Change Your Image
HwajangshilAgashi
Reviews
Catnado (2022)
SO bad, it's not even "so bad it's good"
For a movie titled "Catnado", there's a definite shortage of cats - and an abundance of cats really is the only thing that could have redeemed this litterbox full of turds.
The 90+ minute film is broken up into 6 or 7 stories, but even so, it still manages to be insufferably boring and about 90 minutes too long.
Yes, it's a spoof and is meant to be ridiculous, but spoofs are also supposed to make fun - and therefore be funny - not bore you to death.
While some movies are so bad (whether intentionally or not) that they become amusing, this isn't one of them; It's just plain bad. Easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
Noah's Ark (1999)
As unfunny as they come
The movie itself said it best:
"Perhaps it was some kind of joke"
"Nobody laughed"
This was just shortly after we see a koala defecating while being held by one of the actors, clearly providing feedback. While the koala had no choice in its participation here, what I cannot understand, however, is how so many recognizable actors agreed to "star" in this turd of a film. Sure, they may not be A-listers, but do they have absolutely no dignity or concern for their reputations? Did one of the producers have so much dirt on them that they could not refuse? Did they think that no sane person would watch this anyways?
Accused: Danny's Story (2023)
Complete let-down
Enjoyed the first two episodes a lot, but this episode was just one cliché after another:
Father has affair with his dying wife's nurse;
Nurse kills mother, but no one other than the one son suspects anything, despite her unexpectedly sudden downturn;
Nurse moves into their home right away;
Takes late mother's dog for a walk - dog doesn't survive the walk;
Suspicious son gets sick, but nobody will even listen to him about being poisoned - or about how she killed the dog;
Son stabs nurse (this is the only point I had not predicted right from the start);
Son is committed to psychiatric institution;
Nurse visits son, tells him his father died of a heart attack right after their honeymoon, and his brother is very sick;
Son reacts with an outburst, nurse pretends she doesn't know what's wrong with him and smiles a big, evil smile.
After the son stabs the nurse and finds himself at the psychiatric hospital, the acting - which was already extremely cheesy - now gets hammed up to the extreme, with camera angles that made me hope against all hope that this was just a dream sequence, and there would be a proper twist. I mean, in "real life" SOMEONE would have gotten suspicious that first the mother died so quickly, then the dog, one son is committed, the father - who looks the picture of health and did not have any heart issues we were told about - does of a heart attack and the other son takes sick as well?! Especially when one son had already sounded the alarm about the nurse! Nobody say her smiling that big, evil smile?!
Alas, it was not to be, and this was not a dream sequence, but simply a big cheese and ham sandwich of an episode. Jack Davenport was completely wasted on this.
Scenes from a Marriage (2021)
Another inferior remake
Let me start by saying that I did not know about the Bergman version when I watched Scenes from a Marriage, so I watched it with an open mind.
Right from the beginning I couldn't help but feel that something was off about the characters: It felt as though Jessica Chastain's character, Mira, had been written as the husband, and Oscar Isaac's character, Jonathan, had been written as the wife. Then the writers swapped the genders. But I suppose they were not quite happy with this, and tweaked the characters to make Mira's masculine character more stereotypically "feminine" by making her emotional - at times hysterical - and manipulative. The whole time I kept trying to imagine Mira at work as the high-powered tech executive she is supposed to be. Jonathan, on the other hand, feels like he was written as the nurturing, loyal-to-a-fault good wife and mother should be.
Both characters are frustrating and infuriating in their own way, and for me it was not possible to look past their immature, really quite unrealistic, behaviour and decision-making.
After watching this (2021) series, I found out about the original Bergman version, and watched it to compare. In the 1973 version Marianne and Johann are still flawed individuals and not necessarily very likeable, but they are so much more believable. You can imagine them as real human beings outside of the scenes presented on the screen. It is easy to fill in the time period between the 'scenes', and imagine how they got from one to the next.
Also, the feeling I had about the gender rolls being reversed was partly true. In the 2021 version, it is Mira who has an affair and leaves Jonathan, whereas in the 1973 version it is Johan who leaves Marianne. Reversing the roles is fine, it's just that the writers did such a poor job of it.
As far as I'm concerned, this is just another inferior remake that should have never been made.
