criticalfilms

[criticalfilms]

Pearl's 9-Minute Monologue Ruined The Movie

RATING: ★★

Pearl (2022) had a lot of tropes from a lot of stuff that I really like. It had the vibe of American Horror Story: Freak Show and sometimes even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The fame part of Pearl's story reminded me of Ellen Burstyn in Requiem For a Dream, and the dad's wheelchair story reminded me of Run. 

All of this made for a pretty cool movie but to be honest, it didn't really cash in on anything. It could have been a 5-star movie if it just picked a lane. The way it finished, I could never recommend watching this movie. It needed one more kill to be properly classified as a "slasher flick." It's barely a horror movie. 

The world-record length monologue at the very end of this movie doesn't really do it any justice at all. It's just long.

[criticalfilms]

In Response To The Christian Horror Film 'Nefarious'...

RATING: ★

Honestly, I'm a conservative Bible-believer and I've heard all of this before. It didn't feel creative at all. It felt like a church-level skit, and in a church, I might have applauded. Overall, it felt like a truly unwatchable film.

The script was lame! They actually tried to sneak in what used to be a funny YouTube meme as if it were something serious? Like on YouTube, there's a running joke in the comment section where someone asks you if you want one of two things, but you want both, so you just say "yes." In the film, the doctor says, "Is hell a physical place or a state of mind?" and the demon just responds, "Yes..." like it was supposed to be dramatic. That annoyed me. At one point, the demon writes a book about the protagonist and the protagonist looks at the book for a total of twelve seconds and says, "There's stuff in here even I don't know about me!" They don't even explain it at all. It's just a rushed scene with bad writing and bad directing. Later, he is literally strangling the protagonist and three police officers come towards him and the demon says "Back up!" and they all do? Since when does a prisoner have authority over police? I know what you're thinking. It's not supernatural. Like, at all. It's not even indicated anywhere that this thing has supernatural powers outside of psychic abilities and now I'm starting to think that light shattering in the trailer actually WAS a coincidence!

There is a sort of reference to the biblical Peter story when Jesus says, "You will deny me thrice." When the demon says, you will kill three people by the end of the day, it feels like a pretty good buildup to something actually happening. But again, it's lazy writing and just so happens the doctor is euthanizing his mother and his wife is having an abortion on the same day? That's the laziest attempt at writing I've ever heard. And why should I care? Oh yeah, it's to tell us that those things are sins.

I actually liked the framing and the underlying premise of a film shot in one room with a psychiatrist and a death-row inmate, but the plot doesn't even make sense! If the demon is trying to get this guy executed, why not just appear sane? That would have made this movie five minutes long. "Hi, I'm Edward. I'm sane. You can kill me now." Doctor says, "Okay, great." Signs the paper. Roll credits!

Yawnfest. I will hear these things from my Pastor, not a DEMON!? It should be illegal to make a movie this predictable. I won't spoil the ending because I don't have to. If you've read the Bible, you know that any time a demon exits one body it enters the other. If you haven't read it, you will hate this movie.

Oh wow, and a HORROR? LOL! Not even close. It's clearly a thriller, so you can change the genre on every streaming and ratings platform there is, because this is nothing like a horror. I thought I was walking into a good horror movie based on the reviews and the poster. Last time I checked, lying was a sin.

This is a movie for Christians who hate movies. I'm surprised they haven't put this on PureFlix... because a lot of movies on PureFlix are exactly like this.

[criticalfilms]

Pearl (2022) dir. Ti West

[criticalfilms]

Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) dir. Quentin Tarantino

[criticalfilms]

Trainspotting (1996) dir. Danny Boyle

[criticalfilms]

There Is A Boycott Movement Against 'Late Night With The Devil'

So, people are boycotting this movie because it uses AI art.

What most of these critics don't know is that AI is already used abundantly in TV and film and has been for years. My take on it is that AI is a tool and if it can be used for art then it will probably be used for art, and there's nothing anyone or any boycott can do about it. 

At the very least, the actors' jobs won't ever be taken over by AI. There will always be visual artists and people with real life visual design skills who will know how to use software, and it will be a new art altogether. Writers will still write and tweak AI stories to make them compelling. Film critics might actually be critical again like in the days of Roger Ebert or Gene Shalit. Cameramen will always be needed to shoot the movie and editors will always need to edit the final cut. Humans will always be essential to the film industry.

