Review – Red Water

Add this to the list of sentences I never thought I’d type: this movie needed way more crappy animated shark. As bad as the SyFy effects are, they’re still a birthday present compared to the characters and dialogue. The best moments of the movie are boosted from previous killer fish pictures (Jaws and Piranha in particular), and most of it isn’t even that good. Though he was never one of my favorite actors, Lou Diamond Philips has begun to make me sad. If a role like this is beneath his dignity, that should give you some idea of where the rest of the production lies on the quality scale. See if desperate

Review – Talhotblonde

Oh what a tangled web we weave. With all the deception on the Web – especially in the love-lorn corners of online chats – it was only a matter of time before something went this tragically wrong. A 40-something jerk pretending to be an 18-year-old Marine falls in e-love, but things get rocky when his “girlfriend” starts up with one of his co-workers. Things go radically downhill from there, and jerk ends up shooting the competition to death. From there the twists keep on twisting, and I won’t ruin what the filmmakers clearly regard as the show-stopping shocker. But if it isn’t giving too much away, I soundly reject the notion that anyone other than the man who pulled the trigger was ultimately responsible for the shooting. That’s going way out of your way to blame a woman for a man’s mental infirmity. And for what it’s worth, shootings performed at point blank range aren’t the act of a sniper, no matter what the killer imagines himself to be. See if desperate

Review – Deceptive Practice

This is one of the most uneven documentaries I’ve ever seen. I could watch Ricky Jay work slight-of-hand for hours, so the clips of his performances would have been more than enough for me. I was also willing to experience the discussions of the artists who influenced him. The interminable interviews with acquaintances – especially Mamet – not so much. Sadly, the elements are mixed together seemingly at random, with little concern for any kind of story flow. Thus a subject that should have been fascinating becomes frustrating instead. Mildly amusing

Review – The Great Gatsby (2013)

High school English class gets Luhrmann-ized. The result lies somewhere between the source novel and Moulin Rouge, a result likely to satisfy pretty much nobody. As I was lukewarm on Fitzgerald’s work to begin with, I didn’t take great offense at what Baz Luhrmann did with it. I suspect that Jazz Age purists will be substantially more put off by the hip hop and other non-period contrivances. Mildly amusing

Review – Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away

These shows must be quite impressive live. The video version is good as well, but the intended venue is clearly the theater rather than the living room. This appears to be a combination of different CdS shows woven together by a thin bracket plot. Though the story doesn’t amount to much, the fun of watching the acrobatics more than makes up for it. Mildly amusing

Review – Robin Hood (1973)

My friends and I went to see this the year it came out as part of a knights-in-armor theme party for my seventh birthday. The movie wasn’t exactly the high point of the occasion. Of course my mom was an expert at throwing birthday parties, so even a good picture would have paled by comparison. But this most definitely was not a good movie. It’s one of those cheap hack jobs from the days when Disney lost touch with the ability to buy decent scripts or invest in quality animation. Thus all the re-watching did for me was remind me that if you take one of the middle verses from the opening credits theme and play it at double speed you get the original Hampster Dance song. See if desperate

Review – Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan

Production-quailty-wise, this is a run-of-the-mill documentary. So if you don’t find the subject fascinating, this movie may not do much for you. But then again, if you don’t find Ray Harryhausen’s work fascinating, there’s something wrong with you. If you were born in an age when Hollywood served up nothing but flashy CGI, maybe you’re just used to it. But I miss the days when the effects had a style and personality of their own, often vastly overshadowing the actors, scripts and other elements of their productions. Worth seeing

Review – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Oh how I loved this movie when I was a kid. Of course I could have done without the musical numbers, which oddly still holds true even four decades later. But the story is entertaining enough. An inventor (Dick Van Dyke, here wisely eschewing an English accent) builds a fantastic, super-powered car and takes his moppets and rich girlfriend on an adventure. The whole thing is sort of a kiddie-lite version of Ian Fleming’s more widely-known creation. Mildly amusing

Review – Wyatt Earp

Of the two big-budget movie versions of this story that came out within six months of each other, this is by far the worse. The other one starred Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer. So yes, Kevin Costner really is able to suck that much joy out of a production. The meandering story and poor pacing didn’t help matters much, either. See if desperate

Review – Messenger of Death

How the hell did this thing make it almost all the way to the end before the protagonist kills anyone? It’s a revenge story. Charles Bronson plays the hero. It’s got “death” right there in the title. Seriously, this is a lot of infighting between Mormon splinter groups and not much else. See if desperate

Review – Twixt

Francis Ford Coppola moves ever closer to his ultimate goal: to be able to recut a movie over and over again even while the audience is in the middle of watching it. Digital video technology actually allowed him to try it with test audiences. Now if he can just program DVD discs to randomly mix things up, every home performance can become a unique experience. As if the final cut of this picture wasn’t random enough. The plot is so vague and the characters so annoying that this functions only as an experimental piece, the sort of thing most filmmakers do at the beginnings of their careers rather than closer to the end. See if desperate

Review – Jedi Junkies

At least one documentary about Star Wars fans made them look like a big pack of assholes, far from the more gentle obsessiveness of Star Trek fans. What a relief to find that some of the Star Wars crowd could be the subject of a more affectionate treatment, something a lot more along the lines of Trekkies. Mildly amusing

Review – Devil

Five people are trapped in a broken elevator. One of them is the Devil. M. Night Shyamalan wrote the story. This is exactly as good as you’d expect it to be. See if desperate

Review – The Conjuring

This is one of those movies that’s probably intensely terrifying if you believe in demons and witches and ghosts. For the less credulous among us, this is a handful of good booga-boogas, a much more substantial dose of weak booga-boogas, and an overwhelming pile of pseudo-theological nonsense. Perhaps this would have been a better experience if they hadn’t been so dead-set on selling it as a true story. Amityville still casts its shadow more than three decades later. See if desperate

Review – Fright Night 2 (2013)

The plot here is a mash-up of elements from the original Fright Night and its original sequel somehow distilled down to the worst parts of each. It’s humorless at best and at worst downright annoying. I understand from long experience with the sub-genre that viewers simply have to tolerate at least some wrangling over the “vampire rules.” But the end of this picture takes the crap well beyond the usual level. By the time we’re done with “the main vampire can become a super vampire but only if she bites but doesn’t kill a virgin born on the first night of a full blood moon and then the virgin has to kill her own true love in a pool of blood” nonsense, we’ve attained “vampire infield fly rule” status. Sadly, this spirit of ridiculousness pervades the entire production. See if desperate

Review – Chilling Visions

I was pleasantly surprised by one aspect of this anthology piece: all five stories were actually vaguely linked. I expected this to be another nearly-random assemblage of shorts gleaned from an amateur horror short contest. They even built a loose structure around the five senses, devoting one tale to each. However, the lot might have been improved a jot by following traditional anthology structure: best story last, second best story first, and the mid-packers in between. Because if they thought they were doing that here, the drastically over-estimated the appeal of the show stopper at the end. Still, I’ve seen worse. Mildly amusing

Review – The Purge

The premise has a certain “Festival! Landru commands it!” appeal. But that’s where it ends. The story turns out to be a witless tale of a family trapped in their upper middle class house, besieged by psychos out for blood during The Purge, the one night a year when no laws are enforced. The writing is weak, particularly plagued by the novice tendency to employ too many characters and then park them in limbo-like holding patterns when they aren’t on screen (a sure symptom that the writer regards characters as plot devices rather than people). And the visual quality is even worse, serving up more than half the picture in jerky fits and starts lit only by jittery flashlights. There’s some heavy-handed social commentary buried somewhere in the technical faults, but such an annoying production renders its message impossible to care about. See if desperate

Review – Movie 43

This movie’s existence mystifies me. Heaven knows I’ve seen plenty of vulgar sketch comedy compilations. I’ve also seen a ton of “stunt casting,” big name stars appearing in low budget productions in order to establish their indie cred or as a favor to a friend. Well, apparently half of Hollywood owed favors (in some cases big ones) to the folks who made this. Though I got a laugh or two out of some of the skits, they missed by a wide margin far more often than they hit. And the bracket was purely dreadful. Overall the only response the production evokes is a profound sense of “why are those actors in this movie?” See if desperate

Review – Solomon Kane

I’m saddened and embarrassed to admit how often I need to be reminded that just because a studio spends money on something doesn’t automatically make it good. I get tired of indie crap created by a pack of semi-well-intentioned amateurs without the faintest clue about how to make something entertaining, and that sends me in search of a big budget production. But no matter how much money you throw at a weak premise and a bad script, the story is still going to suck like SyFy. See if desperate

Review – The Magic Flute (2006)

Ever since the first time I watched Amadeus I’ve wanted to see a full production of this legendary Mozart opera. Though this production gives the story an odd World War One spin and occasional music-video-y treatment, the quality of the music and the performances shines through. A note of respect to director Kenneth Branagh for insisting on actual opera singers rather than famous actors mouthing songs performed by someone else. At the cost of distribution difficulties, he bought his movie a solid note of authenticity. Worth seeing

Review – The Evil Dead (2013)

