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Ugly Americans (2010)
Surprisingly Great
I remember watching this when it came out and being worried that it would devolve into crude violence and mean spirited or gross jokes with little else going on (like Drawn Together). That never happened though. The show certainly wasn't afraid of using crude humor but it expertly avoided becoming anything close to offensive. Most of its humor is actually situational, which helps it feel like a real sitcom, and the tone stays pretty light hearted.
The fantastical characters are well integrated into NYC and allows for fun set pieces and sight gags.
The art style reminds me a bit of underground comix and zines and is incredibly creative, often macabre and surreal but far from actually ugly.
It was a pretty worthwhile show. Shame it was so short lived.
Candyman (2021)
An Okay Movie, but Not A Very Good Sequel
I would be a little more forgiving if this was an independent movie made by unkowns, but that's not the case. The film has some good creepy moments, unfortunately they're mostly nonsequenters featuring characters that only appear in the same scene where they die. The scene with the teen girls in their high school bathroom summoning Candyman was my favorite moment of the movie, but it has esentially no connective tissue with the rest of the film.
I really liked the angle of having the proagonist be an artist that is trying to draw upon black history. That's a great catalyst for the film, but it's not developed enough to be satisfying. Most of the art scenes are just people pretentiously talking about art in general, only occasionally touching on black history or art. The resulting social commentary is spoken about but doesn't really impact the plot. The main characters are already in the art scene and very wealthy and privileged, making them immediately unrelatable and somewhat unsympathetic.
The film utilizes themes of police violence very poorly. At the begining there is a flashback to a harmless man (who resembles Candyman) being killed by the police, which is handled well, but later in the film the protagonist is at the center of muliple murders and logically should be a prime suspect but never even speaks to the police. In the 92 original, the antagonistic police presence is a core part of the story throughout and it's absence here hurts the film. When the cops do appear at the end of the film, it's not very interesting. They shoot a character that was seemingly already dead (or at least way beyond help) and moments earlier was nearly killed by the female lead so the police shooting has little real impact. The police then tell the female lead to cooperate or they'll book her as an accomplice, but logically she should be suspected of that anyway, so that's not a narratively interesting threat. If anything letting her go in exchange for cooperation is just kinda lazy on their part. Obviously the shootoling and the threats connect to real world situations and patterns of police violence, but it is not intigrated into the films narrative well at all.
The lack of Tony Todd as the original Candyman, Daniel Robitaille, is also a problem. Throughout the film we see a man who was killed in 1977 as the ghost of Candyman, but that doesn't really make sense. The film trys to state that Candyman isn't one person but the collective violence against black people, which sure, is what the Candyman narrative represents in a literary sense, but why is this other guy a literal ghost in the movie, and if there's numerous ghosts, why are they not shown. Aside from Tony Todd and the 77 victim, two other people are mentioned one from the 1920s and one from 1950s but they do not appear as ghosts. Is the film asserting that these are the only 4 hate crime victims that have lived in Chicago? That seems unlikely. The inclusion of the new ghost just doesn't make sense.
The film just kinda falls flat, and most unfortunate, wastes the good ideas it did have.
Scariest Monsters in America (2022)
Much better than many comperable documentaries
A lot of the paranormal and cryptozoological documentaries you find on streaming are painfully boring and way too drawn out. Scariest Monsters in America avoids this by having absolutley no filler. There's no investigations where nothing happens or heavily teased evidence that also amounts to nothing. The program simply talks about the featured legends and then moves on organically, which is so refreshing. You see that on podcast and Youtube videos, but actual movies and specials are rarely so concise.
I would also describe this as a bit of a throwback to the cozy monster documentaries that aired on the Discovery Channel in the late '90s. It's not super comprehensive on the folklore, and if you have even a passing interest in this subject matter, there's probably very little that would be new to you, but it's a fun thing to curl up and watch. Tubi once agian exceeds my expectations.
Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969)
Hard to compete with the original
After a half century worth of media that has inexplicably had better staying power than the Looney Tunes or Mickey Mouse, it's interesting to go back to the original episodes of Scooby-Doo, and ponder about made the show such a hit.
The classic mystery element is probably a big component of the show's longevity. After all Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, and Nany Drew all predate Scooby-Doo and also continue to endure. The mysteries on Scooby-Doo aren't particularly hard to figure out, but isn't really the point. Generally they don't use much if any deductive reasoning to stop the villian, instead focusing on catching them in the act. It's a very pragmatic approach to mystery solving that likely helps it connect with small children.
One thing the original series does better than future instalments is maintain a very grounded tone. This show sets up the oft subverted and parodied trope of the monsters always being criminal businessmen in disguise, usually involved in some sort of fraud or real estate scam. In this way the horrors of the show mirror the banal horrors of real life. Rarely do we see armed robbers or people who are dangerous in a violent sense. They're dangerous because they're ripping people off. They're hurting people in the same way most of us are hurt by the actions of greedy money hungry people rigging prices and undermining comunities. I think this is vital to the show's ability to connect with people. We do also see occasional deviations such as harmlessly eccentric treasure hunters, but the villians always have grounded motivations. Whenever future interations have deviated to far from that, the shows have suffered in my opinion (with a few exceptions like Zombie Island, and The Witch's Ghost).
Beyond the charm of a simple premise done well, I think the other thing thats sets this show apart from both it's successors and many other Hannah-Barbara shows is the atmosphere. Scooby-Doo Where Are You? Is drenched in a gothic atmoshere that is perfectly spooky. Background art in shades of blue and purple create such a rich world for the characters to inhabit. Scooby-Doo themes itself as a horror franchise but very rarely after the original show do we see this attention to tone return (The 2002 movie and Mystery Incorporated being exceptions).
While I think this is the best interation of the show, it's not without faults. I priased the grounded and spooky tone, but the show is a comedy and it falls short in its humor. Some of these jokes are terrible and even nonsenical. Just absolutely abysmal attempts at puns followed by a laugh track. These teens are much better at catching people in nets than they are at witty banter, but none the less all the characters are very likeable and endeering, which is more important than the joke quality.
