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Reviews
Almost Normal (2005)
LGBT Cinema Deserves Better Than This
This is obviously a film that comes from the heart. If only it had embraced its sincere dramatic elements more fully, it might have been a worthwhile outing. It does indeed suffer from many of the usual ailments associated with ultra-low-budget films (e.g. inexperienced actors, flimsy production design, gaping plot-holes, etc.) but the biggest problem by far is its insistence on assaulting the audience with copious amounts of tone deaf "wacky comedy". Just about every time the plot builds to a moment of poignancy, the script turns around and kicks itself in the balls with an ill-timed, unfunny joke. This, combined with the bargain basement production values, makes for a grating, nearly unbearable experience.
Wake the Witch (2010)
Amateurish, Pointless
It's hard to write about this film without sounding like you're picking on the filmmakers. Obviously they were working with a shoestring budget and non-professional crew/actors, and you have to admire the ambition and hard work necessary to undertake the often herculean task of finishing a feature film under those conditions. Even taking those limitations into consideration however, this isn't really much of a movie. The script is rather aimless and contains vast amounts of padding. It seems the filmmakers were more concerned with simply producing a movie than they were with telling any particular story. This is reflected in the technical craftsmanship of the film as well. Scene after scene rolls by without any hint of style or artistic conviction. It doesn't seem like a passion project, but rather a generic product designed to take advantage of the notoriously low standards of the direct-to-video horror niche. Watch something else.
Baghead (2008)
Aggressively Independent Horror
I really wanted to like this movie. I'm a big fan of independent horror/comedies and I have a very high opinion of actress Greta Gerwig as well as the Duplass brothers. It didn't turn out to be a letdown so much as it was just a really meh experience. There are things to like about it (acting, directing, dialog). However, there are also plenty of things that hold it back. For one, the plot tries desperately to be original but it is restrained by the rigid conventions of the slasher genre. It is a funny movie but its more of a slight-chuckle-to-yourself kind of funny rather than a sidesplitting laugh-out-loud kind of funny. Likewise it has some scary moments but they are few and far between and more creepy than really scary. Watch this movie only if you have completely run out of things to see or if you are a major fan of the mumblecore movement.
Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966)
A true epic and one of the greatest films of all time.
I saw this movie for the first time on my tiny 15 inch screen of my TV/DVD player, and even on this minuscule format I was still simply amazed by the sheer scope of it. Now I understand and acknowledge the usual complaints against the film, namely the fact that the movie is almost three hours long with many scenes that tend to drag on for minutes with little dialog or action, however it is these scenes that make the movie the masterpiece that it is. Every shot whether it be an expansive landscape or an extreme close-up Sergio Leone draws you into his own version of the old west. A world where three men chase each other across the desert in search of 100,000 dollars worth of Confederate gold. Along the way they encounter Yankee and Confederate soldiers, Mexican bandits, bounty hunters in a journey that culminates in one of the most riveting showdowns in cinema history. What I found most interesting about this film however was the influence it obviously had on modern filmmaker Quentin Tarentino. Many of his trademarks (very memorable characters, long shots centered on a single character, intense standoffs involving multiple characters) can be found in abundance in this film as well. In fact Tarentino's Kun Fu epic Kill Bill goes so far as to barrow multiple songs from Leone's Dollars Trilogy. In the end all this adds up to make The Good the Bad and the Ugly in my opinion one of the greatest films of all time.