I told you I'd be back, and I am. Here are the last three reviews that have been sitting around waiting to be written. Now, I'm free and clear for the festival. Like I probably said before. I'll be seeing a lot in the next couple weeks (right now I have a dozen screenings planned), so this site will be plenty busy. You won't want to miss it.



The Brothers Grimm
Review by Jon Waterman

Zero stars

Brothers Jake and Will go from town to town vanquishing various spirits and monsters. They’re regular “Van Helsing”s. In exchange, they are made the toast of the town and are handsomely rewarded. But it’s a con. They use props, special effects and hired hands to fake a problem that they can fix. Well, soon their reputation catches up to them and they are faced with what is either the best con they’ve ever seen (and didn’t produce) or an actual living breathing fairy tale. Either way, it’s threatening everything they live for, as well as their lives.

The first thought walking out of the theater was “I just wasted two hours of my life.” That was followed by dumbfounded attempts to understand what would make anyone think that this movie was worthy of release. To claim that the movie is bad would be a gross understatement. For me, this goes into the annals of the worst of all time along with the likes of “Freddy Got Fingered,” “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” and “Mission to Mars."
(more....)


++++++++++


Ken Park
Review by Jon Waterman

***

Ken Park goes skating in the local hot spot like he always did. This time, he sits down on one of the concrete hills, pulls a video camera and a gun out of his backpack and shoots himself. Shawn is having an affair with his girlfriend’s mother. Peaches has a boyfriend, a wild side, and an ultra-religious, overprotective widowed father. Claude’s father (who thinks skateboarding will turn his son gay, if it hasn’t already) beats him while his apathetic, pregnant mother sits there. Tate lives with his board game playing grandparents who don’t respect his privacy or his psychotic artistic vision.

“Ken Park” is not so much the story of the title character, but rather about the different paths kids of his clique take when dealing with life. His suicide isn’t as much a factor as the opening would have you believe. It’s not mentioned in the film, and it doesn’t need to be. These young teenagers have their own struggles and inner demons to worry about. There’s a part of me that doesn’t like that the stories don’t intertwine.
(more....)


+++++++++


Golden Balls
Review by Jon Waterman

1/2 star

Benito has a dream. I’d call it the American dream, but he’s in Spain, so I won’t. But the same concept applies. He’s looking for massive wealth and power. For a while, he’s all talk. That is, until he finds out that his best friend is sleeping with his girlfriend. He disowns both of them and with nothing left to lose, he dives head first into his newly formed business. Soon, he’s making deals and becoming the biggest real estate developer the country has seen looking to build the tallest building the country has ever seen. In business, you need “Huevos de Oro.”

What an odd, pointless exercise of a movie this is. There’s nothing here of any substance or meaning. There’s also nothing here that allows you to connect with the picture in any way. Benito is a reprehensible, smarmy guy that we are forced to follow around. His self-centered, womanizing, ignorant attitudes are not fun to watch at all. I honestly didn’t care about him enough to enjoy his rise to power or enough to take pleasure in his weak moments.
(more....)