Thursday, June 21, 2007

On the Lot: Yawn.

What the hell, America? You had your chance to get rid of Kenny and his completely insane, student film quality movie-making, and you passed it up? I mean, sure, Marty was an obnoxious, derivative, style-over-substance, egotistical jackhole, but- hmm...okay, America. I can live with this choice. But get rid of Kenny the next chance you get, okay? Okay.

This week, we had two terrible films, one mediocre film, one pretty good film, and one really good film. Respectively, those films' makers were Jessica (formerly of the nonsensical lightbulb movie), Jason (formerly of the movie making fun of the developmentally disabled), Mateen, Will, and Zach (formerly of one of my favorites so far). So...yeah. I guess this episode was pretty predictable. The guest judge was Wes Craven, though, so that's pretty cool.

Let's start with Jason. BloodBorn attempted some sort of quasi-X-Files, quasi-religious plot, in which a drug addict goes to give blood, finds out his blood is a magical panacea that cures all disease, and then gets a gun aimed at him in a drive by. (Dramatically cut to black.) It was weird. And not just because there were these bizarre heavy breathing sound effects, so you thought his breath turned back time or something (since we knew it was supernatural). You have not redeemed yourself, Jason. Better luck next time...if there is a next time.

Also in the "better luck next time" category is Jessica, whom I think will be spared because she's cute. But you never know--America could surprise me. Her movie The Orchard was, in theory, a horror movie from the perspective of a tree. In practice, it was a movie of a guy pruning a tree, combined with shrieky sound effects and weird green "tree vision." Yeah.

Moving up the crap-o-meter, we have Mateen, who has presented a soap opera in five minutes with Lost. Boring, pointless, melodramatic, and bland. Poor Mateen. I really thought he had potential! However, while it wasn't good by any means, it also wasn't actively bad, like the previous two. So at least there's that.

Will's Glass Eye was actually pretty good, if somewhat gross. It's a clever idea about a guy who discovers, when his glass eye pops out, that he can see out of it if he covers up the empty socket. Yeah, gross, but pretty cleverly executed, like a cute little silent movie. As the judges point out, though, this is the second of his movies in a row with no dialogue.

The best of the night, as the judges unanimously agree, was Zach's Sunshine Girl, a quirky fantasy about a girl who's scared of the dark and plucks the sun out of the sky to hold, plunging the world into darkness. The effects are subtle but fantastic, and it's pretty much just a great little story. Way to go, Zach!

As that was the last group of five to go, next week will probably be an entirely different format, knowing this show. Can't say I'm excited to see what's next. Can we start kicking off three people per episode or something, guys? Let's wrap this business up and move on to House reruns, which I'm pretty sure we'll all enjoy much, MUCH more.

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