Change Your Image
phelix-josie
Reviews
Dark State (2021)
For the sheeple who think they took the red pill
... but really are injecting bleach and eating their own limbs. From opposite-land where truth has nothing to do with facts and the most prized degree is in narcissistic psychopathy, with minors in methods of coercive control and projection. Makes sense that the director and main actress have this sole "credit."
This tripe is a love letter to those in thrall to Abomination, a snake issuing forth rivers of lies. An imbecile of low cunning, who would rather destroy an entire postal service than allow an election to happen. Lawd save us from the orange-t@rds.
Parallel (2018)
One of us is dumb
At 21:32 they start to work out the time difference between worlds. At 22:05 they say that 1 minute in their world equals 3 hrs in the other world. Then at 24:53 they say time runs "significantly slower" in the parallel universes.
But if 1min here = 3hrs there, doesn't that mean time here runs slower??
Didn't finish because I can't suspend disbelief if they can't get their own premise right. If I'm wrong... eh, sorry.
IMO Primer is better.
The Jack in the Box (2019)
Child's Play & Friday 13th the Series in England!
This is an amazing movie, cosmology and all. In fact I think there are several other great flicks nested in this one.
Also cool, is the hunta-English accent within the main actor Ethan's English accent. I think I've finally isolated what gives even fairly good American accents away among the brits: the correct English enunciation of consonants. To the American ear, it creates telltale vowel lilts. Try as we might, we can only find use in the end sounds of consonants. We think of them as the letters' purpose and don't understand when our English friends try to explain the difference between apparently identical consonant sounds😄
But when we hear the proper English consonant within an American accent, we get it... whether we understand precisely what we're hearing or not.
Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)
Seems set in US
I think this is the first Universal Sherlock Holmes, after Fox had to drop it. Everything looks and seems pretty American.
And the actress who played the girlfriend had the most gratingly confusing attempt at an English accent ... which sounded at most like an inconstant ... and bad English accent.
Red Rock (2015)
Good acting; attractive style; too dumb
Do the Gardai really do massive searches for adult daughters who storm off from their fathers? I mean 18 or 19 years old means "adult" in ROI doesn't it?
As for the cops who brought in the assholish CEO, could they seriously not more accurately explain the course of events that led them to bring the guy in? I'm not a big cop fan, but they were justified. And they didn't leave him alone for 36 minutes. For most of that time, the two arresting cops were standing outside the cell listening to the guy rage, waiting for him to calm down so they could let him go.
Then there's Garda Sharon who seems to have no game in the game. I kept thinking that surely she was at least recording him.
Chief McKay is nice, and Katie's dad is pretty funny. But there are really no characters I'm truly rooting for. They're either nasty, gormless or cowardly. The things that save it are Dublin and the accents.
Gone (2011)
Emotion-heavy, perspective-lite
Maybe there should be two movies, one with the extensive emotional scenes for all the mothers who want to cry along... and another one for those of us satisfied with one brief cry.
Even if the socio-political climate in Vienna is so corrupt that every friendly ear is too afraid to help... or talk, the documentary mentions the private citizens by name, so it might as well explain where they went... what their responses were to each roadblock.
The gay bookstore owner. Was he one and done? What did he have to say to the aggressively cruel stonewalling done at the meeting with the ostensible LGBQ police representative? I assume the "investigator" who mocked Kathy was that 'friendly' contact... though Kathy does not say so explicitly.
Her descents into semi-coherent emotionalism is understandable. But why did the director give it so much footage? Was an emotional appeal considered that much stronger than focus on facts?
There were facts about the police, the names of the two Kafkanoir detectives, with their bare, cynical cruelty. There were a couple first names of UNIDO staff, but when given they were often in passing, along with occasional mention of their capacity. But it was hard to keep track of, and relationships/contexts weren't reinforced and followed up on for context.
I wish the director hadn't made it so much "Kathy's Story" and had instead had her round out her accounts, including naming all names... at least officials, politicians, UNIDOS and sauna staff. What was the name, rank and situation of the LGBQ-friendly cop? Was it just the UNIDO psychologist, that guy and Kathy? Why did UNIDO send a psychologist with her? Was it that same person who was also in HR? What did the bookstore guy have to say? Did he not care to help afterward? Was he too scared? Couldn't be arsed? Is Vienna so corrupt that their aren't queer activist orgs able and willing to shout all this long and loud, make demands, conduct media and action campaigns? It was clear from a distance that the police org considered it a sport to jerk around mothers of missing sons. Certainly no alliance was really viable there.
Where did her son's partner go? Was the neighbor just a neighbor, not a friend? Did Aeryn have other friends, workmates... who could/would help?
