I really do not know much about Bob Marley. However, this looked to be an interesting story in a reasonably short documentary on Netflix, focusing on a major event in the middle 1970s in an unstable Jamaica.
The event I am referring to is the attempted assassination of Bob Marley, a singer whom had always been a dedicated fighter for peace.
Honestly, we do not know much about what happened still and the film speculated about the role of the CIA or about the local political leaders.
There were a lot of the people in the area talking about the situation. It was interesting, but the story did not grip me as much as I would have liked it to. It was fine and the political aspect was appealing, but maybe since I was not as much of a fan of Bob Marley, that was a reason why it did not grab me to the extent that it did.
This movie is Castaway meets LOST meets The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
And it is as awesome as that sounds.
When I was looking through Netflix’s film selection for Black History Month, I came across this sci-fi horror monster movie. It was the right length for my viewing tonight and it sounded interesting. Produced by Jason Blum, there was already a pedigree in horror films for Sweetheart. This was so great.
After her boat sank in a storm, Jennifer Remming (Kiersey Clemons) washed up on the shore of a mysterious island. She discovered her friend Brad (Benedict Samuel), who had also washed up on shore, but had bad injuries and he died soon after.
Jennifer buried him, but there was something monstrous that showed up that night. Some kind of creature appeared and took Brad’s body away. Watching one night, Jennifer saw the monster come from out of the water, eventually returning to a black hole in the water.
Soon after, Jennifer’s boyfriend Lucas Griffin (Emory Cohen) and friend Mia Reed (Hanna Mangan-Lawrence), who had also been on the boat, arrived on a raft. Lucas and Mia were happy to see Jennifer, but they were not too anxious to get back in the raft and leave, no matter how much Jennifer protested.
There are several interesting things going on in Sweetheart, including some intriguing implications about what Lucas and Mia may have done to survive on their raft. The monster is very mysterious and we do not know what it is or where it comes from, and I like that very much. They do not feel the need to go into details that do not further the story.
The third act is just great too. The final confrontation is absolutely worth the wait. Kiersey Clemons is a star and she dominated the screen. I loved this because Kiersey Clemons showed that Jennifer was smart and capable, which many times in films such as this, the characters are not. I never thought she was doing anything stupid and I loved how she was written here.
The film looked great. They use some wonderful techniques to shoot the film and the night sections of the movie are some of the best.
I was pleasantly pleased with Sweetheart and enjoyed the film tremendously.
An unbearably heavy and pain-filled documentary this early morning. It is Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog, the doc short from 1955 that looked at the concentration camps of the Holocaust, ten years later.
The imagery of the film is horrifying, shocking evidence of man’s inhumanity to man, specifically the Jewish people who were targeted by the Nazi Party for extermination.
Treated like animals, if not even worse than animals, the Jewish men and women spent years in an intolerable situation thrust upon them from some of the evilest monsters the world has ever seen.
The documentary, narrated in French, spoke of the daily horror and the inglorious end suffered by the prisoners of these camps. Written by Holocaust survivor Jean Cayrol, it was a struggle to finish for him. The combination of black and white war footage and color pictures of the present day (1955). These ungodly images were punctuated by the score written by Hanns Eisler.
Resnais was tentative about making this film until he found out that Cayrol would be involved.
It is an important film because it is a time that must never be forgotten, because the horrors found at places like Auschwitz or Majdanek must never be allowed to happen again.
I find this hard to classify because I do not want to minimize the documentary so I will be skipping that part of this review. This can be found on HBO Max and it should be a doc that everybody sees during their life.
There was a new documentary that appeared on Netflix this past week entitled The Tinder Swindler, and it is a compelling, amazing and eventually sad documentary about the way someone could take advantage of others who were looking for love or for solid relationships.
Simon Leviev used the dating app Tinder to target certain women and con them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to this new documentary. In the film, we hear the stories of how Simon wormed his way into the life of two individual women and how he sent them into debt by borrowing money from them, both cash and with credit cards, that he never had any intentions of paying back.
