Embley

really one of the worst films in recent memory. and that is saying a

lot.

what a muddy script and incredibly bad direction. a few people

said to me that at least it looked good, but i thought it just looked

cheesy - very cliche.

one dimensional characters. bad story development. totally

fractured. very predictable. badly edited. REALLY badly written.

hard to tell if the acting was particularly bad (although i can say

with certainty that at least 'the partner' was really awful..) as the

actors had NOTHING to work with.

amazing that this made it to the big screen..

did i mention that it was bad?

i was very impressed with this documentary-style tv movie. i appreciated the fact that the filmmaker took this approach, giving a sense (at least i hope) of the people on whom these interviews are based, while allowing a buffer zone so that the real people are not subjected to more publicity OR made to look stupid because of their personal beliefs. i thought it was a very wise approach to take and allows more of an unbiased POV in many ways than would a straight up documentary. not to say that this piece was unbiased - it wasn't - and i don't think it should have been. but the filmmaker did not take any low blows and that was refreshing. the way the whole piece was put together was different - i could feel the theatrical aspect coming in, the visuals were much more fractured than a standard tv movie, and i could REALLY appreciate that this was not just another murder story come to life on screen.

thank you for not doing a re-enactment of the crime! i think it was WAY more effective to hear it described by people. i found the laramie project to be horrifying and touching, and i wish more pieces were made that hit at such a gut level. i won't forget this movie.

to its (minor) credit, i did jump once, and there were one or two small twists that i couldn't see coming a mile and a half away, but for the most part it was predictable and boring and the writing was pretty vile. the acting was not terrible - the main boy, fenton, was good - but didn't his brother keep calling him curtis? what was up with that - maybe i missed something there.. there were holes the size of bowling balls in the plot. and why didn't matthew mcconaughey move his lips during the film? i don't think it is worth paying much to see.