Considering previous scandals involving UN child sex rings, and UNIDOS doing a such a quick so-sorry-for-your-loss-now-GET-OUT ... are the sauna, cops, and UN in collusion?
Who all were involved in the big new investigation... that, of course, was then delegated to the police... to investigate themselves ( much like ... everywhere :( ) ?
What grassroots outreach was done besides one mother walking around Vienna with a candle and a picture of her son? Is there a website or subreddit where witnesses / informants could submit info or vid/images, and people could discuss?
Could we see the correspondence with the embassy, politicians, LE contacts?
In this documentary, for viewers like me, the tears obscure the story. I care... but not enough to walk step by step with a stranger through all their tears... especially when it seems the emotional response is robbing precious moments of possibly meaningful action.
To myself and others I often say "Crisis is no time to panic. There's too much at stake. We can panic when it's over, across a pint."
I imagine this is a powerful movie for those adept at grieving along. For me it's a 6, tops.
Knives Out (2019)
Enjoyable classic
This is indeed reminiscent of Agatha Christie mysteries. Not super high energy or dark. Some light drama. Some light humor. Plausible if unlikely intrigue.
One thing though: 100mg morphine would take 10 seconds to start affecting ... pretty much any user. Likely the actual OD would take that long or less. There wouldn't be several minutes of coherent conversation.
Silent Witness: Safe: Part 2 (2008)
Expendables - A Tone-deaf Fairy Tale
The last scene of the episode helps add the "/s" after the nominal title "Safe," trying to attest its "wokeness" with a token of sarcasm.
When Prince Velvet Suit Leo gets community service for a dui ... driving home from an awards function *in his honor*, he deigns to take a tragically naive interest in the messed up lives of poor black folk trapped in estate gang culture. Mid-way, Leo literally sashays into a crime scene ... of a brutally murdered boy close to his new 'hood acquaintances... in a purple velveteen suit, all perplexed concern. Later, the dead boy's understandingly terrified younger 10yo brother, under heavy gang recruitment, reluctantly confides in Leo, who 'promises him he'll be safe.'
Leo 'shares' with the police... who march on down to the boy's door, where he lives with his useless mom and much younger brother and sister. This is an obvious death sentence for the younger brother... whose hood is really policed by everpresent gang operatives... and whose recent offenses against the local gang was failing to knife a rival gang member.
When the boy is discovered dying of wounds from an attack dog, police refuse to let paramedics in for roughly 20 minutes because there might be vicious dogs around. That seals the boy's death warrant.
When Leo discovers this, he's flummoxed, offended and astounded! He's outraged! He feels betrayed... guilty! It's all his fault says his creased brow, begging for absolution ... which comes quickly and easily from his cohorts.
He presses for a result from his colleague that would indict the cops in the death, but his colleague declines... because "truth" ... even though both expand their concept of "truth" to "truthy" in later episodes when 'victims' more closely matched the team. (Question: For English people who have the ability to do that weird, down-turned square thing with their lower lip : Do they do that to try to remain cute when saying something insufferable? Cuz it has the opposite effect of exponentializing the affront. Looking at you "Harry.")
Finally, Leo gets evidence that helps criminally bumbling, exASPerated local cop arrest neighborhood gang leader for statutory rape. Which will just mean a short holiday inside. And the other gang members roam freely. And the boy's mom and 2 young siblings remain living in the same place.
The white people arrest a gang leader for a negligible offense and attend a black funeral. They are redeemed and cheered by young disadvantaged children ... who are still being stalked by gangs and neglect. And the white people live happily ever after. With their upper crust black spouse and other non-expendables. So they're NOT RACIST!
What a reliably tone-deaf fairy tale.
Silent Witness: Shadows: Part 1 (2010)
Shadows
This episode came out in 2010. Was it really impossible to turn down/off your phone's sounds in that remote antediluvian epoc?
Is British "active shooter" response training so far behind the US? Even common sense would dictate that, if there's a shooter and you're in a room with a lockable door, you lock the door, turn off the lights and hunker down as far away from gunshots as possible. You don't display your gloriously tossled head of hair for many many minutes ... RIGHT in front of the door's small square window.
If u hear the shooter outside, you don't sit next to the door and whisper HAS ANYONE GOT A PHONE?!!! Then proceed to call... really anyone. The two towers went down 9 years prior. Is there anyone who isn't aware that phone lines get clogged in emergencies, but text lines usually remain functional. TEXT if there's a shooter outside your door, don't blinking CALL!!! What are you Nikki? An 80yr old octopus? No thumbs?!!
