YellowTea Reviews

The Walking Dead (2010–2022)

Long Overstayed Its Welcome, And I Demand Restitution For Pain And Suffering

[5/10 · 9 May 2024]

I didn't mind the first few seasons, as they have a binge-able quality to them - I wanted to keep watching the episodes, and became somewhat invested in the characters, despite the many annoyances and cliches that came up here and there.

Skipping ahead, once Negan came into play as the central villain, him and his merry band of "Saviours", the show took a steep downward slide, and only worsened with each season. The show has a few soft landings here and there, but once Negan is dealt with, it rolls off the edge of the landing and begins its inexorable flight into a garbage can that has been kicked around and vomited in.

The middle seasons are all about Negan's people against Rick's people, in a never-ending paramilitary-esque battle, one that involves similarly never-ending bullets, and bad guys. The show became all about hollow-feeling gunfights that were poorly-choreographed, and just plain stupid and unrealistic. It was here that the God-awful writing came into full-view, and started to anger me: so many opportunities to kill Negan... Rick, in his boundless tactical genius, decides to ram through Sanctuary's gates, fire in the air and wait for Negan to come out and monologue, rather than just shooting him dead there and then. The whole thing, I found, was becoming more and more unenjoyable as time went on.

Anyway, I don't fancy writing a lengthy essay about this show, as it's just not worth the time, and the sheer amount of things that I would like to say and weave into this review is breathtaking, and would require a type of literary deftness and care that I don't possess at this point in time. So, instead, from here onwards, I will venture to be terse and offer you a series of complaints in a more digestible format. I should tell you, too, that I'm in season 10 and I can't take it anymore. Each episode is like dental surgery... without pain-relief; or like a cancerous, rectal prolapse, one that's being ravaged by fire ants... while you have an acid-drip over your eyeballs. Yes, it's that bad. In fact, the worst show that I've ever seen. OK, I'll stop. Here we go: 1: Recycled plot - the characters move around from place to place, get comfortable, a danger emerges, they move, repeat.

2: Zombies seem to be very fast, strong, and dexterous one moment, and slow and basically pushovers the next. Sometimes they can rip someone's guts out with their bare hands, other times they can be shoved away limply.

3: Too many characters that I don't care about. The later seasons especially... They just keep introducing characters, and none of them are even a little bit interesting.

4: So much just happens - Maggie was pregnant for the usual length of time, at no point did she show, and then one day she's just had the baby... she sticks around for a while and then pop, she's gone again without any explanation or goodbye. Rick isn't killed, but just flown off into the sunset and we're left with... the rest. If you're going to take him out of the show, why not just kill him off?

5: The flashbacks and storyline. I have never in my life seen a show, or anything, that is arranged and edited so abysmally. What's with the obsession with flashbacks, and the flashbacks to the flashbacks, and then a flash-forward? A flashback is used as a tool to enhance the story in some way, for a specific, worthwhile purpose - take a look at Breaking Bad (of which I think this show copied quite a few things from). The flashbacks in this POS show offer nothing, and only show mundane things that could have been ordered linearly in the storyline. I don't even know which way is up in this show, and I don't think that the crew do either; the only thing that I need to know is - "where's the damn off button?" This list is by no means exhaustive, and given that I'm stuck in season 10 and have been wriggling in pain with each minute of every episode, I don't think that I'll continue. It's sort of like smashing your head against a brick wall repeatedly, hoping that it'll make your headache go away.

Fall (I) (2022)

Unoriginal Plot, Original Setting

[6/10 · 14 January 2024]

This movie reeks of The Descent, a favourite of mine: main character's significant other is killed in some kind of accident, main character falls into a deep depression, main character's friends try to pull them out of their slump by coercing them into some silly daredevil act to "conquer their fears" - said act does not go according to plan and the main character is inevitably the only one left now having emerged some battle-hardened warrior.

Fall is a basic movie, and a good one, all things considered. It was more limited in terms of what the characters do than I thought it would be - for some reason I thought they'd be climbing down the tower, cleverly navigating the various obstacles in their way, rather than it just being them stuck on the platform at the very top. Nonetheless, there was more than enough for them to do up there to warrant more than the standard 90 minute runtime.

The one letdown of this movie is the ending, of which was too cliche happy-ending for me. I think they should have ended with the scene of her hunched over, grey and dead, in the darkness. That was a cool and moving shot, testament to the unfailing cruelty of bad decisions. Instead, they decided to make her suddenly spring to life (after having starved and not slept for days), beat a vulture to death, eat it, and then somehow immediately have the energy and cognitive ability to devise a way down. Not every film has to have a happy ending...

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Action Overload

[6/10 · 5 January 2024]

John Wick has joined Fast and Furious when it comes to overdone, overlong action. It has, too, overstayed its welcome.

John Wick 4 plays like Tekken, or Time Crisis, but even those feel more real than John Wick 4.

Now, this series has always prioritised style over substance - pretty and cool shots without much import granted to the real-world. John Wick 4 has tipped the scale all to one side and, as a consequence, everything feels meaningless.

Firstly, the action is relentless, and that's not a good thing, as the action is repetitive and, as a result, eventually becomes boring. Most of the bad guys enter the stage one by one and wait to get rag-dolled by Wick: they're just bodies that are fed to him like fodder. It doesn't matter what weapon they have, or how much armour they're wearing, they'll inevitably be swung around, floored, and shot in the head with what feels like a CGI pea-shooter.

There was one sequence that broke up some of the boredom and tried something new, and that was the overhead panning shot wherein Wick goes from room to room with some kind of incendiary shotgun. Those shots were done very well, and I enjoyed them.

Now, secondly, there are a lot of shear absurdities in this movie, like the blind man... Is he actually blind? He seems to be able to see very well to me. One minute he's tapping around with his cane, planting motion sensors, the next he's somehow dodging arrows, bullets, and sword fighting with incredible precision. It was like they changed the character halfway through but couldn't go back and reshoot some scenes. Unless he's supposed to be like that? I wouldn't be surprised given how silly this series has become - not that it wasn't silly once upon a time. Oh yeah, and what about the guys with the bullet-proof suits that can block bullets with their sleeves? Spare me. So dumb.

