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The Queen's Gambit (2020)
More gripping than most action movies
This series changed my whole perspective on what's possible with television. You wouldn't think that a show about chess could be engrossing, but this is. The chess scenes hold your attention better than a lot of movies with tons of car chases, explosions, or explicit sex scenes.
I don't quite know how they do it but they create superb suspense and tension about chess matches. It's always gripping to watch. Beth's progression from orphan to world chess champion is exciting throughout, as she struggles with drug addiction and sometimes loses focus.
If there's any criticism, it's that she progresses a bit too quickly even for a prodigy and the supporting characters are too eager to help her. It could have been slightly improved by having her lose a bit more, and everyone around her feeling like they've got more of their own life (in particular her black fellow-orphan Jolene who shows up at the end to donate thousands to her, asking for nothing in return).
But having said that, I'm glad they didn't go the other way and put in heavy-handed feminist lecturing. Beth is in a man's world, but the male chess players aren't stereotypical nerds and misogynist jerks. They're supportive and have their own unique styles and personalities - one wears a cowboy costume, another gives up chess for engineering.
Even the Soviet players aren't cartoon evil Russians. They're good sports who don't cheat, they respect Beth. The series only needed a small amount of side character work to be absolutely perfect, and it shows better than anything else I've ever seen that you don't need big action sequences to make compelling drama.
Obsession (2023)
Some good bits but could be much better
I'm going to disagree with a few reviews that say the actress isn't sexy enough for this - I think most men would be pretty pleased to have her. And the show in general, although flawed, is worth watching.
It falls down in a couple of areas. The dad sees his new obsession and immediately gives up everything. To me that went too far. Even after his son dies he brushes it off with "bad stuff happens, at least now we can be together". It was too much, made him too one-dimensional (he has a save-the-cat moment at the beginning but after he sees the girl, thinks of nothing else).
Also, the sex scenes are pretty bad. He comes in literally 2 seconds, they don't have any foreplay or any real action before they're spent. It's not remotely believable that she's enjoying it at all.
It isn't actually bad to watch when you're watching it, but could be much better. For a rewrite, I'd have made it a slow-burn where he first meets the girl when she's introduced to the whole family. Gradually they talk, bond, and her becomes her confidant when she has relationship problems with the son (the son could be too immature, too sarcastically avoidant, and not quite ready for marriage).
Eventually, the subtle tension between them both becomes an affair near the end. Longer buildup and eventual payoff would have been better here. As it is it's a guy who sees a girl at a party and instantly forgets his whole life. It is entertaining but didn't quite work.
As Good as It Gets (1997)
Never has negativity been so entertaining!
Melvin, he world's grumpiest man, eventually learns to love - by doing good deeds for the waiter he fancies and a gay man he shares an apartment block with.
It's a fun premise, and the movie maintains the fun and energy throughout. There's some classic lines, such as the infamous "take away reason and accountability" retort to a fan. But the best, when the gay supporting character says "I love you", Melvin (who's been making anti-gay slurs, along with misogynist, racist, and other remarks) replies:
"I'll tell ya buddy, I'd be the luckiest man alive if that were enough for me."
Perfect response, captures how he's changed. The character arc is superb.
If I have one criticism, it's making Melvin a romance author. Even though authors don't always live up to their words in real life, they have some social ability. Melvin has none, yet he can somehow churn out bestselling romances with well-written women? It would have been better to make him a crime writer, and have him channel his cynicism into thinking up grisly murders.
That part of the character didn't work for me, but the rest of it is excellent. One of the best comedies of the 90s.
Before Sunrise (1995)
I'm 14 and this is deep, The Movie. But it works!
An odd film very different to what usually makes a movie work. It's mostly nothing but two people talking as they walk around Vienna. They have very little conflict, they largely just give their opinions and musings on things. Then they depart, hoping to see each other again.
Usually in a movie I look for drama, for conflict, for suspense. Before Sunrise has little of that. Jesse and Celine like each other from the beginning, kiss early on, and are almost always on the same page: the sexual tension is pretty much dissipated when they kiss on a Ferris Wheel early on. But the film keeps going successfully because it's not cynical, it's innocently romantic - it feels like an actual first date between two people attracted to each other.
For the first two-thirds, I thought it was pretentious. Most of the dialogue is Jesse giving his thoughts on where souls come from if there's reincarnation, why our lives are still busy despite the march of technology, how one man can impregnate 99 women, etc. None of their conversation is particularly new or original, and for most of the film you think it's just the writers being pretentious and believing they're much better philosophers than they really are.
