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Reviews
The Great Sinner (1949)
There are too many endings to this film
This film is ultimately unsatisfying because it comes to an ending as a romance, an unintended dark farce, a moral play on the evils of gambling, and a cinematic exploration of social disease. I was only interested in the romance between Peck and the beautiful Gardner. But this story line is thrown under the bus, run over, and dragged for another 40 minutes. The allure of gambling controls the last half of the movie as the only real character. Why waste the viewer's time building up a great cast only to leave them all for a boring cautionary tale? If this is in keeping with the source material, some artistic license would not have been out of line.
Blessed (2004)
Pure garbage
This film is either disgusting and depressing or absolutely hilarious. I get the feeling that the director was going for the former, trying to scare women away from fertility clinics. This kind of anti-intellectual, anti-science nonsense is for people terrified of God and the devil. For most people, this is an easy film never to see.
Not only that, but the movie is stupid to boot. A fertility clinic in the same building as a cloning facility? Yeah, that's believable. Want to see a pregnant prosthesis so fake looking you'd think Heather Graham made it herself? Well, get yourself some popcorn then. Finally, the mean-spirited non-ending shows contempt for an audience I haven't seen the likes of since Speed 2.
Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000)
Awful
There's nothing in this movie that you haven't seen before. Every line of dialogue is stolen from another movie. The irony of a bunch of bad filmmakers making a film about film students who make bad films just drives me crazy. HOW does crap like this get funded? What illiterate producer would fund this? Do such producers think so low of adults, that they could simply slap--and I mean slap--together a movie that plagiarizes almost ever single horror film ever made? I have nothing more to say about this utter trash of a film, but IMDb makes me write at least ten lines before I can publish my review, so I'm wasting my time right now so you won't see this film and waste yours.
Unthinkable (2007)
Why do women like this trash?
There isn't a moment of redemption in this movie. It's one horrible thing after another. It's basically a zombie movie with the lumbering plot and flashes of brutality standing in for the monsters. How is this movie, played on Lifetime, for women? It's so incredibly violent and disgusting. Since when do women get off on these kinds of movies? Who would willingly view an hour and a half of acts of extreme violence -- rape, murder, arson -- just to have a "good cry"? What kind of screwed up, suburban morality is that? Is your soul that devoid of humanity? If so, this weepy, manipulative, OBVIOUS, violent, cry-baby movie is for you.
Corner Gas (2004)
Not funny or interesting
Corner Gas is one of the worst sitcoms I've ever seen. It's simply not funny. All of the characters wait for their turns to speak only to make some lame pun or unfunny, witty remark. The actors have very bad comic timing, mostly due to the poor writing.
To make a show about nothing funny, you really need a strong cast, individualized characters, and good writing. Corner Gas has none of these.
And what's with the yellow-red camera lens? The show looks like it's been heavily filtered, which makes light play weirdly and things look unreal. This effect is distracting and unnecessary.
Corner Gas would be much better if the actors would improvise more often a la The Office. Forget about plot lines and trying to get a complete story across. Just be funny from the beginning of the show until the end. That's all people want from sitcoms.
Rocky Balboa (2006)
Better Late Than Never
With the first Rocky film, we are introduced to a decidedly American character. A true blue collar hero who inspires the quiet majority is certainly a great accomplishment. Sylvester Stallone merely looks outside at the real world and reflects in his film the squalor and the near-squalor surrounding and pressuring his main character. We watch as he struggles to be the right man for a woman. He struggles with his dreams and feelings of inadequacy, and through it all, we connect with him emotionally and we subsequently celebrate his victories.
The second film is essentially a director's extension to the first film, and it continues and concludes much more storyline than Stallone probably intended. Stallone is so complete with the first Rocky movies that the third, fourth, and fifth movies have nowhere believable to begin, and it's painful to watch Stallone brutalize a character that he worked so hard to build.
