twotrybe Reviews

Kin (I) (2018)

This is whpeople talk back at the screen cause it's terrible

[2/10 · 21 October 2018]

I never considered myself as one of the folk that talks back at the screen. After watching Kin, I must confess that I've joined the masses. Kin is a slow paced sci-fi flick of the most uninspired. The protagonist is a young black teenage boy who's in trouble at school and by extension, in trouble with his adoptive father played by Dennis Quaid. Why Dennis, why? He also has an older adoptive brother who just got out of prison and owes a lot a money to the local mean wannabe crime boss played by James Franco.

Now as we trod through all of this exposition, Eli, the young boy, stumbles across the aftermath of some battle with body a plenty laying across the floor. He flees the scene only to return and absconds with one of the weapons he attempted to take the first time. Once in his possession, he discover how it works. In the meantime, big brother is stealing money from his father's place of employment to cover his debt to the Franco character. his father is killed in the process along with the brother of the Franco character. There is a level of hypocrisy in that scene that is never explored while at the same time it's hackneyed and derivative.

So we fast forward and big brother has the cash and takes off with younger brother in tow in his father's truck and without a clear plan, hackneyed and derivative. big brother mentions another that he has contributed to the killing of hid father along with another man. What we get is a brother who just seems to defy logic and all common sense and this what's being the entire movie down and the reason for talking back at the screen. He takes $70,000 from his father's business and then proceeds to do some of the most bone headed things like he's a petulant kid.

He thinks that money is forever as he blows through it with drinking, getting drunk and blowing it on strippers and here is something really smart, leaves it behind after being tossed out of the strip club. He's joined by one of the strippers, Zoe Kravitz, in his unexceptional decision making while still having not revealed that his father is dead to his younger brother. Kravits is under utilized and is just a flaccid character that plays into the stereotypical stripper genre. He goes back to steal back the money from the strip club owner while the Franco gang is in hot pursuit to exact revenge on him for killing his brother and taking the money. Yeah, it's boring AF.

This was a really bad movie. The only action worth watching was the third act and that was about maybe 7 minutes worth and that action really wasn't that great action. And when we get to the end, there are still too many questions that leave unanswered. The young adopted boy is an orphan as it was established that the adoptive mother died years earlier. the brother is headed back to prison so what happens to the kid? The young boy uses the weapon to escape the bad guys and the two foot soldiers from the future has retrieved the weapon. And the synopsis for this film stated that they were fleeing from the federal government. They were not, just the Franco gang.

It took two people to direct this crap. Why? It wasn't a massive sci-fi blockbuster. And to be honest, it played more like a student film where someone who had a bunch of friends got together and made a bad film and it was made to their surprise. 3 out of 20 and that's being generous.

Searching (III) (2018)

Learned some new tips with Searching

[10/10 · 15 September 2018]

Sometimes the summer movie run of films is like hit and miss. Sure, the tent pole movies are the "big breasted" beauty queens hogging all of the limelight garnering every bit of attention and then there are the hidden gems all covered in dust waiting for you to spray a little Endust on them. Such is this marvelous little film called Searching. There is not one cliche moment in the film. John Cho flexes new muscle as a parent, an involved parent and widower to a teenage girl who has closed off a part of herself following the death of her mother. But we don't get to explore that initially. It is just one of the layers that is cleverly exposed as this thriller meticulously unravels to it's conclusion. It doesn't dumb down for a minute and if you don't understand search engine parameters, you'll learn a few things so the film gets a point or two for teaching you something and the film doesn't make you feel like an idiot if you don't know. There are other layers going on in this film that's ventured forth, social media constructs, teenage angst, isolationism, loneliness, to name a few and it touches on these things without taking away from the plot. Once the film gets going after the first act, you just don't turn away at all. There is a psychology to watching this film that ask why we can't turn away from the screen and perhaps it is because we have become an extension of out computer screen that makes this viewing a comfortable fit.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)

I wanted to bail on this film on more than one occasion

[1/10 · 20 May 2017]

