Change Your Image
bazookamouth-221-898097
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Rhythm Section (2020)
The Rhythm Section plays like a bad grocery store spy novel
"The Rhythm Section" refers to the beating of one's heart (the drums) and the whir of one's breathing (the bass), an allegory that never really comes full circle, nor is it employed for any reason other than dramatic voice over and a catchy title. Anyone who had high hopes of this being the start of a new action franchise can quickly forget that. It has nothing to offer that hasn't been done many times before in much better ways. Since Gossip Girl wrapped up in 2012, Lively has been trying to make her way as a movie star, with hit-and-miss results and her choice of projects so far has not been the best. Jude Law also is unconvincing in this role, as he essentially has nothing to do but glower at Stephanie and occasionally beat her up in the name of training. Without any inclination that Stephanie has the raw talent or capability of becoming a spy-slash-assassin, he agrees to train her, whipping her into shape, forcing her to detox and and forging from her crumbling former self a shockingly adept agent. How? And why a girl with no background in anything even remotely close to espionage? That is perhaps the greatest hurdle "The Rhythm Section" fails to surmount: providing reasonable plausibility for every action committed throughout the film. To recap, in a matter of months, Stephanie (aka Lisa) goes from a drug-addicted prostitute to a sober, fit, gun-wielding killer with a firm grasp of international affairs and general spy nuances. The driving story - the bomb on the plane, young girl seeking revenge, a preposterous coverup - perhaps wouldn't have felt so ridiculous in different hands, or if the setup weren't distorted by sap. Lively dons a British accent like she does the wigs, and though she throws herself into the role, even she can't make a clean brush of a bad tangle.
Boston Strangler (2023)
Boston Strangler is a Suffocating True-Crime Slog
Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon do their professional best with this stolid and inhibited TV-movie-style trudge through a gruesome true-crime story: the Boston Strangler, the US serial killer to whom police and press attributed 13 murders of women in Boston during the early 1960s. A confession for all 13 was secured from one Albert DeSalvo, but with forensic evidence linking him to only the last victim. Just four years after DeSalvo conviction, Tony Curtis famously went against his dreamboat image by playing him in a brassy film with Henry Fonda as the detective on his trail.
This version tries getting to grips with the possibility of multiple culprits and that the Boston Strangler was in fact a misogynist hivemind phenomenon. It moreover tells the story of the women whose role has almost been forgotten: two tough, resourceful journalists, Loretta McLaughlin (Knightley) and Jean Cole (Coon), who first christened the killer "The Boston Strangler" and whose fiercely persistent reporting for the Record American (a paper later merged into the Boston Herald) forced the cops and city hall to take notice.
Fair enough. But there is so little dramatic excitement to any of this. Where is the tension? Where is the suspense? Where is the macabre horror? A director like David Fincher would have gone for the jugular on this kind of material, but writer-director Matt Ruskin seems a little squeamish and keeps everything on the right side of contemporary taste. The chill of fear is missing.
Miller's Girl (2024)
Borefest
Martin Freeman's teacher here was a probelm for me. He has done some good work but really he is average looking and lacks any kind of charisma for us to believe that Jenna Ortega's student would lust and obsess over him. Just didn't buy it. Same with Jenna friend it is a mystery why she would lust in an over the hill , out of shape black guy teacher. No chemistry. Even worse was Freeman's wife who seemed to be on the wrong speed setting either drunk or a nymph or both. The music was awful other than the ending credit with the Janis Ian song. The black teacher seemingly let himself in and out of Freeman's house even when Freeman and his wife were having intimacy he barges straight in. Also I didn't buy Jenna friend character transition at the end. From teenage nymph to a more mature girl caring about what happens to Freeman's teacher. A much better film is Pretty Persuasion from 2005 with Evan Rachel Wood which runs along the same lines.
