My intention was to review the movie We Are What We Are - This has become Part One of that review.

I LOVED IT

In high school, for me, there were books and movies and music. Books were my allowed form of escape during school. Between classes I could read, and should we be given a break, I’d read. A book a week I tore through Robert R. McCammon, Stephen King and Dean R. Koontz (I even got into the Fletch books and a lot of the Dragonlance books) at home though the books were traded for movies and music. I remember when the Bravo channel first came to cable, it would show weird artistic stuff like ballet and stuff I wasn’t too into – then one day I stumbled upon Hal Hartley’s Trust, and it all changed for me. My passion for the blockbuster was forced to make room for the independent movies that I’d never ever considered interesting – hell, I probably didn’t even know they existed. I had a passion for movies but I knew no one who shared my passion. My brothers and parents would go to movies with me but never really helped fine-tune my interest. I hate to consider what my life – high school life as well as future life – would have turned out had I never become interested in independent movies – had I never discovered Trust.

What movies do you wish Netflix had streaming?

            Sure there are a number of blockbuster movies I wish it had streaming now (Pacific Rim, Prometheus (and yes I pick those two to irritate those of you who hate those movies – I freaking loved them so suck it)), but I’ll be honest – I would love to see some of Hal Hartley’s earlier movies streaming. I wish for this not for my own benefit – well, not entirely – because I own Trust on VHS, as well as The Unbelievable Truth and Surviving Desire (I will never get rid of those movies), but I don’t own Amateur, and have not seen it since I rented it when it was released years ago, and I would love to see it (we only have streaming Netflix, my desire apparently does have a monetary limit at the moment) – I wish for these movies to be streaming for those who have not seen them, because everyone in the world should see his early movies.

            I think his movies worked because of the writer / director / musician, but also because of the actors he got to work with, and since I am a red blooded American male I must put Adrienne Shelly at the top of the list of the best thing about his movies. She’s not in all of his, so at that point I must admit to my die-hard love for Martin Donovan, and then finally to Bill Sage – who brought all of this about, but more on that in a minute.

            The following is a review I wrote on Amazon for a soundtrack I bought:

            2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A guy from Kansas loves this music., December 2, 1998

By 

Joshua Hampel (Wichita, Kansas.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: True Fiction Pictures: Music From The Films Of Hal Hartley (Audio CD)

Ever since I caught Trust late at night on Bravo, I fell in love with Adrienne Shelly (who wouldn't?) and I was also introduced to Hal Hartley. The music accompanying the last shot was so (for the lack of a better word) cool, that I watched the credits to catch who did the music. After years of looking for this Ned Rifle guy, Hal released Amateur, and I got that soundtrack, and it was awesome. Now I just got this soundtrack, and it's twice as good. With the themes for Simple Men, the Unbelievable Truth, as well as Trust, this is a must have for any Hal Hartley (or Adrienne Shelly) fan.

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Dream Girl

            So I obviously had a crush on Adrienne Shelly, but seriously, how could you not. She was the indie it girl before that was even a thing. Before Parker Posey there was Adrienne Shelly – before the whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl had a title or was a thing worth putting a title on, there was Adrienne Shelly. But I wouldn’t define her as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl exactly – she’s not an empty shell of a person who is there for the sole purpose of making a male character understand life and its lessons – or whatever a MPDG is supposed to be. She is the opposite; she is the main character herself, a strong girl with drive and intelligence who just happens to be in love with a guy who doesn’t understand the sort of things life is throwing at him. She helps him, sure, but as evident in Trust, he helps her as well. Adrienne Shelly’s characters were more the Manic Pixie Dream Girlfriend, she wasn’t a girl who was there to help the male character and then fade into the background, she was there for the long haul, she was there to help but needed help herself and if the other main character could handle the work then things would end well. Unfortunately in Trust, Martin Donovan was unable to handle it (at least that’s my interpretation of it), which brings me to the man himself.

Just another reason this man is my idol.

            Martin Donovan was my idol in high school. I’d say his character in Trust was my idol but in the Hartley films – no matter the character – he seemed to always be of the same mentality so I go with the belief that the man Martin Donovan was – and still is – my idol. Of course as he moved on to play more characters he grew and changed and became a very diverse actor, but he will always be those characters he was playing in the Hartley films. To a teenage Josh whose friends consisted of characters from books and movies, Martin Donovan seemed like the perfect guy to strive to be – a guy who lives by his own rules and though he may not get the girl, he’s still ends up looking as cool as anyone could wish to be. Of course it is Harley’s writing that makes him so cool, but the writing alone wouldn’t work if it weren’t for Martin Donovan’s delivery and presence that made every word he says and every action he performs a thing of defiance and bitterness that comes across as nothing short of style.

