tomas-344-902574 Reviews

Joker (I) (2019)

Powerful social critique - not some mindless 2 hour distraction

[10/10 · 26 December 2019]

There's something I just absolutely LOVE about this movie. It totally flips the hero/villain genre on its head. Where do villains come from? Who is the real source of evil? Urban criminals? The destitute? Those envious of the "success" of the "wealthy"? Those "unwilling" to "work hard" to "the top"? Or those in power who hoard most of the money and serve corporations before communities/individuals? Those who know how to manipulate the masses, sitting behind desks getting paid an absurdly disproportionate salary while everyone else is discardable and does all the hard work for the least pay.

What if those we would vilify are simply products of a broken system? Is there some wisdom in our dark sides? I don't know about you, but this refreshing narrative seems a helluva lot more convincing than anything taught to our children about the nature of "good" and "evil", "us" and "them", and the idea that wealth, freedom and happiness is remotely within reach of anyone who has a selfless heart. Yet there's an irony in those who hoard all the money in calling others selfish, in making sure that this capitalistic narrative perpetuates into the next generation.

Perhaps all the superhero stories have had it wrong all this time, who the real hero is, and who the real villain is. I love this exploration of our (cultural) shadow.

The Suspect (2013)

Had potential but unrealism and twist ending ruined it

[5/10 · 12 June 2014]

The first 3/4 of the movie were interesting, and I could have given it a 6 or 7 out of 10, but several things didn't sit well that made the film a far stretch even for a movie..

The premise is basic. Two college professors perform a "sociological experiment" in several midwest towns, seeing just how prevalent an undercurrent of racism is. The context of this is staging a bank robbery in very small towns where there are no other African-Americans and one guy rob the bank, then leave the other guy on the side of the road to be found by the police. Then comes an interrogation where the potential prejudice/racism can come out. It becomes justified as an "experiment" and they get pardoned from jail to go on their merry way because 1) the money gets returned and 2) the "experiment" context (ie potential for the scenario being published) leaves the sheriff embarrassed enough to let the suspect go.

The first big problem I was bugged by, throughout the entire film, was that if you rob a bank, it's a crime. Even if you give the money back. Even ATTEMPTED robbery is a crime. Obviously, there's no specific evidence of who robbed the bank (wearing masks, long clothing, etc), but the moment your partner shows up at the sheriff with a bunch of money that comes up to the amount stolen from the bank, you'll get arrested. Embarrassment aside, you've committed a crime.

Secondly, the theme of racism comes up many times but I fail to see how the behavior is racist. If you happen to show a bit of dark colored skin while robbing a bank and there are no dark skinned people in the town, then a dark skinned fellow is on the side of the road outside of town under ambiguous circumstances, it's a logic conclusion, not racism. Racism would be looking for an African-American suspect and stopping every African-American in town when there is a certain percentage of such. Using overgeneralized identifiable information on a selection of the population. But if a midget robs a bank and there are no midgets who live in town and then you see a midget on the side of the road who can't come up with a clear alibi, then you're going to conclude that the midget did it. That's just logic. It's almost like this movie was trying to overdo the race theme for some cheezy after-school feel-good purpose.

Third, in a town where people are genuinely racist, they don't talk as politely as these sheriffs do. They throw out the N-word like it's nothing. These people's behaviors was not racist, it may have been prejudiced to an outsider, but his skin color was not a factor except that it shared identifiable information to the bank robber which no other citizen in the town could identify with. But that's a minor issue.

The ending had a double twist. First, the partner never made it to the sheriff station, with the money. So enough of the situation is explained to the sheriff so they end up going on a search for the missing guy and his car. Turns out it ends up over a cliff (are there even cliffs in the midwest?), and the partner is dead. The money is in a bag, and the sheriff insists on the money first, pulled up via winch. They're apparently going to keep the money and say they let this fellow go (surprise!)

The problem I have here is that this supposed college professor of psychology never gave question to giving the money (his leverage) to the police. Granted, the money in the bag was counterfeit. But with the winch gone, how would the guy ever get back to safety? It seemed like a long ways down.

This somewhat reveals the second twist. Or perhaps there are three twists. The money they return to the bank is counterfeit. Did nobody care enough to check the serial numbers? OK, maybe that doesn't matter. Apparently they are "fake" robbing banks under the pretext of a university sociological experiment so as to acquire enough money for - surprise - the guy's dying daughter (ie black market organs from Argentina). They switch the real money for some counterfeit, and keep the real money.

Except this is where the final - and perhaps sappy - twist comes into play. The cops take the supposed bag of money and then douse the guy stuck down a cliff with gasoline, then set everything on fire. Except the guy never bothers to get up. He just sits there, screaming, in the fire. He doesn't seem to care. He doesn't bother moving, or trying to survive. Seems really stupid. And this is where the final sappy twist comes into play. He dies, and he has this life insurance policy, that pays out $8 million that can then pay for his dying daughter's black market organ/surgery! Sappy ending.

Maybe I'm the only one who caught it, but I don't see how the ending is plausible AT ALL. First off, the guy was telling the sheriff his FRIEND'S name, ie "Freeman Finch". Yes, they both died, but seems that they got burned. How can anyone be identified? Who would bother informing the insurance company? These fellows manipulated and conned the cops, so it's in their interest to pretend they don't exist. I guess maybe to close the case on the robbery they had to explain that these guys died in a car crash. How the tire popped and lose control made no sense either. What's ironic is that part of the movie's appeal is the race card played against the sheriffs, except it really was played against the movie watchers, because they really were keeping the money.

3 Days to Kill (2014)

Great/fun movie, some people just don't get it

[8/10 · 28 May 2014]

People need to realize that this is a Luc Besson film. The guy who wrote both The Transporter and The Fifth Element. This movie is like a mix between the two. The funniest parts were when Kevin Costner's character ended up befriending the men he was supposed to kill, so he could get their advice regarding his daughter.

A good amount of action, heart warming moments, and fun/humor. Similar to Knight and Day with Tom Cruise or This Means War with Chris Pine/Tom Hardy. People seem to have expected another Jason Bourne and this is supposed to be fun, not serious.

But it's not so tongue-in-cheek that it's like Naked Gun or something. I liked it to the point that I'd watch it again.

The Other Woman (2009)

It's thorny but doesn't end off as bad as all the other reviews would have it

[7/10 · 18 May 2014]

I have to say that I really don't understand where any of the other reviews are coming from. Everyone is way off.

I got the impression from the reviews that Natalie Portman's character was a bad person. But she (and the stepson) were the only likable characters. She may have made a few mistakes with the stepson, but where anyone got the idea (especially the idiotic husband/father) that she somehow wanted to harm the stepson, it's really uncalled for and disturbing to watch. So she made a mistake about feeding him dairy when he was lactose intolerant - she thought the ex-wife was being an overprotective witch and tried calling out on that matter. So she let the boy ice skate without a helmet. He had a thick hat on and he had fun, didn't get hurt, and they actually bonded. The attacks on her quality of step-parenting is way out of line.

I don't understand how anyone could think she was vicious to people because of losing her baby. Maybe Natalie Portman played the character differently than in the original novel. Maybe the script was translated poorly. I just didn't get the feeling that she was a bad person at all, nor did I get the feeling that she was lashing out at anyone unjustifiably or that she was projecting her grief onto others through rage. She wasn't at all.

I would characterize this movie as thorny, but things start to clean up near the end. I was expecting a downward spiral toward devastation based on the reviews and that didn't happen. Things didn't magically turn wonderful but things did start to turn around for the better.

The times that Natalie Portman's character lashed out at others was justified at the other person's poor behavior. She got angry at her stepson when he kept forcing the idea of selling the deceased baby's possessions on eBay. I can understand that, it's insensitive for him to say. She also lashed out at her own father for his infidelity in the past, and that, too, was justified. He cheated on his wife (her mom), and nobody had actually shown any anger at him until then. How anyone could say that she has no right to be angry at her father is beyond me - her mom was hurt, and children can take on that pain as their own, to be protective.

She was a decent stepmom and I don't see how anyone could say she and her stepson had a difficult relationship. That was entirely a projection of the ex-wife's viciousness onto her, through the son. It made her seem like a neglectful stepmom, but she was a good one as far as I'm concerned. The ex-wife was just vicious, beyond bitter. Apparently the young new wife broke up the marriage but my impression was that the marriage was already over with.

As the movie progresses, the step son starts showing empathy toward the stepmom and deceased baby sister and so he starts developing a more likable character. The husband really is just cold and never really actually shows empathy or care toward the wife. He never really sides with her and finds every opportunity to side against her. He's of course dealing with the viciousness of his ex-wife, but he doesn't stand up for his new wife nearly as much as he could/should, and projects some of that negativity onto Natalie Portman's character. He is soon to reject her and let the marriage fall apart than actually be forgiving toward her struggles. There is a certain bias that he seems to have that she is worth discarding and a difficult woman to deal with, but I really don't see how that is justified. The only love that I could see in this movie ended up being between the boy and his stepmom. Everyone else was just so cold. Maybe that's just bad acting, bad script, I dunno.