Smile (2022)
Didn't like it much
Too long , 2 hours is way to long and it has pacing issues. They could have cut out around 30 minutes. I didn't like the lead actress moles and all. She was far to skinny to the role and not overly attractive and you cant believe she is a doctor. The dialogue consists most of the time of profanity. I didn't like the boyfriend. He was in a whole different movie I don't like choc ice situations, it all seems unnatural but you have to click the woke boxes. Some parts were well done. I think the sister head coming off by the car and the visit from the irritating psychologist last who follows Miss Mole around like a puppy as the plot demanded it. What was the cop sniffing around her for? Didn't she have a boyfriend . To be honest it past me by and I got bored. I wont be seeing Smile 2.
Coma (2024)
Clunky last episode
I liked this drama but it ran out of steam maybe after the 3rd episode. Some highlighted characters. Paul was excellent as the thugs dad, intimidating and always worked well when he had screen time. The mum was terrific also Beth. Claire Skinner is a great actress. On the same token, the series fell flat every time that female cop came into it. What was she Colombo? The police investigation seemed over the top bearing in mind the boy didn't die and recovered but that cop is always hanging about. The actor who played the thug Jordan was also unhinged and was suitably annoying but played his part well. Plot conveniences a whole load of them happened to keep this ticking over. I mean why did they have to go to a hotel after the boy revealed to his psycho dad what really happened, why didn't they drive straight to the sisters in Birmingham? The side plot about the little girl and the asthma pump was created so Simon would have to go back to the house. So in the end Simons life was spared because he saved the thug son again after the dementia affected neighbour stabbed the son. All in all it was better than The Cuckoo.
I Killed John Lennon (2005)
Rambles on and on
Well he comes across as such a dull, unremarkable man with no charisma. He rambles on and on and on about his inspiration for the mutder and all this rubbish. IN a nutshell he is just a very dull narcissist who wanted to become famous and this was the only way for this creep. Whilst in prison he has fathered three kids. How did that happen? Prisons are supppsed to punish bearing in mind he is in prison on the tax payers dollar. He should have tortured his entire prison life. I bet if he had shot Yoko noone would have cared. This is dated back to 2005 and it seems he is still fat and well fed. On taxpayers dollar.
Youtopia (2018)
Decent movie , hated the game scenes
The main issue I have with this movie was the computer virtual game scenes distracted from the movie. In particular her ingame parner who was acting like some kind of cult life guru. In fact to me the game looked a load of rubbish. It did effect the movies tone. Particulary in the finale. I thought the acting was excellent and I believed the dire situation they were in. All plaudits to the mother in particular who was the movie MVP. She was great. The old guy Ernesto who wins the auction for her virginity was particluary grim looking and unpleasant and the old perv got his just rewards in the end. Odd ending though. I liked the movie just not the computer game stuff. Everytime those scenes came on just bored me.
Griselda (2024)
Watchable
Slight issue for me here was Sofia Vergara who did her best in ther role as Griselda but neither her look or actions as Griselda I didnt find her intimidating or scary. When I saw her I didnt see Griselda. Also a another irritant is the amount of smoking going on. Sofia Vergara every scene. She can't smoke also. She tried her best. She looks like a non smoker trying to smoke. If they had cut down the scenes of actors/actresses directly smoking they could have knocked an episode off. Its almost as if every character had to smoke except for the sons. It was watchable but it didnt live long in the memory and I wouldnt want to see it again.
Dangerous Game: The Legacy Murders (2022)
Well, it's not exactly a good movie.
There is a large ensemble cast in Dangerous Game most of which don't do the best job largely in part due to the awful script and dialogue which seems to consist of majority F words, but the acting could also use a little bit of work. Johnathon Rhys Meyer was particularly poor here. It doesn't deliver any tension offering stale, low-budget escape room scenarios and performances are either laughable or just weird. Sasso who plays Alex trying to pull off a strange voice that borders on cartoonish, introducing unintentional (or perhaps completely intentional) laughs to the picture. Dangerous Game doesn't bring much of a puzzle to family relations or deadly games, and the dialogue is limp, mostly offering profanity to indicate frustration. "Dangerous Games" imagines itself to be a sicko ride of gory encounters and horrific traps. But the movie it's just unexceptional.
