Reviews by shawn tomorrow

its not as good as shaun of the dead, but its far from the flop of many other zombie or even horror movies i've seen. i mean "dead and breakfast" got decent reviews but i could hardly sit through it. by those standards this is far better.

granted i think the biggest problem people have had with this film is #1 it didn't pull out any punches as far as the jokes go and #2 it is all done in complete regimented dead pan that it almost comes off as bad acting. billy zane isn't a great actor but he is never that flat either.

what could've been a great movie just doesn't quite muster anything to love about it. and the seeming anti-growth hormone message either wasn't funny or was overly heavy handed.

the meat eating the farmers at the end was totally different from most of the movie and more of it would've made a different movie altogether.

just a lot of ideas here and it didn't come together.
(the dvd has a deleted scene which is bothing incredibly boring and totally without any place to situate it in the movie....they could've left it on the cutting room floor...we didn't need to see it. i would'be rather watched the take counter parts of the reels.)

i think it would be hard to go terribly wrong with a movie about rembrandt. seriously, its a wonder that there are not others.
everything about this movie is an old movie. its everything you'd expect from a black and white era classic. charles laughlin plays the role very well. everything is drama and light is abundant. everything plays out slowly like a theater play, well enunciated and passionately portrayed. its just gold all around.
no it will not live up to today's quick edit, blaring color, the pomp of sound orchestration, or any of that. its an old old movie and yet a 100% enjoyable watch.

the story follows rembrandt's life moreso than his paintings or watching his skill acted out. its just a story about a pheasant man who became famous for his amazing painting skills, then lost a wife, flopped on a painted portrait commission, and was buried into obscurity. he becomes something akin to a beggar, and instead of the heartwarming tale we expect from hollywood and disney...instead we see him besieged with more tragedy and loss.

no its not a happy story, just a good one.

read the title: "max headroom complete series". enough said.

ok so right at the top of the box...you can't miss it...."william shatner". so you can guess a lot of star trek nerds picked this up as a curiosity and the rest of the non-star trek nerds probably laughed and avoided this completely. but is it any good? it is.

this movie is post outer limits and pre star trek. some of the people responsible for outer limits concocted this script and filming. shatner is the lead character. it is not at all sci-fi though, its a horror flick.

the black and white is very nicely done...strictly professional stuff for the time. the script...well the premise is great, the story a tad weak, and the language (yes the language) tedious. the movie is entirely in the made up language "esperanto". apparently they thought it'd give the movie an "other worldly" feel. other than forcing everyone to read the subtitle except for a few nerds who learned that language, it adds nothing. the actors are great in the movie and honestly as far as i'm concerned they do a fine job with the language. (apparently originally screened by people who spoke the language. they broke out in laughter at how bad the pronunciations were....and who gives a flying f**k about how they pronounce a fake language? not i. the actors are good enough they could've babbled the entire thing and it'd be just the same.)

the story is a morality tale of sorts. group of succubi entice people into darkness and death, stealing their souls for the devil. a young succubi tries to tempt a honest soul, shatner, into darkness. she's warned it is impossible because love is strong. eventually she enlists the help of an incubus to ensnare him, but she also begins begins to fall in love with him.

all in all a slow but enjoyable black and white horror film with a great black goat attack ending!

as note: the film was considered lost. a fire destroyed the original, and copies were no where to be found or in awful shape. a good copy was found and restored in 2001. that copy apparently had french subtitles embedded in the film. while details of the restoration refer to frame by frame fixing...in the end the movie now has large black blocks with english subtitles in them. this is in the picture frame and is unfortunately a bit aggressive in how much it invades the picture. its nothing awful, and if thats the best there is then so be it. (i just figured with all the tech today they could've digitally removed and replaced "lost" areas in the film with a convincing "substitute" and then re-subtitled better)

i've already seen "lust for life" which while a dark and over the top film is quite enjoyable. vincent and theo is probably more accurate of a portrayal and a fine one at that..

focusing more on the relationship of theo and vincent than on the presumed artistic struggles and psychological states of vincent, the film is ultimately more believable and the characters more than just a parody. albeit at the start of the movie, and occasionally throughout, there are parts that seem more suited to theater than film. as well there are parts of the film that leave a lot for the viewer to make up in between what is said and done.

