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Weathering (2023)
A Great Short Film In Which You...
... Might have to be a woman to understand.
The protagonist lost her baby in childbirth and like a lot of women, and black women especially, the doctors dismissed her and didn't listen to her concerns.
Probably throughout her pregnancy or in the 3rd trimester, she felt something was wrong, got a lot of women are dismissed by male doctors sometimes female doctors as being hysterical and there's nothing wrong.
She ended up with preeclampsia which is a rather common but possibly deadly condition and it appeared the doctors blamed it on her.
After the loss, the father of the baby leaves her and she's home alone and absolutely nobody is understanding her pain.
She's weathering her pain and loss and grief and blame at home alone and she's having a hard time of it and most of all with herself.
What's real and what's not real we're not sure but it's definitely affecting her mental and physical health.
At least one other person here got it. Nobody else seems to have gotten what this short film was all about.
Pity.
TikTok Star Murders (2024)
Tiktok Held My Interest...
...for about 3 months. I never go on there anymore, but still have the app on my phone.
Ignore the social media implications, which of course is important and a vital element to the story, but it's a story as old as time.
Man meets beautiful woman. Man become jealous of beautiful woman. Woman gets accused of infidelity. Man abuses and eventually kills the woman and sometimes himself. Nowhere in the scenario does the man ever realize that his behavior and jealousy and subsequent abuse is what has turned the woman away - not another man.
Been there. Lived that. This guy has zero talent, but apparently young people found him entertaining and a couple of Internet follows and likes from total strangers made him think he WAS special.
He was not. He was as boring and corny and as mundane as any abuser is and has always been.
She, of course, did what a lot of victims do - ignored the concerns of others, think that they are special and won't be treated poorly, have kids with their abusers, and then find themselves trapped. They protect their abuser because they think that somehow this is going to spare them, spare the abuser, and in some twisted way, spare the children - all the while ignoring the fact that the children are getting to witness their mother being abused and their dad being the abuser - a relationship not worth saving for all involved.
Rinse and repeat.
The worth of this documentary is for people to see how DV starts and ends and also to see that internet fame is really not fame, but creates a delusional mindset that somehow, you're special.
Narcissists don't really need to have a platform to think that they're special and above the rules, but it certainly helps!
Gerald's Game (2017)
Kept My Attention
No, this doesn't have any superheroes or robots or crashes or giant robots that turn into cars or vampires or zombies, the fast or slow ones.
Stephen King's books are always much, much better than the adaptations, even when he writes the adaptations and that's because Stephen King really knows how to write dialogue and he also knows how to get you into the mind of his characters. But somehow dialogue may fall flat in the movies. I guess because we readers we just know how to get into a book.
For we fans it's also a little fun to hear references to characters and situations from his other books. It doesn't always work, sometimes it comes across kind of cheap but other times it's kind of fun.
One thing I have to say is the Netflix's description should have given a trigger warning, especially for those who are victims of sexual assault. I am not. However I find any assaults of children and women (and men) extremely disturbing and I will have a hard time getting through scenes in movies touching on the subject.
So the critters and the creatures to me were not as horrific as the scene with the dad, I don't know what was worth worse - the manipulation to get her into position and to get rid of the wife and himself alone with her or the scene when he came upstairs and manipulated his daughter into promising never to tell.
JUST NO!!!
Not only was it a horrific scene, but it was maddening so I spent a lot of time angry talking to my screen.
I kept yelling at my screen just tell, tell, tell. Even though I know in many cases children are not believed by adults.
Netflix really needs to be mindful of things like that. I can't imagine someone who has been through sexual assault getting through a scene like that when I could barely get through it without the memory of such trauma.
The other more horrific thing in this movie would be for animal lovers is to make the dog part of the horror show. I don't know what was worse the idea of what the dog was doing. Or the sounds of the dog doing it, so for those people who cannot stand the sound of someone eating and lip smacking, they also need a trigger warning.
Most of the complainers about it being boring just seem to have missed the entire message and the other ones seem to feel like the message is all men are terrible beings.
I don't get it for decades movies have been showing certain groups as terrible people criminals prostitutes pimps and the like. And no one seemed to have any problem with that.
Unfortunately, some men do do bad things. And it's going to be reflected in cinema.
There are plenty of superhero movies movies with great dads movies with loving couples in them on out of all of those one movie depicts men doing what some men do and everyone gets in the uproar.
This is basically a character study and so you have to be willing to to sit still and watch and listen and understand or change the channel.
Bottom line is, it held my interest and my husband's interest; and, not for nothing, my husband didn't get offended by the way any of the males were depicted, because my husband isn't like the males that were depicted and is able to separate himself from those depictions.
