Review – Pork Chop Hill

Gregory Peck stars in this classic of the “war is hell” action movie sub-genre. In the five-minutes-to-midnight days of the Korean War, infantry units are ordered to attack and re-take the title location. The assault repeatedly runs afoul of bureaucratic foul-ups, with constant emphasis on the fact that in combat government inefficiency and poor planning get soldiers killed. Characters run a range from heroic to let’s-just-get-the-job-done to downright cowardly, reminding us that the men who get stuck in situations like this are human beings. Just about the only real objection I have to this is that the point gets a bit belabored after awhile. Mildly amusing

Review – Badlands

Terrence Mallick transforms the Charles Starkweather murders into an oddly quiet and peaceful piece of cinema. Though fictionalized, the connections with the real crimes are obvious. Martin Sheen stars as the killer, and Sissy Spacek plays his half-accomplice girlfriend. The script and acting work quite well, painting a picture of two young, Midwestern people with few if any critical thinking skills and an eerie sense of emotional deadness. Set against Mallick’s strong visual sense of landscapes and the hauntingly un-dramatic soundtrack, the contrast between subject and presentation makes for an intriguing mix. Worth seeing

Review – Dirty Pretty Things

This movie combines three-dimensional characters, an intriguing plot and a worthwhile purpose into a single production. I’ve seen plenty of movies that do one of those things well, and a few that manage two. But three is rare enough to make this an experience worth seeking. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a Nigerian doctor who emigrates to London only to be forced into menial jobs. He and his roommate (Audrey Tautou) run afoul of some creepy goings-on at the hotel where they both work, about which I can say no more without ruining part of the plot. I’m glad a friend recommended this to me, as I missed it completely in theatrical and DVD release. Worth seeing

Review – Black Hole

Thank goodness for the Sci Fi Channel. Without it, where would Judd Nelson find work? This time around he’s the I-tried-to-warn-you-all scientist in a battle against a black hole accidentally created by a science experiment. His efforts to keep the singularity from swallowing St. Louis are complicated by the presence of some kind of energy monster hopping in and out of another dimension via the title portal. Even the effects are bad, consisting primarily of animated electricity knocking stuff out in advance of the swelling event horizon. See if desperate

Review – Stage Door

Katherine Hepburn stars in this comedy / drama mix about a boardinghouse full of young actresses seeking roles on Broadway. I have a like / dislike relationship with scripts like this. Every character in the whole picture comes equipped with an unlimited supply of snappy comebacks to fit every occasion. On one hand, the effect is jarringly unrealistic. What for normal human beings would be a simple “good morning” becomes an extended exchange between clever wordsmiths composing their thoughts with skill. On the other hand, it’s just so much fun to listen to. Sadly, the clever dialogue is wasted on an inferior plot, a maudlin tale of the broken dreams of hopeful young women that must have been moth-eaten even back in the 30s. Mildly amusing

Review – Arachnid

This was back before the Sci Fi Channel started using computer-generated spiders, so they had to work with a giant model spider. That limited the action somewhat. But the rest of the elements are here: bad acting, bad script, implausible plot, and of course a big ol’ bunch of giant spider fu. So if that’s all it takes to make you happy, open your mouth and close your eyes. See if desperate

Review – The Empty Acre

I started out really loving this movie. It had a certain subtlety missing in most bargain-basement horror pictures. The monster was amorphous, appearing as little more than shadows. The production – particularly the script and the acting – was good enough to avoid being terrible while at the same time not good enough to be Hollywood slick. The opening twist is that a young farm couple’s land contains an “empty acre,” a dead patch of earth that appears to have some malevolent power. This could have turned into a “Colour Out of Space” moment, or really gone just about anywhere else, but instead it stays put more or less where it is. I could forgive the animal death and the baby abduction for awhile, but by the midpoint it was sadly obvious that the show had shot its bolt. If only the folks who made this had gotten tired of their spooky routines a little faster than I did. Mildly amusing

Review – The Swarm

I watch movies alone.
It hasn’t always been this way.
It’s nice sometimes
to watch movies with my wife.
But she won’t watch crap like this.
I’m not sure what it means
why we can’t shake Irwin Allen disaster movies from our minds.
It must be that they’re packed with 70s minor luminaries
like Michael Caine, Richard Chamberlain and Patty Duke.
I do remember persistent references to killer bees as “Africans,”
making the where-and-how more than subtly racist.
These movies happen just because we need to watch pictures that lower our IQs.
When bees are here or gone,
to lie down in front of the TV
and listen to the swarm.
See if desperate.

