pedronunesnomundo's Reviews

Nanny (2022)

3/10

1 November 2023

This whole movie feels like a sketch drawing of something that was never finished.

It has the characters, a premise, a couple of key moments, but in the end there is no real thread connecting the dots.

Which is a shame, because the acting is fine, the cinematography is enjoyable and all the necessary ingredients would be there to be developed. But it's the development that falls flat.

And it becomes bluntly true by the end of the movie, when a certain approach to the story's closure is proposed but in the exact way we saw every other topic be scarcely presented to us, with no solid coherence with all the rest... It's really a shame but please move along, nothing memorable here to see.

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Meander (2020)

3/10

If you think this movie has anything to do with Cube, go check your Geometry!

29 October 2023

It's true that, 25 years ago, Cube went down in history, because it presented an innovative and provocative proposal, but also a very coherent one.

Since then, many have tried to explore the vein, some succeeding, others not. And Méandre is in this latter category.

It's very revealing when you try to liven up the interest of a dish by brutally loading the spices thrown into the pan. In this case, the use of claustrophobic paths, the against-the-clock threats, path antagonists and even cheap sentimentality, reveal the central irrelevance of a plot that does not employ any quality resources to capture the viewer.

The protagonist has to go through a ridiculous route, a kind of timed Saw challenge designed by an idiot, with Squid Game obstacles for crippled competitors, in an supposedly oppressive environment between Buried and the Austrian mountains of Sound of Music.

...And, in the end, nothing that happened before makes any kind of sense.

The End.

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Herd (III) (2023)

3/10

Almost 7*? Don't think so

15 October 2023

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but there's nothing relevant to mention about this movie (to deserve such a rating)!

As you read in the description nothing in this script is new. As nothing else really. Each character, each situation, each line is so dramatically déjà vu that someone should warn horror movie lovers about this lost-of-precious-time-trap. At least that's what I'm trying to do future IMDBers who com to take a peak at the comments.

There's so many(/better) options out there that only as a masochist move you'd chose to spend your time like this!

I'm happy and at the same time sad I'm one of the first to tell you to stay off, because I won't be able to get this time back myself.

Just to the same for your fellow man!! :D.

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Population 436 (2006 Video)

5/10

Everything here is sub-par. But that's not a reason for not watching it...

21 September 2023

No, the title of this revew was not a mistake.

Everything in it looks sub-par, because it's really the television version of what a big studio movie could have been: denser script, better production, stronger cast... released ten years before.

But pass that feeling (that stucks with you the whole film long) you come to accept it as it is, a decent effort to build a narrative around an old trope.

(You'll be surprised by how Fred Durst's surprisingly good acting keeps this movie together!!)

In the end, it's worth watching.

You won't feel insulted as you do by some "blockbuster" flicks we watch these days and you won't have to mourn you ticket bucks anyway.

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Beau Is Afraid (2023)

5/10

Between spot on and clueless (...but going downwards)

23 August 2023

This is a movie that starts great, peeking inside the head of a very derranged man.

It's very interesting to see the permanent clash between a broken mind and the outside reality, eroding in a helpless way. In a poignant way I would say. (Great acting from JP, as usual.)

The problem is the script loses grip and at a certain point it's no longer the terrified Beau's mind that wanders clueless in a world sripped of any logic, it's the narrative itself that inexplicably deserts the initial purpose of documenting Beau's clashes with reality, plunging in a kind of first person perspective that makes absolutely no sense and drives the viewer nowhere... where it only could take in fact.

So, this is a movie between spot on and clueless, with the annoying feature of these two precise things happening sequentially as it unrolls.

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Scream VI (2023)

2/10

Why did you guys make me lose my time twice?!

8 July 2023

I must say I wasn't even inclined to come here leave my views on this movie but I ultimately had to do it. It's simply absurd that such a flic is getting so much praise and high ratings here without some counterpart!