This bootmake deftly avoids everything that made the original good. The small picture that launched Sam Raimi’s career had a certain indie earnestness, making it easier to enjoy the good parts and at least tolerate the weak spots. This studio tripe exploits all the worst qualities of the genre without making any excuse for itself. Imagine the fanciest, most delicious food you’ve ever eaten. Now imagine what it would taste like if McDonald’s added it to the Dollar Menu. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Mama

Yep, it would definitely suck to suddenly have to derail your career as an indie band artist so you could help care for your boyfriend’s nieces. It would suck worse if the girls spent the previous five years being raised by a malevolent ghost in a cabin in the woods. And worse still if the ghost came along for the ride when they came to live with you. If spooky, half-hour TV shows like The Twilight Zone still existed, this could have been a good episode. At feature length, it’s more ice than Coke. Mildly amusing

Review – Texas Chainsaw

Let me ask you this: are you really reading a review about a movie with “Texas Chainsaw” in the name? What non-obvious observation could I possibly make about it? The only thing I’ll point out is that “3D” is missing from the title because the requisite gimmick was missing from the disc. What wasn’t missing, however, was the usual pile of witless youths, vicious hicks and noisy power tools. See if desperate

Review – Phanotm

Writer/director Todd Robinson comes down with a case of Tom Clancy envy and takes it out on the rest of us. A mid-budget submarine movie with a reasonably good cast should have been a natural for me, but this production got so bogged down in meandering intrigue that it forgot to have a plot. I’ll give it a little credit just because I like sub pictures. But if they aren’t your cup of tea, don’t pour out of this teapot. Mildly amusing

Review – The Lion King

This movie bugs me, and I can’t put my finger on the cause. Certainly it’s no more sexist or racist or classist than any other Disney animation. And heaven knows parent death isn’t a new innovation in the studio’s metier. I’d assume I was just in a bad mood when I watched it, but I’ve seen it three times now in the hope that either I could get over my unease or at least trace it to its source. Objectively, I recognize that it’s as good as most other children’s movies and better than many. Mildly amusing

Review – 6 Souls

Funny how a little care with the production can go such a long way toward making a movie not suck. The premise here – doctor treats mental patient who turns out to be possessed by the spirits of Satanic murder victims – isn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff. But they spent some money on it, getting a cast (Julianne Moore, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and several other familiar faces), good technical quality and – best of all – a few solid chills here and there. My only real gripe was about the ending, yet another sad case of a screenwriter painting himself into a corner with no satisfying way to conclude the tale. Mildly amusing

Review – Streets of Fire

I absolutely loved this movie when it came out. Of course I was 18 at the time. Now it mostly just makes me feel old. Personal reaction aside, this was a gutsy move by Walter Hill. Audiences could either have loved the mindless action or rejected the strange mix of elements, and unfortunately for him they went with number two. Truly this is an odd movie, set in a world that blends settings, props and costumes from the 40s to the 80s into a fantasy version of New York City ruled by gritty violence and bad pop music. However, it’s reasonably well assembled. Fond memories aside, this is a solid mid-packer of a picture. Mildly amusing

Review – Knuckleball!

As the title implies, this is a documentary about one of baseball’s most enigmatic pitches. The main foci are the only two pitchers – Tim Wakefield and R.A. Dickey – throwing knuckleballs at the time the movie was made. Though the subject might have been just as thoroughly covered in a shorter running time, it nonetheless proved to be a fascinating consideration of how the pitch works and how it affects the careers of the players who throw it. Mildly amusing

Review – The ABCs of Death

The good thing about horror anthologies is that bad segments tend to end quickly, giving their companions a chance to re-win the audience. But when the majority of the stories are genuinely awful, they overpower the good stuff. This set sports 26 entries, one for each letter of the alphabet. The first two got the evening off on the right foot, but after that it dived straight downhill. By the end I’d experienced way too many suffering animals, graphic toilet explorations and the like to be able to appreciate the diamonds buried in the shit. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

Review – Devil Times Five

Awfulness times infinity. Five severely psychotic kids escape from an asylum and go crazy at a mountain resort. The primary pleasure here is in watching for the hosts of continuity slips and other technical errors (the IMDb listing supplies a set of things to look for). Or perhaps savoring some of the worst dialogue ever written. I’m amazed that this was made in the days before camcorders. Film production actually requires money, and it’s weird to see that much cash dropped on something this dreadful. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Pickman’s Muse

This borderline pro-am production awkwardly blends two H.P. Lovecraft short stories: “Pickman’s Model” and “The Haunter of the Dark.” Unfortunately the filmmakers also employ indie art movie conceits that make the plot hard to follow and the characters hard to care about. A better movie might have been made from the source materials. See if desperate

Review – Dark Skies

Once again I find myself wondering if aliens capable of interstellar travel and other technological marvels really have nothing better to do with themselves than come to Earth and engage in relatively trivial crime. To be sure, kidnapping children is worse than vandalizing crops. Still, it comes across as an unpleasant blend of paranoia and stupidity. They spent some money on the effort, making mid-grade production values and some familiar faces in the cast the picture’s only saving graces. See if desperate

Review – Cool Air (2006)

Yeesh. I respect the folks who made this for realizing that they didn’t have the resources to make a movie with any kind of production values. Going with a script-intensive approach might have worked if the screenwriter hadn’t been so intensely talentless. I’m surprised that the source story should prove so hard to adapt, but this is the third or fourth attempt I’ve seen and none of them have been good. Though this is by far the worst. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia

I’ll decline the chance to mock the title. Too easy. Sadly, the rest of the movie was also low-hanging fruit. The subject is the same ridiculous ghost story that fueled A Haunting in Georgia, though here it gets a slightly-higher-budget makeover. Aside from a couple of familiar faces, this doesn’t offer much. See if desperate.

Review – Star Trek Into Darkness

I didn’t hate this Abrams Trek anywhere near as bad as I hated the first one. I still prefer the cerebral drama of the original TV series (fear a movie that makes William Shatner’s high jinks look cerebral) over the noisy action sequences so popular with 21st century audiences, but I did at least appreciate the absence of Lost-esque time travel plot monkeying. I couldn’t quite decide if the presence of characters and plot developments from Wrath of Khan were a loving, playful tribute or just a desperate attempt at “anything you can do I can do better.” But overall I enjoyed this outing, at least when it wasn’t busy screaming in my ear. Mildly amusing

Review – The Whisperer in Darkness

I greatly enjoyed the HPLHS retro-silent Call of Cthulhu, so I bought this disc without watching the movie first. Though it’s not quite as good as the previous effort, I’m still far from sorry that I spent money on it. The template here is Golden Age Hollywood horror, and they don’t stick as closely to the aesthetic this time around. However, the story is still a solid adaptation of the source story, which just happens to be one of my favorites from the Lovecraft catalog. The ending is weak, but the rest of the production is excellent. Worth seeing

Review – The Hands of Orlac (1924)

Here we have the great granddaddy of all the evil transplant movies. A pianist whose hands are ruined in a train accident ends up with the appendages of an executed murderer, and the whole body-parts-with-a-will-of-their-own drama ensues. The production suffers from some off-putting shortcomings of the silent era. In particular, actors convey strong emotion primarily through the convention of bugging their eyes. As a result, the whole cast appears to be constantly undergoing a prostate exam. The movie is also considerably too long. Even the unnecessary plot complications could have been worked into a shorter running time with more judicious editing. Still, it’s an important if not exactly crucial moment in the history of horror movies in the silent era. Mildly amusing

Review – Roads to Memphis

This American Experience documentary follows Rev. King and his assassin in the days leading up to their fatal encounter. Perhaps of necessity, the details of James Earl Ray’s means and motive are somewhat sketchy. Otherwise the production is informative and well assembled. Mildly amusing

Review – The Dictator

At least this time we don’t have to feast upon the sight of Sacha Baron Cohen’s nutsack. Though this is more heavily scripted than Borat or Bruno, it’s nonetheless yet another tale of an obnoxious foreigner battling culture shock in the United States. It sports a few funny gags, but for the most part it’s excessively juvenile. Mildly amusing

Review – That Guy ... Who Was in That Thing

We’ve all had this reaction to the sight of a vaguely familiar face in the supporting cast of a movie or TV show. This documentary supplies some insight into the lives of actors who make their livings as the leading characters’ friends, co-workers, bosses, enemies or whatever else gets them semi-steady work. Turns out it isn’t the easiest way to pay the bills, something to think about the next time you have the “hey, isn’t he that guy?” experience. Worth seeing

Review – The Expendables 2

Within five minutes or so it becomes painfully obvious that Sylvester Stallone wrote the script or at least a good percentage of the dialogue. At least the folks who put this together were smart enough to figure out that the ensemble of action actors was the major draw of the first one. This entry features more familiar faces in the supporting cast and less concern for the niceties of plot and character development. And they didn’t bring back Mickey Rourke. See if desperate

Review – Taken 2

They should have called this “Retaken.” Of course that would have implied a sense of humor and fun completely absent from the movie itself. Relatives of the sex slavers from the first one kidnap our hero and his wife, and it’s up to their daughter to help them escape. So sort of the opposite of the previous entry. See if desperate

