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Reviews
Leave the World Behind (2023)
Don't waste your time
Do you want your movie to be thrilling? Satisfying? Emotional? Exciting? Interesting?
Well this movie will be none of those things. Opposite in fact.
Apparently it thinks that entertainment comes from the most boring takes with a bit of music added to try and make them seem interesting. Look a deer! Now let's stare at it all confused.
Here's a bunch of unlikeable characters. They're gonna have annoying dialogue that occasionally pretends like it has something to say about the state of the world, but it won't say anything of note or make any observations that are illuminating or insightful or meaningful in anyway whatsoever.
Anyways we are just gonna waste two hours of your life like this and then the movie is suddenly going to end and we will pretend like we did our job of crafting a work of art.
The Pope's Exorcist (2023)
A wonderful comedy
This movie is incredibly funny. I'm pretty sure it knows it's funny and that's on purpose but in the off-chance it doesn't honestly that just makes it even funnier.
Chubby Crowe drives around in a Vespa everywhere doing an abhorrent Italian accent. It's so bad. It's so good! Wonderful hilarity.
If you know that it's based on the "true stories" of a real life Catholic dude it makes it even better imagining the mundane reality that was embellished by this guy to make himself the hero of the story.
The ending of the movie has the funniest text overlay. Not really a spoiler but be warned in case you're extra sensitive. Russell Crowe wrote books about his exorcisms. THE BOOKS ARE GOOD. Those last 4 words are exactly what is written on screen. Like I said, it is a comedy.
Kaleidoscope (2023)
Horrible writing with a horrible gimmick
Even with the gimmick of the shuffled play order aside, this is a horribly written show.
Is the purpose of a narrative to feel suspense and tension? Or a satisfying conclusion? Or just to empathise and be emotionally connected with the characters?
Whatever your answer to the above questions rest assured you will not find any of them in this horrible show.
It's like they Frankensteined it out of the rotten limbs of other better written heist shows and movies. Then sprinkled the gimmick on top like SaltBae trying to upsell his terrible steaks.
I don't know where to begin with breaking down all the bad narrative choices and honestly that would be more effort than this Netflix branded atrocity deserves so just take my word for it, it's bad!
Go watch the Oceans movies again and save yourself the trouble.
Interview with the Vampire (2022)
Campy, funny, dramatic, emotional
Wasn't expecting a lot from a spin-off tv show that was already done as a movie, but I'm so so glad I watched this show.
They've done every good creative decision and surprised and delighted me.
The main character is black now, but oh wait it actually affects the plot? They acknowledge the racist horrible real world and don't just make it an alternative reality where everyone is magically race blind?
They make the gay subtext text but actually use it as a way to explore queer relationships and how screwed up they can be like all human relationships not just play for brownie points from Twitter?
Oh also the show is incredibly well written, produced, and acted with genuine emotional engagement and shocking dramatic twists?
This show is very very good. I mow want to go and read all the Anne Rice books (for the first time) and then rewatch looking for lore clues while eagerly anticipating the next season to find out how they'll adapt and change the books to television. The last time this happened was Game of Thrones. Yeah, this show is on that level!
American Gigolo (2022)
Terrible drama, great comedy
I'm pretty sure this show is meant to be a moody serious drama. All haunted characters walking around with wistful stares and flashbacks to their sordid pasts.
On that level, the show fails pretty spectacularly. As a comedy though, it's a mild success. There's just something funny about a male prostitute with a heart of gold.
If this show was honest about the gritty dark realism it's trying to depict he'd be having gay sex for money with all kinds of degenerate dudes, but no. In this show the sad haunted gigolo is banging suspiciously attractive older ladies who all need him to bang not just their aged coochies but also their aged hearts.
It just makes for an unintentionally hilarious combination.
The Patient (2022)
Should've been a (short) movie
10 episodes at about 20 minutes each that's 200 minutes so the whole show is about 3 hours long.
Lots of movies have been 3 hours long. More than three hours long. Those movies had an actual story to tell that required that runtime.
This season of streaming content? It did NOT need all those episodes. It did NOT need all those minutes. It had about 90 minutes (and even that would be stretching it) of story to tell and decided to fluff it up with a whole bunch of nothing.
Here's some fantasy sequences. Oh we decided we need a character for the protagonist to talk to so here's his mind palace with a magical black man. Hmmm ok more time to waste. Let's add a few periphery characters that do nothing.
This is like one of those cakes made out of nothing but fondant. You scrape and scrape away all the tasteless ugly ornamentation and then when you finally get to the cake... oh crap it was a bad bland cake this whole time.
Not worth the time. Even if you just want background noise, there's better sounds to distract yourself.
Pass on this crappy pretentious show.
Persuasion (2022)
High's and Lows
One of the weirdest mixed bags of a movie I've ever experienced.
The main storyline about the love that got away, totally works. It's beautiful and I honestly cried my eyes out at the scene on the beach I could feel and see the restrained love and affection on the actors' faces it was beautiful.
Unfortunately that gem of a scene in a pretty good storyline was in a weird mess of a movie. Is the problem how the other character were treated, suddenly being dropped unceremoniously by the movie? Some of the strange dialogue choices which cringe with "how do you do fellow kids" energy? How some of the classic Jane Austen themes are given lip service with on the nose dialogue but never expressed otherwise?
