No One Will Save You - this is a very interesting movie. there are exactly 2 lines of dialog in the entire film. it's like the film equivalent of GI Joe #21. on paper, i loved the idea so i was very interested to see this. i'd say it is quite effectively done. the ending is fucking bonkers and i suppose open to interpretation. the main body of the film... i'd say i kind of wish they hadn't shown the... antagonists... so much (no spoilers, although even the poster kind of gives it away). it would have made things much more creepy. the CG is mostly ok, but some scenes are distractingly not good. the main chick is raylan givens' daughter in the Justified reboot, and is very good here with 99% dialog-free performance. the concept is good, and it's a very intriguing film. i'll also say i wish the subplot of the dead sister didn't exist. completely unnecessary. i don't know, i mean it's one approach to dealing with the "flashback" scenes i guess, but i'd rather have none of that and just deal 100% with the reality of the invasion. regardless, i did like it and recommend checking it out for a variety of reasons, even if only academic. it's very interesting.

TC wrote: 03/04/23, 09:32:37 Solaris - Tarkovsky definitely had something to say, I'm just not sure I know what that was. Ironic with the theme of this film. Absolutely art, seemingly made with the express purpose to give directors of the "movie of the week" crowd self-loathing nightmares.

Solaris [2002] - as a remake, it's not good. as a stand-alone film, it's not bad. i think it gets more hate than it deserves due to the first statement. it's interesting for sure, just a couple lines of dialog that make me cringe, but really, just watch the original.

TC wrote: 15/11/21, 09:00:39 The North Water - only five episodes in this fantastic period piece. colin farrell and stephen graham are fucking excellent, dominating every scene they're in. i watched because someone told me it was kind of like s1 of The Terror. that's really not true - only similarities are that it does involved a boat trip through norther ice waters. but this is something you should check out. really good.

re-watched this again over the weekend. it's so fucking good. dark as hell. really makes me want to read the book. but it also gave me an excuse to go find the video recording of the shanty they use repeatedly in the credits of episodes. it gives me goosebumps and makes me tear up every time i hear it. i don't know why. but it gets me. so it's fantastic that someone was on-hand to capture this performance, and equally amazing that they then used this version in this show. so while this is playing, go add this to your watch list, even if you've seen it before. it holds up fucking fantastically.

TC wrote: 08/08/22, 10:42:09

TC wrote: 07/08/21, 07:40:46 Physical - Apple TV+ show featuring Rose Byrne in the main role. It’s a half-hour…dramadey?…about a woman with an eating disorder who discovers aerobics and starts making tapes in the early ‘80s (or late 70s, not super clear) and her husband (Rory Scovel) who is running for local office. I’ve been watching it but wanted to wait until the end of the first season to see if it stuck the landing. Finale was last night and yes it definitely did. A really, really good show. I mean fucking good. Recommend watching this show. In addition to Rose, who is great, it also has Paul Sparks, who played Mickey Doyle in Boardwalk Empire in it, and he rules.

most recent season ended last week. it was a bit uneven but still an enjoyable show. it's been diminishing returns for me this season, but still watching.

third and final season continued on the trajectory determined by s2 - diminishing returns, downward. they found out quickly that they had nothing to say with this show and had no idea where to go with it. eventually it just... ended. as in, stopped production, not an actual ending. extremely weird way to get out of a show that was really good at one point. lots of paul sparks this season, which was a good thing, but not enough to make it stellar. not sure what happened here, but this once recommended show went out with a near-silent whimper.

Reptile - new Netflix flick, with Benicio Del Toro, Justin Timberlake, Eric Bogosian, Alicia Silverstone, the bald white cop from The Wire, and others. It’s a modern film noir. After watching, it feels like it saved all the big twists for the last 1/4 of the film, where so much starts happening at once that my head was kind of spinning. Had to pause it a couple times to talk about what’s happening just to make sure I’m on the same page. Shit gets wild. BDT is such a great actor, but I’ve been feeling lately that he’s kind of just playing BDT now. You always kind of get the same guy. But there is one scene where he flashes brilliance here - when he runs into his contractor at the square dance (crazy sentence, I know). He dresses this guy down for flirting with his wife in an instant, and his eyes turn to fury, then right back to Mr. Nice Guy Brooding Cop. He definitely plays complex characters very well. JT is great, kind of wish there were more of him. Bogosian is as you would expect. The cop from The Wire is pretty much playing the same piece of shit he was in the first few seasons there lol. He’s a type I guess. Alicia was good in this as well - was great to see here do something decent, as the last time I saw her was in The Requin which was a fucking huge pile of shit where all she did was scream in the most annoying way possible through 85% of the film. Anyway, good, twisty noir here. Recommended, if you can see past all the red herrings and loose ends it leaves behind.

