“The Incredible Burt Wonderstone” on IMDB
Comedy, 100 Minutes, 2013
I have no idea what happened here. The cast was amazing: Steve Carell [IMDB], Steve Buscemi [IMDB], Olivia Wilde [IMDB], Jim Carrey [IMDB], James Gandolfini [IMDB] in one of his last roles, and Alan Arkin [IMDB]. Director Don Scardino [IMDB] may be new to feature films, but he has had an incredible presence in television. How could this fail?!
I don’t know; but it did.
Sci-fi, 132 Minutes, 2013
This movie is completely without depth or gravitas of any kind. Every character is a cliché-ridden cardboard cutout. Every scene is parody of exchanges you’ve seen a 1,000 times before. Visual effects are used in place of emotional connection and innovation.
This movie was amazingly, astonishingly, awesome!
Adventure, 145 Minutes, 1981
I had admittedly totally forgotten about this movie until I was reminded by a hilarious Cracked.com article, “5 Insane Moments from the Manliest Movie Ever Made“. Once reminded I felt obliged to track it down and relive the majesty.
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| Sharknado Horror, 83 Minutes, 2013 |
Jack the Giant Killer Adventure, 87 Minutes, 2013 |
Atlantic Rim Sci-Fi, 83 Minutes, 2013 |
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| Age of Dinosaurs Sci-Fi, 88 Minutes, 2013 |
AE: Apocalypse Earth Sci-Fi, 87 Minutes, 2013 |
2-Headed Shark Attack Horror, 83 Minutes, 2012 |
I’ve written about low budget schlock before, almost all of them produced by The Asylum, which has produced over 300 feature-length direct-to-video movies since 1997. They focus almost exclusively on producing “Mockbusters”: terrible films with budgets under a million dollars loosely based on current blockbusters and released days before the inspiring film hits theaters. Their films generally take less than four months from initial idea to final product. Recently they’ve become the go-to team to produce the SyFy Channel’s steady stream of increasingly ridiculous monster/disaster films. They’ve also slid into a weird niche producing ridiculous faith-based family films to cash in on the evangelical dollar.
Drama, 91 Minutes, 2011
The basic idea here was very good. Alexa (Cat Smit [IMDB]) is a pretty Dutch girl whose gay friend has killed himself. To discover why, she travels to his small hometown in Iowa and interviews people about their experiences being gay in middle-America.
“Jack the Giant Slayer” on IMDB
Adventure, 114 Minutes, 2013
A retelling of “Jack and the Beanstalk” the movie plays fast and loose with the particulars of the story but stays comfortably in the genre. It adds a beautiful, strong-willed princess; a heroic, selfless knight; a devious royal advisor and ups the giant-ante considerably. Instead of our hero outwitting a single giant we get a whole big bunch of giants!
Zombie alert!
See the review of “War of the Dead” on our sister site, MoreBrains.com dedicated to all things zombie!
“Hansel & Gretel: With Hunters” on IMDB
Adventure, 114 Minutes, 2013
This is directly in line with other high-firepower, low-respect updates of old-world classics like 2004’s “Van Helsing” [IMDB] or 2005’s “The Brother’s Grimm” [IMDB]. The formula gets tweaked but is basically the same: a hot guy and a hotter gal take on monsters with completely unrealistic steampunk firepower.
Unrated; Reviewed on PC
Black Mesa is an unauthorized, total recreation of Valve Software’s 1998’s seminal classic “Half-Life” using the Source Engine pioneered in “Half-Life 2”. The large, all-volunteer team spent over eight-years to reach this point and released the first portion of the game, encompassing the first 13 chapters of the 17 chapter game. Only the questionable “Xen” final sequence of the game has been eliminated but will reportedly be released by the end of the year.
“The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle” on IMDB
Comedy, 98 Minutes, 2009
At the risk of starting out with a spoiler: this is a movie about little, blue butt-fish. It may, indeed, be about more than that but what will stick with you and what you’ll talk about with people that haven’t seen it is little, blue butt-fish. This may be considered, in fact, the official anthem movie for little, blue butt-fish.
