Reviews

Oh good, one of *these* kinds of movies. Nothing made sense. Nothing was explained. You'll hear excuses to justify this sort of thing such as, "How thought provoking! The symbolism!" No, that's just poor writing. There's a reason why this was a commercial flop and was booed at the world premiere screening. Audiences like closure. If I go to see a movie and invest somewhere in the neighborhood of two hours to sit down and watch something, I don't want to guest or have it left up to me to interpret what happened. That's the job of the filmmakers to relay. I'm not saying it's impossible to make successful films like that, but not everyone can be David Lynch. I like a well paced movie, but there was a lot of pointless filler and needlessly drawn out scenes to fluff the length of the movie. When you phone it in like this, audiences notice. The only reason I didn't give it one star was because it was actually beautifully shot with some very nice cinematography, but that wasn't going to save this. I feel bad that Scarlet decided that this was going to be the project where she goes fully nude on screen for the first time.

This movie was absolutely ridiculous. NOTHING was explained. It was a CHORE to sit through and watch the whole thing, without a doubt, one of the worst movies I have ever sat through and wasted my time. There was nothing redeeming about it. The cinematography was boring, the characters were confusing and pointless, the story made no sense. It wasn't even like an "artsy" pointless. It was just stupid! Who are you people out there that gave this 8, 9 or 10 stars?! The only reason I even gave it 2 was because some effort obviously went into getting the actors to all show up on the same day for a shoot. There are about a million other things that are better to watch. Don't waste your time.

Imagine trying to juggle one ball. Even if you can't juggle, you can speculate that it's probably not that hard to do. Now add another ball. It's probably still pretty easy, right? Now, imagine someone that has never picked up a ball trying to juggle 5 balls at once. That's what Justin Lo attempted to do with "The Conrad Boys." The five balls I was referring to are writing, acting, directing, editing and producing. Even though it's a small low budget production, I can't help but feel that Justin Lo wrote himself into the lead role just so he could make out with whoever was going to fill the role as the attractive drifter. The story was so dull and the acting so dry and 1 dimensional that I couldn't watch this movie all the way through without taking breaks. Justin Lo, who was 23 at the time, and played a 19 year old in the movie wrote a script with dialog that read like a high school play. So try to imagine a few much older middle aged characters trying to deliver lines that sound like they were written by a 14 year old.

The directing and camera work was bland and the only thing that kept this movie from being a complete flop was the involvement of Nick Bartzen who filled the role of that attractive drifter. Nick was the real star of this movie. He was able to emulate real emotions not only by his realistic delivery of dialogue, but also by utilizing his body language and facial expressions. So while I didn't really care about this story, his acting in it makes me interested to see what other projects he'll be seen in.

The Conrad Boys was a nice try for first timer Justin Lo with good intentions, but I can't really imagine what kind of group this movie was even targeted to appeal to.

So let me state for the record that I love a good musical. People breaking out into random song and dance to express their emotional problems never bothered me. That being said, Carousel was such a disappointing chore of a movie to watch that most of the entertainment value came out of me and my family's heckling. So why did I give it a 3 instead of nothing at all? Well it wasn't a complete waste. I can appreciate a well choreographed dance scene, and the vocal talent was pretty good, but the songs were terrible! Lets have a clambake and then sing in groups about seafood? The characters were so flat and stumbled into such forced and trite situations to drag along a plot that barely registered. About half an hour into the movie I mentioned out loud how I wish the film were more about a carousel and less about absolutely nothing. I know movies that have been adapted from stage shows have a sort of hokey and exaggerated quality to the acting, but there's a point of absolute ridiculousness where I draw the line. Where was that line for me? I held out until one of the characters told a girl she could defend herself from stalkers by giving them a big sensual hug. Being from a completely different generation who's attention span has evolved to being inpatient of anything that doesn't read like a commercial or music video, I can still take into consideration that Carousel was made at a point in movie history where directors took their time to relay the story. But Jesus tap dancing Christ,it took EVERY character SO long to say what was on their mind, you could have cut a good 45 minutes out of this movie and not have missed anything. what astounded me most was it's classic status and high IMDb score. I can kinda speculate that the only people really interested in looking up the information about this movie are the ones who loved it. So for every user that gave it 10 stars, there's probably 10 more users who couldn't be bothered to even finish watching this exhausting Rogers and Craperstine clunkerdump.

