Change Your Image
andreabruson
Reviews
Ready or Not (2019)
Upsetting
I was kind of enjoying the story, it wasn't exeptional but still nice to watch when a particular scene came and that made me quit immediately:
she managed to get out of the mansion; she's in the garden when the butler arrives driving the car.
1) he is not able to get her, she seems as fast as the car
2) he is twice as big as the bride but he gets nearly choked by her with no problem.
3) she gets in the car, drives away from the butler at a considerable speed for 30-45 seconds but when the operator shuts down the vehicle the butler is already there!
I'm sorry but I can't stand mistakes like these, I needed to leave the film (thank God I wasn't at the theater).
I mean: you don't need to be Hitchcock to direct a decent film but a scenes like the above is unacceptable for anyone who isn't an amateur.
Ghost World (2001)
A 'so what?' type of a movie
I am really trying to get a deep meaning from this story but I can't find any.
What is this film telling about? Two girls trying to move in after their graduation? A girl starts to feel something for an older man?
A teenager who can't find her place in the world? A lonely man who finally can find his place in the world?
This movie seems to be about everything and nothing at the same time. Every character arc leads to absolutely nowhere, there is no conclusion in sub-plots, there's not even a movie ending (rember, kids: when you have no idea on how to end your story, just make someone leave).
The production is fine though, despite the really flat film direction.
Take Shelter (2011)
A boring journey to nothing
This film is a perfect example of how a bad finale can ruin the whole purpose of the story.
We've been lead, on 2 hours of an incredibile slow pace plot, to believe the main character had allucinations due to mental issues but in the very last scene we've been told those allucinations were premonitions instead.
In addition to that, some story elements were silly:
1) he asks his co-worker to help him out to build his underground shelter against tornadoes but the co-worker very surprised asks 'what the hell for???'... hello? Ohio? Tornadoes?
2) he goes to the doctor because he can't sleep and has vivid nightmares. The doc says it's too early to understand what's going on so: "eat healthy, do some activity, don't drink and we'll see".
But 10 seconds later: "I had a dream where my dog beaten me and my arm did hurt for the whole day..."
Doc: "here's the name of a psychiatrist!"
Wasn't it too early??? Is a vivid dream a big sign of a possible metal illness???
3) he then goes to this person but we find out she's just a psychotherapist... and later (like 1 hour) we randomly find out she was not the person the doctor told him.
4) they are in the shelter at the end of the storm and he asks to his deaf daughter if she can hear the storm instead of asking her to touch the door
5) what was the point of writing of a deaf daughter when it makes no difference to the story?
How could this movie be considered a good writing?
Again, that finale made me think Jack Nichols changed his mind in the last 5 minutes and decided to turn it into paranormal.
The Assignment (2016)
Poor makeup and silly concept
I could ignore the visibly fake beard on Michelle Rodriguez and write about the other aspects but this is a detail that completely excluded me from the film.
Who in the world decided to hire someone who thinks that applying a costume beard and tieding up breasts would credibly turn a woman into a man? Wouldn't it be a lot easier to cast a real man with same body proportion of her?
Besides the above bad production choices, the script is sensless: first of all, I'm not sure you can have a gender swap surgery in a day, then wake up and walk away like you just woke up from a nap.
Everything from here have no sense and no meaning: awful characters writing, stereotypical dialogues, poor action and a really un-original story make this film very bad.
Blair Witch (2016)
A re-definition of the found footage genre... in worse!
If this was supposed to be another found footage film, it failed on every level.
The secret of the success of the very first Blair Witch Project was the sound design, which was perfectly set up to give the audience a ton of depth and realism. And, most important: every sound was on set!
That goal is impossibile to achieve when you add all the sound effects in post production, and this was clear as day.
If you then add professional lightings because you still want to make it look like amateur but you don't want to sacrifice your cinematography, you're willing to make a huge mess.
At one point I started to think everything was filmed in a sound stage as that forest didn't look real at all to me!
