20130811: SF Review--Apocalypse Earth

Name: AE: Apocalypse Earth (2013)
IMDb: link to AE: Apocalypse Earth

Genres: Action, SciFi   Country of Origin: USA

Cast: Adrian Paul as Lt. Frank Baum, Richard Grieco as Capt. Sam Crowe, Bali Rodriguez as Lea, Gray Hawks as TIM (Trans-human Interactive Machine; shades of Data on Star Trek, the Next Generation), Jayson McCardell as Sergeant Peebles, Michelle Jones as Hannah.

Written and directed by: Thunder Levin.

The Three Acts: 

The initial tableaux:
There is a massive failure at establishing context at the beginning of the film.  Just what is the initial situation?  War?  Disaster?  I'm guessing war, but with whom?  How can a ship (Ark) big enough to transport a sufficient set of survivors across interstellar space take off at a moment's notice from the middle of a city?

After cryo-sleep, the passengers on the Albert Einstein (the Ark seen initially) awake to find they are about to crash on a planet.  There is a lot of confusion, then stragglers coalesce to form the group to be followed by the viewer and the indigenous hunters.

Delineation of conflicts: 
Most of the locals ('Chameleons') are hostile.  For instance, they imprisoned the surviving crew of another Ark, the Isaac Newton.  The Einstein crashed into the prison where the Newton survivors were being held, and some of the Newton survivors are in the group.

The group adds Lea, a non-Chameleon local who is a loner and who becomes their ally.   There is more than a bit of mutual distrust at the beginning: when forming a new heterogeneous group, there is usually the triad: form, storm, norm.  Fortunately, the storm period is not too long.

After the new group is a bit more cohesive, what will they do?  They are outgunned and severely out numbered.  Do they reach for local power, in the form of new allies, or do they try to return to Earth?

Resolution:
After so many losses of personnel and resources, just what did the ark program accomplish?

One line summary: Escape from apocalypse fails.

Statistics:

Cinematography: 4/10 Usually plenty of light, but framing is iffy, and depth of field was poor.  Jumpiness is common; it has the look of recurrent missing frames.  All too often, nothing was in focus, and the level of graininess was high.

Sound: 8/10 There were a few problems with sound effects, but the actors' voices picked up OK.  Some of the background music was rather good.

Acting: 2/10 Looks unrehearsed, at least early on.  Gray Hawks' performance was terrible, as if he were doing an imitation of Brent Spiner as Data.

Screenplay: 1/10 The first 15 minutes were awful.  Just two minutes of establishing material at the beginning would have made the first half of the film easier to take without giving the story away.  I nearly bailed.  The second half of the film was a bit better, with most loose ends tied up. Filmed in Costa Rica; on IMDB, I saw two estimates for the budget, 1 million USD and 350k USD.  More money on screenplay would have helped, as would more budget on cinematography.

SFX:  2/10 Special effects were unimpressive to just plain bad.

Final Rating: 2/10

20130810: Documentary Review--Flight from Death

Flight from Death: the Quest for Immortality

1. American live action documentary movie prepared for television; 90 minutes; 2003.
2. IMDB: 6.9/10.0 from 230 user ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'no score yet', and 69% of ticket buying people liked it (717 ratings).
4. Stars: Gabriel Byrne (narrator), sheldon solomon (academic expert; skidmore college), Sam Keen (expert), Robert Jay Lifton (expert), merlyn mowrey (academic expert), irvin yalom (expert).
5. From Rotten Tomatoes: 'the research of late cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker is explored to reveal his theory of death as the primary motivator of human behavior -- especially in regards to aggression and violence' -- That is what the film is about, which is neither 'Flight from Death' nor the 'quest for immortality.'
6. The film makes its position quite clear early on: there is no immortality.  We all die.  There are no exceptions.  There is no flight from death.  The quest for immortality is an illusion.
7. So, theories of immortality are illusions.
8. Three things are repeated again and again. (a) People are willing to hurt others who have different theories of immortality (say the theory of Islam versus the theory of Christianity). (b) many are willing to die in order for their theory of immortality come out dominant (the usual justification for modern terrorism). (c) When forcibly confronted with their own mortality, people are more harsh toward anyone else.
9. ---------------
10. Anyone over the age of 20 has already figured all these things out.  That's been true for centuries.  Read Mark Twain carefully, for instance.  If one lives in a repressive culture, one usually never says these things out loud.  These days a few sorts of repression are a little lighter.  As a result, a 'learned' work like this comes out.
11. It's nothing new folks, and I've wasted 90 minutes.  Please don't make the same mistake.
12. One sentence summary:  I would not recommend this to any one for any reason.
13. One star of five.  20130927: two blackholes for acting and screenplay.

