March Madness Potpourri
2008-04-01
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother - Funny, but grating. Not nearly as good as Young Frankenstein. 6/10
Dan in Real Life - Meh. Decent film. Predictable though, and ultimately forgettable. 8/10
Mother of Tears: The Third Mother - Bad movie by a very capable director. The only good parts were the ones that ripped off Argento's other movies. 5/10
Raiders of the Living Dead - Oh god. This was terrible. Points for the kid who makes a deathray out of a laserdisc player. 1/10
Justice League: The New Frontier - Enjoyable little movie. Superhero period peice done right. Too short though. 8/10
Southland Tales - Completely uneven and scatterbrained movie. Purposely so? Not really funny, despite it trying, hard. 5/10
The Matrix: De-Zionized - 2.5 hour fan edit of Reloaded & Revolutions removing all scenes involving Zion. Very enjoyable! 8/10
When Harry Met Sally - Fucking classic. Basis of the incredibly funny and true ladder theory. 9/10
Outpost (2007) - All the elements for a decent movie are here... but the movie doesn't utilize them right. Incredibly inconsistent. 5/10
Paranoid Park - Deliberately slow movie, about an average teenager dealing with a very difficult situation. Very good. 9/10
What Would Jesus Buy - Boring documentary on the Church of Stop Shopping, their delusions of grandeur, and ultimately the futility of resisting. Very Meh!
Crazy Love - Excellent documentary on an unlikely couple. Surprisingly entertaining for a movie consisting entirely of testimonials by septuagenarians. Great!
Strange Days (1995) - Great neo noir. Flawed hero, mystery plot, and a fantastic sci-fi element. 9/10
88 Minutes - Great Cast. Thoroughly enjoyable throughout, except for the cop out ending. Felt a bit made-for-tv. 8/10
Horton Hears a Who - Fun kids movie with strong themes of anti-conformity, equality, and using your imagination. 8/10
Mulberry Street - After Dark Film Fest 2007. New York City citizens are devolving into bloodthirsty RAT PEOPLE! Very well done. I went into this with very low expectations, based solely on the quality of the previous year's 8 films to die for... long story short, it's actually very good. And I'm not just saying that because I am a rat-man lover. I was particularly impressed with the way that such a low budget production was able to convey the "city in turmoil" feel. Excellent use of location... and great camera work, although at points it felt somewhat over-edited. The soundtrack wasn't bad and the acting was surprisingly decent. 8/10
Running With Scissors - Indie by numbers. Meh. 8/10
Me You And Everyone We Know - Not so much indie by numbers, cute, but still a bit meh. 8/10
Day of the Dead (2008) - Don't even pirate this movie. It's not worth it. That's my review. 2/10
The Deaths of Ian Stone - (After Dark Horror Fest) Felt somewhat like a cross between Dark City and The Nines. The way the mystery came together was very interesting, but it didn't really come together for me 100% and some of the effects at the end didn't exactly wow me. But overall it was well done. I liked it! 8/10
Tooth and Nail - (After Dark Horror Fest). Interestingly, this low budget piece had what I would consider a pretty star studded cast. But the movie was far too slow and uneventful, and generally just too uninteresting to work. It was scareless, humorless, and did not utilize it's resources properly, at all. If I had Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones at my disposal, I'd create for them memorable roles... Same goes for Rider Strong(cabin fever), Robert Carradine(revenge of the nerds), and Rachel Miner(Dani "suicide girl" from Californication). This movie had a promising premise, a great cast, some great locations, decent gore, but zero fucking script. Fail. 4/10
The Game of Death (1978) - Kung Fu Travesty. Hilariously bad Kung Fu Travesty. 3/10
Finishing the Game: The Search for a New Bruce Lee (2007) - Excellent mocumentary on the Making of "The Game of Death". 8/10
Death Wish - Decent revenge flick... Jeff Goldblum... what a hoodlum! Death Wish depicts revenge in a therapeutic and benefit to society light. 8/10
Death Sentence - Decent revenge flick. There's a great shot without cuts in a parking garage, very intense and skillfully done. This movie had a great "if the punisher was an idiot" feel to it. Decidedly different tone than Death Wish, Death Sentence is morose and regretful, showcasing the emptiness of revenge. 8/10
Where The Truth Lies - I loved how 'the truth' is revealed in revisions. Fantastic, almost perfect movie. 9/10
The Air I Breathe - I felt the Forest Whitaker & Kevin Bacon segments were too weakly linked or underplayed compared to the other 2 "emotive cornerstones" for this movie to be truly effective. Despite that, it came together fairly well in the end. 8/10
Drillbit Taylor - Superbad without all the swearing and dick jokes. Good kids movie, but kinda lame otherwise. 8/10
Black Roses - Terrible 80's movie. Watchable for pure cheese factor and some interesting creature effects. 3/10
Doomsday - The Road Warrior meets Escape from New York, with a tiny bit of V for Vendetta and, a John Carpenter-esque soundtrack, and that song from 28 days later thrown in at the end for good measure. Good gore. Watchable, but not by any means a good movie. 6/10
The Colour of Magic (2008) - For some reason I always pictured Rincewind as younger. This was a hilarious and a great depiction of Discworld... but I can't imagine this being watchable for anyone who isn't already familiar with the books. I loved it. 9/10
posted by pureevilmatt @ 02:24,
