kalchomcgradypg Reviews

Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)

Almost a great movie

[7/10 · 22 October 2023]

Don't get me wrong, for a formula comedy this film is goood, one of the best actually.

But sad thing is, it had so much that if they decided not to go by regular formula, or atleast did it more subtly, this could have been a great film.

The first part of the movie is sooo good. His reaction to his wife wanting divorce, him going on his own to bars, and then introduction to Ryan Gosling's character. All the way to the scene where they are in school and teacher of their son is a girl from the bar, his first rebound after separating from wife.

After that movie went into 3rd act and it became kinda bad. A lot of things happened for no reason whatsoever. And then they finish film with him hijacking his son speach about graduation to talk about his wife, WHAT? It was such a layered story and you finish it like this? Wtf? Seriously?

I will give writers benefit of the doubt that they had to listen to some studio demands or whatever, but to be honest i dont think so. I think people are volunteering to compromise they work just so they can suck up to Hollywood people.

Film is good, and you should watch it. BUT, could have been a GREAT ONE. Missed opportunity.

Poison (II) (2023)

Wes Anderson need to be stopped

[4/10 · 16 October 2023]

This is getting out of hand. Can somebody talk to this man and make him accept and seek help that he needs to be again great director that he is.

Wes Anderson does not know how to tell a story.

He is master of decorating a story, authentically performing his vision, and generally visual design.

But telling a story is not his strongest quality. All the great work he made was written in collaboration with someone, why did he stop taking help is beyond me. Its a shame, cause this talented man should have never made stuff like his last 3,4 projects which were all a disaster. Its a stain on his career and i dont know if i can take it anymore without it ruining my opinions on his best work like Moonrise Kingdom, Grand Budapest, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Royal Tenebaum.

This amazing short story by Dahl is butched in such a way that it is hard to swallow. Please Wes, ask for help when writing, you need it and thats not a bad thing, its a wonderful thing cause obviously on his past work we can see that he is thriving when collabing with others.

Asteroid City (2023)

Well Anderson finally did it

[5/10 · 9 July 2023]

Well Anderson finally did it, he made himself the main character of the movie. He was going towards this for some time. Finally he said enough is enough, my visions are higher than conclusions and laws made from years and years of storytelling history.

I always felt like Wes Anderson is the greatest designer of 21st century. But also for a long time i felt like he was also quite great as a storyteller. Starting with Royal Tenenbaums where storytelling is supreme, then Moonrise Kingdom, and then his masterpiece Grand Budapest Hotel. Granted he was never a supreme finisher of the storylines he create but he was great nonetheless.

Then i notice with some of his film a pattern of them being way worse in storytelling quality when he didnt have a partner in writing, obviously he benefits from somebody keeping him from going completely loose.

This one, even suprisingly bad, in a way was a natural course of events after his last film which i felt was his second weakest one (weakest one for me was isle of dogs), in french dispatch i noticed he indulged himself too much that he forgot what films are essentialy about.

His design and unique style used as visual narrative is nothing short of brilliance, but if there is no narrative to tell than we are essentialy watching a series of well designed posters, and that is not a film.

Here there is no story to tell, he literally made a movie about a play about a movie about a play. What?

There is so many unnecesary characters to furfill his need of going balistic with pointless design ideas, and intestringly enough so little story to tell about all of them.

With all the querkinest of his previous characters you always felt like its fine, cause they lived in their own world and interacted with each other. Here i feel like characters are interacting with Wes not with each others.

In the end i didnt give 1/10 to this movie just for one reason. His script is finished with making a point how film(play) is about nothing and life will go on either way, so i guess let him have his fun, who cares he earned it. So im not mad, he really did earn it, go and have fun bro, just make sure to not go overboard and when you feel u vented enough come back to us with some real stories to tell cause we will be waiting. See ya.

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

Honestly i dont get it

[5/10 · 22 June 2023]

So here is what we learned from first film : navi people care for the planet and are united in fight for it, earth people dont care for the planet and wanna take over but Colonel Miles Quaritch is not up to the task and he fails in spectacular fashion.