The 355 (2022)
It has a good cast but its a forgettable story
This could have been a BBC Film. Ticks all the boxes. Person of Colour. Tick. Asian. Tick. Girl power. Tick. Only thing missing was an LGBT character. Sebastian Stan in this movie is the miracle man. He gets killed and comes back to life. The female ensemble try and kill him and he comes back time and again. The female cast didnt work. There is no chemistry between there. A fine actress as Jessica Chastain is she is not really an action star and I didnt buy the character. Penelope Cruz who I might add looks the finest out of the cast but her character was kinda annoying and whiny, out of her depth, bit of a twit but again its not her forte. Diane Kruger I am no fan of. I dont like her. Her face is to wide. Its odd. The British MI6 agent got on my nerves with that stuck up British accent which was put on. All in all largely the cast couldnt pull this off. Jodie Comer in Killing Eve is everything Chastain, Cruz and Kruger were not in this movie. Jodie is a lesser known actress. Maybe sometimes lesser is more.
Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee and Jessica Wongso (2023)
Overly long and not that interesting
Just to long and it speeds through like an electron on heat. Your met with variety of different characters all talking one hundred miles an hour and multiple cuts to all sorts of things going on. It seems Asian people are on the wrong speed setting. Its also noted that the supposed killer Jessica has a strange face and was put in prison on that basis she wasnt particulary attractive and that people with money can corrupt the justice system. Overly though Jessica wasnt a celebrity so you wonder why the interest to make this documentary although it might have been big news in Jakarta. Why did I watch it? I have no idea and perhaps I wish I hadnt bothered.
We Are Newcastle United (2023)
A lot of Amanda Staveley acting
I always liked Newcastle United since the 90s under Keegan and it is nice to see them back at the right of the table. Watchable when it focused on the matches and Eddie Howe comes across as genuine where I found members of the Saudi board quite a bit fake. Mostly Amanda. Lof of footage of her with her pretending and she has such an odd looking face. Like a geriatic cat. She is also very hands on in more ways than one. She was all over Eddie Howe. Anyway I am glad eventually Newcastle got into Europe and I think they will do well. I think if they did another season they should focus more on the playing side and less on he Saudi actors inc.
Manifest (2018)
So bad
I only managed to get through two episodes so I didnt give it much of a chance but I knew from those episodes that for me personally this would be a nightmare series for me. Characters are important in how I view a series more so than plot. Seemed that the first episode seemed rushed. All happened very quickly The airport scene with the family who separate to catch different flight on the basis of offered money by the airport, to the plane disappearing and appearing five years later, to the characters who went missing intergrating back into life five years later. I didnt buy any of it. Also the actors seem wooden. In particular the female cop. She just reminded me of a younger Jenny Hoyt from Big Sky but with super powers (she hears voices). They quickly added a love triangle for irritation. After five years her partner moved on and started a new relationship with her colleague it seems. The other members of the family are the ultra dull Grace and Ben and there two twin kids , one of whom Olive has aged 5 years , and the boy Cal stayed the same age. All a bit weird and not believable. I think if they had taken their time a bit to invest in the characters but they are thrown in your face with no back story and they are terrible actors. Seems a weaker version of the 4400.
Shirkers (2018)
Babbled on and on and on.
In 2018, Sandi Tan premiered her film at the Sundance Film Festival and earned the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award. She was the second Singapore-born filmmaker to win. What does this mean her film she recorded back in 1992 or this documentary? I watched to the end but really didnt absorb me or was I invested by the end. I followed the story of this garbage movie she recorded with some Walter Mitty character called Georges who vanished with the movie reels. I really didnt like Sandi. I found her bland, uninteresting, unattractive and unlikeable. At one point she compares her crap movie with Ghost World starring Thora Birch. Drones on and on.
