Crap of the Day: The Crater Lake Monster

Now I'm normally a fan of shlock B Movies, hell I'll even consider myself a fan of Ed Wood films(they're fun to watch when you're with friends). But where there are fun B Movies, there are bastard children wannabes that are too bad to watch, and that's where "The Crater Lake Monster" comes in.

So we all know the story of Loch Ness monster right? Alright now imagine that, but it's a plesiosaur and it's not in Scotland and it kills people for food and there you have it! The complicated plot of this mad movie!

Now this movie has a pile of issues, for instance, it's more lake than monster. If I counted how many minutes in total the monster is on screen, it would be at least 15 minutes out of the total 1 hour 25 minutes movie. We are spent watching pointless scenes of terrible character development and dialogue. There is a scene where some random dude *spoiler alert*shoots a store clerk for beer, which by the way has absolutely nothing to do with the monster, and is later chased by the cop into the lake where he is later eaten by the monster. He is a pretty pointless plot point and a badly executed one at that.

The performances are just terrible. It's like watching people reading note cards right in front of their faces. Now I realize this may be low budget, but it doesn't even feel like the actors were having a fun time with this, it feels like they were tortured on set so they used there performances to torture the viewers. If I am correct, then well played actors... well played.

The effects are all stop motion effects. If you're not aware of stop motion then think clay like visual effects. I'm generally a fan of it. I've done some work on stop motion effects and they are fun. These are some pretty cool stop motion effects since some of them actually blend well in reality, but there's not much of it in a movie that's supposed to be about the monster.

The editing is just half assed. All cuts are choppy, you can barely see the monster attack characters in separate scenes.

Now, some of the scenes showing the lake are beautifully shot, there's just too much of them. So much that after a point of watching this movie I could stop calling it "Crater Lake Monster" and start calling it "The Crater Lake".

Ultimately, I would put this in a category next to Troll 2 for crappiest of the crap. It's not fun, it's torture for the eyes. My advice? See it drunk with your friends if you really want to see it.

Trailer Reviews: Man of Steel

While this is just a teaser trailer, this has certainly become one of the most hyped up films of next year. While I am not a huge fan of Superman like a I am a Batman fan, I am aware of the mythology and am currently in the process of reading the Man of Steel comics by John Byrne and Dick Giodarno; and from what I've seen, this will be a more "grounded in reality" version of Superman.

The story of Superman is almost universally known by everyone, I'm not going to bother writing the whole concept of the plot. Plus it's a gigantic spoiler if I tell you everything! I'm not going to ruin your joy a year before the movie is released.

The notoriety of the trailer mostly stems from its beautiful tone that sparks memory of Terrence Mallick if you will. This seems to be Snyders most adult themed film coming out of making visually stunning CGI films. It's somber tone makes it seem as though it wont be a big explosive summer film but a serious film that could join the realm of The Dark Knight Trilogy.

I do have one big problem with it. Zack Snyder. I am still very angry about Sucker Punch which landed on my #2 of my worst of 2011 list. Now you're considering the idea that I am going to hate this movie because I don't like Snyder. Not at all true. I think he has a visually stunning eye(I did like Watchmen but didn't like 300), I just don't think he should write his own films.

There are two versions of the trailer. One with Russell Crowe, the other with Kevin Costner. Here is the Costner version if you're wondering about it(the crowe version is the trailer at the top if you haven't guessed it yet)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_VRP5q1Zow

The final shot of Superman flying is pretty Spectacular. It shows us the harsh conditions of the mesosphere, stratosphere and troposphere; after leaving the final layer of Earth, he goes supersonic. While the other Superman films make this effect seem simple, Snyders version seems to take the realism to its realistic level(pun not intended).

So overall, if you were expecting to see more of Superman in this trailer, it wont work for you. Otherwise it's a fantastic teaser that left me wanting to see more.