Tag: movies and TV

Reviews of movies and TV series, mostly what I can catch on Netflix or Amazon. I am a big fan of horror. I also have a celebrity crush on Vincent D’Onofrio so many of my reviews feature movies or TV shows he’s been in.

The Bothersome Man Movie Review

~ Kristen Ankiewicz ~ Leave a comment

The Bothersome Man (Norwegian movie, 2006, Den brysomme mannen), on the topic of the afterlife, is great watching. Here I compare it to The Good Place (American TV series, 2016), also about the afterlife.

The Bothersome Man is about a man in the afterlife who is stuck in “The Medium Place”, craves “The Good Place”, and ends up on a doomed bus ride to “The Bad Place”. “The Good Place” is hinted at by the aroma of breakfast pastries and sound of children on the other side of the wall, tormenting him and convincing him there’s a better place. Just as “The Bad Place” of Eleanor Shellstrop’s world is ominously implied as the destination of an old-fashioned train ride, here it is implied as the destination of a bus driving off into the barren snow. The places in The Bothersome Man are not named, there is a bus not a train, and the movie is sombre, but the theme resemblance is otherwise uncanny.

Interestingly, Wikipedia treats the setting as present-day, not afterlife: The story is about a man suddenly finding himself in an outwardly perfect, yet essentially soulless dystopia, and his attempt to escape. … The two dig frantically, in secret, through the wall and discover it leads into a house, presumably back in the real world. 

I disagree, Wikipedia.

See it for the sombre and nuanced depiction of the afterlife

The Last Winter Movie Review

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The Last Winter stars Ron Perlman as an oilman whose corporate intentions threaten the pristine icy setting. Pretty soon, people start dying. A scared and dwindling set of survivors are set against the frigid north. At first no one knows what the source of the problem is, except that it comes from the ice. I liked The Last Winter a lot, because the terror was largely psychological. Make no mistake, there is a lot of gore/grossness, but it starts really slowly and builds up to it.

Subtract points for a little heavy-handed “don’t spoil nature” message. Add points for the suspense and building dread. Compare and contrast with these other horror movies and tv.

See it for the slow-building mood and fine characters

paramecium etching

The Thing (1982) Movie Review

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The Thing is great watching

Remember that gory horror classic from 1982? Remember how awesome it was when the man’s head turned into a hellishly-creepy spider? If you recall that fine piece of cinema, the source of the bone-chilling gross-out was somewhere deep in the ice of a remote Antarctic outpost. Here was another film set in cold, snowy conditions. Compare and contrast with these other horror movies and tv set in a frigid environment.

See it if you don’t mind gore

Fortitude Season 1 TV Review

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Fortitude Season 1 is beautiful but terrible

From Amazon.com: Fortitude is the most northerly town in the world, and the most peaceful – until a prominent member of the community is found eviscerated in his own home, and suddenly the town’s sheriff has his first ever murder to investigate.

Spoilers!

The pure white snow means when something bleeds, that blood becomes really stark and obvious. True to most horror flicks, there are epic amounts of blood. In a surprise twist that I saw coming a mile away, the source of the horror comes from the thawing mammoth discovered under the ice.

That’s right, it came from the ice, thawed, and wreaked havoc on the small population it encountered, as though the purity of the landscape was disrupted by something unclean and dangerous. The horrible parasite thawed out of the mammoths, laid eggs in human hosts, and ate them alive. Gross!

Compare and contrast with these other snowy horror movies and tv.

See it for the pristine beauty of the Icelandic setting

It was filmed in Iceland, which means it’s cold, white, and gorgeous.

The Good Place Season 1 TV Review

~ Kristen Ankiewicz ~ Leave a comment
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The Good Place (American TV series, 2016) is hilarious.

The Good Place stars Kristen Bell as Eleanor Shellstrop, a woman who wakes up in the afterlife and is sent by Michael (played by Ted Danson) to “The Good Place”, a utopian neighborhood he designed to reward a select group of people for the extraordinarily good lives they led on earth. Eleanor realizes she was sent there by mistake, and must earn her place in “The Good Place”. Does she reveal her secret? Does she become a better person? Will she create a Category 55 Doomsday Crisis? Hilarity ensues.

