occjph Reviews

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)

Cloudy with sheer boredom

[1/10 · 16 January 2010]

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs is not a complete failure. The print I saw was very well made, as was the box it shipped in, I'm sure. As for all other aspects of this stinker, the word FAIL applies unfailingly. I will not reveal any of the exciting story elements, since it would be too much a shock to my system to replay the stream of boredom. In fact, it could harm me in some way.

Where to begin: Meandering, charmless score. HUGE orchestration of what sounds like random cut and paste music from 20 different composers. Whoever 'composed' this 800 pound slug of a score was a bit too enthusiastic in the 'lets honor the film composers of the past!' department.

Thin to non-existent character development. you don't CARE about the characters in this little picture, since you are almost killed by boredom by the wooden dialog. Ghastly demonstration of how to make an audience not care one little bit.

Clever animation techniques marred by amateur-hour art-school reject textures. A look that keeps wandering back and forth between photo-realism and 60's surrealistic animation styles. Jarring inconsistencies and amateur animation style management.

VERY sloppy dialog track so poorly mixed you could hardly detect where the character voices were supposed originate from. Overall, a cheapy-quickie little picture on huge (squandered) budget, mismanaged and mangled into the record books of bad film-making. Shameful. Wasteful.

The story seals the fate of this stinker: I have not read the book, but it must have been more developed than this horror. This film could put a 7 year old on triple sugar rations asleep in 4 minutes. This thing is filled with undeveloped plot devices, paper thin back stories, pretentious 'Father/Son' conflict element that remains lifeless and dull throughout the entire picture. In short: brightly colored pap for 3 year olds. Could have saved a fortune shooting a puppet show at the local carnival.

Poor Sony - nothing, and I mean NOTHING is working anymore. This should be the final tombstone for Sony Animation. Put it down, Mr. Stringer, for it is dead and hanging off the diseased studio like a gangrenous foot. Better to chop the blackened fetid limb that allow it to kill the entire sickly studio.

Avoid this film unless you are studying catastrophe theory, or need to place young ones into a catatonic stupor.

Meet Dave (2008)

Eddie Murphy should reconsider his career after this stinker

[1/10 · 16 December 2008]

Meet Dave is a wooden, slow, lumbering beast of a film totally devoid of humor or humor-like attributes. The special effects are so-so, but the stupid acting and near meaningless script and story elements make this a toxic film. Families would be better off watching the ducks at a local pond. Or perhaps the paint, drying in the sun, at a local construction site. Far more entertaining.

Perhaps it's time Eddie Murphy played.... Eddie Murphy! A kind of 'the life of Eddie' thing. The story opens with Eddie in the middle of a spectacularly homophobic and racist 'comedy' act in Los Angeles, then follows Eddie after the 'show' as he trolls down Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood looking for some, er, 'entertainment'. Low and behold, he find the 'girl' of his dreams in a gal named Dreame Whippe, who actually is a GUY named RALPH Muckerberg and who also works undercover for the LAPD. Whoops! Eddie, good old homophobic, white hating Eddie turns out to be quite the transvestite fan! Hilarity ensues as Eddie is chased all over town by 1) a troupe of female impersonators out to protect Eddie by making him join their act!, 2) a crazed LAPD Cop who wants Eddie to spend some time behind bars as a special form of 'sensitivity training', 3) a Silverlake tranny bar owner with ties to the lavender mafia who wants Eddie to pay up his $23,450.78 bar tab at the 'Chartreuse Boa' the aforementioned tranny bar and finally, 4) Tod, his simple yet persistent agent whom Eddie met at a tea dance on an all male cruise a few years ago.

The Hijinks and bigoted jokes would flow like sewage! Drippy, thin watery sewage. With a stench that proudly proclaims 'Yet another Eddie Murphy Extravaganza';

Dreamland (2007)

Terrible, even for an amateur production

[1/10 · 2 September 2007]

Ed Wood, perhaps the worst film maker of all time left us gems that are SO bad, they delight, being unintentionally funny and therefore charming and innocent.

James Lay, and his financial backers (Mom and Dad, it seems from the credits) have created in 'Dreamland' a film just as poorly made as any Ed Wood film, but lacking any charm or innocence. Dreamland simply stinks, and about the only good thing about this 90 minute waste of time is the certain knowledge that James Lay and his fellow perps will never make another picture again.

I must mention some of the dramatic lengths some of the crew took to avoid being associated with this horrible picture. I'm sure the production controller, once seeing the completed film, demanded to have his or her name changed in the credits to 'Donna Snartlebutt' and the accounting done by 'Brutus'. One can imagine 'Brutus' with his roll of 5 dollar bills paying the crew at the end of a shooting day.

I wont mention the many technical problems with this pathetic little videotape, but I must mention a few commentaries that compare this slag to the work of David Lynch. You know you have turned out a real stinker when you have your mom log into IMDb and post such astonishing BS - no one , save violent mental patients, could -ever- mistake 'dreamland' with -anything- produced by Lynch. What a horrific slight against Mr. Lynch and his work.

Go back to film school, Mr Lay.

Left Behind: The Movie (2000)

Waste of $5

[1/10 · 27 March 2005]

I didn't expect much from this film, but oh brother, what a stinker.

I found this gem in a giant crate of awful $5 DVD's at Walmart (where else)? As cheap as this disc was, I feel ripped off. The special effects had a high school look to them, the camera work marred by wobbly tripods and sketchy lighting and the acting was a perfect example of the 'Christian School'. One can imagine the long and exhausting 'prayer meetings' by the production company after seeing the rushes come back - the people who bankrolled this thing must have had seriously anti-biblical feelings towards the inept production company that cranked this thing out. Think of their anguish as they saw their $914.86 investment go up in smoke.

