Reviews

Poor John Carpenter cant seem to get a break. He makes films that are almost always disliked at first but eventually gain massive followings and critical reevaluations decades later. Why can't he just make a movie that's an instant hit? Ghosts Of Mars really hasn't gone under that reevaluation, as it's still usually considered his weakest film, but it's also his newest film, and maybe it just hasn't had the chance yet.

I think Ghosts of Mars is a very fun, silly, ridiculous film. People have complained that it's "not scary", but that has always astounded me because the film clearly is not trying to scary at all. It has Ice Cube and Jason Stathom spewing 80's-esque one-liners, a heavy metal soundtrack, Martians bouncing around all over the place, and tons of funny moments. Correct, there isn't a single scare in this film, but that's because it isn't a horror film, nor is it even remotely trying to be. It makes me wonder if John Carpenter had directed Austin Powers, would people be complaining that Austin Powers had not a single good scare? Because filmmakers can only make ONE kind a movie, right?

Carpenter is a great director and shoots this film very well. No shaky-cam action scenes, great stuntwork, and excellent special effects. While the fights are all clearly rehearsed and choreographed, you've gotta love how you can actually SEE the fights, unlike every action movie of the last 20 years where it looks like it was shot by Michael J Fox during an earthquake. The pace of the film works very well too.

I would never argue that Ghosts of Mars is a hidden masterpiece or high art, nor is it even close to Carpenter's top films, but I do think the film was misunderstood because everyone just blindly assumed 'the Halloween guy' would only make horror films. But even at his weakest, Carpenter's visual style and pacing was always at its A-game. I went into it thinking it would be a total trainwreck, but found myself having a good time. It's an incredibly goofy film and that's why I like it. Carpenter has done worse.

Illumination is a studio known for producing gutless, boring, paint-by-numbers, mass appeal movies that focus more on cute gimmicks and marketing than they do on actual storytelling and character development. If you've seen anything else from Illumination, you practically don't need to see this movie, because you can probably just predict every scene in your head and just about get it right. While The Grinch isn't Illumination's worst, it's still a thoughtless and emotionless product only meant to sell toys and theater tickets before charm and charisma.

Benedict Cumberbatch's Grinch is boring. I do like Cumberbatch and I did think he'd be great to voice the Grinch, but he's terrible in this movie. His voice doesn't match the character whatsoever, and does nothing to bring the character more to life. At least Jim Carrey put energy and emotion into his performance, whereas Cumberbatch sounds like he's disappointed about the small paycheck he's just been given. The Grinch himself is written in a way that pulls all punches and has to cave in to cutesy kids logic instead of a clever way that tells a good story. Instead of making The Grinch actually funny or interesting, they make him the typical 2018 grumpy hipster who's a good guy at heart but just needs his morning coffee. Making him a mostly good character really undermines the climactic payoff of him finally understanding the meaning Christmas towards the end.

Sadly, both the character and the overall movie as a whole share the same problems; it's boring, uninspired, and vanilla. Much like the character, the movie sucks out anything interesting in favor for playing it safe and selling toys. The music is even done by rapper Tyler The Creator, and even as a moderate fan of his work, the music here is terribly uninspired and obviously an attempt to make the film more hip. Most of the jokes are entirely predictable. Actually, the entire movie is predictable. I don't mean we've seen the original movies, I mean the film follows every generic story you'll ever see in a kids movie. The film feels more like it was written by a computer and less like a team of engrossed screenwriters. One of the film's running gags is the ex-popular 'screaming goat' meme...seriously, I thought that meme stopped being funny in 2013.

Truthfully, this film is not the worst thing to come out of Illumination. It may not be a good movie, but at least it doesn't completely bastardize and miseducate its message like The Lorax did, and at least it isn't as excruciatingly for-the-masses as Minions or The Secret Life Of Pets. The Grinch, as well as every single other Illumination Studios movie, is like a cute untamed puppy; it may urinate on your rug and chew up all of your shoes, but it's cute and looks at you with big puppy dog eyes and does silly things, so you don't punish it and let it slide when it really shouldn't be forgiven so easily. When are we as an audience going to stop letting these thoughtless movies slide solely because of their cuteness? Regardless, moms and kids alike will continue to enjoy these movies without the slightest care, simply because it's cute and nothing more.

Being eight films into a monotonous franchise, taking things in an new direction seems inevitable. Taking Jason to New York City sounds like an awesome idea on paper, and why wouldn't it? Jason is the largest city in the country! Imagine Jason hacking up people in the subways, Jason throwing people off of valiant skyscrapers, Jason eerily stalking in dark foggy alleyways, Jason taking on the entire NYPD! Or, we could watch a movie that spends over an hour of its runtime on cruise ship.

Indeed, it's well known that this entry somewhat lies to its audience, as it doesn't arrive to NYC until the 3rd act of the movie. It's been well documented that this was due to heavy-fisted budget restraints that gutted the original script of potentially awesome sequences and instead stranded it on a boat. Literally. This entire movie takes place on a boring boat with a boring cast. The disappointment of Jason not really "taking Manhattan" is only one of several horrendous elements this movie holds.