Wick has become more and more like a video game or a comic book, and it now floats around in some value-free limbo. John gets pulverised by cars, 1000s of men, falls, and still dispatches all of his enemies with little care or worry, all the while feigning exhaustion. Also, how are there 1000s of assassins everywhere he goes, just wandering down the street reading the paper? They even have their own radio station... Wave after wave of them are slaughtered in the streets, and yet the police presence is precisely zero - not even a brief spotting. Scenes are cool when they have an element of danger, and in order to have some danger you need to have some realism.

John Wick 4 has well and truly gone off the rails and has reduced itself to a protracted mess of aged fumbling and parlour tricks. Wick (apparently) dies in the end, but I'm sure we'll see him burst through his grave like some scene from your zombie flick of choice.

The Invisible Man (I) (2020)

A Goodie of a Thriller

[7/10 · 5 January 2024]

I'm a big fan of Leigh Whannell, which is why I wanted to give this a try; not to mention the fact that invisibility has always been one of my favourite superpowers: the ability to essentially have total freedom.

The Invisible Man takes a more down-to-earth approach to what invisibility can look like: a suit comprised of dozens of sensors and cameras that somehow work to deflect light? The science behind it is never explained. This is a far cry from a movie like Hollow Man, in which invisibility is achieved via an intramuscular injection.

The Invisible Man is a great thriller and I was always wanting to see what was going to happen next. The only things that I would criticise or question it for would be as follows: Why does The Invisible Man have super strength, too? He is capable of killing without much difficulty at all. Does the suit give him this strength? He is a fairly skinny guy and an optics nerd, right?

He's still a physical being, he just can't be seen. He can be bumped into, no? Then why can she not just get up and wave her arms around and walk into him in her tiny cell? Why can't he be heard shuffling around, or breathing? She slashed her wrists in the shower in order to get him to expose himself, but was that necessary given what I just said? The only place he could hide in there would have been under the bed.

How does he go to the toilet inside the suit? Does he have a zipper? Which toilet would he use? Did he hold it in while he was inside the cell with her? I don't know... Perhaps I'm being too realistic. I know it's a movie and a certain degree of suspension of belief is required.

Nonetheless, this movie is worth your time.

Napoleon (2023)

(Nap)oleon

[5/10 · 22 December 2023]

Whether this movie is historically accurate or not, is irrelevant. To me, it's just a boring, disjointed mess, with a very flat and inconsistent performance by Phoenix. Having known very little about Napoleon prior to sitting through this movie, I was at least expecting some good action scenes. Sadly, I wasn't even given that - the bare minimum for a blockbuster of this sort.

Firstly, I think Phoenix was miscast in this role. I know he and Ridley had had a lot of success with Gladiator, but that was many years ago, and this is a totally different character and movie. For one thing, Phoenix is too old, and his Napoleon is all over the place - probably as a result of the screenplay or script. Napoleon goes from a reticent, semi-mute, quavering when charging into battle, to a fearless, warmongering warrior the next... His relationship with his wife forms the focal point of this movie, and the dynamic between them is strained and once again, inconsistent. One minute he's a timid wimp, afraid of her, the next he's making pig noises at the table and dragging her underneath the table to copulate with her in view of the surrounding guards. There was even one scene where, after he had discovered that she was a cheater, sat down with her and told her that she is nothing without him; she then flips the tables on him and says that he's nothing without her, to which he immediately switches to full scolded puppy mode and curls his lips like a baby. Who wrote that?

There are so many scenes and characters that make no sense, probably even if you know a bit about Napoleon and the historicity of said person. It jumps from one truncated battle to the next - all of which are the usual grey and blue colour scheme, and poorly shot and choreographed. The movie is built around the toxic relationship between Napoleon and his wife, and the rest is just an afterthought. The problem is that Napoleon, especially, is not interesting or charismatic. Considering that Napoleon is the titular character, you would think that they would get him right. I understand that they might have had trouble formulating a personality that closely aligns with his actual one (whatever is known), but surely they could have done better than this? Was the real Napoleon really this split-brained and psychotic?

To add one slight plus, I would say that some of the romantic elements are kind of touching - sometimes.

Don't pay to see this movie. I'd suggest waiting until it's free somewhere.

The Ledge (2022)

Yes, it's a B-movie

[5/10 · 2 October 2023]

Not much to write here, other than it is what it is: a b-movie. You won't find anything special or worth writing home about here, no single element punches above its weight, nothing stands out. This feels, and looks, like a low-budget directorial debut; and if it were that, it'd be passable. Unfortunately, the low budget is exposed several times given the nature of the premise - people falling from great heights - which necessitates the use of at least semi-believable CGI, of which this movie doesn't have. Sorry, tangential.

Now, the jarring low-quality CGI aside, this movie isn't a regrettable watch as it does keep you wanting more, which is about all you can ask for for a meaningful filmic experience - you feel like you haven't wasted your 90 minutes standard runtime with a colonic dump on your senses.

The Edge doesn't escape cleanly though, and does shamelessly show its lameness with a few scenes here and there, especially with the introductions of the characters.

It was plain as day what was going to happen, and to whom, right from the beginning. The overly chatty and flirtatious friend was going to be the one murdered, and the reticent friend was going to be the one chased. The characters all look like they've stepped onto the set fresh from a Target commercial, and barely look like they're hikers or climbers even as the story progresses. The characters are all cliches: the dominant aggressive alpha male, the wimpy empathetic one who tries to spare the girls, and the pathetic lapdog who does the alpha male's bidding until he's inevitably poised against him with a shocking revelation. Does all of this sound familiar to you? It should, because it's very familiar to me.

