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mafiahitman
Reviews
Quantum Leap: A Leap to Di for (2009)
Quantum Suck.
Horrible. Horrible. Horrible.
This movie is terrible on all levels. I will explain how.
Technically, it was a terrible movie. The editing is bad. Stock footage is used poorly. Lighting is very, very dark. Camera-work is alright, though.
The writing is horrible. The returning character (Sam) acts in a manner that doesn't correlate with anything that he learned in the original series. There are numerous bad jokes. Al refers to a British officer as "Austin Powers" for no other reason than he is British.
Believe it or not, there is even a bash on Windows. Al vanishes because his holographic projection gets a blue screen of death. This is pathetic writing.
The writing obviously suffers from the writer being a Princess Diana fan. There are at least a dozen times where Sam and Al say "Well, it doesn't seem like you're here to stop Diana from dying, but damn it, you should anyway." The supporting characters are incredibly one-dimensional. They are in positions that are very, very convenient to get the script moving nowhere.
And finally, the acting is horrible. There was obviously no auditioning or rehearsal. Literally everyone in the movie is a bad actor.
Oh yeah. Although in the beginning the Quantum Leap project is basically shut down, it is reinstated by direct orders of the President of the United States.... so that Dr. Beckett can save Princess Diana.
Overall, this movie fails on every level other than physical camera handling, occasional set dressing, and the built-in benefit of ripping off a really good, really well-written television show.
Christopher Allen, you owe everything in this movie to Nathaniel Savidge, who was your credited Camera Operator. You yourself are a terrible filmmaker on every level. You are even worse a writer.
People like you are the only hope for a complete dictatorship, because people like you cause people to want to criminally punish terrible filmmakers.
Please never brag that you've made this movie. You should pay everyone who worked on it every day and apologize to them for involving them in such trash.
I am not exaggerating, and I am not being too hard on the director. This movie was literally terrible.
I hope that one day, Sam Beckett can leap into a friend of mine to prevent me from losing almost an hour of my life to this terrible, terrible movie.
Actually, that single paragraph was a better concept than this entire movie.
Flyin' Ryan (2003)
For people under the age of 4.
With acting almost as bad as the filming, and scenes that make no sense whatsoever as to why they're there at all, this movie makes you wonder on which side of the line of satire it walks.
I watched this with a nephew and cousin. The nephew is 4, the cousin is 5. While my cousin was occupied, my nephew was the only one entertained.
SPOILERS... I guess...
There are scene transitions that show scenery and such, but at one time I noticed that a couple of transitional scenes were reused. And there's a part where, for no reason at all, an un-good martial artist leaps over a motorcycle. No reason at all. It looks as if the movie was filmed entirely on a Super-8 camcorder. It's just a bad movie overall, even if it was made for small small children. Avoid at all costs, even if it's free.
X2 (2003)
Not as great as it could/should be.
Ok. There's two ways to discuss this movie. One is in reference to the comic book, and the other is to deal with the movie as if it were totally original. I'll do both, and I'll try to be brief.
-With the Comic Book in Mind:
The movie is stretched out way too far, trying to keep up with the comic book as not to upset the millions of fans. This is good, I suppose, but when the movie suffers to fit this bill, I say it's a bad thing.
The movie is simply too long. There are many scenes that I saw that could've been totally cut out. It makes me afraid of what really WAS cut out. And then there's scenes where just when the action is getting good, it cuts away, and then too much happens off-camera to be justified.
The movie is simply too boring. Total, there's got to be less than 15 minutes of fighting period. Not good fighting, just fighting at all. This wouldn't be so bad in a 100 minute movie, but the movie is TWO AND A HALF HOURS LONG. Not to mention that the comic book was indeed action packed, I just don't understand why they took the cheap route. At the point that the movie's progressed to in the Wolverine saga, Logan is a very rough, very angry, very spontaneous guy. In this movie, he's more like the leader of the group (which is supposed to be Cyclops, but oh well) making clear decisions, never really freaking out and killing anyone that he wouldn't have killed if he wasn't going nuts. So sad.