Review – The Blood Beast Terror

The parts with the moth/human hybrid monster are some fun. Sadly that’s less than two minutes out of the total 88. The rest is a weak re-heat of the plot from The Reptile. See if desperate

Review – The Revisionaries

I don’t have much trouble imagining that rednecks walk the halls of power in the Texas state government. And sadly I don’t have trouble imagining such people using their positions to damage public education by revising standards to force teachers to teach inappropriate nonsense. To an extent that’s a byproduct of democracy, making it the responsibility of Texans to get rid of such scourges. The nettlesome thing is that the the state’s school system is so huge that textbook publishers must tailor their products to cater to the state school board’s whims. Thus this documentary becomes a chilling portrait of just how vulnerable our education system is to sectarian bigotry. Mildly amusing

Review – The Initiation

Sorority pledges get locked in a shopping mall with a serial killer. For some strange reason the filmmakers keep trying to add plot complications. That might have seemed smart in theory, as this is otherwise a witless slasher movie. But each subsequent twist just makes things worse and worse, especially the last one. See if desperate

Review – Skyfall

Five decades after the birth of the Bond series, the latest entry returns somewhat to the beginning. This go-around is at least a bit less racist and sexist than Dr. No, and the stunt work is considerably more elaborate. But the filmmakers made a conscious – even self-conscious – decision to cut way back on the gadgets and one-liners. The running time required a few more plot twists than strictly necessary. And I admit I could have done without the villain’s rat story. But overall this was an entertaining experience, considerably better than the previous two Daniel Craig Bonds. Mildly amusing

Review – Outrage

This is tricky business. Everyone hates a hypocrite, and powerful politicians make especially tempting targets. Why should closeted gay and bisexual men be able to rise to positions of prominence by feeding on anti-gay bigotry? But then why should anyone be able to rise to a position of prominence by feeding on any kind of bigotry? Though the hypocrisy might justify the invasion of privacy when they’re “outed,” the punishment comes in the form of more discrimination, this time against a perpetrator. Clearly the sociology and politics of this issue are more than can be covered in a paragraph-long movie review, because they also seemed to be too much for a 90-minute documentary to treat fully. Mildly amusing

Review – The Riverman

More proof that two half-movies don’t necessarily equal a whole movie. This starts out as the umpty-thousanth time someone has made a picture pitting a criminal profiler against a serial murderer, this time the Green River Killer. That alone might have had some potential. But then our hero (Bruce Greenwood) gets the chance to interview Ted Bundy (Cary Elwes), and from there it’s strictly Thomas Harris territory. See if desperate

Review – The Master

A movie that’s designed to be mean to Scientology generally starts in my good graces and really has to work to get back out of them. But this one does it. Deep in the throes of Intense Actor Syndrome, Joaquin Phoenix plays a Navy vet afflicted by chronic assholism brought on by either post traumatic stress or his habit of drinking cocktails made with industrial alcohol or paint thinner. Seriously, the guy is so monumentally annoying that it’s easy to wonder if it isn’t for the best when a cult gets its mitts on him. This is one of those movies that everyone involved seemed to be so involved with that nobody was able to step back, look at it objectively and see that it sucked. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The House at the End of the Street

After The Hunger Games and Silver Linings Playbook, I find I kinda like Jennifer Lawrence. But they sure don’t give her much to work with here. This is a strictly run-of-the-mill thriller about a mom and daughter who move in next door to a murder house only to find the last remaining member of the murder family still in residence. See if desperate

Review – Battleship

What’s more miraculous: that they did in fact make a movie out of the Battleship board game or that they made it through the whole thing without anyone saying “You sank my battleship”? If you have this disc in your player and your trusty remote in hand, buzz directly through the first 20 minutes, which are almost entirely completely unnecessary character development. Tune back in when things start blowing up. Even by genre standards, this is stupid stuff. [side note: when I typed the title onto this page, I accidentally typed “Battleshit.”] See if desperate

Review - Fall from Grace

What an inapt title. As if Fred Phelps ever attained any semblance of a state of grace from which he might have fallen into the pit he continues to dig for himself. For the most part I’m prepared to brush this off as a not-entirely-welcome look at the Phelps cult, not interesting or insightful enough to merit as much attention as it requires. However, I’m going to recommend this picture to one particular group: those people who feel that rights and privileges freely granted to heterosexuals should be denied to non-heterosexuals. If that’s you, watch this movie closely. You may not be as hateful as Fred, but some of his spirit lives inside you. See if desperate

Review – 6 Degrees of Hell

If it’s six degrees in Hell, perhaps the place has frozen over. If so, it would be time for me to watch this movie again. This viewing experience reminded me of riding in a car with someone who can’t stand to listen to anything on the radio or on a disc for more than 30 seconds. To the extent that plot threads exist at all, the picture hops between them so rapidly and pointlessly that it swiftly becomes impossible to follow the story or care about it in any way. Even my original intent in getting the disc from Netflix – to see whatever became of cute little Jill Whelan – was largely thwarted, as she was in the movie for around 30 seconds and didn’t speak a single line. Overall this amounted to little more than a lengthy marketing gimmick for a haunted house attraction in an old building, assuming “hey, isn’t that the haunted house attraction where they shot that dull, annoying movie?” can be considered marketing. I couldn’t even sleep through it thanks to the constant, piercing shrieks. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Dead Again

Here’s the movie that should have demonstrated early on that Kenneth Branagh could be trusted neither in front of nor behind a camera. Almost from the first frames we manage to establish that the male and female leads are a couple reincarnated after tragic deaths in the 1940s. As that left the story with nowhere interesting to go, the movie meanders through a parade of go-nowhere subplots and other pointless complications. The cleverest moment in the whole picture was a character’s disability used as a sub-reference-to-another-production clue. See if desperate

Review – Brave

Those who’ve met me could probably guess that I’m not exactly a Disney Princesses kind of guy. But I genuinely enjoyed this movie, at least in part because it wasn’t the typical Disney Princess experience. Our protagonist doesn’t need a handsome prince to self-actualize; indeed, the plot gets rolling with her refusal to submit to an arranged marriage. It was also nice to see Pixar getting a bit more comfortable dancing around the “uncanny valley” (not to mention sporting a female lead for a change). Politics and image quality aside, this is a charming picture that manages a delightfully even mix of comedy, drama, action and character development. Worth seeing

Review – John Adams

I liked this miniseries better than I thought I would. If nothing else, Paul Giamatti wasn’t anywhere near as annoying as he was in every other role I’ve seen him play. Plus I didn’t know much about Adams other than his association with the infamous Alien and Sedition Act, so I enjoyed learning a little history along the way. Though I suspect it could have been a good deal shorter, overall it was a pleasant viewing experience. My only real disappointment was that the overlays of historical tidbits – an optional feature on the discs – didn’t amount to much. Mildly amusing

Review – Les Miserables

Bad as some of them were, the “singing” actors derided by many critics weren’t exactly the worst part of this production. Indeed, I was genuinely surprised at how terrible the music itself turned out to be. I was braced for pompous grandiosity along Andrew Lloyd Webber lines, but this outing wasn’t even that good. Aside from two or three lavish production numbers, the whole thing was a mess of meandering, barely-rhyming verse and so many recitatives that it might just as well have been a non-musical version of Hugo’s novel. When the villainous Javert is the only interesting, sympathetic character, the adaptation has issues. Tom Hooper’s direction was also especially dreadful. Every time the camera slanted off to an awkward, pointless dutch tilt or zoomed in so tight on a singer that the home viewers could perform a laryngoscopy, he left me wondering if he’d ever actually seen a musical before attempting to create one. See if desperate

Review – The Horror Show (1989)

I don’t remember the 80s so well. Was this executed-serial-killer-stalks-cop stuff fresh and original back then? Certainly there seemed to be a lot of it. This particular entry isn’t particularly distinguished. It offers a couple of familiar faces (Lance Henriksen as the cop and Brion James as the killer), but otherwise there isn’t much to it. Mildly amusing

Review – ParaNorman

I got caught up in the technical details of this production, watching closely to see what the filmmakers were doing with stop motion shot with a digital SLR camera. Fortunately, I don’t think I missed much plot-wise. A boy who can see ghosts does battle with a witch, zombies and ignorant townspeople. Mildly amusing

Review – The Paperboy

Thank you, Lee Daniels. Thanks for 107 minutes of wretched assholes leading miserable lives. If Congress ever proclaims a National Lose All Faith in Humanity Day, your production will become a holiday classic. Macy Gray was okay, but the rest of this picture was purely dreadful. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Coming to America

Remember when Eddie Murphy was famous for something besides voicing a talking donkey? Remember when Arsenio Hall could command a major role and Samuel L. Jackson did no better than a walk-on as a guy robbing a fast food joint? Remember when John Landis could still find work? Then perhaps you’ll remember this movie for something other than the huge lawsuit that trailed in its wake. This tale of an African prince who comes to New York to escape an arranged marriage isn’t bad. It’s just unmemorable. Mildly amusing

