Good movies make you care about what is happening in the story and to the charecters. This movie succeeds with that at a very high level. The acting, story-telling, shooting, editing and direction are all strong. This is probably the best movie I have seen that I had never before heard of.
Reviews
11 Reviews
Zombieland
(2009)
Terrible
7 May 2017
It is utterly amazing to me that anyone, even the director's mother, might rate this film highly. It is without question the worst film I can recall seeing in my 62 years.
It is not funny. It is not scary. It is not interesting. It is not entertaining. It is a tremendous waste of some actual acting talent. And yet it is not so bad that you can laugh at it in the way you can some of the legendary bombs such as Ed Wood directed in the 1950's and 1960's.
I watched the entire film, and genuinely kept thinking that somewhere in it there had to be some sort of payoff, something which on some level would make it worth watching. Sadly, there was nothing.
Several of the favorable reviews here gush about how the film is funny, laugh-out-loud funny. I genuinely not only did not come close to laughing even once, I don't believe I even smiled.
It is not funny. It is not scary. It is not interesting. It is not entertaining. It is a tremendous waste of some actual acting talent. And yet it is not so bad that you can laugh at it in the way you can some of the legendary bombs such as Ed Wood directed in the 1950's and 1960's.
I watched the entire film, and genuinely kept thinking that somewhere in it there had to be some sort of payoff, something which on some level would make it worth watching. Sadly, there was nothing.
Several of the favorable reviews here gush about how the film is funny, laugh-out-loud funny. I genuinely not only did not come close to laughing even once, I don't believe I even smiled.
O. Henry Visits Walnut Grove
10 August 2011
Warning: Spoilers
This is one of the better episodes of Little House for a simple reason, a script which is based on one of the greatest short stories of all time, The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry.
It is not the acting, direction, cinematography or even the script which carries this episode, but is instead entirely the strength of the story, and the story is so clearly taken from The Gift of the Magi, I was actually somewhat surprised no credit is given and no acknowledgment is made in the credits.
O. Henry died more than 100 years ago, but his short stories are timeless and have been used as the basis of TV episodes countless times.
It is not the acting, direction, cinematography or even the script which carries this episode, but is instead entirely the strength of the story, and the story is so clearly taken from The Gift of the Magi, I was actually somewhat surprised no credit is given and no acknowledgment is made in the credits.
O. Henry died more than 100 years ago, but his short stories are timeless and have been used as the basis of TV episodes countless times.
Out of the Blue
(1980)
Terrible, utter trash
28 March 2010
Warning: Spoilers
It is amazing to see anyone rate this movie highly, or to even have anyone suggest that you might want to watch it if it were on cable and you were bored.
The movie is the worst I have ever seen, not because the dialogue, pacing, script, acting, sound or editing are weak, which they are, but because after watching the movie you will feel like you need to wash something off... and you will know even if you do, nothing is going to go away. Watching home movies put together by a neighbor might be dull and boring, but it is not going to be offensive and disgusting.
The movie has an exceedingly negative perspective on live and not one character in it has any noteworthy redeeming value.
It does not explain aberrant behavior such as infidelity, drug addiction, violence, teen rebellion, or a father having sex with his teenage daughter, all of them presented front and center in this movie, nor does it offer anything resembling insight into them.
It simply tosses them out there for you to watch. As you watch you will keep hoping that somewhere along the way there is going to be some payoff to justify putting up with the garbage paraded across the screen.
But there is no payoff. There is merely more depravity, and depravity which is not even presented in an interesting manner.
Those who consider the family unit to be the source of all ills in society and believe the family should be attacked at every opportunity to destroy it, might see this film as helping with the assault. It is hard to understand how anyone else could see this utterly depressing film as having any other value.
The movie is the worst I have ever seen, not because the dialogue, pacing, script, acting, sound or editing are weak, which they are, but because after watching the movie you will feel like you need to wash something off... and you will know even if you do, nothing is going to go away. Watching home movies put together by a neighbor might be dull and boring, but it is not going to be offensive and disgusting.
The movie has an exceedingly negative perspective on live and not one character in it has any noteworthy redeeming value.
It does not explain aberrant behavior such as infidelity, drug addiction, violence, teen rebellion, or a father having sex with his teenage daughter, all of them presented front and center in this movie, nor does it offer anything resembling insight into them.
It simply tosses them out there for you to watch. As you watch you will keep hoping that somewhere along the way there is going to be some payoff to justify putting up with the garbage paraded across the screen.
