knoxfan2008 Reviews

Thanksgiving (I) (2023)

Fun, but a garbage ending

[5/10 · 31 May 2024]

This is by far Eli Roth's best film. It's probably the only one that is actually successful as what it's setting out to be.

There's a lot of great practical gore, especially every-time someone gets their head slammed in by a mast or hammer. Theres some funny moments, and the carnage in the opening Black Friday massacre is full of great hammy acting, absurd vulgar dialogue and stupid violence.

Unfortunately, this movie doesn't take it far enough. The fake trailer looked super demented, but it was so toned down for the feature length version. The most obvious part is the trampoline scene. Eli Roth also just isn't that good of a director. There's a lot of bad editing and moments where he obviously forgot to shoot certain coverage. It was mostly flat and the sound design was boring. The fake trailer is the best thing Roth has ever done by a mile, because it was so much more unique and clever than this. The action is kind of awkward a lot of the time. There's no moments of fear or tension. While the prac effects are good, the cgi blood effects are pretty lame. Like that scene with the bin would have been so fun if the cgi effect wasn't so unconvincing.

It's super obvious who the killer is to anyone who's familiar with slasher movie tropes. Eli Roth also does this annoying thing where he sets up characters you'd love to see die, and then doesn't do anything with them, the only other slasher I can think of recently that's done that is the Halloween remake, so get ready for some terrible sequels to this movie!

On that note, the ending is the worst part of this flick, just in how unsatisfying it is. The climax is lame and obvious, but the last shots are so bad that I was furious when the credits rolled. Why didn't Jess's annoying and manipulative bf die at all? Why didn't her dad? What about those party guys? Why didn't her terrible friends? Again, it's so they can die in the sequel (if they make it).

All the teenagers in this movie look so old. Hilariously, the guy who played Scuba looked at least 30. Also, the acting was terrible. These teens are reacting to their friends death like it's less of a big deal than their phones running out of juice. The main actresses only move is to widen her eyes a bunch. The dialogue is also awful, and after the vulgar opening, never reaches that level of entertaining again.

The villains motivation for going after the kids is tenuous at best too. Also, the killer just forgot about a bunch of people who played a big hand in his love-interests death. Also, he didn't need Jessica at all, that was a dumb attempted justification. Roth tries to do one of those classic mystery montages, where it flashes back to all the clues you miss as an audience member, but in that scene, there's literally no clues or lines of dialogue that are clever foreshadowing. Even the basic, Roth manages to screw up.

The most insulting part is that after the credits, we waited for nothing but a nothing 'blooper' that wasn't funny or charming in any sense.

Also what doesn't make sense "this year there won't be any leftovers!!!" Is actually a line Roth thinks is cool? So much so he repeats it twice, tf does it even mean?

A better director/writer could make this work. It's still his best movie, and I genuinely enjoyed a lot of it. But dam the ending and climax were so lame and unsatisfying.

Smiling Friends: A Allan Adventure (2024) Season 2, Episode 3

Possibly the funniest episode of the series so far

[10/10 · 30 May 2024]

I laughed so much during the 11 minutes in this ep that I'm genuinely shocked. Everything hit for me, which is so rare, especially considering that I don't like Allan as a character, or at least didn't before this episode.

It's appropriately chaotic and nonsensical. We've seen episodes like this before in shows like South Park, Bobs Burgers, Community, The Simpsons and Family Guy, where a character has to go on a long, wild journey to do a menial task, and Smiling Friends knows this, so the writers decided to make the ultimate absurd version of that trodden storyline. It goes beyond absurdity to the point of true art.

The gags are amazing, the pirate, the landlord and the mini boss are great jokes, but the shop owner with the bent nose is possibly the funniest scene in the shows' history. The quick animation, along with the hilarious sounds effect is just flawless, and all of the jokes are exactly as long as they need to be.

A wonderful episode that honestly brightened my day. I'm so glad Smiling Friends season 2 is shaping up to be as good, if not better than the first. I don't even watch the YouTube channel these guys are from, I just think this show is fantastic.

Expend4bles (2023)

Incompetent and cringe in every way

[1/10 · 23 May 2024]

• Expendables 4 is like if Tim Heidecker made a feature length "Decker" movie. If you released this movie with Heidecker and Gregg Turkington in the main roles, and changed nothing else, it would be a brilliant satire on celebrity ego and power-fantasies from Hollywood Prima-donnas.

• I'd say that this is a movie made by a guy going through a midlife crisis, but Stallone is like 80, so it's just a desperate attempt by himself to look cool, but is comes off a desperate and try hard. He thinks skulls and motorbikes and rock is so cool, he comes off as the most out-of-touch boomer in the world. There's a scene with a 'social media influencer', and it's so phoney and poorly handled, that I wonder if Stallone has ever seen a insta or livestream video. I know this wasn't directed by Stallone, but he is obviously the lead creative voice. This whole movie is just there to make all the guys in it feel tough and relevant. It's embarrassing. Statham is a producer, and in this flick much more than Stallone, so the power fantasy BS might be his fault.

• This film is bad in every way, but the script is probably the most amateur part. Every line is cliched, and the attempts at "fun banter" between characters comes off as something you'd see in a parody like MacGruber, or again, Decker. Stallone and Statham's dialogue is solely them jabbing at each-other, and it's forced and unbelievable every time. Every insult is awkward and stilted. There's a scene where Stallone and Statham beat up an entire bar of men, because Stallone wants a ring he lost in a bet, fair and square. Somehow they think the viewers wouldn't think these characters are total psychopaths? If the ring was so important to you, why even bet it in the first place?

• The music choices are cringeworthy, there's a trash country song by Kaleo early on that make my skin crawl. Every needle drop is awkward, it's like Stallone intentionally chose the worst songs he could find.

• Stallone knows that things like "cover me!", and "fire in the hole!" are shouted by characters in action movies, but he doesn't seem to know why. He just slots them in, but doesn't edit the scenes around them so it makes sense.

• The acting all round is the career worst from all of these actors. Stallone is more unintelligible than ever, literally his first lines are mumbled to the point you can't understand him. Statham is wooden and completely confused, Megan Fox is laughably bad when trying to actually act, 50 Cent continues to be the worst actor in Hollywood who is only in movies because he pays to be in them, Randy Couture might as well be wall paper, and Dolph Lungren is the only one who is funny-bad rather than just embarrassing. Even Andy Garcia is atrocious in this, he slurs his words so much that I'm 90% sure he was drunk during shooting.

• Not only are the special effects as poorly utilised as I've ever seen in a Hollywood blockbuster, but the CGI is used at the most inappropriate times. Simple shots are digital and green-screened, you could put these shots in a comedy movie and assume they made it bad on purpose as a joke.

Terrible, trash movie. I haven't seen a movie this poorly made, with this much star power, possibly ever. An untalented YouTuber could make a better action movie than this. It was 90 minutes, but felt 2 and a half hours. Genuinely stunned by how bad, predictable and corny it is. I'm so happy this failed at the box office.

Mr. Birchum (2024– )

A tame, unfunny, and poorly realised mess.

[1/10 · 15 May 2024]

This show is so awkward. As soon as it starts, the shoddy animation and ugly character designs are instantly apparent. Also, all the voice acting is slow and poorly paced. It feels like someone put a normal cartoon on 85% speed, as if it's slowing down everything to pander to an imagined low IQ audience.

