Review – Secret Lives

This documentary is made all the more fascinating by its own lackluster production values. It looks and feels like nothing more than a bunch of old folks yakking on at length about childhood memories. However, these people’s childhoods were a bit different than most: during the Holocaust their Jewish parents left them with sympathetic families in order to save them from the Nazis. Through their recollections and old snapshots they tell heartbreaking stories of separation, the constant paranoia of hiding, good and bad times with their new families, and then the permanent sense of loss (and even an occasional reunion) after the war. Interviewees also include former foster parents and foster brothers and sisters. Worth seeing

Review – Lambada

As God is my witness, I swear I never thought I’d ever need to type these words, but here they are nonetheless: this movie needed way more Lambada. Even an unending parade of the “forbidden dance” would have been a welcome relief from what otherwise turned out to be a dreadful 80s teen movie. A teacher at a high school for rich kids moonlights at a local dance club, dividing his time between forbidden dancing and teaching geometry to the street urchins. Before we’re done, we’ve gone through just about every dumb cliché in the juvenile drama book. And by the time it ends up with a math competition between the rich kids and the punks (guess who wins), I was ready to beg for mercy. See if desperate

Review – Count Dracula

According to the credits, this was originally released as Les Nuits de Dracula. That – plus the plethora of English names in the cast and Italian names in the credits – suggests that it’s one of those international horror productions from the early 1970s. It sticks fairly closely to the original Stoker story line. Mostly what it is, however, is dull. Maybe I’m just too familiar with the plot, but I have no use for a plodding retelling of the same old tale. Christopher Lee stars as the Count, but even he doesn’t manage to bring much to the production. See if desperate

Review – Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror

Like Bones, this was a little better than the title made it sound like it would be. Indeed, the first two sequences – tag artist gets the demonic power to kill rivals and redneck landlord pushes Vietnam vets too far – are entertaining in a not-too-mentally-challenging way. The last sequence – greedy rap star gets his come-uppance – doesn’t amount to much, nor does Mr. Dogg’s appearance as a Crypt Keeper figure. Overall this could have been much worse, though it’s still plenty dumb and more than a little pointless. See if desperate

Review – The Bad Sleep Well

The battlefield here is 20th century corporate corruption rather than Medieval samurai drama, but this is still classic Kurosawa. Toshiro Mifune stars as an ambitious young executive newly wed to the daughter of one of the company’s high mucky mucks. But strange things are afoot, as the authorities crack down on bribery scandals and our hero reveals a secret agenda of his own. I suspect that at least part of the subtle charm of the drama is lost in the translation, but enough makes it through to keep things interesting. Worth seeing

Review – Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto

This is the first installment in director Hiroshi Inagaki’s trilogy about the life of the legendary swordsman. I’m glad he made three of them, because this one doesn’t stand particularly well on its own. Our hero is ably played by Toshiro Mifune (who else?), but here he doesn’t get much of a part to work with. The protagonist starts life as a peasant and more than a bit of a jerk, a guy with some natural talent but no discipline. After escaping at the end of the Battle of Sekigahara, Musashi takes to the hills and soon becomes a wanted man. When he returns to his home village, the local priest sees potential in him and locks him in the attic with a library full of classic books rather than turning him over to the authorities. After three years, he emerges a wiser man and dedicated samurai. All this is great set-up, but then the movie ends. I should also pause to gripe that many of the swordfights take place at night in dimly-lit locations, which diminishes their impact. So at this point the best I can say is that I’m anxiously awaiting the second installment. Mildly amusing

Review – Executive Decision

Here’s September 11 five years before it actually happened. Thank goodness that the real-life terrorists didn’t have the wit or wherewithal to pack the plane with enough nerve gas to kill half the people on the Eastern Seaboard. The cast includes Halle Berry on her way up and stars Kurt Russell and Steven Segal headed in the opposite direction. Story-wise, using a “remora” to sneak commandos aboard a hijacked jet is an intriguing idea, though it’s largely unwoven by twists and subplots that are far too dependent on Murphy’s Law. Mildly amusing