But there is no payoff. There is merely more depravity, and depravity which is not even presented in an interesting manner.
Those who consider the family unit to be the source of all ills in society and believe the family should be attacked at every opportunity to destroy it, might see this film as helping with the assault. It is hard to understand how anyone else could see this utterly depressing film as having any other value.
Gods and Generals
(2003)
Disappointing
1 January 2007
Dull, slow, plodding and far longer than needed, this movie is revisionist history for southerners who refuse to acknowledge their predecessors and the culture and society of the south in the mid-1800's leading to the Civil War was in any way morally repugnant. In this movie the war was simply a southern reaction to that wicked Abe Lincoln who wanted to invade the southern states, this despite the fact that several states of the confederacy had already made clear, even before Lincoln took office, that they intended to secede instead of remaining in a union with him as president. The movie had Lee talking piously about how he and those others who supported secession did so only as a reaction to Lincoln sending troops down to "invade" and "occupy" the south, conveniently ignoring the fact that the first seven states to secede did so before Lincoln took office, and that confederacy's attack on Fort Sumpter also took place before Lincoln took office.
Ted Turner delivered about what should have been expected of him.
As a child watching movies 40 years ago, most movies seemed to be far too short on action and seemed to spend far too long on background, character development and motivation. This movie likely would have not only satisfied my childhood lust for combat action, it may even then have seemed like an endless blur of meaningless combat with nothing resembling context, either for the time, the individual or the war itself.
I watched this movie twice to try to get thru it and found myself nodding off both times, not because I was tired, but because the movie is not interesting, on any level. Could have had some nice character development, but did not. Could have been a wonderful opportunity to look at the history of one of our nation's most interesting periods, but did not. Could have at least given us some insight into weaponry or politics or combat tactics or ways of life or social conventions or how people actually lived their lives at the time, but it did not. All in all, the movie is not only bad history but dull, and ultimately that is about the worst thing that can be said about a movie.
Ted Turner delivered about what should have been expected of him.
As a child watching movies 40 years ago, most movies seemed to be far too short on action and seemed to spend far too long on background, character development and motivation. This movie likely would have not only satisfied my childhood lust for combat action, it may even then have seemed like an endless blur of meaningless combat with nothing resembling context, either for the time, the individual or the war itself.
I watched this movie twice to try to get thru it and found myself nodding off both times, not because I was tired, but because the movie is not interesting, on any level. Could have had some nice character development, but did not. Could have been a wonderful opportunity to look at the history of one of our nation's most interesting periods, but did not. Could have at least given us some insight into weaponry or politics or combat tactics or ways of life or social conventions or how people actually lived their lives at the time, but it did not. All in all, the movie is not only bad history but dull, and ultimately that is about the worst thing that can be said about a movie.
The Sacketts
(1979)
Lame
3 November 2006
This COULD have been a very good film. Nice, strong themes running thru it, but none are really developed. Great cast, but it suffers from very weak direction and gaffs that are simply too serious to ignore.
Let's list just a few of the glaring mistakes in the film.
1) When the two younger Sacketts are traveling from Texas toward Santa Fe in the first part of the two part series, they are shown amid lots of saguaro cactus. Problem with this is that the saguaro cactus ONLY grows in the Sonoran desert, which is in Arizona, extreme southeast California and the northwest part of Mexico right below Arizona. No such cactus grown in Texas or in NE New Mexico where they were supposed to have been at the time. ANYONE spending any time in Arizona would know this, and anyone in New Mexico or Texas would know that cactus is not there.
2) The film was set in 1869 and the year or two before, but the rifles most of the men used in the film were Winchester repeating rifles that were not produced until 1870 and later. But that was a small error compared to the fact that the rifle only holds (I believe) 7 cartridges, though the movie had some of the characters firing about 15 rounds before needing to reload.
3) The climactic gunfight at the end of the movie is supposed to be set at "daybreak," though the shadows are all over the place, some of them clearly when the sun is on the horizon and then seconds later when the sun is nearly straight overhead and then back to on the horizon and then back to straight overhead.
4) That same climactic gunfight has the three Sackett brothers and a wounded friend facing off against the three Bigelow brothers and four hired gunmen... but the Sacketts kill eight of them. Only seven bad guys there, but the Sacketts kill eight.
