culmo80 Reviews

Black Sails (2014–2017)

Binge-Worthy

[9/10 · 15 May 2017]

At first glance, Black Sails is just another offering of sex and sadism in the tradition of Game of Thrones. Stick with it and you'll find the show moving past that. This is definitely a show that will suck you in.

If you don't know, Black Sails is a semi-historical story about the pirates of Nassau, but it is also a loose prequel to "Treasure Island." As such, you'll follow John Silver, Captain Flint, Billy Bones, and other characters from the novel as they earn their fierce reputations from the book. These fictional characters interact with historical figures such as Jack Rackham, Charles Vane, Edward Teach, Ned Low, and Woodes Rogers. It takes an unflinching look at life in 18th century Nassau, London, Carolina, and Philadelphia (and other locations). This show neither glamorizes nor vilifies pirates, colonial governors, and others. They are all shown complete with virtues and flaws.

The cast is excellent, as are the plot and character development. You are pulled into each episode wanting to know what happens next. Of course, if you know history and/or if you know the story of Treasure Island, you pretty much know how the story ends for some of these people (whether they make it or not). That said, the show takes creative license with many of the historical characters and events.

Spoilers:

In the first season or two, but especially in the first few episodes, the sex and nudity are absurd. Everyone is having sex with everyone, all the female characters are bisexual (with one or two exceptions), and the sex scenes are over the top. Fortunately, this is faded out and the show focuses on characters and plot, thankfully.

I did feel the romantic relationship between Flint and Thomas was a bit contrived, and it was done to be culturally relevant in modern times. I also felt the resolution to Flint's story was silly--that he'd find Thomas alive and well, but as a slave laborer in Georgia. Of course, this very well could have been lie told by Silver to appease his wife. But if this was the actual ending, it is hardly a happy one. Life as a slave laborer or an indentured servant under those circumstances wouldn't be happy in any sense. And it's unlikely the overseers--in those times--would have allowed a homosexual relationship like that to exist.

There are other aspects of the show that took liberty with history-- but I didn't mind them so much. In some instances, the fiction is better than the reality.

Many of the actions that Flint did were done by others in real life. -The 1715 Treasure Fleet did sink in a hurricane, of which the Urca di Lima was a part. The Urca itself allegedly wasn't carrying treasure. Anyway, pirates did raid the survivors camp and carry away a sizable fortune--but it was Henry Jennings and Charles Vane who led the attack.

Charleston was blockaded by pirates, but it was Blackbeard who did it ... and he didn't raze the city afterward.

Black Bart Roberts did allegedly take revenge on royal governors after they hanged pirates.

Charles Vane did escape Nassau when the royal navy arrived and he did use a fireship to escape. However, he never returned to Nassau. He was deposed as captain by Jack Rackham and was captured on Jamaica were he was hanged.

Blackbeard's historical end, I think, is far better than the keel- hauling he endured in the show. Blackbeard fought two royal navy ships in Okracoke Sound. He is said to have endured dozens of stab wounds and had been shot several times before finally going down. That said, keel hauling was a real-life punishment used by all sea- faring men of the time ... and the results were horrible.

Woodes Rogers was indeed imprisoned after his first stint as governor, but he returned later, albeit in ill health and he died shortly later.

Ned Low, who was killed early in season 2, actually outlived all the fictional pirates, being killed in 1724.

Jack Rackham, Ann Bonney, and Mary Reed were all caught and put on trial. Rackham was hanged, while Bonney and Reed claimed to be pregnant and thus were saved from the noose. Reed died in prison, while Bonney disappeared. It is thought that she died of old age.

One thing is true though. After Nassau was closed as a pirate port, piracy fell into decline. While it still existed well into the 19th century, it never had the same threat/prestige as it did from 1650- 1720.

Allied (2016)

Disappointed

[5/10 · 28 March 2017]

I was curious as to how this movie would play out. I enjoyed the film, but I was disappointed with the ending. With a different ending, I could have overlooked a lot of the other flaws. (Obviously this will include spoilers).

The story is somewhat basic--two operatives on a mission fall in love and get married. Then, one of them is revealed to be a spy for the Germans, though a reluctant one at that. Half of the film is devoted to developing Pitt and Cotillard's relationship. It starts with a thrilling mission in Casablanca and ends with their eventual marriage, birth of their daughter, and Pitt's humdrum life as a desk officer in British intelligence. The second half of the movie revolves around Pitt being briefed that his wife is a German spy and that he must cooperate in a "blue dye" operation to know for sure. Over the course of three days, he must act normal and go along with the operation. Pitt is told that if she is found to be a spy, he must execute her immediately, or they will both be executed. But he loves his wife and he wants to prove her innocent, so he goes to great lengths to get information ... only to find out that she is indeed not the person she claimed she was. But she loves him and she was only cooperating with the Germans out of coercion. Pitt decides to spirit his family out of the country (in a single engine plane that couldn't have taken them anywhere useful, except maybe Ireland) but they are stopped and Cotillard, knowing her husband won't pull the trigger, shoots herself after confessing her love and telling Pitt that he must take care of their daughter. The end of the film is the verbal reading of a letter Cotillard wrote on her last day with her family (she knew she'd be caught).

This ending really left a hollow feeling in me. It would have been better if Cotillard had somehow been saved. Indeed, there is historical precedent that the movie ignored.

The whole "you must execute her on the spot!" thing was contrived. The British routinely turned German agents into double agents. Only the most hardened of spies who refused to turn would have been executed, and even then, most were imprisoned. Cotillard would have eagerly agreed to work as a double. It would have been a nice ending if she passed fraudulent reports to the Germans in the lead-up to D- Day, thus "saving the day."

In reality, by the time D-Day kicked off, all of Germany's spies in the UK had been rolled up (either executed, imprisoned, or turned), so the whole notion that Cotillard's character would have been working for a German network is pure fiction.