The Lighthouse (I) (2019)

A Familiar but Artful Descent into Madness

[8/10 · 15 July 2023]

As a fan of the Flannan Isles Lighthouse mystery, I had to see this. Yes, I later found out that it in fact wasn't based on that particular event, but one 100 years earlier; nonetheless, I love stuff like this - something about the deep sea, the loneliness and isolation... The fact that the movie was shot in black and white added to this, as well as to the idea that it was actually in that time period (1890s).

Having seen that Robert Pattinson starred in this, I was sceptical, given his almost-unshakable image as one of the two "heart-throbs" in the Twilight series. I was somewhat indisposed to seeing him in a serious role of this sort, but I thought that I'd give it a shot having already an affinity for this subject matter. I wasn't disappointed as his performance is pretty darn good, and he has grown as an actor... being able to hang alongside Willem would be no easy feat.

The tale itself is a familiar one - two men slowly lose their minds and plot against each other, culminating in one either being injured or killed. I'm thinking The Shining, The Edge... Yes, those films aren't entirely the same, but they're not altogether dissimilar. I'm also citing them at this time because I'm blocking on movies that I know that are probably more comparable. This movie is unique in that it's a shared madness in a lighthouse, and no one is obviously crazier than the other, at least in the end.

The only downside, if I could even call it that, was that, at times, the dialogue was a little hard to hear, or understand. It could have been my television, but it seemed like it didn't matter how loud I put it, I still had trouble making out what they were saying. In addition to that, the music was overly loud, so when I'd turn the volume up to hear the dialogue, I would be blasted with a (melodic) cacophony of foghorns and assorted instruments.

This is a great movie, and one that is worth many viewings. I'll be coming back to it for the second time soon. It's a movie that isn't really meant to be understood, as even the director stated that he wanted it to be ambiguous and open-ended. The beauty of a film like this is that you can, as with most things, impute your own meaning to it - what was in the light atop the tower? Was any of this even real? Was this all some drunken, starvation-induced stupor? You be the judge.

Insidious: The Red Door (2023)

Tip Toe Through the Boredom

[5/10 · 9 July 2023]

As a big fan of the series, especially the first one, it pains me to write this review.

Insidious 5 is more drama than anything, and what little fear that it boasts of is brought about mostly because of lazy jump-scares, and those scares are usually just you being jolted by a sudden explosion of noise. The movie is too slow to get off the ground, and when it does, it crashes back down.

During the first half an hour or more we're sat with Josh and Dalton. Josh and Dalton have a strained relationship as Dalton is now an unlikable moody teenage brat who thinks, rightfully, that Josh has been an absent father - we're (I'm) reminded that in the last one they had both had their memories erased so as to no longer access The Further, even accidentally. They both know that something happened, but they're not sure what it was.

Anyway, after the funeral of Josh's mother, Josh helps Dalton move into college, at which point we are introduced to the (supposed) comic relief of his new roommate. His roommate is one of the downfalls of this movie, trying too hard to insert her unwelcome humour (here again I feel compelled to add quotation marks), and consequently killing the whole mood; but shortly thereafter, we are introduced to another contender for biggest mood-killer - the leader of a frat-house who walks around half-naked and spouts crappola similar to that of the dolts in Bad Neighbours (a film that coincidentally also starred Rose Byrne). The whole time Dalton and his roommate were in that house that's all I could think of - Bad Neighbours.

Insidious 5 is almost all bark and no bite, in that it spends a lot of time building up something that never arrives. Josh and Dalton slowly regain their ability to astral project, but we see very little of anything in the way of scary apparitions or, God forbid, the Lipstick Demon (which is a favourite of mine). Dalton sees the kid who died at the frat house, he pukes on Dalton. Josh sees his father, he smashes through the window and corners Josh in an upstairs room. Josh also has a scary encounter at the doctor's office. Dalton gets trapped in Lipstick Demon's domain, Josh rescues him and they're pursued by Lipstick Demon down a candlelit hallway - sounds a lot like the first one, no? The movie concludes with a sissy-whimper of Josh meat-shielding the red door closed and we're treated to an obviously-fake Lipstick Demon arm breaking through and then being swatted away as if it's nothing.

Too much time was spent on drama and new characters that added nothing to a film that was at its core supposed to be horrifying, not funny to a bunch of nitwits who have barely scaled pubescence. Nothing was really achieved with number 5, barely any glimpses of The Further or Lipstick Demon. The only thing that scared me was my inability to stay awake until the end.

Orphan: First Kill (2022)

Prequels are Supposed to be Bad, Right?

[5/10 · 3 June 2023]

The first Orphan was a little gem neatly buried in the bottom of a bin full of DVDs, this unfortunate thing is, well, not that.

As much as I had wanted to see a sequel, keep that in mind, a sequel, not a prequel (we'll use sequel here to mean a contemporary continuation of the storyline), I was, as almost always, proven right, by the fact that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to try to produce one. Also, it bears remembering that Esther did kind of die in the first one, so I guess this was the only real road that they could have taken.

Orphan: First Kill, is a let-down, but an expected one. Yes, the actress who plays Esther has aged considerably, as it's been 10 or more years since the first one.... I can't say that that bothered me as much as the whole direction, look, and feel of the movie.

I won't bore you with a long-winded description of what happened from beginning to end, I'll try to be concise.

My main problem with this ill-advised prequel is that it ruined the aura and presence of Esther with that stupid as all hell twist in the middle. It reduced her to a whimpering little girl that was beholden to the mother and her cliche little rich boy that "plays too rough" with his sister. All of the plot holes that others have pointed out aside, this is what irked me the most. Esther became almost like an anti-hero, when she is supposed to be an out-and-out villain that we, the audience, are supposed to fear. This, to me, undid the ethos of the first. I shouldn't be rooting for Esther to kill the mother and the son, it only served to subtract from what I just said. And why was Esther playing along with the mother and son? Why not just kill them? The part when she's trying to run away from them - as though she's a real little girl that's absquatulating from a legitimately abusive home - then is taken back to the house by police and willingly goes into her room as though nothing is about to happen is a scene of sheer unreality. Again, you know that they're about to kill you, or to try to, so why not kill them first? I don't get it. Right, maybe it's just so the climax can feel a little more nail-biting, as there needs to be a tug-of-war between the characters for that to happen. Nonetheless, I can't help but feel that the Esther from the first movie wouldn't allow this to happen.

