Well18 Reviews

King Kong (2005)

Peter Jackson owes me ten dollars (worst movie ever made)

[1/10 · 14 December 2005]

This was one of the worst movies ever made. The CGI was over the top and the acting was horrible. To cast Adrian Brody as the leading man was even worse than casting Jack Black as a movie maker in Hollywood. Naomi Watts was also horrible; all she did was give a "Oh I feel so sorry" look the entire time. The dinosaurs were right out of Jurrasic Park, and didn't even look as good. The crew of the ship all seemed as if they were waiting for their cues the entire time. And it's corny as heck. King Kong actually ice skates. And even worse, Watts juggles for King Kong's amusement. It's just a horrible film, a complete joke. I don't know why Jackson had to have everything dealing with actors being out of work, and about nifty little plays and vaudeville nonsense. No one cares about that stuff. And the special effects, while they looked good, just seemed as if you were watching a cartoon, or watching someone else play a video game.

Mighty Joe Young (1949)

SON OF KONG was even better than this

[1/10 · 1 December 2005]

I hate MIGHTY JOE YOUNG. I liked the special effects, but other than that the movie was downright horrible. The pacing was all off. The story was pointless. The timing was horrific. The acting, by some good actors, was downright bad. It was corny and it was lame. I mean, they just happen to come upon a big house burning down... and lo and behold, it's an orphan's home. And the drunks who get Joe drunk all act drunk like they're in cartoons with that overdone twisted way of talking like they should be in a mental hospital. And the lions were lame, and not scary. And the ending was really, really, really bad, the very ending where Joe's name is written in the clouds. And the very beginning, where the little girl, the biggest overacting child actor I've ever witnessed, is talking to some hunters, man is that a bore. This movie is downright painful to watch. And as bad as SON OF KONG is, I still like that one more; it's more enjoyable, more relaxing, and there are way better fights because there are dinosaurs and giant bears and you can at least have a good time. But this film was just pointless. It's sappy and tiresome. No on Joe.

Homeboy (1988)

Awful Comic book Acting and Writing

[1/10 · 3 October 2005]

Horrible movie. After watching it I read that Mickey Rourke wrote it. This makes sense. Actors all want to be writers, and vice versa. Fortunatly, we don't have to see writers trying to be actors. But we do see certain actors take a stab at writing. Some actors do a great job writing films, others do a horrible job. Like Rourke. Rouke took a stab at modern boxing noir, and stabs the audience with cliché characters, and dialog that is trying for Cassevettes but is more fitting to an episode of 'Melrose Place'. Rourke is a good actor, but his acting in this film is horrendous. He proves that even if you don't say a word you can still overact. His character is completely unbelievable. He resembles a comic book palooka, has an extended chin, and walks around like he's trying to be menacing, like he's imitating some real life mean looking guy he knew once who wasn't a rich, trouble actor haunted by natural good looks; Rourke would probably give anything in the world to be a born loser with 'nothing to lose'... but then he'd never be able to write and star in films, would he? The characters around him, all having a kick with Rourke's lame dialog somehow (what else can they do?), attempt to keep things afloat. But you cannot save a sinking ship. How is it that a much lower actor, Sly Stallone, can write a ten times better boxing movie, and can act ten times better. The character Rocky Balboa was believable. Rourke's character was not. Even his name was pretentious: Johnny Walker (get it?) I'll repeat: this movie is horrible. The love story is horrible. The action is horrible. The acting is horrible. The music is good, thanks to Eric Clapton. But everything else stinks.

Frogs (1972)

Ribbiting!

[10/10 · 14 July 2005]

This film is absolutely ribbiting. The action really toads the line between intense and dynamic. I was swamped with delight witnessing such awesome acting by the likes of Ray Milland, Sam Elliot, and Adam Rourke. This isn't one of those "Government tried a shortcut and ended up creating a monstrosity of nature that now has to kill all mankind" type of sci-fi creature films. This is nature verses man all the way, the likes of "Jaws", that'd come out a few years later. Well okay, this is no "Jaws", but folks, I'm telling you, it's pretty darn entertaining, if not in a "fun to bag on" sense. The pace is slow but intentionally so, as the froggies move in while a group of rich people (and Sam Elliot as the token environmentalist) are about to have a outdoor picnic. Sam Elliot as the do-gooder nature guy doesn't go over-the-top, and doesn't lecture like so many "nature first" characters can do in these films (i.e., no rants). Everything in "Frogs" is pretty subtle, even the attacks by the reptiles. Mind you, the frogs themselves don't move in till the end; but they are the silent generals of the surrounding swamp land's snakes, lizards, and giant spiders. Rent, or buy, "Frogs"... It's a truly ribbiting film! (The beginning credit sequence is one of my favorites of all time; and stick around for a little surprise after the end credits...)

