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peter-sodja
Reviews
Listening (2014)
Cool scifi with a intriguing story
I got to this movie by chance, just looking at sci-fi titles. Its actually quite a well made film. The story is engaging, the characters are intriguing and the acting is good.
Its very difficult to find good sci-fi in the last few years. In this JJ Abrams era every sci-fi is the same, the story is the same, the actors all look alike, the characters are full of clichés and boring stereotypes that only teenagers may find interesting. Thats why Im happy to ignore a few flaws in movie Listening, which offers something outside of the cookie cutter scene. Cool movie.
The Young Pope (2016)
I think you have to be religious to like this
I really think you have to be religious for this show.
I started watching expecting some kind of Vatican thriller with political games, maybe with an odd assassination or something. It seemed to go in that direction but that aspect quickly faded in the first two episodes. Then I thought it was an intimate story of the young pope battling himself and his own faith. But that's not really true as the pope is remarkably self-confident and even in the tensest moments, he does exactly as he pleases without the slightest doubt. After that I thought the pope is actually the devil and he is doing really unpopular things, to ruin the church as an institution, so maybe that's why he is blinking at the camera in the beginning of each episode. Yet that turned out to be false. So I thought, maybe there is something coming that will turn the whole thing upside down. But it didn't. Very confusingly, I thought its a superhero show, because the pope does some Marvel type things, but only in the last few episodes.
The acting was also not extremely good. While the actors themselves are more than capable of brilliant play, the scenario seemed like it totally limited them. The relationships between characters are supposed to be very emotionally complex, but rarely you get the right feeling of that from the acting. Especially from the main character, its too often that you don't know if he is being sarcastic or genuine (that could be only for me, as I cannot grasp that anyone could consider that religious stuff as serious).
After watching the first season, I have no idea what I just watched. I was bored since the beginning but kept watching because everybody said how great it was (I was lucky to be on sick leave so there wasn't much to do anyway). Thats why I think you need to be religious to enjoy this show. You have to be in some way emotionally involved. The pope needs to be an important figure in your mind. Thats how this show fits into some previous ideas that you should already have.
Last Knights (2015)
This movie is really bad, dreary and not well made
I don't often write these. I see bad movies here and there, but nothing really that bad, that would make me share the experience.
This is one of such movies. This movie has everything: bad acting, endless action movie clichés, horrible fight choreography, huge script issues and no logic in the story. In some cases it feels like a dry parody in medieval times. But this clashes with the way, this movie takes itself so seriously. This is consistent through the whole of the movie. Where in the beginning, one may succeed in the struggle, to go with the story, this is soon impossible, as the story falls apart. The story itself is incredibly shallow and senseless and illogical. But in many movies, it is possible to still make it work, by focusing on the characters. They didn't even try here. All of the characters, including the protagonist, are just boring and unimaginative.
I also felt that the CGI was way underdone, it even looked a bit amateurish. The smoke from the burning fort looked exactly like the one from a 10 minute tutorial on you tube. The city from afar looked like a painting and the big castle doors closing were totally in unnatural movement.
When I watched the movie, I didn't want a deep story or anything. I just wanted something light and fun to watch. This was instead really dreary.
The Cove (2009)
hypocritical documentary
I like dolphins. They are really cute. They swim around having fun, helping people in distress, jumping... They are so lovely and incredibly huggable. A true symbol of everything that is innocent and true. On the other hand the cows look really stupid. They just stand there and look like some weird mistake of evolution. They look at you with their dumb black eyes and it really seems there isn't anything behind them. Don't get me started on the chickens. Thats a terrible creature. Its ugly and not at all attractive as the sleek awesome skin of a dolphin. Oh, dolphins are oh so cute. But I try to be objective. I think cows and chickens have the same right to exist and to have a life as any other creature. In the movie they say that over 20.000 dolphins are killed annually. A real tragedy.How many cows and chickens? Many hundreds of millions of cows and tens of billions of chickens. I really cant feel to bad for the dolphins at this point. But the movie would make you think that this dolphin killing that is happening in japan is the biggest tragedy and injustice in the world since the Holocaust. And they do that with this pathetic self-righteous poise that really makes me sick. Their hypocrisy is grotesque.
On the other hand dolphins are really really awesome super cute and I would probably help these people save a couple. And besides everybody think you are a hero if you say you are helping to save the dolphins. If you said you wanted to save the cows...? Let me tell you, you definitely wont get any points with the lady's.
Outer Space Astronauts (2009)
Excellent short animated sci-fi
I really love this show. It takes a few moments to adapt to the animation style and after that it really complements the humor style as well. It is a simple show with fresh witty jokes and extremely likable characters. I say that its simple, because this is not a satire as most of todays animated comedy shows are. There is no social critique involved, no deeper meaning to watch out for and nothing in the show will make you uncomfortable. Its just pure relaxed fun. The word simple doesn't do it justice though, since the story, characters, animations and dialog are very well made. Even though at a first glance it looks like a miscellaneous low budget show, this is really a gem.
Gerry (2002)
This movie is a joke
WARNING! This movie is no masterpiece. Its about two dumb people walking through the desert, lost.
There is almost no dialog and the very few lines that exist don't really say much of anything about our characters. Which is fine if we could get some other glimpse into their souls. But we cant. Sorry but unlike many people here I don't understand the deepness of watching some guy sitting in the center of the desert with a troubled face. I get it, he is not happy. Its not like I will have more empathy for him if I watch him do it for 15 minutes.
Thats it. Thats all I can say about the movie. Cause there is nothing else in the movie. It should be a short 15 minutes movie, but they probably figured, why waste all the material.
I wont go into billions of questions on how completely stupid you have to be to get yourselves killed like that, cause lets say we will ignore this aspect.
On this point I have to justify the 3/10 I gave it. The three stars are for all the beautiful shots of the desert. In fact, if somebody would take the two dummies out of the movie and take it down to 30 minutes, call it a documentary, Id give it a 9/10 in a heartbeat.
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
watered down indiana jones
This is a bad adventure movie. Its predictable and boring. Even if you are one of people who believe in all of the theories used in the movie it will still be boring. The only thing that's good is the acting, though you wouldn't expect less from all the experienced actors. But all the acting doesn't really come forward, because the script is so shallow. You cant really feel the characters, they are all left without souls. They just do what they do, they mention some reasons behind their actions, but that's it. I don't want to get into the story, much has been said about it. But from the movie point of view: it takes itself much too serious. It wants you to believe that by revealing this mystery all of the world would change and nothing would be the same again. If you can believe that and hold that thought in your mind trough the whole of the movie, it would be far more interesting. If you cant, than it all starts to be dull.
Also I should mention that its made in a true Hollywood fashion. So if you like Hollywood movies only without great enormous scenes and without the suspense, this is the movie for you.
Caved In (2006)
Funny
This movie is so awful people should watch it to see how awful one can get. If you put aside the terrible acting, stupid dialog, really really bad effects, if you put aside that people who wrote the story didn't give any thought about how mines look, how caving is done, what bugs look like and how they act, if you put aside that characters in the movie always do the opposite what you would do you are left with a story that has more holes then all the swiss cheese in this universe. The outline of the story is not that terrible really, but what they have done with it is something completely else. In the beginning I said people should watch it to see how awful a sci-fi movie could get. But keep in mind this is more like a parody than a real sci-fi.