Change Your Image
alan-c-edwards
Reviews
Norm of the North (2016)
Beary bad
Norm of the North is painfully bad, with stilted dialogue and a palpable sense throughout that the writers were struggling to fill up 90 minutes. It seems to operate on the premise that animation, cute madcap antics by furry animals and an inspiration-ish story line are enough to make a good movie. The product is the very definition of "mailing it in", and by the end I felt that the producer must have had actual contempt for the viewers. Awful.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)
Zack and Miri make an unwatchable movie
I don't know how else to say it, other than Kevin Smith just isn't that funny. Based on my anecdotal and probably irrelevant observations, he seems to attract an audience of people from provincial, conservative backgrounds who have blossomed into self-styled sardonic wits anxious to guffaw at anything that aspires to buck convention. Kevin Smith certainly aspires, but fails to an extent that his fans seem willing to overlook. His usual unfunniness is accentuated in this movie by excruciatingly, unnecessarily long self-conscious scenes where actors we know can be funny labor under the strain of poor direction and worse writing. About 15 minutes in to the movie (could me more, could be less - it seemed like an hour) there's a scene where Zack and Miri talk in the coffee shop after Zack runs the teenagers off for taking pictures of her in her underwear. For an interminably long time, they banter, almost but never quite being funny, while the viewer endures a "hey this is a funny moment" soundtrack selection. Well, the moment isn't a moment, it's an eternity, and Zack and Miri is nothing but a string of these intolerable, never-ending failed attempts at cleverness.
Highlander: The Source (2007)
We should all be able to agree that this is awful
Why did they even bother? This movie is so bad it makes me want to cut my own head off. Awful script, awful acting, awful premise, awful CGI, everything is simply awful. Ever see the old "Bad Playhouse" skits on SNL with Dan Akroyd? Those plays didn't have anything on this movie for sheer awfulness. Take all the things that made Highlander enjoyable, remove them, and crank the knob on all of its faults up to eleven, and you have a movie to which this one is the even worse sequel. The villain that drives most of the action just comes off as silly, thanks in large part to it being the focal point of most of the film's worst CGI, which is awful throughout anyway. I can't say enough what a total disappointment the whole movie is.
Storm of the Century (1999)
Kept waiting for it to redeem itself
Just because a movie isn't predictable doesn't make it thought provoking or "deep". Any movie without a cogent, compelling plot is necessarily "unpredictable". Unfortunately for me, I watched Storm just long enough to become interested in what Linoge wanted. Although I wouldn't say his goal was necessarily predictable in a specific sense, it was entirely predictable in a general sense. This lackluster storyline was served on a scaffold of uninspired (can you blame them?) actors and particularly weak dramatizations of fantasy scenes (i.e. Linoge flying with the children outside the town hall meetings). If you enjoy watching pointlessly long, uninteresting films so that at the end you can fancy yourself intelligent for having sat through it, this one's for you.
Ying hung boon sik (1986)
Could be good - impossible to tell.
If you speak Japanese this might be a good show. It seems like it probably is. Unfortunately the English subtitles are completely unintelligible. You can more or less follow what's going on, but without the benefit of any dialog the movie falls flat for the English speaker. I don't understand why the even bothered to provide English subtitles if they weren't prepared to render at least a mediocre translation. I could only bear to watch the first 15 minutes or so. Of what I saw, the cinematography looked good, and the acting appeared passable. I would definitely be interested to see the film again if it were possible to understand.
Pretty Baby (1978)
One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time
I think "Pretty Baby" is the kind of flick that some movie connoisseurs will feel compelled to say they like. However, all the things I've seen it lauded for are in fact sub par - story, script, performances and cinematography. The one thing it has going for it is historical interest - it is a great snapshot of New Orleans in this era, touching on the US navy and its role in supporting, then ultimately wrecking, "red light" culture, as well as music, race relations, poverty and prostitution. In this sense it has a Upton Sinclair-like quality, and might be watched only for the purpose of learning about New Orleans.
But it falls far short of telling any kind of cinematic story. It feels from beginning to end like a cheap documentary, with no real concept of art or story telling, but only a "look at how bad this life was" approach. The movie is constantly interrupted by superfluous scenes that lead nowhere and add nothing, and is laced with moments that the director obviously thought were pregnant with meaning, but are actually just awkwardly long. I was begging for the credits to roll an hour before they did. The movie is sloppy and uninspired from start to finish, which is a shame because turn of the century New Orleans is a story that deserves to be told well.