Reviews

The two ladies are Oscar winners, and produced the movie. The rest of the cast was probably paid 18 dollars. The movie is based on a movie based on a book. The whole set consists of two houses next to each other.

So, financially, it probably works, because depending on taxation the girls can choose to either get paid upfront or get their production companies get the profit .

They also get to wear intricate 1960s dresses and hairdos, something that women typically enjoy.

Now the movie itself sucks, hard. The plot holes are pretty meaningful when you reflect for a bit, and even without that, the movie fails to get you invested in the story or the characters.

I really enjoyed Napoleon Dynamite, which has acquired, i think is fair to say, cult status. It was quirky, but it was a nice movie. There were endearing moments and characters.

Now Gentlemen Broncos is just atrocious.

The look and feel of the movie is kind of a lame, bargain basement version of Wes Anderson. There's a clear commitment to a form of aestheticism in the movie, but you can't carry a movie just out of style. And it's poor style in the 1st place.

The characters are either pathetic, obnoxious, or caricatures. It doesn't feel like the director even respects his subject matter.

I'm a fan of FOTC, but Jemaine Clement can't single-handedly carry the story, his role being a caricature more than a character.

All in all, pretty unwatchable.

Saw this one in 2024. Jason Statham had hair and played a very troubled man going to therapy.

The women are gorgeous.

The apartments are gorgeous, everybody's rich AF for no apparent reason.

Jessica Biel looked absolutely incredible.

But maybe more importantly, it's a masterpiece of toxic relationships, flawed characters, and pain.

The hero is largely a despicable person with narcissistic traits. London knows he makes her unhappy but struggles to get away, and had her own flaws. Statham has a scene or two where he's frankly incredible, I didn't realise he could act like that.

Based on the ratings and reviews, it looks to me like most missed the point of the movie. It's got Russian or French realism / tragic vibes. The dialogue about God and the drugs and the boobs and the booze are fillers, a setup to discuss two examples of pain, loss, shittiness, love, insecurity. Very human.

Very sad that the director didn't get to make more movies. The fact he got that cast is incredible.

Jessica Biel looked like a goddess.

I wasn't aware of the true story behind the movie, but looking at the pictures at the end, the real life story looks and feels better than the movie.

The movie is very formulaic and stiff. As someone experienced in the outdoors including rock climbing and various situations where you can die, they really did a horrible job at the technical bits, so they could have instead spent more time on the dog and maybe the family life after that.

It's a family movie for sure, but still has a fair bit of swearing and adult themes, as well as outright dangerous behaviour, but it just isn't a good movie.

Meh.

Stale from the first episode. Having seen the movie, the underlying plot obviously was no surprise. I'm a huge Ritchie fan, but this first episode made me question whether to watch the rest or not. He said in interviews he wanted to give a TV show a shot because it'd be a first. In his most recent movies there was a stellar cast. In his earlier work there was a novelty and a sharpness that made Ritchie so iconic.

Here there is none of that. The main guy looks like an underwear model, the lady arranges executions for breakfast but lack the shoulders to make it credible. The story is linear and stale from the outset.

Underwhelming and not very informative.

It covers important points and contains key interviews from big pharma & FDA, which means you get a sanitized message.

Now a few examples what's missing, or barely touched on:

• Ozempic's weight loss is disproportionately muscle loss rather than fat loss. Nobody ever wanted to lose muscle mass, it is what keeps your metabolism up, keeps you moving, and protects you from injuries. That is mentioned in passing once, and it's very easy to miss. I'm not a doctor, but given that people who stop tend to gain the weight right back, if you lost muscle, that could be a key reason why. And either way it's something to be very wary of.

• Ozempic is not approved for weight loss pretty much anywhere but in the US, yet the drug comes from Europe, because it's essentially not considered safe. How that isn't even mentioned is incredible hubris.

This drug is the ultimate vanity subscription business. Alternatively, save your money, lift weights, eat a salad, walk your way out. But a shot's easier. The US is obsessed with the magic pill. This is it.

This won't win awards but the script is actually pretty funny. Towards the end they really spin it into a nice redemption story, it's done well.

Cena is impressive. He truly is a good comedic actor, and his self deprecating humor gives it a nice depth.

I laughed several times.

Was fun to see stand up comedians Andrew Santino and Jeff Ross in there, both on point.

Zac Efron may ironically be the least convincing of all. Not sure what happened to his face but he lost all youthfulness and it was odd to see. He didn't do a bad job though, owing to the whole story hinging on him.

Watch the credits until the end for an epic TikTok video.

Good but not great documentary on the problem with concert tickets today.

We learn about the monopoly of Ticketmaster, notably from exclusivity contracts with venues. Ticketmaster requires venues to only sell tickets via their platform, and venues therefore feel obligated to use Ticketmaster.

We also learn about the vertical integration of venues and Ticketmaster, which makes this exclusivity clause often moot, given all the profit ends up in the same pocket.

What the docu fails to do is suggest solutions. The problem is evident, benefits Ticketmaster and their venues, but poisons the experience of most music fans & many artists. We also can't ignore the fact that there will always be people willing to pay extra to attend a concert at the last minute.

