scottmar Reviews

Wild Seven (2006)

Like a mid 90s Tarantino knock off

[1/10 · 3 July 2006]

I caught this at the LA Filmfest, and was very disappointed. The movie I thought I was going to get would have had the whole movie focusing on the veteran actors plotting some intricate heist.

Instead they're only a small part of the movie. It's mostly about 20 somethings that spout off pretty pathetic excuses for "hip" Tarantino like dialogue.

There's virtually no story, and the end is pretty non existent.

I see in the IMDb info that the director is only 25. That would explain why this movie is so bad. He must have rented a bunch of Tarantino movies one weekend, and then written the script, all in that same weekend.

The Final Cut (2004)

Wouldn't it be easier to use home movie footage?

[4/10 · 5 June 2005]

If you just want to have a video to show at a visitation, wouldn't it just be easier to cut together some home movie footage than have an implant put in someone's head that records their whole life from their point of view? It would make more sense if these implants were put in by the government as a big brother kind of thing. In this context, doesn't make much sense.

Also, this is supposed to be set in the future, but yet Robin's flashbacks from his childhood are from the 1960s. So we're supposed to believe he had an implant put it in the 1950s?

Finally, why would Miro be with a guy like Robin unless he was rich?

Hostage (2005)

A thriller that almost worked

[7/10 · 21 March 2005]

The movie starts out in a way that's starting to become cliché. Just like in Narc and the Assault on Precinct 13 remake, you have an operation that goes terribly wrong, with our hero falling from grace.

Once we're into the small town Willis ends up in, we get the makings of a really good thriller. It's going along pretty good, but then loses it when the mob pulls up pretending to be the FBI. So all you have to do is pull up in a van with FBI spray painted on it, and you can take over the whole operation? And if they were planning on showing up and bum rushing the house, why involve Willis in it? Because Willis was supposed to buy them time? What about the time wasted in kidnapping his family and all that.

And then to have it end with Willis storming in to save the kids, and then the shootout in that old bar. It's like they felt they had to make Willis be more Die Hard.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

Acting needed special effects

[4/10 · 13 March 2005]

The concept of this movie is good. And the special effects and look of the movie is very impressive. But the acting was really bad! This was by far Gwenth's worst performance. Her performance was so lifeless. She seemed totally bored having to work on green screen sets I guess. For that character you needed someone like Cate Blanchett doing her Kathernine Hepburn impression. That character needed a spitfire sass that was really lacking with Gwenth. Jude Law was alright, but this definitely was one of his weakest performances. And the dialogue going on and on about Dex was really grating. I guess he was the Jimmy Olson of this flick.

Why is Jude Law in every movie I've seen for the past 4 years? :)

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

It could have been a contender

[23 January 2005]

This movie was pretty good, but it has a big flaw in it. I haven't watched that much boxing, but I'm pretty sure the rules are different than pro wrestling. You can't sucker punch your opponent after the bell with their backs turn and not face a DQ or suspension. If they really wanted to paralysis Swank's character, why not just make it that she was pushing her self to get through the match. She was sticking in there when anyone else would have given up. After a late round, she walks to her corner, gets dizzy, and then falls on the chair. I wondered how this movie was going to end. Like Rocky 1 or Rocky 2? Instead it ended up with a Christoper Reeves type accident that I didn't see coming.

Garden State (2004)

Pretty lame movie

[22 January 2005]

I'm not sure why everyone is hyping this movie such as they are. It's funny, one of the reviews said it defined the generation of people in their teens and early 20s. Wasn't XXX supposed to do that? Actually if this movie applied to any age group, it would be late 20s, maybe early 30s.

The dialogue was terrible. Like fingernails against the chalkboard bad. Plus there wasn't much of a storyline.

It's funny, if an unknown writer tried to pitch this script, the reaction would be "Who cares. Why would anyone want to watch some slice of life movie about your home town?"

But because this guy is on some TV show, and conned Portman and Holm into doing this, we have Garden State.

The only good thing about this is that you get to watch that little hottie Natalie Portman. But your time would be better spent watching "Closer", where you get to see more of Portman (and I'm talking' skin here), you get better dialogue, and a movie that is a Mike Nichols film, not one that wants to be.

Fahrenhype 9/11 (2004 Video)

Republican dirty tricksters

[1 January 2005]

It's funny that this documentary attacks Moore for using one sided propaganda, when this film does the exact same thing!

