Review – Nurse Betty

Renee Zellweger and Morgan Freeman head the talented cast of this odd little comedy about a woman who gets lost in a post traumatic stress fantasy world. After seeing her husband murdered by a couple of hit men (Freeman and Chris Rock), Betty (Zellweger) overcomes her shock by retreating into an imaginary life in which she is romantically involved with the male lead in her favorite soap opera. The plot divides up between our protagonist’s quest for the imaginary doctor of her dreams and the hit men’s quest for the drugs in the trunk of the car Betty drives from Kansas to Los Angeles. Though the movie is occasionally overcome by its own quirky and slightly too sentimental nature (especially toward the end), most of the jokes work well and the characters are easy to like. This is unlikely to be a big award winner, but it’s entertaining enough for a Sunday evening dead dog movie. Mildly amusing

Review – What Lies Beneath

What lies beneath my living room rug would have made a more interesting movie than this boring nonsense (which is saying something, because I actually swept recently). I guess after they were done paying Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer to head the cast there was only enough money left for really cheap plot twists. Our two mega-stars play a perfectly perfect couple who lead a perfectly perfect life until a ghost turns up in their perfectly perfect house. Honestly, this pair is so prosperous, proper and vacuous that they could have been afflicted with something a lot worse than ghosts without evoking much interest from me in their ultimate fate. Just in case you actually watch this stinker and care about the characters, I won’t spoil the plot for you. But be warned, there really isn’t all that much plot to spoil. See if desperate

Review – Tales from the Crypt

This is one of the best-known samples from the group of horror anthology movies made in England in the 60s and 70s. It owes at least part of its notoriety to its connection with William Gaines’ infamous Tales from the Crypt comic book series, consisting of five tales reproduced from the comics strung together with a bracketing story hosted by Ralph Richadson as a monk-like Crypt Keeper. The bracket reeks of director Freddie Francis’ previous effort, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, but the rest is pure EC. Three of the stories work fairly well. In the lead-off tale, Joan Collins murders her husband and is in turn slaughtered by a psycho in a Santa suit. The second is a silly but amusing zombie rework of It’s a Wonderful Life. And the final segment presents the amusing but over-wrought revenge visited upon the cruel manager of a rest home for blind men. The third and fourth segments are a little harder to take. The third tells the story of a kindly old man driven to suicide by his greedy neighbors. This segment suffers from its own quality; Peter Cushing does such a good job as the sympathetic victim that the story becomes more depressing than scary or amusing. The fourth story is a cheap reheat of “The Monkey’s Paw” (indeed, it practically admits as much), entertaining only during the “death rides a pale motorbike” scene. Overall this is a good example of its sub-genre but not much else. Mildly amusing

Review – Fail Safe

This would make a great double feature with Doctor Strangelove, a movie of almost identical theme that stole most of the thunder from this picture when it was released earlier in the same year (1964). Unlike Kubrick’s comedic end-of-the-world masterpiece, this round is a dead serious exploration of the hazards of the uneasy detente that ruled the nuclear world at the time. Oh, and this time around the catastrophe is triggered by an accident rather than by a madman. The plot often bogs down in extended dissertations on war and morality or digresses on the technical minutiae of nuclear combat. However fascinating such matters might be to Cold War buffs everywhere, they do tend to bring the plot to a screeching halt every time one comes up. Even the story line tends to play out like one of those hypothetical exercises they used to give us in junior high to help teach us to think about people in terms of political triage rather than as individual human beings. That aside, the movie’s only serious failing is that the comedic version is a lot easier to cope with. Mildly amusing

Review – Red Planet

Val Kilmer and Carrie-Ann Moss head the cast in this umpty-millionth retelling of humanity’s conquest of the fourth planet in our solar system. Sadly, the premise isn’t the only thing in this movie that’s been done before. Its worst aspect is that great cliché of action flicks that have to fill 90 minutes of screen time with 20 minutes’ worth of plot: the story depends for the most part on a seemingly endless parade of unlikely mishaps that keep our heroes hopping from one catastrophe to the next. It doesn’t help that the characters themselves are such cardboard cut-outs that it’s hard to care if they live or die even the first couple of times they’re imperiled. By the 20th or so I found myself praying for death (theirs or mine, I didn’t much care which). The special effects were good, but much more I can’t really say in favor of this stinker. See if desperate

Review – The Mexican

I was pleasantly surprised by this picture. Usually when Hollywood packs this level of star power (Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, and that’s just to start) into a quirky little caper movie like this, the producers make up for overspending on actors by under-spending on script. Oddly enough, the script here is probably the high point of the movie. The dialogue is clever, the story (the tale of a hapless petty criminal who must retrieve a priceless antique pistol from Mexico for his mobster boss) flows fairly evenly, and the running gags keep running throughout. I was particularly tickled by the recurring presence of a vicious dog with a deflated football for a chew-toy. Even the romance between the leads almost works. There aren’t a lot of knee-slapping funny spots, but it maintains a nice, even tone of clever, offbeat humor from beginning to end. Mildly amusing

Review – Reaper

Fear the reaper. Or at the very least, fear having to sit through this boring stinker. This is one of those whodunits that goes on so long and makes so many contrived twists that ultimately I lost interest in the crimes, the investigation, the suspects, and the whole nine yards. Chris Sarandon plays a mystery writer who secludes himself in a motel in a small Maine town in an attempt to clear a bad case of writer’s block. Naturally someone starts committing crimes in the general vicinity that mimic the slayings in our hero’s most recent best-seller. Is the author himself – off his meds and drinking too much – killing young women? Is it the gruff, misogynist sheriff? Is it the odd, nerdy deputy? Some other character who gets hauled into the plot late in the game? How long til the movie ends? Now how long? Is it over yet? See if desperate

Review – Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows

The nicest thing I have to say about this effort is that at least it’s not quite as terrible as the original. But then what is? This time around we get a bigger budget, a slicker production, and a plot (or at least something that sort of passes for one). Once again a group of young folks heads into the woods in search of the supernatural.  At least this time they remember to take plenty of cigarettes and manage not to get lost. After suffering a series of mishaps our heroes return to civilization only to discover that the forces of darkness have taken possession of their lives. Like the first one, this outing’s clearly intended for the teen market. And even then only the more easily-amused members of the audience are likely to get much of a kick out of it. See if desperate

Review – Voodoo Academy

Wow, and I thought going to school at Sumner Academy (my old high school) was a dull experience! Who would ever have guessed that the world of drinking, sex and other forms of evil corruption could turn out to be so completely uninteresting? The basic plot here is that a small Bible college – or, more precisely, a six-student startup that teaches a contrived blend of Christianity and Scientology – is actually a front for some sort of satanic sacrifice operation. Perhaps I would have been more impressed if the sacrificial lambs weren’t a set of six teenage boys. Apparently the guys at Full Moon have lost their touch for cheap rubber monsters, buckets of blood and copious tit shots, all of which are just about completely absent from this outing. Inasmuch as they don’t stir anything new in to replace what few assets they used to incorporate, only the extremely easily amused are likely to get much out of this stinker. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Faculty

Oh, rats. The students are onto us. I figured it was only a matter of time before they finally realized that teachers everywhere are actually vicious space aliens out to pull an Invasion of the Body Snatchers routine on them. Guess it was just too good to last. Seriously, though, I suppose the film-makers here think they can get away with a dull reheat of the whole body snatchers thing – with a hearty dose of The Thing thrown in for good measure – based on the assumption that aiming it toward high school students will give the movie an audience not yet familiar with the clichés. Some of the effects are kinda cool, good for an occasional shot that works. Otherwise most folks over the age of 17 or so will probably get more out of the original films than this repetitive outing. See if desperate

Review – Rapid Fire

Brandon Lee is beyond question the highlight of this movie, his all-too-brief career taking a pit stop here to brighten up what otherwise would have been an extremely run-of-the-mill crime-and-international-intrigue movie. The plot rambles, the script is abysmal, and the supporting cast, headed by Powers Boothe, provides very little support. But stuffed in between the ham-handed dialogue and boring plot twists, the Lee family legacy of outstanding martial arts work adds value to an otherwise valueless production. Mildly amusing

Review – Hamlet (1990)

This time around Mel Gibson takes the lead, and oddly enough it doesn’t turn out anywhere near as bad as it might have. Glenn Close (Gertrude), Helena Bonham Carter (Ophelia) and a pack of other hams share scenery with Gibson as the abbreviated version of Shakespeare’s classic unfolds. Though the celeb-intensive casting suggests a movie designed to appeal more to the masses than to highbrow drama fans, the actors take their jobs seriously and put on a reasonably good show. If you’re trying to get around an English class assignment by watching the video rather than reading the play, you could do a lot worse (though be warned: some scenes – including at least one that’s easy test-bait – are missing from the production). Mildly amusing

Review – Komodo

Remember when you were a kid and giant, man-eating lizards killed your parents and your dog? No? Well, neither does the young, amnesiac hero of this strange little tale. To help the boy confront his repressed trauma, his therapist takes him back to the scene of the crime, the family homestead on a small island off the coast of Florida. Unfortunately for the shrink, the boy, and half a dozen or so members of the supporting cast, the place is still infested with a cache of Komodo dragons. I guess it sort of goes without saying that things go badly for actors and CG lizards alike, especially when the protagonist starts having a Lord of the Flies moment. Considering that the bulk of the budget probably went into the monster effects, this didn’t turn out anywhere near as badly as it could have. Mildly amusing

Review – The Court Jester

This is one of those musicals that may look a little different to adults than it does to children. I remember seeing this movie as a kid and getting a real kick out of Danny Kaye’s skill at physical comedy. Even all these years later I get more than just a little chuckle out of the scene where Kaye, a poor jester forced by circumstance to become a knight, gets rushed through the knighthood ceremony. Even a basic summary of the twisting plot of this comedy of errors is well beyond a capsule review, so suffice it to say that the story is a bit on the sappy side, at best serving as a means to tie the goofy gags and musical numbers together. So if you’re in the mood for a little brain candy and can tolerate classic Hollywood musicals, this one’s a winner. Worth seeing

