Yet another time when the same Hollywood whose bread and butter is movies built on gun violence turns around and tries to beat into their audiences that real, regular people owning guns is a bad thing. I wanted to get into this movie because it did have good actors and performances, but the heavy-handed lecturing on how a bad person with a gun isn't responsible for his own actions (but the gun manufacturers somehow are) just turned me off too much. Maybe I'll start listening to Hollywood's lectures on how my constitutional owning and use of a gun is bad when they stop making guns that glorify extreme gun violence.
Reviews
68 Reviews
Éirí Amach Amú
(2016– )
I wanted to like it a lot more than I actually did
19 January 2024
I will say right off that it was a little difficult to keep up with them going back and forth between Irish Gaelic and English. The problem wasn't really the 2 languages, the problem was that the Irish accents were sometimes very thick meaning I needed the captions on to be able to understand, especially when multiple people were talking or they were yelling/highly emotional. However, Amazon very kindly included in the captions "Speaks Gaelic" that was right on top of the subtitles the movie put in so the audience who didn't speak Irish Gaelic would know what they were saying. It was extremely annoying to not be able to understand half the movie because Amazon doesn't know how to properly do captions.
Other than the language issues, I really enjoyed the first episode of this 3-part mini-series. They were establishing that there was an element of the ridiculous but it was also dealing with some serious events. The second episode started to veer off course a bit where it went overboard with ridiculous or plain stupid scenes and smashed them right up against serious scenes. The effect was a kind of emotional whiplash that was very unpleasant. The third episode went totally off the rails and I was just rolling my eyes the whole time. I know that American movie makers can often be accused of having an overdeveloped sense of self-importance, but the people who made this movie think even more of how important Ireland is or could be!
I'm sure many people enjoyed this movie and I am glad they did, but I was not one of them. Between the language issues, emotional whiplash, and rolling my eyes so hard at the ending that I think I sprained something, I will pass on ever watching it again.
Other than the language issues, I really enjoyed the first episode of this 3-part mini-series. They were establishing that there was an element of the ridiculous but it was also dealing with some serious events. The second episode started to veer off course a bit where it went overboard with ridiculous or plain stupid scenes and smashed them right up against serious scenes. The effect was a kind of emotional whiplash that was very unpleasant. The third episode went totally off the rails and I was just rolling my eyes the whole time. I know that American movie makers can often be accused of having an overdeveloped sense of self-importance, but the people who made this movie think even more of how important Ireland is or could be!
I'm sure many people enjoyed this movie and I am glad they did, but I was not one of them. Between the language issues, emotional whiplash, and rolling my eyes so hard at the ending that I think I sprained something, I will pass on ever watching it again.
Blue/Orange
(2005 TV Movie)
Watch it before it goes down the memory hole!
17 January 2024
I was utterly shocked by this movie, not by the content, but by the fact that the BBC made it and hasn't memory-holed it by now! This is a story about two psych doctors, one in "authority" (and desperately looking for more) and the other just a boots-on-the-ground psych doctor trying to help people the best he can, and one patient. There are both blatant and subtle undertones of racism, weaponized accusations, white-knight syndrome, cruelty for cruelty's sake, jealousy/avarice to the point of risking a patient's health and life, and of course, serious mental illness. I was nervous about watching this movie at first because I didn't want to be bludgeoned over the head with the current BBC line of "all white people are racist" for the umpteenth time this week, but that is NOT what I got! I am going to have to see if I can get a hard copy of this movie sometime soon because I can definitely see the BBC wiping it from its digital existence.
Wonka
(2023)
Amazing! Someone finally found out how to add to a previously existing movie without destroying it!
