Change Your Image
TheTexasChainstoreManager
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try again
Best comedy tv shows ever made.
Reviews
Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
This doesn't work at all.
I'm not a fan of musicals and this isn't even a musical. Musicals normally use original music, tailor made to fit the story and i can at least appreciate that fact. "Joker: Folie a Deux" only rehashes well known classics that's suitable enough to convey one emotion in a very drawn out uninteresting way and most of the times without expressing anything else visually.
So no. This is not a musical. It's much worse than that. It's an episode of "Glee" with an enormous budget. And god knows why Todd Phillips thought this was a good and creative way of continuing the story of the Joker.
All in all, it just feels lazy. Without all the pointless time filling/wasting singing and music that doesn't move any story or characters forward, there's not much story to be found. Not even Joaquin Phoenix could save this one. The stupidity of this movie held him down and pulled him backwards.
And to all the people who like the movie and for some reason just must voice that they're "smarter" because they "understand the movie" and those who don't like it are too "dumb" to understand; You can understand a movie and still not like it. Understanding complexity, metaphors, etc, doesn't automatically mean that you will love it.
No matter how complex, metaphorical and intricate a movie is, it still have to be entertaining. Sure, many people might not understand everything the director or the writer are trying to say, but even so, if the audience isn't enjoying the ride, it's still a failure.
The only complex things about this movie is the Joker, what his real origin story is and who he really is, which is pretty much unknown - and the fact that writers and directors can do whatever they want with him and his story. So the "smarter" viewers who believe they "get it", they probably don't.
Bagman (2024)
Worst parents ever.
Often writers resort to making characters very stupid and/or suddenly behave uncharacteristically dumb just to drive the plot forward or to force a sequence together, instead of rebuilding or abandoning the idea. "Bagman" is one of those scripts that should've been thrown away early on, but instead they forced through with stupidity. The backbone of the entire movie if made of irrational stupidity. It wouldn't be a movie without it.
I will not list all the times the parents behaved irrational and dumb, but let's say; if you're a normal sane human being with a child who were in danger of being abducted, you would keep it at an arms length 24/7. But no no no. Not these parents. They make sure to always put their kid in danger, giving it away to others and pretty much always make sure to keep it far out of reach and out of sight - just to make this movie possible.
The Crow (2024)
A movie without a soul.
It rarely happens that you watch a movie that have no soul at all. When you simply don't care about any character, what they're going through and what they do.
It's actually amazing that the director (Rupert Sanders) didn't manage to convey those major things that is the foundation of this story: The bond and the love between Eric and Shelly. The sadness, the suffering and the hate. The true evil from the evil. It didn't manage to convey any emotions, unlike the original.
I found myself staring into the screen like i was staring into a void. Things were sort of happening, but i simply didn't care. And then it was finally over.
Kill (2023)
Fooled again.
Once again i got fooled by an overrated and overhyped Indian action movie. The last time this happened was with "Monkey Man."
Once again people are comparing with "The Raid" and "John Wick" when it's actually far from those actually great movies.
So what does it take to be compared with those movies? Being action? And Indian? Since Indian movies in general are rated very high for some reason, no matter how awful they are.
The only positive things i have to say about "Kill" is that most special effects were well made and the fact that nobody started to sing and dance which seems to be a compulsory tradition in Indian cinema.
The fight choreography was sloppy and boring with the same things happening over and over (front kicks anyone?) The plot and the behaviour of the characters were nonsensical and beyond dumb. This review will be without spoilers, but otherwise i could list a plethora of plot holes and stupidity. The extremely forced and on the nose overdramatic moments invoked laughter instead of the ones they were fishing for. And "non stop action"? Lies. And since the action isn't that appealing or well made, it's nothing to look forward to anyways.
Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice...
That's it for me and Indian action. I'm out. No more.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)
Tropes galore.
If you would enjoy an entire movie of people sneaking around and hiding in a small contained area from killers who loves to play peekaboo, stand still and stare and do magical disappearing acts instead of capturing or killing when they have a chance, this ones for you. If you're also a fan of extremely worn out tropes and people acting dumb and irrational, you're gonna love it.
