popcolin Reviews

Floor Is Lava: Return of the Virzi Triplets (2022) Season 2, Episode 1

Good fun

[7/10 · 4 June 2022]

I like it when they fall in the lava! It's also really good when they don't. Their reactions are fun to watch and the host, Rutledge, does a great job interacting but more casually, like a dad watching their children play. I read that the lava is made with cornstarch and xanthin gum, which I would not want to be submersed in. But given the chance I would love to run the course just to see if it's as tough as it looks. Good episode, quite a few moments of scream-at-the-tv action, especially when they almost fall in.

Tenet (2020)

Moscow theater should be proud

[2/10 · 1 September 2020]

Edit: after learning about a real incident involving a terrorist attack in Russia that's is the EXACT scene as depicted in the opening scene it is incredible that this tragedy has been exploited where over 200 people choked on their own tongues and suffocated following the government trying to stop a terrorist attacking by letting 1/5 of the hostages die. And here comes dollar-wood here to exploit it giving no credit to the real survivors or having any sympathy for the families of the victims

Really really bad. I'm tired of these Nolan movies giving people the illusion that they are super intelligent. No one who has ever put together a jigsaw puzzle has said afterwards "look how smart I am". No if anything they congratulate themselves on having patience and then to do something that doesn't make them feel so empty inside. Also I'm not sure how he can get away with making a 200 million dollar movie with only 5 actors in 95% of the movie, the remaining being the "big" action scenes that make James Bond movies look like the most active thing in the world. But anyways if this movie is some kind of benchmark that the world pandemic is some kind of over with then yes, this movie is a master piece. But as far as I'm concerned people are still sick and dying all over the world so it turns out this movie is not smart, it's a lie to the same people that the director is trying to empower. Jeez, I hope no one gets sick because of him.

Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)

Loved it, liked better than the originals

[9/10 · 28 August 2020]

Yeah the originals are classic and all but especially Bogus Journey has not aged well at all. Here we have a great reunion with a whole new message about togetherness in a time of anything but. Keanu in my eyes can do no wrong and is a great human being, actually someone deserving of being famous. So you have to forgive him if he doesn't meet your expectations of how he should look in the role or if he is capturing the same spirit he had in his early 20's. Clearly everyone involved including a veteran director and the original script writers were interested in making an entertaining thing here. It's meant to be fun, a lot of great flashback moments to the first two movies without being lame. A great new villain is introduced that turns out to be an awesome character all around. I'll try not to spoil anything here because this is a great movie to go into Kline. Also if you thought the movie was going to be too much about the daughters you will be surprised because it actually has a really nice balance. Just overall the movie is a lot of fun, it's much easier to watch than the originals because the pacing is a lot more in tune with how people think nowadays. Anyway I think you should watch with an open mind and an open heart, because the message is about bringing everyone together instead of just needlessly trashing on things we have an opinion about. Perfect movie for any time of day.

Buffaloed (2019)

Gross

[3/10 · 9 August 2020]

Not sure why playfully extorting people out of money using the most disgusting methods is entertaining. Oh, wait, I remember, people in this world are so in love with money they've become stupid in the race to get it. Enjoy ruining people's lives and buying yourself cake to celebrate. I hope you are happy you are enslaved and are physically hurting those around you so you can enjoy a life of comfort.

The Unicorn (2019–2021)

I'm not sure it works, but I love it

[8/10 · 8 March 2020]

Sure the series started off kind of awkward, pretty quickly dropped the whole premise of Wade being this extremely desirable bachelor, and has undoubtedly the worst name for a TV series ever (like so bad I would be a little embarrassed to recommend it to people solely based off the name) but around the 10th episode something magical happened and I really started enjoying the show for the characters. Now we are almost at episode 20 and my enjoyment of the show has changed from putting it on every Thursday to irritate my girlfriend and put us both to sleep to now the both of us genuinely laughing out loud and actually enjoying it, especially for Michaela Watkins and Rob Corddry. That may sound strange and it is. Because nothing about this show should work, from how annoying the secondary characters are to the silly plot lines that don't progress from episode to episode and even the amount of teeth that Walton Goggins has. It all ends up being a little confusing, especially because I am young enough there is no reason I should be able to relate to these characters, nor do they seem realistic even if I was more of the target audience. But I do and I end up looking forward to this show more than all the other series I watch. I for one am glad that they have minimized the conquests of Wade and made it into more of an ensemble cast kind of show. The only thing they need to do now is to figure out a way to successfully change the name of the show without cancelling it. I feel if they did that it could last several more seasons, as it seemed at the start that all of the actors were treating it more as a show that could keep them in the spotlight just long enough to find something better to jump onto, but now it seems as though everyone is more confident that the show could be more successful that it seemed at first. Take that for what you'd like because the show isn't groundbreaking or really worthy of much discussion but it is still solid television done well enough to really invest some time in. It's different enough from everything else on tv that it really does stand out as being better.