           

Know why this guy is so cool?

Bill Sage was also a recurring character that stood out during the Hartley films. He was a youthful guy that took center stage in Simple Men, and though he often popped up in other Hartley films, it was always in the background, but even then he stood out as a memorable guy. Bill Sage exemplified another reason the Hartley films were always so entertaining. Hal Hartley used the same actors in one aspect or another throughout his movies and it was always nice to see the same faces through different movies. They were people I was beginning to recognize and to a lonely kid they were friends that I could go back and hang out with whenever I wanted and unlike real people, the people in the Hartley films didn’t get on my nerves and were cool.

            Through out the years I enjoyed seeing Martin Donovan pop up in unexpected places. The Silent Hill sequel, Kelsey Grammar series Boss, The Dead Zone (I think, I stopped watching towards the end but I think I saw him in a few episodes? Maybe it was The 4400); all of it was just that much more enjoyable because I got to see an old friend when I was least expecting him (Jesus that sounds pathetic).

 

What an amazing person looks like.

           I realize that none of these people knew that I existed, nor did they care, but I still liked them and enjoyed the company that their work gave me, and when I heard of Adrienne Shelley’s murder I was shocked – obviously – but it affected me in a way I hadn’t expected. It was like my memories were changed. Now when I think back to the first time I saw Trust, and the first time I saw Adrienne Shelley, it’s all different because no matter how sweet and awesome and strong and intelligent she seemed (and yes I’m going off of her acting and the character she was playing as a guide to the person – but I think it safe to assume that she was a pretty cool person in real life) someone murdered her:

"You stalked and brutally attacked my wife, silenced her screams with your hand until you rendered her unconscious and then, in a brutal and gruesome act of cowardice, took a bedsheet and strangled her to death," Ostroy said. "You tied her up and hung her the way you strung up pigs back in Ecuador."

Shelly's death was initially thought to be suicide: The 40-year-old was found dangling from a bedsheet tied to a shower rod. Cops zeroed in on Pillco after investigators found his dusty boot prints on the edge of Shelly's bathtub.

Pillco, 20, confessed to attacking the acclaimed actress-director when she caught him pilfering her purse; he pleaded guilty to manslaughter last month.

(source)

and though I don’t give that less than a person who took her life a thought, it’s just the fact that she is gone that makes it different.

            Billy Sage was an actor that I seemed to be missing out on. I saw him in American Psycho but it took me awhile to realize that was the same guy from the Hartley films. He still had that youthful face but just something about his ability to go deep into his characters that made him one of those actors that you see and don’t realize until later that you’d seen him in a bunch of movies. From most of the movies that I’d seen him in he wasn’t ever the main character, he was always a supporting guy – which is cool – but it was like he was always lost to both the character as well as the background, and he seemed totally fine and comfortable with where he was.

This is why.

            Now there may be dozens of movies where he’s the main character and I just haven’t seen them, and if there are good movies with him that I’m not aware of, let me know and I will check them out. This is just my impression of him and he seems to not get or take many main character roles. This was my impression of him, and also the fact that I hadn’t thought of any of Hartley’s movies for a while, is why when I saw We Are What We Are I had the strange feeling that I knew the dad in the movie but he did not look like anyone I knew, but that voice, man did that voice sound familiar . . . 

I don't mention it below but I'd be unable to forgive myself should I not mention Jess Weixler. She is an amazing and eclectic actress, and I may honestly be in love with her more than any of the men and women I declare my love for in the below thoughts.

I may be in love with Tyler Labine. I’m not talking like the hardcore gay sex kind of love that I feel and would totally be open for when talking about Steve Buscemi (I plan on starting a blog to share my fan-fiction of Mr. Buscemi and me, so keep an eye out for that); no, I’m talking about how he seems like a cool guy to meet and hang out with. He’s probably not, he’s probably a horribly mean person who wouldn’t hang out with me – much like I fear that Mr. Buscemi would not be into making love to me – and since I will never meet either man I cling to the fantasy that both are cool guys.

