20130809: Anime Series Review--Blast of Tempest

Blast of Tempest: The civilization Blaster

1. Japanese anime serial, two seasons, 24 episodes each 25 minutes, 2012.  Action, fantasy, mystery. Original title Zetsuen no Tempest.
2. Wikipedia gives fine details for character and episode descriptions.  Episode 13 featured a recap of the first 12 episodes, and the beginning and ending clips were updated.
3. IMDB rated the series as 6.8/10.0 for one critic.  The one review is a good one.
4. The series is set in 'modern' times on a world clearly not our own.  The basis of the story is that two great Trees battled one another in the past, with one winner, but both Trees badly wounded.  In the era of their recovery, human civilizations arose.  Those attuned to the Trees can practice magic.  The Trees are now awakening, and civilization is getting pulverized in the process.  A small number of specially trained individuals attempt to shape this awakening for the good of civilization.
5. This series is ruled by dialectic processes.  The Tree of Genesis versus the Tree of Exodus.  The two central human characters: Yoshino (intelligent, calculating, reclusive, quiet and courageous) versus Mohiro (entitled, unyielding, impulsive yet determined).  Physics versus magic.  Human civilization versus the sheer power of the two Trees.  Each Tree has a single human who is most strongly attuned to it; in a sense, the entire story is about the dialectic between those two individuals.
6. I usually do not care for flashbacks.  This series is one that I will cite in future as a huge exception.  There are perhaps 200 flashbacks (yes, around 10 per episode) in the series.  By the fourth or fifth episode, I lost my usual irritation at the flashbacks.  Well before the end of the series, I saw the brilliance of the execution, and welcomed every flashback as a well-timed back-fill of characterization or plot.
7. If you can, avoid reading spoilers.  I did, and the power of the final episodes was impressive.
8. Five stars of five.  I would recommend this series to anyone who likes anime or a long, good story.

Art: 10/10 Always between competent and exceptionally good, usually closer to the latter.  This was the most beautiful series I've seen in years.

Sound: 10/10 No complaints at all.

Screenplay: 10/10 Complicated, gripping, and brought to a satisfying conclusion in the last episode.

Characterization: 9/10 A few actions seemed a bit off, but not many.  There were around ten main characters, and well before the end I felt I knew them fairly well.  The last three episodes were exquisite for the final deepening and fulfillment of the characters.  The handling of interrelationships over time was a joy.

20130808: Horror Film Review--Chop

Chop

1. American live action theatrical release 2011, Horror, Comedy, Thriller, 98 minutes.  Filmed in Los Angeles County, USA.  Rated NR; language, indicated sex, drug use, but mostly blood and gore resulting from savage intentions.
2. Starring Will Keenan (Lance), Timothy Muskatell (the stranger), Tanisha (as Lance's wife), and Elina Madison (as Tammy).
3. IMDB: 5.5/10.0 from 690 user reviews.  From the Storyline section, IMDB says, 'Lance Reed is forced by a psychotic stranger to confront his duplicitous past.'
4. Rotten Tomatoes: 'no score yet' from critics; 43% liked among responding ticket buyers.
5. That first sentence from the IMDB storyline pretty well sums it up.  The movie is about how the stranger encourages Lance to remember bad things he has done in the past, and that Lance did some of them to the stranger.
6. The hideous edge of the film comes from the methods that the stranger employs.
7. Among other things, he tricks Lance into killing his brother.  Then he kills Lance's wife, and cuts off Lance's left index finger.  The police know Lance is involved in the deaths, and Lance retreats into drug use.  Lance looks for bugging devices, and descends into a drug-aided rampage where he tears up his own house.  Upon awakening, he's down the other three fingers on his left hand.  His interview with the cops after this does not go well.  After all this, Lance is still making zero effort to remember his tormentor.
8. Lance eventually admits to a hit and run felony and to a murder, but he still does not remember what he did to the stranger until it is too late.
9. One star in five. 20130927: two blackholes for acting and screenplay.

One line summary: Bad acting and screenplay make this film not worth the time.

Cinematography: 8/10 Hulu streamed this film in HD, and it looks good throughout.  There was sufficient light for the cameras.  Framing and focus were usually both good, but with a few glaring failures.

Sound: 10/10 The actors were well-miked, and the incidental music was fine.

Acting: 0/10 The people billed as actors here hit their marks and read their lines.  They went through the motions successfully.  However, I laughed at none of the lines, and cared about none of the characters.

Screenplay: 2/10 This does not work for me as comedy of any type.  I found nothing funny in this particular portrayal of the depredations of a drug addict, or the self-righteousness of a 12-stepper. The psycho stranger was even more savage than the drug addict.  The film did not work as a thriller, because the acting done for the protagonist role was so hollow.  The blood and loss of limbs was indicative of horror, but the lead was cardboard.   I might have thought of the film as a mystery, but by the time the central secret was revealed, I did not even shrug.  Perhaps it was meant to be a knee-slapping good punch line, but it failed at that was well.

20130807: Documentary Review--The Raw and the Cooked

Das Rohe und das Gekochte (The Raw and the Cooked)

1. This a much enlarged update of the 20130525 short review. 
2. German live action straight-to-video film released in 2012, 83 minutes, documentary.
3. IMDB: 5.5/10.0 from 8 user reviews.  I added my 10/10 to that.
4. Rotten Tomatoes: 'not rated yet' and no audience ratings.
5. Available streaming on Netflix, and on DVD from Amazon.
6. German director and writer Monica Treut's  culinary journey around the island of Taiwan.
7. The film visits the Amis people, the Hakka people, the Han Chinese on Taiwan.
8. Gathering food, preparing food, delivering food, and enjoying food are displayed from the standpoints of the groups listed above.
9. Documentary had a lot to say about remembering one's culture through food ceremonies, about the interactions of food consumption and health, about using locally grown and recently harvested foods.
10. Five stars of five.

