this movie was funny in ways it didn’t intend to be. there are a few seriously bizarre moments where reality seems to disappear entirely, and the whole thing is so campy it’s bordering on ridiculous. i had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
from a 2023 perspective, i think there are actually a few slightly progressive themes to be found if you look closer — Jessica’s little brother’s casual crossdressing habit, for instance, and the slight “lesbian confusion” subplot underlying the whole thing.
i really wish Rachel MacAdams got more screen time, (especially acting ‘as a man in a woman’s body’) … but maybe that’s just because i like looking at her face :)
original story with a lot of atmosphere and suspense. Jemima Rooper gives a fantastic performance.
excellent practical effects, but (likely due to budget constraints) the computer-generated portions leave something to be desired. in my opinion, the film would have benefitted from taking a more “implied/offscreen horror” approach.
Personally, I had a lot of fun watching this — very little actual substance, but enough flash and talent that I found it really entertaining. The film knows its value lies in spectacle, and it certainly delivers.
an interesting premise for a flick, with a couple shortcomings (in my eyes).
i'm a big fan of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' work, but the heavily acoustic OST felt a little 'off' to me. for such a recurring motif, i would have preferred a more electronic sound, or strings, or piano, or even choir vocals (like at the very end).
i felt that Maren's character development was rather wildly inconsistent, too — i couldn't tell if she was supposed to be a weird, shy girl who knows little about the world, or a bold, take-charge, "give no shits" one. she seems to flip-flop quite heavily between the two, in a way that made her hard to fully grasp.
(i will say, the Leon character actually did grow on me after a while, but his introduction was a bit awkward and ... well, cringe. i'm not the biggest fan of Chalamet's acting, and I think he was the weakest link among the cast.)
overall, a very visually-beautiful watch with a lot of really nice shots, some poignant scenes, and solid acting. part of me wishes there had been a more in-depth exploration of the sexual themes of the film, which are hinted at, but carefully skirted around.
i'm generally not a fan of musicals, but it was a decent watch. needlessly long, probably could have been condensed ... but still funny, entertaining special effects, and it helped put me in a 'holiday' kind of mood. worth a watch if you're looking to try out a more modern Christmas flick :)
really beautifully composed — part "rise to fame" biopic, part art film. excellent soundtrack, phenomenal editing, and nice selections of news broadcasts/found footage. this is a story that feels told with love, from beginning to uneasy end.
a pretty okay rom-com, but I'm biased towards any film with Rachel McAdams in a prominent role. predictably, some of the jokes really haven't aged well.
Though the moral of the story ("social media obsession bad") gets a little heavy-handed in places, I thought this was actually a really neat and original film. Joe Keery is fantastic in the lead role, the story kept me guessing, and most importantly, a lot of the social media segments actually did feel like an authentic (albeit satirized) representation of what instagram/reddit/whatever is like today. This may cause the film to feel dated within a few years, but I appreciated that the writers grounded it so firmly in present-day culture, rather than using more generic visuals. Fantastic little 'epilogue', too.
whacky, home-made type of movie. i picked it off the shelf at the video rental store, and even the store owner had never heard of it before.
confusingly, this film also goes by the titles Game of Murder, Angella, and Autopsy.
saw this with a friend opening night in theatres ... spent half the film trying to stifle our laughter. the acting is alright, but the pacing is out of whack, it's insanely predictable, a lot of the dialogue is cliché-yet-strange, and i felt like the characters were poorly fleshed out on a broad scale. at least we got a good laugh out of it, though.
Not the most revolutionary premise for a film these days—after seeing Battle Royale, The Hunger Games trilogy, Wolf Creek, Naked Fear, The Eliminator, 31, Ready Or Not, Bacurau, and Roku's The Most Dangerous Game series within the span of a few years, I fear I've grown a little unimpressed with "humans hunted for sport"—and I personally wasn't too impressed with its variety of political messages and social commentary, but Betty Gilpin's performance is commendable as a sort of stoic loner. It's a fun film that I likely won't remember two years from now.
