Change Your Image
3Lina3
Reviews
Case 39 (2009)
Scary little girl TM
It's one of those tens of thousands of bad movies that are heavily cliched and unoriginal.
The topic of child abuse is superficially used here. I think it's possible to come out with something that is scary and original when someone decides to build their movie around it. What a shame it still doesn't exist or it exists somewhere and due to low budget and no movie company support most of us don't know about its existence.
Speaking of child abuse, this movie is just another case of literally demonizing children and people with mental disorders. Contrary to what the parents of the girl say, a child can't be born ''demonic''. It's more like a projection parents have had since the dawn of times about their children because of their own childhood history.
In my opinion, real psychological thrillers/horrors should also be three-dimensional about their characters and ''monsters''. That's what makes horrors more interesting, believable and chilling.
UnREAL: Bluff (2018)
Rachel, please don't
I can feel how the show makers were tired of this show in this episode and in some episodes of this season.
What I don't like is that the Tommy character came out of nowhere and he's suddenly ''perfect'' for Rachel. You can feel how the show makers of Unreal created him just for that purpose. He feels so two-dimentional for that reason. He doesn't live up to Rachel as a character of Unreal. He doesn't even live up to most characters of this show because they don't feel so artificial as opposed to him. Even secondary characters were shown to us from different angles of who they are.
And even though I haven't seen the final episode yet I can sense that the direction it's going is ''happily ever after'' for everybody. This whole thing about Rachel ''finally finding'' someone who loves her for ''what she is''. But is it really true? They wrote him like someone who's super into what she's doing so he's her ''true soulmate''. However, since she's a three-dimentional character it's not what she is or at least it's not everything she is. It's her pathology that comes from her traumas and her delusion. As someone who recognized some of my own traumas, I know that my defences and the person I became because of them are not what really defines me as a human being and it's something I no longer identify with despite being like that for most of my life.
I take my words and the way I rated this episode back if she doesn't end up with Tommy in the end. Rachel, please don't marry him. Just reject him straight away and continue the journey of finding yourself. This man is not someone you'll find yourself with or in.
Scenes where she has her hair falling off and where she's hinding it give me hope. Hope my interpretation of them is correct. Unless they'll make Tommy a full-blown ''savior'' who will accept every single thing about her. But that will make this show truly unreal and the irony of it and what the makers of this series were buinding during 3 seasons will be lost completely.
Good Omens (2019)
Shows this good are rare. It's a real treassure.
I think it turned out to be this good because the writing is very strong. It's the base of the show and this is why brilliant actors and filming and special effects etc shine in their light.
I really hope season 2 is not going to happen unless Neil Gaiman will have as much of creative control over it as he had in the first season. Otherwise it will be ruined and we'll end up with a mess which is happens to all shows that are promissing during their first episodes/season. Maybe we don't need season 2 at all because it will ruin everything that is good about this show and it ended on a finishing note.
I'm giving it 9 stars out of 10 only because I'm too fastidious.
Lore: Jack Parsons: The Devil and the Divine (2018)
The Scarlet Woman
I don't understand what I've just watched. The script wasn't good and the story wasn't captivating. It was quite strange and poor. In the end, it was about neither demonds nor rockets.
I can only interpret it as a story about a man being trapped in myths about women as muses, tools, divine creatures of heaven and hell etc and never being able to realize that they're just human beings like him. I wish he could just read Simone de Beauvoir's ''The Second Sex'' before it was too late. That could save him his life according to this episode.
And yet again the cast looks nothing like the people they're portraying.
Lore: Mary Webster: The Witch of Hadley (2018)
A story about how stupid people can be when they gather together and have one mind for everybody
It was a nice episode. I've only seen some episodes of the 2nd season so I can't say if the show has become worse or not, but this one was something I liked. Yes, there was some absurdity in this one too, but now it was used to tell the idea. And I must say, the setting of this episode is very refreshing because usually they shoot movies and shows about nobility, but stories that center peasants or poor people can be just as interesting if not more. The setting was visually pleasing too. But when it comes to visuals, I'd like it more if it was looking more historically accurate and less polished. It would be so much more interesting to watch if most of the cast was looking like what the characters would look like in real life back then. Tired of seeing the faces of a few same types of people's looks.
