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American Nightmare (2024)
Absolute power corrupts absolutely
It feels like a given that every Netflix true crime documentary nowadays starts with the premise, 'you think you know where this is headed? Well, guess again'.
Like nearly everyone in society I LOVE true crime media; TV shows, books or otherwise.
That being said, this very short 'series' absolutely floored me.
The 3 episodes follow a formula that people interested in true crime (and certainly the majority of Netflix subscribers) will be familiar with.
However, that is where the familiarity ends because everything in this series is genuinely shocking, heartbreaking, infuriating and generally all-round staggering.
The levels of disbelief and 'corruption' shown/evidenced by those in power is nothing short of making you want to march down to your local government office and demand justice.
Finally, and by no means least, the biggest mention must go to both Denise Huskins and Aaron Quinn for reliving a truly horrific ordeal and having the strength to face up to the awful men in power in law enforcement that tried to so disgustingly break them.
Titane (2021)
A truly rubbish film
I will right off the bat admit that 'body horror' is my least favourite 'genre' and I can barely stomach any film that falls in to this category (I'm one of those people who can't even eat when something I find disgusting is on TV). That being said, I don't think I have ever seen anything quite so bonkers (and not in a good way) in my life. How this has got the reviews it has truly shows that film (and art in general) is completely subjective.
For me, this film has zero plot, zero ideas, zero character development, zero anything. I literally cannot comprehend what a single minute of it is meant to mean. Truly one of the most boring, pointless and stupid films I've ever seen.
Keishichô sôsaikka rûshî burakku man jiken (2023)
Misleading and sensationalist
This documentary completely, and somewhat disgracefully, overlooks the utter incompetence and laziness of the Japanese police. There is no mention of how utterly useless and slow the police were for large parts of the investigation. There are also a couple of very significant points about the investigation that are overlooked or misrepresented to paint the police in a much more favourable light. Quite a disgusting documentary on something so utterly horrific.
It does not take long at all to find out the information that this documentary so drastically misses the mark on.
It seems strange how what appears to be the entirety of the Japanese police force interviewed in the film, but then again if you realised you could have the chance to gloss over catastrophic errors in your job history I'm sure you would do the same.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
So much dialogue!
The Mission Impossible series has quite impressively set a very high bar for action films and have basically delivered, and then some, with every single one (despite it being derided, MI:2 has some great action scenes).
It therefore feels inevitable that we were due an underwhelming film and for me this is very much that. My main gripe is that there is soooo much dialogue. If you're going to make an action film with such an enormous amount of dialogue then it needs to be interesting, fun, witty, engaging or at the very least it needs to advance the plot. For the most part the film largely fails on all of these points. There are some very clever and interesting lines regarding artificial intelligence and it's potential impact on the world but a few pithy lines do not make up for such sub-standard and largely boring writing.
The action is great but the series has set such an incredibly high bar for action sequences that I feel this film struggles to really meet.
I'll have to watch it again to see if it's better second time around but I hope Part Two is better.
Unhinged (2020)
An absolute car crash
A really nasty, grisly film.
After an opening scene that is probably too basic an explanation for everything that follows we see an attempt at justification of this man's anger.
My over-arching feeling is that the director has gone for full-on shock/disgust value because this kind of story has been done to death. It's a poor, poor and lazy path to take.
The film is absolutely riddled with, 'but that wouldn't happen/WHY DON'T YOU DO 'X' YOU IDIOT?!' moments.
Not even seeing Russell Crowe 'return' to cinema can rescue this absolute mess of a film.
A Ghost Story (2017)
The least pretentious of all the pretentious films
This film has a very simple and yet very thought-provoking premise and it tells it's story it in a way that is easily seen as pretentious and boring. But to say that is to miss the simplistic beauty of this film.
With most love stories, confusion, a sense of loss and memories of what have been are at the forefront and this is where I think this film excels.
Story aside, this is a film of immense beauty to look at. There are very very few wasted shots and the beauty of it's direction and the emotional strength of watching a man in a sheet more than make up for it's lack of dialogue.
Compliance (2012)
Unbelievable
The longer this film goes on the more you find yourself shouting, "but you just wouldn't do that!". And quite logically so. I suppose the fact that a film can stir up such emotion to make you feel angry and at times upset that the people are so easily carrying out such acts is a credit to the film-maker despite the 'come on, seriously?!' nature of the film.
The big problem I found with the film is that not only is it just generally quite poorly acted (especially by Becky who at times doesn't seem to care about what she is being asked to do) but also that the character of the manager of the restaurant seemed to be very very contrived. She is very much portrayed as someone who has her own problems in life (relationship problems and from one of the beginning scenes, problems with acceptance and fitting in) which is shown all the way through the film and seems to aid the prank caller greatly in making sure his vile requests are carried through. I struggle to believe (more than the acts themselves that are carried out) that all the characters are portrayed exactly as they acted at the time and this is a discredit to the film as the portrayal of the restaurant manager is the least believable part.