-The Movie as an Original Work:
It's alright. Not much action, viewers might be a little confused if they're not familiar with the Marvel Universe. I doubt I can retain the count of unexplored characters on a fist. Scenes seem to flow together nicely, aside from about five times. Other than that, the movie was just way too long. If they cut the crap out and just kept what we wanted to see in, perhaps taking this movie down to a little under two hours, and it'd be a great film. I'm not sure if the series is that great for the theater, though. Sure, it's great seeing these things on a big screen, but, there's way too much that they're trying to cram in.
OVERALL: 7
I'd give this movie a 7. It's not bad, not at all. Was it as good as it could have been? Of course not. Just don't think it's as great as everyone else seems to think. Don't worry; it won't make you look dumb.
The ABC's of Sex Education for Trainable Persons (1975)
Shock and Awe.
This film contains as much shock and awe as any other archaic educational film, this one is just different for some reason.
The strip begins with a girl walking down the street, who is soon approached by a man in a car. The man waves her over and begins stroking her hair. This is the "Shock" part. Then the title of the movie comes to light, and the audience is revealed the the girl is probably mentally retarded in some way. This is the "Aww..." part.
The movie is loaded with every single thing you'd probably be told in this era NOT to do. Not only that, but the audience is constantly questioning itself as to whether or not the actors playing the "retardates" are actually trainables, or whether they are actors playing as trainables. And if they are truly handicapped, do they know that they are acting?
It's not something that everyone will like, but for the sickminded and folk with the extremely twisted sense of humor, this is sure to do the trick.
NOT TO BE USED IN A SERIOUS SETTING EVER!!!
Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1990)
No, we're not.
Many people that say this show was bad get a simple response from others such as "You weren't a kid, it's not scary to you but it is to them."
This show came out when I was 8, and ended, thankfully, when I was 12. That's the target audience, isn't it? Even then, I could tell that this show was either written by morons, or that it was written by small children who were very frightened by "The Big Toe" story as a child. The show tries to bring it closer to home for preteens by having most of the actors be in that age group. It's too bad that those people just can't act. On top of that, the show tried to use old legends and give them a "kiddy" twist. That will, without a doubt, kill any chance of hopes for a real quality, or really scary, production (see: Disney).
Every single time I converse with a friend and this show comes up, I belt out how stupid it was. Most people disagree with me, but then a few days later they say "Well... I saw that show again... you were right..."
It's only a matter of time before everyone realizes that.
Sydney (1996)
Stereotypical Independent Rubbish
Digital cable presents many great movies to audiences that would have no (moderately easy) way of viewing them otherwise. Certain channels, like the Independent Film Channel, contain just as many gags as it does pleasures.
When people say Independent Film as a genre, the stereotype is a bunch of pre-midlife/post-graduate aged students wearing black framed glasses with cosmetic greased hair and cigarettes crammed in a small room with a reel-to-reel watching a bad film on a wall who applaud just because the camera angles are tight, and it invokes thought.
In this case, the thought is "Why would such promising actors subject themselves so such a filthy waste of 110 minutes?"
This movie appears to have plots, but it could be summed up in a 30 page short story. Other than that, it seems to stand still and only observe some unusual scenes. At the end, you don't find yourself enlightened, entertained, or relaxed. Only upset, and wondering "Why did I just watch that?"
Another one of those films that is hailed simply for the fact that it's so bad. Don't get me wrong. The actors played the (bad) parts very well, and the scenery and camerawork was great. That's a reason why I'm so upset at having watched this film. It was a pure waste of otherwise good talent.
In short, the film is way too long for its own good. The plot goes virtually nowhere, and most annoying of all, it hooks you in at the beginning with interesting plot devices, but shuts you down very fast, and that's only in the first quarter of the movie. In the last eighth of the film, it picks up again, only to abruptly end. Cut out the middle hour-and-ten and the movie is golden. The only flaw is, well, that they didn't.
Don't watch this film. Just because it's labeled independent doesn't mean it's free of useless crap.
The Transporter (2002)
So sad.
The movie was great. The sad part is that there are people out there complaining about a weak plot and storyline. Might I remind you that this is an action movie that's supposed to be in the style of violence and not sophistication? I think people need to learn to understand that. Do you go to see Titanic wanting to see martial arts? How about White Oleander wanting to see animals in their natural habitats?
