Self-Medicated (2005) – Movie Review

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This was a guest movie review post by one of our fans:

Brandee Neal

This was a pretty good movie that really tugs at your emotions with a story about a Mother-Son relationship.

‘Self-Medicated (2005) Rated: R’ starts by establishing one of the main characters, Andrew, who is a 17 1/2 year old boy.  He’s a teenager where he likes to be with his friends, drink to excess and experiment in life.  Some of his activities are reckless and overboard.

It’s clear that Andrew and his mother had enjoyed a good relationship previously, yet had been somewhat strained since the passing of their father/husband for some unknown reason (this was not relevant to the plot – so I’m glad it ‘didn’t go there’).  Next, Andrew’s mother, had him forcefully admitted to a rehabilitation facility.  She had every good intention but this facility turned out to be basically a mental institution.  This was NOT a place for Andrew but his Mother had no knowledge of how they were treating her son.  They would keep him in solitary confinement for hours, or threaten him by having him write written essays of ‘500 words’ or ‘1000 words’ at a time.

In the end, the movie had a good moral plot and if people would listen to each other, and not get defensive, then what this kid was put through wouldn’t have happened.  It’s a classic story of people living in glass houses and throwing stones at others for reasons they don’t understand because they assume instead of taking the time to understand.

The Faculty (1998)

The Faculty (1998)I must admit, this is a film that turned out pretty good for some odd reason.  And please know that when I say ‘good’ it means ‘in comparison to all the other crap I have recently watched’.  You see, on the KevinNeal-O-Meter Movie Rating system it is not easy to get on the ‘good’ rating-scale with anything marginally enjoyable to watch.  I am a tough movie critic!

While I can’t pinpoint the exact reason, or reasons (if there are any other than being entertained) I just found this movie somewhat good.  This is not to say that The Faculty was a must-see.  In fact, far from it but it was amusing for a teen-campy-type flick.

I did really like that the film setup the characters nicely in the opening credits.  Unlike I’ve ever seen before they went through nearly every character and provided a quick name and visual profile.  This set the stage nicely for the rest of the movie to understand the various players in the movie.  I liked this.  Next, and which I did not know at the time, was that this movie released in 1998 was full of what would eventually be several celebrities including Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings), Jon Stewart (Comedy Central), Josh Hartnett (Black Hawk Down), Selma Hayek, Christopher McDonald (Happy Gilmore) and others.

* Stream of consciousness kicks-in and thinking to myself *:  Now that I consider the fact that I typical despise these sorts of movies, yet I liked this one, could it be attributed to decent acting and not the plot???

The plot was about aliens taking over a high school and everyone is distrusting of each other because the inflicted people don’t have obvious physical symptoms.  Imagine that???  Not that this flicker had anything other than the usual screams, creeps and lame plot for this type of sci-fi/horror film but it was surprising interesting.

My recommendation on this one;  don’t search for it on your favorite video streaming service just yet because it’s not one you want to admit looking for.  But if you are running low on guaranteed good films in your library then The Faculty is a nice transition from a sure-winner to the vast majority of film-garbage available.  Worthy of just-above an average for Steelers Stars to 6 out of 10 possible Steelers Stars.

Red (2008) – Movie Review

 

red_2008This was certainly a movie that brings you “full circle”.  And this is exactly what I like in a quality film.  It had a lot of emotion, several bits of anger and tons of good moral messaging throughout.

Red was an entertaining flick that pulled at your emotions, for better or for worse.  I have to say this was a rather simple storyline that I enjoyed tremendously.  This was a film about the good and bad in people.  The movie had some really believable characters where you wanted to hug the hero and punch the villain in the face.

Red is the name of the main characters, Avery’s, dog.  A group of young punks come upon Avery while he’s fishing and end up killing Red with a rifle/shotgun for no reason.  It was senseless and sad.

So, Avery, in his calm and collected manner didn’t go ballistic.  Rather he was set on a mission for the punks to apologize for the wrong they had done and change for the better.  Avery’s patience is admirable considering the fact that it was clear he loved Red immensely.

Avery continued to give the punks, as well as the shooters father plenty of chances to make-amends but these idiots were the stereotypical bullies that could not bring themselves to simply say sorry.  But Avery was determined because he loved Red so much.

In the end it’s a story about a lot of loss and little gain because stupid people do stupid things but if there is any opportunity to try and make things right, do it.  Don’t miss your opportunity.  As upset that clearly Avery was over the killing of his dog, he maintained his composure and genuinely hoped the punks would reform for the better.

