charlytully Reviews

Clear Lake, WI (2009)

Don't blink--or you won't detect the REAL killer

[6/10 · 2 February 2012]

CLEAR LAKE, WI is one of those low-budget movies which actually would have benefited from the Hollywood scourge of "too many chefs" which plagues many big-budget flicks. Specifically, the absence of top-notch film editors and script supervisors from the crew of a movie like CLEAR LAKE sometimes allows the primary plot twist to get lost in the shuffle. Maybe the twist is ADDED in post-production, through a patchwork of throwaway material better LEFT on the cutting room floor. Maybe the twist was left for the last day or two of filming by rookie writers\directors who didn't know any better--not realizing that their project inevitably would fall three or four days behind the shooting schedule, leaving little or no time to actually put the pivotal scene of their story on film. CLEAR LAKE seemingly suffers from this syndrome, as the identity of the real killer for the plot's first set of murders is revealed by Michael Madsen's imprisoned bogus "Reverend" character in a postscript line of dialog captured on a hand- held a year after principle filming wrapped (according to the DVD featurettes). Bottom line: the best to be hoped for from this CLEAR LAKE is that it will become Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's OWN PRIVATE ELBA after he's recalled later this year (i.e., an island of exile for a deposed emperor).

Cold Storage (I) (2009)

Dating tips from western North Carolina

[8/10 · 16 January 2012]

This movie is less about being a horror splatter-fest, and more along the lines of "How to become a zombie bride." (In fact, the one person viewers KNOW is "really quite sincerely dead" by the end is the victim of the opening, Hedwig-induced car crash.) Otherwise, writer\director Tony Elwood provides a level of horror genre restraint almost on par with thriller classics from yesteryear, say Hitchcock's PSYCHO. Nick Searcy, as necromancing groom Clive Mercer, shows that he's ready to step into the Anthony Perkins role (hotelier Norman Bates) when the next PSYCHO remake is made. Particularly intriguing are Clive's dental hygiene habits. Brett Gentile nearly matches Searcy in his portrayal of Clive's nemesis, the even coarser Luther Spoole. While Jeffrey Pillars' caricature of a Southern sheriff is strictly by the book of Hollywood stereotypes, and Matt Keeslar joins Joelle Carter in being fairly bland as the clueless outsiders on the search for a missing loved one in the back country, bit players such as John W. Love, Jr. (Jerome), Rebecca Koon (Jewell), and Gina Stewart (Rhonda) shine in their parts with a light that often eludes even the leads in low-budget, little-seen horror flicks such as COLD STORAGE. Perhaps the producers' most questionable decision is to use Matthew Stewart's lament "Take Me" as the closing credits song, with lyrics such as "I'm prepared to prostitute my name; all I ask is 15 minutes' fame." Most of the people connected to this movie seemed to have a very opposite attitude; this is NOT Paris Hilton's HOUSE OF WAX remake (though it probably cost 100 times less).

The Hanged Man (2007)

Disturbing mishmash gives Southern Gothic Slop a bad name

[5/10 · 16 January 2012]

First of all, this is one of those poorly written movies which would force any attentive watcher to fill in about half the plot with their own brain power, the missing connections are so great. Now, if you buy this DVD from the final close-out scrap barrel for a dime, with the intention of dangling it unviewed as part of your custom mobile for the nursery, perhaps there's no harm done. There should be little risk that the bad acting, silly twists, crappy special effects, poor continuity, miserable direction, and general reign of boredom can drip from the laser tracks into your baby's brain. (The idea that this disk, attractively shiny on one side, at least, actually COULD contaminate a little one by mere proximity is actually much LESS dumb than half the leaps of logic foisted upon the virtually nonexistent audience by the makers of THE HANGED MAN.) I tried to picture the intended audience for this flick, but I drew a blank until I thought of Zombies. Aaaah! Zombies!! I visualized 100 brain-eaters strapped securely into the ergonomic seats at the local multiplex, and tried to picture how they would react to THE HANGED MAN. I think maybe half would drool all over themselves, and the other half would fall asleep! That's why I rated THE HANGED MAN 5 of 10.

