yakikorosu Reviews

Macbeth (I) (2015)

A well-intentioned movie that misses the point

[5/10 · 7 January 2019]

For all the constant haunting violins, beautiful sunsets and striking landscapes shown in this film, it somehow completely misses the point of the story it adapts. I could accept a "loose" adaptation of MacBeth that skips about half of the play, modifies the order of scenes, combines other scenes together, gives lines said by one character to another character, and invents some plot points outright, if this retained the core of MacBeth, but this does not at all. Instead, Michael Fassbender mumbles and whisper-talks his way through a dull, practically wooden performance that strips MacBeth of what makes him an interesting character: his internal struggle where morality and reason fight against opportunism and ambition. The film is made like the director thinks MacBeth is nothing but a play about a violent guy and the various people who kills. I daresay if that's all MacBeth were, we wouldn't still be performing it 400 years after it was written. Instead of Shakespeare's beautiful poetry, the movie is drowned in over-art-directed vistas and just plain bad directoral choices (like setting the entire first 10 minutes of the film as a battle that is shot almost entirely in ludicrous slow motion--the kind of thing a first-year film student who has just seen "300" might think is a good idea).

If you want to see MacBeth presented in a cinematic style rather than as a play, I suggest the far superior 1971 version by Roman Polanski.

Time Out (2001)

Vacuous waste

[4/10 · 17 May 2013]

I found Time Out to be an insipidly dull and uninteresting mess, with nary an ounce of emotion or insight to be gleaned. The main culprits are the script, which fails to offer any kind of insight into the protagonist's baffling actions, and the direction, which drags out the uninteresting details of his mind-numbing scheme interminably instead of attempting to connect you with any of the characters on an emotional level. When making a film about a "regular" person doing things as ridiculous as these, it is crucial to do these things, and Time Out does neither. Instead, I was stuck for two astonishingly slow hours watching a man the film never tells me anything about engage in a laughably amateurish plot for reasons that make no sense. The "tension" I have read reviews praise this film for generating must have been surgically removed before the film made its way into my DVD player, because last time I checked, tension over a film's events requires at least an iota of engagement with what is occurring on screen, which this film seems utterly uninteresting in eliciting.

The Man from Earth (2007)

Very weak attempt at a "think" sci-fi piece

[5/10 · 15 September 2012]

First off, I am a huge fan of "think" sci-fi pieces, from Arthur Clarke to Fred Pohl to my personal favorite, Philip K. Dick, and have always thought the genre woefully underrepresented in films. So when I found out about this film and saw the high IMDb score (it was an 8.0 at the time) I eagerly bought it, only to be extremely disappointed.

The biggest culprit here is the acting, which ranges from "B" quality at best to "Z" quality most of the time. It's particularly bad in the first 20 minutes of the film, and the only actor who gets into any kind of groove as it goes on is Tony Todd. The story is also rather uninteresting--Jerome Bixby just took the story to the Star Trek episode "Requiem for Methuselah," which was a mediocre episode to begin with, and remade it at 2x the length. Unless you are thrilled at the idea of hearing lengthy discussions about the geographical layout of the Earth in the cro-magnon period, the first half of the movie is a complete waste.

The film tries to regroup later on with a rather ambitious religious angle, and rides that to a few interesting scenes, but it lacks the insight to really explore the nuances of the subject matter, preferring an attack on religious conventions with the subtlety of a photon torpedo. To top it all off, there's a ridiculous, unnecessary, surprise ending that is worthy of M. Night Shyamalan (in case you're not sure, this is NOT a compliment).

In the end, this is just a really overlong mediocre Twilight Zone episode, except with worse acting than they typically had on that show. Perhaps it has such an inflated rating on this site because 90% of its votes came from non-US users, who maybe saw this film dubbed or with subtitles, masking the poor acting.

Kung Fu Zombie (1981)

Underrated fun!

[7/10 · 7 May 2009]

Okay, so the only reason I ever saw this movie to begin with was because I found the used DVD (the Black Belt Theatre version) on sale for $2 in a local video store in the middle of nowhere. I honestly expected it to stink to high heaven, and only bought it for the funny title. To my surprise, I really enjoyed it! I'm pretty confused at most of the reviews I see on the web for this movie calling it a "horror" film, because this is a comedy pure and simple. Everything is so ridiculous that it's absolutely hilarious, from the "wizard's" goofy dancing whenever he casts "spells," to the scene where they're out "shopping" for corpses, to the protagonist's complete indifference as to whether his obnoxious father lives or dies. The dub is absolutely hilarious (I've seen probably over a hundred dubbed movies/shows and this is, no kidding, one of the most effective ones I've ever seen, though it's obviously much easier to dub a goofy comedy than a drama), and it makes excellent use of music at hilarious times. I also have to give a hearty thanks to the editor for the Americanized version, who clearly edited out at least half an hour of what was clearly dull story, leaving absolutely nothing but kung fu and comedy scenes.

If you have the capacity to enjoy goofy, ridiculous movies and slapstick humor, I fully recommend this. The closest thing I can compare it to is a super low-budget version of Kung Fu Hustle. I only wish the DVD transfer were better (it's watchable, but the scenes in dark places can be hard to make out).

