Change Your Image
slowtraincoming-1
Reviews
Beyond Is Genesis History? (2017)
Design and Catastrophism Evidenced Everywhere
An excellent series which challenges the orthodoxy so fiercely protected (see Ben Stein's EXPELLED documentary on this point), to the extent that you WILL be cancelled, you WILL lose your career if you murmer anything that sounds remotely favorable toward things other than uniformitarian, progressive biological evolutionary dogma. But here's the rub: The fossil record stubbornly won't conform to the dogma. And after more than a century of digging, still refuses to cough up those myriad transitional forms that one would expect based on millions of years of steady mutational change. Recommended.
Army of One (2020)
The Citizen Kane of Girl Rambo Films
She can bring home the bacon. Fry it up in a pan. And never ever let you forget you're a man... who killed her husband.
Better than other reviews suggest. A fair time killer of an action flick.
Uncle Tom (2020)
Powerful. The Most Dangerous Documentary of Our Times.
I say "dangerous" because there are forces that desperately wish a film like this would go away. Especially now.
As I write this review, America is being torn apart by rioting and racial strife over a heinous crime coupled to an ideology of victimhood, and for maximum political gain.
This film chronicles the black experience and how it has been exploited for by politicians using policies that have only made matters worse for generations of black Americans. "The Great Society" programs, for example, have greatly injured the black family.
Today, many black Americans have been "red-pilled," aroused from slumber, awakened from the status quo which only served to prolong their plight as a "victim class". Blacks were a convenient group to "champion" (read "exploit") via liberal policies which kept them on a modern plantation of government dependency.
This is the very model of the Democrat party. Democrats grow their rolls by finding a victim class to exploit, stripping them of their individualism, and placing them neatly into a box called a voting bloc.
If you dare think for yourself, if you break out of the box, the voting bloc, then you are called names, consistent with the title of this documentary. Suddenly, it's okay to hurl racial epithets at the black independent thinker. And who are the racists?
The momentum is growing. More black Americans are waking up and leaving. Witness the Walk Away and Blexit movements. Regardless of their pigmentation, many Americans are seeing the lies and exploitation for what they are. And they are leaving.
May this documentary reach deep into the hearts and minds of many Americans and lead them to the real America, not a land so much as an idea, an idea called Liberty. May all of us break the chains of dependency and find our empowerment within that word, Liberty.
God bless the filmmakers and all viewers.
The Pack (2015)
THE PACK is Top Dog in the Man vs. Nature category...
SEE. THIS. FILM. The Pack (2015) is a gem of Australian Horror, the kind of movie that makes wading through all the other dreck worthwhile. When I first saw the cover art, I assumed this was from the cheap-but-occasionally- charming SyFy Channel school of film-making. I was wrong. This is a smartly scripted and acted story. The situation is simple enough. It's about an Australian family in a remote farmhouse who find themselves under siege by wild dogs, a Night of the Living Canines scenario. Tense, frightening, and atmospheric, it's a beautifully crafted movie. Move over, Cujo, I'm declaring it top dog in this category. Unqualified purchase recommendation for lovers of man vs. animal films. (I have the DVD and it's well-mastered, nearly blu-ray quality.)
Storage 24 (2012)
Indie Creature Feature Has Scares in Store!
STORAGE 24 is a British indie featuring several friends trapped in a storage facility with a creature on the loose. Complicating matters is a love triangle which will test the bonds of friendship as all work together to survive. A down-to-earth take on ALIEN, this one adds a layer of suspense through its emphasis on character, setting up and defying expectations throughout the proceedings, and surprising us as to who will be our hero. The creature, although realized in part through CGI (always a caution flag for this reviewer), is very effective and satisfying. Like the facility, itself (a clever setting as the characters forage adjoining units for any resource that will aid their plight), this film has scares, emotional depth, and character surprises tucked away for its audience. The leads are Noel Clarke, who recently appeared in Star Trek: Into Darkness and Colin O'Donoghue, known for Once Upon A Time (TV Show) and the underrated, The Rite, where he held his own, opposite Sir Anthony Hopkins). Highly recommended.
Vendetta: A Christmas Story (1997)
Christmas Classics Fatigue? TRY THIS, instead!