Review – Quills

Rare indeed is the movie that leaves me glad I braved the art house crowds to see it. But this one pulls it off. Geoffrey Rush does an outstanding job as the perverse and talentless yet oddly compelling Marquis de Sade, imprisoned in the Clarenton asylum and forced to smuggle his writing to press via a chambermaid (Kate Winslet). When a new, authoritarian “alienist” arrives on the scene, the Marquis finds himself bereft of writing instruments. And herein lies the true genius of the production; the plot actually proceeds from that point rather than merely wallowing in bathetic bemoaning of the evils of censorship. Our “hero” seeks alternative ways of sharing his tales, with results that ultimately prove disastrous. Who is to blame? The forces of censorship? The author? The criminals themselves? Thankfully, the film-makers provide no clear-cut answer. My only regret about this experience is that I didn’t manage to catch this film in a theater screening a decent – or at the very least non-barbecued – print, and perhaps with better speakers and fewer art-posing rubes in the seats around me. Worth seeing

Review – Explorers

For the most part this one’s strictly for the kids. The plot centers around three boys – a dreamer, a brain and an ordinary joe – who happen upon some tasty little nuggets of alien technology. After considerable pre-teen-oriented high-jinks, they manage to construct sort of a treehouse-looking ship that takes them into outer space to meet their ET benefactors. The all-too-brief encounter with the visitors from another planet is the most amusing part of the movie, at least from the perspective of anyone above the age of 12. However, as kids’ movies go this isn’t half bad. Mildly amusing

Review – Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Who would ever have thought that there would be such a fine line between absurdism and simple stupidity? The concept here is that humanity’s future depends on whether or not two slackers pass their history class. So an emissary from tomorrow gives our heroes a time-traveling phone booth that allows them to collect a squad of historical figures and take them back to San Dimas to aid in the presentation of a make-or-break final report. To be sure, most of the jokes here are pretty dumb, along the same order as Wayne’s World and Beavis and Butthead, though Bill and Ted came first by a few years. What saves this from being just another stupid slacker movie is the ironic interaction between the lofty icons of yesteryear and the lack-wit future of the human race. Worth seeing

Review – The Contender

This movie isn’t easy to categorize. For the most part it’s a political thriller about the back-room games played in an attempt to get a female senator confirmed to the Vice Presidency against strong opposition armed with a host of dirty tricks. However, there are a few comedy elements in here as well. And in the end, when honesty, justice and integrity triumph inside the beltway, of course the thing just becomes a fantasy. The star-studded cast does a solid job with a solid script. In fact, the movie’s only serious fault is that it does tend to preach a bit, particularly when it comes to liberal political issues and the sanctity of the private lives of public officials. Mildly amusing

Review – Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)

In this retelling of the long-familiar tale, Marlon Brando plays a foppish Christian to Trevor Howard’s tyrannical, arrogant Bly. Though this probably isn’t anyone’s finest work, Brando’s performance stands out as especially bad. For openers, he’s the only actor in the cast who’s merely pretending to be British. Further, his portrayal of the leader of the mutineers makes it seem for all the world as if the character is motivated solely (or at least primarily) by his distaste for Bly as a social inferior who dares lord his military rank over an aristocrat. That would have been acceptable, I suppose, but it’s hard to reconcile with the tortured soul Christian becomes once the mutiny has been accomplished. The movie “adjusts” some facts and invents others to keep the story going, but then what movie doesn’t? In the end (which is a long time in coming) this isn’t a bad version of the classic tale. It’s just not especially enthralling. Mildly amusing

Review – The Tailor of Panama

Author John LeCarre and director John Boorman try their hands at British-style black comedy with this Our Man in Havana-flavored offering. Geoffrey Rush stars as a tailor with politically prominent Panamanian clients, a mass of bad debts and a checkered past. Enter Pierce Brosnan as a smarmy MI-6 agent exiled to Panama and looking to use his charm to pull off a money-making scam and make a clean break out of the business. Rush complies with Brosnan’s demands for information about his clients by inventing a make-believe revolutionary movement that the spy then persuades his handlers and their American counterparts to fund. Most of the resulting humor and irony are pretty old hat, buoyed up only marginally by solid production values, decent acting and a passable script. Mildly amusing

Review – The Mummy Returns

As does the bulk of the cast from the 1999 original – less the characters who were irrevocably killed in the first round – supplemented by The Rock (virtually line-free, by the way) and a handful of other disposable supporting roles. The plot and the special effects are back again as well. Sadly, this time around the script leaves a bit to be desired. The story isn’t exactly what you’d call tight, suffering from several twists that come and go without contributing much to the overall tale. Still, I suppose it does its job, assuming that job is to glue the action sequences together. For the most part the fights, chases and scare shots work well. I particularly enjoyed the evil warriors despite wondering why they decided to model them after relatively benign Annubis rather than the actual Egyptian god of darkness, Set. On the other hand, I could have done without the mini-mummies that looked like bizarre combos of fetuses and the Zuni Warrior Fetish Doll from Trilogy of Terror. Though the first one was better, this one’s not a bad way to kill a couple of hours. However, DVD viewers be warned: the “Collector’s Edition” disc is poorly assembled, including extra features of poor technical quality and no option for widescreen viewing. Mildly amusing

Review – Evolution

Here’s unfortunate proof that you can have a decent script, competent direction, expensive effects and a collection of A-minus-list stars and still come up with something that doesn’t last in the theaters. To be sure, this isn’t a great movie; don’t look for it in any categories at the Oscars. Further, it lacks a solid hook. There’s no sex, only bush-league, harmless violence, and none of the heroes or monsters seem like they’d make marketable action figures. And sure, the plot’s an overblown, fauna-rather-than-flora reheat of “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” (or Die, Monster, Die! or any one of a dozen other stories and movies that have used the same general plot line). Despite all that, the movie’s clever and entertaining, certainly more so than many more successful efforts. Of course, maybe I just liked it because the heroes were a couple of community college professors. Worth seeing

Review – Psycho 4: The Beginning

A radio psychologist devotes a show to boys who killed their mothers, and who should call in but our old pal Norman Bates. The tale that unfolds is primarily made up of flashbacks to Norman: the early years. As it turns out, Norman’s mother wasn’t the old crone we thought she was. Instead, she’s an attractive if slightly insane young woman who enjoys an intensely Oedipal relationship with her son, a relationship even more physically Freudian than implied in the first three Psycho movies. The back-story might have worked quite well if the presentation had been a little more even, but the flashbacks appear to show up out of chronological order. The result is a story that’s interesting but occasionally a bit hard to follow. The script also relies heavily on slasher movie clichés (the villain that won’t die, and so on). This isn’t a bad example of the genre, but it might have been better. Mildly amusing

Review – Moulin Rouge

Inasmuch as I’ve never had much of a fondness for either Busby Berkley movies or for crack, it should come as no surprise that I didn’t get much out of this 21st-century parade of the former under the influence of the latter. Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor star (and John Leguizamo squeaks around the set as Toulouse Lautrec) in this odd blend of traditional musical, simple boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-sorta-gets-girl tale and MTV-style music video. When the production seems to be having fun free-basing jump-cuts, fin de siecle decadence and lyrics from inane pop songs, it’s actually a surprisingly amusing experience. Unfortunately toward the end the movie appears to want to be taken seriously, something it might have worked harder to merit. So once again the axiom is demonstrated: the line between irony and stupidity is all too fine. Mildly amusing

Review – The Company of Wolves

If ever a film deserved an E for effort, this one should get it. How many other horror movies explore the sexual dimensions of lycanthropy from a woman’s point of view? Though there’s a fair amount of gore-intensive effects work to be found here, for the most part this production is a sober treatment of werewolf legends – ranging from witchcraft and pacts with Satan right down to Little Red Riding Hood – loosely woven together by an adolescent girl’s dreams. Thus the ambiguous, frightening yet alluring experience of sexual awakening becomes the main theme of the picture. And if nothing else, you have to love the “wolves” the film-makers use; most if not all of the live canines in the movie are obviously fluffy dogs, occasionally menacing but more often than not merely cute. Worth seeing

Review – Monkeybone

This silly little romp almost literally drips Tim Burton, though his name appears nowhere in the credits. In fact, it’s hard not to think Beetlejuice in relation not only to the art direction but also to the plot and some of the characters. Unfortunately, this outing doesn’t fill the shoes it has decided to put on. Brendan Fraser plays a cartoonist who – thanks to a car wreck – ends up with his body in a coma and his mind imprisoned in a bizarre limbo called Downtown. Every once in awhile there’s an amusing bit, usually some form of goofy physical comedy. Mostly it’s just silly, diverting but not much more. Oh, and that bit in the rating card about nudity: Dave Foley’s butt (so Bridget Fonda fans needn’t get their hopes up). Mildly amusing

Review – Psycho 3

Norman Bates is back up to his old tricks again. This time around the love interest is an ex-nun looking for a little kindness and finding it in a very dangerous place. The antagonist side is shared by a no-good drifter and a nosy reporter eager to dig up Norman’s past. Unfortunately for all concerned, Norman has already dug up his own past and has it sitting in a rocking chair in the usual spot upstairs. Though Anthony Perkins does a good job in his typecast role, by this point the series has devolved to the level of run-of-the-mill slasher flick, a genre easily recognized by the heavy reliance on gore and nudity. See if desperate

Review – Cliffhanger

Yes, indeed it is. One cliffhanger after another, as a matter of fact. But even without the brutal honesty of the title, what else would one expect from a Sylvester Stallone mountain climbing movie? There’s a weak excuse for a plot here someplace, some nonsense about estranged buddies versus evil skyjackers, but the story and characters are so obviously mere excuses for the action sequences, effects and vistas that it’s hard to criticize them for being bad. Some of the thrills are mildly thrilling, and I’m sure the endangered wildlife accidentally killed by the film crew would gladly have laid down their lives knowing that the mountainscapes were going to be so attractively photographed. See if desperate

Review – Swordfish

Here’s yet another one of those sad attempts to imitate John Woo that falls miserably short. This time around John Travolta plays an out-of-control shadow government operative who’s spearheading an obscure plot to steal more than nine billion bucks’ worth of DEA funds and use them to finance a covert war against terrorism. To pull off his scheme, he enlists the help of the world’s best computer cracker, enticing him with Halle Berry and blackmailing him with threats against his daughter. As with most movies in this particular genre, this flick depends heavily on effects and action sequences to carry it (though a chortling moron a few rows down from me in the theater evidently thought a lot more of the script than I did). The action stuff’s not bad, but it isn’t especially good either. And really, that sums up the production as a whole. Mildly amusing