One line summary:  Fine documentary about Taiwanese culture and cuisine.

Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent camera work throughout; well-lit, sharp focus, and good framing are common.  Many of the settings are beautiful, and the camera work catches that.

Sound: 10/10 Music was fine, very much including the local ethnic music.  The speakers and singers were sufficiently miked.  For many of the Taiwanese spoke in their native language; the subtitles seemed sufficient.

Acting: 8/10 Most of the local chosen for the film were good at illustrating food growing, preparing, eating, and singing before feasts.  Some of the Han Chinese restaurant scenes were a bit crowded and busy and not very informative.

Screenplay: 10/10 I liked the travel format, with strong references to local customs.  The story moved right along as the island was traversed.

20130807: Updated Review--Alien Hunter.

Alien Hunter

1. Released 2003, American live action theatrical film, 92 minutes, rated R for language and some violence.
2. IMDB: rated 4.9/10.0 from 2,734 viewers.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet' from critical reviewers; 22% from audience 1,233 audience ratings.
4. Starring James Spader, Keir Dullea, Roy Dotrice, and Carl Lewis.
5. Spader's character is a womanizer and brilliant code breaker whose career mostly crashed after the shutdown of SETI.
6. An artifact found under the Antarctic ice near an American research site is recovered after emitting a signal tracked by the US government.  The signal resembled remarkably a signal sent from near Roswell in 1947.  Spader wrangles passage to the site.
7. The usual perfect storm of instances of Murphy's Law culminates in the alien getting lose, research staff dying from alien disease vectors and from shooting each other.  The Russians bomb the site at the behest of Washington, obliterating evidence.
8. Similar to The Abyss, the aliens break into the proceedings with their superior technology.  Quite differently than The Abyss, no humans notice this, except the four who were saved.
9. Slow moving, neither compelling nor funny.  The ending was a bit novel, but not much.
10. This was probably my least favorite James Spader film.
11. One star of five.  20130927: one blackhole for screenplay.

One line summary: Presence of good actors does not salvage bad SciFi script.


Cinematography: 4/10 Very often dark, with cameras insufficient to the challenge.  Lots of grainy video.  The film never looks great, and seldom looks good.  I've gotten spoiled by HD, I guess.

Sound:  7/10 Never bad, but never crystal clear either.

Acting: 5/10 The actors I named above were OK, but the others were between dull and incompetent.

Screenplay:  2/10 The Russians use nuclear weapons on Antarctica at Washington's request?  I doubt this.  The movie was often plodding, short on motivational framework, long on bad decisions, and heavy on bad luck.

20130807: Documentary Film Review--Chasing Ice

Chasing Ice

1. American live action theatrical film, 75 minutes, released 2012.  The movie follows National Geographic photographer James Balog and his team as they documented in film the changes in northern hemisphere glaciers over time (in months and years).  The film was one of the better products of Balog's Extreme Ice Survey.
2. IMDB rated it 7.5/10.0 from 1,650 users.  My first rating on IMDB was for this film; I gave it a 10/10.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: the film scored a whopping great 96%.
4. This film was well-crafted: good early explanation of why the effort was made, clear illustrations of early technical problems that were subsequently overcome, and exceptional at presenting ongoing good results.
5. Many challenges were encountered and overcome during the project.  The first setups for cameras to take pictures over entire arctic winters did not go all that well, and sturdier components had to be found.  Balog experienced health problems from the climbing over rugged ice features.
6. The time lapse photography of glaciers over time (months at a time) was spectacular.  Many stills taken at intervals were assembled into short videos.  The impact of these videos (real photos, real locations, current time) was strong.
7. Five stars of five.

One line summary: I would recommend this to just about anyone; incredible camera work.

Cinematography: 10/10 Breathtaking.  Brilliant.  Inspired.

Sound: 10/10 No complaints.

Screenplay: 10/10 The story was engaging, and the arguments were made with care.  The editing of the film from its many sources was first class.

Acting: 10/10 Perhaps this does not apply.  The principal 'actors' were telling their own story.  They were not irritating, did explain things well, and advanced the story at a nice pace.

Special Effects: 10/10 There were graphics associated with the measurements and observations of the team.  These varied between competent and quite nice.

20130807: Horror Film Review--The Thirst

Name: The Thirst (2007)
IMDb: link to The Thirst page

Genres: Horror   Country of origin: USA

Cast: Matt Keeslar (Dune, Rose Red) as Maxx, Clare Kramer (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Lisa, Jeremy Sisto (Law and Order) as Darius, Serena Scott Thomas (The World Is Not Enough) as Mariel, Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Full Metal Jacket) as Lenny.

Directed by: Jeremy Kasten.  Written by: Ben Lustig (story), Liz Maccie (screenplay).

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux: 
Drug addicted couple (Maxx and Lisa) are going in opposite directions.  He's clean and in a 12-step group.  She's still using.  Lisa starts puking blood and collapses while doing a strip tease.  The drug addiction was on top of her advancing terminal cancer, which she can no longer hide from Maxx.  

Lisa commits suicide, or so it would seem.  When his friends invite Maxx to a goth club some days after the funeral, he sees Lisa at the club.  He returns later and finds her and a nest of hungry vampires.  Lisa soon converts Maxx.

Delineation of conflicts:
The notion of trading one obsession (drugs) for another (blood sucking) is explored to some extent.  Lisa and Maxx try to control their blood lust.  This does not go well.

Their attempt to adapt to vampire life was replaced by an effort to stop the family (the nest of vampires) at any cost.  The other vampires are not pleased with that part.

Resolution: Do the protagonists embrace vampire values and settle into vampire lifestyle, or do they align themselves to human values?  They do make a choice.

One line summary: Substituting vampirism for drug abuse.

