nylecavazosgarcia

I will get right down to it... I'm shocked that is movie cost $75,000 to make. When watching Retrograde, I was impressed by the filmmaker's choice to film each scene on one single long take - it was inspiring and reminiscent of Neil LaBute's early films, 'In the Company of Men' and 'Your Friends & Neighbors.' Cinematically, long stagnant shots create a sense of tension and realism to a scene, and can elevate the emotions and expectations of the viewer, which in turn creates drama to the movie that wouldn't otherwise exist. However, as this movie progressed I started to suspect that the choice for long takes was made more out of necessity than creative storytelling, because what was unfolding in most of the scenes was mundane and pointless to the story being told. By the end of the film, it seemed the excessive use of long takes was to lengthen the running time of what should have been a short film (60 min or less) into an unnecessary feature film (more than 60 min). When I learned the budget for Retrograde was $75,000, it became obvious that the style of the film was purposeful and way to sophisticated for writer/director Adrian Murray to pull off. Or, somebody pocketed $70,000. Neil Labute proved that the performances of his cast trumped anything that the camera could do, but his films had such strong stories, fascinating characters and complex relationships that made it hard to look away from. Retrograde is the opposite, it was hard to keep watching because most of the time, nothing was happening on screen. Cinema is a visual medium and a director should first learn and master the rules of filmmaking before deciding to break them. It's a shame because there was something actually compelling in this story and in the main character's obsession, but that was drowned out my poor cinematic choices, or lack thereof.

Poppy is a nineteen year old girl with Down Syndrome, but that's not what standing in the way of her living a normal life and falling in love and chasing her ambitions. Her disability is actually her overprotective, alcoholic brother, who is also her guardian and her boss. This movie has the makings of being an overbearing after-school special, but it never gives into its potential for melodrama. Instead, Poppy is an uplifting love story and character study of a young girl trying to find happiness. She might be "special" but her passion for life and her abilities to work hard and be a good person in order to succeed shows that "normal" is really a just a label we put on ourselves to hide our own issues and insecurities. The writing and directing are solid and the performances, even when stiff, manage to tug at the heartstrings - a much needed addition to this year's Slamdance Film Festival.

I haven't been this let down by a film's ending since 'Enemy' starring Jake Gyllenhaal. I mean, seriously a big frickin' spider? Really? But I digress. The Civil Dead got so much right for the first two thirds of the movie, and then fizzled out into the worst ending. Without giving anything away, I'll just say that neither lead character is given a complete story arc and we leave them almost exactly how we found them. Movies like this make me ask, "Why, what's the point?" A good film can't be a series of questions that never get answered, and it seems irresponsible to roll credits when the story has yet to end. Both male leads (Clay Tatum and Whitmer Thomas) are fun to watch and their chemistry is very natural. The quality of the film is impressive for a low budget Indie, and for the first feature from director Clay Tatum. I'm of the opinion that an entire story only exists for its ending, so this film disappoints at the fundamental level. A person can count on exactly two things from filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan: a stupid twist ending and a giant turkey of a movie. Those two things are mutually inclusive, bad endings cause bad movies. This movie isn't bad because its ending isn't really an ending, but it isn't good either for the same reason.

Where to start...? The positives are the running time is short, even though the film feels excruciatingly long. The image quality is decent, even though everything happening behind and in front of the camera is utterly worthless. A group of teenagers staying at a cabin in the woods is the ideal set-up for a low budget horror film, but this movie literally gets everything wrong because it doesn't know what it wants to be. It's not horror, it's just horrific. The actors are not performers, at least not very convincing ones. And the filmmakers are not storytellers, at least not very cohesive ones. Even the film's title "Honeycomb," which sounds intriguing and promising, is ruined the moment you see it on screen in a shockingly cheap and bad stop-motion opening title sequence using Play-Doh. And the film only gets worse from there.

Yelling Fire in an Empty Theater proves a few things to me as a filmgoer and filmmaker: story and character development is key, the actors' performances are critical to an Indie, and the audience absolutely cares how a movie looks and sounds nowadays. This film relies greatly on its screenwriter's abilities because the script is good and I became invested in the main character's journey. The performances for the most part are solid even though at times the movie lags in the timing of the longer dialogue sequences. The look and sound of the film are utterly terrible to the point of being distracting. I'm confident that there wasn't a single professional film light or mic or camera used for a single frame of the movie. It was muddy and distorted, autofocusing during under-lit night scenes, blown out during any interior daytime scene where a window was visible. The sound went from blaring loud to inaudible in what I believe to be an unmixed soundtrack. Dogme style filmmaking irritated me to my core in the 1990s because video cameras looked like garbage compared to cinema cameras, and constant handheld imagery was nauseating to watch. Today, there's zero excuse for that kind of final product. An entire feature film can be shot with an iPhone on a gimbal stabilizer and a condenser microphone for next to nothing. No-budget Indies don't need to look and sound terrible anymore, so it's hard to be forgiving of this movie for... well, looking and sounding terrible. Story + performances + visuals and sound are a winning combination for any movie, big or small. This film, however, disappoints tragically in the latter.

Almost Famous hits every young girl's top ten film list and will forever live on as the moment America fell in love with Penny Lane (Kate Hudson). But I am not a young American girl and the only response I had to my first screening of Almost Famous was -- forgettable. I must confess now, almost a decade after the theatrical release of this film, I happened upon it again and my reaction to it was very surprising. Cameron Crowe's passion for music is undeniable and his short filmography reveals his hesitance to make "forgettable" movies. Almost Famous is a strong, necessary addition to the American film library, because of Crowe's love for the story and characters within this film. I wish that I had seen his passion before, but honestly, having missed the core of Almost Famous the first time around, made the surprise now that much more effective. How often does a director's precise and driven affection for the story surface above the movie itself? Hardly ever. But my second viewing of Almost Famous was uplifting and reminding me that behind every great story is a passionate storyteller, and whether or not the audience can connect or relate to the story being told, the fact that we (the audience) have that choice is what making movies is all about.

First I must say that I am a big Paul Verhoeven fan and when I heard that he was directing Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon (who I am also a big fan of) I was really excited. I do not need to remind people of how terrible Hollow Man turned out to be. But this direct-to-video sequel, Hollow Man II, directed by Claudio Faeh and executive produced by Verhoeven, is actually really good. So good in fact that I am looking forward to the third installment of the franchise. The special effects, production value, performances and storyline are just as good if not better than most high-budget theatrical studio films. Christian Slater makes a great bad guy but what I enjoyed most was Peter Facinelli as the hero. Who knew -- Peter is a great action hero. This is by far the best direct-to-video horror/thriller film that I have seen in a long time. It makes me think that maybe Paul Verhoeven should hang up his hat as a director and oversee the sequels to his better films, Robocop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers. There is no argument that those franchises need as much help as they can get.