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BitterJim
Reviews
Space Cop (2016)
Space Cop Fell Short, Mostly Flatlined
The feeling I had after viewing was a strong "Meh." Perhaps if the product had sold for 10 bucks instead of 25 bucks, I wouldn't have felt so unfulfilled. But for the price of the movie(the blue-ray version), it was not worth it. The special features did not add much either.
The audio suffered in many areas. The musical score was drab and irritating, and in some parts, even distracting due to the levels being off. The score clashed with dialogue and other sound effects, forming a mesh of noise.
There were also audio flaws. Aside from parts of the film where audio did not sync properly to characters mouths, much of the dialogue sounded dubbed, as if they had technical problems they did not realize until post production.
When actors were called back to re-record lines, they ended up sounding like they were concentrating too hard on syncing their voices to footage, which took away from the much more natural delivery they probably had on set physically interacting with each other. Most noticeably was this in Jocelyn Ridgleys character. There were also audio distortions in some of the dialogue with characters, like the mic had redlined.
When it came to the cinematography, Space Cop relied mostly on bland tripod shots, or shaky hand held shots. No steadicams, skylifts, booms, panning...just the type of cinematography you would expect from anyones low budget backyard film. For RLM, you would expect more, as you have seen them do more in several of their projects.
Mike Stoklasa and Rich Evans as the main characters, the formula did not work for one main reason. Both Mike and Rich played caricatures, not characters. The combined result of two "cartoons" took away from the film, as I found myself detached and not invested in either.
Had Stoklasas character played just Stoklasa, or a more "straight man" role, it might have worked better. Instead, Stoklasa played a caricature of a corny 1930's styled vaudevillian,(though I think they meant to do more of a 1950's style "Untouchables/Elliot Ness" type) while Evans played a cliché clint eastwood/1980's action hero. The result was being forced to listen to two "silly" voices for the whole film, and the humor you would get from it hit its punchline 60 minutes before the film ended.
When it comes to indie films, most indie film makers take advantage of their unrated status, and exploit things like sex, violence, foul language or a lack of political correctness. Space Cop fell short of all of this. It is a PG-13 film, yet the vast majority of RLM's fanbase are well over 17.
I think Space Cop may have made up for its shortcomings had they went for more blood and gore, or made the audience wince over other subject matter. For instance, Stoklasas character is a detective from the past, and they did play with some politically incorrect humor over his storyline. But they could have gone further with it, even made an intelligent and satirical statement about the subject matter.
The problem with this self aware, purposefully bad film making style(that often dominates the indie scene) is that it makes it harder for the audience to invest in any of the characters, to root for the good guy, or get involved with the story.
These things are essential to any movie. As bad as Death Wish 3 was, the producers set out to tell a story and deliver a performance. You still rooted for Charles Bronson. You still cared about or hoped his friends and allies would not get hurt. You wanted to see the bad guys get what they deserved.
In Space Cop, you just didn't care. You went a long with the story simply because it existed. The "bad guys" were convoluted, in fact in the last 20 minutes, you learn they aren't even the antagonists.
I'm sure my little review will be attacked by brainless and pathetic RLM fanboys who will defend slipshod work with excuses like "its meant to be bad" and "its JUST a b movie", but this only vindicates my point about purposefully self aware shlock.
For a group of people to make a side career out of criticizing the work of others, it must be nice to be able to fall back on such excuses when your own work flatlines or falls short.
In all honesty, the entire movie felt like a long youtube video. In fact, Red Letter Media probably would have gotten more attention and fanfare had they turned Space Cop into an internet series, broken into 10 minute videos. Not only would they have reached a larger audience by providing the content for free, but they would have still earned ad revenue on the product, and the flaws and shortcomings would have been much more forgivable.
Having seen all of RLM's films, Space Cop was definitely a step backwards. Hopefully in their next project, they will base a story on something more than just a cheap gimmick/joke, not take so long to complete it, and charge much less. There really is no need for them to bother with Blu-Rays.
Interiors (1978)
Anyone else get this from the movie like me?
I'm a big fan of Woody Allen, and I just watched this movie for the first time. I can totally understand why many people hate it, or do not like it. It is depressing, and there's no real "finish" or arc for the characters.
That being said, the one thing that stood out for me that nobody has mentioned, is that even Woody Allen didn't like the characters. I think that was his point. As some have pointed out, the characters are pretentious, self absorbed upper middle class yuppies with no real problems. I think what Woody Allen was doing, as was the case in Manhattan, was giving us a glimpse into that sort of liberal elitist upper crest society, where these characters in particular are pseudo-intellectuals and wannabe artists, who create their own problems that really don't mean anything.
