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thebronzedragon
Reviews
The Worst Witch (2017)
Writing Good, The Rest Not So Mauch
This series has occasional delights: bouncing cakes off the floor to see if they are done; a hair-growth spell that goes haywire and threatens to drown the girls in waves and waves of hair; the moment when a fly breaks the fourth wall, lands on the camera lens, and the one male professor at the school, who was once cursed as a frog, snaps it up with a very long tongue. (These are not spoilers - none of them are key plot points.)
Overall the writing for the show is well done and engaging, even clever at times. Especially the plotting, which shows good use of foreshadowing, engagement, and interrelation of story elements.
Unfortunately almost everyone involved in the actual execution of these stories is suspect. The cast is mostly young and so can be forgiven for some lack of acting chops, but a competent director can bring out good performances in most willing child actors. Unfortunately nearly everyone else behind the camera show little more than amateurish skills.
The direction, blocking and staging of the show is nothing short of disturbingly off. There are many occasions when the dialog seems to indicate one sort of action while the cast is engaged in another, one instance in particular where a character is drawing attention to an element in the room while everyone else is simply standing the other direction. There are scenes where a character enters a scene in such a way that makes it obvious they were merely waiting off camera. For example the girls trotting into a room when the mood of the scene would demand they come in at a dead run.
Editing is horrendous. Many poorly done cuts, badly done scenes where we are given a reaction shot while all action pauses only for that shot, as if everyone is waiting for that reaction before moving on with what they need to do. Other times when no reaction shots are shown while the viewer is left wondering what the reaction is.
Set decoration is bland and unambitious: wide tracts of lawn showing no feature such as shrub, statuary; bland rooms with minimalist furnishings or decoration; vast halls with likewise no feature at all.
FX are passable, certainly of higher quality than one would expect given all of the other problems with production. It is a given that any minor shortcomings of the special effects would be less glaring if other production values were higher.
Overall a less than inspiring effort, even for children, whose entertainment should aspire to be as well done as any other form of entertainment.
Mars (2010)
NOT A SciFi Cartoon
First of all don't watch this if you are expecting a cartoon - this is "rotoscope" animation, with live actors being converted to animation by computer and entirely CGI settings, none of it very well done at all. Likewise don't expect a hard SciFi thriller or actioner. In fact, don't expect a formula plot of any kind.
But if you like quirky, off-beat, a little bit corny comedy this one is completely harmless and fun. No you won't laugh out loud, but you'll chuckle, and you may just smile from credits to credits. The acting is pedestrian but charming, the story is deep as a teaspoon, but the script is cute and the CGI is sort of like the drawings of a sixth grade class. Don't expect much and you'll enjoy this little 90 minute diversion.
Sweethearts (1997)
Oh, It's Just So Artsy!
Okay, it's a good movie, but trying to compare it to other movies not even in it's genre (Meg Ryan movies, for example) is beyond ridiculous. "Oh it's just so cynical!" "Oh it's ever so subversive!" "It's cool because it turns other genres on their ears!" I've heard all the pretentious crap.
This is a good, even great movie. Not for any of the pretentious reasons, but for all the conventional ones: it is extremely well written; it is superbly performed; and it explores its subject matter (depresion and suicide) in a fresh but very truthful and unflinching way.
This is a movie I would recommend anyone watch, but only because it's a great film, not because it is some film student's idea of an antidote to movies he has been told it isn't "cool" to like.
I happen to think "You've Got Mail" is a wonderful movie, and there is room in the universe for BOTH films.
My recommendation for this one: most definitely see it, you will enjoy it.
Disaster Movie (2008)
Imitation Is Not Parody
Someone needs to tell the producers, the authors, the director, and everyone else involved in this film that mere imitation is not parody. To make a film satirizing whatever pop-culture is current, it isn't enough just to string together a bunch of skits imitating those pop-culture icons. Each parody must not only imitate, but caricature the icon, whether it be a person, a particular movie, a hot toy, or whatever. It must be able to point out the absurdity of popularism while still being, in and of itself, funny as well. I can go around with a giant clock on a chain around my neck and use Blackjack gum to make myself look as if I have bad teeth, but if I don't also have something both original AND funny to say about Flava Flav, then I am merely an imitator, not a satirist.
These filmmakers may have hit it big with prior efforts, but this one was clearly phoned in. What is sad is that the bulk of the movie is so sadly, embarrassingly bad, that when the one or two genuinely funny moments occur (one character "bends" a bullet a little too much and it hooks around 360 degrees, hitting the person he was trying to avoid anyway) the audience is so stunned they forget to laugh, as if asking themselves if they really did see something genuinely funny or was so much of their intelligence already sucked away by this toilet of a movie that they are imagining humor where it doesn't really exist? It is wicked hard to get a genuinely original and entertaining film made in Hollywood these days, bad form by these filmmakers to take money that could well have gone into a much better project and squandering it on this four reels of rubbish!
Crank (2006)
Loud, Messy, Angry, Bloody, Nasty, and Mean
This movie was loud, messy, angry, bloody, nasty, mean-spirited...