Review – Proof of Life

If you’re in the mood for some seriously formulaic action movie mix, then you’ve come to the right place. We’ve got plenty of shooting and explosions for the guys, and for their dates we have Russell Crowe as a security consultant / hostage negotiator / mercenary who makes it his mission in life to help helpless Meg Ryan recover her husband from Latin American guerrillas. Though the plot includes a couple of holes big enough to drive a tank through, for the most part this is an amusing romp through the world of testosterone-driven political intrigue with a hearty dose of the whole someone-to-watch-over-me thing thrown in for good measure. If you like this sort of thing, this is an excellent example of it. Mildly amusing

Review – Grim

When they were questing around for an adjective to use as the title for this outing, they probably should have gone with “Cheap.” Or perhaps “Boring.” Or maybe just plain ol’ “Stupid.” The story – to the extent that there is one – centers around a big rubber monster that lives in some caves below a housing development. If I understood the beginning of the movie correctly, the thing was somehow brought to life by a seance or something like that. Once revived, the latex baddie goes on the rampage, sucking people right out of their living rooms and carting them off to his underground lair. Unaware of the specific nature of the problem, a group of disgruntled landowners goes spelunking. And on and on the cave exploration goes, occupying endless minutes of thoroughly uninteresting screen time. Bad thing is, even after the hapless victims run up against the vicious monster, the movie doesn’t get radically more interesting. I guess I’ve seen worse “attack of the men in rubber suits” movies, but at the moment no examples are coming to mind. See if desperate

Review – The Eternal

I’ll bet in Hell this movie really is eternal. I’ll bet it loops over and over and over again and all the souls in torment have to watch it forever and ever. At least that must add a welcome taste of ennui to what otherwise would merely be a flavorless diet of red hot coals, pokers and oil. On our earthly plane of existence, this is little more than a boring bit of crap that has something to do with a Druid priestess resurrected by the proximity of a relative, a recovering alcoholic who’s brought her family to the auld country for a visit. Christopher Walken shows up just long enough to drop off his performance; I guess he must have been in the neighborhood and figured stopping by would just as fast as phoning it in. I can’t say that I blame him. The script is terrible, the production values nearly valueless, and the acting scarcely redeeming. Mummy fans be further warned: the box said something about a mummy in this movie, but aside from a desiccated peat bog corpse this sucker’s pretty much mummy-free. See if desperate

Review – The Virgin Suicides

Francis Ford Coppola’s daughter takes the helm of this odd little movie about the fragility and inscrutability of adolescent girls. To her credit, Sofia Coppola is at least a little better as a writer/director than she was as an actor. After the youngest daughter of five in a family with unusually strict codes of behavior commits suicide, the remaining four girls (headed by Kirsten Dunst) try to achieve some sense of normalcy. Torn between their strict parents, social pressure and their own desires, all four eventually follow their sister’s lead. Though this isn’t a bad film, a lot of the plot twists and character developments that must have been intended to be “enigmatic” turn out neither clever nor amusing enough to merit the title. Perhaps current and former female teens will have a different take on this than I did, but I found it somewhat diverting but little more. Mildly amusing

Review – Graveyard Shift

Hollywood serves up a low-budget version of Stephen King’s working-class reheat of H.P. Lovecraft’s “Rats in the Walls.” The basic premise (old factory infested by rats and their giant, mutant relatives) has potential, but here the execution leaves a bit to be desired. For openers, the production’s a bit light in the talent department. The biggest name in the whole thing is Brad Dourif, who plays a supporting role as a psychotic exterminator. Our protagonist is played by David Andrews, an actor whose emotional range seems to be limited to a glower of consternation. Or is it constipation? It’s hard to tell. And I guess it probably goes without saying that the tale is a little hard on the rodents, bumping off everything from the cute little pet store critters that are supposed to pass for vermin right up to the giant, fakey-looking rubber rat-bat thing. See if desperate

Review – Grass

Here’s another documentary along Atomic Cafe lines, only this time around the subject is pot rather than bombs. The history is less show and more tell than Cafe, particularly during the narration supplied by Woody Harrelson. Further, there’s no question at all about the position being advocated by the film-makers, though the strongly pro-hemp stance of the narration is for the most part comfortable counterpart to the rabidly anti-hemp archival footage. The result is both entertaining and informative, even if it isn’t groundbreaking cinema. Worth seeing

Review – Children of the Living Dead

This starts out as something along the lines of the Dead trilogy, though the closest George Romero gets to this one is the brief before-and-behind-the-camera appearance of Tom Savini. However, once the prologue plays itself out, the plot takes a turn for the worse. By the time the film-makers have crammed a walking dead, serial-killing religious fanatic in with a group of teens who become some sort of flesh-eating, zombie Manson cult, the whole thing starts to seem like a horror movie Manhattan Project striving to reach critical cliché mass. Further, the technical quality (especially the editing) reek of recent film school grad. So if these guys can get money to make crap like this, whatever happened to Romero himself. Come back, George! The next generation is depending on you to save it from schlock like this. See if desperate

Review – Summer Catch

The promo copy on the box insisted that this outing would prove reminiscent of Bull Durham. But honestly, the only two movies brought to mind by this cliché-fest are Dirty Dancing and Porky’s. There’s some minor league baseball stuff in here someplace (a stale tale of a poor boy shooting for a spot in the majors while falling in love with a rich girl), but for the most part the sports angle is just frosting on a cake made mostly of bad teen movie conventions. Perhaps this might have been a better work in the hands of a better screenwriter or at least some competent actors. As things turned out, however, the occasional jokes that work are too few and way too far between to justify sitting through the production as a whole. See if desperate

Review – Primal Rage

It came from the ’80s! And I mean the deep, deep ’80s. Mall hair. Mopeds. Flashdance-esque music. Characters named Debbie. Buried somewhere under all this is a mad scientist plot involving crusading student journalists, animal research, and the accidental release of some kind of infection or whatnot that turns placid college students into rampaging lunatics. So when the already-unstable frat boys get a good dose of it, look out! The concept’s interesting enough, but the script is so bad and production values so low that it ends up playing out as just another crappy slasher movie. Mildly amusing

Review – Gorky Park

For the most part, this is just another rather uninteresting murder mystery with equally dull international intrigue thrown in for good measure. However, the thing that impressed me enough about this movie to make me want to re-watch it was the backdrop, the whole bleak, cold war Soviet Russia thing that works so well here. William Hurt heads a cast that does a decent job with the story of a Moscow police officer trying to track down a killer who murdered three people and then removed their faces to prevent identification. Though I didn’t get much out of the plot, I did enjoy the look and feel of the movie. Oh, and I also liked the sables at the end. Mildly amusing

Review – Charlie’s Angels

So this is supposed to be funny, right? I mean, this is intended to be a farcical parody of action movies, yes? Even making the somewhat large leap of faith in the proposition that they meant to make a movie this bad, this really is as darn near unwatchable as any flick with this level of budget, effects and star-power could possibly get. Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore do what they can with the wretched script, and when the acting shines through the rest of the show the movie does occasionally offer brief glimmers of hope (i.e. the out-takes at the end are nearly as amusing as the whole rest of the movie put together). But for the most part this production is far too lacking in any sense of logic, sense or style to provide much in the entertainment department. With this big a budget several better movies might have been made. See if desperate

Review – Modern Vampires

Okay look, damn it. Just put “horror comedy” on the box and save me the trouble of renting stuff like this, for crying out loud. If you like cheap, stupid vampire farces, then for all I know you might find this production extremely entertaining. I have no way of judging objectively, because movies of this ilk get on my absolute last nerve. The concept here has something to do with a subculture of vampires living in Los Angeles, a basic idea that might have been turned into something a lot – well, at least a little – better than this. But concept is all that this outing has going for it. The acting is terrible, production values are low, and the script ... well, don’t even get me started. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Kiss of the Dragon

Despite a couple of shaky spots, this formulaic martial arts flick does the job it sets out to do: entertain for 90 minutes or so and not much else. The plot is some weak mish-mash about a Chinese cop (Jet Li) who journeys to Paris to work an international drug bust only to find himself framed for murder by corrupt French cops. Then a prostitute (Bridget Fonda) with a kidnapped daughter gets stirred into the mix. Oddly enough, the quest for the daughter makes for a much more compelling plot than the drug nonsense. Regardless of excuse, the real point here is of course the under-cranked, jump-cut, rocked-out flying fists of kung fu death fight sequences, which with Li kicking much Frenchy-boy ass are pretty much guaranteed to delight American audiences. I’ve seen plenty worse martial arts movies, though I concede I’ve seen a few better ones as well. Mildly amusing

Review – Striptease

Poor Annie Lennox. What did she ever do to deserve having her music used on the soundtrack for a hunk of junk like this? Actually, the premise itself isn’t the end of the world. It’s the usual mish-mash of clichés surrounding a stripper with a heart of gold who’s trying to use her relationship with a politician to wrest her daughter from her abusive ex. Indeed, I’ve heard that the source novel isn’t all that bad. But the movie version sure is. For openers, it can’t seem to decide whether it’s a comedy or a drama (a problem due at least in part to problems in pre-screenings). Thus it ends up playing neither role effectively. And speaking of people who don’t play their roles especially well: the entire cast (even Burt Reynolds, who mails in his performance as the crooked politician) does a workmanlike job with their parts. Everyone, that is, except for the ever-effervescent Demi Moore, who sadly is charged with the task of playing the lead. I’m no stripping connoisseur, but it seemed to me as if her peeling was no better than her acting. And that’s bad. See if desperate

Review – Jury Duty

It’s a Pauly Shore movie. Does anything else really need to be said? This time around everyone’s favorite nitwit is a juror who wants to keep an open and shut trial going because the luxury sequestration digs he’s in are better than his ordinary, everyday life. Some of the jokes are Simpson trial specific and seem somewhat dated these many years later. However, even the non-time-specific humor is more than a little on the dumb side, so I guess it doesn’t really matter. Overall if you’ve got a craving – or even a tolerance – for Shore, you’ll probably like this one as well as you like any of his other work. Otherwise seek elsewhere. See if desperate

Review – Gone with the Wind

If you go into this classic of the silver screen with the (false) notion that author Margaret Mitchell intended her famous novel to be ironic from cover to cover, you may find it a lot easier to enjoy what otherwise plays out like an homage to the good old days of the antebellum South. You know, the society based on the evil of slavery and the faux nobility of slave owners. That’s probably not a fair interpretation of the creator’s intent, but it does make it a little easier to swallow. Otherwise you’re stuck waiting for those little glimmers of genuine insight and nobility, generally contributed by the Black characters or other persons considered beneath contempt by the southern nobility (especially Hattie McDaniel as Mammy). Those moments aside (and they become increasingly rare as the movie progresses), the production is interesting for its technical quality and importance to film history, but otherwise extremely overrated. Mildly amusing

