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The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)
I literally could not watch this
First and foremost, thank god I did not pay for this movie. I saw it again and again coming up in my suggestions but I held out. It came on Paramount+ and I finally gave it a try. Dark. Dark. Dark. And it was dark. Blackness, dark brownness, and lots of dark, dark, darkness. I turned off all the lights in the room hoping that would help - it didn't. I turned the brightness all the way upon on my TV - it didn't help. I simply became too tired of straining to see what was going on. I quit.
Okay, so now we know why so very few directors attempt this sort of filming. Filming in the dark. It doesn't work. The viewer just strains and strains and it ruins the entire thing. I can understand moments of darkness. That is not what I am talking about here. It is dark - forever. Even out in the daylight it is dark and brown and dim and not very well lit. Brown and colorless. For as long as I was able to stand it.
So here you go. A movie about darkness and muddy brown hues. On a high end 4K TV it looks terrible. Or well it doesn't look at all. It would've looked better on an old CRT television from the 1970s, at least you wouldn't have noticed how much you couldn't notice anything. To say I am disappointed is a understatement. Yet I am glad I didn't pay for my disappointment.
I'm really, really, really getting to the point where I NEVER pay to see movies. There's always some sort of stupid, glaring mistake somewhere. So I go back and forth with the various streaming options and end up watching favorite movies from long ago. Not that they are necessarily any better, they're merely familiar. Voyage of Demeter is one best left unwatched, and please for the love of your hard earned money - do not pay to watch!
The Equalizer (2014)
Denzel Washington. Need I say more? Okay I will:
This is an obvious popcorn movie. It has some real flaws, some awful stinker decisions, but hey it's Denzel and he can and will save the day, and the movie.
Overall I feel the acting was good by all involved, even if the scripting and dialogue wasn't exceptional. I didn't find the hardware store angle very mature, and those portions of the films suffer accordingly - but nothing against the acting. It was simply a weak premise. So I groaned and let it play out. Did I mention this movie has Denzel Washington?
This movie takes a different road than many, in that the protagonist's past was far more secretive. It was not "in your face" about it, which I found refreshing. Denzel played the role perfectly as a quiet, calm, deep and mysterious good guy. With all sorts of... skills lol.
The movie moves along very well, I never got bored. The bad guys were sufficient. Here there is everything a person could want in a movie like this. But there are some problems. It seems the director isn't much of a man's man and is painfully unaware of certain manly things. These irked me. Some of the situations were outright ridiculous, where about 99% of any other man would act and react differently. So there is some painful disconnect in some of the scenes in this regard.
But my bottom line: I watched this twice, almost 10 years apart, and enjoyed it both times. At times this was a 5 Star movie, and at times it was a 2 Star movie. If you like this sort of thing, hero guy with a secretive "skill set" past, you should definitely watch. You will not waste your time or money. For me personally I simply cannot watch Denzel Washington and not love the role he plays. He is one of the great actors and you just love whoever it is he plays in his films. Sorry for being biased. No I'm not.
Cold Pursuit (2019)
You can't be serious
Absolutely and without a doubt the silliest movie ever made. It tries to be a black comedy (I guess?) but just ends up being embarrassing. On the one hand it tries to be serious, on the other it has the most ridiculous and childish dialogues. And every scene there is some sort of sickening joke that makes a person wanna vomit. And I don't mean sickening as in gross. Sickening as in very, very poorly done. Here you will find no clever comedy. It's just in-your-face junior high level junk. And Liam cannot - will not - save this. I no longer have any respect for Liam whatsoever. Every time I see him I just groan and shake my head. He has long gone to the dogs, and this movie just keeps him there. This is just another in a massive trash heap of movies being released. I think the industry is quietly doing this to make people hate movies. There really is no other explanation.
BOTTOM LINE: Not cute. Not clever. Not funny. Not entertaining. It is nauseating, boring, over the top, under the top, scraping the bottom. Want to groan and rage quit a movie? THIS IS FOR YOU!
The Exorcist: Believer (2023)
First act very engaging - slow slide into blah
I was shocked at how well done the start of this movie was. Some very good shots and good acting as well. I suddenly had some very high hopes. But then the rest of the movie came along and everything just slowly declined. And then somewhere just past the halfway point the scenes became clipped and rushed, cramming some stuff in with a ham fist, clumsy and poorly done. Then came the last stage and the weird mumbo-jumbo began. It was sickening but not in a horror sense. It was like "feel good to dispel the evil" sort of a nonsense. Some very poor decisions (trying not to write spoilers) and I truly believe the decision to have two possessed teens ended up being ridiculous in the end. And yes it did become trite and cliche, with tropes and crap just plugged in for effect. This is a movie I will never, ever watch again. I saw it at the theater with friends, so if it hadn't been for my buddies I wouldn't have bothered in the first place. Possession movies are always a miss, and always for the same reason. It was done once. It cannot be done again. Sorry. Those are the breaks, kid.