In the end Scooby-Doo will outlive all of us, and as much as the endless barrage of bad celebrity cameos and action orientated reimaginings set my teeth on edge, they ensure that people will always want to revisit these simple stories of the spooky and unknown.
Shatner in Space (2021)
I really can't imagine caring
What can you really say about this kind of insipid self-indulgence that only exist to appeal to the absolute worst kind of weird nerd culture, people who aren't even capable of understanding the things that they have centered their entire personality around?
It never ceases to amaze me the way people are capable of dumbing down media that possesses some genuine level of depth in turning it into the most vapid thing imaginable. Am I expected to actually see a meaningful connection between this sad little vanity project from the recently divorced world's richest man and a speculative fiction TV show about humanitarianism where money doesn't even exist? It's shameful and embarrassing.
Halloweentown High (2004)
Love seeing the characters again but wow is this a slow movie.
I, like many people, love the first two movies. The original is an all time Halloween classic and the second has some really interesting social commentary and a fun, fast paced story with real stakes and tension. This movie however is so slow and plodding. There is nothing going on for most of the film.
The story actually has a lot of potential. Bringing monster students to the human world to prove we can co-exist nicely follows the themes of diversity and acceptance from the earlier films, and Marnie being the leader of this program continues her story arch of believing people can exist in both realms. The threat of the film, The Knights of the Iron Dagger, explain some of the conflict that lead to Halloweentown's creation and serves as a surprisingly somber allegory for real world hate groups. Unfortunately none of these ideas are fleshed out to their full potential.
We barely see the exchange students. We never see them in class. We never see them struggling to assimilate. We don't really see them do much at all. They only briefly talk about their experiences, which is so much more boring than actually seeing them. When they do finally start to fit in, we see it in a montage that last maybe one minute and only features two of the kids. Isn't this what the movie is supposed to be about? Can we develop the concept a little, give them personalities, funny fish-out-of-water set pieces, show them slowly starting to figure things out and find their place?
The Knights are another disappointing element. They're presented as an actual threat, like real world human violence kinda threat, but again we don't spend much time dealing with them. They send a few calling cards to scare Marnie, and she mostly ignores them. She doesn't seem that worried, and when she does finally take things more seriously, not much time is dedicated to it, although Kimberly J. Brown's performance really sells her concern. The movie was intended to be more "family friendly" and less scary than the previous installments so perhaps some of the threats and drama were removed from the final product.
Halloweentown doesn't actually appear in the movie (LAME), but do get some nice dungeon-y hidden rooms where the kids hideout and show their true forms. All the effects and makeup are great, a little more colorful than the previous films, but that's fine. However, like everything else good in the movie, we don't get enough of it. The actual high school is very modern and very boring. Remember the high school from a nightmare on elm street, gothic, dark wood, moody atmosphere? A better setting like that would have really helped the movie since we spend so much time in the real world. The only Halloweentown setting is a court room where judges control everything in Halloweentown as a tribunal? The first movies shows that the town has a Mayor, so I don't really understand how this municipal government works.
There are good elements. The performances are all good, the main cast is great actually, and I do enjoy seeing the characters from the previous movies return, although the younger sister doesn't get much screen time. The scene where the kids get upset at the depiction of monsters at a mall Halloween store is good, and has some genuine emotion. You feel bad for them. The carnival at the end where they recreate Halloweentown to push positive depictions of monsters is fun, if a little underwhelming, and it is nice to see Marnie succeed in uniting the two worlds.
The movie was made in 2004 as the young adult horror boom of the 1990s was dying out and Disney's best made for tv movies where behind them. In this time period, Halloweentown High is struggling to live up to it's legacy, and while I was really rooting for it, it's just really boring. It doesn't betray the characterization of the Cromwell family. It doesn't disrespect the lore/continuity or the themes of the previous movies. There's nothing to get mad about. It's just not terribly engaging, but it is the final film with the original cast, and that might be enough for you to want to seek it out.
The highlight of the movie is Debbie Reynold's little orange pumpkin car. It's the cutest thing.
Sound & Fury (2019)
A Wonderful Watch!
A cool, stylish series of music videos loosely telling a revenge plot in a capitalist hellscape.
I enjoyed it thoroughly, and the 41 minute runtime ensures that it doesn't overstay its welcome.
The visuals driven short film format centered around an album is so fun. I really hope Netflix makes more of these for other artists.
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020)
Really exceeded my expectations
This is a thoroughly fun movie from beginning to end. The action is really fun to watch, well choreographed and occasionally funny in its absurdity. The soundtrack features a lot of pop/classic rock songs, and they're incorporated a lot more subtly than most movies in recent years.
I was a little concerned that the character of Harley Quinn would get on my nerves, but while she is fairly obnoxious, she never becomes annoying or unsympathetic. Margot Robbie's performance (along with Cathy Yan's directing and Christina Hodson's writing) really sell the character. I'd happily watch a dozen movies with her in this role.
The rest of the cast including the actual "Birds of Prey" and and Ella Jay Basco's Cassandra Cain are great and become ever better when the team is finally formed and everyone is interacting with each other.
While this to mostly be a stand alone/spin-off film, I do hope I get to see all these characters again in future films.
Enterprise: Cogenitor (2003)
"Who is to say if slavery is bad or not?" - Captain Jonnathan Archer
Balancing tradition with progress is a difficult challenge, especially when you're approaching the subject as an outsider to the culture in question. Star Trek has a lot of episodes exploring this subject, and most are pretty good.
I think one of the most appropriate comparisons is to the TNG episode "Half a Life," which also features a person requesting asylum to escape a regressive cultural practice and also culminates in a sad (and frustrating) ending, but the big difference is that the TNG episode recognizes that the decision to stay with the culture or leave lies with the individual and not with the powers that be. That autonomy is important.
