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louissaphire
Reviews
The Circle (2017)
Nicely Made but Confused Message Film
A "message" film that is confused. Tom hanks is wasted and barely used. The main character, Meg, often does illogical and really stupid things (connect ALL of your personal social media with your work's personal account? No. Go completely transparent so everything u do is record and viewed? No!Involve your close friend and family with this invasion of privacy without asking? NO!) but Meg does dumb stuff like this again and again through out the movie! Then you have it seem like the film's message is a transparent life style is bad! But nope, even though Meg gets her friend killed and alienates her parents, she gets even with her employers for her friends death, then proceeds to continue working for the company(? HOW?) and ends with positive note that privacy is bad!?! Confused? So am I am. Look at all the bad stuff happening because we no longer have the same amount of privacy we used to have! How can some one write an anti privacy film, muddle it til its illogical and confusing - then try to say privacy is bad at the end without laying any real argument? Do not waste your time!
Sausage Party (2016)
Leave The Kiddies At Home And Let The Good Times Roll
Surprisingly clever adult animated film. It is offensive, racist, crude, sexist, and low brow in the extreme - which is were its charm lays. Being a fan of animated Grindhouse films like Fritz The Cat, Heavy Traffic, Shame Of The Jungle and Hey Good Looking to name a few, it feels great to have something like this in theaters in this day and age. It gives a much needed middle finger to our atmosphere of enforced "politically correctness". It tries very hard to offend everyone equally in a manner that allows the audience to laugh at their own short comings and beliefs. On top of the low brow humor there is some very clever plot twists and gimmicks - which I'll leave you to discover. Solid animation, story, voice acting, and soundtrack - what more could one want in a movie that is just for an adult audience with an open mind and a broad sense of humor. Thanks to Seth Rogen perhaps there is hope for more adult animated fare, a Heavy Metal 3 or a Sausage Party 2.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Solid And Confusing Blockbuster
A dark and grim superhero movie that does everything right except one thing. The cinematography is well done, so is the acting and the music. The 3-D conversion is also well done and really adds to many of the film's sequences, especially when the camera is slow moving or not moving giving the eyes time to focus and look around. At a 200 million to 300 million price tag one has to wonder why anyone would use a script that makes you feel like you are watching a sequel to a film that doesn't exist for nearly the first hour. Characters show up without introduction or without any clue of any sort and the audience is left to figure things out for themselves. Once the incoherent plot starts to somewhat gel the audience is then treated to clichéd TV plot elements here and there. It's a decent enough block buster even though Superman is often is left as merely a plot device and adding Wonder Woman towards the end makes very little sense. Big exciting film with a weak plot that's haphazardly implemented.
The Bay (2012)
Makes You Think Twice About Drinking water
This isn't your average, run of the mill low budget "found footage" or "suppressed footage" horror film. The budget is large and the acting is spot on for what is needed to tell the tale. Think of this more as a ecological disaster/thriller than a straight horror film. Reminds me of the nature run amok sub genre films of the late seventies and early eighties. Without any preaching about how we are destroying the environment. As the story unfolds, the tension mounts as does the fear and dread. The horror is amplified by the constant reminder that everything presented here could actually happen or has happened. In fact mid-way through I kept wondering if there was an actual tragedy that this film was loosely based upon. All told the film is well paced, competently shot with solid acting and makes full use of the "found footage" style. Highly recommended for both horror fans and the occasional horror film watcher.
The Disco Dolls in Hot Skin (1978)
It Is What It Is - Not Matter What Version You See
Aw, yes just one of the many eye straining "Deep Vision" 3-D skin flicks from the mid to late Seventies. Hot Skin is the hard version and Disco Dolls In Hot Skin is the medium version and Blonde Emanuel is the soft core re-release. The 3-D was produced through a special (as in Olympics) lens that was supposed to create an anaglyphic (that cost effective old red and blue type) stereo image by using a prism beam splitter built into the lens attachment. What you get in effect is pretty much non-3-D because there is no way to control the separation of the two images. So you get a right image in one color and a left image in another color and another slightly right image in yet another color and so forth an so on. I'm not even sure if one could even turn a print into a watchable 2-D version (in some sequences there's as many as six images in varies colors on top of the normal color!) let alone fix the 3-D. There really isn't any plot to get in the way of the action - in fact mid way through the bit of vague plot is just dropped altogether. A product of its time, worth only a watch in a theater at midnight or with a lot of friends while drinking.
