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Flamboyant_Little_Devil
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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
How NOT to do a superhero movie
Where to even begin... Maybe with Martha...? There is so much wrong with the movie that is hard to say anything good about it.
From poor character development to obnoxious down-in-your-throat "hey, I'm a setup for a Justice League movie to catch up on Marvel.... LOVE ME!!!!!!" via desktop footage (with cute DC superhero logos and all... imagine that)...
Doomsday looks like a cross between a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Marvels' Abomination.
Lex junior is far from being a menacing villain. Annoying, yes. Menacing, no: "tick, tick, tick, tick, tick"
Dreams inside dreams were cool on Inception. Here, they are face-palm material.
You know Superman? That overpowered goofy character we grew loving? Yeah... no. He is all but.
What was that? Superman flies half across the world to save Lois (yet again) from falling but can't hear his own mom being abducted? ... OK...
What? A bomb right next to Superman and he did nothing?... OK...
1% of chance equals certainty? .... OK...
Bats won't kill Supes because both their moms are called Martha? ... OK...
Supes decided to be an idiot towards Bats because... reasons?.... OK...
Bats sends an Email to WonderWoman and then is surprised about her presence?... OK...
Repeat after me: Poor plot and Poor exposition equals BvS.
But the most annoying part is that BvS only delivers the Versus part for 2 minutes. The rest is filler.
The pros: Some good action bits. Some imagery WonderWoman.
The rest is FAIL.
Guess Captain America: Civil War will deliver the goods. At least Marvel knows how to do it.
Hotel (2001)
How can I have my money back?
If there is something I truly despise in any Art form, is when the "artist" feels he has the need to slap your face with his grandiose pseudo-intellectuality while pick-pocketing you in the process.
And what bothers me in second place is when his "product" is presented as something that it really isn't (and couldn't be further from the truth): in this case, presenting a "Film" (it was done with Film indeed, but it's not a Movie) as "the most horrific movie since the Exorcist" as it was announced and advertised.
Not only there is nothing in this "work of Art" that is relevant to the Art form itself (just pseudo-artistic to the Nth degree) it is not even a "horror movie" in the end (and certainly not scary at all, even less to the point of being compared to the Exorcist - which is indeed a master piece of horror in Cinema).
Dull, lifeless, void of any message and/or significance and flat out boring to death.
The real question that still stands is: How can I have my money back?
The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh (2012)
Could have been a very good movie. But it isn't.
There is too much exposition from the narrator to start with. Too much repetition. The idea of a dead person talking to someone is a very good one and could have been treated in a much more subtle manner. No need to say "I was lonely" 500 times. It only takes 1 to understand that she died a lonely person. It takes all the momentum from the ending.
The camera following was quite interesting. Though at sometimes quite amateurish. Also there's a part where the camera is shooting at the closed door for way longer than it should. And that shot goes nowhere. It needed some reasonable resolution.
The whole "ghostly presence" thing only had one good moment: when the little statue appeared behind the man in the basement, but again, no resolution for that shot either (ie, the motif didn't continue).
There's a lot of walking around to reach nowhere.
The "visiting man" had no resolution at all.
As for the "dark creature": If the creature was the embodiment of the woman's loneliness in her later days in life, it makes little sense for the man as a child to be haunted by it. It would have worked quite beautifully if there was a moment in which all the "no resolution" moments came to one brief shot/movement related to the woman, and not to the man. After all, the man is there only to give some weight to the dead woman's narrative.
To sum it up, it lacks many things that would make it a great movie. Desperation, Depression, Oppression. Everything related to loneliness and old-age.
All these things aside, there are some good things about it. The props seemed somewhat overbearing, but I do know some people who's homes are filled with them to the roof. And, to be honest, some of those props were really good and added to the ambiance.
The dark creature is well made (except it's shadow)
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013)
meh?
Can't enjoy it, but I tried.
