Ridiculous plot, moronic subplots, routine acting, idiotic dialog, irritatingly obnoxious background music, bad science. No redeeming aspects whatsoever.
Reviews
45 Reviews
It
(I) (2017)
One of the Losers, big time
26 November 2017
I have not read the book or seen the miniseries, so I am judging this movie on its own merits. It is terrible.
The plot is routine and flimsy. The dialog is typical Hollywood garbage. In the first half or so we have a bunch of early teens spewing non-stop ever-so-cool repartee and tediously "witty" commentary, laced with total disrespect for all adults, who in this movie all deserve disrespect. In the second half, the dialog loses the repartee and wittiness and becomes simply witless. All the teens besides our heroes are incredibly (I use that word deliberately) mean and vicious.
There is no suspense in the supposedly suspenseful scenes. There is a lot of action, yet the movie seems to drag virtually all the time to the point of seeming interminable about an hour before the end, which is saying something for a movie that is only a little over 2 hours long.
The ending scene is typical feel-good Hollywood silliness with the group bonding and young love sprouting.
For the life of me I cannot grasp what the people who like this movie see in it. My advice is to avoid it. It's terrible.
The plot is routine and flimsy. The dialog is typical Hollywood garbage. In the first half or so we have a bunch of early teens spewing non-stop ever-so-cool repartee and tediously "witty" commentary, laced with total disrespect for all adults, who in this movie all deserve disrespect. In the second half, the dialog loses the repartee and wittiness and becomes simply witless. All the teens besides our heroes are incredibly (I use that word deliberately) mean and vicious.
There is no suspense in the supposedly suspenseful scenes. There is a lot of action, yet the movie seems to drag virtually all the time to the point of seeming interminable about an hour before the end, which is saying something for a movie that is only a little over 2 hours long.
The ending scene is typical feel-good Hollywood silliness with the group bonding and young love sprouting.
For the life of me I cannot grasp what the people who like this movie see in it. My advice is to avoid it. It's terrible.
What a mess
25 June 2017
This movie purports to be about the Arthurian legend. Other than a few characters' names and two elements from the real legend (there was a sword in the stone and there was *another* sword called Excalibur), there is no connection between this story and the legend. So if you are looking for an interesting version of the legend, forget about this.
Still, a show about knights and magical swords might be fun if done well. This congeries of garbage doesn't fill the bill. Merlin is a woman, the sword in the stone is conflated with Excalibur, Mordred is a pre-existing bad guy, there are huge machines and all sorts of magical powers. Except for Mordred, none of the characters is the least bit interesting. The plot development is predictable and boring.
There is a lot of jerky camera work, especially in the first part, where scenes abruptly cut from a one second shot here to a three second shot there and then another one second shot in yet another place or another time, etc. A lot of the action was filmed in the dark so that you can't see exactly what is going on - a fad that has gotten *very* tiresome over the last decade or so.
Still, a show about knights and magical swords might be fun if done well. This congeries of garbage doesn't fill the bill. Merlin is a woman, the sword in the stone is conflated with Excalibur, Mordred is a pre-existing bad guy, there are huge machines and all sorts of magical powers. Except for Mordred, none of the characters is the least bit interesting. The plot development is predictable and boring.
There is a lot of jerky camera work, especially in the first part, where scenes abruptly cut from a one second shot here to a three second shot there and then another one second shot in yet another place or another time, etc. A lot of the action was filmed in the dark so that you can't see exactly what is going on - a fad that has gotten *very* tiresome over the last decade or so.
Wonder Woman
(2017)
Gal Gadot Ten, Script Writers Zero
25 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers
I was very disappointed with this movie. The preview clips gave the impression it would be a lot of fun. Unfortunately it is so badly and routinely written that it wasn't much fun. That's too bad because Gal Gadot does a great job as Wonder Woman. Chris Pine is good, too, in his supporting role, but it is Gadot who carries the film and prevents it from being a total flop.
The main problem with the writing is that there is no tension, no suspense, no real surprise anywhere. Wonder Woman uses all her powers early in the show, so the rest of the action becomes predictable. It also becomes clear early on that Wonder Woman is invincible, so there you never are sitting on the edge of your chair wondering what is going to happen next. The bad guys are the World War I Germans, and they are all really bad, out-of-historical-context proto-Nazis. The result is just another trumped up routine superhero action flick. Who cares? Well, I wouldn't care if it weren't for Gal Gadot. She's terrific as Wonder Woman. She has the right combination of humor, sweet simplicity, and bad ass attitude to pull off the role. She seems to have real talent as an actress. I hope to see more performances by her in productions that are worthy of her skills.
The main problem with the writing is that there is no tension, no suspense, no real surprise anywhere. Wonder Woman uses all her powers early in the show, so the rest of the action becomes predictable. It also becomes clear early on that Wonder Woman is invincible, so there you never are sitting on the edge of your chair wondering what is going to happen next. The bad guys are the World War I Germans, and they are all really bad, out-of-historical-context proto-Nazis. The result is just another trumped up routine superhero action flick. Who cares? Well, I wouldn't care if it weren't for Gal Gadot. She's terrific as Wonder Woman. She has the right combination of humor, sweet simplicity, and bad ass attitude to pull off the role. She seems to have real talent as an actress. I hope to see more performances by her in productions that are worthy of her skills.
Alien: Covenant
(2017)
Data versus Lore, Seen It All Before
25 June 2017
The first two, maybe even four, Alien movies were fun. Alien vs Predator wasn't bad. This thing is boring, predictable garbage.
If you have seen the StarTrek Next Generation installments on Data and Lore, then you have seen the plot of this movie. There is nothing new or imaginative about it. Nothing interesting.
The Alien itself apparently is thrown in solely as a come-on. The Alien is what Alien movies are supposed to be about, but the Alien here does nothing but give the producers an excuse to put Alien in the title. It isn't scary. It isn't surprising. There's nothing new or imaginative about it. (Pardon me if I repeat myself.) It is nearly irrelevant to the plot, which is about the two androids.
If you are bored out of your skull and have a bottle of liquor to kill, then maybe you will find this show worth your time. If you are looking for an imaginative plot, a scary Alien, or anything new, spend your time doing something else.
If you have seen the StarTrek Next Generation installments on Data and Lore, then you have seen the plot of this movie. There is nothing new or imaginative about it. Nothing interesting.
The Alien itself apparently is thrown in solely as a come-on. The Alien is what Alien movies are supposed to be about, but the Alien here does nothing but give the producers an excuse to put Alien in the title. It isn't scary. It isn't surprising. There's nothing new or imaginative about it. (Pardon me if I repeat myself.) It is nearly irrelevant to the plot, which is about the two androids.
If you are bored out of your skull and have a bottle of liquor to kill, then maybe you will find this show worth your time. If you are looking for an imaginative plot, a scary Alien, or anything new, spend your time doing something else.
Life
(I) (2017)
Insultingly stupid variation of Alien
24 April 2017
Warning: Spoilers
A good sci-fi movie generally must violate some law of nature but, having done that, presents an internally consistent plot. This catastrophe violates virtually every law of nature that pertains to it and then imposes a ridiculous plot.
