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The Last House on the Left (2009)
Gratuitous Brutality
How do you categorize a film that revolves around beating/torturing/raping/murdering girls? Does it REALLY fit in the "horror" genre? No. Should a new category of "brutalization" be listed? Maybe. I watched the first forty minutes of this picture and turned it off. It is NOT a horror film. What it was was an insult to any true horror fan and, really, any film buff. If you're into gratuitous violence against little girls, then you'll like this. I cannot believe this piece of crap has a rating as high as it does on this site. Is it unfair to be so harsh on a film I didn't see through to the end? Not in this case. I reserve using the word offensive for things that truly are. Well, this "thing" truly is. The acting was passable, with the exception of the actress portraying Sadie. (She needs to go back to waitressing!) Wes Craven created a train wreck with this garbage on several levels, he needs to go back to writing Freddie scripts. Don't waste your hard-earned cash to view this complete rubbish!
It Could Happen Tomorrow (2006)
Weak production values
At first glance, this show is pretty decent. However, it becomes quite apparent that this is just filler time for The Weather Channel to broadcast. The topics are quite worthy and the writing is okay, but the "special effects" (I use the term loosely) are cheesy and much of the content is superficial. Using stock or file footage is commonplace in the industry for this type of show and it is used. But the use of still photos with budget computer-generated animation just cheapen it. If the show were done properly, it would be more in depth and run an hour long. Only problem with that would be that real money would need to be spent to make it a real production. This is a Kmart version of a presentation one would see on Discovery.
The Ruins (2008)
Typical "B" horror flick
The only reason I am giving this stinker a "3" is because I am in a good mood today! I saw the picture last night which was a waste of a Saturday evening.
This is one of those films with a premise that is so dangerous and/or far-fetched, that you actually find yourself rooting for the "monster" to get EVERYONE! To go into specifics wouldn't do you any good. Just DON'T waste the rental money on this bomb, just rent a TRUE horror film like "Silence of the Lambs" or John Carpenter's "The Thing" for the millionth time. It will be much more enjoyable and still way more scary.
My wife is in trouble; this is the THIRD (unintentional) LAME DVD in a row that she has rented, LOL! I'd rather watch mosquito larvae wiggle around in a puddle than view this slop again.
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
No too believable
The acting was great, the direction was okay, but the screenplay was just too unrealistic. The men transporting Wade put themselves at risk so many times, that they DESERVED to die, they were blundering idiots, at best. Would McElroy, who knew what kind of vicious psychopath Wade was, actually been stupid enough to be so close to Wade as to where he could be jumped? If he was, he wouldn't have lived as long as he did.
Ben Wade was a blood-thirsty killer plain and simple. Being exposed to "morality" for a day or two is NOT going to change this type of animal whether it's the Old West or modern day. The last thirty minutes of the picture is ridiculous; Wade actually HELPING Evans take him to the train depot, Evans taking half dozen .45 slugs and NOT being killed outright, Wade turning on his comrades and then turning himself in.
I love westerns, but if you want to view a REAL western that hasn't been watered down by a liberal, feel good Tinseltown, watch "Tombstone", "Unforgiven" or even "Blazing Saddles"!
Astro Boy (1963)
Simply dreadful...
If you can imagine what black and white, jerk action "animation" that lacks any quality or artistic value, both visually and audibly, and would be produced in the USSR during the 1950s would look like, Astroboy is it. This pathetic show is actually out of Japan from the 1960s but is devoid of any imagination whatsoever. I never cared much for Speed Racer or any other Japanimation as a kid in the '60s, but thankfully this turd had completely slipped my mind. Perhaps that was due to no US stations stooping so low as to broadcast such garbage, at least in my market. This show makes any of Hanna-Barbera's worst material from the seventies or eighties look like Disney's masterpiece, Fantasia. I find it rather curious, not so much that Adult Swim has picked it up, but that Astro Boy has such a high rating on this site. Proof that the rating system here is not only subjective, but also seriously flawed. Hopefully Adult Swim will dump this load soon; it's a terrible waste of airtime but I am certain that the price is right!
Transformers (2007)
Action, yes. Plot, no.
As of the time of this review, Transformers has a 7.7 rating on this site. I would give it a definite 8 for the special effects, but it just so happens that I rate pictures for the strength of the storyline as well. For that, I give a 2. This is an excellent film for the prepubescent and adolescent boys; non-stop military and machine action! Did I mention it was non-stop? Any adult with attention deficit disorder should also like it, it may very well be the first film that is a distraction to itself. Mind-boggling computer animation built around a two and a half hour commercial for General Motors products might work better in the typical thirty second format. If Transformers hadn't been based on a toy, I would have guessed by the product placement that GMC had bank-rolled this project. Great film for kids, a total yawner for the adult viewer with discerning taste in cinema.
Saul of the Mole Men (2007)
Simply awful...
I could give you a hundred reasons not to watch this horrible crap but it's not worth the time spent to do it. Yeah, it's that bad. Might be funny for kids who still smoke dope; the mentality and level of humor is that low. The obvious low budget look is meant to add to the funny factor but it fails miserably. It has a 1970s "Sigmund and the Sea Monster" meet "Shazam" type production quality. Unfortunately for this show, writing also plays a big part in comedy which this has none of. It doesn't help much that the main character looks so completely stupid that most people wouldn't give him the time of day if met on the street. Adult Swim struck out with this "gem". This ranks with Assy McGee as far as watch-ability. Twelve minutes of this tripe is fourteen minutes too long! A complete waste of air time!
Crash (2004)
Very dated stereotypes...
This film was horribly heavy-handed with plenty of the typical old-fashioned stereotypes to go around. Many directors believe situations and characters have to be played and portrayed off of the scale to get their agenda across to the audience. This is a perfect example. This film would have been much more realistic and believable had it been set in any time period before the 1970s. Ideally, this would have made a great film to have been set in the 1960s or the '50s. With the talent and performances in this picture, I would have then rated it an easy 8 or maybe a 9. But, because of the director's treatment of racism, it was hard to swallow as legitimate just because it was way over the top. Sure, there are still race and class bigots and issues out there, but they are a little more subdued in this day and age due to a cultural zero tolerance attitude towards racism. This is one of those films where I hear the usual "could have been much better" ringing in my ears. Great acting, good screenplay, mediocre (at best) direction. Too bad. Chalk this up as ANOTHER undeserving Oscar winner, and there have been a few in the last twenty years. Not that an Academy Award means anything anyway!
Loose Change: Second Edition (2005)
Scary...
... to think that some people just cannot accept the facts and feel so self-important that they need to satisfy their egos with asinine conspiracy theories. Screaming from the soapbox to any uneducated idiot who will listen, these morons obviously have no knowledge of the terrorist history against the U.S. during the Clinton days. This train wreck of truth admittedly started out as fiction and ends up being no less factual! One of the "writers" of this amazing and unintentional parody doesn't even believe the Apollo moon landings happened. Guess what, pal? The Holocaust was real too! This "piece" is nothing short of a national disgrace and a spit on the graves of the Americans who lost their lives that September day. If we lived in the kind of country with the government these wackos want, they would be strung up in public for treason. The clowns behind this garbage are no less terrorists than the ones who flew the planes on 9/11.