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Reviews
Red Lights (2012)
What?...At least we got some good performances from DeNiro, Murphy, and Weaver...
Movie has a pretty good concept and starts off pretty well. Weaver is an aggressive researcher in the field of parapsychology. So much so, that she devotes much of her career to investigating and debunking supposed phenomena. Murphy is either a senior graduate student assisting her, or a doctor in his own right (though it's kinda unclear). Deniro is the 'antagonist', a celebrity psychic that has returned to the spot light after years in seclusion. A cat and mouse setup and a logistical thriller are teased, the middle kinda flounders and loses momentum and then...well then everything falls apart.
You see Murphy's character, Buckley, is revealed in the finale to have all the powers that Silver displays in his sham act. Now this raises a million questions as to the motivations of characters and events earlier in the film! Not in a good way. Buckley even demands to know of Silver in the finale, "DID YOU KNOW! DID YOU KNOW ALL ALONG?!". I dunno either! DID he?! It makes no sense either way you slice it. If Silver knew all along then HOW? Or at the very least WHY? Did Margaret know all along? The flashback sorta suggests it. What the heck is going on? It's revealed that all the paranormal phenomena was in fact caused by Buckley (Murphy). Does that mean he killed Margaret? Was there supposed to be a scene that got deleted that revealed Buckley was at Silver's show, accidentally caused the heart-attack in the audience member that frightened Silver and made him disappear? That would make some sort of sense, and provide how Silver eventually discovered Buckley, explain the parallel to Margaret's 'psychically induced heart-attack', and what his investment in this sham to draw out Buckley was exactly...I guess. Yet, the finale exposes that he had NO INTEREST in exposing Buckley's abilities and he kinda seems like he was unaware of them and frustrated that Buckley ruined his show. He tried to have Buckley KILLED minutes earlier! WHAT THE HECK was the plot to this movie?! If Silver was unaware of Buckley's powers, knew he had defeated him, why was he focusing on him and willing to have some goon murder him in the final act?! If he WAS aware of Buckley's powers, why did he have some goon attempt to murder him in the final act before he could demonstrate his powers?! Why was he so angry when Buckley DID demonstrate his powers in front of a massive audience? I thought he was going to smile and Buckley was going to realize he had fallen into Silver's trap and been 'exposed' as a true psychic. See, that would have been clever, cause it's an entire reversal of the movie which is exposing shams. But then the sham exposes the real thing! Too bad movie didn't go there...
This movie irritates me a lot, because it easily should have been much better, and the reveal in the finale makes no sense...even though it easily could have...
Murphy psychically broke into his own home, and then f'ed it all up while he chased a phantom down an alley? He KNOWS he did this. Ungh...
Despite the abominable pacing and atrocious plot, Murphy is magnetic as ever and Weaver and Deniro turn in nice performances. There is an ancillary girlfriend character who has no impact on the plot. Perhaps she was supposed to be a red-herring in some version of this script? A plant of Silver's? I dunno, her character is pointless as well as the one student that got roped into analyzing a bunch of video feeds frame by frame. Their one contribution is an AHA moment...that doesn't effect the plot in anyway as Buckley is already marching into the theater to confront Silver after his brutal beating.
Even when I'm trying to say something nice about this movie, I can't help but touch on something else irritating I haven't touched on already!
Let's try again. Weaver, Deniro, Murphy = awesome. Concept = awesome. There! I said something nice without a mountain of negative qualifiers!
Leviathan (1989)
At Times an Enjoyable Alien/Thing Ripoff
This movie takes a couple good sci-fi horror concepts and tosses them into a different isolation scenario: the bottom of the sea floor. I remember loving this film as a kid, but it hasn't aged well. The sets will look somewhat familiar, and I imagine they are reworked assets from Alien. The setup is pretty decent, though point for point straight from the Alien plot. The mid part of the movie is a kinda shoehorned homage to The Thing, though it never really finds it place and ultimately gets abandoned in the third act where it's a strict creature feature. The third act is really the worst part of the film. The editing is a mess. The 'creature' is alternately portrayed by several completely different animatronics/costumes. Exactly what is happening in the action sequences is unclear and the obvious differences between the 'creature' every cut reminds one of those old B&W movies where some director has cut in unused footage from an earlier movie to finish an existing one. It starts strong and gets weaker as it goes until the fuzzily end capped by the hero flimsily tossing a grenade in an open maw with an "Open wide MF'er!" as he dons his floaty. This movie is unabashedly a cash-in, but it works for the first 2/3s. It gets obnoxious in the final act.
