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bricemavillaz
Reviews
8MM (1999)
One of the bleakest film I've ever seen.
First time we saw this one was on tape with the fam in front of the tv next to the chimney on a grey, cold november sunday when the sun sets down at 5pm in 1999.
None of us talked the evening afterward because we were all profoundly depressed, and drained after watching this flick. And we were all fans of Se7en.
A brilliant yet soul-grinding flick, with a top notch casting that all do their best, Joel Schumacher including, delivering probably one of the best film in his filmography.
As in "Robocop", Schumasher faces a very, VERY dark movie and subject matter head-on, without fear and hammers the point to the very end, regardles of audience opinion.
I understand why this movie is "underated", because it's bleaker than "seul contre tous". It's a tad less disturbing than say "requiem for a dream" or other "hard to watch" films like "the house that jack built", because the whole production is awesome and the rythm and cutting is very expedient and brutal. At the end, you ask yourslef, as the characters, or as in "funny games, "why am I watching this ?". Witch is the whole point of the film : "because you can".
The filmography is excellent, (alternating near B/W and brightful colourful darkness), the soundtrack is an instant classic.
A profoundly sincere, unrelenting, black, horrible flick about the deapths of human depravity that won't leave you unscarred, a classic for the ages.
Infinity Pool (2023)
N'est pas Kronenberg qui veut
Very boring and pretentious movie that tries very much to be hardcore and miserabily fails. A weird borefest made by a canadian. Mia goth shouls stop shaving her eyebrows. Millenials hitting the movie scene with all the lazinness they are known for.
Very boring and pretentious movie that tries very much to be hardcore and miserabily fails. A weird borefest made by a canadian. Mia goth shouls stop shaving her eyebrows. Millenials hitting the movie scene with all the lazinness they are known for. Yeah i just repeated a whole paragraph just like brandon usually does. A POS movie, very over rated.
A PRETENTIOUS, BORING SLOG.
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
Tedious
I've made it to the end. That by itself is an achievement.
Who are we supposed to care about ? Where's the gore ? Where's the dark humour ? Where are the actors ? Where is the script ?
Are people out of their minds blowing millions on utter crap ?
This is what happens when millenials hit the workspace.
Unfortunately, chat GPT can't teach anyone about the meaning of "passion", neither can it can infuse motivation in a braindead mind.
Bottomless, empty and depressing void this movie was. One of these movies you praise cell phones for existing and curse the toilets for being so far away.
The director should be shot in the face for spoiling his spot as a "director".
Breakfast of Champions (1999)
When you think of all the work and money that went into this...
...incoherent, weird, pointless movie.
I think even the director didn't really know what he was doing.
It's surreal for sure, in a way nothing makes sense in this flick...reminded me of a less obscene version of "the holy mountain", somewhat less boring because it's shorter.
I think no people ever understood this movie because it's completely absurd and pointless, it is bizarre, bafling, pretty boring...looks like a weird acid trip of a script that just exists for the sake of existing.
Not really recommended, even for people into massively abstract films and randomness all over the place.
What a weird piece of mindnumbingly incomprehensible endeavour. Who was this made for, what public ? My guess is no one. A random thing that happenned on itself through absurd bureaucracy, just like in cube.
Rawhead Rex (1986)
4 for the visual effects at the very end
And 4 points for you, who managed to not fall asleep in front of this tediously amateurish BORING MOVIE.
An utter bore of a film, one of the few I had to fight through to the end, and I'm quite fond of clive barker. But this ain't "hellraiser" or "midnight meat train" folks. It's all cardigans and lighting so bleack and uninspired you'll feel like punching your tv back to life.
The character design is one of the most ridiculous, laughable creature ever set on film, one of these latex messes that make you feel ashamed of yourself if someone walks in the room and catches you watching this.
Final words : it's VERY long, take "boring" and stretch it out to "beyond boring".
Martyrs (2008)
A geniune career-ender.
When you go beyond the shock value, this movie has not a lot to go with : impressive set design and photography but that's about it.
Story-wise, it's one of these movies you have to see once in a half : once to soke up the brutality and relentless sadistic violence of the flick, (wait a while and digest), and one half to see how garbage the rest of the production really is.
The acting is TERRIBLE, (and I'm french, I seriously hope english speakers found good dubbing), none of the actors who appeared in this flick ever had a career and neither did the director, pascal laugier.
