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The Heat (2013)
This is aging well... Bill Burr helps that, too.
I must have seen this on a flight a decade ago but it proved to be worthy of a rewatch yesterday. Almost anything with Melissa MacCarthy is enjoyable enough, and when you top that with Sandra Bullock, it just has to be too terrible an idea to flop. This was not bad at all for several reasons:
They have dedicated enough time to the gags to make the joke sink in. Obviously with a dose of improvisation along the way, the two protagonists blend and contrast perfectly well. One might think the scenes were too long but that didn't hurt at all because they were filled with enough jokes and trivia.
Sandra Bullock is totally different in this one. Not different only from her signature character in Speed, but also from Miss Congeniality, which in spirit might be the closest to The Heat where she also was an FBI agent. She's 100% Sandra Bullock in each of these three films, yet, 100% another character. Well, this is basically GOOD ACTING. None of the three are deep, hard-to-portray characters maybe, but it takes true talent and dedication to avoid repetition so well. Kudos to her.
Melissa MacCarthy is Melissa MacCarthy in all her movies. With slight differences in tone here and there. But that's okay. Her success is more about being her true colorful self under varying themes, rather than transforming into various characters.
The movie is set in Boston. The city which was once famous for Good Will Hunting, but nowadays bettter associated with Bill Burr, the greatest comic of our times, who was born and raised there. And we have him in the cast. A small role it may be, but still notable. Having such a legend among the stars is an honor for every movie and TV show.
The Heat could have been more enjoyable if Genocide Rapaport wasn't in it but I guess it'll take another decade for the copyright holders to need to replace his image and sound via AI.
Another downside was the overuse of gore. I think this movie could have been better if sight of blood was avoided. I have no idea why they took that road because it is not a "dark comedy" or something to that effect. It's a cop-themed action comedy after all. One that has (or had) the potential for a sequal, even a streaming show.
Built on the contrast of character between its heroines, The Heat deserves something between a solid 6 and a generous 8.
Murder by Natural Causes (1979)
Katharine Ross is a special visual effect in this one-shot by Columbo's creators
The film starts off in a promising way as we are introduced to the mind reader. It was ineresting to see how half a century ago landlines could be used to remotely check how a pacemaker was working. But of course, the most engaging asset is the amazingly hot Katharine Ross in her prime.
Though there are discrepancies and bits and pieces of lameness here and there, the story unfolds with notable twists and turns. A murder plan going awry is nothing new but this one gets into some kind of cosmic loop after a point, even at the risk of bordering comedy in an unexpected way.
To be honest, I think Williamson and Link have overdone the plot-within-a-plot thing in this one. Be it a victim or a killer, an all-knowing character hurts such scripts. The final scene was impressive and the overall experience was not bad at all but I doubt the mechanics and the justifications in this one would have hold water in a Columbo episode.
Compared at their great run on Columbo, this is a low bar. But still, it shows the two master writers in question handle things pretty well even when their signature story structure of "showing the murder first" is not at play.
I just wish it were possible to have access to a high resolution version of this. The beauty of Katherine Ross must be more charming than in some low quality YT uploads.
Holland (2025)
As a cinematic experience, it was all roses (no! tulips!) till the final quarter hour
I tend to ignore IMDb scores when choosing what to stream. And I'm glad I ignored the pretty low score for this one because it turned out to be a stylish movie that was really worth a watch.
I have no idea why it was set in the 90s when laptops weren't around and mobile phones looked nothing like they do today. I don't think they went to all that trouble just in order for the story to function, because the way I see it, it CAN function pretty much the same also today. So, there was either something deeply personal, or those behind the decision went for the aura of the 90s, which pays off visually.
The acting was top notch. And the pacing wasn't bad either. I got pleasantly surprised as little turns and twists derailed what I imagined was going to be a small story of betrayal. The ultimate revelation caught me offguard as clues to it were not planted into the earlier parts of the script (great decision! I hate it when movies welcome their own spoilers!) but I think they failed to wrap the whole thing up in the best way possible.
I'm down with a movie changing its genre midway. Heck, I even love it! But the kind and level of undecidedness with the ending did not satisfy me. "Was it even real?" Well, for that question to make sense, there had to be some more solid outcome.
I don't think many people will love this movie. But I also don't think it would be fair to consider it a loss of time. Because it has that weird European feeling to it as Holland, Michigan provides a fresh breath to the very common American Beauty / Desperate Housewives / Revolutionary Road structure.
I'm not saying this is better than those well-known examples of this sub-genre. But it delivers something different along the way, even despite the ambiguity with the end game.
Deja Vu (2006)
Exceptional
It's been almost two decades since I saw this in a movie theatre. And the moment Denzel pointed that laser beam to the screen remains one of the most significant, unexpected and genre-altering cinematic experiences I've ever enjoyed as the audience.
After seeing Deja Vu once again*, this time on RAI and in Italian, I felt the need to pay tribute to the late Tony Scott and praise this as arguably the most notable outcome of his career.
The way this movie unfolds is the real trick: Unless we are provided a spoiler (thankfully I wasn't) we approach the investigation as one that will not mess with our perception of what is possible and what is not. No, this is no woo-ish detective story. It's a legit investigation even after that groundbreaking scene which I mentioned earlier. And it's also a love story, one that carves a happy ending of sorts from deep inside sorrow. A detective falling in love with a deceased victim? Very strong plot by itself, even if you refuse to buy the rest of the package!
Visually, this masterpiece reflects moments from Blade Runner, of the elder Brother Scott, while reminiscing us of Somewhere In Time and foreshadowing/inspiring Blade Runner 2029 as the giant image of a woman's portrait mesmerizes a lonesome man.
Intriguing, revolting, surprising, romantic and mind-boggling in nature, this film is one that will live in your mind long after you see it. Every time you experience a deja vu, you will question if that feeling might really be coming from such a place.
And again, I believe half of the magic comes from that single moment in the movie where the filmmakers turn the tables on us in such a bold manner that we can't deny them the benefit of a doubt.
* unintended, totally organic pun.
The Dead Don't Die (2019)
Oh my...
When you see multiple A-listers in the cast directed by a notable indie, you naturally think it can't be too bad.
That's why I spent the first 10 minutes without hitting the speed on Netflix. First, I tried 1.25x. Then, 1.5, which is the maximum possible...
The final half hour, I hit the forward button many times, only to skip all the way till the ending. So, this movie owes me around 50 precious minutes of my life.
What WAS that?
Jim Jarmusch was 30 years late to the zombie party? Was he trying to do a breaking of the 4th wall, merely by mention of "the theme song" by the lead characters?
Give that budget and that cast to a 22 year old nerd and he/she will come up with much better a film. This looks like someone had to fill a slot for a release date, and found a dated script, proposed it to actors and filmmakers who owed money or favors to a studio head, only to create what was gonna be quirky filler material for the season.
