Category: Television/Short Subject Reviews

Pretty much unavailable to me. 

I WOULD have reviewed them if that wasn’t the case.  So thank God.

Intro: ’28 Days Later’ or more appropriately ‘Azure Bonds’ (Yeah, a BOOK!!!)  Interesting, both scene and score.

Really good FX.

No complaints until way-too-easy escape.

Great learning curve: Dimension Door gun mastered quickly.  Impressive and plausible (she strikes me as a quick learner).

GREAT touch near/at the end.

SPOILER ALERT:

Think ‘Truman Show’

Ending’s a bit sudden, but I’m NOT glad.  I wish there was more.

Grade: B+

4/6/14: In the midnight hour, I cried MORE MORE MORE.  Maybe the easy escape was allowed/semi-allowed/whatever.  Or if not, overlook it.  This is just fcken cool.  And it’s certainly worth five and a half minutes of your time.  Grade: A-

Money on FX: well spent
Money on actors: Coulda used more
Money on script: ditto
Bathing suits: cute
The sort-of twist: not bad
Emotional moment: believable
Ending: predictable

Grade: D

4/5/14: I musta been in a SLIGHTLY bad mood.  And the male/female leads are decent.  Grade: D+

See episode 9.  Actually don’t, I just meant refer to it and upgrade slightly to get to the review for this.

Highlights:
annoying charity
insane parts of green-light sketch
a few parts of trial
foot insertion

Lowlights:
train sketch
long megaphone sketch
most of trial
most of ending

Really mediocre.  REALLY tedious at times, sadly, for the first time.

Highlights:
convenient moustache
buttholes
BHG ending/music emergency

Lowlights:
Dave’s GF’s drool
boring hate group
bad news
Blame-A-Thon
fart sketch…wow.
other fart sketch…wow.
dumb ending

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/29/louis-ck-snl-monologue_n_5057239.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

The Sort-Of Enemy Of CA/A Babblers Is My Kinda Wanna-Be-Acquaintance But Not Really.

Toned down for network tv, of course.

Decent…and I LOVE his God joke that must have CA/A’s frothing at the mouth for the quick dismissiveness and then MOVING ON.

Highlights:
God’s judgement
women musings

Grade: C

11/7/16: FAIR USE: CRITICISM – Decent clip, as reviewed above.

D.C. sticks something small in his gf’s mouth.  Not bad.

Highlights:
child labor jokes
Rodrigo’s kneecaps (nice touch)
insane name-guy boss
Ben Stiller
more child labor jokes
ending

Lowlights:
pool-is-all sketch
spelling mistake
longgg show-exec sketch
longgg “new San Francisco” sketch

Ehhhhh…better.

Highlights:
generational argument/beating a hippie
lovely KKK propaganda
great NAMBLA speech/lynch mob
parts of ‘Jeepers Creepers Semi-Star’

Lowlights:
Dave’s GF nepotism
Dave’s GF’s acting
parts of ‘Jeepers Creepers Semi-Star’

Ok…this is pretty d@mn mediocre.  Their worst yet.  D@mn!

If you view the entire show as a necessary lead-in to the last minute…it’s great!

Highlights:
Bob’s quick rap persona
box of black hildos
all-anal mountain bike
parts of ‘Rap The Musical!’
baby-Dave outro: easily the best part

Lowlights:
boring junkie sketch
red balloon
overdone quarters
really horrible unfunny song/reprise/reprise
interview sketch

It’s solid, but nothing great.

Highlights:
stopping with concern to encourage leaving
Bob the angry correspondent
thrilling miracles (before the actual segment)
pointless Nancy abuse
severe/loud beating of Mary, Queen of Guards

Lowlights:
British link
shampoo
crimestick/ice cream link
ending

A CA/A’s dream episode.

The parts about religion that aren’t funny aren’t funny because they aren’t funny.  But to Cross, that apparently didn’t matter.

Imagining Cross’s GF reading this, reaction then: “Fck you!”