3 January 2024
This movie was fun, sweet, and interesting. I laughed out loud more than once and wasn't pulled out of the story by anything shoved into the movie that didn't belong. They were able to include nods to and bits from the 1971 movie without it feeling like nothing more than a cheap play on the audience's emotions to grab more cash. There was an absolutely stellar cast of well-known names and faces. They all worked together beautifully with an expertly crafted script under a magnificent director. The only major flaw with this movie is the advertising! I only recall seeing 1 ad for this movie and thought it was just another remake of the Charlie story. I went because my kids wanted to and went in knowing very little about it. I was absolutely thrilled with the entire movie and am looking forward to seeing it again!
Rumors of Wars
(2014)
It is not really THAT bad!
20 October 2023
Not as bad as I was expecting, but it definitely could have been worse. I just wish that small-budget movie makers would realize that unless you have someone who either speaks with a particular accent already or can afford a really good dialect coach, it is better just to let the actor speak with their natural accent, especially when the accent plays NO part in the character. There were a few accents in this movie that just made me cringe they were so bad. But as far as a Christian-made post-apocalyptic movie, this is FAR from the worst out there and was actually pretty watchable! I just really wish they hadn't hung so much of the story on the expectation of getting a sequel, which I think is pretty unlikely to happen at this point.
Definitely not Call the Midwife at its best
24 June 2023
I agree with the other reviewers who complained of too many plots, heavy-handed preaching, and inconsistent characterizations. This show does usually have multiple threads going on in each episode, but for a regular episode to have this many threads going on at once it was overwhelming. These were all also issues which have been very well covered in previous episodes, and dealt with much better, might I add. It isn't uncommon for a woman to be more emotional and more easily upset after a miscarriage, but for Lucille's character to change so much and so suddenly just seems like inconsistent writing, especially with no indication of change for her character in the Christmas episode. Racism was definitely an issue in this time and place, but this was a very heavy-handed and sloppy way to handle the issue. If they are going to readdress an issue previously covered, it can't feel like it was tacked on as an afterthought and that is how the whole protest thing felt. I also agree with the comment that if racism is going to ne the overarching theme of this season, I'm not sure if I will remain interested. After getting beaten over the head with "racists everywhere" for the past 3 years, getting preached at by my favorite show is just a bit too much.
The Philadelphia Experiment Revealed: Final Countdown to Disclosure from the Area 51 Archives
(2012)
WTF...?
11 April 2023
My older brother took me with him to a Stephen Hawking lecture when I was 15 many years ago. I didn't understand much of the science, but he was still an interesting speaker and, most importantly, wasn't bat crap crazy (again, even though I barely understood anything). I barely understood anything any of these people said, but it wasn't because they were talking about things I am just incapable of understanding, but because they are all completely and certifiably crazy.
I have seen the movie The Philadelphia Experiment, both the 1984 version and the 2012 version, as well as The Philadelphia Experiment II (1993). They were fun, interesting little B-level sci-fi jaunts. This was not a movie, it was a VERY poor quality recording made on someone's 1985 camcorder of some guys who either got fired from their real jobs teaching at some unknown community college because too many people slept through their next class after being put so fast asleep by these guys, or they couldn't get a job in the first place because they were too crazy even to work at a college, and never actually moved out of their mother's basements.
If you have 5 hours to waste, or your sleeping pill has failed you, go ahead and watch this. I can almost guarantee that you'll be out cold by about 30 minutes in at most.
I have seen the movie The Philadelphia Experiment, both the 1984 version and the 2012 version, as well as The Philadelphia Experiment II (1993). They were fun, interesting little B-level sci-fi jaunts. This was not a movie, it was a VERY poor quality recording made on someone's 1985 camcorder of some guys who either got fired from their real jobs teaching at some unknown community college because too many people slept through their next class after being put so fast asleep by these guys, or they couldn't get a job in the first place because they were too crazy even to work at a college, and never actually moved out of their mother's basements.
If you have 5 hours to waste, or your sleeping pill has failed you, go ahead and watch this. I can almost guarantee that you'll be out cold by about 30 minutes in at most.
