Preacher-6 Reviews

Camp Blood 4 (2016 Video)

The padding on this one is epic

[7/10 · 11 October 2023]

I think there's about 20 minutes of actual film in this Camp Blood entry. As well as mining a lot of footage from the previous entry, this flick has more walking montages than Lord of the Rings.

At first I was wondering why there was so much filler at the beginning (our heroine goes cd shopping for 5+ minutes) but that sort of editing happens over and over.

I couldn't stop laughing at the bold choice to shoot at night in the woods with only the camera mounted light. They could have saved a lot of shooting time if they filmed the final 20 minutes in a blacked out room instead of on location.

The inept filmmaking is a joy to watch. And at 69 minutes, it is a nice way to spend 1/4 of an evening of movies.

Alone at Night (2022)

A good horror hidden in garbage

[4/10 · 9 October 2023]

This is a frustrating film. The horror film part is well acted, tense, and has good twists. But for whatever reason, there is an annoying reality show element that feels like it was clumsily added later.

The reality show-within-a-movie is a bunch of horrible social media folks and doesn't connect to the real movie in any additive way. Paris Hilton almost makes it win some irony points, but it never lands.

Keep your finger on FFWD and you can still get a decent experience out of this.

I'd love to see a 70-ish minute cut. Call it "18 & Over, The Good Parts Edition". I think I'll do a fanedit and come back to it in a few years.

I Am DB Cooper (2022)

The Unreliable Narrator

[8/10 · 22 April 2023]

A fascinating look into one of the many people who have claimed to be DB Cooper. A mix of interviews and recreations focus not on facts, but rather what Rodney Bonnifield knows as "his story."

Rodney might be DB Cooper, or a liar, or a kook. The filmmakers leave it to us to decide. The title, after all, is "I Am DB Cooper," not "He is DB Cooper."

The recreations are not based on established elements of the case but instead on Bonnifield's storytelling. He is what is called in fiction "an unreliable narrator" - a narrator who is not stating facts of the story, but rather telling their version which may not be objectively true.

I do not believe Rodney was DB Cooper. But I was left wondering if maybe Rodney believes he was.

Letters to Satan Claus (2020 TV Movie)

Fun parody of the Christmas rom-com

[8/10 · 22 December 2020]

A silly parody of the Christmas romantic comedy genre with more meet-cutes and story morals than you can count. It's not as over the top as many of the Syfy films, but it has a lot of laughs and is quite joyful. It is to Hallmark what Sharknado was to Jaws.

Fatman (2020)

With something for everyone! Even those who hate it!

[7/10 · 12 December 2020]

Fascinating to read the reviews here. I can't think of a film that is accused of being both "woke" propaganda and "maga" propaganda! Finally, something that brings everyone together. Overall it's a bit slow but has some good chuckles. Walton Goggins steals the film as always with his bitter child turned hit man role. The third act is fun, but they could have gotten there faster.

Tesla (I) (2020)

It's an art house film in a documentary world

[10/10 · 14 September 2020]

Tesla is one of those films that folks will find brilliant or dreadful.

In style and form, it's closer to a stage play. Characters frequently play monologues in front of intentionally-flat-looking backdrops. The story is told directly to the audience by an unreliable narrator. It is not telling a documentary tale but rather the story of Tesla partly from the perspective of his friend and erstwhile love, Anne Morgan, and partly from our modern perspective looking back.

Looking for realism is a fool's errand with this film. It is impressionistic and high design, not a literal biopic. Anachronisms are intentional, and it roots it in today's popular view of Tesla rather than a historical one.

The film makes an open question of Tesla's balance of genius and madman. The mysteries of his later life are left unanswered.

There have been quite a few films and documentaries about Tesla's life which were enlightening and described what he was possibly trying to achieve. If you want a historical perspective, look them up. That's not what this film is here for. This would fall closer into a category with the portrayal by David Bowie in The Prestige, a mix of truth and legend.

