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Damsel (2024)
An old school fairytale
Hollywood lately always fails to get it right. Usually because of too much CGI and explosions instead of story telling, but mostly because it has replaced smart scripts with political agendas and vehicles to promote and push sequels to every new franchise it tries to launch. Super hero movies are idiotic and serve more as platforms. Comedies are insulting and unfunny. Historical dramas care more about inclusion than history. And the list goes on.
It was therefore quite surprising to see that for once they went the other way and instead of selling one more scifi or fantasy movie that would hopefully (for them) serve as a vehicle for some new trilogy, they opted to make a classic good old fashioned movie with a beginning, a middle and an end.
Damsel is not one more CGI fest, it has no twists or surprises, but follows one of the most classic plots of the genre: "good princess gets betrayed by evil queen". Millie Bobby Brown gives a very physical performance and she is really good as you can see she out her heart in making the pain and effort completely genuine, she reminded me of Bruce Willis in Die Hard, so kudos to her.
Do not expect something outstanding in terms of originality: Damsel is pretty straightforward. But it is shot with passion, energy and the purpose to tell the story right, and as such it is a great fun watch for the whole family.
However, at times it becomes a little scary and violent, so I would not recommend it for kids under 10.
Damsel is really good because it succeeds at being exactly what it's meant to be: a fairytale not gone bad.
8/10.
Night Swim (2024)
You have seen every scene
There is not one new scene in this horrid mish-mash of a movie, the evil/villain(not specifying to avoid spoilers) is made from parts of older evils/villains, the family moving in the house is a grid of different husbands, wives and kids from different horror movies, the plot is so predictable you won't just be guessing what happens next but even who will say what- and why. Even the twists are so predictable you would wish there were no twists at all.
It's almost incredible that there are no original scripts anymore. It is understandable that after all these years, there are very few original ideas. But wait: there are dozens of 1970s horror movies that are way more original and unpredictable than movies like Night Swim. The problem then is not that today's horror directors are lacking imagination. It is that they can't get funding for any b-movie that takes any risks. When making films like this, the producers know what to expect. Being original or taking risks requires a different mindset within the movie industry. Sadly, industrialists don't like surprises.
Which ultimately means you can skip Night Swim altogether; in 1-2 years there will be a nearly identical flick taking place not next to a swimming pool, but a well, a seafront, a bathtub, or maybe even a toilet. Which is not a bad idea, after all. A toilet is ideal as one could flush this thing down the drain and be done with it.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)
So unbearably ugly
My biggest problem with this train wreck of a movie is not the unbearable overuse of CGI nor that said special effects seem rushed, sloppy and in some scenes downright cartoonish, but that the whole end product is just SO INCREDIBLY UGLY. The characters are ugly, the depiction of underwater scenes is even uglier, the locations are horribly generic and the color palette is the stuff of nightmare. It seems that the production designer decided that the way to make this movie stand out would be by making every location look either moldy and rotten, like Central European cities in those parts where old cement has absorbed too much water and has moss growing all over it or variations of green, blue and red, like a Marvel poster for Avengers Endgame.
The same horrible choices apply for the sky. No magic hour here, only cloudy skies that make half the movie look miserable. I cannot remember when it was the last time that I saw a movie where almost every shot was so horribly lit and so aesthetically displeasing that it convinced me to check the director's previous work to understand what the hell went so wrong.
Ugliness aside, the script barely ever stands out, and apart from a couple scenes between Aquaman and his brother trading insults, literally all other dialogue is as generic as a Pepsi Ad.
Overall, all the magic of the first movie has been replaced by triviality and mediocrities.
The retro technology (robots, engines and big, ugly buttons everywhere) used by the villains is completely out of place. All in all, this movie equals to 2,5 hours of ugliness and boredom and cannot be recommended to anyone except Aquaman fans.
Everyone else, including Jason Momoa fans, avoid like the plague.
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)
Snyder is Alan Lee, not JRR Tolkien.
A bit of Star Wars, a bit of Dune, a bit of Lord of the Rings, a bit of Harry Potter, a pinch of Conan, a couple ideas stolen from the Mandalorian and Flash Gordon and what you get is Rebel Moon, a scifi space opera that seems more like a common denominator of things Mr Snyder seems to like rather than an original story.
It's clear that Snyder is excellent in directing, sometimes missing the mark (who hasn't, really? Even Scorsese did Hugo) but mostly creating visual wonders. However all his original work, ie all work that was not conceptually created by someone else, leaving Snyder the sole task of adapting it to the big screen is below average.
Rebel Moon is no exception, as this extremely basic and predictable story has been remade so many times one cannot even bother to care about the story. Not even Snyder himself, it seems, as half his characters appear out of nowhere, undertake a task for no reason and without any obvious motive, and proceed to the next scene.
This movie feels more like an adventure game than a work of art. "Unlock a new character, mission completed, proceed to the next stage".
