pranakhan Reviews

Grizzly Flats (2011)

Another film so bad, it's nearly a masterpiece of comedy!

[8/10 · 15 March 2013]

If you're someone with no appreciation for really bad film making, then this film will frustrate, anger, and cause you psychological trauma. Please don't post YET ANOTHER clichè "I want 90 minutes of my life back" review, you're not dazzling anyone with your wit.

For those with an appreciation for hidden qualities of exceptionally terrible cinema, read on!

I was intrigued by the "shadow people" premise, but didn't make it through the first 10 minutes. Yeah, I wasn't in the mood.

However, I was rather bored today and discovered this little treasure propping up my table leg. I forgot all about it! I thought it would be about horribly mutated grizzly bears attacking nubile teens in the forest. I decided to let it spin in the background.

About 15 minutes in, I was mesmerized and overcome with awe… I... just... couldn't... stop...watching!!!

My friends, this film is an example purest cinematic cheese so incredibly bad it borders on the edge of a bizarre artistic masterpiece. Nay, cinematic genius!

The script is just awful. Every line of dialog is monumentally stupid and unbelievable! It must be nigh on impossible to not write at least one accidental line of quality dialog in an entire script! I mean… really?!?! Does the writer truly think that people talk like this? One of the most confounding bits of dialog I have ever experienced occurs 6 minutes in:

= Sylvian and sit at dinner table peeling fruit (a kiwi?!?) =

WIFE: Maybe it's for the best.

SYLVIAN: The best… The best? How could it be for the best?

WIFE (pause): Well, I just think that...

SYLVIAN (interupting): *I* know what the best is...

= Sylvian picks up fruit from table =

SYLVIAN: This... This is the best. This is what we like. But...

= Sylvian puts fruit on table then STABS it with tool =

SYLVIAN: *This* is what we need. At the end of the day, *this* is what we need. *This* is the best. Now isn't it?

WIFE: Okay… so that's the best. But do you really think that's going to happen?

This delicate ballet of intricate interaction completed, I found myself in the most serene state of bewilderment I've experienced. Like: WWWHHHAAAAATTTT?! Oh it just gets better!

The characters are an eclectic mix of nearly incompatible human archetypes. The sheriff (played with disaffected aplomb by Judd Nelson) is an wanna-be porn producer? Sylvian, the main character, is a cold husband, genius-ish, and a COMPLETE a$$hole! He's so fractiously rude you will experience sudden urges to slap the scurrilous jackassness out of him. The wife is robotic-ally subservient, schizophrenic, and suffers from mild cognitive defects.

Oh my God, let me tell you about the "pastor" (who pronounces it "pastuer")! He's one of the most fascinating characters in film! You OWE it to yourself to see him, I promise you'll be rewarded with mirthful glee! This guy is the epitome of "strangeness!" His right hand is weird, like a congenital defect exacerbated by severe arthritis. When frightened, he regresses into a primitive chimpanzee state! His dialog is heteroclite! I was rapt! This combination creates a grotesquely comical character that is both entertaining and impossible to comprehend. Pure... freaking... genius!

This film is a glowing exemplar of over-acting! Every character moves and emotes in an twitchy and hysterical manner. I first blamed the actors. Yet Judd Nelson, who has proved himself a talented believable performer, is also swept away in the twitch energy of the film. Obviously, this is the fault of the director. He's responsible for refining the actors' nuances of scene, emotion, and dialog. In this case, he was either totally stoned or deliberately forced the cast to imbibe vast amounts of crystal meth. If the latter, this director is a risqué artistic and comedic genius.

The story becomes incidental. I was more fascinated with the films technicalities than the story. Sylvian is building a "perpetual motion" machine in his dusty unsealed cabin-like workshop that only supplies electricity to the lights. The computers, no matter how much he pounds on them, are clearly off. He's in a neighborly dispute with an all male family of trailer-bound redneck meth cookers that moonlight as ingenious fashion designers (I expect the Top Hat to make a comeback soon) Somehow, the machine is creating/ferrying humanoid creatures visible only in the dark. Then a bunch of stuff happens and you'll come to about 15 minutes after the credits dazed and unsure how you got there.