And this movie is set up to be a trilogy?! Who greenlit this idea?
The first "The Strangers" movies doesn't have anything remotely special or interesting to build upon. And no matter if your intentions are to save the best stuff for the sequels, it's not very bright to make the first one extremely drawn out, bad and boring. That's how it becomes "(not) To be continued."
Boy Kills World (2023)
Yet another action movie ruined.
"Boy Kills World" had all the ideas, ingredients, actors and stuntmen to be one of those entertaining action movies people like to re-watch (Deadpool, The Matrix, Kick-Ass, John Wick, etc.) but unfortunately it decided to go down that path that ruins many action movies which is bad cinematography/directing and editing.
When the directing/cinematography makes it mostly about "cool shots", fast flipping/sweeping/shaky cameras and fast editing, the actual action becomes incoherent, annoying and headache inducing and i actually don't understand why directors and cinematographers don't grasp this simple logic. Are they so narcissistically inclined to make a personal mark in the movie that they can't let the people in front of the camera deliver the entertainment?
Of course there's nothing wrong with cool shots/editing and experimentation, but there's a limit to how much and how fast.
Just stop it already.
Them (2021)
I'm torn..
*This is a review for the first two seasons.
"Them" have a lot going for it and a lot going against. The cinematography and the directing is great, but the plots really lack "meat", "Oomph!" and payoff and some plot lines and episodes feels extremely elongated and even unnecessary. Especially the first season could've told the same story with 5-6 episodes instead of 10 and the racism that infused the plot in the second season felt shoehorned in and could've been left out without effecting the main plot.
I just feel like the plots has been paper thin, repeating the same things and same events over and over, in the same or a slightly different way and then it's ...over.
Monkey Man (2024)
Not an Indian John Wick.
Where to start..
It's obvious that Dev Patel haven't directed before. He's experimenting a lot with camera work and tries to make things cool and interesting, but it constantly fails. Weird angles that breaks continuity and an annoying amount of shaky cam that hurts your brain.
The action sequences/fight scenes aren't especially creative or fun to watch and that's the part that should been given most thought in a movie like this. "Monkey Man" might be a westernized movie in many ways, but it still have a lot of typical Indian action movie flair that most westerners - like me - might find a bit silly.
The stories about his reasons for revenge and how he rise up to the task is unevenly distributed. Some things goes too fast without explanation and some things are just repeated over, over and over. If there were a purpose to make the audience empathize and feel for the characters, drawn out repetition will evoke feelings but not the ones you want.
3 Body Problem (2024)
It's watchable, but that's all.
The premise of the show is interesting, but the execution is not that great. In the seventh episode i thought; I don't actually care about any of these people and they don't seem to care about each other either. It doesn't even feel like loss of friends are bothering anyone.
And as usual nowadays, all the "strong intelligent women" are just portrait as boring, irate elitists with zero self distance, which doesn't help with the likability. The main female cast just float together as a singular uninteresting entity. The male characters isn't that much better, but at least they seem to have some emotions and ounce of personality.
People who've read the book claim that the show is rushed and i can totally see that. That would partially explain why we don't get to know the characters better and it would also explain that the writers and the director(s) did a bad job of compensating this fact.
Madame Web (2024)
Congratulations Marvel! You've reached a new low!
Did you ever wonder what the result would be if a bunch of middle school kids were handed 80 million dollars (+20 mil marketing) to make a movie? They would write the script themselves, hire and direct some reasonably big actors. Well, this would be the result.
When people normally write something snarky like i did now, they're exaggeration. I'm not. This is all i could think of when i watched Madame Web. "Is this a middle school project? What is this dialogue? What are they doing? Why are they doing this? Who speaks like this? That's not how things work."
Considering all the bad decisions and the trajectory of of all Marvel projects, especially after "Avengers: Endgame", i knew this would be bad. But Madame Web actually managed to reach another level of awful.