Above anything else, the characters are terrible. This film possesses easily the most banal, cliche, forgettable, and unlikable band of teenagers and human characters of the entire Jason franchise. Hard to believe, isn't it? None of the human protagonists are fun, interesting, or well written. They're almost like a compilation of the worst characters from every Jason movie. Their ages are also completely confusing, as the film states they are fresh-from-the-robes high school graduates, but people are constantly talking about needing to finish biology projects and getting suspension. Do the writers think that college freshman still have to do high school summer projects? The one almost likable character is the principle/professor whatever he is, but he's still the cliche snobby old cremudgion professor character in every bad comedy and the film, for some reason, tries to paint him as an antagonist. So we aren't supposed to like the one character who is almost likable?

Beyond the terrible cast of teens, the film is simply tired and lifeless. Setting the entire film on the boat was a terrible idea. I get the budget was small, but why not set it in an apartment? Or set it in the sewers or subways? There are plenty of ways this movie could've gotten around the crippling budget cuts besides what it ended up doing. The cruise ship scenario is incredibly boring to the point where it's practically offensive to its audience.It seems that many times throughout the film, the writers just completely forget that Jason is even in the movie, and the protagonists just kind of chill and do their thing for several long and tedious minutes. This movie is a drag to sit through, going even slower than the boat featured in the movie.

With all things considered, I think that Friday the 13th part eight: Jason takes Manhattan is the worst of the entire Friday the 13th franchise. Even without the massive false advertising that the title promises, the characters featured in this film are the woartnof the whole series and the plot is incredibly boring. Things do slightly pick up once the movie takes Manhattan, but by this point, it's far too gone and far too late. Things do slightly pick up once the movie takes Manhattan, but by this point, it's far too gone and far too late. Even Jason X is a better movie because at least that film is fun and highly entertaining, though in a bad way, and at least that movie takes place in space! I can't even imagining die hard Jason fans enjoying this film.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise has been a long and drawn out one, comprised more of reboots and remakes than straight-forward sequels, and nearly all of the failing either critically, fianancially, or logically. Or all three. By this point, the franchise has been completely wrung out dry of creativity, but Leatherface is a film that tries something new. Is it good? Almost, it certainly has good aspects, but at least it tries to tell a new story.

For the good, Leatherface is well directed and well acted. Most of the characters are quite compelling and are certainly acted well by the entire cast. It serves a prequel to the original film, an origin story that describes a young Leatherface and how he became the infamous slaughterer we know him to be today. The same concept was done in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beggining, but it's done infinitely better here because more emphasis is given towards character development instead of cheap gore effects. The movie also does a decent job at making Leatherface a likable protagonist and making the lawful pursuing cop a good antagonist. This is something that's very hard to pull off, and it's something Texas Chanisaw 3D tried and failed miserably in doing, but it's helped significantly by Stephen Dorff's excellent performance as the destable vengeful police officer.

My main issue with the film come from the fact that this story certainly doesn't feel like the story that would shape Leatherface. In fact, in no ways does it resemble a Texas Chainsaw Massacre film. Instead, Leatherface is a teenage jailbreak-roadtrip movie, where one of the teens happens to be a young Leatherface. Without the first five and last five minutes, this film could've easily been branded as another movie, and the fact that it's somehow tied into the TCM franchise actually hurts it more than saves it.

Another issue is that the film just isn't necessary. It falls into my above point, but this story does not feel like the story that describes how Leatherface came to be. It doesn't really tie into the first movie or any of the other films and simply isn't an important story in the grand scheme of things.

As it is, however, Leatherface really isn't that bad. It's not very good as a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, but it certainly works much better as it's own film. Leatherface certainly should've gone by a different name and I think the film would've benefited a lot more without being pigeonholed into a franchise it feels out of place in.

Calling a film "a polished turd" is a fairly popular insult used by audiences and moviegoers today. Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Msassacre 3 is one of the most definitive polished turds I've ever seen. It has many good ideas and has good production with decent direction and cinematography to boot, but it just has way too many flaws to ignore.

Gone is the low budget gritty feel of the first two entries; Leatherface is big budget, shot in Los Angeles instead of Texas, filmed on crystal clear studio cameras, and sprinkled with an undoubtedly expensive soundtrack from various high-profile rock bands of the time. This is obviously a studio film, an attempt at producers trying to widen Letherface's appeal to a mainstream audience. In some ways, the studio is very successful. It's quite dark and graphic (in the way studio films are) and it does a good job building up suspense and delivering scares.