Review – Lady in White

Back in film school one of the things we learned in Screenwriting 101 was “never make kids the main characters of movies.” Clearly there are exceptions to the rule, but this particular picture isn’t one of them. The plot is sort of a haunted version of To Kill a Mockingbird, pitting a precocious young boy against a serial child killer. This plays sort of like a Stephen King story, particularly because it blends elements in ways that might have worked in print but don’t really fly on the screen. The production also suffers from technical drawbacks (continuity issues, cheap bluescreen work, and so on). Problems aside, however, it isn’t the worst ghost story I’ve ever seen. Mildly amusing

Review – An American Crime

John Waters once expressed a desire to make a movie out of Gertrude Baniszewski’s murder of Sylvia Likens. They should have let him take a stab at it. At his worst, he’s still way better than this turned out to be. When making a true crime movie, care should be taken not to stray too far from the established record, and the nature of this particular crime demands even closer attention to detail. Yet much of this picture seems profoundly inauthentic. I was particularly disappointed by Catherine Keener’s portrayal of the killer. Despite her talent and range, she plays Gertie like an emotionless automaton too gooned on cough syrup to muster the level of savagery inflicted on Sylvia. Further, an apparent squeamishness about portraying violence causes the victim to disappear partially or entirely from the scenes portraying the crimes themselves. Those with an actual interest in the murder and the patience to read a book should turn to Kate Millet’s The Basement and give the movie version a miss. See if desperate

Review – Timecrimes

The title does not lie. Indictment count one: the brutal murder of an hour and a half of my life. In this Spanish production, a man witnesses the prelude and aftermath of a killing. Fleeing the bandage-wrapped perpetrator, a stranger conceals him in a time machine and zaps him back a couple of hours. Then he spends 30 minutes doing everything he witnessed in the first half hour. Then he gets zapped back again and spends the final third of the movie filling in the remaining holes in the plot. This masturbatory Rashomon riff is like listening to a five year old tell a joke, mess it up and start over from the beginning. Twice. See if desperate

Review – Taken

Clearly this is a brazen attempt to produce a movie that cashes in on the whole 24 thing. Liam Neeson plays an ex-CIA operative whose daughter is kidnapped in Paris by Albanian mobsters who intend to sell her into sexual slavery. And if you’re sitting there wondering why criminals from Central Europe would risk snatching wealthy American kids from France rather than tap into their own native stock of desperate women seeking escape from crushing poverty, please accept my assurance that this is nowhere near the most implausible element of the picture. Indeed, try as one might to accept the drama on its own terms, the plot sinks rapidly under a pile of “why would he …” and “a CIA guy would never …” and the like. Sure, some of the bad-guy-torturing and general kung-fu-ing is fun in a Jack Bauer sort of way. But if you have an itch for a tough-guy-in-pursuit-of-kidnapped-girl picture, Man on Fire does a better job of scratching. Mildly amusing

Review – The 'Burbs

Though in general I like director Joe Dante’s work, this one’s just a bit too silly for my taste. Tom Hanks – back when he was still small enough to play roles like this – stars as a guy whose quiet week of home-bound vacation is disrupted by the sudden appearance of creepy new neighbors. The plot consists of a long series of set-ups for bad physical comedy. Overall the whole quirky-suburbanites-versus-the-Addams-Family thing comes nowhere near sustaining the picture’s running time. See if desperate

Review – Valkyrie

This was far more boring than it needed to be. The most famous of German plots to kill Hitler should have been a fascinating story, but somewhere here it gets lost in a load of bureaucratic intrigue. I suppose generals scheming to assassinate their leader might well have been akin to faculty members squabbling over budget cuts, but that reality didn’t need to end up on the screen. It didn’t help that they hired Tom Cruise to play Von Staufenberg. Even all these years later, his presence lends a production a certain Top Gun quality, most unwelcome here. What a disappointment. See if desperate

Review – The Corporation

Most of this documentary on corporations is just dull. Yeah, they’re destroying the world. Not only is that preaching to the choir, it’s not even telling us anything we haven’t already heard. It got off to a good start with a discussion of the corporation as a person in the eyes of the law, demonstrating point by point that if these things are people then they qualify as high-level psychopaths. Ah, but then it descends into an additional couple of hours of the usual Michael-Moore-esque whining and finger-pointing. See if desperate

