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davetree
Reviews
Sholay (1975)
Ugh! The Poor Horses!
Half way through this repetitive mess punctuated by Bollywood "musical" songs & dance. The guns rarely run out of bullets; the hammy actors rarely run out of long stares, and the horses--are constantly running & jumping--poor babies! What a phony snore fest.
The River Thief (2016)
A film's beauty self-destructs
Was so good/funny until 2/3rds of the way through. Thefts become goods; physical beauty becomes beauty of the mind. Then all of a sudden-- totally out of the previous script-- these preposterous religious ideas jumped in--like all of a sudden Liberty Univ from Virginia (could Orwell have come up with a better name?) started writing the script & footage. Stupid--ignorance flooded the screen-- totally at odds with the first 3/4's of the film. What an insult to all the good actors. It was like some psycho wanted to rope you in, and then preach some bible- school idiocy for the last 20 min of the film. A total and unfortunate waste of talent--and the viewers' time.
Edge of Winter (2016)
Wasted talent from young actors
Good grief; who wrote this stupid, inane script or story for that matter. All the way through a tough watch except for the scenes of northern woods. The oldest most stupid clichés of "lost cabin in the woods" abound. Nobody travels in deep snow in a Creep Cherokee (Jeeps are junk),or any vehicle without a shovel to dig out. The father's "lunacy" of possibly losing his kids is totally unbelievable junk written by a trained ape! (sorry apes) The most terrible trash I've ever sat through. The poor kid actors; they tried and even looked guilty as they gushed out their stupid lines. The biggest laugh of all is Amazon wants $10 to watch this drivel!
Breathe In (2013)
Love in a trash script
The most junk-romantic piece of trash I've ever seen. Kept hoping for more as the last half lumbered on--lumber? This thing beat you over the head with its soapy music, stupid eye-looks, and dumb cuts. Ridiculous manipulation worthy of only the most brain-damaged 13 yr olds. Sorry,kids. Guy Pearce plays the script to the nines, but that's just the problem, poor Guy. We've seen all this older guy-young girl stuff before. The Bach/Brahms were OK--taken out of context. This movie is beyond pretentious trash; you almost want to start laughing, but the jump-cuts stop it with false better hopes, only to find you guilty for watching.... and, going with your first impulse, throwing the disc in the trash.
In the Winter Dark (1998)
The Longest Wait for Nothing
Aussie trash film tries terribly hard to build sympathy for its characters--but not hard enough.
With the dream state of the old farmer at the start, we think something might show--dream to present--to explain various happenings, dead birds and livestock.
Nothing happens except jumping into shitty trucks with crap rifles--was this made in Tennessee--along with a weird slut who's pregnant (is she going to give birth to the animal-eating monster?) along with a lot of Jimmy Buffet knock-off music.
Could have been lots of laughs, but NOTHING, nothing happens; half way through you realize the film takes itself seriously and begin to shut down into a state of stale popcorn.
This film is a total waste of time.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011)
Much ado about nothing
Ugh! This film has as about as much drama as a phony halloween costume party.
Know there's a lot of Potter fans, but this film just jumps from one load of super effects to another complete with crap music. HUH? WTF is going on aside from looooong drawn out scenes (violins), a few quick back flashes, and then it hammers on the audience with who's bad and good.
What an over-produced load of SH*T! No drama here--except for a disabled 6yr old.
It's really about as exciting as Ralph Fiennes' nose.
A nonsense parable (insult to the word) where even someone very high would hit "delete".
L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo (1970)
Dull knives, dull story, dull actors; not even worth a laugh.
Just saw a dubbed (?) version of this stupid mess--fake Julie Christie and all (the moans and screams).
Realize it's 40 years old, but script, camera. and music (sorry, Enrico, you must have disowned this one) is not even sub-camp.
This should have been subtitled 'Whose afraid of the Dark--No One'.
The later scene of the murderer poking a hole through a door with his knife comes close to comedy, but "Julie's" phony moans ruin it.
In fact all of the acting in this sucks beyond words. Don't waste your time on this one--even expecting a few laughs after the first silly 15 minutes.