This would explain the introduction of Pearl, the fathers new fiancé. Pearl is great. Amidst all the self absorbed, elitist syrup the characters espouse relentlessly, Pearl emerges as almost a down to earth, working class gal.
The family goes out to a play with their father and Pearl, and later while eating dinner, they are discussing this play. The daughters and their yuppy husbands are over analyzing the play to literally a puke inducing pretentiousness...and Pearl just chimes in "One character was a squealer, the other wasn't. I liked the character who wasn't a squealer. Thats all there is to it!" They try to argue with her with more pretentious drivel, and Pearl simply states again "The message I got was "dont Squeal." Later, Pearl is dancing to dixieland music with everybody, and knocks over a vase on accident, and the one daughter calls her an animal. Towards the end of the movie, Pearl ends up saving the daughters life with CPR after she nearly drowns. She seems almost ungrateful. Its as if this fmaily is so elitist, they look down on Pearl as some sort of "inferior".
Pearl is a down to earth, normal, lovable older woman with some spunk, which is why the father fell in love with her. Throughout the movie, we see how dominating and obnoxious their mother is. She is pretty much the reason the family is dysfunctional, with her delusional, relentless whining, and quiet yet aggressive behavior. On top of that, she was a successful interior designer, and her 3 daughters are all "artsy" intellectuals...and you can see why a character like the father is just overwhelmed with them all, and falls in love with a very grounded, relatively simple woman, Pearl.
I think it was Woodys purpose to make you feel burdened or overwhelmed by the characters, the mother...hell, almost feel completely alienated, only to suddenly find yourself relating to Pearl when she arrives.
Another scene that kind of highlights the pretentiousness of the characters, one of the girls husbands is speaking into a tape recorder about marxism and communism, hinting that he is a supporter of such ideology. Which, again, is woody making a small point. Because here you have this wealthy, yuppy guy, embracing the concept of marxism.
For anyone who grew up or lived around New York in the 60's and 70's, that was always one of those ironies...wealthy yuppy types preaching about marxism and communism. Its sort of a hypocrisy Woody Allen often points out in many of his movies.
To summarize, this was a serious movie that essentially criticizes the upper class liberal crowd, as Woody has done in many of his movies. In Manhattan, Woody narrates in the film at the end about how its full of people with no real problems, so they create them. That is essentially the characters in this film. They want for nothing...so they began creating these "existential dilemmas".
The Artist (2011)
It was okay...
If you haven't watched silent films before, or even early musicals, then you will probably like this movie. My review does contain spoilers, so reader beware.
Just finished watching "The Artist". Terribly simple movie. It wasn't bad at all, but there was hardly much plot. And certainly not original. Guy is a big film star. Guy gets washed up. Eventually makes a come back after.
The whole "silent film star becomes irrelevant due to talking pictures" was the plot line to Singing in the Rain, as well as a few other movies. But thats it. Thats the plot. And then he gets depressed, and an up and coming actress he helped out is now a big star, and eventually helps him make his comeback.
There were also areas in the film where it really, desperately needed a speech frame. I had trouble understanding what was going on, or it took until the end of the scene to figure it out, due to lack of speech frames.
But then there were pointless speech frames. Like a speech frame for a guy saying "I'll go get my car." The film makers felt that bit of info was important enough for a speech frame...but then during an argument, had absolutely no speech frames. So you're literally just watching two people argue in complete silence, and you don't know what about.
Another scene in the movie, a cop is talking to him, and it focuses on the cops mouth, and the main character walks away in discomfort, but you don't know why...I wound up thinking he was going deaf for over 5 minutes, until I realized it was an artsy fartsy way to say the main character was feeling the pressure of talking in a movie.
Soooo....this film was so simple, even a retard could understand the plot line, but the lack of speech frames made a handful of scenes frustrating. And the only musical/dance number is at the very end.
But the clips released on the internet and youtube feature this entire end scene of the film. Why would they do that? Why blow your one dance routine/musical performance AND ending of the film, as an internet commercial??? Most of the film, however, is just depressing, and seeing a man sink lower and lower. Which is fine..but because of the released clips and trailer, you are led to believe you were going to see a lot of dance numbers and flash.
Its called "The Artist"...but there's little to no focus on what exactly he does thats so artistic. The character produces his own film, which flops...soo...he's a failure, not an artist. There wasn't anything about the film that carried you through what about the character is so artistic, other than he's a good mugger.
