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Intermate (2019)
Barely Watchable
There is potentially a story idea here which was attempted but lost to 2nd year filmaking mistakes. The acting is acting, , the vfx are corny and last century, and the low budget techniques are pretty obvious. There is an attempt to dress the movie up with young and pretty actresses, which for the most part are young and pretty, but you would be better off walking the dog or spending quality time with family and friends than devoting any real attention to this movie.
Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020)
No bats were harmed in the making of the movie.
I can't say Margot Robbie's jarring Brooklyn accent was any stronger than it was in Suicide Squad, even if I can say it was more jarring, but she is Australian. Add the accent to my dislike of the continuous narrative voice over film model (show don't tell) and it was not the easiest film to get into. But eventually the action began to take over. The humour was evident, and I did have a few loud snickers, even if there were not many belly laughs (possibly because of the voice over). Was Harley the crazed, antic filled, zane-master any true fan of her infamy has come to rely on? Y...e...s... but with a heavier dose of pathos than one could normally feel for the traditional DC villain
The story's divergence from the original DC'verse is not a bad thing when one remembers this is not a 'DC' film. Will it ever stand up next to DC canon, or is it more of what Sony's Fantastic Four is to the Marvel'verse? Probably the latter, but that does not make this a bad film, because it does diverge from the traditional DC with a more modern and workable ideal of female empowerment.
Brightburn (2019)
It wasn't that bad
Predictable? Yes. Dark? Yes. Spooky? At times. Acting? Yes. Should Billy Eylish sue for the way they mixed out the end credits? For every penny the production company has. It does not matter if authority to use her track was approved. The way it was treated was a travesty of sound engineering. Even bad radio jocks don't mix from track to track with an audible clunk in between. It's unfortunate that the way the end credits are treated are an example of the effort put into the film. If they appeared at the beginning I would have walked out.
But the movie itself was okay.
The Immortal Wars (2017)
Aw c'mon, please!
Did anyone bother to write a script? did they just throw a bunch of out-takes into a computer and add badly filtered graphics... look, whatever, I don't care. If this is the film makers legacy then obviously neither do they. The ONLY reward this piece of dross gave me was allowing me to press STOP.
But in the back of my mind I walk away wondering what Eric Roberts thought when he said yes to this... it's not good.
Aliens vs. Titanic (2017)
Life's too short
Sorry. It might have been a real whacky, zany, time in the rehearsal studio. But I just could not handle something so juvenile and poorly made. Life is too short to waste on supporting some child's idea of spank bank filler.
Searching (2018)
One of the best this year
John Cho is amazingly versatile. But it's not his film alone. If you were looking for Harold and Grace Make a Thriller- don't. This is actually a decent film.
The score was brilliant. Edge of the seat stuff.
The plot timing was spectacular. Other films one looks at the time and knows how much still needs to happen. I forgot the time altogether and watched.
There was even a pleasant surprise which gained a big tic, the use of technology was entirely believable. Real world and today- no ridiculous effects presented as possibilities, instead it could be what you are looking at right now.
This is a true thriller in the vein of thrillers of old, when we had something to be thrilled by, instead of the predictable thriller tropes.
I was supposed to be in bed hours ago. I've just finished the film and wrote this- it was that good.
Clyde Cooper (2018)
Novice attempt needs work
There were some good lines, a good twist, a good concept. But seriously it was made cheaply and it shows. There was some terrible direction with stunted editing. It was an old and tired trope with very little to make it worthy. It would not surprise me if it gets some terrible reviews.
That said I did laugh a few times, at the end. It was good for a student work. But this was not what I would call a blockbuster film.
The Actor (2018)
Worst film ever
Badly written. Badly acted. No Directing.
5yo kids with a handheld and crayons could do better.
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005)
NO!
Anthropomorphism of the most ruthless killing machine on the planet? NO. Less than a minute in the talking sharks, realistic talking sharks, and I knew this film should never be shown to anyone and should never have been made. If this were an animation perhaps it would hold water with me. (pun intended.)