Another in a long-line of stupid plots and vapid characters
1 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Sitcoms are all about manufactured drama, but this show seems to be trying REALLY hard to make sure you can see just how hard they worked to manufacture the drama. The relationship between Max and Kat has never had any chemistry, so I really didn't care when the relationship hit the rocks. I also couldn't care less what color Randy and Carter's kitchen ended up. The argument they had about it wasn't even funny, just boring and eye-rollingly stupid. And the fact that someone trying to be a musician thinks that coming out as a lesbian in 2023 would "kill her career" is laughable. These days, people "come out" when they are nowhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum in order to forward their careers in any of the entertainment industries. This is the 21st century, not 1980, get a clue. I will soon be unable to watch this show anymore as I am dropping Hulu and I have to say I am not going to miss it in the least.
Call Me Kat
(2021–2023)
Liked it at first, but it got old fast
1 April 2023
I adore Miranda and liked Mayim Bialik the few times I've seen her, so I figured I'd give this show a shot. The first season was watchable, the second season was okay to have on in the background, but the third season is more annoying than anything else. Where Miranda wasn't focused 100% on the relationship with Gary, it was a component and the "will they? Won't they" thing did create interest. There was never any "will they? Won't they?" with Kat and Max as there was basically no chemistry between them at all. Then they had them get together very suddenly so it happened before anyone really cared if it would ever happen. Kat's mother is not pushy and overly-involved like Miranda's was, she's just a cruel mother who obviously cares FAR more about herself than anyone else, especially her daughter. The cat café idea is cute, but that is where the cute ends because the characters are just annoying and the plots are just dumb. I will no longer have Hulu soon and long ago dropped regular TV and it won't hurt my feelings at ALL that I won't get to watch this show anymore because I'd rather watch almost anything else.
Altitude
(2010)
I wish I'd listened to those who said it sucked.
23 February 2023
I wasn't expecting much but I have to say, I was still disappointed. I knew what was going on before the flashback scene at the beginning finished, the only surprise was when I discovered that the ludicrous plot device I laughingly said was being used actually turned out to be what was really going on! It is pretty common in movies where there is some kind of emergency to have a jerk character who the audience is meant to hate, but I hated all 5 of the main characters. I was only annoyed when they started dying because they died in reverse order of how much I hated each of them, leaving the one I hated the most for last! Yeah, the ending is somewhat interesting (hence the 1 star), but sitting through the rest of the movie to get to the slightly interesting ending just isn't worth it. I wish I'd passed on this one!
Why do I care about the commentator's opinions on FDR???
6 February 2023
This whole thing was filled with self-important 21st century people sitting in judgement of 19th century people and events without taking the intervening 150 years into account and it REALLY annoyed me! I love the Little House books and wanted to learn more about Laura Ingalls Wilder, but along with that, I got a whole lot of unwanted crap from a bunch of supposed experts who are probably the same people who petitioned to have Wilder's name removed from the Laura Ingalls Wilder Children's Book Award. They keep going on about how inaccurate the books are, but seem to be completely unaware of what the word "fiction" means. They could have cut out most of their moralizing and stupid comments and the show would have been very enjoyable. Some people need to learn to recognize the differences between what is worth getting all bent out of shape over and what is something to learn from and move on from. If a little girl being fascinated by the dark eyes of a baby hurts you for 50 years, you really need to move on and find something more important to get worked up about! Whoever wrote this obviously hasn't learned that lesson and I wish they would learn that before they make any more documentaries.
Peripheral
(I) (2018)
Good concepts...lousy execution
8 January 2023
This is yet another movie that really isn't as good as the writer intended and nowhere near as good as it could have been. So many writers these days have really, really good concepts and ideas to get across, but they get so caught up in being unique or Avant-garde that they end up making their work completely incomprehensible.
This movie had a great idea to convey how the lines between human creators and technology are being so blurred these days and how the corporate control of creative endeavors is destroying the creativity that should be inherent to the process. The beginning and ending of the movie did a good job of forwarding those ideas in an effective yet unique way. The problem was the entire middle half of the movie which made little to no sense even with drugs factored in!
