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Ice Age: Collision Course (2016)
Yellow Ice...horrible tasting movie
I miss you Manny ,Sid & Diego what happened? It's like you were blown off the face of the Earth...sadly the Three Amigos are now the Three Stooges . The awful trend continues, throwing everything & the kitchen sink into the pixel blender to cover all smirking demographics . There's no art or heart to this generic consumer trash just more "Wow" computer animation by underpaid, moonlighting gamer animators sweating away in another forgotten Shanghai basement . This techno Shrek art is getting old, overused & underdeveloped so one movie blurs into the next. Was I watching Ice Age or the Secret life of Pets? (another dog) They stripped out all heart and soul so now the Elephant ,Tiger & Lovable Loser (Whatever... I know it was the Ice Age but it could've been any soulless animal or human dumpster diving in the Disney Theme Park) So much talk talk talk & sight gags it hits you like a freight train leaving nothing but the wreckage of your favorite characters from 1-3 . They make every character into a human equivalent using the same stale stock characterization & voices like Queen Latifah & Jennifer Lopez ( or maybe they do figuring the American movie audience is dumb as meteor rocks ) about making a cartoon classic , this crap is the Happy Meal for the masses to be watched & quickly forgotten until the next bowel movement....minus $40 for a family of four
The Martian (2015)
Tweeting from Mars
Here's the ingredients
Stock Sigourney Weaver clone- The commander that leaves her mate on Mars after losing communication with Matt during a storm and than tells everyone he is dead(But latter they are told the truth ,but it just flies over everyones head so she isn't judged or court-martial in space )as she puts the peddle to the metal & heads for Earth
Matt Damon-Know-it-all millennial,that just needs Duct Tape,tarp,Potatoes,Laptop & Wifi on Mars to be smug,happy with good bowel movements so he can feed his Potatoes and blogger ego as he tweets Earth about his poopy paints & Potatoes.
Dumb & Dumber -Jeff Daniels playing himself as the clueless older white NASA chief.
Boromir from LOTR looking really uncomfortable in the 21st Century.
Stock Black nerds-huggable & cuddly and not the least bit mouthy.
Stock Hispanic-spewing sarcastic comments that are uncalled for in any given situation.
Smart frumpy Asians
Red Chinese that give away everything to help Matt on Mars (I guess that was thrown in for the Shanghai movie audience )
No Russian Cosmonauts or Rockets ...I wonder why? I guess they are to busy kicking terrorist butt on Earth.
Few faceless Anglos.
Preposterous story with no depth,drama or redeeming qualities. Even the CGI was uninspiring & Battlestar Galactica blowing a hatch with a IED attached to the bulkhead door to give the ship more "Ompf..." was comical
Pan (2015)
CGI hangover
The bizarre weirdly colorful CGI trip reminds me of a trip to the Burning Man festival at Black Rock City in 2009. Where I indulged way too much under the 110 degree dry desert heat and seen many colorful hallucinations dancing across the empty blue sky. Now Pan is very similar to that experience . A story revised for Millennials with Attention Deficit Disorder that just need a quick classic storybook CGI fix. But sadly this story is mush, that acting subpar and downright embarrassing. The screen is vividly Avatar colorful with CGI vistas that seem to pixelate forever in this Neverland that my disbelief & boredom draws me back toward the ground & a jaunt toward the fridge .
This Island in the sky is forgettable, unwatchable incomprehensible that I just want to find a warm cuddly place from my childhood,so far away We'll be young, that's how we'll stay . Every wish is a command when we find ourselves in never Neverland.
Run All Night (2015)
Check your brain at the door
Great actors, great action doesn't save this unbelievable mish mash of a dozen other gangster movie cliché . Ed Harris replays his fine role as the Hell's Kitchen chieftain "Frank" from the 1990 State of Grace, just he's in the wrong movie trilogy.
Then it all just goes south very quickly into fantasy-land. The father son team of Liam Neeson & pouty face Hayden Christensen (I think?) strut around New York taking Planes, Trains & Automobiles after killing gangsters,corrupt cops & drug dealers all the while being shown on the 7 O'Clock News as the killers on the run. Liam's in a dirty army jacket,his face all cut & angry looking and no New Yorker notices his face looks exactly like America's Most Wanted. ,that just ruined it for me.
