Reviews
Elvis Found Alive (2012)
If only...
This is a nice way to do a documentary. However, a lot of the information in this movie seems too far out there to be taken seriously. His love for Captain Marvel Jr. comics is well known, the visit to President Nixon and his collection of law enforcement badges are also know. But there is much that wasn't covered.
The last TV special Elvis did was supposed to be his third TV special and was to be on CBS. But Elvis was so far gone from drug use that CBS cancelled the show but later released clips for documentaries and also the sound-track to recoup some of the lost investment.
Some of the things they got wrong was that the emergency number 9-1-1 wasn't around until years later. Could have been an oversight or just another term for "an ambulance," much like a "Kleenex" is the term for any brand of facial tissue.
After his death, why would Elvis continue to sport his sideburns years later? If he actually worked for the FBI, and was trying not to attract attention, I would think that he would do more to change his looks. (shaved head, beard, hair dye, etc....)
Celeste Yarnall had been sitting in the room during the entire interview... and he didn't recognize her???
And the big question: If Elvis was found alive and IS staging a come-back, why block his face?
Comedy? The only thing that was even remotely funny was the box of documents that still had wet ink when the UPS guy delivered them. I wouldn't categorize this movie as Comedy, but rather "Speculative."
I did like the "mocumentary" as it gave a lot of insight to his life prior to August 16, 1977. And though Vegas was run by mobsters back then and it's true that Col Tom was a compulsive, and poor, gambler, I'm still skeptical of Elvis' role in the DEA and that he the Memphis Mafia setting up drug deals to help capture criminals.
But watch it and see what you think...
Returned (2015)
shouldn't have "Returned".
I saw this movie last night and finished watching it this morning. (I did sleep well, thank you Lamant.) Seriously, this movie looks like a pilot film for a TV series, or at least a film student's work. Mix-marriage couple has a son. The father has a nose bleed and he and his wife leave their son with Grandma and disappear. Years later the son has a nose bleed due to cancer. He also goes on a flight and disappears. What follows is a search as to where he was and why he came back while everyone else on his flight are still gone. Interesting story.
The bad parts... At the beginning of the movie the camera man appears to have chosen to hold the camera after drinking a pot of coffee. I was getting motion sickness at all the extreme close-ups that did nothing for the movie. A couple of times the idea of this being a "God's message" movie crept up as the question of "Do you believe in God?" and "Do you have faith?" was said a few times.
Blue Kimble did a nice job at times in his role but others seemed to be "going through the motions" since they seemed to either be acting students or upset for giving up a three-day weekend to be in his film. Diane Kirby gave a nice presence in this film. However, Agent Smith (Theresa Sullivan) kept smiling through every conversation until the end. Then we have Lethomas Lee and his so-out-of-character beard and over-the-top testosterone-driven acting. Yeah, we know his character is a bad ass with a sophomoric attitude to shoot first and ask questions later.
Overall, the first 4/5 of the story progressed with the speed of an ice glacier... slow, dragging, non-threatening. Just a character running from the "Captain Obvious" FBI agents while chasing down a TV anchor woman. But when the action FINALLY started to take place I was held to the screen.
If this progressed into something more, I would keep Blue Kimble and Diane Kirby and scrap the rest of the cast. Give it a season on TV and reintroduce Lathan's parents. I would also get more people to help poor Lamant Gant, since it appears he held every position in making this movie.
2012: Ice Age (2011)
Winner of the "Absolute Zero" Award
If you've seen the movie Absolute Zero (2008-TV movie), then you will know that the movie lived up top it's name. It was an awful attempt at a bad movie. But along came it's close cousin, 2012: Ice Age (2011). What this movie lacks in believable CGI effects, it makes up for by having no one showing their breath in the sub-arctic cold weather of New York. Along with the cheesy CGI effects, are the cheesy video game music that plagues each scene, and the cheesy dialog of the so-called actors. To paraphrase a Star Trek: The Next Generation line, "It's as if Ed Wood rose up again to make this stink bomb." In short, it's about a family looking for their daughter while the military "makes war on a glacier" that is moving at 200 mile per hour toward New York City. Her dweeb father, dweeb mother, and dweeb brother, all rely on a portable GPS system to find her while the dweeb father crashes their car, flies a small Cessna airplane through three tornadoes only to crash land at an airport due to lack of fuel, and only to take his family out of the crashed plane with the leaking non-existent fuel, so they can conveniently be knocked down from the planes explosion, of the non-existent fuel.
