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shazammatlast
Reviews
Civil War (2024)
Yawn
To be honest, the highlight of this dull, ponderous movie was watching Kirsten Dunst's husband, Jesse, portray a murderous military dude. Before, and after that one scene, I kept falling asleep. First of all, in our current climate, I detest all journalists. To me, they are just representative of propagandistic arms of the government truly are. How do I know? Every single conservative that dares raise his head or her head in campaigning is immediately attacked with the full thrust of all the power of the communist government that we have settled into. This movie seemed to want to make a point. The only thing I can see it doing is showing how miserable and bloody war is. Of course, it seems that the right wingers were the evil ones in this movie. I'm so surprised. And it seemed that the killing of the president was some sort of wish fulfillment for any future Trump-era years. Who knows. This whole film was background noise to a rather comfortable nap that I took. That's all.
Atlas (2024)
Not as awful...
This flick is not as awful as some reviews attest. Actually, some parts are just what it is supposed to deliver-entertainment. The hardest part for me suspend disbelief over is JLo as a 39-40 year old. JLo is a 54, 55 in two months as of this review. Lots of brushing up of the filtering and other cinematic tricks can't keep me from thinking, "Gads. She is 54." Her character also cries too much. There's no crying in SciFi space! The ARC is too familiar though. Did filmmakers go to a half of movie set fire sale for those things? Because I am pretty sure I've seen facsimiles in Alien, Avatar, Edge of Tomorrow, and Pacific Rim, to name a few. Other than that, I enjoyed some of the visual sci fi details-the trippy eye effects, some of the weaponry come to mind first, but there are others. Atlas won't win awards or rise to icon status, but for a night's fun, it's fine. Just stop dry crying, Lopez. It's annoying.
The Prestige (2006)
Lame ending
Wacky borderline sci fi can be sold successfully to viewers because I just watched all episodes of Shining Girls on Apple TV and had no issue with time travel. So why doesn't a cloning machine and 100 sacrificed clones satisfy? Maybe it's because by the time this unsatisfactory plot concludes, the viewer has decided that both main characters are detestable.
Neither is appealing. Both are greedy, covetous, and vampiric. They use women and others to attain, what? Wealth? Fame? Maybe but around the corner is another shiny bauble that each man will chase, usually involving their antagonist.
Were they ever friendly? How did their main conflict develop? (and this is before one seemingly bears the responsibility of murdering the other's wife). This portion of the plot was underdeveloped.
Strong marks for costuming and set design.
The Night They Came Home (2024)
piece of garbage
Worst piece of garbage of social justice, of weakly written, poorly conceived, and stink up junk to waste film on. The costumer should be fired. The prop person should be fired. The writer should be fired. The director should be fired.
A low budget film can happen. Case in point: Bone Tomahawk. Obviously that movie was made on a dime. Some of the costumes were meh, but at least the dialogue sparkled with a sort of authenticity.
As an actor it must be torture to recite lines that are so poorly written, so full of anachronistic language.
About the only good thing in this flick was the gang's demise.
What Lies Ahead (2019)
Sad, but Rumer
This film has hopeful moments as it begins. Rumer especially is appealing on screen. Her strong facial features capture the viewers' eyes. However, looks only last so long, the cliché goes, and such is the case with this film.
No amount of visual appeal can recover from a lack of plot development, of weak dialogue, and unfortunately of only semi-competent acting chops in its leads. Perhaps the lack of acting skills is tied inexorably to the weak writing of this film. Gaping holes and impossibilities and improbabilities line up and begin to overwhelm the sensibilities of what might have been a decently, arranged thriller. A few of these weaknesses stand out more than others.
For one, two strapping backwoods thugs are easily intimidated by a 5'6" skinny female wielding a weapon inches from a male's muscular arms. Why he can't flip the gun, disable the obviously weaker but threatening psycho girl and have his way annoys any reasonable viewer. Who cavalierly tosses a gun into a car's trunk after using it against two large men?
Also, a sad attempt at a climactic foot chase that should end the rival's life is boring and unfulfilled in any cinematic potential. Drugged but able to put admirable distance between herself and her attacker, the pursued girl then acts like a stumbling, bumbling weakling. After all this, why not just write an ending in which the pursued has escaped and now rests peacefully in a safe environment and then not detail how the psycho girl eluded capture, healed from her injuries, and still exists out there somewhere. The chronological leaps make meaningful comprehension seem like lazy writing on a plot board.
The film, ultimately, can be summed up in "jealous, psycho girl switches identities and creates havoc for her love interest's new girlfriend."
Frost (2022)
What filth
And we wonder why America is in the state it's in. Answer? Because her citizens are sick enough to imagine such disgusting perversity as this movie. I went in blind, just thinking I'd watch a survival flick where all turns out fine, daughter and dad rekindle a broken relationship, and a timely rescue underscores the indomitable human spirit. Instead I got half promises about the above listed details and then ripped off with content that seems to have come from some junior high school kid's sick depraved and twisted mind. There is a sickness in America and her art shows it. How dare the filmmakers create this gross movie. How dare they. Shame on your sick evil minds.
Down the Road (2023)
Phew. What an annoying waste of time.
Director-music does not replace effective dialogue. The soundtrack just droned on and on. The plot can be reduced to 1. Shockingly old newspaper boy, really more like a newspaper man, goes down a creepy dirt road and seemingly rides around in the woods for over a month, not needing food or drink or shelter. He is shocked when his friends find him. And 2. A kid feels guilt and loss over the imagined death of his father and vows to live as a hermit in the same woods. They reunite and all is well, even though four tears had passed. All of this narrative happens with never ending mystery soundtrack playing and attempting to replace the myriad shortcomings of this DOA film.
The Last House on the Left (1972)
Yikes. 70s called. They want their cheese back.
Horribly dated. From the tinny soundtrack to the forced moments of comic relief, this first by Craven makes me ask, "How did he ever get to make another film?" Even the bloody violence bores. I wanted to see this version because the remake is a pretty good flick and far surpasses this junk pile. I wonder how it seemed in its day. Some old films do work because the storylines are effective enough to excuse outdated details that reflect in sound and camerawork. This film does not. It's just pure cheese, out in the sun too long, and molding with a fetid resignation that its better days are long past.
I am happy to recommend old films, but this is a fail.
Apocalypto (2006)
Prophetic and Compelling
Gibson's opening quotation for this fine film says it all. In 2023, however, that quote reads more truthfully than in the film's original release date. Honestly, I've watched it numerous times over the years since then, and every time, I see something new and insightful. As a fan of chase action films, I am predisposed to the basic structure of Apocalypto. This time as I watched using my new Tubi app, I was feeling the Dante's Inferno effect more strongly as Jaguar walks through this blasted environment. So much here. I can't imagine anyone not enjoying it, but hey, this is the year some freaky time dimension film won best pic, so I have given up trying to figure out tastes in the mass population.
The Menu (2022)
It Is What It Is
Overly intellectual, devoid of heart.
The writers actually state that which the film explicitly mocks in Margot's stated critique of Chef. He lost his way and the secret to pleasing the hungry.
As film award season is upon us, similarly, a barrage of money-losing intellectual tripe will receive its own reward from Hollywood's insiders who, clapping winners on their backs, will blindly assure themselves of their singular genius. Meanwhile, their films will have to scrape together bits of lucre from "straight to DVD or On-Demand availability. How Jamie Lee Curtis's recent film (EEAAO) won any nominations attests to this truth.
I, therefore, will take my cheeseburger and fries to go and watch afar as the world's intellectuals self-immolate.