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Diogo_Verde
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69: The Saga of Danny Hernandez (2020)
Don't blame the director/documentary for the garbage 69 is!
I wasn't planning on reviewing this title but after reading the few reviews I feel like I had to.
People are giving poor reviews on the documentary because they don't like the subject. Me neither folks, that guy is an absolute piece of garbage but the documentary is done in a competent manner and it is interesting actually!
It is presented with a lot of evidence and footage in a somewhat impartial manner, so you always see his side but at the same time you see people talking about the absolute trash he is.
So,in my opinion, you shouldn't blame the quality of the documentary on the subject the director choose to document, because the documentary is done quite well and makes you want to see it. It's not Citizen Kane of course but give it a try ! It's not like it's going to change your mind on what the rapper is but at least you can follow how things got to this point !
Inception (2010)
An unprecedented movie
To start off, I have to say that I'm a little biased towards this movie since I'm a Nolan fan-boy since the beginning and this is my favorite movie of all time.
Nevertheless, this movie is unprecedented. Sure, you can argue that there are elements taken from the anime movie Paparika but honestly have you really seen Paprika? Because I have, and I have to tell you compared to this movie it's not even in the same planet.
The complexity involved in making this story, the whole world that was created around the dream concept, the attention to detail, the insanely good score, the acting, the special effects...even the ending ! Tell me one person that didn't went beserk the first time they saw the ending of the movie? None.
One important aspect that differentiates movies from being good to being all-time great is what did they add to the industry that hasn't already been added before and, at least to me, this movie did exacly that.
Again, a little biased opinion, but oh my this movie is out of this world.
A Quiet Place (2018)
Oh wow. This movie is something !
The importance and use of sound in this film is something unheard-of in the movie industry in my opinion. The way they use it to perfection really took me off guard, I never thought sound could be so much pivotal for a plot. Overall, the story isn't that original (typical monster/survivor movie) but the way it was made and the craft behind it is insanely good: you only need to watch the first 5 minutes of the movie to realize you're watching something special.
The characters have great chemistry (specially the father and the little girl), the attention to subtle details is perfect, it's a somewhat believable monster-story and the pacing of the movie is non-stop suspense, always putting you on the edge of your seat. From the second act forward you don't have time to sigh in relief probably until the end of the movie.
If I had to pick a negative, I would have to say that maybe the last 30 seconds of the film didn't really fit the whole mood of the movie but still it didn't bother me that much.
Hats off to you Mr. John Krasinski.
No doubt, best movie of 2018.
The Highwaymen (2019)
Interesting shift from the typical Bonnie and Clyde movie
Like I wrote in the title, it's a different prespective from the typical Bonnie and Clyde movie. This time, we follow the prespective of the policeman that were put in charge to hunt the couple down. This was one of those movies in which it looks good on paper but then the execution wasn't all that great in my opinion. Of course Costner and Harrelson were great as always but the story itself suffered from pacing issues, draggin on and on forever. The movie could have been cut short 20-30 minutes and it could be much better.
Also, I know that this is supposed to be focused on the policeman that were on the tail of Bonnie and Clyde but I think they could have given a little bit more screen-time to the couple. In the end when things unfold I didn't care about them one bit because they were treated as complete strangers, characteres in the distance in which at no point you get to know what's going on their minds.
In short: clever concept, boring one-sided movie.
Behind the Curve (2018)
Utterly ridiculous
I don't even know where to start. This whole theme just baffles me, how can human beeins be so out of touch with reality? I don't want to rant on people I don't know but the people in this documentary is the perfect example of what happens when you have people who are not interested in science at all but in making headlines and become famous over ridiculous claims. Just take a look at the main guy (Mark Sargent), he is more interested in quoting movies to explain his claims than actually scientific evidence.
The fact that it's acknowledge that there isn't one single scientific backgournd person in the whole comunity just shows you how much out of left-field this thing is. And you know what is the worst part of it all? The fact that there are kids listen to this BS and getting recruted into this way of thinking even before they have time to think for themselves and realize this is straight out of comic books. They are constantly planing this scientific experiments and time after time they fail in an amazing fashion, it's pretty entertaining and sad at the same time...The last 30 seconds of the documentary pretty much sums it all up. Seriously people, turn of your TV and pick up a book or a scientific paper if you want to go against Science.
