desertshark-45652 Reviews

The Crumbs (2020)

Fun Flick.

[8/10 · 19 November 2020]

** very minor spoilers ** First, I had to say this in response to writers of user reviews who obviously didn't get it: The characters change their accents ON PUPOSE! Dummies. (They're pretending to be locals, but they aren't.) It's quite obvious and the reviewers who attributed the accent switching to 'bad acting' are either morons, or just write reviews without actually paying attention to the film.

Now that I got that off my chest...

This is not what I would call a true "horror" film, but it doesn't really fit into any other genres. It's weird, unexpected and fun. A real "grind-house" film vibe. Creepy, suspenseful and humorous but hits a surprising emotional note once or twice. No big scares or crazy gore, but you'll be waiting to see who's next! The acting from the core characters is uniformly good with one or two amateur performances from ancillary characters. (Just what one would expect from low-budget indie films like this.)

Cons: Sound quality is sometimes lacking. Hard to make out bits of dialogue without turning on subtitles! The visual production value is adequate but leaves you wanting in the special effects department. A bit more blood would've made some of the violent moments much more effective! A few afore mentioned performances from the guests/victims were a bit lacking but most were quite good. Some of the plot points/characters don't get "paid off" (like what was the point of the homeless dude?)

Pros: The four main characters were really well acted. The story and characters were crazy original and unexpected. The ending "pays off" the movie as a whole really well! Final verdict; this was a really groovy little flick for fans of truely independent Grindhouse type films. Recommended!

Blackmark (2018)

Solid Indie Political Thriller From a Rookie Director

[8/10 · 24 August 2018]

I love finding a well-made underground indie film like this. I saw this movie and was impressed by the quality of such an inconspicuous picture by an unknown director with an unheard-of cast. I did a bit of research into the people who made it, among other things, I found out the original title was "Redfish Bluefish". On their YouTube channel there is a video posted in 2015 (3 years before it was released) that tells a bit about the creation of this film that should be inspiring to any upstart filmmakers out there who wonder what is possible to accomplish with not much else but talent and perseverance.

This is not a perfect movie, but it's a damn good one considering it's a micro-budget, independently produced film by a first-time writer/director/producer. The cinematography and editing are impressive, giving it a polished look. It's cast strictly with lesser and un-known talents who are all very good in their roles.

The top-billed leads include Kaiwi Lyman, who's biggest credits include some smaller roles in well known titles and a few leads in other straight-to-video movies, plays Timothy Daniels, a rogue American spy, the main protagonist in this picture. Jeff Hatch, an obscure actor who has only a handful of credits on IMDb, is the title character Arthur Blackmark- our principle antagonist. Corey MacIntosh, another unknown, plays a noble Russian military commander, Alexi Popolovski. These three turn in solid performances, anchoring a roster of veteran D-list actors as well as some other polished rookie talent. John Henry Richardson, Lana Gautier, Jon Briddell, Tim Oman, David Light, Brian Ide and Elliot all turn in solid performances.

Based on the film's behind the scenes YouTube videos, the real talent behind it is writer/director, AJ Martinson III, who apparently pulled this project together with not much more than a motley cast and crew, a shoestring budget, and lots of called-in favors.

The overall quality of the script, direction, cinematography and editing make this feature feel like the "little film that could" hold its own beside big Hollywood Cold War movies like Bridge of Spies, Hunt For the Red October or classics such as Failsafe and 7 Days in May.

The story takes place in 1963 during the highest tensions of the Cold War. It involves a shadowy, Illuminati-like organization working behind the backs of the Whitehouse and Kremlin to initiate a nuclear showdown for reasons that do not become clear until late in the story, as twists, double-crosses, treachery and a unique conspiracy theory unfold.

The knocks from negative user reviews have mainly been the complexity of the plot and overly dramatic feel of the acting. The plot is a bit hard to follow, but if you stay with it, it pays off. A second viewing with the subtitles turned on satisfied some questions that left me scratching my head. The movie does not quite "stick the landing" at the story's climax though, in explaining the reasons it comes to the conclusions it does, but it executes a high degree of difficulty getting there, so it only loses one point on that count. As for the acting, I felt the quick, snappy dialogue and rushed pace was a nod to the straightforward way acting was typically done in classic noir thrillers of the black and white era, but it does get a little heavy-handed at times and there are a couple of over-cooked speeches, costing them one more star for final rating of 8/10.

Overall, the quality of this film, especially considering it's a first time effort with a tiny budget, is incredibly impressive. I hope this movie will find the audience it deserves and I'm quite interested to see what Martinson does next.