The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954)

Disappointingly vacuous

[4/10 · 23 April 2008]

The best thing I can say is that it's clear the U.S. Navy cooperated a *lot* making this picture, as there's very nice and real plans and ships and everything all over the place. Unfortunately, this is one of those movies where the exposition--you know, the part kind of 'setting up' the major conflicts--takes up 3/4 of the movie. Up until the titular attack on "the bridges at Toko Ri," we have an hour and a half of, well, I'm not sure--mostly of Mickey Rooney being alternately silly and angry, Holden's family spending time together, and an absolutely astonishing amount of airplanes taking off and landing. Landing (or inability to land) airplanes accounts for right about 100% of the conflict in this film until the last 10 minutes. For a film that I suppose was trying to be a thinking, feeling man's war film, there is a curious lack of thinking or feeling. Various characters appear for a scene or two, engage in some overwrought meditation about war or male bonding, and then other characters replace them. The most consistently significant character throughout the film is actually Mickey Rooney, who unfortunately is stuck playing a silly, one-dimensional role. And that's really the #1 problem here: this film wants to be more about the characters than about the war, but the characters are cliché and contrived. Well, that and it's just plain dull.

Confidential Report (1955)

The Orient Express of train wrecks

[4/10 · 13 April 2008]

Even the inherent beauty of an Orson Welles film and an interesting story can't overcome bad editing, terrible pacing, sub par acting and an awful dub. The problems start early on when you notice that, what do you know, the dialogue just doesn't really match the lip movements. They're always a bit ahead or a bit behind or just plain off. This is no mere technical gripe--the constant distraction ruined any chance of immersiveness that's so important to Welles' visual style, constantly reminding me that this is "just a movie." A further problem, which is kind of hard to explain in text, is that the lines are not read like dialogue for a movie. Instead, they're read just like a radio show--like there's nothing to pay attention to except whatever the characters are saying. This combined with the frenetic editing results in most of the film being an endless barrage of spoken narration and dialogue with nary a break between lines. It sounds like the actors are trying to get through the script as quickly as humanly possible, and thus the nice acting of many characters is lost because it all sounds so staged. Finally, the acting of two of the leads, Robert Arden and Paula Mori (including whoever dubbed her voice), is terrible. Their characters are supposed to provide a lot of the film's emotion, but they have no chemistry or charisma. Orson Welles himself does a nice job, but constantly seems to be overacting because he's matched against such wooden and cloying performances.

The only reason one would watch this, except for being a Welles completist, is for some very beautiful camera-work, but even that is only on display in bursts here and there. And the story, while having a lot of potential, is told in such a haphazard way that it cannot be said to have been realized to any degree. The last quarter of the film in particular includes some actions by both Arkadin and Van Stratten that seem maddeningly incomprehensible, as well as a five-minute-long segment consisting almost entirely of a minor character repeatedly asking for goose liver.

I would recommend watching The Lady From Shanghai instead of this for a film with similar themes that works despite even more pronounced attempts by the studio to butcher Welles' work.

The Supreme Court (2007– )

Good, if relatively brief, history of the Supreme Court

[8/10 · 19 March 2008]

This is a nice documentary for those interested in the evolution and major decisions of the Supreme Court from its creation in the late 1700's through about 2005. Being only four hours long in total, there is not nearly enough time to cover every important decision in the Court's history, so it focuses on four important eras in the Court's existence: the fight to gain respectability as a significant branch of the Federal Government in the early 1800's, the battle over whether the Constitution prohibits government interference with contract and employment in the early 1900's, the civil rights cases of the Warren Court in the 1950's and 60's, and the troubled yet gradual "conservative revolution" on the Supreme Court from the 70's to today. It also focuses closely on one justice from each of those periods, respectively, Justices John Marshall, Holmes, Black, and Rehnquist. Other significant justices like Harlan I, Field, Brandeis, Frankfurter, Douglas, Warren, Brennan, Scalia, and O'Connor are also briefly discussed.

What's there is well done. There are a lot of photos and nice interviews (including several commentaries by current Chief Justice John Roberts), and a lot of color on the four justices it focuses on. The discussions of the cases are lively and not too technical, although viewers without any knowledge of constitutional law might benefit from watching the show with someone more familiar with it, as there really isn't enough time to explain the basics in great detail.

The subject matter is chosen well to appeal to people with different opinions on the Supreme Court: you get one justice who fought to expand the Court's power (Marshall), one justice who fought to restrain it (Holmes), one liberal justice who led the fight for civil rights (Black), and one conservative justice who sought to rein in liberal reforms (Rehnquist). Although the last episode mentions events occurring as late as 2005, the last case discussed is 2000's Bush v. Gore.

It's by no means everything you could hope to learn about the Court or Constitutional Law, but once you accept the relatively modest scope, it does what it sets out to do and does it well.