I sincerly hope that darwinism does it's job over the next 20 years.
Durante la tormenta (2018)
OK movie that could've been so much more !
Overall I have to say that it's an ok movie, not terrible by any means. However compared to other great movies/series from the same genre it lacks quite alot in my opinion. There are some plot holes and things that happen that doesn't make sense at all but you can still find enjoyment while whatching !
Dont expect some time travel masterpiece but rather a mediocre movie that can still grab your attention from time to time and remind you that time travel movies are always worth watching even though sometimes they are not that special.
The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann (2019)
Well told story but lacks any new development
I was interested in this documentary for several reasons but most of all because I'm portuguese and I clearly remember this case from 11 years ago. Even today, after watching this I still feel embarassed by the police work that was done in this particular case and I sure hope they learned from their mistakes (probably they didn't but anyway).
Without spoiling anything about the documentary, I think it was well directed and it wasn't bias towards any particular theory in my opinion (even shows the progression from several different theories). Honestly I came here with one opinion (the same I had from back in the day) and after watching this series I left with a complete different interpretation. The sole reason for this is not because the documenatry is ground-breaking in terms of new discoveries but because it tries to tell the complete story that the portuguese media didn't fully tell at the time.
However, even though it was an interesting doc-series I felt it was maybe 1-2 episodes too long and it dragged a bit since they had no new information about the case so they tried to branch out to other cases from Portugal and other countries wich can be interesting but not fundamental to this particular case.
Overall, it's an interesting documentary to anyone who is interested in learning about the case but for those who already know a little bit about it I would skip it since it offers no new evidence or ground-breaking update on the case unfortunately.
Triple Frontier (2019)
With a cast like this, is this the best you can do?
A couple of weeks ago I saw the promotion for this movie and the first thing I thought was: " Woow what fantastic set of actors put together ! " Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Oscar Isaac and Pedro Pascal? All together? I'm in !
But then I start reading a bit and I saw that it would be realised on Netflix and I started to doubt the whole thing...This might just be my opinion, but I have been starting to realise lately that usually movies that are realised through Netflix are not particularly good. Of course there's always exceptions to this but lately after watching this movie and previously Velvet Buzzsaw and Polar I can't seem to fall in love with any of them even though I pretty much love all the actors that were involved in all the 3 movies.
Without spoiling the plot (then again, what plot ?), the only way I can describe this film (besides saying it's as forgettable as forgettable can be) is by saying that it was a challange for me to watch it 'til the end. The characters are so bland, so on-sided, so cliché that you start to wonder how can you have this all-star actors and not do anything of worth with them? Were they bad? No, of course not...were they been given a bad script ? hell yes ! The story goes nowhere, the dialogue is ridiculous, nothing of interest happens, nothing new, nothing at all....basically is a group of guys going from point A to B in the most boring and un-original way possible...and don't even get me started on the antagonist (If it can even be called that).
The director for this movie directed some movies before like Margin Call and A Most Violent Year (Both ok, nothing special in my opinion) so probably he had some of the blame maybe I don't know. However, funny enough, I read a bit about the movie and saw that Paramount pictures, Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Marshalla Ali droped the project (with Affleck and Hunnam later returining). Even Leonardo DiCaprio, Johny Deep and Tom Hanks were at some point involved in the project but later negotiations fell though for whatever reason. Of note, Paramount pictures dropped out because Channing Tatum and Tom Hardy had droped the movie also because of the re-written script they didn't agreed with. I mean, isn't that a whole lot of people dropping out? Maybe they knew this would not be the holy grail of cinema.
In my opinion, whoever wrote the story did a very poor job and that they had so much potential in their hands and didn't know what to do with it basically. Since I always try to see some positive aspects in a movie and not be so negative all the time, I can say that the movie is well shot and looks for the most part beatiful (besides one or two scenes where you can clearly see the use of CGI)....and that's pretty much it.
For the TL;DR folks: Top-notch actors, very bad written story, skip this one.