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Wag the Dog (1997)
Neither funny nor profound
I was expecting this movie to be a clever satire. However there really was nothing clever about it. It was just one South Park style gag after another. With about as much connection to reality as your average South Park episode. At least South Park manages to be genuinely funny a lot of the time though.
This movie doesn't. It's just stupid and contrived. I did not laugh once or even chuckle watching this. It's just really stupid from start to finish.
What is the big satirical message here? That politicians start wars as distractions? That many people are very gullible when it comes to cheesy patriotism? Unless you are very naive, the fact that these things happen should not come as news to you.
I guess from the high ratings some people saw some really deep subtext in this movie or thought the gags were hilarious or both, but, sorry, I just don't see that.
Capote (2005)
Disappointment....
I guess they thought that making a movie out of the MAKING of an interesting book would be interesting by extension.
In the end though this movie has very little to offer. Anyone who has read "In Cold Blood" knows that Capote got a little close to the killers, especially Smith.. It seems like the central moral dilemma of this movie is that he lied to them a few times and *gasp* he was more interested in turning a profit than being a humanitarian.
Of course, he is dealing with people who killed an entire innocent family and are not really deserving of a lot of sympathy so it's hardly the shocking dilemma that the movie makes it out to be that he ends up having (at best) mixed feelings about them in the end and not being totally up-front with his "friend".
His moral hand wringing just seems like much-ado about nothing. The movie does paint Capote as rather unlikable, but that seems to be its only real accomplishment. There's a bit of interesting background information for people interested in "In Cold Blood" but that's about all.
The Mist (2007)
What made this movie amazing
OK this movie, for the first 3/4 of it, drags along as a pretty standard "The giants bugs are attacking!" Burn them with fire!" story. The only really interesting non-clichéd thing in the 1st 75% is the crazy religious lady and how she manages to convert some of the people in the store into her little death cult.
So why did I give a movie 3/4 of which is average at best 10/10? Yes the ending is just THAT good. The protagonist feels superior to the crazy followers of Mrs. Carmody. He never thinks HE'D do anything insane when faced with a terrifying situation but of course in the end when he faces his moment of truth he does something so insane and monstrous that it is hard to even believe.
The real monsters in this movie are in the human psyche and the "hero" is certainly not immune from them. The ending shows so clearly the futility of believing that we are all purely sane and that we aren't capable we aren't capable of heinous insane actions with the right triggers.
Some viewers might have thought they'd THEY'D never do anything like that (and thus squarely missed the whole point of the film) but for the rest of us this movie present a jarring reminder to never say never...We are all just humans. that is our greatest blessing and our greatest curse.
Duel (1971)
Entertaining but incredibly formulaic with very little plot
I must say I did find this movie entertaining in a visceral sort of way. The movie is about a milquetoast henpecked guy who somehow pisses off a psycho truck driver and the truck driver chases him down the highway trying to kill him. Yep, that's it. the *whole* plot. There's a bit of dime-store psychoanalysis thrown in in the form of the guys thoughts which the audience gets to hear sometimes but there's nothing overly philosophical in these.
I gave this movie a 6 instead of something lower only because despite it's incredible banal simplicity, it *is* riveting. You can't help wondering how the whole thing is going to turn out and feeling a bit of fear when the appropriately loud ugly belching truck makes an appearance but really I can't understand why this is rated so highly on here. I wonder if Joe Smith directed it instead of Spielberg if the rating wouldn't be different? It would have been nice to know why the truck driver suddenly wants to risk his own life just to kill this guy who at most may have cut him off, and in general have some plot and character development but if you're just looking for total brainless escapism that's kind of scary this movie will do the trick but it sure isn't E.T.
Mindhunters (2004)
Derivative and has a few plot holes but exciting enough to make up for it
This was a movie I enjoyed a lot. If you're looking for originality this isn't the movie for you but it takes a tried and true movie formula and pulls it off well.There is a very clever satire of Silence of the Lambs at the beginning which is funny but the main plot is a bunch of would-be profilers go on a field-training exercise on a remote island. Well you know the rest. Suddenly things become very real when they start dying one by one. Since there is no one else on the island which is used for "war games" and FBI training, the killer has to be one of THEM. Can they "profile" the killer and catch him or her before they're all dead? Well of course paranoia sets in and the devilishly clever killer is able to exploit each victim's individual weaknesses.
There are lots of plot twists of course but I found the identity of the killer rather easy to guess if you were paying attention and "profiling" throughout the movie. Certainly you'd think real profilers-in-training would have been able to figure it out. But the plot is still very exciting with all it's twists and turns and LL Cool J does an especially good job playing a cop who is "observing" the exercise and not an FBI agent and thus becomes the natural "outsider" in the group.