Imagining Cross’s GF one end-of-season later: “Let me in you Fcken prick!”

Highlights:
guitar ability version of health updates
unfortunate excretion-lack timing
acid flag flashback: collection of a$$holes

Lowlights:
Cross’s anti-religion stance coming through repeatedly and unfunnily (the second is KEY)
expert truck bit/song
ending

I know I’m not as smart or prestigious as Larry the Cable Guy, but maybe D.C. will come after me now in his…ummm…stand-up?  The only question: Will he use a chipmunk voice?  Oh, and who the fck’s in the audience?

A very happy show.

Highlights:
dueling letters
gay porno film fade
some versions of “Third Wheel Legend” (shortest and longest esp.)
recurrent straight, NOT gay theme
bubblebrain
cute little firecracker threat

Lowlights:
gay porno film repetition/’Holy Grail’ rip
some versions of “Third Wheel Legend”

CA/A’s should love this for Marshall, the 13th Apostle. Which…isn’t bad.

But it IS actually funny at times.  More tasteless AND more funny than the first.

The pace is really manic…sketch/link/sketch/link with one-shots and deja vu moments.  It wouldn’t be so noteworthy/impressive if it wasn’t funny.  It’s also not surprising that it didn’t last very long.

The show, that is.

Highlights:
great anti-art intro
unrelenting homosexual cabal
insane sales pitch people
a few holes joke/musical

Mr. Show is a pretty good/ultra weird sketch comedy show.  I only remember it vaguely, but I think it’s worth watching again.

Result: limited thumbs up.  Bob and Dave are both talented and weird, so even when they’re relatively dull they’re not completely cliche-boring.

Highlights:
making the best of 4 won slaves
increasingly weird delaying tactics
conditions mockery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO2Rx8YlSWY

Semi-hot goth/cyberpunk/”futuristic” chick in REALLY tight spandex. 

Ok, now for the 40-45 percent or so still with me…

Decent acting…decent “look” (i.e. real(istic)).

One REALLY good FX moment, featuring the chick.  Other (fairly) good ones too.

A little too much slo-mo.

5:25 – Layne Staley!!!

8:00-9:15 – too much action, bad acting.

*8:25-8:28 – Gummy hand…Thank you, Neopets!

9:15-End – Fairly interesting.

* = Exception.

Grade: D

4/5/14: I musta been in a really bad mood.  The chick in spandex rocks.  Grade: C+

Worse, again.  And the end.  Another McKinney bites the dust.

Highlights:
steeped-in-tradition homicide
Mr. Smithers

Better, again.  But this is no ‘Kids’, and ‘Kids’ was certainly no ‘Python’. 

So not the greatest loss in the world.

Highlights:
the box
Jesus stuff
near-death discussion

Definite decline.

Highlights:
nose hair
annoyed to death
pizza delivery trauma

I appreciate their anti-ventriloquism stance.

Highlights:
Hot weiners
Cute doggy
obsessed burglar

Definite improvement.

Highlights:
The value of five bucks
Mr. Wiggle’s clubhouse
“Pamper Me”…pretty catchy

Episodes as listed per Wikipedia on research date.

As is usual for a Cult Comedy, it’s both overrated and overlooked.

Think ‘Kids’, only with a harder, nastier edge and not as consistent or funny.

The opening theme (“Pretty Vacant”) is usually the best part.

Highlights:
Blinded By The Light iterations

Acting in this zombie mini-movie isn’t too bad, really.

The intro and monologue borrowed from ’28 Days Later’ is a little annoying.

Nothing really new or EXCITING happens…again.

Grade: D-

4/5/14: So I make a lot of mistakes.  At least I correct them.  Grade: D

The lead suffers from extreme overacting.  The rest suffer from redundancy. 

Sorry…I’ve got redundancy on the brain.

9:07-9:17:  He wants the upper berth, you get less air.
13:29-13:38:  Hamburger with a zipper.

Upped slightly for a fairly interesting ending.

