Reviews

This just left me extremely disappointed. The topic, the school and stories of who was behind it and how they were treated is all very interesting and should be brought to light.

However, it is presented in a very unserious and unprofessional manner. Like someone just gathering the victims and having the camera roll without proper questioning, retelling and structure. Not to mention lack of editing and storytelling. Despite the subject matter being very serious, it comes off as goofy when they're just laughing and talking to each other.

The doc does have some production value through some animations and what not that has been created for it, but despite that, the rest looks extremely low budget put together without any thought. There's single-person-made documentaries on YouTube with better storytelling skills, editing and direction than this though. I find this unwatchable.

Fingers crossed a more professional documentary team will cover this school sometime in the future in a better way.

A review of season 1. There's an interesting story and chain of events that would be very intriguing to follow through a thorough investigation of the Murdaugh family, the stealing, corruption, and the deaths surrounding them. Go into details of their background, their character, what made Alex the person he is and how he was brought up, previous things he were involved with and so on.

Instead, the majority of season 1 focus on a boat accident caused by Paul, the son of Alex Murdaugh. There are so events and even murders that happens which are fairly brushed over, not going into deep details as they should. Not much investigation seems to have been done here by the documentary makers, except assemble the family and victims of this boat accident and spend 70% of the runtime to talk about this incident. Then we're rushed through the following murders and events for the last episode.

Might watch 2nd season to see what more is happening with this case, but after season 1 I feel a lack of confidence they will portray the story in an interesting manner, even if the story definitely is there.

Generally this was a good documentary, not wasting your time, to the point and telling the story from many different perspectives such as the victims, police, fbi, etc. It does miss more proper investigation into their family and actually talking to the perpetrator though.

I would have rated this much higher, if it wasn't for some of their extremely out of place interviewees as Phillip Martin. He's a "journalist" who does nothing but complain about law enforcement, much more concerned about the well-being of the perpetrator than any victim. His narrow-minded ideologies are just glowing. Secondly we have the muslim friend who's also much more concerned about muslims getting a bad reputation, than innocent people getting killed or actually having muslims commit less terrorism. We all know Netflix added these for DEI. It only drags down the integrity of the rest of the series.

That being said. If you can ignore those parts, the rest is a good retelling of the investigation following the bombing.

While the movie has some good acting, direction and cinematography, the overall plot is paper thin and drawn out. This is based on a short story, and a short film would probably suit it better. I completely understand it is a "slow burn" movie, but it really did not have to be 2,5 hours long. The first 1,5 hour is simply to set up the premise. Should have been 30min at most to get it going.

That being said, the film does feel smarter in hindsight, when reflecting back on what characters said and you understand the underlying meanings of what they were actually implying and talking about. Don't expect a huge mystery plot though. This movie is 75% drama, with some mystery and thriller elements sprinkled on top.

Right off the bat I want to highlight just how much better this documentary is than the HBO documentary "Woodstock 99: Peace Love and Rage", which was an awful ideological retelling of events from a narrow minded perspective.

This doc however has a much more balanced view of the events that happened. No band, race or gender is singled out as the blame. Clearly it was the condition and how the youth were treated that caused this. While I don't condone any of their actions, and think they'd be better off just leaving after 1st or 2nd day, you can also understand how the riot could start given the situation. That being said, there was definitely some really disgusting behavior of some in the crowd, grasping girls nipples and even the rape that happened.

In this doc you'll see the interviews with leadership who continue their responsibility denial parade. Despite them constantly turning a blind eye to all problems, cutting budgets, lacking security, no water, overpriced food, and so on. Any criticism is shut down instantly, they don't wanna hear it. They keep meandering about "peace and love" of Woodstock, but in reality all they're after is maximising profits. It's so ridiculous to listen to.

The woman riding around in a golf cart throwing plastic bags at people and telling THEM to clean up was just insanely tone deaf. Can they please stop pretending Woodstock 69 was so fantastic? All they do is look back on it with rose tinted glasses, claiming it was so fantastic and more than a music festival. In reality they had equal amount of medical incidents (over 5000 cases), 3 people died and the national guard had to fly in and drop food, blankets and medical supply to help them out because it was such a disaster.

Overall a very interesting capsule of the late 90s and what a terrible festival this was. Completely lacking in planning and preparation, with misguided focus and management. Responsibility denial and angry youth.