The two women had different relationships with Simon. Cecilie had a romantic relationship with him, believing that she was special in his life. Meanwhile, Pernilla had formed a close friendship with him after they realized that they were not going to work as a couple. Both women were drawn close in with Simon and were used to provide him with money.
Their stories show just how dangerous it can be to hook up with someone online and how social media can be a detriment to a positive relationship.
It is not until the doc focuses on a third woman, Ayleen, who discovered the truth about Simon in an article on the internet from the journalists who had been tracking this case for awhile. She decided that she would turn the tables on the swindler, and she does so in a dramatic and fully satisfying manner.
However, the end of the documentary was a shock as the details about Simon’s current situation is revealed and it ends the story in an extremely disappointing way.
A remarkable story of greed and crookedness that is completely believable in this day and age. It goes to show you to be very cautious when online because there are criminals everywhere.
After the weaker episode for 2, I was riding on episode 3 to determine if I planned on continuing on with the remainder of the six episodes. I had a hopeful feeling because the guest star this time was going to be Kumail Nanjiani.
I was pleased that they brought out a few different type of improv games to intersperse with the story. They did not do the Will Arnett tells celeb what to do over the microphone. Instead, they had Kumail do several others, including the Two people sing with one voice improv game. That was a neat change. I liked how the general format did make a change, perhaps with someone who was more used to the comedic world.
I have to say though that Kumail did laugh more than some of the others. He was hiding his laughing in most every scene. It also felt that Will Arnett had to ham it up less with Kumail than he did with the last couple of celebrities.
And, Kumail nailed the killer, in a very impressive manner. He nailed a specific detail about the case that really was a good pull.
I will be watching the last three episodes of this show (looking forward to Ken Jeong).
Episode two of Murderville took a step back in quality. I enjoyed the first one quite a bit, but the second one was considerably less enjoyable. I think the big reason is that the celebrity guest detective this episode was former football star Marshawn Lynch. With all due respect, he did not have the improvisational skills of Conan O’Brien and he felt mostly awkward through the case.
He was clearly game and tried his best, but, even with an interesting case of the murder of a mother by one of her triplet sons, there was only so much they could do.
It also appears that the show will absolutely be following a regular format, as we had the second instance of Will Arnett, who plays Detective Terry Seattle, giving the celebrity a microphone and telling him what to say. It is an old David Letterman routine and it usually is pretty easy to get some laughs. It has happened in both of the first two episodes.
Sadly, Marshawn failed in his attempt to solve the case, accusing the wrong brother of the murder. That meant that he was fired from the training program.
I have a real hope for episode three because the guest detective is Kumail Nanjiani, a comedic actor who is extremely funny on his own. This feels like the kind of guest star that we should have on this show. I hope this episode is better because it may be my final one if it is not.
The 400th movie in the DailyView was a film I had never heard of before and was on Peacock. I loved Robin Williams and the premise surprised me. Unfortunately, The Big White felt like a poor man’s Fargo.
Paul Barnell (Robin Williams) and his wife Margaret (Holly Hunter) had been having problems, especially with money. Paul’s brother Raymond (Woody Harrelson) had been missing for five years so Paul tried to cash in a life insurance policy on him.
Insurance investigator Ted Waters (Giovanni Ribisi) told Paul that they could not Raymond declared dead until he was missing for at least 7 years.
Paul, desperate to figure something out, discovered a dead body in the dumpster outside his work. Paul decided to take the body and make it seem as if it was his brother come back, only to die accidentally.
Ted never believed the coincidental result and a couple of thugs (Tim Blake Nelson and W. Earl Brown) who had put the man in the dumpster in the first place both were putting the pressure on Paul.
While I think there are some good ideas in the film and some moments were decent, much of the movie is a mess. The whole “Tourette Syndrome” storyline with Margaret never worked, was played for comedy and was never resolved. Ted went off the rails big time in the movie and that did not feel right. The love interests were odd characters just for the sake of being odd.
Robin Williams is great as usual. Woody Harrelson was playing a character that he has played in many other movies.
The story is messy and convoluted. It has some moments, but I think it would be more effective if it had been edited down.
It was not a terrible movie I watched, but it could have been so much better.
