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Reviews
Sisters of Death (1977)
This movie should have been a parody
This movie plays like a parody. The girls are brainless, and constantly make stupid choices (hmm? strange mansion? free bathing suits? let's go swimming!), and the ending, as other reviewers have mentioned, is baffling. The two thugs who corral the women here have mixed motives...are they thugs? good guys? perverts? The movie doesn't bother to tell us. In fact, it leaves out most of the things (e.g., character backgrounds and motivations...in fact just characterisation in general is lacking in this movie) that might make its story logical.
In short, this is the kind of movie that sits on your head and squeezes it while you yell, "why! why! why!" Only watch with friends and only if you intend to do a "Mystery Science..." type riffing session during it.
Margaret Cho: CHO Revolution (2004)
I was so disappointed...
Margaret, what happened? I loved your standup in the 1990s and I adored "All-American Girl" for its short life. I loved 'I'm the One that I Want' and quote it near-daily. I enjoyed 'Notorious CHO.' But I couldn't sit through this one. To date I've only watched maybe half of it, I just can't stomach it. Between discussions of bodily function and soap-box style pronouncements, it doesn't make me laugh, it makes me cry.
Perhaps I'm being too critical. After all, life is different now than it was before, so her comedy should evolve. It's just my opinion that it's evolved away from a place where I want to be.
Hopefully, Margaret, for me at least, the next show will be back to form.
Before Night Falls (2000)
I Know It's A Biography, but...
it sucks. Plain and simple. Why didn't the protagonist leave Cuba when he had the chance? Why was he so stupid as to go to the police in the era of hatred in which he lived? And why exactly was he so bent on killing himself?
These aren't problems with the story, which I'm sure is very true to the writer's life. They're questions I have with his life, which I doubt merited being retold in this film. I spent half the movie wondering why the hell he was still in Cuba, and the other half of the movie waiting for him to die or be killed or die. Really, a very bad movie. If you want hope or sorrow or laughter or tragedy or anything, don't watch this movie. If you want to suffer through a vague politico-serio-tragedy, then "Before Night Falls" will do it.
Teen Wolf Too (1987)
A sequel that shouldn't have been made
Does Hollywood ever learn? You can't top a film like 'Teen Wolf.' All you can do is defile its existence by producing a sequel like this. The movie isn't worth watching unless you're a Jason Bateman fanatic or a masochist.
The plot from the first movie is reduxed here, and poorly. The message is the same. The moral is the same. The only thing that's changed is the faces, because the majority of the cast from the first movie was wise to avoid this bomb. The dad from 'Teen Wolf' makes an appearance, and that's all I can remember (without checking the listing). A forgettable flop.
Scary Movie 3 (2003)
If only THIS were 'Scary Movie 2'
This movie is hilarious at points and insightful at others, but overall fairly forgettable. The second and third watchings dull the humour more than just a little bit.
If they'd not made 'Scary Movie 2,' and this film held that title, things would have been better. The amount of parody could have been deeper because of greater time between films, and audience interest (namely, my friends' and mine) would have been greater as well. Alas, for that was not to be....
On its own (ignoring the '3' in the title), the movie is funny. Again, not laugh-out-loud, watch it sixty times funny, but funny. It delivers hilarious satire of such neo-classics as 'The Ring,' 'Signs,' and '8Mile' to name a few, while also poking fun at the movie industry itself. And Leslie Nielsen's turn as the president is a highlight of the show. However, it falls victim to its own curse: it tries to make a sensible plot out of what should be a romping parody. The whole franchise would be better if they didn't number the titles (i.e., calling them 'Scary Movie,' 'Heck House,' 'General Parody #27G,' and so on would have been better) because numbering the movies and defining them as sequels holds the new movie to expectations it usually can't match.
Bottom line: watch 'Scary Movie 3' but don't expect to watch it over and over again like the first movie.
Scary Movie 2 (2001)
No Sequels?
Well, after 'Scary Movie' made so much money, it was inevitable that there would be a sequel. And it was inevitable that it wouldn't be as good.
There were several problems with this movie, the largest of which is its lack of material. 'SM1' had five recent horror flicks (the three 'Scream' and the two 'I Know What...' films), the 'Sixth Sense', 'The Matrix', and I don't even know what else to draw on in its sharp, sly parody. Having used that for the first movie, the sequel is left with having to use things like 'The Exorcist' (can you say overdone?) and gross-out humour to make us "laugh." They even use their own gags (from 'SM1') but not as well.
All in all, the movie isn't terrible. It just shows why Hollywood can, for lack of a better word, suck: rather than waiting a few years to make a sequel that could have been as good as the original, they rushed this one out to capitalise on the success of the first movie. In its own right, the movie would be O.K. As 'Scary Movie 2', the follow-up to one of the most hilarious and on-target parodies of all time, it sucks.
EuroTrip (2004)
I was pleasantly surprised
I went to EuroTrip expecting that it would be the common trashy sex film along the lines of American Pie or, worse, a disappointing attempt at parody such as Not Another Teen Movie. However, I was more than pleasantly surprised by the actual product. It is not only genuinely funny--with many unpredictable jokes and moments--but the characters are, in their own way, endearing. That characters be endearing is not a rule in this type of comedy; however, the fact that they are is what ensures I will see the film again. Although I was truly disappointed by the film's opening and its ending, what came between those substandard points was a very unique first-rate film.
Not Another Teen Movie (2001)
A worthy effort
This movie was enjoyable; it did not, however, live up to my expectations based on its predecessors (Scary Movie I and other films in this genre) or its advertising. It was also, at times, too far over the line for my sensibilities. It did feature amiable leads, some enjoyable cameos, and more than its share of dead-on parody. The sad thing is that it could, in my opinion, have been so much better.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
An excellent send-off for the Original Cast.
I remember when this movie came out...I was quite excited, as I had only recently discovered Star Trek the previous year. It was the first ST movie I saw as "new" and it was worth it! It has a great plot, which bridges a gap between the "old" series and Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as powerhouse performances from Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley, and Kim Cattral. It keeps the viewer guessing, even though s/he knows that everything will turn out all right in the end. For the action fan, it has a good number of battle sequences, explosions, and a climactic assassination scene. Several of my friends, none of whom enjoy Star Trek in particular, LOVED the movie for those elements alone. In short, it was a fine finalé for Uhura, Chekhov, and Sulu (since we see Spock, Scotty, and McCoy in Next Gen and Kirk in Generations) as well as an exquisite way to close the book on the "old" series without infringing on the "new".