Movie trailers are interesting. You as the viewer get to see a prospective film and be taken in by this 30 second or 60 second or even a two minutes and 30 second capsule of a two hour film. And when that time comes, you are sometimes rewarded fr your efforts and sometimes you are not. King Arthur had such promise with it's trailer and alas, it failed to live up to its promises. I went in expecting an action packed event but what I got was unnecessary expositions and a lot of unnecessary dialogue that bloated the film's running time. Let's assume we know the legend of King Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone. This version of King Arthur does that but with a twist, he passes out, not once, not twice but three times. This got tiresome the first time. When he grabs the sword out of the stone in front of the soldiers and the people, I was hoping for the first true action sequence to happen, sort of a medieval John Wick moment where he kicks ass sword style but that didn't happen. The film drags down and flat lines.

At this stage, you become frustrated because now we get to hear from the evil king, played by Jude Law. In this role as the evil king, Jude Law throughout the entire film looks like he has a frozen fart face and he has to smell his stinky farts for eternity. But he talks incessantly just to hear himself drone on and on. And he isn't the only one. There are other men in this film that just talk too much for no other reason other than to bog down the flow of the film. I wanted to bail on this film on more than one occasion. It seems as if the writer wanted to inject some contemporary dynamics of what a well rounded 21st century man should feel like. He must be in touch with his feelings. Please, spare me. This is the medieval times. They were brutal and vicious in war. You get a tamped down version of the brutality.

I've seen a lot of reviews on this film at this site and they give an inordinate number of positive reviews. I suspect that the film company who spent an estimated $175,000,000 on this film has hired film trolls to salt the reviews related to this movie. I can't believe the glowing responses this film has gotten because a lot of people didn't see this movie and this would be a statistically anomaly to have so many positive film reviews for a film that was marginal at best. I gave it a one star. Originally I was going to give it a three star review but after seeing these positive reviews, my suspicions came to the forefront. Like the old saying goes, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a film troll. Bottom line, they squandered a good retelling with way too much unnecessary exposition when it wasn't needed and the lack of action. Some good action comes at 1 hour and 21 minutes into this production. That's way too long. A film hero shouldn't be passing out three times before finally getting the hang of using a weapon. You'll lose the audience quicker than you think.

Life (I) (2017)

Typical tropes to a suck feast of a film

[1/10 · 1 April 2017]

If you like your logic inept and stupid, this is the film for you. On the other hand, if the logic don't make any sense, steer clear away from this movie. Life and Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal in this over wrought tale of space exploration. I'm surprised Ryan Reynolds is in this considering that he mocked the typical superheroes trope in his film Deadpool. Here, the clichés are derivative and hackneyed. Here is one, the captain of the crew is outside the space station with the creature attached to her and she knows she's going to die. So instead of pushing herself off and away from the space station where it can't do anymore harm, she lingers close to it where the creature slowly kills her and then her body floats away and the creature comfortably launches off her body and back to the space station.

And here is the atypical trope that's been worked to death in movies kike this, you have the scientist fiddling around with an alien organism where he names it and plays with it like it's a cute doll. But like all things small, it grows and it grows big. So why do we keep seeing the same thing over and over again? Is this the sci-fi rule where a scientist rule to treat alien spawns like Muppet babies that will one day grow up and eat your face off? Watching this was so frustrating. You can understand why people talk back to the screen because idiots make movies.

And here is another typical trope, the crew gets killed off one by one. We've seen this before in films like Aliens. And then there is the lone survivor. They make it so that it ends a certain way in order for you to want a sequel. I don't want a sequel, I want it to end. Don't do this again. That little mind play at the end with both capsules floating around in space only to discover that the one without the creature is hurtling off into space and the one with the creature is entering earth's atmosphere, not that surprising.

And why does the communication fails in these scenarios? You'd think that the communication devices were made by three year old's. And with all of the so-called experience this crew had, hadn't any of them seen a sci-fi movie where things like this happens with regularity? And why would the capsule land in a part of the ocean where the fishermen could see that there was something on the guy and yet they still open the capsule and he was screaming at the top of his lungs, NO!? No and huh are universal languages. And yet they figured out how to open a space capsule without any problems.