These ingredients form an infectiously surreal tapestry of thought, emotion, and narrative that would make Vincent van Gogh mournfully remove his remaining ear.

Interestingly, to add more to the surrealist factor, my copy of the DVD didn't have a "Top Menu"! Just the film, in a single file, no menu or extras or previews at all. I hit them menu button, and was shown a blank gray 4:3 screen. Weeeiiiirrrrddd!

Yes, brothers and sisters, this film is *THAT* good! Amazingly bad! It's a brilliant, confounding, mesmerizing example of exceptionally bad film and the strange way these films, when made bad good enough, become something altogether different and somehow... great?

I'm thinking this this type of film should get an official genre of its own? Perhaps we'll classify them as "Crapomedy", or even better: "Narmedy"!!!

Yes, that's it! (It's both bad and wrong. It's "badong" or "gnodab" :-) ) Narmedy! If you don't get it, look up the term "Narm" in reference to film and TV.

Chocolate (2008)

Holy Crap! I am happy I stumbled on this one! Wooooo! That was FUN!

[9/10 · 19 February 2010]

Running out of free streaming horror films to watch via Netflix Instant Streaming on my blu-ray player, I went looking through other genres to find films to alleviate the boredom.

I've never heard of the director of this film or knew about his earlier masterpiece Ong-Bak. What caught my eye was, oddly, the title of the film as a martial arts movie. I looked deeper and saw the description was something about an austic female martial arts hero, and I just had to see what this was all about.

It is very difficult to have any kind of TRULY original idea anymore, but that doesn't mean you can't be original! The general "revenge, gangsters, romance, family" devices of Chocolate's plot are of course simply a variation/amalgamation of all kinds of Kung Fu movie standard plot templates, but that is not what is important.

When I started this film it ended up being the most beautifully planned and executed martial arts film I have ever seen, period! After it got me hooked on the plight of our autistic hero, struggling mother, and loving dumpy friend... the action started.

I sat, edge of my seat, mouth agape, staring with gleeful awe at the screen as the director, choreographer, and a petite yet fantastically athletic female star created the coolest, most beautiful, and POWERFUL display of human grace and martial arts technique I have ever seen in my freaking life! It action starts simple and subdued as it begins, fight after fight, to crescendo into increasingly complex martial arts and acrobatics in some of the most incredible environments until it peaks and you think you can stop to catch you're breath because, my god, how could they get ANY more amazing and cooler, when suddenly they do just that by slamming you into a climactic battle that swill blow you away.

And RESPECT! I realized that this action is REAL, visceral, HARD-EDGED, primal power with no wires through 98% of every stunt! This girl can float like a butterfly and sting like a freaking F-22 raptor! I've never seen such a cute petite woman smash more faces with elbows, knees, shins, and any other hard unforgiving part of the human body before. This style of fighting is truly face-smashing at its finest. These are NOT nice moves, and this is not some graceful hong kong kung fu flick dancing in the trees! This is kind of what it would look like if you wanted to, oh, jump 4 feet across the floor only feet above it and slam your hard high-velocity knee into the side of your opponents face as he struggles, dazed, to get to his feet. OUCH! Finally... originality at its finest. We care for this heroine, shes so adorable and sweet and "special!" We love this character, and her dumpy friend, and her mother who used to be a mobster but has those kind eyes and the heart to take in a bullied boy. The fact we love Zen only serves to make us thrill for her when she is in danger, and cheer for her when she breaks the various appendages of the types of people who would actually try to physically harm a sweet little innocent petite autistic girl who wouldn't hurt a soul, no way, so harmless! After that I can't express my emotions and feelings with words anymore. I'm soooo glad I'm human, cuz we have the coolest bodies and minds. Too bad I couldn't do even 2% of the moves in this movie without years upon years of endless disciplines training... if only I was autistic and could just learn by watching martial arts movies! Ooooooh that would be cooooool! You owe it to yourself to see this movie and love it.

Pranakhan

Screamers: The Hunting (2009 Video)

I give it an undeserved 7 outta 10 for being Hilarious!