I have been a huge fan of improv comedy for years, everywhere from short form such as Whose Line is it Anyway to This is Spinal Tap’s long form. When I heard about the new Netflix series, Murderville, I was intrigued.
In Murderville, Will Arnett plays Terry Seattle, a hard-boiled homicide detective who has trouble keeping partners. Each episode a celebrity will appear on the show as Detective Seattle’s new partner. However, the said celebrity will not have been given a script and will need to improvise everything in the murder case they investigate with Seattle. Then, at the episode’s end, the celebrity must decide who the killer was.
Episode one featured Conan O’Brien.
I enjoyed the concept. I will say that I did not find it as hilarious as it could have been, but I do think the proper celebrity has a chance to be really funny. I worry that it will become a tad repetitive, but, again, depending on the celeb, this could really rock.
I don’t want to make it sound as if I did not enjoy the show, because I did. It had its funny moments and watching them try not to crack up with laughter is always fun.
The ending did feel almost like a game show as Conan tried to guess who the killer was among the three suspects and he was told that he was right!
I do plan on watching the remaining five episodes in Murderville, although I may not binge it as I have done with some of the other Netflix shows.
In 2020, a series of films were released first on the BBC and then a week later on Amazon Prime. This series of films were all under the awning of Small Axe and they were all written and directed by Steve McQueen. It was a series that I wanted to watch at the time, but just did not fit them into my schedule. That oversight then is my benefit now as I can use these films in the DailyView during Black History Month.
The first film is the true story of the Mangrove restaurant in west London and the subsequent trial of the group known as the Mangrove 9, a group accused by the police at the time of organizing and starting a violent riot.
The Mangrove restaurant was targeted by the police at the time under suspicion of criminal behavior going on, despite the fact that there had been no evidence of anything taking place. Trinidadian immigrant Frank Crichlow (Shaun Parkes) opened the Mangrove in Noting Hill during the 1960s and the place immediately became a local spot for black people to meet.
The restaurant is watched by racist Constable Frank Pulley (Sam Spruell) and Pulley leads several assaults and raids on the establishment, tormenting Frank and his employees.
The neighborhood rallied behind the Mangrove and organized a protest against the unfair police actions. After the police instigated violence among the protesters, several arrests are made and the group is placed on trial.
Letitia Wright played Trinidadian Black Panther leader Altheia Jones-LeCointe, and she does a magnificent job. She brings a power to her performance that I did not expect. Other featured actors included Malachi Kirby, Nathaniel Martello-White, Richie Campbell, Alex Jennings, Samuel West, and Darren Braithwaite.
The courtroom scenes in this movie are extremely compelling, especially when Altheia and Darcus, who were defending themselves, cross examined some of the key witnesses of the case. The judge certainly seemed to be favoring the prosecution and created anxiety among the viewers with how unfair he seemed to be.
The film does a great job of showing how much agony the defendants were in from the searching for justice that did not appear to be coming.
Roland Emmerich, director of this film, made a snide comment about Marvel, DC and Star Wars movies destroying the movie business. Then, ironically, he puts out a movie like Moonfall, which is really close to a super hero movie and is just so much worse than all of the super hero movies recently.
In Moonfall, the moon falls toward earth. Yup, that was the plot. At least at the start. We were getting the Emmerich 2012/Independence Day/The Day After Tomorrow type of disaster film where the moon had mysteriously come out of its orbit and would eventually crash into the earth, causing massive destruction and death. Thankfully, a plucky group of characters including Jo (Halle Berry), Brian (Patrick Wilson and Dr. KC Houseman (John Bradley) take off to try and save the ear5th while their family members and kids try to avoid dying on the planet.
It is the same as any other disaster movie you have ever seen and felt like all of Emmerich’s films blended together into one. The group of people on the earth, which included Brian’s son (Charlie Plummer), and, for some reason the unbelievably wasted Michael Peña, were characters that I could not care about less. They were a total waste of time.
