donald2-1 Reviews

Cargo (2009)

A nice effort but far from flawless

[6/10 · 21 April 2010]

The Director is an F/X guy who obviously has learned his lessons from James Cameron, Stanley Kubrick, The Matrix Brothas and Sistas and also some Cube stuff... We put all this together in a storyboard generator and suddenly we have a Cargo movie. Make no mistake: the F/X are impressive for a movie which costs the same amount of money a trailer home for Johnny Depp on the set of POTC 4 would cost. But it also explains why a movie with Johnny is much more fun to watch: the actors are wooden or drunk and sprawling around like our old friend Claude-Oliver or are just tooooo slow moving and reacting as Swiss people naturally do...

And yes, it's true, we see the female protagonist (with her squeaky, power sagged voice) wandering one hallway of the spaceship like a gazillion times...

DTS Sound mix is not very well balanced, music and f/x are derivative as well, the surround channels are too loud, whereas the dialogue in the center is often hard to understand.

All flaws aside, if you are into watching some nice space sequences, go ahead, you will not be disappointed.

And by the way: I found Moon and Pandorum way more boring to watch than this one. Both have much less production value than Cargo, where somebody invested some heart's blood, as can easily be seen.

Pandorum (2009)

Anderson, you Schmock did it again....

[2/10 · 5 January 2010]

Obviously, Paul W.S. Anderson is in the same boat as we all are: there aren't simply enough good Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror-Movies to rip off some really innovative ideas, if you cannot think of something else and if you have an adipose and sick brain as the bored-to-death Mr. Anderson has - Pandorum is outstanding evidence to these facts. As mentioned before we have the monsters from The Descent, we have some "atmosphere" and "horror" from Event Horizon (the only good film by Anderson, even if it was ruined by heavy editing by brainless execs) and we have the ending ripped off from Sphere, sort of. Well, Mr. Anderson, the fan-boys have seen all of these movies and more. You don't seriously think, you can steal your way out of it this cheap, don't you?

And would somebody please delete the time warp effect from all Avid-Editing Suites around the world - we are really fed up with your stupid zombies and monsters moving around like in ancient silent movies. Somebody had an idea and every editing trainee in the world needs to use it in order to appear competent...

The Hollywood retards should all be banned from film-making for years to come. And the incompetent Germans had to finance this train wreck, they deserve no better as they don't have a clue about film-making anymore since Herzog left and Fassbinder died.

At least, Anderson's squeeze should have been in this movie, but no, just another schnarchfest.

Doomsday (I) (2008)

3rd class stunt show in some scruffy abandoned theme park

[1/10 · 22 June 2008]

Well, I more than respected the director for The Descent and promoted his film to everybody I could get a hold of but this poor excuse of a tongue-in-cheek pseudo-homage to the 80's is unforgivably rotten. It looks like the director left the set, the crew and the equipment to those stunt circus people who make their living in a cheesy entertainment park in hicksville.

It is so wrong in all possible ways, that one has to see it to believe it. No wonder, that Malcolm McDowell pops up once in a while - he should have shot his brains out a long time ago, but decided to stay for his own disgrace. Actually, I was only waiting for Rutger Hauer to appear...

And what's with the over-the-top violence? What else is new? Haven't we seen crap like this a gazillion times before? Exploding bunnies give you so much more...if you are a mentally retarded 12-year-old, who obviously has written the script to this schnarchfest while he was wanking off...

It would only be fair if Neil Marshall would now have to direct "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!" for the rest of his life...

Guinea Pig: Devil's Experiment (1985 Video)

Nothing more than some students' sick joke

[1/10 · 15 February 2008]

C'mon people, you can't be serious, another case of advertising snuff when it totally isn't! This isn't even remotely scary nor is it terrifying or depraved - it is just utterly terrible amateurish videowork, made for the next party to get the girls laid.