The story and plot doesn't make a lick of sense once you scratch off all of the gore, shock-value vernier.
Shocking on first watch (back in 2005), it crumbles down upon second viewings thanks to the absolute incompetence of the director, writer and "actors".
3/10 for set design and photography.
It Chapter Two (2019)
Career killer
Well, the only good thing about turkeys this size is they get rid of maccavoy's, wolfhard's and chastain's careers in one fell swoop.
Good god damned riddance.
2 strikes for bill though.
Let us all not remember this ruin.
Trauma (2017)
EXPLOITATION
-Stupid script;
-stupid dialogue;
-gratuitious nudity and full frontals galore;
-stupid "based on a true story" BS historical context with the Chilean dictatorship (exploiting history and victims);
-shock for the sake of shocking;
-confused plot;
-plot holes;
Etc.
Not much to say about this one, it tries to top aA Serbian Film but fails because ASF, how exploitative it might be, actually has a somewhat coherent plot.
This grabbage doesn't.
A tedious watch, where the overall garbageness overwhelms everything else.
Mank (2020)
Dreadfuly boring and much too long
I get that it was Fincher's father's script and that makes it a very personnal endeavour.
I have a lot of respect for the classics, gary oldman's acting, and david fincher's talent.
But i call this self indulgence.
Just like bjork and radiodhead did before, mr Fincher made a movie for himself and not the audience.
Thk god garbage netflix was behind this.
That a sure way to alienate a lot of people, choose a very niche film school subject, add an actor that's barely comprehensible throughout the whole flick (he's drunk 30's style), the absence of fincher's trademark visual genius, and bore the tears out of your audience.
3 points for quotes from cervantes and 1 point for having a title.
A movie few will care about, I'm afraid.
The Square (2017)
NOT a caricature or a parody : this movie tells it like it is
People who think this movie is exaggerated, people who think this movie is a satire should try and go to a contemporary art exhibition someday.
If they have a couple of hours to waste.
Unfortunately, nothing about this movie is satirical or cynical. Being from an art school, I can confirm this movie really tells it like it is. Having been forcibly dragged to countless exhibitions, I quickly realize this bunch of posh herd is only here for the free booze, the free canapés, but MOSTLY to show their faces. I quit this world altogether when I realized it had nothing to do with genuine talent, hard work, inspiration, and everything to do with superficiality, egotism big bucks and self-obsession.
Welcome to the world of appearances and utter superficiality, welcome to the world of make-believe, welcome to the world of pathologic selfishness and narcissism.
Everyone gets nailed in this movie : the naive inconsistent curators who barely understand the BS that comes out of their mouths, the incompetent, coke fueled communication team that doesn't have a clue what its doing and resorts to the laziest shock value schlock to pass their "message", the pseudo-intellectual BS artists who listen to themselves talk spewing their indigestible mess of jargon, the crowds of bewildered, bored morons that stare at these people with fake looks of admiration on their mugs pretending they understand what he's talking about, the emptiness, the pointlessness of this world that glorifies superficiality as if it were a virtue.
The protagonist is clueless and lost during the whole film, self obsessed with his little rich man problems, all the while spelling wise about altruism and solidarity, gradually painting himself in a corner through his own carelessness, stupidity and egotism.
Every initiative he takes catastrophically backfires, painting the portrait of an overpaid, overprivileged, self-absorbed idiot who can't seem to be capable of critical thinking, who is in way over his head and who lost control and barely understands the world that made him rich in the first place.
Perhaps because there's nothing to understand about the contemporary art world. Just a bunch of obscenely rich, bored, empty people that don't know what to do with their money, so they blow it all on ugly canvases "painted" by the latest popular "artist" to appear sophisticated and cultured, when they barely even know or care what they bought is supposed to represent. The kind of people who show up in "installations" of "happenings" just to say they were there, that frequent museums just to pass off as sophisticated people.
You know what I'm talking about, everyone at least once ran into these ridiculous, self-absorbed, overprivileged pompous empty shells that systematically p1ss the hell out of everyone with their unbearable make pretend behaviors and the obnoxious unwarranted pretentiousness that oozes from every one of their pores.
It's about high time this clique of unproductive, lazy, despicable egotists had their noses rubbed in their own filth, and the director certainly achieved the objective : seeing how EVERY artsy fartsy, pretentious publication (that are equally guilty of all the crimes this review has pointed out so far) absolutely HATED the film, he clearly hit right where it hurts.
