Carmine Street Guitars (2018)

A Canadian music documentary by Ron Mann.
A man runs a guitar shop in New York city, building guitars from the wood of demolished buildings.
As with most films, there were positive and negative attributes to this. Production was top notch. Everything looked good because of filming in many areas of the shop and having good camera placement and editing. The audio quality was good, but the audio content was not to my liking. Most of the guitarists who played in the shop were not very good. Sure, they are in popular bands, but their posture and technique are terrible and the material they played sounded like music ended in 1977 or so and was only played in America. Some of them I wanted to say "Stop! put it down, can't you hear that it's suffering?". Fortunately, Jim Jarmusch (film director (image)) made an appearance with an acoustic made of some different wood. The decorative work on the instruments was not exactly my style either. Portraits and text blocks just don't seem to belong on a musical instrument. The whole thing was basically Fender Telecaster worship. I get that it's a historic guitar and obviously great for American rock music of the '60s and '70s. There is just so much "else" out there. There were 2 guitars in the shop which looked cool. 1 was a butterfly body design with a Floyd Rose bridge and the other was a '60s Japanese looking thing. There were also wild unfinished body pieces in the backgrounds. "Screw this stuff that looks cool, I want to copy one of the most boring guitars ever." I liked the interview/conversation style of dialogue, but I think that Rick Kelly (the luthier) should have said a little bit more. There was also crying when the young woman who works there celebrated 5 years(?) of that job. I have to rate this tolerable because there was more negative than positive about it. If you like Fender Telecasters and American rock music from 40 - 60 years ago, this film is for you!

5ive Girls (2006)

A Canadian horror directed by Warren P. Sonoda, starring Ron Perlman.
A group of 5 girls are the first class of a catholic school where a girl disappeared 5 years before. The headmistress is trying to sacrifice them to bring back the missing girl.
Terrible. When I'm counting down minutes until a movie ends, it's really bad. The plot was basic and not very interesting. The characters were underdeveloped to the point that it was not made clear that one of the girls had an eating disorder until she became posessed. Video was alright, but there was too much CG. Some physical effects mixed in would have blurred the line between live action and digital effects, but nobody does that. I want page views, so here's some tits (image). Audio was muffled, compressed and bass-heavy. It may have just been the copy I got, but I think there were original master copy mixing issues as well. If you like The Craft (1996) and Stigmata (1999) and want to know what would happen if they mixed and turned to crap, this is it. I rate it shit. Do not watch!

16 Wishes (2010)

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.

11:14 (2003)

A Canadian American black comedy drama directed by Greg Marcks, starring Rachel Leigh Cook, Ben Foster, Clark Gregg and Barbara Hershey.
Separate series of events involving different groups of people all converge at 11:14PM in a car accident. 5 parts are shown.
This was about plot. Each of the people was shown in their own segment and with each passing segment, more of the pieces of the puzzle fit together to show what happened. Characters were kind of temporary and shallow because there were so many of them. I didn't really notice cinematography or editing and the audio seemed fine. There were also good subtitles on the version I found. Most folks seem to like this, but Time Out seemed to find it boring. I liked it because it held my attention. I rate it good and you should probably watch it.
On a side note, I have switched movie lists of what to watch next. I found this list of "every film ever made" https://alphabetizer.flap.tv/lists/list-of-every-movie-ever-made.php and figured I could just start at the beginning and watch whatever I found. It sure beats watching a list of the worst movies, if only for the element of chance involved. My old list was so long that I might as well try a list claiming to be every movie. I've also figured out how to make images start out at the top and centered.

House of the Dead (2003)

A German Canadian American action horror directed by Uwe Boll, starring Clint Howard and Jürgen Prochnow.
Young people go to an island where a party was happening, but it has been disrupted by zombies. The outlaws who gave them a boat ride there and the cops chasing the outlaws are also drawn into the events.
I never want to see another slow motion bullet or fight move with the camera circling around what is depicted. Sadly, I will see these things again. I will also again regret watching a film based on a video game. This seemed like a 1980s campy horror flick done with 2000s technology. That is a very bad thing. At least in the '80s it seemed genuine. By 2003, characters should know to avoid blue smoke and fog at any cost. We also all know that jumping while shooting makes the bullets do more damage. I am so tired of writing about crappy movies when nobody reads it. I rate this bad. Really, don't watch it.
On a lighter note, I found an alphabetical list claiming to be every film ever made with title and year. Since I had been working on making a "movies to watch" list for so long and it has gone in so many directions that I no longer care what is on it, that is what I shall be using.

