Reviews

Over the course of 90 minutes Moby himself with his whimsical childlike creativity recounts his life's story in the most painful way possible. He did not have a happy childhood, and was depressed and suicidal at the height of his fame. I am disappointed at the reviewers who are calling this project "vain" because in many ways it is the most responsible documentary about a popular musician I've ever seen. He makes media fame seem empty and dark, and speaks at length about bad experiences he had while drinking or doing drugs. But it never comes across as preachy, just mostly as sad or matter-of-fact, or even self-deprecating.

Moby is a humble modest little man and I can say that as someone who has actually seen him at animal rights protests in L. A. and at his restaurant Little Pine. He is strangely unassuming for someone who originally gained fame as a stage performer and yet he is infinitely recognizable. I was never wrong when I thought I saw Moby - and funnily enough, in the documentary there's a scene in New York from the 1990s or early 2000s where some young women find him face down passed out on a sidewalk, and they're like "I think that's Moby. Yeah. That's Moby." And it's definitely him and he includes it in this biopic, it's totally wild. I don't know if it's his distinctive bald head and thick glasses, or some kind of inner glow, but he doesn't exactly blend in despite his average looks and casual way of dressing.

I am mostly familiar with his activism more than anything, and I feel like it's probably more important than his five MTV music awards. That seems to be the ultimate message he sends with this film, and it's animated here as this iconic image of himself as a cartoon infant in the 1960s, neglected by his parents, and cradled lovingly by a house pet - it's hard to tell if its a cat or a small dog - standing on its hind legs.

I found Bad Therapy to be laugh-out-loud funny. Yes, it's low budget but it makes clever use of the side of Los Angeles that mainly only locals see. An inordinate amount of drama takes place at an ugly strip mall in West L. A. and that is accurate.

One of the funniest aspects of this film is that women are fighting over this totally average looking, middle-aged bald guy like he's the hottest thing going.

The entire movie is like some terrible inside joke and it's like you either get it or you don't. I realize that is not the same thing as quality film making, but Alicia Silverstone is wonderful and Michaela Watkins is convincingly out of her mind. The teenaged daughter character ties the entire film together, Bad Therapy would be nothing without Anna Pniowsky, a child actress I'd never heard of before.

I really liked Battle for the Planet of the Apes. It introduces the ape society when it was balanced and borderline utopian, with humans still having the power of speech and intermingling with ape society mostly in service positions but even as teachers and doctors.

The "underground" humans are slightly less ridiculous here than they were in the earlier installment of Beneath the Planet of the Apes. They're radioactive and still live in the ruins of New York City and hate the apes, blaming the ape slave rebellion for leading to an eventual breakdown to human society. But it appears humans are squarely to blame for the nukes, the apes seem to have been living in a relatively safe remote rural area with the nice humans.

This fourth movie is significantly better than the second one but is probably my second least favorite of the original series. There's a lot of bad animal cruelty that made me want the apes to win but the plot line was kind of absurd. In 1983 every dog AND cat die of a mysterious disease until there's none left on Earth if you can swallow that. So humans start keeping monkeys and apes as pets, quickly turning to enslaving the apes within less than ten years. Sure the 80s were bad but I...ok. So if you can suspend your disbelief there, you can watch the movie.

Caesar (formerly Milo) is every bit as likable as his parents so he makes a strong protagonist. There's also an anti-racist solidarity with the Black man helping to free the animal slaves.

While most of the future predictions were silly they got two things right - the TV got smaller and everyone really did wear a lot of black clothes in the early 1990s. A few of the minor characters actually look like they could be from 1991 though it's mostly obvious that it's a 70s flick.

I honestly prefer the original series of The Planet of the Apes. The 1970s films are more my aesthetic preference and seem more coherent in terms of message. But this one is pretty, pretty bad.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes is fun to watch for the first half, there are recurring characters and an expansion of the story. But the whole nuclear atom bomb sub-plot is the kind of garbage better left in a black-and-white monster movie from the 1950s clearly written by someone utterly scientifically illiterate. How are the humans thriving underground without sun and fresh air, first of all? This and other questions will ultimately be met with a resounding "I do not care" once you watch The Coneheads mentally will two arrogant white dudes to kill each other.

This is a fun, light-hearted installment in the original series that features Zira and Cornelius along with another ape taking the human spacecraft back in time to the 1970s.

The critique of human treatment of animals is more explicit and matter-of-fact in Escape from the Planet of the Apes since we get to watch the literal circus that surrounds the talking, educated, married apes' arrival in the mid-20th century. In that sense, it makes it a better watch for younger people.

It's a delight to watch Dr. Zira assert her dignity as she gets dressed in clothes inside of a cage, eats an orange with a fork and knife, and introduces her "lawfully wedded spouse" in front of a human preacher.

