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saxowieland
Reviews
Bloody New Year (1987)
Certified bad movie classic :)
This is a certified bad movie classic!
This is a very good example of a movie severely lacking in a multitude of ways but where the filmakers tried their best at making a movie. Knowing behind the scenes facts about how the movie was made and the ultra low budget, gives me a lot of respect for it and the everyone involved.
If you too are interested you can watch the dead meat video on it. Its great
Even though the movie isnt that great it still has some great weird moments that make it worth it watching
And id say i got something more after watching the movie than i lost watching it. And when it comes to quality bad movies that is essential.
And even though its funny bad, it still has that important soul to it.
I struggle rating this because its a very guilty pleasure type film, where the film has so many shortcomings that have become part of why i love it so much. That pretty much goes against the standard film review rules, so im not gonna break those. However the film is very enjoyable especially with friends and especially when tipsy.
The Big Short (2015)
The big shortcoming
The Big Short is a fine movie on a surface level
The acting is great for the most part with some actors that attemted to do some new things with their performances. That along with the scale and sheer magnitude of the films plot makes it very engaging to finish watching. That being said my patience was tested by the movie on several points.
1. The comedy
I get that it could help a movie with a subject matter this serious to have some comedy injected into it. It is very hit or miss though as some of it had me cringing to death while some of it made me laugh.
The very angry perfomances and increasing amounts of tension in the different groups as things slowly come crashing down is, to me, very naturally funny without the movie having to look at you and tell you "Hey im being funny right now". That is something the movie loves doing with the editing that tries to make up for a lot of the stale jokes being made.
The 4th wall breaks are mostly unnecessary and seem way more self important than they need to be. Its like the movie is insisting that it is smart because it can poke holes in its own script.
The Margot Robbie bath tub bit, and the "His name is Yang" bit almost made me quit entirely. It was way to insisting of its own "outragous" self awareness.
2. Storytelling
The storytelling is also very confusing and sloppily done, thanks to the editing.
The cutting back and fourth between the characters is done in a fine way, and the narration that usually gets added afterwards is not necessary. The movie would be a lot better with som less narration and more comprehensible scenes that didnt require the narration as glue to keep it all together.
3. Editing and cinematography
The camerawork and patchwork editing in this movie is even worse that what you would find in any Lars Von Trier film. Constant breaking of rules without any really artful intentions. From the freeze frames on random characters to the quick cutaway clips of things happening in the vicinity along with the weird montages that are supposed to show 2007's culture i guess, are all awful.
I would accept it if there was any type of purpose to gain from it but there really wasnt any. The obnoxios style lacked any purpose at all, but is still the type of editing to get more attention, because its more noticable. Thats not what good editing is though.
4. Mixing
This one is pretty short but the sound mixing of the actors, the folie and the music was not very balanced at all. Had to turn it up when the people where talking only to the be blasted in the face by the very obnoxios music choiches. (Except for Feel Good Inc.)
All in all this movie (despite the interesting subject matter) might just not be for me. I can see people enjoying a movie like this and not noticing or just not caring about the flaws it has, but i definetly dont feel like that. It was very cringe for me but so is most of Adam Mckays other works. If you enjoyed his other films like Vice (2017) and if that type of style and tone is something you enjoy, then this one is at the very least worth checking out.
For me its between a stong 4 or a weak five.