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therealdeviants
Reviews
Elvis (2022)
Stunning film, Great Performances, yet wasted in the story
First, this was great casting and great performances. Even the production of the movie is stunning.
We have seen several of the musical biographical films and this one is better in every way except one: how the story is told and how it is pieced together on film.
First, it is not accurate. The Elvis story has been done many times in books, movies, and on tv. The points where it is not accurate make no sense. It didn't make the movie better to dramatize facts, so it just seemed silly. If anything being more true to the facts would have made it better. Specifically I am referencing the 68 comeback special. The other instance concerns That's all right mama.
There are many moments to choose from in the Elvis timeline to draw from when doing a bio, and they chose some great ones. The execution and how where they put the emphasis fell flat.
The Tom parker story with Elvis was told poorly, which is what I was really expecting from this film. Them straying from that goal is why this movie fails, and where the director and producers failed a great cast.
I think it was smart to use Elvis singing combined with Austin Butler doing his own singing.
Benedict Arnold: Hero Betrayed (2021)
Martin Sheen gets 2 stars - Not historically accurate and boring
Documentaries on Arnold are usually very interesting because it is tragic due to his own self destruction.
The tag line for this documentary did interest me. Does his heroics overshadow his treason, has history misjudged him.
How this documentary approaches it is by omitting the treason down to a footnote in the presentation. At least go through the entirety of what the British were expecting and the desired outcome of the plan. Just because it failed does not mean it should be discounted against his great contributions.
Even the coverage of his military career was slow and boring. Arnold's military career is anything but boring.
Julia (2022)
Great cast in a another slow moving fiction cable series
This is near perfect casting and it is almost a waste of great talent.
The story itself is pure fiction and that is part of the problem. Sub plots and story lines are thrown in simply to draw it out into another season. Since we are making it up as we go along we don't really have to follow the actual true story, so we can just slosh along until we get renewed.
The tragedy is that the true story does have enough drama and elements to make a great series. Maybe they didn't have the rights to that story.
The only value in watching this is the cast is great.
Shining Vale (2022)
Spoof of Amityville Horror
Not a fan of Courtney Cox, but the pairing of her and Greg Kinear is perfect.
This is basically a spoof of every horror movie. Many of the references are to the Amityville Horror, the book more than the movie. Looks like a lot of King references as well.
The Irishman (2019)
Overindulgent. So Scorsese is making a tribute film to himself?
Okay first... the story is absurd. Sheeran was the forrest gump of the mob? Scorsese does not care if the story is true, but he should.. .because Franks ridiculous life story made for a disconnected movie.
This movie is basically a greatest hits of every Scorsese movie... just reshot with a bigger budget and a very weak script.
The real issue is DeNiro can't carry a movie, and this story is told from his characters viewpoint. So not DeNiro's strength. Both Pesci and DeNiro were very patient and subdued with their performances... Pesci really did deliver,,, DeNiro did not.
Pacino was good, but it was Harvey Kietel who really gave a great peformance.