Congo What a shitfest of a movie. This movie has everything going against it, and absolutely no redeeming qualities. They might as well call it "Jurassic Park 4, with Apes". The references to the apes "testing the security system" is text lifted directly off of JP. I'm not sure of Crichton's role in the movie, but if they lifted the dialogue straight from the novel, he plagiarized himself. The one part I really can't wrap my head around is when the ape is smoking a cigar and drinking a martini. Up until this point, I thought this was a legitimate movie (legitimate in that the director had intentions of making a movie, not a spoof). This part took away all realism and is so fucking retarded, I can't tell if that's supposed to be a comedic bit or if it was genuinely serious. I'd rather watch an Oprah/Stegmann sextape than view this ever again. 1/10
Can't Hardly Wait I love this movie. I heard the non PG-13 version that was cut up was much better, and I am bummed it was never released that way on DVD. Still, I love all the people that went on to have decent careers that are minor characters in this movie. One of my favorite '90s movies. The soundtrack is so representative of the time period. There are so many funny parts. The geek in the movie was the kid in Hook and these are his only two roles. It's got a bunch of people from my favorite show of all-time. Six Feet Under. Good way to kill 90 minutes. I feel like American Pie took a lot of things from this one. 80/100
Kansas City Confidential (1952) A crime noir about a man who contacts three different criminals while wearing a mask, recruits them to rob an armored car, and on the day of the heist, has all four of them wear masks. Afterwards, they each get a marker, and are told to go to different parts of Mexico, before meeting together in a small town to split the money. In the process, they use a florist's truck that stops close to the armored car each morning, framing an innocent ex-con who was a hero during WW2. Said man, Joe, decides to track down the gang. While generally intelligent and logical in its plot development, "Kansas City Confidential" suffers from some 50's American film cliches (hero never kills anyone in a bloody crime noir!) and occasional slow pacing, but is elevated by the interesting premise, good dialogue, and excellent acting. Of the recognizable actors, there is a very young, clean-shaven Lee Van Cleef. There is genuine tension and excitement in a lot of scenes, and the story is rarely predictable. The romance subplot with Joe and a woman related to one of the criminals was unnecessary and only became sillier further along into the movie, but was partially redeemed by the acting and script. An unrealistic, overly happy, and poor ending hurts it somewhat. Pretty good movie. 69/100
Hot Tub Time Machine 2010 I almost can't believe my own post, but this film is good. It doesn't take itself seriously, all the good jokes were not in the previews and most importantly for a film like this the pacing is superb. The movie had a great flow, many times with new comedy's (Saving Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up) the film slows down a bit when it try's to dive to deep into the story or the love plot line in the movie. This one doesn't and really delivers. Great cameos by Chevy Chase and an amazing one by Crispin Glover help an already excellent cast. Going back in time is not a new idea, going back to the 80's is and it was done well. They have some gross out jokes but don't rely on them they also don't force you on the road to awkwardville like "I love you man" and some of the other new comedy's out presently. I'm not sure if I was expecting such a crappy movie and was surprised or if I was just pleased to see a comedy without Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogan or Will Farrell in it but I really enjoyed this movie. Quick, funny, a perfect movie to rent. Spoiler Although it was a tad predictable in some spots it never took itself seriously, the parts with Crispin Glover almost losing his arm were fantastic. 7.625/10 **pretty high for a comedy*****
Short and spot on. THE WICKER MAN (2006) The 1973 original, which was hailed as a classic of British horror, has an ending that still shocks. The 2006 remake is also riveting but for all the wrong reasons, combining Neil LaBute's trademark misogyny taken reductio ad absurdum with some of the most preposterously hammy acting of Nicolas Cage's career. And that's saying something. The film's high (or low) point comes when Cage, dressed in a bear suit, cold-cocks a young maiden. Yes, you read that right. The pic really sells it.