I just really don't get it.
I know that there is always much more to movies than what the audience naively considers as the building blocks. Yeah, some movies are made only out of totally different necessities relating to the people involved. But such low levels of creativity, originality and integrity are utterly shocking. Especially when Bill Murray is the poster boy.
Avoid it. Nothing to see here.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
Why didn't he simply get on board the train?
From the hit TV series to DePalma's cinematic revival, and from there on to become the franchise it now is, Mission: Impossible sure has evolved, for bettter and for worse, depending on what angle you favor. Today, it is a showcase for Tom Cruise. The man just wants to play and this concept is his playground. And it's a pleasure to be entertained while those behind and in front of the camera make big money.
But, much as they try to come up with innovative techniques and storylines, in our age there is just too much competition on the fronts of what I call mechanical cinema.
Mechanical cinema is what is structured around carefully calculated sequences the premise of which is pretty close to that of a roller coaster ride. The only room for emotions is when they become functional to let you catch your breath or stop thinking about what is going on.
DePalma's very first movie adaptation of Mission: Impossible was nothing like that. It had some cool pillars of action but the characters and story mattered immensely. Tom Cruise's MI lacks that more and more as both the heroes and the antagonists function as chess pieces.
With this one, by introducing an enigmatic entity, an AI or something of that sorts, they once again make a move to break the pattern; trying to keep a safe distance from 007 kind of good spies / bad spies narrative. But I don't think the plot works as intended.
First of all, the "mission" is too ambiguous and too nonsensical, regardless of what angle you take to observe it. If there is some technology out there which can threaten the planet via immense computational power, what does it matter if a submarine hosting it has sank and there was a two-piece key there and blah blah blah... What matters is the software, which definitely was not created as the submarine was cruising. It's just absurd to treat a state-of-the-art technology as Noah's Ark. Whatever states or powers were behind it, they must be working on the 2.0 version right as Ethan Hunt and co. Are struggling to capture some key.
Also: Why haven't they actually spent more time on the design of that supposedly unique, two-piece key? Those pieces do not look or feel like they couldn't be easily reproduced by use of an ordinary 3D printer. A physical key, all right... But for what? Kind of a spectre? A tool that seems to belong with the Harry Potter or the LOTR franchise? Both visually and thematically, the "precioussss" one in this story just doesn't make sense. Dude, it's technology after all... Unless you're gonna end on a bold high note with the claim that it was indeed CAPTURED ALIEN TECHNOLOGY and not something that belonged with the current progress of earthly sciences, this alleged "uniqueness" and the threat rising from it fails to convince us about the emergency of the missin in question.
But, okay... What matters is what we will experience as the embarks on such a journey, right? Meh... Though I was entertained during most scenes, most notably the train collapse (which was not revolutionary considering many previous examples, like the impressive one in Wanted) I did not actually care deeply about supposedly emotional moments like which female companion of Ethan was gonna end up dead. Previous MI movies were better in making us invest in the depth of such characters. This time it looked John Wick-ish.
I appreciate Tom Cruise for trying to avoid CGI and doing his stunts himself. Yeah, it helps getting excited to know that some dude actually did risk his life via extreme sports in order to produce that footage. The circus aspect of cinema is valuable. Even though it is being done mainly to attract attention to the movie, an advertisement gimmick to go viral on social media, it does matter to me to know that THIS bit of make-believe has been crafted organically, at least in part.
But, again... The STORY has to make us invest deeply into such scenes. And the major stunt in this movie, Tom Cruise jumping from a cliff on a bike many times till they get the best shot, leaving dozens of bikes down under to rot in an otherwise natural preserve, FAILS on the level of being MEANINGFUL.
Because that particular bit of action serves no reasonable purpose!
Come to think of it: The mask-making machine is broke, so Ethan Hunt will not be able wear a mask to replace the henchman of the blonde powerful whatever woman nemesis. Had the mask-making machine been working fine, he was gonna get on board the train. Now, he can't.
WHAT?!?
There is no way you can convince me that there was credible reason to WHY he simply couldn't be on board that train BEFORE it departed. This character can do pull several tricks even on the fly, without blinking an eye, instinctively. If putting on a fake beard was not gonna suffice to trick the face recognition system at the station, he could sneak in inside a crate or something, without even revealing himself as a passenger or railway staff member.
They felt like using that particular stunt, but miserably failed to embed it into the story.
Such a scene could have worked wonders if that sky-dive and landing really made sense as part of the endeavor and really resulted in logically saving a life.
The bit grew even dumber as, out of hundreds of possible entry points to the train, Ethan crashed in exactly where such an accident would provide a positive effect, and EXACTLY at the moment.
As that whole stunt could not have been calculated to a perfect happenstance, the audience got treated as morons who'd swallow anything long as it provided a moment of suspense.
I don't wanna trash this movie because I value it on many levels. However, witnessing such thoughtlessness in such big budget productions is heartbreaking.
Miss Fallaci (2024)
I have a problem with the formula
I just started watching this on RAIplay. First of all, Miriam Leone is a special visual effect all by herself and there is no doubt that casting her, instead of someone less charming but more Fallaci-like, is proof that he producers know what sells.
Oriana Fallaci is an important name with her take on feministic issues and certainly an asset when it comes to retro-woke readings of history.
But when you frame an already-woke narrative with the standardized virtue signalings right from the start, it becomes just too on the nose to make the viewer believe the situation was factually like that.
Quick examples: On the way to New York, she sits next to the seat of male journalist, and the guy assumes her to be the assistant of another male journalist, only to be corrected by Fallaci.
Really?
In 1956, a "woman journalist" is so rare a thing that people get taken aback when they see one? Event the positioning of Lois Lane in Superman (1938) suggests people were pretty much okay with women journalists decades ago. Not to mention His Girl Friday or other examples to how women were celebrated in positions previously associated with men.
One can argue that it is because she is coming from an Italian socio-cultural background and the Italian guy was therefore expecting all journalists on the plane to be male. I could buy that explanation had Fallaci been on a ship from Sicily to mainland Italy, but she's part of a group from Italy to the USA. It just doesn't make sense for a peer to not expect at all there could be a female reporter.
When every show is framed with the same, basic, highly promoted story of "social injustice based on race/gender", you get the same lame outcome, regardless of what subtleties you could have crafted out of a retro story like that. It becomes mere brainwashing, even if the intentions are good and message is correct. And RAI has been investing into this "genre" of woke repentence a bit too much.
I'm not saying that Fallaci wasn't born into and struggled out of conditions relating to gender inequality. What I believe is, by creating such points of stress within the course of the narrative, they are bordering pseudo-historic inaccuracies relating to social acceptance and baheviour.