Review – Rear Window

By now I’m guessing everyone knows the story here: a photographer who’s stuck in his apartment thanks to a broken leg sees one of his neighbors commit a murder. It’s been imitated and parodied just about everywhere from horror movies to The Simpsons. The thing that I notice every time I see it is just how stiff and theatrical it is. Hitchcock deliberately gives the picture a stage performance feel, right down to the curtain at the end. Mildly amusing

Review - The Ferryman

If you’re trying to elude the title character – who apparently on top of his Styx-crossing duties is also responsible for retrieving people who’ve cheated death – then it comes in right handy to be able to hop from body to body. And when six jerks from New Zealand out for a pleasure cruise run afoul of the guy (John Rhys-Davies, who must have lost a bet while he was in the country shooting Lord of the Rings), the body-hopping commences. This turns out to be just as dull as it sounds like it would be. Plus it lost a point for brutal, unnecessary torture of a dog. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

Sometimes prequels work okay. But this one didn’t. For starters, it automatically violates the “anyone can die at any time” rule, because for a big chunk of the cast we already know who lives and who dies. Further, Kate Beckinsale isn’t in it (unless you count the clip at the very end). I also didn’t care for the Medieval setting; modern weaponry helped make the whole vampire vs. werewolf thing more interesting. Overall this is neither as fresh as the first one nor as sexy as the second. And though this doesn’t have anything directly to do with the movie’s quality, I should note that this disc would not play in my Mac. See if desperate

Review – Against the Dark

I rented this because I figured the combination of Steven Seagal and post-apocalyptic vampires would guarantee entertainment value. Yeah, in retrospect I have to admit that the theory sounds fairly stupid. For starters, Seagal isn’t in all that much of it, which is probably for the best because his high-quality martial arts days appear to be behind him. The rest of the picture isn’t any better. A rag-tag band of human survivors try to avoid vampires – that act just like “the infected” from 28 Days Later, so how exactly that makes them vampires is … well, never mind – as they make their way video game style through several levels of an abandoned hospital (exteriors of which appear to have been shot at the same place where they made Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital). It doesn’t even have any good scares along the way. It’s just one long, predictable snooze fest. See if desperate

Review – Desert of Blood

Y’know, Hispanic cultures have developed a healthy stock of legendary horrors, from the chupacabra to La Llorona. So why should a movie with a mostly-Hispanic cast have to rely on the same old Hollywood vampire clichés? What a disappointment. A vampire gets unearthed and goes after the people who buried him decades earlier. Predictable plot twists and bargain-basement boob shots don’t carry this for five minutes, let alone the full 90. See if desperate

Review – The Gathering

The sinister rubberneckers from Ray Bradbury’s “The Crowd” get a theological twist in this horror picture starring Christina Ricci. Our heroine is an amnesiac temporarily adopted by a woman who ran into her with a car. As she strays around the village, she starts to notice two things: something really bad is about to happen, and several odd people seem to be standing around waiting for the disaster. Meanwhile, excavations at an uncovered church from the first century start to reveal … well, why spoil the surprise? Though the logic is a bit strained in points, overall this was a lot more entertaining than most things I randomly record off the movie channels. Mildly amusing

Review – Living Death

This is like an episode from one of those Twilight Zone knock-offs stretched out to an hour and a half. A woman and her lover decide to murder her sadistic husband, but their whole scheme hinges on the theory that the stipulation in the decedent’s will demanding immediate burial would somehow trump the state’s interest in performing an autopsy. Loverboy is a lawyer, so he should honestly have known better. And to top things off, not only is the poison they chose to use detectable, it’s also not all that lethal. And when hubby wakes up in the middle of being dissected … well, let’s just say that even at a third of the running time this still would have been stupid stuff. See if desperate

Review – Death Tunnel

A gaggle of nubile women is penned up in an abandoned asylum that turns out to be haunted by the ghosts of blah blah blah. If they’re going to make movies like this, they should either make them more interesting so they reward the time it takes to watch them or less noisy so they’re easier to sleep through. See if desperate