Piranha (1978) The second remake of this film out in theatres right now sucks. Now, granted I haven't seen it yet and it's directed by Alex Aja, but it's one of those films that you can tell it sucks just by seeing the splashy previews (Varisty Blues and Smoking Aces are prime examples) where a resort that only Sears undies models party at is attacked by you-know-what. The original, directed by Joe Dante, produced by schlock master Roger Corman and written by film genius John Sayles is masterful and funny, a violent spoof on Jaws and other classic sci-fi thrillers with a game list of past b-list players, tons of inside jokes for movie buffs and a pace that never slows down. Essentially, a mutated breed of red bellies is accidentally let into a river, and inevitably make their way to a kid's summer camp. Havoc ensues. Try this one out, you might like it. The sequel is directed by James Cameron in his film debut, and it sucks to say the very least. 7/10
Bronson This movie was close to brilliant. The pacing went at the same mid/slow speed the entire movie. Even in scenes of action nothing was rushed and it felt like this was the way this man's mind works. Building to slow crescendos on this dark path to no where. It was mainly the title character the whole film. Him, you and his imagination. In scenes where there were other people you craved for him to get back to it just being the two of you. It reminded me so much of our generation and its desire to be famous for something even if that something adds nothing and even detracts from society as a whole. He is clearly insane and does harm to anyone save his born with family that even attempts to befriend him or treat him humanely. I found myself many times laughing at his approach because of not only the absurdity but the near convincing practicality of what can only be described as a mission of chaos with near abandon.
JAWS 1975 I'm sure almost every board member has seen this film. If you have not, rent it. The film despite being over thirty years old still is amazing. The special affects are really not bad, the Shark for the most part is very tangible. Spoiler Except at the end when it eats Quinn Two things to really appreciate from this film, one is Speilberg's ability to tell a story. He builds up such anticipation and anxiety that you are literally on the edge of your seat the entire film. Everyone knows he is extraordinary this is a great example of why. (I believe it was only his second movie as well?) The second thing to focus on was the monumental performance of Robert Shaw. Shaw was a well known and well respected actor before Jaws this just continued to show his range. Shaw (who is English) plays the shark fisherman Quinn, the character the town has to hire to save their beaches. The high point of the film is towards the end when Quinn tells a story about being on the USS Indianapolis. There is no shark in this scene, no blood but it is one of the best scenes in cinematic history. It ends with Quinn saying "So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945". Absolutely amazing. Many fruitless attempts have been made to make another Shark movie and despite all the technology and insane special affects you will not find one that can hold a candle to Jaws. If you have not seen it watch the movie that made America afraid to go swimming, if you have not seen it for a while watch it again and pay special attention to the brilliance of Shaw, especially because he was rumored to have been drunk half the time! Quinn's Speech many USS Indianapolis survivors feel indebted to Shaw for this scene Spoiler Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into her side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. We'd just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half-hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that in the water, Chief? You can tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was that our bomb mission was so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin' by, so we formed ourselves into tight groups. It was sorta like you see in the calendars, you know the infantry squares in the old calendars like the Battle of Waterloo and the idea was the shark come to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and sometimes that shark he go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin'... 'til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin' and your hollerin' those sharks come in and... they rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks there were, maybe a thousand. I do know how many men, they averaged six an hour. Thursday mornin', Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boson's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up, down in the water, he was like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. At noon on the fifth day, a Lockheed Ventura swung in low and he spotted us, a young pilot, lot younger than Mr. Hooper here, anyway he spotted us and a few hours later a big ol' fat PBY come down and started to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went into the water. 316 men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.
