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tomstickland
Reviews
Two Pigeons (2017)
Enjoyable piece of oddness
It's called "Freehold" on Amazon Prime where I watched it
I thought that was a well made and enjoyable film. Well acted and I was drawn into the main character's world.
There's a lot of gross out comedy in it. Most of it made me laugh and feel a bit uneasy. It does look like there's negative reviews from people who couldn't get over the repulsive parts. The constant creeping around leads to a sense of edginess, but there's also a comedy aspect to it that offsets that.
I did start to feel a little sorry for the main character as he was accused of things that he didn't do and his life started to fall apart. Only a little bit though. It reminded me of "it's all gone Pete Tong" when he started living on his bed. The freezer in the centre of the room made me laugh.
Overall it was a film that I enjoyed watching.
The Vanished (2020)
Ultimately frustrating
I gave this film my full attention. It's not an awful film and it provides plenty of tension and suggestion for motives throughout. The acting is variable, I'd say pretty good, they're just a slightly odd couple.
I invested a lot of energy into watching this, with the slow and continuous tension of it. The glimpses of possible resolution were tantalising.
However, when it neared the end it turned out that I'd wasted a lot of my energy and the film wasn't going to give me any pay back on the energy I'd expended. This reminds me of another film: Eden Lake. Both of these films fail in terms of giving the viewer some relief from the endless tension. The best films have both up and down in their trajectory.
I took a chance. I watch quite a few films with 5/10 to 6/10 ratings and some of them are good fun if you don't worry about every detail. This one was a fail for me.
A Bluebird in My Heart (2018)
Great film
We found this on the free trial on Shudder, the Amazon prime subscription. Had a quick look at the reviews here on IMDB and decided to watch it.
I'm pleased we did because this is a very well shot, edited and acted film. The early scenes have an underlying theme of positivity and hope as he sorts his life out and fixes various things in the hotel and the restaurant where he works. There's lots of good shots of the slightly run down industrial area where it's based.
When things turn nasty his violence is quite shocking and you feel that he regrets his actions. From then on, things degenerate quickly as the local drug lords get involved.
Eden Lake (2008)
A cruel film
This film has a lot a of potential. It's quite a good premise and a lot of the acting is pretty good and realistic.
However, good films have a series of ups and downs as they progress, creating tension and then some release.
This film doesn't follow an arc, it's down the whole way with an occasional tiny step up. It becomes very frustrating to watch. Things just get worse and worse and there's no respite from it. Every time they escape then, within two minutes, the tormentors catch back up again. The woman was despatched to go and get help, but instead seems to sit under a tree overnight and then stands staring at the scene. Both of us watching this ended up shouting at the screen at various points.
By the end we were exhausted.
The Tinder Swindler (2022)
Quite an interesting story, not amazing but good enough.
The story alone is good enough to keep you interested for an hour. The documentary is almost twice as long as that so it drags a little bit. You could probably get 90% of the result by looking at Wikipedia for ten minutes.
I didn't feel a huge amount of sympathy for the women involved, they seemed to be taken in by run of the mill internet fakery that we see from social media influencers. Living the dream! Expensive cars, hotels, jewellery and designer clothing. This guy had all of that and good enough looks to pull it off. I will give him credit for charming the women, maybe that's easier when you're throwing money at them as well.
Like a few other Netflix documentaries, this one is ruined by the intrusive music which predictably follows exactly the mood of what they're talking about but is mixed so high that it bludgeons the viewer.