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Reviews
American Horror Story: Take Me to Your Leader (2021)
No. Just no.
As a writer & filmmaker, this little story switch-around confused the copper out of me at first. I figured it was still connected to what was truly Red Tide, but then we go back in time to generic theories about Aliens & Area 51, seemingly archaic politics, and the date & location switch from modern-day to 1954 Albuquerque NM with no explanation-at first I thought perhaps an atomic substance found its way into those pills from the first part of the series. Nope. Nothing but well-known & decades-discussed politics of the time, the fake moon landing theory which brings attention to the Cold War, & with the exception of Lily Rabe & Sarah Paulson why not have brought back some of the other regulars in different characters as they did in season 8? And what of the jump between the 50's to the 60's? At least they didn't go completely overboard & mention MK-Utra. Lol. Considering the rushed feeling of the progression of the original story, why did they not create more suspense to establish more concerning the plot, story & characters...as well as the horror? Then at least they would've remained completely true to the title. The only beef I had with it is 1. How, exactly, did Leslie Grossman's character do that at the end and 2. Culkin's quick kill-off made no sense & if they'd expanded his character could've been further explored, as well as Sarah Paulson's who suddenly decided to become Virginia Woolf for reasons known but not entirely understood.
Stop trying to be David Lynch, please!
Three stars merely for the acting. If it had anything to do with the original story it may have received four.
1984 captured the spirit of the original slayers, particularly Friday the 13th, and that was a fresh idea.
Life Stinks (1991)
Sometimes I Wonder
...what kind of life those who gave this film bad ratings & reviews live. Probably comfortable, spouting about how this film is tasteless & not funny. Of course-why should they know how being poor/homeless is tragic? Life Stinks was no Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles (which had PLENTY of tasteless jokes, as in when Cleavon Little's character said good morning to an old lady & she responds, "Up yours, ni**er!" but nobody seemed to have a problem with that), Spaceballs, High Anxiety (spoof of Hitchcock films), or To Be Or Not to Be. However, it was a good try at making a comedy that also makes a societal statement & how things can change for the worse in a matter of moments, and it was quite believable because people don't realize what they had until they hit rock bottom. At least he kept it amusing, & Lesley Ann Warren gives an amazing performance as Molly.
If this movie is in bad taste for some, which side promotes the bad taste? The rich a-holes, or the poor & homeless? Tbh, the only bad taste was the one seeping from my mouth when Vance double-crossed "Pepto." If it's the homeless "vagrants" that give those people a bad taste in their mouths, know that it very well could've been someone I love very much who could've ended up like him (sans climax & denouement) if I didn't have the empathy & love in me to take him in, give him a bed and roof to sleep on & under, feed him, & encourage him to go to a doctor due to health problems, he'd be as dead as Sailor, people passing him on the streets as if he's just a piece of garbage on the street. I felt Bolt change poignantly from a greedy businessman to a "real" person in dire straits, and that says a lot. Bolt didn't start out as a particularly generous man & was unabashedly chasing a goldmine, but he learned his lesson quickly. Not particularly easy to do when you've had everything since you were a child & suddenly you have nothing, but he found, luckily, that he did have heart. He became friends with a man who peed on him-I can imagine a guy like Vance kicking the crap out of poor old Sailor, though.
I felt there were very funny bits of comedy, mostly the subtle ones another may not catch, & some good slapstick. Overall I agree with fans who say it's not his best, but to call how the homeless were portrayed as unrealistic tells me none of these people have been to or through any slum sections of large cities. For those reviewers, try walking in the ABC section of NYC or Harlem. I have, and from what I've seen there & in East L. A., the portrayal seems pretty realistic to me.
I say if you're not really a Mel Brooks fan or haven't seen any other of his films and/or you prefer spoofs, skip Life Stinks & watch Young Frankenstein or High Anxiety (great performances by Cloris Leachman and Madeline Kahn {RIP...she was a hilarious comedian. And anyone who thinks Brooks directed films are better without him in them, I suggest watching High Anxiety...the airport scene is hilarious.
All in all this movie makes the mark for me no matter what critics say-they're critics for a reason-they can't make films.
Imitation of Life (1959)
Beautiful film
Imitation of life is a poignant story about a well-to-do mother & aspiring actress named Lora who banks on Broadway & her daughter, Susie, as well as her wonderfully kind maid, Annie, and Annie's mixed race daughter. Soon after Lora loses sight of Susie when Susie was little, she discovered that Annie had taken good care of her while she was lost, befriended her, and gave her a job. Lora considered Annie and Sarah family.
In this film there's both trouble in paradise as well as trouble between half black/half white Sarah. During this time black folks were still considered a mere commodity for labor, shunning, & lynching. Meanwhile, Susie pines over her mother's new beau which causes tension between Lora & her.
