Jordan Tate

Jordan Tate is a screenwriteress who has had some success in the horror genre. One of her screenplays has resulted in a vampire film short and she is plugging away on new projects.

The Dark Knight (2008) with comment

 is the single most misreviewed movie of this year (2008)
thus far. All too many movie reviewers are pandering to what they
believe their readers want to hear, rather than what they actually
believe. As a result, what is actually a movie with a confusing plot and
a tendency towards speechifying, especially in its last half hour, has
been hailed as one of the greatest movies of the year, if not this
decade thus far.

Why has The Dark Knight been so widely labeled a great movie by the
critics? Basically because movie reviewers, particularly critics for
print publications such as newspapers, have been pandering to what they
believe that their readers want to hear. Since the conventional wisdom
is that The Dark Knight will be a blockbuster, the critics want to get
on the “right side” of the public and so they write these pandering
reviews that overlook the problems with The Dark Knight.

Why are the critics engaging in this behavior? Newspapers are downsizing
and dropping their in-house movie reviewers and are either replacing
them with syndicated writers or not even running movie reviews at all.
Casualties of the recent downsizing trend include Terry Lawson of the
Detroit Free Press and Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune. A big
reason for this trend is the increasing belief that movie reviewers are
irrelevant as far as the movie going public is concerned. Flicks
denounced by the critics score big at the box office while films that
win critical praise bomb out. As a result, the critics are praising
movies that they think will attract huge crowds so that they can “prove”
their relevancy and as a result, keep their jobs.

While a better movie overall than Batman Begins, The Dark Knight suffers
from the same basic flaws as its prequel. The plot is poorly thought out
and has several improbably moments such as the Joker being able to
escape at least 3 different times and in hard to believe ways each time.
The acting is average at best & the script is not much better than okay.
If Heath Ledger were still alive, practically nobody would be singling
out his performance as the Joker as being Oscar worthy. Ledger’s Joker
is lame and inferior to Cesar Romero’s Joker from the mid-1960’s TV show
Batman and the 1966 movie version of the same show. About the only
saving grace for The Dark Knight is the fact that its first 2 hours is
so fast paced that it flies by so much so that you would almost swear
that substantially less time had elapsed. Too bad the last half hour is
loaded with characters making speeches to each other and the like that
causes the movie to suddenly drag.

Like Batman Begins before it, The Dark Knight is basically a perversion
of the original Batman created by Bob Kane. As such, it should be
avoided by all those who read and respected Batman in the comic books.

As for those pandering print movie reviewers, if all they can do is
praise the movies that they think are going to become hits, and trash
the flicks that they believe are going to bite the dust, then they
richly deserve to become an endangered species, if not altogether
extinct.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 6:25am      and is
filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through
the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “The Dark Knight Review Rough Draft”
ben says:
August 12, 2008 at 8:14pm
wow… I have to say that I strongly disagree with your consensus. First,
the best reviewers never cater to what they think people will perceive.
Any critic can stand on his own opinion regardless of its popularity.

And calling Heath’s performance lame… I have to say I was skeptical
going in and have never truly been a fan of the actor. Nor did I feel it
necessary to base my opinion of his performance upon the sentiment of
his death. You watch him and you don’t see Heath Ledger. You see the
joker. A deranged man with a creepy demeanor and a moral compass that
points to its own north. If you can’t find yourself getting lost in his
performance then maybe you need to take on a new hobby. It may have not
been the most riveting plot but it was a very entertaining movie that
did not fit the traditional ‘action movie sequel’ mold. I think that may
be why you did not like it. It was different, and you are one of the
simple minded individuals of the viewing public that is addicted to the
same old formulaic performance/production duo that doesn’t know what to
do with something that is actually novel. So before you begin your
conspiracy theories as to why the critics aren’t on the same page as
you, maybe you should take a step back and ask yourself what did they
pick up that went over your head?

The Ruins (2008)

Scott Smith is both an up and coming author and filmmaker. His novels
are landmarks in the development of contemporary American fiction. The
film versions of his works are also very good. The 1998 film adaptation
of his novel A Simple Plan is generally regarded as one of the single
greatest crime dramas of the last few decades. Naturally, Smith decided
after this triumph to enter the field of horror fiction to prove that
his skills were not limited to crime fiction.