[5/10 · 4 December 2009]

OK, normally I seriously complain about people who leave cynical reviews and can always find something redeeming in many of the most awful films, but this movie almost made a cynic too! That was... until I realized how much fun it was to watch! This movie was extremely entertaining, but it most certainly wasn't due to the quality of film. Simply put: this film is so poorly thrown together and so monumentally cheesy it, by accident, becomes laugh-out-loud camp sci-fi comedy. Like those old 50's era cult camp sci-fi films! My teen son and I had a blast watching this thing. We didn't go more than 15 to 30 seconds between laughs at terribly obviously set pieces, corny Halloween-ish costuming, gawd awful dialog, moronically unrealistic character behaviors, and hilariously nonsensical plot development.

I highly recommend you watch this film with a group of friends for a great home-made MSTK 3000 style movie heckling night! When you do, be sure to look for these kinds of things: 1. An "elite military" squad lands on a remote planet for a rescue mission, but due to complete incompetence they do things that would make a naive Army Private cringe, like: the commander NEVER gives out orders, when shooting starts 3 people shout orders, in the most heated point of a firefight one of the "elites" stands up from cover for NO REASON and takes well deserved arrow to the shoulder, the commender carries his gun by the gun sight (maybe hes the squad sniper?), they use REALLY old-fashioned walkie-talkies with a very long telescoping metal antenna (I guess radio shack FRS 2.4Ghz family radios are obsolete in the future). I could keep going but time and space limits say I should move to the next item.

2. Terrible costumes. Lance Henrickson's character (the best damn actor in the whole movie) wears a mask with a camera lens over one eye and the costume designer failed to paint over the "SAE F 2.9 RAZOR" stuff on it. The crack military squad goes into a known hostile situation but only after getting attacked do they return wearing extra crappy body armor. The commander looks so queenly while wearing his special helmet, and is that a pregnancy test or an MP3 player stuck on the side of it? 3. If the planet's human survivors have all these firearms, then why the heck does that girl carry a knife with a bone handle and shoot wooden arrows with a bow?!?!?!? 4. One of the FUNNIEST scenes: When one of the squad members is killed by the screamers, the rest of his squad actually BURN his body openly in the desert and stand right next to it like they are cold and trying to warm their hands. I was so waiting for one of them to ask if anyone had some marshmallows for s'mores! They try to explain this saying that the guy wanted to be cremated by his elders, but wouldn't that be the duty of his family back on earth? I mean, do our marines over in Iraq or Afghanistan simply hold human-body bonfires out in the desert after a bad firefight? Jeeeeez! 5. Ludicrously funny sets. Within the first few minutes note the first shot of the interior of the ship looks like a dressed up beauty parlor! I'm positive those were dressed up barber shop chairs! Watch the first time the squad re-enters their ship. A ladder appears out of nowhere in the middle of the room and passes through the hatch, wha? Didn't they hire a continuity director on this? If the screamers move through the dirt ground, why are the survivors hiding in a CAVE with a WOODEN DOOR and a DIRT FLOOR? I'll stop there, next! 6. Joke props with magic sounds: Watch the commander use a cheap digital camera to power up a screamer with wires and alligator clips and use voice activation to tell it to "power target". then watch him pull out a long obsolete memory card with "SD" clearly printed on it, plug it into a USB reader, then into a Chinese MP3 player and then tell it "Download all the files, off the hard drive, everything." SCREAMERS HAVE HARDDRIVES?!?!? APPLE AIRBOOKS HAVE SOLID STATE DRIVES, huh? Are those soldiers carrying AIRSOFT guns in most scenes? On a planet with no trees of any kind, where do they get all the wood for the wooden crates, doors, and that silly girl's bow and arrows? Notice the arrow girl when she falls down is showing her "bone" in the most ludicrous of locations, I almost cracked in half laughing at that one.

Okay okay, I think there must have been some 10,000 goofs in this thing, so I'll stop now. Just rent this, or something, drink some beers, call your friends, and get ready for some accidentally brilliant camp comedy!

Cravings (I) (2006)

A fascinating, and shocking, study of illness and medical ethics!

[8/10 · 8 August 2009]

This movie was a pleasant surprise for me! If you are debating about watching this film because you think it its a "vampire" movie (due to inaccurate reviews/synopses in many locations) i am happy to tell you this movie has nothing to do with the vampires and only minimally dabbles in issues related to the supernatural.

