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Reviews
Snowpiercer (2013)
Feels like someone did a last minute rewrite
I thought the film was OK but I got the feeling someone (either studio or director) got last minute cold feet and changed the plot. To me, it seems like the original storyline was that the front of the train keep the pour around in the back of the train so they could eat their children. This seems like the only reason you would keep the poor around, since they did nothing for the train. And the clues I believe this was the original intention are as follows.
1) There's no cattle car yet Ed Harris is eating steak. 2) Chris Evans has that whole speech right before he meets Ed Harris about how he hates himself because he knows what human tastes like. Setting up the next scene for when he eats the steak with Ed for they realization of what's going on. 3) There's no reason to keep the people in the back of the Train around because they don't work on the Train.
Anyway, if they would have stuck to that I think it would have been a bit stronger. But someone got cold feet and we get that weird and confusing ending.
Broken Fences (2008)
A lifetime of bad luck
A lifetime of bad luck threatens a father and son's reunion, as old wounds resurface and new ones are opened in Broken Fences, Troy McGatlin's fusion of family drama and contemporary western.
Joe Simmons (Jan Van Sickle) is a quiet and simple man who prefers to spend his days alone working on his ranch. He gets up at 5:00 a.m. and makes sure that the horses, cattle, and chickens are fed before he sits down to eat. Joe lives this life of solitude by choice, but we get a hint early on that Joe has cut himself off from the world a little too much. When he goes to the town's only store, he's surprised to find his friend no longer owns the place and hasn't for quite some time. Joe might be a little bit lonely, but he's found his routine and he likes it just fine.
But Joe's life of peace is unexpectedly disrupted when he gets a phone call from his estranged son Dylan, who informs him that he was recently paroled from jail and is looking for a place to stay. Though it's only hinted at, it's clear that Joe and Dylan have a long tumultuous history, and Joe is originally unwilling to take him in, even temporarily. But Joe's won't let his boy live on the streets, and he soon finds himself outside the jail, collecting his son.
Dylan promises his father that he's a changed man, and it's easy to believe him. He speaks softly, works hard, and the only time he gets a fiery look in his eye is when he fervently tells his father that he'll never go back to prison again. Dylan has a host of skeletons in his closet, but maybe undeservedly so. He's a simple-minded boy who seems to be followed by a host of bad luck. A traumatizing incident in Dylan's teenage years left him emotionally scarred and in the company of a few bad seeds. Dylan was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it ended up costing him 6 years of his life behind bars.
Even though Dylan promises he's turned a new leaf, things are uneasy between the two from the very beginning. They eat in silence, work in silence, and spend time on opposite ends of the ranch. But Joe senses a change in Dylan that he can't deny maybe his son really has turned his life around. In their first candid moment, Dylan convinces Joe to ask a local shopkeeper out on a date. Things between the two men seem to be getting better, until Dylan's streak of bad luck and bad behavior catches up to him. From there, the story unfolds in unexpected directions until the shocking third act that you won't see coming.
Broken Fences carefully explores this relationship between father and son without resorting to clichés. It never asks the audience an obvious question, only to respond with an even more obvious answer. McGatlin has crafted a fine little film that will engage you and challenge you until the end. And what an end it is.
Head Hunter (2002)
Dead Alive kills a good film
The DVD of this film is terrible. Dead Alive made a terrible transfer of it and it came out pitch black. How do I know this? I bought it on VHS and DVD, you can see it on the VHS and you can't see crap on the DVD. It sucks that Dead Alive Films would take a little better care of there products, this film rocks and you'd never know it by watching the DVD. Rent it or buy it on VHS.