The aliens (Vissians) in this episode are established to be capable of great progress over a very short period of time and are very interested in learning about earth culture, yet Archer refuses to show any conviction that slavery is immoral based on Earth's own history. The alien captain says that his world would be blown away by Shakespeare and Socrates and asks for other important works of literature. Archer, apparently intimated by someone reading a book quickly doesn't have anything to offer. Things like "My Bondage and My Freedom" and "Self-Made Men" by Fredrick Douglas or "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by James Baldwin might have been important or relevant to the themes of the episode and might have been a good way to expose the Vissian's to their misguided treatment of the cogenitors. This is such a black and white issue, and Archer is presented as being too dumb to recommend a book he likes let alone function as diplomat to a problematic culture.
The fact that Archer has a whole speech at the end about how Trip was wrong for trying to help Charles is just so disgusting. Archer's own actions, refusing to acknowledge obvious human rights abuses, resulted in Charles committing suicide. It seems like if a person would rather kill themselves than return to their own culture, then that culture is clearly in the wrong and he was wrong not to grant her asylum and the notion of cultural relativism obviously doesn't apply. The fact that Charles was asking for asylum in the first place SHOULD have made that clear. Not to mention that he was fine with leaving one third of a global population in the same conditions that motivated Charles to take her own life.
Since this is in the early days of the Federation it could actually be meaningful for Archer to make the wrong call, for what he thinks is the greater good, only to realize that he was wrong and enabling oppression and suffering. This could have been a defining moment in the their history and lay the groundwork for the way Picard and Janeway handle civil rights in episodes like "Measure Of A Man" and "Author, Author." BUT NOPE. It's just garbage.
Vampira (1974)
Not quite blaxploitation, not quite a comedy, not quite good.
The core idea of the film (Dracula accidentally turning his wife black by using a black woman's blood to resurrect her) has so much possibility. There are so many jokes you could make about prejudice, and old fashioned ideas, interracial relationships, etc, but the film doesn't do any of that. It doesn't really do much of anything. You might expect Dracula to overcome his apprehension about his wife now being black, realize the superficiality of his concern, and just be happy to be reunited, but that also doesn't happen. He's just unhappy about his wife being black and tries to change her back. He never develops or realizes he's wrong. He's just uptight through the whole movie. There's no real moral or messaging about racism or love. I suppose the ending is supposed to give us something like that, but it really doesn't, and the ending REALLY doesn't age well. Totally a wasted concept and cast.
Eerie, Indiana (1991)
Young adult mystery/horror that really holds up
There is a lot of young adult horror from the 90s that I only have vague childhood memories of (occasional reruns of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, The Nightmare Room, and Disney Channel Halloween movies). While my actual recollections are pretty foggy, what I do remember is a real fun spooky atmosphere, the same kind of atmosphere that reading Goosebumps in late autumn was able to generate. In the years since then I've occasionally tried to revisit these shows and recapture what I enjoyed when I was younger, however I'm usually disappointed with what I find. Most of these shows have such poor production value and almost none of the charm that I remember.
Eerie, Indiana is a marked exception to that. I don't recall this show ever being rerun when I was a little kid. I've only found it more recently, but it so accurately captures the feeling I enjoyed in my youth. It's spooky and weird, a little surreal, and a lot of fun to watch.
While the show is great from the very start, about halfway through its run John Astin (The Addams Family) is introduced as the new shopkeeper at the general store and malt shop is the main characters' hangout. He become a more prominent character the previous shopkeep and occasionally serves as an ally to Marshal and Simon. They also introduce Jason Marsden as Dash X, a kid with amnesia and white hair who randomly appears in town and serves as a frenemy to Marshal (Jason Marsden and Omri Katz would go on to star in Hocus Pocus two years after this show ended as Thackery Binx and Max, respectively). Adding these two characters to the supporting cast helped to flesh out the world of the show, and it gave Marshal and Simon people to interact with out side of each other and the oblivious residents of Eerie.
Like a lot of media made between the mid 80s and early 90s, the show is an indictment of yuppie culture and the way it co-oped the the success of 1950s suburban life and tried to continue that legacy under the misguided banners of Reaganomics and credit card debt. While this probably sounds like I'm reading a little too much into these tropes, the show is filled with very on the mark jokes and plot points related to the close-mindedness and naivety of suburbanites and the idea of middle-class normalcy being little more than a front for more perverse conspiracies.
Despite having a lot of thoughtful and sarcastic writing, the show doesn't take itself very seriously. It maintains a very funny, camp vibe throughout that allows both the characters and supernatural elements to be pretty goofy at times, which in my opinion helped prevent it from being as boring as many of its contemporaries.
It's a really great watch that I think most people could enjoy if they're looking for a little spooky fun.
The Twilight Zone (2019)
Idk just watch Tales from the Darkside or something.
Based on just the first season: I guess it's not horrible, but I don't think I really want to watch more of it than I already have.
One of my biggest problems is that I don't know what the Twilight Zone name really adds since the stories could just as easily be from any other creepy anthology series (Tales from the Darkside, Crypt, Outer Limits, Tales of the Unexplained, etc). It's been 60 years since the original show premiered and popularized this format, and in those 60 years many shows have followed suit and tried to use this format and be (in a sense) spiritual successors to the original Twilight Zone, but The Twilight Zone (1959) is still the gold standard for these types of shows. In most objective and subjective measures it still holds up the best, better than shows half it's age.
So that begs the question, is the new Twilight Zone a successful continuation of the original or just another show using its format? Well I suppose it works better as a loving tribute to Rod Sterling's original than as a direct continuation.
One of the biggest shortcomings is simply that the episodes are too long, and often too little happens. This is clearly meant to create a slow burn that draws out the tension, but a lot of the time that tension wasn't present, and the show started to get boring. It just lacks the chaotic energy of the original. I'm usually very content with dry and slow science fiction, so the fact that I started to get bored is not a good sign for show's populous appeal. The original only had one season with hour long episodes, and it's generally considered to be the weakest.
