Change Your Image
exitof99
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Apocrypha (2011)
Oh hai Vampire's Kiss
Wow, the first so many minutes are terrible. I suspect they shot this in order as it got better as it went on. Truly should have reshot those early bits or just cut them out.
The antagonist Griffith, portrayed by an off-brand blend of Nicholas Cage and John Cusack, was apparently magically attractive to women, so much that he can say obnoxious and insulting comments and somehow still bed a woman, all while making eyes with another woman.
Woman: I want more tempura.
Griffith: I wouldn't suggest it.
Woman: Why not?
Griffith: Well, because you haven't even finished what you have on your plate there.
Woman: I'm gonna eat it all.
Griffith: Besides, you could afford to lose about 10 pounds.
Woman: Excuse me?
Griffith: Well, you've got a bit of a paunch. I mean, nothing serious, but you might as well take care of it now before it's too late.
Woman: You're an *******. I want to go home.
Griffith: Oh, your place? I was thinking the same thing.
Woman: Call me a cab, I'm not hungry anymore.
Griffith: Come on, lighten up, okay? No one is actually having a good time.
Woman: Really?
Griffith: You don't want to ruin my evening, now, do you?
Woman: I, I guess not.
Griffith: Of course, you don't. See, you're actually a sweet girl. Don't sell yourself short. So, your place?
Woman: Yeah. You drive.
That was within the first 10 minutes. It's also pretty much the introduction to the main character, portrayed by the writer/director/actor himself.
The sound design is amateur, sounds looping on repeat with no variation. Further, the therapist seemed to have been miked-up with a body mic as the sound of his scruff against his collar kept showing up in one scene.
The dialog delivered robotically at first, but with time it seems the cast settles into the production.
The framing of some shots was questionable. Some blocking poorly thought out. The midpoint chase scene stood out as some of the best camerawork.
The best performance seemed to come from William McMichael as Jan. His hair is amazing, it looks like the guy from the 80s cop-parody show Sledge Hammer who once broken the bristles off his hairbrush when trying to brush his shellacked pompadour.
The funniest part was the reaction shots from Jerimiah the cat. I don't think it was meant to be funny. The second funniest part was the room full of chairs, and then a single chair in the middle of a room placed just so it can be knocked over. I do think that was intentional and well played.
I'm most curious about the hotel room that Griffith calls home. Was this just an easy location that cost less, or was he legitimately supposed to be successful and living out of a hotel?
The story was fine, and I commend them for seeing this through. It's not easy to pull a feature together, so good on them. Early on, it felt like it was heading into the weird space Vampire's Kiss resides, but it calmed down and became of a more traditional drama.
Downsizing (2017)
It hit all the marks of the act structure, but...
This missed great opportunities to explore the concept of a blended world with regular-sized humans and the 5-inch variety. We get glimpses of interactions between those worlds, but it quickly fades into the background.
I expected more conflicts other than the bog standard ones. Paul (Damon) plays near the reluctant hero, except he never really has any real impact on the world outside of the few people in his life, and even that impact is blasé.
The story boils down to a love story, one that begins right on time at the midpoint when change comes and the adventure truly begins. The false death happens midway through the third act, and we get the predictable ending.
Essentially, it's the same story skeleton dressed up with different clothes in a different city with a the gimmick of people being shrunk.
Where is falls flat is after the first act, the scale of things normalizes so much that we don't feel that everyone is so small. There are a few wide shots that show a normal-sized structure being repurposed for the littles, but overall, nearly everything you'd expect to see in the natural world is miraculously scaled-down perfectly.
When first introduced to small people, there was an effort to make the microphone appear to be a real-world miniature microphone, so that it appeared large for a shrunk human, but after that a cameraman runs around with a normal real-world professional camera that has been perfect reduced to accommodate the little people.
The science goes out the window here, as there are certain limitations to scaling technology down (imaging the pixel size needed for the optical sensor). From here on out, we are to just accept it's movie magic and to forget it.
