Tag Archives: Netflix

Movie Review – The Old Guard

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TL;DR – A solid action flick, with an interesting premise, that lands from start to finish.     

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Awards –

Nominated: Fascinating Worldbuilding.

The Old Guard. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review – I think it is no surprise that I like a good action film. Add an exciting premise, and compelling characters and I am there for the ride. Well, I have not seen a compelling action film since I went into lockdown, but I am glad to say this all changes today.

So to set the scene, we open in on Marrakesh, Morocco where a lady called Andy (Charlize Theron) walks through the market, stalked by someone on a motorcycle. Thankfully, it is was an old friend Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), who is here with the rest of the team with a proposition. A former CIA contact Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) needs some help, a group of school girls have were kidnapped in Juba, South Sudan and no one else can help but her and her team. In a surgical strike, they take out the camp where the girls are kept only to find it was all a setup. Gunned down in a hail of bullets, this should be the end, but moments later they wake up and catch the would-be murders in a storm of their own. At the same moment in Afghanistan, a marine Nile (KiKi Layne) is leading a search for a bomb maker when she is stabbed only to wake up without a scratch.  

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Movie Review – Nobody Knows I’m Here (Nadie Sabe Que Estoy Aquí)

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TL;DR – A haunting look at the damage that fame can do set in the beautiful world of the Chilean coast.    

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Nobody Knows I'm Here (Nadie Sabe Que Estoy Aquí). Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

Fame, it is a thing that many people want, and in the world of Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok it is almost more obtainable than in any other point in history. However, fame can come with a cost, fame can come with damage, and fame can have lasting effects. Today we look at a film that explores these issues and the legacy that can leave in their wake.

So to set the scene, a child musical prodigy Memo (Lukas Vergara) had a lot of hope at one point but now all grown up Memo (Jorge Garcia) spends time breaking into houses and not doing much else. The rest of his time is spent working on his uncle’s Mr Braulio’s (Luis Gnecco) sheep farm on a coastal island of Southern Chile. His past haunts Memo as the damage of his youth lives through every part of his life.  

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TV Review – The Floor is Lava Season 1

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TL;DR – While not as binge-able as some of its competitors, it is still a bunch of fun with a ridiculous premise.  

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

The Floor is Lava. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

As a young person, I think everyone has played ‘The Floor is Lava‘ much to the castigation of our parents as that one fragile item becomes a casualty of the chaos. So it is almost surprising that someone has not tried to turn it into a competition show before, well now we get to see if it can work or if it is something best left to the imagination.

So to set the scene, three teams enter into a room full of lava (red coloured water) with a set of themed obstacles between the entrance and exit. We have a basement (museum), a bedroom, a planetarium, a study and a kitchen. There are multiple routes through the room, some harder than others with objects throughout that can make things easier. But it would be best if you were careful because one slip and you’re in the water, I mean lava, and the longer you take, the more the steps slip into the red making everything harder.

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Movie Review – Da 5 Bloods

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TL;DR – A powerful film that hurt to watch at times, but I am glad that I did.    

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a post-credit moment

Awards:

Nominated: Explosive Action & The Emotion

Da 5 Bloods. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

There have been a lot of films set during the Vietnam War or explores its aftermath. It is not a noble war like WW2 in people’s minds, it was bloody, unnecessary, and it left shockwaves throughout American society, that we are still living through today. How do you capture a war like that, well some have done it through sceptical, some have done it through horror, and there was that one time was a flying elephant. Today I look at a film that has all of that, okay not the elephant part, while hitting the realities and legacy of the Vietnam War.  

So to set the scene, we open in on a montage of Black America and their experiences in war, specifically Vietnam War or the American War as it is known in Vietnam. This is where we get a crash course on the War from start to finish through a lens we don’t always see. We jump to today in Ho Chi Minh City today where four old friends come together again in a country they once fought in, a place full of memories but also somewhere that has gone through a lot of changes. Paul (Delroy Lindo), Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), Otis (Clarke Peters) & Eddie (Norm Lewis) have come back to Vietnam for one reason, to find the body of one of their fallen comrades Stormin’ Norman (Chadwick Boseman). However, there may also be a whole lot of gold from the war on the line as well.

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Movie Review – Mutiny of the Worker Bees (Rebelión de los Godínez)

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TL;DR – This is a film of two halves, one that really works, and one that really doesn’t 

 Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Review – Today we get to review a film out of Mexico that delves into the world of office workplaces. A place of conflict, love, war, and comedy. It is here where we see the best and the worst of ourselves and others and it can be both a metaphorical and literal riot at times, and a bit frustrating at others.

So to set the scene, we open in on a city street in Mexico as someone in a mascot outfit walks down the street to the sounds of Staying Alive. He is very popular with everyone as they line up to take selfies with him right up until an elderly man shots him in the head with a t-shirt gun. It is here where we meet Omar Buendía (Gustavo Egelhaaf) the man behind the mascot outfit and his Abuelo (Alejandro Suárez) the man behind the gun. Well, Omar’s Abuelo has a minor heart attack, so has to step away from his job forcing Omar to find a steady white-collar job. Well, welcome to Relo Tech, a world of extremes … also a really toxic work environment.