These schisms between both pairs mother & daughter shows that it doesn't matter who one is or what one looks like. What really matters here is, despite all odds, love.
I'd also like to add, as another reviewer mentioned on here, when Mahalia Jackson sings, here come the waterworks.
Penny Dreadful (2014)
Horrific & heartbreaking
I especially enjoyed Eva Green's harrowing performance as a holy woman haunted by demons, Rory Kinnear's John Clare (the Creature), whose loneliness, anger, melancholy & other emotions made him more human than his own creator, and Reece Carney as Dorian Gray, the mysterious, seductive man with a dark secret. Throw in a missing daughter/best friend, the reanimated dead, and other creatures & afflicted humans and you have Penny Dreadful, a name derived for a pulp horror zine or pamphlet.
In addition to these actors' performances as these characters, we see & meet & hear of other famous names of the age of gothic horror.
Many of the spaces & locations in the series allowed for beautifully framed cinematography-the space left much to creativity & the shots are carefully executed.
There are moments when violence is unexpected, which adds to the thrill of immersing oneself in this series as well as other moments where the tone of one emotion is enveloped by the prior emotion & many of these scenes are either dark & foreboding or tear-worthy.
One thing I did find strange, in following witch law, why a woman who is an occultist in black magic would name her daughter Hecate, Triple Moon Goddess of Green & White Wiccans. Lilith would've been much more fitting as she is the mother of all demons.
A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017)
Gorgeously clever!
Lemony Snicket (Patrick Warburton) narrates & gives a deadpan performance in recounting the often tragic and unfortunate lives of the Baudelaire orphans as they are harrowed by the evil Count Olaf (played marvelously by the very talented Neil Patrick Harris) and are at the mercy of hapless banker, Mr. Poe (K. Todd Freeman), who is a banker working for its Department of Orphan Affairs shuffles the Baudelaires from home to home with Count Olaf on their tails, after the fortune left to them by their parents who unexpectedly perished in a fire which was a result of arson.
A wide array of wonderful, terrible characters interact during their numerous unfortunate events; the Baudelaire orphans, themselves are a trio of genius-level children-Violet, the oldest & first in line to receive their parents' fiscal fortune, is a brilliant inventor with a quirky ritual and a knack for thinking ones up on the spot that often have incredible, helpful results. Klaus, the extremely well-read and second oldest, has a fantastic grasp on how to research & solve puzzles & clues, and youngest, the incredibly adorable Sunny Baudelaire, though barely out of diapers, can understand English grammar extremely well and utilizes her grammatical skills by speaking what, to the audience and several other characters in the story, may sound like baby gibberish, but to those who do understand her, has impeccable language skills...and is 100% adorable.
Whereas many shows & films contain cliche'd one-liners & mounds of incorrect grammar, this show reminds me of the days when producers & directors strived to make sure scripts didn't contain what people may think is correct (I.e. general statement: "George gave this picture to she & I" is a grammatical error & may be used by the less intelligent characters, but the Baudelaires, their friends (the Quagmire Triplets), and their temporary guardians do not only avoid using bad grammar &, in fact, the Baudelaires are often told by others what certain words mean, to which Klaus often replies in annoyance, "We know what that word means."
I also enjoyed the nuances of the different characters, as well as the subtle running jokes (Al Funcoot, literal vs. figurative) as comedy relief. My boyfriend enjoyed it as well, which proves to me that he's more intelligent than he believes.
LSASOUE is a magically clever show & despite Count Olaf's well-thought-out (most of the time, unless his arrogance got in the way) wicked schemes, he's a bit hapless himself yet still contains a high level of intelligence when it isn't marred by his arrogance & vanity, with which traits the Boudelaires use as a catalyst to keep themselves right out of his reach, allowing the Baudelaire orphans to constantly evade him.
This Netflix series, as well as Stranger Things, are wonderfully original & I've recommend both shows to many people I know would enjoy them.
Darling (2015)
Brings back memories...
...of Maya Deren, the Russian experimental filmmaker from over half a century ago. This little gem invokes a feeling of dread that is even visible and audible in the incredible silence of NYC (which is eerie for me considering it's the city in which I was born and I've lived very close across the Hudson. I've even been in one of the old mansions across from Riverside Park-I've always had a bit of a sixth sense & I had some strange feelings while walking past some of these townhouse mansions. When I worked at a video post-production house years years ago, I was re-creating video for a very wealthy man. Some of the mini DV tapes (yes, millennials-I'm an old bag...ha) were messed up & I had to go to his mansion to get original dailies & re-create some of his audio narratives. I felt nothing strange about his home, but while I was walking from & to the train there were a few old townhouses that gave me the willies. The house in this film is just like those other houses. Feelings of dread, impending doom, melancholy, and evil are imminent, and sometimes some people pass them by & feel something is off-kilter.
