The Gnat: Fly on the Wall Reviews

The Bank Job

This film starts off as a smart thriller about a bank heist and how it goes wrong. It then bogs down into a much more convoluted and unevenly paced story about the good, the bad, and the ugly, and the corruption in the government. That part could and should work well, but it just ebbs and flows and hurts the pacing of the story with how it is told.

The acting in this film is solid. It is a B-Level British film, but the characters are well defined, thank history for that, and the portrayel of the characters is solid. Jason Statham does a solid job in the lead role. It is nice to see Statham doing something that isn't purely action, as he does have some talent as an actor. He shows it off here doing a good job in his role.

The story is hit or miss in this film. It starts off moving along sharply, it moves quickly and is quite smart in how it tells its story. The action leading up and through the bank heist works nicely and they keep the tension up throughout the whole time. After the heist, though, it bogs down. It could have flowed better since the story was interesting, but it is allowed to become convoluted, and in the convolution, it starts to become uneven in its pacing, so that the tension, which is supposed to be there, ends up being missed. But the fact that this is based off of a historical event does make this a little more difficult to put into a more even pacing, as someone would realize that the story is wrong otherwise. I think it would have been possible, but I understand why it would be a little more difficult then some films.

Overall this is an entertaining film, it hurts itself in the long run because of the second half, but it was enjoyable for one view. The acting is solid, and the story is fairly entertaining, so I wouldn't avoid it if you like the British crime sort of film, but I also wouldn't call it a film that is a must see.

Overall Grade: C+
Story: C
Acting: B-
Audio/Visual: B-

__________________
"As I was walking up the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away."
-From Identity

Heavyweights

This is one of the early Judd Aptow films, and it is a decently well done film. I was entertained by it for the most part, but it wasn't a film that I found to be extremely funny or great, just pretty good. It had some solid laughs in it, but it also didn't keep them coming like it should.

The biggest disappointment in this film was Ben Stiller. When Ben Stiller plays the antagonist, the character always seems the same. To see his character in this film, you could just watch his character in Dodgeball because they are the exact same character. Fortunately some of the other characters were decent. A lot of them were stereotypes and cliches, but they had their moments. The two camp councilers were solid in the film, and definitely provided a fair amount of the humor in the film.

The story was a pretty classic one. Kids go off to a camp to have fun, ends up being a camp from hell, and the kids have to try and solve the problem. It wasn't anything all that unique in what they did with the story, but that storyline, with decent dialog and some funny scenes doesn't generally turn out all that bad. This film isn't an exception to this rule. It plays it safe in what it does, and ends up being a pretty safe, clean, average comedy.

Overall this is just another average comedy. I can see why it has sort of become a cult classic type of film, but I didn't find it unique enough to classify it as a good cult classic. If you are wanting a good, clean comedy to watch with a few good laughs, this is a good film for that, but it doesn't keep the laughs coming like it should, and it doesn't take any risks.

Overall Grade: C
Story: C
Acting: C-
Audio/Visual: C

I've never been a fan of his, I enjoy Mystery Men not because of him but for the rest of the cast. I don't think he can act. Nice review but I'm going to skip it.

__________________
We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Blood and Chocolate

I generally like films about werewolves and vampires and mythical creatures like that. But this werewolf film failed to deliver after the first few minutes. It becomes a bunch of teen cliches thrown together like they always are.

It started out promisingly enough with some interesting play between the werewolves and some human counterparts as well as delving some into the mythology of werewolves that they were using for the film. I enjoy it when they look into the mythology some as it is interesting to see the various takes and how they play it throughout history. Unfortunately after a solid beginning it become one teen cliche after another with the love story and everything else that was going on. It become dull and dragged on as I watched it, even the "action" at the end of the film was completley predictable.

Another thing that bugged me was the change in the "rules" for the werewolves during the film. Silver kills werewolves, common fact, and for the most part in the film getting cut by silver, or anything like that will take out a werewolf, except for the antagonist and the female protaganist. They seemed to be fairly impervisous to the silver and it didn't really effect them at all. When you change a common rule like that you have to change it consistently, and you can't change it in the middle of the story.