With this, however, comes it's inevitable flaw of being a watered down studio project. The new characters, while interesting and freaky enough, come nowhere near the chaotic nightmarish inhabitants from the first two films. The cannibals are clearly portrayed by handsome actors (including Viggo Mortensen) which sucks a lot of the grit from the film. One cannibal is a wheelchair-bound woman with a synthetic voice who's just that: a woman in a wheelchair. If she were in the first two movies, she'd have massive tumors or her gums would be ridden with disease or she'd be 900 pounds, but instead she looks like your average everyday woman. There's even a suspenseful slow reveal shot of her face that reveals nothing. How disappointing is it that she has not even a single ounce of horror makeup on her face? The only cannibal who really has any distinguishing traits on par with the first two is Alfredo, but you still tell the actor is handsome in real life. Even Leatherface himself isn't ugly, as he poses dramatically with his stunning hunky mullet and muscles against the backlight in many scenes. That's just what we need, right? Hunky Leatherface?

The normal characters are bland and downright irritating, with the lead male role being one of the most annoying protagonists in any film ever. The writer was obviously trying to create a realistic playful relationship between the two leads, but it instead comes off as grating and obnoxious. The only lead I really liked was Ken Foree, because he's, well, Ken Foree being Ken Foree, which cannot go wrong.

The film is more mediocre and standard than it is anything else. Director Jeff Burr's ideas do shine through occasionally, but they've clearly been homoginzed by studio test audience interjection. It does have some decent writing and thrills, but they're your typical run-of-the-mill decent studio horror tropes. Growing up, I actually really enjoyed this film and significantly liked it more than the second movie, because I felt this movie better balanced comedy and horror. Watching them both again, I feel the second one certainly has more identity and creativity in its content when compared to this film, which is mostly just typical and underwhelming.

Some may find a thing or two to really enjoy, because some stuff is there, but overall, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 is mostly just kind of boring and too polished for its own good.

I saw this film in my early teenage years and absolutely hated it. Years have gone by before I finally saw it again for a second time just last night, and while it's certainly not better or anywhere near close to being as good as the original, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 really isn't that bad of a movie.

Many have expressed negative feelings towards the goofy comedic tone, but I personally didn't feel too much of that in the film. Even years ago I remember the film being much sillier and even slapsticky than it was just last night. To me, the film is certainly tongue-in-cheek and doesn't take itself seriously, mostly with Dennis Hopper's bombastic climax, but it's still layered in horror, darkness, and disturbing imagery. Scenes where Leatherface forces a girl to dance with him while she wears the skinned face of her best friend like a mask are remescent of the nightmare-like trances from the first. The character of Chop-Top is also a nice addition to the film, and I found his introduction to the movie where he rambles on about nonsense for 10 minutes while picking at his scalp with a shirt hanger to still be in the same macabre vein as the first. In fact, most of the characters are pretty well written and acted, with the exception fin Dennis Hopper, who is easily the worst thing about this movie and a complete waste of an excellent actor. Hopper later went on to claim that his role in this movie was the worst of his entire career, and I can certainly see why he'd say that.

Tobe Hooper has had a very lackluster career; in fact, I might even say he's only ever made one great film, that being the original TCM. This film proves that he still had an understanding for good camerawork and sudden thrills, like a scene where Leatherface leaps from darkness in the middle of a 10 minute dialog scene. The original was full with some of the best scares in cinematic history, while this film only attempts it once or twice. It's disappointing because the few times it tries to scare, it genuinely works, and it makes you wish there was more of it.

Also, the film just ends. No resolution, no epilogue, it doesn't even finish the climax. It just ends. That gives it a sort of grindhouse feel, but it's still quite underwhelming. Overall the film is a lot more horrifying than most make it out to be, but it's still not as near as horrifying as it should be. I feel like a few tweaks could've made this movie really good, maybe even a close companion to the first, but it distracted and differed from Tobe Hooper's vision of the film.

We've heard of movies being so bad they're good, so bad they're bad, but here's a film that's so bad it's cute. That is all I can really say about Clonehunters; it's cute. Definelty a horrible movie, but cute.

The film is clearly low budget, impossible to any be any higher than a few grand. It's a sci-fi film, the kind that's filmed entirely in a poorly lit warehouse, the kind where every shot is in front of a cheap blue screen that makes the entire thing look like a bad high school broadcast class project, the kind where random downloadable graphics and doohickies run rampant in every scene because THE FUTURE! Anyone who knows bad movies knows the type.

Every aspect of this film is terrible, although it still isn't the worst I've ever seen. The writing is almost something to be admired; it's as if an 11-year-old watched Blade Runner, Pulp Fiction, and Alphaville, and decided to make a script with every single crime-noir cliche in the book: a depressed hardened "badass" main character who drink, the double-crossing twist, a dark city, bad narration, and more, all there.Despite the paint-by-numbers banality of the script, I almost think the film could've been decent, or at least charming, had a competent director helmed it with a modest studio budget. Unfortunately as it is, the film is clueless, with a main protagonist who literally stands around and does nothing, and a tough female sidekick who is meant to bust societal sexism norms but then spends the second half of the movie dressed into sultry revealing lace for literally no reason.

