isantistao Reviews

Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Best Godzilla Story

[10/10 · 13 May 2024]

I haven't seen every Godzilla movie ever made (like Shin Godzilla, or the old black and whites, or cartoons), but I've seen all the newer American one's since the 90's, and of all of those I can say that this one is the best Godzilla story I've seen so far. While most other godzilla movies are just about the action and destruction and don't have a super compelling storyline outside of that (they do have stories but the stories aren't deep enough to get us emotionally involved), this one is different in that.

This godzilla movie has a really compelling storyline that gets us deeply emotionally invested in it throughout. It is the story of a few people (man woman and child) who are brought together by the hardships of war, and they form their own make-shift family unit. For the first time in any godzilla movie I found myself actually caring about the characters, their relationships and the things that happened to them. I found myself really empathizing with them, to the point of getting choked up and teary eyed when something tragic would happen to one of the characters, which hasn't happened to me in a godzilla movie.

This movie does everything right, it's got it all. I really enjoyed this movie actually having a compelling storyline and stimulating our emotions in addition to having all the action. This was a whole new level of entertainment I've never gotten from a godzilla movie. And so for me, it's a perfect 10, one I can't wait to watch again.

Arcadian (2024)

Very Average

[5/10 · 5 May 2024]

Just finished this movie, which wasn't even all that easy to get through, I had to do it in 2 sittings because I was falling asleep during the first. I don't think this has enough action to qualify as an action film. It's not scary enough to qualify as a horror film, even though it's a monster movie. It's more of a drama, especially due to certain emotional elements, the films style, the music, etc. And it's also very average, and thats being generous.

The monsters are creepy, but they could be scarier. They are also frustrating to look at for most of the movie up until the end. They don't let you get a good look at them until the end. Up until the end I was very confused about what I was looking at because they are hard to see and you aren't given enough time to really visually interpret them. I actually got the wrong idea about how they looked at first due to this. Trying to get a good look at the monster and understand its anatomy is actually very frustrating. The movie really fails in this aspect. People watch monster movies because they want to see cool looking monsters. They don't want to be trying to see a monster and failing to do so enough to understand what it's supposed to be.

The monster appears to eat by opening its torso to engulf its victim and then laying on them to digest them or something, but I can't be sure because again, they made it too hard to see and too quick. So part of me doesn't really know what the hell happened in that scene and I could be wrong. Which sucks because that would have been the most fascinating part of the movie to a nerd like me, but instead it's again just kinda frustrating.

I don't want to be overly critical. The movie wasn't bad. They certainly did well at the craft of film making in a number of ways. But it's a monster movie and there were too many big things done wrong that you just shouldn't do when you make a monster movie. People need to get a good look at the monster and understand what it is. Additionally the movie can't be too slow and boring, because people watch monster movies to see action. If it is slow it needs to be scarier than this one was.

I think this may have been made more for teenagers honestly. It's just not that good by adult standards. So I'm giving it a 5 simply because I'd say it's neither good nor bad. Worth a watch only if you have kids otherwise you're wasting your time and should seek a more mature movie.

Foxcatcher (2014)

Doesn't Actually Tell The Story - Silent, Slow, & Inaccurate

[2/10 · 12 April 2024]

I just got done watching this movie which I did after listening to the full story in a 90 minute podcast. And I'm shocked that in 2 hours and 15 minutes the movie didn't even actually tell hardly any of the story! It told only a fraction of the important details, maybe like 5%. The rest were either skipped over and left out completely, never even mentioned (since there's little talking and no narration)...or worse yet they were altered. And some very pertinent details at the end of the movie were altered as well, making their telling of the story inaccurate.

Here's just a couple of the most important corrections to their version of events: -John didn't just shoot David out of the blue one day, there was a long period of building tensions and incidences of conflict between them that this story makes seem like never happened.

-Mark didn't just leave, there was also a long period of tension and conflict and a longer than normal moving period, and then he left his car behind and David was harassed by John because he though Mark was still there and david was harboring him.

-John didn't just get taken down by police after killing David, he had a days long stand off with them while holed up in his house, and it involved a couple hostages as well, two female employees of his.

And these are just three main details that they changed. But the bigger problem is the complete lack of details. They don't give many because there's no narriation and very little dialogue, and not a lot of eventful scenes either. Not a whole lot seems to take place in the movie. It's very long, slow and quiet. Most of the scenes have no talking and are just one of the main characters gazing off into space, or if something is happening it's doing so slowly. As you can probably tell the movie is painfully boring and I had to get through it in 3 different sittings because it was too hard to sit through, it'll put you to sleep!