The Hitmen Diaries: Charlie Valentine (2009)

With a dad like this . . .

[5/10 · 11 January 2012]

. . . who needs enemies? The focus of THE H!TMAN DIARIES, Charlie Valentine (played by Raymond J. Barry) is supposed to be such a charming mobster that no one realizes that the old cliché, "I kill everything I touch" (which he actually paraphrases at this story's close), literally sums up his life. Charlie is a magic one-trick pony, meaning he never learns from his mistakes, and tries to pull off the same tired old scheme of ripping off mob bagmen time after time. The crews he assembles to help him are more the 1960s equivalent of "F TROOP" than "OCEAN'S ELEVEN" of the Dean Martin era. Charlie's haphazardly sketched out ploys are a perfect match to the bumbling idiots he recruits to carry them out. Charlie's magic touch is that his entire gang always gets rubbed out while he himself makes a clean escape in his mob heist target's most distinctive automobile. To call this nonsense implausible is probably being too charitable. When Charlie recruits his only child (who is obviously on the super-slow side) into his circle of doom in the second half of DIARIES, this flick slips from being merely annoying to becoming a mean-spirited wallow in bathos. I'd hate to be writer\director Jesse V. Johnson's dad.

Coffin Rock (2009)

Australia apparently has no humane society . . .

[6/10 · 11 January 2012]

. . . since filmmakers can get away with peppering this FICTIONAL story with such graphic civilized world no-nos as having a man with anger management issues swinging a poor little baby kangaroo against his wall until its brains are jelly, and biting a large fish in half. Maybe Aussies view this as some sort of macho survival-of-the-fittest BS, but it's clear to any educated person that the ill-fated fish and doomed marsupial each had more brain power than COFFIN ROCK's wretched main human character (Evan, played by Sam Parsonson, who is obviously one "-son" short of a hat trick). TAXI DRIVER's Travis Bickle is about as much of a loser as you'll see on American film, and even HE can come up with unforgettable succinct tag-lines (such as, "You talking' to ME?!). However, perhaps U.S. film goers are spoiled. Maybe down under you can point the camera at the sun on an overcast day, and folks will watch the footage patiently for 90 minutes, hoping for something to happen. COFFIN ROCK is one of those totally predictable anti-thrillers, where you can see every tiny twist of the plot coming from a mile off. It is distinguished only by the nearly unprecedented and totally gratuitous animal slaughter, a clear throwback to yester-century.

Dark Woods (2010)

It's all a daymare--do not take it so literally

[7/10 · 19 December 2011]

Henry (John Muscarnero) has a wife Susan (Tracy Coogan) who is terminally ill with some sort of cancer. By the end of DARK WOODS she dies. There's a popular expression in American, "we're not out of the woods yet." Henry's mind is muddled with all sorts of imaginary nonsense while his wife is dying. None of this would make any sense to the thinking viewer if taken LITERALLY, but apparently some people could not decipher director Michael Escobedo's subtlety. Mr. Escobedo tried to clue in the clueless right from the start, with a quotation from Dante's DIVINE COMEDY which makes it clear Henry's "dark woods" constitutes all the crap churned up in his id by his wife's impending demise. One must feel SORRY for viewers who somehow overlooked this quotation, and think any filmmaker would expect them to believe an American sheriff would place an abused teenage girl into the keeping of a young guy with a comatose wife to care for in a wilderness cabin for days on end. How many sheriffs could there be without an extra bedroom of their own (Henry's imagined cabin had just one bed)? Everyone else Henry talks to here is likely imaginary as well, except Susan. This obviously is not the most entertaining movie ever, but watching it should not be as hard as understanding an unsubtitled film in a language you don't speak!

