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kingstonhawke
Reviews
Tricked: The Documentary (2013)
Nonsensical propaganda. The Reefer Madness of it's genre.
I'm biased because I have quite intimate knowledge of this world from multiple perspectives. But this documentary was just awful! Seriously, I've watched a lot in this category (and many others) and this one was the worse by a long shot.
I'll give it some credit. It was well put together. A lot of these documentaries come off looking really low budget, this was not the case. But, I'd rather take a low budget documentary that makes me think, instead of some well polished hatchet piece that insults my intelligence at every turn.
Spoiler: The whole point of this documentary is to make you believe that all sex workers are tortured slaves (mostly children), and pimps are their evil slave masters. If we eradicate the pimps then the whole system will collapse and live will be better once again....
If you have a brain then you can see how silly a premise this is. It glosses over all of the core issues of morality dealing with sex work. The issues that make this issue intriguing to begin with. Is it not a victimless crime? If the victim is created by the illegality then shouldn't the legislators be the target? Where does personal responsibility come into play? Etc, etc, etc. NONE of this get's asked. Instead, it stays true to the course. All prostitutes are victims of some overlord who is forcing them via violence to give away their most precious possession.
OMG the grandstanding in this documentary was so retarded. You have a guy telling the camera that he would murder if someone talked his daughter into selling sex. Because murder is more OK than selling sex I guess. And there are no white pimps in this whole movie. You really want me to believe that all pimps are black? If that's true then the numbers posed at the ending definitely can't be true.
Like I said. This is Reefer Madness for it's genre. I'm assuming a state funded shot at trying to force beliefs that don't make any sense down your throat instead of simply providing information from all sides and letting you come to your own conclusion.
Draft Day (2014)
NFL meets Lifetime. It'll make you feel good if you just don't think.
I was tempted to give this movie a 1, but then I bumped it up to 2 because it succeeds as a feel good movie.
My girlfriend is a football fan, and she liked it. So I think that's pretty much who this movie works for. Anyone who isn't so serious about movies that they puke at all the clichés. And also someone who isn't so serious about football that they become enraged at the lack of realism. Unfortunately I'm both of those things...
Where this movie suffers is that it doesn't try to be unique at all. Instead of relying on the actual drama that is the NFL draft, it takes the cheap route and focuses on all this personal nonsense that no one cares about. The characters are thin, and the cast (outside of a few) isn't strong enough to pull off what little they have to work with.
The Browns GM and staff is ridiculously dumb. People are saying that the trade he made was unrealistic, but that's not true. The real life Browns almost traded 3 1st for Andrew Luck, who is what Bo Callaghan is suppose to be a version of. What makes the Browns GM so inept is his lack of communication, his whole staff's lack of preparation (you scout EVERYONE, not just the guy you expect to take), and how indecisive he is...
The ONLY thing that bails him out after he digs himself into this great big hole, you guessed it, conveniently dumber adversaries. They make the Jaguars GM the dumbest human on earth! Not only does he get fleeced (and if you blame it on him being a rookie, the safe pick was taking the QB) but he's so dumb he doesn't just call the Seahawks and cause a bidding war for his pick. The Seahawks GM should've already been on the phone with the Broncos, the Jags, etc if he wanted the QB so badly. No one just waits for a player to fall, all GMs are proactive, it's the nature of the competition. Because there's no telling which one of the other 31 teams will trade up ahead of you. It's not as simple as "the Broncos wont take him because they have a QB" they wont, but they will trade the pick to someone who will. If the kid is valued worth 3 1st, then someone would've offered at least 1 to take him at 4.
Seriously, this movie is just painful if you actually follow the draft... and I'm assuming that's the demographic they were going after when they decided to make a movie about the draft.
I really do hate movies like this. They are fun enough when you're watching them. But as soon as they end and you reflect, it's like swiss cheese, so many holes.
God Is Not Dead (2013)
Christian or not, you have to admit this movie is awful
OK, I get it. You are Christians and you just want to see a movie where the Christians win. I grew up watching wrestling, I really do understand turning your brain off and rooting for Hulk Hogan to take down Iron Sheik. But assuming we're all adults here, cut the bull, and be honest. This movie is all sorts of awful.
