Review – The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

And here it is: chapter two. I never made it this far in the books, so the plot was more of a surprise this time around. Once again the production is lavish, the effects expensive and the battles immense. That’s particularly important to this installment, because much of the plot hinges on dramatic portrayals of some huge armed conflicts. The plot doesn’t start at the beginning, nor does it end at the end. And naturally there isn’t much by way of character development (unless you count Frodo’s gradual surrender to the evil of the ring or of course Gollum, who becomes a character in earnest in this episode). Otherwise most of what I said about the first one applies here as well (and I predict that next year I’ll be writing this once again about the third and final installment). Mildly amusing

Review – Ocean’s Eleven

This remake of an old Rat Pack caper movie works as an ensemble star vehicle but not much more. The film-makers strive to work a clever tale about a group of pseudo-cool guys plotting to rob a casino vault. But the plot’s too loose and full of holes to be of much interest as a traditional caper flick. There’s also a highly ineffective romance between lead hoodlum George Clooney and Julia Roberts as his ex-wife. So I guess if you’re blown away by the likes of Matt Damon and Brad Pitt (or if you like seeing so much male bonding that it really starts to come across as dysfunctionally gay), you’re in the right place. Otherwise you’re stuck in the oh-so-uninteresting world of expensive Las Vegas casinos without any particular reason to be there. See if desperate

Review – The Island of Lost Souls

Charles Laughton stars as the dastardly Doctor Moreau in this first screen adaptation of the famous sci-fi horror thriller by H.G. Wells. Oddly enough, all these years later this still surpasses the more high-tech, make-up intensive versions that came later. In part it’s the movie’s own early-talkies ineptness that makes it so startling, the extreme close-ups and melodramatic lighting all the more jarring to modern audiences. Sure, there’s a hefty dose of period racism, sexism and general mawkishness to go along with the good stuff. But if you’ve got a taste for vintage horror flicks you’ll probably find this one a relatively undiscovered treasure. Mildly amusing

Review – Theatre of Blood

Vincent Price hams it up as a bad Shakespearian actor taking the ultimate revenge on a handful of hostile critics. Having faked his own death (or more precisely having survived a bungled suicide attempt), our anti-hero has assembled a theatre company populated with winos. Their chosen scripts: the bloodiest deaths in Shakespeare’s work staged with the critics as real-life victims. The parallels between this effort and The Abominable Dr. Phibes are so strong (right down to around half the cast) that the word “reheat” comes to mind. On the other hand, if you liked it the first time it was served then likely you’ll enjoy the leftovers as well. Mildly amusing

Review – Conspiracy

Here’s an interesting subject for a made-for-cable movie: the Wansee Conference. It’s interesting to watch the Final Solution – the extermination of millions of Jewish people in concentration camp gas chambers – discussed by Third Reich bureaucrats as if they were pondering a somewhat thorny accounting problem. The petty bickering between representatives of the various branches of the Nazi state seems trivial in light of the decisions being made, and their discussions are all the more chilling for the contrast. Some of the casting is a bit odd, particularly the choice of Stanley Tucci as Eichman. But beyond that this is a fascinating viewing experience, particularly the text at the end indicating just how few of the participants were punished in any meaningful way at the end of the war. Worth seeing

Review – Exorcist 2: The Heretic

I can practically hear the sad lament of the movie studio brass on this one. “Where did we go wrong? We got the same cast. We even got some really good new actors, including James Earl Jones. We didn’t get William Friedken back, but surely John Boorman is on par with him (for better or worse). We even used the same demon. So why did this turn out to be a tragically comic follow-up to one of the best horror movies of all time?” Okay, first things first: just because the ancient Babylonians were terrified of an evil being named Pazuzu doesn’t mean the word is going to strike fear – or in fact do anything besides provoke laughter and derision – in modern American audiences. It didn’t help matters to have the creature of ultimate darkness frequently manifest itself as a big grasshopper. Further, little Linda Blair did just fine when her only real role was to lie around under a coat of latex devil makeup, but when she’s actually required to act she comes up a bit short. And don’t even get me started on Richard Burton. Then there’s the script, jam-packed with some of the most ridiculous plot devices and awful dialogue ever preserved on film. So if you’re in the mood for some of the most unintentionally funny moments in Hollywood history, you’ve come to the right place. Otherwise the only reason I can think of to spend much time with this stinker is the need to complete the Exorcist triple feature (or quintuple, in light of later developments). See if desperate

Review – Session 9

This has got to be the winner of the all-time best shooting location award (or if it isn’t the hands-down winner, it’s certainly in the top ten). It’s set in the run-down husk of the Danvers Asylum, one of the locations where the pre-frontal lobotomy was pioneered, at least according to an “on location” documentary on the DVD version of the movie. Of course, the documentary also implies the place is genuinely haunted. If only the film-makers could have gotten a bit more of that sense of dread into the story itself. As it turned out, however, this is a close-but-no-cigar experience. The writers and director deserve a round of applause for taking the tired old “haunted asylum” rah-rah, bypassing the usual clichés and coming up with something a little more cerebral. I also appreciated the decision not to waste a lot of screen time explaining the exact nature of the antagonist; the “evil” was much creepier thanks to its vagueness. Thus this might have been a much better movie if the script had been a little more focused, dwelling more on character motivation and less on maintaining a largely uninteresting sense of mystery. Mildly amusing

Review – Communion

I’m glad this still shows on cable every once in awhile, because I expect as source novel author, screenwriter and model for the protagonist Whitley Strieber still gets a little money every time it runs. And I’ll bet he can use the money, because the treatments for whatever the hell is wrong with him are probably expensive. Benefits to the creator aside, the big reason to sit through this stinker is that it’s one of the most unintentionally funny movies of all time. I suppose it’s wrong to derive amusement from the mental illness of others, but by the time Strieber (played to an uncanny tee by Christopher Walken, who actually bears a fairly strong resemblance to the author) ends up doing an awkward little dance number with the Phantasm-looking aliens who anal probed him, it’s impossible to do much of anything besides laugh. I’ve seen this movie three times now, and each time (even the first, which was in a movie theater) I sort of lost interest in it after the first 45 minutes or so. Perhaps that’s in part because it’s hard to stay interested in a bunch of disjointed, meandering crap about unpleasant encounters with space aliens. See if desperate

Review – Hell House

Nothing Richard Matheson could have come up with would be any scarier than this: a Halloween haunted house designed by evangelical Christians. The scheme here is to present real-life “horrors” such as abortion and homosexuality as spook show attractions, with the goal of convincing the gawking throngs to steer clear of evil and give their hearts to Jesus. The film-makers got outstanding access to the preparations for this elaborate production, apparently the original that has given rise to imitators across the country. The production itself is more than a little prosaic, but the subject matter is so compelling that it more than compensates. Overall this works great as a stand-alone viewing experience or in combination with the horror movie of your choice. Worth seeing

Review – Under Fire

Here we have liberals at their cutest, in full-blown crusader mode. As such, then, this is a creature of its time, a relic from the age when the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua seemed like it might actually be a good idea (hey, even in retrospect it was better than Somosa). Nick Nolte stars as a photojournalist who gets so caught up in his work covering events leading up to the revolution that he loses his objectivity. Though this might make an interesting out-of-class assignment for journalism students, otherwise the whole show comes across as a big budget, Hollywood reheat of Salvador. Mildly amusing

Review – The Vikings

Before I watched this I was actually under the impression that Vikings were interesting. Just goes to show how wrong you can be. Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis ham it up as bitter enemies who don’t know they’re secretly brothers. To complicate matters further, they’re both in love with the same woman (Janet Leigh). The Norsemen end up coming across as sort of a medieval outlaw biker gang, serving as drunken foils for the soap opera machinations of the English. Even the battle scenes are unimpressive. The only thing that stood out from the viewing experience was just how bad the chemistry was between Curtis and Leigh, odd considering the actors were married at least for a time. See if desperate

Review – Spy Kids

I’m willing to be that if I was a ten year old, I would really love this movie. It’s full of the sort of flashy special effects, nonsensical gadgets and simple-minded plot twists virtually guaranteed to keep pre-teens amused for an hour and a half or so. Our young protagonists discover that their parents are actually international super-spies in need of rescue from a TV kiddie show host who moonlights as a mad scientist. This doesn’t turn out to be one of those kid’s movies that’s secretly for adults; just about the whole show is clearly geared for the younger set. But even though that excludes me from the target audience, I’m sort of okay with that. This was good fun on its own terms. Mildly amusing

Review – Murder by Numbers

The ol’ Leopold and Loeb song and dance get dusted off and put back in the middle of the table for this thoroughly un-thrilling murder “mystery.” Sandra Bullock plays the lead as a crime scene investigator hot on the trail of the pampered thrill killers while pursued by her own inner demons. At this point in her career she’s proven herself an adept in the George Clooney Two Facial Expressions School of Acting. Still, the script doesn’t exactly merit an actor with greater range. It’s pretty simple-minded stuff. My favorite part: the scene in which – apropos of nothing – Bullock is attacked by a baboon. See if desperate

Review – Windtalkers

This John Woo action epic is set on the island of Saipan during World War Two, where my grandpa was stationed. Thus I should confess that I was a little more interested in the movie than the average filmgoer might be. That disclaimer aside, one gets what one should come to expect from Woo and war: lots of lavish battle scenes that simultaneously glamorize combat and bemoan its inescapable result. In addition, the story of Navajo code-talkers also features a fair amount of cliché-ridden speechifying about the wrongness of racism. Overall not a bad effort, though it comes across as a super-slick reheat of The Sands of Iwo Jima and its general ilk with just enough 21st-century sensibility to make it palatable. Mildly amusing

Review – Don't Say a Word

I’m tempted to follow the title recommendation, at least in the spirit of Thumper Rabbit’s mother’s famous advice. But no, my duty is to the movie-watching public, and thus I must sound the alarm about this second-rate mystery flick. Michael Douglas plays a child psychiatrist whose daughter is kidnapped by goons who need information locked in the mind of one of the good doctor’s deeply ill patients. The premise had promise, but the execution manages nothing more than another parade of uninteresting twists and turns designed to do little more than keep the action limping along. I admit to a fair measure of natural hostility to the whole kids-in-jeopardy thing, so that might have been part of why I found this outing so completely charmless. See if desperate