...if we're gonna do really good Speilberg... Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) This in my opinion may be the greatest sci-fi film ever. It's no doubt one of my favourite films of all. Instead of invading evildoers, Speilberg paints a slow build-up of man's first contact with aliens with wide brushstrokes. Richard Dreyfuss is a frustrated working schmo who becomes obsessed with finding the truth about it when he is psychically linked after seeing a U.F.O. Everything in this film holds up to today's standards. It has stunning, powerhouse special effects that are still impressive after more than 30 years, and it has a marvelous aura of menace and intrigue that mounts and mounts (especially during the chilling scene of the little boy's abduction). It's not with a sense of humour, but like E.T. is has a memorable bittersweet ending and one of John Williams' best music scores of all. 10/10
An e-friend on another site convinced me to go back and write mini-reviews for some older films I had seen; Wild Strawberries (1957) Ingmar Bergman thought "Citizen Kane" was a lousy film. While unusual, it's hard to dismiss the criticism considering Bergman was an even greater director than Orson Welles, and made a very similar film, "Wild Strawberries", that was significantly better. A medical professor in his late seventies takes a trip to a local university where he is to receive an honor. He is accompanied by his daughter-in-law, who dislikes him, and along they way, they meet with various hitchhikers. Repeatedly, the doctor suffers from horrifying surrealist dreams, regret and sadness over his past life, personality, failed marriage, and fear of his impending death, which is a constant specter over him. I'm not usually one for such "artsy" films, but damn if this isn't one of the most amazing works of art I have ever experienced. There is no big death or mystery here; only a film that confronts human regret, fear, and frailty like no ever. The ensemble acting performance is among the best ever, with every character having a clear role and impact. The emotional impact during some scenes is dizzying and overwhelming. One of my ten favorite films. 94/100
Jaws, its' a classic I agree. However the only reason it didn't suck was Spielberg couldn't make his shark work and so had to use suspense, strong characters and believable dialogue instead. Given his own way that one bad scene with the shark would have lasted 90 minutes. Unfortunatly after the success of Jaws the shark always worked.
I noticed a friend of mine recently watched a film with a funny title; The Switchblade Sisters (1975)- A 70's exploitation film about a group of violent motorcycle gang girls that have sex, commit crimes, and do time in jail. They are allied with a local motorcycle male gang, but trouble begins when a rival infringes upon their turf. It's amusing at first with its horrible acting and half-intentional hilarity, but quickly goes downhill by mixing dumbass speeches and dead-serious moments with the funny. A drive-by followed by a gang-rape as the girl screams for mercy just doesn't work well with cheeseball physical comedy. Can't fucking imagine why. As a result, it progresses from funny and light-hearted to fucking stupid and unnecessary by the end. 33/100
IHTSBIH Rented it with the GF on Saturday night, and tried to ignore all the wanky hype that the old board spewed about it while watching. I think I laughed 3 times, she laughed twice, not big laughs, the sort that HIMYM gets 2-3 of per 25 minutes. It wasn't a rancid steamer, nor was it anything new. If anything it felt extremely formulae and forced with the Tucker character being impossible to like (not in a good way). The biggest criticism however is the dialog and character interaction, it’s like it was written by someone with arseburgers, none of the motivations fit, this makes the whole thing seem hollow and fake. Both the wench and I agreed, it's a forgettable 5 star effort.
I have seen something like 12 movies since my last post, so let's review the best one; Scarlet Street (1945) Highly praised by Scoresese in his documentary, and man, did it deliver. I had seen two other films by Fritz Lang before, M and Metropolis, and this Hollywood-made noir is significantly better than either. Chris Cross is a broken-down, middle-aged, ugly cashier with a wife who hates him, unfavorably comparing him to her first husband, a police inspector who died five years ago. A meek man, Cross's sole enjoyment out of life is painting every Sunday. One night, he finds a woman being beaten in the streets by a man. After coming to her aid, he finds it is a beautiful young woman calling herself "Kitty". Little does he know that the man beating Kitty is the boyfriend she is madly in love with, and that she doesn't mind the violence one bit. After speaking with Chris, she believes him to be a wealthy painter, and at the urging of her slimy boyfriend Johnny, decides to squeeze him for money. I won't spoil what happens next, but suffice to say there are several subplots which all unfold in highly unexpected ways. It's deliciously dark and evil, and Edward Robinson's downtrodden Chris Cross is exceptional. You can feel the dejection, the defeat, the hopelessness in every facial expression and step he takes. He portrays the whole gamut of emotions, even murderous rage. In fact, the whole ensemble cast is tremendous; Joan Bennett as the devious bitch Kitty, and Dan Duryea as the charming scumbag Johnny are better than most modern-day Oscar winners. The only slight weakness is the ending, although on the plus side, it contains one of the most haunting images I have seen in a film in a long time. "Scarlet Street" is a truly all-time great film, and available in its entirety on Youtube. 81/100
