KenToo Reviews

The Cheap Detective (1978)

I really love this movie! Funny and unique!

[9/10 · 22 November 2021]

This movie has a little of the Airplane! Humor where there are lots of random jokes thrown in various places. A couple of the jokes are so similar to jokes in Airplane! They might have been plagiarized.

I really love Peter Falk, anything he's in including Columbo movies, Murder By Death, and the In-Laws. He's great funny or straight. This is my favorite Peter Falk movie.

Not every joke's a winner, but some are just really, really great. (e.g., "It makes more sense if I leave first." "Why's that?" "Then I don't get stuck with the check!") Or the corpse with the bullet hole in the head who was holding a phone, and one cop asks another, "Why was he calling?" "The morgue... We figure he saw the bullet coming." Now, I did not see the various Bogart movies this is spoofing, so that is definitely not required to enjoy it. However, I certainly was aware of Bogart in general, and had seen plenty of snippets of old detective movies, to appreciate the feel of it.

It does not have as many laughs as, say, Airplane! Or Young Frankenstein or Blazing Saddles, as I think it is more low key than that and does not toss in as many jokes per minute, but still very enjoyable. Not as good as the best Mel Brooks movies (e.g., Young Frankenstein or Blazing Saddles) or the best Zucker bros movies (e.g., Airplane!) but better than 99% of the comedy movies out there. Comedies have evolved, and so older movies like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World that were considered the best of their time have not, IMO, aged well and the humor seems dated. Airplane! Was really the start of a whole new, fresh approach to comedies and spoofs. The Cheap Detective is still more of the older style and so, yeah, may feel a bit dated in places, but I still like it a whole lot better than that "Mad Mad World" movie. Way better than "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," (which was mediocre, not terrible, not great). It's also fun to see this kind of ensemble cast, so many great actors even in smaller roles.

Nomadland (2020)

Just boring, gimmicky.

[5/10 · 28 April 2021]

This movie got oscars based on the GIMMICK of using real people to tell their "living on the road" stories and intermixing this with a few professional actors. It basically has no plot, no drama, nothing actually happens. Slice of life movies can be okay, but this one is nothing special. The gimmick of mixing real actors with real people telling real personal stories is heavy-handed and jarring. My wife was complaining of some of the people's acting being so wooden (before we knew some of the people were not acting) and halfway through, I told her, "it is almost as if they grabbed real people and mixed them in with some actors"). The fact you have to break out of your investment in the movie to wonder about the jarring inconsistency in delivery of lines, in tone from drama to documentary, is a fundamental flaw. It is like that movie Dogtown that got critical acclaim for having no setting (like "Our Town") but in reality the lack of any setting was just jarring. They do not remove distraction by removing setting, they create distraction. Jarring gimmicks are poor film-making.

The 13th Warrior (1999)

Fun and thrilling atmospheric period piece.

[9/10 · 14 March 2021]

I'd give it 8.5, but I can't so I rounded up. This is definitely a classic. I've rewatched it many times. Once you start, you get sucked in. When it's over, you feel a little sad there isn't more of it, like a sequel. There are too many dark/night shots for my liking, but otherwise it is a treat.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009–2010)

Very flawed and very overrated.

[6/10 · 26 February 2019]

This is a show that can make you feel a lot of emotion. The production values are very high. However, the very same could be said of LOST, which I thought was a fiasco because it cheated. Cheating is creating dramatic conflict without any logical (within the logic of the store) explanation for it, or where the explanation is very very flimsy and relies on the people in the story not behaving the way real people would in given situations, but instead behaving in a very contrived manner just to bring about a certain dramatic situation.

LOST went so far that the writers were making up crazy and unbelievable, but highly intriguing, events without any idea in advance of how to reconcile the stuff into a coherent story, or how to explain it. FMAB presents a starting point, a militaristic, totalitarian government with high level conspiracies and having just recently completed a very bloody and vicious genocidal war in which it seems like this government was in the wrong. Some of the drama comes from characters high up in this government feeling guilt over their participation in that war and some atrocities that occurred during the war.

While it seems at first that this government is going to be the "bad guy," a lot of the primary supporting characters are people in the government who it turns out are good and moral notwithstanding their affiliation with the government.

There is a common flaw with shows where the premise revolves around a main conspiracy. It is sort of the Gilligan's Island problem. Every show they try to get off the island, but every show their plan fails because, if they got off the island, the show would be over. It becomes contrived and formulaic. Conspiracy shows love to tantalize viewers with the suspense and mystery of the conspiracy, but they cannot reveal much of it without deflating the drama, so they keep pulling a Gilligan's Island where it seems they are about to uncover something or expose something only....whoops, out of left field at the last minute comes some reason they don't get the answers or exposure after all.