I had a list of some of the things that most bothered me. However, previous reviewers already have covered most of them, so I won't repeat them here. I only insist on dwelling on the utter implausibility of the alien itself. It starts as a single cell that can perform all the functions of a multi-cellular organism: nervous, muscular, endocrine, mobility, intelligence, learning, you name it, this single cell can do it all. Totally ridiculous. The cell multiplies, and the mass of cells aggregate into a larger being. (That actually is believable and happens here on Earth with organisms such as cellular slime molds). Despite having been asleep for millions and perhaps billions of years, the alien quickly figures out how to use a human tool (it has not met humans or their tools before) to free itself from the observation box it is in (it has not met observation boxes before), and then it figures out how to get out of the lab (it has not met human labs or habitats before), which the crew was too stupid to seal until it was too late. What a remarkable beast! Later when it is outside the space station on one of the crew members and the crew member pushes herself away from the space station hoping to take the alien with her into deep space, the alien outsmarts her by jumping back onto the space station. Go figure: the alien eats living creatures, the crew member is alive and the alien knows it, the crew member is warm, the outside of the space station is extremely cold (temperature in outer space is about 2.5K, or about -455F), yet the alien knows it should abandon a piece of food and jump onto an inorganic extremely cold metal object. Right. Still later, the alien gets inside an escape pod and fights with the crew member who is trying to override the pre-programmed autopilot sequence to take the pod safely back to Earth. The crew member wants to take the pod into deep space. Somehow, the alien (who has not met an escape pod before) knows it should battle the crew member so that the autopilot (the alien has not met a human computer or an autopilot before) can land the pod safely on Earth. Really believable, right? In fact, how does the alien even know that Earth is there? It arrived on the space station in a frozen soil sample from Mars.
The foregoing are only a few of the utter idiocies of this film. Other reviewers have done a good job listing and explaining most of the others.
This movie is an unimaginative, unintelligent variation on Alien that offers nothing new except for its depth of stupidity.
I had a list of some of the things that most bothered me. However, previous reviewers already have covered most of them, so I won't repeat them here. I only insist on dwelling on the utter implausibility of the alien itself. It starts as a single cell that can perform all the functions of a multi-cellular organism: nervous, muscular, endocrine, mobility, intelligence, learning, you name it, this single cell can do it all. Totally ridiculous. The cell multiplies, and the mass of cells aggregate into a larger being. (That actually is believable and happens here on Earth with organisms such as cellular slime molds). Despite having been asleep for millions and perhaps billions of years, the alien quickly figures out how to use a human tool (it has not met humans or their tools before) to free itself from the observation box it is in (it has not met observation boxes before), and then it figures out how to get out of the lab (it has not met human labs or habitats before), which the crew was too stupid to seal until it was too late. What a remarkable beast! Later when it is outside the space station on one of the crew members and the crew member pushes herself away from the space station hoping to take the alien with her into deep space, the alien outsmarts her by jumping back onto the space station. Go figure: the alien eats living creatures, the crew member is alive and the alien knows it, the crew member is warm, the outside of the space station is extremely cold (temperature in outer space is about 2.5K, or about -455F), yet the alien knows it should abandon a piece of food and jump onto an inorganic extremely cold metal object. Right. Still later, the alien gets inside an escape pod and fights with the crew member who is trying to override the pre-programmed autopilot sequence to take the pod safely back to Earth. The crew member wants to take the pod into deep space. Somehow, the alien (who has not met an escape pod before) knows it should battle the crew member so that the autopilot (the alien has not met a human computer or an autopilot before) can land the pod safely on Earth. Really believable, right? In fact, how does the alien even know that Earth is there? It arrived on the space station in a frozen soil sample from Mars.
The foregoing are only a few of the utter idiocies of this film. Other reviewers have done a good job listing and explaining most of the others.
This movie is an unimaginative, unintelligent variation on Alien that offers nothing new except for its depth of stupidity.
Nocturnal Animals
(2016)
Bad movie made worse by routine gratuitous left-wing hate
28 December 2016
Warning: Spoilers
I would have awarded 3 stars, but then the routine left-wing hate emerged. I already was thinking of quitting the movie at that point because the plot was dumb and the characters dumber. The routine left-wing hate clinched it. It also dropped my rating to one star.
The main character is a woman who divorced her first husband about 20 years earlier. For some reason, the jilted husband, who is a writer, sends her his novel and asks her opinion. Before she has a chance to open it, our heroine discovers that her current husband, who has gone to New York (I think it was New York) on a "business" trip, is cheating on her while on the trip. Our heroine's reaction to this news is to do what any intelligent woman would do: she curls up with her ex-husband's novel and starts to read it. The novel is a violent story not worth going into. For some reason our heroine finds it reminiscent of her own life. She thinks back to when she and her first husband had not yet married. She explains to him that her brother is a homosexual and because of that has been disowned by their parents. Our heroine explains that they did it because they are "homophobic, racist, xenophobic,...Republican..."
That did it for me right there. Did Hillary Clinton write the script, or did the script writer crib the idea from Hillary Clinton? Doesn't matter. I have no interest at all in listening to that kind of hate-filled drivel from an ignorant Hollywood script write who probably has never met a Republican. (Note: I am not a Republican.) The left, the party driven by greed, envy, and theft, has a hell of a nerve lecturing anyone about morality. This is the crowd that can't abide success and uses the police power of the state to punish it, taking money from those who have done something with their lives and giving it to those who haven't in order to buy the votes of the latter, who outnumber the former. This is the crowd that detests all traditional values, including religion, morality, patriotism, and honor, the crowd that wouldn't give The Passion the time of day much less an Academy Award because somehow it was a "politically right-leaning" movie. So the New Testament is a right wing document. Really? This is the crowd that wouldn't give "An American Sniper" the time of day much less an Academy Award (except for best music or something stupid like that) because it was supposedly a right-leaning movie when in fact it took no sides at all. This is the crowd that now does not like "Hacksaw Ridge" because its main character is driven by a strong commitment to Christianity.
Dismissing all Republicans as racists and so on is one small reason the left got its head handed to it on a platter in the 2016 election, why it now controls literally no state houses in the entire South (where honor is an inextricable part of the culture), why it is reduced to childish tantrums yelling "F*ck Donald Trump", beating up Trump supporters, vandalizing property, and requiring coloring books and crayons to come to terms with its grief over having lost the election.
Keep putting this kind of unthinking, hate-filled garbage in the scripts, and I will continue walking out of (or avoiding altogether whenever possible) the resulting product.
So we have crummy movie whose main character is a moron who spews hate. What garbage.
The main character is a woman who divorced her first husband about 20 years earlier. For some reason, the jilted husband, who is a writer, sends her his novel and asks her opinion. Before she has a chance to open it, our heroine discovers that her current husband, who has gone to New York (I think it was New York) on a "business" trip, is cheating on her while on the trip. Our heroine's reaction to this news is to do what any intelligent woman would do: she curls up with her ex-husband's novel and starts to read it. The novel is a violent story not worth going into. For some reason our heroine finds it reminiscent of her own life. She thinks back to when she and her first husband had not yet married. She explains to him that her brother is a homosexual and because of that has been disowned by their parents. Our heroine explains that they did it because they are "homophobic, racist, xenophobic,...Republican..."
That did it for me right there. Did Hillary Clinton write the script, or did the script writer crib the idea from Hillary Clinton? Doesn't matter. I have no interest at all in listening to that kind of hate-filled drivel from an ignorant Hollywood script write who probably has never met a Republican. (Note: I am not a Republican.) The left, the party driven by greed, envy, and theft, has a hell of a nerve lecturing anyone about morality. This is the crowd that can't abide success and uses the police power of the state to punish it, taking money from those who have done something with their lives and giving it to those who haven't in order to buy the votes of the latter, who outnumber the former. This is the crowd that detests all traditional values, including religion, morality, patriotism, and honor, the crowd that wouldn't give The Passion the time of day much less an Academy Award because somehow it was a "politically right-leaning" movie. So the New Testament is a right wing document. Really? This is the crowd that wouldn't give "An American Sniper" the time of day much less an Academy Award (except for best music or something stupid like that) because it was supposedly a right-leaning movie when in fact it took no sides at all. This is the crowd that now does not like "Hacksaw Ridge" because its main character is driven by a strong commitment to Christianity.
