Well-made but difficult-to-follow story about a drifter who rolls through a small southwestern town, gets involved with a local woman and has some sort of intrigue involving people disappearing and lucid dreams becoming real. It felt like a good movie, and yet, I couldn't tell you the story if my life depended on it, even though I just watched it a second ago. The preview blurb said it had something to do with other dimensions, but I didn't notice anything like that.
Patients at a medical clinic trial an experimental drug that cures their permanent injuries... at first.
Sub-USA-Up-All-Nite bottom-of-the-barrel zero-budget amateur-made flick turns out to be, weirdly, not a 100% terrible creature feature. There's like, one or two good actors in it, or something. They tried pretty hard, that's for sure. I mean, it's absolute garbage, for sure, and yet—I kind of liked it. I've seen way less watchable absolute garbage. Weird.
This movie proves skilled direction and acting can save a movie from ludicrous writing... until they don't.
This movie starts with a family having moved to a rural home to avoid a pandemic. Slowly hints are dropped that it's worse than the pandemic we actually had: "when they turned off the internet" is mentioned in passing.
For the beginning, we just see slice-of-life scenes of family life holed up in this house, and excellent direction and believable acting both keep it engaging and slowly build a not-yet-explained unease—in fact, they keep it engaging and believable enough that when the ludicrous idea of the movie is finally revealed, the production has built up enough credibility to suspend disbelief enough to actually, bettern than might be imagined, pull off the reveal: the "pandemic" is an epidemic of insanity that spreads by using the internet.
Ok, so far, so good. If they had…
Totally amateur, exceptionally long, very-poorly-acted sci-fi story about a man in a hawaiian shirt, not at all believable as a researcher but more likely just whoever they could cast, who does mind control experiments on a group of friends, causing them to act in random ways as they sit around what must be one of the actors' real-life living rooms. Actually probably among the upper echelon of totally amateur, extremely long, very-poorly-acted movies, though, as it gets faintly interesting as they backtrack in the middle and re-tell the story from the experimenter's point of view. So, points for that, it's close to bottom-of-the-barrel but probably sitting on top of the sludge at the bottom of the barrel, not underneath it. But, MAN is the acting bad. Strictly local-theater type.
Scientist pandemic something something. 8 minutes of the most egregious "found footage" cliches were enough to get me to turn it off.
Disappointing sci-fi aims for the bleachers and then bunts. Scientists find a way to bring a person back from the afterlife, spend the entire movie arguing about ethics because the process requires euthanizing terminally ill patients and prevents the newly dead from leaving the earthly plane, and then the movie ends in the middle of the story, without a resolution.
This is one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen... to a point.
This movie about a suicidal man driving around in a car looking for an opportunity to kill himself when the ghost of a young girl appears in his passenger seat starts as an execrably "indie", pretentious, artsy, low-budget enterprise of the sort I usually hate. And for maybe the first very long half hour, that's what you get. I looked at the clock at the 30 minute mark and questioned whether I could do another 90 minutes of it. Lots of film effects, not much else happening.
But, first off, I noticed something strange: this low-budget pretentious crap movie about a guy driving around in a car had a full-on orchestral score more appropriate for "Raiders Of The Lost Ark". So I began to pay attention. And after the dreadfully long first act... it actually got…
This "thriller" is in every way like a porn flick without any sex. These people are obviously not actors, and are as stiff as if they're reading lines off cue cards. It's shot on VHS, not even always in focus. I lasted about 20 minutes. Seriously: why would anybody watch something like this if there's no sex?
Truly strange—this is a very talky, amateurish, artsy and extremely pretentious zero-budget indie flick with little plot, dislikeable characters and not much acting to speak of... and yet, somehow, it works. It's like the exception that proves the rule.
A young couple goes on vacation at a cottage she grew up vacationing at, only to be visited by a pretentious masked figure who is either some sort of forest spirit or her childhood imaginary friend. She spends the rest of the movie walking through the woods talking with him, to her boyfriend's growing annoyance.