As the military battles with the glacier, they launch jet fighters to shoot rockets at it, watch them explode, and then get hit by flying debris and crash. So, they land on the oncoming glacier and plant bombs everywhere to they can explode the glacier to bit, except when they do, debris flies everywhere and kills even more people.
Still, the main characters run around the snow-covered streets of New York City, complaining about the cold, but they have no cold breath showing. Instead, they have cartoon-like CGI effects depicting explosions, cars driving in hair pin turns, planes flying through dense clouds and underneath commercial jets (that appear at "2 o'clock"), and on and on. In fact, even when the world is becoming enveloped in ice and snow, surprisingly, the runways at the airport remain untouched.
You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll kiss 2 hours good-bye!
Methodic (2007)
Methodic (What Method?)
Watching this, movie, one gets the distinct feeling of watching something else other than what was picked from the online menu. The beginning of the movie has the striking resemblance of that idiotic movie, "Cloverfield," as we see a video camera recording a birthday party. The nine-year old boy, Nathan Matthews, is silent as he draws a picture of a "Dollman." As the movie progressed, it became a "fourth wall" movie instead of a dweeb running around with a camera. That was the good point.
The movie progressed, slowly, to where he murders his parents, goes after his younger sister before being stopped by his older sister. Eventually the story leaps twenty years where the kid is now a man living in a mental ward and handcuffed to a wheelchair. His little sister, and former target, wants to "connect" with him. When she does, a series of plot holes big enough for downtown traffic starts to appear.
Nathan escapes from the hospital and makes it to his former home (His sibling still live in the same house?). He grabs a sewing machine and makes a Dollman costume (He learned to sew in the mental ward?). Then he steals a set of keys and drives around (He learned to drive in the mental ward?), looking for victims. The cop who originally investigated the case suffers a heart attack on an unrelated case, but learning of Nathan's escape, tells his now-suspended partner to take his gun (he has a gun in the hospital?), and go after Nathan. Later, this same cop has a set of keys around his neck (after suffering a heart attack and going through all that?) If you've seen the first Halloween movie, you've seen this one.
The only other part in this movie, which was filler, was the lesbian scene. No point, other than to have a sex scene.
Instead of naming it "Methodic" (What method?), this movie should have been named "Dollman," only it would be another monster-named movie like "Candyman", "Mothman", and other "-man" movies.
Paranormal Activity (2007)
Paranormal Inactivity
Not quite as bad as "Absolute Zero" or that thing called "Cloverfield", but it does rank down there with the worst of them. Granted, the movie doesn't have the typical "Four College Students Finding Evil and Horror Somewhere" theme, but it does play on cheapness. The Trivia states it took ten days to film this movie, and I'm sure much less time in writing it.
Pretty much, the story is about a couple living in a haunted house. Strange things happen to the women, many, many times. Instead of running in fear and terror, she opts to read books about ghosts. Micah, for whatever reason, starts out by making fun of her (yeah, typical Gen-X yuppie wanna-be), and uses the old Cloverfield routine: Film everything. To get in a good horror scare for the religious types, an Ouija Board is used (yawn).
One paranormal expert comes in, offers advice, and listens intently to the suffering women. Another comes back later and is scared, close-minded, and worthless. So, the couple stays in the house.
The woman then sleep walks around and is outside in the cold night. So, the couple stays.
Things get broken and moved around, scaring them into believing something evil is living in the house. So, the couple stays.
*SPOILER ALERT* Not to give the movie totally away, the never-ending credits - if you can read them - roll on and on over the screen in the speed of a Fox TV show, and written in a microscopic size. What was the point of that? I asked myself as I was in my fifth minute of credit watching. After ten minutes I ejected the DVD wishing ill fates to those making this thing, and cursing myself for having listened to people telling me to watch this trash.
Cloverfield (2008)
Cloverfield, or Field of Cow Pies
WTF was that? was what I asked myself as I struggled my way through this so-called film.
The title of the movie, Cloverfield, has absolutely nothing to do with the story in the movie, unless they decided to name the rarely-seen monster such a pretty name.
The story is done as a series of videos shot on a single tape over the course of a night. However, we see scenes of happier times as the main characters are getting ready for a party, messing around the park and town, and generally having fun. Then all hell breaks loose when some thing decides to destroy New York in the Godzilla fashion. Throughout the movie these people run around taping everything with a single hand-held camera. The story covers the early evening, all night long, and the following morning. (Please tell me what camera can film all that time without once having to recharge it's two or four-hour battery.) As the story progresses, in true four-character horror film fashion, they discover that one of their dear friends is missing on the other side of town, opposite of the evil mean and nasty CGI monster. So, with camera in hand causing nausea to the viewer, they run all over town, through the subways, and into the military who, in true horror-film fashion, wants to kill everything in their path, including the meek and bewildered characters.