But showing kids that real sharks are friendly and protective of a person. That is just stupidity on the grandest level. Bad filmmakers, bad, bad, bad.
Alien Predator (2018)
Don't be fooled.
This is not the worst Asylum film I've seen. It's not great.
But by jiminy that's a different way to end it!
It's like one of the great films of all time, Enemy Mine, which truly does explore the role of difference and racial disenfranchisement versus equality.
But Alien Predator... I'm still laughing about the end! That's why the six stars. I needed the laugh.
Just don't expect any Shakespeare.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016)
Young Film Makers Take Note:
This is an aspirational piece. THIS is the kind of movie, whatever genre you are aiming for, which should be studied. Forget about knock out performances by Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Alfred Molina, Martin Freeman and Billy-Bob (who is rapidly approaching single name status and could never be played by anyone except himself!)- forget about the individuals and look at how the film translated galvanising emotional topics into daily existence.
For instance: The goodbye at Kabul International Airport. As the car pulls up I could still here the course German laughter from two hours and three years earlier, "Killed in action- ha ha ha..." juxtaposed Kim saying to Fahim "In my culture we would hug now." You know though, as well as they both do, that if they do hug it will cost him his life. The dialogue right there, the silent words that passed between them until the proxy handle dropped, and they didn't speak goodbye. If every movie you make holds itself up to those lofty standards then you will be a force to be admired in the industry. Because after the roman numerals slide of the screen those are the moments quality viewers will remember; those points of humanity reaching out from the screen and sitting like a bloated whale on the beach.
After all: there are no endings. I will get up and walk away from my keyboard into the next moment of my story, it will go on with or without the answers. So too did Kim Barker and the Afghanistan war... BUT this movie closed with satisfaction. There are no resolutions. "Embrace the suck and just get on with it." or one of the other most well used military style acromyms: S.N.A.F.U. (Situation normal: all f*cked up!) and if you really didn't get the title of this film then WTF?
Devious Nanny (2018)
Nanny's been a baaaaaaaahhhhhhd girl!
Basically because Oleyssa Rulin walks on air. Her performance alone is the 5 stars. It would have been 10 stars but the writing was just lazy, predictable and basically everything you would expect. For me there were no surprises after the opening scene.
But Oleyssa. Almost makes me want to go out and get a married, have kids and work in a shitty office- just so she can come and be the nanny.
Altitude (2010)
For what it is
I know I was a little distracted, but... not many take me this long to know the inevitable conclusion. There was enough dislike of one character, enough wonder about another, perhaps a missed plot point here and there and suddenly it was an okay film. Sorry if that was a harsh statement...
Or perhaps I paid closer attention than I thought. I know the reveal of the beast was very well timed. The comic relief (haha) was a neat piece of expositional obfuscation. So this leads me to believe the writing was good. I can honestly say I was not sure for a while there who was going to survive.
So, as a post 911, light air-plane, disaster movie I think it does go far to reclaim the images, for the genre, that most would sooner forget.
Well done.
Office Uprising (2018)
A new award category:
This movie was really quite good... funny in a office politics sort of way but not tedious like The Office.
There should be a new award category from this movie:
Most Baller move with a shotgun.
Future World (2018)
Coulda' Been Great
I saw this film for the second time on the back of Errors of the Human Body. Now if only someone would write a movie about building a time machine, plucking both Mr. Ecklund and Mr. Franco from their respective out of genre minds, to reverse the two leads.
Future World really did stand on the precipice of being great. Then like a meal that needed something, all of the individual moments were good, just lacked something... plausible- perhaps causality- NO! That's not it, the glorious Ms. Waterhouse' voice-of-a-thousand-honeyed-angels, opening exposition (which is a well overdone scenario and pet peeve) was enlightening brief and freshly paired visually.
Perhaps it was... look- it was not a bad film.
A Quiet Place (2018)
Sorry, I didn't speak the language.