This one has a predictably sad ending, though. It's really uncool because it has a different vibe than the rest of the movie but it ends up serving as a vehicle for the next sequel in the series. In fact, this film unintentionally sets the entire stage for the Caesar character who is the focus of the 2010s reboot for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, except he's named Milo here.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is better on some levels than the previous installment just because of the focus on the ape community and the criticism of human arrogance and violence. I would say it's simply more fun to watch the apes for the majority of the story.

HOWEVER, the reboot is sorely lacking on a lot of levels. I don't think Dawn of the Planet of the Apes or Rise of the Planet of the Apes pass the Bechdel test for two solid films in a row very quietly misogynistic and male centered to an annoying degree. Even with the woman doctor character she exists only to serve males except for a brief interchange with a female ape - and the two ladies don't even talk directly to one another.

This is a far cry from the 1968 original where a female ape is one of the driving principal characters. Pretty sad to take such an obvious step backwards along with the lame CGI shoot outs that are dumb and unrealistic.

This reboot of Planet of the Apes starts out with realistic framing compared to the original. The apes actually look like apes and there's great writing and character development for over half of the film.

But then it just became more and more ridiculous, naturally climaxing in the sort of prolonged, absurd CGI violence the stupidest of Americans demand. I found this turn of events predictable but a good twenty minutes of this flick are unbearable and this is something I would normally fast forward through.

Another serious issue is that Rise of the Planet of the Apes and its successor Dawn of the Planet of the Apes didn't exactly age well in contrast to more recent experience with the handling of COVID 19.

If the original Planet of the Apes were to debut today, laughably some people would accuse it of being "woke." There are obviously white apes and black apes, in the form of the orangutans and chimpanzees with the chimpanzees having less social status. Dr. Zira is the heroine - a woman ....er...female intellectual who believes in evolution.

Furthermore, the treatment of the caged humans in the movie mirrors human cruelty and ignorance towards non-human animals in the real world, and the apes even practice a questionable fundamentalist form of religion which puts apes above other animals including man.

Watching this as an adult, the apes are absolutely adorable. I LOVE Dr. Zira, she's such an iconic character. But I was terrified of this movie as a child, it took me almost 40 years to appreciate the original Planet of the Apes. The combination of the death of Stewart, the ugly scenes in the barren desert, and the gorilla military weirdly decked out in leather and hunting people was just too much for little me back in the day.

Obviously there are some flaws - everyone speaks English, there's no room for interpretation between the "alien" language/culture and the humans from Earth. The main character is about as unlikable of a man as it gets, but I think the film makers were trying to get through to conservative white men by identifying with them through the Taylor character. I think the director was trying to keep things as simple as possible.

I also questioned why the apes were so advanced while also being so far behind. Their overall culture seems Medieval or even some kind of weird ancient tribe but their technology is on the level of at least 19th if not 20th century science. Maybe it was intended to be a commentary on American culture of the 1960s.

The budget for this "film" looks like it was about twenty dollars. It's made-for-television BBC at its lowest. I was raised on PBS, I have seen great BBC productions - including old historical movies and mini-series - that were much better than this. The "house" is obviously a series of dreary sets. Nothing looks Victorian, the rooms are more like the inside of a cave. Or an abandoned windowless factory.

I guess some people would call that atmosphere, but it's more like a whole lot of blah. I say this as someone who LOVES horror from the 1970s, it's my absolute favorite era for haunted houses and ghost stories.

The Stone Tape is British in the worst possible way. Like classic television programming to guide you into a deep depression.

Honest Candidate is sort of like an irreverent K-Drama with all of the aspects of a wildly unrealistic situation bringing maturity and moral growth for the main character. However, I just didn't find the main character that likable or the comedy that funny. Also as someone who does not speak Korean I found some aspects of it harder to follow than much more serious South Korean films I've seen. Maybe it's too "talky"? I don't know but it's a bad sign when a light-hearted comedy is more confusing than an award winning art film.

I almost felt like this flick was trying to be American, and in the worst possible way. Honest Candidate isn't terrible it is okay for a few laughs.

CHO Revolution is twenty years old and I think this is the comedienne at her best. Margaret looks positively stunning in her evening gown, but is also hilarious pulling multiple rubber-faces that are comical and downright ugly by turns, with physical comedy that gives some of the better-known classic male comedians a run for their money. Asian. Chicken. Salad.

I just legitimately find this set to be a really funny one, despite its advanced age, and I am comparing it to her more recent stuff like PsyCHO and her collaboration with Awkwafina - both are alright but just don't have the same punch as her earlier work. The ending here is also more inspiring and heartfelt.

This documentary is very sincere and respectful towards the culture of North Korea in a way I have never seen as an American, and the director surrendered her South Korean citizenship to become a citizen of Germany just to make this outstanding film.

Sun Hyung Cho has accomplished something with this project that may not be duplicated again in the near future.

