Foxcatcher (2014)

1/5

Foxcatcher, set in the 1980's, tells the troubling true story of an enigmatic multimillionaire wrestling enthusiast (Carell) who enlists two Olympic gold medal-winning wrestlers (Tatum, Ruffalo) to help him start a training camp for the US Wrestling Team on his enormous estate. I won't go into more detail so as to prevent anyone reading this review from getting too interested in the movie.

The trailers for the movie give it a creepy, chilling atmosphere. And indeed it starts out intense and brooding, but the mood doesn't last and the pacing turns awkward and slow. The cinematography is bland and lingering like the worst kind of indie films. There is an obscene amount of silence to make the whole movie unendingly boring. A lot of shots seem to be nothing more than random events without any context. Nothing feels concrete (except the ending), which makes for an infuriating and unsatisfying film filled with nothing but hints and suggestions. And it was somewhat unsettling that I couldn't tell if there were homosexual undertones or not. That's how subtle everything was.

I will admit, though, that Steve Carell gives an impressive acting turn. The same could be said for Channing Tatum, although all I really got out of his performance is that he gets slapped in the face a lot. The problem is that the characters seem to perform actions with either unclear motivations or intentionally veiled ones, both of which are frustrating to watch. But the biggest surprise of all was when the credits rolled and I realized that this garbage was directed by Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball). I ended the movie asking myself why I spent the last 2+ hours watching it and I didn't have a good answer.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1100089/

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

1/5

Matthew Vaughn's Kingsman is an abhorrent exploitation film masquerading as a delightful action flick. The movie serves as a modern send-up of the British spy movies from the 60's, but it does everything it can to distance itself from James Bond. It trades in dry humor for vulgar jokes, action for violence, and style for looks. It's self-referential in a way that outdoes even the countless satires of the genre. It's funny and fun until it's not. It takes a sharp turn and quickly becomes dark and disturbing. The ultra-violence is grotesque and nauseating, seemingly thrown on screen with gleeful abandon and disregard for taste. It's hard to imagine a world where people enjoy the stomach-churning images and call it entertainment, but the success of this film means that we are apparently living in it right now.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802144/

The Hangover: Part III (2013)

1/5

The Hangover Part III is simply awful. The movie reunites the "wolfpack" once again (Cooper, Helms, Galifianakis), only this time without any roofies or hangovers. Instead, Marshall (Goodman) has kidnapped them and sent them on a mission to find the wolfpack-adjacent international criminal Leslie Chow (Jeong). What ensues is not so much hilarity as it is vulgarity. Director Todd Phillips confuses humor with shock, using the winding plot and the $15 million paychecks of otherwise reputable actors to gross us out in whatever way possible. The first two were funny; this one is nauseating. The pre-credit epilogue is truly gag-worthy, and I remain thankful that they never found any pictures explaining how they got in that particular predicament. The story lines, the performances, and the directing were never the trilogy's strong suit, so what does this one have to offer us? A few uncomfortable laughs in an otherwise filthy mess. Not even Melissa McCarthy can save this garbage. Ugh.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1951261/

Sharknado (2013)

1/5

Sharknado is a movie about a tornado that rains hungry sharks down on LA. Its tagline is "Enough Said," which is appropriate, since that is all you need to know about it. It is astonishing--literally jaw-dropping--how awful this movie is. I'm not sure I have the words to adequately quantify how bad it is, but I'll give it a shot.

First, the script. It is mind-numbingly stupid. Its existence is unfathomable. Watching the characters think and act is an exercise in suspending disbelief. Second, the special effects. Syfy's CG department has not advanced one bit since Sharktopus. In fact, if I were the person who worked on the special effects for this movie, I would probably intentionally excise it from my resume. They leave essentials like textures and lighting by the wayside, where the cinematography, editing, and acting sit as well. Third, the "director," and I use that term loosely. Mr. Ferrante intercuts scenes from unrelated b-roll with tight shots of line-reading, splicing together shots from different times of day with different ambient lighting temperatures as if they're all from the same scene.

