Reviews

Clocking in at a measly 40 minutes, this special is way too short as it is. And while the first 30 minutes or so are pretty great, with Attell back in form, harping on well loved subjects such as sex, drugs, and bestiality, the last 10 minutes goes off a cliff when he pulls out a flute and starts playing it for the remaining airtime... and it's just annoying.

If I were to give him the benefit of the doubt, I'd say he's trying to make some double-ironic anti-joke, akin to what Andy Kaufman would do back in the day. However... seeing as he openly admits he's just filling the last minutes with flute playing to be able to get paid... I'm not entirely sure if he's even trying to be funny?

It's a bit sad, as everybody knows he can be the funniest man on the planet, when he wants to be. However, I wish he'd just do a remake of his infamous Skanks for the Memories set instead, so that there would be a video of that for everyone to cherish.

I love discovering movies that's been unfairly rated on IMDB and Wicked Stepmother sits at a lowly 3.9, but is still one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

The sourpusses in the review section complain about a lot of things, seemingly without realizing that this is a completely silly movie that knows exactly how silly it is and runs wild with the silliness. Legendary filmmaker Larry Cohen is behind both the script and direction, but it actually feels more like a John Waters film (having certain similarities to Serial Mom) with exaggerated stereotypes, cartoonish sound effects, and intentionally crude dialogue.

All the actors ham it up on purpose and clearly had a blast on set. At times, it gets so silly that it almost tips into Naked Gun-territory, with several characters spouting completely absurd meta-jokes about the movie, before winking at the camera.

If you're in the mood for a proper goofball flick, I cannot recommend this one highly enough =)

First of all, even though they managed to make the actors look quite similar to the real people, the way they perform is always a tiny bit tongue in cheek, so that you never quite forget they're acting. This is especially true for the guy playing Tommy, who looks more like a kid in a candy store, than a heavy metal rocker.

Also, the characters are all made to be much more sad and pathetic than they are in reality, just so that you're supposed to pity them. If for example you compare the talkshow segment of the series where Pamela visits Jay Leno, with the actual recording of the real Jay Leno show, it becomes instantly obvious how much this series is turning her into a poor, poor, poor thing that barely even manages to whisper a few words, because she is soooooooo devastated by this ordeal. In the real life recording of the Jay Leno show (you can find it on Youtube) she speaks loud and clear with self-confidence and karisma, all in all being a much more likable person than the sad sap in this series.

And then there's the strange soundtrack which consists of a lot of songs that were popular at the time when this all went down, but never correlates with whatever is happening in the script. It's like the filmmakers are saying: "Remember how The Cranberries' song 'Zombie' was big in the 90s?" And that's the only reason why that tune is there, even though it really conveys a completely different mood to what is going on in the story.

Finally, the lackluster direction leaves a lot to be wanted. For example, one episode is all about Pam & Tommy partying it up, without it ever feeling as cool or fun as the filmmakers must have thought it did.

All in all, this series probably sounded much better on paper.

The title and trailer is definitely misleading by insinuating that this is some sort of space adventure. Granted, there are some fragments of space adventuring going on, but 95% of the film is basically a time capsule of the 60s which tells you all about what life was back then, filled to the brim with nostalgia.

As such it reminded me a bit of The Virgin Suicides in the romantic way it glorifies those long lost days, so stuffed with timely music, tv-shows and other pop-cultural tidbits that it successfully weaves a rose tinted memory of childhood, which will probably have most people create nostalgic connections to what all these references mean in their own life.

"Women are strong. Strong. Women. Strong. Very strong women. Sooo very strong. Women. You hear me? Women are strong!"

This is basically the sum of the dialogue in a series which pretends to be about an alien stranded in a rural town, but is really nothing more than feminist propaganda where everyone stands around saying how strong women are, over and over and over.

The writers must obviously feel that women are actually rather week, only to overcompensate by adding all these lines pointing out how very strong every female character supposedly is. However their capabilities for actually writing these women as strong mostly consists of having them bluntly stating "women are strong" in every situation.

But "strong women" is not the only topic they cover though. There's also a bunch of lines about immigration, diversity, and so-called "cultural appropriation". And of course, all the male character are babbling idiots who sorely needs to be saved by all these "strong women".

