Once more, a few sentences aboout the noteworthy movies and shows that I’ve watched over the last couple of week/months.

Film

The Last Boy Scout (1991)

Rewatch – A rewatch, after many, many years. There was a time, long ago, where Bruce Willis actually made good movies. And this is one of them; just a plain good 1990s buddy/action flick, with enough comedic, dramatic and violent ingredients to have a really good time. I’m a bit torn about the rating: Obviously, not everything is perfect, even with hindsight; but on the other hand, the nostalgia force is strong with this one. So, consindering that as a bonus factor, it gets the full score!
★★★★★ 5/5 stars

Adam’s Apples (Adams æbler) (2005)

Rewatch – A small, very, very black danish comedy. I remembered that I saw it a long time ago, but couldn’t really recall much of it, but my gut feeling was (at least up until this rewatch) that I actually wasn’t impressed much with it back then…

But the name kept popping up as positive reference in several reviews over the years, and then some time ago I discovered that I even had it on disc – seems I might have liked it more than I remembered?

So, I now watched it again, and yes, it’s a pretty good, and very dark comedy (could even have a bit more dark in certain scenes, but maybe it would then have been too much).

Highly recommended if you can stand the black and dry northern-european style of humor.
★★★★☆ 4/5 stars

The Night Comes For Us (2018)

Bad, bad, not good, very bad. I’m not the biggest fan of movies focused on material arts, but I can appreciate them, sometimes. But this one here was was just a messy mix of grim wannabe gangster drama and over-the-top cartoonish action scenes, which absolutely didn’t work for me.

They were also (in my naive eyes) not that impressive, I’ve seen better ones elsewhere. They also had all of the common issues I find annoying in these kind of movies:

• The bad guys storm in, outgunning the protagonist 20:1 – but they all conviently line up, and wait for their turn, so that the hero can take them out one after the other.
• They mostly “bring a knife to a gunfight” – well, except that it’s not really a gunfight (most of the time…), but the setting is present day criminal underworld; so I wonder why not more henchmen have guns (at a planned attack, even)? Because then the fight scene would be over in 2 minutes, obviously…
• In the ‘20 vs. 1’ fights, each bad guy is killed or rendered harmless by the slightest touch of the hero; but the hero himself/herself can take quite a beating (or even stabs and shots) without much impact.
• Except, in the major Level Boss fights, then both can endure much too much to be any kind of remotely realistic. I could accept that in some ‘Loony Tunes’ or superhero kind of film, but not in this gritty and dirty environment.

Of course, these points only apply when the screenplay wants it (ergo, inconsistency is the result), and sometimes, for artistic choices, it’s even the right decision. So it may come down to the correct dose and method to work on me – this movie had neither, or in just a very few, selected scenes.
★☆☆☆☆ 1/5 stars

Three Kings (1999)

Rewatch – A rewatch after a long time; didn’t remember almost anything, which always makes these kind of sessions a fun watch.
It’s a very entertaining movie (considering the rather grim background) and well worth a watch.
★★★★★ 5/5 stars

Tombstone (1993)

Well, it had potential. The cast alone should have propelled this film into the stratosphere.
But, alas, some weird choices in the script (pacing, focus) made it only a “Meh, OK, I guess…” experience for me.
★★★☆☆ 3/5 stars

The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)

I was not sure what to expect: It was supposed to be horror, or comedy, or a horror-comedy, according to the little I knew about this film.

Well, it’s a little bit of all that, plus character drama and crime story, but at the same time, the movie commits to nothing of that fully or makes it work in a wholesome fashion. Mostly because none of these ingredients get enough depth, weight or simply time: The focus between those aspects wildy jumps around every five to ten minutes.

It’s not bad per se, just very poorly executed.
★★☆☆☆ 2/5 stars

Starship Troopers (1997)

Rewatch – Long time no see, but I did recall most of the major plot points, of course, since a lot of this film’s iconic moments have lived on in clips and memes. It’s a Paul Verhoeven movie, so by the laws of nature it can’t really be bad – but I actually hoped for a bit more, even though I certainly understood the satirical undertones better than I did as a teenager 😉
★★★★☆ 4/5 stars

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf (2021)

Except for the first season of Netflix’s The Witcher show, I don’t have any connections to that universe; haven’t read the books, nor played the games. And while the TV show is OK, so far, it wasn’t the next big fantasy revelation to me.

So, with all this out of the way, my verdict: This anime-inspired prequel/spin-off was for me also just very unrewarding and nothing special.
(Tip: For a smilar style of animation and action in a fantasy setting, but overall a better show, I recommend Castlevania, also on Netflix.)
★★☆☆☆ 2/5 stars

Hudson Hawk (1991)

I recently saw a (new) review of this old movie, where the misty eyes of nostalgia and guilty pleasure most certainly have diluted their verdict.