Max Payne (2008)
Stunted, Clumsy, Too Occluded
Note to director: If you're going to have a leading man that is less than 5'0, try not to use so many pulled back shots. Wahlberg looks like a little kid in too many scenes. I understand Hollywood actors are short, but it gets hard to continue to take these guys seriously as "tough and hard" when they're so tiny. Mark Wahlberg is a pipsqueak.
Other than that, the entire first quarter of the movie is stilted, abrupt, cliche, etc. The director shoots for dark and mysterious and ends up with boring and clueless, clueless as in I have no idea what I'm supposed to think. This appears to be some sort of cop flick, that's how it is presented at the start. The opening scenes take pains to display this as a cop film, and even adds to that point several times in the beginning. So... it's a cop flick? If so, give us some idea what's going on. If you're going to do a slow burn, give no clue, add no information type of movie - then just do that. Trying to marry "cop movie" with "bizarro world" just made me sit there with my brain turned off. It was too hard to get involved as a viewer. It was too much donkeys and oranges. The scenes and scenarios just didn't add up - they clashed and annoyed.
I went into this movie with an open mind. I never played the video games so I have no idea what it's all about. I went in cold and tried to allow the director and actors to tell me the tale. I got jaded and bored and closed TUBI at about the first third. I'm confident I didn't miss anything. HOWEVER! I'm not panning this 100% for everyone. As mentioned by others, this isn't some cheaply made film. It does indeed have some cinematic value. Obviously a lot of people will find entertainment with this one. I simply was not one of them. 5 Stars even though I'll never make any attempt to try and watch this one again. Good luck!
The Pope's Exorcist (2023)
After about 25 minutes I got it
This is a comedy, tongue in cheek. 10 minutes in I was already prepared to write a scathing review due to the horrible, awful, cliched, lame dialogue. Then the meat of the movie arrived and I got it. This is a satire of exorcist movies. Ha ha. You had me fooled with the inclusion of Russell Crowe. I honestly thought this was going to try to be a legit horror movie. NOPE! It is not. I guess if you want to watch tropes and stereotypes, silly cliched comments, scenes shamelessly ripped off from other movies - feel free to watch. I, for one, didn't appreciate it. It should've been clearer that this was a joke and not a legitimate attempt at cinema. Jokes on me. My bad. I won't give the director the privilege of dropping his name, but after a cheap joke like that - I'm gonna remember. Avoid him at all costs. He's nothing more than a hack.
Jimmy O. Yang: Guess How Much? (2023)
Not Side-splitting but Good Easy Comedy
I've all but given up on stand up comedy specials. Too often the comedians rely solely upon rudeness and crudity, and that alone. Being a jerk is not funny, not at all. Too many blamers using the platform to push agendas and make pointed statements. Not fun. Not funny. Then there is Jimmy O. While he probably won't give you a stroke from laughing, his comedy is funny enough - and fresh enough - to be worth the watch. In this particular episode he does indeed have some very good laugh-out-loud humor. But I say watch Jimmy O so you can sit back and relax, knowing he's not going to make anyone angry, not going to get political and make people uncomfortable. I smiled through the entire thing, and I laughed at times as well. For today's modern comedy, that's very hard to find. 8/10.
The Call (2020)
Just too much junky filming included
This is all on the director, writers, producers, etc. It starts off painful, stilted, stunted, cliché, cliché, cliché. The first third of the movie the actors are given nothing but hokey and amateurish dialogue and situations to grind through. Seriously. It's a grind to watch. An unpleasant, nauseating venture into some embarrassingly poor writing. Then it comes down to it, the "horror" part of the movie. Here were some flashes of good stuff. Flashes.
I will say, a few of the horror effects were good, so there were at least a few talented people involved. Also, there were some drop dead gorgeous set angles where one could see some painstaking in the decorating and outfitting of the house. That part I did enjoy. Again, there were some talented people working among the idiots. What's funny is that at the start I felt the movie was way too colorful, too bright and vibrant. But then inside the house the color and hue changed and ended up impressing me greatly. So maybe that was intended, but the vibrancy at the start threw me off and I didn't like it at the time.