Someone asked why Christian movies are so bad - perhaps the Xian film-makers need to look at GOOD movies and attempt to copy some of the things that make them so good. Believable stories and characters, less hysterical arm-waving and fanaticism, oh, and a story that appeals to -everyone-, not just true believers. I.e. Stop The Sermon, Save It For Church. Take the Omen or Prophesy series, for example. Excellent films with compelling story lines, great cinematography and intense music. No hysterical arm-waving. No preaching.

If this film had a laugh track it would have been MUCH better.

Barry Lyndon (1975)

A film for film makers

[10/10 · 19 September 2004]

This film is a landmark in cinematography for many reasons. First, the use of source lighting throughout the film - only natural light was used, no electrical lighting. Second, the absolute perfect framing of each and every scene, no matter how mundane. I defy anyone to step, frame by frame, through this film and see a single frame that could not be printed as a museum-grade image. It's that good. Exterior lighting was just as good as interior, with precise exposures matching the latitude of the film stocks available at the time.

Many subsequent films have used source lighting (Amadeus comes to mind) with great results, but surely Kubrick was the first director to take this difficult production technique to this level. To achieve interior photography with nothing more than a few candles and perhaps some sunlight from a nearby window, Kubrick utilized a f0.7 lens developed by Perkin Elmer for spy satellite use. Cinema Products in Hollywood acquired this lens from Perkin Elmer and offered it to Kubrick after he inquired about very fast optics. CP modified a standard Mitchel BNC camera to accept this strange lens, building a special mount and grinding the aperture plate down to paper-thin thickness to permit the end element to focus on the emulsion on the BNC.

One of the drawbacks of this special lens was an extremely shallow depth of field with wide open aperture settings. In the card gambling scene, shot entirely by candlelight, Kubrick had to instruct his actors to stay very still - not moving to or from the lens due to the focal length, which was 1 or 2 inches, maximum. It took many days and hundreds of takes to shoot the card scene, requiring the replacement of the candles every once in a while to maintain continuity.

This is a film makers film - a film for photographers. While the story moves a bit slowly, the images captured are so well thought out and framed they overcome any shortcomings of the pace of the story. The use of classical music as a sonic background for the film was admirable, but this film is so well shot it stands above the soundtrack, like the finest silents of the 20's. The image is paramount.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

This is NOT a slapstick film

[10/10 · 19 September 2004]

It's sad to see so many people post negative comments about this great film.

They hear it's a 'great comedy', watch it, and fail to see clowns, bright colors and hijinks. One person even complained it was not like a Mel Brooks film! May I suggest Austin Powers films for that person?

Folks, it's a BLACK COMEDY. That does not equate to slapstick. It's a -bit- more intellectual than that. The best black comedies contain material that is at once both comedic and horrific. And -every- 'joke' in this film contains a huge dollop of horror. Riding a bomb down to the ultimate explosion, declaring 'Gentlemen, there's no fighting here, it's the War Room!', discussion of the ratio of sexually stimulating females to males in coal mines, etc. All of these references are made in the spirit of black comedy - funny, yet horrifying and tragic. Even the alternative title 'How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb' is based on the terrible worry most people had about atomic war in the 60's. Kubrick knew this and played with it, and did it better than most.

As to the films impact, consider this: Every new US president since this film have asked to see the 'war room' soon after the inaugural festivities were over. There -is- no 'war room'. Kubrick/Terry Southern invented it. Sure, there is a 'situation room' at the Whitehouse, but no grand war room as seen in the film. No one can forget the 'war room' of Dr. Strangelove after seeing the film.

In typical Kubrick fashion, the details of this film are overwhelming. The B-52 that Kong flew was still very much classified in 1964. Kubrick hired the best avionics experts to design what they thought would be a nice replica of a strategic bomber, filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of control panels and real avionics devices. It was so real that Kubrick and Columbia had talks with the FBI about the release of the film. It was just a bit TOO accurate for the intel folks. Kubrick, Southern and Wally Veevers were determined to create a film that was as accurate as possible. 2001 continued this Kubrick tradition, with excessive attention to detail in every possible way.

So, if you are looking for slapstick comedy mayhem and hijinks, try another film. This film was intended for adults seriously worried about the possibility that the world would be incinerated in an accidental war, in a world run by kooks and ideologues. Black comedy allows us to look at a terrifying subject without leaving the theater in a total funk. If you want a film about this subject with no black comedy, try Fail Safe, a film that premiered at about the same time. It's a great film, but lacks the charm of Kubrick and Terry Southern.

Wings (1927)

VHS version with Theater Organ music track

[12 September 2004]

For a feeling of what the silents were really like, look for the version of this film with Gaylord Carter performing the score on a Wurlitzer Theater Organ. Carter recorded this version in the 1980's when he was in his 80's. Amazing performance - basically 120 minutes of live, somewhat improvised music with establihed themes for each character. Incidental music was improvised live combining themes from the various characters.

Carter was one of the last musicians that performed during the silent era. Very few musicians understand how difficult this art form was, and Gaylor was one of the best. Each showing of the film was an original, never before heard version due to the improvisational nature of the music. The stamina required to play live music, on 3, 4 or even 5 keyboards with a pedal board and dozens of stops, thousands of pipes for over two hours cannot be overstated. Especially when one of these performers were expected to do so 3 or more times a day!

Orchestras are all well and good, but few theaters could afford them - Wurlitzer (and a few other companies) sold 40,000 instruments to theaters world wide during the 20's, and chances are, 90% of screenings of this film were accompanied by a theater organ.