This is a stupid movie, this is an inept movie, this movie insults astronauts, this movie insults scientist, this movie insults movie goers, this movie insults the integrity of film making, this movie insults the genre it falls under. I ave it one star because that's the lowest I could go. I wish a could have gone lower, like a -100,000.

Gray (I) (2015)

Craptastically Crappity Crap Crap

[1/10 · 28 January 2017]

So I lost one hour and 12 minutes of my life watching this crap.t.a.s.t.i.c.a.l.l.y crap.c.o.p.o.l.o.u.s crap.m.o.n.g.o.u.s crap.t.o.p.i.a crap.o.l.i.c.i.o.u.s crap.p.i.t.y crap.a.g.e.d.d.o.n crap.t.i.v.a.t.i.n.g crap.e.r.b.o.w.l crap.c.i.l.i.o.u.s crap.t.a.g.o.n crap.s.a.c.i.o.u.s crap.b.l.i.v.i.o.n crap.c.e.n.t.r.i.c crap.a.l.a.m.o.d.e crap of a movie. All logic is thrown away. You get to the point where you root for the killer because these people are just dumb as crap.z.i.l.l.a! Nobody screams when they are in peril. There's no drama when they find the first body, it's like they just walked up on a guy taking a nap. The former sheriff throws away all training and becomes a dufus. The former boyfriend wants to play vigilante hero by sabotaging the trip, the killer does something physically impossible to a victim by shoving a large pipe wrench through a guy's mouth and it comes out the back of his skull, it's just not logical and impossible to do by a HUMAN, the killer gets shot at least 7 times and yet he gets up a live just like Jason Voorhes, by the way, he wears a mask too, the former boyfriend is supposedly killed but he wakes up in the middle of the woods alive and yet the police are called after one survivor is left and somehow the police never walk the grounds to find anymore victims or they just conveniently forgot about him but the killer doesn't because he's a Jason clone so he kills the boyfriend and the film ends. What a crap.p.a.l.o.o.z.a.

White Girl (2016)

A Film With No Redeeming Values

[1/10 · 10 December 2016]

So why would a person watch a film with little to no redeeming values? You will ask this question every ten minutes as this film flows deeper and deeper down the sewer line. There are people in this film that you grow to hate and not care for. The female lead exploits her own depravity where you question the basic logic of her behavior. She makes some of the most profound mistakes early on and she keeps making these mistakes throughout the picture. And the theme has been beaten to death and if there was suppose to be any shock value, it was lost in the delivery of the script and the direction.

Why should we care about another drug user? Why should we invest in the relationship between her and her boyfriend drug dealer? We've seen this trope too many times to give a damn. The utter stupidity of this girl and the lack of any common sense just screams at you. Every minute that passed by makes you want to just end the film because it gets worse and worse. If this was suppose to be based on true events then I pity the person who's life this was based on because every moment was just so dumb. This was an ugly film where every character was despicable. The boss, the roommate, the boyfriend, the other dope dealers, the cops, the lawyer, there were no characters were you could shine a light on. No one can be this blatantly naive and expect to survive in New York City.

Nina (I) (2016)

Not at All Satisfying

[4/10 · 23 April 2016]

I came in with expectations about this film. They weren't particularly high but what I did expect was to a lesser degree the music and vocal styling. Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone missed that mark completely. Unlike Jamie Fox in Ray where he magnificently captured Ray Charles's vocal patterns and musical style, you get none of this with Saldana's Nina. In fact, it doesn't transport you away at all. It's an unpleasant look into Nina's last years of her life, one that you do not wish to fully examine. And then there is the makeup that was applied to Zoe Saldana. It was not a visual look that was welcomed. I don't know if they were trying to capture Nina's appearance but this too was flawed and I go back to Jamie Fox role as Ray. Maybe Zoe Saldana was the wrong choice although I do see her being credited as one of the producers along with David Oyelowo who also has a role in this so maybe this was more of a vanity thing because they did it and figured it was easier for her to play the role. the other thing that bothered me was that they kept jumping from one era to another without any consistency. It was a visual headache to the story that just didn't fit. This was tough to watch.

