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Reviews
Der Skipper (1990)
Erotic thriller, but missing the thrills and erotics
I can't help but think there's an extra 30 minutes of footage from this movie somewhere that was cut out to make the more marketable 1990 'R' rating. It's not terrible filmmaking and the cast is decent enough, so that's the only explanation I can come up with for the major narrative and thematic gaps - the first time the characters appear to have sex is not shown at all - Su just says they had a nice time last night or something, the second sex scene seems to want to cut back and forth between Lou & the Skipper in the hold and Su alone in the cabin, but spends at least twice as much time on Su than the other two and feels awkward (and boring), and the third sex scene has a similar gap where Su is watching them have sex - and at one point Lou has turned around inexplicably as the Skipper finishes and the scene seems like it might have ended with another threesome like the one that began their their relationship with the Skipper, but instead we get another non sequitor cut to a wardrobe change and the next day and they're all getting along again - for a bit anyway...
What was 'R' in 1990 would be PG today, and a lot of movies that got an 'X' for soft core erotic content would be the equivalent of 'R' today. People are a little bit less repressed, maybe jaded, but definitely less squeamish about sexual material to the point where most softcor of the past would be able to be made for television today. And in this case, the sex really does see to be a crucial part of the story and character dynamics, so botching those scenes really makes the movie a bit confusing.
Someone in the industry should check with someone involved in the production, maybe Peter Keglevic can release a directors cut someday or something.
Also, that poor dog lol.
The Dog Lover (2016)
Corny, hilariously manipulative propaganda for the dog breeding industry
Corny, hilariously manipulative propaganda for the dog breeding industry, peppered with soap opera stars including the lead character who is from Days of Our Lives, and whose costume guidelines were apparently modeled after Daisy Duke, with lots of ridiculous T&A shots and a corny romantic subplot to boot. By the time you get to the country music video ol' red pickup truck cliché scene, you can be pretty certain of where this film is centered. lol. If the Lifetime Channel, The Country Music Television Channel, and the American Kennel Club made a movie, this would be it. Oh wait...
It's probably easiest to just quote a post from another IMDb thread relating to it that is pretty much spot-on:
"This film is a propaganda piece funded by billionaire Forrest Lucas to gain wider exposure for his failed front group, Protect the Harvest.
Protect the Harvest is dedicated to attacking animal welfare groups, particularly those that confront cruelty in animal agriculture: factory farms, intensive confinement, and especially puppy mills.
I'm disgusted beyond belief that James Remar and Lea Thompson would help to defend animal cruelty and sell out to one of the most despicable, dishonest, destructive individuals on this planet.
And that's not even touching the issue of Lucas' racism... but I guess to some actors, money will always be more important than human decency."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4063178/board/nest/244905965? ref_=tt_bd_1
Atlas Shrugged: Part III (2014)
laughably awful film rendition of a laughably awful book
Laughably awful film renditions of a laughably awful Ayn Rand book; awful as economic and political philosophy, and even more awful as science fiction. Nothing like a magic, perfect, infinite power source to justify your asinine premises and self satisfied, smug arrogance. One great thing about seeing it in film form is that it really helps to flesh out the oversimplification and write-by-numbers quality of the book in ways that may not be as obvious when reading it, and might even be viewed as literary device. On film, though, every corny statement and plot development is laid out in technicolor, right down to the hilariously smarmy romantic fantasy Rand wrote for her proxy character Dagny and the studly John Galt, from carrying her from the wreckage of her crashed plane -and illusions- against a postcard-perfect landscape of snow capped mountains and sequoia trees where you almost expect an eagle to perch on his shoulder or the Brawny guy to walk by in the background, to their first gauze-filtered, slow-piano'd kiss.
There are some really good conspiracy stories out there, from both the right and left wing, but this is not one of them. The fact that there are people that still hold up this book as meaningful or important would also be laughable if it weren't one of the better indicators of the sad level of humanities education in this country.
The Affair (2014)
so poorly written
This is so poorly written. It reminds me of one of those bad novels from the 1970's and 80's. If you took every cliché in those and mixed in a little Lifetime Channel, you would get this. Corny, tired plot lines combine with stock characters to the effect of little more than a soap opera set in a summer vacation locale. At one point one of the characters says, "Everyone has one good book in them." I hope they didn't think that this was it.
But what really makes this so disappointing is that it wastes the talents of a really great cast. Every single actor in this has done stellar work elsewhere, but that is not enough to elevate this formula vehicle beyond mediocre. I expect a lot more from cable/non-network TV these days, and this does not deliver.
Space Station 76 (2014)
enough of a brown note to sink any positive feelings I might have had for the film previously
This light comedy had me on board until they killed the dog. Using an animal like a piece of meat for comic effect, or its opposite - emotional credibility - at the very least falls flat, and is indicative of a mentality you wouldn't want to be associated with, right up there with rape jokes, ethnic slurs, or any other manipulative psychological representations of bullying, degradation, and humiliation. In comedy, it's the difference between watching the low humor of traditional values being reinforced with easy gimmicks in something like the Three Stooges versus watching the same constrictive mores being exploded by the anarchic genius of the Marx Brothers; slapstick punishment versus transcendental reductio ad absurdum, sledgehammers versus horse feathers. As a form of social control this is very effective - everyone knows their place when they're kicked in the stomach - and this reinforces the separation between levels in any kind of hierarchy or caste system. While lip service may even be given to vague notions of social egalitarianism, there is always the reminder that anyone can become the sub-human, dead dog if they're not white enough, rich enough, thin enough, young enough, hip enough, kitchy enough, etc. At least Christopher Durang understood that he had to go all-in and use a dead baby in 'The Marriage of Betty and Boo' to achieve an authentic and anchoring tone of tragic humanity within his black humor. Besides showing the valueless disposibility of a life, killing the dog renders any tragic element diminutive, ornamental, and at most another form of degradation, a Californian 'ugliness' to be parodied like old age and weakness. It is even possible that the writers intended to make a film that was less of a parody than an incidental affirmation of 1970's culture and ethics, but the manipulative resonant image of a dead dog lying wet on a kitchen counter as comedy was enough of a brown note to sink any positive feelings I might have had for the film previously.