White Slaves of Chinatown (1964)

Interesting as a first attempt at the "abused women" genre

[4/10 · 15 December 2007]

Basically, Olga's a bad person who likes to turn girls into drug-addicted prostitutes, which involves a lot of torturing them into submission. In 1964 I'm sure the torture scenes and all-but-shown lesbianism would have been shocking, but today it won't even raise an eyebrow. Acting is extremely poor--the vast majority of the girls supposedly being horribly tortured look more put out and bored rather than in pain, and the plot is nonexistent. There is no dialog, just voice-over narration, with a few comments from Olga but mostly by an upright male who is incensed at her methods. The musical score is extremely annoying, especially when it consists of "Chinese" music that the filmmakers must have only had about two minutes of, forcing them to loop it over and over. Oh and speaking of Chinese, this movie is pretty overtly racist, underhandedly blaming the Chinese for a lot of society's woes, even though there is a grand total of one Asian character (a nameless henchman who is in maybe two scenes) in the entire film.

It was interesting to see where the genre came from, but I'm only giving it as high as a four for unintentional hilarity and some wonderfully ridiculous overacting by Olga.

Vsyo budet khorosho (1995)

Low budget but charming comedy

[7/10 · 1 December 2007]

This charming comedy tracks the lives of several romantic pairs through trials and tribulations. The main focus of the story is a young soldier with a good heart but little ambition and his fiancée, who feels torn when a charming and sophisticated intellectual enters her life and sweeps her off her feet. There are also several side stories, also all dealing with relationships, most significantly the soldier's mother, whose comfortable but unexceptional marriage is threatened when a past love returns to her life. The other stories are mostly there for comic effect, and some, particularly the tale of the elderly man determined to reach his long-lost wife in a very... creative... way, are very funny and even moving. I very much enjoyed the stories, though a weird subplot about a visiting Japanese businessman who acts sort of like a deus ex machina for one story seemed somewhat odd and tacked-on.

The film is very low-budget and simple, film-making-wise, but pretty well acted. The actress who plays Olga does a particularly nice job.

I would recommend it to those interested in a relationship comedy with some serious moments as well. There's nothing really deep being explored here, but there are plenty of charming moments and even some surprises in the resolutions of the stories.

For parents, there is brief partial female nudity in a comedic scene and some implied sexuality and one fight scene towards the end.

The Bodyguard (1973)

Awful

[2/10 · 6 June 2007]

I liked Chiba in Street Fighter, and I figured hey, no matter how stupid this movie will be, I'll at least get to see him kick some ass, right? Wrong. This is a dull, dreary mess of pointless talking, half-assed scriptwriting and meaningless scheming. There are few action scenes of any kind, even fewer martial arts scenes, and the few that are are shot and edited so poorly that you can't even make out what in the world is going on. The dub is also atrocious, and perhaps the idiocy that is this movie is best illustrated by the fact that it prominently features the *Italian* Mafia... but they're all played by *Japanese* actors! Avoid like the plague--you would see better martial arts by looking through the window of your local preschool karate class for five minutes.

Eros (2004)

Three short films of vastly different quality

[6/10 · 3 June 2007]

Wong Kar Wai's segment is excellent. It's amazing how sexually charged it is, especially considering there is no nudity and no graphic scene of intercourse of any kind. Gong Li is striking, and the piece practically oozes ambiance.

Soderbergh's is cute and funny, but more like a long joke than a film, and is about as "erotic" as watching Seinfeld. If not for the welcome presence of Alan Arkin, it would be difficult to handle.

Antonioni's is a dull mess, and his idea of eroticism is apparently copious amounts of random nudity. The ADR on his piece is also very poor, and the acting not much better.

8/10 for Wai's, 6/10 for Soderbergh's, and 3/10 for Antonioni's. If you're looking for an "erotic" film experience, stop watching after the first piece.

The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

Good sets, bad everything else

[4/10 · 18 May 2007]

I for one was very disappointed with this film. It has some really nice sets, especially for the time, but nothing else works. For one, the suspenseful and interesting short story is totally butchered by the needless inclusion of Hollywood stereotypes: the damsel in distress, the obnoxious comic relief character, the huge stupid henchman, etc. The film drags along for 2/3 of its 60 minute length before deteriorating into one long action sequence. The writing is so lacking in subtext or realism that it becomes almost laughable (a man who is being eaten by a shark screams not "Ahhh!" not "Help!" but rather "It got me!"). The plot is helped along by several ridiculous contrivances that had me rolling my eyes far too often for such a short film. And maybe in the 1930s audiences were just far less sophisticated, but the storytelling goes way past foreshadowing and into "let's make it blatantly obvious what's going to happen" territory.

What really hurts the movie most though, is the acting. Leslie Banks is so over the top and silly that he becomes somewhat appealing, but this movie takes itself too seriously to be "so bad it's good." McCrea is mediocre at best, and Fay Wray totally writes in her part. I can't in all good faith recommend this to anyone, not even fans of the story.

Scanners (1981)

Occasionally creative but mostly just plain bad

[3/10 · 1 February 2007]

On the good side, the special exploding body effects are good and the "artist" scanner's sculptures are memorable and disturbing.

On the bad side, the lead actor, Stephen Lack, has about the acting ability of a brick. I haven't seen acting this bad outside of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The movie moves slowly and fills the long spaces between action with overly involved exposition or pointless filler, and the "twist" at the end of the film is cheesy enough to make one cringe.

Cronenberg is a great director, but only when he has a budget for something other than just special effects and only when he DOESN'T write the screenplay. Avoid.

Saw II (2005)

Tries so hard to be chock full of plot twists that it forgets to have a plot to twist.

