karen5778 Reviews

Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway (2019)

Dada dada

[7/10 · 12 October 2021]

Looking at the other reviews I can see how confusing this film is, as it was meant to be. Viewers have trouble getting the heroes and villains straight and one review cleared up some confusion for me. At one point in the middle my husband turned to me and said, "I wonder what they are going to recommend because we watched this?" It is a challenge to think of other films like it because it throws in so many genres. It isn't that funny, either, because that would make it a parody, which is a genre. While watching it I thought it was incoherent but now I think the filmmakers were very focused and intentional. Some films are stories, some evoke emotion, some are intended to invoke a state of consciousness in their audience. This idea is lifted from the conclusion of Aristophanes' The Frogs. This movie invokes a state of some sort. Whatever that state is, it seems to be shared by the community that made this film.

Bird Box (2018)

What happened to all the blind people?

[5/10 · 22 July 2021]

Speaking as the daughter of a blind man who is herself losing her sight I found this film offensive. Here we are, finally with an advantage over the sighted and we are just ignored. We aren't exactly helpless. The "mysterious force " doesn't seem to care about people walking around . We might be screwed after people stop killing themselves and start forcing others to look if that represents some sort of adaptation on the force's part intended to...what??? Depopulate the planet? My husband is tired of movies where the black guy is the hero until he conveniently dies, leaving only white folks, so we gave up on this film before the end. Oh, and if you are trying to teach your children to navigate with sound, don't continuously yell at them.

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1953)

A classic in every sense of the word

[9/10 · 13 July 2021]

I saw this movie for the first time long before anyone thought to give me piano lessons and it made a big impression. They showed it on a local channel every few years and I always watched it. Perhaps it warped my expectations of the adult world, but I'll never know. Current events tend to make me think it was an accurate cautionary tale. It was certainly intense, dark and intelligent for a kid's movie. I have watched it as an adult and will probably watch it again.

Slimed (2010)

If you like evil alien conquerors....FROM SPACE!

[8/10 · 13 July 2021]

This is a worthy addition to the genre of silly movies with intelligence., heart and weirdness. I wrote another review under a name I have forgotten and in researching it discovered that this movie is a Troma production, by far the most imaginative and pleasing that I've seen. It even has insight and meaning! We need a genre name for these movies. Maybe Tromatic? Dadaesque? Now is the time we need these movies, more than the last time the world was collapsing.

Canaries (2017)

Low key, humorous and naturalistic comedy

[8/10 · 22 January 2020]

This movie is not ha ha balls out silly. It is a very human comedy about people responding to an overwhelming situation. For example, one of the funniest moments is when the surviving characters are sitting on a sofa, drinking beer. Their postures and expressions are equally reasonable for the wind down of a bad party and the supernatural stuff they are experiencing. They are just worn out. That's the way the whole film goes. Most of the budget must have been spent traveling to the locations, as there are basically no special effects. The acting is good, the music is very good and the sense of place is good. I also liked that the best fighters among the party goers are also the least likely looking. If you like comedies like Tight Little Island you should enjoy this. They even have a chorus singing Men of Harlich.

How It Ends (2018)

What do you people want?

[8/10 · 13 October 2019]

This is the second good movie I have seen out of Netflix. One minute it is a family drama about a guy trying to tell his pregnant girl friends parents that she's pregnant and he is going to marry her. Then all hell breaks loose. No one knows what is going on, all communications are cut off, cities are exploding and people are grabbing what they can and running, but they don't know where to go. You can't tell who to trust but you can find yourself in a position that you have no choice but to hope you can back out of a trap. There is a scene on a bridge that is right out of the aftermath of hurricane hugo, when people were trying to flee new Orleans to a neighboring town and the residents of the town armed themselves and forced the victims of the flooding to go back.

No attempt is made to explain the catastrophe. The film is more about how people react to the break down of social order. Characters bond or get sick of each other. The worst thing about the movie is that the main character, a lawyer, can drive a car like a stuntman. I kept thinking there should be a disclaimer "trained driver on closed course". As you can tell from other reviews the film has no neat resolution. How it ends is how it begins. You just have to keep running and trying to find gas so you can keep running. Good luck.

See You Yesterday (2019)

What is wrong with you people?

[8/10 · 12 October 2019]

I can't fathom why this movie has a low rating except that racism is real and lots of people are uncomfortable when reminded of it. The theme is simple: life in Brooklyn is so problematic that even a time machine isn't enough to make things right. The acting is very good. The time travel is hokey. The direction is mildly Spike Leeish, which is enough for me. The ending conveys the sense that the struggle is never over as long as people care about each other.

