Streetballa Reviews

The One Percent (2006)

Hits the mark, but not intentionally

[6/10 · 10 April 2014]

The One Percent greatly illustrates of the effects of wealth inequality in America and how it can damage the American economy.

Unfortunately, it doesn't do this by exploring the issues in-depth and crafting a well-made film. It simply serves as an illustration of what you can do just because you were born into wealth.

Jamie Johnson behaves like a smug, entitled, self-righteous, self-centered trust fund baby. Because of his wealth and influence, he is able to get interviews with influential scholars, entrepreneurs, and advocates that may not be available to other filmmakers. Instead of being knowledgeable, doing research, and asking engaging questions, he squanders these opportunities by engaging his interviewees with the investigative fervor of a 7 year old doing a class project. Seriously, he has one go-to followup question/remark, and hardly ever explores or follows up with anything that isn't incredibly vague. If a monkey would have conducted these interviews, the film wouldn't have been markedly different.

The other half of the film is him pestering his family and personal wealth adviser and their reactions to his immature entitled behavior. Picture Jamie as a 15 year old actress barging in the room to show off her princess outfit and the amazing dance moves that she was going to do for her school play, and you get a basic idea of the family dynamic portrayed in the film.

Jamie Johnson was able to make this film through his wealth and connections to wealth, not because he could make the best documentary on the subject, but because he had the means to do so. What this unintentionally illustrates is that wealth gives you the power to do things that others can't do, or, at the very least, have to work extremely hard for.

Despite the gross incompetence, the film does deserve credit for making the point, even though it didn't make it in the way it intended to make it.

The Majestic (2001)

a jumbled mess

[4/10 · 9 June 2009]

Cliché, incoherent, and "tries hard but fails" are a few things that come to mind when I think of this movie. This movie was written as if some fast talking eccentric started spouting out an idea for a movie and just randomly threw in every conceivable way to detract from a main flow or main theme until it made no sense. I can see it now. "ok now let's make it about a guy out on his luck, and then we'll change it to a love story, and then we'll make it a father/son story. Then we'll make it about how America is a free country. In the middle we'll have the resentful guy who comes around, and then we'll make the town hate him. Then we'll make them love him. Brilliant!" If I had to make one key observation about this movie, it would be that if they took each separate storyline which actually made sense and built maybe 3 or 4 different movies around that theme, all four of those movies could have been decent movies. But the writer decided to take those three or four incompatible themes and fit them into one movie. Then he decided to call it "The Majestic" Jim Carey is an underrated actor, and Frank Darabont is a decent director. Those are the only things that same this movie from being a total disaster.

The Untouchables (1987)

Almost No Redeeming Qualities

[2/10 · 17 March 2009]

I was not expecting this movie to be this bad. With Depalma, De Niro, and what looked to be a huge budget with a story that is already compelling enough in real life, there's no reason to make a film this absent of quality.

You can tell within the first ten minutes of the movie that the score is going to ruin the movie. The music was either cliché (smooth touching melodies in every single last moment of vulnerability in the movie) or "action music" that feels like it belongs in homeward bound, not a crime movie. Music was even put into places where it make absolutely no sense whatsoever. Indeed, it sets the tone for the movie itself, which is a tone of farce more than grit.

This movie just reeks of farce, from the accountant mowing down people with a shotgun with the nerdy grin symbolizing his transformation from mild mannered nerd to empowered bad-ass to the completely arbitrary scene of Robert DeNiro hitting a guy with a baseball bat (no back story,no plot movement, seemingly no reason for it to be in the movie whatsoever)to Sean Connery getting blasted with seemingly dozens of machine gun bullets, bleeding enough to have died three times over, and yet still having the power to gasp a few more words just as Elliot Ness gets there before finally dying. This movie is filled with enough corny commercial movie tricks and clichés that it just cannot be taken seriously. This is not a bad thing if you're making a Disney movie, but when you're making a crime drama, (especially one based on real life) realism is probably the way you want to go.

