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Nina (2016)
An uninteresting depiction of mental illness.
Nina
Yet another film of a famous person that in reality is just an excuse to show off mental illness. In this case the bipolar condition of Nina Simone.
The film assumes that the viewer already is familiar with her life. I wasn't. I only knew her by having heard a couple of her songs. The start of the film rushes ahead through her life to the very end of her life. But it doesn't start at the end and show flash backs. Well... sort of. It was mostly just a confusing mess and I had no clue what her career was like up to the end (where the film begins). The first concert she does is in a small bar. So as a viewer I'm like, OK, so this is the kind of concerts she had. And then I'm told she is one of the most famous singers. OK, so why is she in a small bar performing if she is so famous? And then somebody says that she should be in a huge concert hall, and not in a small bar. And I'm like, yes, so why isn't she? Please tell me, the viewer. No information.
The film revolves around her (non-romantic) relationship with her nurse/assistant/manager. This is uninteresting. It never goes anywhere and there's very little tension. I suspect it's just badly acted. David Oyelowo plays the assistant. I had never heard of him. So I looked him up. He has a long career of so-so stuff. So he doesn't seem particularly talented. He seems to be established as a middling talent. So it's an odd casting. It seems to me like he just didn't have what it took to make this role work.
Zoe Saldana plays Nina Simone. This is also not particularly interesting. But I don't think it's the acting that's the problem this time. I suspect the problem here is the script. A string of scenes showing a crazy person doing crazy things is not interesting. This is not a comedy. The craziness has to be coupled with her being sensible sometimes. There has to be some sort of balance. Nina Simone in this film goes from being disturbingly weird to being bouncing-off-the-walls-in-a-padded-cell- crazy. She's impossible to like. But she's famous for being a musical genius. She created amazing music and trail-blazed against all odds and conquered the world. This is not shown in this film. Nina Simone in this film is just nuts with no redeeming qualities. It's the stuff that made her famous that I'm interested in. This film provides none of it.
They use the "Angry Black Woman" trope to it's fullest extent. Sure, Nina Simone does have ample reason to be angry. But this character seems utterly consumed by it. It's like she has nothing else going for her in her life.
It would be nice with a film about a historical black person that doesn't focus on how much a victim he or she is. I'm not saying that black people historically haven't suffered. What I'm saying is that, by looking at the movies produced focusing on black people, black history seems to be defined by being a victim and nothing else. I'm starting to find this tedious. And in this film it's especially obvious, since her talents are so down-played. It's all about Nina, the crazy victim.
I learned almost nothing about Nina Simone's music career.
Jian guo da ye (2009)
A Chollywood movie?
A Chinese film, financed by the government of China, about the formation of said republic. This is all out propaganda. What is interesting is that it's big budget, and it's on par with the many similar American propaganda films (from Hollywood). Stuff like Independence day, Black Hawk Down, Argo and so on.
The acting is perfect. It's a star studded cast. They got all the biggest Chinese stars to do this. And you can tell. Both Jackie Chan and Jet Li have minor supporting roles. Their stars aren't bright enough to crowd out the better talent. So that's saying a lot. Great dialogue, as well. Anyway, cool to see a film like this where USA is the villain. While I'm in no way pro-Chinese. I do like variety and shifts in perspective.
There's zero soul searching going on in this film. In this film Mao is the best guy ever. Truly loved and respected by all who know him. Although Chiang Kai Shek didn't actually kick a dog on screen... you just knew he did off camera. This is a bad man.
I'm a history buff. So I've read biographies about all these people. They didn't need to do it this way. The Chinese communist party (ou tin the real world) already declared Mao an incompetent leader, and purged all his "henchmen". They did that in the 70'ies. So there should be zero contemporary controversy, in China, to do an accurate portrayal of both Chiang Kai Shek and Mao. But they chose to do it this way instead. Which took me a bit out of the drama. It's fun when the American ambassador is shown as a coward who doesn't stick up for his friends. Again... just nice to see, for a change, a high quality film that doesn't endlessly repeat the Hollywood messages of America's perfection.
They do a quite good job dramatising, what essentially just is, a series of talks where a bunch of elderly men negotiate at various tables. There is a lot of smoking, and talking about smoking. I never figured out the symbolism of that. Or perhaps it just was historically accurate? The film does get a bit boring at times. There's a fun segment where Mao has taken sleeping pills but needs to get to safety in a bomb shelter. But he's high as a kite from the pills, and has no intention of cooperating with his handlers, who end up having to carry him by force on a stretcher (not a spoiler, since everybody who knows anything about history knows Mao survived).
They do show some of the fighting. But this isn't a war movie. This film is only about the, behind the scenes, negotiating that later led to what became the formation of the republic. It spends a lot of time explaining why and how each member of the first Central Committee was elected. Which might be more fun if I knew more about recent Chinese history. Most of these names mean nothing to me. But it's pretty clear the viewers are supposed to be impressed. Which is another thing I like about it. Just like American propaganda films, it's shot for a domestic audience. It's obvious that this is shot for a Chinese audience, and only a Chinese audience. So they don't bother explaining, lots of stuff, you just have to know. I've read a lot of history, so I could mostly follow it. But far from everything. I did a lot of pausing and looking up stuff on Wikipedia. I must admit that I liked that aspect of it. It adds to the immersion, somehow. Despite it's flaws I did learn a lot, which I think is what's most important when it comes to historical dramas.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)
A fresh new take on zombies
It's what the title says it is. The zombies aren't really part of the plot. They're just sprinkled on top of the original story. I can't really put my finger on it but the book works, The film doesn't. I think it has to do with how books are read. In the book the zombies just act to add a level of absurdity to a great, and well known, classic story. When watching the film I expect a zombie movie. It isn't. This is Pride and Prejudice. A drama of manners. So it just becomes a boring zombie movie.