Having Jordan Peele host is a sublime choice. However, outside of being a producer (whatever that means) he is JUST the host. He is not the showrunner, He did not write, direct or have any creative input into the first season of the show. What a waste. They have one of the best genre directors in the business, whose work is as solidly socially conscious as the best of the Twilight Zone, and all he does is provide narration and introductions. It feels like they're trying to trick the audience into thinking he's literally filling Rod Serling's role (because he has every ability), but nope.
I also don't like the title sequence. This is a small issue but the stock cgi elements and the toned down music just feel very amateurish to me. If they were going to recreate the original, they should have used physical models (which I would have loved). If they were going to use cgi, they should have done something really surreal to take advantage of it like the Outer Limits (1995) did.
There are several things about the show that are very good, and do make me optimistic about its future. Even though the show is mostly set in the modern day they don't make it too timely. It still is able to maintain a generally timeless quality, which I certainly appreciate. Jordan Peele even wears the classic Rod Serling sack suit. However, the cinematography is generally pretty unimpressive. It looks "good" in that it looks like every other prestige tv show (low romantic lighting or slightly over-exposed natural lighting). I knew they wouldn't do the show exclusively in B&W but I wish they did something that build the atmosphere a little bit more. Like many things in the show they chose the most boring route.
The best thing about the show is the fact that they lean so hard into the social political aspects of the stories, which isn't exclusively what the original did, but it is what build the legacy it has today as meaningful show. I don't have any complaints about this aspect.
However, the actual sci-fi elements leave something to be desired. The show clearly wants to be very serious (despite so many comedians being involved in the production) so we don't get the flying saucers and pulp imagery from the original, which I guess is fine, but we don't get modern versions either. Everything is very grounded, from the exclusion of the gremlin in "Nightmare at 30,000" feet to aliens from another dimension looking just like us (which the original did too but also had people in prosthetics and makeup in other episodes so it evens out). There were opportunities to be more creative that they didn't take. You could argue that the creatures in the original are some of the most dated aspects, but I don't think that's a problem. They have a real charm and even if they are sometimes goofy, I feel like that helps to balance out the tension and suspense not detract from it. If anything it helps make the darker aspects of the stories more palatable. Isn't that a big part of the reason you want to use sci-fi allegories to tell these stories, so they'll be more palatable and fun for an audience while still imparting the social message?
I wish I liked it more, but I don't. It feels less like a genuine response to the socially turbulent times we live in and more like CBS is trying to attract people to their new streaming service using old properties (just like Star Trek: Discovery). I do think it's better than most episodes of Black Mirror though, and I do believe there is room for improvement if the showrunners are able to appropriately self-critique their work.
House of Mouse (2001)
A fun way to utilize classic Disney characters.
The show's premise, Mickey Mouse running a dinner theater nightclub, sounds pretty bizarre at first, but it ultimately comes together to create something really fun and unique.
At this time Disney had found success bringing their classic characters into the modern age with "Duck Tales" and "Goof Troop" in the early 90s and continued that success on the small screen with TV Shows based on their movies (Aladdin, Hercules, The Little Mermaid, etc). "House of Mouse" feels like a very natural evolution from these previous programs. The show essentially takes place in the same universe as "A Goofy Movie" and "Quack Pack," with characters appearing very similar to those iterations. Max, Huey, Duey, and Luey appear to be the same ages they were on those programs, and overall designs remain consistent to that era.
The club's audience is made up of classic Disney movie characters (the princesses, Alice in Wonderland, Fantasia, Lion King, etc). This is where "House" deviates from previous shows utilizing Goofy and Donald. Those shows mostly took place in fairly grounded suburban settings that had few if any meta connections to the larger history of Disney animation. (The notable exception being "Bonkers," which shares a very similar world to "House of Mouse"). Since "House of Mouse" features characters from Disney films that clearly take place in a different continuity, it makes it feel like a nightclub that exists in the Toontown from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" where all the cartoons co-exist together as working actors. As a kid it's always fun to see characters from different franchises interact, this show does that pretty seamlessly, often just as cutaway jokes, but sometimes they become more involved in the main storyline.
The show's actual plot is basically the same as the "The Larry Sanders Show," with Mickey and crew dealing with behind the scenes hijinks while trying to keep the show going, with varying degrees of success and the expected comedic outcomes.
The "shows" being performed at the House of Mouse are Disney animated shorts, Mostly from "Mickey Mouse Works," but they do often delve into the more classic catalog especially if it relates to the main story (i.e. a Goofy short about road rage from the '50s is shown when Max tries to get his driver's licence.) I don't want to make it sound like the nightclub elements are just wraparound segments or bumpers. I'm not sure how much original animation is in each episode, but they feel like full episodes.
Trying to decode the behind the scenes politics that led to this show's creation is an interesting rabbit hole to go down, but if you're a kid this is all you need to know: It's funny. The animation looks good. The world it sets up will spark your imagination, and you'll get to see A LOT of characters to recognize and like.
For adults, it's a bizarre relic of the era that brought us Space Jam and Gangsta Popeye.
The Frontier (2015)
It's a great film to watch on a dark summer night.
The Frontier is an old fashioned thriller washed in the aesthetics of the Southwest and the Seventies. It feels old and timeless but also modern and crisp. The brisk pace and interesting characters makes the movie fly by. I highly recommend it.
Sex Kittens Go to College (1960)
A B-Movie Masterpiece
A lot of the intentionally camp B-movies of this era are truly insufferable, boring, filled with bad acting and awkward attempts at sex appeal. Often times MST3K can't elevate them enough to be watchable. SEX KITTENS manages to avoid the these trappings and create a really fun movie. The appearance of actors like Jackie Coogan, John Caradine, and a brief appearance by Vampira probably do a lot to elevate the story. Nobody gives a restrained or subtle performance. Everyone is very goofy, which is exactly what the film called for.
Surprisingly the film is very tame when it comes to sex. Men ogle Van Doren, but they're such harmless cartoon characters that it never feels sleazy, and none of them make a serious advance. There are also two subplots about men actively rejecting the advances of women. One is about a gangster who is more interested in his schemes than the student trying to seduce him for her report on sex, and the other is about the head of the football team passing out because he's too nervous to talk to girls. Sex is treated in a very cute harmless way, despite what the title and marketing would suggest.