But since I’ve never watched this movie before (at least not consciously, I believe), this approach didn’t work for me – therefore I only experienced a very, very bad film, that unsuccessfully tried to wed some gangster/heist comedy with some insane Looney Tunes-like humor. Spoiler alert: That didn’t work out, it just led to a catastrophic disaster.

(By the way, I watched it mostly in the original language [english]; the german dub is a bit more funny, because it uses some creative freedom in translation and sprinkles in some jokes that are not present in the original; may have been for the better, this time…)
★☆☆☆☆ 1/5 stars

Shadow (2018)

As I expected, defintely style over substance. And while it looks initialy astonishig, this quasi black-and white didn’t matter in terms of story, of course.

So, except from that, there were of course a (very) few nice fight scenes, some over-the-top action and a lot of the usual medieval chinese culture (to which I always have a hard time to connect) and a plot and characters I didn’t really care for.
★★☆☆☆ 2/5 stars

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Rewatch – Watched it again after a very long time; I do remember that I was pretty disappinted, as a teenager, seeing it the first time – after Pulp Fiction (and maybe even after Kill Bill?).

One can clearly see that it’s a low-budget debut film, but also the potential of Mr. Tarantino. So, keeping that in mind, it’s actually a cool little movie; just don’t expect a masterpeace.
★★★☆☆ 3/5 stars

Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le pacte des loups) (2001)

Rewatch – I believe I’ve watched it before, many years ago, and had a rather unsettled opinion of it in the past: Loved the look and feel, but felt a bit disappointed by the story back then.

Anyways, this one now was a new, dedicated viewing on Blu-ray – and man, what an experience it was this time!
It still looked wonderful; it’s a big genre-mix, but works seamlessly and well together. Highly recommended!
★★★★★ 5/5 stars

Come to Daddy (2019)

A black-humored and brutal little film, that offered quite a few twists and turns; liked it.
★★★★☆ 4/5 stars

The Green Knight (2021)

Astonishing visuals, but paced like a glacier and also with too many incoherent plot points. It has certain scenes and moments that look and feel good, but as a movie, it unfortunately simply didn’t do it for me.
★★☆☆☆ 2/5 stars

The Rundown (2003)

Well, good enough for a casual watch. It has a slimmer Rock, a nerve-racking Sean William Scott and the usual Christopher Walken parody in it, plus a handful of nice action scenes, but other than that, it was a miss for me: The rest of the film was uninspired and the humor didn’t click with me neither.
★★☆☆☆ 2/5 stars

Wind River (2017)

That was a positive suprprise: Although I’ve heard about this movie, and its praise, it was never on my watchlist. Good actors in a very tight and well-paced story that all comes toghether in a good way in the end. (The first half hour or so is a bit slow, but that’s OK, because it’s the setup and introduction phase).
★★★★☆ 4/5 stars

1922 (2017)

Same as “Wind River”: I’ve heard of it, but it was never high on my list. And again: Nice surprise.

Thomas Jane in a Stephen King story has worked before, and all the rest of this film was also very fine.

From the description and some reviews I expected an even bleaker tone (yeah well, it’s not a feel-good movie, but the presentation could have been made even darker, which luckily didn’t happen). By that, I also expected a more stretched and intimate play of just two characters, but it was abit more expansive, which I also liked very much.

So, a pretty good (meaning: grim, dark and bleak) psycho-drama/horror.
★★★★☆ 4/5 stars

Long Shot (2019)

I like both Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen, and they have a good chemistry in this one, but other than having a nice premise and some (expected) gross humor, it’s a pretty generic, run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. Not bad, quite entertaining at times, but also not a mandatory viewing.
★★★☆☆ 3/5 stars

TV

Future Man — Season 1, 2

What a pleasent suprise; some very silly and some very smart humor, with an interesting story and characters for fans of SF and time-travel-plots.
★★★★★ 5/5 stars

The Good Place — Season 4

The beginnng of this season dragged on for a couple of episodes, but the good feeling soon came back and the show concluded its final round with a good and very bittersweet ending. In total, a wonderful dramedy show – not perfect, but what in life is…?
★★★★☆ 4/5 stars

The Queen’s Gambit — Season 1

So, I finally gave in to the hype and watched it – or at least partially: Because I only viewed the first four of the seven episodes of this mini-series. The last three parts remain unwatched, I only read the summaries for it, to have a closure.

The whole endeavour just didn’t interest me after the setup. While the premise, the setting and the main actress was all fine for me, the rest wasn’t:
The actual arc is the usual rise-fall-rise/comeback trope. And the protagonist has some interesting aspects, but they are not explored well enough and none of the other characters got enough attention. So, there was nothing that really hooked me.
★★☆☆☆ 2/5 stars