"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Posts Tagged ‘fakumentary’

Trollhunter

Saturday, September 3rd, 2011

tn_trollhunterTROLLHUNTER starts out exactly like any one of these post-BLAIR WITCH fakumentaries: 3 somewhat obnoxious college kids are making a documentary (about a bear poacher?) when they stumble across something scary (a troll) and shine some lights and cameras around the woods at night getting spooked by sounds and shadows. So it’s first time actors pretending to be non-actors trying to catch something on tape and we’re supposed to sit at home watching it and pretending we think it’s real so we can be scared if they “happen” to catch something scary blurred out on the camera for like 2 seconds. (read the rest of this shit…)

I’m Still Here

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

tn_imstillhereIs it just me, or do some of these movie titles start to blend in together after a while? The ones I have trouble with are: I’M STILL HERE, I’M NOT THERE, LET ME IN, and NEVER LET ME GO. Well, now that I’ve actually seen one of these maybe I’ll remember which one that is and it’ll help me straighten out which is which between the other ones by narrowing the choices a little. I hope so, because I’m not sure what else I got out of this one, exactly. I mean, I got something, I think. Just a something that’s hard to identify.
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The Return of Bruno

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

tn_returnofbrunoBruceMy new review collection YIPPEE-KY YAY MOVIEGOER comes out at the end of this month, and since it’s named after Bruce Willis I figured I should celebrate by digging out some of the Bruce movies I’ve never seen or don’t remember much and write reviews of them. And what better place to start than his hour long 1987 HBO music special THE RETURN OF BRUNO? Well, I’m sure there are better places. But this is one possible place.

I believe in something called Karaoke Syndrome. It’s something that many famous actors suffer from. Everybody dreams of being a rock star, even if they’re already a movie star, so they try to use their projects as excuses to get on stage and fuck around with a guitar or microphone. One famous victim of KS is Mike Meyers, whose characters in WAYNE’S WORLD, AUSTIN POWERS and THE LOVE GURU all had to be in bands. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi also suffered from KS (did the Blues Brothers and bee people things on SNL even count as comedy?) but luckily they channeled it into one of the best comedies of all time. (read the rest of this shit…)

Paranormal Activity

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
tn_paranormalactivity
Holy shit, the door opened (SPOILER)

Well, no surprise here. I’m on record as being done with this “scary home video” fakumentary subgenre, and I think it’s not worth doing unless you can come up with a new gimmick to add on top of that gimmick, like CLOVERFIELD did by doing a found video Godzilla movie. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY doesn’t have much to distinguish it from BLAIR WITCH PROJECT or [REC] other than it’s even lower rent, taking place entirely in one normal house with only 2 cast members for 98% of the running time. I didn’t check the credits but if more than 4 people worked on this then somebody wasn’t pulling their weight. (read the rest of this shit…)

[REC]

Monday, October 19th, 2009

tn_recWell, say hello to the bad guy. The wet blanket, the party pooper, parade pisser, Gloomy Gus, Whiny Waldorf, Joyless Jim, Bum-out Benjamin. I’m talking about me here, the guy who achieved the dubious record of “First Person Not To Like [REC] Very Much.” Sorry guys. Didn’t think it would be me, so I didn’t prepare a speech.

If you’re not familiar with it, [REC] is the ’07 Spanish horror picture already remade in the U.S. as QUARANTINE. It’s a fakumentary/found footage one like BLAIR WITCH, CLOVERFIELD, THE OFFICE, etc. The premise is that a TV hostess and her cameraman are doing a story on firefighters when they respond to a building where a deadly 28 DAYS LATER type infection (zombies except in name) breaks out. They get trapped in the building and document the mayhem because the people have a right to know or whatever. (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern didn’t think DIARY OF THE DEAD was that hot either!

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

Dear diary,

I saw George Romero’s new movie DIARY OF THE DEAD. It’s basically “NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD meets BLAIR WITCH PROJECT” or “CLOVERFIELD with zombies” or “CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST – cannibal + zombies but not ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST.” It’s not a sequel to the living dead movies but kind of a do-over with the zombie plague beginning in the present day and depicted in documentary form. Some film students are working on a crappy mummy movie (come on George, this is 2008, only Rob Cohen makes mummy movies) when they start hearing news about the dead coming back to life, and their director is compelled to keep filming. We’re told at the beginning of the movie that his footage was edited by another character along with clips they downloaded from youtube, some news and security cam footage. Also she admits that she added music. And, I’m afraid, she narrates it.

I feel bad saying this but since nobody is reading this and it’s only a diary I will come out and say it: this movie isn’t very good. I enjoyed watching it and will list many of the good things about it right here on these pages, in the interest of balance. And in case Harry reads this because he got real mad at Quint for not liking it and I pretty much agree with everything in Quint’s review. But in my deepest, most personal secret opinion this is a failed experiment for old George. (read the rest of this shit…)