Tag Archives: Drama

The Pride of St. Louis

Posted on by
Reply


One of the toughest things to come to terms with as an athlete is when you are finally washed out. No matter how good a player you are, you will eventually not be able to play with the best of them at some point right? Well, it’s even worse if an injury cuts things short because then you really know that you had more left in the tank. The film shows this off in a rather light hearted way and we see that Dizzy had to go through a lot.

The film introduces Dizzy as a very confident ballplayer. He has been around the sport his whole life and it is really his favorite thing to do. The scouts don’t totally see it his way yet as he has to go through the minor leagues instead of straight to the pros. Dizzy uses this time to win games either way though and also impresses a girl named Patricia enough to marry him. Dizzy even goes on to convince the teams to hire his brother Paul so they can star in the pros together. It’s all going super well until one day both Dizzy and Paul get massive injuries that are basically career enders. Paul takes this as well as he can but Dizzy is in denial and believes that he can still make a comeback. Is he right?

Most of the drama by this point is really about Dizzy making himself look bad with how he thinks he can still play while no doing so good. It goes on enough to the point where Patricia ultimately ditches him. I thought this part was definitely a bit much. Sure they’re still married but Patricia is nowhere to be found and doesn’t even show up to support him when Dizzy is being attacked by the media. The film could have made their dynamic a little nicer since I felt like neither side was very reasonable. Dizzy would never listen and Patricia took rather drastic steps right away.

As the main character, Dizzy is fun when playing baseball but he can be rather annoying. The fact that he isn’t able to hold a conversation without going on different tangents definitely explains the nickname. And of course there’s nothing wrong with still being a kid at heart but he does take it rather far. Patricia is never really able to get through to him and it’s also hard to see how they can have a proper romance when he just doesn’t have too much time for her. He’s always wanting to play and talk Baseball which isn’t always a good way to show where his priorities are.

His brother Paul was slightly more reasonable although also a space case compared to most characters. The best character here was probably Johnny who was a good friend to Dizzy and helped him out when the going got tough. Without him, Dizzy would have really been in a jam since nobody else was really in a place to help him out at all. So it’s definitely good to have at least one real friend who has your back.

The climax gets a little intense with a battle between the media and the school association. I thought that Dizzy gave up a little too quickly here. I know he thought that he was doing the right thing but when you give up like that you really are hanging everyone out to dry. Everyone who was supporting you through thick and thin are basically tossed to the curb. As you can probably tell with this film, my main problem was definitely with Dizzy for a decent portion of it. I thought he could have been a lot better.

The writing is solid as you would expect from an old film though. The pacing is good and the characters always sound very reasonable. I still enjoy the retro way of talking. The film is also on the shorter side and never drags on. The pacing is pretty good at all times, they did a good job of including a whole lot of story lines and plots here. You see Dizzy at his highest and at his lowest here. It’s a good reminder to never turn to drinks and gambling when you’re in a slump because that only makes things get even harder. It certainly backfired for Dizzy as you would expect.

While the drama could be a bit much, the sports were always good at least. It was interesting to hear the play by play broadcast from back in the day. I think Dizzy was probably a bit too scattered even for that as I don’t think I would necessarily want him as the commentor for a game I was watching. Of course I don’t really watch Baseball because I feel like it moves too slowly so it’s possible that you’d want to be distracted from the game with a lot of stories to make the dead time go faster. That’s definitely a possibility.

Overall, If you’re up for some Baseball then this is a good film to check out. I wouldn’t say any of the characters are too likable but none of them are awful or anything like that. The film is still able to stand on its own regardless. Be warned that while the themes of Baseball are a central part of the film, it doesn’t actually have a lot of game time in it. The moments where we see someone playing are actually rather brief. I definitely would have liked to have seen more of the game itself. It seems like a pretty accurate telling of Dizzy’s story though even if you have to take the ending aside. At the end of the day it’s a fairly pleasant film and one that you can watch at any time.

The Miracle Maker

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a film that I was really impressed with. The Miracle Maker is a solid film that chronicles the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It adapts a whole lot of events from this period in the Bible and does so in a relatively short time frame. It links all of the events very well too. While there are some creative liberties taken, there is nothing I saw that directly contradicts the source material or that seemed to be there for dishonest reasons. Mainly they seemed to be there in order to connect the events and foreshadow others ahead of time.

The film is mainly in stop motion animation which of course isn’t my favorite. I will admit that this one didn’t really change my view on that but hey it still tells the story it set out to tell so that’s what counts. When it comes time for the parables and dream sequences it does change to hand drawn though which tends to look really great. In particular Judas has a really intense nightmare that makes use of the hand drawn style extremely well. The stop motion itself is also done well so they’re not cutting corners or anything like that. The production is well done the whole time.

The voices are good and the writing is on point. In terms of the foreshadowing and extra detail, it’s really solid like I mentioned before. Seeing Judas start off for the wrong reasons in wanting to be on the right side of power and slowly descending into darkness was solid. Likewise having many of the people Jesus healed appearing before they got sick was a nice attention to detail. Mary getting hit with the demons and being a background character for a while before we actually get to her plot was also nice.

There are of course a lot of details and moments that can’t be squeezed in as well. The price for adding all of these extra details and using some more obscure moments is some of the big classic moments are also taken out. No walking on water, feeding the masses, the angel on top of the stone, etc. It’s a fair balance I would say because realistically you can’t adapt literally everything unless you were ready to make this a complete epic. Even then it is extremely difficult and you can usually expect some things not to get adapted.

