Reviews

A all star cast, a well known director and a screenplay by a best selling author, you'd pretty much think this movie had to be great....only it's not. It's mediocre and predictable. It's your standard underworld criminal movie with a few eccentric characters, a lot of wealth thrown around and a central criminal plot. As things progress you kind of expect some action or something to kind of happen but it's really just standard story line that takes you pretty much where you would actually end up given the circumstances. By the end of it, and really through it all you don't really find yourself caring for or even wanting to care for any of the characters or feel much sympathy for them. There is little violence in this movie, which works for me since I'm not a fan of violence but my guessing is that most people who are into this genre loot forward to a few grizzly scenes now and then, and you really won't find much of that there, there is a lot of implication, but only 1 really violent scene. In short, if these types of low end, criminal underworld movies appeal to you, you'll like this, if not, you probably won't.

There isn't really anything new about this movie, it shows the same lonely and detached world that other futuristic movies show, and follows along a somewhat predictable storyline that leaves you feeling somewhat melancholy, yet, it's so good. I suppose that's the beauty of good direction, to really bring a story to life and completely pull you into it, of course it's backed up by an interesting script and great acting, but it's the direction that really puts this a cut above the rest.

As a side note, there is a orange-white theme running through out the movie, I don't know why, but I liked it. Also the outdoor scenes did not look like L.A. to me, it looked much more like China or Singapore.

In short, watch this if you like sad, romantic movies and are willing to welcome futuristic themes.

People might, and unsurprisingly so, go into this movie expecting that it's a stellar drama with fantastic everything, but in reality it's just a giant frat part. Yes, that's right, a frat party, you know the kind, Jackass and all that, yes, this is exactly like that. Sure there is an underlining message, that Wall Street brokers and bankers are soulless money hungry animals, but then we already knew that, and so there was really little need to nail that point in 5000 times in this movie. This sort of has a story, but it's mostly just people doing drugs, having crazy parties and showing the average IQ span of about 50, once again, like the American Pie movies, and when you do eventually find the story it's not that great, pretty much just "guy cons people....gets rich....then gets caught. The story, perhaps because it's so weak, has been filled with endless interludes of Lenardo DeCaprio doing cocaine; he does cocaine of his desk, he does cocaine of a plate, he does cocaine of a hooker's tits, he does cocaine on a boat deck, he does cocaine of his side table, he does cocaine.....oh well you get the picture. In short, watch this if you want to see an amalgamation of the Jackass movies and a Spring Break party.

Well it seems like an interesting indie movie on the surface, but in reality the story just fails to establish itself. All through out you can just never really find yourself caring for the characters or what has happened to them. That of course isn't helped by the fact that the acting is quite very poor in places and the directing too seems somewhat amateurish at times although is reasonably acceptable as a whole. The movie is also cluttered with songs, at times you just go from 1 song onto another which is not only annoying, but, in my opinion also takes away some credibility from what is going on. Not to mention that it is plainly obvious that the numerous use of songs is just a cover to try and pull you into a story that can't hold its own. The end is anti- climatic and utterly unsatisfying, leaving you wondering what exactly this whole story was about anyway and why it just bounced around for so long and never really went anywhere. The illustrated cartoons within the movie however are really good, well animated, well narrated and properly manage to capture the setting of the movie and the characters. So in short, watch this if you feel like watching a cavalier, semi- romanticized movie about impoverished life in midland USA.

A foreign exchange student comes to live with a family in New York and ends up causing trouble and testing the bounds of their relationship. Predictably there is an attraction between her (the student) and the father, he seeing her as opportunity to recapture his failed youth and she seeing him as the father figure she never had.......all standard stuff. The story could have been built up better, because it really just jumps from point A (a foreign exchange student coming) and point B (an attraction between her and the father) in pretty much 5 minutes. Added to that you get a bunch of unrealistic scenarios and a few intense scenes that well....aren't really that intense. What is good about the movie, is the suburban New York setting and lifestyle, the house and the neighborhood were really beautiful and I enjoyed watching the drama play out there, but I don't suppose a lot of people would want to watch a movie just for that. In short, it's an okay movie, but don't expect any surprises or greatness.

Pretty much your standard coming-of-age movie; isolated teenager with a troubled family life finds comfort and friendship with an outside parental figure. It's well done all around with good performances and really flawed parental characters that make you buy into the story more than if it was just the pretense of bad parenting. The ending too is very satisfying, I was afraid it would end in a cheesy everything-is-right-in- the-world-now sort of way, but the ending suited the plot and the story nicely. The 1 downside to the whole thing however was the character of Owen, he is just so exaggerated and unrealistically over the top that, to some extent, he pulls the seriousness and plausibility out of the story. In-spite of that, it's still a good movie, and better than most of the others in the same genre. In short, you'll like this if you like coming- of-age dramas.