Otherwise, the show is promising and the casting of a bombshell instead of a passably good-looking actress puts a smirk in your face thanks to how it slightly contradicts the underlying woke theme, but I think silent waters running deeper would be more elegant with regards to storytelling than rapid fires of virtue signaling.
The Watcher (2022)
Way to milk the good old "multiple outs" formula
I enjoyed the first two episodes as they seemed to be more grounded in reality and less likely to turn out to be a milder version of the Insidious franchise. If your aim is to be entertained, this will do it. But if you want to be entertained differently than a kitten following the jumping laser light, you might get disappointed. I'll simply break the experience to its ups and downs.
Ups:
* The back and forth between the couple (Watts and Cannavale) had some kind of depth to it. Even when every other thing smelled BS, I could feel their tensions as quite real and relatable. It was refreshing to see a female character resist the outside trickery and manipulations to divorce his husband and to give him a chance to make things right.
* The pacing and editing were satisfying.
* A white man being falsely accused of racism and cornered into making amends while risking everything he had - now, that is too real a story nowadays and it was cool to see how an angry daughter can naturally ruin a family's reputation thanks to nothing other than hormonal change.
* The casting was on point. The detective seemed not to belong with his department, which added to the surreal aspect of the series.
Downs:
* That same surreal aspect, which had a Twin Peaks vibe, got out of control right by the end of the 4th episode and in the earlier scenes of the 5th one. Yeah, you can re-introduce deceased characters back into the picture somehow, but the explanation behind it required at least a full episode and lots of police and press activity considering how you had erased them in the first place.
* The "multiple outs" formula gets abused when you wrap the whole thing up with it instead of coming up with a really unexpected and unthought of explanation to everything you have led to viewer to invest in. That lame decision made the 6+ hours look like a waste in retrospect.
Yeah, we like to be entertained but there better be something else, some emotional and/or intellectual satisfaction of sorts at the end of the day.
Zero Day (2025)
Whatever the premise was, it went down the drain the moment President DeNiro began listening to some Mossad asset
The opening half hour was fresh and exciting enough for me. Yeah, it was high time for us to see the great Robert DeNiro as POTUS, especially after witnessing how passionate he has been about the value and meaning of that seat. And it helped make things easier to see him as an "ex president", a trustable person who looked on an equal footing with the legacy of the late Jimmy Carter.
However, I'm sick and tired of filmmakers resorting to editing, blunders, false memories whatnot in order to play tricks with the perception of their audience. If the story you are telling is compelling enough, you should use those only to spice things up a bit. And by the middle of the second episode, I had more than enough clues to figure out that whatever underlying story they had, they were far from trusting it.
So, I quit... Did I do that too early? Maybe, but I don't think so. Because what I had seen so far suggested that this series was politically compromised in the same way the bulk of Hollywood has been for many decades. Russians as the main suspects? I really don't want to be driven down that path, even though it is probably a false lead. An ex president of the USA secretly meeting with a foreign agent, a bloody Mossad asset, to get from HIM what all the legit government branches under his hand might have missed or kept secret? Dude, just hand your title over to some Israeli president and be done with it if your perception is so irredeemable.
The acting president is a Black Woman. Wow! What a progressive take, what a bold message! Even at the expense of losing in real life, even to Trump, the entertainment industry insists that playing identity politics is the key to kickstarting actual change via influencing their audience. Bruh, no! This - is - not - working!
It doesn't matter if you cast Kevin Spacey as a gay president or a Black woman or an Indian transgender as powerful characters occupying the seat. People can literally see through this smoke. The things that you cannot even imagine to CHANGE are the things that actually matter in making a difference. Regardless of what ethnicity or gender you depict the POTUS to belong with, you'll just have to depict him/her/zim/they as "having friendly relations" with the same dark, unaccountable entities.
This show could have been a good lesson on how a worthy POTUS should act, even after retirement. It could have brought Robert DeNiro's criticism of Trump under some shining, new light. But the "coding" of what is what, coupled with the cheap trickery of narration, rapidly reduced it to some random, time-consuming propaganda piece in my eyes.
"Oh, but you don't know, by the end of the season we'll see it wasn't the Russians, that there was MORE going on, even something BIGGER, and the Mossad murderer will prove to be a LIAR and..."
Well, it really doesn't matter because the CODING remains the same. Jeez... I really was excited about this at the beginning and I'm truly amazed how eager the mindset behind it was to make me lose my interest.
Good on Paper (2021)
Surprisingly good
The first time I had come across Iliza Schlesinger was on Joe Rogan. For a large segment of the talk, I had a hard time figuring out what she was doing for a living, and later, to my surprise, found out she was a stand up comic. I was surprised because nothing about her looked or sounded even remotely funny for the duration of a quite long clip. She hadn't even cracked a few jokes to opportunities even non-coics would. Later I saw a special of hers on Netflix and got really bored. So, as opposed to the bit used in this movie, she was unfunny "even for a woman" in my eyes.
And I sat down to watch this on Netflix yesterday. The general vibe was quite fresh and paced. Despite not truly relating to the character, I never felt the need to speed it up to 1.25x (as I usually do) and got engaged with the story pretty quickly. For the first time, I was finding humor in what Iliza was delivering. Not the kind of life-changing, prophetic truths, but let's say she was "funny for a woman" at the very least. Was this gonna be a condensed version of the great, 3-season-long "Love"?
Though I was put off in a few scenes due to what I find as elements of disgust, I kept watching. It helped that Ryan Hansen, about whom I know nothing, was pretty convincing as to who he was / was not, while looking like an A-lister who could easily pass as Kevin Costner's younger brother or son.
Yes, in the end, Iliza did kinda make it about "being a strong woman who is struggling" or something to that effect, wrapping up the freshness of her little story with an overused sheet, whereas something more interesting and unpredictable could have elevated this little movie.
However, he inside to LA-life from the angle of a hardly-rising female comic was still original enough. Had she made it more about that crucial difference she saw between his and Dennis' characters, and less about "men and women", keeping the spirit of the story more individual and less gender-classy, I could find it in me to root for her louder.
Also, it didn't help that the story ended on a Seinfeld-ish courtroom confrontation. The scene where she and Dennis convered while in the restrooms was pretty good as it also allowed us to get a bit into Dennis' head, but the verdict seemed to come short of how the man was physically treated. Be the victim a total fraud or not, I don't think anyone can (or should) get away with getting people drunk for the purpose of questioning, especially not if they actually do cause bodily harm in the process.
What holds Iliza back is focusing too much on her sex/gender, whatever. This movie proves that she is much better a screenwriter and an actress than a standup comic. Maybe she sould quit trying the "reverse Bill Burr" thing and commit more to writing and directing. The more she focuses on men telling her she is "funny for a woman", the more she will hear it. Because the "geder field" has really become unfunny lately.