Wayne Brady: The Family Remix (2024)
I Got Bored
I was bored in the first 5 minutes. I was listening while doing other stuff.
I'm not a "reality" TV fan at all. Never watched the original one. I've watched a few episodes of The Nanny and fe of the game swap on. The were interesting.
But all the rest of the them? Blah... So this is with his Wayne Brady, who when you say his name you think of really boring things, but people have liked him enough for him to do quite a few day and nighttime TV shows. He's light pablum.
Apparently, he was married and got divorced. Was it because of his sexuality? Probably. Then the wife gets together with one of his dancers on some show he had. I recall he had a variety for at some point. Who knows? I guess the young woman is his ex-wife and his daughter. I don't really know.
So you have a guy who can dance, a guy who can hold a mic and talk into it, is ex-wife, and his daughter.
Exactly, what's interesting about this? It looks like there's eight episodes and I doubt there will be more.
I wish Mr Brady good luck. But I haven't watched a reality TV series in 25 years and I doubt this show will make me start the habit~
Presumed Innocent: The Verdict (2024)
I Knew Spoilers!
I already knew who had done it and I was a little disappointed that they gave away their hand two episodes back.
Unfortunately, it took away some of the impact, but still the final episode was very well acted, especially the courtroom scenes.
Both the prosecution and the defense gave great closing arguments.
However Rusty wasn't as completely innocent as he claimed to be. Rusty was pretty awful and if the wife knew it would explain her sticking with him. Her reaction indicated she had no idea, thereforem her sticking with him for the children who were nearly grown becomes inexplicable.
Rusty just wasn't a very nice person. And the poor DA was probably just a lovesick lonely guy with a cat.
People are kind of ragging on the actor's (who played the politician)choice of voice. I actually liked it he sounded, like those guys down in Louisiana who are just corrupt and sticky fingered and just general slime ball and I think that's why he made that choice and I had no problem with it.
I see there's going to be a second season but are they going to stick with this family or are they just going to have a presumed Innocent character for as long as this series last different crimes different families sometimes guilty sometimes not. Sort of like that detective series which is escaping me at the moment.
Anyway, nothing was premeditated. It was the heat of passion brought on by a smug and cruel woman who thought it was appropriate to tell the child of her married lover she was pregnant.
Who does that?
Presumed Innocent: The Elements (2024)
Rusty Gets Violent With Women
Someone here said they didn't understand the point of the scene when his wife told him about the kiss with the bartender.
I would have never told him, because it didn't need to be told, so the wife telling him was simply her little Act of Revenge.
However, I think the scene was put there to illustrate that Rusty becomes very angry and handsy with women who anger and frustrate him.
Overall, a really good episode, that keeps you wondering which way the jury will go. The end scene from the previous chapter, I thought wow he's a goner.
And then the way the trial played out in this chapter, you think it could go either way. The prosecutor should recuse himself because the jury is not going to like him. Anyway this is keeping me guessing as to how this is all going to play out.
I see reviews and ratings have picked up as the series has gone along.
Unprisoned (2023)
No Just No
Tried watching once. Accidentally tried again. I may hate-binge in the future.
Watched the same ten minutes as the last time. Went, nope, and switched over to Abbott Elementary, a show that actually does make me laugh.
Kerri Washington playing "cute" just makes her look old and it's cringe.
Delroy just comes across as a hardened criminal, I would never let in my house or near my black male child. Just like my ex junkie cousin, whom I talk to on the phone, but hell no.
The whole scene with the PO pressing her to have him live with her to keep him out of trouble really ticked me off.
He's a grown azz. It's his responsibility to keep his own self out of trouble. WTF?
And then trying to pick up that poir woman in the store while broke,no car,no nothing, barely a place to stay screamed user and predatory all over. In this day and age how is any of that cute, or funny, or insightful, or messaging?
What's the message?
This has me so ticked off, I think I will hate-watch this show so I can just be mad! Lol!
Maybe I'll change my rating. I doubt it.
The Ledge (2022)
Really Ticked Me Off
What are the lines? Men are afraid women will make fun of them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.
I'm not a follower, so I don't understand the mentality of followers. People who join cults. People who believe in political figures and false promises and make them their entire persona. I really don't get it.
So whenever some person is a bad person and three or four other people or even just one or half a nation goes along with whatever they're telling them to do, it really just annoys me.
Like really, the scratches under her nails belong to him. If they save her and she's alivem she can tell them who did what. So why on earth would that four of you stand around and let one guy tell you what to do?
Not only that, you know he's a POS, so why is he a friend of yours? And if he's got something hanging over you, why did you go along with whatever it was he did before, so that now you're stuck with this POS?
I know he has to get it in the end and that's why I'm actually watching this craptastic so I can watch him die a horrible death.