Kudos to creators of this episode for revising the history and for their attempt to rehabilitate those who were called ''witches''.
Lore: Prague Clock: The Curse of the Orloj (2018)
I liked the episode
Had to go to Wikipedia afterwards and to check everything. The legend is proved to be made up, of course, but this time it was good for the show and the story they made out of it was quite good.
Still the shortage of historical accuracy and the logic of characters of this show keep worrying me. Perhaps, it's a good entertainment for people like me, people who like to find out what it was like back then and reconstruct that in their mind.
Lore: Elizabeth Bathory: Mirror, Mirror (2018)
All the stars are because of the setting and costumes
...they created a nice atmosphere. As for writing, it's mediocre at best. And turning this whole character and story into the ''she bathed in blood of young fresh-skinned mea.. I mean girls because she believed she could get her youth&beauty back that way'' trope... Come on! It's just a legend that was among peasants at best. If this show was any serious and if they were trying to make it really interesting they could make something else out of this Elizabeth Bathory story. For example, it could be a story about this woman being a troubled sadistic individual and it could dwelve into non-trivial reasons why or a story about one great slander or something else. For once, it could be more historically accurate. They also don't cast actresses and actors that looked anything like people back then. Instead they just always have to cast someone that looks like the models you see in modern era's magazines, i.e. what is considered attractive in our era. Everything (including people) has to be visually perfect, sterile and eye-pleasing at the expense of historical accuracy. That's boring to me.
La La Land (2016)
A story about two mentally ill people
In short, this movie is another Hollywood echo-chamber. It's saturated with self-references and channeling itself. So out of touch with reality and narcissistic. Quite symptomatic, really. Thank God they gave us a clue in the name of their movie for us to have a grasp what this movie is about just by looking at its name.
The only reason these two (mentally ill, dissociated) characters fell in love with each other in the first place is because they realized this is what they had in common (mental illness and dissociation). So why the hell not be like this together? Better than to go through life alone with such misery anyway. Other than that, these two characters are stripped of any personality. To be fair, many classics of musicals this movie was trying hard to channel are guilty of that.
Just like in many musicals/romantic comedies/Hollywood tropes, these two people were thrown out at each other artificially. Let me get this straight, I don't know any woman who would memorize a guy like Sebastian and believe they're meant to be together despite the fact that all she knows about him is that once he showed her middle finger and was shaking his head at her in a car and later he shoved her aside while she was trying to compliment his piano play. It just doesn't work like that.
It was good at mechanistically channeling musicals and Hollywood, but it was doing so unenthusiastically. I know that musical movies tend to have lack of good singing because they usually take famous actors with little to no musical background to play. But in this case, maybe the film could benefit from better singing and dancing if the script and idea were so bad. And no, Sebastian, you're not playing jazz. You're just playing one mediocre pop song that is styled as vintage.
Big theme of this movie is ''follow your dreams'' which almost always happens to be a dream of making it in the entertainment industry for some reason. As if people who watch this can't dream of something other than that. It's interesting that many Hollywood and Disney movies have been having this cliché theme throughout decades. Big question: why?
I kind of get it why many people received this movie well and believed all the hype and that it deserved Oscars. One of the reasons is, of course, because they just eat whatever is being fed to them by Hollywood and mainstream all the time. Another one is that large portion of society lives in this la la land. In our capitalist society people are alienated from reality and they live in a fantasy major corporations create for them to escape. They also dream about mythical love and having a dream-like career. Even their dreams are not something they created. I'm saying all that because I recommend you to read Zizek's review of La La Land.
Hanna (2019)
So banal
This series looks so banal and full of outdated movie cliches, especially when it comes to ''exceptional'' female protagonist whose life is different from that of an average girl. So does the acting, but maybe it was exactly what was required from the acting crew with such a banal plot/script in the first place. The actors and actresses have as much freedom for their performance as the script allows. Somehow Hanna was supposed to be both, beast-like and incredibly fragile and feminine at the same time with the heavy emphasis on the latter and only a symbolic, ''appropriate'' for girls on the screen use of the first quality. I think you need to develop far more imagination than that to depict a girl who was raised in the forests, who's been trained by her father to survive in the wild for most of her life and who's never seen anything else.