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
DIVERSEMINATOR with too many action scenes
Once again, I was late to the party and happened to watch this only yesterday, well over half a decade after its launch. Considering I'm actually a fan of Terminator, that's kinda weird.
But what is more weird is to witness such an amazing concept excell in style and variation while losing its grounds of meaning.
As the movie opened, I got excited to see one of my favorite countries, Mexico, as the new setting for this sequel. Evereything was in order in the way they shouldn't be. I mean: For the first 15 minutes or so, this "new" movie was repeating the patterns from previous Terminator movies, as if that was a rule or something. Yeah, I do enjoy to find variations in the pattern but why narrate the story by sticking even with the sequencing of that pattern? In other words: The experience was like hearing new lyrics on a tune you already know so well. If I were in for the tune itself, I could watch T2 all over again.
Anyways... When Dani's father (!) showed up at their workplace, I inevitably put a smile on my face. Because I had figured out what they were doing: This was a "diversity" addition to the good old Terminator. We were going to be reminded that the future of humanity could lie in the hands of a brown person this time instead of John Connor. And when the following scenes went on to visually and even verbally embellish this, I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Because that was a given already. Jesus Christ, John Connor, whatever... The hope of humanity that needed be saved by those jumping in from the future could always have been non-white people and anyone who got the message of the franchise didn't even need to be told this. As the early action-packed sequences flew by marvellously, I was thinking on the side on how else they would (and maybe are) strengthen this "Thanks, Captain Obvious" angle. Was there gonna be an Indian JC soon? Were we gonna see naked bodies pop out of nowhere in New Delhi? Where was next? China? Wuhan? Can you even argue that the skill set needed to organize the upcoming generations against evil machinery wouldn't be rooted in South African jungles? Maybe it was a back-to-the-basics approach that humanity would need and therefore a new line of terminators were going to be sent to murder a child living in a village of the Amazon rainforests.
Almost as much as the well-crafted actions scenes before my eyes, such thoughts of diversity were keeping me entertained. And then Linda Hamilton saif "I'll be back" with a totally feminine and bored pronunciation, making me think she came up with that particular wariness herself, in defiance of the director asking her to mimic Arnold. I don't even know why I thought so but I loved her version of that running gag. It was what switched off my diversity-seeking brain and made me focus on the movie instead.
Mackenzie Davis was amazing. Physically, facially, with regards to anything the filmmakers had decided to add to the concept in this one. I kinda fell in love with her. Her exchanges with Sarah Connor were well delivered, too. And it didn't escape my attention that the "augmented female human" said nothing to confirm Ms. Connor's perception that Dani was gonna be the Mother Mary this time.
Though in the early scenes she had not struck me as a good pick, Natalia Reyes began to grow on me as well. I mistook her for Teresa Ruiz (of Narcos Mexico) and still find them quite identical in appearance, not to mention they both are highly talented.
As our protagonists got falsely tagged as criminals of the Sinaloa Cartel, I said "yep, here we go again, another public messaging on the fact that not all immigrants are actaully bad people". I guess the slaughter of border patrol officers in the following scenes had something to do with Hollywood's rejection of the stigma stuck on immigrants thanks to MAGA and Trump. And much as I can relate to the sentiment and making use of it to add another layer to the subject at hand, I believe they were overplaying that hand throughout the movie.
See, back in early 1990s, when T2 came about, our characters were already established as having great relations with people from the South of the border. Yes, of course you can make a new Terminator movie ABOUT that particularly, but why are you not even changing the story pattern? After a point, the running gags and the "one to kill, the other to protect" gimmick dies down. Actually, there were Terminator movies in-between that had managed to give us more fresh stories.
This one, though really great with the pacing and the action scenes, has almost no effort on refreshing the STORY while diversifying and politicizing it to a degree which I found comical at timess.
I didn't even understand why the previous Terminator (Arnold) had to kill John Connor in the beginning of this one, and how come Skynet was NOT going to emerge despite him/it fulfilling his/its task. There is a huge plot hole there, one beyond the inevitable, multiple errors that simply come with any time travel story. But anyways... We go on to meet Arnold, something like an ex-terminator, a machine that has grown a bit of consicous. And he's gonna help Sarah, Dani and the augmented/hot super solider from the future. Okay. But... That twist was already what T2 was all about, wasn't it? Arnold teaming up with humans, I mean... What's new here? It felt like they reached the same outcome by using another method this time. Never mind.
The abundance of fast-paced action scenes can be a plut at times but this movie was just too much. They had an extra 20 minutes at the very least. And once again, as if THAT pattern is sacred hence cannot be broken, we are lured into some metal processing plant or somehting like that.
Could it not be that this new, self-separable Terminator, could simply die thanks to bee polen or something? What's the obsession with this industrial setting? Also, does it even make sense? The thing can melt down and reassemble itself, BUT you somehow "terminate" it when you use the power source taken from inside the super soldier from the future.
If the technology used by humans in said future is able to somehow mess the machine nation's best example, then what's the problem here? Why don't they get rid of the machines and reignite humanity? Oh, it's already THAT which they're trying to do, hence they send peopel back in time to make sure the amazing human leader is not dead? Why aren't they trying to prevent the machine takeover from happening, then?
See, this is more than a time travel loophole - in the very first Terminator movie we were dropped a bombshell concept so we didn't have enough data to dismantle it. But now that it's evolved into a franchise with multiple political and cultural concerns whatnot, we just cannot help thinking about what actually DOES make sense.
John Connor was going to be killed as a kid so that he wouldn't grow up to be a great military leader. Okay. And who is Dani? She says "I'm nobody" but no, she is the new JC, and that is why the terminator is after her. But... WHY is she the new JC? I mean, she is not an officer from the Mexican army, or a counter-cartel cop from Colombia... She's a random person... WHY would any random person play a more important part in human resistance against the machines than an already educated and sharpened human being from some kind of armed forces?
Sarah Connor CHANGED upon learning who she was gonna carry in her womb. So, it is the NOWLEDGE of what is to come that CHANGES people. Then WHY would ANY single human with the potential to lead the future human resistance be on the map for the machines? If not this one, then that one will do it. If the machines are really so smart, why cannot figure this out?
You just cannot take down an entire species/nation by asassinating the leaders of their resistance. Long as the machines keep oppressing humans, someone will pop up. Look at what's happening in the world today and you can get the pattern.
The only logical message to draw from this franchise at this point is that we ALL are JOHN CONNOR, regardless of race, gender, age, whatever... Much as it sounds fine as the moral of the story, it ruins the mechanics of the pattern they have been repeating for over 30 years. This chase has no bearing on reality. It shouldn't. It really doesn't matter if the world will fall slave to machines or not, because there already are alternate realities that interact with each other and this loop itself is the only "real" thing in the end.
Was Rosemary's baby really spawned by the Devil or was it her imagination? Were those neighbors lunatics who thought they had managed to have Satan's son delivered, or had they really done that?
