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CinemaParadiso2022
Reviews
The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth (2016)
The Democrats shouldn't have to try this hard
This is openly political propaganda; I am not American, I have no side in the upcoming elections, but even I can see this is campaigning for one specific group - the Democrats.
From an outsider's perspective, the US media seems to be completely biased towards left-wing ideas and candidates, despite around 50% of the country rejecting those concepts, and wanting something else.
It's a very unhealthy situation, when the media will not cover the people's concerns, without open ideological bias...
This series is very unhelpful - it does not explore the talking points at all, it simply sets up a right-wing position as something to be demolished, and then carefully prunes away facts to suit that agenda. A waste of time, that simply encourages division in America.
American Insurrection (2021)
The film becomes the intolerance it claims to reject
While there are a couple of adequate aspects to the film, such as the reasonable lighting, basically competent camera work, it's a fundamentally difficult to watch movie, both in terms of the story telling which is laboured, and quite frankly the premise of the film, as pointed out in many of the negative reviews here.
The characters are unlikeable, while at the same time being one-dimensional, existing only to serve as an unsubtle representation of what the writers feel are positive characteristics - which can be summarised as being of non-European ancestry, muslim, homosexual, or politically left wing.
The counterpoint to this is a depiction of those who do not share those characteristics as being evil, to the point of being comical. Think a depiction of Germans in a 1950s movie about World War 2, in terms of subtlety.
Dialogue is uninspiring. And often unpleasant, with scene after scene of foul-mouthed diatribes by primary characters, who seek to project those ideas onto the chosen bad guys - while actually demonstrating their own internalised hatred of 'others' outside their group.
And this is where the film becomes more of a political lecture, instructing the audience that there are good people, and then there are bad people - who are white, heterosexual, and Christian. With such heavy-handedness the film manages to score an own-goal, by being the intolerance it allegedly aimed to reject.
How you treat this film will depend on your political viewpoint, for example if you are left wing, then this will serve to reinforce your world view that white, straight men are evil. If you are politically right wing, you will shake your head at the misrepresentation of reality. Everyone in between will simply switch off after 15 minutes.
The Requin (2022)
Erm... Alicia Silverstone looking 20 years older than her 'husband'?
As per the title, time has not been kind. Difficult to watch a man pretending a much older lady is somehow expected to be his wife....
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Oldboy (2013)
Hollywood machine churns out another unnecessary remake
While I do like Josh Brolin (for example No Country for Old Men), Samuel L. Jackson (the list is long), Sharlto Copley (District 9, Hardcore Henry).. and this is certainly not the worst way you could spend 90 minutes, it is simply... bland. There is no added value here, simply a standard, no surprises, sanitised telling of what was originally a gripping screenplay. It's not even
Which, if you have seen the original, means this will probably anger you so much, that you will immediately come to IMDB to down vote this remake with a solid 1.
If you have not yet seen the original film, and you enjoy a plot that unfolds without overtly signalled twists, features human drama, at least one iconic action sequence, and acting that will actually bring you into the story rather than read it out to you... then I would highly recommend the original, Oldboy, 2003.
The Rental (2020)
Clumsy
All characters are pretty unlikeable, which leads you not to care about them, their actions, or their fate.
The clumsy build up of 'Mina' as being some sort of perfect woman, in order to justify Charlie cheating on Michelle is just cringeworthy. Dialogue such as 'shes the whole package', 'the real deal', 'shes beautiful and stunning and smart'...
...when in fact she is frankly unpleasant to look at. She also behaves in a pretty stupid fashion at every opportunity, and is basically permanently on edge about her race.
The Good Lie (2014)
Lefty junk
The usual lefty junk, used to justify mass immigration, while not dealing with the downsides, for the local population.
A feel good movie for lefties, while ignoring the reality of their bizarre ideology.
Anna (2019)
Surprisingly bad for Luc Besson
After watching the first hour, I had to double check that this was actually directed by Luc Besson; the script is lifeless, the direction mediocre, the set-pieces are pieced together from 'Nikita' and various other lower-end action movies of the same type.
It's surprising that a film with Helen Mirren, Cillian Murphy and Luke Evans as main characters could be so... dull; but this is mostly due to the miscasting of Sasha Luss in the title role - wooden is an apt description. Zero charisma, zero emotion, zero personality. Without a lead character to work with, the supporting cast appears to almost be in a separate film, one which would probably be far more enjoyable.
Mirren, Murphy and Evans would have been more entertaining if they had been simply left to chat together in a bar for a couple of hours.