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Reviews
Wet and Reckless (2013)
Jtro's summer vacation disappoints and does not a movie make
OK, let me say that Jason Trost's first movie The FP became one of my favorite movies ever the instant I saw it. Everything about it, from the silly Dance Dance Revolution concept taken to a ridiculous extreme, to the scene stealing extras, to the ducks, it is literally the best thing ever. Wet and Reckless is not.
This "movie" is what happens when a group of friends take a trip to Thailand and decide to shoot a film while on vacation. Unfortunately nothing works. The concept is less than half realized, continuity errors abound, the sound (taken from always visible lavalier mics) and editing is sloppy and terrible (there is no pacing, and second-hand dub-step is always running on loop in the background). Worst of all the entire film is cheap, looks unfinished, and aside from a few punchlines that land - unfunny. It's barely more than a home movie, is completely un-cinematic, and features the most horrible use "PowerPoint" I've ever seen in a film...wait I don't think I've ever seen PowerPoint used in a film. Throughout the second act, it is unclear whether the "cast" is still being followed by a camera crew or have indeed been abandoned by their reality show producers. I can't really recall the ending because I pretty much dozed off. There certainly weren't any ducks! In The FP, though you could occasionally see the seams of its low budget origin, the film never forgot to be funny nor to stray from it's over the top ridiculousness. All Superheroes Must Die, though ultimately unsatisfying and with terrible costume design, at least had a clever premise and the conviction of it's cast. Wet and Reckless is at most a 15 minute Youtube short bloated out to a 90 minute run time, and it is not anywhere near as entertaining as the reality shows it attempts to satirize. Sorry Jtro, but you gotta try harder.
The Last Airbender (2010)
A terrible debasement of great source material
Just don't even bother unless yr gonna get high and drink copious amounts of red wine whilst mocking this terrible terrible movie. The original nickelodeon cartoon is great, just simply fantastic. I wish they had had programs as good as it is when I was a kid. But let's discuss this film adaption! M. Night Shymaballs has proved himself completely incompetent. Why was there no action in Unbreakable? Because he is completely incapable of directing action, as demonstrated in the Last Airbender. He should not be writing scripts either, terrible stuff in here. Casting was outright horrible. It's one thing that the cast was predominately white-washed, but that wouldn't have mattered if any of them could act. Airbender kid has this constant look of a little stunned rabbit, like, um what do you want me to do next. Only Dev Patel as Zuko is any good (or at least passable). He probably thought he was in a good movie, I'm sure he was astounded at the flatness of the line readings of the other actors upon seeing the finished picture. And why are all the character names mispronounced? It's like they were half way through shooting and someone said, oh Shymaballs, you messed up the names, and they were like, whatever.
The film was probably a lot longer, probably 140 minutes, but they seem to have to cut it down to the minimum length necessary to be able to release this turd and still have it be semi-coherent. Even then, it drags and is too long. The editing is atrocious and nonsensical, as shots linger incoherently, and attempts at montages are outright lazy and sloppy. Really, the whole film seems like it was shot by a second unit director with no tangible film experience. Everything else, from the effects to blocking is just completely phoned in.
In summary, the film plays as if z-grade studio The Asylum had produced and adapted the source material and made this film. Only without the Mega-shark and Giant Octopus. Shymaballs should be serving a lifetime sentence in director jail already.
Doomsday (2008)
ridiculously retarded B movie that is fun fun fun!
OK, like before DOOMSDAY, Neil Marshall made two great films, DOG SOILDERS and THE DESCENT, so going into this, i had high expectations. then i heard all of the negative buzz on the internet for months and months. so then i had low expectations. and the trailer sucked. basically, if you go into this film expecting anything serious at all, then yeah, you're going to be disappointed, because this is in no way a serious movie sci-fi action future apocalypse thriller. what it is - a tongue in cheek splatter fest homage to the great John Carpenter movies of the 80s and with a bunch of mad max thrown in. if you loved PLANET TERROR, then you will dig on this. really this flick reminded me of the vibe of BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA or CRANK. i'm not sure why more people weren't laughing, cause this film is simply hilarious. it just gets more and more over the top! cannibalistic punks BBQ one of our heroes to Siouxsie and the Banshees "Spellbound." and they have a GIMP!! little furry bunnies get blown up, and cows are squashed via tanks! oh yeah, look at you now, all covered in virus infected blood prime minister. what did you say, who is that guy? oh yeah! it's Dr Bashir from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, yes!!!
the gore is consistently excessive and top notch. then out of nowhere, it's a knight on a horse, hey there's Malcom McDowell collecting a paycheck!! boy does his nose crazy silly for some reason! this film is totally intentionally funny and camp. the thing is, i think it has a bit too much of a British sensibility for an American audience, cause there is a certain dryness to the humor, but it's pretty clear that Neil Marshall set out to make a big dumb retarded and fun Hollywood movie, and that ironically Hollywood is too stupid to know how to market it. this will find an audience on video, cause while parts of it are derivative of it's influences, it's too much fun not to like. you just gotta keep drinking and/or smoking! there are only a couple of aspects that keep it from being great - the editing is terrible pretty much throughout, and some of the action is hard to follow. then there is the dialogue that is really poorly staged. like they were working so fast to get the shots and come in under budget (especially at what is supposed to be a climatic scene between our heroine and one of the villains) that they just staged it, shot it once, and the actors were like, hurry up lets be done with this, we're ready to hit up that catered food. but regardless, i had a blast, don't know why my roommate asked the theater management for his money back, what a loser.
