Reviews

I just watched this film as part of my new years 2023-2024 transition, and I hope the rest of the year plays out better! I didn't think much of Fallen Kingdom but at least it ended on an interesting note which would really lead into Dominion perfectly. However, just like others have stated before me, we don't get that plot, we get giant killer locusts, some dinosaurs, cloned human, lame throwback villain, terrible dialogue, too many characters and pretty poor acting. There's like three storylines going on at once and you don't feel invested in any of them. Unfortunately I believe our throwback characters are there for the sake that they're still alive, rather than actually using them for really immersive and driven storylines. The action is non-sensical, raptors can run down fast cars but no humans on foot. All the characters have body armour that means they're impervious to dinosaur attacks. Like, every time one of them gets cornered, the dinosaur slows down, pauses and never pounces to eat anyone. They're just all magically saved. Our villain is just purely there for the sake of it. The clone storyline just gets left in the dust until towards the very end. The attempt at comedy relief was cringe worthy. And for a dinosaur movie, make it about dinosaurs! They could have even had half the movie with getting dinosaurs off the main islands and back to where this one takes place (similar but reverse to The Lost World), but it fails etc. Instead Dominion is just another dinosaurs on island movie...boring. The more utilised animatronics was good and the cinematography were great, along with the CGI. With Dominion over, it basically falls back to the end of Fallen Kingdom again. Whoever would like to take over could make 1 or 2 movies about Dinosaurs on the mainland. Anyway, Happy New Year and don't start it off by watching this garbage!

I'll start by saying that I think the movie wasn't quite sure what it wanted to be. It starts out with deaths that occur in kind of a funny way and because of the bad acting, that's exactly what it portrays. As the movie progresses though, the deaths become less funny. The acting is still pretty poor but I believe that is because of the jagged cuts between some scenes. I also think that there were too many characters that didn't really add anything to the plot, such as Ryan. He has absolutely no point in the movie and doesn't help anyone or anything. He's just part of it for tension between himself, Jessica and Bobby, which doesn't actually matter either. Mitch is ultimately left out of it too and I'm not sure how he wasn't part of being a target for Carver considering the only reason Amanda went there was because he agreed to work. But then it begs the question, why would they even bother going to the store to see Mitch since Amanda and Eric were having an affair and expecting a child. They could have just stayed at the house Eric could have given Amanda another good rogering. I actually think the best death scene was of Kathleen and the ones during the parade. The Thanksgiving table scene was intense and I wish the movie had either been like that all the way through or more of the comedy horror like at the start. I thought Eli Roth would have also had a better surprise ending with the killer, but it was a very formulaic type slasher horror that really lent into the Scream franchise and IKWYDLS vibe, but just executed poorly. Not the worst film you'll ever see but not one I'll probably ever return to.

As like other reviews, this doco could really have been something more. There were numerous opportunities missed for further exploration, such as, his childhood & friends recollections and examples of trauma; what people on the street thought of him; had his mental health ever been looked at; how media personifies individuals and that impact; interviews with one time celebs surrounding shared experiences; how and why none of the media outlets reviewed their footage which clearly shows a traumatised individual; questions around what they should have done etc. I also never like when criminal documentaries paint the picture of the criminal but forget those who have been hurt or murdered along the way. This doco falls into that category too. It's still unclear on why he commuted the murder and why he came up with his defence story. Did his lawyer also not push anything about going to a mental health facility instead of jail, or any storyline around that at all.

Anyway, worth a watch but you'll need to do your own research to fill in the gaps left with this doco.

Before commenting further, I believe you could skip the first eight episodes of season 8 and just watch the two-part finale and it would be fine. You'd just need to know about Hitchcock being semi-retired and Amy and Holt taking a new job together, everything else is pretty much irrelevant. That's how I'd rewatch it from the start too.

Look, season 8 was a stinker and certainly not up to the standard of the previous seasons. Too much forced socialist issues, and they were already on topics that they'd presented previously. So I'm not sure why they decided to push so much of it into the season with the fewest episodes. So many plot points just get left without any real/substantial ending. Jake's suspension being the biggest. There was no real ending to that considering how long they built up the issue. I think that is the reason why the characters feel so distant from what had been built previously, as they were just too different. Especially Rosa and Charles. Holt was all over the place a bit too but that had been happening for a couple seasons now. It would have been nicer to have the usual suspects together, Hitchcock and Scully, Boyle and Jake etc to really bring home that feeling of connectedness.