Statistics:

Cinematography: 4/10 Insufficient lighting, soft focus, grainy final presentation.  There's a bit of jerkiness from the low light and cameras that cannot handle it.

Sound: 10/10 The film had several background tracks that were witty and fitting.

Screenplay: 3/10 Poor.  The fifteen minutes of story was stretched too far to get an 88 minute runtime.  The exposition of motivations was terrible.

Acting: 3/10 So many actors, so many bad performances!  Jeremy Sisto (the reason I quit watching Law and Order) disappointed even more than usual, and the coming and going of his various accents was irritating.  Clare Kramer (a major reason I stopped watching Buffy) was marginally better than I thought she would be.  After Firefly, Adam Baldwin has been a favourite, and he did not disappoint me here. The rest of the actors were forgettable at best.

Special Effects: 0/10 Abysmal.  The blood sprays and the bursting into flames are laughable. Blood sprays are all too common, and quite over the top in poor execution.  The fact that they are done in such a ridiculous way eliminates any serious tone to the film that might have been intended. Seeing the tube that feeds the red fluid on Keeslar's back 60 minutes into the film was an amazing gaffe.

Final Rating:  2/10  Awesomely bad: three black holes for acting, screenplay, SFX.

20130806: Horror Film Review--The Attic

Name: The Attic (2007)
IMDb: link to The Attic page

Genres: Horror, Thriller    Country of Origin: USA

Cast: Elisabeth Moss as Emma Callan, Catherine Mary Stewart as Kim Callan, John Savage as Graham Callan, and Tom Malloy as Frankie Callan.

Directed by: Mary Lambert.   Written by: Tom Malloy (screenplay and story).

The Three Acts:

The initial tableau: 
The Callan family moves to a new house.  John Savage is the controlling father, Catherine Mary Stewart the former beauty queen mother, Elizabeth Moss the troubled teen, Emma Callan.  At the new home, Moss starts seeing someone who looks just like her.

Delineation of conflicts:
Ninety-five percent of the film is psychological thriller with horrible outcomes.  Everything in the plot can be explained by Emma's family's dynamics and her maladjustment.  The other five percent provide bookends concerning the family that lived in the house before Emma, and the family that would live there afterward.  That would be the horror overlay, the hint that there was something supernatural that contributed to Emma's downfall.

Numerous attempts are made to help Emma come to terms with what she's experiencing: interviews with a physician, a psychologist, a wicca expert, and so on.  She shuts these out, just as she shuts out her friends from the town where she had last lived

Resolution: 
Emma's childhood issues are eating her alive.  One should see the film to see how the tragedy is played out.

One line summary: Dysfunctional daughter crashes and burns.

Statistics:

Cinematography: 8/10 Mostly well-lit and in good focus, with reasonable framing.  Occasionally, a vignette filter was used, which I could have done without.

Sound: 8/10, good but not the best.  In several passages the spoken word seemed hollow.

Acting: 6/10 John Savage gave the performance I expected.  I'd seen Elisabeth Moss in Mad Men and Top of the Lake, and this performance was not nearly as good.  Elisabeth Moss is the centre of the piece, so the whole movie seemed awkward.  Tom Malloy gave a competent performance as the brain damaged brother.

Screenplay: 6/10 Emma's refusals to cooperate with the police resulted in no consequences.  Horror films, and also psychological thrillers, are all about consequences, so this struck me as mighty unlikely.  That her family would allow her self-destructive behaviour to continue was hard to believe.

Final Rating: 6/10

20130804: Horror Film Review 2--Laid to Rest

Name: Laid to Rest (2009)
IMDb: link to Laid to Rest page

Genres: Horror, Thriller   Country of origin: USA

Cast: Richard Lynch (Halloween, Invasion USA) as Mr. Jones, Lena Headey (The Brothers Grimm, 300,  Game of Thrones) as Cindy, Sean Whelan (MIB, Twister) as Steven, Bobbi Sue Luther as 'The Girl,' Kevin Gage as Tucker.

Written and directed by: Robert Hall

Chromeskull

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
The female protagonist wakes up in a coffin, makes her way out, and nearly gets killed by the man who put her there in the first place.

Delineation of conflicts:
She manages to survive the night, but most of the allies she meets along the way get killed trying to help her and to live themselves.  Her adversary's motives are rather opaque, and remain that way.

Resolution:
There is a sequel, Chromeskull: Laid to Rest 2 (2011), with a new cast.  Perhaps that film has resolution.

One line summary:  Cliche inscrutable almost invulnerable slasher villain.

Statistics:

Cinematography: 10/10 Framing, focus, natural colours, all OK.  Most scenes are dark (night scenes), as one should expect from a horror film, but the cameras used were up to the challenge.

Sound: 10/10 Good, with the actors well-miked.

Screenplay: 3/10 The killer could not finish the protagonist.  This made no sense, since he murdered quite a few others in ten seconds or less.  No one could take out the killer with guns, crowbars, or anything else...until he applied some extra-powerful glue to re-bond his mask to his face.  The police did not show up in force until the few living witnesses had fled the scene.  The ending provided only a minimal amount of resolution.  The motivation of the killer was never disclosed or even hinted at.  His need for the mask was not explained, and so on.

Acting: 4/10 Bobbi Sue Luther seemed more than a bit green as the female lead.  I expected more from Kevin Gage (the male lead), whose resume was longer.  The character actors Richard Lynch, Lena Headey, and Sean Whelan had enormously more talent and experience than the lead actors.  If not for these three actors, I would have rated the acting at 0/10.

CGI: 5/10 There were some poor special effects of the more bloody scenes in the unrated version.

