Change Your Image
matthewboulter
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
Peaky Blinders: Episode #1.1 (2013)
"Peaky Blinders" has just 'de-peaked' my interest
I heard this show was really good, so I tried it. After watching the pilot, I don't have any interest in watching anymore. Very derivative, with uninteresting characters and plot. The biggest problem I have with it is that it is so incredibly pretentious; it is trying so hard to be as good as an HBO show, that it makes me hate it even more. It's pretentious because random creative decisions are made for the sake of them being 'cool'. It feels like the filmmakers behind it just saw a bunch of really good shows, picked out things they liked and slapped it altogether to create this.
- every scene ends and/or begins with electric guitar in the tune of westerns, then fades out after 10 seconds. It sounds cool, but doesn't fit
- first scene is especially weak, given that it sort of 'homages' westerns (music + everyone hiding behind things + character on a horse, walking slowly down a street). I expected the show to be sort of satirical then. Except the show isn't, which makes me think it basically ripped it off because the filmmakers thought it looked and sounded cool. They didn't understand that this cliché has become so iconic that it can only be used for satire nowadays.
- no character development or clichéd character development. I can't tell you a single interesting or unique thing about any of the characters.
- cinematography, while pretty at first glance, comes off as very random. Sometimes there are inserts of a character we haven't even been introduced to yet, looking at another character for up to 10 seconds, while that other character is talking. Lots of reaction shots-especially annoying cliché of character smirking at something that another character says, in order to try and make the audience laugh. Same use as a laugh track in sitcoms: doing the laughing for the audience, at a 'joke' that isn't usually even funny. 2-3 insert shots of things in reflection off surfaces (random).
- scene of Sam Neill coming into the town by carriage has been in about a hundred other movies/tv shows
I could go on forever...
The Cobbler (2014)
Incomprehensibly bad
One of the worst movies I've ever seen.
Adam Sandler plays a sociopath that you're supposed to sympathize with; however, one of the first scenes involves him putting the shoes of someone else on, becoming that person, then going to that person's house and almost raping the guy's girlfriend in the shower but then realizing he can't because he would have to take his shoes of and change back into his real self. OMG. WTF.
Another scene involves a 2 minute montage of him becoming different people when he puts their shoes on; one of these people happens to be transgender. The montage then stops abruptly to make an incredibly awkward and unfunny joke about transgender people: as he looks in the mirror, he says, "I'm a woman", then he puts his hand in his pants and pulls it out, shaking it in disgust, "No I'm not, no I'm not!"
When he's a Chinese person, he goes to chinatown for the first time. When he's a black person, he robs people.
The climax involves him, playing the transgender woman, kidnapping a drug dealer. The drug dealer overpowers him and the drug dealer says, "don't worry, I'm not going to shoot you, she-man. I'm going to choke you to death". The man begins to do so, until Sandler kicks him in the neck with his high-heel, killing him.
Remember, this is supposed to be a comedy.
In the final scene, Steve Buscemi becomes Dustin Hoffman, Adam Sandler's dad, and he tells Adam about how he has learned about what it means to be a cobbler. They get into a limo in the back of a barber shop and drive off into the night, setting up a sequel.