By the way, into the third act, the film changes pace and tries to escape the disaster movie genre and become a high concept sci-fi film, and it failed miserably. The HUGE amount of exposition that happened at the very beginning of the third act totally dragged any little bit of momentum the film may have had to a grinding stop.
The CGI is not great either, especially the destruction on the earth. It was very limited amount of special effects on earth, certainly no where near what you may expect in a disaster film.
Emmerich seemed to have little skill at creating realistic or compelling real humans. The dialogue is terrible. Their interactions are wooden and lacking any real true feeling. He should just stick to his overarching destructive tendencies.
Moonfall can’t even become a dumb disaster movie. It failed at most of the traits of the movie. I disliked this film. And, sorry Roland, it has nothing to do with Marvel, DC or Star Wars. Moonfall is just a crappy movie.
I almost did not go to this movie. I am not a fan of Jackass and it does not feel like the humor I enjoy, but it worked out for me to see it and I went.
And I hated it.
Hated it.
I’m not sure whether the cast was more tortured or if I was.
I hate it when there is vomit in movies, so a film that featured the Vomitron, which is real vomit, is not going to be something I like.
Honestly, I may have giggled twice in the entire movie. I found nothing funny. It was just a bunch of poop, pain and more penises than I have ever seen in a movie.
All these guys standing around laughing at people who have done something stupid and are hurt make me feel as if they are nothing but a bunch of assholes, not just jackasses. They also pulled some bits that felt cruel, not funny. The thing with the bear. The thing with the rattlesnake in the dark. I was really worried that a couple of these Jackasses were going to have a heart attack doing these.
The best part about the film was when they brought out the vulture because that bird was frightening. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It was horrifying, and that did not include them throwing raw meat into the crotch area of Wee Man for the vulture to eat. The bird was easily the best moment.
Otherwise, I hated so much of this movie. Even a few of the moments that could have been funny had already been in the trailer (such as the Machine Gun Kelly backhand or the bicycle riding into the wall) and it was spoiled.
Oh, and the beginning introduction with the Godzilla penis thing… may have been one of the worst thing that I have ever seen.
A magical fantasy combined with a real life feel, Beasts of the Southern Wild was a powerful film of life, family and courage.
Six year old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) had a lot to face for someone so young. Her father Wink (Dwight Henry) was having serious health problems and their home in a bathtub in a southern delta at the end of the world was being threatened by natural disasters and an army of prehistoric creatures called auroch. When her father’s health deteriorates, Hushpuppy goes in search of her long lost mother.
The film is centered around an amazing performance from the young Quvenzhané Wallis, the youngest actresses currently to have been nominated for Best Lead Actress Oscar at the Academy Awards. There is a force of nature feel to the young girl and she dominates the screen with every moment she appears. She plays brilliantly off Dwight Henry, who gives a tremendous supporting performance, with a complex character unlike any that I’ve seen before.
The blend of the fantastic and the realism of the world is another impressive feat that this movie pulled off. To be such a mixture of the two film types and to be so successful at it is a true compliment to the film’s director, Benh Zeitlin.
Not only did Quvenzhané Wallis receive an Academy Award nomination, but the film itself was nominated as Best Picture at the Oscars. It was recognized as an original, beautiful story that you just do not see evryday.
All of this was coming from the POV of Hushpuppy, so everything depended on the imagination of the young girl. Everything that was going on around her was adapted into the world that was created in her mind. Without the presence and power of Hushpuppy, this does not work nearly as well.
This was a surprisingly powerful and emotional experience and should be a film that you check out.
The February section of the DailyView continues with the rom-com films with Forgetting Sarah Marshall, starring Jason Segel, Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis.
After a five year relationship, actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) dumps Peter (Jason Segel), composer and sad sack boyfriend. Peter spirals out of control and goes through a series of meaningless one night stands, but he could not get over his broken heart.
So when his step brother Brian (Bill Hader) convinced him to take a trip. Peter went to Hawaii and coincidentally wound up at the same hotel as Sarah and her new boyfriend, rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand).
Depressed Peter was helped out by one of the hotel employees Rachel (Mila Kunis), who provided him a room at the hotel. Peter and Rachel hit it off and started hanging out while he kept running into Sarah and Aldous.