Review – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

I almost hate to admit it, but I kinda liked this movie. I went in with a strong sense of skepticism about the whole Harry Potter phenomenon and its attendant exploitation of sibling rivalry, resentful elitism and other forms of pre-adolescent anxiety. Throw in a bunch of new age, fantasy-ass foolishness and a hearty dose of English boarding school charm – or lack of same – and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a movie I’m going to hate. So I was more than a little surprised to find myself enjoying the whole thing in an inner-child sort of way. This doesn’t rank among the top ten films in history or anything like that. Indeed, I’m still glad I didn’t pay anything for the experience (HBO free weekend). But I’m far from sorry I watched it. Mildly amusing

Review – Men in Black 2

At least AC/DC doesn’t show up on the soundtrack. But that’s just about the only thing this mediocre sequel has going for it. Sure, there’s a funny sight gag here and there. Trouble is, most of them are past the midpoint of the movie, when the lackluster script and mailed-in performances have had a good hour or so to wear out the picture’s welcome. Further, just about the whole show assumes you’ve seen the first movie, so if you skipped the original you’ll want to skip this one as well. That notwithstanding, if you’re in search of something that cost a lot to produce and won’t challenge you mentally at the end of a long work week, you’ve come to the right place. Mildly amusing

Review – The Unholy

Poor Ben Cross. Just a few measly years before he made this dud he was starring in Oscar-quality stuff. Now he’s playing second fiddle to a half-nekkid bony demon chick. For those who are easily amused by female nudity, I expect this will be as entertaining as any one of dozens of other representatives of its ilk. Beyond that, though, there just ain’t much here. I wanted to see it because it featured a priest (Cross) squaring off against a demon (nekkid chick). But the plot’s too meandering and stupid to provide much amusement, and the effects are way too cheap to do much justify an otherwise lackluster entry in the sub-genre. The dog death around midway through didn’t help matters any. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Ripper: Letter from Hell

Movie from Hell is more like it. The only connection between the story here and the legendary Jack the Ripper murders from Victorian England is that people get killed. Supposedly there’s some kind of modus operandi link, but given the movie villain’s lack of discrimination regarding tools and victim genders, it’s hard to regard the connection as anything more than superficial. That tie severed, all we have here is yet another tiresome, who-done-it-why-done-it-who-gives-a-crap slasher movie. Final nail in the coffin: copious use of trite “think outside the box” cliché. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Eight-Legged Freaks

Wow. A horror comedy that turns out to be neither scary nor funny. That’s a shock. Honestly, the most entertaining moment in the entire movie is when the sinister soundtrack picks up the melody from “The Eensy Weensy Spider.” Otherwise this is a tedious parade of clichés brandished at the audience with nary a trace of genuine irony. The picture depends primarily on the digital spider effects for its appeal, which would have worked a lot better if the quality had been a bit more consistent or the giant arachnids had been employed for chills rather than comic relief. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Rose Red

This is Stephen King’s best screen effort since Creepshow, which is saying something considering we’re talking strictly about the small screen. Viewers seeking the cutting edge of horror should probably seek elsewhere; the screenplay is highly derivative of a number of sources ranging from Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson right down to some of King’s earlier work. But I suppose a little unoriginality is to be expected for just about any haunted house story. Sure they’re clichés, but many of them work. The apparent obligation to make this into a mini-series probably contributed to some trouble with the story’s pacing, including an excess of supporting characters and sub-plots. The two-disc set also includes a fun fakeumentary that puts a Blair Witch spin on the tale. Overall anyone seeking a good ghost story should be able to derive plenty of fun from this lengthy example of the sub-genre. Worth seeing

Review – Sexy Beast

Honestly, the FTC should force Fox to remove the word “Sexy” from the title of this stinker, if for no other reason than the fact that the limited supply of sex here all involves flabby, pasty Englishmen. Rather than erotica, this is a poor excuse for an over-arty caper movie whose cast universally delivers their slang-ridden lines in such thick accents that my wife finally turned on the subtitles just so we could figure out what was being said. Not that comprehension contributed much to enjoyment of the movie. Ben Kingsley is a particular stand-out; his character is supposed to be evil and menacing, but his obscenity-laced tirades are so witless they’re almost funny. The final kicker was the soundtrack, which alternated between lounge tunes and grating industrial noise. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Waiting for Guffman

Unless I’m forgetting something somewhere, this is the last movie I actually saw twice in a movie theater. Christopher Guest (who also directed and co-wrote) stars as a flamboyant dramaturge relocated from off-Broadway to way-off-Broadway in small town Missouri. This is neither the first nor the last time Guest has used the fakeumentary format, and he employs it here to great effect to tell the tale of a group of earnest but inept thespians staging the town’s sesquicentennial pageant. Though the overall story never rises much beyond the level of silly farce, a few of the jokes are absolutely priceless. Good acting and fairly even pace help a lot, too. The disc comes with some good extras, including several deleted scenes that fill in a few gaps in the plot. Buy the disc

Review – The Godfather Saga

Here’s a real trade-off: you can see the whole Godfather story (at least the good parts, i.e. one and two) re-cut in chronological order, plus a load of new footage. However, you’ll have to give up the original aspect ratio and anything considered too risqué for TV, at least unless and until they ever release an uncut Godfather Saga disc. Fans will certainly want to take in both versions, because at least some of the extra scenes add character development or make minor plot points work a little better. My only real disappointment was that the Cuban sequences featured little if any new material. Otherwise this was a nice way to spend a couple of evenings. Worth seeing

Review – O

If Taming of the Shrew became an entertaining teen movie after a little modernization of plot and dialogue, then naturally we should be able to do the same thing with Othello, right? Wrong. The guys who made this irritant of a movie even went so far as to get Julia Stiles (late of 10 Things I Hate About You) to play “Desi.” But it just flat out doesn’t work. To begin with, the plot’s heavy reliance on basketball-related twists make the movie inaccessible to the non-jock audience. And worse, the interracial sex themes that might have been provocative even as late as ten years ago now seem at best trite and at worst downright mawkish. The final nail in the coffin is the juvenile sense of morality that pervades the entire show, particularly the kindergarten-level “just say no” drug references. Maybe if I hadn’t wanted this to be a better movie I would have been more tolerant of its faults. See if desperate

Review – Insomnia

Which is what the people who made this should suffer from. I know I’ve said this before, but once again it applies all too well: they should have spent a lot more on the script and a lot less on the actors. As it turns out, however, we get Al Pacino playing a dedicated but subtly crooked cop trying to track down a killer (Robin Williams cast against type in a thou-doth-protest-too-much sort of way). The plot features the usual blend of cloudy motives, annoying subplots and the like. Indeed the only novel element here is the protagonist’s overpowering inability to sleep, brought on either by his own guilty conscience, the midnight sun of northern Alaska, or both. The locations are pretty, and the cinematographer works well with them. But inasmuch as this is supposed to be a murder mystery rather than a travelogue, I’d hoped for a little more. Mildly amusing

Review – Richard III (1995)

My biggest gripe here (aside from the play not exactly being my favorite Shakespearian effort) is that Ian McKellen’s performance in the title role is so delightfully over-wrought that it ends up making a loathsome character just a little too adorable. Some of the celebrity casting is a little inappropriate as well; for instance, Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t quite seem up to even a supporting role. However, all that’s more than made up for by the genuinely interesting art direction. The language is pure Elizabethan England, but the sets and costumes are far more evocative of the reign of Edward VIII, providing an intriguing parallel between the semi-fictional Richard’s Nazi garb and the real-life Edward’s Nazi sympathies. And if nothing else, it’s nice to see a modern film adaptation of anything by the Bard that isn’t clogged with witless teen stars who seem as if they’ve learned their lines the same way ABBA was rumored to have learned their English lyrics. Worth seeing

Review – Vampires: Los Muertos

You might want to sit down for this one: Jon Bon Jovi is the best actor in this whole movie. Seriously. The female lead has to be the director’s girlfriend or something, because she pretty much makes Mariah Carey look like Meryl Streep. And speaking of people finding jobs for their friends, Tommy Lee Wallace should count himself darn lucky to still be good buds with John Carpenter. Though Wallace has done good work in the past, he isn’t exactly keeping a streak alive here. His awkward screenplay and prosaic direction run a neck-and-neck race for worst element of the movie, which is saying a great deal considering the stiff competition from the stiff cast. All that set aside, however, the thing that really floored me was that they managed to set the movie in Mexico during the Day of the Dead festivities, yet the art direction was so mediocre that the whole thing looks like it was shot in San Diego over a long, boring Memorial Day weekend. Bad as the first John Carpenter vampire movie was, this one actually manages to top it in the stink competition. See if desperate

Review – Titus

I know this is commonly considered one of Shakespeare’s lesser efforts, but it’s got so much blood and guts and other unpleasantness that it’s hard not to get at least a minor kick out of it. This particular version features even more scenery chewing than usual, due in large part to the mastications of Anthony Hopkins in the title role. Though he plays the lead, he can scarcely be considered the star; that honor belongs to the art direction. This is one of those half-interesting, half-annoying productions that attempts to lure in contemporary audiences by supplying the cast with modern trappings such as motorcycles, video games and shotguns. Further, the sets are monolithic, sometimes adding effectively to the drama while at other times distracting and thus detracting from the action. Further, the director seriously needed to shave the prologue and epilogue sequences off. That notwithstanding, there’s enough nastiness and misery to be found here to keep the production entertaining for the most part. Mildly amusing

Review – The Brotherhood of the Wolf

Somewhere between the atmospheric horror movies of Cocteau and Polanski and the frantic action flicks of Luc Besson lies this odd tale of an 18th century French village terrorized by a ravening Beast. As a mystery movie it doesn’t work at all, but fortunately the film-makers appear to recognize this shortcoming and compensate by throwing in a fair measure of sex and gore. Production values are solid, and this might have been a better picture (with a slightly better rating) were it not for the decision to include racism of a sort even Hollywood has started to move past, sexism that wasn’t even consistent with the plot, and oh way far too much animal suffering. See if desperate

Review – Hellion

Darn those pesky demons. They get in your cellar. They get in your attic. And apparently now they even put in appearances in your kids’ playhouse. Of course to be fair to the hell-monsters, they did live there before a single mom from America moved to Australia and set up post-divorce housekeeping with her three kids. The oldest gets up to the usual teen antics while the younger pair are slowly drawn into Satanic rituals in the back yard. Though not a high-quality, big budget picture by any stretch of the imagination, this does feature at least slightly better production values than most other movies of its ilk. Of course now it’s possible to do with relatively inexpensive digital effects what would have at one time required an army of optical experts, so that helped. What might also have helped would have been a slightly better script. See if desperate