This is what happens to films that might be a great idea but are being made by people with no foresight and no clue. I don't know if this film got past the first ten minutes, but I never learned conversational sign language, so if I have NO idea what is happening onscreen then it gets canned! Everytime!
Ibiza (2018)
If Pretty Woman weren't a movie...wait a minute!
I wish i hadn't a backlog of life and had been able to get to see this sooner.
But only if you still believe in magic and fairy dust and lsd. And honestly, everyone has at least one night or day like this, the day that had to happen like it did and no other way could it have happened except than to be worthy of a major film script, in life. Still waiting for mine... :)
There would not be a single bad review if it had been a current platinum hollywood starlet; a Mila, or Jennifer. But Gilian is a little too real to catch the eye of a night of round shimmery disc armour?! No! She is the right amount of real.
Ibiza does reinvent the metaphor of Pretty Woman by modernising the take on what it is to be in the trenches, and with the prevalence of female artists in the EDM scene, it would not surprise me if soon The Taming of The Shrew appeared on this platform.
All that aside, this is a good, wholesome and fun film.
Prom Night (2008)
The car won't go!
So every year, maybe two on a bad run, there is a Prom movie. Some years it RomCom, some it's thriller, other's horror, and then... then there is this plop of elephant excrement laying on the road with Brittany Snow hanging out at an off angle, a fateful tiara laying there being crushed under the landslide of indifference about this movie.
Okay, Miss Snow might have been not bad! But if you are going to give someone a coming of age present, like a shiny new car, in which to showcase their driving skills- make sure it damn well runs! If you give them a movie to star in, which it seems like the studio did, get people to make it who know what they are doing.
---Spoliers--- (yeah!ppft!)
Here is an example: If you take a maid, stab her 7-10 times in the thorax and abdomen THERE WILL BE BLOOD! When Michael walks in looking for throat slit Claire, who had been handily rolled under the bed, THERE WILL BE A LOT OF BLOOD! This is rather important. Hang on. THIS IS RATHER IMPORTANT! Nobody... NOBODY handles multiple stabbing victims looking like they just walked out of the shower.
Well, Producer, so you didn't want a slasher look with all that blood?! Make a different film. Stabby=Bloody
---end spoilers---
Idris Alba. Kind of phoned it in didn't he? Look, because the Teen Horror Cop Trope was in play it probably wasn't his fault. At least he has the chops and the mother country to fall back on.
No. Bad. Go lie in your basket.
Mind and Machine (2017)
This could have been good.
But it started dreary and then got boring. It's the old rehash of ideas with none of the action. I could not even finish it. Rare.
Thoroughbreds (2017)
NOT Heathers... Thoroughbreds.
Fantastic. An exploration of teen Sociopathy in today's elitist and entitled upper middle class America. This film has angst in abundance which leads to coloured boundaries of wrong and right, avoidance being the method of dealing with many tropes of teendom, choosing to focus on the concept of absentee parenting and security.
This is a beautiful film. It looks good. Cinematography is of highest standard and the presentation of concept is rich. Powerful moments like the opening scene, or the outdoor chess board, live in the mind long after the gate clear and lights are out.
I did like this movie but for the last line being unbelievable to the maximum of credulity. It would be 8 stars, but for that line.
Avengers Grimm: Time Wars (2018)
Not so Grimm for the Asylum
I think the Asylum have found a nice breakout with the modern retake of the Grimm world, incorporating Lewis Carol, and not a little Disney. Not only are the story arcs a little fresher, but the ensemble- despite Alice's obvious grandiosity from her low self-esteem- have seemed to relax and work well together.
The writing is good, effects are improving, still some of the editing could be a bit tighter (even a few frames on the floor can keep the audience eye's open sometimes), finally the props and costume are always fun with the Asylum. Having the Direction separate to the Writing was a wise choice for the sequel, giving more life to the film as a whole, to take nothing away from Mr. Inman's first chapter.
