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dkkane39
Reviews
Inspector Clouseau (1968)
A fascinating study ineptitude.
"Inspector Clouseau" is a film that's ineptitude bod almost everything imaginable almost rivals the ineptitude of Tommy Wiseau's "The Room". Is it as bad as "The Room"? No. However, this film is so badly written, so blindly directed, so in constant hatred of its audience that as you watch it you can't help but be offended. I'm convinced that tpeople who made this film hate movies. Hate making movies. Hate acting in movies. Hate everything about movies. It's almost a genius film if you see it as an anti-movie. It's so blatantly bad and on purpose that you are fully aware everyone hated being in this movie and making it. The contempt for the audience in this film is almost legendary. I've watched many episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTraxx and never have I ever seen a film have such contempt for its audience. Alan Arkin gives what I would call an "anti-performance". It is so evident in every scene that he hates being in this movie and playing this character. He sits in almost every scene in a stupor and a look that says "god, how did I get in this pile?" The writing is so bad. It's like an alien race who had no concept of comedy tried to make a comedy. It's "anti-funny". The whole film plays like a gigantic middle finger being shoved right in the audience's face. The filmmakers and actors are so completely drained of any enthusiasm and care that it's almost exhausting watching this movie. It's like listening to a person complain for two hours. There's a scene where Alan Arkin arrives in London and walks down the ramp off of the airplane and as he gets down the ramp he realizes he doesn't have any shoes on. But we the audience are never told why he doesn't have shoes on. Did he take them off on the plane to relax? Did he lose them somewhere on the plane? Did a missing reel just not get included back into the film? It's an attempt at humor that is so inept and bad that it's not funny, it's baffling. Another example of wtf, is Clouseau is getting a shave by the prison barber, when all of a sudden he's drugged and put to sleep. Then the prison barber opens a hatch in the room and just disappears down it. I have no idea what that hatch is or why it is there. The drugging is never explained and so a character literally before your eyes disappears with no explanation. If I hadn't mentioned it already, this movie is exhausting! Thank goodness that seven years later Blake Edwards, Peter Sellers, and Henry Mancini returned to the series. "Inspector Clouseau" is so bad its a franchise killer. Yet, an even bigger franchise killer than Jaws: The Revenge and Highlander 2. Luckily, the franchise rebounded in 1975 with "The Return of the Pink Panther". If anything, I mean if anything "Inspector Clouseau" proves it is that not everyone in movies with the opportunity and means to make a movie should make a movie. Those sort of things should probably be left to the professionals.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Inner Light (1992)
Star Trek meets The Last Temptation of Christ meets Krypton
There is so much that is familiar in this episode but so much that is fresh and utterly, gut wrenchingly beautiful. Picard's life as another in the episode, how he moves through a lifetime in a matter of minutes echoes the latter part of Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation of Christ. The world in which Picard builds a new life, his constant fight to save his world and his inability to do so is much like the life of Superman's birth father Jor-El on the planet Krypton. Despite all his best efforts, the planet is Doomed, but much like baby Kal-El, the memory of this world lives on in a different kind of object launched from a doomed world: the probe which the Enterprise encounters 1,000 years after it is launched. This episode is much like a dream that we don't want to wake up from. And when we do awaken, we can only remember the feelings of joy and love that we had experienced. This is the best episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation because the best of any science fiction explores what it is to be human in a universe of possibilities and lifetimes.
Downsizing (2017)
Payne out of his depth.
This is clearly a film directed by a director who has no idea why science fiction is and what it should be. It's Payne's worst movie by far! It's like a combination of a bad rom com, lame sci-fi, and climate change message movies. It's a mess and it shows and by the end you're left wondering how many thing they could have done better to make a better movie. Skip, I wish I had.
Spider-Man: Night of the Lizard (1994)
One of the greatest first episodes to any series!
This first episode only sets up the greatness that is the 90s animated Spider-Man series. It's basically a 20 minute film that works better and achieves more than most full length Marvel films. I remember this episode fondly as a kid when it first came on. Watching it every time takes me back to Saturday mornings when tv was worth watching.
What If...?: What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark? (2021)
They can't all be the Dr. Strange episode can they?
Very lackluster episode. Tony's face just looks weird to me and the script and idea seemed very forced. Definitely the weakest of the bunch so far. Oh well, there's always next week.
American Horror Stories: The Naughty List (2021)
So bad it's hard to believe Ryan Murphy signed off on this.
I've enjoyed the series so far, but this was trash. Unoriginal and utter trash.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Truth (2021)
An important episode done perfectly.
People will dislike this episode. Simply because there is little action and more talk. These are the same people who claim to know and love the genre. What they fail to realize is that comics are more than action and pow bang zoom. There is heart and there is literature in these stories. A good action film is not one with action non stop. There needs to be a story, an exhalation for the audience and the build up to something spectacular. I can't wait for that something spectacular.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Host (1991)
Cronenberg Meets Star Trek
This is the first appearance of the alien race the Trill on Star Trek. Much like the original Klingon design of the original series, the design for the Trill would also be changed. On this episode, the Trill have protrusions on their head and flattened noses. Of course this would be a far cry from Jadzia's design on DS9. The entire idea of parasites, identity, and body horror is very reminiscent of David Cronenberg's work such as Videodrome, The Fly, and Shivers. The parasite that lives in the host is much bigger and disgusting than the ones we would see in future Star Treks. The scene where Odan observed himself in the mirror is straight out of Cronenberg's Shivers. Both Shivers and this film deal with parasites and foreign bodies inside human bodies. This is an episode that explores Dr. Crusher's emotions and life of solitude aboard the Enterprise. It is a very well written and acted episode. It makes us ask the question, is love a person, or something more?