In the end, the boy overhears her worries that she somehow smothered her baby, and he asks his mom (the ex-wife), who happens to be a doctor, about the matter, and the ex-wife patches up the bridge by investigating the matter to reassure her that the baby did die of natural causes.

This movie reminded me of the film "A Serious Man" by the Coen brothers, that had a very distinct Jewish cynical theme of the victim being blamed for the tragedy itself, when everyone else around them is the problem. I don't know if this is a theme in Jewish culture, but it's a bit disturbing.

The movie is definitely a bit thorny, and character behavior does seem out of place or projected incorrectly. Maybe on purpose, maybe a certain Jewish cynicism, maybe just a messy script-from-book to work with. Like A Serious Man, it may not be something you can watch more than once, because it may just be too emotionally difficult/tumultuous.

Teenage Dirtbag (2009)

Has a distinct amateur after-school TV movie feel, awful storyline

[3/10 · 31 March 2014]

I hate to give this movie bad ratings, but it felt extremely amateur and poorly put together. I suppose with it being "based upon true events", that the story was a bit limited in it's flexibility. But maybe I'm a bit too used to fairy tale endings that I thought this story might have some sort of more meaningful story arc. It really did seem like it came out of real life because it wasn't some magical ending. The whole story was weird, haphazard.

This isn't a love story. Let's get that straight. That's my first disappointment. There was serious potential for a "star-crossed lover" theme but that didn't happen. It kept hinting at that over and over but the female character kept doing the shallow self-conceited thing to do and ruined the storyline potential.

You have this dysfunctional boy from a severely abusive family, and this popular girl with everything she could want - great grades, money, a big house, a boat on a private dock, etc. And yet she is this horrid person. Through the story you are given the boy's perspective at home with his abuse and you can't help but feel for him, and you start to see a sympathetic/redeeming side to him. But the girl is just too shallow to really develop their hidden bond into anything real. It tears him apart that he bares himself to someone and she just doesn't respond in a way that validates his worth as a human being. So he gets aggressive, cruel, mean, etc and she pushes away. Not a very interesting story. Realistic, perhaps, but if I wanted to see people being shallow to each other, I'd actually go back to high school.

The story telling was just awkward. The actors felt amateur. The music was interspersed at the oddest times, way too much music, too loud, trying to hard to manipulate mood, etc. You start out with the female character in her late 20's, pregnant, and hearing about this old acquaintance that seem to have died.

Flashback to high school, there is a definite tension of his dysfunctional/shock-seeking behavior. The girl is a shallow conceited cheerleader. Nowhere along the line do you show her growing and caring, etc. She ends up being not likable regardless of the fact that she's the narrator. Maybe you were supposed to like her, but I didn't.

The boy and her start with some hump of high school conflict/tension/class-warfare and befriend each other for an hour out of the day in the privacy of study hall. They dare not actually befriend each other outside of anything. She sure doesn't try to be nice to him. She goes on her merry conceited selfish ways while he tries to open up to at least someone who might show some compassion, sympathy, care, let alone some wild chance at love. Not an ounce of any of that. She befriends him secretly but quickly pushes him away and drives him to lash out. If she wasn't the selfish type, maybe he might feel like he could let go of his aggressive obsessive behavior, but she doesn't and it gets worse. In that sense it's maybe a "real life" type of feel, but nobody wants to see that kind of story in a movie theater. It gets uncomfortable as his behavior becomes more obsessive, and she just pulls away.

The weird present-day pregnancy storyline seems to only be thrown in there in some cheese-factor attempt at explaining how she honors this acquaintance of hers, by naming her baby after him. I have to be brutally honest that it feels pretty lame put in the story.

I kept hoping that as the story progressed, that something would show this bond as meaningful, like they hooked up, he happened to be the father of her unborn child, etc. NOPE. The bizarre thing is that there's a scene where after high school he brings up the idea of faking his death. So she spends a bunch of time later trying to investigate what happened, convinced that maybe he isn't dead, but just hiding. However, once she finds the sister, that subplot gets dropped. They chat for a bit, then the scene cuts to her in the hospital with her baby and the sister watching from the doorway. The baby's wristband says the boy's name (as a namesake), and that's it. The end.

I could overlook the cheesy music, the bad acting by the secondary characters, pointless dialog (despite the realism), etc... but the story was just not memorable. It wasn't something that grabbed my attention. I didn't feel like I cared about what happened. Good stories and good movies get you attached to the outcome. This movie did not. The writer/director also happened to play the sister in the film. I can appreciate that she may have put a lot of work into the film but it just wasn't good/captivating storytelling. At all. In fact, there were many instances where the story could have veered off into a different, more interesting and enjoyable direction, and it went in the opposite. The one accomplishment of the storytelling was changing your perspective from liking her and being creeped out by him to caring about him and hating her. Beyond that, it failed. It could have at least explored the futility of star- crossed lovers in this extreme white-trash vs elitest combo, that would have felt more interesting. But the movie didn't even bother trying.

I suppose I got entirely spoiled by watching a star-crossed lover type of film "The Spectacular Now".... and that set my standards really high, I was expecting something similar from this film and felt at a loss with how amateur afternoon-TV-special this felt.

The Spectacular Now (2013)

Left me in awe

[10/10 · 29 March 2014]

HOLY COW I am in total awe over this film... I will have to watch it at least two or three more times....

Imagine a wounded and bitter teenage boy with a flair for self- destruction, and yet the hint of a giant heart underneath it all, living with avoidance, hiding from the pain of feeling worthless from a mess of a father who left him long ago... and the "plain jane" girl he meets that somehow together they have this awesome chemistry... somehow he brings a certain passion for living that she is attracted to.

You just know that the guy is a prick and you spend the whole movie waiting for him to ruin the only good thing to come his way, hoping (suspensefully) that he does the right thing. You don't know until the very end, how he quite deals with his baggage, if he can face his pain and feelings of failure and decide to grow up rather than always run away from it all.

Let's just say that the ending is touching and that there's hope for him, that he's not the lost cause he thought he was, and that he begins to start recognizing that. This is the story of quite a few teenage boys out there, any teenage boy with an absent or distant father. Not every teen boy may harbor such self-deprecating feelings of himself, but we all definitely have felt drowned in our own sorrow, pain, fear, anger that "dad" wasn't there to love us through.

You can relate it to anybody, that maybe even for the most broken of us, that somewhere underneath all the pain and self-destructive behavior is a raw and tender heart that can do and be good, even amazing, in this life. That you do have a choice to let go of the pain and choose to be that loving sensitive person instead of hating yourself so much.

The story was written well, there is a curve ball about 3/4 of the way through the film that will catch you off guard, and puts you in the emotional mindset of the boy. It's almost as if in his own self- destructiveness that he pushes his unconditionally loving girlfriend away and in an instant shockingly almost loses her entirely, as if he was being damned (or taught a lesson) from a higher power. We just hope it sinks in.

This story definitely has relevance today. There are way too many wounded men who shut themselves off from the pain simply because they don't have a clue how to deal with it. So they shut themselves down. There are women who get involved with these guys and it's sad that many women are so big-hearted that they overlook serious flaws in their men. You can't help but think that the girl's forgiveness/dedication in this film is a bit naive and dangerous for her own good. It's up to the man to grow up and deal with his baggage, otherwise it will bring the woman down with him later on. It's hopefully some sort of inspiration to the troubled boys/men out there to break the cycle.

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

Good except for major plot hole

[6/10 · 21 October 2013]

This is just any typical Denzel action thriller except I was confused with the bad guy's greater motives. I kept thinking that there had to be ulterior motives than the obvious ransom. It wasn't about $10 million. Or was it? They added some element where the bad guy kept checking the stock market and was happy to see gold jump in worth. Why? Was he hoping to keep it? Wouldn't his identity being found out cause his investment/money to be seized? Why did he have such a death wish? Why work so hard to make a ransom work only to be glad that he dies in the end? It makes ZERO sense.

I kept thinking that he was wanting to die deliberately and had some life insurance policy or something that was backed by the price of gold or something - and had children who would receive a death benefit or something - but none of this was even mentioned. It just made no sense for him to care about making a ton of money if he was actually inviting himself to be killed.

I suppose that there is a limitation of what sort of potential can come of this, given the base material to base off of (a novel).... But perhaps the novel simply does not follow a conventional story arc, either. It feels like there are simply things brought up that hint at greater ideas that the screenwriters just dropped out of nowhere.

If you can ignore that, then it's a decent hour and a half to watch. A bit cliché at moments, but generally I still think there was simply not enough character development with the main bad guy. He was very erratic and some clues as to his source of bitterness were given, but either the story has a huge hole (why he cared about investing in gold) or the final resolution of his capture/death came totally out of the blue and doesn't fit within a conventional story arc. Bummer.