Final Rating: 4/10, neutral

20130804_b: Horror Movie Review--Future World

Future World: City of Mass Destruction

1. American live action theatrical film, rotoscoped to resemble animation, coupled with plenty of green screen for backgrounds and special effects.  Released in 2012, billed as a 'Thriller,' 120 minutes in length.
2. Set in the year 3000 after World War VI, the 'fourth apocalypse.'  The movie has some recognizable components.  I picked up their titles from the credits.
3. 'The Day Lady Killed': an impressively ugly woman fighter takes on the emperor's minions in the street and eventually loses.  She is forced to fight in an arena, defeats the meanest gladiator, then kills the emperor.  The number of violations of physical laws depicted runs into the dozens.
4. 'Here Comes the Fire': a seedy late middle-aged guy (Terrance) strolls through an even seedier part of town.  He picks up a job from his friend Jackson to aid in the next takeover of government.  Terrance switches sides (as if he had one), then betrays both factions.  Nice.  Fitting for the piece.
5. 'Race to the Balder': two idiots entertain themselves with future recreational substances.
6. 'Enter the Krennons': (about half the film's total time) the planet's atmosphere is going south, to reach the end of its ability to sustain human life in 3 years, 4 months, 29 days.  Operation Exodus VI ensues.  The digging involved awakens a powerful demon.  The DeVoz rulers seek aid from past defeated enemies, the Krennons, of which there are two left.  Right.  Two defeated enemy individuals can do what armies cannot?
7. Story arc 5: someone returns from death to retake the city.  The surviving Krennon prepares herself to battle this entity after it kills the DeVoz ruler.  Looks like an invite to a sequel.
8. From FlimFlam Films.  Clearly, these folks had no oversight from investment bankers.
9. What's missing?  Characters worth following.  Logic.  A single normal human face.  Anything that was in focus.
10. One star of five.  The +1 is for the credits, which contained the only humor in the film and the only good sound.  The rest of the movie was a zero.  20130927: four blackholes for cinematography, acting, screenplay, SFX.

Cinematography: 1/10
One of the worst jobs I've seen in years.  As per IMDB, 'A cutting edge rotoscoped feature in the style of Ralph Bakshi's Heavy Metal...' but without Bakshi's sense of style.  (That should be Heavy Traffic, by the way.)  Dark, dismal, out of focus, jumpy, beyond belief ugly/boring.  Continuity, depth of field, framing?  Forget those.

Sound: 5/10
Varies between annoying and really annoying.  During the credits, the music was rather nice, and there was relief from the dialog not matching facial movements.

Screenplay: 1/10
Looks like improvisation in front of green screen pasted together later in post.

Acting: 0/10
Seemed to be absent.  Costumes are absurd.  Body language is as muted and distorted as the rest of this mess.  The spoken word seems (at least) half a second or so out of synch with lip movement.

SFX: 1/10
Absurd and annoying, most of it on par with bad 1970's effects.  I think many pre-teens could do better at CGI.

20130804: Anime Series Review--Hakkenden

Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East

1. Japanese anime series, 24 minute format, premiered 20130105.  Hulu+ streamed this in 'High' quality.  The episodes are sub-titled; spoken language is Japanese.  Supernatural goings on are par for the course during the series, as are fighting and confrontations.  Church property and church personnel are prominent in the series; so are excessive wealth, entrenched poverty, and references to plague.  The historical era seems on the feudal side.  There is no wide use of electricity or modern medicine, but I did see a revolver and an old style automobile.  So there are some industrial era elements.  Horses are still ridden.
2. The first series ran 13 episodes.  A second arc is to premiere in the summer of 2013.
3. According to the IMDB stub initial report this is the beginning of a remake of 108 episodes of a series that started in 1993.  The writer of the stub was considerably unhappy about the remake.
4. The current review is about the first arc of the 2013 version.  I have not seen the 1993 epic.  Even so, I would say that the 2013 version has more than enough 'Beautiful Men waving their swords' for my taste.  If I can get access to it, I'll attempt the 108 episode version from 1993, since it sounds more interesting.  But 108 episodes?  Hope it's good.
5. The story concerns eight half brothers each of whom hold a special bead with a word written inside it, such as 'devotion,' 'duty,' and so on.  These are about the size of marbles, are clear, and have different colours.  The brothers have been scattered to the winds by events in the past.  In the first 13 episode arc, they start to come together again.   There seems to be some importance to reuniting the beads as well as the brothers.
6. Many of the principal characters have losses to deal with, such as memory loss, loss of the ability to age, loss of half of one's soul, the loss of one's parents and friends, and so on.
7. The first 13 episodes seem devoted to character introduction, drawing together the 8 brothers, and filling in back story.  Wikipedia does a reasonable job summarizing episodes.
8. Taking this context forward in the next 13 episodes is still reasonably interesting, and might resolve some of my objections to the writing so far.
9. I rate the series as three stars of five for the first arc of 13 episodes.

One line summary: First 13 episodes of the remake of the 1993 fantasy classic.

Art: 9/10 was often excellent, but was sometimes pedestrian.

Sound: 8/10 was a plus for the most part.

Subtitles: 7/10 may have been a little off, judging from actions versus words in English.

Characterization: 5/10 left me a bit cold.  What do the characters remember?  This changes from one moment to the next, and from one lie to the next.

Screenplay: 5/10 too many flashbacks, too many unexplained characters and situations.