Here we pick up years later when earth people come to pandora again. Now our protagonist has a family and he is leader of the tribe and they are in war and seem pretty comfortable in that situation. But then Earth People have this "genious" idea that they need to bring back the guy who literally cost them billions last time and failed spectaculary, cause obviously he is the best man for the job. WTF? Then our protagonist's childeren are captured by Colonel Quaritch but escape safely. So now our protagonist is like f* the tribe and f* pandora im gonna run away, cause there is this guy i literally singlehandedly defeated last time but now im scared if him, and everybody is like fine with that. WHAT?

And then the film becomes this loop of his kids getting captured and released 10 times, so basically except for some visual exploration there is no exploration in the story we could have finished all the drama the first time they were captured. Why drive story forward if you gonna come back to same situation 10 times. What exactly is the logic here?

And then in the end we have this big dramatic scenes of them potentionally drowning ( while sea people do what?where are they? ), we are watching them fight for their life for 10ish minutes and all that time Colonel Miles Quaritch is lying unconcious on the bottom of the water, and we are supposed to believe that protagonist family is almost dead but then after all that drama human kid goes and pick Colonel up and he is somehow alive, not at all drowned. WHAT?

As a person who loved Avatar, and was super ready to close my eyes on some defficiencies, cause it was full of heart and it was going toward a point, i cant look past this new one. It is an incredibly stupid and lazy script and even sadder is the fact that this script set up the next ones to go in same stupid direction.

I am generous in giving it 5 stars, cause you cant ignore the technological achivement this production is. It gets 4 stars automatically and 1 star for 15min of the movie where that kid bonds with a whale-like creature, it is only part of the film that i felt like im actually watching something.

Black Mirror: Demon 79 (2023) Season 6, Episode 5

9 out of 10 is generous but hear me out.

[9/10 · 18 June 2023]

This story was superb. I think the running time does not give it justice (which is weird i feel like this since usually the problem with many BM episodes is that they are too long), this could've easily been a standalone movie. I love so much stuff about it. The way it was proudced, stylized, the music, actors. Yea i know lot of people here wanna see same stuff from BM (which is marketed as show about technology) and would say this is not what we signed up for, but to me i just want a good script and good delivery and this one is amazing. It is black comedy at its best, it is something my past-stoner-self would think is the best thing in the world. :D Even tough i honestly loved it i cant give it 10, in a way it doesnt even deserve a 9 but i couldnt resist. Like I mentioned, problem is that for this story and this many characters running time is not enough. I feel like policeman storyline is weak, as is politician but this one still works, and maybe a backstory of the main character would provide more ambiguity for us to wonder about her sanity. Also i think ending would benefit from longer "pregnant" pause inbetween her failing to kill the 3rd victim and clock showing midnight on the 3rd night.

All in all i feel like we became too lazy as audience. We get something good and we get spoiled and ask for the same thing over and over again. We demand the same unique feeling we felt when we watched "White Christmas", but if that feeling is replicable than it wouldnt be that unique and powerful in the first place. Its like people asking for infinite amount of superhero movies, it is so annoying. Just enjoy somebody's work. These 2 guys created this platform for them, so they can play around and tell the stories that are in their mind, it is so hard to achieve that and to constantly create new stuff, IT IS VERY HARD! Everybody complaining about not getting exactly what they want and imagine that show should be. If your imagination is so strong then go out and do it, write it down and shoot it or send it to somebody.

But if you are true lover of visual storytelling then i swear this episode is for you !!!

Pele: Birth of a Legend (2016)

How people? How?

[2/10 · 27 February 2023]

How can you give this 7 avg score. How do you guys let yourself to be played with cheap emotions. This film's script is so ignorant, unnatural, and at moments even incredibly crude and evil. First of all film about Pele where they speak in english is an insult by itself, but then this ignorant notions about brazillian life, this is literally prime example of evilness of USA and their ignorant stupidity. I am thankful to the critics that they are still able to evaluate film in the right way. These writers should be banned from writing movies ever again, this is a freaking insult to film art and storytelling history. Also editing of this movie is extremely amateurish and bad.

I only give it 2 cause there is some nice cinematography involved, so atleast somebody was doing their job.

Dota: Dragon's Blood (2021–2022)

Grading the series

[5/10 · 10 February 2022]

Animation : 5/10 - at some points design is very good considering how bad actual animation is. But overall most of the frames are given little to none creativity and complexity.

Voice Acting (English): 5/10 - Mirana is amazing, others just terrible.

