Wednesday, 31 August 2022

Klaus Schulze: Silhouettes (2018)


Klaus Schulze - Silhouettes

KS Album 59

Track Listing:

1. Silhouettes 15:41
2. Der Lange Blick Zurück 22:07
3. Quae Simplex 21:47
4. Châteaux faits de vents 15:08

Rating: 4 Stars

This is the 59th solo album recorded by Klaus Schulze. We've been waiting a long time for it. It's Klaus Schulze's first solo album with newly recorded studio music since "Shadowlands" in 2013. On that album he had a few unnamed guest musicians. The last album that he made as a pure solo effort, without any other musicians, was "Kontinuum" in 2007.

In the liner notes Klaus refers to "Silhouettes" as a private concert. By that I assume that he played the music at home spontaneously, with a minimum of mixing afterwards; maybe no mixing at all. That was the way he made his early albums, such as "Timewind" in 1975.

The first two tracks are very majestic, as if played in a cathedral. They're slow and heavy (in a positive sense), although the second track includes a short sequencer interlude. "Quae Simplex" is a lighter piece with a simple sequencer rhythm. "Châteaux faits de vents" is a slow piece to end the album.

This isn't a great album, but it's a solid piece of work.

Masha and the Bear 1.1.3 - One Two Three! Light The Christmas Tree!


This episode was first broadcast on 9th January 2009.

It's only the third episode, and it's Christmas already. If Bear isn't allowed to sleep, at least he can have fun and celebrate.


Bear only has one visitor for Christmas. You can guess who. Just look at that beautiful picture she's drawn for him. It's better than any Christmas card you could buy.


Masha is amazed by the decorations on Bear's Christmas tree.


But this is what it looks like a few minutes later. Masha shouldn't light fireworks indoors!


Santa Claus is on his way to deliver presents, but he's had an accident.


Luckily Bear finds Santa and rescues him. Masha just watches. It looks like she's eyeing the presents.


Santa is taken back to Bear's house to recover, but he's too sick to continue on his rounds.


No problem. Bear offers to deliver the presents.


But what's that Masha has on her head? Santa cast a magic spell to change her clothes, and it looks like he's changed her hair as well.


One more photo, because she's so cute. But she shouldn't be dragging her hair in the snow.


Santa rewards Bear by using magic to restore his Christmas tree. It looks even better than before. And the day ends with a fireworks display. It's a Christmas to remember.



The Christmas Song

It’s our favorite tradition
To get gifts that Santa brought.
Santa did complete his mission
And found out who’s nice, who’s not.
We’re expecting lots of presents,
Cannot wait for Christmas Eve,
But it’s better to be pleasant
And to give than to receive.

Tuesday, 30 August 2022

Fast & Furious 6 (5 Stars)


The Fast & Furious films keep getting better as they go along. The action is getting more exciting and more exaggerated. The last 40 minutes of this film are totally over the top. A car chase including a high speed tank? Another car chase on a motorway with a plane trying to take off while it's being attacked by cars? I can't say that these car/tank/plane chases are realistic, but they're exciting beyond words.

At the end of the last film Dominic Toretto, Brian O'Connor and the rest of their gang walked away with $100 million each. Now they've retired from their lives of crime, living comfortably in countries that have no extradition treaty with the USA. Brian is married to Dom's sister Mia, and they have a baby son together. So what can happen to pull them out of retirement?

There's been a series of thefts by criminals using high speed cars. DSS agent Hobbs approaches Dom and asks for his help in catching the criminals. Normally Dom wouldn't agree to help, but Hobbs tells him that his girlfriend Letty, presumed dead until now, is one of the criminal gang. Dom assembles a team to do the job, almost the same team that he worked with in the last film. The two guys are missing who could only speak Spanish. I don't miss them, I've forgotten their names already. Having less characters makes the film tighter and more exciting.


These six are easy to remember: Han, Tej, Gisele, Dom, Brian and Roman.