Review – How to Make a Monster

For your video rental dollar you get not only the lesson promised by the title but also an extra bonus: an hour and a half worth of “How to Make a Really Crappy Movie.” Honestly, I know Stan Winston is trying to remake the whole string of Arkoff camp horror classics, but some movies are just better off dead. Or if they really had to resurrect this particular opus, they ought really to have at least tried to come up with something that’s been done a bit less frequently than the evil video game that comes to life. The script is lame. The effects are lame. The gore is really lame. Even the lame nudity is lamer than usual. Video game geeks appear to be the only target audience in mind here, and I have to admit that I’m not precisely the best person to judge its effectiveness on that count. However, just about everyone else can safely steer clear. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Some Like It Hot

I guess if they’d called this “Some Like It in Drag” it probably would have put a damper on the box office back when this first came out. Nonetheless, the theme’s inescapable in this cross-dressing screwball comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Alternative sexuality aside, the story actually turned out to be a little more grim than I expected, particularly the scenes involving the mobsters our boys don drag to escape. However, my only real gripe is that after awhile the comedy of errors starts to get a little old (as comedies of errors frequently do), the gag wearing off a little before the plot actually winds down. Mildly amusing

Review – Hellraiser: Hellseeker

Okay, enough. For what I hope – but doubt – will be the last time, there is zip, zero, nada, goose egg, absolutely no entertainment value in the old protagonist-is-hallucinating-or-is-he crap. This has got to be the all-time lamest excuse ever for a plot device, and here’s why: it frees the writer from any need for craftsmanship beyond the ability to suggest a relentless, episodic set of quasi-interesting visuals that consistently disappoint any audience member not easily entertained by horror movie sight gags. Writers who have anything to do with such a cheap gimmick should be drummed out of the business in order to make way for new blood with fresh ideas. And speaking of stuff that’s growing a little stale, just how old is Doug Bradley by now? And how desperate for money did Ashley Laurence have to be to drag her back into the Hellraiser series? If there’s one thing I kinda hoped would fall by the wayside in the age of easily-available video porn, it’s the notion that flimsy excuses for soft-core kinky sex would somehow buoy up a sinking excuse for a horror movie. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Scorpion King

Though a somewhat unworthy successor to the Mummy sequel that gave rise to the character, this isn’t half bad for a sword and sorcery flick. In this one the Rock plays the same character he played in the last one, only this time he’s the good guy. He’s up against a ruthless tyrants whose conquests are made possible via the visions of his sorceress sidekick. The rest of the plot is little more than the library paste that sticks the action sequences together. But the budget’s big enough, the effects flashy enough, and the story entertaining enough to overcome the lame dialogue and often iffy acting. Mildly amusing

Review – Jason X

Here’s something for future generations to look forward to: apparently 450 years from now teenagers are just as horny and just as stupid as they are today. Thank goodness a spaceship full of them manage to revive cryo-frozen Jason Voorhees, who naturally picks up right where he left off. I’ll bet it shocks no one to learn that the result sits somewhere between Aliens and the original Friday the 13th series in terms of plot and production quality. For the most part this one’s for the usual slasher movie fans. However, the David Cronenberg cameo toward the beginning and the holographic parody of the earlier movies in the series toward the end do at least a little to justify the rental price. Mildly amusing

Review – Freaks

This Todd Browning classic is actually a little hard to review because it’s at least in part a creature of its time. Which is to say that when it first came out it upset people so much that the studio pulled it from distribution, a fate that thankfully has not continued to this day. Further, it suffers from many of the technical, script and acting defects endemic to the early days of “talkies.” However, its somewhat dated nature does little to diminish the impact of the better sequences. Browning’s decision to use actors with actual physical disabilities rather than employing makeup “monsters” is shocking even by contemporary standards. However, critics who complain of the exploitation and belittling of the physically differently abled miss the point of the picture. The movie, based on the short story “Spurs” by Tod Robins, tells the tale of a circus midget who, assisted by his fellow sideshow freaks, exacts a terrible revenge upon the “normal” woman who marries him for his money and then tries to poison him. Thus the moral at the end is an uplifting – albeit somewhat disturbing – vindication of the right to be different. And beyond all else, the famous “wedding feast” sequence and the final chase are worth the viewing for their visual impact alone. Buy the tape

Review – Scooby-Doo

Wow. It’s just as dumb as the TV series. That must really have taken a lot of work. If you’re a big fan of the cartoon you’ll like as not be plenty entertained by the live action (or to be more precise live action combined with plentiful computer graphics) version. Further, it helps to already be familiar with the characters and typical plots from the show, because otherwise you’re likely to be left behind by the long string of in-jokes (particularly those about Scrappy Doo) interspersed throughout the movie. In-jokes and a few adult-oriented references aside, however, this is an entertaining if somewhat brain-numbing juvenile comedy. Mildly amusing

Review – Glitter

Okay, I’ve got a problem here. There’s just no sport in reviewing this movie. I mean, I could write a bunch of snide remarks about the trite, predictable plot. I could ask how many more productions we have to sit through in which a poor but ultra-talented ingénue struggles from the streets to a recording contract and then all the way up to a sold-out performance at Madison Square Garden (or similar plot to the same general effect). I could also go directly after the principal defect in this particular go-around: superstar Mariah Carey. I might wonder what evil demons possessed her and made her think that her singing career would extend to equal success in the acting world. I might observe that her skills as a thespian appear to be limited to stiff delivery of lines punctuated by long, vacant stares. I might even speculate that if her performance had been any more wooden perhaps the Blue Fairy might have shown up and turned her into a real boy. But honestly, so many other critics have already beaten me to this far-too-easy game that all I feel like I need to say is: See if desperate

Review – The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

Yet again Hollywood drags out the count and gives him a fresh flogging. Plenty of swordfights. Plenty of intrigue. Plenty of frantic overacting. Plenty of frilly costumes. Production values and high, making this a reasonably good retelling of a long-familiar story of love, betrayal and ice-cold revenge. Mildly amusing

Review – Terror Toons

I think the box I got was mislabeled. The DVD case says “Terror Toons,” but what I’ll bet it was supposed to say was “Terrible Crap.” Yet again the whatever-they-are at Brain Damage serve up cheap video porn without the porn. So as ever, if you have the attention span of a gnat and the sense of humor of a prematurely sexually aware five-year-old boy, you’ve finally found someone who will cater to your niche. Otherwise this is nothing more than a thoroughly annoying bit of drivel about a pair of guys in rubber masks who escape from cartoon land to terrorize teenagers (or rather thirtysomethings pretending to be teenagers). If this was as funny as the guys who made it seemed to think it was, this would be one of the great classics of American comedy. However, what they managed to come up with ranks in film history only alongside “classics” like Glen or Glenda? Except, of course, that at least Ed Wood had a measure of sincerity rather than nothing nobler than a deliberate desire to churn out garbage. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Omen 4

I suppose if one sets out to re-make the original Omen plot with a girl cast as the Antichrist, it’s only natural – however disappointing – when the story starts to resemble the ol’ Bad Seed routine. Weird thing is, roughly two thirds of the way through the film-makers apparently decided to break out of the rut and try a few novel Satanic sight gags. If the first couple of movies in this series left you curious about what the evil visions Damien’s victims saw just before their deaths actually looked like, the mystery is somewhat resolved here. Unfortunately that’s about the coolest thing this flick has to offer (aside from a gnarly rattlesnake attack and an unintentionally funny sequence in which a psychic fair catches fire). By the time the picture lapses into a paper-thin explanation for the connection between this tale and its predecessors, it’s lost most of its already limited ability to entertain. Mildly amusing

Review – Monsters, Inc.

Now here’s something I haven’t seen for awhile: a kids’ movie that actually appears to have been made for kids. The story – a goofy farce about a factory in Monsteropolis that specializes in transporting monsters into kids’ closets – is simple and straightforward. The plot doesn’t get bogged down or complicated with a lot of musical numbers, romantic twists or off-color jokes that presumably only adults would get. Instead this is pretty pure Disney, executed with the usual digital aplomb of Pixar. I suppose I’ve laughed harder at other movies, but for family-safe viewing you could do a lot worse. Mildly amusing

Review – Blade 2

At least it wasn’t as boring as the first one, due for the most part to the wise decision to crank up the action and turn down the plot. The story – to the extent that there is one – has something to do with our intrepid swordsman hero joining forces with his sworn enemies the vampires in order to defeat a legion of some kind of super-vampire creatures. A lot of the comic book elements creep in at awkward moments, such as the presence of a vampire SWAT team where each member has their own weapon of choice and nerdy nickname. But let’s be honest. If you’re going to rent a movie like this, you’re doing it for the creepy bloodsuckers and the flying fists of kung fu death. And you get both of those in abundance. Mildly amusing

Review – The Great Dictator

Given the physical resemblance between Charlie Chaplin’s famous “Little Tramp” and Germany’s infamous tyrant – however dependent on the moustache the similarity may have been – this should have been a better film. The lion’s share of the blame must unfortunately be placed upon Chaplin himself; the profound comic genius of his silent movies translates poorly at best to the sound era. Indeed, this movie’s almost more entertaining if watched with the sound off. The slapstick still comes through, so you’re getting the highlights without concerning yourself with the finer points of the go-nowhere plot (a silly farce about a Jewish barber being mistaken for the Great Dictator himself). Of course with the volume down you’ll miss the bits where Chaplin lapses into side-splitting rants of mock-German. But on the up-side, you’ll also miss the ineptly preachy speech at the end. Chaplin fans owe this at least one viewing (for the globe sequence if nothing else), but otherwise most of the great artist’s other offerings make better choices. Mildly amusing