One last thing that was poor was the "message" that this film tried to preach. One could say it really didn't try and tell this message, but it did. The idea is that werewolves were "monsters", but they had a choice if they would become "monsters" or not, just like humans could be "monsters" when hunting down the werewolves. The issue is that the female protaganist who is supposed to be this shining example of not being a monster, being able to control her more carnel side of things, ends up being just as much of a monster as the other characters because of her actions at the end of the film. So the message that they could have been trying to project ended up still being told, but the main characters themselves couldn't live up to it.

Overall this was a somewhat entertaining film. As much as I rip on it, the first part of it was entertaining, and the end wasn't terrible, it wasn't average either, but I've seen worse. As far as a werewolf film goes, this one is definitely subpar as compared to other ones I've seen recently, such as Ginger Snaps and Dog Soldiers.

Overall Grade: C-
Story: D+
Acting: C-
Audio/Visual: C+

Videodrome

This interesting, at times surrealist, work definitely kept my attention and made me think, but I wonder how good it really was after watching it. This is a movie that is clearly meant to be confusing the first time watching it, and possibly even after several viewings. It does seem to have a message, but the duplicity of the form it is in could be considered part of the message or something undercutting the message.

The story is pretty simple. A sleezy television executive is looking for his next great show. He panders in his programming to sex and violence, and he comes across a show called "videodrome" which depicts more graphic torture and death in the acting then he has ever seen.. The show causes a tumor, so to speak, to grow in the viewer, and they start to see things that really aren't there and really aren't happening. This is where most of the surrealist elements come in with the visions that the main character has. These visions at times are extranious to the story, but most of the time help define what is happening in the story in the character. They are visually interesting to watch as well.

The message that the film appears to be talking about is that of violence and sex in media, and how that is degrading society. It doesnt' come out and say that it is completely evil, but seems to leave open the option that it can and is taken too far and needs to be done with more taste and class then it was being done with. However, this film is fairly violent and has a lot of sex and nudity throughout the film. It reminds me of a South Park episode about Britney Spears in many ways, where they talk about how the media is ruining her life while still makign fun of her and her life themselves, this film seems to be doing the same thing with its message.

The acting in this film is solid. James Woods does a good job, and I found it interesting that a few of the scenes were visually similar to Taxi Driver scenes. It wasn't extremely impressive acting for the most part, but they didn't miss cast anyone, which always helps the acting in the film seem much better.

Overall this is an interesting film that I dont' know if it hits or misses on what it was trying to do. But it tells an interesting message and does so in an interesting way. Visually a very solid film to watch.

Overall Grade: B-
Story: B+
Acting: B-
Audio/Visual: B+

The Dead Girl

This film is not a typical film in structure or plot. It is more of a episodic group of character sketches that do tie together through similar themes, or a similar character, but each section is really about a different one or two characters. It does work out really nicely though as the character sketches are well thoughtout and well done.

Storywise some people will not like it because of the structure and because of the tangents. This isn't the typical Hollywood film where it is driven by plot and anything with the characters is to progress the plot down its track. This film cares about its characters and it can end up down the plot line for the character, even if that isn't the plot line for the whole film. This is most notable in the first "episode" where it goes off on a tanget of the person who found the dead girl, and it really doesn't pertain to the story further on, it is more of a story about the character and her progression because of finding the dead girl then anything. But I found this to be an interesting way of doing the story, as the character sketches were well done and well acted.

This film also does some beautiful work with the sound. It could have been the medium I was watching it on that caused the sound to be off, but I don't believe that to be the case. But this film doesn't become overbaring with the sound. It is often very quiet in fact and requires the viewer to pay closer attention because of that. It also isn't afraid to be devoid of all but natural sound for part of a scene, which helps to heighten the sense of the characters are more then simply characters.

Visually this film is interestnig as well. It isn't so much that the shots are extremely unique or well done, but it is how they fit together so well, and the color tones that are used. This film rarely, if ever, gets into the over stimulation of the viewer because of the colors on the screen. Everything is kept more dull then anything else. The colors don't jump off the screen at you, but instead draw the viewer into the darker, more realistic, world that is being shown on the screen.