The documentary starts with an extremely slow, boring and embarrassing retelling of the story from a rose-painted and naive perspective of one of the girls in a women's magazine fashion. Very little details and insight except from her own retelling, no date or time stamps. The second girl joins the storytelling soon after. Both are very much trying to paint an image describing how they really liked this scammer, who's personality is like a robot. Always trying to deny the fact that they like him because he's "rich".

To call them naive and gullible is an understatement. There are so many red flags with the guy, and they barely seem to know him outside the fact he got money. The first girl just flies abroad with him after meeting for an hour, and seemingly gets into a relationship with him shortly after despite him barely ever coming to see her. It's just so crystal clear from the viewer's perspective these are gold diggers that met their match, a scammer digger for gold in gullible girls. He asks them to take up loans and get more credit cards after his own and "business account" gets blocked, and all other kinds of ridiculous stories with zero believability. At this point they believe he is son of a billionaire. How could anyone believe that a son of a billionaire would start asking for money once he's in trouble, from a person he've known for just 1 month? As if he wouldn't ask family, closer friends, business partners or bank first. He saying he needs $25k in cash from one of the girls because it's untraceable - which is almost an open statement of his intentions.

There is no doubt they got scammed and are the victims in this case, however let's not try to paint over their motivation as well, and why they were willing to go to the lengths they did. It was simply because they expected to get more money in return than what they used themselves. Which is quite frustrating watching them in complete denial throughout this documentary.

Despite the slow start and everything said above, the documentary starts to become more interesting once we get into the scam part, and when the journalists starts investigating him. However, even this part lacks an extreme amount of detail. A better job could have been done to go back to his previous case in Finland, the girls he scammed there and the trial details. It's all just briefly mentioned and skimmed over. It would have been interesting if they had also found girls he attempted to scam but who didn't fall for it, I'm sure there must be plenty of people it just didn't work on as well. I think the subject matter here is interesting, but the presentation, investigation and details are lacking to make it more intriguing.

As the title suggests, this is one of "those" documentaries where the journalist / narrator self-inserts themselves far too much into the story. Keep her either a narrator or as an interviewee for a short section. It becomes really annoying as you're interested to know more about the case, and she interrupts the flow and BTKs words.

If only this was edited better, remove the writer interrupting the story and focused more on BTK, his background, crime scene details, thoughts, motivations etc, this could have been so much better. They also seem to just brushed off and accept he had a good childhood without any further investigation. But from his answers throughout it seems he was being picked on and was a weakling, creating a domination complex. Unfortunately this wasn't deeply explored.

It made me feel like I was some kind of unknown entity, disconnected from humanity, as I couldn't fathom as to why these blue smurfs were so popular with the general audience, or perhaps they were just easily entertained with the visual spectre and 3D effect - like a baby being dangled a toy in front of their face.

The movie is very cookie cutter, following a predictable formula James Cameron perfected with Titanic. It is almost hilarious how Avatar follows it pretty much beat for beat. Outsiders of lower standing by chance becomes selected to join on exploring a new place, meeting new kinds of people who's different than him, and he is being shunned for his differences at start, while he falls for the girl. Mostly adventure and a bit of drama for the first 2/3, and then tragedy strikes, making the last third act more action oriented. This is summarising it, but even looking in further detail it doesn't miss.

It isn't the worst movie made or anything like that. There clearly is a lot of effort put into it. However it just comes across as such a commercial product, with bland characters. Also have to mention how hilarious it is Cameron announced Avatar 2, 3, 4, etc back in the day. Seems the first sequel is actually coming out later this year. Personally I strongly prefer his earlier movies as Terminator and Aliens.

The backstory of Liz Carmichael and the dodgy business of the Dale is interesting and worth a look into. But to the length this documentary goes to attempt to glorify a mass fraudster, scammer, criminal and fugitive... is quite disgusting. Even more hilarious when the "historian" and Liz herself attempt to blame the government and other businesses for "harassing" her - completely ignoring the dozens and more criminal acts she has already been doing, and kept doing.

The documentary completely glances over all the lives this person has ruined, all the people who's lost money and gotten in trouble due to her scams. Wives and children just throw to the side and abandoned. It's all presented in a goofy paper-cutout look to attempt to make the crimes and act sound more lighthearted. How they thought it was a good idea to praise a criminal and fraudster like this is beyond rational belief. We all know it is only because she was trans, and therefor should be praised no matter what. This really could have been so much better.

The documentary has a lot of great archival footage and good editing, however the narrative is non-stop and ends up going in circles around politically narrow minded drivel and projection. Not only blaming the fans, artists, and ignoring the condition they were in, but even go as far as blame it on "white people" and "men". Insane amount of racial and gender prejudice.