In summation, the show is nothing more than a clusterbomb of toxic wokeism on steroids, which you can only get through if you turn it into a drinking game.

The production has a distinct trashy feeling to it, with upbeat Miami Vice-like music and fancy editing, which perfectly matches the uber-trashy people on display. From John Wayne and Lorena Bobbitt, to preachers, porn stars, and the ultra-sleazy lawyer trying to make money out of the ordeal, the whole thing is just one long parade of trashiness which fans of John Waters will adore.

There's real sex scenes and a tiny bit of blood, but nothing too bad at all. If you ever watched porn before, this film will not shock you.

And secondly, the film is very, very, very gay. It's basically gay fetish porn, so if watching close-ups of guys having sex is not your thing, then you're going to be looking at your watch for most of the time. Because about 1/3 of the film is actually close-ups of men masturbating. I'm not even joking. The film rarely goes 2 minutes without showing some guy wanking. It could probably be turned into a fun drinking game, if you are so inclined.

And thirdly, more important, the amateurish level of filmmaking is really distracting from the story. The editing, camera angles, lighting, and most of all audio quality is worse than what you would get just by using a mid-range mobile phone. For most of the dialogue (and there's a lot of it that goes on and on and on and on) you're going to be asking yourself "What did he just say" because it's drowned out by ambient noise.

The director clearly had a pretty good vision for the story and I found it quite fascinating to get insight into the dark underworld of gay fetish clubs that I know very little about. But sadly, the lack of basic filmmaking skills makes the whole thing terrible in all the wrong ways and rather boring.

Most people who complain about this short, seem to be people who donated to the Kickstarter campaign and are angry about the super long delay. And while I fully understand that there's no way this lives up to expectations after waiting to see it for some 7 years, the casual Ren & Stimpy fan who knew nothing about the whole Kickstarter failure will find plenty to enjoy here. It's wacky and weird, just in the style of Ren & Stimpy, and actually had me laughing a few times.

See it with an open mind, and I think you'll be surprised =)

Stanhope used to be the funniest, sharpest, most clever and invigorating comedian on the planet. However his last few specials have been a steady fall to the bottom and this is probably his worst yet. It feels like he's not even trying to be funny anymore and just strives to provoke strangers through excessive descriptions of death and decay. The problem though is that it would take much more to actually unsettle his fan group, and whoever might have been taken aback by this material will never ever stumble upon this special... so what is he trying to prove? The jokes are way too few and far between, and 99% of the show feels like rather boring filler. Nothing is worse than seeing your idols falter, and this special makes me rather sad.

Conductor starts off with a young kid trying to use a drum machine at a mall (for some reason) in front of a small crowd of angry people who are apparently also waiting their turn to use the drum machine. The whole concept is difficult to swallow from the getgo, but apparently the filmmaker wants you to believe that a drum machine demo at the mall would be wildly popular among both young and old.

Anyway... while the kid struggles, there's a friend of sorts next to him which keeps telling him how terrible he is at playing the drum machine. The film gives you no reason for this "friend" to be there and yell his insults, and you gotta wonder what the hell was the idea behind that whole character, other than to make you annoyed?

After struggling for a while the kid eventually gets some very basic advice from an onlooker, and manages to string a few extremely basic basic beats together (about as basic as you would think anyone playing around with a drum machine for the first time would manage) and the crowd goes wild with excitement! Everybody cheer and dance and gets all kinds of happy at the sound of this guy's few bam-bam-boooooms. The beat is in no way catchy or good in any way, however everyone there acts as if he's the next Tiesto or something.

There's also a twist towards the end. I won't reveal exactly what it is... but whatever you've heard or read about this film, I can guarantee that you should not believe the hype. It's basically just another Saw ripoff that adds nothing new other than even more annoying characters.

It seems the filmmakers have a personal vendetta against electronic music and want to lampoon it by producing utter crap, and show how silly it is when people actually enjoy these simple beats. However, the whole thing is done with such obvious lack of understanding of house music in general, that it's comparable to your grandpa putting on a baseball cap and saying "YO!" as if he's pretending to be a hip-hopper.

