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Reviews
Level Up (2011)
Fun, funny show
Level Up is a very fun show with a great cast of talented young actors. It's well written with plenty of comedy and action to appeal to younger kids and teens and loads of humor that adults will catch as it sails over their kids' heads. Dante, Wyatt, Lyle and Angie are high school kids who play an MMO game called "Maldark: Conqueror of all Worlds". Characters and weapons from the game start "leaking" into their world (See "Level Up: The Movie" for the origin story) and the kids use their gaming skills to battle the bad guys and use treasure to make life easy, usually with unintended and hilarious consequences.
All the 1 and 2 star votes seem fixated on whether the show is an accurate portrayal of MMORP gaming and their complaints sound like the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons declaring everything "Worst...Episode...Ever" because they know how the show should "really" play out. They're missing the point completely. The MMORP is a backdrop, the story is about kids from different backgrounds dealing with the real world and realizing they have more in common than they thought. And did I mention that it's funny?
The Tao of Steve (2000)
Predictable lightweight crap
The talented Donal Logue is wasted in this umpteenth version of the self-styled Lothario with a hidden heart of gold who thinks he has all the answers to the art of seduction without commitment until he finds himself swooning over (hold onto your hats!) an attractive girl who forces him to reevaluate his empty life when she is somehow able to resist his dubious charms! Will she see beneath his veneer and accept him as he is? Will he change his ways to win her over? Will you care? It's been done before and it's been done better. This contrived conversation/character romantic dramady has the look and feel of an uninspired film school grad's first effort. Don't waste your time.
The Tango Lesson (1997)
The longest 100 minutes of my life
Strange how less than 2 hours can seem like a lifetime when sitting through such flat, uninspiring drivel. If a story is as personal as this supposedly was to Sally Potter, wouldn't you expect a little passion to show through in her performance? Her acting was completely detached and I felt no chemistry between Sally and Pablo and the tango scenes, which should have been fiery given the nature of the dance, were instead awkward and painful to watch. Obviously, revealing such a personal story on film can be daunting, and as such Sally Potter would have been wise to let a better actor take on the task rather than let her passion fall victim to her own sheepishness.
Heat (1986)
It's hard to describe how appallingly bad this film is
I was subjected to this hideous mess of a film when my sister accidentally grabbed it off the video shelf instead of the Michael Mann film of the same name. Pray you never make the same mistake. The direction is ham-handed, the script ridiculous, the characters and their motivations laughable, the acting disastrous, and two thirds of the way through the film, just when you think your suffering might be over, it seems to become a different movie! Burt Reynolds' tough guy is a cardboard cutout of the tired "dangerous man with a troubled past and a heart of gold" character we've all seen 100 times too many. Peter MacNicol as the nebbish who idolizes him is not just unsympathetic, but actually so irritating I laughed out loud when he was machine-gunned by the bad guys. Neill Barry is absurd as the childish gangster who seems to think shrieking and whining make him a more intimidating figure. Pretentious, self conscious, and filled with cartoonish intensity, this film is excruciating from start to finish. Good for Mystery Science Theater style mockery only.