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Reviews
Away (2020)
Another stinker attempted space flick
Another stinker with unlikeable characters brought to Netflix. It is a mishmash of a mess trying to be all things to all people. It doesn't work. And the "engineering" of this spacecraft, aka a high school cafeteria with all the bad drama, is ridiculous. REALLY? The water system has 4000 individual parts? Ah, but, the stupidly engineered spacecraft makes up for it by having the solar system's BEST cell phone service. Avoid. Not worth the time even with Hillary Swank in the lead role. When she was in the equally ridiculous 'The Core' is was at least fun and watchable. This is not fun, nor watchable.
Resident Evil (2022)
All around awful.
1 star because that is the lowest we can vote and 1 additional star for casting the always enjoyable and talented Lance Reddick. Did he lose a bet? I barely made it through the first episode and thought, MAYBE the second episode would get better with the actors, writers and plot getting their footing. Nope. It is terrible. All I kept hoping for was the baddies to kill off the lead character (young and old Jade) played by two awful actresses with even worse scripts. Everything about this stinks. Do not waste your time watching this.
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Flash. Pow. Bore. LOOK SQUIRREL.
Take a 15 minute Captain Planet episode and stretch it out to three dreadful hours of CGI fight scenes of people you don't care about. There is nothing to keep someone over the age of 13 interested. The plot is nonsensical. Big flashes, loud noises, and cramming in every Marvel superhero for a 2minute scene just made the movie seem like one endless "star" cameo after another. Avoid
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Why bother???
Why did they think Nightmare needed a reboot? For good or bad Freddy Kruger is the staple of "Teen Scream" genre horror flicks for over 30 years. There is no reason this movie should have ever been made. The original movies were half comedy half horror that drew you in because you liked Freddy and liked the teen victims. We don't care about anyone in this mess. This reboot is a bad attempt at trying to be a psychological thriller and teen scream and fails. Nothing new. Nothing exciting. Nothing scary. Just boring mumbling and dull characters.
I Origins (2014)
Learn something made up every day
All I will say about the movie is....
No problem a middle age white man can pick up a 7 year old girl in the slums of India and bring her back to his hotel room.
Otherwise, I managed to stay away through the movie as I watched it on a trans Atlantic flight.
Battle in Seattle (2007)
Good for the propaganda that it is.
Front and center this movie is progressive propaganda. That being said it was quite enjoyable even though I'm on the opposite side of who our protagonists are. It had some excellent actors and decent rolls. Once you accept that it is dramatic propaganda for the "green agenda" and WTO protesters there are some enjoyable moments. Where it fails is any sense of equity in the portrayal of the antagonists. There were so many great opportunities wasted to make us really care about the characters but the director pushed right past any scene where we could connect with both the antagonists (the cops) and the protaganists (green protesters).
Aquaman (2018)
Soggy Stormtroopers???
What was this mess? Of course Hollywood keeps pumping this garbage out because 'we' still want to see if this comic book movie is better than then last. And not in a good way. So many of the comic book movies are CGI abominations and Aquaman is no exception. I took 4 days to finally finish. It was so uninteresting, boring, and predictable I could stay focused more then 20 minutes at a time. And it's a 2 1/2 hour movie. This movie has convinced me that Willem Defoe is NOT a good actor. I always thought he was a good actor because of very memorable roles. But looking back his good roles are the exception to the rule. Jason Mamoa was given ridiculous lines and action sequences that show he is a bad actor despite his awesome character depiction in "Frontier." Amber Heard??? She's terrible in Aquaman. Even our beloved Dolph Lundgren, who made a career in bad movies, is particularly bad in this flopping fish of a movie. It is a mess from start to finish. The sequences are laborious and dull. The dialogue wouldn't impress 13 year old boys. 1 Star for CGI, zero stars fro everything else.
The plot....
1) Woman beats up soggy storm troopers and we have no idea why.
2) Boy goes on school field trip to Aquarium and that is the extent of the introduction to Aquaman. We have know idea who he is, what shaped his life, his beliefs, how he discovered his powers, etc....
3) Black guys beat up Russians
4) Polynesian guy beats up more soggy storm troopers.
5) Polynesian guy and hot chick end up in the Sahara.
6) Polynesian guy and hot chick magically appear in Sicily and beat up the robot from Rocky 3.
5) FIsh people, beat up crab people, beat up shark people, beat up seahorse people.
6) Polynesian guys beats up more people.
7) The end.