Dismissing all Republicans as racists and so on is one small reason the left got its head handed to it on a platter in the 2016 election, why it now controls literally no state houses in the entire South (where honor is an inextricable part of the culture), why it is reduced to childish tantrums yelling "F*ck Donald Trump", beating up Trump supporters, vandalizing property, and requiring coloring books and crayons to come to terms with its grief over having lost the election.
Keep putting this kind of unthinking, hate-filled garbage in the scripts, and I will continue walking out of (or avoiding altogether whenever possible) the resulting product.
So we have crummy movie whose main character is a moron who spews hate. What garbage.
The Girl on the Train
(2016)
Boring characters, stupid plot
28 December 2016
Warning: Spoilers
The three main characters in this movie are women. Two are nuts and one is a loser. Somehow we are supposed to be interested in their lives, which become intertwined with each other by being laid by the same louse. Supposedly a "thriller," the show is just a bore. Well before the end it is pretty obvious who the real bad guy is. There are three males. One is declared by another (who is a shrink) to be abnormal. The third is the louse. All three are given no better than unsympathetic treatment, so what we have is another stupid movie where all the men are nasties and the women are mostly boring and crazy. Wow, sure is interesting, isn't it? I have seen a lot of really terrible garbage come out of Hollywood, increasingly often as the years have passed. The writing is weak, the plots are ridiculous, and the characters are depraved or losers or both. My current theory is that Hollywood writers get their material by looking a mirror, thinking they are looking at normal life. In any case, this movie is a piece of evidence in favor of my theory. I recommend avoiding it at all costs if intelligent dialog, clever plots, insightful story lines, and believable people are what you seek.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
(2016)
A Star Wars Joke
21 December 2016
Warning: Spoilers
1. Predictable, routine action, and far too much of it.
2. Incoherent beginning, comprising scenes that flit all over the galaxy.
3. Jyn Erso is Galen Erso's daughter. So what? For some reason, Jyn's announcing her lineage is supposed to strike terror, open doors, evoke homage, whatever. Who would care after 15 years, which is how long it has been since she has seen her father? Why does her father write his message to her when he doesn't even know if she is alive and the fate of the galaxy depends on the right people getting his message. How stupid can you get? 4. Routine, predictable political correctness permeates the show - Jyn is a bad ass who beats up most men, the leader of the Alliance is a woman, the main characters are women, Hispanics, blacks, and a mystical Oriental.
5. Why does Galen tell Jyn in the opening scene to trust the Force? Neither she nor he has any special connection to the Force. The Force is not strong in either of them. Just routine sloppy writing to force a connection with the Force.
6. Why does Jyn's mother leave Jyn, confront the bad guys, and simply get gunned down for her troubles? How could a man as brilliant as her husband have married such a ninny? 7. The plot gets stupider as it progresses, going from silly to ridiculous. A band of rebels steal an Imperial ship (the Empire's people are so utterly incompetent) in one place and then show up at another station on another planet not knowing where to find the Death Star plans, which turn out to be filed along with the Empire's routine documents including the Emperor's favorite recipes with no special security. Knowing nothing, our heroes almost effortlessly figure it all out, retrieve the plans, and transmit them. In the meantime, the Alliance, roused by our heroes' pluck, attacks the Imperial base to draw attention away from our heroes (isn't that a rather tired plot line?) and have great success doing it even though they made no prior plans and didn't even decide to do it until the spur of the last moment. Yet they carry it off brilliantly. The battle scenes often seem to have been lifted straight from previous Star Wars movies - "Copy that, Gold Leader," flaming X-wings steered by screaming pilots, "I'm on him, Blue Leader," etc., etc.
8. No character development. Who cares about these people? Who could?
2. Incoherent beginning, comprising scenes that flit all over the galaxy.
3. Jyn Erso is Galen Erso's daughter. So what? For some reason, Jyn's announcing her lineage is supposed to strike terror, open doors, evoke homage, whatever. Who would care after 15 years, which is how long it has been since she has seen her father? Why does her father write his message to her when he doesn't even know if she is alive and the fate of the galaxy depends on the right people getting his message. How stupid can you get? 4. Routine, predictable political correctness permeates the show - Jyn is a bad ass who beats up most men, the leader of the Alliance is a woman, the main characters are women, Hispanics, blacks, and a mystical Oriental.
5. Why does Galen tell Jyn in the opening scene to trust the Force? Neither she nor he has any special connection to the Force. The Force is not strong in either of them. Just routine sloppy writing to force a connection with the Force.
6. Why does Jyn's mother leave Jyn, confront the bad guys, and simply get gunned down for her troubles? How could a man as brilliant as her husband have married such a ninny? 7. The plot gets stupider as it progresses, going from silly to ridiculous. A band of rebels steal an Imperial ship (the Empire's people are so utterly incompetent) in one place and then show up at another station on another planet not knowing where to find the Death Star plans, which turn out to be filed along with the Empire's routine documents including the Emperor's favorite recipes with no special security. Knowing nothing, our heroes almost effortlessly figure it all out, retrieve the plans, and transmit them. In the meantime, the Alliance, roused by our heroes' pluck, attacks the Imperial base to draw attention away from our heroes (isn't that a rather tired plot line?) and have great success doing it even though they made no prior plans and didn't even decide to do it until the spur of the last moment. Yet they carry it off brilliantly. The battle scenes often seem to have been lifted straight from previous Star Wars movies - "Copy that, Gold Leader," flaming X-wings steered by screaming pilots, "I'm on him, Blue Leader," etc., etc.
8. No character development. Who cares about these people? Who could?
Don't Breathe
(2016)
Don't bother
7 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
An excessively positive description of the plot would be routine, boring, and improbable. A more balanced description would add that it is stupid, idiotic, moronic, and imbecilic. Over and over the heroes, who really are scum, never get the idea to distract the blind guy by throwing something to the other side of the room. It never occurs to them to smash out a window and escape through it. It never occurs to them to trip the guy. It never occurs to them to pick up things to use as weapons, even though appropriate objects are lying all over the place and indeed are picked up by the blind guy. Near the end, how does the blind guy run way down the street straight for his victim? Is he really Batman, able to echo-locate? Especially after one of the scum/heroes has bashed his head repeatedly with a 2-pound maul. When the police come near the end, wouldn't they have been a mite curious about the basement prison cell the blind guy had constructed?
The photography is truly terrible. Most of the time you can't see what is going on because the action mostly takes place in the dark. Oddly, the blind guy has enough dim lights on so that you can see people moving around but not enough to see anything clearly. Later, the blind guy turns off the lights, but why did he have them on in the first place? He's blind, so why spend the money on the electricity? Why does this routine 1920s-style small house have so many strange shafts, both vertical and horizontal? How did the blind guy kidnap the young woman who killed his daughter? How did he get all those mattresses and bondage equipment to build the cell? How did the blind guy get rid of the dead girl's body? There was a scene that I think depicted that, but like most of the movie, it was too dark to figure out what he was doing.
Why not bash the dog's head in with a chair or frying pan or something?
Why spend any more time on this worthless waste of time?
