Reviews

Every time I watch a Christopher Nolan movie, I'm suprised by three things: his visual creativity; excellent character direction; and non-stop, headache-inducing musical score choices. Chris, what is going on, mate? Why do you feel the need to smother all your films in neverending strings? It baffles me that he keeps doing this. In Tenet it made the movie basically unwatchable (as you couldn't understand half the dialogue), but Tenet was pretty mediocre anyway.

But Oppenheimer? This movie is a masterpiece, all but ruined by the ridiculous, grating, incessant music. The movie feels like one long scene because the score never lets up, and the volume is just completely baffling. It's distracting, frustrating and completely unnecessary. Nolan does the same in Dunkirk, and someone needs to tell him to STOP THIS.

Oh yeah, the movie: it's great. The acting is phenomenal (always love seeing Josh Hartnett empowered to do some real performing), the structure works and we weren't bored once through its 3-hour runtime. Cillian Murphy is a powerhouse and the way the story plays out is as gripping as it is unconventional.

I watched the first season of Loki with some enjoyment, even though I felt like it not only ruined Loki as a character (he's not supposed to be a nice, fun guy, ok?), but also ruined literally all the stakes in the entire MCU (if the infinity stones are paperweights to the TVA, why should I ever care what happens?). I was curious to find out what they'd do in Season 2.

I guess the answer to that is "mumble techno-babble exposition at you for 40 minutes". Wow, this episode was a SLOG. Not only is the dialogue actively calling you an idiot by spelling out literally everything that happens; it's also sound-mixed in a way that makes it come across as muffled and low-energy, especially when layered over the too-soft music and barely-there background foley. Weird. Secondly, Tom Hiddleston is just trying too hard. Every pose, every movement, every sentence comes across so forced and "look at me, mom, I'm acting!", I couldn't get immersed. Owen Wilson doesn't fare much better. The guy from Everything Everywhere is great, but he just kept reminding me that that movie is SO MUCH BETTER than the current MCU's multiverse of stupidity.

And the plot? I dunno. Even though this season only contains 6 episodes, this first episode is SLOOOOOOW and contains very little content. I was actually surprised when the credits came up, because I literally did not know what I was supposed to take away from this.

Not a good start to the continuation of an already shaky foundation.

As I walked out of the theater after this never-ending film, the person in front of me remarked to his friend: "This is a great movie, if you're 15 years old". I'm still jealous of how perfectly he articulated my feelings while watching the latest installment in the apparently infinite Mission Impossible saga. It was like I had just watched a 3-hour Saturday morning cartoon in the 90s. And that's not a good thing.

Let's put aside the plot, which is a back-of-the-napkin "rogue AI makes people do dumb things" storyline that's so generic, I wouldn't be surprised if it was WRITTEN by AI. I want to touch on two things that made this movie unbearable: the dialog, and the action scenes.

The dialog in this film legitimately feels like it was a rough first draft. Not only is EVERY interaction peppered with the laziest clichés (including old favorites "I LIKE this one" when referring to a sassy sidekick, or "we'll die if we do this!" - "we'll die if we don't!"... creativity died a silent death in this movie); the script also treats you like a toddler. Every single plot point is explained in chunks of tiresome exposition where characters just flatly state what is happening. In multiple scenes, this exposition is brought by several people finishing each other's sentences, which is CSI-level bad and unnatural writing. Even the names are so on-the-nose they made me laugh (Grace, GET IT? Gabriel, GET IT?!). The story has nothing going for it, so they have to act like this is more than a generic doomsday device plot - which for some reason would sell for just 100 million? Oh, and why is Ethan's team the only group with the magic face masks? And how are all these people constantly in the same place? These are plot contrivances, not dialog issues, but I couldn't help myself; this film is so DUMB.

Secondly: the action overstays its welcome in EVERY scene. It's just not as good as the director thinks it is. Big shout-out to the car chase in Rome, which felt like it would never end, and the train climb scene, which made me want to yell "YES, I GET IT". The hand to hand combat is lethargic and poorly choreographed, and Tom Cruise's BASE jump... well, you've seen it 743 times in the advertising for this movie, so it's... meh.