My Soul to Take (2010)
Enjoyable despite some major flaws
The protagonist "Bug" and his side kick were a very enjoyable duo in this film. The plot is played out and tiresome. The interaction and dialogue between those two made it a decent 'sleeper' of a teen scream flick. If Craven had focused on those two young actors and the psychological tension he created which the plot presented it would have been a great movie. But sadly their talents were wasted on an otherwise dull movie with a lame plot.
Stranger Things (2016)
Break the seasons individually
Season one. Very fun 9 out of 10
Season two. Some fun with a bit of silliness 7 out of 10
Season three. "We give up but we got paid so just randomly throw out some stuff with Russians" 5 out of 10
Stranger Things: Chapter Two: The Mall Rats (2019)
Who wrote this?
As with all good series someone has to get their fingers in it and just trash it. Who the heck wrote the part for Erica Sinclair? It came straight out of a Maury Povitch show with her "Mmmm Hmmms," chicken-necking, finger wagging. Every scene with her is unwatchable. What a mess. The season improves somewhat but it's still just a thrown together mess of random to finish off the show. Hopefully they leave it dead. This episode marks the cringe fest that is the rest of this season.
Black Panther (2018)
Failed to deliver anything entertaining
Judging by the hype I knew the movie would be bad. But I didn't expect it to be this bad. I like eye candy brainless popcorn superhero movies as much as the next person. But this was just bad. Again another movie relies on overwhelming CGI (that wasn't even that good) to outshine a dozen excellent actors. No one was allowed to display their talents. None of the characters are interesting or memorable and just when some character building starts another ridiculous fight scene breaks out or the scene is cut for no apparent reason. It is the "Battlefield Earth" of superhero movies. A mediocre plot is destroyed by awful dialogue and delivery. For those who demand a 'black super hero' movie do yourself a favor and watch "Blade" (or my favorite "Undercover Brother") which came out years earlier with none of the hype. Avoid Black Panther.
Fukkatsu no hi (1980)
End of the world. Times two
What a great "end of the world" movie. This movie was just released on Amazon Prime but it is in terrible condition. Bbut WOW. This is the best end of the world film of the 1980s. It has the most iconic actors of the 80s and embraces the tension between the USA and USSR of the 80s. The acting is fantastic, and the plot is perfect for the 80s political climate. This is a very enjoyable apocalypse film. I highly recommend this film.
Prepper (2016)
A Workplace Training Video Production
The beginning started out quite well. The lead actor, Jay Bowdy, managed to present a feeling of impending doom with quite a few good supporting extras supporting his role as a teacher. Then.... They had to introduce his wife and the film fell to pieces. WHY??? Once they introduce her and the various people helping them become "preppers" it turned in to a production the likes of which we have all had to watch in work place training videos. After forgettable and ridiculous encounters there is one redeeming scene at the very end carried by an unknown actor playing a believable thug. I had never heard of him but I thought Jay Bowdy did quite a good job with what he had and the film would have been good if he was allowed to carry it himself. Avoid this movie and don't waste your time.
Orange Is the New Black: Who Knows Better Than I (2018)
Stick a fork in it.
The show is dead. It's over. Past the expiration date. It jumped the shark. It can not recover from this abomination of a season. This season, demonstrates there are no more ideas aside from their clichéd SJW themes which are cringe worthy and as predictable as the sun setting in the west. The guards, the prison, the facility are all completely unrealistic. Each of the characters that were established in the previous seasons are gone. The actresses are there, but the characters are gone. Do not waste your time with this. It is nothing more than the creators stretching it out for as long as possible to cash in on what was a once good idea.
Flight 666 (2018)
A couple good creepy scenes with failed special effects
I enjoyed the movie for what it was. Once you get over the bad CGI and ridiculous airplane set there is some surprisingly good actors and a fairly solid revenge from the grave plot. It is what it is from the Asyulum crew but pretty enjoyable with some well acted and well filmed creep out scenes.
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)
Embrace the stupid.
The villains are stupid. The "heroes" are stupid. Luke Skywalker is stupid. Leia is stupid. The admiral is especially stupid. Snoke is stupid. His guards are stupid. Kylo Ren is stupid. Finn is stupid. Rose is stupid. Poe is stupid. The sassy robot is stupid. The plot is stupid. The pet bird is stupid. Yoda is stupid. The crystal dogs are stupid. The horses are stupid. The slave children are stupid. The battles are stupid. The force is stupid.
One star for not destroying the established characters of Chewbacca, C3PO, and R2D2. Another star for the cinematography.
Bill Nye Saves the World (2017)
Saves the world for what? And from what?
