dice-5 Reviews

The Hunger Games (2012)

Good movie! HORRIBLE Directing and cinematography!!!

[6/10 · 24 March 2012]

Great casting and costumes!! By why, oh why, did the director jump the camera around so much!! It was almost a joke how much he did it. It ruined the movie experience for me. It brought it down from a 8/10 to a 6/10. And I like hand held camera movies when done right. I loved Cloverfield and Chronicle. This wasn't just a hand held shaking camera, it was out of focus at times, zooming in from all crazy angles, jumping around every second. The worst part is the director did it on purpose!!! Look at this quote from the director describing to Sodenberg, who was filming a sequence for him, on how to copy his style.

Transcription of secret tape of Ross explaining Hunger Games cinematography asethetic to Soderbergh: "Just pretend that the camera is a bouncing rubber ball on LSD, and that you have this weird compulsion for closeups. You know what I mean? You're trying to follow the action and you do follow it but almost in an accidental, stumbling-around way. All you gotta remember is close-ups, close-ups and more close-ups. And constantly bouncy, bouncy, bouncy. Just keep bouncing, man...in fact, forget the rubber ball thing. Pretend that the camera is a f€%ing basketball...okay? A f#%€ing basketball with a obsession for closeups. Do that and you can't go wrong."

You got to be kidding me. What a sh muck.

Hopefully it won't seem as bad when seen on a smaller screen at home.

American Ninja (1985)

An hour and half of my childhood.

[8/10 · 4 March 2003]

I think this should be required viewing for any male child 13 years or younger. I have no idea how many times I saw this movie growing up, but it is easily over 15 times. Maybe twice that. It has everything a boy who plays with action figures could want, NINJA's, G.I.Joe's (for god sakes his name was even Joe), lasers, flips, sai's, cat's claws, wrist lasers, machine guns, sword fights while in knee deep water (fights in water are always WAY cool), buff dudes with muscles, motercycles, a chick, characters with a disrespect for authority, a butterfly knife being flipped back and forth as Joe cooly leans against a truck, guys getting kicked in the nuts, did I mention flips? Anyway it goes on and on. All the cheesy effects make it all the more fun to view. I just watched the DVD after not having seen it for a few years and I just caught another good effect. When Joe and Patricia jump off the roof, there is an obviously inflated balloon on the roof that they land on. I remember my brothers and I putting sweat wrist bands on our hands as a child and pretending they were the cat's claws thingies that the black star ninja and Joe had. We had some awesome battles. I was probably a ninja for at least 3 Halloweens when I was a child as well. I was an "army guy" for another few Halloweens. I was the coolest. Anyway American Ninja rocks. By the way I don't know the name of the movie (I'm sure I could find it out here on imdb easy enough if I cared to look) but a few years back I was flipping throught the channels and I came across a movie where the Michael Dudikoff and Mark Hamill were fighting. Luke Skywalker fighting the American Ninja!??! I kids dream come true. So go see this movie. Or even better, show your young son, nephew, or whoever this movie.

My Science Project (1985)

Great for a kid

[6/10 · 19 January 2003]

I just saw this on DVD for the first time in probably about 15 years. I used to love it when I was about 7 years old. I was amazed how many lines I remembered. Though often I didn't remember them from this movie. I just remembered them as lines my 2 brothers and I worked into our vernacular growing up. Especially the timeless "Make my semesta!!!" Besides all the great one liners, there were guns, explosions, gladiators, monster's from the future and past, a TREX, dynamite, and lot's of cool electricity effects. Everything a 7 year old boy would love. So I highly recommend it for a boy child. But for everyone else, only if you are bored or really like seeing cheesy 80's flicks.