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Reviews
Film (1965)
No, Just No
The Plot:
A twenty-minute, almost totally silent film (no dialogue or music, save one 'shhh!') in which Buster Keaton attempts to evade observation by an all-seeing eye. But, as the film is based around Bishop Berkeley's principle 'esse est percipi' (to be is to be perceived), Keaton's very existence conspires against his efforts
Let's be honest. Even Keaton knew this was not a very good film. It's the kind of movie they show in film class because it's thought of as "artsy." Only it's really just a waste of celluloid.
You won't recognize the Keaton of old at all. He's just a person doing what the director told him to do.
On the Conditions and Possibilities of Hillary Clinton Taking Me as Her Young Lover (2016)
Simply Horrible
"The Plot"
A demented comedy-satire about a delightfully earnest Kiwi academic enters the US with an oddly plausible plan to save the Free World by winning the heart of America's Next Top Mama. Only one thing stands in his way: the department of Homeland Security.
How did that go for you?
This short is a total and complete waste of $40 Plus thousand dollars. The money could have been better spent on a lifetime supply of Chik Fil La.
The production values are crude and the story line is just plain dumb. It's really an insult to your intelligence.
And then there is the acting. Oh, wait a minute. What acting?
Woman of the Hour (2023)
Huge Disappointment
The Plot: Woman of the Hour is based on the stranger-than-fiction true story of Cheryl Bradshaw and Rodney Alcala. Bradshaw was a bachelorette on the hit '70s TV matchmaking show The Dating Game and chose handsome and funny bachelor No. 3, Rodney Alcala. But behind Alcala's charming facade was a deadly secret: He was a psychopathic serial killer.
Well the true story has been told a million times before. The TV clips are all over YouTube. So we needed a poorly made fictionalized version of the story?
This is Anna Kendrick's directorial debut and she needs a lot more work before she can successfully make a movie. She should have made a bunch of shorts first because her director style is rudimentary at best.
It's like she read a book on directing and said, "I can do that." I liked in a another movie whose title I don't remember but watching this flick, it's clear she's also a one trick pony. She does the same acting over and over.
Frankly, I was bored.
Desperate Acts of Magic (2013)
Silly but Harmless
It's a low budget flick with really goofy music that brings it down a peg. It's the kind of music you hear in a goofy kid's movie with clowns.
It tries to be a bigger movie but doesn't get there. Part of the problem (besides the goofy music) is that it tries to be too pithy, and the writer just isn't that talented. (Sorry)
So the story line is kinda dumb, but overall, the movie has some heart so you'll probably overlook that. I guess the way I can describe the movie is that it's cute.
None of the individual parts (acting, directing, writing, music) would win awards, but taken together it becomes a harmless moderately entertaining flick.
The Parker Sessions (2021)
I Was Thoroughly Bored
First Observation:
The guy who made this movie has only filmed shorts and hasn't made another feature film after this movie.
Second Observation: This is the first film of the woman who plays Parker and she hasn't worked again since. It's been 5 years!
This tells you a lot about the quality of the people involved in this movie. Very quickly you get keyed into the format. Woman claims one thing and subsequent footage proves the opposite. It becomes really tedious really quick.
So I wondered why five years following the release of this movie it's still able to maintain a really good score of over 7 here. It doesn't deserve it at all but if you know how the agenda works you'll know why it gets the score within literally the first 10 minutes of the movie.
And BTW it's not filmed in "high contrast" black and white. It's normal black and white.
London in the Raw (1964)
Where's the "Raw?"
People who say this is a sexploitation movie didn't watch it.
It's basically a movie showing the quirkiness of Londoners with maybe 5 minutes of topless nudity (with pasties) thrown in toward the end of the film.
It's really a pretty boring flick. Turns out what the filmmakers thing are interesting profiles of everyday life in London winds up being a giant bore.
It's made in the Mondo format. A voice over introduces the scene then you watch it with more narration. But none of the segments are interesting.
Even the brief nudity segment falls flat. You will be bored out of your mind. One positive note -- the color looks like it was filmed in technicolor. It really pops.
Ten Violent Women (1982)
Bad Grindhouse Flick
A group of women miners get fed up with their lifestyle and decide to try crime. After successfully pulling off a jewelry store robbery, they fail to sell the jewelry and are forced to trade the jewels for cocaine. Soon they are busted by undercover cops when they try to sell the drugs, sending four of the women to a prison where a butch head guard uses the prisoners for her own deviant pleasures.
And that's just the beginning!