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974)

"Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, & Quiet Deke" should be the title

[6/10 · 14 July 2005]

This is a decent b-movie. A lot of driving, little dialog, a bad cop, good guys that are likable thieves, but not too likable, I mean, this isn't "Smokey and the Bandit" after all. What miffs me is that there is no mention of, really, or a picture on the DVD or VHS box of, a character who is the core of the film, Deke the mechanic, played by Adam Rourke. Adam is in between Peter Fonda, the driver, and Susan George, a white trash bimbo they pick up along the way, or rather, who they'd already met as the movie is in motion, and is the pace car (barometer), as it were, of the film's overall progression. Vic Morrow plays the mean cop on their trail, and it's sad witnessing an ironic scene in which he is riding in a helicopter, and the pilot keeps warning him that if they don't land, they'll crash and burn. It does get a big annoying though as every cop under Morrow shots him rueful glares after he passes them by and/or barks orders at them; I mean okay, we get the point already... he's a jerk cop! Susan George's acting is pretty bad. She is a great actress though; fans of "Straw Dogs" know what I'm talking about. Fonda is as good as Fonda can be. But it was Deke the Mechanic, played by Adam Rourke, I felt for the most. He had to put up with the silly banal arguments of Fonda and George, and also he has a run-in with Fonda at a bar while playing pool that has some true intensity to it. He's really the only character I cared for in the movie, as might be intentional, since Fonda and George are pretty seedy. And his character brings out the faint likable attributes in Fonda and George's character just by being between them and remaining a faithful sidekick to both, eventually. I think it's unfair that Adam Rourke is left out, or rather, that his character is left out of most reviews and pictures and posters, etc, but I guess the title "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry & Quiet Deke" would have been a bit too long a title!

The Rainmaker (1997)

Bleeding Heart on a Bleeding Sleeve (manipulation to the extreme)

[4/10 · 19 March 2005]

Okay kiddies, it's time to watch 'The Good Guys and the Bad Guys'. If you can't tell which is which, through having-a-heart-in-the-right-place-on-your-sleeve film-making we will discern between the two and it will be easy going since this film is so blatantly manipulative you'd almost expect an alter call during the credits. The bad guys are the tall mean lawyers who have selfish irritating scowls and the camera will usually film them from below to make them look (and seem) more imposing. The will never smile unless it's a wicked smile; they are comfortable and rich and have nothing good about them at all; and their suits cost tons of money. The good guys are the poor people who make no mistakes except for falling into the bad guy's schemes, and who were born to be good and who are filmed from an equal level to make them look normal so to be on our, the viewer's, level. They will have tears in their eyes and will be a cross between a puppy dog and a deer caught in headlights: IE, a puppy dog caught in headlights. Now in this film we have several good guys but the main good guy is Matt Damon, of course (who has the Tom Cruise curse of always having to be the good guy), who is liken to the civil rights lawyers that have never cheated on anything or anyone and who hate money and who take their 1/3 with a chagrin and are like John Edwards, rich and self-loathing that they just had to be rich like all the villains of society. But in this Damon is poor, and never had anyone to help him through life (unlike Sofia Coppola) and we even see him struggling to wait tables while an obviously snooty rich kid wants beer and is being overly rude. And he, Damon, even helps a fancy-fun old lady who is a religious dummy, although we can forgive her because her kid's want her money and she is a victim of the system, and Damon will show her the way eventually by being a good nice guy the way God would be if he were only a registered democrat and not so "high and mighty". Then there's a poor girl who is beaten by a rich guy and the rich guy even beats her in the middle of a hospital, so that everyone can know that he's the bad guy and no one has to wonder about him like in most real life cases where a beaten girl has to seem like she's married to a great guy in public which would make her plight seem more of a… plight to begin with. And of course this poor beaten girl is also very beautiful but you need to first remove the bandages and then when the beauty shines though she will of course have no love for her very mean hubby and Matt Damon's niceness will win her over in two-point two-seconds after they meet. And then there's Danny Devito's character who is liken to, say, Dick Morris when he was still a "good" guy and worked for Bill Clinton, Clinton who, it seems, this movie is subconsciously based because it's about a blonde nice lawyer "kid" trying to "make good" in a corrupted country. Back to Devito – he is a "bad" lawyer but he has "good" intentions, that is, he is an underdog shark and eventually sees that the true sharks, Jon Voigt and company, are the really bad villains and that he is just a Mora-fish after all (I thought of him as 'the Prodigal lawyer'). And there's a kid dying of a terminal illness and we will get many shots of him bleeding and suffering to make us all hate the bad guys even more. And there's Mary Kay Place as the dying kid's mother who is the tried-and-true democrat type who probably loved Kennedy but in secret. And there's Mickey Rourke as the master "corrupt" lawyer but who isn't bad but seedy, and therefore we kind of like him because, after all, we are of the "funny villains are really good guys" mentality. But there's enough of Jon Voigt's one-sided evil character to hate and we can even hate Dean Stockwell as a sold-out judge, but then (another hero emerges) as Danny Glover replaces him as the good judge, and all the while he is rooting for Matt Damon over the villainous greedy insurance lawyers… I mean after all, aren't all judges supposed to favor one side over the other and blatantly so? Well what can I say, this movie flows well and has some terrific shots and is definitely entertaining and has good acting, but it's so black and white you'll wonder if it's really in color at all. It's the kind of film made for a 5th grader who has to be shown over and over, again and again who the bad guys are just so the good guys can look even better than they do already, and for that this movie is a true marvel of film-making.Oh and there's Roy Schieder who plays the even badder bad guy (the Emperor to Voigt's Darth Vader), the owner of the insurance company that is out to rip off any and every poor person on the planet just to give the poor people's money to the rich (lawyers), sort of Robin Hood in reverse I guess; there are times when Roy's on the stand and his situation is so dire I keep hearing the 'Jaws' theme and I expect him to say: "We're gonna need a bigger courtroom". This movie will entertain you but if you have your eyes open it will also amaze you, the way it did me… a person who doesn't need to be forced into discerning who is good and who is bad, as if there is really, in real life, any difference between the two other than your own particular point of view.

