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Movie Reviews » Canadian

In April

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…

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Movie Reviews » Trash

Indiscretions

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?

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Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

Dimland

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…

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Movie Reviews » watchable

Harbinger Down

"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.

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Movie Reviews » Turned it off

Katernica

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.

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Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

From Dust

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.

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Movie Reviews » Favorite

Goodfellas

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…

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Movie Reviews » Favorite

A Bronx Tale

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.

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Movie Reviews » Canadian

Grace

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…

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Movie Reviews » Honorable Mention

Burden Of Dreams

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…

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Movie Reviews » Honorable Mention

Hearts Of Darkess

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.

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Movie Reviews » Favorite

Apocalypse Now

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.

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Movie Reviews » Favorite

Blue Velvet

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…

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Movie Reviews » Favorite

Deliverance

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…

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Movie Reviews » Honorable Mention

Drag Me To Hell

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…

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Movie Reviews » Canadian

Relax, I’m From The Future

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...…

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Movie Reviews » watchable

After

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.

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Movie Reviews » Bad but I like that it exists

Big Dark Energy

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…

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Movie Reviews » watchable

Limetown (TV series)

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.

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Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it

Self Quarantined

Well, this was a little different, and for the most part kind of entertaining little indie flick. A trio of women from Atlanta take a vacation in the woods during the pandemic, and spend about half the movie kibitzing around, smoking weed and keeping themselves entertained, when they start to feel like there's someone there watching them.

And from there, just when the movie seems like it's just going to be these women kibbitzing around, it gradually gets far weirder than you would ever expect. It's not all entirely well-explained, but it something along the lines of an alien invasion, and things get stranger and stranger, and what had been a down-to-earth flick about three down-to-earth women in a cabin becomes a fairly convoluted low-budget special effects sci-fi spectacle.

I pretty much enjoyed it, for a very low-budget and possible amateur production B-movie it turns pretty ambitious. And the…

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Movie Reviews » Trash

Reflect

Strictly amateur, seems to be full of non-actors, and a nonsensical storyline, as 5 annoying gorgeous woman from LA have apparently been offered thousands of dollars to go to Sedona to do a "spiritual obstacle course" as entirely familiar new-age characters—who seem to be real-life new age characters, they sure aren't actors—get them to confront their anger at their parents and each other, and it's presented as if we're supposed to think it's profound.

Meanwhile, an unexplained teen, who we know is supposed to be a First Nations person because an obvious First Nations person who he calls "Dad" tells him early in the movie "Son, I need you to do the show this week", is commenting on it from afar like a TV show host, and we see hooded figures in space apparently watching it. The movie ends when the "host" inexplicably declares that one is the "winner".…

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Movie Reviews » WAY too indie

Earth Over Earth

Good swing and a complete miss. Starts out for at least half of it seeming like that rare decent indie flick, as a couple on a technology-and-sex-fast in the woods have a brutish, shirtless, drunken stranger stumble into the cabin... but then, after that setup, abandons telling a story in favor of a scenes that don't seem related to each other, the stranger telling them "You're already dead", few minutes of "deep" conversation, finally unexplained men in hazmat suits appearing and spraying smoke machines around, and then abruptly ending just when it seems like the second act was about to begin. Plus some sort of "time loop" allusion where everything unexplainedly starts again. But no hint of any explanation at all, for any of it, no plot, nothing. It's like they had a jumble of ideas and didn't think they needed to tie them into any kind of a narrative.…

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Movie Reviews » Different, At Least

Pollen

This movie required the most suspension of disbelief of any movie I've ever seen. I don't know where to begin.

It's a "workplace horror" about a badly picked-on and bullied young woman, fresh out of college, apparently losing her mind and believing she's being pursued by some sort of tree-person that I couldn't be sure was supposed to be real or imaginary. The thing is, it's as over-the-top as any absurd comedy, but it's not a comedy, it's horror. Picture a workplace that's as much of an exaggerated caricature as "Office Space", but not a comedy. It's that weird and unbelievable. I don't know, maybe it was supposed to be a comedy-horror but they forgot to put the jokes in?

