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hughhemington
Reviews
The Fourth Musketeer (2022)
a synopsis of the movie they wanted to make
This movie was odd and disappointing for me, having grown up watching one treatment after another of Dumas classic tale, done with acting, action, and a PLOT. This 2022 adaptation couldn't seem to get off home plate. There are FAR too many d'Artagnans for one thing. We're told d'Artagnan (the "main" one) has practiced with the toy sword his whole life, but all we see is him whacking lamely at a grain sack.
The cast is small for a theme usually swarming with cast and extras. The scenes are all shot in close narrow angle which is quickly distracting. The "main" d'Artagnan serves 2 years in the academy (we assume) but returns to his father clearly not a day older when any young man of 18 would change quite a lot in two years -- even a High School production would exploit this easy opportunity to reinforce the idea of time and character development!
I can say, the costumes were not bad, and I didn't notice any jet aircraft or automobiles, but I can't think of any reason I'd recommend this to anyone.
Battle of Dunkirk: From Disaster to Triumph (2018)
Good content marred by awful editing
This documentary presents a broader background of the event than recent films, using contributions of people who were actually there. Unfortunately, the editor(s) chose to drown out the narration with background music and sound effects so that hearing the words of these heroes is next to impossible. If only there were some way to turn off the background noise completely.
It's sad that anyone would believe the stories of survivors of this pivotal historical event would need to be made more compelling with blaring noise. I have the utmost respect for every individual who persevered through that time and especially that event that went so wrong, but unexpectedly turned out so well. I have none for the talentless hacks that produced and edited this tragic waste of the opportunity to tell this story.
American Confederate (2019)
This isn't even "campy" bad, it's not "fun" bad, it's just bad
When I saw the reviews at that time (2.x) I assumed the film had to have some redeeming quality. People were put-off by history, or some group was slighted. No, those review numbers were really accurate. There was no review then, so people needed some warning.
The production is in color sort of, and it's generally in focus. So much for the good parts. The budget was obviously low or non-existent. It is quickly obvious that locations were chosen and used so that no set preparation would be necessary. The a... behavior of the people, was unconvincing in the extreme. When one of them is "shot in the leg", even that is not convincing, nor is his escape.
In the next scene, he has walked to a makeshift hospital tent. The doctor and nurse/helper have ended an exhausting shift, but there is one person outside the five-man tent needing attention. Just about the time you're wondering where the pile of bodies is, the man with the .57 caliber slug in his leg shows up, and soon, we're told he's lost a lot of blood, but none of the blood wound up on his pant leg. The production LITERALLY did not afford fake blood. Later on, they discover the formula, but none of it ever gets on the surgeon.
There are "cavalry" men of various names, and they say things, but no character is developed to anywhere near the point where you caring about anyone in the slightest. The movie does not attempt to fill in the "backstory" of any battle or tell a story with an arc or vector of any kind.
Greyhound Attack (2019)
If this movie released on April 1st, it would make sense, if you know what I mean
I only watched about half. It's all I could stand. If you want to argue I missed the totally Casablanca-quality parts, fine.
Imagine you had access to a few vintage planes in a static display, now write a movie around that. And this is it. There is literally nothing I saw in this movie that wasn't awful.
The act... the people moving and speaking in front of, what I'm assuming was a cell phone seemed to have never done it before, and shouldn't ever again. The sets were flat and bad to distraction, but I found them more engaging than the talking people who were standing in front of them, or green screens.
The "action" was so badly faked, in a computer, I looked forward to the next scene back on the ground. I won't go on with this too long. Suffice to say, if you want to re-calibrate BAD in your movie lexicon (likely forever), and you won't be trapped in a room through this entire dismal mess, and it won't cost you anything but the minutes of your life you'll never get back, spend as few minutes as possible watching... some of it.
Pothole Wars (2019)
This is about as exciting as it is possible to make a pothole.
The documentary centers on the repair of potholes, mostly in rural and suburban roads in the U.K. Of course the producers had to throw in their climate change ante (without anything to back it up), but the material and participants were about as entertaining and engaging as the subject allows.
This attributes potholes to one cause, freezing and expansion, when there are several. The piece downplays long-term negligence and road bed settling from increased traffic volume and insufficient compaction to begin with. It is otherwise fairly comprehensive, including efforts to encourage (force) property owners to bear the cost directly, and shows many tools and methods used to try to fill potholes quickly.