One major reason why the abundance of actions scenes is no longer impressive is that, when you nulllify the outcome by repeating the pattern and proving every single time that it's just a pattern and nothing substantial, the details no longer matter anymore. We feel desintisized.
Now, did I enjoy this movie or not? Yes, I enjoyed it. But unlike how the very early two movies of the franchise had affected me, I found nothing impressing, other than the harmony and interaction of the three female leads.
Something Wild (1986)
Makes you miss those times when movies were less calculated
I'm not sure it was the first time for me but I watched it yesterday on Amazon Prime. As some scenes struck a nerve I guess I had seen it, at least in part, sometime within the decades, if not during those famous days of VHS. Looking back from today, there are a coupe of things I note:
What bothers me the most with regards to 2020s cinema is that it is extremely overengineered. Every other nation embraced the Hollywood formula and it's only in certain comedies that we can find some fresh improvisation. The story structures are iron clad, making it quite tough to penetrate into the industry for freethinkers, while also leaving the audience with nothing but patterns.
Somwthing Wild is, for the most part, something wild. And it's not just about the 1980s vibe - people being so open to casualty gives you a clue on how come AIDS had that boost. Things run on instinct, which, in this case, is the essence of the movie already. I did enjoy the unpredictability of the characters and the lighter version of Natural Born Killers I found in that vibe. The moment mattered even more than the story, and that made sense when the female lead, who was definitely in charge of what we were seeing, was more into moments than plans.
The surprise was what happened after the high school reuinon. I wasn't expecting such a story to go on to embrace raw violence, even if it did make sense as an inevitable outcome. That young, pre-Goodfellas Ray Liotta was a force of nature on the one hand, but on the other hand, I think his character ruined where else that aive story could have gone.
See? Now, as a viewer, I am overengineering the content instead of allowing the experience to let me sink deep into it... Maybe this was to be watched fresh in 1986, when our minds were more welcoming to whatever filmmakers felt like giving. The mismatch between today's habits and the past's harvest will keep growing, I'm afraid. Even as an admirer of raw, unpredictable cinema, I can judge with structural expectations.
It was interesting also because it gave me to look bettter into how the director of Silence of the Lambs could have constructed his very personal relationship with dark moods and violence, as if he was signaling from where to where he was headed right within this single movie. Also strange that one of the stars. Jeff Daniels, was going to be famous for an even more exaggerated version of humor than his character in this one provided, alongside Jim Carrey.
You should watch this movie. It's a notable example of its era.
Uncharted (2022)
Nothing uncharted here with regards to filmmaking
I had no idea about the source material and didn't even know such a movie existed till it popped on my Netflix. Speeding it up at times, I did get entertained to the degree of not being an unhappy customer. But it kinda disappoints me to see how overengineered, mechanical and repetitive cinema has become nowadays.
As the characters in it admit themselves, this is an Indiana Jones wannabe. It borrows from similar themed movies of that genre, which is fine. But what's new here? What does it do to open a somewhat fresh path for the movies of the next decade? I mean, is there anything on any level (technical, emotional, experimental) that has the potential to uplift our expectation?
No. I saw nothing of that sort. The cargo drop / free fall sequence, which is also in the very beginning, was the highlight action-wise, and there were some moments that made the characters grow on us. But that's it. I never heard a line that made me think on or change my mood. Everything was functional and the whole function of the movie was to entertain pretty much in the sense a PlayStation game can. There should be more to cinema than that.
And a few points of curiosity:
That girl whose bracelet got snatched - will she appear in the upcoming parts of the franchise? If not, why was she even there?
It was kinda good to see Antoino Banderas in the shoes of Robert DeNiro in Fifteen Minutes.
I don't even want to discuss the mechanics of hundreds of years old wooden ships being carried by cargo choppers. If the whole point is to suspend our disbelief and enjoy the camera and CGI work, well, that second Mummy film had pulled even better tricks three decades ago, so...
Anyways... I may watch the sequel but not sure I'd miss anything if I don't.
Genie (2023)
Watchable in the sense that anything with Melissa McCarthy is
This one practically run like a 90-minute long SNL bit. It wasn't made for cinema in the end, so, I guess it's normal for the writer of Love, Actually and Notting Hill to feel more experimental with the material. The IMDb score I see now is below 6, which I find a bit harsh considering the final outcome does put a smile on your face after all.
I liked how they effortlessly and totally ignored to come up with serious explanations to how come the Genie could talk 21st century New York English with all the contemporary burns, secondary meanings whatnot. It's hard to estimate how much of what we see was improvised because the script was already freed from rigid, squared, logical background. It's a retelling of that old Arabian Nights story after all, none of us is gonna take it seriously whatever amazing mind tricks filmmakers pull, so, let it just float!
For me, the problem was with the lack of really sharp, edgy moments. Given the basic idea was to blend A Christmas Carol by Dickens with Aladdin, with Melissa McCarthy as the cherry on top, they could have embellished better how the presence of a Mr. Burns-like evil boss could sabotage a working man's family happiness. The ending was an effort to make that point but it lacked credibility as the suggestion was for the man of the family to quit his job in order to maintain his peace with the wife and the daughter. Come on, now. Money talks. He'd paint himself into a different corner if he risked becoming jobless, and lose his family all over again.
McCarthy is fun to watch and her presence may not even be surrounded by the framework of a serious movie after all. For those who are okay with light entertainment, this is passable.
What Happens Later (2023)
Ban plastic surgery!
I was really hesistant to watch this but just wanted to give it a shot. Despite all odds, I found it engaging enough and made it to the end at one go. Considering there are only two actors and a voice actor, this by itself is some kind of a success.
So, I will not be trashing Meg Ryan as the director. No, ma'am, I believe you've done a fine job with this picture. It's pure enough, different enough, sincere enough... Though I haven't checked yet, I suspect the source material is a play and we owe the refreshing lack of background noise and circumstantial events to your choice of keeping it in the spirit of theatre, not forcing the mechanics of cinema in vain.
Here's a compliment: I liked this better than Spielberg's The Terminal.
Yes I did. Because it manages to reach abstraction on a meaningful level. Because the story stands tall undisturbed.
I enjoyed the choice of quotes and how they were delivered. Their reluctance in engaging with one another resonated with me. I felt close to the characters and felt their pain, aging and regrets. I appreciate how "What Happens Later" is titled with that final question you keep hanging mid-air as the movie ends.
What I don't like is how we have been deprived of the possible facial expressions of Meg Ryan the actress. I'm totally anti-plastic surgery and I belive no one should undergo this nonsense merely to mess with the natural flow of their aging process, unless there is disfigurement or something to that effect which can be fixed. No, ma'am, I don't think your face can communicate today as well as it had when you were a natural. And to top that, I don't believe the character in this little gem would ever undergo plastic surgery, so, there's some inconsistency with the casting.