Cravings (Daddy's Girl in UK) is actually a well written, acted, and cerebral thriller about a psychiatrist trying to help a mysterious teenage girl he believes may be suicidal. However, this doctor has some emotional issues of his own to deal with, and he gets to deeply and personally involved with the patient and her single Mother. The girl initially appears in the hospital as a possible suicide attempt because she cut hr wrist, and he believes the girl may be suffering from depression.

The shocking, stomach churning, and very dangerous truth behind his patient's increasingly bizarre and dangerous behavior is far worse than depression. When the doctor finally realizes the shocking and very serious depth of the girls illness, he finds that he has become trapped with the girl and her increasingly dangerous manipulation. When he finally asks for help, its too late, because he allowed himself to break the rules of medical ethics and crosses the line. The ending is a satisfying and completely unexpected twist! The movie starts moving quickly, and I enjoyed the director's skillful method of steadily ratcheting up the tension from beginning to end a PERFECTLY steady pace. I mean there is no lull or boring parts. It snagged me in within the first few minutes. The movie truly felt like it was accelerating, exposing me to a few mildly disturbing events at first but then things get continuously more shocking, disturbing, and eventually rather gory right until the credits roll.

Excellent movie! If you like deep psychological thrillers or horror films then this is a must pick up!

2010 (1984)

Excellent sci-fi... give it a chance!

[8/10 · 23 May 2009]

This is an excellent SCIENCE-fiction film. It carries on the story introduced in Kubrick's "2001", and ties up many loose ends and clarifies what happened in the first film. The effects are excellent even by today's standards, the acting is believable, the characters are well-developed, its pacing is tight, and its plot is well-executed. Finally, this is TRUE science-fiction, not space-opera, and I wish more movies were like this. I hope someone worthy picks up the remaining 2 Clarke novels for the screen.

Now:

1. To everyone saying this is a weak film because it doesn't match the depth, mystery, and style of Kubrick's 2001: You guys need to open your minds a bit! It's ridiculously unfair to measure this sequel, or any film, against 2001. It is, frankly, impossible for ANYONE to produce a film that matches Kubrick's style unless that someone *IS* Kubrick himself! 2010 was not produced to COMPETE with 2001 at all, the director stated that he never would have produced this film without Kubrick's and Clarke's BLESSING. I'm sure the director deliberately avoided copying any of the style of 2001 at the risk of failing miserably and upsetting his own idol. Kubrick told the director to make this movie his own, thus the director did! If you go cynically comparing all sci-fi films to rare masterpieces you will only end up ruining your own chance of enjoying them for their own merits. It's like saying all music is of dubious value because it wasn't composed by Beethoven! You're only hurting and embarrassing yourself.

2. A number of reviewers felt that the monitors on the ships (actual CRTs built into the sets) look cheesy due to their pixellated graphics and curved faces. Well, you guys are assuming that Kubrick's film has flat panels because of some scientific rationale about the future. Did you think that maybe Kubrick didn't use CRTs on his sets was because they did not have color CRTs available in 1968 that were small or cheap enough to build into his sets? All his screens were flat because they used slide projectors to flash static images against the back of semi-transparent screens. Most images were hand drawn to resemble possible computer generated images. The original 2001 scene of the videophone was created by projecting a reel of film against the back of a screen. In 1984, the computer industry was just starting to explode, and color-CRT displays as small as 12" were readily available! When those set designers sat down to think about what the ship of the future would look like, they rationalized that they would be full of CRT displays in 2010, which was only 27 years in the ACTUAL future! How could they know we'd have low cost high resolution LCD flat-screens after only 17 years? You limit your enjoyment by over-intellectualizing everything with a cynical attitude. Of course the graphics were blocky! They were rendered by REAL computers, not hand drawn by artists. I'm sure in 1984 they felt that was a great idea and a nod towards future possibilities!

3. Many people criticize the heavy amount of dialog in 2010 contrasted to the lack of dialog in 2001. Again, we're falling back on the "not Kubrick" style issue. Regardless, you do realize that the BOOK for 2001 was FULL of dialog, right? You DID realize that 2001 is not JUST a film, it has a companion novel several hundred pages long? Since it's a story developed by TWO people, and not just Kubrick, perhaps the lack of dialog is only one director's idea at visualizing the novel and not integral to the STORY itself?

