exuberantloquacity Reviews

The Devil All the Time (2020)

Superb film, acting, narrative and soundtrack

[10/10 · 5 April 2024]

This is a superb story and was well-written, filmed, enacted and edited. Outstanding cast, too. It's weird that some people are complaining about this movie. There aren't many like it. It's not disjointed or badly paced. It's well done. It's sort of like Fargo, Natural Born Killers and No Country for Old Men. Speaking of the Coen Brothers, the soundtrack is similar to O Brother Where Art Thou. It helps set the feel of the movie right. Some reviewers complained about Hollywood people judging Appalacia or Christians; that's just absurd. Many good stories with much violence are set against the nice backdrop of the scenic country; it's a style, not an assumption about country people. As for Christians, good Christians would agree that hypocrites are bad. Preaching goodness and being bad is wrong. The Bible itself is filled with that message. The bad people aren't bad because of their faith, they're hypocrites who do the opposite of what their religion teaches. There's plenty of that in the real world, which makes it a good plot. Good movie overall. Watch it.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Somehow finished it

[4/10 · 28 October 2023]

I watched it for McDormand and Harrelson. The plot was ok. The dialogue was often a joke; but this is not comedy. Nothing about the style or content of this movie is funny. There are a few funny lines, however, many dramas have that. It is a drama. There's nothing parody or satirical about this, nor is it a funny movie. The characters are unbelievable. Writers seem to be box-ticking for social credit scores: racist white cops, rednecks in the south, etc. There's no logic to people's actions. The cop isn't a good guy trying to get out. The mother is irrational, so is the father. The chief is most likeable, yet he's spend all these years not trying to find more answers in the case. Nothing like a classic movie. A sub par one. Sad, given the good cast.

Old Dads (2023)

Clever take on multi-generational humour and ethics

[10/10 · 21 October 2023]

There is a serious side to this, as in all good comedies. The issue of the guys not being great and needing to become better people is taken seriously. It presents a realistic and relatable take on the issue of ageing people struggling to keep up with young people's way of speaking, their different values, etc., and worse, having to work for them and be told off by them, when most of their lives they thought they were 'normal' and 'decent' people. They look down on the young and the young look down on them. But there's some better writing than that. They get to know each other and overcome differences. The humour is awesome. Some of the lines, mostly Burr's, are brilliant. Like his character in F is For Family, some of his angry outbursts are funny, and are likely what many people would say out loud, if they had the guts and weren't afraid of consequences. You can have humour about a guy struggling against the new morals of political correctness and politeness, without making him a total jerk, bigot, racist, sexist, etc. Burr is a clever guy. I really enjoyed this movie. 10/10.

Fair Play (2023)

Depressing

[5/10 · 17 October 2023]

There are some valid messages here, such as support your partner when they get a promotion, don't be jealous, criticise them and undermine them for it. The way the relationship changes is a bit unbelievable, as is how the movie ends. I agree with the reviewer who wrote that the relationship should have ended due to the bad behaviour earlier on. Because it didn't, the way the story goes downhill, we see a miserable view of life. People hurting each other, ending up alone but with some money to spend and colleagues to drink with... Not much of a lesson. The ending was probably what broke it for me. It was watchable until then. Yes, these things do happen and they're bad. But it seems that like an episode of South Park I saw, the writers got Chat GPT to write the ending for them. Sad.

Blacklight (2022)

Corn tropes

[5/10 · 14 October 2023]

It's a watchable film with a reasonable plot and acting. The dialogue is atrocious. It's weird seeing a writer/director phoning it in and barely telling a good story. It's strange to see an American movie filmed in Australia. I live in Melbourne and have been to Canberra, so it was nice recognising the filming location, the streets, buildings, plants etc. Neeson is pretty good. Quinn is similar to his role in Elementary, playing another boss. The dialogue between family members about paranoia etc don't make much sense. He's got a right to be wary of danger given his line of work. Making him seem mentally ill wasn't necessary. Nice ending, but no twists or surprises. Fairly implausible that it would end so smoothly and the world would be a better place just because of this. The dialogue between the journalists was awful, so was the hit man guy talk. 'You want us to have a word with him?' give me a break. Corny action movie rubbish. 1980s style car chases too. Eugh. Seen it before. Someone else pointed out the Porsche could outrun those SUVs easily.