First off, i feel sorry for the actors. If the movie actually was written and directed by kids, they would've probably enjoyed the process. But eligibly only adults - who's just horrible at what they do - were involved in the writing and directing and they should all have their movie making licenses revoked. The actors can't hide the pain and shame over the dumb and nonsensical things they have to say and do and especially Dakota Johnson and Emma Roberts probably handled this gig like being paid decently for doing an enema. Johnson even said that the movie didn't turn out like she thought it would and that she never would return to the superhero world again.
Oh well. Marvel, Sony and Columbia Pictures, Disney, whatever, are obviously hellbent on burning money on horrible movies and tv-shows, made by horrible writers and directors, and i'm not gonna stop them. Let them crash. They deserve it.
Argylle (2024)
Vaughn is getting worse and worse.
I am a huge fan of Matthew Vaughns earlier movies. "Kick-Ass" and "Kingsman: The Secret Service" are two of my absolute favorite action movies. Fun, creative, cool and violent. Unfortunately since then his trajectory has been on a steady drop.
"Argylle" have some cool ideas, but unfortunately the execution is shockingly bland. Specifically, if you've seen the movie and i say dance and ice skating, you know which scenes i'm talking about. Cool ideas, but nothing actually cool happens in them. Compare this to the church scene in "Kingsmen." Fun idea and awesome execution.
"Argylle" feels more like "Spykids" than "Kingsman" and "Kick-Ass" and i've now totally lost hope for Vaughns upcoming movies.
LOL: Skrattar bäst som skrattar sist (2022)
Hit and miss, but good enough.
The downside and the upside with (mostly) unscripted shows like this is the unpredictability. It could go either way. There can be a lot of fun stuff happening or not much happening. There's no guarantees. I've only seen the Canadian and the Swedish version of this show and personally i feel like the Swedes did a better job pushing the participants and keeping them active.
I hope there will be a third season, but for the love of all that's mighty; don't use any "filler" participants who's neither well known or funny. People like Anis Don Demina, Edvin Törnblom, Clara Henry and Keyyo aren't funny. Instead they suck the air out of comedy with their presence.
Ricky Gervais: Armageddon (2023)
Time to take time before another stand-up, Ricky.
I love Ricky Gervais and i've done so since The Office. He's made so many great movies, tv and radio shows and stand-up specials over the years, but his two latest Netflix specials has been pretty bad.
I don't know if he's got a contract with Netflix to produce X amount of shows during a set time, but it surely feels like that's the fact. That's usually how Netflix works with big names which time and time again becomes apparent in the results.
I know that it usually takes many years for a stand-up comedian to come up with, filter, try out and reach an hour of solid material and considering that his last special came out just last year and that he's a person with many irons in the fire, his material can't be solid. And it isn't. Gervais gets stuck on 2-3 subjects and he seems to aim at being controversial and poking at people who doesn't like him more than being funny. Personally i have no issues with controversial and shocking, but it better be funny ...and it isn't.
The Killer (2023)
A very 5/10 movie in every aspect.
"The Killer" is a good movie, but barely. Like almost all movies made under Netflix contracts with big names, there's something lacking here. Like a well made, but poorly spiced, meal.
Everything from the movie to the acting to the dialogue/monologue is very one note and repetitive. It's not action packed, it's not tense, it's not thrilling, funny, whatever.
Considering that "The Killer" is based on a comic book by the same name, i imagine they had to cut out a lot of things that probably would've made the movie far more intriguing and engaging, but it seems like they just chose the "exciting" and essential parts to keep the length short enough and by that excluding things that might've made us understand and empathize more with the main character.
It's a good movie, but i surely understand those who fell asleep or decided to shut it off.
Saw X (2023)
Good start, horrible ending.
I have never said this about a horror movie, but i enjoyed the non horror part more than the horror. The backstory of John Kramer was good just as Tobin Bells acting, but the rest is a typical, even sub-par, Saw sequel.
A huge pet peeve of mine is when writers are dependent on coincidence and luck instead of logic. When they steer characters and actions in the right direction with dumb or illogical decisions and dumb timing, just to force the script together. Or if they just don't understand themselves how dumb things are.