*Bad acting. Check. Cain and Sorbo were the only serviceable actors in the whole movie. The rest were abysmal.
*Horrible editing. This movie wants to be Crash so bad. But unlike Crash it isn't able to intertwine the lives of it's characters seamlessly. Instead you get these jarring moments where someone is mid-speech, then a whole scene completely unrelated plays out, and then they finish the original scene.
*The cinematography is very poor. I understand that they movie was made on a cheap budget and finished in 20 days. But dang, I've seen cable shows with better cinematography than this.
*Wow, didn't expect a movie about Christians to be so damn racist. Hey yo my homies call me G-dawg, somehow I graduated highschool even though I'm an idiot. And here's my Asian friend who's overly serious, because you know, the more stereotypes the merry.
*The characters are painfully unrealistic. I'm not even going to point out the ones everyone else is. The ones that bothered me more were the Christians who are depicted as so inept that they are all in relationships with horrible people.
*The biggest of them all is that they slighted all the viewers on BOTH sides of the fence by not using real debate points. Instead of having an actually competent professor, they take the lazy route and make him commit fallacy after fallacy. I grew up in a Christian household. No Christian that engages in apologetics is dumb enough to think you can switch the burden of proof over to the non- believer.
*The movie was just too cluttered. I really ended up not caring about anyone because every time I attempted to get invested in a character the movie would shift over to someone else, and them someone else again... and then it'd finally return to where it was 15 minutes later. They should've cut out cancer girl, Dean Cain, the Asian, the Muslim, and the preacher and his friend. None of that helped the movie. Although I guess for some people it gave the undertone that secretly we all want to be Christians.
Christians, this is how you can tell if this is a good movie or not. When you watch, every time they say Jesus, in your mind, switch that to Muhammad. And every time they say God, switch that to Allah. If you still love the movie, then cool. But more than likely you'll see this horrible movie for the pure fail that it is.
Eden (2012)
Great Movie, That Should've Been Even Better
I always prefix my reviews by making clear what my expectations were. I'm very aware that the final score you give a movie is relative to the expectations a person had going in. With that said, I didn't expect to see the movie, and I didn't expect much from it. And that may play a hand in why it blew me away initially.
Eden isn't flawless by any means. But it is extremely well-acted, and well shot. Add in that it's a powerful story, and it's a movie that when I got done watching I was still thinking about. Usually that's either a good thing, or a really bad thing.
On to the bad. I don't know if I should blame the director, the movie industry politics, or US society as a whole. But it's ridiculous, almost bordering on comical that a movie completely about an individual experience as a forced prostitute would avoid anything overtly sexual. Not to advocate for that type of conduct, but I really do feel that the film would've been so much more powerful if they would've actually showed you what she went through as opposed to only hinting at it here and there.
On to my final point. And I tried not to let this effect my overall rating of the movie. But I really REALLY didn't like that they said "based on a true story". Maybe they could've gotten away with saying "inspired", but not based.
For one, the story in the movie is only loosely based on the story Chong Kim has been telling. And two, I've been looking into Chong Kim's actual story, and I'm pretty sure that she's a crazy lady. She has told multiple versions of the events. In one version the guy who posed as her "boyfriend" sold her to the traffickers, in the other she escaped him and was sold to the traffickers when she accepted a job as an escort.
Again, it doesn't really affect my rating of the movie. But I really did want to note that the whole saying it's based on a true story thing without checking to make sure that it really is needs to end.
Drop Dead Diva (2009)
This show is horrible!
I sat in on the second half of an episode, and then watched the beginning of the next... that's all I could take. This show is that bad!
The core plot makes no sense. If the skinny-now-fat girl can't remember the girl's past that she's in, then how can she get by being a lawyer at all? If she can, then why is she such an incompetent lawyer (that always wins in the ending anyway, because after all it's a show)?