You still have the sense of scale here and there is definitely a lot of drama. The film is also completely revolving around Jesus at the center which is the way to go. All of the characters have their own agency and moments but when it comes time for an event to happen it is always centered around him. I would say Jesus also gets more dialogue than in other films and while the exact wording can sometimes be things that weren’t in the Bible, again it doesn’t feel out of character.

This also helps to capture the fact that he would talk a lot. He was a teacher/pastor in addition to performing miracles. He would tell all of these stories to the Disciples and we do get to see many conversations among them so it’s reasonable to assume that he was fairly talkative. I couldn’t picture him ever being more on the quiet or aloof side and this film did a better job of really showing that compared to most.

We also get to see a bit more of him after the resurrection which is usually a portion that doesn’t get adapted as much. The films tend to mainly have him resurrect and then the movie ends real quick but technically he did stay on Earth for a little while after that. So this time we get to see one of the conversations he has with the Disciples in addition to appearing before them. It’s the little details like this that help to make the film really stand out and also shows that the creators were really invested and did their research.

Overall, The Miracle Maker is definitely a really good film and one that was really perfect to watch for Easter. I would definitely recommend checking this out, it does a good job of adapting most of the biggest moments from this part in the Bible and keeps you engaged the whole time. It tackles a lot of advanced subjects but never gets all that violent so it is a good watch for all ages as well. So if we need stop motion to get more titles like this then I’d say lets go for it!

Demetrius and the Gladiators

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for the big follow up to The Robe. I saw that film a long while ago so it was good to finally check out the sequel. It really does pick up immediately after the film ends and of course the main character this time is Demetrius. He is ready to uphold the legacy and keep the Robe safe but unfortunately he is taken in by Caligula’s forces and forced to be a gladiator. Will he be able to survive in this arena considering that he refuses to take a life? Demetrius’ trials are just beginning.

The film definitely focuses on pushing Demetrius to the breaking point with everything that he has to endure physically and emotionally. On the physical side, he’s pushed into a rather violent world where the prisoners have to murder each other for sport. This puts him at a natural disadvantage in a fight. Technically with his physical abilities he would be able to win most fights without a problem but he really doesn’t want to cross that line. Then on the emotional side, he is subjected to constant temptation by Claudius’ wife Messalina who wants him for herself. Demetrius is determined to stay strong as he already loves a lady named Lucia and doesn’t want to betray her.

Usually this is where you could say that he did stay strong throughout and did not slip up but unfortunately this film was really determined to break him in every way possible. Ultimately that ties into the film’s themes of redemption and second chances but it would have been nice if Demetrius could have really come out on top. He was in such a rigged system that he never really stood a chance though. Unfortunately his heel turn is also rather dramatic and that lasts for quite a while. It definitely is a rough look for him.

The most tragic character in the film is probably Lucia. She really did everything right and did her best at all times only for things to not go so well. The rest of the characters are mainly antagonists. You have Caligula who is still as evil as possible and has become completely delusional. He really thinks himself to be a god by the events of this film and so anyone who defies him is quickly taken down for the count. The guy is definitely not very reasonable at all.

Messalina of course is rather petty the whole time. Anytime that Demetrius shuns her, she quickly does something to get back at him. She’s not doing anything out of a sense of justice or anything like that. No, she just wants to make him suffer and of course that’s not a good reason for doing much of anything. By the end she is seemingly going to do better so we’ll just have to see how that goes. I don’t have much respect for Claudius either. The guy tries his best to always be rather distant and emotionless but it also means that he really allows a lot of disrespect without doing anything about it. I can’t really respect a character like that. You always need to have boundaries at least to some degree.

Yeah it’s good to control your emotions but to not have any reaction and let things continue to happen is just a sign of weakness. So things get rather tricky for all of the characters here. The only one I’d say was fairly decent was the other gladiator, Glycon. He did his best to give Demetrius a real shot the whole time. His skills in the ring were real good and he was close to being free already but he still went the extra mile to help the lead out. That was awful selfless of him and I don’t think that most of the characters would have been able to pull that off. So he definitely gets special props there without a doubt.

Unfortunately the film does have to squeeze in some animal violence. As soon as I saw the tigers I started getting nervous. To the film’s credit it does do its best to not get all that violent. The camera angles don’t really show blood or anything but yeah I’d say you do want to always avoid getting any of the animals in on this.

Overall, This film definitely keeps in with the tone and feel of the original. You could probably watch both films back to back seamlessly without any issues. That said, it’s by no means a particularly happy film with how much happens to the characters the whole time. Nobody really gets a peaceful road here by any means. It’s a reminder that sometimes you do have to go through a whole lot of trials without any real way out. This will test your character on if you can still keep your own values and everything or if you will ultimately crumble before the situation.

The Man in the Moon Review

Posted on by
Reply


All right it’s time to talk about a sci-fi film about the moon right? Wrong! This film has nothing to do with the moon and the title is only really used at the very beginning and ending. It doesn’t have much to do with anything but I suppose it’s a catchy title. Ultimately this film is about the sting of betrayal and how it’ll always stick with you. You need to be careful about making the wrong move for short term pleasure because it is usually accompanied by long term pain.

