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Old 11-27-2006, 09:55 AM
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Courtny Solomon

Some of you may remember my thread(s) about the Dungeons and Dragons Movie... I hated that pile of monkey spunk and the lame little retard that made it.


From here on in, there are spoilers, so if you want to waste your time with either of his movies, read no further, and be warned, you cannot recover lost timein your life...

Now he made "An American Haunting". I knew a while ago he was makingit, yet somehow failed to make the connection when we saw it available on Video On Demand, and we ordered it.....


By the end, Bree was saying "That sucked...." and i was about to agree when the first credit popped up:

"Courtney Solomon"

I said "Well, no shit." loudly enough to almost wake the baby. OF COURSE it sucked. His filmmaking skills resemble the work of a photographer with bad eyesite: Way off the mark, no matter how promising the material.

An American haunting was laughable. The "attacks" on the daughter were RETARDED. Its like they were being haunted by a ghost having a hissy fit... Pulling hair and slapping... Never mind the "Twist"... "Dad was having sex with her! OH Wait, the MODERN Girl's dad will try to have sex with HER!" Pleh!


BORING! LAME! This movie is the kind of movie the band spinal tap would make. Obviously bad, but just pretty enough that you are wondering when the punchlineis going to hit.

I read some posts over on IMDB defending this wiener with crap like "He's only made 2 movies, no one is that good right from the start."

Bullshit. James Cameron. Steven Spielberg. Ridley Scott. There is a huge list of first and second timers who made movies that redefined how we watch movies. Well, I guess Solomon did the same thing, but in more of a Uwe Boll sort of way...

And Dungeons and Dragons.... WHAT A MESS. Here's the checklist:
Talented actors: Jeremy Irons and Thora Birch. Check.
Good Subject Matter: The rich and detailed worlds of the Dungeons and dragons game. Check.
Computers and Multimillion Dollar Budget for effects: Check.
Backing of a huge company: Wizards of the Coast, at the time already owned by Hasbro: Check.
Talented and gifted Writer Director: Che-Ohhh..... Damn...


He managed to get the worst acting possible out of Irons and Birch... Both seemed to fall off the earth for a while after this garbage.
Dungeons and Dragons has, for starters, 3 "basic fantasy" worlds, Greyhawk, Dragonlance (Great Movie potential in this one) and Forgotten Realms, which is probably the biggest, most detailed fantasy world in existance. Add to that expansion universes liek Dark Sun and Ravenloft, and there are literally thousands of potential tales to be told.

So what did he do? He made up his own, and came up with a plot that would have probably kept a D&D playgroup's attention for 10 minutes before they started complaining and killing everything they saw. Yes, nerds do that.

Now, granted, $40 mill isnt a lot for effects these days, but the key is to NOT dump your entire budget into visual effects for one scene (the city scape pans and the dragon battle. Much much worse than it sounds), and focus on smaller locations, a more personal story, and make sure you do a good enough job on a smaller budget to warrant a sequal.

But no. To do those things, you need talent, both as a writer and a director. His casting was terrible. His grasp of the worlds, cultures and basic background of D&D is practically nonexistant. And as a writer, he is only capable of souless, one semidimensional (not even 1 dimensional) sterotype characters that could not be any less likeable.

Wow.. the aspiring wizard... never saw that one coming. Theif who wants more out of life? Yup...seen it before... Wisecracking Black Guy? Wait, this is a fantasy movie, right? Which village has a "hood"?

Lets not get into the almost cuddly looking dragons, the blue lipped darth vader wannabe who inconsistently flip-flops between wanting to be good, and really liking being a bad guy, and the fat ugly elf, plus the black elf.

No, for you D&D fans out there.. not a "Dark Elf", a "Black Elf". "African American Elf" if you prefer. No precedent exists for this anywhere in the game. Sorry.

Then there was his mighty 3 minutes (sorry, "Him" being our retarded hero) long "Quest" to get the Dragon staff thingy of doom, or whatever, the Most Powerful Artifact In the World (Copyright pending). being held by a Lich, which is arguably one o fthe most powerful creatures in all of D&D. Our hero shows his chops by answering some trivia questions slightly more ridiculous that the Bridge Keeper in Monty Python and the holy Grail.

As an aside, there is a part where "Snails"... marlon wayans who, despicably, proves to do the best acting in this movie... is caught ina "rug of Smothering"; a classic Dungeons and Dragons Magic item/trap that is a rug that consumes people who are caught in it by smothering them. Big reach in the name, eh? Well, in this delightful film, it is more of a depression in the floor, filled with oatmeal, and airbrushed to look like a rug. Uh, of Doom.

All of it, predictably ends with him winning. Yay.

Then for some reason, our heros visit the grave of Snails (oh yeah. He died.) and turninginto little balls o flight and flying away. Yes, even in a movie so bad you spend every agonizing moments thinking "Why am i sitting through this?!", they manage to tack on an ending so horrificaly out of left field, you actually begin to question if you were too hard on the rest of the movie.

i will add that the black elf was played by Kristen Wilson, a woman who used to make me yell in anger at her lame delivery of bad jokes as one o fthe hosts of Comedy Central's Stand Up Stand Up back in the mid 90s, she is a god awful actress who looks like Tyra Banks if she had bug-eyes and were hit in the face with a frying pan repeatedly. oh yeah, and if you removed anythign remotely attractive from her body. And in My opinion, she is better looking than she is talented at acting. Yechh.

All of this being said, do i think i could do better?


YES! with my eyes closed, covered inmy own filth, and being beaten with howler monkeys.
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  #2  
Old 11-27-2006, 10:08 AM
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i had no interest in this flick based on the trailer i saw.

working from the logic that if the ad cant make it look appealing .. then the movie itself must be horrible
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Old 11-27-2006, 10:11 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by urgeok View Post
i had no interest in this flick based on the trailer i saw.

working from the logic that if the ad cant make it look appealing .. then the movie itself must be horrible
which one? in the case of D&D, "Dont judge a book by its cover" is wholly inaccurate. It looked like shit, and it was.
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Old 11-27-2006, 10:20 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vodstok View Post
which one?

american haunting
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  #5  
Old 11-27-2006, 10:23 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by urgeok View Post
american haunting
I didnt think it looked terrible. Had i remembered who had made it, i never would have bothered. if i can find a clip of the "attack" scene, you will understand why everyone hated it so much.
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Old 11-27-2006, 10:32 AM
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=ApQNygdEH7E


this is a good example of how not to make a horror movie. It lacks the slapping that i hate so much, but it shows you just how bad the movie is.
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  #7  
Old 11-30-2006, 05:37 PM
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wow.. and i actually wanted to rent that. not going to waste my money now. i seriously cannot trust anyone i work with. people said it was good!
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