Hardcore Henry (2015)

Don't get Fooled by The Hype

[2/10 · 14 April 2016]

Hardcore Henry isn't really that hardcore. From a first person shooter standpoint that is derived from plenty of video games, you get to experience that POV with live actors and in a nutshell, it's over-hyped and pedestrian in the killings. I found that my senses were becoming numb with the onslaught of slaughter. At some point, you want to find any redemption in the character as there is none since he never speaks throughout the entire run of the film. I assume that was purposely done in order for the teens in the audience to be the shooter in this instance. For those of us who aren't teens, this was just buckets of blood and bullets and mild gore. The slaughter wasn't particularly fascinating and the club scene nudity was Meh! You never get that roller coaster feeling when its wall to wall bashing skulls and blowing out somebody's brain. The single plot element seriously missed a lot.

One More Time (2015)

People Create Problems for Themselves

[4/10 · 9 April 2016]

Oh, woe is me, should be the appropriate title for this film. Here you have people who are well off enough but apparently aren't happy with their seemingly non-challenging lives. Christopher Walken is a singer who has seen his famous days in the rear view mirror get further and further away from him. He relives every moment he can through the retelling of those past lives as if to recapture the moment is like him trying to catch a cloud.

Amber Heard's character is an alcoholic singer/writer who has a huge chip on her shoulders for whatever reason. She shouldn't but she does.

The sister, played by Kelli Garner, is a tight bun and Hamish Linklater is her husband. Photogenic is a better way to describe this cast who lives in the Hamptons. So why the drama? Well, because Amber seems to think she is owed something as she messes up her life. And Chris's character falls into some traps of his own choosing but it doesn't make any sense where a man who presumably is in his 70's is trotting off having an affair at the same motel for months. I was expecting something else out of the motel scene but it was just a typical infidelity story. And I was expecting something something else out of the father/daughter relationship between Heard and Walken. In fact, this turned out to be nothing more of well to do people who really don't have any problems other than they were bored with each other. They sit around singing songs like it was a concert but they despise one another secretly for no other reason than just because.

And it ended weird. No feel good, no resolution , no nothing. The soundtrack was good, though.

Mr. Right (I) (2015)

Chicken Legs pulls it off

[7/10 · 9 April 2016]

Quirky killers are character studies. Sam Rockwell's performance as Mr. Right makes the best in this situation playing well off Anna Kendricks neuroses. Finding out that her boyfriend would like to have a three way with the girl he tried to sneak into their place at the last minute, priceless, but no cigar. Mr. Right is the hit-man with a heart of copper. He kills bad guys who want to take out contract kills on others. He's good at his job. He meets Anna at a bar and they hit it off immediately. Mayhem ensues and the body count begins. Mixed in all of this is the relationship of the two which is believable. The bad guys are cardboard cutouts but pliable enough for a killer comedy. Overall, it works in the big climax where Anna's character comes out even more so but you have to suspend belief that her chicken legs has enough power to do a round off kick and push a guy back when she kicks him in the chest.

Temps (2016)

No Happy Ever Afters

[5/10 · 9 April 2016]

In this boy meets girl world type film, we find the main character as an aloof 20 something guy without a care in the world sleeping on his best friends sofa. Nothing spectacular there as he and his friend are all about going on some dream skiing trip. In order to do so, they take temporary jobs to build up to that day. Enter the girl, not as aloof but a bit off-centered as their relationship starts off a wee bit antagonistic. That soon melts away with a quick jump of the two have sex and more sex and more sex. Not too much depth there but in the course of their relationship, the girl gets feelings. She wants more from the relationship including a commitment from him. She's tired of the "F buddies" casting but he's content with that for whatever reasons. Well, his reasons are that he doesn't want to turn out like his stoner father and he has experienced the loss of his mother at a young age. His father lives on a boat he's leasing from a friend.

The supposed pressure that he's on with his F buddy causes him to lash out and the relationship ends. At the same time, his best friend is also reevaluating his life. He wants more than just a ski trip after finding out a past girlfriend is dead after being attacked by a bear. He wants to dance now, not ski. this leave our main character in a state of flux. He basically kamikaze his temp job which leads to him taking a temp job at an adult sex shop emporium. As he continues to work there, his ex-girlfriend shows up there with her new/old boyfriend. The sex shop was previously visited by them when they were a couple.