The film starts off with Dani being rather upset because Maureen is super popular around the guys but nobody takes notice of Dani. Everyone just says to wait since she is the younger sister and will eventually catch up but time is going by too slowly. Well, one day they get a next door neighbor named Court and Dani realizes that this is her chance. They bond right away and Dani is determined to become more than fiends. Court is more apprehensive about this because he feels like Dani is too young but as always in these films his willpower is about as solid as a plate of jello.

So for Dani she is on cloud 9 as she is quickly seducing the guy and her life is really starting but one day Maureen gets home early and meets Court. You have to keep in mind that Court has the attention span of a chocolate bar that was just thrown into the oven and so he immediately starts making passes at Maureen and downright ignoring Dani. Maureen knows that Dani likes Court and so now it’s her turn to say that she can’t betray her sister like that. You must always stick by family in a situation like this and it is extremely taboo to go with someone who is connected to your family.

There’s just one problem though, Maureen has no real willpower either and after her extremely half hearted attempt of saying no, decides to get together with Court right away. No need for a long romance either, they immediately hook up and aren’t super subtle about it. Karma hits Court like a truck but basically the film is really about how betrayal’s just not a good thing. You just gotta do the right thing and can’t be making little excuses on why you have to crack. It’s not the way to go…not at all. This is one of those films with no real likable characters which is unfortunate. After all you already know that this means the entire film is doomed right?

So Court is an awful character for having no real moral standards and being so flippant about who he’s with. I give him a complete thumbs down all the way. Just disgraceful tbh. Then for Maureen, I can’t really cut her any slack. The fact that she knew Dani liked this guy and still went ahead with it is no good. If Dani never forgave Maureen, she’d just need to live with it because that was an awfully big mistake. Then for Dani, she was really rushing into things too much. She should have settled for just being friends.

It’s why you always gotta be careful when someone says that they just want to be friends. Dani just said that to get Court to lower his guard and then went after him again. Ultimately that’s now really going to work if you see the person as more than friends. Yeah you can live in denial and if you have a really good poker face you can pull it off but then you have to be extra vigilant on when you hang out. Never 1 on 1, certainly not swimming together, etc. Even without the betrayals I couldn’t root for Dani and Court so it’s not like the film had an alternate exit where things turn out well. The romance was always going to be sub par.

Then for more drama, we also had Dani’s mother getting injured when running around during the storm. I was really glad that the film didn’t go down the extra edge route of losing the baby or something. Would have dropped this film close to a 0, let me tell you. That said, we didn’t need the part where Dani’s father takes it out on her. This family sure is really emotional in this film. If they could all be a bit calmer and more rational about things then most of the film wouldn’t have even happened.

Even if we take all of the awful romances and betrayals out of the mix, I don’t think this film was going to ever be anything great. Mainly I say that because the story wasn’t very interesting. You have scenes of the grownups talking like Dani’s mom and her friend about the old days and it’s all a bit on the cringe side. the friend apparently liked the guy that the mom married and jokes about how she got lucky. Yeah it’s just banter between friends…but I’d be getting a bit defensive about having her around to be honest.

Then we have the party where it turns out that the guy Maureen went with was a creep and then his father was also being rather iffy. It seems like every movie I watch lately reminds you to never take a drive with a guy unless you know him super well. I wouldn’t say that this even adds anything to the film either and I would have at least liked a scene of those two being told off but we never got that. The film really put all of its eggs in one basket with the whole love triangle and when that failed, there was no plan B. It just meant that the whole film went down with it and that’s unfortunate.

Overall, Man in the Moon is a film that I would advise against watching. Often times these “Coming of Age” movies tend to be on the negative side. It’s as if the average movie creator figures that to grow up you gotta go through some kind of tragedy and get burned in the love game. Why don’t we get one instead about a kid who doesn’t want to grow up and just tells the world this is how it’s gonna be. Something like…I dunno Peter Pan. Now there’s a character who was always on top of things. You of course can pull off a dramatic film like this but you’re already stacking the deck against yourself by trying to throw in a romance plot because the characters just feel too young for that. You already know it’s not going to be anything too serious and it’s way too young to be worrying about fighting over a guy. Leave that kind of plot to the pros like Nisekoi.

Overall 3/10

Courage of Lassie Review

Posted on by
Reply


The Lassie films have a long standing reputation of all being rather bad so the question was if this one could finally change things. Well, I am here to report that it could not change thing at all. This is one title that does not surpass its limits or do anything even like that. Instead, it just repeats all of the same mistakes that you are used to seeing from the franchise. It’s unfortunate but not really unexpected. No, if anything you are used to it and we’ll just have to keep on waiting for a good one.

The main dog in this film is named Bill and he’s a nice dog. Bill is a strong dog who can run around a lot but his owners don’t think that he has what it takes to shepherd the sheep when the going gets tough. Kathie wants to prove the world wrong and runs around with Bill to try and prove her point. It was a good attempt at least. Unfortunately Bill is often the subject of bad luck. Over the course of the movie he is run over, shot with a gun, and even gets drafted into the army. While in the army, Bill is sent to an active warzone with bombs flying all over and he gets injured enough to the point where he develops PTSD.

His owner also goes too far in trying to win the day and has Bill continue to move even while he is super injured. This doesn’t help things out either. Bill then becomes so wild that he eats/injures other animals and a warrant is put out for his death. Yeah this dog can’t catch a break. You get the feeling that the film really wanted to up the stakes as much as possible and show how this wasn’t your average Lassie film but my answer to that is it just makes this one that much more. It’s a Lassie film so you are expecting the dog to get shot but why go through all of this other hardship as well?

