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Reviews
Loch Ness (1996)
Lovely family flick
Loch Ness is a lovely family flick set against the gorgeous backdrops of Scotland's Lochs (filmed at different Lochs, not just Loch Ness).
It's the perfect Saturday afternoon movie for the whole family, a charming story about the legendary "beastie", Nessie. The performance is solid, the Scottish accents are wonderful and little Izzie is, in my opinion, the secret star of the whole film.
I'm definitely not a fan of child actors and how kids are portrayed in movies in general, with them always being annoying, insufferable brats or smarta** know-it-all's. Izzie's character, however, is refreshingly sweet and natural and a far cry from many over-the-top, hard to believe child performances (best example, Alien 2's Newt with her high-pitched, annoying screaming, or Tom Cruise's film daughter in World War Z had me grinding my teeth, with me itching to slap some sense into her whenever she was on screen).
The story itself is wonderfully charming and light-hearted but not without a healthy dash of suspense and some mystery as well. It's nice to watch a movie without politics, diversity, dozens of different genders and the nowadays ever present in-your-face agendas for once. Just some "modern" fairy tale, that's all. One that invites the audience to forget about the big and small every day problems and encourages one to dream a little again. And that's the best thing that can happen in todays trying times IMHO. 7/10.
Grey's Anatomy: Song Beneath the Song (2011)
Grey's Anatomy the musical
I really hated this episode and couldn't watch it. Definitely the most annoying way to destroy the drama and suspense. I can get over awkward sillyness and other dumb things happening in the series but this episode really was the worst ever.
I was pleasantly surprised that the series kept its quality more or less constant since the first episode but that dumb singing really ruined it for me. Especially because it was such a critical event happening.
Halo: Contact (2022)
Outstanding, so much better than the games
I rarely ever give top ratings above 8 or 9 but Halo is a solid ten for me. The first episode is so much better than the games and I really hope they're going to keep that level of quality for the first season and hopefully beyond.
So good to see Master Chief turning from a dumb drone for a simple shooter into a real character. Well done!
Hawkeye (2021)
What did I just watch?
I really didn't expect a series about my second favorite Marvel hero (Hawkeye) to be even worse than that cringe fest the Loki Mini-Series turned out to be.
I'm seriously disappointed with the lackluster acting, the lame story that keeps on dragging its heels and the overly annoying characters. The MCU was good until the first part of Infinity War, but since then, it's going steadily downhill: with the ideas and the acting. It feels more and more like wading through quicksand where the ideas were once fresh, the acting of everyone involved had once been terrific and the characters - even the bad guys - had been charismatic. Now, I'm watching an aged Hawkeye who has about as much elan and energy as a tired old-timer in a nursing home.
My hopes for an at least partly enjoyable series are thoroughly crushed. Maybe it's time for the Marvel heroes to retire and for the Marvel studios to take a good, long vacation, for at least a decade or so. Maybe they'll come up with something good again, then, but, right now, I'll gladly skip this atrocious disaster and every other MCU Mini-Series they're going to torment us with from now on.
Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)
B-Grade action flick with D-Grade research work
Let's be honest, van Damme movies are popcorn flicks at best and cringefests at worst.
My real beef, however, is with the research work about Chernobyl itself.
The producers and writers obviously couldn't be bothered to spend ten minutes on Google maps for a few important checkups.
The city, lazily called "chernobyl city" is called Pripyat.
The power plant was build right next to the Pripyat River and lies about ten minutes away from Pripyat and it's surrounded by forests and open fields.
A massive sarcophagus encloses the destroyed unit 4, which cannot be entered directly but only via unit 3.
The units 3 + 2 were still working when the movie was made, so there had to be hundreds of people around. And a terrorist group arming the reactors themselves is just laughable. Especially when it comes to the destroyed reactor.
The inside of unit 4 was completely destroyed, with graphite fragments and destroyed fuel rods being scattered just about everywhere. Radiation levels would've been so high that no one would've been able to survive for long inside.
It also wouldn't look like some derelict steel fabric (or whatever) inside.
A search on YouTube provides even the laziest screenwriter with hundreds of vids of the abandoned city, the outside and the inside of reactor 4 and the surrounding area. Just a few screenshots would've helped making the everything look more believable.
