it in his performance, but no one else can, and to be honest Jemaine isn't up to the genius of David Warner in the original.
There's some ok lines and mild laugh moments in this but let's face it, they've ruined it with a lame pastiche that comes nowhere near the original and just annoys those who have seen it. I suppose it's possible that modern society could have accidentally made a good remake of this wonderful show but really the odds were stacked against it and the show producers should have known that before hand.
Death in Paradise: Sins of the Detective - Part 2 (2023)
Convoluted
It can't be easy to take over the writing for a crime mystery show in its 12th season and be able to come up with quality story ideas.
I'm sure the production and actors were thinking twice after seeing what writer James Hall turned in for the season 11 and 12 episodes he's penned.
Convoluted is a nice way of putting it but silly unbelievable rubbish is probably close to the truth.
The big reveal about Neville's girlfriend for this season Sophie Chamber seems like a clever plot twist detail, until you give it just a tiny bit of though that she'd hung out for 7 episodes giving Neville quality sexy times and company making him really happy. What was her plan exactly if the serial killer hadn't conveniently turned up to slip into her long game plan for punishment for her tenuous "he wronged me" motivations. She didn't seem to be in 'that' much of a rush to get it sorted and get away. What was she going to do, marry him, live with him into old age and wait for another classic opportunity to punish him, all while giving he a great time on the journey.
On the plus side the cast delivered all of it with a straight face and giving it a pretty good performance. Too bad they don't have better material to work off.
Just plain silly. We deserve better.
Death in Paradise: Murdering Lyrical (2022)
bad writing
Series 11 has seen a dramatic down turn in the level of writing.
The plot holes are so large they can't be overlooked any more. They're actually hurting the program.
It's a disposable program I know, so I was hoping it would correct itself but the losing streak of episodes made me have to look for a common denominator for the bad and it looks like writer James Hall is the common thread to the bad episodes.
There were a long list of terrible details to this one as were mentioned in other reviews
2 gun shots but one not heard.
Why did he have his phone out to call the cops before the shot hit so the second shooter could time their shot to the first shooter, or fire a mythical silent gun (they don't exist. Even with a silencer they are very loud).
How did a 19 year old girl have the skills to purchase a specific weapon and learn how to operate it with such precision.
Why are our crack team so bad as to not find a gun hidden on the murder scene with a trail of sand leading to it?
The program isn't as smart as the level it set for itself any more. Watching dumb people doing dumb things is not entertainment.
The good, Marlon's character. An interesting arc.
What was sister izzy all about?
I was interesting to see some family back story to Neville and a relief to not have to sit through his hypochondriac routine any more, and he's obviously a skilled actor capable of detail and subtlety. Give him more to work with.
The ending where the writer just realised they'd made a victim into a bad guy was unintentionally funny. Talk about backtracking and covering your butt. "I'm sure the judge will take into account all the details in the case and rule in your favor and don't worry about it, you're young, you'll bounce back".
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)
Rising sea levels
The Good.
The set up was ok, set design and look was nice.
Raka was an interesting character well acted as was Proximus, but they were discarded too easily.
The bad - Nova, where did she come from, why was she wearing those jeans, why was she looking for help through the tunnel from a group she had no connection with? We got nothing to work with on this. She looked like a girl who had been pulled from a mall in 2015. She looked like she was in the wrong movie.
The other main characters were all pretty nondescript. Nothing particularly interesting about any of them outside of Raka and Proximus and Proximus got painted with the he's just evil brush, even though he appeared to have some interesting qualities and motivations.
The sea wall. Wtf was that about?
Ok, it would gently flood the ground floor and rust a few tanks but how did it become a race to the cliff tops to avoid being drowned by the tsunami. That was a real world breaker of a scene right there. They could have had it that inside was a deep cavern of a base and the excavation at the base of the cliff was deep with a tall sea wall to protect it, but they didn't so the chase through the flooding ground floor just seemed silly. Poor gorilla being drowned on the 4th floor after they'd climbed all that way was especially embarrassing.
We got pretty much nothing on Nova's background, except for the mystery bunker base at the end. I guess the plan is to reveal all of that in the next movie but I'm not sure they deserve one from this average effort.
Death in Paradise: Undercover and Out (2022)
Sub par episode full of illogical holes
This was probably the worst episode as far as the police mystery element of the show goes.
The break from the normal format of the show was bold I guess, in that we know who did it from the start and then the rest of the show just goes looking for the details to prove it and they never really manage it. It's solved in a gun point "drag the confession out of your executioner before the kill you" plot device.
