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Happy Christmas (2014)
Like drivel, like
The problem with like, improvised dialogue is, like, it doesn't work, like.
I can't write like a full review Iike because like it is so awful like that like watching the actors talk over each other like is too like painful to watch
Oh and every other word is 'like'. Which is ironic...
And the pronunciation of the word 'eggs' as 'iggs'.
The film is made as if it were by a 12 year old director wannabe who convinced a group of his or her friends to pretend to be themselves and awkwardly stumble through unrehearsed scenes.
As well as the count the 'likes' drinking game you could try making this a better experience by just not watching it. It's appalling.
Superstore (2015)
Nearly good
A promising series set in, well you can guess, that never really ignites... unfortunately the worst characters are the main 'stars' of the show, Amy and Jonah who, despite having precisely zero on screen chemistry, become the centre of attention for some reason (America Ferrera a producer perhaps?). The rest of the characters are just about without exception far more interesting - and funny. Garret, Dina, Cheyenne and Matteo are far more engaging than the tedium of the will they/won't they duo (I really could not care less). The episodes are rather hit and miss with the 'pregnancy' season featuring serious matters dealt with in a curiously apathetic manner. Worth a watch but only if other binge worthy options are not available..,
The Bay (2019)
Series 3 snooze fest
Descended into an astonishingly dull Hollyoaks parody with extra, unnecessary profanity. Wooden acting bratty kids, characters noone cares about and a murder that is barely referred to. There is absolutely no reason why this set in Morecambe and apart from some scenic opening shots you would not think it is. There is zero chemistry between the couples with the lead speaking in a drab monotone that matches the tedious plot. I guess this will be the last series...
The Good Place (2016)
Dead behind the eyes.
In 2017 Jameela Jamil expressed surprise that she had been given an acting job. May I express total disbelief. With the acting skills of a 6 year old in a nativity play the dead behind the eyes performance could easily replaced by a 6 foot plank of wood. The rest arent much better. Eleanor is a less amusing Leslie Knope who has absolutely zero chemistry with Chidi. Just a mess of a program.
The Deceived (2020)
Not Rebecca...
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. Anything to get this garbage out of my mind.
Potentially an interesting series spoiled by the lead actress (apparently aged about 12) who is incapable of acting. Seriously. There are a million careers she should think of swapping to that she would be better at. Her entire delivery is in a drab, expressionless monotone presumably read direct from cue cards. Badly.
However a year and a bit into Covid and we will watch anything I guess. Please let it end soon...
The Pact (2021)
Overwrought drivel
Promising storyline descends into farce with ridiculous twists and turns that are mainly telegraphed apart from the ending. The cast just dont gel and at times compete for the worst axe on the planet award.
Avoid this disappointment.
Oh and the high scores awarded are by the usual single-reviewer stooges...
A Discovery of Witches (2018)
Mumbling planks take a starring role
Utter garbage, mumbling cast and wooden acting and a plot that makes no sense. People who rate this drivel highly are the ones that think fan-fiction films are better than Citizen Kane - you know the type...
Outback (2019)
Abandoned after 15 minutes.
Apologies but the lead actress's voice is like nails being dragged down a blackboard. Just 15 minutes in of listening to the awful squeak meant I had to abandon it. Perhaps it would be better to watch with the volume muted and subtitled enabled...
A Simple Favor (2018)
Utter drivel
Unpleasantly amoral, unfunny attempt at black comedy thriller with a bizarre French soundtrack that kicks in ever now and again for no obvious reason. The acting is truly awful and the plot wanders all over the place. Mommy vloggers really are vacuous and dull... avoid this movie at all costs...
Bent (2018)
How to act lesson #1
Yeah, we've seen the plot before but that's not a bad thing in itself, cops getting framed then seeking revenge etc. However the acting in this movie is a showcase in, er, how not to act. Syria's performance is memorable both for her ability to read cue cards in an almost impenetrable and monotone Spanish accent, and her expression that changes less than Karl changes his clothes. The best bit of Karl's acting is him not laughing when Sofia gazes over his shoulder at the prompt and mumbles that she is a CIA agent. There's just a flicker on Karl's face as he obviously thinks,like the rest of us, 'yeah course you are love'. Poor Andy Garcia actually cries in one scene presumably die to the decline in his career. Worth a watch but only after several beets...
Game Night (2018)
IMDB 7/10 is the funniest thing about this film
After a promising start this mess descends into unfunny farce. Ignore the high, presumably fake, ratings that are spoiling IMDB and skip this film. Truly awful.
Renegades (2017)
Murica.. Huh!
