Meet the Fockers 2 out of 5

This was stupid. Im tired of comedy resorting to sex for its source of humor. Ben stiller is still the exact same character he plays in every movie. He has now officially gotten on my nerves. Deniro’s character got on my nerves too, he was the same character as the first one. I hated this movie. It was stupid. The only good thing about it was the baby, who I think stole the show. This baby would make hand signals and learned to cuss just for this movie. The child is in fact a set of twins who really did what they did on the screen.

Things I learned as a filmmaker:

Don’t cast Ben Stiller or Barbara Streisand, just cast a cute little baby.

Enigma 4 out of 5

Plot Outline: A young genius frantically races against time to crack an enemy code and solve the mystery surrounding the woman he loves.

Enigma was good. It was unpredictable, and had a good story. This was a real who dunnit. I think I would recommend.

Things I learned as a filmmaker:

The only thing that got on my nerves is that they went out of their way to make Kate Winslet look ugly. And this made me not want to watch her. So the thing I learned is have beautiful people, and keep them beautiful in the long term, unless there is a huge reason why you should not.

Movie Review: Surviving Christmas 3 out of 5

Plot Outline: A lonely, obnoxious young millionaire pays a family to spend Christmas with him.

Survivng Christmas was a little funny. Keep in mind this movie is intended to be light and unserious. Yes, Ben Affleck is annoying. But he wasn’t that bad here. The humor was funny, and James Gandolfini did a great job.

I think that the film was shot in the same house that “Home Alone” was shot in.

Setting up the premise took a little too long. And honestly only a few of the jokes seemed to actually work. The critics hated this movie however here is a funny quote by Wesley Morris from the Globe Staff (I think im beginning to like this guy)

"Surviving Christmas" is exactly what's wrong with Hollywood: No one responsible for this thing seems ever to have lived outside the 310 area code or had a family or been lonely. It's the sort of stupid swill that gets spewed out by a studio committee, slapped together without a brain, a heart, or a good idea about where to put a camera or when to cut a scene. The finished product (calling it a movie would be like categorizing Spam as meat) is then pumped out to the megaplexes of America by a machine you can imagine only someone like the Grinch cranking.


Things I learned as a filmmaker:

Ben Affleck’s performance was okay, but I didn’t see him quite as the annoying character. I think he was a bad casting choice. Even famous people may be wrong for the casting.

Movie Review: Purple Butterfly 2 out of 5

Plot Outline: A Ding Hui (Zhang Ziyi the chick from crouching tiger hidden dragon) is a member of Purple Butterfly, a powerful resistance group in Japanese occupied Shanghai. An unexpected encounter reunites her with Itami (Nakamura Tooru), an ex-lover... and officer with a secret police unit tasked with dismantling Purple Butterfly.

PurpleButterfly is boring. It has a style, a slow, slow, slow style. There are maybe 50 words spoken in the entire film. The first ten minutes I'm guessing, have no dialogue. It is for this reason that I didn't really see a plot. It has one cool scene, where they over do the hand held stuff till you get so nauseous you feel like vomiting. I remember less about this movie than anything else in my lifespan. And the worst part is I just finished watching it. I have to admit I kind of tuned this movie out like an obnoxious persons voice.

Things I learned as a filmmaker from this film:

Slow is self-indulgent. And if there is no significant reason for the pacing being slow, then the viewer will feel like you are wasting their time. Also might I add this applies to kill bill 2.

Movie Review: Suspect Zero 2 out of 5

Plot Outline: A mysterious serial killer is hunting other serial killers - and one FBI agent suspects there may be more to the vigilante than they imagine.

Suspect Zero is summed up by its first sequence. A guy in a diner (clichéd already but never mind that.) looks nervous, then he becomes extremely scared when someone bumps his window, now just imagine this with the worst acting you can imagine and you will begin to imagine the scene. I'm not going to continue because this, I believe, illustrates how poorly directed this movie is. The entire movie is littered with facts and a plot but you never engage.

Things I learned as a filmmaker from this film:

The reactions of the characters need to be based on the facts, not on desired results. For example the scene I just described, I know exactly what happened. The director thought to himself that this character would be on edge because as we find out later he is a killer. However, we don’t find out he is a killer till more than halfway through the film, and the character looks completely normal. But we the audience don’t know any of that, and his response comes across as unjustified, contrived, generic, and as bad acting. All that from bad direction.

Leaving the audience out of details to build suspense doesn’t work if your audience doesn’t know anything. Same scene, the bump was intended to be a suspenseful moment, but how the heck was I supposed to know that when I don’t know anything? This is echoed by a quote from ”>Wesley Morris’s review, from the Globe Staff: “The movie just confuses and annoys you into not caring.”

The audience can tell when a scene is contrived, and unnecessary.
A bump is not scary!

And lastly, if you cry wolf before right off the bat no one will trust you. Same scene, we had nothing invested and the narrator already tried to trick me.


This film was Directed by E. Elias Merhige ebert Shadow of the Vampire is good so I think I will check it out.