Economic theory says that there should be competition to balance things out. It's evident that competition doesn't apply here, so you would expect the government to step in, not as a neo-marxist force, but as a force to maintain competition. There's also a real question of where capitalism should stop, because musicians are almost by definition not businessmen at heart, and it is evident that many want to charge the public what they feel is fair, rather than the absolute highest price any concert goer is willing to pay. That spread on most of the tickets sold simply shouldn't be allowed to be captured by parasitic market forces.

You could plausibly think of a stock exchange where at least... 80% (?) of the tickets are sold in the primary market, and like airline tickets, these tickets would be in your name, you can't resell them, maybe except to the platform subject to a sizeable restocking fee (put option)? And allow the last 20% to be traded in the secondary market anonymously? Fans should be able to buy tickets at prices set by the artist with a transparent level of fees. Some people will always pay up to jump the queue. It's about accommodating both. Many venues and artists are also afraid of Ticketmaster, so maybe vertical integration and exclusivity clauses should be banned?

What is clear is that any concert system that is to the detriment of both the artist and the fans is bad. Market good. Monopoly / cartel bad.

I found myself skipping through, watched the beginning and the last quarter. It's awful on many levels.

I loved Paddington, both in fact. They were wonderful.

I also loved Ronald Dahl s books as a kid.

I also remember fondly the Johnny Depp version.

Now this one was an infuriating mess. Chamalet can't sing, which is a big deal given this happens to be a musical, and I dislike musicals.

The writing is terrible, the acting is terrible, the characters are so cliché yet incredibly bad, it's like an AI wrote a Dickens novel for chickens. Dreadful really.

Even the cgi was bad. It's also pretty nihilistic as everybody is a terrible person, down to the church staff.

We deserved better. And the legacy of this IP also deserved better.

I would typically rate this 7, but given how many bad movies i've seen recently, i'll rate this 8.

Admirable performance Jake Johnson to write, direct and star in this.

A man lets himself get trapped in a comfortable routine of working out alone, office job, and having a beer in the evening after he gets dumped by his long term girlfriend precisely for these reasons.

It takes a very special kind of TV show, god's hand, really, to make him confront his ex, meet his estranged father, make new friends, and meet new people.

Given various western countries are declaring a "loneliness epidemic", this ought to resonate.

It could have been more, but it didn't need to be more to be worth a watch. It's executed well, the script is good enough, it's what cinema is meant to be.

Fame sells, as long as Chapelle whips up one hour specials, Netflix will buy them because his brand is that strong. However bad they can be. This one was so very bland.

But I still watched it because it's Dave Chappelle.

Just like we as a group still go see fast and furious movies, however horrendous they get.

Money will finance what makes more money, and paying Chapelle for a stand-up is so low risk that it makes sense.

But it doesn't make it good.

Dave just phoned in the work here, and seriously started to sound like he's got a god complex.

Looking forward to the next generation of comedians.

The video is upfront in what it is: it's stories about people trying to escape North Korea.

And that's my main problem: it's completely anecdotal, there's nothing new compared to, for example, the works of Yeonmi Park, or that documentary on the murder of the brother in that airport.

Interesting questions are not asked. Given that our world is remarkably simple in that following the money usually tells you all you need to know, who is this status quo benefiting? Why don't we have South Korean fortunes funding escapes? Why is the West so clearly indifferent? Why not talk about the abject racism between Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, and even how South Koreans despise North Korean defectors?

I think that questions that "hurt" would be a lot more worth of screen time.

World's tough, people die all the time, North Korea is a hell hole. We know that. What next is a question worth asking, and isn't addressed here.

I found it quite telling that you have to rely on religion to find heroes. Not an NGO, not a government, not a corporate, not a rich patron, not a community, but a church.

Given the budget and the production quality of this thing, it really is a disgrace. I would like to understand why Julia Roberts produced this.

The writing is awful. The characters are despicable, and poor caricatures. The story feels like a dollar tree gizmo.

And when did it become ok to make 2+ films when they used to be 1h45? Because let's face it here, not only 2+ hours of run time werent necessary, but the slow burn was so poorly done that the only reason I sat through was that I played it in 1.5x a third through, while cycling on my home trainer.

What puzzles me even more is the relatively high average rating of this.

I thought America was about optimism.

If people identify with the characters, then we're doomed. If people thought this was well written, then please read books.

This was shockingly bad given the resources thrown at it.

Huge Californication fan, for its outrageous nature, but also, and more importantly, for its depth around being what it means to be / become a man.

The whole season, however, was lazy, with over the top characters & scenes that were borderline insulting intellectually. Hank went from being tormented to being petty, and the decisions he took became less and less relatable or credible. Indeed, as the seasons pile up, the premise of Hank & Karen remains the same, but it's becoming stale. Everybody's moved on but him. Gone is the tension. Gone is the chemistry. Gone is the poetry & the heartache. The addition of Faith was great, and the end was really disappointing. Hank starts to look like an senile dog scratching his balls and going in circles. It's getting sad. His choices make no sense, life smiles at him but he keeps going backwards, it's not endearing, rather the opposite.

