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darylkulak
Reviews
Linoleum (2022)
Jim Gaffigan and Colin West Deliver Something Original
In a Jim Gaffigan movie, having seen his standup comedy, you would expect him to play a goofy dad in a goofy job, living in a suburban neighborhood with several kids. Right? Well, that's exactly how this movie starts. But then, you have one disturbing element after another that goes unexplained. Jim's character and the audience seem to be the only ones concerned with all the strangeness. And it turns out that the goofy dad story wasn't really the story after all.
You know how, when you're dreaming, things get all mixed up? Like, "Why is my childhood friend dripping ice cream on my new dream car?" This movie is kinda like that. (But it's not a dream sequence.)
This is one of the best movies I've seen all year. Totally original.
Not Okay (2022)
Fantastic Movie! Not Typical Hollywood
Here's a good rule of thumb for movie watching: If Zoey Deutch is in it, watch it.
After seeing Zoey in Buffaloed and Set It Up, we decided to watch Not Okay the first night it was available on streaming. So good! Deutch plays a goofy narcissist (which she often does) and nails it. The situation is interesting, shining a light on the rampant "influencer culture" of the 2020s. How stressful it must be to be an influencer! You can see Deutch's character slowly (glacially) start to understand that what she is doing, impersonating a person who has experienced immense grief, is not a good thing to do. But she keeps doing it, because it is helping every EVERY aspect of her life. Her parents coddle her more, her friends pay attention, the Internet loves her. Need I say? It doesn't last forever.
Very watchable movie.
Big Gold Brick (2022)
Fantastic Trippy Eccentric Movie!
Here is a great example why I don't trust review scores here. Great movie! Totally different than the standard tired Hollywood formula. Way beyond. And yet, a rating in the 3's? C'mon, that's nuts.
The actors turn in good performances and the story hangs together. Loopy imagined and real life scenes throughout. Not even as weird as David Lynch's stuff. A writer does a biography for a strange seemingly legendary man, then puts a self-aggrandizing spin on it later when he is doing his book tour.
We loved it. Don't be turned off by the low score, for this one or any other.
The Smart Money Woman (2020)
Can We Please All Watch This?
What a fantastic TV series! My wife and I enjoyed it from beginning to end. The characters are four fashionable women with interesting jobs and various not-so-great relationships. Sound familiar? Sex & the City with black people? No. Even better. Because, woven into every episode is advice for women on financial matters, even to the point of a short text highlight that states the educational point of that episode. Sounds heavy-handed, I know, but it isn't. The series is set in Lagos, Nigeria and there are often portals into understanding the city itself, as well as following the young women's lives.
We have so many younger friends (male and female) who manage their own money so poorly and yet don't seem to clue in to the mess they are making for themselves. This series has the answers, and they are couched in an entertaining TV series about beautiful women in stylish clothes navigating through their 20s and 30s. A masterpiece! Let's all watch it, okay?
Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)
It's Fun, Dang It
We loved Space Jam 2. The graphics are crazy-amazing. Watch it on a big-screen TV if you have one. One of the scenes took a year to animate, apparently. The story is predictable and very family-friendly.
We were amazed at how the director was able to find voice actors to mimic the voices of the Warner Brothers toons. Bugs Bunny is perfect, so is Daffy Duck and Marvin the Martian. In other cartoons made since Mel Blanc died in 1989, no one has ever been able to get those voices right. Well, this time they nailed everyone. Even Foghorn Leghorn and Yosemite Sam, which I think would be tough.
Porky Pig's rap is a high point. Since he stutters, we were wondering how he was going to pull it off, but he does!
And why aren't there "style points" in real-life professional basketball??
The majority of the reviews here show that people were offended by the focus on various Warner Brothers properties as part of the story. We loved it! It was so neat to see Pennywise in the crowd, or the Iron Giant or King Kong, or to see the worlds of Harry Potter and the Matrix and Casablanca as Lebron goes whooshing by them. We liked those movies back then and it was enjoyable to see them flash by throughout this film. Rick & Morty even make an appearance! If you like these characters, why are you mortally offended to see them in another movie? So weird.