The dialogue is cheesy and predictable. And the court scenes don't resemble court in any way shape or form. The timeline doesn't even fit, or are the writer's unaware that you don't pick up a case on tuesday and then go to trial a week later?
And what's worse about this show is that it's trying way too hard to push some moral message about fat people, like being unhealthy is something positive. Smart play I guess targeting fat people I guess since there are so many of them in this country.
Sucker Punch (2011)
A Dumb Movie Disguised As A Smart Movie
Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that a ton of people are making this out to be a great movie simply because they couldn't understand it, and they feel to do otherwise would be an admission of ignorance. Don't worry, it's not you...
Sucker Punch is a convoluted mess, that suffers critically from an identity crisis.
But, who to blame? Is it the writer's for trying to pack too much "story" into a 2 hour limit? Was it the person who was too dumb to realize that you can't have a movie that deals with this many adult subjects and fit it into a PG13 shell without editing it to bits? Throw in sub-par acting, and I'm leaning towards "all of the above".
Keep in mind I only saw the theatrical version (the version THEY chose to present)...
I'm going to try to be brief and just note the major flaws in the movie.
The movie is overly vague. They were going for the effect at the end of Inception where it was really up to you to interpret the events the way you like. But asking the audience to connect the dots how they like ONLY works if the position that the dots are in makes at least some sense. These dots are scattered all over the place causing inconsistent underdeveloped, extremely one dimensional characters across the board.
The BabyGirl killing (or thinking that she did) her sister scene makes no sense at all. This is the foundatition to the whole movie, and even after reading other reviews I still don't know what happened. All I know is that it doesn't make any sense for that bullet to have killed her sister in that way. Or for her to even have taken only one shot and then bypass her dad to check on her sister who was ALREADY DEAD. How exactly was a labotomy going to fix this anyway? Labatomies only turn you into a veggie if they go wrong. That's a real medical procedure, why would he be counting on that to erase her memory?
2. I understand that it doesn't make sense to make a fighting movie that's rated R because all those teeens that make up that demo count for a lot of dollars. But then you shouldn't of made a movie with such adult themes. Because what ended up happening is that they couldn't show anything adult like, and instead the movie ended up being nothing but vague subtext. Was it even an actual whore house or not?
3. You can't have a bunch of things that make no sense, and then say it's OK because she was dreaming. That's a cop out. She really mesmerizes people so much with her dancing that they completely lose touch with reality? Really? That was an awful idea. More awful is that you never see her actually dance. Instead, they use this as a dumb excuse to try and reel in a young audience with drawn out fight scenes. Time that should be spent developing characters. Don't get me wrong, the fight scenes look fun. But they are predictable as heck. Even the one that included the curveball of her friend dying was telegraphed horribly.
Everyone talking about courage and what not. How? She had a mental break down and instead of getting it together and getting out of the situation she stabbed a dude, started a fire, and helped someone escape all while out of touch with reality. Bleu the orderlies friends turning on him and saying "let's stop hurting girls" was retarded also. Way to be consistent. They've been doing that for how long and all the sudden decide that they are gonna snitch on him as if he wont tell on them right back?
I feel like I'm ranting... but seriously, movies like this frustrate me. Sucker Punch needs to get off of it's high horse and realize that there's nothing impressive about leaving a million holes in a story and then asking the audience to fill in all of them for you.
Setup (2011)
This movie is better than it's score suggest.
I normally only review movies while they are fresh in my mind, but I felt almost obligated to say how much I liked this movie to try and counter the rating that it's got.
I think a lot of the hate is coming from the cast. People are mad that Willis isn't in it more, that Phillippe (who is one of the top actors period) is playing a bad guy, and that 50 Cent is in it at all. But truth be told, I liked the cast for the movie. The acting and script weren't Oscar worthy, but watching it late at night on Netflix with no expectations it actually impressed me.
This movie is predictable, but so are 99% of movies to me, so that really didn't bother me as much as it seems to every one else. Other than that. If you're a fan of gritty, fun movies, you'll like. If you're wanting to see something complex and moving emotionally, you wont.
