[JonE(vil)]

Major Grom. The game. 2024 Russia.
4/10
A police officer, popular for taking down an infamous criminal is at it again.
Picking up where the first one left off, it recounts his story and then sets up a even bigger prospect. It has a down to earth kinda 'superhero' vibe, with lots of action. But being a sequel, alot more characters and plot. This means a run time of over two and a half hours. With the main villain hidden for at least the first 90 mins, it starts to drag and with so many characters. The reintroduction of the main villian from the first film just adds, not really a interesting sub plot, but another weight to a well filmed and colourful mess.

[JonE(vil)]

Wolfs. 2024
3/10
Two blokes that covertly clean up dead bodies end up on the same job.
Starring Clooney and Pitt, it looks like a version of what a buddy cop films did alot better in the '80s and '90s.
They work well together as actors, and have a suave look and delivery of their lines. The humour is slightly there as they argue with each other, but for two people who have never met and are on the same dangerous job together, they get along remarkably well, which makes for unremarkable viewing.
Filmed in a equally smooth manner, it plods along with very little action and alot of dialogue.

[Stanh80]

The Creator. USA. 2023.
3/10 (3 only for the visuals, 0 for everything else)

In 2055, an artificial intelligence created by the U.S. government detonates a nuclear warhead over Los Angeles, California. In response, most of the Western world pledges to eradicate AI to prevent humanity's extinction. Their efforts are resisted by New Asia, a region comprising East, South and Southeast Asia, whose people continue to embrace AI. The U.S. military aims to assassinate "Nirmata" (the creator),the chief architect behind New Asia's AI advancements, using the USS NOMAD (North American Orbital Mobile Aerospace Defense), a space station capable of launching destructive attacks from orbit.

A complete miss on every level of the subject. Have sentient AIs, and robots? Make the morale of your story that they're "just like us". How lazy, consensual , feel good and stupid ... Robot is drooling watching a pole dancer robot. Really? robots get aroused? and they get aroused by looking at a "body" that can not procreate? when they themselves cannot procreate and should be devoid of breeding instincts, thus sex drive, thus have no notion of arousal or desire ? Yeah, very smart.
Robot looks like an old chinese lady, walking like an old lady, all arched and humped and stuff ? Makes perfect sense! robots age like humans, of course. Even when they're said to be immortal... let's just produce old lady robots, for fun I guess (in the movie the fact that one child-looking robot exist is unprecedented and everybody loses their shit about it, but old barely functional units that can't walk make perfect sense.)

Instead of trying and reason about the human condition, our animalistic side, our mortality etc and what a sentient creature that's not under this system would think or behave. Nope. Robots are just like us. Robots watch pole dancers.

Not even talking about the constant lazy writing, (imagine that: the last hope, the super giga weapon humanity has against AI is a huge trillion dollar space station/weapon firing giga lasers at targets on the ground : and just about any hijacked civilian ship can approach it and dock on it and there's nothing the military can do about it nope. It's the gigafuture and no automated defense , not even non automated defense . Just fly there, get aboard and destroy the thing , easy peasy ) the giga plot holes and deus ex machina . There's so many lazy shit, bad writing, plot armors and stuff that I can't even begin to try and list them....
This is all complete shit.
You should watch it
Like and subscribe

[JonE(vil)]

Un uomo in ginocchio. A man on his knees. 1979 Italy.
8/10
A ex con running a small coffee stall gets put on a mafia hit list.
Well paced crime drama that sheds a little bit of light on organised crime, as it follows the main character in his bid to get clear of a hit that has been put on him. It has a pure Italian feel to it, which is seen in the locations its filmed. Little bit hard to follow at the start, but it soon becomes a small cast and the plot is subtle, but compelling.

[JonE(vil)]

Major Dundee. 1965.
8/10
A rouge group of Indians are hunted by a put together group of union and yankee soldiers.
Starring Charlton Heston and Richard Harris, dir by Sam Peckinpah, Entertaining western based on a journal, written at the time by a young soldier. It takes its time to fully set up the two main characters, their loyalties and rivalry. A few dramatic moments are sprinkled thru the film, with the plot taking in alot of events.

[JonE(vil)]

The boys from Brazil. 1978.
5/10
A group of old Nazis led by Joe Mengele go looking for a group of young boys cloned from the dna of Hitler.
Campy, but interesting for a while. The group is pursued by a old jewish bloke. Some big names are in the leads, which make it watchable to a point, but questionable as to why they signed up. It runs out of steam after the halfway point and just plods along. The idea is solid, the camp factor lets it down.

[JonE(vil)]

Viy. 1967. Russia.
9/10
A young priest has to spend three nights praying in a church with the dead daughter of a wealthy man.
Run time of 76mins, the film is set in a unspecified time, but looks to be middle ages. It has the feel and look of the time, and when the spookiness kicks in each night, it is really well done. Each time it takes the visuals to new level with things reaching a dramatic end. Good fantasy/horror that takes it self seriously and has a plot that starts and connects at the end.

[JonE(vil)]

Geobbels and the fuhrer. 2024.
6/10
The of rise of misinformation.
Factual account of the way Joe and the others in the inner circle of Hitler, sold an expanding war to the german people. The film has him as the central character as he navigates his personal life, with Hitler as a dominate influence. It shows the extent and means that he went to in order to wind up the population. Much of if has actual speeches and footage with scenes added to what happened straight afterwards. It gets grimmer as it progresses with footage on executions and dead bodies. At the end, there is a statement from a survivor simply reminding us that we are all human.
Thought provoking in this day and age regarding news media reports of war.

[JonE(vil)]

Casa bonita mi amor 2024.
​7/10
The creators of SOUTH PARK buy a restaurant.
A massive mexican theme style family restaurant that closed in 2019, is bought by the Trey and Matt and there is a doco crew following the purchase and restoration of the whole thing.
Light and breezy, it goes into the history of it, then the current state. It doesn't get to bogged down with despair as they near the opening date. But does have the typical ups and downs of any doco.

[JonE(vil)]

Gloria. 1980
10/10
A woman with connections to the mob goes on the run with a little boy.
Excellent crime thriller/drama that formed the basis for The professional in 1994. Unlike the latter where the roles are reversed, this has a very young boy who is entrusted with a book his dad gives him that details the finances of the mob. Gloria is a tense film right from the start, with a strong female lead, who comes across as a tough, but sympathetic as she tries to protect the boy. The plot moves as a steady pace with some parts slow that give it a real heart before it cranks up the tension, but never to level that isn't consistent with what has come before.