Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (a review)

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (a review)

Is this a sequel to the Harvey Keitel movie Bad Leautenant, or just a similar sounding movie with a drug addicted cop? Either way it was wacked out. Starring Nick Cage and Eva Mendes.

The story: a drug addicted cop gets into crazy trouble and has to do lots of bad stuff to get himself out of it and there's a kid who is a witness and...I don't know.

Was it good?

No.

(more coming)

*** AVOID ***

THE BREED (a review)

THE BREED (a review)

Produced by Wes Craven, starring Michelle Rodriguez and a guy from . This has to be one of the worst directed movies with professional actors I've ever seen. They should do a double feature with this and PREY...it would be painful and hilarious.

The story: a group of frinds go to an island for a vacation when they are attacked by very intelligent dogs.

Was it good?

No. I mean...NO. This was amazingly bad. This movie was a tie with PREY for lamest horror movie I've seen of the year, which is saying something because Pray sucked and this movie had a couple girls in bikinis. But seriously this was bad and easily the worst directed movie I've seen in a long time.

So why was the directing so bad? Well, sure the attack sequences were lame but I don't blame him for that. Dogs trying to be vicious and actors that you don't want to actually get hurt...it can be tricky...but it's the other stuff -- the build into the attacks and the character moments -- that he has no excuse for not getting right. Now a quick check at IMDB shows this guy has done a lot of 2nd D work for movies, which means a lot of the action shots without real actors and cutaway stuff, so he should know a lot of the process, but apparently hasn't picked up much of the other stuff -- getting the emotion of the scene and coming up with interesting camera angles so everything isn't the most boring shot ever.

There are some other problems, mainly with the dogs. If it's a horror movies about people being attacked by dogs then at some point the dogs are going to have to be scary and these dogs never are. Just...never. They just look like dogs. And I'm not saying that being attacked by a normal dog wuldn't be scary -- it can be really scary -- but that never quite comes across. And a director in a dog-horror movie that can't make the dogs feel scary...yikes! He wasn't helped by the script, which hit the major beats it needed but had a lot of stupid stuff in it that didn't come together. Like the dogs sometimes are incredibly smart and work together and sometimes they aren't. A good example is in the middle of the film the dogs chew through a rope so that the people's plane will drift away, but later they leave a boat tied up that the people can easily get to. Other stuff, like sometimes they break through walls and windows and other times they just aren't around. Why? Because it works for the plot, but it doesn't build the animals consistantly as a threat in any way.

It's late so I won't go on.

But it was LAME.

*** AVOID ***

ZOMBIE DIARIES (a review)

ZOMBIE DIARIES (a review)

An indy British horror film about people trying to survive in the countryside when a zombie outbreak occurs in England.

The story:

Was it good?

It was okay. The beginning is good. A film crew going after a news piece goes to the country to interview some guy and it turns out the town is deserted, the guy is dead and there are zombies. They learn London is quarantined and they are stuck. This begins the problem of survival, but it's here that the story loses focus and energy and just wanders along. I got bored. Eventually they run into a couple of unaffected psychopaths, but by then I wasn't paying attention.

It wasn't as horrible as a lot of these low budget films, but it didn't keep my interest.

*** AVOID ***

MARIE ANTIONETTE (a review)

MARIE ANTIONETTE (a review)

Sophia Bush's follow-up to the acclaimed LOST IN TRANSLATION.

The story: a fictional biography of Marie Antionette, who became queen of France but as France became broke the peasants rebeled and throw out the ruling class.

Was it good?

It was okay. The biggest problem is that it felt totally directionless. The beginning is interesting. Marie was in the Austrian royal family and married off to a prince of France. She leaves everything she knows and is thrust into a family and royal court that she neither likes nor understands. Lots of awkward. To make matters worse her husband seems to have no sexual interest in her and she feels pressure from her family and the France family to produce an heir...even though her husband doesn't want to do her. Then the king dies and she and her husband become king and queen. And she finally has a child, but it is a girl. That's when things wander...she begins to exert herself a bit more, breaking classic royal traditions to form her own life, but there isn't much point to it. She has an affair, but that doesn't seem a big deal. Like I said it just kind of wanders. There's no real spine or drama going on. Then the peasants rebel and her family runs. The end.

Now, it's not like it was horrible. There are nice moments and it looks good and the idea of Jason Schwartzman as the prince/king is pretty funny, but it never really seems to deal with anything. The idea that these two people are overwhelmed by the responsisiblities of king-ness is fine, but it doesn't really get into that. It's just mentioned in a casual scene here and there.

So it was kind of okay, but not really good.

*** NOT RECOMMENDED ***

LARVA (a review)

LARVA (a review)

This is another made-for-tv (ScyFy?) horror/sci-fi movie.

The story: a company uses a new experimental feed on cattle to increase their meat/money but it changes the larva in the cattle to become monsters that then start taking over the town.

Was it good?

