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Confinement (2016)
2/10
Ditto the reviews saying-Slow, Glacial, Predictible
23 November 2021
I will just add that the narration is unnecessary and contributes to It's failure. And the voice! I started hitting mute when he came on. --- Just a tiny bit of scriptwork and this would have been a fairly watchable lobudget sci-fi flick. Lastly, no idea what the reviewers references to socialism are about. There's no indication of life before 2149. May have been a war between Amazon and Google for all I know.
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5/10
I wondered who bought Hallmark
3 September 2021
Turns out it was Jeff Bezos. Or at least this title which is has everything you expect from a Hallmark special and more. Small townyness, Heartwarmyness, lossyness, salt of the earth people, over the top period costumes (1960s). God in an easy to swallow package and some very well executed drawls. Oh-and among the best small town sexy dames with a heart of gold ever. Played by Johanna Jowett. Also a Great list of forgotten actors delivering quality performances, Corbin Bernsen of LA Law, Melissa Gilbert from - was it little house on the Prarie? And the a delightful (albeit Hallmarky) performance from the amazing Cloris Leachman, who we often forget won an Oscar for her performance in 1971s "The Last Picture Show" since she's delivered great performances in everything from the Mary Tyler Moore Show 'Ten cents a dance, thats all they pay me, gosh how they weigh me down' to Mel Brooks "Young Frankenstein" 'Stick Close to the candles, theeese stairs are trecherous'. If you like shmaltz, this is as good as it gets, If you don't (I don't) Its still a perfectly OK way to spend time.

But please also watch the really great things some of these actors were in.
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The Blackout (2019)
2/10
Why is this good?
27 July 2021
I'll start with a brief review and perhaps add more later. Huh? I should have liked this? It's about? Let's look down my checklist-Cool effects-check. Dubbed in english -check. Post apocolypse -check. Great locations-check. Everything else-oops...forgot to take all the parts and make a movie out of them. After a while I didn't even care who was the good guy and who the bad. Just end it already. And maybe don't try and cram every life lesson from children are our future to humans suck at running the planet to I just want Dad to love me - into the last half hour. -But... great effects!
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All About Eve (1950)
10/10
Just watch it.
12 February 2021
It is among a very short list of movies everyone must see.
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Global Meltdown (2017 TV Movie)
2/10
This Film Has It All !!
12 February 2021
I had to give this the 2nd star because a better man than me might be able to find the camp value in this 93 minute mess. It spent a lot of time debating the merits of working together vs going it alone. How do I know? By carefully tabulating the number of times a character said "We need to work together", "You can't do this alone" or "If we can just work together" until I ran out of space on my pad. And the special effects! They were ... special. From exploding styrofoam rocks to garden hose Tsunamis Global Meltdown had it all. I can't eveb judge the acting because the plot and dialogue were so preposterous I'm not sure any actor could make it believable.
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7/10
Excellent Way to Waste an Evening
7 February 2021
In the tradition of Mad Mad Mad World, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Death Becomes Her this is a ridiculous and extremely fun buddy comedy. It's even a movie that I can still watch Kevin Spacey in since he plays one of the rotten bosses. This movie has no subtlety, will not make you think or change the world. It was just funny from beginning to end. A bit raunchy and probably politically incorrect but the performances were spot on. It's not the kind of movie that could ever warrant more than 7 stars so that's what I gave it.
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2/10
Trying to watch lots of these sort of sci-fi dystopian movies.
27 December 2018
I tried, I really did. I think maybe the folks saying it "could" have been good may be right. It's just that I couldn't figure out how. Definitely not the worst movie I've ever seen.
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Undeserved (2016)
3/10
Nice message but kinda hokey
26 June 2018
I wish I could rave about this movie because it explores important subjects. Unfortunately it does this with all the usual characters doing exactly what you'd expect. You have the troubled and yearning teen, the well meaning but off the mark aunt, the overburdened and messed up other relatives etc. The acting is perfectly passable and if you read my other reviews you know I can overlook films with small budgets. This just doesn't quite do what it could.
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1/10
Unbalanced and Therefore Not Believable
1 April 2014
As someone who does believe we are sometimes misled by powerful people I was interested to see this film. I have worked as an architect, though never on high rises. I studied the WTC towers in college for both their design and (at the time) innovative structure. I had extensively read trade publications about 9/11 and the 3 building collapses and thought another perspective was a good thing.

Unfortunately this movie did not use much good evidence in its analysis. It seems to have started from conclusions and worked backwards. Most all the arguments made for how we were misled about the cause of collapse did not ring true to me as a building professional.

Ultimately, I was so disappointed in the quality of the analysis that I researched the experts in the film. I could find no credentials that make anyone quoted in the film particularly credible. My view is that this film is actually MORE inaccurate than anything the main stream media has said about the WTC collapse.
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Christina (2010)
1/10
Not worth your time
28 March 2014
I'm not sure why my view is so different from other reviews but it is. I watched this movie from beginning to end in the hope that I can prevent as many people as possible from wasting their time doing the same. Originally Christina may have been a beautiful story. Unfortunately, the translation to film is in almost every regard poorly done. Perhaps with enough budget, a rewritten script and different actors it could be a good watch but the makers had none of these.

Set in Berlin after the end of WWII, it is a dark secret tale in the family of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" or "Sophie's Choice". This movie has none of their subtlety and though filmed on a single set like Woolf the claustrophobia doesn't enhance the story the way Mike Nichols' directing did. It just makes "Christina" claustrophobic.

The title character is unconvincing as someone who lived through the horror of Berlin at the end of the war. In Nicki Aycox's defense it is her lines more than anything that make her seem not tragic but ridiculous. We know there were "bombs everywhere" and that "they just kept falling" because she tells us six separate times. (And of course because most students of history knew that before they watched)

After the first half hour I wanted the GI boyfriend to either walk out or kick the German police officer out of the apartment. But instead he spends most of his time being dumbstruck. The police officer's motivation is never clear. He's investigating a crime but why, everything that happened in Berlin at the end of WWII this particular case is so important is never revealed.

But when Billy talks about his visit to the death camps I just wanted to smack everyone involved. In one statement the horror that was The Holocaust was belittled and used as a metaphor for an infinitely smaller and morally complicated event. The audacity of that one aspect of the film alone is enough to make this a Must (not) See film.
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7/10
Wonderful Character Study
27 February 2014
I surprised myself by liking this film so much. It follows 4 flawed and likable men from the late 90's through the mid 00's. The stories seem disjointed at first, and are, but Yong Mun Chee adeptly brings the 4 main characters together. I found the setting of a residential hotel very believable like many I've seen. I believe this was the first time I've seen such a diverse group of so well portrayed. The acting is excellent, including supporting characters. I was particularly struck by how the film used remembrances of 9-11 as a mechanism to link the 4 main characters. I became invested in the lives of all 4 and wanted them to find what they needed.
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Carriers (2009)
2/10
How the World Would End.
2 January 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Unfortunately this movie is about what the end of the world would actually be rather than what a movie maker imagines it could be. And we all know the end would suck. There's no need to spend an hour and a half seeing that. The film's approach had the potential to be go in an interesting direction especially the opening where a the gang steps in to help a loving dad caring for his dying daughter. But it nothing goes anywhere and the gang just leaves anyone sick behind. It asks a lot of those cool thoughtful post-apocalyptic type questions about love, commitment, brother's keeper and the like. Unfortunately the answer is always "Dump em and leave a little food if she was your girlfriend"

Ultimately the whole movie boils down to - sometimes you just gotta shoot your brother to get the car keys - and that ain't much of a movie.
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