Scoats Reviews

Blow-Up (1966)

Doesn't Hold Up

[5/10 · 31 March 2019]

Back in the day, there really were not a lot of options when it came to any kind of entertainment. Except in rare cases, the barriers were too high for real outsiders to reach the masses. Now anyone can make a video with their phone or record an album on their laptop and get it out there.

So back then,anything remotely different was really celebrated by those of us easily bored with the mainstream. I know I would have been crazy about this movie when it came out, or even on video up to the late 1990s. Now it's just boring and pretentious.

An interesting time travel to 1960s London but nothing more.

Happy Here and Now (2002)

Almost Great

[7/10 · 22 December 2008]

This movie seems to do a great job capturing what was like to live in NOLA pre-K. The John Travolta NOLA movie was similarly as effective.

This movie runs along crisply enough but comes to series of dead ends. It presents itself as a mystery but eventually gives up on that.

The Internet Chatroom technology is quite unbelievable (too flawlessly fluid for a realistic avatar) but was easily overlooked since the movie was holding my interest otherwise.

The various stories are all at least a little interesting and do all intersect in the ending "climax". The ending I guess made sense to the director and/or editor, but left me very unsatisfied. This is a movie that could have used some more work with the script before filming.

Charlie Bartlett (2007)

Better Than I Expected

[7/10 · 7 September 2008]

Might contain spoilers.

This is an odd movie. It doesn't really work because it tries to do too much with too little, or is it too little with too much. However the good far outweighs the bad. The original often outweighing the contrived. It seems to constantly osculate between those various extremes, never finding a solid footing.

I can usually tell in the first five minutes if I am going to last for the whole movie. With CB, it was clear I was sticking around for at least 30 minutes. It looked fresh and felt energetic.

It also became clear early on that the DVD would have no deleted scenes. They used everything they had to pad it out to 90 minutes. Some of those scenes were too forced.

There were many things that were really not great, like Charlie wearing his private school blazer to public school. What kid with 1/2 a clue would do that? I love Hope Davis, but her role as the clueless rich mother often seemed too contrived. "Oh look she's rich and doesn't get how normal people live". The principal's break down at the end where he is shooting up his pool seemed really out of character. First of all they really didn't work him up as being a sloppy drunk, more of a closet drinker. Second of all, even when he was supposedly really drunk, he was a crack shot, never missing one of his model boats. The sex scene seemed really unbelievable. Anton Whatever was quite good, a bit over the top in a few spots (which in some spots was due to the script), but managed to find the right balance most of the time. He's got more range than just being Bird Hoffstad.

It is a frustrating movie because I wanted to either like it more or dislike it more. Overall the movie worked. It puttered along well, keeping me engaged for the full 90 minutes; the padded scenes ending soon enough. There were many great scenes and many funny moments. In that way it succeeds were many similar films fail. This is one worth watching. If you are one who approaches teen movies with low expectations, you probably will be pleasantly surprised. I was.

I think this one will age well. When it comes on a TMC type channel in 2038, it will be one of those unexpectedly really great movies you stumble on that nobody ever heard of.

Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day (1996)

A Good Ride

[8/10 · 2 September 2008]

I liked this one a lot. Definitely not an everyday story, and it was told well. The pacing was excellent.

The bit with fancy private rail car to go to Washington DC seemed a bit forced, like "hey we've got a fancy private rail car we can use, let's write it into the script!"

I had no issues with the acting. Well maybe Michael Stipe was too Michael Stipe in his role.

This is a nice little movie. It looks cool, like Jim Jermish's one with Johhny Depp as the accountant in the old west.

90 minutes well spent.

Old Joy (2006)

Surprisinlgy Not Boring

[6/10 · 21 May 2008]

This is a movie where nothing at all happens. Surprisingly that's not a really bad thing. It is the story of a short dull road trip between two old friends. Two old friends that have nothing to say to each other.

Even though this movie is only about 70 minutes long, there is a still lot of filler. The filler is pretty and quiet in a mellow sort of way. Yo La Tengo's sparse soundtrack goes perfect with the lack of dialog and lack of action. Somehow it actually sort of works.

