atari-survey Reviews

Feeding Frenzy (2010 Video)

Great for what it is

[7/10 · 1 April 2015]

As many reviews before mine, I have to admit being a RedLetterMedia fan, too. That makes it harder to be objective, but there is a reason why most of the reviews are from fans: RedLetterMedias films and videos are not aimed at John Doe and his Everyman-brigade. Perhaps I'm the first German to write a review about this film; so I will give some additional information about purchasing it. I received my package just today. Please be prepared that the package will not be delivered to your home but to the custom office, where you have to pay an additional German sales tax of 19%. So, if you are not the type of film enthusiast who wants to have real DVD packages on the shelf, you should go with the downloadable versions, which RLM offers as well.

If you're from Germany (hell, why do I still write this in English? Well, because you should understand English anyway when watching this movie...) and you have no problem understanding the RLM discussions ("Half in the bag", "Best of the worst"), Feeding Frenzy might be a bit harder though, because unlike in a discussion where things are said several times, the plot moves quickly and nobody repeats what he's saying or asks for better understanding. Furthermore, Mr.Plinkett mumbles more than he actually talks, which is convenient for the film but hard to understand for foreigners.

The movie itself is really funny, not more, not less. It has extremely funny moments while fans of RLM might have higher expectations as Mike and Jay sometimes don't do their very best acting here - but still quite OK. Also, you might be used to much, much darker humor from RedLetterMedia, I think there could have been much more black humor...even though there already is quite a lot of it in here...

What has to be pointed out are several "bad moments", that are obviously intentionally bad as they pay homage to schlock-movies from the 80s, for example when they are tied to a table and you can see that Jesse's nose is itching and then he takes his arm out of the ropes so he can scratch it... This is not very funny but still quite amusing if you understand the tone of Feeding Frenzy.

Movies like Feeding Frenzy underline the weight of RedLetterMedias movie reviews; they show that they know what they are talking about and that they not only make theories about movies but they know how things work when making a film. In the aftermath, Feeding Frenzy is an advertisement for everything else RedLetterMedia does - simply because it's OK and can compete with other, much more expensive movie-productions.

When Women Lost Their Tails (1972)

Einer der meistunterschätzten "Klamauk"-Filme überhaupt

[8/10 · 31 January 2012]

Stellen Sie sich vor, Sie sind ein Drehbuchautor und wollen einen Film schreiben der veranschaulicht, wie Wirtschaft funktioniert - ohne daß das Publikum einschläft. Welche Art Film würden Sie dafür auswählen? Einen Krimi? Nun, korrupte Konzernchefs, ausgebeutete Unterprivilegierte, Geld und Macht und ihre Verführungen in allen Farbnuancen - das wurde schon zahllose male in Krimis verfilmt und verrät doch nichts über das Große Ganze der Wirtschaft weil es sich immer in Einzelschicksalen verliert - was auch logisch ist, denn sonst wäre es nicht spannend. Thriller sind da ähnlich gestrickt, auch Melodrame verlieren sich in Einzelschicksale (überdies: wie wollte man das dort darstellen ohne lächerlich zu wirken?), Fantasy und Sci-Fi schlagen in ganz andere Richtungen... es bleibt nur: ein Klamauk-Film. Genau; und das mit Recht - denn wie sonst kann man die ganze Ironie des Wirtschaftslebens treffender und beißender darstellen als mit schwarzem Humor? Und das ist genau das, was dieser Film macht - und noch dazu beginnend mit der dafür bestgeeigneten Umgebung: einer Gruppe Steinzeitmenschen, die von all dem keinen blassen Schimmer hat. So geht es denn los, von der Einführung einer Währung (weil einer nichts zum Tauschen hat - dies aber verspricht), der Schaffung von Bedarf (wo vorher keiner war), die Entwicklung von Eigendynamik (die nicht hinterfragt wird), das Aufkommen von Statussymbolen (zum Zwecke der Bedarfentwicklung), der Entdeckung was man außer Waren noch so alles (ver)kaufen kann, Verlierern, Selbstüberschätzern und Gewinnern und der schlussendlichen Einsicht, daß Geld nicht glücklich macht.

Wenn man dazu noch berücksichtigt daß dieser Film eine karikaturistische Steinzeitsprache erfindet (genau wie sein Vorgänger "Als die Frauen noch Schwänze hatten", nur noch treffender), von der es einige in den deutschen Sprachgebrauch geschafft haben (z.B. "Schmackofatz" für Essen, "Schmusifax" für Liebe), dann sind alle Anzeichen dafür erfüllt, daß es sich hier um einen der ganz großen Filme der Geschichte handelt - wenn man durch den Klamaukvorhang schaut und den Film verstehen will und merkt, wie ein paar trottelige Steinzeitmenschen uns in ihrem Gebahren und Streben, besser leben zu wollen, uns den Spiegel vorhalten. Das ist dann die tatsächliche und gelungene Pointe.

