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Pig (2021)
Amazing storytelling and excellent performance by Cage
Nowadays it is kind of rare to see a good movie with Nicolas Cage. Mandy (2008) was one good surprise, but in this one he excels in every possible way. The script is amazing and just tells you enough to be engaged with the story. All in all, it is a huge drama with three broken characters linked by one pig. Great movie!
Triple Frontier (2019)
So bad it hurts to admit I watched it
Go ahead if you have too much free time or fail to appreciate when a script that's supposed to offer a real-life story in fact offers one with so many unrealistic scenes that the movie should be categorised as pure fantasy.
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)
Falls prey to its own criticism
If I understood it correctly, this movie's main idea is interesting and thought-provoking. It's an effort to criticise the randomness and vacuity of the art-world.
The cast is great for a Netflix movie. And if you have seen Gilroy's Nightcrawler, you'll believe that this is going to be surprisingly good. Well, it is surprisingly mediocre. It hurts to see Jake Gyllenhaal in such a poor context. He is still great though. The same goes for John Malkovich, who plays an artist who, like himself (being Malkovich?), is worried about doing is own genuine thing and doesn't care about the greedy and cruel players like big galleries, museums and failed-artists-turned-critics.
I suppose that viewers will either be too distracted with all the supernatural stuff or find the movie's criticism too unrealistic. It's not subtle. In any case, it fits right in the category of works that go on display just because.
A recent movie that explores roughly the same main idea, but in a much more serious and subtle way, is The Square (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4995790).
Escape at Dannemora: Part 6 (2018)
Very surprising episode. An exercise in "tantric storytelling"
I have to admit that following a new, unidentified character for the first 14 minutes of this episode was really letting me down. It was the first time in the entire show that I did not feel entertained at all.
Yet, everything turned after those long, unexpected 14 minutes. We got to see some of the relevant past of the main characters. And what a rough depiction of it. Too violent? Yes, but that's how things were and maybe part an explanation of how driven they were to plan such an escape.
All in all, this episode builds up for a climax. Let's hope the ending does justice to all the other episodes.
Mid90s (2018)
Honest, simple, well written, directed and performed
This movie brings back memories to a lot of 90s kids. Jonah was a 90s kid himself. I'm sure that a great deal of his experience was put to service in this movie. And the result is very, very good.
The movie presents a very honest, but simple view of friendship/family back in the 90s. Parents back then were between worlds. Their children were feeling free like they never had a chance to feel with their own parents. Kids just wanted to hang out with friends, but in new, weird ways that were hard for parents to understand. Crossing lines was cool, not just dangerous. Being cool was how a kid went on to belong to certain groups. But to be cool you had to do stuff, like in the streets (trespassing, jumping off roofs, and just be crazy on a bicycle, skate, etc.). Adrenaline sports were getting popular. Online, selfie coolness was yet to come.
Focusing on a small group, instead of offering a bigger picture of society, was well thought. Kids had no such big picture back then as they have now. The www was a newborn in the 90s and almost no one had a computer. Some things were really harsh within teens groups (a lot of bullying, fights and older siblings taking advantage of you). However, as the movie shows, friends would also deeply care about friends. And parents who were trying hard enough eventually came to embrace their children's unfamiliar way of growing up.
Overall, the cast, the story, and the scenery made everything look authentic. Great debut movie for Jonah.
Halloween (2018)
Not too bad, but not good enough.
Some bits of this movie pay great respect to the original's vibe, even mimicking some of its iconic scenes, like the kitchen knife wall hanging. But overall the movie follows a really poor script.
There are a lot of nonsensical scenes, involving characters appearing in some places just because, and saying or doing things that feel completely misplaced (moving Michael to another institution just before Halloween? What a coincidence! A character saying that he got peanut butter on his penis, really? And later there is more peanut butter, but this time on a bánh mì).
Some scenes are intense and have that classic, slow suspense tone to them. The death scenes are quite good too, if you discount some stupid things that characters did to be on Michaels way. Gory without being too gratuitous. But the movie is not written for those who appreciate a convincing story with plausible characters.
Definitely not the best sequel. That's Halloween II (1981).
The Walking Dead: What Comes After (2018)
Five loaves feeding the multitude.
I'm sorry for the long review. If you haven't seen the episode yet, my advise is to skip everything but the last four or five minutes. There you will find news. The rest is more of the usual stuff as I describe next.
This season has been just this: the war is over, so let's get Rick and friends busy with some problems to solve. Most of these five episodes could easily be turned into just two very good ones if the characters weren't just solving a problem to get confronted with another one. Lack of food, disagreement within Rick's group regarding Negan, tension within the extended group of all communities, and last, but definitely not least, fixing a bridge.