its a long film, perhaps too long, at nearly 2 hours and 20 minutes and still there seems to be a lot missing from the film. which should make the film tedious and pointless, however it never feels that way and is always engaging if occasionally confusing as far as were its going with certain scenes.

it could have been a perfect movie, instead its a good one.
vincent and theo are young men coming into thier own rights and struggling with their past and how it has effected their futures. madness is the theme here and tragedy the result.

this movie generally gets ok reviews. it deserves better really. no its not perfect but its successful and occasionally creepy enough to warrant some respect.

the front cover mentions blair witch. other than being in a possibly "haunted" woods and generally being isolated theres almost nothing else in common with that movie. certainly none of the "first person" filming. it has more in common with "high tension".

there are moments especially at the beginning which almost doom the movie. these are not the best actors nor the best script. however the actors are definitely good and the script never falls apart or get go below average.

the story is straight forward ghost story in the woods. a group of young kids go out into the woods....yeah you know how it goes. the mushroom tripping is probably a tad different but not really unnecessary to this movie...its not just drug use its about the connection between what ends up happening to them and whether or not its really happening. the drugs cloud when and how things happen. and in truth thats my largest dislike of the movie, in so much as when the movie does come to an end the cause is hastily flipped through. too hastily. still its explained and theres still a little to come and all in all it was fun, creepy, interesting, and generally damn good for a horror movie. i was more impressed than i ever expected to be from it.

if you think the drug use slant is a cheap device...and admittedly it sounds like a really stupid movie...you'd be missing a decidedly decent horror flick.

at the time i watched this i haven't seen other larry clark films. i'm more aware of his photography; especially "tulsa". i've also heard of the controversies that arise from his films. so i had some idea of what to expect.

although "teenage caveman" is a sci-fi movie and thats always questionable. ask anyone who's lived through 80's sci-fi; we never expect greatness but enjoy the craziness.

clark became famous for his unflinching look at the life he was living. "tulsa" was full of images of him and his friends shooting drugs and having sex as young kids. its the bluntness and "simple-minded"- lack of opininon - views which ultimately let those photos to suggest "truthfulness". they remain a document of those excesses and are shocking for what they show the world about this unseen phenomenon.

fast forward to clark making movies. a lot of the problem, as i read it, with clarks films is his insistence on showing underage kids having sex and doing drugs. fair enough. but then again as far as i can tell he hasn't glorified these things and rather is making a statement against these behaviors. also of note that the actors/actresses are of age and merely playing younger people. i see no issue with theses things.

however, it can be said where clark fails and where the controversy arises from is his lack of sophistication in getting his message across. where the photos are technically proficient enough, thier simple bluntly photographed scenes act in their favor as raw honest documents. in film however clark is directing a narrative play. this is fake drama from the start and clark lacks the ability to pull it off cleanly. it doesn't help that he uses amateur actors either.

the concept isn't bad. actually its fairly unique and interesting. the filming is smooth enough, fairly interesting if occasionally not entirely consistant. the actors are amateur but never horrible if not that great either. its the script that really lacks here. dialog is crude (probably meant to seem "real" and shocking) and simplistic. actions often are randomly inserted to get to certain dialogs. the concepts that make the movie interesting are barely fleshed out.

examples: much of the dialog is plagued with "fuck" and other words deemed crude enough. much like rob zombie these guys can't write so they attempt to overdue the shock of curse words and crudeness. much of the dialog here is about sex from supposedly naive characters. its tedious at points. in one scene in a nude group bath the "new" character stands up and walks in front of the rest for absolutely no reason...its an awkward mistake seemingly something that should have been cut and refilmed...except then one of the characters says "you have no hair". lame.

none of this is to say that i didn't like the movie. as i stated from the start i grew up with 70's and 80's sci-fi...i'm used to the cheese factor and low budget filming. some of my favorite movies are admittedly guilty pleasures. and i think this movie can fall into that category. i have to say that if clark was anyone else he probably would've sold the rights to this concept and other parts to a movie house and walked away with the money. the script would've gone through heavy editing and watering down. the actors would've been depicted as older but sexy of course. the drugs less, the sex scenes coy and "R" rating appropriate. there would've had to be a lot more money spent on special effects and they would've been great actions scenes added to it. all this would've been given a nice digital runthrough so it was glossy and bright. and in the end we would've had a lame sci-fi that drooled along like every other sci-fi. and if i can give this film credit for one thing its a vision displayed, imperfect but unique. for all its faults i kind've love it. although as a guilty pleasure i might never recommend anyone else watch it.

