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Winchester '73 (1950)
Enjoyable Western but some fairly awful parts
The worst bit has to be 'Young Bull', played by Rock Hudson - you begin to question whether the film is actually some sort of dry comedy - the actor being a tall white man - And it's painfully awkward to watch.
Other bits are just how ridiculous it is that tens of Indians ride in and instead of attacking just continue to do everything in their power not to actually attack and just get gunned down by the white people in the middle.
I mean, I'm all up for a bit of classic Western cowboys and Indians - but this is just taking the piss.
Aside from this, the filmography is actually pretty decent and the film is quite engaging. Overall there's good attention to detail in terms of props - and enjoyable action scenes. The characters aren't particularly captivating, generally lacking depth (as is probably typical of this type of film).
I like how the Winchester '73 rifle goes through various owners each one being killed - a bit like the Deathstick from Harry Potter. Furthermore, the Winchester '73 also acts rather like a MacGuffin ("an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself.")
Some lovely 'cacti' scenes towards the end.
The Maus (2017)
Large Budget - Not a whole lot going on though
Firstly, let me start with some positives. I thought the theme of the film was interesting, to do with land mines and the Bosnian War, and presumably atrocities and genocidal acts. I have to say before watching it I did not know much about what I was about to watch. I have to say I was mislead to believe it was Horror, but in actual fact it feels more like a Dark Thriller with themes of Horror and War i.e. there was clearly a Deliverance vibe going on at the start, and aside from the creepy looking Guardian Angel that would be about where the horror side of things ends.
The filming style was fun for the first few minutes, but an hour and a half later of revolving cameras, darkness, and behind the head shots it all seemed a bit ridiculous and you wonder how a supposed 2 million euro budget (according to Wikipedia) was used up on just 4 actors, a forest and a great deal of what I can only describe as pointless videography.
Without trying to slate it too much, I found 'Alex' to be fairly unbearable, as an overly dramatic naive young chap who was an insufferable wannabe man-to-the-rescue but simply lacked any strength both physically and of character; Extremely annoying in every way possible. I think 'Selma' was at least interesting and played her role well though unfortunately this leads me on to my next comment about The Story, which overall I can once again only describe as being fairly 'pointless' or insubstantial. There were some interesting psychological moments where it felt like the dread was closing in, but then once the cat was out of the bag there wasn't much left to say. I knew from the moment I saw the car 'stuck' in the road in the very first scene that this movie was not exactly going to win any Oscars. I really am surprised about the budget here and can only presume the directors paid themselves substantial salaries through some questionable laundering function - But seriously, overall it wasn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me, and certainly illuminating in some regards. I think a 5/10 is generous, I'd say more like a 4.5 but I suppose I've rounded up.
One more comment: I saw that 'Maus' according to Wikipedia is an 80s/early 90s graphic novel about a Holocaust survivor, so I suppose that's what would have inspired the name of this movie.
Thank you for reading.
Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (2020)
Beautiful World, Tedious Story
When I first started watching Season 1 I was completely hooked. I was amazed, I thought this was really one of the most amazing TV series I had watched in a long time; the colours and style were so beautiful and seemed to speak to me on so many levels. The world that I was discovering was absolutely brilliant.
The reason I have given this 7 stars is because whilst I found the 'discovery' of the world a 10 star experience, I found the story to be pretty awful, and eventually detracted from all the fun things we were discovering in the first season.
By season 3 the story has become a thorn in the side of this beautiful series and seems to drag along.. And gets quite boring at times. Every episode eventually turns into Kipo's desire to find peace by 'talking things out' which isn't the main issue, but eventually turns into a tedious fight for salvation and freedom that's played out again and again, with a constant 'dramatic build up' which has nothing to do with the brilliant world in which the series should be focusing.
In summary, the series becomes so 'moral focused' and 'story focused' that the episodes become audio narratives with a bit of visual story boarding, as opposed to the first 6 or 7 episodes which were fascinating in their discovery element. Of course, the series is still very good and we still get to experience the Kipo world even in the third season, albeit a fairly more miserable one mostly involving humans getting angry at each other like a 90s marvel cartoon.
Unfortunately some TV series do fall into this 'story focused' trap and it is a real shame, as they build up and up over the first one or two seasons and then end up with not much else to say and spend their time tying up lose ends to finish off a fairly awful story. Whilst I can see the need to add a direction to the series, instead of focussing solely on the DNA aspect by the third season, Kipo and her gang could have gone on tonnes more adventures rather than rigidly trying to find closure with the fairly rubbish storyline.
The Lion King (2019)
Biggest Flop
This must be one of the biggest flops of the last few years, I can't even begin to think how much time and money went into this. The animation is undoubtedly high quality, but it's basically just a strive towards realism, no consideration given to the audience at all. The sound quality is generally poorly done; I think half the voices are pretty rubbish and it doesn't seem to sync up well with the animation. It looks almost like someone has taken a film and done voices over it in their bedroom.. it looks as if nobody communicated with each other.. There was no guidance.. The whole thing is a near-perfect representation of the original cartoon, but just in 'real' animated style, but the whole thing feels lifeless as many have pointed out, and you just wonder.. what was the point !
The only thing to be said for it, is as a stand alone film, if Lion King had never existed, and it was made by some independent film company that nobody had ever heard of then it would surely score highly as a 7 or more. But the facts are it isn't an original story.. so given this.. the whole things is a massive flop. It feels like it was made by a bunch of young tech nerds who have very little concept of the bigger picture.