First she just seems badly bullied, so realistically it made the movie hard to watch, and even date raped by her asshole boss whom she's for some reason…

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Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it

Unholy Song

A weirdly sort of entertaining zero-budget flick about a bunch of low-rent people in northern California who, bear with me, play a cassette tape and accidentally free a witch who was trapped in it. Comments supernatural shit, exorcism, etc.

It was so low budget it seemed pretty useless at first, but the variety of people of the sorts you'd find hanging around a junkyard or dive bar were kind of realistic and entertaining, and they really committed to the whole thing. Kinda good for such a piece of crap.

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Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

Puzzlehead

This is a low-budget indie movie that should have been way worse than it was. In a dystopian urban future that visually resembles our dystopian urban present, a scientist invents an android duplicate of himself, then gets into a love triangle when the android and he both fall for the same quiet, timid store clerk. The entire movie is narrated by the android from its own point of view.

The acting is abysmal in some places, the story is quiet and slow and honestly nothing special, and I'd go so far to say most people probably wouldn't like it—I suspect my usual post-review check online will reveal a lot of haters—but it definitely had some appeal to me.

But it maintains a certain low-budget dystopian esthetic well, and had a certain low-key cerebral quality to it that I liked. The android, imprinted with its creator's memories, is overarchingly…

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Movie Reviews » Trash

Dark House

This has got to be a student film, and by a not very skilled student filmmaker. Less than an hour long, and utterly aimless, with no production values or acting to speak of.

A hipster couple cat sits an apartment that the synopses and an in-movie intro card say is haunted, but I never saw that. Except for them writhing around in what a title card says is "a ritual to rid the house of remaining evil" near the end, it seems like all they do is sit around and talk for the whole thing.

They should ban movie cameras from the borough of Brooklyn. The big studios can sub other locations, and it would make a lot of hipsters find some other way to spend their time.

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Movie Reviews » Different, At Least

The Quantum Terror

Bottom-of-the-barrel amateur-home-movie-level crap, but at least it tries to have a sci-fi angle. Or something. Basically these kids explore the sewer looking for a missing girl and encounter a bunch of really low-budget home-movie special effects.

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Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

Dead Night

Movies like this exactly are why I created a category "Je nais se quois/Flawed Gems". Definitely not a great movie, but certainly original, after a fashion, and ultimately, I thought, worth a watch, despite the flaws—most particularly for people tired of the clichés of the genre.

This is a solidly B-movie supernatural thriller about—wait for it—a family on vacation in a remote cabin in the Oregon mountains when Bad Things Happen. On top of it, it intentionally starts with some of the most hackneyed cliches out there, and sticks with that for long enough that it could throw you.

As the family settles into their cabin, mysterious hooded figures are seen doing... something... in the woods. People talk on the phone in hushed, conspiratorial tones. Something is Clearly Going On.

In the first hint that things are about to get a little different, a TV is seen…

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Movie Reviews » Trash

Anonymous 616

Have you ever seen the movie "Funny Games"? It might be my least favorite movie of all time: pointless brutality, and nothing more, presented as entertainment, as home invaders torture and kill a family. I eventually learned that the filmmaker was pointedly trying to make a movie that no reasonable person would sit through the length of.

Well, this does that one better, by dispensing with the highbrow artistic morality play of exposing the viewer as complicit in violence-as-entertainment—and substituting, instead, a brief coda explaining "the got him to do it."

A houseguest at a friend's dinner get-together spots a computer in an empty room and an anonymous person chats with him, knows all his secrets, and in a matter of minutes convinces him to "become like God" by torturing, raping, and killing his friends. So he does. Along with, delightfully, their 12 year old daughter, after hitting…

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