Modern Love: The Night Girl Finds a Day Boy (2021)
Annoying, Selfish Girl finds a Boy willing to put up with her
It's an interesting idea, but there was simply nothing likeable about the woman. She was completely selfish and entitled. I understand she suffered from a health condition that she had no control over, but she acted like that meant that everyone else must completely adapt to her, rather than finding some sort of compromise.
The man changed his life completely to suit hers, and she wasn't able to set an alarm the one time he wanted to do something during the day? I mean come on! Even a "normal" person manages to get themselves up out of bed at odd times when they have to, e.g. To go to the airport, or for whatever other reason. "Normal" people like nurses have schedules that change wildly, and they adapt. Couples where one person works days and the other works days manage to make things work. It just takes work, the ability to see things from the other's POV, and the ability to compromise. Is it easy? No, of course not. And sometimes people can't make it work, even though they try. However, these people were supposed to be newly in love. You know, that phase of love where you'd do anything to spend more time with the other person... What's she going to be like 20 years down the road, when love has changed/faded. She'll still be a selfish, entitled brat who throws a tantrum when a restaurant won't make her a custom meal because she wants breakfast at dinnertime.
Celebrity Apprentice Australia: Ice Cream (2021)
Consequences for cheating
So very disappointing that there were no real consequences for cheating. Yes, some money was deducted, but Team Momentum should have been disqualified, and Martha should have been instantly fired. I have been cheering for Shayna nearly since the beginning (not being Australian, I didn't know any of the participants except for David, whom I knew from Survivor AU, and was incredibly happy to see go), but she knew that what Martha was doing was against the rules, yet did not try to stop her, and therefore should also have suffered some consequence.
As it stands, the only lesson is that if you cheat and are caught, you'll lose your ill-gotten profits (at least what can be identified as such, because really, who knows how much more ice cream was sold to her friends/family/fans), but there'll be no other consequences, so it's worth a shot.
Time to Choose (2015)
Poorly written, just as poorly narrated.
You know that expression, "preaching to the choir"?
I am the choir. It should have been easy to get me fully on their side, and get a high star rating from me.
Instead, I was continually distracted by the poor writing. It felt as though every other sentence started with "But...". I'm not even one of these people who believe that you should never start a sentence with a conjunction. However, it is definitely a pet peeve of mine when a documentary is written in such a way where it seemingly only makes a statement in order to then juxtapose it with the next statement, which invariably starts with "But...".
Not only that, it also made matter-of-fact statements, without backing them up in any way, simply because it suited their narrative. For example, when they stated that the KPK chairman and deputy chairman were arrested on fabricated charges. I am not saying that this is not true, but why not state instead what these charges are, and that the accused denied them as fabricated, or something along these lines?
This film would have come across as more balanced (it really is incredibly lopsided) if they had addressed, rather than ignored, challenges with renewable energies. All these "green" technologies are far from "green" in their production. Producing an electric car, for example, is more emission intensive than producing a regular car, due to the batteries. If you only focus on how much greener they are to run, and ignore the higher energy required to produce them, you are not providing a balanced picture, and people who know this will use it as a reason to dismiss the film as all lies.
There are other things, but I'll leave it at that.
As for the narration, I honestly do not know what they were going for, but the bland, slightly depressed tone and slow speech felt somehow patronizing, making the poor script all the worse.
What a disappointment.
The Real War of Thrones (2017)
Poor writing
I enjoy historical shows, and enjoyed this as well. But the writing was so poor, it absolutely pulled me out of the story.
It would talk about something that happened. But then the next sentence would pretend like some shocking twist happened.
It also jumped around a bit. But it was still a good watch.
Just be forewarned that you can expect the narration to go something like my review above, with almost every other line starting with "but". But don't make it a drinking game, or you'll be history yourself!
Je ne suis pas un homme facile (2018)
Fun movie, but a missed opportunity
The movie was fun to watch, but I couldn't help feeling that it was a missed opportunity, if it really was meant to shed some light on women's issues.