I was expecting to see something like the Arrow and the Flash series have to offer - the heroes fighting known villains from the comics - but, alas, where are they in this show? It started out good, but soon enough you get to see that is all about that Skye character.
Skye, not only being a bland character, is also not interesting. I don't care who or what she is. I'm not interested in her background at all. I want to see villains and heroes that we are sure will never get a debut on the silver screen.
I want to see the minor heroes and villains. I want to see epic fights, not a personal drama only.
Come on...
The Flash (2014)
So far so good
I'm not a Comics geek. Sure I read some DC, Marvel and whatnot when I was a teen, had my favorite heroes and I remember the Flash TV show of the 90s quite well.
I grew up enjoying the Flash as a comic character and I have to say I am quite pleased with this Show. The 90s one was lacking villains, this one has lots of them and cross references with the Arrow quite well.
The FXs are great 99% of the time, the Crisis plot is there and the characters are quite interesting.
Maybe there will be an introduction to some other DC heroes like Batman and Superman as well. I don't know about you but I have a hunch we will be seeing a Batman TV show soon enough
Let's see where it is heading to.
Prometheus (2012)
It all comes down to a mere 2 minutes.
Many folks have already point out all the annoying tidbits that make this movie a magic Island for the mentally impaired fan-boys of "stoopid", so, allow me to cut down to the chase:
Visually impressive? Yes (except for stop-motion Engineer vs Shaws aborted space squid part). Did Fassbender do a good job? Yes. Are the Engineers a nice add on? Yes. Is it mind bending? No (Unless it takes very little for you to be amazed). Is it full of nonsensical clichés and idiotic behavior? Yes, yes it is.
Prometheus can be summed up in 2 minutes: prosthetic Weyland getting smacked with David's head by Bob - the Engineer.
And that is pretty much it.
Event Horizon (1997)
"Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see"...
... is one of the lines that sticks in your head (specially given the circumstance), and gets to be a sort of summary to this unsettling movie.
Event Horizon is a much welcomed addition to Sci-Fi and Horror fans DVD/Blue-Ray shelves along with Alien/s and The Thing.
It's as dark, twisted, sadistic and demented as it gets. And those things work quite well here.
The only downside to Event Horizon is some outdated special effects, but those that don't look amateurish are very good (and get to be disturbing).
Plot-wise is a straight forward tale of "lost ship and crew in need of rescue".
Acting-wise, nothing bad to point out at all.
The mood is dark and tas it should be for a horror movie of this kind (and creepy as hell).
8 stars out of 10
The Shining (1980)
Deep. Symbolic. A multi-layered Classic.
I'm thankful for the liberties Kubrik took with the adaptation of King's novel. It made it less corny and deeper than the original story. In fact, it stands proudly on its own while it delivers a multi-layered tour de force into America's darker beginnings.
Make no mistake: it IS about the Native Americans' genocide. Kings' story being just one of the layers to this movie.
The whole movie is a maze. From the roads that take the Torrence family (and the viewer) to the "Overlook Hotel", to the Hotel's architecture it self, to the outside maze, to the family's relationship of abuse, to the endless symbolic imagery that populates almost every single frame.
The acting is superb and memorable, the Sound Track's eery and haunting (great use of Bartók, Ligeti and Panderecki) and the overall scenery is mesmerizing, to say the least.
There is a foreboding sense right from the beginning and a sense of "unescapable" fate through out the entire movie.
Indeed, one of the few movies that still resist to the passage of time.
The Fly (1986)
More than just a Horror movie; and better than the original at that
Cronenberg's "The Fly" is one of those (very) few remakes that are better than the original. Nothing against the original in itself - after all it is a timeless classic of the "mad-scientist-experiment-gone-wrong" horror genre. But this one is a pure Cronenbergian take on it's own and probably one of his best movies (if not the best).
