chazwyman Reviews

Rubikon (2022)

Excellent slow burn quality sci fi

[8/10 · 22 December 2023]

If you like starwars or startrek you may well not like this. No lasers, no death stars, killing robots etc.. Space Station environmental catastrophe and a string of moral dilemmas. This is a slow burn small cast cerebral sc-fi story in the category of the possible.

The lack of super stars and gives this a sense of reality, rather than someone like George Cluney taking up all the space, we have George Blagden a competent actors last seen in Vikings and the contemplative monk.

The visuals were good, and the set design was realistic and not at all like the absurd lenslfare nightmares of recent Startrek efforts, all adds to the realism.

Most of you will not like it. When people seek out sci-fi they tend to excpect kids stuff (fantasy and adventure.) As for myslef, a life long science fiction reader, this was a welome change. More Silent Running than Buck Rodgers.

The Irishman (2019)

All the right elements: but not quite a hit.

[7/10 · 14 December 2023]

Great story, great acting. All the elements you would want from such a film. I've seen them all Goodfellas, Sopranos, Godfather..ect. So was dying to see this.

The Ageing-down film processing does not work well enough. Maybe in another decade of computer development this technique will work better, but DeNero just looked like an old man with make-up and blacked hair. Beyond that there was a deeper problem, Old men cannot walk like young men. No matter how good an actor - and these guys are the best, you cannot hide the depletions that the years have on your musculature. Old people walk with stiffness and economy, through the necessity of aches and pains. This shows through.

Moments where you see the artifice, throw your attention away fro the story and back to reality. Seeing an apparently young man walk like an octogenarian is like seeing a brown Isaac Newton. A black Cleopatra or a white Othello. It breaks a sacred contract that the film maker has with the audience: the suspension of disbelief.

Last Light (2022)

Good for background noise

[1/10 · 6 October 2023]

It's often a sign of a poor effort when most of the first episode is pictures of cars going to and from the airport. There was some cash spent here, so scenic views of the desert, Paris, London. But how on earth makes the call to thorw cahs away on a dul poorly written effort like this when so many great ideas are binned, despite cult followings - this hsall have no such following.

Dull Mummy (with attractive swarthy French doc)with blind fat boy off to Paris for sight saving surgery; whilst Daddy (with attractive Uk give offiial) is off to the desert run by dubious dirty foreigners with guns, to investigate "infected crude oil" which will end life on earth as we know it. What could possibly go wrong?

Here's what: Adolescent plot; jiuvenile script; actors lacking in.personality.

Not to self.

"Amaozon Exclusive" means no one else wanted to buy it.

The Head Hunter (2018)

Low budget hugh rating.

[9/10 · 26 January 2023]

This is a simple tale told well. It shows that a sense of foreboding can be achieved with next to nothing. Such techniques were well known to the makers of films like "The Thing".

The director has an excellence sense of light and shadow, giving the location and sets a very real feel. From the outset we know we are in the presence of a great director. This stands head and shoulders above a million films with bigger budgets. THe set and clothing design is A1; everything is nice and lived in, dirty and worn.

If you have an eye for this sort of things you will note several anachronisms, like objects that could not be medieval. 19thC coffee grinder; 20thC meat grinder; aluminium cans; machine planed wood in the shack.. But it's all forgivable because of the cinematography.

Flight World War II (2015)

So much . so wrong

[2/10 · 15 January 2023]

The first oddity is that all the air hostesses have wild hair. There is a really good reason why flight staff have their hair tied back or short.. This is just sloppy filmmaking.

Then there is the absurdity that some guy thinks he can kill Hitler from the position of a modern jet liner over an unknown part of Europe. What's on his mind? Fly into Germany and drop some flight snacks on his head?

They passengers observe a German attack on a French town. But somehow they are using aircraft that we not even invented yet. The Messerschmitt 262 was no in service until the end of world war 11, so at least 4 years before it was made. Oddly the nerds on the plane did not notice that.

And just because Dunkirk was a disaster in this version does not change that fact. For the Germans to have had jet technology half a decade early would have entailed a radically different reality.

THen their whole communications with the ground seems to rely on one very young lad who seems to have RADAR good enough to tell the airliner that the Germans are on their way. RADAR was barely invented at that time. And did not stretch all the way to Northern France.

Luckily the German pilots can manage to hit a bleeding massive airplane.

Then his plan is to head for the ground rather than just get altitude which the 262s were incapable of reaching.

I am puzzled how these movies get made.

