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nihilist86
Reviews
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
A great film for pseudo-intellectuals
I wanted to love this movie. It is beautifully shot, the color scheme and cinematography are simply fantastic.
Sandler's depiction of an emotionally stunted infantilized man suffering under the thumb of 7 sisters (the number of perfection; he is the 8th, a symbolically imperfect person all the way) is "blah" at best. He goes for depth and winds up a shallow, overly-angry, desperate emotional cripple. I could not stand him being so present in every scene this way.
The movie attempted to convey a tone of anxiety at times whenever his sisters would bombard him with questions or anecdotes ("What's with the pudding?" Or, "Remember when we called you 'Gay-Boy'?") and the soundtrack amplified this. It truly did make me feel anxious and I hated that too.
The whole concept of his being extorted was intended as dark humor and a way to highlight his becoming empowered/growing in his masculinity via falling in love, but it fell flat in the humor category for me. Give me Wes Anderson's dark, tongue in cheek humor any day over this junk.
All of this culminated in the worst film experience one could ever imagine. The dialogue was stunted, the whole thing was so slow to develop, the characters were unlikeable, and whatever depth to the symbolism there might have been-and this is certainly a kind of modern-day Hero's Journey in an attempted epic of existentialism-just wasn't enough to make this a decent film. It is for people WANTING to like attempts at an intellectual visual arts university experience. While it tells an interesting emotional story, it could have been a short film instead of a 95 minute snooze fest.
Birth (2004)
Skip this one
What a horribly boring-and long-movie with such a unique and interesting topic. Reincarnation is fascinating because there are some famous cases (one convincing one where a boy maintains that he was a WW2 pilot) that are so difficult to interpret without calling someone a liar. This film could have been so unique as it addressed the complexities of such a case, but instead it seemed to lose direction and meander before ending abruptly. Not to mention, every character is utterly dark and empty, emotionally shallow despite Kidman's implying that she has deep angst, and detestable. Even Kidman's nude scene is no reason to view this time-wasting massacre of entertainment.
Sacrilege (2020)
Lots of trees
I think I generously gave this 2 stars simply due to the redeeming quality all the stock footage of forests. The woods were lovely and without them, this movie would have about 45 mins less in run time and audience enjoyment. I think I hit fast forward just to bypass the horrible dialogue, acting, and whatever plot was available just to get to more greenery!
I mean, you might as well pause for the nudity, but really, it's not that great either. Stick to "Plank Face" if you're looking for a REALLY good, bad movie with decent gratuitous nudity and a better (not by much) plot. Enjoy hating this movie as much as me!
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)
It could have been great...
The condescension and pretentiousness of the art world are in beautiful ironic focus here. This movie is a fantastic parody of an industry so full of itself that it revolves around sycophantic characters whose careers hinge upon maintaining a "cutting edge" subjectivity on the farcical creation of obscure artists whose names will fade as soon as their exhibits are dissembled.
This movie could have been fantastic if it continued on this track, but the introduction of the supernatural (as an extension of the comedy, I presume?) ruined it completely.
On a more positive note, Jake Gyllenhaal's performance is exemplary: intense, over the top, and flamboyant all rolled into one! I laughed out loud when he shouts, "Stop selling Dease!," and silently mumbled "nuts" to myself...
The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (2021)
The worst of Wes Anderson
I have loved Wes Anderson since Bottle Rocket and was obsessed with The Royal Tenenbaums since I was a teenager. The detail, the sets, the pastel palettes, the dry, dark humor, and characters of his films create worlds you'd like to inhabit. So, as a huge WA fan, I can confidently say that this movie was his absolutely worst.
Once again, his detail, sets, and an all-star cast of both old and new actors amazed me (Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Elizabeth Moss, etc.) but this is Wes Anderson KNOWING he's Wes Anderson...it's pretentious, over-stimulating, filled with too many storylines (I suppose it is like a magazine in this way-nice work there) and just simply boring! I was disappointed as well that so much of it was shot in black and white; he doesn't celebrate color in this one nearly as much as his other films.
I found myself chuckling at a few jokes in the script-even the name of the town, Ennui-sur-Blasé is fantastic-but ultimately, this one failed to deliver the needed punches of humor to balance the long sequences of uninteresting characters and layers of boring, obscurantist dialogue. I think I developed ennui and was completely blasé by the end of this tragedy. It's truly a blemish on an otherwise masterful career.
Chaos Walking (2021)
Most annoying movie of the year
This was such a terrible movie to watch not only because of the constant barrage of "Noise"-if the men hadn't killed the women, they'd have just killed themselves out of sheer annoyance-but because of the absolutely ridiculous logic of all Prentisstown men ("She's got a ship, let's kill her instead of asking for help!").
Every character is either underdeveloped or just abysmal like Preacher, who's Noise consists of "Martyr" and "Judgement:" a clear dig on religious fanaticism in the "New World" (aka America).
Finally, the gratuitous animal deaths (a horse's throat is cut and a dog is drowned for no reason other than to create a deeper emotional response to a movie that has zero feeling to begin with, I'm guessing) make this movie a terrible waste of time for any sci-fi fan.
Top Secret UFO Projects: Declassified (2021)
Nothing New Under The Sun
Other than the three videos of UAP's released by the US Navy, there is nothing new about this series. Checking up on many of the claims made in each episode will lead you down a wormhole of hoaxes as well. I swear, you can watch any UFO documentary and get the same faces, stories, and limited sightings (at the same time they will claim there are "thousands")!
Unfriended (2014)
Satisfying
This would have received one star, but I just loved watching all these annoying kids die!
Awake (2021)
Terrible
It has an interesting synopsis, but once you get into it, you see that the plot line is muddled. The the hectic "action" is a justification for filming bad acting as a representation of sleepless, exhausted humans. What else do you expect though from Jane The Virgin in a lead role?
I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (2019)
"Just chips, like just chips..."
I can't believe there aren't any new episodes of this show. It is beautifully awkward comedy that doesn't color in the lines of acceptable humor, and that is what makes it so great. Watching this show is like sharing an inside joke with a schizophrenic who quit his meds. Beautiful creativity!
Tenet (2020)
I'm drowning in dialogue...
My faith in Christopher Nolan films is waning. For the first half of the movie I nearly died of dialogue asphyxiation and for the last half, boredom! I enjoyed this movie the first time it came out, when it was called "Terminator"...This is almost exactly what it all boils down to: a future people attempting to dismantle and destroy the past so as to avoid catastrophe. There's a lot of talk of Entropy-which is just a loose ten-cent term to cover the film in a veneer of scientific legitimacy-but its a red herring for the synonym of a word that means, "wouldn't it be cool if we could go back in time and move to the future and everything was backwards and confusing!?" I can't believe it; not because it was so fantastically fantastic, but because it was such an overly confusing presentation of a simple premise!