It's also fiction that Pitt (who is in his 50s) would be a "field man." At his age and with his rank, he would have been a senior officer working out of England, not parachuting into Morocco.

And if Cotillard was suspected as a spy, Pitt would have also been investigated. He would not have been told to go along with this scheme. Why? Because of what we saw in the film. He would have been emotionally compromised. Therefore, the first Pitt would have heard of this would have been when she was arrested and he along with her. They would have interrogated him and ensured that he wasn't a witting accomplice.

It was later stated in the film that the ambassador they assassinated in the beginning of a film was actually a dissident whom Hitler wanted killed. If so, Hitler would have just recalled the man and executed him in Berlin. He would not have allowed some long-odds intelligence operation to go forth in which he'd lose a number of SS and Abwehr officers. In short, there would be easier ways to get an agent into the British network.

Anyway, I wanted to like this film better. If they had given it a happier ending, I would have. I thought the whole "Allied" title might be a nod towards how a husband and wife are allied together.

Terminator Genisys (2015)

Totally Unnecessary

[4/10 · 20 June 2016]

I like Arnold. Even though most of his movies are kind of dumb, I still enjoy them. But Terminator Genysis really is bad.

While Terminator Salvation wasn't great, it at least didn't make time travel the central theme, like this film. In fact, this is the first film to adopt the "Back to the Future" zaniness of time travel as part of the core plot. Time travel was simply a means to get the main players on the stage in the first three films, and the fourth dealt entirely with the war between humanity and the machines. No, this film has our main characters going backwards, forwards ... ugh....

Yes there are spoilers below:

The first problem with this film, in my mind, was the lead for Jon Connor. Nothing against the guy who played him, but he just didn't fit. I don't know what it is, but I couldn't buy him as the leader of the resistance. I have no idea who played the adult Jon Connor from T2, but that guy at least looked the part. Surely, they could have found someone better.

Anyway, what happens in this installment of the Terminator series is a total unraveling of everything that came before. In a bad way.

While it was cool to see the final future battle and the use of the time machine, that's where it kind of went off the rails. Apparently, Skynet knew immediately when it sent the "first" Terminator through that it failed. So, somehow, it was able to send through a few more terminators ... all of which would end up failing as well. So then it decides to take control of Jon Connor's body and then send him back to jumpstart Skynet in 2017. Honestly, it's getting to be that Skynet is a B-horror movie monster. No matter how many ways you kill it, it will just return in some absurd fashion in the next sequel!

I will say that I enjoyed the 1984 part of the film. It was fun to see them recreate the original in so many ways. But aside from that, there were so many odd moments of forced humor (Bad Boys song during the mug shot sequence? This isn't 1988). And the plot just got to be so so weird. And that's where it fell apart:

Since Sarah and Kyle are stuck in 2017, that means Jon Connor can never be born without them returning to 1984 ... unless this film intends to totally do away with the character entirely, replacing him with Kyle Reese as the guy who somehow saves humanity. Either way, it renders Sarah Connor irrelevant as well.

If Skynet (in the beginning of the film) knew the T-800 would fail, it then sends over at least one T-1000, and a T-3000 (or whatevr). Why not just send those in the first place?

JJ Simons character was really forced. Yep, it just happened to be one of the cops in 1984 LA who encountered Reese ... and 33 years later, he happens to be a detective in San Francisco ... because of course he was.

If "Pops" was able to get on the construction crew for the new Cyberdyne building, wouldn't he be somewhat aware of the "secret" basement where Skynet's core really was (as shown in the mid-credits scene)?

Etc etc etc

Miami Vice (2006)

You either love Michael Mann-directed Movies or....

[4/10 · 5 May 2016]

Whenever Michael Mann is directing a movie, his films suffer from the same problems (usually). Heat, Public Enemies, and ... Miami Vice.

He never quite develops the characters in a way that the audience knows (or even cares) who they are.

The dialogue in most of his films ... what is wrong with it? The dialogue is so subdued that you can barely hear what they're saying part of the time.

The plot ... it just sort of meanders.

Great music, very stylish scenes, good acting ... but in typical Mann fashion, all that gets muddled by his directorial style.

Freetown (2015)

Better Than What These Reviews Say

[6/10 · 2 May 2016]

First, I'm not a Mormon. I'm not from Africa.

I watched this film the other night and while it's not great, it's also not as terrible as some of the bigots on here claim. Yes, this is a religious film, which is why some people hate it.

But the film shows the struggles of people during a time of civil war and uncertainty. The acting isn't bad--it's not great, but it isn't bad. I felt the tension was well done, and the story is one that any human being can identify with.

Freetown is especially relevant today as many parts of Africa are in conflict. Everyone's worried about what ISIS is going to do, but they don't realize that Boko Haram has been wiping out Christians and Muslims alike and there's hardly a peep in Western media.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

JJ Abrams is overrated

[6/10 · 9 April 2016]

I was pessimistic when I learned JJ Abrams was going to be taking on Star Wars. While he was "successful" in the reboot of the Star Trek films, he seems incapable of directing a film without a contrived plot that is about as coherent as something written by a 5th grader.

Okay, I had no problem having Finn crash land and run into Rey and BB-8. It's everything after that. Amazing that the Millennium Falcon just happens to be on the same planet in the same village that these two need to escape from. Amazing that they get picked up in space by non other than Han Chewy. Amazing that Han and Chewy decide to take them to the same backwater world where there is a wise ... individual who just so happens to have Anakin/Luke's lightsaber. Yeah, I get it, the Force works through everything, but come on. This isn't the Force at work. We've seen this sort of collection-of- coincidences-equals-plot in the Star Trek reboots. When looked at with a critical eye, this sort of plot is about as sturdy as a cardboard box in a hurricane.

