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Avatar (2009)
Have you seen the Lion King? Add CG and you have Avatar.
I enjoyed watching this movie upon release, in Imax 3D no less. The CG was breathtaking, the battle thrilling, the sound earthshaking, and overall it was a worthwhile way to spend a ticket. It isn't particularly groundbreaking story-wise, it was never meant to be, but it was an exciting romp.
I enjoyed watching Lion King for adults again, recently, but I guess I pretty much immediately recognized it for what it is and switched off my critical thinking.
Apartment: Rent at Your Own Risk (2010)
Well, that was certainly a very Bollywood attempt to recreate Single White Female.
If you're looking for a serious movie, avoid. If you're looking for a Bollywood drinking game, this is perfect.
A big chunk of it was paint-by-numbers melodrama and breaks into song at the least appropriate moments (I did enjoy the music videos, as entirely out of place as they were; 2 of 3 stars came entirely from that). I won't spoil the movie, but suffice it to say that no Bollywood tropes were harmed by the end.
The story began quite confusing and disjointed, progressed to making a little more sense by the middle, and then started falling apart completely as Neetu Chandra's increasingly laughable attempts to depict a crazy person reared their ugly head. Wide eyes are just not enough to carry a whole performance. I put a big chunk of the blame on director Jag Mundhra, who obviously made her act that way and allowed such a silly script.
I was hoping this would be one of the first genuinely gripping Indian thrillers, but it was just a series of old clichés instead.
The occasional puns on English weren't bad, though the mention of Welbutrin as a treatment for schizophrenia had me cracking up; if anything, Welbutrin would probably worsen that, it certainly isn't an anti-psychotic at all.
Bul-eun ba-kang-seu geom-eun we-ding (2011)
Seeds of greatness drowned in seas of dull
There are a few brief redeeming qualities to this pair of movies. First, Ji-hye Ahn and In-hye Oh ARE hot as hell, and bare their chests, and that alone almost makes it worth it if that's what you're here for. There were several moments of weird surrealism in the first (Red Vacation) and one particular scene of uncomfortable drunkenness in the second (Black Wedding) that almost sold the movie for me, if it hadn't been for all the filler.
Unfortunately, the first film feels like a director's first film, lingering on every shot for no particular reason, just because Criterion movies also lingered with purpose. At least it tried to play up a bit of camp, and it would have been much better if it had more. The second suffered from a lack of direction and nonstop shakycam: every scene is hand-held instead of set on a tripod. Combine with a banal story, that only gets interesting in the last five minutes, and it's really hard to sit through. Almost every moment of both segments felt like a chore just to watch, so little happens with so little meaning.
The video quality is atrocious, even for Amazon video. Not only is it not HD, it's such low quality SD that it looks like a 1CD XviD download from 2003. All of the beautiful scenery in the first segment is utterly spoiled by the low quality. That may not be the director's fault, but this is how many people will watch it, so it's valid. Amazon video is horrible.
Ultimately, whether it's drama, comedy, weirdness, or nudity that you want, you'd be better off getting it elsewhere.
Dogville (2003)
I'd believe this was a student film, disappointed in van Trier
Nothing quite like being beaten over the head with a trite morality play for three hours, with such naked and ham-handed emotional manipulation that I couldn't find a pinch of humanity inside.
This was basically torture porn for overly emotionally invested people. I give it a few points for going out on a limb with the style, but again, it just feels like something a very high college student would come up with the day before the script was due. And it was a one-trick pony, the sense of style was never used effectively for anything else. It contributed absolutely nothing to the movie.
The acting was fine, just terribly dull. Never felt the slightest connection to anyone, or felt that any situation was any more than a ridiculous farce; everything happened not because it naturally follows from the characters and events, but because it had to happen to move the plot forward. Everyone but Grace is basically a hive mind who feel everything in perfect lockstep with each other, like a good fable. The brutality followed the generic revenge flick arc trod by hundreds of other movies, even the narrator just felt utterly pointless and jarring, instead of quaint and unusual.
