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jamesholverstott-43730
Reviews
Secret in Their Eyes (2015)
Utterly unnecessary. Watch the original and skip this version.
Absolutely no idea why someone thought they could improve on the original, or even come close to matching its amazingness. Maybe if this was an original idea it could have been slightly above the run of the mill mystery-thriller. Alas, original it is not. And there is most assuredly no Ricardo Darin here. He is such an amazingly gifted actor, and not a single person in this remake even comes close. I am not saying no one in this version is a quality actor/actress, but none of their talents, alone or in concert, make this anything but a tepid offering. Sometimes fame makes for bad movies, and I would say this is a great example of that. No shortage of skills, but the "baggage" of the participants results in a wasted effort. Watch Darin's version only.
Fringe: Bad Dreams (2009)
The male gaze
An episode that never would have considered using Peter instead of Olivia for the same-sex scene. Sad. Not that using Peter would have been better, or worse, but the fact that a great show felt the need to do something so ridiculous and unnecessary is lame. They could have used any other emotion else besides the sexual and the episode loses nothing. Using it gains nothing, and actually makes the episode rather sophomoric and obviously done for male viewership. Not that women can't/don't find Olivia attractive or sexy, but it is unnecessary scenes like this (along the lines of the gratuitous boob shot) that just keep sexism alive.
Criminal Minds: Internal Affairs (2015)
Lights?
HA! I enjoyed this episode. I like when the show goes a bit outside the usual, it lets the characters - otherwise rather typecast - to show a variety of skills. I also like how the Dirty Dozen has a place, if even slightly, as that will be an epic case to close.
My big question is this: I get they need to keep Garcia safe (I love her character, though many find her annoying; polarizing, I guess, then?) but it's the federal government. Couldn't they give her office/cave more lights?!?!? I get the atmospherics they try to maintain but jesuschrstonacracker how can she see anything but her computer monitors?
Sacrifice (2020)
Rather thin and unmonster-y
I love Barbara Crampton in horror films. She has a screen presence few can match, and she does serious, campy, or scary equally well. What she does not do well is a Norwegian accent. Like, jesuschristonacracker awful. A bit of Irish, a bit of Scottish, a bit of British, some pseudo-Scandanavian, maybe. Some Midwestern US even. Maybe. But Norwegian? Ha! That aside, this felt like a movie steeped in unmet potential. Crampton is quite grand, as expected. The lead male isn't too bad either. The pregnant wife is dull and not very believable, not at all a developed character. The color/visuals are amazing, the sounds/atmosphere fit nicely, and the scenery is also quite beautiful. But it could have been anywhere since there isn't anything obviously Norway! Here besides being told it's Norway. Since there isn't anything Cthulhu-ish in Norwegian folklore it probably should have left this part ambiguous, or picked somewhere more fitting or at least believable. There is an abundance of dream sequences, which were either over-used or underdeveloped, depending on your like/dislike of them. I disagree with the Wicker Man and Midsommar film references completely, those films are quite specific in their cultural references and are "people-as-monster" types, not "creature-monster" films. Ultimately, this just didn't really go anywhere interesting or gross or doom-y (Lovecraft was quite the Doom Master). Watchable, but assuredly not re-watchable.
It (2017)
No comparison to Curry's Pennywise. None at all.
Hated hated hated all Finn's jokes. All of them. They were totally unnecessary and barely fit a kid of his age. And even if there is that one kid that feels they have to make all these jokes, I found it hard to believe his friends would have stuck with him or put up with the nasty, sex-tinged garbage he spewed all the time. Seriously, it was really tiresome and detracted a lot from the friendship aspect of the movie.
Another annoying bit was how over the top every character was, good or bad, girl or boy. Too much stereotyping, made the characters unbelievable.
And if you're going to use kids as central characters, with all the dumb things kids do, it still begs the question why the kids were never completely freaked out by Pennywise. Seriously?!? Small Twon Land and something this extremely messed up just doesn't make them run for the hills? A bit much.