[4/10 · 10 November 2006]

All I wanted out of this movie was people trying to outwit sick twisted traps. Is that too much to ask? I won't spoil the movie by giving details, but most of the movie ends up being simply about a psycho chasing people with a knife (there is more to it than that but that's what it boils down to). Gee, how original.

We don't even get to see most of the traps that Jigsaw designed for the victims. There is no character development of anyone at all except hyper-basic traits that govern everything they do. Finally, the ending tries to put so huge a surprise twist on the movie that there ceases to be an explanation for what the point of everything we've seen in the movie is.

Even the concept of the Saw franchise is abandoned. Instead of helping people by reawakening their self-preservation and rewarding those who are willing to suffer pain to save their own lives, the way the trapped house is set up simply rewards physical strength and intimidation. So what the hell is the point? I actually enjoyed this movie while watching it because I liked the beginning and was hoping that the ending would make the pointless knife chasing scenes worth it. But in the end it feels like a ripoff. The movie has zero rewatch value, but is kind of entertaining while you watch before you get to the idiotic ending.

War of the Worlds (2005)

A waste of some nice special effects

[4/10 · 16 August 2005]

A somewhat promising start quickly degenerates into a disjointed mess. I won't even mention how difficult it is to accept the perfectly built Cruise (he takes his shirt off in the film) as a blue-collar slob, because this movie has plenty of other problems. What should be an epic film about, well, a War of the Worlds, instead becomes a terribly melodramatic soap opera about Cruise and his misfit kids. And some really annoying kids they are, constantly doing the stupidest thing possible at the moment. I like Dakota Fanning, but I quickly started wishing that the kids would just get killed so we could see more of the aliens. Instead, the film rapidly abandons its one interesting and emotionally impacting scene (the one where Cruise and family deal with the crowd of people) and we spend practically the entire second half stuck in a dingy basement with a histrionic Fanning, a muttering Tim Robbins, and a panic-stricken Cruise, punctuated by a woefully tedious 'hide from the alien tentacle' scene that felt about 30 minutes long.

The movie also badly fails to get across any sense of global danger or devastation. There are only a few very brief scenes of the military trying to fight the tripods, and except for rumors and conjecture from a few random characters, we never have any idea of what is happening in the rest of the world. The film ends with the cryptic narrated statement that "No one lives or dies in vain," but what in the world that has to do with the rest of the film escapes me. Perhaps there was a deep message here that I was too bored to notice, but I seriously doubt it.

The plot holes are also innumerable and blatantly obvious. I won't be specific as to avoid spoilers, but no one noticed huge spaceships buried under the ground for millions of years? Where in the world is the aliens' 'special lightning' COMING from? How does Cruise's car constantly survive unscratched when everything around it is being destroyed? How could the aliens have studied the planet for millions of years and yet apparently know almost nothing about it? This film started out merely average and flawed, but when Cruise and Fanning get to the basement, it becomes downright dull. As cheesy and overacted as it was, I seriously believe that Independence Day was still a far better alien invasion film than this one.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Far better than the first two, but not for the right reasons...

[6/10 · 19 May 2005]

Revenge of the Sith occupies an odd position in terms of its' fans expectations--pretty much everyone who cares even a bit about the Star Wars saga knows exactly what's going to happen in the film, at least in a broad sense. The thrill that people flock to the theaters for is to see HOW it happens--how the monumental original trilogy will be connected to the far more lackluster recent two films to complete one of the grandest (at least in terms of popularity) movie sagas of all time.

George Lucas, thus, has the best possible material to work here that money can buy. He gets to depict events that will be exciting to a Star Wars fan no matter how well they're done; even Jar Jar Binks (probably) couldn't spoil them. So does Lucas rise to the hopes of movie fans and create a movie that's considerably better than The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones? Not really. Don't get me wrong--the film is FAR more enjoyable than those two, but it's more in spite of Lucas than because of him.

Just as the three original films followed Luke Skywalker, the three prequels follow Anakin Skywalker, and it is in this film that we bear witness to the great transformation that's been known to Star Wars fans for many years. This film's role, then, is to show how it happened and why. Well, it certainly does the former, but the latter doesn't fare so well. Anakin's development at first grinds along at a snail's pace and then suddenly kicks into overdrive, with him seeming to transform into a whole new character entirely in the span of one short scene. Of course Lucas has been hinting at this in none-too-subtle ways from the beginning of Attack of the Clones, but there seems to be no bridge of any kind between mere glimmers and the actual completed change. The one reason this film keeps pounding home seems rather flimsily constructed. Neither is the reason why viewers will find Yoda where he is in The Empire Strikes Back very convincing; the master explains it away with one cryptic line that left me asking "...why?" What this movie does do well is visuals and music, particularly in the battle scenes. And yes folks, this movie is loaded to the brim with fighting. Spaceships fight, armies fight, Jedi fight, even Wookies fight. And that fighting looks and sounds utterly fantastic. The four-armed General Grievous is particularly fun to watch. The acting is a mixed bag. Ian McDiarmid and Ewan McGregor carry this film--Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman's speaking roles seem comparatively minor. The few scenes the latter two get are unfortunately just as cheesy as their hammy romance in AotC, but blessedly are all much shorter.