One thing to note, is that it's clear that star and creator Adam Coralla, is just using this show to air out his grievances with the modern world. Every situation is Corolla making up some straw-man figure and sardonically mocking them. It's a sad power fantasy. There's literally a guitar sting when a character mocks the Green New Deal, it's embarrassing. Carolla even writes in a black-friend character whose sole job is to agree with everything Mr Birchum says. The theme song is a shameless rip-off of 'King of the Hill', and its animation style is like a super-low-rent 'F is for Family'.

'Mr Birchum' feels about 3 decades too late. All the jokes about downtrodden and tired teachers were done better in 'Daria'. Mr Birchum is just a duller Mr DeMartino, and the daughter is just a rip-off of Louise from 'Bob's Burgers'. The comedy is akin to a wine-mum minions meme. All the jokes are derivative and lazy, there's even a cat-on-the-internet joke and a DMV gag! Despite thinking that it's edgy and offensive, 'Mr Birchum' is less offensive than all the shows it's ripping off. Even the pathetic 'Lady Ballers' had more nerve than this show. You're more likely to be offended by an episode of 'Futurama' than this dreck.

The episodes are too long 25+ minutes is way too much for what this show is. The fact that they didn't cut it down to 15 or even 22 minute chunks just shows how overly confident and arrogant this project is. A smarter, more mature creator would have the wherewithal to cut the weaker jokes and keep the comedy short and snappy. There's a reason adult swim episodes are 11-15 minutes. How does Carolla still not understand this after a career in comedy?

It pales in comparison to 'Drawn Together', the best thing Corolla was ever a part of, in terms of humour and transgressive-ness. 'Drawn together' is a very progressive show, so I wonder if Carolla feels a bit insecure that DT will be his main legacy.

This whole experience is just sad and cringe. It's the tv equivalent of the "old man yells at clouds" joke from 'The Simpsons'.

Fremont (2023)

Likeable and well-made, but nothing too special

[5/10 · 7 May 2024]

This story is pretty unique, from a perspective we don't see nearly enough in US cinema, so that's a big plus. Unfortunately, it's not as good as the sum of its' parts. I think it's fair to categorise this as a mumblecore movie, and in that respect, it's not the best, but definitely not the worst by a long shot. The cinematography was nice without being exceptional, and the sparse soundscape worked well in my opinion.

The acting ranges from pretty good, to undeniably bad. The main actress was decent, and there was something inherently likeable and charming about her, but her best friend's actress looked like they were just reading the script out loud for the first time. All the other no-name actors fit in between. Jeremy Allen White was really good in his small part.

Even though the film is slow, I wasn't really bored, until there was about 20 minutes to go, then I felt the length drag a bit. It was nowhere near as gripping as other slow dramas like "The Assistant" or "Paterson", but it had its moments. I was smiling quite a bit towards the end, which I thought was rather satisfying. The phone number plot was very fun, but I wish it had been introduced much earlier. The first act of this movie felt twice as long as it needed to be.

It was hilarious to see Gregg Turkington play the exact character you'd expect him to play. He does a great job, and he weirdly has a lot of chemistry with the main actress, despite them never sharing a frame together. I kept wondering if this movie is going to be folded into the "On Cinema At The Cinema" universe, and it would certainly fit.

It's not a deep film by any means, and it won't be remembered as a classic anytime soon, but I genuinely felt a sense of empathy for the protagonist's loneliness. I feel like a small group of people are really gonna love this flick, and I wish them all the best 🙂

V/H/S/99 (2022)

The best VHS yet (despite one fatal flaw)

[6/10 · 7 May 2024]

VHS 99 is a mixed bag, out of all the VHS movies, this one has the largest gap in quality between segments. Instead of all segments being okay, or bad, or good. The portions can be described as ranging from fantastic to putrid.

• Framing Device ('Toy Soldiers') - Directed by Chris Lee Hill & Taylor Macintyre

I loved this framing device. It is a series of silly animated shorts made by a character who appears in a later segment of the movie. They're cute, legitimately funny, and nostalgic. It reminds me of fun and inventive videos that dominated the early internet.

8/10

• 'The Shredders' - Directed by Maggie Levin

The 'VHS' films have never been particularly impressive or remarkable, there have been plenty of segments that are downright bad. But 'The Shredders' takes the cake for most embarrassing VHS portion ever. This segment made me cringe so much that I literally had to shut off the movie and return to it later.

'Shredders' deserves an entire review to its own, because it packs so many embarrassing and cringey moments into such a short period of time, but here's a few. 1. The acting is the worst it's ever been in one of these films. 2. The music made by the "legendary" underground punk band is like the most fluffy Hannah Montana song ever, but the filmmakers legitimately think they made something hardcore. 3. There's not one character even remotely interesting, there are plenty of horror movies with obnoxious characters, but they're at least interesting. Every single character in this is hard to watch, I feel pity for everyone involved. 4. The editing is as bad as it's ever been in the VHS franchise, all the kills are lame and impossible to make out because of the shaky cam.

There was a minor story that came out a while ago, where a couple of directors were whining about how "the worst films of the year" lists were "cruel" and "unnecessary", and it now makes perfect sense that one of the main voices complaining about those lists was the director of this segment. Maybe in the future, don't make embarrassing, amateur garbage, and people won't put you on their 'worst' lists...

1/10

• 'Suicide Bid' - Directed by Johannes Roberts

Luckily, from here on out, it's a much smoother ride. I don't know if 'Suicide Bid' is as good as the credit I'm giving it, but after 'The Shredders', 'Suicide Bid' felt like a masterpiece. Like the first story, 'Suicide Bid' has obnoxious characters, but they're archetypal "Mean Girl" characters, who aren't framed as "cool and punk" like the first segment insists of its' characters. The acting isn't great, but again, compared to its predecessor, it's amazing.

The story pretty predictable, you know what's going to happen as soon as the inciting incident happens. Imagine how terrifying this story would be if it was just a girl stuck in a buried coffin slowly filling with water. But unfortunately, they have to through a zombie ghost in the mix, which looks comically bad. The ending is obvious, but satisfying. Not great, but after 'The Shredders', a welcome addition to the film.

4.5/10

• 'Ozzy's Dungeon' - Directed by Flying Lotus

If 'The Shredders' is the worst VHS segment ever, then Ozzy's Dungeon is one of the best. A delightfully disgusting story, Ozzy's dungeon takes full advantage of its' premise. There are moments that are genuinely sickening, hilarious and impressive. The characters are wonderfully scummy and over-the-top, with the absurdity turned up to 11. As the segment progresses, it gets increasingly extreme and silly. It's like if John Waters made a VHS segment.

Along with 'Storm Drain' and 'Safe Haven', 'Ozzy's Dungeon' has got to be one of the most satisfying VHS shorts ever.

9/10

• 'The Gawkers' - Directed by Chris Lee Hill & Taylor Macintyre

The third and best of the segments to revolve around obnoxious teens, 'The Gawkers' is pretty much 'American Pie' meets Medusa. It's a fun, simple concept, that is well directed and edited. The characters are equally unlikeable as the first segment, but again, they're framed as creeps and d***heads, so it feels like you're actually feeling the intended emotions of the directors.

It's not really scary, and the last 5 minutes feels rushed, but it's a little twist on the 'Rear Window'/'Disturbia' premise we haven't seen yet. Not as great as the framing device, but still worthy of a decent anthology popcorn flick.

