paulcarr1302 Reviews

Challengers (2024)

More style than substance but a decent movie

[6/10 · 14 May 2024]

I wanted to like this movie, and I did in fact like it for the majority of its run time despite not being able to buy Zendaya in the older version of her character. She was fine as the younger version, but wearing a permanent scowl as the only means to portray unhappiness in not acting. There was zero subtlety in her performance.

In my opinion you have to be able to enjoy a movie with no likeable characters in order to enjoy this film at all because, in the end, none of them were. Not even the one I feel they intended to be. I am ok with that. But where it started to lose me was as we neared the end.

An entertainingly stylish movie suddenly became a whirlwind of rapid cuts back and forth between past and present, alternating first person shots, tennis ball cam shots, shot from beneath the court, in a dizzying display over overindulgence. Then we get a very anticlimactic ending which leads us to believe that all these unlikeable characters will end up getting what they really wanted in the end, topped with a call back painfully bad shriek by Zendaya to finish it all off.

Somehow this made a long movie feel like it was in a rush to be finished and made the payoff not gratifying or rewarding. I'm glad I watched it, but it's unlikely I will ever revisit.

Paint (II) (2023)

One bad choice that people can't seem to get over

[5/10 · 14 May 2024]

The makers oof this film made one terrible choice. That choice was sticking with making Carl look and talk like Bob Ross even though they were unable to get permission to make a Bob Ross movie. Based on the reviews here, that seems to be something that people are unable to get over. They apparently felt fooled by the look and never took the time to find out what the movie was actually about before jumping in. Not uncommon among movie goers, and also not uncommon for them to blame the movie instead of themselves for being too lazy to look something up.

This movie was an average "learning to value what's really important in life" movie. It broke no new ground, but it was not as awful as people want to paint it to be. Wilson delivered the same type of performance we should be used to by now. He was charming and likeable even when the character didn't deserve to be likeable. The very underrated Michaela Watkins did a very good job as well. The rest of the cast was pretty bland though Root, McLendon-Covey, and Strus (in what appears to just be a non-androgynous version of her character in 50 First Dates) delivered a couple of small laughs.

Overall, this was a fun, light-hearted film that wasn't great but also was not awful and is worth one watch. It is nowhere near as bad as people who can't get over the fact that they blindly thought they were walking into a Bob Ross biopic want you to believe. In my opinion, if you can't take two minutes to research what you are using your time and money for, then that's on you. Take some accountability.

Road House (2024)

Seriously?

[3/10 · 3 April 2024]

The problem wasn't that this was an unnecessary remake. The original wasn't Citizen Kane, it was a fun 80's action film. This also could have been an entertaining action movie, even while taking itself too seriously. It wasn't the fact they made him a UFC fighter with a different questionable past (OG's issue was self defense). That was a change that could have worked. It wasn't the fact that McGregor was terrible in his role...well that didn't help.

The problem here is that, while Swayze's Dalton was turned into a killer by necessity to stop the evil that no one else could, Jake's Dalton literally pulled a television Incredible Hulk "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" moment and turned into a murderer (different from a killer) because he has anger issues he was trying to get over and couldn't control himself.

Then he came up with a serial killer show, chock full of holes, ploy to dispose of his first murder victim that included ice, and a large cooler leading to trying to frame someone else for it...when in the end it never really mattered who murdered the guy anyway. There was no sense of fulfillment in the resolution of this version, and our Dr. Banner was left to wander the Earth in his solitude, hoping that no one would ever make him turn into the Hulk ever again.

The third act all but killed any chance this had of being decent. It got three stars from me because it was at least watchable up to that point. I can forgive people for indulging in a fun action flick every once in a while, and even make the mistake of calling them "good", but people who gave this good reviews seriously have bad taste. On the plus side, I think we found a new, and probably better, Hulk for when Ruffalo's contract is up.

Drive-Away Dolls (2024)

Could have been better

[5/10 · 27 February 2024]

The bones of a good story were there. Not presented the best. Not like a Coen brothers movie, but then again this was not a Coen brothers movie.