Review – Safe House

Someday they’re going to make it all the way to the end of one of these without using the phrase “off the reservation.” But apparently such an enlightened, racism-free age is not yet upon us. Nor is the day when I finally remember that just because Denzel Washington can act doesn’t mean he’s in a movie that gives him the chance to do so. This mediocre blend of noisy action sequences and predictable plot twists isn’t a finest hour for anyone, not even Ryan Reynolds. See if desperate

Review – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I liked the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so I was expecting good things from this production. Perhaps that was the problem. The earlier series condensed three long books down to three long movies. This one takes the opposite approach, starting with one shorter book and expanding it to an epic trilogy. The result features a fair amount of filler, much of which doesn’t work (especially the Brown Wizard nonsense). However, the parts that stick to the main story are as entertaining as Peter Jackson’s previous trips to Middle Earth. Mildly amusing

Review – The Dark Sleep

Putting “sleep” in a movie title is just begging for a host of obvious insults, but here I’d feel bad about taking such cheap shots at such a defenseless production. H.P. Lovecraft’s “Dreams in the Witch House” may be buried somewhere under this vast pile of amateur hour antics. But for the most part this movie is an uneven blend of “at least you tried” special effects and writing more appropriate for skits performed in the multipurpose room of a dorm. See if desperate

Review – The Bay

To the extent I’m able, I’ve sworn off found footage movies. But with Barry Levinson in the director’s chair, this entry seemed like it might stand a chance. Levinson occasionally trips over the format, sneaking narrative filmmaking in here and there. I would also have preferred a more linear chronology. When the movie whips back and forth between subplots, editing scenes out of order doesn’t exactly make the story easier to follow. However, the nasty little mutant parasites more than make up for the technical defects. And sadly the premise – pollution of Chesapeake Bay turns harmless sea life into a dangerous plague – is all too plausible. Worth seeing

Review – Dark Feed

I’m greatly puzzled by one element of this picture: the puppy survives to the end. When a horrible horror movie introduces a cute animal of any kind, the poor creature’s part is almost universally guaranteed to end badly. Mind, I’m not complaining. Indeed, the decision saved the production from earning a lower rating. It just struck me as odd, particularly as the rest of the show was an intensely predictable tale of evil befalling a crew shooting a bad horror movie in a haunted insane asylum. See if desperate

Review – Sinister

I ran hot and cold on this production. I’ve come to appreciate producers’ decisions to actually spend money on horror movies. Not that Ethan Hawke necessarily does a better acting job than a low-budget unknown could have done. But at least the creative calls – good and bad – were deliberate decisions rather than the helpless flailing of a pack of amateurs with neither the wits nor the resources to make anything entertaining. A true crime writer desperately trying to finish a book runs up against a demon named Bagul – or Mr. Boogie in kid-speak – that specializes in persuading children to kill their whole families. I confess that I got distracted by a plot hole: this extremely methodical demon sticks to its plan except that it always targets families with three children and our hero only has two. Still, overall the production was a cut above most of the rest of the genre’s recent entries. mildly amusing

Review – James and the Giant Peach

Though I can’t say exactly why, this production just didn’t do it for me. It was far too cutesy, but that seems to be par for the course for children’s movies. The combination of live action and stop motion animation was awkward, driven more by the budget than by art. And the Randy Newman musical numbers were nothing short of excessive. They would have killed the plot dead if there’d been much of a plot to kill. That was the biggest problem. For a movie about an orphan who drifts away on a giant peach full of giant bugs, not much happens. Mildly amusing

Review – True Grit (2010)

I’ve never seen the original, and if the Coen brothers hadn’t been at the helm I probably would have skipped the remake as well. However, I’m glad I gave it a chance. The Coens’ usual level of quirk mixes nicely with a vaguely Deadwood-y script, resulting in a reasonably watchable Western. Mildly amusing

Review – The Adventures of Mark Twain

When I was a kid, Will Vinton’s Oscar-winning animated short, “Closed Mondays,” inspired me to spend some time playing around with animation using clay. Unfortunately, the quirky cleverness that functions well in shorts doesn’t translate particularly well to feature length productions. Vinton is still able to do some impressive stuff with clay, achieving fascinating effects that today’s computer-generated productions would never even consider. And in several spots it’s put to excellent use, particularly in the chilling version of “The Mysterious Stranger” (a segment cut from some prints for being too potentially upsetting for children). However, some of Vinton’s technique is ineffective. He’s especially bad with leg movement. And the production’s sense of self-conscious whimsey was dated in 1985, let alone now. Overall, however, this works as animated art and homage to the title character. Mildly amusing

Abandoned – Storage 24

Dear bad British horror movie producers: thanks for getting the dog death out of the way in the first ten minutes. You saved me from sitting through the remaining 80.

Review – A Dangerous Method

Pretty tame by David Cronenberg’s standards, this is a fairly straightforward account of the birth of psychoanalysis. Naturally Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Jung (Michael Fassbender) feature prominently, as does Sabina Spielrein (Keira Kinightley). As is typical with such productions, Spielrein is here commemorated more for her kinky affair with Jung (and its effect on Jung’s relationship with Freud) than for her own valuable contributions to the field. Otherwise, however, this was a reasonably entertaining bit of historical drama. Worth seeing

Review – Petrified

Time has passed Full Moon Video by. Maybe – just maybe – back in the 1980s a blend of the softest soft-core sex and guys in rubber monster suits was enough to justify a movie’s existence with no additional concern for script, acting, plot or character development. But in the 21st century infoscape, a realm of easily-accessible hard-core porn and extreme horror violence, this fails to rise above “quaint.” Though the MPAA wasn’t officially asked, I have trouble imagining the association dishing out much more than a PG-13 to this tale of an alien mummy who likes to watch women play with each other. See if desperate

Review – Pretty in Pink

Here’s a mix of the dated awfulness of the 1980s and the timeless awfulness of class-conscious romance. A poor girl (Molly Ringwald in her definitive role) falls in love with a rich boy (Andrew McCarthy) but suffers abuse from his snobby friends. Though Howard Deutch directed, this is very much a creature of writer slash producer John Hughes. If Hughes had gotten the ending he wanted rather than the one that tested well with audiences, perhaps this would have been a better movie. But then again, perhaps not. Mildly amusing

Review – Spooks and Creeps

I used to hate short subject filmmaking, which generally struck me as the realm of talentless amateurs. But now thanks to the tech revolution that’s opened feature-length work to talentless amateurs, shorts no longer seem that bad to me. At least someone with no clue can demonstrate his lack in 10 minutes rather than dragging it out to 90 and beyond. This disc is a collection of six unrelated horror stories without so much as a bracket. Two or three of them manage some cleverness, and familiar faces here and there don’t exactly hurt. Overall, however, I walked away with an overwhelming sense of “meh.” Mildly amusing

Review – Snow White and the Huntsman

Of Hollywood’s 2012 adaptations of this story, this one’s the grimmer of the two. Though I didn’t need anything as goofy-happy as Mirror Mirror, I would have preferred something that seemed more like a movie and less like a marketing package. The production reeked of Game of Thrones, and of course casting Kristen Stewart (whom I’m beginning to suspect is genuinely talentless) didn’t exactly hurt with the Twilight crowd, either. I also found myself strangely annoyed by the decision to cast average height actors and shrink them via CGI to play the dwarves. Though technically effective, the effect made the characters (especially Ian McShane) creepy and deprived seven naturally shorter actors of jobs. Mildly amusing

Review – Indie Game: The Movie

Yet another “let’s mock some nerds” documentary, this time about small-time game designers trying to make it big. I found the technical details of their stories fascinating in a making-a-living-without-working-for-a-corporation way, though I could have done without some of the disordered personalities. Folks considering the title pursuit as a possible path to fame and fortune should definitely watch this movie. Mildly amusing

Review – The Awakening (2011)

More than a century after the first publication of “The Turn of the Screw,” Henry James continues to work his evil, dull-as-dishwater influence on English ghost stories. The description’s mention of a ghost hunter prompted me to pass this picture at first, but then I found myself curious to see how one of the great staples of the “found footage” sub-genre might play in an actual, narrative movie set decades before the birth of camcorders. Though I found the spiritualist-debunking protagonist initially intriguing, the production swiftly sunk under the weight of its own ponderous plot. Mildly amusing

Review – Lincoln

This needed way more vampires and way less Steven Spielberg. The focus on the eponymous president at his political finest should have made for fascinating storytelling. Heaven knows they had the actors for it. Sadly, what we end up with is a run-of-the-mill interpretation of Honest Abe as the so-lofty-he-shits-marble Patron Saint of Emancipation. The only scene I was able to make any kind of genuine emotional contact with was when Stanton storms out of the room to avoid being subjected to another one of the President’s tedious anecdotes (coincidentally missing the only non-lofty tale in the whole movie). Nearly 150 years after his death, Lincoln still has no human qualities other than marital difficulties. Mildly amusing