However, as a visually impressive space opera, Rebel Moon does not disappoint. It can be best enjoyed if playing in the background while one is wrapping Xmas presents or decorating the house, because it is very pretty and one does not need to watch it attentively, as the story hardly matters at all. As such, it is a fun Xmas distraction and -at least as far as I'm concerned- more fun than ONE MORE mindless Santa movie about escaped reindeers, lost presents or naughty elves.
I give this a 8/10 for the visuals and a 2/10 for the story and characters. This should count as a 5, but because it's the holidays, I will rate it with a 6/10 coz you know, Xmas spirit and all.
PS 1: One should compare this mess to Guardians of the Galaxy to realize how great Marvel used to be before they became a populist political platform: making good space operas is extremely difficult.
PS 2: Kudos to the cast for REALLY trying to act in a completely nonsensical story with a horribly idiotic script.
Falling Down (1993)
30 years later, still ahead of its time.
This is a movie that is brilliant in its madness. It is the fallout of a sentimental bomb, and as we grow older and discover life, we all will relate to what the anonymous antihero feels. Sooner or later.
Thankfully we will not go to a rampage. We will feel like crap, but eventually we will deal with whatever life has thrown at us and will get back on our feet.
But this movie discusses what would happen if we didn't do that. It is not meant to be lived or imitated. It's meant to be felt and understood backwards.
And on this level, it is a punch in the gut. It feels and plays out like one of those occasions where life decides to stump all over our hopes, our dreams, our plans.
It is an incredible tale, in that it calls out our worse inner demons, and shows up what would have been if we ever lost hope and just stopped trying.
It is touching, sad and so relatable it feels almost personal. And at the same time it is cathartic and offers closure and hope.
It could be argued that this movie, from an artistic point of view, is one of the greatest masterpieces of contemporary cinema.
Overlooked and misjudged upon its release, it is the definition of what people call a "cult classic".
A great achievement.
Gladiator (2000)
An epic from the golden days of cinema.
The Gladiator came out in 2000. One year later it would be followed by the Fellowship of the Ring. One year earlier, the Matrix had changed the way we look at scifi. It was a great movie of the rather rare "historic fantasy" genre (although at the time it was mislabeled a "sword and sandal epic") which has produced a rather limited number of great movies.
But the Gladiator, unlike most movies of this genre, remains one of the most beloved Hollywood epics.
In hindsight, the reason is obvious: it has Russel Crowe, the greatest rising star of that generation in top form, a form which sadly did not last very long. It has the one and only Ridley Scott going full throttle for the first time since Alien, delivering a visual masterpiece with some of the most iconic scenes of the 21st century, such as the "hand that caresses the wheat in the field", a shot that has been copied countless times.
It has a great story, which is offensively inaccurate from a historical standpoint but catches the spirit of the devoted hero that falls victim of unethical powers, is betrayed, destroyed but yet he rises up and fulfills his destiny.
And of course it has Hans Zimmer, whose soundtrack has become one of the most well known musical themes of all time.
The movies was flawed and flawless at the same time, equally grand and inaccurate, epic and engaging, sad and exhilarating. It was a kick ass movie that nailed it.
And, maybe above all, it was the most successful movie of a golden era of cinema:
From 1995 to 2005, cinema changed forever: directors broke boundaries in virtually every genre, from scifi (the Matrix) and fantasy (LOTR) to comedy (the Big Lebowski), action (Kill Bill), and drama (Fight club).
Hell, even Chinese cinema had joined that great wave of innovative and brave filmmaking with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
The studios could not believe their luck. Veterans, newcomers, new writers, new cinematographers, everyone was at the top of their game, making great movie after great movie.
I do not know exactly when this phenomenon started, but it is my firm belief that it was pushed to the forefront by Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.
We were reaching the end of the century, a new millenium was about to begin, and suddenly everyone was up for trying something new.
Ridley Scott was not new, of course, but the great recognition of his art and the artistic value of Blade Runner had become generally acknowledged only a few years ago, and this realization may have contributed to giving him the chance for a new visual masterpiece, helmed by an Australian newcomer who had only played one big part as supporting actor in a film noir (LA Confidential).
Ridley gave it his all, and the Gladiator remains, to this day, his most successful and highest rated movie.
Sadly, the wave of innovation did not last as long as it could: it was gradually replaced by the unprecedented success of the superhero movie, which almost destroyed cinema, first by razing the box office and once all the good movies had been made, by trying to outsell competition disguised as a form of social platform for inclusion, diversity, equality, gender rights, and all sorts of activist ideas.
20years later, no mainstream studio cares anymore about making art or telling great stories.
It's all about making good PR in Hollywood regardless of talent or content.
We are now reaching a quarter of a century from the last golden era of cinema.