And not only did the movie not include the standoff but it also skipped the entire trial and such important things as his psychological evaluation and finding that he was in fact clinically insane, and was then found criminally insane and sentenced to 15+ years in a state hospital. Here are some of the other highlights of the true story that were left out:

-John was a paranoid schizophrenic and was consumed by numerous insanely paranoid delusions, such as: -Thinking he needed to hire a security firm to protect him from one of the team-mates that was secretly out to get him -Thinking there were things moving in the woods around his house, so he needed to film the woods at all times and have his security firm go over the footage.

-Thinking that some of the trees and animals on his property were fake -Thinking that there were people hiding in the walls of his home, such as mark after he had kicked him off the property -Having a fear of the color black and forbidding anything black on the property...including the black team members whom he fired -Thinking that Dave was controlling the weather with a weather machine.

-Claiming to be the Dalai Lama -Burning down one of the houses on his property for no apparent reason -Driving 2 different cars into a pond on his property, basically one right after the other, the next day, and the second one was a rented car he rented because he had driven the first car into the pond.

-Believing that mark had tunnelled into his property and excavating it to look for the tunnels.

-Feeling that there were bugs under his skin and scratching at them until he bled.

Some of this was most certainly due to his cocaine addiction. Another thing that played a role in his chemical imbalance was his lack of testicals and thus testosterone, and needing to take TRT injections. But he had a number of mental and physical health problems, none of which were mentioned in this film.

I give it 2 stars for some of the artsy film making techniques they used that made it look nice, and thats being generous because it barely even deserves those 2 because this is some of the worst storytelling hollywood has ever attempted. It's a failure to tell the story accurately, or even in a compelling manner. They shouldn't have told this story if they were going to leave everything out and change the most important parts, like the whole entire ending. So for not doing justice to the story they lose 8 stars. And I don't recommend watching this movie. I recommend listening to the shorter but much more eventful podcast, you can find it titled "John DuPont" in the Crimes of Passion podcast by spotify studios. There is also a netflix documentary called "Team Foxcatcher" that is worth watching as well.

Oppenheimer (I) (2023)

NOT A NOLAN FAN ANYMORE!!!

[1/10 · 25 March 2024]

I'm a huge Christopher Nolan fan...or at least, I WAS...until I tried to watch this horrendous and offensive piece of crap. I've seen all of his other movies and rated them at 8-10...but this? I can't even give it a 2.

The movie has Nolans signature cinematography and production/effects and looks good visually, but that is ALL that it has going for it. It may look good but it lacks substance, and does so much wrong that I found it completely unenjoyable and hard to watch. So hard I could only get through the first 30 minutes and then decided to turn it off because there was another 2.5 hours to go and I didn't feel like punishing myself just because I'd liked all of his other films. Here's everything it did wrong:

-There's no backstory for Oppenheimer, you don't actually get to know him at all before he starts working on the bomb. The only thing you get to know about him is that he's a mentally ill over-achiever that makes the rest of us look inadequate.

-He's in bed with communists, both figuratively and literally. Not only is he a friend of the communist party (without the film letting us know why we should be ok with that, or why we are watching a movie about a commie) but he has a very unnecessary sex scene with a communist woman. A scene that is offensive to a lot of people, because:

-He reads from the Hindu scripture The Bagawad Gita while having sex. Something that every Hindu who sees this is going to be offended by as it's sacriligious, and it would have never been allowed to be done with any other religions holy book. And he reads it from sanskrit because he somehow knows how to read sanskrit in spite of not being Hindu and having no use for it, just to drill home the fact that he's so smart and successful. This is really annoying and unnecessary.

-He not only has no qualms about his work being used to make an atomic bomb, but it was actually his idea! I was NOT expecting that! He declares that they should continue their work for the purpose of bomb making early on in the film and does so incredibly casually, as if there's nothing wrong with that idea. There's not the slightest sign of there being any kind of moral dilemma or any ethical issues with it. So we know we are watching a movie that is glorifying a war mongering communist responsible for the deaths of millions, and I for one am not OK with that.

-The story is broken up into bits that are then jumbled and disordered. It jumps around from point to point which makes it hard to follow and enjoy. Just as you've been hooked onto one plotline, it cuts away from that and jumps to another point in time where you have no idea whats going on and have to re-orient yourself. It's not good storytelling and is not entertaining. It's an over-edited convoluted mess.

