rioplaydrum Reviews

Pain & Gain (2013)

Humor balanced with insanity

[8/10 · 25 November 2019]

No reason for a lengthy review this late in the game. Watched this cinematic stunner for the first time last night on a DVD bought from the budget bin at Walmart.

'Wow' is all I can say. How true is it to the actual story? Who cares!

The comic bumbling balanced with the naked horror of ambition and desire is something to behold.

Just when you get used to laughing you find yourself suddenly stopping and being forced to ponder the pure evil/stupidity of it all.

A refined yet terrible accomplishment.

10 Things I Hate (2012– )

Whatever Greg

[1/10 · 23 August 2019]

Greg Jackson, well known by any YouTube enthusiast as one of the most vapid and self-serving little boy on the planet, now makes an attempt here on IMDB to pass himself as a bonafide actor, director, writer, musician and whatever else his pathetic imagination can dream up.

It's all lies.

I'd write another 5,000 words detailing my disgust for this 2-dimensional cardboard cut-out of this hilariously contemptable human, but I'm not going to waste my time and risk my blood pressure.

Have a good day!

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)

Seriously?

[1/10 · 22 August 2019]

You can write all the phony 10 rated reviews you want, you ain't foolin' me or anybody else. Just like most folks, I waited over two hours after the film began for the film to begin.

I was entertained by the absolute attention to detail as far as what you would experience walking around a 1969 Los Angeles, but that's all you get.

We are treated to a series of meandering scenes that individually threaten to turn into a story, but then it doesn't happen. Over and over again.

The only shred of a plot that develops at all is between Brad Pitt's character (can't even remember his name) and a quirky underage hippie girl who happens to be part of the Manson family.

This anti-climaxes with an absolutely useless scene between Pitt and Veteran Bruce Dern, leaving the viewer yet again wondering why anybody would drop $12 on this pointless movie.

And what's up with the revisionist history? Why would you want to change who gets murdered and why?

Disappointing, fruitless and boring.

You'd be more entertained following me around for three hours on any given day.

St. John's Wort (2001)

Amateur Garbage

[1/10 · 23 November 2018]

If you actually submit this embarrassment of a production was any good, then you live under a rock and one of your little magic bunny pals who took you to the moving picture show for the first time in your life.

This putrid amateur student mess of a movie has everything you never, NEVER do in a movie.

Over-amped visual presentations of what's supposed to be scary later, English over dubbing that has worse production values than a 1970's Kung fu movie, and let's thrown in all the student actors who know how to do anything but ACT.

You can work all day long whipping up the perfect bowl of poop.

But guess what? You still have a bowl of poop!

Hideous, over done, promoted light-years ahead of its worth.

Be sure and miss it!

The Giant Claw (1957)

Wow!

[9/10 · 16 November 2018]

The dumbest thing you will ever see in this life or the next.

Now that I'm old, I have a special fondness for what we thought was genuinely scary way back when.

This film has it all! And it's bad!

Bad acting, bad plot, bad effects, bad camera work, bad sound track, bad premise.

And shot in black-n-white!

If I had the resources, I'd rent a theater and play this opening for the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

It would be a hit.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

If You're My Age, You Will Cry

[8/10 · 4 November 2018]

Aside from the one obvious monster number one hit of the same name, I was never a big fan of Queen, but it doesn't matter. Yes, I knew Freddy could be a 'highly difficult' person. Yes, I knew he could be a highly flamboyant gay character and that he died of AIDS.

What I never really knew was the band's story and Freddy's heroic but tragic end.

I couldn't help it, but while watching I myself started to remember my own life and the things I was doing during the late 70's and 80's. Back then you probably couldn't go a couple weeks without that tune wafting in from somewhere. Even briefly from a passing car.

This story will make you weep for the past.

I flinched a bit at the Gay scenes like any straight male, but I found near zero anything wrong with this movie. Like usual I was a little worried the two hour run time would leave me bored and fiddling with my phone, but no. I was glued to the story from start to finish.

I terrific movie and a striking salute to Freddy and the band.

The Bad Batch (2016)

Boring and pointless.