The worst part about this film is the lightning. Every single scene assaults the audience with eye-straining spotlights and artificial oversaturation. I'm not sure why the director thought to light the movie this poorly; maybe he thought more spotlights and sun flares equivalated to more futuristic? Every shot in this film is bleached out and often completely out of focus due the camera unable to process all the light shining directly into it. Perhaps the saddest part about it all is that the behind-the-scenes blooper reel actually shows scenes with exponentially better cinematography than the actual movie, meaning most of this terrible lighting was intentionally added in post.

Speaking of the director and behind the scenes material, there is a director interview that is clearly a self-interview from the director himself, where even THAT is abysmally oversaturated with articifial threshold lighting. The director seems to take his film very seriously, asking himself philosophical questions about the art of filmmaking intended for young inspirational filmmakers who he hopes to be watching, and this egotism ruins the entire film for me.

At least this film is short.

Sure, I'm a huge film snob who (on the surface) only likes artsy-fartsy foreign films from before the 60's, but that hasn't stopped me from loving Disney's Beauty & The Beast; in fact, it's probably my favorite American animated film and is easily Disney's finest work. It's beautiful, it's breathtaking, it's warm, it's hilarious, it's captivating, and, in Disney fashion, it's magical. When I learned that Disney would be remaking their classic films, B&TB was undeniably the best wrapped package. How could they go wrong?

Oh man, they went wrong.

First thing's first: this film is so flat. The directing was dull and uninteresting throughout the entire film and it honestly felt like one of the Twilight sequels...and then I looked it up and found out that, yes, director Bill Condon was the man behind Breaking Dawn parts 1 & 2. Every shot looks bored and uninterested, which contrasts heavily with the original animated film that was constantly popping with vibrancy. The script too is boring because it's almost a complete remake of the original, though I guess most people won't mind that.

Next: the CGI is horrid. Although I didn't care for The Jungle Book from last year, I could at least admit that the CGI was breathtaking. The same cant be said for this film. Characters like Lumière, Cogsworth, Mrs Potts, and most of the cursed appliances have very strange, lifeless faces that are pretty off putting to be looking at for such a long time. All of the sets too look artificial and fake, especially the town towards the beginning. However, the biggest offender is easily and infuriatingly the character that mattered most: The Beast. The CGI on the Beast's face is so distracting that it completely takes you out of the film. His eyes are completely devoid of soul, and his mouth is a gaping video game black hole of fiction. Klaus Kinski looked much better in the Faerie Tale Theatre episode of Beauty & The Beast, and that was a 1984 TV show episode. But do you know why it looked better? Because it was an actual face with actual eyes, not some video game computerized synthetic monstrosity. When will studios learn that practical effects will always top CGI?

Finally: wasted casting. Emma Watson is beautiful, but she's no Belle. She is completely devoid of the warmth and humanity that made the animated Belle so beloved. Instead, she is cold and heartless throughout most of the film. Kevin Kline is 100% wasted and does nothing except look old. Ian McKellan, Ewan McGregor, Emma Thompson, and even Dan Stevens as the Beast are very expendable and could've been played by anyone else. The only good characters are Gaston and LeFou, mostly because they are fun and played by actors who breathe new life into their original shapes. If anything, this film should've been about Gaston and LeFou, but that would never happen because that would mean Disney couldn't cater to blind nostalgic 90's kids.

Overall, this film is a complete bore. It could've been better if even the special effects were good, but the CGI in particular is horrendous. I'm all for Disney remaking their nostalgia- catering 90's films, but they need to be interesting. This film, sadly, is not. Even the Christmas sequel is better than this film because it's at least something.

Feel like making a few extra billion dollars without using any effort? Well, you're in luck! Here's my 20 simple steps on making a Marvel movie:

1. Start with fight scenes

2. Find as many random comic book references as possible and cram them into the "story"

3. Add as many characters into the "plot" even if it becomes way too crowded

4. Add fight scenes

5. Make the dialog lol-tastic and quirky playful banter, despite being a "dark" movie

6. Oh wait, the movie is dark again, be sure to make the film go into dramatic mode, where there are no sound effects except for echoed "NOOO!"'s and the swelling music

7. Add fight scenes

8. Throw in a few random chuckle-worthy lines. Make sure the music stops when this happens, letting the audience know that something funny is being said

9. Make the editing schizophrenic and impossible to see anything, especially during the fight scenes. This ensures that viewers cant see anything that's going on during all 5,932 action scenes

10. More fight scenes, plus explosions

11. More comic book references

12. Make it at least 140 minutes in runtime to make it seem more epic

13. Add in yet more characters, this time for the sake of making more spin offs that will make more spin offs that will make more spin offs that will make more spin offs that will...

14. Make the directing as obvious as possible, thus eliminating all suspense or deeper thinking. Remember, your audience is stupid and only want explosions...

15. Add more explosions to more fight scenes

16. Make the villain a goofy wise ass who exchanges quirky banter with the characters instead of making it him/her an intimidating foe

17. Throw in a random love arc. DRAMA!!!!!!!

18. Tell your composer to write the most bland score ever

19. Whatever comic book references and characters you have left, no matter how small or pointless, THROW THEM INTO THE SCRIPT! Just dump the entire bucket into the pool!