Obviously, there are quite a few people who love it. Give it five minutes, and you'll already know if you'll enjoy the whole movie or not.
Sakasama no Patema (2013)
A swashbuckling adventure
If you enjoy movies like My Neighbor Totoro or Kiki's Delivery Service, this film is for you. The only way this isn't a Ghibli movie is that it wasn't made by Studio Ghibli! Every bit of their whimsy, adventure, romance, and quiet moments of introspection comes through in spades here, and while light-hearted, it doesn't shy away from the darkness. It may be a movie aimed at kids but it has everything many adults would love too; even the animation felt like Ghibli's.
The two world premise is very well thought out and done here. I heartily recommend, I doubt anyone will be disappointed.
The English voice acting is pretty good, if not on par with the Japanese. Definitely watchable.
Something Wild (1986)
A solid movie with a great start
Melanie Griffith is Lulu, a manic pixie dream girl long before such a label existed, stylish and beautiful and carefree. Like all dream girls, it takes a certain suspension of belief, but it begins as a delightful romp into a life of throwing off obligation and self-imposed structure. Griffith is great, Jeff Daniels aptly plays the annoying milquetoast with many panicky lies, where silly and sexy things soon follow. One of the wonderful parts was the blasting reggae throughout.
Then everything comes crashing back to reality as soon as she washes out the black hair; the fantasy is over and the depressing reality of leftover high school insecurity sets in and the past catches up. The mood whiplash is stark and the violence is sharp and brutal, but the climax is pretty satisfying.
Ultimately, I can't help disliking the movie for completely demeaning what it started with. Lulu begins as the bossy, in-control dame leading a lost puppy, then the balance shifts, and she becomes the damsel in distress to Charlie's urban warrior, who's undergone a Straw Dogs/Falling Down moment and saves the day. She never even recovers a flicker of her old personality. In the end, it's just a fantasy, and a rather ugly one.
And they woefully underutilized the shooting locations. New York and a wide swath of Route 1 up and down the mid-Atlantic gave such a chance for wide shots and a slice of Americana, but instead everything is too tight and focused to get the visceral feel of being along for the ride.
9 Songs (2004)
Sex and rock and roll, oddly no drugs.
This is basically Skinemax with actual penetration. Despite the many protestations that this is high art, not porn, it's basically a series of music videos spliced with a series of amateur sex scenes. In fact, even Cinemax and some actual pornos have more intelligence and better acting. The only way this can have any depth is if you invent your own narrative out of whole cloth.
Not that I'm faulting them for making it. Some scenes were kind of hot. It just failed to be anything more than music+sex, even when stretching for a meaningful existential connection to something. In the end, claiming it's anything deeper than what it is would be delusional, so check it out for the sex and the music.
At least it looks like real sex, not brazzers sex.
Upside Down (2012)
Pretty but so dumb and full of inane chatter.
Almost a mundane 5-star movie... but the exposition of the first ten minutes was so bad and so unnecessary. Not one word of it was needed, and the movie would have succeeded by showing instead. The introduction left a bad taste that lingered the whole way.
But damn, some of the CG and was just so striking. The dual office, the plunge from one world to the other, and most of all, the celestial cloud scene. Even when they didn't make sense, they were amazing visually, and I'd happily put some on my wall. It's better visual art than a movie.
Aside from that, the plot fell down the cliché tree and hit every branch on the way down. It constantly struggled to figure out if it wanted to be a star-crossed romance or a sci-fi thriller in the vein of Dark City, leading to whiplash from the mood shifts, and neither the writers nor the acting could carry either. Even the leads have the depth (and chemistry) of a kiddie pool, let alone the rest of the cast. Practically everything interesting is just handwaved away to move the plot, even the sappy ending. You constantly drift away and asking yourself why you're still watching.
It's too bad, because so much more could be done with the premise, even with some romance, as shown by the much better Patema Inverted. I think there's still plenty of room for a real thriller here too, it's just not this movie. At all.
