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Reviews
The Brady Bunch: Kelly's Kids (1974)
Terrible
This was either an attempt at a spin-off or subplot, or a "vacation" show for the regular cast. Unfortunately, the jarring alternate plot will have you confused for the first few minutes and then bored the rest. There's no Brady-like chemistry in any of the new characters and the story is very vanilla. Also, the inclusion of a black boy and (as the show calls him) an Oriental boy, coupled with the ultra-conservative neighbor, is hamfisted even by Brady Bunch standards.
Next (2007)
Bold start becomes lukewark
Great premise of a small-time magician who can see slightly into the future who gets dragged into a plot to prevent the detonation of a nuke. Starts strong with great, clever action and intelligent dialog particularly from Julianne Moore. Cage plays it mostly straight, not too over the top, to good effect. The whole thing is undone with a super cringey, unlikely and unnecessary romance featuring Jessica Biel. The chemistry is about as good as a 10 foot pile of sneezing powder and a leaf blower. Not to mention, Moore comes off far more attractive than the one-dimensional plot-filler Biel. Meanwhile, what exactly Cage's future-seeing powers will do to stop the nuke still isn't even revealed by the midpoint of the film, seemingly saving up a big twist that never really comes. Like so many Cage films you want to grab the screenwriter and smack him around a bit for having so much potential but then throwing it in the crapper. Oh well. I watched until the end but fans of Nic Cage and Julianne Moore will get value out of this one.
Interstate 60: Episodes of the Road (2002)
Thought it was a TV movie
This is one of those cases where I honestly wonder if I and all the positive reviewers saw the same movie. This is no hidden gem, more like the rightfully buried turd that it is. It's a coming of age road story that can't decide whether to be edgy in order to appeal to its college-aged targets, or a juvenile fairy tale to bank on the childhood nostalgia of same. It fails in both regards. On top of that, any sort of "life lessons" and moralizing it offers are so cliche'd, trite and shambling that it borders on insulting the viewer. This is a DVD that will end up under the Christmas tree of college-aged kids whose parents are extremely out of touch. Look for it a thrift store or Walmart clearance bin near you.
Informant (2012)
One wrong move leads to another
Brandon Darby went to help in post-Katrina, and by all reports did a remarkable job, but once his superhero role necessarily evolved into a day-to-day grind of emptying sh** buckets, dealing with tourist activists and literally mending fences, he got bored. He tried to enlist the "real revolutionaries" but is soon disillusioned by them. He drops out. But then he drops back in, this time with the FBI. But it's still Brandon trying to be a superhero, and to do that he needs a few super villains. And so the downward spiral begins.
What I found most fascinating is the fantasy that penetrates all of these people (right, left and law enforcement), how those fantasies can lead to disastrous consequences and how ego can rationalize it all.
There's a certain tragedy in Brandon's very small progress of stabbing in the dark at what he believes is the enemy; in one case resulting in great good and in another, ruining lives, but he can't connect the dots. He can't see how he takes one side of an ambiguous coin today, and the other side tomorrow, all the while mistaking his waffling for insight. And few around him seem to get it either: the radicals and their fair trade coffee coops, or the law enforcement looking to make their conviction numbers and "do their part" in post-911 America. In the end, Brandon simply idealizes and does whatever he thinks will most impress those he's surrounded by at the moment, and the only conclusion I can draw from that is he's either easily manipulated or morally bankrupt.
The Boondock Saints (1999)
An Important Film
This film proved that if mindless action films want to draw a cult following they should be even more mindless, because apparently films that cater to the low end of the bell curve just weren't aiming low enough.
You will leave this film with only one of two impressions: 1) "It was GREAT! AWESOME! THE BEST!" You will proclaim this loudly to your friends between swigs of Natural Ice and bong rips, in your Cheeto-dust covered apartment.
(Coincidentally this same demographic has no idea what the film Idiocracy is about) 2) You will realize that this film's popularity is proof that war, starvation and economic inequality are inevitable. On the whole, humankind is too stupid to avoid them. You will realize that we are far closer cousins to chimps than you previously wanted to believe.
What's even more fascinating than this post-burrito-diarrhea ejection is the documentary Overnight, which observes in painful detail a fool and his ego. But at least that film has a happy ending: Troy Duffy goes back to the being the nobody he should be.