Hobbs promises a complete pardon to all the team members if they succeed in capturing lhe leader of the criminal gang, a mercenary called Owen Shaw. He's stealing the parts needed to assemble a device that can shut down the power of a whole country for 24 hours. Okay, let's suspend disbelief here. Assuming that such a device exists, why 24 hours? Why not a week or a month or indefinitely? And why are the components scattered at random places around the world, like Moscow, London and Spain? It's hardly feasible, but let's not argue about it. It makes a good story.


Letty was recruited for Shaw's team after losing her memory in the accident that almost killed her. I've never understood memory loss. Is it really possible to simply forget everything after getting knocked on the head?

There's only one car race in the film, a race through the busy streets of London at night. Its inclusion in the film seems artificial. It's a gratuitous car race to satisfy the regular viewers who've grown used to the races since the first film. However, it seems like the franchise is slowly drifting away from the illegal car race scene into standard action films. I'd say that the first four films were car race films, the fifth film was a transition, and the action films begin with the sixth film.

This film is nine years old, but I'll still avoid spoilers. Two members of Dom's team die, so they won't be appearing in the next film. Which two? You probably already know, but I'll keep my mouth shut.

I've already saw the seventh film in the cinema seven years ago, and I still remember how thrilling it was. I need to watch it again soon.

Success Rate:  + 2.9

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Masha and the Bear 1.1.2 - Don't Wake Till Spring!


This episode was first broadcast on 8th January 2009.

The second episode of "Masha and the Bear" deals with Bear – that's his name! – hibernating for the winter. After watching this episode I did some research on the subject. Bears don't hibernate as strictly as other animals. During the winter months they don't eat or drink, and they stay in their dens, but they don't necessarily sleep the whole time. In that respect this episode is true to life. Bear locks his food away, boards his door shut and lies down on his bed to rest until spring.


It'll be a quiet few months for the retired circus bear. But he's forgotten his new friend called Masha. She comes in and wants to play. She bounces on his bed while he's trying to sleep.


There's no peace when Masha is in the house!

Eventually Bear persuades her to be quiet, but she complains that she's hungry. There evidently isn't enough food in the railway station where she lives. Bear gets up and cooks a fine meal for her.


But the cooking lasts too long. Masha falls asleep on Bear's bed.


There's no way Bear can sleep now. He takes the food up to a hungry wolf sitting on the hill. We'll see a lot of the wolves in future episodes.


After they've finished eating they sit together howling at the Moon. Poor Bear. He won't be getting any sleep this winter. His life of peace and quiet ended the day he met Masha.

This is a beautifully crafted episode, as always. How can anyone not like this series?

Monday, 29 August 2022

Beast (3½ Stars)


Idris Elba plays Dr. Nate Samuels, a man trying to reconnect with his teenage daughters. A year earlier he and his wife separated, but shortly afterwards she developed cancer and died. Nate's daughters are bitter with him for not being at his wife's side in her final months. Now he's taking them to South Africa to visit the village where she was born.

Nate and his friend Martin (played by Sharlto Copley) visit a wild life reserve. What they don't know is that poachers stole lion cubs the previous day. As a result a lion has gone wild and is killing every human he can find, men, women and children. After a surprise attack by the lion, Martin is stranded and Nate crashes his jeep. They have to fight for survival while being hunted by the lion.

This is a terrifying story, realistically told. At several points in the film I jumped in my seat when the lion attacked. But somehow I had the impression Idris Elba wasn't getting into his role. He's one of my favourite actors, but in "Beast" his performance seems flat. The emotional background to the story could have been played better. In contrast, Sharlto Copley's performance was excellent. Overall, the film was disappointing. It didn't live up to my expectations.

I'm planning to see another new film with Idris Elba later this week. Maybe you can guess what it is. I hope it's better.

VFB Stuttgart Season 2022 Match 4


1. FC Köln – VfB Stuttgart

Date: 28th August 2022, 3:30 pm

Result: 0 – 0

I said last week that VfB Stuttgart needed a win today to uplift the team's motivation. That didn't happen. They left today's match with a goalless draw. Attempts have been made to defend this result – "At least we didn't lose" – but let's be honest: this is a disappointing result. After four games VfB Stuttgart is still without a win.

