The blogger blues

Well. It sure has been a while since I posted anything. This could be in part that I am not currently working so my schedule has gone to hell. Maybe it is because I have gotten to distracted from spending so much fucking time with my fantastic kids. Maybe its because I have not watched any movies.

At all.

It is depressing. I mean everyone understands, life happens. But when someone who at one point in his life watched a movie at least on a movie a day goes to watching one movie every two weeks, I suppose he gets somewhat put off. A little discouraged maybe. Like what kind of movie buff do I think I am when i don't even get around to watching movies that I have had on my watchlist for over a year?

I think I am going to be reformatting the rate at which I post on this blog. Firstly, I am going to make an effort to watch AT LEAST once a week. As I get better at posting, I will commit to more.
Secondly, I will not necessarily keep to the review format of my previous posts. I will just be keeping a movie Diary here. I am working on a more review focused project elsewhere.

Good luck to me! I will have my first Post up by Friday and every Friday after that.

Just A Bad Movie: Gingerdead Man (2005)

Hello everyone! I watched this movie a few months back, so I guess this is sort of a retrospect review. Now that I am fully over the shock of this picture. Let's look at Gingerdead Man.

Yeah. Fun times.

Jesus Christ on a Christmas cookie, were they even trying. The shit thing about it is I have to assume they were. I mean obviously this film was played up for laughs. And of course I did not go into this film figuring it would be any good. But before I talk about the story. Allow me to share a little personal history on this film.

Back in the days when the rental industry was not ruled by Redbox and Netflix was still just in the mail, Blockbuster and Hollywood Video were weekly stops for teenage me. Blockbuster had great promotions for loyal customers so on a few occasions, I would get a week or a month of free rentals. Pretty sweet huh? I consider myself lucky now if I get a rent one rent another free promo code for being subscribed to the Redbox club text messages. I will probably write a post sometime in the  future expanding on my philosophies surrounding rental stores but it is worth noting for now that I spent a lot of time at these stores.

DECEASED

ALSO FUCKING DECEASED *cries a little*

I would ride my bike to the Blockbuster to rent a video occasionally. And even in the early days of my film craze, I was unknowingly enamoured with horror movies. But back then, I only went for movies that I thought would scare me. So everyday when I would walk through the glass doors and that confusing man trap with the security sensors and turn in my previously rented film, I would walk down to the Horror section and stroll right by this film. Gingerdead Man... Sounded stupid to me then. But since I have grown the title never escaped my conscious. As I became aware of the cleverly titled sequels, Full Moon entertainment distributions, the cross-over with the Evil Bong Franchise, I kept thinking that I'd have to check the film out one day. But I put it off and put it off.

Until two months ago.

Gingerdead man starts out its story with a deranged killer shooting up a diner. Very similar the Charles from Child's Play. This killer is plays by the deranged Gary Busey. Which seems fantastic.

FANTASTIC

But no. It isn't though.

I will be the first one on board for an over-the-top performance but this is so disjointed. Busey doesn't know if he wants to be straight evil, unbalanced, playing it cool. I suppose the argument can be made that it's due his insanity that he temperament and mood swing so violently. But if that were the case, then why doesn't seem to be triggered my anything. You'd think to tie the insane killer into the story better you'd give him some sort of kryptonite, then he responds poorly, then he kills some poor diner patrons, THEN he scars the main character by killing the shit out of her dad or something. But no. In THIS film, he's just crazy, and kills people and later dies so the plot of the film can put him in a gingerbread man. I already know I don't like this film. But I'm strapped in and ready to watch.

The movie moves on to a bakery where we see our main character, the traumatized Sarah totally shut down totally nice guy, Amos, who later in the film is going to be sacrificed to the plot and completely given up on by the other main characters. This sucked to me because he was easily and immediately my favorite character. And he is going to die. And no one is going to really care. Especially not the characters who are supposed to care. Anyway he's a nice guy but she's going to be sad for a little while longer until some other girls bad-boy bae comes along. That's not a joke. That happens in the movie. This character's motivations on love are about as nonsensical as Amos's instinct to hold his well sliced bleeding hand over a vat of gingerbread dough in an industry where that sort of thing would get your bakery shut down. But if he hadn't got blood in the dough with the magic gingerbread seasoning dough mix stuff with the ashes of Gary Busey, then we wouldn't have a movie.

We may still not have a movie.

So yes, there is magic gingerbread seasoning and and blood in the kitchen and girls with poor decision making skills. But what kind of movie set in a bakery wouldn't have a "we can't afford to stay in business!" subplot? Well it doesn't help much. The mom of the girl is a drunk and doesn't make things easier when the owner of fancy evil chain store across the street wants to buy out their business to clear the shit view away from his customers. If only he knew about their food safety practices.

