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In case you haven’t seen the intro from my entry dated
1/26/19 (it’s in my archives whenever you want to read it), I’m no longer going
to review every single movie I see. I’m
going to review one, with the occasional bonus, and just give ratings for the
rest from now on (unless I decide to pick it up again in the future). You can always ask me why I gave the ratings
for the films without reviews though (via comments or the e-mail addresses
under the ‘About Me’ section).
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Bad CGI Gator OK
At least they were upfront with the title of this roughly
58-minute film. [A feature film,
according to at least three different institutions, runs longer than
40-minutes; SAG, however, states a movie must be at least 60-minutes. Therefore, SAG would consider this a short
film]. There was another movie called Bad CGI Sharks (my review for it is in
here---https://vampireclown82.blogspot.com/2020/04/sharksploitation-time.html),
but this wasn’t created by the same people, much like Cocaine Bear and Cocaine
Shark weren’t from the same people.
The plot? A group of college kids
(three boys, three girls) go to a cabin by a lake somewhere in Southern Georgia
(filmed in Atlanta and somewhere in Ohio) and are gradually eaten by the
titular creature. Is the CGI gator
actually bad? Why, of course! Would the filmmakers lie to us? It isn’t the worst I’ve seen though, and I’ve
seen my fair share of these types of movies wherein the creators were likely
attempting to make a serious feature (the rest of the film is actually
well-shot, there being worthy POV and location shots). The gator starts off small, and what causes
it to grow is laughably ridiculous, resultantly obtaining other abilities as
well somehow. I found myself LOL-ing a couple
times due to the utter (and obviously expected) asinine-ery presented. Am I recommending this? I don’t think recommend is exactly the right
word, because the curious (like moi) are strictly going to watch it out of curiosity, so, I guess if you
don’t mind watching cheesy natural horror flicks with bad CGI that you know are
going to be bad beforehand, it wouldn’t hurt to check it out at least once (it
will only take up barely an hour of your time to quell that curiosity!). One thing is certain…I definitely enjoyed
this more than the three-hour film also reviewed in this blog entry, and that
was/is nominated for so many praiseworthy awards! 2/26/2024
Bonus review:
Oppenheimer B
Movies like this are why I would get fired if writing
for a major publication. I remember
hearing about a critic being fired for penning a positive review for Gigli when it came out, a film that was
panned by the majority. This movie is
nominated for 13 Oscars, including Best Picture, having already won other
awards (i.e. Critics’ Choice, Golden Globes, etc.). Well, guess what? I hated it.
I don’t much care for what the Oscars say anyway, judging from past
nominees and winners, but it does make one curious when a movie is praised by
so many (hence the only reason I even bothered with this movie I had no
interest in). [In regards to the other
contenders for Best Picture I’ve seen thus far…Barbie was overrated (review in here---https://vampireclown82.blogspot.com/2023/10/dark-harvest.html);
Killers of the Flower Moon was much
too slow (3 ½ hours too!) and basically just reiterated everything we already
sat through at the end; I did like The
Holdovers, didn’t love it, but liked it and might revisit it sometime in
the future during the holiday season; Past
Lives was decent too; this was, by far, the worst of the bunch though]. Don’t get me wrong, I do like learning
about history (for the most part), and I
do like biopics, they probably being my favorite form of nonfiction (usually I
prefer ones of those I’m even just a bit
interested in, but I like to think I’m a little open-minded, and I don’t mind
learning something new). All I knew
about this Mr. Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy here) beforehand was that
he helped develop a bomb, one that did cause mass destruction, as well as
fatalities. I wanted to turn this off
after just five minutes (!), but I stuck through its roughly three-hour runtime
(three hours of which I’ll never get back!) in hopes it may have gotten better,
thinking of all the great things said about it.
[I really wish I could just stop a movie I have no interest in
finishing. Maybe one of these days my
OCD won’t get the better of me. I did
manage to stop watching at least three TV shows last year…]. Everything felt rushed, too many people
coming and going too (many of them played by recognizable faces), and a
three-hour movie should definitely not feel overstuffed, especially if long
before the halfway mark! I actually
didn’t fall asleep (surprisingly), but all of this just went right over my
head. Currently, only 34 out of 497
critics on Rotten Tomatoes agree with me (I don’t feel so bad since it’s at least in the double-digits), and one Peter
Martin nailed it with a ten ton hammer---“I felt like I was
stuck in a classroom for three hours while a series of learned professors
lectured me, hectoring me for being stupid, unable to understand or grasp the
meaning of a Very Important Subject.” I
have a feeling this is going to win a couple awards on March 10, likely even
Best Picture, but I really don’t care. I
hated, hated, hated this movie. 2/25/2024Other
movies and TV show(s) I’ve seen and their ratings (see above):
AlRawabi School for
Girls (Season Two) >>>G
(Netflix; 6
episodes; In Arabic with subtitles)
Blue Steel (1990) >>>OK
Cat Person >>>OK
The Dirty South >>>OK
Lover, Stalker,
Killer >>>OK/G
(Netflix)
Magnolia (1999) >>>EH
Squealer >>>OK
Tall, Dark and
Dangerous >>>EH
(Lifetime)
Unlawful Entry >>>EH/OK
---Sean O.2/27/2024