Overall this was a well done film. I wasn't sure how good it was going to be, but the character sketches and acting were well done. If you want a simple Hollywood style story and plot, don't see this film, but it is something that is different and well done with how it is different.

Overall Grade: B+
Story: B+
Acting: B+
Audio/Visual: A-

Powder

This film is a story that has been done before, a lot, and while they do offer a unique twist, it doesn't get past the point where it is cliche. It doesn't try and go out of the box that it creates for itself and the pretended depth that it has isn't really there as it never allows the story to fully develop.

The basic story is that of a loner/outcast who causes positive changes to those who really get to know him, but is generally ridiculed and abused by a society who can't accept him. And it really doesn't deviate that much from that type of story. They try and add a twist in by giving the main character "supernatural" powers, but the fact that most of the characters act like they are so common place makes this film a whole lot worse. There is no awe about them which would give the characters on the screen a reason to be afraid of him, but it is just as much about the fact that he is an albino which makes him and out cast in the community. It also doesn't help that with the characters that the main character does impact, they hop around so quickly between them all that none of them are actually developed beyond a very simple level.

Visually this film is just average as well. They try and play off of a few scenes and stress the shot in them, but they completely miss which scenes should have been stressed to make the story more interesting, but instead they focus on making a few side scenes artistic.

The music is also a short coming of this film. The score isn't bad, but they repeat the theme so often for the main character at such a level that it becomes very overbearing. It isn't just a little noise/music quietly in the background from time to time, it is always loud and detracts from the scene because it starts to become annoying after a little bit. The music is also a cliche part of the film as it is exactly what is expected for it to sound like the whole time, and there aren't unique variations of any sort upon the expected themes.

Overall this is just another out cast story that doesn't provide anything new to this sub-genre of film. It had some potential because of the use of the supernatural, but it ends up not adding anything to the story. It is something that has been done many times before and will be done many times more.

Overall Grade: C-
Story: C
Acting: C
Audio/Visual: D

The Weather Man

This is another film where Nicholas Cage plays, Nicholas Cage. He doesn't really have to act much in this role and it ends up being like a lot of his other roles, the difference is that this role could have been written for Nicholas Cage, so it works decently well. The story is somewhat interesting, but not as engaging as it should be.

It tries to be a very dark comedy surrounding Nicholas Cage's character, the weather man, but it ends up being so over explained that it lacks any of the punch that it could and should have had as a dark comedy. The biggest flaw with this film is the use of voice over. Voice over to set up some things, or briefly lead into a flashback about the past is fine, but this film relies on it as the medium for telling the story more then what is actually going on in the scenes either in dialog or visually. The voice over had to over explain what was going on in the film so often, that it definitely got grating as the film went on.

It also tries to be a deep film, this again comes back to the voice over, where it tries and explain what Nicholas Cage's character is going through, but it relies only on voice over to try and add some depth, and it doesn't have any really profound moment in the film where everything is clear as to what it is trying to say. The closest it has would be this quote towards the end:
But it is more of just a blip on the radar of the film then anything. The film doesn't seem to be leading up to this point, and once it hits that point, it just sort of returns to its mundane story.

The acting in this film is solid. The two kids do surprisingly good jobs, and as I said at the beginning this is a role where Nicholas Cage playing Nicholas Cage can work. The side characters are generally only average, and even Cage is only solid playing himself. Michael Caine is probably the highlight for acting in this film, and even his character lacks what would be called very good acting.

Overall this was a film that tries so hard to be darkly funny but it feels at times like it is talking down to the audience because it tries to explain everything that is going on. It would work much better to just let the jokes run without the gimmicky explinations for them, and if goes over some peoples heads, that is fine, it is better then taking it down so it isn't funny for anyone.