Lucas goes out of his way over and over again in this film to connect to the original three movies. C3PO and R2D2 are everywhere, often with no apparent reason, and even Chewbacca and Wedge make brief cameos. Jar Jar Binks is thankfully completely absent (he is seen a few times, but never heard). Unfortunately, Lucas has no subtlety, and much of these connections come from the various characters that recur later in the form of simply repeating, word for word, lines that they've already uttered in the sequels. McDiarmid's script is unfortunately particularly laden with this. Then again, the script in general is overall poor--filled to the brim with cheesy declarations like "It's over; I have the high ground!" and a prolonged scream of "No!!!" that makes William Shatner's "Khan!!!" in Star Trek II seem like Shakespeare in comparison.

It's a good thing this movie is so damn pretty and the fight scenes so enthralling. They were all along, really, it's just this movie has so many MORE of them than TPM and AotC. It's not directed or written any better than they are, it simply removes a lot of what has been bad all along and replaces it with more of what's been good all along, in the process combining it with material that's only as powerful as it is because of the three original films. And while it does finally form the SW films into one cohesive epic, it does so in a way that never approaches, much less exceeds, the inherent quality of its material. While I will give this a 7/10, that grade is more for the special effect crews and the composer than anything more substantial.

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Impressive visuals but poor script and uneven acting

[6/10 · 18 May 2005]

I can't help but think that Ridley Scott got in a wee bit over his head when he got it in his mind to creature a picture that satisfies as both a Gladiator-esquire tale of gritty ancient combat, a Lord of the Rings-style war epic AND an intellectual commentary on religion and fanaticism.

But let's start with the good points. The visuals are at times sumptuous. Seeing two huge armies come face to face, particularly the Crusader army with their gigantic golden cross, sent a little thrill through me. The mandatory 'big battle' at the end is relatively impressive too, although it would have been far more so if Peter Jackson hadn't already done it much better in The Two Towers.

Some of the acting (Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton and Ghassan Massoud in particular) is spot-on, and captures well the feel that this movie should have held on to--a battle, albeit for contrived reasons, between valorous, if brutal, men. Norton (as the Christian king) and Massoud (as Saladin) come off as the real stars of the show--two starkly different but equally fascinating characters trying to balance honor and expediency in the face of all out war. Unfortunately, both get little screen time.

Instead, we get the angel-faced Orlando Bloom as Balian, a pretentiously moralistic blacksmith-turned-knight who is convinced that his ideals trump reality. Yet oddly enough, he cannot seem to decide what those ideals are--his character shows little if any consistency, much less development, and his actions seem random and arbitrary, like he simply takes parts in a series of separate "skits" (Balian at court, Balian in battle, Balian the thinker, Balian the farmer). Bloom has no screen presence of any kind, and consequently Balian is overshadowed by pretty much the entire supporting cast; a mouse among powerful men. Just as Balian is impossible to like, his "enemies," fanatical Christians bent on killing Muslims, seem cartoony and contrived. They don't even have the cheesy insanity that Scott captured so well with Commodus in Gladiator--at least HE was easy to dislike! Equally tacked on is a romantic subplot involving Bloom.

The movie's worst problem, however, is a shoddy and threadbare script. This is hardly a compact film, at almost two and a half hours, yet it still feels hurried, rolling at a frenzied pace through a confusing succession of scenes very few of which seem relevant to the direction the story ends up going, which leaves you asking "What was the point of THAT?" A cheesy script can be forgiven though. Gladiator worked without a particularly strong script (although it was still better than this one) because it stayed true to the basis: a tough, likable character whose violent revenge you can root for because the bad guys deserve it. Bloom, about as macho as my grandmother, is simply too prissy and moralistic to take seriously as the war hero Scott wants us to believe he is. In the end, the film is boring not because nothing happens--far from it, things are happening all the time--but because the filmmakers simply give you no reason to CARE about what happens.

Thinner (1996)

B-grade cheesefest

[4/10 · 5 April 2005]

A fun concept, but poorly executed. Except for the fairly good makeup effects, there's really not much to it. There are obvious problems; for example, after taking what seems to be weeks and weeks to get from fat to normal size, the main character seems to go from normal size to deathly thin in days... and once he's deathly thin he stays pretty much equally deathly thin for what seems to be a long time.

In any case, the movie has far worse problems than that--the cinematography is decidedly low-budget-TV-show quality and most of all the acting is pretty awful all around. Robert John Burke seems to always be trying for some kind of weird snarling Charlton Heston impersonation and is literally painful to watch... the only scary thing is that Lucinda Jenney and Kari Wuhrer are both even worse.

The only reason why I'm giving this movie as high as I am is that once the movie enters its last 1/3 or so and Joe Mantegna's character takes over, the movie develops a fun, campy 'cheesefest slaughterhouse' feel, and the gangster's crazy schemes for tormenting the totally obnoxious gypsies are somewhat fun to watch. The ending, if predictable, is also nicely mean. Avoid unless you're a King-o-Phile or are REALLY psyched up at the idea of the voice of Fat Tony from the Simpsons terrorizing a gypsy camp.