Treason (2022)

Dreadful scriptwriting

[2/10 · 7 January 2023]

Promising start with the casing of Ciaran Hinds, and Oona Cha[lin. Thought this would be worthwhile. Saw about 30 minutes of this. For some odd reason characters seem to tell other characters stuff they already know. Obviously to inform the audience. But really? Script Writing 101. 1 under "Bad writing techniques"; clumsy exposition.. It all had to end when the wife discloses the activity of her head of M15 (far rro young for the job) husband to a "friend" who is so obviously working for the CIA across a coffee table.

I'm puzzled if the "creator" who is associated with Bridge of Spies had bothered to read the script of whether he just passed it on the wet behind the ears subaltern to do the hard work??

Meh!

Wrath of Man (2021)

Not up to scratch

[4/10 · 15 December 2021]

Snatch great, Lock Stock great, Sherlock Holmes Films great.

However quality that started to plummet with Arthur has dropped here to a new low. Script poor, bad acting, indifferent direction.

What has happened here?

Lazy effort, script written by committee.

Out of the Unknown: Beach Head (1969) Season 3, Episode 4

Hard to watch

[3/10 · 7 September 2021]

A poorly rebuilt reconstruction is available on the BBC box set of the enitre "Out of the Unknown". From a collection of stills, a poor audio recording and some very low res CGI the result is quite painful to watch.

Whist many of the other programmes survive and are watchable, for this one I'd recommend reading the original Simak story from the anthology of the similar name,"BEACH HEADS IN SPACE" edited by August Derleth.

Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)

Gaffs ville

[4/10 · 15 June 2021]

You would think that with 4 writing credits someone might have noticed the many errors in fact the the film has. When you are writing a fantasy it is important that the basuc structure makes sense. You can read all the other gaffs on the page, I just wanted to add one of my own.

The film opens with an soldier of god emblazoned with the Sigil of Constantine the Great (Chi-Rho), who lived circa270AD 330AD, yet when the church in Kenya was first mentioned it is dated from 5 AD.

It ought to have occurred to one of the writers that there were no Christian churches from that period ,because there was no such thing as Christianity.

Metal Hurlant Chronicles (2012–2014)

Such a shame that there is no such thing as a ZERO rating

[1/10 · 29 May 2021]

I cringed for ten whole minutes. Ten minutes that have been lost from my life forever.

This review contains no spolier. They are all in the first episode.

Attacking the Devil: Harold Evans and the Last Nazi War Crime (2014)

Calling this a Nazi Drug diverts attention from those that made this the worst public scandle in modern history.

[6/10 · 13 February 2021]

It is not a "Nazi Drug". Nor is it a "Nazi" war crime. It was not marketed until 1957. The real criminals are the people that continued to prescribe the drug whilst surpressing knowledge of its harms.

Mank (2020)

Style over substance

[4/10 · 25 December 2020]

Baby FIncher found an old dead script wirtten by his Dad. One has to wonder how much dust lay on it before it was dusted off, or why Baby Fincher did not properly read it before setting it to film. One does not have to wonder why the script was never used when it was written. It feels like an outline - a collection of lttle vinnettes, that when given the full noir look very good, but many of the scenes are meaningless, and most disjointed. One of the early scenes - lets call it "the pitch" where a collection of studio guys pitch a version of Frankenstein to a boss - why? It felt stagey and stilted. SOme of the word smithing is good. Maybe it would have made a book- but this is just self indulgent, and vague. A miss

Another Life (2019–2021)

Are you kidding Netflix?

[1/10 · 27 July 2019]

I managed to struggle through 28minutes. I'll never get that time back again. Acting is fine. Characters are stupid. Why would earth respond to alien contact by sending a bunch of morons and social media junkies on the mission?? WHY? The crew is so mismatched they are more suited to Big Brother, or Get Me Out of Here! The crew mutiny halfway through Episode 1.

Operation Finale (2018)

There are true stories about the Holocaust. But this is not one of them.

[2/10 · 29 December 2018]

Eichmann was not the architect of the final solution, but a low key pen pusher. He never saw a Jew being killed as he was too busy moving columns of names from one folder to the other. In the film the geriatric, face-powdered Kingly (76) is see waving his glove pretending to be a 38 year old Eichmann. Ridiculous! There is only one source for this embarrassing part of Israel's history worth reading; Hannah Arendt's book "Eichmann in Jerusalem". It contains all you need to know about this pathetic man.

The Titan (2018)

Why was this a failure?

[17 October 2018]

The story idea is good. Actors are good. Tom Wilkinson for example. Sadly Agynes Deyn could have been given something to say!! Rather, she was used to look pretty. I know she is capable of more. Again, Taylor Schilling who can handle a good script was also under utilised. The main problem is the wooden, dead behind the eyes, Sam Worthington who always ends up sucking the life out of every film he is in, like an enthusiasm vampire.