Extinction (2018)

Wow, scared kids cry and do dumb stuff!

[8/10 · 15 September 2019]

This is the sort of sci fi movie that usually drives me crazy, but it is less sci fi than allegory and as allegory it is both beautiful and relevant. It has been more than a week since we watched it and I am still remembering how certain parts fit together after the "twist" and wish I could include spoilers. I especially liked Pena's performance. His expression of confusion and worry is very relatable for me. All the performances are good, including the "annoying " children acting like scared children. This movie is about identity, compassion and love and the love is expressed in the care taken to make this movie. The last 20 minutes of the film are especially packed with details that are relevant to the rest of the film. Maybe I need to find a discussion board.

Hide and Creep (2004)

Give this man more money for another movie

[8/10 · 1 August 2019]

After watching "Interplanetary" (not THAT Interplanetary) I was looking forward to this movie and I was not disappointed. This is a genre where people keep acting like mundane, petty people although the world is going to hell around them. The gore and tension is much less vivid than Interplanetary but it is still a zombie movie. It isn't laugh out loud funny but every line has some element of humor in it. Being set in Alabama it does make a strong argument for the second amendment in case of a zombie apocalypse. One quibble, and it isn't a minor one: there is a strong tradition that the hero of a zombie movie is a black person. In this movie, set in Alabama, there is not a single black person. Maybe that would have shoehorned relevance into a movie that avoids relevance or maybe they just didn't know any black actors. The acting is very good and there are distinct characters.

No attempt is made to explain or resolve anything. The storyline about aliens seems like a hallucination until the end, at which point it just seems a random opportunity for one last absurdity. If you like this movie you should like Interplanetary (not that Interplanetary) or Rapturepalooza. I am taking movie names from other reviews for future rentals.

Hostile (I) (2017)

Interesting blend of character study and standard sci fi violence.

[8/10 · 30 June 2019]

This movie cuts back and forth between a woman's predicament when her vehicle overturns during a food hunting mission in a post apocalyptic landscape and the relationship that gave her life meaning before society fell. There is very little explanation of how society fell, the nature of the organization she is working for or the origin of the creatures who are threatening her but you can piece together much of this during the film. Not having a larger scifi plot puts the viewers in a similar position to the characters. The focus is on the characters immediate problems, including the things they don't understand and the impact of that lack of understanding. The final twist ties everything together and suprised me. Don't read reviews with spoilers before watching this movie.

Bodysnatch (2017)

Not bad grade b entree to the genre

[7/10 · 19 June 2019]

This movie leans on character development and humor for that good grade B movie flavor. It isn't that scary and the budget was obviously small but it raised some issues about friendship and loyalty. There was one glaring plot hole. What has happened to all the cell phones.?The pods and the theme of never sleeping are replaced, probably due to budget restraints. This is hardly a classic on the scale of the first two, but it does draw you in and passes the time pleasantly. I hope the people involved get more work.

The Space Between Us (I) (2017)

Better than some

[7/10 · 13 June 2019]

This reworking of Parsifal wasn't bad. It had little enough science that it wasn't constantly annoying. It was pleasingly ambiguous about who was bad and who was good and the boy from Mars was suitably naive and literal. The ending was a little pat. It would have been a better movie if it ended 5 minutes earlier. However, the point of the movie was not to disturb or distress, so that ending would have been too heavy. A good sci-fi for a late night. It was disturbing that one of the actors looked like Jeff Bridges.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

You know thanos is greek for death, don't you?

[7/10 · 24 October 2018]

We don't like Marvel movies, but we did like the guardians of the galaxy, so we dutifully watched this one. All the best parts were connected to G of G and now we don't even want to watch Black Panther anymore. It's hard to write a review without spoilers and we did appreciate that watching television hadn't given away everything in this movie.

It pretty funny to think Death needs super powers when it already rules all and everything and they ignore his siamese twin, Food. Some parts were entertaining and emotionally effective, but mostly it was frustrating to watch. Most things that are consumable for life come from other life.

However, there is something Thanos doesn't know that everyone should . History shows that when humanoid societies achieve the level where women have access to education and birth control reproduction slows down below replacement levels. That is why materialist societies need immigration to maintain themselves. Then the immigrant birthrate goes down, too, even among the Irish. This happened to Rome and has happened to Europe and us.

Another thing he doesn't get is that humanoid technology can increase the sustainability of an environment. Sometimes I think that consciousness, if it has a Purpose, was created, if it was created, was created by the Universe in hopes it would find some way to hold the universe together or make little bubbles of continuity with some sort of gravity pump. Just because we are currently a parasitic society doesn't mean all intelligent beings are. At this rate we will be back to living in caves before we manage to master space flight and threaten the universe, so Thanos should calm down.