As some reviewers have pointed out before, the entire plot is unrealistic. In particular, I didn't like the way they've been showing Hanna's and her father's ''daily routine'' for about 10-15 minutes of screentime..As if he was making her learn those skills every day for 10 or so years of her life and that's that. It feels empty. I think it lacks humanness and spontaneity of people's lifes. If it's a movie or a show then the screentime isn't supposed to be waisted on calculated routine, all the scenes are supposed to have a certain artistic value in them. It wasn't necessary for narration to show it in such details. I mean, we got it after first couple of minutes.
Of course, Hanna meeting the Polish guy is incredibly forced and cliched too. A young girl who's been living in the wild, totally isolated for her whole life just had to meet a guy approximately her age. She just had to almost instantly fall in love with him too. She had to experience the fun and joy of an average person's life, ''soaring, tumbling. freewheeling on a magic carpet ride'' to discover ''a whole new world'' behind the trees with red marks.The 16 year old girl is craving to be a part of that forbidden by her protective father world. This young couple just had to look at the stars and talk about them while lying down and then meet each others' shy glances and hands. So romantic, so vulnerable. Not influenced by Hollywood movies manufactured in early 2000s at all.
The Romanoffs: The Royal We (2018)
Good satirical episode. This show seems to have a lot of potential. (Warning: contains major spoiler(s). Make sure you finished watching the episode first)
Here's my long repetitive and unnecessary rant.
I like this one better than the first one because the end of it wasn't confusing, ridiculous and unrealistic. The ending is finished, it's logical and it sums up the whole episode.
Some people might think there's the only person wrong in this situation, i.e. Michael Romanoff. They're partly right. It's him who hasn't grown up emotionally and has a lot of issues. On the other hand, I didn't find Shelly particularly likable either because it literally took her to be a victim of attempted murder to end it and stop tolerating and pretending. I wonder what she wanted from this marriage. She even refused to spend a night with someone she really wanted despite her marriage being an utter trainwreck. Why? She didn't even feel anything towards her husband. No love, no lust, no respect, no friendly feelings, not even hatred. Was marriage just an empty duty to her? How can someone be so blind to the person they're living with? Of course, he is a lying manipulator, but he's so transparent at the same time. Shelly feels extremely repressed, to such point where I even stopped feeling that sorry for her. It's not very clear, but she also has deep issues. Although they're not entitlement issues, they're of very different nature.
Couple therapy session at the end of the episode was really important. The therapist was painfully unthorough and the scene highlighted the double standards and bias that exist in our society against women. She thought there was nothing wrong with expecting Shelly to be a caretaker to the manchild she was married to. She sent Shelly a message ''Hug him even though you don't feel anything because that's what you're supposed to do'', ''Don't say anything that might even slightly upset him despite feeling like saying so and already being so unnecessarily considerate while choosing your words'' (in previous session). This is what many women do, but that's how they're taught to act. It's not something they realize because of this deep social conditioning that starts very early. Meanwhile Michael has opened his heart and confessed he felt really lonely and lost in his life. For the first time he felt known as a person and he had feelings and passion in his life. And despite that it was apparent that he cheated on Shelly she ignored that fact completely. This speaks volumes of their relationship.
Michael clearly has issues with violence and entitlement. Of course, it felt really horrifying and off-putting how violent he was and how he was planning to do something to Shelly when they were hiking. However as we know the full story now we can understand his impulse. He was just too emotionally immature and unreflecting to express it in a different way. This is not to justify what he did or spare him from accountability, of course. It's just that to me Shelly's dishonesty and coldness felt more terrifying.
I like how humane the depiction of them is despite some parts of it being a satire. Made me feel empathy for both of them. I think that's crucial for any work of art. Things have to be ambiguous and complex because it reflects life this way. This sad couple is something that, I think, everybody witnessed at least once in their lives.
I really hope the creator of the show will stop using his Don Draper trope that much though. Hope he'll be able to move on to something new. He was able to do that with Shelly's character. I've never saw it depicted on screen before even though it's quite common in real life.
