Gretchen_X

Captivating opening scene(s). Pretty scary and suspenseful. The actress was perfect. Huge props for delivering the story in disjointed paranoid soliloquy. The eternal staircase was fun. Enjoyed details like a photograph changing from portrait to landscape orientation.

English Countryside in full summer splendour beautifully shot. There were times when the stillness was very surreal. It was more of an emotional ride than philosophical. I didn't worry about it making sense. Could go that way next time.

Recommended for thinkers.

I didn't know how/when it was made until the closing credits. Aha, that accounts for its eeriness and the impossibly empty London footage. (Brings to mind how much Danny Boyle musta paid to get London Bridge closed for 15 minutes in 28 Days Later).

So then I realised that the film totally captured the isolation of that semi-dystopian pandemic summer we all went through together.

...and hit YouTube for "Pilot dies, passenger lands King Air" on FS Mania channel with 9.8M views to date. I travelled as directed by my comrades in the IMDb reviewing community, to whom I am frequently grateful.

Ten minutes was more than enough to see where this one was going: cringeworthy Christian family clearly ratcheting up for some huge terrestrial drama to add filler, and some shocking technical and logistical bloopers on the horizon.

Not for me, thanks.

It's a great story (see the YouTube included, which is highly dramatic, by virtue of being true) but this movie version was never gonna get off the ground.

1 star.

If you like rambling, anecdotal pseudoscience devoid of real evidence then Chilbolton Incident is for you. This will seem smug and distainful, but it periodically make me laugh. Did the lady in purple actually say (paraphrase) "this is real science, in a lab, it's not rocket science"? Imagine being trapped in a room with her, under a creeping realisation that she is unstoppable. The other guy, the one who offered some kind of credentials, thought it would be OK to construct, on camera, his ad hoc hypothosis "It makes you think".

But hey, let's pass by the low hanging fruit. If the purpose of this film is to educate, it's a fail. I think it's most likely to be successful in preaching to the choir. Perhaps it's satire, and I failed to catch on.

The film's mission appears to be to convince the audience that this particular (Chilbolton) crop circle, unlike (nearly) all the others, which were made by humans, was made by, er, non-humans. In support of this mission is offered a selection of rather baffling claims about unreliably observed phenomena whose presence points to the impossibility of people having created this crop circle.

The logic goes that, in the wake of their heyday, most crop circles turned out to be handbuilt by nerds, but concurrently extra-terrestrials were making better ones, using extra-terristrial powers and techniques. It would've been nice to have a crop circle nerd in the film to give a bit of background about why they did it, rather than just referring to the 'ropes and plank' explanation, with a couple of faded photos of said nerds operating their laughably primitive tools. Despite showing aerial views of highly complex crop artwork whose construction has been owned by humans, it appears, according to this film, that there is a celiling of sophistication above which nerds cannot rise, despite having built stuff like the Hadron Collider. This makes no sense to me. Adaptation and development are the greatest of human qualities. Isn't going one better likely more human than alien? Prove me wrong, as the adage goes.

In any case, why would such technologically advanced beings choose to communicate with us by pressing patterns into field crops? We have radio, for example. I don't recall this being addressed.

One suggestion in the film, regarding the location of Chilbolton, seems to be that they were attracted to nearby Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles. Perhaps though I had become confused by the relentless equivocacy and the presenters urging me to think.

Anyway, I could go on and on. It's a mildly entertaining and relatively short (could've easily been shorter) watch but I would say not to be taken seriously as a balanced, well-researched and factually sound documentary. It's more anthropomorphic than anything else.

Two stars for audacity.

**RIDDLED WITH SPOILERS**

I watched this, for the third time since it was first broadcast, on YouTube, and still love it. What a contrast between the lightweight drama ITV is putting out now.

The ending is perfect when you consider what led up to it. It raises some philosophical questions about the nature of God which the viewer *should* be able to handle. It makes Judith, who throughout has been more sceptical and worldly wise than the rather innocent Messiah, the one to whom the solution is finally revealed. But not from God, from her own human mind. And it makes sense, because what greater sacrifice can there be than to not exist and also to have *never* existed. Retrospective existentialism, Madchester style.

