Change Your Image
Helmholtz Watson
Reviews
Tribulation (2000)
Jesus loves Cloud 10 Productions
The lord works in mysterious ways. Such cannot be denied when one considers his latest work, "Tribulation".
Why, oh Lord, doest thou have Margot Kidder, she who was found drunk on the side of a Los Angeles highway eating her own hair, preach thy good works? Why, oh lord, hath thou chosen Gary Busey, whose coked-up corpulance once protested motorcycle helmets. Whast Christopher Walken unavailable?
And, why, oh why my Lord, have you charged Howie Mandel with this task? He, who once drove my pure heart to murderous thoughts with his works?
Oh, Lord... thank goodness that you speak so vividly through Cloud 10 Pictures. It would shatter my faith completely if this company was just a bunch of opportunistic hacks who were seeking to profit off of the growing Christian demographic of the midwest.
The Matrix (1999)
Pop Culture Schlock
Hey, remember that movie where all of those people live in an artificial world created by a non-human sentience, created to hold humans in a prison of the mind for their own nefarious ends. Where the scenery is dark and very stylized, and all are enslaved until *One Man* inexplicably develops the ability to alter said world and set humanity free.
Yeah... "Dark City" sure was an interesting movie.
Perhaps what is most disappointing about "The Matrix" is that our pop-culture has reached the point where a movie like this can be seen as "deep". Gone are Huxley, Orwell, and Sartre. Instead, it is a film like this which really "makes you think". Its philosophy, symbolism, and message are all very simplistic.
All of the positive comments regarding this film seem to come in the form of monosyllabic exclamations about the special effects. While they are impressive at times, (and even done without IL&M, no less) they do not make up for two-dimensional characters, weak dialogue, and fuzzy plot mechanics. One of the worst scenes of 1999 was Trinity's sappy explanation of why she would accompany Neo in his rescue of Morpheus.
Agent Smith makes this movie redeemable.
Left Behind (2000)
Pretentious, Hateful, and Terrible
I found this movie poorly-made, badly-acted, and insulting. It does not fulfill its mission statement of "converting" anyone to Christianity, but instead affirms an arrogant sense of superiority for those who already "believe".
Many religiously-inclined types use the subject matter of this film as a defense against the many flaws that it has. That's just nonesense. Film is presumably an art form, and should be held to standards of excellence, whether the subject is a Summer Camp, the Holocaust, or the Rapture.
This film sucks, plain and simple. The dialogue is ridiculous, the acting melodramatic, (With "Baby-Face" Cameron and "Square-Jaw the Pilot" being the standouts of crap), and the special effects laughable.
I read an article in "Variety" that the movie had a budget $510 dollars, and paid its actors their body weight in King James bibles. Such would seem to be the case.
The movie taught me two valuable lessons, though: 1) Children go to Heaven, but teenagers go to Hell. 2) Only through the slavish devotion to an invisible man in the sky, can we be free.