This is not even to take into consideration the awful acting throughout the movie. This actually may be why the movie so heavily relies on cheesy music. The actor's performances were so weak that it required cheesy music to make them look better. Kevin Costner is just not a great actor and none of the supporting cast is exactly Daniel-Day Lewis. Sean Connery won an academy award for his performance somehow. I suppose his acting may have not been particularly bad, but his character seemed so manufactured and out of step with reality that he simply couldn't be taken seriously. Maybe in a completely fictitious story it would have worked, but again, not in a story based on real people and real events.

If you want to see a farce that tries to be serious, every movie cliché in the book (this is no exaggeration, just look for them) an out of place and overdone score, and substandard acting, then this is the movie for you. I somehow doubt, though, that the target audience for this movie were movie watchers who enjoyed this type of film. Take out the violence and this movie belongs next to Pete's Dragon on the movie shelf. It's a disgrace to Al Capone and Elliot Ness both and to anyone who likes good movies.

Tootsie (1982)

Like a tree that grows halfway and then dies

[4/10 · 5 August 2008]

The movie built good themes. It set up strong plot points. And then, it branched into the worst possible direction. Add to this the deadwood thrown in solely for the purpose of soliciting cheap laughs and you can't help but be disappointed once it's over.

As a comedy, there are laughs, but they are spaced out intermittently. Much of the comedy came from the awkward moments of tension from the natural flow the movie. It could have stood on it's own, but they decided to keep in about 30 minutes of dead end gags which just make the movie feel crassly commercial. The main story arc goes completely unresolved, and you feel like the protagonist has learned nothing by the time the movie is over. It's harder to get a more shallow feeling from a so-called "happy" ending.

If you want a deep romantic comedy, watch Groundhog Day instead.

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Would have made a better play than a movie

[4/10 · 3 August 2008]

It's about as campy as high school theater with an ending as satisfying as a sharp stick in the eye.

The movie itself is a farce. It borders on utterly ridiculous at times even by the standard of farces. There are enjoyable story arcs and a bit of workable humor, but the few redeeming elements (namely the love arc) of the movie are completely crushed by a rushed and largely unresolved ending. It's the most unsatisfying satisfying ending to a movie I'll ever seen.

I won't pretend that there's no entertainment value to the movie, but it can't be taken seriously on any level and it ultimately ends up being an overall let down.

If you like fantastical Broadway-type entertainment with no value placed on story, then you will probably like this movie. Otherwise, skip it.

The Good Shepherd (2006)

If you enjoy clarity, skip this film.

[6/10 · 28 July 2008]

Most of this movie is highly ambiguous and hard to follow. I don't know if this is by design or unintentional, but plot arcs are constantly shifting, none with any real clarity into what actually happened within those arcs themselves. As a result, it's hard to tell how anything in the movie ties together. By the end, you know you've seen a story, and you know what happens, but you have no damn idea how you got there.

Character development is sacrificed in many parts for this confusing web of mini stories, but what character development there is, it is superb. The acting is incredible in this sense, and is really the only thing that saves the movie.

Lake of Fire (2006)

Pro-lifers evidently don't understand bias

[10/10 · 12 June 2008]

I saw a few people on here proclaiming themselves as pro-life and panning the film for supposedly being biased against their view.

First of all, purely on balance alone I'd say the film is equal to both sides. It's just that most of the stuff which makes you want to be pro-life comes at the beginning of the film while most of the content which makes you want to be pro-choice comes in the second half. It seems to me that they're just upset that their side didn't get the proverbial last word.

Secondly, this film is not about balance anyway. It's about documenting the cultural debate in the film about abortion in America. Whether one or two dissenting reviewers of this film are or not, the fact is that most of the pro-life advocates are Christian religious fringe. Of course there are exceptions, and they document that in the movie. Although I don't think Kaye should have given an hour to the secular atheist pro-lifers, because frankly there aren't that many of them.

The criticism also seem to come from people who don't even understand any points being made in the movie -- one reviewer claimed that Chomsky was comparing abortion to a woman washing her hands. That's not what he was doing at all. His example was made to demonstrate the relativity involved with the process of placing value on life.