Review – Stargate

Though this is primarily the sci-fi action movie it was marketed to be, my favorite parts are the stock horror elements that show up here and there. The plot begins with Egyptian archaeological mumbo-jumbo that seems like it would be more at home in a mummy movie. There’s also a super-creepy space alien villain played by a combination of opticals and the androgynous guy from The Crying Game. Cool stuff aside, this is a fairly typical space opera. Kurt Russell and James Spader capably play the uninspiring leads in this thrill-packed, effects-driven tale of an ancient artifact that opens a gateway to an earth-like planet in a distant galaxy. Genre fans should get a real kick out of this picture, but most other folks probably won’t consider it much more than somewhat diverting. Mildly amusing

Review – Godzilla 2000

This ain’t the goofy, Cookie-Monster-esque Godzilla from the 70s. Nor is it the iguana-looking thing from the most recent American version. Instead, this is vintage Toho Studios Godzilla, mean and menacing. The budgets have gotten a little bigger and the effects have consequently gotten a bit more sophisticated over the years. For example, our anti-hero’s atomic breath looks less like a fire extinguisher and more like a blast furnace. But technical quality aside, this is still the same old monsters-stomping-models fun. This time around the giant lizard battles a UFO that looks like a big, silver lump of cat barf. Only at the very end does it turn into a big, rubber opponent truly worthy of Godzilla’s notice. The human protagonists are members of the Godzilla Prediction Team (tomorrow’s forecast: partly cloudy with a 30% chance of Godzilla), sort of an atomic, fire-breathing monster answer to storm chasers. If you liked the original, black and white movie, this one should be good for 90 minutes or so of entertainment. Mildly amusing

Review – Cecil B. Demented

Who would have thought that after all these years John Waters would still harbor such animosity toward the Maryland Film Commission? The plot here is pure Patty Hearst (who has a small role in the film): a movie star is kidnapped by a cadre of indie-film-making terrorists and forced to act in their magnum opus. In several ways this production marks a return to Waters’ roots, showing his early talent for light-hearted absurdism and shock value. It also includes a number of art film in-jokes and a handful of celebrity cameos. The movie’s only serious flaw is that sometimes it tends to get just a bit heavy handed, the message occasionally overcoming the charming, silly sense of humor that serves at the movie’s major strength. Worth seeing

Review – Vertical Limit

God smite the person who invented the term “cliffhanger.” It seems nobody can make a movie about mountain climbing without viewing the accident of nomenclature as an edict to create a plot moved by nothing but an endless parade of tense situations. Here caricature is more common than character, and motivations appear to run from cartoonish to non-existent. The result is a Krackauer-esque tale of summit junkies, catastrophes, rescue attempts, catastrophes, men against the mountain, and more catastrophes. The effects are good enough, and the action’s not bad on the rare occasions when the terrible timing of the drawn-out suspense sequences doesn’t kill the excitement. But stand by the mute button unless you’re a big fan of listening to people cough. I’m sure I’m a big fan of realistic depictions of pulmonary edema, but after awhile the hacking gets damn near as bad as the ringing phone at the beginning of Once Upon a Time in America. Mildly amusing

Review – Enemy at the Gates

I’ll bet at some point in the development process this had the potential to become a really good movie. That theory is based on the assumption that this probably started out as a story about a duel between Soviet sniper Vasili Zaitsev and German ace marksman Major Koning in the ruins of Stalingrad in 1942. I read the story of these two guys awhile back and always thought it would make a good movie. As it turned out, the parts of the picture that were actually about sniping were really good. The problem was that the combat sequences were separated by lengthy nonsense – particularly a contrived romance – that appeared grafted on in order to broaden the story’s audience appeal (i.e. war for the guys and love for their dates). As a result, screen time that might have gone to better character development or more extensive treatment of the battle itself instead ended up squandered on go-nowhere subplots. That shortcoming aside, however, the battle sequences are some of the best I’ve ever seen, and the cast does a fine job with a reasonably well-crafted script. Mildly amusing

Review – Mister Roberts

I wonder what this movie would have been like if they’d followed the inclination of Henry Fonda (who plays the title role, as he did on the stage) to stick with the play’s bleak, grim depiction of naval life rather than caving in to the dictates of director John Ford and adding a bunch of silly comedic elements. Either way, this is a fairly good movie. The story takes place on a cargo ship far from the front lines in the Pacific during World War Two, and the action centers around the conflict between a lieutenant (Fonda) who wants to be transferred to combat duty and a despotic captain (James Cagney) who wants to keep him right where he is. Much of the dialogue has that “theatrical” feel to it, and more often than not the goofy comedic elements stand in jarring contrast to the underlying drama. But overall the production works, at least as a representative of its genre. Worth seeing

Review – Cats and Dogs

The concept here is clever enough: cats are plotting to take over the world, and the only things that stands between the human race and feline domination are our faithful friends the dogs. Sadly, the movie itself turns up to be far more windup than pitch. It’s a reasonably clever spoof of spy movies and features some amusing moments and standard-issue celebrity voices striving to breathe life into cartoon animal relationships. Beyond that, however, the gag wears off fairly quickly, leaving some mid-quality computer animation and really bad cat and dog puppets to carry the load. Mildly amusing

Review – Ginger Snaps

Not since Suzy McKee Charnas’s short story “Boobs” have the connections between female pubescence and lycanthropy been so cleverly explored. The plot of this odd little Canadian production is simple enough: a moody goth girl is bitten by a werewolf shortly after her first period starts, and throughout the rest of the movie she and her sister struggle with all the changes poor Ginger undergoes. Especially for a teen-intensive rubber monster movie, this one’s not half bad. If not for the genuinely excessive pet death (especially the slaughtered dog that leads the show), this outing would have gotten a slightly higher rating. Mildly amusing

Review – Best in Show

Christopher Guest and associates are back in a slightly-too-self-conscious attempt to recreate the success of Waiting for Guffman. This time around rather than a small town’s civic pageant it’s a big-time dog show, but otherwise it’s the same “we’re not laughing at you we’re laughing near you” pseudo-documentary approach to the world of obsessive losers. Despite the somewhat labored nature of the production as a whole, most of the jokes are amusing and the acting is solid. Fred Willard does an especially good job as the former pro athlete turned inept commentator. Even the dogs are cute. If you’re trying to choose between this one and its predecessor, definitely go for Guffman. But if you liked the original you should get a kick out of this one as well. Worth seeing

Review – Ben-Hur

If someone went through and cut out all the closeted gay stuff and all the Jesus wheezing, this would be a much shorter movie. Of course, that shorter product would also be a much more action-packed movie. When the film focuses on spectacular galleon battles or the famous chariot race scene, it’s a pretty good production. Even the parts of the drama that set up the big scenes are worth watching. But then (especially after the race) the plot devolves into a lot of preachiness about how our angry protagonist (played with usual scenery-chewing aplomb by Charlton Heston) finds peace in his heart through a personal relationship with Our Lord and Savior. Fans of the movie will probably respond that the Jesus stuff is the real point of the movie and I just don’t get it. No, I get it. I just don’t want it. When I’m in need of spirituality, Hollywood and Heston aren’t my sources of choice. I’d rather they focused on what they do best: simple entertainment. Mildly amusing

Review – Valentine

The budget is just about all that saves this from being yet another low budget slasher movie. The production’s slick, and the cast is probably priced somewhere in the middle of the star salary range (Denise Richards is the biggest name in the credits). Otherwise, however, it’s the same ol’ same ol’ guy with a mask (a goofy-looking cupid mask in keeping with the Valentine theme) and a big carving knife. This time around the deranged nut seeks revenge on the junior high crushes who spurned his affection. And as per the well-established formula, the cast of unsympathetic characters gets gradually whittled down until the list of suspects grows so short that they have to do something obvious or something ridiculous (for the sake of what little surprise you might get from the end, I won’t say which). I guess I’ve seen worse slasher movies, but that’s not much of an endorsement; I’ve seen a lot of bad slasher movies. See if desperate

Review – Jurassic Park 3

At this point in the series, the plot has been condensed down to its most basic element: DINOSAURS! RUN AWAY! The Sam Neill character from the first one gets lured into accompanying a sight-seeing trip to the island from the second one, and as soon as they land their plane it’s DINOSAURS! RUN AWAY! It turns out Sam’s been duped. His employers are really there looking for their lost kid, and then DINOSAURS! RUN AWAY! After much ado with the usual cast of reptilian characters – not to mention a couple of new additions – the kid is located and DINOSAURS! RUN AWAY! The effects are solid, production values good (especially for a #3 movie), and the acting’s not too terrible. Otherwise it’s just a lot of DINOSAURS! RUN AWAY! Mildly amusing

Review – Poor White Trash

Here’s a suggestion for a way to have fun with this piece of crap: make a “scavenger hunt” list of theme-appropriate clichés to look for. Think of as many as you possibly can. Then tick them off as you watch. For those of you with only limited exposure to the title sub-strata, let me give you a start: “Confederate flag,” “bowling,” and “T-shirt that reads ‘My face leaves in an hour, be on it.’” I guess maybe if you find such things inherently amusing, then you’ll certainly find plenty of them here. Otherwise this is just another low-budget comedy that lacks the script, acting and production values that might have made it a more worthwhile experience. I got at least a tiny kick out of the references to Southern Illinois University and Carbondale, but that was strictly personal for me. Otherwise the whole thing was silly without being funny and over-wrought without being clever. See if desperate

Review – The Minion

Get a crowd of folks together to help you mock this stinker. The opportunities to fling derision at the screen are just too ripe and too plentiful to pass up. However, without an MST3K experience going movies like this just aren’t that much fun. The plot here is the usual nonsense about one of Satan’s servants trying to obtain an object that will allow him/her/it (the thing body-hops) to release the Beast 666 from a basement in Israel and thus ignite the apocalypse. Dolph Lundgren plays a Templar sworn to thwart the creature of darkness (I wonder if he ever regrets not going ahead and pursuing chemical engineering as a career path). I suppose this might have been a better movie if the script hadn’t been so dreadfully mock-worthy. See if desperate

