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colinmcsloy
Reviews
Pauly Shore Is Dead (2003)
best Pauly shore movie
That may be damning this thing with faint praise. However, this is one of the funniest flicks I have seen in a while and I think it is an indication of the perverse nature of IMDb that it didn't rate higher. If this had been scripted by Charles Kaufman then all you sports jacket wearing mofo's would be worshipping like some kind of object of worship.
Great performances, and the alternative ending on the DVD is even funnier than the one in the film. This gives you a real feeling that there is more to Pauly Shore than sub Bill and Ted Fare like Bio-dome and hopefully he will get some better projects as a result of this film.
The Simpsons Movie (2007)
Not bad but not great either
This film gets off to a promising start with some great gags and set pieces, Bart's naked skateboarding and Homer's antics with a pig. However, as soon as what would have been known in the t.v. series as the 1st act is finished problems start developing. Part of the problem is that things become a bit too plot driven as other people have on this page have mentioned. Also fans will be disappointed that popular characters feature very little (Apu, Mo, Flanders etc.), this is particularly grating as new extremely lame characters are given quite a bit of screen time. A particularly cloying and crappy sentimental sub-plot featuring an annoyingly voiced Irish Greenpeace loving peacenik that Lisa has fallen in tow with springs to mind.
None of this would matter that much if the quality control of the writing had been a little bit more vigorous. There is some very good and funny material in this film but all too often a woefully unfunny line or gag will totally kill the momentum and ruin your' enjoyment of the film, and aspects of the story with great comic potential aren't allowed time to develop( I for one would have liked to see more of the pig).
Yes it is of a much higher standard than most episodes from the last 3 years but for me that is really good enough. I would liked to have see the Simpsons go out with a bang and this film is well, not a whimper, but a dull thud.
Black Dog (1998)
DVD'd this off TV as the guy who made cabin fever was going on about it in the Cabin Fever extras
This is a no-brainer, but in a good way. The plot is simple to the point of seeming like a cartoon, or a story made up by an infant, however the film is executed in such a way that it isn't really a drawback. Acting, is pretty cheesy, and the characters are really black and white i.e. either completely good or evil, the dialogue is pretty tongue in cheek though and the direction seems to be deliberately 80's which is quite fun. I actually thought it was filmed in the late 80's or very early nineties, but then I realised MEATLOAF was too skinny.
The ending is total wish fulfilment, with Patrick Swayze who has seriously violated his parole and committed a number of felonies, let off Scot free. He is even given back his license, and allowed to take the truck to an impound lot unescorted despite it being a crime scene on wheels. They don't even take him in for questioning! Good bless America.
In conclusion, it is a film of contrasts.
your host Colin J McSloy
Fast Sofa (2001)
Great Cast: Interesting Failure
When I was kid growing up in Scotland, there used to be a really cool cult film show called MOVIEDROME. It was hosted by Alex Cox (director of Repo Man) and each week he would pick a film, talk about it very honestly (often pointing out shortfalls and foibles of the production) and then show it. This was before DVD of course, so it was a great opportunity to see some pretty weird and wonderful films, things like RIVERS EDGE, NEAR DARK, and something with Dennis hopper escorting a dead body across the united states on a train(don't remember what this was called).
This is exactly the kind of film that would have been on moviedrome, great and improbable casting (Crispin Glover and Eric Roberts together at last!), unachieved potential etc. Busey really impresses as Rick, he really takes his character on a journey, and towards the end he really starts to impress. I think the pairing of Busey with Indie film legend Crispin Glover, helped Busey achieve this performance. Whether because of the good on screen chemistry they obviously have or because Glover sets the bar pretty high acting wise.
Other plus points include the credible and snappy dialogue, and a great cameo by Eric Roberts as Jennifer Tilly's husband/manager/pimp. On the downside, we have a pretty uninspired performance from Tilly, and a meandering plot that doesn't seem to get its act together until the last 20 minutes or so. There also parts by played by Goldberg and Lyon (is that right?, the girlfriend) that are so underwritten that they could almost have been left out they do that little to forward the action. The terrible split screen sequences are extremely half-arsed and should have been left on the cutting room.
All in all very interesting failure. BBC bring back moviedrome and might even pay my license fee this year.
Rust Never Sleeps (1979)
Yes
Yes we do need to see Jawa's setting up the stage its funny. They even have an over-sized tuning fork to help Neil tune up. Also funny is the scientist explaining that if you put on the glasses provided you can see flakes of rust falling off Neil's guitar during the solos. I think the stage announcements and the fact that their isn't a real audience, just recorded noises from Woodstock add to the surreal/fake quality of the film, its Neils little dig at the huge corporate sponsored rock events that were starting to spring up at the time. Obviously the songs are great too, Hey Hey My My namechecking Johnny Rotten at a time when most of his contemporaries where acting like confused old men at the emergence of punk (By the by Young discovered New wavers Devo and Jonathon Richman).