The Black Cat (1934)

Historically significant

[6/10 · 19 May 2018]

Not only is this the first pairing of Karloff and Legosi, it has two lines which appear in Futurama. Both are originally said by Legosi. One is "You fool! You foolish fool!". The other is "Mumbo, perhaps, jumbo perhaps not!"

The movie itself is acceptable. Legosi chews the scenery. Karloff seems to be taking an exam in an acting class. "Do apprehensive. Do assertive. Do tormented." It makes his character a little incoherant. I don't know whose idea it was to sexy him up with a bunch of swanky robes and smoking jackets., but sexually predatory is his consistant characteristic.. There are a lot of indirect references to virgin sacrifice because the honeymooners haven't had a chance to consummate the marriage, so I found myself thinking "Don't stay in seperate rooms, you foolish fools. This is what happens when you don't practice premarital sex!" A lot of effort is put into showing that the bride is attracted to her husband, so it doesn't exactly make sense to modern sensibilities, especially as Legosi is Karloff's enemy and knows what is going on. He could bring the whole thing to an end with one easy suggestion! Visually, the house is an odd space, with a lot of concrete and open spaces with room transitions made by exposed stairwells. It's modern, like a parking garage.

Infini (2015)

Better than we thought at first

[7/10 · 30 November 2015]

We watched this after a movie we didn't like, so it took til the next day to realize how good it was. The science sucks, but we don't care. It starts with the lead character on his first day of work doing space / time jumps to remote mining colonies. The beginning is confusing, primarily because they have set you up for the jump technology to be the threat. Instead there is a bunch of business about a biological contaminant and the main character must make an illegal jump to avoid being terminated with everyone else at the jump facility. At the target of his jump is the source of the contaminant, something that is seeking a host. The rest of the potential hosts are the team sent in to rescue him. Therein lies the problem: there are some serious plot problems and loose ends. However, once you are done groaning over this movie's flaws, you may notice that it keeps your interest and has something to say about personality and will.

The premise was easy to milk for character development, the acting was good and no one is particularly heroic. There was a fair amount of tension and splatter. The plot is Ghosts of Mars redux, but more psychologically interesting and much less flamboyant. Also much more claustrophobic.

The Stepford Wives (2004)

What do you want, egg in your beer?

[7/10 · 30 November 2015]

This movie is just an excuse for a bunch of jokes about sexism, which is exactly what we wanted. The jokes are good and the humor is never scatological. The characters are fairly well drawn though hardly complex. On the whole it is above average for a genre, the cutesy remake, which tends to be horrible.

If you have any ideas about how you would do a new Stepford Wives you will probably be disappointed and annoyed. There is relatively little social commentary or suspense, in fact the only suspenseful scene is just funny. The hows and whats of what the ladies are isn't really addressed much, in part because it would be more disturbing than this movie wants to be. On the other hand, it never breaks character, so you can just cruise comfortably to the end, laughing every minute or so.

As a professional horticulturist, I must mention the plantings and flower arrangements. The orchids were just becoming available at grocery stores and the gladiolus in the "plantings" must have been hand placed in some cases, cause they don't grow in graceful sprays. Someone did an awesome job.

Space Milkshake (2012)

If you like the genre, it's pretty good and funny

[6/10 · 7 November 2015]

There is a new genre out there: science fiction as work place comedy. This is one of the better examples. It puts no effort into logic or sciencetific plausibility. Some of the characters are fairly funny. The acting is professional. I usually find these things either too cloying or silly but this one is pretty decent. If you like it, you should love Interplanetary from 2008 not the blockbuster http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1355575/. I can't see giving this much of a rating considering its mediocrity;it doesn't aspire to more and that is just fine.

This is a line to make the review long enough.

Crawlspace (II) (2012)

Well done, professional, consistent

[8/10 · 30 September 2015]

This is a very well done grade B film in the tradition of well crafted, unpretentious projects by people who don't mind making a good movie while they are at it. In the '50's they were usually noires, and this movie has some of the elements of a mystery. The acting is good, the characters are well developed and they don't act like idiots. The mystery is not too difficult to work out, but the action is more about how it will play out, who will survive and who you want to survive. The explosions and splatters are graphic. One of the reasons the mystery is easy to figure out is that there are lots of little incidental touches that turn out to be clues, and they help to create the atmosphere and the personalities.