[2/10 · 31 October 2018]

I tried three times to watch this movie all the way through. Dull, boring, goes nowhere.

Past our heroine, Arlen, getting her arm and leg sawed off by cannibals, you now get to sit through nearly two hours of no plot or dialog.

Absolutely the worst movie I've seen in ten years.

First Reformed (2017)

Unbelievably Bad Ending

[3/10 · 7 June 2018]

I don't normally write reviews with spoilers. This story comes completely undone with in the last five minutes. And does so in such a fashion I managed to practically dismiss everything good from the beginning.

The quiet but steadfast Pastor Toller is a token Pastor in a tiny token church financed by a much larger religious organization known as Abundant Life.

Toller already has faced a fair amount of pain and loss, his son killed in the Iraqi war only six months into his first deployment, which lead to his divorce. Toller is quietly plagued by alcoholism and guilt as a result. He also has the added anxiety of now facing terminal cancer.

A young married couple, Michael and Mary, come to the Pastor for counseling as Michael wants his wife to abort their coming baby.

Michael is completely obsessed with the idea of total global environmental meltdown by the year 2050, and can not bear the thought of his child being handed an unlivable world.

The good Pastor Toller very much enjoys engaging Michael for the sake of avoiding the abortion, and feels he is gaining ground to give the soon to be father some badly needed hope.

The cinematography greatly captures the mood with most scenes so darkly lit and in late fall, just before the advent of a long and cold New York winter.

There is a near complete lack of a soundtrack as well to deepen the severity of the conversations and the Pastor's own private musings.

Michael then abruptly commits suicide, dooming Toller to find his body minus half his head.

Toller now takes on Michael's grave environmental concerns, and it doesn't help when he discovers the main benefactor of his parent church is none other than a man who runs one of the biggest corporate polluters on the list.

Toller is already in the possession of a suicide bomb-vest, homemade by the late Michael.

The suspense at this point is thick enough to be cut with a knife. But the incredibly weak, silly and scattered ending destroys everything one might be on the edge of their seat expecting.

Does he blow up the church with all the evil, rich polluters? No. Does he commit suicide by drinking Drano? No.

He instead wraps himself up in barbed-wire and makes out with his girlfriend.

I, like everybody else in the theater left shaking their heads in disbelieve, leaving the entire story which was about to receive a solid 8/10 rating, shoots itself down to a 3.

Absolutely disappointing.

Upgrade (2018)

A WHOLE Buncha Fun!

[9/10 · 2 June 2018]

Hoo-wee! Where to start!

Grey and his wife are a young, happy couple enjoying all the fruits of their labors with their considerable job skills set in a time I would guess around the year 2075 (the story gives no clue what year it actually is).

She works in robotics while Grey restores and sells now ancient muscle cars from the 1970's.

Grey's life is turned upside down after a seemingly freak car accident in a slum neighborhood leads to the murder of his wife and his near total paralysis.

And that's all I can say!

'Upgrade' is a refreshingly unpredictable story that moves at a brisk pace with lots of twists and turns. It's a sci-fi drama with palpable comedy. I had the feeling I was watching a mixture of 'The Matrix' and the old TV show 'Night Rider' oddly enough.

Not sure if I can call it an instant classic, but it will takes its place high up the scale in action-adventure sci-fi.

I'm sure other reviewers will not be as scrupulous and give away all the surprises, but I will not. They're too good to reveal.

I was absolutely blind-sided by the ending that is coldly ominous and will give anyone easily triggered by the mere thought of artificial intelligence taking over the world one day a completely sleepless night.

I'm hard pressed to believe there will be too many people who won't enjoy this movie. Very thought provoking and plausible.

I was very satisfied.

E.T. (1982)

Hideous

[1/10 · 1 June 2018]

The stupidest movie ever made. Looks more stupid every year.

I Can Only Imagine (2018)

A Better Contemporary Christian Film, Just Not Great

[6/10 · 21 May 2018]

I always have a very tough time reviewing Contemporary Christian movies. Yes, I understand the message. Yes, I get the struggle. Yes, miracles can happen.

