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Bneidl
Reviews
The Legend of Vox Machina (2022)
Critical Fail
I love D&D, I DM a campaign session almost every week. I haven't watched too much of the Critical Role gameplay because there are only so many hours in a day, but from what I've seen Matt Mercer is an outstanding DM and the players range from amiable to charming. What they've done for the hobby is great.
So it pains me to say that the animated show sucks. Look, I'm not ordinarily put off by R-rated stuff. Swearing, violence, sexual content is fine in the right doses. But this was a cringy runaway train of non-stop F-bombs, boobs, butts and splatters written by the creepiest 14 year old from your junior high school days. They over-used that stuff like a crutch, suggesting little confidence in the characters or story by themselves. I know we're not aiming for an Emmy here but it seems like this should have been a lot better.
Quiz Show (1994)
It doesn't hold up.
I watched this recently for the first time since I originally saw it during its theatrical release. Now, in the light of day, far removed from the white noise of vacant critical praise, it isn't really all that great. In fact, on a writing level I think it's kind of silly.
I was distracted by the contrivance that Dick Goodwin (Rob Morrow) and Van Doren (Feinnes) would bond so rapidly, particularly while Goodwin is investigating possible corruption behind the scenes of 21 (you would think that would put a damper on their relationship). One minute Goodwin is introducing himself to Van Doren as an investigator, the next minute Goodwin is playing Name-That-Shakespeare-Line at a Van Doren family birthday party, and sharing a late night game of poker with Van Doren and his pals. That poker scene, by the way, was another writer's contrivance: a forced opportunity for Goodwin to literally "call Van Doren's bluff," while he's also figuratively calling his bluff in the story at large. It's way on the nose.
In any event, did Goodwin and Van Doren really have to become fast friends in order to tell this story? I don't think so.
The script is also so desperate to prove how "literate" it is. I already mentioned the Shakespeare game played at the birthday party -- a good two minutes of the film consumed by preppy New Englanders quoting the Bard randomly, if you get off on that sort of thing. Also, for some reason, at the conclusion of his first meeting with Van Doren, Goodwin (Morrow) stands up, smiles, and exits the office while quoting "Ode to a Grecian Urn." For a second I thought I dreamed that part, but it was really there. I'm still trying to figure out what "Ode to a Grecian Urn" had to do with the scene that preceded it, or the movie in general.
Finally, Rob Morrow's accent: just awful.
Most of the acting in this one is actually pretty good, and the movie LOOKED great. But really, on a script level, I think it's way, way overrated.
Firewall (2006)
Bad (Spoilers)
There were many plot holes in this film, and so much of the character behavior made no sense. For instance, see if you can make better decisions in the following circumstances than the film's characters did:
1. If a pyschopath has your family hostage, and he forces you to fire your loyal secretary or he'll hurt one of your kids, do you say to the secretary:
(a) "I'll explain later, I have no choice, but for now you're fired"; or (b) "I'm sorry, but the company is cutting back and they're making me fire you"; or (c) "GET YOUR SH#T AND GET OUT OF HERE!"
2. Later, when you try to reconcile with said secretary to enlist her help in rescuing your family, do you:
(a) Say, "That guy in the office before was a psycho who forced me to fire you"; or (b)"Trust me, I fired you before because I had no choice, I need your help"; or (c) Burst into her apartnment and wrestle her to the ground with your hand cupped over her mouth.
3. While your family is held hostage, they send you to work with a small pen camera in your shirt pocket, so that they will be able to listen in on any conversations you have. But you want to secretly alert someone, anyone, in your office about your dilemma. Do you: (a)Scribble a note on a piece of paper (out of camera view) that says, "Help, my family is being held hostage and I'm wired, call the police" and pass it to a co-worker and walk away; (b) Pin the camera pen to your chair, facing your computer screen, so that the bad guys think you are just sitting there -- go tell a co-worker what is happening; or (c)Try to type a "HELP" email with one hand, off-camera, on a compter that the bad guys have probably hacked and are monitoring.
4. You and a group of thugs have invaded a home and taken a family hostage. The phone rings. You and your co-horts watch the family's young son approach the phone to answer it. Do you: (a) Say, "Hey, kid, don't answer that phone."; or (b) Walk over to the phone and block the kid from answering it; or (c) Look at each other dimly, LET THE KID ANSWER THE PHONE without telling him not to, and then pounce on the kid and point a gun to his head, whispering that he had better hang up.
