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Bald (2009)
1/10
The Worst Movie I've Ever Seen
5 March 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Finally, after years of watching hundreds of movies, I'm happy to now have one movie to point to as the worst I've ever seen. Don't get me wrong, there are movies with worse direction, production, writing, and acting, but none that tied everything up in a perfect little bow of crap.

The plot: A college student who is going prematurely bald is failing out of college, so he needs $50,000 to bribe the dean to change his grades. So his stoner buddy, who has made several videos popular around campus, starts with him on a porn website. Girls flock to them for jobs, and the site is wildly successful and they make millions. A commercial comes on TV which the parents of the girls see, and they go to campus for revenge, and receive their comeuppance.

Now just a few things about this so-called "film":

-The main character is obsessed with his receeding hairline, which everyone laughs at, but never once does it cross his mind to put a hat on. -The movie's got all of the token characters (token Black guy, token gay guy, token chubby guy looking to belong, etc.) but gives none of them anything funny to say or do. -How exactly would he know the dean will fix his grades for 50 grand? Why wouldn't he just bribe the professor of the class he's failing (which I assume would cost him a lot less)? -The stoner buddy is famous for his wildly popular videos, yet we never see footage from any of them, and don't even have any idea why people like them. -The main character has an internal monologue occasionally, which plays out on screen so you have two characters just staring at each other for about half a minute while he spits out some unfunny garbage in his head. -The stoner buddy says with confidence that he's found that guys will pay $2,500 on the Internet to watch a naked girl. Yeah. -They go through the paces of the pedestrian plot at breakneck speed, probably because they have no original thoughts or funny ideas you have to slow down for. This results in the whole "parents show up for revenge" story to play out over a half hour, when really it should've taken 5 minutes.

It's a dumb college T&A comedy which isn't even dumb enough, nor does it have enough T&A to even be watchable. I never thought I'd see the movie that makes Bikini Carwash Company look like Citizen Kane.
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88 Minutes (2007)
5/10
A movie Pacino could've gotten away with a decade ago
30 November 2007
Warning: Spoilers
"88 Minutes" seems to have a lot going for it; a great leading man (Al Pacino), an interesting premise (Pacino as a man whose targeted and given 88 Minutes to live in connection to a man he's put on Death Row who stands to be executed), and a competent supporting cast (Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, William Forsythe, and the underrated Neal McDonnough.) So what went wrong? First off, at this stage of his career, Pacino's a little long in the tooth to be playing the womanizing professor. He also seems a little sluggish, not delivering the spark he's delivered previously. It would've been interesting to see him in this role around the same time he made "Sea of Love," a thriller that turned out much better than this.

The other major flaw is the final act. After building suspense (even though they telegraphed the eventual "mastermind", IMO) the film's last 10 minutes are a train wreck, with the carefully though out and interesting characters reduced to one-note caricatures, especially McDonnough, who is turned from a cunning manipulator to a Snidely Whiplash style stock villain at the film's conclusion.

But the acting is competent, if not great (William Forsythe delivers the goods in his limited time,) and the journey of the story might be worth the substandard final destination to you.
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El padrino (2004)
1/10
A Total Misfire from Beginning to End
3 November 2007
Warning: Spoilers
A little while ago, I stumbled upon this DVD while browsing Netflix, and with such an impressive cast, decided to give it a go.

Never before have I seen a movie try to be a new version of an existing great movie (Scarface) and failing so spectacularly.

The main issue seems to be a complete misunderstanding of what the story should be. In Scarface, Tony Montana was the self-proclaimed "bad guy." His spectacular rise and eventual downfall wasn't sad, it was a great (and the only logical ending) to someone who lived such a life.

Damian Chapa, as director, writer, and lead actor, sees Kilo as some sort of hero, or at least a complicated guy. However he doesn't want to do the grunt work of creating a realistic, sympathetic character. He was raised by a white mother, except for the six months of his childhood where his father, a gangster himself, showed him his life. For reasons never fully explained or even really mentioned, he decides he wants to be a drug dealer, and actually drives to the bad part of town, approaches two dealers and says, "Hey, I'd like to buy some drugs." He drops his father's name, and in apparently no time they are not only rich, the two guys who are supplying him are acting subserviently to him for reasons, again, never explained.

Chapa wants you to feel bad when his character is sentenced to prison when a police informant lies about him. However, since he's dealt large quantities of drugs before, why should one feel sympathy for him going to jail for it this time? The most obvious case of Chapa wanting to be the good guy is in his prison execution of a White Supremacist/rapist played by Gary Busey. In Scarface, Tony Montana kills someone in prison because he pretty much has to in order to elevate himself, it's done, he moves on. But in this case they ham-handedly have to make Busey not only a rapist/pedophile but also a White supremacist. A little overkill, don't you think? I won't go into detail in this regard too much more, but their desperate message of "PLEASE LIKE ME! I'M A COMPLICATED GANGSTER!" fails on every level. Try as they might, I didn't feel bad, conflicted, or sympathetic when his buddies are killed (following a shootout), his wife is also killed (shortly after she called him out on being a lousy father, and during an attempted escape when he decided it'd be OK to ride right next to a car filled with gunmen while his wife is in the car), and his eventual demise.

Suffice it to say his acting can be fairly summed up as lousy, his only achievement bringing the term "wooden" to starry new heights. Busey should be credited for actually putting effort into his ridiculous role. Tiny Lister did well. Stacy Keach is playing his warden from Prison Break role. Robert Wagner is coasting for a paycheck. Faye Dunaway, while a touch dramatic, still turns in a performance better than this movie deserved. Brad Dourif is in the film for about two minutes and does what he can. And to give the film credit, it does one-up Scarface in one way - Jennifer Tilly now holds the title of "Most Ridiculous Attempt at a Hispanic Accent." (Sorry Robert Loggia.) In short, this movie had an interesting premise, but a poor story arc, unsympathetic characters, and hit-or-miss performances. I'd advise Mr. Chapa to ease up on the forced sympathy next time - really, we don't need to like your character, we just need to be interested. Better luck next time.
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