Reviews

There's nothing new here folks, but I dont regret watching it. Four good looking teenagers in an isolated environment with a scary villain trying to kill them. Yep nothing new as far as the slasher genre goes, but nothing bad either. Some of the other reviewers are exaggerating how bad this is. Think of it as a lower budget Jeeper's Creepers without the car chase or flying above the fields camera work. The acting isn't as bad as others have said. Its a really low budget horr film so what do you expect? There's a bit of tittilating implied sex, good looking young people, including the a girl who left half of her pants at home. Theres' a couple of genuinely funny parts and some scaring set pieces. I got what I expected and I enjoyed it. If you liked Jeepers Creepers, you will probably like this movie.

This is listed as a horror film, but it plays out more like a straight forward crime film with supernatural elements. Nuntha (Patcharapa Chaichua) has to care for her three nieces and nephews, when her Brother dies mysteriously. Strange things start to happen and so Nuntha starts investigating his death in greater detail. Her Brother had been working as an undercover cop, trying to penetrate the secrecy of a mafia like criminal gang. This is a ghost as protector type film. It lacks the many jump scares that similar American films have, but it does beautifully recreate the nastiness of underworld of crime colliding with the dread of the after life.

Alien Abduction is an Alien themed found footage film and of this much maligned sub genre, its a very good film.

The film involves a typical American family going on a road trip up Brown Mountain (North Carolina), where reports of glowing lights in the sky have been reported by many believable witnesses in real life. This of course forms the background to the film, as well as some of the plot's subject matter. The actors in the film are all excellent and do a believable job.

I don't get why some of the other reviewers panned this film; perhaps they have grown tired of the found footage sub genre. I thought this films was definitely one of the better found footage films out there. If you've never seen such a film before, this is a good place to start.

At time of writing this documentary still has been denied distribution through mainstream home video methods as well as video on demand online streaming. Before conspiracy theorists chime in, I imagine this is because of the litigation such a move might attract. It would be the distributors that would have to foot that bill. This is a shame because its an excellent introduction to the problem of pedophiles in the entertainment industry. The most famous name mentioned is X-Men director Bryan Singer who loves being around very young good looking boys. While its in doubt if he is guilty or not, his behavior comes across as really unwholesome and if guilty needs to be thrown in jail. This documentary, directed by Amy Berg, whose similar documentary on the subject, Deliver Us from Evil (2006) lifted the veil of pedophilia in the Catholic Church. So this is ground she knows only too well and she manages to avoid cliché, propaganda and aggressive judgement and instead focuses on the victims as it should. Its an important documentary and needs to be seen.

Doom Generation is a pretentious brain dead road movie that takes style over substance to a whole new level. Amy and Jordan are young losers whose lives are a destructive blur of junk food, swearing and killing. These two losers are joined by hipster drifter Xavier whose appearance in the film seems to be an attempt to prove that being bisexual is somehow automatically cool. He isn't. He is boring and so is this film. There are much better 1990s road movies like Natural Born Killers, Kalifornia and Flirting With Disaster to name a few.

This is a thinly veiled biography of film producer and sometimes Israeli gunrunner Arnon Milchan. Nicholas stars as fictitious Russo- American "Yuri Orlov". Orlov is a man that wants it all. He wants wealth and a trophy wife, achieves both quickly, and loses it all just as fast. He makes his money as a war profiteer, but predictably, an addiction to cocaine brings about his downfall. However since the profit in death that war brings is a lucrative industry for the shadowy forces that really run the white house, he mysteriously is set free to continue his nefarious activity.

Masquerading as light comedy, this is actually a really clever satire for what it is. Its better than Wag The Dog and Idiocracy and is an easily digestible version of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). Eddie Murphy plays a naive but slightly corrupt huckster who believes getting into office in Washington will give him the kind of cushy job that will pay him well to do very little actual work. When he encounters what the job actually entails, he is forced to question his place in the world and in a heartwarming way achieves what in reality is utterly impossible; doing the right thing in Washington free from the unnecessary corruption that drives it.

This is hands down Tom Cruise's best film. While the plot is an obvious rip off of Ground Hog Day, it pushes the boundaries further than the film it steals from. If you're going to steal, might as well steal from the best. Ground Hog Day was one of the best comedies ever made and this is one of the best science fiction films ever made. If you've seen the Bill Murray comedy the plot will seem awfully familiar. The main character keeps repeating the same day until he sets things right. Both films transcend their genre, since while the problems they face definitely exist in the physical world, the solution is most definitely grounded in the metaphysical world. If you loved the Bill Murray film and are partial to good science fiction stories, you'll probably love this film as much as I did.