Review – Journey into Fear

World War Two certainly produced its share of strange little spy movies. With Joseph Cotten in the lead, Orson Welles playing a supporting role, and copious amounts of deep focus, sharp contrast, low angle cinematography, this resembles Citizen Kane more than a bit. However, it’s much shorter and not as smart. Our hero works for an American shipbuilder looking to sell its wares to the Turkish navy. As Germany would prefer that this not happen, it sends a couple of assassins to do him in. This is one of those pictures that have to be watched carefully, as there’s always something going on, some crucial blink-and-you-miss-it plot point or at least some witty dialogue. Mildly amusing

Review – Brazil

With all due respect to his Monty Python days, I think this is Terry Gilliam’s best work. Jonathan Pryce stars as a white-collar drone trying to get by in a strange fantasy world almost completely taken over by brainless consumerism and inept bureaucracy. The art direction is the real star of the show, blending studio-financed dystopia with Gilliam’s low-budget aesthetic. The first time I saw this, I was working in an office not entirely unlike the place where the protagonist starts out. And to this day I’m fond of the rebel air conditioning repairman played by Robert DeNiro. Though it’s a bit silly in spots, overall the production is both entertaining and thought-provoking. Worth seeing

Review – Mimic 3: Sentinel

After Mimics One and Two, I fully intended to pursue the series no farther. But then The Burrowers left me curious about the work of J.T. Petty, and this was on his list. Unfortunately, it’s just a bit too much of a case of Petty fought the bugs and the bugs won. To be sure, it’s got a scary moment or two. But overall it spends far too much time and effort on the whole Rear Window theme of the protagonist’s voyeuristic window photography slowly exposing the re-emergence of the human-size bug menace. It’s better than the first two, but not by leaps and bounds. Mildly amusing

Review – Mr. Baseball

You can divide this picture up into three parts: baseball, culture clash, and dumb romantic comedy. The baseball parts are as entertaining as any other baseball movie (which is to say that it’ll do in the off-season, but when they’re actually playing baseball there isn’t a whole lot of point to watching movies about it). The American-adapting-to-Japanese-culture stuff is interesting in an 80s sort of way. And of course the dumb romantic comedy is just dumb. Tom Selleck stars as a major league player whose career is on the down slope. He ends up playing in Japan, with hilarity ensuing as he tries to adapt his obnoxious American ways to his new environment. Mildly amusing

Review – Lady in the Water

My oath! My beautiful, sacred oath to never watch another M. Night Shyamalan movie! Why did I violate it? Why? Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Mother Night

I’ve never read the source novel by Kurt Vonnegut, but there’s just something about this production that makes me suspect it was a better book than it was a movie. Nick Nolte stars as an American expatriate playwright living in Hitler’s Germany. An OSS agent (John Goodman) recruits him to pretend to be a Nazi sympathizer so he can use a propaganda radio broadcast to sneak messages to Allied intelligence. And of course because the whole thing is a big secret, after the war he’s treated like an actual traitor. Trying to live anonymously in New York City, he ends up befriended by neo-fascists, “reunited” with a woman he thinks is his dead wife, and ultimately seized by the Mossad. In other words, it’s Vonnegut’s usual brand of semi-absurdist, semi-nihilist humor. It just doesn’t quite work in movie form. Mildly amusing

Review – Wilderness (2006)

A group of delinquents from a British reform school gets dragged off on a field trip to a remote island. Things start looking up when it turns out that a group of young women is also camping on the island. But as if that wasn’t already too much of a crowd, turns out the place is also inhabited by a psycho survivalist and his pack of vicious dogs. And to make matters worse, the survivalist has a grudge against the boys. The picture musters a shot or two, but for the most part it’s standard stalker fare with a big mess of dog death stirred in for bad measure. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Cocoon

Yeesh, what a bummer of a movie. It starts out okay. Space aliens return to Earth to recover comrades lying in suspended animation off the coast of Florida. Unfortunately for them, they store the cocooned aliens in a swimming pool that’s also being used by some old folks from a nearby rest home. The cocoon water acts like a fountain of youth. Rejuvenated oldster high jinks ensue. But as the plot drags on, we get more and more dwelling on the dying process, plot points made all the more depressing by the subsequent deaths of many of the cast members. As with so many Hollywood productions of this ilk, shorter would have been smarter. Mildly amusing