In storytelling, you create tension with the story elements and then release that tension in a manner that generates emotion and/or catharsis in the audience. To some extent, the more emotion you generate, the better your storytelling and the better your story. However, there are exceptions. For example, horror stories can easily generate great tension and strong emotion because the subject matter is so horrifically shocking. It is really like shooting fish in a barrel, just think of the worst stuff one person could do to another, slap it on the screen, and you will get people to feel great tension, emotion and catharsis. In general, I believe that generating strong emotion through horror story elements is the least difficult method and does not equate to great story telling. Frankly, FMAB relies on horror elements for most of the strong emotional impacts.

Consider a hypothetical story where the heroes come across a man who, they later find out, has cut off his children's body parts while they slept, to sell for money so he can hide his embezzlement from his employer, and then pretended there was a criminal responsible for it. I'm sure you can see how such a story could evoke very strong emotion. -- This is not a spoiler, this story is not in FMAB -- But I think it illustrates the type of story line that FMAB uses to generate strong emotional response. It is not only using a "fish in the barrel" horror approach to generating emotion, it is also (in my opinion) totally fake and contrived because people do not do this. Parents love their children. Parents would die to keep their children safe. This is a biological drive within us. The reason a man might break the law or do something horrific to get ahead in his career is to create a better life for his children, or to try to earn their respect, etc. I will not say that it is impossible to ever have a parent choose to maim or kill a child, but you'd need some helluva justification for why this otherwise ordinary guy is so incredibly twisted inside. You can't just rely on, "Gee, some people are just bad apples."

I think much of the critical acclaim for FMAB is, ironically, because it presents people doing really bad things. It has genocide and human experiments and other bad, bad stuff. And when a story shows dark actions, some might say, "How great, it is not a piece of fake fluff with some contrived happy ending story. It shows the depths of human depravity and immorality, it does not shy away from the dark side of human nature." To me, that assumes that the dark nature the story is telling us is REALISTIC. If you have a movie about parents trying to murder their children, for example, you would not say, "how great to shine a light on this dark side of human nature." No, that's not human nature. That is fake/contrived/exaggerated darkness. It is the dark version of a Care Bears movie. It is not only fluffy, happy shows that can be fake and contrived.

Anyway, I think the target audience for this show is from tween to young adult who have seen a lot of sugary sappy shows, so the darkness and bleakness of FMAB seems like a breath of fresh air, or at least something different, but these people do not recognize how it is just doing the same thing on the other side, giving us overly contrived and exaggerated darkness and bleakness beyond what is real in terms of human nature.

The backstory ultimately does not add up. I think at one point a woman's husband brought home a son to adopt and years later it turns out the kid was not real and never ages... Yet no one suspected? How many years can a six year old NOT AGE before anyone around -- even his adopted mother -- take notice? That's right, less than one year. STUPID PLOT CONTRIVANCE THAT MAKES NO SENSE. There are many of these. There are people being mysterious, refusing to tell what they know for reasons that ultimately are totally ridiculous, and it is just a mechanism for the writers to continue the suspense/mystery of the conspiracy.

In fact, so many of the military leaders in the government apparently are good people who feel guilt over the genocidic war they had waged, that it seems highly implausible that that war could have ever been started in the first place...the people are good, most of the military leaders are good...just how the heck did a genocidal war just slip on through the system and get approved?! Well, it is never explained, that's just backstory for the situation that exists when the FMAB story starts. But, even though it is back-story, you've GOT to have it make sense.

If you are alert to these sorts of fake/false/contrived plot devices, you will find as you watch FMAB that it is RIDDLED with this stuff. Moreover, it gets more fake and contrived the further it goes along till it was hard to slog through the last episodes. I just figured the very high ratings (apart from IMDB, this is routinely rated the best anime EVER) must be there for a reason, and maybe there was some brilliant ending that wrapped it all up in a neat and clever way, so that all the stuff that to me looked like totally stupid, contradictory and contrived plot elements really had a logical explanation after all! Alas, if anything the writers answered even less than I had expected (and I was not expecting much) and I was left mystified for why people rate this highly.

I think in part, there is a peer pressure thing going on. When people say how great a show is WITHOUT saying they enjoyed it more than any other show, but instead they use phrases like, "it's so intelligent, it's so artist, it's so clever..." that should set off your alarm bells that this is people wanting you to think they are smart and have good artistic sense. This is essentially the "emperor has no clothes" situation. At the same time, I will say that though this show is riddled with contrivances and fake motivations and unrealistic character behaviors and unrealistic backstory, nevertheless it apparently does some stuff quite well. So it is not like it is total garbage that people are rating super high. However, at best it should be rated moderately good, better than average, but nowhere near being the best anime ever. (Obviously that would be Hunter X Hunter.)

The Game (1997)

A very original thrill ride that can make you think about what matters in life.

[9/10 · 28 December 2018]

Some movies have a distinct tone and rhythm, and you just get immersed in them, and it's that proverbial "emotional rollercoaster." These are the best movies, in my opinion. The Game is one of those. The music really helps with achieving that immersion.

