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Loop Track (2023)
How it should have ended
Even for a low budget film, it could have done a lot better. The ending was kind of lame. With a little more thought in advance, a more realistic scenario could have unfolded that brought the pieces together. So this is my take on how it should have ended...
After the creature killed off all the other characters except for Ian and Austin, the two would have tried to escape together. Austin would have stumbled upon something strange in the woods and wanted to investigate what it was.
It turns out to be a hidden entrance to an underground facility. Austin wants to go inside as it might provide a safe shelter but Ian wants to keep moving on - but eventually gives in and follows Austin.
Once inside, they realize it's an abandoned research facility that appeared to be involved in some biology research. Austin then comes across a photo of a group of scientists and immediately recognizes Ian in the photo. Austin now knows that Ian knows all about the research facility and confronts him about it and what it has to do with the creature that had been following them.
Eventually Ian breaks and tells Austin that he was part of a covert research team that was performing the illegal development of creating genetic lifeforms from ancient DNA. Ian tells Austin that the group of researchers decided to set up their lab deep in a forest away from government authorities and try to resurrect an ancient dinosaur bird.
The group was eventually caught and imprisoned for several years althought whereabouts of their hidden facility was never uncovered. Before being apprehended, they had managed to create the prehistoric bird and let it loose with its mate in forest.
After getting out of prison, Ian decided he had to go back to the forest to retrieve the research they had worked on. His erratic behavior wasn't because he was having a nervous breakdown, but because he knew that there was a good chance that the creature still existed and could potentially be deadly.
Anyway, that's my 5 cents. Hell of a lot better than just running out on to the road and stopping the first car that comes by to ask for help.
The Shepherd (2023)
Be careful how you die
So a pilot who dies decades earlier is destined to return as a spirit and rescue lost pilots for all eternity? Wearing the same clothes when they died and same plane they flew - that never runs out of fuel but has communication problems? Sounds like aviation purgatory. Save enough pilots and you graduate to heaven.
Heaven forbid that this was some poor plumber who died. Just imagine ending up in plumber's purgatory. You'll be tasked with rescuing people's toilets on Christmas Eve when all other plumbers are not available. You'll show up at someone's home who has a clogged toilet and spend time relieving it of all the crap that's built up. At the end of your movie, text will be displayed that reads:
"During the COVID pandemic, millions of people who hoarded toilet paper, were rescued by mysterious plumbers".
Organ Trail (2023)
A Western Terminator
The T-800 went back in time but screwed up on the target date and ended up in the 1800s. Oh, well, might as well take out John Connoe's great great grand dad instead.
I mean seriously, who didn't see the ending coming? He's unstoppable and relentless. He has no feeling and is nothing more than a cyborg wrapped in synthetic skin.
Don't get me started on how they can all be standing on a large frozen lake and not see someone fishing off in the distance. But hey, swimming under frozen water for a long distance and magically coming up in the only fishing hole on the entire lake is...well, very very plausible.
Good acting though. But definitely a B-rated movie where you don't mind losing some brain cells for a few hours.
Glass Onion (2022)
Not a very bright detective
Sure, we all know that the goal is to keep the audience guessing until the end to figure out "who done it". Toss in some odd hippie character who hardly has a role just to throw us off thinking it might be him.
But audiences have grown more intelligent over the years and use critical thinking and anyone watching the story unfold will be questioning how smart the detective is.
So one guy manages to smuggle in a smartphone but the detective doesn't? I mean, if you're goingto record evidence, you need a phone to take photos and record video. So why would he not smuggle one in and record Miles confessing to the crime?
It was fun to watch, but these movies could try harder and avoid swiss cheese holes in their plots by being more considerate to critical thinkers.
Blonde (2022)
Watch if your level of attention is 1 out 10
There's the film Elvis this year that really rivets you in place with the main character pulling off a great impersonation of the King of Rock and Roll. It has a great plot, character development that takes you through the highs and lows of many of the characters, but especially Elvis.
Blonde??
Nope. None of that. One of the worst films ever made. It leaves you feeling totally miserable and wondering whether whether watching paintdry for 3 hours really isn't a viable alternative.
The film lacks substance on every level. Are we suppose to feel sorry for Monroe or ridicule her for the choices she made?
The film is incredibly boring. You're better off watchiing something on YouTube to pass the time.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
Shakespeare meets Orcs
Who the hell did they hire to write the dialogue?? I came expecting some sort of similarity of dialogue to the Peter Jackson's Trilogy and NOT some shakespearean version.
Sure the visuals are great. But the dialogue is horrendous. It's cringe worthy. And for some odd reason, I didn't feel any empathy towards the main character. She seemed to have a single negative trait about everything. Not the greatest way to introduce a series.
And what's with the Irish accents? I mean, this is Middle Earth and not Ireland. Do we really need to have the cliche Irish accent to somehow convey "village people"?
