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eliotmess
Reviews
The Gentlemen (2024)
Not particularly a G.Ritchie fan - Rate this good
I haven't enjoyed previous Richie films so much because of the way they are edited, because they gloss over the plot holes with convenient happenstance. Come across as glib, against which I find combination of violence cynically naff. Like putting car chases in a dull movie.
But I'm not fatigued by his style the way many critics seem to be.
This series is much better than the original movie. The story has a chance to play out, rather than being slickly edited into a couple of hours.
The casting is superb. Most of these actors are worth watching just within their own performances. And they all slowly evolve in an understandable manner. It works really well.
Loudermilk (2017)
If you've grown in a 12-Step Group, Avoid this
This is actors pretending honesty. Not in a good way. The group work is naff and unconvincing.
It doesn't feature real listening, preferring cross-talk for smart dialogue or comebacks.
This central character is so far from the mode that actually helps, he's in effect harming. He has no trajectory in growing honestly, and betrays the principles of advice he gives others.
It's an exercise in co-dependency.
Because he's just giving advice.
Because wasting people's time is harm.
Because of diverting them from spending their time on *anything* more helpful.
Don't mistake brutal and loud for honesty and truth.
Everyone else who hasn't been a participant will find it entertaining.
Same way some people enjoy searing dramas about alcoholism, but anyone who has actually been in a family like that learns nothing and finds it repugnant.
The Brothers Sun (2024)
This was a 6+/10...rating forced up by M.Yeoh
Michelle Yeoh is like a magical being turning turd-like scenes around her acceptable. Without her, I would have stopped partway through this series.
I couldn't tell whether it was the script or Sam Song Li's ineptitude, but 'Bruce' spoiled many of the scenes. It can't just be down to the actor, the Director should've been able to get it right. Ridiculous behaviour like fighting against others pulling him away, and against the flow of the crowd, to grieve over the corpse of Blood Boots when he was clearly stone dead and they were in immediate mortal danger, when the only logical and emotionally compatible behaviour was to get out and run. This from the secondmost timid character in the whole show.
Bruce's rhetoric often rang false, and his actions didn't follow beliefs he had earlier espoused.
Even in simple emotional scenes, his mannerisms rang false. He stood too close to the other person and spoke too loudly, and making the kinds of awkward expressions and gestures one would make on a first date instead of landing the heartfelt feel. I feel so irritated even recalling.
But let's not forget the other annoying character, TK. He was worse than Bruce... did they go to the same acting training school?
There were plot holes, and you get that with these streaming series. I can overlook a certain amount of them if the emotional performances are strong. (Example: it is impossible not to react to a needle being forced up the end of a fingernail, especially when Ba Sun had no way of anticipating it. And where somebody doesn't react externally, (which is an inhibitory response volitionally applied in response to pain) they cannot control heart rate and nervous system signals, yet the medical monitors showed zero response. That's not biologically plausible. But even so, why did Ma Sun then wish to reveal her grievance and her subversive plan to a comatose person?)
Justin Chien is very good, and the Triad Boss, Ba Sun was perfectly fine in his role has the cunning elder clan head.
The Big Door Prize (2023)
Hey, you put this up as Comedy?
This drama is done well enough. But The Guardian said: "That makes it sound weighty. It is not. It is funny, friendly and as beautifully light on its feet as you might expect from its creator, David West Read, who worked as a writer and producer on Schitt's Creek. He is hugely helped in this by the presence and immaculate comic timing of Chris O'Dowd..."
Covering for awkward inner states (recurringly) with made-over smiles isn't funny to anyone but a cynical car salesman.
I am interested in how the characters' arcs will play out, but regret that the structure continually flits from person to person, without intimate depth (yet.. after 5 eps), so it's harder to care about any single one of them. I guess that'd count as "light". But it's unsatisfying.
(Tip: Apple have cleverly programmed this at one episode released per week, so until the series finishes, you can't get the binge done in the 7 days' free trial.)
La Belle Époque (2019)
Window to the Past magically holds a thread to Now
I adore both elder leads, can't help it. Their varying chemistry was convincing.
This is a deeply romantic film.
Also inventive, playful, and lovely on the eye.
Don't Look Up (2021)
It's gets the "Gahh!" out of your head and onto the screen
Blessed relief! This goes around smashing lightbulbs in the advertising signs that are intended to dupe all over the Vegas of Stupidity.
"I didn't know Subaru even made telescopes!"
Ha!! Hahaha.
I don't even care if the majority do not like this film... it is a remedy for those of us who have been served refried lying on and on and on, until even a sane person starts to feel off.
It's also really unsettling, and sad. And I think that those are appropriate emotions to come away with... You *should* feel upset. It means you are normal.