A small time drama set in small town America.

The movie revolves around Melissa, her handicapped boyfriend and her low-life ex who keeps harassing her. You would think that would lead to an obvious plot line, where the ex steers up things and makes life Hell for them ending in a violent showdown, but no, that doesn't happen. As the movie progresses Melissa gets pregnant and they start facing financial difficulties, and you start to think that the boyfriend or her, desperate for money well end up doing something illegal and get arrested or caught up in something, but no, that doesn't happen. Then Melissa gets put on the graveyard shift at her grocery store job, and you think that she's going to get raped or attacked (probably by the ex) in the night and that's going to be tragic and horrible, but no, that doesn't happen. Melissa and her boyfriend are now so short for money that are forced to go live with Melissa's mother, who rents a house from the low-life ex, you'd think that would lead to the ex taking advantage of them or throw them out or just harassing them more, but no, that doesn't really happen. So what does happen then, well nothing. This is just a dull, sad portrait of life in rural America which will leave you either utterly bored or utterly depressed.

I suppose you could categorize this as a relationship drama, but really that just makes it sound more interesting than it is.

In short, you probably won't like this.

I went into this thinking it was a Pixar production, which it isn't, and with those goes all sense of credibility. The story line is weak, it's your stereotypical average-Joe/ underdog type aspiring to be great and of course succeeding in the end, with some side characters/stooges thrown in. The script could have been much much better, the dialogs were bland at times and the jokes seemed to be out of a 1970s jokebook. This does not even feel like a big budget mainstream movie, this feels more like a Cartoon Network special or a straight to DVD type movie. In short, kids might probably enjoy this but there is nothing here for adults.

Mindless action, and I do mean mindless action. The action starts about 3-4 minutes in and lasts until the end, it's not cool, fun action like you might imagine in a big budget movie....it's stupid silly action with CGI zombies running around everywhere. Most of the time you don't even see the zombies, they are a blur running this way and that like a school of deranged fish.

The plot line is weak, it mostly just revolves around the fact that a virus has spread and turned people into zombies, that's pretty much about it. You don't get much more than that. I was expecting more, but it didn't come. Despite how bad I found the movie I was still very curious to find out how the virus originated and why, curiosity and all that, but we aren't told that, in fact the movie ends rather un- climatically. The movie basically just ends with him finding a cure, the zombies are not destroyed, we have no idea why all this happened, we don't even know how many "live" people there are left on the Earth. Along with that there are numerous instances which are just so unrealistic that they make you laugh......like an airliner crashing and breaking into bits yet leaving Brad Pitt and his sidekick alive...stuff like that. As you can imagine there really isn't much in therms of characters here, it's a 1 man movie and that man is Brad Pitt, the rest of the people are just bystanders.

In short, it's a bad movie.

Judging by the basic summery of this you might end up thinking that's it's a corny, little family-relationship movie that has probably been done before, it's mostly what I thought as well. In reality however this turns out to be a really good drama/subtle comedy, sure it's not really groundbreaking or anything, but it is still really good. The story, despite being somewhat commonplace, is good and sold, developing slowly through the length of the movie towards an un-climactic it very satisfying end. Honestly it is the fact that is is un-climactic that it really works to be a good story, it would have been incredibly cheesy if they had just wrapped things up in a tiny bow at the end, instead we get what truly feels like an episode of a longer and perhaps more complex relationship/relationships.

The acting is great all around, the small cast almost makes this feel like a play and that all together in't a bad thing. The directing and writing is good, and the location itself is amazing, it's worth watching this movie just to get that feel of being in an beautiful, isolated cabin/house surrounded by trees and woodland. I don't know where this was shot, but from the looks of it I'm guessing it was Canada.

In short, you'll like this if you like small independent dramas.

An interesting indie film about relationships and mental illness.

It's not a movie that really opens up in the 1st few minutes, or even the 1st hour, you really do have to stick with it to get an idea of what's going on. In the beginning it almost feels like soap story where a evil character comes in starts spreading lies about somebody and ends up having that person ostracized, and as it progress you feel somewhat more confused about what's going on, but the end puts everything into perspective. A lot of what didn't make sense early on, starts to make sense now and you have that moment of connecting the dots and seeing the full picture.

The acting is brilliant, often in movies like this the acting is mediocre or even bad, but everybody here is just great. The writing and directing too is great, all the scenes have a natural feel to them that really pulls you in. It's obvious that this was done on a really low budget and so it's really interesting to see what can be managed with so little.

The mental illness side of this was great and what really interested me in this movie, I hate movies where mental illness are wrongly represented (*cough* Silver Linings Playbook *cough*) and so it's really refreshing to see a proper portrait of personality disorders.

