Aftermath OK
How terrible to receive news about your loved ones being
aboard an airplane accident with no expected survivors. Such is the dilemma Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger
faces after anticipating meeting up with his wife and pregnant daughter at the
airport. He grieves but seems to push
forward much better than the air traffic controller who inadvertently caused
the mid-air collision. The performances
are great but we’ve all seen grieving processes far too often in film and
TV. We understand how devastating such
tragedies can be for everyone involved and those close to them. We basically wait around for the inevitable
confrontation between Arnold and the man “responsible.” It’s actually quite shocking how it
culminates and it’s not pretty. It
doesn’t end there though. The
“epilogue,” if you will, leaves no emotional resonance due to clichéd copping
out, it makes me wonder why it was included at all. 7/9/2017
The Assignment EH
Want to see Michelle Rodriguez as a transsexual, penis and
all? Oh wait, she’s actually a he before
being changed into a she as payback for killing the surgeon’s (played by
Sigourney Weaver) brother. Maybe since I
know what Michelle Rodriguez looks like and didn’t think she was a very
convincing male even with facial hair, chest hair and a weenie, “he” still
looked relatively female. Miss
Rodriguez, you don’t make a very good-looking man. It’s a fairly interesting premise overloaded
with pointless shootings fleshing out the runtime. People are duplicitous, blah, blah,
blah. I was dozing off even after
drinking a 44oz Mello Yello. 7/9/2017
Beware the Slenderman EH/OK
Surely you’ve all heard the story involving two young girls
stabbing their “friend” because the Slenderman (a pale lanky faceless being
slightly resembling Jack Skellington) told them to? If not, this documentary will give you more
than enough information about all the girls involved and the boogeyman himself. Yeah, you’ll hear about how shocked the
family members were that their little girls could be capable of such a
thing. Blah, blah, blah. I got bored.
It’s a very compelling story pertaining to a very disturbing case which
would’ve sufficed in an hour feature, not 2 hours. One girl was diagnosed schizophrenic so that
made Slenderman a mere scapegoat for her inexcusable actions. Slenderman himself is a really cool figure. I was thinking to myself though, that if a
fictional movie were made, there’d probably be horrible CGI and a formulaic
plot, so let’s just keep him as an idea.
7/7/2017
A Cure for Wellness OK
If you’ve seen the previews, you know something sinister is
afoot at this “wellness” center. If you
haven’t seen the previews, you’ll know something sinister is afoot while
watching. Yes, it’s predictable and the
revelations are completely unoriginal, but there’s a slightly surreal quality
to much of it that made me keep watching despite being two and a half
hours. There’s one scene paralleling Lon
Chaney’s unmasking in the original Phantom
of the Opera that did shock me. At
the end of the day, this is still a generic thriller from the director of The Ring and three of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. I didn’t hate it though. 7/7/2017
Heli OK/G
Mexican film involving a drug cartel that’s fairly harrowing
during the first half; one instance contains a very convincing genital
mutilation. The sluggish second half
involved desired retribution that I felt was inconclusive. 7/7/2017
Life EH
Blatant Alien rip-off. Sorta.
The life forms don’t resemble each other in the slightest but both are
essentially body count films in space.
I’m not a big fan of space-set films for any genre let alone
horror. I like Alien but it’s not one of my favorites. Leprechaun
4 and Jason X (despite having
really impressive kills) weren’t awful but my least favorite entries in those
franchises. This was a boring, formulaic
slasher film with a squid-like entity as the slasher. I laughed more than once and don’t think either
time was intentional. Life (!) is too
short to waste time with Life. 7/16/2017
Nocturne EH
Why can’t Satan get some decent cinematic
representation? This begins as a mopey
teen drama where a group of friends create their own “Ouija board” and fool
around for far too long. I lost interest
before the “horror” actually happened.
Supposedly Satan possesses one of them and causes expected destruction amongst
the rest. It could’ve been a good idea,
however cliché, if better structured and had demonic themes sooner instead of
much later. 7/7/2017
Outcast: Season One EH
I gave this a look only because Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead comics, created the
comics this show was based on. I never read the comics for this series and
now I don’t plan to either. There’re demonic
themes but it generally deals with small town drama in West Virginia. There’s good parts dispersed in a drawn-out ten
episodes wherein I kept thinking it was going to improve. If overlong (and unnecessary) feature-length
films make you restless, this is essentially a draggy ten-hour movie. I know sometimes TV shows progressively get
better, but I need to be grabbed from the onset or at least well before the
first season ends. I don’t think I’m
going to give season two a shot. 7/14/2017
A Quiet Passion B
Poetry was never one of my favorite forms of writing. It was always too complex for me and I didn’t
have enough patience to appreciate it.
Emily Dickinson is one I was slightly interested in because she’s known
for having penned dark material. Even
she was too complicated for me, but I was interested in knowing more about her
which is why I bothered with this biopic in the first place. Unfortunately, I didn’t see how this differentiated
from any other period piece about a woman suffering. This movie was very, very boring and a
complete waste of time in my mind.
Perhaps I’m not the one to ask though.
It currently has a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 131
critics. A more intellectual and patient
critic will likely give a more positive analysis for those seeking it. On a personal level, I don’t care for Cynthia
Nixon. She was in relationships with men
her entire life and then one day she just “fell in love” with a woman (that
looks like a man). Sorry Cynthia, you’re
not in love with her, you just like her as a friend. You don’t know the struggle of being gay (or
admitted bisexual even) so you do not deserve to be part of the LGB
community. I usually don’t let personal bias
dictate my critiques and I’m not doing it here either, this movie sucked
regardless. 7/12/2017
Spark: A Space Tail VB
Monkeys inhabit a planet called Bana. Add an ‘na’ and you get a fruit typically
associated with them (hardy-har-har).
There’s an evil monkey intent on world domination and a young monkey
(Spark) that wants to prevent that from happening. That’s all I got. This film looks too modern for me. The
animation is terrible and the execution as a whole feels like something awful
appearing on Nicktoons or Nick Jr.
for that matter. I hated every inch of
this movie. It might be the worst animated
feature I’ve ever seen. 7/12/2017
T2: Trainspotting EH
I can’t say I was a fan of Trainspotting. I found it
irritating, disgusting and…that poor baby!
So why the hell did I bother with this sequel you ask? The same reason I bother with every other
sequel, remake or general movie I hate before watching. I can’t help it. Sometimes I feel my “job” is unfinished if I
don’t watch specific movies (especially if part of a series). Sometimes (just sometimes) the movies are
better than anticipated and those times make me internally happy. I wasn’t as annoyed this time, but I still
wasn’t a fan. It starts off okay before
becoming soporific then disorderly. The four
Scottish punks don’t seem to be in any better position this time despite two
attempting to be businessmen at one point.
Fans of Trainspotting might
enjoy seeing their favorite characters 20 years later (flashbacks do show how
much younger they looked), but for people like me that didn’t care the first
time most likely won’t care now, or in another 20 years. 7/16/2017
---Sean O.