Science and politics don't mix. Bill manages to mix them as bad as congress. The topics just happen to be the ones that are en vogue with the DNC platform and require massive government control and taxation. This is simply a show of political propaganda for Marxist progressive causes wrapped up in a thin veneer of "science." It is vulgar (and I love vulgar humor), unfunny, unscientific, racist, and presumptuous. A few safe scientific theories and facts are thrown in to make it a "science" show (vaccinations) while the very next sketch throws out any and all scientific discussion when a political fad is to be promoted (talking vajayjays). Bill cries out "NOBODY WANTS IT ((nuclear power))!" Really Bill? Have you ever been to France where nearly all of their grid is ran by nuclear??? Old shows of Nye's point out that chromosomes define gender, BUT, now, all of a sudden, political doctrine of the day says you can be whatever you want. Is Bill a "gender denier?" HURRAY. Bill Nye finally brought the children a show that sings about how much fun, and healthy coprophilic sex orgies are. Great job Bill. Netflix should be ashamed for ever bringing this monstrosity of a show but this is their future. With Netflix's new political advisors hired on it's only going to get worse.
Aliens: Zone of Silence (2017)
Tired old found film flick
Would the aliens, witches, and various monsters please abduct the cameras when you torment film students. Please stop with the found film movies. They are boring and mind numbingly boring and predictable. Avoid this movie.
Sideways (2004)
Night Train in a Château Lafite Bottle
This movie is just bad. BUT, it is wrapped up in a good package. People are suppose to think it's good, because all the other cool people say it's good, but it's really crap. So rather than say it's crap, people just say it's fantastic. AND HEY! There's wine!!! You have two un-likable terrible 40 something men on a bromance trip through Santa Barbara wine country. Giamati is a fine actor in my opinion and pulls off an excellent portrayal of a person everyone hates. Church is a terrible actor and pulls off the easy task of being a terrible person acted terribly by a terrible actor. The plot is so silly, the situations are so nonsensical, and the acting is so bad there is nothing to hold this mess together. Church is apparently getting married and decides the best thing he can do is go wine tasting with a horribly depressing friend to find some tail. "Do we go to Vegas to find tail? Do we go to Tijuana to find tail? Do we go to Bangkok to find, whatever? Nope! Let's go up to Santa Barbara wine country." To insult our intelligence the director expects us to pity this cavorting oaf (Church) after he weeps, stupidly, regretting the fact that he just slept with a few women that aren't his fiancé, when the whole point of his trip is to get tail a few days before his marriage.
I understand why this movie is held in such high regard. It is Night Train poured in to an empty Château Lafite wine bottle. It looks like a fine wine. People who pay a lot of money for fine wine tell me it's fine wine. So it must be fine wine. "I hate it, It's crap, it tastes like skunk sprayed ebola infected with syphilis, but it must be good because all the cool people say it's good." But in truth. It's still a $2 bottle of swill.
The difference is, a $2 bottle of swill is infinitely more enjoyable than this awful movie. So do yourself a favor. Pop in a betamax of Ghoulies and pour yourself a glass of Night Train. You'll thank me later.
Bridesmaids (2011)
Diarhea and farts, with girl parts
Fart jokes and toilet humor, while charming and funny for teenage boys. It just doesn't work with a bunch of middle age unattractive loud women. There was not one scene that was funny. I watched with some friends and we all had high hopes for a gross out humor movie like "Bad Santa" or "Bad Teacher" which both featured crude, yet likeable characters. Nothing was funny about this. Nothing at all. No one was laughing. The scenes that were suppose to be funny were so gross and predictable it ranks up with the reprehensible "Freddy Got Fingered." Avoid this movie. It is a 5 minute unfunny SNL skit stretched out to two embarrassing and unbearable hours.
Jerry Maguire (1996)
Don't watch for the plot. Or the characters
I had the unfortunate experience of watching this movie while in a hotel with my girlfriend recently. She LOVES this film for some reason and I gave her the remote and that's what stayed on.
I was appalled. There is not one single likeable character. Yes, the actors were OK which is why I gave it 2 stars. But the plot is ludicrous. An unlikable jerk (Tom Cruise) is fired by unlikable jerks (The Company) in a cut throat industry, and rides the coat tails of another unlikable jerk (Cuba Gooding Jr.). After an annoying and obnoxious couple hours trying to make unlikable jerks likeable it turns out the once powerful sports agent is a chump who magically falls in love with a loser single mom and her child. A single mom who has no problem letting a strange man she just started dating cuddle up with her 5 year old boy. wouldn't anyone find this a little creepy??? By the end I was in diabetic shock from the forced ridiculous plot and romance.