Charlie's Angels (2019)

Stop the hate, please

[10/10 · 21 February 2020]

Yeah this movie isn't groundbreaking and it seems as though a lot of reviews here have more of an issue with what the director said about not liking the movie because it is a female cast. I think she made her point pretty well if everyone is talking about it so much, fueling the exact same thing she was talking about and letting the complainers prove what she said was probably true but no ones going to admit to it.

Hating a movie just because it is not amazing does not give you the right to say that "because women are showing off they need to impress us men". The movie is showing off female empowerment, unlike the original reboot that was just about watching the girls spread their legs in every karate stance imaginable for us to pause with our TV's to. That movie was not groundbreaking or progressive but this movie, just for the point that women are EQUAL, not better than men, brings attention to a good point we need to discuss in our society.

Of course they need to make it in a movie that is entertaining and for my money: yes, they most certainly was a lot of fun to watch. They took us all over the world, car chases, fight scenes all in a high quality package that felt like it is current.

So the people reviewing this movie a "1" are doing it purely for hate and I'm not sure why. The movie is not terrible so all these people rating below 5 stars I don't think understand they are disliking it for another reason that is not the film itself. Could this be greedy Hollywood or reboots? I doubt that because that's never stopped being a problem. I think people rating this movie one stars are really trying to say that they don't like the fact that there are so many women on the screen. Don't go see the movie if that how you think. And I doubt that all 700 of these reviews even watched the movie, a lot of people just seem out of by the lady-power. But do not think that just because you gave an opinion it is right or justified.

Movies like these help society move forward by gaining a lot of publicity to otherwise disregarded opinions like that of how women do not feel as respected as their male counterparts. The only reason I rated this a 10 was to help it standout in a sea of 1,2,3 star reviews. More modestly this movie is a 6, because it moves quickly, looks beautiful, and the story they were trying to say has been said a million times but I still found it fun to watch.

I'll just end this by saying think about why you actually dislike the movie. If it is poor performances or problems with the script then that's fine. But stop blaming the cast and director just because they were the parts you saw. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people worked on this movie and supported it and they got all of you to see it in some capacity. It's a job that I think has some impact on society and it's up to the viewer to figure out what it means to them. This movie, as are all the female cast reboots, are a great step forward, hopefully leading us to a world with no hate. Thanks for reading.

9 (2019)

It's about Mental Health

[10/10 · 21 February 2020]

Major spoilers ahead please don't read further unless you've seen it already or really want a full description to decide if you want to see it.

I told myself I'd stop reviewing movies but this one I need to comment on. It seems as though even the people loving this movie don't fully understand it. My take away might be different than what the director intended but I am 95% sure that this movie is a metaphor on mental health. All the signs are there. It is an extremely well crafted and beautifully photographed film dealing with both the question of "who are we and where did we come from?" as well as the more real question of "should we decide to be our own god?" The movie makes a bold statement on consciousness, as the main character, Albert is interested from the beginning on strengthening his bond with his son, expanding his career, and trying to understand what this phenomenon of a visiting nearby asteroid mean, as we see it, mainly to the more extreme rural community. There is a clear narrative to make the ideas behind the movie more easy to understand. There is a series of events with a mysterious woman Ava who gets sucked into the life of Albert and his son, eventually revealing she is the human form of the asteroid there to spread the message to Albert that in order for humanity to move forward as we need to embrace the thing that makes us human, our capacity for love. If this seems complicated it because it is. The way I see it though it is just a metaphor for mental health. The mysterious woman that wrecks everything is revealed to only exist in Albert's mind, as if the manifestation of his negative thoughts put into a character as though the demon inside is coming out. We see this twice as well in the dark forest as Albert is fighting his demon manifested as a wolf stalking him, the second visit with the wolf he is able to stand up for himself, to understand his faults as a human, the struggle with knowing the difference between right and wrong, the negative thoughts he associates with his dead wife and son. And along the way the ridiculous fight with the monks throwing him down the hill and banishing him from the forest. He does not believe in their god and his search for answers in a scientific approach make everyone take notice but furthermore this problem in his head his head has put his son in danger. But in the end it shows that the problem and the solution to a self-destructive humanity is to understand that we all have our faults and we need to recognize it and appreciate it in our strive to make more meaningful connections with those we love. Clearly Albert is having a mental breakdown but that is the result of the aliens having injected that abnormality into us in order to use us to progress. The key to the human race's survival is allowing us to all live in harmony despite the differences in everyone's belief in their own personal god. Albert struggles with this, there is a whole song and dance number devoted to Albert's love being shocked closed upon the hearing he is having a child. He does not want the responsibility of having created a life form because he doesn't know where he as part of a species has come from. The songs never come back after that. Only the ghosts of humanity's burden, the fact that our minds do not work perfectly yet we are all living in a society designed to exploit that fact. I understand the movie more than I thought I would, especially because about 45 minutes are devoted to a scare-fest horror movie but by the end brings itself back around to the metaphor that it is creating. This movie is art, it is not just another movie as people might confuse it with. The director has the freedom here to share with us his darkest moments. I found it incredibly moving.