The Last 15 (2007)

GOP allegory

[5/10 · 19 December 2011]

The Kirkland family personify one of America's more popular political parties (there's no accounting for some people's tastes). Big chunks of the ceiling keep falling on their heads all through this 18-minute short, but they pretty much ignore this--like perverse reverse Chicken Littles--because they cannot be bothered with such down-to-earth concerns as maintaining infrastructure. More important than evacuating their crumbling apartment is the vicious game of musical money they play; every family member is trying to weasel cash out of the others for their own pet concerns. Those family members who have not inherited gobs of gold on silver spoons apparently believe the only other way to earn money in this world is to steal it. (No one suggests a reasonable solution like collecting a family tax from the more affluent relatives, because members of the Kirkland's party have "taken the pledge.") This short has two endings. In the first, realistic, climax, the family's youngest and poorest member perishes (which anyone with a brain in their head saw coming from a mile away). But members of the Kirkland party live in a state of constant denial (there's actual You Tube footage of 25 or 30 of them passing a little girl by after she's fatally injured by a speeding limo). So director Antonio Campos brings his allegorical savaging of the GOP to a close by showing the more affluent, surviving Kirklands mass-hynotizing themselves to believe that young David Kirkland is still alive; that their crass obliviousness toward their posterity did not lop off the most promising branch of their future from its rotted roots.

Afterschool (2008)

AFTERSCHOOL deserves a "detention"

[6/10 · 19 December 2011]

AFTERSCHOOL is a raw movie, and not in a good way. Unlike ELEPHANT or THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES or even ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, this offering from Connecticut does a very poor job of building tension toward a cathartic climax. Instead, it allows a promising premise of an underclassman's video class assignment inadvertently capturing a moment of drama on campus to dissipate, petering out through a collage of implausible plot points, poor characterizations, and limp dialog. AFTERSCHOOL is raw as in raw eggs, and who likes those, except ROCKY and other such masochists? Perhaps this movie could be taken as a "morning after" pill; an antidote to the over-sexed, all-powerful Van Wilders and Stiflers of the Wild Bunch school of campus film-making. But with the two main characters a high school sophomore and freshman at a boarding school, what drugs and sexual misbehavior happens here (such as a nonchalant stroll to nearby a campus dale overlooked by upper floor school windows for a muddy consensual double-deflowering in broad daylight) seem beyond the pale for even these pampered yidiots. (Of course, there WAS that related item of Alaskan high school news a while back . . . )

Mercy (I) (2009)

A critic named "Mercy"?!! C'mon, now!

[6/10 · 16 December 2011]

I suppose there may be a few less likely names for a book critic than "Mercy," (Miss Illiterate Fool comes to mind), but surely there cannot be many. I do not think the New York Times would have a food column by-lined "Al L. Yucky." If the best guy for the job WAS actually named that, they would have him write his offerings under a more suitable pseudonym, such as "Pierre Frenchman" or something. It's hard not to imagine tons of texts from publishers/authors/publicity hacks arriving with every novel's proof exam copies sent to Mercy's employer along the lines of "Please have Mercy on me." As a long-time veteran of the book business, I cannot recall any critics going by the handle of "Mercy;" obviously, any that were born that way saw fit to update before breaking into the critiquing game. Furthermore, most asthmatics who are subject to dropping down dead from the least little attack wear their inhalers on lanyards, with back-ups in their pockets. That way, if a purse-snatching brings on an attack, it's not an automatic death sentence. If your car keys were the only thing keeping you alive for the next five minutes, would you be constantly losing or forgetting them?

The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2008)

Not fluff, and no one chokes to death on a bottle cap

[8/10 · 15 December 2011]

Voters and message boarders dissing this movie no doubt want A)a happy ending, or B)inbred southern Gothic genre pulp along the lines of TEXA$ CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Unfortunately for them, Tennessee Williams--who wrote the screenplay for THE LOSS OF A TEARDROP DIAMOND--did not write stories with "happy endings." That is, unless the viewer is one of those sanctimonious self-deluded see-no-evil "silent majority" types who believes Blanche is better off relying on "the kindness of strangers" about to lobotomize her in the nuthouse at the close of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. As for southern Gothic pulp fiction, Williams himself was doomed to choke to death on a bottle cap, so why need he make up anything MORE implausible to give sensationalists some jollies? THE LOSS OF A TEARDROP DIAMOND has plenty of pathos to go around, without resorting to voodoo curses or hermaphrodite fortune tellers. Bryce Dallas Howard as Fisher does not need to eat any crappy pies from THE HELP in order to engage the sympathy of any right-minded viewers in her quest for as much normalcy as she can muster. By the movie's close Chris Evans as Jimmy manages to swallow his pride to join her in at least partially escaping the sins of their fathers.