This was bad enough but the 'proof' they conjour out of thin air didn't add up.
The victim being shot outside and then going into the room and locking the door would be fine except there was no blood anywhere, and the bullet exited and lodged in an outside wall!!!
Rooms with doors closed becoming sound proof rooms ignoring how loud gunshots are, this episode was well below the not very high standards we expect for the mystery element of the show.
To be fair most of us are not here for the brain teaser murder solving as we're never given enough info to solve it ourselves, yes it's the characters we enjoy and unfortunately in this episode the details were pretty clunky too.
I get that it was a reprise second send off for a cast member who we know in hindsight comes back gain soon, but it just didn't add anything much to the story that was enjoyable, and her whole arc was clumsy and badly written.
Death in Paradise: Now You See Him, Now You Don't (2020)
2 more gone without a goodbye
This was an average/ok episode on the whole but we lost 2 core cast members without any sense they were leaving, and I liked them both.
I know a few reviewers were having trouble with Ruby but she was coming into her own and adding some fun to the show, and I really liked her insider insight to her community where she knew everyone and their secrets. And she did her job and added strength to the team and some great plot points with her uncle. Script wise she was really useful.
So too Madeleine was actually a more interesting character than who she replaced and who she is soon to be replaced by, not that I don't enjoy Florence, but she can be a bit vanilla, except in the last 2 episodes she did which let her deliver a lot more depth.
Miller's Girl (2024)
I can see what they were going for.
First time Director/Writer Jade Halley Bartlett set herself an ambitious goal for her debut project and she had some pretty decent heavy weight cast to back her up.
Part southern melodrama, part what ever genre Lolita was, part social commentary, I can see what she was going for and it was pretty adventurous to try it in the current social climate.
The good,
Jenna Ortega commits totally to the part of a smart, talented and 'dangerous when hurt' young woman.
Good support from Gideon Adlon as her friend.
The ambiguous bipartisan position is an interesting angle. Bartlett isn't there to make judgement from what ever the current position is on social norms, so much as enable the story to tell itself.
I know I'm in the minority but I actually liked the ambiguity of the ending, and also it allowed Cairo to continue to be a complex character. There is enough detail in the final shot to give you a solid finish. Cairo is conflicted. Tears and anger, power and frailty.
I liked the literary and scholastic themes. It was enjoyable to see inspired characters embrace education, learning and craft.
The Average.
Martin Freeman delivered a good performance but why did you make him do that terrible accent? Just let him be an Englishman teaching in the south.
Dagmara Dominczyk's Beatrice seemed heavy handed. A heavy drinker (yawn, that old trope) - Stella!!! Level southern hot head, picking at her husband. It just seemed too obvious. This character let the show down somewhat for me, as the other characters seemed a lot more rounded, complex and nuanced.
The steamy - maybe it's the current social climate but it was a difficult watch topic wise, especially since Bartlett portrayed the young women as instigators of the situation. Good on her for picking an edgy topic I guess, but it didn't come without its drawbacks.
The story Cairo wrote went rushing up to the line hard and heavy, possibly too much so. Cairo was smarter than that.
Smoking. I know it was part of the macguffin of the connection but, I could easily live without ever seeing a movie lovingly framing smoking at every opportunity. It's not the 1980s.
The Artifice Girl (2022)
half smart, half there
The Good.
A film about a thought provoking topic. Thanks for treating the audience with respect for our brain and not just our ability to munch popcorn while the carnage rolls on our screens.
Great central character delivered skillfully by actor Tatum Matthews. She delivered some real word salad slabs of dialog in a movie that is all dialog and managed to make it all land pretty well.
The 3 act structure means we didn't get too bored with the single location all dialog set ups, although it was close at times.
The time jumps. I liked this. We got to skip the boring bits and find how the story had progressed, sort of.
The Average.
Lame and lazy bad cop character in Deena. A tired and cliched trope that hinted that Writer/Director/Actor Franklin Ritch isn't yet at the top of his potential game.
The story. Solving the child crime angle seems a noble goal, although so would be solving war, greed, evil in general. It seemed an easy target for again a lazy macguffin that could have delivered more. The hard cop shtick at the start was part of that.
The ending. When it arrived I'm not sure it had something meaningful to say but to be fair that was looking obvious from the signs early on with the aforementioned lazy writing.
Even so this was still a worthy watch. I might give the end another go.
