Change Your Image
bubatd
Reviews
Barry Lyndon (1975)
A Truly Beautiful Film.
This is probably the most beautiful piece of film making that I think I have ever seen, I can see where Ridley Scott got his inspiration for his equally visually stunning film "the Duelists". Every shot does look like an 18th Century Gainsborough oil painting as noted in the description.
I remember seeing a small potion of this Movie when I was quite young and thinking how nice it looked even back then. When I came across it again I was initially put off a little at the three hour run time but when the final credits ran I was left wishing for more?. Its sad to reflect that films such as these are simply not made anymore and probably never will be again. The pacing of the film is far too slow for the Social Media stimulus junkie generation that need constant action to maintain their Goldfish like attention spans and the Historical authenticity of the film would be wrecked by the current politics of inclusion over any semblance of actual Historical reality but at least we will always have this masterpiece as a high water mark of Western Cinema before the current rot set in.
Jiok (2021)
Interesting meditation on Religion and Meaning.
Some parts of this series were very well done, that need that we Humans have to find some meaning in the meaninglessness of the cruelty and death that unfortunately visits us all and how that need can expose us to the manipulation of the cynical is explored in a subtle and interesting way. As American and British TV offerings continue to descend into unwatchable woke nonsense I'm thankful that at least Asia is still producing good and interesting TV and Movies.
Death to 2021 (2021)
Yawn.....same old same old
Very woke, very left wing and of course very boring. The Comrade Commisars who run Hollywood nowdays don't even bother hiding their biases anymore, if you're a raving Leftist type then this is for you, and im sure you'll love it , its all about reinforcing your existing world view without a shred of impartiality. For the rest of us its back to watching foreign and pre 2016 made in the hope of finding some actual entertainment instead of Leftist Political Propaganda masquerading (badly) as such.
In the Shadow of the Moon (2019)
Dangerous premises.
I sat down and started watching this with no idea what it was about other than it was a Sci-Fi time travel thing, something that caught my attention as i love sci-fi time travel stories and i did actually enjoy the mystery of the first half of the film until it became abundantly clear that i was unfortunately watching what i can only describe as some sort of a Violent Left Wing revenge fantasy.
The premise though very loosely outlined implies through imagery evocative of 9/11 that some kind of "Right Wing" Patriot/Militia organization carries out a Terrorist attack in the future and because of this another organization in the future develops time travel so they can send a Terminator type figure back in time to whack people in an extremely violent and sadistic way. People who have committed no crimes whatsoever are sanctioned for execution because they have been found guilty in absentia for holding or sharing an idea? an idea that the future "good guys" have decided is so dangerous that they are morally obligated to go on a kill spree through time so as to prevent this idea from ever being allowed to disseminate?, yet this particular dangerous idea is conveniently never fleshed out in anyway so as to allow the viewer to decide for themselves the merits of this harsh judgement, merely vaguely implied to be on the right end of the spectrum so ergo bad.
Ill leave the glaring plot holes and paradoxes of the actual story aside and simply say that this movie has some very questionable and disturbing undertones. Its pretty difficult to refute the claim that so many have made that this movie is a rather shamelessly Left Wing partisan propaganda piece. It would be interesting to see the reaction from the same people disavowing or dismissing any kind of Political motive driving this movie if the premise remained exactly the same but the victims and perpetrators were ideologically switched. The concept of Thought-crime was created by Orwell as a warning not a political blueprint.
Ill finish by simply saying that i sincerely long for the days when i could simply sit down and watch a movie or a TV show without a political (typically left wing) sermon being rammed down my throat.
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
What happened???
What the?......
how could i have enjoyed Infinity war so much and find this to be a bunch of total incoherent crap? leave the Time Traveling to the experts like Dr Who. I wont even go into the all the plot holes and no sense paradoxes as i'm sure many have already done but what a sad ending to a wonderful journey? and please Disney, please lay off on the Wokey preaching crap its getting tedious, lets just have a good story eh and leave the politics to the Politicians?
Hold the Dark (2018)
what the.............?
What is this film?.................what? what is it supposed to be about?
there seems to be two camps, one that calls it a majestic dark exploration of the Human condition and the other camp that i belong to that is just utterly mystified?
i even read one comment from an American Gentleman that divided this movie between Americans that are WTF? and Europeans who are singing its praises, but trust me brother i'm a European and i have absolutely no idea what this was about either,
yes i get the basic facts of the movie but nothing makes any sense, nothing is coherent and if i need to read the book to get an understanding or to get "the message" then the film has failed,
i'm all for complexity, depth and so forth but this movie takes being cryptic to a kind of ridiculous level, to be honest it all comes across as somewhat pretentious, if you don't understand it your a dumbass? really? its not just that the film makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and explains absolutely nothing and gives no reasons for why anything has happened and provides no conclusions or closure on any of the events in the film in any way.
The Duellists (1977)
A hidden Gem
a beautiful movie with exquisite photography & score that evokes splendidly what the Napoleonic era could very well have been like, the premise is very simple but i really enjoyed the way it was explored, a seemingly insignificant incident based on a misunderstanding escalates into a ridiculous decade long series of duels between two antagonists, one of which is really rather reluctant and the other completely driven by this desire to avenge what he perceives as a slight to his honor, all set against a backdrop of the sweeping events of the Napoleonic Wars raging across Europe
The cast, Locations and atmosphere are fantastic, i'm really surprised this film isn't more well know, a classic movie in my book,
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
Just Bad...
Yea, there's some things you kind of expect when your going to watch a "Hollywood Blockbuster" your going to expect lots of explosions, lots of special effects, ridiculously beautiful leads with perfect bodies etc, and Resurgence delivers on that front
the one thing however that you should never ever expect is to be intellectually challenged or mentally stimulated and with Resurgence the Hollywood machine has really doubled down on that principal, what an incoherent mess? a plot with more logic holes in it than a Wheel of fine Swiss cheese, and talking about cheese there's more of that in this film than Cheese fondue day at the International Cheese Festival, i mean really? what would we all do without the Americans? USA! USA! USA!,
its so bad its comical, the unconventionally ruggedly handsome hero who plays it by his own rules and never gets flustered, the Earth may be mere minutes away from utter destruction but with Fonz like coolness he can crack a joke as he takes out two Aliens while also taking a leak, what a guy!, the sidekick buffoon who cant get laid but in the end walks away with the hot Asian Chick, the ex American President orator extraordinaire, fighter pilot ace & self sacrificing hero, who also has a super hot daughter who can double as either a Presidential Aide or Star ship Alien A#$ kicking pilot, just depends on her mood, and please excuse the pun but could Goldblum's Dad ham up the Jewish thing anymore? is that even possible?
i mean how do these Hollywood types come up with this Horse manure?
The Alien ball thing that shows up after giving all those people headaches for 20 years and will teach us primitive Humans to fight and defeat the other bad Alien's even though we must disconnect our logic circuits and put to one side the fact that they quite openly admit that they did in fact loose the thousand year war against them and had their planet destroyed? and lets not forget how easily they were taken out by the Human's Moon base laser thing that funnily enough had absolutely no effect on the Alien ship that bally is alleging she can teach us to defeat, yea i'm not sure we should be buying what their selling?,
The Alien Queen thing that bears quite the resemblance to some other well know Alien Queens methinks? and seems more interested in getting down and dirty with school buses than delegating such things to maybe one or two of the billion Alien minions she must have on her 3000 mile diameter Space ship?
so yes as the African guys says, you have to taken them from behind, and that's what Hollywood did with this one, took us all from behind, roughly,