Nothing in it works. The script is a mess, tension build up is a joke, actors are unable to deliver any relatable acting. It's tragic when it tried to be funny and it's hilarious when it tries to hit the high notes.

167 more required characters to go?... OK

This kind of "thing" illustrates how "sagas" are a quick buck for producers but recurring nails in the coffin of Cinema. If we keep feeding audiences hot trash long enough new generations of movie goers will end up identifying it as the concept of acceptable art they know.

Congratulations Industry for this wonderful legacy.

And many thanks guys for making me come here trying to set the record straight, losing my time twice over a piece of krap like this.

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Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022)

2/10

In a few words I still can't believe this... thing

20 May 2023

I always thought sequels were a natural recipe to disaster until I watched this! This is beyond anything I could imagine.

Oddly enough, the first 4-5 minutes are acceptable. Repetitive, yes; exaggerated, sure; but you knew what kind of movie you just picked, right?

From that point on, it's pure train wreck.

This movie makes me think of a love child between a SYFY movie, a weekend where some guys had nothing better to do, and a bet that they could really make us unawarely watch this.

How can such a franchise become this in the end (because you can't get any lower)????

It's only worth watching if you're willing to see for yourself what you've been warned about.

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Cashback (2006)

7/10

And so great productions can be put to shame

30 April 2023

This is a small and simple film that has nothing simple and therefore results in nothing small. In fact, films like these show how some supposed delicacies produced by big studios can be put to shame by simple dishes by lesser-known authors who present us with delicious proposals made only with fine quality ingredients.

Everything in this movie results in. A script that is developed from a banal starting point, but which is treated in an original and emotionally elaborate way; an impeccable performance by the entire cast, which builds a gallery of characters that both provoke the most spontaneous laughter and moments of the deepest honest reflection; a cinematography sometimes just elegant, sometimes totally breathtaking; an extremely versatile and relevant soundtrack.

This is a film that comes out of a minor league, but that will not be considered as beeing at that level by anyone watches it.

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Under the Silver Lake (2018)

3/10

It's my time to say it: "I had to review this one!"

23 April 2023

Yep, I absolutely had to review this one, to help avoid some poor picks from future IMDB followers.

Like everyone else, I checked the movie's rating and some previous reviews about it in advance and gave it a try. Big mistake.

Suffice it to say that if I wasn't in the habit of watching a movie until the end credits, I would have given up on this one halfway through.

I have nothing against symbolic narratives or non-linear plots or wild imagery, but only when they serve a purpose. And this is absolutely not the case!

The classic "it makes absolutely no sense" fits this film perfectly, because the point here is not something that has not been shown or said, left to our own interpretation. In this case, the pieces don't fit any possible pattern and the viewer is left with no personnal intention of digging deeper to unravel any murky logic the narrative may have.

Pointless.

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Possum (2018)

5/10

One of those movies which reviews tell more about the viewers who write them

15 April 2023

It is obvious that the appreciation of a film always depends as much on the object itself as on the eyes of those who are evaluating it. But in this case the importance of the second becomes even more evident.

It is completely absurd to evaluate this film negatively for its slow pace, the repetition of its sequences, its spiraling narration, if its idea is exactly the representation of how difficult it is to free ourselves from the whirlpool of our own experiences and memories, especially if its weight and its shadow insist on preventing the creation of a linear path of overcoming and escaping.

I really liked how this story portrays various dualities of our human existence: past/future, reality/perception, fragility/security, accommodation/liberation,... Clearly this is not a superficial work, which bets on cheap thrills and fast pace sequences, to please the most immature of audiences.

...Although it is far from being a perfect film! But that would be another conversation, which only matters after the principles mentioned above have been well established.

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A Ghost Story (2017)

7/10

When not too much is plenty

13 April 2023

This is a peculiar film.

On the one hand, it deserves the obvious criticism of being a cymatographic work with a narrative rhythm close to zero, and in which "nothing happens"... but that is its main quality, showing what is not usually chosen as a theme: what does remain (what does really remain?) when it all ends?

