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Reviews
Black Mirror: Joan Is Awful (2023)
Awful. Awful. Awful. In every universe.
I must admit, I was eagerly anticipating the return of Black Mirror with its sixth season, hoping for the thought-provoking and mind-bending storytelling the series is known for. However, I found myself sorely disappointed by the premiere episode, "Joan Is Awful." It's ironic that the episode's title perfectly encapsulates my sentiments towards it-truly, complete and surprisingly awful.
One would expect Black Mirror, a show renowned for its exploration of the dark side of technology, to have its finger on the pulse of recent technological trends. Unfortunately, it appears that the writers decided to do the exact opposite. It's as if they deliberately chose to ignore the advancements and possibilities of the near future. This lack of attention to detail is an unforgivable oversight for a series of this caliber.
The fundamental flaw lies in the writing itself. The story presented in "Joan Is Awful" is uninspiring and plain, lacking the depth and complexity that has come to define Black Mirror. The dialogue feels forced and contrived, failing to engage or provoke any meaningful thoughts. It's as if they hired the worst writer in the world to craft this narrative, and the result is a painfully dull experience.
Furthermore, the acting in this episode is subpar, further exacerbating the disappointment. The performances come across as wooden and unconvincing, failing to evoke any genuine emotion or investment in the characters. It's disheartening to witness such a talented cast struggle with material that does not do justice to their abilities.
To make matters worse, "Joan Is Awful" attempts to inject humor into the storyline, but falls flat on its face. The comedic moments feel forced and out of place, breaking the already fragile immersion. It's clear that the episode fails to strike the right balance between its intended tone and the overall narrative, resulting in an awkward and jarring viewing experience.
Additionally, the episode's plot fails to captivate or engage the viewer. It lacks the intriguing twists and turns that have become synonymous with Black Mirror. The story feels predictable and uninteresting, offering nothing new or thought-provoking. In fact, it feels like a recycled idea that has been explored in a much more compelling manner in previous seasons.
Moreover, the events depicted in "Joan Is Awful" veer into unrealistic territory, further diminishing its impact. Black Mirror has always thrived on its ability to present a near-future world that feels eerily plausible, causing us to reflect on our own technological dependency. However, this episode misses the mark completely, failing to strike a balance between imagination and believability.
It deeply saddens me to witness the decline of Black Mirror's quality, especially considering the lackluster final two episodes of the previous season. As the opening episode of a new season, "Joan Is Awful" should have set the stage for the remaining episodes, but it does little to inspire confidence in the direction the series is heading.
In conclusion, "Joan Is Awful" is a lackluster addition to the Black Mirror canon. It fails to deliver the thought-provoking storytelling, compelling performances, and realistic technological exploration that the series is renowned for. As a devoted fan, I can only hope that the subsequent episodes of the sixth season prove to be a significant improvement and help restore the show's former glory.
Fall (2022)
Funny, not in a good way.
It's called a thriller, but in reality it's often unrealistically silly. Even I'm not a climbing expert, but I have seen a doc or two about climbing. I am pretty sure these people have no real experience when it comes to climbing. There were a few moments that were relatively original but that doesn't save the poor storyline. It's a good movie to be watched by two friends over some wines and no high expectations or any good judgement when it comes to climbing.
Also, there are a lot of practical things that don't make much sense. They could have done things different to increase their odds. They also do certain things that just don't fit their character and personality. At some point there is a revelation that is somewhat surprising but again, mot enough to give this movie a pass, that's for sure.
Nope (2022)
Surprisingly... nope.
Just visited the premiere here in Antwerp, Belgium. To be honest, I was looking forward to this film once I heard about it a year ago. Needless to say, my expectations were quite high, given Peele's reputation, the budget for this movie, the marketing around it and the interview Peele recently gave in Universal Studios. He recommended to go and see the movie in Imax, so that's what I did. I was really excited to see this movie, as you can obviously tell.
However...
This movie turned out quite different than what I was expecting. It definitely had my attention from the start. I appreciated almost every aspect of the movie, but at some point things tool a turn for the worse. Hoping this would all resolve itself as the movie was progressing, I was being disappointed again and again. Now, I have to say, I gave it a lot of margin for error, 'cause I truly wanted to like this movie.