Mad Men: Severance (2015)
''Is That All There Is?''
I love how this show is so full of allegories. This is such a top quality show. Matthew Weiner explores very important topics. He and his team are brilliant.
This episode starts and ends with Peggy Lee's song ''Is That All There Is'' and it illustrates Don's depression and revision of his life. Is that all there is to love, to relationship, to life?
He sees Rachel in his dream, the woman he used to have somewhat deep feelings for almost 10 years ago. Of course, we're talking about Don here and the ''deep feelings'' he has towards somebody are only deep in comparison to most of his other Don-Juanesque relationships (Is his name another allegory?). ''I was supposed to tell you you missed your flight'', she says in the dream. Later he tells his secretary to arrange a meeting with her only to find out later that she died from leukemia just a couple of weeks ago/a week ago. He feels like he missed out something important in in his life. Something he can never take back anymore. He could've known her better, he could've spent more time with her. But he ran away from her once she challenged his infantility and unseriosness and he forgot her quickly because he could get a dozen of other superficial relationships with women. Rachel wanted to have honest commited relationship, but he wanted to forget himself and to run away from his past and important challenges just like he ran away from his true identity once and started living a life full of compartmentalization and lie.
Another important thing to note is that Anna also died from cancer and so will Betty. So this way the narrator is showing us how Don misses out the relationships and people in his life, not being truly close to anybody. He lived an alienated life only superficially satisfying his impulses. He would start things, but he never truly lived them (''She must know you only like the beggining of things'', said one of his misstresses crying in despair after she found out he's leaving her for a next woman). But at the end of the day it's mostly because he's a product of his time, background and gender (not to confuse with biological sex). So we're just witnessing a human being, just as human and weak as all of us, no matter what image he tries to create because it's nothing but a glamorous lie. It's a myth of his time created also by advertising.
After finding out she's dead Don seeks out a waitress he saw at the restaurant. He could feel the connection between them because she also felt like a troubled person. She was reading a book set in 30's, a very difficult time Don was raised during. So this time he again attempts to somewhat reconnect with himself and his past, his feelings of depression he tried to avoid during all the falsely happy time.
Annihilation (2018)
Makes little sense but beautiful in a ''cancerous'' and self-destructing way
What did I understand about this movie? It's a story about relationship and changing. It's psychological, personal and interpersonal.
I don't want to make a lot of sense from it, I was just feeling it and ''inhailing'' the beautiful imagery. Yeah, Natalie Portman and people behind this movie are sometimes more pretentious than they're supposed to be. I didn't find that annoying though because I liked that world of psychological and physical self-destruction and depression. Oh and I don't care about the logic or inconsistencies.
I definitely want to read this novel because it sounds interesting and I find it attuned to what I'm going through psychologically.
Like Father (2018)
Yaaaaaawn
It's such a shame this great topic which also has high societal value was put in a movie like this. This topic of fathers leaving their children wasn't explored in mainstream movies before in such a way.
I was so glad to find a movie with this topic. There was so much room and opportunity for the writers. Sadly, they didn't use that at all and it turned up to be completely boring, predictable, unemotional. It didn't escape usual Hollywood formula for these types of movies.
I can't say I hated or disliked it, but it was just plain and pleasant in a plain way. As I said, it's uncreative, too superficial for such topic and Hollywood-like.
I've just found out it's a commercial disguised as a movie. Makes it even worse.
The IT Crowd (2006)
I wanted to like it...
I really did because I loved hilarious ''Black Books'' that were also created by Graham Linehan. But it wasn't even remotely as good as that show.
It has a lot of similarities with ''Black Books'' which are probably intentional. Three not so succesful or lucky people, i.e. an Irish man, a guy who's more of an awkward/shy/sensitive type and a token woman whose weakness is shoes in the same space. What differs is that ''The IT Crowd'' humour heavily relies on stereotypes while even though ''Black Books'' has some stereotypical characters its humour is not tied to that. I don't even know why I loved the silliness of humour in ''Black Books'' so much. I think it complemented the show for some reason. In case with ''The IT Crowd'', it came off as annoying and too childlish to me.