In the movie, women basically turn into men, and men into women. As though they swapped hormones. Men are suddenly driven by emotions, longing to have grandchildren... It's simply not believable. Ultimately, by attributing female qualities to the men, and making the men look quite ridiculous, it ridicules women almost more than it shows the unfairness of society against women. Instead - in keeping with the comedy aspect to drive home the inequality between the genders - there could have been more emphasis on all the things women go through to be/feel accepted in society: making themselves look attractive, constantly smiling (I would have loved seeing a woman tell a man "you should smile! You would be so much more attractive if you smiled more"), dieting and exercising, being told they're bossy when they're assertive, being told and dismissed because they're emotional/hysterical when they display even an ounce of (rightful) emotion (e.g. anger), working themselves to the bone just to be considered on par with the average guy, 'helping' with housework and child rearing, etc.
There is so much that wasn't even touched on. Instead there was a lot of time spent on scenes that did very little to drive home the theme of the movie.
Another option would be having the movie explore a realistic matriarchal society. This would have been interesting, though most likely much less entertaining. Perhaps a society where we do not value (over)confidence and quick decision making over good decision making. Where the future plays a bigger role in decisions (e.g. a greener world). However, this would have easily fallen into the same trap "Downsizing" did, where a good concept fell victim to a lot of preaching.
In short, it was an entertaining movie, but it could have been so much more.
Downsizing (2017)
Thought provoking movie
Downsizing is a very thought-provoking movie. I spent much time pondering how I felt about falling for this switch-and-bait scheme.
Seriously, I love Matt Damon, I love that he cares about environmental and social issues. These kinds of issues are important to me as well. I do my best to not just reduce my impact on the environment, but to do good things for the environment. My work, while not directly related, also has to do with it. I care about my fellow human beings, and contribute to causes (including water.org) that I believe have a positive impact on humanity. But with all the depressing things going on in the world, sometimes - just sometimes - I want to turn off my brain and enjoy a fun comedy. I thought this is what I would be doing. I was wrong.
The movie starts out well. Basically, it lives up to the laughs promised in the trailer. I imagined it would continue by portraying the difficulties of a relationship between a person of normal size, and a downsized person. When it was clear that it wouldn't, I looked forward to learning about difficulties of being downsized that I would have never thought of (e.g. food - some foods would be easy enough to make in miniature size, but how would you deal with fruit and veggies, for example? Are they shrunk (which would result in no positive impact to consumption)? Do you just eat little pieces of them (texture would feel very grainy; would be weird to only be able to eat a bit of banana, rather than actually being able to eat a banana from the peel)? Would they have mini GMO foods?). I kept waiting for some downside to being downsized that they weren't told about. Like, I don't know - shorter lifespans? And of course, yes, any social issues, since there was mention of this in the trailer.
Instead, I got maybe half an hour of comedy, and then it turns into a feel-bad movie about how even in this downsized world there are still people living in abject poverty. Which, honestly, cannot be taken seriously. Money goes so far that real, abject poverty could easily be eradicated. And despite being a cynical pessimist, I believe that in a world where this would be possible rather easily, it actually would be done.
When they first introduced the "slums" outside the dome, with the bus going through the hole in the wall, I thought that giant insects might creep in through there (nope - even though they definitely would. But the movie completely ignores this in order to make us feel bad). Then, I thought, okay, the movie will show us how in this downsized world it will be possible to eliminate this level of poverty. Again - nope.
Instead, the movie introduces an obnoxious, annoying character, Ngoc. Her portrayal starts as someone who takes care of those around her. There might even have been some redemption to the movie here, but no. As soon as she is given the opportunity to go away on a trip, she abandons those she supposedly so selflessly cares for without even a second thought.
The rest of the movie goes completely off the rails. Of course by this time being downsized doesn't even matter anymore. Everyone shown is downsized, so downsized has become standard sized, and it's just a movie about normal sized people.
This movie is presented as satire here on IMDb, but it is not. It is not biting. Rather, it is preaching. I wonder how many hard-working, low-earning people wasted their money watching this based on the promise of a fun movie, based on the trailers promising a comedy (no mention of satire there, to at least give some sort of forewarning to anyone). And how much money did the already rich Matt Damon et al collect? It's always easy to preach from your gilded palace at those who already have less, about how they need to do more with what little they have.
Not just disappointed in the movie, but also in those sitting on their high horses, preaching down at the rest of us. For shame!