Mr. X (2015)

Low quality and lazy

[2/10 · 19 February 2020]

Looks like they filmed the whole thing in a closet. Denouncing science and blaming god seems odd. Special effects are 15 years behind the times. The lighting makes it look like a soap opera. As does the acting and storyline. The sets are tiny and cheap. Did I mention how the lighting makes it look like a soap opera? Because the movie doesn't let you forget. The songs and dance don't go with the story at all and not in a fun way but in a way that feels lazy. I guess that's how the whole movie feels, lazy. The only part that was very impressive was a shot or 2 during the motorcycle race where I wondered how they filmed it because it looked as though someone was really riding a bike against traffic. Then the person disappeared but the bike still looked real and not digital. Other than that this movie is very easily forgotten completely.

Waves (I) (2019)

2 movies for 1

[5/10 · 17 February 2020]

Even the synopsis is a spoiler and I would have rather known that this movie is split evenly down the middle into 2 separate halves that really don't have anything to do with eachother. I was really looking forward to this movie because of the director's first film. His second film had none of the raw emotions that the first one had. The first one was effortless because it felt as though the director really had something to say. This movie on the other hand seems to have no point. Is it about family drama, stress, redemption? I really have no idea. Seems to be like a really fancy film project where the director can flex his muscles by writing all these camera movements and music cues basically into the script as though the movie itself is a character. And for how unstructured the story is the director seemed to have no problem evenly splitting this movie into two completely unstructured segments that are exactly the same length, which leaves me feeling misled because everyone knows that this is not the way to make movies. Its frusturating because the movie certainly never gets you to care about either of its leading actors and doesn't really give you the chance to because neither storyline develops far enough because each one is limited to an hour. I kind of wonder if the original intention was to have both storylines intercut and peppered more evenly through the movie. Although that wouldn't make sense either. In its journey to startle and shock the audience the film forgets in order to shock us you have to develop a story, and this one is almost non-existent. Anyway, I'm not sure whether this is a sports movie, a teen angst kinda-thing, a romance movie, or like a gritty slice-of-life. Either way it fails to make any kind of statement about young people or the state of the country and certainly fails at making a worthwhile family drama because everyone is a one dimensional character. Either that or it is just boring.

The Almost Man (2012)

I thought this was great

[8/10 · 12 February 2020]

There remains a high level of tension throughout the film for the comedy to really be explored fully. I am becoming more fond of Scandinavian movies because of the dynamic between the people. Here we see someone challenging the laws of an otherwise peaceful society, whether it is making random inappropriate scenes in grocery stores with their girlfriend or challenging someone about why they let them walk around with a booger in their nose. Either of these incidences could be kinda lame but the direction and energy of the movie make it really fun to watch. As is a scene at a bus stop but that's all I'll say as this movie really you need to watch to get hooked

Running with the Devil (2019)

Awesome

[9/10 · 9 February 2020]