Overall Grade: C+
Story: C+
Acting: B
Audio/Visual: B-

Shark Attack 3: Megaladon

This is everything how movies shouldn't be made, and it works perfectly. It is sad to know that this is a film that was meant to be taken seriously, but it is a terrible film, that is so bad that it is good, because it is unintentionally funny.

You know it is going to be a bad film when it has some of the worst dialog ever within in the first few minutes. I felt sorry for John Barrowman, who actually has done a lot of good work in Dr. Who and Torchwood as Jack Harkness, as he has some of the worst lines ever in a film. For the most part they are cheesy pick up lines that wouldn't work, ever, and don't fit in the situation as it is going on. They are some of the worst and corniest lines ever in a film.

Now moving onto the "best" part of the film, it would have to be the massive megaladon attacking the poor helpess victimes. It is simply amazing because they use Discovery channel footage of close-ups of sharks and then green screen the people, boads, rafts, jet-ski's, or whatever it is, that are getting eaten. It is simply hilarious in how it looks because it looks so unbelievably bad. The first time it happens you think, hmm, that looks fake, and the second time you think, hmm, that looks like the same shot of the shark (and fake). The seemingly rotate three or four stock little reels of a shark coming to the surface with its mouth open, and they call that good. It is so terrible, but so funny at the same time.

Overall I don't know if there is one redeeming quality about the film, other then that John Barrowman went on to be in Doctor Who (but that doesn't have anything to do with this film). It is simply a mish-mash of everything possible going wrong in a film. It has an absurd story, terrible dialog, poor acting, and no redeeming qualities as far as I can see. But it is so far off the bad end that it registers are very funny.

Overall Grade: C+
Story: D
Acting: D
Audio/Visual: D-

I caught a good portion of that shark flick on the Sci-fi channel awhile back. Is that where you are watching some of these? Or are you renting or Netflixing these bad boys. Cause Sci=fi channel has plenty of these if you would rather not pay for them, and even if they are a little edited, does it really matter? Somehow I think not.

I've watched a couple of them on Sci-Fi, but it has mainly been renting, with Netflix it is nice because you pay the onetime fee and even if it a lousy movie, you've already paid.

Post Impact

Another world ends because of global warming leading to a new ice age type of film. This one isn't done nearly as well, and tries to be a more absurd story with an odd plot and plan to it. It ends up being a somewhat entertaining story, but for the most part just a disappointment as it really doesn't do anything exciting with it.

The story in this film is subpar. It doesn't live up to the level of Day After Tomorrow in terms of a global warming/climate change film. It doesn't get as preachy as Day After Tomorrow does, but it misses out on any of the emotion, or the solid plot that is in that one. This one does go once or twice through an odd little twist about humanity and surviving, but it is more about this "invention" that can save humanity from the disaster of the new ice age and the attempt to get this technology in order to return things to the way it should be. It then goes into a bunch of typical Hollywood style chase and fight scenes without really all that much substance to them.

The acting in this film is also subpar, which isn't really a surprise. Dean Cain plays the lead in this film and is simply average or slightly worse in this film. The rest of the cast is below average giving performances that lack personality and don't give the audience anything to attach onto. Some of that comes back to the script as well as Cain is the only one whose character has anything to potentially attach onto, the rest are pretty much stiffer cardboard characters that really don't matter.

Overall this is a subpar film. It was slightly entertaining to see once, but now that I've seen it a couple of times (it shows up on the Sci-Fi channel from time to time), I find that I'm not really entertained by it. If there was something in the story to latch onto and care about it would be better, but there really isn't anything like that in the film.

Overall Grade: D
Story: D-
Acting: C-
Audio/Visual: D+

Sleepaway Camp

I decided to watch another 80's slasher/cult classic type of film, and typically I'm not disappointed by them, but this one I was. It tries to have more depth then a typical slasher film, but it doesn't fully commit to this depth and the ideas that it wants people to think about. So it ends up not being a good mindless film, like most slasher films, and it also ends up not being a good thinking film either.

I'll get to the story eventually, but I'm going to start with the acting. It was very terrible. The only good acting in the film was Angela and even she had some terrible scenes. When all the character does it sit around and not say anything, it is a whole lot easier to keep it from being screwed up. The rest of the actors weren't helped at all by the cheese that they had to say, so some of them might have turned into fine actors, but in this film they were just terrible.