Black Mirror: The National Anthem (2011)
What's the point?
Is it that general public in this episode represents its viewers (i.e. you and me) who wanted to find out if the PM eventually rapes a pig or not? The point is unclear because people are naturally curious and they didn't have the tools to influence that situation in any way. Nobody knew the situation was less serious than it was presented to them. I don't get what he wanted to tell us and if it was about people's cruelty/indifference/passive than this plot doesn't serve his objectives. The only thing it does is that it keeps us intrigued because it's so new and shocking. That makes Charlie Brooker more of a troll than a critic or whatever he thinks he is judging by his show's name. I think the kidnapper whose motivations are totally unclear represents him.
Black Mirror: White Bear (2013)
Charlie Brooker is a sadist
I understand what he criticizes but should the film be literally violating people mentally and emotionally during the whole time they're watching it? I love the idea which was there at least for 2000 years yet is still as relevant as ever. The problem is not the idea, but its realization, as usual.
What made the 3rd episode of season 1 (''The Entire History of You'') so distinctive from others was that the writer/director wasn't so full of hate for both humanity and series' audience. He didn't see both of them in one-dimentional misantropic light. Yet the topic that was being explored in that episode didn't differ much from others in series. I think Charlie Brooker has a lot to learn from Jesse Armstrong as well as other filmmakers.
I gotta admit though that the episode kept me ''entertained'' if that's the right word for that. Despite my mind being violated during all of the 47 minutes at equally the same high level of violence all the time, it made me keep watching it. Just like ''National Anthem'', it's so shocking and exaggerated that you want to find out what's going on and what happens next. Does that make Charlie Brooker a part of the very system he attempts to criticize? I guess he was so preoccupied observing the worst nature of modern people that he never took a hard look at himself in that ''black mirror''.
Black Mirror: Nosedive (2016)
I give it a one (contains only one insignificant spoiler)
It's astonishing to me how little it takes for people who only watch hyped/mainstream media to get to love something and find it ''eye-opening'', ''art-like'' and even ''genius''. It only proves the lack of authenticity that is in most media, how little of it is allowed to be. It also proves how rarely topics and questions that are supposed to naturally concern an individual living in our society are explored on a wider scale. In fact, we starve for it so much that even a brief reminder of these topics or just stating the fact that the problem exists or a vague resemblance of something remotely different/fresh/new makes us super exciting. I believe, that's the reason for many people's low standards when it comes to media.
But actually just acknowledging the problem and using a critical topic is far from enough. For showmakers just like for film makers it's just stating the problem you want to explore in your film. Then you have to accomplish many other tasks. Here the authors were heavily relying just on being critical and on the fact that they recognized the problem.
The problem was explored in such a shallow and one-sided way. It also used 90's cliches about popular blonde and all that stereotypical culture stereotypical females tend to engage in. I felt for the main character and I couldn't hate her or think of her as a ''bitchy'' one who deserved what she got in the end, not matter how authors of this series wanted me to. She lives a very sad life and she seems to be incredibly lonely and unhappy to me. She wanted to have a better, more satisfying life and to feel less lonely. She was using the only accesible ways the society offered her. Who can blame her? Who would not want it for themselves? She was certainly a bad candidature to make a caricaturistic Regina Jones-like character out of her.
Look at her toxic brother. Is he supposed to be considered ''less fake'', better or wiser than her? Seems like that's how the authors see him. Meanwhile, he's addicted to video gaming and more concerned about winning or losing the game and therefore his ranking among other male gamers. He also shares common values with his co-gamers and he engages in same talk as them, says stuff that makes him be seen as masculine and conforming to his group as possible. Later this very same guy gets an ''eye-opening speech'' moment typical for this series. Despite the fact that it was a minute or so since he was engaging in casual commenting on a woman's looks rating her hottness, i.e. same societal ranking business. Does that not make him a hypocrite? If anything, would sharing a roof with your toxic brother when you both are adults be a great, pleasurable existence? I see authors being only critical about stuff women tend to be generally more concerned about ( social interactions, social media, society as a whole, being likeable etc) when it comes to ranking while totally ignoring other aspects of it. Apparently, typical concerns of men that revolve more around dominance and seeming more aggressive, achieving, masculine don't have anything to do with ranking and don't have same fundamental nature. Also where is the line between being nice, empathetic, considering and just appearing that way because of social norms? Apparently, the authors don't see it. Lots of such subtle things are overlooked completely which makes the episode the weakest one I've seen so far. That makes the episode itself just a facade with no substance.