Review – Judgment

Gosh darn that pesky Antichrist and his One World Government. Always picking on those sweet, innocent, long-suffering Christians. For this particular chunk of the End Times, the forces of darkness have placed a Bible-believing woman on trial for the crime of “hatred of the human race.” Crafty defense lawyer Corben Bernsen decides to abandon Lucifer’s script and put God Himself on trial. This is part of the “Left Behind” series, so you can bet that you’re in for a heapin’ helpin’ of empty-headed pseudo-theology and ill-conceived storytelling with all the intellectual and emotional depth of a Chick tract. Fortunately, it packs the same car-wreck-esque entertainment value common in such efforts. Extra added bonus: Mr. T. I pity the fool got the Mark of the Beast! See if desperate

Review – Mimic 2

The bugs are back, apparently not effectively killed in the first one. You spray and spray, and ... well, you know the rest. Their new, improved form apparently includes a desire to mate with a human woman, a schoolteacher entomologist with especially attractive pheromones. Also added to the mix is a sinister government task force – a la Predator 2 – that’s trying to get at the bugs and otherwise prolong the plot. Some of the effects aren’t too bad, and over the course of the story one does actually learn a bit about roach biology. But otherwise this is fairly standard fare. Mildly amusing

Review – Josie and the Pussycats

I didn’t expect much from this outing, so when there actually turned out to be some amusement to be found and a moral that was at least halfway worthwhile, I was very pleasantly surprised. Sure, the humor was sophomoric at best. But a lot of it was just goofy enough to work (assuming you’re in the mood for it). The plot keeps things simple: a mega-corporation rockets a small-town girl band to stardom so their music can serve as a vehicle for delivering subliminal directives aimed at selling products. Yeah, I guess there’s something more than a little cynical about a big Hollywood production decrying how evil corporate merchandising is. Still, it seems like this charming little movie ought to at least get an E for effort. Though I probably wouldn’t screen this picture for a class on film production techniques, it made a fine Friday night diversion at the end of a long week. Mildly amusing

Review – Begotten

Okay, let me see if I can sum this up for you. Some guy sitting in an empty house cuts his own guts out. They dribble all over his feet accompanied by the sound of flatulence. A woman appears from behind his chair. She gives the corpse a hand job and impregnates herself. She gives birth to a skinny, bald adult who seems to really enjoy flopping around in the mud. Black Sabbath (or is it the bad guys from Phantasm?) shows up and starts hitting Flopsy in the crotch with sticks while he honks up buckets of guts. Mom shows up and drags sonny off, but Black Sabbath catches up to them. They kill Mom, pummel her crotch with giant Q-Tips and make her into a stew. Then they come back for Flopsy. Then something else happened, but by that point the movie had already used up more than an hour’s worth of grainy black and white film stock, a healthy dose of nerve-grating ambient noise, and pretty much all my patience. The guy who directed this went on to make Shadow of the Vampire, which should give hope to talentless indie art posers everywhere. For the rest of us this is fertile mockery bait but not much else. Mildly amusing

Review – Microcosmos

This is one of those movies that tends to make you feel like you’re stoned whether or not you actually are. The basic theme here is that there’s a whole world out there that carries on its rich pattern of life beneath our notice. And no, it’s not the world of the invisible scary skeletons. Instead, it’s a somewhat Koyaanisqatsi-esque documentary about insect life in a grassy meadow. The film features some genuinely impressive footage, even if some of it is fairly obviously “manipulated.” If you’re not fond of bugs this movie isn’t for you, but otherwise it’s an entertaining diversion for 75 minutes or so. Mildly amusing

Review – The Stand

This former TV mini-series is practically a movie marathon all by itself (four episodes, each of which come close to 90 minutes). Over the hours the story from Stephen King’s famous novel plays out with most of its plot and characters reasonably intact (no big surprise there, considering that King wrote the teleplay). The casting’s good as well, though a bit different from what King once wrote he had in mind. To be sure, slightly tighter plotting could have cut down the running time a bit, and the end was a little weak. But overall this is an entertaining enough version of the end of the world as we know it that the time goes by relatively quickly. This is a must-see for King fans and aficionados of apocalyptic horror, and a good show for just about anyone. Just be sure to check the tapes in the box before you rent them. I had my viewing experience disrupted by the stupidity of the last person who rented the copy, because whoever it was stuck the wrong tapes back in the box (so I ended up with two copies of episode two and no copies of the final chapter). Mildly amusing

Review – Urban Legend 2: Final Cut

I think I’m already on record as generally resenting sequels that don’t have much to do with the previous efforts in the series. Here it’s even more insulting than usual because the film-makers graft a couple of the conventions and characters from the first one onto a script that probably started out as something completely different. For example, the shtick from the first one was that all the killings had something to do with an urban legend. Here only the first slaying is legend-connected, and even then the folklore element seems like an afterthought. Furthermore, any movie about film students starts on my bad side and has to work its way into my good graces. This one just didn’t pull it off. See if desperate

Review – Casino Royale (1967)

The biggest joke in this whole movie is the one played on James Bond creator Ian Fleming; apparently he always wanted David Niven to play his super-spy, and the only time Niven ever actually assumed the role was in this bizarre parody of the Bond series. Most of the humor from this 1967 gem is either dated or stupid or both. Indeed, it plays out like a two-hour-plus Mad Magazine version of the “real” Bond series. So it goes almost without saying that this has little to do with the Fleming novel by the same name. With a cast this good (including Peter Sellers, Orson Welles, Woody Allen and a host of other luminaries) a much better movie might have been made. See if desperate

Review – Ed Gein

Of all the movies based however loosely on the sad, strange story of Ed Gein (a filmography that includes Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs, among others), this is the first serious attempt to accurately portray the man himself. To be sure, much of the drama here has been “enhanced,” with departures from reality ranging from name changes to extensive speculation about the relationship between Ed and his mother. Steve Railsback does a solid – if occasionally somewhat hammy – job as the title character. My only gripe about the final product is that in general it’s just a bit too prosaic. The simple, straightforward approach to writing, shooting and editing (only rarely departed from throughout the movie) makes a great contrast to Gein’s grisly deeds, but more attention to visual detail might have helped the film-makers bring out the essential backdrop of bleakness of small town Wisconsin just a bit better. Oh, and fair warning: I’m at least a casual buff of Geinabilia, and if you don’t share this taste then there’s a good chance you won’t enjoy this production anywhere near as much as I did. Mildly amusing

Review – Poltergeist: The Legacy

Note to movie marketers: I really resent the heck out of so-called sequels that actually have nothing at all to do with the original. Just because I let John Carpenter skate by with Halloween 3 doesn’t mean I’ve become a regular push-over for the stuff. And despite the protestations to the contrary on the video box, this has nothing at all to do with the first three Poltergeist movies. Instead this is tied into one of those stupid hour-long drama series that tends to end up syndicated into the overnight slots on the Sci Fi Channel, with just a dab more violence and nudity than its televised counterpart. There’s some kind of story here about a team of ghost-busters who are trying to capture a chest-o-evil before its demonic contents can be loosed upon the world. Just about the only claim to uniqueness this stinker can make is that it includes one of the most tasteless demon birth sequences I’ve ever seen; think screaming woman dragged around by umbilical cord and you’ve got the general idea. C’mon guys. Call products like this something like “Nothing-to-do-with-Poltergeist: The Boring Crap.” You may not sell as many tapes, but at least you’ll be able to sleep at night. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Bedazzled

Here’s a big budget Hollywood remake of an old Peter Cook and Dudley Moore movie about a guy who sells his soul to Satan, with Brendan Fraser as the hapless, lovelorn nebbish and Elizabeth Hurley as the Beastmaster (or is it Beastmistress?). The plot runs our hero through predictable paces, granting him seven wishes in exchange for his soul. Naturally they all go sour on him, teaching him that true happiness can’t be obtained by ... well, you know the rest. I guess as brain candy goes I’ve seen worse. At least the star power and production values provided a little entertainment value to this otherwise trite, predictable and (especially at the end) preachy bit of nonsense. Mildly amusing

Review – Johnny Mnemonic

This stinker turned out to be one of the big nails in the coffin of the cyberpunk sub-genre (or at least the first wave thereof), so I suppose we’re all at least somewhat in its debt. Other than that, however, it’s an especially dull example of its particular ilk. Keanu Reeves stars as a mnemonic courier, sort of a human Zip drive who has replaced his own human memories with storage banks for data files. He ends up with something really important saved in his head, and as a result no end of postmodern baddies are trying to suck his brains out. Ice T and Henry Rollins also make appearances, as does a really fake-looking dolphin. So you can probably tell where all this is going. See if desperate

Review – Under Suspicion

Though this seems like it was probably a labor of love for most of the people involved (especially stars and executive producers Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman), the result is less than lovely. The plot here is a standard stew of a murder investigation superimposed on an extended conversation between a prominent tax attorney and a cop who suspects him of heinous crimes. Some of the editing techniques are interesting, and the acting’s competent enough. The real drawback is the script, which is nowhere near as clever as the writers must have thought it was. Though I’ve seen worse murder thrillers, I was disappointed by the amount of time I spent having my nose rubbed in child molestation, rape and other sordid business to precious little avail. See if desperate

Review – Pollock

I know this arty bio of painter Jackson Pollock was actor/director Ed Harris’s personal obsession for something like five years, so I wish Harris had managed to get more of his fascination with his subject up onto the screen. As it was, I think a person who already liked Jack the Dripper might have enjoyed this movie a bit more than I did. I’ve never gotten all that much out of the man’s work, so likewise I wasn’t enthralled by the two-hours-plus story of what a tragic hero (read “neurotic, drunken jerk”) the guy was. Further, the laconic pace and sometimes-peculiar script started to annoy me at least a little. I guess I’ve seen worse art movies, but if nothing more could be said about this particular guy then maybe a different artist might have made a better subject. Mildly amusing

Review – The Beast

The river bottoms area in Kansas City features a haunted house that shares the name of this mini-series based on a Peter Benchley novel. The sign outside the house is written in an odd script that makes it look like it says “The Beasy.” Now, I have no idea what a Beasy might be, but I’m willing to bet that, given the longevity of the attraction that bears its name, a Beasy is a darn sight scarier than the Beast in this stinker. For the most part, this is a cheap reheat of many of the themes visited in Benchley’s big hit, Jaws, and then revisited in subsequent sequels and knock-offs. Some of the faces have changed; for example, the beast in question this time around is a pair of giant squids rather than a shark. But the basic theme of dangerous sealife with an attitude versus a small Atlantic coast town remains fundamentally intact. If you want the good version, watch the original. Mildly amusing