American Cowslip (2009)

American Cowslip is less interesting than an American Cowchip

[5/10 · 14 December 2011]

Picture a cow in a field. Calmly chewing its cud. Feel the grass slipping from stomach one to stomach two, then into the third tummy, and finally, number four. At this point, the grass has no where to go other than down and out. A week later all that's left in the field from this whole episode is a smelly brown frisbee, used historically by the pioneers for winter's fuel. If AMER!CAN COWSLIP writer\director Mark David had captured this whole process on film, he no doubt would have produced a superior, far more engrossing flick than the one he expelled here instead. For Rip Torn, Val Kilmer, or Peter Falk, AMER!CAN COWSLIP was just another day at the office. But it's a disservice for the U.S. film community to drag former Hollywood stalwarts such as Diane Ladd or Bruce Dern into sludge of this nature. (And how did Jennifer Coolidge miss this mess--she's still alive, isn't she?) AMER!CAN COWSLIP puts the stew in "stoo-pid," with its mishmash of unbelievable characters spouting lame dialog in totally implausible situations. Hanna Hall as a virginal JUNO wannabe with a creepy attraction for the much older Ethan Inglebrink (Ronnie Gene Blevins) might interest some people. But the actual number is less than even the production of an AMER!CAN COWCHIP would attract.

Outrage: Born in Terror (II) (2009)

One of actors playing lunatic pens incoherent storyline

[4/10 · 14 December 2011]

It's not often the "storyline" for a movie listed on IMDb is written by a bit player portraying the smallest of roles in a flick (in this case, Chris Soth is cast as the thug who gets chopped up by an airplane's propeller). Even more telling is that his storyline makes absolutely no sense. Small wonder, since the film itself is totally senseless. Apparently, Soth is trying to say that the plot behind OUTRAGE is an exercise in solipsism. Evidently, Christine, the main character, is supposed to be the only REAL person in the movie, and all the action is taking place in her own head. The proof that this is what the incoherent Soth is trying to write in his storyline is the fact that he says "it's (Christine's) own fears that have drawn this nightmare upon her." What nightmare?! All of Christine's friends are killed in this movie, EXCEPT HERSELF! But, if everybody else in the movie are supposed to be figments of Christine's imagination, as Soth implies, then, of course, the nightmare is all hers. The problem with this explanation is that the filmmakers forgot to put in the start\finish framing device showing Christine restrained by a strait jacket in a padded room, which is obligatory to such a JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN-style flick.

Plastic Bag (2009)

Things are NOT people (neither are pets)

[7/10 · 13 December 2011]

As an exercise in clever if a bit sophomoric and derivative (think Albert Lamorisse's classic 1956 short, THE RED BALLOON) story-telling, PLASTIC BAG deserves a rating of perhaps 7 out of 10. However, CNN reported this week some cat in Italy just inherited $13 million--making it the THIRD richest pet around today. Well, that amount of money could buy at least 4 million Happy Meals for the starving kids of the world--at the retail price. C'mon, pets are NOT people, let alone balloons or plastic bags, no matter how much film or bytes sophisticated movie makers waste upon anthropomorphizing them. As I type this, I have a dozen plastic bags stuffed into my pants pockets, since I need to use a few every day as spur-of-the-moment containers. I am NOT willing to think any of the bags squished below my posterior are musing in their droll Bavarian accents about revenge against me, or about "escaping" into the atmosphere to frolic in the breeze till they can choke Flipper in the seas. After glimpsing the mind behind Werner Herzog's MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE? (to which DVD the PLASTIC BAG short he narrates--as the bag!--is attached), I can just picture this dottie old Bavarian mesmerized by the view of an airborne bag beyond the windshield of his Jetta as he plows through a group of school kids waiting at a bus stop. It's time to get real, folks!