It seems to me that some of the critics have no problem with God killing - or allowing to die - his own son but find the idea of his son's suicide distasteful/blasphemous. That makes Judith - a flawed but tough woman who practically orders him to execute his fate - god-like. But if suicide is a sin, what are we to make of Christ's submission to his own killing? And what does the dying ego make of that choice between passive and active sacrifice? I think Baxter, in those last minutes, comes to realise the purity of the latter; that the blame for this death will rest solely with HIM and not (as with Christ) humanity - whose sins no longer need to be atoned for. A world without sin has presumably always been the Christian goal, and Baxter realises the only way he can make that happen is by removing the very concept of sin. An ingenious quick fix against a ticking clock, when you think about it, and nothing like a cop-out. The whole story has worked toward this sublime orchestrated death of the ego.

There's more than a hint at the end that Judith has given birth to Baxter's child and that her husband, the previous faithful guardian, is happily cast in the 'Joseph' role. The story of that child is untold. But, in hindsight, who better to have the third testament revealed to them than the woman who has presumably just become impregnated with God's grandchild?

Marvellous stuff.

If you're a fan you don't have to read anything to know Daisy Jones and The Six borrowed quite a bit from Fleetwood Mac. And I find myself unable to review this series without reference to them. I think that's fair because it would impossible to make nostalgic music dramas without being heavily influenced by those (Rock Pop) bands which dominated that era.

It's basically a fictional version of that documentary about the making of (F Mac album) 'Rumours', including emotionally charged compositions and lyrical battles between band members, who are all to some extent entangled in the intensity. It's the classic love/hate story that produces some very fine music. If you've been in bands - especially on the road - you'll know how all this could happen.

The reason that's more than ok is because The Six do actually have the great songs. Maybe not as enduringly massive as F-Mac's but still, you can believe that they would have had success.

Riley Keogh is fabulous and more than equivalent to represent Stevie Nicks' dulcet tones. Billy is not as edgy as Lindsay Buckingham but that's OK. They even have the classy English girl on keyboards, although Suki Waterhouse's character Karen isn't the singer/songwriter that Christine McVie was. A less memorable bassist (sorry, John). And let's hear it for the ubiquitous fun-loving drummer!

It was funny, dramatic, authentic and a good story - and there were sufficient loose ends, as there are in life. Another IMDb user reviewer wrote about how the events may not be quite as we see them, and that's really worth considering.

Highly recommended for Pop music fans and hopeless romantics.

I've always thought Killing Joke were a bit special so wanted to see if there was anything worth learning from this documentary.

As it turns out the band have an interesting history, particularly with their Occultism background, and this kind of explains the power and shape of the music.

However 2.5 hours is waaay too long for a rockumentary and there was a lot of waffle it could've done without. As well, it must be a top contender in the worse movie sound awards. Much of the dialogue is drowned in soundtrack or lost in sinister rumble or is just plain badly recorded. There's no excuse for it unless you've only got found footage. Fortunately the music audio was OK. Unfortunately there wasn't enough of it.

The other problem is that if you're not a fan, you're not gonna follow the plot. Assumptions are made that the viewer already knows that A) followed B). And when events unfold via incomprehensible mumbling, well, good luck with that. Between the film's length and the crap audio, I found myself drifting off, because it couldn't make me care about what bloke 1 and bloke 2 were saying.

On the plus side, it was nice to get to know the lads, each of them characters essential to the tale and for the undeniable chemical reaction. A glimpse into the fiery mind of Jaz Coleman was fascinating, although, watching in 2022, the frequent references to 'energy' and such feel dated and a bit cheesy, pinned to that Gen X era . The earnest prophetic 'storm coming' bits at the end made me wonder if Jaz might today be a QAnonner. It's a kind of Magick.

Killing Joke are one of the sharpest and most original British bands ever, so it was definitely worth making a film about them. Maybe a better one than this though.

(The graphics/animation in the closing credits was great though.)