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003)
Where were the adults when they made this?
As good as the original is, that's how bad this garbage is. I've never seen a sequel so bad and miss the mark by so much. Sally Field must have needed to pay rent or something. That's the only logical explanation for her being in this. A cash grab of the worst kind. Nothing redeemable. Nothing new. I mean, her dog is gay and that's one of the huge plot focuses in this movie. Her dog....Please, if you haven't seen this movie avoid like the plague. If I could give less than one star I would.
Secret Window (2004)
Total misinterpretation of a classic King Story
I just recently read "Secret Window, Secret Garden" and decided to finally see the film version of the story. This movie has convinced me to stop watching adaptations of Stephen King stories. The ending was complete and utterly different from the stories ending. Nothing is explained, Mort's creation of Shooter is never explained in the movie and the reveal that all this was in Rainey's head was ridiculous. I don't know why screenwriters think they know better than Stephen King and completely change his stories. Only a rare few are true to his work. Secret Window is not one of those. If you really are interested in this story, listen to the audiobook read by James Woods. It's a heck of a whole lot better than this garbage. Go away David Koepp, go away.
Lords of the Deep (1989)
Can I give it no stars? 🤔
This movie came out in June of 1989I was born in July of 1989. So luckily I wasn't alive to witness this. If a middle schooler got a couple of bucks from his parents and had the neighborhood act in the movie, that's kind of what you get with Lords of the Deep. The title is throwaway because it's never mentioned of alluded to. There's like 10 people who work in the underwater lab but everyone has name tags.With first and last names. The aliens look like they were made in an elementary school art class by first graders. The MST3K episode of this trash is awesome, so I would highly recommend watching it. But don't watch this movie alone, your sanity may depend on it.
L'ultimo squalo (1981)
No wonder Universal sued!
This quite possibly is the worst shark movie ever made. So much makes no sense at all. From random pieces of meat being dangled in water attracting a shark like 20 miles away, to a helicopter trying to go fishing with said bait, to people always standing in the camera's way, everything about this film is slapdash. I mean, they couldn't have cancelled a wind surfing race? The whole reasoning about why the beaches couldn't be closed in JAWS is because it would cripple the towns economic income for the year if paranoia of a shark got out and caused people not to come to Amity on the 4th of July. Apparently in The Last Shark, this town takes its wind surfing very seriously and couldn't cancel this amateur race. From a knock off Quint, to the main character Peter Benton's name being a rip off of Peter Benchley (author of Jaws), everything in this film is just terrible. Oh did I mention that when the shark hits a boat it makes the boat and person in the boat fly like 50 feet in the air?! And guess how they killed the shark?! Spoiler! They blow it up! Universal shouldn't have just sued for copyright infringement, they should've sued for cruel and unusual punishment directed towards any living audience. There are spoilers in this review by the way. Oops. But don't worry, I didn't spoil anything for you. The only thing spoiled in the film used to record this crap.
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
The sins of the father shall be visited upon the son
Taste The Blood of Dracula is not only one of the best titles to a horror film ever, but also among the best in the 7 Christopher Lee Dracula films released by Hammer. Where Freddie Francis tried his hand at the previous film, trying to make it modern with funky color camera effects, Peter Sasdy decided to go classic with the approach to this film. Thank goodness. Horror of Dracula is a classic and still amazing today due to the incredible direction of Terence Fisher. There was nothing that dated Horror of Dracula. And it is the same for Taste... This film is not so much about Dracula as it is about the sins of fathers and the children who inevitably pay for them. Dracula is merely a centerpiece to the evil that mere mortal men create. Sasdy's picture shows an England that suffers from the repression of affection. So stifled is the man of this time, that he sends his daughter to her room for merely talking to a young man. At church! Little do we know of the evils and perversions that Alice's father buries deep underneath his tightly suited vest. For Taste...is a film that really celebrates the sexual awakening of the late 60s and 70s. Mainly by showing us how stifling and Puritan society was back in the day. It is a story that still mirrors our society today in that there will always be people in power with secrets and it is the family around them that must pay the price.
Sometimes They Come Back (1991)
Stop giving Stephen King movies happy Hollywood endings!
As with Cujo, it is the same with Sometimes They Come Back. Hollywood take a twisted, spine tingling tale and gives it the Hallmark treatment. The ending is so convoluted and schmultzy it's laughable. In the original story, (spoilers ahead for the story) we get the main character using demonology to defeat the antagonists. His wife is killed by the punks and they have no son. Sure, I know adaptations of short stories and novels get changed but here it is unnecessary. Another great example of what happens when people think they can improve on The King.