azazeleblis Reviews

Gor II (1988)

Gor and Gor II

[2/10 · 29 December 2010]

Most simply, these movies are proof that science fiction and fantasy have fallen completely.

From Asimov's foresight and Tolkien's epics... devolve this sexually awkward televised game of Dungeons and Dragons?! I am disappointed with the genre because of this film.

No plot, annoyingly hollow characters that never develop, horrible actors, and a poor concept from the beginning make this movie (and it's twin) worthless. Quite literally, Mother Goose's simplest tale has miles more to say about the world. While such a feat used to be hard for this genre, now it seems 9 year olds get novels published, and screenplays filmed.

It gets a second star simply for being so easy to heckle. The Mystery Science Theater 3000 version is more enjoyable, and illustrates my point beautifully. However, this episode is a little wasted if you don't watch with friends and heckle along too.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Un-glorious Mastrubation

[1/10 · 20 December 2009]

Hooray for Title Misspellings! After reading reviews and contemplating, my girlfriend and I confirmed that this movie is an utter piece of trash. This movie lost her as one of those Rare Tarantino fans.I wish it were made on nitrate film, and all the copies piled neatly underneath a chain-smoking Tarantino fanboy. The literally needless violence, the plot holes, Tarantino's table-itis sans drama, and absent character development made this a thoroughly painful, glorified montage.

What acting was there? And how much of that was just because I was too busy reading the subtitles? I watch my share of fansubbed anime, and kudos for the attempt at authenticity, but it was overdone for an English-language movie. With the glaring historical inadequacies, the constant reading killed what acting there was.

Why pay money for a narrator who will have absolutely no tie to any of the characters, plot, themes, setting, or anything involved in the movie? When the movie needs that sort of off hand explanation, it's foreshadowing the utter filth that follows.

Historical Research - while it was sprinkled with interesting factiods, used the proper costumes and props for the soldiers, this movie stretched the truth beyond belief even for historical fiction. Kudos on Mata Hari reference, though using it as foreshadowing was a bit much. Mata Hari was executed by a firing squad, not choked in an isolated room. This ruined any sense that the reference may have had.

Other reviews mention more than half a dozen homages to other artists in the first 15 minutes. Considering the audience, all these and other references were completely lost on many who would bother to see this movie, and all who would enjoy it.

I'm confused by his choices of when to start a scene, end it, and what needs to be included. In a movie promoted as an action film, why did it take nearly 20 minutes to set up any sort of testosterone?

What I believe to be the message was trite. The idea of rats and how we act on a primal nature against them, and "who is the rat?" were at best clichéd, but at worst not realized. Mention of American camps for the Japanese and German Americans would have added legitimacy to this question to the moral high ground. Literally every character in the film that gets a speaking role was caught up in their own legend. Is that the world in which Tarantino lives?

I'm glad I didn't pay to see this one. I regret that I bothered to view it at all, even with well-meaning hosts. There was a rich base of ideas to develop, but none were realized.