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martin-andersson22
Reviews
Shot Caller (2017)
Flawed but enjoyable
The script is a bit silly and not perfectly tied up. However, I saw a documentary about Aryan Brotherhood prison gang and that is where this movie borrows its tropes for, not really from other prion movies. Some of the gimmicks in the movie are apparently true. So, obviously not an authentic prison movie in todays environment, the Aryan Brotherhood was crushed by FBI and prison authorities. This movie tries to pick the story up after that, in a sort of, what if that prison gang could have survived even after the prison system zeroed in on them and isolated them in cages.
The movie is also surprisingly free of Political Correctness except for the baseline that they have to maintain. I guess that is what I enjoyed the most, most Hollywood movies these days are so ruined by politics and agenda it feels like they should be paying me for watching their stuff instead of the other way around, I mean, if they are so desperate to get their message across. I did not get that from this movie.
A Time to Kill (1996)
The case film is based on was black perp, white victim
Since everyone obsess about the racial aspect of this movie. I think its important to point out that the real case this movie, and the original Grisham book, was based upon it was a black man raping two white teenage sisters and murdering one of them.
I know Hollywood is all about make believe. But since everyone is emphasizing the race, and the story is race swapped, well, its a bridge too far for me.
Chang jin hu (2021)
Interesting and satisfying war movie
This movie is about a company in the Chinese Army during Korean war movie. It is nice to see war from the side of the people resisting the American imperial industrial war machine of death for a change. Highly reommend.
Baruto no gakuen (2006)
Hamfisted but well meaning and great subject matter
This movie overlabours its points. And seems to be pretty nervous about the ethnic conflict side of things, oftentimes making the Japanese seem indecently subservient to their German prisoners. Thus not achieving the redemption story arc that this subject matter was asking for.
The the history in itself is fascinating and heart warming. And the movie tries its best to do it justice. And I did enjoy watching it, hiding behind a pillow when the cringe was threatening to overwhelm.
Shichinin no samurai (1954)
Loved it again, was captured again
I watched this movie as a youngster and just enjoyed it without much thought, as youngsters do. But now I watched it again.
What strikes me is that center stage in this movie, the main focus as it were. Is the conflict between peasent and samurai. Between those that produce value and those that protect it / plunder it. How the samurai are just another form of bandit and how the bandit is just another form of samurai.
The protagonists, the seven noble samurai, follow an impossible path. For little reward they get slaughtered to protect those that hate and despise them and that are just waiting for an opportunity to betray them.
The movie makes an elequent case for the situation of the peasents. And it makes an equally elequent case for their plunderers / protetors. And does not take a side either way.
'Breaker' Morant (1980)
Never trust the Anglos
The Anglo Empire hire criminals from the colonies to murder boers and then turns around and executes their hired thugs for being thugs. Very amusing.
Of course the movie lies about the actual events, these criminals murdered tied up school teachers and pastors.
Monster Hunter (2020)
Tolerable flick from horrible Hollywood
I swear, I can hardly watch anything from horrible Hollywood anymore, its so depressing. Everything is steeped in politics, gender swapping, forced diversity or just meeeh. And I guess that is this movie too, its just less atrocious about it than the rest of the junk horrible Hollywood makes. And since the basic premise is so bonkers, well, makes it easier to watch.
Mongol (2007)
High production values, bad story telling
This is a well made film, very good to look at, Mongol actors, true period piece. But why oh why make a movie about Genghis Khan if you are going to have him be helpless and at the whim of others throughout the entire movie?
Any movie about Genghis must be a movie about politics, about man as a political animal. And this is not it. On the contrary, nothign makes sense politically in this movie. The more I think about this movie, the worse I like it.
Avanpost (2019)
Hell yea!
What a wonderful holliday from horrible Hollywood!
Movie is well made, exciting sci fi action from Russia. Really nice and entertaining. Exactly what I want from an action movie.
