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Reviews
The Chosen One (2010)
offensively bad, and not in a good way.
The Chosen One is quite simply terrible. I'd try to dress it up a bit for you, but the bottom line is if you value your time even slightly, then don't watch it. I'm no movie snob, I don't think a movie has to be life changing to be good, but this movie was so bad that it actually made me angry. The script is all over the place, completely disjointed, and when it comes down to brass tacks, quite simply boring. I'm finding it difficult to gather the motivation to explain to you why it's so bad, because its wasted so much of my time already. Suffice to say, one hour into the movie I was begging for something to happen, I forgave it at this point because it didn't bare the formulaic hallmarks of what you'd expect from Schneider. An hour and a half into the movie and I was wishing that it was formulaic...any form would do. It just switches from weak comedy to pointless, tenuous emotional tragedy and neither of these gets enough time to do a complete job. I reckon Schneider was attempting to convince the world and his peers that he was capable of more than cheap laughs, and this was his attempt to showcase his acting ability, and thats exactly how it came across; as a showcase, with no adjoining theme. After watching it, I couldn't sleep because I was worried that other people would have to sit through this utter shambles of a movie if I didn't do something to warn them off, so consider this a free favour. Watch it if you must, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Leaves of Grass (2009)
Maybe I'm missing something
I watched this movie straight after seeing the trailer, I usually take Edward Norton's presence to be a stamp of quality in any film, and with him playing two parts and acting against himself I thought 'what's not to like?' To be perfectly honest though, I found the film to be flat and pretty pointless. Norton's role as the philosophy academic was believable and on a par with his usual work, if not slightly impoverished by some lazy and obvious philosophical meanderings that ran throughout the entire script. The other Norton role, that of his twin brother, was close to painful to watch, for one thing his southern accent leaves a lot to be desired, and for another I was left begging for some reason to care about whether he lived or died, the character development and history were almost non-existent, and as a result you were left with a somewhat one-dimensional caricature of what the part could have been. The dialogue between the two Nortons was laboured at times too, so much so that I began to find it impossible not to notice the make up that ultimately became the only thing left to convince you that the southern twin wasn't just Edward dressing up for kicks and giggles. Probably not all Norton's fault though, the cinematography left a lot to be desired...perhaps a result of the confines that this particular sort of special effect produces (that may just be wishful thinking though as I'm certainly no expert on the intricacies of special effects)
I watched Moon recently, and perhaps Sam Rockwell's brilliant performance in that set a bar in my head for what to expect from a film that doubles up on an actor's roles. As I said, I'm a big Norton fan, and I waited patiently to be wowed by him throughout this entire film, but in the end I was left wanting.
I just finished reading all the other reviews though, and they all seem to really like it, so maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not willing to spend another two hours of my life figuring out what that thing might be.
Last Days (2005)
the worst film ever made.
I can't stress this enough, this film is the worst...no I really mean it...the worst film ever made. Anyone who says its good is lying in an attempt to look either clever, arty or deep. I understand that the director was attempting to fill you with the frustration that was supposedly being felt by mr Cobain, it worked, I was frustrated, extremely frustrated, but not in any way that was good, useful or thought provoking. There's a ten minute scene which consists of a bad shot of a window with a reflection on it that you can't see through...I would have been happier watching home videos of when I was young even though they're excruciatingly embarrassing, because quite frankly they were better shot,and a damn sight more interesting, and people actually talked...I hate to sound old fashioned, or middle fashioned, but I like dialogue in movies, and story lines. I've seen Elephant too, his other film...that was really bad too, I mean really bad, but this...this is in a league all of its own. here's a tip, if you want to get a name for yourself as being an arty edgy director, just make a video that's so ridiculously rubbish that everyone will go "surely I'm missing something that I'm not clever enough to understand" thus scaring them into lying to their friends about how good they thought it was. It's probably a good idea to link it vaguely to a real life event that people think they have an affinity with, and for a final flourishing touch, give your camera to a five year old with no promising hint of film making talent. Rubbish.
Doomsday (2008)
Dire
That was dire. The acting was terrible, apart from that bloke who's the leader of the cannibal folk. seriously, this film didn't stop getting worse. If Scottish Screen gave me 300 thousand pounds, I'd spend it on stuff that was good, this isn't. Actually, if Scottish Screen gave me 300 thousand pounds I'd spend it on hit men, I'd put a hit out on each hit-man with another hit-man, then film the result, and it'd most likely be a lot better than this. I'm not really sure how many hits 300 thousand pounds buys you, might only be one, in which case I'd just spend it on tracking down the director of this abortion of a movie, and have a good strong word in his ear about how awful his film was, and maybe recommend in future that he doesn't make any more films because he's obviously not very good at it, he probably wouldn't listen though, but that's where the hit-man comes in. Saying that, the film did have its good points, it wasn't Last Days for instance, which is pretty much every other film in the world's saving grace. To be completely fair though, I'm not in a very good mood today.