Rocky Balboa is interesting to me because it shows how poor and unnecessary the third, fourth, and fifth Rocky films really are. There's no need for Rocky to overcome the overly racial-ized Clubber Lang in Rocky III, or the Cold War Russian in Rocky IV. By far the worst of the series, Rocky V nearly obliterates everything human about Rocky Balboa, turning him into a selfish jerk; he's always self-centered, but only in Rocky V does he make that unsympathetic turn into selfishness.
But with this final chapter, Stallone has attempted to own the mistakes of his Rocky series as well as finally writing a conclusion worthy of the character he created 30 years ago. Yes, the older Rocky lectures to us in clichés and he tells us "something 'we' already know," but he does it in a manner that is believable and insightful within the context of the character. Stallone has rendered a good sense of desperation and pain for his older Rocky. It's likely Stallone himself is going through these very same feelings as he ages and looks back at some mistakes and missteps in his career as well as the moments of greatness.
My uncle is 50 years old and in fantastic shape. After seeing the film with his kids, he thought the film didn't have enough action and that it was more about thinking and feeling than the Rocky he knows. His description of the film is accurate, but I'm not sure what else one can expect from Stallone. Stallone is 60 years old and in great, great shape for his age. He gives as good a physical display as possible in this final film, and he does not appear broken or apologetic because of his age. There are few movies out there that actually respect the aging and the elderly. Stallone has found a way.
It's also great to see Rocky continue to learn and not settle on old prejudices. This struggle may be even more difficult than the physical challenges of the film. Stallone displays a matured tenderness in a Platonic relationship with a younger woman that I wasn't expecting, and I appreciated the gesture. Stallone seems to have touched on nearly everything in the Rocky world, tying up loose ends, finishing things. Rocky Balboa could easily have been the conclusion to a trilogy, instead of a disclaimer about what Stallone meant to say.
In the end, the film works for me. Yes, we could have done without a cameo by Mike Tyson, and Mason "The Line" Dixon is a horrid, horrid name. But there's some good stuff here. Despite being sentimental, I actually believed Stallone's older Rocky, mostly because it's clear that Stallone believes what he's saying and doing in this film. Better late than never.
Ultraviolet (2006)
Worse than Speed 2.
Speed 2 was the only movie I ever walked out of. Out of sheer will, I stayed for the entirely of Ultraviolet.
There is nothing at all redemptive about this movie. It manages the impossible by making Milla Jovovich un-sexy. She does not look like a real woman. Through the soft focus lens, her face appears as lamely computer-generated and un-textured as the rest of the film. Jovovich's unique face is composed of hard angles that create interesting shadows. Why would you mess with that? A toned midriff cannot carry a movie.
Either Jovovich cannot act or she needs a new agent. The script was absolutely non-existent, but somehow William Fichtner (poor guy needs a new agent, too; he's a good actor) barely comes away clean. Everyone else in the film cannot makes heads or tails of their lines, and it is clear that they have no idea who their characters are, what they are doing, or why they are doing it.
The music is mind-numbing and entirely uninteresting. If you like techno/trance/beat music, this is for you.
The "action" sequences were all the same. Every single one. There was no tension prior to a fight scene. Everyone who challenged Violet either got in a circle or lined up to die.
The universe of Ultraviolet exists without explanation, despite the attempt at exposition by Violet. The audience has no sense of why and how things work: Why do you need helicopters and helicopter blades in a world where motorcycles can defy gravity? Why do some characters have to carry around their guns and other ones can hide them in some sort of personal cyberspace? Perhaps most infuriating is the laziness of the film. There was no attempt to flesh out a story, just buzzwords like "virus" and "vampires." Maybe the director and producers thought the audience hadn't seen Underworld, it's sequel, Aeon Flux, and The Matrix. Or maybe they did, and that's why they didn't bother to tell a different story or to even tell a story at all. It's been done before, and it's been done much better.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Weepie, manipulative, pro-war "kid's" movie.
When we first see Narnia, it's through the eyes of a cute little girl and a wondrous creature named Mr. Tumnus. I thought, this looks like a sweet kid's movie. But C.S. Lewis does not stop with providing an environment like Narnia where a child's mind is free to roam. No, instead children are thrust into a war movie that teaches about divisiveness, that diplomacy does not work, and likens Jesus to a magical lion. It was too much for me to swallow, and I would never expose my children to such drivel. And could they find a prettier, Aryan-looking boy to play the part of Peter? Good special effects though.