Kamera- und Tricktechnik sind indes, nunja, die eines billigen 70er Jahre Klamaukfilms und dies dürfte der Grund dafür sein, daß dieser Film zeitlebens unterschätzt wurde und wird, was angesichts des beißenden Spotts der Story selbst wirklich schade ist.

Dreamcatcher (2003)

Godzilla vs.Aliens including military attack and clairvoyance.

[3/10 · 26 February 2006]

Why are all Stephen-King-Films just about the same? They start interesting, include more and more horror-stereotypes, are in many aspects just science-extremely-fictional (such extreme that they simply get unbelievable) and do not leave any message or have any deeper sense. And after all the content has nothing to do with the title. "Dreamcatcher" is a very good proof of that. It starts with a few people who can "see" the thoughts of other people. We learn that they have this feature from a mentally disabled child who turns out to be a good alien who stops an invasion of bad aliens because the army only has a special staff fighting against them and their leader has gone insane. Yaaawn. I would not have been surprised if Godzilla or King-Kong had a guest-appearance, too. Then there are so many time-jumps in the storyline that sometimes it is hard to know what is now and what is past. There even are numerous logical failures in the story. The mentally handicapped child gets roughed up by a gang of bigger children in the beginning. At the end he defeats the mr.big-alien. Erm. OK. Then the bad alien tries to put a single worm into the water-supply-system and it is said that this would be enough to destroy mankind. Oh well, if it was that simple, why do the aliens start a big invasion with a big spaceship causing a lot of trouble and resistance while just one of them idiots could have done this in a secret mission? Then, I like science-fiction - but Stephen King seems to love simply unrealistic things, such unrealistic that the film becomes absurd. And after all...what hast the film, the story or anything in it to do with dreams or dreamcatchers? I don't know. And perhaps nobody does, not even the author. I gave the film 3 points out of 10 because stage direction and actors are quite good.

The Passion of the Christ (2004)

What is this??

[1/10 · 3 September 2004]

The whole film can be told with two sentences:

You see Jesus getting whipped. Cut. You see Maria staring at him. Cut. And so on. That's actually the film.

There's a lot of blood in the film due to the huge amount of whipping, but it's not as bloody as a chainsaw massacre and there's less fun watching it, so this film would actually lose against a simple horror-splatter-movie as both have no basic sense but are just confusing.

My hope was to see some historical facts or at least some "facts" from the bible but you get nothing. Just whipping and screaming, no explanation, no background, nothing. And even the crucifying is shown totally wrong in the film: nobody ever slammed nails through the middle of the hands - the nails were placed just below the hand because otherwise it would have been a mess. And feet weren't nailed, too. That's a very simple example but it shows what we can expect for other details in the film (Herodes seems to be much to young, too).

After all, they tried to get a depressing atmosphere and stole some brown colours from "1984" and fog from some chainsaw massacre. Yes, and this strange guy with the snake looked like the Star-Wars-Emperor in his younger days.

I have to admit, when Pilatus asked who was to free - the murderer or Jesus, I had to laugh out loud saying "Brian!" :D ...and some other scenes like that...

Well, or in one word: This film truly is crap. It even wouldn't have been good for an anti-drug campaign with all those hippies having consumed some kind of LSD, running around screaming like a paranoid.

The Godfather (1972)

Why??

[2/10 · 11 July 2004]

This film leaves one big question behind: Why the hell is it rated no.1 in IMDb?? There is no basic storyline, sometimes some people are being murdered but nobody knows why, you can't even say if the acting is good or bad because they run around with hats and sad faces all the time.

From the beginning you simply sit there, waiting for some kind of message or at least some sense - and then after a much too long time the film is over. Why did they kill Don's friend? Why did they try to kill Don? Why did their enemies know that his son was driving to the husband of his sister? Where from did they know the one of the sons was in Italy? Why do they kill all the time at all? And where is the police I was wondering all the film. Lots and lots of murders, no police. Hm. It's nothing more than a bad 70's Mafia-trash-film.

Troy (2004)

Hard to do any better within 3 hours

[8/10 · 5 June 2004]

The performance of the film is absolutely fantastic. If it was a newly invented story, this film would have deserved 10 points without any doubt. But that's the problem about it: Homer's Ilias is a thick book, the story is full of complex and not less important sidelines and all in all it describes 10 years of war. A film simply can't do this in 3 hours; so all elements of the original story are missing which have no special interest to the main storyline, for example the Greek gods, kassandra and most of the previous life of the heroes. What is left is the main story about the war against Troja and the surface of the Greek tragedy - and I was astonished that it still works perfectly, even there are little changes to parts of the story (Agamemmnon was killed by his wife Klytemnaestra when back in Sparta again for example). Putting the Ilias in just one film might be comparable to if they had made only one film out of the Lord of the Rings.

The Quiet Earth (1985)

This is what I call science fiction!

[10/10 · 31 October 2003]

This film is unique. It asks questions and lets you alone with unsure answers about how far mankind will go while the genius music gives it a warm glow.

Watch it, think about it and enjoy the dense atmosphere and the great music.