InAPPropriate Comedy (2013)

I don't get the bad reviews

[8/10 · 11 September 2013]

I really don't get the bad reviews. This was hilarious. I think people must have thought it was supposed to be an actual "movie" with a plot, story, etc... but think of it like a mix of Mad TV (or Kids in the Hall) and Jackass. Don't overanalyze it or think of it in any other way.

It's corny and low budget at moments but some of it is incredibly funny, especially the "amazing racist" skits. Funny in a really horrible/inappropriate way. It's really like a mix of feature-length comedy skits, nothing more.

I really don't know if all of it was scripted, some of it scripted, or whatever. Some of the reactions seemed genuine like that of Jackass or Borat. I loved it. FUNNY! Often in dumb or horrific ways, but so what?

Odd Thomas (2013)

Peculiar movie, don't understand the rave reviews

[5/10 · 9 July 2013]

This was a peculiar movie. Definitely did not fit the standard cliché "supernatural thriller" or "superhero" story. I really didn't know what to expect.

One thing none of the other reviews mentions is that there is definitely a cheesy teen novel feel to it all. Basically, the main character is likable from the first moment, by everybody, all the action goes into his favor, he has a supernatural gift that everybody seems to be okay with, and even the police chief seems to love him. He already has the girl of his dreams (boring). It has a certain infantile "everyday-hero" feel that is lacking the conflict in reality of how authority (ie the police) would find him nuts and his methods of dealing with these people he catches as vigilante. It all has a strong youth-oriented fantasy/make-believe feel. It seems like something a 13 year old boy could enjoy, but didn't feel very adult oriented. I find it bothersome, though, that it's just so easy for "Odd" to do his thing and succeed. It gives young viewers/readers the sense that life actually goes well/easily for those who do good and/or are weird. It's misleading to teens who are looking for some direction, that life is that easy. Life is hard. Being a hero is hard. Being accepted as different or 'freakish' is hard, in reality most people will scorn you as a freak for being different. Having an unusual ability is often a curse. Basically the total opposite of hero movies like the recent Batman trilogy. Either way, the hero's journey without the tribulation/struggle is not a full journey at all. But perhaps this movie was just trying to be a hip 'thriller' than some hero movie.

Everything worked out so well for "Odd" that it really didn't fit a typical hero story. You don't need to be an action movie to be a hero story. Any story with a 'good guy' trying to do something important (ie stop a mass slaughtering) is a hero story of some sort.

There was one scene that Odd was hauling a dead body of a 225lb+ man. I don't know if it was done deliberately, but it was laughable bad. The shape of the wrapped body (typical average build) was entirely different than that of the actual person (a heavyset guy). Blatantly a generic "dummy" inside. Then there is Odd's "super human strength" being able to pull this HEAVY dead body of a fat man over a ledge and then pick up the whole body with two hands, like it was a sack of potatoes. It was a really awful joke. But whatever.

Overall it was moderately enjoyable but I would not say remotely that it was something I'd see again. Not like something like Butterfly Effect or Sixth Sense. The corniness and total lack of conflict/struggle just rubs me the wrong way. After the movie I just don't feel like it's changed me in any way or that I've learned anything.

The twist ending is a bit unexpected given the otherwise corniness, but a bit cliché if you've seen enough psychological thrillers. A tragic twist to it all at the last second, just to yank on the viewers emotional nerves for effect I suppose. Not really any purpose on than to frustrate you with an ending you really did not want. If there is one formula it's following it's that a largely positive movie has to have at least one part to the ending that is tragic. I just found it annoying.

Whether it's true to the novel(s), I dunno. Its's definitely not what I expected, even not after reading the reviews. I thought it's worth warning other viewers, though, of it's peculiar beat. For those who don't have much tolerance for cheesy teen novels (Beautiful Creatures comes to mind), it might be worth passing on. But I'm sure there are those who love the stories and will love the movie.

Open Hearts (2002)

Low budget doesn't necessarily mean high quality

[3/10 · 20 June 2013]

I probably am going the path of the contrarian here, but I really don't understand the high ratings here. I'm all for indie movies on low budgets, but this is just bad.

The fuzzy-focus, shaky-camera documentary feel of this movie is totally fine.... But whether it's deliberate or part of the whole Dogme thing, there is absolutely NO editing.

There doesn't seem to be any actual script either. It feels like the actors improvised their lines (which is OK) but without much preparation. Dialogue seems forced and unnatural, and you can tell that something is in the dialog because it was a plot point. The video jumps from one thing they say to something else. It was almost like the director was going down a written bullet list of things that need to happen or be said, and was leading them on to improv as they were being videorecorded. "Talk about how your daughter is in trouble", "Ok now cry", "Ok now shout", "Ok now run down the hall", etc... Only bits and pieces to a conversation were recorded, just enough to cover all the plot points, but not enough to seem coherent. The behavior of the actors were not smoothly transitioned from one cut to the next (despite it being only a few seconds/minutes later in 'reality'). It was all dialog without any mood. I don't think this is how people are in real life. It seemed more like 100 cuts of random small little independently acted moments rather than anything coherent. You can tell (whether deliberate or incidental) that the actors weren't paid enough to actually memorize lines (making smooth video scenes possible) and anything more than 15 seconds at a time being recorded.

It's just awful. Cuts are not smooth and honestly bothersome. Totally absent of any sort of emotional depth and exploration. The actors weren't allowed to really express much emotionally, it was more about the lines they were saying and the over-the-top reactions that seemed to be about as quality as a first year drama student.

The jumping around in dialog make it impossible to actually sympathize or understand any of the reasoning behind what is said. One moment Cecile calls Niels, the next moment he suggest buying furniture for her, then he goes to the supermarket just to have a conversation with her saying how he can't stop thinking about her and thinks he's in love with her. Absolutely zero emotional exploration or transition justifying how he feels. It's out of the blue. Later you see the two seemingly in love, in the middle of having sex, and then the hospital nurse calls to tell Cecile that Joachim finally wants to see her. She of course jumps to the occasion and the literal next scene is Niels in his coworker Finn's basement, implying that he must have moved out of Cecile's place - but without bothering to explain it all. Not even a conversation "oh Niels I'm sorry but I love Joachim and want to be with him".

About the best part of the movie was the acting by the supporting people - the daughter, Joachim, the wife, etc. They were more real-life believable. The main actors were just a joke, though.

Beyond all that, there was obviously no budget for a costume designer or scene designer. I couldn't decide whether Niels was a doctor or a nurse, with that plain all-white outfit that was clearly purchased at a department store. For all the time he was at the hospital, none of it actually was of him remotely doing a second of his actual work. So I could never figure out what he did there at the hospital. And just because he has an oversized cell phone from 1995 doesn't mean that somehow raises his status to some sort of doctor. He "must" be important with a giant phone! There was nothing 'real life' about moments that showed no actual every day actions (outside of the 'script') of people.

The dialog where it is first brought up that Joachim will be forever paralyzed is so made up that there's no sliver of authenticity. Not one line suggests anyone did any research as to medical conditions or even to what might a doctor say. Not one doctor actually said a single medical term or medical condition, no medical explanation as to what happened with Joachim physiologically. Not even something as simple as "his spine was crushed". With the car driving no more than 25mph, how he became paraplegic is beyond me. Not a single bit of dialog justifying his medical condition. Usually a doctor would at least start going into medical details once a family member starts asking about any hope/treatment. Awful.

I suppose there is some supposed "real life" feel, but it really seems poor quality. Blair Witch seemed much better. It's fine the car accident scene seemed totally fake, but it really is sub-par for all the actors involved. Low budget doesn't need to be void of intelligent/in-depth dialog, a thought out script, emotional expression, or reasonable editing. With the splices of so many small clips there is really no emotional or psychological exploration of the characters, or transition from one major set of circumstances (the two hanging out) to another (the two living together).

This is most definitely NOT Suzanne Bier's "best" as others suggest. All her other movies were light years better. I feel that Mads Mikkelsen's talent was wasted on this film here. Pretty much any other movie of his was far superior, and many of them were also low budget. With Lars Von Trier as the brainchild behind the Dogme rules, I can understand why this movie here is just awful. There isn't a movie of his I can stand. I otherwise really like Scandinavian films.

Stoker (2013)

Morbid and amazing

[9/10 · 13 June 2013]

I am not quite what to think about this movie..... The general synopsis is that it's about an 18 year old teenage girl named India and the uncle that has recently entered her life after her father dies.

They are both morbid and disturbing people and it takes a while for her to warm up to her unusual uncle. As the story goes on she starts to see just how disturbing her uncle is, and even though at first she is hesitant, eventually it helps her explore her own morbidity. There is a bit of an erotic theme including a saucy masturbation scene. Her sexuality really doesn't have to do with incest or anything but more of her connecting with her darker, morbid side. The movie has a seed of horror but not so much that you could consider it to be a horror movie.