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005)
Not a good film, but an important one nonetheless.
Note: I changed my rating to a 5.
I rated this film so highly due to its importance for creating an informed consumer. The actual production of the film is quite weak, riddled with weepy, manipulative anecdotes and also bad music selections and power point graphics. The film had an editor, but it really needed a good editor.
The movie did organize information well. The statistics and facts were mostly well presented with exceptions. I was most interested in how the film showed unity among conservatives and liberals. Both groups of people despise Wal-mart for different reasons, but the reasons echo of American values. Sam Walton was a good Ole American, and his vision and his stores no longer exist.
Since I rarely go to Wal-mart (maybe a dozen times a year), the film reinforced what I either already knew or always suspected. The film is a bit long (again, needs editor), but if you have the chance to see the film, do take it. I think you'll begin to realize why American small towns are dying, why even moderate cities are showing decay. Wal-mart, in cahoots with a few other monopolizing monstrosities, is at the heart.
Stripes (1981)
It's just not that funny
Drinking comedies run the risk of being stupid when viewed by the sober. That's the problem with Stripes. The entire film is a Bill Murray ego trip, and if you are in the right mood, he can be quite entertaining. Otherwise, you wonder what else is on TV or if you have any better, funnier movies in your collection.
I generally think highly of Murray's comedy: Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, What About Bob?; these are all great comedies. The problem with Stripes is that Murray seems to think that any anti-establishment behavior in the Army is going to come off as totally off the wall when really it's just an extended SNL sketch. Harold Ramis is actually much funnier and more careful with his comedic timing. Murray is all over the place, passing punch lines and belaboring others. While Murray plays with confidence, his performance has such indecisiveness that he seems to have just said whatever came to his mind and gave up on the script entirely.
Conrad Dunn's small part as Psycho was perfect. He made a cartoon out of his character quite successfully. Murray won't take that risk, because no matter what role he's playing, he's never "acting." You never forget it's Bill Murray saying those lines or doing that crazy thing. Murray has the Jack Nicholson disease where any character he plays pales in comparison to his own personality, which can be an asset. In this film, it's problematic. Murray gets better at creating characters later in his career, but this film is a dud, and when you sober up, you'll likely agree.
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
The obviousness of the plot made me less sad
Cage and Shue perform wonderfully together and with deep respect for their characters' loneliness and vortex of loss. The movie succeeds both as a love story and a tragedy. All of it is summed up when Ben (Cage) looks up to Sera (Shue) and says, "You can never, never ask me to stop drinking. Do you understand?" Ben's face captures the certainty of the proximity of his mortality and the eternity of his sadness: This is not an overstatement. The movie is that sad.
Yet I am angered by the mediocre production of such a great story. The editing is odd and renders a choppy, far too predictable plot. For a sad movie to work completely, something at least must remain unexpected. Likewise, the viewer cannot totally be absorbed by the film, because there is too much movement between the action of the present and that of the future. Usually, such movements build the drama rather than act as tangents. It feels thrown together at times. Not only that, but the viewer goes many minutes without hearing from one of the main characters, Ben. Sure, he's off drinking somewhere, but where? And what does it look like again? Show us! Some of the expendable characters' stories detract rather than add to the film. What is the point of Yuri (Julian Sands), Sera's pimp, in the long run? He takes up too much time in the film and eventually he and his story leave the film entirely. And Dennis Miller's face atop every taxi is just distracting.
Why does nearly every female character either look like, act like, or actually is a prostitute? The only female voice of reason in the film is a fed up hotel manager.
In the end, the movie can't decide if it is Ben's or Sera's story, yet I suspect that we are to think of the story as hers. I generally forgive the films its faults, but I'm just not as sad as I know I could be had the film been better produced.
Kudos to Cage and Shue.