Now, none of those errors are so serious as to destroy the film if the movie had otherwise been well-made and story lines developed and themes worked within it... but they were not. A terrible waste of some excellent acting talent.
Let's list just a few of the glaring mistakes in the film.
1) When the two younger Sacketts are traveling from Texas toward Santa Fe in the first part of the two part series, they are shown amid lots of saguaro cactus. Problem with this is that the saguaro cactus ONLY grows in the Sonoran desert, which is in Arizona, extreme southeast California and the northwest part of Mexico right below Arizona. No such cactus grown in Texas or in NE New Mexico where they were supposed to have been at the time. ANYONE spending any time in Arizona would know this, and anyone in New Mexico or Texas would know that cactus is not there.
2) The film was set in 1869 and the year or two before, but the rifles most of the men used in the film were Winchester repeating rifles that were not produced until 1870 and later. But that was a small error compared to the fact that the rifle only holds (I believe) 7 cartridges, though the movie had some of the characters firing about 15 rounds before needing to reload.
3) The climactic gunfight at the end of the movie is supposed to be set at "daybreak," though the shadows are all over the place, some of them clearly when the sun is on the horizon and then seconds later when the sun is nearly straight overhead and then back to on the horizon and then back to straight overhead.
4) That same climactic gunfight has the three Sackett brothers and a wounded friend facing off against the three Bigelow brothers and four hired gunmen... but the Sacketts kill eight of them. Only seven bad guys there, but the Sacketts kill eight.
Now, none of those errors are so serious as to destroy the film if the movie had otherwise been well-made and story lines developed and themes worked within it... but they were not. A terrible waste of some excellent acting talent.
Defiance
(2003)
Terrible
11 April 2006
This movie was likely one of the ten worst movies I have ever seen. It quite seriously looked like a high school class project, though the actors were a bit too old to expect in to be in a high school class project, the script and dialog were rank, and it was delivered about as poorly as it was written. The production values were non-existent. Character development was extremely limited. Some of the makeup looked as if it was applied by teenage girls. The music was completely out of place with the time period and the action on the screen. And the comment in another review that the ending was good if predictable almost had me wondering if the movie had been re-edited so I saw a different ending.
At no point in the movie did I care about a single character on the screen. At no time was there a single image that caught my interest. At no time did anything happen that surprised me.
If I had paid money to see this in the theater instead of renting it on disc, I wound have been one very unhappy camper.
At no point in the movie did I care about a single character on the screen. At no time was there a single image that caught my interest. At no time did anything happen that surprised me.
If I had paid money to see this in the theater instead of renting it on disc, I wound have been one very unhappy camper.
Before and After
(1996)
severe plot line problem
20 February 2006
Warning: Spoilers
While not a terrible movie it has a few serious problems. The problems start with the casting. Edward Furlong is cast to play the 16 year old son of parents played by Meryl Streep and Liam Neeson, but at age 16 he appears to be roughly five inches shorter than Streep and is utterly dwarfed by Neeson. Furlong looks more like he was their 12 year old son than their 16 year old son.
Next problem is that certain points you need to catch at the beginning of the film simply slip by far to fast to catch. In a murder mystery or something with major plot twists that might be tolerable, but not in your ordinary family drama.
But to me the most troubling problem (and if you are determined to see the movie regardless you might not want to read on, because this will give away most of the movie) is that it simply does not make sense.
The story is Furlong has pulled off the road with his girlfriend and parked in the snow, gets stuck, they argue and tussle with each other, with him pushing her and accidentally causing her to fall face-first on the car jack. He then flees. She's found, rushed to the hospital and dies. The movie then deals with the family struggle of how to deal with this in court. Getting the kids' story out takes at least half the movie and by the time it gets out things are moving fast and little things, like making sense, get lost in the wake. If Furlong and the girlfriend TOGETHER had been absolutely unable to get the car out of the snow, and the deep rut he had made in it, it makes no sense that after she is spread out on the ground and unable to help he then gets the the car out by himself -- that is the kind of inconsistency any prosecuting attorney would have latched onto, and which any defense attorney would have seen as a major problem in court (I make these comments as a criminal defense attorney).
