Charlie inspired me to try to do something new (check out The-Broll below), so I'm going to watch 4 movies a week and write my little review about them, or steal John's reviews from Making the Movie.
I won't give ratings, just a when you should see it rating...i.e. my favorites will be rated NOW, for "GO SEE IT NOW". Others will include Indie Film Mood, Date Night, or Drunken Guys Night ect..
You will learn very quickly that writing isn't my strongest skill so please excuse the many errors.
As he plans his next job, a longtime thief tries to balance his feelings for a bank manager connected to one of his earlier heists, as well as the FBI agent looking to bring him and his crew down.
After hearing a lot of buzz about this movie I was very excited to see it. The only part of this movie I think should be getting any buzz is Jeremy Renner. The movie was entertaining, but bad acting and a laughable script really took me out of the movie.
Being that most people have enjoyed this movie so far, I will link to a good writers review, that portrays what I have been hearing about the movie. Hopefully everyone will disagree with me and love the movie.
The fate of our country won't be decided on a battlefield, it will be determined in a classroom....
Director Davis Guggenheim's look into the public school system. How is it that more and more money is being pumped into the school systems and laws are being passed so that "No Child is Left Behind" but the reading and math scores have flat-lined since the 70's and the rates of students failing has only gone up.
Guggenheim follows 5 children that are all enrolled in public school around the country that are trying to get into prestigious charter schools with high success rates of students throughout high school and college. With such high rates of success though there are to many applicants for the available spots, some as low as 10 spots for over 100 applicants. To get into these schools you have to win a spot through a lottery.
He also goes inside several school systems that have tried reform, including following Michelle Rhee who did dramatic cuts in the District of Columbia. Her efforts though have her going up against the teachers union, which have the teachers first and studens second approach it seems.
Guggenheim does a good job at pointing out many out the many flaws of our academic system but does not give a lot of solutions for it. He shows how we got here, and how a couple of public schools have overcome being in low income neighborhoods, and shown that the right teaching strategies can produce successful students from any neighborhood. The problem is that these are the schools that only a handful of kids can get into every year and have to get the luck of the lottery to get in.
I think that Guggenheim does an excellent job in this documentary and really makes you wonder who is fighting for the youth to succeed. Will there ever be enough schools that aren't "failure factories"? Is there enough Geoffrey Canada's in the country to make a change? I think this is a must see for anyone with children in school.
Jackie works as a CCTV operator. Each day she watches over a small part of the world, protecting the people living their lives under her gaze...
Red Road won the 2006 Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival. One night while Jackie (Kate Dickie) is working she see's a man that sends her into a panic. She frantically begins calling people trying to find out if he has been released from prison early. She begins following the man, at work through the cameras, and in her off time in person.
I think what made this movie good also made me dislike it. This man is supposed to be kept a mystery, we know he was in prison and had something to do with Jackie, but Director Andrea Arnold wants to keep us guessing why the entire movie. At first it plays very well, as she follows him in person you think that if he see's her he will recognize her and that will start a confrontation. Then after they have a conversation and he hasn't recognized her you start to wonder why she has such an interest in him. And by the end of the movie I was beginning the think that Jackie is crazy.
Jackie lives a very cut off life. She doesn't speak to her parents much, she hadn't seen her sister in years before her wedding.She doesn't get together with friends. She works a job where she doesn't really have to deal much with other people, but instead gets to watch other peoples lives, which she enjoys. But we get the sense that things haven't always been this way.
The film kept me interested throughout because I wanted to know what this strange relationship that Jackie had with this man, and some of the scenes were very intense in large part to the sound design that was used instead of a music score, which I found brilliant. By the end of the movie though I had lost most of my interest, maybe in part to the heavy Scottish accents where I couldn't understand some of the dialogue or maybe to the fact that it took so long to get to the reveal and when it finally did the payoff didn't seem to be worth it.
In late 2007, filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost sensed a story unfolding as they began to film the life of Ariel's brother...