The Pledge (2001)
Film without a happy ending does not equal art
64 year old, out of shape, hard-living, scraggly-haired Jack Nicholson needs to prove on screen he can still bed women 1/3 his age so you'll get a very un-sexy, un-romantic, grandpa/granddaughter-like make-out scene. Awkward in any film, it's especially so in a film involving a serial murder pedophile; the age gap between the pedo and his victims may be drastically smaller than Nicholson's and his love interest.
I guess elderly movie critics who still want to cling to the idea that this sort of pairing is at all plausible give the whole thing a pass. To those of us who were born more recently, say, after the invention of the wheel, it's slimy and gross, and totally derails the film.
Regardless, PLEDGE had some ingredients of a classic pot-boiler building to a big payoff but it never comes. No, viewers are not so stupid as to always need a happy, simple ending, but they need one which satisfies.
The ending of this film says, "Well, anything can happen. In fact, someone might have dropped a piano on your head as you watched this film. Oh well." Roll credits. Possibly one of the worst twist endings ever.
Throw in some ridiculous characters, like Benicio Del Toro in a z-grade cameo, or the artist who suddenly becomes an expert on serial killers.
Pointless scenes? Oh yes. Marvel at Jack Nicholson's fifth trout fishing scene, or his masterful "pumping gas" performances.
What's really thought-provoking is how such a turd of a script got a wide release, and produced to the tune of 45 million bucks (about 44 Million of which you will not see on the screen). The film only grossed 29 Million so at least the producers got the same sort of ending as the audience.
Special When Lit (2009)
Wannabe King of Kong unfortunately has to resort to cheap potshots
At times, Special When Lit seems to be looking for the answer to the question of whether or not pinball is dead. At other times during this slow-paced pseudo-documentary it seems its purpose was tacked on, and the film is simply a random slice of pinball life. My guess is that in early test screenings the general response was "It's kind of interesting and funny, but it doesn't really have a point."
They also felt they had to imitate King of Kong by finding people to make fun of, but where KoK ultimately has a soft spot for its protagonists and outcasts, too much of Special feels mean-spirited. It takes its shots - nay, it goes out of its way to take its shots - and then the film switches subjects entirely, looking for fresh meat.
Mostly, Special just plays like a eulogy to Pinball, and I don't know how many people would pay to watch a eulogy no matter how many flashing lights and fast edits. The interviews of industry notables are mostly confined to events that happened decades ago, reminiscing about "the good old days". But the film never truly challenges its subjects with how they might envision a better future. Maybe the answer is still a bleak one but Special doesn't try very hard.
Once you get passed the so-so interviews and cheap humor, the film has an interesting segment on competitive play that is probably the most even-handed in the film. It focuses on the yearly pinball championship held near Pittsburg and the action is addicting. Several top competitors are interviewed and provide an insight into how it's possible to play a game with skill and consistency that many consider a matter of luck.
Could pinball ever make a comeback? The film just seems interested in why that could never happen. Yet at the iPad's launch one of the top selling titles was a pinball game, and the same company sold three million units of similar pinball titles on the iPhone. It's not a failure of Special When Lit to see possibilities - one gets the feeling it just isn't interested in them.
Microwave Massacre (1979)
Finger licking good B Movie trash
Picture in your mind how the actor who did the voice of Frosty the Snowman might have looked. Now imagine that guy having dry-hump sex with random hookers ('Frosty' grunts and groans included), killing and dismembering them, and then cooking them up in the world's most ridiculously huge microwave oven. Or, you can skip that mental exercise and rent this film.
MICROWAVE is light on actual gore but the one-liners are so corny and wooden you'll have plenty of blood shooting from your ears in no time. Here's an example: "I call this dish 'Peking Chick'" WOW.
60-year old Jackie Vernon as the lead delivers his lines with Teddy Ruxpin-like painful deliberateness and all the charisma and sexiness of creamed beef at the senior center buffet. Vernon was a comedian with a trademark deadpan style but he's matched to a script with the comedic depth of a DVD Player's instruction manual. Throw in some editing that appears to have been done with a lighter and a can of hairspray and Vernon doesn't have a chance of making this one funny.
MICROWAVE features a few ridiculous gags and setups, like a naked girl who gets slathered with mayo, covered with a giant piece of wonder bread and then sawed in half. It tries to be fun and light yet is so completely inept it can't even manage self-deprecation without revealing it's low IQ. It's like when the fat kid intentionally trips in gym class to make everyone laugh but ends up hurting himself for real. You don't know whether to laugh, feel sorry for him, or heck, give him a good kick while he's already down. My money is on door number 3. Definitely in the "so bad it's good" universe of films and requires a number of intoxicants coupled with a complete absence of self-respect to wade through.