There seemed to be times where the story unfolded but doesn't pick up on that storyline, causing me as a viewer to get distracted. This lead me to believe it was just my wrong understanding of things or me not focussing hard enough on the details or in general. In short, it felt a mess and I couldn't quite decide what was causing it.
If I had to point at something, I would say Nope tries to please too many people at the same time. Instead of providing some authentic and refreshing horror, it falls into this category of horror that is not particularly original and easily forgotten. Maybe this 'evolution' is unavoidable when directors start to reach a wider audience and have to work with bigger budgets, but it feels like Jordan Peele should try to return to the basics and work with less instead of more. That would essentially force him creatively to make things work on a different level, as opposed to throwing money in expensive CGI. In the end, it's all about a compelling story and no amount of effects or brilliant shots are going to make up for that, at least in my opinion.
So yeah, there you have it. I hate that I didn't love this film, 'cause I consider myself a Jordan Peele fan, but this movie just wasn't for me, unfortunately.
Old (2021)
Painful on so many levels...
This movie could have gone two ways... One way would be a horror-comedy that, despite its attempt to be scary at times, it deliberately chooses to amuse and entertain. The other is plain horror/thriller, which is in fact the genre this movie advertised with. Sadly, they went straight through the middle, resulting in neither fun nor scary. And don't get me started on other aspects of this film. To be honest, I went in to see this movie tonight with medium expectations: the concept seemed interesting, it had a bunch of actors on a remote location. Usually, these form some pretty nice ingredients for a strange, bizarre and interesting film. However, in the first 20 minutes or so, the movie already starts giving off warning signs. You know, those warnings that let the audience feel like they're children or people with some intellectual defect. This pattern of story telling is, unfortunately, very recurring. It's not that complicated of a story, why bother telling us everything we need to know, all the time. This is called exposition and is a cheap and unoriginal way of storytelling, by the way.
So far, I haven't even touched other elements of the film. The quality of the acting varies but is mostly very poorly directed. Not to give any spoilers (as if I could), but when something shocking happens, people just seem to carry on relaxing on the beach. No traumatic or dramatic emotions, not a single tear, nothing. That's one of many arguments for making my previous point: is this supposed to be entertaining or some sense of dark humor? It's not? Oh, well, then it's certainly not tasteful. They do a horrible job at depicting violence by the way, one of these moments even involves a baby, which I found absolutely tasteless and disgusting to use as some cheap way to shock the viewer.
Another thing that strook me as remarkably consistent is the amount of nudity and exposure of young women in the movie, including many suggestions (implicit or explicit). This was one of those warning signs that clearly sends out the type of people who made this movie happen: perverted guys that missed out and feel the need to compensate by releasing this kind of material. If you're going for that kind of style, at least have the decency to advertise it as such. This was clearly aimed at men with specific interests, but I'm sure the audience is not expecting this.
The story line is flatter than the beach it takes place on. There are more holes than a fishing net. Again, if you're going for comedy-horror, at least admit it. This movie continuously tries to be something it is not. It tries to sell this story to the audience but it has no clue how to do so, so they end up grasping at straws and decide to resort to cliche jump scares and cheap effects to give us some of the excitement we are so desperately looking for.
In summary, I experienced this movie as one of the worst movies I have ever seen and would not recommend anyone to watch it. It is tasteless, has no story, no silver lining, hardly any positive aspects and is a reflection of the cheap, money-grabbing industry called Hollywood.
His House (2020)
English? Really?
One thing that I was instantly annoyed by, or rather surprised, is the fact the two characters speak perfect English. Even when the female character asks for directions while mispronouncing words, she speaks perfect English the entire film.
The stero typical racial differences are also very distracting from the political message they want to send (more on that later). It seems that they desperately wanted our sympathy, but didn't want to put in the work to build up their character.
The political message they try to convey is simply unclear and very poorly visualized. They move from one time and place to another and it's unclear how it alles fits together.