Black Mirror: The Entire History of You (2011)
Tears guaranteed 90%, well done
Ok, this one made me really cry. I've only seen the 1st season so far and I don't know if I want to continue watching, but this was definitely the best one out of the 1st season. Much better and stronger than ''satire'' and provocation they use so far. Surprisingly very humane and acute.
Black Mirror: Fifteen Million Merits (2011)
Author's failure
I understand the point but it would feel real if whoever made this episode wouldn't use cheap cinematic chiches as well.
Here's one thing that seems to be the most illogical thing in this episode to me. There's a girl who seems to have a crush on the protagonist. She tries to talk to him and genuinely helps him to get food that is stuck in vending machine. He couldn't care less about her, didn't even try to befriend her. Never talks to her again during entire episode. Then he sees a new girl in an elevator and notices her because she's conventionally attractive. Then he hears her singing some old song about not knowing something if one doesn't know love in the toilet. They start talking and that talk and every other interaction they have and her character (lack of it) are nothing but a bunch of the most hackneyed and cheesiest movie cliches. They lack any authenticity and feel empty. They didn't make me empathize with characters at all, just made me cringe. Of course, the protagonist falls in love with her and uses that other girl's exact words about the vending machine as a pick-up line for this girl Abi. The protagonist finds Abi's singing divine because he's in love with her and it's supposed to be this way according to blandest romantic movies' cliches. So he convinces her to go to talent show (?!!) to sing it. Apparently because your enamoured lover (an equivalent of mum) likes your unprofessional breathy humming everybody else is supposed to love it and you just as much. Then this girl is being told by judges that something about her is so pure and real and authentic. Apparently, the author of this episode assumes that we, the viewers are supposed to see that as well. I don't see what's particulary authentic about this girl in that environment. Her conventionally attractive innocent youthul docile looks? Nothing more. Her lack of personality entirely consists out of thank god now old-fashioned movie cliches. It's blatant how the author was shoving it in your face how pseudo ''quirky'' she is folding origamis and humming a cheesy song with no feel to it and without any context. It's such a shallow empty way to show her supposed ''difference'' and betterness. She, just like the protagonist and other characters, feels empty. If anything, the first girl felt more real and authentic even though we don't know much about her either. She actually felt human with ''good and bad'' human feelings. The protagonist sees ''the truth'' and ''realness'' he strives for in idealizing a one-dimentional good-looking girl who's basically nothing but a bunch of tropes, collective male fantasies and projections rather than in humanness of real people around him.
If you want to talk about authenticity and realness than show them. Don't be a slave to stereotypes and hackneyed cliches yourself. Unfortunately, the author failed to show the very thing he was trying to preach which makes the point of the episode very weak.
P.S. I also don't get why it was only Abi who had to drink that ''compliance'', but not the protagonist. It was said that they give that drink to everybody, but apparently not. Why? Is that because Abi is, again, not a human but embodiment of ''eternal femininity''? Why did the aithor made it look like it was the substance that made her make that choice, but not in case with him? And why was there that caricaturistic blonde woman at teh end of the show? Why did she have to sing badly? Eveybody knows that people who can't sing wouldn't be able to make it though on castings. There are actors on show like this who sing badly or people are invited because of their bad singing for the audience to laugh at. So both, the blonde and Abi wouldn't make it to the show.
Jessica Jones (2015)
For edgy people
Pros:
- Strong independent female leading character
- Her style
- Charismatic British psychopath
- Theme of abusive relationships is kind of being explored
- All the characters are totally cardboard ones
- They're inconsistent too
- Too much of pretentiousness vs absolute lack of substance or interesting plot
- Lots of moments that are downright laughable or cringy
- Robyn. I mean could they make someone more caricaturistic than that?