If that's not enough, a really bad acting come in clutch: they over-act when they are supposed to be quiet e be quiet when they are supposed to freak out.
The story was boring and stupid: they sold it as a sequel of the first Blair Witch Project but it is actually a re-make as the story is exactly the same but way less scary and involving.
I really couldn't care less about characters' fate and I gave up watching 30 minutes to the end.
It Follows (2014)
It follows... when?
Whilst the premise is interesting and quite original, the realization is very poor.
There is a supernatural killer entity that follows you to kill you; it comes from the last person you had sex with so the only way to get rid of it is having sex with someone else, so you can pass it over. The problem is: if the next person gets killed by that entity, it will come back to you.
Cool, right?
The thing is: it rarely happens!
This film is nothing but a long wait for something that could wake you up from boredom, because there is no tension, no violence, no blood, no scariness... there is nothing except human stupidity (we understand very early in the movie this entity can not be killed but at minute 85 they are still trying to kill it).
Let alone the unexisting finale...
On a technical side, the sound design seemed a little messed up, there have been many times when I struggled with understanding dialogues in my headphones.
This film had a really good potential but it ended up to be a delusion.
Terrifier (2016)
Not the but but not the worst
This is a movie that certainly will not be remembered for the script or the directing but I guess those were not supposed to be the goals.
The acting is fine enough for a film like this.
Instead, if you are looking for a fun horror to watch, you found one!
The practical effects are really amazing and nothing, I mean NOTHING, is left to the imagination.
Art the Clown is, in my opinion, one of the best creepy killer ever created in the story of this genre and it deserves a little place in the Hall of Fame of slashers characters, with his great makeup and costume and silent madness.
Definitely a movie worth watching but don't expect to see a masterpiece or you will get deluded.
Tár (2022)
A story I couldn't care less about
I rarely quit a movie before the ending but this time I couldn't avoid it so, about halfway through, I gave up.
A long and boring and eventless story about characters I couldn't care less, with a huge lack of not only drama (which is what is supposed to lead this film) but also of every emotions a human being can possibly feel.
The real first little bit of something dramatic happens only at about 1h and 35m in; the whole time before that is a neverending character setup of Maestro (or Maestra, if you will) Tar, which made me feel like the first hour was as long as 3.
Cate Blanchet is wonderful as always (someone here wrote she over acted but I don't agree with that statement) but she is really a flower in a desert of boredom.
Insidious (2010)
Dazed and confused
This film confirms how bad the modern horror scene is.
No new ideas, no originality, no ability to scare... nothing worth watching here!
They start on a good old haunted house story, then they realize it is leading to nowhere (again, because everything is already been seen) so they turn it into a non-sense OOBE type of situation.
Trying to save this mess by throwing a bunch of jump-scares didn't work.
The only things I would save from this movie is the directing and the cinematography, always on point.
And good acting too.
Good for Patrick Wilson he redeemed himself with The Conjuring universe or he could've been one of those anonymous actors with no highlights in their careers.
Cube (1997)
Good enough but could be a lot better
Whilst the plot is pretty well developed and the scenes are entertaining, the characters building are very poor and full of stereotypes, starting from the typical rough cop who's the action guy and claims to be in charge of the situation, to the young girl who is supposed to be a math genius only because she still goes to school, and the autistic guy (painted exactly like Dustin Hoffman's Raymond in Rain Man) who we already know he's gonna be the the one who surprises everyone.
Even the dialogues are very silly and most of the time over-acted.
The directing and the cinematography are solid though and they make this film a good one to watch.
Queen & Slim (2019)
A good premise going the wrong way
We all get the point of this film, it is quite clear since the very beginning, but the real question is 'what direction this was supposed to take?'.
Many silly and disconnected moments, along with lots of stereotypes, make what could be a very good movie just a pointless drama which also fails its purpose.
There's no action, no tension, no emotions whatsoever.