Welcome to the Jungle (2013)
You can't try to parody and play it straight, too
This movie is a great example of missed opportunity in nearly every scene, a flat attempt at parody that only hit just often enough to keep reminding you of what a better movie it could have been with a good script, better acting, and competent direction. Everything it tried to do has been done so much better already.
The opening scenes invoke a zany little Office Space or The IT Crowd workplace with unique characters, and then within ten minutes throws all of that away to pigeonhole them into a cliché script ripped straight out of nerdy 80's high school wish fulfillment fantasies, before they even leave for the jungle. Van Damme never even gets any good lines and barely features in the movie (though a couple of scenes near the end were silly), the two main men could barely act their way out of a wet bag, and the women are just set pieces to fall for the men. Completely uninspired camera work means that the lush, verdant locale was all but thrown away, to boot. That just made the scenes that were hilarious stand out that that much starker, and those few lines are all that earn it one extra star.
It obviously set out to parody the milquetoast-to-hero genre, except it forgot the plot and turned into just another bad example of the genre, instead. In no way does it stack up to actual send-ups, like Blades of Glory, Napoleon Dynamite, or Office Space, let alone full on parodies like The FP and Talladega Nights. Go see one of them instead.
Straw Dogs (1971)
An unfortunate collection of caricatures
A collection of caricatures go through the motions of a terrible script, phoning in even the most dramatic moments, spoiling an exciting premise. I'm not even referring to the Cornwall yokels here, who are at least amusing; it's the two main characters who end up being the greatest let-downs, along with the simplistic morality play of a story itself. To its credit, the film is gorgeous, full of beautiful countryside and rustic town, but that can hardly carry two hours of melodrama.
Dustin Hoffman plays a perfect effete professor stereotype, a self-centered coward smugly certain of his superiority, and due to that, the near-instant switch into unbeatable gladiator makes little sense. An explosion of rage and dishing out a few good hits before going down, perhaps. This is no Falling Down, where someone on the verge of cracking for a long time finally does; this is someone who becomes savage against his nature, and somehow conjures the skill to kill every enemy. A male superhero fantasy.
Susan George is competent as a petulant brat, always needing attention, pushy yet unwilling to take personal action; the nature of their relationship or why they left is never explained, but it's hinted to be teacher/student. Unfortunately, her character never really goes anywhere, and her acting never gives any nuance to even the charged, violent scene preceding the rape. The only time she seems convincing is in the bedroom scene following David's return.
The bizarre direction of the rape, that quiet tenderness suggesting that the first wasn't really rape after all, that deep down an attention-seeking girl is really looking for masculine violence from her paramour that she isn't getting from her husband, really confuses me... almost a rape fantasy. And then the whole purpose of the rape is just to create some extra justification for killing the louts, along with audience titillation. In 1971, it may have been shocking to put an on-screen rape in a mainstream movie, kicking off Last House on the Left and a whole series of rape-revenge movies, but now it just looks exploitative and badly done.
Rounding out the cast, there's a few louts, an affable retired army major, a teen temptress, her drunken old father, and a retarded pedophile. Their names are hardly important, because all they do is fill a role.
Beyond that, no action in the film looks real. The hits don't look real. The deaths don't look real. The rape doesn't look real.
Overall, there's nothing in here but a generic western, uprooted and moved to Scotland, and any nuance the story could have had is missing.
The Purge (2013)
Uninspired pastiche of better movies
The best and most inspired part of this movie was the 2-minute "purge feed" that it began with -- after that it was all downhill. This would have been a great concept for a 28 Days Later style of movie, but instead we got a low-budget one-house film with a nonsense plot and constant silly contrivances, turned farcical with some of the hammiest acting in a mainstream movie that doesn't star Shia LeBouf. It's only remotely compelling to anyone willing to overlook gaping holes to focus on its "message," the one it's endlessly bashing you over the head with. Subtlety is not DeMonaco's thing.
