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Scarecrow64
Reviews
Cold Hearts (1999)
Awful and shameless ripoff of The Lost Boys.
OK, let's see... a handsome young stranger is new in town, and walks around on the local boardwalk. He meets a pretty girl, meets up with the obnoxious leader of the local hip young vampires club, is dared by them to follow them into this cave, gets into a conflict over the pretty girl, an epic fight ensues...
No, it's not Lost Boys, although you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference, since I think even some of the carnival music is the same. (Do you have to pay royalties for sampling a movie?) Even the ending of this stinkbomb is ripped off from Lost Boys. The make-up is below par, even for a low-budget thriller, the characters are one-dimensional, and just exactly how many "Oh, I had this horrible experience" scenes of teen angst does one movie need? The humor is flat and stupid, and everything else is sadly predictable. Yawn.
The only scary thing about this turkey is the promise (threat) of a sequel, an idea that hopefully every distributor in the country will drive a stake through.
The Specials (2000)
A hit and a miss...
First off: this is a VERY low-budget movie -- low enough they can't even find a make-up person who can EVENLY apply a single color of makeup (blue for Amok, green for Alien Orphan Doug). If stuff like that bothers you, DON'T see this.
OK. The idea is great: focus on a team of superheroes, completely throwing out battle scenes and action scenes, and look instead on their interactions. My big problem with this was that there are just too many characters, even discounting the eights bodies of 8 (one of the more original concepts in the movie, and regrettably hardly even touched upon). Many of the allegedly witty one liners are predictable and stale, and the little bits with the characters talking directly to the camera are distracting and never explained in context.
On the other hand, the action figure commercial is dead-on hilarious, *sometimes* the attempted cleverness of the dialogue works, and if you find stupid humor funny, you'll enjoy both US Bill and Alien Orphan Doug.
I'd wait to rent this after it's moved off the "new release" shelf. Some funny moments, but a little too uneven, with the script a bit too stale in its humor.
Mystery Men (1999)
View it as a fun ride, not a "cinematic art form."
I was amazed at all the reviews I've seen for this film that dwell on limited camera shots, bad pacing, dialogue problems, etc. Give me a break!
If you grew up reading tons of superhero comics and watched the Batman TV show, you'll love this film. No, it's not a cinematic masterpiece, but it's not *supposed* to be. Each character has his or her own quirk which colors their world view, with greatly funny results. The throw-away gags and lines are almost as funny as the main thrust of the humor.
And for you movie-as-art-form types: get a clue. The director does a GREAT job of making the movie LOOK LIKE A COMIC BOOK. THAT'S why there are so many extreme close-ups, sideways framed shots, etc. At several points, the effect is striking -- you can just *see* what the scene would look like if it were drawn by a comics illustrator!
Good stuff, if you're a comics fan, or if you can watch a funny movie without making notes on the lighting effects or the inconsistencies in the star's makeup.