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Incubo sulla città contaminata (1980)
Low-budget lay-headed mutant/zombie/vampire goodness
My friend Greg has a rather extensive collection of old VHS movies, and tonight we dug this one out and watched it. The film follows a news reporter who goes to the airport to interview a famous scientist about a "radioactive spill." But when the scientist comes off the plane, something has clearly gone wrong - he rushes towards the nearest person and kills them, and is followed by a gang of other bloodthirsty mutants who proceed to not only kill their victims, but to then drink their blood.
The zombie/vampire/mutant things are mostly unconvincingly made-up, most of them look like they've just packed dirt all over their heads, although we eventually decided it was probably clay. The plot is predictable and relatively boring, the action scenes poorly choreographed (if they were choreographed at all) and completely unconvincing, the acting wooden, the characters 2 dimensional. It's a dreadful film, painful to watch.
I enjoyed every minute of it. Laughing as the "blood" came out of the fake knives as they were dragged across people's necks, making fun of the ridiculous makeup and stupid predictable situations where you just KNOW someone's gonna get killed right away.
If you enjoy watching horrible movies and making fun of them with your friends, I highly recommend this film. If you're interested in quality at all, go somewhere else... This movie was terrible.
Iced (1989)
Bad acting, predictable plot, and 80's cheese
Really, the 80's cheese is the only thing this movie has going for it. I won't give anything away, but it's really predictable. The acting is terrible, the camera work is terrible, the script is terrible, the editing is terrible. The MOVIE is terrible.
I highly recommend watching this movie only if:
(a) you enjoy making fun of terrible movies (b) you watch it with several other people who like making fun of terrible movies (c) you are not entirely sober (d) you enjoy suffering from boredom and bad acting (e) all of the above.
This movie is terrible. Am I repeating myself? Trust me, it's worth repeating. I've seen worse, but still... Whoof. Not good.
The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
The perfect blend of Action, Suspense, Drama and Comedy
I hadn't planned on leaving a review, but seeing some of the other dreadful reviews for this movie, I had to say something.
I'm not going to give away the ending or anything, but I do give away some important plot points in this review, so you should be aware of that. The short (non-spoiler) version of my review - Samuel L. Jackson and Geena Davis both kick butt in this movie, and it's a lot of fun. Watch it.
This movie is one of my favorites of all time. Geena Davis is perfect as the action heroine, torn between her existing life as a housewife and mother, and the memories that are resurfacing of her former life as a CIA Assassin. Her performance is superb as she plays both facets of this relatively complex character perfectly.
Samuel L. Jackson's performance is, as always, also excellent, as the Private Investigator that Geena Davis' character hired to look into her forgotten past. He does a great job of playing the unwitting sidekick to Geena Davis' tough character. Some of the lines he utters in this movie are the best he's ever used in any movie he's been in.
Seriously, if you haven't seen it, do. It's a fantastic story with lots of unexpected twists and turns, and it's extremely well directed and acted.
Gin gwai (2002)
An excellent thriller - If you liked the Sixth Sense and Ju-On, you should watch this
I did something I have rarely done before with this film - I read a vague review on IMDb (I believe it said "If you liked Ju-On, you'll love The Eye") and bought it, sight unseen, along with a couple of "horror" type movies.
The "horror" type movies turned out to be pornography (I now have a better understanding of the Asian movie rating system), but this movie exceeded my expectations.
The directors did a phenomenal job mixing suspense and just a touch of horror into a story that should be about something wonderful - a blind woman regaining her sight. This movie kept me riveted throughout, I couldn't leave my chair until it was over... And then I had to watch it again.
I saw another review of this movie that called it mediocre - which I think is a travesty. This movie only suffers from a lower budget than most western audiences are accustomed to, but trust me, you won't even notice, and they did put the budget they had where it counts, believe me.
If you enjoyed Sixth Sense, you'll enjoy this movie. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing, and there's plenty of creepy supernatural stuff going on as well.
I guess they're making a western version of this film - do yourself a favor and watch the original first.
Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Surprisingly... Not bad.
I started watching this with a feeling of apprehension -- So far, I have yet to see a Sci-Fi Channel original presentation that didn't - shall we say - suck, and suck BAD. In my experience, all the Sci-Fi Channel Original Movies I've seen suffer from poor editing (and by that, I mean huge chunks of what made it on screen should have been on the cutting room floor), poor directing, poor writing, or poor acting, randomly placed sex scenes that didn't seem to help the plot at all, or a combination of those things.
That said, I was pleasantly surprised. Not to say that this movie didn't have most of those flaws - it did - but it still managed to be pretty good despite the flaws.
The acting was pretty good -- in fact, I would have to say the acting overall was better than in the original series. Everyone who has a speaking role in this production is able to carry it through. The direction was not bad either, although the film did drag on in spots - but once again, that's mainly due to the world famous Sci-Fi channel "Quantity over Quality" style of film editing. The CGI work was very good, although I always complain when I can tell it was CGI rather than a real model - and I could tell on EVERY CGI shot in this film. But since its Sci-Fi Channel, I'm willing to forgive that - it didn't have the budget for better visuals.
The casting was pretty good - Edward James Olmos does a great job as Adama, and - although it was weird to see Starbuck as a female - Katee Sackhoff did a very good job in the role. I also really enjoyed James Callis as Gaius Baltar. The only problem I really had with any of the main characters was that Jamie Bamber's acting was a bit shallow - he kept reminding me of Robert Duncan McNeill's "Tom Paris" role from Voyager - I suppose it doesn't help that he resembles him a bit, too.
The CG Models were very good, although it was strange seeing things that were so clearly "based on" Galactica, and not actually from the original series. The Galactica itself is a very different ship, but it's a good ship nonetheless. The new versions of the original Colonial Vipers are a bit strange to me - They've smoothed all the edges and made everything rounder. The effect is that they look more like actual aircraft, but they also lost that "old hardware that's been in use for decades" look that I loved from the originals. As for the "new" vipers... I was glad to see as little of them as I did, they were boring.
I had problems with many areas of this film - where do I begin? I suppose we'll save the spoilers for last and go right towards the cinematography. I saw a snippet of an interview with someone who said their goal was to make sure that the whole thing was filmed with the camera in mind - that we would always be conscious of the cameraman, that you would have the impression that the action was being shot from a camera on another ship, or nearby on the same ship, or whatever... The result looks like amateur camcorder filming, especially in the CGI shots. It's EXTREMELY distracting when you're watching an exciting space battle, and the camera shakes, zooms in, then pans around to find its target, then shakes again. I hope the series doesn't make the same mistake.
The movie was too long - they could have cut an hour out of it and made it much better. There were many long scenes that could have been cut shorter, or omitted altogether, and made the movie better for it.
Here I must issue a SPOILER ALERT -- If you haven't seen the movie, I recommend you skip this next paragraph, and go right to "SPOILER OVER".
Last, and definitely not least, I had big problems with the Cylons in this version. I understand the reasons for doing the "human" looking Cylons - cost alone has to be a factor, you don't need any sort of special costume or makeup effect if they appear to be human in every way, down to the blood. That said, I don't feel it played well on screen. I would have preferred more of the original "just plain evil" chrome Cylons like we're used to. Let's face it, they're just scarier. Unfortunately, although the Chrome Cylons sort of make an appearance in this film, they are incredibly disappointing. They don't move realistically, they don't look realistic... And they look flimsy, like they could break if you touch them wrong. I miss the old, bulky Cylons. They looked TOUGH. The new ones don't even have any speaking roles in the movie. Very disappointing.
SPOILER OVER
Overall, it was disappointing - but it was a fascinating story - the updated version of the story was very good, frankly. There were flaws, but nothing I couldn't see as pilot episode kinks, still to be worked out. I hope they put more emphasis on the action and suspense and less emphasis on the sex in the series... But I don't hold out much hope for a Sci-Fi Channel production.
Slipstream (1989)
Underrated
Slipstream is, in my opinion, a very under-rated movie, with an excellent cast. Bill Paxton is entertaining in his role as the unlikely hero, Bob Peck is superb in his role as Byron, the fugitive -- Even F. Murray Abraham and the great Ben Kingsley make appearances in this unlikely post-apocalyptic action film. But the best performance of all, in my opinion, came from Mark Hamill, playing a very nasty cop. I've never seen Mark Hamill play the "bad guy," and he did an EXCELLENT job convincing me that he was not only a sociopathic jerk, but that he was not Mark Hamill. In fact, I didn't even realize who he was until the third time I saw this film - his performance is excellent, and different than anything else I've seen him do.
Unfortunately, the film has its problems. The plot suffers from some cheesy moments, the music is overbearingly loud, and while it is well orchestrated and very majestic, it's often a bit too majestic for what's going on. There are also some long scenes that could have been shortened or even cut to the benefit of the film. The ending is disappointing - abrupt and more than a bit ridiculous. Add to this that nearly every copy I've seen is on low-grade VHS, recorded at a slow speed.
This said, overall, the movie is entertaining, and interesting. If it was based on a book, I'd love to read it. I came away from the movie wishing I knew more about the characters involved, and curious about what would come next for the main characters. The movie kept my interest, and I did watch it again - several times.