Real Steel (2011)

Michigan Gov. Snyder plans new site for REAL STEEL 3

[10/10 · 27 November 2011]

It's nice to be able to write about a wonderful family movie for once. Perhaps the best dance movie since DANCES WITH WOLVES, this flick easily could be subtitled A BOY AND HIS ROBOT to perhaps better reflect the dance-inspired bond between Max Kenton (Dakota Goyo) and his bot, Adam. More believable than the original ROCKY (particularly because Adam is more expressive than Sylvester Stallone ever was), REAL STEEL offers the added bonus of featuring loads of authentically gritty Michigan locations. (Though most of the action is set in Texas, that state was considered too Disneyland to accurately reflect the darker elements of the REAL STEEL story.) As refreshing as it is to not see Toronto suburbs once again posing a pale imitation of America, Michigan's newbie Gov. Snyder and his legislative cohorts have an even BETTER location planned for REAL STEEL 3 (most likely a 2017 release, depending upon when X-MEN 13 is shot). Snyder has eliminated 75% of Michigan's mine inspectors, while encouraging a ten-fold expansion in mining. The tentative REAL STEEL 3 site will be near Big Bay in the state's Upper Peninsula. Snyder feels Eagle Mine--America's first-ever large-scale nickel mine--will far outdo the treeless nickel-mining region around Sudbury, ON as the perfect place for shooting the distopian and apocalyptic films of the future. Tunneling just under the famous Salmon Trout River near the shores of Lake Superior, Eagle Mine will have the potential to easily outdo Love Canal and Three Mile Island in becoming synonymous with large-scale environmental disaster. By 2016 the ghost forests, abandoned tourist towns, decaying hunting lodges, and thick pall of never-sunlit smelter smoke will save the producers of REAL STEEL 3 95% of the CGI budget for their 2011 offering. If AVATAR 3 takes its expected dark turn, or if they make another Mad Max sequel, Michigan Gov. Snyder has insured that Hollywood will have no need whatsoever for costly digital matte painters to portray Armageddon.

The Ides of March (2011)

A couple cautions for the uninitiated

[10/10 · 27 November 2011]

I very seldom write about the movies I rank at 9 or 10 (of 10), because by the time I see them on IMDb everyone and their brother already has written them up. I will make an exception in the case of THE IDES OF MARCH for a couple reasons. Firstly, some of my family members assumed this would be a modern-day updating of the the Shakespeare play JULIUS CAESAR (famous line: "Beware the ides of March!), following the likes of the wonderful RICHARD III (with Ian McKellan in the title role) or the mind-blowing TITUS (with Anthony Hopkins as the ill-fated Roman general). Alas for them, while THE IDES OF MARCH may have some parallels to Caesar's story, there is no iambic pentameter (or any other meter) in this George Clooney vehicle. Secondly, for what it lacks in "Et tu, Brutus?" literal lines, IDES more than makes up for with its main story line, which could be subtitled THE EDUCATION OF STEPHEN MEYERS (Ryan Gosling's character). Just as any true Christian fundamentalist is likely to believe ALL American million- and billionaires are facing a future of eternal torment (no way to get around that pesky "camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle" thing), THE IDES OF MARCH simply constitutes another cinematic proof that one cannot climb much above the level of a road commissioner in American politics without rubbing shoulders with Satan.

Moneyball (2011)

There's more to it than "Show me the money!"