You know what kind of movie you're about to see when in the very first scene the dynamite guy is wearing a thin plastic construction hat --- something you'd get at a Party City.
It's bad. One guy actually has a Salvador Dali mustache. Lordy this stinks.
The Cursed Man (2020)
Shockingly BAD Movie
I watched this solely because it gets a 6.7 rating here. But guess what?. The movie is HORRIBLE. Let's see why...
The budget is non-existent. It appears to have been filmed with an iPhone. And not a new one either.
The acting is completely non-existent. These "performers" are just the pits. It's like some rudimentary acting class attendees who put on a show.
The direction is really poor too. Lots of really bad closeups to hide the lack of sets. The musical track is overly dramatic, like it's trying to hide how bad the movie is.
And let's talk about the special effects -- they stink! They are so bad you'll laugh out loud.
No one on earth would think this is a remotely good movie. It's bad through and through.
The Apocalypse Box (2024)
A Next-to-No-Gore "Horror" Movie
PLOT: A right-wing politician, aims to "Keep Britain British." On election eve, he gathers 6 strangers to unlock a wish-granting box. Ella, his spin doctor, faces chaos, scandal, and temptation with the mysterious "Apocalypse Box."
If you like poorly written and directed movies this one is your jam. Frankly, it's so silly I actually thought it was a comedy-satire!
It's not. It's just not all that good. The musical track is over the top dramatic, but it doesn't serve to make the movie better. It makes you realize how totally not dramatic or horrific the film is.
The movie takes forever to get going but then it goes nowhere! And what's with all the tight close ups? Who directs like that?
It was a bore.
The Bunny Game (2011)
Horrible
Everything about this movie is horrible. Particularly the directing which is chaotic to say the least. It will drive you nuts with an inability to focus.
But let's start at the beginning. The story is supposed to be about a drugged-up prostitute who takes on the wrong trick. Problem is she doesn't look all that strung out. Her life is supposed to be spiraling out of control, but she looks pretty hot most of the time. It's simply not believable.
Then finally she hooks up with the wrong trucker and you think things are gonna get good, but it doesn't. The dude spends an endless amount of time basically staring at her.
Thanks for nothing.
The Day the Music Died (2022)
A Stretch at Best
This is a 15 minute story that was stretched to a boring hour and a half.
Don't get me wrong, I love the song. I bought the album when it came out and played it incessantly. I still have it too. But years later I bought the CD to play.
There are quite a number of great songs on American Pie that get overlooked. McClean never really rose to the occasion after this album and part of it is that he is apparently very difficult to work with and only want things his way.
During covid he did a zoom meeting where he talked about the song and even sang it. His voice is shot.
Anyway, this movie is really a stretched-out story that is long in the tooth. It's over produced, and it drags on and on.
Deadly Pursuits (1996)
Wow! Tori Spelling had Quite a Body
The absolute only reason to watch this made for TV movie is to see bra-less Tori Spelling hopping around in very hot outfits.
I didnt realize that back in the day she had quite a smoking torso. The movie itself is sort of dumb, but boy-oh-boy can she move. She (or the director) knew exactly how to position her on the screen for maximum hotness.
Don't expect an earth shattering drama. This is very light fare. Her acting ability is adequate for this sort of flick. I neglected to mention there is also a boy-toy lead. Very typical for this kind of movie. Frankly, I spent more time looking at Tori's body than trying to get engaged in the plot.
The dialog is dumb. And her alleged background as a former stripper really doesn't come into play much. And that brings me to an unfortunate thing about this flick -- the longer it goes on the more demure Tori's clothing becomes. Until the end in the crop top. It turned into quite a climax.
The Further Adventures of Walt's Frozen Head (2018)
Poorly Realized
The Plot:
During his yearly thaw to oversee the direction of his company, the cryogenically frozen head of the world's largest media conglomerate, Walt Disney, convinces Peter, a low-level park employee, to kidnap him for a day in the Magic Kingdom.
OK. I watched this movie soley on it's 6.4 rating, even though it had ZERO written reviews. Big mistake on my part. It's pretty bad.
The concept is cute and even though this is a very, very, very low budget flick, they try to structure it like a bigger budget movie.
Problem is they should have spent the money on better actors. The performances are horrible. Plus, it's really hard to sustain a 90-minute interest in a head in a box, who doesn't really look like Walt.
Pass on buy and ignore the good rating.
The Girl from Chicago (1932)
The Good and the Bad of It
Let's get the bad out of the way.
It's not a very good movie. If we review this on an even playing field with mainstream low budget dramas of the day, it really is lacking in watchability.