So this rich asshole has a daughter who is apparently on bad terms with Sarah. And she tries to plant rats in the bakery to get them shut down. I mean really. If this was going to be brought up I wish that I was in a position to side with the good guys. But they ought to be shut down! But bitch doesn't know that and so she's just an evil brat. Amazing story telling. She is confronted in the bakery by Sarah and then the mayhem all starts. It really seems that the only reason we pulled this witless character in here was to add characters for the body count. Her boyfriend shows up to scold her and apologize to the main character for his girlfriends actions by becoming the romantic interest. I REALLY LOVE HOW RELATABLE THESE CHARACTERS ARE! So the cookie comes to life to wreak havoc and have his revenge against the main character. Oh yeah. She testified against him and I suppose sent him to the electric chair. That's where we got the ashes. Not important.

So from there the movie becomes a typical slasher flick. The Busey Cookie runs around killing off the whole cast of characters one by one in gruesome manners having to do with being in a bakery setting. Oh yeah. I had intended to mention that the entire movie aside from a couple scenes outside this bakery and the scene in the diner are entirely inside this tiny bakery. So essentially for a large part of the film we are treated to two sets, the front of the bakery, and the back of the bakery. If I were any more riveted, I could support a team of construction workers at lunch. There are a good deal of puns and the cheese factor of this film fails to support any level of entertainment. Sarah and the bitch's boyfriend fall in love and defeat the Gingerdead Man. Oh but not after Amos returns after being absent for some time in the movie to defeat the cookie by actually eating it. This leads to the supposed death of the Gingerdead Man. Oh but wait! The soul of Garey Busey then possesses Amos and THEN Sarah and her new bae kill him. They didn't even try. "It wasn't Amos anymore" or some shit. I didn't bother to remember the quote. I'm actually surprised I remembered enough to write this review. This movie was obviously trash and I don't believe that I will be returning to this franchise by myself any time soon.

Nope

Nuh-uh

eheheheHEHEAHHAHAHAH!!!.. But srsly no.

This movie is just a really good example of a bad movie that was trying to cash in on Audiences who like this kind of thing, but lacks the originality and wit to carry itself off as being a cleverly terrible movie. I am sad to say that all those years of wonder and curiosity that surrounded this movie ultimately summed up to one night of underwhelming disappointment. I did learn something though. And that is an appreciation for quality. If this film had cared more about itself, then maybe I would have cared as well. But it was just a bad movie that was just a bad movie. And this was certainly not the last time that I would run into such a thing.

Ginderdead Man. I know you ended up starring in three more films. But I wont be renting those out anytime soon.

The Purge Fan Fiction?: The Purge: Anarchy (2014)

I If you liked The Purge, you might like this movie. I cannot say that this film is particularly if at all faithful to the original intent of the first film. We all know that The Purge was a film about the 1% finding the perfect excuse to eliminate the lower tiers of the 99. This film is not about that. It is fan fiction.

I say this because I have found that fans of some shows or movie find that they are so enthralled with the lore of the world that the fiction created, that they desire to know more. A good friend of mine for example is quite the fan of Dianey's Frozen.

Pay attention now because I'm about to make a comparison between the hit Disney animated princess film and The Purge.

Frozen caught the attention of so many with its Disney visuals, pop-broadway songs, and of course interesting characters. It set up a whole world that some found to be interesting. The Purge did this as well with its concept alone. Unfortunately that's all the film really has going for it. Friend found the plot and characters to Disney's Frozen to be so compelling that she theorized fan fiction and drew fan art to quell her desire for more lore. This is exactly what Purge: Anarchy does. The first movie raised so many questions that for the lost part, none of cared to the think up answers for, so the creators went ahead and wrote it's own fan fiction with new characters to show us what kind of world this was.

Not implying it this time like in the first one. This movie straight up tells us that the 1 percent want to kill off the poor.

The original film, The Purge, is conceptually very interesting. The ideas in place and the inferences to the consequences of those ideas are a parent and we'll developed. Even though it raises more questions than the plot answers, the movie was what I believe to be a success in delivering it's message. Now all that aside. You have this world. The soon future, when this film takes place. An America run by the New Founding Fathers. It's eery. What I found to be so clever about the first movie however is totally ruined in this sequel. The Purge: Anarchy tells us so much about how fucked the whole world has become because of The Purge that it feels like for one night every year, The Hunger Games meet The Road Warrior and we have rich people murdering the shit out of everyone.

This film had some interesting ideas too though. They were just lost in the mayhem of the production. The gang was completely overhyped and undercooked in the film. If you look at the cover of the movie and figure, "Hey, they look cool, I'll check this out" don't be fooled, they are not in the movie much  and the payoff of their motivations sum up to more or less, "well we had to help motivate characters around the city to progress the plot."

