emdoub Reviews

I am fishead (2011)

An interesting look at society today

[7/10 · 28 November 2013]

I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum here - mostly, it's that there are unexpected twists and changes of direction in this narrative.

A peel-the-layers-back examination of our society, starting with a look at psychopathic behavior from the perspective of a psychiatrist. But it shows that psychopathic behavior isn't as simple a diagnosis as it seems at first - and examines a cause behind that - and behind that, yet another cause. The flick ends with a hopeful suggestion of a cure for the problems.

I don't particularly take all of their conclusions as gospel, or believe that there isn't more to look at and consider here - but they do pretty well for a movie that doesn't quite last 80 minutes. It was certainly worth the time I spent on it, and I expect that I'll be mulling this over for some time to come.

Much Ado About Nothing (I) (2012)

Much Ado about .... not so much.

[6/10 · 23 November 2013]

Okay - I'm a hard-core Firefly fan, quite enthusiastic about Avengers, and was really looking forward to watching a Director I enjoy, with a cast I've come to be quite fond of, take on the Bard - I had high hopes for this.

Black and white cinematography - a bit of a surprise, and while I've seen it used to add impact that mere color cannot add, it wasn't used, really - it came across as self-consciously arty. Bringing the setting time into the present wasn't a problem - Shakespeare time-travels quite nicely, and there was no reason to not try for it here.

One of the great things about Shakespeare is that, properly read, the archaic language and phrasing translate quite well across the years. A Midsummer Night's Dream from 1999, or Hamlet from 1990, are wonderful examples of this - the original lines sing to the audience, as they've always been able to do.

But the words must be read, not recited - and here, we have good acting talent putting almost nothing into their lines - almost as if they're reading a teleprompter, with no understanding of the meaning of what they're saying. This is, ultimately, the job of the director to ensure - and it's the worst Whedon work I've ever seen. The actors, if in a bit less of a hurry to recite the lines before they've been forgotten, had been encouraged to put some feeling in, could have done better - I've seen them do better elsewhere. Joss Whedon can get a very complex performance out of his cast - I've seen him do it elsewhere. I just wish I'd seen them all do the work that I know they're capable of in this flick.

Why They Sank: Titanic (2012)

Interesting speculation

[7/10 · 23 September 2013]

Interesting, well-presented story of what might have actually happened - with the known facts that support this theory. Yes, it would be instructive for the viewer to see the actual documentation instead of admittedly guesswork scenes that reenact private conversations, but not many documentaries present such documents - they'd be pretty dry if they did.

It does tell an engaging story about the odd events leading up to the ill-fated voyage, and present an alternate explanation of the horrible mistakes that history records - if this theory is true, the failure to launch the lifeboats until the last minute makes perfect sense.

For history buffs, it's a good starting point for research. For the mildly curious, it's an entertaining look at what might have been a well-executed cover-up.

Freak Dance (2010)

I don't know where the poor rating comes from

[7/10 · 26 September 2012]

This certainly wasn't Oscar-worthy, but as a spoof of the worst parts of every other dance movie ever, they carried it off pretty well. Some of it fell flat, but other parts were remarkably charming. It's the best spoof musical I've seen yet.

It could have been better, but almost any film could have been. Getting Andrew Lloyd-Weber to write the music, consulting Robin Williams on some of the jokes, getting A-list acting talent - any of these would have improved the movie. They didn't have the budget for any of that, though - and they didn't really need to, either. If you like spoofs, and can sit through a musical (with music far better than Repo had, at least), I think you'll consider it time well-spent.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Redeeming qualities, but disappointing

[6/10 · 25 September 2012]

I'm a Joss Wheedon fan, so I had pretty high expectations for this - and it just didn't live up to them. For a John Carpenter movie, this'd be pretty much middle of the road, and for a Ewe Boll flick, this would be a masterpiece, but it's not really up to Joss's usual standards.