The Last Airbender (2010)
How To Make A Bad Movie Worse Part II
Not another crappy wanna be blockbuster hopeful converted from 2-D to 3- D at the last minute. NOTE to Hollywood, PLEASE STOP DOING THIS! It is not going to make your expensively (reportedly 210 million) crappy movie any better to have it quickly converted to something that barely looks like real stereoscopic photography. The only kind thing I can say about the 3-D is that it's a just a few tads better than the pop up book looking Cash In Of The Titans - Er, I mean, Clash Of The Titans. This quickie up converted 3-D is murky and unrealistic which screws up the cool looking cinematography. And considering that is just about the only thing the film has going for it, that's really bad news. This is just peachy, we finally get the problems of 3-D projection fixed and all of a sudden we start getting unreal 3-D. Remember coloration of old movies. Well after three decades they finally have nearly perfected it, although nobody knows this because very few films are converted to color anymore and no one really cares. If you still insist on converting you 2-d to 3- D at least take the time and effort to compose each and every shot for the process. And take the time to get the conversion as perfect as possible. So far Alice In Wonderland is the only well converted 3-D feature and look how long it took for that to come out.
Here is an idea for the studios to make an easy buck (because that is what it's all about, right?), why don't you guys just restore your old 3-D movies from the fifties and give them a small limited run. I can almost guarantee you that it wont cost more than 6 to 8 million per film, maybe less. There is some mighty fine 3-D stuff just sitting around collecting dust - some of it never shown in public in its original format. John Wayne's Hondo, for example, was stereoscopically restored over a decade ago, and it's still sitting in the estate vault collecting dust. What a shame, because once you see this stuff you can see that 3-D is more than just shoving things into theater space. Although that's cool once in awhile too!
Clash of the Titans (2010)
How To Make A Bad Film Worse; Do A 2-D To 3-D Rush Job
Man I love movies. Out of thousands of films I've seen in my lifetime, I can honestly count on one hand the number I walked out of. This film needs to be stopped from being shown in 3-D. Not only is this a haphazard remake/revision, it contains some of the worst 2-D to 3- D conversion to date. The company that ripped Warner off was Prim Focus - charging something like $104K PER MINUTE for the conversion. But that's what happens when you shoot a movie in 2-D and then at the last minute decide to up convert it to 3-D, but only give the converters ten weeks to do it! Anybody out there wanna take a guess at why Alice in Wonderland's release date was pushed back three times? Yep, it takes a long time to convert to 3-D because the technology really isn't fully there. Try finding technical articles on how its achieved and you'll finish reading with more questions than answers. Anybody see G- Force? Love the film, but in 3-D it is painfully obvious (on repeated viewings) during the live action sequences that it was a 2-D film switched over for 3-D midway through its shoot. At least the converters did a decent enough job to where you really have to pay attention to catch that's not real 3-D. But in Clash it looks like a pop up book and thats putting it kindly. I have the advantage of knowing several theater mangers in my area and I asked one if they could screen the film for after hours with brightness turned up. This helped out with the darker sections in the film, but it made the 3-D even worse - or rather it showed how bad of a rushed job this really was. Warner Bros is gearing up to unleash the new Harry Potter in 3-D Using the same converting studio - to say I'm wary is an understatement. If you want to see good 3-D from Warner Brothers try finding a 3-D film festival (most large cities host one a year or so) and see their early 1950 efforts like House of Wax, Hondo, Phantom of the Rue Morgue. and Dial M for Murder.
The Man Who Wasn't There (1983)
The Poster Tag Line Was Right!
"The funniest movie you never saw!" is what the poster exclaims and they were right. Because true comedy won't be found here. I actually saw this back when it was released in theaters in the early 80's. The movie is a simple, cheap jack tale of invisibility and international intrigue that's loaded with political incorrectness and juvenile gags. There are a handful of shots that are really cool in 3-D. However there some really bad 3-D effects, most due to poor understanding or handling of the equipment and 3-D techniques. And the film is in the top 5 running for world's worst rear screen projection usage in a movie. What it could have been with better cast and more money is an interesting thought. This also has to have the weirdest and dumbest team of killers ever seen in a movie. The 3-D gets a 2 and the movie gets a 3.
Doctor Dracula (1983)
Unholy Editing Batman!!
Beware this is great stuff if you need to sleep or if you need a mild headache.The back story of these two movies is better than either version. Lucifer's Women (1974/75) was indeed completed and shown theatrically. I believe it ran 65 to 75 minutes in length. So why can't anyone seem to find it haunting a dollar DVD bargain bin nowadays? Well because it was a poor mans hardcore porn/horror flick with very limited distribution. Skip ahead to 1977 and we find a slightly new haphazard plot line made from the footage of Lucifer's Women and newly shot footage by a different crew and actors! Since all the sex scenes were excised out of Lucifer's Women it was sold off to network TV as Dr. Dracula! Yes,network TV as in the ABC Network. Dr. Anton S. LaVey's involvement was only with Lucifer's Women as technical advisory. I believe there were a few of his Church members involved on the production side and that's how he became involved. As for the films them selves, they are only of interests to Satanists and low budget film scholars - from a minor historical point that is. If you can somehow locate one of the handful of bootlegged copies of Lucifer's Women floating around out there watch it (you'll need nerves of steel) on a double bill with Dr Dracula. Pay attention to the differences and learn how not to make a worse movie out of an already bad one.