4. Some have heavily criticized the scientific components of 2010, stating that Kubrick had NASA consultants available when he made his film, and that 2010 is weak in this area... Well, I'm wondering why you assume that it wasn't the same case for 2010? Do you have some kind of special insider info about the making of 2010? Because, I believe that there are numerous production notes readily available clearly stating that the director of 2010 was careful in this regard and had many scientific consultants involved in the production of 2010. There is a whole book containing copies of emails between the director of 2010 and Clarke! I remember reading that even Carl Sagan had input into 2010! Oh yeah, lets not forget that Clarke makes a brief cameo in the film, and that both Clarke and Kubrick appear on a magazine cover in the film? If that's not an official endorsement of the film's authenticity and canon, then I am sorely mistaken.

I'm just getting tired of these seemingly angry, cynical, ego-maniacally tedious reviewers bashing the merits of decent films. These people often assume they're brilliant enough to understand what Kubrik (or any filmmaker) was thinking. Dude, you're not Kubrick, you're not a genius artist, you don't even make films! Cynical attitudes are self-destructive, intelligent people are by nature open-minded, and analyze things on their own merits and faults instead of holding everything against rare artistic standards from previous works. The merits or faults of any work are entirely subjective. Many people rate 2001 as one of the greatest movies ever only because all the smart-sounding people do. How many call 2001 a "masterpeice" because they truly, emotionally, and intellectually appreciate the work itself, or simply because it's Kubrick's? How many of you can even honestly answer that question without lying to yourselves?

For the rest of you... if you are open-minded, and consider 2010 for what it is: a DIFFERENT director's take on telling a story from a DIFFERENT book, produced in a DIFFERENT era, then you will enjoy this movie, appreciating that it stands on it's own as one of the top science-fiction films made. And I bet you really enjoy yourselves when you watch movies too, even if they have some flaws.

Good for you!

Blindness (2008)

Ignore the witless poor reviews! This is a beautiful movie!

[9/10 · 20 March 2009]

I simply cannot sit here and see so many people give this film so many poor reviews and say nothing to defend it! This movie was excellent, one of the best films I've seen in some time, and left me thinking about it for days.

For those of you intellectual types, note the common complaints from all these negative reviews: 1. Things weren't explained well - Why could the doctor's wife see? What was the disease? Why did the Japanese man's vision return? None of that was explained because none of it is important! This is why Hollywood believes they need to spoon feed every little detail into their audiences, because so many people need everything explained! The "white sickness", its causes, etc, simply aren't the point of this film, so they never need to be explained.

2. It wasn't realistic! - LOL, this was an entirely fictional city! So many people try to compare how the government in the film dealt with the quarantine to how their own governments would deal with the quarantine, and then declare the film to be unrealistic. How do they know how this fictional government would treat the ill? What makes you think this movie was even set in any real country at all? How do you know it was even a democratic country? It seemed almost a dictatorship to me.

3. It was pointless - The people saying this are the ones who are truly blind! This movie made me realize that I was blind as well. By the end of the film, I looked at my family in a new way, I even found myself wishing I could have what the final seven people had in the end. It seems like it would take something just as terrifying and severe as a real "white sickness" to make most people wake up and truly SEE what they are missing!

The point? If you can think for yourself and don't need every detail explained and spoon fed to you, if you can watch a film for its literary value and not expect every single film to be perfectly realistic (I mean, what did these same reviewers say about Lord of the Rings? Unrealistic? Sigh), if you can read between the lines and enjoy finding metaphor and symbolism in a film or book... well, then, trust me, you will LOVE this movie! If you aren't the above type... Well then... Skip this movie, you won't get it, it will just upset and frustrate you, and make you leave unfair negative reviews.

I Am Legend (2007)

Overall excellent film only slightly disappointing

[8/10 · 16 December 2007]

This film was rather well done. One of the most interesting aspects, to me, was watching the psychological effect of total isolation on Will Smith's Dr. Neville. Two scenes in the film were particularly tear jerking and touching, with Smith demonstrating again that he can clearly be one of the best dramatic actors in modern cinema. Overall, this is an excellent film; it's thrilling, frightening, and touching and pretty much everyone but the most bitterly cynical people will really enjoy it.