They finally find their friend impaled through her chest on a long piece metal rob and, gently pulling her off, they ALL run away from the now collapsing building toward safety. And the camera still runs.
The ending is something of a downer and one by one the people all meet their demise. Nothing is ever said as to why the monster appeared or what anyone was doing about it, save lobbing rockets and missiles at it. (Here's a tip: Kill the guy who created the damn thing on his laptop!) As far as the stars, no big names were in this picture. And the one who should receive the most recognition is the hand-held camera that filmed everything all night long, without having to change tapes or sitting through a recharge.
Not worth watching unless you are a film student in need of what not to do, or you just like bad movies. This one should be ranked down there with the movies "Absolute Zero" (2005 - TV) (which is so dumb it's insulting), or "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (1959) (which is so dumb it's funny).
Meadowoods (2010)
Meadowood; school project, or insane attempt?
This movie reeks of Cloverfield, that movie whose main star was a Sony Handicam with an apparent thirty-six hour battery life. Shot exclusively from the cameraman's point of view, this film documents three students who plan on murdering someone at random. They film the commitment, the planning, the purchasing of materials, and each others' comments about life, death and other things.
As the movie progresses, the three characters fight with each other, get drunk, talk, talk, talk, yell at each other, and talk. When they finally get their target (a music student), they continue to talk about death, about life, and little int he way of the reason to kill her, other than to give their town a wake-up call.
The movie slowly progresses and when it starts to get good, it stops. They finally get their target out in the woods, threaten her with a gun, force her into a box that's fixed with two cameras and a light, and then the video goes black. The target lady is in the box screaming, for ten minutes. Ten minutes. Then it ends in a blurry quality of an amateur camera operator. Granted, this movie is supposed to be taped by a film student, but there were a lot of off-camera action we didn't, or couldn't, see.
If you really have to see this movie, get it from the Red Box or add it to your queue on Netflix and watch it on your laptop.
Kind of confirms the notion that Hollywood doesn't try very hard these days.
Der Tunnel (2001)
Keeps you glued to the TV
The true story of a national hero turned tunnel digger during the height of the Berlin Wall crisis.
I am a firm hater of sub-titled movies, and over dubs are annoying. But "Der Tunnel" is one that I will watch over and over again. The story is one we all heard about and know from years of political struggles between ideologies between the East and West. It's much more than "a tunnel movie" about escape, it's a love story, a suspenseful thriller, a story of corruption, of passion, hopes, dreams, and desires. And it's also closely accurate to those who lived it.
This is a must see!
Absolute Zero (2006)
Absolute Zero: Absolute 0
The really good thing to say about this movie is the title is correct.
This movie reeks of film-school student work. Like the typical high-school paper that has to follow all the rules and regulations in writing the paper, this movie seems to follow some set, or in some case, immovable guidelines.
This movie contain most of the obligatory elements of a movie of this genre....
The top-notch scientist working for a money-hungry bureaucrat,
The "Lab" wooing the military into buying something that may or may not work,
The Old Scientist/Alchohalic,
The Old Lover, now married with a daughter,
The now-mother using product placement; in this case a pair of cheap Radio Shack walkie-talkies (I can say that because I sold them.),
The Little girl, with the modern-but-stupid hair style and on-again-off-again lisp, with the voice of a duck, often saying "Mom," like "Mmmmom!", and who knows Spanish at the "doctorial age" of 8,
The "self sacrifice," where one scientist tells the little girl, "It's OK, I'm alright, go hide over there in the pipe. I'll be alright," which is followed by one of the WORST CGI effects ever seen on national TV, the man dies when a supposed downdraft hits everything, but other places look just fine.
The problems solved by one computer, two big-screen TV, two half-wit grad students, the Hero, and the Trophy wife/mother and daughter combo, fighting to prove that they are correct and the team of over 1,000 scientist from around the globe are wrong.
SPOILER:
AND...(Plot hole), The temperature is supposed to be -439 degrees F. HOWEVER, as our unlikely survivors sit in a cozy greenhouse, they hear a Coast Guard helicopter flying overhead. Now come on! The fuel running the helicopter would be in a gel form if not rock solid hard. How can it fly?
AND FINALLY, the biblical death of the greedy man.
The Other (1972)
Scary without the butchery
This movie proves that gushing guts and gore are not needed to scare the hell out of an audience.