Now The Ex Hit-man killer Liam Neeson must take at least 5 or 6 taxi rides from Queens to upstate New York without being bothered by those one million citizens of New York that would surely notice this angry army jacket killer with sourly pouty face son in tow .Now remember that Liam is supposed to be flat broke and begging for beer money.I guess if you're a New York Taxi driver its just another day on the job in this fair city & you work for free. Here's another example, the father/son tag team go to a Section 8 ten story building and knock on a hundred doors (they don't know what unit this black teen lives at) to warn this young black kid that a gang of crazed white men are looking for him. Now all the people behind the doors think nothing of opening up and talking to two hyperventilating blabbering white strangers.
Also his whiny son Hayden Christensen checks on his prego wife without the cops staking out the address or even bothering knocking on the door of America's Most Wanted. Now another Hit-man ,Rapper Elam "Common Sense" Ferguson walking off the set of Hell on Wheels also checks out crimes scenes as the Terminator to kill the retired Hit-man after Ed Harris orders his washed-up friend to be killed for killing his junkie son after almost killing whiny Hayden Christensen.
Lots of scenes without anyone rubbing two brain cells together fact checking common script sense. Forgettable gangster movie worth half a watch as your texting why this movie sucks.
Land of Doom (1986)
Gets a 10 because "Land of Doom" comes around every decade
Sure its cheap, harebrained and badly overacted. But its also the Rosetta Stone of Mad Max 1980's movies , Scripted for now long forgotten movie audiences (Turkish, American & Euro). That are now faced with crises upon crises finding little solace in bloated budgeted and just as badly acted films that now get the media corporate stamp of approval of an IMDb 8.5 ,but oddly never a 7 or 7.5
Enjoy the Land of Doom for what it is and what its not. This movie is a rare look into the ancient 1980's . Movies of this type used to stock the particle board shelving of now long dead & paved over Video Rental Stores stocked with thousands of VHS scrolls of now long forgotten gems like Land of Doom.
How many times will this movie be resurrected from the dead , maybe a dozen times a decade on late night antenna T.V?
Its really worth a watch if you are privileged to see it once again. A less than million dollar budget & Puffy-hairdo leather clad Road Warriors of the Anatolia Highlands . The Age of Reagan Innocence will never be forgotten.
Turbo Kid (2015)
Star Wars F.A had a budget two hundred times over & it sucked
This instant classic probably was made for under a mill. I loved the quirky "The Day After" future schlock . None of the moronic Quentin Tarantino peachiness ending in the now generic paint by numbers pretentious gory bloodlust(The gore was good naturally mocked ) or the Jar Jar Abrams Corporative cash grab that gutted & ruined the Star Wars Universe .
This move really is the real deal and the low budget look & feel make a real mockery of the big leaguers that depend so much on CGI filler ...anyway back to Turbo Kid & his robot wannabe girlfriend Apple. The first fifteen minutes had me thinking that this was a lame smug out of gas retread (because I haven't seen many movies ...serious & comedic deviate from that script lately) But the film soon grows on you with the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" absurdity backed by some serious acting that never turned into mugging the camera for a laugh or shock ...the actors played it straight and that makes it that much more watchable. This fun indie film really reminds me of the movie "Hot Rod" another Rotten Tomatoes low scoring film that I've watched numerous times while big budget movie sheeple stinkers are relegated into the trash bin of my film memory or the DVD swap meet cardboard box.
A fine Doomsday movie that ends in an upbeat mood, no sucker punch at the end to ruin it, how refreshing I didn't see that one coming. I loved it!
The Walking Dead (2010)
BORING...just like the dead
Did the Rick Grimes gang escape from a criminal lunatic asylum? They seem to repeating the same dialogue & moments ad nauseam . Now this is supposed to be somewhere in the Deep South where you must have at least a hundred rivers running North South...not once did this group of Human & Zombie hunters ever take a side journey except back to prison or a barricaded prison like commune .
