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Interstellar (2014)
3 hours of McConaughey walking away from everything
"Her mother took care of that PTA stuff, but now I'M the one in charge. Except I'm not because I'm leaving through a wormhole for FOREVER tomorrow. Except hang on, I'm not staying, I'm NOW risking the fate of the entire civilization to get back to the daughter I never spent any time with. Except, wait, wait, instead I should stay and just help Anne Hathaway get to the other planet. Except, WHOOPS, I fell back into the wormhole and wow here's my daughter again who didn't see me for 70 years. Except now I'm not going to stay for 2 MINUTES to even talk to her because I gotta go populate that other planet..."
3 hours of McConaughey doubling back and walking away from everything at the expense of everything that exists in the movie? What a slogfest.
Human philosophy, relationships, values, connection etc don't even exist in Interstellar, yet the non-stop scenes with heavy cinematic orchestra sounds and an overblown subwoofer are supposed to make me, the viewer, emotional? Why? It's not possible for the audience to invest in literally anything in this movie.
The movie totally fails as a human drama. (and it's not much of a sci-fi flick either)
Eileen (2023)
One of the best parts about film noir is that it's a fantasy world.
This movie is the opposite. It tries to drag a film noir script into real world ugliness, which sucks all the fun out of film noir. Toss in a little feminism and politics and you now have a pretty unwatchable movie.
Anne Hathaway's accent isn't horrible, but it's good enough. McKenzie's timidness comes off pretty well on screen. The directing and cinematography are fine, but the real-world Noir premise just isn't interesting and neither is an all-female Noir. The climax at the end falls flat.
The whole movie a bit of a slow burn, so it takes a little time to turn sour, but don't waste your time with this one.
The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)
Character motivations and story line don't work.
All of the white male fathers and sons in this movie are all either politicians, corrupt police or low life losers lol. As if we don't already get enough of Hollywood trying to demonize the white male.
The character obsessions don't make sense, the plot points are smashed together and don't stick and the likelihood of anything like this happening in real life is so forced that this is completely unrelatable to any audience. You can't write an "eye-opener" when so much of the story line leaves the audience rolling their eyes. For example, Cooper's unfounded obsession with the baby, Cooper unknowingly sticking his kid in the same high school and the kid not knowing his only friend's last name were all far too ridiculous and not believable.
1 star because the motorcycle chase scene was quality action, directed well.
Back to the Future (1985)
Writer living out his a fantasy about his own mother?
I suppose if you thought your mom was hot when she was 17, you might write a movie like this. You might write about a crazy accident where the protagonist goes back in time to the exact time when his mother was EXACTLY his own age, right? And I suppose if you wanted to go parking with your 17 year old mom it would only be acceptable as a coincidental storyline for purposes of getting your parents back together, right? That sounds innocent, correct? Lastly, I suppose if you wanted to get down to business with your 17 year old mom, the story would have to say that it's only because she's a good girl and would of course reject you so your dad could save her, thus saving their relationship and correcting the course of history and it was all only just to save humanity as we all know it, RIGHT? You know... because otherwise such a plot point would just be plain ol' incest, right?
It takes a very unique person to write such a story that definitely does not have incest joke after incest joke and then market that story as a PG movie for children. Don't you think, Mr. Bob Gale?
That being said, this is one of the best movies of the last 4 decades. The editing is seamless, the action has beautiful rise and fall, Michael J. Fox is a better Shia Labeouf than Shia Labeouf at creating intensity and relaying importance and the time travel storyline is very well calculated in an engaging way. I'd rather watch Back to the Future than any move released in 2023 by far.
The Girlfriend Experience (2016)
Season 1, a female Ted Bundy? I don't think so.
I'm quite positive not a soul can relate to the main character, a very intelligent law student and extreme sociopath, because females like that simply don't exist. Also, for a supposedly intelligent female, she handles her life problems very poorly. In real life, you can't just escort powerful men and then yell "stay out of my business" when they start to stalk or create problems for you. The main character also spent a lot of time making phone calls, looking at server files, recording people on her phone which would normally be used later in a story as the character puts together a plan to get out of trouble... but a lot of that went nowhere. There was also a lot of missed opportunities to bring back characters like Jacqueline and Avery and create some meaningful plot twists in the 2nd half of the season instead of nothing really happening at all. The show never explains why she changes her mind and pursues escorting above all else or why she quits law school or even why she seeks out a million dollar apartment. 13 episodes is a lot of time to explain what drives a main character and yet it simply never happens here.