Awkwardness ensues as it isn't revealed that they know each other with the new/old boyfriend who describes a particular sex act she performed on him which she didn't do with him. Moving forward, the roommate has pursued his lukewarm dance career by performing at some experimental theater. The main character attends and find his ex and her new/old boyfriend there. They spot each other and nothing happens. It ends like a fizzing Alka-Seltzer tablet. No Happy Ever afters, just life.

Goddess of Love (2015)

This wasn't a good film nor a bad film, this was a so-so film

[4/10 · 11 March 2016]

So, a stripper meets a guy at her job after following the advice from another stripper about picking out men to fleece. The things is, she is a novice and she falls for the guy instead of following her fellow stripper's advice. And we travel into the descent of madness for some strange reason because it doesn't make any logical sense to do so because films seems to speed up a relationship when all logic fails. Why do they do this all the time, a guy meets a girl a girl meets a guy and 3 minutes later they fall in love. Not real and this isn't real. I read another reviewers comments and it seems as if that person may have had a connection with the film because what they wrote had nothing to do with the film and what I experienced. In fact, based on those comments, I watched the film and as I watched it, I was very close to abandoning it because it was treading down well worn paths. I was hoping for better but in the end, it was no surprise with the ending as the attempt to misdirect throughout the film was an absolute failure as was the premise.

Lazy Hazy Crazy (2015)

Middle of The Road Viewing

[4/10 · 7 February 2016]

So, as I watched this, I was trying to figure out how it started. It jumps right in the middle with three high school girls doing the usual high school thing, taking selfies, fawning over a jock, the usual peer pressure but two of the girls are what I assume is high end prostitutes. They befriend the third girl out of osmosis. Somewhere in this mix is some confusion to the story line because most Asian films have convoluted stories where either the hero dies most often and the hero doesn't get the girl in the end or they just don't have the atypical happy ending. These girls are problematic. While they all seek boyfriends, they can't seem to reconcile the fact that they are hookers and nobody will find out. And also, I don't know if they are minors but the sex that they are having with older men seems to push the boundaries with having sex with minors. This is just glossed over without a mention. The girls talk about having sex with older men but not about the legality of it which is probably right because their world is limited to selfies and the latest fashion. In the end, one of the girl takes a boyfriend from one of the other girl and that ends disastrously. They make amends and they frolic along the shoreline with naked abandon. Yeah, see, that don't make much sense.

Aimy in a Cage (2015)

Alice in Halcion Land

[2/10 · 1 February 2016]

i was trying to understand this quirky film but alas, I wasn't smoking any weed. to describe it as "quirky" would be describing a small house as "quaint" if you were a Realtor. You just can't quite make it work when you put your nuts into it and get nothing in return. Aimy is an artist who is sorely not communicating with her family. The grandmother is the main antagonist in the Brady Bunch of characters. And we don't fully understand why this is happening. It's just starts up and they just go at it, no rhyme, no reason. Crispin Glover's character floats in and out at will showing up in the shadows and his character is supposedly the love interest of the grandmother but that is just a ploy to get to the mother's wealth. Aimy looks as if she was created as a live action version of a Tim Burton animation. Everything happens within this apartment. You feel claustrophobic as much as Aimy does when they tie her up for a duration of the film.i wanted to like this but after a certain point, the quirkiness wore off and the ending wasn't really an ending. It;s a film that you just want to out out of your mind so I watched The Big Short, a much better film, to clear the mental palate.

Animalistic (2015)

Why Women in Peril Make Dumb Decisions?