It would seem that many people would question about there being many layers.... Of fantasy versus reality.... but I don't really know if that matters. I don't think there's a moment where it's obvious that the uncle either doesn't exist or is some fantasy of her imagination. Maybe, maybe not. The movie works well either way. There is some jealousy between the mother and daughter over the uncle's attention. The mother is a bit disturbed at their energy together. There is a scene with some morbid music where they play a duet that really strikes India to her emotional core, as if she's a bit overwhelmed that someone could understand the core of how she feels. The fantasy or reality of everything really doesn't matter, but the main theme is more that her disturbed uncle helps her embrace her own disturbed core. She definitely has a thing for blood and death. When her father was alive, he embraced that by taking her hunting frequently. There is some sort of quote that the father said to her once, that sometimes you have to help a person do something bad to prevent them from doing something worse.

The story is a bit unusual and doesn't quite have the typical arc of most Hollywood movies. That may be a slight flaw. The directing and especially the camera work are custom tailored to the morbid theme and I would definitely rate them 10/10.

Mia Wasikowska is impeccable as India Stoker. She's a very disturbed and morbid child, reminiscent of Wednesday Addams, minus the comedy. I had a certain unusual and morbid side to me as a teenager so I found her incredibly attractive. Her mannerisms are spot on, very quiet and cautious, with long disturbing stares and her head always tilted to the side. She was thrilling to watch and definitely attractive if you're into that kind of thing.

Beautiful Creatures (2013)

Corny and a bad story unless you're a 14 year old girl

[2/10 · 8 May 2013]

I was thrown off by the positive reviews and the ones saying it's better than "Twilight". That's not saying much.

I really wanted to like the movie. I did. But there are a few key areas which I feel it fell flat on it's face.

On the positive note, there were pieces I liked.... The sub-plot of motivation for leaving town, the poetry, etc... added a certain depth and feeling to the story.

First off, it feels like an early teen novel in the sense that the storytelling is a bit fantastic, and not in the good sense of the word. One defining characteristic of teen novels are the implausible and extreme (ie silly) behaviors of characters (overemphasizing good and evil) without any sort of relation to human psychology. I don't think it's the fault of the original author of the book, I'm thinking it's more the director who seems to have the mentality of a 13 year old girl. Totally lacking of any emotional or psychological depth behind what happens. Personally I don't think there's such thing as "good" or "evil", so when a story overemphasizes it, it seems corny and aimed at pubescent children who have yet to understand morality. Good stories of morality are supposed to teach our youth how to choose good and how to avoid a selfish and reckless way of life. Without the moral tale, it somewhat gives off the sense that evil is just inevitable. It's not like life events make people selfish or empathetic (sarcasm). Not what teens need to hear. We've gotten to an age where stories entertain and no longer teach, which I find tragic.

Second, the concept of "light versus dark" seemed annoying. To say that whether a teenage girl chooses good or evil is beyond her control, seems sexist if you ask me. Boys can control their will, but girls can't. Probably a plot point to make the whole story even possible. In the end, the girl chooses both.

I was a bit annoyed by how the adults acted with authority but they all had a certain cluelessness of what was going to happen or what was possible, ie how the girl could break the family curse. Seemed to reek of Twilight. Maybe if these two teen lovers just love each other then that will be enough. Major Cheese.

Also, I didn't quite understand the whole hatred of the girl's family. Everyone thought they were witches, and as the bible-thumpers they were, they hated them - but overall it felt forced and perhaps due to the fantasticness of being a young teen novel. Again, no real explanation or psychological justification. I didn't feel like it made sense. Maybe the novel was just bad at addressing that, or maybe the movie just skipped that part. But the Ravenwoods having founded the town and owning much of the land, yet being the hated of most - seemed an odd combination. If people didn't like them so extremely, why not leave for the next town? Why rent land from them (for various local businesses) and support them financially? Just seemed silly.

The explanation of the cause of the family curse - a "castor" could never love a "mortal".... Seemed ridiculous. I could let some types of "magic" pass as reasonable - such as the spell the uncle put on the boy to get him to spew out his most plausible - and pathetic - future (rather than his actual aspirations to get out of the area).... Or even the storms, the wind, the trap at the front gate of the house.... But the "never loving a mortal" thing seemed more of the life isn't in your control nonsense. All because her ancestor used a 'forbidden' spell to bring her then husband back to life. Only for her to turn 'evil' and kill him again. I mean I would like to appreciate teen romances (and some are good), but this is ridiculous.

Lastly, the "only way to save him is through erasing his memory" is lame, and my understanding is that was added to the script not in the original novels. It seemed cheap, like a way to jump the story ahead without explaining how you went from point A to point X.

I went into this looking for the romance, and it seemed to go well for a while, but out of the blue they cut that part of the story out.

I would say if you're a 14 year old girl, you'll probably like this movie. Otherwise, be wary of the story's immaturity, lack of depth, and just plain silliness. I felt like with the right screenwriters and director, this could have been something radically different. If people get offended at the suggestion that this has the cheese factor of Twilight, then I would hate to watch Twilight because this isn't that great either.

Sanctum (2011)

Had some decent potential, but got clobbered by clichés

[6/10 · 10 March 2013]

I was looking for a movie with adventure and Sanctum somewhat delivered, but fell short with excessive clichés.

I've been fascinated about caving for a year or so and eventually would like to explore some caves myself someday, but my boyish fantasies were cut short pretty quickly once the main character (the lead of the expedition, the father of the young boy protagonist) was introduced. He was shown off as a very very arrogant and uncaring man, almost narcissistic and practically wanting everyone to die and blame it on it being "their choice". It made the movie feel like some sort of neo- conservative soap box.

Within 25 minutes, one person has died, even before the storm has arrived outside, in a boneheaded situation that didn't seem probable. A woman's oxygen supply tubing somehow out of the blue burst open in the middle of the underwater. Seemed silly. But perhaps portrayed how cold the leader was.

I was willing to put that aside, and enjoyed bits of the film, but there was more conflict than the storm - there was semi-cheesy conflict between the characters that felt absurd and pushed into the script to add some tension to what probably would have been an otherwise calmer movie. I would have preferred that.

It has a certain reminiscent feel as the recent Prometheus by Ridley Scott, with it's horribly clichéd if not well-timed character flaws and mistakes.

I was hoping that the movie would focus more on the adventure side, but it leaned more on the drama/thriller side, and slowly each person somehow died, except the boy. Character flaws start showing and as the entertainment industry does, flawed people eventually die.

I will say that one thing that kept me going was the main female character in the movie, who I found to be gorgeous with her sexy figure and her strong mesmerizing brown eyes. But she was just the obligatory eye candy of the film.

Unfortunately, she needed to be one of the characters to go, which I felt was unnecessary, but not without the first mandatory gratuitous skimpy underwear scene. One scene showed her mouthing off like a little brat and at that point you knew she was on the 'die' list, 30 minutes before it happened. Sad. Her death scene was over the top, and of course clichéd with her attempt at saving herself actually killing her and losing a bunch of equipment in the process. It felt too much like a movie and not like the 'based on true events' that this movie claimed to be.

Near the end, there remained only 3 people, and for whatever reason, some writer deemed that 3 survivors were too many. The 3rd person did some stupid things taking equipment and going on his own, and of course it bit him on the butt later.

Apparently the father for his flaws being a cold narcissist spelled out his doom, but that was saved for last.

I guess in a sense this movie followed a similar clichéd formula of action/adventure thriller where only a single "innocent" person would survive. That concept has been beaten to death and it masked any interesting plot development or sense of wonder in the cave system.

On a side note, the special effects felt a bit amateur at times. The scene where they first were rappelling into the top end of the cave seemed ridiculously amateur and obvious that it was just some green screen. Most of the movie seemed real, it was just in the beginning that was kinda lame.

It would have been nice to see the final survivor a bit after his escape, but the movie cut out right as he arrived at shore. Movies with dramatic content almost always have hollow endings, almost not much more than "see, the one innocent person survived, now are you happy? the end"

Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike (2012)

Objectivism is worth some serious caution

[3/10 · 3 March 2013]

After watching 3 hours (part 1 and 2) of trying to make sense out of two parts of a trilogy on Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy, I will say that I can't make heads or tails about how any of it makes sense.

In the near future, resources will become so scarce that the governments will force large businesses to share in a very socialistic manner, and in the process somehow that causes economic collapse. Impeding on people's "rational self-interest", and forcing everybody to have the same way of life despite some working harder than others, the only solution is for all the innovators and entrepreneurs and industry moguls to strike and disappear.

Oil costs are at $40/gallon and so railroads are the predominant form of transportation, with a bizarre shortage of engines and nobody anywhere thinking of running diesel engines off vegetable oil or grease. The saving grace to it all is some magical steel and experimental engine that is fuel-free. Saves the entirety of humanity.

