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Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

Artifice Girl

Not a bad little sci-fi movie. Not great, but definitely not bad. Very talky and geeky but I kind of like that. A man invents an AI 11 year old girl to lure predators online, and then it follows him and the development of the AI over the course of his life, along the way with a lot of very familiar-seeming exposition inquiring into the nature of consciousness and where the line between simulated life and actual life is. Not the most original story, but pretty well told in that talky way that I like my sci-fi. Kind of like a little younger cousin to my big fave"Ex Machina". Bonus: The inventor is played as an old man by Lance Hendriksen, who is the last character to die in the movie, thus finally proving that, while Lance Hendriksen is always the last to die in horror movies, him being the last to die in a movie does not necessarily make it a horror movie.
Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

Island Zero

Crusty maine island fishermen, plus a local novelist and a local biologist, confront an unseen monster emerging from the sea. I liked it well enough that I remembered it, can't say much more than that.
Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it

Alien Weekend

Fun little flick. Sci-fi comedy about a couple of 20-something friends who stumble into some intrigue involving a crashed ufo and a missing alien egg. Reminiscent of quirky indie sci-fi comedies like Buckaroo Bonzai, Repo Man, Bill & Ted, that sort of thing, although it doesn't really rise to anywhere near that level—it's still too much of a teen film for that—but nonetheless, a likable cast and fairly consistently successful comic elements make it a fun view. Definitely doesn't suck. Could maybe be a minor cult favorite, I bet, to people who haven't seen this sort of thing before.
Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

LX 2048

Takes a while to get going, but sort of fun future technodystopia where a company sells"insurance"where if a spouse dies, you get a clone within 48 hours... with the ability to request small custom improvements, of course. What could go wrong? (Hint: everything.) Not quite the movie it wants to be, padded out with unnecessary secondary ideas that are explored then just dropped, and so takes a little while to get going ... would have been a very good Black Mirror episode, with tighter plotting. At twice that length feels a little long for the idea, but still, I'd give it a 'B'. Reasonably well done, not great but definitely not crap.
Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it

Bug (1975)

THIS IS IT! You found it-the one, the only BUG, the single greatest cinematic achievement not just in the admittedly crowded field of mid-20th-century apocalyptic giant insect scifi horror film, nor even just in the scifi or horror film genres, but in human motion picture history writ large, itself. The unrelenting cinematic greatness that this movie doles out in heaping helpings upon your uncomprehending cerebellum-line after line, minute after minute, scene after scene, shrieking burning head explosion after shrieking burning head explosion, without pause, from the opening preacher's sermon to the closing descent into the stygian bowels of the earth itself-simply cannot be adequately conveyed within the constraints of this forum. It must be experienced firsthand.The mere fact that this is one of the very few opportunities in American cinema to see a woman's head get set on fire in the Brady Bunch kitchen would likely be among the chief draws of any more ordinary film it might appear in. But this is no ordinary film, and even something that would obviously be the highlight of most movie-goers' entire seasons is here only the very most trivial, the most trifling beginning to the veritable cavalcade of entertainments bestowed upon the lucky viewer of this inestimable apotheosis of thrilling visual storytelling.To say any more would both unfairly rob the viewer of the opportunity to fully experience the unfolding of this stunning film firsthand, and, necessarily fall short in the effort, because words simply can not suffice.Bug. There is no substitute, no other film experience that can compare. On the rarified mountaintop of cinematic achievement, Bug stands alone.If you disagree with a single word of this review, you should know it was written by my 7-year-old self. And my 7-year-old self knows a BUTTLOAD about movies. You are not likely to convince him he's wrong.As of this writing,"Bug"is, happily, currently streaming on Netflix, and the world feels just that much more right.
Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

ReSet

Ok, so starts, and proceeds through the first half as amusingly terrible take on the Groundhog Day trope. Girl is abducted from a party by an"incel"-stereotype stalker, wakes up in his guest room every time he kills her, after a brief trip to heaven to see her dead grandfather who encourages her along. I'm seriously unsure if this is meant to be a comedy or not. But then, it starts getting into character development, actually spends a little time talking than showing action, finally showing an almost sympathetic side the villain... almost. And the heroine comes off, despite everything she does being justified by everything she's been put through, slightly cruel. All in all, after a really terrible start, I'd almost say this could be chalked up as an"interesting failure"of the kind I might rewatch occasionally. If the first half had been as good as the second half, it would have been.
Movie Reviews » "Found Footage" crap