5.5/10

• 'To Hell and Back' - Directed by Vanessa & Joesph Winter

This was such a fun ending to the whole movie. It's a seance that goes off the rails immediately and doesn't let up. It's charming, the effects are low-key and creatively silly, the story is fresh for the VHS franchise, and the character of "Mabel" has got to be the best character out of any VHS story ever (the actress is chewing the scenery and having endless fun too).

7.5/10

I dare say, if it's weren't for the unwatchable first segment, this would be undoubtedly the strongest VHS yet. In fact, even with the first segment being as dreadful as it is, I would likely watch this VHS over the others in the series. Including the framing device, there are 6 stories, 1 is terrible, 2 are average, 2 are great, and 1 is fantastic. All-in-all, a really entertaining watch, you just have to bite your tongue through the atrocious first segment, then it's pretty smooth sailing.

Abigail (2024)

Underwhelming and Unimpressive

[4/10 · 23 April 2024]

Everything in this movie is mediocre except the cinematography and the production design. I was looking forward to this due to me really liking Radio Silence's 'Ready or Not'. I was hoping for a fun horror comedy akin to that, but 'Abigail' ended up being as frustrating and obnoxious as their 2 'Scream' movies. It was however, better than 'Scream 5', but that's not saying much.

The acting all round is pretty bad. Dan Stevens is hamming it up, Melissa Barrera is a blank slate, but the worst performance by a mile is from Kathryne Newtown. Newtown has been bad in everything I've seen her in ('Detective Pikachu', the 'Death Note' remake), but here she's impressively awful, she can't even scream convincingly. The little girl is good for a child actress, but her dialogue is embarrassing lazy and stilted. She's the exact same kind of "toying with her victims" villain we've seen a million times before, now just in child form.

There are TWO 3-minute exposition scenes in this movie where a character just stops the film dead in its tracks, and explains everyone's backstory. It wouldn't be as unbearable if these characters weren't stock and unlikeable, but not one of them has an interesting backstory, so wasting this time trying to "flesh them out" ends up being a complete, cliched waste. Theres even a gag where the big "muscle" character screams like a little girl, as if we haven't seen that joke a million times before...

There were no engaging twists or revelations, and the characters were impossibly stupid. Unlike 'Ready or Not', where the lead character makes smart decisions, and the villains only make idiotic decisions because that's core to their character, the group in 'Abigail' are "professionals" who only make moronic decisions to further the contrived plot.

One aspect that surprised me was how many loud and amateur jump-scares there were. None of them were effective, and the editing is akin to something you'd expect from a horror short on YouTube. The sound design is particularly egregious and insistent, and all but one of the needle drops are total cringe. There's no moments of tension or thrill. I doubt even a 12 year old would find any of this scary.

It even uses the same exploding-bodies trick from 'Ready or Not', but in a much dumber and unsatisfying way. It even ends in the same way, with one character saying pretty much the exact same thing as Samara Weaving in 'Ready or Not'. It's just them playing the hits from their one good movie. There's not an original bone in this movie, despite it clearly insisting that it's some fresh, slick new take on vampires.

I've seen a lot of stuff these two directors have done, including their sections in 'Southbound' and 'V/H/S', and it's clear that Gillet and Bettinelli-Olpin only have one good movie in them, and that's mostly due to the fact that the premise in 'Ready or Not' is really hard to screw up. I don't ask for much, I've seen tonnes of tiny budget, straight-to-streaming comedy horrors that are far more inventive, funny and transgressive than this forgettable chore.

Civil War (2024)

Some fantastic scenes, but ultimately toothless.

[6/10 · 16 April 2024]

Civil war was well directed. There were many scenes that were beautiful, well edited and crazy-intense. The world building was also wonderful when it just washed over you. Seeing how everyday America responds to a civil war is fascinating, and the production design team do a fantastic job bringing certain art pieces to life. There were some moments, especially near the end, that reminded me of "Children of Men", which is a pretty great film to draw inspiration from.

The characters were fine, Dunst's acting was incredible, but her character wasn't all that engaging or special. The closest to a great character was Joel, who felt the most realistic, as a broken thrill chaser. Jesse Plemons cameo is going to be the scene most will remember from this movie, because the intensity of that 10 minutes was amazing. It was also kind of funny and contrived that the movie introduces two new characters who are just introduced to die instead of the protagonists.

The last action scene would have been just as good if our protagonists weren't in it. The last scene in Zero Dark Thirty didn't have Jessica Chastain's character in it, and that was by far the most memorable part of that film. To be honest, most of the time it just felt like they were getting in the way, which would be cool if it was intentional, but that's never really an issue.

But ultimately, Civil War felt toothless. The president was clearly a Trump stand-in, but Florida and Texas are the main states trying to force him out? It felt so centrist and safe. A civil war in USA would be rife with racism and bigotry, but there's literally like 2 throwaway lines in the whole movie of one character being bigoted. It's both-sides-ism. Which is surprising because Garland isn't American. It's like he chose the most polarising topic, and took all the venom out.

Whats crazy is that it seem like a studio note to play it safe and not offend conservatives (like when they threw a tantrum at 2020's The Hunt, and got it cancelled pretty much), but according to IMDb trivia, Garland in interviews said something along the lines of "if there was a fascist in the White House, I think these states would drop their petty differences and fight against fascism", which is wildly naive to say in this climate. Trump literally said he'd be a dictator "on day one", undermines election results, is extremely xenophobic and calls the press "the enemy of the people"; not to mention he literally said he wants to stay in for more than 2 terms, and 30% of voters STILL stick with him and praise him. Those are all signs of fascism, but half the states don't care.

Sorry, if you think a president massacring Antifa members and staying in for a third term would make US conservatives turn against a republican president, then you're just bafflingly ignorant to what's happening in the US right now. Of course, Garland is too scared with saying explicitly if President Offerman is a Dem or Republican or not, but all the clues and evidence and policies that we are privy to, pretty clearly indicates he is.

Don't tackle such a lofty subject if you're not willing to go the whole way. Civil War deals with this conflict that way 'Crash' deals with race. Surface level stuff, but luckily, the surface has a lot of great visuals and intense moments.

The Beekeeper (2024)

Unimaginable bad. I'm genuinely shocked

[1/10 · 31 March 2024]

I was hoping this would just be another dumb, fun action flick riding the coattails of Liam Neeson action films, the Equalizer series, John Wick, and other fun Statham movies. But is turned out to be one of the most excruciating watches I've had in recent years.

Theres not a single original bone in the movie's body. Every single scene, every line, is done better in a hundred different other movies. There's literally a scene where Jeremy Irons just repeats the "boogeyman" speech from John Wick, just worded slightly different. It's shameless. I felt like I was getting taken advantage of, the way elderly people are taken advantage of in this film.

Whereas scams like the ones in this movie are perpetrated by small operations, typically in the third world, "the Beekeeper" suggests that these crimes are committed by moustache twirling villains, in a room filled with neon lighting, in some standard corporate office in the Midwest USA. This movie is catering to out-of-touch boomers who are terrified of computers and think that every company is run by skateboarding millennials who act like Wolf of Wall Street dude-bros. When the main scam happens at the beginning of the movie, some manager guy steals 2 million dollars from a lady, and a room full of like 40 young people all cheer and celebrate. Then later, there's another scam building run by the same people, and it's even more blatantly evil. Was this made by an AI? Because it clearly wasn't written by a human who knows how humans act.