Basically this movie just attacks bits and pieces of Fahrenheight in a pretty weak way.

The brilliant Ann Coulter says of Bush staying in the classroom after hearing about 9/11 "What's he supposed to do, rip off his shirt like Superman and take the bullets". I guess it's stupid to think a Commander In Chief should act immediately to stop the attacks. What could Bush have done? Well, maybe order the planes to be shot down before flying into buildings?

The documentary would like to portray the 2000 election as a clear cut win for Bush, not mentioning any of the controversy, or discussing electoral votes vs. popular votes.

And then somehow they've come up with the conclusion that Moore thinks 9-11 is no big deal, with no evidence to support it.

They say Bush was only responsible for 8 months of 9-11, Clinton 8 years. No one is denying that the reason these terrorists hate us has to do with bad foreign policy from long before George W took office. But they fail to mention that Bush had the intelligence that the attacks were going to take place, and did nothing.

They try to link Iraq with the war on terror, which you can't do. In Moore's film he was wrong in trying to make Iraq seem like a harmless country that never had any kind of conflict with the US, and in this film they make Sadam to be more of a threat than he was. If the war in Iraq is all about liberating people from an evil dictator, why all the lies about weapons of mass destruction, and connections to Bin Laden that don't exist. If we're going to get rid of mad dictators, why stop at Iraq?

This film also wants us to believe that every soldier believes we should be over here. And that no civilians were accidentally killed. etc. etc. The truth obviously lies in the middle. There's soldiers who think we belong in Iraq, others who don't. There's good soldiers, and bad soldiers. The troops are doing a lot to help the civilians, and at times collateral damage happens and innocent civilians are accidentally killed.

They say that military recruiters are never like used car salesman going after people like portrayed in Fahrenheight. All I know is from personal experience when I was in high school I had recruiters calling me up at home to give me a hard sell.

Hopefully a non partisan documentary will come out going through both documentaries and show what is truth and what isn't using hard facts.

Blade: Trinity (2004)

Kevin Smith's Blade

[8 December 2004]

This movie felt like it was done by Kevin Smith. The attempts at comedy, and there was a lot of it, seemed to be a rip off of Kevin Smith comedies. You even had Ryan Reynolds (who was cloned in a lab from Jason Lee's DNA), spouting off Chasing Amy type dialogue.

And what's up the whole IPOD thing? Preparing for battle. Gun. Check. Sword. Check. New MP3s loaded into IPOD. Check. I'm not even joking. They loaded up an IPOD in preparing for battle!! That has got to be the cheasiest product placements ever!

The writing was pretty weak. The acting wasn't better.

Basically it's just Parker Posey, HHH, and a Dracula who just got done shopping at Hot Topic vs. Blade, and some rejects from John Carpenter's Vampires.

Jessica Biel looks good in a belly shirt. That's one good thing about the movie.

Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004)

Fair and balanced

[6 September 2004]

I thought this was an interesting documentary. It sheds light on Fox News Republican leanings, which I didn't know about because I don't watch Fox News.

I never watched the Bill O'Reiley show, and after the clips they showed I wouldn't want to. He makes the late Morton Downey Jr. look like a calm, rationale, polite debater. The truest sign of what O'Reiley is all about is in the interview with the guy who lost his dad in 9/11. The guy is making an intelligent, rationale point about how bad U.S. foreign policy literally created the monster that is Osama Bin Laden, and that we're just going to go over there and kill innocent civilians. Instead of calmly debating him by using intelligent counterpoints, O'Reilley throws a tantrum like a little kid, treats the guy very rudely, and abruptly ends the interview so that security can haul the guy out. Obviously O'Reiley doesn't have the intelligence to debate people.

The irony of this documentary is that they're coming down on Fox for saying that they are fair and balanced, when no one that currently works at Fox News was interviewed to tell their side of the story.

Open Water (2003)

Gerry in the ocean

[21 August 2004]

This movie reminded me of Gerry, the movie from 2003 starring

Matt Damon and Casey Affleck where two guys get lost out in the

desert. Both movies you feel like you're there, and it's a slow build

up of dread that these characters might not make out alive.

For a motion picture like this they should have used better video

cameras. Collateral looks like film. The picture quality of this looks

terrible.