Project Moon Base (1953)

Boring and silly; also very overtly sexist

[2/10 · 31 March 2005]

Not the worst possible idea for a movie (the screenplay actually credits famed sci-fi author Robert Heinlein), but just a really really boring one, filled with LOOOOONG drawn out scenes of really awful special effects and mindless prattle about spaceship minutia. Why do we need to see a 4-5 minute long scene of the male character slowly walking towards a satellite, pulling out a bunch of nondescript boxes and walking back?! Honestly, the most memorable thing about this movie is how insanely sexist it is. It's rather odd, too, considering that this movie features a female commanding officer AND in the end a female president, but it's totally impossible to miss: the women in the film are whiny, emotional and totally and completely clueless without male guidance. Here's a short list, mostly revolving around said female commanding officer, Col. Briteis.

* General Green tells the Col. that she's acting "Too big for her britches." * General Green and then the co-pilot constantly mispronounce the Colonel's name as "Bright-eyes." * When she attempts to correct the General on the pronunciation of her name, he tells her to shut up. * When she protests further, the General actually threatens to SPANK her if she gives him "more guff" and points out that the room is soundproof so no one can hear her scream (my eyes almost popped out of my sockets when I heard that one). * The female reporter that is briefly in the movies is named "Polly Prattles" (oh lord), wears a sparkly bodysuit, and seems to know absolutely NOTHING about what's going on. * The Col. plays the 'stupid boss' role, refusing to consider that the scientist on board is a fake. * After they land on the moon, the Col. has no idea what to do and has to immediately ask the male co-pilot for help. * After having a minor emotional outburst in front of co-pilot, the Col. apologizes for "going female" on him. * When the Col. 'officially' asks for co-pilot's advice, he tells her to "powder your nose." * The Col. spends five hours trying to reach Earth with no success; ten seconds after man wakes up he fixes the problem (all she had to do was press a button). * General Green orders the Col. off the bridge to have "guy talk" with the co-pilot about whether or not he's "sweet on her." * When Earth comes up with the weird 'get married' plan, the Col. is never even informed of it. * Upon being sent away from the co-pilot for a total of about 3 minutes, the Col complains that she's "lonely."

This is all the more remarkable because I'm not a female-rights activist and don't recall ever noticing such an overt level of sexism in ANY film I've ever seen (and I've seen a LOT).

The MST3K version is pretty funny; otherwise avoid like the plague unless you want a weird look at how overtly sexist mainstream movies used to be.

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

This is a masterpiece.... why?

[2/10 · 5 March 2005]

I'd heard a lot about how this movie was a horror classic, so I went ahead and bought it when I saw it on sale cheap. All I can say is "Huh?" On the upside, there is indeed some social commentary, broaching topics such as racism, consumerism and the fact that the bikers in the end seem a lot more evil than the zombies. But that's all there is in this movie, and the rest of it, quite frankly, is awful.

1) The movie is not at all scary. The zombies look idiotic; I don't mind low budget but smearing grayish paste all over someone's face (they didn't even bother with the rest of their body) is the kind of makeup job I expect in a high school play. The zombies never seem at all threatening, as they move at the speed of a snail and are totally uncoordinated. The only way I can see them killing ANYONE is if you're an idiot who runs into a dead-end room and just stands there waiting for a whole horde to come to you.

2) The movie fails to deliver ANY kind of atmosphere. Aside from a few bare bones newscasts on the fate of various parts of the US, most of the movie takes place in a brightly lit mall, where the characters don't feel at all in danger and a 'the world is ending' feel is totally nonexistent. There's no appreciable action element either; I think pro wrestling looks more realistic than this. And why the hell do the characters keep wasting their time shooting zombies in the chest when it's been clearly established that only head shots kill them?

3) The acting is very, very bad. The dialogue is hackneyed and weak, and the character development is forced and mostly just made me roll my eyes a lot, thinking "They expect me to buy THIS?" The social commentary in this movie could be made with a half-hour documentary, or better yet, a 6-page paper for a high school sociology class, and I would have been saved $10 and 2 hours of my time. I will not forgive it.

Battle Royale II (2003)

Tries to be original and shocking, but ends up cliche and boring.

[3/10 · 5 January 2004]

As a big fan of the original movie, I really wanted to like this one, but the more I watched it, the less I liked it. It magnifies all the problems of the first movie like the silly plot and occasional flat out weirdness, but gets rid of all I enjoyed about the first, like the memorable personalities, dark humor and subtle insight into the human mind. The first half is pretty much a remake of the first movie with a few different twists thrown in. It's entertaining, but because it ends before we know any of the characters, is also very forgettable. All of the interesting or powerful scenes are lifted directly from the first movie to such an obvious degree that it became difficult to imagine what the writers were thinking.

The second half goes downhill very fast and continues to get worse until the end. For a movie that supposedly has a pro-militant message, I was constantly thinking how pointless and amateurish Shuuya's little 'rebellion' is, and for a movie that obviously purposely tries to have a 'shocking' or 'revolutionary' message, the ending is dumb and sappy, more so than one I'd expect even in a mainstream action movie. The action is also highly melodramatic, particularly the final action scene, large chunks of which are filmed ENTIRELY in slow motion. There is not even an attempt at developing a personality for any of the characters except Kitano's daughter (who only has a personality thanks to Beat Takeshi's excellent performance in a short flashback), but that of course doesn't matter, since they're all irrelevant. In the end, it's just a weak attempt at making an anti-hegemonic political message crammed into a poorly thought-out movie that is basically one long and repetitive gunfight.

