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peter_octavian
Motion Picture Operator(IATSE)
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Reviews
Serial Killer: Red Sea Attacks (2023)
Interesting presentation and beautiful cinematography, but....
....wow is this pretentious.
If it's not very contrived, staged tension and drama, it's an overuse of solo shots of Brandon McMillan doing his best to look brooding and concerned about.....something...as he gazes off into the sunset or out into the open ocean, or as he types something very profound into his laptop.
Of course, it could just be that McMillan isn't really trying to look brooding, concerned and profound but is instead experiencing gastric discomfort and couldn't find a place in Egypt to buy Mylanta.
If it weren't for the cool shark footage and the breathtaking underwater seascapes, the participation of the talent would make this Shark Week special laughable, if not unwatchable.
Your best bet is to mute the volume, and listen to your favorite music instead (or, alternately, play the sound of Captain Quint scratching the chalkboard, which is significantly more pleasing to the ears than the over-inflated writing and abysmally performed dialogue in "Serial Killer: Red Sea Attacks").
The Midnight Club (2022)
A few decent scares, but ultimately predictable and boring at times....
It's an intriguing premise, but there's far too much time spent on the hand-wringing and angsty pretense that bogs down so many teen/twenty-something-based contemporary films, and not nearly enough of the scares teased by the much-celebrated "record breaking" first episode.
The cast are capable enough, but are saddled with scripts more concerned with socially conscientious exchanges which scream "This is the 90s as projected through the lens of 2022" which stick out like a sore thumb and don't advance atmosphere, mood or plot.
Anachronism, as delivered through "author intrusion" spoils period pieces.
Effective social messaging is deft, clever, and delivered without calling attention to itself, and woven into the fabric of the story in ways that compliment the plot. In "Midnight Club", the first time Heather Langenkamp utters the word "agency" (which she does frequently), you're reminded that the show is being run, written and produced by people designing messages for 21st century audiences.
Production values and cinematography are first rate, so "Midnight Club" will certainly find an audience, but in a streaming universe choked with socially-conscious offerings, it's going to be a disappointment to those hoping for a scary diversion.
"MC" also suffers from "The Walking Dead Effect": scripts which are padded with (too many) character/plot tangents designed to stretch out a story to ten hours when it could have been more effectively and engagingly told in two-and-a-half or three.
It's a shame, because the basic plot elements are a recipe ripe with potential, but as executed, cook up a happy meal instead of haute cuisine.
Bull: My Corona (2020)
Just awful. (Spoiler)
A dream sequence? Are you kidding me?
The entertainment industry has lost its collective mind. Setting aside the fact that a "dream sequence" episode is a tacit admission that the writers and show runners have run out of ideas, Bull has embraced the breathtakingly idiotic trend of not only infusing its stories with COVID-themes and tropes, it's plunged headlong into the madness of having its cast wear prophylactic face masks.
I mean, I suppose we give Bull a few points for being socially conscious enough to assure that its cast doesn't infect its audience and are, themselves, safe from anyone watching at home who callously refuses to wear their mask while watching at home, but c'mon. Why?
I'm not sure if it's a case of CBS sending an underlying message, "This is the new normal 'cause look, even Chunk and Jason Bull are wearing their masks. See. It's not so bad." (And that, coincidentally, is the not-so-subtle message woven into the fabric of this episode).
I know modern television is nothing if it isn't carrying the didactic of burden of trying to get its audience to "get with the program", but this? This is just ridiculous.
Whether or not it's the "new normal" is a question that has yet to bear out, but one thing is certain: There are very few people who aren't aware of the realities of having to wear a facemask everywhere. Just ask anyone who wears glasses. As a conscientious, non-drooling member of the Bull audience, I have no need to watch actors on TV acting in facemasks.
But the Season Five opener of Bull highlights how far out of touch entertainment shot-callers are from the average joe watching Monday night TV in his PJs.
Here's my thing: I don't watch TV dramas or comedies or dramadies or any of the other non-news content available on the billion plus channels available to me so that I can be educated. It's not that I have anything against education, but if I wanted that, I could be watching a science channel, or a history channel. I watch shows like Bull so that I can escape for an hour, so that I don't have to think about the harsh realities of COVID or politics or the escalating cost of coffee. If the stories are framed with current events, fine, but when they are conspicuous finger wagging, with messages designed by the sage anchorites holed up in writers rooms across Tinseltown, I don't find myself pondering the issue-at-hand.
I start rolling my eyes and pondering the remote control, and whether or not I should watch another episode of Bull (which I have enjoyed watching since it's premiere).
But maybe that's part of all that preachiness: The culling of the audience, the weeding out the undesirables and alienating those not wanting to be reminded to "get with the program".
OK, Bull, message received. I've only got so many hours in my day, and really, I'd be better served spending another hour reading the books on my nightstand.
At least they don't have 19 minutes of commercials contained in every hour.
(BTW....while the cast of Bull is immensely talented and likable, it was wholly painful to watch them agonizing their way to the "welcome back" musical number at the end of this episode, That's just another of the long list of wrong turns which made Season 5 Episode 1 a shining example of "what went wrong". )
The Open House (2018)
Pure crap
Even a predictable resolution would have been better than no resolution at all, which is what happened in this flick. There is NOTHING redeeming here.
For the love of all that's holy, don't waste your time!