Dark Water (2005)
Anti-climatic wash-up
Dark Water is great at manufacturing tension using a contemporary project (apartment) complex as the source of shadows, dim and yellow light, strange noises, and black-colored water. The tension is level almost from the beginning of the movie until the end, and rarely is there a scary moment to break it. Even the comic relief of the daughter is unintentional as she plays with her toys in the bathtub -- although she steals this scene, it is due to her personality, not the script.
This film is largely plot less. It's also not entirely a character sketch, as many plot less movies can be. For a horror movie to be a character sketch is risky and quite interesting. For a horror movie to have no plot is downright suicidal. The movie fails mostly because it lacks a believable sequence of events. The relationships between the characters are well-developed and the cast is quite good, but there's nothing for them to do. Look scared, be scary, but why? And the utter non-ending is truly thoughtless -- the film ultimately has no regard for the audience.
I suspect that much of the problem has to do with translation. Not Japanese to English, but rather Japanese sensibility to Hollywood sensibility. Something is missing here, a finger on something important. After all, the best horror movies are about our worst fears. Who is afraid of dark water stains?
Excalibur (1981)
Comments on the edited USA version
I think I would have enjoyed an extended version of this film. The edited version seems choppy at times, especially during the first half of the film.
Visuals: This is a beautiful movie. The cinematography is wonderful and recreates the world of King Arthur with a great sense of imagination. It's a pre-industrial world completely filled with trees and rife with nature and magic. The color green is everywhere. Even swords and armor stuff of the earth forged by man have a greenish hue to them. The director's patience with lengthy scenes is truly appreciated.
However, the fake blood is distracting and some of the battle wounds look like props.
Sound: The sound is mostly great. Sometimes the swords and armor sound rather tinny, but this is not an overall problem. The music is great and works well with the visuals.
Story: This is a difficult story to tell. After all, Thomas Malory's _Le Morte D'Arthur_ is over 1,000 pages long. John Boorman condenses the story without totally diluting the characters. Some paring down is inevitable, but the viewer is left relatively satisfied.
Acting: This is by far the most inconsistent and distracting element of the film (and it may be due to the 21 minutes worth of editing in the USA version I viewed, but I cannot say). Nigel Terry (King Arthur) is not a very strong lead actor. In the first half of the film, he doesn't seem to transform from a squire to a king convincingly. He's wooden at times, makes weird facial expressions, mumbles through lines, and, sorry to say, is quite ugly with that mullet he's got going on. In the second half of the film, when he grows a beard, he not only looks better but he also suddenly learns how to act. In the first part of the film, he doesn't have any control over his voice. Eventually, though, he becomes quite authoritative and believable.
Nicol Williamson is extremely inconsistent as Merlin, and, as with Nigel Terry, most of the problem has to do with the inflection of his voice. Sometimes, Williamson delivers lines entirely through his nose. That nasal, pseudo-Shakespearean is simply pompous. The only times he's actually dramatic and a pleasure to watch and listen to are the times he's with Morgana (Helen Mirren). Apparently, the two didn't like each other, and Mirren definitely brings out the actor in Williamson.
All of the supporting roles are fairly well acted.
Overall: I couldn't watch the film all at once. The questionable acting in the beginning was simply too bothersome. The final 80 minutes or so is smoother and is probably the least edited from the original. Boorman could have easily cast Liam Neeson as King Arthur and Patrick Stewart as Merlin. Some actual lead actors would have made the film 10 times better.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
My comments are more about critics than this flawed but worthy film
1. Really, are there any spoilers? You should know most of this film going into it. I respected that Lucas knew that and still gave the audience an entertaining and sometimes surprising movie. That is to his credit.
2. I've heard people complain about the coughing robot, General Grievous, a fine character indeed. Yet the film makes it obvious that the character is alive, and so the coughing is not a problem.