So why are they all so badly made?

The scripts are way too frequently awful, the dialog between characters not believable and self-congratulatory. Characters are two-dimensional at best, and a plot that demands extreme pathos for 1st world problems most people yawn at.

'I Can Only Imagine' cleans up in most of these areas, just not much.

Dennis Quaid does a very acceptable job as Bart's abusive drunken father turned Christian, but his transformation is far from dramatic. 'Arthur', while facing terminal cancer, thinks reading the Bible a little bit and being nicer to his son might be a good idea. Ok, it is a good idea -it just doesn't make much of a splash as insinuated in the trailers.

Always good to see mega-veteran Cloris Leachman still kicking, we just don't see much of her.

The indelible Amy Grant absolutely glows on screen and gets high marks as well, but just how hard is it to play yourself in a role that receives nothing but hero worship from her very first scene?

Other points of interest include some genuine humor, and Broadway actor J. Michael Finley truly is an exceptional song-bird.

Aside from that, there's plenty of self-delusion and fragile egos to go around, and what of the song itself? The tune is catchy and very well produced, but it's cookie-cutter fare and absolutely mediocre based upon it's own merit. It's no Bohemian Rhapsody. There is nothing innovative or revolutionary presented here at all.

Struggling rock band finally pumps out a number one hit? That's the miracle? Seems a tad self-serving, don't you think?

About a billion people all over the world who struggle for food and clean water on a daily basis will not find it so miraculous.

Listening to a flowery little tune isn't going to help them one wit, either.

And all you starry-eyed reviewers can STOP comparing this bit of fluff to past giants like 'The Greatest Story Ever Told' (1965) and 'The Passion Of The Christ' (2004).

Just. Stop.

Overboard (2018)

Suprizingly Good, Heartwarming

[7/10 · 20 May 2018]

I say that in the title because I don't like comedies. At least what has been passing for comedy for quite a while.

The first ten minutes of 'Overboard' did not impress me at all. I thought for sure the next hour and a half was going to be nothing but lame jokes and contrived humor. But like a slow start to a championship football game, the story rises to the occasion quickly and stays there.

The preface to the story is not new, in fact it's a direct re-boot of the 1987 'Overboard' starring Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn. Only this time the roles are reversed: In this version, it is the conniving female who kidnaps the hapless male and convinces him he's nothing but a lowly house husband with a dead-end job and a gaggle of kids.

I'm tempted to say the original was somewhat better, but both films deliver with very different dimensions. Time will tell.

As the story progresses, 'Kate' very much enjoys extracting her revenge on 'Leonardo' with daily surprises of responsibilities and new realities of who he 'used' to be.

The tables slowly turn, however, with Leo not only becoming accustomed to his new duties, but actually relishing his new roles and begins to excel at them. This all of course gives Kate more than she bargained for and is in a quandary of how to now get rid of him.

I found the soundtrack a little goofy, but the supporting roles are well cast with a few very intriguing sub-plots. Character development for nearly all the cast gets high marks.

Most of the humor deployed feels spontaneous and comes out of left field which slapped me with biting laughs.

When Leonardo regains his memory, the scene portraying his sudden recovery is way too convenient and contrived, but it's a minor sin compared to this lovely story's' skillful unfolding.

And actress and newcomer Hannah Nordberg, who plays 'Emily' bears an absolutely bizarre resemblance to a very young Beverly D'Angelo.

A terrific family movie for a Saturday night.

And be sure to sit through the ending credits. I found them hilarious.

A Quiet Place (2018)

Holy Cow. This Is The Face Of Classic Horror

[9/10 · 6 May 2018]

Back in 1979 when I was eighteen years old, me and a buddy went to the theater to see a just released and trending sci-fi thriller entitled 'Alien'.

For years I always said that was the last film that really scared me.

What a refreshing surprise to know somebody can still pump out a genuine nail-biter after all that time.

'A Quiet Place' is set sometime in the not-to-distant future where whole towns stand abandoned and there's only a smattering of human beings left. What decimated the human race? Was it a nuclear war? Natural disaster? Unless I missed something, the story doesn't give us a clue.