Even the romantic side of this film is not believable at all.
It starts as a complain against police racism and then quickly turns into a love story, until the black power kicks in and leads the plot to a poor Thelma and Louise finale.
On top of that, many stereotypes such as: the black pimp full of girls in the house, the white progressive rich couple, the creepy white guy at the gas station (who we all know he's gonna be a mass shooter very soon, right?), the black kid killing the cop in the riot for no reason (and get killed).
But what I think is the biggest problem here is the fact that the two main characters keep taking the stupidest decisions for the whole movie, which make them look very dumb, to the point that you almost think they deserve all of it.
This is why I titled my review with 'A good premise going the wrong way'.
Again, this could've been a great and very important piece of art but it's only a waste of potential.
I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore. (2017)
An endless boredom
This is the classic case of people who clearly know how to shoot a movie but have no idea on how to tell a story.
While there is a nice cinematography, nice actors and a nice soundtrack, the story is really awful and leads to nowhere; well, it leads some place but for no reasons whatsoever.
The film starts with a girl who hates life and people and she got thieves in her house, stealing a notepad and her grandma's silver; "Okay, I know where this is going." you think, but the problem is that she got back her stuff pretty soon (less than an hour in) and now she has no purpose in the story anymore, besides some meaningless revenge.
What would you do if you were the writer? Throw a bloodbath and you never go wrong!
And that is exactly what happens next: an endless nothing, full of lame lines, until everything gets crazy with no logic connections.
If that's not enough, they decided to add a finale which is the biggest "so what?" situation.
A classic "wannabe cool and alternative" kind of film which ends up to be one of the worst you can possibly think of.
Time Trap (2017)
Really bad writing
For being a slow budget movie, the visual effects are very good and that is the only good thing abou this project.
The writing, though... First of all: when the audience understand what is happening way before the characters, it means the story is told very badly.
We wait about an hour before something really interesting starts to happen and then a million of different hypothesis are thrown to us.
It seemed like the writer was struggling to find a way out from this mess that he put everything on the paper but forgot to delete what was not working.
Of course the ending is better than the beginning but it is pretty easy and obvious when you have nothing in the first place.
For me this film is a solid NO.
Io sono l'abisso (2022)
Awful on every level
As an Italian myself, I always hope the industry could come back to its golden era but I get deluded every time.
First of all, this movie should be renamed as The Dutch Angles for the insane amount of this type of shots the director used for 90% of the time. We got it, it's a thriller and he wanted to create tension by that technique but it's not needed for every single scene!
And the editing was not helping at all: random flashbacks, useless to the storyline, that made me take a couple seconds to understand we were not in the present.
Then the classic, bad Italian acting: I'm used to the always academic and not believable interpretations of our actors so I found this just amusing but If you're not Italian and you happen to watch this film in its original language, please remember: we don't talk like that in this country.
Last, but not least, the screenplay: very poor, with no sense whatsoever and full of stereotypes.
On top of that, a very slow pace that made me give up 30 min to the end.
Dead Mary (2007)
Silly and boring
This production tried to recreate The Thing mood, where the villain could be anyone, anywhere and any time but they failed miserably.
A100 minutes of nothing, full of infinite talk and talk and talk by a group of annoying mid-class people in their late 20s.
The first little bit of "action" comes 45 minutes in. The rest of it is just a love drama with a "oh yeah, there's an evil spirit wandering around" situation.
And guess what: that evil spirit is conjured by calling her name three times in a mirror. Never seen that, huh?
Basically a Blair Witch (the second one) at Camp Crystal Lake conjured up like a Candyman, where the horror scenes rarely happen and are often off-camera.
I should stop give movies a chance when imdb overall rate is bad!
Run Sweetheart Run (2020)
A bad story filmed well
I gave this movie a 6/10 because of the directing and the cinematography, which were pretty solid, but the story is quite bad, full of plot holes and unexplainable choices.