Downsizing (2017)

Downsizing plot potential as the story goes on

[3/10 · 26 September 2023]

For modern cinema, this could have explored the size issue much better: seeing large insects, birds, raindrops, cats, etc, etc. Another reviewer mentioned there being three plots. I concur. The first plo isn't executed that well. The second plot contradicts the first plot, with people living differently than was suggested earlier, undermining the premise from the start of the movie. The third plot was even more unnecessary and unconvincing. If this is Damon's answer to DiCaprio's Don't Look Up, it falls flat. The third bit was a rip off of Wickerman and other horrors that had weird, culty Nordic people. Americans seem to love that storyline. Sad. I finished the movie, but have seen better from Damon and the director. King of California was great compared to this.

Blueback (2022)

It's great

[10/10 · 13 September 2023]

The foremost criticism of Blueback is the same one everyone makes when they've read the book first: why are some things left out (to save time, supposedly), then other things added in. This is a general thing that's annoying about movies, so not singular to this movie. With that out of the way, it's a pretty good adaptation of Tim Winton's book. It conveys the story accurately, has the main scenes you're waiting to see, has the same message, etc. The cinematography is excellent. Breathtaking natural footage, which really fits with Winton's message, that the ecosystem here is beautiful and should be cherished and cared for. Bravo.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)

Cheesy, self-indulgent trash

[2/10 · 19 August 2023]

Cage can be good. He's good in Raising Arizona, I find it interesting that in the TV series, Community, they had a class on whether or not Cage is a good actor. It's a interesting question. He can be really great. He's also in some pretty awful movies and can be really annoying. This movie would only be fun for the huge Cage fans. All the people gushing over him, all the references to his other movies, the comments about how good he is, it's so ridiculous. Others have commented about how this is no Being John Malcovich and that they wouldn't make this movie with any other famous actor, e.g., Samuel Jackson. This movie is some real self-fellating (not that there's anything wrong with that). If that's not what you want to see, eschew this movie at all costs. Watch paint dry or watch any of the many good TV series there are these days. It's not meta, funny or clever, it's just drivel.

Your Honor (II) (2020–2023)

Well worth watching; not a great ending.

[9/10 · 6 July 2023]

It'd be pointless to compare this to Breaking Bad or Cranston's other work. Your Honor is a strong series. Season Two continues the story well, with good plot and character development. All the actors are good. It was nice seeing another actor from Breaking Bad appear in Season Two. The main complaint with the show is the finale. The way the writers chose to wrap things up for certain characters was disappointing. Some of the outcomes made little sense, both in the real world and with respect to the characters involved. The writers should have been able to think of better, more plausible ways to end things for each character.

Luckiest Girl Alive (2022)

Always weird reading IMDB reviews.

[2 March 2023]

What's with the people who think her character wasn't well developed or think she didn't have a story arc?

While I haven't been a victim, victims are very common. My ex was abused by her dad. Clearly the scars stay with victims. They have PTSD. The flashbacks and the self-loathing over what someone else did to them; it's all so sad and awful. This movie captures it well.

There are some flaws, as others said: caricature characters etc. I liked her friends. There was no point in what they did. The movie tried to make two points, not one. That wasn't needed.

She had friends who encouraged her to speak out. Don't make bad people or losers out of them. That shoud've been rewritten.

Inside Man (II) (2022)

Bad reviews if you've never read the tragedies

[10/10 · 2 March 2023]

The Greek tragedies and Shakespeare's are well known. If you don't know the genre, you'll be sitting wondering why the characters are doing bad things and shaking your head, even blaming the writers. If you see this as a tragedy, it makes sense. They're supposed to be bad actions and bad choices, the outcomes are meant to be bad. But we can look at their mistakes and see what they should have done. We can learn from others' mistakes. It's not a new genre. Everything working out well isn't that realistic. People do stupid things every day in real life. Some get away with it, some pay the price. But human folly is real. There are plenty of references to real world behaviour here.

The Simpsons: The King of Nice (2022) Season 34, Episode 4

Great

[10/10 · 4 February 2023]

I only knew bits about the Ellen story, but knew enough to get the references. I feel like The Simpsons has got hold of something South Park has been doing well for at least the past seven years: making episodes satirising very current things, so it's social commentary on something that's trending or in the news this year, or even recently before the episode airs. I like that approach. Can't the reviewers who keep coming back on here every time to write, "Worst, episode, ever!" realise that they are Comic Book Guy? He was created specifically to mock them and their haughty attitudes. Having never created anything good themselves, they constantly moan about how terrible other people's creative work is. Worst reviewers ever. The Simpsons isn't in decline. It's still good. That many people who love it have written it off years ago and won't watch the new episodes is sad. They still write good stuff. Yeah, there are a few duds, but there always were a few. Often, they hit the mark.