This was a lot of fun. I loved the film, from the beginning right through to the intriguing ending. How can you not love Dracula The Musical (with puppets)! Jason Segel went all out (and all off) to make the movie funny. He had great chemistry with Mila Kunis.
Russell Brand was perfectly cast as Aldous Snow and he was cool in the role. There were some great cast members here too including Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill, Liz Cackowski, Jack McBrayer, Taylor Wily, Steve Landesberg, Da’Vone McDonald, Maria Thayer, William Baldwin, Jason Bateman, Billy Bush, and Kala Alexander.
Many times I do not like this kind of raunchy comedies, but I found Forgetting Sarah Marshall to be a smartly written, intelligent and fun film that used the humor in an excellent manner.
Woody Allen has been a controversial figure for many years. The accusations that have followed him have turned off many people. It can be a struggle to support an artist like him who has been accused of such terrible things. People like Michael Jackson, Mel Gibson and Woody Allen have created such amazing work over the years, but can someone enjoy the work knowing how potentially horrible they are?
Annie Hall is a great example, because this movie is fantastic, but the whole time I was watching it, I kept thinking about Woody Allen.
Putting that aside, Annie Hall is great. I loved how Woody Allen started off just speaking to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, which he does several times throughout the movie.
Allen played comedian Alvy Singer who was reflecting upon his failed relationship with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). The story bounced around giving us moments throughout the history of the relationship and of Alvy’s life, filled with neuroses and paranoia. Annie Hall is the great love of his life, but I am not sure that he ever truly realized that.
Woody Allen was all over this movie and he brought his best work. Annie Hall is considered one of the greatest movies made by many cinephiles. It is definitely funny and Allen’s constant neurotic behavior as well as his one liners keep the film a good time.
Diane Keaton is excellent as the title character, and she does win an Academy Award for Best Actress. Annie has a real arc of a story across the movie, making more change than probably any character. I guess as the character who the film is named after, that makes some sense.
The rest of the cast is filled with some fascinating cameos as well as some solid actors. The cast included Tony Roberts as Alvy’s best friend Rob, Carol Kane, Paul Simon, Shelley Duvall, Christopher Walken, Collen Dewhurst, Jeff Goldblum, Janet Margolin, Truman Capote, John Glover, Sigourney Weaver and Beverly D’Angelo.
At some point, you have to be able to separate the artist from the art, because if you can’t, you miss out on some awesome stuff. That is the way it would have been with Annie Hall if I could not do that separation. And I enjoyed the film tremendously.
Peacemaker, after last week’s episode which was good but not as outstanding as the previous week, is right back at it with an unbelievably great episode. So much happened! It was just fantastic and I can’t wait for the next chapter.
Last week we left off with Murn standing over Leota after she discovered the butterfly in his head. Surprisingly, he does not try and kill her and, after Harcourt arrived, explained his background as a butterfly. Turned out that the butterfly was not supporting the takeover of the planet unlike Goff, the butterfly that Peacemaker had captured and was holding inside a glass jar.
Peacemaker’s home is under attack by the police after an arrest warrant is issued for Chris Smith when Sophie Song went to a judge with the evidence that cleared Auggie. Auggie was released from jail and he went back to his home to get into his old armor so he could kill his son.
This scene was interspersed with a scene of the newly possessed Sophie Song (who was taken over by Goff when it got out of the jar *Thanks Vigilante*) leading an army of butterflies into the police station, taking over everyone in their path in one of the best montage sequences you are ever going to get. Teh shot of Song walking through the door with the butterflies around her was so bad ass.
This was a horror-filled scene and it was so awesome with the montage style of a scene.
John Cena has brought so much to Chris Smith, Peacemaker. The little tidbits they are dropping with his origin and the death of his brother (apparently at Chris’s own hands) have been extremely compelling. Cena has brought so much to this character, a character that felt as if it did not have that depth to him. And he plays the piano.
By the way, Eagly kicked some serious ass today!
I loved this episode. It was just behind episode 4 for me. So much happened and it was still filled with plenty of character and human moments.