This is not a funny film. It thinks it's funny, sure, and there's enough terrible slapstick in there to make anyone cringe. But it's "zany" in all the wrong ways. It's not merely bad dad jokes, but great granddad jokes! You know it's a bad sign when you're checking how much is left every 20 seconds. And when the ending finally comes around... ARGH! Rarely does a movie make me so truly annoyed. I was gonna give it a 4, but the last 5 minutes forced me to deduct several points. It's just sooooo friggin terrible you want to punch the screenwriter. ARG!

From the very first frame, it's obvious that this film is on a whole other level than the other Oscar nominated shorts. The lighting is simply outstanding, and the images are beautiful.

The acting is also excellent, and both characters are rendered with great depth.

Best of all though, is the script. The whole story is basically just two people in a room, talking. And still, the screenwriter manages to make it both exciting and moving. The plot toys with the audience, continuously changing our sympathies from one character to the other, and never attempts to simplify or cheapen the conflict.

I'll be very interested in seeing what this director does next, as this short promises great things in the future.

I love short movies, and have an annual tradition of watching every short nominated for the Oscars each year. However, this entry was so bad, it has got me wondering if the time has come to stop. Because this film is so abysmally dreadful, that it's painfully obvious the award has absolutely nothing to do with quality any more.

I won't go into much detail about the hamfisted way the filmmakers tries to jam their message down the viewers throat, as other reviewers have written more than enough about that.

But even if you were to take all the clunky propaganda out of the story, and focus instead on the actual filmmaking, you'd still be left with absolutely atrocious craftsmanship. The acting is bad, the directing is bad, the editing is bad and the soundtrack is bad.

But worst of all, is the screen writing. I mean, COME ON! How is it possible to write such drivel, and not have anyone punch you in the face? The only explanation I can think of, is if the screenwriter is five years old. And indeed, there are many scenes in the film which support that theory, most notably when a grown woman brings a grown man home to her apartment, and actually starts running around a Christmas tree singing children's songs! WTF? It felt like it was supposed to be a remake of the Tom Hanks movie Big (1988), where a kid has his body transformed into an adult, but still has the mind of a child. And as fun as that might have been, I'm pretty sure this was not the filmmakers' intention.

Rather, it's just a political piece about a subject which people are so terrified to debate, that they will celebrate an excruciatingly bad film in fear of what someone might say of them if they dared point out what utter trash it is. YUCK!

This is not so much a nature documentary, as a lesson in how NOT to make a nature documentary. It feels more like a student project made by someone who has seen way too many David Attenborough films, and try their best to mimic his style, without any of the talent.

That's not to say it's all bad: The cinematography is quite astounding at times, and there are plenty of images which will leave your mouth agape.

But the hamfisted voice-over is nothing but a constant stream of on-the-nose awkwardness, the forced segways constantly pull attention to themselves, and the incoherent story-lines break every rule of storytelling. And to top it all off, it ends with an unbelievable bad final scene showing children dancing in slow-motion to an absolutely horrendous soundtrack whose lyrics beats you upon the head with its message. It has the subtlety of someone crashing a plane into a skyscraper, and leaves you with just about the same feeling.

Anyone who has followed Stanhope's career, knows that part of his trademark is the wide variety of style and content. Sometimes he'll be on a hardcore political track and rant away with biting social commentary that is so sharp it will often make you embarrassed about things you did not know about yourself. Other times it seems he is on an imbecilic poop-track, where he competes with himself in seeing just how juvenile and crude he can be, taking great joy in telling long and detailed tales involving bodily fluids in the most inappropriate situation he can imagine.

In this latest set he gives us a mix of these styles. Starting off as the social satirist, he delivers some great new twists on issues like poverty and mental health care, before slowly sliding into the gross-out humor where he just tries his best to shock and disgust. While the first part is just as brilliant as we've come to expect from the great Stanhope, the problem with the latter part is that anyone who might actually be shocked and disgusted by this kind of vulgarity, will probably never see this show. His fan base will not get offended by mere coarse language, and instead of being upsetting in any way, this muck of "shock-humor" turns into Stanhope flogging a dead horse, to the point of becoming a little bit boring.