Review – Rock of Ages

Oh thank the cinema gods that someone made Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for people who remember the 1980s. Or for people who don’t remember the 80s especially well, because I’m pretty sure arena rock ballads weren’t exactly the decade’s musical highlights. Broadway’s affection for excessively dramatic production numbers and paper-thin plots spreads to the big screen. All of the “who told you that you could sing?” celebrities in the cast got what they deserved from the critics. However, I did feel somewhat sorry for Diego Boneta. He plays the male lead, and yet on the DVD box he doesn’t merit any of the nine portrait spots in the grid, losing out to both Paul Giamatti and a monkey. See if desperate

Review – The Factory

In this mid-budget slasher flick the trick is that the killer doesn’t kidnap prostitutes just to kill them. Instead he chains them up in his basement and forces them to breed with him. Though the title implies that he’s doing this for money, his only apparent interest is in having a lot of babies around. Beyond the baby thing, this is a run-of-the-mill genre piece with the usual cast of characters, pseudo-suspense and ludicrous plot twists. See if desperate

Review – Fingersmith

This tale has the longest first act of any production I’ve ever seen. The story is divided into a two-part miniseries, and almost nothing happens in the entire first half. The second half is packed with no end of fun twists and turns, but sadly you have to sit through an hour and a half of set-up or none of it will make any sense. Though the production is ever-so-BBC, here it kinda works. If nothing else, it’s nice to see a lesbian relationship portrayed with some actual affection and emotional complexity rather than as a matter of pornographic entertainment for the male characters (and audience members). Mildly amusing

Review – Priest

I liked this marginally better than I thought I would. But given that it was about a bleak future in which anti-vampire commandos battle to save the world from bloodsuckers, I figured I’d hate it. Indeed, I watched it solely because Brad Dourif was in it, an appearance that turned out to last no more than a couple of minutes. The vampires themselves were disgusting, vicious, blind monsters, which made them substantially more frightening than the usual crowd of moody goths. Otherwise, however, this was another plate of dull leftovers. See if desperate

Review – Moonrise Kingdom

This quirky tale of adolescent runaways is sweet, clever stuff, no big surprise from writer / director Wes Anderson. I found some of the celebrity actors distracting, particularly when cast against type in roles that could easily have been played by competent unknowns. And some of the implied pre-teen sex was likewise on the not-so-much side. Small problems notwithstanding, this was a cute journey through a vaguely surreal, outsiders’ view of childhood. Worth seeing

Review – Argo

It’s like Ben Affleck heard people calling him an actor/director and set out to prove them wrong on both counts. In 1980 the Canadian government and the CIA collaborated to sneak American embassy staff out of Iran disguised as a film crew, a real life story with tremendous cinematic potential. Helmed by the Cohen brothers, this might have been a successful oddball caper picture. A political thriller veteran like John Frankenheimer or William Friedkin might have made this work as an espionage movie. Affleck’s vision seems to be more “Let’s shoot The Hurt Locker as a comedy.” And in front of the camera, he adopts the listless, emotionally dead approach that seems to be a trend at the moment (may it vanish as quickly as it appeared). The Oscars didn’t snub you, buddy. They just politely turned their backs to give you the chance to slink away with some of your dignity intact. See if desperate

Review – The Prophecy 2

It’s like they sucked all the cool subplots out of number one, leaving only the bullshit pseudo-theology and some random action sequences. See if desperate

Review – 7 Below

Yet again yet another group of character flaws piles into yet another van and gets stranded in yet another haunted house in the middle of yet another nowhere. Other than finding a way to keep Val Kilmer sitting upright for 20 minutes or so, this picture offers absolutely nothing innovative. And Netflix seemed so sure I’d enjoy it. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Red Dawn (2012)

I sat through the original many years ago, so I came to this experience prepared for the premise that the United States would be invaded by a foreign power, leaving our fates in the hands of high school football players. But try as I might, I just couldn’t get past the notion that we were being besieged by North Korea (especially considering that I believe the bad guys were changed from China in order to preserve a large international market). Yet again a Cold War classic fails to translate into the post-Soviet era. See if desperate

Review – The Color Out of Space

The parts of this movie that actually follow the H.P. Lovecraft source story are reasonably good. Sure, it’s in German. And I was of two minds about the decision to make the amorphous “color” the only non-black-and-white element of the production. Clever or gimmicky? You decide. I didn’t care much for the bracket(s), which seemed to be there solely to stretch a solid 40-minute story out to a watery feature length. But the core of the production made the filler acceptable. Mildly amusing

Review – Outpost: Black Sun

Ever since I first saw Shock Waves, I’ve been keeping an eye out for a zombie SS storm-trooper movie that doesn’t suck. I don’t understand why this is such an impossible mark to hit. Zombies are scary. Nazis are evil. So why are Nazi zombies universally nothing but stupid and dull? It doesn’t help that they’re usually trying to kill characters that they can go ahead and eat as far as I’m concerned. In this go-around they’re even dumber than usual. Why would the Third Reich have wasted so many resources creating immortal, world-dominating creatures that couldn’t even pass their own rotten “mental hygiene” standards? The end clearly indicates that the producers were hoping for a sequel. Not me. See if desperate

Review – Kingdom of Shadows

I’m guessing that Rod Steiger’s narration was the single biggest item on the budget. In fact, it may have been the only item. The visuals are almost all clips from silent horror movies, stuff so old that their copyrights have expired. Some of the information is interesting, but for the most part you could have made this yourself with a handful of bargain bin DVDs and a little Internet research. Mildly amusing

Review – Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet

I’ve seen literally hundreds of horror movies that start with some promise but end up slain by one failed element in the production mix. Most often it’s bad directing or bad acting, though it can be any combination of elements on the low budget horror don’t list. However, this picture’s a novelty, because it’s ruined almost entirely by the writers. The production is competently assembled, and the acting is downright solid by sub-genre standards. But the dialogue? Ouch. It’s like listening to an hour and a half of a witless what-are-you-doing-dunno-how-bout-you cell phone conversation occasionally punctuated by attacks from a naked slasher ghost. See if desperate

Review – Silver Linings Playbook

Indie romcoms aren’t usually my thing. But every once in awhile I get a craving to see a movie in a movie theater, and this was the most interesting thing showing. It seriously got off on the wrong foot with a ton of meandering crap about a guy (Bradley Cooper) who gets out of a mental institution and starts obsessing about getting back together with his estranged wife. Though Act One drags out far longer than I would have preferred, the story takes an upturn when the protagonist meets a woman (Jennifer Lawrence) suffering from her own post traumatic stress issues. Like many other independent productions, this one works far too hard to be clever. But it does pack enough genuinely charming moments to overcome at least some of its own artiness. Mildly amusing

Review – Piranha 2: The Spawning

This batch can fly. Do I have to tell you anything else? The original was a Sayles/Dante collaboration that managed moments of genuine wit and intrigue. This pile of crap relies almost exclusively on the brain-dead banter style common to teen sex comedies from the early 80s. If James Cameron hadn’t followed this with The Terminator, this stinker could easily have ended his career before he even got started. See if desperate

Review – Silent Hill: Revelation

Much like the first one, this is a handful of spooky visuals stitched together by the weakest of plots. But for some reason I enjoyed this round a bit more. Perhaps I wasn’t expecting anything more than what I got. Mildly amusing

Review – Everything or Nothing

James Bond fans should love this retrospective on the 50-year-old series. Or then again, maybe not. Though the picture doesn’t dwell excessively on the negative, it does present an unflinching look at some of the behind-the-scenes battles that shaped some of the odder moments in the set, particularly Sean Connery’s off-again-on-again relationship with the producers. This is also a nice, even piece of documentary filmmaking, a good blend of movie clips, archive footage and interviews. Mildly amusing

Review – Endangered Species

A crappy horror movie producer should count himself lucky to score even one of the C-list stars who specialize in such productions. But this picture sports no less than three. Eric Roberts, Arnold Vosloo and John Rhys-Davies team up to create an Expendables-ish ensemble that overshadows the weak story, a thin stew made from Terminator and Predator leftovers. See if desperate

Review – Heartstopper

To be completely fair, this is one of the movies that fell victim to the notorious hard drive crash of 2011. For most of the entries I remembered them well enough (or at least remembered what I originally said about them) to reconstruct the review without difficulty. But this one I recall only vaguely. But what I do remember about it doesn’t greatly incline me to watch it again just to refresh my memory. This was one of those movies that bet the whole farm that a handful of clichés (most notably the executed serial killer brought back to life) and a face familiar to horror movie fans (in this case Robert Englund) will suffice in place of plot and character. See if desperate (and even that might be a bit over-generous)

Abandoned – Ghost From the Machine

The plot summary – guy tries to invent a machine to bring his parents back from the dead – sounded vaguely intriguing, but the actual movie is merely a mess of character-intensive, indie meandering. I even gave it an hour to see if it would eventually go anywhere. But then I had to pause it to deal with something else and couldn’t force myself to go back to it.

Abandoned – Howling 5: The Rebirth

If you’re gonna make a werewolf movie, you really ought to consider actually putting a werewolf or two in it. I waited patiently for half an hour before giving up.