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Movie Review – The Wrong Missy

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TL;DR – An interesting premise, but I don’t think the film ever lives up to it.    

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

The Wrong Missy. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

We have all sent a text message to the wrong person before and had that mortified realisation, well what would happen if you had made that wrong text and didn’t know about it. This is a really interesting set up for a film that gives you a lot of avenues to explore. Well, one of those avenues is hard MA15 comedy, which might not be my first choice but here we are today.

So, we open in on Tim (David Spade) as he is meeting someone on a first date only to find that the women he has been set up on a blind date with is married to Roman Reigns. Of course just before he gets his head beat in his real blind date Missy (Lauren Lapkus) pops in to tell him she set it all up. Well, the first date deteriorates from there and includes a short sword, an escape out of a bathroom window, and a broken ankle. Well three months after that disaster he is running through an airport when he collides into a woman called Missy (Molly Sims) in an airport and they immediately clicked together, the first person since his marriage fell apart. Well the company retreat is coming up and his ex-fiancé Julia (Sarah Chalke) is bringing her new beau Rich (Chris Witaske), so Tim takes a chance and invites Missy to Hawaii … and I think you can tell from the title what happens.

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Movie Review – Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend

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TL;DR – A better use of the ‘choose your own adventure’ structure but it still shows the flaws with the design     

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene (bar playing the film again)

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

A while ago, Netflix dropped this weird little experiment onto its service, an episode of Black Mirror where you got to pick the direction of the story. Bandersnatch was an interesting experiment and a lot of people had fun with it but walked away from the experience feeling more than a little hollow. Well, Netflix has taken a second crack at the formula, this time with a show that could not be more different.

So to set the scene, Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) is getting married, since the end of the series, she has found love with the equally adorkable Prince Frederick (Daniel Radcliffe). Things are looking up and up for Kimmy, right until she discovers an old book in her backpack Lucy (Stephanie D’Abruzzo) of a chose your own adventure novel (foreshadowing). However, the book was loaned out from the library after she had been taken, so it could not be hers. Were there other kidnapped women out there? Well, there is only one person to ask … the Reverend (Jon Hamm) himself.

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Movie Review – Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics

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TL;DR – An interesting exploration of Psychedelics through personal stories but it didn’t quite sit well with me at times.      

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit and end credit scene

Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –


If there is one policy area that has received more attention than any other in recent years/decades/centuries it is that of drugs. Governments across the world have tried everything from the death penalty to throwing up their hands to turning a blind eye and all in between I mean, America is still fighting a War on Drugs for little to no effect. Well, how do you approach an issue like this, well one way is to actually talk to the people involved. This is the documentary that we explore today, though I should preface this goes into depth with the experience of drug and it is a hard R rating for a reason and you should know that going in.

So to set the scene, Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics is a documentary that talks to people in the arts sphere about their experiences with drugs of the psychedelic variety. This documentary is broken up in several different ways, there are long-form interviews with people like Sting, where the documentary animates their stories, there are a wide range of talking heads from musicians, comedians, actors, and more, while also having old school educational videos (both real and created), while Nick Offerman pops in occasional as a teacher type figure.

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TV Review – Win the Wilderness

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TL;DR – This is a fascinating twist on the competition show format because it has real stakes that ground everything.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Win the Wilderness. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

I’ve watched a lot of competition shows in my time, everything from trapping people on an island and watching them pick each other off, to sitting and loving people building Lego constructions. However, it has been a long time since I have watched something new, well today we have just that with the joint Netflix/BBC show Win the Wilderness.  

So to set the scene, in the deep in the Alaskan wilderness is a house on Ose Mountain, it is far from the nearest town and can only be accessed by plane. Living on Ose Mountain are Duane and Rena who built the house with their bare hands. However, Duane and Rena are getting too old to be able to have the energy to maintain the property and it is time to give their legacy to someone else. So, six couples from the United Kingdom Matt and Rachel, Mark and Emily, Chris and Tina, Theo and Bee, Laura and Jerome, and Pete and Jane have flown into central Alaska with one thing on their minds, to prove that they can continue that legacy.

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Movie Review – Tigertail (Hǔwěi, 虎尾)

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TL;DR – A methodical and sad film at times while still holding onto that one bit of hope    

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Tigertail (Hǔwěi, 虎尾). Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

Of the many types of films I watch, it has been quite a while since I sat down and watched a small contemplative film that slowly unfolds over its run time. Well, that changed today with our film Tigertail, a film that feels autobiographical even though I have no idea if it is or not because its focus of characters is that good.

So to set the scene, we open in on a young child running through the rice fields of central Taiwan, he mostly alone but he finds a moment of happiness when he runs into a local girl. However, as we jump to the present we discover that the years have not been entirely kind to Grover (Tzi Ma) as he is driving home from the airport by his daughter Angela (Christine Ko) after attending his mother’s funeral back in Taiwan. There is an instant distance between the two, with each side wanting to help but not knowing how to proceed.

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