Review – Anima

There are all kinds of different movies about Nazis. The two sub-genres that concern us here are Spooky Nazis and Sentimental Holocaust Nazis. With promises of mummies, evil taxidermy and the like, the box made this one sound like a member of the former group. Instead, it’s even more firmly anchored in the latter than the likes of The Music Box. Our protagonists are a couple of postwar refugees trying to live out their remaining years in quiet, rural seclusion. Unfortunately for their quaint, blissful lives, a video producer discovers that the old man is either a Nazi war criminal, an expert in a lost form of taxidermy, or both. Once I figured out what I was getting, it was easier to meet the film-makers on their own terms and enjoy their efforts as best I could. However, when I watched it I really wasn’t in the mood for an extended parade of artifice, go-nowhere subplots, bathos, bathos and more bathos. Maybe on another night I’d have formed a higher opinion of it. Mildly amusing

Review – Death to Smoochy

Though this Danny DeVito production isn’t quite as clever as it wants to be, it’s still an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. Edward Norton plays a do-gooding, guitar-strumming crusader in a pink rhino suit who gets hired by a kid-oriented TV network to host a Barney-ish variety show (wow, is that enough hyphens in one sentence?). Though the execs hire him specifically because he lacks the legal, ethical and moral woes of his predecessor (Robin Williams), our hero’s efforts to do the right thing at every turn soon put him at odds with the money men and a Mafia-esque charitable organization. With the mob and the disgruntled ex-host trying to do him in, our hero muddles on to save the day and get the girl. Clever allusions to other classic movies include the distinct flavor of Comfort and Joy in a couple of scenes and a sequence toward the end that must be a conscious tribute to The Manchurian Candidate. The only drawback here is that sometimes the film-makers strive so hard for quirkiness and irony that all they end up with is silliness. However, such moments are relatively few and concentrated mostly toward the end. Worth seeing

Review – Series 7

This has got to be the ultimate send-up of “reality” TV shows: a program where contestants actually kill each other. The strongest point here is that the film-makers keep an almost perfectly straight face throughout. Everything from the titles and overlays right down to the competitors themselves could easily have come directly from Survivor, Cops or The Real World (except the characters are somewhat more compelling than their “real world” counterparts). Throw in the blunt, sometimes brutal violence (facilitated in the plot by some sort of nation-wide mandatory lottery), and you’ve got some only-slightly-ham-handed criticism of the depths of the depravity we’re willing to watch. The only slight slip is the excessive attention paid to the somewhat implausible past romance between two of the would-be assassins. Mildly amusing

Review – XXX

Usually when one goes to a movie with three Xes on the poster, not to mention someone who looks and dresses like Vin Diesel, one expects something a little different. Rather than “Acres of Ass Part 18,” what we get is James Bond repackaged for the X-Games generation. So instead of skis and European sports cars we get snowboarding and a GT. Despite our hero’s humble origins, the NSA manages to make him into a formidable opponent for ex-Russian-military anarchists bent on turning bio-weapons loose on the world. Gadgets aplenty. Chase scenes. Explosions. An endless parade of thou-dost-protest-too-much models. Despite feeling no particular need for a twenty-something reheat of spy movie business as usual, I have to admit that I enjoyed this picture more than I thought I was going to. Maybe it was the company. Mildly amusing

Review – Van Wilder

If American Pie is Porky’s for the next generation and XXX is James Bond for the next generation, then this outing – particularly with the National Lampoon trademark slapped on it – is clearly intended as a bid for the distinction of becoming the next generation’s Animal House. The way this trend is going, I genuinely pity the next generation. For openers, this is way too nicey nice to even come close to the nasty wit of the movie it’s clearly intended to imitate. Instead of a group of losers taking revenge on their socially-acceptable nemeses, here we have a saintly goof-off of Ferris Buehler proportions who falls (mutually) for the knock-out girlfriend of the vaguely-homosexual head of the obnoxious-boy frat. It doesn’t help that the love interest is a journalist played by Tara Reid. Animal House was no shining beacon of hope for the cinema arts, but at least it wasn’t so inanely predictable as to become downright dull. See if desperate

Review – Super Troopers

Here we have one of those movies that I’m fairly sure actually sucks IQ points out of your head while you watch it. After an hour and a half even the brainiest viewer is in danger of being reduced to Beavis and Butt-head levels. And that’s actually a fortunate coincidence, because that’s just about the level of cerebral activity you’ll need to truly enjoy most of the jokes in this sophomoric (or should that be freshmoronic?) farce about inept Vermont state troopers trying to pull off a big drug bust so the governor won’t shut down their small town office. See if desperate

Review – The Mangler 2

The nicest thing I have to say about this stinker is a brief expression of gratitude for the simplicity of the title. No “Mangler: the Mangling,” no “The Lost Mangler,” no “Mangle 2K2,” or other such crap. Just a simple repeat of the name of the original with the sequel number tacked on the end. That makes it a lot easier to work alphabetically and logically into the Big List of Movies that Suck. If there were unanswered questions from the first Mangler flick, this sequel does little to put them to rest. Instead it strikes out into new territory, focusing on a college (or is it a boarding school? It’s sort of hard to tell) run by a massive computer system. When a disgruntled goth girl loads the Mangler virus into the mainframe, largely off-camera gore aplenty results. Lance Henrikson puts in a desperate-for-work appearance in this otherwise completely missable fiasco. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – World War Z

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie. Sure, it suffers from third act plot problems. But that’s true of a lot of zombie movies (or “infected” movies if you’re going to quibble about subcategories). And no, it doesn’t cover much ground not already explored by 28 Days Later, unless “spent a ton of money on the production” counts as new ground. Still, it’s fun to see some familiar faces take on the zombie apocalypse. Worth seeing

Review – Wolfhound

We can now officially add Irish wolfhounds to the list of animals that are a real struggle to make scary. And when the whole plot of the movie revolves around an American man returning to the Emerald Isle and slowly – oh so slowly – discovering that he has a genetic predisposition to shape-shift into one of the aforementioned wooly house pets, you can bet it’s going to be sort of hard to keep the show going. Sadly, things don’t heat up all that much when one of the doggies turns out to be a former Playmate of the Year (without a trace of Irish accent) who spends a copious amount of time in the altogether. A lot of this movie was more amusing the first time I saw it, when it was called The Howling. At least that one had actual werewolves rather than big shaggy dogs and cheap video effects. See if desperate

Review – Campfire Stories

Okay, campers. Once again. What’s the worst crime a horror movie can ever commit? That’s right: boring. And this one’s guilty beyond reasonable doubt of boring in the first degree. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure that this is going to be a compilation of three short stories of the teen-oriented slasher variety (obnoxious jocks killed by janitor, obnoxious hoodlums done in by stereotypical Indian, game of Truth or Dare takes a turn for the deadly). But then again, it didn’t take much imagination to write the script for this stinker. Nor was it a big mental leap to get something this cliché-ridden onto the screen. Indeed, the only thing I can’t quite imagine is why David Johansen needs money badly enough to play host to this crap. See if desperate

Review – The Royal Tennenbaums

Rarest of the rare are movies that get four stars from me on first viewing. But this one does it. Clever story. Well-crafted script. Talented, ensemble cast. And to top it all off, this is one of those wonderful films that can incorporate quirkiness – with a vaguely Edward Gorey-esque flavor – without wasting half its screen time calling attention to its own jokes. And the soundtrack is worth it all by itself. The story – loosely – is the tale of three child prodigy siblings grown up to strange adulthood. The whole crew is reunited by their father’s less-than-legit terminal cancer. No single paragraph could even begin to do justice to the tons of little touches that give this movie its appeal. Buy the disc

Review – The House on Haunted Hill (1958)

Rare indeed are movies where the re-make is better than the original. Even rarer are such cases when the original was a Vincent Price vehicle and the re-make was for the most part an effects-intensive parade of cheap thrills. However, there’s just no getting around the main problem here: the fifties version of this story is just downright boring. It features a little of legendary gimmick-meister William Castle’s gift for showmanship, but it’s also weighed down by a heapin’ helpin’ of his awful misuse of character, plot, production values, and just about everything else that Price might have been able to work with. The final product is good for a few unintentional laughs but not much more. Mildly amusing

Review – The Mausoleum

Horny housewife demons, I rebuke you! The plot here would probably work better in a porn movie: a woman is possessed by a demon that turns her into a nymphomaniac who kills after screwing (and presumably cleans up the blood and chunks afterward). Certainly the dialogue is bad enough to fit well in your average skin flick. Further, if they’d worked more actual sex into the movie maybe these brilliant auteurs could have spent less screen time on special effects that looked like they wouldn’t pass muster in one of those really cheap haunted houses that rely mostly on fog machines and day-glo paint for thrills and chills. And poor La Wanda Page suffers though a black maid role that would have been embarrassing back in the days of Gone with the Wind. If you’re a kid and you wanna go whee but you can’t get smut yet, this might tide you over. Otherwise the returns on your video rental dollar are few and far between. See if desperate

Review – The Brood

Our buddy Frank has trouble. His wife is crazy. She’s been institutionalized in the clutches of a cult psychotherapist, played to a smarmy T by Oliver Reed. His daughter has been abused, probably by his wife. If that was the sum of his worries, he’d probably make it through. Unfortunately for him, the mad doctor has figured out how to make his wife’s irrational rage externalize and become homicidal little creatures that vaguely resemble his kid (particularly when they’re stuffed into snow suits). As one might expect from a David Cronenberg movie (especially one from the eerie, atmospheric period early in his career), things go downhill from there. The concept’s cool enough to place this a cut above your average slasher flick, and particularly later in the movie there’s some good gore and a couple of solid scares. Mildly amusing

Review – The Golden Voyage of Sinbad

If you’re going to watch a Sinbad movie, the first thing it’s important to check for is Ray Harryhausen’s name in the credits. If it’s not in there, walk away. Fortunately for this flick, it passes the first test. Unfortunately (like many of its kin), when the effects aren’t center stage, this is an unending snooze fest. Even some of the creatures leave a little to be desired. Further, I hate it when they pit two cute monsters against each other, because you just know at least one and probably both are going to bite it. All that aside, this whole movie is worth it for one scene: the Kali statue coming to life and getting into a swordfight with our heroes. This prime moment of fantasy movie history is not to be missed, even if the rest of the picture can safely be ignored. Mildly amusing

Review – The Dunwich Horror (1969)

