Movies - briefly

I've watched a few recently, here's a couple of brief reviews.

Me and Orson Welles is the most recent movie from Richard Linklater. It's well acted, well scripted and quite dull. It seems to be suited to the Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont crowd (Penthouse cinema in Wgtn) where everything is nice enough, without being engaging or challenging. Set during the build-up to the first performance for Welles' Mercury Theatre Players, the movie details the control and influence Welles had, and how the 'me' of the title was pulled in to play Lucius (Zac Efron). Christian McKay as Orson is good, and seems to have a number of his mannerisms down. However he lacks screen presence, I never really bought into the power and mesmerism he was trying to portray - as an example, go watch Carol Reed's Third Man, Welles is hardly in the movie, but steals it.
Story is predictable without any major twists. It's a kinda nothing movie, but would work well for a relax and chill out with a glass of wine flick. As I said, ideal for the Penthouse Cinema crowd.

Dr Caligari, certainly in the WTF is this category. The movie is set in a mental institution and Dr Caligari deals with problems of the libido. It's all very weird and surreal, but in a forced art-school pretentious way without much being achieved. Sure there's a fair amount of boob shots, which are always appreciated, but sitting through the dire dialogue and pointless camera twisting, meh not sure it's worth it. The movie seemed to owe a bit to 'Forbidden Zone', but without that flix quirky charm. There's a number of reviews on the web raving about it's surrealism and mindfuck nature, but from my perspective, there are much better mindfuck bgrades out there. I didn't expect a decent storyline, so was fine with that, it just seemed too contrived and too 'oohhh look at us and our trippiness'. 3/10 on the Bgrade scale.

Me