Love Is A Temple

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Terminator Salvation (1/5)

Pretty good sound effects.

Filed under: 1 star, review

Observe And Report (1/5)

A delusional, inept, bi-polar, goober mall cop drinks free coffee, beats up skaters, date-rapes the cosmetic girl, tries out for the police force, and screams ‘fuck’ at every person on screen. If there was supposed to be a subversive, counter-cultural critique, I totally missed it. Don’t let anyone tell you this is on par with “Taxi Driver”, much closer to “The Cable Guy” meets “Waterboy”. Seth Rogen is not a fascinating sociopath, just a brutal ass who knocks down everything in his path. As a dark comedy it failed to have many laughs or compose any engrossing tragedy. No more than three kind moments in the entire 90 minutes. A dozen great cinematographic choices and two great stunts (the car driving through the mall, and Rogen taking on a whole squad with his flashlight) only added to the disappointment. Explain yourself Chad–best picture of the year?

Filed under: 1 star, review

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1/5)

No action, no drama, not much sci-fi, a lot of humanist hubris about how we learn to love and care when we’re “at the precipice” and that there is always hope for us to treat Mother well if aliens threaten to exterminate us. Recommended beverage: sight-impairing moonshine.

Filed under: 1 star, review

The Pirates Of Silicon Valley (1/5)

A made-for-TV, low-budget movie that follows the early Apple/Microsoft rivalry and the madness/deception of Mr. Jobs and Mr. Gates. Other than Anthony Michael Hall as Bill, the acting is atrocious. The photography and production is very sad, but if you wade through it all, there is some interesting insight into how these behemoths came to make and conquer the personal computer industry. Jobs-mania has always made me ill, and of course, the Microsoft legal issues are well documented at this point–I’m not going to feel good about either company for awhile.

Filed under: 1 star, review

Adventureland (1/5)

The most overrated film I’ve seen this year; high 80s on Rotten Tomatoes. This is how the film came to be: hey guy, lets make a retro 80s pic in a theme park! Ya, and we can play Falco and drive a Gremlin. Then they proceeded to phone in a pathetic dramedy script with cardboard characters and annoyingly short scenes. I think it goes from day-to-night-to-day at the theme park over 200 times. Tedium. And, aping Michael Cera does not, a leading man make.

Filed under: 1 star, review

Things We Lost In The Fire (1/5)

Two words–shark sandwich. What a waste of two great actors–well, is Halle Berry a great actor, not yet. We have the ‘no makeup life must be bad’ look, and the, ‘wearing makeup life is now good’ look.

Filed under: 1 star, review

The Man In The Iron Mask (1/5)

How do such fine actors produce such repulsive results–do we also blame the director, the writer, editor? In the pivotal “Gigli” for example, Pacino doesn’t actually act poorly, it is just the overwhelmingly bad content before and after his scenes that make his scene stink; and perhaps the actual line reading was poor–I can’t recall exactly, I was having too much fun coughing up chocolate milk. So, in “The Iron Mask” we have some of the greatest screen actors money can buy (DiCaprio, Malkovich, Irons, Byrne) all making fools of themselves in this feast of saccharine; mawkish through and through. They can’t all be having off days. I am certain that Wallace (director here; of “Braveheart” and “Pearl Harbor” writing fame) is to blame for many of the artistic choices, but I decided that the composer (Glennie-Smith) should take a good brunt of it as well. His score is painful cheese that had me rolling my eyes, ears, internal organs in nearly every scene. One star for maintaining a coherent plot and for… ah hell, costume & makeup? Why not, I’m a simple man.

Filed under: 1 star, review

Showgirls (1/5)

Berkley and her “character” (is there a difference?) are repellent–you hate everything she does. Plot: a vaguely hostile vagabond takes her narcissism to Las Vegas where she cheats and lies her way to the top just in time to make one decent choice that solves nothing and fates her off to the other worst city to live if you’re a decadent hopeful. One star for the purely perfect failure of director, producer, writer, actors, stand-ins, best boys, gaffers, et al.

Filed under: 1 star, review

Poison Ivy: The Secret Society (1/5)

Just the sleaze crap I was looking for on a Friday night. It is like Dave Matthews sneaking a “smoke one down” lyric into a song and we all cheer cause we like to get high too–or something.

Filed under: 1 star, review

Swimfan (1/5)

The last reel competently ramps up the violence and peril, but who cares.

Filed under: 1 star, review