Ever since the 1960s, there has been a growing number of writers, especially young writers, who have gotten the idea that leaving the audience with more questions about the movie when it is over than they had when it started is somehow a good thing. This. Is. A. Lie. You can have an excellent movie that leaves you with many questions, but if you are walking out of the theater or turning off the TV and are still wondering what in the hell the movie was about, the writer has done a BAD JOB OF WRITING! I know there are people who will be very opposed to my opinion, but the thing is, it is not just my opinion, it is the opinion of almost every person on this planet who is not trying to be a pretentious jerk by saying that people who don't "get it" are just not intelligent, deep, or special to understand.
Writers need to learn to write WHOLE stories, stories that have a beginning, a middle, and an end so that when the audience has finished the story, they can actually tell what it was about. Can writing schools please start teaching that again? Because I am really tired of watching movies with really great ideas that completely fail to come together because the writer never got past the idea stage, but still somehow made it into a movie.
This movie had a great idea to convey how the lines between human creators and technology are being so blurred these days and how the corporate control of creative endeavors is destroying the creativity that should be inherent to the process. The beginning and ending of the movie did a good job of forwarding those ideas in an effective yet unique way. The problem was the entire middle half of the movie which made little to no sense even with drugs factored in!
Ever since the 1960s, there has been a growing number of writers, especially young writers, who have gotten the idea that leaving the audience with more questions about the movie when it is over than they had when it started is somehow a good thing. This. Is. A. Lie. You can have an excellent movie that leaves you with many questions, but if you are walking out of the theater or turning off the TV and are still wondering what in the hell the movie was about, the writer has done a BAD JOB OF WRITING! I know there are people who will be very opposed to my opinion, but the thing is, it is not just my opinion, it is the opinion of almost every person on this planet who is not trying to be a pretentious jerk by saying that people who don't "get it" are just not intelligent, deep, or special to understand.
Writers need to learn to write WHOLE stories, stories that have a beginning, a middle, and an end so that when the audience has finished the story, they can actually tell what it was about. Can writing schools please start teaching that again? Because I am really tired of watching movies with really great ideas that completely fail to come together because the writer never got past the idea stage, but still somehow made it into a movie.
Rescued by Ruby
(2022)
A wonderful underdog tale if ever there was one!
8 January 2023
This was exactly the heartwarming-bordering-on-sentimental movie that I was looking for today! There are sooooooo many movies out there that are dark, gritty, or downright depressing that I am totally burned out on them. I stumbled across this one and thought it might be what I was looking for, and I was SO right!
This based-on-a-true-story movie is a great underdog (har har) tale that just gets you in all the right feel-good places. I loved how they built the characters and the relationships, especially between Daniel and Ruby and the ending brought everything full circle just perfectly. All the actors were great, but I was thinking the whole time how well-trained the dog playing Ruby was. During the credits, the filmmakers revealed that, just like Ruby in the story, the dog playing Ruby was also rescued from a shelter at "the last minute" and helped into playing the role perfectly. That was the icing on the cake for me and I had to go hunt down my own rescue dog and give him some love (and I may have slipped him a little raw hot dog too, but I won't tell if you won't!).
If you are a dog lover, love a good underdog-makes-good story, or are just looking for a break from all the dark, depressing stuff that abounds these days, I HIGHLY recommend checking out Rescued by Ruby. If you aren't smiling by the end of it, I'll wonder if you even HAVE a heart!
This based-on-a-true-story movie is a great underdog (har har) tale that just gets you in all the right feel-good places. I loved how they built the characters and the relationships, especially between Daniel and Ruby and the ending brought everything full circle just perfectly. All the actors were great, but I was thinking the whole time how well-trained the dog playing Ruby was. During the credits, the filmmakers revealed that, just like Ruby in the story, the dog playing Ruby was also rescued from a shelter at "the last minute" and helped into playing the role perfectly. That was the icing on the cake for me and I had to go hunt down my own rescue dog and give him some love (and I may have slipped him a little raw hot dog too, but I won't tell if you won't!).
