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dolbywilliams
Reviews
5-25-77 (2008)
One Of My Favorite Movies Of All Time
I found this movie by accident. I was looking on Amazon to kill time while at the DMV, and I saw the cover for this movie for pre-order. With how the art looked, I thought it was like an homage to 70s-80s sci-fi thrillers with a tongue-in-cheek tone to it. So I obviously had to look it up and saw that it was actually a coming of age film set during that time period, so I found the trailer. Immediately I was interested, and I couldn't get enough. I watched the trailer daily and was sending it to everyone I could think of because it just looked like such a pure hearted movie.
Then the day finally came. I had the movie, but I couldn't watch it right away, because I promised my friend that I would watch it with them. So, that weekend came and we say down and watched it. I was head over heels in love with this movie. From the characters, to the directing, to the story, everything about this film had me in its grasp. It is a lighthearted, innocent tale of a boy who loves filmmaking, and finding the one movie that makes him go "Yes, this is what I MUST do". It is a more believable movie than most coming of age stories, because even the end leaves some things open, but it is still a light ending.
From beginning to end I had a smile on my face. The small scale of the production allowed for the film to have a more personal feel to it, as opposed to similar movie like The Feeblemans. While that too is a good movie, with 5-25-77 being a more independent production it allows the film to have a better relatability for those who too have a desire to pursue such a large scale dream. And honestly, I can see myself rewatching this movie more often from that alone. Sometimes less is indeed more, and this film is most certainly the case for that.
I cannot recommend this film enough. It is a love letter to not just movie making, but to those who have a dream that is as high as the stars.
Invasion of the Empire of the Apes (2021)
This Needed A Bigger Budget
So I grade movies on a curve, depending on their budget. If it is clearly a low budget film, I will give it a blessing, and see how they pulled off their work. This type of movie proves that this type of high concept sci-fi cannot be done on this small amount of money. I could give some forgiveness if the script was well written, or the actors had more talent, but unfortunately neither of those things are true, so we have just a low budget sci-fi movie with nothing to offer.
I watched all three movies in this trilogy (yes there are three), and this one might be the worst. It picks up immediately where the second one leaves off, but then jumps fifteen years into the future. Earth has been nuked into oblivion, and all that is left are off world colonies, an ape, a cult that worships apes, and an alien race that eats apes. The only returning character is thr lead ape from the first two films, even the one girl who survived the previous two films doesn't return for the "epic conclusion", and there is no explanation as to why, as far as I remember.
The film feels like a forced sequel, because the second film does have kind of a definitive ending, given that the Earth is completely destroyed, and the bad guys are all dead because of it. I was expecting something that involved time travel, but the plot that does happen feels like a side story, not a follow up story, even though the lead ape does die by the end of this film.
Because the film has such a low budget, most of the film is close up shots of two characters talking to each other. This isn't a bad thing on the whole; there are plenty of sci-fi films that handle this well, and even some that are just one person talking to a computer. The difference here is that those were made with quality actors and great script writing, this is just a way to fill for a film having little to no money.
The movie also suffers from too many flash backs. The second film had the same problem, and it definitely feels like a way to waste time to make it feature length. There is also a really bizarre nudity scene at the opening of the film that came out of nowhere. I thought it took place where the movie's story was supposed to start, but it was a kind of flashback before the plot actually began. It was completely unnecessary and felt added in at the last minute to make the film longer and to add in "sex appeal".
The effects are obviously terrible, but it has to be seen to be believed. The guns are obviously toys, and the futuristic spaceship has a garage door as a wall. Most of the scenes were clearly shot on a green screen, in some office building, or inside a bedroom. It is funny, and I will say it was cute to see the poor CGI, so I can give one point to that. The animation used for some of the ships would later be used in Mark's Dune World.
This type of movie needs a bigger budget, or better writing. Mark can do fun horror films, but with the money he has to produce his films, something with this high of a concept to out of his league. I will always applaud him for making a film no matter the budget, but the flaws only stand out twice as much as they normally would.