No. So take this for what it is. It's an action movie.
Having seen Statham in Snatch, it was quite a great surprise seeing him as a martial artist, but also sad since he could've used that in The One with Jet Li. The only other guy that I think could've done this better was Gary Daniels. British guy, martial artist, muscular. That's all there really was too it.
So, don't go to this movie expecting a grand moral lesson at the end for your children. Don't go to this movie if you want to see the triumph over racial hatred. Don't go see this movie if you want to see a relaxing, long, non-entertaining movie.
See it if you want to see awesome action sequences. Because this movie sure has those.
(8/10)
Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001)
A normal movie. Why so highly rated? It's foreign!
This is one of those movies that everyone says is so great, so you watch it, and then either you are captivated by the fact that this movie is one of the most incredible films on earth (as shown by the #17 ranking in the top films of all time) or you have a mind for yourself and come to realize that this is just an OK movie that happens to be a French production, and people think it's so amazing due to the fact that most other French movies are... well... bad.
This movie throws in many unusual details, and I do admit that they are amusing, but they have nothing to do with the storyline and in turn are useless, only to add to the zany nature of this film. Take away that factor and you have a movie about 90 minutes long that would fall into the "chick flick" section of anyone's book, soon to be forgotten.
I cannot say that this review will have spoilers, because you will figure out the entire (relevant) plot in less than 20 minutes of the opening act.
BUT THERE ARE "SPOILERS" FROM HERE ON:
It's about a French girl, who's odd, that fairly accidentally goes on a "quest" to make people's lives better. This is only shown about 3 times in the movie, which happens within the half-hour of her decision to be a good samaratin. From then on, she goes on a chase to find this guy that, for some reason, she thinks will be her true love. After finding him and reeling him in, she keeps avoiding him and then reeling him back in for the last half hour of the movie. By the end, you find yourself very upset (G-rated version of my emotion) at Amelie and you think "Just talk to him already" more of annoyance than romantic desperation.
In the end, a quick climax/ending sequence occurs, and the movie is over. "Why is this movie so special," I thought to myself? Then I realized the answer.
"This movie is foreign. Idiots out there love foreign stuff. Since it's not terrible, they will think it's excellent."
And having seen my thought come to life, I submit this review. See the movie, sure. But not if you want to see a good movie.
Empire Records (1995)
Over-budgeted Clerks
This movie is pretty bad, let's start off with that.
This movie takes everything that Clerks was (is), or at least the concept, and changes it into an over-budgeted, unoriginal, thoughtless beast of a movie. People who see it after about 1996 won't like it due to the fact that most of the music in the movie A) Is terrible and B) has disappeared with the rest of the crap that was in the mid-90s music genre.
Many problems go unresolved in this movie, dialogue is forced, and everything is very unimaginable. This movie is just that much worse since so many people like it.
If you want a movie about young people's angst with their useless jobs and lovelives, see Clerks. At least it has words that not everyone can understand.
Signs (2002)
Shyamalan's 1st Grade Writing Project.
First off, there will be SPOILERS in this.
I'm going to use a sort of rating system that I haven't quite seen yet. 1-10, though.
PLOT: (3) Aliens. Oh no! Wait a minute, that really has nothing to do with the story. This story is about Gibson's character finding God... again. When I saw the previews to this, and even in the first half hour of this movie, that isn't what I was expecting to see.
MUSIC: (2) The theme song, which was pretty much all the music, sets the mood with scary string music, but then goes into some upbeat garbage that really upset me the 5th time they used it.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: (0) Where I have the most quarrels. The ONLY character development was on the part of Gibson's character. All other characters could have been replaced by almost completely different people. The brother could have been a boxer, a lumberjack, a gymnast, most anything. See the axe on the wall, swing. See the picture of you as a boxer on the wall, swing. See the pipe on the ceiling, swing. The son could have been much older, a female, a friend, as long as he had asthma. And, as an asthma sufferer myself, I find it sad that a father would force his seemingly bad asthmatic child to live on a farm. The daughter could have been anyone who didn't like the taste of country tapwater. Who does, anyway? I don't even want to know why Shyamalan decided to appear as a bad actor.