The dialogue was ok, not Coen brothers good, but one Coen brother ok.

The comedy was there. Despite what other say, the acting was mostly good. Domingo, Damon, Slotnick were entertaining, and I feel like Geraldine Viswanathan did a fine enough jo, though I wish she'd choose something other than a sex comedy role (which is mostly what this movie was at heart).

I didn't like that Coen threw in a pale Fargo rip off between the hit men to get the girls out of a tight situation, but that's not the reason for the low score.

Margaret Qualley was terrible. Not just terrible, but distractingly so. It was like she was hired more on ability to look the part than play it. She was grating, annoying, unlikeable, and hard to watch. I don't believe that was how the character was written or intended to come across. For me she just ruined every scene she was in (which was most of them). I enjoyed her in Poor Things, and I haven't hated her in any other movie. This was just not her role.

In the end, I feel like one Coen was not enough, but even if they had written the movie together and given us their full combined power, if they had made the same casting choice it would still have held the movie back from being all that it could be.

Mahler (1974)

So confused how you can walk into a Ken Russell film and not know what to expect

[8/10 · 19 February 2024]

If you are in the camp of liking Ken Russell, you are going to love this movie. If you like Mahler's compositions and think you're going to get a straightforward biopic (more on this later), you're in the wrong place.

This film is beautifully shot, the acting is over the top in many cases, the imagery will at times be disturbing, the metaphors will run deep, like all Russell's movies.

I just heard of Georgina Hale's passing in January of this year (2024) so was drawn to watch this film again because she was fantastic. I know she won a BAFTA for it, but she should have been given more recognition outside of the UK for this role.

I want to return to the term "straightforward biopic" now. By that I mean the cookie cutter, sanitized tripe that moviegoers normally eat up like Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocket Man, A Beautiful Mind, etc., that take real people who had very interesting lives and then manipulate, fabricate, and distort to give us our feels but no substance. You're better off just watching a documentary in most cases.

If you're going to do a biopic, I say go all in like Ken Russell does. While you may get his version of the story, at least you're going to be in for a beautiful and wild ride that will also make you think.

Argylle (2024)

People are more transparent than they think with their bad reviews

[5/10 · 5 February 2024]

This movie was pure fun. That is what you get with a Matthew Vaughn movie. If you are in the category of thinking his movies are "good" in the sense of high quality cinema, then you have bad taste.

You get over the top action, with a few very unplausible scenes, you get CGI and stunt work combined. Al most every one of his outings is "good" in the sense of you have a good time and enjoy yourself in the theater.

The very transparent reason for the bad reviews, whether they'll admit it or not, was the choice of leads. Some outright say they felt cheated that it wasn't Cavill, Cena, and Dua Lipa. I consider these people a special case considering the trailers made it very obvious to me what the plot was. Then you have the ones who think they're clever in hiding it, but all it takes is a read through of the review to know their main problem is being upset with Bryce Dallas Howard being chosen for the role (for multiple reasons). Rockwell to a lesser degree, but not being your "action star" prototype.

They are just outright wrong though. Rockwell gave your typical Rockwell all out performance that was thoroughly enjoyable, and Bryce Dallas Howard was perfectly cast, and was very good. Yes, the skating scene was particularly ridiculous, but again you'll get those occasionally in his movies, but people are more accepting of it when it's not Bryce Dallas Howard being CGI'd/body doubled. And the dancing shootout people seem to have a problem with fit into the movie well, and leads back to the unspoken complaint being the choice of romantic leads.

Listen, if you want a good time go see this movie. You are not going to hate yourself for it. If you want high art, go see something like Poor Things, which is good but has quite a few flaws itself, but less vitriol pointed at it due to it's leads (who were very good as well).

Poor Things (2023)

I wanted to like this more than I did

[6/10 · 5 February 2024]

First things first, the acting was excellent. Emma Stone was fantastic. Youssef and Dafoe were both great. This is the type of role I enjoy seeing Mark Ruffalo play. The art direction, the cinematography, the costumes all were amazing. I am generally a fan of Lanthimos and his directing ability, so I don't feel that is where the letdown was.