Anyway, onto the final eps. I do wish we had some other cameo's, maybe even Bruce Willis (or any of Jake's idealised/favourite movie characters), but you can't have it all! They did do a good job of making it fun and ridiculous, just like the heist episodes should be. The ending was sentimental, I don't think the final heist reveal was necessary, just leaving in the lift was enough, especially with Jake's grin as the doors close. Anyway, strong and emotional ending for a show that brought many laughs and memorable moments.

NINE-NINE!

I'll try to keep my review brief but it is a movie over 3h long.

Positive:

• CGI and all of the underwater sequences looked fantastic, as they should considering the effort put into them.

• Introduction of the sea life was superior to the first movie, as in they felt more realistic and less shiny or rigid.

• This was awesome 3D and really enhanced the underwater elements beautifully. Even when bullets were flying towards you they didn't blur or anything like that.

Negatives:

• lack of progression in the story. It really was basically a rehash of the first movie. It skipped over bits in the story which would have been far better explored than what we got.

• the characters. Jake and Ney'tiri were really just bland in this movie. Jake was just a soldier who seemed to complained at his kids or was grovelling. Ney'tiri was either angry or sad. I'm not sure if either of them smiled all movie or had any real meaningful moment that was spent so long developed in the first. There were far too many characters to either keep track of or truly care about because again, they skipped over it for the revenge storyline. Kiri, Lo'ak and Neteyam were my favourites of the kids. I truly have no idea why they added Tuk or Spider into the mix, they really didn't add any substance.

• character development. They were developing Kiri's storyline nicely and then it just fizzled out and became nonsensical. They showed her with her mum but then she left really easily. She started to have seizures but magically all good. Really annoying as I thought something interesting was going to eventuate. Lo'ak was well developed for a one-dimensional character, but again, we've already had this storyline in Jake. Neteyam I thought might be the true leader coming through and even developed his storyline to be maybe something of Jake's brother where he was a scientist who was interested in exploring, was really levelheaded but then has the leadership qualities of Jake and Ney'tiri. But they just sort of killed him off because the good guys needed to lose someone. Kill off spider or Tuk, that would have made more sense to me. The also kept setting Spider up with something with his dad but that just fizzled out and he didn't confront Jake or Ney'tiri about killing his dad. It would have made more sense if Spider had killed him.

• Completely under-utilised previous characters for anything meaningful again. Because it's just a revenge movie, they didn't provide any substance.

• The Metkayina people were one dimensional too, although very well created. They were just character copies of the Navi.

• What really bothered me was how easy the marines were comfortable with the environment and bonded with the animals. I wish after Spider's speech about doing bonding traditionally that he would have still darted it.

• The whole "ambergris" dumb storyline and stupid characters. Why did the pilot and crew wear sunglasses when all the instrumentation was digital and screens? Eh.

Anyway, there's other minor negative reasons too but they're just finer detail things. After seeing this movie, I wish it had come out in 2014 like originally planned and that we saw the chapter before this one. You know that this really is a middle movie that it just feels like filler. I did expect more from JC.

Let's get this straight, this is certainly not a true/factual biopic and needs to be accepted by people as mostly fiction. Sure, it's about an icon of the entertainment industry and elements are true or likely to have happened, but the original source material has been disclosed by the author as fiction and should be treated as such.

Is the film exploitive, of course, no justification can be made to say it isn't, regardless of what the director and lead actress tell us. I mean, they even filmed the death scene where it truely occurred. Why is that required if this is fiction right? It's totally ironic that they refer to giving a real depiction of her life considering the already acknowledgements of fictionality. I can't say that the movie captures anything special besides pain, darkness and despair. It's just a constant stream of boredom with abuse and violence to offset it. Dragged out scenes with little substance. A lot of behind the scenes actions to make it feel real, such as altering the lead actresses voice to sound American. The NC-17 rating was designed for two things, draw attention to the film but also (probably inadvertently) protect people from watching a bad movie, so be thankful to keeping 3 hours of your life for other interests. There's good elements such as style and cinematography but that's about it.

Final thoughts, go and see the re-release of Avatar.

I'll start with that there's probably 3 more episodes worth of content that could have been included here. This doco does a decent job at showing the carnage that was Woodstock '99 but misses facts that would have really made this documentary great.