But to get there, I have to sit through some of the worst dialogue and acting and script ever.
Like why set this movie someplace in Europe and everyone is an American anyway? What was the point of that? There were no mountains in the states?
I thought this was another movie that I had seen in the past that had to do with climbing and it was really nail-biting from the very first scene and this wasn't it.
But I was stuck, because it annoyed me so very much! I literally hate watching this!
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015)
Another Made Up So-called Religion
Just like one of the originals, where some guy came out of nowhere and made fantastical claims, you have all the others - like our current one that starts with an "M" no, not the one in Utah, but that one, too, the other one from the middle east, the one that spread from the east and covered the west - it's always some guy (ALWAYS a man), who decides to get famous, get tax-free rich, and get powerful by creating a "one true and only" religion.
Because, why not? Because there are always lonely, sad, lost, wacky, mentally unstable, entirely stunted, confused, easily convinced, unsatisfied, gullible people searching for something to reel in with your own, special made-up gobbledygook bs.
Of course you felt something. You created it in your own mind! But you're a believer. The faithful. Because if you believe hard enough... Maybe it'll become true!
So this documentary starts off early with a couple of it's most famous adherents, then on to some more relatively famous folks that you'll recognize more by their names and jobs than their faces.
If we didn't already know, we learn what a liar and sociopath and how unstable a conman L. Ron Hubbards was. We get the voiceover of his former wife (not sure if it's her voice we're hearing or an actress reading from his wife's own written recollections), but what a horrible man he was!
He basically tortured and abused his wife and by extension his child. We also learn he called Scientology a religion because of the cushy tax exempt status our government foolishly allows, causing even more charlatans to crawl from the woodwork to fleece people.
So now we have Scientology, Christian mega churches, prosperity gospel, Catholicism and all its offshoots, Mormonism, et al, which makes religion nothing more that a big, big, big lucreative and powerful business.
Scientology is nothing more than one of l Ron Hubbard's early science fiction stories.
The documentary has quite a bit of old footage of l Ron Hubbard and gives voices to former adherents and basically just let's them talk. We learn how he strategically went after the rich and the famous.
What a scammer!
What a scam!
Basically, you throw out and inch and people take that inch and run with it.
And the money (and power) rolls in!
A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
I Liked It!
The movie is more of an eigh than a nine stars, but I gave it an extra star to counteract the downvotes, which the movie does not deserve.
Michael Bay was surprisingly attached to the movie but it certainly wasn't a Michael Bay type movie. Which some people wanted - they wanted two and a half hours of explosions and bodies being ripped apart and bloodshed and military, and, I don't know, robots thrown in and maybe a superhero or two.
But these movies have never been about the aliens. It's always been about people and people's interactions and how they react in times of terror and stress. There is room for a fourth movie, by the way, and there's a scene in the movie that hints that a fourth one will be on its way. If you're paying attention, you know what scene I'm talking about.
Anyway back to the movie, there wasn't one scene that failed. There was not one interaction or characterization or actor in the movie that rang a false note. It was very naturalistic and the two leads, including the cat were awesome.
The ending for me was perfect and poignant and made me even shed a tear.
I'm hoping for a fourth one that will delve into - like I said - there's a scene in the movie that hints at something that could definitely be built on for a fourth iteration of this film - a quiet place.
I can't wait.
Harlem (2021)
I'm Binging... But...
These women are so cringe. I was starting to like the gay character, because I thought she was strong and together, but she's just as messed up as the other three.
The one that's in the Get Out play is so messy and frankly she needs to go get a STD test.
The one with the mama, she's also a hot mess, she needs to figure out herself and get a real job, instead of depending on her mama.
And then the whole Ian/Camille relationship just isn't working for me. She's immature and messy and a hot mess. She has zero gravitas as far as being a PhD or teaching younger students or even considering that she have tenure.
And Ian just isn't doing it for me. They were adults 5 years ago and they couldn't figure it out. Why are they going to figure it out now?
The only one that I feel for is actually the very sweet fiancee. She didn't deserve the way she was treated, but at least she found out that Ian is not to be trusted or depended on.
I'm up to episode 9m so hopefully by episode 10 she realizes that she was lucky. And Ian and Camille can go and be messy together and argue and break up and get back together... whatever they're doing.
I'm still going to finish watching the show but the acting is really subpar. I was actually had on episode 9 while I was doing something else and it just sounded like everyone was in a room reading their lines with no voice inflection or anything.
The humor is way too crude and sometimes veers into slapstick. And these women are just too old to be this messy. They are well into their thirties and look every year of it and just need to stop trying to act like they're in their early twenties.
The actresses need a better script. They also need to up their acting chops. And here's looking at the most experienced once. Her acting isn't any better.