Ted Danson is goofy and brilliant, and his quirky outbursts and slapstick as the fretful Architect are perfectly timed. Kristen Bell is good, but not great. Her “bad past” selves are a little predictable and overacted. Manny Jacinto’s Jianyu Li was a little mean-spirited. D’Arcy Carden steals the show as Janet, an artificial helper being that chirpily appears the second someone utters her name. Her combination of robot-like affect and know-it-all-ism make the perfect deadpan to everyone else’s antics. William Jackson Harper is also fantastic as Chidi, the uptight, indecisive ethics professor trying to help Eleanor become a better person. I particularly enjoyed the train sequences to “The Bad Place” and “The Medium Place”. The unsavory characters from “The Bad Place” are also hilarious.

Spoilers!

The first season goes astray a bit in episodes 9 and 10. All the business about soulmates feels antithetical to the core of the story. It recovers brilliantly in episode 12, with the introduction of “The Medium Place,” and the mediocre coke fiend who lives there. In the final episode we are treated to a straight-up reference to Sarte’s Huis Clos (No Exit). L’enfer c’est les autres; hell is the others. It’s revealed that the characters have been in “The Bad Place” the entire time; the whole thing was an elaborate ruse designed to have them torture each other endlessly by just being themselves.

Best scene in the series

The demon from “The Bad Place” clips his toenails in “The Good Plates” restaurant.

See it for the madcap hilarity and quirky depiction of the afterlife

Compare it to more somber depiction of the afterlife in The Bothersome Man.

Paranoid TV Review

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See it if you can suspend serious amounts of disbelief

I like the fact that Netflix is showing original content. On paper, Paranoid sounds pretty good: it’s a cop show and it has a spunky female lead played by Indira Varma, of both Game of Thrones and Luther fame.

Spoilers!

So, what went wrong? Several things:

  1. Crazy levels of stereotyping. The senior detective, Nina, played by Indira, is a hot, babbling mess. You are either going to think she’s cute as hell, or she’ll grate. For me, she starts off being cute, then she grates. Okay sure, she just got dumped, she’s unexpectedly pregnant by her ex-boyfriend, she’s got some issues. But her boyfriend, whose mother is a pathological liar, holds it together 100,000 times better than she does, and he has every reason to be a hot mess. It wouldn’t bother me so much if it were believable, but not all late-thirties women are in the throes of baby lust.
  2. Ridiculous anti-psychiatry vibe. There’s an all-kinds-of-wrong Jesus statue full of pills. Detective Bobby is a sweaty, paranoid mess, supposedly due to the antipsychotic pills he takes (hint: that’s the opposite of how they work). His beatific girlfriend solves all her problems with sunshine, tea and flowers; no psychiatry for her! And look how well she’s doing. One of the primary bad guys is a psychiatrist who abuses every rule of the profession. And if that weren’t enough, finally, yes, the spoiler: terrible things are happening to innocent people — a busload of children drives off a cliff — because of pills. Which leads me to point three…
  3. Way too aggressive a message. Even if the message weren’t “psychiatry is bad” — let’s say the message is “donuts are bad”, or perhaps less controversially, “murder is bad” — do we really need it to be shoved so aggressively down our throats? A little subtlety would go a long way.
  4. Plot holes galore. Lack of fingerprinting and gloves, shoddy police work, no repercussions when Bobby knocks over the Jesus statue, etc.
  5. Believability issues. Nina dumps her lovely new boyfriend to go back to her snarky, not-nearly-as-cute ex? I’m not buying it. And if she is so willing to have a pregnancy without the benefit of a partner, why not do it ages ago? Why does she act like this one ex-bf is her only hope of getting pregnant?

That said, I did binge-watch the entire series.

Early Breaking Bad Influences

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Breaking Bad: See it if you can handle the violence

Years before Breaking Bad came on the air, there were two shows that were influential in its formation: the Homicide: Life on the Street Subway episode, and the X-Files Drive episode. All three shows are interconnected. Vince Gilligan wrote the X-Files episode of Drive as well as Breaking Bad. Vince Gilligan borrowed heavily from Subway to make the X-Files episode Drive, and that in turn was a huge influence on Breaking Bad.

Drive and Subway:

  • The majority of the episode focuses on intense dialogue between one man trying to save another.
  • Lange/Crump are trapped in dire, near-death circumstance.
  • Changing their circumstances puts them in worse danger.
  • Lange/Crump are angry, distrustful and out of control at first.
  • Lange/Crump seem doomed.
  • There is a grotesque element to the plot: exploding head, man pinned under subway.
  • There is a flare of hope right before the tragic end.
  • This is not Lange/Crump’s fault.
  • Police initially aren’t sure who was responsible for the crime.
  • Mulder/Pembleton walk away deeply saddened.