Although they talk at the end about the 4 rapes/sexual assaults, there were more reported to police. There were three people who died at the festival, although only one was due to the extremes itself.

It also missed the opportunity to speak to many more artists about their experiences. They never went into the details about how much money was made from the festival, how many staff (security) were there to handle things, what plans did they have in place for things if they went wrong, what type of infrastructure did they have to stop the back of the crowd from just pushing upon people in front of them, how far the stage was from the audience for safety etc.

It also didn't touch on from perspective and realisation now, that they still didn't do anything wrong. Like who called in the state troopers, was that the festival or did they say that they needed to take control? The questions didn't push them to answer majorly tough questions and certainly make them have to answer if they have any accountability to what occurred.

There's questions and content that really could have made this doco more insightful and how it impacted festivals from then on out throughout the 2000's. For example, Limp Bizkit had a teenage girl die during their performance in Australia due to poor crowd control as well as Fred Durst not listening to security during that moment to stop the show (you can find this content on YouTube). The invention of the two barrier system/D ring set up. Draw comparisons of greed with FYRE Festival. Maybe even a quick bit about the deaths of concert goes at Astroworld.

I know they couldn't have included this in their doco but recently in Australia, Splendour in the Grass have just shown the exact same type of greed through not putting in place the resources to help festival goers.

There was a a lot left to explore and even get insight into, but either they didn't want to do it or just didn't. I'm going to watch the HBO version and see how it compares.

It set itself up quite well with the quest for survival and I enjoyed the graphics/style used. It did however then slowly morph into the philosophical/psychological realm. I found it to be a little silly because she had to drag her dead companion for what was to be 41km to survive instead of just being able to take her O2 tank. Then the spirit/machine talked to her, but was it through her dead companion or did it just occur randomly or because she was high on drugs? And why wouldn't it have occurred before then if it was the machine?

Anyway, I liked the premise but it didn't really deliver and I believe it got lost in itself with not being more direct. I'm assuming that it was going for the philosophical, self-reflection story but having the character take drugs makes the viewer wonder if it's just a drug trip! I did like the references though and would been better explored in like a mini-series or something I think. This one off episode would probably have been better sticking to a survivalist narrative.

The set up from part 1 of season 4 was probably the best Ozark had been since season 1. Unfortunately part 2 didn't deliver. I didn't mind Ruth being killed but the ending with Jonah was terrible. That was just too far out of character. He didn't murder innocent people. He was out of all of them, the one that the show had built as basically the one trying to show how others could be better. So for him to do that is absurd. They could have even left it showing the Byrde's sitting at the table having a drink and leaving it there.

Season 4 part 2 felt similar to season 3, with all of the melodrama stuff that viewers didn't really care for. There was characters coming in and out and one minute they all hate each other and then don't. It was just inconsistent and felt like they weren't sure how to finish everything. Although there was good acting by Wendy and her dad, it ultimately lead to nothing more than a pointless storyline. Also, what was the point of Annalise? It seemed like they were setting her up to maybe sleep with Sam or something? There was some weird dynamic there that ultimately proved to be nothing too really. And why was Nathan with her if blondes are so terrible?

Finally, Wendy had created so much tension between herself and everyone else, why didn't they end with someone finally coming after her? I really wanted Marty to finally stand up to her. The whole episode where he's in Mexico, the scene where he beats the guy for beeping his horn and telling Charlotte how Wendy is terrible - I thought might have been leading to a conclusion where he finally took control. But nothing. Why did we focus the ending so much on Ben? Did the writers not read the terrible reviews about the Ben character and yet they thought that some PI would truly give a crap about him that he would break into a house, take the "chunky" ashes and be able to have it forensically studied and be able to present it in court? Lol, the Byrde's are connected to the FBI, cartel and numerous politicians that he would have gone to dust. Really dumb ending.

Let's start with the fact that this movie was made in 18 days. So they did a lot in a very short amount of time and the budget was clearly stretched.

I call myself a metal fan, not into black metal too much but am interested and knowledgeable on its' origin. The director was involved in the startup of the genre, so I was expecting a good story regardless of the limitations I mentioned above. However, this movie is not great. It starts by saying there's truth amongst lies and deception - I just didn't realise he was talking about his own film! Unfortunately there's little substance to the movie because he's gone too far from the truth so the plot doesn't really fit together. The actors did the best they could with a poor script. I was semi-enjoying the film until Dead's suicide (although it wasn't quite accuarate) and then it just went south. Also, for a movie about black metal, include it in the film. I know this was a directors choice not to because most people wouldn't like it, well I think it needed it. It really felt like a weird soap drama about two guys wanting to seem important - which is not at all the true story. There's a couple of good scenes, that being Dead's suicide and aftermath - and the other being. Eithun's murder. They are shown with true depiction. Varg's murder in the movie is drawn out, poorly directed and lit and doesn't have too much truth to it.

