steven-222 Reviews

The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019)

Surprisingly and strangely moving.

[6/10 · 28 February 2024]

Yes, this is a schlocky movie, but...

It rises to Aristotle's definition of art: tragedy which move us to terror and pity. By the end, I found this movie surprisingly and strangely moving. Even haunting.

Unfortunately, the film's ambitious themes are not matched by the filmmakers' and the cast's talent and technical expertise. (Exception: the sound production and original music are first-rate.) This is failed art, but it is not bad art.

Ironically, the one director in the history of cinema who could actually have done justice to this movie is the one director who could never possibly make it: Roman Polanski. What a masterpiece THAT could have been, on many levels.

So what is this "horror" movie REALLY about? The best review I have read here is the one that gives it (a way too generous) 10 stars and is titled, "Is All that We See or Seem but a Dream Within a Dream?" It's truly insightful. Give it a read...after you've watched the movie.

Señorita 89 (2022– )

You'll be sorry.

[1/10 · 27 February 2023]

Unless you want to watch a story that come to a completely downbeat ending with the total triumph of evil...you've be sorry you spent ten hours of your live watching Senorita 89. I'm not necessarily against downbeat stories, if they earn the serious artistic stripes to claim my hard-won empathy. But Senorita 89 wants to have to be both an over-the-top, oh-no-she-didn't, trashy entertainment, AND a heavy-hitter in the gravitas department (think say, Shutter Island), a work that leaves you devastated but so deeply moved you're willing to feel the pain. Instead, after ten hours, I was left feeling dirty, used, and abused...not unlike the young women in this series. Watch a second season? Not on your life!

Knutby (2021–2024)

Sordid lives, delusions of grandeur

[10/10 · 23 September 2022]

What sucked me in here was the depiction of some very bizarre behavior as experienced from the inside, so that it all seems perfectly normal to the loonies doing it, even when it leads to cold-blooded murder.

The people here are, after all, devout Christians just doing their best to serve Lord Jesus. Even when it leads to adultery, lying, grinding others into the dirt, and, if it pleases Jesus, cold-blooded murder.

You probably have plenty of people just like these in your town. Heck, if you're in a red state, they're probably running your town, burning books, scheming to ruin the lives of perfect strangers, and otherwise staying busy while waiting for Lord Jesus to show up.

Perhaps you even have some of these people in your own family. Or...since the chances are 50-50 in America...maybe YOU are one of them.

Heaven help us.

Don't Worry About the Kids (2019– )

Ridiculously bad but strangely addictive

[5/10 · 30 August 2022]

It would be easy to write a 1-star review of this exceedingly lame, cliche-ridden comedy of urban family life a la francais. And yet...maybe it's the actors, or the cute houses, or...ah merde, je ne sais quoi!...but I watched all six episodes of season 1, sometimes for just 15 minutes each night, as a sort of bedtime chaser to the heavier noir-crime shows which are my main viewing. Among the really weird mysteries in this show is the sprawling indoor-outdoor cafe-bar run by the Chinese emigrant couple...without a single employee in sight; sometimes they even leave the place on some family errand, with even locking up. Realistic it is not, and yet, I kept watching...

Klangor (2021– )

Shocking. Powerful. Appalling. A masterpiece of noir crime drama.

[10/10 · 30 August 2022]

This series seems to be a slow burn for the first few episodes, taking its time to lay out and then pull taut the various story-threads. Then..the reveal in episode six...and from that point on every moment is intensely gripping. This series takes us to a dark place of voyeurism and transgression, a place that exists only after midnight, when inhibitions are left behind and anything can happen--an exciting, frightening, dangerous place that can spiral out of control at any moment. David Lynch has sometimes taken us there, but he never delivers a coherent narrative; this is as if Lynch's intense sense of dread were combined with the storytelling skill of Roman Polanski. Yes, it's that good.

Reetur (2019– )

chilling

[9/10 · 13 June 2022]

Expertly made, low-key, slowly building thriller is excellent from start to finish. The varied cast of characters is terrific. I resisted the urge to binge to make this one last.

Sisi (2021– )

history drama or porno flick?