I'm not saying I didn't appreciate the acting - I did, but it was obviously filtered by silicone.
If Meg Ryan directs another movie, I'll give it a shot.
The Fall Guy (2024)
Thumbs up! Better than I expected. Blunt elevates a movie as usual.
The power point of this movie is not having wasted ANY time at all on how and why that stunt guy and the director woman have started a relationship. This was one of the smartest shortcuts I have noticed in a movie recently. They are in love and there are no real rivals on that front. Period. Once that is established (like, a few minutes into the movie) we have all the time to enjoy homages, inside jokes, burns and whatnot relating to Hollywood.
The second smart choice was to have the bulk of the film shot in Australia. That gives a fresh breath to a Hollywood product about Hollywood. Had they not done that, we'd have been terribly stuck in an environement we all know the spirit and the vibes of. The characters of our story are shooting a movie in Australia, hence, they are in Australia. Totally normal considering the needs of that movie, MetalStorm, and perfect for the movie The Fall Guy!
The other significant power point is Emily Blunt herself. Her part could have looked and sounded void had an actress of lower scale was given it. Blunt makes the director feel real. She may not be a stereotypical Hollywood woman at all but she has stamina and integrity in a convincing way.
For the first half of the movie, the story made little sense to me. But after the reveal of why our fall guy was being made to do what he was doing, the pieces began to fall into the right places. Yep, there was a conspiracy alright.
I wanna make a segue to the downsides of the film right at this point. Because the most notable one is relating to the story which I just praised. So, how come it be solid enough to be worthy of praise, while at the same time a downside?
Well, that's the trickiest part of my take: The level of realism in The Fall Guy is somewhat shaky. On the one hand, it deals with actual Hollywood traditions and people. On the other hand, it is trying to establish an alternate reality where the "Hollywood version" of things are in fact pretty much like how "real life" unfolds. The good thing is, the latter is manifested more via action than words. Most particularly, the sequence in which a wild truck chase happens in Sydney. They are literally LosAngelifying Sydney by making it look like such unhinged action can be passable also thereabouts, just like it is in hundreds of bigger-than-life works of fiction. Okay... Franchises like James Bond, Mission Impossible and Indiana Jones have used Australia similarly in the past. But if you pay attention, there is something wild and new here: Life goes on as usual despite the havoc they wreak!!!
Whatever alternate reality you can come up with, you just cannot expect Australian police to not round people up after 1/100 of what we see actually happens. These people are out in the open: Tom Ryder's bodyguards and a stunt from a production the country is hosting. No way on earth (whichever version of it!) can things keep rolling AFTER such peace-disturbing cahins of action. Machine guns and flames on board a yatch anchored to Sydney Harbor? Are you kidding me? Where is the police? Forget the police, where are the RESIDENTS?
Certain movies like 21 Jump Street, Hot Fuzz, Anchorman etc. Do switch gears when handling reality as they already start off with a very very loose version of our good old friend "suspension of disbelief". You can expect nonsensical stuff as they have one foot in the ZAZ territory already. But, was that the case with The Fall Guy?
Even after seeing it, I have trouble placing the whole experience into a reasonable shelf. I love it that they broke the fourth wall many times while discussing "a problem with the third act" and quoting from well-established movies as they found themselves in similar situations. But physically, I suspect the carefree attitude of jumping from one realm to the other has harmed this movie.
Though disturbing at first, I came to accept their reasons for picking up a cheesy concept like MetalStorm for the movie-inside-the-movie gig. Yeah, the cheapness of what they were struggling to bring to life made their professionalism look kinda ironic. The way they relate to and invest in the characters inside MetalStorm was really funny at times, and surprisingly, deeply touching at other times when they communicated through these icons.
While watching "The Fall Guy" I thought of "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" many times. No, this one is not as strong or original as that Tarantino flick. But yes, it DOES manage to cover some other aspects of "being the fall guy". Our focus is not on the relationship between the star and his double, BUT the revelation proves that it was THAT bond which initiated the story indeed.
Again, the story... Yes, it was solid... But it was also weak... Embellished also by the undecided / tilting level of realism, the "event of origin" is shadowed by everything else seen in the movie. Tom Ryder's ego and attitude were spot on, but how it manifested via his actions is so tiny compared to all those action sequences and bendings and flexings of perception that, it felt like they were trying to make an elephant fit in the pouch of a kangaroo.
I have an ongoing discussion inside my head regarding this movie, which is good. Such box-office products seldom give you the material to think on their ups and downs. This one does.
I appreciate The Fall Guy more as a love movie that is freed of agitation and clichés. The level of acting by Emily Blunt certainly helps, but I must admit there were some moments and lines that resonated with me unexpectedly. While on the speedboat, explaining to her why the "thumbs up" gesture is a "fall guy thing" and why it MASKS how terribly HURT he is each time... Well... That was the moment for me! The gist of the movie, where the rubber met the road, where the theme made sense via the use of story, where the Hollywood inside the minds and hearts of these Hollywood people did an artistic leap to elevate a running gag into a notable and original monologue from a man, a "fall guy", something which most men are likely to become at several points in their lives...
Yes... That scene was really, really fulfilling... Especially because we didn't see it coming the way it came.
I may keep thinking on The Fall Guy to later add some stuff here, but whatever comes next, it proved to be more notable than I had initially thought.
Woman of the Hour (2023)
Short of a masterpiece! I hope this will be to Kendrick what Play Misty For Me was to Eastwood...
I wasn't expecting to be thrown by the artistic integrity of this. Kudos to Anna Kendrick for such a brilliant movie.
I'm writing this before watching any actual footage regarding the Dating Game episode in question. I haven't even made an online search about Rodney Alcala the serial killer yet. Because I want to communicate my thoughts on the movie alone.
Unlike several recent shows and films that focus on violent offenders, this one is NOT expoliting the subject matter. This is not the kind of material some troubled personality can watch and get triggered by. On the contrary, I believe it may have a positive effect on stopping such people, while alerting their potential targets.
Normally, I am disturbed by filmmakers who lean too much on non-linear narration to extract from the viewer a very particular emotional response. However, with this one, even despite the presence of some lack of clarity on what happened exactly when, I never felt to be "unfairly manipulated" by the editing. And why might that be? I think it was because the non-linear flow of the movie was meant to allow us to inhale the spirit of a certain, natural pattern between men and women, rather than underlining its extreme manifestation in a particular rapist/killer. There were vibes of Terrence Malick's Badlands here and there.
Yes, I found this movie to be more about style and spirits than individual psyche or nurture.