The sound effects are heavily overused; there is often more sound than image and it often used in overkill to keep the viewer interested. That being said, the overuse of jump scares is also a very desperate attempt to get the viewer in their grip. This should not be the kind of movie that should have to rely on these easy ways to scare the viewer.
The visual effects were OK, but also overused and you could definitely witness the early days of a young visual effects creator, using everything he has in his tool belt to how off his recent skills. The director should have known the time and place for this better.
My most important observation was the idea that this film borrowed a LOT of elements from other horror films, but copied them without any real original tone of voice. They just wanted a quick way to bootstrap their movie and sell a decent trailer, which is simply disappointing.
The ending, which I will not reveal, because there is not much to spoil, is just blurry, plain and not quite as thought provoking as the film leads up to. You turn off the tv with an awful font for the end credits and think to yourself "well, that's one and a half movie that I won't get back...".
The acting of most characters was OK. I hope this film may lead to more roles, but I think their talents were underused; they could have easily carried his film more, instead of relying on cheap computer effects.
In summary, this movie seems like a long short, one that was stretched to an hour and a half in order to be used by Netflix and add to their large stack of average-quality films.
On the Rocks (2020)
Apple sauce drips on every corner. And it tastes like nothing.
From all low reviews, none of them mentioned the fact that Apple produced this movie, which I think is pretty essential for the poor quality it has resulted in. Why would a large electronics company be the blame? Exactly. Because they have more to lose than to gain. In my opinion, this causes a narrow-minded, unrealistic portrayel that comes nowhere near real-world drama that they try to convey. There is no risk, no edge, no emotional message. If there are any messages, they smell pretentious and out of date. For some reason they like to think they created some legitimate cause for spreading cliches about pretty much any topic they choose and reformatting them using their own narrow-minded, conservative style they would use for an Apple ad. Multi-racial relationship without any real difficulties or emotional depth, new york coffee cups and big appartments, creating start-ups, writing books and raising children (or rather have baby sitters), all pretty much stress free. Where is that crucial moment that shows that they actually care for people and have looked into the ways people behave and interact with one another in the real world. A world that is dominated by much larger and more important things than silly relational misunderstandings with happy endings? One might wonder: why would you put that much thought in just another romantic comedy (if you can call it that)? Well, it's because it's movies like these that send out the wrong morals and values in a way that simply does not comply with today's expectations and ideals. It does the complete opposite of what feel-good movies should deliver in times like these. Apple has delivered a movie that is just as plain and dull as their products: lifeless, unempathic and simply oversimplified in order to please the esthetic part, which is not as important as the soul...
Werk ohne Autor (2018)
Not sure what this movie is trying to do. I mean that in a bad way.
I am having real trouble figuring out why exactly I didn't like this movie. Just watched it and maybe I should wait a day or two to let the film sink in... Nahh-Not worth it.
As other reviewers already pointed out, the length of this movie is unnecessary. Many scenes could have easily been shortened and just as many are irrelevant in my opinion. The nudity during many, oh so many, scenes is also overused and say I'm a prude, but even these kind of things things can get too much-It does can get under your skin (see whay I did there). What you're left with is an impression of a somewhat dirty perverded movie crew, but more likely the writers and director. Can't believe the actresses bought the artistic value though, as it's often just fifty shades with a richer background, although not that much I should add.
That brings me to the main characters, who were all well played, if you ask me. However, I could often sense that they were hoping to convey something more. A message that was promised by the director and producers but never quite delivered when it came down to it. The main characters are plain and static and all seem to get along just fine-even if one of them were nazis. I was constantly waiting for this social distuption but that never arrives. Instead, it shows a sugar coated version of life and how things look like in a family's photo album. If you aim for a movie set in such a historic time, at least take it more seriously and don't just skip to the happy, fun parts.
Technically I also had some trouble buying the story. More specifically scenes where the main characters, the couple, does not communicate at all about things that concern them. It's all washed away with another scene of something less dramatic. At some point the main character's wife gets an abortion from her own father, without any moment of discussion between her own husband. This just doesn't feel right to me.