If you are a dog lover, love a good underdog-makes-good story, or are just looking for a break from all the dark, depressing stuff that abounds these days, I HIGHLY recommend checking out Rescued by Ruby. If you aren't smiling by the end of it, I'll wonder if you even HAVE a heart!
A Christmas Carol: The Musical
(2004 TV Movie)
Not the worst Christmas Carol out there, but this is still pretty bad!
24 December 2022
I won't say this is the worst version of A Christmas Carol I've ever seen because there is a version out there where Bob Cratchit's wife is a black woman (in the 1840s) who Scrooge sexually assaults so she casts a voodoo curse on him and that's why the whole ghost thing happened in the first place. This one is better than that version, but that doesn't mean it qualifies as "good" and I seriously wonder about anyone who thinks this trainwreck is good!
The cast is made up of a bunch of has-been 90s stars who were trying to get one last grab for attention, but can't act in the roles they were given. Some of the singing is really good, but more of it is painful to listen to. I don't know what happened to Scrooge's backstory, but someone seems to have confused Dickens' past with the backstory for Scrooge and it really screws with his character arc. It also kind of weirded me out that they gave Bob Cratchit's wife's name, Emily, to Scrooge's former fiance who was supposed to be called Belle. The accents are more painful to listen to than the singing, and most of the musical numbers are confusing (Christmas Present's song) at best and disturbing at worst (Christmas Yet To Be!!!).
I will most definitely NOT be adding this to my future Christmas watching list because watching it once was three times too many!
The cast is made up of a bunch of has-been 90s stars who were trying to get one last grab for attention, but can't act in the roles they were given. Some of the singing is really good, but more of it is painful to listen to. I don't know what happened to Scrooge's backstory, but someone seems to have confused Dickens' past with the backstory for Scrooge and it really screws with his character arc. It also kind of weirded me out that they gave Bob Cratchit's wife's name, Emily, to Scrooge's former fiance who was supposed to be called Belle. The accents are more painful to listen to than the singing, and most of the musical numbers are confusing (Christmas Present's song) at best and disturbing at worst (Christmas Yet To Be!!!).
I will most definitely NOT be adding this to my future Christmas watching list because watching it once was three times too many!
Trash rehash of trash TV but we still have to throw our political ideology at you!
31 October 2022
Given that this episode is literally about and CALLED "trash TV" you expect that it's going to be full of trash TV. For the most part, it delivered on what it promised, a bunch of trash about trash TV and how it led to a lot of the crap on the internet today. I mostly had it going in the background while working on something else but I did catch that the "experts" commenting had to throw in their opinion on Donald Trump. They didn't talk about his show at ALL but they still had to throw in comments about trash TV leading to a trash president who is always performing a character. What does a has-been talk show host's opinion on what the President of the US is or is not doing have to do with whether the Jerry Springer show was real or fake? How about if we focus on the actual topic of the episode and not stray into territory that really has NOTHING to do with what we are talking about?
The Haunting of Bly Manor
(2020)
Would have gotten an 8 if it had been half as long!
25 October 2022
I binge-watched the first 5 episodes of this show and LOVED it! But at that point, it just started dragging. By the time I got to episode 8 I was ready to give up because I was being force-fed all this backstory of characters I didn't care about in the least!
I enjoy creepy, psychological scares much more than I do gory, hack-and-slash, jump-scare horror so I really, really wanted to like this show. Most of the reviews I read disliked this one because it wasn't the same kind of horror as The Haunting of Hill House (2018). I haven't seen that one (though I have seen and LOVE The Haunting (1963)) so I didn't think that would be a problem. Now I'm going to watch the Hill House one and see if it is any better because I am so disappointed in the wasted potential of this series.