Writing: 2/10 - this is like the perfect example of all the wrong with Netflix writing. I am a dota player for over a decade and i still need google to understand wtf is going on. So many cliches for no reason, and almost none of setting up-pay off balance.

Directing: 6/10 - You can see there are some very good ideas with directing and it is the only thing somebody is trying to be creative about. But it suffers from poor writing and even more from poor animation.

Music: 5/10 - i didnt even notice it so i give it 5.

OVERALL 5/10 - They did something so i cant go lower, but it is not even close to positive 6.

Explained: Astrology (2018) Season 1, Episode 14

Haha

[8/10 · 5 February 2022]

Hahahahahah all people who believe in astrology are so salty i knew i will come here to see low level score. Honestly i expected lower.

I can get why would someone believe in astrology and how it can be beneficial to them, same reason i can get why somebody needs to believe in god. It is hard to understand life and when someone offers shortcuts some take them and thats ok.

But i have problem when people try to sell it as a science, by saying i look at science in my own way. Hahahahah but why do you use so much thing in everyday life that are made on science model, but you gonna dispute it when you need to.

It is a 18 minute episode, you cant expect history of astrology to be presented, but i think they did a great job explaining how long it started, what disputed it, and then how it got revamped.

Ted Lasso: Beard After Hours (2021) Season 2, Episode 9

It does not fit.

[6/10 · 2 February 2022]

I feel like 6.8 rating is just about right.

The episode in itself is not seriously bad, but it just does not fit. If this was a tone for revealing more about other characters so far it would be ok.

But they had amazing tactics to tell us more about others than ted lasso, and i have to say they did it so good that this one just sticks out too much.

I feel like if they placed it maybe earlier it would be ok. But last episode is so essential that this one is just that much more sour.

I understand that they went for coach Beard is weird vibe, and that it is not easy to write for your own character, since the guy who play Beard is one of the creators, but it just does not fit.

Ted Lasso (2020–2023)

You can only call it PERFECT !

[9/10 · 2 February 2022]

So this is the thing. I am a very subjective guy, i follow my philosophy and i make my own standards to form opinion. I gave a decent number of movies a 10 star review. I am not looking for perfect i am just looking for effective for me.

So naturally i always felt shows are less effective than movies. They stretch it out, they want to close out every episode with some crazy epilogue, and at some point writers cant write the same story differently that many times.

But i'll be damned if i dont feel like this show is perfect. I have been studying writing and directing for a 2 years now, so i feel like i can easily recognize when somebody is not using shortcuts and earn everything that you see happen with action that happened before. This shows does it amazingly. The way they use football matches as DEUS EX MACHINA is just amazing. Cause usually when you create character to be DEM it will probably be cheesy. BUT THIS IS HOW YOU WRITE. Everything that happens will have a payment, and everything they try to sell was earned before.

Acting job - OH MY GOD. I am just so thankfull to these people for showing me that there is still hope in this dark time of amazingly stupid Netflix shows and unbearably bad writing that is becoming a standard.

For somebody who wants to do this for a living, this is priceless ! Thank you !

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

I am stunned ! 4/10 THIS IS NOT A STORY ABOUT FREDDIE

[4/10 · 24 January 2022]

I cant believe how many of people here are writing stuff like "freddie defined me, this is amazing" "i was a huge fan of Queen at the time", you are all liars.

Why do people feel the need to lie that they are fans of something. I will never understand that.

If you trully were a fan of Freddie you would know that this story is complete bulls*it. Nothing happened like in this movie. Even dates are thrown around like we true fans dont know when something happened and how it happened.

Why would you do this? I really dont understand.

And to simplify Freddie this much is a crime...

This is not a story about Freddie. This is just making money exploatation of a dead man. It is really a shame and it shows once again how resentful and jealous Brian May is.

David (I) (2020)

Fantastic writing 9/10

[9/10 · 21 January 2022]

I think people do not realise how hard it is to tell a story in 10 minutes.

This is a short film.

It is not a video, it is not a segment, it is a full on film.

And it is done in 10 minutes. Fantastic writing.

Mandy (I) (2018)

I gave it a 10?

[10/10 · 20 January 2022]

Why i gave it a 10 ?

I dont know.

I think this is a movie for people who are in love with making movies.

But i dont mean just in love with movies, but in love with making them, working with camera, going on locations, having fun with make-up, lightning, and then after all it is a movie for people in love with neon+metalrock artwork aesthetics.