Almost. First, I like these kinds of bug movies (see my ARACHNOPHOBIA review), so I'm a good audience. Then they don't rush too much. They start with problems with the cattle, then introduce the new vet into the area and he begins to suspect something is wrong as the larva begin to infest more and more. Of course, no one believes him until it is too late. All good stuff. The problem? Well, first the cattle company who causes this and then is trying to cover it up by kidnapping the doctor and the two people that believe him. Really? This feels like something that could be covered up? Then the problem is with the larva themselves. At first they are smallish creepy, crawly things (which looked pretty good, FX-wise), but later they become these giant things that fly around like bats attacking people. So is this a movie about larva or about mutant bats? By then everything had just spiral out of the suspension of disbelief zone. It's the idea that the audience will buy any one thing you ask them to -- time travel? fine. Androids? Fine. Monsters? Fine -- but you only get that one thing an the rest of the time you have to play within the rules. Here, there are no rules. They just keep changing. Add that to the fact that everything in the second half feels disjointed, becoming just a series of random attacks instead of a clear, building threat...it lost me.

Which is a shame. If the second half had been solid I would have given it a slight recommend. But the way the second half goes...

*** DON'T RECOMMEND ***

DEADLY END (a review)

DEADLY END (a review)

Part of a good idea. Too bad the movie sucked.

The story: a couple movie into a happy home with the husband about to start a dream job. Unfortunately, after meeting a crazy neighbor they start to become sick and realize the neighbor is trying to poison them but can't get anyone to help stop him.

Was it good?

No, it sucked. But the thing is that it really is a good idea for a movie. What if you moved into a house and the neighbor had it in for you? That's a lot creepier to me than DISTURBIA, where the neighbor is a killer but really isn't going to mess with you until you mess with them. Here, they come in and BAM! crazy neighbor messing up their lives.

So the first problem is the why of it all. Now it might seem like you don't need that -- the guy is crazy, isn't that enough? No. And the reason is that it's not interesting. Remeber: stories are vehicles for fascination. So what is fascinating about the reply, "Well, he's crazy." Now there are times when you can make something like this work. THE STRANGERS did a good job with it. There was no reason for the attack. The killers were just doing it to be sadistic, but that played into the whole random, pointlessness of it. There they also had the flashback/subplot of the couple -- two people who loved each other and were on the verge of breaking up because he had asked her to marry him and she had refused. And I don't think a reason for her refusal was given either, but it is now during the attack that they will realize how important and precious their love is...even if it's too late. Now that's a story. But here there isn't anything like that. He's crazy. They try to do things to stop him, but nothing works and he amps up his attacks again and again, getting to the point where the guy is blind and the women is abducted so he can operate on her, ripping out her organs, but then she survives and they are together (although the husband seemed catatonic...not sure what was going on with him). So what's the point? Is he supposed to be some force of nature...he's just a guy who poisons? Because he had other neighbors who liked him, so that doesn't fit. And this is important because having an interesting antagonist is one of the most powerful things a writer can bring to his story. Here, because he's just a wacko, while is can be amusing, in terms of this clash between the two sides it isn't that interesting.

Next is the antagonist's plan. This isn't the why of the plan, but the how. He seems to just have tons of random chemicals that will have whatever effect he wants. Now maybe these are based on real things -- something to make them vomit or have diarrhea is plausabl, but to make them freeze? To make the husband go blind? And to have all these chemicals untracable by the doctors? That needs a little more explaining, especially since this guy isn't portrayed as a genius but as a wacko. So there isn't anything interesting in the HOW of what he's doing since it all seems made up.

Next is the protagonist. Now the contrast of the happy couple moving into a new house and then encountering a neighbor who wants to poison them is good, but the problem is what the husband/wife do after things go wrong. Namely, not much. The husband does try things -- call the cops, talk to doctors, buy a gun, but can't get one -- but none of them go anywhere. Part of the fun of thrillers is the back and forth and here there isn't any back and forth because the husband is never able to do anything effective, he never puts pressure on the antagonist. It's like a basketball game where one team is always ahead by 10 points or more. Sure the other team might go on a run, but if they never get closer then 10 points who cares? So there's no tension.

It's a shame because it is a nifty idea, but this lousy execution and lack of understanding of how to make a thriller or horror movie work dooms it.

*** AVOID ***

TIMELINE (a review)

TIMELINE (a review)

A film based on a Michael Crichton book whose audience apparantly is so dumb that the advertisers said "based on a film by the writer of Jurassic Park" because they didn't think people would know who Michael Crichton was. Stars Paul Walker, Billy Connelly, Francis O'Conner, Gerard Butler, and Anna Friel.

The story: a guy's achiologist father goes missing and he and others end up going time traveling to medeival ages to find them, but then their way back is compromised and they get caught in the this big battle with the French.

Was it good?

No. It was oddly boring. A lot depends on them losing their "markers" which are the BS time travel device to get them back to the future. But all that is just normal time travel fiction that's been done a thousand times. Yawn. And the rest just felt like a lot of running around. If you have a particular interest in this specific historical battle -- La Roque Castle. But if you aren't already into the Hundred Years War, then there just isn't much here to grab your interest.

*** PASS ***

(coming soon)