the movie in general is about a "tribe" of post-apocalyptic cave dwellers who are lead by a pseudo-religious priest. the priest is the father of a boy whose group of friends and love interest are all coming to age and separating themselves from the tribe (or at least dreaming of better things in better ways). the priest is just using poor religious ideas to keep control over everyone especially to make sure that hes the only one getting sex. yes, its this blunt. so of course he sets his eyes on his son's girlfriend....of course. and they fight back. and leave the tribe/cave. after a few days of wandering they get caught in a storm (they lived in caves because they couldn't live outside) and they wake up inside an industrial complex fancily furnished. they are in the lair of a young man and woman who they find out are something else then they appear. sex drugs more sex more drugs...whatever. we find out eventually that the guy was part of a science experiment and is now immortal (or close to it) and he has made the woman immortal by infecting her through sex. now clark can't handle the logic of sci-fi so he begins to make no sense whatsoever. they couple who apparently have lived 120 plus years has suddenly decided that they want to turn a couple of these kids into immortals like them while using the others of the tribe to populate the world because once infected they can't reproduce. huh? why? don't ask. clark doesn't know.

of course our hero, the priests son, and his girlfriend don't partake in the drugs or sex and they are committed to each other. save for a fatal mistake and then we get to the end where they come back to the tribe and "we're taking the kids"--roll credits?!?!???!?!!??????

honestly if you took orwell's 1984 and the tv series V (right down to the main bad girl who is a dead ringer for diana) and a dose of wwf wrestling thanks to rodey piper and a dose of john carpenter horror and what you end up with is....well this. a bit sci-fi horror thats not scary nor very serious. it could have been either or even both and it probably would remain interesting today. unfortunately it reeks of the tail end of 80's horror slop.

its not aweful and its still watchable. its a saturday-i've-got-nothin'-better-to-do sort've movie. it probably won't appeal to most modern viewers.

its bold graphics while looking through the sunglasses is its finest moment. while owing a ton to earlier versions of 1984, it remains well done and stunning enough to survive.

much of the film is long dialog-less takes with rodey piper. this is his finer moments because he's not a good actor and when he tries it shows. theres also a lot of fighting and shooting....ditto.

gordon parks should be a household name. in another time he may have been.
if you don't know the name, you should. if you don't know his work, you should.

a respected author, a great musician, a talented poet, the first african american director and writer of a major motion picture and of "shaft". and then what he became known for a major important photographer.

all of this is covered in the film along with his failures as a husband several times over. the beginnings of his son's success with his own film multimillion dollar making "superfly" before his untimely death. its a bitter sweet autobiography.

i saw this after his death and theres a little more bitter sweet added to it. while gordon had more successes than your average celebrity...hell more than almost all celebrities...., he remains an obscurity that most people don't know of. yet maybe that says something about the man and his life. always amazing but with a bitter blues ending.

a very well done documentary. not my favorite but certainly among the better of all art and photographer films. its a bit slow overall; i've shown it to my classes and they loose interest before its done. still i think it should be required viewing for any would be photographers as well as an inspiration to young african americans.

1984 made in 1984. george orwell's drama about the social order of war.

this version is hard to take. its never fun, never exciting, and never moving. which is perhaps exactly what it should be, however it makes for a difficult movie to enjoy. our hero is a boring man with a boring job rewriting parts of history. we get to see him and others taking part in this action as uninterested as can be. he falls in love with a woman and begins to do things outside of what he is intended to do. all of which is a huge set up to his arrest and reprogramming as a model citizen complete with his confession of his wrongdoings.

i can't say i remember the book all that well anymore and perhaps the movie intended to follow it accurately.

the visual movie is stunning. stark colors, unique characters, industrial decayed sets. its lovely in its ugliness.

storywise it drags on slowly and with orwell's "doublethink" dialog which is difficult to follow at times. orwell's heavy handed hatred of military abounds here as well. its all true, yes, but its seems so obvious now. maybe when we were younger these things are less clear, and maybe back in the day before the internet made opinions so prevalent this was an important message. today orwell's message would have to account for how opinion is manipulated.

its a great movie truthfully and i personally like it, but its very slow and not something i'd watch twice in a period of 10 or so years.