Thanks for trying to make something that activates the mind. More time on the script next time maybe?
Death in Paradise: Beyond the Shining Sea: Part Two (2019)
Finally a cast member gets a reasonable send off
I wasn't sure if the way this series treated it's leaving cast members (who apparently can't handle the grueling stress of shooting a tv series in paradise for 5 months a year) was an in joke or just bad writing and management. But we see the departure (in hindsight temporarily) of the a long running and liked cast member, and she gets to say good bye to her co workers and gets the appearance of some level of affection from people she's spent 3-4 years with on a friendly basis. Just like normal real humans. That on top of the last 2 episodes breaking new territory for the show where there is real danger and fear, this wasn't a bad. Thing, although stupidity in our heroes isn't a great plot point, and it shows weakness in the writing team that they fall back on it to move a story forward. Anyway farewell or should I say see you soon.
Death in Paradise: Melodies of Murder (2018)
No farewell???
Wow, this is the rudest series ever with its revolving cast who don't seem to be able to hang in on the island all that long.
The Last member of the original crew Dwayne leaves without so much as a tear shed or a mention in this episode at all. Did he not know he was leaving?
Humphrey got the same half ar$e kick off and poor old Richard got murdered!!. Do the writers not understand we like these characters. We've been with the Dwayne character for 8 seasons totaling almost 48 hours of our time now. Surely that deserves a bit of creative writing and closure? We get closure on murder after murder every episode but the thing we tune in for is not some silly mystery that falls apart with a bit of pulling, it's the characters and their interaction we come and stay for.
Show a little respect why don't you..........
The episode was ok. Dwayne was repeating himself so maybe he did need a couple of series break or a new direction to go in, but still.
Civil War (2024)
Vacuous, Stupid, Ugly, America
This film is ugly, in the brutality it shows but also in the ugliness of modern cinema that it is. Gratuitous, shallow, willfully stupid. It is in parallel with its topic.
Thanks for sitting us through non stop (well apart from the boring slow bits) human ugliness, no really, thanks, that's really helpful.
The stupid - a 13 year old runs around in a war zone like it's a holiday camp with her manual wind film camera loaded with 36 shot film at best. Snapping away single shot frames of brutality like it's the most important thing in the world. Like video doesn't exist. Never once do you see her have to sit down and load in a new film while the bullets fly, no head protection in the worst of the battle scene, and the soldiers who are taking it left right and center put themselves at risk to usher 3!!!! War tourists through the mayhem. And of course she does something stupid which gets someone else killed cos modern film makers think that's a plot point we enjoy. Watching stupid people doing stupid things, cos they think we're stupid.
Ultimately this film is stupid because it feeds us worn out tropes. It's a vacuous video game with shallow predictable characters we've seen in a hundred other films. They weren't interesting in 99 of those films either.
The Ugly - The America this portrays. One of uncaring violence and brutality. Where war is normal and acceptable behaviour. It's part of the culture, part of the ecosystem, it's business and good for business.
The Ugly - This film, which feeds us this ugly narrative like it's normal. Like we should accept it. Brutality is entertainment. Having nothing to say, nothing to offer is fine so long as you frame it well, get the thrilling sfx and action in there. It doesn't matter that you've got nothing positive to say, just fill the screen.
The missed opportunity. To say something about the America of today that is massively divided. Not one note of insight into that, into real people.
What we got is a film about cold and heartless war photographers, who let's face it, don't even exist any more. No one cares about still images. There's no print media left. No one cares about what drives these people, not that we were given any insights into why real humans do what the central characters do. They were cartoons. Cutouts, place holders. They said the cliche line of "I've never felt more alive", which was a wtf moment in itself. Sorry what? You've never felt more alive than when getting in the way of soldiers killing each other and watching humans die in front of you from gory hideous wounds? You need to get another hobby quickly. Better still go and see a doctor. I don't know what to do with this message. What did the film maker want us to think? That these idiots were cool? That their efforts were noble? I'm not dissing real war photographers who document war, but turning it into the art of framing and lighting is just revolting, and that's not what real journalists should be doing.
Stop making these stupid, voyeuristic films. You're not helping your country heal itself or become rational valid human beings.
America, stop being war and violence crazy psychopaths. Stop consuming this lie of normality.
Killing isn't normal.
Brutality isn't normal.
It's not entertainment.
Wake up from the hallucination, this well framed, lit, directed and shot beautiful lie, and realise you're being conned by the entertainment industry, and it's doing you harm.