It's fun how traditionally zombie movies are about how civilisation is fragile. Very little is needed to turn us into monsters. Well... in this film nothing and no degree of apocalypse ruffle the feathers of the British upper classes. Even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse people are mostly preoccupied with saving face and social status. But not that fun.
It does have a twist on the zombie genre that I like. That the zombies look like zombies before they themselves realise they're succumbing to the infection. So they behave normally not realizing how others see them. Eventually they go rabid.
But points for trying. This is creative and they are taking risks. My hat off to them for that. The problem with taking risks is that it sometimes it fails.
Good Will Hunting (1997)
I do not understand this films greatness
I'd saved this for a special day when I wanted quality. Shame. Completely bizarre and unrealistic story. So contrived and stupid. It wasn't remotely believable. Just silly. The point of the entire frame was to get Matt Damon and Robin Williams in the same room. They could've saved so much time shortening it. The rest was just transport. Everything about the kids life was uninteresting. The silliest sob story. His relationship with the Harvard girl was a yawn-fest. Bad acting.
I'm a liberal, so they were preaching to the choir, but even I found the long liberal speeches a bore. People don't talk like that. There's a rule in fiction... show don't tell. They forgot that rule. How did this film get nominated for nine Oscars, including best picture?!? This is first year English major level of writing. So bad dialogue. Such a weak contrived script. It tries to make some blindingly obvious points about it sucking to be poor. This is not news. Also... everybody was hot and sexy with a smoking hot body. Not believable at all. Just took me right out of it.
Both me and my girlfriend sat with dropped jaws wondering how this got so high ratings. The good acting does not save this film. Yes, there's some top notch fine acting here. Both Matt Damon and Robin Williams to stellar performances. Stellan Skarsgård, who I know is a good actor, couldn't save his silly role. Such a stupid idea for a film.
I do not understand this films greatness
Chappie (2015)
Watch RoboCop instead
I'm a huge fan of Blomkamp as well as Die Antwoord which is why I suffered through this film.
This is RoboCop. But RoboCop is better. So watch that instead. This film adds nothing.
Characters are paper thin. It's story-driven but with a weak story. The bits about AI and Chappie getting his own consciousness isn't explored enough for it to be interesting.
The music is good. It's Die Antwoord. So you can't go wrong there. It's pretty. The locations are cool. And the fight scenes are cool. But RoboCop is better. Just watch RoboCop instead.
Defiance (2013)
tedious generic sci-fi
Aliens have landed on Earth and have terraformed the planet somewhat and triggering a war. Now it's peace and the alien races have now intermingled with humans and try to live in peaceful co-existence. I love science fiction. I require very little to developed a sizeable nerdgasm. Didn't happen here.
Good science fiction is about bringing attention to contemporary issues. By exaggerating them or initially masking them they fool the viewer into getting a fresh perspective and challenge earlier held beliefs. This is just stupid. As far as I can tell it's a sci-fi world to promote Christian conservative tea party dumbness. We really don't need science fiction to help us sell that world view. It's everywhere anyway. And if the metaphor is stupidly blatant, then why bother calling it a metaphor? Riddick has Muslims. If you're going to talk about Muslims, why not just have Muslims in the show? It's doable in sci-fi. Also, the Muslims are of course evil and backward and need good Christians to teach them good morals. I mean Castithans. The Muslims in the show are called Castithans. Or rather it's a hodge podge religion that includes every other religion Christians have historically frowned upon. Another thing about metaphors. If the metaphors are blatant and stupid, it just becomes a long set of new names for me to learn for stuff I already know. Its tedious to have to suffer through.
The alien races are very well developed and thought through. They have their own languages, cultures and all. It's really well done. The problem is, that it is irrelevant for any of the stories. It's just flavour. LOTR does it right. The ancient cultures and races are interesting and relevant to the story. They created immersion. These don't. The difference is that Tolkien introduces his alien components cleverly, woven into the story. In Defiance we get long boring and pointless speeches that have no impact on the story.
Characters are unoriginal. The main character has impeccable morals and is a through and through good guy. His adopted alien daughter is basically a Klingon. I never started caring about any of the characters. I couldn't spot a single thing in this show that is even slightly original or interesting. The world and story is extraordinarily convoluted for no reason I can see. if you want to create a fictional world, change as little as possible please. It makes it makes the story easier to follow. This is just overly complicated and boring to follow.
The individual episodes have almost no depth to them. Other than that we should treat each other with respect and not be racist, the series seems to have nothing to say. And if the solution to every problem is "hey, look at this new alien concept I'm introducing that you haven't heard of" then I stop caring. Which I did.
The CGI is very well done. I love the battle scenes between big armies. That's where the positive points come from.
Overall. I'm not impressed. Too bad. I was looking forward to it.