            The first movie I recall seeing Tyler Labine in was Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and that movie was perfectly executed, though it may take a bit at the start to get going, once it does it is well worth the ride. Anyone tired of slasher movies, and anyone tired of those movies that “cleverly” poke fun at the slasher movies – TD vs E is the perfect movie for you, a chaotic mess of gore and comedy that works because the people in the movie are all into it. It’s like all the actors are tracking with the tone of the movie and it shows, the whole movie is a homerun of comedic timing, good acting and good directing and all of it based on a strong script.

            The next movie I saw him in was Cottage Country, and I’ve already reviewed that movie so all I can do now is reiterate how perfect an example that movie is for one to see and understand what a dark comedy movie is all about and how it should look. It was that movie, Cottage Country, when I first saw Lucy Punch, a girl I fell in love with because though she was in the movie only briefly she stood out as one of the best / funniest things about the whole movie.

            So when I saw that both Tyler and Lucy were in the movie Someone Marry Barry I had to check it out. From the beginning, with TD vs E, my wife had been with me and had enjoyed every movie Tyler had been in – and then we saw this movie.

            Someone Marry Barry was like a very long episode of a stupid TV show – take your pick of any situational comedy show – crossed with a romantic comedy movie.

TV show with rom-com a movie that my wife and I will enjoy does not make.

            I thought the movie was pointless, but funny – and around halfway through it I fell asleep. I was laughing and the movie wasn’t horrible, it was just dull. My wife did not like Tyler’s character – which was kind of the point, but she found him too annoying and was unable to see anything redeeming about him. From the start she was not at all interested in his finding happiness, and to me from the start Barry was funny and his friends were not. I think Someone Marry Barry is proof that Tyler – though a great comedic actor, as he has proven in previous movies – cannot carry a movie on his own. The other characters in this movie were just not strong enough to help Tyler support the movie and carry it into something that was better than just “meh”.

            I woke up at the end of the movie and didn’t even ask my wife how it was. I could tell she didn’t like it, though when I was awake she laughed at parts, but for the most part it wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t too interested in finding out how it ended (I’m guessing I’ve seen enough movies to have a good idea of how things worked out for everyone) so Someone Marry Barry was a giant stumble during our journey through Tyler’s streaming film history.

The next night we watched was Best Man Down. I talked about it briefly in a previous blog post stating simply:

Best Man Down does not look good – at all.

            I did not plan on liking Best Man Down, which may be why I loved it. It is a quiet, slow movie that relies heavily on the acting. The story is very basic and is probably why I did not think the movie looked good at all when I saw the preview. I put it on my list even though I never intended to watch it (that’s how I roll, and one reason why my wife was near ecstatic when Netflix offered profiles. Her movie list is a piece of artistic minimalism while mine is pretty much a pile of movies that appeal to my left brain / right brain extremism) and after our run of Tyler movies it seemed fitting that we would check this one out. My wife had no idea what it was about, just that it had the Barry guy in it and at the start it was like a sequel to the Barry movie. My wife asked if he ever played any character other than the drunk and rude and obnoxious guy.

            By the time the Best Man Down movie had ended my wife and I were very near in tears (I mean my wife was very near in tears, I was never near tears – in fact I don’t think I’ve ever cried, so there). No matter how bad any other movie Tyler does, all you need to do is check this movie out to see that the man can act.

            The movie Best Man Down was powerful because of the mother daughter relationship going on with the young girl who at first seems to have nothing in common with the main plot until we find out that she does. Actually, the main characters – the couple getting married – feel secondary to the story of the best man and his relationship with the girl, which takes up probably just a little less than half the movie – but it feels bigger. When we’re following the newlyweds, we’re waiting to find out the connection between the girl and the best man, and then the mystery of how they came to know each other is layered in such a way that it keeps you waiting and wanting to know the full story.

           

            I said the story of Best Man Down is nothing special, and it’s not, but it’s the way people involved make it special, and interesting, and it’s the acting that makes it powerful and emotional.

            By the end of Best Man Down my wife and I felt emotionally wrecked and on a whim I played the first episode of a series called Sons of Tuscon which also starred Tyler. It apparently ran for only one season back in 2010, and the first episode was pretty dang funny, but again it wasn’t solely on Tyler, the kids he’s paired up with were good enough actors, and the situation they’re in is interesting (not at all believable but only for a TV show, which was good because that’s what we were watching).

            We haven’t watched any more of the series, but plan on it, and because of Best Man Down we look forward to checking out more movies that have Tyler Labine. 

