Glassgrl Reviews

Things Heard & Seen (2021)

Such a frustrating mess

[3/10 · 1 May 2021]

I really wanted to like this movie - it had a decent cast and the production values looked good- but there were SO many things in this movie that went absolutely nowhere!

• What was the point of her eating disorder? I was thinking maybe husband was going to use it against her to make her look crazy when she started catching on to his lies. Nope.

• Why did we bother getting to know the Willis character? If her only function was to illustrate that George was a jerk and expose the affair with the scarf toward the end, that could have easily been done with a nameless throwaway character that didn't confuse the plot.

• The boys who used to live in the house. Why were they so keen to come back? Surely they will be involved in the climax in some way. Nope.

• Most importantly, what was the point of the house being haunted???!!!! I assumed that the conversation that Catherine had with Floyd was foreshadowing that the ghost would end up helping her against her husband in the climax. Nope. She just let Catherine die.

And then the ending comes from out of nowhere and was completely unsatisfying and pretentious. So no justice for any of the women in that house, as the real estate agent so aptly notes, and as far as anyone knows, George escaped and is living on a beach somewhere.

This movie fails as horror, fails as a thriller, and fails as a cohesive drama. I'm not sure what it is. I gave it three stars because the actors did what they could with what they were given and the production values were decent. I am curious if the book makes more sense, but I will be mad if I read it and get more of the same.

Primal Fear (1996)

Great Acting - Terrible Plot Flaw

[7/10 · 26 January 2018]

This review will contain a major spoiler, so if you haven't yet seen this movie, please read no further. First, the acting in this movie was spectacular. I don't care for Laura Linney, but that is just my personal preference and I know she is well liked. Otherwise, the acting was strong across the board and Edward Norton was a standout.

The thing that bothered me most about this movie was its fatal plot flaw - a flaw that caused me to go back and read the book on which this movie is based in the hopes that there was an explanation that was omitted from the movie. If Aaron wasn't really slow/had no stutter, then when and why did that act start? If he had been faking that persona from the time he came to town, why? At that point there would have been no motive for the murder at the core of the movie. If he didn't start the act until after the murder, there would have been SOMEONE who knew him that would call him out.

It is easy to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride of this movie even with this issue, but it is something that always bothered me.

Nocturnal Animals (2016)

All gloss, No substance

[2/10 · 22 August 2017]

I chose to watch this movie because it received decent reviews and was advertised as a taut psychological thriller. Sadly, the only emotions it managed to summon were frustration and disappointment.

Pros: The cinematography is lovely. Michael Shannon is very strong in a role that ends up going nowhere and is inconsequential to the "resolution" of either the main or secondary story.

Cons: The story thread that is meant to be the main plot goes absolutely nowhere. I am personally of the opinion that Amy Adams is a competent actress who is nowhere near as strong as the accolades she has received suggest, however she is better than this movie. She is given little to do other than look numb and/or sad. Oh, and spend a good deal of time in or under water, which is either symbolic that she is drowning in her life or that we are drowning in pretension. Her character is so unlikable that you spend most of the movie hoping that this drudgery is at least leading up to some wicked revenge or plot twist. It isn't. I won't give away the ending, but it is not even remotely satisfying.

Jena Malone is also wasted in a one-scene role where her sole purpose appears to be to wear something edgy and to point out that the main character is so numb and stupid that she doesn't remember what paintings she purchased (in some very obvious foreshadowing, a painting of the word REVENGE.

The "art" in the movie is eye-rolling and I'm not sure what the director was trying to achieve with most of it. It just felt self-important and unnecessary.

Bottom line, this movie left me feeling unsatisfied and a little icky. View at your peril.

The Dead Room (2015)

From Boring to Unrewarding

[1/10 · 12 September 2016]

Every once in a while a movie is so lame that I feel compelled to warn others. This is one of those movies. I don't know if this review will actually have spoilers because there isn't much to spoil.

A group of paranormal investigators heads to a rundown farmhouse to investigate mysterious happenings that caused a family to flee. We never get any real backstory on what happened with this family, but it was scary enough that they left their pet birds unattended.

Absolutely nothing happens for the first 45 minutes. We stare at a hallway for most of it and occasionally the front door opens or something thumps. Cheap jolts are attempted by quick scene jumps to something unexpectedly loud but harmless like the generator starting up or supernaturally noisy wildlife outside. I'm not sure if the acting is terrible or there is just no good way to deliver the stilted dialogue provided. ("Did you open the front door?" (nervous look) "No. I didn't") The end result is the same. I spent a good deal of this time thinking that the house could be really cute if the Fixer Upper team got a chance to clean it up.

The last act resorts to your standard cables pulling people around the room and an evil entity that died in a morbid way that is never fully explained. We never even get the payoff of actually seeing the bad guy in his entirety, I am guessing for budget reasons.

I am a fan of this genre when it is done well, but this was very disappointing.

A Deadly Adoption (2015 TV Movie)

Painful

[1/10 · 21 June 2015]

The fact that this movie has "comedy" listed as a genre says it all. This was not intended to be a comedy, but I found myself laughing out loud because it was so relentlessly bad. Will Ferrell's version of dramatic acting looked like he was trying to work out a math problem in his head. Even his face in the promotional picture here makes me roll my eyes. Kristen Wiig does an acceptable job with what she is given to work with, but the script dances the line between drama and camp and fails miserably at achieving either. I am not a movie snob, and will freely admit to enjoying a trashy made-for-TV movie now and again, but this story has been done before and done much better. If you are thinking of watching this out of morbid curiosity (as I did), save yourself some pain and watch a rerun of Law and Order instead. There is always one on.