Trying to follow Tim Curry's version was always going to be tough and this one doesn't come close. Sure, the effects are better - hello technology! - but it was never really creepy or scary. Startling, maybe, but I hope someday soon people stop conflating "startle" with "scare", they are completely different affects.
The Northman (2022)
Visually arresting but woefully weak plot
The cinematography is fantastic and the soundtrack is powerful, though almost too much at times. But the plot is too simplistic which makes the runtime ridiculously overlong. The acting isn't terrible, but the dialogue is atrocious, wooden, and mechanically delivered. It would have served the film better had it been done in native languages (Russian, Slavic, Icelandic, Norwegian, Scandinavian...), but doing it in English gave it the feel of early Gaul. I liked the Tibetan-Bon singing in the film, but it didn't fit the setting at all, since that is Russian-Tibetan, not Icelandic-based. I think Eggers tried to be too expansive with his period-appropriateness. The film dragged a lot as it lacked any intriguing subplots or mysteriousness. As an action film, it was only so-so, since the action scenes lacked action, and Amleth too often looked as if he was flexing for photo ops and not actually fighting or killing. Too many dream sequences that just felt glommed on to the thin story. Sadly, an easy film to let run in the background until the revenge mayhem towards the end. Cool to see Bjork in a film!
MH370: The Plane That Disappeared (2023)
"Aviation Reporter"??
Jeff wise is so annoying. He insists the captain must have decided to commit mass murder and suicide because the co-pilot could not possibly have flown the plane. Dumb, because even with limited experience of course the co-pilot had the skill to fly the plane, otherwise he would not have been co-pilot! I am surprised people are so flabbergasted they couldn't find the wreckage. Do they have any idea how many square miles they would need to search?? Or the depth of the ocean?? Any conspiracies about what or who might have been on board are beyond ridiculous and just manufactured drama. And people love drama and conspiracies, right?? I found the lack of anything provable or believable in the series made it just decent background noise.
Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022)
Unbelievably average.
Wow, what a massive disappointment. Hard to believe Del Toro would present such a dismal selection of "already told, and told better" tales. The best part of any of them were the effects and cinematography. The characters were vapid, shallow, and quite forgettable. Uninteresting, formulaic, ridiculous, not-scary, and borderline amateurish plots. My expectations were rather high and were dashed at the closing of each segment.
Sadly, I will have to add more about my disappointment since IMDB needs 600 characters. OK then. Dull, just barely watchable, decent background to other things soundtrack. Whew, made it!
The Black Phone (2021)
Disappointing.
I had high expectations for this one, and I agree with most of the reviews that give it 5 or 6 stars.
I didn't care about any of the characters, which is never good in a horror film that doesn't involve Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freddy Kreuger, or Leatherface.
Ethan Hawke was uninteresting, another no-no for a horror movie that promotes the villain as some sort of scary person. The mood-morphing ing mask was a pretty cool idea, but we learn nothing about "The Grabber" at all, not to mention the name is rather ho-hum.
A bit heavy on the "Stephen King Movie Model", and not done all that well even so.
Not scary at all, and in many places rather ridiculous. Watch the film and you will likely notice what I mean, the phone gimmick notwithstanding.
The violence between the kids was intense, and altogether unnecessary to the plot.
Just not enough of anything to be recommend-able.
Try "Sinister" instead. Not "Sinister 2" though.
Candyman (2021)
Honest social commentary thinly (on purpose) masked as Horror for Smart People, most def.
I loved the original and was quite leery of a remake. This reticence had zero to do with any/all of the White Supremacist/Republican terminology associated with it. Simply put, this film is amazing. Call it whatever you want, it is simply quality from every angle. Yes, there is a lot to pay attention to, but I prefer my films to be complex. Anyone protesting its departure-erasure of the "Candyman Myth" (wow! We actually prize cinematic myth over rather-obvious social commentary??) can have their moment but it is destined to be a short one. This film does justice to Barker's original idea but creates its own reality. A better, more impactful one. All the horror i there, on several levels. Intelligent viewers will get it. Neo-Nazi "purists" (double-entendre, if you will...) will miss it, probably, or hate it for being so accurate. Watch. This. Film.