20130802_c: Horror Film Review--Naked Fear

Naked Fear

1. American live action theatrical film, 108 minutes, rated R, released in 2007.
2. Stars Danielle DeLuca (Diana, the protagonist), Joe Montegna (the corrupt local sheriff).
3. IMDB gave it 5.3/10.0 from 1,191 users.
4. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 'no reviews yet', with 28% favourable audience ratings from 313 users.
5. Diana is a young (23), pretty, broke, exotic dancer from Texas who arrives in the small New Mexico town of Santa Paula already owing money.  She needs to get out from under her debt to the dirt bag who paid her way into town.
6. As a back story, there's a new deputy in town (Dwight) who got kicked out of his last job for investigating the mayor in his previous town.  He takes an interest in all the dancers at 'Cheeks' (strip bar on Indian land) who have gone missing.  One of the older dancers also shows an interest.  Joe Mantegna's character Tom is the sheriff around town, and he helps keep all the bad things in town going the way they are.
7. In order to get money to leave Cheeks, Diana tries performing in full nudity.  That gets her a bit of money, but also gets the club owner to inform her that it's illegal and to quit.  On Diana's first attempt at prostitution, she gets kidnapped.  She wakes up naked in the middle of nowhere.  That is the setting for most of the film.
8. The kidnapper/hunter (Colin) succeeds for a while, but Diana strikes back.  Soon she gets some assistance from a man and his too young sons.  Dwight found some weak evidence against Colin, but the Sheriff quashes Dwight's efforts.  Colin catches up with Diana, and things get much worse.
9. The cinematography is wonderful, and many of the shots of the scenery are gorgeous.
10. The sound is also excellent.
11. The screenplay was competent, and the direction good enough that the story moved right along.
12. Danielle DeLuca is a better actress than I expected, and was interested to find that she has a BA in Theatre and Dance from UT Austin.  However, the many minutes of well-lit full frontal nudity takes away from that, as did the salacious content of the film (stripping, drug use, prostitution, kidnapping, hunting of human quarry, murder).
13. Joe Mantegna has been in some cheesy movies in his career, and this is definitely one of them.  In the television series Criminal Minds, he almost always takes the higher moral ground.  This was a bit of a shock to see him return to his older form.
14. Most of the other actors were between competent and too bland.
15. In honor of the unexpected Hollywood ending, I give this one four of five stars.

20130802_b: Horror Film Review--Shutter (Thailand)

Shutter

1. Context
1. Hulu had the 2004 version, not the 2008 version with Joshua Jackson.
2. Produced in Thailand, live action theatrical film, 97 minutes, horror, mystery.
3. IMDB rated this one at  7.0/10.0 aggregate from ratings of 21,992 users.
4. Rotten Tomatoes rated it at 56%, 'no consensus yet.'
5. The spoken word is in Thai, with English subtitles.  Hulu streamed the film in 'high' quality.


2. Initial tableaux
1. Early in the film, Jane and Tun drive home from a drinking bout with some of his friends.  The road is mostly empty.  When Jane takes her eyes off the road for a few seconds, she runs over a woman.  When a truck approaches, Tun convinces Jane to drive off.
2. It would seem that was their first mistake.
3. Afterwards, Tun's photos tend to have light streaks in them.  Both of them start to have horrifying dreams.  They start to get more information.  They check where the accident occurred; apparently there was no accident.  They check the local expert on photography, who claims it's just double exposure, and shows Tun similar effects in his own photos.  They push on to a magazine that specialises in 'supernatural' ghost images.  The editor explains how most of the fakes are made.  Then he recommends that they try to check using a Polaroid camera, which might be harder to create fakes with.  As they continue to investigate, they keep picking up ghostly images, mirages, and dreams.


3. Conflicts, resolution
1. By half way through the film, three of the men who were at the initial drinking party have committed suicide.  The mystery deepens.  Jane finds a photo of Tun with an earlier lover, Natre.  Jane pries the details out of him.  The details are not pretty, involve the dead men and Natre, and provide a start for resolving the mystery.
2. They visit Natre's mother, who keeps Natre's corpse in her old bedroom.  They convince the mother to hold a formal funeral for her.  That was not enough to bring peace to the principal characters.
3. A new level of weirdness starts around 70 minutes into the film.  Tun's torment accelerates.  Natre is cremated, and that seems to end the problems.  Later, Jane gets back some new photo prints, including ghost images, and more old truths surface.
4. Tun does not escape the consequences of past actions after all.


4. I rate this one as 8/10.
1. The camera work was a bit fuzzy 7/10
2. sound was good 8/10
3. the acting fine 9/10
4. the screenplay was good: bringing the mystery home was well done. 10/10
5. One line summary: Ghost contacts guilty parties through photography.

20130802_a: Horror Film Review--Daylight Fades

Daylight Fades

1. Released in 2010, live action theatrical release; horror genre; 100 minutes.
2. Rotten Tomatoes said 'No Reviews Yet..', and 50% approval from 34 users.
3. IMDB gave it 3.8/10.0 for 127 users; imdb site
4. So, the film was not widely attended.  Hulu+ streamed the film in HD.
5. Screenplay was between awkward and useless.  The density of cliches is rather high.  The acting tends to be wooden.
6. Cinematography was better.  There is usually enough light.  Focus and framing are good even in low light, and periods of murkiness and jerky camera motion are few and far between.  As with many vampire films, the scenes were often dark.  That's not a plus for me.
7. Sound was OK.  The foley was not obnoxious, and the incidental music was suitable rather than discordant.  The sound was more of a nothing than an asset.
8. At 20 minutes into the movie, the setup is fairly complete.  A young man (Johnny) and a young woman (Elizabeth) get romantically involved.  He is more serious about it, while she is more casual.  They break up over this.  Immediately thereafter, he becomes the main victim in a car accident, and seems highly likely to die from internal bleeding.  Then she's heart broken.
9. This film needed ten times the budget on screenplay, and five times the budget on actors.  The motivations for the performances of the actors eludes me too often.
10. 'What do you mean, you changed me?'  Before dying, Johnny gets turned by the vampire Seth.
11. At 40 minutes in, the challenges of vampire life settle in for Johnny.  Eating mammals other than humans was not too much of a challenge, but dealing with one's old friends is more problematic.  Not surprisingly, there are human deaths and coverups.  Johnny does not immediately know what to do with his increased strength and speed.
12. An hour in, Johnny is disillusioned by Seth, and getting some tutelage from Raven, a vampire senior to Seth.  Eighty minutes in, Johnny's relationship with Raven has gone bad, and Seth's attempt at rapprochement with Elizabeth's mother has failed.
13. Johnny and Seth deal with (hm) Elizabeth wanting to be turned.
14. The count of 'I can't do this' is pretty high.  After a while, it just becomes repetitive whining.  Again, the main faults here are the sad writing, and the green state of the actors.
15. Were there any characters that I cared about?  No.  Was there anything unexpected?  Not really.  Were there many 'of course' moments?  Yes.  Would I recommend this to anyone?  I would recommend this one only to those who relish start to finish badness.
16. One star of five, in honor of the cinematography and the sound, even though those were lackluster.  20130927: two blackholes for acting and screenplay.