What struck me were the good things about North Korea - the director mentions that she feels melancholy viewing the natural landscape which has been preserved in NK in a way that has been eroded in the South due to capitalist development. There were some really interesting forms of sustainable living in the agricultural sector and the people interviewed showed themselves to be truly individuals with preferences and talents of their own, despite the overwhelming conformity of their devotion to their leader which is almost like a religious person worshiping a god. They could have swapped out his name with Jesus, that was a little unsettling.

My Bloody Valentine was one of those films that was fantastic in the theater due to the 3D glasses making it fun. But there's something genuinely scary to me about this flick despite its status as a remake and arguably also as a shallow horror movie.

It may have something to do with the working class characters being more likable than your usual group of obnoxious entitled teens in a slasher, or maybe it's just the visceral impact of all of those monstrous black gas masks and claustrophobic coal mining scenes underground.

I watched this flick again streaming several years later and still enjoyed it. Very solid for the sub-genre of 2000s glossy horror revival, which is not my favorite era, to put it mildly.

I am a rabid Black Christmas (1974) fan. It's one of my top five favorite horror movies of all time, if not my absolute favorite. I knew this 2019 remake was going to be completely different. I thought it might be fun like the 2006 version. I'm not a hater, especially when the director takes a classic film in a completely different direction rather than trying to duplicate the original. I expected a popcorn film, so my expectations were low.

Perhaps I have a different perspective than most of the reviewers here - I have always acknowledged how feminist and progressive the original 1974 Black Christmas is. The "final girl" is pro-choice, sexually active, breaks up with her fiance, and is seeking an abortion. No silly rules about virginity or explicit nudity. It's part of the quality of the Bob Clark film. But only a part. Still, I respected the huge feminist turn this re-imagining took to the left. It was a bit obvious and heavy-handed, but it's also a film for young people so I was along for the ride. I found the social criticisms timely.

But they lost me with the black goop plot line. The first two films aren't supernatural at all (although the atmosphere and framing of the 1974 version is arguably spiritual in a haunting way) and this third installment did it poorly. Very poorly.

All I could think while watching this is that in America this kind of TV star never actually gets rich. They might get their foot in the door, or get a lump sum of money they might be able to apply to other endeavors, but you don't necessarily become a millionaire set for life just from being on a TV show - even if people loved that show. That kind of thing really mostly applies to big Hollywood actors. And what this man endured was absolutely traumatic abuse.

The absolute gall of that producer calling himself the devil, and saying he didn't know "at the time" how far was too far. Really? You were an adult with a career not a twelve year old kid, what do you mean you didn't know at the time how far was too far.

Really intriguing to watch, and I am glad Nasubi was able to use his fame to move forward and help people in Fukushima. It may have even given him the tenacity required to survive Mt. Everest if you really think about it...but still.

This poor man's version of The Omen somehow escaped my radar until right now, despite it being right up my alley - you know, the alley filled with gold curtains and olive green settees.

The main flaw here is that Kirk Douglas is a disgustingly old 61 and looks every second of it next to the 19 year old college student cast as his love interest. But I think Holocaust 2000 wanted to drive home that his grotesquely greedy CEO character was pure evil.

I definitely thought this flick was closer to the truth about global warming and climate change than its comparatively iconic 70s antichrist thriller and I very much appreciated that angle. About half of the stars here are for apocalypse accuracy and the rest are for crystal chandeliers.

Amulet is a slow-burn, truly creepy, thinking person's horror film. Perhaps it's just too arthouse or subtle for the average horror fan, and too gross for the average fan of indie dramas. I suppose it is a bizarre mix of sub-genres in this beautiful film that I personally thought worked really well.

Carla Juri is amazing as the seemingly naive and overly religious adult daughter who behaves more like a repressed, obedient teenager than the 30-ish age range she actually is. I want to see this actress in more things because it's an unusual tension to pull off so well.

Alec Secareanu also gives a fine performance as a deeply traumatized military veteran from somewhere in Eastern Europe.

We have a vicar who rarely acts very religious (except in church) and drops F-bombs casually on multiple occasions. Her spouse seems like a bitter atheist and will not pray with her. I mean, they seem more like an average mismatched couple - one theistic, one not - than AN ACTUAL VICAR OF A CHURCH and her husband.

People get angry and then calm down within seconds. They don't have much respect for the vicar and treat her more like a random crazy woman than anything else. The children even start chanting in a vulgar way, gleefully, without a hint of fear or embarrassment at acting that way in front a church pastor.

I feel like Lord of Misrule is a patchwork attempt to mimic other, older horror movies. Like mixing 1970s The Wicker Man with 2000s Silent Hill and a random urinating scene like the original version of The Exorcist.

Lord of Misrule does have atmosphere and lovely folk horror aesthetics yet the writing and character development are significantly wanting.