Here's a rapid fire list of things that make this movie bad, not just compared to the first, but as a movie by itself:

Bad CGI.

Esther can somehow kill grown men by banging their heads against a wall, can appear in the back of cars somehow, shows up at a policeman's address without a vehicle. Esther can walk through a house engulfed by flames and smile all along the way.

The plot.

The family, especially mother and son.

The Watcher (2022– )

Thinly Spread Gloop

[5/10 · 31 March 2023]

Having been interested in The Watcher case for a while now, I was excited to see this rendering of it. Now, granted, the real case doesn't give a director much to work with in the way of a 7 episode mini-series, so a little padding or embellishment is to be expected. I was, nonetheless, struck by the sheer departure from anything relating to the actual incident. The series looked too hard to weave a murky tale of deceit, paranoia, and oddity, all over the course of what amounted to too long of a runtime. The Watcher would have been better off as a movie, one that wouldn't have required the production team to rope in all sorts of convoluted plot ideas in order to keep the train steaming along. I suppose I understand the appeal of generating series as they likely see to more viewership retention, and the name of the game is money.

The problem is that The Watcher feebly employs almost all of the lame horror movie tropes that we've come to know and love (sarcasm): the "weird" neighbours that will take every opportunity to seem as weird as possible so as to make the audience think "could it be them?" - this also includes a "mentally challenged (different?)" older man that has a childlike obsession with the house and its dumbwaiter...and another that is rumoured to be a member of a "blood cult", just to name a few. Every single character is there simply to misdirect and bamboozle the viewer into thinking the latter, and doesn't really add anything to the story outside of being a hollow caricature; and yes, annoying as annoying can be. These people can do whatever they want with impunity - walk all over the main character's (Dean) property, openly threaten him, etc..

The series is filled with twists, twists which you can see coming, which sort of doesn't make them very twisty: we discover that Dean wrote some of the letters, but only to try to convince his family to move in a contrived way to prevent his money woes from coming to light. The detective eventually confesses to writing the letters and being The Watcher, then it's revealed that she just made the whole thing up to try and give the family closure before she died. The show ends with everyone watching the house as the new occupants move in, thereby giving the audience the impression that everyone is The Watcher, or it could be anyone. This, too, annoyed me, as for some reason the new owner approaches Dean as he's standing outside of the house, awfully dour and suspicious mind you, and he has very little to say to him in the way of "What are you doing here? Get off my property". If you had someone standing outside of your house staring at it and not seeming very sociable or forthcoming as to why they're doing it, wouldn't you be more, what's the word, direct?

Without burying you with an essay, I'll leave you with this.

The Watcher is a bingeable series - it will keep you wanting more, episode after episode. The only caveat to that is that you don't know why... You're almost only watching it to see what happens, not because the show adequately grips you in any way. The show is bland as bland can be: not scary, mildly entertaining, not funny, not thrilling, not anything really. The only emotions that arose from me during my unfortunate decision to sit through it was annoyance at the characters, and the script. Oh yes, and The Watcher's voice was also annoying.

True Detective (2014– )

True Mediocrity - Boredom is the Cruelest Animal

[6/10 · 21 March 2023]

I spotted this supposed masterpiece whilst perusing related movies/shows, I think to Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, The Wire, something like that... I was unable to find it for some time, but was determined to, having seen the glowing reviews and ratings. Having finally found it, I geared myself up for a wild feast of the senses, and the intellect. I watched the first episode and thought, "Well, it's only the first episode, give it time and it'll get better." The second episode came around, and then the third, and then the fourth, and I thought to myself, "We're 5 episodes in now, towards the end of the season, things can't miraculously turn themselves around at this point, can they?" The answer to this was empathically no. What's more startling is the fact that the first season is considered the shining jewel atop this mound of dung, of which I don't believe has such a claim to any such adornment, unless such a thing were to be encrusted with the excrescence of a decomposing oviduct of some description.

What's wrong with the series you ask? I can't be so vague as to just say that it's a POS and I didn't like it, although I could, but I won't.

I didn't like this series (and yes, I'm referring to only the first two seasons as I couldn't be bothered watching the third, having only finished the first episode) because it's nothing special, and for anyone to say that it is, I would have to press you as to why you think so. Let's review the first season, and essentially the second and third by extension: cops with problems just like every other crime-drama of this niche. What problems can we give them? Let's see, what about the usual alcohol problem? What about a problem with infidelity? What about a problem with the ex-wife and a bitter custody dispute? What about... *insert cliche here* No, I still don't like Matthew and his irritating as all hell mumbling about cosmic and existential conundrums, of which he delivered poorly and were but emotionally-blank recitations of his scripts. Every episode is an overlong expository car ride featuring two warring, troubled "detectives". Half of the footage is Matthew staring languidly out of the passenger window whilst stumbling through his angst-riddled teenage-esque philosophical musings, of which are tired and remind me of myself at the age of 14, already on the brink of discarding them. Is this what earned the 9 star rating? Something that masquerades as "deep" just by virtue of it being near incomprehensible to much if not most of the viewership? I don't know, because I sure as heck fire can't think of anything else that would justify it. Nothing much happens. Martin cheats on his wife a few times, bashes Rust. Martin's wife cheats on him with, didn't see this coming at all, his partner, Rust. They stage a botched arrest after Martin sees something so unspeakable in a shipping container that it cannot be shown to the audience and something that causes him to walk up behind one of the now on-his-knees suspects and blow his head off. They finally find the big bad guy, this oddly-designed redneck that has bouts of aristocratic elocution for no real reason other than to make the character "weirder"? He's also fond of The Blair Witch Project as he makes figurines out of sticks and all sorts of wooden structures around this video-game-like maze that our heroes eventually fight him in.