The lightning scene was the best scene of the movie.

Spoiler:

The end was pretty anitclimatic. The guy is face down, and it's not

clear what did him in (shock, loss of bloood?). The girl just gives

up and shoots down out of camera range.

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Whoever goes to see this, they lose

[21 August 2004]

The idea of two sci fi icons doing battle seems to be a sure thing,

but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

First of course is that it's not done in a dark, realistic style like the

original Alien and Predator.

Then there's the fact that the movie makes up it's own rules as to

how the aliens and predators operate. (Instant birth from the face

huggers).

Instead of setting the movie in the future, it's set this October,

which would be the future if we were living in the 80s.

The acting wasn't great. The lead actress is far from being Ripley.

The idea that a Predator would team up with a human is pretty

silly. Instead of giving her props, wouldn't the Predator kill her

since she's a formidable adversary?

The movie is quick, and sets up for a sequel (in a cheesy manner

likely thought up by a lame brain Fox exec).

The Village (2004)

Scooby Doo Meets Twillight Zone

[13 August 2004]

This movie is a lot like Identity in that you go in thinking you're getting a straight up horror movie, and instead it turns out it's not real.

I think it's silly these reviews that say how predictable it is. Romantic comedies are predictable. This isn't predictable. I knew there was some kind of twist to the movie, but I didn't sit there brainstorming through it trying to figure it out. I just watched and let the story go where it did.

I guess if someone told me the first twist is a Scooby Doo twist, and the 2nd twist is a Twillight Zone/Identity type twist, then I'd probably have caught on.

There's some moments of creepiness in this, but for the most part it isn't nearly scary enough.

Sigourney Weaver and Brendan Gleeson are wasted in this.

William Hurt has a good part.

The Villiage is a rental. Or just watch that Twillight Zone where the guy thinks he's on Mars but really is in the desert.

I, Robot (2004)

Should have been more like Minority Report

[2 August 2004]

This movie would have been a lot better if it had the look and feel of Minority Report, and had Tom Cruise rather than Wil Smith. Or anybody other than Wil Smith. Smith is fine when he's playing it straight, but then there's a lot of scenes where he must have gotten confused and thought he was on the set of a Bad Boys movie, so he's throwing out a lot of "witty" one liners and acting all Fresh Prince.

The female lead reminds me of Sandra Bullock in Demolition Man.

Holes boy was barely in it. If you blink you'll miss him.

To the people who think that this is a prequel to Matrix (beleive me they're out there): It's a Fox movie, not Warner Bros. It's Issac Asminov source material, not Warsowski Brothers.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

If Ed Wood made an 80s slasher horror..

[10 July 2004]

it would be pretty close to this. Very very low budget. A lot of wide shots and one takers. A whole lot of bad acting.

The kill scenes aren't too graphic, but that's only because they couldn't afford Tom Savini.

Very slow moving. I could barely get through it, and it was only 85 minutes!

A lot of homosexual stuff in it, from muscle guys in short shorts and belly shirts to a weird sequence with two guys in bed. Not to mention the Crying Game ending.

Also there's a lot of pedophilia references. You have this whacked pedophile cook drooling over the fresh meat running into the camp, and the rest of the staff are just yucking it up over this freak's comments.

Fans of 80s horror would do best to avoid this and just go watch Friday the 13th for the 100th time.

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Better than the first, but still not as good as it could be

[6 July 2004]

Spidey 2 is similiar to Superman 2 in that the first movie dealt with the origin story that most people already know, where as the second one is all action. Introducing a new villian, while using the original villian as a subplot.

You could put together the first two of Superman and have a cohesive four hour movie. Ditto with Spidey.

It's good that they tried to make Parker's and MJ's relationship as complicated as they could, but it was pretty silly to have the movie end with a Graduate style exit from the alter.

This movie, along with the first, should have taken a darker and more serious approach to Spiderman. More like XMen and Daredevil. The movie is too geez whiz and corny a lot of times. They should have set the movie in the 50s or something, because their New York has no resemblance to modern day NYC.

The corniest moment of the first movie is when those New Yackers were up on the bridge throwing stuff at Goblin. For this movie, you have Spiderman (minus his mask) crowd surfing in a train car. A ton of witnesses see his real identity, and promise not to tell anyone. Yeah right! And then the "Hey Doc Oc, this is post 9/11 New York. You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us" type attitude was just plain silly.