What is left aside from a few humans are a species of absolutely terrifying predators that evidently can not see or smell, but hear. They literally have ears for eyes, and savagely hunt down and kill anything that makes so much as a peep.

Where did they come from? Are they aliens? An experimental species that escaped from a top secret government lab?

Again, we do not know.

They can run on all fours with the speed of a cheetah, and can rip their prey apart with the strength of a silver-back gorilla. You do NOT want to tangle with any of these buggers.

Trapped on a farm in an otherwise idyllic setting are a young family composed of Mom, Dad, and their three children. And a baby on the way.

Dad is a smart man, educated in farming as well as electronic engineering. He toils tirelessly away at the soil and spends countless hours sending out distress messages from a short-wave radio desperately trying to find other survivors.

Aside from that, they are 100% self-sufficient and want for nothing.

One clumsy accident in the house leads to another, and in no time all the lovely critters start showing up for dinner.

'A Quiet Place' had me squirming in my seat from start to finish. Extreme tension and bad surprises come fast and furious. Sheer terror is the order of the day.

There is a plot-hole here and there and a bit of bad science, but you won't care, believe me.

Many times I joke about a film being perhaps a little too intense for young children. This one is, and I'm not joking.

Have fun, y'all!

Chappaquiddick (2017)

The Shame! The Shame!

[8/10 · 7 April 2018]

If you're my age, this is the one Kennedy scandal that everybody always remembers, but not a lot of people ever knew much about, including me.

And now that almost everyone involved is now dead and outside scrutiny, the story can now be told. That's no accident, trust me.

Casting and script is excellent. Plot is well directed and unfolds at a satisfying pace.

What really caught my attention was Ted's team of fixers, from lawyers to men of dubious public presence and how they jump into action to save a man of average intelligence, or rather the image of a man who on the outside is a real hero to the American public, but in reality falls far short of any real goals.

You almost feel bad for Ted as he is batted aside by his handlers to allow the real men to field the situation, and his almost pathetic pleas to his now twisted old fruit of a father (characterized perfectly by Bruce Dern).

If Ted Kennedy evokes any sympathy now it is because Ted's life was clearly not of his choosing, at least that's what I gained from it. From trying to fill the shoes of three martyred brothers to struggling to gain the respect of Senior Joe, all of it was a very dangerous walk for a man who probably would have been better off as a writer or a painter.

How much of the film is accurate? Hard to say. The basic facts are certainly all there. But just how much of artistic license bastardized relationships between all the players will never be fully known.

Uncomplicated, gets to the point, and unintentionally witty in spots.

'Chappaquiddick' filled up my afternoon just fine.

I, Tonya (2017)

Not A Dull Moment In The House

[8/10 · 4 February 2018]

We have now come full circle with the life and times of the one and only Tonya Harding.

I very much remember the actual footage and news stories and relentless pursuit of her movements.

Tonya the champion. Tonya the conniving participant in evil deeds. Tonya the celebrity joke. Tonya the hated.

The first half of the movie very efficiently converts the hard-scrabble world of Tonyas' daily beat-downs from a hell bent mother, well meaning but idiot husband, and a small collection of his single-digit I.Q. associates into palpable comedy.

We actually receive guilt free laughs as Tonya and her husband Jeff pound on one another, delivering blood and bruises while shoving each other's heads through walls and shattering mirrors.

The formula works, considering a lot of it probably did happen. Before this, I had no idea how deep her red-neck roots went.

Imagine the Bundys from the old "Married with Children" TV show except with genuine violence, alcohol abuse, and firearms... you get the idea.

The second half delves into mostly tangible drama as Tonya's world is permanently unraveled by bumbling, delusional fools who fancy themselves real live black-ops agents and 'cleaners'.

As the buffoonery and drama fades into the end credits featuring footage of the real Tonya at work on the ice, your heart strings will be tugged on more than a little bit in hopes the once brief American Legend has found peace.

And a big fat check in the mail.

Hostiles (2017)

You're Kidding, Right?

