| Movie | Rating | Review | Date | Your Rating | Match | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adam - PG-13 | August 2, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Funny People - R | August 2, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Collector - R | August 2, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Time of the Wolf - R |
Of course it is bleak, slow, and ambiguous - it's Michael Haneke! I did indeed like this one, though only having seen Funny Games, Funny Games, and this, I do believe Haneke to be obsessed with the themes of home invasion and "bourgeois" people forced into humility. I CAN tolerate what some will describe as unbearable "slowness" and over-calculation of shot composition that many accuse Haneke guilty of, but mostly because I am sick of seeing shoddily edited, overcut, and underthought movies that will always flood the market. It's tough to be a legitimate film maker, because then you actually have to meet standards, which is why I imagine so many people to be very callous in regards to assessments of Haneke's work. I am always pleased to see apocalyptic/end of society films done in this realistic tone, especially in today's flooded market of action apocalyptica and sensationalized armageddon. This film most closely reminds me of Threads with its bleak presentation and closeness to reality. A wonderful film, but you must be a patient fim viewer (read: not an ADD crazed artificial adrenaline junkie plucked from the teeming masses). I must confess that I dislike the ending, not because it is ambiguous; indeed I like to think I know what awaits the characters after the reel ceases to roll, and I delight in imagining the specifics of how they will deal with yet another difficult and wholly new situation. I dislike the ending not for the final shot, but for the scene right before it, and the haste with which all of the dangling storylines are abandoned for this overhanded symbolic moment which will contribute to many viewers feeling similarly abandoned and befuddled by the director's choice, but as is often the way with Haneke, that mau be indeed precisely what he wants the audience to feel. Viewed from that perspective, I can accept that scene, but I cannot accept the countless storylines which were just moments ago being adequately nourished and developed, but are now suddenly left desperately open to interpretation. |
August 1, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Hardware - R | August 1, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Plaguers - Unrated | August 1, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Murder-Set-Pieces - R |
This "movie" promotes itself for being shocking, banned in the UK, and refused for processing by three film developing studios. It's not shocking, but I for one would ban or not process this film because of how absolutely poorly made it is. I don't even know where to being with my laundry list of complaints. It's edited like someone with severe memory loss and acute ADHD did it. It's written without any regard for form, story, originality, or genuine talent for horror. I only believe there was a person on set, one Nick Palumbo, who called himself a director, but didn't actually bother directing anything other than stock body parts and corn syrup. It's all intentional shock and no genuine scare. On top of that, it's not even thoughtful gore. The blood coloring is off and different in every scene; the splatters are utterly without the logic of physics and more than gratuitous. The majority of props are very weak in terms of appearing real or showing originality; the one exception is a Jack-in-the-Box of a skull which contains a miniature of the killer in it. And this script, more holes than swiss cheese! This killer would have been caught several times over by the end of the film; he is a sloppy killer AND he shots someone in an occupied and no doubt video-monitored adult bookstore (which by the way happens because of an utterly badly placed sudden armed robbery). The film layers on bad horror cliches like an overstuffed sub sandwhich; within two seconds of each other, the killer brandishes a chainsaw and the protagonist gets a butcher knife for defense. I'm not even going to go into how lame it is to throw around Nazi familial connections and serial killer flashbacks to a childhood of mother hatred. This is worth seeing to remind one to treasure the great films that are out there by showing the utter crap in comparison. Shock lovers and gore hounds, prepare for disappointment, as this garbage is not in the same league as most of the video nasty "banned" faux-snuff favorites. I cannot say too many times how much of a waste of time and red dye this film is. AVOID AVOID AVOID Only see it if you MUST fulfill a list of shock films, but then only to note how poor is in comparison to the rest of the field. |
July 31, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Moon - R | Keith recommends | July 28, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Stuff - R | July 27, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Blindness - R |
For a dystopian "end of society" flick, there are far better entries. The movie quickly isolates itself to a small quarantine area (probably for budget reasons) of those afflicted with the "blindness". Within the quarantine, the social order quickly breaks down when it becomes overcrowded and chaos ensues with one faction of men controlling food and threatening the other residents. The film does okay at communicating the blind affliction, but there are many flaws in what the people can and can't do (for example, one would still be able to wipe their own ass but a main character says that he can't). Just a very lukewarm film, and if it weren't for the great scenes that take place after the quarantine camp, I would give it 2 and 1/2. |
