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The Foursome (2006)
Coming of middle-age picture could be subtler
This film wasn't bad, but it's far from great. Except for the nudity and coarse language, it felt more like a movie of the week than a feature. The characters were portrayed well enough by the cast, but they were pretty 2-dimensional. Donnie was your typical fat guy buffoon character, with the exception that he and his wife mate like bunnies. I kept wanting the guy playing Ted to turn into Crispin Glover in a bad wig. Except for the trophy wife, the female characters were practically interchangeable (although Rick's wife seemed to be more of an age with the trophy wife than with the other two. The message of the film, while nice, was nothing new and the script didn't deliver it with any subtlety.
Slither (2006)
Slither slinks around the point but never quite gets it
I love horror films. I love great horror films and I love terrible horror films. The one kind of horror movie I don't love is mediocre horror films. Slither, sadly, is entirely in this category. I really wanted to love this movie. It has some really good stuff going for it and the trailer made it look like a real hoot. This is not the case.
There are good points about this movie: 1 Nathan Fillion is charming and totally entertaining as Chief Bill. 2 Gregg Henry was fun as the pompous, foul-mouthed mayor, although there was nothing particularly original or nuanced about his performance or the character. 3 The special effects were really, really good. One or two moments of obviously CGed slugs, otherwise top notch. The guy getting sliced in half was really nasty and the closing sequence was right out of Lovecraft.
However, there were many things that were not good: 1 The plot was uninspired. About the only original thing was Grant Grant & Starla's relationship. 2 The pacing was terrible. I realize that alien invasion/monster films should have some build up to create suspense, but when your film is an hour and forty minutes long, the first hour should not be entirely set up. Get to the damn space slugs for crying out loud! That's what we paid our money for! 3 The tone was fuddled and confused. The trailer makes it look like a laugh-a-minute camp send-up with nasty effects. This is a lie. There are a couple of laugh-out-loud funny moments, but they are few and far between and don't fit in with the extremely dark themes and gore level of the film. A film this disturbing needs to either be way funnier or take itself very seriously. 4 While the topic and the level of gore were highly disturbing, there wasn't anything actually scary happening in the movie. The "scariest" moments were supplied by a corpse suddenly sitting up accompanied by a ridiculously loud and heavy-handed musical sting. At least they didn't have a scene where a cat jumps out of a closet. Even the hunt for the bad guy through the woods at night didn't manage to be scary. If you can't manage to make a desperate moonlit chase for a Cthulhoid space-parasite in the back woods a creepy, scary affair, then you really need to stop trying to direct horror movies.
I really wanted to love this movie, but I was let down. The marketing machine did its job by making me want to see it and making me think it was going to be fun. Unfortunately, the marketing machine's job isn't telling the public what sort of movie they are actually going to get. If all you want from your horror is a few cheap jumps and lots of gore, then this movie is right up your alley, otherwise avoid it.
Nothing to Lose (1994)
I can't believe I was in this...
What's worse, it's my only feature film credit. I was the guy behind the camera reading the lines while the actors auditioned for the director. The director liked my line readings so much he gave me a part. It's the same way Harrison Ford got the part of Han Solo. I just wish my career had a little more in common with Harrison's. My sister (who plays the forensic scientist at the crime scene early on) went from being a production assistant to assistant producer to line producer on this turkey. My fondest memory of being on set (other than accidentally being set on fire) was sitting with the hero in the BMW giving him phonetic line readings since he barely spoke English. Hey, at least I was in a movie with the vice principal from the Breakfast Club.
People should probably avoid this movie.
There's Something About Mary (1998)
One of the most over-hyped pieces of crap ever perpetrated
Humour is an entirely subjective medium. I know, because I'm a professional comic. That being said, I think this movie is garbage. This film was hyped as being the funniest movie of all time. It truly saddens me how many people agree with that. In my opinion it is sophomoric, juvenile, puerile, obscene and offensive and not at all funny. I watched this film from start to finish and it failed to register on my funny bone enough to make me even smile, let alone laugh. I have no problem with sophomoric, juvenile, puerile, obscene and offensive humour... as long as it actually is humour. Animal House fits all those adjectives, yet it manages to be funny. What went wrong with "There's Something About Mary"? The Farrely brothers should be forcibly restrained from perpetrating this kind of crime against the movie-going public.