Maximilian (2017)
Many wonderful strengths but inefficient storytelling
Costumes are fantastic. Locations are fantastic. Casting is fantastic. Acting is really good. Period is wonderful, too few movies from the rennaisance. That it is made of German history is super good. Story is good. The people in history depicted are super interesting. And political correctness is kept in check.
However. Storytelling is extremely inefficient. Every scene is more than twice as long as it needs to be. This series can take 10 minutes to just say person x sent a letter to person y. I am watching this on my computer so I can fix it by setting speed to x 2. But its really a shame since everything else with this miniseries is so good.
Don't Breathe (2016)
Fun movie, nice concept and maybe a serious thought in the background
Fun movie, nice concept, not destroyed by PC. And maybe a little bit serious too.
I can't help but wondering. Good looking man (from the photo gallery), fair minded, dedicated to fatherhood, economically independent and willing to stick around. I mean, why did she turn him down? Sure, he is a bit on the older side. But then, she probably looking for a father figure anyway. And sure, he is a bit on the controlling side. But then again, she is not really doing such a good job of managing her own life, falling into crime and going with a violent pshycho who don't even care about her. She had herself a catch!
Old Henry (2021)
Not bad, but with problems
Old Henry aims to be a gritty, low key western. A nice concept is that it mostly takes place on one farmstead. However, some things annoyed me and prompted me to write this review.
By far the biggest problem is bad fight choreography of the big fight towards the end of the movie. This type of films really calls for no nonsense, effective combat instead of make believe magical heroics. The ideal this movie should have striven for was "Open Range" with Kevin Costner which does this to perfection. But instead Old Henry degenerates into a confused poorly thought out non believable mess.
As for the past of Old Henry and the big reveal, it really doesn't add anything to the movie. It more feels like the creators are nervous about the script being too sparse and trying to make up for it by magic name dropping. I mean, what is the point?
I gave the movie 6 stars. To be nice. And I really did enjoy the first half of the movie more than I normally enjoy Hollywood movies. Actually, I will increase it to 7 now. Because this movie really is better than most things Hollywood make these days.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
Exploitation movie
Instead of the big cube, you have a shard of the big cube. Instead of. Instead of Megatron being revived from ice he is revived from the ocean floor.
Really? You could not come up with anything original? Just the same movie again. I mean, its not a bad movie for its target audience, teenage boys. And that is fine. But still, it is patehtic from the writers. Or, as I would put it, an exploitation movie, that has no ambition what so ever, just to make a buck from the previous movie and the franchise. And what is the fun in that?
Heaven & Hell: North & South, Book III (1994)
Aha! So, its a sequel of the books, not the Miniseries!
Was considering watching this. And in the very first scene, Bent is suddenly alive. Such cheesy liberties with narrative is intolerable to me, making a joke ov previous narrative. So I stopped watching and came here to find out what was going on. The other reviews tell the story.
I wont watch any more of this. But neither am I going to rate it or complain. I thought the 1980ies miniseries was great, I was surprised at the quality and maturity of the narrative and dealing with the Confederacy, looking back from the insanity of 2021.
Junketsu no Maria (2015)
A mixed bag
The best thing with this series is its stupendous attention to detail and historiocity. I have never seen anything that is as authentic when it comes to gear and weapons.
The show is also lewd, constantly showing near nudity and alluring to sex. Not my cup of tea but others might like it.
The story is philosophical. Is there any point to stop violence, strife and bloodshed? If Hollywood made this it would have been simplistic good vs evil. But the Japanese are more sophisticated philosophically than the Americans. So even thought the show is a bit silly as a whole, it does not shy from the truth.
My main gripe with the show is how medieval French nobility and class structure is portrayed, especially considering the hundred years war. It is unfair to the French nobility. The typical course of the war was that the Normans that ruled England created expensive and competent professional army. Went over to press their claims in France. And to force the French to do battle they looted, raped, murdered, burned the french countryside until the king and the nobles were shamed into offer battle. In practice, they nobles were much appreciated by local peasents when they came to combat the english. The main complaint of the peasants were if the king did not come and protect them. This is turned on its head in this show in some simplistic class struggle theme.