Drive and Breaking Bad:

  • Same intense writing by Vince Gilligan.
  • Crump/White are dying (at least initially, in White’s case).
  • Crump/White are in a race against time.
  • Crump/White are in dire circumstances to save themselves or their families.
  • Crump/White make morally questionable judgments.
  • Crump/White will kill in desperation.
  • Crump/White have an unstoppable energy.

Orlando Tilda Swinton Movie Review

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Tilda Swinton is amazing in Orlando as the son of Queen Elizabeth I who lives for 400 years, the first half as a man, the second half as a woman. Her transformation and the nuances of her facial expressions are subtle and convincing. She starts out gawky and awkward and slowly gains grace as the years pass. It’s extremely believable.

Tilda Swinton. TILDA SWINTON. Need I say more?

See it! Gender-bending Tilda Swinton, damn.

Dead Like Me TV Review

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Dead Like Me is good watching: quirky, fun, black humor that’s not overly morbid. Like The Good Place and The Bothersome Man, it’s a unique take on the afterlife. Mandy Patinkin is super fun to watch! I enjoy his non-serious roles much better than his serious roles (i.e. Criminal Minds). It’s a shame the series was cancelled. You should still watch the two seasons.

See it for clever fun.

Steal This Movie Review

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See it if you like docudramas

Steal This Movie is a pretty good informative look at the life of 60’s radical Abbie Hoffman. The character (played by D’Onofrio) becomes more interesting as the movie progresses; it starts out with a bit too-much-information. Janeane Garofalo is great as Anita Hoffman. Sadly, I have been deprived of the last fifteen minutes through an evil conspiracy of VCR and DVD players.

[EDIT] When did I have a VCR? Not in many moons.

Nunzio’s Second Cousin Movie Review

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See Nunzio’s Second Cousin if you can handle a downer.

In Boys Life II, Nunzio’s Second Cousin (short), Vincent D’Onofrio plays a gay cop who terrorizes some would-be gay bashers, forcing one to have dinner with him and his wacky mom. Harsh, interesting, unpredictable, and very well-acted. I found it hard to watch, a little gut-wrenching, but worthwhile.

Happy Accidents Movie Review

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See it, for the love of all that’s good in movies!

Happy Accidents is an extremely quirky romantic comedy with Morisa Tomei and D’Onofrio as the leads. D’Onofrio plays a sweet-hearted guy trying to win his girl’s heart, but her doubts grow as he tries to convince her that he’s a time-traveler from the future. His excuses and stories get more complex over time, causing her to become more frustrated despite her attraction.

I usually hate romantic comedies, but this one has a sci-fi bent to it that takes it completely 180 degrees. The chemistry between them is palpable. Everyone is completely believable, including D’Onofrio’s crazy. There is also a cameo that I won’t spoilerize for you, but it’s a good one. This is on my top ten list of movies. This movie’s a real sleeper, I’m not sure why it’s not more famous. Very well written and unpredictable.

Naked Tango Movie Review

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Naked Tango: D’Onofrio as a sexy assassin!

Naked Tango is a sexy schlocky flick with Mathilda May playing a woman who tries to escape her boring marriage but ends up enslaved in a brothel. D’Onofrio, is a dashing young assassin who likes to tango. Beautifully filmed, moody, and over-the-top melodramatic. It’s not a serious intellectual film but it’s good eye candy. Especially if you are a big fan of Vincent D’Onofrio. Not that I obsess over his movies, or anything. This one’s pretty good. I have reviewed many movies featuring D’Onofrio.

See it for the eye candy!

Imposter Movie Review

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See it if you enjoy silly science fiction!

A sci-fi action flick. Aliens are attacking, and the world is a mess. Gary Sinise’s character runs around sweating and looking his paranoid best as he tries to escape the clutches of the guy in charge of security, played by Vincent D’Onofrio. D’Onofrio’s character is convinced that Sinise’s character is really just a vessel for an alien bomb. Tony Shalhoub has a small part and is excellent as always. Fun and silly. You will enjoy it if you don’t take it seriously. Don’t fall asleep in the middle third, it gets better.

The Whole Wide World Movie Review

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See it if you like critically acclaimed period films.

The Whole Wide World features D’Onofrio playing the writer who’s responsible for the Conan the Barbarian stories. He’s moody, socially inept, and too attached to his mother. His girlfriend-wannabee is demanding and sometimes whiny. Given this, you’d be surprised at how interesting they are together. Extremely well done; very easy to forget that it’s a period piece. D’Onofrio received critical acclaim for his role.