The superhero genre has finally reached its inevitable end. And finally, after almost two decades, an exceptional historical movie (Oppenheimer) and an original concept (Barbie) are in the top-5 grossing movies of the year, while almost half of the new superhero movies have flopped.
Let's just hope that we are nearing a new age of cinema, one where the medium can be restored to its former glory.
The Gladiator remains, to this day, one of the greatest timeless examples of how cinema can truly enthrall and inspire people, even those who do not necessarily believe in art.
The Killer (2023)
Looks like a classic rogue hitman movie -but with Fincher!
So apparently the comic book "Le tueur" (the killer in French) on which this movie is based won a "Best Comic you didn't read this Year Award" back in 2008, and it would make absolutely perfect sense if the movie won a similar award.
The reason is obvious: how many more movies about hitmen/trained killers going rogue and retaliating on the people who hired/betrayed/trained them can one person watch?
Starting from the Bourne movies & Kill Bill and all the way to the Equalizer trilogy & John Wick quadrilogy, we have all seen at least 15 to 20 movies repeating the exact same story. The only variation between all these movies pertain to:
(1) how well trained/efficient/untouchable the killer is, (2) is he/she motivated by betrayal/murder of a close person/set up, and
(3) which assassination methods/weapons does the killer use.
But for some unknown reason, presumably a financial one, the GREAT David Fincher decided we need one more of those bad boys.
So, how does the Killer compare to the other 100 similar movies of the "rogue hitman" genre?
Well, it tries to be more realistic, more grim and sort of "realistic" and also "grim".
And realistic.
And grim.
And that's about it.
Why watch it?
For the same reason you have watched all other movies of the genre: to kill time.
After the excellent "Mindhunter" series, which was not cancelled but indefinitely postponed for financial and time reasons, it seems that Mr Fincher sort of waltzes on from one mediocre project to another.
Mank was visually impressive, but narratively... meh.
This is visually impressive, but narratively... bleh.
One does expect so much more from David Fincher.
Old Dads (2023)
The 6/10 rating proves this film is good.
It's hard for modern days Americans to face their existence in the mirror. Their pretentious, wanna be PC behavior, trying to create an illusion of virtue signalling over any expression of human behavior is ever expanding to all aspects of life. It began with good intentions, namely avoiding useless insults and avoiding confrontation and has turned to a bloody cult.
Being European I find it hilarious but also rather sad how Americans fail to see how the same country that allows hundreds of gun homicides annually makes such a big deal over verbal confirmations and sexist talk.
This film makes fun of it and of course it offends all those people think of all this as the new normal.
Which is a good thing.
This film gets a good rating not because it was made to laugh at the new American morals and habits, but to offend those who practice them.
Therefore it works.
8/10.
One Piece (2023)
With a good script, you can't go wrong
I was never a fan of the anime series frankly because I was never huge anime fan. I do appreciate things like Ghost in the Shell, Akira and some of Miyiazaki's creations but overall I am not big on animated movies, from Japan or the US. I just like live action.
So when I saw they were making a live action series of One Piece I thought I would give it a shot because the fans of the series are crazy about it, and I was hoping to understand why.
Turns out that the reason is the obvious: it's a beautiful story full of meanings. Sometimes it reminds you of Antoine de Saint Exupery's Little Prince, sometimes it reminds you of Tolkien, but mostly it is full of great notions and ideas, wonderfully depicted and serving as excellent lessons for children and young adults: believe in your dreams. Sacrifice for what you believe in. Love your friends. So what's good for those you love even if it is the hard thing to do.
All this may sound simplistic the way I describe it but it is delivered and described in an excellent manner in the story of Monkey D Luffy and his dream of being a pirate. It is such a basic and simple concept and yet so beautifully written.
All the rest, ie acting, CGI, similarity of the live action actors to the anime characters etc are in my opinion secondary and not particularly important. The overall look and feel is pretty fake but this is deliberate and clearly based on the anime. But it really does not matter at all. This is all about the story, the excellent dialogue and the beautiful messages it conveys to kids of all ages.
I hope and wish Hollywood would spend a little more time focusing on telling great stories that are so touching and can shape a young person's life like One Piece.
It's definitely worth more than most of the scifi and fantasy crap being released all the time that tell the same old story but with different visual effects or superpowers.
Overall, a very entertaining and thought provoking series that should be watched by everyone.
I give this 9/10
I would give it 10/10 but 8 episodes were too short, and considering the anime has now surpassed 1000 episodes, they should have done more.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Marvel's swan song.
Marvel has pretty much destroyed or abandoned each and every one of its properties or replaced them with mediocrities.
The Guardians survived the demise of Thanos and so we got a third movie that nobody really expected or necessarily wanted, considering the second one was not any good and the Guardians had been overexposed in the Avenger movies, so it rather seemed like there no longer was any purpose for one more space opera.
Thankfully, Mr Gunn decided that he needs closure before he moved on to the DC Universe, so he got to write and direct the 3rd movie, focusing on the origins of Rocket Rackoon and the famous Marvel villain known as the High Evolutionary.