[10/10 · 27 November 2011]

Many of my regular readers occasionally have complained that a lot of the reviews I write are somewhat negative. I try to explain that most of the films I express an opinion about have gathered just a dozen comments (or less) from other people. I feel it is a greater contribution to the knowledge database of humankind to provide the 16th slant on PAINTBALL (4 out of 10) compared to the 99th critique of MONEYBALL (10 of 10). Apparently there are quite a few people who do not care to see movies meriting just 1, 2, 3, or 4 stars of 10, let alone write about them. However, I will make an exception in the case of MONEYBALL, a movie guaranteed to send shivers up the spine of anyone who ever played organized baseball, softball, or other-ball on a ball diamond as a youth. Unlike THE NATURAL (where Robert Redford wields his "Wonder Boy" bat to a few musical notes still heard each season in nearly every major league park, and more than a few minor league ones), MONEYBALL is based on the true history of former Detroit Tiger Billy Beane. There is a brick in front of Comerica Park in Detroit which reads "Billy Beane, OF, 1988." Everyone remembers 1988 was the season after the Tigers lost to the Twins in the ALCS, but led their division by about a 100 games before going a million-game losing streak. Well, in 2002 Billy Beane general managed the Oakland A's to a 21st Century record 20-game winning streak, against all odds. (Meanwhile, the Tigers had passed on hiring Beane to head their think tank, choosing instead the folks who would enable an American League record 119-loss season in 2003.) The only way MONEYBALL could be more perfect would be to subtitle it "Cry of the Tigers."

Paintball (2009)

Not funny enough for a ROCKY HORROR wannabe

[4/10 · 27 November 2011]

How's this for a premise? Set up an octet for a PREDATORS-style survival game aimed at a non-subtitle-enabled English-speaking audience. To save money, pick half of the so-called "Green" paintball team from the ranks of low-paid, English-illiterate European extras. Then dub in some loop group dialog for this extra-expendable quartet and kill them off quickly enough that the movie won't be ruined for viewers too drunk or high to realize that things these four say are lip-synched worse than a Milli Vanilli video. Hopefully, this subgroup of easily entertained viewers also won't notice all the awkward "blocking" caused by rampant miscommunication between cast and cast or cast and crew. While you're at it, put in some garbage footage intended to simulate the "night vision" of the stalker, since this is sure to disguise the fact that PAINTBALL is edited more haphazardly than half-stirred hash. Who cares if key death scenes are missing? Who cares if the climax is lame? Who cares if the post-climactic scene of a girl running down railroad tracks makes absolutely no sense? You've already taken your euros and run--quickly--to the bank. (If you had really cared about us the least little bit, you'd have added some campy songs into this sorry mix!)

The Count (1916)

More misinformation (not unlike, "Waste--five feet")

[7/10 · 14 November 2011]

In this short, subtitled "The Phoney (sic) Nobleman" on-screen, Charlie Chaplin plays a tailor's apprentice fired for mis-measuring a woman's waist, since he had his measuring tape circling BOTH the customer's bottom AND the mannequin's middle at the same time. The tailor's apprentice makes the notation "Waste--five feet," which apparently is not accurate enough to meet his employer's standards. Which is an analogous situation to the accuracy displayed by IMDb, versus Wikipedia's standards. While Wikipedia requires a source footnote for every claimed "fact," IMDb frequently runs with unattributed MISinformation. Take the running time of this short as an example. IMDb baldly claims it is "34 minutes." My DVD time counter states otherwise: 20 minutes, 32 seconds. Hence, IMDb is claiming--seemingly with no authority--that my DVD was missing 37.5 per cent of this film. However, I studied the 12 user reviews about THE COUNT previously submitted to IMDb during the past 10 years, and EVERY SECOND described in ALL of them were contained in the 20:32 on my DVD. Logically, this means there is either 12-minutes of secret self-contained prologue and\or epilogue material contained in some arcane description of the original no one at IMDb sees fit to share with us ordinary users, OR the folks who run this site just plug in any old "technical specifications" with no effort to check for accuracy. (As an underemployed fact checker, I not only would be happy to help out with this possible need--hopefully on on full-time, paid basis, but I know of several other people that are qualified and able to pitch in during this time of need.)

The Balloonatic (1923)

Up, Up, and Away . . .