[1/10 · 31 January 2016]

So. I watched this film and it seems as if a majority of these types of films have one thing in common, women who make bad decisions. Do you ever wonder why people talk back to the screen, well, it's movies like this that shows the number of stupid times these kind of chick do dumb things. She escapes the first time and she can't keep her trap shut from all the whimpering she's doing while hiding form the bad guy. She takes off in the woods with him on her heels. She gets to the roadway only to find it blocked by a wire fence. Where does that exist in the U.S.? He captures her again and the head bad guy comes back and she berates the guy into raping her again. She escapes a second time, this time at night, and of course she passes out, typical. She wakes up the next day and she waste time by heading to the river to clean the blood off her and she gets caught AGAIN. He drags her back to the cabin and this time she fights back and gets the upper hand but instead of running off, she goes back to the cabin and gets the shotgun leaning against the couch. The main bad guy drives back up and he finds his dead friend and then he finds the girl with the shotgun and she threatens to kill him and fires off a warning shot. Look, you've been raped twice, watched another woman get her brains blown out and you want to play fair? This is not how the human condition works. You kill the guy, you don;t talk about anything. You level the weapon at him and you fire. Stop wanting to exact the same type on punishment he just doled out on you. Get it over with. Films like this are just frustrating to watch.

Ex Machina (2014)

Bothersome and dull

[2/10 · 14 January 2016]

To begin with, I tried liking this film but it was something about it that I just couldn't get past. Was it the typical Internet billionaire treatment, was it the god-like personification of the billionaire, was it the reclusive a typical approach to the billionaire or was it more than that? Well, it was all of that and more. There is this winner of some Internet competition who goes to the billionaire's house and interacts with an artificial intelligence. Now keep in mind that he and the billionaire are suppose to be genius. Well, he interacts with the A.I. and refer to it as her and as people. It is not, it is a machine, an appliance. From there it's all down hill because now he's given it empathy as if it is a living person. Instead of treating it as a machine, he continues on in this vain which inevitably leads to his and the billionaires' demise. Quite frankly, we've seen this scenario in other films way to often with this hackneyed trope. And why would you want to stay in a house that doesn't have any fail safe devices or manual overrides? At the end, I just didn't care about what happened to them because they deserved it and I just didn't care for this film even with the nudity.

Love (II) (2015)

A long and tedious bore feast

[1/10 · 10 January 2016]

Love, as it is titled, should be called Bored Whiny Man Child. This dirge clocks in at a whopping 2 hours and 15 minutes. I had to stop, walk away for a while and then return to watch this sniffling character act out his hypocrisy in such myopic detail. The relationship between the two principal characters is like oil and water. The only thing they share is a voracious appetite for sex, lots and lots of sex. The add a third person into the mix who winds up getting pregnant by the guy which leads to the main couple breaking up. Since they all were in a ménage à trois, that shouldn't have been an issue but it was. The female leaves him and we spend the rest of the film exploring his memories of her and him having more sex. They participate in orgies and he gets mad because she's having sex with other guys. He can had fun but she can't. If your life is nothing but the sex, why should that matter especially if he can participate and she can't? And there lies the quagmire with this presentation. This guy is totally immature. You become bored with him and with him having sex. Closeups of him with his exploding orgasms weren't shocking, innovative, wanted or move the picture along. After a while, you just want this story to just wrap up. You wonder what is the point? There is nothing redeeming about it. The other female character who has had his child is completely ignored. She is just another prop instead of exploring that dynamic of how they are dealing with a child together. Instead, we find his character crying in the bathtub with the toddler. And you have to ask yourself once again, the time he and his old girlfriend were together appears to be at least three years because you have to factor in the time the girl was pregnant and then you jump in time to see a toddler at least two years old. So why did his old girlfriend/s mother call him about her and why did he just started thinking about someone who hasn't been in his life for a long time? The writing was just poor. This guy was suppose to be some aspiring filmmaker. He is neither aspiring or making films and filming your naked girlfriend on a small video camera doesn't qualify you one bit. That aspect of the character was totally ignored as well. This was just bad. If you want to see if because of the unsimulated sex scenes, I would advise just watch some 5 minute porn clip and avoid this colossus time waster.