The characters in Firewall answerd "C" to all four questions, so if you answered differently, you probably could have written a better movie.
Brick (2005)
Very Disappointed
I really wanted to love this movie. I was fascinated by the concept when I read some advance reviews a while back. I admire the creativity of framing a noir story in a high school setting.
Nevertheless, BRICK didn't work for me. It was well directed and very well acted, but it fails on a writing level. It very basically fails to deliver a good story. While the film did a decent enough job of hooking me into the mystery in the beginning, it never delivered interesting answers to the questions it raised. In fact, the more information we learn as the film unfolds, the less interesting it becomes. We are given only a few characters who could possibly turn out to be the killer, and even from these few choices, the culprit turns out to be the least interesting (and most predictable) suspect, acting under a motive that isn't interesting either. After the first twenty minutes or so (when the promise of a compelling mystery was still alive) I did not feel stimulated. By the end, I thought to myself, "That's it? That's what this movie was all about?" As I said, despite these fundamental story problems, there are strong elements. Across the board, the acting is really strong, particularly by Gordon-Levitt in the lead, and Lukas Haas as "the Pin." The direction is also very good -- I liked the quiet, contemplative feel of many of the scenes, and the pacing. Also, the dialog was very sharp -- it was deliberately unrealistic, inspired by the noir films of the 30s and 40s, but was not so over-the-top as to jar you out of the film. It was that hard-boiled noir film type of dialog sanded down just enough to fit into a fictional high school setting in 2005. These positives are enough for me to say I didn't loathe this movie, but they aren't enough for me to say that I liked it. The bottom line is, the story itself was not very good. They hype machine for this one got out of control early.
Campus Man (1987)
Unintentionally Hilarious
I discovered this movie on HBO in the early 90s, and have loved its awfulness ever since. Particularly awesome is the last two minutes of the film, which is a virtuouso, tour de force of clichéd 80s storlyine resolutions.
It goes down something like this. Our Hero and all the supporting players are gathered in a diving arena for some ill-defined charity fund raising event. There is a dais poolside peopled with VIPs. Onlookers fill the stands. Then the goofy happy endings start rolling at us like an avalanche. First, Our Hero learns he has earned enough money from his calendar sales to stay in school. Then, his buddy Brett does a fancy high dive that makes everyone clap and which, somehow, earns thousands of dollars for charity. Then, "Cactus Jack" and Morgan Fairchild, who met for the first time a scant thirty second ago, kiss, because we all know in movies like this, nearly everyone must be coupled off with SOMEONE by the end of the film. THEN, Our Hero's business professor materializes on stage out of nowhere to congratulate him for using his business ingenuity to raise enough money to stay in school and tells him, "I always knew you could do it." (The professor then scampers off camera without even waiting for Our Hero to say anything in response.) THEN (it's still not over) Our Hero jogs up to pool side to shake Brett's hand for his fancy dive (and apparently raising enough money in doing so to end world hunger). Of course, the Third Rule of Movie Making is that if a swimming pool appears on screen, someone must fall in. In judicious observation of the rule, Brett PULLS OUR HERO INTO THE WATER IN SLOW MOTION. The delighted crowd of onlookers laughs and applauds. THEN, in slow motion, Our Hero and Brett high five (yech).
And THEN, wait for it . . . wait for it . . . Our Hero, treading water, turns to the camera and, in slow motion, flashes us, the audience, a "thumbs up." Then, of course, FREEZE FRAME on that shot of the thumbs-up, fade to credits.
Watch it. Watch it over again. It's unintentionally, p#ss your pants funny.
Peter Pan (2003)
Peter made my skin crawl
I just watched this for the first time last night. Really disappointed. Thought it was downright terrible actually. It's unfortunate, too, because Peter Pan is a great story, and Jason Isaacs is the perfect actor to play Captain Hook.
My main problem was that all of the children, except Wendy, were completely uncharismatic. Peter in particular was very stiff, unpleasant, and just weird. He had a creepy, leering way about him. He also never seemed to be genuinely having fun during any of his adventures -- he went through it all with a shallow, unconvincing smile plastered on his face. He had dumb, expressionless eyes. Whenever he tried to flash a Wiley or rascally smirk at Wendy or Hook or whoever, he just ended up looking like he was constipated.