I thought this was a pretty fun film with a few really suspenseful moments. I probably won’t remember it very well a year from now, but I did enjoy it. The final “boss fight” was neat, if a little too short.
this film was clearly made "just for fun", and it should be treated as such. i would not recommend it to someone who's not a Foo Fighters fan.
that said, i thought it was pretty funny — laughably bad acting, cliché narrative, but i got a few solid chuckles out of it. it's perfectly fine if you're searching for a dumb movie for background noise, or to watch while inebriated.
great cinematography! absolutely gorgeous, consistently fantastic use of lighting and framing. some middling dialogue though, and there were many moments that felt far too 'over-explained'.
i'll add that while i liked the batsuit design, i selfishly wish we saw more Bruce Wayne in this one -- he's just so emo, almost to the point of being goofy, but i felt it was the main point of difference from Bale's portrayal and i wish we'd seen more of it. Paul Dano did a good job of Riddler, but Colin Farrell's Penguin was my personal favourite.
one way the film suffers (in my opinion) is that it's shackled by its kid-friendly rating. the film quite transparently wants to be edgy and dark, yet it's rated PG-13 in the US, and PG in my province -- there's plenty of violence and murder, but the gory bits have to be hinted at offscreen, and hearing a certain villain say "friggin'!" for the 80th time felt ... maybe a little weird. i understand that the goal was for the film to be accessible to a younger demographic, but watching it as an adult, i felt like it was missing something.
I'm all for the decriminalization of marijuana and I believe research into it could be immensely beneficial for humanity. However, I'm also a scientifically-minded person, and this documentary places a lot of emphasis on home-brewed oils and the fact that patients (who are children and infants) are being treated as "lab rats" (direct quote) by desperate parents who have run out of options. A handful of uplifting anecdotes about children recovering from cancer are interesting, but I would have liked to have seen more screen time for the qualified professionals delivering their views/experience on the topic.
not great. i didn't find the characters likeable (except for
Richter, and he dies too early in to be meaningful
), and Lila's "school shooting survivor" arc felt shallow and forced. there are some good moments of gore, but overall, it felt like a very clumsy film with middling characters trying far too hard to be "relevant". (e.g.
what the hell was up with Leatherface climbing onto a party bus with some idiot pulling up a livestream? that was just plain silly.
)
the original Texas Chainsaw remains one of my favourite horror flicks of all time, but none of the sequels/remakes have been very good so far. i had slightly higher hopes for this one, but it didn't pan out.
actually a pretty decent documentary special — a short, but rather gruesome glimpse at Steve-O's rock bottom and what it took for him to enter recovery.
One of the sweetest, rawest takes on teen-girl friendship I've seen in recent memory. This movie has it all — poverty, raccoon eyes, minimum-wage jobs, bodily fluids, and big dreams. It's not a straightforward comedy and it doesn't follow a standard story arc (where every little detail and character backstory is explained), but that adds to its real-life charm, if you ask me. It's rare that I see girls in film who are so goofy, messy, or irresponsible, and I fell in love with these two because of it. Superb editing and a great soundtrack to boot.
Interesting premise, lacklustre execution.
Garfield is truly perfect for the role of Link (he does a very convincing job of portraying a manic pixie dream boy cum narcissistic sociopath), but even the strength of his performance couldn't make up for the film's difficulties with pacing and lack of character development. The story is rushed in places it shouldn't be, drags out in places it doesn't need to, and gives next to no thought about the lives or personalities of any of the other characters. I really think it could have benefitted from at least 10-15 more minutes of screentime to add more depth.
Another issue I take with the film is the presentation of the videos Link becomes so famous for. It's transparent that the film is intended to be a critique of Internet stardom and the evils of "influencer" culture, but his supposedly "viral" videos shown just look ... silly, which greatly reduced the effectiveness of the message, in my eyes. I wish they'd tried to stylize the "No One Special" clips look more like legitimately popular videos posted circa 2015-2020, rather than a bunch of over-acted, transparently-fake clips thrown together with emojis and MS Paint effects tacked on. They look like what a 50-year old thinks YouTube videos are, and I find it difficult to believe today's youth would 'fall for that', so to speak.