The rest of the story was pretty simple. There's a giant planet- destroying base (quite original) and it's going to destroy the Resistance. This is the third such super-weapon plot device in the Star Wars franchise. They've ceased to become impressive, especially given how easily they are destroyed.

And the characters? Han Solo ... the best you could do was make the hero of the Galactic Civil War reverting back to a smuggler? It's like his character did absolutely no evolving in the 33ish years since we first met him at that cantina. Rey was fine, but I think we all sort of can predict her future. Why not giving us her full name or showing us who her parents were, that means you're hiding something. I wouldn't be surprised if she is a Skywalker. What a great story to pit two descendants of Anakin against one another? Finn. A bit over the top, and it didn't necessarily fit in with the Star Wars universe. They should have toned down his character a bit. Kylo Ren. Not bad. I think everyone was expecting a Vader clone and we got a guy who is still learning. Captain Phasma. Who? Everyone got excited about the chrome stormtrooper. All she did was walk around issuing orders and then get taken prisoner. That stormtrooper with the shock stick thing was more of a bada^^ than Phasma. General Hux. Definitely not on par with previous villains. Too young. They could have cast a much older actor and the role would have done better.

I'm glad that Abrams ISN'T running the next installment. Maybe we'll get more story--a more complete story

Standoff (I) (2016)

Flawed but Enjoyable

[6/10 · 25 January 2016]

Obviously this includes spoilers...

Here's a simple film that manages that keep tension throughout it's entirety.

Thomas Jane plays an Army veteran with a troubled past. That troubled past is revealed throughout the first half of the film. Jane and his wife were having arguments ... Jane promised to clean up the yard of junk ... their son tripped and hit his head on a piece of junk, dying in the process ... Jane's wife left him. Jane is planning to kill himself when the story starts. This is kind of a clichéd role, but Jane does play it well.

Lawrence Fishburne plays a hit-man/assassin who is seen killing a woman at a cemetery. He chases the little girl to Jane's farmhouse. Jane has a shotgun and holds off Fishburne. The rest of the film is the cat-and-mouse between the two actors.

The tension is well-done, and the acting is good.

The thing is, Fishburne plays arguably the worst hit-man/assassin. These guys are supposed to invisible, only killing their target. But this guy kills a priest, a bodyguard, an innocent guy (the little girl's uncle), a cop ... Who would hire this guy who leaves such a large body count?

The whole "getting a new lease on life" trope for Jane's character is a bit overdone, but that's okay.

Anyway, this isn't a film you list as one of your favorites, but it is one you'll enjoy watching. It doesn't try to be more than it is.

Gotham (2014–2019)

Enjoyable, though with some Flaws

[7/10 · 15 December 2015]

Yes, there are spoilers here:

I was skeptical about this show--who really wants (or cares) about Gotham when there is no Batman?

Well, the show is actually quite entertaining. It is definitely a police procedural/action show, focusing on Detective Jim Gordon as they work to solve the Wayne murders and the subsequent reaction by the city.

The premise is interesting: Thomas and Martha Wayne's murder essentially pushed the city over the edge so that all the "Crazies" came out. This is why the city will deal with all the super-villains in years to come.

The show does have some flaws. Any tension where Gordon or Bruce Wayne's lives are on the lines are flat. Nobody really believes that they're going to kill off the guy who becomes Batman ally and police Commissioner. And nobody believes they will kill off Bruce Wayne before he becomes Batman. The same goes for a few other main characters: Selina Kyle, Alfred, etc.

Still, the show has plenty of action, and it is fun to see the rise of future criminal masterminds like Penguin, Riddler, and others.

I do feel like they might be introducing too many future villains so early on. If Bruce is around 14 in this show, we've got to wait at least seven years or so before he can become Batman. At the rate we're going Penguin, the Riddler, Victor Zsasz, and all the others should have come and gone. I wonder if they shouldn't have held off on some of those characters, or introduced an older Bruce Wayne.

At any rate, whether this was done intentionally or not, the show has several points where you can almost see Batman swooping down to save the day, only for the criminals to get away. The camera angles at certain points show a bad guy about to kill a guy and a looming tower behind him. If it were a Batman movie, you'd see the Cape Crusader gliding down to take care of the criminal.

Anyway, the show is a lot of fun. It definitely provides a fresh and interesting take on the Batman universe.

Now You See Me (I) (2013)

I Wanted to Like This More

[6/10 · 25 August 2015]

Now You See Me is a fun movie that keeps you interested until the end. The cast is superb and the acting is great. The premise is an interesting one, but the big twist at the end really ruined the movie for me.

Spoilers:

It's obvious from the first scenes that there is a mystery man behind everything in the movie. You, the viewer, are left to guess who that is. They really push you into believing it is the female Interpol agent, but that really was too obvious. You might also think it was Morgan Freeman, but it's Mark Ruffalo, who is the head of the investigation into the heists.

There were many coincidences and perfectly-timed events that had to happen for the movie to play out like it did. For one, before Ruffalo's character set all these things in motion, how would he know he would be the lead for the investigation? During the whole movie, his character does things that are inexplicable if he was really the master magician behind everything.

Yes, you can explain away his persistence in trying to catch the 4 Horsemen in that he wanted to test them, but other actions don't make sense, like getting drunk at a bar after a failure to catch the thieves, or browbeating the female Interpol agent because he "believes" she's in cahoots with the 4 Horsemen. This twist just seemed too forced. Like the writers really wanted to surprise you, so they make it impossible to ever suspect Ruffalo's character. The result is that you feel cheated. This isn't an ego thing, I enjoy a good twist, but it has to be reasonable, and it just wasn't here.

At other times, you really have to suspend your disbelief for the movie to work. Franco's character happens to escape a certain way just when an FBI unmarked car pulls up. He later escapes by having an identical car set up on the Brooklyn Bridge. In order for this to work, they would have had to know the exact make and model (and color) of the FBI car that would be pulling up at the complete other end of the building. I hate to feel like I'm overthinking the writers, but I think they overthought the movie. Keep it simple and this movie would have been a lot better.