When Jason Statham finds a dead body, a cop pulls a gun on him. Obviously, a viewer would think "oh, the cop saw the dead body, and suspects Statham killed them". But it turns out the cop (who was already apparently in the house, and the daughter of the victim) didn't even see the body of her mother, so she just pulled a gun and arrested some random guy who was in her mothers house? What was her rationale? She didn't know her mother was in trouble, so she pulled a gun on some guy who was probably a friend or guest of her mum. It's so convoluted and dumb. If you're confused, so am I.

Statham blows up a huge building, minutes after telling the receptionist he would, then he goes upstairs and threatens everyone and throwing gas around. He then blows up the building and casually drives away, but apparently no law enforcement cares enough to look into it. I mean, USA law enforcement famously doesn't take terrorism seriously.... The biggest morons ever manage to find Statham easily, but the CIA and FBI can't even put 2 and 2 together.

The best (unintentionally funniest) part about the movie is the constant strained references to his beekeeping gig when talking about his rampage, "these men are hornets, and you smoke hornets out with fire", "he says he's taking care of the hive!". He's a Beekeeping!!! Do you get it!?!? An assassin is trying to kill Statham, and she sneers "you've been a busy bee". I can't stress how many times they do this.

Also, Jeremy Irons says "you messed with a Beekeeper", implying that Statham is part of some secret mercenary group with a beekeeping theme? And even though he retired from that line of work, he still keeps bees? It's mess. Another character says "he's a "beekeeper" beekeeper?". So this isn't just one guy, it's a full secret org. I have so many questions about this secret operation. Do you need to be a bee enthusiast to join this group? Is the beekeeping not a cover, but an actual skill taught to these mercenaries? Is Jason Statham being a beekeeping after retiring just a coincidence? It's so mind boggling stupid, it's honestly insulting.

The acting and dialogue is particularly terrible, especially from Josh Hutcherson. Even the action is poorly shot and edited. This is a fascinatingly bad flick. This movie deserves to be tore apart viciously by every movie podcaster for 3 hours.

Please excuse this scattershot review, but I'm genuinely flustered and bewildered by how pathetic this movie is.

There are revelations so impossibly dumb that it's hard to believe that they'd allow this script to be made. I don't want to talk about the specifics, because I don't want this to be a spoiler review. But the twist is so dumb, I don't think you'll be able to guess.

Cat Person (I) (2023)

Bafflingly bad

[2/10 · 27 March 2024]

I was looking forward to this movie, because I like stalker-thrillers, but Cat Person is stunningly inept. About 10 minutes in, I was thinking "oh, this is one of those movies about young people, but the dialogue is written by some out-of-touch boomer guy". I was shocked to find out women wrote and directed this, because the women characters don't talk like real people.

The sound design is insistent and corny, they're constantly trying to make totally benign things seem scary. Like they're just hanging out, and the music is super creepy and eerie. Then the sound effects are overwrought and amateurish. There's a fight scene where there are no sound effects, just bland ambient music, lazy.

Some things are obviously nonsense, like how the main character is suddenly obsessed with this guy, as if she's never had a guy come into her job before. Also, there's a tonne of dream sequences solely to add fake scares that fill time. This movie was 2 hours and it would have worked better as a 20 minute short.

There's also a tonne of convenient stupidity. A science lab door locks automatically from the inside? Seems dumb and unrealistic, until you realise it's just there to facilitate a lame fake-out nightmare sequence. The feminist stuff in the movie is so poorly handled, it's like the Black Christmas 2019 remake. Her friends are unbearably annoying. Of course, she also has a flamboyant gay guy friend, because apparently the writers love outdated cliches from early 2000's rom coms.

To illustrate how out of touch the writing is. A bunch of 20 something year olds go on about how "old" a 25 year old is, characters refer to him as "an older man", as if a 25 year old and a 20 year old are from different eras, (yes, it's revealed he's 33 later on, but none of them know that). They act as if him being older is a weird and crazy sign. It's especially bad writing when her friend is clearly played by an actress who looks 30. She also constantly has characters, like her folks, or a family fiend, saying "why are you texting so much! Oooh a boy!?", when the lead girl doesn't use her phone more than any random 20-something-year old. The only explanation I can guess, is that the girl was supposed to be a teen in the original script, but they changed it to 20 later on. It's like a script from the 90's that wasn't updated for 2023.

Again, this is a terrible feminist film. Instead of actually having themes, it just spells everything out, and has characters just constantly say lame twitter talking points. It's such a lazy neo-lib script. They literally have a 20 year old character saying "it turns out being Asexual is a real thing!". Have these writers never met or seen a teenager before? Being asexual stopped being some obscure thing like a decade ago. Again, like a dusted-off old script that they didn't bother to bring into the 21st century.

But all the other things that make a movie good aren't present, the music is bad, the acting is generic and flat, the lead character is unlikeable and impossible to relate to. Obviously the writing is atrocious (she's been texting this guy for weeks, but doesn't even know what he does for work?).

Also, fire has smoke, does the director even know that? Theres a scene where cgi fire fills a room, and there's no smoke for the first 30 seconds, when there is cgi smoke, it's practically nothing. It's obvious why there's barely any smoke, it's because the director isn't talented enPugh to creatively shoot a scene where a room is filled with smoke "that's okay, we'll just add a bit in post".

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Terrible movie. But what do you expect from the director of The Spy who Dumped me?

Family Guy: Take This Job and Love It (2024) Season 22, Episode 12

Genuinely pathetic and embarrassing

[1/10 · 25 March 2024]

Every episode this season besides like 3 episodes are 1/10 quality. This episode was no exception.

It's crazy how every family guy gag now is just the characters saying what the joke is, then the joke happens. They never just leave it alone and trust the gag. A great example of this is in the first segment when "Peter" is skiing and is replaced by an obvious stuntman. Okay, this is an old, basic joke that's been done a hundred times, but then, because the writers think the viewers are the dumbest people imaginable, "Peter" then turns to the camera and says "that was definitely me". Do you get the joke!? Geddit!!???

There's almost exclusively things wrong with the ep. The "production titles" gag for Quagmire's aerobics show snails some producer explaining the upcoming visuals in detail, and then the visuals happens. 3 times in a row. Lazy trash made by hacks.

I'm a completionist, and my ocd forces me to watch every ep (also of South Park and Bobs burgers, but luckily even I gave up on the Simpsons a long time ago), but family guy continues to impress with how bad and inept it is. I would not be surprised at all if all their episodes were written by AI now. In fact, that would be far less embarrassing than the truth. Somehow, with thousands of quality writers desperate to get a start in Hollywood, family guy just hired the worst 15 writers in the world. Absolute cancer.

Invincible: It's Not That Simple (2024) Season 2, Episode 6

Filler episode with no stakes

[4/10 · 21 March 2024]

This season of Invincible has been good, but compared to the gravity and transgressiveness of season 1, it's way below form. This episode in particular is just a filler episode where none of the characters seem in any real danger.

The opening fight scene starts from where the last episode left off, and the "overwhelming" threat of the Martian tentacle aliens attacking the heroes, but every time there's a huge swarm of them, in the next shot, it just cuts away to a hero only fighting a few of them. It does this so often. The size of the room and the geography changes constantly. It's convenient editing so we don't have to wonder the whole time why Rudy isn't taken sooner.