As Above, So Below

Archaeologist looks for the Philosopher's Stone in forbidden parts of the Paris catacombs, finds something much worse than expected, in this rare non-execrable "found footage" film.. 10% Raiders Or The Lost Ark, 5% The Descent, 50% Blair Witch Project, but about 35% its own thing, which is pretty good for a movie like this. This had all the makings of a bad movie, first off by being a first-person shooter, but it's someone somewhere along the way knew a little too much about how to actually make a movie, and managed to fill it with enough cool style to make up for the thin substance... might be a good date movie. For a piece of trifle with almost no plot they actually managed to make it fairly gripping. Ending is sort of an anticlimax though... they go through their travails, then when the movie is long enough, the travails come…

Movie Reviews

Await Further Instructions

Ok, I like this one. What starts out as a very slow, almost dreadfully British film somewhere along very roughly the lines of "Coherence"—turn a normal gathering (in this case a family of unpleasant almost dreadfully British people) in a house into an increasingly desperate situation (in this case the house exits all being sealed from outside and the television issuing increasingly strange commands) and see what happens—gives absolutely no clue for the first two acts as to how far over-the-top it's going to go by the end.

How ridiculous it is, and how uninspired the storytelling and one-dimensional the characters are, is compensated for by the fact that it's not really much like anything I've seen before.

Really, you've got to admire its fidelity to itself. In some ways, it's a decent throwback to '50s monster movies. It decides where it's going to go, and sticks to…

Movie Reviews

Contracted

A small film, but one I like. Woman contracts strange degenerative disease that causes her body to decay. One of those ones you can't say too much about without giving it away, but takes an unusual spin on some things. Doesn't feel like much as you're watching it, but satisfyingly adds up to more than the sum of its parts.

Movie Reviews

John Dies At The End

A critic called this "a very interesting failure", and that's about right. This time- and dimension-hopping adventure wants really badly to be a cult classic somewhere between "Donnie Darko" and "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure", and doesn't quite rise to that level, but, almost. It's pretty entertaining. I like it, have watched it a few times, and will probably watch it again.

Movie Reviews » "Found Footage" crap

They’re Watching

A pleasant surprise. One of those rare movies that starts really lame and completely redeems itself by the end, provided you can take some amusement from the totally unexpected over-the-topness of it. First-person shooter in which the "never stop filming!" film crew is crass Americans that goes to a remote rural Eastern European village, pisses off superstitious locals by accidentally filming a funeral, and engages in some incredibly heavy handed foreshadowing before getting themselves stuck out in the woods to get picked off — and yet, somehow, rather than collapsing under the weight of almost more clichés than you could possibly fit into one uninspired seeming movie, the whole thing takes off into unexpected the territory with such a beautifully over-the-top SFX blowout that I think I said "wow" more than once out loud. Special-effects so good that you'll want to see it on video see you can pause it…

Movie Reviews

The Inside

[originally reviewed on IMDB at https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3321049/?ref_=tturv_perm_8]

I just got blown away by this movie.

Yes, by conventional film standards, it sucks: almost no story, no narrative arc, almost no dialog for the second half, nothing is ever explained, it's entirely full of insipid depthless characters who are either brutally loathesome (most of the men) or spend a hell of a lot of time doing nothing but wandering through a darkened building whimpering and screaming (most of the females), it spends too much time indulging itself in banal torture porn conventions without going anywhere. I don't even think many of the characters had names. It doesn't even have a trace of the pretentious art-house conventions some films stoop to in order to try to justify the obvious lack of conventional movie-making skill.

And yet, I loved it. I was floored and genuinely scared watching it. I will definitely…

Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

Nekrotronik

As "Buckaroo Bonzai" was to goofy sci-fi and interdimensional travel, so is Nekrotronik to the supernatural, ghosts and demons. Fun. And, it's Australian.

Movie Reviews » Canadian

Hunter Hunter

Family of trappers living in the wilderness, Dad and daughter are into it, Mom's maybe getting tired of it, when a wolf starts raiding their trap line, and to say any more would spoil it. Rack up one more above-average flick for the Canadians. What starts off seeming like "wilderness family gets threatened by natural or unnatural monster" veers off into becoming a seriously dark backwoods noir that only very slowly builds to where it's going. It's far from perfect—sags in the middle a bit, and feels a little like something was left on the cutting room floor somehow—but, draws on Canada's apparently abundant pool of oddly engaging unknown actors, and manages to develop into something fairly original. Could be a low-key cult classic. By the very end, it tilts full-on into gore, but only at the very end, and by being somewhat demure up until that point—such as only…

Movie Reviews » Canadian

Possessor

Assassin takes over other people's bodies to kill her targets. Another small-but-satisfying Canadian sci fi thriller, well-cast with a bunch of no-name actors. David Cronenberg's son, and I called this one as Cronenberg-related without knowing I was right, although I wasn't sure, because this was a little better than Cronenberg Jr's last film. Still self-consciously strange, strangely retro, and with some brief unexpectedly gory scenes this time, but definitely showing some maturity and self-assurance that was missing last time. I liked it, and had one of those rare endings that I actually liked better after I thought about it for a minute... it wasn't a good enough film that a bad ending wouldn't have ruined the whole thing, but it was a good enough film that a good ending redeemed the whole thing. If Cronenberg Jr's next film is as much better than this as this was than his…

Movie Reviews » "Found Footage" crap

Digging Up The Marrow

First person shooter, blech. Ray Wise, yea! Overall, enjoyable enough for a bad first person shooter movie, mostly because of Wise, and decent creature design.