The single most disappointing part of the movie is the editing - much of the action is shown in dimly-lit, flash-cut closeups. The film editors, having seen all of the footage shot, know what's going on; they forget that the audience doesn't, and much of the action leaves the audience wondering what the heck just happened. This trend in cinematography is already longer-lived than it deserved; maybe Hollywood will get over the 'flash cuts cause excitement' nonsense and get back to telling the story, rather than manipulating the audience.

Other than that, there was a new twist on an old genre, some good fun, some mystery to solve, some characters you could care about, and an unusual ending. Worth seeing, but don't expect a masterpiece, and accept that there's action that you won't quite be able to see.

My Sucky Teen Romance (2011)

The budget wasn't the problem, folks.

[3/10 · 22 September 2012]

Yeah - anyone who completes a movie should get credit for it, and for this to be completed by a high school kid is pretty impressive.

This does not make it a good movie.

Other reviewers cite the low budget, but that didn't detract from the movie; in some films, it adds to the charm of indie movies.

The dialog was the worst of it; stilted, awkward lines that nobody who was actually in a high school would believe came from human people. That many of the actors clearly didn't believe their lines didn't help any.

The idea was good; a vampire is running amok at a SF convention, and the only people who know about it are the teens who have to try to stop him. It's formula, but it's really tough to make a horror or teen comedy without it having been done before, and the twist of it being at a SF con, where vampire costumes are everywhere, gave it a chance to be fresh.

It would have helped if the SF Con was at all believable. I expect that the writer/director got some help from people who have actually gone to SF Cons, but didn't believe them; every degrading, negative stereotype was portrayed, few of which I've ever seen at a Con. "Your Tribbles and You"?? I've seen films that make fun of SF Fandom, and do it well; there's things to make fun of, but to do it well, it's important to know what you're making fun of, and Ms. Hagins clearly did not know her subject.

She clearly knows teenagers better; she got two decent characters into the script, and paired them with some passable acting skill. Her other teen characters were, sadly, such cardboard cutouts that the people portraying the characters could not connect with who they were supposed to portray; the audience has no chance of taking them seriously, either.

Pretty good, as a film school project, and the author/director shows some promise. But it's a school project, not something ready to release to the movie-going audience. It may look better as a double feature with something by Ewe Boll, but that still wouldn't make it something to recommend to others.

Waking Life (2001)

Prepare to be brainwashed

[4 October 2011]

If you look at the animation from a psychiatric point of view, it's excellent - a well-understood method of inducing a semi-hypnotic state in the viewers.

If you look at the script, without the mind-numbing visuals, you get a wealth of impressive-seeming sound-bites from freshman philosophy, without any depth whatsoever.

Put them together, and it'll impress the folks who can't see through it.

Not only do I not recommend this film, I encourage people to avoid it. If you're really curious, at least pause the film every few minutes, get up to counter-act the hypnotic effect of the "animation", and think critically about what you've just heard. If it intrigues you, further study in philosophy will likely be entertaining, as well.

Afterschool (2008)

Freshman student film that failed. Miserably.

[2/10 · 25 June 2011]

I don't mean the remarkably inept product of the protagonist, seen in this film, I mean this film.

Truly wretched camera work and editing, a total failure in character development, and a lack of plot that must have been intentional are only the beginning. There was some decent acting (though the special-features interview with the lead actor achieved more audience attachment in 3 minutes than the entire film did), but the direction was amazingly inept. Truly, Ewe Boll films are better.

You'll see totally pointless scenes tossed in at random (some guy throwing a ball against a wall, irrelevant to anything else in the movie, is only one such), a total failure on the part of the school faculty that I thought was intended to parody itself, but was apparently meant to be taken seriously, and total opacity from all of the characters - you see them doing things, but why they're doing them, or why they do anything, remains a mystery. The camera work was obviously intended to show alienation, but all it achieved was to alienate the audience. Much of the action happens just out-of-frame; a kiss happens with nothing but the girl's hair visible, and that's some of the better cinematography.