This movie is absolutely engrossing, but only because it's so absurd. Much like Movie 43, it's hard to turn your eyes away. You will always underestimate how much worse the movie can get. I do have to say that watching it let me catch up on some sleep. And I was actually struck by how good the Dodge Ram and Lowe's commercials were in comparison to this garbage. Honestly, I don't know why I keep subjecting myself to the Syfy Original Movie torture. I need to stop.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2724064/

Movie 43 (2013)

1/5

Movie 43 is an abomination of filmmaking. It is an offensive assault on the senses for 90 straight minutes. This thing--which I refuse to call a movie--is a collection of unrelated images and scenarios designed to disgust and disturb. It is the kind of thing created for reaction videos, with no inherent value. From neck testicles to cartoon cat masturbation fantasies, from parental abuse and incest to graphic leprechaun violence, from gratuitous nudity to yellowface surgery, there is no line it won't cross. I'm disappointed that so many quality actors have sullied their names by taking part in this evil transgression of cinema, this shameful plague of a thing. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. Ugh.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1333125/

Premium Rush (2012)

1/5

Premium Rush is one of the most ridiculous movies I've seen recently. The story is not only ludicrous on its own merits, it is also told in an unnecessarily convoluted fashion. It goes backwards and forwards and every which way, with its only purpose seemingly to keep certain plot points hidden from the audience so that they can reveal it as a big surprise at the end. I have no problem with non-linear storytelling so long as it adds some sort of value instead of just existing for the sake of being different. The plot, as in all action movies, is pretty underwhelming: a guy rides a bike around NYC while being chased by cops in cars and on bikes. That's about it. There were way too many 1) chase scenes in which cyclists get terribly injured, 2) irrelevant side characters, and 3) not-so-subtle racial stereotypes. All in all, it's a pretty middling action flick with nary a redeeming factor and lots to dislike.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1547234/

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)

1/5

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is a traumatic, searing film. It is brutal and unsparing. It delivers hit after unfortunate hit, for our story's protagonists and for our own sense of hope and joy. The movie is bleak and dreary, violent and sadistic. It manages to be viscerally intense without being visually graphic. It hits you with ideas and horrors that you wish you will never imagine again. It reminded me of I Stand Alone, but without much to say, kind of like Audition. It is haunting, to be sure, but not in a meaningful way. I abhor violence in movies for violence's sake. It is an assault on my eyes and my mind, so it should serve some function or be overcome by an equal and opposite force. That is not the case with this movie, and so I am left a victim of the film.

I was not particularly impressed with the cinematography. The director is trying too hard to be artistic and has forgotten that movies are supposed to flow. The acting, which for all I know might be categorically stellar in a vacuum, is absolutely ridiculous in the context of the events that take place in this film. I have no real-world comparison by which I can judge their performances. Also, not that I really cared, but there are some pretty gigantic plot holes that are simply not addressed (ones that are crucial to the progression of the story). All in all, I have no idea to whom I might recommend this film. I feel like doing so would make me a masochist.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310775/

Viridiana (1961)

1/5

Buñuel's Viridiana is poorly-made nonsense. Nun-to-be Viridiana (Pinal) is invited back to her uncle's mansion before she takes her vows before God. There, she discovers that her uncle (Rey) wants to marry her, and he enlists the aid of his maid (Lozano) to force her to stay with him. Things don't go as planned and the rest of the movie diverges from acceptable storytelling and just kind of bumbles around into chaos. The film is not really about the story at all, so I won't bother telling you any more of the plot. Suffice it to say, it's incomprehensible (in purpose) and more than a bit frustrating.

Nothing feels believable, including any supposed satire. The writing is poor. The filmmaking is poor. This is essentially a student film, complete with above-average actors made to perform stilted and staged dialogue by a pretentious director who thinks he knows better than everyone else. Buñuel's tunnel vision disdain for the church (and apparently kindness in general) borders on offensive. But more insulting than the content itself is Buñuel's use of overt imagery and obvious symbolism, because nobody could have figured out his genius strokes without having him graciously dumb it down for all us idiot audience members. If I wanted to watch a feel-bad movie where well-intentioned people are made to pay for their beneficence, I would have watched the equally terrible Au Hasard Balthazar and walked out halfway through. But who does? Avoid this movie unless you like being sledgehammered in the face with negative sentiment.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055601/

Breaking Dawn: Part 1 (2011)

