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Reviews
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)
It's a Massacre, All Right
I cannot think of a single reason anyone should watch this movie.
This isn't one of those movies so bad it's good. This is one of those movies that's so bad it's too bad.
Encanto (2021)
Disney's Finest
This could be the best animated movie to ever come out of Disney.
It is tapping into the ascendancy of Hispanic culture in America. The message is perfect for a nation ravaged by man-made disasters. How much more gorgeous could the colors be? The music?
Through the heavy-handed use of trope and archetype, a somewhat complex message is hammered home deeply and solidly.
Time will tell, but I believe Encanto is already a classic.
Dexter: New Blood (2021)
Clever Idea
By taking the abysmal series end of Dexter and maintaining the low standards 'New Blood' is a perfect fit: bad writing, wooden acting, lousy production values, cardboard characters, ridiculous plot(?)lines, etc.
If the goal was to take an outstanding television series and make sure that the stink of the series finale endures forever, ten stars!
Dexter: Remember the Monsters? (2013)
What Is Wrong With Hollywood?
Dexter was a good show. I think the first five seasons were outstanding. Maybe the first seven seasons.
But, like LOST, Game of Thrones, and so many other shows, Dexter lost its way, and the last season - particularly the last episode - sucked.
No Time to Die (2021)
There's ample time to die, but it just won't.
This is the 'Dogs Playing Poker' of Bond films. There may be plenty to look at but there is nothing to see.
Long ago it seemed obvious that casting James Bond as a Slavic metrosexual was ironical. The assumption I made then was that the Craig/Bond films were going to be spoofs, and I guess they unintentionally are. But portraying James as a weepy, sensuous ladyboy is silly.
The story I grew up with was that James Bond was based on Ian Fleming's career as a Certified British Badass. They just had to tone it down a bit to make it believable.
Bond was a womanizing assassin, a man of large appetites and a short attention span. Mawkishly dapper, minimally erudite, moderately witty, only a hairsbreadth away from smarmy. A troglodyte in a tux, if you will. But he was a very lucky fellow, good at bloodshed, Baccarat and bedding women.
Knowing that he had suffered greatly helped us understand and accept his death wish. Discerning his lack of interest in life helped us suspend disbelief at his rapid assimilation of data and skills. But it's all gone sour and moldy and rotten. The tables have turned.
Now Bond makes us suffer greatly, inspires in us a death wish, and causes us to suspend our belief that our time and money have been well spent.
At this point I would rather never see another Bond film than see another Bond film like this one.
Mind OS (2009)
The 'Me Show' starring Me talking about Myself
A poorly done series of talks by an arrogant psychologist. Using incomprehensible diagrams makes it difficult to find the good information buried in here. Every bit as obtuse and condescending as the 'book' but even less entertaining. To be fair, neither are even slightly entertaining.
Two stars because there is some useful information.
Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
A Bittersweet Tragedy
Hereditary straightforward tale with a simple plot and few characters. The kids are adorable, the teacher is a sweetheart, and the parents love their children and are there for them when the chips are down.
A struggling family of seven - four girls and one boy smack in the middle - has their lives brightened and lightened when a family of three moves in next door with a daughter who is in the same class as the boy next door.
Their friendship evolves into a burgeoning preadolescent romance between two bright, artistic kids. When the hammer falls, it is unexpected, swift, and brutal. And that is where I would have left the story to remind the audience that life, as Woody Allen said, is divided between the horrible and the miserable.
But the story continues and everything is resolved swiftly, neatly, and unrealistically. A movie that could have been as bleak and haunting as life itself instead becomes pleasant and joyful again.
But still, the pain never leaves. Not me, anyway.
Abducted in Plain Sight (2017)
A Fascinating Scenario
These people are so stupid and worthless that they made a documentary about how stupid and worthless they are!
You have to see it to believe it, and you'll talk about this movie more than any other film you've seen in a long time. Watch it with friends, and you'll have the most intense conversations and discover more about each other than you can imagine.
NOTE: My little sister and I were teens in the seventies, our parents were both degreed professionals, and both were every bit as stupid, gullible, and naive as these folks. Examples?
My 13-year-old sister dated a 23-year-old divorced guy with two kids and a red Corvette. He was banging that door 24/7. Why didn't I turn him/them in? It's like with the Epstein girls - if you voluntarily go back again and again for the money and the shopping, you are not being abused, you're a whore.
I was a naughty boy and took full advantage of the situation.
They would let me disappear for days at a time with loaded weapons and no stated plan or destination.