Idk if the writers were the same, but this season was bad. Nor was it good in a tragic way. It was instead tragically bad.

This was a cute movie, where Marky Mark (also producer here) is in a physical shape that is truly exceptional, and married to a beautiful wife with only a very civilized age gap. There's product placement, but not too much. There's staggering violence, but it's all squeaky clean so it can be a Xmas movie. All the supporting cast is ethnic just the right amount. The family is flush with tremendous cash, which helps plot advancement as well as beautiful cinematography / scenes.

It was very enjoyable, assuming enough suspension of disbelief. The whole thing is obviously very predictable, but it's executed nicely. Everybody but the teenage daughter is world-class level at something, so while it's promoting family values, it is, for a change, not promoting mediocrity.

I watched this while cycling indoors, was perfect to get me through my winter workout.

My bad, i expected some kind of docu. This is a 3h long videotaping of her concert in los angeles.

I guess if you love her music, it's a great ad to make you want to go see the show. If you've seen the show live, then you may enjoy watching a nice videotaping of it. The production quality is high, and she is pretty to look at.

I thought there would be behind the scenes, commentary, something of substance, but no. I lost patience about a 3rd through.

By contrast, btw, the recent backyard thing by Miley Cyrrus was great. It was music + docu.

Btw, Taylor Swift is an incredible business woman, she's achieved global stardom, she re-recorded her old albums to stick it to the white man, but i fear some of her messaging really is populist peddling. The anti man trope is getting quite old, there are more narcissistic tropes along the lines of "if only the world understood how amazing i am without playing the game of life". Some shade of the princess in a disney movie, i guess; arguably unhealthy: there are very few real life princesses.

You need suspension of disbelief here, the airport is nowhere specific on purpose, and the PA system talks to the two lovers. Sometimes it feels like the universe is conspiring to make you meet someone or do something, well here it's in the form of a nameless airport with a PA system.

The characters were maybe a tad on the caricature side, but I could relate to one, and saw a lot of my exes in the other.

Sometimes life is magical. Sometimes you feel it. Sometimes you forget. Sometimes you make mistakes you spend years regretting, or playing what if. One day you accept things as they are. One day you think about death. One day you die.

Meg Ryan looked horrible, but was cast great for the role.

You may need to be a certain age and of a certain personality disposition to relate to this, based on the scathing reviews I've seen.

Sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls, as one philosopher once said.

There's very little to like about this movie. It's watchable, but given how daft it is, you'd want to actually enjoy it as a guilty pleasure. Except it isn't good enough for that.

I'm no director, and I'm no writer, but this clearly feels as a waste of resources, and also a waste of time, because ultimately it isn't fun, it isn't thrilling, it isn't sexy, it isn't smart.

Why does Cena run like a girl? There's no chemistry with Brie, why does she throw herself at him if that's not going to lead to a sex scene for us to watch?

Overall, a rather sad mess. Like eating melted ice cream and soggy bread crumbs. You still eat it because you hate yourself, but you're not even enjoying it.

Goes without saying that Fincher has made exceptional movies. Not here, though. Fasbender is great, but the script isn't.

I'm all in favour of a dive into the methods & psyche of a meticulous hitman, and the movie started well.

But it then turns into a bore fest, pompous monologue without depth, a linear action that feels like an early 2000 video game played on easy mode, characters without emotional buy in, and a total absence of anything we haven't seen before.

If it were a movie with depth looking into the mind of a hitman, i would accept the lack of novelty, but there's nothing deep there.

And because there's nothing deep, i would have at least wanted something fresh, be it fights, gizmos, tech, or insight into this world.

Ultimately, a bore fest. Who wants to watch someone else play hitman in easy mode without all the cool stuff, with self aggrandizing narration in lieu of thrill?

I wont comment on Nolan this, Nolan that. I would call this movie a masterpiece because of its humanity & complexity.

Oppenheimer is shown as complex, flawed, egocentric patriot. For eg, he is attracted to pretty terrible women, which begs questions about himself. He is arrogant, a brilliant scientist, and a great salesman. He is flawed, but patriotic no matter what. That makes for a very interesting character study.

There's also a lot to be said about the violence, and the willingness of groups & individuals to commit monstrous acts. I am very interested in the evil within us. American crowds cheering at the death of 100k+ civilians, women going into trance because of a powerful man wielding an unimaginable weapon of death. All righteous people, mind you. The office discussion about which Japanese cities to wipe out, distilled down to a simple list of names, with Kyoto struck off because of its historical value and honeymooning there was sweet. And ofc, the responsibility of arms control.

Then there's betrayal, and the system using people as cogs, with the military squeezing the scientists then ignoring them, if not actively shutting them down. And how to live a life of service despite that, testing loyalty, values, amid the power plays of groups or individuals.

Anyhow. A great study of the complexity of humanity, social systems, war, right and wrong, and our propensity for evil. Not your casual romcom, but a rewarding watch if your brain is up for it.