To top it all off, I was a little distracted by the odd way in which Peter pronounced certain words throughout the film. ("Come away with me to Neverlaynd!"). I basically wanted to punch this kid in the face every time they shot him in close up. All in all, horrible casting with Peter.
Wendy was the only character to pull off a sincere, convincing sense of wonder while in Neverland, and, as I said, Jason Isaacs was very good as Hook. I also appreciate the subplot in which the Vanessa Redgrave character attempts to make Mr. Darling become more career-focused, and pushes him to attend social gatherings so that he can network and climb the business ladder. Thus, even Mr. Darling is being pressured to "grow up," which is a nice little additional iteration of the main theme of the Peter Pan story.
But it's not enough. You can't make a passable Peter Pan film if Peter Pan himself is disgusting.
Mystic River (2003)
Flawed
Spoilers.
Much has been said about how the final act of this film goes off the tracks.
I agree with those comments, but I think there is a more fundamental flaw present throughout the film. Simply put, the movie does not make an adequate case for its underlying premise that the cycle of destructive behavior presented here all stems from the initial abduction of Tim Robbins' character. Defenders of "Mystic River" claim that the film's conclusion works because its point is to depict a tragic cycle: Robbins' abduction touched off a cycle of dysfunction that infected several lives, causing Sean Penn to detour through a life of crime that would itself set in motion forces that would: (a) kill Penn's daughter; and (b) cause Penn to kill Robbins under the mistaken impression that Robbins' was responsible for his daughter's death. This "cycle of pain" concept is made explicit by Penn's remark to Kevin Bacon near the end of the film: "Sometimes I feel like we all got into that car."
Here's the problem, however. There is an absence of convincing proof that what happened to Robbins as a child actually caused any of the lifestyle choices Penn made years later. I just don't buy that Penn turned to a life of crime (and hence committed the murder that would orphan the boy who would kill Penn's daughter) because a boyhood friend of his was kidnapped and abused. There's just nothing in the movie to really link one occurrence to the other. As a matter of fact, in the opening scene, the kid who plays Penn's character as a boy actually seems very much like he's already destined to have problems with the law. In his brief few minutes on the screen, he exudes a wrong-headed and causeless rebelliousness. It makes you think his ship sailed before the movie even began. He's a punk through and through. Robbins' kidnapping doesn't have anything to do with it.
Consequently, after Penn has murdered Robbins, I just don't buy, and am somewhat irritated by, his comment that "sometimes I feel like we all got into that car years ago." I'm inclined to answer: "Well, you didn't. Only one of you got in that car, and endured that abuse, and you just murdered him. Nice going." Really, Penn is letting himself off the hook.
Apart from the missing causal link between Robbins' abduction and what follows, which is a rather fundamental problem, the third act of the film is badly handled in some other respects. For instance, Penn's costuming during the last half hour is silly. Suddenly he's all decked out from head to toe in black leather, in a display of cartoonish villainy to match his sudden revelation to the audience as a dangerous criminal. Earlier in the film, we sympathized with this character very deeply as he wailed when learning that his daughter had died. By this point, he's acting like a James Bond nemises. It's such a bad directing choice by Eastwood.
Also, Laura Linney's big monologue in the bedroom near the end is one of the most stupid, incongruous scenes I've ever seen jammed into a movie. Up to this point, she has been a relatively straight forward blue collar housewife. Suddenly she's Lady MacBeth, telling her man that he's a "prince" and he could be "running this city." It is completely out of left field. What is the point of this scene? In what way does it advance the "tragic cycle of pain" theory that fans of this movie cling to as evidence that it has a point? One gets the impression that the screenwriter simply wanted to make a reference to Shakespeare to add a little artistic cred to his product. It is inexcusably bad writing to shoehorn it into the final minutes of a movie to which it bears absolutely no thematic relationship.
"Mystic River" is not an out-and-out bad movie. The performances are strong, and certain individual scenes are powerful (like the aforementioned scene in which Penn discovers his daughter's death), but it suffers so much from it weak points that I think it ultimately weighs in at B- level.
Run Ronnie Run (2002)
I'll take what I can get.