But the last 20 minutes or so the couple express a real sadness that they're about to leave. Jesse admits he's been rather pseudo-intellectual, they make love, then depart promising to meet again. It's that declaration of love which really saves the movie, and makes the sometimes tedious discussions of the previous hour worth it.
Really, the film portrays a first date. On a first date, don't you say whatever comes to your mind to impress your date? If you recorded it, might it sound less brilliant the day after than it hopefully did at the time? So the film is almost a realistic documentary of a first date. Of two people meeting by chance, having a chemistry (the actors portray this well), and saying whatever they think will keep the date's momentum up.
Then they have to leave. It's not the most exciting film, but I went away from it feeling like innocent love was real, and had been captured in what I'd just seen.
The Craft (1996)
Every minute is gripping in a new way
This is one of my favorite films, and I think it's perhaps the best crafted (no pun!) movie in terms of narrative structure. Too many films have a good setup, a satisfying ending, but a saggy middle - have you ever had excitement turn to boredom in a movie because you were hooked but then nothing really happens for an hour?
The Craft will hold your attention. Every few minutes has a new beat: a girl joins a school and is befriended by the outcast group of witches, they get their magic to work, their lives first change for the better (we go through the "fun and games"), then it turns dark. Their magic has consequences; eventually they turn against each other before the final confrontation.
It's always twisting and turning, never staying in one place dragging things out. It's an excellent character-driven movie, it shows how the girls change as they discover magic then have to use it responsibly.
Also, movies like this perhaps couldn't be made today. It centers teenage girls, but doesn't make them perfect Mary Sues (unlike a recent remake). It allows the girls to be imperfect, they have flaws which end up being their downfall (except for the single, wise-beyond-her-years witch). They feel like real people, rather than vehicles for a message of empowerment.
By far my favorite teen movie and in my all time top 10.
Barbie (2023)
First half excellent, second half clunkily on-the-nose
The first half is excellent, it starts with a 2001 Dawn of Man parody with Robbie as the original striped Barbie in place of the monolith, then shows us Barbieland. Barbie is overrun with morbid thoughts, so travels to the Real World with a stowaway Ken.
At this point, it starts to lose its way - it gets bogged down in preaching against patriarchy - a word used so many times you could sip low-alcohol beer every time they say the word and be unconscious by the end.
Characters give long monologues on how it's "literally impossible to be a woman", and the Barbies turn the Kens against each other bizarrely by using their sex appeal to evoke jealousy (is that really a feminist message?!).
Whatever they were trying to say here, it doesn't come across well. It's preachy, on-the-nose, and too unbelievable to communicate a real message. Other films like Gone Girl with its Cool Girl monologue, or comedies like Bad Moms, make the point this movie seems to be trying to make much more effectively.
Barbieland looks amazing, and the first sections there are fun (the whole patriarchy messaging was wisely cut out of the trailers). It would have been better to make this a Fool Triumphant story like Legally Blonde, where Stereotypical Barbie (as Robbie's Barbie is known) is seen as an airheaded bimbo in the real world yet proves herself.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Keeps the kids quiet
If you want to keep your children quiet for a while, show them this. It's never dull, it's always action-packed, it's always fun.
It's nothing great, it's basically watching someone play a 3D Mario game for 90 minutes. It sticks so closely to the Mario games it's pretty much a recording of actual gameplay.
But for children, it's what they enjoy. The story is too thin for adults to enjoy but it does what it needs to do for its target audience. The Sonic movies have better plots and characters - they actually tried to be movies based on the game. This has Mario bash blocks with his head and get powerups exactly like in the games - that's most of the movie. But it's a good watch.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Too many long stretches with no stakes
The reason this movie is being hailed as a masterpiece is because 3-hour biopics are rarely successful at the box office - after years of superhero dominance, critics understandably want to promote something different.
Unfortunately the film itself is disappointing. There are too many long stretches spent in committee rooms discussing things, the significance of which is never explained. It's never clear why it matters if Oppenheimer's clearance is revoked. It's never clear how the Senate denying Strauss a cabinet position makes any difference. Nolan tries to make us care with loud dramatic music, but that's no substitute for a compelling narrative.
The forward story, chronicling Oppenheimer's rise from clumsy physics student to leader of the Manhattan Project and father of the atom bomb, is better. It's told as an extended movie trailer, in a series of vignettes which fits its portrayal of a brilliant polymath who thinks at the speed of light.
However, even this section doesn't quite give us a good understanding of the man. He's first presented as an absent-minded professor, who relies on theory over practice. Then, when he's asked to lead the Project, he's suddenly thinking about building a city in the desert, concerned about the living quarters for the scientists' families. We don't get a definite personality, just a brief overview of his achievements and personal relationships, told out of order.