Scores:

1. Cinematography: 5/10 Good enough.


2. Sound: 5/10 The actors were adequately miked, but the sound levels still tended to be low.


3. Acting: 2/10 The actor who plays the protagonist was particularly bad, and none of the others were that interesting.


4. Screenplay: 1/10  Slow, non-engaging, disappointing ending.

20130730_b: five mini-reviews

A. Beautiful Girls

1. Released in 1996, 7.1/10.0 for 21,130 users on IMDB, 78% on Rotten Tomatoes.
2. American theatrical film, rated R, 110 minutes, live action, competent color cinematography.
3. Stars Timothy Hutton, Annabeth Gish, Matt Dillon, Uma Thurman, Noah Emmerich, Lauren Holly, Martha Plimpton, Natalie Portman, Mira Sorvino.
4. Yet another ten year reunion picture, with highlights on broken dreams, stunted careers, and failure to launch.  The men are snafu, and women seem not to be getting what they might get in a richer environment.
5. The sweet chemistry of the scenes between actors Timothy Hutton and Natalie Portman eclipse almost everything else in the film, which is wall-to-wall malaise.  Their age difference (28 for him, 13 for her) is just too great.  However, it did remind me of Parrish (1961), where she (Paige Raike) was 15, he (Parrish McLean) was 18.  He joined the Navy, she finished high school.  Then they got together.  In contrast, I could not figure out any way for the Natalie-Timothy thing to work out.
6. I liked the actors on the whole.  The script seemed a bit diffuse, and the direction weak.
7. Three stars of five.

B. Occult Academy.

1. Japanese anime, released in 2010, 7.0/10.0 on IMDB from 53 users, 24 minute episodes.
2. The first two episodes were enjoyable; I rated them four of five stars.
3. Episode three was two stars of five, next to useless, and I am now stalled on finishing the series.

C. Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East

1. Japanese anime, serial episodes, premiered January 5, 2013; first season ended March 30, 2013.  Subtitles; no dubbing.  No IMDB entry.  Wikipedia: hakkenden
2. Episode 1: Borders
3. Dysfunctional families.  Dark, magical forests.  Talking birds and toads.  Children who cannot age physically. 
4. Three stars of five.  I'll try the second episode.

D. Kimikiss: Pure Rouge

1. Japanese anime, serial episodes, premiered October 2007, ended March 2008.  Subtitles; no dubbing.  Wikipedia: Kimikiss
2. Pleasant.  Art is OK.  Mostly about high school relationships, not sci-fi, horror, or magic.  That's refreshing.
3. Might watch the second episode.
4. Four stars of five.

E. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

1. Japanese anime, feature length.   101 minutes, released 2005.  IMDB gave it 7.2/10.0 from 39,249 users.  Rotten Tomatoes gave it 33%.
2. It's ugly.  Very.  Enormous, incredibly stupidly designed motorcycles are involved.  This is always a bad sign.  The 3-d modelling was, well, 2005.  That is, about as realistic as a plastic doll.
3. Another huge bad sign was the extra long introduction where the narrator was a child.
4. The background music was ridiculously bad.
5. The base level of graphical detail varies (all too frequently) from photographic realism to third rate animation art that one might see in the seventies.  The ongoing jarring visual discontinuities were dismaying at best.
6. The primary battle with a giant monster was right out of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.  The monster's existence made no sense, its ability to function was laughable, and its defeat was even less believable than the other parts.  How could anyone ask for less?
7. In another similarity with MMPR, motorcycles just be stupid...the way they are portrayed here.  Compare that with expertise with real motorcycles, say Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.
8. The sword battles were beneath pitiful.
9. Some of the final music was so inappropriate that I'd have to say this is the worst anime I've ever seen.
10. One star of five.  It deserved much less.

20130730: Documentary Review--The Occult

The Occult: The truth behind the word (2010)

1. Released 2010, 75 minutes, poster-style illustrations, plus bad videos, plus voice-over paired with stock footage.
2. No rating yet on IMDB; on Rotten Tomatoes, 'no reviews yet' and 0% liked it.
3. So, almost no one has seen it.
4. The overbearing background music was almost too much by itself.  The blaring narration was no gift either.  Turning down my audio to its next to lowest setting almost fixed it.  Interviews with 'experts' were done in video that was low-lit, low contrast, soft focus, or out of focus.  The sound on the videos is terrible; words and lip movements lag badly.  In other words, the cinematic fundamentals are very weak.
5. The film certainly has its axes to grind.  Animism and shamans are good, as are pantheism and magicians.  Hallucinogens are illuminating and empowering.  All monotheism is 'selfish', particularly the invasive and dictatorial Roman Catholic Church.  The modern inheritors of RCC rule, namely large governments, corporations, and the advertising industry are just as bad as the RCC.  Modern accomplishments (computers, communications, relative wealth) are just tools for these groups.
6. The overview of all human history was as dreary as any I've watched.  The parallel visuals were loosely connected at best.
7. As for progression [animism ==> pantheism] and the rise of magicians and shamans, one might be better served by visits to the library, or to searches on the Internet.  The combat between pantheism/monotheism is better documented in the same places.
8. The 'parallels' presented between magicians and advertising agencies were amusing.
9. The music was terrible.
10. The worst part was that the screenplay for the movie could have been written by any university sophomore who had taken first year religion, first year psychology, and had read news on the Internet for a year or so in their late teen years.
11. One star of five for the discussion of magicians and modern advertisers, plus the often repeated refrain that the RCC has authored some of the world's worst dark magic tomes.  20130927: four blackholes for cinematography, screenplay, sound, and SFX.
12. This was a long 75 minutes.
13. I would not recommend this film to any one for any reason.
14. The music was terrible.