Eye of the Beholder (1999)

A Canadian Australian British mystery directed by Stephan Elliott, starring Ewan McGregor and Genevieve Bujold.
A man who has an imaginary daughter is trying to follow a woman. He video calls another woman at some type of office frequently.
The real mystery here was the plot. It seemed like just a jumbled series of scenes, rather than a coherent story. The female lead was always dressing differently and wearing different wigs, so I had real trouble identifying her. There was some whisper acting... At least the camera-work was good. When that's all I can say in praise of a film, you know it's really bad. I rate this shit because I spent the entire duration wishing I was not watching it. DO NOT WATCH!!!

Every Thing Will Be Fine (2015)

A German French Swedish Norwegian Canadian American drama directed by Wim Wenders, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, James Franco, Patrick Bauchau and Peter Stormare.
A man kills 1 of a pair of brothers in a car accident during a snow storm. He is depressed, but eventually becomes a successful writer. He offers to help the mother of the boys and they talk a little bit. When the surviving brother is 16 years old, he meets the writer.
This was worse than Turkish Star Wars (1982) because Wim Wenders is a good director and I was expecting something to happen. At the end of almost 2 hours, the credits rolled and there had been nothing going on since about 14 minutes in. Charlotte Gainsbourg is good at acting and I haven't seen her in any happy or boring roles. When the writer was looking outside, trying to figure out who broke into his house, she should have been there with weapons. At least Turkish Star Wars was known to be bad and had something happening. This had good people on the filmmaking team and nothing happened. I rate this shit because mediocrity should be punished more than lack of quality. I would rather watch a movie that is interesting because it's so bad than be bored by mediocrity.

Chaos (2005/2006)

A British Canadian American crime action directed by Tony Giglio, starring Jason Statham and Wesley Snipes.
There is a bank robbery and a cop who was fired is asked for by the robbers. He gets a new partner and they try to find the bank robbers who escaped after an explosion during the robbery.
Bad audio, probably the worst mixing I've ever heard. There was whispered and mumbled dialogue alternating with loud music, explosions, motorcycles (need those) and guns. Which brings me to my next point: motorcycle chases. Every crappy action flick I've been watching recently has a motorcycle chase scene. It's possible that folks were trying to ride coattails on The Matrix trilogy (1999 - 2003) and Kill Bill (2003 - 2004) because all of these crappy flicks with motorcycle chases were made around that time and those were popular and good films with motorcycle chases. Is there some deep meaning hidden within the motorcycle chase that I'm missing? Most of them slide their bikes to a halt. While stopping, the wheels slide out from under them and the body scrapes across the pavement, creating sparks. I usually like Jason Statham's acting, but his dialogue must have been under my hearing threshold in this. That's all there was to that movie. I couldn't understand much of what anyone was saying because the audio was so bad. I rate it bad. Really, don't watch it.

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)

A German Canadian American action directed by Wych Kaosayananda A.K.A. Kaos, starring Antonio Banderas, Lucy Liu and Terry Chen.
Secret agents fight over family members and a microscopic device which kills people.
Total crap. The director and writer, Wych/Kaos (see above) and Alan B. McElroy have only been involved in terrible action films like this one. It was light on plot and heavy on action. Lucy Liu's high kicks were a sign of the times, but her origami is Japanese and she is Chinese. I think this was part of a theme of appealing to the lowest common denominator. An action film without much plot has an Asian actress, so she must know martial arts and origami, right? Same with the motorcycle chase. It seemed more like a decision to include a motorcycle chase at this certain time than anything motivated by the plot. The camerawork was great and everything looked fine, even if it was edited very quickly. Production value was great, but writing and directing really fell through. I rate this shit because normally, I would have turned it off as soon as I figured out what it was. I'm currently watching "worst"s, so bring me the biggest dung heap of a film possible. DO NOT WATCH!