If you've read the 9/11 commission report, from which this film clearly takes its inspiration, you'll know how much serious botox-like drama has been injected into The Looming Tower. Still, the report, though a great work of literature, is in parts necessarily but incredibly dry, with its descriptions and explanations of the various and complex government agencies and US institutions. More counterterrorism layers and chains of command and meetings and directives than one can adequately absorb. That stuff is for the documentaries.

This series investigates and dramatises what went on behind the scenes among the intelligence, law enforcement and military in the years, months and days leading up to 9/11. It's a new angle. The plot sticks closely to the events covered by the report, but turns up the brightness on some of the facilitators. We have heroes and villains, some fictionalised. In reality Richard Clarke fought harder than John O'Neill or Robert Chesney, and Tenet was a plodder.

Unsurpringly, although quite real and some kind of player, Ali Soufan does not feature in the book. Without Tahar Rahim however, it would lapse into WASPs versus Muslims. Rahim is always captivating and manages in spite of some clumsy diversions to pull it off. The love interest brings a bit of colour, and informs what the life of a real world Soufan might be like.

The film, via the talents of actors like Tawfeek Barhom (as Khalid A-Mihdhar), is comfortable to explain but not excuse, and that's what gives it heart. As well, motivation makes the players multi-dimensional; you can believe in them.

It's hard to consider that the 9/11 plot could have been dismantled if an email had been read or a photograph had been shared. Bin Laden was obsessed with striking on US soil, so something was always looming. However this film plays a part in exploring what needs/needed to change in order to avoid horrors of this magnitude being repeated.

I found it engrossing, in spite of its flaws, which can dimmed in the light of the messages the film seeks to convey.

Massive kudos to every actor in the cast.

The set up is basically The Mentalist without the charm of Simon Baker nor the chemistry between Baker and Robin Tunney. Also without the elegant assistance of Amanda Righetti.

Lucifer is channelling the late Kenneth Williams and helping out the police because he loves the detective. I don't know what he did in the first two series but apparently he was less boring.

I understand it's not supposed to be serious but there is so little comic talent in the script that no overripe delivery can save it.

Not for me thanks.

Really liked this film. It surprised me. Watched it twice to enjoy the process and savour the bits that passed me by the first time. It bears closer inspection well.

Much good about this film has been said by other reviewers and I probably can't say it better. But I want to just confirm that if you're interested in the nature of reality on a low budget told with some darn fine acting you should put this on your watchlist.

I guess some people will see this as a masterpiece because it's edgy and bleak. I agree that there's enough going on to keep you watching, but that's partly to see if it will get better. The necessary style this movie is imitating belongs to a bygone era, where such technical effort and prowess would only be worth investing in a good story. There's no good story here.

The Lighthouse, for example, is comparable in genre but is a far better movie.

There's a 'concurrent arguments' script in one scene that's good, but for the most part it's kind of dull and punctuated with lame tropes (such as Londoners are all ignorant, Cornish fisherman are rugged and angry). The knot-tying and net fixing shots are weird and one can only guess it's a metaphor.

Then there's the acting. Patchy at best; melodramatic retro in one shot, low key contemporary impro the next. It feels cobbled together and disjointed and ponderous. There's a reason, you can't help thinking, why they don't make 'em like this anymore.

The ending in particular is unsatisfactory. I have no clue what happened.

If you're looking for something different, you are patient and earnest, and want to find out if the Mark Kermodes are right, give it a whirl. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Steer clear however if you want something shiny and engaging and think you might be a potential one-star, one-review person.

Reading the reviews about torture porn I wasn't sure if this film was going to be for me. It's not like the Aussies can't do a nasty bit of onscreen torture when they put their minds to it.

To be fair some of it was really heavy going, but nothing is explicit, and nothing qualifies as gratuitous. Instead, we are taken on a rollercoaster ride with the two (well, three) female characters as they engage with their common tormentor.

It's remarkable that none of the main characters is sympathetic in the traditional sense but the movie manages to elicit an intense emotional response. I cried at the end and was gripped throughout.