Cinematography: 4/10 It's in TV format, with weak resolution, and generally soft focus.

Sound: 8/10 OK, but not great.

Acting: 2/10 I am quite glad that such things are being said aloud and written in journals by academics.  But it is a tremendous performance (as in performance art) for them to act as if they have discovered something new.  I'm glad they all got publications for it.  Someone should, I suppose.

Screenplay: 2/10 The authors of this work had about six axes to grind.  I think they did well at that, although in a very heavy handed way.  It's just nothing new.

20130810: Documentary Review--Love the Beast

Love the Beast

1. Australian live action 'vanity' documentary movie, 92 minutes, released 2009, rated R for language.
2. Hulu says: Eric Bana's directorial debut explores the importance of his 25-year-long love affair with his first car - a Ford XB Falcon Coupe, "The Beast."
3. IMDB: 7.1/10.0 from 1,344 user reviews.
4. Rotten Tomatoes: 59% and 'no consensus yet.'  Well, yes.  The dozen or so mini-reviews I read on Rotten Tomatoes were polarized.  Among ticket-buying movie-goers, 76% liked it.
5. Starring: Eric Bana, Jay Leno (The Tonight Show), Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear), Phil McGraw (Dr. Phil).
6. Eric Bana narrates his involvement with the 1974 Falcon Coupe, from early racing seen live in his youth, to Mel Gibson driving one in Mad Max, to having one of his own.
7. His discussions with other 'car people' are really fine, and add a lot of texture to the piece.  I had not expected Dr. Phil to be a car person, but his discussion of what it's like to race was very incisive, as was his distinguishing between operating at peak performance and delusions of immortality.  Jay Leno was also good at adding more information about car people, who are not all racers.
8. The multiple rebuilds of the Beast were interesting.  The final product probably had little or no original metal left from the original.
9. Eric's first race was in Tasmania, and after his 'last' rebuild of the Beast, he returned to run again in that original track.  This was an endurance race, the '5-day Targa Tasmania Rally.'
10. I am not a 'car person', but I like cars and driving.  So the interviews and the racing footage did not put me off.  I could see how a number of non 'car people' might feel disenfranchised early on in the film.  So, proceed with caution.
11. I liked Bana's straightforward enthusiasm and devotion over time.
12. Five stars of five.  I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys automobiles.

Cinematography: 6/10 Much of the archival footage sucked: small images, grainy in every spot, poor depth of field.  The more current footage looks good on the whole, but was sometimes bleached out in the bright Australian sun.

Sound: 9/10 Seldom disappoints.

Acting: 8/10 Lots of interviews: Eric's parents, his early friends, other enthusiasts he met in life.  There was plenty of sincerity and humor.

Screenplay: 9/10 The organization was reasonable.

20130810: Documentary Review--80 Waves

Around the World in 80 Waves

1. American live action theatrical movie, released in 2010, 60 minutes, 
2. IMDB listed the film at 5.9/10.0 from 12 users' ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'no score yet' from reviewers, and 71% from 337 ticket buying reviewers.
4. There is a lot of travel involved.
5. Pipeline, Hawaii: wonderful water shots.
6. Hydrofoil: shots of surfers using a hydrofoil attached to the underside of the back of their boards.  It almost looks like they are surfing above the water.
7. Waimea Bay, Hawaii: large, heavy, turbulent waves.  Many surfers, many cameras, lots of traffic congestion (not shown).
8. Tavarua, Fiji: small island with lots of waves.  A lot of the perimeter of the island is controlled by a resort, though, and the movie makers could not film as well as they might since they are not all paying customers.  So 'Cloudbreak', one of the main attractions was not available.
9. Tahiti: impressive waves.  Lovely colors on the ocean water.
10. Bali: some fine shots of atmosphere, colors of the ocean, dancers, and the like.  Plus surfers and waves.
11. G-land, Indonesia: island of Java.  Waves were fast and turbulent.  G-land is a surf camp franchise system.  Lots of energetic waves.
12. Regulations for surfing on Hawaii.  The interviewee likened surfing to flying a plane...one needs to know the legal rules, and be trained at least to some degree.  How etiquette might be useful, but seems to be ignored since surfing is a 'selfish sport.'  He makes a good case verbally, and a few shots of beautiful waves almost covered in boats, helicopters, and surfers brings this home.
13. If you like beautiful images, this is a good 60 minutes to catch.
14. Five stars of five.