It's hard to explain why it works. It's very much like a fable, there almost nothing to it, and somehow manages to weave the pretentious elements into something of an engaging tapestry. I don't know. It's weird. It should be an awful, awful movie. Virtually every identifiable element of it, looked at on its own, is…
Odd swing-and-a-miss featuring a miscast Nic Cage as a dorky college professor who begins turning up in millions of people's dreams around the world, bringing him unwanted fame. Starts out plenty entertainingly—of course Nic Cage is always fun to watch even when he's not quite a fit for the role, and certainly a unique idea for a movie.
But about two thirds of the way through, the story just kind of powers down, and the movie turns into simply an excuse to make him a punching bag for no clear reason and with no clear resolution. It's as if the writers had a great idea, but no clue about how to turn it into a story with a rewarding ending. And an odd deus ex machina right near the ending makes it look like some sort of other writing team was called in to try and quickly fix things,…
"Alien" in a boat. Vaguely watchable sci-fi/horror action adventure, if derivative.
Stars Lance Henriksen as the Captain. He is the last character to die, meaning this may be a horror movie.
Seems like a BBC production. "Talky" doesn't cover for this sci-fi "thriller" that is literally entirely talk. Two astronauts wander through a dark fog depicting the surface of a planet they've crashed on, talking to each other, and potential rescues on their radios. And that's it. I suppose there's some sort of plot underneath all the talk, but, boy, is this one dry. Eventually you see some lights through the fog that are supposed to be the aliens, waaaaaaaay towards the end, for a minute.
I bet there's people out there who like this sort of thing. Not me, though.
A hopelessly pretentious amateur production apparently about an actress wanting to stage a cursed one-act play—I got that by looking it up online, because I sure couldn't tell from watching the movie. One of those movies that tries to make up for lack of filmmaking talent by pretention and being 'experimental'.
First you learn the rules, THEN you can break them. Not before.
Annabella Rich is starting to seem like a harbinger of bad, pretentious amateur movies. Second one I've seen her in this week.
Turned it off after 30 minutes.
Strange. This is a bottom-of-the-barrel, amateur, zero-budget, home-movie level attempt at sci-fi, as a couple of non-actors playing "scientists" examine ancient artifacts found Antarctica, which turn out to release something sinister.
But, you know what? I don't know why, but this is like the best bottom-of-the-barrel, amateur, zero-budget, home-movie level attempt at sci-fi I've ever seen. There's something kind of good about it. Maybe it had a really good editor, or something? Bizarre. It's like a bunch of non-filmmakers and non-actors got together to make a bad movie, but somehow accidentally included someone in the mix who knew what they were doing. I actually kind of liked it, which is totally weird, because, I mean, it's terrible.
This movie was listed as "College friends find themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time while visiting a vacant house on the edge of town", which is not very promising on its own, but I've given it 40 minutes and so far it's been nothing but people talking. If anything happens from here, I won't know about it, because I'm turning it off.
Funny enough, tonight I filled in a bunch of reviews long-time favorites I'd never posted, and as soon as I was done, what does Tubi serve up, but the best gangster movie I've ever seen, "Goodfellas".
Honestly? I love this movie, but not like I love many of my other favorites. There is no denying it's one of the best films from one of our best directors, and contains an unimaginable heap of talent in its huge ensemble cast of dozens. It's a superb movie that deserves every bit of the wide praise it's received, and is the thrilling watch from beginning to end. I love this movie. But not like I love many of my other favorites.
But, it's ultimately just a story. It's not profound. It's about the rise and fall of a gangster. Even a crime film like "Dog Day Afternoon", another old favorite crime movie, somehow…
This movie about a young man's coming of age in a mafia-controlled Bronx neighborhood in the 60s, set against the backdrop of the growing civil rights movement, has always been a particular favorite of mine. De Niro's directorial debut, it's kind of a less-flashy little brother to GoodFellas, and for my money, a similarly good movie, although the story is smaller and more personal. It likewise stars De Niro, albeit here as a good-guy working-class dad, and has a cameo from Joe Pesci once again in scary mobster mode. Original author Chazz Palmintieri plays a star turn as a coolly intimidating local boss who De Niro wishes his son would stay away from.
