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Born_Sanguinary
Reviews
Waking Life (2001)
the biggest load of pretentious cinematic manure i have ever seen
This 'Film' is a symbol of incredibly arrogant film-making.
The writer obviously just went on the internet, downloaded a handful of different philosophies, and copied them verbatim in their script.
On a technical note, what makes this film stand out is that it is entirely rotoscoped on to live footage. an idea that may have sounded good at the time, but in practice creates an effect that will mess up the eyes of anyone sensitive to migraines (and probably epilepsy). The animation style gets VERY old VERY quickly.
As for plot...
Well, what can i say...
perhaps as a 20 minute short, this film might have been quite watchable, but as it stretches itself out to an excruciating 1 hour 38 minutes, its enough to make anyone want to hurt themselves.
The film consists of a series of monologues with brief dashes of (very thin, callista flockhart style thin) plot between nutcases ranting about various different philosophies and their individual take on life.
Now, don't get me wrong, i enjoy arty movies which inspire deep thought and conversation amongst friends afterwards, but what we have here is a film that starts off dull, hurts your eyes with flangey and unnecessary animation, fires intense drawn out and unnecessary exposition, steers away from what little plot or purpose it is supposed to contain for long periods of time, and at the end of it, leaves the viewer not enlightened or inquisitive about the themes involved, but bored and frustrated that they had wasted over an hour and a half of their life sitting down and watching this piece of trash.
Until i saw this movie, i thought i had seen bad films but at least i was able to sit through them without falling asleep. This film has taken my view of poor film-making and general rubbishness to a new level. This is now the bad film that i will judge all other bad films by.
I couldn't give this film a low enough rating if i used a million decimal places. Avoid this movie at all costs, unless you are an insomniac, in which case you will find yourself cured after 40 minutes.
The Escapist (2002)
"I 'ate your muvver..."
all i can say is "Wow!" this film took me totally be surprise. I found it for a tenner in my local Blockbuster, and i was inspired. It is proof that us british film makers, are capable of producing compelling stories, great action and high class performances in a blend that hollywood has trouble doing.
Indeed, it infuriates me that an excellent piece of work like this should go straight to video, whereas utter trash like Jackass the movie gets a full cinematic release worldwide.
This film brings hope to all of us independant film makers, that it doesn't take a huge budget to make a good film, and also reminds us that the primary reason people should make films is to entertain, not make money.
a Solid 9 out of 10