What really sets this movie apart - even as a horror movie - is the emotional depth and the dialogues. It is rare to get both meaning and emotion working as perfectly in a horror movie as it works in this Film. The dialogues take a rather pleasant philosophical plunge to what "Flesh", "Destruction" and "Reconstruction" are concerned and a latter "Insect Politics" can move the viewer if he/she envisions him/herself going through what the main character (Seth Brundle) is then experiencing.
It's not a simplistic film. It's not a "shocker" per se, but it indeed gets visually shocking and even disgusting to a certain extent (wich is also one of the reasons it gets to be memorable). But in truth, if there were to be none of the intellectual ventures and the emotion that the characters show towards what is happening (and their own relationship) this wouldn't be a Cronenberg Film, rather just another horror show.
In my very humble opinion, this is one of the best horror movies to this date. Visually arresting, shoking, deep and emotional. Much more than just a "horror movie". And better than the original.
9 stars out of 10
Angel Heart (1987)
9 out of 10 and for good reasons
Angel Heart is all about atmosphere: Dark, suspicious, dangerous and supernatural. Few horror movies get to be this good; and many try to emulate it's mood to no avail.
Angel Heart is considered Alan Parker's Master Piece for a good reason. The acting is quite excellent (except maybe for Eliott Keener, playing as Det. Sterne); Rourke, Bonet and De Niro make a fabulous tríade. The general photography delivers a sense of dark eeriness and estrangement and the Sound Track (mostly Blues) works like "a charm".
As a side note I would also like to mention the actor Pruitt Taylor Vince, who in this film acts as a sidekick for Det. Sterne; but the curious tidbit is that you also get to see him on "Jacob's Ladder" (1990), another Thriller/Noir Master Piece of eeriness (though a very different movie), and as memorable as Angel Heart.
Zardoz (1974)
Let's kill each other Friend. One last trick?
A Floating Head that spews guns and ammo, bored Immortal people, Sean Connery dressed as a bride and Beethoven's 7th... what is there not to love about it?
Zardoz is a Science Fiction psychedelic satire, and should be watched as such. In truth, it's because it doesn't take it self seriously that it works like a charm.
Take it as Kafka's and Samuel Beckett's hybrid mutant child making funny faces in front of a mirror in a far away dystopian future. Theater of the Absurd at it's best.
So what is it all about?
A lot of things. In part it dwells on Imortality and Boredom, the need for Death to give Life any sense and meaning, a social critic on the Flower-Power dying culture and social Lethargy.
Cheesy? Yes. Absurd? Why, yes. Meaningful? Definitely.
And remember: "It was all a Joke".
Dune (1984)
The movie fanboys love to hate - but secretly love.
Ahhh... Dune... Desert Planet... Home of the fantastic hate from the secretly admirers of this (very) underrated work of Art. And let us not fool ourselves; it is a work of Art, whether fanboys of the Books care to admit it or not (they love it, but dare not say it).
All the troubles from the meddling studio and producer aside, this is a Lynch movie. And what would you expect from a Lynch movie? Bizarre and amazing things of course.
It follows the Dune (first) Book quite well. But what is interesting is that it cuts out all unnecessary things that would not do a damn thing to the story itself. Instead, Lynch adds things that don't exist in the original story and they work excellent (the weirding module, Baron's skin disease - typical Lynch moves).
By the way, let the - "it's not exactly like the book, so I hate it, but I love it in secret" - fanboys cry all they want; because even the Books Author (Frank Herbert) loved it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zw10o48NoE
And what is there not to love when you have:
- A superb cast of actors. - A superb Sound Track - A superb visual feast of effects and scenery - A rather interesting choice of wardrobe. - The inclusion of Lynch's own material and cutting of unimportant clutter. - Memorable shots and sequences.
In the end, could it be better? Yes, if some people were not to meddle with the Directors' Cut. But we'd still have all the gorgeous stuff this movie is made of.
Dune... Desert Planet... Jodorowsky's 16 hours version? No thank you.