Should be called "Humanity Sucks & Get Used To it Plebs" as this is what's on the plate if the Apple Pie hits the fan. Jeez...I rather be in Mogadishu or Kabul than with these Redneck dolts with guns.
I would put as many mile between me and Grimes as possible because your life expectancy as a Star Trek Red Shirt is less than one season and listening to him and the Sombrero boy's tantrums would drive me nuts. "Feet Don't Fail Me Now" would be my last words to the gang as I run down the hot asphalt toward the Mighty Mississippi. If I was stuck with Grimes I would constantly be looking at the map to find a airport....I would figure out the flying part as I go.
Really ,this Walking Dead is walking on decomposing bones and if you want to learn survival skills go somewhere else
The Last Survivors (2014)
Doomsday classic...almost
For a low budget Mad Max it had so much potential. Now there's many unbelievable or knick pick Post Apocalyptic details missing or just wrong.
But, the movie does have a sense of surreal eerie charm with the vast dried farm fields going off into the distance with this little waif wandering the wasteland so determined to survive. Searching the farm ruins for a missing part for a derelict plane. The evil farmers' co-op warriors of the farmland always just over the horizon or lurking outside broken window panes gives it ghostly feel. Pumping out the last drops of the aquifer as everyone else dries up and dies. The young actress grows into her part and than sadly at the end the movie went full on Hunger Games...how many movies will that B movie ruin? Now I would give the movie a 9 considering the budget until the final ten minutes when it Jumps the Shark & the brake pads get ripped off Quentin "Mongo" Tarantino Kill Bill Gungan Style .
Guess he felt the tug of Quentin pulling the stick. Real shame as it was heading toward greatness.
oh well, it almost flew
The Hateful Eight (2015)
Made for the Raider Nation
Gratuitous pornographic bestial violence, overinflated ego tripping director/owner that's so full of himself he's forgotten his Pulp Fiction roots & is regressing into a purple haze of Michael Moore fart fumes.
A gaggle of former B stars hooked to the wagon of this snuff film cant recreate the former glory days. That would do just about anything for a few minutes of play time & a years rent in Malibu or the Hollywood Hills (I really do mean anything!)
Imbecilic cartoonish historically inaccurate post Civil War (Lincoln the Vampire Slayer would fit right in ) made for anyone who couldn't find Gettysburg or Atlanta on a map if their life depended on it but still had an opinion.
Racist, filled with white self hate degradation & black vengeful delusional history rewrite egged on by this smut huckster masquerading as one of the Greats.
Boring, Bizarre & Repulsive
Hollywood really has degraded themselves once again by clapping & honking in unison like trained Seals at another Quentin Tarantino jump the rails and off the cliff train wreck of a movie followed by his
Millennial Hipster Fanboys or Serial Killers in training .
Waterworld (1995)
True Sci-Fi classic
This can go with the Chronicles' of Riddick, Mad Max, Terminator & Aliens collection. The pinnacle of the 1980's to middle 1990's Golden Age of Sci-Fi
I've watched Waterworld probably a dozen times...too bad it wasn't made into a trilogy. So uniquely different & fresh. Before CGI took over & screwed everything over with waterlogged computer pixels that turned todays Sci-Fi C- movie into a pretentious blow-hard Avatar/Hobbitar Oscar garbage scow.
This movie took skill and daring to make. The Trimaran sailboat was fascinating to watch in action with Costner jumping from the rigging to the deck and forth pulling levers and spinning gears with huge patched sails run up along the mast. He's character showed real love for the ocean & his boat.
The horde of Smokers assaulting the water fortress was epic, a rusting barge with a Oerlikon 20 mm cannon punching holes through the corrugated metal fortress and into flesh and bone was brutal . The desperate fortress citizens fighting back with bows and harpoons.
Dennis Hopper was perfect as the smart-ass Warlord taking out floating Islands like chess pieces one by one with his armada of Jet Skies and suicidal Mad Max type warriors ....really this world had as much eye candy & back story as the Star Wars Universe. A movie before its time...maybe that's good as it would have turned into the sensory overload CGI explosive slop that's such the rave now.
Kevin Costner added the finish touch as a morose loner in a lonely world, an outsider half-man half aquaman . His wannabe girlfriend doable.