1/5

Wow. And I thought the first two were bad (I thankfully "missed out" on the third one). This movie goes over the intricacies and technicalities of vampire weddings, vampire pregnancies, and vampire babies in excruciating, explicit, unexpectedly graphic detail. Quite frankly, the sex scenes and the birthing scenes were truly disturbing affairs that I wish I could unwatch. Everything about this movie is staged, written, and stilted, much like Sharktopus and other B movies. It felt like everyone was putting on a performance for the camera, and nothing about this (admittedly preposterous) fantasy felt believable in any way. The technical aspects were just as laughable as before, with horrendous pacing, poor special effects, and uninspired action. Oh, and very awkward intimacy (with some neonatophilia). Ultimately, I think my biggest frustration is that nothing actually happens during this movie until it actually ends. It's all a bunch of angry outbursts without any climax, without any substance. This isn't just a bad movie; it's an infuriating one. Watch at your own risk.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1324999/

Sharktopus (2010)

1/5

For being an "original Syfy movie," Sharktopus is about as unoriginal as they come. In this bizarre fantasy world, the US Navy has created a shark-octopus hybrid killing machine to keep our waters safe from drug runners, despite that job belonging to the US Coast Guard. When Sharktopus gets loose, Nathan Sands (Roberts) sends his scientist daughter (Lane) with a hunky boat driver (Bursin) to track it down and recapture it while he drinks scotch and video chats. The terrible script is made worse by awful "acting," although I honestly don't know if this monstrosity would be any better with good acting. The more believable performances almost seem out of place. The actors were likely cast for their lack of acting ability, as every word comes from idiots reading a script without realizing "scared" denotes their emotion. The male lead is shirtless most of the movie and seems to enjoy flexing his pecs for our apparent enjoyment, although it comes off as kind of circus freak-ish. Actresses are noticeably sucking in their stomachs in a pitiful attempt to look skinnier on camera. And that brings me to the special effects, which are laugh out loud bad. I think the screenshot I've included in this review insults the movie far more than my words ever could. I really have nothing more to say about that.

To summarize, this is a B monster movie with C actors, D filmmaking, and F special effects. This film was followed by another original Syfy movie, Supergator, which I passed on. I suggest you pass on any original Syfy movie you come across. You can thank me later.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1619880/

Dead Man (1995)

1/5

Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man is one of the most uninteresting, meandering, meaningless movies I've seen since Truffaut's The Soft Skin. I sat there for two hours watching scenes transition to different scenes with the barest semblance of plot or purpose. The movie follows William Blake (Depp) as he makes his way from Cleveland to the West in the late 19th century. He gets mixed up in violence and must go on the run to save his life, but I think the title is meant to insinuate that he is already dead. People who like the movie will tell you it's about a man's transformation in the time of our country's transformation, but I think those people are just seeing stuff that isn't there. Or, perhaps, seeing the bits and pieces of stuff beneath all the garbage piled on top of it.

Johnny Depp kind of reminded me of Guy Pearce in this movie, and I mean that in a bad way. He has dead expressions and no depth. He sounds entirely uninterested in just about everything going on, even when he's supposed to be scared or excited. Regardless of whether his affect is intentional or not, it's simply boring and painful to watch. I don't even want to talk about the dialogue, because I'll just get upset. The script tries to be edgy and badass, but instead it's spoken by what sounds like bad student actors trying to be edgy and badass. Mix this bad acting (or bad directing, I'm honestly not sure which it is) with crappy special effects and cheesy old-time film techniques and you have an entirely laughable production. It's times like these I wish I had waited before burning an entire director's oeuvre until I knew I liked them.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112817/

The Tree of Life (2011)

1/5

Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life is quite possibly worse than Audition. This movie is terrible from beginning to end. I don't remember another time I felt so assaulted by the inane and banal. Quite frankly, I don't know what the plot is, or even what the movie is "about." It plays a lot like David Gordon Green's George Washington, detailing a youth's summer(s) and attempting to evoke some sort of nostalgia in the audience without actually having any story. In The Tree of Life, there seems to be no real dialogue. Nobody says anything to other people. And when people do mutter something, they always whisper in raspy voices (because apparently that makes it more profound). There is an unannounced 30-minute segment detailing the origin of life, starting from the Big Bang and advancing from single-celled organisms to preposterous imaginary dinosaurs. There are random shots of the most disturbing painted clowns I have ever seen. There is no coherency and no meaning. Unfortunately, I don't think Terrence Malick is aware of that; instead he feels he needs two and a half hours to show precisely that. Ugh.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478304/