In the end, if you just take the movie for what it is, a basic and rather unoriginal thriller, which is never the less exciting and in some ways well-crafted, you won't be disappointed. It delivers all or most of what this type of movie should and is a lot better than many I've seen. 8/10
Nightmare (1981)
Good potential but too many flaws
This film is OK on the whole. It has some great shots and camera work and the gore is really cool to watch rather than just gross [There's a great decapitation scene that has to be one of the best I've ever seen.] Another thing that's kind of cool is that when the movie appears to be gearing up for a scary murder scene, sometimes it's just someone playing a joke, so you never know but this is over-used.
The main problem is the plot. The basis is that a psychotic mental patient is supposedly "cured" and is released after which of course he has horrible nightmares that compel him to kill people. Now, if that had been the extent of the plot it may have not won any points for originality but it may have also been a better movie. To try and make it more original they tack on this whole convoluted plot, which to be honest, I still don't fully understand. It just ruined it for me, rather than being absorbed in the movie I just sat through most of it trying to figure out what was going on.
There are a couple of other annoying things. The soundtrack is just plain awful. Really loud high pitched elavaor music basically. Kids in horror movies can of course be very scary and effective but the main kid in this one is just completely annoying. I was hoping he would get killed just to shut him up.
If you're a fan of good horror special effects and camera work or just really bored I guess this is worth seeing. If they had written a better plot it could have been good but as it is it hardly rises to the level of mediocrity. 4/10
Lo squartatore di New York (1982)
Total Crap - Should have been left on cutting room floor
This may be the worst movie I've ever seen. I can't think of anything to redeem it. There's a serial killer walking around who quacks like a duck. (Is that supposed to be scary?). Characters masturbate themselves and each other a lot in public. That really is the plot...I admit I didn't watch this movie all the way to the end, after an hour or so I just couldn't take anymore. But I can't imagine an ending that would really improve my opinion of this movie much. Not only is there no plot but the acting is terrible and the cinematography certainly isn't anything special. Some bad horror movies can be unintentionally funny and campy but "New York Ripper" doesn't even manage that because it takes itself seriously and just ends up stupid, insipid and boring.1/10 only because there's no 0 on the scale.
Ted Bundy (2002)
Interesting life poorly portrayed
*SOME POSSIBLE SPOILERS*
OK granted, the life and crimes of Ted Bundy are probably impossible for one movie to do justice to but I thought this did a poor job of choosing what elements of his life to focus on. We are told nothing about Stephanie, the dark haired girl who dumped him which was the catalyst for his killing spree. Also absent are the courtroom trials which are fascinating show a great deal of his over exaggerated ego. Instead the movie spends 10 or 15 minutes on the scene leading up to his execution which I think is a waste,given the amount of material this movie has to summarize.
Also it gets many of the details of the case totally wrong. I won't bother listing them all here but I saw at least 15 factual errors in the movie There is no excuse for a director not to do research and get the facts right.
I admit I find Ted Bundy a darkly fascinating and totally unique character. This movie only scratches the surface of his life and doesn't even do a very good job of that. I gave it 5/10 based mainly on the fact that they deserve credit for making a movie about him. It should have been a much better movie though.
Day of the Woman (1978)
Disturbing; Ugly at times but ultimately powerful
I thought this was a really good movie on the whole.I can't understand why anyone who actually saw this would think it glorifies rape. Instead it shows in the starkest detail that rape is about violence and humiliation and not about sex. The rape scenes are harrowing and hard to watch but I've heard cops say that if film and TV showed violence realistically instead of sugarcoating it they would encourage less real violence. Well, no one can accuse this movie of sparing any brutal details but it does feel realistic and not gratuitous; I can imagine a real rape might be something like this. Keaton does a fairly good job of acting here. The male rapists are a bit over the top and stereotyped but that just helps you hate them more. At the end I was cheering the woman on and hoping the male "victims" would die as painfully as possible. That is an interesting switch from normal movie plots.
In summary, this isn't for the squeamish and is a very harrowing movie to watch but it makes a very important and powerful point and is on the whole well done. 9/10
Profondo rosso (1975)
Really bad...A few good death scenes can't save it.