The boys from Stuttgart started the game with a bang. There was an immediate attack. Silas passed the ball to the captain, Wataru Endo, who narrowly missed the goal. For the next 20 minutes VfB kept up the pressure. Ball after ball had to be stopped by Cologne's goalkeeper. If only this momentum had been maintained. The attacks became weaker towards the end of the first half. In the final minutes Cologne had some goal chances, but the score was still 0:0 at half time.

The second half began just as the first half did, with attacks by VfB mostly led by Silas. (In my opinion he was man of the match, but I admit that I'm biased). After the first five minutes Cologne began to put on the pressure, and the match turned in their favour. In the 56th minute Stuttgart's Luca Pfeiffer received a red card for a hard tackle against Timo Hübers. The commentator, who'd been biased towards Cologne for the whole match, called it a brutal foul that should never have happened. I didn't see it that way. To me it looked like an accident that should only have received a yellow card. Pfeiffer was attempting to play the ball, but Hübers got in the way and Pfeiffer couldn't avoid kicking Hübers' leg. But the referee's word is final, and VfB was down to 10 men.

From this point on VfB played more defensively, not wanting to lose the game. This continued for almost 30 minutes. Then VfB began to put everything into a final attack. Despite being a man down, it looked like the VfB players were everywhere. It still wasn't enough. The game ended in a draw.

Stuttgart should have won the game. Even the biased commentator has to admit that Stuttgart was the stronger team. But at the end of the game all that matters is the result written on paper. It's not about should haves or could haves; VfB Stuttgart didn't win. 

The draw means that VfB is still in 12th position in the league table. That's a dangerous position in the early days of the season. Stuttgart needs a win next week to get out of the danger zone.

Sunday, 28 August 2022

Klaus Schulze: Eternal (2017)


Klaus Schulze - Eternal

KS Album 58

Track Listing (CD 1):

1. Rhodes Romance 47:41
2. Minority Report 13:33
3. Mongolia 18:23

Track Listing (CD 2):

1. Schrittmacher 13:35
2. Ion/Andromeda 16:07
3. Andromeda: The Grand Trance 41:09

Rating: 5 Stars

The album's full title is "Eternal; The 70th Birthday Edition". As the title says, it was released to celebrate Klaus Schulze's 70th birthday on 4th August 2017. It's interesting that the photo used on the cover is an old photo. Doesn't Klaus want to show himself as he looks now? It's an edited version of the photo that was used for "Mirage" in 1977, when he had long hair. I remember when I had long hair, many, many years ago.

This is the 58th solo album recorded by Klaus Schulze, but it's not an album of newly recorded music. "Rhodes Romance" is an alternate version of "The Rhodes Violin" from the bonus CD of "Shadowlands" (2013). The first 39 minutes of the two tracks are identical, after which they develop in different directions. "Minority Report" and "Mongolia" are previously unreleased tracks from 2001 and 2007 respectively. All three tracks on the first CD are relaxed, good listening to chill out.

The tracks on the second CD were all recorded in 2004. "Schrittmacher" was previously only available on a sampler called "Tasty Tracks". Tasty tracks? That sounds like the name of a disgusting pop sampler with the latest songs from American rappers. In actual fact it was a collection of songs by seven musicians, all of whom were using the Schrittmacher sequencer. The sampler is long out of print and I haven't been able to find the other six tracks online. All I can say is that Klaus Schulze is the King of Sequencers, so I doubt the other music is up to the standard of this brilliant track.

"Ion/Andromeda" and "Andromeda: The Grand Trance" are the two tracks from "Ion", the promotional CD that was given away at the Frankfurt Musikmesse in 2004. A heavily remixed version was included as a bonus track on the rerelease of "Le Moulin de Daudet" in 2005, but purists among Klaus Schulze's were screaming out for an official release of the original version. They only had to wait 12 years. These two tracks are mixed together as a single track, but they have distinct musical styles. The second track is faster than the first and more heavily sequencer-driven.