July 26, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Otaku Unite! - Unrated | I don't know much of this culture, and I found this doc to be tremendously insightful. On the short side and very broad in scope, but good for those wishing to merely glimpse into this modern cultural phenomenon. | July 25, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Leprechaun in the Hood - R | This is hilarious; more of a spoof than an actual horror movie. The film is one half "Friday" and one half Leprechaun. The "getting out of the hood" story could actually stand on its own and be a decent little flick, but throw in the Leprechaun and you instantly have a cheesy B-style romp. The effects disappoint, so there are no cool kills, but there is plenty of rhyming and intriguing minor characters to satisfy the viewer. And it does even better than I expected - I expected a rap song about the leprechaun - instead at the end, the Lep does hid own rap including his own music video hos and bling references. I'm not surprised a second Lep in the hood was done, but I am unsure if I will watch it (both currently available on FEARnet web viewing). | July 25, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Darkon - Unrated | I did not know this culture existed and this film provides a very interesting glimpse into the world of outcasts shunned by other outcasts. Check out the HULU page discussions on this for a thorough exploration of the piece. | July 25, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Methadonia - Unrated | This could be considered a companion piece/sequel of sorts to Black Tar Heroin: Dark End of the Street. That film dealt with young people fresh into the world of heavy addiction, and this film follows lifelong addicts who are still battling to recover after 20-40 years of addiction. In this film, most of the subjects are no longer addicted to street drugs but are now on the chemical leash of methadone and frequently combine it with other prescription drugs to replicate their old highs. | July 25, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Dagon - R |
The most appealing and stunningly well done achievement of the film is creating a consistent and terrifying depiction of a village dedicated to the extreme and orthodox religious worship of the dark Elder Gods; this is a place you could only want to visit in nightmares. Because the village and in its inhabitants are so effective, I am ratcheting my score to four stars. The language sounds great, which is pretty key to portraying occultists and creatures of Lovecraftian realms; this is for horror what Tolkien is for fantasy in terms of film adaptation. And weird I should think of LotR, because Stuart Gordon has in effect done a Lovecraft library of adaptations to screen; it's not just three movies, but it is well more than LotR extended cuts. Gordon varies in how people rate his adherence to Lovecraft ideals, I too fluctuate on my like for his renderings of these stories. I love this one. But that isn't to say there aren't some problems. |
July 11, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Shuttle - R | It's rare to come across a modern thriller/horror that actually thrills and scares; this film manages to do that. | July 7, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Le Dernier Combat (The Last Battle) (The Last Combat) - Unrated | June 30, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street - Unrated |
It's not hard for this film to be brilliant. The camera just has to be running on these people, and then it is up to the makers to dig through the three years of footage to compile a coherent story. All of them are young, introspective, resourceful, friendly, and full of potential. But they are also all very filled with sadness, in great despair, in ill health, in dangerous situations, and rarely happy because they are all addicted to heroin. It would not be surprising if a followup done today would reveal all the participants, or at least a majority, to now be dead of a drug-related cause. At the conclusion, two main subjects have AIDS and are not receiving treatment, and one of them is still prostituting despite a looming charge of attempted murder if charged again with prostitution. Of course when dealing with this topic, the content will be saddening, but the factor that determines whether or not the film is good is if it is revealing. And this film does reveal in horrific detail the reality of junkie living. We see their battered bodies, bruises and burst blood vessels spotting their skin from frequent injection and dramatic weight losses from neglecting eating for fixing. We see them in the throes of withdrawal and, more rarely, doped to the point of complete loss of awareness with their only spoken sentiments being about their specific despairs and missing loved ones. We see them lurking on street corners to advertise for dates, visiting public restrooms to shoot up, using pay phones to contact dealers, and running small dealing operations out of temporary and deteriorating living spaces. We see them attempting relationships with other addicts, but it seems that what draws these people together is their addiction and mutual need for supporting their addiction. We see them attempting to regain their lives when jail or death looms, but we also witness them inevitably falling back into the deadly grip of addiction. Great documentaries reveal stark reality, and this film certainly accomplishes that. |