I'm being entertained while being annoyed and rolling my eyes at every messy situation.
See for Me (2021)
Didn't Work Because of the Lead
We're supposed to be rooting for her at the end? Are you kidding me?
She was an awful human being. She was mean nasty rude. Were they supposed to be portraying her as being feisty and independent? It didn't work.
Then on top of that making her obnoxious, they also made her a thief.
Then they try to sort of placate the audience by a silly exposition explaining the money was stolen anyway. Sorry, two wrongs don't make it right.
Nothing at all was realistic in this movie - it was almost impossible to suspend disbelief.
I mean she's bumping around the house with a light on on her phone which why wouldn't need, because she's blind and talking as loud as possible. Like put earphones on her. Turn off the phone flashlight and have her whisper. Simple enough to let us know she had earphones on and we can hear her through her earphones through movie Magic
Then at the end it's so laughable that they try to make her into some sort of heroine, who has overcome and triumphed over her blindness.
Like ], no, she got a cop killed over money. She killed a whole bunch of people. The cops would have to be idiots not to suspect her, blind or not.
Silly movie, but it killed an afternoon.
The Apology (2022)
As a true crime aficionado..Loaded with spoilers
I knew what was up the minute the minute he arrived and when he refused his coat, I turned to my husband and said, he's got a gun in his pocket.
Having watched true crime confessions on YouTube and been an ID addict for nearly 20 years, whoever wrote the script had him sounding exactly how abusers, child predators, and sociopathic narcissist see themselves.
When he "confessed" the first time, I again turned to my husband and I said, that's not what really happened.
What really happened was he purposely drove by, knowing that the child would be coming from school. He had it all planned, including having the blanket with him. And of course she didn't kiss him or kiss him back. He had planned all along to rape her. And of course, then he had to kill her so that she couldn't tell.
It takes 6 to 7 minutes to strangle someone. Sit still for 6 or 7 minutes and see how long that is. That's about how long someone's been holding on to someone's neck and then claims it was just an accident.
I didn't mean to, it's not my fault, she made me do it, he made me do it, see what you made me do? Why'd you make me do that to you?
Took a little while for there to be action. I think my husband was a little bored at the beginning. But soon the action begins.
Is this a great movie? No. But it's decently acted and they hit the nail on the head in their betrayal of people who abuse and who prey on people for their own selfish needs and wants.
Deliver Us (2023)
A Hot Mess
Starts off kind of interesting, but we've all seen this kind of stuff before - about devils and demons and the Catholic religion...A nun claims to have immaculate conception with twins.
One twin is evil the other one is the messiah. The Priest who has no regard for his vow of celibacy - has a pregnant girlfriend - is convinced to go to the monastery where she's staying and see whether or not this is true.
The other priests there have some sort of plan to abort the babies and kill the evil one, so the nun and the priest and an older priest all escape together and they go to stay in a sanctuary provided by the bf priest's girlfriend. The place belonged to her hunter grandfather who near the end of life started having visions and making really creepy paintings.
Now this is what happens. The older priest that escaped with the young priest starts to go nuts and ends up stepping into a trap that was left by the grandfather in the woods and gets eaten by wolves.
The girlfriend comes back to the cabin splashed with blood because something is happening in the village because the world is coming to an end it something.
Later she and the priest boyfriend go to the factory that she owns and she ends up getting shot and she dies.
Meanwhile, the priest and the nun have been having simultaneous dreams of both of them getting it on and they're supposed to be some sort of divine union like Mary and Joseph.
Everybody is seeing visions of I don't know who and the babies are whispering to them and the evil one is telling everyone to kill the other baby and, he being the devil will give them riches beyond life.
The boyfriend priest keeps every now and then just passing ou and no one seems to notice that he's doing that and no one asks him about it. And we never find out why he was passing out.
Oh, he also has an injury on his side, you know where Jesus Christ was supposed to have been stabbed and, of course, it miraculously heals on its own. And he also has long hair and a beard... Hint, hint.
So he starts to lose his mind and he attacks the nun and he kills a couple of cops. One cop just sort of stands there while he's killing the other cop and then decides maybe he should pull his gun. Both die
So right now we're near the end of the movie and he's killed both cops by stabbing them in the head with some long spear thing and the nun is running through the woods to get away from him with the two babies in a basket. Overhead looks like we're having an eclipse of some sort.
Now she's come upon a cliff that's over some water and we're about to see what's going to happen next because the bloody boyfriend priest is coming to kill the evil baby.
She talks him out of it and they go back to the sanctuary and they get it on.
Oh and there's a one-eyed guy who's been chasing them and then I don't know what happened to him... he just disappears.
The End.