Grade: D-

4/5/14: I like the nurse with the protective mask on (zombie)…nice touch.  But would it REALLY have cost that much to laminate/plasticize that license?  Grade: D

Horrible.  How this got the show bought is beyond me.

It’s slow ALLLL the way through.  Cheeziness/cheezy music do remind me of Romero a bit (he…and I use the word liberally…”wrote” this).

And what a BLATANT ‘Creepshow’ ripoff.  You know, that one freaky/good movie segment.

Don’t miss the exciting “rotary phone re-re-re-dialing” scene.

Reviewed merely to get something new started.  Hopefully it gets better.

Impossible for me to watch (again) and “rank” or even really review these properly.

Dawn French is good, as usual…but she’s just as good in every episode, and every episode is pretty much the same.  If you’re looking for something to become AMAZINGLY familiar with, to sort of “feel” a part of (And yes, I know the feeling) then this isn’t bad at all…quite good, actually.

But if you’re looking to laugh, go elsewhere.  This is more occasionally mildly amusing.  The recurring characters have no depth, just a basic theme that is belabored every episode.  You’ll feel right at home pretty quickly if you want something inoffensive to watch and/or fall asleep to.

It’s a program version of Python’s ‘Pictures Of Other People’s Lives’, where you hang them up and then pretend they’re a part of YOUR life.  Not to denigrate watchers or the show itself…that’s just plainly WHAT (and all that) it is. 

Think low-key dramedy…so low-key that you feel without French providing SOME humor it would just float away.

Dig that cat, he’s…oh, nevermind.

A safecracker with hearing loss regains his abilities after a rather odd operation.  Then it’s a bit of a test for him.  Kinda cheezy but also fairly interesting, until the end – which seems to go ON and ON and ON…

Da End.

Interesting setup.  Izzard is good and his driven detective nemesis is even better.  Pure battle of wits pretty much all the way through.

Never gets great or even really good, but enough to maintain interest.

CGI short film with lots of intriguing, pretty, even (some) beautiful images.  With music to match, yet.  No dialogue, but see ‘Avatar’.

It’s got a bit of an (original on MTV version) ‘Aeon Flux’ feel to it…you don’t really know WTF is going on, but it almost doesn’t matter.

Open to interpretation, I suppose.  Which is good…maybe making you think.  Then again, if you don’t WANT to try to figure it out, here’s a summary from the director:

SPOILER ALERT…

“CALDERA is inspired by my father’s struggle with schizoaffective disorder. In states of delusion, my father has danced on the rings of Saturn, spoken with angels, and fled from his demons. He has lived both a fantastical and haunting life, but one that’s invisible to the most of us. In our differing understanding of reality, we blindly mandate his medication, assimilate him to our marginalizing culture, and entirely misinterpret him for all he is worth. CALDERA aims to not only venerate my father, but all brilliant minds forged in the haunted depths of psychosis.”

Grade: B-

It’s also probably one of the most predictable things.

A cute HS romance with a happy ending. 

If you like predictable and sweet, you should watch it.  Personally, I find it a little too much of the first.  But the believable (well-acted) sweetness makes it somewhat interesting.

Grade: C+

A sociopath’s point-of-view version of the world and its inhabitants, including his “girlfriend” and her baby.

Also some other weird sh1t.  Interesting.

Decent intro featuring ultra-weird psycho. 

Acting is slightly better than average for one of these, too.  Twist seems stupid briefly, then gets amusing and kinda interesting.

Pretty generic in most ways, but I find it mildly interesting.  And the ending is light-hearted macabre.

Fav Character: Oblivious old lady

Somewhat-gruesome tale involving corpses, with a decent script and solid acting. 

The ending is way too cheezy though.

Somewhat interesting “Is he or isn’t he?” plot.  There’s a WHOLE LOT of Basil Exposition, but it’s not bad.  Somewhat interesting twist.

Corey Feldman plays a really bad government agent.

Interesting and macabre.

