Ed's Review Dot Com

Marzipan Entertainment,

Eric Stoltz, Kate Connor, Lyndsy Fonseca, Andy Hirsch, Camryn Manheim, Brendan Fehr, Seymour Cassel, Johnny Pacar, Matthew Lawrence

Frank Stirn (Eric Stolz) became a barber for the U.S. Army and was sent to Fort McCoy in Wisconsin during WWII. Fort McCoy was also the site of a Nazi POW camp run the soldiers in the fort and containing captured Germans. This movie is based on the memories of Kate Connor of Frank and Ruby Stirn (Kate Connor) as she plays her Grandmother in the film. The family was in a precarious situation living just outside the walls of this camp filled with Nazi prisoners. It shows how as an American family living in rural Wisconsin you can still be affected by the war. Based on the true stories, life in 1944 was brought vividly to life in this independent film that shows an unusual slice of American life.

I was not completely blown away by this film, but it was very solid. This was well worth watching, and was rather interesting. This is the kind of film that flies under everyone’s radar, and that’s a shame as it has a lot to offer. Were this fiction, you would probably pass it off as an unbelievable story, but certain events in their lives are absolutely real, told by the people it happened to. The family is all pretty good, but Gertie Stirn (Gara Lonning) is the little girl of the family who makes a friend of a German child she sees across the fence. She also serves as our narrator. The film is simply, but beautifully shot, and the story is rather entertaining. I see this film out on DVD now for rental, and available from streaming services, so it is reachable, and well worth the time spent in looking at another side the latter stages of World War II. I recommend this dramatic true story.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

FilmNation Entertainment, Premiere Picture, Echo Lake Productions (I)

Amber Heard, Mamie Gummer, Danielle Panabaker, Laura-Leigh, Lyndsy Fonseca, Jared Harris, Sydney Sweeney, D.R. Anderson, Mika Boorem

A young woman, Kristen (Amber Heard), is sent to a creepy mental institution with a past as dark and sinister as her own. She was caught burning down a farm house and determined to need help. Immediately she and the other girls are terrorized by a ghost, and each of the other patients in Kristen’s ward begin to disappear one by one, and that’s just the beginning of her long nightmare. Recruiting what’s left of her friends Kristen makes one noble attempt after another to escape.

This John Carpenter horror film is very spooky. The helplessness of the girls and their repeated attempts to save themselves from this nightmare with no results leaves us breathless. This is an excellent horror film, and John Carpenter certainly has not lost his touch with the genre. Extreme suspense and helplessness engulf us as we realize the poor girls have no way out. As they drop one by one, it appears there is no solution and Kristen still keeps digging for the truth as to what happened to the ghostly girl who seems to want to kill them all. It’s certainly a shocker, and the surprise ending may not be a surprise to everyone, but still, from the opening scene of the fire to the final credits there is no time to catch your breath. As good a nut house film as I’ve seen in a long while, this is great rental for a creepy autumn/late summer evening! Just don’t watch it alone!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Marv Films

Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz, Nicholas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Stron, Lyndsy Fonseca, Clark Duke, Evan Peters

In looking at the reviews of this movie, I found a lot of 5 Star super fans.  Apparently this is made from a real comic book or something, so maybe that is where the rabid fans came from.  If you are a huge fan of Kick-Ass, then feel free to jump into the comments section and try to convince me, cause I that it was terrible.  Not from the violence standpoint (it’s disconcerting for some people to see young kids in extremely violent situations and involved in drug use, etc which is far from the usual) because I can deal with that.  It’s not just because I’m not a big fan of Super Hero movies.   I yawned at  The Dark Knight, Spiderman 1,2,3,4 et. al, any of the The Dark Knight, Spiderman, Captain America, Wolverine, Justice League crap.  And it’s not because it’s really a nerdy teen movie, which I can deal with.  It’s just to me that this whole movie was just plain silly.   And not silly in a fun way.  Damon Wayans’ Blankman, although not great cinema, has a few good laughs in it, and is somewhat interesting.  But this junk just never started for me.

Trust me, the credits to me were far better than the movie, and perhaps they should have just considered releasing the credits and dropping the price a bit.   🙂

Nicholas Cage probably has the worst role I’ve ever seen him in since Birdy, which was a LONG time ago!  

Basically this is a story of a nerdy teen who can’t get the girl, but who thought it odd that nobody does pick up a costume and pretend to be a super hero.  So he tries it.   It doesn’t work out too well, but a little bit of luck and he inspires a whole bunch of fanatical freaks to copy him and join the team.   Then is when the fun is supposed to start, but but for me it never did.  Disney’s Spy Kids was a better story, and it’s a movie you could take kids to.  I don’t think you’d want to take kids under 16 to this one.

Now I know there are probably lots of you who love superhero movies, and may enjoy this, although no one actually IS a super hero or does anything extraordinary at all, and for you, I’m sorry for the negative review, but for me.  I’m sorry I even watched this.  I thought it was one of the worst I’ve seen in a long, long time.

MGM

John Cusack, Clark Duke, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry, Sebatian Stan, Lyndsy Fonseca, Crispin Glover, Chevy Chase

This is one of the most monumental films of all time!!!  Ok, no it’s not.

Hot Tub Time Machine is Back to the Future for the rest of us.  I am a sucker for time travel movies, and this one is for the common folk.  These guys are a total mess, and a series of freak happening fueled by vodka and energy drinks sends them back in time.  Not to an interesting time, mind you, but to the 80’s, of all places in time.   But it was a pivotal time in their loser lives, and they have a chance to fix things.  Ah, but no matter what, you just can’t seeem to change the future.  That’s the classic paradox of time travel.  I catorgize this as raunch comedy, and did not check the Science Fiction category because the time travel element is really silly.  This is a vulgar comedy, not a serious movie.  But that’s ok.

So one guy is going to get stuck in the eye with a fork, and another is going to get beat up again and again by the same bully.  But Craig Robinson (Darryl from “The Office” has some fun with his role.  Trying to be faithful to his shrew of a wife back before he even met her is hysterical, and his angry phone call to her when she was 9 years old is really funny.

This is sophmoric, and crude, and really funny in parts.  It wasn’t too bad.  It’s not going to be a very thoughtful or thought provoking movie, but it’s great beer and popcorn, have a few laughs, evening.  It’s a decent rental, but I’m glad I didn’t spend $13.00 to see it.  It’s a good small screen movie, especially if you’re a fan of the 80’s.