-The movie is slow and boring. There's literally nothing entertaining or interesting about it. There's an extremely forced, superfluous and offensive sex scene that I didn't want to see or enjoy. There's some artistic visuals. But other than that, there's nothing enticing about the story. There's no humor, no action, no drama. What exactly are we watching this for? To learn about how the bomb was made? Well we can't do that either. Because...

-There is no explanation of how his work works, AT ALL. It's not like Interstellar where every bit of science is explained clearly so that anyone can understand it. Rather the opposite, it's almost like his work is made to seem too complicated for anyone to understand just in an effort to make him seem so much smarter than us normal folk. Again, it's really annoying. So now I'm supposed to watch 3 hours of bomb making without understanding a single thing about what they're doing? No thanks.

-The effects used have a spiritual mystical quality that doesn't make sense, we're talking about a bomb maker responsible for countless deaths. These effects don't provide any sort of artistic meaning or insight into the story or character, they just cause cognitive dissonance and are a distraction.

And those complaints are all only within the first 30 minutes. But in that 30 minutes I realized this is what the movie was, it wasn't going to change and get better, it was only getting worse with every passing minute. So I made the wise decision to save myself the other 2.5 hours and to do something else with it rather than make myself suffer with boredom and offense at this horrible artistic failure.

Logging on here today I can see that it won 7 Oscars? And I'm astonished. I knew that hollywood has lost sight of what good art is. And I know they have gotten brainwashed with twisted politics and no longer even know right from wrong. But I had no idea how bad it actually was. 7 Oscars? This piece of crap doesn't deserve even a single nomination. The only reason hollywood loves it is because they hate america and this movie is glorifying an enemy of our state. It's wrong. Don't drink hollywoods woke kool-aid. The art in this movie is not only bad, but it's messaging is at best borderline evil. It should have never been made and now that it has been it should NOT be glorified and awarded. It's makers should be shamed.

Argylle (2024)

Worst Movie I've Seen In Years

[1/10 · 21 March 2024]

I know this movie isn't to be taken seriously, but in spite of that, it's still an abysmal failure, and one of the worst movies I've ever seen. To be not taken seriously means it ought to be funny, but it isn't. I didn't laugh one single time throughout this very long movie. Rather the opposite, I was cringing throughout and struggling to maintain interest. The movie is ridiculously bad in every single scene, while trying so hard to be good through being super overproduced and obviously terribly expensive...Just like the modern Marvel movies. Not only isn't the humor actually funny but there's nothing about the story that is plausible, none of the characters are interesting, none of the action is thrilling, the romance isn't sexy, the art isn't artistic, and literally nothing about the movie works. The main character is an overweight woman who cannot even run, theres a scene where she runs and it looks like its a real struggle for her, and yet in other scenes she's an action hero who can take on a whole room-full of highly trained men...why? Because large portions of the movie are CGI....and it looks stupid. It seems like they made this movie for couples so that both men and women could have something to watch together that would give them both the action that men want and the girly stuff that women want, and what they came up with was a complete artistic failure. This movie is an insult to the audiences intelligence and integrity...and it certainly shows that the people who made it don't have any. I wish I could get those hours of my life back but I can't. And I fear I may have lost some IQ points from watching this horrendous mess. The people who call this movie "fun" are probably mental children with little to no brain activity.

Reboot (2022)

The Perfect Sitcom

[10/10 · 24 December 2023]

I just finished episode 8 and I can honestly say this is the perfect sitcom. It's almost a shame that they cancelled it. But on the bright side, the show is left on such a high note that it actually seems like a perfect masterpiece of sitcom art. We have 8 perfect episodes of a perfect show. One of the most well written shows of our time, with a unique cast of great comedic actors. And it's about showbiz so it's so meta too. Not a single bad episode. Probably not even a bad scene. Because they didn't continue it to the point where it got stale, and contrarily had so few episodes, they never had a chance to do anything poorly. I daresay that this is the most perfect sitcom the world has ever seen in this century. Probably the best since Seinfeld. But hey, maybe they will do a Reboot. A reboot of reboot, how meta would that be? Until then, I'm going to rewatch this.

The Prodigy (2019)

Below Average Possession Movie

[4/10 · 12 November 2023]

I'm disappointed by this movie. We were made to think that it is a movie about a boy who is a prodigy and due to having an abnormally high IQ he is a psychopath or something of that nature. However this is not the case, in actuality this is just another possession movie. And not even a great one. But a below average one. The only thing that it has going for it is how different it is. So I stuck with it until the end simply due to the novelty and because I wanted to see where they were going with it and how it would end up. But I was still very disappointed that it was not the movie I had signed up to watch. And it was not scary, thrilling or suspenseful. It was actually very predictable. So I'm giving it a 4, and that's because it wasn't that bad, but just a little below average for a possession movie (which I didn't know it was, and is also part of the problem).