In any event, the film definitely is a roller coaster ride, and there are times where you might find yourself at odds with your own opinion. The movie being as balanced as it is, probably wont change a lot of minds, but I would think at the very least it would soften your position one way or another. If it doesn't, you're either just stubborn, or you weren't even trying to pay attention to the message of the film.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Confirms my deepest fears

[4/10 · 29 May 2008]

I'm not going to pretend that I didn't have high hopes for this movie. I had high hopes that it would even be made to begin with. I was one of those of the internet generation who have been following the failures and setbacks of the movie since 2003. So when it was announced that the movie was finally being made, I was ecstatic.

When I first saw the trailer, I thought it was a bit of a letdown. The shots were not what I pictured for this film, and the amount of CGI even just in the trailer made me uncomfortable.

Of course, then I saw the reviews. Initially, the movie was rated a 9.2 on here (since fallen to 7.3) I figured that most of those votes were just fan boys who were going to vote 10/10 no matter what. Yet, I saw a lot of favorable reviews from critics including Ebert who gave it 3 1/2 stars.

Then the viewing. During the first three minutes of the movie, I was rife with anticipation. The opening credit sequences were exciting and they fed on the anticipation wonderfully. At that point, the movie was a 10/10. (I even forgave the CGI gopher) It was strange though. As soon as Indy came on the screen, all of a sudden it just seemed dead to me. I started to have uneasy feelings that this movie would be a letdown. Those feelings only worsened as the film went on.

All in all, what I learned from this picture was what everyone learned years ago with the star wars prequels. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have lost what movie making sense they had. It was that special innovative quality that relied on good story telling and creative on camera techniques. Such for both of them has been scrapped in favor of flair, CGI, and style over substance. The longer you watch the movie, the more apparent that becomes.

The movie itself seems incredibly unnatural in its delivery. The plot is forwarded by small forced intermissions (in some places the only saving grace of the film) in between the wholly unrealistic action. Let's just say that this movie takes suspension of disbelief to a whole other level. It's actually so bad that you begin to lose faith in the story itself, because it's just too cartoonish. With as much as the characters survive from things that would almost assuredly kill a normal person, you start to feel like you're watching loony tunes instead of Indiana Jones. This is apparent in the second half of the film especially.

What really angers me is that this film had such great potential. There were things in the movie that actually just seemed out of place and not in tune with the rest of the cartoonishness. I'm convinced that these were elements left by Frank Darabont from his original script. It's a very big disappointment that his script was rejected, because I felt that it had so much more potential than what we received with the one we got. Maybe it would have forced Spielberg back to that innovation, back to that good storytelling, back to all the things that made the first three Indiana Jones movies special. Or maybe it wouldn't have mattered at all. Sadly, we'll never know.

South Park: Major Boobage (2008) Season 12, Episode 3

The worst south park episode ever

[26 March 2008]

I don't know if the guys are just running out of ideas, or if they're just phoning it in this season, but every episode has gotten progressively worse in season 12.

This is the first episode I would actually call 'bad' though. The storyline was jumbled, the message in the story made no sense. It reminded me of a bad jumbled up family guy episode. Everything is done halfway, and what wasn't done halfway just plain sucked. This episode is supposed to be a parody of some movie called Heavy Metal, which I have not seen, but after seeing this episode I have no desire to see it. Half the episode was wasted on this cartoon flash parody, and the whole idea in general was a complete waste of an episode. The Elliot Spitzer parody at the end just came off as contrived and did not click at all and the side story of Cartman hiding the cats just didn't really fit to anything meaningful or relevant. Even so, it was the only part of the episode which was remotely funny.

I'd seriously be hard pressed to find any South Park episode even as close to as bad as this one, and it's the first time I've ever given a South Park episode 1 star.

Try to do better in the future, guys.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)

A mediocre movie and a terrible comedy

[6/10 · 12 August 2006]

I was extremely disappointed in this movie. I came in expecting to laugh, and couldn't really find anything to laugh at. It isn't like they weren't trying either. Any potentially funny moment was already shown in the trailer. The movie was packed full of jokes and gags, but none of them really worked at all, and the audience never laughed out loud even once.