The whole album is outstanding, with the exception of "Mongolia". I admit that I didn't like "Rhodes Romance" when it started, but after the first 20 minutes I was hooked. The best track (in my opinion) is "Schrittmacher".

I still know what you did last summer (5 Stars)


Sometimes I despair of the critics. This film has a 7% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I haven't checked the rating for all the films in my top 100, but I believe that this is the lowest rating of any film in my list. I don't understand it. I consider it a brilliant film, and I'm willing to defend it to anyone who wants to sit with me and argue about it. The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus is

"Boring, predictable, and bereft of thrills or chills, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is exactly the kind of rehash that gives horror sequels a bad name".

Ouch! If I were one of the revered critics whose reviews are used on the site, I would never associate myself with such a consensus. On the other hand, the score is 7%, not 0%, so it means that one critic in 14 gave the film a favourable review. It's not all bad.

But to go through that consensus point by point:

1) Boring? Not at all. Even after watching it many times over I still sit on the edge of my seat.

2 ) Predictable? Maybe, but who cares? A film doesn't need plot twists to be good.

3) Bereft of thrills? Come on, the film is thrilling from beginning to end.

4) Bereft of chills? Nonsense! The film becomes increasingly scary towards the end.

5) A rehash? No. Sequels have to walk a narrow line between repeating the original story and adding new elements. It's possible to go too far in one direction or the other, but "I still know what you did last summer" keeps a good balance.

My only consolation is that the film was a box office success (success rate +1.5), though not as successful as the first film (success rate + 5.4).


When I lived in England I had good friends that I was able to discuss films with. We could share our views on a semi-intellectual level. I'm missing that since moving to Germany six years ago. I have friends here, but our discussions usually only go as far as "I like it" or "I don't like it". I need to encourage more active discussions in meetings with the Stuttgart Cinema Club.

Success Rate:  + 1.5

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Saturday, 27 August 2022

Masha and the Bear 1.1.1 - How They Met


Two years ago I wrote about the Russian TV series "Masha and the Bear", and I said I felt tempted to review the series, episode by episode. I soon changed my mind. I'd never reviewed any TV series in detail. After my experience writing about "Smallville" I've decided to start at last. It's a relatively small series, with only 92 episodes of six minutes each. I've watched the episodes with my grandson Oliver many times over in random order, but now I intend to watch them in order. When I say "in order", I mean the order in which they've been put in Netflix. This isn't the same order that they were originally broadcast on Russian television, but it's close enough. Netflix has put the episodes in groups of three.


The first episode, "How they met", was first broadcast on 7th January 2009 and introduces the main characters. Masha is a young girl who lives in a disused railway station. The series' creator, Oleg Kuzovkov, says that she's three years old, but she seems too precocious for that age. I'd estimate her age as closer to five or six. Why does she live alone? That's a question we shouldn't ask. It's a fantasy, a fairy tale, so we shouldn't ask about her parents. She doesn't live completely alone. She shares her home with a dog, a goat, a pig and a few hens.


While wandering through the forest she comes upon the house of a brown bear, who also lives alone. He used to be a performer in the Moscow Circus, but now he's retired. He wants to live a quiet life without any disturbances, so Masha is a shock to him. She's playful and mischievous. He's unable to calm her down. His feelings towards her are mixed. At times he's so annoyed that he wants to be rid of her, but in his loneliness he's happy to have her around and develops feelings for her. In the future episodes we rarely see Masha at home, she's always at the bear's house. Maybe I should call him Bear with a capital B.

Is "Masha and the Bear" a children's programme? Yes and No. It's amusing to small children, especially the slapstick scenes, but it's very cleverly written with scenes that only adults can understand. If you insist on calling it a children's programme, it's the best children's programme ever made. Oliver has sat watching it for hours, ever since he was three. I always watched his videos over his shoulder, and "Masha and the Bear" fascinated me from the start. I could see that it's more than a normal children's programme.