It's not a bad film. It has some stunning sequences and many of the best actors working today. But compared to say Dr Strangelove, it's less effective in warning of the dangers of nuclear war. And compared to say A Beautiful Mind, it's shallower in presenting a brilliant scientist.
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Some brilliant scenes, if only it stayed brilliant
This is the most disappointing movie I've ever seen, because it could be a truly great masterpiece. The 4 suspense scenes: the opening, the strudel scene, the three-finger cultural difference scene, and the Italian accents scene, are all superb. Each one is a perfect textbook example of how to write, direct, and act. Christoph Waltz in particular is a real talent thankfully discovered by this movie.
If the rest of the film had kept up the quality of those wonderfully tense sequences, this would have been the greatest movie ever made. As it is, sadly Tarantino's undoubted gifts are lost amidst his childish indulgences. We get a silly, cartoon plot where Hitler and other top Nazi leaders die in a cinema. These Nazis, unless Waltz's Landa in the opening scene, are not cunning hawks but dumb clowns who let a French woman they know nothing about lock them inside and burn them all.
The French woman, Shoshanna, hatches this plot with her black coworker. The two have no chemistry, no real character depth, and the plot happens simultaneously with a similar plot by the Basterds of the title - you can take either out and the other plot still succeeds. The suspense scenes show Tarantino's strengths while the rest of the film shows his weaknesses: he can't create deep characters, he can't portray love or any emotional depth.
Compare the ridiculous Hitler of this to the fully-human Hitler of Downfall. Compare Shoshanna and her coworker to the romance between say Han and Leia. And you see Tarantino's shallowness. His inability to move beyond blood and guts to something deeper. It's frustrating because there's some wonderfully memorable scenes in this but the film as a whole fails.
Habitación en Roma (2010)
Beautiful looking, but lacking what makes a story great
This movie is beautifully shot, and yes it features two attractive women who spend almost the entire runtime naked, as well as Renaissance art in the hotel room.
However, it lacks the elements of a good story, and how to make us really feel for the characters. We begin with the women holding hands, going to the hotel room, and the first sex scene happens a couple of minutes in after only brief reluctance from one of them. So within 5 minutes, the sexual tension has dissipated.
And the movie doesn't find an alternative plot to keep us interested. It spends most it in a cycle of: one woman opens up about her past/admits what she previously said was a lie, they have sex, they search online for their hometowns. There's no stakes, no character goals. They've been together, why do we care that one of them used a fake name or is really a tennis player instead of an actress?
The film never gives us a reason to care why they might have lied to each other about their names or their past. It's a fairly believable portrayal of a couple having sex first and getting to know each other afterwards, but it doesn't engage. The film is "artsy" in the negative sense of lacking the conflict and suspense that can hold a viewer.
Then at the end, it gets on-the-nose with the women openly saying how much they love each other, how hard it is to leave, then images of one woman being pierced with Cupid's Arrow (Cupid is in a Renaissance painting in the hotel). It's the most obvious image the filmmaker could have used. In the end they depart, possibly forever or possibly not.
Had potential, and the actresses have good chemistry, but needs a much better script to work.
Babylon (2022)
Uneven, needed a stronger story
Has some brilliant bits, but overall is very uneven. The director says in a commentary video on here he wanted to throw everything on screen. An experienced writer will know that this is a dangerous approach, stories are almost always more engaging with one or two main protagonists and supporting characters around their story.
As it is with this film, it's over 3 hours and you've got two characters, Pitt's and Robbie's characters, who are essentially male and female versions of the same character. They're both successful silent stars struggling to make it in talkies. Robbie's character is more realized, we see her full arc whereas Pitt's starts off at the top.
This is unnecessary, and one reason the film bombed was because the trailers didn't make it clear what it's about. And they couldn't because it's about too many different things. There's a massive orgy with an elephant, Pitt's and Robbie's stories, a Mexican-American trying to make it as a producer, Tobey Maguire getting him into a truly disgusting scene, him fleeing with Robbie when gangsters chase them, a black trumpeter subplot, and finally a montage of every groundbreaking movie from the first picture in history to Avatar!
It's too much, sometimes less is more. Somebody needed to reign the director in, get a scriptwriter to rewrite it into a stronger story. Cut out the disgusting bits that go nowhere, and focus on a couple of characters. There was a great movie trying to get out of this, and some bits are truly enjoyable. I've been very critical in this review but I'm glad I saw it, I just wish it had been given more story treatment to make it stronger.