Don't miss this one. The first half hour is PURE entertainment done right. The second half hour is a series of connecting scenes that help us understand the whole process of what is happening. Then the last half hour is the climax to the storyline from the beginning. Tons of quick, bright scenes with a lot of familiar faces showing very subtle (or not to) very nicely done character development. Every actor stands out as really giving fine performances, quirky scenes with funny and real dialogue mixed with action that moves the story forward. The director of this piece must really get along with the actors and you can tell they respect the direction and the script. At least that's my impression. It obviously seems like a small production filmed quickly and not released as a "Major Motion Picture", but that shouldn't matter anymore. Not sure why IMDb has this is in the 5*'s but honest you obviously might regret watching it but if you know good filmmaking this is it and you won't regret watching it. I wouldn't call it thriller, just a good old fashioned crime story told through a solid style of filmmaking. It's a shame people cannot recognize this. I'm not sure why anyone has a right to hate this movie. Rated 9 to help get score up. Otherwise a solid 7.

Honey Boy (2019)

Entertainment factor missing

[4/10 · 8 February 2020]

I feel like this movie could have been super entertaining. With a name like Honey Boy and a poster of a boy with a pie in the face this movie seems real interesting. It's about the turbulent life and relationship between rising star Shia and his father? Great! But then you watch it, rather you slog through its 90 minute running time waiting for something to happen, some excitement like a pie in the face. And while this does happen, as do a number of "behind the scenes" moments, the film never rises to any height of seeing over the fence in the crappy motel that takes up 90% of the movie, you will not rise up to see anything much over the backlot fence, nothing more than a few brief "mentions" of the entertainment and fame that Shia has lived through. That's what I want to see and while I understand this is more of a heartfelt movie about pain and suffering, the filmmakers need to understand no one is going to recommend this movie to anyone because it is so depressing and boring, and repetitive, repetitive, so repetitive. There really needs to be more scenes of the positives to balance it out, because other than one half-scene with adult Shia in front of "Transformers" camera, instantly we are thrown in with him into the rehab facility where I certainly cannot sympathize with anyone there, back and forth back and forth with little to no meaning with any of the scenes in either timeline. And it seems as though each timeline only progresses maybe a few weeks time, so where is the rest? Why show such a narrow viewpoint of a few days in the life of one man separated by 20 years? There needs to be more connecting scenes, orherwise it just leads us down a hallway that abruptly ends. The funk of stale cigarettes on the breath of a 12 year old kid is ultimately what this movie boils down to. It just had no entertainment factor whatsoever and that is what would have really saved this movie. I don't know how true it is but I read that Shia wanted Mel Gibson to play the role of the father Shia ended up playing himself. Already that is a much more entertaining movie. I'd probably watch that twice because while Shia did not do a bad job he is certainly not the force that role deserved, since that seems to be the point of the movie. I watched it once super excited, already making plans to watch it a second time with my girlfriend but now I just wanna forget about the movie and the sad state of affairs Shia wants to remind us of, the couple of weeks he spent in the hotel trying to give his father a chance, then after the third (the third?!?!) time he gets a DUI and is put in a fancy rehab facility, but alas, no he does not want to let us know of his happy moments, the years and years of fame mean very little when we just have all this pain to sort out. In your own time, please. ThNk you.

Benjamin (II) (2019)

This is a bad television pilot

[3/10 · 31 January 2020]

Tget realized no one would see so they sold it off to redbox as part of a "blind grab" that was sure to grab the attention of people who recognize all these names. But the movie seems written by someone with zero training in screenwriting because nearly every line of dialog i have heard before. And the direction feels like a holiday special of some sitcom from 1994-2004, only with newer cameras and a lazier production. There is no sublty in the humor and that makes it not funny and top of that I'm not sure no one managed to watch any of this footage until it was far too late to change anything. They just throw out scenario after scenario in an attempt at revealing past characters reactions so we can feel more connected to someone. But it doesn't work. Likely if you are reading this it's too late.

Melrose (2018)

An imitation of something else

[3/10 · 30 January 2020]

This movie tries very hard to fill the void of more cinematic experiences from the good old days when flashy editing in movies was appreciated. That only works when there is a story to fuel the frantic pacing. Not here though. There really is no story other than a 20year old guy wants to prove his parents wrong so he decides to get a job. That's about the sum of the plot yet there are about 25 montages throughout the hour 45 minutes duration. While these mo rages are flashy and are done very nicely quickly I got the feeling that the movie is there to service them, not the other way around. That being said the locations are good and there's about as many scenes as I've seen in any post 2002 movie but I'm not sure that is enough because all the scenes with talking really seem pointless.