The director/writer/editor was, apparently, trying to be creatively arty. What he achieved was, sadly, amateurish failure. He was trying to portray teenage angst, but he only made that tedious. He was trying to cause revulsion in his audience at the inhumanity of attending a boarding school; he revolted me with his lack of ability to say anything to an audience.

You've been warned - you won't get those hours back. You won't even be able to trade them in for a blank - you'll carry the horror of this ineptitude with you.

Given a choice between watching this again, watching any 3 Ewe Boll movies, and being shot at sunrise, I'd have to think it over - but I think I'd take Ewe Boll over being shot. Watching this again would take a poor third in that contest.

Spider (2002)

Easily Cronenberg's worst

[4/10 · 17 December 2009]

I'll confess - I couldn't stand watching the second half of the film, so my review is based upon the first 45 minutes.

Spider is a grim, dismal inmate of a grim, dismal halfway house in a grim, dismal London. The cinematography shows this beautifully, the actors step up to the plate and deliver, nicely.

As a long-time fan of Cronenberg's films, I was really looking forward to enjoying this film. I'm fond of think pieces, and certainly don't need an explosion or chase scene every 5 minutes to keep my attention.

In the first 45 minutes, there are three notable events - we see that there's lots of rust in the house's water supply, a cheap doxy in the pub flashes a breast at Spider's younger self, and the young Spider walks in on his mother while she's wearing a slip. The only interesting character is a fellow inmate at the halfway house, who has about 5 lines in the first half of the film.

At that point, I simply was bored - I didn't care about what happened, if anything ever did. The ending may be brilliant, but I couldn't invest any more time in such a dismal film to find out. Pacing has never been an issue in any of Cronenber's other films, many of which border on brilliance - but in this, it's a flaw I found to be fatal.

The Betrayed (2008)

Not a bad little psycho-drama.

[7/10 · 1 December 2009]

Pretty clearly dealing with a low budget, this film manages to spend the money wisely, on script and actors who know how. A woman is abducted with her child, by people who want the money her husband stole from a crime syndicate. She thought he was just a struggling restaurant owner. What can she believe, and who can she trust? Set almost exclusively in the room in which she's detained, this turns into a pretty nifty little drama. There are a few plot holes, but they're minor, and didn't drive me out of the movie. The acting is occasionally stereotypical of a "type", but most of the characters are believable and well-portrayed.

This is considerably better than some big-budget stuff I've seen lately - well worth a few hours of your time.

The Girlfriend Experience (2009)

If you can't have a narrative, at least have a script.

[6/10 · 13 November 2009]

First off, let me say that Sasha Grey did a competent job with her script. That the script relegated her to the role of attractive cypher wasn't her fault.

The "unstuck in time" presentation calls for an audience who is willing to grapple with the out-of-sequence story presentation, and I think that Hollywood underestimates their audience - when it's done well, it works just fine. That wasn't the problem.

The "shot with a hand-held digital camera" thing can work, though it's getting far too popular - it usually detracts from the movie, and it's a problem here. The editing was crisp, so it was less of an issue than I've seen elsewhere, but it just didn't add anything this time.

The serious problem was story. The vignettes tell a tale - a 'slice of life' for a high-end call girl, with a strong minor interest in the economy, which seems to be the primary topic of conversation for the players. The story didn't quite show anyone beneath their surface, which may have been the point (considering the conversation with the journalist), but it's not a point I wanted to spend a couple of hours watching be made. Mostly, as much as I wanted to, I couldn't find any reason to care about any of these characters.

The unrated, alternate version on the DVD is reputed to be an improvement (though it shows no additional nudity), but I ran into this after I'd seen it - and I'm just not that eager to sit through it again.

For a far better look at the everyday life of a prostitute, check out 'Working Girls' at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092238/ - just as non-titillating, but a lot more engaging.

The Substitute (2007)

Ignore the puff piece reviews.

[5/10 · 27 October 2009]

The acting was fair, and the dubbed voices weren't really all that bad. The story wavers between embarrassingly bad ("The ability to love is what makes humans unique in the universe") and cliché - a Bad Guy looking through the toilet stalls, one by one, for the hero trapped in the last stall, the middle-school boy unable to come to grips with the death of his mother (who was remarkably noxious), the parent who starts dating the alien invader... you've seen these scenes too many times already.