Twixt (2011)

Muddled and Incoherent

[3/10 · 26 July 2014]

I feel like this movie was filmed on the first draft of a script. There were good ideas and an interesting overall plot, but...it was just too disconnected to make a great movie - or even a good movie.

Val Kilmer did a good job in this role, as did Bruce Dern. The rest of the cast did just fine as well.

The special effects had that sort of artsy feel to them - which is short-hand for low budget but dressed up in a creative way.

Anyway, the plot consists of Kilmer's character on a book-signing tour. His character is a drunk and his home life is in turmoil. Dern approaches him with an idea for a new story involving death, vampires, and a a few other interesting tidbits. After that, the movie takes a turn for the worse.

Long confusing dream sequences interspersed between odd directions in the plot...

The introduction of a convincing Edgar Allen Poe as a dream guide was cool, but everything else was just too weird. I know it was trying to be clever and artsy, but it failed to do even that.

The ending was just a mess that made no sense.

Unless you don't have anything else to watch, just pass on this movie.

RoboCop (2014)

Eh...had promise but...

[6/10 · 21 February 2014]

It didn't quite deliver.

Here's my breakdown of the film:

Alex Murphy is done well. The rest of the cast do a good job in their roles, though I swear Samuel L Jackson has stopped acting and just has become a parody of himself. Every time he came on screen, I thought we were getting a Capital One commercial. The roles of the doctor and Officer Lewis are reversed from the original. In this version, the doctor (Oldman) gets probably more screen time than most of the supporting cast combined, which is fine. Gary Oldman always delivers in his roles, but what is lost is the dynamic between the two partners that we had in the original movie.

The armor is updated; much sleeker, and Robocop is a lot more athletic. No more clunk clunk clunk as he plods around. Robocop can run, jump, etc. It's a nice update to the 80's version.

Michael Keaton shouldn't be cast as a bad guy. He's only done it well once before (Pacific Heights) and he just didn't do it here.

Speaking of bad guys...there isn't a central villain in this film. For hero films (super or otherwise), it is the villain that really makes the story. In the original, you had Clarence Boddicker, who was awesome. Then in the 2nd movie, you had Kane, who was fantastic. (The third Robocop film was just terrible). But there is no real main villain here. Sure, Murphy is blown up by the criminal Vallon - but Vallon has so little to do with the rest of the story, he's just a side-thought, and his death is so anti-climatic that you will miss it if you blink. Keaton - as already mentioned - just doesn't deliver as a villain.

I know, I know, the real conflict is if Murphy still has his humanity, but come on...nobody goes to see Robocop for an existential journey. Give us a good villain!!

The plot isn't too bad, and there's plenty of action (nothing like the original though). But the plot gets a bit murky at 2/3rds of the way through. So after Robocop kills Vallon and takes down the corrupt cops, he is shut down remotely and then they decide to "kill him" because...I think, because he killed one of the corrupt cops? But Gary Oldman saves the day and prevents the "termination" of Robocop, and then he proceeds to explain "everything." Robocop storms out and says "you lied to me!" But what was the lie?

It was almost like there was some other element that got cut from the film. Perhaps Murphy's injuries WEREN'T that serious and he could have lived a more normal life? That would have been more in keeping with the original films. But we don't get that. We just get that Robocop is mad because he was lied to and then he goes off to kill Michael Keaton.

The final scenes are great and terrible. It's great as he battles the super-robots guarding Omnicorp's headquarters and then has to get by Mattox. Great action, great choreographing (I know, CGI, but still, enjoyable to watch).

But the climax on top of the building....what? We just learn that anybody with a Red Chip is off-limits to Robocop. The Red Chip (dot, whatever) is one of the first rules established in the film, and it is literally reinforced only about 3 minutes prior to Robocop using sheer will to violate his 4th directive. How? How is he able to shoot Michael Keaton? I felt like they could have done something creative here. Remember in the first one when he killed Dick Jones after he was fired by the old man? That worked great.

What's also missing is the humor. Sure, Samuel L Jackson provides some, but it runs dry quickly and honestly, it is repetitive.

All in all, this isn't a bad movie to watch. If you were a fan of the original, you'll enjoy seeing the story retold, but this doesn't improve on the original.

Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)

Eh...

[4/10 · 29 October 2013]

I wasn't a huge fan of the first movie, but I was hoping they would have done better with the sequel...and they didn't...its just more of the same.

The plot doesn't really make much sense; so Heather and her father (Sean Bean who somehow DIDN'T die in the last movie despite dying in just about every movie he's in) move around to avoid a cult that has developed in Silent Hill and they want Heather back because she is apparently the key to their salvation.

Not a bad premise, but the execution was sloppy and things just happened for random reasons or no reason at all. For instance, Heather finds herself in a storage room where people are turned into mannequins and is confronted by a spider-like creature that is made up of mannequin parts. Creepy, yes, but what was the point? Having not played the video games, I assume that the spider-thing was in the game at some point?

The funny thing is that the main villain in the film (called the Missionary) is destroyed, not by any of the heroes, but by another Silent Hill monster while the heroes just watched.

I will say I did like the Dark Alessa character; she was very powerful and the portrayal was well-done. Too bad her character was put in this movie though...she was wasted here.

Anyway, there were a few moments of suspense, but they weren't enough to obscure a shallow plot.

This is another example of how video games seldom make the transition to movie with success.

Sleepy Hollow (2013–2017)

A Very Enjoyable Show

[8/10 · 29 October 2013]

I was a bit skeptical of Sleepy Hollow when I saw the previews for it, but being a fan of supernatural/horror-themed fiction, I decided to give it a chance, and I'm glad I did.