So long, Mainstream (2020) ... I liked the cinematography, I loved the costumes, but it just couldn't manage to hit home for me.
Interesting film, but it skips around a bit too much for my liking, and I wasn't a fan of the animated segments. The first three quarters or so place a lot of focus on Hilton's current successes (cosmetics, travel, DJ career), but there's very little "meat" to it until the end, where Hilton goes into depth about her experience of abuse at Provo Canyon School. I feel like the actual story of this film is about the abuse she endured at the institution, and the film would have benefitted from incorporating it earlier on/in a more direct manner, rather than vaguely alluding to the topic in order to "build intrigue" for the second half, while the viewer watches her fight with her boyfriend and bounce around on stage at an EDM festival. Found footage could have also served a far more prominent role, in my opinion.
This film does an excellent job showcasing the physical and emotional pain faced by those with ME/CFS and their caregivers, but it also does so much more — it legitimizes invisible illness, humanizes it, and explores just how damaging the concept of 'female hysteria' continues to be.
As a chronically ill person myself, this film hit hard. It perfectly encapsulates the terror and sadness of being confronted with an "untreatable" diagnosis, but also explores the deep love and joy that can be found while living with such profound impairments.
funny and poignant, with a healthy dose of "what the hell?" thrown in. superb acting, beautiful cinematography, and a story that pulled me in much more than I initially expected. Dencik and Mikkelsen at their finest!
Comments 26 - 50 of 111
Movie comment on The Hot Chick
pegs404
this movie was funny in ways it didn’t intend to be. there are a few seriously bizarre moments where reality seems to disappear entirely, and the whole thing is so campy it’s bordering on ridiculous. i had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.from a 2023 perspective, i think there are actually a few slightly progressive themes to be found if you look closer — Jessica’s little brother’s casual crossdressing habit, for instance, and the slight “lesbian confusion” subplot underlying the whole thing.
i really wish Rachel MacAdams got more screen time, (especially acting ‘as a man in a woman’s body’) … but maybe that’s just because i like looking at her face :)
Movie comment on Matriarch
pegs404
original story with a lot of atmosphere and suspense. Jemima Rooper gives a fantastic performance.excellent practical effects, but (likely due to budget constraints) the computer-generated portions leave something to be desired. in my opinion, the film would have benefitted from taking a more “implied/offscreen horror” approach.
Movie comment on Magic Mike's Last Dance
pegs404
Personally, I had a lot of fun watching this — very little actual substance, but enough flash and talent that I found it really entertaining. The film knows its value lies in spectacle, and it certainly delivers.Movie comment on Bones and All
pegs404
an interesting premise for a flick, with a couple shortcomings (in my eyes).i'm a big fan of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' work, but the heavily acoustic OST felt a little 'off' to me. for such a recurring motif, i would have preferred a more electronic sound, or strings, or piano, or even choir vocals (like at the very end).
i felt that Maren's character development was rather wildly inconsistent, too — i couldn't tell if she was supposed to be a weird, shy girl who knows little about the world, or a bold, take-charge, "give no shits" one. she seems to flip-flop quite heavily between the two, in a way that made her hard to fully grasp.
(i will say, the Leon character actually did grow on me after a while, but his introduction was a bit awkward and ... well, cringe. i'm not the biggest fan of Chalamet's acting, and I think he was the weakest link among the cast.)
overall, a very visually-beautiful watch with a lot of really nice shots, some poignant scenes, and solid acting. part of me wishes there had been a more in-depth exploration of the sexual themes of the film, which are hinted at, but carefully skirted around.