Review – Me, Myself and Irene

Here’s yet another uneven comedy starring the histrionic antics of Jim Carey. This time around he’s a long-suffering cop who keeps his frustrations with life bottled up until they manifest themselves as an obnoxious alter-ego. The actual plot isn’t all that interesting, and the story turns serious – and boring – often enough to make the overall production more than a little uneven. Even a fair percentage of the jokes fall flat. But when the comedy works it really works, especially when Carey’s alternate personality first emerges. Mildly amusing

Review – Spiders

Yep, them are spiders all right. Big ones. There’s some lame excuse for a plot built in here somewhere, something about an experiment on a space shuttle gone awry, returning alien-DNA-gene-manipulated tarantulas to earth to wreck havoc upon an Area 51-style military base, a host of creepy government types and a trio of college journalists. This flick shoots just about its entire wad (fiscally and dramatically) in the final few minutes as a giant CG space spider runs amuck. Aside from the conclusion, however, there’s nothing here besides a script, effects and acting so terrible that most first-semester film students would be ashamed to have their names on it. See if desperate

Review – Ghosts of Mars

John Carpenter appears to be trying to recapture a little of the success of his glory days with this horror/sci fi offering. The plot – an odd little tale about colonists on Mars possessed by the evil spirits of the planet’s former inhabitants – comes across as a milkshake made with equal parts of The Thing and Assault on Precinct 13. Natasha Henstridge takes the lead – and manages to keep her clothes on the whole time – as a police lieutenant whose team must transport a supposedly-dangerous criminal (Ice Cube) out of a small mining town where the ghosts have apparently taken over. Occasionally the story gets bogged down with unnecessary nonsense about matriarchal society, drug abuse and other backwater plot points. However, overall Carpenter makes up for the bizarre, recycled script with some decent action and a couple of at least borderline scary shots. Mildly amusing

Review – Planet of the Apes (2001)

Tim Burton gives the old monkey a fresh spanking with this effects-intensive outing that combines homage to the original with a considerable number of new bends and turns. The apes look a lot more like real apes this time around, and the costumes and sets are a lot more sophisticated. Unfortunately, as if to achieve some sort of balance, the plot and characters are a good deal less interesting than the original. Burton does an okay job but not much more. Mark Wahlberg mails in his performance as the stranded hero from another time and place, and most of the rest of the cast is stuck emoting like crazy just to get around their monkey makeup. In particular Helena Bonham Carter’s efforts are undone by the decision to use her ape character as one of the movie’s two love interests, and the whole inter-species thing doesn’t work in a big way. The overall result is entertaining but nowhere near as good as it should have been considering all the talent that went into it both in front of and behind the camera. Mildly amusing

Review – Soylent Green

Boy, if this movie is even half right, the future is really going to suck. No natural food. Drastic overpopulation. Corporate control over all society. In short, this is a typical dystopian vision of things to come from the halcyon days of the 1970s. Just in case there’s actually anyone left on the face of the earth who doesn’t know the dark secret of Soylent Green, I won’t give away the ending. I should note, however, that my favorite moments in the movie come well before the histrionic conclusion. I loved the riot scene when I first saw this movie many years ago, and it still stands out as one of the high points. The other moment I really like is the Edward G. Robinson death scene; despite its heavy-handed, hippie-era sanctimony, it’s actually genuinely touching. Of course, it helps that Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony is one of my favorites (musical pedestrian that I am). Also, by my best estimates ol’ Edward G’s character is more or less the same age I’ll be when the third decade of the 21st century rolls around. Now that’s creepy. Mildly amusing

Review – Joe Dirt

If nothing else, David Spade certainly seems to have the whole redneck thing down pat. The look, the dialogue, and even the soundtrack of this tale about a janitor in search of the parents who dumped him at the Grand Canyon are absolutely immaculate. Sadly, that’s about all this movie has going for it. Sure, a moment or two prove to be classic Spade, but for the most part the humor either falls flat or never gets off the ground to begin with. Audience members who can appreciate the lower class inside jokes will probably get a minor kick out of this picture, but everyone else can safely miss it. Mildly amusing

Review – The Phantom of the Paradise

Brian DePalma serves up an interesting stew: equal parts Gaston Leroux, Goethe and mid-70s pop music culture, with a dash of Poe and a sprig of Wilde thrown in for flavor. And yeah, it turns out just about like you’d expect it to. For the most part the production is a parade of cartoonish characters acting out the usual Phantom of the Opera plot cut together with a Tommy-esque affection for jump cuts and other techniques that now seem more quaint than artistic. However, every once in awhile DePalma works a shot here or a plot twist there that’ll leave you with that “oh, that was sort of chilling” feeling. Otherwise this is an amusing send-up of the whole ever-so-serious rock opera genre and not much else. Mildly amusing

Review – Ghostbusters 2

I’m not sure there was really a serious need for the world to know whether or not it was in fact physically possible to make a movie even more stupid than Ghostbusters, but the question is nonetheless now resolved for all time. This is the same cast, the same effects, the same juvenile sense of humor, even the same basic plot as the original. But as usual with sequels of this sort, the attempt to recreate past success falls pathetically flat. What was once at least mildly clever now plays like an SNL joke that’s been told over and over and over again until it’s no longer funny. Not that it was all that funny to begin with. See if desperate

Review – UHF

Fans of Weird Al Yankovic’s quirky comedic style will get a real kick out of this feature-length parade of the stuff. There’s at least the pretense of plot here someplace, something about a hapless failure who takes over a UHF station and uses his oddball tastes and oddball friends to defeat the meanie who owns the town’s big network affiliate. But really the best parts are the show parodies and insane shtick from Yankovic and from Michael Richards as a mentally differently abled janitor who ends up heading the station’s most successful show. If you can magically transport yourself back to the days when you had a pre-adolescent sense of humor, a lot of the gags here will have you rolling in the aisles. Mildly amusing

Review – Battlefield Earth

I didn’t hate this as much as I’d expected to. Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s plenty stupid, with more than its share of uninteresting characters, boring plot twists and hammy acting. In short, it’s your standard, run-of-the-mill, sci fi effects vehicle. However, I went into it expecting a heapin’ helpin’ of source novel author L. Ron Hubbard’s home-grown religion. Especially after Star Trek: Insurrection turned out to be such a Scientology sermon, I figured Hubbard’s own work would be a natural source of such sanctimonious preachiness. To be sure, some of the religion’s tenets show up here and there. But overall this is mostly just a harmless piece of mediocre science fiction. Mildly amusing

Review – Carnivore

I’d love to know exactly when this movie was made. The box has a 2001 copyright date on it, but if this was made this year then the film-makers did a genuinely impressive job of recreating the late 80s, right down to mullets for the guys and serious mall head for the gals. But of course the real star of the show is the title character, which is supposedly some kind of government bioweapons experiment but in execution looks like an overblown refugee from Critters. Just about everything in this movie is bad, from the acting and effects right down to the script (what little of it is audible; the sound work also leaves a lot to be desired). The end result is one of those productions that’s kinda fun to mock but otherwise more than a little short in the entertainment department. See if desperate

Review – Snatch

I’ve gotta admit that I’m getting more than a little tired of the action genre’s screwball splatter-fest sub-genre. Aggravating factors this time around include the endless parade of annoying, lower class English characters and a little more animal violence than I’m usually willing to tolerate. On the plus side, Brad Pitt turns in a workmanlike performance as one of the supporting characters (assuming, of course, that in an “ensemble” piece like this there’s anything but supporting characters). Some of the action sequences aren’t too terribly ill-conceived, though most of them are marred by the director’s love for trendy jump-cuts. But overall I just can’t get over the tendency of this movie – and other, substantially similar efforts – to substitute blood and guts for wit and script. Finally, though I caught it at the theater I think it would be better viewed on video, which would at least allow you to walk away for a bit during the frequent dull moments. See if desperate

Review – Basic Instinct

Though this “erotic thriller” clearly faces some stiff competition, it may well hold the all-time high mark for ratio of hype to content. For openers, there’s the legendary beaver shot, which is nowhere near as scandalous as it’s supposed to be. This disappointment heads a lengthy list of pseudo-sexy twists and turns that take sex and make it downright boring. Matters aren’t helped by the fact that the lead fornicators are played by Sharon Stone (ick) and Michael Douglas (double ick). Just as the sex fails to keep things going, the murder mystery element likewise turns out to be less than compelling. Then there’s the whole gay-people-protested-the-production thing, which to this day I don’t quite understand (a couple of the villains were bisexual, but this is a considerable distance from the most unflattering portrayal of queer folk Hollywood’s ever done). Final capper: what the heck’s up with the title? What is “Basic Instinct” supposed to mean? See if desperate

Review – The Phantom of the Opera (1943)

It must have been really hard in the middle of World War Two to concoct a horror movie villain that could even vaguely compete with the real-life monsters on the other sides of the oceans. Still, they might have at least given it the old college try. Seriously, the old silent version is much scarier than this highly Hollywood-ized retelling of Gaston Leroux’s classic. This time around Eric the Phantom (played half-heartedly by Claude Rains) is a sorry excuse for a force of evil; he’s a down-on-his-luck violinist for the Paris Opera who ends up fired, scorned by the love interest, burned with acid, and just generally not having a nice day. Further, the screenwriter manages to preserve all the tedious, 19th-century romance without capturing a jot of the source novel’s sense of style and menace. The result is a fluffy tale of an opera singer beloved by a policeman, a baritone and a neurotic nitwit. And in the end being relieved of the third also allows our heroine to successfully discharge the first two as well, leading to one of the most unintentionally (?) homosexual moments of 1940s cinema. Mildly amusing

Review – Bamboozled

Yet again Spike Lee doesn’t get anywhere near the distribution he deserves. Thank goodness for DVD, I guess. Thematically this movie has much in common with Hollywood Shuffle, though Lee’s effort is a good deal more intense than Robert Townsend’s light-hearted send-up of racism in American media. Here Lee tells the tale of a network executive (Damon Wayans) who responds to pressure for a successful “Black” program by proposing a black-face minstrel show done over as a 21st-century variety series. Our hero descends further and further into his own personal heart of darkness as the network unexpectedly green-lights the concept and the program turns out to be a tremendous hit with audiences and critics alike. As long as the movie sticks to the main plot-line, it’s a masterpiece. However, somewhere after the midway point some awkward, unwelcome subplots creep in and the story gets a bit muddled. Further, Lee gets a “fails to learn his own lesson” sticker for a couple of brief treatments of Jewish characters. Problems aside, this is an outstanding piece of film-making, thought-provoking, amusing and well-crafted. Worth seeing