If you are in love with both, like i am, then subjectively this movie is just a perfect 10.

I know some people say it could have been shorter but i think you guys dont see that they wanted to have so much fun making it they didnt even care about you as a casual viewer.

Like there is a scene where Nic's character is making an axe...it is just pure fun, even though i can talk about the symbolism and how that moment serves the character, the main point is they just messing around.

This movie is perfect for me cause it is the right amount of parody and satire, but also very very deep and serious subjects are brought up.

Movie is very slow i guess, but i dont mind, actually it made me even indulge it more.

There's a scene where Nicholas picks up a mechanical saw and other character comes up with mechanical saw twice the size - i laughed my ass off, it is just good fun.

Also there is a scene, where director breaks the complete flow of the movie just to let Nicholas do a devastating scene in the bathroom... It is one of the best director's decisions i ever seen in a film.

This movie is about a guy who is awakened from his heaven just to find his path to hell.

By awaking tiger you will dominate a setting, but surely your red claws will reserve you a spot in hell.

U Shoot Videos? (2019)

Give young ones a chance !

[8/10 · 16 January 2022]

Ok, so let me start off by saying enough is enough. Yall need to wake up and stop giving all yall money to marvel franchises and stupid stuff like that.

This guy making shorts for a long time now. It is obvious that he is doing all the work, so just imagine what would happen if you give him a big crew and budget.

I am not saying this short is pefect, in fact i gave it 8 just for support in my true opinion it is 7.

But i gotta ask myself why is it a 7.

It is a 7 cause camera movement is not enough contemplated, working with actors/or just actors are not great, and story isnt developed enough so some characters seem generic.... All these problems are solvable with budget and crew.

So just give some new faces a chance. I swear if i watch one more identical movie from america im gonna stop watching any ever.

Noah (2013)

Very good almost great .

[8/10 · 22 April 2021]

So since i started making short films i learned and understood from experience how hard is to find inovative way to visualy tell small every-day story within 10 minutes or so. Especially the problem is that story doesnt work if it is not rounded. ALSO, to round a story in 10 min it really need to be a very low key story, and low key stories are kinda boring. So creativ visual storytelling is all you have to keep audience engaged. This film excels at latter. But the one thing they didnt do, the story is not rounded.

But i believe they didnt do it on purpose, we who experienced in some way similar thing with a girl can relate so much more than others i believe, and i feel like this movie is there to be relatable to those people. Its like the music that is used for this picture, sorrow for the sake of sorrow if i can say it like that. And also in real life sometimes when people make mistakes those mistakes are never redeemed and you're just left with nothing but to accept it like "it is what it is". So the same thing aplies for the end of this movie - "It is what it is", story over, restness will always remain.

Brave New World (2020)

AMAZING DIRECTING, NOT VERY GOOD WRITING !

[7/10 · 20 April 2021]

This show really could have been something. First 3 or 4 episodes are so good, but then it starts to feel like a soap opera. But i guess all the shows right now are like that.

Superb directing tho, i am very suprised so i give it 7/10 just because of that. It is pretty rare to see great directing even in great shows, let alone the ones with bad writing.

Mac & Devin Go to High School (2012)

Racist

[1/10 · 11 February 2020]

Honestly,all other problems aside this movie was highly RACIST.

racism goes both ways btw

Black Mirror: Black Museum (2017) Season 4, Episode 6

Saviour of the season

[9/10 · 16 February 2018]

This season of black mirror was definetly the worst of all...They tried some new stuff,and although i respect that ,the stuff they tried were just pointless and not black mirror-like..I liked killing the dj episode a lot,it was perfect but still it was not black mirror...This one is Black Mirror as it can be.Mystery,grit,amazing acting,good music,solid directing and gut-wrenching story...Also Rolo Haynes is one of the most striking and penetrative character we yet seen on this show..Well done !

Black Mirror: Crocodile (2017) Season 4, Episode 3

Such a waste!

[5/10 · 25 January 2018]

IT is so sad that they wasted this fantastic cast,and this fantastic director on this criminaly bad writing...The only reason why this episode barely makes sense is because of superb acting and great directing.I would rate this episode 1 star,but i can't cause of Hillcoat and Andrea Riseborough. They are perfect for Black Mirror,it is such a waste:(