Movie comment on Spirited
pegs404
i'm generally not a fan of musicals, but it was a decent watch. needlessly long, probably could have been condensed ... but still funny, entertaining special effects, and it helped put me in a 'holiday' kind of mood. worth a watch if you're looking to try out a more modern Christmas flick :)Movie comment on Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy
pegs404
really beautifully composed — part "rise to fame" biopic, part art film. excellent soundtrack, phenomenal editing, and nice selections of news broadcasts/found footage. this is a story that feels told with love, from beginning to uneasy end.Movie comment on Wedding Crashers
pegs404
a pretty okay rom-com, but I'm biased towards any film with Rachel McAdams in a prominent role. predictably, some of the jokes really haven't aged well.Movie comment on Spree
pegs404
Though the moral of the story ("social media obsession bad") gets a little heavy-handed in places, I thought this was actually a really neat and original film. Joe Keery is fantastic in the lead role, the story kept me guessing, and most importantly, a lot of the social media segments actually did feel like an authentic (albeit satirized) representation of what instagram/reddit/whatever is like today. This may cause the film to feel dated within a few years, but I appreciated that the writers grounded it so firmly in present-day culture, rather than using more generic visuals. Fantastic little 'epilogue', too.Movie comment on Morbius
pegs404
laughable dumpster fire of a film. hopelessly incorrect (bordering on slanderous) information about the habits of vampire bats, too.Movie comment on Tarot
pegs404
whacky, home-made type of movie. i picked it off the shelf at the video rental store, and even the store owner had never heard of it before.confusingly, this film also goes by the titles Game of Murder, Angella, and Autopsy.
Movie comment on Firestarter
pegs404
saw this with a friend opening night in theatres ... spent half the film trying to stifle our laughter. the acting is alright, but the pacing is out of whack, it's insanely predictable, a lot of the dialogue is cliché-yet-strange, and i felt like the characters were poorly fleshed out on a broad scale. at least we got a good laugh out of it, though.Movie comment on The Hunt
pegs404
Not the most revolutionary premise for a film these days—after seeing Battle Royale, The Hunger Games trilogy, Wolf Creek, Naked Fear, The Eliminator, 31, Ready Or Not, Bacurau, and Roku's The Most Dangerous Game series within the span of a few years, I fear I've grown a little unimpressed with "humans hunted for sport"—and I personally wasn't too impressed with its variety of political messages and social commentary, but Betty Gilpin's performance is commendable as a sort of stoic loner. It's a fun film that I likely won't remember two years from now.Movie comment on Choose or Die
pegs404
I thought this was a pretty fun film with a few really suspenseful moments. I probably won’t remember it very well a year from now, but I did enjoy it. The final “boss fight” was neat, if a little too short.Movie comment on Studio 666
pegs404
this film was clearly made "just for fun", and it should be treated as such. i would not recommend it to someone who's not a Foo Fighters fan.that said, i thought it was pretty funny — laughably bad acting, cliché narrative, but i got a few solid chuckles out of it. it's perfectly fine if you're searching for a dumb movie for background noise, or to watch while inebriated.
Movie comment on The Batman
pegs404
great cinematography! absolutely gorgeous, consistently fantastic use of lighting and framing. some middling dialogue though, and there were many moments that felt far too 'over-explained'.i'll add that while i liked the batsuit design, i selfishly wish we saw more Bruce Wayne in this one -- he's just so emo, almost to the point of being goofy, but i felt it was the main point of difference from Bale's portrayal and i wish we'd seen more of it. Paul Dano did a good job of Riddler, but Colin Farrell's Penguin was my personal favourite.
one way the film suffers (in my opinion) is that it's shackled by its kid-friendly rating. the film quite transparently wants to be edgy and dark, yet it's rated PG-13 in the US, and PG in my province -- there's plenty of violence and murder, but the gory bits have to be hinted at offscreen, and hearing a certain villain say "friggin'!" for the 80th time felt ... maybe a little weird. i understand that the goal was for the film to be accessible to a younger demographic, but watching it as an adult, i felt like it was missing something.