When the Streetlights Go On (2017–2020)

Sometimes the right ending is the most satisfying

[8/10 · 3 September 2020]

The series has the feel of Stand By Me, or IT (without the supernatural). A narrated story of when the narrator was young and things were simpler. That simpler time in this case being the 90s.

I think the challenge of this show for the viewer is that it isn't really a mystery, it's a story of being a certain age and how a terrible event can stay with a person.

Sometimes the right ending might not be the most satisfying. Like many of the other reviewers, I was surprised by the abrupt finish to the story, but upon reflection it is the ending that make the most sense thematically.

It doesn't resolve like a murder mystery because it isn't really a murder mystery. The final moments don't even involve our narrator because he was only telling his own role in the story.

What is most interesting to me is that about halfway through the series, a teacher tells the narrator what the ending of the story will be. The teacher (played by the understated Tony Hale) says that a similar murder took place when he was young. Everything the teacher says about what happened to him is what finally resolves in this story too.

Quibi's short story style makes this a tight tale. Probably best enjoyed in quick succession rather than once a week.

The Yellow Rose: Trail's End (1983) Season 1, Episode 8

Chuck Conners turns into a cartoon villain

[8/10 · 18 August 2020]

This arc has Conners trying scheme after scheme to stop the Rose. At times, it seems he is in a separate show, considering the mustache-twirling glee of his plans. The cast is really coming together with the end of the second story arc.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

A nearly perfect film that goes to dust if you think too hard about it

[8/10 · 29 May 2019]

... so don't.

It's a time travel jumble that never settles into a solid theory of time, predestination, or the multiverse theory. Or more speficially, it tells you its theory and then spends the next couple of hours breaking it over and over. If you try to work it out, side effects may include headache, nosebleed, and a desire to have a bit of a lie down. That said, it's emotionally perfect as the ending of the whole series thus far. The 22 film + shorts + tv-shows-if-you-like-that-kind-of-thing has a definitive end as well as the promise of a new day just ahead. In the shared-universe age of films, this is the first time I've felt like I was seeing a "series finale" the way one would with a long-running TV series. Now to hope that what lies ahead isn't a bunch of films that feel like "After MASH", trying to keep the IP alive when all of the interesting characters/actors have shuffled off down the road.

Big City Blues (1997)

Lost 90s gem - Burt Reynolds' mustache distracted viewers from a great story

[10/10 · 29 May 2019]

The film follows three storylines and the Reynolds/Forsythe storyline is *very* derivative of Pulp Fiction (2 gangland thugs make the rounds for their boss and cross paths with wacky people). If you turned up for a Burt Reynolds film, you are likely in the wrong headspace. This is a quirky indie 90s flick done when Reynolds was trying to get a career comeback like Travolta's. He would hit with his other film that year, Boogie Nights. The other two threads are the gold in this film. Giancarlo Esposito and Arye Gross are transgender women out on a night on the town. Gross tells a series of parables to help Esposito decide if she wants to go through with a sex change. The humour and wacky of the film is in Gross' stories including a surprising scene featuring pvc frog costumes. The heart of the film is Georgina Cates, a call girl with a heart of gold. I feel like her's is the key story and the others are to draw you in first. Cates is seeking her doppleganger, the person who is exactly like her but made better choices. Along the way, we get some very memorable scenes with her clients. I found this on Tubi for free and it was a bargain at twice the price.

Among the Shadows (I) (2019)

For those who find The Room too polished!

[8/10 · 9 March 2019]

Sometimes a movie comes along that is so ineptly-made, so amazingly incompetent, that you stare in wonder at how many people put their energy and best efforts into such a train wreck of film art. And this time, it has Lindsay Lohan in it. As a vampire. Also there are werewolves. It's Underworld meets Phillip Marlowe as Patricia (Lohan) hires a PI, who is a werewolf, to protect her husband, who is also a werewolf, from assassins, who are also werewolves. Get some friends, get some popcorn, this is a film that will challenge everything you know about how films should be made, edited, and perhaps even watched.