I saw this film because I like the first one. This one is not a horror movie anymore though. It's a thriller. It's fun and kinda cool but by no means good. It wouldn't be a total waste of your time to check it out but don't have your hopes too highly set.

Retrospect Review: Jeepers Creepers II (2003)

Here is another retrospect review. Which means that not having seen this film recently, I am sharing my critique of the movie now that I have had time to think on the film in depth.

I love this movie. This movie really just has a lot of entertainment value. I have seen both films in this franchise many times each and although the first never grew on me, this one always offered a fun experience. This movie is by no means an amazing movie. Far from it. But this is a movie that is self aware enough to really play off the humor of the situation our characters find themselves in. Unlike in the first movie where the main characters being stalked by the creature, in this film they went the cheap way and had all the characters get trapped in a bus on the road where they are picked off one by one.

This is one of those movies that really just kicks up the action and utilization of the monster. I love this because this is what I want to see from a budget sequel of an okay horror movie. The monster really seems to have a personality and this makes him very likeable. The plot also is very stable and simple. An old farmland has his kid taken away by the creature many years before the events in this movie and seeks revenge so he comes to the aide of the main characters. And even he is kinda badass. The whole movie is easy to watch and asks very little of the watcher. And while that may not be for everyone, it makes the movie very easy to pick up.

I would not say that this movie follows the original in anyway other than making some references that have little to do with the first films plot. I would actually go as far to say you can go without the first one altogether. You can. But I saw the original as well and I would recommend both of them as a set even though I like the second one more. But that's more to learn the fun lore behind the creature.

This is a bit short but it's because I'm choosing to pump this review out quickly. I recommend this film to anyone who generally enjoys monster movies. Though this film is a horror flick, it is not terribly scary. It's really more of a fun film. The only gripe I have towards this film is that I'm still waiting for the third installment.

Leprechaun Origins (2014)

After my previous disappointment with Leprechaun 4: In Space, I decided to forego the last three of the original six Leprechaun films for the sake of checking out the new one, Leprechaun Origins.

What the hell...

Where do I even begin.

I'm disappointed in a film I expected to be no good. The film is supposed to be a reimagining of the Leprechaun lore,  but this is really giving it too much credit. This movie is a painful reminder that this series in indeed dead, as if Leprechaun 4, 5, and 6 weren't testament to this enough.

This movie suffers from all the bad stuff, poor acting, poor writing, and poor character direction and development. The creature in this movie (and yes I mean the "Leprechaun" if you can call it that) is uninspired. I really felt like I was watching Feast or some other monster movie and I found myself really missing Warwick Davis' portrayal. The concept of the plot works. A group of American backpackers find themselves trapped in a cabin where the people of an Irish village intend to feed them to a Leprechaun to keep it from wreaking havoc on (or eating) the village people. But the characters make no sense. I didn't know which characters I was supposed to like. There are two couples. The first couple is of the girl that will obviously live in the end and her boyfriend. And the second I think is supposed to be the jackass character and his bitch girlfriend. These characters are confused though as I found myself liking the jackass and bitch more than the too seemingly main characters. I would even go as far to say that the main girl's boyfriend was a prick. And no. He isn't supposed to be. Or at least you'd think he isn't supposed to be because he and she both live in the end.

On top of all this too is this terrible blurring effect that ruins the terror. It is similar to the burred vision from the game, Amnesia: The Dark Descent when Daniel looks at the monsters straight on. It is always done in moderate light to hide the creatures face for some misguided attempt at suspense but it fails. Because it is a staggered effect, you get a good idea at what the monster looks like before what I assume the movie thought was going to be a "big reveal". It's frustrating. On one shot they didn't use this stupid effect but instead showed the creature in darkness so its looks are shrouded. This is unforgivable because it more or less tells me that they were able and competent enough to do the right thing. They just chose to do the stupid thing for reasons.

All these technical problems aside, I have to say I hated the demotion of the Leprechaun from villain to creature. Essentially your taking someone with as much personality as Freddy Krueger and redesigning him with the character of a sponge. Not a fun sponge either. All we still have that's true to the lore is the fact that the creature likes gold and is short. But we don't have that amazing make-up anymore that so brilliantly allowed Warwick Davis his iconic facial expressions. We don't really need it anymore. The creature says nothing in the whole film. I kept waiting for it too. Till the last moments of the film, I was waiting to see where this creature becomes the Warwick Davis Leprechaun. It never happens. I was hoping to something akin to the creature going back to its lair to see some green rags soon to be a little outfit. But no. Nothing. The creature is killed, the last couple gets away and the film makes some weak implication that there are more.

More?

More?!

This film is nonsense that is cashing in on the cult success of a dead franchise. Also, this film did not do the honest thing by just dropping the Origins title. This is in no way an origin film.