Somehow I suspect a considerably better movie might be made from the source story. Of course, it isn’t too hard to imagine a considerably better movie being made from just about any source story, let alone one of H.P. Lovecraft’s more widely-admired works. The nicest thing I have to say about this production is that the supporting cast isn’t too terrible. The leads, on the other hand … well, let’s just say Sandra Dee is the love interest and Dean Stockwell (sporting a coif and moustache that make him look like Long John Holmes) plays sinister anti-hero Wilbur Whately. The whole production is so thoroughly infected with American International Pictures circa 1970 day-glo sexuality that it’s hard to tell if Stockwell is following the original scheme of summoning elder gods from beyond the stars or merely doing it all for the nookie. Then there’s the climax, which is a strong contender for most unintentionally funny moment ever included in a horror movie. Maybe I should just be grateful I’m not sitting through Die, Monster, Die! again. See if desperate

Review – Blade Runner

I can’t review this movie. It’s one of my all-time favorites, and the emotional ties run too deep for me to give you anything even vaguely resembling an objective opinion about it. So suffice it to say that this is one of the greatest triumphs the art direction department ever had in the world of cinema. Some of the acting’s a little stiff, but if you seek out the director’s cut you can at least avoid the hackneyed, pseudo-noir voice-overs. Though you may have an entirely different experience from mine when you watch this one, I still highly recommend that you at least give it a try. Buy the disc

Review – The Lost Weekend

The scene toward the end where Ray Milland gets the DTs really freaked me out the first time I saw this (of course I was something like ten at the time). Watching it again as an adult, the whole thing sort of strikes me as an overworked version of an anti-marijuana cautionary tale, only booze rather than dope plays the villain here. Certainly it was well-regarded when it first came out, but in retrospect it seems more than a little melodramatic. Still, some of the camerawork and editing are great, and the actors do a fine job with the script they have to work with. As a preachy paean on the evils of demon rum (or rye, which seems to be the drink of choice), I guess I’ve seen worse. Mildly amusing

Review – Hairspray

Here we have John Waters’ first foray into the world of big-budget movie-making. And who else could possibly produce a race-conscious farce about 50s-era dance show stage mothers? Even that doesn’t adequately describe the treat in store for viewers here. Sure, it’s silly. And sure, it launched the career of Ricki Lake and marked the final screen appearance of Divine. But I can’t hold that against it. It’s just too silly and charming, almost enough to make me wish I’d actually seen the old Baltimore dance program that inspired it all. Almost. Worth seeing

Review – The Attic Expeditions

Unless you’re a big fan of nothing-is-real-everything-is-insane crap spectacles (or you find Satanic ritual nudity especially amusing), you’re unlikely to take much pleasure from this particular expedition. The most entertainment I managed to derive from this muddled mess was the challenge of remembering where I’d seen the actors before; the ensemble was mostly veterans of other horror flicks ranging from The Re-Animator to Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4 to Helter Skelter. Other than that this is a lot of boring nonsense about a lunatic who may or may not possess the secrets of evil magic sought by the mad psychiatrist who is torturing him. See if desperate

Review – Dagon

In many ways this is as close as anyone’s ever come to producing a feature-length movie that’s really, genuinely based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft. Of course the story in question is “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” rather than “Dagon,” and there are still a fair number of liberties taken with the tale. As usual with Stuart Gordon productions, the plot’s pretty hard on the female characters. That notwithstanding, it does my heart good to see someone (even Gordon) make a serious attempt to adapt Lovecraft for the screen. Some of it even manages to border on genuinely unsettling (particularly the noises made by the zombie-fish-esque townspeople, not to mention the skinning-alive sequence). Worth seeing

Review – Dark Descent

This isn’t a low-budget, empty-headed, underwater rip-off of Outland. Nah. This is a low-budget, empty-headed, underwater homage to Outland. And the “homage” is close, really close. Federal marshal. Mining operation. Illegal, work-stimulating drugs that produce psychotic behavior. Killers coming on the next ship to kill our intrepid hero. The closest this movie ever comes to actual entertainment value is if one chooses to follow it closely enough to note when it manages to “borrow” even more closely from High Noon than its sci fi predecessor did. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – American Psycho 2

Wow. Who would ever have thought that it would be physically possible to make a movie even dumber than American Psycho? There’s a minor touch of novelty here in that the serial killer is a teenage girl rather than a slayer of teenage girls. Otherwise this is just another witless slasher flick, lacking even the pseudo-intellectual stamp of connection to Bret Easton Ellis (unless you count the weak tie to Patrick Bateman’s crimes from the original; our cute little killer is supposedly the only person who ever survived a Bateman attack). I confess this movie lost most of my good will early on when psycho-babe put a cat in a microwave, and it didn’t do much past then to worm its way back into my good graces. Extra added bonus: William Shatner. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Mists of Avalon

This made-for-TV miniseries offers up an interesting new take on the King Arthur myth, a re-telling of the tale largely from the perspective of the female players therein. Also thrown in for good measure is a hefty dose of new age religion, a nearly constant dwelling on the desires of pagan goddess worshippers to get along with everyone, an agenda constantly thwarted by Saxons from without and Christians from within. Axe-grinding notwithstanding, the story here’s pretty good. If nothing else, it’s nice to see women get a fair shake in an epic saga. Even beyond that, the re-work of the classic tale includes more complex and logical character development (even if it does take on a slight soap opera flavor at points). I’ve some vague affection from the whole Arthur thing, so I admit I enjoyed a version that wasn’t as empty-headed as the usual production. Mildly amusing

Review – K-19: The Widowmaker

Man versus the Deep Blue Sea is reworked for the atomic age in this drama about a Soviet submarine crew battling nearly impossible odds just to keep their ill-outfitted boat from blowing up. The plot features all the usual cliché devices and characters: Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson square off as officers with differing views on the proper way to run a submarine, et cetera et cetera. The new wrinkle here is a malfunctioning reactor, adding radiation sickness to the usual mix of maritime drama. Frankly I could have done without it. Blowing up and drowning are one thing, but radiation for some reason strikes me as an especially icky way to die. Otherwise if you like tales of camaraderie overcoming all obstacles – or if you’re like me and you just like sub movies – then you’ll get your money’s worth. Mildly amusing

Review – Speed

This remains one of the all-time winners in the “what’s going to go wrong next?” sub-genre of the action movie. The basic premise is simple enough: a mad bomber puts a chunk of C-4 on a bus, and if the vehicle goes under 50 MPH it blows up. Every time Keanu Reeves (as the heroic young police officer) and Sandra Bullock (as the plucky young commuter) figure out how to overcome one obstacle, the script throws in another twist. By the time everyone finally gets off the bus, the story’s so wrinkled that it might just as well go back in the washer for another cycle (and remember to hang it up right away this time). If you’re a big fan of this kind of movie, well then you’re likely to love this one. However, I found Eddie Izzard’s 60-second summary of the plot – delivered in French – considerably more entertaining than the real thing. See if desperate

Review – Reign of Fire

Here’s a novel idea: a dragon movie set in the sci-fi future rather than the fantasy past. Funny thing is, it kinda works. The premise is that dragons have been awakened from an eons-old slumber and have taken over the world. Or to be more precise, they’ve turned the surface of the earth into ash and eaten everything (apparently if you’re a dragon ash tastes pretty good). By the time 2020 rolls around, humanity is down to small enclaves – the group in this story is in England, appropriately enough – hiding out and waiting for the beasts to starve and/or go back into hibernation. Naturally along comes an American to lead them against the sole male monster who turns out to be the key to the infestation. Despite a strong similarity to the bad guy in Dragonslayer, the monsters work well. If you can get past some of the obvious plot holes (for example, why is it that millions of sharp-eyed, flying creatures can’t find and devour even small enclaves of humans?) this is an entertaining and subtly environmentalist production. Mildly amusing

Review – Halloween: Resurrection

I don’t know where they dug this one up, but they probably should have left it buried. After taking a quick detour to finally at long last off Jamie Lee Curtis (though it should be noted that this isn’t the first time in the series that she’s been done in), Michael Myers returns once again to the house where it all started seven movies back. This time he doesn’t even have to go out for dinner; delivery comes in the form of six college students getting paid to spend the night in the Myers house as part of a MTV-style reality netcast. The mini-cams on the participants’ heads provide the director with copious excuses for gut-wrenching Blair Witch camera work. Beyond that unwelcome addition, however, there’s nothing fundamentally new here. If you’re doing the full set by all means take this one in, but otherwise watch the good ones and let this episode pass. See if desperate

Review – Patriot Games

I originally saw this in a theater right around the time I saw Stephen Seagal’s Marked for Death. The Seagal flick is about a man who protects his family from drug terrorists by personally killing the bad guys. This one, on the other hand, is about a man (Tom Clancy’s ubiquitous hero Jack Ryan, played by Harrison Ford) who protects his family from political terrorists by engaging a massive international effort – everything from CIA satellites to British commandos – to try to do them in. The two make an interesting couple. Contrast aside, this isn’t too bad for a big-budget international intrigue movie. The presentation of Irish politics is a little simple-minded, but I suppose that’s to be expected from a largely pro-English action movie. Mildly amusing

Review – Best Defense

Okay, start with the premise that there’s a defense contractor somewhere that’s pressed for cash and laying people off just because the company can’t make a working product. If only implausibility was this movie’s worst problem. Instead – as is typical with Dudley Moore movies – the worst problem here is Dudley Moore. He plays a loathsome little engineer (who was probably supposed to have come across as cute and endearing) whose job is on the line until he steals tank part plans and passes them off as his own designs. Uninteresting intrigue ensues. The high point of the picture are the brief flash-forward scenes in which a hapless tank driver (Eddie Murphy) struggles with the final product. Even there, racism makes it a little hard to enjoy the comedy (not to mention that the notion of Iraq invading Kuwait several years before it actually happened seems a little eerie in retrospect). See if desperate

Review – Waterworld

Yes boys and girls, there really was a time in Hollywood history when dumping millions upon millions on a self-indulgent stinkpot of a movie was actually viewed as an outrageous thing to do. At the time critics universally banded together to sing a chorus or two of “Hype Gets in Your Eyes,” whining about how terrible this action flick is based mostly on how much Kevin Costner persuaded investors to spend on it. In retrospect, then, it seems almost quaint rather than heretical. Sure, it’s bad. The premise – humanity living on the surface of a planet-spanning ocean caused by global warming – had at least a little potential. Naturally enough, however, the story plays out like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome relocated to the high seas. Expensive, yes. Stupid, certainly. But not as bad as it was originally made out to be. See if desperate