There's way too many scenes of Spiderman without his mask. I guess they're trying to get their money's worth with what they payed Tobey.

Doc Oc is a better villian than Goblin due to the fact that he actually resembles the comic book Doc Oc. They didn't just throw him in a discount Halloween costume like with Goblin.

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

The Truth is out there

[28 June 2004]

This documentary will spark two polar opposite kind of reviews. Republicans who dismiss it as all lies and propaganda (whether they've seen the movie or not), and Democrats who will say everything in it is fact and it exposes Bush for what he is (whether they've seen it or not).

The biggest criticism is that Michael Moore has an agenda. Yeah he does, but that doesn't mean he's lying. An extreme example would be if someone made a documentary about Hitler that was very anti-Hitler. That doesn't mean the documentary filmmaker lied about the concentration camps.

No matter what, one good thing that will come out of this movie is that it will open up debate, and people will hopefully open up their eyes and see the truth that is out there, not just what is told to them. I've always been like that, and I can't understand why everybody else isn't the same way. When Clinton said he didn't have sex with Lowinski, I was interview by CNN as a man on the street interview, and I said Clinton lied, and that there would be an impeachment hearing. Everyone thought I was crazy, and that's exactly what happened. Bush gives this really weak excuse as to why we're going to war with Iraq, weapons of mass destruction. Give me a break! I didn't believe it for a second! To anyone who did, I have a deed to the Brooklyn Bridge I'd like to sell to you.

Oh yeah, and another criticism of Moore is that he's exploiting 9/11 to make money. What documentary or news show doesn't try to make money?

One thing I think this documentary lacked was giving the reasons why these foreign countries hate us. You kind of got a feel for that when they show Iraqi people crying and yelling that their uncle's house just got blown up or the girl next door just got shot or whatever. The movie should have focused on the incompetent US foreign policy that led up to 9/11, and less time devoted to making Bush look like a clown (which apparently isn't difficult).

No matter how this film is viewed, it is a landmark documentary. What other documentary is number one at the box office during the summer. Blair Witch doesn't count! :)

Also, Moore could become a back to back winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary.

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Independence Day without the aliens

[21 June 2004]

This disater flick is very comparable to Roland's 1996 blockbuster Independence Day. Corny. Unrealistic feel.

You have a guy who figures out what no one on the planet can (Goldbloom in ID, Quaid here). Those in power don't listen until it's too late.

In the President role they should have had Bill Pullman reprise his ID role.

In the midst of this disaster you have a teen romance between Bubble Boy and the cute girl from Mystic River.

The effects are really good in places. Really fakey in others. Especially those stupid wolves, who I'm sure were suggested by some idiot executive to give the characters more peril than just the weather.

Van Helsing (2004)

This is no Raiders of the Lost Ark

[10 May 2004]

Why does Stephen Sommers horror movies keep getting compared to Raiders of the Lost Ark in promos? They did it for The Mummy (1999), and they're doing it with Van Helsing. Raiders of the Lost Ark was a lot more realistic, better scripted, and better acted than this.

If you want campy performances, a whole lot of CG (some good and some fakey) and a horror movie that isn't scary, this is for you.

This movie has more in common with League of Extraordinary Gentleman. Or Wild Wild West.

The Monster Rallies of the mid 1940s were better done than this.

The one good thing about this movie is that it made Universal rerelease the classic monster movies.

The Punisher (2004)

Makes Dolph Lungren's version look like Citizen Kane

[19 April 2004]

How can you take a great comic book character like the Punisher and make such bad movies out of it?

I thought Dolph's version was bad, but this one was worse! It seemed to have promise. Executing Frank Castle's family, and I mean every family member, made it seem like it would be a lot harder edged than it turned out to be.

Dolph's Punisher was a lot closer to the comics. This Punisher was way too wimpy, and just barely survived any fight he was in. Whether it be against the Desperado reject, Big Lazy Kevin Nash, or anybody else.

The Punisher is supposed to be a character who is in hiding. An abandoned warehouse in the comics, the sewer in Dolph's version. Here he's in a boarding house with a hot chick and two losers who are supposed to be comic relief. It's very easy for the bad guys to track Castle down.