This movie is far better than the rating it has on this site, although I think I know why. As far as light entertainment goes, its silly and fun. Owen and Freeman are both great, Sarah Foster is gorgeous and Charlie Sheen puts in a good turn as an inept part time thief. Its fun right up until, the non existent ending. The movie just ends suddenly not really explaining anything or tying up any loose ends. The dialog and music builds up to imply a twist ending, but it comes to nothing as the film abruptly ends. Maybe they ran out of money? The movie is set in and was shot in Hawaii so maybe the crew thought they'd prematurely hit some wrap party hash pipe and go sleep it off down at the beach. The movie is pretty good up until then though.

Akira Kurosawa's film Yojimbo involves a samurai that plays off two rival criminal clans against each other until they are both annihilated. Sergio Leone made almost a shot for shot remake of Yojimbo unofficially (Kurosawa sued him and won out of court) to create Fistful of Dollars, the movie that made Clint Eastwood a legend. In that movie Eastwood played a gunslinger playing two ranchers against each other and, you guessed it, both of their crews get annihilated. This movie is heavily influence by both of those films. In it Josh Hartnett plays off Ben Kingsley against Morgan Freeman and destroys them both. Hartnett gets a lot of help by a mysterious hit-man. The hit-man is played by Bruce Willis, in the last film he actually bothered to care about and act well in. His character is reminiscent of Willis' Butch from Pulp Fiction. The Wrong Man (also known as Lucky Number Slevin) is a compelling fast paced action thriller in it's own right and its probably a good primer for the two older films I mentioned.

This is one of those films that defy convention and easy description. I'm tempted to call it an "Arthouse Thriller", but that wouldn't do this film justice. If you enjoy a good intelligent thriller that will test the boundaries of your comfort level as well as your imagination, I recommend giving this film a chance. It is a unique and brave film. A similar film mind bending mystery is Last Year at Marienbad (1961) (L'année dernière à Marienbad).

Don't believe the lying shills rating this a ten out of ten. The original Blade Runner is a masterpiece. This film is not. It only deserves a six, but I loved the original so I gave it a seven. My review will compare both films and it contains **spoilers**.

First up its pacing. This film is actually much slower than the original, adding up to two hours and forty three minutes of mind numbing boredom. I love slow paced films provided there's enough drama and tension. The first Blade Runner film has long pauses, but its justified. The silence swells toward sudden violence or it occurs because a character is gnawing over a great line of dialog they've just heard or are about to express. So what makes a slow paced film entertaining? The solution is information provided at the right time.

The first film immediately tells us that replicants are murderous outlaws. We see one commit murder. Some are hiding here on Earth in Los Angeles and Dekkard is forced to detect and kill them. All that information is given to the audience within the first few minutes. So when Dekkard is wandering through crowded streets of futuristic LA, we the audience are afraid for him, because any one of them could be a murderous replicant. Dear Ridley Scott repeat after me: Information creates tension.

This newer film instead begins with long drawn out scenes of dull aimless searching and investigating. Since no villain shows up until the last hour, there's no reason for the hero to actually hurry or feel afraid. When the boring pace finally speeds up toward the end, you're so bored out of your skull, you forgot why anyone is doing anything and you no longer care or even notice what the film thinks is a stunning twist.

Those shill reviewers are glowing about its photography. Compared to its budget, the photography is below standard. There are rare nice moments. Seeing the fusion powered spinners (those flying cars) again was nice nostalgia, but far too many albeit pretty shots of -- nothing happening -- rendered the plot all the more irrelevant.

Now for the production design. The indoor set designs were poor, telling us very little about the world this film is set in. The "production value" looks cheap. I don't mean that in a cheap sleazy film noir way (no that would have been cool), I mean that I don't know where they spent the 185million budget, because only a fraction of that was spent on the sets. Two things did work. The voice comp device has been updated reminiscent of 1984 (the Orwell film starring John Hurt) and there is a Total Recall (the original not the remake) style artificial Female hologram character that is programmed to love K (Ryan Gosling). Interesting, but hardly ground breaking, while the original film was ground breaking in too many ways to mention here. The close up long lens shots in the original made the grimy futuristic streets of Los Angeles really look and feel like a crowded claustrophobic sleazy poverty stricken hellhole. Such a lens also gives size to any character in the foreground making Ford look all the more epic.

This film used wider lenses and so the pent up tension of the original street scenes is non existent. In fact very rarely does it venture outside into the streets, so that we cannot breathe in the human polity as easily as we did in the original. The original film had real light emanating from miniature buildings, vehicles and advertising. I'm sorry but computer generated light just doesn't behave like real light does. Real light goes where it wants. The human eye cannot be fooled. Syd Mead is a genius. But looking at this film makes me think he wasn't given the power he needed to bring out this film's potential. It actually looks like some hack is trying to copy him. This makes me feel sad to write that. His work on Elysium (2013) was far superior.