Vacation Friends 2 (2023)

Impossible To Watch

[1/10 · 11 November 2023]

I loved the first one and was super excited for this one, however I couldn't even make it a half hour through it. I ended up turning it off at 25 minutes because it was just that hard to sit through. I wasn't enjoying myself one single bit. Nothing entertaining had happened, let alone funny. All it was was one super cringe moment after the other, with a lot of bad over-acting and over-dramatization. Especially on the part of the blonde, who's every bit of dialogue (which is a lot) is her acting as annoying as humanly possible. And it's extreme - literally everything she says is done in a yell or a scream, and is surrounded by these screeching noises that she makes. It was seriously enough to give someone a headache, so I had to turn it off. I don't watch movies to be annoyed to the point of pain, I watch them to be entertained. This movie is a total failure. It's literally that bad, like the makers don't know the difference between comedy and cringe. Just awful.

The Equalizer 3 (2023)

Disappointing

[5/10 · 5 November 2023]

If you are expecting this to be better than the other two, don't set yourself up for dissapointment. I know, I know, it certainly should be the best of the 3...after all, it takes place in Italy with the real Italian Mafia...but yet somehow there is much less action than the other 2! There are hardly any fight scenes. There's really only 2 scenes that could be called fight scenes, and the fighting is short and involves little choreography. Basically the type of action that you wish to see when you watch a movie like this is almost entirely absent, the opposite of what it should be. Which is frustrating. And that's not the only frustrating part of the movie. Another frustrating part is its predictability and how everything seems to happen just right for the main character. Speaking of which, another frustrating part is how unrealistic it is when this is happening. Which leads me to another frustrating part, which is the unrealistic portrayal of how a man like him would experience Italy, a place known for being rude to outsiders, and especially racist towards black people...yet somehow he experiences no racism, or even rudeness at all, and gets instantaneously welcomed into a community of people who somehow speak perfect english. It's super weak, lame, and frustrating. Not necessarily a bad film. It's scenic and has good cinematography, so it looks nice. It just has really weak writing and non-existent choreography except for those 2 fleeting scenes that can hardly be called fight scenes at all. The story is just so lacking. It seems this trilogy started strong and only got weaker with each installment, which again, is the opposite of how it should be. And the ending of this final film was very anti-climactic too. The main character basically just took down an entire mafia family like knocking down domino's, without sustaining any injuries, or even taking a punch, because there was no fighting what so ever as he was doing it. And then the movie just ended before there could be any retaliation, or seeing what happened to him after he did it. It's just so lame. I'm so disappointed. I'm giving this a 5 because I'm being generous since it wasn't that bad, but it certainly wasn't a good action movie.

Beautiful & Twisted (2015 TV Movie)

Don't Believe Bad Reviews

[10/10 · 25 September 2023]

I was worried when I watched this that since it was a TV movie that they would leave out a lot of the important grisly details...but they didn't!

I was also worried that it wouldn't be very cinematic or well done. Also not the case.

This movie is very well done for a TV movie. It's certainly not a cinematic masterpiece like The Godfather or anything. But it is a very good film. Probably the best TV movie I've ever seen. Very cinematic for one. A lot went into making this movie I can tell.

They don't censor the sexuality, its quite sexual. And they also show the brutal murders in very accurate detail. Right down to the guy getting his eyes gouged out. And even this is something that would normally not get shown in any movie, but here it is. So be warned about that if it's not something you want to see. But I give a lot of credit to the makers for depicting the murders in such accurate detail.

It's also not only true to the story but highly entertaining. I mean to me this is TV entertainment at its best. And so I give this movie a 10 as I really think it deserves more credit for what it is...which is a TV movie that can actually rival movies made for theaters.

Suicide for Beginners (2022)

Really Dark Fun Funny Comedy

[10/10 · 8 August 2023]

This is a great late night comedy. It's really dark, perhaps not the darkest of comedies, but I'd say darker than most (and I watch a lot of them). It's really funny, I did laugh out loud many times. And it's just all around a lot of fun and a great pick me up when I was feeling depressed. It is a budget film but aside from not having huge production value there's nothing bad about it. It's really well done for a b movie. And for a b movie, I'd give it a 10 or near 10. It certainly doesn't deserve as low of a rating as it gets, as it shouldn't be considered a must for a movie to have a huge budget and be overproduced for it to be considered good. This movie is well written and acted and is very entertaining. I had a great time watching it and am really glad I found it because there aren't a lot of dark comedies being made anymore these days with everyone being so oversensitive. This movie is freaking good!