I wasted enough time actually WATCHING this chore of a movie, I don't want to waste more writing a big review. Not once did I so much as crack a smile. ALL the jokes were boring, forced and lacked any kind of wit. I kept saying, "wheres the punchline?" Almost every single character was an obnoxious stereotype and all the situations were clichéd and half the time there wasn't even any kind of solution. Things just happened to get to the next scene. For the life of me I can't understand how this got as many good reviews as it did. If you like clunky acting and poorly composed film making Fat Girls is the movie for you.

And I LOVED that game growing up. I just watched this movie for the first time since the early 90's. Across the great Divide is proof that you don't need huge budgets or big stars in order for a movie to be good. The movie starts off with 2 children who need to cross the wilderness to claim their land inheritance meet a gambler on the run. Together they face natures obstacles in order to reach their destination. Granted, there were a few parts that were pretty predictable as to what was going to happen next. But all in all, it was a great little film to watch whether its in a family setting, or just by yourself.

Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing. I must have been about 4 or when I first saw this movie. I don't really remember all that much of it. Just bits in pieces here and there, but I was interested enough to watch it again. Of course it was a very different experience now that I'm grown. As an adult and a movie enthusiast I've become accustomed to looking at things like quality and composition; something that no one really looks for when they're 4. Back then I just enjoyed colorful animation.

As an adult I have to rate this movie on certain things. I think that by today's standard, the quality of the animation is just OK. Although I noticed that even though it's almost 30 years old, some of it was actually quite ascetic. Personally, my favorite characters were the west and night winds. I really liked how they had been designed visually. However, there was a sort of ridiculousness in the style sometimes. Devils, unicorns, and talking animals aside, I thought it was kinda weird that the old woman had a nose the size of her entire head. There was also an odd quality to the voice acting that made it a bit clumsy.

There really wasn't too much plot. The main character just kinda got moved around against his will and tried to improve things for people wherever he went. So as an adult, this movie was a bit difficult for me to sit through, but keeping in mind that it was geared towards little children (and apparently did a good job of entertaining them as most of the comments I've read have been about how they loved this film as a child) Id have to say that this is actually a successful movie. Though not really big on production value, I did end up giving it a higher score than I would have if I had not seen it when I was a little kid.

Let me just start by saying that I don't necessarily hate it when a bad film gets made because, lets face it: people like weird things. It's why movies like "Battlefield Earth" are made. It's not because a bunch of people in Hollywood wanted to waste a lot of money. It's because consumer tastes are extreme and inconsistent. What I DO hate is when a bad movie is made and people love it because of a bunch of hyped up marketing techniques and not because its actually a good film.

The plot of the movie is Juno, the main character, gets pregnant and decided to have the baby and plans to give it up for adoption to a preselected couple. Pretty simple basis. Right along with the simplistic delivery and poorly developed characters. The most thoroughly devised task these people had was to figure out just how and just how many trendy remarks and hipster referenced they could Jam into an hour and a half. LONG before I decided to sit down and actually watch it, I had already caught onto the possibility that this might not really be the timeless "Oscar" gem it had made itself out to be. It was probably the constant hamburger phone ads I kept seeing. "You mean I could own the clunky, impractical CORD phone from that movie?" I didn't buy into that. But pretenses aside, there were so many more things about this movie I didn't like AS I was watching it. Basically, it was a Myspace movie. It shallowly portrayed a real life, in-depth situation in a way that appealed to a demographic that is more entertained by trendy culture than it is by good movie making. There were too many attempts at coming up with the next Austin Powers or Borat catch phrase. To me, it was like trying to take Billy Mays seriously as an actor when he's trying to sell oxyclean. I feel insulted when a director doesn't even make an attempt to be subtle about product placement in a film. The only thing worse than having a commercial in the middle of a movie is when its done in a way that feels like you're being slapped in the face with a billboard. Even the music in the movie screamed for you to go out and buy it. It didn't set the mood or compliment the scene. It was just trying to wedge its way onto the big screen for exposure.