T2 Trainspotting (2017)

Trainspotting 2 is The Big Chill for Generation X

[9/10 · 20 February 2019]

Choose unfulfilled promise and wishing you'd done it all differently. Choose never learning from your mistakes. Choose watching history repeat itself. Choose the slow reconciliation towards what you can get, rather than what you always hoped for. -Renton (T2: Trainspotting)

The Big Chill (1983) is the story of a group of college friends who reunite 15 years after graduation to mourn the death of a friend. It is, to me, the quintessential film of the Boomer Generation at middle age. The Big Chill is about entering the time of consequences. At 40 your opportunities to reinvent yourself are starting to run low. Sure you might learn a new language or start a new business, but you probably aren't going to be a rock star or doctor. At 40, the choices you made in your 20s are either paying off, or it is time to dig in and make life what you want it to be. ________________________________________

I am a member of Generation X. The slacker generation. The MTV generation. The rerun generation. Generation X is the middle-child of the 21st century. Mine is a generation that was represented on film in movies like Singles, Reality Bites, Glory Daze, and Trainspotting. Those coming-of-age movies are now all about 20 years old. I have been on watching for my generation's The Big Chill. The film that defines Generation X at middle age. And I found it in T2 Trainspotting. ________________________________________ Choose life. The best-known section of the original Trainspotting is Renton's "Choose Life" speech. It was a cynical take on the 90s branded, packaged, consumerist world. The film's ending has Renton deciding to choose that version of Life after all. For a generation that could not see how to get off the ride, buying-into-buying seemed one of the only solutions. T2, then, is the cost of this choice.

T2 Trainspotting picks up 20 years after the first film with Renton returning to Edinburgh for the first time. The life he (literally) bought into at the end of the original film has gone off the rails. Unsure of how to move forward, Renton is going back to the beginning. Simon (Sickboy) ridicules Renton for maudlin looking-back. "It's just nostalgia! You're a tourist in your own youth. We were young; bad things happened." This mirrors my favorite line from The Big Chill. Tom Berenger's character Sam chastises his friends with the line "So what's the thrust here? We were great then and we're s*** now? I don't buy that." Renton and his former mates are stand-ins for my generation. Now middle aged, Generation X is at that turning point. Squeezed between the over-achieving Boomers and the impatient Millennials. It's time to buy-in or get out. Again.

Renton updates the Choose Life speech to express a feeling of being left out and passed over. In a world where everyone has a voice, is anyone listening? The new version again attacks the consumer culture, this time represented by iPhones and cheap imported clothing. Twenty years on, society is still structured around committing commerce as the path to happiness. ________________________________________ At middle age, Generation X is asking many of the same questions we did in our 20s. Do we choose from an updated menu of consumer goods and a social media that sells us as their product? Or can we get off the ride? Opt out? Choose life.

Rent: Live (2019 TV Movie)

A few gems in a so-so show

[6/10 · 4 February 2019]

RENT is my second favourite Christmas movie and I watch it (or the Live Broadway dvd) every Christmas eve. And I've seen a variety of stagings of the show. Which is all to say that I know the show very well. The highlights are the clever staging, far more elaborate than theatre in the round. The show has more in common with a high-budget stadium concert tour than a theatre setting. The stage is also built to play to multiple, moving cameras and so the live audience is sometimes jammed in. That said, the cleverest incorporation of the live audience is in the protest scene. By setting up barricades and uniformed police at the front of the live crowd, the staging gets a bit meta and turns the audience into the attendees at the in-story event. Vanessa Hudgens would have been better used in the more meaty role of Mimi, but shines nonetheless in the much-smaller role of Maureen. Of all the versions I've seen, Hudgens wrings more out of "Over The Moon" than ever before. It is beefed up into an even more pretentious performance art piece and it becomes a great showpiece. The negatives come mostly from speeding up the show to fit the timeslot. The opening of both Acts feel hurried and Seasons of Love particularly suffers for it. The film, for example, is the same length but cut two songs to get there. The rest of the cast is uneven and the show lacks the emotion of other stagings. Overall, if you have seen another version, just fastforward to Hudgens' big number and the finale and you are good to go. If you haven't seen another version, please don't start here.