[5/10 · 22 May 2022]

I'm puzzled at how to rate this, because as a historical drama/biopic it's full of preposterous scenes and unbelievable behavior, but as a soft-core porno movie it's pretty darn good. I mean, the very first scene is of the 16-year-old Sisi masturbating. (The actress playing Sisi looks quite a bit older than 16, which is probably for the best.) But note that almost all of the nudity/body exploitation is of the young male lead playing the emperor (skin shots in all six episodes), so that's kind of woke, I guess? The scene where the prostitute-cum-lady in waiting goes down on Sisi is a doozy, but stolen from The Favourite. (Hey, Olivia Coleman won an Oscar for that role, so at least they are stealing from the best.) I guess the real question is, will I watch season two, if there is one? You bet I will!

Treufoc (2017–2019)

Not ready for (international) prime time

[5/10 · 20 May 2022]

This Catalan-language cop thriller from Spain just isn't ready for international prime time. I don't know the language, and even I can tell how amateurish the acting is. What begins as a run-of-the-mill serial killer mystery little by little morphs into full telenovela, with treacly romance and nonsensical plot twists. I can't believe there was more than one season of this not-so-hot mess.

Black Sands (2021– )

Grim grim grim

[8/10 · 12 April 2022]

Did I mention that this show is grim? I was reminded of that great BBC series The Fall, which went places I'd never seen a crime show go before. I'm not sure Black Sands is in that class...and I am a bit dubious about the psychological twist...but it is a decidedly earnest and in some ways fearless work. And very, very grim.

Vienna Blood (2019– )

Total misfire

[2/10 · 29 January 2022]

It would be hard to overstate how awful this show is. It's almost as if the creators set out to make a parody of the historical detective genre...and failed. (The recent BBC Sherlock--now there is a show that succeeds on many levels, including both drama and parody.)

The "mysteries" and their "solutions" vary from boring to absurd. The atmosphere is very thin; never for a moment do I believe these people are living in Freud's Vienna, nor that our hero and his family are remotely like the Jews of that place and time. And the clumsy, half-hearted attempts to integrate a bit of psychoanalytic theory with crime-solving--don't even go there! A child reading wikipedia articles could absorb more about Freud, Vienna, and psychoanalysis in half an hour than is displayed here.

I decided to give season 2 a try. The first episode is the worst in the series so far.

A total misfire.

Les rivières pourpres: La Lignée de Verre: Partie 1 (2020) Season 2, Episode 7

Exceptional. Chilling.

[9/10 · 22 October 2021]

Exceptional episode of a series that is sometimes only so-so. This one is stylish, sinister, and sleekly plotted. You might almost think you were seeing a Roman Polanski movie.

OVNI(s) (2021–2022)

Wacky, wonderful, and wise

[10/10 · 19 August 2021]

The most lovable characters I have met in a long time. So many clever twists and turns. The icing on the cake: best...music track...ever!

Innocent (2018–2021)

oh no, not again...

[2/10 · 28 July 2021]

If you don't mind investing 6 hours of your precious time watching a parade of red herrings, only to have your intelligence insulted in the last 20 minutes...keep watcing!

Baptiste (2019–2021)

Baptiste season 2 hits rock bottom

[1/10 · 23 July 2021]

This spin-off's first outing was a big step down from The Missing, and this second season is a disaster. You can't create suspense or surprising twists when nothing and no one is remotely believable. The acting is as stilted as the terrible dialogue. Fiona Shaw is especially bad, but then, she is given one ludicrous scene after another. You never for a second believe this nincompoop is an ambassador on the world stage, or even a mother, for that matter, For all the striving after a timely message, the story, such as it is, relies on dull cliches and actually downplays the threat of fascism in Orban's Hungary. (I suppose the producers needed permits to film in Budapest; did Orban's ministers have script-approval?) A real waster of six hours.

The Disappearance (2018–2022)

low-energy legal potboiler

[3/10 · 8 June 2021]

The longer it goes on, the less credible the story becomes; the weak plot runs out of steam long before the story limps to a feeble finish. I wonder if the legal details are remotely accurate; if so, the Polish judicial system is one big kangaroo court. Only days after a child goes missing, a suspect is put on trial for murder, even though there's no body! Only in Poland? Incredibly, there seem to be several more seasons of this mediocre melodrama.