Most of this episode relies on relationship stuff between Amber and Mark, the least interesting relationship in the show. Amber is the 'Invincible' version of Tom, from 'Daria'. Every scene with them feels obligatory.

The biggest issue however, is that there aren't any stakes. I never believed that any of the guardians were ever in actual danger. The last episode where we saw the shrinking supe (Rae) "die", I was shocked, Kate's death was also brutal, and I was thinking "how are they gonna make it so Rex gets the upper hand on the lizard guy?". But the shrinking lady's death is downgraded to her being knocked unconscious, Rex gets shot right through the head and survives easily with seemingly no brain damage, (thank god the lizard guy didn't shoot Rex, a superhuman, in the head a few more times to be safe, did he read the script?). The lizard king is intelligent when the plot needs him to be, then a complete moron when the plot needs him to be.

I remember how shocking the deaths in the first and last episodes of s1 were. The fact that these characters could die at a moments notice was pretty tense and scary. But now, it's obvious all these characters will easily survive things they should have died. The show doesn't even kill off lame side characters with no personality.

Also, on that point, Kate will be back. Apparently in the books, she always has a duplicate of herself safe at home anyway. So no, where it looked like we got 3 shocking deaths, there was actually none. It took game of thrones 5 seasons for characters to gain tension-ruining plot armour, in Invincible, it only took 2.

Lastly, the Allen subplot also reeks of this. It was shocking earlier when it seemed Allen was obviously dead, I mean, the viltrumites aren't so stupid that they'd leave one of their biggest threats any chance of living right? Nope, he's back and stronger than ever. And conveniently, almost dying for Allen is like getting the Captain America serum.

Also, it's a little pet peeve of mine when characters randomly pick up a book in a show or movie, and just happen to land on the right page with the info they need. Why not have Mark read more than one sentence of Nolan's book before stumbling onto the exact info he needs. Allen is even worse, he looks for 2 seconds and is instantly like "oh wow, the book is about this famous legend". If you picked up any book, you'd never just randomly open it to a page that explains the whole story in one sentence. Just have the characters spend more time looking at this stuff, it doesn't even take time, just fade out and back in. Lazy.

Also, for the last scene, it seems extremely weird that the overly careful and paranoid Cecil would just let the saved astronaut go home when he had an alien monster in his digestive system. Cecil has crazy alien technology, but he doesn't have a complex x-ray of some kind? He doesn't keep the astronaut contained for a month or two to make sure he's okay after being infected by a hive mind for like a year? Cecil didn't think there'd be residual effects? Season 1 Cecil would have to be talked out of just nuking the mars ship and killing the astronaut. But he never even has a thought even close to that. Suddenly his pragmatism is replaced by extreme, dumb patriotism.

So, bad episode. I'm rooting for this show more than any other. But god dam, this episode was so frustrating. It lacked everything that makes Invincible a special and subversive show. This episode felt like a marvel tv episode. So disappointing...

Small Talk (II) (2023)

Have these filmmakers ever interacted with another human being?

[1/10 · 7 March 2024]

I've seen another one of this director's movies, "To Freedom", which was also terrible, but was pretty funny in its incompetence and plot. "Small Talk" is just a horrible slog to sit through.

This movie is impossible to enjoy unironically, because the director thinks this is a comedy. I am almost certain the script was written by AI, because the whole plot is just the same three scenes repeated over and over again. A cop interrogates the driver, we see a flashback, the cop interrogates a new suspect who turns out to be innocent. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Despite this technically being a better movie than "To Freedom", it's agonising. The two lead actors,( the driver and the detective), are truly awful and hamming it up, but even good actors couldn't make these annoying af characters work. Remember that scene in Joker where he's laughing at a stand up routine, but he clearly doesn't understand where to laugh, or how jokes work? Imagine that, but instead of a deranged clown, it's a terrible movie made by a hack.

This reminds me of when Tyler Perry tries to make comedic films, although tbh, this director probably shows more competency in their directing than Perry does in his films.

The sound track is awful, so many lines have the wrong EMphaSIS on the wrong syLLABles, and there's sometimes weird sound effects that are almost certainly the editor accidentally leaving spare sound effects in the Final Cut Pro timeline.

Just an embarrassment. Don't watch. Even if you want a so-bad-it's-good-movie. This isn't it. This is "Going Overboard" or "Joe dirt 2" level unbearable.

Family Guy: The Return of the King (of Queens) (2023) Season 22, Episode 9

End it. Dear Jesus please end it

[1/10 · 13 January 2024]

I've pretty much made the most cogent argument necessary in the title of this review, so to get to the character limit I'm just gonna wing it

It's kind of crazy that Family Guy couldn't even get Kevin James for this role. Isn't it sad that Kevin James is too good for family guy?

I watched the first couple of episodes of Ted, it's pretty funny, much better than the two movies.

The Orville was good until halfway through s2. Season 3 is unwatchable.

Should I watch Mork and Mindy? I was thinking of watching the first ep as like an oddity or something, but what if it's actually good?

I'm gonna watch that Paint movie with Owen Wilson. Reviews weren't great, but it seems likeable enough.

Also, I feel the movie 'May' doesn't get the respect it deserves. And the original Black Christmas is the best slasher movie ever imho.

Dexter: New Blood: Runaway (2021) Season 1, Episode 5

Extremely dumb when you stop and think about it. Here's a few examples

[1/10 · 12 December 2021]

Here's just a few examples of how this episode, and the new season in general, treats the viewers like morons. These are also examples of lazy contrivances only there to move the plot along, no matter how unnatural and absurd it may be.

1. Logan arrives outside the chemist's house with a whole bunch of cops, conveniently parking just outside the window so Dexter can see. In barely anytime at all, Dexter takes down every piece of plastic, all the photos (where did he get the victim photos btw?) kills the guy through OD (in a way that he couldn't at all be sure the guy couldn't be revived), cuts a full grown limp male body out of plastic then drags that body to another room, puts clothes on the body, and takes all his gear and escapes the house while evading detection. That is some lazy writing. I know the OG show had some close calls like that, but none of them were anywhere near this absurd and convenient.

Dexter wouldn't even be there if Logan hadn't pretty much said, within a few feet of Dexter "Hey! Here's the address of the chemist Jim would desperately want to see dead, let's hope Jim doesn't go after this guy even more responsible for Harry's OD than the last guy! Oh, hey Jim, you can go after assaulting that guy, no biggie!"

Dexter beats up a guy and stabs him with a needle. Sorry, a needle in your neck isn't painless or unnoticeable, never once does this drug dealer go, "Hey wtf, this dude also stabbed me or injected me with something". Dexter in the later seasons, but ESPECIALLY in this one, only gets away with his crimes because everyone around him doesn't act like a human being.

2. The Harrison subplot this season has been cringe-worthy and so melodramatic. The acting from the teenagers is horrendous and the dialogue is incredibly stilted. I never thought I'd get flashes of "13 reasons why" in a Dexter season lol. Harrison takes Ecstasy and clearly the actor hasn't ever taken it or know what it's like, and the director/writers don't either. Either that, or the director just sucks at conveying to the actor how to play someone high on E.