[3/10 · 28 January 2018]

I am of a firm belief sometimes people will rant and rave positively over a book or movie simply because it's popular to do so. Not that it's any good.

I call it the Oprah Syndrome. "Well, OPRAH liked it." Indeed. Best not have an opinion otherwise. People won't like us.

This absolute bore of a film was just as long as it is pointless. I can not believe I sat through the entire thing.

Our Capt. Blocker leads his small band of soldiers through hostile country to deliver an old man and his family to their homeland. About half get killed or maimed along the way, and the old man dies on the spot upon arriving.

Now that's thrilling cinema.

There is barely any character development here and an over-simplistic plot that might carry a book but not a movie.

There are long stretches between any real action and characters do little else but quietly philosophize with one another in the rain, in the dark, or under the influence.

In another incarnation, 'Hostiles' might have been a long forgotten TV movie of the week and that's all.

"The greatest western since 'Unforgiven'".

Please.

Phantom Thread (2017)

Bit Of A Snooze

[6/10 · 25 January 2018]

The film is billed as a 'crime/drama', and that's a bit misleading.

Behold the indelible Reynolds Woodcock, of the House of Woodcock. He is a dress designing genius. He is wealthy, prominent, poised, cultured, polite, mild mannered, and impeccably dressed.

Reynolds spends his days with a very specific routine in his enormous mansion that he shares with his spinster sister, Cyril.

Similar to an autistic child, Reynolds despises being lead into anything new or different. He would be classified today as a true workaholic, performing and pouring untold hours into his creations with tremendous reward. Few can afford his time. Only the richest of socialites and even the Queen of a foreign country will be allowed his attention.

Enter Alma.

Alma is a bit of an uncultured hick by Reynolds standards, yet captures his heart anyway. She is also at least 25 years his junior.

After moving in, Alma respects and conforms to the ways of the almost royal unspoken laws of conduct. But after a while, bit by bit, her country girl personality and spontaneous nature rises to the surface. In Reynold's mind, she commits to unspeakable crimes as in buttering and loudly chomping on her breakfast toast, slurping from bowls, and any number of innocent slip-ups that Reynolds firmly and sometimes cruelly rejects.

Caught in the middle is Cyril, who does show compassion for Alma, but will not move more than a couple of inches in crossing her brother. Cyril understandably will not jeopardize her position in the hierarchy of all things Woodcock. Not a chance. She knows when to curtly cut off Alma, and Alma is smart enough to obey.

And here is presented the great and timeless struggle of a woman bound and determined to influence her man, even though he is twice her age, has already been established and his ways set in stone for decades.

While the couple grow contemptuous of each other, they never, NEVER break dishes or shout like the common folk do. That would be inexcusable. Instead, Reynolds defends his ways with soft-spoken but cold logic, while Alma consciously behaves in subtle ways to break her husband's attention.

In one scene, Alma pours water into a glass painfully slow from high in the air at the dinner table, knowing the noise is driving poor Reynolds out of his skull.

Though beautifully made, 'Phantom' moves at a deliberate crawl. I was invested enough to see it to the end, but my patience began to crack at the one hour mark. I couldn't help but check my watch here and there after that.

There are many dark and deeply sinister turns this story could have taken, but it does not. If it had, it would have balanced the rigid and stoic tone to the film and made it truly memorable.

The last 15 minutes of the film is just a very slow fade into an ending that left me flat and unsatisfied.

At the end of the day, 'Phantom' just doesn't deliver.

The Commuter (I) (2018)

Scrambled Mess

[3/10 · 24 January 2018]

Fifteen minutes in and I had no idea what was going. Seriously.

Convoluted plot, impossible dialog, very cliché CGI effects.

Too many details and highly unlikely developments that over-pack a story which intends to impress and only achieves the opposite.

The 'Mystery Woman' really got on my nerves. Her disembodied ubiquitous presence pops in and out on smartphones through out the train ride just to let you know she sees and hears all every second of the day and night.

Right.

Shortest review I've ever written.

Pointless and unredeemable.

