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chrisnbuchanan
Reviews
Space Cop (2016)
Could have been great
I'm sad to say that after all the anticipation, Space Cop is fairly underwhelming. It seems strangely uneven, unpolished. And most disappointingly, it's formulaic. I'd hoped for something wittier, more off-the-wall, more creative based on RLM's previous work. Space Cop gave me nothing to think about -- the clichéd plot points, double entendres, tired set-ups, bad models / costumes and archetype characters aren't there to be subverted or analysed, they're just there.
The music works very well, the sets are solid, there are lots of laugh-out-loud moments scattered through. But it's not confident in itself. It feels rushed.
The script in particular feels like a first draft. Motivations and relationships shift wildly from joke to joke - it's hard to understand what we're supposed to think of the characters or how Space Cop in particular is perceived by the others. Sometimes the tone is so muddied it's tricky to tell if a moment is going for humour, tension or drama. At one point the movie slows down so we can watch a striptease and take long, lingering looks at the actress' body. I kept waiting for the punchline, but amazingly it seems to just be there for titillation.
There are highlights. Rich Evans and Jocelyn Ridgely are funny and do very well in their roles. Mike Stoklasa appears to be deliberately hamming it up, which often doesn't 'fit' with the other actors but is enjoyably tongue-in-cheek in itself. The 'real' actors and cameos vary in skill but most are solid and some are great. Len Kabasinski of all people absolutely cracked me up. This movie could have been great.
Overall, Space Cop comes across as either lazy or stumbling. Mike, Jay and Rich have a lot of talent and creativity, but only some of it made it through the filming process on this one.
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)
In which I compare the movie unfavorably to 'Plumbers Don't Wear Ties'
I should start with praise for James Rolfe and the AVGN web-series, because a lot is deserved. He's a bright spot in the sea of internet hosts - a unique and effortlessly charming comedian with genuine and endearing passion for what he does. Watching his film reviews is like listening to the wisest of old friends. Watching 'AVGN' really is like being taken back to the past. At its best, the show's nostalgia, wit and self-conscious tongue-in-cheek silliness work brilliantly.
But it gives me no pleasure at all to say - this is Rolfe at his worst. It would be unfair to complain that the film detracts from the nature of the show - this production was clearly meant to take the sketch character into a different medium and construct a story for him. That's a worthy goal and suggests a genuine intention to expand. But sadly, judging the film on its own merits, there is a lot to criticize. I hesitate to make a list, but there's a lot.
New characters for 'the Nerd' to interact with are a fine idea, but these are underwritten, flat, extremely generic and almost all poorly-played. The second character could essentially be cut from the script here without any effect. He's a sidekick for the sake of having one, with no purpose, appeal or character traits of his own (compare Cooper to Garth in Wayne's World).
An epic plot and action scenes could have worked here, despite the budget, if they were made carefully. Sadly, the effects seem more and more rushed as the film goes on. It's a noble goal to fill an independent movie with model shots and puppets.... but not using toy vehicles and a puppet with no mouth articulation. The third act is composed mostly of these.
This is a film that tries to do a lot, but seems to put little effort into any element and so we're left with a mismatched, sort-of demo reel of what the writer directors would like to accomplish: character comedy, surrealism, romance, ensemble work, effects, a zombie sequence which seems especially tacked-on, creature effects, spoof, fight scenes, road movie elements -- but all of them sub-par and thrown into one pot. The film seems 'out of control'. Watching the puppet scenes, hearing the bad dubbing on its static lips, it's very difficult to consider this a 'movie' in a real sense.
It feels rushed throughout - especially in the script, oddly enough considering how much time was available before filming. The movie features very, very old jokes - many that I remember already hearing in other films (at one point the old 'p**sed off is better than p**sed on' gag is rolled out). The characters are clichéd (a running joke focuses on an overbearing mother phoning her son and clucking orders at him - at the risk of sounding cruel-- get out of bed, Joooohn, get out of bed!).
Occasionally the movie will break the fourth wall to comment on its reliance of cliché (for example the lengthy 'girl fight' between two attractive actresses with no real purpose), but pointing out a bad (slightly misogynist?) story-thread hardly justifies boring us with it for so long in the first place. As well, the movie opens with a significant portion of recycled jokes from the show - this might be regarded as a fun 'shout out' or self-indulgent reference for the fans, but that seems like a stretch. Surely those fans would have preferred fresh material?