[7/10 · 13 November 2011]

. . . in a not-so-beautiful balloon. In this short, Buster Keaton plays "The Young Man"--also referred to (ironically?) as "The Prince" on one mid-film title card--who turns out to be a serial womanizer. The young man also is blessed with remarkably good luck, as he proceeds from mishap to mishap at a frenetic pace, coming out of it no worse for wear (unless you count the black eye he receives off-camera from doing who knows what to a stranger lady in the tunnel-of-love-type boat ride). Oh, the humanity, the humanity!--if the young man had just been on the Hindenburg the following decade, it's doubtful lightning could have struck. A decade earlier, he would have saved the Titanic by just being in steerage. With the luck and pluck displayed by the title character of THE BALLOONATIC, the possibilities are endless. Whether threatened by the ladies, bulls, bears, squirrels, or the raging abyss of a waterfall, this character leads a charmed life. Too bad for him that personal podcast cameras were not around in 1923, since showing just a few of his lucky escapes to his potential dates should prove him a worthy suitor, just on the basis of his being a human-sized rabbit's foot.

Red Hook (2009)

Cannot top even a free TV show episode

[4/10 · 13 November 2011]

There was an episode on "CSI--New York" during the past month with a very similar plot to RED HOOK. Despite having just an ad-shortened 38 minutes or so to work with, CSI-NY's Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) and his crew got about five times as much accomplished entertainment-wise as the bumbling New York City police detective Lt. Tom Fox (Terrence Mann) and the rest of the RED HOOK cast managed to provide in 85 minutes. It's a sad commentary when an "unrated" feature film--where presumably anything goes--comes off as duller and less sexy than a prime-time network TV offering on a similar subject. While RED HOOK is billed as a horror flick, it's a sure fire bet to put the viewer to sleep more quickly than a CBS police procedural aimed as bed-time fare for the 60- to 90-year-old demographic. Gavin (Tate Ellington), the perverter of a lame Welcome Week scavenger hunt for the RED HOOK collegians, offs about half the campus, with less a sense of plausible threat than that created in just a few seconds of screen time by the twisted frat pledge master in the CSI episode, whose game playing is intended to kill no one. RED HOOK may spray a little crimson fake blood, but it offers little to hook the horror buff's attention.

Under Still Waters (2008)

Writer\Director Carolyn Miller is in over her head here

[6/10 · 31 October 2011]

About the only thing this would-be Hitchcock rip-off has going for it is a cool DVD cover picture of lead actress Lake Bell up to her chin in a lake. Unfortunately, this shot is NOT from a scene in the movie. Worse yet, this picture is more interesting than anything that actually IS shown in the film. In an apparent effort to seem clever, UNDER STILL WATERS writer\director Carolyn Miller throws in one after another increasingly incomprehensible plot twist as this lame flick nears its totally inscrutable finale. Apparently Miller feels viewers should be forced to read between the lines, and fill in all the blanks by extrapolating what the missing scenes would have looked like if she had been able to fit more of the script into her shooting schedule. I say, to heck with that. If I'm shelling out 50 cents to rent a movie, I do not want to be forced into doing $40,000 worth of "script doctor" work in my head in order to complete what the writer\director MAY have wished to convey on-screen (but failed abysmally to do so). If you have been able to stomach UNDER STILL WATERS all the way through to the end, ask yourself these questions: did deputy Buford REALLY exist, or was he just a figment of someone's imagination, and if so, whose? Better yet, whether real or imagined, WHY kill him?

The Courtesans of Bombay (1983 TV Movie)

Tediously uninformative church basement fodder

[6/10 · 31 October 2011]

Just in case future generations can (A)correlate every byte ever typed in order to (B)recreate every past situation the legions of our bored descendants ever could wish to visit, I will present the ONLY situation that conceivably could merit a viewing of THE COURTESANS OF BOMBAY. In the 1950s, in sexually-repressed I-LOVE-IKE America, churches actually drew enough business from the post-catechism crowd to host weekly events for late teens. One of the more popular come-ons to pack the church basement at least half full was to roll out one of those now antiquated projectors that a couple of the boys were able to thread actual film through multiple sprockets, for the purpose of watching something whose title turned out to be 10 times more titillating than anything actually shown on the screen. That description fits COURTESANS OF BOMBAY to a tee, even though this yawn-inducing footage supposedly was shot in the early 1980s. No business model for Indian prostitution is ever hinted at. It is implied that the swaying hips of the featured girls during large social gatherings is all the sex the guys in India get. I say that if this were anywhere near the truth, India would not be giving China a stiff challenge for the title of most populous country on Earth!