No, we don't learn much and it's not an intellectual masterpiece, but there's some fine acting and shooting which conjures a rare intensity of narrative within the bounds of this genre's plausibility.

Definitely worth a watch if you like an all-consuming thriller.

That's the first problem. It's just too hard to believe that a 250lb guy in a suit accidentally got left in the panelling and then sealed in. A practical joke by the ground crew? Who knows. Not the cast, for sure.

Far better would be some sort of sabotage plot whereby he was sealed in by an enemy agent in order to carry out dastardly deeds. I kept waiting for that to happen.

Actually I would've settled for 'I just really wanted to go to Mars'.

After that, as many other reviewers have explored, there are other severe difficulties.

It just seems a clumsy, inarticulate set up for the classic balloon debate, i.e. How to measure human worthiness/value and ensuing associated moral dilemmas.

Still, it all looked good and the acting was impressive. But there's no point putting an old story in front of a new set if your method of bringing them together is so flawed.

Let's face it, if you, or anyone on your team, have been pranked by a 4Chan meme you're not gonna see the funny side.

This was much funnier than the Pandemic Special, which was concerning because I bought the whole series when they'd only made one episode. Matt and Trey are back on form, hope the next episode comes out soon and blows up some more sacred cows of all colours.

Good to see too that the IMDb forums are alive and well in the User Reviews, where the 'found this helpful' is the new upvote.

The first 15 minutes were tense and held some promise, but then the disaster began. Disappointing is an understatement. There's a couple devoid of character whose problems I don't care about making stupid decisions in ridiculous nonsensical situations - how is anyone with an intellect supposed to engage with this drivel? The scathing reviews here say it all, and are hugely more entertaining. Did the people who gave this a 10 see the same movie as me?

Imagine 'The Turn of the Screw'. Halve it. Halve it again. Divide it by integrity and take away the moment you first thought of watching it.

Oh dear. They always take it out on the pets.

Not a great film. A mess really. Not much made sense, and anything that did was badly executed.

Diminuendo, as it turns out, is unpronouncable to the massess, and so is this film. As with a clumsy portmanteau, it seeks to be more than the sum of its parts. At times a soap opera with a B-list cast, at others a sci-fi thriller with supernatural notes, and finally touching on horror, it's rather bewildering, and as a result seems much longer than an hour and a half. It reminded me 'F/X Murder By Illusion', but without the pace. And there are moments from Richard Attenborough's 'Magic' - from the doll.

On the plus side, it's original. But many of these new ideas make no sense, and fall flat. It feels like it's too ambitious, like it casts aside plot development and characterisation in the pursuit of the dramatic punchline. The central premise of the film, Cello's death, makes the least sense, as we are given no background nor cause except the briefest, badly handled scripted exposition. "Oh, right, OK then", we are meant to say. I could provide a long list of plot situations which will make you shout or lol. The first-meeting sex scene, for example, is a huge stretch (pun intended).

There are a couple of good performances, but the better actors struggle with a clunky and often cliche-ridden script, and the central character's weathered and real world appearance condemns the rest of the cast to skin-deep superficiality. Some of them are more plastic than the robot. On the other hand, I was occasionally tempted to think it doesn't take itself all that seriously, and that there is some kind of buried social commentary about the movie business. Let's hope so.

It won't be the best film you'll ever see, but it might give some food for thought about future possibilities. Unfortunately the future possibilities at the start of this film were never realised.

OK, so I hit fast forward in the pie scene. Just to see if it would end. I wondered what kind of pie it was, and whether she was eating the crust. I thought about comfort eating as a symptom of grief. In the end I saw the pie as some kind of weird metaphor.

A bit later it felt like the film was building to a poignant close so I thought it must be a quite pretentious short. I imagined how mad all those NetFlix people would be about that. So I hit pause and saw that the slider was only half way through. And then I thought, well, apparently it has a LOT more to say, and I was curious. So I stuck with it, and I am very, very glad that I did.

