exam – Smug Film (1/7/13

In my earliest Smug Film piece, I reviewed a movie called ATM and introduced this idea of ‘Roomies’—movies where the characters are trapped in some kind of room and the whole point is figuring out why they’re there and how to get out. Exam, The Breakfast Club, and Cube are some popular examples. Now I’m going to introduce you to Twisties, which have become quite prevalent lately.

I saw the Tom Cruise movie Oblivion in the theater by myself. I like going to the movies by myself. It’s cool. There’s something about being by yourself in the grandeur of the theater that always reminds me how much I want to make movies.
Continue reading Twisties: Why ‘Oblivion’ And Many Other Movies These Days Suck

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ATM (2012)
Directed by David Brooks
Written by Chris Sparling
90 min.

Warning: This review contains spoilers, but it doesn’t matter, because this movie sucks.

In ATM, a guy parks his car about a hundred yards from an ATM for no reason. I guess just to make his friend walk really far in the freezing cold. What an asshole. Then, a few minutes later, after a bunch of stupid devices have conveniently put all three of our main characters in a glass-enclosed ATM together, they’re afraid to exit because they see a guy 25 feet away wearing a coat. I’m not kidding. They live in New York City, yet they’re afraid of a guy, I guess, because he’s wearing a coat. It literally just looks like he’s waiting for them to leave so he can use the ATM. But then, to prove their illogical suspicions were actually correct, the coat guy suddenly murders a guy walking a dog. As it turns out, the coat guy is a weird murderer who stakes out people at ATMs.
Continue reading ATM: The Worst Movie Ever to Come Out of the Worst Genre Ever (A Bunch of Dudes Stuck in a Room and They Don’t Know Why)