That being said, if you're able to look past all the political narrative, there IS actually a good documentary hidden beneath the muck covering it all.

The doc starts alright, although a bit slow. But by 2nd, the start focusing on all these youtube parasites that has absolutely nothing to contribute to the documentary. Just a bunch of unfound and wild conspiracy theories.

I'm interested in the investigation, what additional evidence, facts, witness statements, background history, hearing from friends and family, etc. Anything more than the elevator video and outcome of the water tanks - which we all know walking into this. Sadly, there is very little additional information this documentary provides. You can outright skip episode 2 and 3, and watch 4th but skip all the youtuber-nonsense just to get the final conclusion.

How anyone in their right mind thought it was a good idea to give these uninformed youtube conspiracy theorists such priority in this doc is completely mind baffling. It's not interesting nor entertaining. Just stealing time away from the actual victim and case in question.

This is a good example of what could possibly be a good little indie short film, if cut down to about 20-30min or so.

But I guess it had to be 1h 48min to be taken serious as a "feature length movie", which is far longer than the content can bare. The first 30min alone is pretty much the same repeated scenes and interactions over and over again. A viewer as an audience doesn't need to see the same scene over and over with the same interactions in order to get the point that she is picking up guys this way. We get it.

There are tons of other shots and scenes with little to no content that just goes on for too long. It's not eerie, scary, insightful nor interesting. It ends up being badly paced and boring to endure - which pretty much sums up this movie. The only positives I can say is some of the imagery / cinematography.

Much like Gacy overstayed his welcome after receiving the death sentence, so does this documentary. It starts off good, both speaking with investigators and the '92 interview with Gacy himself to go through the events leading up the discovery, investigation and trial.

However, after 4th episode, when the trial is concluded, it all comes crashing down to a snails pace. All investigators and original interviewees are no longer part of the doc, it's sporting an all new cast which focus a lot of inconclusive rumors and talking in circles on some specific evidence which should have been a smaller footnote in the story. All the content of episode 5 & 6 could have been condensed down and put in the prior 4 episodes and leave it at that. It really didn't need to go on for 2 hours.

That being said, it's still a good doc I would recommend watching the 4 first episodes. Then watch the last 2 only if you want some extra speculation.

I love weird, different and bizarre movies. This movie definitely tries to be that, but ends up being extremely boring and just a drag to sit through. The only horrifying thing is how utterly bored to no end you'll be watching this.

I can only give it plus for some of the imagery. But it's like they had some visual ideas and scenarios, but unsure how to connect it all. Not to mention slow scenes that go on forever, without any tension or interesting events. Cut this down to a short movie or music video, and you might actually have something interesting.

If I was going to only review the first season, I might have given it a 8/10. This is a very entertaining and fun show to follow for the first seasons. You get to know the characters and their abilities. I would never claim it is "genius" or overly clever, but it certainly delivers an entertaining show for what it sets out to do. Would still highly recommend the first season.

From there, it is severely down hill. The second season is a big drop, but once you get to the 3rd, it is almost beyond recognition. The show has lost all of its charm and what story was there. And yo be honest, that's where I stopped watching, as I honestly didn't even know there was a season 4 released years later until writing this review. The show ended dead in its track with no new season at any expected date, back in the day. Based on reviews here, it seems to have become EVEN worse than season 3 already was.

If you like dark superhero story with "every day" characters and don't mind ending it after a season, then give it a watch.

"Killer Ratings", sensationalism and questioning the integrity of the program / reporter is just as much about Canal Livre's integrity, as it is about the people who covered Wallace's case afterwards.

This is an extremely well paced and detailed documentary which I'm giving the high rating in particular for it's unbiased storytelling. There isn't just one side or one argument being told here, the audience is left to make their own conclusion. Like a jury in a court, you hear all the evidence and then have to conclude who you believe. Each side contradicting each other, with no obvious answer to the question.

It also goes through just the sickening level of crime, drugs and corruption in Brazil. Really astonishing, even provoking. The problems are so deep rooted. Highly recommend giving this a watch if you're serious about crime documentaries. Yes it is a bit long, but it also goes into extensive details. It's not just repeating same information over and over or getting sidetracked - as some documentaries do.

It's a well directed, stylized documentary about the Night Stalker, waiting to reveal the murdered until the end. Only 4 episodes which seems fine for the content they deliver.

