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Come True, 2020 (D)

A horror movie about an 18 year old girl?/young woman? with nowhere to go and a sleeping problem. Every night, she dreams of the same shadow figure at the end of her nightmares. She goes to a sleep lab to see what they can do for her.

So the good parts about the movie are the girl herself, and the imagery of the nightmares. They are repetitive in terms of sequence, always consisting of a camera moving forward in a surreal landscape, towards the shadowy figure, and then wake up. The images are goooooood though. The movie takes place in present day, as indicated by smartphones and nothing else. The sleep lab has that vintage 70s/80s computer look, and the movie has sound design that is reminscent of the Stranger Things theme.

The bad is the slowness of it. It keeps you interested by having this hypnotizing vibe, with the synth music, slow tone and almost perpetual nighttime setting past a certain point. The movie is divided in chapters named after Jung's concepts relating to the unconscious, but I don't think there's any meaning to those as far as the movie is concerned. Once the end comes around though, it fizzles out. BADLY. It drags for a good 10 minutes at least, and the end itself is so ******* stupid that I knocked it down from a B+ to a D just for that. It's at that moment you realize it's more of a bunch of short stories mashed together than a singular project with a vision. Many, many ends remain completely loose. The movie doesn't tie itself together in a nice little bow, but certainly hopes you'll care enough to wrap up the whole thing yourself.



Eerie (2018)

A Philippine ghost story set in a Catholic girl school. It's extremely cliched, but at least they're the cliches I like. Cinematography is way above the norm for a film like this. The ending is a little meh, and there are some stupidly pointless jump scares, but it's still almost a good film. Definitely recommended for the fans of slow-burn ghost horrors.

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Without Remorse (2021)

A Tom Clancy adaptation that has nothing to do with the Tom Clancy book of the same name (I think Clancy wasn't woke enough for modern Hollywood but his name still sells). If Eerie above managed to use its cliches well, Without Remorse doesn't. I'm not saying it's remarkably bad, but it's an (Amazon) prime example of a dime-a-dozen agent action.
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The Virtuoso (2021)
This one was quite a great movie for a Wednesday night. Too bad I can't rate it just after 2 days 7/10

AAAAA
Finally caught up with this film last night. I was looking forward to it on the strength of Anthony Hopkins being in the cast. Evidently he is what the producers thought would insure success of this picture, not to mention the casting of veterans Eddie Marsan and David Morse.

This movie is not worth the time to spend on a full review. But to cut to the chase, the chief problem with it was the very weak casting of the lead character (the Virtuoso), Anson Mount. He was believable for the first 10 minutes or so, and with his narration the hope was there that this could be a fine noir. A big part of it was his character's writing, but even if that had been better, he still was wrong for the part.

The picture had various story facets which on their own might have been interesting. But jumbled together they caused confusion and incongruity. At times it imitated Pulp Fiction, at other times the Cohen Bros., but mostly it languished at the trite "B" movie level.

There was also a bit of Agatha Christie whodunit (or who is it), although without the tension Christie builds up. I really didn't see the ending coming, but when it did it felt poorly prepared, and felt wrong.

Rating it a charitable 5/10 on the basis of Hopkin's performance.



The book on which it is based is pretty good. I plan to see the film despite tepid reviews because I liked the story.
I suspected that it was, in all honesty, not a fault in it Takoma11, maybe the book fleshed out the characters a bit more. Perfectly watchable.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Labyrinth of Cinema (Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, 2019)
- 6.5/10

Three hours of Japanese "film history" which is mostly created for the film and made with sharp social anti-war commentary.
One of the best films of its decade and it always shocks me to see how much it gets over people's heads.
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



I forgot the opening line.

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47641963

Labyrinth of Lies - (2014) - Germany (The literal translation of 'Im Labyrinth des Schweigens' is "In the Labyrinth of Silence")

In 1958 Frankfurt there was some controversy when it was revealed that former SS Auschwitz commander Charles Schulz (Good grief!) had found a job teaching young children at a primary school. This perks the interest of a young prosecutor, and he starts asking questions that make everyone furious. Nobody wants to talk about the war or Nazi atrocities. The strangest thing - he's never even heard of Auschwitz or the concentration camps before....

This film is meant to portray the events preceding the The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials by using the familiar 'composite character' concept. I was truly surprised to find out how little average German citizens knew about the death camps and the brutality their comrades dished out during WWII - not to mention how many dodgy former SS men found work (a lot of the times in government!) after the war. I thought the Allies had taken care of a lot of that. Our main character (Johann Radmann) finds out about what had happened there (often reacting with utter shock) from victims who come forward, hoping that these people will be brought to justice.