The car being driven by the female lead is about 6 years older than the year the story is taking place. That was noticeable, and kind of obnoxious, considering its a period piece, and matching the date of a car to the date of the story is the EASIEST thing to get historically correct.
The film quality was just a film digitally made into black and white, so scrap the concept of doing the film as a film of that era would have been done. Then, one of the songs playing over a scene has a vocal track(pennies from heaven)....why? Its a silent movie...you don't have songs with vocal tracks.
I should also add, that the "pay off" at the end was not that great. The dance number they do is the only one in the film, and not to boast...I could have done a better job. Like, if they performed that dance number in the early 30's on screen, the audience would have shouted "Amateurs!" and walked out.
I mean, it wasn't bad...but it wasn't great either. And as someone who has taught himself only a few tap steps and never taken a class, I shouldn't be able to look at a dance routine in a film/period piece and say "I could do better." Maybe I would have enjoyed this film a lot more, had my expectations not been so jerked off by Hollywood and the awards shows. Seriously..if folks in Hollywood are this awestruck by such a simplistic, basic idea, simply because "it hasn't been done in awhile", then that just shows how mediocre and talentless our celebrities have gotten, and how lazy Hollywood producers have gotten.
Around the Country (2010)
Lazy and Disappointing...
For those of you who were fans, or just enjoyed the coolduder channel on youtube, you may look past much of the laziness of this product. And yes, it is a product. I am disappointed I paid to see this. Some may claim that it is just a feature length "Around the Town" vlog.
But we were always able to view Around the Town vlogs for free...some of these vlogs were even 30 minutes or more on the coolduder channel. But if you are a fan of the coolduder channel, you were expecting Shawn and MJ's alter ego's, Don and Murph. They never make an appearance. There was no intro, no music, not even real editing.
No stories were told. We find out nothing about Shawn and MJ...we hear nothing about their adventures in film making or being a part of other projects. Instead, we sit...and watch a lazy production, almost 70% of it boring. And its pathetic and sad. Pathetic because we realize Shawn is just a large spoiled man child, still sucking off of his parents at the age of 26, and sad, because we know this will be the end of the duo of Shawn and MJ/Don and Murph.
We know Shawn will start his new life, financial backed and secured by his enabling parents, and we know MJ will retreat back to the east coast, probably get a job, get married, and we will never hear from him again.
Everything that drew me into the coolduder channel was this duo. It was don and murph, and their skits. Now its all over.
There was no big send off. No big bang for the fans. They should've had a simple story...like they were being chased or stalked. They could have done this film Blair Witch style, like had a fictional story going on, while we watched them do non-fictional things. Something. Anything. Instead, it was like finding an old tape of your aunt traveling to Pennsylvania, and watching it.
"Oh, look at that. Look at this. OOO...they sell hats here." Seriously. Its that boring, that bad. The film starts off with obvious planned pranks, but that's OK. Its still entertaining. But then, shortly after, it all stops. The fun dies out, and instead we just watch a tired Shawn and MJ, bitter and obviously sick of each others presence...and there's still 800 more miles of traveling ahead of them.
This film should have been broken up into parts and placed on youtube for free. It was very unethical to have been sold. This product deserved no profit, save for some ad revenue. It was marketed and promoted on the coolduder channel, and the details of it were kept pretty secure, so the film would sound more enticing. Shawn even brought up how it was "not for kids" over and over again.
The potential customer/fan was led to believe we'd see a very adult side of the duo. Instead, we see a very typical same as always PG-13 side of them, as we have been seeing on youtube for years.
It would have been nice to have seen a very genuine side of the two...really heard their opinions, their feelings on subjects and things...but instead its just two grown adults talking and acting like scared children, and too afraid to open up in any way to their fans.
In closing, this product is a sad, pathetic, depressing nail in the coffin of the now defunct youtube duo that never really launched or got off in the first place. It was made publicly clear that after this trip, Shawn and MJ barely speak to each other anymore.
Feeding Frenzy (2010)
I Enjoyed the Crap Out of This!
So, I am bitter when it comes to indie films.But I am also a victim, of being pressured and conned into purchasing indie films that absolutely sucked.
I now equate them to snake oil, as that is exactly what it is. A lie packaged as something else, promising something good, created only for profit, as the production value alone will tell you, and if you fell for it, you are a sucker out 15 or more bucks.
This means that while I entered into the scene, wanting to support indie films and film makers and aspiring actors, I now want to kill them all, as well as their families. Because they all deserve to die.
Now, saying that, Feeding Frenzy has turned a page in my bleak outlook. I wrestled with the idea of purchasing Feeding Frenzy...I did not want to end up hating and wishing death on Mike Stoklasa and Jay Bauman.