Movie comment on Weed the People
pegs404
I'm all for the decriminalization of marijuana and I believe research into it could be immensely beneficial for humanity. However, I'm also a scientifically-minded person, and this documentary places a lot of emphasis on home-brewed oils and the fact that patients (who are children and infants) are being treated as "lab rats" (direct quote) by desperate parents who have run out of options. A handful of uplifting anecdotes about children recovering from cancer are interesting, but I would have liked to have seen more screen time for the qualified professionals delivering their views/experience on the topic.Movie comment on Texas Chainsaw Massacre
pegs404
not great. i didn't find the characters likeable (except forthe original Texas Chainsaw remains one of my favourite horror flicks of all time, but none of the sequels/remakes have been very good so far. i had slightly higher hopes for this one, but it didn't pan out.
Movie comment on Steve-O: Demise and Rise
pegs404
actually a pretty decent documentary special — a short, but rather gruesome glimpse at Steve-O's rock bottom and what it took for him to enter recovery.Movie comment on The Trans List
pegs404
My only complaint: I wish this documentary was longer.Movie comment on Never Goin' Back
pegs404
One of the sweetest, rawest takes on teen-girl friendship I've seen in recent memory. This movie has it all — poverty, raccoon eyes, minimum-wage jobs, bodily fluids, and big dreams. It's not a straightforward comedy and it doesn't follow a standard story arc (where every little detail and character backstory is explained), but that adds to its real-life charm, if you ask me. It's rare that I see girls in film who are so goofy, messy, or irresponsible, and I fell in love with these two because of it. Superb editing and a great soundtrack to boot.Movie comment on Mainstream
pegs404
Interesting premise, lacklustre execution.Garfield is truly perfect for the role of Link (he does a very convincing job of portraying a manic pixie dream boy cum narcissistic sociopath), but even the strength of his performance couldn't make up for the film's difficulties with pacing and lack of character development. The story is rushed in places it shouldn't be, drags out in places it doesn't need to, and gives next to no thought about the lives or personalities of any of the other characters. I really think it could have benefitted from at least 10-15 more minutes of screentime to add more depth.
Another issue I take with the film is the presentation of the videos Link becomes so famous for. It's transparent that the film is intended to be a critique of Internet stardom and the evils of "influencer" culture, but his supposedly "viral" videos shown just look ... silly, which greatly reduced the effectiveness of the message, in my eyes. I wish they'd tried to stylize the "No One Special" clips look more like legitimately popular videos posted circa 2015-2020, rather than a bunch of over-acted, transparently-fake clips thrown together with emojis and MS Paint effects tacked on. They look like what a 50-year old thinks YouTube videos are, and I find it difficult to believe today's youth would 'fall for that', so to speak.
So long, Mainstream (2020) ... I liked the cinematography, I loved the costumes, but it just couldn't manage to hit home for me.
Movie comment on This Is Paris
pegs404
Interesting film, but it skips around a bit too much for my liking, and I wasn't a fan of the animated segments. The first three quarters or so place a lot of focus on Hilton's current successes (cosmetics, travel, DJ career), but there's very little "meat" to it until the end, where Hilton goes into depth about her experience of abuse at Provo Canyon School. I feel like the actual story of this film is about the abuse she endured at the institution, and the film would have benefitted from incorporating it earlier on/in a more direct manner, rather than vaguely alluding to the topic in order to "build intrigue" for the second half, while the viewer watches her fight with her boyfriend and bounce around on stage at an EDM festival. Found footage could have also served a far more prominent role, in my opinion.Movie comment on Unrest
pegs404
This film does an excellent job showcasing the physical and emotional pain faced by those with ME/CFS and their caregivers, but it also does so much more — it legitimizes invisible illness, humanizes it, and explores just how damaging the concept of 'female hysteria' continues to be.As a chronically ill person myself, this film hit hard. It perfectly encapsulates the terror and sadness of being confronted with an "untreatable" diagnosis, but also explores the deep love and joy that can be found while living with such profound impairments.
Movie comment on Cobain: Montage of Heck
pegs404
somehow, this film managed to sucker me into hoping he wouldn't die at the end.Movie comment on Mænd & høns
pegs404
funny and poignant, with a healthy dose of "what the hell?" thrown in. superb acting, beautiful cinematography, and a story that pulled me in much more than I initially expected. Dencik and Mikkelsen at their finest!Showing items 26 – 50 of 111