Electric Dreams (2017–2018)

Philip K WHO?

[29 October 2017]

I've enjoyed the whole series of stories. Well acted, great sets, great effects, good design. I have also enjoyed reading the works of P K Dick. The short stories are excellent and introduced many of the key ideas upon which all sci-fi was based. However watching the shows and reading the stories are two different things.

There is barely anything to compare them except perhaps a single key idea. The situations are changed, the characters are different, the settings, to time-frame, just about everything in the TV series is altered.

Are today's writers so devoid of ideas, that they have to take ideas some of them over sixty years old? Or is it that the TV corporate entities are such poor judges of writing talent that they dare not fund a series unless it has some big name at the top of the bill to exploit.

I'd hope that Mr. Dick, were he alive would enjoy the series, but I can't help thinking that he would not recognise his own story were is name not plastered over the top of the credits, and if it were not he'd be saying ' "oh I think I had an idea a bit similar to that in 1958"

Southpaw (2015)

Cliché. Worn out, predictable

[2/10 · 17 October 2017]

This is a well worn formula. Prize fighter over doing it. punch drunk. Daddy looses his baby daughter has to get her back. How many times can you write this story? But his name" "BILLY HOPE" are you kidding? Billy is always a victim name. Billy Budd, "Billy don't be a Hero" It was just too dreadful to see through. I think Jake Gyllenal is better than this. He gave a good performance, but a good actor needs a decent idea and a decent script to work, He mumbles his way through the performance; was that embarrassment at how awful the script was?

If you are a woman l(or gay) with the hots for Jake you might find this entertaining.

Ascension (2014)

Totally incredible

[2/10 · 30 January 2017]

I was willing to accept the basic premise, that a simulation of a space flight was an experiment kept secret for 50 years - however stupid.

But for the simulation to be credible; it would have to be believable most of all to the people in the experiment. The experiment has been running for 50 years yet the whole ship looks like it just came out of the factory. There is no wear and tear, no scratches, everything works perfectly and the all seem to have a unending supply of newly tailored clothes - where is the cotton and the wool coming from?

But it is worse than that - much worse. If the ship was made in 1963 - that it would be full of 1960s technology. SO when did they buy in all the huge FLAT SCREENS? The fact is that the whole "ship", is not only factory fresh, it could only be made in the future with those big screens in the Terra-lab.

SO i'm dumping this after 3 episodes because the designers have not bothered to THINK. I'd direct them to well designed Sci-Fi, like Blade Runner, the "Alien" cycle, and many other SUCCESSFUL representations of their worlds.

Z Nation (2014–2018)

Flawed but charming.

[7/10 · 10 April 2016]

This is now a well worn genre. In fact its an overdone sub-genre. So we can't expect originality. And there are severe limitation. The worst of which is the low quality acting, working with a limited script, and fairly predictable plot lines - some closely stolen from The Walking Dead. And the worst of the acting is pretty obvious with the episodic temporary characters. This all tends towards a B-movie feel; something that Tarantino would have liked Casting is weird.

For example DJ Quallis so frail and weedy that it's puzzling how such a person would ever have been posted to the North Pole for fear of being frozen to death -let alone ask how such a weed would have made it past the medical exam for enrolment into the services.

If you can get by all this and survive the worst of the acting apocalypse, you may well be rewarded, by the show's quirky sense of humour. Episode 4 with its multiple hold-up robbery sequence and the sight of a Zombie getting high on draw will make it all worthwhile.

Revolution (2012–2014)

Too Clean and tidy.

[3/10 · 15 January 2016]

Potentially some spoiler information for episode one Only. The premise of the story is great, and the plot starts with a good set of things, a mystery, an adventure and a sprinkling of jeopardy. And the brooding presence of Giancarlo Esposito (Los Pollos; Breaking Bad) promises to make it a good show, and indeed his performance is good (sadly he can't carry the whole cast). This should be exactly the sort of show I love. So far,so good.