But I finally gave in, and wound up watching it 3 times in 1 week. It helped being a fan of RedLetterMedia, and their, well...media. Their Star Wars reviews, short films, and what really got my respect and attention, their brutally honest, and articulate reviews they do on their series, "Half in the Bag".
Another thing I have come to appreciate from these guys is sort of a new brand of humor...It is like a "Dry" meets "Dead Pan", and Mike Stoklasa, who is pretty much the most popular of the duo and company, delivers this beautifully.
And in the movie, Mike Stoklasa continues to deliver this bizarre, awkward dead pan performance. My friends who had never seen anything RedLetterMedia has done commented on Mikes commanding screen presence, and remarked how charismatic he was on film. And he isn't even the main character.
Every scene Mike Stoklasa appears in heightens it, and makes it better. The same kind of awkward/dry/deadpan humor is present through Jay Baumans writing of the script as well. This duo works very well together.
Rich Evans, a friend/contributor to RLM, reprises his role as Mr. Plinkett, and he does this wonderfully. He is funny, original, and you want to love him despite his sinister character.
The two main actors, Gillian Bellinger and Ron Lipski, however, were not very good. They were outsiders to RLM, and maybe this is why. The main actress was very unattractive. I know that shouldn't be a problem, but ugliness combined with unfunniness and not very good acting is a problem.
She just came across as annoying and loud for the most part. Ron Lipski was semi-competent in his own bland way when it came to acting, but in the end, he lacked charisma, and was so stiff and not animated, he's actually forgettable despite being the main character.
The worst was his mugging. Often throughout the film, the camera would cut to his face for reaction shots. His expressions were either overly hammy, or robotic.
There is a scene in which the little mouth monsters escape and attack Ron and Gillian. This by far is the worst scene in the film. It lasts way too long, and the characters lack of talent shines at this moment.
A joke of Gillian trying to choose a weapon to get a monster off of Rons leg ensues, for over a minute, resulting in Gillian choosing a fly swatter as a weapon of choice.
Ron "mugs" again, raising an eyebrow, in a robotic, unfunny fashion, and Gillian, for no reason at all, screams obnoxiously. But the scene continues, the monster still biting away at Rons leg.
Gillian continues to search, until Ron grabs a drill and kills the monster. Gillian then screams obnoxiously again as she grabs an ax. She runs over to Ron....and screams again.
It is the worst scene in the movie, because of the horrendous acting of Ron Lipski, the over acting of Gillian Bellinger, and for some reason, Mike and Jay didn't shred this scene in the editing room, cutting a much needed minute out of it.
The soundtrack was great. Very Danny Elfman sounding music in it, which fit the goofiness of the over all story. Overall, I enjoyed this film, and am glad I bought it. I've already gotten 3 views out of it, and will probably view it more.
Certainly more than "The Disco Exorcist" which I wish I never bought, and "The Severed Inn", for which I hope everyone involved in that gets cancer and dies. Seriously.
I hope my review isn't too biased, because like I said, I was a fan already of RLM and their content online. So maybe I have been warmed up to it and their sense of humor and style. However, friends that watched it with me that had not heard of RLM before enjoyed it as well. So who knows.
This is pretty much a fan movie, to some extent. It does give a few subtle winks to "their" audience. But production-wise, it trumps all indie film company movies I have seen. It was certainly better than any movie made by the SciFy network.
Unfortunately, the two main actors do haunt it. I hope in the future, RLM makes more of an effort to get better and more talented actors.
Oh, one last nod: One actress stood out. She was GREAT. And she was in the film for literally 1 minute. Jocelyn Ridgely is her name. She has appeared in some of RLM's stuff, most famously she played Nadine in the famous Plinkett Reviews of the Star Wars films, that drew attention from Simon Pegg and Roger Ebert, due to their brilliance and entertainment value.
Surviving the Rush (2007)
Very Bad Movie
This film is about an anticipated new movie getting moved from a large theater to a very small theater last minute, and how the manager and his only 2 employees (due to 3 other employees calling off)have to prepare and deal with the unusual and unexpected large crowd.
Oh, my my my...I could write a book on why this movie is pure crap. The entire cast of characters are unrealistic. Everyone...literally everyone, from the main characters to the extras act completely insane, inconsistent, and illogical.
