akingofcomedy Reviews

Lore: Deadly Obsession (2011 TV Movie)

Incredible Story, Incompetent Filmmaking.

[5 July 2011]

A bizarre mesh of staged news footage, amateurish performances, clichéd techniques - all while clumsily trying to provide insight into what made this particular madman kill. The film actually diminishes the horror of the actual story with a production so distractingly bad it literally pulls attentions from the story it's attempting to tell.

This odd combo of splitting dramatized scenes with docu-style interviews and a timeline of events could have worked, but this was a misfire. And one is left to wonder about the interview segments with the actors portraying the real players. Was this compiled of direct pull quotes from other sources, or scripted dialogue invoking the presumptions of the filmmakers?

Look (2007)

LOOK away

[30 October 2010]

So it's obviously a concept film, and on face value it could've been a good one.

Instead though, it is a convoluted and clearly manufactured patchwork of pointlessness. I read the first third of a novel years back that was entirely told through various forms of correspondence such as faxes, emails, police reports and newspaper clippings. Sound interesting at first, but after about seventy pages I realized it wasn't clever just based on that idea alone. That's exactly how I felt here.

No real characters, no real build to tension - and bam, it's over leaving far too much unresolved, and failing to effectively make a point. There are next to no happy moments caught on these cameras, only dreadful scenarios that, I suppose, we were expected to voyeuristic all enjoy.

And the icing on this distasteful cake is that it suffers by failing to pass the Blair Witch test. I was dumbfounded that anyone would believe BWP was actual footage. If you know the first thing about cameras (or the rules of evidence) you would immediately know it was fiction. Except with Blair Witch it was done so well you could suspend that disbelief. Not here - the footage looks so mechanically blocked and timed for each shot that it becomes a distraction.

My favorite example of this was footage from a school parking lot where something really unfortunate happens. It's a good thing they had five different camera angles pointed at that one particular parking space. I just wish they'd have turned one of those many lens toward the script.

Absolute Power (1997)

Hard to Believe it Came from Eastwood...

[16 August 2010]

I read the book when it was first released and thought it was unbelievably bad, both in prose and plot. Throughout I can recall thinking what a terrible movie it would make. When word was released that Clint Eastwood would be directing and starring in the adaptation, I thought maybe he could massage it into something of value. But alas, even Eastwood could not turn stagnant tap water into expired Boone's Farm.

Forget the absurd nature of a long-in-the-tooth cat burglar witnessing a POTUS nearly raping and killing his mentor's wife (through a two-way mirror in a vault) when Secret Service agents shoot her to death. Forget that this same cat burglar now must outsmart and out man the US Secret Service and one of the wealthiest power brokers in the world.

Beyond this inane stupidity, the film fails to build suspense, resolve many opened questions - and then makes the worst mistake so far: taking itself too seriously. E.G. Marshall actually says to a hit-man - 'It's easy when you're selling sin."

They're selling something - and sin is not the word I would use.

Live Wire (1992)

Priceless.

[7 August 2010]

This is fun bad. Too many laughs to enjoy.

There's a forensic lab robot that grabs Bronson's ass, and it looks like a reject from the old Dr. Who.

They seem to avoid ever telling you why these people are being killed - just hash it up to beltway politics.

And they never hint at just how this amazing new explosive could ever possibly work. That's why Jurassic Park gave us the maple-covered mosquitoes. Just give us some kind of something to hang our hat on, even if it does strain disbelief.

And not only is our hero recovering from a deep personal tragedy, but his wife is also sleeping with the villain. And there's a recurring panty-less victim who keeps getting rigged to blow.

The best thing you can say about movies like this is that they never took themselves seriously. Well, for the most part that is.

Check out Roy Scheider in Chain of Command, or Lou Diamond Phillips in Alien Express for similar projects. Even harder to swallow then their plots, believing they were ever sold in the first place.

Happy Town (2010)

Welcome to Hacky Town

[21 April 2010]

Overly written dialogue, campy characters and multiple mysteries inhabit Haplin, Minnesota (where everyone has a secret, and a silly nickname.) Reminiscent of CBS's recent 'Harper's Island,' this plays as only the latest 'Lost'-inspired darkly-woven tale which may or may not include something supernatural.