Corner Office (2022)

Smart Corporate Mental Illness Movie

[7/10 · 7 August 2023]

This is an intelligent film about mental illness in a corporate setting - something most people today can really relate to I think. It is well done and is pretty artistic, but not super artistic or weird or anything like that. Its main character is a very intelligent and effective worker but suffers from some sort of mental illness, perhaps autism, which causes him to get caught up in his own thoughts and imagination, and the delusion that there is a secret corner office where conditions are perfect for doing absolutely perfect work...however his coworkers turn him into a pariah when they notice the signs of mental illness, in spite of the fact that they all have painfully obvious faults and flaws of their own that also bother him but which he doesn't shame them for. The entire movie is narrated by him as he speaks his mind to us, which is pretty interesting and full of intelligent thoughts that I think we can all relate to and will enjoy hearing. And a lot of his thoughts, and the situations he finds himself in are quite humorous....but in a very different and pretty odd way, which makes it quite new and novel, something I loved about it as I've gotten so tired of the same old stuff in movies and TV. Some of the humor is subtle but a lot of it made me laugh out loud. It's not a late night raunchy comedy, quite the opposite: it may seem a bit low key to some, perhaps slow at times, yet it is still very interesting and entertaining. Made moreso by the fact that it is also a bit sad at times, so it is not totally light hearted, but has an emotional message for us. I think this is a comedy film we all really need in this day and age. And also that John Hamm was a really good main character and portrayed his character perfectly. If you can relate to anything I've just said I urge you to watch it. It could make you both laugh and think about your own situation and condition in ways that you will find really enriching.

Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014)

Perhaps The Most Overrated Show Ever

[4 August 2023]

I can't believe this show got such good ratings. I'm struggling through season 3 and about to give up because there hasn't been an episode I've liked all season. And the problems started in seasons 1 and 2. At least they were entertaining enough to be watchable.

But the first and biggest problem is that there are no likable characters in the show. They are all frustrating and cringe worthy people. The types of people you wouldn't want in your life...and are hard to watch on screen.

The second biggest problem is that the show is sexually sickening. In almost every episode. Spoiler alert, one of the main characters has intercourse with his mother. A woman who does other sickening things with her sexuality. And she isn't the only one. I find myself looking away from sex scenes in the show, which is something I never do (I'm not a prude, I'm actually more sexual than most people, but even I know where the line is, and things like incest are not entertaining, they are stomach churning.)

The third big problem is something you are not supposed to do when writing a villain, and that is to make them seem too psychotically erratic and like they will kill anyone for anything. Like speaking out of turn, or trying to help. Because thats not a good villain. Thats someone who wouldn't be able to attain any kind of position of power in real life because no one would work with them, and they'd probably be living in an asylum. And of course this isn't real life, its a TV show...but villains like that aren't fun to watch. They are either frustrating, or predictably boring.

The fourth big problem is that they killed someone who seemed like the supporting lead at the end of the second season, who was the only character who was at all likable. Similarly other interesting and likable characters also got killed off way too soon.

The fifth problem is some of the inaccuracies. Like with Joe the Boss Masseria being depicted as refined and sophisticated. In real life he was a fat messy pig. He did not dress look or act anywhere near as well in real life as he does in this film, just google him and you'll see pictures of what he really looked like. He was also not some shipping mastermind in real life, he was mostly just a bootlegger. And its so frustrating because he could have been the perfect villain if they had stayed true to who he was in real life, but the way they present him in the show doesn't make him seem like a greater villain, it makes him boring. Instead they made one of his underlings the main villain, by making him an erratic psychopath who kills someone in every scene for no real reason.

It's exhasperating and too hard to watch to continue. The show may have been somewhat entertaining at first, but unfortunately like many shows, as it went on it declined rapidly.

It may have had a story at first but they failed to develop it and the characters. All they are showing is peoples worst traits. And every scene has become hard to watch - the opposite of entertainment.

These people are all so frustrating to watch. They communicate poorly. And it seems that everyone is either abusive to one another or are nice only because they are being manipulative. It's a show that one would only watch if they somehow enjoy seeing the worst of humanity.

Even the violence isn't entertaining, and I love action movies and violence. But somehow they've even screwed that up. I'm so disappointed in this show. How far the makers have fallen since the sopranos ended.