Stardust (2007)
just terrible
so like i dragged 5 friends out to see this movie opening night based off of internet buzz and name (Neil Gaiman/Matthew Vaughn), i go to one movie all summer, what was i thinking. i mean, i paid for this crap, yet saw the Simpsons movie for free! i feel so bad, this flick sucked! we all knew little of the movie other than the terrible print ads that made the film look like an upcoming fall TV show, but based on the promise that this was based off of a Neil Gaiman graphic novel and directed by the guy who did Layer Cake, and reviews that touted it as a spirited romantic comedy fantasy similar to the Princess Bride, we were all unduly interested.
out and out this movie Stardust sucked. while it started off promisingly with an unpredictable plot trajectory, by the time Claire Danes appears, everything starts to go down hill. first off, her acting is mediocre, (i was like Angela!), as does most of the acting in the film, and there was no chemistry between her or Charlie Cox who plays the hero Tristan or whatever, who at no point has the gravitas to come across as at all heroic, not even by the end battle scene. while the dialogue is not particularly bad, every scene is directed in a style where it's like the director and cast are all in on the joke and they're all winking at the audience. now while some people in the audience i was with ate the jokes up like pigs at the slop, by the time Robert Dinero appeared as the closeted gay pirate, the whole film just lost it completely. every gay stereotype comes out in dinero's hammy performance, and here's the joke! they got tough guy Dinero to act like a queen and ham it up and put on women's clothing, oh how clever, aha ha ha! by this point the film was just stupid and insulting, and downright homophobic in it's regurgitation of queer stereotypes. what was Robin Williams not available?
anyways, by the time the whole thing comes stumbling to a conclusion, everything is so corny, hokey, and cheeseball, i was left wondering, where was the actual adventure? or the action? all i remember was some walking around and fuzzy overdone cgi. and choppy editing. there was nothing memorable or special like say, the princess bride, which this was striving so hard to be. this ain't even Legend. this ain't even Krull. leaving the film, i could see how this story could have worked as a graphic novel, and i could see how it could have possibly worked as a film adaptation had the filmmakers and director Vaughn spent more time playing straight and telling the story and directing his actors, and less time winking at the audience and assuming that it's still fashionable to be all postmodern and break the 4th wall in every scene.
finally, i must say, Charlie Cox is no leading man, contrary to some predictions, he will not become a big star. the kid can't act, and the hairy chest is a deal breaker.
Metal: A Headbanger's Journey (2005)
boring narcissistic wankfest
This somewhat amateurish documentary comes off more like a vanity project and focuses way too much on the film-maker's own narcissism, or "headbanger's journey." The film tries to focus on the whole history of heavy metal and various sub-genres, but in the end only glances over most details and bands of note, and lacks interviews or content dealing with many influential artists. Instead, it's like they took all of the random footage and interviews they were lucky enough to get and poorly edited it together with cheesy effects into an unfocused mess that doesn't really say anything nor give much insight into the music or culture of heavy metal. I felt like I was watching a high school book report.
Yôkai daisensô (2005)
gorgeous and imaginative fun fantasy adventure!
Wow! So much fun! Probably a bit much for normal American kids, and really it's a stretch to call this a kid's film, this movie reminded me a quite a bit of Time Bandits - very Terry Gilliam all the way through. While the overall narrative is pretty much straight forward, Miike still throws in A LOT of surreal and Bunuel-esquire moments. The whole first act violently juxtaposes from scene to scene the normal family life of the main kid/hero, with the spirit world and the evil than is ensuing therein. And while the ending does have a bit of an ambiguous aspect that are common of Miike's work, the layers of meaning and metaphor, particularly the anti-war / anti-revenge message of human folly, is pretty damn poignant. As manic and imaginatively fun as other great Miike films, only instead of over the top torture and gore, he gives us an endless amount of monsters and yokai from Japanese folk-lore creatively conceived via CG and puppetry wrapped into an imaginative multi-faceted adventure. F'n rad, and one of Miike's best!
Crash (2004)
clichéd mediocrity
this film plays like a TV movie. the characters are one dimensional and their story arcs incredibly predictable. the dialogue seeks to be profound, yet is appallingly turgid. the aspirations of this film towards inspirational racial commentary are retardedly pretentious given the un-original melodramas presented. a reconstituted pastiche of clichéd stereotypes and mini-vignettes of pseudo-redemption aspiring to be Robert Altman, but the filmmaker clearly lacks the imagination and talent to create a compelling whole that is more than the sum of it's substandard parts. endless montages of supposed thoughtfulness with MOR radio friend music. a movie for Americans unable to analyze and deconstruct their own racism or the inherent racism of American culture, instead they can watch this film and somehow feel better about themselves, like "oh honey, blah blah blah, how enlightening, well were not like that." so over-rated. this movie sucked. i will tease my roommate endlessly for so highly recommending this crap.