In the end, it is hard not to go over the movie in your mind, consider if the plot holds together when you finally discover what is happening, and ultimately it does not entirely hold together, it has contrivances necessary to realize this story and requires you to suspend disbelief and/or not think too hard about the plausibility of some sequences. I mean, Forrest Gump made you suspend disbelief about a lot of stuff, but it was also a great movie.

If you consider folk tales, they are stories that have exaggerated or unrealistic or supernatural elements, so you must suspend disbelief somewhat to enjoy them. And we can and do suspend disbelief, and thus we can and do enjoy them. But some movies try to present a plausible reality, like a "what if this really happened," and when THOSE movies cheat with obvious fake and contrived plot elements, it knocks us out of the story and makes for a bad movie. Well, I think the Game and Forrest Gump and Fight Club and some other movies along those lines (maybe the entire James Bond series) are sort of like modern folk tales... If you judge them against realistic dramas or thrillers, their contrivances will seem like a flaw. If you consider them like, say, a Paul Bunyan story, you don't immediately hate it because there's no such thing as a giant blue ox, right? The point is, the Game has contrivances, but only those needed to tell this very subtle and complex folk tale. (I realized Legend of Bagger Vance is probably another good example of this kind of movie.)

The great thing about the movie is that tells the story of a man who has all the material trappings of success, but he's basically a prisoner of his own life, having gotten unknowingly trapped into plodding along like an ox turning a millstone with no way to escape because his own mind is the trap. There's a deep truth here, that people get into their own ruts and opportunities to truly step out of our rut and change direction and gain a better perspective on life, are rare. You watch the movie, see the main character unhinged from his ordinary life to where he can have a transformative moment, and you maybe can have a little echo of that yourself, thinking about your own life, how you might be in a rut and not taking time to appreciate what really matters. That's a pretty big feat, and not many movies can do that.

I saw another reviewer who wrote the movie is good once, but has no re-watch potential, but I completely disagree, and have seen it at least 4-5 times.

Higher Power (2018)

A lot of mistakes, but there was an interesting story in there somewhere.

[5/10 · 23 December 2018]

The heart of the story is interesting. Villainous mad scientist and his cohorts try to give, and succeed at giving, superpowers to some ordinary Joe. The scientist and his cohorts are sort of the villains of the movie, but their motivations are unusual for villains, which was interesting and rather original. Originality is so rare in movies these days, I appreciated that even if it was mired in a lot of mistakes. Pacing is really awful, there's a lot of jerky camera work, a lot of grainy shots, night shots with random bring lights flashing at you, kind of annoying.

I saw this on Hulu and to make it watchable, I was pretty liberal with the "skip 10 seconds ahead) button. I probably pared it down to half its original length or less, and did not miss anything. The beginning is WAY too slow just showing us this average Joe with his tragic and troubled past and family drama. I think I got the gist of the situation in 2-3 minutes, and then skipped forward over 20 minutes to where the next stage of the movie started. I have no clue how any editor could have left that initial part of the movie so bloated at like 25 minutes when it should have been 5 minutes.

Actually, this problem was sort of foreshadowed by the opening credits. I am used to movies I stream having very short credits and then getting to the action. Here, the credits were so dragged out with very slow credits interspersed with out of focus, vague, grainy, shots that I guess were intended to draw the viewer in, but really were just so vague that it did NOT accomplish this at all. It was just a waste of what felt like 10 minutes on just the credits, with no real advancement or revelation of the story being interspersed, just kind of "mood" shots to set the tone, and I was already scratching my head at that retarded decision. So the fact that the movie then spent so much time once it began just setting up the main character as a loser man with tragic family drama was not so surprising. Anyway, you can basically skip the first third of the movie (the credits and 90% of the set up scenes) and I think you'll enjoy it more.

Ironically, having spent so much time on the "set up" of the tragic family history, the rest of the movie did not provide enough of this. It is all kind of sporadic and 2 dimensional and flat/predictable after that. I cannot help but think if they'd cut 15 minutes from scenes setting up the main character's family drama and history, they could then have added 15 minutes of footage to expand the present day story to flesh out the family dynamic to be more 3 dimensional. You know how if you are writing a slogan on a sign, and you write the letters really big to start, then realize you don't have enough room left so you then make the later letters much smaller? The family aspect of the movie felt somewhat like that.

There was also just some horrendously awful contrivances in the movie, like they search the whole planet for an average joe who has the right DNA to have the potential for the superpowers, and it just so happens he's a security guard for the laboratory where the top secret research on this project happens to be located. I mean, that is like a 1 in 7 billion coincidence. I call this kind of mistake being "incestuous" when the writers feel like they have to keep every single thing within the tiny circle of main characters (like in superhero movies where it is not enough that the hero is trying to thwart the supervillain's evil plot, the villain coincidentally also happens to fall in love with the same girl as the hero, as if that adds more spice to their conflict, when really it just makes viewers shake their head at writers insulting the intelligence of their viewers with such heavy-handed contrivances. So, yeah, the main characters workplace is an unexplained and impossible coincidence.

