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Reviews
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
Uneven, boring.
I can always tell a cult of personality type when it comes to directors; this is clear when it comes to the Coens. When someone tells me they like this movie, my first question is, "why?"...it is totally unfocused, none of the stories line up, the first segment is a sappy singing cowboy sharpshooter so folksy he becomes a foolish parody, the end of the segment an obvious attempt at subversion. The following stories become more and more boring, ending with a tale of 5 coach travelers that seem to be characters in search of a story, and ending in a non-sensical way so obtuse the viewer actually wonders if they missed something. Like Tarantino, the Coen fans will never admit their directors cannot make a bad movie, if you took out the long boring sequences, this movie would be about 40 minutes long and that means something we call "padding". The worst part is that if they had simply stuck with the buster story, they may have been able to turn it into a comedy with some cartoonish violence and a few songs but the opportunity is wasted and we are left with some depressing stuff....the almost non-vocal story of a paraplegic entertainer was just awful, like a bad joke, and another story of a pan miner in the wilderness I had to fast-forward through, more padding....in short, the only people that will enjoy this are Coen brother fans, but the film is much too uneven to enjoy on its own for viewers that just want some good stories; telling a boring story is not "subversion", it is just a boring story, offered up by people that think they know what the fans, Coen brothers fans, Tarantino fans, etc., want; the end result is a sloppy mess that will be praised by a group claiming it is a great film, the rest of us are left scratching our heads and being labeled as stupid and unimaginative because we don't agree. I can only recommend the first and second tales, and even those are a bit off....the rest of the stories just degenerate. Although if you are a die hard Coen brothers fan, I am sure you will love it....of course.
Son of Zorn (2016)
'Zorn' should be scorned.
Often, as I watch a new TV show, I ask myself questions; how did they come up with the premise, what kind of humor are they trying to convey, etc...well, "Zorn" answered those questions quickly. The premise? Cartoon He-Man parody deals with the non-cartoon actual real world. As to the type of 'humor', there is little. Zorn glibly says/mutters his lines, and the premise of the cartoon 'fish out of water' dealing with reality by constantly stating that he is "Zorn, conqueror of the shepherds of blah-blah..." wears as thin as a bare tissue very quickly...the details- his ex-wife, his son, and so on, has absolutely no bearing on the humor, and you could replace them with any aspect of human characters and get the same result... unless you count nonsense recollections between Zorn and his ex about her former stupid behavior with him. Of course,from the network that brought us 'Brooklyn 99', the stunningly unfunny cop 'comedy' show, well, nothing surprises me. Someone should tell FOX that it doesn't matter how many commercials of Zorn they constantly throw at us, it is still UNFUNNY. You would think they would understand by now that you can't try to wedge and force another animated show into the Sunday line-up unless it is a comedy that is funny. A funny comedy. Did I just write that?
Yeah, I guess I did. Get on it, FOX.
The Spirit (2008)
Proof that imagination in Hollywood is dead.
Okay, let's just get it out of the way: this movie bites donkey on ice. I have had a sneaky suspicion for a while that Hollywood writers consist of drooling dopes that crank out the worst pablum possible in the name of the almighty dollar. Confirmed. This movie totally misses the charm of the original material, but this is compounded by the most irritating film work imaginable...an almost incomprehensible plot, battles with the bad guy that involve both characters monologuing in shots 3 *inches* from the actor's faces, spouting idiotic one-liners for several minutes. Heck, even when something is happening, nothing is happening. How could this come from the same guy that brought us '300'??
5 tombe per un medium (1965)
Cheap but Good B/W fright-flick.
Okay, let me say right out of the gate that the statement at the beginning of this film that it is 'inspired by Edgar Allen Poe' must mean they were both written by a person, then I guess it's technically true...but any resemblance to any Poe story and this film is purely coincidental. The general plot involves a lawyer receiving a letter from a year-long-dead man, and his investigation into the household, daughter, 'friends' and widow of said corpse; the deceased was a medium of renowned ability, able to communicate with the spirits of plague-bringers. Now, several of his 'friends' (you will understand those quotation marks if you see the movie), start to snuff it in various gruesome but entertaining ways, with plenty of little twists and turns in the plot along the way. The movie drags a little at times, but I admit watching Mrs. Steele is always a kick, she's campy and cute; in fact, all of the females are attractive in this film (there are only 3 of them, BTW). Perfect? No, but as a neat little horror film for late night viewing, maybe just right. Oh, and keep a glass of cool, clean, pure water nearby.... just in case.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)
Scary, interesting little t.v. horror movie.