Everything about the Harrison character feels like the writers' weird wish fulfilment fantasy. "Wouldn't it be cool if I like, went to a new school and I was like, this cool loner and everyone was intrigued by me, and then I like, choked a bully and saved the unpopular kid, but then I saved the school from a shooting and all the popular kids loved me and kissed me and gave me drugs! Oh! ALSO, the prettiest, most popular girl in school also likes me immediately and says i'm not like the other guys." Harrison is pretty much the male version of Bella from Twilight, where the writer is blatantly living through their character.

3. The dumbest part of this ep unfortunately came from the scenes with Angel. He's supposed to be giving a serious lecture, but his speech is the most basic 3rd grader stuff ever, "when we looked into the victims, we saw that there were similarities so we thought it was the same perpetrator", WOW Angel! Such insight!

That's not my main issue though. The worst part is how contrived the dialogue was that prompted Angel to mentioned Dexter. "Debra's brother died too, he had a son, what was his name..... umm... oh yeh, Harrison!" Then the camera looks over to Bishop with a puzzled look on her face "HOLY HELL!" - She's thinking - "Jim's kid is ALSO named Harrison! That's a super uncommon name! What a coincidence!" Then Harrison conveniently also told Bishop's daughter about Jim not being his name and somehow Bishop puts 2 and 2 together. It's like if some guy two states away was like "My friend left this state years ago with his son John", and you suddenly thought "whoah, that might be the John that lives next door to me!"

The point is, there's zero cleverness in the writing as to how any characters come to conclusions. They just happen to stumble into the right situation by coincidence, or escape suspicion due to people acting like no human being would actually act.

I wish New Blood wasn't so lame and unambitious. It feels like a show dumbed down in order to pander to the lowest common denominator, which Dexter didn't feel like in the first several years.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Gang Replaces Dee With a Monkey (2021) Season 15, Episode 4

Best episode by a mile, in a pretty disappointing start to the season

[10/10 · 11 December 2021]

This is the first ep this season that really felt like Always Sunny. There were glimpses of classic "Sunny" in the first two eps, but the roller rink episode just annoys me the more I think about it.

This episode however, nails the characters, motivations and chemistry. The scenes of the guys at the bar writing down colours instead of locations is hilarious, and the more frustrated Dennis becomes, the funnier it gets. The CG monkey initially annoyed me, but they use it appropriately and didn't over-do it, some of the funniest gags in the ep happen just from having the monkey's arm deliver a beer from just out-of-frame to the guys. The drunken acting from these guys is fantastic and nuanced in a way other comedic shows often lazily overlook.

Dee's part is also hilarious. We've never seen her in this much of a position of power before, so when she goes off the rails and constantly abuses and gaslights her actors, it's incredibly satisfying. It works perfectly, where the roller rink ep just insulted her character. The scene with Kiki was amazing and Olsen brought it big-time.

Funniest episode this season by far. I was a bit depressed from the first 3 eps of season 15, but "the Gang Replaces Dee with a Monkey" has given me hope that they can really nail the rest of the season. In fairness though, I think Sunny episodes are always funnier on second viewing.

Family Guy: Tales of Former Sports Glory (2021) Season 19, Episode 20

Possibly the worst episode ever

[1/10 · 23 May 2021]

I'm a completionist, which is why I'm doomed to watch Family Guy embarrass itself for the rest of time. Holy crap this episode was probably the worst ever, it's next level lazy. The whole episode consisted of the narrator of the segment saying something and the visuals showing the exact same thing at the same time, making it all completely superfluous. The saying is Show don't tell, but this episode decided "Show AND tell AND over-explain the awful jokes".

As soon as Quagmire said he played tennis, I said to myself "Okay, so he's just gonna be John McEnroe", and sure enough, 30 seconds later, the whole joke for the next 7 minutes is that he's John McEnroe.

Cancel this show already and put everyone out of their misery. The animation, "jokes" and voice acting is the worst it's ever been.

WandaVision: The Series Finale (2021) Season 1, Episode 9

Pretty much the blandest, safest finale possible

[2/10 · 5 March 2021]

This episode crapped the bed in the same way Wonder Woman, Man of Steel and Black Panther did. It's just random weightless CGI flying in front of you like jingling keys for 30 minutes. There's no creativity in any of the action or conclusions, everything was super corny and telegraphed. I imagine this episode will be acclaimed by Marvel stans, because it stuck to the formula and pandered to people who just watch Marvel movies for "boss" moments.

The worst part was probably Rambeau's convenient, barely explained powers that pretty much just do what the plot needs them to do. I also found it lame and lazy to mostly dismiss all the awful stuff Wanda did (by enslaving a whole town for months) by saying "welp, I didn't know what I was doing", when it was clearly established in episodes 6-7 that she 100% knew she was enslaving people and TOLD SO by many people including Vision, Rambeau and the military. But interesting moral conundrums are too risky for Disney, so they only slightly dip their toe in then immediately forget about consequences, just like they did in Civil War.

The kid actors were annoying, the double Vision fight was dull because they were just two invincible guys hitting each other and not taking damage. Agatha was a potentially promising Villain, and they ended up making her comically silly and one-dimensional moustache-twirler in the final episode. The ending was cheap and manipulative, people are easily suckered by melodramatic soap-opera dialogue and endings so I imagine the conclusion went over well with most fans.

In summation, a really poorly handled and unworthy finale to a potentially subversive show.

Run Hide Fight (2020)

Funny bad at times, though mostly just cringe

[2/10 · 19 January 2021]

There is so much wrong with this film, that fully exploring its failures would take a small book. But here's just a few of the most glaring issues

1. It's a movie about teens that is so out of touch, that it's incredibly obvious that it was written by a clueless 50 year old who doesn't know how kids act

2. The acting was appalling by everyone except Tom Jane, Radha Mitchell and the lead actress. The line reads are awkward and unnatural, plus the trash editing does all the actors a disservice by constantly undermine their dialogue and actions through unintentionally funny cuts. Shout out to the villain and his paranoid sidekick for being the most embarrassing actors.

3. The sound editing was distracting and inept. There are so many public domain, stock sound effects in this film that you'd usually hear in goofy comedies like Always Sunny, or the Eric Andre show, yet they use them in a school shooting movie which ends up being hysterical (my personal favourite is the goofy "crowd gasp" sound effect around the 43 min mark when the backpack bomb goes off). Also, there is plenty of obvious dubbing and poor ADR.

4. My biggest issue was the complete failure of the script to make the film realistic in any way. There are so many continuity errors and plot contrivances that I can't get into, but the worst part is how none of these people act like actual people. A car crashes into a building and people are shot, yet not a single kid calls the police, texts their friends, or even has their phones out UNTIL the bad guy asks them to livestream. Also, while guns and crashes are going on, somehow the other classes are all in session, going about like normal, half an hour AFTER the shooting begins. They apparently didn't hear anything and none of the students have received texts from their friends, and even though one of the students had over 1,000 viewers on his livestream on the school's own social media page, none of the school kids or teachers are shown watching it in other classes. Who the hell is watching this school livestream if none of the students or teachers or even parents are? This director doesn't know how simple technology works, or people for that matter. Students are covered in blood and telling people there's a shooting, and teachers are like "pfft go away from my class you ruffians!". Also, if a fire alarm goes off and stops when your half way out the school, pretty sure the protocol is to follow through to outside, because the system could have failed due to the potential fire or electrical issues. This stuff is so basic but there's zero internal logic and all the characters are dummies.