It makes the whole film rather try hard and edgy. You really didn’t need to see any of that. The drama doesn’t make the film any more engaging or anything. It just holds it back. With this level of animal violence the film never stood a chance. Meanwhile it’s also no that interesting. None of the characters really glue you o the screen. The main character is Kathie and while she means well, she’s too young to do much of anything. Like when Bill is taken away to the army, there is noting she can do. She doesn’t even know what happened to Bill after he vanished for a while there. Then when Kathie does reappear with Bill, one of the first things she does is accidentally disclose his position to the cops which almost proves fatal for Bill.

Naturally it’s not like that’s really her fault as she couldn’t have known but it’s hardly a great look for her either. Then for Bill’s owner at the army, I didn’t like him for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Having Bill continue to fight when he was so injured was not a good look. Bill needed to lie down and recharge, not get right back on the saddle like this. The only decent character was the old man who tried keeping Kathie calm and then tried keeping Bill as a secret in the end. He was old enough to know how the world works and wasn’t just spilling his guts about everything. The guy knew how to keep a secret.

Still, it’s a rather low bar for characters. This is definitely not the kind of film where you expect great characters or anything like that but even more decent ones would have helped. I suppose at best the writing is decent. The characters still talk in the old fashioned way that is always fun. I also thought that the pacing was fairly reasonable. They manage to squeeze in a lot of different locations and characters into a film that’s not overly long or anything. So the movie really knew how to balance its time effectively. It just didn’t have a great story to accompany it.

Now when a film has lost the plot as badly as this one has, I like to add some some advice for how the film could have succeeded. Okay so hear me out, you cut out all injuries that happened to Bill in this film right. Have him go missing one day and so the main characters have to try and find him. Ultimately they end up finding him helping out the US army in bomb detection or something. They take Bill back home as a hero and that’s the movie. It’s still wholesome and has the army subplot and everything. It just ends up being a much more light hearted movie with great moments rather than trying so hard to be a suspenseful tragedy. We don’t need any of those. Extra bonus if you make the main character Lassie instead of Bill since that would work a lot better.

Overall, There’s not a whole lot to say about this film beyond that. It follows through the Lassie formula to the point where this might as well be an edgy reboot. Even the whole joining the army thing has already been done before. I don’t get why the series doesn’t just make a movie that’s all slice of life. Lets just see Lassie running around town and having fun. Yes, Lassie, not some future descendent named Bill. Doesn’t that completely take away from the point of the series? I’m watching the movie to see Lassie, not another dog. I dare say that the title is really clickbait. Yeah you can use it to tie into things later but it’s click bait because the first assumption with that title is that Lassie will be appearing. Definitely skip this film as quickly as you can.

Overall 2/10

This Happy Feeling Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for one of those films where a weak romance really holds it back. There’s only so much you can do with the rest of the film when this isn’t on point after all. I also think the film could have gone a little more all out with the comedy since it doesn’t tend to be laugh out loud humorous most of the time. I did enjoy a bird that was running around for most of the movie though.

The movie starts off with Mitch realizing that he is super old and the world of the theatre has long since passed him by. Part of him wants to get back into the business but the rest of him knows that he can’t keep up. There is a lady that he has been involved with for a long time named Nita but he’s bored of her as well. Well, one day a girl named Janet stops by his place after being defeated by the rain and so he lets her stick around. The problem is that she’s fallen for him and this inflates Mitch’s ego. Perhaps he’s not over the hill yet but at the same time he knows that a relationship is a bad idea here due to the really large age gap. What can he do?

Well the obvious answer is to just not get into a relationship but most main characters aren’t smart enough for that. This is very much a rebound type of film. Mitch was bored with Nita so he briefly gets involved with Janet and then common sense returns so he goes back to Nita. The problem is that it’s not particularly satisfying for anyone. Mitch proved that he can’t be 100% trustworthy at this point. There are no take backs and the film should have probably gone for a more somber ending where he retires or something and runs off. Janet goes to find a new job while Bill and Nita just wonder what they should do next. That would be the ideal ending.

I’m still glad that Mitch saw reason by the end. Better late than never and all that but the whole plot is definitely more on the annoying side. It helps that most of the cast is rather annoying so you’re rooting for Mitch to prove the doubters wrong at least in terms of his horseback riding and acting ability. Lets take Nita for example. She immediately gets super jealous of Janet and starts being petty about everything. You get why she would be upset since Mitch is intentionally portraying this as him cheating. Lets face it, there’s no other reason to have had Janet pick up the phone.

So I’m cool with Nita getting angry but where it gets unreasonable is when she takes it on everyone else. When Bill falls and gets seriously injured, she takes that time to gloat to Mitch instead of feeling bad about it. Not very compassionate right? Rather than being so bitter she should have just left Mitch entirely and moved on to someone else. Why stick around to be with someone that doesn’t appear to actually like you?

Meanwhile you’re supposed to be rooting for Bill to get together with Janet but why would you do that? The guy’s a jerk. He looks incredibly awful right from the jump as we find out that he moves on from girlfriend to girlfriend as such a common occurrence that nobody can keep track of who he is currently dating. Then when Janet is in a vulnerable spot he takes that moment to put some real pressure on her. Yeah part of it is a misunderstanding but most of it is just Bill trying to make a move under the worst set of circumstances possible. The worst part is that he blames her for all of this.