The Meg 2: The Trench - speaking of pieces of shit, this is the most inane, illogical, lazy piece of shit I’ve sat through in a long time. None of the “science” is remotely real, and there is so much nonsensical writing that it hurt my head. Effects aren’t great, either, which is really why you’re watching. There was one scene that made me do a single chortle, but you could see that coming ten miles away. Fuck this movie, everyone involved should be embarrassed.

Vice - this had been on my list for some time, as I love Christian Bale’s work usually, and Amy Adams, Naomi Watts, Fat Damon are all in this, so had decent expectations. Bale’s physical transformation into Cheney was very impressive. His “talking out of the side of his mouth” thing really came and went at liberty, though. Carrell as that lizard Rumsfeld was also impressive. Must be a chin prosthetic, as he really almost looked like him. Amy Adams was sadly unrecognizable, and Watts was only on it for a moment to play a cartoon version of a real person. Which, that’s pretty much what this entire film is - everyone playing someone’s idea of a real life Scooby-Doo villain. The writing is pretty silly in parts, and it wants to be Network so badly it’s embarrassing. Lots of completely invented things here, lots of completely incorrect things, all played for dramatic effect. Really, the film would have fallen apart completely without Bale’s performance, and certainly no one would be talking about it five years later. So Bale is kind of a red herring here - the movie isn’t worth talking about.

Heart Of Stone - this movie begins with a scene showing you how laughably ridiculous it’s going to be, so if you make it past the first few minutes, you deserve what you get (like me). The mythical “heart” - a beyond-imagination quantum computer - has the most ridiculous interface i’ve ever seen on film. There’s nothing practical or usable about how it works. We’re talking way worse than Minority Report here - this was designed by someone that said, “Hey, what if Cerebro was a computer”, and it takes a goddamn warehouse-sized room to use. Also, apparently it’s 100% cloud computing, enabling tons of people to use this ginormous, silly interface at once all over the world, so I guess let’s not even talk about the bandwidth required and how that works, since the computer flys around the globe in some sky-blimp lab at like 80k feet or something. It’s just so ridiculous. Then, the suspension of disbelief required to completely ignore the obvious question of “where the fuck are all these cameras that the computer sees everything from this perspective at any time, anywhere on earth” is just asking too much. It’s so bad. Then, Gal Gadot’s Stone character has a laptop, and the UI on her laptop is essentially all text-based - you know, because she’s a “hacker”. So that’s the spectrum of how computers work in this mythical world. The rest is all pretty ridiculous too - tons of that “Joan Wick” shit, where skinny women overcome the laws of physics repeatedly for two hours. I don’t know why I watched this. Move along.

Nowhere - this film tries real hard. it's a try-hard film. while it's very stressful in parts, some other parts are questionable. writing isn't great, several plot holes, ends as you would expect it to end. it's ok, but i'd say skip it.

John Carpenter's Suburban Screams - this show sucks. i can't believe Carpenter would put his name on this. it's six episodes of people telling "scary stories" backed up by zero proof. ok, scratch that - one episode, the second one, does inject news clips, newspaper stories, etc., that back up what actually happened. if the entire show followed this format, it would be way more interesting. as it is, it's yet another urban legend story show, like Amazon's Lore, or any other number of them. just dumb as fuck. don't bother.

Carpenter will stick his name on anything these days for money.

Nixon - Oppenheimer made me want to watch this again, as it seems to have been the model for Nolan's film in many ways. Yet it occupies a completely different plain. Stone's film has many layers of nuance and moral complexity, it is unafraid to paint a deeply unsympathetic protagonist, yet also unafraid to see him as a human being. Crucially (see Spike Lee's pertinent criticism of Oppenheimer), Stone finds a way to show us the impact of Nixon's crimes against humanity: the film opens with a Kane-esque fake newsreel and this is followed by brief flashes of real news footage throughout the film; simple, but effective. Stone also has more faith in his audience, avoiding that feeling you have with Oppenheimer of taking a history lesson in a rightwing kindergarten. Basically, just reminded me of how shitty cinema is these days that everyone would leap on such a second-rate piece of work like it's the second coming.