The takeaway for me is that this series is nothing even approaching special, but it's not terrible by any means. Why does it have a 9 star average? Your guess is as good as mine. It didn't resonate with me as much as it did with whomever, or whatever, has been heaping such praise upon it.

Boss Level (2020)

Worn Concept, But Boss Level Delivers

[7/10 · 28 January 2023]

Boss Level is the action cousin of Groundhog Day, and Happy Death Day, and Edge of Tomorrow, etc... As you can see, a blunt instrument, yet one that has many, many possibilities, cinematically, and thematically. The idea of living the same day again and again and again is a fascinating idea, and one that can be explored in many ways; if I had to live in an infinite time warp, I'd relish it.

Boss Level starts out quite lame, to be honest. There's the usual languorous narration as the protagonist introduces us to his narrative and fills us in on the particulars - he wakes up every morning to a machete-wielding assassin, followed by a helicopter firing a Gatling gun through his window, followed by a slew of cartoony, wacky minions, all of which exhaust the requisite cliches: a dwarf, two bodybuilder-type "Germans", a nimble chinese ninja... and so on... All of which hunt him with total impunity in broad daylight in the middle of the street. By the way, I also got serious Zombieland vibes from this movie.

The movie, just as in Groundhog Day, involves the main character unraveling the puzzle of why he repeats the same day ad infinitum. It falls within the trappings of every other movie, having the same arc: absentminded humour in which the hero is powerless, followed by the depressive slump, then finally revelation and resolution.

Boss Level is a funny movie and well worth a viewing just for a few hilarious scenes: the scenes where he's given up and won't get out of bed only to get slaughtered every morning are downright gag-from-laughter funny.

My wife was falling asleep during the movie, but that's only because she was already tired (I think?).

Cry Macho (2021)

Kind of Dull, Yet Enjoyable

[7/10 · 25 January 2023]

This was a weird one for me. I went into it thinking it was going to be an action romp in Mexico, but it wasn't. I felt like I was being led in all different directions, all of which were red herrings or dead ends.

The movie started out with the "I have a favour to ask. I need you to retrieve X from Y for me" motif; as always, our hero is reluctant, but gives in and accepts the task to his chagrin.

Clint is tasked with finding his boss's son, of whom is somewhere in Mexico City. He seeks the help of the mother, whom is apparently also some kind of a cartel head honcho? For some reason, she propositions Clint, of which he rejects, which offends her greatly. Why did she seduce him? What did she have to gain? I have no idea. The man is 90 years old, and, respectfully, past his sell-by-date.

Eastwood soon finds the boy at a cock fight, and it is afterwards that we learn that the boy is not an intractable "monster" as his mother called him, but is in reality a victim of abuse at the hands of his mother and her criminal associates. We (I), also learn that the rooster is named Macho, hence the title.

Long story short, Clint is warned by the boy's mother that he can't take him to his father, and that if he does there will be hell to pay. Needless to say, he defies her, and what ensues is a road trip to the American border, with all sorts of whacky shenanigans: they go from town to town with the boy's mother's henchman (yes, one) in - sort of - hot pursuit... he pretty much has two scenes, and suffices as virtually the only, loosely-described, danger in the whole movie, and is the reason for the single "action"scene: Eastwood punches him in the face when he's trying to abduct the kid.

As I alluded to, there is almost no action or suspense in this movie, and it instead turns into a three-way drama and love-affair between Eastwood, the boy, and this woman that seems to come out of nowhere midway through. Everything else seems to be forgotten about when this character is brought in, and the sentimentality is cranked up hard.

Why does this woman seem like she's known these two forever and somehow falls head-over-heels in love with this near-centenarian in a few short weeks?

In conclusion, this is a decent movie to watch with the family: I watched it with my grandmother and she would have left the room if I had played anything else. It's a little funny in parts, and it has charm.

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)

Hellraiser Steps Off A Cliff

[5/10 · 3 November 2022]

The first Hellraiser was dark, grim, and mysterious; the second was the same, I would argue even more mysterious and grim - we saw visions of a hazy desolate suburb of hell called The Labyrinth, which was ruled by Leviathan. I felt like I was there, running hopelessly around the maze. I loved the Channard cenobite, and just the cosmic implications of the film as a whole... it was a portal into a new realm, and one that I wanted to learn more about (but at the same time was happy not to as not knowing is I think more exciting).

Hellraiser 3 doesn't pick up where it left off and is a film unto itself, which isn't a good thing. It immediately dumps all of the traction gained by the first two and starts us off with a new locale, and new characters. Kirsty is gone but makes a brief, blurry appearance as, yet again, an in-patient somewhere. Maybe she didn't want to sign up for this one?

As many others have said, the film's major downfall is the direction it decided to take with Pinhead; he's been almost completely redone and it'd be a stretch to say that he's even the same character: his voice has changed (yes, it changed from the first to the second as well), his whole disposition has changed, and he never stops talking.

This Hellraiser lacks the same tone of the first two, which is amusing considering apparently Clive Barker didn't want this director to take on the project because he was afraid that he'd be unable to recapture it, or add anything to it given his previous work; Barker spoke to him about this, I guess it didn't make a difference as here we have CD-head cenobites, and cenobites with camcorders jutting out of their skulls.

Hellraiser 3, while not hot garbage, took an unfortunate detour along the series' former road, and it cost it dearly.

This entry in the Hellraiser universe is too much of a lame Hollywood action movie, with the main attraction (Pinhead) being unrecognisable, and the other lineup of characters being hollow nothings designed to get ended in all sorts of silly, campy ways - the horror being replaced by dark humour.