So how does it feel to be called out for your despicable charades, your lies, your unacceptable behavior, rich white people ?
Thought no one figured out what was really going on ?
Turns out the pleb is not as stupid as you think, and this film makes sure all these overprivileged, spoiled, unworthy vermin know everyone caught up with their BS.
Granted, the movie IS overlong and could have been 40mns shorter, but one can't help but think this is done on purpose : after all, this movie is about a bunch of totally disconnected elites that spend hours upon hours talking about nothing with 5 syllable words to sound smart, masturbating over the utter void that is their existence.
The choice of music equally feels like a hidden message : the band justice is brought up more than a couple of times, and is known mostly for being a poor man's daft punk that exploited the "french touch" scene for quick bucks and celebrity. As of today, this band of merry frauds has completely vanished, and barely anyone plays their songs or talk about them anymore.
Just another instance of opportunistic pseudo artists in it for the fame and the money that mask their utter lack of talent, creativity or involvement with smug attitudes, arrogant posturing and ridiculous, meaningless jargon. The "mouthed" main theme itself soon becomes annoying and obnoxious, itself being another example of pointless, uninteresting fluff, pushed to the thresholds of ridiculousness by people so divorced from reality they don't even realize how laughable their "art" has become.
I watched this movie after I read a piece that called BS on the whole contemporary art world and told everything like it really is. That's exactly what this movie does.
However absurd or exaggerated this movie might seem, always keep in mind that these people DO exist, and none of their behaviors in the movie are exaggerated or blown out of proportion. THIS IS WHAT THE "ELITE" WORLD OF ARTS REALLY IS.
A scandalous bunch of idle, bored, spoiled, jaded, dead inside people that care about nothing but themselves, but yet are never condemned by their unacceptable, absurd, antisocial and selfish behaviors. A bunch of millionaires that contribute to nothing in society, a clear-cut case of utterly useless people that we dare call "the elite".
This film knocks them square in the teeth, and to me, it's totally deserved, to me, that's a 6.
Because it IS ultimately a little boring and pointless. But the subject itself is boring and pointless : truth be told, there's nothing to talk about when it comes to the deceitful and utterly shallow world of contemporary art : just a bunch of rich nobodies that love to hear themselves talk about nothing in particular. Hard to make an interesting film with such a lackluster and superficial subject.
Interstellar (2014)
the usual lifeless, boring, pretentious nolan turkey
I'm trough with Nolan since Inception, and this one just hammers all the flaws that were made obvious since the latter.
Stylish cinematography and shootyshooty bang bang scenes don't equate to what I'd call a good movie.
Starts off pretty good, with a fascinating concept.
But Nolan's just good at inventing interesting premises and serving them with -merely- interesting cinematography, and that's about it.
He's terrible at dialogues and characters, he's soul-less, boring, robotic, and systematically shoots himself in the foot with high brow concepts he can't develop properly.
All of his "groundbreaking" ideas always boil down to lacklustre gimmicks, and his movies end up as generic action flicks that barely stand up to turds such as "die another day".
Inception was derivative as hell, this one was just plain boring and cringy all the way (Hathaway and McConaughey are doing their usual thing : playing as themselves and being beyond obnoxious and annoying), Michael Cane just plays every Michael Cane part in every CN movies, Matt Damon is barely there, the script is bad, the dialogues are snoozy and ridiculous, the ending is an atrocious naive mess (LOVE IS THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAAAGE gimme a break, seriously).
Nolan's last 4 movies are utter garbage, and Tenet is by far the worst.
I really liked memento. I thought Dark Knight was ok for an immature comic book flick.
Objectively, Nolan isn't a good director, he's superficial, only good at visuals, pretentious, and overall boring and self-absorbed. He couldn't write a decent story or interesting characters to save his life, he's about as emotionally gifted as a broken toaster.
Really glad that people are finally realizing that Nolan is a one trick pony with Tenet.
I think it's high time people acknowledge how mediocre of a director Nolan is.
Go shoot music videos and ads Chris, movies just aren't your thing.
Street Trash (1987)
Punk garbage movie by educated and refined people
Hello, anti political correctness fiends, this movie is for you.
It's not afraid, it's got solid bronze bullocks.