Plot absurdities include a scene transition from a bus full of terrified, paralyzed schoolchildren to the nonchalant children being boisterous the next day, and a printout of a photo, taken by cellphone of an alien data-plate. The picture shows a photo of a farm and some students, who have not yet been to the farm - and the number of students shown on the print grows and grows (pictures of alien technology have weird alien powers?).

I've seen far worse, but considering the source, I'd expected far better.

Box of Moonlight (1996)

I'm sorry, folks - this was pathetic.

[4/10 · 25 August 2009]

There were, indeed, some cute moments, and the acting was just fine. The script, however, presented us with people that were simply unbelievable - they just didn't act or react as any actual people would. A touch of the fantastic can be delightful - but the mother who affirms that her kid is studying (to his father) while he plays video games just doesn't exist. The husband/wife relationship was ... vaguely polite. The boss/work crew relationship could only be imagined by someone who has never actually had a job - certainly none that they did well.

One wonders where the writer/director lives - this movie gives the firm impression that they've never actually seen any people who weren't on a television screen.

That's a couple of hours I'll never get back.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Wow - 191 pages of comments and counting.

[4/10 · 18 June 2009]

I'll chime in, mostly to explain to the folks who loved this film, and don't understand the naysayers - in previous Indy films, once you accept the magickal premise of whatever artifact he's hunting this time, everything else makes sense and is possible - in this, the script simply insults the audience's intelligence. The metallic component of gunpowder will float toward a magnet? What metal is in gunpowder? (Anyone who does not know what gunpowder is made of should watch old Star Trek reruns...) (OTOH, ammunition of the era would have used smokeless powder, which is nitrocellulose - but still unaffected by magnetic fields - but that's not reasonably common knowledge.) The lead shot from a shotgun shell will also roll toward the same magnet. You can pour the "metallic" gunpowder from grenades - they apparently use it as an explosive. Russian agents, in 1957, were perfectly willing (and able) to take a US Military base by frontal assault. Once they kill the gate guards, the place is theirs, because the whole place is deserted for weapons testing nearby. A strong magnetic field will swing metal lamps far overhead, but not have any effect on the guns slung on the backs of the guys carrying the magnet. Secret military bases come equipped with rocket sleds (starting in the basement) that lead, for no apparent purpose, to an empty spot out in the desert. All of this is before the nuclear test site town, which is equipped with lead-lined refrigerators, which enable an occupant to be thrown clear of the blast radius without serious injury (though he's making a Geiger counter tick rapidly in a shower scene later, despite the lead lining). After this, events in the movie become less plausible. If you're willing to park your brain outside, you might like this - there's plenty of action and some passable gags. If you like to use your brain, you're likely to be disappointed, if not downright annoyed at the insult to what used to be good movies.

This wasn't really Indiana Jones - this was X-files meets Tarzan meets Abbot and Costello meets Chariots of the Gods, with a bit of 'Secret of Monkey Island' tossed in. I honestly expected the hero to have to do battle with a kitchen sink, too.

The Critic (1994–2001)

It started great, anyway

[7/10 · 23 May 2009]

23 episodes on DVD, plus the webisodes. The first 12 or so episodes are worth the price of admission. All of it is watchable, but the series did indeed start slipping. The remarkable excellence of the first half should not be missed - and you'll want to watch the rest, just because they do show glimmers of the early magic through the rest of it.

It really does help to be a film buff - they do bits from lots of different movies, and part of the fun is spotting the homage (and sniping) at a wide selection of movies. Some of them appear in the opening/closing credits, and change from episode to episode. The 'films' he reviews for his show are, thankfully, collected in the special features on the third DVD, and are well worth watching just by themselves.

Blue Velvet (1986)

What's the hoopla about?

[5/10 · 23 April 2009]

Yes, the director got some fine work out of the actors, and the cinematography is quite good. Some of the misdirection was done well, also.

