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aarhin
Reviews
Cryo (2022)
Whodunnit dun right!
After "Knives Out" and Kenneth Branagh's Poirot films, the whodunnit genre was honestly running a bit tired... But CRYO gave it some new life by merging it with the sci-fi genre, and forming a mind-bending thriller in the process. The movie is a unique blend of Alex Garland and Christopher Nolan, along with the independent peculiarities of Sundance darling Shane Carruth. A must-see!
24 (2001)
Insufferable
This show is meanderingly insufferable, with endless unearned twists. Utterly unwatchable.
Reign of Judges: Title of Liberty - Concept Short (2018)
Awful! Not a BoM Adaptation! Poor Production Value! Prideful Director!
This concept short was abysmal. If the goal of this is seriously to provide a concept for a feature film, I REALLY hope that film never comes to fruition! I cannot believe people are giving this 10 stars, *especially* fans of the Book of Mormon like myself.
The production value was terrible! The producers must not know how to budget their money properly, because this has the look and feel of something that was made for $1,000, not $170,000! It's completely insane that they burned through that much cash and have nothing to show for it! Ugh, the editing is especially awful. No wonder, Darin edited it himself! Geez, hire a professional if you want the editing done properly! And geez, the color grading was also terrible. It's like all they did was add a crap ton of blue to the image for no gosh dang reason!!
The story also makes zero sense. It is NOT the story of Captain Moroni AT ALL, nor does it have anything to do with the Title of Liberty. There's just one tiny moment where it shows that Moroni II had the Title of Liberty in his possession, but that's it. And that part is really dumb and makes NO sense, because Moroni II NEVER HAD THE TITLE OF LIBERTY. So stupid. There are so many awesome true stories in the Book of Mormon. Why make up something that isn't true and have that be a main plot point of your story? Stupid stupid stupid.
And the story had virtually nothing to do with the Book of Mormon at all! It's literally just a bunch of Polenesian Lamanites (again, something that makes no sense!) that chase down Moroni. They fight Moroni one by one, and each of them watch as Moroni slaughters the others one by one. COME ON! The Lamanites were wicked at this time, but they weren't STUPID! There wouldn't be 5 of them just sitting there doing nothing while they watch someone get slaughtered by Moroni. Awful writing and nonsensical choreography.
And then after Moroni slaughters all these Lamanites, a white Lamanite comes out of nowhere to "save the day" for the other Lamanites. Ridiculous. Those of us who are faithful members of the church understand the skin situation in the BoM. We get it. We understand it. But this short film gives NO context to that at all! And so as a result, it just comes across as super racist. Like, "these brown guys couldn't kill a white man, so now we'll see if this other white guy can kill him instead". My goodness. And man, as a conservative Mormon, it's very rare for me to call something "racist." But in a story about these characters, you really have to explain the skin situation somehow, or everyone's just gonna think it's racist.
And O the hubris of Darin Southam! He plays Moroni II AND Caption Moroni (in addition to directing AND editing the movie). Darin, you do realize that Captain Moroni and Moroni II are two COMPLETELY different individuals who lived 500 YEARS apart from each other, right??? Geez! Cast someone else! You didn't fit the role of Moroni II. You're not old enough for the part! Your bleached white hair and beard looked super wonky because the rest of you looked very young. But if you absolutely HAD to be Moroni II, at least get someone else for Captian Moroni! WOW!
And geez, the last little bit of the movie flashes back 500 years for no apparent reason other than to remind people that Darin wanted to include Captain Moroni "somehow," But DUDE, putting Captain Moroni in the movie for 2 seconds doesn't magically make this a movie about Captain Moroni! And you shouldn't make Captain Moroni jump around with his sword in fast/slow motion a la the movie 300. It looked incredibly cheesy and extremely derivative. The Book of Mormon is so unique and fantastic, but that little shot at the end was literally just a 300 knockoff. It was outright stupid.
Anyway, I'm done with my rant.
Extinct (2017)
Really good!
I'm on episode 3 and I'm already hooked. It's really, really fascinating! Does it have the highest production quality EVER? No. But that doesn't matter when the subject and story are both really intriguing. Not only does it pose some interesting science fiction ideas, it also symbolically expresses eternal truths about our own existence here on Earth. This is Orson Scott Card at his finest!
Man of Steel (2013)
How a conversation might have been between Chris Nolan, David Goyer, and Zach Snyder
Christopher Nolan: "Hey Dave! I've got a brilliant idea! Let's reboot Superman and make it legit like we did with Batman! We'll call it 'Man of Steel.'"
David S. Goyer: "Great idea! I'll get the script going!"
--script writing process--
David S. Goyer: "Alright Chris, take a look. Here's the rough draft."
Christopher Nolan: "Lookin' good man! Needs quite a bit of work still, but I like what I'm seeing! Hey let's show it to Zach. I want him to direct the movie."
--Chris and Dave show the rough draft to Zach--
Zach Snyder: "Woah!!! This is soooo legit! Let's start shooting tomorrow!"
David S. Goyer: "Wait wait wait... you wanna start... now?"
Zach Snyder: "Yeah man! Of course! We're gonna make this 'Man of Steel' thing so legit!"
David S. Goyer: "But... I need to revise the script... It's just a rough draft..."
Zach Snyder: "No man! ...This is the best script... ever.... I promise...! We're starting tomorrow! Fo sho!"
David S. Goyer: "Uh... OK... whatever."
Christopher Nolan: "Crap.... Why did I hire this Zach guy again? ...."
Zach Snyder: "Oh, and by the way! We're gonna shoot 95% of the movie with close-up shots."
Hugo (2011)
Brilliant!
I was absolutely blown away by this film! It's a movie about movies! I just barely finished watching it for the first time! Today! I loved the intelligent writing - the fact that everything, even the smallest little details of the plot, had something to do with another part of the film just exploded my brain. I was just so impressed! I was also very impressed by the cinematography and visual effects, as well as the original music by Howard Shore. This movie was just put together so well! Amazing script, amazing acting, amazing everything. And it was even packed full of film history! I really just felt like the director was having so much fun in the making of this movie. Cheers and applause to Martin Scorsese!