Cinematography: 10/10 Watch this on the best monitor you can find.  Definitely HD.  Most shots were exteriors.  The framing was excellent, focus crisp, with amazing lighting conditions.

Sound:  10/10 No complaints.

Acting: Not really applicable, but the talking heads do fine during the minutes they are onscreen.  Adam d'Esposito was the most frequently seen in the interviews, and he's photogenic and well-spoken.

Screenplay: 10/10 This is more about organizing clips camera work than pacing discussions and interactions among actors.  There were a lot of beautiful photography here.  The interspersing shots of people talking are short, to the point, and well-miked.  There was quite a bit more time spent on a great white shark spotted near Hawaii.  Other than that, it was wall-to-wall waves and surfing.

20130810: Comedy Review--The Treatment

Name: The Treatment (2006)
IMDb: link to The Treatment

Genres: Comedy, Romance, Drama.   Country of origin: USA.

Cast: Christopher Eigeman as Jake, Famke Janssen as Allegra Marshall, Jake's lover in an affair that eventually bogs down; Ian Holm as Dr. Ernesto Morales; Stephanie March as Julia, Jake's ex; Harris Yulin as Dr. Singer; Blair Brown as Miss Callucci; Roger Rees as Leighton Proctor, Jake's boss at school; Stephen Lang as the basketball coach, Jake's boss in that arena.

Directed by: Oren Rudavsky. Written by: Daniel Saul Housman, Daniel Menaker (novel), Oren Rudavsky.

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
Jake is a recently divorced Manhattan high school teacher who is in psychotherapy.  Jake's two bosses enjoy putting him in his place.  Despite the patterns of failure, Jake has his scattered aspirations.

Delineation of conflicts:
Jake wants to be a leader, especially in his own life, but cannot do what it takes to become one. He attempts to resolve his inner conflicts with the aggressive Dr Morales, but the two seldom connect.

He attempts wooing his boss' ex-wife Allegra Marshall, but that also seems doomed.  He has all sorts of ideas about how the basketball team should be managed, but cannot make his voice heard with the coach, who tells him to stick to keeping statistics.  Leighton Proctor tells him to keep his opinions to himself, and to support whatever Leighton Proctor said.

It came as no surprise that Jake has issues with Dr. Singer, his ailing father.

Resolution: The doors continue to slam shut.  Does Jake break through any of them?

One line summary: No laughs in this #FeelBad comedy.

Statistics:

Cinematography:  5/10 The introductory sequence, which included most of the credits, was ugly and out of focus.  The camera work improved immediately after that, but still suffered from soft focus and short depth of field.  With a budget that IMDB estimated at 900,000 USD, I suppose this is not unexpected.

Sound: 7/10 Very nice in the introductory sequence, OK through the rest.

Acting: 4/10 The first encounter of Julia and Jake was irritating.  Stephanie March's performances are always wooden, so I expected nothing there.   Eigeman's acting plus the writing, though, rendered the scene repulsive rather than bland.  Why would Julia (gorgeous and well-connected) marry this nebbish, who can turn any opportunity into rancid failure?

This one small stint told me the entire film would be worse than having a horse step on my foot.  All the subsequent minutes of the film did not change that assessment.  This was a dreary movie, mostly because of Eigeman's acting.  Dragging the viewer through the protagonist's failures is a bit much.  A different lead might have used the situations better; there might have been laughs.

On the other hand, I enjoyed the performances of Ian Holm, Stephen Lang, Famke Janssen, Harris Yulin, and Roger Rees.  That's why it's 4/10, not zero.

Screenplay:  4/10 With another lead, slightly better screenplay, and the same supporting actors, I think I might have had three or four belly laughs, plus a dozen chuckles.  With this lead, I did not laugh once.  This does not recommend a film labelled comedy.  The 'happy ending' seemed like an abrupt change given the bulk of the film.