Obviously this movie isn't as good as the t.v. show was, but it IS scarce, precious Mr. Show product. You have to take what you can get. I've watched the 24 episodes of Mr. Show many times. We all know that most of them were just brilliant. The problem is, 24 episodes isn't enough. Consequently, even though I had read the accounts of how New Line allegedly butchered this film in the editing room, I had to buy it when I saw it on the rack in the store.
Basically, you have to wade through a lot of bland, unoriginal material to find those small islands of greatness that recall the best of Mr. Show. The "Three Times One Minus" One video was fantastic, for instance. Those were among the funniest characters they created on Mr. Show, and their presentation here improves on what we had seen before. It was a great example of how having a full film crew and a studio budget permitted a more elaborate rendering of a great idea.
Perhaps one defect in this movie that is not New Line's fault was the decision to make Ronnie Dobbs the focus of the story. Ronnie Dobbs was NOT one of the better characters from Mr. Show. The first of the two skits in which he appeared (season 1) was very broad and way below the intelligence of the usual Mr. Show skit. It was SNL quality (which is to say poor). The second Dobbs skit (season 3)--the musical one--was actually pretty funny, especially David Cross' song (which Mandy Patinkin sings in the film), but even so there isn't really enough in the character to support an entire film. The decision to base the film on Dobbs is a bit surprising for the additional reason that Mr. Show prided itself on not relying on a stable of established or recognized characters. They were too classy, unlike SNL, to turn to a "Wayne's World" or "Church Lady" every week just to milk out a few undeserved laughs based purely on audience recognition. I would have expected Bob Odenkirk and David Cross to write a film script based principally on new characters (with some from the t.v. show maybe appearing once or twice in smaller roles). Surprising.
Ultimately, though, the price is worth it for die hard Mr. Show fans dying for some additional material; just don't hold out hope for a movie on par with the series. You'll get your money's worth based on Three Times One Minus One and Jack Black's cameo alone (and I usually think Jack Black is wildly overrated).
A final observation: the appearance of Jeff Goldblum in this movie confirms something I suspected ever since he narrated (without credit) the Civil War Re-enactment skit in the television show; he must be a fan of Bob and David's.
A Murder of Crows (1998)
Heeeeelarious!
Liberal, indiscriminate spoilers.
Now THIS is a bad movie! A really, really funny bad movie. Even more amazing: it's a really funny bad movie with some well-credited actors in it. In the dark recesses behind this film, I'm sure there is an interesting story buried about how Cuba Gooding, Jr., Tom Berenger and Eric Stoltz ended up in this pile. Somebody owed somebody some pretty big favors.
My favorite piece of this puzzle is Stoltz's performance as the creole criminal kingpin. He blows right by "over the top" within seconds and reaches the absolute final frontier of overacting. The jaw-dropping accent! The comic-book villain style of evil laughter! As I watched this performance unfold, I literally said to myself, in a feeble voice choked with disbelief, "Holy Sh&t! Eric?" I'm not even a big Eric Stoltz fan, but even a disinterested viewer like me couldn't resist profound sympathy for him. I am a human being, after all. You have to see this performance to believe it.
Then there's Berenger. He feverishly studied "The Actor's Handbook of Police Cliches" before delving into this role, and gets an A for copiously implementing its principles herein. You can't help but laugh when he repeatedly screams into his walkie-talkie, while in hot pursuit of fugitive Gooding, "The rabbit is on the trail! Repeat, the rabbit is on the trail god damnit!" Completely deadpan. Priceless.
And how about that unintentionally hilarious voice-over by Cuba? Until I sat through this thing, I never realized what a goofily chirpy voice he has. I defy you not to lose it when he utters the following voice over dialogue in his best Mickey Mouse falsetto: "It was true. Every murder described in the book documented an actual killing. I was, to use the vernacular, f&cked."
Finally, the plot itself is beyond silly, and the central "mystery/twist" completely fails because it is obvious at all times that the old man, the uniform cop, the motorcycle guy at the book signing, and the college professor are the same person--the "disguises" used to try to trick us are hopelessly transparent.
One last thing. Check out the scene in Cuba's apartment where he and Berenger sit across from each other at the chess board (symbolism!) and talk tough and give each other dirty looks, each wreathed in "atmospheric" cigarette smoke. You'll actually laugh at how clumsily this scene tries to hit all of the elements of the tense, "confrontation of adversaries" formula. The scene succeeds only in recalling better movies that executed this kind of scene much more successfully (i.e., Deniro and Pacino's coffee shop exchange in "Heat"), thus inviting comparisons that illustrate even more deeply what a hilarious misfire this movie is.
