An American thriller directed by Michael Feifer, starring Brittany Murphy, Dean Cain and Mimi Rogers.
A young woman brings her boyfriend to the hospital for a leg operation. She goes to get coffee and when she gets back, he is gone and nobody has heard of him.
This seemed really low-budget. The plot was actually interesting, but the characters were stale. Anyone who has been in a hospital knows the type of authoritative lack of information that gets communicated there. I would have liked to see more nurses sitting around chatting and a bunch of cops everywhere to make it really accurate. Some more waiting rooms full of people who have been there multiple days would have added authenticity as well. The acting was not so great, but Brittany Murphy was in Clueless (1995), Girl, Interrupted (1999), Spun (2002) and Sin City (2005). Video looked like an updated version of cheap 1980s B movies, but the audio was really good. Here's what really counts: I did not like it. It seemed too contrived and forced to me. I rate it tolerable because although it had some good stuff going on, it just didn't pan out to be an entertaining film.
An American documentary by Reed Cowan and Steven Greenstreet.
People in favor of same-sex marriage speak and protest against the Mormon church and their political actions to prevent it.
Not really a subject which interests me, but it was made quite well. There was more talk than techno. Most of it was interviews. This also made it more information than entertainment. There was only 1 camera placement per interview, but they looked good and there were enough of them that it did not get repetitively boring.I have to add another documentary criteria: crying. There were 2 people in this who cried far too much. This behavior only damages their ability to communicate. The gay couple only cried once (I think, not going back to check), which was alright. I rate this o.k. because it was fine, but not something I'm interested in.
A Canadian American fantasy drama directed by Peter DeLuise.
A teen girl has a wish list of what she wants on her 16th birthday. A magical girl gives her 16 candles which grant the wishes from the list. Everything seems to be going well to start, but then some wishes develop unexpected consequences.
Total trash. I knew this type of shit was coming eventually when I started on the list of "every film ever made". It is clearly made for a female audience under the age of 16 and contains anti-male programming. Every male character is stupid, not to mention every adult character. I think the only good thing about it was that the magic girl (image) looked like she would grow to resemble the woman from Thursday (1998), Paulina Porizkova (Dallas). The plot is trite and predictable. The video looked alright, except for the sped up time effect. This was really blurry and unconvincing. There were lots of sections with the clearly mainstream female oversaturated bright look, but not all of it was like that. Audio had good levels, but also had tons of crappy pop music. I rate this shit because it is to anyone either male or over 15 years of age. If you have read any of my blog and agreed with anything on it, don't torture yourself by watching this like I did.
An American crime thriller directed by Jonathan Mossek, starring Cary Elwes, Andie MacDowell and Frank Whaley.
A photographer is attacked in his apartment by white supremacists who say that he has killed one of their family members. They torture him, but soon begin fighting amongst themselves.
I watched this because I'm watching films that Cary Elwes acted in. For those who don't know, he was Westley in The Princess Bride (1987) and Robin Hood in Men in Tights (1993). I did not want to see such a good actor being tortured for so long. My only other comment is that the ending was completely unexpected. I won't spoil it any more than that. I rate this poor because of who was tortured.
A Japanese horror adventure directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura.
A girl's abusive mother steals her heart just as a zombie apocalypse is happening and becomes queen of the zombies. The daughter is rebuilt by the government as an android with a chainsaw sword. She is found by the owner of an orphanage that only houses one other person: a silent young man with a giant sword shaped like the edge of a circular saw. They are sent by the government to kill the zombie queen and on the way meet a man with an armored pickup truck and a shotgun.
Yoshihiro is one of the folks who can do no wrong in my eyes. I was heavily reminded of Tokyo Gore Police (2008) while watching this. Everything was over the top in the same way, but more like a Resident Evil adventure story. Some of the special effects were way cheesy and some were spot on. Regardless, everything gets drenched in blood except chainsaw sword hero girl. Lots of the music was good for a few minutes. The battle theme just got recycled way too much. I liked the surviving characters, but it was too easy to tell who was going to be killed or forgotten. Overall, it's a keeper. I rate this awesome and would recommend it to those who like gore and horror adventures.
A Chinese wuxia directed by Tsui Hark, starring Andy Lau, Carina Lau and Tony Leung Ka-fai.
Government officials are spontaneously combusting. The empress brings a former detective out of prison to solve the case.
