Movie Reviews

I've been writing film reviews for Passport Cinema (passportcinema.com) and the UWRF Student Voice newspaper here at University of Wisconsin: River Falls, where I am a full-time student. Instead of making a new post for each of them individually (like I did with the Night of the Living Dorks review), I'm providing all the links here, in order to shamelessly promote the sites and myself. Keep in mind, I never said I was good at writing reviews.

Antibodies

Friday the 13th (2009)

Hanzo the Razor: Sword of Justice

Hotel For Dogs

Last House on the Left (2009)

My Bloody Valentine 3-D

Night of the Living Dorks

Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Slumdog Millionaire

Valkyrie

Murder Toke

For the past year and a half or so, starting with finishing the script, I've been working on a short film, called "Murder Toke". It's a work in progress, as I'm still working on it. We've (meaning the actors/crew and I) shot most of it, with several reshoots due to a technical difficulty and a few scenes that still need to be shot. However, I have in my spare time edited together a short teaser trailer for it. Here it is:

"The 8 Worst Places to Steal a Movie Idea"

Here's an interesting article called "The 8 Worst Places to Steal a Movie Idea" by Michael Swaim of Cracked.com. I found it funny because almost all of Hollywood films nowadays come from these sources. That's not to say that some of the movies Swaim mentions are bad, but they rather succeeded at adapting the source material.

Check the whole 2 page article at:
http://www.cracked.com/article_15087_8-worst-places-steal-movie-idea.html

"Night of the Living Dorks" AKA "Die Nacht der lebenden Loser"

Writer and director Mathias Dinter’s Night of the Living Dorks may be a
German flick, but it may have more familiarity with the American audience
rather than its native youth. In an international boom of horror genre parodies
since the success of UK’s Shaun of the Dead, this just feels more like a teen
sex comedy than another zombie flick.

Phillip (Tino Mewes) and his two friends Wurst and Konrad (Samuel Cortez
and Thomas Schmieder) are the unpopular kids in their school, and are
constantly picked on by the elite, upper-class popular people. After
witnessing a voodoo ritual in a cemetery performed by Phillip’s next-door
neighbor Rebecca (Collien Fernandes), the trio crashes their car while
under the influence of marijuana. This of course, turns them into zombies
and they have to figure out a way to fix it while at the same time taking
revenge on those that have wronged them.

While Night of the Living Dorks is a self-proclaimed zombie spoof, it
plays as more of an American sex teen comedy than anything. The
conventional characters of the teen flick are there (the girl next door,
the popular girl that the protagonist pines after, the upper-class jock
nemesis, the wise-cracking side kick, the parents leaving the house in
their son’s care, etc.), and a Revenge of the Nerds-type influence on the
plot is more than obvious. Besides being an essentially bloodless movie,
it does little to poke fun at zombie films. In fact, the ‘zomie’ as we
know it actually very skewed here, as there is apparently an antidote to
reverse it, and those unlucky ones turned into zombies can live among
humans. All they have to do is eat a lot of raw meat, raid a blood bank,
and learn to suppress the urge to bite an ass or two.

Night of the Living Dorks isn’t all that bad, however. Even though it’s
just like every other National Lampoons teen sex romp we’ve seen before,
it’s actually funny. Instead of focusing on making as many references to
teen culture as possible, it’s just flat-out silly and entertaining, with
the dialogue being consistently perverted and goofy. The biggest flaw is
the fact that Night of the Living Dorks seems too American. A German
flick that makes references to Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson’s Thriller,
and Casablanca really doesn’t come off as too German to me.

If you’re looking for formulaic yet goofy and entertaining time, then this
is for you. But if you enjoy foreign films and/or horror genre spoofs,
this most likely won’t be your cup of tea.

2 stars/4

Let's Start 'er Up (Not Get 'er Done)

I guess this is sort of the mission statement type deal....

All that I really want to accomplish with this is to share my thoughts or philosophies with anyone who'll listen, basically.

A little about me:

I'm a student at University of Wisconsin-RF, and I'm a writer and an amateur filmmaker (there will probably be a blog about that later). I'm going to school for an English Major and Film Minor.

I am very much a walking contradiction. I'm a misanthrope, yet I'm a very liberal guy (most likely a blog explaining this also). I'm a very nice guy; too much for my own good. But I get pissed off and annoyed very easily. I'm extremely shy and introverted, but I love family gatherings ("isn't it ironic?"). I love my extended family but yet I resent them. I hate consumerism but buy a shit load of CDs, books, and DVDs.

This is about it. I don't like to write about myself too much because, quite frankly, I wouldn't want to read about me, so why would you?

Stay tuned for more blogs, and i hope you enjoy them.