pm4000 Reviews

100 Code (2015)

Painfully bad writing and boring

[2/10 · 31 May 2021]

It starts out pretty basic, a serial killer has relocated from New York to Stockholm and gets downhill from there. The premise (that I won't spoil) is fine and could be interesting, but they do it in such an amateurish way. It's not even remotely realistic. If the connections were smaller in scale and not that pronounced it could've worked, but they had to elevate the premises importance to an extent that makes no sense. It's hard to crticise it without spoiling. It's the worst crime show I've seen for years. I can only remember one crime show that was worse and it had a similar premise and made the exact same mistake.

Painful to watch. Insane, yet boring.

Man Seeking Woman (2015–2017)

pseudo innovative fail

[2/10 · 11 February 2015]

The main character of the show is a young man whose girlfriend broke up with him. He is sad and still likes her and his trying to get out there to meet other women. There is also his best friend and his sister who help him out when he needs advice. He has some issues with his sister because he can't find a proper job and she is very successful. What sets this show apart from others is that there are surrealistic elements in there (if only it wasn't done so poorly). So the events don't necessarily happen the way they are portrayed.

There is for example one scene where his blind date is portrayed as an actual troll. I found this to be very demeaning to women. Everybody had a date in his life who he/she didn't find attractive. But normal people just keep being nice to avoid hurting the others feeling and don't make a second date, and maybe you have a good time anyway. The main character insults the woman and ends the date. I know that this isn't intended to be taken as what literally happened. It is one of these surrealistic scenes which are meant to describe how he felt and he probably didn't really insult her. But at that point I had literally no sympathy left for the character. He behaves like a ten year old and is completely egocentric.

There was another surrealistic scene where the new boyfriend of his ex is portrayed as Adolf Hitler. I know it is a common phenomenon that one redirects the anger over the breakup and the hurt feelings toward the new boyfriend but he doesn't seem to be aware of that. He keeps behaving like an 10 year old whose candy has been stolen and gets thrown out of the party after an insult. Yes I know that this didn't happen the way it was portrayed but they are making their character unlikeable.

This is one of the shows that desperately try to make pseudo intelligent references to pop culture to appeal to the younger crowd. The awful references all the time make the show painful to watch. Not that I don't like a reference once in a while (ore twice) but this show seems to be only about those (poorly executed) references. Even if I put all these criticisms aside there is nothing done well in this show. The humor is just stupid and childish e.g. there is a joke about a man who has to go to the toilet and then makes a mess... thank god they didn't actually show that. Another reviewer wrote that older people don't get the humor but I don't think that is the main problem (btw I am 26). The main problem is that the story itself isn't worth watching and was literally done 1000 times before and to spice it up they brought in some "creative" elements which don't really fit well in the narrative.

So in conclusion the show is about a pathetic unlikeable person who tries, with the help of his generic "funny" cool friend and his blend sister, to meet women and who will most times fail at it. (just my suspicion)

Chef (2014)

Not really good but not awful

[3/10 · 7 September 2014]

I don't know what favreau was thinking when he wrote the script. The movie isn't really bad but has little to no substance behind. It is one of the movies that lives more from the feeling that it is trying to create than from character development or a good storyline.

The story makes absolutely no sense at all. But the story isn't what I didn't like about the movie it is all the unnecessary stuff that adds absolutely nothing and is just annoying.

I kind of expected that there is at least some cooking and maybe eating involved in a picture called "Chef" but if you would cut out all the scenes where nothing is happening and you see a super closeup of a piece of meat being roasted, some dish being arranged skillfully on a plate or guys eating the movie would be 20 minutes shorter. At the beginning the character of a waitress is introduced who as nothing to do with the storyline. I wonder why is she in the movie? Just so he could cook for her? There is a scene where the main character (the Chef) is angry and he has apparently nothing better to do than cook. It is just annoying to see all these super close ups of food being prepared.

I think Favreau tried to be super cool with all this twitter nonsense (The twitter thing got really on my nerves). It just doesn't add up. I don't want to say to much because I don't want to spoil.

In Summary I have to say even though the acting is well done the movie didn't manage to get me engaged and care for the characters. I have seen dozens of movies like this (but not with that much cooking). It is one of these pictures you can only watch if you don't care about storyline and just wan't to feel good even though nothing is happening on the screen- And you have to love watching people either preparing or eating food.

Murder by Death (1976)

God damn awful

[1/10 · 13 June 2014]

I hated the movie. The movie is about the worlds greatest detectives who get invited to a mansion where they are challenged to solve a murder which hasn't been committed yet. The plot has some holes, they are quite annoying, but it isn't the plot that made me hate the movie. The core concept is actually not that bad.

The biggest problem I have with this movie is the dialogue, the acting, the depiction of the characters and that it is not at all funny.

Lets start with the funny part. The key to a good joke is timing. Some of the jokes could have been funny but there is no timing. The jokes go on and on and sometimes the joke is even explained by the detectives. There are many possibilities to make jokes around the blind servant and the deaf housekeeper but they are making more or less the same jokes over and over again. Many of the jokes are outright offensive to the Chinese and women.

Every single character is a stereotype. Which isn't so unusual in this genre but they are all played so over the top that you can't connect to any of them at all. The Chinese detective (Mr Wang) is insulting. He speaks this stereotypical Chinese accent and is an insult because he mocks the culture of the Chinese people. He frequently says offensive things. He even says he bought his sidekick. Slavery wasn't a real thing in china at that time. I know racism wasn't such a big deal back then, but even at that time this was considered downright offensive.

The writer tried to make fun of the cliché characters in detective literature and movies but didn't know where to stop. None of the main characters are likable. I hated every single one of them.

Sam Diamond, an American detective, (I believe he was from Chicago) has this silly accent. I didn't really understand how this character fits in the movie. He is kind of a distraction from the general style of the movie. He is kind of a mockery of film Noir detectives. That doesn't really fit into this kind of detective story. He is extremely offensive towards women. Well I know it was most likely intended as humor because the film noir movies of the 40s and 50s are often considered sexist. But what is funny about a man mistreating women.

I could go on about the characters but I just wanted to give you an example.

Most of the movie the characters do nothing at all they are just annoyingly talking to each other in silly accents. When I watched 20 minutes of the movie I lost all interest and was suffering through it. I really don't understand why so many people like it.

Not a single one of the jokes is funny every single character is so over the top idiotic. It is racist sexist. It was just insulting.

Anastasia (1997)

Watchable but not that good

[6/10 · 31 May 2014]

This movie was OK I guess, the songs were good and not as annoying as they are in most movies. The main story is about a "former" princess who has to leave Russia to reunite with her grandma after the Russian revolution. For my personal taste the characters are too one dimensional. This made it hard to really connect with the characters. There is one thing that really bugs me about this movie. The villain is kind of a sorcerer what really doesn't fit into the early 20th century setting. The sorcerer has little to nothing to do with the whole plot. Literally all scenes he is in are childish, annoying and are not really essential to the movie. I think in the middle of the picture there are 45 minutes without him appearing. The story of the princess going to Paris overcoming obstacles and finally finding love would've worked better without his distractions. The story is standard from beginning to the end I've seen it done better but I've seen it done a lot worse too. I think if you are really into romantic animated movies with singing and all that stuff you are going to have a great day. If you are not into that (like me) you probably won't have that much fun but you might find yourself actually enjoying some scenes if you don't mind that the movie doesn't give a f... about history.

(Even though I am German I watched the original English version)