This film was a waste of my time and it was my mistake to allow myself to think that it would be anything more than nonsense. Do not watch this film. It in no way appeals to anyone. Not horror fans and definitely not Leprechaun fans.

Finishing up a Franchise: The Final Destination (2009)

Well I just sat down to watch The Final Destination. Right off the bat it does not make sense that this is THE Final Destination. As they even go in chronological order, Final Destination (2000), Final Destination 2 (2003), Final Destination 3 (2006), The Final Destination, and Final Destination 5 (2011), the title makes no sense, ESPECIALLY if the next movie was just going to be another numbered sequel. So, for the sake of avoiding confusion, im just going to call this movie Final Destination 4.

Besides all that, the play on words is only applicable to the first film where they actually avoid a plane crash.

But this time they avoid a race track accident! And for any of this to be remotely credible, EVERYTHING had to go wrong.

But before I get into all that, I want to talk about the opening. In the opening several deaths are shown in x-ray featuring many skeletons suffering from impalements and decapitations.

I have been a fan of this series for a while. To be honest, my first experience in this franchise was Final Destination 3, the one with the roller coaster accident. Since then i have seen the other and just yesterday, I finally got around to Final Destination 4. That being  said, the opening title sequence is one of my favorite parts of this film because it pays homage to the first film. All the deaths in order of how they happened. Thats pretty cool and I respect this film for doing that. But the film goes downhill from there.
The film suffers greatly from a lack of realizable characters. It seems that the film is almost too self aware. This ends up being a bad thing though as the film treats is a if we have no concern for the story but instead are just waiting for the next gnarly death.

Now like I was saying unlike the previous films in the series. The events of this car crash are so fantastic that it really makes you doubt the likelihood of an accident of this degree. Like I said, everything had to go wrong for this accident to happen. And that takes you out of the film.

But I finally got through it and I have officially seen all five of the final destination films. But in doing so I have had a stark realization...

I have a huge problem with the deaths of the final destination franchise.

I think it is largely due to the total disrespect the films have for the structural integrity of the human body. Yes. Most of the things that happen in these films will kill you. But not as easily and never as destructive as the movies suggest. To make my point I'll reference the film that any movie like this is trying to mimic. The Omen. In The Omen, many people are killed by happenstance, accidents, or what have you just as they are in the final destination films. The primary difference being that the in The Omen, you have deaths that are remotely believable. As you would know if had just finished watching the Final Destination series, the deaths in this film are fantastical. Anything and everything will kill you in the universe that these films propose. And on top of that, your body and bones have the rigidness and strength that are akin to a meatloaf. This unfortunately makes the deaths as they stack up in these films less and less shocking. That is all to say I'm not afraid of these things anymore. They cannot happen the way that these films describe and so as far as I'm concerned they cannot happen at all. Whereas if they had stuck to more realistic deaths and really kept the realism over intended shock, they would have gotten a much more organic shock from the prospect of a death looking real rather than done up for a movie.

That's perfect actually. That is what these films are.

Done up.

Retrospect review: Big Ass Spider! (2013)

Okay so this review is nothing special and this a not a film I have recently or more than once. As a retrospect review, I am looking back on a film a saw a while back and one that I have had time to process and meditate on.

Big Ass Spider is a joke.

It's a funny joke though. This film is one that perfectly embodies the concept of a film that does not take itself seriously. It's a cute idea that has been done over and over again. To death. Now this film is far from flawless. This movie is bad. Really bad. Almost unwatchable. And this all due to the fact that this film is full of TERRIBLE ACTING! I mean wow. It is bad. But that's not all. Sprinkled on top of this incoherent vat of poor character definition and actors who don't know how in love/badass/serious/easy going/funny/Mexican their character is supposed to be is a good deal of bad character development that is in every instance either forced and out of nowhere, or it is poorly executed to the point of me wondering if the actor is supposed to be playing someone else and just forgot to change his outfit. It's that bad.
At one point in the film the love interest female military type expressed concern and even love for the exterminator main character played by Greg Grunberg (you know... from Heroes). This is of course halfway through the film where we have only seen a good deal of the exterminator unsuccessfully flirting with her and asking her out and the girl shutting him down. And I mean hard core shutting him down with zero interest expressed to the point of disdain.  No hints that she finds him charming, no hints that *we* should find him charming. Just one scene she hates him,  and the next they are in love. This is contrived nonsense and the film didn't need it because there is a giant goddamn spider.  I did not care about the love story in this movie.

This film is bad but I enjoyed watching it. It was good for a lot of laughs and I think I could watch it again with friends and have a good time.

But I probably won't.

As a matter of fact I think I'd rather just watch Eight-Legged Freaks. A better, funnier giant spider movie. Nice try though Big Ass Spider.