At least Haley Atwell is gorgeous, even though she has this annoying smirky attitude throughout the whole film.

9 minutes and 9 seconds. That's how long I lasted before shutting off The Flash. Setting aside Ezra Miller's horrible deeds in the real world, this movie is simply unwatchable. The first scene at the coffee shop had me cringing out of my seat; the bad ADR hurt my brain; and the CGI... everything you've heard about how terrible the VFX are, is 100% true. I've got no idea how this movie was made this badly. Maybe it was a tax write-off, or maybe the director just hates you. Either way, I'm surprised anyone could get through this, because after seeing Flash stuff CGI food down his throat before saving CGI babies in looney tunes situations, I needed to wash my eyes out with bleach.

This episode legitimately made me see just a little more beauty in the world. Taking a step away from the bleakness of the world of The Last of Us, and focusing on two people trying to be human during an inhuman time... what a pleasure to have been able to watch this.

The acting, writing and cinematography are all second to none. How they were able to establish and build a whole relationship between two people you don't know is nothing short of stunning. Sometimes we need to take a step back and look at what matters, and what matters is each other. Regardless of what happens outside our doors, we have one another. Beautiful.

Just absolute garbage. I decided to start with the highest-rated episode, Hanging Balloon, and ended up fast-forwarding through half of the 25-minute short. The animation is ghastly (and not in a good way), with multiple scenes containing barely any movement at all; the voice acting is laughable; the foley and music are a joke, and worst of all: nothing is scary.

I love weird horror. This was not that. This series is incomprehensible dross that has so little content, I'm struggling to fill the minimum character limit with complaints. It's just a complete nothing burger. What a complete waste of time.

I'm late to the party. I know. But with all the praise Top Gun: Maverick got, we thought this would be a great popcorn flick to satiate our January-first couch potato needs.

Were we ever mistaken! I don't know what type of reality distortion field the reviewers of this movie currently reside in, but I'm not even sure we watched the same film.

The good: every single aerial scene had us on the edge of our seat. Amazing cinematography, flight choreography, and it felt like we were there. No idea how they pulled this off - we were blown away.

The bad: literally everything else. Director Kosinski is back, continuing his trend of not caring about humans in this clinically directed nightmare. Every character comes across as a stand-in, which leave you looking for superlatives for the word "cliche". (Cliche-est?) the dialogue is borderline parody, with my partner and I taking turns predicting the next line with shocking accuracy. Then, the plot is complete nonsense for a variety of reasons:

1. Really cool that Top Gun graduates are "elite", but... why not hire pilots with, you know, real world experience... like OLDER Top Gun graduates?! This is a serious plot hole that gets dumber the more you think about it. "Let's hire talented rookies to fly this key mission!" - why?!

2. Three weeks. That's how long the writers continuously emphasize these rookies have to train. Which, on its face, is already absolutely ridiculous - but then, the training gets SHORTENED - meaning that the hour of sequences you just watched, happened in... just a couple days? The timeline makes ZERO sense here.

3. Maybe, if you want us to care about our characters, you can help us understand the stakes? Pretty basic stuff. This movie is only a 2-hour first act, followed by the finale, where the team fight literally faceless baddies in the mountains somewhere. The rest of the stakes are petty, borderline-ridiculous interpersonal conflicts.

Everything coalesces into an ooze of bad, with a script seemingly written by a 12-year-old, acting so cringe it'll make you lose hair (stop TRYING so hard, Jennifer Connolly), and a soundtrack so gratingly sentimental it made us want to mute our speakers. The original Top Gun was a dumb mess, and I'm glad to see the sequel outdoing it in stupidity.

A bunch of uppity, vapid gen-Z dorks scream buzzwords at each other for 90 minutes while making the literal worst decision possible at every turn.

For whom was this movie made? Judging from the basically all-female cast, female writer and female director, I expected some kind of point to be made, be it feminist or otherwise. The trailers had me curious about how they would subvert the tropes and cliches being spouted by the characters. Spoiler alert: nothing is subverted. Every single character is a charisma vacuum, an entitled brat with zero empathy. Everyone hates each other. So what's the point? The thread of this movie seems almost explicitly anti-woman; "overreact, get jealous, stop thinking, escalate, overreact, scream and whine". If this were written by a man, it would've been viewed as perpetuating the most obscene female stereotypes imaginable.