Side note: Political correctness isn't high on my list of concerns, but this movie will also likely offend many who are sensitive to this topic by its constant portrayal of Muslim culture in situations associated with terrorism, even though every single character in the movie is Asian.

The Godfather Part III (1990)

A great movie, far better than what I expected

[7/10 · 4 April 2002]

I must admit I came into this movie expecting the worst, as person after person has told me that this movie, while decent, doesn't compare to the first two. So I was pleasantly surprised to find myself disagreeing with them.

I enjoyed this movie even more than Godfather II, although I admit it doesn't approach the first film... but then again, so few things do. I thought that both Vincent and Anthony Corleone were superbly cast, not only for their acting, but for the fact that Vincent looks SO much like a young Michael and Anthony looks even more like Sonny.

*Spoiler Start*

The movie includes many great scenes, such as when Michael tells Vincent that he may now call himself a Corleone, and his men gather around a sitting Vincent, kissing his hand and calling him "Don Corleone", the same way they did to Michael at the end of the first film. I particularly loved the scene where Michael, seeking to repent for his sins, swears on the lives of his children that if God gives him the chance, he will not sin again... yet no more than 5 minutes later, he gives Vincent the order to carry out the murder of several men. He swore on the lives of his children.. and that's what he ends up losing.

*Spoiler End*

It's a true shame that Sofia Coppola had to be in this movie. I am not a person that likes to nitpick the nuances of every acting performance, but she is simply a horrible actress. It's particularly a shame because she does a lot to spoil the climax scene of the movie, which should be particularly dramatic. Thankfully, she doesn't have all that many lines, and at least looks good.

Unlike Godfather II, which, while a very good film, I found to be rather disjointed and difficult to follow (the Young Vito storyline seemed too slow and drawn out, while the Michael storyline moved so quickly that I, at times, wasn't sure what exactly was going on), this installment follows a similar plot line to the first movie, right down to the multiple executions at the end, set to a Sicilian opera instead of the words of an Italian priest. The simplicity and flow of the stories in I and III made them all the more engrossing to me.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

A work of art? Yes. A movie? Hmm..

[8/10 · 2 April 2002]

I'm very torn on this movie after seeing it. I've read several reviews on this site that say things along the lines of "This is more than a movie, it's a work of art". I'd like to disagree slightly; this IS a work of art, but it is very barely a movie.

*Spoilers*

I'm really at a loss on how to discuss this movie, so I'll do the simplistic thing and compare the parts I enjoyed with the parts I didn't enjoy.

First off, this movie uses music and sound to create an atmosphere better than any other movie I have ever seen. There is no contest whatsoever. The special effects are also superb, which becomes even more impressive once you consider that this movie was made in the 60's... they're really as good as movies I see released today. I loved the image of the monolith and the music that accompanied it, it was truly awe inspiring. I loved the "white room" sequence at the end of the film, and it didn't even really matter to me that it had no "plot" behind it. All in all, the second half of the movie is consistently amazing in the visuals it presents and the soundtrack that accompanies it.

Now the parts I did not like... There is an attempt made to give the movie a plot about man's discovery of these monoliths, and the whole business of the HAL 9000 "rebelling" against the human inhabitants of the spaceship, which is what most people bring up about the movie. I have no idea why this "storyline" is even present. First off, it's barely realized. The characters have no depth or personality, so the viewer cannot be expected to care what happens to them. The plot doesn't have any kind of setup or conclusion, and hence is largely pointless. Second, it's completely irrelevant. This is a movie of sound and image, not of narration or dialogue.

Unfortunately, this pseudo-plot plays a very nasty trick on people who watch the movie for the first time, as you begin to ever sooooo slowly be involved in the "story", only to have it go absolutely nowhere. This is a work that's so completely different from any other movie I've ever seen that judging it as "a sci-fi movie" is like judging Romeo and Juliet as "an erotic novel".

I have only seen this movie once, a few hours ago, and I don't think I could bear watching it back to back... it's far too complex for that. Right now I am at a loss as to what rating it deserves. Part of me wants to give it a 7 or an 8 because of the seemingly pointless half-plot that takes up a good hour and a half of the movie, and part of me wants to give it a 10 regardless.

P.S. I've noticed more than a few reviews who imply that anyone who doesn't absolutely love this movie is a simpleton with no attention span and no appreciation of art. I think that's a pathetically childish view. Different people have different tastes. It's really as simple as that. Just because they differ from yours, doesn't mean they're inferior.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Intellectual... or just confusing?

[5/10 · 26 March 2002]

I often enjoy movies that comment on society and the nature of man, and I loved other Kubrick flicks like Full Metal Jacket and The Shining, with Dr. Strangelove being possibly my favorite movie of all time. I was anxious to see this one, having heard it praised as a true masterpiece, and I must admit I was quite disappointed.