New York, New York (1977)

I guess even God makes mistakes!

[14 February 2005]

wow this movie tried to take on EVERYTHING at once, yukyuk physical comedy, musical, drama, and Marty even added abortion as a 'obvious' choice/alternative (insinuated to it) and in those days this wasn't the case... directors do this a lot, put their modern times onto old days. this movie was as unfocused, in my opinion, and sadly reminded me of all of Marty's movies post-Goodfellas, starting with the horrific Cape Fear and continuing with Casino, what I call the anti-Goodfellas. DeNiro was downright annoyingly awful and when he played his sax, i didn't buy that it was him playing it. he looked like an actor pretending to play the sax. Liza has a great voice but her character was dull as heck, and seemed as if she wanted better. there were a bunch of character actors like Dick Miller and the guy who played Max from Hart to Hart (forget him name), and many others, including Frank Silvera, who was DeNiro's buddy in both Godfather 2 and Goodfellas, and they were simply wasted in this too-many-ingredient soup. DeNiro and Minelli have no chemistry in this. their whole relationship seems forced, just like it is forced by DeNiro's character. there's a scene where he jumps on top of her in the snow outside of a justice of the peace, and it's supposed to be funny, but the audience feels as uncomfortable as the onlooking justice and his wife. forced, forced, forced, and unfocused too. Martin is NOT a one-trick pony, because sure, he does a lot of 'hood' movies and he does them well, but he can do other things quite well too: After Hours, King of Comedy, and especially, Alice Doesn't live here Anymore. but this movie is downright horrific. i mean, it's entertaining in a sense, but then again, so is 1941 and One from the Heart, two over-the-top ego pieces by fellow mavericks Spielberg and Coppola. well, I guess even God DOES make mistakes.

The Last Flight of Noah's Ark (1980)

A Feel-Good Movie that Really Works!

[10/10 · 24 January 2005]

this is the best feel-good movie of all time. nothing too bad happens but it's not boring. nothing too surprising happens but it's not predictable. nothing too funny happens but it's not stupid. it's corny but perfectly so. Elliott Gould is good. he is a better actor when it comes to serious/comedies, like Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye" and/or "California Split", but he's having fun here and so does the audience. the woman in the movie is cute. she is a missionary and Gould flies her to an island but they go the wrong way and end up on the wrong island, this one seemingly deserted. tagging along, as it were, are two kids played by Ricky Shroder (now Rick) and Tammy Lauren, who would grow up to be very gorgeous. also there is a bull and a duck, as the kids pets, and two Japanese men on the island who've been there for 35 years and don't know that the war is over. they are gungho with the rising flag, but then they turn good when the missionary lady goes and meets them. and then they put the rising star flag on the plane that crashed that they all transform into a boat. here i had my only problem. the Japanese, during the war, sided with the Nazis. wouldn't Elliott Gould or the missionary lady have a problem with having that flag as the main mast on the ship? and wouldn't the two men, upon learning that America nuked three of their cities to win the war, get sort of angry? but oh well, it doesn't matter. there is a shark in the movie too and it's very scary, even though it's only stock footage, and the ending is almost sad but then gets happy and you will smile during the end credits. oh and another funny thing is that the credits in the beginning happen twenty minutes into the movie after a couple of thugs, who are after Gould for owing them money, are chasing the airplane that is taking off. and the two thugs are played by Dana Elcar of "Baretta" fame, and John Ryan ("Runaway Train"), usually a heavy in movies. here he's bumbling. Vincent Gardenia makes an important cameo. he played the chief inspector in "Death Wish" who was always sneezing.