One of the most glaring ones in Saw X was when it's "revealed" that Parker Pears was in on the scam. He were just as suspicious as everybody else on the site as a fake patient to make everything look more believable and therefor not very revealing.
Another one is the setup of Johns final trap. Firstly, the coincidence of the kid playing soccer late at night, at the right time, and them noticing him, which fantastically goes GREAT with the rest of the setup. What luck.
And John's plan was to cross his fingers that if they got overpowered, they would be chained up in that trap. Both would go get the money before he/they died in the trap and stop the trap by grabbing the money bag, setting off a new trap. And the door to the room didn't even close at once. It took 20 seconds until it did and they stayed in the room to look in the bag instead of leaving or securing the door, like normal people would - especially when the situation involves a person who's fond of traps. So John's plan involved another lucky coincidence that they wouldn't exit the room at once and possibly kill them all anyways.
All in all, besides one really good trap (the lady sawing her leg off) and the first part of the movie, this was not a good watch.
Konferensen (2023)
Still waiting for that good Swedish horror.
"Konferensen" is based on the popular book with the same name and after watching the movie i can't understand how this could be a book, unless they've left out pretty much everything.
The story is as thin as every other slasher movie: people get killed and the killer have a reason.
As a Swede i'm very familiar with Swedish cinema. There was a time when we were great at making comedies. We had great actors who created memorable characters who delivered one funny classic phrase after another in a funny way. But everything with "Konferensen" is just flat.
The movie starts off with a promising funny vibe with typical awkward Swedes, but that doesn't last. What passes as "funny" are Swedes saying quotes and known phrases incorrectly in bad English and older people screaming profanities and just repeating this over and over.
And the horror aspect of the movie isn't that much better. If you're making a movie like this, you better bring the A-game when it comes to the execution of the killings. But even there they decided to go lazy and uncreative, rather shying away from showing too much gore and mostly settling for off screen killings and showing blood splatter. And what we got to see was poorly executed and edited.
So if it's excruciatingly unfunny and doesn't have any well made and creative killings, what's left? Not much.
The positive things about this movie is Adam Lundgren who plays the intense and creepy "Jonas" and the fact that it's positively off-kilter and non American in it's execution. But the rest is and are totally forgettable and bland. And again i question why some people make movies. Swedish horror movies are very rare and if you get the opportunity and the finances to do one, you should do better than this. You should have a note book filled with funny jokes and creative executions. But instead it feels like people just doing their job to show a result.
Expend4bles (2023)
Wow. Just ...wow. This is bad.
Look... It's not like the other Expendables are great movies, but at least they are some kind of exaggerated fun guilty pleasure action with a bunch of lovable old action heroes.
Expend4bles is just horrible, lazy and boring in every sense of the word. It's the minimal effort to make a movie from everybody involved. It's below action B-movies from the 80s. It's 2000s Steven Seagal quality. It's the movie equivalent of a ponzi scheme and people who pay to see this should feel cheated and demand a refund. There's no love, no effort and no intention of making anything slightly good.
Pretty much everything is made in studio in front of green screen with horrible, HORRIBLE, CGI environments and horrible cheap CGI over all. I question if anything, besides the actors, are real in this movie. You can pretty much picture the actors shuffling around in a small green screen studio, surrounded by green boxes, never breathing fresh air during the entire filming.
This is not even "Ha ha" bad. This is excruciating bad.
Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story (2022)
A love letter to a legend.
An informative documentary about Robert Englund, but also a love letter to the person and his craft. I really enjoyed every bit of this doc and it kept me interested 'til the end.
I must confess that - besides all the movies and tv shows as Krueger - i'm not a huge fan of most of the movies Mr. Englund have appeared in. I always enjoy his acting and presence on screes tho. But after watching this documentary, i have more understanding of why he decided to involve himself in projects that probably wasn't destined to be huge hits. The reason? He's actually a rare genuine actor. He wants to act and he loves to act. He see's the opportunity to learn, teach and enjoy every aspect of what he's doing, no matter if he's working with big time or first time directors and actors. Also, if you have this passion and love for acting, you must also be a social loveable person who enjoy the interaction with others, which he clearly does and which is clearly noticed by the people he work with or just interact with at conventions.