Escape From Tomorrow, some people call it that Disneyland movie, everyone should call it that Disneyland movie that sucks

“Hi Mr. Disneyland representative (we’ll call him Mr. Dr), we’d like to film a movie here,” said the writer/director.

            “Sure, let’s see the script and see what kind of movie it is. Huh, father loses job while on vacation at Disneyland, ignores family to stare at teenage French girls to the point that his wife is uncomfortable and irritated, then the father has an affair – “

            “Or does he!” Mr. Dr looks at the writer/director from over the top of his glasses for a moment and then continues to read silently to himself before finishing the script and placing it down on his desk. He looks at the writer/director, and the producer or whoever lost the bet to present the movie to Mr. Dr.

            “What happens at the end?”

            “What do you mean?” The writer/director is trying to hide the fact that he’s not trying all that hard to hide his smiling.

            “I mean what is that ending all about?” The writer/director grins like an idiot and answers with:

            “What do you think it’s about?”

        Mr. Dr sighs and think of probably many other more important things he has on his schedule for the day. He says that they cannot film that movie in the park.

            “Because you are so close minded!” The writer/director yells. “You must have such a tight grip on movies shot here that it kills the creativity that you feign to support!”

            Mr. Dr. pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes for a moment while he shakes his head and says, “No, this movie is horrible, that’s why.” He opens his eyes and looks to the men before him. “It doesn’t even portray the park in a negative light. What you present here as the inner-workings of the park is complete fantasy and so obviously fantastical that it makes you look idiotic if you think we would be offended or even threatened by anything presented in this movie. As a bit of a part-time writer, though, I do take offense to your lack of detail in the main character whose mental instability you have reduced to being nothing more than a horny old man who pines for two young French girls at the risk of his children’s safety. It is offensive, you taking the idea of a man’s mental breakdown while in a theme park, and making it completely and utterly pointless.”

            The writer/director, missing the point, responds with: “Then if you will not allow us to film in the park, I will film without you knowing about it, using guerilla style filmmaking, and then I will tell everyone that’s how I filmed it!”

            Mr. Dr says with a shrug, “I don’t care.” Then, when really thinking about it, he adds: “Actually, I bet that will be the most interesting thing about this movie and that will be the only reason anyone would be interested in it. You go ahead, idiot, film your movie and we’ll pretend like we don’t know you, which is how your family and friends will act after this is released.”

            That’s how I imagine it went down. I cannot believe I fell for it, but I did. I heard about this movie so I thought I’d check it out and boy oh boy was it dull. The idea that it was trying to put to film was mildly interesting but it’s like the people making the film did not have the nerve to go all the way with it.

            This movie is such a waste of time that it’s really not even funny – though if the movie had been funny it maybe wouldn’t have been such a waste of time.

Vincent D'Onofrio is Kingpin in Netflix's new original Daredevil series

The actor is on the left, the character is on the right.

This officially makes me excited for Daredevil to appear on Netflix. The movie actor God that is Vincent D’Onofrio will be in the Netflix original Daredevil series as Kingpin. Now if they can just put a moment in the show that gives him the opportunity to say the word: “Sugar” I would seriously lose my shit.

           

            Normally it’s a concern when a show replaces the showrunner, but it sure seems like with the replacement the show is starting to move. Of course all of this could have already been in the works, but I like to think that Netflix wasn’t happy so they put a new guy in charge and that new guy has brought about all the advancement with casting the show.

            I’m normally a glass half empty type of guy, but when it comes to Netflix original shows I tend to think and hope and expect the best and have not been let down so far (I’m not counting OITNB).

source

Eddie Murphy made me nostalgic for my younger years and my friend Jason who I don't see much anymore, and Richard Pryor made me nostalgic for being young and watching The Toy with my family.

I Liked It

I am a child of the 80’s, a white suburban child of the 80’s, I went to a private catholic school, and I believe it was the 5^th grade when I met my best friend Jason. Jason’s mom was white, but he was black and tall for his age, and I was very short for my age and he and I hit it off right away. Jason’s mom worked her ass off for him to grow up and go to school where he did and because of that she wasn’t around much. Jason and I never got into much trouble mostly because we never got caught.