Review – My Best Friend’s Wedding

This is the meanest romantic comedy I’ve ever seen. Julia Roberts plays a harried writer who learns that her best friend slash longtime crush is getting married, so off she goes to Chicago to thwart his plans. Predictably enough, the resulting parade of tricks and betrayal lacks sympathetic characters, clever plot twists or anything else that might merit your attention. See if desperate

Review – The Asphyx

When people know they’re going to die, spirits called Asphyxes attend their passing. A couple of gentlemen scientists figure out how to trap the things, which apparently makes them immortal as long as the trapping occurs right around a fearful passing, the right light shines on the racket-making puppet spirit and it’s locked away where the light never gets turned off. The concept is weird enough to work in a metaphysical-version-of-autoerotic-asphyxiation way, but it doesn’t survive a script packed with bad dialogue and low logic levels. Sadly, this picture will only interest you if you’re especially fond of British horror movies from the 1970s, you’ve never seen an immortal guinea pig or your ass is broken. See if desperate

Review – Half-Caste

There’s a good movie buried in here somewhere. The shape-shifters of sub-Saharan Africa have a lot of cinematic potential, some of which is realized here. The production also touches on some of the racial elements of the myth and its history. Unfortunately, rather than produce a straightforward, narrative picture, the filmmakers opt for yet another goddamn found footage reality show parade of random video crap. Sad. See if desperate

Review – The Fourth Kind

Owls that speak Sumerian are kidnapping people from Nome, Alaska. Okay, watch it yourself and then you tell me what it’s about. Space alien abductions, maybe? Rightly suspecting that this is an insane pile of boring rubbish if you don’t believe it’s closely based on something that actually happened, the filmmakers do their best to pull off an elaborate hoax. Perhaps if they’d succeeded this would have been a better movie. On the other hand, it might be silly and dull whether or not you accept it as true. See if desperate

Review – Blood Gnome

Rubber monsters need to feed on blood, their hunger satisfied by killing members of the blood fetish sub-stratum of the BDSM scene. If you’re shocked or titillated by nudity, bondage or crappy rubber puppets, then they finally made the movie you’ve been waiting for. Sadly, that’s all this picture has to offer. See if desperate

Review – Grave Encounters

Okay, let me make sure I understand the concept. A team of videographers working on a reality show about haunted houses end up stuck in a house that’s really haunted. Oh no, it’s an abandoned asylum. And rather than actually put monsters or ghosts or any kind of supernatural thing in the movie, the production is mostly given over to characters bickering with each other. Huh. Nobody’s ever done anything like that. Thank you, Vicious Brothers. To be completely fair, when this movie actually does anything scary, it musters some fun effects (at least some of which were a little too reminiscent of House on Haunted Hill). But that’s less than five minutes total out of more than 90, and zero for the first hour or so. Too little too late to save the show. Plus killing the rat would have cost it a point if it had any points to spare. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Hollow

I admit at this point I’ve lost almost every ounce of tolerance I ever had for found footage horror movies. Throw in “cheap” and “British,” and there’s just no way it ends well. The production got off to a fairly good start with a spooky old tree, but then it doesn’t really go anywhere with it. Unless you count the usual cast of annoying 20-somethings bickering with each other as “going somewhere.” Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Promise Keeper

Actual Promise Keepers would have been more frightening. This is just some squish about a law firm that decorates its lobby with an African fetish that turns out to be dangerous to anyone who makes a promise, drives a nail into its head and then breaks the promise. So seems like three ways to avoid running afoul of the thing right there. Further, the lion’s share of screen time goes to relationship drama silliness rather than scary fetish fu. I’m giving the production a respect point for multiethnic casting and for at least having a plot rather than taking another tedious trip down found footage lane. Otherwise, however, this is amateur hour stuff. See if desperate

Review – Your Sister’s Sister

As if Robert Altman hadn’t already proved this, when you let actors improv in front of a camera you don’t get realism. Productions like this always seem to be after spontaneous takes on genuine human interaction. Instead they inevitably get embarrassed smirking and what-clever-line-would-my-character-say-next dialogue that makes everyone seem drunk, high or otherwise mentally impaired. This mopey indie further adds a ludicrous quasi-plot about a woman whose male best friend has secret sex with her lesbian sister. See if desperate

Review – Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1

Clearly they don’t make these things for me, and other than special occasions (such as being in a hotel room with limited channel options) I tend not to watch them. I should also admit that I’ve skipped one or more chapters, so if something crucial to this one was revealed in one of the other sequels, I missed it. That said, the only above-and-beyond objection I had to this round is that Stephenie Meyer seems too willing to paint herself into plot corners and then escape by inventing some new vampire and/or werewolf rule that allows her to wiggle out. Otherwise this is a reasonable example of what it is. See if desperate

Review – Zero Dark Thirty

This obvious, desperate attempt to reproduce the success of The Hurt Locker falls well short of the mark. Gone is the clever tension of bomb diffusing, replaced by standard espionage thriller fare. Almost all the “surprise” bombings in this picture are so ham-handedly telegraphed that they become “throw the switch and get on with it” ordeals. Further, I frequently found myself distracted by little nagging details. For example, the infamous torture sequences struck me as more pointless than objectionable. Why demand email addresses that even a witless teenager could have set up anonymously, made untraceable and abandoned at the first hint of compromise? Is this really how they tracked down Osama Bin Laden? See if desperate

Review – The Bourne Legacy

Here we go with a new operative same as the old operative. They’ve replaced Matt Damon with Jeremy Renner, and they stirred in some nonsense about a virus. The IMDb notes indicate that Paul Greengrass, the director of the first two Bourne sequels, suggested that this round be called The Bourne Redundancy. Which hits the nail squarely on the head. See if desperate

Review – The Tenant

This is like two rotten movies for the price of one. The first half of the picture tells the story of a mad scientist whose genetic research ends up infecting one of his two unborn children. The best part about it was Randy Nolnar – who played the scientist – looking just enough like James Lipton to supply a brief “hey, what is that Actors Studio guy doing in this crappy movie?” moment. Then right around midway through, it abruptly shifts course and turns into the umpty-millionth “hey young folks, don’t go into that abandoned asylum” story. The best part of the second half was when the credits rolled. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Zombie Lake

Ugh, what I won’t sit through just to get a movie that starts with Z. Imagine Shock Waves redone as one of those crappy Euro-softcore porn movies that Cinemax used to show late on Friday nights. If you want to watch a stupid zombie movie, the video world abounds in it. And if you need porn, they make this new thing called The Internet. The only thing this picture supplies that can’t be had in abundance elsewhere (thank you, movie gods) is a painfully corny soundtrack. At one point in the Netflix Instantview copy, the sound dies. Oh glorious respite! Unfortunately it comes back later. Additional crime against humanity: getting “Fire Lake” stuck in my head. Who wants to go to Zombie Lake? Seegah! Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Rig

Even though this has to be the zillionth time someone has trapped a group of workers in an enclosed, industrial space with a monster, this actually isn’t too terrible. Or maybe it’s just that I’d watched two or three monumentally horrible movies before taking this one on, so anything that spent any time or money or had actors of any kind was bound to seem good by comparison. An oil rig in the middle of the ocean is attacked by a humanoid fish monster. Mildly amusing

Review – The Messengers 2: The Scarecrow

When I watch movies about evil scarecrows, sometimes I find myself wondering if I were a crow, would I find this scary? Given that crows are actually quite smart for birds, I’m betting even they wouldn’t give a fig for this production. A down-on-his-luck farmer (The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus) digs a Freddy-Krueger-looking scarecrow out of a hidden niche in his barn. He puts it up in his cornfield and then has the gall to be all surprised when evil stuff starts happening. See if desperate

Review – Barrio Tales

If this is any better than an average “moron with a camcorder” movie, that’s due more to improvements in video production technology than to upgrades in the moron department. Three shorts held together by a cheap bracket. Frat boys kill their maid and suffer a horrible curse. Suburban kids are turned into Mexican food by Uncle Tio (doesn’t that mean Uncle Uncle?) and his taco truck. And rednecks who kidnap and torture undocumented workers get a violent comeuppance. This might work as a minor critique of anti-Mexican racism if it didn’t wallow so heavily in the racist muck along the way. It’s also hard to side with the sound editor’s guess that viewers would have more interest in the twangy guitar soundtrack than in the dialogue. See if desperate

Apple, are you kidding me?

Late last Wednesday afternoon I had what by now has become all too familiar: a Mac hard drive crash. Fortunately I learned my lesson after the first three times this happened to me, so this time I had a reasonably current backup. I lost just three or four days, almost all of it stuff I’d uploaded to the web already.

So the issue wasn’t data loss. The issue was the hard drive itself. The problem required a trip to the Apple Store (not exactly right next door), where the computer had to stay for three days. As down times go, that honestly wasn’t too bad. It was actually sort of nice to have an excuse to take a break from connectedness for a little while.

Plus the Apple “Geniuses” were nice to the verge of customer service overkill. One even told me that the company’s in-house code name for the computer I bought is the Ultimate. That made me wonder what their name is for the model with a few extras I didn’t get. Best not to know. I’d hate to think about people unwittingly using a computer known as the John Holmes.