Buried (2010)

1/5

Buried stars Ryan Reynolds as a man in a box. That box is a coffin in the middle of Iraq. It is billed as a horror movie, but it is closer to an angry political statement that uses violence and gore to make you squeamish instead of making a point. It is set in a locale that screams politics, but ultimately the movie has nothing to say. There is no value in this movie as entertainment, art, or discussion.

For some unknown reason, this film has been getting good reviews. The worst part is that people are complimenting the technical aspects like cinematography, lighting, editing, etc. Not only were they subpar, they actually hindered the experience. Half of the movie is pitch black. I know that every aspiring director thinks hearing audio on a black screen is brilliant, but it isn't. Not in a theater when you can see everyone's heads in front of you and not on a DVD at home when you can see out a window or down a hall. Your eyes just drift to whatever is happening elsewhere and you end up ignoring the movie. The lighting--when there is any--is either uninteresting or just plain irritating. The cinematography is cramped, which I guess is a good thing because that's what they were going for, but not in a skilled way. It's just bland, like they stuck a camera in a box with a man in a box. And for some reason, people have been praising Ryan Reynolds's performance. He was adequate. He sufficiently portrayed a boring character in a unique situation.

But even bad directing and bad decision-making doesn't necessarily mean a movie deserves 1 star. So why does this one? Because it is offensive in every way. It is not a horror movie. The best ones change the way you look at the world and the worst ones at least get your sympathetics going. This just activates your area postrema like Audition. It is not a political movie because it does not have a point to make. It is merely a depraved movie. People give controversial or taboo movies the benefit of the doubt, and we assume they have a message to bring to light, but just putting it in a certain time and place does not give a meaningless movie a message.

In general, I'm not the biggest fan of one-man shows. I didn't like Castaway, which at least had some wit and charm to go with the pain. This one had bad directing, annoying cinematography, and inflammatory subject matter to go with the pain. And painful it was. Stay very far away.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462758/

Beastly (2011)

1/5

Beastly isn't just a bad movie--it's an atrocious movie. It's worse than Twilight. The plot is loosely based on Beauty and the Beast, but takes place in a modern-day preppy New York high school. The updated setting requires some modifications to the story, and the writer decided to use all those opportunities to make it as terrible as possible. The movie takes the clichéd cocky, image-obsessed rich boy (Pettyfer) and pairs him up with the clichéd smart, hard-working loner (Hudgens). A witch (Olson) puts a spell on him to make him ugly and he has one year to find someone to love him. His dad (Krause) abandons him in a hermit home with a nanny (Hamilton) and a blind tutor (Patrick Harris) that have no purpose other than to give him trite advice.

Everything about this movie is offensively bad. The plot just doesn't make any sense. At all. It is literally impossible to suspend your disbelief for this movie. And it stacks on more plot holes and hackneyed "twists" to an already fragile foundation that make you throw your hands up in the air in exasperation. (The entire situation that forced them together is perhaps the most preposterous and aggravating part of the whole movie.) The third-grade writing combines with the weak acting to create a spectacle, and I don't mean that in a good way. It's more of a train wreck that has you rubbernecking as you pass by. It is really mind-blowing that something could be this bad. My best guess is that the dialogue is what a pre-teen imagines might sound cool and witty but is ultimately shallow and meaningless. Not only that, but the tone is inconsistent and the pacing is more painful than stop and go traffic. Is it trying to be funny, romantic, scary, emotional? Who knows? Certainly not the director.