Despite the episodes only lasting six minutes each, there's gradual character development as the series continues. I'll write about the characters as they appear. Some are regulars, while others only appear rarely, but there's continuity.

If you haven't yet watched "Masha and the Bear", I strongly recommend it. Watch it with your children or watch it by yourself. It's worth it. "Masha and the Bear" is the best TV series ever to come out of Russia.




As you can see, the artwork is perfect. It's created by a team of 70 artists and animation experts. It's incredible. Even with a team this large, each six-minute episode needs about three months to complete. The series is still ongoing, but be patient while you're waiting for new episodes.

Smallville 1.07 - Craving



The freak-of-the-week in "Craving" is Jodi Melville, played by Amy Adams. She's an overweight teenage girl who's bullied by the other kids in school. I'm trying to avoid using the word fat, but maybe I shouldn't. It's the word that she uses to describe herself the first time we see her.

She's tried many different diets, counting calories, but nothing helps. Now she adopts drastic measures. She only drinks a smoothie made from the vegetables in her father's greenhouse. Nothing else. That has to work, doesn't it? What she doesn't know, or blissfully ignores, is that the soil around her house, including the soil used in the greenhouse, is contaminated with meteor rocks. There are so many little green rocks in the soil that she hardly notices them when she collects the vegetables.

This fad diet has an immediate effect. After drinking her first glass, she stands on the scales and watches her weight drop from 168 pounds to 139 pounds. The digital display counts down before her eyes. The next day, after her next glass of the veggie meteor smoothie, she sees her weight rapidly decrease to 112 pounds. 56 pounds is a good weight loss in less than 36 hours, but it comes with a price.

Jodi has a ravenous hunger. She eats everything in the fridge, stuffing it into her mouth as fast as she can. But it's still not enough. That evening when she's driving to Lana Lang's birthday party she hits a dear. She rushes out of the car and devours the dead animal. She doesn't eat it by biting and chewing the flesh, she sucks the fat out of the body. That's the only thing that satisfies her.

But it's not just animal fat. She sucks the fat out of a fellow student, and she would have killed him if Clark Kent hadn't intervened.


In this episode Lex Luthor's doctor tells him he has an unusually high white blood cell count. Rather than rely on traditional medical tests, Lex seeks advice from Dr. Hamilton, an eccentric scientist who's dedicated his life to studying meteor rocks. Dr. Hamilton is played by Joe Morton, a prolific actor over the last 50 years, but I'll always remember him for his role as Miles Dyson in "Terminator 2". Dr. Hamilton is unwilling to help Lex, but Lex blackmails him, threatening to reveal that he lost his job because of an affair with a student.


Lex looks for more clues on Chloe's infamous Wall Of Weird.


And this is the episode in which he meets Chloe herself for the first time. I never thought anything of it when I first watched the show, but it is a bit creepy that the owner of the town's biggest factory is spending his time socialising with high school students in their mid teens. Chloe politely addresses him as Mr. Luthor, but he insists on being called Lex.


In the podcast Michael and Tom highly praise Amy Adams as their guest actress. It was the beginning of her career, but her talent was obvious to them, and they knew she would go far. This is what she looked like before her diet.


This is after her diet. More beautiful, more deadly.

It's been suggested in previous podcasts that the effects of the meteor rocks aren't random. The rocks give each person what he desires the most. I don't like this theory in principle, because it makes the rocks sound mystical, but it does seem to be the case.


Apart from the pilot episode, Tom Welling has been joining the podcast from home every week. He's a family man. He doesn't want to spend too much time away from home. If I understand correctly, Michael Rosenbaum makes the Talkville podcast in New York City, but Tom lives in North California.

It's taken them a few episodes, but Michael and Tom are no longer talking about their general experiences in the series. They concentrate on the episode itself. What fascinates me most is the things they remember and the things they'd forgotten. For instance, Tom remembers the scene when he was watching Jodi eat in the school cafeteria, but he'd forgotten the scene when Pete Ross threw a football at a boy's head in the school hallway. At least he isn't like the actor Phil Daniels, who says he can't remember a single thing about making "Quadrophenia", even when he watches the film today. That's strange. (He made that statement only 25 years after "Quadrophenia" was made).