Flower Moon opening tomorrow, which has the potential to actually be a good film, and I would like to see it in a theatre... but 3.5hrs without an interval is silly + it's not screening on 35mm for whatever reason, and Apple have plugged it as streaming before the end of the year so... nah, I'll wait.

I'm tickled to see you praise a vintage Stone joint from the 1990s.

Ha. There are a lot of directors I used to love back in the 90s and 00s whose work, in retrospect, seems a little tired. Ollie isn't one of them. If anything, his best films have seasoned like a fine wine. Born on the 4th July is probably my favourite. Alexander (Revisited) is hugely underrated as well.

TC wrote: 11/12/21, 10:54:03

TC wrote: 10/11/21, 14:13:09 Invasion - appleTV+ show. watched the first three episodes last night. construct is, we're following the lives of a few different people in different parts of the world while an alien invasion is happening, but no one knows (yet?) that what's happening is an alien invasion. seems at first like localized events or incidents, eventually people start realizing something is happening globally. first three episodes are intense.

sam neill was in the first episode, and the reason i decided to check it out, but it appears like they killed him in the first episode. the show definitely doesn't pull punches, there are real stakes here.

i'm into it so far, hopefully it doesn't drop the ball. recommend checking it out if you're looking for something else to watch. caveat: s1 isn't over yet, so not sure if it pays off.

Yeah, this went pretty well. I understand it got picked up for a second season, and the way s1 went, it is deserving. Pretty cool show, quite enjoyed.

we wrapped s2 last week. again, it was really good. there were some things i could have done without that felt a bit thin, but for the most part everything that happens builds to a worthy apex. very clearly setting up s3, which should be pretty fucking wild. love the design and construct of the "alien network", new aliens, the "portal" thing, etc. - not saying too much to avoid spoilers here. definitely do recommend checking out this show. it starts as a slow burn, and parts of s2 are a bit slow burn, but necessary to set up the payoffs. it's well done, will be curious to see how s3 goes. have to imagine it will be a 3-and-done show, which is a good thing in this case.

The Enfield Poltergeist - four-episode doc about one of the most legendary poltergeist hauntings ever documented. the construct of a lot of the show is that the investigator recorded over 200 hours of audio back when this was happening, so they built exact replica sets and hired actors to act out and lip sync the audio. this is interspersed with real footage, news clips, and current interviews, etc. it's extremely interesting to see/hear some of this stuff. there are a lot of coincidences, and probably equally as many ways this could have been completely faked. at the end of it, all you're really left with is the sad reality that whatever did happen absolutely destroyed this families' (and several others) lives. i wouldn't call it "must watch" or anything, but it's sort of interesting if you're into this kind of thing. otherwise, skip it.

A Haunting In Venice - new Kenneth Branagh Hercule Poirot film that finds the detective in retirement after the previous two films. this one is "loosely based" on an Agatha Christie story rather than a straight adaptation. there is a horror element to this, but it's mostly another murder mystery. if it seems like i'm luke warm on this, that's because i am. feels like it could have been better, but i can't say exactly why. on paper, it follows the motions it should and ticks the checkboxes for a Poirot film, but it just feels kind of "there". Tina Fey is quite distracting here, and every time she's on screen seems to want it to be about her. this isn't the groundlings, lady. it's only ok, and probably kills the Branagh Poirot era. the Knives Out films are much more enjoyable fare in the same genre these days. and really, what Branagh film can you name that has any joy about it at all? so this fits right into his resume, i guess.

Fingernails - strong “meh” on this one. Good cast, ok ideas, but really just a generic rom com in disguise. Don’t bother.

Bodies - another strong time travel show on Netflix, in the realm of Dark and 1899. One of the leads is Stephan Graham, who is always great. I guess technically, he’s several of the leads. They really don’t get into unresolvable paradox territory until much farther down the road than you might assume, and handle it decently. Only real weirdness is in the last 10 seconds of the last episode, really. Like, there are a couple things that just throw everything they established out the window? Odd. Also, a completely unnecessary gay sex side story that has nothing to do with anything. But for the most part, this is a really, really good show. I loved it. I avoided it for a bit because the name is really fucking stupid and makes it sound like a teen-targeted horror flick. It is definitely not that. It’s very smartly constructed sci-fi, with multiple branches, making it quite complex, that ultimately tells the story of how the butterfly effect of how one child was treated ends up affecting the entire population. I say check it out.