Mamie Van Doren's Dr West shows considerably more depth than you would expect the role to allow. In fact with the exception of the sex obsessed French student, all of the female characters are depicted as intelligent and thoughtful, while the male characters are absolute morons. I think this dynamic does a lot to make the film not feel too dated in it's social politics. It features a woman with 13 PhDs who is also a former stripper overcoming sexism to be the head of a University science department. If that's not a female empowerment fantasy, I don't know what is.
You should have realistically low expectations for a movie like this, but there's a Chimp named after Voltaire and Conway Twitty is in it for a few minutes. Do you really need more?
Haunted Transylvania 2 (2018)
Even for a baby video this is embarrassing.
This video may provide some entertainment to a toddler aged child, but I am going to review this as an adult man who watched in at one o'clock in the morning.
The video has no plot or story line. It is a series of segments featuring cgi characters dancing to "spooky" music, which could be fine, even fun, if the execution wasn't so horrible, but the segments get increasingly lazy and repetitive after the halfway point, which coincided with my decreasing patience with the video.
There are only maybe 4 songs that are played on a loop, and only one has a singer. The rest are just instrumentals that were almost indistinguishable from one another. The first few segments showed promise with a realistic skeleton in a creepy graveyard, followed with a host segment featuring a brightly colored Dracula and Frankenstein sitting on a talking monster couch in a whimsical graveyard that looks like something from Coraline, cartoon zombies in a realistic haunted house, a mummy in ancient ruins, and the aforementioned hosts dancing in the graveyard.
These were pretty consistent, with cartoony characters dancing in more realistic 3-D environments. It was clear that the character and background assets had been taken from two different sources and had different styles, but they worked well enough and most of the backgrounds looked very good. However after the first few segments the environments look like 2-D desktop backgrounds and the characters are either much more poorly animated or are just repeats/recolors of ones we've already seen. There were several skeleton segments with skeletons animated in different styles. This really bothered me. If the movie isn't going to have a story it should at least have a consistent style to pull me into the world and ambiance of the video, but it doesn't.
For me this ruined the novelty of seeing cgi monster designs and 3-D environments, which was the only enjoyment I was actually getting out of this film. Many of the early backgrounds are truly beautiful, and I would love to see them utilized in something more ambitious.
This isn't a good video. You can watch The Nightmare Before Christmas or random Halloween song videos on Youtube instead, and I guarantee you'll find more enjoyment.
Naked and Afraid (2013)
Every Episode is Basically the Same
Naked and Afraid has an interesting premise; what if we strip people of everything and throw them into the wilderness? Unfortunately the only thing that happens is the contestants getting hungry and cranky until they complete their 21 days and get to go home.
There is very little variety in the contestants. Every episode features a two person team consisting of a man and a woman. Generally the man is somewhere between 38-48 and is a survivalist or survival instructor of some sort, often with a military background. The women are usually a lot younger (mid-twenties to early thirties) and they are usually an endurance athlete, a runner or backpacker with a good deal of general outdoor knowledge. Anyway their credentials are meaningless because neither of them are competent at surviving and they just end up getting in each other's way. The men are always bossy in the way a middle-aged man who thinks he's in charge always is, and the woman is as defensive as you'd expect her to be for a 23-year-old being told what to do by a naked man in his 40s.
Eventually they learn to work together but ultimately accomplish very little. They build a rudimentary shelter and find water but never secure food, so they just wait out the clock while slowly starving. The men usually have a higher BMI at the beginning of the episode and naturally endure the lack of food better than the very thin endurance athletes the show usually picks for its female contestants. This all creates an awkward gender dynamic that unfairly portrays the women as being weaker because they have less body fat.
There are occasionally variations, such as contestants of the same age or with similar skill sets, and those are the most interesting episodes. However those are few and far between, and generally the human element is more tedious than compelling.
It's almost not worth mentioning that both contestants are naked for the duration of the episode. You would think the lack of protective clothing would pose serious challenges, but it never seems to. The fact that they're barefoot in the jungle isn't even mentioned most of the time. The most interesting aspect of the show ends up being mostly inconsequential.
There's not enough here to justify an entire show. A two hour special? Sure, but not a show you can get anything out of by watching on weekly basis.
Cursed (2005)
It's Like a Wes Craven Made A Disney Channel Movie
Cursed was apparently plagued by production issues, which explains why the final product is pretty generic and mediocre. The original premise would have included cameos from numerous horror movie actors, which would help justify the very un-spooky setting of Los Angeles. There was an early attempt to use practical effects by Rick Baker but that fell through. The actual werewolf effects in the movie are.....serviceable. That's about all you can say, and not really any gore or creative kills.
The actual plot of the movie feels very stripped down and basic, some of that is probably from rewrites and the movie being edited from its original R rating to a PG-13. It feels like a made for tv movie targeted at middle schoolers. This is especially true for the subplot with Jesse Eisenburg's character joining the wrestling team once he gains "werewolf superpowers." All of that felt like it was taken straight out of a Disney Channel movie like The Thirteenth Year or Luck of the Irish. Things like this make the movie feel very silly and dumbed down. It makes me wish they had titled the film Werewolf of Los Angeles so it'd have a goofier parody title like Phantom of the Megaplex. The title "Cursed" makes it sound like something deeper is going on and there really isn't.
Overall Cursed is a kinda fun and dumb movie, but it fails to really live up to the potential of it's cast and director. If you want to watch a fairly lighthearted horror movie on a Sunday afternoon this is a great option, but if you're looking for really visceral scares or dark atmosphere, pick something else, maybe Ginger Snaps or Wolf. Those are both better werewolf movies.
The Twilight Zone (2002)
"Imagine if you will, a dull and uninspired remake....."
This is the third version of The Twilight Zone, preceded by the landmark series of the 1960s, a 1985 revival which I must confess that I've never seen, and an alright movie that served as a love letter to Sterling's original brainchild. So how does this series stack up? Well....... it's not great.