Unfortunately, it's not all bad. And I hate saying this in my review, because that might give people some sliver of hope. But in all honesty, there are about 2 or 3 funny parts where I may have smiled and 2 or 3 lines that stood out and were probably put in by an editor or producer who was much more intelligent than the writer. That being said, avoid this movie at all costs. I don't care if you are a fan of any of the actors in this movie, it is just not worth it.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152398/

The Last Song (2010)

1/5

I officially hate Nicholas Sparks. The Last Song is manipulative, melodramatic dross (definition: worthless or dangerous material that should be removed) that is neither entertaining nor inspiring nor meaningful nor any positive adjective. Before I even get into my rant, this sentence serves as a "spoiler" alert, because I want everybody reading this to know that I must reveal plot points to effectively show how disgustingly bad this movie is. The plot follows an ugly New York vegetarian eco-terrorist teen (Cyrus) who starts up a summer romance with an ugly volleyball playing, aquarium-volunteering mechanic (Hemsworth) while staying in Georgia over the summer with her father (Kinnear) and younger brother (Coleman). She is nothing but a moody, unlikeable brat the entire time, even after she finds out that her father is dying of cancer. She befriends a troll/ogre/ghoul (Chaikin) but is cruelly betrayed by the uggo after a ludicrous misconception concerning her sleazy pyromaniac boyfriend (Lashaway).

The writing is preposterous, the acting by the two leads could serve as an ipecac replacement, and the directing should have a black box warning for increased suicidality. There is a scene where sea turtle eggs hatch and waddle into the ocean. The movie tries to play it off as cute, but it just looks like a horde of cockroaches are infesting our waterways. There is another scene where Miley Cyrus is at the funeral for her father. Her boyfriend walks into the church (late, for some reason) and a super-bright beam of sunlight penetrates her father's stained-glass window. Then she says--out loud--"Hi, Daddy." If it sounds as if this entire review is just me spitting venom, that's because this movie needs to be dissolved in acid and removed from the world of cinema; it makes me ashamed to call myself a film lover.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1294226/

Let The Right One In (2008)

1/5

Let The Right One In is described as a Swedish romantic horror movie about a young boy (Hedebrant) who is the victim of bullying and his vampire love interest (Leandersson) who cannot enter residences without being invited in (thus the unnecessarily unrelated title). The movie is paced slowly, full of dark atmospheric locations where nothing happens and artsy shots of objects that resemble still-life paintings more than film. Much of the plot is inferred with silence and "knowing looks," which depends heavily on social conventions and can make the movie confusing for US audiences. The characters are bland and uninteresting--the director/writer presumably think it is "interesting" to imagine vampires realistically with the same problems that non-vampires have. The acting was anywhere from adequate to poor, depending on how nice you're feeling. The computer graphics are atrocious to the point where it hurt the mood of the film. (All those fake cats were laughably bad, and you're not scared if you're laughing.) All in all, this movie takes a potentially fascinating concept and turns it into a dull, boring, confusing mess. Avoid at all costs.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139797/

Two English Girls (1971)

1/5

Two English Girls is a terrible movie, just like most of Truffaut's movies. I truly wish I had never burned the 15 movies of his that I had access to without first watching one or two. The plot follows Claude (Leaud) and two English girls (Markham, Tendeter) with whom he falls in love. Their love is instant and without explanation; it is less love and more melodrama and angst. I don't know what century this movie takes place in, but the movie plods along as if from a much slower era. The dialogue is stilted. It sounds better written than coming from the mouths of French and English actors who over-articulate as if they're learning new languages. An obtrusive and unnecessary narrator describes people's internal emotions instead of having them act it out, which also makes for an overly talky movie. The cinematography and editing are both poor. The colors range from far too dark to supersaturated; the film lingers on unrelated and unimportant shots like a stairwell or countryside landscapes. And there are a slew of unnecessary plot points that could have been excluded to make this movie shorter. (Or better yet, maybe Truffaut would have decided to exclude the whole thing and I wouldn't have had to sit through this movie at all! In fact, I wish that had happened for all of Truffaut's terrible movies.)

