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Reviews
Nomadland (2020)
First watch it and then read up on it
Here are instructions to watch this movie as a profound experience:
Watch it without researching anything about the background of this movie. (Don't even focus on the awards and nominations.)
You'll probably find it slow, melancholic maybe even boring. That's ok, keep watching.
Now pay attention to the credits and read the trivia section here and then the page of this movie on Wikipedia. Now read interviews with the supporting actors (e.g. Bob Wells).
Now realize what you have just seen...
BÚÉK (2018)
Fortunately for the movie, I saw the Hungarian remake before the original
It's a fairly good movie, but about 90% of it is a bit-by-bit copy of the original: same dialogs, same scenes, same twists, up until the very end where this move takes a little bit a different turn than the original (although I'm not sure if this is unique for the Hungarian version, there a quite a few remakes of Perfetti sconosciuti - 2016, so even that deviation may been invented by someone else.)
Long story short, the original is better, that one offers you much less resolution and leaves you with much more unease than this version, which is overall lighter in every sense. If you saw the original you can definitely skip this one> but if you saw this one, the original might still offer just a bit more (there are worse ways to spend 96 minutes of your life...)
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Disney made it into a money mule, JJ Abrans disrespected
Just like he did it with the Star Trek franchise, JarJar Abrams came, saw and crapped all over the original spirit, mythology and feel of the original Star Wars (and by original I mean ep I to VI).
Basically he only used the brand, it could have been any new category B superhero action movie. With the references to Dune and Portal games, I'm honestly considering that he actually hates Star Wars and wanted to troll the fans.
Stat Wars never was a Scifi movie or strong on logic, but it mostly made sense within the confines it set up for itself (what can the force do, the dark side's strategies to take over or to flip heros to their side. Well, not in this one, let's break to rules of the Universe for the last two hours of the Saga for completely unnecessary twists, and make wild illogical happenings into a "master plan" thag was going on all along.
Oh, and by the way, the big answer on Rey's origin, well the timeline doesn't really fit or it would need a whole lot of explanation but there was basically none.
Code 8 (2019)
Not scifi, not smart
Nothing new, a mix of superhero genre, a not so subtle metaphor for racism and segregatiom, a bit of heist, and a really non-end ending.
Too slow for an action movie, too dumb for anything else.
There will be nothing that you haven't seen somewhere else, and even if this is the first time the same ingredients have been used in this exact mix, the whole does not amount to anything more than the sum of its parts.
You won't miss anything if you skip this movie.
You'll probably miss that 90 minutes if you don't skip it.
Ad Astra (2019)
Got not much to do with science
And definitely nothing to do with science-fiction.
Paradise Hills (2019)
Really terrible
I guess this movie was really meant for a female audience. It's not scifi, only uses future and advanced technology to get away with otherwise unexplainable things. Not a single good guy, not a single strong female character. Everyone is 2D. This movie is basically a fairy tail for girls. (And not even a good one of that.)
Liu lang di qiu (2019)
Yes it's bad, but
But it's not bad enough to make you laugh. Anyway, the only reason I'm writing this review to call attention to the visual inconsistencies.
Yes the story is bad, physics and logic are raped, and the characters are so forgettable that I had a hard time distinguishing them from each other (yes I did notice the one guy --the brother-- wore a red suit, and the other 3 to 6 or 7 guys wore white, and 1-to 3 had glasses).
But the visuals had some promise...
The CGI generated frozen Shanghai has a completely different layout from every angle. The Radio Tower in one scene is only covered by ice from about 170°, but when the scout copter flies around it, it's completely frozen all around, except for the top sphere. The Jin Mao Tower is missing or moved across the crevasse. The distance between the Shanghai Tower and Sh. World Finance Center varies hugely in every scene. So the interesting thing is that they did not create a 3D model of their frozen Shanghai and render it from different angles, but for each angle they recreated it (by someone who has no depth perception). (Or maybe it was propaganda to include those buildings in as many scenes as possible?)
Similar thing happens with object is Space.
Btw, where did the vomit go?
I'm also comforted by the thought that the flag on the United Earth uniform is the Chinese flag on top of a symbolized green earth with blue background flag.
Rim of the World (2019)
So much velocity, suddenly lost.
This movie starts out as genuinely cute and gives smiles, laughs and good to OK twists, up until the Adidas advertisement in the middle (roughly), after that turns completely unrealistic (not just plotwise, but sudden character growths, everyone has to face their own personal weakness, etc.) and then the story uses nothing but clichés.
