Change Your Image
gilimonster
Reviews
The God Who Wasn't There (2005)
Just Terrible
First let me state that I do not believe in god (if you want to use the word atheist, fine, but I don't like that word since it describes what I'm not, not what I am) but I hated this "documentary." The production values were damn near non existent, the premise extremely shaky and whole thing seemed to be an exercise in Brian Flemming's insecurities.
The production values were terrible and Brian Flemming is clearly an amateurish director at best. The narration sounded like he just narrated over the film all in one shot, and he didn't practice at all. There were way to many umms and pauses when he should have been talking in the movie. animation was also pretty damn bad.
The whole idea that Jesus is a mythical character is not taken seriously by historians and biblical scholars. As I stated before, I do not believe in God, and I don't think that whether or not Jesus was a real man says nothing about the existence of God. My personal view, Jesus probably was a real man but he lived in a time where there were many massiah's (look up apollonius of tiana) and that the stories of his life and preaching were blown out of proportion the farther you got from his death. According to the Wikipedia article on the historicity of Jesus (and there's a good citation for this so it's garbage) "virtually all scholars in the fields of biblical studies and history agree that Jesus was a Jewish teacher from Galilee who was regarded as a healer, was baptized by John the Baptist, was accused of sedition against the Roman Empire, and on the orders of Roman Governor Pontius Pilate was sentenced to death by crucifixion.[1]" I was left wondering at the end of the documentary if this was more about the director's insecurities than anything else. I was left wondering if he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else. The most telling example of this is the final interview he was with the religious school principal. He's not even coy about it. The way he bombards the teacher is unfair and while I agree with the director partially, that teaching kids about hell fire is a bad thing, the way that Flemming confronted the principal was just awkward to watch. Flemming had a chance to perhaps get a good discussion going, if he was more tactile with his interview. Instead he comes off aggressive with "isn't it bad to teach kids this stuff." The guy cuts the interview short and I mean, what did he expect, the principal to say "oh yes, I see it is, I have seen the light, this will now be a secular school?" It seems that Flemming is getting revenge for what he feels was a wrong done to him in childhood. This isn't about the documentary, this is about Flemming's insecurities, and has nothing to do with the supposed topic of the documentary. Flemming shows what he's really doing here, and that is the real downfall of this so-called documentary.
Mutant X (2001)
It could have been so much more...
OK, I never saw this from the beginning of it's run, I just saw the re runs on SPACE. I remember the first season it was gonna be on, I saw the ads. They looked pretty good and I actually wanted to see this. So the first episode comes along, and I was a little disappointed. I mean, it was OK, but nothing special. The problems I had with it mostly revolved around the characters. I thought that the characters were a bit wooden and were a bit stock. But I saw the potential for this thing to become a dark twisted bio punk show and thought that perhaps the characters would evolve as the episodes went on. There was one minor thing that annoyed me. When the electrical one blasted the telekinetic mutant that was chasing him and ema, he was not effective because the telekinetic guy was wearing rubber shoes or something like that. Now that on it's own is plausible, however, the electric jolt actually knocked the telekinetic guy backwards. Now this is obviously contradictory, but I let it slip in hopes that the series would evolve from this point.
Well let's just say, the show got a lot worse after this.
After the first episode, the whole series fell apart. I think the characters actually became more wooden, mutant x becoming like the preppy popular club of the mutant world. Every episode consisted of the same thing. Mason Eckhart had some new mutant brought forth to capture other new mutants (why are they called new mutants?) This new mutant would come up with some plan to capture other new mutants, be thwarted by mutant x, be put into a stasis pod for their failure, and then repeat next episode. This got really redundant really quick. And some of the mutants had the lamest powers. I remember one had super hearing. He wasn't lucky enough to at least get super senses, no, he got super hearing. And the ones with good powers never used them properly. which brings me to my next point.
The mutants powers were not used right. Take for example, Ema. now in the first season she was probably the least powerful of the group besides shalimar. However she was still useful. But when they were in a fight, instead of confusing the people mutant x was fighting, she joined in the hand to hand combat. What the hell, she has a pretty useful power and never uses it? In the second season when all the mutants got their powers upgraded, she was easily the most powerful of the group. The only one that could compete was that dude who could phase in and out of stuff, I forget his name. Even when she got the upgraded powers, SHE ALMOST NEVER USED THEM IN A GOOD SITUATION. she usually joined in the usually lame fighting scenes kicking and punching, yet she can kill people with her mind.