20. Finish with more fight scenes.

There! In just 20 brief steps, you'll make a guaranteed billion dollars. If you're a DC executive wondering how to make BvS2 or Justice League reach that big B, just follow this list and you'll be rolling in the green in no time. No need to worry about a story, plot, or screenplay, because that crap takes too much time. Instead, just follow my list to become the next Warren Buffett of quickly-aging cinema. Best of luck to you, gents!

Whiplash is the story of a dreaming teenage drummer and his interactions with a strict jazz teacher who team up to become some dynamic duo. That would be cliché as it is, but the writer/director tries to go for something different and fails miserably. Thankfully it's short, because there is hardly a single good thing about this waste of reel, except for perhaps a few nice cinematic shots.

First of all, JK Simmons as Fletcher. JK is a good actor and plays the role very well, but the writing of his character is some of the worst in modern day cinema. Jazz is a very relaxed and fun genre. Smooth jazz is called smooth for a reason, you know. Fletcher is a jazz teacher who screams in his players face, belittles them in class, and even literally assaults them by throwing chairs at them and punching them in the face. This isn't the army, this is JAZZ. This character would be cartoony in an episode of Spongebob, let alone a live action film supposedly set in the real world. Do you really think people play SMOOTH JAZZ while being threatened and scared to play a single note incorrectly? No, they don't, they need to be calm. In one scene, Fletcher harasses an obese kid with a dumb name and claims he is playing out of key. He isn't, but second guesses himself when Fletcher calls him out. When the kid thinks about it, Fletcher not only calls him fat, but kicks him out of class. Another student had been playing out of key the entire time, and Fletcher says, "I know ____ was actually in key, but not knowing what key you're in is worse than being out of key." Are you kidding me? Of course you'll second guess yourself if a highly respected and very unstable man accuses you of playing out key. And literally the other guy who actually did play out of key gets off with no troubles. Unbelievable and very inconsistent with his character, as a real Fletcher would've given him some sort of punishment. All throughout the movie, Fletcher is belittling Miles, making fun of his dead mom and his depressed father, as if that would realistically motivate me to work with this guy further. If an instructor began making fun of my mom's cancer or my suicidal tendencies, I'd leave immediately and probably file a lawsuit. Again, this is very unrealistic for a character who is instructing a jazz band. Jazz players need to be as relaxed and free flowing as their music sounds, and they shouldn't be constantly on edge because of a sociopath Gunnery Sergeant Hartman of a teacher.

Miles Teller's character is an smug, arrogant douchebag, much like the actor himself. I genuinely believed he had some form of autism in the movie. He separates himself from society and even belittles his girlfriend and family members for something he's barely good at. I get that the writer was trying to make it seem like drumming was tearing him apart mentally, as stated later in the movie, but there is a much better way to do it than "you're an idiot and I'm gonna be famous one day!" like he's a 5th grader brat. And then he later on tries to contact his ex-girlfriend, who he called an idiot on their final date, and asks her out despite the fact that he knows she has a new boyfriend. He's an immature child, and not the character we should like. In fact, not a single character is likable in this heap.

There are so many more issues within the screenplay that it actually caused me to hit the 1000 maximum word limit, so I am just gonna jump to the ending. The film ends with the worst ending I've seen in a theatrical film this decade. Miles and Fletcher rekindle several months after the incident and team up to play in a new, not related to school jazz recital where Fletcher is the conductor. Right before the recital starts, we essentially learn that Fletcher is a mentally unstable child, who reveals that this entire teaming up was just a ploy to get his revenge on Miles. Yes, a 57 year old man with a job and career tries to get even with an immature autistic 19 year old college freshman. They also made it very clear that this was "the big show" and that the gig could "either create careers, or end careers". So Fletcher's decision to humiliate a 19 year old by intentionally screwing up the entire gig is super villain levels of evil, but not in a good way. In retaliation, Miles decides to one-up Fletcher by going on a six minute drum solo, where the most insulting part of the film comes. The final shot of the film is a close up of Fletcher grinning ear-to-ear and Miles nodding with another smile, implying that these two are back together again. The script even says "...and Fletcher has finally accepted Miles..." What a joke, and proof that something is seriously wrong not only with Fletcher, but this entire movie and probably the writer/director too.

The giant monster genre is among the most hackneyed and clichéd of them all, and most of them can be copied and pasted together. In fact, look at giant bug movies. Spiders, Eight Legged Freaks, Mimic, Them, The Deadly Mantis, and Mosquito are all basically the same movie. The same cant be said for Arachnid, which has possibly the most generic of all of those movie titles I just listed.

The movie is part King Kong, part Predator, part Mulholland Drive, part Funny Games, and part giant bug flick. It could've just been a monster on the loose movie, but instead the writer and directer aimed for something a bit different. Complete with surreal dream sequences, unknown character motives, aliens, demons, dinosaurs, protagonist arcs that come 360 and then go 180, and several other things to make it as different as possible, Arachnid is truly a bizarre experience; imagine Mosquito or Spiders directed by a French art-house director.