3. The acting was truly a set back for Attack of the Clones and everyone knows that Jar Jar ruined The Phantom Menace. In this film, I see a very mature Hayden Christiansen who nearly pulls off the role of Anakin, if not for a few hiccups here and there. Yet the moments where Christiansen falters as an actor are largely due to cheese in the script or having to "interact" with an eye towards post-production computer graphics. Even Natalie Portman is bearable here. She finally realizes that her character is meant to love Anakin and die in childbirth. Both Portman and Christiansen simplify their characters and get to the raw root, which is the only way to make Lucas' script work. I believe Anakin cared for Padme. I believed his motivation was such that he would risk his sanity for her life. It doesn't work completely, but I'm more apt to blame Lucas' wooden script before I blame the actors.
4. And yes, there were two or so gaping flaws. Anakin's transformation to the darkness is missing something. The scene needed him to threaten Palpatine's life just one more time, and for Palpatine, like the devil he is, to tempt Anakin more strongly to the dark side of the force. That's it. One more mind job and I would have more completely believed and perhaps even empathized with Anakin.
It's startling to realize how contrived Vader's costume truly is. Is all of that sleekness necessary to keep Anakin alive? And why is most of that scene so terrible? Instead of interrogating Palpatine thoroughly and emotionally, Vader throws his hands up and yells, "Noooooooooooo!" As Yoga would say, "Crap that was." Other than some strings of bad dialogue, these are the only problems that come to mind. Yet the problem scenes are significant to the transformation of the film's central character, and it's unfortunate that they are so poorly done.
5. I didn't hear much new music. This is bothersome to me and seems negligent of the audience.
6. Of the first three episodes, this is by far the easiest to follow and understand. As I mentioned above, the fixation on Jar Jar in The Phantom Menace is so distracting that one cannot pay attention to the fact that a movie is going on. And Attack of the Clones is simply too silly, un-charismatic, and bogs the viewer down with boring politics. Revenge of the Sith makes the viewer interested in politics, only briefly shows a silent Jar Jar, and POOF!..you have a watchable film. Third, er, sixth time's a charm, right?
7. I was happy to be entertained while rooting for Lucas as he visibly and audibly (i.e., the script) struggled to get this film right. He mostly succeeds, and probably makes episodes 1 and 2 worth re-visiting maybe and he definitely inspires one want to view episodes 4-6 again.
8. I hope Lucas doesn't make episodes 6-9. You cannot mess with the happy ending. And if you do, it has to be REALLY good. After all, 6-9 would merely be a variation on the themes developed in 1-6 and would be very rushed and likely unsatisfactory.
9. For a mostly unforgiving critic like me to appreciate this film is something I didn't expect. I went to the film expecting to laugh at the cheese and enjoy some great special effects. I liked that I wasn't able to do this. The film has hints of the charm of the previous trilogy, but these are fleeting and unreliable. Overall, I was entertained and will definitely seek out episodes 4-6 sometime soon.
Robots (2005)
A showcase showcasing as a movie
From the all-star cast to the wonderful CG, this plot less bore is nothing more than an overly expensive voice and animation talent show.
Robin Williams literally shows his teeth in this film -- his jokes and comedic style are getting extremely old. Some of the problem is likely due to the truly ugly character he voices. It looks like a lanky fire hydrant and severely diminishes William's natural charisma. It's odd that CG can't keep up with Williams like more conventional animation did in "Aladdin." The lower class vs. the upper class story is one that will never get old, but they way this film tells it, you simply don't care for the characters, what they do, or what really happens. Yes, they're robots, but it's not the audience's job to compensate for the difficulty of caring about the emotions and "lives" of inanimate objects. "The Brave Little Toaster" managed to do it. In the end, one watches "Robots" all the way through simply to hear a few decent jokes and watch the pretty graphics. Nothing else is of significant here.
The Forgotten (2004)
Good acting in a bad movie
Julianne Moore rarely gives a bad performance. It's amazing to watch her in this film brilliantly rejuvenating crappy dialogue and stupid plot turns. Dominic West does a decent job as well. The chemistry between the two is established nicely. Along with the performances by the film's stars, some of the special effects are truly great. "The X-Files" could have learned a lot from this film in the effects department. Otherwise, this is an easily forgotten movie.
