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Reviews
Rien à foutre (2021)
VERY Realistic, Well Acted...But Not Interesting
This film about a young woman without any particular ambition working as a flight attendant was extremely real. It felt like a secret camera was just recording a month in the life of a few people working for the fictional Wing discount airline. The acting was terrific, and made the story feel completely believable.
I mostly enjoyed the aspects of the film that related to labor relations at her airline: how they pushed the cabin crew to be salespeople, underpaid them, & treated them like crap. There is a chance, here, for our main character to get involved with this storyline when she meets a picket line of her co-workers, but she waves off the union effort to improve conditions with a nihilistic, "nothing matters, nothing changes".
Our main character also has a chance to express something, to *do* something interesting around the death of her mother. But she doesn't. She keeps her pain bundled inside, as many of us do in the real world, and just carries on.
This character's life is boring because SHE is boring and lacks any compelling motivation. The film successfully illustrates that to the audience.
But being 100% "true-to-life" is NOT entertaining, unless the life in question is entertaining. There are millions of people in the world living non-ambitious lives worth repetitive jobs...and I don't want to watch a long-form film about each of them.
In this case, the writers and directors seem to have gone out of their way to illustrate how monotone this woman's life was. It is a symphony concert written with one note played over and over. It was "aggressively mundane", which is artistic, but *still* boring.
Triangle of Sadness (2022)
Couldn't We Have Been Fine Without Act 1
The movie has enough good elements that one can envision a potentially great film. Acting, camerawork, characters, even some dialogue. But it's never put together in any kind of coherent fashion, so leaves me feeling like I ate a large meal, but remain hungry.
Too many details are added with a nice artistic flair (good) but are eventually revealed to have been superfluous and unnecessary (bad). For example the opening scene is fun, as we see the models change from sultry to cheery, and back and forth, on command. But what narrative did that serve? And for that matter - forget the first scene - the entire first act was unnecessary.
The social commentary at the core of the film is strongly made, but also obvious. Maybe somebody needs to be told the obvious: That the ultra-wealth class is spoiled, out of touch, not worthy of the wealth they have accumulated, and that they often treat their "lessers" as invisible peons, with unwarranted disrespect. But if you needed to be taught this, you probably aren't watching this film in the first place.
The ugliest scene (which I enjoyed the most) wasn't the vomiting. Rather, it has one of the wealthy matrons, in a moment of self-awareness, realize guiltily that the staff don't have it as good as she does, lounging in the hot tub all day. So, she invites the staffer to get in the hot tub so as to be like a peer. The staffer, who is not allowed, resists. But then she's *ordered* into the hot tub, revealing that the matron doesn't want to make her a peer, but rather just wants to absolve herself of the guilt she briefly felt.
But the length of the gaps between the good scenes and dialogue overwhelmed the merits. Overall, too long, too slow, too incoherent, & not enough meat on the bones.
The Boys (2019)
Loved It...BUT...
This is an excellent rethinking of a superhero Cinematic Universe. I love the characters, the writing, acting, and the visuals. It is hard to stop and go to bed, it really keeps you glued.
My problem is a lack of an actual story arc. After completing the first season, and going two episodes into season 2, I'm still awaiting the completion of any narrative Arc. I find this is a problem with many of these Netflix, or Amazon series: a sort of a soap opera curse.
With the Liberty to run the storyline through multiple episodes, there is no pressure to tie it up and put a bow on it. Compare that to your usual Hollywood movie, which gives you the whole story, and a sense of closure in 2 hours. I miss stories like that.
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
Uhh..The Very First Scene?
So, Spoiler here, but young John Connor is killed in the very first scene of this movie. Later, we're told that more than one of the original Terminators was sent back to do the job, and eventually one succeeded.
Doesn't that mean that the first movie, as cannon, has just been undone? We were told that, yes, John Connor DOES live on, trained to fight by his mother, and will eventually form the resistance. But no. Basically Skynet succeeded in the first Terminator story, just after the credits rolled.
I kinda enjoyed this movie when taken as a stanadalone, but only 6/10. I actually really liked Arnold's role, and the way his robot had learned humanity, although couldn't quite be human.
But Linda Hamilton's acting was a shock to me. Was she always this bad? It was jarring. Everyone else acted their roles well, but when I heard her, it seemed to me I was seeing an actor try hard, but not seeing the character.I took a point off the movie for that alone. Maybe part of the blame goes to the writers, but most of it was her.
Charlie St. Cloud (2010)
Pretty Slow. Not Much Plot Beyond What You Saw In The Trailer
I feel like the trailer was a very efficient summary of the movie, and missed almost nothing.
Not an awful movie. Nothing wrong with it. Just not enough character development, not enough plot, and not worth the time.