And now the acting. Gosling plays it straight (and glum) as he did in the pretty to look at but boring Bangkok crime flick Only God Forgives. There is a plot reason for this, but his dull acting compounds this movie's languid pace. There's not enough of Harrison Ford, who only shows up in the last hour (maybe less?). Jared Leto's monologues are just awful. Its not his fault. He's miscast and badly written.

Like Mead, Philip K Dick is a genius too, both films are inspired by his literary masterwork "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". This film didn't delve deep enough, barely scratching the intellectual surface. Since many of his concepts are incredibly visually rich that just compounds the cinematic failure here.

Should you go and see this? If you're a fan of the original, I think you should. The story ends in a way that sets things up for another Blade Runner movie which I hope will actually be entertaining.

This film is meant to be a science fiction noir film, but it has little of the intelligence we expect from science fiction and none of the crime solving tension that is required of film noir. It lacked the brutal immediacy of the original nexus 6 villains the first one had in spades. It lacked the tense cat and mouse hunting game that made the original so intense, a race where the lead changed more than once. It just isn't as clever as its, at times pretty visuals and constantly obnoxious soundtrack, pretends it to be.

Instead we get a self important bloated fatware art-house snoozefest that is bleak, boring and about as intellectually deep as counterfeit artificial snake skin.

Kirk Douglas is marvelous in this film. He plays a loathsome creature called Chuck Tatum, a scheming manipulative journalist who will stop at nothing to regain the position he once held - as one of New York's most successful tabloid journalists. Initially we aren't really told what Humpty did to have a great fall, but we see glimpses of his true nature along the way.

He stumbles into a small town newspaper where he demands a job hoping its the first step in regaining his former glory. It takes an entire year for a juicy story to fall into his lap - A stricken miner becomes trapped after a cave-in - and Tatum wrings it for all its worth. His headline grabbing flair and salesmanship brings in droves of curious onlookers, glory hunters and of course the men required to save the stricken miner. The latter of course choose the most logical course, bolster the fallen ceiling enough to reach the stricken man. However Tatum decides to drag things out, so that he can play the story for as much tension and drama as he can, driving newspaper sales and his own bank account and inflated ego all the while. He enlists and thus corrupts the rescue foreman and local sheriff to make this happen. These are simple folk and are easily bamboozled by the slick and cunning Tatum. This of course has tragic consequences for the stricken minor whose cheery demeanor belies a much worse condition. ** The next paragraph will spoil this movie so stop now if that's a problem for you. **

Movies in this time period had to show that "crime doesn't pay" so the ending is a downer, but logical given Tatum's hubris and all the tragic consequences it brings. It's ending poses a similar question to the one in the classic western Shane (1953); does the hero die at the end? Some argue Tatum just collapses in exhaustion, while others say he dies. The way another character just lets himself go toward his demise, gives an insight to that possibility. The one flaw in that death is that Tatum could have just given him ear plugs! Despite that plot hole, Ace In The Hole (1951) is a near perfect film that gives insight into the muckraking art of the con artist and how that relates to mass media. Anyone interested in media, politics and propaganda should watch this film. Its right up there with Network (1976).

The Fan is an excellent thriller directed by British director Tony Scott (True Romance, Top Gun) and stars Robert De Niro and Wesley Snipes. It is an intense and disturbing plunge into the darkness of obsession. Its rated average on this site is far too low to be believed (5.8 at time of writing). I contend that the unhealthy subject matter of obsession cut too close to the bone for many viewers, hindering a more favorable and fairer rating. Perhaps this film held a mirror too close to their own faces. I don't know what they were expecting. Obsession is a common theme in thrillers and for those that can stomach it, please note that it is used in an uncommonly brilliant way here.

Robert de Niro is superb as Gil Renard. Gil's life is on a slow downward spiral. His sales job is under threat and an atrocious relationship with his ex wife threatens to derail his tenuous connection with his wide eyed innocent son. Think of a more intense darker quieter Willy Loman. Gil's desperation for professional and personal success mirrors the fortunes of his beloved but ailing San Francisco Giants who haven't won a pennant in years. This might change though when the club announces a brand new marquee singing in Bobby Rayburn (Snipes) and so Gil starts to invest all his hopes in the success of this elite baseballer.

Gil feels a strong connection to him as he himself played baseball. In Gil's mind, he was a great "has been", but in reality he is a "never was" and never played beyond little league. He should be internally fixing his life, but instead he externalizes all of his hopes, failure and sadness into an unhealthy obsession for Rayburn.