Bad Santa 2 (2016)

A British Canadian American crime comedy directed by Mark Waters, starring Billy Bob Thornton and Kathy Bates.
Thurman Merman is still attached to Willie, but Marcus and Willie's mother bring Willie to Chicago to crack a safe for them. Thurman follows him there to find Willie playing Santa again.
This rode the original's coattails and relied too heavily on foul language and sex jokes. It wasn't bad, but it was no longer unique. The first film had introduced the novelty of bad Santa and that's all there should have been. Thurman is no longer funny and there aren't as many truly funny parts because it's all just swearing and sex humor. I know that was part of the first film, but what about when Willie beat up the teenagers or put the ski mask on to enter Thurman's house? Granny was a joke just by being there! I really don't feel the need to write too much about this. If you liked the first, you might like the second. If you REALLY like the first (like I did) you probably won't like the second as much. I rate it o.k.

Prom Night (1980)

A Canadian American slasher horror directed by Paul Lynch, starring Leslie Nielsen and Jamie Lee Curtis.
A group of children accidentally kill a girl while playing a game and swear to never tell anyone. Years later, it is prom night and there is a killer around. Also, someone is calling the (now teenaged) kids who killed the girl.
Terrible. This was the same as every other slasher flick from when the genre was invented until now. There was 1 surprise in the ending, but everything else was extremely predictable and stale. There was also the same song of insipid disco music playing for about half an hour straight. I rate this bad. Do not watch!
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Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

A German British American French Canadian Australian action film directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, starring Milla Jovovich.
Alice finds that she has a time limit to reach the origin of the zombie apocalypse and release an antivirus.
Total fucking shit. This is competing with Ben-Hur and Some Kind of Monster for worst movie ever made (self-reference cliche). It starts out alright with a recap of the story and into a fight with a giant bat or moth type monster. Then you realize that the editing is too fast for your eyes to follow. I'm talking like single frame cuts at 60fps here! Once you realize that you will never be able to process what is happening, you also realize that the plot is almost vacant. Hero woman has to get somewhere in a time limit and stuff is in her way. That's all there is. I rate this shit because I want the past 1:38:04 of my life back. I really wish that I could sue these horrible filmmakers for time. I would be immortal with all the crap I've seen.

On th Road A.K.A. Sur la route (2012)

A French British Brazilian Canadian American drama directed by Walter Salles, starring Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams, Elisabeth Moss, Kirsten Dunst and Viggo Mortensen.
An aspiring writer has an interesting friend. They wander around popping bennies, drinking liquor, sharing sexual encounters with women, speeding when they drive and hitchhiking.
The premise sounds good, right? At least interesting. Unfortunately, it didn't go anywhere from there. That was it. Most of it looked good. There were a few too many handheld shots for my taste (hand holding is for romance, not movies). The characters were relatively good. Much more memorable than those from 1980s Chinese kung fu flicks. There was a really good musical performance at 1:40:32. The jazz vocalist onstage is either speaking a foreign language or using nonsense words. That's really all I have to say about this. I rate it o.k. because the subject matter was good, but the plot was seriously lacking.

Death by Metal (2018)

A Canadian music documentary directed by Felipe Belalcazar.
The story of Chuck Schuldiner is related. He forms a band which goes through troubles and lineup changes.
This was informative, but basic and stuck to the VH1 "behind the music" form. I admit that making a documentary about someone 17 years after they died is difficult. There were interviews with band members, family members, managers and journalists. These all stuck to the single tripod camera format. Just 1 more camera in this setup would have made it way better. There were some pieces of footage featuring the band and old interviews, which were the best part in my opinion. There were also some motion graphics sections which looked a little forced. As far as Death being death metal, I think that another of my drummers said it best "bobo thrash metal" - Chris Dalcin. Although it does border on death, black and prog attributes, it's basically old Sepultura style. The rhythm guitar palm mutes the lowest or second lowest string and plays whatever notes go with that over it. If you don't know about Chuck and Death, but are into metal, watch it. If you were listening to Sonic Insanity when Chuck died (like I was) you can skip it because you know all of this already. I rate it adequate.

