liriodendron Reviews

Rachel Getting Married (2008)

ALERT Hand-held Camera ALERT

[1/10 · 6 February 2009]

The shaky, hand-held, up-the-actors' noses camera, shifting mercilessly from face to face while some moron plays a screechy violin in the background detracts from what otherwise would have been a worthless movie.

Remember when friends used to make you watch their home videos. This is much, much worse -- a home video made by a twelve-year-old about a family consisting of the last people you would ever want to know. This is a film made by those who think that "art" means primitive, unedited, no background breath unmiked, no nauseating angle unfilmed.

Go find the most annoying family you ever met and ask them to show you their home movies. At least you won't have to pay.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

What was that insufferable buzzing in my ears?

[1/10 · 26 March 2008]

This movie had the most annoying score of any I have ever seen. I thought at first that there was something wrong with the sound system in the theater I was in. There is a constant buzzing throughout the movie — it sounded like a field of locusts. I had to leave after an hour and twenty minutes because I just couldn't stand it anymore. If the movie were otherwise compelling, I might have suffered through the headache-inducing noise, but the scenes were so slow and long, for no ostensible purpose. If each scene had been cut by one-third to one-half, there would have been no loss of content or dramatic narrative and the movie might have been improved considerably. But it still would have been a movie focused on two foul, shallow, uninteresting people.

Someone to Love (1987)

astonishingly bad

[1/10 · 14 April 2002]

Henry Jaglom has all of the annoying characteristics of Woody Allen, without his sense of humor. Pathetic, self-important, neurotic, psychologically abusive. Pornography without sex. This is acting and movie-making at its all-time worst.