The action bits were, as noted, often filmed in a very chaotic manner and also just not that intense (intense in terms of building and releasing tension, not as far as graphic or disturbing violence). The whole thing could probably have made a great Black Mirror episode, pared down to under an hour and losing a lot of the family tragedy plot lines.

Anyway, no matter how many ways this movie failed, it had a rather original core story, so that I give it a 5.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

All fluff, no substance.

[4/10 · 2 August 2018]

There are movies that have a lot of car chases and explosions and stunts and special effects, but the story is weak and contrived. This movie is kind of like that. It's crap with star power. I will say that it was cool to see so many heroes in a single movie, and there were good special effects and lots of explosions. But, geez, the plot was so weak and contrived!

This is what I call "dumbed down" writing as found in Maverick, a 1994 western about a gambler in a poker tournament. The buy in per player was $25k! In today's money, that's about half a million dollars, for the buy in, not the prize! DUMB! The writers knew this, why not fix it? Because they think people are too dumb to understand that $1k was a huge amount in the Old West, so they dumb down the writing for them. I hated this, and it ruined that movie. A:IW commits the same sin, more than once.

First, consider the Infinity Stones -- 6 stones created at the Big Bang of the Universe with unmatched power, supposedly. Yet 2 of them belong to Earth heroes? (Vision and Dr. Strange). And the rest all seem to be in our corner of this one relatively small galaxy. With more than a billion trillion stars in the Universe, this is STUPID.

Next, let's consider Thanos' motivation. He grew up on a planet where overpopulation led to collapse of civilization, so now he is on a crusade to ride the Universe of overpopulation by killing exactly 50% of the people Universe. Does anyone else think this is too idiotic? I mean, sure, people on a planet with no space travel and limited technology might overpopulate that planet to the point of self-destruction, but, like, the Universe is full of empty space and empty planets. Like, billions, maybe trillions, of empty planets. And under-population can cause societal collapse, too, right? Insufficient genetic variation and such. Oh, and overpopulation is often a self-correcting problem because as resources get more scarce, people fight more over them and kill each other off. Not pretty, but effective and largely unavoidable. Thanos' motivation is so stupid that, in fact, one would expect the other characters who discussed the motive to note the stupidity, BUT THEY DON'T! Everyone acts like it is reasonable if cold and heartless. NO IT'S NOT REASONABLE!!!

If you really want to know how dumb this is, consider that the human population doubles about every 60 years. Assuming our growth is average for other intelligent species in the Universe, that means Thanos literally just set back the "problem" of Universal overpopulation by 60 years. And I think he spent hundreds or thousands of years on this master plan? Anyone see the problem? Bueller?

Next, the plot is based on the fact of how infinitely powerful these six stones are, so any hero with just one of them is thereby one of the most powerful superheroes of all. With only 2 stones, Thanos lays out the Hulk with one punch -- the Hulk who held his own against Thor (and then some) in Ragnarok. Then with 3 stones, Thanos defeats the GOTG the blink of an eye. Then with 4 stones... he suddenly has trouble against Iron Man and Starlord? with three stonesBut later, when Thanos has 4 stones, he has trouble knocking out Iron Man, Spiderman and Dr. Strange? And after getting all 6 stones, we learn Thor could have defeated him if he went for a head-blow with his new axe? (The axe trumps 6 stones? Why was Thanos not collecting these axes instead?!)

Next, everyone hero Thanos fought, it was like he had a man-crush on him, gushing how much he respected him. Over & over & over. A transparent attempt to explain away Thanos -- the most ruthless and villainous person in the Universe -- sparing hero after hero (until the very end when he wipes out half the universe, thereby setting back overpopulation by 60 years).It makes no sense for Thanos to spare these heroes he could easily kill in fight after fight after fight. He spares Thor (twice), spares Iron Man, spares the Guardians of the Galaxy at least once, spares almost every hero he encounters in Wakanda. Dumb/fake.

Next, it is a common flaw in most of these "multiple superhero" movies for the authors to complete punt on any logic to the relative strength and power of the respective heroes. I mean, Captain America is basically just a human juiced up to be, maybe, 10 times stronger than a normal person? That leaves him about a thousand (or maybe a million?) times weaker than Thor or the Hulk or Iron Man. And don't get me started on Hawkeye and Black Widow -- totally normal humans who happen to have some martial art skills. Yet in Age of Ultron with a horde of metal robots patterned off Iron Man's technology, somehow every single one of them is pretty much equally kicking ass. In reality, Hawkeye and Black Widow should have been killed by the first robot they encountered, and Captain America would have been killed shortly thereafter.