I'm really just annoyed with this one because it was SO GOOD...until it became obvious that the writer was padding it out to be a series rather than a movie and had run out of good ideas.
I enjoy creepy, psychological scares much more than I do gory, hack-and-slash, jump-scare horror so I really, really wanted to like this show. Most of the reviews I read disliked this one because it wasn't the same kind of horror as The Haunting of Hill House (2018). I haven't seen that one (though I have seen and LOVE The Haunting (1963)) so I didn't think that would be a problem. Now I'm going to watch the Hill House one and see if it is any better because I am so disappointed in the wasted potential of this series.
I'm really just annoyed with this one because it was SO GOOD...until it became obvious that the writer was padding it out to be a series rather than a movie and had run out of good ideas.
Unsane
(2018)
This movie sucks in every possible way.
17 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
From the standpoint of showing anything even approaching reality, the people who made this movie obviously had absolutely NO knowledge of how a real psychiatric facility works and didn't feel the need to do any research whatsoever. I get it, they are trying to "call out" the mental health system as being flawed, it is! But they could at least have used REAL flaws that actually exist within that system! If this movie was taking place in the 1930s I might have believed that a staff member at a psychiatric facility could get away with all that the stalker in this film got away with, but with it taking place in the year it was made (2018) it was completely unbelievable! What kind of secured facility puts all the patients in the same room at night with no staff members present? The kind that is inviting all kinds of attacks from and on mentally unstable patients, but not one that is actually certified in any first world country! What kind of facility doesn't have any kind of system for how patients get discharged? The kind that wants to get shut down by the state when patients start going missing! What kind of facility uses medication and isolation as methods for staff to punish patients? The kind that got shut down in 1975!
Aside from the WILD inaccuracies in how any mental health facility is actually run, the story was not at all interesting. If there had been some mystery about whether she really was crazy and the stalker didn't exist or wasn't who she thought it was, that might have been more interesting. But any and all question about whether it was real or she was crazy went out the window from very early on, making it a rather boring (and also stupidly gruesome) Lifetime-style stalker movie.
I only watched this movie in the first place because I saw some reviews that said it was in the "so bad it's funny" category, but it doesn't even get that from me. This movie was completely and utterly ludicrous in every possible way. I have no clue how anyone could give this movie more than about a 3/10 unless they know nothing at all about how the mental health system actually works AND have never seen a decent movie in their lives. This is definitely one movie where I am left wondering who I go to in order to demand a refund for my stolen 1.5 hours.
Aside from the WILD inaccuracies in how any mental health facility is actually run, the story was not at all interesting. If there had been some mystery about whether she really was crazy and the stalker didn't exist or wasn't who she thought it was, that might have been more interesting. But any and all question about whether it was real or she was crazy went out the window from very early on, making it a rather boring (and also stupidly gruesome) Lifetime-style stalker movie.
I only watched this movie in the first place because I saw some reviews that said it was in the "so bad it's funny" category, but it doesn't even get that from me. This movie was completely and utterly ludicrous in every possible way. I have no clue how anyone could give this movie more than about a 3/10 unless they know nothing at all about how the mental health system actually works AND have never seen a decent movie in their lives. This is definitely one movie where I am left wondering who I go to in order to demand a refund for my stolen 1.5 hours.
Dark Water
(2005)
Excellent non-hack-and-slash horror movie!
17 October 2022
Fortunately, I read some user reviews of this movie before watching it or I probably wouldn't have chosen to watch it at all. I remember seeing the ads when it came out and it just didn't interest me because it was billed as a Ring-type horror movie and I'm not into that kind of movie. This was much more subtle than that genre tends to be. It was most definitely a horror movie, but more on the psychological side and certainly not the hack-and-slash type (which I despise). This was a great scary movie and exactly what I was looking for! I am probably going to add this one to my list of "to-buy movies!" Now I am off to find the original Japanese version and see if it is as good as this one or if it is better as many reviewers have claimed.