And basically he nailed it.
This is in my book the best of the Guardians trilogy, even better than the first one. It is flawless. Yes, there is (as always) a lot of action but it perfectly fits the plot and this time you care, especially since every action scene becomes a plot device to move the story forward. And although in the last few scenes most of the action clichés expected in this sort of movie become prevalent, the excellent script, the very touching and humane story and the wonderfully depicted characters take precedence from the action and make Guardians an excellent scifi movie and one of the best space operas (if not the best) ever made.
This movie is Marvel's last chance to redeem itself from the catastrophic period it entered after the end of the Avengers and it should focus on these characters going forward. All its other properties seem totally irrelevant, indifferent and abused to sell politics and create social platforms.
This is the only decent movie they have released in 4 years, and they should focus on movie making. It's a real shame that the same people who can create masterpieces like Guardians 3 are wasted on artless and horrible creations such as Antman 3, Dr Strange 2 and all the pseudo-progressive tv series of the past few years.
It may be time they seriously consider bringing mr Gunn back from DC and giving him the helm. These days it seems like all Mr Feige cares about is a future career in politics.
If they don't find a way to replicate the triumph of storytelling and inspiration that Guardians 3 is, this movie may very well be Marvel's swan song.
Secret Invasion (2023)
Beating the dead horse
Watching the horror that is Secret Invasion, a non adaptation of the comic series with the same name, the lyrics of Guns N Roses "dead horse" came to my head: Nobody understands, Quite why we're here, searchin' for answers, That never appear.
Marvel used to be a powerhouse when it came to adapting its own materials. The ridiculous and mostly laughable adaptation of super heroes by movie studios that usually ended up either bombing at the box office or being released straight to dvd was replaced by the days of glory that were Sony's Xmen and then the MCU movies.
So what happened? Is politics the problem? Is pushing feminist agendas they reason behind failing to adapt the source material?
Although politics has certainly penetrated the Disney movie industry and Marvel products are used as platforms, the reason behind a never ending series of abysmal failures is certainly more than that.
Marvel studios have clearly stopped caring. After Avengers they have gone completely astray and neither the producers nor the writers seem to care even remotely about neither the characters nor the Marvel lore.
Nick Fury, a famously cool and dangerous spy was first presented as some kind of naive idiot in Captain Marvel, but here they go completely ape on his legacy: he is made to be a broken, old, rather dumb and completely incapable pensioner who has nothing to do with the original character that THEY CREATED and showcased for a whole DECADE.
Marvel has lost the plot completely. Nobody has assassinated their own characters in the way Marvel/Disney is currently doing in the whole history of cinema. Even James Bond, after almost 60 years, remains a cool, womanizing, intelligent and highly efficient spy. Nobody wants to see a pensioner who cries alone on benches and is sentimentally broken. And nobody would pay for this crap, either.
I therefore come to the conclusion that the main reason behind this utter failure is caused by the Disney + platform: these people had never done a tv series, they didn't know how series work and they screwed up all their characters by trying to adapt their stories to make what is considered "good tv" by today's standards.
Sadly, they are doing it all wrong.
They surely have no idea what they are doing and they rely on people who are even more confused and incapable of making a decent series.
They should have stuck with movies, where the limited time and tight story telling was a requirement which they knew how to handle. Their series are consistently horrible, starting from Wandavision and only getting worse and worse despite their best efforts to cut down the running time by making each new series shorter.
But it clearly isn't working.
Marvel needs to take a long break from adapting its own material and then go back to basics: making movies.
Otherwise they will keep beating the dead horse and pretty soon they will run out of followers. Secret Invasion is yet another horrible series which does nothing for Marvel except destroying the last character from the Avengers era they had left.
Right now, they only have Spider-Man, and he is not even original MCU.
I give Secret Invasion a 4/10 for production values and a stellar cast, but in reality it's not worth more than a 2/10: boring, unwatchable, tasteless, incoherent, badly acted (despite the actors' pedigree) and completely irrelevant to the source material, namely the series of the same name and the legacy characters as they were depicted in both the comics and the MCU movies.
PS: Ms Emilia Clarke needs to stop jumping on every franchise vehicle out there and work on her acting career; or pretty soon she will suffer the same fate as Marvel.
Extraction 2 (2023)
Better then the first movie
The first Extraction seemed rather pointless. A lame story to justify great action scenes.
A generic hero that was meant to be cool on the basis of the actor playing him.
This is a much better film. The story is interesting, the action is good and the characters are no longer paper thin.
When I heard there would be a sequel I thought that there is zero purpose for it.
But after the second movie, I can see Tyler becoming a great action hero and the Ectraction movies becoming an exciting new action series.
Notably, Dr No was one of the worst Bond films. Maybe sometimes it works better if one begins with a whisper instead of a bang.