Leave the World Behind (2023)
America At War with Itself
First, I want to say I love apocalyptic movies, because I feel a lot like the main protagonist - I don't particularly like people.
I think we're awful and we're awful to each other and we're destroying the planet, which we do not benefit it in any way.
Areas where people have left nature come back rapidly and takes over.
Ever notice how quickly a house deteriorates when people leave it? Well that's how quickly nature will come back when we leave it.
Anyway, I don't think this movie was about other countries attacking America (although there are some hints/discussion by characters that other countries may backing some of the factions that live in America, which want to attack it and rebuild it in their own image).
I think it's primarily about the division in America and as one character points out, you do first use the media. In reality we're using social media. In the movie media/communications are being disrupted.
As one character explains - without my phone, without my ipad, without the internet I am useless. I am a useless man. We're so dependent on our phones and our computers.
Many of the characters express their fear not only of the unknown but of what to do in the case of an emergency. They want someone else to explain what's going on to them and to tell them what to do.
So, first you take away the means of communication, then you instill fear and confusion, and then you attack - in this case people will attack each other. They'll do the work for you
America's a big fat bloated lazy sleeping giant that thinks it's democracy is invincible and that coups can't happen here. But it's been happening for quite a long time, it's just been in slow motion - that's now speeding up!
This is one frightening movie!
There are several things in the movies that should have been delved into a little more or things that were touched on and then never addressed later so you wonder what was the point.
Alhough, this movie is almost two and a half hours long it really felt like it should have been a series.
Beauty Queen Murders: Stalking Beauty (2013)
Drags Out for 4 Episodes
Never heard of this case. They interview the ones who lived.
The main focus was on one person who was only 16 at the time. Christopher Wilder released her, after kidnapping her and holding her hostage for a week.
This may be odd, but I found her, even though she was a victim and I believed her story, not particularly likable.
She came across older than her years. And in a way didn't give much in detail. She was recruited to lure in another girl. Claimed she mouthed "sorry" to her, but the other lady doesn't mention that.
Anyway, I had a hard time with her going into a crowded Mall and recruiting another young girl, knowing what he would do to her.
This young lady was also raped and tortured with electrical cords and was taken out into the woods to be stabbed and left for dead.
Oddly, the other young lady who was the longer kidnapped victim just didn't seem to be curious as to whether the other young lady was dead or alive.
Now maybe a psychologist can explain that she knew how to shut off her feelings and the cops would say that you did everything right because you lived.
But maybe it's her matter of fact demeanor, but I didn't find her particularly sympathetic or likable.
She made zero attempt to save herself but she does take care to explain that he constantly had a gun on her and a knife on him and made it clear that he would shoot her if she did.
It was a point when she was in a restaurant and he allowed her to go to the bathroom by herself and I was just thinking, why didn't you just flip the table on him when you came back and started screaming and running he's a killer he's a killer.
Maybe that would have gotten her shot or other innocent people killed - I don't know. I know, I'm being critical of a victim. And I'm sure she's been asked multiple times, why didn't she fight back or why did she do this or that. The other young lady was also asked those questions. So maybe it's not fair to ask them.
Stars are reduced because this production really didn't have anything entertaining about it, if I can use that word. Kind of blah. I don't think I'll watch any more episodes.
Spacey Unmasked (2024)
Being acquitted of sexual assault...
.... Isn't the win that Spacey apparently imagines it is. I believe the men.
Apparently, they were somewhat traumatized by his advances, but the fact is, yes, they kept going back.
Several admit that they kept going back, because they were hoping that they could, in the end, get something from it until they realize that there was no quid pro quo.
The stories are eerily similar and a lot of the things that he said to them is what predators often tell their victims - it's no big deal, it's okay that I have my hand where it shouldn't be. This is a lot of what Harvey Weinstein told his female victims.
Kevin spacey's sexual abuse is pretty skeevy if I can use that word, seemingly devoid of anything resembling pleasure.
And so I'm hard-pressed not to imagine that he was repeating childhood experiences where someone violated him and didn't care anything about him and his feelings.
His detachment recounted by nearly all of the victims seems to be pathological. So he's either a sociopath or such a deeply damaged person, emotionally, that he continues to reenact....something.
By his brother's account, they were abused and at least the older brother was sexually abused. And like a lot of cases like this, mom did...nothing.
Yeah, so I believe he did sexually assault many males and the fact that he was acquitted just meant they didn't find him guilty under the restrictions of what the law requires, but that doesn't mean he wasn't guilty.
I see a lot of comments are being downvoted and I don't know if those are Spacey fans, but I am/was a Spacey fan because he was a good actor. But I don't let that blind me to the fact that, where there's smoke, there's fire
I've always known he was gay, it was so obvious. I can understand why an actor would deny being gay but most of the parts that he played were never really leading man parts. IDK
Anyway, like a lot of people who reject their own people and then want to come back when they get their wake up card, Kevin Spacey has not been embraced by the gay community.