Some of the characters are woefully underdeveloped, such as the woman's sailing coach. What is his interest, is he a paid employee, a friend, part of her sponsorship deal? It's weird the way his character changes gears very quickly during the one confrontation with Charlie. Ray Liotta's character is also a little thin, but let's call that a cameo and forgive it.
But the starring Amanda Crew character... I would expect a little more substance for one of the main stars of the film. And her line during the sailing race early in the film "That boy's just too good!" Come on, who says that?
And somehow they went to high school together in a small town, were in the same classes, are both attractive as runway models, were both sailing champions who raced against each other, and yet they've never met???? And then 5 years later they're like, "You don't remember me, do you?" Give me a break.
As the movie suggests, life is for living. I wish I had gone out and done something instead of spending ~2 hours in front of my TV with this.
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)
Difficult To Watch (Visually), Tired Old Storyline
***No spoilers, but I discuss the story***
I saw this on premiere night, because the marketing for it got to me and my kids at the zoo the week before. Nothing gets a 7-yr old interested like free tattoos! But After US$80.00 for four tickets, and a dizzying 3D experience, I am not a fan of the film.
I haven't read the books, but it seems that the storyline is a tired, old saw. Good guys, bad guys, hardship, epic battle... Other than the fact that the characters are Owls, the storyline barely deviates at all from the proved formula.
I found the spoken lines hard to understand, perhaps because in the noise there are no lips to read with the audible delivery, but either way, tough to follow. Forget about my kids keeping up. The names of each owl were very tough for my kids to even discern when said repeatedly. Lucky I taught them the main characters before going.
The main owl characters were nicely varied, each with it's own size and idiosyncrasies. There was character development, and it was believable, so I'll count that as a good element.
The main weapon used by the bad guys is not explained well at all, so kids (and parents) have no clue what it is or how it works. Maybe that's kept a mystery on purpose, but I don't believe so. It's a critical part of the story that is just vague.
During battle scenes, most of the warrior owls are visually similar, with similar armor. Good luck telling one side from the other. Of course, it won't matter much: the images are so fleeting and fast moving that the main effect will be to send epileptics into seizures.
I loved the 3D in Avatar. I thought "Looks like the industry has figured out how to make this work." However, I could NOT get my eyes to accept the 3D in this film for the entire duration. Half my family gave up and took off the glasses, but my oldest and I hung on. Sadly, everything that was supposed to appear closer to the audience showed up as double images. Was it the projection in my cinema, the movie, my eyes? I dunno, but it was an awful way to see a film.
In short, not much to like. A very expensive kids story for eighty bucks, when I should have stayed home and watched Ice Age for free. Bear in mind, this is my review, not my kids. They thought it was good, aside from the trouble with the 3D.
The Thin Red Line (1998)
Will someone please wake me when it's over.
Ahhh... what a movie. I suppose I did need a good nap, and this movie provided the perfect backdrop. This stunted war flick had the continuity of Jacob's Ladder, the character development of Fun With Dick and Jane (the book, not the movie), and the writing of Blues Brothers 2000.
The Thin Red Line is a movie with no beginning, no end, and about three different middles. The viewer wonders: Is it the story of a dissident soldier, the story of a battle for a hill, a story about hope in the face of adversity, a story about how there is evil inherently present in nature and man? Turns out that it is not much of any of these. None of these story lines was spun thoroughly enough to be worth of my $8. My apologies to Mr. Malick, but you have failed in the extremely difficult task of combining three movies into one.
Some characters are explained all too simply in plain english, such as Nick Nolte's character when he reveals that his career has been retarded by a lack of combat experience, therefore he wants to create as much hell-on-earth as his stunted military acumen needs. But beyond the few obvious roles, the vast majority of characters thoughts and motivations are nebulous, inconsistent, and never explained. Even the narration makes no sense. What the heck was he talking about?!
Although some imagery and themes were evident, I don't think it worthy of a high budget 170 minute film. I could strap my camcorder to my dogs collar, and I'll wager that in 170 minutes of running around the neigborhood hydrants, he captures more brilliant imagery.
The writing of this movie is disjointed, and unlike a great Seinfeld episode, or Pulp Fiction, it is not magically tied together at the end. The writers leave this very difficult step for the viewer. I challenge anyone who claims that they make sense of the film to justify why each scene is relevant. I'd be happy if they could justify half. I can think of a bunch of scenes that were just plain gratuitous, and should have been left on the cutting room floor, for example: the scenes with John Travolta. Were these kept in the film just because they were the only scenes with the red-hot Travolta? I actually don't think so; their presence was consistent with the generous editing of the whole film.
I'd say save your $8 and rent the video, but I think it more important to say save your 170 minutes and skip this film.