It’s a part of the film that is rather dated to be sure but even with that context there’s just no way for me to find Bill to be even remotely likable. The guy is just super annoying all the way through. He’s quick to turn on Mitch too even though he was the one who was badmouthing the guy. If Bill wasn’t so aggressive about that, the movie could have turned out very differently as well. I’m afraid that Janet isn’t fully innocent in all of this either though.

Janet knows that Bill likes her but she likes Mitch so she decides to make the older guy jealous by intentionally acting as if she likes Bill during the dance. What this means is that she is putting the guy on and is very intentional about doing this. Manipulating someone emotionally is never cool. It’s a really underhanded trick and of course this just leaves Bill confused later on. Janet spends a lot of time working to seduce Mitch as well and obviously it’s successful since the guy has the willpower of an old banana but none of this really helps Janet as a character. If she was hopelessly in love with the guy and needed a reality check then that could at least give her some character development but instead she just walks back to Bill.

Yeah the romance here is just so bad. It’s all rebounds or romances that you couldn’t root for from the start. The only likable character here is Mitch’s maid who helps him out by fixing his back and generally helping out around the house. She’s a fun character and delivers about 90% of the film’s humor. She has a dry wit about her and is always in the right place at the right time. I don’t know what Mitch would do without her. She definitely elevates the film which makes her a model supporting character.

Like I mentioned before, the film just doesn’t have quite as much humor as you would expect. The romance itself feels like it’s played fairly serious the whole time. Mainly I think the issue here is that the humor is just too subtle to the point where it just can’t actually dominates the scene even when the joke is being played. So this ends up being more of a drama and it isn’t able to succeed. It would have needed a stronger cast of characters for that.

Overall, This Happy Feeling isn’t a particularly good movie. It makes quite a few mistakes in the romance and it just isn’t able to overcome them. The title may remind you of the hit anime, My Happy Marriage but that title is infinitely better than this one. So unless you are desperate for a romance film, you should give this one a skip. There are many better titles within the genre to watch instead. It’s also important to remember even in real life that you never want to be the second choice. Don’t be the rebound guy and instead keep on searching until you’re the starter. Otherwise you’re stacking the deck against yourself in the risk department.

Overall 4/10

Still Alice Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for the marathon of film reviews where I’m absolutely devastating these films! The higher reviewed ones will be coming up but I thought that this made sense as a theme. This film tends to be on the sadder side. It’s not super objectionable or anything like that but at the same time it’s definitely not a film where you will walk away grinning. I definitely would have tweaked the ending a bit with one of those miracle cures but that’s just how it goes.

The film starts off by introducing us to Alice who is a genius. She is very well spoken and conducts herself as a true professional. She is a professor and has a happy marriage with her husband John. All 3 of her kids are doing well within their fields…well one of them is having a bit of trouble with theater but it’s a happy life. Unfortunately one day Alice is diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s and the genetic results say that she has a 0% chance of stopping it. It will gradually continue to get worse and worse until she dies. Particularly to Alice where her intelligence was something she took a lot of pride in, this comes as a big blow. She’s not sure how to really deal with it or if she even wants to continue dealing with this. What can she do?

Alzheimer’s is definitely one of the tougher ailments out there for two real reasons. One is the lack of a cure right now. Yeah, medicine continues to go a long way and you can generally slow this down but as a rule of thumb once it goes to a certain point there’s not much that can work. There’s also still a lot of mystery around how it works but you can actually see the pathways between neurons get cut off and there is currently no way to restore them. So the best thing you can hope for is that you only lose memories that you don’t need but it’s a scary way to live.

The other difficult part which in a lot of ways is the worst part is that there is no real way to have prevented this from happening. When it’s genetic, you were pre determined to have a higher chance to get this when you were born. In some cases they’ll know right away so you can be a kid and know that it will happen to you once you reach a certain age. It’s definitely a tough situation to be in. So these are all the things that Alice has to deal with.

She works on leaving herself notes and lots of little tips to help her remember what she has to do but these don’t always help. Additionally long lengths of time will go by where to her it just feels like a day. One tough moment was when she lost her phone. She thought she lost it a day ago but 6 months had actually passed. It’s definitely easy to get depressed at that point. Everyone does their best to help her out through this period but to see someone slowly deteriorating like that is definitely tough.

So then what you’re wondering is…when does the film become fun? Well the answer is that it doesn’t and that’s the problem. Much like Alice, we have to watch the film’s entertainment value slowly deteriorating along with it. It seems to be a fairly realistic take on what Alzheimer’s is like so I can give the film that credit but at the same time it doesn’t make for a good film. It plays out like something you would read on the news where it’s a tough tragedy but you aren’t able to do anything about it so you just feel bad the whole time.

That’s exactly why I would have had the film give her some kind of a cure. It doesn’t have to go into the range of sci-fi, just say that she’s getting better because the condition stabilized. Maybe she lost the first 30 years of her life but she will remember things going forward for a while. It doesn’t have to be a 100% crystal perfect happy ending or anything like that but I think this would go a long way. The film opened the door for this a few different times with how Alzheimer’s doesn’t always result in 100% mental failure. There are degrees to it but ultimately the film went all the way.