My Bloody Valentine (1981)

A Canadian slasher horror directed by George Mihalka.
A crazed miner kills people on Valentine's Day.
Pretty lo-fi, but worth watching once. The plot and writing were stale and the audio and video were a little on the trashy side. That being said, this avoided some mistakes that I see newer, more expensive movies repeat over and over. There was very little underexposure. Even inside the mine where it was dark, I could see everything. There was actually some overexposure in the mine produced by light and film combinations not matching or looking realistic. The acting was alright. I'm not saying it was great, but the folks at TROMA could learn valuable lessons from this film. There was a plot twist at the end which did nothing to advance the story because it was over 2 minutes later. I would call this an exact middle point for the slasher genre and rate it o.k.

Munich (2005)

A Canadian American drama directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Ciaran Hinds, Matthieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler and Geoffrey Rush.
A team of assassins try to kill a list of men for political reasons.
Political intrigue is less interesting to me than watching paint dry. I didn't care about the characters or the plot. Neither was able to hold my interest at all. I only made it to an hour and 46 minutes of the 2 hour 43 minute duration because I let it play while I was writing music theory notes. The only thing that I found remotely interesting were the contraptions made by one of the team members. One of them was a pressure sensor to go in a man's bed and activate a bomb when he was laying on it. In accordance with my turn off policy, I rate this shit. Do not watch!

How to Be Deadly (2014)

A Canadian Comedy directed by Nik Sexton, starring Donnie Dumphy.
A motorcyclist hangs out with his friends and competes in a motorcycle tournament against his rival.
I found out about this because Donnie Dumphy wrote the "Cold Beer" song that I was obsessed with a cover of, performed by Jesse Stewart. The film itself is more along the lines of Slacker (1990) and a little bit like Mike Leigh "slice of life" dramas, with just a little bit of Clerks (1994). This is good. The camera-work and production were better and more creative than what I see as it's influences. The opening scene of riding the motorcycle through town was filmed in extremely creative camera angles. I can't even figure out how something with a crane on it kept up with Donnie on his bike so smoothly. The characters seemed real, like I've known people like them real. Their dialect was authentically Canadian. As wrong as the dialogue in The Mummy (1999) was, this was right. I was disappointed in the ending, but otherwise thought it was great. I rate this awesome. Watch it!

When You Die as a Cat (2015)

A Canadian documentary directed by Zoran Maslic.
A poet left Bosnia because of war and moved to Canada, where he opened a restaurant.
It's difficult not to compare this with Zoran's other film, Annoying. This was not as good. The pacing was very slow and the interviews seemed a little too informal. It was very clear that the film was a portrait of Goran Simic, the poet, but I expected more to happen or some deeper meaning to be revealed. Way too much of the camera-work was handheld, which added to the informal style of the film. Audio was good, with subtitles even when people were speaking English. I can't really compare ratings by other critics because Zoran made sure that his website is the only place where this is mentioned, besides a vimeo page where I watched it. Overall, it seemed slow, uneventful and informal. I rate this o.k.

Curtains (1983)

A Canadian slasher directed by Richard Ciupka, starring John Vernon and Samantha Eggar.
An actress intentionally gets admitted to a mental hospital to do research in order to play the part of a crazy woman. The director does not have her released as agreed and invites other women to be cast for the part. Someone starts killing people, as always.
Another crappy movie... An hour and 26 minutes seemed like a long time. I don't think the plot was clearly communicated. There were dreams, imagination sequences and missing time, none of which were clearly identified. Characters were pitiful, except the female lead and she was just barely 3 dimensional. The dialogue was not written all that well and the acting was not bad, but not good either. Sets and costumes were pitiful too. "We got this ugly mask, let's write a plot around it!" Camera-work and editing were actually not too shabby. I liked the scene when the woman gets out of the car to examine a doll in the road. Good framing and composition were seen in various areas. The ice skating scene also looked good. There was some special effect blood, as with most slasher flicks. Audio was mixed decently. I would have raised the dialogue just a tiny bit. The soundtrack piece for the ice skating scene was very much of the time. This has 5.8/10 on IMDB and 60% tomatometer, 39% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. 52.3% average is just slightly low. I rate it poor, mostly because it failed to hold my attention.

Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)

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.