Best part is, you can tell it's well-made (for the 80's with $10 000), obviously by people how have notions of cinematography, editing, sounds, etc...
and are hellbent on making the most offensive thing ever, who cares, just do it.
It's grimy, rude, smelly all the way, it's a big cinematic F off to the academy.
The 80's punk spirit "let's piss off mom and dad that vote for reagan/thatcher".
Disgusting, unapologetic, cynical piece of funny garbage, Street Trash revels into anything sordid, a pure solid gold piece of 80's DIY anti-yuppy filmaking ragefest pushed by careless script writing, hilarious garbage acting, and some of the stupidest dialogue I've ever heard.
You can tell the whole crew is in on it, and it's worth all the showers you'll need after watching it.
Pretty good film.
Booksmart (2019)
Wow so Olivia Wilde is a director now...
...check that : she isn't.
This is as bad as it gets. I suppose I'm much too old to find any of this funny or enjoyable.
Every cliché from the past 5 years is thoroughly represented in this movie.
Dialogue sounds fake, and is not as witty or funny than in other comparable films, characters are cheaply written, skin deep and annoying...just derivative from start to finish.
You know those cliché obnoxious sarcastic teen characters we've been getting by the truckload ever since "darla" was a thing?
This film pretty much amounts to nothing else than this : an hour and 40mns of self intitled whining and witless dialogue.
You think ironic slo mo montages with gangsta rap playing in the background is getting old and obnoxious? Wait till you see this film. Or don't.
As said before, take Superbad, remove the sincerity, the humour and the originality and you end up with this.
Back to the drawing board Wilde : next time try to come up with things of your own instead of rehashing stuff that was already made 10 times better by other more talented -and sincere- people.
The Endless (2017)
Probably in the top ten "lovecraftian" movies BUT...
...wanted to give this one a 6 because of confusing and shoddy writing past the second act.
For a low budget flick the cinematography looks great, and so do the visual effects.
The acting is kind of average but it never gets so bad it pulls you out of the film.
The mood is really faithfull to the lovecraft vibe, that's why i gave this film an extra point. Seldom do filmmakers manage to achieve that.
The whole film doesn't feel exactly "pro", you can tell the filmakers don't have a lot of experience in filmaking.
Nevertheless, the mood is so well done you forgive them, they totally nailed the lovecraftian feel.
A little amateurish but a good film nonetheless, with pretty good visual ideas, a lot of original ideas you never saw elsewhere before and a nice build up of tension. lovecraft fans will not be disappointed.
Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
MadMel and his dellusions of being a director
To start off I'll say I don't have anything per say against Gibson but I never really took him seriously as an actor.
As a director, he's even more difficult to be reconned with.
I guess that's what happens when everyone tells Mel "Braveheart" was top notch movie making : after a while he fancies himself a competent director.
Which he never was. Braveheart was meh +. Apocalypto and Passion of Christ were meh -. I stopped bothering with Gibson's movies until I saw the reviews for this one. But knowing of Gibson's director chops and the unreliability of internent ratings, I knew what I was getting in to.
And disapointed I was not. Gibson's not a good director, and he proves it once more with this below average run of the mill war flick.
The movie is a collection of ideas ripped off from every classic war movies :
-The sructure is ripped off Full Metal Jacket (1st part boot camp, second part war : as in FMJ we skip directly from the US barracks to the theatre of operations, the ripoff couldn't be more obvious);
-The combat scenes clearly take their cue from Saving Private Ryan, except Mel turns up the volume to 10 so out flies the realism by the window. Apparently in Gibson's mind, a battlefield is full of guys doing dramatic backflips when hit by artillery shells;
-A somewhat borgeonning Barnes/Elias relationship (between the movie's equivalent of Animal Mother and the protagonist) that never goes past a 2mn scene;
-The production design is shot shot for identical to "The Thin Red Line"'s.
This movie is Mel ripping off ideas left and right while being completely incapable of coming up with something that hasn't been done before and bashing you in the face with constant religious sermons.