People say we are walking into a bleak future with AI but I say it's already here and we need to learn to adapt or succumb to dying out as individuals, depressed and angry that the world has changed yet again, just like many of those in generations before us.

The fact is that films really started to go downhill around the mid-2010 era and if there's anything in the world that can improve filmmaking then I say we use it. We will be the judges of whether or not a movie is good. Movie-watching is a subjective experience and AI can never take that away from us. Think about it. Were movies made for us or us for the movie? AI cannot enjoy the movie, so in the end, humans will always be in charge of this industry.

I can't wait to watch this movie and review it like I would review any other movie.

[criticalfilms]

New movies added!

Watch Comedy Movies Free Streaming (A-Z)

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[criticalfilms]

I'm not sure how to feel about this. I really liked Orphan: First Kill. I thought it was a great prequel, but I did notice she looked older.

Certain movie franchises have just run their course. I just watched Saw X which is also a prequel, and so many people commented about how much older Amanda looks in it. I thought she looked fine and the movie was brilliant, but like, yeah, I think that should just be the end of it. I'm nervous for Saw XI and I think the actress that plays the orphan might be too grown now to do a third Orphan movie.

ORPHAN 3 IS CONFIRMED.

[criticalfilms]

This.

With that said, I basically ruined my writing career by talking about something controversial, and even in a joking-parody-like manner, like I wasn't even serious. I was a film critic for god's sakes. That's basically all I wrote about. This was just one shitty little shit-filled shit-stained article about how Buzz Aldrin said in an interview that nobody went to the moon in 1969.

I didn't even mention any of the stuff about how Neil Armstrong refused to swear on the Bible that they went there, I did joke about how Stanley Kubrick worked on the footage for the telecast only a year after they made Space Odyssey: 2001. But I wasn't making an actual case for it.

Anyways, don't they fucking ban me? Like outright. All my followers, all my articles, film reviews, hard work, etc, just gone. But get this. Before they ban me, they send me an email telling me I'm in the Top 100 Writers on the website. They send me thousands of dollars. They send me not ONE but TWO freaking awards for the article. And then poof. Banned, and actively "investigating me for harmful conspiracy theories," their words.

Honestly, suspect.

Alas, I'm back on Medium after two years.

Idk who needs to hear this but...write. Write about things you enjoy. About things that are "problematic". Write about controversial topics and non-controversial topics and if it's about a topic you don't know much about but you want to write about it then do your research, talk with people who know more on the subject, who live through it, but WRITE. Care about what you are creating, put love and emotion in it but don't let ANYONE gatekeep creating something that will make you happy.

[criticalfilms]

[criticalfilms]

"How much will you indulge in your flaws? What are your flaws? Are they flaws? if you embrace them, will you commit yourself to hospital for life? Big questions, big decisions. It’s not surprising you profess carelessness about them."  - Girl, Interrupted (1990)

[criticalfilms]

Girl, Interrupted (1999)

[criticalfilms]

[criticalfilms]

So you're stuck trying to solve a writing problem.

Maybe you're trying to figure out what comes next in a scene. Maybe you're trying to work out how a conversation should flow. Maybe you're just trying to come up with an idea for something to write at all.

👉 Do something that engages your hands while leaving your mind free to wander.

🧽Clean something.

🧽 Do the dishes.

🧽 Take a shower or a bath.

🧽 Vacuum.

🧽 Dust. (wear a mask when you dust, its much nicer)

🚫 Don't clean something that requires brainpower such as doing anything involving organizing.

🧶 Do a craft!

🧶Do fiber arts.

🧶Do a paint by numbers or a coloring book

🧶Play with modeling clay or play-doh.

🧶Do a puzzle.

🚫 Don't engage in a craft that requires brainpower such as sketching something new, or picking out a new pattern.

👍 Do listen to music, but nothing too distracting. Music without lyrics or music that you're very familiar with is perfect.

🚫 Don't listen to a podcast, audiobook, or video in the background!

👉 The key is to get yourself immersed in an activity where you are busy enough not to get distracted but your brain is free to think about other things-- and come up with the solution for your story!

[criticalfilms]

The Ring (2002, dir. Gore Verbinski)

[criticalfilms]

The Tubi horror section is a gory mess... I remember being excited about this new free streaming platform, but the horror section ain't it. Notable good ones are Tourist Trap (1979) and my probably favorite horror movie, Magic (1978).