Among the end results of Smith’s new interest in horror writing are both
the novel The Ruins and the movie adaptation of the same name. The Ruins
is about the downside of visiting tourist resorts such as Cancun,
Mexico. Some friends visit Cancun and after a while they get bored. They
decide to explore the countryside and come across an ancient Mayan
temple. There, they encounter an evil that has lurked at the temple
waiting for some nice, juicy victims to wander by.

The Ruins is a great horror suspense film. The acting and direction are
decent and it has excellent special effects. However, the movie has
nudity that is all too pointless. There is simply no reason to include
nudity in this movie. Despite this drawback, The Ruins is the scariest
movie of the year thus far. It is also the most suspenseful. The vines
scene is especially scary and suspenseful.

The original novel was a great scary and suspenseful read. Given the
fact that the writer of the screenplay is also the author of the
original novel, you would expect that the movie were also be every bit
as scary and suspenseful as the novel. Your expectations are all richly
rewarded by this hair raising movie that will leave you clutching on the
edge of your seat in the most terrifying movie event of the year thus
far.

The main problem is that it has nudity that like nudity in so many
American movies made since the 1970’s is completely pointless and is
simply not needed. On the other hand, the bad guy killer in The Ruins is
not one of those seemingly immortal characters out of the slasher
flicks. Instead, he was a relatively ordinary fellow who the audience
could relate to.

This is a most entertaining and suspenseful movie that the audience will
well worth find worth the $10 or so cost for tickets.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

Of all the movies that constitute the Fast and the Furious series, the
third installment entitled “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” is
the single best one. Whether or not that is much in the line of praise
is squarely in the eye of the beholder.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift opens with a teenager named Sean
Boswell (played by the 24 year old Lucas Black who clearly does not look
like a teenager) who has gotten himself in big trouble with the law. The
police have videotape of the incident and they can put him in juvenile
hall with the other, ummm, teenagers. However, the district attorney’s
office strikes a most improbable plea bargain with Sean’s mother in
which they agree to deport Sean to Tokyo to live with Sean’s estranged
father.

Upon arriving at Tokyo, Sean Boswell discovers that things are rather
different than what he expected. For one thing, everyone in Tokyo that
he encounters speaks perfect English irregardless of their educational
background. Likewise, all of the teenagers that he encounters are not
played by teenaged actors, nor do they look like actual teenagers.
Additionally, he soon finds some kindred souls at his new school who are
similarly reckless and who share the same love of urban racing that he
has. One of these friends is even a token black, so the diversity angle
is covered.

Once Sean Boswell has made some friends amongst the Japanese youth, he
gets introduced to one of the more idiotic Hollywood cliches. This is
the bit about the instant expert who upon discovering a native
tradition, an outsider who is the subject of a movie immediately knows
more about the subject than any of the natives and is immediately more
proficient in doing the native tradition than any of the natives. Movies
where this cliche is most prominent include “Gymkata,” “The Challenge,”
“The Last Samurai,” and the TV miniseries “Shogun.”

In the case of this flick, the native tradition in question is called
“drift racing.” This entails driving your car sideways at high speed,
often skidding at the same time. In other words, Sean Boswell has gone
from law breaking in America to breaking the law in Japan.

Eventually, Sean winds up in even bigger trouble than ever. This leads
to a most unusual solution. A drift race between Boswell and his
adversary with the loser being forced to leave Tokyo forever.
Surprisingly, Sean Boswell’s father thinks that this is an excellent
idea and commits himself to helping soup up his son’s racing car for the
big event.

The end result of all this is a flick that is incredibly goofy and
ridiculous. It works in keeping the audience entertained despite all of
the implausibilities in it. The movie is every bit as much a summer fun
flick as the two previous “Fast and the Furious” movies. Despite the sum
total of the goofiness, or perhaps even because of the goofiness and
implausibility, “Tokyo Drift” comes well recommended as a movie to rent
and perhaps even purchase.

Living the Life (2000) With Comments

Living the Life (2000)  With Comments


Throughout history, Hollywood has taken many great works of literature and literally trashed them, making horrible movies out of them. The same is also true of adaptations of lesser works of fiction. One novel in the latter category is Lynne Ewing’s 1998 young adult novel “Party Girl” the rights for which were bought by a movie company that proceeded to make the subject of this review that was allegedly based on Ewing’s work.