Les Honorables (2019–2022)

Farfetched silliness

[2/10 · 18 May 2021]

Potentially interesting vigilante revenge story quickly becomes a bore, as the characters do and say ridiculous things, and the plot spins off on totally unbelievable tangents. It does not help that much of the acting is pretty awful.

La Jauría (2019– )

Nerve-wracking. Appalling. Mesmerizing.

[10/10 · 1 January 2021]

Also exhilarating. Addictive. Unexpected. Sexy. Terrifying. Mind-expanding. Meets my 10-star standard set by The Bridge (Danish-Swedish only, no watered-down dumb-downed knock-offs), The Bureau, Spiral, Borgen, The Fall.

La dernière vague (2019)

All wet. And not in a good way.

[1/10 · 28 December 2019]

Big waste of time. The initial premise is vaguely interesting, as a strange cloud seems to be doing weird things to people in a small French surfing town. (One person can heal with his hands, one has a speeded up pregnancy, etc.) Is this science fiction or a supernatural story? Neither, really, as it's mostly just a boring soap opera about boring people. Also totally not credible, because if something like this happened in the real world, everyone everywhere would know about it in 48 hours thanks to the Internet, and the town would have been deluged with health department officials, scientists, journalists, kooks, tourists, etc. Instead, the locals are all on their own as they spout pseudo-scientific gibberish and New Age platitudes. Probably inspired by the success of the French TV series The Returned (Les Revenants), but that show was infinitely better--genuinely spooky and mysterious, and never boring, thanks to interesting moral dilemmas and much more interesting actors. This one is just awful.

Dublin Murders (2019)

If I could give this a minus-10 stars, I would

[1/10 · 23 November 2019]

Goes off the rails in episode 3 and from then on it's one train wreck of a plot twist after another. Real coppers would have figured out both present-day murders in a couple of days. No such luck with this crew of lamebrains. And literally, the main characters are lame in their brains, which ends up being the "point" of this meandering muddle. Worst of all are the long boring stretches. (I only watched to the end to please a neighbor with Irish roots who hoped it would be a good show. No more TV dates with her!)

Making Montgomery Clift (2018)

Debunking the myth, reaffirming the artistry of the actor

[9/10 · 21 September 2019]

This is a remarkable work of historical reconstruction, using the remarkable Clift family archives. It makes you realize just how hollow so many (if not all) Hollywood biographies and especially Hollywood biopics are. Here we see interviews with filmmakers who wanted to make a biopic about the "real" Monty (shown to be just a fantasy). Makes you wonder just how "real" the Freddy Mercury biopic was (which also traded on the audience-pleasing trope of the "tragic homosexual"), yet the Academy showered it with Oscars.

I Am Michael (2015)

Drab and timid

[2/10 · 21 June 2015]

Watching this film, I thought of that great movie SAFE, in which Julianne Moore plays an upper-class matron whose life takes a strange turn when she develops a sensitivity to various "toxins" all around her. Or is it just in her head? As she retreats farther and farther from the life she once knew, the viewer likewise retreats from making any easy judgments about her. The way we comprehend and navigate the world is a mysterious process, with no easy answers. Boy, what a great movie SAFE was.

I hoped this movie might present a similar complexity and depth. Unfortunately, this neophyte director is no Todd Haynes. And James Franco is certainly no Julianne Moore.

Alternatively, given the "controversial true story" subject matter, the movie might have been loud, polemical, and sensational, a la Oliver Stone. That would at least have been amusing, and sexy, and maybe even thought-provoking.

But it's not like that, either.

Instead, it's just very drab and dull. It's like some dreadfully boring TV movie of the week from the 1970s. The catatonic performances do not help, but what were the actors supposed to do with characters the script does nothing to develop? Supposedly the story is based on real people, but none of these people seem very real. A documentary of the Errol Morris variety would have shown us much, much more about what they all went through. Or a completely fictitious story might have freed the film maker to really delve into the psyches of his subjects. Instead, we are left with a very halfhearted effort to tell a "true" story in such a way that no one will be offended.

Unlike SAFE, this movie plays it much too safe.

Honningfellen: Honningfellen - Unni Lindell (2008) Season 1, Episode 1

Don't step in this mess...

