I gave it a 10 'cause, man, they need the points. This film has it all: bad direction, bad script, bad acting, bad CGI and dumb throughout, start to finish ! Phewwwe! What a stinker! I always wonder how stuff like this gets financed. I mean, people are dumb, but, that dumb??? If you really want to know what the War of the Worlds is all about then download the original Orson Wells radio play. Check out, also, Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds", a brilliant rock interpretation. Avoid at all costs Tom Cruise's contribution. Dreck in dreck's clothing. This particular layer to the 'fan club' is best viewed as inadvertent comedy: assemble friends, light spliffs and SCORN!!!
Reviews
15 Reviews
Alpha Code
(2020)
There is always another way
20 July 2023
Yeah, like watch something else. Or throw a brick through the tv screen. Or jab knitting needles into your eyeballs. Or gag into a bucket.
The director's daddy is rich? And not very bright? Who else would underwrite this mess?
I love the reviewer who said 'Wake up people. This is based on a true story.' Um, no it's not. Do you believe everything you read? This is incoherent dribble. The closest it comes to true is, well, yeah, the roads were real. So was the river. The rest is tosh: a tale, told by an idiot, based on nothing at all.
And only 58 characters to go...
Why is there smoke in just about every scene? Supposed to be fog? Well it isn't. It's smoke and it's senseless, like the... oh, there we go!
The director's daddy is rich? And not very bright? Who else would underwrite this mess?
I love the reviewer who said 'Wake up people. This is based on a true story.' Um, no it's not. Do you believe everything you read? This is incoherent dribble. The closest it comes to true is, well, yeah, the roads were real. So was the river. The rest is tosh: a tale, told by an idiot, based on nothing at all.
And only 58 characters to go...
Why is there smoke in just about every scene? Supposed to be fog? Well it isn't. It's smoke and it's senseless, like the... oh, there we go!
The Girl on a Bulldozer
(2022)
Director shot self in foot
30 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Like a lot of other reviewers have said, Kim Hye-yoon's acting is superlative. She rocks the role and carries the film.
There are a few key elements that simply don't add up though. That Kim Hye-yoon's character makes a lot of bad decisions may be excused by her upbringing, her youth and the fact that she was grieving. However, the director seems to want viewers to sympathize with her father, a lame-a$$ loser who gambled away the family's meagre means, was deeply in debt to loan sharks and just about everyone else, happy to scam medical and life insurance and naive in the first degree. And we can't gloss over the fact that he was ship-faced and driving when he hit a pedestrian, albeit a stupid one. There are no extenuating circumstances: he was drunk. And yet, the director gives him - well, his daughter - a whopping $350,000 court-ordered insurance payout even though he was 100% at fault AND his various insurance policies were invalid. So just what is the director's message? That the poor aren't as downtrodden as all that? That the system is working just fine? That crime DOES pay? The Disney finish, it all works out in the end?
There are a few key elements that simply don't add up though. That Kim Hye-yoon's character makes a lot of bad decisions may be excused by her upbringing, her youth and the fact that she was grieving. However, the director seems to want viewers to sympathize with her father, a lame-a$$ loser who gambled away the family's meagre means, was deeply in debt to loan sharks and just about everyone else, happy to scam medical and life insurance and naive in the first degree. And we can't gloss over the fact that he was ship-faced and driving when he hit a pedestrian, albeit a stupid one. There are no extenuating circumstances: he was drunk. And yet, the director gives him - well, his daughter - a whopping $350,000 court-ordered insurance payout even though he was 100% at fault AND his various insurance policies were invalid. So just what is the director's message? That the poor aren't as downtrodden as all that? That the system is working just fine? That crime DOES pay? The Disney finish, it all works out in the end?
Little Forest
(2018)
This so takes me back...
15 February 2023
...to the 7 years I lived in the Korean outback. What a lovely film. I cycled north, south, east and west - from my base in Andong - following the famed Four Rivers network of car-free rural bike paths, some 2000 kilometres in total. Google it. This little gem captures the essence of rural Korea, the ebb and flow of the seasons, the rustic hanoks, the egrets in rice fields, the drying persimmons - what I wouldn't give for a cup of sujeong gwa or homemade makkoli right now. I'll definitely watch this again, many times over, whenever I feel homesick for that era of my life.
The okonomiyaki scene with shaved 'tree branch' was hilarious. Of course it wasn't tree branch at all but katsuo bushi or dried tuna flakes, a Japanese dish that made the protagonist's mom seem like a magician. I had a similar experience when living in Japan. The first time I saw steamed tofu with strands of katsuo waving around I thought it was topped with live worms of some sort.
