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blackcherryhearts
Reviews
True Blood (2008)
Ugh.
Man, I really find it hard to believe that the wonderful Alan Ball had anything to do with this mess. Having seen the first two episodes thus far, I think I can safely say this show isn't going to be on my must see list. It's just got so many things working against it.
None of the actors cast are particularly good. Anna Paquin as the lead character Sookie, is just awful. I remember her being better in a lot of other things I've seen her in so maybe it's just the writing. She's not really much fun to look at either, there are moments where to be honest she looks downright ugly. The actor who plays Bill is marginally better, if only because his character is supposed to be sort of wooden and aloof. The other actors do their best but with the cliché characters with difficult to perform accents they are given it's a tough job. Tara is an absolute misery to watch, Rutina Wesley absolutely murders the accent. It's like nails on a chalkboard bad. Almost as awful is Nelsan Ellis, it's difficult to understand what he's even saying sometimes. Both his character as well as Tara's also seem a bit racist to me. I don't know, having a character say 'whycome' on an HBO show that isn't The Wire just seems a bit odd. Rounding out the cast so far are Sookie's doddering grandmother, her sex addict brother, and the only bit of genius casting I've seen in William Sanderson as the sheriff.
The story seems to be meandering towards it's destination at this point, with no real worry about keeping the viewer interested. The romance stuff is very Dark Shadow-sy. Although this show ups the camp factor from something like those old Dark Shadows episodes times about ten. At times it seemed so campy to me, that I just have to assume it was intended to be. But unlike a show such as Buffy, that pulled camp off masterfully, this show does not. Out of place with the campiness is the extreme gore and graphic sex of the show. I'm not averse to either of these when they are done well, as they have in many other HBO shows but here at least they prolonged rough sex scenes involving Jason Stackhouse seem a bit over the top and pointless.
About the only nice thing I can really think to say about this mess is that I liked the opening title sequence. HBO has had a string of bad luck with their shows lately, I hope they cancel this after the first season and try to get something better on the air.
Birth (2004)
a lot of hype keeping an excellent film down
I saw Birth this weekend, not because of the much hyped bathtub scene, but because I'm a fan of the directors first film and of Nicole Kidman. I must say the movie was not at all what I was expecting.
This is not some shoddy thriller-esque movie as the trailer might have you believe. This is a very slow, superbly acted and directed film. It would be closer to being of the 'art house' variety in my opinion. If only because it won't appeal to the masses and most people are a bit to thick to maybe get it or enjoy it.
It is one of the most beautifully shot films I have ever scene. The camera work makes it very intimate somehow. There are long periods of silence in the film, where the actors particularly Kidman are actually forced to...act.
And she does so very, very well. She lends sympathy and emotion in droves to her character. The way her face can slowly break down without saying a word is amazing. Cameron Bright brings a wisdom and emotion to Sean that fit perfectly with his character and is astounding for an actor of his age. Anne Heche, Lauren Bacall and the rest of the cast give great performances as well.
It's not one of the greatest films I've ever seen, but in this year it's one of the best. It's a shame to see that they are calling it a failure already because it didn't even garner 2 million at the box office. If this were an independent art house film, that would be a respectable number. It really is worth giving a chance.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
uh...
Really what the hell did I just watch? Admittedly the first film was mediocre at best for all but the last five minutes, and it was only that final scene in it of Alice standing with the shotgun in a decimated Raccoon City that sucked me back in. +SPOILERS+
This movie didn't deliver on that ending on any level. Milla Jovovich, is far from one of the better actors out there. But she could act circles around the assembled cast here. Particularly the wooden actress who played Jill Valentine. Mike Epps is a pretty good comedic actor and everyone else in the audience cheered and clapped anytime so much as his elbow appeared on screen (but then again I did see it with the most rowdy ghetto audience ever, at a midnight show in Universal City). I guess going by other people in the crowd he must have been Oscar-caliber given that they would stand up and cheer/clap anytime he uttered one of his token one liners. Horror movies still seem to do pretty much the same thing with African-American actors and it's getting really old.
The camera style was bordered on irritating throughout. The fight scenes looked cheap and poorly choreographed because of the druggy, jerky camera effects used during the majority of them. The FX that were obviously the most expensive often came out looking the cheapest and most out of place. There was no sense of claustrophobia of fear at what might lie around the next corner like there was in the first. Honestly, scares were really hard to come by at all in this movie. The movie is rated R, but somehow felt like it had been toned down a lot.