The word about Catfish started building at Sundance, a stranger than fiction documentary that follows the internet relationship of Nev Schulman, a photographer in New York, and a family in Michigan. After one of Nev's photographs is published in a magazine he receives a painting of the same picture by an 8 year old girl, Abby. Nev begins talking to Abby over the internet, and soon becomes friends with her mom Angela and sister Meagan.
Nev continues to receive paintings from Abby, who he is told has been selling paintings for up to $7000 dollars and is just about to open her our gallery. Nev's relationship with her older sister Meagan starts to become romantic as they talk though instant messaging and text messages daily.
One night while Nev is chatting with Meagan online he asks her to record a specific cover song for him, he is surprised when she comes back 20 minutes later with a beautiful recording. Nev starts suspecting something is up when he finds the exact recording on youtube by another singer. When he goes back and starts looking up her old songs she had "recorded" for him he starts finds that they are all other singers she had just taken off the internet. That is when Nev starts looking into all the things she has been telling him to see if any of them are true....
The filmmakers said they started recording the events because they thought it would be a good short film about a prodigy 8 year old artist, that Nev had somehow stumbled across and built this internet friendship with. They never could of guessed where this film would lead them.
All of the reviews coming out of Sundance were saying that "you will not believe the last 40 minutes of this film." So I went in with very high expectations on a huge twist. To me, the movie didn't deliver that. I won't give away the ending but there was really no surprise in what happened for me. It was still a fairly entertaining movie, that really makes you think about the power of the internet and Facebook, but was not the shocking documentary that I was expecting.
A village in Nineteenth Century Europe is at first relieved when a circus breaks through the quarantine to take the local's minds off the plague...
Vampire Circus is a 70's grindhouse film that falls short on what makes the old grindhouse films great. It starts out strong as the town people get fed up with Count Mitterhaus, as he has been killing all of the children in the town with the help of the seduced Anna. The town storms into his castle and after a small battle, a stake is driven into Count Mitterhaus's heart. It combines all the great attributes of the old grandhouse films. Very fake but over the top violence, nudity for no reason,bad acting, comical visual effects and a ridiculous script.
Then the movie slows down, it still has the bad acting and ridiculous script but when you do not have all of the elements continuing throughout the movie it gets tough to watch.
There are still some good parts throughout the movie. A panther attacking a group of travelers in the forest, two circus acrobats turning into bats and then back to humans, David Prowse (who is Darth Vader) as the strongman and of course the final fight scene.
In the end there just isn't enough to make you laugh and keep you entertained. It should have followed in the footsteps of movies like The Wizard of Gore and played to the strengths of what really makes these movies fun to watch.
With the small number of films coming out of Australia, I'd be happy with just one or two good films each year. But this year has set the bar high, and Red Hill is yet another example of the talent down under in the filmmaking industry.
Red Hill is a modern day western, set in high country Australia. Young police officer Shane Cooper (Ryan Kwanten) has just relocated with his pregnant wife to the small country town of Red Hill. Shane's first day on the job turns into a nightmare when the town gets news that Jimmy Conway (Tom E. Lewis), a convicted murderer, has escaped maximum security prison. Led by Old Bill (Steve Bisley), the police captain, they prepare for all-out war that the revenge-seeking Jimmy Conway is bringing their way. Shane has to fight to survive while he slowly uncovers the mysteries of Red Hill.
The movie was written, directed and edited by Patrick Hughes. You can see he is heavily influenced by No Country For Old Men: his ability to create tension is excellent. Instead of someone coming into a room and shooting it up, he builds up the tension and makes every gunshot count. The villain, Jimmy Conway, feels very similar to Javier Bardem's character in No Country. There is one scene where he takes time to play a song on the jukebox, while his victim hides in the corner, watching and waiting for his death to come. You almost expect him to flip a coin.
The movie starts out a little rough, a little too 'on the nose.' The characters seem generic at first. But as the movie progresses, these 'generic characters' evolve into real people. Ryan Kwanten's and Steve Bisley's performances are excellent and really carry the movie when needed.
The movie was shot in Victoria, and the beautiful landscapes and the small rural town really give the sense that this still is the wild country, where things haven't changed much from the 1800's and where you would expect things to be solved in an ol' fashioned shootout.