CONCLUSION: (0) Wow. Pretty much what Shyamalan did was give himself a memo that said "Write a movie with a lot of build up, anticlimax, lots of stars, where there's a sick boy, a washed up athlete and a disbelieving priest," and then he saw an episode (bad episode) of the X-Files. What he did in the 6th sense was great. He started with a theme and built FROM it. In this case, he built AROUND it. FOR it. It was really sad to watch. The aliens (which I've barely mentioned) were explained in less than 2 minutes of dialogue, and that goes for the appearance and disappearance of them. To think that aliens allergic to water would come to EARTH, a planet that would probably in reality have enough water vapor in the air to harm the aliens, to harvest people made mostly of WATER, only to run away because they'd been attacked with (what we assume the rest were attacked with at least)..... water. The idea that we can fend off aliens with waterguns just made me want to cry.
Terrible movie. I'm beginning to think Unbreakable was better than this...
Memento (2000)
Deserving of its spot in the top #250
This movie is very cleverly constructed. Everything is addressed, and everything is a solid story. No plotholes really, and you never think "What about?" except for one scene, which I'll state at the bottom with a spoiler notice.
You probably won't like this movie if you thought it was a certain kind of movie. Or if you like movies like 2001 or Mulholland Drive. Or if you don't like to sit through a whole movie. There's really not much to say except to see it, and don't listen to people who say they don't like it "Because it was confusing." Just wait, and everything will explain itself, unlike the "masterpieces" I mentioned above with dozens of useless elements.
SPOILER!!!!!!!!
I don't understand why Leonard was shown with his wife in bed while he had the tattoos. Was it a continuity error? If so, shouldn't that have been spotted? If not, please email me and help me sort that out, or post and explain!
Ten stars easy.
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Don't bother unless you like drugs.
Well, maybe not drugs. I'll explain that later.
One time I was looking at a personalized license plate that I couldn't figure out. I drove behind the car and pondered. It hurt my mind. I can't remember what it was anymore, but it plagued my thoughts for a long time afterwards. I decided then and now that I was going to create a personalized license plate that LOOKED like it meant something, but it didn't, thus creating confusion and pain in the onlooker.
I think Lynch had the same idea with this movie.
Many people have written comments to explain this movie, but I think the human mind must find an explanation to things it can't understand, and there were so many random elements in the film that some parts of it HAD to fit together. But then there were the elements (about 2 hours of the film) that didn't need to be there. There were the elements that were artistic but meaningless. Something like the elephant who could paint. Unless you like abstract art, stuff that ONLY provokes thought, then don't watch this. Personally I think thought is only a path to a conclusion, and this leads only to confusion, which doesn't make it thought to me. So many elements in the film were just needless and I think stuck in there to make you think, but didn't really mean anything. There were so many ideas that I had that I had to throw from my mind to get the real storyline.
So if confusion, as I imagine, was his goal... 10 stars. But as a movie that I paid to see? Zero.
The Mothman Prophecies (2002)
Unusual, to say the least.
Gere plays a widower reporter who literally finds himself in a small West Virginia town without any knowledge as to how he got there. While there, he discovers that a supernatural phenomenon is sweeping the town with symptoms similar to his wife who had died from a rare brain disorder (tumor).
This movie gives a handheld journey through confusion to give a sense of dramatic irony that isn't so incredible that you have that great of an edge on the characters. Many things come into realization as they're happening, and that's good.
Gere plays his role as I sense it was originally intended. He isn't the perfect man here, he is just a man. His supporting cast seems to convey Gere's confusion and disbelief.
There is a lot of concentration in this movie (visually) on physical design. You will take note to a focus on symmetrical and blatantly asymetrical patterns, light composition, background sounds, visible emotion, and props.
The only thing that disappointed me in this movie is that some of the things that were intriguing in the beginning were overplayed by the end. Also, no explanation is given as to how Gere's character unknowingly travelled physically over 400 miles in less than two hours by car/foot.
I also realize that it was based on true events and that my gripes may not have an answer, but, they are my gripes, and this is my review.
I am glad I saw this movie.