5. Some of the best cringe came from lines like "huh, so you didn't want to get your hands dirty?" after the main character finds hand sanitiser on one of the killers. Another favourite was the bible girl answering "free will" to the shooter's question "why is god allowing this to happen", but the editing is so bad, it's straight up like the infamous "for you" editing in TDKR. hilarious. My favourite was the corny line from the lead's mum "someone is still holding on", this movie would have been mocked for lacking all subtlety 40 years ago.

6. On the villain, it's a clear rip-off of Die Hard, but the main bad guy is so irritating and cringe that I had to actively take breaks from the film. The smug acting was unbearable, his character was as if Hans Gruber and the villain from The Purge had a baby, but it was stomped on relentlessly as a baby. He turned this film from laughably bad, to just plain cringe whenever he or his lackeys were talking.

There's so much more about this film that fails, including basics like lighting and cinematography (plus I didn't even talk about the flamboyantly gay male teacher who screams like a girl, because again, written by an out of touch boomer who hasn't seen a film since the 80's apparently). There are so many more things wrong with this film but i'll end it there before I end up writing all night. This film fails in all the ways movies like "Elephant" or "Polytechnique" succeed, because in those films, people act like actual people and not lame hallmark tv characters

Don't spend any money on this film, and don't watch it unless you wanna get friends together to laugh at it.

2/10

Aquaslash (2019)

Embarrassing

[1/10 · 12 July 2020]

Everything about this movie screams "overconfidence", "obnoxiousness" and "incompetence". Not only do none of the character actions make any sense, but we don't even understand their relationships to one another. It's extremely easy to mistake one character for a different one because all of them are boring, one-dimensional tools with no believability.

Besides the atrocious acting and non-existent characters, the sound design in this movie is embarrassing. Whenever they're too lazy to actually do any sound editing, they just put public-domain-sounding ambient music over the top of the visuals. The appalling editing isn't helped by the fact that almost every shot is either way too close to the actors, or too far away. There is no spatial awareness in the film-making.

Even if you're looking for a goofy, no-brained slasher, this won't appease you at all. There's hardly any kills, and when the big set-piece happens, it's so dumb and poorly conceived that you'll just end up frustrated. The only way any conflict comes about, is from characters acting like aliens who've all received lobotomies.

Aquaslash is one of those movies made by talentless tools who think one mediocre kill is enough to base an entire movie around. Don't watch it unless you want to cringe and feel embarrassed for all involved.

Explained (2018–2021)

Entertaining, but it's not as informative as you'd expect. Ultimately superfluous

[6/10 · 19 July 2018]

Surprise! Turns out that condensing decades or even hundreds of years of history into 15-20 minute chunks with poppy editing is not exactly the best way to learn about a topic. This show is wonderfully entertaining and does what VOX does best, make short videos about topics that most people have heard of but don't exactly understand.

When I watched the "K-Pop" episode along with others like "e-sport" or "the stock market" I was absolutely intrigued. They are fiercely interesting 20 minutes that seemingly gave me the gist of what the subject matter was. However, after watching the new episode on "Cricket" I realised that the other episodes I loved so much is to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Almost any cricket fan would watch the Cricket episode and be confused with how the episode focuses on India and Twenty20 cricket to the exclusion of almost everything else. Not even The Ashes, Bodyline, the evolution of batting gear, or any of the million interesting factoids about the games' chess-like gameplay are mentioned.

Vox dishonestly portrays test cricket as a thing of the past, when in every cricket nation (including India) it is still the most prestigious form of the game. But because T20 is flashier, Vox focuses almost exclusively on it, cheekily implying that T20 is what the majority of the fans are fixated on, which is the exact opposite from the truth. It's frustrating that any laymen interested in learning about cricket is instead going to have 5 minutes of the rules explained to them, and then 10 minutes of a narrative pushed on them that is so over simplified and in the end has more to do with business and marketing than it does the actual sport. In a game that is as universally adored as football, VOX focuses almost entirely on the most narrow of stories. It's not about the subject, it's about a fluffed up narrative that covers less than 1% of the actual narrative. It would be as if VOX released a documentary about football that entirely neglected to mention the EPL or the World Cup.

So I've watched the show and found it fun and interesting. However, I am not going to take it as anything more than a superficial look at subjects Vox themselves only have a passing knowledge of. There are a million other documentaries on Netflix you can watch that are more in-depth, honest and intelligent. I admire their attempts to branch out, but until Vox stops caring about visuals over facts, they should stick to their short youtube videos, which is where their best work has been done, the best episodes of this show are just normal Vox videos with a bit of filler in them to get them to the 15-20 minute mark.

The Babysitter (I) (2017)

Embarrassing, try-hard, phony movie

[1/10 · 19 October 2017]

This film is bad in pretty much every way. McG proves once again that he can't doesn't know how to direct a movie. This film is an hour and 20 minutes and felt like it was over 2 hours.

From the first few frames, this film is obnoxious in every conceivable way. The acting is smug and hammy, the dialogue is cringey, the music is derivative and everything about the plot line reeks of a middle aged man trying desperately to look like a cool kid.This is the "basic B*tch/Bro" of movies. The two leads early on have a "nerdy" conversation, but it's so vapid, it feels like it was written by someone at Buzzfeed who had only ever seen 2 or 3 mainstream blockbuster "nerd movies". It's the movie equivalent of a jock who pretends he's ultra geeky because he watches the Marvel movies.

The one phrase that perfectly sums up this movie is "over confidence". McG has seen these quick editing tricks and sound effects in other films by decent directors like Wright and Lord/Miller, and decided he would use that style in his movie without understanding why and how those directors use them in the first place.

The kid in this movie is not believable in the slightest as a loser because he looks like a young Leo DiCaprio. His character is set up as having a phobia of practically everything, yet instead of this coming into play, he acts like John McClane whenever a threat presents itself. This kid lives on a suburban street, yet when gunshots, screams and cop lights are going off every few seconds, NO-ONE hears in the houses 20 metres away. Everything else is contrived, the attempts at humour are embarrassing, and there's only one that lands, (a cutaway involving a knife in a dishwasher).

This film was hate-able in all aspects. Even the repetitive gore doesn't have any charm, because there have already been dozens of these wacky gory callback nostalgia films (Game of Death, Turbo Kid, Stranger Things) that have done it without feeling so empty and shallow.

DON'T WATCH THIS

Little Evil (2017)

Decent Premise, mediocre execution

[4/10 · 1 September 2017]

I wouldn't have watched this if I hadn't loved "Tucker & Dale vs Evil" by Eli Craig, which like "Little Evil" is a parody of a horror sub-genre. Unfortunately this film is entertaining enough that I was never bored, but it lacked the creativity and fast- paced humour a premise like this should have.

It begins promisingly with a lot of funny jokes, but after the first 15 minutes, the jokes kind of take a backseat to the exposition, and the humour becomes less crafted, and more akin to an Apatow joint. Adam Scott is great as usual, and though I expected his sidekick Al to be incredibly annoying, Bridget Everett was having so much fun I warmed to her after a while, Clancy Brown is also good. The rest of the cast is pretty average, Kate from LOST phones it in, and Turk from SCRUBS is distracting, as he's cast as one of the 3 useless comic relief step-dad friends that never have an impact on the story. The kid that played Lucas was also really awful, even by the standards of child actors. Why didn't anyone give this kid better directions. Nothing he or any of the other child actors said or did were well-done at all.