The Internship (2013)

Ad for Google

[2/10 · 22 January 2023]

Not even a thinly veiled ad for Google. Pure propaganda about how wonderful it is. What a ludicrous plot. Since the movie has been made, much has come to light about Google's bad side, from manipulating searches so everyone ends up on YouTube, not competitors' sites, to censoring for the government and military, to censoring on behalf of foreign governments with human rights issues, etc. Their products are good, which most agree on. The search engine itself is the big problem. So, to watch these stars in a movie that's really just an ad for how great Google is, no thank you. Pretty weird script too.

The Matrix Resurrections (I) (2021)

I wanted this to be good or reasonable

[1/10 · 10 January 2023]

... but it was neither. The trilogy goes down in ratings from the first movie. I remember enjoying all three and having no particular complaints about any of them.

This was one of a handful of movies I stopped watching half way through to come and write a scathing review.

I did a similar thing after trying to sit through "The Secret", after a friend wrongly told me that would change my life.

By the middle of this movie, I couldn't believe it at all. The acting is cardboard. The music doesn't work. The plot and dialogue make little sense and aren't interesting. As many have pointed out, these reboot films usually fail. Bill and Ted's was similar; why dig up something classic that people loved, carry on with the same characters, but decades later, and write a sub-par story that fails as a sequel, and for many, ruins the experience of watching all of them, making them wish they'd avoided the reboot. I have no interest in seeing how this shocking movie ends. Nothing about the story thus far, the cinematography, etc., make me want to continue.

Another reviewer wrote that this movie makes you wonder if the writers had stolen the original Matrix script. I have to concur. How can the writers be so much worse after years more experience?

Sad.

The Simpsons: Poorhouse Rock (2022) Season 33, Episode 22

Quit your whinin'. That's a paddlin'

[10/10 · 30 December 2022]

What is wrong with reviewers? This wasn't socilaist propaganda, it was an observation of the fact that corrupt politicians have sold out the people, dissolving the middle class, and that children growing up will not end up having wha their parents had. For all the whining about it not being funny: the last 5 seasons or so of South Park have been acerbic social commentary, directly criticising both the Democrats and Republicans. It's pure gold to watch, and much better than the old toilet humour of the show. For The Simspsons to make an episode that starts off feeling like a classic episode, then ends up being strong social commentary, this shows me the show has still got it. It's not a failure, it's a success. Satire is meaningless without making a point. This show makes a point. A good one. Those who think it's socialist to look after people should look at every democratic, caputalist country other than the USA. We all look after our people. At the very least, giving unemployed people welfare stimulates the economy. Australia gave people a thousand dollar tax refund in around 2010. The result was we didn't experience the Global Financial Crisis. Just think, people. Quit your whining. Use a dictionary before you talk about socialism again.

John Wick (2014)

Russian and James Bond Tropes

[5/10 · 29 December 2022]

The US never let go of the Russophobia after the Cold War ended. (2014 is an historically interesting year for this to come out. What with involvement in Ukraine and two years before the Russiagate hoax). Russian baddies is so overdone in movies, particularly Hollywood ones. Like in James Bond, multiple baddies can shoot at the protagonist and all miss, while he easily takes them out, one-by-one. Utterly absurd, no matter how good the guy is supposed to be. There are so many tired tropes and cliches in John Wick. Letting main characters get away because they need to keep the plot going (plot armour). Even the heavy rock music is cliched, with the distorted blues riffs, like cheesy metal. Not good. Not good at all. I won't watch the sequels. I don't blame Reeves. I like him as an actor. I blame the writers and director. Lest we forget: Russians bad. Americans good.

The Guilty (2021)

Great film

[10/10 · 17 September 2022]

JG's acting in here is excellent. It's sad that some didn't like it because it was a remake. As others have written, it makes no difference. The US remake of The Killing was equally good as the original. This film is intense as we watch Jake on screen the whole time, almost always in a close-up as well. The only aspect I wasn't sure was necessary was his side story. The film would be fine without it, however, perhaps it was to add to the intensity, in which case, that worked. The tension and suspense were well done. It could work as well as a play. The on screen all the time for one actor role reminds me Naomi Watts in Ellie Parker, although that wasn't also shot in one location and had far more other actors on screen.

Love, Death & Robots: Jibaro (2022) Season 3, Episode 9

Worst in the series

[1/10 · 13 September 2022]

I've found a few of these tough, but sat through them. I hated this one. Not animation, disjointed, sporadic, not arty, just rubbish. So much great creative work is art, without being awful. Calling something jarring and unwatchable art is being loose with the term. I didn't finish this. I couldn't handle watching it. It's the equivalent of a song with out-of-tune singing, our of time or dischordant. Not nice. Not very nice, not that nice at all. What a weird way to have to finish the word quota. By that of course, I mean, this is. Back to the episode: I did not like it, not with green eggs and ham, not with a man and not in a van. I do not like this episode, not one bit.