The gore is incredibly bad, even the eye-scene is far from making me want to puke but just making me want to take the camera and hit those guys over the head. The girl is just laying there rubber-faced, not moving at all. It would have been funnier to use a real doll instead.

One season of "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!" is more frightening than this one. Don't waste your time or your money.

Masters of Horror: Pro-Life (2006) Season 2, Episode 5

John Carpenter - on his way to be remembered as the new Ed Wood

[1/10 · 30 January 2008]

Could anyone please stop John Carpenter from continuously and deliberately ruining his reputation? How low can you go? It seems this man has lost any self respect.

This episode looks like it has been done by a film student, it isn't even worth beginning to talk about WHAT was bad, because it was just a borefest, directed by somebody with no talent as a filmmaker or without any motivation...

Come on, Mr. Carpenter, please retire immediately with a rest of self-esteem and stop spilling out trash like this in a bad tradition from Escape from L.A. to Ghosts of Mars.

Get drunk instead.

Shoot 'Em Up (2007)

Michael Davis - you just don't have what it takes to make a John Woo Action-Comedy

[1/10 · 19 January 2008]

This cretin of a "Director" is old enough to know John Woo movies but my guess is he has never seen one otherwise he would have destroyed his material immediately. Don't get me wrong, I like over-the-top movies like Smokin' Aces or Brain Dead etc. - but this one just doesn't deliver on any level. The action scenes were preposterous, there was no timing, e.g. the scene where Owen jumps from the bridge through the glass sliding roof or the following scene where he flies through the window of the van and shoots the guys, boy, that was so lame, the production was lame, the editing was lame and the acting too. I feel sorry for Clive Owen to have signed for that sh*t, but he might be even proud of it, who knows... To all those guys who argue that this was a comedy and all other people are imbeciles because they just don't get it: you should really be worried about your IQ and your funny bone. Beavis and Butthead are Einsteins in comparison to you, fart-knockers. Go and see some old John Woo movies instead, that is gun porn, but not this knock-off with no style, no fun and no talent.

Gvozdi (2003 Video)

Don't believe the IMDb-Hype around Iskanov...

[1/10 · 7 November 2007]

His movies are a complete rip-off, they fail on all levels. This guy has absolutely no talent, he does not understand the concept of surrealism, he makes self-indulgent, extremely amateurish no-budget films and thinks of himself as a big artist and drops big surrealist/horror names on his DVDs, e.g. Alejandro Jodorowsky. Sorry buddy, but these shoes will never fit you, no matter how hard you try.

He has no idea of how to direct, how to set light, use the camera, of timing etc. Only the score is sometimes interesting, but not subtle.

The guy who plays the hit-man looks like an 18 year old and has - of course - absolutely no acting talent, he even grins his way to some of the gore scenes. The story is nothing else than a bold statement without anything on the screen to support it. The gore and horror looks like its been done from 14 years old fan boys, I don't know how people can be disturbed or shocked by this ridiculous joke of a movie.

The same goes for Iskanov's "Visions of Suffering", its even more boring and filled with pathetic random imagery, which has absolutely nothing to do with surrealism or artistic expression, its just clumsy and shallow.

Don't waste your money or time on releases of this guy, he's just not capable to deliver anything interesting now or in the future but is a loudmouth playing around with big topics like Japanese Unit 731. Gosh! Get a life, Mr. Iskanov.

Elephant (2003)

Gay van Sant 's Art-house Schmockmuseum

[1/10 · 17 September 2006]

Well, there had to be a classroom lecture about being gay in the movie. Was there anything else which interested the director except to pull off the theory that the shooters were gay? Maybe d*ck-worshippers like GvS should just *beep* on their scripts in private in the future instead of releasing just another art-house-bore on their audience.

I thought we were through with crap like this since the 70's.

If there would be a 0 or minus 10, this boring piece of pretentious misdirected Fassbinder-look-a-like-but-didn't-even-get-it arty-schmarty crap deserves it.

Save the buck.