There is also a certain element of self-congratulation in the film which becomes sickly very quickly, and never lets up. To open the film with a barrage of triumphant 'favourite lines' and far, far too many clips of real-life fans praising him as though he were the messiah immediately seems deeply unprofessional and self-promoting. This never stops - the adoring crowds are present in many scenes - and never seems ironic. James just spends a lot of time in the film receiving compliments for the show. Cameos abound, long after their novelty has worn off and rarely with any direction or clever use of the faces - Lloyd Kaufman mugs into a static camera in his living room for some time. Nothing is reigned-in.
Of course a director's first film often falls flat. Not everyone is lucky enough to open with 'Duel' or 'Clerks' - but this feels like an unusually flawed first attempt. It's overlong, badly-paced, crammed with shoddy and lazy effects, and succeeds with only one of its large cast of characters - the Nerd himself, an appropriately- weary protagonist here, although even he is flawed, saddled as he is with a confused and convoluted arc (I found it very difficult to tell what his motivations were at most points) and given little time to shine. He is far too often the straight man in his own movie.
As a fan of Rolfe's I hope he learns from this step rather than just enjoying the trappings of having released a film and played in theaters. At times 'Angry Video Game Nerd the Movie' veers on being a vanity project. A glance at almost any video on his website will demonstrate that he has a LOT more to give. This is a comedian and film-maker with exceptional talent, a deep love of his craft and exceptional on-screen charisma.
He deserves a real movie. Some of us have been waiting for him to realize his great ambition and make one for a decade now. Sadly, this is not it.
Song of the Dead (2005)
A bad zombie movie, BUT an original premise and a lot of heart.
I saw a second-hand copy of this at Blockbuster (who normally don't bother with this kind of film, except for The Asylum's boring efforts) with a box reading 'Day of the Zombie'.
The profit-driven, deceptive title change seems pretty stupid to me - who would rather watch a nondescript zombie flick than "THE ULTIMATE" (or rather, first... I think) zombie musical?! Well, I love musicals, bad films and zombies so I grabbed it.
The movie is very, very low-budget, and very, very poorly-acted (by everyone except Steve Andsager, who is actually very funny). The singing is also truly awful, except by the one guy in the opening scene, who sadly has only one more appearance.
The plot is deliberately very similar to George Romero's classic 'Night of the Living Dead', which these film-makers (like me) clearly adore. It begins with a man and a woman in graveyard, moves to a besieged cabin in the middle of nowhere and ends on a pile of burning bodies. The Romero references are many, and usually painfully obvious.
Speaking of heavy-handedness, I think the biggest flaw here is the large amount of time and effort given over to political satire. Because of the zombie-musical concept, the movie tries to be lighthearted and throw jokes in there. Sometimes they're bad, sometimes they don't even make sense, sometimes they're actually good (the 'hobbies' song made me laugh out loud). But the zombies are referred to as 'zombie terrorists' and the chemical that caused the problem is the 'Jihad Resurrection Virus'.... yeah.
And we're not talking about a few throwaway lines here: this is the major theme of the plot. Believe me, after an hour or so it gets old. It's a nice enough idea to try to parody recent US foreign policy in your movie, make your heroes occasionally look like monsters, follow in Romero's satirical (but much much much subtler) footsteps... But this scriptwriter and this premise are just not capable of effectively satirising that. "We need to bomb any country that had anything to do with terrorism!" What, because your shack is besieged by zombies? The songs themselves are actually catchy as hell! Unfortunately the singers are absolutely horrible, and the bland rock band who play them all are awfully samey. No big book numbers, sadly. All light rock.
It's a bad movie - there's no denying that. There is a tombstone at the beginning that looks like it's made of card and written in marker pen. One of the zombies is topless, and curiously she's always at the very front of the horde, next to the camera...
-- But at the same time this movie really is something special... or at the very least unique.
Every now and again the movie really impressed me with a subtle Romero reference (one character angrily calls another 'flyboy' under his breath) or a clever little spin on a zombie cliché (arms reaching through a wooden wall, waving slowly back and forth during a sad song).
And this is the thing, here. This is why I'd recommend seeing this film. Despite the fact that it's a kind-of-comedy musical, despite the huge limitations it faces, this film really tries hard to add a few things to the zombie lore. There is a scene near the end when one of the characters who's been bitten gathers the others round him and starts to explain the zombies' motivation. Another character asks a rhetorical question, why do these reanimated corpses want to eat the flesh of the living? Why are they cannibals? And suddenly you think.... wait, that's actually a very good point! Why the hell do they? And the answer the guy gives is unusual, interesting, very satisfactory... and quite moving. I'll not forget that bit of zombie character-development in a long time.
And that's a brilliant bit of writing, in this armchair reviewer's opinion. You have to watch two acts of cardboard tombstones to see it - but it's worth it.
Four out of ten. But that's more than I'd give most zombie films released in the last ten years - including Romero's.