This pasta isn't over cooked; it's burnt.
Murder, He Says (1945)
Better with Abbott & Costello
Custom made for Fifties TV.
Ma Kettle with a shotgun, but the gun doesn't make her any funnier--was she ever?--even for late 40's audiences, perhaps still around in Rick Perry territory, it dies on the vine.
Predictable, silly, not really a lot of fun even as an historical piece.
Most interesting thing was the clever filming of the same-actor twins.
But really, a 1/2 hr episode of any "Lucy" show, built along the same nonsense, is funnier.
Aside from "history" a waste of time.
The hay bales wrapped around people at the end...all of them looked zonked. Was it really hay???! Ho ho Hah hah
The ho's and ha's is about at the level of this
The Prometheus Project (2010)
Horror film for the Rick Perry set
Perfect for the anti stem cell crowd--embryonic or not; it begins with the premise that all stem cell research is illegal, done in extreme secrecy, and by people, some of whom exhibit personalities worthy of a vampire costume. Lots of religious hokum is thrown in as things develop.
A top mega-built guard is shot(dead), but is given some super-cell serum, can turn water into "fruit punch", read minds, and will equipment to turn on and off, doors to lock/unlock, etc.
The film could be a real treat for some blood & guts tea-party yokels.
As it is, it's a fun watch; the acting is just this side of silly, but never crosses the line, well sort of. The writers have done a tight job given what they're working with.
The Last Dinosaur (1977)
Hopeful laughs turn to plastic dinosaur dung
I'm about half way through this. Thought it would be a campy laugh.
It's tougher than I thought to watch--a script, reject from a highschool contest is funny--but after all the "oh no's..." it's like a toy dead rat. That's it's big turn-off among all the rest-- sub 50's 'Godzilla' art just gets hammered by dialogue and music--and acting from the same highschool (the rejected first tryouts). Was this a late 70's spoof on a 50's film? No, and the laughs turn to groans.
Wait, duh duh duhnnn...I'll play the rest.
Sorry, I can't watch any more--the fake crossbows (from tent pegs) to shoot the fake neanderthals--gotta have the bad guys--is the last stop. Bawanna with the menacing natives. Ugh. I thought another drink would help, but no.
Good luck on your view; my internal laugh machine got clogged.
Cet obscur objet du désir (1977)
Udder sh*t
There is no number 0 for a review Not "surreal" Not believable, except for the brain dead Bunuel's worst, less than a sexless attack on humanity Did the actors demand more money after seeing the first cut? Do petit-bourgeois goats have "desire"? Yes.
Do goats and lobotomized cows pay attention to Christian trinkets? Yes.
Does the director? Sans doute...this is more like toothless snakes on a train.
Occasional bombs going off have all the excitement of a stitched corset.
The cognac glasses look like thimbles; they're a perfect fit for this film.
Was Bunuel compulsively embarrassed by others? Yes.
Flesh+Blood (1985)
Beautiful female bodies; all the rest junk
Am about 2/3ds through this film because of Paul Vanderhoeven. It's been a real slog--horrible script, beyond the worst clichés--stupidity isn't the word. Phony 16thC music out of a 40's Robin Hood movie doesn't help. Even Rutger Hauer looks uncomfortable. Did Vanderhoeven plan to do this as campy satire of the genre and then at the last minute cable the scenes together as "serious"? I'll try to get through the rest, but it's just a big yawn; plot(?), there isn't any. So many spears through chests, as dramatic as watching grasshoppers eat grass. There are a few laughs in this mess, imagining it as satire, but then it just keeps going, more grass and grasshoppers. I was waiting for a tried and true boiling oil over the castle ramparts to "the bad guys"; maybe it's yet to come; maybe a few cocktails will help. The one plus are Jennifer Jason Leigh's breasts.
The Killing (1956)
It has its moments
Music is preposterous; Marie Windsor's dialog is beyond stupid --sorry Kubrick. She's uglier than a dented 50's Ford with a bad wax job Elisha Cook had been playing the same role since the early 40's--a dweeb crook usually killed off
by the beginning of reel #2. Sterling Hayden is cool; the rest--Vincent Edwards, you gotta be kidding.