To see a variety of comic book heroes fighting side by side despite their different power levels, we have to accept this kind of inconsistency. Fine, to a point. IMO, the Avengers movies up to this point did an okay job not going too far ignoring the reality of the power differentials of their heroes. But this movie chucked any realism out the window, then ran outside and pissed on it. We are to believe one of Thanos' top aides -- the woman with the horns -- has trouble defeating a human with no powers just some martial arts skills (Black Widow)? And sure, maybe Captain America is 10 times stronger than a regular human, but Thanos' four-armed, fang-toothed soldiers looked at least 10 times stronger than a regular human, too, so Captain America should not have been decimating them like he was Superman. Oh, yeah, in a big budget Hollywood movie, the "hero" can always effortless defeat an infinite horde of faceless creatures, without any explanation needed.

With all the repetition of how infinitely powerful the six stones are together -- so strong Thanos can kill half the universe instantaneously with just a thought! -- how is it that some space dwarf can forge an axe that can take him down? By the same token, if the six stones are each infinitely powerful, how can one human O.D. on gamma rays or build a metal suit of armor & suddenly be a power match for some one with an infinity stone? (recall he Hulk having his way with Loki when Loki had an infinity stone in his staff)

In fact, Iron Man's power is just plain stupid because from GOTG we know humans are, like, thousands of years behind in their technology. So even if Stark was a visionary building Iron Man's suit well ahead of Earth technology, that might mean it is 50 years ahead, still thousands of years behind those space-traveling alien races. I mean, to Thanos, Stark's technology must be like the steam engine is to us... Yet Stark can go toe-to-toe with Thanos? Makes no sense.

Next, a common stupidity in superhero fighting in general: If a hero has near invulnerability, like Hulk, Thor, (or villains like Thanos), so that they might fall thousands of feet, crash into the ground, and then just get up and brush themselves off, then it necessarily follows that pickup on a giant piece of the ground and smashing it into that person will not hurt him either. Writers often act as if an object ,that would not hurt a superhero who flew into it, WILL hurt the hero if thrown at that hero by an enemy. No, no, no! If Superman can fly into the a train at 500 mph and not get hurt, then a villain picking up said train and throwing it at Superman at 500 mph cannot hurt him either. In effect, this fact would make fights between these near invulnerable heroes pointless and boring, so writers ignore this, but it still is dumbed down writing.

Getting away from general superhero movie criticisms, and back to this movie, a lot of the scenes were just not that fulfilling. When some of the heroes managed to put Thanos to sleep and were about to remove his infinity gauntlet, Starlord suddenly starts hitting Thanos and demanding he tell him what happened to Gematria, so he wakes up before the gauntlet is removed. Dude, with half the population of the Universe at risk, you can't hold yourself back from interrogating him just 60 seconds till the gauntlet is off??? Then you can waterboard Thanos all you want for information!!! Seriously? The writers want me, as an audience member, to feel satisfied with that story line? STUPID WRITING!!!

Almost as bad was the defeat of Thanos crony who controlled metal like Magneto. They blow a hole in the ship wall and he's sucked into space. Seriously? Can't he just use his power to float some metal to him, grab it, and then float it back into the ship like a buoy? Or maybe float the whole metal ship to himself? Or just seal up the metal hull of the ship before he gets to it? It seemed like the most lazy way to resolve that fight, not even trying to be clever or believable. Why not have the bad guy slip on a banana peel and hit his head, just as original and plausible.

Should we ponder again how Thanos with 2 stones easily beats Hulk, Hulk beats Thor (in Ragnarok), and Thor at the end is just about a match for Thanos with 6 stones? This will never make sense, and it is lazy and poorly thought out writing.

Cobra Kai (2018–2025)

Great writing, great moments.

[10/10 · 1 July 2018]

I'll be honest, I initially wrote this off as a gimmick series. But I was still intrigued, and after reading enough positive reviews, I gave it a shot. Wow, even better than I'd expected. Every episode had at least one, "OMG!" moment.

Ultimately, there is very smart writing. I think it was around episode three or four, some relatively insignificant dialogue in the auto dealership, but SMART dialogue. Over and over again, smart choices were made, and it shows.

Anyway, they knock it out of the park with this one. And while the ten episodes complete a pretty significant story arc, there is also a lot of stuff left making you really want to see the next season.

Dogville (2003)

Horrible, pointless, poorly conceived, gimmicky...

[2/10 · 9 March 2018]

First off, let me say that the gimmick of having no set does NOT work. It is a major distraction for the audience. Some have suggested not having the setting somehow forces you to pay attention more to the characters. That is totally incorrect. Your eye and attention is naturally drawn to what you know should be there, but is not. It is only when you have a set that actually fits the story that it essentially becomes invisible to the mind, and your attention is fully on the characters. This is simply a gimmick. It in no way is intrinsic to the story, nor does it advance it in any manner. It is as if the creators wanted to scream as loud as possible, "This is an artsy film!" Yeah, I heard you, but it still sucks.