Anyway, I watch it for the authenticity of houses, arms and armor. It is truly created by some mighty Japanese autist, most gratifying. Its also why I give it a high mark. There simply is nothing like it out there.
Terminator Salvation (2009)
Not a bad movie
Terminator Salvation is not a bad movie. However, for the Terminator franchize, it misses the mark. It does make a very honest attempt. The casting for example is excellent.
But it does not create myth and legend, like T1 and T2 did. One problem is the role of Connor himself. He is just a common soldier, albeit a good one. And there is some cult around him as a prophesized savour of the human species. However, in this movie, this is a very bad call. We were expected to be shown this, not told. A better option would have been to make Connor into a shadowy figure rarely shown on screen. And let Reese play the role that connor plays in this movie.
Another problem is that this movie upholds the sanctity of human life. While in the original terminator franchize individual human life was utterly unimportant, something constantly thrown away and wasted or trampled over. This was one of the methods that T1 and T2 established the doomsday feeling, they were not about saving individual people, they were about saving the species. Terminator Salvation turns this on its head, becoming a regular action movie.
This movie also suffer from lazy directing, using regular Hollywood trophes in the action sequences. Like a terminator throwing its victim around. Instead of just crushing strangling and killing it. Terminator Salvation relies on many such cheap tricks for dramatic effect rather than more realistic storytelling. It gives the impression of the director not respecting his audience.
Anyway, movie tries hard, produce many nice things, avoids a lot of pitfalls, is fun to watch. But does ultimately not succeed in carrying the Terminator franchize.
The Witcher (2019)
Well made
The Witcher is a bit fragmented and difficult to follow. However, if you read the books, you understand why. So they made a fine job piecing the Witcher together as best they could.
However, the Witcher is completely destroyed by willy nilly forced diversity. The Witcher just goes bonkers with inserting africans and all sorts of races whenever and wherever it can. Or rather cant. In the Witcher universe (the American tv series that is) the gods roll a dice whenever a child is born and hey presto, you end up a chinese person to african american mother and spanish father. Or whatever. Which makes this show really stupid and insulting to me. Its impossible to respect a show that is this anxious about race. And obviously, they create huge new problems with this forced diversity. Because since what race anyone is in the tv series is completely arbitrary, any casting or actions by someone of a certain race will obviously be interpeted as the prejudice of the creators of the witcher. If they had just bit the bullet and stayed true to the polish source material they would have saved themselves a world of hurt and made this show actually watchable.
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008)
Too stupid to watch
The original SST tried to demonize Henlein's experminetation with harsh citizen liberalism. By painting it as fascism. It failed in all respects in this, to some it was a good war movie, to some it presented Heinlein's interesting ideas, and to some it just made the fascist surface cool and sexy. Fun and different movie thought.
This movie on the other hand. Is trying to demonize fascism. By asking ANTIFA what fascism is and then overexagerating the ANTIFA version of fascism. Which ends up too stupid to watch. Turned it off after ten painful minutes or some such.
Judge Dredd (1995)
Miscast
Stallone plays roles portraying emotion and melodrama in male action heroes.
This is the very opposite of what Judge Dredd is in the lore. I wont analyze the movie further than that. If you care about the comic book character Judge Dredd, you wont like this movie. Its just not Judge Dredd.
Mutant Chronicles (2008)
As steampunk as it gets
The cinematography of this movie is perfect, it really creates the world it tries to create, perfect steampunk, never seen it done better.
The storytelling is rather good, setting up the characters, the epic backstory, all that. No complaints. The story itself is good enough not to be a distraction from all the good stuff. Acting, not bad.
Personally, I get terribly annoyed when casting includes diversity for diversity's sake. Like, filling racial quotas, especially stupid in sci fi movies that depcit a civilization that has not been racist for 1000 years but still somehow inexplicably has races. So, I probably should be annoyed with this movie for doing much the same. However, it does not jar with the backstory, of corporate empires drafting soldiers from all over the world. It is silly to include two women in the group of elite soldiers thought, but I let it pass.