One person that was easily overlooked had a few lines caught in passing conversation which hinted that someone had to have a music instrument made for them (rather than being shrunk). In the setup, we learn that the shrinking is only for animals, so the vast world of technology that is created for the little people is done so at an unbelievable pass. It's one of those things that the writers are hoping you don't look at too closely.
What I would have expected is to see how these miniature humans deal with birds, insects, and animals. Never do we see a mouse nibbling the heads off of scared tiny humans, nor a dragonfly making a tasty meal out of a baby born in the tiny world. These concerns were brushed away and only hinted at. There was only ever one bird that I saw, and it was dead on the net protecting the people and easy to miss in the background.
I kept expecting to see normal-sized humans interacting with them, but that too disappeared entirely from the film.
So much potential to make this a far more interesting film, and why I can't give a better rating.
Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Forgettable schlock
When an alien force invades, one might expect there to be something more than just an assault of what seemed to be loose groups of alien clones. We rarely see any, and never see them close up. Usually, they are rimmed on a distant rooftop or elevated road, standing with no concern for cover. There are some shots in which we get a close up, but conveniently, that is at a pool that it spends the majority of the time underwater, reducing the CGI budget.
The aliens have no personality, they just exist as flavorless enemy grunts that you might expect to see in a video game. I'd dare say that Mars Attacks! Does a far better job at giving the invaders some personality.
As for the acting, it was done well enough. Aaron Eckhart does the job he was tasked with, delivered with his role with grit.
The writing, though, just was bog standard. The story is simple, retiring soldier is pulled reluctantly into fighting a war against aliens, follows orders until he is thrust into command, finds the alien's weakness, destroys the thing, wins the battle, and when offered respite, goes straight into action again proving that retirement was not meant to be because once a Marine, always a Marine. That's essentially it.
No real discovery about the aliens other than where to hit to kill them. Their contribution to the story is just to provide a reason for Staff Sergeant Nantz (Eckhart) a reason to find his purpose. It could just as well have been an Arabic invasion or even a zombie invasion. The aliens added little, making it clear that this was ultimately a story of the soldiers.
As for the rest of the characters, they were mostly paper cutouts from the book of Expected Supporting and Minor Characters with Predictable Dialog.
In the end, there is nothing of value in this film other than some mindless action. The set dressing was done well, the CGI seamless, but the story was where it lacks the most.
Monk: Mr. Monk and the UFO (2009)
Brought to You by the Kind Folks at Sleep Inn
What happens when you mix sponsorship (Sleep Inn) with a successful TV show in its final season? Nothing good.
A flat lands Mr. Monk and Natalie in a small and dusty town. Of course, the car repair will take days to fix, so relax and enjoy your stay at Sleep Inn. Our friendly Sleep Inn staff will be waiting at the front door ready to]]]-->> sorrry, where was I?
Oh yeah, so Monk does what Monk does and stumbles into yet another of his 200+ murder mysteries. Seriously, if you have a friend, a significant other, a relative, or just happen to know anyone in real life and you happen to see Monk, run! Run as fast as you can, death follows him everywhere!
Run until you get tired and need to take respite within our clean rooms at Sleep Inn. No one ever dies here at Sleep Inn. Our staff are highly trained to recognize potential plot staples such as a man in a poorly fitting wig and sunglasses trying to check in with a tarted-up, gam-blasting, blissfully naïve actress who would best play a corpse.
Sorry, it happened again, I don't know how this keeps happening. Anyway, so Monk does his thing, he says that line-you know the one, the plot device equal to Columbo's "one more thing"-he resolves with a team of loyal Sleep Inn employees flanking behind him in formation ready to serve his every need. Need an extra pillow? No problem. Need some ice after a low day of drifting through the desert? We got your back. Because here at Sleep Inn, you are family. The kind of family you always dreamt of that won't try to murder you for money, because we love you.
Signed,
Sleep Inn.