Sleepy Hollow is about Ichabod Crane who fought in the American Revolution, killed a Hessian Horseman (by beheading him) but was himself mortally wounded. He awakens in modern-day Sleepy Hollow to find that the horseman has returned. While this story may be familiar, there is a new and interesting twist...the horseman happens to be one of the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse. Crane is paired up with police LT Abbie Mills, who has a checkered past of her own as the two seek to discover the truth behind Crane's past (his wife was part of a coven of witches), and the horsemen.

The show is fun to watch, plain and simple. The plot is fast-paced, full of mystery, and grounded in myth and some history too. The acting is better than you might expect for a first-run TV show that is competing against other great shows in a loaded fall lineup.

The show definitely has some spooky, scary moments. The atmosphere is wonderful; from fog-filled woods to old churches and underground tunnels, contrasted with stark, bright asylums and police departments.

It's not a perfect show obviously; the history is a bit loose with facts. For instance, at one point Crane states that "the battle of Lexington was planned here." Well, Lexington is several hundred miles away from the Hudson Valley, and the battle fought there was a chance meeting between local militia and a surprise British expedition to collect weapons. So, there's a little history thrown in, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. However, it doesn't cause the show to unravel as the main focus is the supernatural aspects.

I think there is enough material here to keep the show going for a while. You have the two covens of witches, the horsemen, and a whole host of other obstacles for Crane and Mills to deal with. What's also good is that even if this show has spectacular success and multiple seasons, the show itself can only run for 7 years...much like how Breaking Bad had a predetermined limit (Walt's cancer) to keep the show from running past its prime.

The Tall Man (2012)

Horror Movie With a Heart of Gold....

[4/10 · 28 October 2013]

While I appreciate the premise of this movie, the execution and overall plot failed.

Jessica Biel did a fine job in her role, and the other acting was good enough.

What should have been a suspenseful horror movie turned out to be a big social statement.

So basically, Biel's character has been secretly kidnapping children to put them in better homes, while the parents are heartbroken at the loss and they all blame it on "the Thin Man," which we learn is just a myth. Biel is caught and she becomes a villain who confesses to murdering the children and will spend the rest of her life in jail. It also turns out that her husband was not dead, but has been part of a secret network of agents to relocate children.

And we get a few speeches about how the rich get richer and that causes children to suffer or something...you get the idea. So that makes it okay for these people to go around kidnapping children out of failing towns to relocate them to other families. Because sure, that won't lead to some mental scarring and much-needed psychotherapy later on in life.

What I didn't really buy was that Biel had to stick around after she delivered the last child. She could have easily escaped and no one would have been the wiser that there was this international child- kidnapping ring. She could have gotten a new identity and lived happily ever after with her husband. And why did the nanny decide to hang herself? I get they were trying to sell the whole "these people are actually child-killers" plot twist, but in the larger scheme of things, it made no sense. If you are working for the greater good, what sort of guilt or shame do you have that drives you to suicide? Just stupid.

Now, for the moral of the movie. Who gets to decide what is best for the children? Who gets to say what constitutes a good home or not for the children to go to? Is this simply taking poor kids out of poor homes and handing them over to wealthy families? Yeah, that's not elitist at all! There will always be poor people, regardless of any sort of social experiments you try. Poverty is like bad weather, it's not going anywhere. Not even a massive conspiracy to kidnap children from their families can solve that.

Insidious (I) (2010)

Breath of Fresh Air for the Hollywood Horror Industry

[7/10 · 20 September 2013]

This is a fun horror film to watch, mostly because its not the same crap that gets pawned off as horror these days. When we've had more than a half-dozen Saw movies (and I am aware that the same people made this movie), and other such flops, its nice to have a horror movie that doesn't rely on blood and gore.

Even though it was very clear to the audience that the house itself wasn't haunted, I liked that fresh approach. The entities were all creepy, but they also weren't required to have all that much on screen time to do their work. The visit to the Further region was cool; weird but also spooky.

The acting was sub-par at some points, but it wasn't too bad. The special effects were pretty good.

My only complaint is that the movie was sometimes too dark that it was hard to see what was going on. This could have been the provider (Fear.net)hadn't optimized the film for presentation, but there were points where I figured it was supposed to be scary, but I had no clue what was going on.

Anyway, I enjoyed this film. Hopefully it and others like it (such as the Conjuring) are a sign of things to come from the movie industry for the horror genre. There are predictions that the era of the blockbuster is coming to an end. Maybe that will mean Hollywood will focus on making good movies instead of expensive movies.

Fail Safe (2000 TV Movie)

The Original Was Better

[6/10 · 29 August 2013]

The films are nearly identical in terms of plot, pacing, and scenes, but the execution is slightly different.

The movie is set in the 1960's at the height of the Cold War. It's actually weird to think that there are now living adults who were born AFTER the Cold War, so I don't know if the mindset of those times can ever be known by future generations. Looking back, of course a nuclear arms race is madness, so its easy to see why a film like Failsafe catches on with certain crowds. The central theme of the film is that humanity was/is playing with fire. Nuclear weapons are a threat to all humanity and it only takes one mistake for the worst to happen. That mistake happens through a series of events, any one of which could have been corrected of prevented. What follows is a tense blow-by-blow of trying to correct those mistakes and prevent even worse tragedies from occurring. This is told from the point of views of a bomber crew, the men at NORAD, the Pentagon, and the President. All the actors do a good job in their roles; there are no villains in the film. Everyone has justifiable reasons for their actions.

My complaints are that the role of the doctor was either intentionally or mistakenly watered down. In the original, Walter Matthau played an incredibly smart and pragmatic expert who actually makes good points about nuclear war. I felt like the doctor in this one was made to be a farce and a punching bag for the Left Wing.