The Mist
(2007)
Inside Stephen King's Mind: The Movie!
8 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This movie is everything I hate about Stephen King's writing boiled down to its purest essence. The worst of human nature, raw and unfiltered. Apparently, there are people who actually like this, personally, I am already well aware of how horrible people can be to each other, I don't need to watch what is supposed to be a horror movie, but is really just people being horrible to each other for no reason whatsoever in order to come to this realization. There is NO reason given for why all these people suddenly went from thinking the crazy religious lady was crazy to being her disciples as the movie conveniently skipped over that entire scene. I'm sure they skipped it because there is NO reason they would all suddenly decide she was right after all that actually makes sense in the rational world.
I doubt Stephen King ever met a religious person of any flavor or degree of devotion that he liked (nor probably any other kind of person, really) and he makes this VERY obvious in every one of his books and most of his movies. Before you think I am just biased because I am a crazy religious person, I am not, not at all, but I have met just as many good religious people as good non-religious people and just as many bad religious people as bad non-religious people. Maybe King just needs to get out of his little echo chamber once in a while in order to come up with an original character or two.
All in all, this movie has all the characters you'll find in every one of King's other works, it is just that the "terrorizing influence" has been removed from this story, leaving nothing but his horrible view of humanity. This movie sucks because they removed all semblance of the "horror" aspect and just focused on the usual people-being-horrible-to-other-people part of his writing, which is really the worst aspect of every one of his stories.
I doubt Stephen King ever met a religious person of any flavor or degree of devotion that he liked (nor probably any other kind of person, really) and he makes this VERY obvious in every one of his books and most of his movies. Before you think I am just biased because I am a crazy religious person, I am not, not at all, but I have met just as many good religious people as good non-religious people and just as many bad religious people as bad non-religious people. Maybe King just needs to get out of his little echo chamber once in a while in order to come up with an original character or two.
All in all, this movie has all the characters you'll find in every one of King's other works, it is just that the "terrorizing influence" has been removed from this story, leaving nothing but his horrible view of humanity. This movie sucks because they removed all semblance of the "horror" aspect and just focused on the usual people-being-horrible-to-other-people part of his writing, which is really the worst aspect of every one of his stories.
Chernobyl Diaries
(2012)
Jump scares and shadowy figures in the dark do not equal a good movie
7 October 2022
As others have said, this movie had a lot of potential and started well, but by the halfway point, they had just gotten lazy. It really was such a shame because this was such an interesting concept that could have been SO much better, but just ended up being boring really. "Hidden figures in the shadows" are only scary for a short time, then the whole "running from unseen figures in the shadows" just gets old. Near the end, they started hinting at some really interesting background and twists, but then they just did the lazy thing and left it with hints and shadowy figures, rather than really getting into it. In the end, this was just another half-baked horror movie that relied on jump scares and ignored any and all semblance of a real plot.
His House
(2020)
I didn't really know what to expect, but whatever it was, it wasn't what I got!
5 October 2022
After watching the trailer, I was expecting a horror movie, probably with a lot of unwanted social commentary about refugees thrown in, but it at least had me interested enough to look at the user reviews. After reading those, I was pretty sure the unwanted social commentary part wasn't going to be a thing, but I was still expecting a fairly standard horror movie. That wasn't accurate either.
The movie has its fair share of jump-scares, that's for sure, and there are some truly frightening imagery that was extremely well done, but I wouldn't really call it a horror movie. Others have said that it is more of a drama with jump scares and I guess that is true, but it doesn't really do this movie justice. I can't really think of a way to explain it that even comes close to sounding right, so I will just say that whatever you are expecting, that probably isn't what you will get. But if you go in with the expectation that all your expectations are most likely not what you're going to get, you will probably enjoy it. I certainly did!
