Alex Knee

‘Oh help me I went on a tv show about losing weight aggressively and I was yelled at by personal trainers and the producers did things to make it more interesting for tv.’ Mostly the most irritating personalities from biggest loser having a bitch and moan, and they have one expert on weight loss who is unhealthily overweight and trying to preach on how toxic biggest loser was. ‘Oh they should have shown more of the realistic part of the journey’ what and judge Judy should have months of waiting an adjournments to he more realistic. Dragged out pretty boring docco

The most overrated show I’ve seen in ages. Painfully slow. Yeah shooting an episode in one shot is really cool and impressive, but it doesn’t make up for a complete lack of substance. I have never seen so much padding in a script. What’s the point of the show, the family of a kid that does a murder will be sad? kids these days are out of control? Thin, literally the entire first episode is the routine procedure of processing a criminal and nothing else, you can say that the acting was good and it was ‘emotional’ but it lacked any depth. Even if the point of it was the absurd boomer angle of ‘oh these red pilled Andrew Tate social media posts are turning our young men into psychopathic mysoginists’ which is a stupid angle to take, it fails to convey that point strongly or offer any insight beyond ‘social media bad’ Boring and stupid. 1 extra star because doing it all in one shot is amazing and the actors do a great job with an awful script. No idea why this was so well received

Mild spoilers: Pros: Dafoe is sensational taking well written nautical dialogue and delivering it epically, Shakespearean even, (however due to terrible accent work Pattinsons performance is poor) the cinematography, costumes, atmosphere, sound design, and styling is great to match and fits the concept perfectly. Cons: the plot is about as deep as ‘it’s all a bad dream’, or ‘ both men are completely insane’, which is such a cheap and tired concept, AND it establishes this rather early, replacing would-be tension with tediousness. Consequently, it drags on and on with no depth to story, feigning to grip attention (though it does try), and finishing with no pay off or intrigue. If it’s such a bad dream, scenes should should be scarier, if they’re both insane ok we get it already they’re insane. Also the occasional joke thrown in just makes it feel like a weird case of lack of identity but I suppose some would say it’s unique. Another Eggers movie that is sensationally shot with fantastic setting and style and amazing (in places) acting, made tedious and boring by a lousy, go nowhere, done so many times before, story. Which subsequently paced poorly I had very similar thoughts and feelings about the Norseman. And probably will again for Nosferatu. For me Eggers is the most disappointing director in film, only because he is so absolutely incredible at every single part of filmmaking except for the STORYTELLING. Which is the backbone of a good movie. Please Robert, direct something you haven’t written, it could be one of the greatest films of all time.

There’s a lot you could say about such an interesting film but I’ll keep it short. Fantastic cinematography, amazingly written dialogue, captivating performances by all. Everything in this film is near perfection except for the most important thing, the plot. It’s all hinged around the actions and behaviour of Colim, however frankly what he does is totally unbelievable and nonsensical. I guess the point of it all is some people become very mentally ill and that’s sad? Feels like it should have a deeper meaning but it’s hard to find when the characters behave in such a totally non relatable and unrealistic manner. Still think it’s worth a watch

The review section is riddled with duplicate reviews and AI sounding drivel. More generic marvel drivel. Predictable, and boring, full of unfunny cheesy one liners. So so lame.

Everyone who gave this one star is just upset they didn’t watch generic superhero movie 184. I do recognize this movie isn’t for everyone, that the satire might seem very direct and the metaphors too simplistic. But, objectively and for me subjectively, this is a masterpiece. An instant cult classic. An onslaught of impactful cinematography (you could probably make a coffee table book of stills from this movie). The visual effects and makeup work is phenomenal, I was genuinely in awe of how far the technology has come since ‘The Thing’ for example, it is shockingly, disgustingly realistic. There is layers and layers of messaging. Some people are saying the shooting needles or body horror are the most shocking and hard to watch. For me, watching Demi Moore putting on makeup in the mirror was the most painful and impactful. Some people complain of minimal character development, i’d say that’s the point! The true grotesqueness is in the nature of the characters, and while it is a satire movie, it is also freakishly close to how the Hollywood machine functions. No character in this movie is ‘good’, but they are realistic archetypes of real people in Hollywood. Every line of dialogue is succinct. Every shot with a relevant message, better conveyed by the thoughtful cinematography. It doesn’t insult the viewers intelligence by going over the top trying to explain itself, there is no forceful spoonfeeding of backstories here. This is a movie about the dark side of the Hollywood machine. It is about the misguided self-worth of individuals who have been molded by it. People who know nothing but a societal model which transforms sex appeal and physical desire into wealth and power and the negative consequences of such a perverted ecosystem. It shows the disgusting, callous nature of the men exploiting women but also the sick vanity and self obsession of the women willing to be exploited. Everyone chasing a high of more, more money, more attention, more sex, more friends, more eyeballs on me*, more love. And the desperate and depraved lengths people will go to, to never come down off that dirty high. The Substance repulses you in order to make you think. It is fantastically grotesque but perhaps on a moral level it is less disgusting than a commercial for make-up. This is a brave movie executed brilliantly. This is cinema. Support it so we get more genuine films and less corporate made crap. *pun possibly intended by director?

I’d like to give it 4.5. This film is sensational and definitely worth a watch. There’s not a wasted line of dialogue in the script. There’s more character depth established in the first half hour of this movie than the entire MCU. It constantly makes you reflect on the consequences of your actions, it’s like an ultimate butterfly effect movie, but done in a believable not so in your face way. You’ll laugh, cry, stand in solitude with characters then be horrified in their actions the next minute, but you’ll understand why. Satisfying character arcs for all main characters. I only don’t give it 5 because it just kind of ends. Not that every movie needs to reach resolution, as modern mollycoddling Hollywood would like to believe, but this particular movie is built around constantly creating bizarre but believable conflicts and resolutions so a grand conflict resolution or a twist would have been particulatly satisfying or impactful, although I guess you can say the ending is a twist idk. Fantastic movie that makes you think and feel a lot, all actors outstanding performance, great script, great dialogue, great direction. Worth a watch for sure

This is Nolan’s best work, momento remains my personal favourite movie. But this is certainly his best work

This movie is like the film industry equivalent of a video game tech demo. It’s a catalogue of rolling Hollywood cliches(plot, dialogue and action variety), but it looks so good you don’t even care! James Cameron quote; “what if we took the stock footage they show on the latest TVs at the HiFi store, and set it on an alien planet with more action drama”. Aside from a couple of plot holes which made me say ‘they can spend a jillion bucks but they can’t write a couple lines addressing that’, it’s indeed very beautiful and immersive enough to sit through the three hours comfortably. I wouldn’t say a phenomenal movie, but certainly a phenomenal cinema experience, watch it at the highest quality possible, I saw it in 3D and I almost wish i didn’t so I could appreciate the graphics more clearly. 8/10