While the story itself is good despite its flaws, I felt like it was better presented in the source material even though it had many of the same flaws itself. The movie started strong and held me all the way through Lisbon and then lost me. When they got on the boat it just started going downhill. The newly introduced characters were not at all well done to me, particularly Jerrod Carmichael's Harry. However, it did seem like they wanted to continue the idea of Bella's journey of discovery having her read philosophy, and finally see the dark side of the world.....but then they reached Paris.

There the story of a what was a toddler in a woman's body, kept from the world by men, setting forth to learn who she wanted to be, playing with the reality of men's desire to control and their desire for sex making them ridiculous fools devolved into Bella's journey being about nothing other than sex and how much of it she could get. Regardless of the point that was trying to be proved about a woman's body and her taking control over it (never fully, mind you), it became a parody of itself making it seemingly the only thing that needed to be resolved to complete a journey of discovery, like this was an Emanuelle movie. They placed her desire to become a surgeon like her creator/father fully in the background and gave us a small throwaway scene about it.

It picked back up when she went home and had to come to grips with who she really is and was, but the middle part put it too far gone. In the end this was definitely a movie worth seeing once. I believe the acting, art, cinematographic, noms and awards it has received are all well deserved. But the love of the screenplay, I believe is misplaced and is what stopped this from being a great movie.

I Give It a Year (2013)

Worth one watch

[4/10 · 15 November 2023]

Let's start this off by saying this was not a good movie. The script was poor and gets on the nerves at times, the four (let's just call them all) leads were not played particularly well. That may have been due to their acting or just the annoyingly grating way they were written.

However, the rest of the cast, especially Stephen Merchant, Olivia Coleman, and Minnie Driver, were excellent and gave us by far the funniest scenes in the film. Seriously watch for Coleman and the doll. You could tell she was having fun with this role. Watch it for them, then forget the movie exists and never return to it.

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Still too long, but at least it wasn't the Irishman

[8/10 · 7 November 2023]

Again, people seem to miss the point. This was told from the POV of Ernest, not the Osage, for a reason. It is a movie, not a non-fiction book where we get hundreds of pages of details about the situation. We had to be given exposition and insight from the POV of those perpetrating the crimes and or else we would have had a film consisting of them all wandering around wondering why this was all happening and never really seen the true evil of Hale. Remember the murders had already begun before Ernest arrived on the scene.

We also did get the POV of Mollie who, as Ernest's wife, had her family most affected by Hale, as he stood to gain the most out of them.

Lily Gladstone was phenomenal and should win best actress awards for her performance. Leo put on his best Bill Bob Thornton Sling Blade face and did a very good job. De Niro was De Niro, love him or hate him. The rest of the ensemble cast ranged from excellent (Plemons, Shepherd, Myers) all the way to thrown in head scratching (Lithgow wasted, and Fraser still in The Whale mode). Cinematography was fantastic, and Robbie Robertson's music was a treat as his last work (RIP).

In the end this was considerably much better paced to me than the over indulgent nonsense we got in The Irishman, though it definitely could have been shorter and still effective. It took me about 5 sessions to get through The Irishman on Netflix from my couch, but Killers of the Flower Moon kept me in my theater seat the whole time.

The only part that really fell short for me was the ending. The now overdone radio performance. Used here as exposition for "what happened after". I'd have frankly rather just seen the words printed on the screen especially if it kept Scorsese's bushy brows off the big screen lol.

What Happens Later (2023)

Fun and Meg Ryan still owns this genre

[7/10 · 6 November 2023]

I just came here to laugh at the person who gave the movie a bad rating because "Airport announcements are nothing at all like that".

This is a rom-com, folks. It didn't break any new ground in its story. The two characters, all dialogue, has been done before and in some cases better (Before Sunrise ). The long lost lovers has been done before in some cases better (Before Sunset..lol) . The fantastical theme has been done before, sometimes better, and I won't name them all.

However, this was a good example of all of those, and if you didn't like it, I'd venture to say you are not a fan of those themes in general.