The direction was much better than any modern Apatow-esque comedy. Craig used a lot of horror conventions to his advantage and I wish the script he wrote paralleled his direction, even if the cinematography still looks like a cheap Netflix film. He does however, use identical speed-cutting transitions to Edgar Wright that is incredibly distracting, like with the same sound effects and pacing and everything.

The structure was not great, it lumbered in parts and then sped through the climax at an insane rate. The film also stops several times and repeats aspects, like expositional scenes.

I wish this were as strong as "Tucker & Dale" which I strongly recommend, yet "Little Evil" lacked a great supporting cast, or any innovative way to spin the subject matter. Instead, it's just a funnier version of the Omen, which was already kinda funny to begin with.

After Porn Ends (2012)

Fantastic subject matter, completely unremarkable execution

[5/10 · 9 May 2017]

I am fascinated by this topic. We have seen the impact of the porn industry on people portrayed in fiction (Boogie Nights, Orgazmo, Lovelace) as well as in other documentary works by Louis Theroux and trashy, exploitative British TV docos. How people interact with the most popular and sought after taboo in the world is always interesting. "Life After Porn", however, doesn't capitalise on its' premise as well as it should.

Positives: The biggest issue when tackling a controversial subject is the potential biases of the film-makers, yet in "After Porn Ends", the people behind the scenes never use their movie as propaganda, or a political tool on either end of the partisan spectrum. I wouldn't be surprised either way if the director and producers were pro or anti-porn. It offers an impartial glimpse into the motivations of a smorgasbord of characters from different aspects and eras of the pornography industry. There are subjects who had positive childhoods, negative childhoods, good parents and bad, loved the work, and those who hated it. By being objective and showing such a wide selection of experiences, the film is showing us that this industry is just like any other in many respects, that your attitude is the key factor in determining your outlook. The equitable framing of all opinions allows audiences to make up their own minds and while you, the viewer, will find your own opinions represented in this doco, maybe you'll see a story that changes your mind, or challenges your previous misconceptions. So it is a film I would recommend on that basis, to contemplate all sides of this complicated commercial enterprise.

Negatives: Most of the flaws are technical. The cinematography is flat-out dull and ugly most of the time, there is no visual flair, and the shots are often shaky and incorporate unnecessary snap-zooms. The music is also completely forgettable, to the point it feels like stock, free-from-YouTube material. There is however a nice little cover of 'The Velvet Undergrounds's "Sweet Jane" during the credits. Easily the worst technical shortcoming was the editing. They clearly needed to shoot with another camera in order to cut away the awkward jump cuts, awkward zoom ins, and to allow the interviews to flow better. There are moments where one person will be interviewed sitting down, CUT to them answering another question in a different location, then CUTting straight back to the initial interview location. It's jarring and makes the production feel so cheap and cookie-cutter.

"After Porn Ends" only truly examines the life of a retired pornstar in the last act, which comes off a little like false advertising. I wish the film-makers had followed a newly retired star on their journey to reconnect with the outside world. However, we simply receive a standard, talking heads documentary with no distinguishing features that makes it remarkable.

Conclusion: You can make up your own mind about whether you want to see this based on my review. It's a good starting point for anyone keen to learn about the business and its' varying effects on individuals. I was never bored, and it's pretty short with one or two sobering moments, and a few compelling interviewees.

You can find it on Netflix, or on other internet platforms.

Thanks for reading :) 5/10

Look Who's Back (2015)

A mediocre Borat/Bruno rip-off that doesn't understand the basics

[2/10 · 8 May 2017]

Let me start by saying I haven't read the book, which from what I've heard is far more intelligent than this film. I'm also a liberal, therefore my criticisms of this film have nothing to do with it's targeting of conservatives, but of the film's misrepresentation of it's subjects and ineptitude in the film-making. I also am not a person who gets offended, I LOVE the concept and wish a better creative team had handled this idea.

"Look Who's Back" is clearly aping off the success of Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat" and "Bruno", yet fails to realise what made those films great. 1st, the man who plays Hitler is mediocre, he is physically wrong for the part & not short as Hitler was, he towers over everyone else, which takes away completely from the comedy. He also lacks any improvisation skills, unlike Cohen, he never asks any challenging questions or manages to "trap" his victims, instead, the film heavily relies on cheap, dishonest editing.

The editing is the worst aspect of the film. Not only is is poorly paced comedy- wise, but also dishonest and clearly misrepresents people interviewed. In his films, Cohen would stay with someone on screen for at least a minute, allow the viewers to become accustomed to them in unbroken, usually unedited takes, then Cohen would strike with a smart question perfectly tailored to that person. Here, interviewees are on screen for 10 seconds at the most, ensuring that all of their opinions are out of context. There is one man who literally says "I'd be willing to take a bullet for my Germany" and that's his only 3 seconds of screen time, because he is edited between 2 other people saying rather controversial things, the director is manipulating the viewers into concluding this man is a bigot, where he only said what anyone in the world would say about their country regardless of political persuasion. It's clear they had to resort to this choppy editing style due to none of their subjects were as horrible as they hoped; demonstrated by the montage, where we see snippets of dozens of improvised scenes, obviously not funny, that hit the cutting room floor.

It's a tonally and stylistically confused mess. Whereas in the fore-mentioned films, the dramatised elements and mockumentary parts are interwoven perfectly. In "Look Who's Back", they constantly jump between styles, undermining our confidence in the realism of the supposed "true" moments.

Because the leading role is a man playing Hitler, we can't trust answers given to him, as the vast majority of his subjects are being ironic as they give their answers, they're in on the joke, where Cohen's victims were not. There is a man early on who says that the solution to Germany's problem is "Labor Camps", which would be horrifying if there wasn't a probable chance he was taking the mickey, instead, he's on screen for 5 seconds, then never asked another question. There is nothing "sobering" or "eye opening" about anyone's opinion in this film, because everyone's opinion is tainted by the fact they are aware they are being interviewed by a comedian. The most egregious opinions are those of a few drunkards in a bar who are obviously playing up their "devotion" to "Hitler" as a joke, illustrated by the fact they are all laughing and taking photos of the actor, yet the film frames them as if they genuinely believe this. Also, every time they ask somebody about refugees, it frames every respondent that has a conflicting emotion towards the crisis as if they agree with a Hitler-Esque position. I hesitate to call any film morally reprehensible, but this film definitely rides that line in it's dishonestly and over-simplification.

The non scripted scenes are the only ones that have an occasionally funny line, yet there's far too much, the side characters are dull, and it's unbelievable and contrived.The ending of the film is a ham-fisted "twist" where the message is crammed down our throats in the manner of a soap opera, as is most of the "points" the film is trying to make. The credits are particularly egregious, in suggesting Wilders and LePen are the modern equivalents to Hitler. While I dislike both those politicians, it is a reprehensible, simplistic and childish comparison from film-makers who are clearly virtue signaling. It's message is so melodramatic and self-important that it is unintentionally hilarious how pretentious it is.

Tonally, "look who's back" doesn't know if it wants to be an edgy, a no holds barred offensive comedy, or a liberal think piece. It ends up as confused. I assume most of the positive reviews are from the kind of people who don't watch many foreign films, so whenever they see one, they praise it endlessly.

P.S., the music in this film is all recycled from other better films (Dawn of the Dead) and uses THREE songs from A Clockwork Orange. Either use an original song, or use classical music that hasn't been so overplayed in the past. In so many respects, it feels like a film by a uni student.