Change Your Image
zridling-1
Reviews
Holmes on Homes (2001)
Truly, a cut above all renovation shows
Although the show could be cut from 60 to 30 minutes, Mike Holmes consistently gives good advice throughout the series. Among that advice is how to find a good contractor, how and when to pay them, do your research and know how much you're going to pay for a specific project, and how to inspect the contractor's work. Here's the full list:
(1) Start with an honest assessment of current situation. (2) Recognize that a temporary fix is just that – temporary. (3) Rip away the external and get to the heart of all problem areas. (4) Return to the basics and focus on a good foundation. (5) Do the hard work in the beginning -- and continue with it until each task is completed. (6) Make sure each layer of subsequent work ties in to the work that came before it. (7) Stop making excuses and do the work. (8) The true cost of any decision cannot be measured simply in dollars, but must also take in to account time. (9) There is little value in appearance if it is only camouflaging structural damage. (10) A job well done is its own reward.
Mike has no tolerance for half-done workmanship and though he doesn't name names, he points out exactly where previous contractors fell short. When something has been messed up, however, Holmes is the guy you want fixing it. There's a guy much like him in my hometown; he's not cheap by any means, but he's a perfectionist and the work gets done right... once.
Seven Pounds (2008)
The sap is as thick Will Smith's head
Let's cut to it: After giving his fiancée a monstrous diamond ring not even a millionaire could afford, Will Smith kills her in the next minute while fiddling with his Blackberry; he smashes into a van loaded with people.
Miraculously, Will is thrown clear and is barely scratched even though he's shown taking the brunt of the accident as the car flips 404 times and down the side of a mountain. Fiancée is dead on the highway. Smith spends the rest of his life helping others by donating organs, helping them out of money/tax problems, and by being an angry hothead trying to show 'da white man' how to treat his relatives. In the end, Smith commits suicide by drowning in a bathtub of ice and donates the rest of his organs (and eyes to Woody Harrelson) to everyone else.
It's utter pablum only matched by endless maudlin music. No academy awards, this should have been a Lifetime after school movie.
The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
I grew up in Texarkana, and I knew Charles Pierce
First off, this killer was never extraordinary. Sure it was the 40s, but there was always someone getting killed in Texarkana, whether it was the 40s or the 70s. The far scarier (real life) character was depicted by Pierce in his LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK film. That had the whole area freaked out back then because that creature screwed up some people's lives.
What was different about this particular serial killer is that he preyed on people. You weren't safe at home, coming out of your church, or heck, even your own outhouse. In Texarkana all the kids would go to Spring Lake Park to screw their girlfriends, and yes, I banged a lot of girls in that park. The LAST thing you want when you're banging some babe is for some jackass to walk up on you and stab you. I mean, hail, you're naked, you're in the moment, and you don't notice the dude with the hood over his head until your already cut.
Let's just say it ruins the date.
Charles Pierce was a cool guy in the 70s — still is. But while he made movies on the cheap (nowadays we call them Indy films), he was very serious about his craft. Like a lot of folks in the movie business, Charles had Herculean work habits, and he was an excellent editor. Check this movie out. It will make you appreciate the 70s genre more than Tarantino ever could.
Iraq in Fragments (2006)
Sick of the Michael Moore cheap shots - this film stands on its own merits
Getting pretty tired of these conservatives taking cheap shots at Michael Moore every time they review a documentary. It's as if they're obsessed with the guy ever since he exposed their lies. In this film, however, Longley wanted to get up close and personal, and the cinema verite approach he chose lends itself perfectly to putting the viewer in the lives of his subjects. In the first segment, Longley follows the depressingly hopeless existence of young Mohammed Haithem, an 11-year-old boy living in the heart of old Baghdad. Mohammed's father has disappeared, he lives with his grandmother, and seesaws between struggling to get an education, where he is four years behind and struggling to learn to write his name, and working as a shop apprentice to help support his family.
Longley's lens captures Mohammed's gloomy neighborhood with dismal clarity -- the poverty, the frustration of the Sunni population at the sudden rise in power of the majority Shia, long repressed by Saddam Hussein's Baathist government, who are gaining power and control for the first time in years and making it difficult for the Sunnis to find work. Somber men play backgammon and talk bitterly about the United States only wanting Iraqi oil. "We don't care about the oil," one man says. "Why don't they just take it and leave us alone?" Rent it, buy it, watch it. It's worthy.
Next (2007)
God awful
This movie could have been so, so much better, but like so much that comes out of Hollywood, this was just bad. From Nick Cage's and Julianne Moore's SAME hair color from a cheap Wal-Mart bottle to the god-knows-why Jessica Biel's character was in the show at all, this story just doesn't cut the believability test from start to finish. Not sure where people keep getting the idea that Cage can act. But at this age, he's getting really hard on the eyes. And when paired with someone who's more than 20 years younger than him, it gets ridiculous fast. (All the hot Playmate-like babes like Biel are looking for run-over guys like Cage? Yeah, maybe in bizarro world.) If you had Nick Cage's clairvoyant "gift," you'd be doing a million other things than hanging out in Vegas. Trust me. Rent it, and fast-forward through all - all the Jessica Biel parts. Oh, and the ending will tick you off. You're warned.
El Cid (1961)
Great movie, despite the hackery of Charlton Heston
If you replace Charlton Heston with anyone - anyone - this movie is in the top 25 of all time. Instead, every time Heston is on screen, you want to cringe. He looks absolutely idiotic trying to stay on top of a horse. In the big fight scene, he's got twelve guys slicing and dicing him with swords, but he escapes without even a bruise. By now he's playing the same fake hack he played in every movie he ever made. The rest of the cast was stunning, as was the costumes. But be sure to watch it anyway. NOT EVEN Heston can ruin this one. Sophia Loren is total babeness here Anyone else notice the Muslims playing the USC fight song at the 2:23 mark? Man, those old-school dudes had rhythm!