Change Your Image
NostalgicMom
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Scratch (2009)
Lazy
I found this at the Dollar Tree, it was on a DVD with 10 other action movies. So, basically I paid 10 cents for this movie. So it wasn't bad, for the price.
So, what first struck me was that most of the talking seemed like an audition tape, and it seemed that way because the director decided to set up a camera with some actors in the shot, and then just let them recite dialogue for a few minutes with no cuts. It seems like the first and only take was used each time. I want to fault the actors for their performances, but had the director been less of a "one take wonder" kind of guy, and given the editor something to work with, you could trick the audience into thinking these are good actors. I'm guessing the director figured that the dialogue-heavy moments didn't matter, so he put the camera on a tripod and went to the bathroom.
Also, it seemed like they rented a house, emptied it out, and then used the rooms inside to film all interior scenes. So, there's a scene in a bar, and a scene in a detective's office ... um, I'm having trouble even remembering the movie as I write this, and I just watched it today ... but it seems like they just redecorated the same few rooms to save money. There are more convincing studio sets on Saturday Night Live.
The action scenes, which take place mostly in the last half, seem lively, passionate, and stylish. It seems like there might have been storyboards involved. The performances are more energetic. There actually seems to be multiple camera angles so that the editor can get a good tempo going. The action scenes aren't perfect ... they're not even really good, but they're better than the other stuff in the movie. You can tell that everyone knew that these were the Mkoney Shots that would attract an audience.
The only thing that stood out as "good" in the movie was that the gunshots sound real.
Stranger Things (2016)
I liked it better when it was called ''Door to December'' by Dean Koontz
This is a pretty predictable TV show that's basically an adaption of Door to December by Dean Koontz, only with a lot of Stephen King / Steven Spielberg elements tossed in, especially from It, Goonies, Poltergeist, et cetera. The "Duffer" Brothers assumed that few people would recognize that, and they were right. The worst part is people will assume that MKUltra was something that this show created, and those of us who knew about it beforehand have to hear about it from fans of this show.
Bering Sea Gold (2012)
The Emily Riedel Show, dude.
This show has always been intensely, obviously fake to anyone with eyes and ears and half a brain, and you'll never learn anything about gold dredging, but it's become all about a scantily clad Emily Riedel, with producers contriving ridiculous situations to play on her gender or supposed sexual appeal, such as creating an "all girl" dredging crew filled with women who do nothing and quit, or having a romance with some guy named Zeke. Really, who cares? She's actually quite ugly inside and out. Not to mention that this is an insult to anyone who finds men attractive. They could have focused more on the obvious sexuality that men have with each other when stuck on a boat for long periods, rugged, real men and the sex that they have... but this suffers from "head and hands" syndrome, where you'll see no male skin other than their heads and hands. Everything else is covered up in layers of clothing because it's freezing cold out there in Alaska. Sometimes, even that is covered in gloves and airmasks and diving suits that wrap up and around the head. The exception would be Zeke, for whom producers obviously hired a nutritionist and fitness trainer so that he could look more muscular in a black T-shirt and strain to have chemistry with his on-screen girlfriend Emily, as she dives into the frigid water in a bikini, saying "dude" after every sentence, acting like a dramatic B-word or trying and failing to act like she knows what she's doing.
My recommendation is to watch porn. It actually has nudity and penetration with prettier, smarter women.
Fat Girls (2006)
Watchable
If you go into this knowing that it's basically some kid's film project, it's fantastic! Or, it's fantastic if you were drunk while watching it like I was the first time. It wasn't so great 10 years later when I was sober.
It was written, directed, and starred 20-year-old Ash Christian, and it was obviously a school film project that was cultivated during his teen years, and was somehow granted a bigger budget than could be achieved in high school. The bigger budget wasn't really needed as it's nothing you and I couldn't do with our phones and friends. Though I'm sure renting prom props wasn't cheap.
This is a fairly entertaining movie if you like movies that rely only on the verbal exchanges of supposedly witty teen angsters. It's got no real plot, but the general idea is something about the slice of life revolving around the prom. People have compared it to Napoleon Dynamite, but there's a heavy dose of a Will & Grace inspiration, but if Grace was overweight instead of underweight, and Will got laid.
None of the 20-somethings who played the teens look young for their age. Ash doesn't look like a fresh teen, but a man in his 20s who has been sleep-deprived and stressed out from being a triple threat on his first real movie project.
However, if you do enjoy this movie, I recommend watching 29th and Gay. It almost seems like a sequel since they seem so similar.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008)
Great after a rocky start, ended on a high note.
After the first few episodes, the writers were able to do what they could with the flawed premise that oblivious producer Josh Friedman presented: Terminator as a high school drama that contradicts the rules laid down in the original movie, starring a very skinny woman as Sarah Connor, who makes such amazing choices as sending her child to public school in the States. Again, the writers did their best with this concept and made it halfway decent, and the actors are talented and do their best. The pilot, set partly in Texas, obviously caters to rednecks who are too drunk to care whether or not this is quality Science Fiction, or even entertainment without plot holes, just as long as there are hot chicks in trucks runnin' over robots. There is also a sudden emphasis on Christianity, never seen before in the franchise.
Season 2 came along and the writers had abandoned many lame story lines, such as John Connor rallying his high school classmates together for some purpose. Of course, in that scenario, the audience had to wonder what happened with the abandoned story lines that they had wasted their time on, such as a girl committing suicide.
Friedman's bad, trendy idea of a "hot" teen girl Terminator protector with a name (named after James Cameron, winky wink!) who had her own room in the house, accepted an invitation to the prom, and became a ballerina... this was saved only by a charismatic actress. It was otherwise illogical that this little waif could engage in fisticuffs with Terminator after Terminator after Terminator, most larger than her, and win. Though, again, the writers made lemonade out of lemons by saying that she was a custom-made Terminator who was, indeed, taking on more damage than she could repair.
The writers managed to get rid of the bad Cameron character and keep the good actress for another "look alike" character in the last episode, but it was too-little-too-late for many audience members.
Had there been a season 3, the writers and producers would have been able to completely escape the lame teen premise by placing John in the future after the nukes had dropped, but Friedman had alienated the target too much by that point.
Eventually, I found myself pleasantly surprised by how intelligent the show became.
Verdict: Great eventually.