There was an abandoned house in the woods that I fixed up and used as a 'recreation center.'
I had a blanket and two throw pillows in the backseat of my (awesome) car.
We were spoiled, and well cared for, and trusted explicitly. My sister, I can understand. Me? What the hell were they thinking?
P.S. By age 13, all three of my daughters knew how to kill a man with their bare hands in under 10 seconds. My firstborn son and I drilled them nearly every day with ambushes and surprise attacks.
Now, when I visit, their daughters attack me.
Repulsion (1965)
The Emperor Has No Clothes
Once again, Roman Polanski gets hailed as a genius for making the most excellent movie ever, etc.
Polanski takes a heady concoction of Catherine Deneuve, sex, murder, and madness and creates a slow-moving picture about a dim-witted woman that turns into a medium paced flick about a woman going crazy. It's a race to the end to see who goes crazy the fastest - the viewer or the woman.
I love old movies, beautiful women, and psychological thrillers. That's why I managed to stay awake through this. Barely.
Kiss the Girls (1997)
It Seemed Like the Thing to do At the Time
Interesting Story + Talented Cast = Meh
The book was good, not great. The adaptation was good, not great. The acting was good, not great. The direction, production, editing, scoring, yadda yadda yadda.
The sum was less than the equal of the parts. It happens.
The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (2020)
Bury Christmas!
Kurt Russell was the best Santa ever in the first movie - so let's ditch that. The siblings were a good team, realistic and loveable - so let's replace the brother with a Herkel. The plot was fast-moving and brought the trio into contact with
Iots of funny but believable characters and situations - we need to avoid that at all costs. The first movie was about the magic of Christmas and the joy of believing - we need more of a History Channel / NPR vibe this time. And a plot worked well last time - so let's wing it without any writers this time.
Mission accomplished! A scary, dull, anxiety-ridden, incomprehensible Christmas tale for the children who survived 2020. In a horrible, miserable, awful way this is just the movie for this year.
Hannie Caulder (1971)
A Bizarre Western Mosaic
This movie is like one of those mosaics made of beach glass and other odds and ends. None of the pieces are interesting, believable, realistic, engaging, or moving, but put together all these scraps make a pretty picture.
If ever there was a funny rape-revenge movie, this is the one.
Us (2019)
Us and Them
I'm going to side with the critics on this one. It's a pretty good movie. The problem is America's fascination with The Zombie Apocalypse. And cloning.
See, the concept of Doppelgängers has been around for as far back as Ancient Egypt, The Trojan War, Norse Mythology, everywhere, really. They're ominous, fascinating, mysterious - and what a smart idea to place them in a horror story set in modern-day America! (that was sarcasm)
Okay, the whole Doppelgänger thing hasn't actually been done to death. (Ha! See what I did there?) But putting them in prison jumpsuits was a weird idea. Having them speak while inhaling was odd. Then, there was the meeting where somebody said, "Hey! Let's make them zombies! Zombies created by cloning!" and nobody was brave enough to say, "WTF?"
So here we are in Los Angeles being overrun by cloned zombie doppelgängers. Scary? Yeah, sort of. Especially if we gave a damn about any of the protagonists, but there's not much time for character development when you are shoehorning every conceivable horror movie trope into the film.
Any metaphysical resonance or existential angst generated? Nope. But if you have a twisted sense of hi!or there's enough schadenfreude for everybody.
The Andromeda Strain (2008)
Dumb!
This is a dumb show full of dumb characters who do dumb things for dumb reasons.
I assume these are the same folks who made 'Congo.'
Hannibal (2013)
Too Many Cooks (Ha! See what I did there?)
If you're a fan of the books or the movies, don't worry. This series has nothing to do with them. You won't ever find yourself complaining that this isn't like the books (or the movies) because this 39 episode series had 12 directors and 21 writers, and none of them read any of the books. But they sure liked to do 'shrooms!
Like 'Lost' and 'Game of Thrones,' there was a lot to work with. Great story, great cast, cameras that did whatever they were told to do, and the ability to have a musical score if they had wanted one.
Everything starts encouragingly. The dialogue, the acting, the filming, and editing were all crisp and clean. But you know how it is when you have the budget and material and cast to hit it out of the park. You start thinking, "Hey, is that a squirrel over there?" and you wander off and never come back.
That creates a perfect opportunity for anybody who has ever wanted to write a screenplay, and everybody who has ever wanted to direct, to try it out! You don't even have to know the storyline or anything! Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can, as Arthur Ashe said.