The Killer [Fincher] - was very anxious to watch this, as i haven’t seen a new fincher film in a long time (i never got around to watching Mank) and I love Fasbender, and Tilda Swinton. I loved it. It’s definitely a Fincher film. Spends a good amount of time, and basically the whole beginning of the film, in Fasbender’s head, where he narrates his thoughts to us. There was something about the pacing and rhythm of the film that reminded me of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, not sure why or what, other than it was a drama with some good action pieces. And there are definitely some good action pieces here. It’s told from a really mellow/even/level-headed POV of the titular character. One thing I hate about it is the music choice. I don’t mean the score, which is another excellent Reznor/Ross collab, I mean the music. Other than two brief flashes of some other music that one of his targets is listening to in the car, the only music present in this film is The Smiths. Fasbender’s character is obsessed with them, and only ever listens to them. I fucking hate The Smiths. That Kermit The Frog voiced whining fuck singer ruins the actual good songs they do have. Anyway, not about The Smiths, just saying that was a real bummer. I would have appreciated literally anything else. But if you like them, buckle up, this movie just went into overdrive for you. Only other thing was the ending -

the way everything just kind of worked out for him made it feel kind of like an episode of Justified or something. Would have been nice if there was at least some manner in which his actions caught up with him, other than the traumatic ordeal his girlfriend had to go through because of him. Speaking of which, I really don’t understand why he just didn’t take a second shot and get his target originally? He had plenty of time after the hooker exploded to kill the guy before the curtains were drawn. Hell, even after that you could still see in there. I feel like he probably had 5-10 seconds where the guy was sitting there in shock, wide open. But then I guess we wouldn’t have a movie.

I have seen some people drag this, I just really don’t know why. It was a more intimate film than I’ve seen from Fincher in some time, really just focused on one character, and I loved it. Will be watching again. TC says, check it out.

TC wrote: 22/11/21, 11:27:41

TC wrote: 15/11/21, 09:00:39 The Morning Show - as i saw s2 is ending this week, figured we'd check out the debut flagship show of AppleTV+. ended up plowing through first season and first few of s2 in a day. first season was pretty great, but i don't recommend just endless watching of this. eventually had to take a break from what seemed like jennifer aniston either yelling or crying her way through every scene. but it is a very good show. high drama in tv land with a great cast. not essential viewing, but well done.

finished s2. ended stronger than it started. again, not essential by any stretch, but a really well done show. with all the hot-button issues taking place in this show, they somehow managed to not really be overly political or preachy. pretty deft accomplishment, really.

binged all of s3 over the weekend. found that i liked it more than the prior season. it just worked way better for me having the Steve Carell saga behind them, for the most part. also, feels like there is way less Jennifer Aniston this season, at least the first 3/4 of it. Hamm plays his role pitch-perfect. of course, they couldn't resist injecting pure narrative propaganda into this season, but thankfully mostly only in one episode in the middle of the season. if you can ignore/get past that, and the idea that any news people left in a major media company have an ounce of ethics, let alone enough to make them turn in the love of their life, it really is a great show. very well done.

TC wrote: 18/03/22, 14:57:09

TC wrote: 22/05/20, 06:50:49 Upload - this amazon show was pretty great. hell of a cliffhanger ending. hope they get picked up for s2, and produced it quickly.

well, we did get a season 2, it dropped last week, and it started immediately following the events of s1. easy binge watch as it's 7 episodes of around 30 min/ea. it's a really good show. amazing how much the lead guy looks like tom cruise. i recommend the show. don't know if s2 was as good as s1, but they set up a nice s3. i hope they get it.

binged s3 over the last couple days. as with before, easy run-through as most episodes are around 30 min. it frequently enters eye-roll territory with the cutesy shtick, but then deftly handles deadpan, straight-man humor in the next scene. so yeah, pretty much the same show it's been for two seasons. felt like less meandering this season. in fact, the jump made between episodes 6 and 7 made me wonder if somehow there was an episode 6.5 that we skipped. but just decided that it really doesn't matter, let's just ride with this and see where it goes. lots of head exploding this season, which was fun. wasn't as funny as it clearly thought it was, but still amusing. if you cared at all about the first two seasons, i'm sure you'll watch this and feel the same. nothing new, but a decent continuation. apparently setting up a season 4, don't know if they'll get it.

The Killer was pretty good. A revisionist John Wick, one might say, in which the protagonist is completely unlikeable and acts only out of self interest from beginning to end. He even

spares the one person the audience is encouraged to want dead because it suits his purposes in the moment,

thus denying the traditional payoff to such films. I could have done without the Fight Club-ish VO. And perhaps one might question the purpose of making a film about such a repugnant individual, but ok.