Carnival Row (2019)
An absolute masterpiece that deserved a 3rd season.
This is the definition of good science fiction. Made by a team of people who clearly respect scifi as a genre, the extremely immersive and huntingly beautiful steampunk world of Carnival's Row is created with attention to every little detail. In it, we follow different storylines tangled around the same characters. A hopeless love story, a murder mystery, a narration of a woman's decision to follow her heart against the world's conventions, the horrors of war, xenophobia, hatred, the Victorian society's world of crime and prostitution (with a scifi twist of course), Byzantinesque plotting for power, fantasy, magic, alchemy, horror and drama.
Yes, the plot is not always the most unpredictable and yes, the series is not full of twists and surprises à la Game of Thrones. And yet all storylines are well written, very well acted and keep you engaged.
When first launched, this series was targeted as an effort to insert politics within the world of scifi. It turned out that Carnival Row not only stayed true to the good cause of delivering excellent scifi, while other shows launched with much higher expectations were destroyed to promote political agendas and platforms.
This is, in its way, the best scifi series ever made: as long as one likes the steampunk sub-genre and its Victorian setting, there is nothing comparable to Carnival Row and there will not be for years to come.
It is sad that it only went on for two seasons, however it is also a good thing that instead of allowing it to drag on by adding new characters and introducing new storylines, the show-runners concluded the story they set off to tell and stopped there.
However, I felt that some storylines (which I will not mention as this review is spoiler-free) would have benefited from a third season. And for this lack of closure, I give this 9/10 instead of 10/10.
Kudos to Orlando Bloom for bringing in top tier star power and to Ms Delevigne for a performance full of passion and honesty.
65 (2023)
b-movies did it better.
The biggest twist in this movie is how a completely different human civilization to our own visited Earth 65 million years ago but they had same lamps, measured distance in kilometers, called asteroids asteroids (I mean come on) and had identical guns to ours.
Everything else is cliche, boring and predictable.
At least the original b-movies of the 50s and 60s knew they were not meant to be taken seriously. This film doesn't even bother to have fun. These people here, they thought they were making serious art.
Oh and by the way, the dinosaurs look like they came from Mars.
Overall, whoever thought of budgeting this script is clearly mental. Go watch Jurassic World instead, at least they tried to explain the story with "science". This is like an adult movie. The script is just an pretext to get to the action.
4/10 for the actors who try unjustifiably hard to give a good performance.
Obsession (2023)
This is why casting matters.
Normally I wouldn't even bother writing a review over such a monstrosity.
However it's worth noting why this series failed so spectacularly:
Because 1. CASTING MATTERS and 2. SCRIPT MATTERS.
In this particular case, Armitage looks like he landed the role by accident. He plays one thing and one thing only: the confused mature male. He doesn't express anything else throughout the first episode except confusion. He looks confused even when he is looking out the window. Until it's all explained: he wasn't confused, he was "passionate".
What utter crap.
But he is overshadowed in lack of conviction by Ms Murphy.
She is an actress who has played some roles in the past where she was vaguely erotic, but in this particular series, her forced and artificial transformation to femme fatale who simply looks intensely at a father twice and convinces him to fall in love with his son's girlfriend is just ludicrous.
She looks like a stalker or a person with some serious mental disorder, and not for one scene does she manage to justify or explain why an older man and especially a doctor would read her behavior as seductive or sexual.
So basically this all comes down to one simple thing: if you have such a weak script that fails miserably to explain the process through which two people fall in love, like for example the script of "the English patient", one needs to rely on the chemistry, appearance and acting skills of the two main characters.
If you cankot cast people who look the part, and on top of that you can't even give them the semblance of a decent script to express it, why even bother to film one scene?
Let alone a whole series.
This is a complete failure that should have been shelved and not released.
Daisy Jones & The Six (2023)
Really entertaining, really fun, really touching
I had not heard of the writer who did the novel "Daisy Jones & the Six" but if this is as faithful an adaptation as they say, boy she knows how to write wonderful stories, believable characters and touching dialogue.
This is a a fantastic show about a 1970s band, but through their experiences, loves, triumphs and failures it ends up being one of the greatest love stories we have seen in year while at the same time it shows REAL, three-dimensional people.
I will not go as far as to say that this is the series of the year, but it has no bad side. The direction and photography is great, the whole cast gives a master class in acting (even the local granny extra on the tiny island of Hydra is great!), the script is one of the best tv-scripts in a long time and even the bloody music (composed especially for the series and performed by the cast) is good enough to sound like a credible top-1 Billboard album!
I gave this a nine (9) because one must appreciate the diligence, the care and the effort to make such a credible show about the 70s while including enough original songs for a full album and taking the time to capture such exceptional performances from the whole cast. There is literally NOT ONE badly acted scene, in 10 hours of footage.