Nobody (I) (2021)

John Wick Meets Rambo

[7/10 · 26 October 2022]

Bob Odenkirk was a strange choice for this role, and I must say wasn't entirely convincing, the movie's relentless - and enjoyable - action notwithstanding.

Nobody is the same unrealistic, mindless action that you've seen a million times before, especially in the style of films like John Wick, The Equalizer, Rambo, A History of Violence and Taken. Nobody really is a copy and paste of these formulas: retired secret agent trying to live a normal life is forced out of retirement, you guessed it, to fight the ever disposable bad guys - the Russian mafia; what ensues is a stream of fantastical fight scenes that are admittedly less superhero-like than John Wick, but nonetheless almost as non-reality as it, the film's climactic final shootout being an example.

This is a good movie for what it is, and it doesn't pretend to be anything than it's not.

He still looks and feels like Saul Goodman to me.

Ozark (2017–2022)

Shameless Breaking Bad Copycat

[6/10 · 23 October 2022]

Ozark is basically Breaking Bad, but worse, much worse. Now, I wouldn't be awarding it a 6 star rating if I thought it was god awful (I took off an extra star for the ending), as it does have some saving graces despite its pathetically derivative nature: the drama succeeds in places, although it becomes plodding and painful towards the end, even boring at times; the characters are semi-engaging, such as Russ, Wyatt, and even Jacob. The series has a fine start and setup, peaks around season 3, then ignominiously descends into a latrine that's had a bad day - mostly owing to Wendy, the writers' over-baked attempt to mirror Skyler White, albeit ten times worse.

You should notice too that when flinging of names of likeable characters I omitted the main characters, those being of course Marty, Wendy, and the family... That was no accident. I left them out because I found them so unbearably irritating and unlikeable, no detestable, that I almost had to quit the show. This family is all over the place, emotionally, and in terms of their inter and intra-personal dynamics; and you can't tell me that that's because of the inherently confusing nature of the circumstances that they find themselves in, that may be loosely so, but I think that it's more a fault of the scriptwriting than anything. One minute Charlotte wants to be emancipated, the next she's mummy's little girl; one minute Jonah wants to leave, finds everything abhorrent, then somehow accumulates enough knowledge (seemingly in a matter of a few months) to birth his own mini money laundering business just like his omniscient father. Marty, too: he's keen to get out, then he suffers what could only be described as a bout of psychosis after being tortured in Mexico, then he's at times happy, then sad, then happy to move on with their sordid undertakings once again; he loves Skyler, sorry, "Wendy", then hates, then loves her again. Spare me. This series is nowhere near the calibre of Breaking Bad and isn't even worthy of its shadow. Divorcing it from this obvious comparison, even, I wouldn't rate it very highly as a stand-alone series.

Jason Bateman is a terrible actor, and likewise Laura Linney a terrible actress. Between them, their repertoire is comprised of about 3 emotive states, if that, and expressions... Jason, or Marty, is a dull, feckless pseudo-genius with with either a monotone or, well, a monotone, his eyes shifting from side to side after every sentence. Laura Linney is the prototypical sarcastic bitch who only has two faces, and who overacts at times (like when they first moved in and she found a dead animal outside their house). Unlike Walt and Skyler, these two aren't complex and ever-evolving , but static and unidimensional. They're not interesting, but hollow, and freely comply to the whims of the writers with no internal consistency - a great example of this is the ending: in a textbook cliche, kind of like The Incredibles or something, Jonah happily blows away the detective before smiling with the whole family - yes, the Jonah, and the Marty and Charlotte who had formerly denounced such activities as totally morally reprehensible... come again?

Maybe watch Breaking Bad after this to wash that foul taste out of your mouth.

The Game (1997)

North of Run-of-the-Mill

[7/10 · 28 September 2022]

Nicholas is a jaded, bored millionaire, very successful and very pompous. On his birthday, also the anniversary of his father's untimely death, he meets his estranged brother, Conrad, for a drink. During this drink, Conrad gives Nicholas the whole "you need some excitement in your life" spiel and tells him to promptly call this secretive agency to set up a "game" for him, all expenses paid. It's some time before Nicholas decides to call the number he was given, but when he does, he finds himself at their headquarters in an office building being assessed from head to toe. They ask him many psychological questions, all evidently with the purpose of setting up his "game" (this reminded me of Total Recall). Nicholas is quite discomforted by the experience but is eager to see when his game will unfold despite not even knowing what it is - he has a curious chat to a coterie of fellow blue-noses, asking them what it is, to which they can only give him cryptic answers.

Nicholas soon receives a phone call informing him that his application was declined, to his disappointment and bewilderment. Unbeknownst to him, his game has begun.

Hereafter, Nicholas finds himself aloft in a series of devious schemes and scenarios, all based on his tests and the answers he gave. At several points throughout the movie you're left wondering whether or not something is part of the game, something that the movie did rather well (you know it's all a game, but sometimes you find yourself second-guessing).

The problem with this movie is that it badly strains plausibility. Many of the scenes and actions of the character would have to somehow be predicted or known for certain in advance - which is of course impossible. One of the actors touches upon this by saying "if you didn't jump I was supposed to push you," which addresses this a little, at least superficially... but it doesn't account for many, many other variables that could occur: what if Nicholas had chosen to behave this way, or do this - the final scene on the rooftop for example... how could they possibly know that he would want to impulsively commit suicide then and there? And hurl himself off that side of the rooftop even? The list can go on and on... Finally, as many others have said, who on earth would be happy to have received such a "gift," to be mentally tortured and driven to the point of mental collapse? I don't think anyone.

I guess Nicholas was supposed to be enlivened afterwards, it was supposed to be the jumpstart that his stale and unhappy life needed.

Demon City Shinjuku (1988 Video)

The Doom and Gloom I Love

[8/10 · 4 September 2022]

This is a great movie, for many reasons. Boasting one of the coolest openings to any anime, this movie kicks ass right away.

Classic 80s cyberpunk that cannot be replicated today, what, with its lovingly drawn frames and the grittiness imposed on it by the technology at the time.