The movie drags on and often loses the plot and instead veers off into segments with women playing the piano and singing, dance routines, musical interludes. Just seems like a lot of filler to me.
The acting, as well, is very, very poor. At least with movies that Ed Wood made in the 50's we can laugh at how bad they are but still watch them. This movie is just bad, and it makes you want to turn it off.
Now the good.
Micheaux was an interesting dude. Father was a slave and somewhere along the line he got himself to Chicago and decided to make movies. This was 1919 when he and some other black men started a film company with the name of Lincoln, interestingly.
I've seen a number of his movies over the years and none of them are especially good. Seems like he had a talent for independence, but not movie-making.
The best I can say is that his films are serious movies about serious issues, not stereotyping the black community into buckets like Steppin Fetchit.
His characters were middle and upper middle-class blacks. His movies played at all black movie theatres back in the day. I used to pass one of them in NYC all the time when I lived there. It was on Broadway in the hundred and thirties. Right smack in Harlem, not far from an area called Sugar Hill where the wealthy blacks lived.
So, from a historical viewpoint he certainly is an interesting person worthy of attention. Unfortunately the output was less than ideal.
The Hitchhiker (2007)
Dismal
Four young women driving across the desert to Las Vegas have their road trip turned upside-down when they pick up a handsome, seemingly friendly hitchhiker. When their car breaks down near a roadside motel in the middle of nowhere, they find themselves trapped with a woman-hating, masochistic killer.
Youi cannot possibly fathom how totally devoid of quality this movie is -- on EVERY level.
The script is moronic. It's really poorly written. The direction is rudimentary like a class project. And to pound the final nail in the coffin, the acting is non-existent.
It's laughable, really. This has got to be the most unbelievable and bad movie I've seen in years!
The Return of Doctor X (1939)
If Ed Wood Cast Humprey Bogart
I nearly gave this movie a "ten" because it is so bizarre.
It starts of pretty normal but about midway when Bogart finally comes into the picture it takes a turn. He's a Beta version of Bond's Blofeld, complete with a bunny to stroke instead of a cat.
His look is weird too. Pancake makeup and a grey streak running up the middle of his head.
And then there's the name of his character. He's billed as playing "Marshall Quesne", but they pronounce it "Kane." Not sure how that comes out of Quesne, or why they didn't just call him Kane.
It's also directed strangely. For example, this movie was made in 1939 by Warner's, but it looks like a low budget Universal from the late 50's.
Southern Baptist Sissies (2013)
Horrible Movie
I was intrigued at viewing this movie. Since it also had an amazing rating here, I thought I should go out of my way to stream it. So I found a service where it was playing and sat down one evening to give this "amazing" movie a proper viewing.
I nearly immediately felt cheated. It's a horrible production. I'm not even sure if it is a true documentary or if these dudes are actors reading a script. It's THAT bad.
It became all too clear that the handful of written reviews are simply fake. And that seems to happen a lot with movies like this. It's really disappointing.
So, then I learned that the producers couldn't get money behind this poor production and went to crowd funding instead. It shows. It's very cheesy low budget and poorly put together. Really a huge miss.
Don't bother with this garbage.
Jurassic Park: Operation Rebirth (2014)
WORST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN
This movie is a homemade joke that should never have been made.
It is unquestionably garbage.
It looks like it was "filmed" with an iPhone. The juvenile level dude who directed this should get a new gig. Finish school and work your way up some other ladder, because you will never be a filmmaker. You have no talent.
This movie is a disgrace to all Jurassic Park movies, and it should not exist. This is nothing more than a fan made movie made by a fan without talent. I didn't enjoy one bit of this horrendous garbage. And while I clearly made that mistake in watching it, I strongly suggest you do not watch it. And don't support this untalented clown who got his family to upvote this garbage.
Guys at Parties Like It (2024)
Worst Movie Ever
This movie STINKS.
As part of a brutal hazing ritual, a young frat pledge leads a wasted girl upstairs to swipe his v-card, only to discover getting lucky isn't so easy.
The so called "wasted girl" is supposed to be in college but she looks forty. No joke. Plus, she's such a bad actress she's not even remotely "wasted."
The script, slow direction and horrible acting are atrocious. Oh, and the music track is quite simply annoying beyond belief. The entire flick is amateurish and bad. I was thoroughly bored.
So clearly, all the superlative reviews here are fake and from people somehow involved with the movie.
