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AristidetheFrank
Reviews
The Boy Next Door (2015)
An excellent comedy
This is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination. The plot is trite, the characters thinly drawn, the dialogue inane and the acting is more wooden than Pinocchio. Clearly it's just a vanity project for Jennifer Lopez.
There are some very strange elements that occur during the movie which lead me to think that perhaps a lot of content was left on the cutting room floor. Heck, if they wanted to create quality I think they should have left the whole movie on the floor! This film bills itself as an erotic thriller...Trust me, there's nothing erotic or thrilling about this film.
All that said though, I almost died of laughter watching this, and for that, I'm giving it two out of ten stars. If you want to have a good laugh, either with friends or by yourself, you could do worse than 'THE BOY NEXT DOOR'.
The Butterfly Room (2012)
A complete joke
This movie begins with an interesting premise but it quickly disappoints due to the rocky acting from the supporting cast and the shoddy script. Barbara Steele is very effective as the unhinged central character, but her performance is not complemented by any of the other actors.
The children are shrill and impertinent, failing to garner any of the audience's sympathies. The adults are utterly incompetent and react in bizarre, unrealistic ways to the way the plot unfolds. Not a single one of the characters, with the exception of the lead, is written like an actual human being.
At one point a other in an elevator flies into an absurd rage when Ann, our main character, mistakes her for someone else. Another character is supposed to be around age 14, and definitely looks it, but dresses up like she's five.
All well and good for entrancing old women, but do you really expect me to believe that the Shirley Temple shtick works on all of the other characters? Not a single one of them has a comment for the teenager who acts like she's three? There are so many stupid moments in this so-called mystery, a mystery that even an infant could unravel in five minutes, a mystery that only these rotten characters could become stuck in. This movie sucks!
P.S - Some of these glowing reviews really lead me to believe that this page is being frequented by folks who are paid to review. Trust me when I say that it is virtually impossible to enjoy this film, unless you are practically brain dead and/or getting paid.
Unaware (2010)
Pure Rubbish
This movie features two lily-livered cowards as its main protagonists. They share no on screen chemistry, and the actors struggle to deliver wooden, staid dialogue. Joe, our male protagonist, is notable for wearing the same sweaty shirt long after he has the opportunity to change and towards the end of the film insists upon going shirtless (sadly) as a way to affirm his control of the situation. Lisa has fat ankles and reacts in terror to such things as locked gates, barns and the use of spare keys.
For most of the film, nothing happens, so we get to enjoy spending quality time with these two annoying people who are of no interest whatsoever. In one such scene, the character of Joe watches his fiancé play with a hula hoop outside and reacting as if she's trying to do some kind of skateboard stunt, all with the, "Oh my god!"s and the "Are you serious?!"s.
In another scene, we get to watch the two characters eat snacks. In another, they discuss how abnormal it is for people over the age of fifty to enjoy pizza and cookies (????).
Unlike other found footage films like Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity, or even Grave Encounters, there's no sense of mounting dread or heightened stakes. All the viewer receives is torturous footage of two people running around a farm. These characters have milk for blood, I swear. They react to the most innocuous of phenomena like Scooby and Shaggy.
The conditions keeping them present in the situation which is apparently so terrifying for them (not so much for us) are contrived and plain idiotic. During the last five minutes, the director blows all of his budget at once and it heads towards the mindless, mind-numbing and derivative ending for found-footage films which has become an unfortunate staple of the genre.
I would advise anyone not to watch this dreck unless you require a sleeping aid and pills are no longer effective.