Review – The Eschatrilogy: Book of the Dead

Unimaginative (not exactly a big surprise from a low-budget zombie picture), but at least the amateur horror fans who made this contented themselves with filming their flesh-eating sight gags without bothering with too many fruitless attempts to add story or character development. The coda was a strong ah-for-cryin’-out-loud-isn’t-this-over-yet moment, but otherwise this delivers what little it promises. See if desperate

Review – Bad Words

A 40-year-old man (Jason Bateman) with a phenomenal memory enters a spelling bee thanks to a loophole in the rules. If they somehow could have left it at that simple plot combined with the protagonist’s amusing assholism, this would have been an exceptionally funny movie. Inevitably, however, plot and character development intrude, adding awkward complications, questionable motives and treacly relationships. Mildly amusing

Review – 300: Rise of an Empire

Here’s a sequel for anyone who thought the first go-around was too realistic and didn’t include enough speeches. I’m not sure if a knowledge of actual Greek history is a help or a hindrance. The story weaves so artlessly between events before, during and after Thermopylae that it’s often hard to tell what battle is taking place when. On the other hand, it departs sufficiently from the historical record that knowing the history may just make the confusion worse. Perhaps the picture is best enjoyed purely from a “epic battles fuck yeah” perspective. Mildly amusing

Review – Nothing Left to Fear

When I noted in this movie’s description that it was located in Stull, Kansas – and the legendary gate to Hell located therein – I had to rent it. Though I’ve certainly seen worse movies, I was hoping for something better or at least more original. The scariest thing in this picture is the puppet-like performance turned in by Anne Heche. Mildly amusing

Review – Flu

Korean horror scores another semi-hit. I recently read a book about the Spanish Flu epidemic, so I was fully prepared to accept a massive outbreak of the disease as a scary premise. For the most part this is a reasonably good exploration of the theme, though it goes on at least 20 minutes too long and depends far too heavily on coincidental encounters. Mildly amusing

Review – Gravity

So now we’re down to using actors’ heads and voices (and a handful of appearances by the rest of Sandra Bullock’s body). Almost all of the rest of this outer space adventure was generated by computers. Perhaps they should have let a machine write the script as well. An algorithm could scarcely have composed a more annoying patchwork of relentless failure. If your idea of fun is spending an hour and a half watching things go wrong, then you will doubtless agree with whatever mysterious beings put this on the Oscars Best Picture nominees list. To me it felt more like trying to use an AOL dial-up line to replace the radiator on a car: frustrating and ultimately pointless. See if desperate

Review – Robocop (2014)

See, Hollywood. You can make a passably good reboot. This is a textbook example of how to get such productions to work. A story that stays true to the spirit of the original without following it too slavishly. A few in jokes for the fans. A good cast and solid production values. The result is clearly an attempt to make an entertaining movie rather than solely cashing in on familiar property. My sole gripe is that the plot meanders a bit in spots. Worth seeing

Review – Birth of the Living Dead

If you’re interested in Night of the Living Dead (and if you care about the history of zombie movies, you should be), by all means take the time to watch this documentary. It provides extensive information about how the picture was made and originally distributed (including the sad tale of how it ended up in the public domain). Even the talking-head social-commentary parts aren’t too bad. Mildly amusing

Review – Killing Lincoln

With all the money they dumped on this, I was hoping for something better than a docudrama worthy of the Discovery Channel. Tom Hanks narrating and Bill O’Reilly writing fail to amount to anything better than what we might have gotten from an out-of-work character actor and a script-a-day hack. If you authentically don’t know anything about Lincoln’s assassination, you might find this interesting. But there’s little beyond the basics to be found here. Mildly amusing