Smashbomb

Search

Search results

All (355)

Content

The Beggar's Opera

Vivian Jones, John Gay and David Linley

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Mr. and Mrs. Peachum are horrified when they learn of their daughter Polly's secret marriage to the...

Introducing George the Poet: Search Party: A Collection of Poems

George the Poet

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

'The title is Search Party - the idea being that we're all out here looking for something, and my...

Phillip McSween (751 KP) rated Dark Star (1974) in Movies

Jan 7, 2021

Dark Star (1974)

1974 | Comedy, Sci-Fi

7.5

(11 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

What Resolution?

Satirical movie revolving around bumbling astronauts on a mission to destroy rogue planets.

Acting: 8

Beginning: 0

Characters: 3
I honestly couldn’t tell you one redeeming thing about these characters. About the only redeeming quality was the weird ball monster that appears throughout Dark Star. Seriously, none of these characters sparked the slightest bit of interest for me.

Cinematography/Visuals: 8
I will say not bad for 1974, a year before the release of Star Wars. You get a legit space feel with this crew and I enjoyed the setpieces on-ship. The ball monster (again with this guy) was a bit offputting, but not a terrible job otherwise.

Conflict: 6

Entertainment Value: 4

Memorability: 8

Pace: 10
Sure it’s a kooky movie and you never truly understand what’s going on, but at least it’s a quick eighty-three minutes. Moves pretty quickly by the time it’s all said and done.

Plot: 3
Even after doing a quick Wiki search, I was still lost of what was going on. Just a bunch of weirdo shit happening that is random and not enjoyable. I’ve seen weird but this takes the cake.

Resolution: 0

Overall: 50
Say what you want about my scoring system, this movie got a zero in two categories and still managed to walk away with a 50. It starts off terribly and doesn’t get much better after that. Do yourself a favor and steer clear.

Kudos

Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) created a post

Nov 14, 2020

Today on my blog, I have an interview with author Rob Witherspoon. Check out his satirical humor fiction novel THE SQUARE ROOT OF TEXAS: THE FIRST CALAMITY OF QED MORNINGWOOD, and enter the GIVEAWAY to win a signed copy of this book as well as the second book in the series - three winners total.

https://alltheupsandowns.blogspot.com/2020/11/book-blog-tour-and-giveaway-square-root.html

**BOOK SYNOPSIS**
QED Morningwood is a liar, braggart and teller of tall tales. When he shows up at the domino parlor with a mysterious Russian crate in the back of his pick-up truck, he confides to the players he is a ‘Shadow’ member of the NRA, not on their official membership roll, and has a load of rocket propelled grenades – all lies. The news spreads to the real Shadow NRA, the FBI and Homeland Security. Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Cultural Preservation sends an agent to retrieve the crate, the actual contents known only to the Russians.

The Russian agent, an FBI team, a DHS undercover agent and a Shadow NRA hit team arrive in Heelstring, Texas looking for QED and his crate. Their convergence is followed by interrogations, seduction, lies, arrests, jailbreak, kidnapping and rescue – along with car chases and explosions. If not for Cotton Widdershins, an ancient black man with secrets of his own, who acts as QED’s mentor and savior, the Morningwood line would be doomed to end, or at best spend life in a federal penitentiary.

Kudos Comment

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Ben Fountain

8.7 (3 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is a satirical war novel written by Ben Fountain, which was...

War Fiction Literary Fiction Contemporary Fiction Texas Fiction Satire

Major Works

Jonathan Swift

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

This authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the...

Sarah (7798 KP) rated Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) in Movies

Feb 2, 2019 (Updated Feb 3, 2019)

Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)

2019 | Drama, Horror, Mystery

6.1

(18 Ratings)

Movie Rating

A little confused

A little confused is definitely how I feel about this film. In parts it’s a darkly satirical take on the art world with some horror thrown in, but the rest is just plain old dull with a handful of characters you care little about. Jake Gyllenhaal is great as usual, but I feel the rest of the cast were a let down. Zawe Ashton especially seemed to put in a very deadpan and robot like performance - must have been how her character was intended but it just didn’t work. It also doesn’t help that despite Jake Gyllenhaal, there’s no real main character in this and this is where it falls done, bouncing between a lot of mostly conceited unliveable characters.

This film spends far too much time talking and poking fun at the art world, instead of focusing more on the horror aspect. The story of art killing people is an intriguing one that sounds like it’s been taken straight out of a Stephen King book, it’s just a shame the film didn’t capitalise on this until well over an hour in. Especially as a lot of the horror parts were well done and quite disturbing, although some of the special effects were a bit OTT.

I just find this entire film a little bit meh. It wasn’t terrible, but it’s not particularly memorable either. And whilst I’m sure there’s a message about the fake and judgemental art world, it doesn’t really make for a great film.