I finally got around to seeing Ip Man after dragging my heels for ages. It's the partly fictionalised story of Wing Chun Grandmaster Ip Man and his struggles during the Japanese occupation of China in the late 1930s. It tells the story of his realisation that he can't keep his martial arts to himself when the country is at war through to his escape to Hong Kong. With most kung fu films, the story line is secondary to the action - that's what we all want to see. Knowing a bit about it*, Donnie Yen does a great job (especially for someone who had to learn Wing Chun for the movie). The choreographer was Sammo Hung. The close up/chop change camera crap is there, but thankfully it's restrained. You can get a good feeling for the speed of the style. The fight against the ten Japanese was probably the highlight of the film for me and is the closest in terms of spirit to the Wing Chun I do. I thought the fight in the cotton mill was good for the use of the rat tail pole (barge punt) as a lot of people think it's an impractical weapon at best. The last fight against the Japanese general was a bit of a let down, except that it shows a good practical rendition of how wooden dummy is applied. My version of the film had some good extras, including a documentary on Wing Chun. It may only be in the Australian version, but it's done by a Melbourne Sifu who I don't know and haven't heard of. Most of the stuff he says is accurate (if a little sanitised). But I didn't think much of his practical demonstrations. * Some people here know I'm a martial artist. Our style includes a complete Wing Chun system descending from Ip Man through Hong Kong, via Wong Shen Lung. Our version of Si Num Tao, for example, includes a little movement that doesn't appear in most other styles. The story goes that Wong Shen Lung got kicked during one of his infamous duels and went back to Ip Man complaining about it, so they introduced a small angling block for that kick and it's been incorporated every since. The Wing Chun appearing in the film is pretty accurate, allowing for sylistic differences.
Scorsese's recommendations keep delivering; Point Blank (1967) The film that "Payback" was based on; Walker is double-crossed by both his own wife and friend/crime partner Reese to get his half of the money from a job. Shot and left for dead, he takes on both Reese and the syndicate he works for with a single, simple demand; "where's my money?!". However, outside the general plot, Point Blank is nothing like "Payback". While a very good film in its own right, the Mel Gibson vehicle was just a straightforward action picture. Meanwile, this one is an incredible surrealist crime film, with a constant, disturbing atmosphere of uncertainty. Bizarre flashbacks to Walker's past, discontinuous events, and hours passing in what seems like seconds on screen all add to the disorientation. More than once, I questioned if everything I was watching was just an acid dream, and Walker had really died at the beginning. The kills and crime story itself are damn exciting, and the actors excellent, especially Lee Marvin as the silent, emotionless, barely human Walker. He's more of a ghost or a zombie than anything; maybe he is simply the Angel of Death. It's one of the most insanely tense films I have ever watched, with its unexpected, sudden violence. The ending, like the rest of the movie, caught me by surprise. A wonderful example of how to elevate a decent crime film into something special through outstanding direction. 77/100
The Conversation (1974) Francis Ford Coppola followed up The Godfather with this film which is possibly just as great. Gene Hackman plays a reclusive surveillance pro (a role he played later in Enemy Of The State) hired to record a couple's conversation in a public place and becomes obsessed with finding what their fate may be. The film is very brooding and dripping with claustrophobia and paranoia. It's shot in a pin drop formula that at times will make the palms sweat . It's dated but very believable, and Harrison Ford is memorably creepy as the man who hires Hackman. Not many people I know have seen this one, but try it out and crank up the volume for it. Trust me, it's a gem. One of the best films of the 70's. 9/10
Here is a weird one; Bad Taste (1987) Peter Jackson's first film, which took him several years to make while still a student. It's an action horror splatter comedy about aliens coming to Earth so they can harvest humans as a type of delicious fast food. The amount of mutilations, gore, and downright weird, disgusting events is high, and Jackson usually finds a way to put a funny twist on it. Overall, it's a clever satire of action and horror cliches, but it's very unpolished and poorly presented. Also, the subplot with Derek's character (played by Peter Jackson himself) was boring and often just nauseating. A watchable, moderately entertaining film from a talented guy still figuring things out. 50/100 Edit- According to what I read, Peter Jackson perfected the gore comedy formula with his later film, Dead Alive.
I watched this years ago while taking a study break at work, at 2am, hopped up on caffeine. I can review it in five words: