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Reviews
The Last Keepers (2013)
Strange handling of an adolescent coming of age tale
SPOILERS, sort of. I have to agree with the reviewer who stated that the movie showed a serious loss of interest by the director. Either that, or she got kicked off the project at the end and they gave whatever film had already been shot to the editors and said finish it with what you've got. Because after about an hour and a half of a nice little movie aimed at the adolescent market that could also be enjoyed by adults, things went haywire, and then the whole thing hit a brick wall and the credits rolled. First we're watching a nice coming-of-age movie about a Wiccan family with hidden talents, and their daughter, who may or may not have more talent than all of them wrapped into one. We're also watching her come to terms with who she is. But then... then...I don't know, the money ran out, somebody lost a feud, what? Because apparently they just went out and spliced the ending of Stigmata onto the film and ran credits. What a total waste of what should have been an excellent adolescent film. I can't recommend it simply because of the way the ending was handled. I watched it with my niece, and when it ended, we both just spontaneously yelled "Oh, heck, no!" and "What just happened????" Seriously, I came to IMDb to see if there was an explanation for the abrupt, unsatisfying ending. So...is there?
Bunheads (2012)
Hmm. Where have I seen this before...
Okay, they've taken everything annoying about Gilmore Girls and repackaged it. There's the annoying fast-talking babble that goes nowhere. There's the mindless (and wordless) ditty- humming in the background (la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, SHUT UP ALREADY). The music track is the same; in fact it sounds like they took the original track from GG and just pasted it in. They've got a Lorelei Gilmore (aka Michelle Simms - and the actress looks as much as she possibly could look like Lauren Graham without actually being Lauren Graham). There've got an Emily Gilmore (aka Fanny Flowers. She actually WAS Emily Gilmore). They've even got a composite Rory (aka the Ballet Girls). A lot of the peripheral characters match up to characters in GG, too. At first I thought the guy who ran the bar in town was going to be 'Luke', but then his hippie wife came out from the kitchen and I recognized Luke's sister and brother in law. I guess you CAN go home again. At least they can. At least they think they can. What do you all think? Is this rehash working? Or should we all just go watch the original again?
Case 39 (2009)
Ah jeez
What? No option to rate this mess '0 out of 10' ? (Oh, by the way, SPOILER ALERT. Don't read if you haven't watched. Although I recommend you read INSTEAD of watching, it'll save your time).
Somewhere along the way (very close to the beginning of this whole project), someone with total contempt for their audience decided that moviegoers were beneath contempt, and they could put any old dreck on film and people would pay to watch it. Well, the joke's on them, I got this awful flick from my local library, to watch for free. All it cost me was 109 minutes of my time on a rainy night that I wasn't doing anything with anyway.
This movie contradicts itself so many times, my own head was spinning like the little girl's in The Exorcist. And not in a good way.
Long story short (here be the noted spoilers), Social Worker gets custody of Demon Child from her two parents who were incarcerated after trying to confine her in an oven and bake her to death. Yes, that's what I said. (In fact, I caught a hopeful inkling of irony here with regard to Hansel & Gretl cooking up the Witch, but apparently I misread it...the makers of this film probably didn't even see what they were doing there). Said Demon Child proceeds to cause several persons close to Social Worker to off themselves; Social Worker consults with incarcerated parents and is told how to kill Demon Child. Yeah, it's formulaic, but some formulas work well or we wouldn't have institutionalized medicine.
But the really really REALLY stinky part of this whole concoction is that everyone involved (including the audience) KNOWS from the start that Demon Child is only capable of causing these people to kill themselves by virtue of certain illusions she can create. The father even tells Social Worker this, so he knew from the get-go.
And yet, everyone falls for the illusions. Tell me this. If Daddy-Dearest knew this in the first place, why didn't he just grit his teeth, ignore the illusions, which he knew had no actual power to harm him, and kill Demon Child ten years ago? Or at the very least give her a darned good spanking and send her to be without any dinner?
What's that you say? Then there would be no movie?
Oh.
Sex and the City 2 (2010)
Stop them before they change again!
Ah, the 'Sex and the City' franchise. The TV and film collection that asks the question (over and over and over and...) "What the HELL are they wearing?"
No surprises in this film sequel. From the streets of New York to the souks of Abu Dhabi (aka Morocco), you can hear the puzzled masses cry out in the wake of our girls: "WTF was that????"
And hey, there's lots of bonus material, too. We get the schizophrenic position on Abu Dhabi. First it's an Abu Dhabi love fest, then, well, not so much. What happened, guys, did the Abu Dhabi funding pull out when they got a load of the outfits? And as anticipated, Kim Catrell's vagina is back. So much so that it should probably have its own billing in the credits. Ah, that wacky vagina!
The blatant product placement you may remember from the first movie is back, too. But this time, it's not only product placement. This time, we get whole segments of dialog dedicated to product promotion. Long segments of dialog. Entire scenes, even. In fact, probably two thirds of the movie is basically a bunch of infomercials strung together.
Okay, well anyway, long story short, I'd say borrow the DVD (don't rent, don't buy) and play drinking games - every time the girls change outfits, every time Kim Catrell mentions that wacky vagina, every time Carrie wears something stupid (is there that much alcohol IN THE WORLD?), every blatant product promotion, every time the movie makes you feel just plain uneasy - there's just so much opportunity here. Don't let it go to waste.
But here's a brief public service announcement: Don't drink and dress. I think that might be Carrie's problem.