The photography is truly terrible. Most of the time you can't see what is going on because the action mostly takes place in the dark. Oddly, the blind guy has enough dim lights on so that you can see people moving around but not enough to see anything clearly. Later, the blind guy turns off the lights, but why did he have them on in the first place? He's blind, so why spend the money on the electricity? Why does this routine 1920s-style small house have so many strange shafts, both vertical and horizontal? How did the blind guy kidnap the young woman who killed his daughter? How did he get all those mattresses and bondage equipment to build the cell? How did the blind guy get rid of the dead girl's body? There was a scene that I think depicted that, but like most of the movie, it was too dark to figure out what he was doing.
Why not bash the dog's head in with a chair or frying pan or something?
Why spend any more time on this worthless waste of time?
Unexplained time gap
31 July 2016
Time travel episodes usually are annoying because they depend on logically impossible cyclical relations, as this one does. However, given that violation of logic, this episode does a good job of remaining logically consistent within its particular logically impossible structure, so it is entertaining and draws the viewer in to wonder what comes next.
One thing, though, seems inexplicable. Where did Deanna pick up such a great tan between the end of Part 1 and the beginning of Part 2? Compare her appearance at 8:45 in Part 1 with her appearance at 30:25 or 35:30 in Part 2. There seems to be a time gap in the plot where unexplained events transpire. Harrumph. Well, maybe it's just the effect of waves on Betazoid melanin. Harrumph.
One thing, though, seems inexplicable. Where did Deanna pick up such a great tan between the end of Part 1 and the beginning of Part 2? Compare her appearance at 8:45 in Part 1 with her appearance at 30:25 or 35:30 in Part 2. There seems to be a time gap in the plot where unexplained events transpire. Harrumph. Well, maybe it's just the effect of waves on Betazoid melanin. Harrumph.
Fifty Shades of Grey
(2015)
Fifty shades of trash
19 March 2016
Warning: Spoilers
The plot is idiotic. An intelligent well educated college senior interview a handsome rich guy and falls for him. He is a nut case who does "not make love. {He} f*cks, hard." He also is a sadist. He won't let his women touch him. OK, maybe our co-ed likes that. Except that she is a virgin until she sleeps with this guy. She also has nothing in common with him. She is a romantic, he isn't. She likes to do things together, he doesn't. The two of them don't do anything together except have sex, don't talk about anything except how screwed up he is. What a deep and exciting relationship. Just the kind of guy an intelligent well-educated college senior would fall in love with. You betcha.
Our guy also has built some gigantic business empire even though he is only in his twenties. Recent examples of that are quite rare and involve people who produced new things, such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Not our guy. He says that business is based on knowing people, and he knows people. Apparently my more than 30 years of teaching in a business school was all misguided. I was under the impression, and taught others, that entrepreneurship, inventiveness, management skills, finance, risk assessment, and productivity were among the important things that determined business success. All irrelevant as long as you know people, it seems. The usual Hollywood stupidity about what business is, what business does, and how business works.
Our guy is more than just a business whiz. He has done it while overcoming a crack-head mother and an abusive childhood. He also plays classical piano brilliantly. He flies a helicopter and also glider planes. He's tough as nails in his business dealings, but under it all he has a heart of gold, giving tons of money to noble charities. One hackneyed angle after another.
Now about the sex scenes. Plenty of nudity and some SM. When you strip out the Hollywood crap and phony baloney garbage, what you have is the core of the movie - simple SM pornography, though actually not much of it. What's this junk doing getting ratings on IMDb? Does IMDb also rate stag films and Hollywood starlets' sex tapes? If it rates this pile of dung, why not those, or to turn that around, if not those, then why this?
The ending isn't really an ending. It leaves the relationship between our hero (?) and heroine (?) hanging and is an obvious come-on for a sequel, of which I understand there are to be two. The development of those is obvious from the story line in this one. The basic line will be that our hero will be tormented by his love for our heroine, and in the end she will re-make him and save him from himself. An SM-porn version of Pretty Woman, I guess, stretched out into three installments. Sounds awful. This one sure was.
Our guy also has built some gigantic business empire even though he is only in his twenties. Recent examples of that are quite rare and involve people who produced new things, such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Not our guy. He says that business is based on knowing people, and he knows people. Apparently my more than 30 years of teaching in a business school was all misguided. I was under the impression, and taught others, that entrepreneurship, inventiveness, management skills, finance, risk assessment, and productivity were among the important things that determined business success. All irrelevant as long as you know people, it seems. The usual Hollywood stupidity about what business is, what business does, and how business works.
Our guy is more than just a business whiz. He has done it while overcoming a crack-head mother and an abusive childhood. He also plays classical piano brilliantly. He flies a helicopter and also glider planes. He's tough as nails in his business dealings, but under it all he has a heart of gold, giving tons of money to noble charities. One hackneyed angle after another.
Now about the sex scenes. Plenty of nudity and some SM. When you strip out the Hollywood crap and phony baloney garbage, what you have is the core of the movie - simple SM pornography, though actually not much of it. What's this junk doing getting ratings on IMDb? Does IMDb also rate stag films and Hollywood starlets' sex tapes? If it rates this pile of dung, why not those, or to turn that around, if not those, then why this?
The ending isn't really an ending. It leaves the relationship between our hero (?) and heroine (?) hanging and is an obvious come-on for a sequel, of which I understand there are to be two. The development of those is obvious from the story line in this one. The basic line will be that our hero will be tormented by his love for our heroine, and in the end she will re-make him and save him from himself. An SM-porn version of Pretty Woman, I guess, stretched out into three installments. Sounds awful. This one sure was.