So after the breakdown of civilisation, we move on 15 years. What do we find? Finely manicured, freshly washed and shaven, and spotlessly clean actors who look like they have just walked out of the beauty salon! Worst still they are all characterless, cardboard cutouts, or are they made of plastic - I can't decide. Their clothes, far from being 15 years old as they must be, look like they have just come off the peg from Sears and Robucks. Google Guy is still fat despite the complete lack of a sedentary life of burger eating. The good looking Tracy Spiridakos has a fine impeccable leather jacket that shows no wear in 15 years, and despite her two day treck through the forests and wilderness to get to Chicago arrives as if she has just jumped out of a shower and donned freshly dry cleaned clothes. Consequently the whole thing looks ridiculous and feels wrong. Compare The Walking Dead, which I gave a 9/10 What the hell is the matter with the designer and director of this potentially interesting story. Revolution is a show in which the actors care more about looking good than narrative authenticity.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

Or in search of the Barest chest

[4/10 · 8 August 2015]

Not sure what was on Branagh's mind here, but casting De Nero as the monster was way off beam, and the make-up didn't really work. When you know the face of the young Don Corleoni us under that mask you are just waiting for the next smart remark. Thankfully he avoided the excessively philosophically thinking, eloquent and educated monster that was utterly incredible in the original book, but the one moment of reflection between him and Frankenstein in the ice-cave simply did not ring true. There was a poor understanding of the big screen. And some ridiculously comic moments that were too staged. See Bonham Carter running across the lawn to meet Frankie's horse, just makes you ask why he did not ride up to the house? Then after the monster has harvested the field of turnips, the camera pans to De Nero's face in - to let us all know who did it - just looks so pantomime and silly. But the worst thing is that Branagh seemed to use any excuse to get his shirt off. This was a six-pack too far.

Wimbledon (2004)

Great Performances, Dreadful Script.

[2/10 · 26 April 2015]

Before I traduce this film, ~ I have to point out how much I admire the cast of great actors. Betany gives a flawless performance, as usual, but is working with an awfully outdated attack on the class system, which Mr. Allen has no real conception of being one of the elite and not a native of the British Isles. The premise of a society riven, and divided by class runs along clankingly throughout.

After the killings in the film, it meanders on aimlessly until, trying to seek some resolution, Allen comes up with: horror of horrors the corpses of the dead materialise like some Homeric decent into the underworld. Maybe Allen might have succeeded had he followed Homer's lead and made Betany descend like a mystic elevator into Hades, but no. Sadly the dead materialise in the Kitchen illuminated by the open fridge.

The wait for this resolution was not worthwhile, and to save myself embarrassment I had had to leave the cinema.

Has Woody Allen lost the plot? Yes, and for some time.

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Don't forget this is FICTION.

[4/10 · 12 August 2014]

At the top of the film it makes a false claim for truth. What we get is a well constructed but highly clichéd account of one maverick woman against the might of the establishment CIA to bring down Osama Bin Laden(OBL). (in other words a Fiction)

It's amazing how a simply linear narrative can mislead. THe film is a poor attempt to make a positive case for torture. All those tortured led inevitably to the capture of OBL, with one exception: a man planted by Al Queda to mislead and blow up CIA (in a CIA base): not only ridiculous in itself, but simply another devise to paint the CIA as victims as they torture a string of people to Victory: the summary murder of OBL without a legal trial.

What does it not bother to mention? The 100,000 killed and millions displaced by the US invasion of Iraq, in the same period. And the thousand or so unconnected persons that were also tortured for no reason or illegally incarcerated without justification or due legal process.

Watson & Oliver (2012–2013)

Awesome.

[10/10 · 16 August 2013]

As a female duo, Watson and Oliver will naturally invite comparisons with French and Saunders. It's unfair to compare it to such a prolific sketch show and W&O has many, many funny moments. It strikes me as a little odd when a sketch show this new, made by relative newcomers, is slated for not being comparable to the greatest British female comedy double act of all time. It's true that some of their ideas are supposedly "recycled", however, this is the case with most comedians and sketch shows and very often the old ideas are the best. As well as that, if you don't find any of their facial expressions amusing on some level, then you can be considered officially without a soul.

Knowing (2009)

Just plain awful

[1/10 · 27 February 2012]

The premise of the film confuses a stochastic universe with a deterministic one, as if the deterministic one demands that there is a purpose to it all. No MIT lecturer would pose such a silly question to his students, even if he was a Christian. One would hope that the deterministic/ indeterministic question is not directly related to the poser he gave which was between a teleology and a natural law argument. After this boob, it is downhill all the way. A collection of silliness, Christian mythology and apocalyptic effects. Spacemen as angels or are they devils? He allows the spacemen to take his son from him, without so much as a 'who the hell are you guys?" But who cares; the end is a new beginning in a new garden of Eden.

Surely we are too grown up for this?

Seeing films like this reminds me that we ain't gonna make it as a species whilst we persist in the myth that its all hopeless but god will come along one day and destroy the world so why bother? Let's burn that oil and attack a new country after all the world 's gonna end this year!