The Last Man on Earth (2015)
Tortures you with inane humor and annoying people
In writing a series, you need to be sure that your main characters are appealing. This series fails this big time. It begins with a troubled person named Phil convinced he's alone in the world, but of course eventually meets other survivors of a virus that wiped out almost the entire world population and the show focuses on the interaction between the group.
His first companion is of course a female, which serves the stereotypical love-interest role. She is nutty and challenging to endure, but so is he. At the start, I didn't know who to hate more. At least she became less annoying as the show progresses.
More people are introduced, and honestly, even as surface-level as they are, they are often more interesting than the two main characters. The biggest issue is that Phil is so unlikeable and annoying, it's not entertaining for anyone around him in the show to put up with him, which is even worse that I feel the same way as a viewer.
His character also suffers from the dumbing down effect that Homer Simpson had over countless seasons. In the original version on the Tracy Ulman show, Homer was an angry and abusive father, and that carried over a bit into the first season when they got their own show. With each season, Homer devolved into an jolly idiot. This is Phil as well, although it took less episodes for him to become an idiot.
I've made it to the middle of season 3 and finally had to sound off on this. It has gotten worse with each episode, I'm surprised it made it to 4 seasons. It's just been something I have been binge-watching while doing other things, so I really am not giving it my full attention. Even still, it has reached a point that I desperately wish for Phil to go away. The gags keep repeating, his lame "dad jokes" don't let up, his ideas become increasingly simple-minded, and so many of dialog is focused on humor that middle-schoolers might find funny.
There are some interesting concepts at play, but the writing just isn't there. This is just a big ol' dumbfest. I can't think of a single moment out of the 30 episodes that I've watched that actually had me laughing out loud. Even as passive entertainment in the background, Phil becomes so irritating with his tone-deaf interaction with the others that I'm having trouble just letting it play on as I work.
Inception (2010)
Why was there so much hype about this sleeper of a film?
I have to admit, I fell asleep several times while trying to watch this film, it just dragged for me. I'll keep that in mind when I have a bout of insomnia. I did, though, eventually finish watching the entire film, seeing a few parts over again to make sure I didn't miss anything in my "levels" of sleep.
I had heard buzz about this film, but never went out of my way to watch it. I'm only glad that I saw it so that I can say that I didn't like it at all. While the production quality was outstanding the acting top-notch, the story - otherwise known as the most important part - was flakey and not that interesting.
Essentially, this is a movie with two plotlines, one being the purpose of preventing a monopoly, and the other bringing someone's mind to rest. Sorry, but I really don't have any concern whether this monopoly forms or not, and the personal struggle aspect was tiring to observe.
Small note on nonsense, which there is much that can be pointed at within this film, if not the whole thing, there was a scene in which a character spikes someone's drink, but the server was in on it, so why didn't she do it? I guess it would have put too much focus on a bit player.
This pretty looking onion was dried up so much that cutting it up didn't make my eyes water.
Infinity Chamber (2016)
Effectively carries the difficult task of making an engaging one-room story
While this isn't at all a one-location film, it certainly borrows from that type. I've long enjoyed seeing a successful application of one-room type films, like The Cube, Pontypool, The Platform, or Closet Land. This film also leans heavily in that direction, though memories offer some escape from the cell.
When the title card came up and the film began just a few seconds after, I realized this was an independent film and started to get the itchy finger to abort. But I stuck with it, and I'm glad I did. It turned out to be exactly the kind of film I enjoy, although it wasn't necessarily anything new.
The story was pretty good, it kept things interesting, even if you expected some things to happen. Nothing mind blowing here, but solid throughout.
The cast is quite small, but each performed expertly. The production quality was high, the visual and audio without fault. It takes a heck of a lot to make a film, and this crossed the threshold from some weekend project to a polished piece.
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
A Much Needed Improvement from the Into Darkness
This new story, pitting The Federation against a mysterious and powerful Krall, brought a fresh addition to the Trek film franchise.
Flat out, personally I hated Into Darkness. It's rendition of Khan was reduced to an flat angry guy with no other dimensions. It had none of the power of the real and original Khan conflict. It seemed as though there was no future for these reboots.
