Change Your Image
nabiki
Reviews
The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)
Not just awful, awful with a heaping side of misogyny!
I just saw this movie at a film festival and was simply overwhelmed with the bad. The Poughkeepsie Tapes was introduced to us as a very disturbing documentary, however it was clear from the credits (or very soon thereafter) that it simply wasn't a documentary. From there it was hard to tell where the film makers really wanted to go. Did they want it to be a comedy? There was certainly some awkward humor that brought a laugh or two at the ridiculous nature of some of the things being said or done. Or the fact that a commedia dell'arte mask that is scary in and of itself is rather less so when paired with a cape, gloves, and neck-ruff. But then there'd be the dead earnest video tape evidence, killing any humor whatsoever. Then there was the flubs in the film making that constantly took one out of the movie. For instance, the killer supposedly filmed himself over years. But the 'taped' footage is degraded fr far beyond what it would really be, and you'd think a killer so meticulous would care about the quality of image and would maybe over the course of how many years... buy a new camera? Also, at one point which is supposed to occur early on, you can see from a shadow that the camera he's holding (in 1998?) is not a VHS camera, but a hand held. The only thing that was really clear to me about this movie is that one or all of the makers really, really hates women.
Here Comes Dr. Tran (2003)
Nearly made me pee.
I got to see "Here Comes Dr. Tran" at the San Diego ComicCon last year during the Spike and Mike preview festival. I had no idea what I was going to see, but friends who'd seen the preview the previous night informed me that I /had/ to see one of the shorts. I'm so glad they did. Really, it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I was bent double with laughter by the end, and my friends have been quoting this short incessantly since then. The only problem is, apparently Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation is /never/ going to come out where I live, and Breehn/Burns hasn't put this puppy out on DVD or made clips available to anyone other than Spike and Mike. They're being seriously under served by this distribution method, where they could have the exposure of something like "Rejected". Breehn/Burns, /please/ put this short out where people can actually see it!
Left Behind (2000)
Craptacular
I cannot believe that they managed to spend US$17million on this film. Spectacularly bad acting, egregious scripting and effects that you could do on your average PC, unbelievable plot contrivances...a reporter who can get an inexperienced stewardess a major job at the UN? What? Not only that, but the message of this film is so unsubtle that you come out feeling as if they've tried to batter you over the head with a full size crucifix. All this movie will do will preach to the choir and make everyone else laugh at such a ridiculous waste of money. If the makers of this film really wanted to sway people to christianity and show what it means to truly believe, they would have used the money to help people truly in need. Now, /that/ might have swayed some people into actually listening to them.