Final Rating: 4/10

20130810: Documentary Review--The Big Buy

The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress

1. American live action theatrical film, 2006, documentary, 75 minutes, 
2. IMDB rated the film 7.2/10.0 from 88 user reviews.
3. Tom DeLay rose from a 'piece of furniture' in the Texas Legislature to a money making dynamo who took effective control of the Texas legislature, then the US House of Representatives, where he became Majority Leader in the 2003.
4. Also profiled is Ronnie Earle, the relevant prosecutor in Travis County, where Austin is located.  A fair amount of screen time concerns Earle's motives in his prosecution of DeLay.
5. Democratic Texas legislators who were defeated in elections via floods of corporate funds are interviewed.
6. Several members of the press were interviewed, as were relevant lawyers, and other Texas leaders from the period.
7. Three stars of five.

One line summary:  The rise and fall of Tom DeLay in the Texas Legislature and the US House.

Cinematography: 5/10 Many of the archival clips are badly out of focus; sometimes the camera wobbles. Depth of field is consistently poor.

Sound: 9/10 Good, but not flawless.

Acting: not relevant.

Screenplay: 7/10 This is a sketch of the rise of Tom DeLay, and a more detailed accounting of his fall.  The fall included his indictment for felony money laundering charges related to using corporate money for political uses in violation of Texas law.  The indictment resulted in DeLay's resignation as  House Majority Leader in January, 2006, and his leaving the House in April, 2006.  (He was convicted in 2011, well after the film was released.)  The film does fairly well in representing differing points of view on the proceedings.

20130810: Indie Comedy--A Girl Walks into a Bar

Name: A Girl Walks into a Bar (2011)
IMDb: link to Girl Walks into a Bar

Genres: Comedy, Indie    Country of Origin: USA

Cast: Gil Bellows (Emmit Driver, cop), Xander Berkeley (Moe, cop), Alexis Bledel (Kim, drunk and high), Emmanuelle Chriqui (Teresa, one of the strippers), Rosario Dawson (June, hat check at the naked ping pong club), Danny DeVito (Aldo, gangster), Robert Forster (Dodge, ex con), Carla Gugino (Francine Driver, ex cop working with Sam), Josh Hartnett (Det. Sam Salazar), Zachary Quinto (Nick, the dentist), Michelle Ryan (Loretta), Lauren Lee Smith (Karen, dancer), Aaron Tveit (Henry, the pickpocket photographer), Amber Valletta (Camilla, bartender), Kevin Zegers (Billy), and even more actors.

Written and Directed by: Sebastian Gutierrez.

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
Set in Los Angeles, California, mostly at night, almost entirely in 10 bars populated by cops, gangsters, strippers, bartenders, ex cons, dancers, singers, hat check girls, and naked ping pong players.  The characters interact with each other in intertwining stories.

The action begins when Francine gets Nick to ask her to kill his wife, and records it on the sly.  That sets the rest of the stories in motion, split across locations and small groups of characters.

Delineation of conflicts:
This is a film with an ensemble cast and intertwining stories.  Each transaction between characters sets in motion other transactions.

Francine wants 20k USD now, so Nick goes to Aldo to get back some money he's 'invested.' Aldo can't get it the same night unless Nick does something for Aldo, namely rob the ping pong club. Nick meets his wife at the ping pong club, and they confess (her infidelity, his murder plans) and make up.  While waiting for Nick, Francine visits various bars to track down a pickpocket who can get a picture back from Emmitt, her ex.  Sam officially covers the action at the ping pong club, updates Francine when it's over, and ends up getting close to the hat check lady June.

Resolution:
Add in about 20 more interactions, and you have the film.  The story threads finally converge with side effects.

One line summary: This was a pleasant indie ensemble 'feel good' movie.

Statistics:

Cinematography: 8/10 Almost all interiors, well framed, sufficient light for the cameras.  The focus was a bit too soft for me in several passages.

Sound: 10/10 Just fine.

Acting:  8/10 The veteran actors were good (Carla Gugino, Danny DeVito, Xander Berkeley, Robert Forster, for instance), and most of the actors I was unfamiliar with were competent.  Zachary Quinto was disappointing again, as expected.  He has almost reached the level of deal breaker for me.

Screenplay: 8/10 The storylines came together fine, and I did have that 'feel good' at the end.  I could have used a few more laughs during the main body of the film.

Final Rating: 8/10

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.