The big names just phoned it in. Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey practically sleepwalked through everything, resigned to making this turd, and they somehow managed to make the gorgeous Headey frumpy and useless. The kids do a fairly good job and might do well in the future, although the daughter is left to appear and disappear randomly. The band of prep kids all seem to be channeling the cast of House of 1000 Corpses with cues from The Strangers, more comic relief than fearsome. The neighbors and boyfriend have all the personality of a wet paper bag.
There's a lot of violence to add some blood and body count, instead of actually making any sense. In fact, nothing makes sense. It's just an unconnected series of sometimes ludicrously bloody vignettes connected by a frame story. Every event is telegraphed long beforehand, everyone gets saved by some deus ex machina, scenes are repeated to ratchet the tension but only end up padding the time, and it's all just taken so seriously that I couldn't stop laughing at each hilariously stupid "twist".
The only reason it got two stars was because at least it generally kept moving and was only 80 minutes. Thanks, DeMonaco, for not wasting too much of my life.
Unleashed (2005)
Decent fights, horrible drama
This movie plays out like some Hollywood producer felt that a pure action movie won't sell, so we need to add some fake drama straight out of the generic romantic comedy bin. Kelly Condon as the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is by far the most annoying, but Morgan Freeman lowering himself to be Li's Magical Negro is almost as bad. Li just basically exists without speaking or having his own volition, which is such a waste for an incredibly talented drama actor. Hoskins plays a caricature of himself, but plays it very well; he and Dylan Brown are most of the entertainment in the movie. Most of the script is a rehashed mashup of better movies, and an insult to the viewer.
The best fight scenes are all in the first 15 minutes of the movie, and they're worth watching despite the bad writing and hammy acting from everyone, but after the escape you might as well shut it off because the latter is all you'll get. You'll be weeping and face- palming for what the movie could have been if you don't.
Watch Hero or Romeo Must Die if you want Li in genuine "breakout role" because this sure isn't it. Those movies prove that good action and drama can easily coexist, in the hands of a director who cares.
Sleeping Beauty (2011)
Self-aware, cold, and interesting, but disconnection and overuse of repetition
This is the very definition of a pure art house movie - a must see once, but unwatchable and unlikely to ever be watchable. Nearly every individual scene is repeated at length, with subtle or large variations. The star is an passive alabaster ping-pong ball whose only active role in the first hour was contacting the agency the movie revolves around. Only in the last 20 minutes is there any minor transformation of character, and that only exists to repeat scenes with new variations.
There are no people in this movie, only mannequins posed for maximum effect. It may as well be a series of paintings.
Like much fashion photography, the movie is purely a set of intriguing yet disconnected scenes, with no whole. It is an endless stream of literary devices translated to the screen (if you enjoy playing spot the trope, you might love it). If there is any message, it's that interesting makes a mediocre substitute for substance, and terminal listlessness is incredibly difficult to watch. I was left shrugging, wondering why anyone would care.
Even the unexpected, unexplained outburst of extreme emotion of the final scene exists simply to shock. My take is that like horror fans seek the high of ever-more-shocking films, art critics seek being ever more confused and disconnected, and this film delivers well.
Hard to rate: 1/10 on enjoyment, 8/10 on visceral sensation, I guess I'll split the difference.
Rogue River (2011)
Bill Mosley makes it worth the watch
It's kind of funny that I didn't even realize he was in it until Mosley walked up, but he made the film worth watching. His campy charm kept the problems from overwhelming it; like Bruce Campbell, he knows how to put just the right goofy expression on or switch from silly to enraged in an instant, which carries the rest of the terrible acting crew along easily.
The rest of it just glides by far too quickly. Every shocking scene is over before it really begins, which I suppose is a bit too realistic, but it never gives the audience time to absorb what's happening. I was expecting something like Wolf Creek, but it's nothing like that. Everything depraved lasts about one second, the rest is hiding behind doors, walls, trees, and trying not to be seen. The shuffling trek from bed to basement is only repeated three times.
