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IMDb member since August 2004
    Lifetime Total
    5+
    IMDb Member
    19 years

Reviews

Crank: High Voltage
(2009)

Hollywood Dream Crusher
For me, this movie was little more than a satirical portrayal of the action film audiences of late. As such I will review it from this perspective only. Before we begin with the actual review, let's delve a bit into how this film can possibly make fun of its viewers? Is that even possible without us knowing? I must be full of ****! This movie takes all the things that the action film viewer base has been craving and asking Hollywood to mass-produce more and more of for the last 10 years, evolving films like Day of the Jackal into The Jackal (puke.) They specifically targeted cheap-shot humor by overusing it (such as a floating head getting kicked into a pool) or wow-aha scenarios where people relate to the wit and adaptability of the main character, (such as someone using jumper cables to recharge a heart, or a protagonist standing in front of a trapped villain with a syringe filled with a disabling fluid), or "oh, I remember that.." flashbacks that remind the viewer of things that happened earlier in the film so they can understand how they relate to the upcoming or recently passed scene. I thought it was amusing in the ricocheting bullet psychiatrist scene how they used one of these transitional flashbacks just 20-25 seconds after its occurrence in the film.

The entire film, there aren't really be any cuts lasting much more than 3-5 seconds, or scenes lasting more than 12 seconds. to me, was an insidious ploy to debase the entire (let's call them new-age) action film fans desire to pay attention to any one scene (let's remember, that it may be the audience OR filmmakers at fault for this) for more than the amount of time given to the audience to absorb the scene (before it was cut off or lazily transitioned into a new one) The only scenes breaking this length rule were the horse-track scene with its use of gratuitous sexuality as well as the psychiatrist ricocheting bullet scene with its overacted sexual tension. Somehow the filmmakers thought these scenes could hold the audience's attention spans for more than the typical 8-15 seconds per scene.

This satire described in the previous paragraph may have been created inadvertently based on other intentions for satire, but for me, the film held significance in these respects, and is duly rewarded 2/10 stars, as I had long before my viewing of this film attempted to destroy every brain cell I had capable of entertaining myself with this movie, it has no other value to me than my analysis. However its satire did bring up some interesting points, they were nothing anyone paying half attention wouldn't be able to observe simply by following action films descent over the past 10 to 15 years into what they are today.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
(2008)

Good characters, fun storyline, but feels empty.
This movie brings us along the life story of Benjamin Button, who is born as an infant with all the problems of an aged man. The first half of the movie was very fun, he met fun characters, but it all turned downhill a bit once Benjamin was too old to not have a personality anymore. His character seemed completely devoid of anything resembling humanity other than the love the old, dying daisy had for him. Much of this can be accounted for the fact that he did not fit in with anybody throughout his life and all of his relationships were forced to be sporadic and seemingly surreal, which was a nice effect, but beyond this he simply seemed like a hollow person and his emotional depth made him seem inhuman throughout the movie. The screenwriter seemed to have had a dream of seeing the world and wanted to express that adventurousness in his film. Having Benjamin live on a tugboat and visit majestic places, but there just wasn't any meaning behind it, because it seemed more like a training montage but instead of training boxing skills, he was training his character's emotional depth. Regardless, it seemed empty and thus had no effect on me. And I felt the part about him moving to India and living as a peasant there was inappropriate. another point certainly brought up by others already is Benjamin's irresponsibility. obviously we are supposed to have sympathies for Benjamin, but if he is going to have a child with someone when he is not going to be responsible enough to take care of it, that makes him just as bad as his father. Now I can see how the movie might want to show his humanity by showing similarities between him and his father but the fact that Daisy forgave him so easily perplexed me. I wanted to see anger and hatred when he showed up at the ballet class, but instead was treated to casual sex with an awkward separation at the end. Maybe because our society's morals today are slipping the director deemed this to not be completely inappropriate, but I felt otherwise. After feeling cheated by this scene, the movie transitioned into Daisy taking care of Benjamin, and as I was still a bit jaded by the previous scene, my experience with this part of the movie was negatively impacted, to say it lightly, making me leave the theater with mixed feelings toward the film, especially since the entire story was read out of a diary to give Benjamin an aura of "mystique" as a special person of the past, when I felt he did not deserve such recognition.

Dexter
(2006)

Mind Numbing and painful to watch
My biggest problem with this is that the entire show revolves around the audience having a sympathy for the main character Dexter and being absorbed with the mind-numbing "hooks" the show uses to interest the audience.