Review – Dumb and Dumber

Never has there been a more aptly named movie. Jim Carey does the shtick that made him famous, and Jeff Daniels does his best to keep up. The two play partners involved in a set of hi-jinks too complicated to explain. Suffice it to say that there’s an occasional joke or two that works. But the bulk of the humor is either excretion-related or otherwise designed to appeal to folks immature enough to consider toilet jokes the height of hilarity. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Gates of Hell

Despite borrowing from horror greats such as H.P. Lovecraft (the locale of most of the action is Dunwich) and Poe (there’s a brief buried-alive subplot), this is mostly pure spaghetti horror. The baddies here seem to be some kind of an odd mix of zombie (rotting, shambling) and ghost (appearing and disappearing at will). They’ve been brought back to life by the suicide of a local priest, and unless their evil scheme is thwarted before All Saints’ Day, we’re apparently going to be up to our elbows in them. Disgusting moments include a woman who pukes her own guts out, a maggot storm, and the zombies’ apparent preferred method of killing by pulling the backs of people’s heads off and letting their brains gush out of the resulting hole. Sadly, beyond the disgusting moments there isn’t a lot to recommend this odd little entry on the zombie list. Also released as City of the Living Dead. Mildly amusing

Review – Smokey and the Bandit

This immortal classic is doubtless showing on all eight screens at the Hillbilly Heaven Octoplex. So if you’re feeling a bit of nostalgia for the CB-radio-talkin’, Trans-Am-drivin’, white-trash-livin’ days of the late 1970s, this will more than scratch your itch. Burt Reynolds cements his position as the high priest of trailer dwellers everywhere, with greater talents Sally Field and Jackie Gleason along for the ride. Though I got a chuckle or two out of the viewing experience, I don’t think the film-makers really intended for their magnum opus to amuse me in quite the way it did. The kitsch value – however unintentional – is hard to ignore, and if you’re lucky enough to catch this stinker on the tube then you’re in for some of the most awkwardly-censored dialogue you’ll ever see (I wish I had a buck for every time Gleason’s Bull-Connor-esque southern sheriff calls someone a “scum-bum”). Otherwise, however, this is little more than an empty-headed, virtually plot-free blast from a fortunately vanished past. See if desperate

Review – Duets

Who would have thought that the world of semi-professional karaoke singing would feature so many opportunities to explore the true nature of the human condition? Here we have a fairly standard collection of quirky characters organized into three subplots, all of which wind together at a karaoke contest in Omaha. Of the three, my favorite was the story that featured Huey Lewis as a karaoke hustler (yeah, me neither) and Gwenyth Paltrow as his estranged daughter. So that should give you some idea of how the rest of the show went. I don’t think it’s even half as profound as the folks who made it thought it was going to be, but it does manage a few amusing moments, especially for audience members who aren’t in a particularly serious mood. Mildly amusing

Review – Bad Moon

Bad movie. This picture gets an automatic point or two from me just because it’s a werewolf flick. But then it turns right around and loses the points for placing a cute dog in jeopardy for almost the entire mercifully-short running time. The plot is tried and trite: innocent guy bitten by werewolf struggles to keep his affliction from harming his family. Only the family dog sees through uncle’s facade. As it turns out, the German Shepherd playing the “lead” has the widest range of emotions and highest talent level of any member of the cast. The film’s final flaw is that it spends way too much time dwelling on the creature effects. Every once in awhile a shot works, but for the most part the werewolf looks like a giant rubber possum with a bad case of dandruff. See if desperate

Review – Driven

I think the title of this movie is actually short for something else. Such as “Driven Mad by the Wretched Excuse for a Script and Equally Abominable Acting.” Or perhaps “Driven to Distraction by Director Renny Harlin’s Constant Abuse of the Eye-Straining, Neck-Snapping, MTV-style Editing and Music So Loud that Most of the Dialogue Is Inaudible.” Or maybe “Driven to Drink by an Extended Parade of Clichés So Old They Had Dust on Them Way Before Race Cars Were Even Invented.” But no, somewhere there are probably still theaters with marquees that would run out of letters if forced to go with any of the longer names. Besides, a more honest title might have driven audiences away. See if desperate

Review – Twice the Fear

I guess the math in the title is based on the notion that two bad, amateur shorts are somehow scarier than one long horror movie. Actually, as genuinely amateur fright pictures go, I’ve seen worse. To be sure, the production values are pretty low. The sound and score are terrible. The filmmakers seriously needed to invest in a tripod; c’mon guys, they don’t cost that much. And while we’re talking, you should probably be told that letter-boxing cheap video doesn’t really make it look less like cheap video. Otherwise, if my video production students turned this in as a final project, I’d have no problem giving them at least a B or so. Most of my disappointment in this anthology stems from the deceptive promo on the box. The description implied that this was the product of professionals, which is at best a questionable proposition. If nothing else, the claim of a 90-mintue running time is a blatant lie. Thank goodness. See if desperate

Review – Memento

Here’s something interesting: apparently running the central plot of an art movie backwards absolves the film-makers of the apparent obligation to build in no end of distracting subplots and pretentious nonsense. Aside from the reverse order of the story, this is a fairly straightforward tale of a man (Guy Pearce) seeking revenge for the rape and murder of his wife. Trouble is, our hero suffered brain damage during the attack on his wife and thus has no short-term memory. So the odd chronology seems to simulate the protagonist’s inability to recall what he’s done in the past when trying to decide what to do next. It’s a clever enough concept, and for the most part well executed. But the gag does tend to get a little old after awhile. Mildly amusing

Review – The Caine Mutiny

Humphrey Bogart’s portrayal of the villainous, unstable Captain Queeg in this tense courtroom drama is one of the greatest performances in Hollywood history. The drama starts extremely slowly, leading off with an insufferable subplot about a fresh-faced Navy officer and his girlfriend woes. Further, unless you’ve got a real fondness for military marches you may find the soundtrack music more than a little annoying. But those who stick with it despite these drawbacks will find perseverance well rewarded. The saga of men struggling to do their duty under a commander who appears to be coming mentally unglued is fascinating. Then when the officers relieve Queeg of his command and are subsequently tried for mutiny, things really get good. Jose Ferrer does a great job as the mutineers’ lawyer; his character is the kind of defense attorney I always hoped I’d be. In the end this movie is a fascinating (if fictional) portrait of conflict, cowardice and craziness under fire. Worth seeing

Review – The Pest

John Leguizamo stars in this movie that serves primarily as a showcase for the comedian’s manic sense of humor. There’s a plot here somewhere, sort of a sitcom-esque rework of the old “most dangerous game” story line. But almost all the amusement value to be found here is provided by Leguizamo’s almost constant parade of bizarre antics and the struggles of the supporting characters to keep up with him. Mildly amusing

Review – Sideshow

In the mood for Freaks, Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Funhouse but just don’t have time to watch all three? Well, as long as you don’t mind sitting through a thoroughly lobotomized version (yes, a lobotomized version of The Funhouse, no kidding), then you’re in business here. Full Moon pours its usual attention to quality and detail into this stinker about side show denizens who exact terrible and largely unmotivated revenge on empty-headed teenagers. See if desperate

Review – The Triangle

This made-for-TV movie about mysterious goings-on in everyone’s favorite mysterious-goings-on-spot is long in the promise and short in the delivery. For openers, it takes awhile to decide where it’s going. Is it a traditional tale of the Triangle? Is it a voodoo movie? By the time it settles down into a cheap rip-off of The Shining, the filmmakers have already let too much screen time elapse to reasonably hope that the plot can be saved. It doesn’t help that the characters (none of whom are especially interesting) wander more or less aimlessly around a big floating version of the Overlook Hotel until they’re snuffed in the most mundane ways imaginable. As banal TV productions go, I guess I’ve seen worse. But a better movie might have been made with the time and money squandered on this mediocre effort. See if desperate

Review – Backdraft

I guess if you need to have a movie about one of our society’s many sub-cultures of manly men, it might just as well be firemen trying to save lives. Cops and soldiers killing people right and left have their charms, but sometimes they get a little old. And apparently firemen are capable of just as much male bonding and macho posturing as their armed counterparts. For the most part this is an entertaining viewing experience, but at times it seems to be a little too ambitious for its own good. By the time the drama plays out, the audience has been treated to a love-hate brother plot (featuring Kurt Russell and William Baldwin), a murder mystery (with Baldwin and Robert DeNiro as arson investigators), political intrigue, and a host of other subplots. There’s even a taste of Silence of the Lambs courtesy Donald Sutherland as DeNiro’s old arsonist nemesis. Any one story might have worked alone, but they don’t always work together. Fortunately the rough spots in the story are smoothed over at least in part by the spectacular pyrotechnics. Mildly amusing

Review – Masters of the Universe

By the power of Grayskull! If I had the power, I would banish this turkey pot pie of a movie to another dimension. Further, I’m willing to bet that most of the cast (including Dolph Lundgren as He-Man, Frank Langela as Skeletor, and even a then-unknown Courtney Cox as the teen love interest) would gladly chip in for whatever incidental expenses we encountered along the way to committing this stinker to oblivion. The sad part is that if they’d stuck with the straight fantasy stuff, this might not have been as terrible as it turned out to be; at least it wouldn’t have been much worse than the wretched kiddie show upon which the whole shebang was based. But by the time they’ve tossed in dimension-hopping to Earth in the 1980s – complete with empty-headed 80s-era teenagers (and they’re the heroes) – well, it’s just too much stupid for one flick. The effects are okay for the era, but even this high point pales in comparison to much that came later. If you have antsy and easily-amused pre-teens on your hands, this might shut them up for at least a little while. Then again, it might not. See if desperate

Review – Traffic

Kids, just say no to stinkers like this. I’m not exactly Mr. Everybody Must Get Stoned, but if this is the alternative then it’s actually worse. Honestly, anti-drug screed this stupid hasn’t graced the silver screen since the days of Reefer Madness. Here we have four loosely-intertwined subplots all centered around the drug trade. The stories range from a mildly interesting tale of a Mexican cop (Benicio Del Toro) caught up in a web of corruption all the way down to the sad saga of a newly-appointed Drug Czar (Michael Douglas) with an addict for a daughter. Particularly in the Douglas piece, the treatment of the subject is so stupid it borders on offensive; the thesis appears to be that if rich white girls are allowed to get hooked on drugs, they become sex-crazed junkies who grant carnal favors to black guys in exchange for a fix. Even the basic film-making technique is off, heavily emphasizing amateurish gimmicks such as heavy filtration and jump cutting. Though this crud picked up four Oscars, I hope the passage of time will help make it as laughable as its predecessors from the 30s through the 60s. See if desperate

