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auralgasm
Reviews
Strange Wilderness (2008)
If you've seen the movie trailer, you should know what to expect.
I picked up a copy of this film over the weekend. All I could recall about it's original theatrical release was the trailer. It depicts looped underwater footage of a swimming shark with protruding teeth, while a disembodied voice delivers a cartoonish, "goofy" laugh. This alone was a red flag. Little did I know many months later, I would be convulsively laughing within the first 10 minutes of this movie in the comfort of my living room. I've seen several bad reviews of this film and many reviewers made valid points. The production values, script and dialogue are all ill conceived. At times it seems like a hodgepodge of outtakes and improvisation but this doesn't necessarily make it a bad movie. It delivers on the lowest level of the low brow humor. The characters are beyond moronic. Their behavior and verbal interactions are subsophomoric. If this is your type of humor by all means pick up this movie. It never pretends to be what it isn't. No pretense, no lessons to be learned, just a movie about a group of idiots on an quest to make the audience laugh. Most of the time they succeed! Anyone who saw the original theatrical trailer should've known what to expect.
Life on Mars (2006)
A great journey albeit too short or too long...
It amazes me how such a simple idea can make such great television. Series one was good enough in my opinion. Had the series ended with Sam finding out the truth about his father, it would have been great. Unfortunately it seems British viewers have become a lot like U.S. audiences in the desire to see their favorite characters have one more go. The story lines leading to the finale are brilliant. It's the finale itself that'll leave you flat. I'm sure i'm alone in this but at times "LOM" is reminiscent of "The Prisoner", Constantly tempting the viewer to imagine how our hero will escape his incarceration. The unfortunate part is that the creators actually give you a predictable resolution, then give you a gentle "preachy" twist. At this point, in my opinion, a third series is in order. Sure the creators brought their creation to an end but it leaves you with many unanswered questions. The American version won't get it right. In fact if the American version actually sees the light of day, it will fail miserably. I'll part with this, I loved this series. It had the potential to be a modern classic. But unless the BBC commissions another series (or TV movie) it'll be just another one of those series that 'could have been'.