City on a Hill (2019–2022)

Reminds me of High Town

[4/10 · 23 August 2022]

Reminds me of High Town. Similarly, it appears to be painting the town it's based in in a worse light that it really is/was. Similarly to HIgh Town, I can't like any of the characters. They're bad, mean, macho; there's nothing redeeming. What's the entertainment factor here? Sad. Couldn't continue watching. There's so much else out there to watch.

Punk: Attitude (2005)

Read Smash by Ian Winwood for what they skipped about the 80s

[5/10 · 8 July 2022]

There's been lots said about the first punk scene before. Most docos and exhibitions claim that punk ended around 1979 or 80. This doco at least acknowledges that punk survived underground for a decade and that Nirvana and Green Day didn't come from a vacuum at all. But then it doesn't say anything about the 80s bands. Smash, by Ian Winwood, does. It talks about the early punk scene too and how many bands started after seeing the Sex Pistols. But then it explains the 80s. X was a core influencer. Bands like Bad Religion, NOFX, Green Day, Rancid and Offspring were watching bands like X, the Germs and Black Flag before they started their own bands. The book is really good. It's a shame Punk Attitude got as far as acknowledging that punk went through the 80s but neglected to discuss the bands of the decade. It could have been longer and covered that. Someone should turn Smash into a movie. There's some footage of the early 80s in The Decline of Western Civilisation.

Tallulah (2016)

Good acting; poor script

[6/10 · 17 June 2022]

The cast in this are great. That's what made it watchable. The script is pretty bad. The actions are immoral, the characters say and do bad things and there's no point to take away from it. I've noticed that many movies portray this bad mother character, however, far fewer of them portray the terrible father, from the neglectful ones to the ones who run away from parenting altogether, to the abusive ones. This mother is pretty shocking, as is the protagonist. There's no good outcome at all. That poor child. Pretentious, film festival wannabe rubbish from writers who probably think they're pretty clever. They're not. Again, it's worth watching for the acting. The cast made the film work, hence the 6.

Miracle Workers (2019–2023)

Season 2 is good.

[10/10 · 4 June 2022]

Other reviewers trashed Season 2. I preferred it to Season 1, which as others have written, is similar to The Good Place, but not as good. Season 2 is clever and funny. For another comparison, it reminds me of Disenchantment, in terms of style more than content. The same cast playing different characters in each season, based on different books by the same author, is a novel approach (not just the Cliff Notes.) Very nice. Seeing Daniel in a castle is the most similar scene I've seen him in to Harry Potter so far.

Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell (2012–2022)

Acerbic wit

[10/10 · 19 May 2022]

This show has been getting sharper every season. An update for the sake of the reviewer who thinks the ABC is constantly 'liberal bashing'. It's become as much a tool for the LNP as Murdoch, Seven, Nine and Fairfax. Micalleff is about the only person on here aside from Sammy J who calls out the corruption and awful governing of the party who are going to be voted out this Saturday. A person who claims to value 'balance' would appreciate a jibe at any politician or party, as long as the dig was fair and justified, because what they said or did was actually bad. Satire is meant to poke fun at and condemn awful behaviour and speech from corrupt, inept and nasty politicians, regardless of their 'side.' It's easy to imagine that when Labor is in again, the show will poke fun at them, too, much like how Jon Stewart, after criticising Bush, started criticising Obama after he won the election. Either way, it's not the person criticising the politician who's bad, it's the bad politician. If we don't hold them to account, we aren't participating in our prized democracy.

Micalleff is an intelligent satirist and very enjoyable to watch, much like Sammy J. I would say like The Weekly, but that's lost its way this year.

Sammy J (2018–2022)

Superb satire in such a short segment

[10/10 · 19 May 2022]

Each week, Sammy J delivers acerbic political satire. He's been consistently on the money with his serious points and jokes, much like Mad as Hell or South Park. Varying between clever songs, playground politics, government coach, a yoga instructor and more, Sammy J is always entertaining and makes justified digs at politicians for the bad stuff that the media never challenge them for anymore.

The Weekly with Charlie Pickering (2015– )

Not Micalleff or Sammy J

[6/10 · 19 May 2022]

This used to be satire and comparable to Shaun Micalleff's Mad as Hell or Sammy J. Not this year. There's barely any satire anymore and the jokes are low-brow. Sad.