Don't get me wrong. Solving problems can be the basis for great story telling, but not when problems arise just because. For instance, Rick and Daryl start a fight and fall into a huge hole from where they have trouble to get out. But this is not exciting enough, so let's make some walkers appear out of nothing and slide into the hole. Of course that now, since our beloved characters can't die there, we will make sure that they find a way out. Why not just the fight and then something less troublesome? Multiplying loaves.
But this 5th episode beats the previous ones on implausibility. Rick starts by setting himself free from an impaled torso by pulling himself up on some iron bars with the help of his belt. Of course that this alone would be boring and excitement requires having zillions of walkers just a few meters away and approaching. Really? He could have fallen from the horse and, say, broken a leg instead of being impaled. He would still be in trouble but solving this trouble wouldn't make things so implausible. Things like getting him on a horse from a crawling position. And the rest of the episode is pretty much Rick trying to survive the wound and maintain consciousness while riding the horse away from the zillion walkers.
But there is always room from another impossible stunt: when he finds an abandoned house and you may think that he is safe and can rest a bit, bam! the zillion walkers are there again and miraculously Rick manages to wake up right on time and leave without a bite.
Finally, comes the big tragic event: when he is about to be saved by his friends he decides that the best thing to do involves undermining the solution to the biggest problem they all have been facing since this season begun - the broken bridge.
Fear the Walking Dead: Grotesque (2016)
I am starting to fear the boring dead
This is going to be big. However, I promise you will get an idea of how bad this episode is and you will only loose like 5m reading my review which, compared to the 44m of the episode, is not so bad.
I have been following FTWD with as much the same interest as I have been following TWD. The first season of FTWD, especially, kept me going because then there was a lot to discover about the characters and the start of it all. Also, the city is a much more rich environment than a boat or Baja California. The city is crowded, not only with the dead, but also with other survivors. There is so much more to explore in terms of script and also a lot more kinds of action for audience to identify with.
Now this episode follows pretty much just one character, as if the audience had such a big interest in him that this could be an awesome way to spend 44 minutes. But, hey, we already know he is a tough and stupid kid trying to find himself in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. We have seen that a couple of episodes earlier.
But no, we have to follow him in search of a place where people embrace the dead. Like Celia did. In this journey we see a lot of implausible things happening. Firstly we see him running away from a woman with a baseball bat who is reasonably fighting for her daughters' wellbeing. And, guess what, he left his provisions behind. So convenient. The tough kid's journey needed to appear hard, so why not without food and water?
And then we have it, a great scene where we see him unsuccessfully trying to drink water from a cactus just to end up drinking his own urine.
A litter bit earlier he dodged some bullets from these gang members but later he is attacked and bit badly by dogs. Injured and limping his way within a group of dead walkers - with the now familiar and easy trick of blood camouflage - he shines in the most absurd scene of all.
Remember the gang members he avoided like Rambo? Well, they meet again, but like Rambo he just does not die. On the contrary, two of the gang members do die when trying to shoot him down while he limps within the horde of dead. These dumb gang members not only manage to fail the target but they also let themselves get killed by the dead. Amazing.
I thought that even if one wants something really badly (like to shoot an unknown kid who cannot harm you in anyway), one would still try to avoid dying. Right? This scene was by far the most unconvincing of all in FTWD. And the episode was the worst. By now at least. Unfortunately the next episode is not much promising either.
The Salvation (2014)
Nice kick-start but poor visuals makes it all-around ludicrous
This movie inverts the developing-tragedy type of story by kicking off with the tragedy and then going to the main action. I guess it may be called a revenge plot. And although it is not much original, it hits you strong in the first few minutes. After some years living abroad, Jon (Mads Mikkelsen) finally gets to see his wife and son who came to live with him on this western strange land (USA).
Only a few minutes after the family is reunited, their coach ride to wherever home is was transformed into a rape and murder scenario by two typical gunmen. Jon got his revenge too soon too easily but what he didn't know was that he had killed the brother of a fearful western gang head, Delarue (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).
And then this is it: Delarue seeks his revenge while Jon tries to survive. The villain has the unlikely aid from the town's sheriff, and also the consent from most town members, just because they relied on the gang for protection albeit obvious mixed feelings.
The other supposedly main characters are nothing but forgettable, like the mute wife of Delarue's brother, who would surely be far more interesting if she could say a word, and also Jon's brother (and his major helping hand in his ordeal) who was also a man of few words himself.
Even so, I think this movie could be pleasant to watch if there was no ludicrous CGI all over the shots. When I say "all over" I mean something like every other five minutes you get that perfect background scenery that just does not go along with the foreground. Besides this, you also have completely crap CGI fire and rain (CGI rain, really?). I simply do not understand how other reviewers are able to miss this (a simple web search will tell you that "some 900 shots visually altered through CGI and various digital and backdrop alterations").
Almost everyone with good taste will agree that Mikkelsen is a great actor, too great to be fronting such a mediocre movie.