Star Trek Beyond broke the fear that it's getting worse and instead delivered an enjoyable film that balanced well the nods to the original productions with the new story arc.
While loaded with typical Hollywood special effects and fight scenes, there was fortunately a reserved amount of screen time featuring CGI actors or recreations of the main cast. There was at least one scene where the CGI replacements looked hokey, but the majority of it appeared to be live actors.
The characters continued along the same trajectory as with the previous films. The pokey interpersonal relationship between Spock and Bones remains ongoing. The love story between Spock and Uhura touched upon. Kirk and his adventurous spirit lives on.
It appears that Trek is trying to appeal to a wider audience by luring non-Trekies with some over-the-top action. This is partly where it suffered, adding in garbage thrills which require "cartoony" CGI and impossible physics.
In one scene, Kirk finds an ancient motorcycle, and he apparently is a master rider. He shows superhuman ability as he rides this fully fueled machine across the unstable rocky terrain at full throttle and where no vehicles have ever been. Roads be damned!
This motorcycle later winds up being a key tool for a highly illogical rescue. It's scenes like this that remind me of why I'll never watch the ridiculous 2012 with John Cusack driving through buildings as they fall (and somehow missing all the desks, support columns, and walls all the while keeping his tires fully inflated). In this case, it was one of two scenes that required your brain to be on the lowest flame to enjoy.
All in all, the movie does impress. There is humor, there is feels, there is plenty of action and hardly any if any dragging scenes. It's about time that the new Trek gets a movie worth watching more than once.
Powers (2015)
Excuse to say "fuck" a whole lot
While watching a Youtube video, a full episode came up as an ad. I've never encountered a 50 minute ad before, but I guess this is the future. I watched a bit, and curious, let it continue, but around the 35 minute mark, I aborted.
What stands out is how many times they say "fuck". I swear they have guidelines in the editing and scripting departments that someone must say "fuck" at least once every 5 minutes.
In this episode, which one I'm unsure of, there was even a tactless dialog:
Guy: "Hey, does it taste like chicken or fish?" Girl: "Are you talking about pussy?" Guy: "Yeah, I want to know from a fellow carpet muncher"
Really? This screams that they are trying hard to appeal to young people by being crass, but it detracts from the viewing experience. I stopped caring what was going on and just was waiting until the next scene came to see how many people will swear.
Besides the primary motive of this show of swearing because "they can and it's cool", there is a story going on underneath which follows the standard superhero template.
The cast seemed fine in their acting, the production value seems up to modern standards, but the show feels like it is trying to capitalize on the superhero genre.
In terms of swearing, whatever, I'm fine with it, but there comes a point when it is clear that someone is doing it just to try and impress someone. I'll close with my default adage of "because you can do it doesn't mean your should".
Los últimos días (2013)
Excellently crafted, beautiful film
I do love dystopian films. They just hit the right spot in my brain, but only if they are done right. This, was done right.
With believable characters, and a proper amount of back story, this film deals with how humans cope with normal life when something as basic as stepping outside for breath of fresh air becomes impossible.
It doesn't try to be anything overly amazing, but revolves around Marc and his struggle to reunite with his love, Julia, in an unstable world. As they say, it's not the destination - it's the journey. That applies quite well here.
For those afraid of subtitled films, the dialog is sparse enough - do not pass this one by for that reason.
Goodbye World (2013)
It's a drama, and not a very enthralling one at that
I find it hard to score this on a scale of 1 to 10. The production was well done, the cast and crew definitely did their part, and they make up the entirety of my rating. I just feel bad they worked so hard on this lemon.
The premises leads us to believe that there is a catastrophic event in this film. We get some tastes of it for a brief few moments, but ultimately, we are left wondering what real effect has happened. Soon enough, though, it becomes apparent that it is just the backdrop, and a distant one at that.