What Haunts Us (2018)
The Over Dramatic and Self-aggrandizing
The 1979 class of Porter Gaud School in Charleston, South Carolina graduated 49 boys. Within the last 35 years, six of them have committed suicide. When Paige Goldberg Tolmach gets word that another former student from her beloved high school has killed himself, she decides to take a deep dive into her past in order to uncover the surprising truth and finally release the ghosts that haunt her hometown to this day.
It's a very old story, re-told in an uber-dramatic way by Paige Goldberg Tolmach who clearly wants to make a name for herself. In fact, she inserts herself into the story anywhere she can. It's sort of despicible.
And some of her self-accounts are suspicious. Like driving in a car on a date with an older boy wo tells her he likes to hang out at with the coach who shows him adult movies and touches him. It's a bit difficult to believe a teenager is this naive.
The guy clearly did it. He's on video admitting it. And he only got 20 years. Maybe THAT should have been the story.
The Deliverance (2024)
One of the Worst Movies Ever Made
This is the biggest piece of garbage I have ever sat through.
Right off the bat you're gonna be confused. Glenn Close -- who has a very unnatural spray tan -- is in an all black church. Then she goes home and her entire family is very black. I swear to God for 30 minutes I thought Close was in black face playing a black woman. I'm not joking. In fact, it's not until half the movie is over you finally find out that she's white and had a black husband.
Then there is the family. There is nothing good about them. Close's daughter swear like a trooper in from of her kids and beats them at the drop of a hat.
Great role model.
And where in Hell (pun intended) is the demon possession? You'll wait forever.
It's not so much that the acting is bad, it's the writing and directing. Especially the writing. This has to be the worst script ever written in the history of script writing.
Whoever wrote this garbage should never work again.
The Scribe (1966)
This is NOT Buster's Final Film
Buster's final movie was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, not this one, as one reviewer erroneously stated.
Plot: Amateur journalist Buster covers a story about construction site safety regulations and gets first-hand experience in the process.
Is it good? If you're not a Keaton fan (I am) you'll likely not think so. It's an industrial movie so by design it's less funny and more instructional. The idea was to get the safety concept down using some physical and other humor.
As such, the movie needs to be judged differently. It appears to be filmed at a real high-rise construction site. Buster wanders around experiencing non-safe things and silently telling others to be careful.
Following this short, Buster made A Funny Thing and by all accounts his health had deteriorated where he had to take many breaks because he could barely breathe. None of that is present in this movie. He's agile and alert for a man his age.
Attack of the Giant Blurry Finger (2021)
Let Your Finger Do the Walking
Sci-fi horror comedy where a giant blurry finger comes down from outer space and terrorizes Chloe, a young woman with a rocking body, interrupting her lonely night at home.
It's a hard movie to sustain interest in for more than a few minutes. Once she stops ogling herself in her tight little undies and strips for the shower, you'll lose interest.
In fact the entire movie's only good scenes are when she's naked fondling herself or letting the giant blurry finger do it.
Other than that, where can the movie go? There's virtually no dialog. This is not Citizen Kane. It's a chick taking off and putting on her clothes and a dopey finger getting in the way of us seeing her in her birthday suit.
She grows to love that finger in more ways than one. So there really isn't an "attack."
Or is there?
If she's an aspiring actress, I'd love to know if she put this movie in her reel. She'd probably get a lot of "audition" requests.
Are You Scared? (2006)
Ed Wood On His Worst Day Made Better
Six kidnapped teens awake in an abandoned factory to discover they're being filmed for a twisted and terrifying reality show.
Holy cow I cannot begin to explain how utterly awful this movie is.
There is not one actor in this film who can act. Are they students who decided they had a camera and could make a movie? I dunno. But I do know it's very, very hard watching them read off their lines like they are ironing clothes.
And then there is the pitiful script that is sort of a rip off of the later Saw movies with the "ready to play a game" stuff.
The direction stinks too. But it's really the bad script and utterly horrible acting that destroy any possibility of this being good.
Anaconda (2024)
No Circus Performers were Harmed in the Making of this Movie
A re-imagining of the 1997 action-horror film about a crew of documentary filmmakers in search of a giant, deadly snake in the Amazon.
Well doggy, the movie started off pretty good but as soon as we get to the circus folks the flick takes a downward turn and never recovers. It gets rather boring, to be honest.
Maybe it's the thin story-line that requires a lot of useless scenes to pad it's already short running time. Or maybe it's the rather poor directing. Could it be the acting? When we deal with foreign films and subtitles it's always hard to examine the acting because we're reading the writing on the screen.
I will say this, the saving grace and only reason I gave it two stars are the two females and their abundant cleavage. Without those, it's a dud.