Just a few of them:
1) that man is clearly not a simple man so what is he? A demon? A vampire? Nope, because he can get into a church. But he can't stand the sunlight and he can be burned.
I'm confused.
2) he is very powerful, basically unstoppable. It seems he can control humans minds but he can't controls dogs? And why he's scared of dogs if he's supernatural? At the beginning of the movie, he told he's been bitten by a dog when he was a kid but then we find out that could not be true, so why he's scared of them?
3) Cherie keeps going people's homes and clean herself up but every minute of this movie she's always bleeding. Why can't you get a shower and put bandages on? And tampons, for God's sake, give the girl some tampons!
4) the whole point of this nightmare was to lure the man around until sunrise comes and make him burn by the sun? Why the First Lady didn't think of that before and save hundreds of girls instead of waiting for Cherie who did nothing but being a bait in a kimono? The First Lady is an angel, why didn't she do it by herself?
This film could've been a very good thriller if it didn't turn into a supernatural, senseless crap.
The Bad Batch (2016)
I died waiting for something interesting
I gave this film a 6/10 only because of the directing and the cinematography, which are nothing outstanding but still good enough.
It's probably too much of a vote but it's deserved for the effort of the crew to save this film from a potential disaster.
Besides that, there's really nothing to remember about this film: a bunch of lines (actually a few) that often make no sense.
The first word arrives literally after 20 minutes, which is not necessary a bad thing if you have a solid plot but, mostly, talented actors at its service. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
The casting is horrible:
- Jason Momoa playing a Cuban character is just silly. He's not a bad actor but just doesn't fit in the role in this case; thinking of his look and his Spanish accent I can't buy it.
- There's must be a reason to have chosen Suki Waterhouse (Arlene) besides of her being a good looking girl. If there's any, please tell me because I don't get it. No matter what happens to her in the plot, she always sticks with the same facial expression and that upsetting tone of her voice. The "that's prettyyyyy!" thing, looking at the sky while on acid, says it all.
- The silent Jim Carrey... do we need anything else to be upset for? You cast a giant and give him a couple of almost useless scenes?
- The Non-sense Keanu Reeves' role. I mean... he's probably not the greatest actor of our times but pay the guy some respect! What's the point of his character? Is he good, is he bad? I he a savior? Is he a villain? We don't get to know that.
He seems to be very powerful but couldn't do anything to get the kid back and kill Arlen before the left the camp. They're getting away with just a gun and a golf cart, there's really nothing you can do with your army?
As other people did review, the plot is just boring. It starts promising but ends on nothing; characters arc don't exist at all, there's no goal besides surviving.
You might think the goal is saving the little girl but why Arlene kidnapped her in the first place? Why Arlene is looking for a revenge on Miami Man (Jason Momoa), only because he was in the same place where she had her limbs chopped off? Why she killed his wife?
This movie had a good potential but ended up the be just a WANNABE cult movie.
Enter the Void (2009)
What's the point?
This movie could've been a lot better if it only had a plot but, unfortunately, at the end of the day it is just a bunch of aerial and sometimes psychedelic shots of an out of body experience.
To resume this movie is very simple:
1) he is a drug dealer in Tokyo
2) he is betrayed by a friend, shot and killed by the police
3) he dies and starts to re-live his existence, travelling back and forth in the moments of his life, mostly focusing on the strong relationship he has/had with his sister
(it is funny how filmmakers always picture the afterlife exactly like this life but being high on something)
The only high point of this picture is the cinematography, which is really well made but in my opinion the lack of a plot turns down the whole project.
In addition to that, silly dialogues (you don't need to tell me what you're about to do while you're doing it) and stereotyped characters and situations: the filthy Tokyo at night, the strip girl being the favorite/girlfriend of the boss, the drug dealer who also has an addiction to it, etc.).
Everything looked already seen and done dozens of times in the last 30 years of cinema, nothing is really new in the making of this movie.
While I was watching this film, I have wondered many times what this is trying to tell me, what this is all about.