            I bring this all up for the sole reason that were it not for Jason I truly believe I would not have ever seen Eddie Murphy’s Delirious, much less at the age of 12, nor would I have had any clue as to who the NWA were. I don’t know how Jason even heard about it all as he was also an owner of a Tiffany cassette (though I do honestly believe he had it only because the majority of the people he hung out with had it and liked it). He was also a fan of Guns N’ Roses and he probably liked those guys as much as he enjoyed NWA. Either way he lived in both worlds, and being his friend and spending as much time around him as I did, I ended up living in both worlds as well. I remember he stayed the night at my house one night and we stayed up late and listened to an NWA cassette as low as possible so that we didn’t wake my parents but loud enough that we could just barely hear it even with our ears pressed to the speakers of the little player.

            Jason was and still is – though I don’t talk to him much anymore – my best friend and had a huge part in making me who I am today; my odd sense of humor and eclectic selection of music and movies, pretty much he helped me become the oddity that I am now.

            These were the sort of things I was thinking about while watching Eddie Murphy’s Delirious. I remember both Jason and I laughing hysterically while watching the VHS one weekend at his house. The mom throwing shoes at her kids was especially a big hit with us, as was the ice cream bit. I remembered bits and pieces of Delirious, but the first thing I took note was how it started. It had the look and feel of a VHS movie, almost a home movie feel as we follow Eddie Murphy on the tour bus and stuff, mostly it was all awkward watching it (I swear Eddie Murphy had something stuffed into his underwear at one point. My wife told me to just get over it because I kept bringing it up, but seriously, it looked like a baseball was in his underwear, it looked like his testes were severely swollen and I almost became concerned, but eventually I did let it go, but seriously, if you get a chance check out Eddie Murphy’s junk, it’s weird in how perfectly spherical it is – or maybe mine is the one that’s jacked up and no one has ever told me).

            The beginning of his act was painful to watch. He starts off talking about how “faggots” (his word) better not be looking at his ass! The audience thought it was hilarious. He worked that joke for a solid minute or so, and then went into Mr. T being gay which I kind of remembered.

            For the most part Delirious wasn’t too entertaining until towards the last half and then it got funny. It was mostly just interesting watching Eddie Murphy and seeing how young he was and full of promise with his spot-on impressions and his energy. Is comedy just different now that his routine wasn’t as funny now as the audience thought it was back then?

            I would say maybe half of his routine was funny, and the other half was just a bit too dated.

I Liked It

Richard Pryor starts off about how ever since Reagan was elected nobody was fucking.

            That’s probably about as dated as you can get (making fun of Mr. T has more timelessness than making fun of Ronald Reagan – I think), and though I rated them both the same as liking them, Richard Pryor’s film is just a bit better. The comedy may be about the same, they both set the cussing bar to a new high and at times they both have moments that made me genuinely laugh, but Richard Pryor’s performance, and the production of his performance was just a bit more fine tuned than Eddie Murphy’s.

            I realize that I’m criticizing them not on the comedy or their performances, but on the quality of the movie, but when you have two comics were performances are so similar it doesn’t give you much more to look at other than the movie as a whole.

            And I get it when you say – it’s Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor, Richard Pryor is a freaking legend while Eddie has become a vague shadow of his former self, how can you say they are the same – but just watch both of these films.

            To be fair and clear, Richard Pryor’s performance came first, by like a year or two I believe, so any comparison between the two – Pryor is the clear winner because he paved the way for Eddie, and Eddie followed the way without bettering it.

            Eddie Murphy’s Delirious is well known for his red outfit. Red leather jacket and pants, it looks uncomfortable and smelly and the jacket is half open the entire time showing off the fact that Eddie is not wearing a shirt underneath. He looks like a wanna-be rock star, or a wanna-be Michael Jackson. Richard Pryor wears a red suit as well, but he wears it well, and that’s something I wouldn’t have noticed had I not seen Eddie first. Pryor wears a black shirt under his red jacket that matches his red pants and what I believe to be gold shoes – doesn’t matter though because Pryor looks cool.

            They both interact with the audience well: Eddie borrows a camera from an audience member and takes some photos, and even tells a joke directly to a kid who was brought to the show. Pryor’s whole show feels like a one-on-one with the audience, his stage is close to the audience, and at one point he comes down the steps and sits down almost square on with the audience, and at one point an audience member calls out a bit of Pryor’s that they like and want him to do, and Pryor acknowledges the request and does it. They both act out skits and conversations between people (Eddie) and conversations between animals (Pryor), showing off both their fantastic abilities to act and give each character they’re doing a personality that makes the whole thing just that much more entertaining.

