The Monuments Men

The Monuments Men: Bland

118mins | Biography | 2014 

A complete mess of a film due to reasons that kill me and make me cry.

The story behind Monuments is a beautiful one. A group put together to rescue art stolen by the Nazis in World War II. I myself like this story unlike a lot of people online who apparently think its no worth tell. I think it’s one of importance and therefore one that should be told, just not in a theater.

My biggest issue with this film is the amount to be told and not enough time to tell it. Sure 118mins is long enough for most stories but not this one. What they tried to do was fit 10 lb of shit in a 5 lb bag.  This would of worked better as an episodic show on HBO, History Channel or whatever. A 10-part show, 1hr long would be more then enough, not 118mins.

Sadly with the 118mins that they had they wasted it on scenes that didn’t need to be in there. Also having a cast of 7 well-known actors sharing the screen caused issues with time. The amount of unneeded scenes and the editing back and forth of current scenes killed me. Even the camera work and blocking just seemed off, I thought in the theater that this felt very amateurish filmmaking. So much could have been reworked and cleaned up; even the jokes seemed really dare I say it, lame.

So much of this film seemed wasted, and yet I wanted more after it was over.

I wanted to like this film a lot. I adore the time period, the actors and in general filmmaking and at the end I just had a, Whatever vibe. That’s not what I wanted, and that’s not what I expected.

It’s disappointing and I expected better from this company of men.

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31 Nights Of Halloween, Shocker

Shocker: Mess

The Idea is fun, The Content is weak

This is a review and also a questionnaire if anyone knows the answers to. I have so many question on this film. The first time I ever knew about this film was at the dollar store years ago. I had found the soundtrack there for just a dollar and thought it would be a cool film to watch. After listening to the disk I just had to watch this film, which brought up a ton of question. Never has a film left me with so many questions before.
"I eat this wimp's will power for breakfast, John-bo." Let me say first I know its a comedy-horror hybrid. It just doesn't work for me this time around. Peter Bergs acting is not the greatest, lets just say that. Mitch Pileggi is the only reason to watch this poorly made film. Wes Craven is a favorite of mine mostly do to, A Nightmare on Elm Street, a horror masterpiece (In my opinion). This film isn't even close to good let alone a masterpiece. Craven seems to wanna recreate that magic that was on Elm Street and as well as a new franchise. By trying to recreate, they created a film that so bloated it seems they tried every idea they could think of. It's almost 2hrs long and thats way too long for this film, just way too long. The idea is so stretched out it gives stretch armstrong a run for this money. That line there might of been bad, but its nowhere near the cheesy dialogue in this film.

Here is a film that knows its not suppose to be good (at least I think so) and goes with it. Only redeeming value is watching this with friends do to its stupidity, other then that is hard to watch by yourself. 

The scene that sticks out for me, is the Park scene, in which we get a odd "gun shooting count".
This is how it goes...
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10, 11, 12
(Reloads)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
(Reloads)
Throws Gun
New Gun
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
"It's no good, Pinker; Alison told me the secret. Maybe you *were* my father, but you know who my father is now? You know who's responsible for me? Me; no one else."(Spoilers if you care ahead!)

Side notes: Nobody seems to care that there is a cop trying to kill a kid at this park. Also the children continue to play as gun shots ring out. And why does Jonathan seem to be running in a circle that whole time? Really lets just say, the whole direction of this film is a Mess. Doing this creates many plot-holes and makes the movie not a movie but a joke. The script needs a line of time to stay on its course, like a train on a track. The film seems to have its scenes written individually, thrown in a bag then picked out one by one for the film. This makes things tough to follow and allows the viewer to really not care. As you watch this film things just pop up for no reason, like Alison talking from the dead, did I miss something? And the damn necklace that Jonathan gives to her, apparently it has a bit magic, how? And didn't he get rid of the necklace 6ft under? How did it come back from being 6ft under? 

"It smells like the goddamn electric chair in here." 
So as I watch this film I asked myself, if Pinker is apparently Jonathan's father, then why is he trying to kill his own son? Because his son shot Pinker in the leg? Seems a bit much I think. Also why the hell is Jonathan so damn hard to kill? Because Jonathan doesn't seem so bright, I mean he does run in circles as Pinker tries to kill him. Oh and I don't think anyone will disagree on this one, but Jonathan's adapted father is a idiot. Why was he written so badly? He doesn't realize anything, even when Jonathan proves to him he knows things that can help catch Pinker, he keeps shooting down his adapted kid who knows things he shouldn't know.

How could he travel into bodys, because of the devil worshiping he did? Is that why he can't die? And how can Jonathan see into the future? I found it funny the cops have to read the miranda rights from a piece of paper, they don't know it by heart yet?

And why was finding one killer so difficult? Seriously they had a shitty group of police in that town.
Why? Why? Why?
Maybe I just don't remember, but I do believe they didn't explain this stuff. Hey possibly I had passed out or something because I've never had so many question after watching a movie.
Listen I usually don't care so much about stupid films like this, I really like stupid horror films for the comedy side of it but this film had too many questions on this one.

Like I said in the beginning watch it with friends or if you can't sleep one night pop it in.

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