As for the supporting characters, there’s not much for them to do here. The kids for the most part are understanding although one of them always seems rather harsh. They all know that Alice is having memory issues and yet she gives her a hard time about it. The main daughter who wants to work in theater is easily the most patient and does everything that she can in order to help. Alice’s husband is also solid there but since he has a job he’s just not able to be there for her quite as often and has to run off to Academia and move to a new location as well. At least before she went all the way gone, Alice was able to give one last speech in a big professional setting so that gave her one last big hurrah. This kept the film from going to the next level of being mean spirited. I was worried when the notes fell to the ground that she was not going to be able to give the speech at all which would have been pretty mean.

Overall, Still Alice is definitely an emotional film. I wouldn’t recommend it if your family has a history with Alzheimer’s since it will just cause extra stress in the meantime. I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re looking for a fun or entertaining film either. Ultimately there’s just not a whole lot here for you. It’s a film that just gets sadder the more you watch it and that’s tough. You can do sad films in a way where they are still solid but typically those will involve stories with some kind of hope or a fun journey in the meantime. This one just can’t do that because of the nature of the plot and so ultimately you are just doomed.

Overall 3/10

Brothers Review

Posted on by
Reply

This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

Uh oh, it’s time for one of those films where everyone makes so many mistakes that the film can’t possibly make a comeback. You always hope that maybe, just maybe the film is not going in the direction that you expected it to go but ultimately it does and all you can do is watch it happen in real time.

The film starts off by introducing us to two brothers, Sam and Tommy. They are very different people and contrast each other almost completely. Sam is super responsible and is a soldier who goes off into battle to make the world a better place. Tommy tends to be reckless and get drunk, the guy is just coming out of jail for robbery. Well, one day Sam heads off to war and doesn’t come back. He’s said to be dead and so his wife Grace is devastated. Tommy wants to do his best to step up an help out now but the problem is that he ends up falling for Grace. Is this his big chance to finally have her to himself?

So the first thing that completely obliterates the movie right out of the gate is the romance. Look, we all know these things from a young age thanks to the school of common sense. You don’t go after anyone who is dating family. Doesn’t matter if it’s the girlfriend of a sibling, cousin, parents, some third removed uncle, etc. They are completely off limits. I know this next part’s gonna hurt but bear with me on this. There is no time limit on this. Yessss, even if they break up at some point, you are not allowed to be the rebound. I’m afraid that this girl is out of your reach forever now.

You can cry it out for a little while, put some distance and make sure you don’t see this person for a while, etc. However you need to cope, just remember that this is a social rule of complete authority. Me personally, I don’t care much for a lot of social rules. I tend to think a lot of them are outdated but this is one that just makes sense ethically so yeah it still holds up. If you are in love with that person then you better be prepared to internalize that all the way to the grave. This also applies to friends as well by the way. It’s not quite as ironclad there but it’s still something to keep in mind. Don’t go after your friend’s girl either.

So then the question becomes, “If I’m extremely weak willed how do I resist making a move?” Well if you’re so weak willed that you can’t control yourself then obviously you have to move to another country so that you’re never in the same room together. Fortunately most people have at least basic self control so you should be fine. Unfortunately this movie doesn’t go in that direction. Tommy does end up getting together with Grace after they were both flirting for a while and then get drunk. Maybe…..mayyyyybe you shouldn’t be getting drunk with someone who is emotionally vulnerable at the time?

Make no mistake, Grace gets some of the blame to be sure but I’m putting most of this on Tommy. Simply put, it’s way more personal there since he is actually Sam’s brother. That will always carry a bit more weight since we’re talking direct family here. He never should have let things happen and the fact that they stopped afterwards is barely a silver lining. It still happened and permanently destroyed any trust that the relationship could have had for Sam and Grace. So there’s no coming back from that. The film is about Tommy becoming a better person and helping out but this undermines the whole plot.

Meanwhile it also hurts Grace a whole lot. If the film was going to play her up as in a different role where she wanted a new husband because there were bills to pay or she was going to be in debt now then that would still be terrible but at least it would be a plan and not a mistake. You just can’t make these kinds of mistakes so either way it’s a big loss for her. Finally you have Sam and hey…he’s the role model right? The guy you can count on in all situations to make the right decision? Well the film has to drag him through the mud as well.

After he’s captured and tortured for a while Sam is ultimately told to make the big choice. If he murders someone else in cold blood then he can escape and in that moment Sam puts his life above the other guy’s in order to escape. It’s just awful and a jaded look at how humans will ultimately make the wrong call when put under pressure. That’s a big no no in my book. For starters, you already know they’re going to murder and torture him some more after this so why even go out on their terms? Make a move for the gun or something and best case they shoot you in the head as a painless death. Your odds are much better at dying quickly this way.

Maybe you’ll somehow hit the 1 in a billion jackpot and make a comeback but what you don’t do is murder the guy. If we at least got a scene where Sam says he did it because he thought the guy was going to be tortured a lot more and wanted to put him out of his misery then that would at least be worth discussion. Misguided I would argue but there is a very strong and legitimate case to be made for that reasoning. Nah, Sam just did it on the hopes that he could go home.

Unfortunately he has a lot of PTSD after that and the whole affair with Grace and Tommy did not help matters out at all. Ultimately this leads to a fairly explosive climax. A lot is going on and the film’s certainly very loud but the whole thing got way too dramatic. None of the characters were particularly likable by the end. The film would have been better off being an emotional road to recovery type of film. Remove the scene with Grace and Tommy and instead focus on both of them respectfully working to move on and honor Sam’s memory. The real tragedy here is that the movie has a lot of groundwork for that kind of plot and you can see the potential. In the end it just didn’t happen.