I originally reluctantly had this under "Honorable Mentions" instead of "Favorites", because, ok, it's not "Network" or "Deliverance". It's not even "GoodFellas". But, damn, it's undeniably a big favorite of mine.
Understated, character-based horror like they used to make in the 1970s, although with a fair share of visceral gore along the way, for sure.
A mother carries a miscarried baby to term, only to have it mysteriously revive... with a taste for blood. Now, better movies have been made with worse premises, and this does remarkably well with it, for a (reasonably, 2009) modern horror movie. It's a quieter, less ambitious, yet to me much more engaging movie than similarly-themed efforts such as the still-not-bad, reasonably watchable Michelle Monaghan supernatural drama/thriller "Blood".
I found the cast to be good, and the writing spends a little time developing the characters into real people, making some of their decisions after the gore starts a little more believable.
A lot of people I assume were born long after the advent of slasher horror and splatstick gore films really…
Les Blank's truly memorable documentary about the making of Werner Herzog's excellent "Fitzcarraldo", a historical adventure drama about an early-20th-century entrepreneur seeking access to rubber trees in the Andes who organizes having a 300 ton steamboat carried over a mountain. As part of making the movie, they actually did carry the steamboat over the mountain, with documentarians along the way collecting footage of the unbelievably nihilist, dour Herzog, the erratic rages of leading man Klaus Kinski, and more. One of those rare times, along with "Hearts of Darkness", that a "making of" documentary stands as a great movie in it's own right.
Contains the famous monologue from Herzog that is often quoted as being particularly illustrative of his character. Standing in the Andean forest, he says to Blank: "Taking a close look at what is around us, there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony…
For the Apocalypse Now fan: the "making of" documentary about the incredibly chaotic process that somehow yielded that masterpiece. And the documentary is nearly as powerful as the film. It's a miracle that movie even got made.
Rounding out the list of favorite films I haven't reviewed because I haven't watched them since I started writing capsule reviews, but nonetheless felt need a mention in any list I make of favorites... The Shining.
More has been written about this film than perhaps any other of my favorite movies. Stanley Kubrick's classic adaptation of Stephen King's great novel about a lonely hotel caretaker's descent into madness that may not be his fault. There is way too much here for me to write about, and as with Apocalypse Now, so much has already been written in the intervening nearly 50 years that is so much better than I could write. Let's just say, a huge favorite of mine, a peak moment from one of the greatest directors in history, and my go-to favorite example of how there are great horror movies, and then, very rarely, there is…
This is a placeholder, just put here because no way am I going to let a list of favorite movies go on any longer with Apocalypse Now being mentioned on it.
And incredible story and an incredible, intense film. Many, many people have written about it, much better than I could. Google it, if you need to.
One more favorite I realized I didn't have something posted for. I think some of these big favorites, I've seen so many times, I don't even watch them anymore, hence never thinking of writing them up. They're engraved so solidly in my mind I don't need to watch them anymomre.
Anyway. This is a placeholder. What are you going to say about the "Blue Velvet"? This is the one where it all came together for surrealist filmmaker David Lynch, with a deeply disturbing story, Hypperreal production values, like watching some kind of off-kilter wax museum come to life, and terrific performances from some usually B-grade actors, most especially reviving at-the-time has-been Dennis Hopper's career with his outright terrifying depiction of villain Frank Booth. And how we were supposed to watch Dean Stockwell's lighthearted performance in "Quantum Leap" after his bizarre, sleazy cameo in this?
More than I can…
Realizing now that a few of my absolute favorite movies aren't mentioned here, so just quickly filling in some blanks. "Deliverance" is a big one.
