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Leaving Neverland (2019)
Watch before forming an opinion
This documentary is being review bombed by fans and based on the reviews, it seems like they haven't even watched it. I've seen so much misinformation online about the MJ case and this documentary that is being spread as fact by the people who make money off MJ and fans who don't want to accept that it's highly probable that man that has being accused by half a dozen young boys and caught by a couple staff being inappropriate with children was not completely innocent.
Now about the documentary. It's hard to watch. It's mostly two men and their family giving their account of their time with MJ and talking very candidly about sexual abuse and grooming. The document doesn't present you with hard evidence of what happened. I still urge you to watch it before forming an opinion. In my opinion, it's very hard to believe they're lying or faking their emotions. Both of them still seem to carry love for MJ and their "friendship" and it has affected their life and their relationship with their family.
Besides the abuse, it also shows MJ's pattern of befriending boys with a certain age and physical appearance (clearly had a preference for white boys) and showbiz parents who wanted their kids to get famous. He got close to their families, gave them gifts and earned their trust and then spent a lot of time with the kids and specifically the boys alone and invited them to his neverland ranch for "sleepovers". They show all the letters that he kept sending these boys and he comes off as bit obsessive and like a love sick teenger. He got very close to them and constantly demanded their time and attention. But when they grew out of being a child which seemed to be his age preference, he seemed to disappear from their lives and moved on to his next best buddy which was another white 10 year old boy.
Even after being accused of sexual abuse, he still invited kids over and spent time alone with them in his bedroom. It's very strange behaviour for a grown man and fits the definition of grooming to a t. Even if you want to believe no sexual abuse happened, these "friendships" couldn't have been healthy for the kids. Their parents were selling them to MJ hoping to get money in return for the relationship, whatever that was.
The other guilty party in this documentary are the parents. They let their child sleep in the same hotel room as a stranger and let them stay in neverland alone or unsupervised. They describe MJ as lonely and sweet which seems to be his fans defence for his alarming behavior but also ignore all the red flags like the creepy letters and the fact that he wanted to be alone with the kids. Obviously they were hoping their kids would be famous by association with MJ and were seduced by the generous gifts and promise of earning money from their kids and ignored their child well being. Even after the first allegations came out, they didn't seem to be that alarmed. People wonder why these kids defended MJ in court and they explain their side well in the documentary. They considered him a friend and like many child survivors of sexual abuse, they didn't think they were abused.
For people who are curious about the MJ case, this is a must watch. If you want to do more research, you can look into the accounts of theo other children who accused MJ (there are a lot of them outside of the tow in this doc) and the staff who said they caught him being inappropriate with children. You can look into the police reports. Even though they didn't find enough evidence to convict him, there's a lot of damning things in there like artistic nude of literal children and the measures he took to have alone time with these kids and not be seen or heard.
Glass Onion (2022)
Good cast but the paper thin plot leaves you disspointed
It's not funny and campy enough to be satire, it's not clever enough to be a mystery and you can find better thought out social commentary on twitter.
It's watchable but hollow. What's worse than the dumb plot is the meta commentary in the movie about the dumb plot that the filmmakers thought was clever (get it? Glass onion? It's an onion? But glass?). I took half a point just for that. Daniel craig and janelle monae did their best but everyone here deserved a better script. It's a high budget straight to dvd sequel than they churned out to capitalize on the previous one but spent (maybe) half the time on the script.
1899 (2022)
It's slow but it's worth it
8/10 but rating it 10 because of all the dumb 1 start reviews complaining that this is not an action thriller...
If you don't enjoy a slow mystery that doesn't reveal itself in 3 episodes (in fact the first few episodes are set up) you might not like this. If you've watched Dark, you know that the writers take their sweet time and reveal the mysteries piece by piece but there's plenty of well acted multilingual drama to keep you entertained in the meantime. There are reveals but nothing is fully resolved in season 1 and you'll be left with lots of questions. I agree with the criticism that the pacing is too slow at parts and some parts are confusing before you get the missing pieces. But there were a enough clues to keep me guessing and all the reveals made me more excited for the rest of the story. Even though the big mystery is not solved, I liked the characters, setting and style enough that I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Different tastes and all but I find a lot of reviews here downright stupid, especially the ones who didn't even watch half the season... This is not for everyone, but it's well made and so far well thought out. I hope the creators get to finish the story somewhere.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021)
Mediocre writing and direction
This show tries to have a meaningful message with antiheros as villains and still maintain that light marvel feel that fans expect with some buddy-cop comedy. The problem is the writing and direction are not good enough for a 'serious' show and the runtime is too short to cover all that and the meandering pace doesn't help. The racial commentary is probably the best part of the show but that's forced at times too and falcon's change of heart mostly just happens because the plot needs him to. The arc they set up for the winter soldier never pays up. He has massive problem like PTSD and assimilating to a world he doesn't recognize that basically get resolved by another mediocre speech by the falcon telling him to 'do better' cause the show is over now. They don't even show his big moment. Plus he constantly get beaten up cause he lost all his spy assassin skills from the movies. The blip and flag smashers are the worst part of the show. They're villains with unclear goals and motivations that the show spends no time developing and instead keeps telling us that they're sympathetic and not terrorists even though they totally are. And then falcon solves this international crisis by telling a couple senator to 'do better'. That's some nuanced writing right there.
TLDR rushed character arcs, boring plot, slow pacing, badly written villains, meh action, mediocre writing and direction. It's watchable but it aims high and doesn't get there.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
Great style
This is a pretty fun and quirky movie with a unique and creative visual style. The side characters are great, the cast is good and it has some very funny moments and good action.
This is a fun ride and not plot heavy but it has some major problems that take away from the movie. The movie is about Scott growing up and becoming more responsible but he spends most of the movie being such a selfish man-child that I couldn't like him even after he sees some consequences and makes some apologies. Being played by Michael Cera doesn't help his case. The plot is very geek male fantasy with Scott chasing after the manic pixie dream girl and punching a bunch of people in the process. The main conflict is he has to fight Ramona's exes, which is a very chauvinistic concept, and to make matters worst, Ramona is completely passive throughout and underdeveloped as a character. She doesn't participate in the battles with her exes (minus the one that Scott finishes at the end) and even her relationship with Scott is underdeveloped and very passive like she's just dates him because he's there and keeps asking (whish tbf was maybe intended). She's less fleshed out than most of the side character and this might be partially due to the actress. The other love interest Knives, gets more character growth and gets to fight the big bad at least. All three main characters all get their arc, but Romana's seems to happen mostly off screen and Scott's and Knives happens at the end. I think the film should've spend a little more time on the characters, specifically Ramona, and maybe less time on the fights (7 evil exes are too many, even though they were all fun). However, Edgar Wright distracted me with the great visuals and humor so much that I didn't mind the shallow love interest as much as I would've otherwise.
The Lion King (2019)
Watch the original instead
This is not a horrible movie, but it copies something great and makes it not work. Anyone watching this before the original would probably not understand why the original lion king is so lauded. It just doesn't have the same emotional impact and it's so uninspired. It seems like it was made by the most unimaginative people who for some reason thought the movie about talking lions needed more logic. They should probably teach this just to show that realism doesn't make movies better. Jon Favreau and co should mail their checks to the original team for copying them shot for shot and line for line while ruining their great work.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Surprisingly enjoyable
This is a very unfaithful adaptation and I'm ok with that. The original story has been told many times. I really enjoyed the mythological aspect and the modern heist element. Because of the rushed style It felt more like a TV show at parts and there were too many montages but I would like to see more of this world. Rounded up score cause I would like to see a sequel and some of the reviews are too harsh in my opinion.