But the thing about this movie that really got on my nerves was that the fast-food, "OMG LOL" characters were supposed to represent my generation. Even if it was the way the actors were supposed to portray the characters, there was no intelligence, responsibility, or morality displayed by any of them and really thats the most aggravating trend for me to watch: having a repertoire of smart ass comebacks and pop culture references is a lot cooler than having any moral value.

I have to say that after watching Juno, I began to question the Oscar nomination selection process. There were no stellar performances, the camera work and photography was rudimentary, the music; out of place. This was the perfect example of how you can use the right amount of exposure and marketing techniques to sell just about anything. Just remember, you can put lipstick on a pig, but its still a pig.

I sat down to watch Blade Runner, expecting to see a movie that lived up to its iconic status. I had seen bits and pieces of it and I just wanted to see it in its entirety. It started off OK. But after about a half an hour I LITERALLY fell asleep, and it was no where near bedtime.

I think a my lack of interest was that there was almost no character development. My favorite character was Rachael and I wanted to know more about her before and after the story. But she and the rest of the cast just kinda came into scenes when they were needed and then disappeared like a flash in the pan. Other characters barely get their time in. More than once I asked myself, "Ok, what happened to that guy?" The movie just did a bad job of relaying the story.

On the plus side, it had an interesting visual stylization that was probably more impressive when it came out, but now having seen it in 2009, I can compare it to almost any other movie with a vision of a big city in the future. It was also one of those futuristic films where the hair and clothing styles are remarkably similar to the era when the movie was made. IE, in ten years, airbrush body paint and feathered hair flips are coming back! On top of that, a plethora of continuity mistakes made me question how seriously the director and editors were when they made this.

All in all, I felt letdown by the final product. There really wasn't any acting that was worth noting and Harison Ford was the only thing keeping this ship from completely sinking. I can only assume that the waaaay overrated votes for so many 10s were made by the original fans that loved it so much when it came out 26 years ago.

"The Ice Storm" is the kind of movie that I like to refer to as a "Clunkerdump."

The story, aided by very forgettable imagery, chugs along and doesn't particularly go anywhere. There were no real solutions to any of the problems that were presented to the characters, who none of which I felt too particularly fond of. It wasn't particularly badly acted, but it didn't present anything that made me care about what was happening to the characters. I remember that most of the movie was drab and muted. Perhaps it was intentionally shot that way to relate to the mood. But to me that factor, along with joyless characters made me feel very detached and uninterested. There were a few interesting narratives made by Tobie Maguire, but not enough to save "The Ice Bore." zzzzZZZZZZZZZZzz

This movie was actually a little harder to review than I thought it'd be. I didn't rush out to see twilight, but I had a free movie pass and it seemed like the most interesting candidate.

The story, though not entirely original, wasn't entirely all that bad either. It was obviously geared at a demographic for around an 8th grade level. The characters were established, but not really developed much. Visually, I was disappointed with a lot of the same old special effects. I laughed at how silly and obvious all the vampires were. Climbing up walls or trees really fast was done with a kind of Jacky Chan harness and cable method. Vampires moving really fast was just sped up and blurred footage of the actors. So unfortunately it felt a lot like I was watching a Disney channel original movie. There were a few interesting dream like sequences, but not nearly enough to save the whole movie. There were also a few nice camera shots, but even those were kinda ruined by bad lighting or a shaky cameras.

In order to appeal to the younger demographic, they intentionally made the adult characters look silly and "out of the loop" by having them use teenage slang. It worked basically, but to me it seemed just as forced and ridiculous when the younger characters did it too.

So heres where it became debatable for me. The story was actually kinda interesting. Not really intricate or clever or in depth, but I was interested to see what was going to happen next. So while at some points the scenes dragged more than I liked, and I wont ever say "I could really go for some Twilight this evening," I can say that for a free movie pass, my attention was kept for 2 hours.

Titan AE: a movie with everything. Action, adventure, explosions, amazing graphics, poor writing, confusing plot gizmos, and ridiculous solutions to problems. Seeing how things are about half and half, I gave Titan AE 5 stars. Now, while this may seem like an unfair score for a movie that is so obviously visually aesthetic, the other 5 empty star spaces are because of a more in depth lack essential movie elements.

