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Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)
A masterpiece retold to a poor tune
When you start with such wonderful source material and a star-studded cast, you'd expect them to be more successful. However, the script leaves a lot to be desired, such as character motivations. They clearly understand the moral of the book, but "tell not show", leaving the audience unsympathetic to the plights of the characters and pandered to. Layered on top of the splintered writing is the god awful score, which prioritizes reminding you that it's a period piece over actually help tie you to the emotions on screen. It's somehow both heavy-handed and cheesy yet also lacking any range (high notes only, no bass which you'd expect from such a somber fable). Normally I don't feel the need to include music in a general movie review, but this one was so bad that it broke through the fourth wall.
The Martian (2015)
Review for those who have read the book
This is strictly a review for those who have already read the book. It won't make any sense to anyone else and it contains spoilers.
"The problem is this book has roughly twelve hours worth of material to cover. But, as a movie, it will be less than three hours long.", Bruce said as he placed Drew Goddard's screenplay in front of Vanket.
"Care to elaborate?", Vanket asked.
"First, we're going to remove all of the science. The general public can't handle learning anything".
"We understood this would happen... This IS Hollywood, you know."
"There are some more obvious loses, such as language. In order to keep it PG-13, Mark Watney won't be able to say his trademark f-bomb sixty-two times."
"So you're turning him into a Disney princess, gotcha. What else?"
"Well, there's your personality. Actually, everyone's personality. We won't have time to develop any characters. They will be pretty flat. I realize everyone was anxious to see how Matt Damon fairs as the Cubs-loving Chicagoan, but he won't even get the opportunity to act because he will only be given about a few lines."
"How will the movie turn out if less than half of it is actually about 'The Martian'?!", exclaimed Vanket.
Bruce shrugged. "I suppose they will fill it with endless tropes."
"That will completely destroy all the influence that Andy Weir had in the production though! This is getting pretty crappy, Bruce!"
Bruce sighed. "I know. There's just no other way. And I'm not even to the nasty stuff yet."
Venkat rubbed his forehead. "By all means, tell me the nasty stuff."
"We're changing the rescue scene. Beck won't have any use, except as a voiceless romantic partner for Johanssen."
"Go on...", Vanket forlornly waited.
"We're renaming your character to Vincent and obscuring his Hindu faith."
"You know that avoiding cultural diversity only reinforces people's distrust in humanity, right?"
"Yes. Which is why you'll hate what I'm about to say...", continued Bruce.
"Good gods, man! What else could you possibly do?!", yelled Vankat.
"We're downplaying China's role in the success of the mission and removing the message to have faith in the hospitality of mankind"
"But that was quoted in the original trailer!"
"So... You want this thing to fly or not?"
"Yeah. Great", Venkat said.
[08:41] MAV: You f&^%ing kidding me?
Encounters at the End of the World (2007)
Disjointed Hodgepodge
This was a terrible documentary about a wonderful thing. The beauty and mystery of everything in the film is worthy of a much better filmmaker. In one sitting, he merges information about volcanos, neutrinos, and penguins. It's very disjointed. He excites us with philosophical questions, then switches the subject entirely. It's like a film school student was trying to make something edgy, but his professor never got to edit it before they published it. I had to mute the Gothic music he decided to play over the clips of diving under the iceberg. I wanted to feel the solemn silence that scientists must feel down there. I wanted to let my mind run where it may, but instead I kept having to think to myself "Why is there a man yodeling?" (his choice of soundtrack anytime anything of interest was on screen). When he was interviewing scientists who were talking about their passion, you could feel their excitement as they spoke. But Werner insisted on constantly panning in on them, taking away any hope of subtlety. He featured pointless interviews with bus drivers that I expected to have lead up to the reason why they had found themselves in Antarctica, but didn't. The whole time I thought it would eventually tie up together at the end, but that never happened and I was extremely disappointed with the entire thing.
How I Met Your Mother: The Slutty Pumpkin Returns (2011)
The 3 Plot Lines
The Slutty Pumpkin: Either Katie Holmes was a terrible casting choice or the writers didn't develop her character at all. I just never felt like she was there, that plot line was very boring. (Not to mention, she wasn't a slutty pumpkin. She was a pumpkin and she was female, but she wasn't slutty. Kind of a huge misnomer too.)
The Pregnant Moron: The pregnant brain idea was unbelievable and took you "out of the show". I thought this subplot had potential up until a minute or so after their parents had left.
Canadians: The back and forth was funny. It was the only thing keeping this episode alive. Barney's entrance was funny. It just didn't feel like Robin and Barney where communicating, so much as talking out loud. If they had played them as being rivals or friendly enemies, it could've gotten better.
Throughout the episode, I was wondering "Why are they all at the party that they hated last year?". This episode was just terrible. The best performance was the costume shop owner. That's bad.