Change Your Image
Astanax Knight
Reviews
Paranormal Survivor (2015)
Lynn's Lake House Season 2 Episode 13
My wife has been binge watching this show on Netflix or Amazon Prime, one of those two. She has subtitles on, and all I see in between the talking captions are, "Foreboding music" and "Eerie music". I just happened to pass by when on this particular episode of "Lynn's Lake House," someone mentioned they all went downstairs to try and collect more evidence. That person then said while downstairs, they all saw something moving on the porch and an investigator decided to take a photo.
This caught my interest, being a photographer by trade. It showed a cropped image of a woman appearing in her late twenties, early 30s in old fashioned clothing on what looked like a raised porch that required steps to get up on. She was lit up from the bottom, and was semi transparent. Then the program showed the rest of the image, and a man's semi transparent head, lit up by the same light from below, was also seen in the uncropped photo. It was as if the man was trying to position the off camera flash for the "ghost". They then passed the "photo" around the kitchen table, just showing the white backs of what were to be oversized photos, without showing the actual photos. Then the reenactor, I guess portraying Lynn, the namesake of the episode, said how that was indeed Aunt Helen, and how she owned that house for sixty years and didn't want anyone in it. I could of sworn that I saw the same man from the photograph sitting at the table while they were passing the photo around.
I was saying aloud, "If this is supposed to be the actual photo, then this is definitely not Aunt Helen!" My wife then turned to me and said, "Well, it is a reenactment of what happened!" I told her, "One of the investigators for the show took the photo. It is supposed to be of Aunt Helen in ghost form on the porch. Why must they need to recreate the photograph? Are they needing a signed model release from Aunt Helen? Is her ghost going to have her lawyer sue them for using her likeness in this episode?" It was then that I saw the reviews here of the extreme lack of evidence and decided to add my own review.
The Dark Horse (2008)
Not what the official plot reads
My wife loves Friesian horses and dressage competition. So I went to a particular rental kiosk that seems to be so popular and found this movie for rent. The official plot was that a Ballet teacher from Seattle goes to Orcas Island in Washington State to win a dressage competition with a Friesian horse. This is supposed to save the farm, and I rented the movie believing that this was the whole basis of the film.
The characters in the beginning were cold, and the only likable character was the father with dementia. There was a lot of drama in the beginning with family members not talking to each other. I didn't mind a little back story, but got this solely as a horse movie. It wasn't that. Instead, there were a lot of out of place songs with out of place stock footage of nature scenes and a painfully slow storyline that dealt more with family issues than about a Friesian horse plot that takes up only a fourth of the movie's plot.
The plot centers more around a father whom has dementia and his grown kids come to their farm to find out that he owes back taxes for his wife's father's farm. The wife solely believes that the "wild Friesian" that she bought could be trained and rode in the dressage competition, while the dementia suffering husband believes he can save the farm with his invention that he works on throughout most of the movie. That plot about the Friesian horse was short lived, but if I heard right, the name of the farm was "Dark Horse Farms" during the announcing of the Ballet teacher.
This is not a particularly heart warming story. The plot ends at the family moving away from their farm, but at the end, as the horses and farm are sold, the family has mended broken ties. In seeing the scene of the husband with dementia kissing and loving his wife near the end, whom they talked about their marriage was "for better or worse", and about how they would never leave each other, I found it touching the heart of my wife and myself, whom mirror that husband and wife in the story. That was about the only heartwarming thing in the entire movie.
The Wonderful World of Disney: A Knight in Camelot (1998)
About the costumes
As I have read the above comment about costumes, I do have to say that the costumes do not match the time period (I forgot what Clarence said the year was, 750 I believe?). I am studying up on the 14th century clothing for both my illustrations in my book, as well as for my SCA garb. I saw the short tunics with the tights (Most notably with the acrobats), and also the armour. You're probably right that they are just spoofing some medieval movie (or the story of Arthur itself) with the full armour and costumes, but as a fan of medieval movies myself, it kind of gnaws at you about the historical accuracy itself. I like Whoopi anyway, so her performance was her usual self. This movie, in my opinion, parallels Martin Lawrence's "Black Knight" movie. I give it a five because I like Whoopi, and it's one of those movies that doesn't leave you stranded at the end. At least the sword fighting was not half as bad as this one medieval kid's movie (A movie so bad the name escapes me), where the child actor held the sword straight up and down while the henchman strained himself with every blow trying to get his sword past this child's perfect defense by holding the sword up and down, at arm's length no doubt.
U.S. Seals II (2001)
This film puts both Japan and the U.S. to shame
WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS, DO NOT READ IF INTERESTED IN WASTING MONEY ON WATCHING THIS FILM
Alright, it is Saturday, February 16th, 2002. I have just seen the movie "U.S. Seals 2" This film has it where U.S. Navy Seals have to infiltrate an island to stop a mad man from launching a nuclear warhead (As summarized from the back of the box). Sounds good, right? We got the best of the best, and we expect the best with the U.S. Navy Seals. One problem. The island was a Russian base that is now polluted with methane gas, and one spark or flame will blow up the whole island.
Well, that certainly did not stop the bad guy from smoking a cigar on the island throughout the whole movie. I was just waiting for one of those light bulbs that the actors were so hitting very close to with the swords to break, and see what happened. They were swinging on lightbulbs hanging down from the ceiling! And swords, if it was like how they were in real life, with all that banging and clanging, sparks would have been inevitable.
The first thing to clue you in that this movie was going to be cheesy, was in the first scene, they had guys moving their heads ever so slightly in a stealth manner, but with every head turn came a "WHOOSH!" sound effect, and when they moved their hands, there was a sword slashing sound, and nobody was even fighting! The sound effects plauged the rest of the film. You would have a guy walking, like alongside a wall, not making a sound.....then he turns his head, "WHOOSH!" And then he turns his head again, "WHOOSH!" Maybe it's just me, but the whole film did not amount to a hill of beans.
You can waste your money on this film, but don't say I didn't warn you. Some of the fighting sequences were awesome though I'll have to admit. If only they were used in the second Mortal Kombat movie... Anyway, that's my two cents.