The Death of Dick Long (2019)

There's no way

[2/10 · 30 January 2020]

Either have the horse sex stuff in the first 10 minutes or not at all. Do not put it at the halfway point of the movie like it's some kind of spiritual revelation. If the movie had been doing its job the introduction of the hidden plot in the middle of the movie wouldn't have resulted in such a waste of the ENTIRE movie. Just awful how they spend half the time making fun of the characters and the other half "allowing" us opportunities to sympathize with the exact same characters they just made fun of. The only thing this movie has was the style of being a low budget movie but one done with that being the intentional style (how many other movies can you think of where the characters drive down an ordinary shopping and restaurant street with fast food and grocery stores anywhere that is not Los Angeles?) but it looses itself trying to take itself too seriously. It's a movie about having sex with horses. Maybe the director and writer needed to get off their high horse and realize you can't make decent art out of trash, otherwise you are just tricking people. Not fun

Schneider vs. Bax (2015)

No Crackers

[3/10 · 16 January 2020]

A scene nearing the third act - no spoilers - revolves around a character (played by the writer and director) insisting there are crackers in the cabinet only to realize in fact there are no crackers in the cabinet. That pretty much sums up the movie for me. It is incredibly slow and predictable after the first build-up and plays out very systematically until the end. I was a huge fan of Borgman but this movie feels like a step backwards, like borgman made for children but messed up so it's technically for adults. But take out the guns and violence and drug references and change everyone to kids with paintball guns having a fun Saturday in the fields then wow what a movie. But we end up instead with something that comes across as incredibly pretentious, thinking itself of a higher standard than a randomized cat & mouse game movie popular in the 1980s but absolutely nothing new here. That's my opinion. I did however enjoy some of the conversations between Bax and the daughter. The drug references were also very clever.

Disaster Movie (2008)

Dizastor Movie

[6/10 · 15 January 2020]

Definitely not the best movie I have ever seen but still entertaining if you don't take it as seriously as some viewers are pretending to. I mean it's a parody movie called "disaster movie", so don't expect something smart. Expect something more along the lines of someone farting on you: try to tell me that's not funny. The comedy lies in how stupid and absurd it is. Irrelevant jokes that go nowhere but still make you smile a little, odd references, crazy cameos, movies upon movies parodied to the maximum. I don't understand the hate. Just try to enjoy it and you might. Watch it to hate and you might. I appreciate the goofyness. Maybe you will too.

Countdown (III) (2019)

Waste of time

[1/10 · 10 January 2020]

Not sure all the mediocre to favorable reviews. This movie is a clear ripoff of such films as The Ring and Final Destination without having even one creative impulse on its own. There is just absolutely no style here for a so-called "horror" movie. Also a weird "anti-rape" subplot. I think everyone hates that and even more just makes men look like idiots. I don't know. Don't waste your time with this one, I'm sorry to say.

The One (2001)

There is no fork / "come with me if you want to find the spoon"

[2/10 · 2 January 2020]

An impossible mashup of the first Matrix movie and one (any or all) of Terminator movies. Here it comes off as extremely lacking budget, talent, and originality. Also kind of reminds me of that movie Paycheck, from around the same time. Both were plagued with productions that were more about actors than content and so they are forever doomed to be forgotten almost entirely.

Daniel Isn't Real (2019)

This is for teenagers, not adults

[4/10 · 2 January 2020]

Like as if a teendrama novel was turned into a movie. This wouldn't be the worse thing but the movie starts out so much more incredibly raw than it turns out to be. We start with a boys imaginary friend telling him prescription pills will give his mother superpowers, so he dumps them in the blender. Then halfway through the movie the imaginary friend literally becomes a "wingman" to help him impress the girl and look like a great guy. Hmm. I just don't know. It seems to be either the kind of movie that does not take the viewer seriously or it just had serious creative difficulties in the writing process. It comes off looking tacky, like it is a kid trying to make an adult movie. It's disapointing because the music and cinematography really had me at some moments

6 Underground (2019)

Shameless Product Placement

[5/10 · 21 December 2019]

