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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Netflix, free with the property and I'm going to be making the best of it. Hungarian film, atmospheric, curious characters, very worthwhile. 4 Stars.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 735
Alfred Hitchcock. Whom I'd had some prejudices (ill founded, it seems) against.
Meh the flaws - they're a matter of convention and taste. What impressed me was how the ending swerved - and outright ran over my expectations. "He wouldn't dare!". Yeah, he just did. So, worthwhile, and dated in the best of all possible ways.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
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Mostly nonsense. I mean, I'm away, then I'm catching up. News, Trump, USA, Canada, UK, The World, NZ, Australia, Sweden, Covidiot type shit.
Reddit. The Daily Grail. Digg. Boing-Boing. Refresh. Again. And again. And the news is always worse.
In other media, catching up on the world of inane TV. Watched: "Don't f**k with Cats". Meh. "The Hurricane Heist" - D-Movie on Netflix, which I loved because it was like a weatherman (picture Steve Carell) on the weather channel decided he wasn't getting enough respect and decided to write his own action movie. With him as the star...
I dunno. I needed a break from the news.
Episode 1 from "Upload" on Amazon Prime. OK, but it annoyed me because I had thought of all this easily 10 years ago - by which I mean, the digital afterworld, the idea of ads, subscription, tech support, etc. And it annoys me that someone else realized it. But it makes me recognize - when an ideas time has come, if you don't realize it first you're last. And so I'm watching it to see how someone else has realized "my" ideas.
"Vivarium" - interesting concept, not so thoroughly developed. Liked, but "so-so". Some good ideas.
Finished watching "Ozark" season 3. Nope. No good news there. And I really, really, didn't care.
And, finally, "The Good Place". I like the tidbits of philosophy, but it's all too dumbed down. Episodic, as if each episode was written only after the previous one had aired. Reminds me of "The Magic Tavern" in it's improv/didn't make a plan/let's just wing it approach. I'd give it a miss. But - on the plus side - I didn't want to kill myself afterwards...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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This was - in almost every aspect - a terrible movie. Despite the All-Star cast.
But, that said - a little bit ahead of the curve in the prescient foreshadowing of what's now come to pass, from the wet-markets, social distancing, bad actors (definitely not enough of those!!!) reactions, etc.
Where it fails is in the imagined response of the US reacting to the threat. Because nobody could have imagined the Trump. Or - wait - maybe somebody did...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
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Finished Season 2. This is the bleakest fucking show ever. No kidding. There is no light whatsoever.
Still a little thick on the stereotypes, one imagines casting: "Skid #47 ...", "redneck #3", "preacher hillbilly #248", "Wal-Mart Clerk #12", "crazy-ass-chick #4", "Mexican Killer #22", "Dumb-ass #11", "Freaky Guy #2", "impulsive sociopath #2", "come-back-as-a-ghost #1", "junkie", film literate in the worst of all ways, still, I'm sucking it all up, the real world looks cheery by comparison, even right now. It manages to trivialize the Quarantine, can't imagine things getting worse? Immerse yourself in this, here it is...
Overall, too many despicable people doing despicable things, the taint of drug money permeating every layer of society, the characters, every one of them too wrapped up in self-interest to effectively give a damn about anyone else, Bleak lives, bleak furniture, the American nightmare, and this was before the virus...
The plotting, a little transparent, the game is afoot, did she poison his tea, will it take effect before he can stab her? The plot reveals itself before ... but - "cyanide in your coffee from ground up cherry pits..."....Yeah. No. Maybe the foreshadowing is too effectual, or - ? WTF? And Darlene? Who hasn't dated Darlene, or some version thereof?
The Plot Twists are never that twisted, or they are, but the too frequent twists become anticipated, ...
It's no "Breaking Bad", by which I mean Vince Gilligan was a genius, and wrote the show on a number of levels, this, a similar message, - populist, now, even, to the point where every time a character "bites it" you're like "Finally!!!", and never, ever like a character as that's an sign they'll soon be dead, each smallest speck of decency is too quickly extinguished, even the forces of "good" are unilaterally bad, "Agent Petty", the name says it all...
2 seasons, I don't think I can do another. Kudo's though to Jason Bateman for producing/directing it.
In the end it could be a tale of redemption, but I doubt it, I'm cutting my losses.