I'm one of those kids Mr. Englund is talking about in this doc. I used to hide and peek unnoticed behind the couch when my mother and her sister were watching horror movies - or being noticed and told to stop peeking. I was just 6 years old and now i'm closing in on 50.
I've always been a huge fan and devourer of horror movies and i've always loved Robert Englund as an actor, but now i love him even more as a person.
Locke (2013)
No. Not a good movie.
Oh man. What's up with the reviews for this movie? I'm never the one who goes against the majority when it comes to movies. You know, the ones who "hates" Titanic just to be different. But this is not a good movie and Tom Hardy is not a good actor when he plays "normal" characters. He only shines when he's in any kind of extreme character.
The writing wasn't good either. It was mediocre. And what's up with the sense morale of this movie? Hid dad was a d*ck, so now he doesn't want to be just as him, so he's unfaithful and to make HIS life right (because he "always stays the course and does things right!"), he decides to abandon his wife and their two kids to pretty much "just be there" when the new one is born. He were a d*ck when he were unfaithful and instead of fessing up to his "mistake" and make everything right with his family, those he actually hurt, he decided to become a triple d*ck and abandoned them. Was that it? Witnessing a delusional unintelligent b*stard with a cement fetish?
And it all just fizzled, the entire movie, until it fizzled out into nothing. Like "We're content with this. Let's call it there. That's a genius move, right? Just let the audience connect the final intricate masterpiece wires for themselves..."
The Flash (2023)
Awful plot, awful Ezra, awful CGI.
To begin with, Ezra Miller can not carry a movie like this. I don't know what it is about him, but it's something about taking things way to far and not being consistent. Especially his portrayal of his characters younger self, who seemed to constantly shift from a dumb teenager to an extremely annoying little child. Considering how Ezra Miller acts outside of movies, i imagined his younger self was just Ezra being real life Ezra.
The plot is embarrassingly generic and we've seen it SO many times before, even in recent DC/Marvel productions. Time travel -> butterfly effect -> multiverse. Whoever wrote this and whoever gave it an okay need to go out and touch some grass for a while or forever, because they're obviously creatively bankrupt.
The CGI... Oh, the CGI. Man. There were some decent CGI in there, but generally it was just awful. Uncanny valley galore.
The only part that i actually did like was Michael Keaton, but the rest of the fan service just felt forced and uncomfortable.
I believe i chuckled two times at some jokes, so thanks for that tho.
Extraction 2 (2023)
Extraction 2 brought what Wick 4 didn't.
Even tho i enjoyed the first 30 minutes of the first Extraction with some really well made and cool action, the movie declined fast after that and never caught up speed again. Extraction 2 started out the same way, and even harder this time, but managed to keep a good speed until the end. A clear improvement from the first one. I mean, that 20 minute "one shot" (cleverly hidden cuts) action scene was the best exhilarating action i've seen in a long time.
The camera work and the sceneries/cinematography/CGI was also some of the best i've seen in a long time.
I have a few main issues tho. When it comes to action movies you have to suspend reality a bunch and avoid questioning whether something is logic or exaggerated. We're in a sense already okay with the that fact that humans are being repeatedly punched, kicked, hit by heavy hard objects, stabbed, shot, etc, etc, and keep going strong. But when it comes to stupidity and dumb writing, that's another story. That's where the viewers actually start chopping off stars harshly when it's time to rate a movie.
The first issue i have is the fact that the army didn't show up in Vienna. Yes, kudos for actually including the police and heavy armed police showing up, which they rarely do in action movies, but this was clearly a serious attack on the city and they should've been stomped fast if something like this happened in real life. And in the end, everybody involved just walked out of there unnoticed. Yes, i know i said that we must suspend reality and logic, but i consider things like this being more of a "dumb-hole" in the plot that the writers need to cover up.