Review – Creepshow 3

The first Creepshow is one of my all-time favorite movies. I managed to at least tolerate the second one. This thing, however, was enough to make me long for another screening of the “Thanks for the ride, lady” sequence from #2. I don’t know how they managed it, but somehow each vignette is even dumber than the one before it. Plus they start to intermingle in a not-particularly-clever way. The result is one of those jaw-dropping, why-did-anyone-bother-making-this bits of pure stupidity. Thank goodness neither George Romero nor Stephen King had anything to do with this round. I’d hate to think that either of them had slipped this far. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield

This movie: the butcher of my last damn nerve. It’s something of a distinction being the worst Gein-based movie ever made, as the field is quite crowded down at the bottom. The plot hovers somewhere between a straight Gein biopic (along the lines of the Steve Railsback version, which was a much better movie) and yet another Texas Chainsaw picture. And it ends up doing neither job well. The story departs from the facts far too radically for this to count as a “true story.” And yet it’s too boring to work as a standard slasher picture. The whole experience is typified by the decision to cast a hulking brute of a guy (think Leatherface) as the thin, wimpy killer. The result is something that will tick off connoisseurs of Geinabilia and not draw in any other audience in their place. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes

I don’t think Doug Bradley has had this many lines in a movie since the third Hellraiser picture. I suppose the extra strain of acting might have been relieved a bit by the luxury of not spending hours every day getting done up in the Pinhead makeup. Beyond Bradley, this is yet another one of these. One group of hicks wants revenge on another group of hicks, so they hire our old friend Haggis to once again conjure the Melon Man to go after them. The main problem is that all the hicks look so much alike that who’s being killed and who’s responsible for the killing is often solely a matter of weight, facial hair or (in the case of the ladies) hair color. As an added complication, the night shots – i.e. most of the picture – are so dark that often the screen goes almost completely black, leaving us with nothing but the sounds of Pumpkinhead breaking crap in search of victims. The final product is therefore even harder to pay attention to than most pictures of this ilk. At least it was a bit better than Pumpkinhead 2. See if desperate

Review – Wild Hogs

I probably wouldn’t have sought this experience out by myself, but it came strongly recommended by a friend so I decided to give it a whirl. I’m not entirely sorry I tried it. To be sure, this isn’t an enduring classic example of the cinema arts. In general John Travolta and Tim Allen get on my nerves, a trend they continue here. I’m indifferent to Martin Lawrence but like William H. Macy, opinions that also remain unchanged by this production. Ray Liotta stops by to do his usual crazy villain shtick. Come to think of it, just about everyone in the whole movie performs exactly as expected. That’s in keeping with the plot – four midlife crisis victims take to the road on their Harleys – which is likewise sitcom predictable. Indeed, the whole show is designed to steer our quartet of suburbanite “bikers” safely down the middle of the road. As a soft piece of Friday night brain candy, it did the job. Mildly amusing

Review – A.I. Assault

After a long summer of watching movies on the Sci Fi Channel, I’m starting to run out of things to say about them. So hey, here’s another one. Deadly robots escape from a military lab and blah blah blah. Effects cheap. Script bad. Acting sub par. Killed an hour and a half or so. What more can one ask of such an experience? See if desperate

Review – Terror Train

Because back in 1980 when they still had to sell tickets to make a movie a commercial success, calling it “Boredom Train” probably wouldn’t have done the trick. It would, however, have been a bit more honest. This hit theaters two years after Halloween, and yet Jamie Lee Curtis looks much younger than she did in the role that originally made her famous (and set her feet on the path that led her through a parade of crappy slasher movies like this one). The age thing is also odd because in this production she’s supposed to be a college senior. David Copperfield and Vanity are just two of the 80s “luminaries” that back Curtis up in this dull little show about a psycho killer seeking revenge aboard a train full of partying frat boys and their horny dates. See if desperate