The government not impeding on the success of entrepreneurs is what will save us all. Except it forgets to mention that the work isn't DONE by the entrepreneurs, but the thousands of people who work for them who get paid lousy salaries. (Oh how socialist)

To warn newbies to Objectivism and Rand, this was a philosophy developed by a pro-capitalist Russian in the 1940's and 50's. Times were different back then. Way different. The government didn't cater to corporate interests so easily, unlike today. I will say that nobody benefiting from hard works sounds a lot like the workforce these days, in our capitalistic country. The middle class is shrinking, education is becoming irrelevant, both men and women of the household need to work, and computers doubled our efficiency, and yet our lives are busier than ever, none of it is good enough. Blame the government and it's intervention.

The movie has basically become a tout for Libertarian philosophy, which I can understand why no major production company would finance over the 20 years that was attempted by the proprietor of the rights. It shows off a certain pride in being selfish, focused 100% on money, and not caring about the well-being of others, whatsoever. Without greed, society would crumble.

From what I can tell, Objectivism (and perhaps Libertarianism) is basically a justification for being a narcissist. People do deserve to benefit from their hard work, but not at the cost of manipulating and deceiving a workforce in the process. I will say that it's not so easy as capitalism vs socialism. We're in an age that Rand could not foresee where there are the very few who dominate over the very many. Despite the hard work of the masses. I think with the invention of the Internet, we're seeing the importance of voluntary collaboration, how much more we can accomplish when we work together. I will say that individual accomplishment is important, but only to the point of balancing the tables and earning a fair life. I would think anyone who has the capacity for empathy would find a way to invest any excess money into making our communities, our jobs, and a life of less stress and less poverty. The last 60 years and all the politicians and businessmen who have passionately followed Rand's philosophy (which bears a striking resemblance to the deregulation of the Reagan era) haven't made an improvement (if not made things much worse). But the reality is that 'profit' in itself is something that means you earning more money than what you pay people for things. Honestly I don't see why more people don't realize how that just (eventually) makes a small percentage have almost everything while most people have nothing.

As per the movie, I felt like the script was rushed and it wasn't terribly compelling. Part 2 didn't actually progress much. They discovered a potential new kind of engine, and a bunch of political weirdness which I didn't grasp.

Somehow engines were simply scarce, more so than steel or iron ore.

I mean what the heck about diesel engines, ie running them on vegetable oil, especially if we stop eating animals raised on factory farms - a large quantity of grains and beans (for ethanol and oil) would become available.

And how hard is it to build/design an engine? It doesn't take rocket science, just some engineering grasp. Mechanics fix engines every day, and they are everywhere. It seemed to have a certain opinion that true genius and intelligence was very scarce in the world and that justified the few entrepreneurs/monopolists to do as they pleased, that they are saving humanity. Hah! People aren't that hopeless. I'd like to believe that every "village" or small community could have a few engineers/mechanics, etc and everyone in every major field required to maintain a lifestyle for everybody. Suggesting only an elite few could save humanity is preposterous.

It's insulting to the human potential available in everybody.

I will say that everybody deserves prosperity for their hard work, and can see why it's so popular of a philosophy, but doesn't that mean prosperity for EVERY hard worker, even those who do manual labor? Should the CEO get 98% of the money when he accounts for only 1 out of 100,000 people doing the work? This all somewhat pretends that "sharing" is bad because everybody twiddles their thumbs all day and don't work 50+ hours per week (and a joint of 100+ hours per week in a married household).

It obviously comes from the mind of a woman who was very deeply scarred by socialism at the time. When you are deeply wounded by something, you usually cling to an extreme opposite, even though reality is that it's usually an illusion if you learn to let go of your pain.

The Makeover (2013 TV Movie)

Stiles as a Narcissist, not a pleasant movie

[2/10 · 3 March 2013]

Honestly I don't know how this movie could be on Hallmark except that the 'charm' was of that caliber. I will say that this movie is hardly a romance except for the last 30 seconds where the two main characters kiss. There is ZERO chemistry or romance buildup or flirting in the entire movie.

Near the beginning of the movie there was some hint at maybe there being some remote chance of a romance story line with the male lead getting a makeover from beer man neanderthal with a speech impediment - to a handsome suave man.

None of the romance storyline really developed but there were contrived hints along the line of "you need to tell him how you feel" nonsense that felt so out of place.

Elliot was a very likable guy, somewhat lower class blue collar fellow from Bah-stun. The 'makeover' context was more about his speech and mannerisms from beer vendor to politician.

Julia Stiles' character, however, was the prototypical narcissist. Perfectionist 'linguist' that feels the need to correct everybody who is the slightest bit 'unrefined'. Unfortunately, even with my wholehearted attempt at suspending judgment of her character, she was just not a likable person. She never showed any redeeming qualities, no growth, no kindness. For someone who is altruistic enough to pioneer experimental educational techniques for special needs children, she was the prototypical hag. There were several points where she was in a position to apologize and never remotely did, always blaming something else.

It would have been nice to see some sort of emotion out of her, maybe a moment of vulnerability. But there was none. And that's honestly all I needed to like her, but it failed miserably. She was beyond a doubt the ultimate narcissist, and put forth unredeemable abuse onto Elliot for his lack of 'refinedness'. And he kept overlooking how she was just a total witch. There really is no other way to put it. It's abuse, and just because the main character is a woman, doesn't mean her horrid behavior is ignorable.

All it would have taken was a moment of vulnerability, but the writers somehow just pushed things forward and patched the conflict with trivial dialogue. It made no sense. Stiles' character insulted Elliot several times, with bitter cruelty, and somehow he didn't have the sense to cut her out of his life. The whole thing was totally unrealistic and the writers seemed to try to get us to want to like Stiles' character although that was never remotely accomplished.

The storyline is cheezy, and the idealization of politics (actually changing something good) is far fetched (not realistic with how corporate-focused politicians are), but that is not the point. I would have enjoyed the film better if Elliot with his likability had the chance to teach Stiles' character something about being human or being a decent person. But the film cut out too quickly and somehow got a moment to sneak a kiss in which I found far contrived.

I did, however, get some insight into how women can be in politics, that it takes a certain amount of emotional detachment and need to control, perhaps a hint of narcissism. It takes a certain absence of moral and emotional character to be in politics. It's a bit expected of men, in our society, but for women to be into politics (and not all soft- hearted), it seems to require a certain self-centered focus that narcissism provides. In that sense, Stiles played the role of would-be female politician well. I can somewhat understand how someone like Hillary Clinton could want to be in politics, what kind of person she is underneath (really not a good person), and how a politician's wife can overlook "intern sex" scandals. Because there's a bigger agenda overall, that morality, family, etc are trivial in comparison. Julia Stiles' character was thankfully a morally ground politician (how few they are) and cared about real issues (education, crime, etc). But that didn't mean she was likable as a person or worthy of romance from the other main character.

Julia Stiles playing a prototypical narcissist is honestly something that is going to be hard to shake from my memory. It's going to distort any further movies I see with her in it, unfortunately.

The Burning Plain (2008)

Tragic event surrounding characters, with a hopeful, but sudden, ending

[9/10 · 17 February 2013]

Similar to movies like Babel or 21 Grams, this movie is based around a tragic event, and the characters surrounding it.

The connectedness among the characters is something that is revealed slowly, though I will say it becomes apparent enough about 30 minutes in how Charlize Theron and Jennifer Lawrence are connected, primarily through a third (Mexican) character. You see several Mexican men (and boys), but watch for the guy with the big nose, and you'll start to piece it together. It's not until about the half way point that you start to realize how the Mexican girl plays into the whole thing.

I got the impression that the movie had a certain sad and depressing ending, but I felt like the tragedy/sadness was more of the climax than the ending. You see Charlize Theron's character behaving throughout the movie with a certain sense of self-loathing and thankfully the end of the movie shows the beginnings of change in her character for the better.

There is in fact two tragedies in this movie, and it's not until about 3/4 of the way through that you start to understand why the second one happened. Which is related to the first one, the burning trailer.

I feel that Kim Bassinger as a cheating mother and Jennifer Lawrence as the aware and yet bitter daughter, was a dynamic that both played very well. Faced with self-shame and loneliness, a mother of four finds romance in another man and as the story goes on, you start to see her carefulness slipping, as the daughter (Jennifer Lawrence) learns of the situation. She begins to express a certain coldness and yet self- inflicted pain/mutilation that is the product of learning to hate her own mother.

In the end, we are presented with the moral that we always have a choice to live with shame or live with love. The film has a certain sensation of epicness, in the sense of showing the human extremes of love, tragedy, hope, reconciliation, hatred, shock, etc, but I'm glad it ends on somewhat of a semi- positive note.