The movie involves a group of people in search for a police ranger's lost brother, who went missing in a dogfight with an alien spacecraft. While arriving on the island, they come across strange cannabalistic natives who may or may not hate the invading white folk. Along the way they come across flesh-eating insects, self discoveries, premonitions, and giant spiders. In all serious, the film shouldn't be called "Arachnid" but more "The Island" because that's who the star of the film is. Sure, arachnids take the focus from most of the other things, but the film also has several other things that need focus. It'd be like calling Tremors "Guns" because, yes, there are guns in Tremors, but they aren't really the main focus. The island itself appears to be sentient and playing mind games with the characters, and it becomes apparent that the spiders may not even be real but a figment within the minds of the characters themselves. There's also a seen in the movie where the spiders literally eliminate 80% of the cast, and that's something only a very ballsy writer and director would follow through with.

Arachnid is low budget and feels low budget. We always want to remake these big budgeted classic pieces of cinema, why not do something like this? Arachnid isn't well liked because most giant bug movies want only that; giant bugs. They don't want surrealism and they don't like to ask questions. They want their applesauce to be served to them with a spoon while a bib is dangling from their neck. If it comes to this or Spiders (a movie this is often compared to), just buy 10 copies of this.

Before I saw anything, I'll start by saying that his movie was written, edited, and directed by Michael Goi, the president of the American School of Cinematography. Somehow, despite all of his knowledge, he still ends making one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Shame on you Goi.

Megan Is Missing involves a teen who goes missing due to something she does on the internet. The film is shot in an in-screen only technique, later made famous by Unfriended. The kids in this movie are unlikable brats, and the "realistic" dialogue they have is so over- the-top that it becomes the most unrealistic dialogue in film history. I am fully aware that teens swear up storms and it is nice to see a movie that realizes that. However, kids do not talk the way they do in this movie. In one very unintentionally disturbing scene, a young girl talks about how she preformed fellatio on an older camp councilor, and she starts spitting snot on his penis while she starts choking. According to Goi, this is a "word-for-word" discussion she had with a real child, and the scene goes on for like seven minutes. There are several scenes that do this; over-the-top dialogue for seven minutes before going to the next over-the-top dialogue for seven minutes. It becomes the most boring film ever made, as basically nothing happens until the last 10 minutes. There is also the singlemost worst news broadcast scene I've ever witnessed, with newscasters wearing T-shirts and transitions consisting of Windows MovieMaker-esque card flips and scene wipes.

The film ends with the second worst rape scene I've ever seen (only beaten by Paradox Alice). The actress is not crying and doesn't appear to be struggling, she only whines while being raped. She is then tossed into a barrel and buried alive, and the audio of her crying becomes muffled after one scoop of dirt is dumped on top of her. Stuff like this is laden all throughout the movie. But more importantly, this film proves what is wrong with society. People see a child swearing or a child getting raped, they immediately deem it as "realistic" and "horrifying", even if it is done laughably. Michael Goi is one of the world's most sought- after cinematographers in the industry, how could he make a movie so boring, stupid, inconsistent, and terrible?

Sure, The Slender Man is only 78 minutes long, but the director somehow manages to make it feel like 78 years. In this found-footage camera POV style horror film, absolutely nothing happens. People walk around, people eat, people joke, and in one or two scenes, a tall guy with a white mask shows up and spooks some people. It is truly one of the most boring films you can find. Who are the characters? Unknown. When will they die? Unknown. Where is the title villain? Who knows! There have been a massive slough of Slenderman movies lately, all of them independent and some of them probably never happening because Slenderman is now a washed up fad, but whatever. I saw this because it was free and I ended up wanting him to come find and take me to whatever fictional BS land he takes me, where my organs are ripped out of my body while I'm still alive or whatever that one website claims. Slender man potentially could be a horrifying antagonist, but he needs to kill off all of his rabid fans first and hire good filmmakers and story writers.

Mel Gibson finds himself able to read the minds of women after a freak accident. Meanwhile, audiences find themselves able to read plot holes and poor screen writing after being enlightened by this film.

Mel Gibson does a decent job in the role, although maybe that's because he's good at being a misogynistic douchebag in real life. In the film, he steps into a stew of women products conducted from his bathtub and gains the ability to read women's thoughts. And what do women think of? Complex thoughts involving life, their emotions and feelings, and/or their roles in society? Nope! Instead, women only think about dieting, being skinny, looking pretty, and smelling pretty. The women are also portrayed as schizophrenic, though this is entirely, 100% the fault of an awful director. It shows that women don't want to be loved, as Mel get's accused of being gay for "being perfectly in tune" with the woman he's dating. Yah, I totally believe woman would hate being cared for. Whenever a woman has a thought tantrum, her thoughts match that of her body movements. If she's screaming in her head, she's screaming with her body too. In one scene, Hellen Hunt accidentally stares at Mel's penis, resulting in her making these over-the-top body language movements. We as the audience can hear her thoughts, but in reality, it would be dead silent while she jumps back and fourth spinning around. This happens at least ten times in this movie.

