Do you want Search?
Random Post
Random Post
Search
Search
InGood, Movie Reviews

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Review)

October 14, 2005By

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit


2005
Starring
Peter Sallis as Wallace
Ralph Fiennes as Victor Quartermaine
Helena Bonham Carter as Lady Campanula Tottington
Directed by Steve Box and Nick Park

The year 2005 gave us Son of the Mask, The Honeymooners, Alone in the Dark, XXX 2, Stealth, Elektra, House Of Wax, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, The Perfect Man, Kingdom of Heaven, The Cave, Into the Blue, Fantasic Four, War of the Worlds, Alexander, The Island, Bewitched, The Greatest Game Ever Played, Man of the House, and Cry_Wolf. More horrors are undoubtedly on the way, such as Bloodrayne. There were a few bright spots, but out of the darkness comes a beacon so bright it blinds all competition. Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is too good of a movie to have come out of this year. It is a miracle. A beacon of hope. A sign of things to come. Wallace and Gromit are the first in a wave of decent films that are due out, and they are a sight for sore eyes. Hollywood has been complaining all summer about their being in a box office slump, then they release another weekend of garbage. Deservedly, people are staying home and staying away. Sure, Episode III, Sin City, Batman Begins, all decent, but not enough to keep people going to the lesser fare. Smaller productions such as Broken Flowers entertained but didn’t get much exposure, nor would they appeal to the masses as they weren’t designed to. Mot of the best films I saw this year were foreign films from 2004 or earlier, such as Kung Fu Hustle, Kontroll, Oldboy, and The Warrior. W&G is a great film. Everyone will love it, unless you are dead inside.


Wrestling Women Aztec Mummy
InBad, Movie Reviews

The Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy (review)

October 10, 2005By

The Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy

aka Las Luchadoras contra la momia

1964
Starring
Lorena Velázquez as Gloria Venus (Loretta)
Armando Silvestre as Armando Rios
Elizabeth Campbell as Golden Rubi (Ruby)
Ramón Bugarini as Prince Fujiyata
Víctor Velázquez as Dr. Luis Trelles (Prof. Tracy)
Nathanael “Frankenstein” León as Fujiyata’s bald henchman

Mexico has a proud tradition of Los Luchadoros movies, from Santo fighting Martians to Blue Demon fighting Infernal Brains. Even the women get into the act, this is the second film featuring Las Luchadoras Gloria Venus and Golden Rubi, as well as the forth featuring the title villain, the Aztec Mummy (Earlier film Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.) It’s the Mexican version of Aliens vs. Predator, except from the 1960’s and thousands of times better. Like most of the Mexican Wrestling movies, it’s got lots of campy fun. However, this film has a dark side that scars it’s appeal this day. There is a gang of villains in the movie who are an Asian gang. Being that Mexico has like 2 Asian people in the 1960’s, they are all played by Mexicans. So the villains are a yellow-face stereotype similar to anti-Japan films made during World War II. The Yellow-faceness can be argued that they didn’t give the actors false slanted eyes, such as horrible examples on Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice and John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror, but they just had actors who looked vaguely Asian. Very vaguely. If you were drunk. And blind. And high on ‘shrooms. Barring that, the film holds together pretty well. Just view it for what it is, an artifact of the times. Sit back, relax, and pull a half-Nelson on your opponent while your tag-team partner distracts the ref so you can hit them with a chair.


C U At 9
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

C U at 9 (Review)

October 5, 2005By

C U at 9


2005
Starring
Shweta Konnur as Kim/Juliet
Isiah as Romeo
Kanksha as Sue
Written and Directed by Marlon Rodrigues (aka Marlon Hoden)

Bollywood produces the most movies each year, many of which never are seen outside the country. Most wouldn’t work outside of India, Bollywood films are famous for having musical numbers scattered throughout, even advancing the plot. Most other cultures would balk at a serious crime drama suddenly turning into a choreographed song fest, but to each their own. Bollywood films are starting to become more mainstream, in that some are being imported over to America. Films that are well done from Bollywood still have an audience here, and it is rapidly growing. Some films to come out of Bollywood are deservedly not even fit for Bollywood itself. You can probably figure out from the title that this is one of them. C U at 9 goes down in history as one of the worst titles ever, joining such luminaries as .com for Murder. The title alone isn’t enough to have C U at 9 go down in flames, the movie itself is a cheeseball horror movie which borrows heavily from some recent popular Asian movies. Very heavily. Add to that the director substituted three music videos in place of choreographed singing. The editing from the music videos was unfortunately used in 100% of the film, giving C U at 9 a feel of scene jerking so bad you’ll get whiplash if you aren’t careful. The jumpcuts fly so fast I’m currently wearing a neck brace.