There’s also more drama with Tommy’s father putting him down and saying a lot of hurtful things that he can’t take back. That plot could have been handled more tactfully I’d say. The writing is rather over reliant on language so the TV version really had its work cut out for it there. The pacing is okay at least. The film’s rather long but there is a lot to cover. Of course the war scenes tend to be rather violent so when the film isn’t being dramatic and dark you’re seeing the soldiers get tortured. It’s a little hard to enjoy the happy moments at home as a result. This contrast is intentional but it’s not doing the film any favors.

Overall, The moral of this film is really how one mistake can change a person’s entire life. That’s what happened to all 3 of the main characters. They did things that they can’t take back and will have to live with for the rest of their lives. The ending tries to offer a little hope but for the most part I would say that it is a sad ending. Things will never return to the way that they once were. That’s life of course but usually you hope for better circumstances.

Overall 2/10

The Book of Henry Review

Posted on by
Reply


All right it’s time for a film that is definitely ambitious but I’m afraid that it fails on all accounts. When you see this film you immediately know that it’s not going places and I’m afraid that it never manages to make the comeback. This is a film that you definitely want to avoid. Instead of picking up this book to watch, read a classic book somewhere out there like Tim: Defender of Earth.

The movie starts by introducing us to Henry who is an absolute genius. The boy is still very young, yet he is an inventor, stock broker, and does whatever he has to. He is emotionally a little distant compared to other kids due to this but Henry has helped his family out a lot over the years. Unfortunately he has a big problem to get through now that won’t be easy. It turns out that his next door neighbor Glenn is actually a criminal who has been ruining his daughter Sheila’s life. Unfortunately he is the police chief and has a spotless record so nobody is doing anything about this and Sheila’s not really in a position to do anything either. Nobody except for Henry even suspects that something is going on since she rare has visible bruising. Henry decides that in order to save Sheila, he will have to murder Glenn.

Naturally this is a tough undertaking even for a genius like Henry. Additionally he has some medical issues going on as well and isn’t at peak strength. So he has to find a way to murder Glenn without leaving any evidence or causing his family trouble. His mother Susan enjoys playing a lot of shooters throughout the day and just having fun living life while his brother Peter is a normal kid and so he can’t keep up with these life and death stakes. In a way Henry is sort of on his own with this.

The kid genius characters can be a little hard to take seriously at times and I have to admit that this happens for this movie as well. It’s great to see Henry making his family rich and all but when he tries to be serious I just can’t take the scene quite as seriously. He’s a good kid though which is what counts even if he’s not a very interesting character. His brother Peter doesn’t get a lot to do here. He gets some development near the end as he tries his best to help out but his role in the film is effectively filler.

Susan gets a big role as the mother of course. It was a fresh change of pace to see the adult playing video games and having a good time. So often in these films you see the parents just doing work or reading a book but not having any kind of personality or hobbies. If there are hobbies it would be something like golf. So the video games was pretty fun. In a way her plot is about growing up though which goes against this and by the end you wonder if she will be having as much fun.

For obvious reasons within the film’s context she will be serious for a while but hopefully she still keeps up with gaming and all. The idea that it wouldn’t be a serious hobby is a bit dated if you ask me. Unfortunately she looks really bad near the end as the film makes one of the all time classic blunders. Let me put the scenario in this context. You are face to face with an unrepentant monster who is fully prepared to murder you. You have made it clear that his life will be over if he doesn’t murder you and both of you happen to be in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night with no witnesses.

Your only real options here are to murder him or be murdered. The film tries to present the argument for violence never being the way but does so in very sloppy fashion. By all logic Susan should have been obliterated in that scene. So I’d argue her whole climax is poorly written and makes her look like a really bad character. It’s a selfish decision first of all. If she gets bumped off there, then her kid is going to be in a lot of trouble and things will only get worse for Sheila.

It’s one thing if you’re being held at gunpoint to decide not to fight back and just be resigned to your death. It’s another if you have the opportunity to take the gun away and 3 hostages are behind you. The film definitely lost me here…well it lost me more than it already had. The climax is just really bad and there are many times where being a pacifist is straight up the wrong move. This is definitely one of those times.

I’d argue that in general getting drunk a lot at home to the point where the kids can predict it is irresponsible as well but I guess I won’t deduct as many points from her there. In theory at home should be the one place you can drink past your limit if that’s something you want to do. It doesn’t set up a great example, but that’s how it goes. Meanwhile her friend Sheila doesn’t really add much to the film either. Her scene with Henry just ends up being cringe and this felt like Peter where the film was adding a character to bloat the cast a bit even though she had nothing to do.

David gets a randomly rushed romance setup which makes no sense. You can’t really convince me that this would ever work as just seeing him should bring up bad memories for Susan every time. Then you have Christina who you just feel bad for the whole time. She really went through a lot and nobody was being particularly helpful for a while there. The fact that she hasn’t shut down completely and is able to keep up a nice attitude speaks volumes about her good character.

Then you have Glenn as the main villain who is basically just a character written to be super evil so there’s nothing to like there. You’re just rooting for his downfall the whole time. Still, it’s the subplot that destroys the film so in a way you could blame him for making the film no good. Without him I don’t think this would be a smash hit or anything but it would be considerably better. I would also change Henry’s ending a little bit as well and then the score would immediately be tripled. For a long while into the film I was expecting some kind of fakeout even if that would have been really hard to make convincing.

