Change Your Image
info-5731
Reviews
The Burning Girls (2023)
AIMLESS UNTIL THE END
The final episode of this cliched series is a bizarre helter-skelter of twists, reveals, revelations, perfunctoy attempts to tie up loose ends, mind stretching resolutions for subplots and red herring characters; and some bug-eyed OTT acting all around.
It's as if the writers woke up one morning, realised there was only one episode left, and panicked. Suddenly there's a mad rush to reveal that she, he, they - anybody! - aren't what they seem, that events we thought happened didn't happen the way we thought they did, that THAT storyline actually had nothing to do with THIS storyline after all.
And wasn't it called THE BURNING GIRLS?? Mmmmm...
After meandering through 5 episodes of trope soup, Episode 6 is a manic joy.
The Fabelmans (2022)
A DISHONEST TROPE-FEST
Spielberg's glossy, cliched American family sit-com and High School coming-of-age trope-fest. A dubious oedipal obsession with his creepy mother. Rose tinted self mythologising of his phoney growth as a filmmaker (on the evidence here, the borrowed, the bland and the superficial were early tenets).
I also found the young filmmaker's manipulation of his schoolmates through film rather unpleasant. Homo-erotic pandering to the principal bully and downright meanness to the less attractive sidekick was a misuse of editing for personal and petty result. Riefenstahl-lite.
Maybe it's meant as a confession, or an excuse...
The Fablemans has nothing to say and is absent of truth - other than a confirmation of Spielberg's limited horizons.
Hostel: Part II (2007)
Rubbish
This is like a cheap knock-off of Hostel, which wasn't great but at least it had some suspense, a little plot, and believable, if unlikeable performances. Somebody should tell Roth that character and motivation matter, and they're not just for him to build up and then chuck away because it'll allow him some nasty/ not nasty at all turnarounds - and vice-versa. Really clever that... I also had some problems with the shower scene - not because of the gore or nudity or whatever - more to do with the "what's the point of this?" feeling it gave me. And what do you know, there really wasn't any point, except simple meanness. After the eye snip in Hostel, the penis snip was a cheap shot. About as unpleasant as a picture of venereal disease, but hardly scary. Neither is shouting C**T! really loud. But Roth isn't pushing any boundaries here, he's done the minimum to get by. Rubbish ending too. Another step down from Cabin Fever, which was promising. 3 for nice production values.