My biggest problem with the movie is that no one can spin around and fire a revolver without looking and somehow hit their target in the neck, let alone someone untrained and running on adrenaline and not much else. How stupid are the director and writer? how stupid do they think we are? Similarly the corny ending, mostly dead men generally can't ejaculate, and even if they could the chances of pregnancy are so small that the failed emotional manipulation just seems so insulting to the audience. (I'd assumed the scene ended because the guy lost his hard-on, which makes more sense for a guy who's been shot twice and unconscious.)
The final primal scream from Mosley makes it all worth it, though, even if the writers bitched the rest of the ending.
I was kind of surprised that the old bridge was totally blocked off. They were just getting ready to open the new one when I left, I wonder if you can even get to the old one anymore, or if it's already torn down?
The Feeding (2006)
Could only have been worse if it was all a dream
I have fond memories of this movie, only because I had friends over while we ripped on it and turned every stupidity into a drinking game. (Hint: I don't remember the end of the night.)
Otherwise, it's easily the worst werewolf movie I've ever seen and high among my contenders for worst movie ever. From the hammed up stereotypical characters to the were-rat direct from the Halloween store, with special effects straight out of a high school budget, the only way you'll find any thrills or chills in this movie are if you're baked out if your gourd and haven't seen a breast in months. Even if you dig female flesh, the endless blabbing kills the mood.
The movie would be better muted and given new dialogue, Kung Pao style. The moralizing, philosophizing female ranger is particularly mind numbing, to the point even that the male ranger takes a vow of celibacy in a tree to get away from her creepy come- ons - and everyone else dies because of her. If that was intended as camp, the funny didn't come across, just the pained groaning and wooden delivery. Her absurdly bad acting in a movie full of it did get some chuckles though.
The "wolf" would have been a lot more effective only seen in brief flashes. The seemingly endless scenes at the end make you wish they could scrape up more than $20 for a costume... Though if you think about it, the wobbly wolf-cam scene partway through shows that he's drinking heavily to get through the movie, so the inability to avoid a completely useless idiot at the end makes some sense.
All you have to do is watch The Evil Dead and bring its brand of bizarre to the screen if you want camp, but never let up on the zany. This was just a bad excuse for a lot of people to get high in the hills.
Octaman (1971)
Incredibly banal, get the highlights on Youtube
Although Octaman DOES have a few hilarious moments at the very beginning and very end, the hour in between drags on so long that I'm almost certain that all of those who reviewed it highly must have fast-forwarded. Not one bit makes any damn sense, but everyone is too serious to give it the parody treatment it desperately needs. Despite being directed by the same director as The Blue Lagoon, there are no homage to anything, it's just a flat-out insulting schlock put forward to make a few bucks with no effort or upfront cost; it feels like a cheap attempt to rip off a prior success and certainly was advertised that way. To be successful, a Z-movie has to be full of sneaky references to all kinds of things and never play too serious - see any Troma movie for a period example - neither of which exist here.
The laughable accents and the cheap rubber are definitely hilarious... for ten minutes; the casting of the Italian FOB for the Mexican was just cruel all around. One of us fell asleep a half hour in. The actors are wooden, the dialog is painful and uses a first-grader's environmentalist agenda as drapery for its paper-thin plot. There is one and only one glimmer of brilliance, after everyone climbs out of the cave, but it's quickly drowned in a generic ending.
If I had to sum up the movie, that would be how: Generic. Paint by the numbers. Retread.
Submission into the worst movies ever made would be a shoo-in, which is probably the main reason it still gets occasional play. The jaded, hipsterish horror nerds live to claim to love this kind of retro garbage, so it's no surprise it has a bunch of over-5 reviews, despite having nothing that any other movie lacks.
It's no wonder the actress gave herself a cocaine OD after making this.
Family Guy: Seahorse Seashell Party (2011)
Insipid and soul-crushing after a wacky start
It's a testament to how utterly staid and predictable Family Guy has become that a SuperJail-esque scene of random psychedelic fear has been one of the most refreshing scenes in years, made with excellent animation and a complete lack of scripting, aside from the intercessions of the mandatory "Stewie is Gay" and "Meg is Butt-Monkey" scenes every episode has to have now. Sure, it doesn't really even match up with LSD's effects, let alone shrooms, but hey, it's a silly cartoon and a great change in pace. The van Gogh reference was especially great, but frankly could have been played much more disturbing than it was.