This show also seems to steal editing concepts, directing, ambiance style etc from other popular shows at the time like Mr. Robot. But that can't make up for the fact that this impossible character is unrelatable and makes choices not supported by anything.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
Fine for kids, but adult fans wont care for it. And the music was WAY OFF.
The original Ghostbusters had dialogue and pacing made for both children and adults. But Afterlife is just a kid's movie. The acting, dialogue and progression are fine if your a child, but slow and lackluster for adult fans of the original film.
But my biggest peeve about this movie is the music. Whoever decided how and where to use the original music in Afterlife should be ashamed of themselves. The application of the old piano melodies was completely wrong every time it was used. Whoever made these music decisions has no appreciation for the original. The purpose of the original music was totally ruined in the way it was applied to Afterlife. Seriously, if you personally know who is responsible for the awful music application here, tell them to quit the entertainment business entirely. Even the re-scoring of old melodies was pathetic. Sorry, but the musical essence of the original is completely destroyed in Afterlife.
Sinister (2012)
Could have been better
What would have fixed this movie is if the wife would have found out earlier who's house they were living in. And then the husband finds out EARLIER that there is a trail of connected families moving from one house to another that determines who is going to die next. Then, halfway through the movie the audience would know that his youngest was in danger of killing the whole family and the husband could battle with what he was going to do with that information.
Instead we get one story that is a misdirect, only to change the story in the last minute of the movie, which leaves us with more questions than answers. The fact that no one cares to ask those unanswered questions about Mr. Boogie and the cult, because the movie is already over, doesn't really redeem the story switch here.
Other than that, the sounds and music are great. The acting from Hawke is good and the directing is pretty good too. 7/10 but could have been better. The ending wasn't really a twist, it was just a unfairly hidden new direction.
Welcome to Plathville (2019)
Parents are bad but Olivia is extremely manipulative.
I definitely don't agree with the parents who have not prepared their children for life. They monitor their children, but they don't teach them anything of value when it comes to relationships, friendships or real-world socialization.
That being said, Olivia has been nothing but a manipulative see you next Tuesday from day one. Ethan has been completely brainwashed by her and it's been sad to watch him swallow every single one of her lies. The only heroes of this story are the 9 blonde-haired children. The parents and Olivia are horrible people who do anything they can to wage war on each other.
Also, the producers of this show are completely evil to encourage this manipulative behavior for ratings.
Devs (2020)
Speaking down to the audience in long form
If, for some strange reason, you have difficulty figuring out what is happening, just wait 30 seconds and the characters will explain everything to you in dialogue. And if you happen to forget, they'll usually explain it to you again in dialogue 10 minutes later. There are literally and visually zero details to anything, so don't bother looking for clues or insights, the pauses in the show are a sad attempt at drama not time where you're supposed to be contemplating anything about the show. To top it off, the main character Lily, speaks SO SLOWLY at a pace that even a 4 year old could comprehend. Don't watch this show if you're bored out of your mind, it will only make things worse. Show concepts, music, cinematography are all loosely borrowed from other TV shows. No one is believable as a software developer, let alone smart enough to understand quantum mechanics, determinism etc. Every episode is nonstop speaking down to the audience in long form.
Shame.
Thy Neighbor (2018)
You can't be serious.
This is hilarious.
I laughed so hard at this movie. 99 times out of 100 when people tell me to watch a bad movie because it's fun to laugh at, it's not fun. It's just pathetic to watch. But THIS is different. I can't help but wonder if this movie isn't misunderstood satire. I was laughing my pants off by the end at the direction everything went. This is underrated satire treasure.
Buffaloed (2019)
What world is Brian Sacca living in?
This movie lives in such an illogical setting, it's difficult to keep watching. Characters hold anger against each other and then 5 seconds later act as if they've never met. I get that this movie was trying to show Peg's character as a chaotic problem solver, but even in chaos you have to live within reality. None of the ways that Peg was able to get off the hook with the law made clear sense and were glossed over. Her collection agency was constantly stacking money yet couldn't purchase any more debt that was pennies on the dollar? Not to mention, debt collectors never collect in cash and of course they use computers. "Just use the money from your student loan to pay it." What? The entirety of this lost movie was completely written for one stupid scene at the very end when Peg speaks to the camera. There's nothing prolific here, just poor research and extremely hasty writing. Brian, at least give your script a good once-over.
If you need consistent characters, believable emotional responses, logic, and the story to be grounded in a bit of real-world interactions, stay away from this one.