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Reviews
AmStarDam (2016)
The good kind of bad
This is entertaining in a "how did this get made?" sort of way. I think this was a lot of the cast and production crew's first film, but it's not terrible for a first film. Most of the sets looked like high school productions. The plot was weird and the dialogue was awkward and lacked subtlety. The acting was... well, the lead (Jonathan Readwin) was cast because he sort of looks like James Franco, and that's about all I can say about him. Sean Power tries way too hard to be a combination of Johnny Depp and Russell Brand, and doesn't pull it off. I will say this though - the shots of Amsterdam were beautiful, and the extensive use of gels gave the film a fun 80s fantasy feel. The cinematography was definitely the best part of the film. It looks like it was re-branded to look like a rip-off of Pineapple Express for American sales, and I don't think that was a good marketing move, even though that's kind of the reason I bought it. It's pretty much what I expected though. Overall, its a cheap and somewhat inept, but mildly interesting and unintentionally funny film. It at least holds your attention if you have an afternoon to waste.
CarGo (2017)
Baffling and hilarious
You have to be familiar with Asylum to fully appreciate this film. Did they try, but fail in adorable and hilarious ways, or do they know what they're doing? Are they trying to make it look like they aren't trying? The story is compelling and well-paced, the voice acting is great, and there are a lot of details that seem well thought out, but the mouth animation is awful, some scenes look like they were assembled in under 10 minutes with cheap, low-res textures, but they're supposed to. This movie will keep you guessing, and laughing, but you have to know what to expect from Asylum
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
This is NOT Star Trek
I don't think the writers have ever seen a single episode of Star Trek, they've just heard people talk about it. This is boring, disorienting, nonsensical, and it lacks any humanity. The characters are stale, there is no plot or logical connection between events, and it's not engaging. Why does this exist? It's terrible.
An American Carol (2008)
More sad than funny
At first, I thought the movie was tongue-in-cheek, parodying how Conservatives seem to view Liberals, and waited for the punchline...
Unfortunately, there is no punchline. David Zucker was actually trying to parody progressives, but instead created a list of common misconceptions. It reminded me of when Creationists try to parody evolution. If you don't understand something, your parody of it won't make sense. I can laugh at political jokes I don't agree with if they at least represent my position correctly in order to make the joke. It's on par with making fun of the idea of Global Climate Change while not understanding the difference between climate and weather, or like criticizing Islam to a Sikh. He won't be offended by your criticism of Islam, only the fact that you don't understand what a Sikh is. I wasn't offended by David Zucker's jokes, I'm just disappointed that he has such horrible misconceptions about what progressives want/believe.
For instance, Michael Monroe's apparent support of Cuba in the film is (I guess?) supposed to parody more liberal positions on healthcare, but it misses the point entirely by suggesting that what liberals want is government intervention and control rather than better results, as if the means always justified the ends. He gets so up his own ass he even contradicts himself: For instance, during a ghost-of-Christmas-past-esque visit from George S Patton, Neville Chamberlain manages to prevent WWII, presumably saving millions of lives, after which Patton says "see? Talking to dictators gets you nothing". The fact that millions of lives were saved was apparently offset by the embarrassment of having Neville Chamberlain shine Hitler's shoes, as if not looking like a pussy were more important than saving lives. They then try to suggest that slavery would have continued without the Civil War... even though the UK, France, and pretty much every single country that ever abolished slavery did so without a war... again, as if liberals were always concerned with the means over the ends. Every joke relies on a misconception or misunderstanding.
This movie was really really really sad and horrible. I weep for the future of America.