Living the Life starring Jay Hernandez and a bunch of untalented hack actors and actresses has almost nothing in common with Ewing’s novel except that it is set in a neighborhood in a rundown area of Los Angeles. Not only does the movie have a different name than the novel, but most of the character’s names are different and the plot is almost completely different. Whereas Ewing’s novel was about a teenage girl whose life revolved around partying, Living the Life is about some hispanic teenage girls whose aspirations are limited to becoming prostitutes, strippers and drug dealers. One of the girls also wants to become a professional hitwoman and be not only the girlfriend of the leader of the local brutal youth street gang, but also the 2nd in command as well.

The focus of the movie is on gang banging and street violence in general. Up and coming actor Hernandez is only in the movie a short time and hardly recognizable with the goatee they have him wearing. The plot of this movie, to the extent that you can actually discern a plot, is stupid and unrealistic. The producers of this movie evidently envisioned this movie as being a teenage girl ganster flick. This movie’s advertising focused in on the fact that the girls go to a nightly dance competition, but in the movie that aspect is only a silly subplot that only wastes more time and serves no purpose. These dance competitions feature teenage girls dancing in what look like the kind of outfits that prostitutes wear which makes you wonder just what kind of people were sponsoring them in the first place.

One strange aspect of this movie was that these girls were not even old enough to graduate from high school and yet, except for the gang leader’s girlfriend, they were all pregnant. And yet they partake in street gang violence and dance competitions whilst preparing to give birth down the line. One can only wonder just what the producers were smoking when they thought this angle up.

One partucularly striking aspect of this movie was the lack of older men as positive role models. For the two main female characters, there was no father, uncle, cousin, no man who espoused constructive ideas. Instead, there are gangbangers who abuse their own girlfriends. This helps to make for a dull movie because in order to have drama, you need conflict between competing ideas.

Living the Life is poorly made, poorly directed and except for Hernandez, poorly acted. The cinematography is especially poor in this movie. The colors are bleached out.. The picture is never crisp, and always seems out of focus. The colors fade and blur instead of being deep and rich. This movie is also poorly edited. At one moment, a girl’s hand is cut bleeding profusely, the next moment, she is as good as new without even a scratch on her even though she lives a life of almost daily violence with her boyfriend’s street gang.

The sound editing in this movie is especially bad. The dialogue levels go from clear to inaudible and sometimes crackle. Oftentimes the soundtrack music is played so loud you cannot understand what the actors are saying. Just why anyone would release a movie that is in this condition is incomprehensible.

Living the Life is a movie to avoid like the plague.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 26th, 2005 at 7:35am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

12 Responses to “Movie Review: Living the Life (2000)”
emily says:
August 3, 2005 at 10:27pm
well….let me just point out some of your mistakes. ONE girl in that movie was pregnent…just one…..and of course there was a lack of “positive male roll modles”…dont you realize what type of people this movie is trying to show? and the main “gang leader” if thats wut u would like to call him, Pocho…he is no ones boyfriend. Ana, the girl who dies, HAS a boyfriend from another gang. and Kata, the other main girl, is more like his sister then anything. perhaps u should have paid more attention to this moive. in my opinion, i liked it. and so did my friends. but also, that might be because we too have very few “positive male roll modles” and we too are in gangs. maybe we can relate to some things in this movie. and you right, the actors werent well known…and ur right, most of them werent all that great. but its good to see a flim where the main person isnt living their happy little life in hollywood. dont knock someone elses view on movie making…and believe it or not, some people actually liked this movie. thanks.

Kayleigh says:
August 26, 2005 at 6:46pm
i love this movie! who ever rated this movie was COMPLETELY WRONG!! there was only one girl pregnant, just like emily said.. nd yea there life was limited to drugs, and gang-bangers stuff but thats because it has a main purpose! I liked this movie, and too a few of my freinds it inspired them not to join a gang cuz they see what really does happen.. so whoever wrote critics on this is STUPID

Devon says:
February 19, 2006 at 12:42pm
Oh yea… I liked the music in this movie alot… But when I went to look for it online I couldnt find it…The song is called Danger Zone…Its the first song the girls dance to…Its sounds like it would be chinese at the beginning.

Charles Rector says:
February 20, 2006 at 7:06pm
So if you are “completely in love with this movie” that means that nobody can disagree with you? What a small mind you must have.