The only real gripe I have is the sudden ending that leaves the viewer on a certain emotional string. We are left with a certain feeling of hope, but the scene cuts out just as Charlize Theron's character decides to make a different choice (of not running away) - rather than showing what actually happens next because of that choice. The ending would have felt less ambiguous (though somewhat hopeful) and more uplifting. It could have lasted one more scene, with hugs and smiles and what not, and still kept the depth of humanness in the whole story, without being too cheezy.

Beautiful Boy (2010)

The tragedy of escapism in our society, the hope of intimacy and love

[10/10 · 10 February 2013]

A gut-wrenching movie, it shows an honest/raw portrayal of a distant couple facing the tragedy surrounding their son. The denial, the shock, the grief, the rage, the anxiety, the sorrow, the hopelessness.

You wonder why a seemingly normal young adult can do something as tragic/irrational as public murdering of a dozen people and then oneself. Going beyond blame and fear that is conventional in the media, the movie takes the perspective of the child's parents, who are in shock and grief, and simply can't understand what went wrong, with such a "normal" child. Are the parents to blame? Did they do their best? Did they do anything wrong? Were their tell-tale signs?

Or are the socially acceptable ideas of escapism (within work and entertainment and gender roles) to blame for shutting down the ability for our youth to feel and cope with their emotional turmoil? What do our children learn from us when we form habits of avoiding communication and expression, and simply escape into a realm of fantasy and distraction? Perhaps something so innocent as not talking to our children about how we feel and letting a marriage drift apart into a chasm, avoiding the responsibility of feeling anything at all by simply not giving one's emotions any time through unstructured time or expression. Maybe the recipe for a broken marriage, faking it for the kids, and our unwillingness to work with our spouse (or move on to healthy relationships), teaches our children to never bother recovering from their own pain caused from our destructive society and communities.

Perhaps a large segment of divorcées simply drifted apart because of the inevitable pain they wanted to avoid from being in society. You go through years in life and face many difficult, unpleasant, and traumatic experiences/events (big and small). When you face a mountain of pain, you either face it and risk falling apart, or ignore it and shut down. Shutting down means you disconnect from yourself AND others, and let the most important relationships around you suffer as well. Reality is that society and it's demands are unaccommodating of family, of love, of children, of leisure and intimate/honest human connection - in a world where production and profit are king. The abuse just doesn't become readily apparent until we have other priorities outside of work, ie family.

Perhaps the dichotomy of an absent and silent father and an overbearing mother - both socially acceptable roles - has much to do with the despair developing in our youth - powerless to feel and express themselves and to cope with their feelings. Teaching our children to shut down, to sit helplessly in despair, until it becomes too much. That the pain we feel is inevitable and not worth overcoming. The movie also shows a sad portrayal of the parents' attempt at coping through escapism in entertainment (the father) and clinging to familiar habits/roles (mothering, working, fixing things), etc. How we try to fill the void.

Perhaps the redeeming and uplifting part of this movie is how we all suffer when we shut down and escape, but opening up back to each other, despite the difficult and painful feelings we don't want to face - such as regret/bitterness over being in such rigid provider/caregiver roles - that this willingness toward raw intimacy, no matter how difficult or unpleasant, might just save us from the despair we don't want to face, by having love and nurturing and understanding from another - something not possible when you shut yourself off from others and prefer escapism and rigid roles over human connection.

There are moments in the film where the estranged couple begin to talk about how they feel in general and show a care for the other, moments of letting go of the pain and embracing intimacy, and moments where they hit rock bottom and attack each other for their personal suffering and the suffering of their dead child, rather than bear any responsibility, even if just by communication and intimacy and love. In their case, the marriage ending is perhaps not so much about anything either have done wrong, but about the silent suffering each has gone through, and the fear of facing the pain that the other reminds them of, in the process of being productive and normal members of society. Keeping up with the Jonseses. Suffering which they have, up until this tragedy, learned to stuff and hide away and avoid facing.

Rust and Bone (2012)

Touching film, weak ending

[7/10 · 5 December 2012]

I appreciated this film for it's portrayal of two people with rough moments in their life. It shows tenderness, compassion between the characters, support through their struggles, pushing each other to succeed, and eventually the commitment of two people who otherwise are used to living very independent lives.

Essentially Ali is a man with a history of fighting/brawling, who comes to live with his sister and brings along his 5 year old son. What brings them there to their new life is perhaps the boy's mother being caught by authorities for drug smuggling. It seems that being a father is something new to Ali.

Stephanie is a whale trainer at a local marine park, and ends up in a devastating accident that leaves her with her legs being amputated. Her struggle is in making sense out of life, whether to continue, the shame of being a cripple, etc.

The general story arch plays with themes of independence and love, and perhaps make the case for love, it's essential need. They originally meet when he is a bouncer at a club that she gets in a fight from, and it shows her in a weak state of desperation to be noticed/thrilled by men. After her accident, Stephanie struggles to cope with life and Ali helps push her back into normalcy. For a while they are just friends and sexual partners, but this is perhaps due to their old habits. In the beginning (prior to Stephanie's accident) it shows her with her boyfriend which is obviously an abusive situation. It's not until near the end of the movie that the two characters realize that maybe love is worth it.

There were some incredible ordinary moments that brought the viewer to a profound emotional moment. Ali picks up a girl from a bar, when he and Stephanie are clearly in a romantic grey zone (being sexually active). The movie is not afraid to show the characters making mistakes and their conversation the next day shows some surprises as to how the characters can deal with things without getting too cliché/Hollywood. Stephanie shows a certain maturity and independence not found in chick flicks.

Seeing Stephanie ultimately supportive of Ali's fighting was a bit of a surprise. Maybe through her accident she has changed her view of life, become a tougher person. She took on as his manager eventually and she did well. She never blinked, never got scared, especially the one match where he was getting the crap beat out of him. All she did was get out of the van and walked up to the crowd, stood there, and watched, expecting him to do his best. It felt like one of those moments where an authoritative father would walk up to his son in a brawl and simply stand there, implying to him: 'dont disappoint me'. Perhaps in that sense it portrays her love for him, being supportive of him for what he has to do, even if it (brawling) is not the best thing. It's what he's good at and she's supportive.

The movie did show a certain lopsidedness of Stephanie realizing how impractical it is for her to have the same casual lifestyle as Ali. She tries, but fails miserably when a man trying to pick her up sees her prosthetic legs. It seems that at this point she realizes that she can't go through life casually anymore.

I knew off the bat that Ms. Cotillard actually did have legs so I was curious about the scenes showing her without them. I will say the indoor scenes are convincing, but the beach scenes seemed to not work well, where it was quite noticeable where her legs were erased with colors that didn't match the background (the sky) and blurry legs.

Unfortunately I found the movie to have a weak ending. There was a big conflict between Ali and his sister regarding some video cameras he helped install (illegally) at her place of employment, and in the process it got her fired because she took home expired food (yogurt/etc). This conflict didn't make sense. I worked at a produce distributor briefly and they were happy to give employees expired food, simply because the other option was to throw it away. It's too old to remain on the shelf. It's not like they stole sellable food. This odd plot point felt disappointing because I didn't find it realistic.

This conflict drove Ali to run away, to some sort of training center for fighters. Perhaps he felt desperate. In the process he totally abandons his son (leaves with his sister), which didn't make sense to me, but perhaps again part of his character flaws.

The climax is a crisis with him and his son on a frozen pond and the boy falls through the ice. I felt a bit confused since it doesn't show the boy with any signs of life, not breathing, not choking up water, not Ali giving him CPR. You find out later that he was in a coma for a few hours, but survives.

At this point Ali feels lost and in terror and calls Stephanie, perhaps only then realizing how much better and easier life is to love and be loved. They get together, he becomes a big fighter, the boy is OK, the end. It just felt like it overlooked a major moment of the two characters really committing/expressing their love... The movie didn't need to go all Hollywood chick-flick, but I felt that given the entire emotional exploration through the rest of the movie that it was an essential point, that they at least talk to each other and convince each other why things are better together. The ending was undeveloped, and so that's why I rated it down 3 points.

Excision (2012)

For the misunderstood and morbid

[9/10 · 6 October 2012]

I actually enjoyed this movie. Probably because I could relate to the girl. Except I'm a guy. But at that age I was the weird outcast. I wasn't very morbid on the surface, but I was the loner that people looked at weird, made fun of, etc... and I embraced a certain dark side to cope. If that's how people treated you, it was better to be weird than to be normal.

What people need to see is that this girl is totally misunderstood. Her mother can't stand that she's anything but some miss beauty queen and forces her to fit that mold even though she is the farthest from that. And that smothering/abuse crushes Pauline. There are obvious morbid horror parts, mostly out of fantasy, which give Pauline a certain relief/joy. Her mother makes her feel ugly and disgusting and so Pauline clings to the morbid to feel good about herself.

