MOVIES: Single Line Reviews (in reverse order, last first) 2019-05-22: Start Date 2019-11-28: End Date (c) Copyright Brett Paufler ################################################################################ The Lion King: A fine bit of High-Born Blood-Line Elitist Propaganda rendered in the latest Digital Technology. Driving Miss Daisy: A fine end of life ride, full of elegant sufficiency, which goes on a scene or two too long. Casino Royale: The un-funnny version from the sixties starring Peter Sellers among others. Green Book - Inspired By A True Friendship: An inspired movie. Much much better than I was expecting. A nice Buddy Movie. Life Is Sweet: Let's make a movie. You can star in it. It's not that bad. But then, it's not any better. Anna And The Apocalypse: Truly Horrific Musical Madness. If they wrapped it as a Community College Art Project, they might have had something. But they didn't, so they don't. A Million Ways To Die In The West: Funny enough. Not classic. When a hat full of crap is the high water mark, you know the bar has been set pretty low. Thor - Ragnarok: Light-Hearted SuperHero Fighting Fun, with just enough plot development to justify a sequel. American Gods - Season Two: Not as good as the First Season. We do time. But go nowhere. John Wick - Chapter 3 - Parabellum: Empty gun-play wrapped in a cool aesthetic. And not much else. The Brothers Grimsby: a funny high-quality movie with plenty of foreshadowing. I'm not good at writing foreshadowing, so I was impressed. Borat: A funny low budget comedy that cuts corners by invading the commons. True Detective - The Third Season: It is harder (much harder) to write a satisfying and complicated mystery than it is to simply make an unintelligible one. I'm not convinced the ending will be any good (the ride being fairly mediocre, at best), so I am bailing... mentally, emotionally, even if I drop in every once in a while to see what others are watching. High Life: So bad, so terribly bad, so terribly bad and boring... or I assume, I stopped watching very quickly. American Gods - Season 1: Fantastically Awesome. Having read the book (and watched a made for TV Series before), I have no expectation of a meaningful resolution. But I no longer care. The visuals are stunning. John Wick - Chapter 2: A nice long and colourful gunfight. Though, I would have liked the bullets to have been counted off in the grand finale: Grab Gun -> Count Down -> Grab Gun -> Count Down... Between the Ferns - The Movie: It's just the one joke. But are you cool enough to be in on the joke? Carnival Row: A silly little detective drama, which could be greatly improved by embracing its low budget status (the winged creatures hardly ever fly) and have it all take place during a LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) Event. John Wick: John is fun to watch. As to Wick, that's a firecracker you don't want to light. Captive State: Filmed with an unsteady hand, which does nothing for me. It's a hard hill to climb from there. I bailed. The Sisters Brothers: The title was the best part, followed by the music playing over the credits. Piece by piece it was very nice, but there was no cohesive whole. Eh, or maybe there was a nice metaphorical cohesive whole. So, it's that whole middle part between over-arching theme and camera work (and some very nice scenes) that went missing. Monsters: A Retarded Elf falls in love with a Slack Jawed Idiot amidst a baffling void of monsters. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: Fun was had by all, as we talked over the movie. It's got great production values, but the plot is forced... idiotic at it's core. Southland Tales: Simple minded near future SF with a few interesting ideas and visual effects. I bailed after a half an hour. Drunk Parents: Stopped after thirty minutes, having not found a single redemptive value. Bohemian Rhapsody: A very nice movie, the climax being a semi-concert composed of mini-songs. Better than I thought it would be. Capernaum: A slice of Lebanon life as seen from the perspective of a Syrian Refuge. Grim and Boring. Assassination Nation: Rape/Revenge Flick that plays both sides. I see the talent in the Cinematography... if only the script had been better. The Beach Bum: Party! An empty story about empty people. The music montages were fun. Most of it was inane. Even the poetry sucked. They should have bought the rights for some good poetry. St. Vincent: Humanizing a curmudgeon is not a story I am interested in. It's exactly like taking a silly story and making it sappy. My Scientology Movie: A movie in search of a movie about a movie that's about making a movie. How meta is that? Also, is it appropriate for a Scientologist to become a Suppressive Person when called upon to do so? BlacK K Klansman: Extract the current political commentary and it's a nice solid movie. I wonder if the Libel Laws have changed. Helvetica: A fairly harmless waste of time, purporting to be semi-educational. So, the movie is a metaphor for the typeface. Big Eyes: A study in the watered down meaning of the word psychopathy... A study of an egotistical self-serving man and the artist he exploited. In The Heat Of The Night: A Black Police Officer solves a case amidst the racism of the South. Good. Duck, You Sucker: Action as Farce, I think that sums it up best. Bailed after thirty minutes. There are better movies out there. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly: An improbable caper that takes place during the Civil War and plays at being an Anti War Western. Nice in it's own way. Not as great as I remembered. Not that I remembered the first thing about it. Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood: A slow, meandering, go no where movie full of pleasing nostalgic value capped by an explosively satisfying ending. For a Few Dollars More: A Karate Chop Western with shades of James Bond. It's not a far leap from this to The Wild Wild West. A Fistful of Dollars: A Campy Western with the music the most complicated part. Still, fun. Finding Nemo: Wow! Talking Fish! Talk About Unrealistic! I Kid. Great Fun! Wonderful Animation! Unique Characters! Breaking The Waves: The hand-held filming technique produced a herky-jerky movie that on fast forward seemed slow and a bit down. Sorry. Pass. Trading Paint: I started to watch at 2-4-8x speed on account of the shaky camera work. I don't think I missed much. Poor folk have poor ways. Family is the most important thing. Never forget where you came from, boy. I write this twenty minutes in. I don't expect to have to change a word. Well, I will add this. As predictable as it is, there is comfort in that predictability. Colette: A feminist-inspired true-to-life (I'm guessing) tale of Lesbian Love. I wanted the husband to be sketched out better. Others, perhaps, were wondering why he was featured, at all. Mortal Engines: A wonderful manga like aesthetic (turns out it's a SF Series), but it's all show and no go. Still, the show is fantastic. Holmes & Watson: Funny! It was funny! When it comes to comedy, does anything else matter? My Neighbors the Yamadas: Cute and stylish, but so boring I quickly bailed. The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec: A silly farce with plenty of grim undertones that has the feel of a Poorly-Dubbed English-Language Anime. Stan & Ollie: A tale of Brotherhood. Cute, Funny, and Heart Warming. I question the Historical Accuracy. But then, do you care? The House with a Clock in its Walls: A fun family romp with plenty of that good old fashioned Steam Punk aesthetic with a plot that feels more like imaginary play than anything else. Johhny English Strikes Again: Mr Bean (or should that be, Mr English) is a Secret Agent, who uses his bumbling good-luck to save the English Empire, once again. Replicas: Inane writing, flat acting, forgettable plot points (talk about driving trucks through plot holes) resulting in a movie begging for dismissive running commentary from the viewers. The end music may actually have been the best part. Mary Queen of Scots: Bow to No One: Political Correctness leads to Historical Inaccuracies leading to my disinterest. RIN: Daughters of Mnemosyne: If you try hard enough, sexy can become boring. Success! The Spy Who Dumped Me: A stupidly entertaining movie, whose chase scenes are short enough they do not bore. What We Did On Our Holiday: An amazingly funny family movie that peters out at about the same time the old man does. Toy Story 4: As funny as usual and complete with a surprisingly emotional ending. I predict that we will see two story lines, from here on out. Outlander: Smart sexy feminist time-travel drama from the folks who brought us Dr Who. Too bad it was filmed in hand-held nausorama. Sgt. Will Gardener: A haunted war veteran weaves his way through a wide variety of plot lines and/or plot points with hit or miss success. The Long Dumb Road: Too long and dumb to watch past the first fifteen minutes. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies: The main event was an endless battle of comical stupidity interrupted only by a mind-numbingly dumb chase scene. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: Do not get me started in how the movie diverges from the book! Nice and spectacular, if a little over the top. Lolita: More than a little boring... and not nearly sexy enough given the Older Man / Younger Girl premise. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: I very much enjoyed. Though, I believe it veers from the book in order to make it more of a prequel to the existing Lord Of The Rings movies. Diabolique: a French subtitled thriller, which takes its time getting to a pleasing enough ending. Blindspotting: without a doubt the best rap-centric and/or black-centric movie I have ever watched. Well worth getting over the hump. mid90s: a silly forced ending wraps up this youth-in-rebellion slice-of-life skateboard-thrasher coming-of-age expose-of-a-movie. Victoria: Season 3: It's based on a True Story, you know. A fine Semi-True / Semi-Fictional dramatization of The Crown. Welcome to MarWen: A wonderful movie! The over-the-top action of the Dolls is nicely juxtaposed against a real life tragedy. Wonderful! Alice in Wonderland: An Avante Garde 1966 BBC version of questionable quality and merit, which could be put to good use as background ambiance in a trendy Club or Boutique. Machine Gun Preacher: A wonderful feel-good (or feel-bad) story that did not pull the punches... but neither did it jerk the tears. John Carter: What's not to like about a Confederate Soldier hopping around Mars like a flea. Heck, he even snags himself a princess. Overlord: Stupid Beyond Compare! I laughed and laughed for the last fifteen minutes in the stupid zombie explosiveness of it all. Leave No Trace: A low budget affair, but I did not mind, as the story was superb. A bit slow. But then, it makes sense to linger among the trees of the forest. Mary Poppins Returns: Mary Poppins has a wonderful sense of self. She wins the Ego Wars. Unfortunately, I could not understand maybe half of the song lyrics. It's the kiss of death for a musical. The Girl in the Spider's Web: I think the intent here is to start a Super Hero Light franchise. If so, it needs more sex. Edge Of Tomorrow (Live Die Repeat): A fun enough (Groundhog Day type) concept that was implemented a bit loosey-goosey... with an ending that screams of the (hidden) possibility of a sequel. After Earth: A movie so comically bad one wonders how it ever got the green light. So, less of a movie than background noise... a focus for our commentary. Another Earth: Shaky hand-held camera-work made this low budget Semi Sci Fi Crap Fest utterly un-watchable by me. (c) Copyright Brett Paufler