I'm giving it a 5 because of the story. Far too many questions are raised than are answered. I'm okay with small things being left to the viewer's imagination - like how Frank is connected to the crooked cop, or just what Frank's motivation could possibly be - I can take such questions unanswered. But some of the main plot points revolve around mysteries that are never explained, or even hinted at.

*** Spoilers below *** Major points left unaddressed in this film include: Why was Frank willing to kidnap Dorothy's husband and child just to have rough sex with her? Why in the world would she allow a situation like that to continue without calling the cops? Especially after Frank starts mutilating her husband? She can't think it's going to end well without help.

How did Dorothy's husband's ear end up in the field? I can't imagine Dorothy simply throwing it away like that.

I know several sexual submissives and masochists. None of them would have behaved as Dorothy did.

Why did Dorothy show up at Jeffrey's house au natural? I'm not gonna ask how she knew where it was, or how she got across town in the buff without being noticed - but some explanation of why she'd do such a thing is almost essential.

Why does Frank decide to kill everyone at the end? His partner the bad cop, Dorothy's husband - what made him decide to go down and take as many as he could with him just then? Interesting story, told interestingly - but the motives for so many important events in the tale remain mysteries, making it really difficult to claim I enjoyed it.

Frankly, when the end credits rolled, I felt cheated.

Owning Mahowny (2003)

Might be based upon a good book....

[4/10 · 25 March 2009]

This has an interesting-enough story, some remarkable performances, and decent production values, yet still fails, for several reasons.

First - Minnie Driver should never wear another blond wig. It wasn't a bad wig, mind you - but she looked so wrong as a blond that it marred every scene she was in.

Second - have someone who hasn't read the book read the script. So much of what was going on was unexplained that it was difficult to follow the action.

For example, at one point, Mahowny is gambling in a casino, dealing from the shoe. The game could be blackjack, but it's not clear enough to be certain, you never see the other player(s?) at the table, so it's unclear whether it's a casino employee or another patron. The only casino game in which patrons deal that I know of is baccarat - and I don't believe that that is played in U.S. casinos.

At another point, Mahowny is driving along in his old car, and the scene cuts to his car being stopped in the middle of the street, with him trying to restart it. Did he run out of gas? Did the engine just quit, inexplicably? The action at the bank is told in much the same way - there are little snippets, but the viewer never gets enough information to have a clear idea of how our protagonist is doing what he's doing.

It probably makes a much better story if you already know the story - but there's so much missing from the actual action, and from the characters, that it's remarkably difficult to become engaged with either the events or the characters.

I'm giving it 4/10, but only that high because the performances were as good as they were. The script gets 1/10 - I must admit, I've seen worse.

An American Carol (2008)

It's entertainment, folks - not documentary.

[6/10 · 16 March 2009]

Unfortunately, Zucker made the same mistake a few times - he forgot it was comedy, and tried far too hard to make his points. The anti-Moore jokes were a tad too mean-spirited to be funny, and some of the running gags were worth running from.

On the other hand, Zucker does write a few dozen jokes into every half hour of script - if this joke falls flat, stick around, there'll be another to look at pretty quickly, and some of 'em will work quite nicely. If you liked Airplane, Naked Gun, The Onion Movie, or Superhero Movie - you'll find some to enjoy here, too. He's funnier when he's not trying so hard to make a point, but when compared with many of the comedies available today, he's just plain funnier.

The Proposition (2005)

Disappointing, but not without redeeming qualities.

[5/10 · 8 February 2009]

Beautiful cinematography, glorious landscape, remarkable set design and dressing, and acting that ranges from competent to outstanding should rate better than 5 stars.

Character development is weak, where it happens at all. The story is presented piecemeal, with several pieces left out of the mix entirely (i.e., why did the butcher and his wife suddenly despise the Captains wife?). By the time the unusual ending has come through, the soundtrack (blessedly brief discordant passages interspersed with plodding, pointless folk ballad (Why, asked the sky, where, asked the wind, who, asked the rain, when will it end, asked the listener) has annoyed the viewer enough that the lack of motivation for any character turns into simple relief that it's finally over, and you can quit wondering why anyone is acting the way they have been - you can just leave it behind.