The film starts off with a great premise: A woman mourns the death of her son through emotional rituals lasting over a year. Shortly into the film, she is told that she never had a son, that her memories of him are made up. Sounds like I'm giving away the movie, doesn't it? I would be if the film actually followed such an interesting story. But no, get ready for some conspiracy theory weirdness and a totally out-of-this-world-stupid plot.
The Final Cut (2004)
The title implies a good editor
Unfortunately, this movie is poorly edited and the plot is revealed in an unintuitive order. The cinematography is great, and the color scheme looks well thought out. Williams delivers the same performance he does in _One Hour Photo_, a decidedly good movie, and so there's some tedium to the method of his acting here.
In a movie about cutting and editing and rearranging memories, don't ever have any character, especially the protagonist, with the name Hackman. I laughed out loud every time I heard it. I could not take seriously the film's variation on the Big Brother theme: If someone could watch your life through your eyes and you still did the same good and terrible things throughout your life time, just as people do today, what is the point of the film's premise? What is so significant about systematic surveillance if human behavior remains status quo? You aren't missing much if you miss this film. And if you did mistakenly watch it, you may want to have the time you spent watching the film cut from your memory.
Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
Good message behind an average movie
_Kingdom of Heaven_ confronts religious extremism as the bane of all evil. Using the Crusades as a backdrop, Christianity and Islam square off nearly 1000 years ago just as the major religions of the world do today. Battles over Jerusalem and concerns about what the city means to the world have been at the center of much human suffering for centuries. The tone of the film is greatly enhanced because its main character isn't particularly religious, and the film dissuades the viewer from taking sides, creating no demonized enemy, but rather a mesh of human beings being humans. Thus, this film is a true epic about our actual lives and histories and not about those men of virtue and bravery and evil and cowardice who exist only as abstracted myth.
Unfortunately, Orlando Bloom is cast in this film. He simply does not have the charisma to carry a movie as its star. He has only one or two expressions throughout the entire film, and he is completely surrounded by great actors who make him look silly. This drags the movie down for me, because he has a lot of screen time. I love the ideas behind the film, but I don't like it when I'm watching a film and just know that I'm watching an actor act. That's not acting. I believed the other actors were actually who they were cast as. I have yet to see a convincing performance by Bloom and cannot understand why he is so popular. At least someone like Keanu Reeves has charm despite his inability to act consistently.
The romance is completely copied and pasted. Boring.
In the end, the film is average to me. Maybe it's the subject matter. The film isn't really about the Crusades. It's about greed and land and maybe a little religion as an excuse to go to war. This is an old tale, but I will admit that the timeliness of the film is at least interesting.
Gilda (1946)
Bisexual Film Noir
In film noir, usually the spider-woman (the gorgeous Rita Hayworth) traps the man with her seductive powers, often getting him to kill for her before she herself is killed/punished for her crimes of transgressing in a man's world. This film doesn't quite follow the formula. The movie stars two male protagonists who are clearly more interested in each other than in Gilda, even though Rita Hayworth is by far one of the most beautiful women ever to be filmed.
Recently restored for DVD release, the film looks sharp and the graininess is gone from the original. Except for the inconsistent use of shadows, the dark/light style is quite honed. The sound quality is high but the amplitude is low, so you will have to turn your speaker system up to hear the film clearly.
I admit that I laughed through much of the film as the heterosexual, homosexual, AND bisexual playfulness of the dialogue is simply a joy to listen to, mostly due to Hayworth's goddess-ness. The film ends on a boring, unbelievable moment, but it's typical Hollywood of the time: Good starts, great middles, dumb endings.
Phone Booth (2002)
This film accomplishes all that it can.
There are only two things that this film has to do to keep its audience's attention: 1) Make the audience believe that a man has trapped another man in a phone booth with the threat of death, and 2) create a victimized character that the audience sympathizes with. With these forces in place, the audience is mostly (not entirely, of course) distracted from the film's ridiculousness. The rest of the film writes itself, and the dialogue is fairly believable.