More technically, what I find very distracting and unfair about movies like thrse is that tell an story that actually happened and as a result, one could not question anything as part of the story-since it's simple reality and no writer's fault. However.... What they can most definitely screw up is using this excuse to shape and present this story in a way that does not bring it any justice. It's annoying when this happens because that allows the creators to only accept any comments when it's positive and reject it when it's not.
That makes this movie very hard to judge in my opinion. Many of the pieces are there but many are missing at the same time and even more seem to be completely blank. What does this finished puzzle look like you ask? Disrupted, incohesive and force-pressed together in a frame that was made by someone else, desperately hoping it will get the same positive feedback as their silly, immature press conference in the own picture. Do me a favor: grow up and create your own frame to work with. See what happens.
Leave No Trace (2018)
Clean version of life, unjustified.
I honestly don't understand why this film is appreciated so much by our fellow reviewers. It's heavily overrated and it gets too much attention for details that are either put under a microscope or were interpreted completely out of scope. Quite honestly, I think this movie provokes your imagination and that may be its goal, however, it seems a little too essy to make a film that relies on your imagination for the most part.
The acting was OK, but it seems that most viewers either hate it or love it. To me that really shows how much of the acting was really just a matter of being very consistent, but in style and not in terms of quality, variety or dimensions.
The characters were in my opinion unrealistic. As others pointed out, the girl shows no sign of being held captive as it were. This storyline was clearly an afterthought and the dad hardly justifies his behavior. Many details were left open in order for some mystery to exist but that's another way for lazy story writing if you ask me.
My summary is 'Clean version of life' - Right, so the story clearly all about people, social differences and culture. But how come this story and theme is brought to live with such so little nuance and differentiating scenes. It seems like the world is just one big happy family and surely there must be some factor that puts things in perspective. It's as if they wanted to preserve humanity as beautiful as the nature the movie is set. Let's be honest, that is definitely suger coating it. And if it did occur as the story played out, then either the dad or the daughter were on some serious meds...
Papillon (2017)
Lacks mostly character, among other things.
As many others have already pointed out in the reviews, you just can't stop comparing this film to the original. And for good reasons, as the film clearly takes on the role as a remake. However, they missed the point. Whoever was in charge of putting in that extra bit of character, layeredness and overall depth and details was obviously not present on the set. It's really sad to see this movie title produced in this way. A boring, perhaps even a bit pretentious, soulless version of the original. Stay away folks. Just watch (or read) the original. And to be clear: apples & oranges, though.
The Apartment (1960)
Just Genius... (12/10)
Every bit was carefully directed and executed. No room for error and yet presented as the most natural way possible. Could not emphasize more how much I think this movie is brilliant in every way possible. - Yes; Take that Hollywood of today, with films nowhere near as good as this one, for example.
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Brilliant. I wish I could give it a 12/10.
Just plain brilliant. Any other words would simply discredit this film. You simply have to see it, and especially in perspective from then and today. Timeless comedy.
Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (2019)
Boring
I have a lot of patience, but this movie required more than that: imagination of second layers that aren't there. I hear the word "pretentious" a lot these days, but here it definitely applies. I would not recommend, unless you have watched everything else and wanted something a bit slower paced and... little story.
Bad Boys for Life (2020)
It made me laugh, but NOT in a good way.
I was honestly surprised they managed to screw up this movie. It's almost like everyone agreed from the start not to put any effort in and 'just go with it'. There were tons and tons of great opportunities here, especially considering the large time gap between all the movies. Instead, they decided to use the same old recipe, not for old time sake, but for money and greed sake. This is a sad depiction of the superficial movie creators (and watchers) that this movie tends to attract. No creative people, but wallets and smart investors. It's a good thing from time to time I see people making great films these days, otherwise I would get seriously depressed. If there is any hope, it certainly doesn't apply to the crew and production of this movie right here. Thank you for destroying a legacy, a nostalgia your own credibility...
