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Reviews
Loudermilk (2017)
A Dumb Person's Idea About Smart Comedy
If Gilligan's Island was a puppet show performed by concussed Wisconsinites on giraffe tranquilizers - it would be more coherent than Loudermilk.
If Schindler's List was also about everyone who has ever died from cancer and real kittens were slaughtered on film in every other scene - it would be funnier than Loudermilk.
If Kim Jong Un wrote a play about the virtues of female subordination and forced pregnancies while recovering from a herniated brain - it would be better written than Loudermilk.
There is no rhyme or reason for most anything that happens or is said in this show. There is not even consistent, internal logic to pull it off. The characters are mere pawns to whatever actions and monologues the writers mysteriously decided are good for the fractured, hemorrhaging story lines. Plot points get abandoned and then suddenly reintroduced and then are only hastily resolved, if at all.
Loudermilk himself is a caricature of an intelligent cynic. Or at least what one would look like if written by people who had never actually met an intelligent cynic, but only seen other stilted characterizations in media. It is what inexperienced dumb people think that an intelligent cynic would be like. It feels like popist propaganda to discredit rockists by reducing them to such tokenized absurdity.
And for a show about a rock critic the music is just terrible. It is all the most toothless, soulless, derivative, milquetoast industrial entertainment complex compliant fodder.
I hate Loudermilk, but even though I am only about halfway through with it, I am going to finish it, so my hatred can be utter and complete. If they ever get the chance to make a season four I hope the world ends first.
Accidental Exorcist (2016)
Great Acting & Ending
The film avoids the clumsy performances that are often part and parcel of films of this style and budget. Falicki is probably a better actor than director, although he isn't terrible at directing either, and his performance here is great. He manages to bring a lot of empathy to his character, which is hard to do for a character that is a sort of self absorbed drunkard. When I first finished it I wished that I had understood the background of the character a bit better, and how they gained such a strange power, but as I have sat on it for awhile I think that it would only spoil it to reveal too much. The ending is truly disturbing. Not believing in twisted religious mythology like heaven and hell usually spoils their impact for me, but somehow it is done here in a way that gets right under your skin.
Her Smell (2018)
A Compelling Portrait of Excess
The film's antagonist, Becky Something, is certainly not a pleasant character - and the viewer may find her "obnoxious" and hard to watch, but that is the entire point. You mix ego, excess and success and you often get a volatile mixture that can compromise the morality and social skills of an otherwise decent person. Celebrities, especially of the rock star variety, are full of such entities. Becky Something may be a rather extreme depiction, but that is how film works. If you only have a short time to get your point across, then you have to do it by showing the extremes. In this the filmmakers and actors are immensely successful. The performances in this film are just amazing, especially Moss. And the musical performances within the film are also amazing. There is something about mixing acting and music that can really give a song some extra punch. The cover performance of Bryan Adam's 'Heaven' has no right being as good as it is. It is a mediocre song made transcendent through the context and performance. That final on stage performance of Breathe is also amazing, and I wish it was available in that form to listen to online. My only criticism about the film would be that it could have probably whittled down 15-20 minutes in the editing process, but who knows, something important may have been lost if that were the case.
Post script:
I rewatched this movie a week later, while it was still fresh, but I had some time to digest it.
1. I would not edit a damn thing out. The run time is all used well.
2. The ending is frustrating but great. It ends with a lot of ambiguity. Was she high again? By done does she mean done for the night, done with performing live altogether, done with music? But this ambiguity keeps you thinking long after the credits have rolled, which is what good art should do - stick with you.
3. The last three songs are just amazing. The one she sings for Mari about addiction is such a spot on addict thought, "I don't wanna quit, I just wanna be in control of it". But again, the real winner here is Breathe. This time I really gave the lyrics some thought and was able to appreciate how much they really drive home the film's central thesis of persona.
"If I don't breathe I can feel her barely walking
Take over me, she's alive, and I'm onto something
I'd give ten years for a piece of her mind, I would
I'd give a hundred just to hit rewind"
The lyrics are from the point of Rebecca Adamynski observing her rockstar persona Becky Something, with admiration, envy and regret. The lyrics manage to distill the entire concept of the film into a single song. Not that it is an entirely original concept, but I don't think I have ever seen it done this well before, all things told.
4. This time the character of Becky really came together. During my first viewing her behavior just seemed unhinged and erratic, but while watching it a second time it all gained a sort of internal logic. There was not just a method to the madness, but a distinct individual flavor. Not only did this give Becky more depth and humanity, it made much of her dialogue a lot funnier. And it better explained the magnetism with which Becky was able to draw people into her world, even when it was trembling in flames. Subsequently I was able to really appreciate the writing that went into this film, which I read was completely faithful to the script. And of course was brought to life by the mind-bendingly stellar performance by Moss.
InstaBAND (2020)
Superficiality 4 Sale
A documentary about how shallow and attention consumed humanity has come as a result of social. Mediocre art, platitudinal wisdom and plenty of fragile egos begging for meaning in an ocean of cheap validation.
Ramekin (2018)
Minimalist Surrealism Brilliance
Ramekin is a film that amateur filmmakers will find themselves blown away by. For the cinematic artist who realizes their limitations and wants to transcend them through truly original content, the genius will be immediately apparent. This is a collection of very interesting story concepts that are told through straightforward film techniques which anyone could replicate, but few would have the imagination to make this compelling for 70 minutes. If you don't understand how and why this film is a major accomplishment, you should stfu, write a script and pick up a camera yourself. I guarantee you cannot make something this amazing with so little.