Review – Slash

Y’know, for a brain-dead slasher movie, I guess I’ve seen worse. A rock band accompanies one of its members out to the country to attend his aunt’s funeral, and of course we all know what happens the moment city folk venture anywhere outside the suburbs. What’s waiting for them this time is a psycho dressed as a scarecrow with a scythe who needs their blood to irrigate his crops. Though it’s fairly standard formula stuff, at least it has some production quality. They even shelled out to get Steve Railsback to play the creepy dad. I also liked the understated nature of some of the violence. When it comes to gore, sometimes less is more. Mildly amusing

Review – The Brink

Here’s a departure from the low-budget norm: a solid concept paired up with a reasonably good execution. An ex-engineering student uncovers plans for a Thomas Edison invention that was designed to communicate with the dead. She enlists the aid of some former classmates and sets the thing up in a house that stands a reasonably good chance of being haunted. To be sure, this isn’t a masterpiece of the cinema arts. But the script isn’t terrible, nor is the acting. Things keep moving nicely, and at just over 70 minutes it doesn’t overstay its welcome. Worth seeing

Review – The Beach

This is one of those movies where it keeps seeming like something’s about to happen, but then nothing ever does. I mean, it has a plot point or two. But overall it’s as meandering, aimless and empty-headed as its subjects. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as an American brat with nothing better to do than bum around Thailand. Led by a map to a secret island, he and his compatriots discover a colony of neo-hippies leading an idyllic life. The only catch is than nobody can leave. Oh, and the island is also inhabited by pot farmers. Oh, and the lagoon has sharks. Oh, and … well, we could go on like this for awhile. Ultimately this comes across as a lobotomized, rich 20-something reheat of Lord of the Flies. See if desperate

Review – Chained Heat

I first saw this many years ago at a party. At the time it was part of a drinking game called “Boom!” The object was to take a drink every time a boom mic dangled down into a shot. Actually, I should say “theoretical drinking game,” as we soon determined that taking a drink for every boom shot would rapidly lead to alcohol poisoning. So we contented ourselves to yelling “Boom!” at the appropriate moments. Thus it saddened me tremendously to note on this viewing that the frames had been corrected to exclude the microphones. With the grievous technical errors cut down, all that’s left here is a terrible script and a mess of boob shots. The only thing that distinguishes it from every other women’s prison movie is the presence of husky, post-Exorcist Linda Blair. See if desperate

Review – Westworld

What is it about Michael Crichton and theme parks gone bad? Two decades or so before the dinosaurs, he wrote and directed this genre classic about a breakdown at a fantasy park staffed by life-like robots. The robots are great because the wealthy guests can do whatever they want with them, which in the Westworld part of the park apparently mostly involves either screwing them or shooting them. But things turn ugly in a hurry when the machines malfunction and start fighting back for real. Particularly chilling is a robot gunfighter (Yul Brynner) who goes after the two main characters. Though overall this is a good movie, the premise is a nagging problem. It’s just a little hard to watch without dwelling on all the potential holes in the robot make-believe scheme. Worth seeing

Review – A Cry in the Dark

This movie, most famous for the whole “the dingo ate the baby!” line, actually turns out to be a little better than its reputation suggested. After a family loses a child to the local wildlife during a camping trip, official suspicion falls on the mother. What ensues is an interesting picture of out-of-control media coverage fed by religious bigotry and culture-wide rubbernecking. Definitely not Australia’s finest moment. Mildly amusing

Review – Wise Blood

It goes without saying – though I’ll say it anyway just for the record – that this isn’t as good as the source novel. But then again, Flannery O’Connor is one of the greatest writers in American history, and Wise Blood is one of her best works. Still, John Huston does a solid job directing, and Brad Dourif plays Hazel Motes quite well. Though it lacks a good deal of literary nuance, it’s still a reasonably good picture of lower class Southern white men and their struggles with religion, race and masculinity. Mildly amusing

Review – E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

I remember what a vast cultural phenomenon this was when it first hit theaters. And now it just seems so quaint and naïve. Kids playing Dungeons and Dragons instead of video games. No cell phones. No laptops. Mechanical effects rather than endless parades of CGI. Could such a world ever have actually existed? Overall this is the paragon of Steven Spielberg’s early career, the tale of a space creature bringing magic and wonder to the lives of ordinary kids in the suburbs. Indeed, the whole thing is crammed full of sub-references to other Spielberg and George Lucas productions. And of course the whole thing is set to an overblown John Williams soundtrack. Though it may be too dated for some 21st century audiences, it’s still a reasonable amount of fun to watch (not to mention a good-sized dose of nostalgia for those of us who were the right age for it when it came out in 1982). Mildly amusing