Une fille facile (2019)
Bit slow.
So in a nutshell an innocent Indian looking French girl who plays 16 but is at least late 20s has an over the top French Graham Norton type gay best friend and then spends a summer with her plastic looking French Paris Hilton esq cousin who has a really strange upper body and not a lot happens other than they meet a couple of caricaured richies who own a yacht. One being the French Gerard Butler who is pushing 50 and acts like a teen and the more mild mannered one who I cant remember his name and wasn't overly interesting. The French don't miss an opportunity to drop clothes so that happens a lot. The American dubbing was terrible but Cannes was quite nice. Just one of those movies which you instantly forget about as nothing really happens. Characters very irritating.
Cunk on Earth (2022)
Didn't find it remotely funny
I watched all five episodes and I just feel it passed me by, not particulary funny and my gaze kept focusing on that ugly mole she has on her neck rather than what she was saying. The interviews with various academics and professors were to be honest a bit cringey and anyway Ali G did this kind of thing at the end of the 90s being totally ignorant and asking the most stupid questions and having the most ridiculous quotes and sayings but at least that had funny moments. She is just unbelievably stupid and it didnt work for me. She droned on and on from episode to episode not really my cup of tea.
Death of Me (2020)
Garbage really
Death of Me Ending Explained
The couple noticed that the locals of the island have started acting strange all of a sudden and are in fact preparing for an ominous festival that apparently happens every year. As the news of a massive typhoon hitting the island surfaces, the couple decides to find a way out of the island. Oddly, the locals try to keep them captive and reassure them that the island hasn't been hit by a storm in over 200 years. Fortunately, Christine meets Kanda who immediately tells her the truth about the island. Seemingly, the festival that the locals were preparing for is actually initiated to maintain the island's protection from storms and it involves the sacrifice of a pregnant woman each year as a part of the ritual. It's then revealed that the reason why the locals are keeping Christine captive is because she is pregnant. What they saw in the video was very much real but Christine didn't die because of the pendant that Madee had put on her earlier. The pendant lets her exist on a supernatural plane, which means that she's not really dead and not alive either.
Why did Neil kill Christine?
In the flashback, it's seen that Neil is in the bar with Madee who spikes his drink with corpse oil that lets the locals control his mind and actions. This is why he kills Christine and then commits suicide shortly after. But if he had committed suicide, why was he alive the next day even without owning the pendant? Turns out, he was actually dead and a part of Christine's subconscious imagination.
Does Christine die?
Christine is forced into the ritual but manages to escape before it's completed. As she takes off on a getaway boat, she sees that the typhoon has already made its way into the island. The next day, we see that the entire island is swept by the storm because the sacrifice wasn't complete and along with the locals' bodies, we also see Christine dead in the boat. The officer who is in charge of rounding up the bodies finds the pendant across the sea and tosses it into Christine's body bag, which results in her corpse regaining consciousness. Thereafter, she manages to escape from the body bag and goes on to live a relatively peaceful life.
The movie ends with many questions. Due to the pendant, Christine cannot really die. And if that is so, will she ever? More importantly, what will happen to her baby? Will it turn out to be a demon-child? Guess the only takeaway is that the viewer can test their vivid imaginations with this.
Saving Grace (2022)
Tedious
It starts with the lead Sarah coming out of a nightclub with some annoying blonde who she says goodbye to and ends up on a train next day to the middle of nowhere to caregive some catatonic old lady. She is met Albert (a neighbour) and has to escort her on a boat to some island house to start the job.
Then the movie really is just Albert acting creepy and Sarah hearing noises and wandering around the house either repeating the words "Grace" or "Albert". Couple of flashbacks which shows why Grace is catatonic. Concludes with a twist I didnt really see coming as I had lost interest in this about half way through. The twist is where you believe Sarah is in peril from Albert and the house. But she is a murderer and had murdered her last caregiving job old lady.
