markcmason Reviews

Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York (2023)

Ultimately Disappointing

[4/10 · 5 February 2024]

The book by Elon Green that this series is developed from is a masterpiece. Beautifully written, shocking, tragic, full of humanity and life as well as being a horror story about a serial killer and those who deserved to be remembered as far more than victims. The series however is ultimately not worth watching. It tries to be a counterpoint to the grislier exploitive true-crime trash on TV and focus on the victims to the extent that it neglects the killer as an afterthought. While this is a valid strategy for doing something different, in viewpoint the show leans dangerously close to saying that society is the real killer, etc. So much time is spent on Anita Bryant's homophobic crusade of the late 1970s that one would be forgiven for thinking the killer would turn out to be a follower of hers rather than (spoilers) another gay man. Bryant was a terrible person in her heyday but her prominence as an anti gay activist was over around 1980, which makes the use of extensive footage of her with ominous music somewhat beside the point in this chronicle of brutal murders from 1991-1994. Similarly, I rolled my eyes when the series trotted out the homophobic 1950s mental hygiene film BOYS BEWARE, as if it was fuel for the murders. The series showcasing things like this (and the disco and leather gay underground of the 1980s and early 90s despite the murders having the background of tony upscale gay-friendly piano bars) makes it seem like the filmmakers are bored of the story they're forced to tell and want to make the material more "relevant" to 2020s audiences. It's a bad way to make a documentary series and the end makes the mistake of dismissing all the dead as part of the struggle for liberation. It's unfortunate and reductive, an insult to the dead, their families and loved ones, and the investigators who worked to stop the killer who caused so much pain.

Babylon (I) (2022)

Ugly, Crass, Offensive and Stupid

[1/10 · 6 September 2023]

I watched the first three minutes of this movie and then turned it off. Never had my opinion of a filmmaker that I liked fallen so quickly. The first three minutes were so vile and charmless and BORING even that I couldn't face having three hours left. Life is far too short. Death comes for us all and seeing an obscenely-budgeted movie defecate all over one of the most fascinating periods of film history for the purpose of being edgy is just not worth what little time we have left. I loved FIRST MAN, a very under-appreciated film and have loved starring actors Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, etc., in many many movies but I did not even wait for their first appearance here, so awful is that opening scene.

Greetings from Washington, D.C. (1981)

Hauntingly Sad

[9/10 · 1 June 2023]

I'd very much like to see supplementary materials on this- given the nightmare of AIDS that was just beginning to be felt in 1981 when this documentary was released, I was extremely curious as to how that terrible time affected the many interviewees here. Even the opening credits showing empty rooms of normal looking houses and apartments, decked out for anniversaries and birthdays of just for morning breakfasts, all showing framed pictures of this October 1979 march, seem to indicate an unfathomable grief and sense of loss. But that of course must be the result of watching this in 2023, knowing the unpredictable tragedy about to crash into so many lives, of people who seem so ineffably joyful and determined. That's what any home movie does, doesn't it? The preservation of a feeling that time inevitably turns into melancholy. The past is gone...the people you loved aren't there anymore. Tragedy divides our lives into befores and afters. History is just a litany of loss. We romanticize as a defense mechanism, because to face the relentlessness of life and death head-on is too painful. We don't want any story to end- we try and continue it after the credits roll but Dorothy Parker was right. "In all history, which has held billions and billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending."

The Captain (2022)

The First Episode was the Most Boring Thing I've Ever Seen

[1/10 · 19 July 2022]

The score is awful, plodding super serious strings sawing away, making it sound like the story will climax in the arrest of a serial killer. The story of Derek Jeter is just not interesting- incredibly paint by the numbers dull. Just dreadful.

Drop Squad (1994)

Dated & Cartoonish

[1/10 · 10 July 2022]

Watching this movie in 2022 is a revelation. I mean, it's horrible, deeply offensive and reductive, but that's not what I'm getting at- its revelatory in that the titular "drop squad" is like Twitter come to life. The squad tries to change people's minds by tying them to chairs, beating them, torturing them in increasingly cruel ways while screaming in their ears, literally water boarding them at points. Very reminiscent of Communist China, a liberal power fantasy where they get to beat the wrongthink out of their ideological opponents, these enemies being other African-Americans who don't have the same political outlook as they do. Some very good actors here stuck given awful performances straight out of a 90s Nickelodeon show. It plays differently today in the wake of the OJ trial, Abu Ghraib, the Obama presidency (would Obama's liberal centrism have made him an enemy of the Drop Squad?) and the 2020 civil unrest, all of which make viewing this film a more unpleasant experience. I blame the director for the poor performances not the actors. What a terrible movie.

The First Lady (2022)

Quite possibly the most banal miniseries in television history

[1/10 · 28 June 2022]

Appallingly bad. Three episodes were all I could take of this- I had to give up after the flashback episode showed all three future First Ladies walking down the aisle set to Stevie Wonder singing "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" Michelle Pfeiffer gave a decent performance as Betty Ford, though par for the course re: this show's poor storytelling, they introduce her character with a shot of about thirty liquor bottles. The costuming for the 1930s scenes is absolutely dreadful, looks like they just grabbed stuff from a trunk and threw it on their actors, smashing hats onto people's heads saying "THERE you have a hat on THAT'S YOUR CUE GO" like they did not care at all, the series set up villains like they were playing Satan in a Sunday school skit (somehow Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are the evil forces in the life of Betty Ford) and Viola Davis, as good as she always is, is terribly miscast here. The episode with young Eleanor attending a girls school is laughably bad, worse than a 1960s Disney movie. I didn't watch past episode three, can anyone tell me if there was a scene where Michelle Obama helped her daughter pack for the internship she arranged with Harvey Weinstein?

Intervista a Salvador Allende: La forza e la ragione (1973 TV Movie)

Pedantic and Dull

[4/10 · 25 June 2022]

Incredibly boring. Communist drivel that true to form extols empty rhetoric while condemning individual achievement. Only 45 minutes but felt like 3 hours.

Woman in Deep (2016)

Huh?

[5/10 · 15 May 2022]

I admit, I did not understand what was happening in this movie. The acting was fine, the tone was more pretentious than portentous and in the end I didn't care about what happened to the central character because everything felt very artificial. Felt like a set and costumes in search of an idea.