That goes for pot, mushrooms, microdot, whatever you're into or have wanted to try. The folks working on the first season were pretty set on making an excellent series, and they did, except for whoever wrote the background score-more about that in a minute.
By season two, they had lost most of the squares and were starting to have some fun. Sure, it's kind of hard to follow, and Gillian Anderson began to use the tone and cadence of a lady at the library reading to the kids that came on the short bus. But if you payed attention and didn't think too hard, it was still a pretty good series.
And then season three rolled in like a barrel of drunken monkeys. Some directors wanted to be Alfred Hitchcock; some wanted to be Clint Eastwood. Some writers we're fans on Stephen King, and some were fans of thick paperback romance novels. Gillian was still reading to the slow kids, and Laurence Fishburn decided he was Brian Dennehy, but that's not so bad. Mads Mikkelson and Mr. Dancy didn't let all the monkeys on the lot, or the odd sprinkling of vanishing characters, throw them off. Remember the 80-pound supermodel, who was an expert sniper? Yeah, me neither. She did do a drive-by, though. (Ha!)
Eventually, the mushrooms and cannabis won, and the folks who weren't invited to the party began to write and direct. Everybody had a good time, and the producers had already brought in some patsies to blame, so the barrel finally rolled off a cliff, and everyone went home.
Except for the background music guy, who was sleeping under the mixer and drinking out of other people's cups. He hung around and recorded everything he could think of until somebody spotted him and ran him out. They played Rochambeau (Rock-Paper-Scissors if you're in Gillian's reading group) to decide what music went with each episode.
Was this fun to watch? Yes. Did it make sense? No. Is it an 8.5 or a 10? Well, I'd did seen the kids voting...
Quantum of Solace (2008)
A Triumphant Success!
A movie made to punish someone. But who?
Did Daniel Craig break some rule by being the best Bond ever, right out of the gate? It seems as though they put him in a position to play James Bond again but in a frat house skit. "You can do 'Skyfall,' but first you have to play a James Bond who cries, drinks beer, drives a Ford, and is clueless about women." Harsh, harmful, and humiliating is how I would describe the film's treatment of James Bond AND Daniel Craig.
Or were they punishing the director? Someone who had never seen a James Bond film or read an Ian Fleming novel, provided with only two out of every five pages of script, and given five weeks to go from the table read to final edit would turn out a product like this. It could be a career killer.
What about us, the faithful audience, who for decades have sat through all the smarmy dialogue, every robust smack on the bottom, every double entendre pulled from an old library book from the Friar's Club? Do we deserve to be bilked and bored and bewildered by this film? Maybe so. We've tolerated the intolerable, accepted the unacceptable, and watched the unwatchable on too many screens for too many years. Hence, karma punches us in the solar plexus with this feather duster.
Somebody had it out for somebody else, and whoever they were trying to torture got tortured by this godawful film-the triumphant success of a failure.
Spirit Riding Free (2017)
A Great Cartoon
This isn't about the movie.
This isn't about frontier history.
It's a stand-alone project for tween girls, and it's excellent. Empowerment, freedom, rising to meet a challenge, humility, courage, empathy, unbreakable friendships and fierce loyalty, responsibility, facing your fears, risking your life for loved ones, family, resisting the pressure to 'conform to the norm, ' admitting mistakes, apologizing and saying, "I'm sorry," childish mistakes not blown out of proportion, willful disobedience dealt with compassionately and straightforwardly, blended family, single parent - a great many situations that tween girls face are modeled and dealt with superbly.
You don't have to like the show. Just quit picking on it for not being what you want it to be. It isn't your show. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything. Young girls are watching.
Hostel: Part III (2011)
What Happens in Vegas Stays Tawdry in Vegas
If 'The Cabin in the Woods' and 'Saw' had a baby that was adopted by 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' its name would be 'Hostel III.'
I gave this turdburger six stars because it had character development, a plot, and a twist (HA!) at the end. And an explosion.
We're No Angels (1955)
A Laugh Out Loud (Even When You're All Alone) Movie
There isn't much to criticize here unless you call movies 'films' and use words like 'oeuvre' and 'metier' when you're talking about them.
A great cast of pros handle a smart script with skill and aplomb. Much like 'It's a Wonderful Life,' there's an absolute joy to be had in watching a sappy, feel-good movie that's done just right. If you're snuggling with a loved one, the effect is perfection.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988)
A Pop Culture Icon
Want to make instant friends in a crowd of strangers? Just say, "This is where the fish lives." Everyone who laughs is a soulmate.