'Twin Peaks' did this far better before it de-evolved into weirdness for the sake of weirdness. This one has trouble with its tongue-in-cheek humor simply because too much of it is spent trying to be funny.

It could easily improve, as many shows struggle in their early episodes. But it could fall prey to the same fate as 'Harper's Island.' A quick death from lack of sustainable viewers.

Stuck (I) (2007)

Why the false ending? ***spoilers***

[17 November 2009]

I remember when this case occurred not too long after 9/11. I immediately thought, hey, they'll make a movie about this. Then, they actually made two.

My biggest problem with this 'retelling' (aside from the clunky direction) was the ending, which I think was totally unnecessary.

How could a story get more stranger then fiction? A nurse's aide is driving drunk, then hits a homeless man who is now lodged alive in her windshield. But instead of getting him to a hospital, she drives home, locks him in place inside her garage, and then somehow manages to convince two friends to help her conceal the now dead man's body in a park. Then she torches her car to destroy evidence, and brags at a party about killing 'some white guy.' Her two friends cut a deal with the prosecution, testifying against her during the subsequent murder trial. She's convicted and gets a fifty year sentence (fifty for murder, ten for tampering with evidence, to be served concurrently.)

Is that not dramatic enough? Did it really serve any more sense of justice to see her accidentally burn herself to death while trying to shoot the (now fictionally surviving) victim while surrounded by gasoline meant to kill him? Wouldn't it have been just as satisfying, and more gripping, to see her face a quarter of a century in prison before she even gets a shot at parole? (In Texas you become eligible after serving half your sentence.)

Would Amy Fisher's story have been improved had she actually killed Joey Buttafuoco's wife? Would the Texas Cheerleader film about the mom who hires a hit-man been a better version had the plot actually succeeded? Or maybe Lorena Bobbit would be more compelling if she'd castrated him instead and then fed them to the dogs. Well maybe in that, yeah, guess it would.

That's the worst part of this film. That its makers consider us the viewer as far too stupid to appreciate what was already a horrifying and disturbing slice of American criminal history long before they ever got their greenlight. I can just see some pinhead producer reading the newspaper clippings and saying, 'Ehhh, needs an ending."

WIOU (1990–1991)

A casualty of Gulf War One

[10 August 2008]

This fine series in the same vein as 'L.A. Law' was largely a victim of the events surrounding its debut (and only) season.

Just as CBS began rolling out this project, Operation Desert Shield kicked off with US and ally troupes protecting Saudia Arabia from advancing Iraq. This meant on many a Wednesday night at 10pm, rather then seeing the antics inside WNDY's newsroom, viewers were met by Dan Rather and his support staff preempting the show with actual news.

This was the first US 'war' covered in real time by national news, so it is understandable that it naturally took precedent over entertainment programming.

Still, I kinda wish the network had found a way of giving it a second chance through either a new time slot, or the modern day advent of 'Summer Series.'

This show never found a following and limped its way through most of its produced episodes before being axed.

Spooked: The Ghosts of Waverly Hills Sanatorium (2006)

Documentary?

[7 June 2006]

How is this a documentary? Much more like a walking ghost tour one might take in any given Southern city. Quotes were generously dropped throughout without the first effort at identifying the source. George Orwell was the most identified quoter.

Documents were referred to without ever being produced in any form. Flat out fraudulent shots depicting period film stock were spliced aside historical film reels with no separation from reality and self-promotion. Film reels which were entirely unrealistic and improbable for the time at hand were dropped in, as if trying to ape Blair Witch, hoping to drum up a spook house on what would otherwise simply be dead real estate.

Is this not in some way a great disrespect to actual victims of TB, a dance on their collective graves for the sake of commercialism? The line between actual footage and manufactured self-service is so thin; the drippings of doubt so insignificantly played down; the scientific boundaries so blatantly ignored... how could this possibly be listed in my TiVo as documentary?

It's a vacation promo, and at that it fully succeeds.

Hell, I'd visit the joint if I could locate it on Google Earth. Not scary said a previous poster. Not too serious either, says I. Fascinating story. Flimsy film-making.