Unfortunately, the movie tries to shoehorn in a romance for Johann which feels really out of place - and to worsen things the romance is flatlined by utterly pedestrian film-making. The movie as a whole has a lot of interesting information to reveal to us, but the film itself lacks imagination and verve. It's a 2nd rate drama when it's not detailing the prosecutor's information on Eichmann which helps Mossad capture him or his attempts to capture Josef Mengele (apparently he visited Germany 3 or 4 times a year from South America!! All the while knowing he had friends in the new German government which would refuse any request to arrest him.)

All in all a very average film dealing with the incredible.

6/10



Concrete Cowboy (2020)

This was alright, story of the Fletcher Street Riders in Philadelphia. Young violent tearaway get's dumped with his dad (Idris Elba) as his mothers at her wit's end with his antics. He then get's to know more about community and belonging. Not entirely original but most watchable.



Finally caught up with this film last night. I was looking forward to it on the strength of Anthony Hopkins being in the cast. Evidently he is what the producers thought would insure success of this picture, not to mention the casting of veterans Eddie Marsan and David Morse.

This movie is not worth the time to spend on a full review. But to cut to the chase, the chief problem with it was the very weak casting of the lead character (the Virtuoso), Anson Mount. He was believable for the first 10 minutes or so, and with his narration the hope was there that this could be a fine noir. A big part of it was his character's writing, but even if that had been better, he still was wrong for the part.

The picture had various story facets which on their own might have been interesting. But jumbled together they caused confusion and incongruity. At times it imitated Pulp Fiction, at other times the Cohen Bros., but mostly it languished at the trite "B" movie level.

There was also a bit of Agatha Christie whodunit (or who is it), although without the tension Christie builds up. I really didn't see the ending coming, but when it did it felt poorly prepared, and felt wrong.

Rating it a charitable 5/10 on the basis of Hopkin's performance.
So it had a bit of Tarantino, a bit of Cohen Bros. + a bit of Agatha Christie
As if someone made a good sauce with various vegetables and tomato sauce, maybe some aubergines and mixed it on low fire.
Honestly I didn't sit to analyze on a very deep level this movie + that I'd definitely say it ain't a B category movie I'd also say the rating on IMDb was given by a group of little mischievous Machiavellian creatures who had nothing better to do than do a thorough "autopsy" of this simple disconnecting movie
People can be so mean these days
I agree that Anson Mount did a better job in Star Trek Discovery than here.... but his haircut seemed like a hitman's haircut at least.... not to mention Abbie Cornish who was delightfully "bitchy".... maybe a bit of weight loss would do her good but she seemed kinda sexy
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Another Round- 10/10. Top Class movie.





From Other Worlds, 2004

A woman named Joanne (Cara Buono) has a strange experience one night that leaves her with missing time and a strange mark on her side. Coming to believe that she was abducted by aliens, Joanne eventually meets up with another abductee named Abraham (Isaach de Bankhole) a man with the same strange mark who spends his days selling counterfeit watches on the streets of the city. Together they try to figure out why they were taken and how it all connects to a new strange artifact that has just been unearthed in a dig.

This movie is not bad, per se, but it does seem to be a little confused. It's like when they were making the film they had to check boxes of what they wanted, and they just went hog-wild. It's a comedy! It's a romance! It's a thriller! It's a sci-fi film! And as is often the case, by trying to do so much, it ends up not doing much of it that well.

Buono and de Bankhole have good chemistry with each other, which is probably the saving grace of the entire film. I say this because the movie shuffles the two characters around from plot point to plot point, and the only thing that feels at all genuine is the growing friendship and forbidden romantic feelings (she is married) between them.

The comedy for the most part just didn't work for me. It is very VERY broad. Lots of wide-eyed reactions and, um, interesting takes on international accents. Because everything happens so fast, certain jokes just sort of hang in the air awkwardly, like when Joanne's mother-in-law finds out she is spending time with Abraham and gasps "He's not even African-American, he's African-African!" So I guess the joke is . . . her mother-in-law is kind of racist? And then we never even see the mother-in-law again, so why on Earth did we need that little dollop of racism in the middle of the film? The sci-fi elements are also kind of muddled, partly because the film is able to devote so little time to them. I kept feeling as if it didn't make a whole lot of sense, like, at all. But this is also not the kind of film where it seems worth rewatching scenes to "get it".

Despite not wanting to slam this film or anything, I also can't really say much to recommend it. Truthfully, I have a hard time imagining anyone really liking it.




Show Me Love (1998)




I haven't been all that into teenage lesbians since the late 80's so I wasn't expecting much here. It doesn't go for shocks and it keeps it believable. Good performances, good music, good all around. Great ending.



Show Me Love (1998)




I haven't been all that into teenage lesbians since the late 80's so I wasn't expecting much here. It doesn't go for shocks and it keeps it believable. Good performances, good music, good all around. Great ending.
I do not think any single movie can be called the greatest of all time but I think this film has as good a claim to that title as any.

An 11/10 movie in my opinion