The first episode opens to Dexter finding a bloodless body, and he has a feeling of awe toward the killer. For this show to be enjoyable, the audience also needs to have this awe at the "mystique" of watching a serial killer and seeing him go about his life and also enjoy the "clever" evasive answers the show consistently revolves the dialog around setting up. Another part similar to this is that they almost ruined the character "Sergeant Dokes" by claiming that he was something along the lines of an "elite super saiyan delta force black-ops CIA assassin terrorist" which was completely unnecessary and was only put in because they didn't want the audience to think that the 'amazing' Dexter would be challenged by any cop other than an ex-black ops superagent..

The audience also needs to be appreciative of the similarities that Dexter pulls between his psychotic life and other people's life (you can usually spot these as he almost always says some corny one-liner narrative to himself when they occur) It's really hard to enjoy these when you can see right through them.

I may be alone here but I have absolutely no sympathy for Dexter even though he kills criminals he is still a violent psychopath and a complete sadist, torturing his victims, through the speeches and the anticipation of death, before killing them, making him a disgusting person. In addition to this, all of the characters are remarkably shallow and unlikeable, and every time there is an office ego battle ala the ones that made me fast-forward through half of "24" I want to gauge my eyes out with an ice pick.

Another nitpick is that in season 3 episode 2 I believe they jumped on the anti-pedo bandwagon which was one of the lamest sell-outs to revolve an entire episode around in the history of TV..If you can't see yourself becoming absorbed in the aforementioned 3 qualities that this show has to offer, avoid it at all costs.

30 Days of Night
(2007)

immensely boring, terrible action
The beginning of this movie starts out alright, a few gimmicks here and there to put you on edge. But then the movie takes a turn for the worst, as we're introduced to Melissa, who is having relationship troubles with Hartnett's character. The drama between these two characters was completely mishandled throughout the film and made me want to puke. The vampire's looks were laughable at best, with the blood around their mouths just being too dull and just plain not scary. The action scenes were zoomed in too far and much too shaky, making it impossible to tell what's going on in them, which leads you to believe the director is trying to hide how bad the fight scenes really are.

Hard Candy
(2005)

hard candy: a movie or a political statement
Let's just start this off that I wouldn't even consider this a movie. I'd be more likely to consider this to be is a group of individuals making a half-assed 'film' with a plot wacky enough that a bleeding-heart liberal can rattle off a dozen and a half of her problems with the existing system of justice for sexual predators not being harsh enough. I truly can't find any point to this movie if you don't give half a rat's ass about the psychological profiling and lecturing the girl was constantly blabbing about, and once she finally shut up and Jeff got free I started rooting for him because I knew once he got caught again we'd have to listen to another one of Hailey's boring speeches that never really got anywhere. I guess this movie is good for giving people a warm fuzzy that there are people out there willing to do what is deemed necessary by college people who think Jeff's lifestyle so sick and revolting that they're holding a petition against models who stunt their growth through teenage malnourishment in dedication to this movie next week. Sorry guys, but I've got better things to do.

Snakes on a Plane
(2006)

A lot of fun, really great cinema experience
Snakes on a plane, dead babies, people screaming for their lives, Samuel L. Jackson with a cap buster, what more could you ask for in a movie? This movie lives up to everything it says it is and more, it's not trying to be a masterpiece type film with a super secret message behind it that some people have grown fond of, it is simply created to deliver an enjoyable movie theater experience, and that it does. When I was a boy, I grew up watching classics like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Grease, we didn't have no Snakes on a Plane. This movie has stuff for all audiences, it has side-splitting comedy of Snakes on a Plane, and it also has serious, emotional struggles of people on a plane, trying to deal with the enormous pressure of poisonous snakes on crack. What we're missing from the new suspense movies coming out these days is escalating suspense, rather than the hollywoodish "boo-aha" cheap-shots that we see so much in current thrillers. This movie takes us back to the good times when it was okay to go ten minutes without having some monster pop out of the corner, and to have escalating suspense in which we felt for the character's sanctity. And this movie still had room for cheap-shot "boo-aha" scenes with snakes jumping out of crevices on a plane.

Warning: If you are offended by dead babies, do not see this film.

Little Man
(2006)

I can't believe I was dumb enough to go to this movie
I was very critical of this movie when i saw the previews, just looked like one of the typical fueled-by-enthusiasm movies, but I heard from an internet forum (sigh) a fake review of the movie that lied about plot line and effects, that gave reasons why the movie was rated poorly, blah blah blah. I eventually gave into curiosity and went to see it. About 20 minutes into it I realized that the internet forum was just "trolling" as they call it. The plot had no point, all of the humor required you to have a preexisting liking for the main characters, who I found to all be repulsive. Unless you are the type of person who likes to watch losers run around dating other losers and talking about their uniqueness on MTV, I'd strongly suggest steering clear of this movie.

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