To me, what was most disappointing about this movie was the absolutely unfathomable solution to problems that characters came up with. The main character, in a matter of minutes, not only is able to magically figure out how the enemy ship works, but also how to find his friends with the it's navigation. Every time there was a problem, someone instantly had some kind of ridiculous idea that always worked. For 15 years, the ship that will save humanity was hidden in a cluster of huge, shifting, floating ice boulders and maintained no damage from them. Gimme a break. As an animated movie, I would imagine that it would be somewhat geared towards kids, but I couldn't really see any of the characters or dialog to be that appealing to a younger demographic. There were too many obligatory curt remarks exchanged between them and a good deal of "I must of heard you wrong, it sounded like you said.." kind of clichés.

Its really too bad though. Between the over the top visuals and full cast of star actors, its pretty clear that Fox Animation was looking to make a blockbuster hit. Unfortunately, it made half as much as it took to make and for someone who loves animation, I really couldn't wait for the damn thing to end.

There have been few films that I've watched and have literally felt sick to my stomach as a result. The first was "The Blair Witch Project" where she opens the bag and finds the guys eyes inside and the second one was Clerks 1 just about every time someone spoke. So really, I don't know why I sat down expecting the sequel to be something I'd enjoy. In all honestly, I truly believe that the common everyday viewer's standards have lowered. Its movies like this that prove you can mash a movie together with a bunch of crude, unintelligent, slag quality elements and still get a hit. The characters were contradictory, trite, repetitive, uninteresting, contrived, and just flat out annoying. The directing was unimaginative, stale, and confusing. It had hints at a plot, and then about an hour and a half of crass, mindless wandering. But still, its not so much in the watching of the film, but rather the positive reaction and overwhelming success of this movie that makes me sick to my stomach. Please, please, don't watch this movie and encourage the mindless, low grade, cookie cutter, American Pie, Fast and Furious type entertainment that big corporate studios gear towards young crowds. Try to watch something with some merit! Whether its the music, the acting, or the cinematography, watch and encourage others to watch something with some value! Not this pig slop, pisspoor excuse for entertainment.

This was an unfortunate production of what was meant to be left as a book. I understand it was meant for a younger demographic than what I fit into. But as a younger person, I would have felt disappointed at the hinting of a magical world that never really comes to fruition. It had a "don't you hate it when this happens to you?" method of trying to get the viewer to associate with the main character. Thus, he gets dumped on in every contrived possibility to make you say "oh, poor guy!" The acting was forced, even for a bunch of kids, the story was mediocre at best, and the final product was overall unsatisfying or fulfilling. For the life of me, I cant understand why this movie got such a high rating and actually made money.

For year I've heard of how good this movie was supposed to be. Friends said, "you haven't seen it yet? Its such a good movie!" As a big fan of 80 style special effects and movies such as "The Goonies," "Never ending story," "Ninja Turtles," I really though I was going to love "Big Trouble in Little China." Instead, I wasted time that would have been better spent slapping myself in the face with a shovel. I tried to keep an open mind as to why everyone loves this movie so much. But after about 2 hours of some of the worst acting and dialog I've ever seen, the only thing I could come up with was that its one of those movies that people love just because its so bad. Personally, I didn't get it. Whether it was intended to be bad acting, or just ended up that way I was left unamused. Normally, I like to keep an eye out for goofs when I watch a movie, and then kidna compare what other people have noticed. Big trouble in little china had so many mistakes in continuity, audio visual mismatch, and frankly the worst collection of unexplained series of events, I was not only left unentertained but became flat out annoyed by what i was watching. Bad guys suddenly blow up with absolutely no explanation. Dialog and character action is so forced, fake, and contrived, the whole movie was like what you would see from your seat in a haunted house amusement park ride. The only reason I gave this movie a 2 instead of a 1 is because as an armature film maker, I had some appreciation for some of the lousy, low budget special effects. But for Christ's sake, with a budget of about $25 million, Id expect more than styrofoam walls and rubber masks.