My problem with all this (aside from this being the fourth hard drive crash in less than two years) was that in days gone past I could have tackled the repair at home. If the hardware was seriously torched (and in this case it may have been), then off to the store it would go. As I’d had it only a month or so, it was still under warranty. But at least I could have tried running some diagnostics and attempted to fix it myself before swapping in an expensive replacement part.

But in this brave new world that doesn’t happen. Because I needed to be able to boot from an external system disc so I could go to work on the internal hard drive. And do new Macs come with a CD system disc? They do not. Of course there’s a certain logic to that, as the new Macs don’t have disc drives. But I have an external drive that I use mostly to watch DVDs on the computer. So if I’d had a disc, I could at least have given it a try.

Another option would have been to use a Firewire connection to link the problem child up to an older, functioning computer that I happened to have downstairs. But Apple in its wisdom decided I didn’t need a Firewire port in my new machine.

Here then is the deal: in Apple’s imagineered vision, we’re all going to live in the cloud. We’ll store all our data in the cloud, connect to our peripherals via the cloud, watch movies from the cloud, do everything we do entirely from the fabulous world of the net-connected cloud. For the full effect, read that last sentence aloud while standing on your tiptoes, flapping your arms like a happy little bluebird and employing your most sarcastic tone.

In Apple’s defense, the cloud works great. Until it doesn’t. It provides us with all kinds of new possibilities. But if we rely exclusively on our net connections, we lose a measure of autonomy (not to mention opening our lives up to scrutiny by hackers at the government, corporate and freelance levels). At the very least, we appear to have surrendered the ability to opt in or out at our discretion.

So if Apple is going to watch over us like we’re a mass of ignorant children, then the corporation is going to have to make a bigger commitment to being a better parent. A few more geniuses in the design and assembly stages might save employing fewer at the customer service end. Just a thought.

Review – Twilight’s Last Gleaming

Up until the Oval Office yakkity yack gets started, this is actually a fairly awesome action movie. A team led by a rogue ex-general (Burt Lancaster) seizes a nuclear missile complex and threatens to launch the weapons unless their demands are met. They want money. They want a clean getaway. I get that. But then they demand public disclosure of a document that will expose the government’s real motives behind the Vietnam War. Judging by the amount of screen time devoted to it, the Daniel Ellsberg crap is intended to be the main focus of the picture. But even back in 1977 this was fairly well trampled ground, certainly nowhere near as interesting a premise as blackmailers with warheads. And the two make an awkward graft. Why would a guy be so obsessed with the American people learning the truth that he’d be willing to kill everyone in America (and Russia as well) just to prove his point? Mildly amusing

Review – Beyond Evil

The ever-so-brief swollen finger effect is nasty beyond description. The rest of the movie is beyond boring. An architect (John Saxon) and his wife (Lynda Day George) move into a haunted house, and she swiftly succumbs to possession by the evil spirit of the former owner. Matters weren’t helped much by the film-to-video conversion, which looked as if it was done with a Super 8 projector, VHS camcorder and a bathroom mirror. See if really really desperate

Review – Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic

This looked more like a half-assed attempt to plug a video game than a genuine attempt to make a movie. As in the game, Dante is an action hero kicking ass through the nine levels of Hell to rescue his beloved Beatrice and lock Lucifer in his place forever. Though the art quality varies a bit (different levels appeared to have been done by different animators), even at its best it’s only a step or two above “motion comics.” See if desperate

Review – Supernatural Activity

Talk about an extremely small return on an extremely large investment. Every once in a great while (like maybe two or three times throughout the 90 minute running time) they pop out something entertaining. The rest of it is a mix of “how did you even come up with that?” and “what would make you think that was funny?” Further, you’ve got to have a broad background in pop culture – everything from The Last Exorcism to The Wire – to get the giant pile of references. I was saddened to have gone in expecting nothing more than a Scary Movie experience and not even getting that much. Wish I’d skipped it

Abandoned – Ancient Evil 2: Guardian of the Underworld

Like the worst parts of Clerks in some horrible over-blended crap smoothie with a monster movie that couldn’t meet even the minimal standards of SyFy. 17 minutes

Review – The Possession

How long has it been since I enjoyed a demonic possession movie involving a kid? The Exorcist? This one’s on par with the genre-spawning original, plus it doesn’t have all the soup spitting and crotch stabbing. Instead, this calmly-paced production works in some genuinely impressive chills rather than relying on sensation and gross-out. A girl picks up an old box at a yard sale and ends up releasing a dybbuk (and yes, I know dybbuks technically aren’t demons). Some of the exorcism rigamarole seems a little silly, but the rest is spooky on a human level. Worth seeing

Review – Death Race: Inferno

I love the generic names they tend to give movies like this. I hope we can look forward to future efforts such as “Death Race: Full Throttle” and “Death Race: Outlaw.” Noise and explosions, what else do you need? Not plot or character development, I hope, because if that’s what you want then you’re in McDonald’s looking for the salad bar. See if desperate

Review – The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll

This Hammer take on the Stevenson classic gets off to an intriguing start. In this version kindly Dr. Jekyll is the physically unattractive one, and Mr. Hyde is handsome actor Paul Massie without makeup. The production takes a few clever twists along the way, such as Hyde’s infatuation with Jekyll’s unfaithful wife. Christopher Lee does a solid job in a supporting role. But after that great start, sadly we end up in familiar territory. Mildly amusing

Review – The Queen of Versailles

This documentary follows time-share mogul David Siegel and his fading trophy wife Jackie as they amass a fortune in the sub-prime mortgage market and then squander it left and right on nonsense, particularly construction of a huge mansion loosely based on Versailles. Of course my use of “sub-prime” in the previous sentence gives you a good idea what happens to them. Though I had several emotional responses during the course of the experience, overall this picture left me with a profound sense of relief that I am neither rich enough nor stupid enough to have these kinds of problems. Mildly amusing

Review – Gorgo

If only they’d listened to the ten-year-old kid in the first ten minutes, they wouldn’t have needed to film the remaining 65. Seriously, if a giant monster is destroying your city to get her baby back, just give her the damn baby back. This British attempt to hop on the Godzilla-like-objects gravy train falls well short of its Japanese counterparts. See if desperate

A first from 8sails Press

Like most kids, I wanted to be any number of things when I was a kid. Superhero. Commando. Astronaut. Of course I had a few more down-to-earth ambitions as well. Engineer (not good enough at math). Computer programmer (no patience for it). Architect (see Engineer and Programmer).

The one childhood fascination that stuck with me was writing. Of course this infatuation evolved a bit over the years. Thanks to my love of novels and short stories, I originally saw myself as an author of fiction. I first set foot on that path at 16 when I got a short story published in a small press anthology.

And then nothing. Though I’ve written fiction off and on for the last three decades, I’ve published none of it. Until now.

A couple of days ago, 8sails Press published a novella I first drafted several years ago and recently managed to edit and compose for Kindle distribution. Writing it was great entertainment. I even had fun designing the cover. So I hope readers will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

The official description: Sarah Upton and her parents are headed to the small fishing village of Innsmouth for a funeral. Before journey’s end, she’ll learn more than she ever wanted to know about her family, her heritage and the darker corners of the earth.

Fans of the work of H.P. Lovecraft will recognize a name or two in there. My story is a modern re-thinking of Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” Though the novella contains a few references to the original story, you can enjoy it fully even if you’re unfamiliar with the source.

Thanks to an agreement with Amazon, this title is available only for the Kindle. In exchange for this restriction, the retailer is providing some marketing assistance. If you don’t actually have a Kindle device, fear not. Amazon makes Kindle apps available for free for a range of computers, tablets and smart phones.

And yes, the company also makes me charge for it. However, the price is an affordable 99 cents. My royalty is 35 cents per copy, so if you buy the book and don’t like it, I’ll personally refund the 35 cents you gave me and you can go out and buy yourself a nothing.

If you’re not inclined to mess with the whole Kindle thing, you can still read the first few pages on Amazon.