Let me give you a taste...One scene, a random person orders popcorn. The concession worker asks if the customer would like butter on his popcorn, and the customer says "Of course I want butter, what do you think I am, a (insert derogatory word for gay beginning with an F and having two G's in the middle...this site wont even let me repeat it)!?" Not only is that line entirely unnecessary, but it makes no sense in any context. People are called this offensive derogatory word, not even in context and serving no purpose, throughout this film..it appears to be a running theme, and is used and shouted for reasons as: using the quarter machine, not allowing animals into the theater, etc etc...
There are about 12 monologues, mostly by the main character, the manager of the small theater. In the beginning of this film, the owner of the theater, a woman, calls the manager, and literally tells him, for no reason, that she will cut his penis off, kill him, run him over, stab him, etc etc, and also insults him sexually and abuses him verbally.
You literally see several potential lawsuits occur, yet the main character accepts this as normal behavior, and submits, and goes about his day.
Anyways, the main character also has several thoughtful, emotional monologues, in the midst of complete and total madness. Its as if the actor was a pretentious camera hog, and must have had a hand in the production of this film, to greedily give himself so much screen time.
Some black woman, who plays a miserable, scowling employee, goes about the movie calling customers f-ing a-holes, and telling them to go "F" themselves...because no one would ever get fired over that, right? Do you see what kind of nutty world this film takes place in? And yet, it tries to go after your heart when the 3 main characters have self realizations, and emotional monologues, suddenly grounded in some sort of reality...only to immediately jump back into a world where the customers are stomping on the employees and physically assaulting them, as well as stripping naked in a movie theater because it gets to hot after the thermostat goes haywire.
Stripping naked in a movie theater because of how ungodly the heat gets...not getting up and leaving and demanding money back???!!! At another point, they run out of popcorn, and the concession stand employee goes to another theater and steals some. Because thats entirely reasonable and logical behavior, right? Especially when said character is on probation, and knows his probation officer, whose out to get him, was literally just in the theater harassing him.
Oh god, the acting...people literally look directly into the camera in several scenes..they act like sports athletes doing a car commercial, its so bad. The main characters themselves are horrible, untalented actors. The film was also arrogantly long. It desperately needed several minutes cut. I don't know how long exactly this film was, but it felt like 6 hours.
So, combine ZERO talent, with one of the most boring, ridiculous shitty stories/scripts ever, with no consistency or logic in anything, from story to characters, and you get this gem. No, wait...this is a turd, not a gem.
I wish it was so bad it was good, like Troll 2 or something. This is just so bad, it makes you angry. It makes you feel swindled. It makes you feel ashamed to be apart of the same species as the animals involved in producing this absolute garbage.
It makes you question man kinds worth. Seriously. Don't believe me? Then watch it. But then...these shysters get your money. And thats a bad thing. They deserve to starve to death.
Deadheads (2011)
Very Sad and Pathetic
Outside of the fact this film borrows from every unoriginal overused cliché joke and situation, it is almost insulting at how unfunny it is, while it clumsily tries to be funny. You know these people are beginners when its a zombie film. Simon Pegg wring a bell? And thats about all this film has in common with Pegg.
The acting was very mediocre and boring. The sidekick was a typical, cliché, annoying and idiotic side kick, playing off of his "straightman" buddy, who possesses about as much charisma as a pear.
What I actually find most insulting, though, is the pathetic attempts to beef this movie up, by the makers of the movie, who dishonestly compared it to Shaun of the Dead, and wrote fake reviews here on IMDb and on Amazon as well.
For instance..look at the reviews...if it isn't a 1 star review, its a 10 star review. And not just a 10 star review, but titles to those reviews all in capitol letters, accented with several exclamation points.
"GREATEST FILM EVER IN THE UNIVERSE OF TIME AND SPACE CONTINUUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" That is a trick to grab your attention, folks. And there are several of these made up reviews. Ask yourself...how excited could someone possibly get over a B movie no one has heard of? If such a film could generate this kind of hysteria and praise from a random public, we would have heard about it on television or some much larger media.
These 10 star reviews were made by people within the film itself..the actors, to promote their careers, the producers, to promote their product, etc...
This film is nothing like Feeding Frenzy, a phenomenon of itself, and as another reviewer brought up, the very funny and original Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.
This film was yet another boring, unoriginal, tired and cliché movie that just Happens to sort of be about zombies. Sure, they thought making zombies the main characters would be sort of original...but its already been done, actually. And nothing is original about how the two zombies act. You've seen it before in several buddy movies...over...and over...and over...and over again.
Please do not watch this thing. Do not support these actors or film makers. And please ignore the inflated, exaggerated claims and reviews by the film makers and cast themselves...it is just a desperate and pathetic attempt to inflate the last thing they should ever do in film.