Visually this film was interesting. I don't generally compare films like this to Hitchcock, but it was pretty obvious that there was some Hitchcockian influence in how the deaths took place. A lot of shadow deaths, or deaths behind closed doors where you know that they happen, but you don't actually see the blood and gore as are so common in todays horror/gorno films. There were a lot of extranious shots as well that just dragged on, a lot of long takes. So it definitely wasn't well shot, but I did find it interesting how they used a fairly Hitchcockian way to show the deaths.

The story as I hinted at, doesn't know what it wants to become. It borders between a film that has depth and the typical mindless slasher film. It tries and toouch on some issues like tranvestism, incest, and homoeroticism, but it mearly tries and touch on them. It doesn't fully commit to it, and it fails to bring anything to the table with those ideas. In fact, this slasher film has less back story to it then most mindless slasher films do now.

Overall this is a subpar effort for a slasher film as it doesn't know what ot focus on, whether or not it should focus on the simple mindless aspects of slasher films and worry only about building up suspense, or if isntead it should touch on some deeper issues. In the end it really doesn't do either.

Overall Grade: D
Story: D-
Acting: D-
Audio/Visual: D

Severance

An instant classic in the lines of horror comedy films, this quotes a lot from other horror films while having the feel of "The Office" to it. Sort of imagine "The Office" meets Wrong Turn, only the horror part doesn't suck as much as Wrong Turn.

A weapons manufacturing company, who supplies weapons throughout the whole world, is going on a team building trip in eastern Europe. When their bus driver refuses to take them any further, after the road is blocked, the team gets off the bus and walks to the "lodge". They end up at the wrong place where a bunch of people who hate the company work on killing them off. Not all that odd for a horror film, but this film works out some very funny things in it as well. It keeps the laughs coming in everything that it does. The characters are completely absurd, and I think correspond fairly closely with the characters in the British "The Office".

The acting is decent in this film, as I said, I'm pretty sure the characters correspond with the characters in "The Office", so someone with knowledge of that show, or better knowledge then I have of it, will probably recognize the characters more then I do. But the acting is fine in this film. It is a slasher type of comedy, and as normal, in slasher films, the acting doesn't have to be all that good, they just have to be good at running around and acting scared as some manic, who generally isn't seen until late in the film, chases them. And that is what happens in this film. The acting performances are better then most slasher films, but they aren't great.

Overall what works in this film is the story. It is a wonderful balance between horror and comedy, and while horror fans won't find it scary, it is meant to be more of a comedy film that parodies various horror films. And it does that extremely well quoting from a bunch of the campy slasher type of films quite nicely.

Overall Grade: A-
Story: A-
Acting: B-
Audio/Visual: B

Believe it or not Sleepaway Camp 2 and 3 are either better or worse depending on your POV, I says anyway. I thought Angela was over the top freaking ridiculously great!

Severance, sounds pretty good I'll check that out sometime. Thanks!

I'm planning on watching the second and third. I'm hoping for a little more focus from them as compared to first. I did like parts of it, but I was just confused by the attempt to add depth. Oh, and the cat in the avatar makes me think of pain from a cat of mine kneeding my stomach with her claws.

I think I liked the second one the best, I, as I think you've already noticed happen to like these flicks in general though so I'm not sure if they're actually any good.

I can't wait till I get me a digital camera that can capture a few seconds of video so I can make some homemade avs with my actual cats. Although that one there is pretty close in looks to our newest baby.

The Fugative

This is a solid, but typical film. I don't feel like it tries and do anything outside of the ordinary with its storyline, and all of the characters are cast as expected. That in itself makes this simply an average film.

It does have solid acting in it though, both Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford do solid jobs in their roles. And a lot of the supporting characters do good jobs as well. The secondary bad guy in the film is a bit over the top, especially in the still shots that Harrison Ford's character finds. They try to hard and make that character feel evil and look evil, when they could have just made him evil through his actions, not his looks.