There's a lot of unintentional silliness. Whether it be the bad dialogue, bad acting, or the Punisher striking his heroic pose.

The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

Painfully slow paced zombie movie

[6 April 2004]

I bought the double feature DVD "Mummy's Shroud/Plague of the Zombies" for Mummy's Shroud. I had never heard of Plaque, but hey, I get to see it for free.

I wasn't expecting the zombies to eat people or anything, that wouldn't come to Night of the Living Dead, but I expected the zombies to do a lot more than they did.

In a way it's a lot like "White Zombie" the early 30s Bela Lugosi movie. Where the zombies are simply free labor for the man who controls them. But this movie, like some other Hammer Horror movies, is painfully slow, and isn't until towards the end that things really start moving.

The one good thing I will say about the movie is the zombie make up is really cool looking.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Original vs. Remake

[28 March 2004]

I think the remake improved on some things, but fell short in others.

In the remake they had no where else to go but the mall. As opposed to the original where they stay there even though they have a fully functional helicopter. There were a lot of times they should have just hopped in the copter and got out of there.

A lot of purists like the sluggish, mentally retarded zombies over the high speed zombies of the remake. But I thought the newer zombies were a lot scarier. You can't just run by them and give them a good right cross to the jaw. Or throw a pie in their face!

The original was better in character development, and really driving home the isolation of this new world.

And of course in the original they showed the horror of being eaten alive.

The biggest advantage the original has over the remake is the creatures were real zombies. The real undead. Enough of this stupid virus stuff!

Comic Book: The Movie (2004 Video)

Waiting For Luke Skywalker

[21 February 2004]

This mockumentary had potential, but ends up being mostly unwatchable. The first strike against it was being shot using normal mini-DV. You think they'd at least try to do some kind of film look to make it look more professional.

The acting was way over the top. There's more beleivable performances in porno movies.

The Comic Con footage really made this look cheap. You kept thinking "O.K., here's Mark Hamill running around the Comic Con screwing around trying to get whatever footage he can".

The only good things in the movie was the mock history of the Courage superhero, and Kevin Smith's cameo. It's funny that Smith was making fun of his experience writing a draft of Superman. "They wanted him to fight a giant spider in the 3rd act. Because I lived in Jersey at the time, I didn't get it. Now that I live in L.A., I get it now".

What I kept thinking throughout watching this was "That was Luke Skywalker. He was in the biggest trilogy of all time. Harrison Ford is getting 20 million a movie, and he's screwing around with a video camera at a comic convention."

I predict in 20 years we'll have a video game mockumentary directed by Elijah Wood.

Road House (1989)

6 Degrees of John Carpenter

[7 February 2004]

There's two people connected with John Carpenter that are involved in this movie. Director of Photography Dean Cundey, who worked on Carpenter's early movies, and Keith David, who was in a couple of Carpenter's movies.

Keith unfortunately is barely in the movie. Basically a glorified extra part.

Now, on with my review:

This is a fun yet ridiculous flick. Why the townsfolk didn't rise up earlier and kill the bad guy years ago is beyond me.

And like mentioned in a previous review, yeah, for a redneck bar there were a ton of beautiful women.

And for wrestling fans it's good to see wrestling legend Terry Funk in a movie.

The Simple Life (2003–2007)

Obnoxious snobs get a "reality" show

[28 January 2004]

With a show like this it's hard to tell how much is actual reality and how much are scripted scenerios.

Either way Paris and Nicole come off pretty bad. They're totally rude and condesending to the towns people. They get to run around like retards with no consequences.

These two idiots obviously aren't the representative of what everybody is like in L.A. There's a wide variety of areas and people in Southern California.

Nicole says she's never seen anything like the farm area she was on. I guess she's never traveled up the 5 north. Or been to the Equestrian area in Burbank, just a mile down the road from NBC studios.

Paris surely can't be so dense as to never have heard of Wal-Mart. Granted there's more K-Marts than Wal-Marts in Southern California, but still you think she would have at least heard of the company.

All the Real Girls (2003)

Pretty bad indie flick

[26 January 2004]

Independent films can either be brilliant pieces of work that far outshine studio films, or they can be pretty terrible. Why Ebert and Roeper gave such praise to this film is beyond me.

Why this movie would be a stand out amongst the thousands of other slice of life in a small town movies looking for distribution is beyond me.