Café Society (2016)

A tired redundancy

[2/10 · 16 July 2023]

I can't even bring myself to finish this movie. I've been so bored the whole time. I've had to stop watching it and come back to it. And still, I'm just so bored because it's so redundant! It's the same old thing woody allen has done before so many times that it's almost as if this movie were made by an AI bot just recycling all his old material and dialogue. Every line feels like you've heard it before. And the problem with things becoming so redundant is that you aren't surprised by anything and begin predicting things before they happen. Because it's a movie we've already seen, just with new actors. This film is a boring, tired, redundancy.

Murder, Inc. (1960)

Informative And Intense!

[10/10 · 28 March 2023]

I can't believe I waited so long to see this film because I was worried it wasn't going to be exciting enough, or accurate enough, or would be silly. Boy was I wrong. I give it a 10. This incredible true story is an amazing film that is seriously intense for its time, or -perhaps any time. It's as exciting as it is informative and accurate, so you'll learn what actually happened with Murder Inc. And some of the inner workings of the mafia syndicate, and I guarantee you you'll be entertained too. Peter Falk plays a very scary gangster/hit man and then the Lepke Buchalter character is also very intimidating, this movie had me on the edge of my seat with those two great performances. And it gave me greater insight into the mafia, and the mind of the mob killer, who is high on the ASPD scale.

Gotti (2018)

Stupid And Inaccurate

[1/10 · 21 March 2023]

I love John Travolta and felt like even if he played Gotti in his own way and adapted the character a little, it would probably only make it better. WRONG.

I also thought that this movie, having all of the names of mobsters involved, would be telling the real story of what actually happened. And yet they altered every scene, and again, the adaptation wasn't done in a good way either. It was less than it could have been.

And even in the instances in which certain things were dramatized for the movie, they just come off as cliche, stupid, and try hard. This movie tries to make cinema out of a family that was like the kardashians of the underworld, and yet it can't even make them look good using all the powers of cinema.

Though it shouldn't have to be even trying to do that because its got one of the greatest stories of all time to rely upon. This story sells itself. IF TOLD CORRECTLY! But for whatever reason they had to change things in a way that makes the story just less interesting, exciting, dramatic and captivating.

This movie is such a disappointment that eventually I had to just turn it off. I wasn't enjoying watching it AT ALL! It was just frustrating.

I recommend watching mob movies from the 90's if you want to hear this story. The Gotti movie with Armand Assante was better, though I didn't even really like that one as much as i liked Witness To The Mob which tells the story of Sammy Gravano Gotti's underboss, and Boss Of Bosses the story of Big Paul.

Warning (II) (2021)

Only An Un-Intellectual Ape Would Not Like This Film

[10/10 · 13 February 2023]

I was watching this film, knowing it got a low rating, and thinking, how could anyone not like this? It's brilliant! It's a sci fi work of art! It's pure genius! Perhaps the best sci fi film since interstellar.

I think the only answer is that most people these days are incredibly unintelligent and unintellectual and can't handle deep dark thinking, which is what this film provides.

This film is a work of art reminiscent to the nihilistic stories of Sartre or Camus. Metaphysically dark and despairing, paradoxical with some absurd humor thrown in, and extremely deep meaningful and profound.

And of course it deals with sci fi themes such as time and space, and so much more. This film has so many interesting fascinating takes on what could potentially happen in the future. It also reminded me of Brave New World in that way.

I give this film a perfect 10 and consider it one of the masterpieces of film out there, a real true work of art. Incredibly intellectual, thought provoking, meaningful and inspiring, while also being extremely entertaining, aesthetically appealing, and so artsy and enjoyable in so many ways.

I loved every story and was so profoundly moved yet I feel that in order to truly understand and appreciate this film and get all the insights I possibly can from it I'm going to have to watch it again, maybe a couple times. Which is something I rarely do but this movie is just so good.

I really hope you enjoy this film because if you don't you are probably a simpleton.

Murder in the First (1995)

An Over Dramatized Story Of LIES

[1/10 · 18 January 2023]

I watched this movie yesterday, and today I'm doing more research on the true story behind the movie and am shocked to discover that literally nothing about the story presented in the movie is true! It is all fabrications!

The main character/prisoner Henri Young was not sent to alcatraz as a practically innocent young man for stealing $5, he was a bank robber who was known for having brutalized a witness on at least one occasion and was sent to prison for murder.

All the information about the warden of the film is false.

In the film they claim that 32 inmates at alcatraz had been taken away to asylums in straight jackets after being driven mad by their incarceration there. Also false.

Henri Young was not kept naked in a dark dungeon for 3 years. Which is most of the premise of the entire film.