Like many things from the late '90s and early '00s, this show is dated in the worst possible way. Nothing is more indicative of this than the revamped "rock" intro-music composed by Johnathan Davis of Korn. If everything in the show was that laughably bad I'd be giving it a 10/10, but sadly the show is just kind of dull.
Some of the worst episodes are the ones that attempt to remake episodes of the original, and these episodes really highlight the problems with this series. One example is "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," an all time classic of the original series. Where the original was set on a calm, dark night this remake takes place in an upscale neighborhood in broad daylight with bright green lawns surrounding everyone. The original used the alien hysteria as an allegory for paranoia about communism. The remake is explicitly about post 9/11 terrorism, no allegory. This show tended to avoid allegory altogether. Instead making every story so straightforward that it felt like an after school special, or it told a simple sci-fi story with no deeper meaning. Both formats fall flat.
I don't want this review to focus exclusively on comparisons to the original, but when you have the same story told by two different people it's easy to see where one succeeds and the other fails. The original series made masterful use of lighting to create foreboding shadows and ominous atmosphere that was heightened by the camera work. The 2002 series is a technical dud. It's overlit and filled with flat boring shots. Small town america and urban slums are replaced with LA suburbs that look like the kind of places the producers probably live. It's so much less interesting and harder to relate to despite being more contemporary.
Overall the show is just boring. I've seen a handful of episodes and honestly struggled to get through each one. There may be some gems hidden among the mediocrity, but I haven't found them. It's hard to stack up to a classic, but even if you completely divorce this series from the original, it offers nothing to stimulate an audience and hold their attention. You may want to check it out as a curiosity, but I think you'll lose interest as quickly as I did.
The Void (2016)
I don't care what reservations you have about contemporary horror, you need to see this
I caught The Void on Netflix, and if you've attempted to watch any of the independent horror films on there, you know that the vast majority are slow, meandering, and a general waste of time. The Void succeeds where these films fail. It doesn't have a long drawn out prologue. It isn't an ugly, desaturated borefest. It doesn't have mopey annoying characters that are a pain to follow. It successfully avoids all the trappings of the modern genre to bring us a film that is a real gem.
One of The Void's biggest strengths is the pacing. Aside from a few quiet moments sprinkled throughout for character development, the film throws you into the action and doesn't let up until the finale. It also continually ramps up the stakes, constantly creating new and refreshing scenarios and set pieces.
The characters and acting are all very good as well. There's no unjustified assholes or characters that exist solely to be annoying. Everyone feels like a real person being thrown into this situation, so while you don't get a lot of backstory or character development you immediately understand where everyone is coming from and are easily able to relate and empathize with all of them.
The practical special-effects are a big selling point with this film. I don't want to give away all the fun, so I'll merely say that they are ambitious and flawlessly executed. I know there is CGI used to touch up some things, remove wires and puppeteers, etc, but when something horrific is happening on screen it's also happening right in front of the actors. That adds so much to the believability and immersion of the film. The filmmakers primary background is in makeup and special effects, working on everything from IT (2017), Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water, and the Hannibal tv series, and they really utilize their full skill set with this film.
Because of it's rural setting, isolated location, and lack of cell phones and computers, the film effectively creates a timeless quality, but is likely meant to be a period piece, taking place in the late 1980s. The film draws a great deal of inspiration from the films of that era. Certain moments seem very much like a slasher film while others delve into the pseudo-Lovecraftian cosmic horror of movies like Hellraiser and the Thing. While some of these inspirations are very obvious and transparent they're done very lovingly and always provide a fresh spin on what's being presented.
In short, The Void is a great flick. If you're a horror fan, it's a must see, and even if you're not the biggest horror hound, it is an artfully constructed, extremely engaging movie that is still well worth your time.
VeggieTales in the House (2014)
A challenging philosophic masterpiece
It's interesting that on the show Veggie-tales, a Christian program, all of the characters are cultivated vegetables, meaning that they were all the product of selective breeding, hybridization, and genetic engineering. None of them exist in nature (biblical Creation.) They were all made by man's intervention, not by God's. The concept of "vegetables" in itself is a human construct that has no meaning in the natural world. What does god mean to something that was not created by him? Do the vegetables even have souls that would be recognized by God, and if not is their piousness in vain? Would they act differently if they knew this. The show is trafficking heavily in Nietzschean ideas found in The Gay Science ranging from the ubermensch to the death of god and mortality beyond good and evil.
Gandhi (1982)
Gandhi the Major Motion Picture
GANDHI not surprisingly is about the life, activism, and impact of its title character, Mohandas K. Gandhi. I hate to admit it but before I watched this movie I knew essentially nothing about him. I knew he was an important leader in the liberation of India from England's rule but the real implication of his actions throughout his life had never really been brought to my attention. To understand Gandhi a person has to study a fifty-year period of history that includes both major events in India as well as Africa. This is where the film really shines; it takes all these events and presents them concisely by focusing on Gandhi and relating the events he was involved in to him instead of starting with the events and including the players as almost an afterthought the way many text books would. This makes the information easily accessible for anyone regardless of foreknowledge.
The film opens with 300,000 extras attending Gandhi's funeral, more than any movie made before or since, to capture the scope of how revered he really was. These people are packed along the street as his coffin is moved through the city suggesting far greater numbers as if everyone in India was there. As this spectacle is being shown a radio station reporter's monologue played. He is trying to put into words, overwhelmed but still very articulate, how extraordinarily important the life that had just ended was to the world. He notes that Gandhi never held a political office, was not a religious leader, and never held any authoritarian title and yet people followed him with an unrivaled dedication.
The way he used hunger strikes and risked his own health to keep the protest from becoming riots by starving himself until people behaved is shown in a way that articulates his actions and motives perfectly. The way the film addresses the problems faced by the cotton farmers really reminds me of the way films such as the GRAPES OF WRATH, BOUND FOR GLORY and many others depict the struggles of farmers during the depression in America. The film also shows how India's sovereignty leads to the formation of Pakistan by India's Islamic minority, something that I was not familiar with before seeing the movie.