[1/10 · 5 October 2014]

Rare is the Scandinavian crime drama that I detest, but this is one. I've watched three of these movie-length dramas, in the forlorn hope that something, anything, would get better, but no such luck. Oddly, there has been no consistent atmosphere from show to show, as if totally different people were brought in to make each one (and all failing to deliver the goods). Our hero's ineptitude as a sleuth is only matched by his ineptitude as a father (see episode one). The plots lurch from scene to scene with no build-up of suspense, or accretion of clues; anything could happen next. And "surprising" us with a twisted transvestite killer (see episode 3) is such a hackneyed device that only the most uncreative (and culturally retrograde) scripter would dare resort to such a "shock ending" in this century. It seems that "unni lindell" is Norwegian for "cow patty." Wipe your shoes!

The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall (2008 TV Movie)

More than a little one-sided

[3/10 · 11 August 2014]

What I learned from watching "The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall":

Arabs are warm, caring, empathetic, family-loving, rational, freedom-loving people.

Jews are cold, hard, ruthless, murderous, smug bastards.

The story of this incident deserved a much better script. Since the filmmakers obviously did not know the inside story of the arrest and trial of the sniper, they felt free to just make up scenes to suit their agenda. The gum-chewing Israeli interrogator sneering as his poor Bedouin victim is literally dragged out of the room is a good example.

Ah, for the good old days, when Britain ruled the colonies and kept all these fractious little people in line!

Mammon (2014–2016)

Stake in the heart of the Scandinavian thriller? Or, "The Bridge" to Nowhere...

[2/10 · 8 August 2014]

The decade-long international craze for Scandinavian crime thrillers seems to reach a tipping point with this overstuffed and flatulent boondoggle of a mini-series from Norway. "Mammon" would like to be "The Bridge," leading us down one false path after another to spectacular cliff-hangers and shocking revelations, but the writers are too lazy to come up with plausible reasons for all this frantic action. I hate it when I invest 6 hours in a mini-series, expecting that "all will be revealed" at the end, and the end comes, and I can only shake my head at all the nonsense I've watched and all the gaping holes in the plot. It's almost as if no single person actually read the whole script!

Scene for scene, the show is just engaging enough to watch, but even at this level some of the red herrings are too obvious and the repeated attempts at suspense too repetitious. (OMG! Is that car following us? No, just a false alarm. No, wait, it WAS following us!)

Spoiler: One example of the ludicrous lengths to which the writers will go simply to obtain that spooky "The Bridge" feeling: the package received by the dead man's brother and his wife seven years after his death, containing directions to a time and place and a wet suit, because the dead man knew that at exactly that place, and exactly that day, another death would occur in exactly that way. Amazing! But in the end, this elaborate plot twist turns out to make NO SENSE WHATSOEVER (like much of the plot); it's assumed that we viewers are so stupid we will have forgotten this pivotal scene by the end and won't care that there is no explanation.

They tried to make "The Bridge," but this bridge went nowhere.

Amber (2014)

Sometimes in life you never get an answer. Wow, how deep is that?

[1/10 · 3 July 2014]

Started watching, not knowing how many episodes there would be. First episode very promising, with a hide-the-plot structure that lets us know that SOMETHING happened on day one, and we will get teasing flashbacks slowing filling this in as the story progresses. By episode three it becomes clear that this series could go on indefinitely, showing how various people far and wide were affected by the girl's disappearance. Hmmm, I think, I hope this is not one of those 10-episode series, because this could become rather repetitive, just getting teased with a tiny new detail each week while the story rambles near and far. Then comes episode four, which appeared to be the last one. Hmmm, after setting up a recurring story machine, now they are cutting it short. Ah well, at least we'll see what happened to Amber. But no, the story simply ends, with no resolution at all. Now I realize this is how things often go in life--we get no answer--but this is a story, and stories have a beginning, middle, and end. (Please read your Aristotle, script-writers.) So while Amber pretends to imitate life, it does so with all the trappings of a certain genre of storytelling, and disappoints either as philosophical discourse (it's way too shallow for that) and as TV thriller (it's a total bust). Once again, I have let the Beeb waste 4 hours of my life. I'm just thankful the series was not longer.