I was foreseeing that the final twist will be that the camp was actually a therapeutic computer simulation for kids, so much was on the nose. (But no.)
Vice (2018)
I'm really fed up with true stories that aren't
Do a quick online search on how accurate this movie is and you will find that both political sides will agree that all the nasty stuff in it is either entirely fiction or biased speculation.
They did not do the Fing best as they claim.
And if you take away the "true story" claim, the movie loses all of its edges. The make ups are indeed interesting, but for me, still in the uncanny valley. (Just like The Darkest Hour was.)
The House That Jack Built (2018)
Pretentious non-sense (very general spoilers below, they might not be considered spoilers at all)
Pretentious, forced. It only works on meta level. It's trying just as hard to be special just as its title character. There are some nice stills, but those are also feel forced and very artificial. If you are looking for merit, you'll only find superficial, shallow, sweaty tries. If you're looking for easy fun and grit as a thriller style (think Saw!) you'll be majorly disappointed and bored out of your mind, with the random documentary footages, and slow scenes. There's no new art in it, just the flashing of other pieces of art and trying to measure up to them. And failing in this effort.
Also the OCD aspect is just a gimmick to fill the 30 minutes out of the 2.5 hours: the symptoms of the disorder are painted fairly precisely, but the OCD forced actions are not present before OCD first mentioned (e.g. in the first murder) and swiftly swept away after. (As Good As It Gets in comparison is consistent at least if not this accurate in exploring this mental disease.)
And that's the ultimate flaw in this movie: what mental problems does have Jack, because we see OCD, sociopathic, psychopathic and authistic behaviors and god knows what else. (I only have brief familiarity with psychology and psychiatry.)
Btw, then superb intellect and verbal abilities of Jack are not present in the movie. Although, since the and of the movie and with it the complete narration, is open to interpretation -- a very cheap tool nicely fitting among the other cheap tools throughout the movie --, it might be that these are just Jack's egoistic thoughts about himself.)
You will only loose a short sigh (and a few minutes grunting the next day when you complain about this film), if you miss it.
Manbiki kazoku (2018)
Nothing to take away from it.
As others mention, this movie starts slow and progressively gets slower. I can appreciate an art movie, but this one will be forgotten in a few years. I does not show you new worlds, does not change your perspective on anything, it does not make you think, it just shows you:
- artificially long scenes about people wasting away ("twist": some of them are kind),
- brief flashes of bad parenting
- kids adapting to what's offered to them without knowing anything else.
It's slow two hours of your life, that won't make you a better/happier/wiser person. Some expositions are nice though for the first few seconds, then you'll get bored with them, then a few minutes later, we move to the next one. An other big annoyance is that the movie purposefully holds back information that is available for all characters. This information is then later revealed in small doses, but nothing justifies this approach other than artificially creating "suspense" for the audience. (I.e. in the first hour, you're guessing what is the situation with these people and their relationship.)
Two things could have made it better:
- If it was a true story (then I could accept that nothing really thought-provoking happens, but then it would desperately need to stick with one of the characters and see the "story" from their point of view.
- Cutting it to less than 70 minutes.
If you don't watch it, you won't miss anything. If you give it a try and leave it, you won't miss anything.
Prospect (2018)
Would not classify it Scifi
Space, moons, spaceships are all just setting here. Nothing about this is actually science fiction. The usual survival/action movie about a duo trying to get rich and out of a lawless, deadly "island". Nothing new. You'll never regret not seeing this movie.
It's not terribly bad, not annoyingly stupid (although your brain won't be engaged in any way). I would have given it a solid 4 out of 10 if it wasn't for the "scifi" bait.
There was absolutely no reason why this story should take place in the future or on a distant celestial object (which looked just like Earth, due to budget constraints, I would assume).
Acting was good, although I don't think the script was especially challenging for them, nor did we see unique performances. Again, nothing new we haven't seen (or played as a computer game) before.
The Kindergarten Teacher (2018)
Less would be much more.
Very interesting concept, and a beautiful ending.
The critique of society's general stance on the value of art is a bit on the nose, but the teacher's psychology is well portrayed, even if the pace of her journey speeds up a lot suddenly. What was totally unnecessary is the dynamic between the poetry teacher and kindergarten teacher, and the long held scenes. It felt like they're there just to extend this feature to a fell length movie. I think it would have been better to have the pace (the big jumps) of the last 10 minutes throughout the whole second half. This story would have worked better as a short story, or in 60 minute format. For example as an episode of Black Mirror (even though, this is not about technology induced problems, well... not directly).