But that's not the only problem with the kid's story. It was supposedly an accident. He cared about her. He never wanted to hurt her. And yet after she is hurt he cleans up the scene, gets that stuck car out of there, leaves, she is found and is STILL ALIVE long enough for an ambulance to reach her, get her to an emergency room and have a serious effort to save her life before she dies on the table in the ER. The entire issue of her having BEEN ALIVE and left to die is ignored. Not mentioned once by him, his family, the girl's grieving mother, his defense attorney, the prosecution or the judge who heard the case. It is as if the director forgot that in the second scene in the movie we see Meryly Streep, a doctor in the film, called to the ER to help with efforts to save the girl, long before we know her son was involved in the girl's death. The scene leaves no doubt (I went back and watched it a second time to be sure because the inconsistency seemed so glaring) that the girl was still alive when she reached the ER.
But she was left to die by the kid for whom we are supposed to feel sympathy.
Not only are there problems with the issue not having been properly addressed by any of the characters who would have addressed it, the fact that we need to feel sympathy for the kid is a problem. Easy to feel sympathy for him in having his life thrown into chaos as a result of an accident.... hard to feel sympathy when he would have had to have left his girlfriend there to die, and when in cleaning up the scene he would have had to have had enough contact with her (she fell on the car jack, and he removed the jack and put it back in the trunk of the car) that he certainly should have noticed she was still alive.
Despite strong performances from the actors and good cinematography, the movie was a bit disappointing because of direction, casting and the script.
Next problem is that certain points you need to catch at the beginning of the film simply slip by far to fast to catch. In a murder mystery or something with major plot twists that might be tolerable, but not in your ordinary family drama.
But to me the most troubling problem (and if you are determined to see the movie regardless you might not want to read on, because this will give away most of the movie) is that it simply does not make sense.
The story is Furlong has pulled off the road with his girlfriend and parked in the snow, gets stuck, they argue and tussle with each other, with him pushing her and accidentally causing her to fall face-first on the car jack. He then flees. She's found, rushed to the hospital and dies. The movie then deals with the family struggle of how to deal with this in court. Getting the kids' story out takes at least half the movie and by the time it gets out things are moving fast and little things, like making sense, get lost in the wake. If Furlong and the girlfriend TOGETHER had been absolutely unable to get the car out of the snow, and the deep rut he had made in it, it makes no sense that after she is spread out on the ground and unable to help he then gets the the car out by himself -- that is the kind of inconsistency any prosecuting attorney would have latched onto, and which any defense attorney would have seen as a major problem in court (I make these comments as a criminal defense attorney).
But that's not the only problem with the kid's story. It was supposedly an accident. He cared about her. He never wanted to hurt her. And yet after she is hurt he cleans up the scene, gets that stuck car out of there, leaves, she is found and is STILL ALIVE long enough for an ambulance to reach her, get her to an emergency room and have a serious effort to save her life before she dies on the table in the ER. The entire issue of her having BEEN ALIVE and left to die is ignored. Not mentioned once by him, his family, the girl's grieving mother, his defense attorney, the prosecution or the judge who heard the case. It is as if the director forgot that in the second scene in the movie we see Meryly Streep, a doctor in the film, called to the ER to help with efforts to save the girl, long before we know her son was involved in the girl's death. The scene leaves no doubt (I went back and watched it a second time to be sure because the inconsistency seemed so glaring) that the girl was still alive when she reached the ER.
But she was left to die by the kid for whom we are supposed to feel sympathy.
Not only are there problems with the issue not having been properly addressed by any of the characters who would have addressed it, the fact that we need to feel sympathy for the kid is a problem. Easy to feel sympathy for him in having his life thrown into chaos as a result of an accident.... hard to feel sympathy when he would have had to have left his girlfriend there to die, and when in cleaning up the scene he would have had to have had enough contact with her (she fell on the car jack, and he removed the jack and put it back in the trunk of the car) that he certainly should have noticed she was still alive.
Despite strong performances from the actors and good cinematography, the movie was a bit disappointing because of direction, casting and the script.
Titus
(1999)
Terrible
19 February 2005
This has to be one of the worst movies ever. I have never before seen so much money spent and so much talent wasted on a film which was so uninteresting, difficult to follow, and absent a reason to make the effort to follow it. Listening to the director's commentary only made it worse, hearing how the director essentially had a "vision" which was absurd and plowed headlong into subjecting viewers to it when at least somewhere along the way someone HAD to have told her to pause and take stock of what she was doing.... and, yet, in listening to her commentary it is apparent she believed she had done something great.
There is a reason I had never heard of this film until I saw it six years after its release -- it stunk.
There is a reason I had never heard of this film until I saw it six years after its release -- it stunk.