I can't say which of those problems is the movies biggest failure as clearly as I can say what was easily the movie biggest success.
The Legend of Tarzan (2016)
Offensively Bad
WTF this movie is bad on every level. The staging, the writing, the direction, and above all the themes and morals of the story.
This is a white saviour narrative written by a bunch liberals who were clearly like "hmm, white saviour narratives are bad, and colonialism is bad, but what are we going to do not be western capitalists?"
I feel like I could read an academic paper eviscerating this awful movie and enjoy it more than the experience of seeing this horrible dreck.
The Bear (2022)
Over the top parody of itself
Saw positive reviews so I decided to check it out and found another show falling prey to white sides over-inflated sense of self-dramatisation.
Everyone yells and the camera zooms and darts around for dramatic close ups. You'd think the stakes were life or death, but no it's just idiots making a sandwich.
If the show had any self awareness it'd be funny like the Lego Movie, but instead it's the type of thing the Lego Movie would parody.
The Lost Daughter (2021)
Sad faces and flashbacks
This movie was so damn boring. The whole thing is just a mopey faced old lady looking at the sea and then flashbacks to her stupid life where she was a terrible terrible mother.
Other than how amazing it is that there's a whole genre of art & literature about white women being terrible parents, there is nothing remarkable about this movie. Just a completely forgetful waste of time.
Inventing Anna (2022)
Fascinating story told in a boring way
The real life, ripped from the headlines nature of this story is intriguing subject matter. Perfect fodder for the sensationalised shallow late-capitalist era.
The way this very modern story is told, is through the most boomer-ish style imaginable. Complete with hokey framing device featuring the most hateable boring characters.
This show feels like it's missing the commercial breaks to hawk Viagra.
Hopefully some better artists get inspired from the same source material to make something actually worth watching.
Nine Films About Technology (2021)
Shallow, stupid, grating
This could've been an opportunity to say something insightful. To make meaningful commentary about how our lives have changed due to technology in recent times.
Instead it's an annoying slog of the most insufferable people in the dumbest situations that provides the dumbest "social commentary." Seriously, a granny could've come up with these episode premises they are so insipid.
Do not waste your time on this crap.
Red Notice (2021)
A crime against humanity
Beyond the poor craftsmanship and the utterly mediocre acting, writing, and directing this movie is an ideologically despicable text.
Interpol is the world police, sending people seemingly without trial or representation to jails around the world. These are, the movies would like us to believe, the good guys. The world of this movie is inherently fascist which I guess makes the Nazi fetishism make sense.
In the final act, stolen Egyptian heirlooms are returned to Egypt. Only for interpol to show up and say: "no no no these were the Nazis possessions and now you can't have them. You're own history is a crime." Yeah that happens, along with a lot more orientalism and dehumanising of the native Egyptians which the movie does so casually I don't think any of the creators bothered thinking about the Egyptian people as actual humans.
This is truly awful stuff. Incepting hatred and bigotry into the working classes stupid entertainment. In other words, classic Hollywood. Something that the world desperately needs to leave behind.
Warning (2021)
Insipid and meaningless
How did such a poorly thought out concept get such a good cast?
This reminds me of the horrible "Movie 43" that tricked a bunch of actors into starring in a 'movie' by having them each film terrible skits.
Imagine the worst episode of Black Mirror, a total misfire, and then imagine it even worse than that. Then imagine a bunch of those episode strung together and you've got this train wreck of a movie.
Skip it, do NOT watch if you value your time at all.
Invasion (2021)
Terrible terrible writing
This show wants to be a slow burn character drama more than a wild scifi story about aliens. Ok fair.
Too bad that it fails spectacularly at any form of character creation. I genuinely hate every single character in its sprawling cast. What a terrible waste of acting talent, they deserve better.
To confound poorly drawn out characters we have dramatic tensions that are worse than the crappiest soap opera. Literally in the first two episodes we had dramatic Instagram liking and dramatic Bluetooth connecting. That might work as a comedy, but here the only joke is that these hack writers thought it would work on screen.
The show is offensive on numerous levels, but to me most impressively it's offensive on just how badly executed it is.
Afterlife of the Party (2021)
Incompetent
This genre is not looked on upon kindly, it's the patriarchy- it is what it is.
However, there's ways to do this kind of story well and there's way to do it terribly. There's ways to fail at every aspect of story telling, character development, world building, and this trash manages to fail on every level.
And that's just the narrative incompetence, the technical incompetence is on another level.
Every aspect of this movie feels like it was done by a resentful and slightly drunk angry bitter person. Netflix needs to tighten up their quality controls cause this kind of crap makes their entire service looks worse for hosting it.
Dating & New York (2021)
A crime against humanity
Think about all the talent out there struggling and suffering for their art getting no traction. Then realise that this awful awful beyond mediocre horrid piece of garbage written and directed by a clearly disturbed mind got this trash made. They dragged down actual talent on screen (Jaboukie deserves better) in this irredeemable trash.
An exemplar of everything wrong with society. The people behind this movie should be in jail.