Review – The People vs. Larry Flynt

Woody Harrelson heads up a celebrity-and-cameo-studded cast (including porn king Flynt himself as the first judge to throw him behind bars for peddling smut) in this drama about the First Amendment battles waged in the name of keeping the world safe for Hustler magazine. The Hollywoodization of Flynt’s life tends to over-glamorize the toad more than a little, and to be honest I think the main point of the movie – that censorship is bad no matter how loathsome the victim might be – is lost when the anti-hero becomes too sympathetic. That notwithstanding, this is an oddly encouraging movie, especially during the scenes featuring Ed Norton as Flynt’s long-suffering lawyer. Even Courtney Love works well in her semi-cross-over role as his junkie wife. Worth seeing

Review – Jack Frost

Jack shit, a two-word description for the script, the acting, the effects and just about everything else to do with this dreadful ordeal of a movie. The title character is a psycho-killer who is on the way to his own execution when he’s exposed to some sort of nonsense chemical that turns him into a giant, homicidal snowman. Really. No kidding. Actually, kidding is just about all this movie seems to want to do. The characters are constantly spouting lines that would embarrass even the great Freddy Krueger himself. The plot also sports more false endings than Brazil, ultimately tending to suggest that this is nothing more than a cheap, stupid parody of cheap, stupid slasher movies. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Dracula 2000

Just about the nicest thing I can say about this one is that at the folks in marketing were kind enough to build the year into the title, thus saving me from the need to date it in parentheses. Otherwise this umpty-millionth Prince of Darkness reheat is silly and boring in approximately equal measure, with both qualities making for a predictable but not especially good horror movie. In fact, the only thing that wasn’t predictable was that the movie features only the bare minimum allotment of nudity and gore to earn an “R” rating. Usually if you’re going so light on the script and acting, you’ve gotta build some cheap thrills in. Oh, and it turns out Dracula is actually merely an alter-ego for another historical baddie, whose name I’ll omit just in case anyone’s actually foolish enough to rent this stinker. I wouldn’t want you to lose the only surprise twist in the whole 90-minute mess. See if desperate

Review – I, Zombie

“Fangoria presents” because probably nobody else would be willing to touch it. Though I’m usually a big fan of zombie movies – especially the low budget variety – this one is far too sentimental for my tastes. The plot revolves around an English guy who gets bitten by a zombie and ends up with an overpowering craving for human flesh. Needless to say, this forces a bit of a lifestyle change on him, compelling him to abandon his girlfriend and take to killing and eating whomever he can get his hands on. And to make matters worse, his dead-but-still-ambulatory body begins to rot away. Some of the gore is sort of fun, but the gross-outs are interrupted far too often by uninteresting, soul-searching monologues, dream sequences, extended convulsions and other unwelcome distractions. The result plays out like a Romero-ized retelling of The Metamorphosis. Final capper: decomposing zombie masturbation with sickly comic result. See if desperate

Review – Brokedown Palace

They should have called this one Midnight Express 2: The Women. Though it lacks most of the brutality and honesty of the original, the parallels between the two (young Americans accused of smuggling drugs and imprisoned by evil, oppressive foreign regimes) are inescapable. Though I have no particular yen to see torment inflicted on either Clare Daines or Kate Beckinsale, I wish this had been followed a bit more closely in its predecessor’s footsteps and more honestly portrayed conditions in Thai jails. Instead about the worst that can be said about the “inhuman conditions” are that the hairdos are bad and the food isn’t the tastiest. So the whole experience is more of a mild bummer than a genuine injustice. On the other hand, my hat’s off to the filmmakers for having the courage to leave the question of guilt (or even the exact nature of the crime) ambiguous throughout. Mildly amusing

Review – Dracula (1979)

The setting may be turn-of-the-century England, but the plot, characters, and even some of the costumes are pure disco. Frank Langella stars as a smarmy, big-haired version of the infamous count, hamming it up in a performance that ranges between campy and grating. The story is Stoker’s, only it seems to have been run through a blender so the original characters play different parts in this tale and the original settings provide backdrops for all the wrong scenes. And to cap it all off, the effects are genuinely wretched. For example, Drac’s seduction of Lucy is accompanied by disco lighting so awful even ABBA would have been embarrassed by it. Maybe big vampire fans might enjoy this more than I did, but just about everyone else can probably regard this as little more than a historical curiosity. See if desperate

Review – Bring It On

A cheerleader movie? Well, at least I didn’t go into this with real high expectations. Thus I can’t honestly say I was disappointed when it turned out to be an empty-headed, teenage exploration of issues ranging from artistic integrity to race relations. Kirsten Dunst stars as a newly-elected cheerleading squad leader who faces no end of problems with boyfriends, parents, rivals, the usual collection of adolescent woes. If you’re of an age appropriate for this kind of thing, then you may well enjoy it immensely. Otherwise it’s sort of hard to find any redeeming value among the clichés and melodrama. See if desperate

Review – Bridget Jones's Diary

As romcoms go, this one’s not half bad. Despite criticism largely from the British press (who apparently didn’t like the idea of an American woman playing an English character), Renee Zellweger does a superb job as the slightly-overweight heroine of this tale of a thirty-something woman’s search for happiness via a fulfilling relationship with a man. And yes, it should be noted for the record that the plot of the movie diverged from the story told by the popular source novel, giving it a less realistic and more man-centered (though presumably happier) ending. That aside, however, the script is well-written, the dialogue clever, the characters compelling, and the film-making polished. I’m not famous for liking movies of this particular ilk, so perhaps it was just that I was in the right mood in the right place at the right time. Whatever factors were to blame, I really did get a kick out of this. Worth seeing

Review – The Gate

This might have been a considerably better movie if it hadn’t been so darned juvenile. The basic plot – gate to hell opens, protagonists must shut it in order to save the world – is a little trite, especially considering the location of this fabled gate is a back yard somewhere in suburbia. On the other hand, there are some nice Lovecraftian touches here and there, and some of the effects are visually interesting despite being a bit on the cheap side. What really spoils it is the decision to make just about all the characters in the movie teens and pre-teens. While that alone might not have sunk it, the result of the kiddie casting is a considerable dumbing- and toning-down of the violence and scary stuff. It didn’t exactly help that at least part of the plot depended on the death of the family’s pet dog, and the monsters themselves were for the most part just a little too cute to inspire much beyond sympathy for their plight. To top it all off, who would ever have thought that of all the young actors in this movie the one who would go on to have a career was little Stephen Dorff, who plays the protagonist. Mildly amusing

Review – From Here to Eternity

This is a soap opera version of the events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, with strong emphasis on the nobility of stubbornness in the face of adversity. The result is a parade of bullies and their tough-as-nails victims, illicit love affairs doomed from the outset, and final redemption for all characters – in one form or another – once the bombs start to drop. Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Heck, it isn’t even the worst Pearl Harbor movie I’ve ever seen. I just didn’t find it quite as inspiring as some other folks did. Mildly amusing

Review – Lucky Numbers

When I’m wrong I admit it, and here’s yet another opportunity for me to eat a little crow. In the past I’ve heaped at least moderate amounts of abuse on Lisa Kudrow, but now I think I need to apologize. She’s genuinely good in this quirky caper flick about a TV lottery hostess who teams up with her station’s weatherman (John Travolta) to fix the weekly drawing. As with many Nora Ephron productions, the bulk of the entertainment to be had here comes not from the story itself but from the sight gags and throw-away jokes interwoven throughout. On the minus side, the plot keeps twitching a bit after it should have died a natural death. However, as a whole the story works and the actors work with it. To be sure, this isn’t an award-winning masterpiece. But as an entertaining diversion for a relaxing evening at home, it works quite well. Mildly amusing

Review – Breaker Morant

There’s moral ambiguity aplenty in this film about the legal repercussions for the horrors of war. The story is a true tale about three Australian officers who were court-martialed by the British Army during the Boer War for illegally executing prisoners. In the end nobody comes off especially well. The Aussies seem like basically honorable men made cruel by circumstance. The English come across as scheming politicians eager to sacrifice the rank and file to achieve their selfish ends. And everyone seems to have little qualm about lying under oath during the trial. You probably need to be in the mood for a military justice movie, but if that mood has in fact struck you then you could probably do a lot worse than this choice. Worth seeing

Review – From Hell

This latest entry in the cinematic saga of Saucy Jack isn’t half bad. For the most part, it’s a gory, stylish rework of plot points first explored in Murder By Decree. Johnny Depp stars as a police inspector with at least bush league psychic abilities who ends up in charge of the hunt for Jack the Ripper. The romance between Depp and the Heather Graham character, the most attractive of the circle of prostitutes-friends-victims, doesn’t work in a big way. Further, the movie spends all too little time on the blood and guts that helped set it apart from previous Jack movies and all too much time on the same ol’ same ol’ pseudo-mystery, a decision made all the more disappointing by the culprit the screenwriters eventually settle on. Plot aside, however, the reasonably compelling characters, intense art direction and bittersweet ending all work to make this effort worthwhile. Worth seeing

Review – Totem

Okay, now I feel genuinely deceived. I’d be the first to admit that it’s my own damn fault when I rent videos from Full Moon and they end up falling far short of reasonable expectations. However, even at my most gullible I’ve almost always managed to avoid the series of movies the studio did that employ evil toys, puppets and the like as the antagonists. Because the box made this sound like an “evil spirits trying to break free from hell and destroy the earth” plot, I figured it would be a safe rent. I figured wrong. The evil spirits turn out to be three gargoyle-esque things from a stone totem pole. When an obscure system of human sacrifice looses them one by one, they turn out to be two-foot-tall dolls easily as fakey and stupid-looking as even the dumbest demonic toy. As if that wasn’t bad enough, this movie has nearly nothing else going for it. The story starts with six teenagers dropped for no apparent reason into a cabin in the middle of the woods, and it just meanders aimlessly from there. The plot seems to serve as nothing more than an excuse for the shock sequences, which would be okay if the shocks didn’t suck. Overall this struck me as a half-baked knock-off of Evil Dead. Because one can usually find the original on the same shelves where this dog is stocked, there isn’t much reason to rent the cheap imitation. Wish I’d skipped it