He ruined his own career and it's really creepy to watch interviews with him when he talks about being an example and elevating the next generation, all the while sexually assaulting people; and much like predators Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, he used his money and power to go after people, they knew they could use.
Anyway, the industry and the victims alike need to stop protecting these predators - go to the police, report what you know, stop going back in the hopes that you'll get something from them -you won't.
They don't give a damn about you.
High production values held my interest. I found the men very believable.
Hangman (2017)
Awful! Al Pacino Must Have...
... Needed money for his cable bill.
OMG, where to start?
Script was awful and nonsensical. Made little sense. We had no idea who the killer was and he had no connection to anything that happened before (except the murders). No hints. No red herrings. Just some random dude. There was no twist and the reasons for the killings were silly and over the top.
No suspense. No intrigue.
Really bad ending. The lines the actors had to speak were g-d awful. It was like the hack scriptwriter was copying grade B movies about hard-boiled cops and detectives from the fifties.
Al Pacino attempting a Southern accent! OMG! Why? What did it add? The movie isn't even set in the South! Like I said, really bad writing!
The young actress couldn't act and had zero reason to be there. The script actually had her attacking a suspect! WTF?! This alone would have gotten her off the detail. No cop investigating crimes has time to protect a civilian.
Her backstory was silly and ridiculous and didn't have the dramatic impact one silly scene was supposed to have. But she got to cry. (eyeroll)
Then like a lot of crappy movies, they try to use music to get the audience to feel something that should be come in the acting and script!
Urban should never attempt to act ever again in his life. He was even worst than the female and Al Pacino phoning it ino pay his cable.
Skip this awful not mess. I rarely give one stars, but I was actually insulted by how craptastic this was!
Room 203 (2022)
Slow Slog
Taking me forever to finish this slow slog of a movie that making little sense.
I'm guessing someone cast spell on an apartment, but the title calls it a room and two friends move in. The building is creepy and so is the landlord. The pay in cash and don't ask for a receipt, which was really scary.
Something evil lives in the walls or in the room-apartment next door.
One girl has substance and issues. A necklace that comes through the wall if you're dumb enough to stick you arm you in an oozing hole in the wall.
In the prelogue we see that the necklace causes a girl to immediately freakout and kill herself, but druggy friend put it on and she starts acting weird and somehow a music box figures in.
Anyway, the other girl is taking journalism in college. She spends most of her time blabbing to anyone who'll listen all about her friend's drinking and drugging problems, because everything is about her or she has no sense of privacy.
Druggy and blabbing friend go out. Druggy picks up a guy, passes out because she does drugs, and someone stabs her one night stand but apparently he doesn't bless or die because there's no blood or body the next day.
I'm not making any of this up.
College student starts dating a guy from college, who learns about the gross oozing hole in the wall.
They research a little and find other residents of the apartment-room have gone missing.
They make out.
College girl has bad dreams.
I don't know what happens next because you can't see the screen and I'm only halfway through this movie. It's been 40 days of constant rain and there's no end of sight.
... Of this movie or the rain.
Matriarch (2022)
Held Our Interest
The movie opens with the bandside of a naked man going into a marsh and drowning himself. We have no idea who, when, why, or what.
We cut to...
The protagonist, unlikable from the getgo. Everyone is unlikable, except, the supervisor, who knows the main character is abusing drugs and wants to help.
We get one throwaway line that leads us to believe her tolerance of a drug-abusing employee may be because her own daughter died of an overdose.
Anyway, daughter goes home to mom and we soon know why she's such a hot mess and not particularly likeable. She pretty much tells mum off and explains mom and her upbringing to a tee.
Anyone, brought by a abusing narcissistic parenting will probably be triggered - so warning.
I glean that mom did the entire gaslighting, it's your fault, you make me treat you this way form of narcissistic parenting. Forced the daughter to learn piano, to be perfect, and called her fat and disgusting, so daughter abuses drugs and is bulmic.
Anyway, earlier on we see the daughter basically die after an alcoholic, cocaine binge when her heart seizes. Black ooze, much like the marsh water, oozes into her mouth and she wakes, but not before dreaming of a mother eating her baby's face.
She staggers into work, insults her boss about the death of her daughter, quits her advertising job and calls mom, who had called earlier to her job. She hadn't seen it spoke to her in 20 years and has told people, her mother was dead.
Back to creepy English village where mutilated dead animals lay decaying on the side of the road, a couple is in a car makingout to the death, and adults are mean and nasty.