Wrath of the Titans (2012)
A dumb action film that doesn't know it's a dumb action film...
Keep in mind that I'm rating this movie based on my expectations for it, which weren't very high. And that as a HUGE fan of Greek mythology, and a somewhat fan of the first movie, I really wanted to like this movie. Anyway, here goes, the good, the bad, and MY conclusion.
The Good:
1. The CG! Most of the time and money was spent on this department, and it shows!
2. There were a few funny lines.
3. A lot of action (almost too much actually).
The Bad: (this list could be really long if I wanted, so I'll just stick to the big things)
1. This movie feels so rushed!!! They don't set up ANYTHING. It's impossible to care for ANY of the characters. The make the monsters so vast, but then they all get defeated so quickly. Even the ONE titan in a movie called Wrath of the Titans get's defeated in like 2 minutes time.
2. Greek mythology in general get's butchered!!! The ways in which they depict the Gods are ridiculous. Zeus, you know that guy who overthrew his father, banished his brother, and snuck in your mom's bed impregnated her and then left without looking back. Oh yeah, he's basically Taylor Swift in this movie. Way too much "I forgive you too" in this movie.
3. No consistency. Hades hates Zeus, and intends to destroy the whole world because of that hate, but then Zeus apologized, and now he's over it just like that. Perseus is weak enough in one battle that he takes a crazy gash from being drug in the back, and in another battle A GOD stomps his head repeatedly, and he get's cut slightly in his hair somewhere. There are so many instances it became really tough to ignore.
4. EVERYTHING in this movie is just there to push the plot along. Things like Gods being powered by prayers, Gods who can only locate you when you pray to them, Andromeda having an army (someone has to die I guess), a friendly comedic thief sidekick (that's only been done a million times), ugh... I'm done I can't even finish this review.
My conclusion is that this movie sucks tremendously. I was gonna rate it 4 stars because of the CG alone, and the few funny lines. But that just doesn't sound justifiable. There is just soooo much wrong with this movie. They tried to do too much, and spent all the money on the wrong things. This is no Troy, no Immortals, no Centurion... the action isn't that great, the storyline is miserable, and for a movie so big, it feels so small like they spent all their money on CG instead of sets.
Only watch this movie if it comes out on Netflix and you're just looking for something simple to kill some time. Otherwise you will be very disappointed.
Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown (2011)
Proof that potential means nothing.
The business side of movie-making dictates that the wider you cast your net, the more money you will make in return. This movie should be shown to anyone who subscribes to that theory as a cautionary tale.
They literally tried to jam pack so many "can't miss" fight movie clichés into the script that by the end it sort of feels like Scary Movie 5 or something. I'm not even joking, it starts out solid, but half way through the movie when you notice they are just going to keep adding new story lines instead of developing the ones they've started I started scratching my head. Especially since the movie did just enough to not be rated PG-13. Literally, they could've deleted one flashing scene and not cursed so much and it probably would've been PG.
I'm probably giving this movie a 5 only because my expectations were so low to begin with. If I'd of paid money and waited months to see this movie, I'd be irate! Especially since it could've been great if they'd of just scaled it back a bit.
Having Todd Duffee in the movie may have seemed like a cool idea. But his WHOLE storyline is pointless and seems like an addition after the script was turned in. And that's on top of the fact that he's a garbage actor. You cut that WHOLE storyline, and devote that energy to further developing the two main characters stories and the movie may have been good enough to go to theaters.
The ending needed changing as well. I'm guessing they were over budget and just needed to wrap things because it feels extremely rushed and anti-climatic. Hello... no one thinks the bad guy is going to win in this kind of movie, so how about not relying on selling us on that, and instead doing something dramatic. Bad guy should've sucker punched the boxer with the messed up eye, and the wrestler should've taken his revenge using something he learned and won the tourney. Pretty much the ending to Gladiator.
In closing. If you're looking for a serious movie with substance, save your time. If you're an MMA fan that just wants to see some cool fighting, then maybe watch this movie if nothing else is on.