Cinematography: 2/10 Truly poor, especially the long interviews with the occult experts.

Sound: 0/10 Lots of variation.  The worst for the spoken word was in the interviews.  The use of music was off-putting at best.

20130729: Documentary review--Conquering the World

A. (hulu+) Richard Parks: Conquering the World

1. Former rugby player Richard Parks takes on the 7-3-7 challenge: climb the tallest peaks on the 7 continents, reach the 3 poles (south, north, highest) of the world, and do it in under 7 months.
2. This was an amazingly good documentary film.
3. There was a narrator whose script was not too much, not too little, and always to the point.  Bravo.  I usually do not like narration.
4. The camera work was exquisite, especially from the mighty peaks.  The footage of ascents and descents was better than I expected.
5. The sound was quite well done, particularly the interviews.  The incidental music was a plus.  I usually dislike incidental music, since it often distracts from the exposition.
6. The financing and impetus for taking the challenge was well explained.  All through the detailing of the six months, twelve days of meeting the challenge, the importance of the logistical support teams was made clear.
7. Taking care of injuries and travel obstacles was handled well.
8. The scripting of what Richard Parks had to say in studio concerning the different parts of the film was good in terms of exposition and emotional content for the long, hard effort.
9. I rated this film five stars of five on Hulu+.

Cinematography: 10/10 Beautiful.  Excellent framing, depth of field, sufficient lighting.

Sound: 10/10 Consistently good.

Screenplay: 10/10  Quite well-organized.

20130727

A. (hulu+) Lunopolis.

1. Boring beyond belief.  Bad camera work, incoherent plot, non-actors.  It is billed as a documentary, as in documentary style, but this horrid fiasco had zero basis in facts.
2. The titles of the 'professors' were laughable as were the lies the unskilled actors told.  The long duration of voice added over hand-scribbled poster art was cheap and uninspiring.  The occasional music was ridiculously inappropriate.
3. Released in 2009, 98 minutes.  Hulu claimed it was delivering HD, but the wretched camera work checkmated that.  IMDB gave it 6.4/10.0 based on 552 user ratings.  Rotten Tomatoes gave it 72% (audience), or 3.7/5.0.  These are high numbers.  Perhaps almost all viewers were true believers before hand.  This was indeed a very bad film.
4. I gave it one star of five on Hulu+.
5. I would recommend this mess to no one.

B. (hulu+)  Primeval: New World

1. (continuing) Have watched episodes through number 7.
2. Still like it quite a bit, usually four stars of five.

C.  (hulu+) Trailer for 47 Ronin

1. Movies can survive bad trailers, I suppose.
2. Judging from this trailer, I will not watch the movie.  A rag-tag group of 47 taking on a huge army with supernatural elements does not have much of a chance; less than the Greek side in the film 300.  I saw no one to root for.  Without engaging characters, what is left?  The effects were not all that good, and the plot absurd.
3. For the trailer, one star of five.

D. (hulu+) Naked States.

1. 74 minutes, released in 2000; IMDB gave it 6.0/10.0 based on input from 408 users.  Rotten Tomatoes gave it 45%, 3.2 of 5.0 from audiences.  There was not enough critical input for the usual percentage; was given 'no score yet.'
2. The film consistently delivered poor photography in terms of technique, both in video and in stills.  All his work is either blurred or smudged or badly lit.  The star's assertion that only ugly backgrounds should be used was pretentious at best.  The stills and videos seldom have any interesting background.  The film did not seem to document much at all, save for the photographer's whining about his subjects, the press, and anything that went wrong recently.
3. Hulu+ claimed it was delivering HD, but the small screen size and graininess belied this.  The sometimes jarring background music did not help; neither did the star's high nasal voice and whiny attitude.
4. The main person interviewed was the photographer, who was shallow and boring.  His attempts to get good press were painfully childish.  Insulting the editor you are talking to in order to get visibility seems beyond stupid.  Some of the subjects of his nude photography were more interesting, but their interviews were much shorter, typically less than one minute.
5. My favorite moment was when it seemed like the star might get the crap beaten out of him by the bikers in South Dakota.  He was that irritating.  May I never see another still of 'apocalyptic formation' again.  His level of pretense was huge.
6. One star of five.  Wished I had not seen it, and would recommend it to no one.

20130713: 5 mini reviews

A. (netflix) Crawlspace, 2011, 86 minutes, live action theatrical film

1. Amber Clayton, Ditch Davey, Peta Sergeant
2. Mystery, Science Fiction, conspiracy, horror, suspense, psychological tomfoolery.
3. Set in Australia; dangerous experimentation done at a secret laboratory.  Elite military unit is sent in to sort things out.
4. IMDB rated it 4.5/10.0; Rotten Tomatoes rated it 23%.
5. Rated it three stars of five.  Some parts were rather nice, others too murky.

B.  (hulu+) Darker Than Black, anime episodic series, science fiction, crime procedural.

1. Season 1, 26 episodes; Season 2, 12 episodes available on hulu; 2007, 2008
2. Rated 7.9/10.0 on IMDB for 2,990 reviews (almost three thousand).
3. After an unexplained astronomical event, the sky is changed over Japan, and some areas become off-limits for their effects on humans.  That is, some are changed into supernatural creatures, called contractors.  For some group of unexplained reasons, the contractors are all used by criminals for nefarious purposes.  I have yet to see the explanation for this.  Why would the contractors not just exterminate the bosses for high sport?  On the surface, there are the cops and robbers elements (visual themes, habits, speech), then there is also the randomizing effects of the contractors.
4. I've seen half a dozen episodes.  It's good enough to continue, but I have not decided whether my overall rating would be three or four stars of five.