Gil dips into fantasy whenever he faces external disappointment and finds solace in repeating mantras his childhood hero, little league coach Coop (Charles Hallahan) instilled in him years ago. Gil considers Coop the finest proponent of the art of baseball. When we see Coop later we realize this might be pure fabrication. As Gil's ability to judge reality deteriorates his obsession hurtles toward a dark dangerous and suicidal path; an older angrier "Taxi Driver" driven beyond the point of no return.

Bobby Rayburn in contrast sees life picture perfect. He knows he isn't Gods gift to the sport and admits it when he gets lucky on the diamond. But to someone like Gil, seeing Rayburn hitting a home run to win a game, its as magnificent as anything anyone has ever done in baseball. It happened because Rayburn is God's gift to the Giants. The schism between them, the golden ones that light up the scoreboards and simple folk like Gil, is apparent to everyone but Gil, whose continual lapse into childhood baseball fantasy is both realistic, understandable and tragic. Rarely has this spiritual divide been better examined in any sports related films.

This might explain the low rating this film has on this site. Film viewers want to live the Rayburn fantasy and not the loser reality however brilliantly observed in Gil. I gave it an 8 out 10.

Chi Bi (Red Cliff) was at the time the biggest budgeted Chinese film ever made. Directed by Hong Kong action legend John Woo, this film tells the story of the Battle of Red Cliff, the famous battle where a force of around fifty thousand soldiers and sailors beat an armada and landing army of nearly a million.

It is ancient China in the year 208 AD China. During the waning years of the Han Dynasty, power mad prime minister Cao Cao bullies the weak Han emperor to unite all of China through. He demands and gets a war against the Xu, a kingdom in the west and against the Wu to the South.

The two weaker nations then are forced into an uneasy alliance. The main characters are of course the military leaders from these two nations, who brilliantly outwit and outmanouvre their greater foe. Their victory was a turning point in Ancient Chinese history, and this resulting movie is an action war classic.

I like violent films as long as the violence is justified. Revenge in films need to follow that same rule. The revenge in Braveheart is justified. A man kills the man that murdered his wife. An eye for an eye. The revenge in Jaws is justified. William Wallace and Chief Brody deserve our respect, because they take revenge at an equal proportion to how they and their community were wronged. The Bride in this film does not and that's why its a poor film.

This film goes far beyond an eye for an eye. It takes a nose dive off the sanity cliff and plummets toward a soulless sadistic endeavor made by a sadist to titillate other sadists. It advances the notion that we are meant to admire a sadist for taking out several eyes for the loss of just one eye. Its most sadistic crime is where the film attempts to actually justify forcing an innocent child to witness her own mother being butchered. The scene ends with the murderer cooing at the child as though the kid could care less what her mother's murderer thinks about anything. Kill Bill Part 2 ends with the avenging sociopath walking off into the sunset with her own daughter unscathed like she earned that ending. Yeah right.

In case you didn't notice, this movie is about revenge. We know this because the main character played by Uma Thurman constantly whines about deserving it. This is not a character to be admired. This is a petulant child throwing one manically violent tantrum after the next. If this film were a book it would be titled a sociopath's guide to revenge. Anyway while she was clearly wronged, the loss of just one life does not justify going on an insane rampage and killing dozens of people.

Let us think of the classic crime film The Godfather. A film that handles violence and revenge with complete class. The first scene introduces the code by which the mafia live by. The scene shows a man demanding revenge for his daughter being assaulted. She is still alive, but her father wants the two men responsible to die. The Godfather gives the man justice, but not to the extent that he wants. This is logical, revealing the mastery of wisdom a mafia crime boss needs to maintain his position. In Kill Bill the bride deserves revenge, but not to the extent that she wants.

To round out the weirdness, Uma Thurman was apparently preferred by Tarantino, since her face reminded him of the famous horse Trigger. No really.

The technical aspects of this film is good. You have to give credit to the crew that completed their work with technical mastery. The work though is directed by Quentin Tarantino, so the real credit for his skill, lies in the artists he steals from. Go watch Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973), which was released as They Call Her One Eye in America, which is the basis for the Daryl Hannah character (the lady with the eye patch over one eye). Or watch Lady Snowblood to see where Tarantino stole the snowy fight scene or the several Sonny Chiba films that have better fight choreography. While you're at it, ask Bruce Lee fans how they feel about his most famous costume worn by a person who cant fight, whose lack of martial skill is hidden by fast cutting, like cheap perfume hides stink.

No wonder Tarantino makes a film about a sociopath supposedly deserving respect for reaping much more than they sow. He has made a very successful career out of it. In an America that has teenagers committing mass murder in high schools and in a world where death cults fueled by sadistic revenge threaten to destroy us all, movies like this should never be made.