June 22, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Zombie Apocalypse - Unrated | June 22, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Friday the 13th - R |
The best thing I can say is that it's watcheable if it's on in the background or you're getting hammered/stoned while watching it and kind of paying more attention to conversations you're having than the screen. So it's a good Friday night "let's play MST3K!". Things this entry taught me about Jason/Camp Crystal Lake: -there is a sizeable marijuana crop of awesome quality on the property and apparently tons of college aged kids know about it -there is a cavern system that terminates in a turned over bus -Jason was still alive when his mom killed the kids and watched her get killed -Jason keeps prisoners for over a month, chained but fed, as long as they vaguely remind him of his mother or the girl who killed his mother -Sam (the long haired one) from the WB's Supernatural can totally kick Jason's ass and survive machete chops -Jason is an excellent archer -Jason will kill you if you plan to steal and/or smoke his weed -Jason likes to use bear traps Moral of the story: just don't fuck with Jason's weed. The work on Jason himself is quite nice, and some of the body part FX (torn leg especially) are okay. Nothing new gorewise though and many boring blade-through-ya kills. |
June 16, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Spider-Man 3 - PG-13 |
THIS RATING IS NOT OF THE MOVIE SPIDER-MAN 3. THE RATING IS OF THE RIFFTRAX COMMENTARY OF SPIDER-MAN 3. I CANNOT PROPERLY RATE SPIDER-MAN 3 BECAUSE FLIXSTER DOES NOT ALLOW NEGATIVE STAR RATINGS. I swore I would never see this; I didn't need to see it to know how godawful it is. I was right that I didn't need to see it to know how bad it was, but I wanted to test out the RiffTrax guys to see if they could really stick it to a crap movie. They didn't, keeping their comedy very broad and PG. I laughed 6 times total, and yes I was counting, at their comments. Not impressive considering that I laughed at the actual dialogue more times than I could keep count of. This is one of the worst movies ever made, so the RiffTrax guys should have produced an epic pwn of this craptacular, but instead they went pretty damn soft on it and I was disappointed. So there really is no reason to see this movie until some other professional peanut gallery puts together a decent commentary track. |
June 16, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Parents - R |
This is available for free viewing on Hulu.com. The acting is the clear winner of this flick, with set decoration coming in close second. And unlike most modern horror, this film has a plot that includes characters we the audience have a stake in. I viewed this with my best friend who said this during the screening, "Why don't they make movies like this anymore? Movies where you actually care about the characters and want to know what happens?" And it's quite true - this movie is not the most complicated of stories, but we DO care about what happens to this kid and to know what his parents are really up to. This is a fun family horror-comedy, with a really cool final act. |
June 16, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Akira - R |
great visuals, but the story goes nowhere Second viewing: When I said "the story goes nowhere" I think I meant "the story goes nowhere I didn't fully expect it to go and gets there clumsily nonetheless". But after you know the plot details of the odd in the anime-typical sense movie, there are plenty of visual rewards to satiate instead. To restate what I just said there, this is a VERY weird story for people who don't constantly immerse themselves in odd plots of the scifi, manga, or multiplot sort,, and even those viewers who do will be spendng most of their mental energy focusing on the rapid and involved plot developments on the first screening. Basically, there's too much going on for this film's good on the first run, or at least too much to reel in a wide audience. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though, because fans of this genre like dense and overwhelming plots. Still that doesn't excuse how sometimes the story leaps from one plot point to the next without any associating cause other than the screenwriter knows they need to get there because that's what happens in the manga book. On the bright side - everything visually seen in this flick. It still amazes the hell out of me to think this was animated in 1987. I really cannot believe it; AKIRA is so damn stunningly detailed for any moving picture pre-CG, not just animated. To summarize, if you can't tolerate or understand the plot the first time out, do give it another go, and this time just enjoy the atmosphere and/or allow yourself to re-absorb the story to a point of understanding. ALSO I AM DECLARING RIGHT NOW MYSELF TO BE A CINEPHILE AGAINST A LIVE ACTION REMAKE OF THIS ANIMATION MASTERPIECE |
June 16, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Chelovek s kino-apparatom (Man with a Movie Camera) - Unrated | June 13, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Deadlands 2: Trapped - Unrated | June 10, 2009 | N/A |
1678 ratings
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