As a movie, the plot wasn't all that impressive. It was a decent story, but a story that made a lot of mistakes. The timing of a lot of the events just didn't make sense, and some things started too late in the movie. Real Nascar fans with see how ridiculous the driving is because half the drivers in the movie would have been suspended for rough driving, but I'm sure they won't care anyway.

The only reason you should go see this movie is if you have the money and time to waste and absolutely nothing else to do, but don't even expect 1/3 of anchorman.

Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

I gave it a 2

[2/10 · 26 July 2005]

I give it a 7 for pure entertainment value. Although much of that would be from it's sheer incompetence. -1 for not bad, but absolutely horrid acting from much of the cast, most particularly the women. I thought torgo was decent actually, but that was probably because he was coked out for most of production. -1 for horrible directing. Hal p. Warren being hisfirst directed film and having only the funds to have very little freedom in acting or plot did better than most people would have done under the circumstances, but still not a good job. -1 for bad music in places. The only piece of music I did like was the fast paced piano solo that appears throughout the film, but it appears in unnecessary places at times. -1 for bad editing. The editor(s) might not have had the premiere footage to work with, but I think a very smart chimpanzee could have done better. -1 for bad dialog writing. First off, a few of the characters repeat some phrases back to back without even a change in mood or tone. The dialog writing was bad, but then again, Hal Warren didn't have the money for hiring a writer.

To sum it up, I think this could be an averagely entertaining movie with the proper qualities fixed. Everything negative that I noticed wrong with the movie can be fixed with improved writing, a more competent cast and crew, and more money. Of course major adjustments would have to be made to the plot, but it could be workable. (I hear Tarantino likes this movie: remake maybe?)

The Ref (1994)

Very funny, but whoever did the music had no business working in Hollywood

[7/10 · 23 July 2005]

I thought "the Ref" was a funny look at a horribly dysfunctional family already on the verge of meltdown even before they have the responsibility of hiding a burglar from police on Christmas. One thing that I thought was absolutely horrid about this film was the music. It succeeds in successfully killing the mood of an otherwise funny scene more than once. The director as well was no genius. Still the characters were very convincing (kevin spacey is always good) and the movie still succeeded in it's goal which was to be funny and have some hidden moral in there somewhere that we're supposed to look deep within ourselves for. The film managed this despite the horrid score and sub-par directing.

The Usual Suspects (1995)

The movie was about a 6 or 7 till the ending

[10/10 · 27 June 2005]

If you haven't seen this movie I don't recommend reading the last lines of this comment or anything about the movie.

When I first started watching this movie I didn't really understand the hype. It seemed average to me, and I was a little disappointed by the beginning of the movie which starts out slow, but completely redeems itself in the end. I can see why this movie takes heat from some people because of predictability issues. I was fortunate enough to not know anything about the movie before I watched it which left the element unspoiled to me, and provided great thrill.

The plot twist ending is predictable to some who say "oh I know it" but I don't buy that for a second. The 10 is at the end of the movie, I was never more exhilarated what watching a movie than watching the plot twist end of this movie for the first time ignorant to any aspect of the movie.

Ladder 49 (2004)

It's bad, but perhaps most people just don't know why

[2/10 · 1 June 2005]

What a boring piece of work this movie is. Half the movie is a bunch of firefighters playing pranks on each other, and the other half of the movie is well... fighting fires. I understand that it's a firefighting movie, but the amount of fires they fight in the movie just seems a little much. There really is no deep emotion in the movie other than worry. Making this movie even worse is a manufactured relationship between the main character that meets a girl in the supermarket and is somehow the next day married to her. Oh yeah, they're both catholic too. (I guess firefighters are all catholics now) The acting quality is sub par, and they never give the audience the connection to actually feel sad when tragic things happen in this movie. That is a key element for a movie of this nature, and instead of developing the characters in the movie they fill that time with practical jokes and the same firefighting sequences over and over.

If you like firefighting movies and such I recommend Rescue Me.

This movie is sub par at best.