Overall, The Book of Henry is definitely a film that I would recommend staying away from. It ultimately fails by resorting to shock value with the dark Glenn plot as well as Henry’s plight. The film has so much drama and then the characters don’t react to it properly. Particularly with the first plot as there should have been a lot more urgency here and no getting cold feet at the end when you have the chance. The film isn’t always sure what kind of tone it wants to have and ultimately tends to make the wrong choices.

Overall 2/10

The Ninth Configuration Review

Posted on by
Reply

This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

When you have a movie by the same guy as the Exorcist you already know that you’re going to be in for a rough time. It’s not exactly a vote of confidence right? Well, this one definitely manages to live up to the Exorcist’s legacy so you will want to stay far away from this one. It’s definitely not a movie that you will want to stick around for. You’ll have checked out at least 9 times during it!

The movie starts off with introducing us to a castle where the government has made a safe space for veterans who have gone crazy after their time in battle. Their PTSD and delusions act up in many different ways such as amnesia or complete changes in personality. The place allows the inmates to have the run of the place and they just have guards on the outside to make sure nobody escapes. This does seem rather dangerous and while the idea is probably that they’re all good people who have all just gone a little mad…that’s a pretty big risk. Hudson has been sent over here to be the new head of the place. He will be a doctor who can bring some order to this place but is he up to the job?

I think the most tragic part about this film is that the opening minutes aren’t terrible. We get a solid fakeout in the beginning where a doctor introduces himself to Hudson and they have a reasonable conversation only for the dialogue to start getting weirder and weirder. Well, it turns out that the “doctor” was another insane patient who just thought he was one and the guy gets taken away. It was actually a really solid gag and set things off on the right track. See, the opening of the film is actually more of a comedy with the whole place being rather wacky and silly.

Yeah you could say there are some dark undercurrents here since these people have lost their minds which is really tragic but the film is playing it off in this rather odd way. Like I mentioned, the patients are allowed to do whatever they want so there will be scenes where they storm into the room to talk about painting, movies, drama, etc. Their conversations end up going in circles and don’t really have a point to them. Of course that in itself is the point. It’s a bit on the dull side but it’s mostly inoffensive. I’d probably give the first half like a solid 4 or something like that.

Then things take a turn when the film decides to get real dark and edgy. It all leads up to one of the inmates managing to escape only he ends up going to a really seedy bar where a gang has full control of it. Evidently they have had control of this place for a very long time from how everyone is acting. It’s so close to the army base that you’d figure some soldiers would have gone there during breaks or something right? Maybe they just never noticed or didn’t even care since there wasn’t much reaction to the truck in the opening scene.

Unfortunately the whole exchange is the definition of a film killer. It lasts forever and has the villains getting away with too much. They’re up against a soldier whose mind has been fried for a long time so he’s not able to fight back at all and he’s horribly outnumbered anyway. After he’s tortured for a while, Hudson comes in and then the same thing happens to him. They have him debase himself for a while and by the time he gets up and begins his big Shonen Jump comeback, it’s just way too late to care.

When you have the hero losing, you have to make sure you don’t overplay your hand. You need him to start fighting back while there are still things to fight for and before the villains have had their full laughs. The film really mistimed this and had Hudson put up with way too much. The whole thing doesn’t work and I would argue that even accounting for all of the twists in the movie it doesn’t work. Hudson had shown some aggression in an earlier scene when someone was just grabbing an inmate. Here, way worse things are happening and he doesn’t take that same tone/approach?

He had a security guard be afraid of him during one of the earlier scenes because of how intense Hudson got. So the fact that this didn’t happen here was very disappointing. The film wanted to show just how evil the outside world could be but ended up falling into the issue of too much show rather than tell. If you cut the scene in half and have Hudson start fighting way earlier then it would have gone a long way. Unfortunately the film doesn’t stop there. Hudson’s overall climax after this is definitely real bad.

Ironically his moment is supposed to show the moment of human goodness that the inmate was looking for but i would argue that it doesn’t work. It’s misguided at best and ultimately is never the way to go. There are much better ways to prove that. In fact, fighting off a bunch of villains to save your friend would already be a rather solid moment if you ask me. Choosing a certain method to shock the guy back into reality is definitely not what I would choose. So while the film goes for a happy ending approach in the end, it ended up being more on the sad side if you ask me. There was a whole lot of damage done to the characters here and by the end they’ve lost at least as much as they have gained, if not more.

So far films about insane asylums don’t tend to have a good track record. They tend to be rather crazy the whole time with a whole lot of issues. Either the inmates start to get mistreated all the time or they turn evil and start murdering people. I’m still waiting for a wholesome adventure where the inmates are all cured and the whole process is a lot of fun rather than it being all dark and dreary. The odds of this likely won’t be great though because to an extent it does go against the whole point of taking place in an asylum.

Overall, There are some pretty solid plot twists here that end up getting overshadowed by the film’s failings. Hudson’s character was handled well aside from the bar scene and the gag at the beginning that I mentioned was really good. In general the writing and dialogue were reasonable in the first half. Keeping everyone in the asylum would have been the film’s best bet. I don’t think there was going to be many easy ways to fight off the fact that the film could be rather boring but trying to go the edgy approach really didn’t work. So in the end I would say to definitely give this one a skip.

Overall 0/10