Perfect classic to add to anyone's collection.
Sink the Bismarck! (1960)
Doomed
The Bismarck with a jammed rudder circling back towards Valhalla. Classic stiff upper lip Brits versus arrogant soon to be drowned Prussians.
The movie world seemed so much simpler back than...and smarter. Good movie to watch late at night with a few beers reminiscing about how todays rudderless movie world is heading toward its own Dumb & Dumber Valhalla.
This classic movie was made in-between now long forgotten Cowboy movies. This war movie didn't go full cartoonish retard . Sink the Bismarck probably was the most historically correct out of the common WW2 blood feasts that had the evil Nazi Storm Troopers dropping like flies into the late 1970's until Quentin Tarantino resurrected that dumb genre.
You almost feel sorry for the doomed Germans out-numbered, out-gunned and circling aimlessly in the North Atlantic . With no help over the horizon just waiting for the British Battleships to catch them in a circle of 12" shells.
Dumb and Dumber To (2014)
It's reeks and its very creepy... it makes me very very sad.
A comedy classic turned into an outhouse bucket full of meanness. Jim Carey comes across as a has been comedian ....its like watching Jerry Lewis just before his comedy career flamed out. His antics aren't amusing anymore because he desperately tries so hard to ape his Golden Age of comedy, his hearts not into it anymore ...maybe one too many failed dramas that tanked at the box office so its hard to get back into the funny man grove.
Jeff Daniels just looks old & tired with his blonde dyed hair...why couldn't they both have a little Gray & lead interesting moronic lives? They both look so embarrassing out of place, like they want to be anywhere but in this hack job movie. Also they come across as violently crazed & dangerous...not even remotely funny ,like they could go postal at any moment. The other rehashed characters call them worthless losers. Ouch!...that really hurt.
I truly wish they hadn't made this trash,...just try to make a little magic, why was its so hard for the nostalgic fans?....but it seemed like they purposely tried to destroy the memory of the comedy classic.
Sad sad sad
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Mad Max meets the Spice Girls & the NRA
Or Feminazi with a gaggle of America's Next Top Models wander the wasteland for no apparent reason with a neutered Max in tow. Endless ammo, endless juice for the well maintained vehicles but sadly lacking a coherent story.
Visually Fury Road will keep you entertained but caring about the characters or what happens is just so mind numbing indifferent. This Max will not be in anyone's classic collection.
Max is a bland ,dimwitted bore ...grunting a few syllables here & there. The Feminazi is the star of the show. The Vogue Models bizarre eye candy in the wasteland . The Man-boys White Redneck scum babbling about some warrior Republican Valhalla . Now the story is something about this hill top fortress with fat women being milked like cows,top model breeders and a older Lord Humungus in charge of the water spigot.
Now Lord Lord Humungus drops thousand of gallons of water on the heads of ten thousand Section 8 losers daily that do nothing except wait for the water to be dropped into their dirt Rat hole mailbox . No crops, no carbs, no Cheese , no Barter Town, no nothing. Why keep them around? I guess the ego tripping Lord Humuingus has the babes, fuel & food and just enjoys gawking at the radioactive mob down below.
Lots of chasing the fuel tanker and cars flipping...very well done. Endless interesting characters thrown in & run over before you even get to know them.
Just another CGI fast food movie buffet that's looks pretty but has been under the heat lamps of a master CGI wizard a day too long and the storybook of the writers a year too short.