So because the movie uses the book that has probably the least amount of truth in it, the movie probably was never going to be what people like myself were hoping for. There's plenty of truth out there that makes this story far more interesting. Check it out.

The show should have ended a while ago, I believe most fans can agree with that. The last 3 or more seasons had only a handful of quality episodes and were very formulaic.

I think the conclusion for Sheldon was fine and expected. He got the award he'd been talking about the entire series and had the realisation of friendship to success. I was expecting him and Amy to have a child, not Penny and Leonard because of how much they pushed Penny didn't want to and how Amy was convincing him kids weren't bad. We never find out Penny's maiden name, I feel like they were saving it for some reason as a surprise but never followed through. Burnadette just became this annoying, but mean spirited character who needed to always have the final word or make someone feel dumb. Stuart became more prevalent and even the writers gave him a conclusion in love, although he was never referred to as anyone special in the finales unfortunately. I also think the comic book store should have been honoured in some fashion as many of the earlier seasons took place there. I believe Sheldon's mum deserved credit at least for his achievements and should have been present somewhere in the finales. Howard's backstory is never resolved. It seemed that they were going to get to the origins of his father, they included his half-brother so why not his dad? He also never got a doctorate, which he wanted to do. Raj doesn't really have his Hollywood romantic movie moment, unless you consider that his relationship with Howard was his most loving? I think he could have had a more holistic ending. Leonard gets what he wants, his mother's understanding, family with Penny and working on something interesting. Anyway, the finales felt cramped and forced a little but they're not the worst endings, but I'd like to have seen a couple more storylines resolved.

I didn't like or dislike this movie, maybe more towards dislike though. It's not that I didn't understand the movie and it's satirical nature, but I just found it too blatant, forced and over the top. It was overloaded by characters that are unlikeable and serve no major purpose besides all having the same qualities and serving the same storyline. It could have been better to look at society rather than influential figures (played by a famous celebrity), for example, the political aspect was really good and the division of people. It seemed that one person always had to end a conversation by yelling and the roles swap from Lawrence to DiCaprio half way through the movie. Jonah Hill served the least importance in this movie, he nailed his character but again, not necessary. Overall, a crowded movie that has too many unnecessary stories and characters to really drive home the narrative that was evident after watching 15mins. The editing wasn't the best either.

Squid Game is a nicely made series with decent acting and they clearly had a decent budget. Episode 1 peaks your interest and then episode 2 just draws it out and we all know what is inevitably going to happen, you can basically skip that episode. From 3 onwards is good and keeps the interest. Episode 6 was my favourite. Episode 7 onwards with the VIP's becomes annoying because they serve no real interesting aspect to the story. I feel that the "twist" ending was predictable as I'd thought about it prior, but it still serves purpose to the narrative.

A couple of reasons why I'm only giving it a 6 is because it becomes less about the games and it encourages murder between the players. This contradicts the rules it had threatened players with prior, where no player can disadvantage the participation and/or rights of other players. I also felt the "intruder" role became monotonous and the climax unsatisfying with many questions left pondering. I also found the death of Sae-byeok to be a let down as I believed she deserved a better ending.

Overall, worth checking out for the story, acting and questions it leaves the viewer about their own circumstances.

P. S. Would you play?

A show about how differing forms of evidence has been used to convict or exonerate people is a good premise that crime enthusiasts would be into. The problem being that it doesn't actually do that. It focusses on the innocent bias and completely lacks any two-sided investigations. The first three episodes (especially the cadaver dogs) are really poorly presented. It's just presumed that these people are innocent and that evidence has been manipulated to gain a conviction. People who are into these shows can clearly see the bias and agenda and we can see the holes rifled throughout. Literally, one episode is called 'Blood Splatter' - the correct use and spelling is Blood Spatter lol! It just serves as precursor that the viewer knows this is going to be poorly researched and presented. The final episode is the best and could have been a movie length version that would have been really interesting; so hopefully a proper investigative documentary will be presented one day.