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monkabc3
Reviews
The Tree of Life (2011)
This is not a film or a story
At 25 minutes in my wife and I said to each other, "We will give it another 15minutes. Soon a plot has to start. At the beginning it hinted that it might have a plot about a boy's journey to manhood or a mother's grief and how it might effect the family... but no. We laughed a lot at the movie although it wasn't a comedy. We were laughing at the direction and writing and how obvious and incredibly trite it was. It was a non-stop visual cliché. The problem is with this still going on... there was still no plot, no story, not even dialogue.
At an hour and a half in to this stock footage "movie" we said to each other, certainly the movie will start now, we can see some acting and a plot will develop. I could go on and on for the 2hours and 20 minutes that I will be billing the "director" for but it is just rinse and repeat of the first hour and a half.
It was SO amateurish! Everything went into it including the kitchen sink from a 'what I learned at director school'. Every angle, every level, every photographic technique, it makes you want to vomit. The whispering monologue, the ridiculous CGI enhanced space telescope images, 15 minutes watching a dinosaur at a stream... at stream level! Brilliant!... not. Every scene was too long. This theory, not a movie, could have easily been portrayed in a 10-15minute artistic short.
If it didn't have Brad Pitt and Sean Penn's name attached to this, whatever it was, it wouldn't have been picked and would never have made it out of festival if it even was at festival.
It gets a zero from me as it wasn't a movie. At the end of this 80million dollars spent I told my wife I would have rather watched a B rated zombie movie, which I have never watched. It is THAT much of a waste of your time. Sure ignore me and try it but 25 minutes in when you say let's give it another 15 minutes, don't and do something else with your life that will provide better entertainment, like watching paint dry.
The Middleman (2008)
Tried and tired but just can't watch it anymore
I watched three episodes of this show and I think that that is giving it a fair shake considering how much I cringed each hour. Some of the writing is excellent and witty and Wendy's deadpan delivery is perfect on those occasions. Unfortunately, the rest is absolutely, 100% awful.
The Middleman simply isn't funny and his attempt at '50s naivety and morality doesn't work. The worst are the plots. Simply not funny, not imaginative and very immature. Perhaps those of very, very low IQ might find some of the plots funny but that is the only audience they are going to get. That and the I watch it 'because it is so stupid' crowd. If you want to call that campy, fine but that is too big an umbrella for me.
I think the production dollars should definitely be spent on something else and put this mishmash into the out bin. Gods! Why do they cancel the clever shows and feed us this garbage?
Farce of the Penguins (2006)
Not funny at all
We tried watching this but could only handle about 20mins. We didn't laugh once, it simply was not funny. Could have been if it was animated but it was just poorly edited footage of penguins with celebrity voice overs that didn't fit. I give it a zero out of ten because it simply isn't a movie, it has no plot but that is not just it, it has nothing. I am usually pretty generous and have never before given a zero.
Save you time and let this one go by.
EDIT: I thought I summed it up as best I could but for some reason there is a requirement for ten lines of text. What to say that I haven't already said... I am really surprised that the celebrities would read the script and see the concept and still take part in this. I can't imagine this had any budget but considering it is just using stock footage of penguins, probably from the March of the Penguins movie, there was literally no production costs, so maybe there is where they had the money to pay the voice-overs.
Hit Me (2005)
Terrible
This was one terrible movie, start to finish. I think it was shot on a $500 camera that they could seem to keep still. The acting was ridiculous as was the screenplay. I would give this movie a 2 or 3 out of 10 but since a bunch of the film's buddies have obviously gone on and given it 10's I have to try to help the viewing public by averaging down. That's the trouble with IMDb, it is starting to lose its reliance.
As for this movie, save 2 hours of your life and watch something else, I wish I had. Thought I would give it a chance since it had a 6.6 rating and (fake) reasonable review.
Disappointed.
BloodRayne (2005)
A fair review.
This is the first review I've written, due to the fact that I felt it had to be done. This isn't a great movie but considering the genre, not bad. Considering Segal movies are given 3+ ratings, come on people... 2? The set design was good, the cast not bad, the slasher blood effects somewhat original for a cast and budget of this kind. It had some special effects, that were done properly. Is doing some elements that haven't been done for 25 years (raider's of the lost ark rip-off comment) really a rip-off. Good to see them again I say. What are you people expecting? It is a vampire killer movie! "Oh it was as good as Cats!" Please. Maybe there is a reason they took these roles... fun? I enjoyed this movie and people who are looking for a good medieval vampire slasher with a decent cast and decent budget... here you go. Don't expect Shindler's List or Ghandi because Kingsley has 10-20 lines in this. Kristanna Loken is gorgeous and does a decent, committed job. Enjoy. You won't have to listen to "too cool for school" Wesley Snipes give his moronic dialog for 2 hours. 6.8, 6.5, 5.7 BTW. Was Blade III 3.5 points better than this film, no.
For the people that have given this such a low rating that it has averaged out at 2.2, give me a break. This is based off a video game. It is a vampire slasher. It has sword-play and martial arts. Compare it to movies of the same genre and then be fair.
Reviews here are getting so picky (snobby) that it is hard to tell if a 5 rating is bad or not. Which it should be. I guess it is easier to pick something apart and sound like a "true reviewer" than to give a fair review. Too bad.