My advice to anyone considering watching A Ghost Story is this. If you are good with sitting, staring and waiting, you're gonna like this. You will be rewarded with one of the best jump scares I've experienced in a long time. If you like the 'Jupiter and Beyond The Infinite' bit of '2001', this is gonna be your bag. On the other hand, if you don't like to wait - or you don't like left field - give it a miss. Then you won't have to go to the trouble of writing one of these helpful "*1/10" reviews. But I will say this: 'A Ghost Story' is full of surprises. It's a time travel film. You will get lost and then find your way again. You will probably say "Aha!" at some point. You'll realise, like the party people, that nothing matters, but that simultaneously everything matters. It's certainly not everyone's cup of tea. But it does have something profound to say and in a way I haven't seen before. So settle down on the big fat couch, put your feet up and enjoy the opportunity to just sit and stare.

There are not many films which have had me spellbound. This is one of the few. Not for those who like action which satisfactorily resolves dilemma and satisfying heroics, The Survivalist examines in subtle detail some of the most fundamental issues ever discussed in drama; the 'big' subjects of faith, betrayal, fear, love and self-preservation. Where Shakespeare used lots of words, this uses glances, reflections and movements. It is amazing how so much can be conveyed in this way; the viewer is allowed to realise his/her intelligence and aptitude for mind reading. In some movies, some things are better left unsaid. The actors are just brilliant, in particular the central character who portrays very effectively the behaviours of someone who is forgetting how to communicate. It made me refelct upon the myriad ways of communication we take for granted now and what might happen if we were forced to live without them.

I feared it would be as bleak as The Road but it operates on a more intimate, and therefore manageable scale, which to me makes it more accessible. It also has a variation in atmosphere, an escape from relentless gloom. We are drawn into an intense domestic drama and kept guessing from beginning to end.

I would highly recommend this film to anyone who likes to be to be immersed in a savage and tender human drama with room to ponder and reflect. In fact if you fall into that category, I would URGE you to seek out this gem.

A small team of investigators head off to a typical English village to find out what's been going on in the church. Apparently The Vatican are the ones asking the questions, which is questionable in that it all seems very Anglican. Still, nice to know that the His Holiness is willing to allocate resources to the C of E ; clearly the manifestion of Evil is a universal issue.

It's really the familar 'Most Haunted' style set up, but with some new angles, particularly with the technology. And there's the sceptic guy/veteran guy double act, which is played with good humour and minimal exposition. Later on explanations are offered as characters' suggestions and therefore explorable, not the clumsily implausible to be found in lesser works.

The supernatural occupiers, rather than wanting to communicate, seem to be mostly interested in throwing stuff around. Spooky but grainy visuals which don't tread on the toes of your imagination abound.

The script is witty and interesting. In a particularly good scene where one character is reading from a dusty old witness journal the material is exceptionally well conceived and poetic. These few moments are worth your full attention. If you like that sort of thing.

I also enjoyed the photography - scenes from the front of a speeding car down a narrow lane put the viewer right in the middle of the action - again, something which someone appears to have taken care over.

What I found most surprising was the quality of the acting. In most cases films in this bracket only have the budget for one decent actor, so to find two or three among the tombstones was a bonus.

It's a pretty much a sausagefest, the only exception I spotted a background girl who went to the aid of a boy in cameo. Unusual these days. But this just means the screaming is lower pitch.

The plot unfolds in a measured way while the action accelerates; the final scenes are a bit of an endurance test, especially if like me you have a bit of a phobia. It is testimony to the excellent execution that I became very uncomfortable and internally urged them to call a retreat, because the way back was evaporating. That such a location exists is in itself a kind of horror.

Fans of low budget goreless Brit fodder will have this gem in their collection.

I hope to see lots more like this from Elliot Goldner.

Two highly irritating children are packed off to stay with the grandparents they've never met and know very little about while Mum flies off on a cruise with the new man. What could possibly go wrong?

There are some interesting little twists and turns in this movie, alongside the big ones, and the unpredictability of the weirdness keeps it taut. As it turns out, although you start out wanting the kids to just die (especially the rappin' one), they've got their traumatic reasons. Watch out for them conquering those fears at the end; that's their redemption.