But I got a real sense of missed opportunity with this film. The filmmaker seems to have nothing to say. While amazingly well executed, there is no real depth to this film. Maybe that's the point. Even if, it felt like it needed more.

It is a nice film to watch if you find yourself in a mellow mood. It's like watching the scenery go by from a train. If you feel like a train ride, this is a pleasant one.

The Big Knife (1955)

Drama with a Capital D

[5/10 · 28 August 2005]

I saw a few minutes of the beginning of this movie and got sucked into it, Jack Palance and the guy who plays the shady studio fix-it guy were really engrossing. It seemed like it would be a great film noir. I made a point of taping it when it came back on, so I could watch the whole thing from the beginning.

This movie is not a film noir, there's really no mystery. It is however a DRAMA with a capital D. The movie is based on a play and feels really stagy, in a bad community playhouse sort of way (not to be taken as knock on good community theater). Towards the end all I could think of was how this would make some especially unwatchable community theater.

At first the musical score really seemed to add heft to key moments, but it's overdone and the heavy hand of the music quickly becomes tiresome and pretentious. A heavy-hand is also evident with the over the top writing. Hollywood destroys dreams rather than creates them, how original! An uncorrupted (and unemployed) writer will light the way and write THE TRUTH (trumpet flares then baa bummmmm)! With the exception two brief scenes, all action takes place on two interconnected sets. While necessary for a play, for a movie it just comes off as dull, and pretentious. With a lighter touch or a lighter budget, it could have come off.

While this review is overly negative, all of the acting was great. This great acting almost carries the movie and allowed me to sit through the whole thing, though it took 4 or 5 sittings. Young Jack Palance as a mesmerizing leading man, who'd of thunk? With all the movies I've seen, I've only known him as Curly and The Believe It or Else guy.

The movie started off great kept losing its edge with each passing minute. The stagy ending was an appropriately pretentious ending to a pretentious movie. You get the feeling that afterwards everyone sat around congratulating themselves on making such high art and making such a courageously damning statement about their industry. Ho hum.

The Undertaker and His Pals (1966)

Good Fun

[6/10 · 7 October 2004]

What a weird little treat this one is. The cinematography is interesting at times. It starts off on a visually interesting note and held my interest the whole time. The acting is fine. There are some jokes and the thing moves along very fast, too fast to get bored.

Sure it's not Hitchcock, but for low-budget fun, this one makes the grade. The special effects are sometimes a little weak, but all in all they made a very consistent effort in this picture. Give me this over Con Air any day.

I did not at all regret seeing this, and that is pretty high praise as far as I'm concerned. It's a fun relic from 1967, if you like movies and have a sense of humor and the absurd, you'll probably see this as time well spent.

Girl Fever (2002)

Garbage

[2/10 · 6 December 2003]

I loved the first Michael Davis movie, Eight Days a Week. It was charming and cute. The second one was mostly a rehash of the first but pretty good. This one though is truly awful.

The movie tries really hard, all Michael Davis movies do, but the level of humor for the most part is really crass and hackneyed. What was cute and clever in the first two is now bland and bitter.

I wanted to at least like this movie, but there is so much here that is truly awful and/or stupid. I could go on, but I won't.

Check out Eight Days a Week and 100 Girls. Avoid this clunker.

100 Girls (2000)

OK but Not Better the Second Time Around

[12 November 2002]

8 Days a Week is one of my favorite little movies. 100 Girls is Davis's follow-up. The speech in front of the girls dorm, which is quoted on this site, is classic.

If I hadn't seen 8 Days I would have really loved this movie. This movie is almost identical to 8 Days. Both movies are funny and cute and sweet and a bit raunchy. Both feature intelligently written voice-over narration by a dweeb in love and his quixotic quest to win his dream girl. My problem isn't that the plots are pretty much identical, both with nice twists though, but that the protagnists in both movies are identical and their intelligent dialog is interchangable. I suspect the breast speech is lifted directly out of 8 Days word for word. The same actor even plays the antagonist in both movies.

Slight spoiler space....



SPOILER: So his dream girl turns out to be the whore. This movie cries for a sequel, where the whore eventally dumps Mr. Sensative and he has to deal with the destruction of his dreams.

Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

Some Just Don't It (but all the characters do - hey, it's an 80's teen movie)

[9 August 2002]

I was aware of this movie, but passed up on it since it looked dreadful. But a friend, (Hi, Andy Cliver) recommended it and his judgement on movies is A+ so I checked it out. It's great fun.

Jeez Louise, some the comments posted here about this movie amaze me. These folks fully failed to grasp the blatantly obvious clues that it's all meant to be silly. The movie is not mean to make much sense, and that's all part of the fun. When David Hyde Peirce's character hands off the trophy to someone seen off-screen, that was meant to be funny. Obviously a science prize wouldn't be a giant softball-like trophy and he wouldn't receive it overnight. Vince not getting wet is all part of the joke. The raft wasn't even moving. Vince saving the kid is defintely one of the funniest bits of the movie.

Anyway everything takes place in one day and time is fully elastic. Much of it is ad-libbed and all of it is just silly. But it's great fun. The scene where they go to town is priceless.

There are a lot of bits that twist in ways you don't see coming, but I won't spoil any of that.

It's not the Sixth Sense, but it's not trying to be. It does succeed at being extremely funny and a worthwhile 90 minutes.

Primer amor... tres años después (2001 TV Movie)

Big Disappointment

[25 July 2002]

I started watching Univision to try to teach myself Spanish, when stumbled onto this series 1/2 way into it's run. The series was great. This 3 Years Later TV movie really stunk. It totally lacked the charm of the original. In place of drama and great production values, we get unfunny "humor".

If you loved the show, like me, you have to see this. Anyone else shouldn't waste their time.

The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk 2 (1993)

Enjoyable

[16 June 2002]

It would be interesting to see this in Mandarain with English subtitles. The dubbed dialog is a bit odd, but not as bad as some I have seen.

The action scenes are in the Croutching Tiger vein, which instead of relying on solely on the physical abilities of the actors features of a lot of special effects.

Like Croutching Tiger, the women in this movie are quite capable of kicking butt.

Also like Croutching Tiger, it is a historical piece that could be 100 years ago or 500 years ago.

The guy who plays Dong, Fong Shi Yu's teacher, looks familiar, but the character is not listed on IMDB. Wonder what I've seen him in before.

If you like Jet Li movies, this is one worth seeing.

Great Expectations (1998)

Well Done. True to the Book

[9/10 · 29 May 2002]

I had read Great Expectations only a few months before seeing the movie, so it was pretty fresh in my memory. PBS had shown a Masterpiece Theater version that was true to the period but changed several bits of the story and IMO changed the whole meaning of tale. This version is true to what I think Dickens was trying to say. It looks great and the cast is excellent.

Riot on Sunset Strip (1967)

Yeah baby! Ed Wood Would be Proud

[5/10 · 28 May 2002]

This relic was truly fascinating. Bad, not terrible enough to be unwatchable, but bad enough to be thoroughly entertaining.

When talking to the cops, the girls say stuff like "My name is Elisabeth Ann, but my friends call me Liz Ann" and "My name is Andrea and my friends call me Andy". And cop replies, "Are they really your friends, honey?" For some reason I found that scene absurdly humorous. That is a good example of the writing and acting in this movie.

Andy's acid trip is truly trippy man. It's like a freaked out yoga session.

The movie is very earnest, like Glenn or Glenda, but also very out of touch. Hee hee a good time.

By the way, there was no riot. Guess it wasn't in the budget.

Snow Day (2000)

Disappointed

[22 June 2001]

Being a huge Pete and Pete fan I was really looking forward to this movie. The Adventures of Pete and Pete was always smart and clever and well written with every second put to good use. The show was truly magical. This movie isn't.

Snow Day wasn't funny; actually all the jokes were childish, unlike Pete and Pete which was fun for all ages. Snow Day was also rather violent. The principal of the school spends the whole movie running around town being pummeled by snow balls. At the end, the kids physically attack Snow Plow Man. I am not some anti-violence zealot, but it felt both irresponsible and out of place here.

I found Snow Day to be totally shallow, lame, and rather mean-spirited. Maybe it is an OK movie compared to others in the gendre, but when compared to Pete and Pete, it's complete garbage.

Scoats