If you payed any attention to Michael Bay's career up until now you'd know that he continues to have very little subtlety and making modest pictures was never his intention. Netflix also has a noteriety of producing loads and loads of garbage while masking it as something different. So combining the two makes sense, right? It does and it doesn't and having one of the first things you see (followed by slow motion airplane stunts) is the Red Bull logo you know 2 things immediately: 1, this movie is most likely made for teenagers and 2, this movie will be a glorious waste of money while at the same time making more money than is appropriate for something never planned for anything more than mediocre. I will stand by my first statement, as unpopular as it is, because as teenagers we have our lowest tolerance for anything decent so this movie in all it's excess plays exactly to the kind of child-like anger that fills all of us...plus our need to watch stuff explode over and over and over again. And then just about every 2 minutes comes a new product placement. It's crazy, really, because despite being crammed expensive product down our throats one after another it ends up feeling very cheap, very empty, almost like a 125 minutes commercial: cars, beers, clothes, mega-conglomerates of all kinds it goes on and on! Despite all these issues I wanted to hate the movie but Michael Bay has always been a very entertaining director capable of pushing around piles of large money while not making us feel hateful of the waste but instead entertained. Ryan Reynolds is also very charming and fun to watch, the locations are great, and the stunts and special effects seem impossible. The comedy is there as a way to make it easily digestible and seem familiar, although I laughed out loud at maybe only two or three character reactions. So this movie is fun, not great, but it is the true definition of a "movie" a mindless spectacle that should make you smile if you are still human, all other haters must just be very bitter they did not make any money off this transaction themselves. Netflix, once again, appears to be more in the money side of entertainment so it's questionable whether to even really consider them a production company or not but here they made good on their rights to buy this one and show it to us like the good times we deserve.

Uncut Gems (2019)

Big swing, big miss

[5/10 · 18 December 2019]

This is one of those movies that has no likable characters, is about an hour too long, and is so bogged down by its "realism" that it forgets we want to be entertained. Put that with an actor that is only known for comedies, a musical celebrity (The Weeknd) that no one has talked about in 4 or 5 years, and an ending that is so atrocious it seems like they forgot the whole point of the movie. Maybe I was just expecting more but for me it was entertaining enough but still very boring. The scene that put me over the top was when the main character has to bring his kid to the city apartment where he has been keeping his "secret" girlfriend. Not sure why this scene was necessary, as nothing happened except eat up about 6 minutes of the movie. Apart from that it was not worth re-visiting the same awful people scene after scene, in a story that goes nowhere. Almost no one has any redeeming value and almost nothing happens. There is the guy who is losing all his money to gambling addictions, then plenty of "realistic" scenes involving all the annoying people helping him sell his jewelery, then all the awful people he owes money to, this awkward and stupid relationship with his wife and then a redundant relationship with his girlfriend and then his two kids who might as well not even be in the movie except for the addition of "family drama" because the only other type of drama in the movie is a result of a very chaotic way of arranging some of the scenes. This would be all fine if there was some sort of payoff for any of the characters or even us as the viewers but the movie just kind of ends after a few unconvincing coincidences that just are an excuse to end the movie without coming up with an ending. 5 Stars because despite all this was a pleasant enough movie to watch with a pretty cool soundtrack.

Forget Paris (1995)

Fuhgeddabout Paris

[4/10 · 3 December 2019]

Paris does not represent a place, but instead a specific moment in time. Billy Crystal does not want us to forget about Paris, he wants us to forget about our expectations of how things have become based on one specific time in our lives. It's an interesting concept but unfortunately the movie is so weighed down by ridiculous pretensions of Billy Crystal's comedy that does not hold up over time. While it might have made sense the pacing and sexually virile "celebrity" professional referee comedic elements of Crystal and his characters looking back it is just laughable in all the wrong ways. And either the first 45 minutes needs to be cut down to 15 minutes or the movie itself is 30 minutes too long I started falling asleep well before the plot really develops itself as trying to make some kind of worthwhile statement. I would say leave this treasure buried, unless you are die-hard reminiscent over how unashamed campy these types of "comedies" used to be.

Hustlers (2019)

Completely without morals

[2/10 · 29 November 2019]

The movie tries so hard to make the events of the movie look glorious or spectacular. Shame on Jenifer Lopez who wanted to be the starring role in a lifetime movie that's praising women male-bashing criminals. There were scenes in the movie extremely reminiscent of Hallmark commercials for the holiday. Just poorly shot and directed by someone who has no understanding of what making a good movie entails. There needs to be someone for the audience to root for.