Spider-Man Lives: A Miles Morales Story (2015)

It Could be Worth A Feature Look

[6/10 · 15 November 2015]

So, the premise is that Peter Parker aka Spiderman is dead as a news broadcast explains. Over dinner, a father, a cop, has no love for Spiderman as he has observed a young 14 yr. old drug dealer going about in training someone even younger than him. His son listens but his feelings are ambivalent as he sports a puncture wound on his hand. No explanation is given but one must take a broad leap that perhaps this is a bite wound. This film is under 10 minutes so they make due with the time that is allotted. On the street, the young black man sees a woman running from someone as she sprints past him. Cut to an abandon warehouse and she is surrounded by several bad guys. She attempts to fight back and apparently she has some sort of power as her hand produces a glowing ring as she balls up her fist. But it quickly goes nowhere as the head bad guy outs out the glow like a candle wick. Enter the young man who was reluctant to get involved at first is now fully committed. Hos powers are more enhanced than Peter Parker as he has cloaking abilities in addition to Spidey strength.

It's produced on a modest budget but if they wanted to sell this as a feature, this would serve as a test case about diversity. The actor isn't that bad and the plausibility of him being the Spiderman works as he dons the costume in the final scene that's black and red, not blue and red.

Ted 2 (2015)

Couldn't Sit through the first one and Couldn't Sit through this one

[2/10 · 30 June 2015]

There is a rating system in these reviews with one being awful. Well, I didn't give it a one but it's close to it. What is it about Seth McFarlane that studios want to give him money to make feature films? Ted 2, the sequel to Ted, did not bring a hint of laughter to me. I had watched the first film and couldn't sit through it and never had any inclination to watch it again. Now comes Ted 2 and I did the same thing. I though at least this would make up for the first one but it didn't. It left me humorless. With McFarlane's Million Ways to Die in The West, I looked for the funny but sat through that epic lemon without protest. With ted 2, it's just not funny to me. Yeah, I get the joke but these are DOA jokes. The sperm jokes were too easy to telegraph. Who didn't see a cart of sperm falling on Mark Wahlberg must have went to get popcorn. And the dope smoking lawyer was just lazy writing. Why couldn't she have Turrets and have ticks? McFarlane's limited or perhaps overused range of dope, crude humor, drugs and musical dance numbers has its limits to an audience. The musical dance number just laid there for the audience. The silence was just a precursor for things to come.The next time a studio gives Seth McFarlane money to make a film, use it as toilet paper instead

Bound to Vengeance (2015)

She Almost Had Me

[5/10 · 26 June 2015]

So this is and is not a teen slasher movie. The subject matter deals with human trafficking and the main character plays a victim who apparently never wanted to call the police which leads to some consequences. Richard Tyson, who has been MIA for a while now, plays the despicable kidnapper who lays on the guilt trip thick with the female lead. She stupidly listens to him and doesn't seem to rationalize it out that he is the kidnapper and what happens to the other victim is because of him. As the film plays out, it seems as if our female lead is experiencing PTSD with every step she makes. It was refreshing to see the victim turn the tables on the predator but at the same time, she makes some stupid moves that frustrates the hell out of you. What should have been a better conclusion is left impotent and unsatisfactory. You wanted more out off this film and the ending just sucked. Still, as far as girl in peril films go, this was better.

Manglehorn (2014)

A Study in Human Behavior

[8/10 · 21 June 2015]

Al Pacino is a locksmith in Manglehorn. He has this life that is not particularly glamorous or fun. He just seems to be walking through life pining of a love lost that's been going on for decades. As you watch him in this piece, you study every inch of his performance in measured clicks. Every Friday he goes to the bank to make his deposits and strikes up a conversation with a bank teller played by Holly Hunter. He intentionally waits for her as he lets other customers go before him so that he could be the next at her window. It's an effort to see him go through the dance of conversation. He is also a father and grandfather. In one scene with his son in the backyard of his house, you get reminded of how good he is because it reminds you of a scene from the Godfather but it's more honest, more matter of fact. There aren't too many characters in this film and it had me wondering how much research Al Pacino did with learning how to be a locksmith? This film never taxed my brain with special effects, chases, etc., sometimes it just needs to relax and enjoy the pace of things. Al gave of good performance ans well as Holly Hunter in the awkward moments of restarting the dating phase. There was one scene that has me wondering though, it was at the beginning when Al is sitting on a sidewalk eating and a stray dog appears out of nowhere. The dog slowly comes up to him and Al gives him something to eat. It had me wondering if that was an unscripted moment or not? Either way, it made some interesting watching.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Avengers: Age of Diminishing Returns