Definitely one of the Crown Jewels of Amazon Prime, in the year of such stellar flops like Rings of Power, Daisy Jones & the Six proves we can expect great things from such exceptional teams of producers and artists.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Crazy they green lit this thing
Marvel released IronMan in 2008. After all these years and so many highly successful movies, how did they even decide to release this?
Everyone makes mistakes, but at least they shelve them. They don't release, promote and advertise them if they are this bad.
I don't know what's going on with Marvel, I don't care to discuss politics, feminism, the Disney Agenda and all the usual things we hear about contemporary Hollywood. The matter of the fact is that if you have such a horrible product, so badly written that almost all the actors seem to be bored even making an effort to act, that's when you take the decision to put this project in a shelf and move on.
This should not have been released. The script sounds like it was written by an 11 year old Marvel fan.
Still can't believe I saw this thing and it was an official Marvel release. Wow.
Boston Strangler (2023)
Excellent piece of work but for fans of the genre.
Concise and tight direction. An interesting script. An infamous serial killer that may or may not have been caught. A story of a journalist that went above and beyond to discover the truth.
No, it's not Zodiac by Fincher, it's a new movie about the Boston Strangler. The source material and the cast are excellent, the subject matter is fascinating and the story is famous but long forgotten. This is indeed a movie that in the hands of a great director like Fincher would make the viewer sit on the edge of their sit. But the writer and director of this movie opts for slow pace, bland murder scenes and makes some odd choices that seem to bring down the tension and the suspense. Something like a reverse Hitchcock.
However, the genre of investigative cinema is always fascinating and whether the movie is called Zodiac, Zero Dark Thirty or Spotlight, there is always something to savor.
In this case, it is the impeccable acting by Ms Knightly who seems to carry the movie with ease and proves yet again that she is a fantastic actress that has lately been overlooked. Her silent yet expressive performance is fantastic. She is a woman of few words but a thousand expressions. Without her, this movie would be way more boring and bland, but she saves the day, Omar-Sharif-in-Dr-Zhivago-style.
However this movie does get a little flat, and maybe a little disappointing in its final act, unlike Zodiac where Fincher made you completely freak out! But not every movie can be a masterpiece.
A must watch for fans of this genre, and generally highly recommended.
Even if this is not your favorite kind of movie, it still is very much worth seeing.
Nope (2022)
Could have been the new Jaws
This film had all the elements to become the Jaws for a new generation. It had the plot, it had the story, it had the new Amity Island Sheriff, it had the mystery, and eventually, as the film progresses, it turns out it even had the shark.
Where this film fails is that it didn't have the shark hunt. Where Jaws successfully built the story starting from hubris and getting to nemesis, in the unsurpassable form of Ancient Greek tragedy, Jordan Peele, an excellent director with a keen eye for setting up scenes and shooting them, lacks the storytelling chops to build up a story in a satisfactory way. His movie begins as a mystery, then it becomes some kind of X-Files episode, then it becomes Jaws, but as the final act begins, it turns to some half-baked thriller that doesn't know if it wants to scare you, make you laugh or just make you think this is meant to be some artistic allegory. And all this because Peele does not know -and he never did, judging from this previous body of work- how to get from hubris to nemesis. From the middle of a story to its conclusion. So he just lets events roll out and reach a conclusion by themselves. Which is okay, but that's what happens with everything in life. Do you wanna make a documentary or do you wanna make a movie, Mr Peele?
You need a punch in the final act, you want to show that there was conclusion and closure because of what your characters do, not simply because "what is meant to be will be".
That's why Jaws remains a classic. Because man hunts monster, monster hunts man, but just when all hope seems to fade, man prevails.
Nobody would remember Jaws if the shark just got caught and died by Quincy's hand. That would have been a shark-fishing documentary.
Until Mr Peele finds out what kind of story he wants to tell and HOW to tell it, his movies will be visually fantastic but narratively incomplete.
The Witcher: Blood Origin (2022)
Does not qualify as a TV show.
This is not a tv show, it is a generic D&D campaign, like the ones that people in uniform gather and play in Sundays in parks and forests, with plastic swords and robes made from old bed sheets- but with a really big budget and a professional director and script writer.
They had no idea what the Witcher lore is, they just wanted to make a generic fantasy product according to their preferences and in line with their script, and they just made specific changes in names, locations and events so it can be sold as a product of a popular and commercially successful brand like the Witcher and his universe.
This particular kind of adaptation was extremely popular back in the 70s and 80s, where popular characters (especially superheroes and legendary heroes from Greek mythology) were used as a selling point for generic fantasy and scifi movies that did not respect the lore or the mythology or ancient civilizations, but simply used recognizable names and characters so their end product would sell.
The world has changed since then, and now people expect to see a movie about eg Hercules that depicts his true story and not some random script written by some guy in California that doesn't know the difference between Greece and China, hence the Hercules movie with Dwayne Johnson and the "titans" series with Sam Worthington flopped.
