MadMax-47

I feel bad because I dislike raining on people who obviously cared deeply about what they were doing. Unfortunately, wht they were doing was producing an awful movie.

First, let me say that it was well photographed. A lot of small budget films don't put a lot of thought or money into lighting or camerawork, and it shows. This was shot ad lit by someone who knew how to do both.

And that's the est positive I can come up with. My guess is that this was someone's passiong project. I'd make a further guess that whoever it was didn't know much about writing. The movie consists of long sequences of pain, fear and struggle, punctuated by rare moments of intereaction with another character. There's little plot, and little driving it forward. There's nothing makng us care about the main character; it's hard to say whether this is the script's fault, the director's fault, or the actresses fault, or a combination.

The title really says it all.

I had watched the first few episodes when the show premiered, and I wasn't impressed. I don't think it was the acting; in general, the actors whose work I'm familiar with have always left me at least entertained. Nor do I think the problem was directing, although that's harded to get to the root of. My guess is that the issue lies in the writing.

Early on, when we're first meetng te characters, they're interesting enough. Like Lost, we've got a huge mystery which is being spoon fed to us as we learn about wh these people are, what they're up to, and what they're hiding.

All too soon the honeymoon is over. The story starts to make some miraculous twists and turns which make little sense, except that they're what the writer needed to have happen. Finally, also like Lost, the conclusion is meant to make people feel good without adequately explaining what is happening. In the case of HAven, however, the story dictates characters actions in ways which make no sense.

When I was in college I was assigned to read a piece of native American literature. For me, it made no sense. Something happened, the lead character set off on a journey, one ine which he traveled always due East. When he came to a tree, he cut it down so he could travel due East. When he came to a lake he made a canoe so he could travel due East across it. Then he got to his destination.

This story made no sense to me. I'm sure it had loads of meaning to native Americans hundreds of years ago. To me, it meant nothing.

Being overly kind, that's a lot like Two Left Arms. I understand basically what happened, but nothing of the why. This may be a result of it being written and produced in Italy, in Italian, for Italians. Maybe there's stuff that didn't make it through the translation. Dunno. All I can say is that it didn't make a lot of sense.

As a final note, most people who try to make Lovecraft films don't really get Lovecraft. The horror in his works is, simply, that it engages the perceived pointlessness of human existence. If they can't get that, they'd be better off doing Twilight films.