Shinjuku does feel like a long-lost piece of humanity that has since been swallowed by the widening maw of Hell: the demons feel and look great - the spider being especially terrifying.

The only thing that I feel lets this movie down and penalizes its rating - and prevents it from being up there with other classics like Akira, etc... - is because the ending is rushed and unfinished. I feel like they were trying to cram too much into this movie, but ran out of time. The climax between Rebi Ra and our hero only lasts for a few painfully short-lived moments, and was anticlimactic to say the least. If they could have somehow extended the runtime by 20 minutes, it would have polished everything off nicely.

Nonetheless, for what there is of it, this movie is a definite must-see for fans of this genre.

The Guilty (2021)

Squirm-in-Your-Seat Annoying

[5/10 · 22 August 2022]

My wife and I threw this in our watchlist for one of our movie nights. Having already extensively trawled many streaming services it eventually came down to this.

Jake Gyllenhaal was the main reason we decided to give this movie a go, but boy, was he (or his character) annoying. Yes, his performance is stellar, but in a bad way... and it did teeter on overacting. The script is irritating and unrealistic.

Jake, or Joe, is a policeman and a man with a lot of problems: he's been demoted (or at least taken off field duties), has asthma (or stress-induced panic attacks?), is struggling to come to terms with the dissolution of his marriage and his consequent inability to see his daughter with impunity; and he's apparently being investigated for, have a guess... killing a civilian while on duty, of which he is due in court the day after the events of the film take place.

The movie starts off well enough, I guess, and there's little to dislike about it as it skims through the initial exposition and some unimportant phone calls that are designed to inject some levity into the production. The problems really begin when the alleged damsel-in-distress, Emily, is patched in to Joe and claims to be the victim of an abduction at the hands of her ex-husband, Henry. It's after this point that the movie spirals out of control and Joe becomes a tantrum-throwing, expletive-slinging 14 year-old boy, and all likability is promptly defenestrated into a pool of raw sewerage. Joe seems to think that this is his wife, and that her children, one of which he speaks to over the phone, are also his. Before you know it, he's running off half-cocked, calling other departments and emergency services yelling at them, insulting them, going from 0 to 100 in a microsecond. He calls his friends and abrasively tells them to break down doors without a search warrant. He also closes the blinds and locks himself in one of the unused, but in plain sight, rooms in the building, and is somehow allowed to do this unperturbed. It's all very, very pathetic and ridiculous... Oh, and yes, all of the voices are nails-on-a-chalkboard annoying. In the end, I was honestly just hoping that both of the kids were eating cheerios with angels, Emily had jumped off the bridge, and Henry had collided with a brick wall on the way to Emily's psychiatric institution; oh, and Joe had passed out in the toilet bowl and succumbed to water in the lungs... that's putting it mildly.

In short, I wasn't a fan of this filmic experience and I don't think I'll watch it again.

World of Warcraft (2005 Video Game)

Magic Long Since Extinguished

[6/10 · 13 August 2022]

I have been playing WOW since release, just as I entered high school. I was super excited for it and watched the trailer again and again.

Wow was incredible back then, before the first expansion pack, which, in my view, signalled the end of WOW as I knew it and as I loved it.

So, what killed it? In essence, the challenge and hence, sense of reward was done away with. With each subsequent expansion pack, the game became easier and easier and geared itself almost entirely towards the casual players who are seeking maximum reward for little time investment. The sense of community was also killed when cross-server play was enabled. Once upon a time you knew those on your server, you knew the top players, the top guilds, etc... now, everyone is a nameless face from a different server that you'll never see again (and whom barely utters a word during instances or any other group activity).

The first major blow, which came about with The Burning Crusade from memory, was the removal of the pvp system. Having spent many, many hours, grinding my dwarf paladin to rank 10, I was beyond irritated to see it stripped from me for no good reason; then hard-got epic items became worthless, became the new greens. How can something be epic if it's commonplace?

The instances became easier and easier. I remember in the day they had to be coordinated over VOIP software like Ventrillo (which was a novelty at the time). Now, you can just queue, not speak, stand there and your health barely seems to disappear even without heals.

Now, I have also thought about the fact that I have indeed aged with the game, so that may have somewhat affected my appraisal, but, I don't think so, at least not majorly. Come to think of it, the game has been a lot worse now than it's been good. I would say it was really only good for about 2 years tops, which is shocking considering that it is now 18 years old.

In short, the game has become far too easy and therefore less rewarding and enjoyable as a whole. There's almost no sense of achievement and everything feels meaningless.

What do you value? What you've had to work hard to get and what very few people have? Or what you didn't have to work hard for and what everyone has?

The game is basically now a queer mod free for all wherein Taurens can be paladins and you can fly everywhere at lightning speed, ruining the sense of mystery and exploration.

A sad, shambling corpse that was once amazing.

Prey (I) (2022)

Watered Down Disney Fluff

[3/10 · 12 August 2022]

Without being too harsh, this "Predator" film is not of the type that I remember and grew to love.

Here we have a prequel to the events of the Arnold classic, one that takes place among the native Americans in the colonial era.

In keeping with Disney's newfound love affair with what can only be described as female empowerment run amok, the main character is a Native American girl who, of course, is struggling in the oppressive yoke of patriarchal society. We, as predicted, see her heroically break free from this pitiful station in life at the film's closing; she does this by, you guessed it, proving herself mightier than the males of her ilk by slaying the Predator, who is evidently not a predator, but prey... as demonstrated by her uncanny ability to dispatch the Predator with ease, yes, without sustaining a scratch or breaking a sweat.

This is a Predator film that we could have done without, that's saying the least.

