“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds."
Friday, March 16, 2018
Duck! The Carbine High Massacre (1999)
This film's difficult to categorize, much less review. It's sort of a low-budget satire of the Columbine High School shooting done in very exploitative style, but it seems to be both more than that and less than that at the same time. Two high school students, after bullying, decide to shoot up their school before killing themselves. The lead actors (who also wrote, directed and produced) are pretty good, but the rest of the cast, even despite being stereotypes, are not; Misty Mundae plays Bible Girl and she's the best of the lot. The special effects are rotten, which makes it a little easier to watch. It's sometimes meant to be humorous, but in those parts it fails utterly. When it works, it manages to give some insight into the characters and does so at least as well as Michael Moore or Gus Van Sant did with the same material and much larger budgets. In the end, it's just an unpleasant experience.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I've been similarly torn on how I feel about this movie for years. When it works, it's shockingly effective (much more so than Van Sant's similar effort, I'd agree). When it doesn't it's just awful, and not in a fun or interesting way (half the comedy seems like in-jokes that would only make sense to the filmmakers). I'm glad I've seen it but it sure didn't leave me wanting more.
ReplyDeleteThat guy sure likes Spam! hahahahaha. If that's not an in-joke, those guys were really high during filming.
Delete