When I was a little kid I loved the Ninja turtles. So needless to say, when I heard they were coming out with a new movie, I couldn't wait to see it, but the minute I heard it was all CGI, I could tell right away that it would be a far cry from the franchise that I had become so fond of.

I thought to myself that it would have been more appealing to the older loyal fans, and kids would still want to see it. But after I actually watched it, I changed my mind. The story wasn't really interesting enough, so it didn't really matter if it was computer generated or not. There seemed to be a lot of character references that I didn't get. I assume that you had watch the current series to understand who everyone was.

I found what was going on to be so forgettable. I was not compelled to see what happened to the characters or how their problem became resolved. It wasn't entirely bad. I supposed that for a kid's standards of movie entertainment, this did the job. But for an old fan, I completely disappointed.

I sat down to watch "30 days of night" with a bit of a high expectation. The editors did a good job when they made the trailers. They hooked me, I was interested, but ended up being disappointed by the grab bag of clichés and lack of character development.

Although I did find myself to be tense from the suspense , I also found that I was tense from being annoyed as I watched. Fast jerking quick camera shakes during sudden violent scenes brought me to the conclusion that the Blair Witch camera man had developed an evolved case of Parkinsons and then landed a job shooting "30 days of night." This attempt at creating a mood of urgency and panic in the scene only succeeded in making me say, "what the hell just happened?" The acting coach also succeeded in creating the most annoying vampires in movie history. Their constant cry to one another was like being punched in the face with a dying cat. They also kill a bunch of dogs towards the beginning of the movie, but with knives? Some of what was going on just didn't make any sense.

I found it hard to keep track of who was who, probably because there were a lot of people and not a lot of development into who they were. All in all, it was a good attempt but too many factors made it unREwatchable. So if you have a poor attention span, don't mind bad explanations, and maybe even have a small case of ADD, then you've just figured out what to do for about 2 hours.

At a time where the standards for good movie making was apparently a lot lower than it is today, Michael Anderson's "Around the world in 80 days" was the biggest stinker I've seen since "Shaft in Africa."

Im just kidding. I NEVER saw "Shaft in Africa." When I was watching this movie all I could picture was the director saying "Wow, what a great location! This will look great on film! Now.... the actors have to do something don't they..... oh hell why don't they just dance or fight or something for a while. The cameras have an auto pilot right? Man! I just cant get over this location!" A perfect example is the pointless cameo by Frank Sinatra. He's playing the piano in the saloon and he turns to look towards the camera and gives it a kinda sad face. And thats it for Frank. Done. No explanation, no reason. Just an excuse to put a big name in the cast. Its obvious that all the budget was used on traveling to and securing locations, and not on such things as "acting lessons" or "props NOT made of rubber." You can watch this movie if you want to waste about 3 hours of your time. But personally, I think you'll learn just as much about other cultures if you go to the Taco Bell drive through.

After watching movies like this, I sometimes sit and think about how people have to write out a story or a script before it can be made into a film. And then someone else has to say, "hey, this would make a great movie." OK, THAT person is an Alzheimer's stricken senior citizen discount card club member and would make a better addition to the list of characters than they would the crew.

Start off with a plot that involves normal life being disrupted by an out of the ordinary event. This is the kind of thing that movie makers do to pull the viewer in and get them interested in whats going on. Well this movie was like putting all the ingredients for a cake into the oven and then forgetting to turn the damn thing on.

After about 100 minutes of not really being sure if I cared about what was going on, the movie suddenly said "Surprise! Its over! You were kinda expecting some kind of resolve, weren't you!?" It should be noted though, that Maggie Smith and Judy Dench are in fact, very good, very skilled actresses. But geeze ladies, are you really that hard up to make a house payment that you need to involve yourself in these kinds of projects?

I mean, it wasn't even a decent metaphor for anything. The plot had elements that could have been interesting, but I didn't care about any of the characters. Every time I thought it was progressing towards being something interesting, the movie would shift gears and start heading in another direction. And in addition, it was so predictable. There were too many cliché situations where I knew exactly what was going to happen next. Aside from Catherine O'hara's character, the movie lacked any real interesting personalities. Please, don't be mislead into thinking that this is going to be a good use of an hour and a half for you.