As the two lead characters were conversing at the crowded diner, for a moment I couldn't be sure if there was actual silence and lack of movement in the background, or we were gimmicked into that for the purpose of isolating their conversation from whatever was going on on the outside. Quickly, it got apparent that the latter was happening. And I loved it. Not because it was the first time I was witnessing such a usage of muting and freezing, but because it was handled so smoothly and effectively.
To be honest, when I opened the film's IMDb page, I was expecting to find a score of 8 or something. However it is much lower now for reasons I can only speculate about. I guess most people were expecting to be presented a satisfying story with a solid finale, which the movie consciously rejects to deliver. In my opinion, this is because the story in question is never over. It's ongoing in many different shapes and forms. The physical divide between males and females will remain the determining factor in how the emotional relationships between men and women manifest.
As for why I am saying this is "short of" a masterpiece and not really one: The only problem I see with the film is that the director and the lead female (Kendrick) pushes an essential element of the theme in the form of an agenda during the game show sequence. Again, I have no idea how the actual episode played out, or if this was a dramatized version. But the male host coercing her into being dumb and slutty, and she challenging this after a brief advice from the female makeup artist, looked and sounded too much of a classical "woen's empowerment" bit, which I think was below the overall tone of this great movie.
I have seen lower budget movies with similar themes, focusing on rape victims running away whatnot, but the kind of tension and mist I find in this one is above what they had to offer.
I wasn't even aware Anna Kendrick was into directing, and I am well aware that for celebs of her status it is relatively easy to find the experts who can make up for whatever lack of insight or knowledge she might suffer from. Still, given the outcome has her signature on it, I believe the radical gamble was hers from the get go, and I think she's played her hand perfectly.
Renfield (2023)
The glass is half empty and half full
Moving on with this very same idea, they could have created a much more serious and memorable film. Something to the effect of Fight Club, to which they owe at least 30% of the inspiration, I guess. However they have prefered to march into pop territory, giving Deadpool vibes mixed with raw colors whatnot.
Normally, I hate this kind of violence in movies. It only eats away from the seriousness of the subject matter, which it has in this example. Forget about not even trying to reach for Coppola's treatment of the characters (despite basing quite a lot on that!) they haven't paid enough attention to details to make us think there are some actual rules behind the game of carnage. For me, the most nonsensical element in the whole movie was how the whole police force was portrayed to be in cahoots with the Lobo crime family. When you go there so blatantly, you lose all connection with our established realm. To the level that the events and the characters begin to look unimportant and unreal, even despite the smart angle you have picked to look at them through.
Still, I made it till the end thanks to some really smart dialogues and maybe more notably the pace. Was the ending a fulfilling one? Meh... Let's say it didn't drag the experience even deeper into cheesiness.
The movie had several shortcomings, like, not making the best use of New Orleans as a setting, and switching gears when handling the level of reality the viewer is supposed to embrace. Believe me, I can really trash this one if I want to.
But I don't want to trash it. It was good enough to make me watch all those cheap and nonsensical scenes. Me, who could not stand any Deadpool movies for longer than 5 minutes. This means there is something to take my hat off to here.
I won't have too much of a beef with the movie but I will keep wondering the movie they prefered NOT TO MAKE when giving the plot this particular direction and feel. What they had in their pocket was original, indeed. I can't help but imagine how the late David Lynch could have made use of such material. What magnificent moments we could have had if we were not dragged into a nonsensical popcorn action recital.
I think that unmade movie would rank quite higher than this one.
Castle: Still (2013)
Both a fun clip show and a tear-jerker
Dealing with death is the main issue for any work of literature, cinema, tv. That is the inevitable bottom line regardless of how you frame the particulars. And once again we find our heroes facing a death threat in this episode, on a very personal level. And there is no shortage of humor despite the heaviness involved.
As we dive into how the show had started and get to see some dozens of memorable moments, it really does strike us how Kate has changed over time - strangely, in reverse! Becoming younger by the season, most notably thanks to hair hairdo. And a highlight of the episode is when Castle, as if he himself is "watching" those moments alongside us, makes not of the situation with varying hair styles. Now, for me, THAT was the highlight of the episode as I enjoy very much the breaking of the fourth wall as was done excellently in Moonlighting, which I see as the "founding father" of detective comedies like Castle.
What I didn't like was how the episodal story lacked credibility. No one needs to go to the excess measure of planting trap bombs solely to make an unsuspecting visitor give them information. They could have found a legit, credible reason as to why there was such a case for starters.
Other than that, it's a good episode.
Castle: The Lives of Others (2013)
Brilliant in a very particular way
I'm a fan of the magic contest show "Fool Us with Penn and Teller" and as a writer I want to approach the story of this episode in the fashion magicians approach fellow magicians.
Yep, bring down the trophy, they fooled me!
For the past two months I've been binging Castle from the very first episode on, seeing the bulk of them for the very first time. For it has less moving parts than the producer-actor duo's later work, The Rookie, it feels more organic. And I got to enjoy all the burns, references, inside jokes whatnot. In this episode, the setup clearly announces that "they're gonna pull a Rear Window, a homage to Hitchcock" and well, yeah, they do.
But not in the sense you think they were. And even when the ending was close, till Castle appeared at the door of the apartmen he had been secretly watching, I was thinking the homage was gonna work like all previous ones had. It was only till a few moment before the reveal that I went "hey, wait, I guess I know what's goin' on here!" And of course, seeing Kate Beckett dressed as Grace Kelly to the sharpest details must have helped.
I mean, yeah, wasting of police time and resources would be a serious issue in real life but this is a TV show. One that elevates itself to the level of my all-time favorite detective comedy, Moonlighting. So they do have the poetic license. And they've used it perfectly well with this one. Kudos!
If the actual murder investigation story (the side story) had some more of a sparkle, I could consider giving this a straight 10.
Ates Böcegi (1975)
A gem that's stood the test of time
Movies of the 70s have a very different pacing as audiences used to enjoy the scenery and had more time to invest in character development. It was nothing like how we consume film and tv today - the audiovisual transfer of something external to you was a big deal.
Hence, it's quite possible to get bored along the way when you want to see films of the era half a century later. However, FIREFLY does not make you wanna hit the speed on Youtube. The charm is still relevant, so is most of the dialogue. With little restrictions to content, you get a grasp of all the fun cinema is supposed to deliver, including bits of nudity and foul language, which certainly do not carry this gem into "adult territory". Indeed, it's a very childish film. Necla Nazir was 19 when this was shot and so is her character, though an age isn't assigned in the script. Whenever Tarik humps or flirts with another female, she gets angry, proving to have interest in him as a man. As Tarik openly tells her, he has the habit of sleeping with any attractive woman but not into "kids like her", so she need not worry.
The overall dynamics between the lead duo remind me of how Brad Pitt gave a ride to XXX in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Not the same thing for sure, anoting also that Tarik Akan is much younger in this movie than Pitt was in OUATIH, but the teen girl / adult guy territory is similary marked in both.
