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nereidon
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High Fidelity (2020)
ya maybe i just love the music but so what
Story is fine, acting great, relatable characters, not too cheesy but heartfelt, production value, cinematography and editing all fine. and it is well written. particularly like Zoe in this one too. well and did i mention the music?
Curb Your Enthusiasm: Side Sitting (2020)
interesting
This episode has a significantly lower score than the season opener but i felt that it was just brilliant whereas the first one felt somehow flat to me. but this could be due to needed adjustment after another 3 years of absence of larry.
so i wont spoil anything but just say it is entertaining throughout and Larrys problems with interacting with people so it doesnt end in a disaster are allways as funny as in a way touching. there are way way worse ways to spend half an hour and a bit
Avenue 5 (2020)
unfortunately it is just lame
Like a duck that can't quack. i mean i get it i guess. the humor is supposed to come from the setup and the interplay of the characters. but most of them are not very likeable and if you are not sympathetic to them you cant be sympathetic to their predicament and it all turns out more sad than funny. or even embarrassing.
i will still give it a 4 but anything less than an 8 is usually disastrous for a series. pretty sure it wont live longer than this season. A 4 because the production value is sort of ok, the actors are at least trying, the idea is not completely insane, some of it gives an idea of potential. Still this one is a miss for Iannucci after some remarkable hits. well it happens to the best. life goes on.
The Morning Show (2019)
after the first three episode it certainly doesnt feel like a mistake to watch what comes next
Dont get me wrong. the series is not perfect and some parts could do better. e.g. the script has some weaknesses and sometimes that seem to reflect on the performance of the actresses and actors. There are some big names in the project and they deserve a little better. But it is far from really bad and the show and the story seem to grow legs as it progresses.
some people complain about a tv-series about a news show being political. Well ... if you really want a story with substance how can it not be? I disagree that it has a left bias. If any it goes at a very controversial topic with a realistic view trying to show what it implies with all the layers and perspectives. Ok if we are very sensitive it might feel like another "more power to the women" where all the men are bad or weak of both. But is it really? Lets face it: the industry is still dominated by men. All the harassment cases are the result of men being in power and sometimes abusing it, sometimes just using it and certainly sometimes just getting lucky. Doesnt change that they are there. So ... how can we take anything serious when it doesnt deal with that? Especially in a field where it is a major issue?
but we must not forget that is just the backdrop for a story that shows us different characters and how they try to deal with the world they are in. And we could easily see the story also being about someone who doesnt want to compromise and shoots herself in the foot more than once because of that. Now she is put in the sugar coat industry where terrible things are smiled away so people can have a good day. That is going to be interesting. Also what do morals mean once you are put into a situation where you really have to weigh them against something that also matters to you? On the other hand how about facades once they come down? Btw. when i said the writing needs improvement there are certainly points where it already shines. Moments when these characters confront each other and find some truth. If we get more of that it will be very interesting and very entertaining.
so all in all i'll give it at the moment 7 stars.
5 meaning decent but not extraordinary also not bad
6 for production value and directing etc.
7 for having an engaging story line and creating interest for the characters
8,9,10 will be reserved for real mindblowing stuff. something that makes it a must to see what comes next not just not a bad idea.
Fleabag (2016)
well ... it is simply and utterly brilliant
I am not easily excited about things and rarely stumble over something that i deem pure perfection, but here i have to say it is just that. It is so well written and acted and depicted and most of all it is so true though being a piece of art. just kudos to you mrs Waller-Bridge. you succeed seemingly without trying where others try so hard and dont succeed.
fleabag is highly recommended to anyone.
Black Mirror: USS Callister (2017)
great start for Season 4
When a story gets you interested so that you are completely immersed up until the end and then you realize that just a tad more than an hour has passed, you know it must have been a good show.
Of course some people would complain about things they consider plot holes (although they are just things that need a bit of a stretch of imagination). Others do even find political reasons to object allegedly because there was some Social Justice Agenda going on. Well my take on that is, that just because the world doesnt treat you justly you are not entitled to become a major arsehole. And yeah maybe that is even the moral of the story, who knows. But it is not really essential for enjoying of (as i see it) one of the best episodes ever of the Black mirror series.
Sneaky Pete (2015)
should have been exceptional judging from the pilot - still worth watching
the pilot was close to brilliant and it makes you wonder what the delay was with the decision to give it a whole season. Unfortunately the new episodes feel different compared to the pilot and not in the best way.
Although that just means that a series that could have been brilliant became "just" very good. I feel first it seemed to be more a character study focused on Pete, pretty soon you realize it is more about who is coning who and so it becomes more of a prolonged version of Matchstick Men (or any other con artist movie).
There are a couple of twists in the show and sometimes it might make your head spin but in the end it is quite entertaining with good to great acting performances and an ending that doesn't feel like a letdown even if the series doesn't get another season.
Vice (2015)
viciously bad
This is a movie about androids made of steel, recycled human tissue and cloned cells that one day become awake. Unfortunately the later can't be said about the film itself although or rather because it shows similar qualities as the creatures it portrays. We have lots of recycled lines in the script, cloned characters and the acting might not be called made of steel but is certainly to be considered wooden. And as said the whole thing never really comes to life.