The primary barrier in the movie is that the crew are trapped on the sea floor. Implosion threat is mentioned several times. For a movie that features deep sea pressurization as a plot point, the filmmakers didn't really think through the escape in the third act. All those characters would have died messily from explosive decompression, or at the very least been in the throws of dying of the bends. This may seem like a minor complaint...but it is a major plot point in the film.
Misfits (2009)
Nice Concept, Execution All Over the Place
This is an enjoyable show, if you take it for what it is. A lot of people compare it to Heroes...favorably. That is both against the show's intention and the reality of the two face-to-face. This is not Heroes. Take this as you will. The setup is pretty sloppy, as British TV shows are want to do, but there is actually something good going on here. The idea and the plotting are there...but the acting and execution are seriously indie. It feels like none of these people have ever acted in anything before. It feels like the director doesn't know how to frame a scene correctly. It feels like the actors themselves have no direction and are faking half their lines. Despite these factors, the plotting is solid and the concept is solid.
The primary turn-off to this show is that all the characters suck. You can't empathize with any of them! Nathan is the focal point of this series, yet the actor is a huge ham, playing a character that is a huge ham. Awful. It's like asking Jim Carrey to play himself x10. It's simply obnoxious.
This could have been a great show, but it suffers in execution. The clever plotting and characters are there...but most of the actors are awful hams and don't play right on the screen.
The Collection (2012)
Missed Opportunity. Awful Film
Wow. To start, I am a huge fan of The Collector. This film has no semblance to it's precursor. It is the worst, laziest pantomime of a Saw film bordering on parody. The editing is abysmal with nonsensical smash-cuts in the action sequences that will make your brain hurt. While The Collector definitely lacked in the logistics department, it more than made up for it in direction, framing, tension, mildly clever visual metaphors and the pivotal plot elements. The Collection dumps all that out the window and goes for a straight up poor man's Die Hard. The setup is beyond paper-thin, the characters unsympathetic, undeveloped, and uninteresting. Goddard must have had to push pretty hard for this to get green lit...but I don't understand why. This was clearly phoned in, rushed, uninspired and no care taken in it's development...yet a third film is teased in the epilogue.
Freak Dance (2010)
Fantastic dracumentary that's not afraid to take a breather from the serious bits and have some fun.
To be frank, I had never heard of UCB. After watching this film, I can honestly recommend UCB as one of the better modern dance troupes. I enjoy everything from Jabbawockeez to Fanny Pak, but my true passion is for QUALITY dance of ANY style. Ned and Mindy Grenlovitz slow dance the hell out of the floor of Paddy's Drinky Hole every Sunday at 10 pm. Though they probably have no idea who I am, I just want them to know I know who they are. And that I'm always watching them -- just like you should always be watching this movie!
LOL, I just realized how WEIRD that sounded! I didn't mean Fanny Pak, I meant Super Cr3w.
V/H/S (2012)
READ THIS Review before purchasing VOD/itunes - Spoilers
I had heard a lot of hype concerning this film through Bloody Disgusting and was eager to get this VOD when I discovered it was available...this information again revealed by none other than Bloody Disgusting. After sitting through incomplete and poorly executed short after short, and as I try and figure out WHY this had so much buzz about it...the credits roll. Who's name do you think comes up a TON? Brad Miska! AKA Mr Disgusting, the guy that runs Bloody Disgusting. This film is definitely bloody disgusting but not in the way you think. I'm surprised Ti West was involved with this, though I don't care to know which segment was his as they are all awful.
Wrap-around: 30 something douchers acting like angsty pre-teens inexplicably move from assaulting couples for the purpose of filming boobs, to home invasion to find a VHS tape. We get into the group dynamic when a heated discussion arises whether they should grow their brand from filming boobs to filming asses as well, which inevitably escalates to someone smashing a TV with a bat. Let it be known, that it's strictly boobs -- and stealing creepy tapes -- from here on out. They have no idea what tape they are supposed to take in a home filled with 'creepy' tapes. Why are they still there?! There are way too many tapes to take. They are all strange. They have no idea what they are looking for. Let's sit down and watch some of the strange tapes? How will that help you find this needle in a haystack. The most poor thing about this wraparound...is that we never discovered the tape they were looking for that might have shed light on this clumsy setup.
First Tape: Definitely the strongest, though it ended very weirdly. I thought the girl was some sort of feral cat-woman. The story plays this up pretty nicely...and in the last 30 seconds throws that all out the window revealing that she is full-on vampire with bat-wings...sigh. I will reiterate that this is the strongest tale.
Second Tape: Some newlyweds(?) go on a boring roadtrip. Of course they must record every minute of this tired, banal odyssey. If you think the level of contrivance for why the camera is running is high at this point, just wait for the reveal...