Extra bonus points if you can find any character in the movie you'd want to spend 20 minutes with. You've just spent 104 minutes with them all, and you'll not get recompense.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

What was a temple is now an amusement park....

[5/10 · 22 January 2009]

Del Toro does a fine job of creating creepy monsters from which the world needs saving, but here, he takes a strong step back from the fun of the first movie. Primarily, the storyline is a parody of itself, with many parts of the plot so absurd as to make it difficult to lose oneself in this movie.

There are, as other reviewers have noted, lots of bits of homage to other movies in the genre (if not outright theft from them) - enough to make spotting them a game, distracting from the movie itself. The characters aren't given nearly as much development as they had in the first movie - in fact, they become parodies of themselves. For example, the Hellboy who had promised to be unobtrusive, is giving interviews to a television news crew 5 minutes later.

But story is where this really falls flat. Serious spoilers follow.

Okay - the Elvish prince, to save their world from an excess of shopping centers, kills his beloved father, the king - just as if nobody else in the kingdom would care. Liz, whose powers are the only effective counter to the (delightfully creepy) tooth faeries, declines to unleash said powers until everyone else in the building has been slaughtered, other than central characters - and then causes an explosion strong enough to toss Hellboy through the wall. Everyone else, of course, survives the blast with no problems. Abe Sapien needs the gill suit, but only outside of the BPRD headquarters - inside, he wanders around without it, without trouble. Abe and Hellboy, drinking to console themselves over the inscrutability of women and love, devolve into singing along with one of Barry Manilow's sappiest songs. The Elvish princess, after quietly watching her brother take undisputed control of the Golden Army, and suffer defeat at Hellboy's hands, suicides to prevent him from attacking Hellboy again. Krauss, who apparently is ectoplasm in a very Del Toro-esquire robot, can use that ectoplasm to swing a locker door hard enough to emboss Hellboy's face in it, but cannot use it to pull a spear point out.

Parody can be fun, but bringing Hellboy II to such levels of parody is an insult to the franchise, and the audience that loved the first installment. If you don't have a story worth telling, don't make the movie.

Revolver (2005)

Beautiful, pretentious drivel

[3/10 · 9 October 2008]

First, the good. Beautiful sets, and some good cinematography between the annoying jump shots. Some good, solid acting (assuming that the director insisted on Ray Liotta overplaying his role). Visually, the movie works.

Unfortunately, that's all it has going for it. For those who claim that this is a masterpiece that you have to "get" - I got it. If you use a senseless plot with remarkably huge holes (Someone with a rare disease and only 3 days to live will give everything he owns, plus his unquestioning obedience, in exchange for protection from a hit, because the protection is provided by apparently omnipotent, omniscient loan sharks, for starters), Taoist-sounding aphorisms that are supposedly the key to the perfect con (or chess game), no matter how inane and wrong they actually are, a non-linear time line connecting unexplained events, and end with blurbs of remarkably inept psychobabble from apparent degree holders, some of the audience will think they've seen something deep and profound. I get that. I just didn't much enjoy the process of acquiring it.

Pretty, if you're in the mood to turn your brain off and enjoy the moment. Annoying, if you like the picture to appear after you've connected the dots. I recommend that you watch the trailer, instead - most of the pretty visuals show up there, and the plot hinted at is far more entertaining than the plot revealed.

Young Aphrodites (1963)

I guess I'm the only nay-sayer here

[4/10 · 31 August 2008]

Okay - I'm a USAian, and not particularly ashamed of it. I like my movies with characters I can care about, a story that interests me, filmed in a visually pleasing fashion.

The B&W photography was okay - some good scenery, some solid storytelling, but several shots either poorly framed, or in such close-up that it was hard to tell what was being shown - or why.