Duchovny did well, but Meg Ryan showed she still owns the rom-com genre. And to all the people who say they had no chemistry; I don't think you paid much attention. No, it was no Ryan/Hanks fare, but if you paid attention the whole point is that they were meant to act awkwardly towards each other for a lot of the movie. Once they finally broke down their walls and addressed their past mistakes and feeling, the characters grew closer and the chemistry came out. Even at the end, they were still unsure of themselves around each other and if there was any possible future.

This movie was fun, and I think both leads did a very good job of doing something difficult in carrying a movie where they were the only two characters, on the screen almost 1005 of the time, in a small setting.

Priscilla (2023)

Not very compelling

[5/10 · 6 November 2023]

Before I get into my opinion, I want to say that a lot of peopel seem to be missing the point. This is Priscilla's movie. Based on her book. So it is her version of who Elvis was as she remembered it as basically a child. Not yours, not Baz Luhrman's (terribly overrated overall, but especially his Elvis movie), not anyone else's. Only she truly knows if it is accurate, or embellished, you do not because you were not there so stop claiming that that the depiction was wrong, it is just one you are not familiar with.

Now on to my opinion.... I love Sophia Coppola. I defend her every time that someone says her movies are boring, or that nothing happens. However, this movie just was not compelling. Maybe it had to do with the fact I knew the story, and have read her book, but this movie just did not hold my interest. Her direction was still fantastic. The cinematography was excellent. I think the acting was very good, especially Spaeny, but Elordi was fine as well. I was able to understand him and think he did well with the voice and mannerisms. Stop comparing him to Austin Butler. He did good as well, but these were completely different movies tonally and both played the role as they were expected to.

The problem here was the screenplay, in my opinion. Not sure what more Coppola could have done to tell the story Priscilla wanted told, but she was able to give us a unique Marie Antoinette and turn what I consider a boring novel into a masterpiece of a film with Virgin Suicides, so I was expecting more.

Leverage: Redemption (2021– )

Not as good as the original but still fun

[7/10 · 31 December 2022]

I loved the original show. I'm going to call this a spinoff as opposed to reboot though. Excluding Timothy Hutton (for a legal issue that was later dismissed) was a little hard to take. His omission is glaring, especially with Noah Wylie as his "replacement". I never bought Harry's reasoning for him to become part of the team while Nate and his experiences made it easy to see why he was doing it. While not the same character type at all, it's just not fitting.

However, now almost 2 full seasons in, that is not the main thing that stops me from truly getting into it like I did with the original. What does is the lack of Aldis Hodge. I know he's become a busy man these days, but he needs to be there in every episode to make this work. His replacement isn't as bad, but she is a pale comparison to what he brought. You would think maybe him being gone so much would help bring forward more opportunity to delve into Parker, but they keep missing the mark there.

All that being said, I would never want them to stop making this show. Having it in any form is much better than not having it at all. I honestly hope they can mend fences with Hutton and bring Nate back from the dead...maybe right when Harry and Sophie finally start to get closer. Come on, you all know they are going to go that way.

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

excellent episode

[9/10 · 21 October 2022]

People who disliked this episode are definitely not people you ever want to have a conversation with. It was creative, it made you think, all while still being fun. I do like this show a lot, but if you hated this episode so much because it was different, and couldn't stand a break from Sudeikis and his riff on Dustin Hoffman's accent from Tootsie, then I truly feel sorry for you. We were no supposed to gain some great insight about coach Beard. He is supposed to be a mystery. They keep dropping tidbits of the interesting life he may have led, and this just fits right into the lore. I know thinking is hard, but it's good to do every once in a while.