In short, a great indie film, but probably not something mainstream audiences will enjoy.

Well I suppose the general concept of this was good, although in no way original, but it was just badly carried out on every level.

To begin with the script. Better writing could really have saved this movie, despite all of it's other flaws, but instead we get underdeveloped characters, easy to spot plot-holes and an odd pace of things, that is to say that a lot of the boring introductory stuff is slow paced, which really didn't need to be so, and a lot of the later scenes in Oz, which really could have used the extra time, are rushed and feel almost silly. Added to all of this the dialogs and jokes are just plain bland, I understand that this movie was made for kids but still, you don't have to make it seem like a cartoon. Then we have the ending, which is utterly inconclusive, Oz hasn't killed either of the witches (and on that note it's worthy to mention that nobody actually dies in this movie) but simply forced them to run away, and we are told that they will soon return. Oz neither marries the Queen nor returns to his homeland, it just ends after the final battle leaving us wondering what exactly happened. Characters like Oz always return back to the real world, Alice did it, the Narnia kids did it, Hell even Harry Potter did it, you can't just leave your characters hanging in a fantasy universe. Bad writing.

Now for the CGI, almost 90% of the movie is green screen, and for some reason it's just awful. Pretty much all through out I could tell the differences between the actors and the background, they just didn't naturally blend into the background scene. It really felt like people standing in front of a painted cardboard cutout. A lot of the times the lighting and shadows felt a little off as well, especially in the field of sunflowers where the whole countryside was a bright brilliant yellow and the actors were walking in a much darker shade of light, it made everything feel so disconnected. Then we have the lightening that Rachel Weisz's character shoots out, it looks cheesy and ridiculous, I'm trying to think of something to compare it too but nothing comes to me, so in short, it's just stupid. Everything lacks realism, the castles the walls, the creates, they all look like they are made out of plastic, they just don't have any features to them. Speaking of features, the green evil look that Mila Kunis adopted after her character turned evil looked like a rubber mask, they could have at least done some proper prosthetics.

As far as acting goes, it was bad all around, James Franco seemed completely un-invested in his character and really just smiled and said his lines, quite possibly his worst performance yet. The "witches" were slightly better in that they tried to play out their parts, but still their performances were weak and had that "staged" element to them. My guess is that since all of this was green screen, none of the actors could really get a feel for their characters or the settings. Zach Braff was the only good 1 here, his 5 minutes of screen time in the beginning is sadly the best piece of acting you'll see in this film.

To sum up, the movie is entertaining if you're in the mood for a childish fantasy, but overall I doubt anybody over the age of 8 will actually love this film.

I thought this might be edgy and new, a sort of non-commercial indie masterpiece, but instead it's just a stupid frat movie. It plays up on every cliché you could think of. The plot is basically this, loser guy gets dumped by his horrible, mean girlfriend and then desperately tries to get back with her, during the course of which he meets somebody else and ends up realizing that he's in the love with her.

Apart from the horrible plot this also has a terrible script, the jokes are what you might expect to find in 90s joke books and the emotion aspect of it is so bland that you end up rolling your eyes through the "serious" bits. The characters are empty, and don't really evolve much from that.

In short, it's stupid, you might enjoy it if you like such movies (American Pie, Van Wilder type) but if not, I'd recommend you avoid it.

When I 1st heard of this show, I was quite excited, I thought FOX might come up with a new, innovated crime drama that pushes the edges of what we have seen so far. Suffice to say this was far far far from that.

Right from the 1st episode you know this show is stupid. This situations presented are so far fetched that they at times just make you laugh rather than anything else. A serial killer who manages to charm 100+ followers into organising themselves and carrying out coordinated attacks......all while being locked up in jail. If that's hard to swallow the police response to this will leave you gagging.

You would think that a nation wide band of crazy serial killers would warrant some sort of elite task force or something of that sort, but instead we have a small group of barely 5 people who seem to be managing everything.....badly. They are assisted by Kevin Bacon's character, your standard bad-ass do-gooder who is the center of attention and has a bunch of 1-liners. Together they manage to accomplish next to nothing.

As the story progresses the plot gets sketcher and sketcher, characters start dying like flies. You would think that would add a sense of realism to the show, but honestly it is just annoying. You find that a character you liked and who's story you wanted to keep watching just ends up getting murdered rather casually. By the end of the show most of the characters are dead and you feel like you've just seen a crappy slasher flick.

All that being said, the show is still entertaining, in the absolute basic sense of that word, like how watching watching clowns shoot plastic arrows at each other is entertaining.

To sum up, don't expect much from this show, however if you want to kill some time, it'll do that for you.

(Season 1 review)