The main point I took from this movie is to be a decent person in spite of bad life events.  And if you make a poor choice or decision be honorable enough to admit wrong.  Lastly, don’t be a punk in the first place.

I won’t spoil the end of this great movie so I will end with the point that I have seen hundreds of non-memorable, or awful, movies lately and Red is the only one which I will watch again today.

Red is worthy of 9 out of 10 Steeler Stars.


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12/12/12 (2012) – Movie Review

12_12_12_2012‘Holy Moly’ is all I can say!  This was truly one for the ages.  Brandee and I were Netflix’in for something to watch other than Columbo.  It wasn’t that we don’t like Columbo – if fact just the opposite but for whatever reason Netflix only has a total of 32 of these episodes to watch???  So since we only have one more unwatched Columbo we decided to save that one for another time and choose a different movie so we picked 12/12/12 and boy-o-boy are we sorry.

To be fair we knew that it only had a one-star rating in the first place so expectations were non-existent that we were about to see a masterpiece but this takes the cake (and the icing with candles and about 5 layers of it too!)

The movie starts with a rather gruesome scene of a lady giving birth.  Long-story short, the instant the kid is born he immediately starts going on a killing rampage.  Apparently this was not God passing-out “Brains” or “Trains” in the delivery room, but rather Satan passing out “Fangs”!  This little Satan’s-spawn murderous technique was consistent throughout this pile-of-dodo film by attacking the neck of his victims.

So the dodo begins to stink even more and more as this goes on and on without much rhyme or reason.  In fact, if this stinky poo had any rhythm at all is was like Carl Lewis butchering his rendition of our National Anthem.

Satan’s-spawn wasn’t even a good Chuckie type baby.  There were no special effects whatsoever to show the Spawn’s movement.  The makers of this excrement won and the joke was on me because I ended up watching to the end like a train-wreck that I couldn’t turn away from.  In fact this manure-filled train had like fifteen locomotives too!  And they all ran me over, then backed-up, then ran over me again and then dumped (literally) the dump on me!

Somehow this other dude was in cahoots with Spawn and some stuff happened that I didn’t care about and then, surprisingly enough, had a climatic ending and ended. What a shocker huh???  Actually, I shouldn’t be so quick to judge.  The only redeeming value in watching this potty-filled mud was that the ultimate flush was that this ended on the date of 12/21/12 when the ancient Mayans had predicted the end of the world.  FLUSH!  You see, as lame as that is, that is the only thing I can even imagine the writers of this dog-waste were thinking was to make the connection between the two dates of 12/12/12 and 12/21/12.  It’s giving me flashbacks to my binary computer programming days with all these 1’s and 0’s.  Are 1’s and 0’s really that spooky that you make a movie about them?

Anyhow, don’t ever watch this down-the-toilet turd.  I have wasted enough of my life watching, and then writing about 12/12/12 and it’s flush-ability-ness.  I can only hope that 13/13/13 will be better.

The Pumpkin Karver (2006)

The Pumpkin Karver (2006)It was one of those ‘wanna watch a mindless, senseless, rather-obvious plot’-type kinda of movie day so we decided to stream Netflix and watch ‘the pumpkin Karver.  I absolutely hit the jackpot with this one and got exactly what I expected!

Not only was the plot as obvious as a North Korean ‘democratic’ election but the mindlessness and senselessness of the movie was purely awesomeness.

Other than the fact that I liked watching a spooky Halloween themed flick in the middle of the spring, there was some surprisingly good things about this movie.  This horror film had the standard young ‘cool dudes’ and super ‘hot chicks’ for the actors so that wasn’t all bad.  There were a few sexy scenes that had me and my wife blushing and if a movie can elicit a emotional reaction that is not violent or destructive then it’s all good in my opinion.

Next, as you can imagine there was a lot of emphasis on the ‘Karver’ part of this movies title.  Not a shocker here that his weapon of choice was a pumpkin carving knife.  The means with which the ‘cool dudes’ and ‘hot chicks’ eventually met their demise was slightly creative in some cases and then utterly lame in others.

Then, while I was just starting to get comfortable with the ‘Karver’s modus operandi then this ‘pumpkin-face wearing guy killing for revenge’-film starts to go all haywire like Brittany Spears did cutting off all her hair by going all sci-fi’y and stuff on me.  Out of nowhere there was electricity flying and dudes with super powers dragging people around and dream sequences.  It was like most of these films where it’s rather clear that the movies budget was expended and they needed to end with a bang!  And they surely did.

Overall not a bad flick IF this is what you are looking for, as I was.  Just the title of the movie or the cover image should be enough of a clue of what you are getting yourself into.  I gave this one an average five out of ten Steelers Stars.

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