London Has Fallen
(2016)
Preposterous banality
14 March 2016
Warning: Spoilers
The British Prime Minister dies, and all the world leaders come to his funeral. Muslim terrorists plant huge, incredibly powerful bombs in all the obvious locations but the vaunted British security people, whom we are repeatedly told are super duper, don't find them, not a one. The bad guys infiltrate the police and the military in such numbers as to equal or exceed the security forces. Suddenly the bad guys detonate the bombs. Cars go up in smoke. Tops of large buildings are blown off. Huge bridges come tumbling down. The bad guys use magical powers to shut down electricity in the whole city. They also shut down both civilian and military communications, even satellites. Their rampage knocks out almost all world leaders, even though those are all over the city, including on a bridge (blown out from under them), in a boat on the river (a barge pulls up alongside and explodes), and so on. Allahu akbar! But the President of the United States gets away in a nail-biting high speed chase through London and then on helicopters. Unfortunately bad guys are on untold numbers of unsecured rooftops with stinger missiles. They blow away one of the three getaway copters. They blow away the second. Then they blow away President's copter, which crashes into a tower and breaks into pieces in mid air. Nonetheless, the President and his Secret Service chief live! Bad guys, though, are swarming all over London, in complete control and knowing just where to look. But our guys are GOOD, and they take 'em down and get away. Actually, just our guy is good. The President is a helpless ninny who doesn't pick up a gun. The bad guys keep coming, but Secret Service Superman (hereafter SSS) keeps blowing them away. Meanwhile our Vice President, I mean, what a guy. From his office in Washington he takes over the minute-by-minute tactics of finding the President. Back in London, no matter how many bad guys appear, our helpless President doesn't pick up a weapon. It turns out the dead British MP was murdered by poison and his doctor murdered. Damn those terrorists are good. More to the point, our guys are terrible, except for SSS. Somehow our guys get to the residence (office?) of a gorgeous British security agent. SSS informs the President that she's a bad ass, so much so that he tells the President "not to f*** with her." The President isn't Bill Clinton, so he takes the advice. Geez, this is realistic. The next thing you know, our guys are driving in a car. They run into a heavily armed roadblock of bad guys, who still have complete control of the city, but the bad guys do such a bad job of it that they don't actually block the road. Our guys swerve through through a gauntlet of incompetently placed cars and obstacles and a hail bullets and bombs, and get through in their ordinary old car! But then they are rammed by the bad guys, who drag away the President. They plan to execute him publicly in a few hours. Wow, the suspense just keeps building. Can I get through this without peeing in my pants? Well, actually, yes, without any problem, but...back to the action! A bunch of good guys show up, and SSS says he's going after the bad guys, and if the good guys don't like it, they can stuff it. The good guys go with him. They find the hideout and kill dozens, scores, hundreds, thousands, millions, well, lots and lots of terrorists. Of course the terrorists abet them by being unable to hit the broadside of a barn from the inside with machine guns, rifles, RPGs. The good guys mow 'em down like wheat. SSS goes into the building alone. He mows 'em down like wheat. These bad guys really suck. The lead bad guy on the scene (the real leader is back in Yemen) beats up the President on worldwide TV and then pulls out a huge saber with which to decapitate the President. He swings. The President ducks. The bad guy misses. Just then, SSS bursts in and blows away more bad guys. He beats the holy crap out of the head bad guy on the scene. Another bad guy rolls in a bomb. It kills everyone in the room...except SSS and the President. Gripping! Our guys start to leave. The President *still* does not pick up a weapon. No matter. SSS blows the bad guys away with ease and style. Finally the President takes a gun. He blows away the bad guys with abandon. God, our guys are INCREDIBLY GOOD. Makes me proud to be an American. More bombs. One creates a gigantic fireball that rolls through the entire building, but our guys escape down a shaft even though the building is gutted. I can't stand this! I can't stand it, I tell you! A bunch of good guys come in patrolling the wreckage looking for the President. No sign amidst the rubble. Looks bad, boys and girls, but then ... YES, YES, they find our heroes in a pit. SSS cracks a joke, as anyone in such a situation would do. Meanwhile, the gorgeous British agent finds the bad guys' inside man and blows him away in a garage. Somehow, our guys found where the head bad guy was hiding in Yemen. The Vice President calls him on the phone, tells him to look out his window, and just then our military blows the bad guy to bits. The show ends with an impassioned plea about the need to meddle, er, engage in the world.
Man, what a movie.
No routine nudity or gratuitous sex, though. I guess it's tough to get everything right.
Avoid it at all costs.
Man, what a movie.
No routine nudity or gratuitous sex, though. I guess it's tough to get everything right.
Avoid it at all costs.
Zero Dark Thirty
(2012)
Many things wrong, nonetheless adequately entertaining
8 March 2016
Warning: Spoilers
This movie is about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. It tells the official story adequately, though it overlays the story with trite political correctness. We have learned from Seymour Hersh that the official story probably is a lie, but that was not known when the movie was made.
There are two major problems with the movie. First, it is much too long. It should be 30 or even 45 minutes shorter. It drags a lot. Second, the heroine is not believable. She is recruited into the CIA out of high school (ridiculous right there) and spends the next 10 years of her career trying to track bin Laden. She finds him! She, her limited range of experience, knows better than everyone else who is telling the truth and who isn't and what leads to follow. She has so much pluck that she yells at her superiors and gets away with it. Everyone is in awe of her. Come on. What's with Hollywood? The script writers seem to be lost in the 1960s mindset that young people are smarter, more knowledgeable, and wiser than their elders. They are the only ones who really know what is going on. And of course nowadays they often are women. At least they didn't make this one Hispanic (there are no other ethnic groups in the US, you know).
Despite the foregoing criticisms and others well explained by many negative reviewers, I found the show engaging and enjoyed watching it. The general story of how the CIA found bin Laden is interesting. Though it's not fully accurate (see Seymour Hersh, London Review of Books, 21 May 2015, for an alternate account with much supporting evidence), it is accurate enough to be interesting.
There are two major problems with the movie. First, it is much too long. It should be 30 or even 45 minutes shorter. It drags a lot. Second, the heroine is not believable. She is recruited into the CIA out of high school (ridiculous right there) and spends the next 10 years of her career trying to track bin Laden. She finds him! She, her limited range of experience, knows better than everyone else who is telling the truth and who isn't and what leads to follow. She has so much pluck that she yells at her superiors and gets away with it. Everyone is in awe of her. Come on. What's with Hollywood? The script writers seem to be lost in the 1960s mindset that young people are smarter, more knowledgeable, and wiser than their elders. They are the only ones who really know what is going on. And of course nowadays they often are women. At least they didn't make this one Hispanic (there are no other ethnic groups in the US, you know).
Despite the foregoing criticisms and others well explained by many negative reviewers, I found the show engaging and enjoyed watching it. The general story of how the CIA found bin Laden is interesting. Though it's not fully accurate (see Seymour Hersh, London Review of Books, 21 May 2015, for an alternate account with much supporting evidence), it is accurate enough to be interesting.
The Hurt Locker
(2008)
Garbage from beginning to end
8 March 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Terrible movie. Essentially a Middle Eastern War Movie on the level of the Dirty Harry series but pretending to depict reality.
The hero is an unlikable rogue member of an Army bomb unit in Iraq. He does nothing by the book. His team members don't trust him. It turns out they have good reason because later he takes them on a wild goose chase and gets one of them seriously wounded and almost captured.
In the middle of the show, we have a long sniper vs. sniper scene, in which the bomb squad is out in the desert disposing of collected IUDs and meets up with some Britishers. They come under fire of some Arab snipers who knock off two of the Britishers. Our heroes have their own telescopic rifle and spotting scope. They casually become snipers themselves and engage the bad guys. Both sets of snipers are really good - a bunch of untrained rag heads and a couple of bomb squad guys. No sniper training in either group. Being a sniper is really easy, right? Just pick up a rifle with a telescope and you can hit anything without knowing anything about adjusting for distance and wind. But what is this scene doing in this movie, which is about the bomb squad's exploits in defusing bombs? I guess the script writers needed some filler.
The bomb defusing scenes are mildly interesting, which is why I gave this show a rating of 2 instead of 1.
The hero is an unlikable rogue member of an Army bomb unit in Iraq. He does nothing by the book. His team members don't trust him. It turns out they have good reason because later he takes them on a wild goose chase and gets one of them seriously wounded and almost captured.
In the middle of the show, we have a long sniper vs. sniper scene, in which the bomb squad is out in the desert disposing of collected IUDs and meets up with some Britishers. They come under fire of some Arab snipers who knock off two of the Britishers. Our heroes have their own telescopic rifle and spotting scope. They casually become snipers themselves and engage the bad guys. Both sets of snipers are really good - a bunch of untrained rag heads and a couple of bomb squad guys. No sniper training in either group. Being a sniper is really easy, right? Just pick up a rifle with a telescope and you can hit anything without knowing anything about adjusting for distance and wind. But what is this scene doing in this movie, which is about the bomb squad's exploits in defusing bombs? I guess the script writers needed some filler.
The bomb defusing scenes are mildly interesting, which is why I gave this show a rating of 2 instead of 1.
Jarhead
(2005)
Boring, slow, routine anti-US military trash
8 March 2016
Warning: Spoilers
The people who produced this piece of junk apparently saw themselves as the successors of the line of movies made 30 or 40 years ago that were intent on showing the US military in Vietnam to be a bunch of worthless bloodthirsty losers. See Platoon for an example. This show has the same overall plot, just moved up in time to the first war in Iraq.
There is no one in this movie that has any desirable qualities. The commanders are idiots. The NCOs are callous. The men are deranged. The wives send them home videos of themselves getting laid by their neighbors back home, and their girlfriends cheat on them and abandon them. Nobody, literally nobody, is worth a damn.