C. (hulu+)  Hiiro no Kakera, anime episodic series, supernatural, coming of age.

1. Rated 8.1/10.0 on IMDB for 29 (one less than thirty)
2. Season 1, 13 episodes; season 2, 13 episodes; all in 2012.
3. Protagonist is teenaged Tamaki Kusaga.  Her parents went to Africa for some sort of noble purpose, or so they say.  Tamaki is abandoned, well, dispatched to her grandmother's estate in the sticks.  As soon as she sets foot on the property, she's attacked by local spirits.  A stranger helps her fight off the attackers, and escorts her to her new home.  The stranger is a member of a family allied to hers.  She soon meets four additional protectors, and starts the process of getting to know her challenges and how to deal with them.
4. I've seen two episodes of 26 total, so far.  I'm not yet convinced that it is worth finishing, but it's good enough to try a few more.

D. (hulu+) Primeval: New World

1. Season 1, episode 5; live action, science fiction, time travel.
2. Two reptilian predators (wolf-sized and wolfish; lycaenops) come through anomalies.  There seems to be no way to send them back, and the team ends up killing them.  The 'butterfly effect' is discussed but not invoked, making me wonder when it will be.
3. As usual, four stars out of five. 

E. (hulu+) Dark Metropolis

1. 86 minutes, live action film released in 2010.
2. IMDB rated it 2.3/10.0 from 226 users.
3. Wow.  Terrible describes the script, the acting, the lighting, the direction, and any sense of taste.
4. I gave this one star of five, since I might want to excoriate this on hulu later.  One star was too many.

20130712: Reviews--Ghost Hunter, ReGenesis

20130712, vendredi

A. (hulu+) Ghost Hunter

1. Episodic anime, first season 25 episodes, 24 minutes each; released 2007.
2. Supernatural meets detection.  The protagonist is a 15 year old Japanese girl who joins a spiritualist detective agency.  The agency uses mixed methods: pervasive cctv plus temperature recordings on the scientific side, as well as a Shinto monk, a 'shrine maiden', a Catholic exorcist, a celebrity medium, and a practitioner of wards and shikigami.
3. The episodes are grouped into 3 and 4-episode story arcs called 'files.'
4. Except for some annoying instances (two I can think of) where the lead character starts screaming to get her way, I found the storytelling competent and engaging.
5. Four stars of five.

B. (hulu+)  ReGenesis

1. Episodic live action Canadian television drama series, largely concerning the tracking down of epidemics, and the unraveling of how to find cures.
2. Wikipedia 
3. It's bit overblown; lots of the characters seem to live on the extreme edge of their skin.
4. The lead character is both engaging and too cliche.  His brilliant reasoning is nice, but the endless presentation of grunge is more than off-putting.
5. The lead's daughter, played by Ellen Paige, has similar characteristics.  She's bold, and can think on her feet.  Great, the apple does not fall too far from the tree.  On the other hand, she expresses teenage anger, rebellion, and storming off in ways that are all too familiar and not all that interesting.  I usually get the urge to index ahead in the stream's timeline when she comes on.
6. The rest of the cast consists of characters that advance the plot with snippets of information.  This is fine, if not memorable.
7. Still watching this, but I know I will end of rating it three stars of five.

20130705: Reviews--Amber Lake, Alien Hunter, .hack

20130707, dimanche

A. (hulu+) Amber Lake

1. Released 2011, live action, 5.5/10 on IMDB, 45% on Rotten Tomatoes.
2. Three half-sisters, all named Amber, meet their wayward psychiatrist father at a lake.
3. Two days later, he's dead (blunt force trauma to the head followed by drowning), and the local police get the sisters' accounts of the activities leading up to the murder. 
4. Liked the actors who played the father (Carmen Argenziano) and the lead cop (Timothy V Murphy), but did not care for the amateurish, over-the-top performances of the actresses who played the daughters. 
5. Useless ending.
6. Gave it one star of five on hulu.

B. (hulu+) Alien Hunter

1. Released 2003, live action, 4.9/10.0 on IMDB, 22% on Rotten Tomatoes.
2. James Spader, Keir Dullea, Roy Dotrice, and Carl Lewis.
3. Spader's character is a womanizer and brilliant code breaker whose career mostly crashed after the shutdown of SETI.
4. An artifact found under the Antarctic ice near an American research site is recovered after emitting a signal tracked by the US government.  The signal resembled remarkably a signal sent from near Roswell in 1947.  Spader wrangles passage to the site.
5. The usual perfect storm of instances of Murphy's Law culminates in the alien getting lose, research staff dying from alien disease vectors and from shooting each other.  The Russians bomb the site at the behest of Washington, obliterating evidence.
6. Similar to The Abyss, the aliens break into the proceedings with their superior technology.  Quite differently than The Abyss, no humans notice this, except the four who were saved.
7. Slow moving, neither compelling nor funny.  The ending was a bit novel, but not much.
8. This was probably my least favorite James Spader film.
9. One star of five.

C. (hulu+) .hack//Quantum

1. Released 2010, anime, 7.0/10.0 on IMDB.
2. A bit more lively (so far) than .hack//sign, judging from 2 episodes of the new one.
3. .hack//sign was produced by Bandai, .hack//quantum by Funimation.
4. I'm missing context on numerous other .hack efforts, but most of them seem to be sequels of .hack//sign.
5. (20130730) I subsequently finished this; there were 3 episodes total.  This was actually a good thing; the plot was wound up expeditiously.  I rated it four stars of five.