Third Tape: Awful. Kid's go to lake to get high and screw and get massacred. The 'twist' is that one of the girls planned this to lure out a madman that had killed her friends years ago. The second 'twist' is that he's paranormal and can't be filmed. The third 'twist' is...I dunno. If the first part of this short is a mess, the third act is the inevitable mindless lobotomized result.
Fourth Tape: Nothing in this one makes sense. It also isn't scary. The characters are all annoying. I can't believe this even survived the cutting room floor and made it in THIS horrible anthology.
Fifth Tape: The finale! The tale is pretty lackluster and seems like a student film project focusing on CGI effects work.
Did I mention that the wraparound ended before the fifth tape was even played? Sloppy at every step.
Good one Brad Miska, you conned your entire community to make a quick buck on your crappy film. No wonder you concealed the fact that this was your aborted baby while punching it up all over Bloody Disgusting for months.
Veep (2012)
Promising Premise and Stellar Cast Somehow Culminates in Unsatisfying and Uninteresting Whole
Julia Louis-Dreyfus hasn't seemed to be able to find her comedic footing post-Seinfeld. She's a beautiful funny woman, but she doesn't seem to wait for the right project to come along with competent snappy writing. Sadly, "Veep" will not be turning this trend around. Matt Walsh and Tony Hale, two extremely funny guys, can't find anything to latch onto within the stale script and are unable to save any of the juvenile writing.
The writing is the real problem. The plotting is rather a 'plodding' experience. The setups are inane and uninteresting. The show is so AWARE of this fact, as it exposes again and again by trying to punch up scenes by simply inserting random vulgarity. The Veep and her staff drop unwarranted F-bombs ALL the time?! Get it?! That's ALMOST a joke, which is about as close as you can get to something funny in an episode.
21 Jump Street (2012)
Out of Left-Field Comedy Riot
First and foremost, the script and direction is phenomenal. All the absurd setup contrivances are winky jokes in themselves. The real surprise in this film are Hill and Tatum. Hill hasn't been funny since Superbad, and Tatum...what can you say about Tatum? I know the ladies like him, but he has about as much screen presence and engaging delivery as a moldy log. The chemistry between Hill and Tatum is astonishing, surprising, and enjoyable to watch. Hill seems back in comedic form, and it was fascinating to watch Tatum be something more than a 1 dimensional card-board cut out. Amazingly, Tatum carries just as much of the comedic load in this film as Hill. AND Hill is actually funny again, though he does fall-back to his mumble schtick a couple times.
Rob Riggle totally owns his character in his signature style.
The movie teases a sequel, which I am excited about, but 21 Jumpstreet 2 seems a bit of an unwieldy title...
Penumbra (2011)
What can I say...
Lots of attention to framing and setting up the tension. Very Lynchian in it's oddness and almost slapsticky change-ups. Reminds one of Twin Peaks. This part of the film works. The actors deserve some note for quality performances.
What doesn't work is the story. It's a mess...and it's stupid. You will hang on for the clever reveal that is never forthcoming. You wait 90 minutes for essentially a 'just because/contrivance for contrivance sake' explanation which does not pay-off whatsoever. The epilogue is meaningless and absurd as well.
Engaging cinematography, good acting, nonsense story. I personally detest slow burns that tease a twisty reveal and fail to deliver. Despite the good production and skillful execution, at the end of the day your 90 minutes are wasted.
Super (2010)
Complex Concept, Good Actors, Awful Execution...
No spoilers. I liked the concept of this film. I love all the actors in this film. They are all very talented and have all demonstrated great range in really demanding and polar roles...but theme and tempo and mood are all over the place and the film is always hitting the wrong notes at the wrong time. I know some people will say this is 'indie' and it is intentionally this way. That somehow managing to totally f'up a thematic continuity within the story and failing to ever establish an emotional report with the audience so that the black (and somewhat gory) humor can work in this sappy story framework is some sort of artful post-modern rejection of cookie-cutter cinema. It doesn't work, and that is not the message that is conveyed. What is conveyed is that Gunn had NO IDEA which way he was going with this film.
It's as if Gunn couldn't decide if he was going superficial camp with a deeper message or dark and maudlin with a bunch of cheap emotional gut-shots. It gets really irritating and these two opposing factors really take you out of the film.
That's not even mentioning the surreal vision elements that I don't believe are even referenced in the last 40-50 minutes of the film...
Good concept. Good Actors. Real mess of a film.
Final Note: Ellen Page is beyond irritating in this.
5/10