*** SPOILERS AHEAD ****

A lot of people who praise this movie say that it raises the question of whether Alex is truly reformed after his treatment or not. Frankly, I don't see how that's a question at all... to me, he was obviously not the least bit reformed, and only restraining himself because of the "punishment" he would receive if he acted out.

Another point often brought up is the disturbing, shocking, nature of the film, and the effect is has on the viewer, but frankly, by today's (2002) standards, the violence is hardly anything special, and the sex only a bit less so. Silly, pointless movies like "The Cell" have disturbed me a lot more than this one.

Many particular elements of the movie didn't sit well with me. The "sickness" that violence or sex induces in Alex during the second half of the film is really quite silly, it mostly consists of him holding his head and burping repeatedly. Even Alex himself describes it as, to paraphrase, "the feeling that something horrible is going to happen to me". So... this punishment makes you paranoid? That's it? I imagine the scene where he's locked into a room and forced to listen to Beethoven (which induces the same sickness) was supposed to make you feel badly for him, but the ridiculous nature of this sickness made it more comical than anything to me. I kept wondering why he doesn't just stuff something in his ears, or break the door down (it looks like a very flimsy door). I realize that you can similarly question any movie, but I wouldn't have noticed these things if I hadn't been, by that point, pretty bored.

Some elements of the movie particularly baffled me. There are many things that flat out SCREAM "Look, I'm symbolic for something!", but for the life of me I can't figure out what. Why does Alex's mother (and later the psychiatrist) have purple hair? Why does the same elderly mother wear outfits of red leather and thigh high boots? Why does the gang that Alex's group fight in the beginning wear Army uniforms? Why is there such a strong homosexual innuendo (Alex's teacher grabbing his crotch early on, the chaplain making a pass at him, the old man at the end living alone with a young man, etc) throughout the film?

One thing that confused me in particular, and this is an element most viewers will miss, is that the movie often uses Russian words. I notice only because I know Russian, as the words are easy to figure out through context. Alex and his friends go to a "Moloko" (Russian for 'milk') bar. Alex repeatedly uses "Malchik" (Russian for 'boy') to describe young men. Same with "Devochka" (Russian for 'girl') to describe the women. Near the end, Alex talks about eating "Lomtiks" (Russian for 'slice' or 'piece', usually in reference to food) of bread. As this movie is made during the height of the Cold War, is this some sort of attempt to associate Alex's mindless sex and violence with Russian culture?

I can see no real message to this movie, besides that the treatment that Alex was given obviously doesn't work. But I fail to see any sort of point to that message, as this treatment obviously doesn't exist. If the message is against psychiatric rehabilitation in general, as opposed to incarceration, I don't think it makes the point very well, considering that the few years Alex spends in prison don't even seem all that bad, and certainly don't change him. He says that he endures horrible beatings from the guards, all we ever see him do in prison is sit around, fantasize about sex/violence and quote the bible to please the chaplain. If the film was supposed to comment on how ineffective rehabilitation in general is, I don't see why there's an attempt in the second half of the movie to make Alex a sort-of sympathetic character. Shouldn't it show him as the monster he still is?

I talked about this movie with a friend earlier, and he pointed out to me that at the time this film was released, the violence and sex was probably most shocking, and that there was a heavy movement towards psychiatric rehabilitation of prisoners at the time. If that's true, then this is simply a reactionary period piece, dealing with one very particular issue.

Don't get me wrong, this is by no means a very bad movie. But I can't really say it's a very good movie either, and certainly doesn't compare with other Kubrick films that I've seen. This is by no means a classic, as it fails on the one crucial test: it does NOT, at least for me, stand the test of time. I give this movie a 7/10 for the first half of the film (up to the part where Alex goes to prison), which is surreal and often darkly hilarious, and 3/10 for the rest of it, which I found boring, lacking in coherence, and, frankly, often quite silly and overdone. That averages out to 5, which is, I think, the right score for this movie.

NOTE: I have NOT read the book, but if I can't understand this movie without reading the book first, it is, IMO, simply another flaw of the film.

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)

Takes itself just a bit too seriously

[4/10 · 11 March 2002]

Remo Williams is a very, very blatant attempt to cash in on two 80's movie sensations: James Bond and Indiana Jones, with some Karate Kid thrown in for good measure. In particular, "Remo's Theme" sounds so ripped off from Indy that I actually laughed out loud when it first played.

This film was obviously intended to be the first of a series, as evidenced by the title, but how anyone could think this would become a classic is beyond me, as every single element of the plot and every character is a VERY blatant ripoff of something or other.

What's left for this movie to be is just a lighthearted uncomplex action flick, and while it succeeds at times (mostly in the training sequences), it's mostly way too big on building up Remo into some sort of folk hero on the level of 007 or the aforementioned Indiana Jones. And a folk hero he is NOT. The plot is pretty damn silly and doesn't have the "cool" factor of any of the Indiana Jones films, and all too much time is spent on it. The one liners, except the ones from Remo's hilarious, albeit cliché, instructor, mostly fall flat. ("What've you got there?" "Oh, just a small matter... OF NATIONAL SECURITY!")

In the end, it's way too corny to be a classic, and takes itself way too seriously for me to have been able to watch it with my brain turned off and just chuckle at it, I gave it a 4 out of 10, 2 of that just for the great character of his soap-opera watching korean martial arts instructor.