On top of that this film was decidedly average when you take away all the lovingly crafted war games. It didn't have anything to say.
Fallout (2024)
The drawbacks of basing your series on a video game.
The pluses are of course the lead actors. Walton Goggins adding depth and detail to a relatively simplistic "cowboy" role, adding menace and meaning all the way, somewhat constricted by a large amount of effects makeup.
Ella Purnell stepped up her already solid game from a good performance in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and a series of not that great other projects. She's great in this though.
I hadn't noticed Aaron Moten before, although he was in the terrible emancipation movie, he's great in this. I really liked his fumbling and mumbling delivery. It seemed natural and real.
The world design was great. The future as we saw it from the 50s and 60s. One that was never delivered, but seemed so much more fun.
The downside was the over the top gore, which I'm sure plays out well on a video game but in this story it seemed gratuitous. The finger cutting off thing. In this world you can pull a dead finger out of a draw and graft it onto your stump and you're fine, but did we have that tech in the 1950s or even now? Nope. So it comes across as brutal, gratuitous and unbelievable, which is saying something in this already stretch fiction world. I get that it was a 'bit', but, it wasn't that great and maybe it was just the way it was done. What are we supposed to do with this scene etc? How are we supposed to feel when a ghoul chops off a girls finger right in front of her face, for what reason? It's cheesy overused shock value.
The brutality was unnecessary, but I guess we've come to expect this of people like Jonathan Nolan. The first series of Westworld was likewise brutal but seemed to be saying something, but the next 3 series said nothing of worth.
There was a bunch of touchstone political ideas thrown in but it did seem a bit piecemeal, one of the 'political concepts' they threw in almost made me laugh as the character delivered it pretty much like reading a meme off social media. There might be some insight on offer but it didn't come across well and didn't seem that insightful, but what do we expect, it's based on a video game, and they seem to have purposefully kept that clunky aspect in this series. Pick up the jewel to get the reward, you've got bonus power, etc etc. I think they thought it was clever and paying respect to the game it was based on, but, I'm here devoting my time to this program and clunky just doesn't cut it.
So hence my average response to this. I loved Walton Goggins, watching him act is a reward in itself, but it could have been so much better if they dumped the gore, filtered out the game play stuff, and really focused the vision of the world so it said something instead of a mish mash of rhetoric thrown in a blender. There's probably something decent in there but it's hard to filter it out with all the noise.
Sasquatch Sunset (2024)
It's a comedy,....... right? an entitled rich kid's big budget joke
If you, like me, were sitting there wondering ?wtf am I watching here?", my best guess is it must have been meant to be a comedy, but since I hardly laughed the whole movie it's an abject failure for that.
Sure the cinematography was outstanding as were the locations and make up effects, mostly, (that baby was rubbish).
But what was the point of it all? It seems like it was some kind of a long running in joke for writer director David Zellner who made a short film in 2010 called Sasquatch Birth Journal 2.
It wasn't a totally stupid idea for a film, but it really didn't deliver and missed lots of opportunities for infinitely funnier moments than it opted for. How about restaging the famous sasquatch photo moment? How bout showing a number of near misses for the sasquatch team?
What we got instead was a bunch of gross out slapstick set ups based around 10 year old humor, puking, childbirth, sneezing, toilet gags etc.
And they wrapped it up in an extra layer of wastefulness by hiring 2 beautiful hollywood stars to be unrecognisable under layers of prosthetics. It felt like an entitled rich kid's big budget joke.
And the joke wasn't up to much,
Baby Reindeer (2024)
All about him
While set up to be a story about a true life stalker the film is actually all about the central character, actor, and writer and his world view and life. It's something he illustrates clearly in the story - that he is hungry for success and will do anything to achieve it.
There is some controversy about how real the "True Story" events in the film are and it seems quite clear that much of it has been manipulated to fit the narrative of what is a very well written script. This is Richard Gadd's moment to shine, it's not about Martha at all.
It's his chance to show he can act (he can), it's his chance to show he can write a witty, entertaining, powerful, nuanced and emotive story (he can). That's the real win with this film. Gadd's made a script and film that makes you think about issues. His villain is shades of grey, and he's partly the villain himself in places.
The down side of this is he's blurred the lines between fiction and reality and dragged real people into his 'true story' that clearly shouldn't be there. It would have been better to say based on true events, and leave it there.
Still some really great acting and writing from an obvious talent, and a great performance from Jessica Gunning.