I Am Still Here (2017)

Interesting, Watchable but Flawed Attempt at Delivering an Important Message Through Film

[7/10 · 22 August 2018]

This film is a very earnest, sincere and sober attempt to tackle one of the most sensitive issues in society today, child sex trafficking. There are many positive points about this film which, on balance, make it well worth watching. The story is told honestly enough that it gets across the ugliness and the brutal reality that sex-enslaved minors live through, yet tactfully enough that it is not distasteful or exploitative of the minors that are the subject of the film. However, in the hands of a first time director/writer, working with a cast of mostly young, inexperienced actors, some scenes fall short of the impact the script clearly intended.

The story centers around a young prostitute, Layla (Ciara Jiana) who wakes up in a hospital after being beaten and left for dead by her pimp. In flashbacks, she recounts her history to a detective, (Erika Ringor) where as a 10 year old girl, she (played by Aliyah Conley) is abducted from her suburban neighborhood in Anytown, USA. She spends the next seven years of her life being moved around the country, along with a handful of other young victims who are introduced to her as her new "sisters". They are systematically drugged, psychologically manipulated, tortured, exploited and sold by a brutal and cunning, yet charismatic pimp. (Johnny Rey Diaz)

The story is a distillation of true events taken from interviews of sex trafficking survivors conducted by the films writer/director, Mischa Marcus. It is a raw subject that will likely not appeal to a wide audience, but being the important issue that it is, this is a movie that needed to be made.

The standout performance in this film is given by Johnny Rey Diaz as the sociopathic, manipulative pimp who, through a combination of drugging, coercion, physical violence, intimidation and psychological manipulation, keeps his brothel of young slaves imprisoned and even cooperative, seeing him as a father figure and protector. Diaz's convincingly chilling performance makes it easy to imagine how such monsters can exist and his visceral portrayal is the glue that holds the whole film together. Also very impressive as the young Layla, is Aliyah Conley in an extraordinarily challenging role for such a young actress. There are some other fine performances in supporting roles by Erika Ringor as a compassionate detective investigating Layla's case and an unsettlingly sympathetic john played by Jeff Hatch that reminds the audience that the sickness of pedophilia is often easily disguised behind a likable, even seemingly noble exterior.

At times, however, some performances, dialogue and directing choices veer into melodramatic embellishment which gives this film a made-for-tv movie-of-the-week cheesiness in certain places that just doesn't work with the delicate subject matter. These schmaltzy moments are sometimes the unavoidable byproduct of an eager and sincere rookie director making a low budget passion project where there isn't the experience, time or money to correct the bits that get a little over cooked. Being familiar with the world of micro-budget filmmaking, I am very forgiving of such flaws in an otherwise good movie, but more demanding audience members might feel a bit let down when such a serious story falls short of a Hollywood caliber delivery.

2307: Winter's Dream (2016)

Good enough to keep me watching to the end... but just barely.

[5/10 · 22 August 2018]

Enjoyed several elements in this film, not the least of which was the performance of its lead actor Paul Sidhu. His character was quite cliché, but he dressed it up with a solid, believable performance. The rest of the cast was equally cliché, pretty much every character trope you've ever seen in a sci-fi action film. Unfortunately, most of the other actors, with an exception or two, did not pull off their performances as well as the lead. The action, and pacing we're good and the overall production quality was pretty decent. The plot is basically Blade Runner in a winter apocalypse with elements of Aliens and, well, five or six other sci-fi movies. It's a bit of a mess, story wise, there were flashbacks to the main character's backstory that were uninteresting and distracted from the action, but it held together enough to keep me wanting to see what happened next.

American Violence (2017)

Should've Rewatched Dead Man Walking Instead

[4/10 · 22 August 2018]

This movie had potential, but takes itself way too seriously and it's cast of budget-friendly actors turn in uneven performances. Denise Richards is trying too hard to shed her bimbo persona in a highly intellectual role as a renowned criminal psychologist. Kaiwi Lyman is uneven, veering into melodramatic overstatement in his scenes with Richards, but is much better in flashback scenes of his life of crime, especially when paired with Micheal Pare as his former small time criminal partner. Bruce Dern phones one in for the paycheck and the rest of the cast is varying degrees of bad, from unwatchable to to just ok. The story is all over the place, trying in places to be a character study of small time criminals-which would have been interesting, then trying to be a slick action-y heist movie, then trying to be political with it's socially conscious anti-death penalty message. It never hits the mark with any of it and winds up just being a mess.