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Reviews
Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America (2007)
Takes "Awful" to a new level
I was invited to a press screening of this film near the end of this summer' LA Film Festival (although it was not part of that event). There really aren't enough to describe how bad it is. Overall it looks and sounds like a low-budget, made-for-television movie from the early 1980's, although even saying that is giving this film too much credit. During the screening several viewers walked out. I would've joined them if sitting through it wasn't part of my job. For the last half hour of the movie I was biting my tongue to keep from hurling Mystery Science Theater-style comments at the screen.
There's barely two pages of story stretched tissue-thin over almost two hours (the synopsis posted here lists about 3/4 of the plot points). The dialogue is minimal, and often translated in subtitles into a slang-filled, modern English. The long,long silences make the film drag even more. The camera work is nothing but constant "artistic" lens flares. The filmmakers have no concept of pacing or screen direction. Tone-wise, the director can't figure out if he's making a historical drama or a rock-and-roll barbarian adventure.
What this film lacked, it seems, was an objective opinion. I would guess no one was willing to tell writer-director-lead actor-producer-editor-production designer Tony Stone that some of his ideas just weren't that good, and it snowballed from there. Alas, as a result the only thing this film is useful for is to show people what not to do when making a movie. For anything else, it's just unwatchable.
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
Who was that masked man....
This film wasn't as good as it could've been, but definitely not as bad as it could've been, either. Some of the blood effects were overdone (almost bordering on Monty Python), which I thought this genre had really moved past, and the teen actors/ characters were all pretty flat. Overall, though, I paid matinee prices, laughed, jumped, and definitely felt I got my money's worth.
Only one thing really stood out to me, and I have to admit I was amazed that it did. Ken Kirzinger as Jason Vorhees simply didn't work for me. Part of it may have been a series of shots that made him look unnaturally tall (close to eight feet, it seemed at times). Part of it may have been the different look they established for the character, in wardrobe and makeup. I think a good part of it, though, was that it wasn't Kane Hodder behind the mask. Over the past decade and a half or so, Hodder has imbued Jason Vorhees with a particular style of movement and body language. Since Jason doesn't speak, this has all become an integral part of the character, much like Freddy's signature quips or James Bond's British accent. Kirzinger's Jason lacked these elements.
Yes, I know how silly it sounds to attribute "integral elements" to a character like Jason Vorhees, but the fact is through this whole movie, I was not seeing "Jason" but "some guy dressed up like Jason".... I don't know if this is the fault of the actor or the director, but it is one thing that really stood out to me....
Headless Body in Topless Bar (1995)
Very possibly one of the worst movies ever made....
First off, considering some of the reviews, and the description on the DVD jacket I rented, I can only assume there must be two movies of the same name out there, since this whole "spontaneous decapitation" aspect mentioned in two other reviews is not in the movie I just watched.
Although, in all fairness, watched is a loose term. After half an hour of squirming at horrific dialogue, poor direction, and contrived scenarios, I began to skim through the movie (ah the wonders of DVD), stopping at what looked like hopeful scenes. Then I was openly fast- forwarding. And most of it was still ridiculous....
"The Man" attempts a fairly quiet robbery of a nearly vacant strip club (the only smooth part of this film). However, when one of the other patrons (apparently gifted with X-Ray vision) spots the revolver the Man's hiding with his body and jacket and shouts out, our hero (??) panics and kills the bartender. After a few moments of muttered- out- loud inner monologue, he decides it'd be best to turn his botched hold- up into a hostage situation.
Lucky for him, none of the handful of New Yorkers who frequent this club think of fighting back or resisting, even when he tucks his pistol deep into his pants pocket to feel up the club's lone stripper. Actually, he rarely holds onto his weapon, usually putting it somewhere fairly inaccessible (once even leaving it on the counter top while he roots around behind the bar).
Yet the hostages all sit quietly at their tables, ignoring countless opportunities to tackle, pummel, or simply overwhelm their captor. In one of the (only slightly) more ridiculous scenes, the Man has one of his captives dance with a chair, then turns his back, leaving this poor, mistreated prisoner holding a metal chair at arms length, with the back of his captor's head just inches away.... He doesn't try anything, of course. That would end this movie far too quickly.
The Man's pathetic attempts at forced "bonding" and psychotherapy sessions are a joke, a feeble and failed attempt to copy similar scenes in far better movies. The reactions these attempts get from his hostages are equally forced.
The characters are plastic, inconsistent, and utterly unsympathetic. The numerous scenarios that crop up through the entire movie are all over- worded, forced, and painfully silly. There is not so much a story arc as a sine wave, rippling back and forth to whatever whim the writer and director seem to have been struck with that day on set. What should have been a fifteen minute student film has been under- developed into a paper- thin feature. Saying this movie drags on is like saying General Custer could have done better at Little Bighorn.
I feel very sorry for Jennifer MacDonald, who goes through this entire movie topless for pretty much no reason at all (perhaps in a desperate attempt to keep 50% of the audience watching). I feel sorry for Paul Williams, that his career has slipped to the point that he did a film like this. I feel sorry for the crew of this film, who probably had to sit through multiple takes of these incredibly painful, poorly- written scenes. But most of all, I feel sorry for my friends and myself. We lost an hour of our lives to this movie, and we can never, ever get that hour back.
If this review keeps one person from making the same mistake, then my work here is done....
Glory Days (2001)
Great idea, terrible execution....
The premise of "Glory Days," an actual suspense- thriller television show, was one that I'm sure filled many people with hope and interest. What they've seen, over the past three weeks, has probably crushed those hopes fairly effectively....
In the first episode, we are given several creepy elements; a seemingly random murder, a mysterious letter, an entire town where we're told odd behavior is commonplace, with a population who strongly dislike the returning prodigal son (some of whom are his own family), and a disturbingly- designed board game, just to name a few. Any one of these elements, handled correctly, could carry a show for several episodes. "Glory Days" disposes of them all by the end of the very first episode, explaining away every element in precise detail, wrapping up every possible loose end.
This pattern, alas, was repeated with the second and third episodes as well. Each individual story sewn up nice and tight, with nothing left to gnaw at our minds or make us wonder at work the next day. Each episode ends exactly as it began, with only superficial changes to the characters lives, and no change at all to the world they live in.
Answering every question mere minutes after it's asked hardly builds suspense, and a mystery that's solved in less than an hour isn't much of a mystery. The most effective element of mystery and suspense, the part that gets people hooked, is not knowing, not having the answers. To paraphrase Neil Gaiman, people forget the stories, but they always remember the mysteries.
There are no mysteries on Glory Island. Simply put, instead of stepping into the shoes of "Twin Peaks" or "The X-Files," or possibly bringing something new to the small- screen, "Glory Days" is merely a hip, teen- oriented version of "Matlock" or "Murder She Wrote"
A shame, because the cast, and the audience, all deserve something better....