Keifer Sutherland phones in a decent voice performance, and Colin Ferrell is quite convincing as the emotionally wrought man trapped in the phone booth. Forrest Whittaker is not challenged by his role, and so plays the straight man as only a veteran actor can.
The film is essentially a one-act morality play staged in an urban landscape and with modern props. Yet the behaviors the film wishes to correct are as old as human existence.
The Man from Elysian Fields (2001)
Andy Garcia officially on Hollywood blacklist
The Whore! The Whore! The Whore! Ever wondered why men become gigolos, or why women become prostitutes? If so, then this movie is for you! And speaking of prostitutes and gigolos, Mick Jagger shows up and looks rather dandy for a hideously ugly man.
Other than the plot and fact that this movie was made, the worse part of this movie is the abuse of neo-noir lighting/color, voice-over narrative, and jazzy muzak. It's embarrassing, because in most film noir, a woman outsmarts/outsexes an idiot man and then she pays for it in the end. Some of this film noir formula is there, but it's so utterly undermined by the film's moronic premise and overall crappiness that I could not help but rage against my television.
In fact, I looked over to my girlfriend 25 minutes into the movie (we hadn't said a word since it started) and said, "This sucks, huh?" "It's getting that way," she replied. The only pleasure I could take was predicting the train wreck before it happened. And when it did happen, I was sad to witness Andy Garcia's last attempt at acting.
Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)
Hell is "Manos: The Hands of Fate" on an eternal loop
Directing: The direction in this "film" reminds me of one of those people who simply cannot, for the life of them, hang a picture straight on a wall. The problem is not that the person is too close to the picture, and therefore cannot see the mistakes he's making. The problem is also not an inability to make necessary adjustments after stepping back to look at one's work. The problem with this film's direction is much deeper. Do not be fooled into thinking that this film was bad "on purpose," because if there is a God, this cannot be true. In the history of the world, no manure salesman has decided to make a crappy (pun intended) movie for the purpose of defining "the crappiest movie." No. The problem here is about the complete and utter failure of humanity. The word "never" had not yet been defined until this movie was "made." In the end, there's no reason to consider that this movie had a director.
Editing: When you were a child, you probably tried to shove two mismatched puzzle pieces together -- I admit, I've even tried this -- but you and I eventually learned that this is wrong. The editor of this film did not learn this valuable life lesson. The credits at the end of the film are the centerpieces of the editing. I only now understand that, quite possibly, editing did not occur in the production of this film.
Writing: This movie despises its writer, hates him in fact. In truth, there is no reason to think that this movie was actually written. I babysat an autistic child once. Even HE couldn't have written this tripe.
Acting: I understand that some people don't really get what it means to be in front of a camera. This is not the problem here. Although they have human faces and voices (all dubbed, of course), these "actors" are unable to even imagine themselves as being in a film. The uniqueness of their ineptitude is overwhelming at times.
This is a horror flick. The actual film isn't the horror; the horror isn't even filmed in fact. The true horror is this movie's sweeping destruction of the elements of film -- direction, editing, writing, acting, etc. Even the title, which translates to "Hands: The Hands of Fate," would baffle the Sphinx. I know that Duran Duran named themselves twice, but this title is something else entirely. It is a sucker punch to everything linguistic and meaningful.
Why this movie took 2 and a half months to film is beyond me. This movie is 74 minutes long. There is no reason to believe that this movie took more than 74 minutes to film. After all, without a director, editor, writer, or actors, it's truly difficult for me to say that this is a film. There are those who want to find genius in such a deconstructive expression. Make no mistake, this movie is not smart, is not clever. The deepest meaning one can glean from manure is to never again step in it. If you value anything even remotely artful, you will keep yourself oblivious to this "movie." This movie will scar you and shape the rest of your life, I guarantee it.
Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995)
embarassing
This is one of the worst attempts at motion picture I have ever seen. The melodrama is one thing, but this movie oversteps the bounds: I've never seen a movie more comprised of hugs and tears than this one. This is an embarrassment to any gay or lesbian idea about the world. I cannot believe GLAAD supports this movie.