Having seen him live about half a year before this was filmed, I wish he had included more of the peculiar cleverness he preformed at that time. Even though "No Place Like Home" is not at all a bad set, this is still a long way from the brilliance of "No Refunds" or his excellent contributions to Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe.

As a long time goa-head, I thought this would be an interesting chance to learn how it all began, and see if there are still any of the old hippy vibes left in Goa. Sadly, this documentary is so sloppily put together, it's almost unwatchable.

The film starts with an absolutely horrendous song made up of an untuned guitar and someone who, also out of tune, tries to sing the title of the movie. It's really terrible to listen to, and you just want it to stop, but sadly, this "song", if you can even call it that, keeps returning throughout the rest of the film.

What follows is various people talking about India, goa-trance and hippies. Some of the interview subjects are legendary icons in the goa-scene, but the filmmaker does such a shabby job at asking them questions, they're often left rambling on about the most mundane subjects, while interesting anecdotes are cut short. You start to wonder how little material the filmmakers had to work with, since they include a several minute clip of two men singing "Row your boat" in the back of a cab.

Lacking structure of any kind, the film comes off as the incoherent babble of several talking heads, only loosely connected through being set in the same country.

But as terrible as all that is, what really ruins this documentary, is the editing. Scenes skip back and forth, with the audio and soundtrack stopping so abruptly, it sounds like someone is messing with the controls just to be a dick.

And just when you think it's gonna get better, comes that horrible theme song again... Bah.

Why is it that whenever a woman gets a chance to make a short movie, it always has to be a sappy retelling of her own personal life? While male directors make thrillers and comedies and musicals and sci-fis about all sorts of strange characters; women only want to make movies about themselves, and whether you're watching the Oscar nominated shorts or a bunch of shorts from film students, it's always the same. Short movies made by women, are all about the director's own life stories.

This wouldn't have been a problem, had all female filmmakers lived spectacularly interesting lives, but sadly this is not the case, and time and time again I've had to sit through terrible films like this, where a woman tells her "fascinating" story, about the time she drove a bus. Whoohoo, please tell me more about how you had trouble shifting gears.

You see the same trend amongst bloggers: Men blog about politics and technology and cars and all kinds of stuff. Women blog about themselves, because they think they're such special snowflakes.

Yuk.

Why is it that whenever a woman gets a chance to make a movie, it always has to be a sappy retelling of her own personal life? While male directors make thrillers and comedies and musicals and sci-fis about all sorts of strange characters; women only want to make movies about themselves, and whether you're watching the Oscar nominated shorts or a bunch of shorts from film students, it's always the same. Short movies made by women, are all about the director's own life stories.

This wouldn't have been a problem, had all female filmmakers lived spectacularly interesting lives, but sadly this is not the case, and time and time again I've had to sit through terrible films like this, where a woman tells her "fascinating" story, about the bicycle she had as a child. Another example of this, is the director's previous film called "My grandmother ironed the king's shorts". Well whopdidoo, how interesting. Please tell me more about what pieces of clothing your grandmother ironed.

You see the same trend amongst bloggers: Men blog about politics and technology and cars and all kinds of stuff. Women blog about themselves. The only difference between female bloggers and female filmmakers, is that bloggers aren't funded by the government, like all female filmmakers in Norway are. As the country is officially a feminist state, the law says that 50% of all film funds has to go to female film makers, which means 50% of all Norwegian movies are all the same "female stories" from women who cannot produce anything else than their own boring life on celluloid, because they think they're such special snowflakes.

And the funny thing is, if you ever meet these female directors and ask them how they got funding for their scripts (I've actually asked several) they always reply the same thing "Getting funding in Norway is so easy!" The reason for this is simply because there are very few women who want to make movies, yet the state has decided that 50% of all funds has to go to women, resulting in the same minuscule portion of Norwegian filmmakers constantly getting money to produce a constant stream of movies about their own boring lives.

Yuk!

If you click on the nickname of the two reviewers here who both gave this show a perfect 10, you can see that they've both registered on IMDb around the start of the show, and have made no other reviews, ratings, comments or discussion, or any other activity on this site at all, other than giving this silly show a perfect 10.