Is it about the afterlife?
Is it about life and how tough and traumatic it could be?
Is it about family?
Is it about all of these elements combined together?
It was never clear to me.
I used to like these type of movies in my 20s but now, at 45 years old, I'm looking for something else.
Barbarian (2022)
It starts good enough but ends badly
This movie seems promising at the beginning but as it goes on, it gets many nonsense moments and bad writing/production choices.
The first act is pretty well written: creepy and mysterious since the first frame (even though the two characters are not very interesting) and when the creature arrives and kills Keith (Bill Skarsgård), it makes you believe it's gonna be a good film.
But the problems start now: as long as we get more into the story in the second act we would like to know more about characters background but that never happens.
Just a few bits of explanation about who they are and where they come from.
We know nothing about AJ, except the fact he's been sued by that fellow actress and he needs to sell the house but there is no indications in the previous hour of the film that he's the owner, it seems they just needed an excuse to throw him in.
We understand Tess (Georgina Campbell) is in Detroit for a job interview so she needs a place to stay for the night but... there is no rooms in the whole city so she had to book a house in the worst block of the world?
What about the B&B agency? They rent a house to two different people, they disappear and they never wonder where they are? No one ever been to that house to be sure they're not still living there when they should not? And after two weeks the house is perfectly clean even no one got there (as they said to AJ on the phone)?
And apparently that house had been rented to other people before (remember the bottle of wine they left?): Where are they now? They're dead? The just left?
The cops scene: Tess managed to escape the house, calls the cops, brings them home and they didn't even check if she was telling the truth? Like knocking on the door and making sure everything and everyone is alright? As far as I know, if they have a suspicion of a crime they must investigate. This made me think they knew what was going on in the house and they were too much scared to intervene but this remained just a theory as that is never explained.
The homeless guy has no role in the story except saying what we already know (and his death is silly!)
We get a little bit of a backstory about the dad and the "creature girl" but, again, nothing really explained too much, just brief shots of a flashback.
And here comes the great finale (sarcasm: activated): the creature girl had been squeezed on the house (still alive), fell from about 10 meters height (still alive) and then she dies for a gunshot?
And of course: Tess had been shot and bleeding a lot, fell with the creature girl, she kinda looks close to death and she can't even stand up but the movie ends with her just limping like nothing happened.
But what amazed me the most is... (drum roll....): the red viewfinder on the gun when Tess kills the creature girl! Really? No one noticed that in post production? What is this, a middle school movie project?
To conclude my review, I gave this movie a 5/10 just for the creepy atmosphere at the beginning and the cinematography, which I liked very much.
But the writing is pretty bad in terms of character building, pace and silliness of many scenes.
A Fall from Grace (2020)
Save yourself 2 hours
I've never seen a movie with a such bad writing!
Seriously, what's wrong with these people?
First of all, the love story was so unrealistic for the lack of chemistry between the two actors, I didn't buy it for a second.
Then a huge amount of plot holes, really bad plot twists, situations you couldn't believe even if you were living on Mars and landed on this planet today.
1) In what world someone can open a loan with the bank, signing documents as another person and get money with no questioning?
2) how is it possible that your best friend, who you know from decades, has a secret son and you don't even suspect about it?
3) we see the scene where she beats the hell out of the guy and throw it in the basement to find out 10 mins later he's still alive and in good shape.
4) the protagonist has a son, which seems to be the main plot twist of the story (but it is not), but we get to know about him at 1h and 15min in, when he appears for no reason and no roles in the movie besides the "hey she has a son!" factor.
5) the trial sequence is so lame and inconsistent that I really could've wrote it better while being hangover after a new year's eve party.
6) Jasmine's husband has a serious problem with handcuffs: every person he arrested is free to walk around with handcuffs on.
I might have forgotten a lot of stuff here but it is just because there's too much things to remember (or to erase from my mind).
I'm really scared that the open finale will give us a sequel!