It is true, Lebron can't act. What were you expecting? Viola Davis level acting? It's not his focus in life. But he did okay, and the people around him (his on-screen family, Don Cheadle, toon voices, etc.) did a great job.
We had a rollicking time watching this. And a big thanks to the studio for doing the day-and-date release of movies in theaters and on HBO MAX. We loved seeing this on the release night and we hope HOPE! Hope that they will continue to do this. We do not expect to ever go to a sticky-floor cell-phone-ringing people-yakking theater ever again, so having the benefit of timely movie releases at home is an amazing benefit. Thanks!!
Unbelievable (2019)
Riveting, Upsetting, Frustrating, Excellent
It's a range of emotions watching this series. Each time the detectives seem to get closer to a lead it gets wrenched away from them. All the actors do a great job, but in particular Merritt Wever. She is one of the lead detectives looking for the serial rapist. I love that these female police detectives take these cases so seriously. My wife and I discussed that this might not have happened like this even twenty years ago. Rape was something that didn't get taken seriously. And certainly there were cops in this story who didn't take it seriously enough.
Merritt's character is riveting. She has such an understated way of asserting her authority. She isn't going to give up. She isn't going to leave any holes in the investigation. Such a great series!
Sex/Life (2021)
The Lovely Sarah Shahi
This is a great series. My wife and I have just watched the first few episodes but we're already hooked. You can feel the longing that Sarah's character has for her wild single days, even though she knows the problems she is inviting but bringing that world back into her life. Her husband does not have the typical "How could you?" attitude, which makes it interesting. And Sarah Shahi is an absolute goddess. If you are frightened by nudity (as it appears a lot of reviewers are - you should probably read the title of a series before watching it), then you should definitely avoid this one. But if you like it, or don't mind, it is a fantastically interesting dive into the mind of a woman who isn't sure the life she's built is meant for her.
Sentinelle (2021)
Stylish Revenge Thriller
Olga Kurylenko plays a young French soldier who is moved from her war-time position to a boring job as a sentinel in her hometown of Nice. She goes out on the town with her sister, who is raped and almost killed by a man who, in the words of the French police, is "untouchable." This does not sit well with Olga's character, and she goes on a rampage trying to find the killer and take revenge for her sister. In the process, she becomes more and more unhinged and descends deeper into an addiction to opioids. She risks her position in the French armed forces and her entire identity just to carry out this killing.
I don't know why this movie is rated so low by so many people. Maybe men don't like a woman in the lead role of an action movie. Who knows? But I really liked it and would recommend it to you. Olga is believable in her role and seems to have trained heavily to mimic the mannerisms of an army officer. The other characters, including her mother and sister, are all believable and interesting.
Moxie (2021)
Is There Anything Higher Than a 10??
Such a great movie. It pulled us in from the start and kept getting better. Do not confuse this with a standard high school movie. There is a message and there is heart. Things get complicated just like real life. I loved it. My wife loved it. My heart is still beating fast. Who expected this from Amy Poehler?
Thunder Force (2021)
Fun Superhero Comedy
A superhero comedy? That is a twist. It comes out great and turned an ordinary Friday night into a lot of fun for my wife and me. We enjoyed it from beginning to end. Melissa McCarthy is her usual silly self, providing physical comedy and a nervous weirdness. I liked Octavia's character - a weird kid in school who makes it good in the world and invents interesting remedies for the world (and her own family). The two girls are best friends in K-12 but then lose touch in adulthood. When they get back together they become (through a series of unlikely coincidences) a superhero team.
There are lots of laughs and pretty good pacing. We've mostly become bored with the regular superhero arc but this was very different.
So --- why is my review polar opposite to almost every other review here (587 by my count at this moment)? What is going on? It is a Russian mafia reviewer swarm? If so, to what end, Vlad? Are you planning to open Hollywoodgrad?
And why are so many reviewers worried about who Melissa is married to and why he directs this movie? I read a snarky review on Slate that dwelled on this point, and now I read multiple reviews here worried about the same fact. Weird. Who cares??
It is too bad because people might think that this movie is terrible based on its many bad "wish I could give it a zero" reviews. But they shouldn't think that. It is a lot of fun. Not Oscar-bait, by any means, but do we really need every movie to be about some deep psychological drama? Really?