I think as a production house the Asylum are coming along well and if they can acquire some more properties like this, continue to improve on their production skills, and discover an A lister or two, they will really begin to be a force to be reckoned with in the demographic. I have been repeatedly surprised by the quality, but not always- still the disappointments come. It seems like a good place for people to cut their teeth into the industry, without the studios taking to big a hit on any failures.
Mercenaries (2014)
Expendebelles Was the Better Name.
Take a good, funny, self deprecating script, better than the Hollywood drivel they gave the boys in the Expendables. Take away the production budgets and experience, but DO give it too some good leading Action ladies, and you still get a better film than it's alternate boys club back pocket vehicle.
Let's face the truth, an AK-47 round will not reach high enough to hit the glass ceiling, maybe a rocket might- or "an Asian woman driving- (the plane) watch out!"
It's fast, raw, funny and doesn't try to be more than it is. It didn't ask the viewer to do anything but forgive it's little flaws and have a good time. All five leading ladies are capable and put in some quality work, Fong's comic styling being most memorable.
The only complaint would be the early scene which nearly lost me was Christopher Ray's direction of Cynthia Rothrock. But once over that hump the film opens to it's better performance's. Even the completely predictable bag of cheese cubes in the final battle, where I was on the edge of my seat for one of our heroines. The rules of action comedy respected and it all came out as it should.
I'm looking forward to the sequel, wondering if The Asylum have been able to pick from their years of television zombie action, to stand beside Zoe, Kristanna and Fong.
American Sniper (2014)
Unconscious Voter
If the first casualty is truth then any reporting, on any level, on every war must be a lie. Simple right? Not so. Of great credit to any nation is the finesse with which their propaganda machine can revise, repackage and recreate a lie which has been told a number of different ways already. Grab the gullible with the thinnest veneer of purported reality, then when they forget that it's only a movie, once that magic spell has been cast, take them to wonderland, the chocolate factory and the North pole all at once. Throw in a cross genre spell ingredient like Rom-com fantasy leader Bradley Cooper, and his soulful baby blues, suddenly the producers are atop the highest tower shouting 'show me the money'.
Make no mistake: this is one of those hum-vees. It is only a movie. It has several well used aspects of the film story teller's trade. It has a soundtrack. It has Revillie, several times. It has well practiced film masters offering their expertise in presentation. It attempts to access feelings in the viewer. It seems to do these things acceptably. Acceptably. Not fantastically. Not well. It is no more than a $12 blow job off a corner hooker. Any votes cast in the first few minutes, in the after glow, are dubious at best. When that hooker looks up with big brown eyes in the last moments and says I love you, expect to be spit on. It was interesting, it was even momentarily entertaining, but it was only a story.
Before putting a score to this controversial modern fantasy ask yourself some hard truths about it: Did you manage to keep focus all the way through? Did you ever have the slightest doubt about any of it? Did you want to shout out 'that's not right'? Did you pause and come back? Perhaps you missed something and said 'oh well doesn't matter'. If you can say yes to any of these then ask yourself one more thing before rating this film: was it really that good, at all?
Preservation (2014)
I loved it
Right up until the point returning PTSD soldier boy turns his back on the bad guy. Stupid! Lost all credibility. Then when the husband does it too I went and did the dishes while it played in the background. It's a good example of when movies should be vetted prior to public release. I'm sure it was a stupid producer who forced the decisions, no one capable of the idea of this film: "It's closed! How can they close a state park?" would be so blind as to write those scenes.
Space Cop (2016)
Even as a child...
I would have found this terrible even during the fart joke time of my life. There was nothing clever or funny about it, the story could have had potential, but it was treated so poorly I could not finish it. Yes I tried, I made it to past the hour mark and wanted to improve myself by playing in traffic.
This is on the list of the 10 worst Sci-Fi and 10 Worst films I've ever seen. Save yourself the trauma and DO SOMETHING OTHER THAN WATCH THIS DRIVEL!