Enter an old friend who seems to be spying on her. No one has aged except the friend, whose mother died of cancer and whose father is the village vicar. A bitter man of faith in his God, wife dead of cancer. The daughter had it but was miraculously cured.
He's bitter because the people have turned from his god and we suspect they are worshipping something else.
Mom keeps drugging the daughther and attempted to drag her to her dead husband's old greenhouse. But the daughter wakes and mom runs off.
I won't spoil the story. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but you do want to know what the heck is up with that village and Mom~
Anyway, it appears worshipping anything doesn't really bring satisfaction or desired results and worshippers are in the same position as secular people - you live and you die and that's about it.
No one and nothing is coming to save you! Gods are selfish and only in it for the worship of themselves.
The End!
True Story (2015)
Neither Actor...
...really pulls this off. I've seen them in other films and they are decent.
Jonah didn't have the gravitas and Franco didn't pull off creepy or chilling well enough.
Jonah just look like that fat dumb kid in third grade that believes any outlandish story you told him. He just walked around with a blank look on his face, his mouth hanging open.
Sorry Jonah, I really liked you in The Wolf of Wall Street and even your first comedy - I think you played an irreverent babysitter? Loved you in those.
I mean maybe you were portraying Finkel the way he actually is. After all, he claims, he believed Longo. In which case I apologize and you got dumb and gullible down in an Oscar-worthy performance!
I've seen other films where real-life killers were portrayed and you got the sense of how people would believe them, but Franco just made me scoff, like, what idiot would believe any of this guy's bs?
I doubt that's what the scriptwriter, director, and actors were going for!
I'm watching this in 2024 after I happen to come across the third Chris of the family annihilator infamous trio of Watts, Coleman, and Longo.
Watts and Longo famously tried to blame their wives and Coleman tried to setup his murders (wife and two boys) as the work of a stalker (he was the stalker).
All 3 of them were immediately suspected. All 3 wanted out of financial obligations and two of them had gfs on the side. Both Watts and Coleman had awful parents who hated their DIL and seemed to care less that their grandchildren were taken. And didn't have the sense that god have them to hide those facts when speaking to the public. They were nearly as despicable as their two sons.
I was unable to find any YouTube channels that covered Lingo to any level of satisfaction and so decided to watch this movie.
Anyway, back to the movie. I rented the DVD from my local library. I'm a true crime fan and currently this movie is streaming only on MAX.
Others complained this movie had no payoff, I disagree. All along even if you never heard of Longo, you know his story is implausible (your entire family is murdered and you're 7n Mexico? Oh! Come on!)
Finkle pretending he believed Longo on any level, puts his entire credibility (aren't good journalists supposed to be natural skeptics, hence the impetus to search out the truth?) just screams liar, liar, liar pants on fire! A couple of references are made in the movie about how great a journalist he is - never heard of him and I've been reading the Times for years!
The most chilling performance in this entire movie was by the actress playing the wife Felicity Jones. At first I found her annoying but there wasn't a lot of for her to work with except staring off in the space and taking showers.
And I couldn't for the life of me understand why she wasn't berating her husband about spending so much time with the murderer and even believing it.
But that one scene when she confronts Longo was well worth it and well played.
For me the one thing that was really lacking in this movie was giving us any kind of meat to work with as to what drove any of the characters.
I still think this is a movie that's well worth watching. The director took a different approach than the customary one in dealing with these kind of True Crime cases and he held my interest.
Them: Are You Scared? (2024)
Worth Watching
This review is for the first three episodes. I watched the first two episodes with hubby, but I don't think he was as into it as he was with the first season, so rather than wait for the next time that he wants to view this I'm just going to go ahead and binge it.
So far this isn't quite as good as the first season was, which just gripped me by the throat and wouldn't let go. The first episode I watched I was literally shaking before I turned it on and I had to get a glass of wine to calm my nerves. I kid you not!
I literally could only handle one episode a week, because emotionally it was just more than I could handle.
While with this one, I'm binging it, because,it is holding my attention and I certainly want to see where it is going.
While the season was found to be quite terrifying not only with its story but also with the music and the direction and the acting it was just awesome in my opinion, this one isn't as scary as much as it is simply a bit of a mystery and who's doing what and you really want to know where it's going.
I'm hoping this has a twist to it and that is not as obvious as it might seem in the first three episodes as to who the villain is - in in this case - is it the aspiring actor or is it the cop or is it both?
The title of this series is Them. And that could be black people/minorities or it could be white people or it can be the cops. Because everyone's got an Us and a Them and am Us versus a Them.
The series is also like the first season in exploring race and racism and bigotry and how we see things through our own filtered lenses.
I think despite the fact that it's not as gripping as the first season, it's still good and worth watching.