It is not spoiling to mention that this is the story of a ghost, who was not always a ghost, but who finds himself trapped in this new condition.

"...And what happens to our identity, our affections, our emotional attachment to spaces, our dependence on time, our dreams and aspirations? What is lost? What changes? What remains?" In this film we find, in a kind of silent narrative, made in the first person, some answers, even if they are painful and even if we don't really like them.

...And if a film makes us think this hard and search this deep within our feelings, that means, after all, it is possible to do plenty with apparently so little.

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You Are Not My Mother (2021)

3/10

Too much shouldn't be the goal, but that's too little

13 April 2023

Sometimes, when we talk about horror movies or fantastic stories, we criticize the exaggeration in the construction of characters, situations or in the thread of the narrative as a whole. And rightly so.

But in this film, even if nobody was demanding epic heros, jump scares and pure sagas, we have the exact opposite, which also doesn't work: unmemorable characters, an almost complete absence of key moments and an overly unoriginal, anemic and colorless narrative.

Maybe this film would serve as a starting point for a future directing career, but as a singular object it looks quite irrelevant...

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Riders of Justice (2020)

5/10

Well built but poorly finished

13 April 2023

This is clearly a European movie, due to the time and importance it gives to the construction of the characters' psychological profiles, despite being a film that clearly aims to seduce with moments of raw and direct action, like the most superficial films produced in Hollywood.

And that turns out to be the sin of Riders of Justice, it loses its charm the moment it resolves the plot exactly like the most banal of mainstream action movies.

Despite being a film that does not hit the spot as a whole, it turns out to be quite interesting until the last act, intelligently capturing the viewer, both for the richness of its characters and for an unexpected sense of humor found here and there in the interaction between them.

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Antebellum (2020)

3/10

A completely missed shot

12 April 2023

This film misses its targets almost every time.

I chose this movie because it was tagged "Horror" and I decided to check it out. Big mistake! Absolutely nothing in this film deserves that designation, neither graphically nor emotionally. It's a fully two-dimensional movie, with nothing beyond yawning level.

But failed tags don't stop there. "Drama"?... What do you mean? The most dramatic thing is the fact that the viewer is still led to think, for a few minutes, that the film has something that transcends a flat and literal narration, to later realize that this is exactly what he has before his eyes.

"Mystery"??... The biggest "mystery" is how anyone who makes a film like this can think that this is a clever and insightful way of approaching the issues of racial imbalance and prejudice! (...But perhaps the completely misleading trailer was already a sign of the bad conscience of who knows exactly what a lame product he is selling.)

An absolute flop!

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Smoking Causes Coughing (2022)

2/10

Shift+Del

11 April 2023

Let's make one thing very clear: I like fiction films, some of my favorite films are the craziest in history and I'm even a person with a sense of humor, but none of that helps with something like this.

This is one of those films whose idea someone thought was brilliant, which he then shared with someone who also liked it, an idea which financing was arranged for, an idea which was turned into a film which must have taken a long time to finish, and which in the end some people watched and rated it OVER SIX POINTS for quality on IMDB!!!!!!!

None of this makes sense, except in a parallel reality, where "cinema" has to mean something completely different than here.

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The Golden Glove (2019)

6/10

One of the thoughest to rate for me...

11 April 2023

If, on the one hand, this is not going to be one of the movies of my life, I felt the absolute need to leave this review!

TGG is a remarkable piece of art. So remarkable that it relegates all the brutal content of its story and the episodes it brutally portrays to the background - which could force the most critical viewers to reject it.

This film reveals extreme care in all the "minor" categories of cinema: sets, props, costumes, soundtrack, photography..., revealing itself to be an incredibly coherent piece, which inevitably absorbs us until its conclusion.

Someone once said that all stories deserve to be told, and this one is masterfully made real before our eyes.