That being said, I also agree that the doc has a bit too much focus on the detectives working on the case. I really dislike how many true crime documentaries pay more attention to the detective / author / documentary maker than the crime they're covering. This one doesn't go overboard, but certainly does place them alongside the murder case in terms of storytelling.

In the end, it feels more like a documentary about the CHASE and less about the CASE. They could have spent more time exploring the killer at the end, his background and motivation. Solving the last pieces together. Seems a bit rushed at last episode to put a conclusion to it all. In particular all other information left in the doc which has less relevance, while things directly relevant being left out. All in all, a good and entertaining watch still.

It's a well made documentary with nicely animated segments. Largely following the perspective of the creator and what happened to pepe. All through an extremely narrow and biased view.

Around the 45min mark, it becomes just crystal clear how he doesn't understand his creation. How he, together with ADL, Hillary Clinton, Maddow and rest of left wing media helped enable this to become a "far right hate speech symbol". It never was that, until these people decided to make pepe into that. It seems completely out of touch with trolling and getting a rise out of people, and going against the mainstream and political correctness. The more these people wish to silence and censor people, the more crazy pepe memes they would get in response. They themselves are the enablers.

The 4chan guy they mainly choose to focus on was such a stereotype fitting 100% the narrative they attempted to persuade. While they did talk to a girl who also roamed 4chan, she was left too much out of the documentary so they could push their view on the audience.

As they show Hong Kong demonstrators towards the end who embrace Pepe, the creator and movie makers seems to not understand that them embracing pepe comes from similar reasons as why it was embraced in the US by Trump supporters. In both cases it's used as anti-leftists, anti-censorship, anti-establishment memes. If they happen to side with the Chinese government, I'm sure they would have labeled their use of it as "hate speech" also.

But all of this being said, it's not a bad documentary, as long as the biased view doesn't annoy you too much. Still a nice capsule of most of the pepe events and how the character grew beyond the grasp of it's creator.

I really love Brazil and 12 Monkeys, rank them among my all time favorites. This movie however, is far from living up to that legacy.

The problems reviewing a movie like this, with a plot of "zero equals 100%", or "Nothing is everything", is that the lack of plot can be argued to be the point itself. But regardless if this is the artistic intent - which I believe to some degree - it is also very apparent it's a flawed tale with dragged out scenes that doesn't hold the audience's interest.

The movie centers around about 3 main sets used over and over again. Unlike Brazil, where you "go on an adventure" and explore a lot more of its world and system... this is far more theatrical in it's presentation. It seems like the budget must have been a lot smaller.

While there are certain funny moments and shimmers of brightness mixed in it all, the Terry Gilliam flavor shining through.. it's all encapsulated in an otherwise boring movie with nothingness at it's center. Would only recommend it to hardcore Terry Gilliam fans, and for people with great patience.

This is a quite funny movie if you enjoy bad movies. There was several moments, as the acting, the action, or general bizarre creative choices which clearly wasn't intended to be comedic, came across as extremely funny and cheesy.

You can easily imagine how the Director and Writer envisioned this on the big screen, but how budget, time constraint and merit hindered them reaching that potential.

I had never heard about this movie until recently, but as a big fan of Cyberpunk movies / media, I decided to give it a go. This movie clearly didn't stand up against it's contemporaries, nor has age done it any better. But if you're wanting to see a short, bizarre tech tale from the 90s with an unintentionally funny delivery, give it a watch!

Many call this a classic, and it undoubtedly was (still is) a very controversial and touchy topic to make a movie about. Although it doesn't translate well, as the actress doesn't seem like a 12 year old at all she is supposed to portray. Rendering a lot of the controversy hollow. In many ways, it seems a bit brushed over, as if the studio were afraid to explore the topic the movie was about.

Humbert and Lolita are acted well, despite the shortcomings mentioned above. But a lot of this movie is extremely slow where you're forced to endure quite cringy conversations and situations for the slow paced story to progress.

This was the last of Kubrick's movies I had not seen, having been a fan of his movies for decades. And as current standing, I would also say it is his worst. It really haven't aged well, which I would say is a huge contrast to Dr.Strangelove from the same era - which still holds up.

It's a very short story compared to the rest. Seems like it's just setting up the world and then ends before you know it, without really telling a story. Not only is it the shortest of the stories, it's also the most slow paced - which isn't to its advantage. The animation is alright, going for a much more European style. Overall it's quite forgettable and felt like it was unfinished.