Strange tale about the goings-on in Trona, CA. I’ve been to Trona – very strange place, I must agree. While this movie does capture some of the mood and feel of the place, it just doesn’t pass my disbelief filter. For starters, there’s no way that girl would have waited for the guy in the movie all those years… And the nearest parking garage to Trona, CA is like a 4 hour drive. We’re supposed to believe the main character lives in Trona, and works in a parking garage??? This scene was at the start of the movie, and the rest of the time, I was thinking, “huh”?
Category Archives: Reviews
Burn After Reading
How many times have you seen a movie about some caper and the plot just gets deeper and deeper until there’s a conspiracy for someone to take over the world? Well, this movie is the opposite of that. A bunch of fools stealing something that just isn’t that valuable… A guy who thinks he’s way more important than he is… you get it. Twisted hilarity ensues.
A Man Named Pearl
Sweet movie about… well, a man named Pearl. He’s learned the craft of topiary – shaping plants into fantastic shapes – and in the process taught the town a lesson in the real measure of a man’s worth. My only complaint about this film is that it’s perhaps too long. It’s a great story, but gets a bit repetitive… like the director just couldn’t bring themselves to cut scenes of some local booster or far-away expert singing glowing praises of Pearl. Well, I suppose that’s not so bad.
Mary and Max
What an amazing thing this is. A whole big group of people devoted months or years of their lives to telling a story about an unlikely friendship between a strange young girl in Australia, and a middle-aged misfit loner in New York… with grotesque animated clay figurines. Who’d have thunk it’d work so well? I’m so glad there are people out there taking chances.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Wow… Who are these people who say that Terry Gilliam can’t tell a story? They’re completely clueless. This story has depth, imagination, originality, deep themes, a sweeping span, rhythm, color, mood, lessons about humanity, and more. It’s movies like this that make my dreams seem dull.
It’s Complicated
Oh, I guess this was entertaining… But what kind of people are these? It bugs me when the characters in a movie have these amazing lives… Everyone is a rich lawyer, rich architect, rich business owner (and a cool business like a bakery). I guess people like these do exist, but something about it just bugs me. I’m sitting here trying to figure out I’m going to eat dinner, drop some stuff off at goodwill, update my blogs, edit some photos, do my emails, and water the plants all in the couple hours of “life” I have after work. Now THAT’s complicated.
Dungeons and Dragons
Sad that this movie is what they came up with. But, it was aimed at kids, so what can you expect. What they should have done was made it R-rated and aimed it at 20-something geeks. There could have been blood, guts, etc. Also, they tried to make this true to the game by inserting all kinds of “lingo” here and there, but it was totally lame – the thing which makes D&D special to people is the “feel” of it, not the lingo. This movie had no feel, it was just a bunch of poorly written, overacted nonsense.
Dune
Visually stunning. Hey, David Lynch did this one. I never read the book Dune, but I think this movie suffered from trying to be too “true” to the book. My guess is that it was a really complicated story. I think it would have taken a 10-hour film to do this correctly… but who would watch that, much less make it? Still, it was pretty darn cool. Although, I have to wonder, how hard could it really be to stop giant worms given futuristic technology? Ever heard of a nuclear bomb?
Dumbo
A really cool movie. I have to wonder what the animators were thinking when they came up with the “pink elephants” scene – my favorite. And those crows… something that would never fly in a modern movie… but there it is.
Dumb and Dumber
Even more stupid than the title indicates. I know the movie is intentionally stupid & that’s supposed to be the appeal… but a movie needs something to make it watchable!
Deuce Bigalow – Male Gigalo
At least this movie was fun to laugh “at”, (instead of “with”). What else can I say? it’s as dumb as the title suggests.
Drowning by Numbers
The game drowning by numbers is played by a contestant who remains in a seated position, so that he can view the scenes. The scenes are played in a sequential order such that the plot is developed chronologically. Sequential numbers may be shown in some scenes so that the viewer can more easily follow along. Any contestant who views all the scenes is proclaimed a winner.
The Dream Team
A bunch of dysfunctional mental cases all take advantage of eachother’s strengths to do… whatever the plot of the movie is. uh… it was entertaining… not the kind of movie you’d go out of your way to see…
Dreamscape
What if Freddy Kruger wasn’t quite as evil, and worked for some secret government agency? “Dreamscape”.
Dragonslayer
It might seem silly now, but when I was growing up, movies like Dragonslayer were about as good as you could get for a sword & sorcery flick. And really, it’s not all that bad. The story was kept simple – it wasn’t trying too hard to be “about the end of the world” or something, just killing a single dragon.
Dracula 2000
Oh boy… why do I go see these movies? I had nothing else to do that night. I suppose it was better than watching an ant farm for 2 hours, but not much. The plot? Dracula is really Jusdas Iscariot… they kill him.
Dracula (Bram Stoker’s)
Not sure what to say about this one. I suppose it was fun to watch, and more moody than cheesy… but does the world need more vampire movies?
The Doors
Val Kilmer can be a good actor when given the chance… Wow, he even sung the Door’s songs in this movie. A darn good job. What happened to good clean fun anyway? I wanna go eat peyote in the desert!
Donnie Darko
Repo Man meets Heathers. Your typical teen-sci-fi-romance-time-travel-adventure-halloween-apocalyptic-bunny movie.
Donnie Brasco
Poor sod.
Dog Town and Z-Boys
Documentary about the birth of modern skateboarding. This was really intriguing. I don’t think skateboarding has changed the world like some of these people think it has, but it’s certainly a big deal, and worthy of the treatment it gets here. It’s really fascinating how many of the people are alive today, and how well everything was documented as it happened. It’s also quite interesting to see how each person involved has been affected by the choices they’ve made in life. This is the kind of movie that kids should see… sure there are bad words and adult themes and such, but the lessons of real consequences to one’s actions are really brought home be people who’ve lived it.
Dogma
Sure it wasn’t an awesome movie or anything, but it was fun… and funny. Message? why does organized religion think it has a monopoly on god? I have no idea why the Catholic League protested this movie, if anything it was pro-religon. They just helped promote it… (Hmm… maybe they were using sophisticated reverse psychology? Naw.)
Dr. Strangelove
Wonderful. It contains one of the most classic scenes ever – Slim Pickens riding the bomb down to ground zero. Another movie showing how stupid war is… in this case, the cold war. I wonder what the leaders of the world thought of this movie…?
Dr. No
James bond foils the efforts of an evil meglomaniac.
Dodgeball
Well, it was fun, and a bit funny I suppose, but aren’t there better ways to spend 2 hours of your precious life than watching something like this?