I only have one complaint, but to me its a big one...

The infected. Yes, they were extremely frightening until they attacked! I've read that the director originally started filming the infected as live actors with special prosthesis but felt they weren't convincing enough, so he decided on entirely CG characters using live actors only for some motion capture work. I think this was a remarkably dumb choice in his part. Actors with prosthesis can still be incredibly effective at playing convincing, sometimes superhuman, monsters. Reference the "Dawn of the Dead" remake, "28 Days Later", "28 Weeks Later", and "The Descent." The infected in the 28 Days films were absolutely entirely convincing, especially in the sequel, and were played almost entirely with real live actors in makeup utilizing CG for detail and enhancement. The infected in "I Am Legend" were clearly CG, which I found to be very disappointing. Also, these are supposed to be humans who have been infected with a virus causing their appearance and behavioral changes. Well, if you are going to base your monsters on humans you should try your best to keep movement as realistic as possible. The first time you see one of the infected scream, its clear that the size of their mouths don't make mechanical sense when compared to the shape of their faces with mouth closed. Its that kind of error that breaks the "suspension of disbelief" in audiences. Once the audience gets its first full glimpse of an infected human, they lose much of their ability to frighten. Still, my opinions about the quality of the infected CG doesn't really detract from my opinion of the film as a whole. The infected are only a fraction of the focus on this film, and there is so much else left to love. The lack of reality in the CG is trivial compared to the depth and reality of the psychological isolationist elements in the rest of the film.

I do have a theory regarding the situation with the infected. I think the studio wanted this film to appear to a broad range of people, including families, and possibly they allowed the CG to be a bit obvious to actually reduce the level of fear in younger viewers? *Shrug* I don't know.

Bug (2006)

A deep, disturbing, and accurate portrayal

[9/10 · 6 August 2007]

I've been reading through the reviews tonight and I think that a lot of people have missed a few small, but important, distinctions about this film. Before I get into that, I will say that I feel this movie is not only disturbing, but also a very accurate portrayal of paranoia and mental illness.

My wife is a psychiatrist who specializes in EMERGENCY psychiatric care (which means she gets to work with the SERIOUSLY, UNMEDICATED, mentally ill), as well as being a Captain in the United Stated Army Reserves Medical Corps. I've been rather fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on your view) to hear quite a lot about her patients (no names, of course), and actually see some of them when I drop by the hospital to talk to her or bring her lunch.

One of the most disturbing and unsettling type of patient she deals with is the paranoid psychotic. These people are suffering from a horrible disease, and I mean SUFFERING. Untreated, they live in constant fear, spending every day of their lives believing they are in mortal danger.

This movie was an EXCELLENT exploration of both what can happen to the paranoid psychotic if left untreated, and also an observed phenomenon where people who are close to the paranoid begin to share in their delusions. In nearly 7 of 10 paranoia cases, my wife has seen some type of the latter phenomena in varying degrees of severity.

Back to my original point however, what people are missing... First, although drugs are definitely an aggravating factor in these cases, in this particular case that is all it was. This movie wasn't a portrayal of DRUG induced psychosis... No... The guy was simply psychotic and he didn't need any help to be that way. He was clearly psychotic and paranoid before he fell deeply into it, but his symptoms were partially controlled by the fact that everyone around him was firmly planted in reality. The problem was that he moved in with a lonely woman who BELIEVED his delusion. She bought into it hook, line, and sinker, and due to the couples extreme isolation in the apartment, it became a self-feeding cycle. Her belief in his delusion, only allowed him to look into that delusion all the closer. By getting him to talk about his delusions he was allowed to explore them, and by her believing she saw the little bugs, was all the validation he needed. She validated his version of reality, and after that, everything fell swiftly to hell.

Do not for a moment believe that this portrayal was exaggerated or in any way melodramatic. Its not meth addicts who do these things (only a fraction of my wife's paranoia patients were drug induced), its paranoid psychotics who do these things. Normally, they are surrounded by people who are firmly rooted in reality, and this helps keep their psychosis in check, but when they live alone, or worse, live with someone who begins to believe the delusions, the psychosis gets a chance to take hold.