Slave (2009)

SLAVE gives cheap exploitation a bad name

[4/10 · 31 October 2011]

This tawdry, low-budget version of the Liam Neeson vehicle TAKEN makes the latter movie look like the Cadillac of the almost-deflowered-by-a-sheik genre. One must resist saying SLAVE qualifies as the Yugo in this category, since that would be unfair to Eastern European car makes. Almost every turn in SLAVE's plot is an implausible twist. Most lines of dialog fall flat. If the acting in SLAVE was passable, one could decry this feature as a waste of talent. Fortunately, the cast appears perfectly suitable to the low production values of everything they are given to work with. If I were forced to come up with a few DVD jewel box phrases that might amplify whatever SLAVE's title says to entice potential viewers into renting, I might try "pretentious claptrap" or "unmitigated boredom." There is probably a segment of the movie-watching public to whom these adjectives would sound appealing. My guess is that these masochists vastly outnumber those who would knowingly watch SLAVE if they were given a half-way accurate view of how miserable this feature actually is beforehand.

Hunger (I) (2009)

More for the Donners than the Dahmers

[6/10 · 24 October 2011]

Basically, there are two kinds of cannibals featured in hundreds of human-eating-themed movies during the past century. Best broken down into the categories of "cannibals by choice" and "cannibals by necessity," many top films fall into one of these categories (as well as even more really poor ones). Note that for purposes of this discussion, one must forget all about the thousands of zombie movies (since zombies are no more human than vampires, werewolves, ALIEN-type extraterrestrials, mega-sharks, or any of a hundred other threats to mankind that lack objective, scientific proof for their existence). SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and EATING RAOUL are a couple of my favorite examples of cannibal-by-choice movies. On the other side, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES and A BOY AND HIS DOG are two of my best-loved cannibal-by-necessity films. HUNGER falls into the class of cannibal-by-necessity flicks, though the characters put into a totally implausible circumstance disagree among themselves as to whether the necessity justifies cannibal-by-murder (since there's also the option of waiting until someone dies of "natural" if unusual causes BEFORE starting to eat them). Unfortunately, what could have been a riveting movie in the hands of the directors of the four films referred to above comes off more like something directed by Ulli Lommel or Uwe Boll under Steven Hentges' control. Especially off-putting are all of the scenes featuring the mis-named character ("The Scientist") who is responsible for the rest of the cast's SAW-like predicament. The repetitious shots of this creep at his control board bring to mind Lommel at his worse, while the flashbacks to the pre-teen "scientist" eating his dead mom after an isolated car crash smacks of Boll at his most tawdry depths of exploitation.

Shooting the Bullet (2005 Video)

Bullets fly, whether shot or ridden

[7/10 · 24 October 2011]

This "Making of" for the adaptation to film of the Stephen King story--RIDING THE BULLET--is divided into eight parts. Six of the eight parts (titles in quotation marks, followed by the duration of each, minutes:seconds, in parenthesis) merit a rating of 7 out of 10 (namely: "Drawing the Bullet" (3:32), "The Fury Crash" (4:55), "Thrill Village" (3:27) "Make-up" (1:58), "Picture Cars" (1:32), and "Artwork" (1:16)). The part entitled "A Cemetery Shoot" (3:23) merits just 6 out of 10 ratings-wise, while "Artwork Gallery" (2:49) is pretty lame, deserving 5 out of 10 at best. Most of the people who rated the feature--RIDING THE BULLET--at just 6 of 10 or worse may be served best by skipping these extras. The exception to this recommendation would be film students interested in pontificating about where the cast and crew of the feature "went wrong." On the other hand, people who enjoyed the feature and who are interested in the behind-the-scenes of movie making may want to invest another 23 or so minutes to view these bonus features (especially "The Fury Crash," which wrecks a classic car the same make and model as the title vehicle in Stephen King's CHRISTINE).