Trying to find redeeming feature of this mess of a film is easy enough - some of the cinematography is excellent!. The acting, plot, and characterisation, however, are abysmal. Presumably designed as a rallying call or redemption movie with an ending so saccharine sweet as to be vomit inducing, the arrogant protagonists plan to steal ('reclaim'?) already stolen gold by stampeding through Sarajevo (or wherever - the locations get mixed up a lot) like overweight Americans deprived of fast fool for an hour who spot a McDonalds in a third world country. Unaccountably bare-fist fighting a larger number of 22 SAS 'p*****s' (seriously!! American audiences may be unfamiliar with the role of the SAS in the Balkan conflict - they are the ones that did something and died on active service...) they eventually do what the set out to do while pursued by various bad guys. Oh and they drive a tank of a bridge into a river but that's OK because they are SEALs, right? Obviously expensive to produce with some great visuals this is a film purely for Tourette's afflicted Americans who shout 'Murica' for no reason at all.
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)
Big guys can't fight...
After watching this you are left with the feeling that it could have been so much better. Vaughn certainly was a revelation and looked the part of a menacing drug-runner with shaven (but oddly untanned) head and rubbish tattoo. Unfortunately silliness and graphic violence start to compete as the plot descends into a grue fest. The route Vaughn's character takes to prison makes little sense and he is given ample 'out's to avoid it which he ignores. Once in prison he inevitable has to find and fight the bad guy(s) - a key part of every prison movie. Unfortunately it seems nobody told Mr Vaughn he was playing an ex-boxer and he substitutes what should have been slick and skillful martial arts with ponderous fight moves that an eight year old girl could defeat. Obviously the director must have seen this too and tried to divert the viewer from the laughable pugilisim with increasingly graphic injuries inflicted on whoever Vaughn's character chooses to hit. The silliness increases with Don Johnson making an appearance, an unintentionally humorous Japanese 'doctor' and Jennifer Carpenter (who seems to play her role to try and get as little sympathy from the viewer as possible) having issues... If there's nothing else available of you are knuckle-dragger who thinks arm-breaks are cool then give it watch.
Good Time (2017)
Grubby excellence
Pattinson is a revelation in this movie playing the nervy, wide-eyed and sweating Connie who's love for his mentally challenged brother, Nick (played in a deft and touching manner by Benny Safdie), leads him into 24 hours of chaos after 'rescuing' Nick from Peter the Psychiatrist. Connie is no hero despite his good intentions trying to support his brother - sporadic outburst of violence and chronically stupid decisions prevent the viewer feeling much sympathy with him. Rather it is the descent into destruction that we can empathise with - haven't we all had a day where everything we touch turns to garbage? Part way through Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a drunken/drug-addled ex of Nick's to perfection - you can almost smell the booze on her breath .
The soundtrack and imagery owes much to the movies of the 70s/80s - perhaps even recalling (to me at least) classics like The Warriors where, similarly, it was only when dawn broke that things became a lot clearer to the protagonists...
Personal Shopper (2016)
Tedious non-event
An astonishingly tedious movie that you continue to watch in the vain hope that Kristen Stewart's character (Maureen, no seriously, Maureen!), who resembles more a street junkie than an angst-ridden bereaved sister, washes her hair.
Laughable special effects (hovering cups, things that go bump in the night etc etc) are coupled with the preposterous suggestion that somebody has chosen to employ and trust the incredibly surly, heroin-chic Maureen to purchase clothes, bags and jewelry suitable for a high-flyer. Occasionally Maureen takes her top off (which even as a red-blooded male seemed to me to be exploitative), tries the clothes on (after being told not to) and does some more exploitative solo-girl action on a bed.
In between all this Maureen tries to contact her dead brother because she is a medium (possibly revised down to a small after seeing her topless). Eventually it all ends ambiguously. The 'arty' set love this film. Only because, and presumably that is why Ms Stewart agrees to take her clothes off, they collectively believe that if a film has a French director it must be dark, atmospheric and stylish rather than what it actually is: Pretentious, soulless and meaningless.
Quantico (2015)
Abandoned after episode 1
An interesting premise that failed in every respect. To be fair the warnings were obvious - a cast comprising pretty boys and girls with a checklist of diversity (gay, black, muslim etc etc).
I've no interest how the preposterous plot develops (so far suicide, explosions, double-agents) as the first episode played out like a teen soap written by a committee of under-16s.
Dreadful and to be avoided unless you are the child target audience.
