trc4849 Reviews

Murder on Middle Beach (2020)

A 1-hour Dateline episode dragged out over 4 hours.

[1/10 · 23 December 2020]

This is the problem when the person making the show is too close to it. There is maybe enough material to this story to last 2 hours. Max. There is a staggering amount of filler - most notably "nostalgic narration," boring/unrelated interview questions and home videos that do nothing but drag the story down.

This could have been a taut murder mystery instead of tepid, boring piece.

Elysium (I) (2013)

Suffers from bad direction and surprisingly poor performance by Jodie Foster.

[3/10 · 9 August 2013]

I should have avoided seeing this film opening weekend; a lesson I normally adhere to. Very disappointing.

The story is pretty good and could/should have made for a very good sci-fi/action flick.

The biggest drawback by far is the frenetic, confusing, shaky shooting and editing. This is something we've been seeing more of in the last several years for reasons unknown. The closest thing I've ever heard to a compliment on this style has been - "It doesn't really bother me." What I do hear often and personally agree with is "It sucks. I can't tell what the hell's going on!", with a close second being "It's making me feel sick to my stomach." No one has ever watched a "traditionally" filmed scene and said "Wow, that was terrible, I could actually see everything that was happening and know exactly what was going on." This new trend is just lazy and sloppy.

The other notable distraction was Jodie Foster who is normally very solid and put in what I think is the worst performance of her career. It's not that the dialogue was bad, but her presentation was hideous. Trying to put on an air of aristocracy, her pronunciation was painful to watch and completely unbelievable.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Terrible creative decision with tragic results

[4/10 · 19 May 2013]

Let me begin by saying this film could have been a 7 or an 8 were it not for a shockingly bad creative decision by the director. I'm talking about artificial lens flares. After complaining to a friend about how incredibly annoying it was, he informed me that the first movie had the same problem...and that is was a problem because it spawned a worldwide backlash with fans asking "WTF"?

So why would the director do it again when it was universally hated the first time around? Arrogance? Maybe we can look forward to Jar Jar Binks in the new Star Wars movies since J.J. doesn't seem to care what annoys a huge portion of this fan base. No one is out there saying "Wow, I love those lens flare. They made the movie!" But had I seen the first, and assuming they were as bad, I wouldn't have seen the second. If there's a third, I won't be checking that one out...perhaps that had something to do with the film not meeting expectations opening weekend....

Coriolanus (2011)

Not For Everyone...In Fact, Not For Hardly Anyone....

[1/10 · 5 May 2013]

Three interesting facts:

1. The number of people who like to Shakespeare is small. 2. Some of those people must have a lot of money. 3. And they don't care if they waste it on movies...

My first inclination is the slam this film for for any number of reason like "waste of time," "waste of money," "waste of great talent," etc. However, I can't say if the people involved got what they wanted out of it. Maybe the investors were fine making a film that loses money and they just wanted to make it. Maybe the actors expect (or didn't care) that it would essentially be a "failure" with only a handful of people seeing it. Maybe the producers and director were so driven by the project, "success" wasn't remotely important.

However, if any of the above isn't accurate, if the investors actually thought they had a good chance of making money or the stars thought it would be a hit, or that it would be a critically acclaimed pieces...maybe those people need to surround themselves with smarter people to help make the big decisions.

Mansome (2012)

VERY disappointing project from Spurlock

[2/10 · 4 May 2013]

It's going to be hard to express what a disappointment this film was. I liked Spurlock's other works, but "Mansome" is essentially a complete failure. The problem is, it's simply not funny...at all. The Jason Bateman/Will Arnett pieces aren't remotely funny or even entertaining. They feel completely ad-libbed by two guys with no skills at improv. You would think for the maybe 10 minutes of screen time they had that either they (or some writers) could come up with a few good bits...but not a one!

There are only two bits that are entertaining: Jack Passion and Ricky Manchada. The problem is, we are laughing at, not with, these two real people...and that's exactly the intent. The problem is, while we laugh at how pathetic they are, we actually feel badly that we're laughing (at those of us with a heart) and feel badly for them in turn.

Perhaps what's most disappointing is that with a documentary, you can always "shoot more". There's no way Spurlock and the producers watched this film and said "Wow, this is great...really funny." No chance. So instead of improving, they passed it off and pawned it off on us...taking all their stock way down in my (and I suspect many fans) mind.

It feels like they got a check to make the film and shot the bare minimum to crank out a film. They cashed their checks and went home.

Hemlock Grove (2013–2015)

Someone at Netflix needs to lose their job over this show.

[3/10 · 29 April 2013]

Here is the staggering comparison. Hemlock Grove: Season 1 budget - $52 million. Game of Thrones: Season 1 budget - $60 million. If you've seen both, you'll know that HG doesn't come close to matching GoT in ANY area. This also means HG spent more per episode than Walking Dead! Whether it's story, characters, acting, camera-work, dialogue, or art direction, HG comes up shockingly short. Naturally, this would be somewhat forgivable if HG were a small production, but at nearly $4m an episode, something criminal is going on here.

I work in the medium-budget feature film space (i.e. $1-$10m) and the waste evidenced by their budget is shocking. I would love to see the budget on this show to know just who is screwing over the money guys at Netflix. If Eli Roth paid himself $1m an episode, I still can't imagine where the other $3m went. There are no major name stars in this show that should have been paid six figures per. The visual effects are mediocre and low-budget. The first werewolf transformation we see (the one teased everywhere) is gory, but isn't even as impressive as "American Werewolf in London" which was done more than 30 years ago!

The writing is pretentious with, it seems, at least one line per episode so bad it elicits an audible groan. It seems the writers think they are far more clever than they actually are. It's too bad, because I think the concept could work and they certainly had the money to do it right, they simply miss (but not always completely fail) at every turn.

To Netflix - someone is stealing from you!

Behind Your Eyes (2011)

Bad film with only 2 redeeming qualities.

[2/10 · 5 April 2012]

If you've not yet seen this film and are considering renting it - DON'T. The film starts out somewhat watchable and goes quickly downhill from there. Only two of the actors, the female lead and the kidnapper, have any talent. In fact, this film is way below their skill level. The kidnapper reminds me of Stephen Dorff and was solid throughout, creepy and evil but not over-the-top. The girlfriend did a great job as well and seemed genuinely terrified. The male lead and his parents are just bad. And I mean BAD. Of course, the script deserves some or most of the blame for this.

To say the script is weak is an understatement. When the fundamentalist parents make their appearance, the dialogue gets laughably bad when the father and son get into their fire and brimstone, Old Testament babbling. I don't even think good actors could have pulled off those lines.

The film seems to have been shot well, but the script, direction and editing failed on so many levels, this project could have never worked.

I'm also wondering why a girl who was in the film for less than 5 minutes is on the cover instead of the lead when the lead girl is far more attractive. My guess is that the star may have had something in her contract that let her take herself off the box/poster if she wasn't pleased with the final product...which obviously she wouldn't be.

So, it's a very big "pass". How did this make it in Redbox?