            Pryor of course has an ace hidden up his sleeve with the stories of his being burned and having to go through recovery. As he points out in his show, people were wondering what really happened, and he addresses it. It is an entertaining and interesting look into the life of someone addicted to drugs that doesn’t change the show or bring it down in anyway. The entire time he’s on stage Pryor gives off the sense of cracking jokes with friends, and when he gets to the heavy stuff, he keeps it funny by commenting on his experience, but also serious with a few stories of how drugs were slowly taking over his life and how others were noticing and trying to help. It makes the show a symbol of Pryor’s return to comedy as well as a return to life. It is awesome to know how far down he sank and then seeing him back on stage, performing, you can see how far back he rose.

            I may have fond memories of watching Delirious with Jason when I was a kid, but I have much more fond memories of watching The Toy with my brothers, watching Stir Crazy with Jason, and Brewster’s Millions, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Silver Streak on my own.

I Watched Are All Men Pedophiles?, Streaming Now on Netflix. Watch anthropology and sociology be distorted beyond recognition to support crap!

I Hated It

So I watched Are All Men Pedophiles? on Netflix.

            I did some research into the documentary before watching it because it sounded kind of suspect. Like when you read an article or watch a show thinking it’s going to take one slant and then it turns out to have a totally different angle than what you thought.

            I watched the preview for this documentary before watching the movie, and my apprehension was reinforced. It sure seemed to me that a lot of the people being interviewed in this poorly produced documentary were of the mind that society has gotten the wrong impression about pedophiles! Which is good to know, right? I instantly began to feel regret for all those times I’d heard about an adult molesting and having sex with a child. Damn you left-wing media for painting all pedophiles in a negative light! Damn you advertising agencies for paying teen girls to be models and so in turn making adult men molest and have sex with kids! I mean, how could one expect an adult to NOT do it with all the advertising surrounding them daily?

            Oh wait. Yeah, that’s right, because it’s not just illegal but also horribly morally and ethically wrong on all levels of existence. Like, however many parallel universes you can imagine there being, the one constant stretching throughout them all is how wrong it is to have sex with a child.

            With the understanding that this documentary will be horribly off the mark and probably pretty offensive, I watched it. As much as my initial reaction to the preview for the movie was one of repulsion, I couldn’t bring myself to really denounce the documentary without seeing it.

            Of course it wasn’t as bad as I had thought. It wasn’t like a pro-commercial for pedophiles, and as dangerous as it is for me to say that the documentary did have some interesting points after my rant, I will say that . . . well, it had some interesting points.

            First, a story: I was with my son’s pre-K class at the zoo this summer. I was the only father in the group of moms, and the teacher told me that there was a little girl in the class who is – for lack of a better word – a bit of a “daddy’s girl” and I was warned that since I was the only guy in the group she would probably be hanging out around me instead of the kids. No problem, I said, but when the girl came up to me and took my hand and pretty much wouldn’t let go the entire time, I felt extremely self conscious. Now of course I knew there was no danger, but I also knew that no one else knew that. None of the mothers knew me, and it may have been my imagination, but it seemed as the day went on and the girl continued to hold my hand that a few of the mothers would look away from my direction when I looked at them. I tried to get the girl to play with the other kids, but she wanted to stay with me. Short of yelling at her and pulling free and running from her while yelling how I wasn’t a pedo, I didn’t know what to do but to keep holding the girls hand. The teacher was very nice and would often walk with me and crack jokes about how she bet I was having fun at the zoo and I’d laugh and then say to the little girl “Don’t you wanna hold your teachers hand?” The little girl would simply say no and the teacher would laugh and go check on the other kids.

            Though it was uncomfortable, holding the girl’s hand and having the moms keeping an eye on me, I need to be honest that were it my daughter and another man, I’d WANT those moms to keep an eye on the guy who was holding her hand. It’s the world we live in, as much as it sucks, it’s the way it is. I may not like it, being a man and being scrutinized more for that fact, but I totally and completely understand it. It’s because of the bad guys that all guys are watched, so it is up to the good guys to change the world’s perceptions – unfortunately it just seems like there are more bad guys (or the bad guys are getting more notice) than good.

            The documentary touches on stuff like that, how even with the rise of female teachers having sex with young boys; it is still kind of creepier when it’s an older guy with a young girl. The documentary talks about how some airlines will not sit a child next to a strange man (I am okay with that and understand it), while a strange woman is okay (not so sure about that. Haven’t women been known to do bad things, even with kids, and even with kids that aren’t their own?); and some daycares that allow fathers to drop the children off but not inside the building (that’s a bit weird – if it’s true).

