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Reviews
Durant's Never Closes (2016)
Disjointed and a disservice
This film does a great disservice to the legacy of Jack Durant but also the restaurant that bears his name to this day. The story is convoluted and uses flashbacks and dream sequences too much making the main story disjointed. The IMDB reviews praising this film are mostly from Travis Mills, the director or people he's conned into thinking he's some great filmmaker. If not for relentless self aggrandizing promotion this would be relegated to the scrap heap of failures. The restaurant and estate of Jack Durant wanted nothing to do with this film and the critics who've seen it think it misses badly. In the end you are better off avoiding this since at the end you'll probably wonder what you just saw, and not in a good way.
Life Room (2009)
Great for what it was
I'm biased since I actually appeared in this film. But for what it was and the lengthy struggle it took to complete this film, it deserves high praise. I have a copy of the DVD and it's worth it if only for the bonus features and outtakes. Spoiler: the police get involved during shooting of a scene. If you want a fun and ambitious film made on a very small budget then this is it. Just enjoy it for what it is.
Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever (1991)
Who OK'd this movie?
I bought this movie at a truck stop for 2.99 when I was in high school. I don't even remember why. Upon returning home, I watched it, and was very disappointed. The tape now resides at my ex girlfriend's along with "Hol Grail". Anyway, on to the movie.
The concept of the movie has been used, but we are given a brief explanation at the beginning as to WHY things are the way they are. It's explained that the students burned down the old Ronald Reagan High School. I guess that's plausible, but would you let those same kids back into the new one? Well it was the early 90's....
Then we meet our protagonists. Jesse Davis is Cory Feldman with a seagull haircut, and his cardboard, paper thing character buddies. None of these characters are ever expanded on, and in some laughingly bad parts, are stereotyped to no end. We get the token black guy, the token minority Asian guy, the angry at the world female, and that weird guy who I'd like to forget. The story is simple, the principal can't control the students and sends for help in the form of Doctor Vadar (gee if that's not a blatant rip off I don't know what is), a disciplinarian in all black, who at first you can't even tell is a woman.
In the meantime, that whacky gang led by Cory Feldman (doing his best to simultaneously channel Michael Jackson, Tony Hawk and Vanillca Ice/MC Hammer) finds time to rig a contest for their band named the Eradicators, a small side plot that isn't expanded upon, and in one of the strangest scenes ever in movie history, worship large appliances. Now I'm not an expert, or maybe I dozed off, but I don't see any reason why a bunch of high school kids would pay money (as was done in the movie), to worship an antique refrigerator. Maybe I should have had a few more shots of Jose Cuervo and I may have understood it. The scene lasts for a good 5 minutes too. It's not even really mentioned again, it's like they just threw it in as some kind of practical joke, although it wasn't that funny, just kind of eerie. There's a few scenes like this and to be honest, they could have been put into the movie in any order and it wouldn't have disturbed the plot at all.
If not for having gaping maws of plot holes, cardboard cut out characters, cheesy dialogue, and well, just bad sidetracks of the main story, it'd be a decent film. I gave it a 2, because 1 is reserved for things like Jack Frost 2, and other movies that don't have anyone in them we've heard of. At least we know who Cory Feldman is. If you get a chance, buy it, don't rent it, because it's worth about as much as the rental price (probably less).