Director Patrick Hughes said while he was writing the script he was trying to write something that would be easy to make on a tight budget. Instead, he ended up with a script loaded with stunts, shootouts, pyrotechnics, horse chases, car crashes and prosthetic limbs getting blown off. The film was all privately financed with neither a distributor nor any government grant. In the end Screen Australia and Arclight came on to help complete the film. The film was shot in four weeks on second-hand film stock from Hollywood, using short ends from productions such as Entourage and Fast and the Furious.
The score, done by Dmitri Golovko, does an excellent job of of going back and forth between the happy country music of a small town and the high tension of a horror film.
This movie isn't without flaws. One important flashback scene happens twice, when showing it only once would have made the ending even more memorable. Some people might also find it odd that no matter how far Shane ends up away from the town he is able to make it back extremely fast. The biggest downfall I can see for this movie is that it will be compared to another Australian film that came out this year, Animal Kingdom, which was one of the best movies of the year thus far. Red Hill is not on the same level, but is still an excellent film. It is a ripping modern day western that will keep you entertained.
Capitalism: A Love Story examines the impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans...
I am not a fan of Michael Moore at all. I think he manipulates people into believing his opinion in his movies by using information that isn't true, faking news headlines and doing over the top antics to "prove" his point. A good example would be to watch Fahrenhype 9/11 after your watch Fahrenheit 9/11. That being said, I this was his first movie that I watched and actually ended up being mad with him instead of at him.
The over the top antics are still there. Michael Moore tries to go into bank corporation buildings and do a citizens arrest of the people running the banks. He of course can't even get into the building so he ends up just telling the security guard why he is there and then has to leave the building. Was this really necessary for me to see how corrupt these companies are?
Capitalism does seem to ask the right questions though of what has happened to our country. When the people that run the banks also are the financial advisers to our country it makes you wonder if there is any hope for the little guy, or are the rich just going to get richer.
Moore interviews members of congress about the bank bailout bill which gets some very surprising and shocking answers on how it all happened. It's kind of funny that Michael Moore talks about the Governments scare tactics to get things passed, but in reality his movie is a scare tactic to his audience.
This movie is very effective at pushing your anger at the government and the banks, and I feel would be even more effective if Michael Moore didn't do it, I look forward to "An Inside Job", which looks to touch the same subject without Michael Moore.
After being betrayed by the organization who hired him, an ex-Federale launches a brutal rampage of revenge against his former boss.
What started as an brilliant trailer for the Rodriguez/Tarantino Grindhouse Films has finally come to the big screen as it's own feature. It features an awesome cast of Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Steven Seagal, Jeff Fahey, Jessica Alba, Don Johnson, Cheech Marin and Lindsay Lohan. This looked to be the ultimate B-Movie, and I love a great B-Movie.
It starts out with heads rolling, blood spraying everywhere and naked women. The ultimate guy movie. But the movie fails to end with such a force, which made me leave the theater feeling let down by Machete.
The characters in the movie are great. Everyone is their own unique, over the top, B-Movie star. Of course when Steven Seagal is the ultimate Spanish speaking villain in any movie, you can't go wrong.
There is nothing bad to say about the first three-quarters of this movie. Perfection in my mind. The movie seems like it is building up to a huge "war" between two forces at the end of the movie, and with the way the movie started it looked like it was going to be epic........and then it happened. It's one of those movies that looked like their budget ran out before they could shoot the last scenes. Maybe it was intentionally that bad because Robert Rodriguez knows what he's making, and knows it's a B-Movie, but it was a giant letdown.
The first hour and a half of this movie are so good that it is still worth seeing, its just a shame that it couldn't finish as strong as it started.
A young man, realizes the shortcomings of the Utopian ideals on the hippie commune where he was raised...
This story takes an interesting look at the youth who are raised in a polygamist society. Instead of following in their parents footsteps and becoming free-loving hippies, they have become an angry, self-destructive group. Addicted to drugs and alcohol, they try to find any release from the world they live in.