Overall the premise was convoluted and thus the twist at the end did not deliver. I mean by that point I'd given up an hour prior. Indeed! I fell asleep during some of the most active parts of the film. Literally fell asleep. If you have free access to this film, I'd say skip over to some of the parts filmed in the house, seek to find some of the cool scene sets and enjoy the ambience that somebody did a very good job at. Too bad the director and writers were such losers. There simply was not enough written content to fill this movie to any sort of capacity.
2048: Nowhere to Run (2017)
We need a Blade Runner movie based on Bautista's character alone
When you get a character matched so perfectly with an actor it's a shame to sideline the combo to so few minutes of film. Movies don't always have to have some huge plan and scheme. I, for one, would love to see Dave Bautista just living out a portion of his life in the Blade Runner world, having adventures and just being Sapper Morton. Most directors can't pull off the big event anyway. Why can't we have less convoluted and straight-to-the-point stories? GIVE US SAPPER MORTON!
The Black Phone (2021)
Horror Continues Down the Drain
First off, I'm sick to death of children playing major roles in horror movies. Come on man. Anyway, I will say that the kiddos in this movie did do a very good job. I actually liked them and felt they fulfilled their role in that aspect. Ethan, on the other had, he pretty much sucked. Hard. I neither liked or hated his character. I just wanted it to shut up and go away. It was handled that poorly.
The entire movie was ultimately boring. Boring to tears. The alcoholic father was fake fake fake. God what a poor acting performance. As mentioned elsewhere, the student brutality was over the top and fake fake fake. I grew up in the 70s and we did indeed have fistfights. I was in a bunch of them. They were never as depicted in this movie. LMAO. Anyway. It was needless, pointless, and unnecessary.
Then the calls. And the attempts. And the calls. And the attempts. And I had already started skipping and skipping along, knowing there was simply NO WAY I was going to be able to watch this thing through. This movie was never scary. It was never horror. The main scary guy was gutless and lame and not scary and not even creepy. He was fake. The neat twist with the phone ended up being quite lame and unbelievable. Well, not unbelievable. It ended up being... lame.
The reason for all this lameness and fakeness and hamfistedness? Just another team of producers wanting to make a film for profit. LOOK! SCARY MASK! PAY ME! There is no love for horror left in cinema. There are no longer any horror films being made. Perhaps there are a couple exceptions, movies that can pass as horror, but they end up having some pretty serious flaws that ruin the experience. This move isn't horror. And it's slow and awkward and clumsy with almost nowhere to go. Did I mention how bad Ethan sucked?
Appaloosa (2008)
A Western Worth Watching
I gave this 7 stars, which in my book is a very high rating these days. It's getting to where I can't watch movies at all anymore, as I find most newer films needlessly convoluted. Appaloosa has flaws, has moments where the dialogue breaks down and the scenes go stagnant. It also has pacing issues - I found the latter third getting tedious at times. But overall I did enjoy the film.
Viggo and Harris make a splendid pair. Harris is an obvious western lawman natural, but also Viggo did an excellent job and was completely believable. Great pains seemed to have been taken to recreate the 1880s. I enjoyed the scenery and the costumes, and some excellent horse work as well. Jeremy Irons as the antagonist, well you simply can never go wrong there! In fact there was very good acting all the way around, from a ton of supporting actors, even bit actors. The positives worked to overcome the shortcomings.
Lastly, as I mentioned about the latter third, I became terrified this movie was going to screw up the ending. I began praying as things got awkward again. But thank god. I had nothing to worry about. It resolved quite nicely, at least for my taste and hope and expectations. Overall a good western experience, and I am an admitted harsh critic.
Black Mountain Side (2014)
Holy Moly What a Pile
How the hell did this get 5 stars? Not only is it stale and disjointed, lame and trudging, the actors do not act like real people. And this isn't because they are trying to be surreal. No no no no. They simply have no clue. And I'm certain they got no direction either. This is nothing more than some folks with a fancy camera or two, somewhere in a winter landscape, making some sort of dull home movie. At least it wasn't "found footage" so that much I can say. I continued to watch this for about 45 minutes and it is simply a complete waste. Completely. I just cringed over and over, and not in a good way. There was no intrigue. No decent dialogue. No cerebral merit whatsoever. Whoever made this has no clue about real life - nor about movie making either. I can't say this is the worst movie I've ever seen. There are far, far too many horrible worthless movies out there. This is simply one of them. Why does anyone sink money into these? Who the hell is watching them? Who the hell is enjoying them? I am clueless.