Long awaited reviews...or not....
So I finally actually watched the first episode of "Fringe" today.
And did I see in the sneak preview of the rest of the season...LT.Daniels standing with 'his team' in what really looked like a shabby dingy basement? (Now where have I seen that before). Actually I don't really know what the characters name is so I will call him Lt. Daniels still.
The show seemed nice. The main actress annoys the heck out of me. The character just seemed very very I don't know. Dull is the word. We don't know anything about her, nor given any reason to like her. The writers throw in a very cliched bit at the bit to get us to like her and not like her boss, but other than that, I couldn't really care.
The initial reaction to this show was that it's just like the x files. I won't agree or disagree until I see more episodes. But it does look like it will have the usual "Freak of the week" stories and all will tie into one big conspiracy theory. Which does sound familiar to that other show hmm......
That being said, this character is no Dana Scully. Scully was a doctor. This one.......was a lawyer? I think.....who knows.......?
You see with the xfiles they didn't jump straight into the 'big grand conspiracy that is out there' right away. This show has.
A metal arm? Uh....
Let's just say I will wait and see before I decide to recc this show to anyone.
~o~
Review of Acolytes for JamiMegan
Before I get into specifics, I will say this. If it wasn't for the film festival I would have never had any intention of seeing this movie. It's not really what I go out to look for. Plus it's Australian, so even if I did I wouldn't find it. That being said, I was glad I saw it, because it helped me see things in a different way. And by that I mean in regards to filmmaking. Especially film making on a budget.
As a sidebar here before I get to the review JM, I assume you saw the first Saw movie. Because that movie, I find is a perfect example of a screenplay devised to be made by budget filmmakers. There are practically no outdoor scenes at all. There are very few if any scenes that go from one room to another. Every scene basically takes place in one room, so there is no need for the camera to move a lot. There aren't a lot of actors, or extras, so no unnecessary costs. Basically a really well done budget movie, that ended up being made by Hollywood.
So when I started watching Acolytes I looked for stuff like that because it is a movie that was made on a relatively small budget. Once again there were only about 6 or 7 real characters in the movie. And out of them only 5 were really important. That helped keep the suspense in the movie going because you didn't have interruptions with all these unnecessary people showing up.
The movie is about three high school kids who tend to ditch class, go out under a overpass, smoke up, listen to music and do whatever. There are two boys and a girl. The girl is dating one of the boys. They are typical kids who live in suburbs who have too little parental control and too much free time.
Also living in this town/city is a skinhead. He's just been released from prison for some crime or the other. The two boys have a history with him and are constantly looking over their shoulder for him. But he's not really interested in them. He rather stay home, drink and play with his dogs.
All over town there are posters about a missing girl who is about the same age as the main charcters. We see the girl in the beginning of the movie, running, but then stopping, and then running again. She doesn't look all together there. And then she runs across a road and is hit by a car. Could this be the work of some crazed killer?
At this point in the movie I wasn't very thrilled. It seemed a bit paint by numbers for me. When the trio unearth a body of a backpacker that they see a stranger burying in the middle of the woods, things get a bit more interesting.
And this is where one of the few good things about this movie show up. It is an original concept for sure. The two boys decide, that rather than option A. Telling the cops about what they found and who they saw do it. Or option B. Trying to play detective. They choose Option C.
Option C: Blackmail the killer into killing the guy who did them very wrong a long time ago. The skinhead.
Well, you don't need a crystal ball to imagine that things didn't go the way they wanted it to.
There were a few more moments where I was watching and went "Damn that was pretty inventive or I didn't see that coming."
After the movie ended, the director came up on stage and took questions and talked about the movie. While I wasn't 100% satifised with the story and the fact that you had to suspend your disbelief a lot, I can see what he was trying to do.
He made a movie with 3 actual teenagers playing their role. Not an easy job. That being said, they aren't the best actors, but I think they did their job satisfactorily. The few grown up actors I think were better and you felt a bit more weight behind their acting.
As a thriller it's not the best. I'm not the target audience because I think I'm older and given the world we live in some of the stuff isn't as scary and out there as it would have been a decade or two ago. Yeah, if this movie came out in the 80's or 70's, yeah it would have terrified a lot of kids, now.......it's blasse because the news is a heck more scary. Strange how that is.
That being said, there are still a couple of things in the movie that I wish I had thought of because they really are cool and I haven't seen them in any other movie. The director also mentioned that a pair of really infamous Canadian criminals helped inspire the writers in some of the stuff in the screenplay. I am just grateful they didn't dwell on that sort of stuff in the movie too long because I would have walked out. Actually i was impressed at how they made you imagine the really bad stuff and didn't actually go out and show it. It made some of the twists at the end more memorable that way.
Anyways that's that. If you want a more through synopsis I could do it, let me know. It's fun being a movie reviewer like this. :)
Maybe I too can end up getting into a fight with Roger Ebert like some other reviewer did at the festival this year. Ha.