Remake of the 5th short film in 1972’s ‘Tales’ movie.

Definitely worth a watch if you haven’t seen that.  Enough differences to make it worthwhile, even if you HAVE seen that.

Good beginning, promising…and the rest is surprisingly unbroken.

A few things I’m curious about, but…that at least means it’s decent.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t give a sh1t.

Vaguely reminds me of ‘Lo’ (not as good, without the romance or depth). 

And being reminded…(see last review).

Very interesting in the beginning, as you can feel the slow buildup to…well, whatever it is.  After that’s done, it becomes less interesting although a bit amusing/clever. 

Being reminded of a good ‘Twilight Zone’ episode doesn’t hurt.

First interesting one in a while.  The head guard from ‘Shawshank’ is here, doing a decent job as a lead.

Would you believe it’s about voodoo?  It’s a fascinating…so on, so on.  So no Romero zombies for you.

Salesmen!  Salesmen, that’s what this series needs, Salesmen!

Gross and creepy.  And a decent watch.

Fairly interesting “Whodunit?”.  That’s all.

DEFINITELY a specialty bread…starring in a short (thank God) film.

If you hated ‘Night’ for its cheeziness more than you liked it for its everything-else, you MIGHT like this unbelievably obvious comedy-free parody of it.

Only apparent use, to me: A palette-cleanser before any other zombie feature to make you feel better about the quality of said feature.

Grade: F

A shameless set of commercials for something you don’t need.

And, mixed in, there’s some zombies, some characters with no personality, and lots of butt shots.

Unfortunate that this entire series wastes the 2 or 3 sorta-clever ideas (total) it has by pimping them out to a “Crocodile” Dundee phone sex ad.

Grade: F

Worthless. 

Travis, where are you?

Grade: F

This episode features ABSOLUTELY no cannibalism.  None.  And when I say “none”, I mean there is a certain amount.

An interesting one.  And hey, Judd Nelson gets some work and doesn’t suck!  He’s pretty good, actually.

NOMS NOMS NOMS!

Beauty contest with a questionable prize.  Not QUITE what I imagined it would be, which makes it watchable if (certainly) not brilliant.

It’s pretty generic, and the “punchline” is obvious.  But it DOES feature a Sociopath that could give Christian Bale’s ‘American Psycho’ a run for his money.

Creepy but predictable.  A good episode…doesn’t really give you more than you expect, but at least it delivers well on that.

Really horrible acting and poor-at-best writing make up the “sketches” in between the horrible movies. 

The “star”, Jami Deadly, is as bad as all the rest of the cast.  She’s got a sort of a wanna-be Elvira, wanna-be Crypt Keeper mixture going on.

It’s like going to a local club for sketch comedy on a bad night.  And if you watch more than one of these just to make sure it wasn’t a temporary blip…well let’s say, very kindly, that you’re a very trusting and also very desperate soul.

I only watched the host segments, and only a few of them.  So, take it as an incomplete…but mainly take it as “So bad from what I saw that I’m gonna switch to ‘Manos'”

DO NOT be fooled by people who compare this to MST3K, or even Elvira.  Or Joe Bob Briggs.  Or anyone currently on the air that doesn’t suck.  It’s DULL…and it only got life, IMPO, because people were jonesing for some MST3K.

Tim Roth stars in this one as a REALLY creepy painter.  Good acting by him…decent theory…well done.  I particularly like the “cops with dogs” scene that Roth TRIES to stay calm about.  Cuz they KNEW, man…they could smell it.

I still prefer ‘A Maid On A Night Out Winding A Grandfather’s Clock With Her Left Hand’.  Not to mention Michelangelo’s ‘Two Muscular Guys Touching Fingers’.  And, of COURSE, ‘Dogs Playing Poker’.

Jon Lovitz, simply by appearing in it, automatically makes this one silly…especially when he goes for angry/menacing. 

The plot and extras make up for that somewhat, so it’s marginal.

AC-ting! Yeah, yeah…that’s the ticket.