Director, Richard Attenborough (perhaps best known by audiences as the Colonel Sanders impersonating proprietor of Jurassic Park) struggled for over twenty years to get support for this movie to be made and it couldn't have been any better if he had spent every day of those twenty some ought years creating this film. So much information is presented here with a degree of accuracy that is almost never seen in a Hollywood production (THE DOORS, it's like a slap in the face for their fans;) I'm truly surprised it's not used as a teaching tool in all history classes. More than its informative value, this movie is a fitting a tribute to the man who is the figurehead for peaceful protest, pacifism, and all positive changes is government policy. He was a person who didn't need a legend because his factual acts outdid any possible fallacies and I learned most of what I know about him from this movie.
Pred dozhdot (1994)
Time Never Dies, The Circle is Not Round
Before the Rain is a film composed of three loosely interconnected episodes Words, Faces, and Pictures. All of these segments are dealing with the influence of the Bosnian War in Macedonia, and the unintended consequences war, especially racially motivated war, can have on people's lives.
The first segment called Words takes place at a picturesque Macedonian monastery located atop a mountain.The cinematography is beautiful. There are lush green gardens, mountain ranges, and a vibrant sky with oversized and exaggerated features. Within the monastery itself there are lingering shots on pre- Renaissance paintings and the architecture of the compound. Words is undoubtedly the most visually stimulating of the episodes.
The second segment, Faces, is odd when compared to the first and third. It doesn't take place in Macedonia, instead it is set in London and is entirely in English whereas the other segments are in Macedonian or Albanian with subtitles. It is also the weakest episode in the movie. The story is less interesting and maybe even a little boring, as it deals with a woman coping with an inconvenient pregnancy and her love for the man she has been cheating on her husband with, which is much less compelling than the creeping threat of bigotry and war that the rest of the movie focuses on. The cinematography is not very good is this section either; instead of the vibrant Macedonian countryside, Faces just takes place in a dirty city and lacks any of the interesting or stylized visuals that can be found in Words or Pictures. It also has the weakest links to the other segments. The only connection to the first segment are some photos of Kiril and Zamira that were taken after Zamira's death. These are only briefly seen and have no impact on the story. Because the link is so flimsy it would be easy to forget about these photographs or just discount them. If a person did that they might think that the first segment actually happened last and the rest of the film was just a flashback. The filmmakers clearly wanted a more complicated explanation to the films continuity, so by making it so easy to ignore certain details, they've undermined their own ideas. The only interesting detail is that Katrin Cartildge, who plays the protagonist in this episode would play a nearly identical journalist character who is also caught up in the Bosnian conflict when she appeared in No Man's Land seven years later.
The third and final segment, Pictures, is the strongest of the three. It is the only segment that successfully contains story elements from the other two episodes, bringing in Aleksandar who was introduced in the Faces as the protagonist and giving the backstory of Zamira before the events of Words. It is the section of the film that creates the most tension and has the most emotional resonance.
This segment also features several apparent homages to classic American Westerns. The scene where Aleksandar is riding a bicycle while whistling is reminiscent of the bicycle scene with Paul Newman from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and when Aleksander is going to his cousin's barn to help birth the lambs he is framed in the darkened doorway almost identically to the way John Wayne is framed in The Searchers. When Aleksandar first walks up to his old house the camera is at a low angle focusing on his destroyed house and roughly constructed fence as Aleksandar walks into frame from the left with the sun setting in the background. There are similar shots in Clementine and the Grapes of Wrath, both John Ford movies as well. There is even a moment where Aleksander gives a Zippo lighter to the father of former girlfriend, noting that they are often used in American movies. This reveals that the director has seen enough American films to know the minute detail of what kind of lighters are often used, so it is reasonable to assume that he would intentionally include the other references because he is a fan of the movies they came from.
Aside from the individual stories the movie's big selling point is the way it plays with the ideas of time and continuity. In the second segment there is graffiti on a London wall that that says, "Time Never Dies, The Circle is not Round." This is also the tagline of the movie, and sums up the nonlinear approach the movie takes. Before the Rain came out in 1994 the same year as what is likely the most famous example of nonlinear storytelling, Pulp Fiction, but Pulp Fiction's approach is much different than this movie. While the scenes and story segments are out of order in Pulp Fiction they could be edited into a linear movie without any real contradictions. Before the Rain wants to emphasize these contradictions and make a story that could never be told in a strictly linear manner. The point of doing this seems to be to make a statement about the vicious cycle of war. How things mindlessly repeat over and over for no reason, accomplishing nothing. Particularly it deals with the way these ideas pertains to the Bosnian War. The film characterizes the war as being meaningless and motivated by prejudice. It's interesting to note that of the three major deaths in the movie, none of the three killed were soldiers, none were actually involved in the conflict, and in the case of Zamira and Aleksandar they are killed by their own family members. At no point in the movie does anyone successfully kill their "enemies." They only succeed in killing bystanders or the people they would claim to be fighting to protect. This seems to be the core idea of the movie.
Pelísky (1999)
Feels Like Home
The film Cosy Dens focuses on three families living in Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring, a time when the country was much less influenced by Communism than it had been before or after. However, despite the political backdrop, the threat of Communism and the fact that this more liberal society is only temporary does not play a major role in the narrative. The primary events of the film follow typical families of the period without dwelling too much on Czech society as a whole.
The movie shares similarities to Christmas movies in American cinema. In visual style the movie looks a lot like A Christmas Story. Both films make use of an idealized looking past where everything has this gold-tinted lighting and everyone wears pristine versions of the clothes that existed at the time. In contrast to this romanticized version of the past, there is the more chaotic element of family drama. This is common in holiday movies and uses the cynical subversion of Christmas being the "happiest time of the year" to derive much of the humor. The film shows Michal's sister receiving a cross bow which is similar to the BB gun in A Christmas Story, and the overall demeanor of Michal's father is similar the "The Old Man" in that they both act like they are the all-knowing patriarchs of the their family when in fact they are both bumbling idiots in actual practice. There's also an interesting moment that parallels Home Alone where a character lights the top of his head of fire. This may or may not have been a deliberate reference but it is a very specific thing that happens in both films and would be an odd coincidence if it was not intentional.