Plus there are a ton of others aspects that drag it down :
-its 30mns too long, some of the scenes are just rehashes of previous scenes and completely dispensable. The first act in particular : gibson hammers and HAMMERS the main character's motivation until you get sick of hearing him;
-the character devellopment is paper thin. Here's Hollywood : he's got big muscles and a mustache ; here's whatshisname, he's italian ; and here's Bill : he's american. It's so superficial that once you see all the guys in full battle gear and covered in mud, you literally can't tell them appart;
-Garfield is terrible, whiny and annoying; he's just a bad actor (thank god the fad around this guy died out). He's supposed to portray the main character as a very humane, caring guy with a tough as nails moral system, but Garfield plays the part like he's the village idiot. The romance is completely unbelievable. I don't know a lot of women that would fall for a naive, dorky looking kid just staring at them without saying a word with a big, idiotic smile on his face. It makes his character extremely hard to attach to and situations barely logical. Garfield just doesn't convey the willpower or moral strenght of a character that is ready to go through court martial for his ideas. And it makes the whole premice of "guy going to war without ever touching a gun" completely absurd and unbeleivable. A lot of times through the first act I thought to myslef "can't beleive this is based on a true story";
-incoherences, tropes, and clichés GALORE;
-so ALL the military staff from a particular barracks is enterily shipped to a certain theatre of operations? How are they going to train other soldiers if they send all the instructors to the frontlines? No way Doss would end up on the battlefield with ALL the characters he interracted with so far;
-movie has a lot of scenes that are just illogical or don't make any sense : a wounded japanese soldier doesn't signal his mates when they are walking less than 3 feet from him; a lot of characters are shown getting shot to pieces but a lot miraculously survive (hollywood was clearly a gonner, but hold on -nope- here he is at the end, only slighlty wounded and conscious while he took 3 bullets to the chest);
-during the first battle scene and throughout most of the movie doss runs around LOADED with medical supplies even though he just used 75 bandages, 150 shots of morphine and 50 bottles of plasma. That little satchel of his sure holds a ton of gear;
-scrawny little guy spends the whole night dragging guys that are twice his weight under artillery shelling without ever collapsing from exhaustion and is ready to go again the next morning...good thing his fate allows him to ignore basic biological limitations right Mel?
-the portrayal of time passing by is just ridiculous; the war in the pacific was absolutely grueling and happened over months : her we see a bataillon freshly arriving in japan from a boot camp : they manage to push the japanese back. Then they get pushed back. Then they run back to the beach. The go back up there once and bingo : surrender, victory, the US wins. Feels like the whole movie happens over a 3 day timespan. Might I remind Mr Gibson the historical scholar that without the atomic bomb the japanese would never have quit and had the US in a dire situation up until Hiroshima? That the bomb was used because it was USA's last resort in the pacific theatre?
That japanese soldiers never hung themselves and intead used grenades and seppuku to commit suicide?
That an assault delayed by ten minutes because some dude is praying would probably disrupt the whole battle tactic and would certainly result in terrible losses and casualties? That refusing to execute a direct order only to wait for 10 minutes would mean court martial for the entire squad?
That famous military victories like waterloo would have never happened if Napoleon had to wait on X dude to take a dump and Y dude to finish his lunch to launch a crucial assault?
That a character that has spent the film fighting tooth and nail saying he'll never handle a gun, getting beat up for it, being court martial, just doesn't pick up a rifle at the end for no reasons whatsoever only to drop it 1mn later?
That a japanese sniper so good he can hit a flying helmet misses a guy crawling over a ditch?
This film was boring, formulaic, unoriginal, and borderline amateurish. Mel, you just don't wake up one morning thinking "hey, I'll shoot Platoon today, doesn't look that hard right?". YES it is that hard. Because Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, Platoon and all the best war movies all had a ton of work, historical research and dedication involved in their production.
This cannot be said of Gibson's wet dream of a war movie; and I'm starting to suspect mel is a certified gorehound and one of the reasons he makes movies is to show gruesome displays of bloody violence. That totally contradicts the religious sermons he bashes us in the face with throughout the movies.
It's like he's saying "yeah war is atrocious and religion prevails overall but hold on, take a look at that shot of a guy being ripped to shreds by a shell, isn't that cool? And how about this shot of of a bloke getting his face obliterated by a bullet? BOOM HEADSHOT lulz!".
And of course, the hypocritical, religious, holier than though message is so heavy handed Gibson alienates any viewer who doesn't have faith. In fact, it shows, voluntarily or not, how religious people sometimes paint themselves in a corner with their own beliefs...one or two scenes show the main character clearly stopping in his tracks and going : "hold on, none of this makes a lick of sense, what the hell am I doing exactly?". Well bad news Mel, that's also what the audience is thinking.
