Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Bad CGI Gator

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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.  2/25/2024

Other 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

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