The Stand In (2020)
A Fun Movie
Drew Barrymore plays two lead roles in this interesting romp. There are a few good jokes and the premise is interesting. It does touch on some pretty serious issues, like whether fame is really something to grasp for or not. The "stand-in" for the famous actress is envious of her doppelganger's life, but it is not as lovely as it seems.
I really don't understand the cloud of bad reviews for movies like this. How is an uninitiated person going to look at a 4.5 rating for a movie like this and tell whether to watch it? I'm sensing a trend. So many Netflix movies are getting these terrible reviews with one-liner descriptions. Many of them are just parroting points from the media (itself often weirdly misguided). I am finding myself paying less attention to reviews here and just looking at who stars, what is the plot, etc. Maybe it is a Russian zombie swarm of reviewers for some stupid reason?
Chick Fight (2020)
A Fun Romp
My wife and I really loved this movie. Malin Akerman (Anna) is the main character, trying to put her life back together after losing her business and her mom. There are lots of laughs, many due to Anna's sidekick - Dulce Sloan (Charleen). We really felt Anna's pain as one thing after another piles up in her life. Charleen finally gives her a way out - joining an all-girl fight club. How does this help? Doesn't seem very helpful at first. Eventually, we find out the special meaning for this club for Anna. It is a typical Hollywood plot, complete with the fighting montage and happy ending. The fight scenes are very satisfying and a lot of fun. The soundtrack is especially good - somehow someone found a whole bunch of great songs that are about female empowerment and taking one's own power. The soundtrack is available on YouTube Music and so we added a few to our playlists.
So which movie were the rest of these reviewers watching? Good question. I have no earthly idea. Either the website has linked some reviews incorrectly to this movie or we have a bunch of weirdos who don't appreciate a good, fun movie. Well, we loved it!
Breaking the Waves (1996)
Really Incredible, Stays with You
Truthfully, this is a hard movie to watch. However, I suggest you do watch it. Lars von Trier is a pretty strange filmmaker, and this is a strange movie. But it does pull you in, especially due to Emily Watson's character, Bess. At the beginning, she is pure innocence; a country girl who fears God and wants to be the best person she can be. The relationship she has with her sister-in-law (Katrin Cartlidge's Dodo) is so beautiful. Dodo's husband, Bess' brother, died a few years ago, but in the aftermath, Dodo and Bess comforted each other and became steadfast friends. Bess' relationship with her new husband starts out complicated and gets worse. We don't know whether he is going to disappoint her or if he is really a good guy.
Even though it's been several days since we watched this film, you can see the details are still running around in my head. Bess will be with me for a very long time, I think. Movies come and go, but some characters are so compelling you can't part with them.
I Care a Lot (2020)
Extremely Disturbing, Twists and Turns
Rosamund Pike was wonderful in Marie Curie, but here we see a new side of this wonderful actor. She is evil. She is relentless. She goes up against the Russian mafia with claws out.
My wife and I are in later midlife, so realizing that there is an industry that preys on older people in this government-sanctioned way was positively disturbing. The water-tight tactics that the main character uses to lock people into a life of drugged-up existence where their wealth is quickly drained away brings about emotions that are difficult to shake, even a day or two later. Rosamund Pike plays this horrible character beautifully, with her severe haircut and her icy stare.
Our main reason for watching was to see Peter Dinklage again, loving him as we did in Game of Thrones. He doesn't disappoint. He's evil too, by the way. Pretty much everybody is. Dianne Wiest probably has the best line in the movie. When she finds out what Pike's character is up to, she thinks of her connection to the Russian mafia, smiles and squeals "You're in such trouble!"
I somewhat understand the negative reviews, actually. This isn't a happy-go-lucky Hollywood plot. It doesn't play nicely with all the various "rules" of a story, particularly that anyone in the story should be likeable and trying to do something good (no one is). But that didn't keep us from being engaged. Who was a good person in Breaking Bad? Peaky Blinders? Not a single character. It felt like we were experiencing a new type of thriller plot, and that, in itself, was exciting.
Heartfelt thanks to the director, J Blakeson, for showing us something new in an age of sequels and repetitiveness.