Not a second of your fanflick makes a bit of sense. Another moronic run of the mill mediocre film filled to the brim with unrealistic situations, padding, clichés and tropes rated 8+ on imdb. This is Mel playing boom boom with his toy soldiers while firmly gripping his bible with the other hand.
Superficial, shallow, predictable (hey that double looped rope is going to come in handy later on, amyright Mel?), bland and boring.
Vacancy (2007)
Another one of these stupid movies so full of unrealistic behaviors it actually turns annoying
And of course, highly rated by a bunch of mentally deficient morons that all think they're movie critics.
I don't feel like spending an hour writing about this boring idiotic drivel so here we go : film problem : couple "stuck" in a motel with 3 normal guys after them. Solution : open the door (yeah, it isn't closed) and run to the woods. Problem solved. Here. Film over, now go do something else that's actually enjoyable.
A couple of very annoying characters (played by otherwise good actors) spend an hour an a half sitting there in an ugly motel waiting to get murdered by threats so unintimidating and mundane you don't really care about anything that happens. Suspension of disbelief? Not gonna happen in this one. you'll however certainly feel a growing annoyance because apparently both characters have never heard of fight or flight instinct that takes over the behavior of any normally constituted mammal in order you know, for you to not get killed while you're sitting on your ass. You know what also stands around waiting to be butchered? Cattle. And the only reason they're not running for their lives is that they can't. Stupid movie, directed by a stupid director, for stupid people. 6+ yeah sure...bunch of tasteless, ignorant idiots. When I think about the MILLIONS invested in half baked turds such as " a quiet place" or this POS, directed by amateurish morons that don't have a clue to what they are doing it makes me sick. What a total waste of EVERYTHING : money, time, good actors, my patience...EVERYTHING.
Annihilation (2018)
Pretty good !
When I heard that this movie was deemed "too smart for audiences", I said to myself that oughta be good. Turns out it IS pretty good...but not that smart.
This isn't 2001 folks, and isn't mind-melting to understand, it's pretty straightforward.
This movie's more abstract and contemplative than smart. I guess this is why they thought the audience wouldn't get it.
It feels a LOT like Tarkovski's STALKER, you can't help but think the movie had a major influence on Annihilation. But apparently not. I'm suspicious. There's one shot in particular that really rings a bell (shot of an electric pole in the wilderness). Whatever, if you liked Stalker you'll clearly like this one.
The visuals are superbly done, and a weird, oniric, dreamlike feel permeates throughout the movie. The music and sound also also particularly good and perfectly match what you see on screen, and make the whole thing a trippy experience.
This movie is kindofa mood piece first and foremost, the pace is pretty slow (not lethargic-10mn-long shots-slow), but it is hard to classify : it's got horror parts, a lot of sci-fi, but the whole thing is wrapped in soft and poetic visuals. The "zone" (shimmer") the film takes place in is really beautifully rendered, calm, full of vibrant colors and seldom feels threatening.
That's one of the best aspect of this movie : never is it made clear if the "thing" is hostile or not, or if "it" even knows about good or evil.
The story is solid (although the narration is not straightforward and skips in time, which contributes to the "dream" feeling) and so is the acting. Isaac plays it REALLY low this time and it's always great to see him on screen, I usually find nataly portman emotionless and cold but I finally enjoyed her a little more in this one. Nice seeing Jennifer Jason Leigh again (i felt really old tho!) and the three other leads are decent and convincing.
I'm not too sure about the "team mate snaps" subplot, they had to find a way to get rid of the characters I guess, but it still feels a little gratuitous and unnecessary. Apart from that, there's not much to complain about.
All the science seems to add up (no tech jumbo here tho, or the bare minimum to understand what's happening), and there where no improbable nonsense situations that pull you out of the film for being too unrealistic and leave you cursing at the director in your seat for thinking you're an idiot. None of that here, and that really felt good. More films like these please !
Really good movie I can't recommend enough for people who don't mind slow paced plot development, and very atmospheric, visual and "moody" movies.
There's not much of it but it's pretty brutal on the gore so be warned about that. And weirdly that doesn't snap you out of the cozy feeling you feel throughout the film. This film was clearly shot with a dream state in mind and not as a nightmare. That's one of its weird charms. And the whole "dream vibe" really serves the metaphysical and "mystic" aspects of the script, overall it kinda feels like a weird spiritual experience. And I have to say, that's one of the best alien being rendition I've seen on screen so far : clearly living but yet completely abstract and indescribable. That's the closest thing I imagine aliens could look like : absolutely not like us and way beyond what we can understand.