Anyways... I must admit there is some clumsiness to filmmaking and particularly with the editing. Like, you feel a natural follow up scene is missing as they keep up with the journey. But that rawness was almost a trademark of the industry back then and in my opinion it adds to the decency of the experience, especially in this age where cinema is definitely overengineered.
The background story to how she wasestranged from the rich grandpa was there just to provide us with the carefree finale, which Hulusi Kentmen appears just with a couple of shots, with little to no lines. And the heaviness of heroin smuggling is incompatible with the rest of the movie for sure. Oh - how about lotsa beating up, but no threat of sexual violence towards the pretty girl? But the overall ambiance makes us not question such things. This movie exists on a plane of Yesilcam classics where the rules are different both from reality and from those of other movies, just like they are in today's MCU movies.
I guess anyone can enjoy this gem on the condition of approaching it with an open mind.
Book of Songs (2010)
Judge Judy connection
The director of this movie is on an episode of Judge Judy which I happen to be watching right now. I logged in to IMDb to figure out if the production in dispute was real and it looks so. The director, originally from Antigua, seems to have made one other movie after this one, and he has employed Melissa Poncelet del Sole as the makeup artist. And it is she who sues him over allegations of sexual abuse, denial of food, etc. On set.
For the episode in question is from 2011, way before #MeToo, Judge Judy be like "naah, I don't believe you" towards the alleged victim.
I'd love to see similar set disputes on Judge Judy. Not all troubles have to be as big as the manslaughter during the filming of Rust, which gave birth to a series of much more serious legal disputes.
American Primeval (2025)
Worth watching but what have they done with the colors?
Re The first episode...
Though I am rarely optimistic about new shows, I gave this one a shot as a Western buff. Carrying the spirit of recent violent shows like Black Sails and Vikings, American Primeval entertains while educating you on history. I wasn't really aware that Mormons had carried out such a savage campaign to own Utah back then. I will need to read up on that as I tend to take hollywood depictions with a grain of salt. It looked too much of a stretch to imagine what is in the end a Christian denomination to slaughter other white people, even those who, too, are Mormons, which made zero sense. Again: Not saying it was imporbable, because the general layout of the land must have awakened a different psyche, but...
Anyways... I was impressed mostly by the surprise (yet, anticipated by the viewer) attack. It was shot very well, reflecting the chaos and the ambiguity on the audience with unpredictable changes in camera work. There was something imperfect about how they handled that crucial part, which also is welcome in this age of overengineered filmmaking.
Other than that, I must say that I wasn't impressed with multiple examples to how cheap human life was. It still is so. And even though I can imagine how more dire frontier life must have been, I keep watching such scene knowing that behind the production are people who live by the motto "violence sells". Therefore I tend to think they might be overdoing stuff when exposing ruthlessness. In the end, they are in the game of what would look and sound cool. No one invests solely in historic accuracy.
That said, I remain undecided about the dialogues. They worked fine. But at times, especially when female characters were speaking, I felt like I was listening not to the authentic women of the era, but 21st century feminist spirits who had sneaked into their bodies to make retro-satirical remarks. I don't think dialogues should be written through the lens of people who are observing the reality of the character from above and beyond. These women likely had a totally different mindset, and would hardly come up with phrases to make the hearts of SJWs of the women's empowerment cause melt.
It escaped me if the native girl's abuser was the husband of her older sister or his own father or something. But that scene in the tent was notable and kept my interest in the story arc awake.
Finally: Yeah, I get that monochrome palettes work best to depict a particular mood, especially when the surrounding is naturally fit for such artistic preference. But still, I found the overall photograpy too colorless and dull. My screen settings might have helped a bit, however the rejection of any kind of brightness looked over the top for that first episode.
Sometimes it is better to stick to black and white. This way, you at least make a constant declaration on the artistic choice of rejecting whatever positive feelings true colors would bring.
The Laundromat (2019)
Overcaricaturized
I hate it when a well-established director uses seemingly endless resources, top cast and notable marketing merely to come up with such mediocre results. Soderbergh has the luxury to act on what every film and tv student dreams of doing, yet, at this point in his career he is not delivering better results than those penniless youngsters.
I must admit that I did enjoy those little plays and twists with context, location and characters. But that didn't last long. What I hoped was a prelude to something mightier and thought-provoking proved to become the very fabric of the whole movie. With multiple characters and stories scattered around, one would expect to find an all-encompassing virtue, message, heck, even a "feeling" of sorts, something resembling the cement of classics like Pulp Fiction or Amores Perros.
Alas, the bits and pieces of information, moments and narration lead to nothing, while not even having strong moments of humor or tension within themselves.
Were Antonio Banderas and Gary Oldman really in this movie? Were they in character as we watched them, expecting them to add some strong tones to the chaotic and overly cartoonish flow? Sorry, but they weren't even in sync with regards to how big they were supposed to play. Oldman had extended his liberty to something like a Mr. Gadget while Banderas looked a bit more fixated on the grounds of reality.
It's hard to call a movie BAD when certain elements really do look and sound very authentic, professional and well-thought. And it's only because of this that we cannot call The Laundromat a bad movie. It's a bad attempt at what could have been a good movie.
Damn... Despite all the struggle put out by Soderbergh, I didn't even understand what exact loopholes those shell companies were operating on and what the outcome of this "scandal" is for today.
That was such a miss on so many levels.
Castle: The Blue Butterfly (2012)
Castle keeps following the footsteps of Moonlighting
This episode is almost exactly the same with how Maddie Hayes and David Addison found themselves in an unsolved mystery of the 1940s.
Heck, I'm pretty sure the executive team literally talked among themselves how they could recreate the same taste with Castle and Beckett.
For those who have no idea what I'm saying here: Moonlighting was the top series of the late 1980s. It starred Sybill Shepherd and the then-unknown Bruce Willis. It remains the greatest ever detective duo show of all time and at the peak of its well-deserved height they delivered many whacky stories, coming up with the most fun moments in TV history.
Their agency was called Blue Moon and that particular episode was soaked in the classical song The Blue Moon.
I applaud the creators of Castle for taking the example of such a great show, and I suspect the name of the jewelry, The Blue Butterfly, may even be a semi-veiled homage to that Moonlighting episode.
In comparison to said source, I'd say this one is, though quite entertaining and equal in spirit, still a step back. And that's because they have made even this story a li'l bit too complicated to let us enjoy the ambiance. Moonlighting was great because its stories were written in a fashion to place the adventures and the unspoken love affair of our duo in the first place, using the mystery merely as tool. For Castle has a much more strict (and IMO, at times unnecessary) whodunnit structure to fall back to, they are overcomplicating even such very special episodes.
Yeah... Dig a bit deep into a quarter of a century back and watch that Moonlighting episode... You'll get what I mean.