Just the whole thing is ugh. This show, with its clueless, self-congratulatory, gliblipped Neo-liberals... make it a seriously questionable binge.
* I'm really not a Faux News watcher, but I'm starting to understand their contempt for smug, toothless good intentions.
The Family I Had (2017)
Yank that soapbox
This was way too much of a platform for the mom, Charity... a badly conceived moniker if there ever was one. She was really shocked by what her son Paris did? It's inexplicable? SERIOUSLY?!
First, she grooms Paris as her little man, the little boy who "saved her life." Then Ella is born, and she takes his place as the most favored child. That would be a stark difference after so long, and it's doubtful that Charity spent much time reinforcing her continuing love of Paris. Instead she just lumped her first child with judgment, neglect and co-parenting responsibilities.
Paris' absentee dad had paranoid schizophrenic symptoms. His mom Charity was off doing coke when he was 12 and Ella was 3, leaving Paris to care for Ella. He ended up in a psych ward around that time. The facility insisted he should remain there, but his mom wouldn't have it. Five or six months later, he killed Ella.
The mom says she has never wanted the dads to be part of her children's lives because she doesn't like to share or compromise. She has cut her son off from his grandma for sending Paris admittedly objectionable reading materials. However the grandma seems to be the one who actually still sees her grandson Paris as a person and is somewhat self-aware. His mom has successfully cut him off from the one adult who cares about him.
The mom is in DEEP denial about her behavior and the toll it takes on those around her. As the documentary progresses, you see more and more that she thinks she is "woke," that she's accountable for her actions, that everyone around her is wrong, that she's the expert... on everything. She's extremely arrogant, defensive, self-focused and manipulative. It seems clear that, given a choice between her children and her, she'll decide in her own favor without a moment's true regret.
She sees herself as a victim and her son as The Perpetrator. She martyrs herself by "allowing contact" between Paris and new child Phoenix... saying "I love you" to Paris... sounding like she's strangling. She says she "forgives" Paris, but rips all his letters in two. That's creepily juvenile and psychotic. She seems much sorrier for herself than for her children.
Even the grandma seems more reflective and prone to try to understand Paris. She does seem inappropriate in terms of material she sends, but she seems to care about her grandson, to see him and hear him, and understand. She doesn't see herself as above him.
The mom fits squarely in clinical description of a narcissist. She is in total denial about her culpability for her child's actions and continued suffering. She's all about herself, doesn't want to share or compromise, says she has no regrets, seems to take satisfaction when relaying stories or conversations that demonize her eldest son and no feeling around him except defensiveness.
Lies just seep out of her mouth. She talks about integrity, how she has forgiven Paris, how she doesn't want to be a hypocrite. But it's clear she's lying and manipulating him ... and trying to manipulate everyone around her. It's absolutely disgusting.
Charity seems like a total narcissist with a rotation of fatherless golden children. She knows everything. None of the wrongs she has done really matter. "Look at me. Feel bad for me. See how strong and honest I am. Look at my life, the living gravestone of my dead golden child. Observe all I've done and marvel."
And she makes no sense. At 1:15:15 she tries to reinforce the demonization of her son ... retroactively. "I say to people, 'If you don't believe my son is a sociopath, you just wait til he gets out of prison. He has to become a sociopath to survive.'" So... the result of her awful parenting proves her right, indemnifying her? Yeah, no...
At the start of the doc, I liked Charity. But I came to loathe her and her repetitive self-aggrandizement so much I turned it off near the end. I wish I'd done that sooner.
The Prodigy (2019)
Why waste the potential?
The makings were there, despite this movie's premise being done often and often well, eg Child's Play :D
Others have detailed well this film's shortcomings. I'm left with two unaddressed questions. (I wish this was still a forum.):
1. What parents, especially of a 6yo kid who acts out violently, lets them play first-person shooter games? I guess they exist. Adam Lanza's mom bought her son guns and left bullets scattered around in peanut cans. So anything's possible, I suppose.
2. Are parents like these really representative of normal suburban folk? I often felt like I was playing a Scary Movie parody in my head when they failed to question and react to strange things the kid said and did... and their knee jerk rejection of any explanation that seemed "weird." It's not that I subscribe to the weirdness, but give me a kid like Miles, and all bets are off. I'll consider whatever information that comes my way, fast and early. But I guess that's the eternal joke trope: people in horror movies have never watched horror movies :D.
Pioneer One (2010)
Interesting and reasonable well done
Maybe there are other stories out there like this, but I haven't run across any with these particular details. It's intriguing, fairly well-paced and feasible (to an uninformed civilian like me).