This is what one would expect from a modern wuxia film. The plot was slightly convoluted, but that may have come from presentation rather than writing. The few main characters stood out and I think Detective Dee came across correctly. The dialogue and acting were very much what I would expect from the date and genre. There really weren't any surprises. Obviously, the sets looked expensive and authentic. There were also some CG shots of large portions of the city. I could tell because they looked too clean and repetitive. The camera-work and editing follow in the same style as New Dragon Gate Inn. Lots of close-ups, quick editing cuts and lots of camera movement. Fighting and special effects may as well be commented on as the same item. What sticks in my memory most is the underground fight in the water area where logs came up out of the water and were used as ground to walk on as well as for weapons. This is another film in which there were lots of impossible jumps and acrobatics, but no real flying. The audio was in Chinese and the version that I got had hard-coded English subtitles. Dialogue, music and sound effects were mixed correctly. IMDb lists a rating of 6.6/10 and Rotten Tomatoes lists 80% Tomatometer with 62% Audience Score for an average of 69.3%. I rate it o.k. because it was predictable. I knew exactly what it would be before watching it.
A British BBC TV documentary directed by Jim Nally.
A pair of Swedish twin sisters run out into traffic on a highway. They resist police and medical workers. One of them is released, only to go and kill a man.
Great story, poor production. The duration was far too long for the short story that it was about. My film director senses were tingling from all the filler material. Information density was extremely sparse, with heavy narration lengthening eye-witness reports by an obscene amount. Only some of the interviewees had anything at all to do with the story. Who is this psychologist guy? Not the psychologist hired by the defense or prosecution in the case. Hence, he doesn't matter. The subject matter was initially riveting. After the "motorway/carriageway" incident, it became much less interesting. The footage was pitiful. A few security cameras caught these women on video, there were a few interviews and the rest was filler. Audio was extremely normalized for TV, so everything sounded great to me. The modern television style calls for a catchy intro, followed by fluff and filler. This was adhered to religiously. I rate this bad. It didn't hurt to watch, but a few minutes of google search could pull up something better.
An American Syfy action horror directed by Kevin O'Neill, starring Roger Corman.
A prehistoric shark melts off of a glacier and attacks the coast of Mexico. A young man and his friends must stop it.
I knew this would be trashy when I turned it on. An hour and 26 minutes went by pretty quickly with the fast pace. I found the plot to be stale, regurgitated and recycled. Who has not seen a film about a monster in water before? I did not care about the characters. It's not that I disliked them, just could not be bothered to concern myself with their welfare. Dialogue was written pretty poorly. Some of it reminded me of a soap opera (more on that later). QActing was obviously not a full-time job for any of the cast. The locations actually looked good. There was a variety of city, estuaries, beach, marina, open water that fit together, forming a cohesive overall location. Some of the camera-work reminded me of a soap opera as well. There was a scene at a bar in the beginning when some people leave and one guy sighs before the shot cuts. Special effects were what would be known as "budget style". Everything about the shark was done on a computer. there were very few physical effects of torn up victims, like a cast head floating next to a boat. Audio seemed pretty on to me. Being broadcast on cable TV, it needs to be more even than a theater film. Style brings me back to soap operas again. The color correction, high gain/grain, shot compositions and editing all looked like something from daytime TV. Chicago Now gave it 1/5, IMDB has it at 3.2/10 and Rotten Tomatoes has a 20% audience score. 24% average is not something to be proud of. I thought it was cheesy enough, but not quite sleazy enough. I rate it tolerable because it was entertaining by being hokey, but total trash otherwise.
A Japanese Anime directed by Masashi Ikeda, Yasunao Aoki and Toshiya Shinohara.
An extremely mature middle school girl falls down a well and ends up in the Feudal era where she releases a demon who has been sealed to a tree for 50 years. The demon was sealed because another demon played him and his girlfriend against one another to get a sacred jewel. The modern girl and feudal demon team up with a child fox demon, a lecherous monk with a vacuum hand, a 2-tailed cat that grows and flies and a demon slayer woman whose group has been killed by her younger brother.
I watched the entire duration of 197 videos. Most were 20 minute TV episodes, besides the 4 hour and a half movies. It's a lot of Inuyasha. The plot seemed standard and stereotypical for anime, featuring mainly searches for characters and items, fights and comic relief. I liked comic relief the most in this series. There were episodes devoted to secondary characters that entertained me more than the main plot of the series. Because it was made for TV, there were frequent "plot recaps" to inform viewers who were not watching the whole series straight through what was happening. There were tons of characters and many of them had similar names: Naraku, Kohaku, Kagura, Kaguya, the list goes on. I know I'm an American, looking at Japanese names from an etic perspective, but they seemed too similar to me. What I liked about the characters was variety. There were humans, half demons and demons in every available Dungeons & Dragons alignment. Each of the main characters had identifiable personality traits that were demonstrated at every opportunity. An example of this is the monk touching the demon slayer's butt. Much of the dialogue was characters saying each other's names: "INUYASHA!!" "KAGOME!!" which got old quickly. The English voice actors fit the Japanese animated characters well enough for my tastes. Only Final Act was subtitled and not dubbed. I found the Japanese voices disorienting because I was so used to the English dubbed version, having watched 167 episodes by that point. On a side note, I heard a few phrases so frequently that I rewrote them as qwerty keyboard and sexual innuendo references: Sexomaru, No-cock-u, Titsaiga, Bitcoin jewel and Inutrasha's famous attacks: Spacebar , Backslash wave\\\\, Ampersand Barrage&&&& and Cheesy Beaver Hole Feeler. Animation style was a mix of traditional anime with some computerized effects. I could tell the difference, but a person less versed in digital video effects may not be able to discern between the two. They were blended very well and the CG was used extremely tastefully and sparsely. As with any TV series, the music was repetitive. There were a few theme tracks for battle, comedy, drama, etc. that just got copied and pasted where they were needed. The anime series was quite popular and the 4 movies got 7.5-7.9 on IMDB. My real anime comparison test is Dragonball. This was goofier than Z and GT, but not as goofy as original DB. It was also not as good, but Goku and friends set a pretty high mark to beat. Inuyasha is nice to have in addition to Dragonball though. I rate it good. It must have been for me to still like it after watching that much.