OK, so the individuals are no good. What about the military itself? A bunch of incompetent fools who don't fight well, don't use their equipment properly, and who are disgusting boors.
Negative ratings are not allowed. Even a zero is not allowed. So I have to give it a 1.
There is no one in this movie that has any desirable qualities. The commanders are idiots. The NCOs are callous. The men are deranged. The wives send them home videos of themselves getting laid by their neighbors back home, and their girlfriends cheat on them and abandon them. Nobody, literally nobody, is worth a damn.
OK, so the individuals are no good. What about the military itself? A bunch of incompetent fools who don't fight well, don't use their equipment properly, and who are disgusting boors.
Negative ratings are not allowed. Even a zero is not allowed. So I have to give it a 1.
Lone Survivor
(2013)
Mildly entertaining action, downright insulting mentally
8 March 2016
Warning: Spoilers
I wouldn't bother to review this poor movie except that it has such a high rating on IMDb. I want to help bring that down to where it belongs. I will give it the vote it deserves, not one reduced to offset the ridiculous high score.
There's a lot of action. If you are recovering from an operation, as I was, it may provide a nice way to kill some time. If you are looking for a good movie, go elsewhere.
The "Hated It" reviews go into plenty of detail about what is bad, so I will just give a short list: excessive cool talk among the SEALs at the beginning, ridiculous decision to let the shepherd prisoners go free (this all takes place in enemy territory), the commander at the base asking in an irritated tone if there is a problem when the SEAL leader calls the base on a cell phone instead of the radio after missing several scheduled radio contacts, our guys bouncing down two long rock faces and then one small one hitting boulders and trees on the way down while sustaining virtually no damage other than some scrapes, getting shot over and over and over with little ill effect, bad guys who cannot hit the broad side of a barn from the inside with their rifles, bad guys who cannot hit anything with RPG after RPG (except miraculously can put one right into the open rear end of a flying helicopter), our hero performing intermediate surgery on himself at least twice without passing out, the arrival of the cavalry at the end to save our hero.
This movie is on a par with the Rambo series, except those made no pretense of being true.
There's a lot of action. If you are recovering from an operation, as I was, it may provide a nice way to kill some time. If you are looking for a good movie, go elsewhere.
The "Hated It" reviews go into plenty of detail about what is bad, so I will just give a short list: excessive cool talk among the SEALs at the beginning, ridiculous decision to let the shepherd prisoners go free (this all takes place in enemy territory), the commander at the base asking in an irritated tone if there is a problem when the SEAL leader calls the base on a cell phone instead of the radio after missing several scheduled radio contacts, our guys bouncing down two long rock faces and then one small one hitting boulders and trees on the way down while sustaining virtually no damage other than some scrapes, getting shot over and over and over with little ill effect, bad guys who cannot hit the broad side of a barn from the inside with their rifles, bad guys who cannot hit anything with RPG after RPG (except miraculously can put one right into the open rear end of a flying helicopter), our hero performing intermediate surgery on himself at least twice without passing out, the arrival of the cavalry at the end to save our hero.
This movie is on a par with the Rambo series, except those made no pretense of being true.
Behind Enemy Lines
(2001)
Much action, no brains
8 March 2016
Warning: Spoilers
This movie has a plot that could have been interesting if done right. Unfortunately it was done badly.
A recon pilot and co-pilot disobey orders by departing from his assigned flight path over Bosnia. They get shot down by bad guys operating in a demilitarized zone where they have been murdering civilians. One of the two (didn't ever figure out which) is injured, found by the bad guys who shot down the plane. They shoot the good guy. The remaining good guy was climbing a hill to establish radio contact with his aircraft carrier. He sees the shooting. He screams out loud at the sight of it, thus betraying his position. The rest of the movie is about him evading the bad guys pursuing him. Of course he is a superman and the bad guys are knuckle-dragging idiots, so evil the Devil himself would shun their company. The admiral on the aircraft carrier overrides orders and sends out rescue mission of a few attack helicopters. Just as all admirals, he joins the mission. Acting as the modern day cavalry, the copters arrive just in the nick of time to save our hero from capture by the bad guys, blowing up tanks with their missiles and machine gunning lots of bad guys. The movie ends with some written remarks that try to give the impression this was a true story and the people in it were real.
Another war movie in which the lopsided depictions of the two sides and the truly ridiculous ending add the final touches of banality to what otherwise was only mildly entertaining.
Read the "Hated It" reviews for more details about the numerous failings.
A recon pilot and co-pilot disobey orders by departing from his assigned flight path over Bosnia. They get shot down by bad guys operating in a demilitarized zone where they have been murdering civilians. One of the two (didn't ever figure out which) is injured, found by the bad guys who shot down the plane. They shoot the good guy. The remaining good guy was climbing a hill to establish radio contact with his aircraft carrier. He sees the shooting. He screams out loud at the sight of it, thus betraying his position. The rest of the movie is about him evading the bad guys pursuing him. Of course he is a superman and the bad guys are knuckle-dragging idiots, so evil the Devil himself would shun their company. The admiral on the aircraft carrier overrides orders and sends out rescue mission of a few attack helicopters. Just as all admirals, he joins the mission. Acting as the modern day cavalry, the copters arrive just in the nick of time to save our hero from capture by the bad guys, blowing up tanks with their missiles and machine gunning lots of bad guys. The movie ends with some written remarks that try to give the impression this was a true story and the people in it were real.
Another war movie in which the lopsided depictions of the two sides and the truly ridiculous ending add the final touches of banality to what otherwise was only mildly entertaining.
Read the "Hated It" reviews for more details about the numerous failings.
The Big Short
(2015)
Well done, grossly misrepresents the real causes of the collapse
24 February 2016
This movie is very entertaining. It does a good job of explaining some rather abstruse financial instruments. Overall it is informative. Unfortunately, it also is grossly misleading about what really caused the housing bust in 2007 and the financial turmoil of 2008. Both were almost entirely the result of misguided federal policies that accumulated over several decades and that reinforced each other. The movie, in contrast, makes it seem as if the only important cause was greed by the financial institutions.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which exist because of federal policy, funneled excessive funds into housing. They did it in response to federal policies of the 1990s that pushed or even required lower lending standards. They also did it to curry favor with Congress after they were found to have been lying in their accounting in the early 2000s. The Fed kept interest rates abnormally low, making loans cheap to take out. The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1992 reduced taxes on capital gains on houses, making houses more attractive investments, thus stoking demand still more. Federal law makes mortgage loans no-recourse, encouraging speculation. The SEC required big financial institutions to get bond ratings from only those ratings agencies approved by the SEC. That was bad enough because it prevented competition through entry, but the SEC's attention wandered and it allowed the original 7 approved agencies to dwindle to 3 by 2007 because of closures and mergers, further eliminating competition. The Community Reinvestment Act required financial institutions to make unsound loans. The SEC did not bother to investigate the new financial instruments (well-described in the movie) to see if they were sound. Eliot Spitzer (at last a non-federal player), using his office as Attorney General of New York as a springboard for the governorship of that state with his eye on an eventual run for the US presidency, abused his office to abuse financial institutions, leading directly to the destruction of the big financial institutions' research departments. Research personnel in 2007 were half what they had been in 2000, directly the result of Spitzer's shenanigans. There's more, but that's already perhaps too much.
The Big Short gets *NONE* of that right, except for a slight mention that the SEC fell down on its job. That's because The Big Short completely ignores all of it to push the easy but misleading drama of corporate greed.