I found it very interesting, trying to imagine what it would be like to grow up in this other world with practically no rules. As hard as the kids try to be different from their parents the things that they grew up around still have become a part of their lives. Such as casual sex between all of them from night to night, even though it seems that this is one thing that disgusts many of them when it comes to their parents.
The movie is shot beautifully, and has a unique style to it. It gives the feeling that you are in a place where normal isn't normal. I liked how the dream sequences were put together, really putting you in the head of one of the kids.
The movie seemed to drift in certain places and start to tell the story of another character, but then bring you back to the main character. Also at times it felt like the movie wasn't progressing, and they were just trying to show you how unhappy these kids are in as many ways as possible. With a run time of only 88 minutes though it didn't seem to hurt the movie to much.
Overall I really liked how they brought this film together to take you inside this world that seems like it should have been lost in the 70's but instead is a reality for these kids.
A reporter in Iraq might just have the story of a lifetime when he meets Lyn Cassady, a guy who claims to be a former member of the U.S. Army's New Earth Army, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.
With such a good cast and a story that is absolutely crazy that any part of it is true, I thought this movie would be a can't miss. Wrong.
The movie jumps all over the place. It feels like a Cohen brothers movie gone wrong. The acting of course is good with this cast, but even that can't seem to save this movie. I believe that part of it that makes it seem so bad is how crazy it all seems, but being based on true events I imagine those parts really were that crazy.
The pace of the movie never really seems right, its to slow and then to fast. It jumps back and forth to much and doesn't really seem to know what it wants to be as a movie. A Comedy? Action? Just a crazy story?
Some of the scenes were funny, but I found most of the movie boring and very hard to watch.
***I recommend that if you think a movie looks good you should watch in anyway and then hopefully you will love it and write a comment on how horrible my review is.
After a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating fish, an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the area's new razor-toothed residents.
After seeing the trailers for this early in the summer I thought it looked like the worst movie that would come out in 2010. When the reviews started coming in though I kept hearing about the film makers doing it right and not trying to make it some hit 3D teen movie. That it was made knowing it was a B-Movie and made it over the top with boobs and gore. So I decided I had to see it.
I would say they got it about 65% right, there are many great elements to this movie. There is one epic scene where the piranha's finally make it to the Spring Break festivities and it doesn't disappoint. It has Troma film written all over it. I don't want to spoil any of it, but if there is one reason to see this movie, this scene is it (if your into Piranha's ripping people apart).
Many of the characters are great B-Movie rolls, Jerry O'Connell playing the coked up girls gone wild director. Ving Rhames chopping up piranha's with a boat propeller, Christopher Lloyd and Richard Dreyfuss (all that needs to be said).
The rest of the movie seemed to be exactly what it shouldn't. A teen "comedy" that really isn't funny. It really seemed to bring down the movie and at times made me wonder why I wasted the money to be there. There is a very boring relationship subplot for the main character that really doesn't get explained very well and takes up way to much screen time.
Overall it was a fun trip to the movies, it had what was promised, boobs and over the top gore. There really isn't any other reason to see if besides that.
A ski vacation turns horrific for a group of medical students, as they find themselves confronted by an unimaginable menace: Nazi zombies.
I saw this for the first time in the theaters last summer and absolutely loved it. It started out very slow (almost walked out of the theater), had terrible acting and looked horrible. Then came the nazi zombie's. Perfect B-Movie. The whole theater was a mixture of people dying laughing and people being completely grossed out by the over the top violent fight between the vacationing college kids and the nazi zombie's. It was one of my favorite B-Movies I could remember.
I watched the movie again just to have a laugh and was disappointed that it didn't hold up watching it alone. In fact it didn't hold up watching it with two people. The movie was still slow, bad acting and looked terrible, but without being on the big screen with a theater full of people, all of the deaths seemed cheap and not as funny. I thought I remembered over the top violence, heads getting chopped off, limbs severed ect...but instead saw mostly close up shots that didn't show any of that, just sound effects then a body dropping.