The movie has its fair share of jump-scares, that's for sure, and there are some truly frightening imagery that was extremely well done, but I wouldn't really call it a horror movie. Others have said that it is more of a drama with jump scares and I guess that is true, but it doesn't really do this movie justice. I can't really think of a way to explain it that even comes close to sounding right, so I will just say that whatever you are expecting, that probably isn't what you will get. But if you go in with the expectation that all your expectations are most likely not what you're going to get, you will probably enjoy it. I certainly did!
The People
(1972 TV Movie)
Wouldn't have been so bad if the IMDb and Amazon descriptions hadn't ruined the story for me!
3 October 2022
If you've gotten as far as checking reviews, you've probably already read the description on IMDb at least, but if you haven't, DON'T and you'll enjoy the movie a lot more! This movie would have been MUCH more enjoyable if I hadn't gone in knowing exactly what the "twist" was, thanks to the descriptions on both IMDb and Amazon Prime Video. I can see that if the mystery hadn't have been spoiled for me, the question of what was happening in this strange, isolated town would have been very interesting, but as it was, there was no suspense at all.
The acting was about what one would expect from a 1970s TV movie, though I found it funny that William Shatner got such high billing, given that he only had about 15-20 minutes of screen time. But I do understand that he was a big name at the time.
The acting was about what one would expect from a 1970s TV movie, though I found it funny that William Shatner got such high billing, given that he only had about 15-20 minutes of screen time. But I do understand that he was a big name at the time.
40 Days and Nights
(2012)
So bad it's good...until it gets boring
15 September 2022
I love a good bad movie and have watched many Asylum pictures and enjoyed them thoroughly, if not quite in the way the producers probably intended! I only gave it 2/10 due to the number of times I laughed in the first half of the movie. In reality, as far as "good movie-making" goes, it doesn't really even deserve 1/10.
At first, this movie was so ridiculous that it was hilarious. The effects were about the worst I've seen in a LONG time (including the 1970s sci-fi stuff!), the acting was either middle-school-theater-student level of overacting or completely non-existent, and the less said about "consistency" the better...and I enjoyed it completely! About halfway through the movie, however, it just got boring and I had a very hard time even paying attention anymore. There was something about bees being the one vital thing necessary for humankind to survive the flood and somehow everyone survived after we saw the entire city get washed away, but beyond that, I couldn't tell you much, it was too dumb to retain any of it.
At first, this movie was so ridiculous that it was hilarious. The effects were about the worst I've seen in a LONG time (including the 1970s sci-fi stuff!), the acting was either middle-school-theater-student level of overacting or completely non-existent, and the less said about "consistency" the better...and I enjoyed it completely! About halfway through the movie, however, it just got boring and I had a very hard time even paying attention anymore. There was something about bees being the one vital thing necessary for humankind to survive the flood and somehow everyone survived after we saw the entire city get washed away, but beyond that, I couldn't tell you much, it was too dumb to retain any of it.
Pretty lackluster story
30 August 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This episode really seemed like everyone from the writer to the actors was just "phoning it in." The story was vague and extremely easily solved. The main point of the whole episode seemed to be for Kurdy to get up on a high horse and scold the parents for allowing their children to hold religious beliefs he personally didn't believe in. This scene was especially ridiculous when you remember that Kurdy actually joined and claimed to fervently believe in a rather extreme religion himself. This episode is better just skipped as it is very lackluster and adds absolutely nothing to the overall story.
Interesting show overall but this episode was just boring
1 August 2022
I could only sit through half of this episode because I had reached my limit of how many times I could hear wannabe hasbeens say the word "cool" before wanting to throw something at one of them. The first episode was better, it was stuff that a more global audience could at least relate to, this episode was just about this one club that only the "coolest of the cool" could get into. Neither I nor anyone watching this show was ever in The Viper Room in the 90s and I really don't care about the theme nights they put on, no matter how cool they were.
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