Next, to the story. The underlying theme appears to be that people in the depression who were poor and struggling to get by were horrible, mean and untrustworthy, and all men are closet rapists, and all women are closet rape-accomplices. In fact, none of this is true. On the contrary, the poorest people are often the ones who help one another the most, because the notion "there but for the grace of God" is most true for them. I frankly do not believe a town like that portrayed in this movie ever existed. I do not for a second believe poverty leads to this level of inhumanity but, on the contrary, poor people generally display the highest levels of humanity, and it is the wealthy who are more likely to stray from humanistic behavior. I believe the characters are unrealistic, 2 dimensional and contrived.

Ultimately, the movie gets by with big name actors, a lame set gimmick and shock value from contrived and unrealistic characters and behaviors. It evades the critical derision it deserves by hiding behind the label of an "art" film, so if you don't like it, you are too dumb to get it. I think I recall a story about that very phenomenon and, spoiler alert, in that story it turned out the Emperor had no clothes.

Colossal (2016)

Pretty good flick

[7/10 · 29 December 2017]

I would recommend this movie to those who like movies that are not highly predictable or formulaic, with some kind of supernatural, sci-fi or surreal aspects.

I actually cannot think of any significant flaws in the movie. It is an original concept, well-acted, and at no point was the next plot point obvious to me, which is high praise.

Where it fails to get higher than 7 stars from me is that, ultimately, the emotional impact of it is somewhat muted. And I would have liked to see the back-story and the ending both developed further.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Too much contrivance, insults the viewer's intelligence

[6/10 · 13 May 2017]

A movie can do everything else right, but if the story requires the characters to do something that they would never do, ignores a huge elephant in the room that no one would ignore, etc., then it suddenly becomes garbage because it forces me out of the experience of going along for the ride.

This movie could have been good. I love superheroes, especially when movies work in lesser known heroes. There's some witty dialogue and plenty of star power and special effects. However, the plot has an absurd contrivance that I cannot get past.

In order to plot Captain America versus Iron Man, the authors could not come up with an intelligent misunderstanding. Instead, Captain America's friend is framed for a crime and Iron Man thinks he's guilty, even when event after event makes this highly dubious, and even when his "friend" Captain America tells him he thinks his friend may be innocent. Sorry, based on the track record of this relationship in the movies, Iron Man would HAVE to step back and think twice about this friend's guilt if Captain America really asked him to.

Moreover, when towards the end Iron Man learns the friend was framed, but learns this friend also had been previously brainwashed to kill in the past, and had killed his parents, he then tries quite un- heroically to kill Cap's now un-brainwashed (and framed) friend.

What part of brainwashing and mind-control does Iron Man not understand? If some one kills while under the influence of brainwashing and mind-control, they are the VICTIM, and you do NOT try to kill them after they manage to escape and overcome the brainwashing and mind-control.

The writers somehow thought they could just sweep this under the intellectual rug by just moving the action along very quickly, as if this would not give the audience time to connect the dots and see how ridiculous and unrealistic this "dilemma" really was. Sorry, there was no true dilemma. Captain America was right and Iron Man was wrong, completely, and in a ridiculously contrived manner.

Hunter x Hunter (2011–2014)

The best anime I've ever seen by far!

[10/10 · 9 October 2014]

FYI, I'm a lawyer in my 40s, not some kid, and basically ran out of anything on TV that I could stand, as it was all so formulaic and tired and low-brain. Well, I noticed some anime seemed focused on adults (not the sex stuff, but violence and intelligent plots and stuff), so I tried own -- Sword Art Online. It really opened my eyes to these hidden treasures -- the stories blend fantasy elements with action and interesting characters. Really the main thing I noticed was being surprised by plot twists. Whereas an American TV series or movie you can pretty much guess where it's going to go, this took turns and twists that really impressed me with the intelligence of the show. I mean, Lost took a lot of twists, but they were sort of random/contrived, and my final analysis was the writers were just making it up as they went along to avoid answering any hard questions, very stupid and contrived. Sword Art avoided that.

Anyway, after finishing that anime, I tried several more, and while some were good and still better than traditional American shows, none had the intelligent plotting of Sword Art Online -- till I found Hunter X Hunter, which just totally kicked it up a notch in both fantasy elements, interesting characters, intelligent plot twists you won't see coming, and the like. With some bad guys being sort of serial murderer/pedophiles, it's not for kids, but well done...even those pervy bad guys sometimes redeem themselves, at least for a short time.

How the main characters got more powerful as the series progressed, to be able to best stronger and stronger foes (usually) was well thought out, too, and not overly simplistic. The only downside was that by the fifth (?) story arc involving mutant ant people, I felt it had gotten a bit formulaic and I was not buying into how the world was responding to this threat, and felt the series might have jumped the shark, so to speak. However, I stuck it out and halfway through the arc I really started to enjoy it and the plot kept taking interesting twists. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried at least once because there were such bittersweet moments created.