West Side Story (2021)
Better than the original, nearly perfect
Far superior to the original in quality. It is a remake but it feels more authentic - the characters speak some Spanish, you can believe they're immigrants to New York from Puerto Rico. The original movie isn't as believable.
There's two reasons why I didn't rate it 10. First, the "Gee Officer Krupke" song should be cut out. It drags, it advances neither the plot nor a main character, and it's not particularly funny. It's needless filler. I would have left it out and added a couple more fight scenes. Tony mentions that the gangs are brawling "because of us" but I felt we didn't see that enough. He tells us that's what's happening, but it should have been shown more.
Secondly, Maria should have shot herself at the end. Yes that's dark, but this is a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet. Having her survive and presumably go on to be with someone else ruins the tragedy of the original play. The whole meaning is that innocent people can die if they're caught up in societal feuds. Having just the boy with a criminal past die and leave the girl alive takes away that meaning. It would have been bold to change the ending to one that is completely tragic but if Spielberg had been brave enough to do, it would be an epic Shakespearean tragedy.
Imagine Me & You (2005)
Too schmaltzy to feel real
If you changed the genders in this movie, you wouldn't see the 9 and 10 reviews. I understand that some people like any broadly positive LGBT representation, but it could have been done much better here. If the husband Hector fell for a female florist and left his wife for her after a month, the movie would be lucky to get a single 2/10!
What the film fails to do is create believable characters. Hector is a nice guy but a total wet blanket - he just accepts his wife leaving him for another woman, tells her to go, and moves on. Worse, he's then given a schmaltzy happy ending where his selfless act gives him the good character karma to meet his own love at first sight by accident on a plane!
It doesn't feel real because we know life doesn't work like that. If your partner leaves you, the right person isn't going to magically show up the next day. I'd forgive the rest of the movie's cheesiness and give it a 5/10 if the penultimate scene showed Hector being laughed at over his wife leaving him for another woman, and him going back to his flat miserable. Then the final scene of the two women in the park would be bittersweet: they've found happiness but they've left behind a good man whose heart is broken.
The movie could have been good if it allowed itself to be real. If it contrasted the ecstasy of finding a new love with the pain of the person being dumped, and portraying both realistically. It's not so much that it sends a bad message - I don't believe fictional characters should be perfect role models - but good storytelling is about real people. This film isn't brave enough to portray that.
For comparison, imagine if the necklace plot in Love Actually had Emma Thompson say "go and sleep with Mia darling, you obviously want to and I love you too much to hold onto you and deny you!" It would be stupid, noone would be believe it. And we all accept that Alan Rickman's character does a bad thing, yet some people here consider this good purely because of its lesbian representation. It's not only bad in a moral sense, it's bad because it's not true to life in any way.
Fit to Fat to Fit (2016)
Dangerous and nonsensical
The premise of this show makes no sense. The fit trainers will have more muscle mass, and more experience with exercise, and that muscle won't atrophy over a few weeks of weight gain. So they'll find it much easier to lose weight than their "fat" friend will.
Which of course is counter-productive. The "fat" person is going to then have an extra belief that "the trainer could do it, why can't I?". By all means encourage health and fitness, find better ways to do that, but don't encourage fit people to gain weight out of some misguided sense of solidarity.
Former trainers on this show have subsequently struggled with their weight, because it's damaged their bodies. There are better ways to encourage fitness than this.
Love Thy Neighbour (1972)
Funny and light-hearted - and not as racist as claimed
A fun enjoyable comedy, good for forgetting your troubles to. It has a bad reputation these days as a racist show. And it's true that racial tension is the main theme, and racist slurs are often used.
However, this is not a show that a white supremacist would write. A black guy (Bill) and a white guy (Eddie) have petty conflicts, and Bill usually wins. The white guy in most episodes makes a total idiot of himself.
Neither do they really hate each other. One episode has Eddie dance naked round a tree to release a voodoo curse he believes he's put on Bill. It's basically macho posturing between the two guys which leads to them falling out and making.
So while it does have racist language, its underlying message is far more "woke" than is often imagined. It never punches down at the black characters. And it's genuinely funny.
The Old Guard (2020)
Good premise but let down by an anti-corporate message
I liked this movie, and the premise is great. It's mostly enjoyable, and Theron is IMO the best actress working today.
However, I felt the antagonist let the movie down. He is the head of a pharmaceutical company, and wants to find out why the immortals are immortal so he can spread immortality to everyone. That's a good thing! Yet the film makes him a cartoon villain in order to attack "big pharma". Why? He's trying to help the world.
The film is needlessly anti-capitalist. It implies that making money is bad even if you're making a product that will vastly improve people's lives. It would have been better if Merrick succeeds in making others immortal, and that leads to a host of dilemmas (the world's population expanding unsustainably, or evil people finding the secret to immortality).