            The documentary did dip into the art of blaming others for those who have sex with teens, because of advertising, and genetics is why an older man has sex with a teenage girl. I didn’t buy that at all. I know the legal age is like 16 or something, but even if it’s legal, I don’t see why one would want to try and start a relationship with someone who has such a large age difference (and the documentary states that a teen is attracted to an older man genetically for a relationship, not just sex). Age may just be a number (as the creepy narrator says at the end, which was just almost too gross) but it is also about experience – experiences that prepare you for relationships with other people, experiences that prepare you for love and loss, and eventually experiences that make you bold enough to try and start a family and pass all that you have learned from said experiences down to your children. You cannot do that within a relationship between a 40 year old man and a 16 year old girl. What you can do is have sex and have fun and pretend like age is just a number until it eventually becomes something more than that.

            It seems the documentary’s main point was a distinction between pedophiles (attraction to kids before puberty), hebephiles (attraction to kids during the age of puberty), and ephebophiles (attraction to kids after the age of puberty). I’m not entirely sure why the distinction needed to be made. A kid is a kid, no matter their age and no matter the name you give the man (or woman, as the documentary pointed out) who is attracted to them and anyone who thinks it okay is very wrong.

            The documentary lost me around the time it felt the need to point out that there are two different types of pedophiles; those who act on their urges and those who don’t. A person who is attracted to little kids is a pedophile but that doesn’t mean they’ll act on it, so based on that thinking there are acting pedophiles and just pedophiles – or something like that – and eventually pedophilia will be accepted just as homosexuality has steadily become accepted. It actually makes that comparison, I’m not shitting you! The documentary is flawed to say the least, and even at times offensive in its ignorance as to the way the world works. It may never come right out and say its agenda is the defense of pedophiles, but then again I don’t need to be told something is complete shit to know that it is.

           

            At the end of the documentary the narrator asks if all men are pedophiles, and he says that according to the general interpretation of the word, when a guy looks at a teen model and thinks she’s attractive, then yes, all men a pedophiles. So obviously – wait, what? If I see a picture of a teen girl who is on the cover of Vogue and think, she’s cute, I’m a pedo? If I buy a dress for my daughter and shoes and a thing for her hair and she dresses up and I think, man she is so beautiful, I’m a pedo? To be clear! When I look at Bradley Cooper and I can ABSOLUTELY see why women find him cute, I’m – what? Gay? Or if I see George Clooney (seriously, the guy just has the personality of an awesome guy that goes so well with his looks) and again I can say without a doubt that the man is attractive, that defines me entirely? I don’t even think society – for the most part mind you, because sure there are some people who – would assume that meant that I was gay? Nor would me thinking a cover girl is cute make me a pedophile, not even by society’s take on it all.

            I hated the documentary because it wasn’t good. The topic was obviously one that inspired a mental discussion with myself, but the documentary is poorly done and has the feel of ickyness – and that’s not from the topic, it’s from the quality. The sound was at times distorted a bit, the video looked as though it was recorded with a camcorder instead of a real camera, and I’m sorry but none of the people interviewed seemed real. I honestly thought about looking in to see if any of the doctors and scientists were real people because they just did not sound like they knew what they were talking about, and that may be due to the quality of the documentary. It just all had a staged feel to it that made it just not good.

Evidence is proof that the found footage genre needs to get lost. I also talk about good found footage movies streaming, and the not-so-good, and how awesome is Radha Mitchell?

I Hated It

My wife and I have a thing for found footage movies. They are, for the most part, horrible. There are some that aren’t bad. I will always be a fan of the original, the one that started it all, The Blair Witch Project. Of course found footage movies were popular with the invention of the camcorder that any average person could buy and film movies on. The Blair Witch Project was the first to make it mainstream, but what it also did was utilize the internet as a way of marketing and keeping up the illusion of the whole movie being found footage. At the time there were some who believed it entirely because of the back story and reports that showed up on the internet claiming to be real.

