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