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yoav-moran
Reviews
Bodies (2023)
I really wanted to love it
The premise sounds great. A great idea, with some twists and turns and a lot of mystery.
But...
Something is off, and I think it's a mix of the director and scriptwriters.
The plot is chock-full of cliches and tropes. "It's over our pay grade!" "Do you think can waltz in like that?". The characters have their goals in the script, and they move towards them stubbornly. Most of the time they do so with no logical motivation, and they feel mechanical and robot like.
This makes most of the characters behave like they're 3d, but actual shallow 2d. The protagonists have one emotion each - one is angry all the time, one is irritated, one is pittying and one depresses. No matter what happens - this is what I get from them.
And to reach the goals, the behavior feels a bit... off. At the first minute of the show a driver is driving a van for 10 seconds while looking over his shoulder because he must speak with a protagonist. This throws me off. This kind of stuff happens a lot.
So - great ideas but no dice.
Bullet Train (2022)
Toxic masculinity and sociopathy all around
There are some wisecracking assassins having fun while butchering other people. They are so cool, that life and death means nothing to them.
Another movie like that? Yikes.
Don't get me wrong, the action is quite good (although repeating a bit), good cinematography (bordering on the cliche), and interesting plot. But the protagonists are SO unlikeable. The only humane one is being belittled by his psycho dad for not being macho man enough to take an axe and butcher some guys. Yeah, that's the message - be merciless, by apathetic to suffering, and did I forget mentioning they kiil thousands of people (off screen, in other trains/buildings) just to have a closure on their own stories, while being funny?
Loved this kind of stuff when I was a kid, but not it's just... wrong.
Victoria (2015)
A tour de force
I was blown away with this movie.
It helped that I didn't expect it would be a one shot movie - a true one-shot of more than 2 hours! This pulled me into their world like no other movie could. Intense, hypnotic, wild, nerve wrecking. One of the best films I saw lately. And now trying to imagine doing this wonderful combination of acting and cinematography in one shot - blows my mind.
The camera person has to get an Oscar for that. I can't believe this movie went under my radar like that... What a wonderful gem.
See it in one sitting. Turn off the lights, turn up the volume, and let yourself be immersed in that 2.5 crazy hours in Berlin.
Triangle of Sadness (2022)
A movie with a soul
This movie pulled me in from the start and didn't let me go, but not with suspense or horror - with sensitivity, strong social commentary and wonderful cinematography. A gem.
Although it critics the rich, one thing I loved is that it didn't makes them to caricatures. I felt empathy for them as well as to the crew, the point of view of the film is humanitarian, and this is one of the things that made me love it so much. In a cynical world dominated by social media that promotes scorn and shaming, it's so refreshing to see a loving movie, with actual humans full of emotions, with conflicts that are more sad and awkward than evil and malicious.
Orígenes secretos (2020)
Couldn't push through the entire movie
So many plot holes... So many stupid people... Had enough at some point.
The chief of police is a sarcastic person that abuses her rank and works unethically time after time. The protagonist's backstory is.... well... weird. As much as I try I fail to connect to any of these people.
Never mind, I can always rewatch Se7en - a better version of this movie.
X (2022)
Weird choice for Pearl casting
It could have been a better movie, but for the decision to have Mia Goth play both the protagonist and Pearl. It was so obvious Pearl was played by a young actress (round face, string movements, voice that isn't actually cracking) that I was kind of expecting her to become younger later in the movie - something that will justify this decision. This kept it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief - I was too much aware of the acting all the time. What did they get from doing that - just to be special?
Only Murders in the Building (2021)
What an absolute gem!
This caught me by surprise. I was expecting something silly or mediocre, but it was riveting! I live the title sequence, the music, the colors, the dialogs, the surprises, the twists, the humanity. And I love podcasts so this clicked as well.
Well done.
Russian Doll: Superiority Complex (2019)
Insensitive towards suffering in the holocaust
I saw this episode during the Israeli holocaust day, and it was not a good choice at all. The part where Nadia rummages through the basement looking for her stuff was horrific. She looked pissed as usual, but the show didn't bring home the gravity of what we see there. The theft in high scale performed by the Nazis, the piles of things that represent murdered families - men, women, children, babies. Nadia as always thinks of herself and her heirloom and gets giddy taking all these"treasures" she finds there, not all necessarily belongs to her. She looks more like a grave looter than a Jewish victim. Despicable scene in an insensitive episode.
Arrival (2016)
At last a smart movie!
Had enough with sci-fi movies that have more babble that science. This movie is smart, but also sad and beautiful. I cried at the end, and I wasn't expecting that, so huge kudos.
Lassie - Eine abenteuerliche Reise (2020)
Was beautiful in the 60s, not so much today
I believe the original Lassie was instrumental to we humanize dogs so much in our culture. It's not a good thing to the dogs' mental health - they are, after all, dogs and not people.
I took pity of Lassie in this movie. It's a dog being stressed by a stressed out kid on one hand and a violent handler on the other. And at the end, as she drags her feet hurt and wounded, no one goes to help her because "she needs to do this all by herself". No she doesn't. She's a dog, uninterested in our cultural cliches.
I wished so many times I could catch the kid and tell to his face "stop being so dramatic, you're making the dog miserable!" But this is the job of the parents and unfortunately they stood helpless against his tantrums. So the kid kept going through the movie feeling that he's the center of Lassie's world and that she must run 800km to reach him. That's a bit narcissistic if you ask me.