Again i get the movie's not really for everyone, but if you like subtlety, maturity, great visuals and a engaging atmosphere for a change, treat yourself with this one. Really good! Alex Garland is clearly a guy to watch out for.
Hereditary (2018)
A great quality watch but a bit overrated
After hearing much ravings about this one, I gave it a go. Unfortunately and as always, it doesn't live up to its hype (so never believe it). Awesome actors (Byrne and Collett were oustanding as always), though Alex Wollf delivers a very flat and dull performance. It fits his character but it does a disservice to the actor. Hereditary's main stand out point is it doesn't rely on cheap jumpscares to work, it knows how to build tension and mood in a mature and smart way, using slow shots and a truly remarkable soundtrack. However, the movie could have been 10 to 20mns shorter, I think it would have helped the rhythm, which feels kinda slow and dragging in some points. I also thought the ending was kind of underwhelming, you see it coming from three miles away (though the movie delivers what's expected, it doesn't "pretend" it's going to surprise you with a twist ending). Clues are peppered throughout the movie starting at the very beginning, but in my opinion they're way too obvious and literal...kinda feels like the director thinks you're a very thick person that doesn't get subtle clues. The other thing I disliked about the ending is that it's too explicit...I wish the director would have gone for a less "in your face" approach for the finale, and maintained a kind of "did this really happen?" vibe. As it is, I feel the ending (the 5 final minutes) is redundant and hammers in what has been established throughout the movie. Great film, solid horror movie, definitely worth a watch, but in my opinion the director lacks maturity and has a tendency to hammer in what should have been better left implied and suggested. It would have been a really great film if the director, talented as he his, wouldn't have treated the audience like 12 year olds that need explicit scenes to understand the underlying message. Really good horror movie, but not nearly as awesome as everyone says it is. This speaks volumes how low the public's standards have fallen, thanks to useless and exploitative garbage like paranormal activity, people now seeing a decent horror movie call it a masterpiece. It's good, but nowhere near the gem it's heralded as. And the director, although lacking in maturity, is definitely someone to watch out for. A good 6.5/10.
The Dead Don't Die (2019)
Jarmusch wanted to do a zombie movie and doesn't care what you think
By far the worst movie from Jarmusch thus far. This film brings absolutely nothing new to the table, its a careless and redundant collection of zombie clichés. It's really a shame because all the actors are excellent (especially Swinton and Muray), but it's so drab even their performances can't save the film. The few touches of absurdity barely manage to make the film worthwhile. This movie is so unbelievably flat and unoriginal that I can't really write about it...it just feels careless through and through, a great disservice to the actor's performances. It really feels like Jarmusch just wanted to do a zombie film for the heck of it. By far the most minimalist movie from the director, and not in a good way...by the end it just feels like he gives up. Definitely not an undispensable watch, you can skip this one you won't miss much.
Lords of Chaos (2018)
A potentially great story ruined by a director that has no clue what he's doing
Saw this one yesterday night, as a regular wiever, as was disapointed; as a metalhead who was 14 when all of this happened, I was ashamed and embarrassed. I 've lived through these times and it reaaaaaaally doesn't feel like what i experienced. All the grittiness, uneasiness and depravity that this scene conveys were completely tossed in the trash (and the director was a session drummer for Bathory...supposedly).
The tone is all over the place. It starts as a light comedy (a movie about black metal...seriously??), switches to social drama near the middle, and ends up as a horror thriller. Most of the actors are TERRIBLE and really don't resemble the people they are supposed to portray. The guy playing vikarnes is ESPECIALLY BAD, every line he speaks, every look he gives is so overly exagerated it pulls you straight out of the movie and makes you want to slap him in the face (that's made worst by the fact that he's already playing an obnoxious character). Rory Culkin is meh, he doesn't look intimidating at all, but gets a pass because he at least mildly ressembles the guy he's portraying. But for a guy supposed to have a lot charisma and wits, he passes of as a shy geek who has no clue what he's doing. All the other characters are rarely named and all look alike, so you have no clue who's who during the whole film and quickly stop caring about them.