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066989/

New Moon (2009)

1/5

New Moon is a bad movie. This is the extent to which I know the plot: the vampire (Pattinson) makes up some reason to leave the town, which of course makes the pale girl (Stewart) depressed. She starts getting closer with her werewolf neighbor (Lautner) and then has to choose between them. There's little else in the 2+ hour movie, although I did learn a few things during the course of watching it. First, Kristen Stewart is ugly when she cries. I think she's ugly all the time, but apparently that sentiment is not as universally shared as I thought. Second, Taylor Lautner has a fairly fit physique. I know this because EVERY SINGLE SCENE with him in it had him shirtless. Kyle thinks his back muscles make him look like a camel or something. Third, Robert Pattinson has kind of a grotesque, gargoylish, sickly frame that makes me think he should see a doctor for anorexia or heroin addiction. Fourth, the CGI werewolves looked like they have really fat necks. It was weird. Oh, and I presume the director had a call for extra pauses, and asked the male pauses to have sex with the female pauses, because there are a bajillion pregnant pauses in this movie intended to simulate fierce thinking and emo angst. Nearly half an hour is wasted on long, drawn out dialogue where the teenagers cannot find the words they want to say. The movie has a lot of forced writing, forced acting, and forced action. It's a round peg of a book being forced into a square hole of a movie. I can't wait for the third one!

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1259571/

Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)

1/5

Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story is a shocking movie for many reasons. First is the intimate albeit brief look we get into the innumerable families who lost their homes to foreclosure and the depression and anger they experience. Second is the revelation of the revolting practice of employers taking out life insurance policies on their employees (and in so doing making money off of their deaths). Third, and the most shocking to me, is how poor Moore's filmmaking abilities have become. The editing--perhaps the most crucial element in a documentary--is absolutely awful. It was made with simple cuts in what looked like a matter of hours by someone who first discovered Final Cut Pro. It was amateur hour in every sense of the word, and it felt like someone was peeing into my eyes with contempt, disregard, and laziness.

The story shows almost no coherence or progression. Not only does that make the movie confusing, it also makes it long (because we cannot predict when an end is approaching). I know from the title and trailers that its intent is anti-capitalist, but the movie itself fails to get that message across. Instead, Moore seems to have confused greed and cruelty with capitalism. Most people can agree that greedy, cruel men can destroy people's lives by putting them out on the street with little care for their survival, but greed and cruelty can exist in any economic policy. So where does capitalism come in?

Moore has lost his technique, and in so doing has also lost his subtlety and his subversion. We see the sad stories of people who lost their homes, we share in their pain and their occasional triumph, but we do not connect the dots. We are not compelled to get up out of our seats and change the world for the better (even though he verbally asks us to at its conclusion). Why? Because we feel tricked into thinking what Moore wants us to think. While essentially every single filmmaker's goal is to manipulate the audience, they are to do it without being discovered. Here Moore has made it so obvious that he is attempting to tell us how to feel and who to blame that it is hard to believe that he is doing it for our own benefit instead of his.

I normally enjoy Moore's movies and stand behind his provocative points of view, but here I think he has pushed this movie out too quickly with too little research and too little production. This is a film of little entertainment value and little social value. There is very little substance--just a lot of personal hatred and righteous indignation from a man who makes a lot of money through capitalism. The worst part about it is the inclusion of a few silly distractions and gimmicks that might make you laugh until you realize that their futility and worthlessness actually mock and belittle the people whose lives are actually affected by the situation. I'm not gonna stop you from watching this movie if you want to, but I will warn you that it's nowhere near as good as Sicko, Fahrenheit 911, or Bowling for Columbine. Also, I think he got the title wrong. He mentions love nowhere in this story. And it's not about capitalism.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1232207/

L'âge d'or (1930)

1/5

L'âge d'or is a terrible movie. To even call it a movie is an unwarranted compliment; it is closer to an arbitrary collection of absent-mindedly captured light, haphazardly arranged and perversely thrust upon unsuspecting viewers. Being a surrealist film by Buñuel and Dalí, there is little plot to speak of. Scenes are sometimes held together just barely by threads, sometimes by nothing at all. There are a very very few visually arresting scenes, and that is not enough for 60 minutes. Buñuel and Dalí's earlier work, Un Chien Andalou, is far superior because it had 4x as many shocking images and took 4x less time, which made it a total of 16x more interesting. And that movie was just barely enough to sate me. While L'âge d'or touched on some interesting thematics, they were isolated and incoherent, and altogether frustrating to pick apart. All in all, this is by far one of the worst films I have ever seen. If you want surrealism, or if you want early Buñuel or Dalí, then check out Un Chien Andalou. But pass on this dreck.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021577/