Two recent screenings and what was wrong with them...

So one of the benefits of living in Los Angeles is there is always free screenings to go to. I went to two recently that were special sneak preview screenings that had the cast and crew there. Both movies were considered "indies" I guess but were movies that probably had less than a $5,000,000 budget and had a handful of names but were probably still constricted by budget. Both were also flawed in a way and I guess I'll talk about them.

The first was Revenge of the Green Dragons that was directed by the guy who made Infernal Affairs, which was the movie that The Departed was a remake of which became a best picture winner in the Oscars. Martin Scorsese put his name on it as Executive Producer probably as a favor to the filmmakers. Honestly, he should probably be pretty ashamed to be associated with it at all. The movie is a pretty big mess. I honestly could not really tell you what went on through a majority of the movie. I feel like it tried to just fill every gangster movie cliche into a 90 minute movie. At the end they randomly had a twist that was unnecessary and just served to make everything before it even more confusing. I started laughing out loud when it occurred and a handful of people looked at me like I was as an asshole. It wouldn't be the first time though. Probably the worst aspect of it to me was the casting. They had a handful of Asian American "celebrities" but they were horribly miscast. A lot of characters seemed like pretty boys trying to shed their image and trying too hard in doing so. This was the worst of the two movies for sure. The whole story just rang false too, which is surprising because apparently it's based on a true story (of course that doesn't mean a damn thing these days). I'd probably give this like a 3/10.

Sex Ed was the second movie. It starred Haley Joel Osment of the Sixth Sense and AI except now he's like 25 and he's in an R rated sex comedy now. This wasn't as bad, but I feel like this movie suffered from now being too bold. The movie was mildly funny, but there were times where I felt like the movie could have pushed further and they didn't and other times where something really strange would happen and it would just feel off tone. Overall it just felt very predictable and feels like it could have just as easily have been a studio movie/ So as it stands it just looks and feels like a cheap studio movie with a star who is kind of worth seeing it for. They mentioned that they were worried throughout about pissing parents off with the topic of Sex Ed since it's kind of a hot button issue these days, but I feel like they should have went further with it. They're probably not going to get those people in the theater anyways, so the least they could have done is made a really interesting take on the whole issue, but instead it was pretty flat. It was ok though... I'd give it like a 6/10.

Both make me wonder what to do when I eventually want to make my indie feature film debut. I am writing a movie currently, I guess I just gotta learn from these examples and try to do better.