So, strongly recommend this movie as a fun adventure flick. If you like steampunk it is a must see. Also, if we like, this world destroying mutant creating monster machine emerging out of something that looks like WW1. Maybe there is some symbolism there? Many philosophers counts WW1 as the beginning of the end of Western Civilization. Just saying, possibly there is more to this movie than a slick look and brainless fun.
Little House on the Prairie (1974)
Best TV ever (or first two seasons are at least)
This is the best TV ever produced in the history of the world. And I say that even thought I really really do not like America. Or at least not, what America has become. But this show goes to the heart of what America used to want to be. It depicts pious, poor, hard working, thrifty folks. That still always let the soul and the relation to other people take priority over money. And the family is the be all end all. And it embraces man and woman. Today, I am exasperated what to show my loved ones. So it is good that finds like these exist.
The western is a very decadent theme. Basically, it starts by giving a man the excuse to murder and hurt others. And then it plays out the murdering and hurting of others. And make it righteous. And typically the man also engages with a woman. And then leaves her. Little house on the prairy takes the western. And turns it around to something good. There is zero violence in this show. And there is zero abandoning of women. And if there ever is any violence or any abandoning of women. It will be the theme, the trauma, that an entire episode is centered around and discussing. Truly, TV does not get better than this.
Writing this I realize my grade of 9 was too low. I let it stand though, it still moves the total rating move in the right direction. And gives this review more credibility. Also, only rewatched first two seasons. I believe that the show might go downhill later. But seriously, its impossible for it to improve from here. Because it already is as good as TV gets.
The Borgias (2011)
First episode after pilot and virtue signalling and condescending writing is seeping in
The Borgias is well produced, well casted, well acted and the writing was originally quite ok. So, if you like historical drama, chances are you will enjoy it.
However. In this episode some muslim aristocrat is visiting and falls in love with Lucrezia Borgia. He is super nice and super good guy. And he wants to convert to Christianity, because, well, everyone been so super nice to him and he probably want to be able to marry Lucrezia, we are led to suspect.
However. What on earth could a fallen muslim ever offer a power family as the Borgias? Nothing. So we are supposed to suspend belief just because drama! and virtue signalling! Its stupid. And its disrespectful to the viewer. This kind of writing just puts me off a show. Culture war elsewhere than my brain, please?
Was also some strange conversation about the Borgias not being Jewish, on this everyone agrees, the Borgias, their enemies. It was clumsy and grating and exacerbate my losing of trust in the writers. I probably wont pick this show up again.
Marco Polo (2014)
Catering too much to modern American audience
In some films and TV shows we visit the past. In some we watch actors in costumes delivering lines that are some Hollywood writer talking down to us. A writer who does not give a damn about the past, the cultures, the attitudes, the peoples.
This show just felt increadibly shallow to me. I did not enjoy it and soon lost interest. I will go watch the 1980ies version again instead.
That said. If you really do not care about history. And you just like bright lights and a pretty set and costumes. Maybe you will enjoy it. This show certainly looks good. But that is not enough for some of us.
Battlefield Earth (2000)
Fun sci fi with humans as the desperate underdog
Fun sci fi with humans as the desperate underdogs, here on our own planet. Fun premise, ok execusion, ok casting and and some themes that run true. Sure, its solidly a B-movie but it is well worth a watch.
As for all the 1 ratings and bad reviews. Look through them? And you will find that they are all made from maybe 8-10 blueprints with small variations. And look at the usefulness votes and you will find 4 upvoters on the 1 rating reviews. So we have 1-4 people logging in from different accounts mechanically trashing this movie.
Trudno byt bogom (2013)
If you want a 3 hour long unfair unhistorical insult of the Middle Ages, this is your flick
Being from a protestant country I have a profound respect for the Middle Ages. A period that embraced life and color and decoration. With protestantism came an austere death obsessed culture. With the enlightenment and rennaisance came prudishness and the abondonment of baths and cleanyness.
This movie is an insult to everything that the Middle Ages were. If thats your thing, you go see it.