It won't be one of the movies of my life, but I'm sure I'll never forget it.

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The Whale (2022)

6/10

A film with two clear facets.

27 February 2023

This is a film that has two clear facets: the high quality of the acting and the fragility of the script.

It is undeniable that the work of Brendan Fraser (Charlie) places him on the Oscar route, in the same way that a couple of the supporting actors in this film (like Sadie Sink as the daughter Ellie or Hong Chau as the caretaker Liz) may also compete for this category in the next edition of the most important awards in Cinema. This is clearly the strong point of the film.

But we have to be honest and recognize that not even a very competent performance by Darren Aronofsky in direction can transform the script into something it is not: a coherent story with multiple facets of interest, which intertwine harmoniously. Furthermore, this film is a rather easy exercise in building a story based on ingredients that are especially popular with contemporary audiences: the social dilemmas of gay people; the fallibility of the religious message; the roots of the dissatisfaction of the adolescent attitude; etc. Worse, by wanting to articulate in the same story such disparate elements, it ends up presenting us with a disperse narrative that doesn't really add up at the end.

In any case, this is a worthwhile film that will not fall into oblivion like the vast majority of what is produced in Hollywood today.

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The Sadness (2021)

2/10

I was fooled by this one. You don't have to.

22 February 2023

OK, fine. I understand that for those who like gore movies this film might be of some interest: endless scenes of blood spurting, a few amputations, some vomit here and there. But that's about it.

In this film, the catastrophe context is not convincingly constructed (the low budget does not allow it), the plot is full of inconsistencies, and even the social criticism that I read that this film contained is not present anywhere at all.

In conclusion, I was fooled by comments that said this movie had something special or different. It's a lie. There's absolutely nothing here that you haven't seen elsewhere (and much better).

And since I'm not just rating a gore film, but I'm evaluating a film for all the elements that compose it, I can only think that this one is plain pitiful, and it does not justify spending any of our life time on it.

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Hidden (I) (2015)

6/10

Worth watching, without exaggerated expectations.

27 January 2023

This is a cute movie, but not in a patronizing way.

This is a simple artistic work, with few resources, with a modest ambition, but still effective.

Furthermore, we must note the good cinematography, the actors who manage to deliver a decent performance and the film's refreshing approach to some cinematic tropes.

The only aspect in which some weakness is perceived is the script, which provides us, in a somewhat mechanical way, with clues for the outcome of the story, which allows it to say at the end "didn't you see it coming?...".

As a whole, it's a flic worth watching, without exaggerated expectations.

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Violent Night (2022)

6/10

You made my Christmas Day!

26 December 2022

"Oh my God! How can such a monstrosity be accepted, in the Christmas season of Peace and Concord?!?!..." Well, the values of Peace and Concord can be served in many ways, and this film has the easy alibi of not lacking good underlying values and the constructive spirit of Christmas.

...From then on, it's a pleasant festival of frenzy and nonsense.

David Harbor and John Leguizamo provide two great performances, in the central roles of hero and villain, the film is comic enough to enjoy a good hour and a half, and even (some of) the combat scenes make it a passable film as entertainment action.

In short, it started out as a tongue-in-cheek movie to watch on Christmas Day afternoon and ended up as a decent surprise.

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A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

7/10

Wow! I must concede...

26 December 2022

It is not usual to find a film that keeps me in doubt for a long time about whether it will work or not, right in front of my eyes.

I guarantee that for long minutes I thought that the way of narrating this story couldn't possibly work. How could it?! While the narration focused on stories of "anonymous" characters (which we begin to follow, as attentive spectators), great attention remained centered on Mr. Rogers, insisting on him as the obvious protagonist - of a film with this very title! - but keeping him in a purely referential role, without any de facto presence in the course of events... But I have to admit that the film is very well conceived. The script knows where it's headed and what it wants to achieve, in the end, when the character of Mr. Rogers slowly reveals his role in the story, latent from the beginning.