Desaparecer por completo (2022)
Kept Out Interest
This wasn't particularly scary. A bit of a slow burn. However it kept our interest and thankfully this is captioned and in the original Spanish.
I don't like shows that are dubbed in English because the English is always flat and it doesn't really express emotions correctly.
Anyway, I liked the cinematography and production value. I thought it was really good. The acting was fair. I found that, mostly this just kept my interest rather than being frightening. It wasn't particularly scary, but I did want to see where it went. I also liked being able to see different parts of Mexico and something other than "bandidos" or "bad hombres" or drug cartels and other stereotypes.
My understanding is that this movie is based on folklore?
My husband and I watched this together and we both enjoyed it.
This is not a ringing endorsement, but if you want to see movies made by directors from other countries, you can add this one to your list.
By the way this is very similar to another movie where the entire population of the world gradually loses its senses.
Carol (2015)
Gave This a 7, Not Sure Why
Maybe it was the cinematography, because it sure wasn't the story, which was long slow and boring.
It was like watching everyone on too much Xanax. There was no excitement. The one lesbian love scene was tame and boring.
I didn't know it at the time that this was a Patricia Highsmith adaptation of one of her books of the same name. I saw this in an artsy fartsy theater in a hoity-toity part of town and maybe just because of where I saw it. I thought it deserved a seven.
Anyway, there was no high. There was no low. There was no tension or suspense. I'm not even sure what the attraction was between the two characters as the Carol character was cold and didn't really seem to be particularly interested in the younger protagonist.
I remember reading, maybe it was a critics review, about the big lesbian sex scene and I thought well maybe it'll pick up at that point.
That sex scene couldn't have been more boring, if it was missionary style with the lights off, between a, impotent minister and his frigid wife of 50 years.
I'm leaving this review after seeing the movie several years ago, because apparently there was a reason why I gave it a seven but I can't remember why I would do that, because I remember being completely bored the entire time I was watching this movie 0 waiting for something to happen and it never did!
Again, it was probably the cinematography and the ability of the movie production to capture the style of the time.
This is one of those adaptations based on books written by gay people who were born in the early part of the century or in the 50s who remained in the closet and so when they wrote books or created films, the subtleties were well hidden, supposedly, from the mainstream public; and because of that, all sexuality, tension, thrills, storytelling, what have you, remained completely buried and in the closet and just meh.
What Jennifer Did (2024)
This Netflix Doc fills in Some Blanks!
This case is well-known to me and, yes, I've seen the JCS channel on this.
I've also watched Investigation Discovery ID and other true crime channels on tv about this case.
This is what's good about the Netflix documentary: You get to hear from the detectives, see news reports, the highlights of Jennifer's interviews, interviews with the boyfriend, and crime scene photos.
Of all the docs I've seen, I've never seen interviews with Wong, news footage, interviews with investigators, or crime scene photos. Just voiceovers about the strictness of the parents and the interviews with her. In at least one doc you did see camera footage of suspicious dad tracking the daughter to a workplace where she claimed to be employed and that's about it.
Now maybe Netflix was aware of the takes already out there, so they went with another POV with the small amount of other footage available.
The doc is short and can easily be supplemented through the ID channel on TV or any number of true crime channels on YouTube.
If it delved deeper and longer, everyone would complain about padding and/or that it was too long and needed to be only, 90 minutes.
Well this doc is just that, about 90 minutes.
One thing of note is the lack of information about the other suspects. But they atleast showed Wong being interviewed and I've never seen anyone showing that. Never seen Nick on the other suspects either or even any court footage of any trials.
The other thing I noted was, everyone was an idiot. I mean the parents were clueless and just never saw that their daughter just wasn't as smart as their expectations, although she apparently was very good with the piano, but that's a different skill set.
Wong also was no genius. He gave everything away in his interview. Talked way too much, bringing up things that were never asked and directly making the cops suspicious of him and Jennifer. Neither asked for lawyers.
As far as I can see, no genius was in operation here from the parents to Jennifer to the bf and the 3 clowns that couldn't even shoot straight.
What a dumb mess. At no time did anyone tell Jennifer or did she tell herself, I'm an adult and I can walk away. The time and energy put into lying and creating false documents for 4 years could have actually gone into going to school and getting a decent job and moving out!
Yes, I know about the issues with parents and kids in Asian and immigrant cultures, but guess what, millions of people go out on their own every single day.
She had choices and chose the wrong one! Sad all around. Her diary indicated the pressures were more about her drug-dealing boyfriend than anything else. Abby parent would object!
Also, I think the Netflix doc gave is enough information about her motivation. Also, is never heard she tried to do it before! Not sure how much more Netflix could spell it out. She maintains her innocence to this day so no more information is coming forth. They all won retrials, too!