I consider myself a very mature man who knows how to restrain himself in terms of disagreeing with people. But to the people who found this to be a remotely good film, I must ask: Are you stupid or something? Is this what you define as entertainment? But, I digress. My apologies. With basically the same plot, we delve in the San Antonio Bay/Island where they’re preparing for their ceremony to pay respect to the town’s founders. Fog rolls in. People die. Ghosts return mighty pissed off. And the shit hits the fan. By shit, I mean this film. Who thought this remake would be a good idea? Not the concept of remaking it, but this script? I’ve never seen such sloppy writing before in my life. I can safely say, I can squeeze out a better version out of my ass, without hesitation, but hey, we’re not all working for Hollywood. So, what do the writers force feed through this manufactured screenplay?
Tag Archives: Drama
Alexander (2004)
After the failure of “Alexander”, Stone, always the conspiracy buff, used this excuse: “Alexander failed because of conservative opposition to homosexuality.” Which answers the question, what does a conspiracy theorist do when they fail? Make their failure in to a conspiracy. “No, it wasn’t my fault, it’s the government!” But if a heavily homosexually driven film like “Brokeback Mountain” could succeed why couldn’t a film with mild homosexual themes make it? Answer that one, Stoner. Did you ever think that perhaps your movie really sucks? Because it does. Never since “Caligula” have I seen such a cheesy, ridiculous, and utterly boring “epic” that fails to be as good as it tries to be. From Anthony Hopkins typical dramatic narration spelling the film out for us, right down to the sickeningly grandiose style it’s unashamed to flaunt, “Alexander” is a bad movie that will show all that the gladiator fad is over and done with. So quit it, y’hear?
Cry_Wolf (2005)
The crime “Cry_Wolf” commits is that its safe, it’s completely void of scares, any risks, and it’s completely dry if you catch my drift. It attempts to be taken as a slasher film but it’s not a slasher whatsoever, it’s a gigantic tease. It starts off as a mystery, then forms in to a slasher, and then a mystery yet again. With great writing, and very good directing, the constantly shifting themes could have served for a brilliant and utterly engrossing horror entry, but with hackneyed writing and utterly broad characterization, “Cry_Wolf” goes limp. Like having a vasectomy and contemplating sex, it seems fun, but in the end it does nothing but fire off blanks. It wants to be the murder mystery of the computer age, but it comes off more like a lame-brained “Scream” and that’s not saying much, I can tell you that.
Four Brothers (2005)
I was surprised to discover how much I really enjoyed “Four Brothers.” Even for a remake. “Four Brothers” is a worthy successor to the original film, and with a dose of cheese every so often it really accomplishes the slight camp from the original film. What made it a more enjoyable experience is that Singleton and the writers turn this in to a modern western. Gladly, this is a modern western in every sense of the word with some great elements from the genre, and some of Singleton’s style thrown in for good measure. Like a cowboy on horseback, Wahlberg’s character Bobby makes his entrance in to the inner-city of Detroit with old school soul playing in the background. Wahlberg becomes the basic drive here (the replacement for John Wayne) who enters back in to his stomping grounds from a life of business to mourn the loss of his foster mother who was killed viciously in a store robbery.
Wolf Creek (2005)
“Based on True Events” does not mean “This is exactly what happened”, folks. “Based on True Events” means this is what happened in our eyes. Now, I bet you’re surprised that this hardcore horror fan, the one who loved an equally brutal horror film known as “Haute Tension” gave “Wolf Creek” such a low “undeserving” rating, eh? Well, trust me when I tell you this, I was disappointed myself. I’m crushed. But you’re saying “How the hell can you like Haute Tension and not like this?!” Well, firstly, what director and writer McLean does most of all is give us a ho-hum run of the mill slasher film that in every sense failed to impress me.
The Company (2003)
I’ll admit, I approached “The Company” with a closed mind, I mean how interesting could it be to be a professional ballet dancer after all? When I was finished with this, I thought to myself “Boy, was I wrong!”. I mean, I’m a guy, I’ve never seen a ballet, I’ve never met a true ballet dancer, and ballet doesn’t appeal to me, so with Robert Altman’s newest docu-drama, I was hesitant and immensely scared that I was in for a two hour snooze fest, but I was proven wrong. If anything “The Company” shows how surprisingly physically demanding being a ballet dancer can be. Though it’s a pre-requisite with those who enter in to this world, it’s ballsy for the makers here to give the movie going audience a glance in to the world of ballet dancing.
Peter's Price (2005)
And there’s that adage that “The grass is always greener on the other side”, and when you break down that adage in bits and pieces, it’s not a one-liner about envy, it’s basically telling you, misery though we perceive it to be bliss, is still misery. And such is examined in the intelligent and engrossing twenty minute short from director Mitchell L. Cohen who seems to have channeled Richard Linklater down to his essence of simplicity.