I notice that Michael Rosenbaum always speaks of the freak-of-the-week concept as if it's something bad. I think it works. Most early television series, even classic series like the original Star Trek, followed a freak-of-the week pattern.

I enjoyed "Smallville" when I first began to watch it, about 15 years ago – yes, I started late! – but I'm enjoying it even more now. I'm getting deeper into each episode with the help of Michael Rosenbaum and Tom Welling.

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Friday, 26 August 2022

Fast & Furious 5 (4½ Stars)


This is the best film in the Fast & Furious franchise so far. I felt tempted to give it five stars, but I expect the upcoming films to be even better, so I'll hold back with my top rating.

The film's official name is "Fast Five". It was made two years after "Fast & Furious 4", but the events begin immediately after the end of the previous film. At the end of the last film we saw Dominic Toretto, nicknamed Dom, being driven to a high security prison. "Fast & Furious 5" begins with Brian O'Connor (still an FBI agent, I presume) and Dom's sister Mia overturning the bus to free him. This puts Brian on the wrong side of the law, so he has to flee. They head to Rio de Janeiro, to the house of Dom's friend Vince, who we saw in the first film. There's animosity between Brian and Vince, because Vince is still annoyed with Brian's actions when he was a policeman.

Vince, Brian, Dom and Mia are hired to do a job stealing three cars from a train. Just their line of work! Dom double-crosses the others, because he knows that there's something special in one of the cars, and he wants it for himself. The job is for Herman Reyes, the biggest crime lord in Rio. He only wants this car, and he's stealing the other cars as well to cover up its importance. There's a computer chip which contains the addresses of the houses where Herman stores the money from his drug deals; ten houses with more than ten million dollars each in cash.

Dom tells the others he wants to steal this money. He calls in another six men from abroad, all specialists in robbery or fast driving. It's an impossible job, a suicidal job, but when so much cash is involved the criminals don't think logically.

As if the job weren't difficult enough already, the DSS (Diplomatic Security Service) sends a team to Rio to arrest Dom and Paul, because they're (wrongly) suspected of having murdered two DEA agents. The team is led by Luke Hobbs, a no-nonsense officer played by Dwayne Johnson. He soon realises that that Dom and Paul aren't the murderers, but he still tries to arrest them, because he believes in doing his job. He teams up with them to take down Herman Reyes, but he makes it clear that it's only a temporary alliance.


The car racing is noticeably missing from this film. There are only two car races in the film, but one of them is strangely skipped. Dom leaves to take part in a race, and then we see him returning home as the winner. Wasn't the budget big enough for another race? But we do see a big car chase (not race) at the end of the film in the streets of Rio de Janeiro. The train robbery is also spectacular. If the budget really was limited, the money was well spent in the scenes that were filmed.

That makes it the most exciting film in the series so far. I can hardly wait to watch the sixth film. In a mid credits scene we find out that Dom's girlfriend Letty, presumed dead in the last film, is still alive. That will probably be the main theme of the next film.

Success Rate:  + 3.0

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Thursday, 25 August 2022

Fast & Furious 4 (4 Stars)


As I've said before, the naming of the films in this series is such a mess that I've decided to rename them. The fourth film is officially called "Fast & Furious", which confuses everyone – especially me! – so I've decided to call it "Fast & Furious 4", which makes more sense.

It's supposedly another interquel, between "Fast & Furious 2" and "Fast & Furious 3", but it doesn't really matter. "Fast & Furious 3", officially called  "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift", is so far removed from the continuity of the other films in the series that it could be called a spin-off. In fact, "Fast & Furious 4" has more connecting it with the first film than the second.

The two main characters are FBI agent Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) and the career criminal Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). Brian was an undercover agent for the LAPD, but quit at the end of the first film. In the second film he made money from racing, but he's joined the FBI some time between the second and fourth film. Despite being on opposite sides of the law, Brian and Dom have great respect for one another. Driving fast cars unites people like that.