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Revenge Revenge
The opening credits. Sweet Lord. I promise I will never objectify women again if only I get the images of the dancing grotesques out of my memory. I fought the temptation to pluck out my eyes and persevered with this tale of revenge. We know it is about revenge because a) it is obvious and b) A 10' art installation called REVENGE is shoe-horned into a scene (incidentally featuring a character who must have been inspired by Bubble from Ab-Fab). The plot: Adams receives a manuscript from her ex (Gyllenhaal) that features a man (Gyllenhaal) who has his family ripped from him (why this strikes a chord with Amy becomes apparent later) and how he subsequently tracks down the perpetrators with the aid of a coughing lawman. This story within the story is far better scripted and acted than the parent story but Gyllenhaal excels as a weak man tormented by the past in both. The supporting cast in the sub-plot are also far superior, Fisher, Shannon and Taylor-Johnson in particular out act the plank-like Hammer and decidedly sub par Sheen in the parent story. And then there's Amy... It's about time the Academy introduced a new award for best tear ducts. Unfortunately our Amy has opted for the full paralysis Botox which makes it impossible for the viewer to determine what emotion she is exhibiting if it weren't for her tear ducts. In this movie tears means upset, no tears means not upset - yes the full gamut. Seriously it is a proved fact that those who cannot physically display emotion have less empathy than those that do. Compare the static, icy Adams portrayal of a woman in a disintegrating marriage who is supposedly seriously disturbed by the revenge motif-ed manuscript to that of Gyllenhaal's puny husband in full gargoyle- gurn mode. Finally we get to the final scene where the best the viewer can manage is an 'oh, is that it?'. Despite its flaws this is worth a watch, if only for the West Texan scenery.
Arrival (2016)
Overwrought drivel.
In a nutshell, large floating squid things who have chosen several locations on Earth (amongst other planets) for some kind of cosmological game-show set a challenge to the competing teams with the winner being the first group to translate the squid people's odd language. Crack the code and you get, erm, something - perhaps the secret of seeing all time at once. I'm not too sure as I had drifted off a bit at this stage having become annoyed at the gravity reversal thing.... Of the humans, Jeremy Renner plays a physicist who doesn't physic but does exude an air of someone who would much rather be anywhere else than on the set of this unintentionally hilarious film and appears to be little more than a sperm donor. Linguist Amy Adams is brought on board to crack the communication/game show tasks. "How?", you ask, "by some kind of referral to universal constants?" Nope. By drawing on a whiteboard, shouting and pointing. Englishmen abroad have been doing this for years. "Two pints of lager, please.. I SAID TWO PINTS OF LAGER". Eventually the increasingly manic Amy (haunted by tediously repetitive flashback/forwards) solves the mystery, although as the squid people see all time they would have known that at the beginning. The final 'reveal' sledgehammered into the film was a depressing anticlimax, mainly because we had all guessed but also because the viewer just doesn't care by that stage. Oh and Forest Whitaker is in it. He's probably wondering why too.
The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015)
I be the witch of the wood...
With language based on authentic early 17th century usage and a plot drawn from tales of that time it seems an unlikely film. It's fair to say that some of the dialogue does feel a little forced olde- worlde but that is forgivable. All the cast acted their Puritan smocks off: The youngest children, apparently carefree, exude a menace that only the seemingly innocent can do - there are few things as sinister as children's laughter. The older children are transitioning to early adulthood with pressures and stresses on them (far in excess of today's sheltered teens) contributing to the family's descent. The parents, Anya Taylor-Joy slightly hammy as the disturbed and grieving mother practically swept aside by Ralph (Finchy!!) Ineson's dominance as the father who has sinned - you get the feeling he was taking this VERY seriously. The scenery and lighting are relentlessly bleak and amplify the isolation the family must feel when they (and their livestock...) are expelled from their religious community - a family as dependent on prayers to meet their needs as they are the backbreaking toil they endure every day. The unsettling feeling that something is not quite right grows in the viewer inline with the increasing paranoia, tension and fever induced surrealism within the family. In hindsight the final denouement feels like a false memory or a drug induced hallucination, did that really happen? A 'horror' film that will remain with you on dark autumn days.
Better Call Saul (2015)
Not just a Breaking Bad prequel.
First a warning: This is not for those that require immediate gratification, the pacing is exquisitely slow. Watching Jimmy's/Saul's ascent/descent(*repeat*) is like slowly removing a sticking plaster... And nor is it just a series providing a back story for incidental characters from BB. The photography and colour is sublime.The plot and characterisation is superb. Will all the loose ends ever be tied up?
Reign (2013)
Is there something wrong?
As I wrote this a character (male, probably an historical invention) uttered the summary above to a botoxed young woman squeezing out a glycerin tear as phony as her peculiar accent. Yes, Mr Anonymous, there is. A TV series that justifies the adage that one should always read the user reviews to get a truer idea of the product. Historical inaccuracy one can forgive but the clunking dialogue, wooden acting and anonymous and interchangeable cast renders this a right royal mess. Clearly aimed at the more vacuous end of the teenage girl market, nobody over the age of 16 or with an IQ in triple figures will be capable of watching this without feeling bilious. Avoid.