But if they still fool you into checking out the show, it'll only take a minute or so to realize you've been had.

Because The Missing is really the pits. Everything from the acting, editing, lighting, soundtrack, and most especially the screen writing, it's all so horrendously bad, that it feels like you're having to endure student theater, which goes on, and on, and on...

As one of the most astounding, larger than life-documentaries of all time, Eleven Powers tells the tale of the last Eka Dasa Rudra festival. The event takes place only every 100 years in Bali, with the last one held in 1979. And if this film crew had not been there to document it, the trials of that calamitous celebration would hardly be believed.

The film shows how the fanatical locals goes about sacrificing at least one of every living thing on the island, into a bubbling volcano, to prevent the destruction of the entire cosmos. Giving a good depiction of frenzied religion at its most savage and insane, while at the same showing such empathy towards the practitioners you somehow start cheering for their rituals to succeed.

The brilliant and brooding narration by legendary Orson Wells, makes it a true gem, not to be missed. However, as the film is apparently only available on a very limited amount of 8mm rolls in certain libraries around the world, digging up a copy can be quite the task.

EDIT: This film is currently available in its entirety on youtube =)

As with most of Christopher Nielsen's animated endeavors, The Escalator is almost good, but not quite. The film follows a naked man walking up a never-ending escalator, meeting a few other nude men and women along the way. The escalator is of course meant as another metaphor for "society's ladder", and Nielsen asks us why we should bother climbing to a top which we'll never reach, when it might just as well be perfectly enjoyable to let yourself sink to the bottom.

The soundtrack consists of a droning bass dragging on the same two notes over and over, and gets a little annoying after a while. The animation is pretty decent, though far from Pixar-quality, it still has many nice details, and great visual ideas. However, being riddled with on-the-nose dialog throughout the 10 minutes runtime, the film suffers from lack of any nuance, and a concept that is far from as clever as it thinks itself to be.

As very few other filmmakers put this much effort into animating films for adult audiences, The Escalator is still amongst the best of its genre, simply for the lack of many competing titles. Yet when comparing it to animated shorts like the sensational Fallen Art, The Escalator appears quite raw and unpolished.

If you haven't heard of Dave Attell, you haven't seen much stand-up comedy. The man is a living legend, and is celebrated as one of the funniest comedians for the last two decades. And after a few years hiatus since his slightly disappointing Captain Miserable show, he's finally back in full force, with the best delivery he's done since his infamous Skanks for the Memories CD.

Even though Road Work was filmed at several venues and somewhat sloppily edited together, his high rate of punch lines keeps you laughing from start to finish, and the only complaint I have is that it's a bit short. But enough about my penis.

Very much a "comedians comic", his stand-up is not so much about elaborate stories and set-ups, as it's about perfect timing and delivery. Always keeping the humor deliciously dark and depraved, it's amazing to see him jump effortlessly from one subject more politically incorrect than the last, pummeling the crowd with punch lines you'll never see coming. And just when he gets you roaring with laughter, he'll turn the joke on you, and apologize for your lack of decency in laughing at the terrible things he's saying.

As his stand-up is quite the opposite of clean and family friendly, it's obvious that some imbeciles will always take offense. But that's the sign of any good artist.

Bo-focking-hoo. A young boy is dying. It's so saaaad (not really). Luckily, there's a dimwitted janitor there, to tell him stupid stories about a magical afterlife-place called Helium. Unfortunately, the relationship between these two is so forced, and the stories about Helium are so meaningless and without reference, that the movie becomes an unfunny parody of itself. And it doesn't take long before you're hoping the kid will just go ahead and croak already.

Sad music is smeared thickly as the boy's condition is worsening, and the filmmakers begs the audience for sympathy. Yet we're never given any reason to why we should care about this kid at all, other than him being a kid; which is just awful screen writing. But even if the script had been written in a smoother fashion, the fact that anyone would make a film of such a terrible concept in the first place, is mind-boggling. I mean, a dying kid? Really? Could you possibly be any less creative in your plea for emotions?

The overdose of sap is so severely lacking a pinch of anything cute, quirky or fun, that the whole thing ends up as something sticky you want to wipe off your shoe.

I feel dirty after having watched this crap.