Thanks for the memories...
The okonomiyaki scene with shaved 'tree branch' was hilarious. Of course it wasn't tree branch at all but katsuo bushi or dried tuna flakes, a Japanese dish that made the protagonist's mom seem like a magician. I had a similar experience when living in Japan. The first time I saw steamed tofu with strands of katsuo waving around I thought it was topped with live worms of some sort.
Thanks for the memories...
Hospitality
(2010)
Kanopy ruined this movie for me
6 February 2023
This would have been a fine move except for the fact that I watched it on Kanopy. Kanopy has major bandwidth issues. Mine stops and stutters all the time. Tubi works fine, all the time, BTW. If they aren't careful, libraries are going start dropping the service. It took 45 minutes to get through the last nine minutes of the movie the bandwidth was so bad. That's how engaging the movie was but Kanopy ruined this movie for me. Too short? Looks fine to me. How's that?
This would have been a fine move except for the fact that I watched it on Kanopy. Kanopy has major bandwidth issues. Mine stops and stutters all the time. Tubi works fine, all the time, BTW. If they aren't careful, libraries are going start dropping the service. It took 45 minutes to get through the last nine minutes of the movie the bandwidth was so bad. That's how engaging the movie was but Kanopy ruined this movie for me. Too short? Looks fine to me. How's that?
This would have been a fine move except for the fact that I watched it on Kanopy. Kanopy has major bandwidth issues. Mine stops and stutters all the time. Tubi works fine, all the time, BTW. If they aren't careful, libraries are going start dropping the service. It took 45 minutes to get through the last nine minutes of the movie the bandwidth was so bad. That's how engaging the movie was but Kanopy ruined this movie for me. Too short? Looks fine to me. How's that?
The Glory
(2022– )
The Dubbing Spoils It
10 January 2023
Not only does the dubbing make the characters sound like a bunch of bratty valley girls in California, the lack of subs eliminates a lot of important cues from memos, tv shots, signage and so on. I'm still watching so not rating it just yet. It's no 10 but I'm enjoying it enough even with so much of the cultural info erased by this flub of a dubbing job.
I've had some pretty brutalized students but no bully victims like Moon Dong-Eun. It's a bit inconceivable that injuries as extensive as those portrayed in The Glory wouldn't attract an intervention. Also, I used to teach at a national university training students on track to become secondary school teachers. The portrayal of the ease with which Moon Dong-Eun attains her teachers' certificate is facile in the extreme. It's bloody difficult to pass the test.
I've had some pretty brutalized students but no bully victims like Moon Dong-Eun. It's a bit inconceivable that injuries as extensive as those portrayed in The Glory wouldn't attract an intervention. Also, I used to teach at a national university training students on track to become secondary school teachers. The portrayal of the ease with which Moon Dong-Eun attains her teachers' certificate is facile in the extreme. It's bloody difficult to pass the test.
The Island
(2018)
Needs more screaming...
29 November 2022
Needs more screaming, especially the hysterical kind. I love how the complete lack of logic drives the movie forward. I gave it one star but really, it earned the coveted dumb & a half rating. At least it's all original, right down to the stolen plot line and the climax by fire. William Golding should have thought of that. Oh boy, 267 characters left to go. What else can one say about this dreck? Well, my cat said meow about halfway through so she approved... or maybe she was hungry... I'll ask her... Oh, hungry. 83 to go. This film is dream fulfillment for all the ugly men with bad teeth out there who hope and dream about ending up with the hot babe. Guess what, dorks... Un-uh, ain't gonna happen... Phew.
The Wailing
(2016)
Blame it on the Japs!
17 August 2022
A Japanese demon rolls into town and steals Dokdo. Bwa-ha-haa! And the dog scene? Ah, meal preparation. The shaman stuff was cool though. When I lived in Korea, in Andong, I witnessed 3 Shindo exorcisms, two fairly tame ones and one that was way out there. People still live by this stuff in rural areas.
Here's what I wrote at the time: I came across a real exorcism the other day on my to the University. At first I didn't know what was going on, there were three people dressed in traditional sorts of robes. One squizzled old granny was banging a drum while another person, head down, was sitting on the ground and neatly bound in three locations with strands of tall, fresh grass around both her legs and outstretched arms. The third person was feverishly dancing in front of the bound person, brandishing a couple of knives and periodically making mock cutting motions as if cutting the bonds. Behind them was a large stack of fruit and vegetables so at first I thought this was some kind of harvest offering or something like that but when I described it to students they were pretty unanimous that this was a shamanistic exorcism to, as several put it, "drive out the ghost". As I crept by on my bicycle, masked, helmeted and obviously a foreign devil, I'm sure the shaman must have thought the demon had taken corporeal form. I'm lucky they didn't chop out my gizzard and feed it to the magpies!