Conclusion: The lead actress was far to slim and Albert far to wooden. Rest of movie was Incredibly dull in parts and to dark in others. Not recommended.
Ingenium (2018)
Jumbled mess
I rated this 1 star on the fact I didn't finish the movie nor were compelled do so. The fact it was a German movie I was a little detached from what was going on early on but I kept with it for most it the movie. So the probelms I found. The lead actress. I didn't like her, didn't understand her actions or anything she did in the movie. I have no clue what was happening. I found it extremely boring. She like an electron bounched from unintersting characters, from Bangkok to Berlin. The boyfriend (was he?), the shrink, the Asian girl who didn't look Asian, the blonde best friend in the mental asylum. When they started that time travel nonsense it lost me completely. Maybe not my genre but this is a nonsense movie that makes absolutely no sense with miserable characters and a lead I just hated. Avoid.
The Taking (2014)
In bad taste really
Not many positives here I am afraid. The Alzheimer's disease storyline disappears after about 15mins or so and evolves into some hocus pocus about a possessed snake lady who's goal is to kidnap a child for some ritual we don't understand.
The characters. The elderly lady (Deborah) played by Jill Larsen just looks so odd. She goes from a lady PLAYING someone with Alzheimer's and then descends into a lady PLAYING someone who is possessed. She does alright though. Suitably sinister. The daughter Sarah (Anne Ramsey) is a no budget Laura Dern lookalike who I found her acting fake and becomes a sideshow when the movie descends into chaos for the last 45mins where you see and understand very little. Rest of the cast were just there including the annoying Asian girl who leads the unlikeable students and the lesser characters like the female cop who appears to be the only cop and the female doctor who appears to be the only doctor in an empty hospital. The neighbour who teleports into their house. Support cast laughable
Suspends belief. I wonder how a broke family would pay for all those hospital visits and treatments they must have good insurance yet they look real poor. At one point they summon the hospital doctor out for a night visit to the old lady. I suppose she would have time as the hospital appears empty. In the U. K. that elderly lady after committing harm to herself would be committed to hospital and watched around the clock. Why when the old lady was in a confused state and wandering around naked did the daughter permit the student crew and camera just to take the footage. No dignity eh?. How come the old lady was able to kidnap the same little sick girl from the hospital twice? How wasn't the neighbour arrested when he went shooting up the students car. Police woman (the only one) waved it off.
Conclusion: I thought the movie misled the potential viewer as believing this was a movie about a sinister lady with Alzheimer's Disease when actially it was a low budget , low rated found footage movie about a snake lady who gets possessed. In 2023 the found footage genre is dead really. Don't bother with this.
The In Between (2022)
Sucks.
Joey King has a sour looking face. Like she is sucking on a sherbert lemon. The male lead has Grease style ageing for a teenager, he drives a stand out red jeep with a cassette deck in it and wears a silly orange cap whilst dressed all in black. Just coz his father is some language professor he managed to speak three additional languages fluently coz of that. The side characters are lifetime TV movie cardboard. The annoying African American best friend. The African American psychic. The squared headed foster mum, the Greek looking foster dad. The silly teacher who's going over the top about a black and white tree photograph she took with an antique camera. So if I take a picture of a black and white tree that should be enough to get me into the best art/photography school. Oh and that picture up in some art gallery for a grand in which she threw a tantrum. Take the money you sour faced slinky. It concludes with a Ghost style ending having been broken hearted after knowing the dude for a summer. To top it all we have to put up with INXS - Never tear us apart at multiple points in the movie , the soundtrack was already dreadful until INXS showed up again and again. A terrible movie really.
The Deep House (2021)
Typical B-horror fare but watchable to a point
So it starts in Ukraine where international couple internet influencers Ben and Tina are exploring an abandoned asylum in Ukraine. Ben is a Brit but doesn't overdo the British accent as some do in movies. He sounds real. Tina well I am not sure where she is from. Her accent jumps from American to French. Speaking mostly in English but jumping into French speak when she chooses. In the blink of an eye shes in the bath practising her breath holding and then next scene they are smoking cigarettes and heading out to some lake in a part of France. All good so far.
