Reviews

Who are these people and why do they hate cinema?

This is stink for ages. I love bad movies, but this is in a hell of its own. This is so far beyond just bad it's approaching the outermost bands of the crap galaxy.

What a senseless waste....

(I gave it a 1. They did at least get this atrocity lasered onto a card. I guess that's something.)

A few 20ish friends get together, clean up the old barn and make a movie!

"Gosh, Judy!" "Idd'n it Swell, Mickey!?" Purportedly a love child project 10 years in the making. That fits the timeline perfectly.

So, in spite of the admirable technical accomplishment of actually making a movie in the first place , let alone one with occasional flashes of inspiration and on a budget that probably cost someone his second year of college...at a good school, which should not be skipped!!

In spite of all the "yeah buts" this is, finally, what it is - a precocious twelve year old'a idea of a thriller. Unfortunately the concept never matured.

The interesting thing, the thing a committed artist prone to useful analysis might glean from a bunch of mostly negative reviews is what matters. And what's interesting.

Outline it: Lessons learned: They hated it: Bad pacing Poor storytelling Bad dialogue Silly plot devices (All sounds pretty bad, non?) But, as an artist, the question is: what does that mean?

Well, almost every one of us who hated it watched it all. We all sat through a movie we hated.

Now, what does THAT mean and what do the viewers potential motivations, their internal approbations that we're triggered, offer as useful insights?

We get good reviews from morons as often, bad reviews from them. You can't succeed on good reviews alone, they're poison and can kill your creative souls faster than bad reviews.

Artists learn about the impact we have by ignoring the superficial "hurrays" and "calls to be banished" and instead, in strong reactions, good or bad, try to understand what buttons we've succeeded in pushing and which buttons are not even wired up.

I'm surprised to see this movie has stuck with me. It really stinks...but! It's still eating my lunch and that suggests I need to look at what strength this movie maker has that got such that some aspect of his piece got in...and more deeply than I might've considered right after I finished watching it...I mean, after I finished throwing up...

I was about to turn it off. The opening scene is too long and really tedious. Fortunately I was distracted for a couple of minutes and the story had begun to spool out. Still wasn't convinced this wasn't a lousy flick, but, I felt lazy and let it go on for a while.

This is not an easy movie to love- at first.

Apparently-dislikable characters leading unhappy lives. The wife is shrill, the husband is needy, a little mean, manipulative, not the easiest guy on the eyes.

But somewhere, and sooner than I realized it this sad, wonderful magic began to charm the story-and me.

By the middle I was really intrigued. Understated, no real special effects. The director didn't get in the way A reall good script, intelligent writing! And it felt like the actors had lived their characters' entire lives. By the last half I was riveted. By the end I was heartbroken.

This movie, these unlikeable people, the absence of justice, a usually trite-to-the-point-of-insulting narrative device all came together, became transcendent and made me love all of it.

Its visual simplicity, the directing, the human, reserved writing, great actors, densely layered characters, everything is superior.

Though I cried, it's not a tear jerker. Though it is ultimately about grace and love, it's not a redemption love story.

It's...unique.

This is a movie I will watch again. Part of me wants to enjoy everything, all of it that is so well done. But this is, honestly, not a movie I look forward to watching again. In that way I guess it has made me another character in it.

Like I said this is not a movie where justice reigns, the story proves that. But, then, if you haven't noticed yet, the real universe is not at all scripted for justice. But sometimes humans can be inclined to magnificence.

What a steaming heap this is.

Everything you should never do if you're at all interested in being an actor.

This is the story of a middle aged tool and his pointless struggle with making word things come out like realtalk while making movement stuff.

This former high school above average baseball player obviously boinked the right one...there can be no other explanation for him being onscreen that doesn't tear space/time apart.

Oh god, the humanity.

The cabin door on the super-secret spaceplane is a hollow core plywood number like you'd find at your uncle the unemployed alcoholic's homeless shelter day room. The AI computer on the super-secret spaceplane pronounces nuclear "nu-q-ler." Rotting clams in August heat don't smell as bad as this. I dunno...maybe everyone was blackmailed into making this Rwandan sewer tour. Xanax...need xanax.

I'm late to the show by 15 years, but what great fun! It's got everything, drama, destruction, explosions, I saw BAMBI!!! And best of all, even your achul ACTORS - who can even act! Not a poser in the lot! And then there's the super volcano itself. What could be more satisfying in the age of trumpist America than 27 million dead in the central US and that means almost all Republicans!!!! It just makes me wet at the very prospect! Seriously, the BBC's "Supervolcano" is a classic calamity flick carried by a fifteen researcher/writer and an authentic ensemble troupe. When they argue they hate! When they're terrified, you can smell the sweat. They have coworkers they like and some they only just tolerate and only because they have to. Some have petty grievances with each other, they all ignore the bigmouth. But, like the rest of us, they still get the work done because they have to. There are (practically) no over the top reactions that seem out of place and there are some surprisingly human bits of "business" subtly slipped under the door by the actors to surprise and endear. All of the performances are naturalistic, and unique to each actor's characterization. Too often seemingly jealous directors so aggressively impose their "vision" that their actors become monochromatic and clonish. Not here. It's refreshingly humanist. Also, the writer(s) actually did reality based research. For a once-was-wannabe volcanologist like me it was startling to hear real historical events accurately described - Toba, the Huckleberry Ridge Yellowstone eruption, somewhat obscure geologically active place-names like Kaohsiung province, correct recounting of the geologic/volcanic processes that created the Yellowstone region, all delivered by fine actors who had given serious thought to fashioning realistic, understated characters who weren't shocked by their own professional lives. Actors Michael Riley and Rebecca Jenkins are terrifically talented and nuanced stars far too little known to US audiences. They do some of their usual best work herein. But, all of the cast brought their top games. Well...Tom McBeath as head of the USGS might've been expected to understand his line about steaming mud POTS, not mud "spots" at Yellowstone and his pronunciation of "reservoir" was as jarring as hillbilly nails on a chalkboard, but meh...who cares! Fun fun fun!! The BBC could've forked over another 10 or 20 P on some of the special effects here and there; the tsunami scene was frankly worse than a sub-par homespun cartoon...BUT WHO CARES! Fun fun fun!!! I have a job that demands a sometimes unhappy combination of working in isolation and intense focus - though not too much! for endless hours. I've played Supervolcano so many times as background in my studio that I lip sync and mug the lines without missing a stroke of my own work. It's as good as spoken-word-story as it is a visual action thriller. "Supervolcano" though not nearly as depressing, is on par with the naturalism of the incredible 1983 nightmare "Threads," not surprisingly also a BBC production. Our US writers and producers have always been little more than precocious, annoying children when measured against the depth and breadth of movies like Threads and Supervolcano. These and other films are lasting gifts from our beloved and far brighter cousins to the east. I'm not quite sure how I missed "Supervolcano" when it was first broadcast in The States, but I'm glad I did. As horrific as 2020 has been everywhere it takes a story of even more terrible proportions than our shared global reality to take one away from it all. I needed this movie this year. It was a lucky find. And right now, here in the US, 27million lava-baked conservative burks is just what the Dr ordered. FUN FUN FUN!!!!