Elvis (2022)

There is no accounting for taste

[4/10 · 8 September 2022]

I can only imagine that many of these reviews we see are fake or that they come from Baz Luhrmann fanboys/girls, because this movie is typical Luhrmann. By that I mean overblown, overdone, flashiness filled with nothing but vapidness. It can be fun to look at, but it offers nothing stimulating. This movie could have been about anyone, anytime, and would have worked better had it not been put forth as a biopic about real people with actual interesting life stories. As usual it was also filled with bad performances that somehow lure people into claiming they were good. Butler's performance was way overrated (like Rami Malek's Autin Powersesque take on Freddie Mercury) , but Tom Hanks takes the cake. This was by far the worst performance of his career. Tom Parker may have been born Dutch, but when you listened to him speak it was pure southern because he was trying to hide the fact he was not American by birth. When you heard any Dutch accent at all it was because it slipped out accidentally. Hanks played the role (let's keep up the theme) as if he was another Mike Myers creation, Goldmember. Overall, you will enjoy this movie, as you would any Luhrmann film, if you are looking for a hyper, super flashy ride with no substance and little to no insight about the real human beings this movie was supposedly about.

Licorice Pizza (2021)

Very disappointing

[4/10 · 18 August 2022]

You can tell this a Paul Thomas Anderson movie. You can also tell that he is clearly resting on his laurels. The most redeeming part of this is the setting. He does a very good job of making you feel like you are in the 70's. The writing was not good though. At all. The characters were not interesting, so their relationship was not interesting. There was no attempt at all to flesh out any other characters. Other than brief comedic relief in cameo form by Penn and Waits there was nothing to latch on to. Bradley Cooper's brief screen time was just annoying so briefness was favorable. There was no plot, no purpose, the only story was the relationship, which could in no way hold this movie together. Did Anderson just do this movie because he liked Haim and wanted to give them a platform? I can't see any other reason.

Red 11 (2018)

And this is why you never trust ratings on these sites

[7/10 · 25 June 2022]

Clearly someone had an agenda here. 300+ ratings of this movie keeping the movie in the 4 range, but only 5 reviews from people who actually watched it and it gets mostly 7's (which it deserves). This was a creative, nicely done movie used as much as teaching tool for young filmmakers to once again show you how to do everything yourself so that you do not need large amounts of money in order to follow your dreams of being a filmmaker. As the intro that most versions of this film contain, Rodriguez tells us there is an accompanying documentary shot as he filmed it so that you can literally see how to film, light, edit, etc, on a budget and still come away with something good. It doesn't hurt to be able to write a good script to go along with all that but that's a whole other learning experience. Don't look at the ratings and pass. Give this movie a chance. It's fun, it's clever, it's creative and I've seen worse acting from larger budget films. And if you're into that kind of thing, definitely stick around for the documentary if it's available on your version.

Afflicted (2013)

People are calling this great lol

[3/10 · 15 June 2022]

This was just your typical found footage garbage. Characters making decisions that make absolutely no sense, and jumping to ridiculous conclusions just to progress the story. Bad acting. Same old tropes and hackneyed story telling. Nothing new here. If you like the "found footage genre", you'll probably enjoy this. Otherwise you're just being fleeced into watching it by people leaving reviews.

Solos (2021)

This show was all over the place

[5/10 · 7 November 2021]

Those of you who don't want to watch past episode 1, I say keep going. Anne Hathaway's ridiculous overacting along with I consider to be a poorly written story was a bad lead in. The second episode with Anthony Mackie was a nice, well written episode, but the third with Helen Mirren fell a little flat with me, but was not awful and was helped by Mirren's acting ability. Then we hot another speed bump with episode four. A nice concept, but poorly executed especially when we hit the main monologue by Uzo Aduba that is just so cringeworthy it ruined anything it may have been building to. Episode five with Constance Wu was well acted, but poorly written to me. And you could see the payoff coming from a mile away. It was not smart, it was not clever, it was just predictable. Episode six with Nicole Beharie was by far the worst segment. She gave a nice performance that was ruined by a bad story, with bad writing.... Then we have episode seven with Morgan Freeman which to me was absolutely brilliant. It made it worth sticking it out, because you have to watch it last. Why? Because regardless of what others have said in reviews, the stories are connected. Freeman does narrate the beginning of every episode after all, if you did not notice. So all in all, I say watch all the segments. The end if worth the journey, the good and the bad parts.