[3/10 · 29 April 2015]

This latest telling of the Avengers left me lacking any enthusiasm with the franchise. I didn't find any warmth, chemistry, fun, anticipated dread, fear, drama, comedy in this showing. The robot wasn't menacing and the extraneous B story dragged on too long and wasn't necessary. I really didn't need to know about the wife and kids. And with the hype surrounding the robot, it wasn't menacing in the clashing with the Avengers. The drones proved not as tough as it was lead on to be, they were more of pest in the grand scheme of things. Bigger sometimes, is not always better. After viewing this, there was no lasting memory once the film was over with, you just wanted to forget about what you saw.

Naked Zombie Girl (2014)

Destined to be a Cult Classic

[7/10 · 23 April 2015]

With a title like Naked Zombie Girl, you get exactly that, Naked Zombie Girl only she's not a zombie. She is the heroine in this piece and much like Buffy Sommers from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the main character slays zombies while naked. It's a strangely nice twist as so far as to say that the naked stuff becomes a non issue when she is slaying the zombies. In fact, she too seems to accept the inevitable when she drops her towel in the last scene to fight the zombies. Even the truck driver seems to accept her abilities by fighting naked. I don't know if they will make this into a feature but that premise of her having to fight naked is her super power. Sure, she wears clothes normally but when it comes time to fight the zombies, it's time to get naked. And kudos to the makeup artist who did the zombies. It was some nice work, really nice work. The acting could have been better with the people in the car but that's 3 points off for that. This can easily be a cult classic just on the film short alone. And if true, the $17,000 budget was well spent.

Girl House (2014)

Just Another Girl in Peril Movie

[2/10 · 18 April 2015]

I was hoping GirlHouse would stand out among the numerous teen slasher films but that wasn't the case. It's just another typical girl in peril film. Nothing new with this even with the supposed digital tech thing that doesn't add to the equation.

What annoyed me most was the use of headphones in this film. Why of why do these idiots where headphones all the time when you know they are about to get killed? The tech guy wears headphones while walking though the woods. One of the girls wears headphones while working out. And one of the girls wears ear buds to bed. Is that the formula to these types of movies, wear headphones because you're about to be murdered by a Jason Vorhess type killer.

And here is the other annoyance, why must all cellphones be put on vibrate when just about nobody does in real life? It's just dumb to think that this chick would put her cellphone on vibrate while carrying it in her purse. I even seen this in other films where somebody has their cellphone on vibrate while sleeping and phone goes off and they don't hear it. Why have it next to you at all if that's the case.

And here is another annoyance, when they do attack the killer, why don't they do follow through? They hit the killer one time and knocks him down. FINISH THE JOB LADIES!! But NOOOOO!! He of course gets up and kills again, it's only after there is one lone survivor do we see this happen. He gets his head bashed in repeatedly to end the carnage.

This was so disappointing and you wonder why people talk back to the screen when you see imbeciles being killed. You hope they hear you scream at their stupidity. The Girlhouse factor in itself was boring as well, there was no eroticism in the girls' performances that would have at least made this worth watching. It's like having strippers who don't strip.

The Maid (2014)

Soap Opera Tripe

[1/10 · 9 April 2015]

Jack, the main character, is a horny, whiny, self-centered bastard. The dialog is terrible. He is delusional with his affection to the maid who is much older than he is. You can't buy into this one bit with his whining all the time about his dead mother and his relationship with his father who he refers to by his first name. He is verbally abusive and you just don't have any sympathy for him whatsoever. He is manipulative and I found the other reviews on this astounding when they praise this film.

This id supposedly falls in love with the maid after two days. You just want to b@itch slap the kid after one day. He acts like he is entitled to his own suffering and that nobody else matters. Just avoid this film if you don;t want to get angry at this preposterous melodrama soap opera tripe.