The electrical one, Brennan, is another matter. One thing that annoyed me about him is how water was his weakness. Seriously, he can generate electricity through his body, yet can't get electrocuted by his own electricity? what the hell. And once again he almost never uses his powers when it's a good situation. He goes into the fights kicking an punching instead of electrocuting people. the one that phases in and out is one that should go into the fight kicking and punching because of what his powers are. However, he never phases out to dodge, except in exceptional circumstances, and never increases his mass to hit, except in exceptional circumstances. And then there's shalimar, who had her DNA spliced with a cats or some stupid thing like that. What the hell is her power, kung fu master? I know, i know, she's supposed to be super strong and super agile and stuff like that, but I guess the low budget of the show didn't allow it to be obvious, seeing as her fighting not only looked forced, but didn't even seem to be noticeably better than a normal human.
Anyway, I only saw part of season one, a little of season 2 and none of season three, just because the episodes were so bad I couldn't watch them anymore. The only reason I watched them in the first place was because there was nothing else on I wanted to watch during the time slot and I usually have the TV on in the background when I'm on the computer. Anyway, I was really way to nice to the program in this comment, but I thought I'd write something at least a little constructive. The only reason I didn't give the show a 1 is because the concept was good, the writers just dropped the ball on it.
Saw II (2005)
Interesting, if overblown
Saw 2 is an OK movie thats a little over the top. The opening scene was hard for me to watch as it had do with eye gouging, which is the one type of gore i can't take. Anyway, it involves 8 people trapped in a house, including the son of a detective that has just busted jigsaw. Jigsaw is not only playing a game with the people in the house, but also with the detective. As the story progresses you learn more and more about the people and why their there. It does keep you hooked and i would have rated this movie higher had it not been for the ending. SPOILER AHEAD,
As it turns out, Ammanda is Jigsaw protégé, which sets it up for saw 10000 or however many their gonna make of these, end up ruining the series of course. The ending kinda ruined it for me, had they had a better ending i would have rated it an 8.
Dead Fire (1997)
A little known movie that is a complete waste of time.
What makes a bad movie. Well a bad movie is unoriginal and clichéd, with a cheesy score, bad script, bad acting, garbage special effects and, possibly the worst crime of all, it's boring. Dead Fire is all of those things. This is possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. It's not a movie most people have heard of which is pretty sad seeing as they play it quite a bit on the SPACE channel in Canada, i don't know about the states (well I think this is because in Canada broadcasters are required to have a certain percentage of Canadian content but there is better Canadian stuff than this, so don't watch this and judge Canadian movies). So full of clichés and overacting and very bad action sequences. Whats with all the screaming burring the shooting, don't they not want them to know where they are? And half the time the people look like they have no idea how to handle a gun. I HATE IT WHEN THEY DON'T TRAIN THE ACTORS TO DO WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO. BLARG!!!! Just don't watch this, it is just that bad.
Alien³ (1992)
Normal Movie
The thing about Alien 3 is that it's OK. Is it outstanding? no. Is it bad? Not really. The reason this movie got such bad reviews is that we were expecting more, but we didn't get it. I loved the first two movies. Alien had a great sense of panic and uncertainty built around it. Of course, after you know everything you can't really repeat it, which is why Aliens, probably my favorite of the series, was so great. It took what we already knew from the first movie and expanded on it. It didn't try to create uncertainty around something we already knew about. It took what we knew and built upon it, resulting in a great movie. Alien 3 however just tried to repeat the uncertainty from the first one, which is hard to do when you've already had that aspect played out. We already know all about the alien. It didn't bring anything new resulting in an average movie. It's not as bad as some say, but it's not as good as the other alien movies, although it is far better than alien resurrection.
The Benchwarmers (2006)
If you really want to waste your life, ruin it by seeing this movie.
I must say I was not expecting much when I saw the trailer. My friend still dragged me off to this movie and you know what, i think he owes me 90 minutes of my life back. My god this was bad, The acting was just awful. The jokes, if you can call them jokes, we're NOT FUNNY! And what's with that napoleon dynamite guy, can he play anyone other than that character. He's probably not even acting and is that big a loser in real life. And Rob Shinider is not funny. I don't think i've found anything he's done remotely amusing, and this movie will certainly not end that trend.
DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE, you will regret it for the rest of your life.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Ao Good
I loved this movie so much. It is not the type of thing I would normally watch but I was on a cruise and it was late at night with no activities and this was the only thing on. Needless to say, I was completely blown away. I had never really seen Jim Carey in anything except his movies like dumb and dumber and i thought he surprised me with his performance here. I was expecting just another love movie but trust me, it's much more than that. It's story is complicated and overall good. The ending was a little sad, but i like that it didn't have a cliché Hollywood ending were everyone lives happily ever after, without giving it away the ending is open to interpretation. So in conclusion GO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!