Here there is nothing. We have the story about a group of 4 strippers who decide " Wall Street" And they decide to start drugging Wall Street executives and stealing their money. I guess there is a sense of irony in all this because it seems like they have regulars of guys enjoying this who come back again and again. But one time the girls drug a "normal" guy, one who looses his job and his house because of the shenanigans the girls play on him drugging him and stealing his money. So he goes to the cops and from there the "empire" collapses in what amounts about 5 minutes of the movie.

Ok, great, and it turns out the girls all turn on eachother when they are arrested and by the descriptive text at the end one of the women does not have to do jail time at all because she admitted what she did was wrong, the other girl got 5 years probation, and the final 2 girls got weekends in jail for one summer or some dumb like that. So what scene does the director choose to have as the final scene? Some scene where the main character calls the reporter that interviewed everyone for the news article the movie is based off of and asked her what the other friend thought of her, then we go to some flashback that is completely meaningless.

I guess hustlers will be hustlers. I understand the dilemma, on one hand we have a group of New York bankers who seem to be responsible for the collapse of the financial security of this nation. They are generally spineless nothings that sit at desks all day and are very rude to others but have a disconnect about them that make them look ruthless and evil. So maybe or maybe not they are doing considerably evil things but they don't actually get their hands dirty because, you know, they are spineless and just sit at a desk all day. And on the other hand we have a group of "poor" strippers being exploited by not only the people that come and go the the stripclubs but the owners and the people working at the stripclubs, but hold on, because the strippers also seem to feel exploited and abused by the society that forces their worth to only be defined as how much money their sexy little bodies can bring into their hands any given nite. So what do they do? They drug and rob people with no regard to as if they are innocent or not. And then everyone just kinda gets away with it, no body admitting any of this was wrong.

I don't know what this movie was suppose to mean but hustling means something different to everyone else. I remember living in NYC and one nite a homeless guy who had been self-proclaimed hussling in Times Square decided to follow me all the way to the train station while he kept telling me he was going to come home with me and I kept telling him no...all just part of their eternal hussle... so... in other words, this movie was crap.

Rick and Morty (2013– )

Great, not perfect

[8/10 · 25 November 2019]

I think this show is great, not perfect. For all the crap Dan Harmon has given to the fans for being offensive he is no saint either. I'm not sure why things like AIDS, rape, and Hitler are still funny in this day and age. Sure we cannot progress as a society while women are not equal but also diseases like aids and madmen like hitler and the act of rape has ruined a lot of lives and quite frankly it should no longer be a point of comedy. So I think that if Harmon really wants the fans to stop harassing the women writers and just hating on the show in general it needs to start with the show.

That being said none of those things are enough to make me hate the show, but the show is such genius in so many ways that it bothers me when it takes cheap shots at jokes that are no longer funny. I guess there is a percentage of the population that have never have to worry about anything ever but when you are laughing at a show, really enjoying it, and then boom comes an AIDS joke or a Hitler joke it just stops the comedy cold and viewers have to decide if they want to cry over lost loved ones or excuse the humor.

Obviously we all just want to laugh and have our minds blown and this show does that to such a great extent. That's why when a possibly offensive joke comes and goes it is not such a big deal because I feel that this show has the most punchlines per minute of any show that ever existed and so the jokes tend to bury eachother in complementary ways.

But it is wildly inconsistent. So while everyone complaining about the new seasons jumping the shark I just have to laugh as I go back to the old seasons and remember how I was disappointed a lot in the past with the episodes but they hold up so well to repeat viewings that first impressions are not quite as important. So while I might have dismissed the second season at first for the budget overflowing and it becoming obvious, and I might have stopped watching the third season half way through because it didn't have the same punch now I can go back and enjoy most every moment for the genius it is.

The show continues to push the boundaries of what limits there are to comedy, the disturbing violence does not bother me because the main theme of the show is that nothing matters in a world of infinite realities and it has managed that extremely well, even up to the new episodes.

So be happy that this show is so inconsistent becaus humor comes from evolving something, and we should not appreciate the bad without the good. It just may be time to retire some of those other jokes that might not be appropriate anymore. And I know that sounds like a crazy gripe but, just like making fun of someone's race (something this show has done on numerous occasions possibly subconsciously-I mean not Chair-World with "pizza with blacks") there are things in modern society that are no longer funny if we want to move forward as a society we need to stop pretending they are, no matter how much the creators or writers think it is funny. But that's up to them and I'll leave them to it because I am some nobody here writing a review...so...don't listen to me.

That's all I have to say. I could write about all the great moments but those are for you to discover on your own.