Looks like this series is headed for the trashbin very soon.
Aliens, Abductions & UFOs: Roswell at 75 (2022)
Been there, done that
Regurigated material that has already been shown a million times already. Same stories, same people. Amazing how many of these dumb "documentaries" always ignore the Ruwe Zimbabwe incident where 60+ kids all saw beings. Guess two old ladies seeing a UFO on some deserted street back in the 50s has higher value than the Ruwe incident. Move along folks. Nothing to see.
Memory (2022)
A film you want to forget
Liam Neeson has reached the same lows as Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson and Nicolas Cage. An A-List actor taking roles in B-rated movies.
Many years ago, Neeson once said that he is "past his expiry date" and wouldn't be doing anymore action movies. Well here we are. Nothing more ridiculous than someone his age pretending he's some super action guy able to take on people half his age while battling Alzheimers.
This movie has nothing we haven't seen a million times already. I would have normally given this film a 5 star rating if some other less credible actor was its star. But given that Neeson took the role, this movie needs to be punished. Hopefully Neeson learns to stop taking offers for crap movies and get back to what he was once good at.
The Last Duel (2021)
Gladiator director has lost his touch
Ridley Scott can blame the Millennials all he wants for the bad box office response, but ultimately the director alone is responsible for the success of failure of a movie.
The Last Dual lacks all the elements of Gladiator that made that film a masterpiece. There was no one person the audience was rooting for or a real goal like Maximus to avenge the murder of his family. In The Last Dual, it's about Matt Damon's character seeking his own honor. What really killed this movie though is the fact that you actually were watching it twice over. The repeated re-enactment was totally useless. Was there suppose to be a different perspective the second time it was told? If so, it completely escaped our notice.
In the end, no one knows who was really right or wrong. And to be honest, nobody really cared. This is unlike Gladiator where we were drawn deep into Maximus and felt all his pain up until the end and kept rooting for him.
Ridley Scott should do like Quentin Tarantino plans on doing - quitting while he's ahead. Tarantino really is right about directors in Hollywood. They never know when to quit when they are in their prime.
They Who Surround Us (2020)
Canadian film makers just don't get it
Half hour in and there is no plot, no character dynamics, and dragged out scenes. When are Canadians going to stop producing crap films like this? If you are suffering from insomnia, this film is a sure cure.
Titane (2021)
Sci-Fi/Drama?? lol
If you enjoy watching boring, senseless, plotless movies, this one's for you. If on the other hand you want to watch something worthy of your time, watch "Escape from Mogadishu" - You'll thank me for this advice.
Old Henry (2021)
Low budget had the potential but blew it
The film was okay but certainly not worth more than 6 stars. The good acting tries to make up for the shallow plot but not much can redeem this movie. The ending with its reveal of the main character being Billy the Kid was kind of weird. I mean, if you're going to go down that path, you might as well as have chosen Clark Kent or Peter Parker. It just made no sense. Billy the Kid may have killed 8 people in real life, but he sure as hell wasn't some highly skilled shooter that could take on a dozen men single handedly.
Misery (1990)
When you treat your audience like idiots
The movie started off nicely, but when it got to the part where the sheriff is reading the books in bed and then decides to write down a quotation from it on a piece of paper, and then later goes to look at some newspaper archives and opens a volume to some random page and finds the exact quote, you know that the film producers think the audience is a bunch of imbiciles to buy that. Amazing how a fillm with that kind of stupidity can get such high ratings is beyond me. Oh, and let's not forget about the moment before he goes to the news archives that the woman almost hits a car right in front of him while he's sitting in the office.
Sorry, but if this was from Stephen King, it is truly one of his dumbest works. No comparison to The Shawshank Redemption.
Triumph (2021)
These kinds of movies have been done to death
The movie wasn't bad, but neither was it good. Just mediocre. There was nothing in it that had you gripping to watch more and if you stopped watching it after half an hour, you really wouldn't have missed anything.
There are simply way too many of these kinds of movies where some person is considered an underdog due to circumstances and tries to rise above the situation to achieve something nobel. But in this film, the.protaganist's goal is to win at wrestling in spite of his disability. If this had been a story of someone succeeding in the Olympics, this might be interesting. But by the end of film, he doesn't really achieve his goal. And that girl that seems to be "into him" has no real interest beyond casual friendship.
This is not one of those films where you come away from it feelingn inspired because even though the protaganist has cerebral palsy working against him, we all have something in life working against us. It isn't just sheer will power that helps us overcome. Luck plays a certain role in success for all of us. There was nothing in the film that even remotely addressed the "luck" part of his journey.
Personally, I think producers would be better off searching for more inspirational scripts than wasting their money on a mediocre one.
Nomadland (2020)
Where's the plot?