Den of Thieves (2018)

Smokin' Good

[8/10 · 23 January 2018]

Gerard Butler plays Sheriff Nick Flanagan, head of a rough and tumble team of hardened cops tracking expert bank robbers in Southern California.

Nick is on the verge of serious occupational burn-out. Nick isn't that young anymore, yet he drinks and smokes heavily, parties all night with strippers and has to contend with a marriage long since failed, all while emerging every morning, craggy faced and stinking of booze to maniacally track and chase down the bad guys. Having to jockey for authority against a crisp and clean FBI agent is no help either.

All sounds pretty cliché, doesn't it? Not this time.

Christian Gudegast and crew have managed to craft together a wild and fast tale of cops and robbers infiltrating each other's clans to play a very deadly game of cat and mouse.

I was immediately reminded of 1995's 'Heat' starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro (long before Bob ruined his reputation by turning into a jack-ass).

All the heavy weight personas in 'Thieves' drip of sweat and desperation, perfectly matched by the background of a sweltering Los Angeles and a foreboding soundtrack composed by Cliff Martinez.

What Gudegast has created triples the gun fire and intense standoffs with a dizzying display of military grade weapons.

In fact, there is enough testosterone, bullets, muscles, and attitude to make any Hell's Angel down another shot and beat the living daylights out of that wimp at the end of the bar.

There is one surprisingly comic bit thrown in spontaneously I'll refer to as the 'On The Way To Prom' scene featuring a very nervous suitor of one of the bad guy's daughters. If you're a father you'll crap your pants laughing.

The gun play in 'Thieves' is excessive, but somehow doesn't feel gratuitous or unnecessary. It's just there and doesn't offer any apologies.

There was one major jump-cut in the middle of the story that left me a little confused, but no matter. I was also bothered by the two hour and twenty minute run time going in thinking, 'Oh, no. Not another one of these', but the film doesn't give you a single chance to get bored.

Great twist at the end, too.

Fast, gritty and loaded with bad-boy fun. I enjoyed it immensely.

Insidious: The Last Key (2018)

Dull And Undeveloped

[3/10 · 16 January 2018]

Oh, boy. Where to start.

After you were captivated by the hype and trailers and expecting the next Hell House, Exorcist or Rosemary's Baby, or anything else that might even resemble a minor classic, well, let's just say you were better of at home watching re-runs of Law And Order on cable.

'Insidious' opens with a decent enough start, but then it's all down hill from there.

To be fair, the sets, lighting and locations are about as good as they get (that really does look like a haunted house).

The main problem is the dialog between characters is unauthentic and over reaching to the point it sounds like a 14 year old wrote it. All hollow drama and cheap platitudes. Nobody in this wreck of a film talks like that in real life. Nobody acts like that in real life. Truly annoying.

The audience is pulled from one very clunky and painfully hacked up scene to the next. Supporting actors make unbelievably weak stabs at humor and further clog up a story line every time it threatens to take off, complete with cartoonish looking electronics that look as if they were purchased from a Goodwill Store.

While the production does supply about three unexpected jolts that might make children leap from their seats, the rest of us are doomed to involuntarily checking our watches or maybe updating Facebook.

I did both.

Be sure to catch the matinee on a Saturday afternoon. The theater will be empty and you can have a satisfying nap in the dark.

The Shape of Water (2017)

Bloody Weird

[3/10 · 18 December 2017]

G. Del Toro has been frequently fawned over as a 'masterful story teller'. I found nothing 'masterful' about it. I absolutely could not hook in to this film. It made no logistical sense at all. It also had a dark and cartoonish feel to it like a Bat Man film.

The setting in which the story takes place is deeply flawed. Eliza (the dumb one), and Zelda (Octavia Spencer) work as cleaning ladies in a so-called top secret facility when there seems to be nothing top-secret about it.

The cleaning pair wander at will throughout the facility and discover it's also 'top-secret' biological specimen with no clearance at all. Right.

And low and behold, the biological specimen is none other than the Creature from the Black Lagoon! This time in living color and many upgrades.