You're quickly left with only 4 main characters, one of which never existed (ferreira) and an other one that disappears halfway through the film (the guy playing Dead - awful).
The only part that I kinda enjoyed is the part where Dead and Euronymous live together in a cabin in the woods, because it's the only part that closely ressembles the real thing. But unfortunately the guys playing Dead is a really bad actor, his (short) part consists of worried stares into nothingness and terrible, terrible monosyllabic lines.
Speaking of wich, the things that drags this movie down the most is the dialogue. Who wrote this garbage? Because it really feels like he didn't feel like it. This movie has some of the worst dialogues I've ever heard in a movie...it honnestly sounds like this :
-"hi" -"hey" -"whats up" -"nothing" SCREAMS -"saaaaataaaaaan". Special mention to "what are you, a f*ùking CHICKEN??" (edgy right?? and that's one of the most well written line). It honnestly doesn't get better than this. Rarely have i heard such uninspired and mundane dialogue in a film, it all sounds like small talk you'd hear at a random bus stop. AWFUL, BORING dialogue from start to finish.
The movie almost never focuses on the musical production and the concerts, and instead chooses to emphasize the criminal activity, from church burnings to stabbings. Speaking of which, the director really seams to LOVE stabbings, because the two scenes where stabbings occure are drawn out to a ridiculous extent.
And i'll rapidly mention the fact that bits of comedy randomly pop up here and there, which makes the whole thing look even more like a random mess. "tea anyone?".
To sum it up this movie doesn't know what it wants to be, 90% of the actors are TERRIBLE, the dialogue and actor direction are laughably bad and the director should stick to making music videos, because appart from the visuals this guy has clearly no clue what he's doing.
An average watch for anyone into metal (kind of makes you ashamed of being a metalhead though, talk about a backfire), a dreadful, messy and mindless bore to anyone else. Worth 5 stars out of ten TOPS, rating this movie above proves you don't really like quality cinema and have no clue of how it's supposed to be done. A potentially interesting story completely ruined by an imature director and terrible actors and dialogues.
It Follows (2014)
Slow, boring, with a stupid premise
I guess you have to be american and under 16 to feel invested in this movie.
Being european, i don't have the point of view americans have on underage sex.
Unmarried sex before marriage being a big no-no is not a thing that really exists in europe.
However I can get the metaphore for STD's. My point is, europeans don't really have this "taboo" thing going on with sex...for us there's just no big deal around sex.
That pretty much invalidates the stakes in this film. Furthermore when you think about it the premises can't really work, and the film takes a lot of liberties with its own rules (eg sometimes the "thing" can interract with objects, sometimes it can't...most of the time appart form its target no one can see signs of its presence...but sometimes they can)
The characters lack personnality, are flat and really unappealing. Cardboard cutout american teens we've all seen a million times before with no real characteristics or character traits that sets them appart or makes them sympathetic.
The threat is...well, not very threatning throughout the movie. Any threat that can be countered by just running is pretty much a non-threat.
The movie's supposed to be tense throughout but again, if the threat isn't really threatning...the tension is just not there (furthermore, if you don't really care what happens to the protagonists because you can't identify with them...that ruins the tension even more). A retiree wearing a flower dress, wether their eyesockets are dark or not, slowly walking towards you, is not something you run away from.
Obviously I didn't really "get" this movie, to me the message "no underage sex kids, it's bad" just doesn't work when you've been done with puberty for a while. If you already had sexual intercourse with more than one member of the opposite sex : this film just doesn't speak to you.
So yeah I'll go ahead and say it : unless you're a teenage WASP american who never had sex before, this movie has nothing going for it.
Much too specific of a target audience to be appealing to a global audience.
This is just an over-rated teen slasher flick. You have to actually be a teenager to find it appealing...if you're over twenty it just feels really immature and prudish, but most of all really, really boring. The pace is FAR too slow and the threat just doesn't exist. So you're just left watching moronic and unapealing teen clichés running around for the whole movie, which isn't really interresting to watch.
Yet another mediocre run of the mill movie over rated just because it's premise dares to somewhat step out of the ordinary redundance we're used to seeing in horror movies. And once again, if the premise only works for a small portion of the population...well you're just left with your average "teen has sex and gets chased throughout the movie by a paranormal thing that wants to punish them for it". Eg : your typical boring and unoriginal b movie teen slasher trope.