Anyway, this version of the story is good, but not as good as the original. Its still full of suspense and it has that cold realism that most thriller films lack.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Entertaining...but not perfect

[7/10 · 21 August 2013]

The thing I didn't like about the first film (by JJ Abrams) was that I felt like I was missing out on a lot of jokes because all the Trekkies in the theater were laughing at various points of the movie that didn't seem funny at all to me. I'm not a Trekkie; I've seen the older movies and a few TV episodes, so I felt like I was witnessing a bunch of inside jokes, which seemed to be much of the first film.

This time around was much better. Abrams is done introducing his version of the new universe and gets down to storytelling, albeit not as effectively as he could have done.

From the original films, my favorite was Star Trek II. I loved Khan as a villain and I loved the sacrifice of Spock and I loved the space battles between the Enterprise and Reliant. So I was looking forward to this film.

I wasn't sure how Khan would do, played by a scrawny British guy, but Benedict does a fine job playing a more brains vs brawn Khan.

The problem with the film comes when you think about the plot too much... From the bombing in London onward, everything seems to happen simply as a plot device and without any real rationale behind it. I'm willing to believe that Khan couldn't get into the secret labs and had to coerce someone else to go in there and blow it up. But why would he personally attack the meeting and risk being killed or captured? Wouldn't history's smartest psychopath find a way to eliminate all those individuals in a more efficient way other than in a hovercar with laser cannons? Why would he teleport to the Klingon homeworld? Wouldn't he want to continue his war against Admiral Marcus...who was on earth? Again, this seemed like just a plot device so they could introduce the 72 special torpedoes and then the USS Vengeance.

I was hoping for a good space battle, but you'll notice that the Enterprise fires exactly ZERO phasers or torpedoes in this film. It just gets rocked by the Vengeance. It would have been more satisfying to see the two ships duke it out.

Anyway, plot holes and blatant plot devices aside, the film is good and does manage to make you care about the main characters and you do enjoy watching Khan really dominate his adversaries.

I just wish Abrams was a better storeteller. So much of this film depended on convenient plot devices that really aren't explained. For instance...Marcus could have had Khan doing covert operations on the Klingon homeworld or something, which would explain why he went there. You get the idea.

I also wish he would use regular filming techniques over the lens flare and the zoom-in blur effect...if I wanted to watch a home movie...I'd do just that.

This is a film worth seeing and paying money for.

The Purge (I) (2013)

Cheap Political Statement rather than a film

[4/10 · 21 August 2013]

Whenever someone makes a movie that is first and foremost a political statement, it won't be good, unless of course you think the message is right.

The Purge is a left-wing view of they see people who believe in individual liberty and the right to self-defense. Obviously, gun ownership is evil and only leads to more violence... Throw in some jabs at greedy Wall Street and this is essentially what this movie is.

Even without the annoying political statements, the film is a let-down. Spoilers ahead!

First, even common sense will tell you that the entire premise of this movie is deeply flawed. Crime is at an all-time low because people get to kill one day a year? Do the writers even know what the motivators are in crime? Somehow, rape, robbery, murder, and other crimes just decline because people can kill without criminal prosecution? Right! Look, the premise is interesting, but come on, put some more thought into it. People won't stop stealing just because they can murder at will one night...and murder wouldn't cease to exist because most murders are not meticulously planned out...they occur in the heat of the moment, either through rage or surprise (think a spouse murdering his/her spouse during an argument or after finding them cheating; or consider a robbery gone bad). Second, the idea that having one day a year where murder is legal will somehow keep unemployment down makes no sense. Unemployment is not a fixed number, it is related to the size of the population and there will always be unemployment regardless of the population size. When you consider the homicide rate now for a year you'll find it much higher than anything that could occur in a 12-hour span in one night. So if anything, the population would skyrocket and there would be MORE unemployment.

As for the plot itself, it was very basic. A family is besieged in their house after the son lets in a homeless guy running from crazed killers. The crazed killers are of course pros at entering a house and have all the right equipment and know-how...oh, and they are apparently trust-fund babies or something. There's a bunch of killing and at the end the homeless guy saves the day, which was about as predictable as it gets. Oh and throw in a brief subplot where the daughter's boyfriend is hiding in the house and tries to kill the Dad, but he is shot and dies...and that's it for that.

Plenty of plot holes though. So, they have this security system that they only need for one year...yet the entire family (at least the son and dad) know the security code by heart? The son deftly enters the code to let in the homeless guy. Sorry, but in 8 years, we'll have more security codes and passwords than we can remember and there's no way the family will know it by heart when they only use it once a year.

And what is a homeless doing in a neighborhood like that? They make a point several times in the film to say that they live in a very safe area...presumably without any homeless people. Are we to believe that the killers chased the guy miles and miles to a posh neighborhood?

Then there's the trust-fund hit squad. They're all wearing creepy masks (for the cheap effect of creeping out the audience) but for anyone who remembers Halloween masks...they're very difficult to see out of...much less stalk your prey and commit murder in. And they're experts at breaking into fortified houses? Their special equipment consists of some Ford F-150s and chains? Really? Just what did they attach the chains to? The steal plates didn't appear to have any convenient hook points, so...? Plus, how did they rip off ALL the steel plates? There were only two trucks and it would have taken a while for them to get to each window...probably several hours, and you can't tell me that the ENTIRE house was accessible to vehicles that had enough room for the trucks to maneuver in order to pull those plates off. I mean as a home-security expert, the Dad should have known that the best way to prevent someone from entering your home is to limit the number of approaches and entry points. For instance, you don't allow someone from the street easy access to your entire house from the outside. You put up fences, you plant trees, you make it very difficult for someone to get in. I'm sure their house would have been a tougher nut to crack than we saw.

I hear they're going to make a sequel to this movie...great, another series of bad "horror" movies that get pawned off to the public.

Don't spend money on this movie...watch it on TV or see it on Netflix or something. There are better films in the genre than this...way better.

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Only a few Redeeming Parts of this Movie...

[4/10 · 20 August 2013]

And yes, they involve the women wearing tight-fitting or revealing costumes...