I don't think I ever enjoyed a movie or TV series more than Hunter X Hunter, and with over 150 episodes, that's a LOT of great TV.

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

But it didn't go anywhere, what's the point?!

[5/10 · 7 January 2014]

I loved Oh, Brother Where Art Thou?, so I had high hopes for this flick. I came away very disappointed. It is a slice of life, a week in the life of a struggling folk musician in 1961. My problem is that the main character is pretty much in the same place at the end as at the beginning. Here's the thing: A slice of life, go nowhere movie, with no transformation of the main character, is probably not going to be my cup of tea in almost any case. That said, I do think it can work when it is biographic. Because for a realistic, biographic slice of life, we get to see REAL LIFE, down and dirty, including the reality that sometimes there is no great triumph, no big personal transformation, etc. So, if you give me a window into the true life of an individual, that can be great even without an evolving character, or any triumphant moment.

However, if you give me a phony, contrived fictional piece, and you force me to sit through contrived moments, my "reward" is to get paid off with a clever ending where everything comes together and stuff foreshadowed at the beginning is realized at the end. A fictional story allows the writer to create a slice of life that has a great symmetry and harmonious movement lacking in real life. And it's frankly part of the bargain you make when you start shoving contrivances down the throat of the audience.

So, my problem with this movie is that it simply was not realistic / biographical enough, but instead it was full of contrivances...yet it still went nowhere. Contrivances that serve no purpose to move towards a happy (or tragic) coincidence at the end? Why bother? Take some examples: We see this guy perform, and it's clear he has something special, with his guitar and voice. No way this guy does not have some chicks ready to hook up with him after the way he plays on stage. So why is he begging for a couch to sleep on from near strangers? Given how we see he is fine mooching off people, it is frankly inexplicable that he is not mooching of any of the adoring Greenwich Village groupies he must surely have from his performances. So his desperate near homelessness, despite his great musical skill and having been in the area for some time (i.e., not a newcomer) makes no sense to me.

We also see him visiting his father, and his sister, so apparently his whole family is local to the New York area, which again begs the question how he got to be 30-ish and needing to beg strangers for a couch to sleep on, in his own home town. His sort of living seems more appropriate if (a) he was new to the area, and (b) he was not all that good or polished with his music.

Another contrivance: When he loses the tabby cat, and finds a near identical cat right around the corner. I mean, come on! That color, and size, cat, and quality of grooming, eyes, etc., that's got to be pretty rare for cats wandering the streets of New York, it's definitely not your average alley cat, in coloration or size. So for him to find this identical but wrong cat, so we can have a big confrontational moment, is a blatant contrivance.

It seems like the writers were looking for ways to create contrivances to screw with the main character, to mess up his life intentionally, as if to say, "sucks to be you." Again, what's the point? I mean, if this were truly biographical, it would tell me something about the nature of the universe. But since it is a fiction -- and we know the guy it was loosely based on was nothing like the character in the film except in the most superficial sense -- we are not learning anything except that the writers can think of ways to kick some one when they are down. But I kind of know that already, so I learn nothing of value.

At the end of the movie, we have now seen the main character find out he probably has a two year old son he never saw, but he decided not to go look for him when he passed by that town and had the opportunity. We see he chose to take a flat fee for music, and there is some hint the song will turn out to be a hit and he will later kick himself for not having any royalty rights, but we never see that develop.

I'd also note that to care about the movie, to be moved by it, you have to identify with the main character. But he is just flat out unlikeable. And with the writers throwing contrived tragedies at him, you don't want to link up emotionally with him. So without that, without caring about this jerk who will heckle a poor old woman just because he's having a bad day, how are you supposed to be moved any direction by his failures and lack of success? It just makes no sense, I don't see how audiences get moved by the pap.

On the positive, I think there is some beautiful music, and some beautiful imagery. There is perhaps some poetry to the audio-visual elements, and a nice timing, variation, with some of the dramatic moments, but honestly that's just too little, like a cake that is beautifully decorated with sweet icing but dry and tasteless in the middle.

Well, that's my 2 cents.

The Artist (I) (2011)

Gimmicky, boring, self-indulgent, and shallow

[3/10 · 24 January 2012]

It is generally understood that a movie maker should not employ a gimmick unless it is important to the plot. In this film, the movie maker(s) employ the gimmick of having the entire movie done like a silent movie (with very rare exception) simply because it tells the tale of a silent movie star. This gimmick violates the foregoing rule because it is NOT intrinsic to the plot.