And then the TV voice over.... Classic noir???!! Hard to give this 50's trash a 6; if Kubrick had to start somewhere,
he started at the very bottom. Jeeze, is this worth another line of blab? (minimum 10 lines)--all the great Bogart films; Welles' The Third Man, and so very many more. This belongs in a retarded comic book.
The Pacific: Gloucester/Pavuvu/Banika (2010)
No Plot, Characters; no story
Like all the previous episodes,there's just no character development to build on. The guy is shot; he's dying; the camera pulls at you; you don't know him. It's a cheap play on seeing another die. Yeah, of course you feel for him, but wtf, any idiot could throw together clips like this. And the mental treatment center--gimme as break.
How can you have a spoiler in this mess when there's NO plot and NO characters?!! Just found out I've got to waste 10 lines on this review for it to be printed. The photography, especially the old film clips, is great. That's about it it. This is no Band of Brothers. In trying to stay away from "Hollywood War" the producers jumped to the everyman "Generic". They lost.
Vampyr (1932)
At times, despite all, funny
German expressionism was all the rage in the 20's-30's, but camping around with candles in brightly lit rooms and in a day-lit outdoor landscape is more funny than anything else, and detracts from anything "expressionistic". I understand the film was somewhat exposed and that the director liked the result (?). The treacly-sad music grinds on; Julian West's eyes can't get any bigger (is this 1910?); good/evil is wearingly too Christianized; the English text cards dribble on at a 10 year olds' level, and finally you just fall asleep, the chuckles wearing thin. My copy was not the Criterion release (that might help), and with another watch perhaps this could come off as an interior play of themes expressed in the great Murnau film of a decade prior, but I doubt it.
Twentynine Palms (2003)
Pretentious, phony, eurotrash
Almost as bad as the Hummer2, the non-acting principals are pathetic, 9mpg creeps. Lovemaking, there's lots of it, is phonier than the Hummer's paint job. Not even dull; just unbelievable drawn out stupidity with some violence thrown in to jar people awake--but, malheursement, they've already gotten up and walked out.
David Wissak, as the lead, looks more stupid (the 40ish guy playing 25)than even his lines. Why was he told to act like a knife was twisted in his back when he--goes for Katerina Golubeva also--reaches climax on the bed; along those lines, the simulated sex is close to cartoonish. The sex, the Hummer, Wissak, breastless Katerina, offer some laughs, but after a while, a short while, you have to give it up. This has to be Dumont's worst.
The Man from Earth (2007)
Gets better as it moves along
The initial put-off of stereotype middle aged--tattered pony-tailed--faculty with horrible lines dies out after a while and we get to some old philosophical blabbery with a great premise of the 14,000 year old man. The corny music should have been a little less prominent--actually threatened to drown out the dialogue in places (later, the Beethoven on the little boom box was even worse, cornier than the old bible broad was ugly). It's worth a watch to the end. Liked the old Buddha /Jesus Syrian/Moses business, but better was the idea to leave people to their own devices, no matter how repugnant. Was a lot more fun as a drawing room play than as a lot of volcanoes and swelling oceans (those long ago times) with the swelling music of another film maker. The old bible broad--forgot her name--added just the right negative touch; you hated her lines and her performance, but she kept the story going.
Jungfrukällan (1960)
Too many virgins
Saw this a long time ago, and this time around only Bergman's prowess with the camera via Sven Nykvist worked for me. The heavy Christian bubble business at the end, the virgin spring, after the 'God, I don't know you', and then a quick 'I'm sorry; I'll build a church here' and THEN the gurgling spring begins to gurgle. All that's left is for his raped daughter's eyes to begin fluttering. Yikes, he should have faded out with one of those small town Mexican processions, or some clips, as the spring breaks loose, from a Lourdes ad with Jennifer Jones.
As I understand it, Bergman wanted to excise the "spring" footage; too bad he didn't get his way.