Review – Men in Black 3

The small touches more than the big picture do it for me here. The plot is again a cut below the original, roughly on par with number two, uninspiring nonsense about traveling back in time to blah blah blah. But some of the situations are fun and some of the aliens are interesting. As a big Deadwood fan, I particularly enjoyed Keone Young’s brief appearance as the proprietor of Wu’s Chinese Restaurant. Mildly amusing

Review – Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies

This is the first time I’ve ever watched a mockbuster back to back with the movie it’s coat-tailing. Naturally the comparison isn’t favorable. Bill Oberst Jr. turns in a good performance as the title character (the President, not the walking dead). But against the tide of ill-conceived nonsense, the good parts don’t amount to much. Before the story runs its course, we get Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, Teddy Roosevelt as a boy, and zombies that just sort of stand there waiting to be done in. Though I was pleasantly surprised by parts of the Hollywood take, this one was pretty much exactly what I expected. See if desperate

Review – The Haunted Sea

If you’ve got a powerful hankering to see Krista Allen with her shirt off, then here’s a scratcher for your itch. Of course according to IMDb she did several Emmanuelle movies earlier in her career, so those might give you the nudity you crave without making you sit through a bunch of lame monster crap. And I do mean lame. A boat crew discovers an abandoned vessel that turns out to be infested by the evil spirit of an ancient Aztec rubber snake god. In more competent hands this might have been a marginally better movie. See if desperate

Review – Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

This was better than I thought it would be, which to be honest isn’t particularly high praise. When the title character performs the title task, this is a fun horror/action picture. I could do without the axe-twirling nonsense – seriously dude, are you a vampire killer or a cheerleader? – but otherwise the fight scenes were well assembled and the monsters were sufficiently creepy. However, trouble arises when the script tries to mesh fantasy and history. I was particularly put off by the notion that Lincoln started the Civil War because vampires were pro-slavery. Not that I’m against wholesale slaughter of Confederate vampires, two birds with one stone there. But it slows the plot’s pace down to a crawl until the bloodsucker slaying starts up again. Mildly amusing

Review - Feast

A cadre of loathsome strangers are trapped in a bar in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a handful of flesh-eating monsters. This seems more like an excuse for some frat boy filmmaker wannabes to hang out with Henry Rollins and Judah Friedlander than a serious attempt to make a movie. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Night of the Living Dead: Re-Animation

This is the second movie I watched today that wastes time making fun of Sarah Palin. And they both came out in 2012, long after she sunk into irrelevance (a state from which may she never emerge). Beyond that this is yet another unremarkable, dim-witted piece of zombie crap. See if desperate

Review – Iron Sky

If there’s a fine line between clever and stupid, so also there’s a fine line between edgy and tasteless. This movie is nowhere near either of those lines. A colony of Nazis who escaped to the Moon at the end of World War Two attempts to invade and conquer the world. At best this pokes some unfair fun at right-wing politicians; as loathsome as some of them are, they aren’t Nazis. And at worst it raises the specter of the Holocaust as if it was somehow funny. The experiment that turns a black man white was especially chilling. In context, it was designed mostly to introduce some Kentucky Fried Movie-style racist humor. But it got me to thinking about the actual “racial hygiene” experiments the real Nazis conducted, which in turn sent me to the Web for some refresher reading on the subject. Half an hour or so of that will completely suck away what little entertainment the whole Nazi thing might have had. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Resident Evil: Retribution

Writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson isn’t even pretending to make movies anymore. Mortal Kombat and even the first Resident Evil movie at least had some semblance of plot and character development. Several installments later, however, this is pure video game, a relentless march between zombie monster chase battles with little or no explanation for any of it. Even the dialogue and actors’ mannerisms reek of the stiff, awkward interactions in a game. Though I admit I found that charming in Hitman, here it grates. If you love watching someone else play a third person shooter, then prepare for 90 minutes of endless larfs. Otherwise play a game yourself or watch something else. See if desperate

Review – The Barrens

Finally, a Jersey Devil movie that actually has a Jersey Devil in it. And a good one, too. Well designed, not over-used. A family on a camping trip to the Pine Barrens run afoul either of the legendary monster or Dad slowly going paranoid nuts. Normally I tend to run short on patience with the whole reality-or-delusion thing, but in this case both options (actual ravening beast or rabies-spawned hallucination) are both equally horrifying. The production is awfully hard on the animals, and the pacing slips off the tracks a bit toward the end. Otherwise this would have gotten that ever-elusive fourth star. Worth seeing

Review – Dredd

As bootmakes go, this one’s not bad. At least Karl Urban has the guts to play the title role without removing his helmet, in keeping with the original comic book character. How un-Stallone of him. Though the characters here stick a little closer to the source, the aesthetic is less graphic novel and more Blade Runner. Mildly amusing

Review – Total Recall (2012)

Here’s proof of a pair of unlikely propositions: sometimes the addition of Syd-Mead-esque art direction actually isn’t an improvement, nor is the absence of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Who would have guessed? This movie starts stinking right with the set-up: the Earth’s surface has been rendered uninhabitable except for England and Australia, which are now connected by a giant elevator that runs through the center of the planet. And downhill it goes from there. Some of the references to the original are grin-worthy, and Kate Beckinsale does a good job as one of the villains. But none of the small touches justify the big, dumb mess of a plot. See if desperate

Review – Treasure Planet

If I’d been the right age when this came out, I would have been absolutely nuts for it. I remember liking movie versions of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic when I was a kid, and back then they didn’t even come with spaceships or laser guns or any of the cool sci fi stuff to be found here. Adults can also appreciate the show for the craft that went into the casting, the script and the casting, a welcome change brought about by Disney finally waking up to what competitors in Japan were up to. Mildly amusing

2012 - Some final housekeeping

At the start of 2012 I set two goals for 8sails, making one and falling just a tad short on the other.

The one I missed: adding 1000 new pages to the site. I figured with all the Survival Guide uploading at the start of the year that I might stand a chance of making it. Though that contributed an even 400 new pages, I still finished the year at 909 (including blog entries). Still, that’s an average of more than four per working day. Not too bad.

My other goal was to shoot more than 10,000 pictures, a mark I managed to clear with 80 to spare. The next big 8sails College project is going to be a photography text, and I need to replace the examples of other photographers’ work that I used to use in class with self-created demonstrations that could be uploaded to the web without violating copyright laws. My collaborator and I still have a ways to go, but we’re off to a good start.

Right before Christmas I also wrote the site’s 4000th movie review. When I hit 3000, I took a look back at what I’d reviewed. That was easier then than it is now, because back then I had a database of all the reviews allowing me to count the number of horror movies, comedies, dramas and so on. The database bit the dust in a hard drive crash, and I haven’t cared enough about it to rebuild the thing. So the view from 4000 is only “wow, that’s a lot of movies.”

Other than work on The Photographer’s Sketchbook, I haven’t set any goals for 2013. I’m going to let the year go wherever it takes me.

Review – Dark Shadows

I can remember trying to watch the original Dark Shadows soap opera when it ran as afternoon airtime filler reruns in the mid 1970s. I was a kid at the time, and my reaction to it was “this has vampires and werewolves and witches and ghosts. Why does it suck?” Thus I had no objection at all to the Burton-izing it gets here. Sure, it’s goofy. Everyone in it is playing for the back row. And some of the jokes fall flat to start with or get driven into the ground (okay, we get it, the 200-year-old vampire thinks Alice Cooper is a woman). Overall, however, it’s a reasonably entertaining bit of no-brain fun. Mildly amusing

Review – The Dark Knight Rises

I was genuinely surprised at how much I didn’t like this movie. I loved the first Christopher Nolan Batman effort, and I enjoyed the second one as well. This one not so much. For starters, it’s way too long. And I’m not talking only about the epic two-to-three-hour running time, either. I had a lot of trouble believing that terrorists could seize and hold Manhattan – oops, I mean Gotham City – for months while Bruce Wayne battles back from a serious ass beating. The time frame required plot points (such as thousands of cops trapped underground) that should have been resolved in days at most to drag out far longer than they possibly could have. The 165 minutes of screen time also allowed for a lot of time-wasting detours, such as the ever-dreaded parade of story-stopping failures of even the simplest tasks. Further, I was bothered by the heavily politicized plot elements, particularly the weak-witted, reactionary conservative backlash against the Occupy Wall Street thing. Still, there’s some fun to be had. Anne Hathaway puts in a good performance as Catwoman (though surprisingly not as good as Michelle Pfeiffer), offsetting the downright annoying presence of Tom Hardy’s Bane. And of course the effects are flashy and the explosions are noisy. It just wasn’t enough to last as long as it did or live up to the reputations of the other two. See if desperate

Review – The Amazing Spider-man

Normally I’m not so into the reboot thing, but this one actually wasn’t too bad. The de-Sam-Raimi’d take on the classic superhero returns to the original comics for the small details (such as mechanical rather than biological web shooters). The Lizard was a favorite supervillain from my childhood, though I never thought they’d use him in a movie. It was also nice to see the hero actually fight crime rather than spending half the picture dithering around about his personal problems. I’d see a sequel to this if and when they make one. Mildly amusing

Review – Drive-In

For an obscure, stupid comedy from 1976, this is actually really amusing. Most of the acting is beyond amateurish (only a couple of cast members went on to any kind of career from here), the plot nearly nonexistent and the script largely built from folksy similes. Still, there’s something charming about the picture’s earnest attempts to entertain. Especially for those of us who still remember drive-in theaters, this is a fun way to spend an hour and a half. Worth seeing

Review – Drive

Here we have a movie about a professional stunt driver slash race car driver slash getaway driver, and it’s directed by a guy who can’t drive. Nor can he direct movies, judging by this effort. Ryan Gosling wanders from scene to scene only occasionally uttering lines, a performance that must have been calculated to make him seem deep and brooding but instead makes him seem vapid and robotic. Seriously, Nicolas Winding Refn, you’ve been in the United States long enough to notice that movies here tend to be violent, so violence alone without plot or character isn’t likely to be enough to impress anyone besides dull-witted critics who equate “boring” with “artistic.” And do you really miss the 1980s as much as the pseudo-retro soundtrack suggests? If Giorgio Moroder was dead, he’d be turning over in his grave. Wish I’d skipped it