Jacob's Ladder (1990)
When movies have something to say
When movies have something to say they (can) become great movies. Jacob's Ladder is one such movie.
A Thriller/Film-Noir that sets a standard for the genre, it deals with metaphysical enquiries of the most profound there can be: Life, Death, War, Peace, the World outside and inside one's self, Heaven and Hell, Torment and Redemption.
Above all things, it's a voyage through a man's perspectives upon the Past and his Present, through his life and his personal fears and sorrow.
The acting is superb; the general mood is dark and sad with a lot of eeriness and yet strangely peaceful at times.
The viewer will feel the main character's (Jacob Singer) confusion and sympathise with his personal cause.
The Sound Track is beautiful and fits quite well with the general imagery and feeling throughout.
The dialogues are meaningful (specially between Jacob and Louis, his chiropractor), which (sad to say) has become a rarity in movies nowadays.
Get the movie, get the Extras and enjoy this Gem.
The Mothman Prophecies (2002)
Eeriness at it's best.
There is only one movie I can honestly give a 10 out of 10 for the simple reason there will never be any other movie like it, no matter how they try to; and that movie is 2001 - A Space Odissey.
There are however some well deserved 9's, and "The Mothman Prophecies" is one of them (IMHO).
Here are my reasons for my score:
- The acting is top notch. - The Sound Track is as eerie as the movie it self (Kudos to Tomandandy) - The story {though loosely based on a book covering "real events") is gripping and well developed. - The photography is quite excellent and makes full use of darkness and "half-light". - The dialogs are meaningful and some of them will stick in your head. - Nothing in this movie happens without a reason and everything is interconnected either through the main characters and/or surroundings; which makes the whole movie a tight universe of moving parts. - The actors are perfect for their roles. - It's a rather interesting mix of Film-Noir, Suspense and Thriller (and this is achieved masterfully). But I would not consider it as a horror movie. Not per se at least.
I must have watched this Gem of a movie at least some 20 times. I took quite a joy renting it over and over again in order to revisit it's eeriness and have a go at the Sound Track, until I bought a copy. The only other movie I ever did that with was "Jacob's Ladder", also a Masterpiece. They are two different "beasts", but so worth it.
My most sincere congratulations to all the people involved in the making of this movie.
Lord of Tears (2013)
Sadly, not what you may expect it to be
I'm all about Horror (and I mean Horror, with capital "H"), Thrillers, Film-Noir, Suspense and some (very few) Indie films (or "Artsy") When I took a look at the trailer it seemed to have a healthy mix of those things I always enjoyed watching (as an example, my favorite movies in the above mentioned genres are "The Exorcist" I and III, Jacob's Ladder, Alien and Angel Heart, just to mention a few).
Alas, (almost) none of these elements are to be found in "Lord of Tears", though the effort seems genuine.
What really transpires through out the entire movie is confusion and insecurity; at best. And I assure you, you will feel it as well.
There is a lot of needless repetition in imagery (that - it self - is under-achieved, though one can imagine what the intention was for it), a lot of rushed shots and out of sync/time with the general emotion it was trying to convey (either too soon for said shots or too late... or too much of it, to be honest). I had this constant feeling the director/writer (maybe both) had several ideas and were trying them all out and were unable to choose the most effective ones and ended up using them all. Well, that was not a good idea.
A movie is also about pace/timing. And pace/timing is nowhere to be seen nor felt.
Also, there are ideas there that are used ad nauseam: too many "flash shots", too much of the female character later "pole dancing" (seriously, that particular part of the movie made me facepalm, smirk and yawn all at once). Too much pseudo-romance. Too much of many things I can't tell or I'll end up ruining the perfect opportunity for you to also facepalm, smirk and yawn as I did (if you indeed want to watch this movie).
The intention is good, that is all about the good things I have to say about it, and I honestly wish the best of luck to the people involved in making this movie, and may they take the experience and learn with it.