People in our time and age expect that Hollywood will honor the franchises and stories that they bring to life and not recreate them with the sole purpose of making a quick buck.
Hollywood and the streaming platforms are running out of time and opportunities, because they have forgotten what made the LOTR and the first Marvel movies exceptional and huge successes.
All in all, this is unwatchable. Avoid it.
Blonde (2022)
The life of Marilyn Monroe & the death of Jim Morrison.
This is the kind of movie that leaves you speechless. Two hours of a truly inspired fictional depiction of Marilyn Monroe's life and one final act where everything comes crumbling down.
Though the film focuses almost exclusively on Marilyn's tragedies, and presents her well within the spectrum of borderline personality disorder, it maintains a sense of pace and narrative, which makes it quite interesting.
And then, all hell brakes loose. The film turns to an endless, incoherent long one-take, one minute Marilyn is vomiting inside a plane, the next she is in bed with JFK, all sense of time and space is gradually lost and the movie goes on like that for almost 40 minutes.
What makes this final act even more annoying is that we do know that this far from the truth: during her last years, Marilyn made an excellent film called "the Misfits" and though she struggled with addiction, she remained quite active in all facets of life, and in any event she didn't live like the movie depicts her, namely like a junkie who has lost all touch with reality.
And this is where the movie largely fails: clearly the depiction of addiction is way over the top. After a while you no longer know if you are watching the late life of Marilyn or the last days of Jim Morrison in Paris.
The direction is excellent, but during the last act of the film, everything turns to an incoherent mess, so there is not too much to direct, as most scenes are either blurry and out of focus or highly reminiscent of some pretentious faux-artsy MTV music video.
Anna de Armas is flawless and clearly deserves an Oscar for one of the truly great performances of our time. Her likeness to Marilyn is uncanny, but the way she imitates her voice and mannerisms are so masterful that cannot be believed and have to be witnessed: in some scenes, you really can't tell if it's the real Marilyn or not.
I have seen Ms de Armas in several films and she is a really good actress, but what she achieves here artistically is beyond words.
It's a real shame then that all the good things about this movie are wasted in the final act, as the whole construct literally falls apart.
Still, "Blonde" is most definitely worth a watch for a number of reasons: the direction (until the last act) is excellent. The story, though fictional and largely inaccurate, is very interesting because it captures successfully the drama of the great Norma Jean. But above all, this movie is a must see for all cinephiles, because everyone who loves cinema cannot miss Ms de Armas's incredible performance.
Andor (2022)
Looks like the real deal
No stupid aliens, no weird dialogue, no agendas on social platforms, just the lived in world of Star Wars that generations have fallen in love with. The story seems like it is either pretty straightforward or that it has more layers than initially shown.
But more importantly, this feels like the proper Star Wars world, the way we love it: old planets full of space garbage, seedy pawnshops selling rusty spaceship parts and down to earth characters trying to survive in a cyberpunk world that feels believable, full of personality and grittiness.
It doesn't really matter if in the end the story proves to be average. This show takes you on a proper Star Wars ride, they way Rogue One and Episode 7 did before it all went down the drain. A must see for SW fans and sci-fi fans in general.
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Flight of Icarus
With Ragnarok they flew too high. But just like the myth of Ikarus, they lost their humility, they flew too high, the sun melted their wings and they crashed and burned.
It's shocking that the people behind one of the best superhero movies ever made is directly responsible for one of the worst as well. But if you watch closely, you can tell why.
They thought they are so funny the rest of the movie doesn't really matter. However, it was the other way round. The rest of the movie was what made Ragnarok great. The plot, the twists and the excellent cast. The humor was the enabler, which turned a great movie to fantastic.
But without a decent plot, smart dialogue and decent roles, the humor becomes unfunny, comedy turns to farce. It's the same mistake they do with all these spoof parody movies like Scary Movie, Superhero Movie and so on. If it's just jokes, it ends up being one big fat nothing.
They did exactly the same mistake, and Love and Thunder crashed and burned. It's a real shame, because this movie had potential. Now it's just a farce that back in the 90s would qualify as straight to VHS.
A true lesson in humility for Mr Waititi and the Marvel Studios. People say go woke, go broke. But this one didn't fail because of "female Thor" or same sex couples etc. This one failed because instead of working on a hero movie, they worked on a spoof. If you don't respect the source material, the source material doesn't respect you.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
An updated review, after careful consideration and rewatching the Trilogy.
One thing is for sure. This show brought back my obsessive love for LOTR and Tolkien.
I admit it has been more than 4 years since I went through the appendices of the LOTR (I have the Penguin Omnibus edition from the early nineties, with John Howe's Gandalf strolling across the green fields of Hobbiton with a solemn look on his face). So I went through my book, my handrwitten notes, my side notes on how Peter Jackson could only PRETEND to make a Hobbit trilogy but instead make 3 movies full of short stories from the appendices, which Gandalf could be narrating to Bilbo and the Dwarves (I still think this version would be better than the final Hobbit movies) and of course I watched the LOTR Trilogy (extended version -not PJ's favorite, sorry PJ but yes we loved fan service) one more time.