Review – Minority Report

A tale by Phillip K. Dick turned into a showcase of art direction and special effects? Wow, that’s never been done before. As in the past, this effort by Stephen Spielberg serves up a sappy story line parading wooden characters across elaborately-decorated sets. In keeping with Dick-based productions, the plot centers around elaborate twists and turns driven by technology; in this go-around cops use information from creepy psychics who live in a big tub to arrest murderers (or pre-murderers, if you prefer) before they can commit their special crimes. Tom Cruise stars as the chief pre-cop, forced to go on the lam when the psychics peg him as the next killer. Or do they? And so on. Some of the effects are kind of cool, particularly the snazzy future cars and the little spider robots the cops use to help track fugitives. Otherwise, however, you’d be somewhat better off renting Total Recall and a lot better off renting Blade Runner (two previous tales of future malaise courtesy Phillip K.). See if desperate

Review – A Beautiful Mind

Actor Russell Crowe and director Ron Howard make a transparent run for the Academy Awards with this lengthy drama about schizophrenic genius John Nash. Hey, it paid off for Howard. Nash’s life makes for interesting cinema, starting with his days as a grad student at Princeton and following him through his career as a professor, his descent into madness, and his eventual rehabilitation (assisted of course by his beautiful wife, played by Jennifer Connolly in another successful Oscar bid). Though Crowe’s performance does a good job of demonstrating his range as an actor, somewhere around the middle of the movie it acquires the distinct flavor of Dustin Hoffman’s appearance in Rain Man (or other similar portrayals of the mentally differently abled). It’s a slick production. It’s a touching tale. Mildly amusing

Review – The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling’s Lost Episodes

Of the two apparently lost TZ scripts shot here for the first time in the late 90s, the first one could probably have stayed lost. It’s a tired little ditty about a woman who can see her past and future enacted on the screen during an art house revival showing of His Girl Friday. That this odd phenomenon allows her to predict her own death doesn’t make the story radically more interesting. On the other hand, the second entry is a bit more engaging. A doctor in 1860s Massachusetts discovers an island of people who’ve managed to cheat death thanks to a serum administered to them by the local mad scientist. Sadly for the reanimated villagers, their benefactor decides to stop administering the stuff when he feels his own death is imminent. The result is a Romero-esque spectacle that would have been something if it had been done as one of the original series episodes back in the 50s. As it was, however, the entertainment value it possessed was dampened more than a little by the decision to sepia-tone most of the shots (for that once-upon-a-time look, I guess) and the fact that zombies have been done to death (pardon the turn of the phrase). Mildly amusing

Review – The Creature Walks Among Us

Jeez, what a bummer of a movie. The first half or so of this picture is a so-so follow-up to The Creature from the Black Lagoon. As in the original, this part features some impressive (well, impressive for black and white) underwater cinematography, not to mention a really fun monster. Some of the pacing is off, though that was true of the first one as well. But then around 40 minutes or so in, the whole movie falls apart in almost every imaginable way. The captured creature requires a tracheotomy, which somehow manages to activate his latent human traits (inside every monster must be an American trying to get out). The change transforms him into a lumpy, Frankenstein’s-monster-esque hulk, which the “scientists” take ashore and pen up in a corral full of goats. In the meantime, the fully-human characters have gotten caught up in a ridiculous soap opera surrounding a … oh, who cares? If the point here is that the long-suffering monster emerges as the best example of the flattery we treat ourselves to when we use the word “human,” then at least that’s a valid argument. But it swiftly gets swamped in dull melodrama. Mildly amusing

Review – The Sum of All Fears

Jack Ryan seems to have taken a turn for the younger, completely out of step with his previous outings. If Tom Clancy really needed a more youthful hero, why didn’t he just cook up a fresh one? This odd and unnecessary inconsistency (along with a couple of others) aside, Clancy fans will no doubt get what they pay for with this thriller. There’s plenty of international intrigue, espionage high jinks, and effects-intensive action sequences. I suppose the destruction of Baltimore by a group of neo-nazis with a briefcase nuke would have seemed a good deal more ridiculous a year or so ago, but now of course it has a certain resonance. The tense escalation that occurs between the United States and Russia in the wake of the explosion (our president under the mistaken impression that Moscow is to blame for the attack) gets a little tiresome after awhile, and it’s resolved in a somewhat incredible manner. But otherwise this is an entertaining representative of its genre. Mildly amusing

Review – Blood Moon

When you’re looking at a straight-to-video horror movie starring Tim Curry, Grace Jones and Leslie Ann Warren, it’s reasonable to assume that it’s going to be some cheap, exploitative crap. Thus I was pleasantly surprised when – in addition to the cheap, exploitative crap – the flick also featured a plot, characters and – wonder of wonders – a point. Sure, the theme here is familiar: the denizens of a traveling freak show square off against the “normals” (Todd Browning, anyone?). But there’s more to it than that. The protagonist’s genes have left her fur-covered, and thus she headlines the show as the Wolf Girl. Tormented by some of the locals who come to see the show, she befriends a loner from town who just happens to have an experimental depilatory drug he’d like to test. Trouble is, the more our heroine looks like everyone else, the more savage she becomes. Stir that in with the show’s exploration of sexual deviance and the plot’s eventual uncovering of the normals’ secret freakishness, and this tale’s a lot more thought-provoking than it appeared at first blush. I could have done without the animal research subplot (particularly the scene where the test rabbit gnaws itself to death), but the rest of it’s as entertaining as your average low-budget horror movie while at the same time going a lot farther toward keeping things interesting. Mildly amusing

Review – The Bourne Identity

Ever wonder what an espionage intrigue movie would be like if they didn’t use the same old formula to churn it out? Well, don’t expect to have that particular curiosity satisfied by this outing. This is standard fare from beginning to end, complete with everything from exotic European locales to expensive car chases right down to cliché dialogue like “we’ve got a black ops agent off the reservation.” Matt Damon is a little too aw-shucks goofy to play an assassin, even one who’s got amnesia and can’t remember who he is or what he’s done. But the production quality is good, the action sequences are entertaining (except for the extended car chase, which is as boring and predictable as most car chases), and the plot keeps moving. And that’s the real beauty of formula-based film-making: you know what you’re getting, and generally you get what you pay for. Mildly amusing

Review – Rollerball (2002)

Is it possible to be disappointed in a movie that you didn’t have many expectations for to begin with? It isn’t that this is a bad movie. In fact, for a brain-dead action flick it isn’t exactly the worst I’ve ever seen. The problem is the original. As heavy-handed and dated as the seventies version was, it still had more going for it than the remake. For openers, the first version featured a sport that was kind of a cross between football and the Roman Arena. Teams fought for the pride of their corporation-controlled city states sometime in the nebulous future. Sure, it turned into a lot of preachy crap about the individual against the state, but somehow it at least managed to seem important. In the new version, the contest appears to be a jump-cut blend of roller derby and professional wrestling. Contests take place mostly in former Soviet republics, and they’ve no apparent significance to anyone besides gamblers and the participants themselves. And though the ads for the DVD plugged a version “too hot for theaters,” I didn’t see much that struck me as too hot for anything (except perhaps for the living rooms of folks who can’t bear bare breasts, and not all that many of ‘em either). If they’d just stuck with the original story and re-shot it with more up-to-date sex, violence and special effects, they’d have come up with a much more entertaining movie. Mildly amusing

Review – The Body

What if a body turned up in a tomb in Jerusalem, and what if all the evidence strongly suggested that it was the distinctly un-resurrected corpse of Jesus Christ? The concept alone is worth the rental price. To get much beyond the premise, however, you have to be willing to buy Antonio Banderas as a priest. Yeah, no kidding. I enjoyed the archaeology-driven parts of the plot, but I felt the filmmakers’ attempt to keep things going with a lot of West Asian intrigue fell more than a little flat. The end also left me cold, but perhaps that was just because I was in an especially cynical mood when I saw it and thus was almost completely unreceptive to the movie’s touchy-feely conclusion. Mildly amusing

Review – Soulkeeper

I’ve gotta stop watching movies with the word “keeper” in the title. First there was Demon Keeper. Now this. Heck, even The Keep wasn’t all that good. Here we have just what the world’s been waiting for: another stupid, low-budget horror comedy jam-packed with rubber monsters, lingerie-clad models and B-list walk-ons. I expect pubescent fans of bare boobs will derive their usual thrill from the offering here, but nobody aside from boys under the age of 14 or so is likely to get much from this production. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Stray Dog

This early team-up of famed director Akira Kurosawa and a youthful Toshiro Mifune will be something of a surprise to fans of the duo’s samurai classics. For openers, this is a contemporary drama about a cop who loses his gun on a bus and must spend the next couple of days pursuing the criminal who is using it to rob and kill people. The real star of the show isn’t the actors or the script; rather, Kurosawa’s skill at establishing atmosphere provides the best reason to rent and watch. He takes the audience on a sweaty tour of summertime Tokyo, particularly the places where the ragged people go. The final product has a distinctly European flavor (I don’t want to come right out and say “Fellini,” but the feeling is there). My only gripe about the whole thing was a problem with the DVD: the English subtitles were often more than a little odd. Otherwise this was a thoroughly entertaining couple of hours. Worth seeing

Review – Spy Game

Maybe I’m angrier at this movie than I should be because I thought it was going to be something a little different than what it was. I watched it at the end of a long day, and at by that point in the evening I was looking for a fast-paced action movie that wouldn’t be too demanding and would keep me entertained or at the very least awake. Instead I got a long, slow tale of the CIA’s recruiting and retention efforts. Sure, the production features a couple of vaguely amusing fight sequences. But for the most part the story consists of a retiring agent (Robert Redford) shuffling papers and attending meetings while his protégé (Brad Pitt) languishes in a Chinese prison. For actual motion the plot depends heavily on flashbacks, and the flashbacks in turn depend heavily on the queer-in-an-icky-still-in-denial-way relationship between the protagonists. Rare indeed is the espionage movie that can make covert operations and international intrigue seem even more boring than my day job. But this stinker pulls it off. See if desperate

Review – Spider-Man

Sam Raimi’s style as cinema auteur is as well-suited to this super hero as Tim Burton’s was to Batman. Thus the product here is somewhat predictable: a wise-cracking nerd-turned-hero fighting crime and looking for love. In other words, if you like the comic book then like as not you’ll like the movie too. The cast is solid, with Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and Willem Dafoe playing their stereotypical roles to a tee. The effects fall a teeny bit flat every once in awhile, but for the most part the action sequences keep the plot moving. Though this isn’t likely to make it to anyone’s Top 100 of All Time list (or at the very least it isn’t making mine), it’s an entertaining piece of brain candy. Mildly amusing