A Canadian science fiction directed by Panos Cosmatos.
A crazy man is keeping a girl in his strange building.
This was interesting to look at, but totally incoherent. This made the hour 45 duration seem to last forever and a half. The plot only approaches clarity at the very end. The characters were very odd to say the least. This was actually a good thing because normal characters would have seemed out of place. The dialogue was cryptic and acting mostly involved people being in the right position to make it look psychedelic. The sets and costumes were amazing and arty. Like I said, it looked good. The camera-work was part of it looking good. I think that the main thing done right in this department was shot composition. The red look did not do it any favors, but everything else was fine. There were some special effects of various types throughout, mostly physical and camera-oriented. In audio, the dialogue was mixed way too low and the music way too high. The metalheads drinking beer at the end are listening to "Angel Dust" by Venom. For such bold and expressive style, it seemed like it should have a better plot. Other critics mostly give it failing grades, but some thought it looked cool enough for a B+. I agree with Tony Norman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette who called it "all ambiance and no substance". I give this one of those weird pink ratings for this reason.
A British art documentary directed by Banksy.
A man who is obsessed with recording videos gets into street art.
This was interesting and fun. The subject matter was lively. These people were putting art on walls illegally, so there was a sense of danger and freedom vs. authority. The interviews were done very well and including the videos that the main character made was the best decision of the film. The video was varied, but the audio was mixed well in post-production. There was a lot of handheld camera, but it ended up working out well. Overall, a cool documentary about street art. I rate this good. Watch it!
A Serbian horror directed by Srđan Spasojević.
A retired porn star is hired by a director to make a new film. The actor is initially put off by the nature of the material that is being created and things only get stranger.
This was wild! There is subject matter depicted in this film that mixes sex and gore. The plot follows the actor as he is hired and filming begins. He eventually blacks out and has to watch tapes to remember what happened and then there is an almost foreseen surprise at the end. The characters were slightly developed. I think that the casting was done very well. The director fit his role best in my view. One of the disturbing sections to me is the actor's son talking about "little wheels". The video was chaotic to say the least. However, correct exposure seems to have been kept in mind. The audio got lost in the shuffle. There was just too much going on to notice volume levels and dialogue/music mixing. The version that I saw was in Serbian, with English subtitles. Overall, not something to share with the family, but very well-made. I rate this awesome. Watch it if you can deal with seeing sex and death simultaneously.
An American horror by Dustin Mills.
A mad scientist invites teenagers to his haunted mansion with the promise of a million dollars so his monster can eat them.
This is a lesson in what can be done with very little. The plot was standard science fiction horror and the characters fit stereotypical roles for the genre. What made it good to start with was the writing. Relationships between characters were explained throughout the duration and the dialogue was just amazing. I liked how they combined puppets and CG for most of it and then had a more traditional looking, 2 dimensional cartoon flashback. To make the video, they had puppets, a green screen and a computer. That was it. The audio was what actually told the story. In order to synch the puppets, they would have had the voice actors and sound effects go first. Overall, I like this for the production and the writing. I rate this good.
An American documentary directed by Richard Press.
A man is a street photographer who focuses on women's fashion and publishes an article in a magazine.
This was pretty straight forward. Dude rides a bicycle and takes pictures with his camera.. He knows the right way to do it. Nothing beats 26s and a camera. The plot was a little sparse, but the main character was illustrated very well. The video all looked good, predictable and standard. The audio was the same. There was a section in French that had subtitles. Overall, unimpressive, but accurate. I rate this o.k. because it's a fine film with no problems, but nothing really special.
A British documentary directed by Jake West.
The story of Margater Thatcher's censorship attack on horror and exploitation films in the early 1980s is discussed. This is followed by in depth discussion of each film on the list as well as a trailer for them.