Cosy Dens is a slice of life movie, so there is very little plot. The teenage character of Michal has a crush on his neighbor Jindriska, who begins dating Elien. Michal's infatuation drives many of his actions that propel the story. Jindriska and Michal's parents represent the opposing ideologies of the Prague Spring. Mr. Kraus (Jindriska's father) is strongly opposed to the Communists, while Mr. Sebek (Michal's father) is a Communist soldier. As neighbors Kraus and Sebek often interact with each other, but resent each other because of their opposing ideologies and differing personalities. This dynamic represent something interesting about Cosy Dens. Many aspects of the movie work as both a simple coming of age story and as a microcosm for Czech politics at the time. For example, the character of Elien is a mod that is interested in the British subcultures that were emerging at this time. Within the movie's plot he is a romantic rival to Michal, and in the larger context of Czech society he represents the influx of Western democratic ideas and culture that define the Prague Spring. The idea behind subcultures whether mod, hippie, or any other is the rejection of mainstream culture and the society it represents. This glorification of individuality is in stark contrast to the ideas of societal unity that Communist like Sabek believe. Elien even showed American films, directly spreading that culture to the people in his community. Sabek's Communist allegiance is manifested in his glorification of new technology created by other Communists such as the "unbreakable" plastic cups, and much like the idea of Soviet Communism, the notion that the cups are unbreakable does not hold up to scrutiny. The death of Kraus's wife somewhat foreshadows and parallels the Russian invasion in that many of the things he cares about, his wife and his ideology, are not going to be a comfort to him forever, and in fact he is the one that is most upset when the invasion occurs.
Outside of relationships that represent the political atmosphere of the time, there are also typical family relationships that do not seem to represent anything else. The relationship between Michal and his father is strained because they have different interest. Michal is disinterested in his father political obsessions and Mr. Sebek thinks his son's interests are going to turn him into a degenerate. Similarly, Jindriska's father thinks she is a failure because she doesn't want to practice playing the piano and doesn't share his passion for having all the skills he takes so much pride in, while she shares a closer relationship in her more accepting mother. Sebek's relationship with his brother is competitive, almost to an unhealthy level, and he goes out of his way to impress him. These interactions seem to represent a fairly realistic family dynamic that is influenced by a generation gap and the stress of entertaining a large group of people over the holidays.
The film culminates in the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, ending the Prague Spring, but, except for Mr. Kraus's strong anti-Communist patriotism, the movie has very little to do with politics directly, especially if the viewer unfamiliar with the events. First and foremost it is a movie about family relationships. This makes the vast majority of the movie very accessible and watchable for everyone. However, the ending does not seem like an appropriate conclusion to this mostly universal story. It is very specifically about the end of the Prague Spring. The entire movie does deal with the Prague Spring, but it is handled in a much more subtle way, using characters to represent the political tension. The invasion was a national event, whereas the rest of the movie is more personal and focused entirely on the lives of a few people. Even when these people have ideologies that are nationally based (anti/pro-Communism,) they express these ideas in the way they interact with their family and friends. The invasion is impersonal and largely irrelevant to everything that happens up until that point. It would be more satisfying if there was a conclusion that only effected the characters and the world that had been shown up until that point.
Gadjo dilo (1997)
Well-Intentioned But Lacking in Some Areas
Gadjo Dilo is a much different film than Black Cat, White Cat, which also deals with Roma culture. Where Black Cat, White Cat was colorful and fun, Gadjo Dilo was gray and somber, but that suits its message much more appropriately. The movie focuses on a young man from France, Stephane, who while traveling around Europe befriends a group of Roma who are being discriminated against by the local villagers. In particular, he becomes very close to an older man named Isidor who is lamenting his son's arrest and enjoys drinking heavily. Isidor adopts the Frenchman as a surrogate son and allows him to stay in his house. Stephane's hobby is recording the musicians that he comes across on cassette tapes, and Romani prove to be a treasure trove for this. Initially Stephane has mentality of a tourist. He's not actually very interested in the people or their culture until he finds out that so many of them are musicians, and even then he is not genuinely interested in them. He's interested in their music as a novelty, something from a culture that isn't his own, but he doesn't actually have any appreciation for what the music means or the people that make it. That is until he begins a romance with Sabrina, a Roma woman who lives nearby, and he decides not to leave.
As he stays with them he develops a deeper friendship with Isidor, and a more in depth understanding of the Romani. They become like his family. When Isodor's son is released from prison and then killed, Stephane has to face the devastating grief of the man he's become very close to. Isidor is playing the violin at a wedding when he is told of the news. At this wedding Stephane sees the attendees treating the gypsy band that features Isidor as little more than a novelty, much the same way he did when he was recording his tapes. He appears very obviously disgusted at this revelation and destroys all the tapes he had made while also doing a tribute dance to Isidor's loss. The movie is very critical of the dismissive attitude towards the Romani. It tries to show that the people behind the music are actually people and deserve more dignity and basic human courtesy than they receive. However, the movie itself does portray Isidor, the main Gypsy character other than Sabina, as a manipulative alcoholic and overall a fairly pathetic person. He is likable and nice, but he also at one points begs for sex and then throws a tantrum when he doesn't get his way. If he's supposed to represent an entire culture, this is not a very flattering portrayal.
Gadjo Dilo wants to portray the Roma as an extremely underprivileged class that are often the victim of bigotry. It portrays them as being very pitiful and doesn't show much of a distinctive culture. Gadjo Dilo does have some philosophic substance in the way it addresses empathy and the way certain people are treated as novelties, but that message could apply to any number of ethnic groups. The movie is well-intentioned, but it's not a film that should be watched to gain a better understanding of Romani culture. They should be watched for their entertainment value.