Review – Star Wars Episode Two: Attack of the Clones

Well, at least that talentless tyke who played the hero in the first one is mercifully absent from this episode. Seriously, though, this is a little better than Phantom Menace. The effects get ever more and more elaborate and the stories get longer and longer. Further, this one’s a bit darker than the last effort, suggesting that George Lucas is trying for an Empire Strikes Back feel. It sort of works. It might have worked better if the romance between the young protagonists had been a little less stiff. The computer-animated Yoda was also a little off-putting; I know the Yoda fight scene was supposed to be a real crowd-pleaser, but the whirling Jedi midget sort of struck me as the kind of thing you’d call Orkin about. And what was the deal with C3PO? Did Lucas make him extra annoying so we’d be grateful for Jar Jar Binks? But that’s all minor stuff. The only major gripe I have here is that this is two and a half hours of set-up, starting plots that presumably we’re going to have to wait a couple of years to see concluded. Well, with a little luck all the characters are now onstage and the wheels all set in motion. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode. Mildly amusing

Review – The Order

I don’t know if this has too much plot for a Jean Claude Van Damme movie or too much Jean Claude Van Damme for a plot movie. Either way, it just doesn’t work. Perhaps if they’d started with the story up front (as they’ve done in the past with some of JCVD’s more successful outings) and worked the kickboxing in as they went, things might have flowed a little more smoothly. Instead the movie leads off with stunt-intensive shenanigans and doesn’t try to sprout a story until late in the day (and by that time it’s an unwelcome intrusion). For what it’s worth, the plot fragments might have made a decent movie about a secret, Templar-esque order scheming to blow up the Dome of the Rock and thus jump-start Armageddon. As things worked, though, they didn’t. Mildly amusing

Review – She Creature

Seems Stan Winston is going back and re-making a bunch of schlocky old horror movies from the Arkoff era. If this one is any indication, they’ll probably be chances for Winston to show off his creature effects talents and not much else. There’s a vague plot here someplace, a mish-mash about carnival people who kill a crazy old man and steal his real-life mermaid, a dastardly plot that leads to predictable consequences for the lot of them (especially when the mermaid transforms from supermodel to scaly critter). Further, the “sexuality” mentioned in the ratings box was pretty timid stuff. Otherwise the concept’s not too terrible and the execution not too bad (could have been better, but probably could have been a lot worse). Mildly amusing

Review – Sleepless

Which is what Dario Argento ought to be at this point in his career. Honestly, does this guy just wake up in the morning and think to himself, “Hooray, today I get to make another cheap slasher movie with lots of brutal butchery of vapid supermodels!”? If I was still doing the exact same thing I was doing in 1970, I’d be in preschool drinking out of a Tommy Tippy cup and sleeping on a mat. There’s some kind of excuse for a plot here, the usual trite nonsense about a serial killer copying the M.O. of a murderer who was supposed to be dead. Max von Sydow plays the second most embarrassing role of his career (hey, there’s always Strange Brew) as the crusty old detective who comes out of retirement to battle his former nemesis. But otherwise this is typical Argento, no doubt to the immense pleasure of his fans and the usual indifference from the rest of us. See if desperate

Review – Apocalypse Now

At the outset I have to admit that this is one of my all-time favorite movies, so I can’t really give you an objective, critical analysis of it. It would probably suffice to say that Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and the Vietnam War make an astonishingly good combo. On top of that, Francis Ford Coppola manages to escape his normally-prosaic directing style and create a visually poetic movie. Be forewarned, however, that even for those of us who like it this is a long and somewhat emotionally draining production. Further, I recommend seeking out the “Redux” version. It’s even longer and more emotionally draining than the original theatrical release, but it contains some genuine enhancements (rather than just crap that belonged on the cutting room floor). In particular, the protagonist has a slightly less monomaniacal personality in the re-edited version. The disc doesn’t include much by way of special features (and with a movie this long that’s to be expected), but the picture clarity is worth going ahead and getting the DVD. Buy it

Review – The Omega Code 2: Megiddo

Here’s a trick: if you obliterate Satan in a blinding flash of God’s Righteous Fire in the first movie, what do you do for a sequel? The nemesis dearth is solved via the strategy used in Evil Dead 2: if you can’t come up with a new plot, rework the story from the first one and shoot it again. This time around Michael York repeats his role as the Antichrist, still up to his old One World Government tricks. The only thing standing between him and global conquest are the President of the United States (Michael Biehn) and – for some strange reason – the Chinese. They spent a lot of money on the special effects for the battle of Armageddon at the end (to some small avail). Otherwise this is another pedantic rehash of the virtues of the usual right-wing Christian agenda. See if desperate

Review – Natural Born Killers

Unnaturally bored audience. Who would ever have thought an endless parade of jump-cut violence could possibly be this dull? Of course a big part of the problem is that Oliver Stone appears to have set himself about the task of creating a movie that would upset the critics. Sure, he’s trying to pass this off as commentary on the sad state of a nation obsessed with killing, but the message is far too ham-handed and silly to have much of an impact. Some of Stone’s visual techniques are innovative (or at least they were when this first came out), and most of the cast turns in solid performances. Beyond that, however, the whole ugly mess is just too dumb to work on any level above crude comedy. See if desperate

Review – Ali

I admit that before I sat down to watch this movie my assumption was that the low point of the production (with the obvious exception of Mario Van Peebles as Malcolm X) would be Will Smith’s effort to portray the title character. But I have to confess that I was pleasantly surprised by Smith’s performance. Yes folks, the scrawny little Fresh Prince actually does a good job as one of the great legends of sports history. Sadly, his work goes largely to waste. The plot is so jumpy and the script so stiff that more often than not our hero comes across as a spectator in his own life. Once the movie abandons its Spike Lee aspirations and settles down to the task of telling its tale, it’s entertaining enough. I just can’t fight the feeling that with a little more support from the writers and director Smith might have been able to make a better film out of this concept. Mildly amusing

Review – The Zombie Chronicles

Wow. And I thought I was a talentless video producer. Judging by the technical quality of this outing, the folks who made this usually confine the damage they do to iron oxide to the creation of low-budget, shot-on-video pornography. That isn’t to say that there’s much sex in this production, just that it has that same cheap aesthetic without the actual smut. The box boasts three tales of zombie mayhem, though actually – mercifully – it’s only two plus a bracket. The only highlight of any of the stories is that they loosely follow a bargain-basement version of the morality found in EC comics, and the comics’ strong suit was never exactly their moral values. For at least a little while (especially during the brief introduction) the show’s so cheap and terrible that it’s almost funny. But the joke wears out swiftly, leaving little save boredom in its wake. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Red Dawn

Though I remember seeing this movie when it first hit theaters back in the roaring Reagan 80s, I don’t recall whether or not the notion of a full-scale Soviet invasion of the United States seemed more plausible back then than it does now. Somehow I suspect not. Even if the basic premise seemed sounder before the collapse of the USSR, the most paranoid red-baiter would still probably have trouble swallowing the notion that America’s first line of defense would prove to be a high school football team turned freedom fightin’ cadre. The teens (including early performances by budding luminaries such as Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen) organize themselves into a resistance unit that – without directly admitting having done so – closely follows the pattern established by “werwolf” terrorist groups formed by the Nazis at the end of World War Two to combat the Allied occupation. Over-wrought battle scenes are punctuated by long passages of ultra-masculine melodrama. The final product may stir a few survivalist hearts even today, but for the rest of us this is a mediocre historical relic and not much more. See if desperate

Review – Bones

Oddly enough, for a Snoop Dogg movie this actually isn’t too terrible. Sure, it’s a handful of visuals wrapped in a thick blanket of hip hop false consciousness and grossly stereotypical (however sympathetic) portrayals of women and minorities. The story – a tale of a reanimated drug dealer who exacts effects-intensive revenge on his slayers – is nothing short of stupid. The dialogue is laughable. It’s clearly aimed at empty-headed teens. Despite all that, the production values are high enough, the gore clever enough (however fake looking), and the action constant enough to keep things at least somewhat interesting. Though clearly not a Palme d’Or candidate, this flick’s entertaining enough for a Friday night at the end of a long week. Mildly amusing

Review – Phantasm

From deep in the 70s (well, 1979) it’s the ultimate lower class horror movie! Bad script. Bad acting. Black Sabbath little people. Hemicudas. What else could your average trailer-dwelling, cheap horror movie buff possibly want? The plot’s some kind of muddled mess about an alien from another dimension who runs a funeral home days and spends his evenings transporting the bodies of the dead back to his home planet (a bleak place that looks like it ought to be a Pink Floyd album cover) to be shrunk and turned into slaves. Apparently the corpse supply isn’t adequate, so the villain goes out in search of no-job-havin’, bad music playin’, muscle car drivin’ innocents to kill. As bad guys go, The Tall Man is kinda cool. He’s understated, which is a real oddity in movies like this. Further, he’s backed up by the now-infamous flying metal balls that stick into peoples’ heads, drill in and pump blood. Otherwise this is silly and not much more. Mildly amusing

Review – Screamtime

Three bad British horror vignettes don't become good just because they're sewn together with an American bracket. The lead-off story – schizophrenic puppeteer takes revenge on street punks – is the best of the three. Given that even this brief description clearly pegs it as a cliché fest, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the movie. See if desperate

Review – The Queen of the Damned

Believe it or not, I think they’re on to something here. The whole rock star / vampire, groupie / victim thing seems to have some natural parallels. The neuroses involved are so similar that drawing them together into a single thread should have worked quite well. However, the execution falls a little short. The script is mediocre, the acting sub-par, and even some of the effects fall flat. The result is a pretty but vacuous movie that may charm the goth crowd but will probably bore anyone outside the circle of Anne Rice devotees. See if desperate

Review – Gahan Wilson's The Kid

Though normally I’m not all that big a fan of the whole bylined-title thing, in this case it’s an important element. I probably would have flipped right past this thing were it not for Wilson’s name on it, and I almost certainly would have abandoned it after a few minutes if not for the respect I have for the author/illustrator. Overall this appears to be an attempt to market a slightly stranger and considerably more vulgar version of The Simpsons. The story is a set of three animated vignettes about the terrors of being a child, including the foul-mouthed ghost of a dissected cat, an awkward sexual awakening and the ever-popular trick-or-treat anxiety. From someone else this might have been merely a tedious bit of drivel punctuated by occasional entertaining moments, but from Wilson I expected much better. See if desperate

