I like the concept that every character is unsympathetic, including the protagonist. This makes it much more open to who's up to what, and what is going on.
However, the lengthy exposition at the beginning is annoying. There is potential in slowly building up the situation and characters; but that wasn't done here: flat characters.
Too many clichés. And clichés save time; that's their positive side. They don't need to be repeated. Also, a bit too much moral and political correctness, which is then dragged out.
Speaking of which: it runs well over two hours, but fortunately…
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FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://fandomwire.com/bugonia-review/
"Bugonia functions primarily as a stage for the memorable performances of Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone, who carry the movie with intensity and charisma.
Although Yorgos Lanthimos maintains his cohesive visual style and the tonal balance between black comedy and violence, the discursive and predictable approach to its central themes — humanity, corruption, paranoia, inequality — prevents it from achieving the complex resonance of his best films. Something didn't quite click in the narrative execution, but it remains a pecul…
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FULL SPOILER-FREE REVIEW @ https://fandomwire.com/bad-apples-review/
"Bad Apples is a shocking, original satire, carried by Saoirse Ronan in a state of grace and surprising child performances.
Its journey toward the absurd is highly entertaining, but the constant collision between the dramatic weight of the staging and the ridiculousness of the script creates a tonal dissonance that affects its final message and its potential to be one of the most powerful films of the year.
It deserves to be seen, debated, and perhaps, to make us question what, after all, a "bad apple" in life truly …
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"El Indio" (Gian Maria Volontè) is a bank robber being hunted by poncho-clad bounty hunter “Mandi” (Clint Eastwood]. Meantime, Lee van Cleef’s debonair “Col. Mortimer" is also on the trail of our bandito and his gang, so the unlikely pair form an uneasy partnership in order to track him down and share the bounty. This most certainly ain't a film about trust - it's about greed, pure and simple and is great! It’s a bit of a slow burn - nothing happens very quickly, but that all adds bundles to the atmosphere and tension of the story. That said, it sure isn't dull: there is still plenty of gun fi…
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This is definitely my favourite Charlie Chaplin outing for the “Tramp” as he alights at the circus and discovers that he has quite a penchant for entertaining the crowds. Of course, we only discover this after a few mishaps with the police who think he’s a vagrant trained by “Fagin” lead him to the big top where his antics cause ructions of laughter. The boss of this enterprise knows he’s onto a winner, but not to a performing seal. This “Tramp” doesn’t rehearse or perform any standard routine, he can only improvise as events dictate! With some careful manipulation, this soon makes the shows a…
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I didn’t like this so much as last year’s “Million Dollar Pentagram” as the child-sized super sleuth has to get to grips with a mystery set amidst the snowy Yatsugatake mountains. A gunshot, an avalanche and an assault on a member of staff at the local astronomical telescope soon has police inspector “Kansuke” - himself a survivor of that perilous snowfall, only now with just the one functioning eye - at the scene of the crime trying to piece together just what is going on in this desolate and pristine wilderness. All the while, the ever-observant “Conan” is collecting clues, deducing and deli…
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With the ice on a remote Minnesota lake thick enough to need a saw to cut through it, “Barb” (Dame Emma Thompson) heads, replete with her handy little heated hut, to do some fishing. Her solitude is disturbed by a young woman who is forcibly returned to a nearby house, and upon some sleuthing she discovers that not only has she been kidnapped, but that her captor (Marc Manchaca) and his even more desperate wife (Judy Greer) have a dastardly plan for her that it’s going to fall to this ill-equipped woman to thwart. There are no phones and they are both armed, dangerous and soon aware of her pre…
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I should probably have watched the first one of these from last year to remind me because a bit like when “Maya” (Madeleine Petsch) wakes up in hospital, I couldn’t remember what she’d survived either. We are quickly reminded that her and her perfectly manscaped boyfriend “Jeff” (who must have read the script so stayed home and trimmed his beard this time) had been gruesomely assaulted by three local spooks bedecked in rudimentary face masks. He’s since gone the way of the dodo, but she managed to make it to the hospital where the cops were aghast at her story. Thing is, though, once her murde…
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It’s Christmas time and “Lukas” (Jack Brett Anderson) is having a quiet pint on his own when a guitar-wielding gent approaches the bar and tries to blag a drink. He’s given short shrift by the barman so he just pinches his own pint and disappears. This just sends the already dejected “Lukas” onto the bus home where he, again, encounters his wandering minstrel. He’s called “Oliver” (Alexander Lincoln) and isn’t anywhere near as broke as he’d pretended. Keen to make amends, he suggests they go for an an an apology beer. “Lukas”, forewarning that he is gay, reluctantly agrees and this sets in tra…
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A group of would-be revolutionaries in the USA storm an immigration centre and whilst they manage to free many of it’s captives, their leader “Perfidia” (Teyana Taylor) manages to make quite an impression on it’s commander “Lockjaw” (Sean Penn). Sadly for her though, she doesn’t remain free for very long afterwards but in that meantime she and fellow rebel “Bob” (Leonardo DiCaprio) have managed to have a baby. Spool on and now she is a teenager living quietly with her dad, entirely unaware of her dangerous provenance. “Lockjaw” has no intention of forgetting the slight paid to him, and when he…
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