Dumb & Dumber (1994)

I wonder if the Farrelly Brothers knew they were creating a potentially epic storyline when they invented Harry and Lloyd. There are comedy characters that are good enough for one movie, and then there are character duos like Harry and Lloyd, both of whom may be having adventures well in to their sixties. Harry and Lloyd are perpetually moronic best friends oblivious to how utterly dumb they are.

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The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)

What does “Hunchback” teach the audience? Whether you’re gorgeous or ugly, if the hot girl says you’re cool, you’ll become the hero. Also, the nice guy always finishes last. Surely Quasimodo rides off in to the sunset with his crowd of supporters in the end, but who is Esmerelda going home with later that night? “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” is a bastardization from Walt Disney, where they take the tragic and brilliant tale of Quasimodo and water it down so much it’s barely an adaptation when we see it in animated force.

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Marvel One-Shot: Item 47 (2012)

The Marvel one shot short film “Item 47” is a movie set in the universe of the Avengers, that woks as an epilogue to “The Avengers” and a prologue to “Agents of Shield.” I’m sure this movie was created to test the waters by Marvel for a potential SHIELD TV series, and what with fans demanding more from this scenario, Marvel now has the upcoming SHIELD show to give fans more of the Marvel Live action universe.

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The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (Blu-Ray/DVD/Ultraviolet) (2013)

You assume two very talented, and occasionally brilliant, actors would have amazing chemistry on-screen, but you’d be wrong. The chemistry between Steve Carrell and Steve Buscemi is so forced and terrible, that the screenplay has to literally start when they’re both young boys, and emphasize how lonely they are and how they became friends. This is to make it painfully clear to the audience that they’re best of friends since the performances from both men can’t really sell it to the audience.

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Remorse (2012)

Director Tarun Gupta manages to create a rather solid tragic drama that spends more time exploring its directing methods than telling a story. Not that that’s a bad thing, but as a film I’d have loved to learn more about the characters. Though with the limited time it has, director Gupta manages to derive a lot of interesting performances from the cast, as well as exploring the fading of love in a world that glamorizes it.

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Decadent Evil (2005)

Hey did you see “The Vampire Journals” from Full Moon? Yes? Well, prepare to watch it again, but in a ten minute nutshell version. On par with much of Full Moon’s corner cutting productions, “Decadent Evil” is mostly just nothing but filler, with clips to the days of Full Moon Entertainment when they were actually trying. “Decadent Evil” is barely eighty minutes in length, and counting the opening clip show, and credits, it’s only about an hour of actual movie. All of which is contrived and based heavily around the hope that you’ve seen and remember “The Vampire Journals” fondly.

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The Wizard (1989)

In 1990, my brother and I watched 1989’s “The Wizard” about thirty times a day and loved the movie every single time we popped it in to the VCR. When I was seven, I dreamed of two things. I dreamed of entering a video game competition and playing Super Mario 3, and travelling around the country with the gorgeous Jenny Lewis. Mostly I wanted the second, but playing Super Mario 3 was also a great prospect. There’s no way to discuss “The Wizard” without seeing it through nostalgia tinted glasses, but while most people claim “The Wizard” is nothing but a ninety minute commercial for Nintendo, I wouldn’t so much call it a commercial so much as a mirror on the culture in the eighties. In the late eighties and most of the nineties, Nintendo simply dominated the world.

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