Little Fish, Strange Pond (2009)

I love Zach Galafinakis and thus rented this movie. Only made it about 10 minutes into the movie due to the horrible dialogue, bad acting, and hailstorm of cliché topics the movie threw at the viewer. What a stupid! Zach, I am disappointed in you sir. And to the writer and director of this movie. Good try bud, maybe you'd do better as a short order fry cook. The dialogue was so bad I couldn't take it. The issues were thrown in the viewers face so abruptly and with so little tact I couldn't believe it. Boooooo. If you're going to write about things like life and death and all that, that's great, but you have to do it in a way that you don't just come out and say, "hey guys, what's it all about?" In short, terrible writing made me throw up in my mouth a little bit.

This movie appeared to me to be a strange combination of a devilishly dark comedy blended with the bloody gore of cheap horror flicks but with minute sprinklings of philosophy on top. The end result was an incoherent display of cinematic chaos that was disappointing to say the least. The philosophical elements touched upon the controversial subject of predestination where it would not matter what we choose in the realm of Good versus Evil because that is what was supposed to happen no matter what as though such choosing was already determined in advance by Fate as opposed to us being boldly empowered by our Infinite Creator with the unconditional gift of free-will whereby at least as far as our eternal destinies are concerned, WE decide the finality of our fate by our final decisions (preferably based on the experiential wisdom of cosmic enlightenment learned in part from the previous selection of unwise choices that are the inevitable result of being born in the cradle of imperfection), choosing either to forever EMBRACE or forever REJECT Truth, Beauty and Goodness (more gifts from God, the Giver of all Life) thereby surviving our trial trip in the flesh to continue our adventurous journey towards God by progressively becoming more like Him. I perceive the plan of Paradise ascension as having been preordained (God thought about it first and then had His Architects draw up the blueprints for The Plan) but our personal participation in this plan is NOT preordained (even if God should foreknow the freewill acts of His children, such foreknowledge does not in the least abrogate our freedom to choose). As you can probably tell by now, I reject the false teaching that we have no say in the matter when it comes to choosing Good over Evil and faithfully believing in the spiritual reality of God instead of the lifeless theories of a mechanistic materialism that are filled with dead notions that deny and then lie by seeing only with one blinded eye.

I will start this article by conceding some points. yes the film cover is very misleading both in showing what kind of film it is and who the main stars are. Yes the film is made by a porn director who has little experience outside that field although he has directed several episodes of OZ! Every review I have read has hated this film. I think maybe people's opinion may be clouded because it was not the movie they expected when they purchased the DVD. This movie is full of original characters and clever story telling. The dialogue (although not as good) is very much in the Cohen brothers/ Tarantino style of talk for the sake of thought rather than plot development and although the story is quite interesting the film is more about getting you thinking or talking about the issues it raises. IE - what is wrong and what is right and why do these 2 opposing forces exist in the human psyche. This is an original film and should be viewed not as a comedy but as a chance to spend and hour and 10 minutes enjoying some unique characters and discuss a subject which is part of the make up for all our psyches and not as a slapstick comedy that will make you chuckle twice if your lucky. Enter this film with the correct expectations and you are in for a real treat. The film does have a religious undertone but I do not feel it was trying to use religion as anything other than a means to discuss the way we battle with "right and wrong" in our own minds

AKA Frenemy. Whoever put Zach G.'s picture on the front of this owes him and anyone who watches this movie an apology. It's clear that someone was blatantly trying to exploit Zach Galifianakis's fame to dupe people into renting this waste of time. Not only that, but there were so few comedic moments there is no way it should be called a comedy. Dark, yes, I'll give them that but it was as random as watching Family Guy but completely devoid of humor. The only reason that I gave it two stars is because the main cast and most of the acting was pretty solid. It's kind of like the "abstract art" that nobody really gets but so-called "deep thinking" critics say they love just to make you think that they know something that you don't. It was less than an hour an a half long and it still seemed to go on forever. I want my dollar and my 80 minutes back!