Reviews

I haven't seen this film in a while, but it used to appear regularly on TV while I was growing up. From what I remember, aliens want to take over the Earth and use all these monsters that were banished to Monster Island (which is very close to Japan, by the way). Somehow clever Japanese scientists release the aliens' hold on the monsters, and then the monsters have to fight Ghidrah, who has three heads, two tails, and wings. He also has a laser beam like thing that he (she?) can breathe. Ghidrah does have the upper hand in this see saw battle, but evenutally the "good" monsters win out. Check out Rodan's performance. Definitely worth viewing if you have the 90 or so minutes.

I heard a lot of good things about this film, so I started to read the book, and it didn't keep me interested. I saw the film the other night, and I fail to see what all the hoopla was about. Acting was good, direction was adequate, I even liked the editing and the jumping around chronologically, but something else was missing. Similar to other Elmore Leonard adaptations like "Jackie Brown" and "Get Shorty", there are villians with hearts of gold and others who are just plain evil. Somewhat entertaining, but not something I would recommend others to go out of their way to see.

Ma and Pa Kettle live in a falling down shack with 14 of their 15 kids. Tom, the eldest, is away at college. Ma can't remember all of her kids names, and Pa is extremely lazy. Pa enters a contest to supply a slogan for a tobacco company so he can get a new tobacco pouch. They end up winning the grand prize, a new, modern house with many electronic features. My expectations of this film was that it would have more slapstick elements in it, like Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello, but it doesn't. It has gentle humor, most of it stemming from Pa Kettle's "fish out of water" situations, ie a poor country man living in a house with modern conveniences. This film was OK, but I really didn't laugh out loud too many times. More of a gentle type of humor, it just brought smiles to my face.

I love this kind of film -- full of intrigue and plot twists. It appears that one plot thread has nothing to do with another plot thread yet they all come together in the end. Excellent acting, except I don't know why Kim Basinger won anything for this. I especially liked James Cromwell as the police captain. Highly recommended, but some scenes are very intense.

The beginning of this film reminded me of 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'. I like Jackie Chan, but this one wasn't up to his usual. the stunts and car chases are all very good, what I've come to expect of Jackie Chan, and even the slapstick comedy was fun, too, but overall the plot of this film seemed too much like Indiana Jones. Worthwhile, but keep your expectations low.

I'm a big fan of these types of films, and a friend of mine told me that this was really good. So I watched on Halloween Eve, and frankly I wasn't all that thrilled. The plantation owner (Beaumont) wants a betrothed (to another man) woman to the extent that he is willing to kill to obtain her. Bela Lugosi is a magician or sorcerer who can make dead people alive again, more commonly known as zombies. Bela was good in this, but the acting and the pacing of the entire film was off. I like this genre, but this was too slow for my tastes. At least the ending was cool, but it took too long to get there.

I saw this again last night on video. What a wonderful film. Knowing the ending, I saw some things throughout the film that pointed to the surprise conclusion. What I noticed most of all last night that the real strength of this film is on its _writing_, and all the other elements follow it. This is highly recommended if you like intelligent gangster films that are well acted and thought provoking. Kind of like an old Twilight Zone episode with the twist ending.

This is one of those recent and rare Hollywood films that was written intelligently. There are many levels to this film, I'd have to see it again to catch all the nuances. There's symbolism and depth to the characters and a wonderful spiritual message. Acting was excellent -- even Kevin Spacey's narration was well acted. the lighting and sound (both music and effects) were wonderful. This film does not follow a formula like so much of Hollywood's trash these days. To say it is about a middle aged man in a midlife crisis is making it extremely oversimplified. Do yourself a favor, see this film soon. I plan on seeing it again and again and again.....

The best I could sense of the plot of this film involves two gangsters, Briggs and Helton, who are rivals. Briggs kidnaps Helton's daughter towards the end of this film. That being said, this film is great. The Four Marx Bros. are stowaways on an ocean liner where they constantly wreak havoc with the other passengers and the ship's crew. Groucho is fast and furious, puns fly back and forth, and Harpo chases women. Zeppo doesn't really do too much in this film (he's barely in it), but this is well worth watching again and again. Highly recommended.

Robert DeNiro and Jean Reno star in this action/suspense flick. They're rogue agents and are hired to retreive a brief case. There's a few double crosses, which ended up confusing me, an excellent car chase in Paris (although I still liked the car chase from "Striking Distance" with Bruce Willis better), and the ending just didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the film. If it had a different ending, I may have liked it more, but the ending was just too neat for me. All in all, a lot of fun, directed by the very good John Frankenheimer, who directed other very good action films.

I saw this film in the theaters when it first came out and recently on video. Pater Falk plays a nutty secret agent whose son is going to marry dentist Alan Arkin's daughter. Arkin is wonderful as the innocent man caught in a web of intrigue. Lots of laughs, great cast and acting. I especially liked Richard Libertini as the Latin American dictator who uses his hand as a puppet a la Senor Wences.

This film is wonderful, but it really helps to know who the characters are _before_ seeing this film. Martin Landau deserved his Best Supporting Actor Oscar(tm) and Johnny Depp's performance is outstanding.

A good example of Depp's talent is when he tells Kathy his taste for female clothes. A must see!

Pull the Strings!

A lot of nothing happens in this film. Cesar Romero and Hugh Beaumont lead a team of scientists on a search for a missing rocket. Searching involves a lot of walking. And more walking. And then they walk. And just when one thinks they're done walking, the walk some more. Add some especially bad effects of dinosaurs and you have a truly painful viewing experience. See the MST3K version with someone you love.

This was a pretty good film. Jeff Bridges plays a widower who suspects his new neighbors are terrorists. The acting was very good. Bridges' face expressed a lot of emotions, from terror and confusion, to anger and remorse. This is one of those films where the ending forces you to think. It is not lighthearted escapist entertainment. Recommended.

Right from the opening song, a parody of the opening song from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast", this was a laugh riot. Rated 'R' for raunchy language and some situations. It even had a message that I found to be against these right wingers who want to suppress freedom of speech. A very fun movie, even thinking about it now, I still laugh.

I may have seen this film non-MST3K. I don't really remember. Anyway, the "plot" is incoherent. Something about girls dancing in a discotheque. The sound was awful, and the surprise, twist ending gave me goosebumps for a week and a half. Absolutely, incredibly bad.

What with Steven Seagal and Kurt Russell, I expected this film to be action packed with a lot of blow ups and shooting and mayhem. It isn't! this is a very suspenseful film. An Arab terrorist hijacks a 747 jet with a very bad nerve gas. Kurt and his crew somehow get aboard the plane (don't ask how) and attempt to thwart the hijackers. Oliver Platt was good as an engineer/computer nerd type guy, and Halle Berry was fine as the flight attendant. One of Kurt Russell better recent efforts.

One of the best films ever made. I thought it was very spiritual, in the sense that I learned a very powerful lesson that has helped me in my daily living. Never give up hope. Acting is superb, directing is great, story is wonderful. Highest recommendation.

I could not imagine watching this without Joel and the bots.

Tommy Kirk acts like he'd prefer to be anywhere else. A cameo by Little Richard does nothing for his career. The music is awful, the dialogue terrible, and the plot (something about a stolen painting and a lot of young girls in bikinis) was incoherent. A real stinker.

This is one of the greatest TV shows of all time. If you have never seen this, you're in for a real treat. Ralph (Jackie Gleason) is a bus driver for the Gotham Bus Company. He lives in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn with his long-suffering wife Alice (Audrey Meadows). His best pal is the sewer worker who lives upstairs, Ed Norton (Art Carney). Ralph is always scheming to make money. His ideas never work. The things I like best about this show is a) the writing -- introduced phrases that are now part of the American language ("To the moon, Alice!" b) the directing -- look what they did with three cameras that never moved! c) the acting, esp. the improvisation when gags failed -- remember, this was live TV! This show was the influence of the cartoon "The Flintstones", plus a couple of generations of every other TV sitcom.

I saw about the first 20 minutes of this turkey and it was painful. Adam Baldwin is NOT a good actor, but the kid was worse. In 20 minutes I figured out the plot -- something like the kid befriending the "monster" a la ET and then the monster's mother chasing after the child monster. From what I saw, this movie rips off 'Jaws', 'Godzilla', 'ET', 'Gamera', and 'Jurassic Park'. And that's the first twenty minutes!

Boy, does this movie suck. The plot was confusing. Apparently George Patton was assassinated and there was a conspiracy to cover up the fact. George Kennedy plays Patton as a rabid, foaming at the mouth moron. Sophia Loren has trouble with the English language.

Robert Vaughn is an officer and he's involved somehow. This has some of the worst lines ever. It's as if Ed Wood doctored the script. Absolutely pass on this unless you're a masochist.

I don't know if this is the worst film of all time, but it sure is close to it. The first half hour of driving around and looking at fields is probably the biggest waste of celluloid EVER. For fun, when I make reservations at a restaurant, I'll tell them my name is Torgo. If it's a place like Red Lobster, where they announce your name over a loudspeaker, it embarrasses the heck out of the others in my party. By all means, this is a must see film, but ONLY the MST3k version.