The story in this film is also solid, but as I said in the introductory paragraph, it doesn't try and be unique from the type of story that it is. It doesn't set up unique characters or unique twists, but instead sets up the story in a typical hollywood fashion where the only thing that matters is getting from point A to point B at all points in time in the film. There really aren't any side tangents and the characters don't do anything that you don't expect them to do. That makes it somewhat boring to watch, but it also makes it a film that one can turn ones mind off while watching.

Overall this is just an average film in every way. The acting saves it from being completely mundane and sets it apart a little bit where the story doesn't set it apart at all, but this isn't that great a film. Good mindless entertainment, if one wants to see that sort of film, but beyond that this film isn't really all that great.

Overall Grade: C
Story: D+
Acting: C+
Audio/Visual: C

Sleepaway Camp II

This second installment in the trilogy (rumors of a new one coming out possibly this year) is what I expected from the first one. This second one simply focuses on being an absurd slasher film. It is good for a few laughs, but don't expect it to be scary.


It sets up its deaths, it has the death occur, and everyone is clueless as to why there are so many people "leaving" the camp. The whole group of campers are fairly absurd characters, most of them being stereotyped in some way or another (not as much as the third), but they are pretty odd and somewhat funny characters. The story isn't all that great. It has little to no depth to it, but as in most slasher films it is about the deaths.

The deaths in this film are actually pretty good. There is a decent amount of extra, pointless gore to it. They are generally creative deaths as well, which makes it entertaining. If the deaths aren't scary, at least make them different and creative, which these were. When you can go from interesting drownings to people getting garroted by a guitar string, it is entertaining.

The acting in this film is also as expected. In a campy slasher film, there really is no need for good acting, and there isn't good acting in this film. It isn't attrocious acting like in some films of this genre, the first included, but there is alot of lousy acting in this film, don't get me wrong, by the various campers or camp staff. The killer, though, does a decent job in this film.

Overall this is a pretty typical campy slasher film. It goes off of gore and being fairly cheesy to sell itself. It does a good job though being a fairly odd slasher film with some fairly odd characters. Definitely not a high quality production though.

Overall Grade: C+
Story: C
Acting: C
Audio/Visual: C+

Sleepaway Camp III

The third installment (and the final one??) is a little bit of a drop off from the second one. It is possibly funnier then the second one, but it is just absurd in everything it does, and it doesn't live up to the typical slasher film gore in what it does.

This films starts off fairly impressively when they manage to kill off a character (the most attractive one in the film) within the first two or three minutes using a dump truck. I won't get into how completely absurd it is with how it works. With that said, everything else in the film is a bit of a letdown, especially deat wise. There are some creative deaths (hoisting someone up a flag pole and dropping them is pretty impressive), but they don't do anything with gore. With the one death I mention, you see the person crash into the ground, and most good slasher films are going to have blood go flying everywhere. But in this film it looks completely clean around where the body lands. And they have other deaths which should be absurdly blood, but they aren't at all.

Story wise, I don't know if I can call it good, but it is somewhat entertaining. It is interesting to see the reasons for all of the deaths, even though is becomes clear that it is more and more of a stretch as for why the characters are dying. But the fact that it is the same campground as a year earlier (the second one) that does make it a little more interesting. Pretty funny in the story as well because of the characters.

The characters in this film are all absurdly stereotyped. There are characters who literally play off of every area of the country and every race in the most stereotypical way possible. They are just so funny to see as well. The owners of the camp are completely absurd in what they do. You really can't feel bad for a lot of the characters getting killed (there are three or so that you feel sorry for) because, for the most part, they are all annoying people who are really jacked up in their stereotypes.

Overall this isn't quite as good as the second. If they had kept the level of gore that is expected from this type of film, then I would rate it higher then the second as this one has much better humor throughout the whole thing, but it just felt like it was being too safe. Rumor has it (IMDB as the source) that they are looking at making one (possibly two) more of these films coming out this year.

Overall Grade: C
Story: C
Acting: C
Audio/Visual: C