That said, there's little else in the film that makes it good. The plot is about as complex as something you'd get out of elementary school. The acting is minimal; Milla Jovovich likes her character, but at this point what else is there to say about Alice? The rest of the cast does an adequate job. The action is almost non-stop, but its all been done before. Even the creatures are all re-treads. The setting is a mishmash between the first and second movies...with a slight, but minor twist.

Spoilers:

The plot is essentially that Alice has been captured and needs to be saved so she can save humanity...oops, that's not it exactly, but everyone knows that if they have seen the other films in this series. We're told that Alice can help find the weapon. Of course Alice has to fight her way through the maze of the under-ice base (which the Umbrella Corporation took ownership from COBRA after GI JOE defeated them in the first GI JOE movie). Wesker somehow survived, and is now a good guy. He sends a team to save Alice, most of whom end up dying as is usually the case. The big "shocks" of the movie aren't the zombies or the super-creatures, but the appearances of previously-dead characters. As it turns out they are just clones. There's some attempt to make the scenes where they all meet cool, but you just end up not caring. They might as well be masked faceless goons who die by the dozen in every shootout. Speaking of which...it always amazes me how the main characters are impervious to bullets (except when a character needs a convenient wound).

The best part of the movie is the last 3 minutes or so when we get the glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel for this series...though we've been fooled before. This is a series that could have - and should have - been wrapped up about 2 movies ago. I mean think about, the first film set up the world of Resident Evil, the second really displayed the new Alice...the third film should have been Alice being the savior of mankind or something...instead we've had a series of plodding movies that lose all their value after a few minutes of boredom and "been there, done that."

This film isn't worth buying or paying money for. Rent it on Netflix or watch it on TV. If it weren't for Sienna Guillory in her tight blue catsuit, Milla Jovovich in her tight black bondage gear, or Li Bingbing in her revealing red dress, nobody would have watched the whole thing...which is why I gave it a 4...for the eye candy.

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Eh, Not Bad for an Action Movie

[6/10 · 19 August 2013]

Entertaining but predictable.

I like action movies, but I also can only suspend my disbelief for so long and in so many ways.

First, this movie is your typical action film with thin characters, lots of shooting, lots of fighting, and lots of explosions. In that, its enjoyable. Gerard Butler is a decent action star who is believable as the tough guy who saves the day. Morgan Freeman was rather flat...he pretty much just mailed in his performance in this one. Aaron Eckhart is good in the role, even though the President in this film is somewhat one-dimensional.

There is absolutely zero character development in this film. There really is no conflict between Butler and Eckhart's characters, even though that is exactly what is built up in the first 15 minutes or so. Similarly, the conflict between Butler and his wife is simply there for filler and does not feel authentic.

The rest of the plot (and spoilers are below) is predictable and full of holes.

For one, okay, Butler got reassigned to a desk job at Treasury...which apparently requires a pistol and extra magazines. Right.

Assuming the North Koreans got an AC-130 gunship into the United States...where would they launch it from? And in the post-9/11 world, no aircraft would get that close with only 2 fighters intercepting it. Certainly not an aircraft of that size. Also, when fighters intercept a plane, one flies alongside to get visual with the pilot, while another fighter trails behind, so as to take out the bogey should it display hostile actions. Anyway, the AC-130 scene was just a harbinger of things to come.

So a massive ground attack on the White House happens with a small group of North Koreans overtaking the Secret Service. So...where were the Marines? I didn't see one Marine at all. And to even get a truck that close to the White House, you'd need to go through a check-point that has physical barriers that can't just be plowed over...so the dump trucks, buses and armored cars would have been stopped cold on 17th or 15th street...causing a traffic jam.

But nobody gets in the White House with a weapon...not a visitor, not the security detail of a foreign dignitary. The Koreans wouldn't have made it into the bunker with weapons - and they wouldn't have made it in the bunker period, despite the President wanting them in there.

The rest of the movie is predictable. Butler kills off the Koreans one by one, the Koreans do bad things, the Pentagon is hapless in trying to resolve the situation, and the President goes from being tough with the Koreans to giving in.

In the end, everything is resolved with the Koreans dead and the President okay. What's not resolved is the near-state of war that was brewing on the Korean peninsula. Oh, and there's no way you can "recall" 20,000 soldiers with all their equipment. A draw down of that size would take at least 90 days.

Anyway...its a fun movie if you can turn your brain off. I did laugh at several points, mostly because what I was seeing was so unbelievable.

Contagion (2011)

Frightening...Because Its the Most Accurate Portrayal...

[8/10 · 18 August 2013]

I think people were expecting some "ticking clock" thriller where the heroes rush to find the cure at the last minute and save the world from a super-plague. There'd be chases and dramatic lab scenes where the hero scientists rush against time. Except that's not how it would happen, if we were to experience a pandemic.

There wouldn't be some lone scientist who has the cure, we wouldn't be saved at the last minute, there wouldn't be some happy ending where we all breathe a sigh of relief...there would only be death and waiting.

This film does a pretty good job of capturing how a pandemic would happen, and how it would affect everyone. The movie tells the story through the eyes of various people; from a head doctor at the CDC, a representative from the WHO, to a middle class guy helplessly watching the events around him to a blogger who thinks he has the answer.

The movie captures the anxiety and fear that would/will grip the world as we face a pandemic. Despite all our knowledge and technology, we are still vulnerable to disease, and this movie captures that. It also captures the human element. How would the world react? Sure, early on we might be civil and brave in the face of the disease, but as the pandemic stretches on...and the death toll rises...survival becomes the paramount driver for every one of us.

If you're looking for an action-packed thriller, this isn't it. You will however be hooked as you don't know which of the main characters will make it (not all of them do).

By the way, we are long overdue for a pandemic...the last big one was the Spanish Influenza of 1918-1919...

