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Van Helsing (2016)
Just Too Stupid and Slow
The premise, loosely: vampires have always been around, just in the shadows because, you know, The Sun fries them. A volcano erupts in the Pacific Northwest of the USA and the resulting ash clouds block enough solar rays to enable vampires to spend more time outdoors making other vampires or maybe just making zombie-like "ferals" (vampires who feed on animal blood.) And they like to eat babies (yawn) and they also want to have their own babies because even though they're hateful, horrible creatures, they apparently still have strong maternal instincts. And they can be turned back into humans sometimes (yawn).
Now forget everything I just wrote because the writers of this show did and the details just seem to be some mishmash of every movie/vampire show they've ever seen other better writers come up with.
Oh, the Van Helsing part? Get this - they don't even bring up the Van Helsing stuff till the last two episodes of the season. Then it's just lazy, convoluted, nonsense and you won't even care at that point.
All the characters are written poorly and change their entire personalities from show to show. It's exhausting and unsatisfying in every way. Even the acting is bad, but the poor actors don't have anything good to work with.
I wanted to like this and I tried, but it's a waste of time. Especially if you're a fan of Walking Dead or other vampire shows or any other show ever made.
Bob Roberts (1992)
Watch this film now.
I'm usually amused by this film. Lots of interesting characters, plenty of funny moments. Lots of fun for fans of heavy satire.
However, watching it tonight, I found it disturbing. The most disturbing aspect is that the film was released ten years ago, yet it mirrors today's news. It's got Saddam, Bush Sr, and plenty of militant zealots.
Watch it all the way through, listen to Woody Guthrie singing during the credits.
Heavy handed? It's satire folks.
A great movie to watch with friends (or your high schoolers) and discuss its relevance to current events.
Mr. Rice's Secret (1999)
Well, it had David Bowie in it. Spoilers.
I rented it for Bowie. He had about 5 minutes of screen time, tops.
It was like an after school tv special with cussing, vomit, boogers, grave digging, and violence against children with cancer thrown in for added viewing pleasure.
One moment you're looking at cute middle class kids playing street hockey and the next scene, you're watching them kick a chemotherapy patient repeatedly in the kidneys.
Perhaps I missed the point.
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920)
I Likes It
Best way to prepare to watch this film: Turn off the lights, purge your mind of all your modern day expectations of what films are 'supposed' to be like, imagine you're sitting in a smoky movie house in 1919.
The most effective aspect of this film is the way the construction and painting of the sets throws off the viewer's sense of perspective in almost every scene. The fair scene with the ramp leading up to the whirling carousel in the background is one of my favorites. The scene near the beginning where the storyteller pokes his head up towards the ray of sunlight coming through the window in the ceiling of his dark, cell-like room is another favorite. The scene in Jane's bedroom as the somnambulist enters the window and comes towards her is unbelievably cool to watch.
The asylum scene with the patient who thinks she's a nun wandering around, the somnambulist leaning placidly against the wall, and Jane, lost in her delusions fascinates me too, even though the set is pretty straightforward there.
Best of all, the film is silent. No inane dialogue, no wise-cracking tough guys.
The Ninth Gate (1999)
Mind numbingly bland
I had high hopes for this movie, but by the time it ended, I almost couldn't believe how bad it was. The acting was average to bad, especially bad Emmanuelle Seigner who couldn't act her way out of a four door box. The plot sounded promising, but never really developed into anything. Johnny Depp's character, a book dealer, spends the movie looking for some books and comparing them to each other. There's a couple of rather bland action scenes and a tiny bit of completely gratuitous sex, but none of these scenes are worth watching.
The storyline, the types of characters, the subject matter all seemed like movie cliches. Even the soundtrack seemed to be lifted from Ghostbusters.
The ultimate purpose of the books Depp is looking for and the reason for the existence of most of the characters is never actually explained. There's just nothing deep about this film, nothing to grab your mind and hold your interest.
By the end of the film, my only interest was to warn others to skip 9th Gate at the video store.