Dr. Greene was clearly a civilian doctor working at a VA mental hospital. There are many soldiers who end up hospitalized for mental disorders (with the armed forces paying for 100% of their care, often for the rest of their lives) while on duty. This is because most victims of schizoid type disorders do not experience their first true psychotic break until the ages of 18 and 25 years old. They show no symptoms before that point, then one day they just suddenly snap. Well, the majority of the fine people in our armed services happen to be 18 to 25 years old! Anyway, this movie was excellent and chilling. If you have ANY interest in abnormal psychology or would like to see an ACCURATE portrayal of the horrors of one of the worst types of mental disorders, then you will find this movie a true gem. Its honest, gritty, and a wonderful example of gutsy filmaking. Ignore the previews that make the movie seem different than what it is, thats not the film maker's fault, they have no control over the marketing of their films.

Epoch (2001 TV Movie)

Beautifully made, well written movie, that tragically lets you down.

[5/10 · 19 September 2006]

I have to admit that this movie had me hooked. It's excellent sci-fi, with smart character development, some witty dialog, and several interrelated parallel plot points. It has everything from a mysterious alien device to international and political intrigue. The movie even works with complex questions a bit, including science vs. religion.

Overall the movie is very well written! A lot of the characters were quite compelling and they each seemed to handle the extremely bizarre situations they were in with completely logical and rational behaviors. I was very impressed.

What I don't understand however, is why this movie simply fell completely apart in the end. In the final 30 minutes of the film, its as if the film makers suddenly became bored with the project and decided to simply rush to complete it so they could quickly move on to the next one. All the thought and care that went into making the first 80% of the film was completely and utterly destroyed in the end! Warning, spoilers below! The thing I noticed was the editing suddenly became choppy with noticeable continuity errors. Some of these continuity errors were extremely amateurish and easily spotted. For example, the countdown on the nuclear weapon was jumping by 20 seconds forward and backward as the camera shots changed. I think any director who knows what they are doing should know that when you put a ticking time-bomb on the screen and present it as a major lead to the climax that your viewers will be paying close attention to the countdown sequence. I mean, jeez, its a critical component of the climax! Second, the special effects were very carefully produced and not too bad for a movie on this budget, but near the end it became obvious that the producers wanted to save money or beat a deadline by bypassing a few steps in the compositing and lighting departments. Everything went from pretty believable to obviously CGI with extremely plastic looking textures and poor green screen matting! Even those problems are forgivable if you end the movie by tying up all the loose ends in the plot you so carefully introduced in the first 80% of the film. Most viewers would then shrug off the editing and effects issues as the producers cutting some costs without effecting the story, but when you simply drop the loose ends without tying them up your viewers are left feeling cheated and abandoned.

After all the good they had built up and all the great impressions I had during the first 80% of the film, when the credits rolled I was left wondering what $#!@ happened! I am not a stupid person, in fact, I am highly technical and educated, and I am certainly not new to the world of cinema, but I was left totally confused by several things like: 1. If the Torus was completely destroyed absorbing the force of the nuclear blast, then obviously the mechanisms supporting the generation of the cloud cover were also destroyed, forcing an early end to the Torus's plans. If thats so, then why was it explained as being a conscious decision by the Torus? During the Engineers final presentation four months later, an audience member asked, "Why did the Torus stop terraforming the Earth after it disappeared?" And I thought, "Becuase it was completely !@#%#$ destroyed by a nuclear weapon, dummy!" But no, that wasn't the explanation at all?! 2. What ever happened between China and the US? I would think that China would deem the refusal of rights to co-study the Torus, the shooting of one of its top scientists in the heart, being given a whole 24 minutes notice that it better move its troops back, and finally the detonation of a tactical nuclear weapon within 100km of its borders without at least consulting it first would REALLY tick it off! I mean, jeez, if someone did that to us Americans it would be considered a total act of war and we'd have 250,000 Marines marching across their borders while we saturation bombed the $#!@#$ out of it within 48 hours! So... what ever HAPPENED?!?!? 3. What the hell happened to Captain Tower? I mean, he held a senior officer against orders by pointing a gun at his forehead at point-blank range! I'm no expert, but dude, I think our government would consider that a pretty serious offense and charge him with insubordination, treason, rape, and child molestation... wouldn't you? SOOOOO, what the heck HAAAAPEEENED?!?!? 4. OK so.. the pretty, super-intelligent, and tough female researcher somehow became impregnated while inside the Torus. Obviously, there wasn't time for anyone to be bumping' uglies while the thing prepared to wipe out all life, so how did that happened? OK, lets assume it was the Torus who planted the fetus inside there somehow... OK, so why did she thank the engineer at the end? Plus, why did she even look him up in the first place? "I'm pregnant with a possibly freakish alien life-form... wanna be the Daddy?" That simply HAD to be a tacked on "feel good" ending! I have like 40 other questions but I'm too frustrated and tired to mention them, but I am sure you get the point! Epoch is a perfect science fiction film, with excellent scripting, decent special effects, and a compelling story, and it lasts that way for the first three-quarters of the film, at which point it dies a horrible public death in a swarm of mediocrity and careless film making.