Automata (I) (2014)

One of the best AI movies so far

[8/10 · 29 September 2015]

The nature and origin of robotic consciousness in this movie is very well çoncieved. There is a certain amount of schmaltz and pathos but it has more to do with the humans than the robots. Their part of the story is relatively impeccable The interplay of intelligence, accident and evolution is fairly well understood by the filmmakers and makes this film less implausible than most. Nothing is more annoying than robots that start acting in ways that can only be explained by the need to move the story forward, but the basic protocols of robotics stated at the beginning of the film are well chosen and adhered to.

Banderas is always good. There are a few funny bits. The dystopic vision of the future seems consistent with current conditions.

Westworld (1973)

A classic that stands the test of time

[8/10 · 29 September 2015]

I was a little apprehensive about seeing this movie again after so much has advanced in our understanding of AI and consciousness but, except for the banks of tape and tiny crts, the technology of the machine's behavior was pretty plausible. The robots are designed with a certain range of behaviors which they initiate independently while human controllers act as monitors or conciousnesses to keep things from getting out of hand. Another nice touch comes when an operator notes that much of the code was generated by computers, technology that was just being developed at the time. The question of who is conscious and what they want is a lot more complicated than I realized 30 or so years ago when I saw this movie last. This movie and Future World were part of the conciousnesses of a generation that has now seen self driving cars and customer service chat bots.

Parallels (I) (2015)

Is there a parallel world in which this series was picked up?

[8/10 · 29 August 2015]

We don't particularly like this type of sci fi. Sliders used to come on after a show we watched and we never felt anything but annoyed by it. This show is highly derivative, but still nowhere near as cutesy or self serious. Itmight have become so over time, but the pilot was pretty good. The energy series like this put into developing the "mystery" can be tedious, but this pilot seemed to be more interested in portraying parallel personalities and their relationships, usually humorously. The psychology was not laid on too thick, either, which usually overtaxes both the writers and the actors. In all, it was enjoyable, well acted and visually pretty good.

Elysium (I) (2013)

Like a pretty good episode of Twilight Zone with explosions

[8/10 · 23 August 2015]

This director is very much the descendant of Rod Serling. He takes people and dumps them in a wild situation and has them continue to act more or less normally. Some people knock on this movie that the characters are under stated, but people are understated, and this makes the movie better, especially in how little chemistry there is between the main characters which may be a spoiler.

Like Serling, he always works in some maudlin content, but in this one it is so tied in to current events that it isn't as saccharine as the pathos in District 9 or Chappie. I did think the criticism that no society would get like this was pretty funny, considering how far down this road we already are. Unlike Chappie, the plot line is so simple that it doesn't bite off more than it can chew. The humor is humorous, the story line relevant and the explosions are beautiful. We watched this because we liked Chappie and District 9 so much, but I think this is actually the best of the three.

An American Romance (1944)

Standard King Vidor, i.e., good

[8/10 · 6 November 2014]

I would love to see this movie in the long version. The story is, for the most part, hackneyed, but it is just a frame for awesome King Vidoresque scenes of people working. In this case, it is steel literally from the ground up. The main character starts digging iron ore with a shovel and ends up building planes, progressing through every stage of the process.

The story is so tangential it can get annoying, but there are a few more standard King Vidor naturalistic touches, like the way Donlevy's accent fades into working class Americanese. Vidor's handling of the Union issue is also characteristic, giving Donlevy a very sympathetic speech right before knocking him down. I was a little surprised when the end come, and wonder if the 30 minutes were cut from the end or in bits and pieces.

Dark Sands (1937)

Hollywood is just catching up with this film

[8/10 · 23 October 2014]

Putting the opening scenes aside, this film turns most of Hollywood's favorite racial conventions upside down. Robeson is the one and only action hero in this film, he has a tiny white sidekick who provides comic relief and he gets the girl. The girl is played by a dark skinned actress while her "Arab" brothers are all white, but otherwise it is less groan worthy than many modern films. It has few pretensions, is well written and has lots and lots of footage of camels. Even the plot twist that another reviewer complains of is sort of plausible. And Robeson sings "Mammy's little baby loves shortnin' bread" to a baby and leaves out the "pickaniny" lines, so even that isn't really objectionable.

Blackout (1954)

Fun, pleasant and silly, but not a noir

[7/10 · 23 June 2014]

This is a little British murder mystery, not a noir. The main character is a nice shlub, not a tough guy. There is very little tension or menace and certainly not any cynicism or existential despair. The dialog and bits of business are pretty funny and practically everyone in the film, including the villain, seems basically likable. Dane Clark does a very good job, although he will go on to do better. The plot offers a steady diet of red herring, but plot is not this film's strong suit. The whole thing is so likable that you may find yourself cringing that the plot and twists and turns seem so aimless and gratuitous, but it doesn't pretend to be more than a grade B movie with some good acting and good dialog.