I Really Liked It

            There are found footage movies that are not completely horrible, and I can think of only one that is pretty good. Barry Levinson’s The Bay is a movie that any person who is thinking of making a found footage film should watch. The Bay is paced perfectly, and that is something that is completely free and yet most people who make a found footage film act as though creating  steady pace within their movie is way too expensive and they’d rather spend it on the effects they’re gonna use for the last five minutes of the movie. The Bay may have more production value than littler films but that doesn’t really show, what shows more than anything is the acting and the story. I think the best thing one could say about The Bay is that when you hear that Barry Levinson is making a found footage film you are pretty certain his career is over, but when you see the movie you see that he’s still making good movies. Sure it’s not his best but it may not even be his worse either.

            The Paranormal Activity movies aren’t bad either. The first one was good, and though the rest have steadily declined in quality, they are still movies that my wife and I check out and enjoy watching how horrible the movies have become. We have started betting each other on when a body is going to be thrown at the camera. The main reason we continue to watch these movies is because – like The Bay – the camera is usually pretty steady and not all herky jerky all over the place.

I Didn't Like It

            The two Grave Encounters movies are about the average of found footage movies. They’re bad, but bearable, opting to let you get to know the irritating people who will be having the “grave encounters” for over an hour, and then giving you the “grave encounters” throughout the last few minutes of the movie. I am aware that the sarcasm did not come through so let me be clear that these movies are more than dull and then they end with something mildly interesting.

            It’s the really bad ones that are dull – spend too much time letting us get to know the characters – and then they end with something that is supposed to be a surprise? A cliffhanger? Who cares! If you’re going to show us over an hour’s worth of footage of these people, then something pretty concrete had better happen to them instead of leaving it all open. It’s such a waste of our time that it’s almost painful.

           

I Hated It

We anxiously checked out the V/H/S movies, which sucked, and then the sequel, which surprise! Sucked too; and that is a real testament to how horrible the stories are in the V/H/S movies because all found footage movies waste so much time trying to create characters that we should care about when the shit hits the fan, but we never do. The stories in the V/H/S movies are short and still we don’t give a crap about them. To be fair the V/H/S movies aren’t the worst because you can tell they got money, and some of the stories have moments that are interesting, but all together as a movie the stories are just not good and leave too much open. I like open endings if the ending is a fair ending to the rest of the movie, but when you have a movie that’s got tons of insane shit and then you end it without any sort of explanation – well, that’s just lazy.

            We even saw one found footage movie that was streaming at the time, and I can’t recall the name of the movie, but freaking Oliver Stone was in it. Seriously, and then I found out that his son made the movie! This is no shit, and it was horrible! It’s gems like that which make it totally worth our incessant viewing of any and all found footage movies.

            The found footage movie Evidence was interesting because it wasn’t the usual plot. This time it was the police searching through video evidence in the aftermath of one hell of a bad night that left many dead and a few barely surviving. So that was a good thing, and the cast was a good thing. The guy from True Blood and the mom from the Silent Hill movies. Okay, we got some stars here, so let’s check it out. The opening scene was interesting. The camera moving around the aftermath that is all frozen in time meant that they had some money to throw at this movie, and then once it starts going . . . well . . .

            Without giving too much away I’ll just say this movie sucked and you should not watch it. Trust me, the ending was completely stupid and unbelievable, but the whole movie was like that. Too much of the movie was watching the cops watch the found footage, which is worse than watching it yourself! And the True Blood guy spouts awesomely horrible technical jargon about enhancing, and zooming in, and cleaning up the video, and stuff that – whether it’s real or not – just came off as so fake that it was laughable, which is what my wife and I did during this movie – a lot.

No one puts Radha Mitchell in a movie this bad,
and if you do you atleast make her the freaking star!

            The people involved are so much better than a movie like this, seriously. Though I haven’t seen the True Blood guy in a movie or TV show that I’ve liked, I know the Silent Hill lady can act and can pick great movies (Radha Mitchell will always be cool to me because she was in Pitch Black and Henry Poole is Here – this movie, as bad as it was, did not have her in it enough for me to hate her), but this movie was a horrible waste of time. I can’t even think of a way for this movie to be good because it just doesn’t have a story. The Tue Blood guy has a history that is touched upon but has nothing to do with anything going on, nor does it really have anything do with the investigation, and the Silent Hill lady doesn’t even need to be in the movie which is a shame because she can be a good actress when she has the right direction.

            There are a number of found footage movies streaming on Netflix, and though they mostly all reside in the horror genre I’d suggest checking them out instead of this one. My wife and I were anxious to see a found footage movie that was not the usual horror movie, but this was bad enough that we really would rather have watched a bad horror found footage than a horrible mystery found footage.