Here's what I wrote at the time: I came across a real exorcism the other day on my to the University. At first I didn't know what was going on, there were three people dressed in traditional sorts of robes. One squizzled old granny was banging a drum while another person, head down, was sitting on the ground and neatly bound in three locations with strands of tall, fresh grass around both her legs and outstretched arms. The third person was feverishly dancing in front of the bound person, brandishing a couple of knives and periodically making mock cutting motions as if cutting the bonds. Behind them was a large stack of fruit and vegetables so at first I thought this was some kind of harvest offering or something like that but when I described it to students they were pretty unanimous that this was a shamanistic exorcism to, as several put it, "drive out the ghost". As I crept by on my bicycle, masked, helmeted and obviously a foreign devil, I'm sure the shaman must have thought the demon had taken corporeal form. I'm lucky they didn't chop out my gizzard and feed it to the magpies!
The Day of the Triffids
(1963)
Put those Weeds in a Bong
14 July 2022
The book is a masterpiece; the movie, not so much but good for a chuckle or three if you smoke a triffid first. Three stars because I laughed three times. The pea soup is funny. The triffids are hilarious. The acting, Oh My Dog, was that acting? Ha! Ha! Ha!
Let's get something straight. Meteors fly through the sky. Meteorites are what's left when they hit the ground and stop rolling. This movie got it wrong, each and every time.
It's really a zombie flick, well before zombies were all the rage. Indeed, Walking Dead starts out very much the same, a common trope nowadays that started with John Wyndham. Zombies and triffids are slow-moving and brainless BUT relentless and appear in overwhelming numbers. That's where the terror comes in.
Read the book. It's dystopian vision of the collapse of civilization is particularly apt at present against a backdrop of changing climate. It's science fiction but very much of the pedestrian variety.
Let's get something straight. Meteors fly through the sky. Meteorites are what's left when they hit the ground and stop rolling. This movie got it wrong, each and every time.
It's really a zombie flick, well before zombies were all the rage. Indeed, Walking Dead starts out very much the same, a common trope nowadays that started with John Wyndham. Zombies and triffids are slow-moving and brainless BUT relentless and appear in overwhelming numbers. That's where the terror comes in.
Read the book. It's dystopian vision of the collapse of civilization is particularly apt at present against a backdrop of changing climate. It's science fiction but very much of the pedestrian variety.
The Boy Downstairs
(2017)
I'll give it 10...
16 May 2022
...if only to balance the dolts who give it a 1 because it's totally bereft of car chases. No doubt it's a quirky little film without an A-lister in sight. But therein lies the rub. Any crap from Marvel is guaranteed to breach 7. The IMDB numbers belie only how much money is poured into promotion, not quality of film.
The Boy Downstairs perfectly encapsulates the awkwardness, uncertainty, the yearning, the abject misery -- and it can be miserable -- of love. That's quite a feat for a low budget romcom, given that every writer since Shakespeare himself has been trying to quantify this peculiar emotion.
Well done...
The Boy Downstairs perfectly encapsulates the awkwardness, uncertainty, the yearning, the abject misery -- and it can be miserable -- of love. That's quite a feat for a low budget romcom, given that every writer since Shakespeare himself has been trying to quantify this peculiar emotion.
Well done...
A Life in Balance
(2009)
A Balanced Portrayal
17 April 2022
Most public, institutional sculpture just leaves me cold. I've often felt the committee in Vancouver which oversees this tosh should put someone like Kent Avery on retainer to continue building his impermanent (part of the message) installations at the foreshore in Stanley Park. Whenever he does so, crowds gather, comment, discuss and take pictures. The message is profound, then with a higher high tide or a stiffer stiff wind, the 'canvas' is wiped clean. For those who don't know, (Google it) Avery balances stones in an ever-changing montage of obelisks, juxtaposed against the soaring towers of the nearby West End and city centre. Though derived from the immediate environment, Avery's creations are very much at odds with the nature of nature and are soon dashed to bits by elemental forces, evoking insights into the futility of human endeavour and the impermanence of human creation. In the end nature will always win out.
