#miserable director

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2014/04/20140430-comedy-review-white-reindeer.html

One line summary: A Christmas-themed feel-bad film.

Two stars of five.

Jeff and Suzanne seem to be happy living in Virginia near Christmas time.  Jeff has a new job starting in January, and they enjoy each other's company deeply.  Suzanne comes home one day before Christmas to find Jeff on the floor with his head bashed in.

The police investigation seems rather light and inept at the beginning.  Things pick up a bit after Suzanne starts combing through the files and web addresses on Jeff's computer.

Suzanne decides to meet some of the girls that Jeff knew.  Fantasia is one of the dancers.  Suzanne starts into shoplifting, as well as cocaine use.  Neither of these serves her well.  Her old set of friends prove to be less normal afterward.  Eventually, though, she starts to get information about Jeff's secret life: lap dances, cocaine use, and his other love interests.

Her excursion into getting to know the neighbors is not too damaging.  Then again, it was not beneficial for Suzanne.

Does Suzanne connect the dots?  Does she seek help with the police?  Will she survive the neighbors, or her Internet Christmas-sadness buying spree?

-----Scores-----

Cinematography: 5/10 From overexposure to underexposure to faux blondes to terrible makeup, the sets and lighting were poor.

Sound: 7/10 The actors were miked OK.  The incidental music was crappy, but then again, that's pretty much what the story was about: crappy situations.

Acting: 4/10 I almost liked the performance of Anna Margaret Hollyman, but not any of the many others.

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2014/02/20140201-movie-review-upstream-color.html

Some of the words and phrases I see applied to this film are cerebral, artistic, intellectual, 'artistic side of the brain,' beautiful, compelling and so on.  I would counter with pretentious, ugly, pointless, unfocused, deficient, ill-planned, bovine scatology.

One line summary: It takes considerable skill to make a film this bad.

One star of five.  Four black holes for cinematography, sound, acting, and screenplay.

Cinematography: 0/10 Some stretches of this film show expertise.  Based on that, one must figure that the poor quality of the film was a choice.  Poor framing, poor focus, poor depth of field, jerky camera, massive, avoidable flair not avoided, and so on.  The number of abrupt meaningless transitions is rather high, in the hundreds at least.

Sound: 0/10 The incidental music is irritating at best, mind numbingly bad at worst.  The voice miking is rather variable.  I had my hand on the volume control just so I could attempt to hear the dialog or not be drowned out by the atrocious music.  In several passages, the visuals have the characters silent while the sound from another scene is being played.  This choice not to synchronise is repellant.

Acting: 0/10 Speaking without affect: no smiles, no frowns, no sparkling eyes, no concern.  Fire the casting director as well as the director.  Most of all, lose the two lead actors.  High school actors with calm faces could have done as well.

Screenplay: 0/10 Death by a thousand (editing) cuts.  Remember the fable of 'The Emperor Has No Clothes.'  This movie sucks rocks.

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2014/01/20140130-horror-review-toad-road.html

One line summary:  Drug user investigates a path to hell, but does not remember it.

One star of five.

Cinematography: 0/10 Bipolar, to say the least.  On the one hand, some long stretches are hideously bad: fuzzy, poorly lit, poorly framed, overexposed and alternately underexposed, shaky.  On the better side, sections of the film have fine focus, good depth of field, nice framing and no camera shake.

Sound: 3/10 A real detriment.

Acting: 0/10 Non-existent.

Screenplay: 2/10 Next to worthless.  There is about 90 seconds of plot here, yet the film drags on endlessly for 75 minutes.  Filming drug addicts putting out their cigarettes in vomit is of no value whatsoever.

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2014/01/20140130-horror-review-rosalind-leigh.html

One line summary: Fine production values, but cheap jack script; massively bad ending.

The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh

One star of five

Cinematography: 10/10 Amazingly beautifully done, in low light or high.

Sound: 10/10 Well done, sometimes quite atmospheric.

Acting: 5/10 Veteran actor Aaron Poole gave a fine performance.  Film legend Vanessa Redgrave was OK as a voice actor.  However, the script was so bad that the performances mattered not.

Screenplay: 0/10 Five minutes of a bad plot stretched beyond breaking over eighty minutes.  I certainly hope the director is not funded again unless he has strong oversight.

http://moviessuite92online.blogspot.com/2014/01/20140121-comedy-review-overnight.html

One line summary: Another failed, low-budget, cliche-ridden, feel-bad, romantic comedy.

Two stars of five.

Cinematography: 7/10 Competent but nothing special.

Sound: 7/10 No particular problems on sound qualities.  The choice of the incidental music could have been better.

Acting: 3/10 Rachel Blanchard, Christina Chang, Claudia Christian, Josh Braaten, and Gbenga Akinnagbe were considerably more irritating than interesting.  Anthony LePaglia and James D'Arcy were better than competent, but could not make up for the others.

Screenplay: 3/10 The singing did not help, nor did the touchy-feely conversations, nor did the ugly yapping dog loose on a plane.  I am not looking forward to other efforts by Valerie Breiman.  Belly laughs? Zero.  Smiles?  Zero.  Anything in between?  No.  The endless weepy confessions by men were neither illustrative nor interesting.