Limbo
(I) (1999)
Excellent unknown film
5 February 2005
This is a movie that does not let you know where it is going, but you enjoy the entire trip. I am unfamiliar with the director, John Sayles, and the male lead, David Strathairn, is one of those actors you will recognize.... from somewhere, but perhaps not recall where. He and the female lead, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, were superb, as were Vanessa Martinez, playing Mastrantonio's daughter, and Kris Kristopherson does well as ambigous figure you don't know whether to like or loathe.
The characters presented are all real, all believable, all well defined, yet none defined easily as stereotyped cardboard cutouts.
Strathairn deserved an Acadamy Award nomination for his role. After renting dozens of disappointing films it is truly satisfying to stumble on on this good. The surprise is that the film got so little backing at the time and went nowhere in the box office.
The characters presented are all real, all believable, all well defined, yet none defined easily as stereotyped cardboard cutouts.
Strathairn deserved an Acadamy Award nomination for his role. After renting dozens of disappointing films it is truly satisfying to stumble on on this good. The surprise is that the film got so little backing at the time and went nowhere in the box office.
Basquiat
(1996)
Terrible direction
1 January 2003
This is one of the worst movies I have ever sat thru, start to finish. While the acting is not a problem, the direction and editing are terrible. I will concede that I have little use for Basquiat as an artist, but I also have no use for Jackson Pollack as an artist and the recent movie on his life was very good. The problem was not the subject, it was the presentation.
This film on Basquiat's life not only fails to leave you caring about Basquiat, but with about 20 minutes to go in the movie it honestly had me wishing someone would spring out from nowhere and murder Basquiat in some act of random violence which would at least end the film.
Jump-cuts being used for no apparent effect, b-rolling of audio tracks of conversations that would have been happening only minutes prior to the time of the visual image on the screen, when NOTHING is happening in the visual image that advances the story. This technique works great as a means of compressing time, showing a visual image to tell one part of a story, while simultaneously presenting audio from another time and place and allowing the viewer to absorb both in half the time. But here it was used for NO purpose.
In a later scene, in one of Basquiat's non-fatal heroin overdoses, we are shown what his girlfriend sees when she finds him with his heart temporarily stopped and we are to realize as she did that it was a drug overdose. Well, this is fine when you are watching on DVD and can go back to take a second look at the shot, but when the "tight shot" of the syringe is simply not tight at all and when the thing is shown amid clutter and for only a second and a half, (I timed it) the director and editor fail to allow us the opportunity to see what they are trying to show us.
The movie has recurrent visual images of surfers and watersports that might have some great significance to Basquiat's life, but which the director fails to even begin to convey. They might as well be random images on the screen.
The movie, in a nutshell, stinks, and to see reviews here praising it make me wonder what planet the authors are from.
This was the first directorial effort of Julian Schnabel, and it is amazing anyone else trusted him with their money or careers to direct another on in 2000. That 2000 film, Before Night Falls, was his only other directing effort.
This film on Basquiat's life not only fails to leave you caring about Basquiat, but with about 20 minutes to go in the movie it honestly had me wishing someone would spring out from nowhere and murder Basquiat in some act of random violence which would at least end the film.
Jump-cuts being used for no apparent effect, b-rolling of audio tracks of conversations that would have been happening only minutes prior to the time of the visual image on the screen, when NOTHING is happening in the visual image that advances the story. This technique works great as a means of compressing time, showing a visual image to tell one part of a story, while simultaneously presenting audio from another time and place and allowing the viewer to absorb both in half the time. But here it was used for NO purpose.
In a later scene, in one of Basquiat's non-fatal heroin overdoses, we are shown what his girlfriend sees when she finds him with his heart temporarily stopped and we are to realize as she did that it was a drug overdose. Well, this is fine when you are watching on DVD and can go back to take a second look at the shot, but when the "tight shot" of the syringe is simply not tight at all and when the thing is shown amid clutter and for only a second and a half, (I timed it) the director and editor fail to allow us the opportunity to see what they are trying to show us.
The movie has recurrent visual images of surfers and watersports that might have some great significance to Basquiat's life, but which the director fails to even begin to convey. They might as well be random images on the screen.
The movie, in a nutshell, stinks, and to see reviews here praising it make me wonder what planet the authors are from.
This was the first directorial effort of Julian Schnabel, and it is amazing anyone else trusted him with their money or careers to direct another on in 2000. That 2000 film, Before Night Falls, was his only other directing effort.
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