And did I see in the sneak preview of the rest of the season...LT.Daniels standing with 'his team' in what really looked like a shabby dingy basement? (Now where have I seen that before). Actually I don't really know what the characters name is so I will call him Lt. Daniels still.
The show seemed nice. The main actress annoys the heck out of me. The character just seemed very very I don't know. Dull is the word. We don't know anything about her, nor given any reason to like her. The writers throw in a very cliched bit at the bit to get us to like her and not like her boss, but other than that, I couldn't really care.
The initial reaction to this show was that it's just like the x files. I won't agree or disagree until I see more episodes. But it does look like it will have the usual "Freak of the week" stories and all will tie into one big conspiracy theory. Which does sound familiar to that other show hmm......
That being said, this character is no Dana Scully. Scully was a doctor. This one.......was a lawyer? I think.....who knows.......?
You see with the xfiles they didn't jump straight into the 'big grand conspiracy that is out there' right away. This show has.
A metal arm? Uh....
Let's just say I will wait and see before I decide to recc this show to anyone.
~o~
Review of Acolytes for JamiMegan
Before I get into specifics, I will say this. If it wasn't for the film festival I would have never had any intention of seeing this movie. It's not really what I go out to look for. Plus it's Australian, so even if I did I wouldn't find it. That being said, I was glad I saw it, because it helped me see things in a different way. And by that I mean in regards to filmmaking. Especially film making on a budget.
As a sidebar here before I get to the review JM, I assume you saw the first Saw movie. Because that movie, I find is a perfect example of a screenplay devised to be made by budget filmmakers. There are practically no outdoor scenes at all. There are very few if any scenes that go from one room to another. Every scene basically takes place in one room, so there is no need for the camera to move a lot. There aren't a lot of actors, or extras, so no unnecessary costs. Basically a really well done budget movie, that ended up being made by Hollywood.
So when I started watching Acolytes I looked for stuff like that because it is a movie that was made on a relatively small budget. Once again there were only about 6 or 7 real characters in the movie. And out of them only 5 were really important. That helped keep the suspense in the movie going because you didn't have interruptions with all these unnecessary people showing up.
The movie is about three high school kids who tend to ditch class, go out under a overpass, smoke up, listen to music and do whatever. There are two boys and a girl. The girl is dating one of the boys. They are typical kids who live in suburbs who have too little parental control and too much free time.
Also living in this town/city is a skinhead. He's just been released from prison for some crime or the other. The two boys have a history with him and are constantly looking over their shoulder for him. But he's not really interested in them. He rather stay home, drink and play with his dogs.
All over town there are posters about a missing girl who is about the same age as the main charcters. We see the girl in the beginning of the movie, running, but then stopping, and then running again. She doesn't look all together there. And then she runs across a road and is hit by a car. Could this be the work of some crazed killer?
At this point in the movie I wasn't very thrilled. It seemed a bit paint by numbers for me. When the trio unearth a body of a backpacker that they see a stranger burying in the middle of the woods, things get a bit more interesting.
And this is where one of the few good things about this movie show up. It is an original concept for sure. The two boys decide, that rather than option A. Telling the cops about what they found and who they saw do it. Or option B. Trying to play detective. They choose Option C.
Option C: Blackmail the killer into killing the guy who did them very wrong a long time ago. The skinhead.
Well, you don't need a crystal ball to imagine that things didn't go the way they wanted it to.
There were a few more moments where I was watching and went "Damn that was pretty inventive or I didn't see that coming."
After the movie ended, the director came up on stage and took questions and talked about the movie. While I wasn't 100% satifised with the story and the fact that you had to suspend your disbelief a lot, I can see what he was trying to do.
He made a movie with 3 actual teenagers playing their role. Not an easy job. That being said, they aren't the best actors, but I think they did their job satisfactorily. The few grown up actors I think were better and you felt a bit more weight behind their acting.
As a thriller it's not the best. I'm not the target audience because I think I'm older and given the world we live in some of the stuff isn't as scary and out there as it would have been a decade or two ago. Yeah, if this movie came out in the 80's or 70's, yeah it would have terrified a lot of kids, now.......it's blasse because the news is a heck more scary. Strange how that is.
That being said, there are still a couple of things in the movie that I wish I had thought of because they really are cool and I haven't seen them in any other movie. The director also mentioned that a pair of really infamous Canadian criminals helped inspire the writers in some of the stuff in the screenplay. I am just grateful they didn't dwell on that sort of stuff in the movie too long because I would have walked out. Actually i was impressed at how they made you imagine the really bad stuff and didn't actually go out and show it. It made some of the twists at the end more memorable that way.
Anyways that's that. If you want a more through synopsis I could do it, let me know. It's fun being a movie reviewer like this. :)
Maybe I too can end up getting into a fight with Roger Ebert like some other reviewer did at the festival this year. Ha.