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JediMasterGandalf
Reviews
Satanis: The Devil's Mass (1970)
The Hedonists Are Having a Costume Party!
If you are looking for insight, wisdom or a serious review of the teachings of Anton LaVey, it would be best look elsewhere. This film is an uneven, rambling attempt to juxtapose LaVey's Church of Satan followers with outsiders who live in the neighborhood. The result is at its best, comical and at its worst, boring.
The film suffers from an apparent lack of budget, or perhaps a lack of quality film equipment. It certainly has the look and feel of late 60s/early 70s "B" movies. The filmmakers do attempt to show both "pro" and "con" opinions of the controversial Church, but without a coherent vision, the film ends up being unfocused and largely unrevealing.
The most entertaining segments (at least at first) are scenes depicting Church rituals, replete with hamfisted incantations, paper mâché Halloween costumes and the spanking of bottoms. However, after several repetitions, these scenes simply become tedious and tiresome.
Despite his reputation for being evil and dangerous, LaVey comes across more as a P.T. Barnum for narcissists than a dastardly agent of Lucifer. He may have done evil in his time, but it isn't shown in this movie. His greatest trangressions here are hypocrisy (equal to what he accuses Christians of being) and cruelty to an animal (keeping an adult lion in a tiny cage for his own pleasure). In the film, the Church is portrayed not so much as a church, but rather as a place for folks to indulge in their preferred sexual perversions under the "blessings" of Anton LaVey.
It all sounds titillating at first, but it really isn't, unless unprepossessing nudes filmed under a red light are your thing. Best to watch this with plenty of beer, pizza and like-minded friends.
Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
Both Enjoyable and Forgettable
Like so many others, I saw the original Mary Poppins as a child and it remains one of my favorite movies of all time. So I went to see Mary Poppins Returns with both anticipation and a bit of skepticism. My three main takeaways are as follows:
1) Emily Blunt did a wonderful job. However, it occurred to me after seeing the movie that she wan't actually playing Mary Poppins, she was playing Julie Andrews playing Mary Poppins. There was no way the world would accept a completely new and different portrayal of the movie character, so she was tasked with being as faithful to Julie Andrews' performance as possible. And with that task Ms. Blunt was entirely successful. I had my doubts going in, but she allayed them completely.
2) The music in Mary Poppins Returns is entirely forgettable. The songs strive to achieve the proper tone of the original movie, but neither music or lyrics are memorable. Less than 24 hours after seeing it, the tunes are already fading into oblivion for me. The only aspect of the music that sticks with me is the songwriters' use of pre-existing cliches as lyrical foundations: "Turning Turtle," "Tripping the Light Fantastic," "Nowhere To Go But Up," etc. These all create an overarching sense of forced derivativeness to the musical score. There is no Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious here, nor anything approaching originality.
3) There was an odd, but perhaps understandable, decision made to construct the movie in a nearly scene-by-scene replication of the original. Some viewers may appreciate this for its faithfulness, others may wish Rob Marshall had done things slightly different. Both opinions were expressed in the group of folks with whom I saw the movie.
The Three Dogateers (2014)
Quite Simply, One of The Worst Things I've Ever Witnessed
My Momma told me that if I don't have anything nice to say about someone, then don't say anything. Fortunately, this abomination is not a someone but a something so I feel free to speak my mind.
There is nothing about this movie that was remotely enjoyable. Even the dogs, and I love dogs, were not cute or engaging or entertaining. Only obnoxious. The voice characterizations were an embarrassment and the plot and script were beyond ridiculous, even given that it was a movie about talking dogs. The hour and a half running time felt like at least twice that. I could not wait for this piece of drivel, or my life, to come to a merciful end.
Saving Christmas (2014)
Not Good, But Not As Awful As Some Would Have You Believe
Look, this movie has a lot of problems. It's preachy, plodding and the ending is cringeworthy, but I have seen much, much worse. Especially Christmas movies. At least the folks who made this remembered that Christmas is supposed to celebrate the birth of Christ. Too many contemporary "Christmas" movies claim that the true meaning of Christmas is "family" or "finding your true love." Nice, safe sentiments to be sure, but not the "true meaning of Christmas."
Did the makers of "Saving Christmas" get everything right? Far from it! Would I watch it again? Nope. Would I recommend it to anyone else? Probably only to fundamentalist Christian friends. But it is not deserving of all the hate and the (currently) 1.5 rating.
This movie is definitely not for everyone. However, there are certainly more awful and unwatchable movies out there.