Disappointed to find the supposed secret location of this lake crowded with people they meet an random French man who tells them about the secret location of an underwater house and set out to drive, then hike to location guided by the man. They dive and find the underwater home and explore and for while it's good viewing.
Issues with this movie is when the strange things start happening and ghosts appear and they trapped in the house . It wasn't easy to see when they were exploring normally but when it all goes frantic you can't see anything, sometimes you don't know who's Ben or Tina. Last 30 mins or so is just chaos and they nearly escape but they both died eventually. Ben was stabbed by the ghost's and Tina just ran out of oxygen not to far from surfacing.
All in all something different but all goes crazy at the end in which you see very little. Original though not bad.
Away (2016)
Grim British drama set in Blackpool
In this sombre British drama, two troubled individuals come together to form an unlikely friendship. The older of the two is Joseph (Timothy Spall), a boozy, depressed widower who has come to Blackpool so that he can kill himself. After a failed attempt, he is discovered by Ria (Juno Temple), a feisty young woman who is running away from an abusive relationship. She believes that the two of them should become friends, but Joseph pushes her away at every turn, which is where the film starts to feel slightly repetitive. On the plus side, it features an impressive performance from Temple, who conveys the vulnerability that lies beneath her character's tough, streetwise exterior. Sadly, though, the film itself is so grim and downbeat that it may just be too bleak for some. Timothy and Juno make this better than it is and Matt Ryan makes for a surprisingly intimidating villain figure, but the amount of clichés and melodrama here make the nearly two hour run time feel like an eternity. Also, note to directors: telling your story out of sequence doesn't immediately make it better. It is really messy sequencing but still worth worthing.
Lost Transmissions (2019)
Not overly keen on this!
I only watched because of Juno Temple otherwise I would not have bothered. So it starts with Juno who is working a boring desk job who then gets introduced to a small time record producer (Simon Pegg) who helps her kick start her music career and for the first 15 mins its promising as a foundation. Then the story changes where Simon's character gets off his medication for Schizophrenia and the rest of the movie is about mental health. It didnt start off about that and neither were you eased into it. The music plot quickly become secondary to the story, even at times irrevelant. In fact the whole of Juno storyline after 15mins becomes exclusively about Simon's character and she just becomes a passenger in the movie and she doesn't have much impact on anything thats happens and whatever she does doesn't matter as Simon is off on his own journey doing his own thing. Eventually we arrive at the end and nothing anyone did really mattered in the movie.
Simon Pegg's on meds persona was believable but his off meds persona I didn't believe and maybe that was above an actor of his calibre as he is seen as a comedy actor and something about his behaviour came across as forced stupid. Sometimes you have wonder why exactly Simon becomes Juno's probelm though and the validity of their connection because in the movie she hasn't known him that long. I didn't get why she was so invested in particular when he is off meds and his behaviour. You would run a mile whether he helped her or not. They were not in a relationship or related. All in all I would avoid this.
Central Park (2017)
Dreadful
Right from the get go you just hate these teens and their vulgar dialogue and immediately are on side with some serial killer who targets them in Central Park who seems to have Rambo stalking skills. I had lost interest in this early due to the repulsive teens so it didnt have my full attention and I cant really remember the ending. Who cares anyway its crap. There is some subplot involving a wooden teacher who helps one of the odd looking students who becomes a victim himself. Good, nosey parker. Also some stone faced cop who hasn't seen his daughter in a year who is married to the teacher who gets involved in the murders. The constant pawing of the black and white couple got on my nerves. Yeah we buy that they are in some kind of teen relationship but your satured with it. Constant cackling also it just drives you up the wall. Verbally sickening its complete dog mess.