A well deserved Special Effects 10, Idiotic Story -5.... Equals a +5
Yeonpyeong haejeon (2015)
WW2 T-34 tank on the bow of a N.Korean patrol boat
Haven't seen that since the Red Army crossed the Volga . It was fascinating to see how courteous Koreans are even in the heat of battle....always bowing and gesturing with the utmost in respect toward authority figures be it a Lieutenant, friend or a family member . The lone gun duel between the two Korean ships was awesome!( I know that's insensitive and I should take the gravitas into account but the movie wasn't made for the History Channel)
Such a big Ocean & World and it comes down to a rusting North Korean ship with antiquated gun mounts versus a South Korean ship with a few ack ack guns. The T-34 Tank on the bow of a poor North Korean ship bizarrely stuck in the 1950's versus the affluent navy of todays S. Korea was something right out of the Twilight Zone . The South Korean ship was ambushed at point blank range after a game of Cold War Cat & Mouse along the coastal DMZ (So I learned some History Channel trivia)
Now the drama did get a bit hysterical but I've noticed that in many Asian movies. So I just went along with the cultural differences with an open mind . What was different between a Western war movie and an Asian? No drunkenness, no romantic side story, no smart-ass multicultural sailors ...just pure patriotism in a fair knife fight on the open sea. If I was South Korean I would be proud and it would bring a tear to me eye....but as an insensitive lout I thoroughly enjoyed this bloody swashbuckling adventure .
Detectorists (2014)
The last human enclave in a materialist world
They look for treasure but the treasure is all around them.
It's like "Dumb & Dumber" but with more sweetness & higher IQ. Very watchable and refreshing after watching the blood & gore of the Netflix stable of angry, smirking, cynical Americans.
I want to live in this British Village!...Pubs, goofy hobbies, true friends, good friends, green country lanes and they even have a place for average Blue Collar Joes.
You don't have to show your Yuppie or Hipsters I.D card to get in for a laugh . The only fault...I just wanted to know more about the odd secondary characters .
"hurrah hurrah hurrah!"
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
LEGO Narvana....(SPOILER ALERT)
So...the movie is bad but in a good way. It finally destroys the pagan fan-boy cult that was built up with such effort once & for all,no turning back the clock now (SPOILER ALERT) Han Solo murdered by his own son Gas Mask...even Darth Vader & Luke never seriously considered family fratricide, always pulling back into the comfort zone of the 1970's ... Now it's so here & now and its just mirroring the mind numbing cruel banality of today.
So now its spoon fed corporation gruel replacing the graying Comic-Con old guard that never gave up on HOPE & CHANGE (The movie they really wanted to see).The Star Wars Universe hasn't been right in 40+ years, get over it and move on... swallow the red pill offered by Disney,give in to the Magic and believe!
Now the movie (SPOILER ALERT)
The 3rd Death Star is the Necromonger base of this New/Old Underverse , destroying planets and slaughtering billions for ?.... I could never figure that out, now if you destroy whole planets and star systems you destroy converts and loot, even the Necromonger Lord Marshall from the Chronicles of Riddick had a reason for the madness. Not this New Star War Universe. The New Vader is just doing it for the hell of it ...bigger is badder! He's minions are the terrorist of space, mindless clones serving no purpose except for blaster fire. The PC (good girl & token black guy)are the new faces in this rehashed ATM Hollywood Cultural Black Hole .Here's a list of the other Star Wars tie-in console/LEGO characters .
CGI Star Wars Characters,Snoke,Mork & Meh (Playstation, X-Box One & Wii U )GameStop location & hours near you.
Rey (She-Ra) Frodo...more manly than the men.
Finn(Major token black guy)Sam...wannabe Denzel Washington, ain't going to happen with that ugly mug and acting inability .
Kylo Ren (New Vader)Howard Stern playing himself.
Han Solo(Harrison Ford)Nostalgic sacrifice of the Ole white leading man.
Princess Leia (Botox )playing Carrie Fisher.
Luke(Hard life)playing Mark Hamill...The King of Comic-Con
Chewbacca(playing himself)poor mongrel mutt loyal to the end.
Droids(Sheep)playing you & me...you really really want to like this don't you? It's the last chance at space salvage, salvaging your dreamy childhood.
Disney( Necromongers)Corporatization of everything & all.
Media (The Warrior Disney Priests)calling in the faithful
Rotten Tomatoes reviewers (Paid nickel shills )94% convert or your Blog will die. You're either with us or against us.
George Lucas (Pot of Gold)Sold out long ago, joined the Dark Side after taking one too many red pills at the Ewok Rave Party on Endor. The only thing keeping the Universe alive since Endor was a loyal million man Mod fanbase.
You decide....but for me the charade is over, The Empire has no clothes. P.S Cant wait for the new LEGO sets. I always enjoy wasting a few hours building something from a Long long time ago.