Having seen and loved Tenebre by the same director I was looking forward to seeing this but it was a major disappointment. Argento is really good at a sort of elegant form of violence and using objects, imagery and cinematography to create a powerful effect, in Tenebre he kept the plot simple and concentrated on these areas and that made it a good movie. In this one however he tries to craft an involved and meandering mystery plot and fails miserably. The plot makes very little sense, the characters seem to spend most of their time wandering around gothic mansions and other places finding obscure "clues" which don't seem to relate to the actual murder very much. The acting all around is very wooden and bad and the dialogue is some of the worst and corniest I've ever heard. There are a few good scenes when the killer strikes (and you always know he's coming about 10 minutes before the actual murder takes place). There is some of the same stylish photography that is so prevalent in Tenebre but a lot more pure gore and less "elegance". The big problem though is that the murder scenes are the only thing at all interesting in this movie and they are few and far between. The rest of this achingly long and convoluted 2 hour movie is just a bore.2/10
For Love of the Game (1999)
Stunning!Captures the true beauty of baseball
I think this narrowly edges out Field of Dreams as the best baseball movie I've ever seen (and I've seen quite a few). The concept here is totally brilliant. Costner's character pitcher Billy Chapel is been having a bad day, he finds out that his ex-girlfriend is leaving for England and then finds out that after playing for the Tigers for 20 years the owner is selling the team and he will probably be traded. On top of it all he is playing on a really bad team in the twilight of his career with arm trouble . He has to throw one more game which may be his last ever as he tries to decide whether to retire. The Yankees meanwhile trying to clinch the pennant and the Yankee Stadium crowd is appropriately obnoxious.
And then suddenly he retires the Yankees one after another and is working on a perfect game. This is such a great topic for a movie because a perfect game is so rare that it is one of the most dramatic and exciting things in all of sports but the excitement and tension builds gradually. In the 5th or 6th inning it's no big deal but as you get later in the game the excitement builds and a meaningless game can become more suddenly become more exciting than the 7th game of the world series. I think the star of this movie is really Vin Scully, he has long been my favorite baseball announcer and he really shines here. This is a baseball movie for real baseball fans, you can tell by a lot of little things that they tried to make it as authentic as possible and did a good job. The photography and slow motion are used very effectively and Costner as usual in his baseball movies does a brilliant job of portraying his character. If you like baseball at all see this movie! It will be a classic, 10/10!
Gothika (2003)
Great beginning but gets predictable in the 2nd half
This movie really has 2 parts:
*SPOILERS*
The movie opens in a hospital for the criminally insane. The main Character, Dr. Miranda Grey is driving home in a storm,sees a strange naked girl who bursts into flames in the middle of the road and then the doctor wakes up a few days later as a patient in her own hospital. It becomes clear that she has brutally murdered her husband who she apparently loved and who also happened to be head doctor of this hospital, for absolutely no reason. Dr. Grey gets a taste of life "on the inside" with everyone thinking she is insane and she has to share accommodations with her demented former patient, Chloe, who thinks she is being raped nightly by the Devil. Throw in a few scary hallucinations and this part of the movie is really good. It really creeped me because it seems like the doctor really has gone crazy and no one,least of all her, knows why.
Unfortunately this felt like one of those movies where they can't think of a good ending so they just tack on something very generic. In this case a ghost made her do it. Once you figure out that the ghost is good and not evil, the reason why is pretty obvious and the rest of the plot unfolds in a very predictable way. It's not a terrible ending, just a very unoriginal one and the beginning of the film seemed to promise a lot better. I would still say this movie is worth seeing just not as good as it could have been.
The Hitcher (1986)
Cool premise ruined by too many impossible plot twists
The idea for this movie was a good one and I was expecting it to be a lot better. On the positive side the desert/ghost town atmosphere is very good for a scary movie.The acting is pretty good, Hauer definitely does a good job as the killer. The problem with the movie is one that is just so damn unbelievable. Now I have this problem to a lesser extent with a lot of movies but this one just takes it so far that it totally ruins it for me. The killer manages to be everywhere with little explanation of how he got thee. Not only that, but he seems to be able to move and kill silently without anyone noticing until an opportune moment when he suddenly appears to the protagonist. His seemingly supernatural powers also allow him to take out an entire police station at one point (without waking up the guy sleeping in the jail below it) and those are just a few examples. If this kind of thing doesn't bother you then you may enjoy this movie but it seems to me the movie would've been a lot better if they had made it a bit more realistic.
Visiting Hours (1982)
A good scary movie
This is a well done horror flick.The scene at the end where the killer is chasing his victim through the bowels of a hospital for 15 minutes or so is a real classic. There's some violence in this movie but it works more with the constant threat of violence. Unlike many of the gore-fests from this period this movie does a good job of being suspensful and scary.