I watched for an hour but it was clear the movie had zero plot. Just randomly following the lead character around doesn't make a plot. Even an hour in, there wasn't anything that grabbed my attention or made me want to look forward to what was coming next. It's a film that hasn't decided whether it wants to be a documentary or a feature film.
Even with only one main character, I felt no connection to her. No highs or lows - kind of like living a boring life with a 9 to 5 job where you have nothing to really get excited about.
Come True (2020)
Had potential but ran out of steam
The thing that bothered me the most about the film was that it would at times try to hype up the horror at certain points where you thought something really bad was going to happen and nothing materialized. This happened way too often.
Then there was the long dragged out scenes that added nothing. This movie could have been done in 90 minutes or less.
About the only nice thing was the soundtrack from Electric Youth. As far as Im concerned, this is just another poor film produced by Canadians in a long list of poor quality films. Canadian film makers just don't seem to get it.
Hayom Sheachrey Lechti (2019)
Very empty and unmoving
The film can be summed up with 3 words: sitting, silence and talking. And that's about it. There is barely any drama in this film. You don't feel attached to any of the characters. The lead actor, who plays the father, seems like a monotone lifeless cardboard cutout. He shows virtually no emotion. And his daughter is much the same. It's a tragedy that there are so many directors who haven't got the foggiest clue how to make an engaging film even when they have a low budget. You won't miss anything if you don't watch this film. Your time would be better spent watching something like cat videos instead.
Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash (2020)
Couldn't relate to a single character
The story was too overdramatized. A couple of incompetent pilots flying a broken down plane carrying a bunch of drug addicts just wasn't something I could get into. I never felt any pity with the exception for Cassie.
Leaving Neverland (2019)
An inspiration to victims of sexual, physical or psychological abuse
This is by far the most compelling documentary on allegations of Michael Jackson's sexual abuse. Make no mistake, it is entirely focused on exposing Jackson in what critics will claim as being a one-sided presentation without any interviews of Jackson's family members or other children who stayed at Neverland. The video's length of 4 hours, which some argue is too long, was in my opinion necessary to present enough detailed information to build the credibility of the two witnesses, Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck. If you've never heard of Michael Jackson and watched this video with no bias, I am convinced that you will find the testimony very believable.
While I am no fan of Michael Jackson, I did find some of his music and videos entertaining and would certainly never deny Jackson was talented. But like most people who grow up with influences by superstars like Jackson, we tend to become intoxicated with their fame and bigger than life persona - to such a degree that we cannot possibly come to grips that allegations of sexual abuse by these people is even possible, because by doing so, we essentially admit we were gullible enough to swallow the public narrative with hook, line and sinker. And yet we want to consider ourselves intelligent, reasonable and not influenced by emotional forces that we very much align with, even if we cannot admit that there is a very real possibility that we are wrong.
What makes Leaving Neverland compelling is that it touches on the side of human nature that you will almost never see in a courtroom. If you've ever wondered why these two witnesses gave a different testimony in court when Jackson was charged, this film goes into a lot of depth to explain why that happened. The details are so graphic, that it cannot be recommended for children.
What makes the testimony of Robson and Safechuck very believable is that they were willing to lose something of significant value by coming forward, and that was their relationships with their mothers. Long before this film was even made, they both went through a long and devastating psychological turmoil of coming to grips with the abuse that happened by Jackson. It was only after Jackson died were they able to find the freedom to confront their family about it. The impact this had on their relationships with their mothers was overwhelming. Robson's own sister feared that their mother would commit suicide. Both these mothers had to face the fact that they were oblivious with the abuse because they could not believe that it was possible, in spite of the fact that any normal human being would be very appalled to learn that their son was sleeping in the same bed as a strange man. If anything, this really drives the point home that we are easily blinded by someone's fame. It should be noted that even at the end of the film, there isn't a real reconciliation between the two witnesses and their mothers. These women have to now live with the fact that they failed their children. But I will give them credit for being candid and willing to go on camera for the record.
Jackson was a pedophile and went to his grave with a glorious funeral memorial broadcast to billions around the world. It's how he would have wanted to be remembered. But at the end of the film, Dobson showed us how he remembered Jackson and how we all should. Jackson told him one day as a child to take any jacket out of his closet and could keep it as a gift. Robson took the famous red jacket that Jackson wore in the Thriller video. But at the end of the film, he took it, along with all the other memorabilia and burnt it. That is how we should remember Jackson. Not as a talented superstar, but as a pedophile who caused a lifetime amount of harm to countless children. His name should be obliterated. To Robson and Safechuck, I commend them for being brave to come forward even after all these years. It's never too late. They will no doubt inspire many others to do the same. If anything, this film and the testimony of Robson and Safechuck should inspire anyone who has experienced abuse, whether that be sexual, physical or psychological.