The generation gap thrown up by this family union seems to be a couple of centuries - that's how it works. As it plays out it's hard to say what will happen next; even the usual late escalation is not a forgone conclusion. There is more of an unfolding of information than a loaded spring, and glimpses into the unseen provide the creepiness and make it hard to see ahead. No apparent motive for the strangeness emerges until hinted at in the final scenes, by which time it doesn't matter that everything was nonsense.

There's a refreshing, quirkly flavour to this movie, a spark or two of originality quite necessary when it's done on the cheap, and nothing too much like anything else. If you like psychological, low key horror that's out of the ordinary with forgiveable flaws, this is will probably satisfy.

With such an interesting premise I was expecting something spectacular, but as it turns out WWZ is truly ideal Cinema Sins fodder. Happily, I saw it with someone who explained how great the book from which the movie takes its title (and not much else) is. Thanks, Brad. You sold it like a fragrance.

Starting with the effect of an event, and not the cause, arouses the curiousity. The cause is revealed to us alongsde the character and it's a weird one. What follows is how out of his initial confusion he adapts to manage the situation, and what that tells us about his character.

This movie is a bit different, so if you like accessible but original you'll be glad you watched it. There's also a bit of opportunity to think about how memory and learned response can affect behaviour.

Strong performances from the main characters and great consistency from the rest You'll see what I mean.

I found it to be a fine blend of all my favourite genres.

This is a very long film so I recommend breaking it up into two or more chunks and leaving some time for digestion in between. It has lots of interesting ideas and I guarantee even the best-read will learn something and have a couple of "Hmmmm" moments, if not an "Aha!" one.

Curtis has a way of imposing a narrative upon your active perception using images, music and sounds in ways you would expect from, ahem, a film maker. He even casts himself as a journalist, rather than a storyteller. As a result, you are always aware that you are being manipulated, just like the manufactured reality discussed/presented in the film. You are the audience of the audience.

Proceeding in this spirit, though many people have found Hypernormalisation depressing and frightening, it should not take you anywhere you haven't been before (if you are over 50 anyway). Barbarism in the pursuit of power is not peculiar to the 20th and 21st centuries, it is just a lot bigger and it's online. Hypernormalisation is not for the squeamish, but when you become aware that you have developed a level of immunity to these myriad images of horror, you get to understand what normalisation means. Neither is it for the faint hearted; the target audience may be those who are already deeply cynical.

But Curtis is a clever film maker, let him entertain you.

This film is very confusing. Is it an action/disaster movie in search of an enabling premise of biblical proportions, or is it a Christian promo keeping it real by engaging impressive special effects?

Many reviewers urge potential viewers not to watch this movie, and it certainly would not have been worth paying for. But on a slow Thursday night on Freeview it does have entertainment potential, partly for the aeroplane action (always a winner for me) and to watch Nicholas Cage wrestling with the script and to keep a straight face. My companion summed it all up with 'Nicholas Cage isn't an entertainer, is he? He's an actor, he will literally take ANYTHING for the money'.

It occurred to me that it might well be satirical. In particular because the Muslim gentleman, despite being very nice, was so obviously 'left behind' for picking the wrong god. For the atheist there's no better shot than that. The totally LOL chucking of the midget down the evacuation slide' was equally un-PC. Which is great fun these days. A lot of people think the book of Revelation is jolly good farce.

Perhaps someone said, 'What if half the passengers on a plane just disappeared? What would happen? We could have fun with that!' Plane stories are great because they provide isolated, trapped and cut-off groups of strangers primed to become obligingly hysterical. And instead of aliens, time warps or anything covered in The Twilight Zone, they went with mass ascension, just for shits and giggles.

And the end, (which is 'just the beginning' according to the more damaged half of the daddy/daughter issue that apocalypse movies are currently so fond of) is just an absolute gem. The fires of Hell, caused by the sudden absence of the God's people who stop things catching on fire, appear to be waiting for those left behind. In secular Britain, we'd still have about 70 per cent of the population left to recover civilisation, and quite a few less quite annoying people to make it harder.

For all the aforementioned comedy moments I give it a goodhearted 3 stars.