A horror director is contacted by a man who claims to have evidence of real monsters, who leads them to film a hole in the woods, with predictable eventual results and a larger-than-average helping of fridge logic, made enjoyable by, again, Ray Wise, and decent creature design.

Also notable because, unlike the overwhelming majority of horror movies, it does contain one really excellent scare.

N.B. I read that they cast the easily recognizable Wise instead of an unknown because they wanted it to be clear from the beginning that it was entertainment, not an attempted hoax. Ok, I dig that.

Movie Reviews » "Found Footage" crap

V/H/S 2

Another vaguely quasi-entertaining "V/H/S" film. I will say that save for Blair Witch this may be the only first-person-shooter where it didn't grate on me within the first 15 minutes. A couple of mildly effective shorts in here, directed at least well enough for some jump scares: a film crew does a documentary of a cult on a day when they happen to be committing mass suicide and summoning the devil, a house full of kids has some extraterrestrial visitors, and, bonus points for the creative idea of a pretty stock zombie short, but with the main zombie being a cyclist who died with a running GoPro on his helmet, so the entire zombie attack is seen from a zombie's-eye-view.

Movie Reviews

Body At Brighton Rock

Wow, talk about a flawed gem.

Young park ranger gets lost in the woods, finds a body, has to sit tight until morning waiting for rescue. For the first 20 minutes of this movie, I assumed it was a 1980s "USA Up All Nite"-type d-grade picture. It wasn't until she pulled out an iPhone and took selfies that I realized it was new.

The acting is crap, directing is crap, everything about it is amateurish and crap. But then, she spends the night out in the woods, and I have to say, it's exactly the kind of movie I like, but could never recommend to anyone else.

Nowhere near as poetic as, say, Open Water, another bomb that I love, but I have to say, it's effectively creepy just for the setup, as she slowly creeps herself out wandering around the woods at night all by herself.…

Movie Reviews » Canadian

What Keeps You Alive

Ok, slightly better than your average captivity/stalking in the back woods movie, but I don't know how much of that to chalk up to quality (usually totally lacking in this sort of movie) and how much to me being personally suckered by having a the psycho captor/stalker be a hot lesbian instead of a grungy redneck. Still, the acting is decent, the minimal cast (4 characters in the whole movie, two of whom are only seen for a few minutes) is good. It's Canadian, surprise. Also, at one point, one of the characters plays a strangely good single-note blues song. I've really got to look it up and see if it's a real song, or just written for the movie, or what. [Edit: Found it. Bloodlet by Munroe.]

Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it

The Sand

Starts off like it's going to be an unbearably annoying first-person shooter, but if you forward past the first 5 minutes it's not. Kids wake up hungover after a beach party to discover the sand has turned carnivorous... basically, "The Raft" from "Creepshow 2", with a beach instead of a lake. That rare actual "good bad movie". I liked it well enough to actually watch it again after a few months.

Don't get me wrong. It's a bad "teen scream" monster movie. But I like it.

Plus they got Jamie Kennedy to do what he does best: play a brief cameo as some random asshole who appears out of nowhere.

Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

Assimilate

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers remade yet again, this time as a teen scream movie. I don't mean that facetiously, it really is an explicit Invasion Of The Body Snatchers remake. Considering the entire range of things a teen scream remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers could turn out to be, this one is probably near the best end of the possible outcomes. It's entertaining enough, for a teen scream, and is peppered with some occasional really nice touches. There have definitely been some worse remakes of Body Snatchers, long as you're ok with teen scream movies. Rewatchability: maybe okay. I could see sitting through it again someday. I'd rather watch this again than the Nicole Kidman one.

Update: about two and a half years later I did watch this one again. It's a slow starter, definitely seems through the first act like it's going to be utter…

Movie Reviews

Bad Match

Ok, what starts off as "Fatal Attraction" for millennials takes a cruel twist into a little more of a descent into madness than you'd expect at the outset. Far from perfect, and still kind of predictable, but ultimately a genuinely nasty little movie in its way, which redeems it from being totally derivative, totally predictable crap. I'll say it just makes the cut.