The film is abysmal, as proved by its ending, where Hunt fires Gibson but still wants to have coitus with him...and the movie just stops. Awful, awful experience in some of the laziest filmmaking in history. The film was written and directed by a woman, so I'm not sure what went wrong.

Tremors should be a stupid movie. In Tremors, two wisecracking sidekick co-worker/friends are fed up with their hobunken redneck Nevada town and dream of heading to the big city, only to come across a herd of giant underground worms that are hungry for human flesh while moving out. The story is something an 8th grader would come up with, but two very talented writers adapted the story into a magnificent screenplay, and it was later adapted by a smart director and his brilliant crew.

First of all, the dialogue between characters is realistic, catchy, and witty. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward talk like real humans with lines that flow smoothly. Most of the characters are like this, but these two in particular share some brilliant chemistry. Second of all, the tension is flawless. While I do think some trimming could be done in order to keep the reveal of the monsters more shocking, what we have is still excellent and much better than most in its genre. The audience at any point never suspects that the mysterious events occurring around town could be because of a giant monster. Third, the pacing is magnificent. Only at around 90-minutes, the 1at, 2nd, and 3rd act are all very distinguishable and flow together very well. The two writers behind his screenplay are S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock, and they deserve much more credit that what they get.

Ron Underwood finely directs this film, taking obvious inspirations from John Carpenter and Sam Raimi along the way. There are several gorgeous wide shots of the deserts, something you'd print off and hang up on your wall. The sound design is also fantastic: the monsters locate prey by keying in on sounds or vibration. The movie is mostly silent except for loud bursts noise, and most edits cut from silence to loudness. It's genius attention to detail like this that make Tremors such an enjoyable experience.

I'll never understand why this film doesn't get more love, even among 80's/90's nostalgia fanboys and monster movie lovers. You'll see entire tributes dedicated to mediocrity like Ghostbusters or Burton's Batman, but you'll be lucky to even see sentence written about Tremors. Tremors is everything a movie should be, and more monster movies should follow in vein of this 90's classic.

Supersize Me is a documentary about the effects of highly fattening fast food three times a day over a period of a month. Guess what? It makes you fat. Unfortunately, Morgan Spurlock was not aware of this, as he had to test the effects of such an experiment and discover for himself what truly happened. Guess what? He gets fat.

The underlies of his experiment say that he must eat three meals a day, all of it McDonald's, he can only eat at McDonald's and nothing else (even water), and he must have all items on the menu at least once. All of these ideas and methods are preposterous. At one point, Spurlock says he's eating an average of 5,000 - 6,000 calories a day. Eating that many calories of anything, even kale and spinach, isn't good for you without exercise. A later study suggested that as much as 85% of his sugar intake came from milkshakes and soda, both of which aren't something people consume multiple times a day. When's the last time you've met someone who ate three milkshakes a day? This, on top of an intentional lack of exercise, will no doubt result in becoming fat.

The documentary is admittedly well made, especially with the shoe-string budget it has, and I do admire the research done into the non-Morgan elements, such as an investigation involving school cafeteria food and an obese child who believes eating Subway everyday will make her leaner because Jared told her so. These elements should've been the focus of the film, not Morgan being an idiot and potentially killing himself. On top of that, Morgan Spurlock is an obnoxious self-righteous douchebag, as more evident in his later work, and the film would be much better with a less irritating narrator presenting the story. The overall lesson is: don't be stupid, or else you might gain a bunch of weight.

I was surprised at how fantastic this was. I walked into a theater in Fort Worth, Texas at the Belmont Film Festival, and watched a film called El Sonoma. I had no clue what it was about.

Well, heres the plot. It involves a group of teens at a high school at some party. A mosquito (after a very well made opening scene) lands on a girls arm (Makenzie Isom) and drinks her blood. She just thinks its a mosquito and squashes it. However, a few minutes later, she goes into a bathroom (to take a dump or something) and she transforms into a giant leopard. When her friends go into to check on her, she attacks and bites another kids before getting killed. This is the start of El Sonoma.

Basically, a bunch of teens are getting transformed into animals. There's 2 cat transformations (leopard and puma), a rat transformation, and a snake transformation. All of them are on screen (except the rat).

The star is Tyler Wright as Tyler Mayfield, a jock who can kick some ass. He is my favorite character in this film. Other characters include Punker Chick, a girl that listens to 80's punk and is the main love interest, and Brody, the best friend of Tyler.

This film has FANTASTIC effects. The transformations are so well done, its like it was made in a big studio. And its not CGI, its all animatronics. It must be seen to be believed.

One problem I have is that the language is really high. I tried to count how many times they said the "c-word", but lost count. Other than that, definitely check it out it you have the chance...is it on DVD?