One might also notice Octavia Spencer is appearing in every other bomb out of Hollywood as a supporting actress and nothing more. Maybe in ten years they'll give her one of her own movies. Not holding my breath.

Back to the Creature. We'll call him Creatch for short. The homely Eliza has a strict routine of hard boiling eggs while she masturbates furiously in her bathtub every morning. Eliza is fundamentally scared to death of normal men. She then brings the food to Creach, which she eventually falls in love with.

Creach is super duper intelligent and can instantly learn English, American sign language and writing, but likes to savagely dine on the occasional domesticated cat here and there. Right.

Creach also has super powers. He can almost instantly heal bodily wounds, as well as restore hair to a bald man. Alright, that one small bit I found pretty cool, but that's it.

Eliza eventually decides to kidnap Creach, for his own good, so she can turn him loose into the ocean just one step ahead of Russian Agents who have infiltrated the facility for the soul purpose of killing him. Again, not a very top-secret organization.

Shortly after that, Eliza and Creach begin having sex. That's right. An otherwise normal woman gets it on with a humanoid looking fish that looks like it dried out in the oven too long. Happens all the time I guess.

The two subplots involving a sadistic head of security and an alcoholic neighbor who works as a graphics artist are barely even worth mentioning.

And the ending? Beyond impossible.

This story is strictly reserved for the over-emotional, over-romantic, and completely naïve.

Go see it if you really want to, but you have been warned.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Over Baked

[6/10 · 5 December 2017]

I waited for a while to go see BR2049 because I didn't want to stand in line with the un-washed hordes.

I am a big fan of the original, and I had high expectations that just weren't met. There are glaring differences between the two.

First of all the original had a plot line that was easy to follow and moved along at a good clip.

The sequel does nothing of the sort. While I admit every scene is masterfully crafted and the sound track excellent, the film is so over packed with minutia I frequently could not follow what was going on.

It was fun seeing Deckard again, but his role seemed odd and pointless. That being Deckard is now a paranoid hermit and why Agent K would seek him out at all made no sense to me.

And the biggest problem as I see it, the film is TOO LONG. The production is just 16 minutes short of three hours! Who has the patience for that? I ended up walking out early and missed the ending. At some point I grew incredibly restless and bored and could take no more.

A fine production but one I think most people will not have attention span to tolerate.

The Game (1997)

Depends on what you're into.

[8/10 · 15 September 2017]

I like this movie but I totally understand why many people were very frustrated with it.

The ability to predict random events and keep driving The main character to a particular destination is absurd. Had it'd been me, I personally would have went utterly mad half way through.

On the other hand, the situations and action are unique and superb.

Great cast of characters and acting.

Like most highly specialized, plots, It's not for everybody.

The Mummy (2017)

A Big Silly Mess

[3/10 · 13 June 2017]

It's odd to see an accomplished actor like Tom Cruise in a movie like this. It worked with goof-ball Brendan Fraser, it doesn't work here.

Like most people, I was acutely drawn in by the expertly crafted trailer which meant to present the movie as a serious piece of fantasy.

It isn't.

What we get is a complete train wreck of a movie that is nearly impossible to follow.

The only things young girls will find enjoyable is Tom is probably the fittest man in Hollywood for being in his 50's, and the only thing I found was the Queen is pretty cute.

That's about it.

Middle Man (2016)

Low Budget But Powerful

[8/10 · 11 June 2017]

If you get just as sick and tired of big budget Hollywood hit-n-misses as I do you're going to love this one.

'MiddleMan' packs the biggest punch on a shoe-string budget you could ever hope for.

Jim O'Heir portrays Lenny, a borderline mentally ill butterfaced nobody who's infected with some naïve dream of becoming a stand-up comic, and he gets his wish unexpectedly through murder and mayhem.

I was surprised how long the story went on and how nuanced it was. While the characters start out as a cheap joke, they turn into something very real half way out and to the end.

For some reason I was reminded of some other grade B Classic flicks like 'Eating Raoul' from 1982.

An astonishing accomplishment that will be unfortunately forgotten in no time.

This film, at least, will stick in my mind for a very long time.

Loved it.