The second issue; Rake being indirect responsible for Yaz's death by not finishing off the main bad guy. During their fight, the bad guy falls through the glass ceiling onto the floor below, obviously not high enough to think that he died. But for some reason, Rake just leaves him there and moves on ...and the baddie show up a few minutes later to shoot Yaz.
Yes, we all know that "the final boss" can't die yet, but you can't let sudden stupidity be the reason why he's left alive, just so the movie can progress.
Nonetheless, i liked the movie a lot and considering the upwards trajectory in quality from the first one, i'm looking forward to a third installment, which is something i can't say about John Wick anymore.
Kandahar (2023)
Leave Butler alone!
It's official. Gerard Butler is what Melissa McCarthy is to her husband; a talented person kept down by bad writers and directors.
Butler is a really great, cool and loveable actor. He used to star in really great movies, but now he's appearing in one bad movie after another.
I don't know what the director and editor was thinking when making this movie, but they managed to make everything extremely bland and impersonal. The action parts were confusing. The emotional parts were on the nose and laughable and the religious mumbo jumbo went too far.
Butler is far from past his time. He's still a very relevant and talented actor, so please, make Butler great again.
The Wrath of Becky (2023)
Becky and the many acts of God.
This script is so bad, lazy and unintelligent.
It's bad because the writers are just stacking things to work in a bad way.
To begin with; Becky is the reason why the old lady gets murdered and why her dog gets dognapped (instead of killed or just left alone, for some reason.)
She knew the villains were dangerous and disturbed, yet she decided to provoke them and lead them to her home. Especially considering her past, she should be far more smart, careful and paranoid.
Right there, we have a dumb lazy premise for this entire movie.
Becky is training hard and being portrait as some badass warrior who's planning and thinking things through, yet nothing of this really matters. She's pretty much just solely relying on luck and bad writing. People have to step at the exact right spot for her traps, people have to be stumbling fools and she relies on ducking from bullets and people missing.
She's confidently playing with her victims, but without the massive plot armor and the bad writing, she would be dead 10 times over.
This is a red thread through this entire movie.
Kevin from Home Alone is both smarter and more dangerous than Becky.
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
A muddy journey.
As someone who suffers from similar anxiety disorders as the main character, i felt like this would be interesting and up my alley. Unfortunately, this was a unbearable slog of a movie.
I have nothing against complex, stylized and metaphorical movies, but if it's not presented in an entertaining way, then all that's left is weirdness, confusion and boredom. If you don't grasp everything, at least you should enjoy the ride - which is the main purpose of movies.
Sure, there's a handful of fun and interesting scenes in there, but the clear majority of this three(!) hour anxiety trip isn't very entertaining. The idea and the topic is interesting, but i feel like there could've been far more tragicomical and interesting things to explore with anxiety and generational trauma instead of hammering in a few points repeatedly in a very drawn out way. I question if it would've made any difference if they shaved off an hour.
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
Quantity over quality.
Unlike many other reviewers, i consider the John Wick story diminishing over time.
In the first movie, John Wick was Baba Yaga; the unkillable ghost that everybody had heard of and feared and there was an urgency to everything he did and had to do - from the first kill to the final boss. Every fight scene was meticulous and memorable and we got both high quality and enough quantity.
Over time, and especially in this final chapter of John Wick, almost everything of that is lost. Literally hundreds of assassins sacrifice themselves stupidly on John Wick like they've never heard of him and of course, they all get mowed down like cannon fodder. The fight scenes are no longer meticulous but rather average with repetitive moves, stuntmen waiting to get hit/killed, people entering timely in small groups like it's a video game with increasing difficulty. And to lower the urgency even more, bullets are no longer an issue since they all wear "bulletproof suits" that makes bullets bounce off like cotton balls, so now they can shoot A LOT more and it doesn't matter.
John Wick went from no nonsense to lots of nonsense and the director Chad Stahelski made one of the most common mistakes when it comes to movies like this; he sacrificed quality over quantity.