Tag Archives: flick

The Faculty (1998)

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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.

Four Christmases (movie review: Comedy)

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Brandee, Jack, Bella and I watched the movie Four Christmases (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369436/) yesterday and this will be my first movie review in the Comedy genre.

This was a good flick if you are looking for a decent comedy. It was very slap-tastic at points but humorous and a well thought-out plot. It was quick moving as to not bore me like so many other movies do that don’t have enough good content.

The story is simple. A couple visits their four sets (each parent is divorced) of families for Christmas. I didn’t get a chance to watch the movie straight through so I’m sure I missed some good parts however I did get to see much of the film and I liked what I saw.

The characters all were very believable and funny. In particular I remember the scene when Vince Vaughn’s character was introducing his father’s side of the family to Resse Witherspoon’s character for the first time. The brothers were named Dallas, Denver and Vince was Orlando. They were all named after the cities that they were conceived-in! Also, Dallas and Denver were like amateur UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) fighters or something. There were the totally stereotypical ‘meatheads’ and were constantly antagonizing each other.

The cast of characters was impressive and two of my other favorite actors, Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek, played outstanding roles. Overall this was a fun movie to watch on a lazy day after Thanksgiving. It also was a good tone-setter for the upcoming holiday season and put a smile on Brandee’s face so I deem Four Christmases worthy of 8 Steelers Stars.