Lost in Translation (2003)
Things I learned from Lost in Translation
I'm a little late to the party, but I gave it a go and I found it very insightful indeed. It taught me a lot, honestly. Here are some things I picked up while watching this great film:
1. Japan has a culture that is considered to be strange, awkward and plain dumb. There are hardly any exceptions.
2. It's completely normal to cheat in a relationship, as long as the other party doesn't appear to be extremely appealing at that moment. Oh, and there are no moral dilemma's attached whatsoever, so by all means, go for it.
3. If you've got money and fame, you are considered above the rest and you can treat everyone as such. Especially the Japanese, since their culture is already considered to be inferior.
4. Even if you do not try to fit into a different culture and its people, just nod politely and next thing you know it, you get what you deserve. After all, you are the guest, so they should obey you, not the other way around.
5. It's a movie and surely its message doesn't have any moral obligations. Movies are like zoos or entertainment parks. They have nothing else to show us than pretty imagery and clever quotes.
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For those few who thought I was being serious: Hi there! I hope you liked this movie, as I'm sure you have. Just do not rate it, for the love of good movies.
Beatriz at Dinner (2017)
Not telling a story nor sending out a (real) massage.
Although all the right ingredients were there, it's a true shame they were not used as effectively I was hoping for. If you pitch this movie, I could see why producers went for it. However, when you look closely at the significance of the message and the importance of the context is should be told in, they should have paid waay more attention to the dialogues and interations betweeb the characters. To me it feels like you're continuously being teased with a piece of cake, but guess what... no cake. Not a strong story in my opinion.
Black Mirror: Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too (2019)
Lame, Boring and Sad Too.
Wow, I really cannot believe this was written by the creators of Black Mirror. I even feel like going into detail why this episode is so bad does it too much justice, because I would never had watched it if it wasn't part of BM. It has wasted everyone's time and more importantly, it destroyed people's believe in a show that intrigues and offers a glimpse of what's on the horizon in the field of social technology, which to me is one of our most bespoken subjects of this time. In a way it leads the dialogue on this subject, or at least inspires most of us to have a dialogue. I know this is just one episode, but people tend to stop watching after an episode this bad and therefore stop having the dialogue while they're at it. Do the creators have a moral obligation? Perhaps you could argue they do, even though many will consider this statement exaggerated, because "it is just a show". It's a message that reaches billions of minds world wide, so I would argue it is a big deal. I would simply advice to think twice before airing episodes like this. And start read your reviews, amd yes, also the positive ones!
The Clovehitch Killer (2018)
The movie was just like bud's face. Boring.
I cannot believe this movie gets a 6,5 at the time of this writing. Although the father almost carried the movie in a somewhat Breaking Bad style, the remaining characters (and lack of) prove to be a disappointment. The boy was like a statie from start to finish, even at times where he could have really shine. The storyline is predictable at many times, including the ending. Mid-movie it looks like the editor quit and the intern took over, hoping to pull of an original "reverse storyline"... but failed doing so. Also, there are times when you must wonder how they really managed to track down the father and in addition, manage to get his body out. So many holes and questions, you could think of this movie as a potentially nice knot, but a poor job of tying it up as such.
Arctic (2018)
Boring
I agree with all the low-score reviews. Terribly boring and overrated. Waste of your time. Zzzz...
Dumb and Dumber To (2014)
Very disappointing for the real fans
I've just visited the movie on premiere night and I had pretty high expectations, considering the current IMDb score (7.9, which is high for any comedy), but I was very disappointed, to say the least.
Even though the creators had 20 years to think of the best story and jokes that would fit the characters, somehow they managed to make it seem they wrote it in a week. The jokes were shallow, not thought through and did not fit this time of age. Many jokes were poor references of the original movie and therefore seem too easy. Next to that, Jim Carry doesn't have any real jokes and just acts weird and obtrusive.
The makers obviously tried to make Harry and Lloyd seem to be the same old guys as you used to know them, but obviously they failed. That being said, I think the worst mistake was to try to recreate the classic Harry and Lloyd. I think I would have appreciated it much more if they immediately introduced the cast as old, which they are, so at least that pink elephant is out of the room.
Forgive me for saying this, but perhaps... *sigh* ...the Farrelly brothers should have left the original alone.