In the last five seconds (or so it seems) you get one sound bite of sound to let you know the lead actor has a severe accent, which FINALLY explains why he was so resistant to doing "talkies" throughout the film. This would have been useful information to understanding his character and the actions taking place in the movie had it been disclosed earlier. As it was, it was a throw-away piece of information, with almost no attention drawn to it, too late to do any good. Instead, you are pretty much left with the realization you have been misled the entire movie -- by its silence -- into thinking this silent movie actor had some philosophical or artistic objection to talkies (even the name, the "artist," misleadingly suggests this is the case).

To maintain this secret, the movie maker(s) also had to contrive the dialogue, because in all the conversations the lead actor (the "artist") has with people about not doing talkies, in reality his accent would be the main talking point. "Hey, don't worry about your accent." or "You can get a speech coach to work on that accent." No, the conversations are conveniently contrived to keep the movie-goer in the dark on this one.

Phony, contrived dialogue is not the end of the problems. As the movie itself confesses in dialogue, silent movie actors employ the prop of overly exaggerated facial expressions and "mugging" for the camera to get their point across. Well, this movie employs THAT too, in addition to being silent. So you get the actors mugging throughout the entire thing. It's quite annoying after 10 minutes. I go to see good actors act well, not intentionally overact and "mug" for the same of some stupid contrivance that some idiot thought would be "oh so clever." However, none of the above are actually the biggest problems with this movie. The biggest problem of all is the lack of depth or realism in the script. The movie maker(s) were so caught up trying to make a modern "silent" movie that they ignored the critical element of having characters with any depth.

We get the lead actor who is the definition of two-dimensional. He carries around his dog-sidekick wherever he goes and does the same tricks with the dog that he does in his films ALL THE TIME. We know his marriage is in trouble, but we don't see a single meaningful conversation between him and his wife. His interactions with his other love interest are completely phony, unrealistic and shallow.

I was ready to walk out of this movie after 30 minutes, but for the hope it would transform, grow, deepen or somehow make some meaningful point. It NEVER DOES. It goes on at the same speed, the same shallowness, the same one-dimensional tone THE WHOLE TIME.

I have a theory on people who rate this movie as so amazing. (1) They are old silent movie fans and this film brings back that nostalgia for them in a way they find pleasing. So, basically, the gimmick does it for them. (2) They see way too many movies, so they are bored and get overly excited about anything unique so, again, the gimmick satisfies them and they do not look for anything deeper. (3) They are the kind of artsy phoneys who do not really understand the art of storytelling, and so wait to see which way the critical winds blow and leap on that train so they can seem like they actually know what they are talking about.

To draw a comparison, which I think is apt, this movie is very much like Dogville, wherein the actors struggled to act without the benefit of props or sets. You had to IMAGINE all this stuff, as did the actors. And it got rave reviews. However, apart from this plot gimmick, it was a very bad movie. First, if you take the rose-tinted glasses off, you will readily see all the actors struggled with the lack of props and this really impaired their performances. Second, you will see this lack of props had no plot-related purpose and so was, again, a bad idea and in violation of a fundamental rule of good movie-making. Third, the story itself was weak inasmuch as the characters were not realistic, but instead were as shallow as comic book villains, which is fine if you want an immature horror-type plot, but not if you want to learn something deep about the human experience. It was a bad movie that should have been soundly condemned by any critic who actually knew what he/she was talking about, but instead people got fixated on the gimmick and gave it rave reviews.

How about a film where all the actors sit in wheelchairs? You can just use an old Karate Kid script, because no one will care because it has a new gimmick so it'll get rave reviews.

All American Orgy (2009)

Wonderful, off-beat, comedic drama

[6 June 2011]

I started watching this movie while channel surfing, got hooked, and stopped watching so I could see it from the beginning. It is not so much a comedy as a quirky, slice-of-life tale. I found the realism of the dialogue, and the plot twists, made me feel very much like it was largely autobiographical. This is not a flaw, and if anything made it more riveting. I was not necessarily laughing, or enamored with any of the characters, but I still was riveted by the honesty of it, and I thought the performances were very good.

I do think the marketing per the cover art of the DVD (if accurately reflected above) is hugely misleading, as there is nothing sensual or sexually stirring about this movie. If anything, I had the sense the producers were going out of their way to make this the least sexy orgy movie possible. However, it works very well as an off-beat, quirky and somewhat dark comedic drama. Every scene reinforces the viewers sense that this orgy is going to be a train wreck which, in fact, turns out to be the case, though in a relatively unpredictable fashion.

Overall, it's one of the best movies I've seen the past year and I would highly recommend it. I do wish, however, that they had either set the movie somewhere else (it was set in Louisiana), or had the actors make some effort at speaking with a Southern accent. Apart from Silverman, no one tried in the least to affect any Southern accent, while the storyline generally implied they were Louisiana locals, which I found jarring to my sensibilities. Also, I'm not sure I buy the notion of an ecstasy dealer as hard-up for a good time as the character in the movie appeared to be. Though these and some other flaws made it feel often like a student or low budget film (which it may have been) they did not prevent me from enjoying the overall smartness of the movie.