There are still some great scenes in this movie that lived up to what I remembered from the theater, but overall the film just doesn't hold up even as a good B-Movie unless you can have that theater experience.
Tells the story of seventeen year-old as he navigates his survival amongst an explosive criminal family and the detective who thinks he can save him.
Animal Kingdom was the winner at Sundance of the World Cinema Jury Prize and one of my favorite films of the year. Check out the Making the Movie Review.
A story about a troubled boy growing up in England, set in 1983. He becomes friends with a group of skinheads that become his like family. Based on experiences of director Shane Meadows.
One of the things that stood out about this movie to me is Thomas Turgoose, who plays a Shaun, a 12 year old boy who's father was one of the Falkland casualties. This is Thomas's first major acting role and it is really hard to believe. He is outstanding as he progresses throughout the film from a lonely boy who is struggling to fit in, to a skinhead who's maturity is pushed way above his age.
The other actor I really enjoyed in this film was Stephen Graham (Snatch, Public Enemies). He plays a skinhead fresh out of prison who comes back to recruit his old friends into a revolution to "take back England". He see's Shaun as a younger version of himself and takes him under his wing.
The film is carried by strong performances, which director Shane Meadows crafts very well. The film is based on Shane's experiences and it really comes out in his directing.
The only part of this film that I did not like was how the movie ended. It seemed to leave a lot of questions unanswered. We see how things change for the lead character but it feels like there are a lot of characters that are built up, just to see them leave one scene and never come back again.
Overall I really enjoyed this film, and would recommend that people check it out.
When to Watch Rating: Indie Film Mood
Available on Netflix Instant View
As the light fades and the city goes to sleep, two forces emerge. They are invisible except for the power they exert over us in our sleep, battling for our souls through dreams. One force delivers hope and strength; the other infuses the subconscious with desperation through nightmares.
I stumbled across this movie by picking a theater that was playing five movies that I had never heard of. I watched trailers for all the films and decided to go to the one with the coolest trailer. Ink's caught my eye. You can view it here.
Ink is a story about the fight for a little girl and her fathers soul, both in the real and subconscious world. In the subconscious world there is a battle between good and evil every night to control our dreams. We have or guardians who bring us good dreams and protect us. The Incubus are the faces of evil that bring nightmares.
Ink is a character who has not yet become a Incubus, and he has been given a task to bring a young girls soul back to the council.
It is written, directed, edited, composed and produced by Jamin Winans who shows that he is truly talented on multiple levels. After watching it the first time in theaters I remember coming out and being blown away by the visual effects and shots that are in this low budget, independent movie. But I was disappointed in the acting and script.
I re-watched the movie and came away with a different opinion on the acting. The little girl, played by Quinn Hunchar, I thought was very good. This was her first major film and I believed really stood out. Christopher Soren Kelly and Jessica Duffy play two of the other leads and they also have good performances.
The visual effects are very good for this type of movie, many of the films you see with much higher budgets looks much worse than this. It is very risky to make an independent movie that is so effect heavy, because it can turn a viewer off very quickly if they look bad.
Jamin Winans has a great vision throughout the film, he creates interesting characters who really bring us inside the subconscious world. He reminds me a lot of Guillermo del Toro with his creativity and versatility as a director. I would really love to see what he could do on a studio film.
I do believe that the script still lacks what this movie needs to take it to the next level as a film. Some of it seems like it is trying to hard to force things into movie, like comedy. One of the coolest characters in the movie, the pathfinder, is ruined for me due to the over the top antics, that originally came off as just bad acting. Some of the scenes also seem very amateur in dialogue, especially the scenes where one of the characters is trying to make a billion dollar business corporation deal.
The movie is over stylized with color which hurts it as well, some of it looks perfect and you feel like that this is what the subconscious world would feel like. Some of time though it just makes it look very low budget, especially when the visual effects look so good and the color looks so bad.
I liked the movie both times I saw it, by no means is it a great movie that everyone will like, but for what the movie is I think it was very well done. It had a reported budget of around $250,000, so watch it knowing that you are seeing a low budget indie and I think it will impress.
