It’s the sheer absurd humor of Director and Writer David Cornelius’ short comedy film that I really enjoyed. It’s such an inexplicable scenario transformed out of a mundane situation involving a group of friends playing poker that I quite enjoyed where he was going with it. Even if director Cornelius never quite drew attention to the fact that a group of friends were casually playing poker, one of whom was a puppet, I still would have gotten a good laugh out of the unusual humor on display.
I’m not sure who is to blame for this film, but this is a terrible way to close out the “Prehysteria!” series. What began as a novel movie turns in to a piss poor series of kids films with diminishing returns thanks to the budget that gets lower and lower with every film. The original family that discovered the small dinosaurs must not have loved these animals too much, as when the third film opens, they’re once again being cared for by the eccentric old man from the second film who proceeds to lose them once again.
The good and bad news is that the big screen return of Pee Wee Herman has nothing to do with his groundbreaking kids show. It’s yet another phantasmagorical road trip movie that’s nearly impossible to pin down. It’s meta, satirical, tongue in cheek, and embraces the absurdity and absolute nonsensical comedy from Pee Wee Herman. Sometimes it misses and often times it hits. But only if you’re one of the people familiar with Pee Wee Herman’s brand of unique comedy. “Pee Wee’s Big Holiday” is a subtle message to the audience that Paul Reubens is trying to put his character in to new realms and situations. With Pee Wee being in a rut, Reubens tries his hardest to introduce the character to unusual scenarios and it works as a spiritual successor to “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.”
I have to give it to Joseph L. Martinez, “Knock” is a fun and scary Halloween treat that should be watched by folks that like their scares short but sweet. “Knock” is based around a simple premise but ends on a delightfully clever bang. Murielle just spent Halloween night with her friends in an abandoned mine. Said mine allegedly houses the spirit of an ancient witch who stalks you if you knock on the mine walls three times.
The willful ignorance and glaring stupidity of the American public is ultimately was contributed to the fate of the poor sea life held hostage at Sea World. “Blackfish” is another instance of a major corporate entity lying boldfaced to their consumer and exploiting someone to make a profit. While it would be easy to completely blame Seaworld for being cruel and vicious captives of the Killer Whale species, its their customers and supporters own inability to distinguish between fact and fiction that contributed to the sheer cruelty and violence that has constantly plagued Seaworld since its inception. Seaworld has gone through decades of covering up the deaths of trainers that have fallen victim to the wrath of Orcas, all of whom have acted upon their natural predatory instinct. Seaworld also exploited the Orcas, convincing their paying public that these wild animals were capable of being tamed and transformed in to lovable beasts we can play with.
If I have one complaint about “Love’s Innocence Lost” is that I could have used at least five more minutes to catch up with the dilemma ocurring in Mike Clarke’s drama. There isn’t so much explanation as to what happened between characters Aaron and Dina, only that there were children involved, and the crime involved something where trust was severely destroyed. I wouldn’t have minded a lot more extrapolation with Paul McGowan’s script in to what was happening and even more hinting as to what went down that could prompt such a conflict of emotions between Aaron and Dina, in the end.
Director Peter Medak follows up the somewhat tolerable original “Species” with a sequel that ups the ante in the narrative but doesn’t improve the story all that much. This time around Medak and co. completely abandon the idea of a genetically altered alien this time around for a much more traditional yet sexually charged alien invasion. When Commander Ross returns home from a space expedition with other astronaut explorers, the highly decorated man is revealed to have been taken over by an alien being. Said alien being is based around procreation. As Commander Ross slowly transforms in to an alien being, he begins scouring the city for sexual mates and turning them in to breeders for his army of off spring that begin populating the landscape.