What Henri described as the conditions of solitary confinement, aka the Dungeon, was the dimensions of a regular cell, painted black, the walls were cold and damp, and it stank like a sewer. You were stripped naked upon entering so the guards could search your clothes and remove even the smallest grains of tobacco. The clothes were then thrown at the inmate. They were also given 2 blankets every day in the evening. These and their clothes were all they could possess while there. No soap even. They were given 3-4 slices of bread to eat per day. He was there for 13 days and only got 2 real meals. He also said that another prisoner was constantly having buckets of cold water thrown over them.

But for most of Henri's stay at alcatraz he was in a normal cell.

In the movie Henri kills another inmate after being taken out of the dungeon for 3 years and being in a crazed mental state, which prompted the trial. This never happened. He did murder a man with that name but it didn't happen in the manner depicted. Which means the trial that the movie is about that went on to "take down alcatraz" never actually happened either.

Henri did not die by suicide in his cell. He was transferred to another prison and eventually made parole which he skipped. He has never been captured. He remains free to this very day.

Were conditions at alcatraz bad? Yes. But they weren't anything like what was depicted in the film. I can't believe I wasted so much time watching this movie made up entirely of falsehoods. I should have just watched a much shorter documentary!

Impractical Jokers: A Tasteful Episode (2021) Season 9, Episode 16

Best Scene In The Show

[10/10 · 21 December 2022]

In my opinion this episode has the best scene in the entire show. The punishment at the end is a double punishment where two jokers have to pretend to be motivational speakers, who need to constantly pump themselves up using increasingly hardcore methods. It's hilarious and is probably one of the funniest things to hit TV since Chris Farley did his Motivational Speaker back in the early 90's. Or maybe I just love that particular style. But either way, I think you'll at the very least love this episode, and agree that it is at least near a 10 on the comedic scale. Honestly I just turned on that scene to get myself a little pumped up and it worked!

Studio 666 (2022)

METAL

[10/10 · 30 October 2022]

This is the perfect musical horror comedy! It really made my halloween party spectacular! And who knew that the Foo Fighters could be sooo freaking metal! Wow the music in this was awesome! I had to listen to it again with headphones! If you love metal you will love the foo fighters new sound for this movie!

But of course its a great horror flick as well. It's got some really hardcore violence, some kills and gore that are very unique in fact. And there's a supernatural/ghostly aspect to it. The CGI and effects and production is all top notch.

And while the bands acting isn't perfect, because of course they are not actors, it was honestly I think about as good as can be expected, perhaps better than expected for the most part. And the film of course has a comedic angle and made me laugh out loud several times. It was really a lot of fun. All the thrills chills and laughs you want from a horror comedy, along with some really groovy heavy metal music. What more could you ask for? Honestly I think that this is an artistic masterpiece that should go down not only in film history, but rock and roll history as well. I give it a 10. It's the perfect horror comedy, and the perfect halloween party film. And I give mad props to foo fighters for making such a work of art. They truly are great artists that have really grown over the past one to two decades.

The Sadness (2021)

A Gory Masterpiece

[10/10 · 29 October 2022]

If you love gore then this is the movie for you. This is a gory masterpiece. It is literally the goriest horror film I've ever seen. And yet its one of those rare gory films out there that actually is super artistic and well written. The story is good, not great. But what is great is a lot of the dialogue and other writing. There was one part where I actually wanted to quote what the character was saying and post it on social media, but I didn't because I was too captivated by the monologue that I couldn't bring myself to stop the film. The acting in this film is also extremely well done, who knew they had such great actors in taiwan? And the editing and production is top notch, they made everything look so real, even when it was so over the top! I couldn't believe my eyes! And in spite of not being a very elaborate or different type of story, it was still a good, or maybe even great one. It certainly had a great ending. It literally had me applauding it at the finish. Honestly I think I might watch this again (which I almost never do). It really is an artistic masterpiece. Its a perfect horror film. Scary, gory, a little bit psychological, and all artfully well done. You even get to see a blood orgy in it, and some other types of gore that you have never seen elsewhere, which is a real treat for people who love horror films. This film is perfect for on halloween too, which is what weekend it is right now. I highly recommend it. Just keep a puke bucket nearby! Haha, no but really, you may actually need one. I'm not going to spoil anything though! See for yourself!