Except that, the acting was not great, the tear jerking script was to much over the top and it all felt a bit amateurish.
Crimson Peak (2015)
I HATE jump scares.
I can't see this movie.
After about 15 minutes and a few jump scares I've decided enough is enough.
Jump scares are the lowest form of horror - it's easy, it's effective, but it has no depth. You make everything quiet, slow down the protagonist, allow the audience to hear their breasts slow down and relax, and.... BOOOO!
Come on, Guillermo del Toro, you can do better. But I can't see that, it stresses me and I get no satisfaction of feeling I've touched something deep in my psyche.
EDIT: I've discovered the power of closing my eyes each time the movie is too quiet. So I made it to the end avoiding the jump scares. It's a beautiful movie, so the rating was adjusted accordingly.
Doctor Who: Flux: Chapter Six - The Vanquishers (2021)
Omg, just finish this arc already
It's the most confusing, hysterical, fan pandering, plot-twisted-until-you-stop-caring season of them all. Dozens of characters, spread over space and time, huge stakes but I don't understand what's going on!
Unfortunately for me, after 13 seasons of following the adventures with passion, it's the first time I decided to stop seeing an episode in the middle. Come on, weird arc, just end already!
Annihilation (2018)
Beautiful and scary sometimes, but too holey for my taste
The movie was a solid 9 stars for me until the final 30 minutes. It was interesting and refreshing to see a scary movie that hits your deeper fears with elegance and not a sledgehammer, but than the major weirdness and the plot-holes-palooza began.
Why is an organic based life with human DNA looks like a shimmering condom? If Lena is the doppelganger one, how come the one that was left to so much time to get burnt? And why did she take the fire and leisurely spread it to anywhere possible? And how come Lena and Kane spend a line time in a medical facility, with this blood being tested regularly, and no word stuff was discovered? And why wasn't the investigator flummoxed by discovering this is an alien Kane in the facility? Did Lena "forget" to mention that? But doesn't she think she's the human one? So why not tell this hugely important detail?
At the end it's a complete mess. A movie that looks intelligent on one level but a complete cliche on others (She was a monster all along! Wow, what a shock!).
Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet: A Dark Quiet Death (2020)
I wasn't expecting that, and it tore my heart
This episode is an entire movie by itself. Sad-sweet tale, with really likeable protagonists. I wasn't expecting that, and it was so great. I don't know what to expect now from mythic quest, and I like this feeling.... :)
Fei lung mang jeung (1988)
Too much of what was bad in the 80s
A man stands in the middle of the street blocking a woman's path. He calls for her to stop because he loves her. The woman fears him, but the watching standbys cheer him and the woman is too embarrassed to say no.
A courtroom, managed by men in power position, interrogates a woman about her feelings. She begs them to look at her as the professional that she is but they see her as a woman and demand her to strip emotionally in front of everyone else. If not - the strong men in charge will lock her up.
I love Jacky Chan, but I can't ignore all this 80s awfulness in the movie. It made me cringe so many times. This is not a live story - this is a story of the birth of abusive relationships.
Oh, and it's also funny and the fight scenes are great. So 7/10 after all.
Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Torture helps? Really?
This movie perpetuates the myth that torture extracts the truth - although today we know it was an impediment to truth. A tortured person will try to satisfy his tormentors in any means possible - truth had no relevance. Even veteran CIA agents testify that it stopped the flow of good information. And yet - this movie celebrates torture as a mean to an end.
Disgusting.
I see that the cinematography is great, I understand that the locations and acting and music are good, but the cruelty that threads the movie is too unbearable for me to watch.
Ojing-eo geim (2021)
Shiny but empty
There are some good things to say about this show: good actors, good cinematography, some good ideas.
But these smokes and mirrors hide the main flow: no soul. Everything there is too engineered to feel real. When hundreds of people stand, they distribute evenly in the space. When hundreds fire, their bodies are scattered evenly in the field. When a vote is made, the distribution between Yes and No is kept evenly until the last one that looks like he just realized he needs to think about it - for suspense. The bad guys are total Nazis, the good guys are banal, similar too much to others as in the Hunger Games.
This is a show engineered to make us excited, and like the players looking at the huge piggy bank we swallow it eagerly.
Invincible (2021)
Robert Kurkman does it again
I couldn't stop watching the final episode. I felt sadness, and joy, and fear, and despair. It was a roller coaster that started slow on the first episode and built it's momentum to the end. And now I can say - this is a masterpiece.
It reminded me in many places the Watchmen comics - even the drawing style. But it's different in many other good ways.
Can't wait to the second season.
Final Space (2018)
Great start, but down the hill since
A typical episode in the final season contains: several teary moments, multiple cliches, some grand standings with crescendoing music in the background - all in 30 minutes. It's tiring.
Good story needs building. It can't be made of only high moments - but that's what this show tries to do, and my heart simply can't get into it. When sometime cries there I no longer feel it, and it starts to annoy - and that's a bad sign.
Loved it's freshness at the start but now I'm glad it's the final season. Can't handle any more cliches, sorry.
Castlevania (2017)
Perfect in every sense
Can a show be both gruesome and sensitive? Horrifying and full of love? Apparently it can, and it's awesome. Castlevania has 3 dimensional heroes and villains, intimate dialogues and really good combat scenes. It's a train ride that won't disappoint, and most importantly - knows when to stop at the final station.
Take this ride.