The characters were, I'm afraid, little more than cardboard cutouts - the young girl who showed much skin, even more indecision about the boy who she fascinated, and a remarkable lack of background or depth. The love/lust-crazed adult shepherd and his paramour, the wife of an absent fisherman - the story they told can be seen in almost any cheap neighborhood bar almost every week - and seeing the couple in the bar will give you more insight into why they're doing this dance than this movie will.

The older, bullying boy remained a cipher. The crutch-using leader, the other shepherds, the rest of the fisher-folk village - either didn't get enough screen time to fill out their characters, or too much screen time for the set-dressing they were. The primitive instruments and folk dances were interesting, but took away from the story rather than adding to it - the right television commercials would have fit in better with the story.

A side note to European filmmakers - symbology is representative. Symbols can be a marvelous way to enhance storytelling, but they are never, in themselves, the story.

I'll give it a 4 for visual interest and the bit of dramatic tension that was achieved, and remain mystified as to why anyone would consider this masterful film-making. I guess I'm just a Philistine.

The Boys & Girls Guide to Getting Down (2006)

Ignore the naysayers -

[7/10 · 12 August 2008]

Remarkably entertaining and refreshing little comedy here. The cast of unknowns do a spot-on job of portraying their roles, the writer and director had something ... well, not new, but not overdone, and interesting to say, and, as other reviewers have said - this is true. I have known these people, and even been a few of them. There were very few laugh-out-loud moments - but there were an awful lot of delighted grin times here.

Your experience may be very much a matter of taste - I also thought _Romance and Cigarettes_ and _Go!_ were fun, couldn't make it through more than 30 minutes of _Click_, and have no interest in trying _Dumb and Dumber_, _Jackass_, or _Napoleon Dynamite_. If you need overblown to enjoy comedy, skip this one. If subtle, wry wit works for you - enjoy it.

Sex and Death 101 (2007)

Not marvelous, but not so bad

[6/10 · 12 August 2008]

A simple, light comedy that takes a skewed view of the war between the sexes - probably more topical in the 1970s than today.

There are some absurd plot holes - the "Machine" that sends prophetic emails, the three characters who work for the machine (Alpha, Beta, and Fred), who take months to track down a serial killer - yeah, plot holes in the SF/mystical end of things - but that wasn't really the movie's focus. Mayhaps the writer/director would have done better to have Whoopie Goldberg reprise her role as Guinan, and left the source of the email as a mystery that we're just not going to look too closely at.

The anti-male bias in the examination of the war between the sexes gets a tad old - we've all seen enough of the "rutting males are jerks, women are the blameless victims" routine.

There are some bits that just aren't funny - pretty much anything said by the aforementioned Fred, for example, and the lecture they get from the stripper's bodyguard at the bachelor party.

There are some good bits, though - and some cogent (if one-sided) looks at the differences between male and female mating expectations. There is a fair bit of gratuitous nudity - but I don't see that as a downside, and it does fit in with the theme of the movie.

Not, by any means, a great movie - but I disagree with the reviewers who claim that this was miscast, or that the acting failed. Not a keeper, but there are far worse comedies for you to take home from the rental shop.

On the Doll (2007)

Plot from a fever dream

[2/10 · 1 August 2008]

Good acting, considering the remarkably puerile script they had to work with. The characters were almost totally unbelievable, the only motivation any of them had to work with was "bizarrely deviant" or "abused as a child", and the sketchy history that brings the characters to the period of the movie is told in such a drawn-out, patchy fashion that it simply becomes annoying, rather than dramatic, as the author seems to have intended.

The "unrated" label is a draw for people wanting to see something explicit - but only the language and sexual situations would prevent this from a PG rating.

*** Spoilers follow *** The teacher who obviously masturbates watching his students, the students who obviously encourage this by giving him up-skirt shots, then go with him to enlist in producing internet porn, the escort who storms out of a "date" within 90 seconds because the client wants to touch her, the over-the-top fetishes shown all prevent the viewer from being able to suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy any part of this movie. As another reviewer pointed out, the acting is pretty good - but that's all there is to see here.