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montypython10
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The Plague Dogs (1982)
Devastating
What faint glimmers of hope or salvation in this tale exist solely to be cruelly and slowly snuffed out. It is marvelous and exquisite in its bleakness, and not even Grave Of The Fireflies can come close to the levels of despair and sorrow that this film can provoke. This is not for kids, it's not a lighthearted romp and it's not an "adventure" in the traditional sense of the term. Skinny Puppy sampled this, fer pete's sake!
Watership Down (1978)
Gorgeous and heartbreaking
It's difficult to be objective with this film because it's one of the first to acquaint me with the concept of deep sorrow and heartbreak. My friend's mom put this and The Secret Of NIMH on for us when we were young kids and she probably thought this was going to be another lighthearted romp with animated rabbits and mice.
It wasn't. I remember not understanding anything about the end of the movie but just being overcome with a sad emptiness later on after I went home. If you're going to play this for kids, watch it beforehand.
Toon in with Me (2021)
Cartoons 10/10; Host 0/10
If you don't have a sense of humor, don't try to be funny.
This is a cardinal sin that is committed day in and day out by millions of people, but most of them don't have a TV show where they needlessly inject their tired, forced jokes in between amazing cartoons. Nobody needs a bargain-bin "Triumph The Insult Comic Dog" knockoff to be a host for anything and while I am sure they intended this character to be a sassy, edgy component that would appeal to slightly more cynical audiences, "toonie" just comes across as abrasive and combative.
You know how stand-up comics who are bombing resort to insulting the audience? Have that yelling at you while someone's trying to explain how the Mirisch company came to develop the Pink Panther or the process of rotoscoping. All I want is to watch obscure cartoons. Why is that so hard?
Sventoonie (2022)
Please, cancel this abomination and end our collective misery.
We were promised that this would be a limited-run show. When will it end? Dear god, when will it end?!
Do you like classic horror movies? Good, so do a lot of people. But what if instead of taking the time to develop a unique host with audience rapport, we took an irritating bit character and made it a pale imitation of another show? Every show needs its "thing" that makes it its own, so instead of showing the whole movie we'll cut a two hour movie down to fifteen minutes and then talk over most of it. Eureka! We've crafted a shambling mess of a program that loudly broadcasts the inability and unwillingness of the hosts and producers to present something halfway engaging!
There are many Horror Host shows that do much more with much, much less, like Cinema Insomnia, so a program with the financial backing of a OTA TV network should --theoretically-- have no problem filling thirty minutes with something that doesn't have me lunging for the remote when I hear the end credits of the preceding show.
It's not so bad it's good, it's objectively poor and a tedious chore to watch. Toonie the puppet is a weak "Triumph The Insult Comic Dog" imitation as a part of their "Toon In With Me" show and Sventoonie is a lazy amalgamation of that equally irritating show and the wonderfully endearing Svengoolie. Sventoonie is a cynical marketing ploy to sell advertising space that actively harms Rich Koz's legacy and image as a beloved horror host.
Operator 13 (1934)
Oh lawdy, I shaw do loves me sum dem fiiiine movies!
I'll give this move one thing-- it's pungent enough to cease being background noise and have me watch it. Other reviewers have explained the not-at-all intricate plot so I won't rehash it here (I'm a spy for the union, but I've fallen in love with a rebel!) but suffice to say, it's 80 minutes of disposable dialog and wooden acting interspersed with songs about "jungle fever" and "darkies in de Congo." Oh, and Marion Davies' terrible blackface disguise and scenery-chewing acting.
This is a fine example of the time when movies were churned out like stamped sheet metal. It has worth if one considers using it as a part of a larger effort to explore historical depictions of race in American cinema, but otherwise it's a waste of time-- and an offensive one at that.
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
A choppy, hackneyed mess
If I was going to be charitable, I'd take into consideration that Baz Luhrmann is not a cinematic director, and most of his experience comes from the theater. Unfortunately, given that Luhrmann did prove that he was capable of making a somewhat competent film with Romeo + Juliet, he gets no sympathy. Luhrmann acts like a child given a complex new toy with no instructions how to use it. Throughout the history of filmmaking, directors influence the attention of the audience by letting the actors' performance naturally become the focus of a scene; Luhrmann apparently regards his actors as too bland or his audience as too dim to understand where attention must be paid. To that end, every single scene is a mess of jump cuts, overused camera tricks and forced, ham-fisted acting. Shaky/walking cam? Check. Lens flares? Cartoonish sound effects? Soft focus? Multiple angles of the same scene? D-r-a-m-a-t-i-c-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-e-d d-o-w-n m-o-v-e-m-e-n-t and RAPIDLYSPEDUPACTION? Fade-ins, fade-outs repeatedly breaking the fourth wall? Check, check, double-check. All of these happening once in a movie is enough to wreck it, but these happen so often it's as if Luhrmann was just goofing around in a consumer-level video editing software with a bunch of footage from other films.
The result is not a fulfilling journey into an otherworldly and hallucinogenic world, but a wearying, tedious slog through a vile bastardization of turn-of-the-millennium pop culture and hackneyed film tricks.
It's not even campy fun.