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)