The Big Short also misrepresents the housing collapse of 2007, presenting it as largely driven by sub-prime mortgages. In fact, default rates for prime mortgages were just as bad.
As of this writing, The Big Short is a leading contender for a Best Picture Oscar, largely because it portrays an event of considerable national importance. It doesn't deserve the award on those grounds (though it is in fact a fine movie) because it grossly misstates what happened and thus lays the foundation for subsequent bad public policy to fix the problem. That's why I give it an 8 rather than a 10.
The acting was very good throughout. Everyone is making a big to-do about Christian Bale's performance. It was OK but nothing special. I though Steve Carell turned in the best performance and deserved a nomination.
Oh, by the way, about that nasty Chinese guy in the movie who explains CDOs and CDOSquareds and who obviously was behaving in bad faith. He was real, and he was found guilty of gross professional misconduct, barred from working in the financial industry, and given a big fine. His company had to pay a separate big fine. He didn't go to jail, but at least he won't be deceiving the public again.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which exist because of federal policy, funneled excessive funds into housing. They did it in response to federal policies of the 1990s that pushed or even required lower lending standards. They also did it to curry favor with Congress after they were found to have been lying in their accounting in the early 2000s. The Fed kept interest rates abnormally low, making loans cheap to take out. The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1992 reduced taxes on capital gains on houses, making houses more attractive investments, thus stoking demand still more. Federal law makes mortgage loans no-recourse, encouraging speculation. The SEC required big financial institutions to get bond ratings from only those ratings agencies approved by the SEC. That was bad enough because it prevented competition through entry, but the SEC's attention wandered and it allowed the original 7 approved agencies to dwindle to 3 by 2007 because of closures and mergers, further eliminating competition. The Community Reinvestment Act required financial institutions to make unsound loans. The SEC did not bother to investigate the new financial instruments (well-described in the movie) to see if they were sound. Eliot Spitzer (at last a non-federal player), using his office as Attorney General of New York as a springboard for the governorship of that state with his eye on an eventual run for the US presidency, abused his office to abuse financial institutions, leading directly to the destruction of the big financial institutions' research departments. Research personnel in 2007 were half what they had been in 2000, directly the result of Spitzer's shenanigans. There's more, but that's already perhaps too much.
The Big Short gets *NONE* of that right, except for a slight mention that the SEC fell down on its job. That's because The Big Short completely ignores all of it to push the easy but misleading drama of corporate greed.
The Big Short also misrepresents the housing collapse of 2007, presenting it as largely driven by sub-prime mortgages. In fact, default rates for prime mortgages were just as bad.
As of this writing, The Big Short is a leading contender for a Best Picture Oscar, largely because it portrays an event of considerable national importance. It doesn't deserve the award on those grounds (though it is in fact a fine movie) because it grossly misstates what happened and thus lays the foundation for subsequent bad public policy to fix the problem. That's why I give it an 8 rather than a 10.
The acting was very good throughout. Everyone is making a big to-do about Christian Bale's performance. It was OK but nothing special. I though Steve Carell turned in the best performance and deserved a nomination.
Oh, by the way, about that nasty Chinese guy in the movie who explains CDOs and CDOSquareds and who obviously was behaving in bad faith. He was real, and he was found guilty of gross professional misconduct, barred from working in the financial industry, and given a big fine. His company had to pay a separate big fine. He didn't go to jail, but at least he won't be deceiving the public again.
The Long Goodbye
(1973)
So bad it's...terrible.
22 February 2016
There is nothing to recommend this movie. My wife watched it with me and concurs in that evaluation. I have not read the book on which it is based, so I judge it as a stand-alone effort.
The plot is silly in concept and routine in execution (e.g., the PI's oh-so-cool and combative way of talking to the police), the characters are flat, the dialog is trite, the acting is uninspired, the incidentals are distracting (the topless girls, the chain smoking). Even the music is tedious. One description I saw before watching it said it is a "send-up" of the detective genre, implying humor. There is no humor anywhere. If it is intended as a spoof, it fails.
A complete waste of two hours.
The plot is silly in concept and routine in execution (e.g., the PI's oh-so-cool and combative way of talking to the police), the characters are flat, the dialog is trite, the acting is uninspired, the incidentals are distracting (the topless girls, the chain smoking). Even the music is tedious. One description I saw before watching it said it is a "send-up" of the detective genre, implying humor. There is no humor anywhere. If it is intended as a spoof, it fails.
A complete waste of two hours.
The Revenant
(I) (2015)
Routine plot, average acting, bad cinematography, historically inaccurate
15 January 2016
Warning: Spoilers
The plot is a routine revenge story. A guy gets mistreated. His son is murdered. He overcomes obstacles and gets even. Yawn.
A routine plot is turned into a ridiculous one by the small events throughout. The movie opens with a bunch of hunters wading through the Everglades, except that it is somewhere in the northern Rocky Mountains. Or at least is supposed to be, though I don't know where one would find Everglades-like water amongst the pine trees anywhere in the Rockies (where I have done extensive backpacking). This fascination with people wading or swimming in frigid mountain water in winter pervades the movie, showing up again and again. I've waded in that water. It is COLD. My wife used to call it "screaming cold." Yet in this movie people flop into the water, get completely soaked, and then just walk away as if nothing happened. In reality they would very shortly freeze to death and become encased in ice. Floating down the river while fully clothed, including being wrapped in a bear skin as in one scene, would drown you in no time.
The scene shifts back and forth between the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. Start in the mountains, move to the plains, go back into the mountains (why?), back to the plains.
The acting is competent but nothing special. DeCaprio's acting mostly consists of grunts because after the bear mauling he cannot talk right until near the end of the movie. I can do that. Do I get an Oscar? Over and over we are treated to interruptions of the action for scenes of nature, especially views of the tops of trees from the bases of those trees. Is that supposed to mean something? It interrupts the story for no obvious reason.
There are these Indians around, looking for our hero and his friends to attack them. The Indians are "Rees," i.e., Arikaree or Arikara. The problem is that those Indians lived in North Dakota, not in the Rocky Mountains and certainly nowhere near the Yellowstone.
This show is just another ho-hum Hollywood mangling of history. The characters are uninteresting and flat. The acting does nothing to make the characters more than that. The plot is predictable except where it is so silly as to be hard to imagine. Overall the show is mildly entertaining if you are bored and don't have anything else to occupy your time.
A routine plot is turned into a ridiculous one by the small events throughout. The movie opens with a bunch of hunters wading through the Everglades, except that it is somewhere in the northern Rocky Mountains. Or at least is supposed to be, though I don't know where one would find Everglades-like water amongst the pine trees anywhere in the Rockies (where I have done extensive backpacking). This fascination with people wading or swimming in frigid mountain water in winter pervades the movie, showing up again and again. I've waded in that water. It is COLD. My wife used to call it "screaming cold." Yet in this movie people flop into the water, get completely soaked, and then just walk away as if nothing happened. In reality they would very shortly freeze to death and become encased in ice. Floating down the river while fully clothed, including being wrapped in a bear skin as in one scene, would drown you in no time.
The scene shifts back and forth between the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. Start in the mountains, move to the plains, go back into the mountains (why?), back to the plains.
The acting is competent but nothing special. DeCaprio's acting mostly consists of grunts because after the bear mauling he cannot talk right until near the end of the movie. I can do that. Do I get an Oscar? Over and over we are treated to interruptions of the action for scenes of nature, especially views of the tops of trees from the bases of those trees. Is that supposed to mean something? It interrupts the story for no obvious reason.