Review – The Time Machine (2002)

When I was a kid I had a record of this H.G. Wells classic. I listened to it over and over and over again. So it kinda goes without saying that I was impressed enough with the original tale that any movie version has some measuring up to do. What I’ll never understand is why film-makers insist on introducing all sorts of bizarre twists and other unwelcome extras. Just follow Wells’ story, for cryin’ out loud. But once again we’ve got more filler than substance in store for us. Some of the effects are kinda cool, but otherwise the story is inferior and the performances sub-par. It should tell you something that I went to see this a couple of weeks after it was released, and the only people in the place besides me were a couple of theater-hopping kids. See if desperate

Review – Jumanji

The special effects are the clear star of this odd tale of a board game with the power to spread havoc whenever it’s played. A boy who plays the game in 1969 ends up sucked into its bizarre jungle world, re-emerging 26 years later as Robin Williams when next the game is played. Every time a player rolls the dice, some new kind of animal or other jungle-related peril escapes into the real world. The result is a lot of cute, computer-animated animals, a lot of amusing if implausible situations and not a lot of anything else. Mildly amusing

Review – Crimson Tide

Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman square off in this movie about a bright, young executive officer aboard a missile sub captained by a crabby, old-school skipper (I expect you can figure out who played whom). Unrest in the former Soviet Union takes the world to the brink of nuclear war, and our heroes end up pitted against each other when a garbled message creates confusion about whether or not the sub has been ordered to launch an attack against a Russian base. Though I admit to being a big fan of sub movies, this one pushed the limit of the good will I automatically extend to representatives of the genre. The macho posturing was excessive, even for a war movie. The bickering back and forth between the two leads – which eventually devolves into mutinies, counter-mutinies and the like – simply takes up too much screen time, leaving little room for action sequences or character development that might have helped make this a better movie. Verdict: mildly amusing

Review – Resident Evil

Here’s a movie so bad that the most entertaining part about the entire experience was the person sitting just down the row from me who kept up a running commentary throughout the entire show (except, of course, when she paused to answer her cell phone). “Look behind you!” “Oh, your leg is on fire!” “That zombie’s gonna bite you!” If only the characters on screen could have heard her as clearly as I did. Then maybe she could have given them a warning they could really use: “Look out, you’re in an abysmally dreadful movie!” Having been thoroughly annoyed by a demo version of the video game upon which this movie was based, I came into the experience with relatively low expectations. Even so, the plot-free, episodic floundering of cardboard characters lacked even the quality action and/or gore that might have made it somewhat tolerable. To be completely fair, this painful ordeal did include a handful of scary, entertaining moments. They might have been even better if they hadn’t been stolen lock, stock and barrel from Dawn of the Dead. Speaking of which, I’m willing to bet that Romero produced his entire zombie classic for what they probably had to pay Mila Jovovich to flash some pubes late in the show. Someday someone’s going to explain to me why Hollywood likes making bad, expensive movies more than good, cheap ones. See if desperate

Review – The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T

Dr. Seuss serves up an odd bit of kid-oriented surrealism in this classic tale of childhood fears blown up to mammoth proportions. To be more specific, our young hero Bartholomew Collins falls asleep during piano practice and dreams that he has been imprisoned in a nightmare fortress ruled by his evil piano teacher, Dr. Terwilliger. Though the movie is 100% live action, it features the distinctive art direction, absurd situations and quirky humor long familiar to Seuss fans everywhere. Indeed, the whole thing is worth it just for the principal set: a giant piano designed to be played by 500 pupils all at once. Some of the musical numbers are a little too long and a little too silly for my tastes, but otherwise this is a thoroughly entertaining outing. Worth seeing

Review – Star Trek: Generations

This movie’s the transition point between the original series and the Next Generation (though of course the latter had existed as a TV series for some time before the film came out). Sadly, the emphasis is fairly heavily on the new crew, with William Shatner proving to be the only character from the old cast who spends more than a minute or two on screen. Malcolm McDowell puts in a guest appearance as a mad scientist willing to sacrifice an entire solar system (including a planet with millions of inhabitants) in order to propel himself into some kind of nirvana dimension. Fans of the shows (especially the new one) will probably enjoy this outing, inasmuch as it plays like a longer version of your average episode. See if desperate

Review – Hardball

Someday someone is going to make a movie about baseball that doesn’t end up being sticky sweet. However, it should pretty much go without saying that a baseball movie in which a down-on-his-luck white guy has to coach a team of black kids from the projects ain’t going to be the departure from the tried-and-true formula. Indeed, this plays like an inner-city version of The Bad News Bears. Plot twists are predictable, emotional manipulation rampant and tear-jerking overwhelming (especially toward the end). That notwithstanding, if you want to watch a sentimental baseball flick then you’ve come to the right place; this is a fine example of the genre. Mildly amusing

Review – The Glass House

The previews made it seem like this was going to be a little creepier than it turned out to be. Despite the lack of the genuinely outré, this is a solid if somewhat run-of-the-mill thriller about orphaned kids from the ‘burbs whose new guardians aren’t what they initially seem to be. Though the plot occasionally relies on some dubious logic to keep the thrills coming, for the most part the suspense works well enough. In the end my only real gripe was that Leelee Sobieski is getting just a little long in the tooth to convincingly play a sixteen-year-old. Mildly amusing

Review – The Creeping Flesh

For the most part this is pretty much what you’d expect from an old Christopher Lee / Peter Cushing horror flick. Cushing plays a scientist who ends up with a skeleton of some sort of monster. Inconveniently enough for him, the skeleton turns out to be 1. evil incarnate and 2. not completely dead. Apparently a blood mixture restores the title substance to the old bones, turning them into a big, lumbering lump of oatmeal-esque demon. At the very beginning of the movie our hero is painting a picture of the monster that actually seems like it might be scary. Sadly, the promise goes unfulfilled. Mildly amusing

Review – Rawhead Rex

Rare indeed is the movie that is this completely defeated by its own technical defects. The script is vintage Clive Barker from back in the days before he started to suck. The concept – an ancient monster released when an artifact is moved – is trite but reliable. Barker stirs in some male versus female sexuality that adds a little flavor to the mix. But then they turned the cameras on, and the whole thing went downhill from there. To begin with, any film that’s going to rely this heavily on daylight scenes of a monster must be very careful not to employ a special effect that would barely pass muster for brief, dimly-lit shots. The acting’s not the end of the world, but stronger casting might have helped. The directing is inept at best, and frequently what little suspense the flick manages to muster is swiftly undone by the inappropriately cheerful soundtrack music. I doubt that this will ever be remade, but if it was the second time around would be hard pressed to be worse than the first. See if desperate

Review - The Family Man

I love watching actors who make seven digits per picture pretend that people who have to work for a living are actually much happier than their wealthy counterparts. Nicolas Cage stars as a successful Wall Street deal-maker who has no idea how unhappy he really is until Clarence-the-Angel-redone-as-a-homeless-black-guy magically transforms him into a tire salesman with a wife – his old college girlfriend – and two kids. Though things are naturally awkward at first, our hero eventually comes to understand the merits of simple domesticity over high finance. I’m not quite cynical enough to disbelieve the basic thesis, and I concede that the story features a few amusing scenes and even a touching moment or two. It’s just a little hard to swallow a multi-million dollar product about how the best things in life are free. Mildly amusing

Review – Dungeons and Dragons

Here’s today’s zen koan: does computer-generated scenery have a flavor? If so, journeyman ham Jeremy Irons should be able to fill us in on the taste sensation. Honestly, what does this guy do? Does he call his agent and demand progressively more and more humiliating roles? If so, his poor rep must really have been beating the bushes after booking Irons into Adrian Slime’s version of Lolita. But this one might actually do the trick. D&D players should feel right at home with the characters, situations and story. Thus I guess they’ve done a solid job appealing to the most obvious target audience. Beyond that, however, this production offers little to the non-fan beyond some entertaining effects work and some so-inept-it’s-entertaining film-making. See if desperate

Review – Seven Days in May

Turn director John Frankenheimer and screenwriter Rod Serling loose in the conspiracy-happy months following the Kennedy assassination, and this is pretty much what you’re bound to come up with. Burt Lancaster stars as the power-mad head of the Joint Chiefs, out to depose an unpopular president and place the country under martial law. Only an aide with the usual admirable sense of right and wrong (Kirk Douglas) stands between this madman and his evil victory. Despite Serling’s talents the script comes up weak in parts, especially at the beginning where our hero sniffs out the plot based on some pretty flimsy evidence and at the end where the drama devolves into pedantic speechifying about the virtues of democracy and the evils of its opposite. On Frankenheimer’s part, this comes across as an attempt to re-create his previous, considerable success with The Manchurian Candidate. Minor defects aside, however, this is a fine piece of paranoia-driven cinema. Worth seeing

Review – Rock Star

The story had potential. Indeed, the tale of a heavy metal fan suddenly tagged to replace the lead singer of his favorite band – a plot loosely based on part of the real-life history of Judas Priest – seemed almost tailor-made for a Hollywood adaptation. Sadly, the script fails its own story. All the classic elements are there: the wide-eyed hero, the adoring girlfriend, the corruption of the music industry, and so on. But the characters are so badly written that they just don’t work. For example, the relationship between protagonist and love interest is so poorly established early on that it turns out to be somewhat less than poignant when the boy-loses-girl moment hits in act two. Perhaps if they’d played it for laughs a bit more they might have gotten away with it. As it was, however, in the end it came close but didn’t quite pull it off. See if desperate

Review – Jeepers Creepers

This is one of those annoying movies that seems to have a fair amount going for it but just never seems to pull it all together. Though it starts out as one of those boogeyman/urban legend deals, it features enough interesting visuals and amusing twists to keep it going for a little while. Around midway through, however, it just sort of peters out, becoming overly episodic and never really regaining momentum. Though the film-makers are to be applauded for at least including an old-fashioned monster rather than just another cheap psycho, in the end the movie’s one joke doesn’t provide enough of a punch-line to make it worthwhile. Mildly amusing