Safely tucked in a rural area, the characters go to a secluded home and join a few that were already present. They all know one another and share history, which leads to many conflicts. Oddly, this is the actual story, unresolved personal problems within their small circle. Everything else, well, it can be ignored as the characters demonstrate.
While the state of the world is apparently collapsing, these brats brush with renegades and shrug it all off. A cop car is chased by rednecks shooting an automatic rifle, and no cause for alarm. Some bikers take over the local country store, yup, once again, no problem - even though tomatoes are $40 each, and $100 for a box of tampons.
Worse, our characters without concern attempt to buy these items, including $500 worth of tampons, for about 15% of the sale price. So, with a little bartering with the heavily armed bandits, they casually go back to their world ignoring what is happening around them.
Yup, these twits are all so self-absorbed to react to the destruction and mayhem, they take the time to lollygag, smoking pot and getting drunk. On top of this, it is apparent from the start that one of the crew was responsible for the tragedy befalling the world.
The film does try to interface a threat from the outside by a pair of rogue US soldiers. They appear to present an obvious threat, but our friends barely get concerned. They calmly push these guys away and return to the partying and interpersonal drama.
Eventually, the soldiers do play a slightly more threatening role, and without many minutes wasted, it is resolved and the crew returns to kiss and make up with each other.
What really bugs me the most is how unlikable all of the characters were. I did not care about them, and actually wanted to see harm come their way for being so cavalier about the damage they caused and their general disregard for the world outside - heck, even each other!
Worse, there were too many characters, so the attention shifted from one set to another, and barely gave any screen time to the man responsible for destroying the world. I guess it was because he didn't have a significant other along with him to fight with. There truly wasn't a core set of characters, more like 10 cardboard cutouts.
Good stories focus on something remarkable. Ghost Busters used teamwork to fight a new threat from the spirit world, Blade Runner questioned definition of life when concerning androids, and Fifth Element showed us once again that love conquers all and can kick butt while doing it. Ghost Busters didn't revolve around how Annie Potts spent her time arguing with her mother. Blade Runner didn't decide that Deckard's personal life outside of work was paramount. And Fifth Element didn't mesh a savior and a hero together so that we could see them spend time together folding laundry, only to divert for a few minutes to show them save the day.
This film wasted itself by showing how some selfish entitled people can show gross disregard for everything in an uninteresting way. All the while, viewers know there must be something else happening elsewhere far more and deserving of attention, but for get about that.
Melancholia (2011)
Unwatchable - at Least for Me
Outside of the first 10 minutes, which I found painfully slow, although visually interesting, the rest of the film appears to be destroyed by shoddy camera work.
Shakycam, as I call it, or perhaps more accurately, "handheld camera with no stabilization" is distracting, obnoxious, and in this case pointless. Shakycam makes sense during a fight sequence, a car chase, something with a lot of action, and only for short segments.
This film appears to be filled with long drawn out scenes, no surprise considering the movie length, so why shakycam? I can't focus on the story. Every stumble or random zoom the cameraman does makes me imagine that he is suffering a mild stroke and trying to get through the scene. It also makes me want to slap the director for being so thick. Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be watching this movie, not wondering about the production, right?
Shakycam made sense to me in "Dancer in the Dark" staring Björk. Even though that film gave me a headache while watching it, I loved the film itself. I forgave the pain it caused me do to the jerky, wandering camera work. I've called that film my one exception because I believed the director wanted the viewer to see things as the main character did, who suffered eye problems.
What I wasn't aware of at the start of this review is that Lars von Trier, who directed "Melancholia", also directed "Dancer in the Dark". This makes me second guess the pass I gave that "Dancer in the Dark". Maybe Lars just hates tripods and dollies and all his work is visually problematic?
"Dancer in the Dark" trained me to watch out for shakycam, as I don't enjoy the expense of a throbbing headache for the sake of watching a movie. Any production that can't properly use a camera is in my terms, unwatchable.
I love dystopian stories, looked forward to this, but sorry, I can't watch this unless I run it through an image stabilizer.
Lars, please buy a tripod.