And somehow everything fell into place.
Here is the deal with Rings of Power: We got it ALL wrong.
Amazon is not trying to make a Tolkien series. Sure, they respect the lore insofar it serves a specific purpose: making a soap opera in a visually stunning, narratively complete and deeply realistic world.
Why do they need the world of Tolkien to do that?
Because ALL SOAP OPERAS take place in a real world.
You cannot make a successful soap opera in space, or in a shallow, fake world, because the motives, the relations, the "secret agendas" and "evil plans" of the paper-thin, cliché characters soap operas rely on will not be understood.
It's a simple as that.
Here's an example: can you have Princess Leia team up with Darth Vader because he is her father? No, this would make no sense. They live in a relatively basic made up universe, where she was a fugitive all her life. There is no social/financial background to set up a soap opera in Star Wars. The SW Universe was built arround a narrative and specific characters, and not the other way round.
But Tolkien's legendarium make his world self-sustained: Middle-Earth can exist for millennia without a narrative, with people just going about their business without anything notable happening.
It's a REAL fictional world!!!!
There is literally no other fictional universe where you can "buy" a complete package of an fictional universe and set up a soap opera in any location you wish. You wanna make a new Dallas? You set up a story in Rohan. You want Dynasty?
You move the show to Gondor or Numenor. You want action and villains? You can pick Morgoth or Sauron or Saruman, according to your needs. You want your love stories? You have literally limitless choices, from inter-species drama to queens and kings conspiring.
Sure, the is always the world of Game of Thrones, which gives you the added bonus of nudity and sex. But, hey, that one is taken.
But furthermore, if you wanna do an expensive CGI series, without murder, sex, nudity, which can appeal to all age and gender groups without looking ridiculous, Tolkien is your best if not you only option.
So there you have it.
We got it all wrong.
They don't want to make a new LOTR and they don't want to abuse Tolkien's legacy.
They simply want to shoot a soap opera in Middle-Earth.
Let's face it people. Those of us who watched PJ's trilogy in 2000 are now 22 years older. Most of us will soon be hitting our 60s. We are getting very close to soap opera age.
And we don't care about Dynasty, Dallas or rich oil tycoons swapping wives. That's 1-2 generations old. Our parents and grandparetns who grew up with the Onassis marrying JFKs widow scandal cared about that stuff. We like different stuff altogether.
So this is what it's all about. Going forward, they will learn from their mistakes (e.g. Casting a Galadriel that pales in comparison to Ms Blanchett) and make the end product more desirable.
But make no mistake. This is not about continuing the legacy of Peter Jackson. This is about continuing the legacy of Falcon Crest.
Samaritan (2022)
They wanted to make an true 80s action movie. Sadly, they did.
Only they forgot that for every Cobra, Robocop and American Ninja there were hundreds of similar movies that completely flopped. And many of those failed movies had actually something good. Some had smart dialogue but horrible action. Others had great action but horrible dialogue. And only a few managed to withstand the test of time and not get completely lost to cinematic oblivion.
Somehow, the idealization of the 80s, that has become a global trend after the world phenom that is Stranger Things is creating opportunities such as the Samaritan, a movie where everything literally screams 80s. The star is Stallone. The dialogue is incoherent, over the top and mostly makes zero sense. The super hero costumes look like they were designed by the guy who designed the Robocop suit. And the story is such an obvious cliché that you know exactly what's going on and what's going to happen after 10 minutes.
Hell, even the kid acts like he was born in the 80s, but I suppose the shameful script is to be blamed for that.
Stallone is mostly on auto mode, as expected by an Oscar winning screenwriter who has to go through the nonsensical and incoherent lines they fed him.
The "teacher-student" side-story à la Miyagi makes absolutely no sense, as the student is a 9 year old boy that can play no part in the story whatsoever. It's crazy, it seems they picked the scenes for this movie by using a checklist of "iconic clichés for an 80s action movie".
The bad guys are bad for evil's sake, they are generic and what they do makes absolutely no sense to the point where you wonder if they did this on purpose. Well, if they did, they are complete idiots, because it condemned the film.
And that's all there is to say about this monstrosity.
No story, no motives, no dialogue, horrible 80s overacting, mostly terrible and generic action that you can fast-forward and all the 80s clichés combined in 90 minutes of incoherent and mindless boredom. Oh, and an idiotic twist that they reveal in the opening scene, which serves absolutely no purpose.
I am surprised this movie was released in this condition, and I assume it was green-lit because of Stallone and the overall premise.
It seems Amazon needs more experienced producers. This is the kind of production that back in the 80s drove studios to the ground. Now that would be a real remake.