Gods and Generals (2003)

Tried to do Too Much

[4/10 · 30 July 2013]

I'm a huge Civil War buff and I really enjoyed Gods and General...the novel.

Unfortunately, the film was just a rambling mess that tried to introduce too many characters and tell too much of a complicated war. This film tried to be a drama, a biopic, and a war film among other things. Had they just focused on Stonewall Jackson, the film may have worked, but instead, they tried to follow the pattern of Gettysburg by telling as many sides as possible. Trying to tell three years of history proved to be too much. The result was that much of the history was left untold and too many of the characters were given too little screen time to adequately unwrap them.

We don't ever see the important battles that occurred on the Peninsula, 2nd Manassas, or Antietam.

The portrayals of many of the important figures is well-done. Robert Duvall is a big improvement over Martin Sheen, Stephen Lang does a good job as Stonewall...but the performances aren't enough to make the film worthwhile. However, the dialog was very archaic and grandiose; there are long monologues where a character will pray or talk at length about something. I get that this is to impart the deep religious convictions, but its overdone and it become tedious.

I suppose you could watch the 5-hour director's cut...if you really want to sit on the couch for five hours.

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film (2009)

More of a Political Commentary Than a Discussion on Horror Films

[4/10 · 22 March 2013]

The beginning of this movie was actually pretty good; I enjoyed the discussion (albeit brief) of the birth of horror films. It got a bit muddled when it entered the 30's and 40's...I feel like they were trying to make too many political points where none really existed.

When it got to the 50's, that's really when the politics overtakes the discussion of the movies. This is partially because most of the directors grew up in or started directing in the 60's and they were all counter-culture types.

Normally when you watch a documentary about something, you get a full view, not an utterly biased piece of propaganda...

I'm sorry, comparing Ronald Reagan to Freddy Krueger as the scariest person in the 80's? Really??? Most Americans would disagree - I mean other than the staunchest leftists who see Obama as too conservative still hold any sort of vindictiveness for Reagan.

If you were looking for a documentary about how these films came into being or where the horror genre has been and where it's going...eh, you'll get a very thin layer of that. The directors they have in here spend way too much time discussing how important their relatively unimportant films were in establishing the political tones (who really looks at horror movies for politics?) and too little time actually discussing American horror films.

It would have been nice for them to discuss how British horror films influenced American horror films (Universal competing against Hammer for instance) or how authors like Edgar Allen Poe, Shirley Jackson, and Richard Matheson provided much of the fodder for the horror films in the 50's and 60's...other than a passing mention of Poe, there is no mention of any author other than Stephen King.

This is a poor attempt to document the history of the horror film genre. There are plenty of clips from films, but they are far too brief to really enjoy. Too little time is given to too many films for there to be any real depth here. Ironically, there is almost no mention of contemporary horror films that actually are worthwhile...namely independent directors and films that aren't just blood and gorefests.

Oh well! Don't bother with this.

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Just Bad

[2/10 · 16 March 2013]

Why am I giving this movie a 2 and not a 1? The first fifteen minutes or so are actually good. We get to see Laurie Strode battle it out with Michael Myers one last time.

The story of Michael Myers should have ended with H20, which while not great, at least added something to the story. So what do we get with Resurrection? Well, as with Halloween 5, Michael's "death" is retold to show that he didn't really die; that he in fact traded places with a medic, going so far as putting his mask on the guy after crushing his larynx...because, obviously Michael knew that Laurie would steal the ambulance and decapitate the body.

So Resurrection gives us the last battle between Laurie and Michael and ends with Laurie's death. Apparently, Jamie Lee Curtis would only reprise her role as Laurie if they killed her off...a rather smart move on her part because she could see where the franchise was headed.

After this 15 minutes, the movie has no point. Busta Rhymes and Tara Banks (I really don't care enough to look up their character names) are looking for a pay day and decide to host a live "ghost hunter" show at the Myers house on Halloween night. They get a bunch of college kids to enter the house and explore it all night. Predictably, they all split up and are murdered by Myers. Here's the thing: the Myers house isn't that big...it's not like you could just spend hours exploring a relatively empty house. How do several people wander around getting "lost" in a house this small?

Oh and Busta Rhymes is in this movie...he's the next biggest "star" after Jamie Lee Curtis. There is no Dr. Loomis equivalent here; no real talent. I failed to mention that Busta Rhymes is - in this film - a karate fan, and he fights Michael Myers using his Bruce Lee moves...yeah, that's actually in this movie.

Probably the most cringe-worthy part was the ending, after the two survivors have burned down the garage with Myers inside. Busta Rhymes and the girl that survived are interviewed by the media and it was just so terrible. Then there is the part with Rhymes mocking the burnt "corpse" of Myers.

I don't know what else there is to say about this film. It shouldn't have been made. It didn't need to be made. Even if there was a poll of fans who wanted Myers to return, you don't necessarily have to do what "fans" want. Certainly, fans didn't like this movie, and no one else did either.

Halloween: Awakening (2012)

This isn't a full production movie.

[4/10 · 10 March 2013]

This is a low-budget "sequel" to the entire Halloween franchise (minus the Zombie reboots). It's also under an hour long...

The actors are all amateurs, which means the acting is pretty low- budget.

The blood and the effects are minimal, and the plot line is rather basic.

The location looks like it was filmed on a college campus or something.

They pull off Michael Myers decently-enough, though it's little more than just an actor in a costume with similar acting abilities as the other characters.

The only really good attribute of this film is that it claims to bridge the two divergent story lines (those being Halloween 4, 5, 6 and the storyline that is presented in H20 and Resurrection). While this is somewhat true, this is only done in a 5-minute monologue by an actor who does a rather good job at channeling Donald Pleasence where he explains how both story lines can co-exist.

I wouldn't add this to your collection of Halloween films. Still not a bad effort for such a low-budget project.