I realize that most horror movies don't have to make a lot of sense, but this took the gold on that. The story is primarily about escaping a city full of zombies but it seemed like the director only remembered this periodically. These characters were supposed to be in a metropolis full of the walking dead, where the hell were the damn zombies? The scene where the cops were fighting back the oncoming horde, the whole movie should have been a lot more like that. The whole last thirty minutes forego the notion of zombies in favor of dumb looking military guys in motorcycle helmets and ridiculous stunts. This movie really could have taken a page from this years remake of Dawn of the Dead. The dogs in the school. If dogs and other animals can get infected then don't you think they might have run into some more animals and city that size running amock? Don't put something in a movie just to fill space and say it looks freakin cool. And the Nemesis with a heart of gold thing? Please.
Again the end was relatively cool in comparison with the rest of the movie. Alice with the telekinetic powers turning all the TVs to her and making the guy bleed from his eyes was the best scene in the whole movie. But if and when the third film comes out, I'm not feting sucked back into this trap.
Thanksgiving Family Reunion (2003)
total turkey
This movie was as lame as they come. Right in step with all the other straight to video/TV National Lampoon ventures. I tuned in hoping for humor because I enjoyed the works of other members of the cast, specifically Bryan Cranston and Penelope-Ann Miller. I was hoping to see Judge Reinhold in something that might be up to par with his long ago comedies. I think I was also sucked in by the fact that this was from the writers of Vegas Vacation, which despite many others opinions is a National Lampoon movie I very much enjoyed. No such luck. There is none of the trademark N.L.'s wit to this movie. The jokes are dull, beyond low brow, and fall totally flat. This is one movie you won't be sorry you missed.
Gigli (2003)
a pinch of good with the bad?
+CONTAINS SPOILERS+ Surprisingly Gigli wasn't as bad as I'd braced myself for. Then again that was after hearing it had received not one positive review and was being compared to all time stinkers like Showgirls and Glitter. My girlfriend wanted to see it, and I went along thinking if it was that bad I'd at least get a few laughs in at just how bad it was.
Mind you I'm not saying the film was good. The story, which there isn't much of kind of fades in and out. I found the film to be very, very offensive in the way it portrayed homosexual people and handicapped people. That gay people would be so wishy-washy about their sexuality, and end up in bed with someone as disgusting as the character of Gigli after saying redundantly that the character was a lesbian seemed very backwards, and not in a Chasing Amy sort of way. Then the character of Brian who at first seemed to be a mish-mash of every mental handicap producers or writers thought audiences might get a laugh out of. Tourettes, ticks, it was all there. As fas as I could see the character was only written as a handicapped person to provide comic relief. Very inappropriate. Then as the movie progressed he became less and less incapacitated. At one point about midway there was a funny scene where Brian is rapping with the radio in the kitchen. I guess test audiences reacted well to that one scene because from then on it seemed that his characters only spouted bits of hip hop banter, Kings of Comedy style one liners, and more rap songs. The worst case of running a joke into the ground til it was lifeless and annoying I have ever seen. And Ben Affleck as Gigli. I've never been a huge Ben fan. He seems to do the same thing more or less in every movie. The same sly smile and swaggering. He was like a bad flat charicature of every similar "gangster" type movie that's come before. Christopher Walkien and Al Pacino's cameos were just...bizarre. Especially Walkens, before you could figure out why he was there or what he'd said he was gone.
And let's not forget the single most annoying thing about the movie...the music. I guess nobody wanted their name associated with this stinker because they played the same snippet of arrangement over and over. And it was the most jarring thing ever. Like the music at the Oscars when it's time for you to get the heck off the stage. Everytime there was what the powers that be thought might be a heart-warming moment there it was, when Gigli read to Brian, when a guy got his brains splattered everywhere. See what I mean? How do you play an orchestral sweep with something like that? By the last half hour it was like nails on a chalkboard.
Gigli did deserve all the bad reviews it recieved. Is it the worst movie ever? Hardly. Is it the worst movie this year? Probably. When a script is that bad, dialogue that vulgar for no reason, acting that bad it's just sorta doomed.
my rating:D-