There are these Indians around, looking for our hero and his friends to attack them. The Indians are "Rees," i.e., Arikaree or Arikara. The problem is that those Indians lived in North Dakota, not in the Rocky Mountains and certainly nowhere near the Yellowstone.
This show is just another ho-hum Hollywood mangling of history. The characters are uninteresting and flat. The acting does nothing to make the characters more than that. The plot is predictable except where it is so silly as to be hard to imagine. Overall the show is mildly entertaining if you are bored and don't have anything else to occupy your time.
Her
(2013)
Mildly intriguing story, uninteresting main character, pretty slow
15 January 2016
The main character is a dud. He's a loser who cannot face reality. He buys a new operating system that is supposed to be everything he could want. He falls in love with it. Kind of clever. However, because he is a loser, it's hard (for me impossible) to get attached to him or care much what happens to him. I only finished watching it because that's what I always do.
The acting is pretty good. In my opinion, Scarlett Johansson deserved an Oscar as best supporting actress. She is the voice of the operating system. She does such a good job delivering her lines that you feel she is standing there, though in fact she never appears. She is able to convey a wide range of emotions by the cadence and inflection of her voice. She makes her giggles and gasps sound as if she is right there taking part in the action the way a normal actress would.
I would say the show is worth watching if you like SciFi or if you are bored and need something to distract you.
The acting is pretty good. In my opinion, Scarlett Johansson deserved an Oscar as best supporting actress. She is the voice of the operating system. She does such a good job delivering her lines that you feel she is standing there, though in fact she never appears. She is able to convey a wide range of emotions by the cadence and inflection of her voice. She makes her giggles and gasps sound as if she is right there taking part in the action the way a normal actress would.
I would say the show is worth watching if you like SciFi or if you are bored and need something to distract you.
Spotlight
(I) (2015)
An outstanding movie
28 December 2015
This movie is outstanding. Everything about it is good. I saw it a second time just 48 hours after seeing it the first time. I'm not sure I ever have done that before. I easily could sit through it again, only 24 hours after having seen it the second time.
I was a little concerned that it would be a routine Hollywood left-wing bash of the Catholic Church, but instead it was very well written and presented. Nothing excessive, overdone, or overstated. Nothing understated or whitewashed, either. The two writers have a clear understanding of how Catholics view the clergy and why this scandal was devastating for so many of them. The movie illustrates the difference between the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church.
The acting is excellent. Not one weak performance. I had the feeling that these were people I might know, very real people.
This movie is one that anyone might find interesting. Those raised as Catholics are likely to find it so and should see it.
I was a little concerned that it would be a routine Hollywood left-wing bash of the Catholic Church, but instead it was very well written and presented. Nothing excessive, overdone, or overstated. Nothing understated or whitewashed, either. The two writers have a clear understanding of how Catholics view the clergy and why this scandal was devastating for so many of them. The movie illustrates the difference between the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church.
The acting is excellent. Not one weak performance. I had the feeling that these were people I might know, very real people.
This movie is one that anyone might find interesting. Those raised as Catholics are likely to find it so and should see it.
What a mess
4 December 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Easily the worst of the Hunger Games series, which started out only So-So. This one has a silly plot, boring dialog (lots of that), phony soul searching, routine action, and a slow pace. There's nothing interesting about it.
The dumbest stuff takes place in the main part of the movie when Katniss and her team are moving through the city. The Bad Guys have planted "pods" all over the place. Those are booby traps that are ridiculous in concept and hilarious in execution. Giant machine guns unfold from the wall and blast away the building on the other side of the narrow street. Pairs of huge flame throwers hidden the the outer walls of buildings fry anything that walks between them. A city piazza suddenly becomes a gigantic bathtub when one of The Team steps on a trigger hidden in the paving stones. Great stone gates emerge from the buildings bordering all the streets leading from the piazza. Then oil in prodigious quantities emerges from somewhere and fills this giant bathtub to the height of several stories, after which it subsides just as miraculously as it arose. Just think how idiotic that is. The city's buildings were designed and built to hold those monstrous stone gates, and then oil was stored in a holding tank out of view from which giant pumps take it and inject it into the piazza. All that expense just to drown a few enemy soldiers.
Later, when The Team is moving through the sewer system under the city, it is attacked by the Mutant Mole People, thought to have been wiped out under that glacier on the mountain in Mesopotamia back in 1956. These mutants have no eyes but do have big mouths with lots of teeth. The work for President Snow. In the fight with the MMPs, Katniss is transformed into Legolas in the Mines of Moria, shooting an arrow in one MMP here, stabbing another in the face with an arrow there, etc., etc. Fortunately no Balrog showed up. Mixing metaphors, the movie has the Peacekeepers (Bad Guy police) dressed as Darth Vader's stormtroopers.
Near the end of the movie, when Katniss is supposed to execute ex-President Snow, she executes President Coin instead. After she does the deed, she just waltzes out of the arena. Nobody seems to mind that she just knocked off their leader. Nobody stops her.
Not content to give us this string of boring silliness, the movie has to take breaks from the "action" to bore us even more with Katniss's shallow, phony soul-searching.
Several of the scenes in the movie are shot in near-darkness so the viewer cannot see what is going on. That seems to be all the rage these days. I cannot figure out why. When I go to see a movie, I want to SEE the movie, not some shot of a sleeping black cat in a coal bin at night, or whatever it is that is going on in the blackness.
All in all, a collection of ill-thought out, predictable, boring foolishness.
The dumbest stuff takes place in the main part of the movie when Katniss and her team are moving through the city. The Bad Guys have planted "pods" all over the place. Those are booby traps that are ridiculous in concept and hilarious in execution. Giant machine guns unfold from the wall and blast away the building on the other side of the narrow street. Pairs of huge flame throwers hidden the the outer walls of buildings fry anything that walks between them. A city piazza suddenly becomes a gigantic bathtub when one of The Team steps on a trigger hidden in the paving stones. Great stone gates emerge from the buildings bordering all the streets leading from the piazza. Then oil in prodigious quantities emerges from somewhere and fills this giant bathtub to the height of several stories, after which it subsides just as miraculously as it arose. Just think how idiotic that is. The city's buildings were designed and built to hold those monstrous stone gates, and then oil was stored in a holding tank out of view from which giant pumps take it and inject it into the piazza. All that expense just to drown a few enemy soldiers.
Later, when The Team is moving through the sewer system under the city, it is attacked by the Mutant Mole People, thought to have been wiped out under that glacier on the mountain in Mesopotamia back in 1956. These mutants have no eyes but do have big mouths with lots of teeth. The work for President Snow. In the fight with the MMPs, Katniss is transformed into Legolas in the Mines of Moria, shooting an arrow in one MMP here, stabbing another in the face with an arrow there, etc., etc. Fortunately no Balrog showed up. Mixing metaphors, the movie has the Peacekeepers (Bad Guy police) dressed as Darth Vader's stormtroopers.
Near the end of the movie, when Katniss is supposed to execute ex-President Snow, she executes President Coin instead. After she does the deed, she just waltzes out of the arena. Nobody seems to mind that she just knocked off their leader. Nobody stops her.
Not content to give us this string of boring silliness, the movie has to take breaks from the "action" to bore us even more with Katniss's shallow, phony soul-searching.
Several of the scenes in the movie are shot in near-darkness so the viewer cannot see what is going on. That seems to be all the rage these days. I cannot figure out why. When I go to see a movie, I want to SEE the movie, not some shot of a sleeping black cat in a coal bin at night, or whatever it is that is going on in the blackness.
All in all, a collection of ill-thought out, predictable, boring foolishness.
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