Slasher (2016)
Paper Thin Characters in S3
Season 3 is a massive disappointment. The characters are hyperbolized caricature types. The barista is perhaps the mist embarassing example, but the problem extends to all the characters to various degrees. It was almost as if somebody applied an algorithm to stereotypes and generated the characters and dialogue from that. The plot is a disastrous complication of the same juvenile writing colliding with the terrible characters.
Season 2 fell short of the first, but the 3rd is a blind freefall into laborious discomfort.
Black Summer (2019)
Zombies for Mombies
As a fan of Z-Nation, well a superfan really, I was distraught at the show's cancellation. My only consolation was the promise of a prequel series, which even though we were informed would be very different, still seemed like something to staunch the flow of tears shed knowing that 10K would never get to 10K. After an intense binge watch all I can say is - UGH!
Black Summer is flat and lifeless in almost every sense. Even the visual style that worked so well for Z-Nation, that washed out bluey look, just made Black Summer as visually unappealing as its plot, characters and motivations. Filming in the washed out sunlight of Canada's northern latitudes probably did not help, either. Neither did the sound design or score do anything to make it stand out or give it some aesthetic and emotional texture. It is not that it looks and sounds bad, but that it is merely serviceable, and I prefer bad-because-of-budget-constraints over merely-mediocre on pretty much any given day.
Comparisons to Tarantino, due to the gratuitous overuse of violence combined with a thin plot, are apt. Even more so, the comparisons to Netflix's Bird Box are spot on. The timing and pace and constant sense of dreaded urgency are nearly identical. However it might have taken a cue from either aforementioned styles by breaking up the ultra-linear plot to develop the characters and their world. Instead it reduces everything it borrows down to its most superficial essence - tension and violence.
The characters are two dimensional. They are the NPCs of zombie cinema. The only facet of the characters that seems to have underwent any development is their particular kind of impulsiveness. We see what they do when backed into a corner by horrific circumstances, but we have almost no idea who they were before this, (besides generic roles like job, parent, etc.), and we are given zero information to make them appear as real people rather than conveniently empty plot devices.
As for motivation, it comes down to 'family' and 'survive', the two most overused motivations, not just in zombie media, but in media in general. Morality and ethics are only explored in the most shallow sense, seemingly just to cue us into who is Good and who is Bad. Black Summer takes place in a black and white world with the complexity of cartoons made for 2nd graders.
The plot is centered around the most embarrassing cliche of all - the unbreakable bond between mother and child, and a mom who will do whatever it takes. Snore. Out. Loud. Zombies for mombies. Demographically, I guess, it is easy to appeal to a majority of viewers with this sort of platitudinous parenthood pandering, but it has been done so many times that feels forced and contrived. And the SURVIVE-AT-ALL-COSTS theme is not just overspent, it contributes to one of the most pervasive and destructive attitudes of modern westerners.
Forced and contrived pretty much sums it up. Black Summer is like a product, not of the imagination, but of marketing experts who did exhaustive research in order to stack tropes for maximum return on their investment. It is masturbatory violence that leaves you feeling anxious, and eventually, just tired. Terror for its own sake.
Not since the torture porn of the 2000s have I been so disappointed by a work of cinematic horror, and I dislike Black Summer for almost the exact same reasons. Where once the zombie trope was a vehicle for exploring deeper issues about our humanity and environment, Black Summer empties it of all complexity and depth in order to force you into emotional discomfort. The masochistic viewer will find plenty of entertainment value in its superficial torment, but if you require any kind of substance, do yourself a favor and skip this one.
Lycan (2017)
Alcoholic Method Acting
The lead actress in this film gives what is perhaps the most brilliant drunken performance since W.C. Fields. Her dedication to her craft is evident all throughout, as she uses gin-infused slurring to transition seamlessly from one made up accent to the next. Unless you count slurring as a seam, I guess. And while this intoxicated performance was at the top of its game, it could not come close to matching the dedicated inebriation of the sound design team, whose ability to make the film sonic-ally assault you like a Mel Gibson antisemitism rant. I give this film eight Jagermeister shots.
"COME AND GET US YOU BASTARD! I gotta pee."
A Journey to Planet Sanity (2013)
The most ironic fake documentary ever>
I was pretty stunned to see the other reviews here working from the premise that this was in fact a genuine documentary. While the people and beliefs mocked in the film are often far-fetched, none more so than this movie itself. That anyone would believe this is real is as laughable as anything LeRoy ever believed, perhaps more so. Sadly, it wasn't just the other two reviewers who got it wrong. Reviews from CBS to Huffington Post reviewed this film with the same flawed and naive premise. In a brief search only the LA Times managed to see through the inauthenticity of the film. Without examining the claims mocked in the 'documentary' we can see that the film itself is a trap for well-meaning but gullible people looking to gain kinship and identity by confirming their biases with any information that does so, no matter how ridiculous. Team Lazy Skeptic is now every bit as irrational and easily manipulated as Team Tinfoil Hat. The irony that a movie highlighting gullibility has itself duped so many of the gullible is either completely genius on Blake Freeman's part, or completely disheartening as a portrayal of how gullibility, certainty and self-righteousness are often simultaneously present in our culture. But since Freeman hasn't called out the gullible fans of his half- witted circus of debunking, it is probably the case that even he doesn't see how ironic it all is. I look forward to seeing this as a Friday Night movie in the near future, right after 'Ow My Balls!'.