Not a terrible movie to rent, but if you have other choices, I'd recommend trying them first... unless you happen to like sitting on your couch, drooling on yourself while you stare at the credits like a befuddled brain-damaged monkey wondering what the heck just happened.

The Devil's Rejects (2005)

Don't forget William Forsythe

[10/10 · 15 June 2006]

First things first, I loved this movie. It was hard to watch and I HATED the bad guys. Movies are meant to evoke feeling, and this movie sure as heck does that! Anyway, after reading a bunch of the user reviews I'm seeing that most people praise the actors who played the bad guys. Don't forget William Forsythe as Sheriff John Wydell!!!! William Forsythe's character was AMAZING! He radiated an almost psychotic intensity I don't think I have ever seen on film before. He was a good guy (sort of) and yet he was one of the scariest characters in the film! He was gonna do God's justice, and man, did he ROCK! His torture scenes back in the Firefly house were totally sick, but I couldn't help just cheering him on! Yeah torture, maim, kill 'em! Wooo! Now THAT was a performance like none other!

Darkness (2002)

Intelligent Horror

[8/10 · 19 June 2005]

Reading through these comments always tends to amaze me. It seems a lot of film watchers tend to be cynical, overly critical, mindless zombies who must have everything spelled out for them in completely detailed step-by-step descriptions. Then again, maybe I am not so amazed after all...

If you are the kind of person who loves to piece together abstract puzzles, who actually likes to think for themselves, to read between the lines, then you are the kind of person who will enjoy this movie.

A lot of people are complaining that this movie has a bad plot that makes no sense. These are the same people who also believe Kosher Salt has no Cholesterol! The plot is extremely well planned, taking place over the course of a single week. The plot is perfectly sequential, with creepy hints of the sinister underlying plot that is REALLY going on.

Its quite simple to understand whats going on, all you have to do is spend the time to THINK about it. Heres some answers: SPOILERS ************** 1) What was up in the end with the two moms and two sets of kids? Well, obviously, after the gateway to "hell" was opened, demons were set loose on the world. Obviously, the demons lived in the darkness and aren't effective in the light. Demons, in common mythos, are notorious for lying to trick people into doing things they normally wouldn't do. Some of the demons disguised themselves as the trusted figures of the Mom and the Children to trick their prey into turning off the lights.

2) What was up with the boyfriend and the dark tunnel? Again, if the demons were into tricking people in order to make them vulnerable, its obvious that the "boyfriend" who first appeared at the house and picked up Reggie and her brother was really another demon. He tricked Reggie into trusting him then drove them into the dark tunnel. What does this mean? Obviously, Reggie and her cute little brother are now gruesomely dismembered drippy blood splatters on the inside of an old, but reliable, VW beetle! END SPOILERS ************* I could go on and on, but this was meant to be an example of how things would make sense if you simply took the time to think about them.

And about the movie? It was excellent! I loved it. The plot was tight, the acting top-notch, the cinematography beautiful, and the editing artful. It did scare me a bit, but I was mostly intrigued by the story. I cared about the characters and wanted to find out what happened to them.

All thinkers will enjoy, all "averge IQ" people should go watch something else.