Robin Hood: The Rebellion (2018)
It's bad, and not in a good way
This version brings nothing new or worthwhile to the well-worn tale. It does deliver several distracting and irritating elements. Robin Marion and maybe ten other people are "hiding" in the thinnest forest you've ever seen, and they enjoy roaring fires at night, then wonder how the sheriff's men found them. Robin shoots a guy with an arrow, but then doesn't kill him -- has to deal with him later. Marion knocks out a giant, but doesn't kill him -- Robin has to deal with him later. A man attacks Robin's men and they knock him out... see the pattern? Other disappointments include Marion repeatedly demonstrating she can't fight with a sword (even less than everyone else), and on stone floors and reflective walls, everyone can sneak up on everyone else.
The dialog is predictable, used mainly for repeated exposition, because you wouldn't know (or care) what is going on unless they told you out loud. For a gang of outlaws and a castle full of baddies, the cast is pretty sparse. We get a bit of forest, a stream and some stonework from various periods as a backdrop to the intrigue. The musical score could have come from a video game. It drones on, up and down and fails to add the suspense that everything else also fails to add. Oh, and Robin, Marion and other good guys are all dressed like Ewoks.
Unless you are close friends with someone in the cast, I can't imagine why you'd want to sit through this.
An American in Texas (2017)
The manipulation isn't subtle or even clever
We're introduced to a handful of heavy metal teens that trash a house. They're trying to accumulate money for an apartment and a van. The boys have odd jobs. Their low-budget angst is set against a backdrop of the first Gulf War, or rather audio clips from George Bush and more prominent flags and other symbols. Nearly a half hour into the movie the boys get a gig where they rant against the new world order, as if the looming war would inconvenience anyone not already in the military by choice, and then serve mainly to punch tickets and test weapons. Then we get the "war for oil" speech, and the lads had to destroy another house.
The thing is, the movie never makes a convincing argument for the war, the local refinery, the flags or anything else believably triggering much less justifying anything else that we're shown. One of the young men is arrested with evidence of their deeds and is given a choice of prison or any branch of the armed forces for four years. We're told he is shipping out to Iraq (?) First, he could have chosen the Coast Guard, or Navy, but that wouldn't have setup the narrative the filmmakers wanted, and second, no one enlisting during or shortly after the first Gulf War would ever see anything, or likely ship out anywhere in four years.
The movie offers some interesting cinematography, but is otherwise ham-handed and lame.
Too Macabre: The Making of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (2018)
More than a making-of
It's important to understand the foundation of Elvira for many of us. The first time most of us saw Elvira was on Los Angeles (channel 9) KHJ, hosting a (cheesy) monster movie show, where she played Elvira before, after, and in between commercials. Her show came years after the end of a similar treatment (on a different local channel) by Larry Vincent playing "Seymour". Larry past away while his show was still running (not actually ON TV), so it ended abruptly, and left a sizable audience missing the formula. Obviously Elvira brought assets to the monster flicks that Seymour lacked.
Too Macabre is about 25% about the movie serving as a framework for the rest which is a mix of biography and backstory, of her career, the television environment at the time, the challenges she and others faced, and likely still face. This piece is great because so many people contributed to it, and it is clear how much work and love went into the editing of what had to be hundreds of hours of interview footage. The editing of accompanying footage and stills is also excellent. In fact, anyone wanting to produce a making-of or any kind of interview-intensive documentary would be smart to watch this one several times and take some notes.
Even if you're not an Elvira fan, this is still worth a watch if you like to learn about the inner workings of entertainment production.
The First Man (1996)
I know what you're thinking, and it's not that movie
The whole movie has a kind of grainy quality -- actually it's just really grainy... and the word quality probably shouldn't be associated with it. In a pointlessly surreal style, we are introduced to the "players" in a series of scene cuts, and it is implied that an alien has landed, and is being examined (or evaluated) in some kind of lab.
This is where the females make a point of stating how attractive they find the subject, but this is done in a way that is either creepy, or just really poorly acted - it's hard to tell which. The men on the team seem to indicate that the reaction of the women merits some kind of discipline, which would lead us to believe these beings have been encountered before and these responses lead to bad outcomes, but this is supposed to be the "first" man (alien).
Later we are shown some wreckage on a hillside (everything is around Los Angeles), but there isn't enough of it to have carried a gerbil, much less a man. The agents are tasked with killing people when necessary, and the movie descends into an exploration of their feelings about that, and to pad the movie, their interpersonal relationships were superficially examined.
No scene in the movie seems to get you to the end fast enough, and we know nothing more at the end than we did at the beginning.
The Day of the Triffids (1963)
A solid SciFi movie that stands up to the test of time
Over my lifetime I've probably watched this movie a dozen times. With a pretty far-fetched premise, and no real "stars", it tells a surprisingly cohesive and convincing story, with excellent pacing and editing. And the special effects are very good given the modest budget. The viewer is carried along with a cast performing far above their pay-grade, with varied scenery and nice tight sub-plots. I expect to see it another dozen times in the future, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it every time. This movie is certainly unfairly under-rated.