Vendetta: A Christmas Story is fast, furious, and funny! Despite the look and feel of a weekender production made by friends with little money and even less to lose, this nano-budgeter is downright inspiring, considering its humble means. Chock full of clever gags, chases, and one absurd situation after another, it proves what is possible when a filmmaker, armed with wit, a camera, and not much else, sets out to entertain on purpose. I'm inspired every time I watch it. It reminds that film-making for the joy of film-making is a worthy ambition. And this lesson translates into every arena. Create art that YOU enjoy and you'll find your audience. If you've had your fill of the usual roster of Christmas classics, turn to this instead. Presented as two back-to-back episodes of the fictitious TV show, "Vendetta", we get a plot involving a failed raid which sends Santa fleeing for his life. Over-the-top by design, this is bare-knuckled, tongue-in-cheek entertainment that must be seen to be believed. Cinephiles who delight in finding hidden gems should check out this minor miracle. This Christmas truffle proves that good things still come in small packages. (As of this writing, the film can still be viewed for free on the web. Just google Vendetta Christmas and you'll hit their site.)
The Bat People (1974)
Intriguing 70s Drive-in Movie, and a great DVD release!
A ten star review may be reaching a bit, but notwithstanding some of the insipid and exaggeratedly low reviews here, this film DOES have a plot, takes it time getting there, and features good acting and a satisfying conclusion. If you purchase the MGM Midnite Movies DVD edition, you'll also be in for a visual treat as the movie is given a stellar transfer which serves as an effective time capsule of 70s drive- ins staples. Add in visual effects by Stan Winston (working on his FIRST feature (he would later go on to Terminator and Jurassic Park fame), and this stands as an interesting artifact, indeed. If you appreciate B films with merit, and if you also like bats, check out The Chosen Survivors, also available from MGM Midnite Movies, and also a 1974 release, which makes a terrific companion piece to this film.
Terror of Dracula (2012)
A worthy entry in the Dracula Canon
I was pleased to finally view this film. I went in knowing that this was a modest production. Looking past its humble audio-visual values, what this project evidences is a deep love and respect for its subject matter - the Gothic origins of the Dracula Mythology. Anthony D. P. Mann and company have put together a script that honors the Stoker source material while bringing their own ideas to the table. The depiction of the Count by Mann is quite effective. In the modern milieu, overrun by vampires as erotic creatures or teen idols, it is refreshing to see the portrayal of Dracula as the evil monster Stoker intended. Such projects should be encouraged by the intended community - lovers of horror, appreciators of an older form of storytelling, where dialogue is important and genre traditions are revered. I look forward to whatever projects this troupe has planned next.
Cars 2 (2011)
Cars 2: A self-indulgent failure
As a lover of Pixar, it pains this reviewer to say that Cars 2 represents PIXAR'S BIG STUMBLE. Those masters of Story - who managed to restore the animated feature to its former glory as Serious Entertainment for adults and kids, alike - have just walked out in public with their fly open. I hope they learn from this mistake, retrace their steps, and recapture the craft of Story that made their other films the instant classics that they are...
Saw it at the drive-in on a double billing with Green Lantern - it wasn't an Oscar-worthy night. The theme was clearly anti-petroleum - the director, John Lasseter, traded in the grand themes of Americana and our love affair with cars for....a spy story? starring Mater and not McQueen? with lots of shooting and bombs? and "kid-friendly" lines like "KILL McQUEEN"? with Oil (the industry that, ironically, made our car- centric American lifestyle and culture possible) as the monolithically bad guy?
Where Cars 1 sometimes felt epic (remember those scenes of the painted desert landscapes of old Route 66 America?)- this one was noisy, rushed, and thin. Like being trapped inside a pinball machine for 90 minutes. The story felt "small" - worthy of the kind of straight-to-video fluff that Disney has been doing lately (e.g., Fox and The Hound 2). Instead of characterization, we got flatulence gags.
Oh, Pixar. Save the liberal politics for your private cocktail parties. Stop indulging yourselves at the expense of all of us regular folks who know full-well that solar panels, windmills, ethanol (a government- foisted conceit, which actually damages engines and causes grain shortages and price spikes as we burn food for fuel), etc., don't begin to approach the efficiency and power of petroleum. But that's all beside the point. We just came to be entertained, not to have our kids indoctrinated into your world-view, or for us adults to be lectured under the guise of "entertainment."
So, please, go back to basics, and all will be well. We still love Pixar.