She's also a bit deranged. And I commend the actress for pulling that off. Her character is not afraid to say things very bluntly even though people think she's a freak. She wants to be accepted, but not by giving up her identity. That would be giving in. You see moments of disappointment, woundedness, rejection, etc when she says something that grosses others out, but then you also see moments when she takes pride in freaking them out. She is the ugly duckling with a love for blood and death.

There were varying moods throughout the film. Sometimes it was comedy, sometimes it was morbid horror, and sometimes it was heartwrenching drama. I think the writers of this film did a good job of touching that many genres.

I may be in the minority for saying I actually liked Pauline. She's morbid, brutish, cynical, and ugly, but you could tell that underneath her hard shell she wanted to be loved and accepted, and had the possibility at opening up and feeling the slightest bit of positive feeling. Her mother was a horrible witch, and that drove her into her emotional dungeon. I can relate to Pauline for looking as 'freakish' and 'unkempt' as she did, because I did the SAME EXACT THING when I was in high school! I wanted to prove a point. That I didn't care what others thought. They were in the wrong for implying what I should look like, how I should act, etc. Screw them. With Pauline, she felt out of place trying to look attractive. Her mother kept pounding in the idea that she was ugly and a monster, and Pauline took that to heart, sadly. But you could tell, with her personality and seeing pinhole cracks of light in her hardened heart, and how she looked, that under the surface was beauty, if you just loved her and accepted her. There were plenty of moments where she did things weird (such as the tattoo-scar or the nose piercing, etc) and all it would have taken was her mom saying she looks pretty or just being glad that she's finding her own form of expression and self-love. Even if it's not that stupid miss well-mannered beauty queen nonsense.

I think Pauline was worth loving. If I knew a girl back in high school like that, I would have probably made friends with her, at least to give her a glimpse at being liked, appreciated, and normal for once.

I felt that her dad was trying to be accepting, loving, etc but the dominant attitude of her mother would get in the way and get him to have no choice but to turn against Pauline in the end. I found the father to be pathetic. Maybe if he was not so pathetic then Pauline would have felt like at least someone was on her side. It wasn't until the end where her little sister asks Pauline to be her maid of honor someday when she gets married, that she felt the tiniest bit of love from somebody.

The ending seems natural, given her desire to be a surgeon some day. Even the one good thing she wants to do with her life is shot down by her parents because of an act of (justified) violence. I'm not a violent guy myself, but I totally support the hurt getting revenge against the cold hearted trash out there. She feels the need to prove her parents wrong about her gift with her hands, and when it comes to the point that her sister needs an immediate lung transplant, she decides to take charge to prove to her parents that she's gifted after all. Her mom of course could never understand. The movie ends without ever knowing whether Pauline successfully transplanted a lung to her sister (from some bratty neighbor girl across the street). It leaves on a sad note of desperation to feel loved, and perhaps waking up to the reality of how horrific doing an amateur (unskilled) surgery in a garage ultimately can be.

All in all, I liked Pauline and think she deserved to be loved. It hints at the larger societal rejection of someone who can't fit nicely within the economic machine, that school is a part of. So much of modern society is built around fueling this maddening machine that makes the rich richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class stupider. That includes rejection of the freaks, no matter how gifted they may be in something.

Cosmopolis (2012)

Good social commentary, but wouldn't really watch again

[7/10 · 30 September 2012]

I found this movie to have a similar social commentary to American Psycho - showing just how dark and pathological and neurotic (and slightly mentally ill) the wealthy can be. I find this to be a fitting movie for appropriate social commentary, but I probably would not watch it again. This was MOSTLY dialogue, mostly in a moving limo, and it was really abstract at times.

What I did like about the movie was showing the wretched world of the wealthy. Some of them rise to the top out of a burning desire to control and dominate, and they exhibit a warpath of destruction to others around them when things go wrong. It goes to show that they are not good-hearted people.

In a world where people make money off of money, what really is the purpose to life? How in the world can anybody find any inkling of interest and/or happiness in betting on various currencies rising and falling, let alone wishing/ensuring that they do so? Who actually finds joy in that? Surely, only people whose sole concern is making lots of money. Nobody with a heart or care for anyone outside of themselves. The wealthy know the destruction they are doing, devastating the lives of most people to get what they want. Robert Pattinson plays the 'damaged' person well, I enjoyed his performance in Remember Me.

As unusual and perhaps awful as the movie was - really nothing does happen - except maybe 5 minutes of activity spread across 1 1/2 hours - I found it important. It's important to analyze the assumptions about our society, about hierarchy, money, etc. It makes you think about how we ought to live without excessive wealth, global economics, etc.

I can understand most people would probably abhor this movie. But if you put aside expectations of action, drama, etc or anything actually happening for that matter, you can maybe look at this with fresh eyes and see it as somewhat of an anthropological/sociological view of the wealthy. It really is only meant to show you how these people live, how they think, what they feel, what they worry about, what matters to them. A taste of their world. These are NOT nice people. Not the illusions we idolize in our media.

There were a few good lines, one about how the middle class doesn't hate the rich because they're 10 seconds away from being rich themselves. And a few others in the style of Fight Club or American Psycho.

If you are a fan of social commentary, such as Fight Club, American Beauty, American Psycho, etc - then you might enjoy this movie - at least once. It's not really something you watch twice. The guy goes through a downward spiral and it just shows the pathology behind his way of life. Not easy watching.

Robin Hood (2010)

Ridley is losing his grip on decent movie making

[2/10 · 30 September 2012]

Ridley Scott is a horrible director. He can't hack a script together for nothing, especially not when it tries (and fails) to connect to another story. Prometheus was another example of an abysmal story. It seems that instead of Ridley actually going with a half decent story, he finds several plot points or events he wants to happen that supposedly define a story, but then all the filler in between to connect the dots is far fetched. There is nothing heroic or mythological in these scripts. Just action, fighting, drama, etc and pretty awful at that. The Robin as a Crusade fighter almost seemed like a good backstory, but it really was forced with trying to mesh it with the Robin Hood storyline.

I found the Robin of Longstride - Robert of Loxley dual identity thing confusing and unnecessary. And I'm sorry, but Russell Crowe was way too old to be Robin Hood, especially as a pre-outlaw. The disjointedness with the other Robin Hood stories just made my head spin.

I really hate it when all major Hollywood movies pay the same overpaid big name actors to play parts they really are not good for. Nick Cage, Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, etc. It's getting ridiculous. It almost seems like some lame attempt at getting more people to view the movie. Otherwise, who'd care about a half baked script with a no-name actor? That would mean the script would HAVE to be more than just junk. I guess getting bigshot actors is Hollywood's way of making up for not actually making decent movies/stories.

And Russell Crowe is Australian. Not a good choice for an Englishman. It's been said his accent fluctuated way too much through the movie. But ignoring that, he has a small niche he's good for, and this wasn't it. I think someone like Clive Owen would have done a better job, not messed the accent up, and accomplished the drama/romance better. Crowe was decent as the cold Roman Army general who was betrayed by Caesar, and rose up from the trenches against him. But romance and jovialness is not Crowe's forte. But even with the right acting, the script was so hacked that the romance came from nowhere, just to add the happy ending Robin and Marion nonsense. They hardly spend any time bonding/alone together in the film and then suddenly Robin can say openly that he loves Marion. There was not enough time to show any believable romantic development. The Robin + Marion romance was just forced.

I will say that this movie is slightly better than Prometheus. That movie had so much action-horror cliché nonsense that it was laughable and honestly very amateur. But this film has just as much forced plot points to get just enough of the familiar story in, and yet enough new material for us to get the illusion that it was worth creating a whole new movie for.

In the end, the ridiculous King John, in some egotistic fit that I didn't believe for a second, decided to burn the governmental charter and declare Robin an outlaw. I can understand burning the charter, but what does declaring Robin an outlaw have to do with that? Where did that come from? What were his motivations? I don't quite know. Seemed like it came from left field. Unless somehow it was out of some momentary jealousy because somebody pointed out that Robin did more to win the war than King John did.

The ending was preposterous. The French had to have at least 5,000 men land on shore and somehow a band of what I thought was maybe 500 Englishmen somehow ravaged them. And the sword scene between Mark Strong's character and Robin. Who in their right mind just swings a sword as hard as they can only to cling and clang and never actually stab the other person? I am so tired of seeing swordfights in movies where the swords are used more as sticks to overpower the other person rather than to stab them like a sword is meant to. The samurai have it right, using the least effort to make the kill. And what was the deal with the two boats crushing together (a radical improbability) so it looked like Robin was drowned/crushed, only for Strong's character to think he was killed so he decided to ride off in the sunset? Total nonsense. But something had to happen to get from point A to point 123, 2 minutes later. It sure wasn't a straight line though.

But all in all, I think Crowe did the best he could given his forte and the script handed to him. Ridley Scott is just losing it. Shame on him for wasting millions of dollars and suckering in countless people to watch nothing but confusing and hacked movies. He really needs to learn what real storytelling is about, or retire until a decent script comes his way.