These are just a few scenes that have always stuck with me since I first saw the movie back in the mid-70s when it finally hit television...
Looking at the scene where Niles is taking the ring from Holland, and using the pruners to cut Holland's finger off, isn't much by today's standards. Just seeing the pruners and hearing the cuts was enough to stay with me for years after seeing it.
The head of the baby, after being found in the liquor barrel, was rough, and it worked when played with the reactions and screams of those in the kitchen.
The barn scene where Grandma lets herself fall into the basement with gasoline all over the place was haunting, especially with the inter-cuttings of the stained glass images and the horror on her face.
I'm just waiting for them to remake this one like they remake all the other movies. If it were remade today, it would probably go like this.....
Today's movie would have about ten minutes worth of angles, scary music, and streams of blood splattering (from a corpse, no doubt) onto the walls. Unless the baby is some Martian freak (Kuato - Total Recall), we don't see babies dying, much less the corpse of one. And the barn scene effect would not be done without several tons of TNT.
Find it and watch it on a stormy night, for the best effect....
Mack Shelton Jr.
House M.D. (2004)
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
"House, M.D." has got to be the most pre-empted show in FOX TV's history. When it is on, the short-sided arguments and sarcasm delivered by Hugh Laurie are short on offending but large in humor. While most shows on TV are mainly copies of other shows (the dreaded Reality show, and CSI spin-offs), and the over abundance of "marathon shows" (Dog Whisperer all the time, History of Hitler, End of the World, and Tsunami shows), it is a fresh pleasure to see an anti-hero at "work," in this case, popping pills, barking out orders and the endless spewing of "I'm better than you on this so get used to it," dialogue. So, I praise "House, M.D." that is, when it's on.
Mack Shelton
Turistas (2006)
A "tear jerker"
No, it's not a new desert item from Taco Bell, it's "Turistas" a movie with a lot of color sites and sounds, and all in 94 minutes! Yes, and you, too, can follow the nutty antics of a group of travelers to the remote areas of Brazil, a country who is still to this day trying to shed their image as a Third World Country. We see some typical elements here: the overly protective brother, his slutty sister, her slutty friends, and a couple of English adventurers who meet them after the first tragic thriller, a bus accident.
They go to a beach at the bottom of a mountain road and proceed to swim, get plastered, drugged, and robbed. Then we start to see the enemy, an evil doctor who looks like a cross between the actor Ron Silver, and Luis from "Sesame Street." The young victims walk all over the place, throughout the woods full of biting insects, led by a pick-up friend "Kiko," who tells them about a house where his uncle lives. No surprise that one of the slutty girls wants to stop and rest, in the middle of the onslaught of bugs, to rest for an hour. Then, out of no where, the "magic mystery pond" appears with underwater caves. Actually, it's a river with a collection area, but who cares? Most of the cast follows Kiko off a waterfall and into the water as he leads them into the caves. At each air pocket, the girls start commenting about the beauty of the caves then complain that they want to leave. After about ten minutes of the magic mystery caves (an eternity for movie goers to watch one scene), they finally come to the end of the caves and end up on top of the water fall, where we see the obligatory sex scene (clothes on, of course) between a guy and girl.
Someone yells for Kiko to jump back into the water, and he does, this time hitting his head on a rock. They all carry Kiko to the house where upon they start to conduct surgery on the guy, using, (yes), a stapler, possibly a nod to "Weekend at Bernie's." Fast forward to the arrival of the Uncle. He is the evil mean and nasty doctor who kidnaps tourists and harvests their organs to sell to the big city hospitals.
The only good scene was when the blonde girl gets surgically opened up and her kidneys and such are removed, while she is awake and under sedation.
On and on it goes as we see more and more violence and the tourists try to escape from a dog pen, in the rain, and at night. The shorter English guy has been sedated now, but he rescued by his friend and the overly protective brother. Guns go off everywhere, and the English guy gets it. So, his friend, in slow action (not slow-motion), and with an almost church-like choir music, shoot, and misses, the attacker, only to be shot in the knee and knocked out by the butt of the rifle.
OK, now on to the caves, again...
The underwater scenes here are longer than both "Posiden Adventure" and "Posiden" combined. Go get popcorn and come back... still underwater.
And finally, when the brother is in the position to kill the evil doctor by beating him to death with a rock, his sister, for some strange and stupid reason, yells at him to stop. (Why on earth?) So, the tear-jerker part here is that I spent $10.00 on this when we all l know that it will be on the dollar shelve at Blockbuster in about six months.