Michelle says:
July 27, 2006 at 12:32am
I LOVE THIS MOVIE SO MUCH!! ITS MY FAVORITE SO FAR, AND STILL!! AND LIKE SOMEONE SAYD THEY COULDNT FIND THE SONG DANGER ZONE, ME EITHER. I LOVE THAT SONG. THE RATERS ARE DUMB AND WRONG. JUST BECAUSE IT DEALS WITH THAT KIND OF STUFF DOESNT MAKE IT A BAD MOVIE, A LOT OF PEOPLE LIVE THAT WAY, IITS A WAY OF LIFE. I BEEN THROUGH IT. WOULD THAT MAKE ME A BAD PERSON?? ANYWAYS, I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS MOVIE WHETHER YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH ME!!!!

KaRiNa says:
August 16, 2007 at 6:43pm
who ever critisized this movie is so WR0NG! This movie is the best! it shows wat real life is all about! and seriously the critic him self needs to watch the movie him self…he dont even got the facts straight…well i love this movie && it look like lots of people liked it! so so stop talking bad!

DiANA [&] KiARA --HOUSTON,TX says:
September 3, 2007 at 12:04am
EXCUSE ME MR.”MOViE CRiTiC” WHERE DiD U GET UR COLLEGE DEGREE FR0M TO BE TRYiNG TO ANAYLZE A MOViE THAT U WOULDNT COME CLOSE TO UNDERSTANDiNG. THE HARDSHiPS OF STREET GANG MEMBERS, iTS NOT ONLY ABOUT SEX, DRUGS, AND CRiME. iTS A LiFESTYLE THAT SOONER OR LATER TEACHES YOU WHO U TRULY ARE, SOMETHiNG THAT A BOOK CAN’T TEACH YOU.SO WHY DO U THINK U KNOW HOW REALiSTiC iT iS? YOU DONT HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE ON THE SiTUATiON TO BE SPEAKiNG YOUR MiND FREELY ON iT. WHAT LED YOU TO BELIEVE THAT THE DIRECTORS WERE SMOKING SOMETHING, JUST BECAUSE YOU NEVER EXPERIENCED THE HARDSHIP THEY DELT WITH DOESNT MEAN iTS A FANTASY WORLD. OBVIOUSLY YOU DIDNT PAY MUCH ATTENTION TO THE MOVIE AS WELL , BECAUSE THE ONLY ONE THAT WAS PREGNANT WAS ANA AND NOT THE OTHER FEMALES. THiS iS WHAT THE SUPPOSLY “MOViE CRiTiC” SAiD WHICH MADE HIM CONTRADiCT HiMSELF… “…except for the gang leader’s girlfriend, they were all pregnant” ALSO LET ME STRESS TO YOU THAT YOU SHOULDNT BE THE ONE TO SAY WHATS RIGHT OR WRONG IN A CERTAIN SITUATION, EVERYBODY HAS THEIR OWN MENTALITY, JUST BECAUSE ITS NOT LIKE YOURS DOESNT MAKE IT WRONG. THE ACTORS EVEN THOUGH THEY ARENT KNOWN, THEY DiD A GOOD JOB OF PORTRAYiNG THE CHARACTERS LiFESTYLE! G00D DAY! ~”iF U STARE UP AT THE STARS LONG ENOUGH ANYTHiNG SEEMS POSSiBLE”~

pamela says:
June 25, 2008 at 5:20am
whoever wrote this review must be some white junkie whos never personally seen the life and srtuggle of a young woman coming up in a barrio. i thought this movie captured what being in a gang is like and all the crap that comes along with it. this movie is a modern Mi Vida Loca and it represented a chola’s lifestyle.

so for the person that wrote this shitty critique, get your head out of your ass and learn about the real LOCA culture watch the movie again (and this time pay attention) you are not watching The fucking Hills.

LP says:
December 16, 2008 at 3:34pm
Hey, i really liked this movie a lot….i really really want to find that stupid danger zone song! but i cant anywhere, i know a lot of other people said they couldnt but if u know what its called and where i can get it. let me know!

Someone says:
March 15, 2009 at 8:03pm
Gooood movie!!

who sings that song danger zone?
does anyone know where I can get the soundtrack??

Jus Me says:
August 21, 2009 at 11:13am
Ugh!! I just need to find that damn song “Danger Zone”!! It’s drivin me crazy!!!if u know it plz send it to rishacharley@yahoo.com

stephanie says:
September 18, 2009 at 9:41pm
omg i need to no the song danger zone!….its been months since ive been wanting to know…one of my fav song in the movie….

email me at fanimoreno_246@hotmail.com

Movie Mistakes

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The Old Corral  is an exhaustively researched and authoritative guide to the world of B Movie Westerns especially during the period 1929-1954.