I won't talk about the plot, because there is none. I caught the basic gist of the twist 20 minutes into this ridiculously stretched out and padded film, which plods along through a single act at a snail's pace. The music is overcompensating and the movie is filled with dumb errors and oversights, like the constant inclusion of "exit"-signs (in a private house?), a mirror light draining a car battery that still has a horn, a floor plan that seems to change very five minutes... the only thing I really enjoyed was Bakalova's acting, which was pretty solid.

I don't understand the hype. I just watched a plotless anti-woman cliche for 90 minutes. I want my time back.

Yet again, Flanagan and his team deliver a poetic rendition of metaphors, this time focusing on life, coping, selfishness and ego. While this series has its problems (over-reliance on unironic jump scares, some pacing issues and a penchant for melodrama), it does a fantastic job in the latter half fleshing out real perspectives on death, belonging, and much more.

The multifaceted characters have flaws and thoughts that feel real and human, which makes the nuanced story even more powerful. And the generally strong performances do a lot to bolster the pretty heavy subject matter. While I would've enjoyed some more dread as a complement to the "horror" and drama, I thought the balance was good.

Midnight Mass and Hill House were masterpieces; is this? No. But is it worth a watch and does it give you some new perspectives? Probably.

While the subject matter is fascinating and the focus on Kim Wall as opposed to the murderer admirable, this documentary was stretched to bizarre lengths... and I can't fathom why. This would've worked much better as an 80-minute doc, and literally no content would have to be cut; only the endless slo-mo transitions would have to be trimmed.

The length really hurts the storytelling, as I felt myself lulled into boredom on multiple occasions. The content should drive the length; not the editor's love for overlong transitions.

"What else am I going to watch in the bathtub?", I asked myself as I turned on The Gray Man on Netflix, after pulling out my subscription from under a pile of much better streaming services. "200 million bucks and the directors of my favorite Marvel films - what can go wrong?"

Well, I don't know what exquisite catering and hotels they spent that 200 mil on, but I can tell you what they didn't spend it on:

1. The script. Now I know Shakespeare is long dead and this is a basic action flick, but I SWEAR 80% of the dialogue is lifted from other basic action flicks verbatim. Add to that the hilarious PG-13 language and absurdly miscast actors, and every line comes across as a parody. "Remove yourself from my personal space"? I agree, movie.

2. The pacing. As I felt like the third act was coming to an end, I was quite surprised to see that I wasn't even halfway through this bizarrely rapid-fire-yet-boring explosion fest. The film barrels along from seizure-inducing scene to seizure-inducing scene with no sense of rhythm or flow. Imagine the concert scene from John Wick 2, stretched out for 2 hours.

3. The acting. Ryan Gosling isn't a bad actor. But he sure is bad in this. Oooh, you can't feel pain? Cool. But does that prevent you from moving your face? Rege-Jean Page is a joke, attempting gravitas and failing hilariously. And the myriad side characters are a jumbled, interchangeable mess.

4. The cinematography. Swoop! Shwing! Voom! The camera goes all over the place completely randomly, trying to make up for the fact that there really isn't much happening.

5. The music. I can get better free stock music than this.

All in all, I expected a stupid yet fun, expensive-looking, globe-trotting adventure. But all I got, is stupid. Avoid.

In this review, I won't focus on the fact that My Kitchen Rules seems to have a strict "no charisma allowed" rule for contestants and judges. Or that the level of cooking is exactly what you'd expect from a bunch of random amateurs. What I want to focus on, is the absolutely ATROCIOUS editing and structure of the show. Once you notice this, you can't "un-notice" it.

MKR applies the same structure to EVERY. SINGLE. SCENE.