Come on, you've never heard of "Deliverance"? Google it. I shouldn't have to write a review for this one. One of the greats. Four old friends take a canoe trip down a remote Georgia river before it's dammed up and the route disappears completely, and things go horribly wrong. Great performances and one classic scene after another. This is a supposed adventure film that's actually a drama in disguise, but decades of subsequent out-and-out horror films featuring mutants and cannibals and psychotic slashers have still never yet managed to catch up with this film's occasionally—though not always—quiet, unnerving depictions of unfriendly locals.
If you haven't noticed, this site's "404" error pages, when you try to access a nonexistent page, say "You done took…
It just struck me that I've never posted a review of this perennial favorite of mine. It took 25 years, until this movie, for Sam Raimi to redeem himself to me for the execrable "Evil Dead", but redeem himself he did.
The story is of a young woman cursed by a gypsy to be, well, dragged to hell.
What works here is the production, the story telling. This is an expertly-made movie: aware of the cheezy conventions of Hollywood horror, and self-aware enough to know it's not "The Exorcist", it knowingly embraces what it is, occasionally using outright fake-looking practical effects... not all that different, I suppose from how David Lynch's fake bird didn't detract too badly from the surreal "Blue Velvet", and in this case even less disturbing since the plot is so fantasy-based already. And then, just to show you that's intentional, Raimi spices it up with enough…
Totally fun sci-fi comedy. Rhys Darby, who I always liked in "Flight Of The Conchords", is a hapless time traveler stuck in our time and just looking to enjoy his life in the time before an unspeakable tragedy remakes the world in several decades. Could sit comfortably in a film festival as a little brother to "Buckaroo Bonzai" and other such classic geeky indie sci-fi comedies. I liked it.
A Canadian production filmed in Toronto, which makes sense, and continues to uphold the Canadian film industry's weirdly solid batting average in my experience. And, as probability would then indicate, therefore, it features Julian Richings—this time playing way against type as a nebbishy illustrator.
This is probably near the bottom of the films in my "honorable mentions" category, as some of those are real gems and very rewatchable, whereas this is just kind of a solidly above-average, enjoyable effort...…
After a meet-cute on a bus, immediately before it gets into an accident, a couple wakes up to find the town empty and an ominous storm moving in on the horizon. More of a fantasy/romance than the horror movie it initially appears to be setting up, as they wind up having to explore their pasts. Fairly well-made, it's reasonably watchable, if there's nothing particularly good on.
A home-made video assemblage appearing to consist of old IBM training films, desktop screensavers, and a bunch of apparently whatever other stock film or video footage the director, credited as "Metatron", could get his hands on—much of it clearly in low-res 72dpi. Electronic-sounding, possibly randomly-generated voiceovers talk about quantum computers or science or aliens or something, with "technological"-sounding stock library music playing in the background. Think "How It's Made" but, instead of manufacturing documentary footage, with technology-related stock footage and electronically-processed voices emitting technobabble.
This has no actor or production credits in IMDB, because, there are no actors or production in this, except for "Metatron" and a "writer", who should more properly be called the "assembler". Although, I guess, he did write the voice-over technobabble.
This is the cinematic equivalent of noise music.
In a way, I'm enjoying the nostalgia trip, as this reminds me of something you…
This single-season mystery/thriller series starred Jessica Biel, who sounds like she's been practicing her diction to good effect, as a Public Radio journalist doing a series investigating the disappearance of 300 people from a small town. Conspiracy-theory type stuff. Well-done creepy atmosphere, good performances, and grounded, believable production made this a good, if not great, watch. I liked it.
Paint-by-numbers story about a family moving into a house that was the scene of brutal slayings, and things quickly start going bump in the night. Initially, despite being one long series of clichés, it's well-made enough that it's fairly watchable, but as it goes on it sags more and more into TV Movie-Of-The-Week territory and falls below the basic "Ok to watch if there's nothing else on" standard.
Note to filmmakers: You don't actually have to make the bad guy look like Edward Scissorhands. We can tell he's the bad guy by what he does.
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