The acting is a little hollow but generally believable enough to not be distracting. There is a reasonable amount of character development. But I get the impression that someone, at some point, exclaimed "where's the humanity?!!" or the like.
Then they wrote in the blond nurse from the childrens' cancer ward and the pissed off convenience store girlfriend. And farmed the parts out to crushes, girlfriends or granddaughters. The scenes with the childrens' nurse are unwatchable and taint every actor that shares a scene with her. They stand out so starkly, I wish they could be edited out... and replaced with characters summarizing any pertinent information around her character's interaction with the subject. As it is, I just fast forward through them.
Generally good submission from what I assume are less experienced writers, director and actors, at a very low budget. It would be nice to see them in future productions, with more resources, to get a better idea of what they're capable of.
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Shared Vision
Other reviewers perceptively talked about the dysfunctional exchange between mother and son being the prime mover. Also the son's desire to isolate the mother. And the dad being a means to an end, the sister collateral damage.
Also shared by mother and son is a canny perceptiveness. Babies are necessarily perceptive. Some say autistic children are better at systems. That part of their problem is that they have trouble ignoring the patterns they see... that are inconceivable to normal people.
If they're clever, they isolate the mechanisms and mimic acceptable behavior.
I think, as a toddler, Kevin saw that he and his mother were alike, but she had successfully repressed or repackaged the unhappy, alienated portions of herself. He saw the divide between them, then what she wanted him to do to continue the lie of engagement.
He could fool everyone else. Those who didn't know him could love him. The one who knew him couldn't. So he created a Faraday Cage for them. And she decided to stay and claim what she owned.
Special Correspondents (2016)
Passable
We get the critique of media. It's about 20 years late of "edgy." I love Ricky Gervais, so this haltingly paced movie is watchable. But I found it impossible to watch long enough to figure out how they finally made it out of the country.
Also, I love Kelly McDonald (from Gosford Park), but is trying out an American accent a rite of passage now? I'm an afficionado of failed attempts. and hers is a delicacy.
The Night Shift (2014)
Knockoff of The Resident?
Bored and looking for something new but not too challenging, I watched some of the Night Shift because Ken Leuong is in it; I loved his cameos as Leon in Person of Interest.
I stopped watching a few episodes into S2 because the show seemed to be an alternate universe The Resident.
Similar...
Cast size and makeup
Lead man - troubled nonconformist genius hero
Lead woman - lead man's ex
Leads cycle through mismatched romantic availability
Relationship statuses cycle increasingly fast
Gives candy-takes candy back
Excess of irony and emotional manipulation
Characters wear increasingly thin as they struggle to maintain relevance by resolving increasingly bizarre, dire problems.
Cast changes start mid S2 and gain velocity
A couple of characters have troublesome parents.
I wish I could think of more specifics, but the main thing the Night Shift has in common with The Resident and other similar shows is a clear lack of long term dedication to coherent, character-driven shows. It's like they change to inferior writers by S2... or hire writers that lose the plot or don't have a big enough bucket of interesting plot/character ideas. And the cast and viewers suffer the loss.
Anon (2018)
DFE delete is Insipid everything
Anon is probably the picture definition of cybernoir, a dimmer Gattaca, with the sound journal of Element of Crime. It positions itself about 20 years after the end of Person of Interest, once Guardian's code has been hacked and patched by unimaginative coders and expensive-upkeep machine surveillance replaced by ubiquitous bio-crowdsource wetware.
The characterizations are thinner renderings of those in Children of Men. Some of the acting was a bit flat, but it's possible it was late-40s-50s-style to support the noirish flavor. The plot tells just enough really. The details and backstory served well enough to bring home the terror of erased memories (to me). I think i got the gist of the villain's motivation, but I could've missed something.
The examination of technology and its incorporation into policing, the legal system and crime is frightening, regardless of plotholes. The term "transparency" gets turned on its head and refers to the government's right to know everything about us, instead of our right to knowledge about the actions of our government.
In this era of increasing mechanization of surveillance, analysis, decision-making, information sharing, deepfakes and warfare, this movie looks at some possible pitstops along the way to complete loss of autonomy, self and the concept of truth. It also incorporates some tried and true social engineering, ala Funny Games.
The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz (2000)
Ketchup With Kafka
I could go on and on. But first, Hi Bert!
Polished Eraserhead Metropolis, 30s/80s style indie with more polish. A few "extra" madcap scenes that tried the dead, but overall spectacular. Fantasy all-day marathon:
9 Lives of Thomas Katz
Element of crime (sewer grate motif)
Pontypool
Decoder
Kontroller
Pi
Dave Dies in the End
Coffee and cigarettes
Metropolis