I was so interested in this movie that, after watching it again after many years, I decided to contact the writer, Nigel McKeand; I not only got a chance to talk with this excellent person, he also filled in many 'blanks'. The story was written fairly quickly, for 'Lorimar'-ABC, and involves Kim Darby as Sally, dour but believable housewife that moves into the house her Grandfather lived, along with her upwardly-mobile exec hubby Hutton. (you may remember him playing 'Ellery Queen'). After opening a clean-out grate that reveals a pit behind a bricked-in fireplace, three small, demonic creatures begin terrifying her; nobody believes her, of course, and the creatures have special plans for her....namely making her one of them. The last 15 minutes of the movie are pretty creepy, which involve a drugged Sally being roped and dragged down....THERE. We never find out what these creatures are, where they come from, or why they want Sally, and there is a good reason for that. Nigel McKean stated that there was simply no time for exposition because the script had to be short...he never had or developed a real background. He used what scared him....voices whispering in the dark, dark pits, (Nigel got the idea of the clean-out pit from a real one that was in the rear of a Spanish house he was living in, the clean-out pit was so dark and spooky nobody wanted to clean it out), He is also constantly amazed at the amount of people who still remember this film, owing to the fact it received bad reviews. He recently confirmed the rights were sold to a not named 3rd party, and yes, looks like a remake. He also stated his only disappointment was that the creatures were too 'lumbering', and his script described them as quicker and thinner. He said that several people call him every year and mention this film. Nigel McKeand also played on the t.v. show "Voyage to the bottom of the Sea" as the sonar-man, and wrote many of the 'Waltons' episodes. Watch this with the lights out, and
Don't Be Afraid of the DARK....!
Rounders (1998)
Sort of film rookie poker players love.
This movie seems to have a single target audience: rookie poker players who believe they can take Vegas because they know what a 'tell' is. This movie overworks every little aspect of what a rookie might think is important, but in the end it falls flat...it basically involves Damon as an excellent poker player trying to go legit via law school, and his buddy 'worm' (Norton) whom he is indebted to help after Norton is released from prison; Norton's character is a smart-mouth poker snipe who, of course, gets into too much debt, and Damon must play a high stakes poker game to keep said smart-mouth idiot from a double knee-capping and a one-way ride. That's IT. That's the whole movie....Landau is wasted as the kindly mentor of Damon, Malkovich should receive some award for the worlds worst Russian accent EVER, ("Doo kyou khaaave my myoney?" he croaks at one point, Boris Badenov had a better rusky accent!) then reveals the biggest 'tell' EVER, even though he is an expert poker player. And Norton, supposedly the center of all this, is not even in the last 1/3rd of the movie...! My advice is, unless you are a gambling addict and just like to see people winning against the odds regardless of reality, avoid this movie.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
30th Anniversary terrible.
While "Night of the living dead" is an unquestionable classic, the 30th anniversary commits the ultimate act of cannibalism ever- namely adding useless and nepotistic footage of the creators own family members as zombies added 30 years after; an extra scene attached to the very beginning in a feeble and pointless attempt to explain the origin of the cemetery zombie only adds to the feeling extra scenes were created for a selling point. Take my advice, simply see the original restored version which looks great...this movie doesn't need the extra stuff. The REAL threat in this movie plot comes not from zombies but from the constant conflict and inability to decide and compromise between the main individuals; being right and in charge becomes more important than escape, the supposed threat- zombies or vampires or earthquakes or whatever- is actually secondary. the true horror comes from the realization that humans do, in fact, behave selfishly when they should be working together.
But shame on the creators for the extra and useless footage; it doesn't really detract from the film, but it's annoying to think they did it. And remember....."They're coming to get you, Barbra..."