The Black Phone (2021)

Promising Build-up, Dud Final Act

[6/10 · 7 August 2022]

As many reviewers have said, this movie had a lot of potential, and started out quite good. I was very excited to see Ethan Hawke's The Grabber, and to delve deeply into his character - his backstory, his reasonings, his feelings... The unfortunate part of the aforementioned is that there is virtually zero of that to be had and The Grabber, despite what you may have been made to believe, has a stark dearth of screen-time. But, I'm getting ahead of myself, and I'll start from the beginning.

First off, I have to get something off my chest. This movie is basically a rebranded and repackaged IT, which would make sense given the fact that this was based on a story written by Stephen King's son (who clearly has a penchant for taking a page out of his father's book(s) so to speak). Instead of a supernatural clown, it's a serial killer with a supernatural phone in his basement. The killer is also a clown, or "magician", and carries around balloons to use as a type of dubiously effective smokescreen to steal the kids; but, the balloons are black this time and yes, they float into power lines too. Oh, oh, and did I mention that there's a scene wherein a little girl (Finney's sister) rides on her bicycle in the rain while wearing a yellow raincoat? Come on, let's get original here. Wait, wait, what about the exceedingly boring and tiresome cliche of school bullying and boundlessly disturbed children who take every opportunity to beat others to near-death? Yep, it has that too. Oh, and the abusive alcoholic single father? It's got that too. It's just lame on so many levels, and derivative. I understand that this story was written in the early 2000s and therefore predates popular culture's current obsession with the 70s and 80s and teenage angst, but I'm sick of it.

I won't bother giving an extensive rundown of the storyline as I'm sure others have done that; rather, I'll list the positives in dot-point format for easier digestion.

The positives: Rocking intro which, in my mind, drew parallels to S7ven, The Collector, and a few others.

The art-style was pretty and yes, alluring. I loved the shot of The Grabber closing the van door on Finney.

The Grabber's many masks are cool.

There is an aura of malice around The Grabber owing to Ethan Hawke's psychotic portrayal.

The negatives: Not enough time spent with The Grabber, and very little actually happens between Finney and him. The whole movie is supposed to revolve around Finney's entrapment and his dynamic with the villain, but very little happens. The Grabber goes down to the basement a handful of times, to deliver food, to watch him, to tell him how "nothing is going right", to ask him his name as a test, and that's about it. Of a night he leaves the door unlocked to once again, test Finney to see if he will try to escape so he can punish him for being a "naughty boy". The only major things that happen between the two is that he escapes once and is somehow caught within seconds by the formerly napping kidnapper, and the horrifically botched ending in which Finney becomes the usual oft-bullied now superhumanly empowered 120lb boy who can level, strangle, and snap the neck of a grown man.

Where's the action, other than the poorly animated axe to The Grabber's cokehead brother's head at the end? Mentioning that, it happened at the end of a set of stairs - the oblivious investigator doggedly pursuing the missing subject opens a door to the basement and is then dispatched from behind (Misery, also Stephen King's).

All of the darn clichés, spare me.

The Simpsons (1989– )

The Greatest Cartoon Ever Made

[10/10 · 2 July 2022]

No cartoon - and even dare I say, tv show - has had such a profound impact on the zeitgeist. Pretty much everyone knows The Simpsons, regardless of their demographic. There have been many copycats (Family Guy) that have tried to steal some of the thunder and appeal, but none have come close.

The Simpsons excels on every front - or at least did, which I'll get into soon.

The characters are all likable and unique. The storylines are original and interesting. The writing is incisive, snappy and witty. What's not to like? That is before the seasons entered into the high double digits.

There is a noticeable decline in quality as the series progresses, but it manages to hang on to its brilliance for many, many years - a task which is no easy feat.

To me, The Simpsons struggled mightily to adapt to the rapidly changing millennium and focused too hard on inserting the latest lazy pop culture reference, such as "Mapple" (in response to the emergent Apple), and so on and so on. The Simpsons also, from what I've heard, suffered from shuffling of writers, which greatly detracted from the overall quality and tonality of the material.

The Simpsons is still by far the best tv show ever made and will in all likelihood retain that designation for the foreseeable future.

Seasons 1-10 are untouchable comedic gold. Not a single episode misses the mark.

Cleaner (2007)

OK Crime Drama That Loses Steam About Halfway Through

[6/10 · 24 June 2022]

I'm not sure how I feel about this movie - it's nothing special: same bluish hue colour grading that every crime drama/thriller has, same predictable storyline (I knew it would be the best friend right away, or that the woman had some involvement - an affair... first guess was a hitman), same detective/ ex-cop with a troubled past (daughter witnessed death of mother). All that aside, the acting is great from everyone involved, including Samuel Jackson's daughter in-film.

The problem with this movie is that it feels slow - I felt like I'd been watching it for 2 hours but in reality it had only been an hour - and it builds up the tension only to diminish it by taking the storyline in a somewhat boring direction. The tension was there once he returned to the office after seeing Norcut's discombobulated wife, but after that, it seemed to go away.

All in all, I don't hate this movie, nor did I love it.

The Revenant (I) (2015)

Deserved The Hype

[8/10 · 18 June 2022]

Much better than I thought. I expected DiCaprio's trademark overacting, but no, surprisingly balanced and nuanced. Leo in this was vastly more tolerable and true-to-life than his other stints as hot-headed characters like those he played in Gangs of New York and The Departed - a set of affects which have long since annoyed me.

This movie shines in many ways, and did indeed dazzle me.

The cinematography is fantastic, the screenplay, the combat is ultra-visceral and realistic. There's a lot to like about this film, bottom line.

Although it was hard to judge how much time had gone by during the undertakings of the storyline, it felt like only a number of days, which to me seemed like an infeasible length of time for Glass to recover from a bear-mauling among many other things; if there was to be something that I didn't like about the movie, it would be that, and also the fact that when Glass finally gets his chance for revenge he lets Fitzgerald float downriver to a bunch of Native Americans to be scalped and finished off - this just seemed too convenient for them to be there at that exact moment, of all places.

Other than that, all things considered, an awesome film deserving of its accolades. It's not for the squeamish and will slam you constantly with "feels".