Wow...this is one of the worst shows ever on Nick. Nick has had many bad show recently. Including Zoey 101, Back at the Barnyard, Yakity Yak, Mighty B!, the new episodes of Spongebob (the old episodes are good), Victorious, and so forth. At the time, I thought the worst show on Nick was the Naked Brothers Band. But now, there's this show.

When I saw a preview for this show, I honestly thought "Is this a joke? Would people REALLY be stupid enough to make this show?". Then I saw the first episode. As I predicted, it was horrible. I thought "Wow. This will never catch on. Never." Well, so far, its almost completed it's first season, which blows my mind.

The show is about these two boys named Fanboy and Chum-chum. They wear superhero outfits, with their underwear above their costumes. In their pastimes, they like to make fart jokes, damage peoples properties, make more fart jokes, make weird mutated monsters, make MORE fart jokes, and did I mention THEY MAKE FART JOKES?????? Thats literally all they do! 95% of these jokes are about poop, farts, butts, pee, toilets, and so forth! Arrgghh! Well, let me tell more about this terrible show! Lets start with the theme song. It's probably the only good thing about the show. While not good at all, it's pretty catchy. There seems to be a lot of bad shows with catchy themes (Power Rangers, Pokemon, Yakity Yak, My Friend is a Squirell, etc.).

Then...the animation. While bright and colorful, it's painful to look at. I don't know how to describe it, but its awkward to look at...maybe it's because all the characters are poorly designed and are ugly. I don't know.

Speaking of characters, they suck. ALL of them. Like I said, everyone is ugly and unappealing. Everyone looks like they belong in a mental hospital! They all act like that too! There's a character named Boog (great name huh?) who's body shape is a hot dog. There's another person named Yo, who is the love interest. Usually, the love interest in a movie\show is either sexy, has a great personality, or both. Well, this character has NEITHER of that. She looks like the little girl from Orphan (2009) if she turned into a hippie. All this character does is stalk the two boys and says "Yer sooooooooooo coot! I wanna hugg yoo!" OVER AND OVER again.

Like I said above, the jokes are putrid. 95% of these jokes are about poop, farts, butts, pee, toilets, boogers, etc. Like heres a joke from the first episode. "I fart bubbles! Tee-hee!" or "Your the best poop ever!" C'mon! Who wrote these jokes, toddlers? Who finds this funny?

And finally, the episodes. Wow....I might puke! But whatever. The first the episode is about this evil janitor named Mr. Poopy. ENOUGH WITH THE POTTY JOKES!!! Anyways, Mr. Poopy is basically a rip-off of The Emperer from Star Wars. I would call him a spoof, but he is just WAAY to similar. Another episode rips-off a movie. What movie do you think it is? Its gotta be a well known movie right? Wrong! They rip-off The Mist (2007)! That isn't even a classic film (yet). What kid has heard of The Mist? Who would spoof an R-rated guts-and-gore horror film thats barely 3 years old? Another episode does a joke on Maximum Overdrive (1986). Again, what kid has heard of this film? Its might be more violent than The Mist! What were the writers of this show thinking? Were they high?

There have been many horrible shows in the world. But this might take the cake. This show is....horibblufuckis! I babysit many kids, at least 25. NONE of them like this show I swear. Everyone I know absolutely hates this show. We can all prayer that this show gets canceled before it can insult are intelligence much longer.

1/10. Dreadful show. DREADFUL!

I found this movie in my attic recently. When I was looking at the VHS, nostalgia instantly flew back into me. I remember the toys, I remember vividly playing the film on endles repeat, and I remember me and my friends playing our own version of "Small Soldiers" at our local park. Great memories...

I was SO baffled to see a 5.9 rating on IMDb. Why? This is a great family\action film. After seeing the rating and many negative reviews, I decided to watch it again on VHS. Maybe it just wasn't as good as I remembered. That's happened to me many times.

Well, I liked it then, and I liked it now! Still, it was a good film. What I liked the most was the music and the special effects. The musical score was outstanding and so was the "War" remix. The CGI in the film amazes me on so many levels...I thought they were real! The action is very good and the movie is never boring. It's definelty one of the coolest kids movie ever made!

Overall, if you like edgy family films, watch 'Small Solders'. I think you will enjoy it.

I was a kid in 1998. I was a big fan of Ren & Stimpy. I just loved them. It was my favorite show (untill ZIM came along). Anyways, it was a good show. Then a friend of mine told me about some brand new show, called Catdog. It was about A dumb dog, and a smart cat. I thought it was like Ren and Stimpy switch minds. But when I found it was about a dumb dog, and a smart cat put together, I felt so disappointed. I felt so sorry for Ren and Stimpy. It even copied some jokes off of it. Poor Ren and Stimpy fans. It copied 1 song, many jokes from some other shows, a character, and even a plot for an episode. They also did this stuff to Invader ZIM, and The Angry Beavers. Comen on. It could have been WAY better. And then again, no it could'nt.