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Natejitsu
Reviews
Gridiron Gang (2006)
An Unintelligent Movie
Okay, I was forced to watch this movie in order to teach a lesson of respect. Although I admit the movie does have good lessons for respect, you have to torture yourself to get to them.
First of all, I'll say that if you are a fan of sappy movies that don't take much thinking, you will probably like this movie.
If you are the kind of person who has Citizen Kane as one of your favorite movies, you will hate this movie.
This movie pulls out EVERY sports cliché in the book except a soundtrack that included Queen. Of course there's a terrible display of personal struggle. Right away we're thrown into the life of a prison guard (whose name I still don't know) who randomly decides he wants to start a football team. Why does he want to do this? Who knows? We find out his cousin was killed or something, but since we knew his cousin for about 2 seconds, we don't care. He doesn't even seem to be upset about it. That leads us to his cousin's friend, another character who I didn't even bother to learn the name of. This kid is basically a brain-dead gang banger who kills his mother's boyfriend (I'm assuming) because he abuses her. This teen is supposed to be the main character of the movie, next to The Rock, but there are no redeeming qualities about him. He's a rude, gang obsessed, thick-headed jerk who isn't even good at football because he's so weak.
This reminds me of my next point. This movie definitely seems like it was going to be about an hour long, but they decided they wanted a two hour movie. They repeat the same subplot of one of the children "not giving up street life" yet. I swear, about 8 times one of the characters freaks out so that The Rock can spend 10 years it seems talking to them. Also, half the movie must be in slow motion. I don't think there was one scene of football playing where literally everything was in slow-mo.
In addition, the acting was mediocre at best. The Rock wasn't too bad, considering most of the faults in his lines are in the awful script that I think was written by fictional sports movie writers FROM THE WORLD OF A SPORTS MOVIE. I'd say the best played roles in this film are from the rival gang member in the prison, and the main character's fellow gang member. The main character's performance is so cheesy and obnoxious. Although, I am surprised Xzibit didn't win an Oscar from his fantastic reading of the bible verse to the Christian school coach (/sarcasm).
In summary, this movie made me mad, really mad. I admit I wasn't feeling good entering this movie considering our choices were between this and Shawshank Redemption (I'm sure you can guess what movie I picked), but I usually try to give movies a fair chance, and this movie was really disappointing. This movie is incredibly boring, with literally half of it being totally removable, when at the same time, there's hardly any character development. All of the characters could have died in a nuclear explosion and I probably would have been happy, because they're all just annoying. I really don't understand how this movie obtained a 6.8 when every aspect about it just so terrible.
Like I said, if you like cheesy sports films, go watch this movie because for every second that wanted to claw my eyes out and use them to clog my ears, you'll probably be holding back tears. Just please, don't come on this website and give it a positive review, we like to keep the site mostly for adults.
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)
Where Do I Start?
I don't know where to begin, so I'll say this. I've heard The Room reviewed as the "Citizen Kane" of bad movies. After watching Birdemic: Shock and Terror, The Room will actually seem as good as Citizen Kane.
Birdemic: Shock and Terror is a cult film waiting to happen. The low budget, the amateur cast and crew, the goofy, hole-ridden plot, but what this movie has that classic cult films like The Room and Troll 2 for example don't, is a complete ineptitude from the standpoint of all involved in this movie. I could watch Troll 2 and The Room, and I could picture in some alternate dimension that everything that was wrong with those movies was tweaked and they actually weren't half bad, but Birdemic: Shock and Terror is different.
First of all, the editing in this movie is worse than your average high schooler's film studies project. Almost every perspective change in a scene is accompanied with a long, awkward pause and an obvious change in sound, even on the television. I'm pretty sure the director/producer/writer of this atrocity (James Nguyen) just used the built-in mic on his digital camcorder. Also, every scene is shot with a pan to the right. Believe it or not though, if there's one thing I'll give credit to in this film, is the music. It's actually decent, considering the small budget. The song played during the (awful) bar scene comes to mind because it's really catchy and actually has some really good musicianship. However, the film score is often repeated, and in the case of the beginning credits, is obnoxiously repeated.
Next, the plot and writing. If you haven't seen the movie, the plot is that an aspiring software salesman meets a girl and they hit it off, only to have their wonderful love be cut short by killer birds. The plot is somewhat coherent, as it's pretty easy to figure out what's going on with the love story, and it's also pretty clear "why did the eagles and vultures attacked" (quoting a movie flier made by Nguyen himself). Thankfully, there aren't any subplots in the movie, unless you count the career ventures the characters make pretty early in the movie, which brings me to the writing.
In the pile of steaming crap that is this movie, this has to be the smelliest part. Nguyen was inspired by two movies supposedly: Hitchcock's "The Birds" and Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." I read about that before I watched the movie, and I had a hard time thinking how those two could be combined, then I watched this film. The most out of place, out of context plugs for unrealistic "green" technology (absurdly cheap solar panels, 100 mpg Ford Mustang) can are uttered in this movie to the point where it's almost offensive. This is a part of the movie that you need to see to believe because I'd easily be over the word limit if I had to describe all these scenes.
Finally, we'll talk about the acting. There's not much to say here, except that they aren't good actors. Thankfully, we don't see awkward characters or overacting like in other bad films that have acquired cult rating, but we do see bad actors nonetheless. I honestly don't feel like I can make a true judgement of their acting because of the terrible script and editing, but I can only imagine what I'd think if I got a "true" performance from them. If I had to pick the top 3 actors in this film, I'd pick the "tree-hugger," Nathalie, and the nightclub singer.
Basically, I suggest you watch this movie. This is probably the worst feature-length film of all time, and I've seen some bad films.