...A very curious film, indeed.

And, beyond everything else, also a beautiful psychological portrait of people looking for a place in their own lives, inviting us to take a journey where even we can glean something relevant to draw our own maps.

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Ma (I) (2019)

2/10

Please stop testing our patience!

11 December 2022

Warning: Spoilers

When we watch a film, an important aspect is its originality. Sometimes it is present, sometimes not. Sometimes, it is not manifested in the elements that integrate it, but is present in the way they are manipulated and presented to the spectator.

But, what can we say about the originality of a film, when it is as present as a water park is a desert?

Does a grown woman who helps young people get drunk actually have sociopathic problems?

Does a grown woman who lures young drunks into her home have psychopathic issues?

Does a black (!) woman who is poorly integrated into the community she grew up in harbor deep grudges from her past?

Will the young people attracted to her lair, having family relationships with the figures that haunt this woman's past, be exploited?

Will these haunting figures from the past, who remain as obnoxious as ever, suffer the effects of a vendetta?

(Will the policeman who comes to the door, investigate, also end up being treacherously killed?) Will the poor, fragile, oppressed, sick little daughter of the protagonist - who just hovers around there - help save the innocent victims?

My God, THE ORIGINALITY!!...

Worse than this wreckage, only if the hallucinated protagonist, in the end, fled, scorched, through the back of the burning house... menacing the innocent spectator with the threat of a sequel!!!

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Triangle of Sadness (2022)

4/10

I wouldn't take a week long movie for that...

8 December 2022

I would say we have some interesting loose elements here that have crossed someone's mind, but they never came out as a well-balanced or even very coherent script.

We all understand the intended social critique: the stereotyped characters, the caricatured spaces, the hyperbolized situations... All of that is clear.

But the criticism confines itself to sententious comments about wealth and privilege, becoming a weakly biased exercice when it aimed to be so comprehensive and substantial. (...Even the blatant shallowness of modernity is only lightly addressed here, never morally scrutinized with that very same energy.) Prejudice walks loosely in this film, and it makes it absolutely normal that people who don't share this Manichean view of society don't buy the whole "story".

Oh! And the logical line of the script, which leads nowhere... it does nothing to save this cruise ship from sinking.

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Escape Room (II) (2017)

3/10

A little embarrassing

4 December 2022

Warning: Spoilers

It's a little embarrassing to review a movie like this being so easy to roast it.

Poor plot, poor acting, poor production, poor relevance altogether, not allowing any kind of emotional connection between the viewer and any aspect the movie. The unbelievably loooooooong intro doesn't catch your attention, when you meet the characters you couldn't care less about what's happening to them, the riddles are linearly solved without "breaking a sweat" (someone admits it) and when somebody starts dying you can't help feeling some relief! ...And don't bother the epilogue: you won't get it at all!

Oh! Good news! There's a beautiful naked woman going around. (It's not me being shallow!! It's the movie selling itself trough the dumbest tricks!) I'm sure you'll have better things to do, like rewatching a good movie for the twentieth time.

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First Reformed (2017)

5/10

Take a step back

20 November 2022

We won't go through considerations on the artistic quality of Paul Schrader's work (which we also find here) and on the depth of the arguments in which he is usually involved (as an author, himself or as a director). There is no controversy there, and we are talking about one of the biggest names in cinema in recent decades. That's it.

The problem is that, in addition of having an aesthetically beautiful film before our eyes, shot at the right pace, with good performances by good actors, we are served a script that I would come to consider chaotic and even a little lazy, which takes away the credibility of the film as a whole.

Without giving spoilers, it seems that the themes discussed here were picketd up from a list of the (eventually) most controversial and appetizing for a 21st century film, which are then approached randomly, following logical and causal connections without much support.

This film's script clearly has the ambition to be relevant and leave its mark for the story it serves, but ends up, in my view, revealing its own obvous ineffectiveness.

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