felixtherat Reviews

Weekend at Bernie's (1989)

Slow and ultra predictable. Doesn't make you laugh.

[1/10 · 28 December 2015]

This movie has a weird effect on your perception of time. Everything happens 10 seconds after you already know it's going to happen - but then is not quite as funny as you imagined it.

Apparently written/directed/edited by people who've never done comedy before, unless was simply a pacing problem due to lack of script - like a half hour episode that was padded out to be much longer. Every shot seems to have the pre- and post-roll frames kept in, like they didn't have any choice in editing due to a lack of material.

The two leads are untrained, unseasoned and unbearable, and the writer doesn't seem to have been allowed time to finish or given a script editor. Style doesn't even redeem itself for its age, as there are plenty of contemporaneous black comedies/dumb comedies from its period that are paced and have enough jokes to fill a movie - you know, comedy movies written by experienced comedy writers, performed by skilled comedy players - those guys you have to pay fees to.

A quick note on the baffling following this movie has - what's intolerable is not that some say they enjoyed it (each to their own, I've no problem with that), it's the hyperbole people use, praising it to the extent they give the impression they believe the memorability of the film was deliberate, as if the movie makers might count themselves amongst those who find the movie funny. Seriously, this movie paid mortgages, guys, it didn't make people proud (or laugh). The 2 leads barely worked again, and neither did the writer. Why? Because they suck. Obviously. Get a grip!

Bottom line - were you stoned (or 10) when you watched this? Then try watching it again - especially before coming here and telling people it's good.

I've laughed more at a funeral. Seriously. I'd tell a court that under oath.

Ender's Game (2013)

One of the most appallingly lazy scripts I've seen in years

[1/10 · 20 January 2014]

Visually stunning, well performed, but my oh my.

As a small example, Ender's emails home to his sister, with whom he has a string emotional rapport and which he reads aloud, read like a dry, cold shopping list of what's just happened and what's about to happen. Like so much of the dialogue, they serve the purpose of informing the audience, and *no effort whatsoever* has been made to make it fit in with the story. It's so unbelievably appalling it actually makes you feel like the makers have a personal grudge against their audience.

What's more, the movie is brimmed with premises that make no sense - and it relies heavily on these to function. For example, the essential premise that the Formic's "can't talk" and so humanity has never attempted communication - yet they a have huge, industrial-sized and highly technical army, that invades far-off planets - so it's clear to everyone from the start that unless they spontaneously do the same thing at the same time, then it's obvious they communicate with one another, and have done so for thousands of years. I'm not kidding - the notion that they communicate *at all* only occurs to Ender right at the end of the movie, in a somewhat forced scene that was thrown in to make the end make sense - and this fact, or the failure of mankind to realise it, is absolutely pivotal to the plot! His commander even denies out loud that it's possible for Formics to communicate - fifty years *after* they launched an invasion on planet earth!

Equally bizarrely, the Formics' motivation for invading Earth is that they are about to "breed themselves into extinction" (sic). I can barely imagine how lazy and ignorant you have to be to surmise that because overpopulation = bad, therefore overpopulation = extinction. Give it half a moment's thought, heck, even do a little cursory research - it's just not a bright conclusion to reach, is it?

Throw in some really uncomfortable lines - you know the ones - establish a strong character for Ben Kingsley (he always shines at these, I think rather he established it for himself) , then give him some throwaway line that serves no purpose except to inform the audience what's going on (again)... oh God, stop it, it hurts!

As the final image faded to credits, I actually muttered "f*** you" under my breath, because that's truly how I felt. Kind of violated.

Do yourself, and the film medium, a favour - TAKE YOUR MONEY ELSEWHERE

Fritz the Cat (1972)

A landmark in animated film

[10/10 · 1 March 2012]

Am astounded that this title achieves such a low score amongst the mostly reliable IMDb ratings. For me, this film kicks the living sh** out of Easy Rider or any other take on the 60s - perhaps because it simply has the good sense not to take itself seriously at all.

Coupling Crumb's beautiful signature artwork with a crisp, dry and youthful Woody Allen-esque script and an incomparably right-on soundtrack (including an entrancing minute-long Bo Diddley transition segment), this is a delicious tongue-in-cheek take on drop-out and beatnik culture. Made 8 years before I was born, but loaded with scenarios and characters I recognise from my own life experience, all sent up with sublime elegance, this film is a must-see for anyone who ever hung out with alternative types or politically motivated self-righteous zealots - or for that matter anyone who's ever known (or been) a lazy, sex-crazed party animal of any generation.

An historical classic, fabulously well written (I'm not kidding - pay attention, watch it again), performed and animated. Deserves a much higher rating. Will happily watch it again and again, and lament ever missing a moment of it, hence 10/10

Patton (1970)

Disappointing

[5/10 · 9 January 2012]

Generally educational biopic (in a vague sense), and George C Scott is of course captivating, but:

* Patton's dialogue is great when it's a direct Patton quote - otherwise his dialogue is limp and often doesn't fit the man at all. Everyone else's dialogue is dead and purposeful, sometimes a little like a nativity play - just dreadful.

* The opening cinematography is awe-inspiring ... absolutely brilliant and very promising ... but it ends there.

* There are no excuses for making action sequences this awful in 1970. See Tora! Tora! Tora! for a contemporaneous example.

I think this story and bio of Patton's personality could only really make a great and memorable movie - but this picture is a lazy, slightly weasely portrayal of a man who would probably himself admit to being more outwardly flawed than he is depicted here. Neither the dialogue, cinematography nor the action conspire to save the movie. It really could have been so, so much better with a little effort.

If it shows again, I won't regret missing it.

Unthinkable (2010)

15 minutes of weak, weak plot, 90 minutes of torture scenes

[1/10 · 2 January 2012]

I joined IMDb specifically to save you some time if you're thinking of watching this movie. It's 15 minutes of weak plot amongst 90 minutes of torture scenes.

Many of my favourite films are very violent, but this movie has a weaker plot than most porn films, so there's little doubt as to what type of person this movie is ultimately for.

In fact the plot is so shockingly weak that the most disquieting thing about this movie is knowing there are people out there impressionable enough to say it "made them think". I promise you, they are analysing it too much (or too stunned by the violence to analyse it at all).

The makers may not have intended to create a film that serves merely as porn for sadists and xenophobes, but with this laughably one-dimensional antagonist and painfully amateurish depiction of security agencies, that is precisely the sum total of what they have achieved.

Miserably uninsightful, under-researched, pathetic effort. 1/10.