Reviews

This movie had good acting and was interesting visually but the story had holes in it. To be frank, it seemed like a short story that became a feature length film, because there wasn't much to watch and what was there was psychological. I found myself unable to envision the space where the story took place; for example, why was his rope long enough to reach the stream, but so short that it stopped him at the forest edge too? Also, how was Hank hunting on what seemed to be private land but showed no indication that such a thing would be a problem? Though I won't spoil the ending, it made no sense to me.

As a person who has gotten bored with love stories, family dramas, and hero-action films, I'm always looking for good movies that aren't any of those. And this was one. An aging hippie who has grown pot for more than thirty years is edged out of the business when the trade is legalized. The acting was good, the story was believable and interesting . . . But the ending- there basically wasn't one. It's like they didn't know what do next, so they gave up and rolled the credits.

This being the early '70s, I kept waiting for something quirky and original to happen, but there was hardly even a story here. This premise reminded me a little bit of "Watermelon Man," where a bigot has to face his own racism, but it was like they only had the exposition, transplant, escape, and chase figured out. The rest was devoid of substance or ingenuity.

I like an existential western, one that relies more on being thoughtful than on wild action, and that's why I watched this movie. I'll say this for it: it has good acting, a believable concept, and tension based on real conflict. But it also has no narrative arc and is extremely boring. I was bored at ten minutes, at a half-hour, at the midpoint, and at the end. Slow pacing and long camera shots are OK, but not when that's all there is for an hour and a half, without rising action or any notions of conflict resolution.

This movie is: "The Bad Seed" meets "Humanoids from the Deep." The first three-quarters of it is about a weird kid who nobody likes and who resorts to killing the people who abuse him. During the last quarter of the movie, he basically disappears, and the story shifts to the creatures who've escaped. I watched this because one review said it should be a cult classic. I don't know about that . . . "The Pit" is not bad in a good way.

This was one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen. It began like one of those 1970s after-school specials that used to come on TV (but Japanese, not American), silly and naive almost to the point of ridiculous. Then, about a third of the way, it began to depart from that and got weird in subtle ways. And it rode that slow train down the path to ultra-weird for the remaining hour. I don't know what this director was thinking, whether the movie was intentionally shot this way or if it was just low budget, or what. By the end, the cat's portrait was a blood-spewing monster, the girls' teacher had turned into a pile of bananas in a dune buggy, and the future stepmom came to be victimized by the girl who left to visit her aunt. Don't me to explain why, because I can't.

The Irishman is as good as you'd think it would be, with a compelling story, good acting, interesting cinematography. But the last thirty minutes just drags unnecessarily. The movie could have ended much sooner than it does and been a better story.

Some parts of this movie had beautiful cinematography but too much of it dragged along with mundane scenes and banter that were supposed to be exciting, I think. It is so hard to capture the energy of Beat literature and this portrayal of Neal Cassady didn't. In the end, the story just petered out and dropped off. But it wasn't a bad movie.

This movie has a unique and compelling story, strong acting, and constant tension, but it is about 30-45 minutes too long to have the anticlimactic ending that it does. Some of the torture scenes could have been cut, because the point had been made and the effect had been achieved.