Stepping Into the Fire (2011)

Interesting, but really dull

[5/10 · 25 September 2012]

I found the documentary interesting, but it really bored me. I think whoever came up with how the video was going to be edited and put together wasn't someone with prior experience (or thinking) of trying to make something useful out of it. It was more of just an infomercial for this place in Peru that the guy built.

I don't think enough was emphasized on the actual experience of Ayahuasca. I've gotten more from fiction movie references about what it's about/like and honestly I really didn't feel sold in this documentary. The people really only went into describing their problems and saying how they feel more whole and at peace - but nobody really elaborated on that to express what life felt like or what they saw, heard, etc from the whole experience - they ended up speaking more about what went through their head (briefly) than anything interesting.

But Rob and the individuals interviewed seemed to talk hype about how Ayahuasca was going to make their lives perfect, etc.... more of their personal motives rather than a bigger picture of expanding our awareness. There is also much much more to spirituality/growth than just an enlightening hallucinogenic experience. I seemed to gather more of the vibe that these people were using Ayahuasca to deal with their demons/problems rather than gain some sort of bigger picture of reality, humanity, etc that could maybe save us from ourselves. Not just healing ourselves individually and helping others heal - but shifting our perception of how we treat each other - and getting away from our obsession with money and things. The spiritual journey is really supposed to be about community/connectedness and love more than just healing wounds.

I felt the most useful information was from the shaman, discussing how our modern way of life is grossly insufficient. But I didn't feel sold from what Rob was saying. What he was saying sounded more like an infomercial about his temple project in Peru. Perhaps it just felt that way because this documentary seemed filmed off-and-on over several months, while his project was underway rather than after it was well established.

It felt like the video was recorded arbitrarily without any real vision beforehand. The people interviewed really didn't say anything too interesting other than who they were, what their problems were, and how they felt afterward - and even then, it was not very convincing.

The clips were also shot without much context as to when they were filmed, as it seemed to span at least a 6 month period. It started with the wife really unhappy, miserable, strained from their relationship - and didn't really put that in context of the 'past', so it really made the whole thing seem like a hypocrisy. She was very bluntly unhappy with Rob and this project he was getting involved in - and after she came down and had some time there, we didn't hear much about how their relationship improved, at least not from the wife. I'd have preferred hearing how her marriage has improved directly from her than from Rob.

Also it felt that there really wasn't much of a selling point since the center/temple was really only being built as the documentary was being filmed. I think if they would have waited a few more years and got more people to experience it, it could have been edited to offer a stronger point and been more compelling of a film. The proof to their claims was not very extensive other than about 5-6 people's experiences. There just weren't enough people sharing their experiences. I would have preferred at least 1 or 2 dozen people. Maybe then there would have been at least a few people with some really powerful insights worth highlighting. It also would have helped to focus on their time there and after (how things have improved) - rather than spending half the film recording these people before they even got down to Peru. I think it also would help to have the people elaborate more on how their lives have shifted afterward. The documentary seemed to have only covered these people the days they were down there rather than the weeks/months after they got back home.

In the credits I got the impression that Rob and his wife mainly live in NYC, and I'm guessing he still works on the stock exchange. But I'd like to point out that it's that opportunism - that capitalization - of competition, pursuit of money, etc that drives people to lives of volatility. Crime, poverty, drugs, etc are all side effects of a society that has abandoned tradition and stability/well-being for opportunity, for money making. In a sense, Rob trying to earn money for this project is probably affecting the lives of people who-knows-where, for the worse. I hope that he can focus on this project F/T and let go of feeding poison into the system he seems to want to heal.

Finally, the website doesn't work for most of the pages from what I can tell.

Star Trek: Enterprise: Dear Doctor (2002) Season 1, Episode 13

Ending wasn't what I was expecting

[4/10 · 6 July 2012]

This episode surrounds discovering a new species who is rapidly dying of a genetic defect, to the point of total extinction in their near future. This species is pre-warp but technologically/industrially advanced.

There is a second species, probably of similar ancestry, who live primitively, where there are somewhat treated inferior by the dominant species. They seem to be immune to the disease that is killing the dominant species.

Once they mentioned that the 2nd species' immunity (and certain dependence/inferiority to the dominant species) I kept anticipating that Dr. Phlox would suggest interspecies mating to potentially weed out this genetic defect. It would solve the problem of the 2nd species being treated like inferior, as well.

Unfortunately that suggestion was never brought up and I guess the writer of the episode just wanted to bring up the "We can't play god" theme where you don't intervene technologically/medically with a less advanced species. Honestly you don't need to intervene medically to eliminate genetic defects - it's called diversification with mating. Telling the dominant species to integrate the other 'inferior' species into their own and interbreed wouldn't be the 'playing god' thing. It's just common sense for anyone who has any comprehension of (genetic) diversity.

Star Trek Phase II (2004–2016)

The least they could do is get the lighting correct

[4/10 · 29 June 2012]

I just briefly skimmed through the pilot and don't think I'm going to watch it at all.... The special effects are really amateur (you'd think in this day, with all sorts of computer software out there that it wouldn't be an issue, and a show made 40 years ago would look worse but it doesn't), but nevermind that.

The big thing that spoiled my interest was how awful the lighting was. Like something you would hack together from stuff from the hardware store. Noticeable shadows and darker tones. At least get the lighting right.

I would rather recommend people read Star Trek books instead if they are really into the whole Star Trek storyline.

Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001)

Characters are not likable like in TNG

[8/10 · 29 June 2012]

The characters in Voyager are not likable like in TNG. That show you actually liked everybody. OK, well the first 3 seasons were kinda lame, but I blame Gene Roddenbery and his preaching of a future 'utopia' for that. OK, maybe Dr. Pulaski was a horrible idea and just a snotty and abrasive character, but thankfully they ditched her after one season.

In Voyager, all the characters are predictable by the 2nd season. Tom with his fetish for vintage Americana is cliché and gets old. They supposedly added some lame rebel without a cause storyline to out-of-the-blue demote him to Ensign, because somebody (some exec) felt the show had too many senior officers. I dunno, I mean in TNG all the major characters was at least a Lieutenant.

Harry with his boy scout morality/weakness and bad luck with women. And it seemed cheap of the writers to never have his character evolve or earn Lieutenant. He was just boyish, weak, and didn't have an ounce of standing up for what's right.

Then there's Chakotay with his Native spirituality and sense of rebellion against Janeway. Neelix was a jealous misogynistic controlling freak jerk when it came to Kes. and Kes was still a 'child' when he got involved with her! (eww, talk about a pedophile) Kes, for supposedly been pre-teen when the series started, but I think they added that randomly to fit some episode stories than actually conceiving that idea to begin with. She portrayed too much intelligence and not enough spontaneity/innocence to seem like a child.

I suppose they had to add the 'evolved' Kes storyline to kick her off the show. Maybe somebody caught on that the possessiveness that Neelix showed wouldn't fly much longer. So, in total Star Trek fashion (a la Tasha Yar and Doctor Crusher in the end of 1st season TNG) they had to kick the WOMAN off the show.

They added Seven of Nine, but she was more eye candy than anything. The Doctor (and Data, an android from TNG) showed more humanity than Seven. Janeway is, well, worth calling an obscenity - she has something rammed up her rear-end. They took the moral fortitude of Picard and took all the compassion out to leave her as a royal (expletive). Instead of adding some likability to her, you just learned to despise her, despite the likability they force-fed you on occasion.

The characters and story lines were just predictable way too early in the series. There's only so much you can do when the entire voyage is based upon 'getting home'. I found it lame how at the end of every season they found some magical technology that pushed them another 10-20 years closer to home, and somehow the technology broke overnight and those genius engineers couldn't think of how to get it back working, at least partially. I was relieved when they added the romantic storyline between Tom and B'elanna, actually something worth feeling other than a bunch of sterile characters. But it would have been better to introduce that earlier on in the series such as when B'elanna is split into a fully klingon and fully human duplicates, and then spend more time expanding on them as a family, having their baby, their baby grow up, etc. Introducing a female chief engineer character with anger issues (and a female captain) was perhaps some way to please the feminists who were tired of the sexual stereotyping in Star Trek. But it seemed more to counteract remnants of a sexist reputation than anything else. The whole storyline lacks the heroism or archetypal prototyping that any good sci-fi/fantasy series depends upon.

With the whole 'getting home' storyline, it basically forced the writers to focus too much on Voyager running into enemies, like the Kazon. There wasn't really any other race they came across along the way that you liked. At least with the other Star Trek series, the story lines could be a bit more free-form and not forced to meet a specific end-goal, where each episode had to work up toward the end. That perhaps gave more creative freedom to explore themes, situations, etc that were more entertaining. The holodeck black and white Captain Proton or Tom and Harry get stuck on a planet in over their heads, etc, as much as they tried to be entertaining, well, wasn't.