So why did I give it 8 stars? Because for some reason, in spite of all that, it hooked me. I can't say how, or why, but by the end when Chev is clearly going to die when he crashes to Earth and he comes to this quiet realization and calls his girl on the phone, I suddenly realized I'd had fun. I was offended, disgusted, and repulsed...and thoroughly entertained.
I've given up trying to analyze it. It is what it is. Somehow this noisy, messy, violent, nasty, mean movie got me when I wasn't looking and satisfied my need for entertainment. So there it is, go figure. >shrug<
Chuck (2007)
Somewhere on the high end of the middle
Well, as with most collections of user reviews, you can utterly disregard those that give this show one star or less every bit as much as you can ignore those that score it 10 stars. On the one hand you get bitter, axe-to-grind sour-pusses who have no real appreciation of wry humor, and on the other hand you get semi-orgasmic marshmallow-heads who can't deplete the American Thesaurus enough in their raves about the show (and who frankly might actually work for the distributor).
Truth is, this is neither the best show ever aired, nor the worst, and is a damn-sight better than I expected from the promos.
This is an above average offering combining romance and heart-warming stuff about friends and family, with comedy and action. I don't think you could call this show a spy thriller by any stretch - though there have been some intriguing bad guys (Tommy, for example, some upper-echelon baddie from Fulcrum in two episodes of Season 1: "Chuck vs. The Imported Hard Salami" and "Chuck vs. The Nemesis") the producers don't really pretend that Chuck is ever in any real danger of being killed or even tortured in the slightest, in spite of how close he comes sometimes.
Still the writing is fun, fast-paced, and for the most part tight (there are some rather sloppy episodes in Season one). The cast is engaging and almost everyone is likable (I don't personally care much for the Buy More gang, including Chuck's best friend.) One big oversight is the development of John Casey: they've given him one single outside trait - he likes to do Bonsai gardening. Otherwise he's extremely one dimensional and unrealistically asexual. Tough guy like him would be a cold, selfish, even cruel lover, but he'd still not lack for ladies willing to give him a ride, and his appetite for sex should match his appetite for violence. I understand he's a good guy, I'm not saying make him a misogynistic beast, but he would certainly be more active socially than he is.
Still, the show is better than a lot of stuff on TV right now, and not as bad as most.
As I said, the writing is fast-paced, snarky, and good fun, and who cares if it stretches the bounds of credibility at times? Do you honestly believe two so different people as Kirk and Spock could really be best friends? Does it seem likely to you that someone so crippled by so many phobias as Mr. Monk could even function at all, much less solve crimes? And how about the antics of Jack Baur on 24 - I mean please, come on!
Though I think much of it needs to be fleshed out more I think Chuck deserves to continue on for a few more seasons at least.
Chuck: Chuck Versus the Nemesis (2007)
Problematic Writing
This is a good series, but here is an episode where the writing got lazy and sloppy. So far the show has been pretty good about solid plotting without resorting to "mechanisms" - a writing term that means the writer has placed at least one artificial obstacle in the way of the plot just to fill out the minute/page quota.
Bryce could have explained himself at any point in this episode but instead choose to ask Chuck about the Intersect in his head, or kiss Sarah, or aiming his gun at people he has no intention of shooting (like Chuck or Sarah) until interrupted by one thing or another, effectively but not believably putting off his explanation until the clock has ticked by far enough to satisfy the writers.
Also, this episode conveniently forgets that, while Bryce may have had noble reasons for framing Chuck for cheating and getting him kicked out of Stanford (Chuck vs. The Alma Mater) he also stole Chuck's girl, Jill. Chuck comes to admire Bryce's skills as a spy without ever once confronting him about this. A convenient oversight, I suspect, to leave an excuse for Chuck to continue to moon over his past and maybe an excuse to bring Bryce back, or perhaps Jill.
Other problems with this episode include: The brevity of Bryce's debriefing after he turns himself in (at the Buy More, no less) after which he emerges wearing spy uniform A: a tuxedo. Sarah's continued infuriating silence on the topic of her attraction to either partner, Bryce or Chuck.
While I'm at it I find Casey's staunch asexuality problematic. Tough guy like him would be a cold, selfish, even rough lover, but he'd have no lack of women willing to give him a ride. He stills seems like a cutout, two dimensional, no real complexity or depth. He could do with some serious fleshing out.
Memento (2000)
Re-edited For My Own Amusement
I took a VHS of this film into my editing room and re-edited it backwards, so that it was frontwards, if you get my drift, and watched it a second time, trying to pretend I was seeing it for the first time. It was still visually arresting and the dialog was still sharp and engaging...but it just wasn't the same film and the ending was sort of anticlimactic because you see it coming a mile away. In fact the film becomes frustrating because his memory loss gets very redundant and tiresome very early on.
I am convinced this movie was edited backward because that was the only way this story could be told. It forces the reader to experience what the main character is experiencing, because we don't know any more than he does from one scene to the next. What made my re-edited version so frustrating was that we knew too much and his amnesia came off as just a device to prolong the movie.
Anyway, good experiment. Enjoyed the film immensely the way it was intended to be viewed.