Dune (2021)
Love the World Making of Villeneuve
These kinds of movies never work if the worlds created do not seem convincing. This film pulls it off.
Dune Part One ranks also at the top level for creating awe inspiring venues and vistas. Just look at the textures inside the Atreides' homeworld castle.
I'm in Australia, and we love our deserts. Arrakis' deserts were great, packed with (to my eyes) exotic features.
The casting is brilliant.
I found the quiet-voiced dialogue (including internal thinking) hard to hear in some instances, and there were other periods where the cinema I was in played the soundtrack really loud, so the music of the scene drowned the voice.
So I'm going to watch it a second time at a different cinema. I think it's that good.
...................... ⏳
The sound was better at the second cinema. Enjoyed it even more, as I heard some extra dialogue. By the way, loved the attention to linguistics and sign language.
The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (2021)
Failed to get me to care about the Newspaper
I'm not disputing Anderson's genius with the camera, and there are some genuinely amazing scenes.
However, the movies of his I have enjoyed have been emotionally engaging. This one isn't. It's clever and wordy.
This is made worse by the narration. Forchrissake, say fewer words and less ornate sentences. Then you can speak more slowly. Considering the whole movie was about writing, this was really disappointing.
I have to give it 6, because 7 is a recommend. No way. All five of us felt this way.
The Power of the Dog (2021)
She is a Master of cinematic language, yet this is emotionally detached
Who can you emmpathise with?
Who can you like? There is only one character that you could. But he holds his emotional cards so close to his chest that I could not resonate (if you're a person much like him, you probably would).
So pared back and efficient (yet, respect for that craft) that the resulting detachment drifts the experience to voyeuristic.
Music sawing away at the nerves... I get it, I get it. Maybe quieter would work better?
No compassion in sight. The key Agent you could empathise with is Aspergian, so it ends up a pitiless revenge tale.
I didn't enjoy that feeling.
Nine Days (2020)
Brilliant. Different. Yet tough to articulate
It has its unique ways and rhythms. I found the music is intense, on the very nerve of existence.
Allow yourself time to settle. Let it come to you.
It got me.
I think it was the exquisite singling of each strand of feeling: how it may go as a sentient being, from the wounding to the thrilling, in the uncertain journey of each wild and precious life.
Bridesmaids (2011)
It's 2021. This is still funny and great.
This comedy still works 10 years later. It doesn't hesitate to lampoon but it makes sure it keeps its foot on the laugh pedal.
The central cast is fabulous. Casting got it right: put a set of likeable top female comedians in a comedy. (To other 'humorous' films: is that so hard?)
The Australian actor Rose Byrne plays a key straight character, and is marvellous. She captures the intricacies of the her beautiful got-it-all-yet-got-very-little character, in such a delicate light way, I still found room for some compassion.
An Easy 8 stars.
Soul (2020)
It Got Me
On a level with the awakening of knowing in the Recycling Furnace Scene in Toy Story III, this reaches Feelings only you can quite describe to yourself, in your own inside. You will see.
I love my human life.
On the Rocks (2020)
People rating to punish or gush - it's medium at best
It's not a romance. It's about a woman separating from her once charismatic boundary-crossing urbanely needy father, who still has charm and tricks in him.
It's not a comedy. You can't build the first 30 minutes out of making the main character more and more worried, with zero laughs, and then try to counterweight the balance back into comedic. No way.
But Murray's entry into the film did make it feel more pleasant.
Has R. Jones done any comedy? It was a relief when she revealed how much hurt she had, all caused by father and she let him have it.
I'm giving at 6/10 because I met my now-wife at random while living in Manhattan, and I love seeing the various parts of town. (in Australia now.)
Temple (2019)
Weak Performance from Strong
I could not tell whether it was the writing, or whether Strong was the wrong choice for the role. This is an actor who is previous work I have enjoyed, and the main reason I looked into this series.
I found his character was not internally consistent... If he was so driven by "deeper emotions and ethical concerns", why were the only two emotions available to him? Anger, and the duller, grim inner frown, that intimately broke through into an actual fixed frown. These two colours were woven through / around his consistent pattern of lying to everyone important to him.
Or were they? Maybe when you lie that much your values get damaged... Can you see the problem? Why would he go to such extreme lengths if he lacked access to a deeper core in his own skin-deep value system? It wasn't guilt.
Then there was the illogicality of spreading the underground operation out so far that they could not supervise what was going on therein; they could've kept everything localised in one area, eg like in an emergency department. Or Daniel could have hired a proper nurse or health care worker to pay attention to the patients after their surgery...
The Lee character was a model of inconsistency in this regard also. His decision-making was consistent with that of a moron, yet his role is that of the Fixit man without whom the whole operation would not have been possible.
What's the first two or three episodes then skip to episode 8, and you will have seen enough.