Quest for the Mighty Sword (1990)
A great bad movie
I'll always have a special place in my heart for this movie, bad as it is. My sister and I ran across it years ago on HBO and quoted lines from it all summer. In fact, we taped the movie and I often made other people watch it, but nobody seemed to think it was as funny as my sister and I did.
I think what I find most interesting about this movie is that the filmmakers would even try to produce an action-fantasy epic with the $500 budget they apparently had. Usually, your independent filmmakers have a general sense of their limitations. They tend to shoot small films that can get by on small budgets. But the folks who made "Quest for the Mighty Sword" thought BIG. They must have had remarkable confidence in their film-making ingenuity--a real belief that through a little clever camera angling, they could turn their fifteen cents into a dollar--turn their plastic sword, overweight lead actor, and single troll costume (used for almost every monster who shows up in the film) into a passable fantasy experience. This isn't "the little movie that could." It's "the little movie that thought it could, but couldn't." Something about that, however, makes the film lovable in its own way.
In any event, I sincerely envy these filmmakers. Their power to view the glass as "half full" must be nearly inhuman. They must be pretty happy people, generally speaking.
Miracle Mile (1988)
The Idiot Plot
MILD SPOILERS
I happened upon this movie tonight on one of the premium cable channels. I was amazed that I had never heard of it. On the one hand, I appreciate how relentlessly dark this movie was willing to be, and how suspenseful it was at times. On the other hand, however, the movie relied too often on the stupid behavior of the principal characters to create tension. Roger Ebert has often complained of the "Idiot Plot": a film storyline that would be over within minutes if the characters were not complete idiots. In "Miracle Mile," Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham create a lot of their own obstacles just by making rock-stupid, and highly unrealistic decisions. Example: Anthony Edwards wants to find Winningham and bring her to the helipad so that they can escape L.A. before the nuclear holocaust. Instead of telling Winningham what is actually happening, Edwards decides she shouldn't hear the bad news "until she has to," so instead he tells her that they are going to go on a hot air balloon ride as a sort of romantic getaway (even though it is 4:00 a.m.) That's pretty stupid. Even more stupid is that Winningham believes him. Then, when they arrive at the rooftop helipad, Edwards realizes that he hasn't booked a helicopter pilot to, you know, actually fly the helicopter. Edwards then decides that he will find a helicopter pilot on the streets of L.A., in the middle of the night, with a scant 20 minutes or so before he knows the missiles are going to hit. Better still, he decides not to tell Winningham where he is going or why (she still has no idea the end is nigh). He just tells her, "I'll be right back, don't MOVE!" Of course, we know that this means she WILL move the moment he is gone. Sure enough, while he's off looking for a pilot in an all-night gym (and actually finds one!), Winningham decides that it would be a good time to take a stroll. So, now Edwards has to find her all over again, get back to the helipad all over again, and we have to watch this whole damn process all over again, just because he was too stupid to behave like a person of ordinary competence. And beyond this, Edwards continuously wastes time in this movie when he has none to waste. It's one of those films where you are well aware that time is running out, but the main characters still stop and stare at each other longingly at inappropriate times. These two characters absolutely deserved the fate that meets them at the movie's unbelievably dark conclusion.
Johnny Be Good (1988)
Just Awful
Honestly, this is probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It's certainly one of the least-competently made studio releases ever. There are entire scenes in this movie in which the sound is so poorly handled that you can barely hear what characters are saying. This isn't helped by Anthony Michael Hall's decision to mumble all of his lines. He seemed very unenthusiastic about this role--like he could barely work up the energy even to say the words.
There is a scene in the film in which Hall's character and some friends have an impromptu football game on his girlfriend's front lawn, against her father (who hates Hall for some reason that is never explained) and some other boobs, that is so badly edited that you simply cannot tell what is happening. Characters come in and out of that scene without rhyme or reason--continuity errors abound. There are also many scenes in which weird dialog was looped in during post-production to bridge awkward narrative gaps. This is a sure sign that the director didn't really know what he was doing, and just failed to capture footage that made sense on its own.
Also, Robert Downey, Jr. is unbelievably obnoxious in this movie. I mean really disgusting.