The paths of the two men come together by chance. Brian is trying to arrest the drug dealer Braga who has been smuggling heroin across the Mexican border. Dom's girlfriend has died in a car accident which he believes was caused by one of Braga's drivers. Braga is looking for a new driver, and he's arranged a car race to find the best driver. Brian and Dom both take part in the race.

As always in the Fast & Furious films, the plot is highly infeasible, but who cares? It's all about the action, i.e. the car races and car crashes. The action is becoming more exaggerated and over-the-top with every passing film.

Success Rate:  + 2.2

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Wednesday, 24 August 2022

Nope (3 Stars)


I feel uncomfortable writing about this film. Everyone I've spoken to praises it. Watching objectively, it seemed like a good film, but it didn't speak to me. That intangible something was missing. I've rated it lower than "The Forever Purge", which I watched yesterday, even though "The Forever Purge" is a trashy film. I need to defend my rating.

The two films have in common that they both take place on a horse ranch. The ranch in "Nope" is located in Hollywood, and it's called Haywood Hollywood Horses. Triple H. The owners, OJ and Em Haywood, are the great great great grandchildren of the man in the first film ever made, a two-second clip of a man riding a horse. Now they have a ranch that supplies horses to film and television studios.

After an accident on the set of a television show their contract is cancelled, and they're facing bankruptcy. They're forced to sell ten of their horses. But they see a way to make money. There's a UFO that repeatedly flies over their ranch. If they can film it they'll be paid a large sum. The problem is that there are sporadic electrical failures when the UFO is above.

I emphasise that there's no attempt to make contact with the alien visitors. It's all about money. But as they observe the UFO more carefully they realise it's not what they thought at first.

"Nope" has a Spielbergian feel to it, but Jordan Peele is no Steven Spielberg. The film is meant to be serious, but there are many scenes which are almost funny, and not in a good way. I say almost, but others in the cinema thought differently. There was laughter at several points, which annoyed me, because it's not meant to be a comedy film. There's something lightweight about the film which prevents it being truly terrifying.

I found the division into chapters annoying. To make things worse, some of the chapters were flashbacks. The film would have been better if it had been chronological.

I'm willing to discuss the film with anyone who thinks my rating is unfair.

Tuesday, 23 August 2022

The Forever Purge (4 Stars)


This is a film that I didn't expect. In the third film, "The Purge: Election Year", the yearly purge was abolished, so it was the end of the story. A prequel was made, "The First Purge", but that didn't count. I still thought the story was over. Then a Purge television series was made. This was an interquel, taking place between "The Purge: Anarchy" and "The Purge: Election Year". Okay, that's still acceptable. But now, finally, a sequel has been made to the third film. The premise is that eight years after losing the election, the NFFA (New Founding Fathers of America) have been voted back into power, and the Purge has been reinstated.

Now for the film itself. It begins with Mexicans being smuggled across the border into Texas. This might be illegal, but American employers are happy to employ them as cheap labourers. The film's main character, Juan, has considerable skill in taming horses.

The first newly instated purge takes place in the midst of racist rhetoric. The white people of southern Texas object to Mexicans in their country, and they intend to purge them to purify America of foreigners. It's not that easy. The Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, are gathered into a safe house and protected by armed guards. The purge night passes uneventfully. On the next morning they're free to go back to work.

But here's the problem. There's a Forever Purge movement, which believes that one day of purging isn't enough. The killing continues. The government calls for an end to the lawlessness, but the Forever Purgers say they'll continue until America is clean.

I have to say that this is more in line with human nature than a mere 12 hour purge. If I saw someone killing my wife (legally) during the Purge, I'd want to get revenge the day after. The violence would escalate. So the Forever Purgers are only doing what comes naturally.

After this, I expect the Purge films to carry on forever. Or at least for a long time. I'm not complaining. Until now the ideas haven't run dry. They're not the best films on the market, but they're enjoyable.

Success Rate:  + 2.3

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