Don't get me wrong, it would not necessarily be a bad thing to have dialogs that quote several classics, show well known archetypes facing well known struggles and overcoming them by heroism, but what this movie gives us is just a bad hush hush version of said things. It almost seems they just wanted to make a movie with Willis in it and something with science fiction (surrogates was not so bad either, was it?).
I only pity the actors in it (and everyone who actually pays to see it). The script is so weak and the directing so bad, that even a slightly interesting plot cant make up for it and so all we do is watch a not so bad cast suffer through the lines. I find that no matter how good an actress or an actor is, if they are left with bad dialog in awkward situations without any help from the director they are doomed to fail. And that is the case here in my view.
What i would have liked to see here is a focus right from the start on the main character = the girl and make it a bit of a mystery so the viewer has to find out what is going on while relating more and more to her. Then it wouldn't even be so bad to have the usual hero that helps the damsel in distress. and i think it would have provided a lot more interesting situations and a better story-arc.
What we really get is a sledgehammer version where the writer found it necessary to explain everything to the audience (as you (should) know ....) alongside with over the top acting just to make a point (like that the bad guy is really really bad).
Anyways, not enough to make it a good experience and even a mediocre movie: 3 out of 10 (any decent movie gets at least a 5 with me, and for every remarkable feature like e.g. the acting, photography, dialog, etc. one point extra. vice versa if the movie is severely lacking in these departments i subtract one point. so i will add one point to 5 for the plot (which could have made for a better movie i feel) and subtract one point each for the acting, the dialog and the directing)
Love & Other Drugs (2010)
needs a cut
Aside from the pleasure to see various (and rather private) body parts of Mrs. Hathaway this movie hasn't anything else to offer of what you wouldn't have seen before numerous times.
Still this could make for a decent film if only they would cut it to a reasonable length and would let out all parts that scream "i want to be funny". The overused frat humor only serves the purpose of killing the rhythm of this movie that could be a very nice romantic flick if only it would focus more on the people and their relationships.
i'll give it a 6/10 because right now it is a mediocre film that doesn't need to be seen, adding one star for Mrs. Hathaways nice features.
Flashforward (2009)
i don't like it but i can't tell why (or maybe ...)
my own experience is that i find it boring and also feel compelled to "flash it forward" a couple of times cos it is unbearable to watch. but maybe that is a hint towards what is wrong with the series.
(small Spoilers ahead): Take this episode e.g., they start out with the overused x-hours in the future incident as a teaser (and i hate that one already) but then instead of building up consistently the tension we get all kind of crap of no importance to that piece of the story whatsoever. i don't care whether he has a drinking problem, i don't care for the political issues, i don't care for the bearded friends advice for the ongoing disturbed wife (get over it girl, you gonna bang another guy, that's not such a big deal). and what's up with the lesbian part? trying to pull in the minorities or what? (although Navi Rawat is a nice eye-catcher).
some of the acting is strange as well, it seems very much one dimensional. e.g Fiennes is always somehow haunted, his demons must be nagging on him all the time, well so be it, but there has to be another face as well that he could show. his wife is always worried, Janis is cute and tough but what is her role again? even Harold lacks Kumar otherwise he seems cool although putting him into a karaoke scene Ally-Macbeal-style wipes that impression for me.
OK before i start ranting, my critic sums up to two main points, one being "why should i care" (the less the characters are believable the less they are likable), second being "the story goes all over the place" (split story lines, bad timing). is there hope to improve? i dunno, to me it seems a mess right from the start (ok very first scene was rather cool) and i can't see where this is going in a good way.
Terminator Salvation (2009)
pointless basically
it would be a waste to spend too much words on this ... whatever it was supposed to be. so I'll make it short: everything you might have read in the bad reviews is true. lot of recycled stuff, be it equipment or story lines, people acting as if they were as much astound that the could end up in this misguided attempt to make a movie, as you would be to find yourself in a movie theater watching that ****. Lots of explosions to wake you up on the plus side if you are into this kind of stuff, no obvious logic in any part of the plot on the negative side in case you hope for something like that. i was ready to give it a 6 as i always do when i see some mediocre time-waster, but the last scene killed it eventually, so a 5/10 which in my universe is beyond bad. (the 1-4 i have to save for the really awful stuff, where not even camera work, x-effects, cgi or a hot chick save the movie).
Four Brothers (2005)
not worth a dime
have seen this one the other night and i'm very disappointed to say the least. according to IMDb votes and reviews this should be at least beyond average with fine acting and a nice story. Now as i find, this movie has so many holes in its plot, one might assume the script got shot during one of the action scenes. ridiculous twists in the story, very very VERY bad sequences that are simply unbelievable and that do not make much sense in the course of action (sometimes it is like Charles Bronson's Disney) and a cast that doesn't fit together at all. Now i realize that this is an adaption of Katie Elder and that it might not be that easy to transform a wild west story into today's world, but still as a writer/director you have to take care that the story conveys some realism, otherwise it gets laughable/boring and you as a viewer can't care less for what happens to the characters. unfortunately the filmmakers failed big time here and all their trying to give their characters a life and the storyline a ground was heavily countered by their sledgehammer-style in every way. not to mention the unreflected use of violence against ANYBODY with a big smile on the face which makes the major premise of the film that the old lady did a good job raising problematic boys and changing their life to the better, a big fat lie. just do not waste your time.