We see two different lighting effects used in this film: in using black & white, regular neon white overhead lights, which appear dreary & institutional on film and fits in with the question regarding Darling's "mental health," and Film Noir-esque shadow & light style of lighting which is the obvious choice for a mystery, and for when the "protagonist(?)," Darling becomes the femme-fatale, or the antagonist.
The chapters give notice to the invitation of a very dark and evil being-mainly, they are the steps in a demon possession. Apparently, people who lived/worked there were either driven "mad" due to an evil presence. The question I ask: Is there a singular demon in the house (yet refers to one's self as "Legion," which is a hallmark of a demon), or is the house, in the words of Stephen King in Salem's Lot, "inherently evil?" You could ask the same of King's The Shining.
Technically, I believe it was shot nicely. The shots of the City, portrayed in silence, and as the girl sinks into an inferno, shots of the City have begun to be portrayed upside down. I like the often creepy ambient music; it invites mystery and dread, especially when it's discordant. One thing which I felt was unrealistic was when Darling stabbed someone in the dining room with a knife (in case you were wondering, stabbing someone repeatedly would get quite messy...especially every time she pulls the knife out of him, which causes an unbelievable amount of bleeding. If you thought Quentin Tarrentino's huge blood squirts & spurts, many times due to decapitation, were inaccurate & over the top (as some believe), it would be an incorrect assumption. Also, contrary to popular belief, there were no pools of blood, no blood spatter (except on Henry), and the rug was clean. We see her cleaning the dining room's wooden floor later, yet it appears there's nothing to clean. No blood stain(s) on the carpet, still, AND the chair cushion, although he was stabbed while sitting in that chair-stabbed several times so we as the audience who have at least half of the necessary brain power or training to notice that there should have been a crapload of blood all over the carpet & chair, which is an extremely obvious (to me, anyhow, since I was a Media Arts major in college) continuity mistake since I have a number of very good things to say about this film. Firstly, yes, it may seem silly when Darling stabs the dude to death (the one who returned to her the upside-down cross necklace, about whom she seemed to have suspicions) & then, after she kills him he comes back to life & attempts to cut off her air supply & she awakens to realize she'd only had a nightmare, but it's a phenomenon we've seen occur in countless films & TV shows.
I see traces of David Lynch in this film, namely Eraserhead. I haven't looked up the director of this film, & have no idea if he has a similar MO as Lynch, meaning the director of Darling could've explained the reason behind the film and/or the film, itself. If he does have similar habits when it comes to certain films he creates & due to more research & studies his work becomes less sophomoric, the director/writer could become the David Lynch of the millennial generation (if they have what it takes to know what good filmmaking entails). From what I saw in Darling, I can sense the filmmaker's ability to create ethereal & ambiently creepy scenes. I think the issue here includes weak character development, work needed on editing the length of certain scenes & shots in which no characters are speaking and the time drags (if shortened, a good scene that had to end up on the cutting room floor could've been either included or extended. As a sophomoric film by an aspiring experimental director, I give it a 7.
Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)
Too early to tell if it holds up to the original show & FWWM
I am a huge Twin Peaks fan and I had a feeling (my intuition was correct, too) that Hawk would have much to do with getting Coop out of the Black Lodge. My theory was Strengthened by Mark Frost's book, The Secret History of Twin Peaks, which explains how the Native Americans helped Lewis & Clark find a portal in an area north of there which was not yet TP yet. They made the map to the black lodge, Lewis went to find it & was missing for a while, and he returned, changed. I'd prefer to hear more old TP scores from Angelo Badalamenti besides in the opening credits (Laura's theme) & when they used that one song to you want to snap your fingers. I did think the song playing as bad coop/bob was driving in the first hour of the pilot was very appropriate as well as NIN-esque song from an import with scary versions of "Closer." When they put Matt Lillard's character in jail there was some spirit in another cell that was difficult to see since the shot was dark, & then it disappeared. I'd like to know more about that situation since she was in cahoots with bad coop/bob. I would also prefer to know what happened with Donna & James, Norma & Ed, & Audrey. The one thing I can't get, the blue rose, was mentioned. It's too soon though...I'm sad that Michael Anderson didn't return, and now there's that weird electric sycamore tree with what may be a brain at the top? I like the tree, but I liked Anderson much better. I give it an 8 for now because I'm guessing things may get back more to what the hardcore fans such as I would like to see. Many years have passed & despite the loss of some great characters and my mild dislike of many of these new characters, I'm still interested to see how the season goes. Bad Coop with Bob inside of him creeps me out. I'd also like to know what or whom those two guys in the office are, since the one sitting at the desk warned him to never get involved with someone like "him." Was he talking about Shadow Coop/Bob? No idea. I'm hoping at the end the rating I'm giving it now will go higher, not lower.