Sissy (I) (2022)

A Different Kind Of Horror Film

[10/10 · 21 October 2022]

This is a slasher film that is different than most because the main character is the killer. She is a social media influencer who calls herself a "mental health advocate" when really she is just a severely mentally ill new ager who is so pathological that even though she is super fake she believes all her own BS, and she knows exactly how to talk to her audience of similar minded people to get them to buy into all of her BS (and buy her BS products as well, mainly a simple bit of rope that she is able to re-frame as a creator of a "personal boundary and safe space" so that she can sell it for more money). Underneath all the lies she is actually a very dangerous and violent person.

Her old best friend invites her to a hens weekend (bachelorette party weekend for americans who don't know), amidst some of her old social circle. Her best friend must not be very socially intelligent because there is some serious old animosity between the main character Sissy and one of these members of the social circle, who happens to be the old best friends new best friend. Having the old memories come back and being challenged on her BS pushes Sissy over the edge and she starts killing.

The movie is extremely well done. At first I thought it was a chick flick and that I wasn't going to like it, but then I was floored by how awesome it was. In fact I can't see women enjoying this movie because it is too gory. And the gore looks extremely realistic too. I was awe struck at how realistic they were able to make some of the gory deaths look. During one of them I actually paused it and watched it over a couple times to try to spot any traces of CGI or anything. But I couldn't. It just looked too real! And it was super badass.

The movie is not just gore like many slasher films are though. There is some serious art that went into this. For one, the scoring (music and sound) is very well done. As a musician I found myself feeling really inspired by it multiple times during the film, and thinking to myself wow the music to this film is astounding! They were able to use sound to create the perfect emotional atmosphere.

It also is a very well written and executed story. The acting is great. The cinematography is great. And the film gets pretty psychological at times and gets much deeper than most horror films do. And it can even be a little bit trippy here and there.

In the end I loved this movie. It exposes the bad/dark side of female nature, and moreover how new age people and social media influencers are duping people by knowing how to speak manipulatively and covering up severe mental illnesses like narcissism. The movie is not just a ton of fun, but it actually makes a statement (something most horror films are seriously lacking).

Honestly I think this is the perfect horror film. I dare say it may even be an artistic masterpiece. I highly recommend it and give it a 10.

In the Tall Grass (2019)

A Trippy Time Loop Movie

[10/10 · 6 October 2022]

I can't understand why this doesn't get better reviews. It's a total ten in my book. It's a horror fantasy with a time loop component, what's not to love? It's also very well done. The story, acting, cinematography is all on point. I actually was surprised at how good it was, I didn't expect it to have so much to it, what with it being all filmed in tall grass, I kind of assumed if it was all filmed in one place that there wouldn't be enough places for the story to go. But boy was I wrong. They take you in so many directions, forward and backward. This movie is fascinating! I love the fantasy aspects, it's not just horror, it's a bit trippy at times, which is something I absolutely love. But it is dark, scary, and gory at times too, and there's some shock value in there as well. All in all I enjoyed every minute and highly recommend it.

Emily the Criminal (2022)

Classic Gangster Tale

[10/10 · 27 September 2022]

I love this film because it is like the classic gangster tale, but for today. We can all relate to this character because we are living in hard economic times. Of course she makes some bad decisions and has some bad luck, and ends up choosing a life of crime. As someone who loves classic gangster films such as the original Scarface (1932) and goodfellas and such, and feeling that the classic gangster film is kind of a lost genre because today there is less organized crime in that traditional sense (of the mafia). And crime is technological. Anyways this is a great modern crime tale. And it's starring an actress who we know has a propensity for having a dark demeanor. We have seen her as april ludgate who was all doom and gloom in a satiracal sense. Well now we get to see what a less positive version of that is. This girl is sociopathic. And its a great performance in a great film. The film itself is filmed in such a way that makes it interesting to watch too. It's done in the way you never see blockbusters, and is what makes us love indie films. It's kind of intense at times too. And I was pretty blown away by this film, and was only left really wanting to see more, and hope there is a sequel. I think I'm going to have to watch this movie again too, which is something I rarely do. But it really is a perfect 10.

Haunt (I) (2019)

The Perfect Horror Film

[10/10 · 23 September 2022]

I didn't expect to like this movie so much. I think its a B movie, but it was literally the perfect horror film. It was actually pretty scary for a movie that didn't have any ghosts or anything supernatural in it. The killers are pretty monstrous though. And the haunted house that they created was really cool, I kept wishing that I could go in it, and thinking to myself how cool it was with a big ole grin on my face. The movie also has a very surprising ending too that is what finally turned it into a perfect 10 movie for me. The only drawback was the audio sometimes goes from really quiet to really loud which is a pet peeve of mine, but it's not even enough to deduct a single star. I really felt this was a perfect horror film, I had such a great time watching it! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!