victor-200 Reviews

Amelia (2009)

Great Components Combined into an Unwatchable Mess

[1/10 · 13 January 2010]

The movie turned out terribly, I don't see how. I suspect the directing and writing were at fault. Hilary Swank was stiff and wooden in her portrayal of Amelia, and most people know she's actually a great actress - so it's only a guess on my part that she was directed to play Amelia that way. She's capable of doing a much better portrayal I'm certain.

The rest of the movie fails to measure up as well. They skip over really important stuff, like failing to depict a famous rescue by Amelia of another female flier during the late 1920s. They make her look like a silly twit instead of the tough woman that Amelia actually was. Also, while the sets and costumes are impressive, the plots and situations are silly and misleading. The score is terrible for this type of movie, it is very melodramatic - Amelia Earhart was anything but melodramatic. She was an active woman who sought adventure. She was a thrillseeker. She wasn't a simpering wet rag. She was more like a female Indiana Jones, except she really existed.

It is too bad, what a waste of a great cast and the great sets and costumes. It's hard to believe that with the materials the producers had for this film, they ended up with such a crappy result. It's a little like taking gold and diamonds and putting them together to end up with a useless piece of trash.

I got the feeling they didn't really understand the person they were trying to depict, seeing her as a helpless female dependent on men in her quest for notoriety instead of the feminist pioneer who spent her life seeking adventure as she conquered new vistas.

I walked out about half through the film.

Unhitched (2008)

Yes! True Comedy GOLD. This Show Caused Me to Almost Suffocate With Laughter!

[10/10 · 9 April 2008]

It's not just the hilarious writing and bombastic imagination of the plot direction in each episode.

The cast has fantastic comedic chemistry. Bierko, Sneed, Jones and Shaun Majumder all know what they are doing and understand the jokes before they portray them. Too many comedy shows give you the feeling that the actors themselves don't really get the humor they're trying to portray. These characters are absolutely hilarious:

Bierko's smooth and suave lead, the successful financial analyst continually foiled by the bumbling of the other three divorcées.

Jone's rational and callous divorce attorney who is blinded by her feminine perspective on life and can't see why people don't see her as a warm person.

Majumder, the Indian immigrant physician who finds every difficult task easy except the most mundane, ubiquitous ordeals of American life, forcing him to depend on others who are intellectually so very far beneath him to guide his way through American culture.

Sneed, the adult ADHD afflicted, sex addicted, social numbskull, the only one who has been divorced three times, who parasitizes the other three characters yet serves as the cultural anchor that brings the three overachievers down to everyone else's level with his cockeyed behavior.

This show had me nearly rolling on the floor. You really have to be a stuffed shirt not to get the continuous humor in this TV show. I could really appreciate this show continuing for several years. There is no phoniness in this show at all. It doesn't pretend to be something it's not. It is just supposed to be funny, there is nothing serious at all about this TV show and that is one of the things that is so refreshing about the show.

I can't wait for more episodes. Six episodes are available online as of April 9, 2008:

http://www.fox.com/fod/player.htm?show=unhitched

I hope that others will enjoy this even half as much as I have.

The Abandoned (2006)

Terrible Movie. Do Not Waste Your Time With This One. Horrible Editing. Horrible Plot. Photography is OK, but Why Watch it for That?

[1/10 · 9 July 2007]

This movie is an utter waste of time, the plot is awful, the dialogue is awful.

The acting is OK, but the actors have absolutely no plot or script to work with. The photography and some of the special effects are OK, too, but again there is nothing interesting in this movie to watch. There is no logical progression to the story, the story line is utter nonsense. It isn't even scary. For a movie to be scary, there has to be at least a small element of believability. This movie has no believability at all.

There are only three characters in the movie. Each character is shallow and has no personality.

Most of the special effects and make up work are both badly done, or at most mediocre.

I hope you read this and do not waste time on this movie unless you are curious to see an entirely awful movie.

12 and Holding (2005)

Natural gas isn't toxic, it can't cause loss of consciousness. A woman with a broken hip would never be able to move.

[3/10 · 8 July 2007]

Because of these two stupid mistakes, a movie with some interesting qualities was ruined. Due to the oversight of the production team this is a really stupid movie.

An overweight woman with a broken hip would not be able to move. Any person with a broken hip is completely immobilized 90% of the time. The only way the character's ability to move might be explained by adrenaline and extreme motivation.

Natural gas isn't toxic. A gas leak in itself cannot harm the health of a person in any way. What can be toxic is carbon monoxide from improper burning of natural gas, but the burner in the movie was not ignited. The only other health hazard from a gas leak is the risk of explosion, but in the movie there was no explosion. This is a very ignorant oversight, also was used in 'Panic Room' with propane gas which is also non-toxic.

A corpse buried in less than a foot of dirt would be extremely obvious to any construction crew. When the boy buried his victim the grave was too shallow to prevent the oder of a rotting corpse to come up from the dirt, and animals would have been attracted to the site by the smell and easily would have dug into the grave exposing the corpse. The oder alone would have been obvious and permeated the area for many yards.

I also found it hard to swallow when the psychiatrist mom didn't drop her patient after learning that her twelve year old daughter was found standing naked in the patient's kitchen.

Because of these stupid errors this movie is a dog, which is a shame since it's due to production errors alone.