1. You see someone cooking, explaining exactly what they're doing: "I'm going to braise the red cabbage."

2. Cut to insert shot of the same person in a studio, saying "to make the cabbage, I've got to braise it."

3. Cut back to kitchen, in which the cook says "I don't know if we're going to make this on time!"

4. Cut to insert shot of the same person in a studio, saying "I really wasn't sure that I was going to make it on time."

5. Repeat for every single shot.

Once you notice this formula, the show becomes even more unwatchable than it already seemed based on its unpleasant contestants and hosts. It is hilariously, pathetically repetitive; it provides zero additional insight into the contestants; and it is literally an hour of being described over and over what you're ALREADY SEEING ON SCREEN.

Try harder.

I've got to be honest: when I say "unbearable", I mean it. We made it 20 minutes in before deciding to shut this monstrosity off (we debated duct-taping our eyes and ears shut forever as a protest, but deemed that a slight overreaction).

I understand that not every movie has to be a masterpiece. I understand that not every character is going to gel with your taste. But it almost takes effort to create characters so unlikeable, so completely divorced from any type of real person. It's like these writers have never met anyone. Add to this a premise which is so shockingly dumb, I couldn't believe what I was watching, as well as plot contrivances and holes so massive, you can't believe what you see unfold.

So, a couple of unsuccessful influencers (I say "unsuccessful" because your 2000 likes on instagram aren't going to net you the cash to buy your Tesla) decide to appropriate a ghost town (which for some reason still has an active police force) to turn into influencer heaven. "We can open a comic book store there!" one character says, pointing at a storefront in an uninhabited town in the middle of the desert 7 hours away from civilization. Who WRITES this? Anyway, our main character, a curly-haired punchable face who apparently has never interacted with humans, does her best to piss everyone off for no reason, including telling an old woman in her own house to get lost because they bought the house. Who's the villain in this story? And Dante, who goes crazy about a hanging confederate flag (rightly so), then... leaves it on the ground when it's taken down? You know people can still see it when it's on the ground, right?

I have no idea what happens after that because once the blonde decides to go with the evicted old lady for literally no reason, we unplugged our tv and took a vow of silence. This is absolute garbage and literally no one should ever watch this.

The original Matrix was a watershed cinematic moment for me. I watched it, age 12, on a CRT television, and it completely changed my perception of film, philosophy, action, drama... and more. If this sounds exaggerated, It's not. That's because it made a true impact on me. Nothing life-changing, but thought-shaping? Definitely. There was something about the original film; it was a ballet of ideas, choreography, tone, style - it clicked on every level, and I loved it. I've loved it ever since that first time, and I have watched it probably 50 times over the past 21 years. The sequels didn't work for me, but I understood the story they were trying to tell, and the way they tried to tell it. It got pretentious, but at least it was cohesive. And the movies took themselves seriously. There was a real threat. There were real stakes. Things mattered. Over the years, I've realised that the original Matrix was lightning in a bottle, and I see it as its own, almost perfect thing. Which is why I was surprised and scared when the Matrix Resurrections was announced.

"Why are they making this?" I thought. The Wachowskis don't really seem like cash-hungry sellouts, so could it be that they've got a great new story to tell? The trailers had me cautiously optimistic as well. And then... Then I saw the first reviews trickle in. I just read the titles, but they confirmed some of my fears. And I debated, SERIOUSLY debated, whether to watch this movie at all. I did.

What a sad, sad mistake. While I don't understand how someone can accidentally make something as good as the original Matrix, it's screamingly apparent that's exactly what happened. It was a fluke. And that is demonstrated clearly by Resurrections, a film so trite, tone-deaf and bland that I find it hard to even describe what I just sat through. I won't go through the plot - it's irrelevant. I want to share what didn't work for me. To start, this movie shouldn't exist. There's no narrative reason for this film to be. It doesn't tell an interesting story, it doesn't shape a new world, it doesn't subvert your expectations; it doesn't do anything, really. The movie trundles along from one digital scene to the next, and the stakes were so unclear that I felt like I was watching the film from a mile away. What doesn't help is that the cinematography is far too polished, which pulled me out of the movie constantly. Again, I won't dive into the plot, but it does absolutely nothing to keep you engaged.