Instead of this crappy cringefest, I'd suggest watching "Chernobyl", the mini-TV series instead. That one shows more suspense, action and drama in five minutes than this rotten failure of a movie in 90 minutes.
The Elder Scrolls Online (2014)
Don't be fooled by ESO being an MMORPG, it's mostly a single player game
I'm a big fan of Skyrim but I'm also a strict single player-only gamer.
I don't care about group activities, ingame chat (seriously, if you're into chatting, why are you spending time with a game), player guilds and what have you. That's why I was skeptical about ESO being a MMORPG. Two years ago, however, I finally caved after watching some youtube vids and I bought the game.
Since then, I've played more than 1000 hours and own every story-DLC. The storytelling is entertaining and I really love the fact that I can play about 90 - 95 % of the game as a single player. And even if I'm forced to team up with others for the boss fights, they're so much fun. Because one's not forced to invite others and trot after them until everything's done and over. The boss "arena's" are marked with a skull + crossed bones on the maps. And I never have to wait long for other players to appear from all directions, running towards the place where the fight is about to happen. And then we wait until the boss re-spawns and then, sheer hells breaks loose, lol. Everyone's fighting and running around and I'm really surprised how much fun it is to take down a massive enemy together, while still being able to play on my own.
Someone's who's playing with a friend or a group of friends might have even more fun than I. ^^
I started a new game, about 200 or so hours ago. I'm lvl 48 right now and am not only able to solo a Dolmen - but also able to succeed doing so. The main story for the Dominion-"origin" is almost at it's end, but there's also the other two pacts to play through. I haven't even started the mages guild in earnest, or the Psijjic questline. I still have the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood to join and I haven't touched a single side mission that wasn't part of the main storyline so far. I'll do them when I'm done with the silver and gold playthroughs.
The whole game, including Morrowind, Elsweyr, Black March, High Rock, Skyrim, Summerset and all the other provinces has to be about 600 hours of story content alone. That's A LOT of content for a game with just a handful of DLCs and two extensions so far. Ingame companions will be coming next and I really can't wait until that content goes live.
Don't be fooled by ppl complaining about the chat or the forum. Just get your priorities straight. Do you want to play, or do you want to hang out in a forum/chat all day long? ESO really isn't the place for that. It's a GAME, not a social platform for forumites. ;)
The Wrong Path (2021)
Cringeworthy
It is almost impossible to comprehend that someone would give this atrocity a rating of 10 and really mean it. Anyhow, the story idea is good but the the execution is so poor that I almost felt sorry for the actors. Even calling them actors is generous because the performances are really bad, lines are delivered with wooden faces, peppered here and there with over-the-top arm waving to make it look more dramatic. An "action" scene was so involuntarily funny that I almost choked on my coffee with laughter when something as simple as a car door being slammed shut was fumbled beyond belief.
I can only suggest this flick if you plan on making fun of it while watching. Otherwise avoid as the plague.
Vampire Virus (2020)
Not bad for a low budget movie
I've seen triple A movies that gave me a frustration migraine cuz they were so bad. (Armageddon with Bruce Willis, for example)
Vampire Virus is surprisingly entertaining - if one's able to see past the obvious low budget production. The acting has a rather mixed quality, and the sound could be better here and there. The flick still has charm, despite the flaws. I enjoyed watching it and that alone matters for me. The entertainment value.
Raised by Wolves (2020)
Starts off very weak but slowly gains momentum
While watching the first episode, I was so tempted to switch off and forget about it again. What a stupid drivel, story-wise. The effects looked nice and I also hoped that Ridley Scott's name still stood for quality. At least somehow, deep down and only noticeable with a lot of squinting and even more patience.
But it took three episodes for me to start liking the storyline at least some. It's getting slowly better now although I really hated part 1 and 2. I deeply dislike religious blather and as soon as I understood the nature of the plot, it had me despise it faster than I could warm up to it in any way. I'm just glad that the story's getting slowly more interesting, veering away from the religio-moral nonsense and concentrating more on suspense and a little more action instead. I'm still undecided about watching more of this series but I'm at least willing to give the next part a try as well. Right now, it's a rather weak 4 for me but it's no longer a generous two star sorry excuse of a storyline.