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jhrickles
Reviews
Pigs (2007)
I will never get these 84 minutes back.
This film has a great premise for a movie, if you like the kind of movies with gratuitous nudity, outrageous shocking moments, and hilariously uncomfortable situations and misunderstandings. There was one shot of nudity at the very end from a woman who had absolutely nothing to do with the film. There were no shocking moments. And the uncomfortable situations and misunderstandings were unrealistic and often hard to sit through. I did not laugh once. And I am not exaggerating. The many attempts at comedy failed miserably mainly because you could almost see the punchline before the joke was told. I didn't care one bit about the characters. And it seemed that they were all missing something. The main character, Miles, was supposed to be charming had no charm. Cleaver, who was supposed to be a Stifler-like character(American Pie), was just plain annoying. The original Stifler, you just love to hate him but can't hate him for long because he's pretty damn funny. When Cleaver's character attempts to copy him in this film, you just hate to know him and want to punch him in the face. And then there's Ben, the quiet roommate who is somewhat of the moral compass in the film. But he has probably never had a girl in his life, and he decides to tattle-tale on Miles late in the film, in the hopes that he will win the girl that Miles is supposedly "changing his ways" for. After Ben snitched on Miles, there was so little tension in the room I felt they were about to have a slap fight. And even THAT didn't happen.
And then there's the soundtrack. Normally I wouldn't comment on such a thing but it was distracting and pathetic. There was hardly any musical score to the movie, instead there were poorly written and poorly produced songs that were so completely blatant about what was happening in that particular scene or montage. If Tenacious D was retarded, somehow had retarded children, then those children formed a band, it would be the guys who made this soundtrack.
So here's what you should do instead for 84 minutes. Listen to your favorite comedy CD that you've heard a million times while you surf the web for the most softcore porn you can find. You'll at least have somewhat of a smile on your face from a joke you've already heard, and you won't have to wait til the 83rd minute to see some nudity. If you watch the movie anyway, please comment on here and if you can honestly say that you didn't waste your time, then please don't procreate.
The Man from Earth (2007)
Wow.
The only reason I didn't give this movie a 10 of 10 was the acting at various points throughout the film. However, given the content of the film, I feel that the actors did the best they could with the emotions and reactions they had set out to portray. This movie is an EXTREME look into faith, philosophy, technology, the way we learn, the way we think, and they way we perceive things should be based upon our known logic to date. I haven't read the book but absolutely plan to, if only to hear more arguments in the round-table discussion. I was very hesitant to see this movie, and only did because I had nothing better to do. After a few minutes into the film I was hooked and couldn't step away for even a moment. Another reviewer had commented that the movie sometimes made you want to be right alongside the characters asking your own questions to the main character, and they were right. This movie has no action sequences, love scenes, or violence that we know and sometimes love in cinema. All that is here is simply this: a story. A story that questions a great deal of what you thought you knew. I doubt that this movie will "open your eyes" to a new way of thinking or spark a revolution in your own mind but I can guarantee that even if you hate this film, you will still be talking about it when it is done, especially if you watch it with someone else.