There were two distinct things that crippled this movie beyond redemption. Two things that make me almost certain of what I mentioned above: that the first Matrix was accidentally fantastic. And those two things are tone and choreography. See, the first three Matrix films took themselves seriously. That was critical, because it balanced out the increasingly ridiculous nature of the plot and the things we were seeing on-screen. The original Matrix is NOT a funny movie. It is a brooding dystopian drama, and that makes you invested in the plot and the people. Jokes were sparse. Good. However, Resurrections is a quip-a-minute romp, where every line is delivered sarcastically or with attitude, completely ruining the feeling of extinction-level stakes. Nothing matters because everyone seems to not care - why else would they all be joking around all the time? This is a fatal flaw of this film: if it doesn't take itself seriously, why should we?

The second, choreography, might seem small compared to tone, but it's not. Remember how you felt whenever hand-to-hand or gun battles broke out in the original Matrix? Those shockingly creative, diverse, complex fight scenes that had you on the edge of your seat? That balance between power and vulnerability? The distinct styles? The menace in Smith's movements? That moment Neo says "no" in the hallway, and stops the bullets? None of that is here. Firstly, I heard that Lana Wachowski directed the action scenes. This was a hilariously arrogant error on her part. Every single fight doesn't just look generic; it looks dumb. That's unacceptable for a Matrix sequel. The hits don't connect, the camera constantly cuts like a Liam Neeson action thriller, there isn't a lick of originality in any move - we already know Neo can stop bullets (it's even in the trailer), so why do you do that eight times? Why is there nothing new? Why is the main big bad not formidable? Why have I seen better choreo in TV shows? Neo at one moment says "I still know Kung-Fu"; well, he could've fooled me.

All in all, I was left with a feeling of emptiness after watching this content-free, brightly coloured quippy sci-fi bonanza. I don't recommend this to anyone who enjoyed the original film(s) and I hope they stop making these.

I came here to watch a movie that combined a narrative about the massive challenges PoC still face, with slasher folklore. That's what the trailer promised. I was intrigued. I was ready.

What I got was:

-an endless slog of exposition so on-the-nose I felt like someone was playing a prank on me

-great actors with nothing to do

-a bunch of unconnected scenes with no narrative throughline

-shockingly boring camerawork and cinematography

-a muddled, incomprehensible message.

The entire movie was built on a foundation of plotholes, with rules that get broken the moment they're introduced, characters making absurd, inhuman decisions, and twists that I didn't even know had any bearing on the plot. And worst of all: it's not scary. Not for a single second. Velvet Buzzsaw, which is a PARODY of the pretentious art world and a goofy horror comedy, was scarier and more profound than this.

Wow. Throughout this miniseries - which we watched in one sitting yesterday - I kept asking myself: "how did Netflix greenlight this? Ten people on earth are going to love this and the rest is going to be confused and grossed out." And at the same time, my heart filled with joy that I was watching this on a mainstream streaming service.

Brand New Cherry Flavor is like watching a 6-hour blend of Neon Demon, early Villeneuve and a bunch of David Lynch. It's phenomenally shot and acted, has a gripping and bizarre plot, and visuals that will stick with you for a long time (when I say "she took it from the side", you'll all know what I mean). The main thread is manipulation and control, and the lengths people will go to achieve and maintain both of those. It's a fantastic allegory for the movie business and is kept subtle enough that reality and fiction blend beautifully together.

If you love weird, esoteric "horror"/black comedies, this is for you. I'm not going into the plot. Just watch it.

I always wonder how a movie like this gets made. Sure, "vampire on a plane!" sounds like a cool premise, if you're at a bar with your friends pitching dumb movie ideas, but as a TWO-HOUR movie without any plot? No.

See, the plane setting doesn't actually add anything to the film, they do nothing interesting with it - and the vampire backstory is basic stuff you've seen a million times before. And with its insane runtime, they're almost begging you to check your email or fast-forward.

It also doesn't help that the acting is really, REALLY bad, while the movie takes itself INCREDIBLY seriously. This creates a messy viewing experience that is so bland, you can't even make fun of it. And boring-bad is the worst kind of bad.

If you want to watch a high-quality schlocky vampire movie, check out 30 days of night. It's far more fun and engaging than this snoozefest.