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Deadwood (2004)
The high point of the TV medium
The IMDB M app just ate a lengthy review that I am too distraught to re-create, so I will keep it short:
This series is the high point for the TV medium. The Shakespearean profanities are brilliant, imaginative and funny. The fight between Captain Turner and Dan Doherty is one of the most gripping ever filmed, especially considering the stakes; and the understated villainy of the Hearst character, which requires Swearengen and Seth to team up in order to survive, unfolds in a way that re-imagines evil.
Don't miss the episode where the Chinese butcher/laundryman harangues Swearengen to exact justice for the robbery of two drug couriers returning from San Francisco. The Chinaman knows only one word of English -- cocksucker -- and Swearengen cannot understand a word of Chinese. It takes a good five or six minutes for the two to come to terms non-verbally, creating one of the most brilliant and remarkable scenes ever staged that pivots on the use of language. Considered as entertainment, it is the equal of anything that Samuel Beckett or James Joyce ever wrote.
Where Eagles Dare (1968)
Worst Musical Score...Ever!
Other negative reviews cover the laughably over-the-top action, gratuitous plot twists, stupid Germans getting mowed down like duckpins and the unlimited supply of explosives Eastwood lugs around in a suitcase and deploys throughout the film. I like how Burton gets his arm nearly severed by a pickaxe but it hardly fazes him hours later. But i mostly want to mention that Goodwin's musical score is the worst I have ever suffered through. High-drama swells from horns and strings are ratcheted up to "11" for nearly the whole film, forcing me to turn off the sound in order to endure the last 30 minutes of slam-bam action without bleeding from the ears. This is a deeply stupid film that doesn't deserve to be ranked even among the top 100 war films.
Red Rocket (2021)
No plot, but still plenty to take in
The wide spread between good and bad reviews for this film tells you it is not for every taste. However, I'd suggest discarding the ones below 6 stars, because there is plenty to see here. Some disparaged a supposed lack of plot, but the story arc is fascinating and engaging, concerning as it does the ebbing of the main character's self-confidence, all of it delusional. He had achieved minor fame/notoriety as an L. A. porn star known as Mikey Saber, but 20 years of non-stop sex on- and off-camera has taken a heavy toll on his studliness. We first meet him stepping off a bus in the dumpy little Texas town where he grew up. He is looking for a fresh start, but in a dump where he is remembered only as a never-do-well by other never-do-wells.
Mikey gets knocked down an inch at a time, but he is such a rotten chunk of human crud that we expect him to get flattened like roadkill by something worse than bad job interviews. This happens well into the film, and it is a stunner. Even when he unexpectedly escapes punishment for something horrible that he has caused to happen, you know it's not going to end well, The final freeze-frame wordlessly fulfills that expectation, creating the kind of untidy, unsettling ending that we associate with the very best short story-writing.
Performances are excellent-to-astounding, creating gritty, unlikable characters just like the ones we would expect to meet in a dead-end town in West Texas. Simon Rex in the lead role is excellent and well directed. Although his Mikey Saber character emotes with bravura, over the two-hour course of the film, you can feel what it is like to have your life force drained from you one drop at a time.