Alien: Covenant (2017)
Trying to make Prometheus Look Good
What is it with these once excellent film makers squatting down and spewing uncontrollable explosive diarrhea on their franchises? Alien, awesome. Aliens, awesome. Alien 3, OK but had great actors to back up the story. Alien 4, OK but again had great actors and was enjoyable. Prometheus was garbage. But not to be out done by the ludicrous plot and story telling of Prometheus Mr. Scott couldn't help digging up the rotting corpse of the franchise and taking a massive dump on the remains. A surprise appearance by Jar Jar Binks carrying a Crystal Skull would have made this movie more enjoyable. It is so nonsensical and not the least bit suspenseful. Avoid.
Kung Fury (2015)
Absolutely Brilliant
This movie short is absolutely fantastic. Everything about it is bazaar, strange, and nonsensical and it all comes together to create one of the funniest 30 minutes in the history of of Betamax. It is all wrapped up in a brilliantly crafteded veneer of 80s pop culture. Our hero is a Kung Fu cop who embodies the performances of Johnny Depp (21 Jump Street), Keanu Reeves (The Matrix), and Charlie Sheen (The Wraith) with 10 times the talent of those three put together. I could try to give spoilers but you would not believe these things were assembled in to 30 minutes of awesome.
See this movie short.
Suicide Squad (2016)
Confusing. Boring. Spoilers, I guess...
Just rename the film "1 hour of Margot Robbie in Booty Shorts," because that was about the only thing keeping some people interested. The action certainly wasn't interesting. It was a mess. I've never read the comic books so I don't know any of the characters other than Batman and The Joker. Batman makes a couple cameos at the request of some psychopathic woman. Was her character suppose to be a good guy? She kills three FBI computer guys for absolutely no reason. The "bad guys" are brutalized by supposed other good guys YET the super villains do nothing menacing to any of the "good guys" even when they have the chance. The Joker? Why was the joker in this movie? He does nothing and contributes nothing and his character is so different from any other Joker portrayal all the way back to Cesar Romero. The only character who gets any decent portrayal and sympathy is the MS13 fire creating gangster and when he starts getting interesting they ruin it with a sudden explosion of action and 10 seconds later the scene is over. The director tries WAY to hard to recreate the Christian Bale dark portrayal of Batman but throws in so many stupid one liner jokes it just doesn't work. Nothing ties the mess together. Each character gets about 2 minutes of buildup. The super-duper Non-Human villains get about a 3 minute buildup. There is no planning of the schemes. They just suddenly create a machine to destroy the world. If you want to see a movie that has all bad terrible people but they are likable and you end up cheering for them go watch "The Wild Bunch." Avoid Suicide Squad. With so much mess crammed in to such little time the best description comes from Rick Flag.
"12 pounds of s__t in a 10 pound bag." -
Sideways (2004)
Night Train in a Château Lafite Bottle
This movie is just bad. BUT, it is wrapped up in a good package. People are suppose to think it's good, because all the other cool people say it's good, but it's really crap. So rather than say it's crap, people just say it's fantastic. AND HEY! There's wine!!! You have two un-likable terrible 40 something men on a bromance trip through Santa Barbara wine country. Giamati is a fine actor in my opinion and pulls off an excellent portrayal of a person everyone hates. Church is a terrible actor and pulls off the easy task of being a terrible person acted terribly by a terrible actor. The plot is so silly, the situations are so nonsensical, and the acting is so bad there is nothing to hold this mess together. Church is apparently getting married and decides the best thing he can do is go wine tasting with a horribly depressing friend to find some tail. "Do we go to Vegas to find tail? Do we go to Tijuana to find tail? Do we go to Bangkok to find, whatever? Nope! Let's go up to Santa Barbara wine country." To insult our intelligence the director expects us to pity this cavorting oaf (Church) after he weeps, stupidly, regretting the fact that he just slept with a few women that aren't his fiancé, when the whole point of his trip is to get tail a few days before his marriage.
I understand why this movie is held in such high regard. It is Night Train poured in to an empty Château Lafite wine bottle. It looks like a fine wine. People who pay a lot of money for fine wine tell me it's fine wine. So it must be fine wine. "I hate it, It's crap, it tastes like skunk sprayed ebola infected with syphilis, but it must be good because all the cool people say it's good." But in truth. It's still a $2 bottle of swill.
The difference is, a $2 bottle of swill is infinitely more enjoyable than this awful movie. So do yourself a favor. Pop in a betamax of Ghoulies and pour yourself a glass of Night Train. You'll thank me later.