The initial documentary was very good. Once they started discussing every film on the list and playing trailers, I lost interest quickly. The interviews were full of good information and interesting to watch. The filmmakers used relevant B-roll to illustrate the points being made by the speakers. I think that they covered the subject matter quite well. The problem with the bonus footage was that it became far too repetitive to talk about the films and play original trailers. The speakers in this section did have interesting insights on how the films were made and their immediate reception, but too much of it was just the same thing over and over. The audio and video were technically good, even for the older films that circulated on tape trading networks. Overall, watch the documentary and skip the Final 39 and Dropped 33. I rate this good.
An American horror documentary directed by Daniel Farrands and Andrew Kasch.
Details of the Nightmare on Elm Street film franchise are discussed in interviews with behind the scenes footage and stills. For 4 hours.
This is a piece for die-hard Freddy fans. It begins with conception of the titular character and general plot characteristics. It then goes through each film of the series, showing interviews with the cast, how special effects were done and how successful the films were. There are also original stop-motion animations to booked the pieces. Some of my favorite sections included things that didn't work right, production problems and dealing with a child actor in New Nightmare. I liked the sections on production problems because it shows the great lengths that the cast and crew went to obtain some of their best footage, not because I wanted to see things fail. The depth of the interviews as a whole was great. It seemed like the cast and crew were being asked good questions and speak their mind about working on these films. Overall, only for true Freddy fanatics. I am one and rate this good.
An American romance drama directed by Rob Reiner, starring Anthony Edwards, Penelope Ann Miller and Adrian Quinn.
The tense relationship between two young people in the 1960s is told from both perspectives. The boy lives a vacant life, obsessed with the girl. The girl raises chickens and repairs the dilapidated yard of her house, with the help of the boy's grandfather.
This was different because of the dual perspective storytelling, but everything else was standard American teen romance. The plot was divided into sections of male and female narration, with differing opinions about how and why things happened. The characters did develop, as the story followed them from childhood into high school. There were many extras, but the main characters were all dynamic by either changing something in the world or changing themselves. The video was all very clear and straight forward. It relied on good, clean shots and seamless editing. I would have liked to see differing video styles based on who was narrating. The audio was mostly voice-overs of narration, but dialogue was spread evenly throughout and I could hear everything that was said. The soundtrack was a very minor element and stayed in the background. Overall, A unique storytelling/plot style with nothing else to offer. I rate it o.k.
An American made for TV drama directed by Barry Levinson, starring Al Pacino and John Goodman.
Doctor Kevorkian helps terminally ill people to commit suicide. This is frowned upon by the legal system, but they have trouble actually pinning the blame on him.
Not bad. The plot was interesting, although there was a little too much courtroom for my taste. The characters were great. Al Pacino and John Goodman make a very good team. The video included a few artistic close-ups of medical equipment, but was otherwise straight to the point. It showed what was going on clearly. The audio was on the plus side. I could hear what everyone was saying and the soundtrack didn't fet in the way. Overall, not too shabby. I rate this adequate.
A British black comedy directed by John Landis, starring Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis and Tom Wilkinson.
A duo of poor men are looking for opportunities to make money when their neighbor dies. They overhear a rumor that the local anatomy schools are paying for corpses and go into business. The doctor they are selling to is working on an anatomy book and one of the corpse salesmen funds the career of a local prostitute who wants to put on a play.
This was pretty cool. The plot was just complex enough and held my interest quite well. The characters were acted well, but fell into some typical stereotypes. Simon Pegg is, of course, a very skilled actor. The "humor" was mostly funny to me. I also liked the intro and outro narration by the executioner. The video was well-done. I could see everything that was going on clearly, but didn't notice any amazing camera-work. The audio was great. Traditional music of the area and good accents all aroond. Overall, professionally executed and interesting. It reminded me of I Sell the Dead (2008). I rate this good.
A British drama directed by Mike Leigh, starring Lesley Manville and Jim Broadbent.
A rich and stable old married couple have friends with problems.
This was like watching nothing. There was almost no action, just dialogue. The plot somehow held my attention, although it was just the friends complaining to the main characters about what had happened to them. The characters were shite. The friends were all alcoholics with problems and the rich couple were feeding them booze and listening to the stories. All static characters. There was one woman whose mood worsened as life shit on her throughout the duration, but I don't call that a dynamic character. And what happened to the woman who couldn't sleep? The audio was better than any of Leigh's other films. I could actually hear what people were saying! I've decided that Mike Leigh is a nervous, fidgeting Brit who drinks tea and smoke cigarettes while having meaningless conversations that he can't hear with people he doesn't really like. Overall, this is worthless. I rate it bad because I could hear what the actors were saying and that's a step up from most of Leigh's other shit.
