carl5 Reviews

The Last Exorcism (2010)

Worse than Blair Witch only in slightly better focus

[2/10 · 25 June 2010]

Anyone who remembers Blair Witch will have a neon light in their brains flashing "Rip Off!"

Anyone who remembers The Exorcist will have sirens and lights along with the flashing "Rip Off! sign.

And that's before the "Rosemary's Baby" TOTAL F*CKING RIPOFF alarm bells sound.

Knowledgeable Christians will gasp at a Baptist minister waving around a Catholic cross, and why he's fluent in the Latin of his Catholic book of demons having never studied it. And the mish-mash of religious icons, many of them Catholic, decorating the house of a fervent fundamentalist.

Despite earnest, professional performances from the entire cast, the amateurism of the writers and director can't be overcome. For example, the filmmakers (or rather, videomakers) idea of "foreshadowing" is to show a drawing of something or someone dying and then five minutes later we see that event actually happening. Oooh.

And it has probably the worst "non ending" in film history. Nothing is answered. You won't know what happened to anyone except the faux cameraman who gets killed just like the drawing showed he would five minutes earlier. But apparently his final act in life is to turn off his camera so the movie ends. I guess all those Rip Off alarms were foreshadowing the audience getting ripped off.

Producer Eli Roth told the premiere audience that the marketing for this movie would be 100% word of mouth and fan-driven, which is industry speak meaning the distributor was not going to spend a nickel advertising this piece of... (Smart distributor.) Roth implored the crowd to tweet and post positive reviews of this movie, adding that "if you don't like it, please keep your f*cking mouth shut!"

Director Daniel Stamm also warned the front row audience that they were going to get motion sickness, meaning they never used a tripod or steadicam. The camera movement wasn't that bad, but never rose above the run and gun video style of any COPS episode.

If you're 16, have zero knowledge of any past horror movies, and get scared by LOUD BANGS, then this movie is for you. The further away you are from those three criteria, the further away you should run from this movie.

Geezers (2000 Video)

Funny and touching. I loved it!

[10/10 · 9 February 2010]

Geezers was really well done: acting, story, camera, etc. At first it seemed like it might cover similar ground as Grumpy Old Men, but instead it takes the audience on a unique journey. At its core, this is a story about how love never dies, or rather how a broken heart never heals. We think about love in the movies as something for young people. And through the flashbacks we see the young lovers as they fall in love and then break apart. For some movies that's the whole plot. But writer-director Peter Bohush picks up the story 60 years later, with the young man now an old man who still holds the deep passion for his lost true love. The actors are perfectly cast: the two old guys really seem to have had a lifelong relationship. And the two young actors portray the innocence of the 1930s period without going overboard into sentimentality. The reveal at the end was really well done film-making. A line spoken, the actor turns, the camera reveals and in an instant everything is clear. I admit I teared up a bit there. But thinking about it later, how else could this story end? Perfect. I laughed out loud at the toll booth scene. And I also really liked the cinematic device of putting the old man in the flashback scenes to transition in and out.