And yet, the entire second half of the episode was nothing more than a dull 10-minute speech by Meg, fake tears by Lois's voice actress; a total author on board, most likely by someone who's written a few special Mary Sue fanfics involving her over the years. It was as out of place as Gunsmoke in West Hollywood - no jokes, no changeups, they just ran flat out of ideas, just endless vilifying followed by an hokey resolution; at the very least they could have tied into the Stewie time travel episode, with Meg coming out as "Ron", which would have been a nice bone to longtime viewers. Ending with a Very Special Episode gag only works if you haven't already tuned the audience right out.
What killed it for me was the crocodile tears Lois cried; the voice acting was so bad I expected her to start laughing any second, but the speeches kept going. Obviously everyone involved knew the script burned with stupid and phoned in the worst performances in years, yet the tone deaf producers still put it on the air. Wonderful.
Hatchet II (2010)
If you love Troma you'll like this
It's hard to give a rating to this movie - in some ways it takes itself too seriously and falls utterly flat, yet in other ways it's deliciously campy and uproariously funny - even the president of Troma makes a cameo. It's a bit of a mad libs, slavishly keeping to horror tropes in a somewhat unconventional way, obviously intending to send up the entire genre but never succeeds in doing more than plodding from one plot point to the next. Tony Todd phones in another enjoyable performance as a pale shadow of Candyman, everyone else... well, I don't know what the hell they were doing, aside from hamming it up. It short order it becomes a silly drinking game.
The trouble with any parody or deconstruction is that the writing and directing has to make up for the unrealized expectations of the audience, and Adam Green in both roles shows no skill whatsoever. Every time Hatchet 2 goes overboard, it reels the fun back in by sticking dead serious to formula in the next scene. By the time the exposition of the first 2/3 is done there's no time for tension, so murder comes thick and fast, barely slowing down long enough to throw a weird boob shot in, and you're left wondering, that's it? The final result is missing any tension to scare or enough humor to leave a lasting mark.
Everything positively screams out for Bruce Campbell to foil Tony Todd's morose faux-shaman and Kane Hodder's Pluto impersonation. (Mystifyingly, Mihailoff of Leatherface II fame didn't play Crowley.) The original man of Camp would create a work of art. Instead we have a bunch of hams screaming, running around, and dropping like flies in ways that make so little sense but brought unexpected giggles, piling one deus ex machina on top of another until your brain switches off and you can't stop snickering at actors trying too hard for such a bad movie, especially the poor unfunny Danielle Harris.
As a final insult, editing is a disaster: you can skip the first half hour and not miss a thing. Cut the exposition and extend the camp-killing and you might have another cult classic on your hands, but instead everyone involved chickened out and went for formulaic and boring when it really counted. I'm absolutely baffled that another sequel is in the works. I hope it's saved by a competent director, but I'm not holding my breath for anything other than a drunken rental.
Shattered Lives (2009)
If you need a cure for insomnia, this is it.
How this was released beyond a school film department I have no idea, but it has some of the worst acting, sound mixing, music, and editing I've seen in years, and this from someone who loves low-budget schlock as much as art film. Stuck it out to the bitter end: Poignant scenes came off as trite and repetitive, the robo-drawl clowns were far more irritating than creepy, and the delivery was often given with all the passion of a middle school play. Technically and artistically, the film is a complete bomb. With any luck, this is Lindbergh's last film.
I even ended up putting my grocery list together during the incredibly long fake emo scenes toward the end. It sounded like a LiveJournal read aloud, there was just nothing of substance to grip on to.
The height of tackiness is when the director shills his own movies in the reviews! A Carl L. was the only 5-star on Blockbuster, and a lucas_smidth whose only other high rating was for another Carl Lindbergh film just happened to be the highest rater here.