Devilman
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Devilman (Review)

October 1, 2005By

Devilman

aka Debiruman

2004
Starring
Hisato Izaki as Akira Fudou/Devilman
Yusuke Izaki as Ryo Asuka
Ayana Sakai as Miki Makimura
Asuka Shibuya as Miko
Ai Tominaga as Silene
Bob Sapp as World Newscaster

Take a Japanese Manga with a storyline that spanned years, throw in a big budget, a bunch of J-Pop stars and models, remove any element of a plot, but it all in a blender, then bake the results at 450 for two hours and you get Devilman, a mess of Biblical proportions. What’s left of the plot involves demons invading the world and taking over people’s bodies, as a kid named Akira becomes the Devilman, who is a demon with a human heart, who must fight them to save all of humanity. This movie is just plain awful. I am in no way a fan of the Manga (by Go Nagai, creator of Cutie Honey, a Manga film done right) nor had even heard of it until I watched this, but the film is reported to ignore huge chunks of it to try to contain a long, sweeping story into two hours of running time. Just imagine the entire first season of 24 in just two hours, where they keep odd sideplots but ignore big things like introducing Senator Palmer, and Jack Bauer is now played by Justin Timberlake. People would riot in the streets. Devilman is on the same par, there are probably still people looting sections of Tokyo in response to seeing this travesty.


Friday the 13th part 8
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (Review)

September 22, 2005By

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan


1989
Starring
Todd Shaffer as Jim Miller
Tiffany Paulsen as Suzi Donaldson
Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees
Jensen Daggett as Rennie Wickham
Kelly Hu as Eva Watanabe

Jason Voorhees is an icon of horror movies, one of the most recognizable movie monsters in history. His popularity has adversely affected the quality of the sequels, as fans have seen Jason kill and kill again hundreds of times, why would they pay to see the same thing over and over again? The solution seems to be to provide a gimmick for each film. In a previous review (but later release), Jason took to the stars for Jason X. Here, Jason’s gimmick is a trip to New York. However, the gimmick is short-lived, as most of the movie takes place just getting to New York. It’s Jason on a boat! A boat full of high school punks just aching to die. Only one homicidal madman can put them in their place! Sadly, Jason on a boat just isn’t gimmicky enough. Most of the movie is “Been there, done that,” with little new to add, even when Jason gets to New York, most of the time is spent not killing New Yorkers but chasing after the teenagers. This movie should have been set up like The Warriors, except in addition to the freaky gangs chasing the Warriors, Jason is chasing them as well. That is the masterpiece that is yet to be created. One day, a visionary will rise from the ranks and produce that opus. Until then, horror films will continue to feed sites like mine with cannon fodder by the truckload.


Wheels of Fire
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Wheels of Fire (Review)

September 18, 2005By

Wheels of Fire


1985
Starring
Gary Watkins as Trace
Laura Banks as Stinger
Lynda Wiesmeier as Arlie
Linda Grovenor as Spike
Joseph Anderson as Scourge
Jack S. Daniels as Scag
Directed by Cirio H. Santiago

Mad Max and it’s sequels were a big influence on post-apocalyptic action films. They spawned a long string of imitators, mostly created from low-budget film grinding countries like Italy and the Philippines. Hey, amazingly enough, this very film is a knock-off of Mad Max, and it was made in the Philippines! It’s almost as if I prepared the opening sentences for some sort of reason… Not only is this film a low budget rip-off that is nowhere near as good as the film it is aping, the film has a bonus feature not found in the Mad Max series: It hates women. Brutally. This movie takes women and knocks them around like they were Nazis or something. There is more misogyny in this movie than tea in China. More misogyny than bad films made in the Philippines. Hey, directed by Cirio H. Santiago of The Destroyers and T.N.T. Jackson fame, so it’s got to be….just as sub-par.

It’s the future, all cities are destroyed, and everyone drives around in the desert. What country is this? Maybe it’s Australia, which explained the deserts in Mad Max, but everyone is American, except for the non-main characters, who are all Filipino. So not only did all the cities die off, but the world has become a desert wasteland. This would lead one to wonder where food is coming from, except one is instead distracted from wondering where they get all the gasoline they use for their massive fleets of automobiles. Our hero is a man named Trace, the manliest name in the universe. Mad Trace. I can see it! Wait…I just lost it. Trace doesn’t have the screen presence of Mel Gibson, or even Gary Coleman. Mad Max had the Last of the V-8 Interceptors, while Trace has a late ’70s four-door with some painted plywood on the bumper and a fake Batmobile-style rocket engine on the end.


Older 
546547548549550
 Newer