All of Us Are Dead
(2022– )
Andong Awash in Walking Deeds
27 March 2022
I'm halfway through the series "All of Us Are Dead" and say it's a win for zombie aficionados everywhere. Like most flicks of its kind it makes you wonder, was humanity already brain dead well before the apocalypse hit?
There's a nice subtheme going on related to exam hell and the fact that students in Korea come out of 12 years of education with virtually no skills beyond those required for test-taking and punching fingers at SmartPhones.
When watching this I can't help think of the Sewol Ferry and how a paucity of critical thinking skills was at least a contributing factor to that completely avoidable tragedy. I have a feeling it was very much in the minds of the creators as well.
I have a personal connection with Andong, where much of the movie was filmed, having spent 7 years teaching at the national university there. As a side note, on several occasions I tried to get my students on-board terrorizing the community with a zombie night in lieu of something called English Education night, a series of demanding performances which everybody seemed to loathe. This was way before zombie mania hit Korea in the form of "Train to Busan" and, now, "All of Us Are Dead."
There's a nice subtheme going on related to exam hell and the fact that students in Korea come out of 12 years of education with virtually no skills beyond those required for test-taking and punching fingers at SmartPhones.
When watching this I can't help think of the Sewol Ferry and how a paucity of critical thinking skills was at least a contributing factor to that completely avoidable tragedy. I have a feeling it was very much in the minds of the creators as well.
I have a personal connection with Andong, where much of the movie was filmed, having spent 7 years teaching at the national university there. As a side note, on several occasions I tried to get my students on-board terrorizing the community with a zombie night in lieu of something called English Education night, a series of demanding performances which everybody seemed to loathe. This was way before zombie mania hit Korea in the form of "Train to Busan" and, now, "All of Us Are Dead."
Ham on Rye
(2019)
What the Hell was that?
18 August 2021
Was this supposed to become a cult classic? All ten reviews -- including this one -- attest that it didn't. And won't. The first rule of writing is, if you're going to do boring, don't do it boringly. I tend to think I can get something out of just about any film: If it isn't enjoyable, one way or another, well at least I can enjoy mocking it, This isn't even mock-worthy.
The Old Man and the Sea
(1999)
Did you catch the Easter Eggs?
29 June 2019
Warning: Spoilers
There are some nice little "easter eggs:" There's the Hills like white elephants in the African Beaches scene and Spencer Tracy cameos as one of the referees in the arm wrestling contest. Nice touch! I wonder, did the contest take place in a dirty, poorly lighted place on purpose? Okay, yeah I'm pushing it a bit there.
One thing bothered me. A fisherman of Santiago's years would never allow his lines to get so messed up as depicted in this short. It's far too dangerous: easy to get tangled up in it, pulled over and drowned like some latter day Captain Ahab. I get it, Petrov was using the disarray to exemplify the ordeal as a way of making up for the brevity but it just fails to ring true. In the 1958 movie note how tidy the coils of line always are. Taken, I suspect, directly from Hemingway's novella though a can't remember for sure, it has been a while.
It's a testament to Hemingway's power as a writer that in his novella -- a long short story really -- the fisherman's cosmic struggle really seems daunting, exhausting and the reader simply wants to collapse on the bed in anticlimax. This animated short comes up a bit, well, short in that regard TBH though it certainly makes up for it in the magnificence of its animation. After painting, manipulating and filming some 29,000 glass cells, Petrov's task must have seemed an equal to that of Santiago.
One thing bothered me. A fisherman of Santiago's years would never allow his lines to get so messed up as depicted in this short. It's far too dangerous: easy to get tangled up in it, pulled over and drowned like some latter day Captain Ahab. I get it, Petrov was using the disarray to exemplify the ordeal as a way of making up for the brevity but it just fails to ring true. In the 1958 movie note how tidy the coils of line always are. Taken, I suspect, directly from Hemingway's novella though a can't remember for sure, it has been a while.
It's a testament to Hemingway's power as a writer that in his novella -- a long short story really -- the fisherman's cosmic struggle really seems daunting, exhausting and the reader simply wants to collapse on the bed in anticlimax. This animated short comes up a bit, well, short in that regard TBH though it certainly makes up for it in the magnificence of its animation. After painting, manipulating and filming some 29,000 glass cells, Petrov's task must have seemed an equal to that of Santiago.
First Reformed
(2017)
Dumb just gets dumber...
25 November 2018
Warning: Spoilers
What on earth do you do when you write a script then can't think of a way to end it? Well, just end it -- snip! -- like that. Problem solved. First Reformed was mostly dumb from the get but that ending earned it the coveted Dumb & a Half rating.
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