But by attacking capitalism, the film is supporting an elite aristocracy of immortals and arguing against the majority of people having the technology to improve their lives. That lets the whole film down for me, because I can't get excited for the protagonists when the antagonist is trying to do the right thing.
Unorthodox: Part 4 (2020)
Disappointing end to an initially excellent series
I thought Episodes 1-3 were excellent, but the finale is a letdown caused by trying to wrap everything up too quickly. It ends with no real resolution - Esty has her new community in the cafe at the closing scene, but where will they be when the baby comes? She won't have time to tour with the philharmonic as a single mother, will her friends stick around then? We're left hanging and need that story told.
A bigger problem though is that Esty being an amazing singer is suddenly thrown at us without any buildup. With episode 2 I thought that Esty being a mediocre pianist was very brave characterization. Finally we have a strong female character who is not a Mary Sue: Esty is tough and independent mentally, but she's not a genius. She's an average pianist who can only play simple tunes because that's all she's practised. Most women like most men are about average. Yet the tendency has recently been to have female leads who are incredibly gifted geniuses and show all the guys up. Episode 2 broke that trope and showed an average person trying to make their way rather than a suppressed genius.
Yet at the end of this episode we find she is something of a Mary Sue after all. She's a beautifully passionate singer, even though up till now she's only wanted to be a pianist. If she'd sang in episode 2 instead of played piano the whole drama over her upcoming audition would have been avoided. Having her be a hidden songstress ruined the entire buildup over the previous episodes - there's no need to have her pianist dreams crushed initially if she's brilliant at something else.
The first 3 episodes were a believable story of a woman wanting to be independent, and made the point that she isn't especially gifted. This episode is jarring in the context of the series and feels unsatisfying.
Toy Story 4 (2019)
Worst of the series, with some fun
Some good jokes, it will keep the kids quiet for an hour, but it doesn't compare to the others. There's no real antagonist or conflict. The new toy Gaby Gaby is alright for a bit, and there are some very creepy dummies. But then Gaby Gaby tells us her sob story, we feel sad for her, and Woody gives up his voice box.
She makes a kid happy and goes off. Which is nice, but means the movie lacks the danger and excitement the other ones had. This is a series of disconnected problems rather than a single story. And Woody at the end is no longer a toy loyal to his child. He's grown up and runs off with Bo Peep. Which is a plausible development for him, but takes away from his character as a toy who sticks with the other toys always and reminds them to be loyal to the children who own them. Buzz is also extremely underused.
I would say it's a bad development. Toy Story worked because of the fantasy of your toys coming to life when you're not in the room. To have them go off and live by themselves takes away that fantasy, and the feelgood factor of thinking about your toys really caring about you. Toy Story 3 ended it well with the toys having another kid who loves them and who love her back. This film ruined that.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
Hate mail to the story
Imagine a parent whose kid watches the original Star Wars 100 times, and the parent gets completely sick of it. Then they get control of directing the sequels, and deliberately wreck it so their kid never wants to watch it again and moves on to something else.
That's what this film feels like. If the Force Awakens was a homage, a deliberate fan love-letter, this is blatant hate mail. It deliberately wrecks everything in its first two hours. Our hopeful hero Luke who saw good even in Darth Vader? He's a grumpy failure now who lives alone on an island and wants the Jedi to end. The Rebels as symbolizing good and the Empire as symbolizing evil? They're both the same really, as they both buy weapons from the same rich people. The battles in space? They're pointless now because you can blow up any ship by going to light speed. The shadowy Emperor guy, Snoke? Just kill him off. The teasing of Rey's origins as a mystery we're going to learn more about? Her parents were nobody alcoholics and she has her powers without learning from a Jedi Master for no reason. The Knights of Ren and Rey's vision of Anakin's lightsaber? Not even brought up.
And after two hours of tearing down and building nothing to replace it, it's like someone mentions that they need to make money on IX and further movies. So they forget the tearing down theme and build up again. Luke comes back as a projection and says he won't be the last Jedi (despite saying the Jedi need to end and he won't train another generation). The last few rebels get saved and fly off to be in IX.
And now we hear, IX is apparently bringing back Palpatine, Sith, has Second Death Star wreckage, and is called the Rise of Skywalker! After months of being defended as a necessary letting go of the past, the proof is now out that this film was a dead end. There's no way to take pure deconstruction. So they've brought JJ back to remake the past. You can defend this film if its makers could take it forward. But they're not. They're going back to what was likely the original plans for the sequels. This film was a total mistake, a total wrong-direction for the series.