MaskedMovieMan666 Reviews

Filth (I) (2013)

If may be filth, but its filth of the best possible kind.

[9/10 · 18 January 2019]

Filth is a terrific black comedy/drama that centers around a police detective who's life spirals out of control as he investigates the homicide of a Japanese exchange student, prank calls his mates wife, and partakes in various acts of debauchery. And the movie is every bit as entertaining as that premise would lead you to believe.

First and foremost James McAvoy turns in what has to be one of the best screen performances of the century, if not all time. He plays this character with tremendous energy, charisma, and enthusiasm. He is completely believable and compelling every second weather he is acting like a complete scoundrel, or actually being a surprisingly sympathetic character. Completely criminal that he got overlooked by the awards shows. Then again its quite a controversial character (to put it lightly)

Pacing is also terrific. Things move so fast that it feels as though the film is on just as much cocaine as the main character is. The story is always interesting and fun to watch, and only rarely loses focus.

The only main complaint is slight tonal inconsistency. As opposed to a film like In Bruges which keeps its drama and dark comedy intertwined more or less through out, Filth sometimes feels like it will arbitrarily switch between one and the other.

Its a small complaint in an otherwise fantastic film. If you like black comedy, don't miss this one.

Andrei Rublev (1966)

So boring I wanted to die...

[2/10 · 10 November 2018]

Andrei Rublev is the most boring movie I have ever seen in my entire life. Tarkovsky's use of abstract storytelling may work for some people, but it did not work for me. It didn't work for me here, and it didn't work for me in the last movie I watched of his called Stalker. Abstract storytelling can work in a specific context. Eraserhead comes to mind. But while that movie had the decency of now being very long and having plenty of striking visual imagery to keep me entertained, Andrey Rublev is essentially a slowly paced three hour drama, with no interesting story or characters at all.

To really show what I mean by this I want to talk a bit about the last hour. The last hour is basically just a boy, whom we had never seen to this point and know nothing about, building a bell for a local prince. What?!?!

The movie never spends time with its characters, not even the title one, so that we can get to know or care about them. The story is not told in any kind of a traditional sense, which as I stated earlier can work fine depending on the type of film, but when doing a biopic you wan't to stay a bit more on track.