Review – The Odessa File

This tale is typical Frederick Forsyth: international intrigue with just enough real life to keep it interesting. A German journalist (Jon Voight) stumbles across a diary revealing the existence of Odessa, a conspiracy to use war plunder to help former SS members escape justice. Our hero becomes obsessed with one concentration camp guard in particular (ably played by Maximilian Schell in an interesting departure from his role in Judgment at Nuremberg). Before the end we even get Simon Wiesenthal (Schmuel Rodensky) as a character. Andrew Lloyd Webber did the music, though it’s a standard score rather than an overblown musical. I thought the final twist betrayed the spirit of the production somewhat, but otherwise it was a reasonably entertaining thriller. Mildly amusing

Review – Raising Hell

Ugh. This is like watching Monster C-Span. A crooked governor remains in power by invoking an ancient demon to slaughter all critics. The beast competes for body count with a Da-Vinci-Code-esque assassin. This is low-budget dull without being low-budget clever. At least they had the good sense to keep the cheap monster costume in the shadows. Mildly amusing

Review – Wargames 2: The Dead Code

I’m actually a little surprised it took this long to come up with a sequel to the late-Cold-War classic. Back in the Reagan 80s, it seemed perfectly plausible that a computer problem could spark a nuclear war. And of course now we’ve given up so much of our lives to electronic control and monitoring that being nuked would in some ways be a birthday present compared to more modern alternatives. This environment of push-button warfare and the surveillance state is exploited to good use by this picture. Of course once again teenagers save the planet, which has the same Galactic-Empire-defeated-by-Ewoks quality that it did the first time around. And if you haven’t seen the original, you’re likely to miss some of the plot points in the sequel. Otherwise it’s an entertaining little techno-thriller. Mildly amusing

Review – Secrecy

Though this isn’t exactly ground-breaking stuff, it is a reasonably interesting documentary about the government’s claimed need for secrecy. The production blends information about past abuses of official secrecy with talking heads and footage of art installations critical of secret government. Though it was a bit too Errol-Morris-y for my tastes, I thought it did an acceptable job of covering the topic. Mildly amusing

Review – Superman 4: The Quest for Peace

After number three, they apparently decided – thank goodness! – to go back to making superhero movies instead of dumb sitcoms. To be sure, this still isn’t the high point of the series. It’s more than a little goofy in parts, especially when John Cryer shows up on screen as Lex Luthor’s dim-witted nephew Lenny. And Nuclear Man comes across as a dressed-for-disco dimwit who doesn’t seem like he should be much of a challenge for the Man of Steel. That notwithstanding, this has enough of the standard Superman staples to keep fans happy. They also seem to have found a more appropriate running time. See if desperate

Review – Tales from the Grave (2003)

At least this one was original stories, not just clips from other bad horror movies. This low-budget “homage” to HBO’s Tales from the Crypt series comes complete with a female crypt-keeper, shot in silhouette to cover for the lack of expensive puppetry. Of the four segments, the fourth is the best. But that’s only because it’s the shortest. They’re all bizarre, ill-timed cliché fests. I’m a big fan of independent productions and their producers. However, in this case I wish she'd thought a little harder about what works and what doesn’t before she even get started. See if desperate

Review – L’Inferno

Billed as “Italy’s first feature-length movie,” this silent production of the first third of The Divine Comedy turns out to be quite entertaining. Though the quality of the print varies from scene to scene, the integrity of the overall production remains remarkably intact. Some of the images are so bizarre that they stand up even a century later. The disc includes a soundtrack by Tangerine Dream, which turns out to be not too terribly intrusive (and if it bugs you, you can always mute it). Worth seeing

Review – Howl’s Moving Castle

Miyazaki continues to impress with this charming tale of magic and mystery. A girl aged to grandmother status by a witch’s spell sets herself up as housekeeper for a wizard who lives in a castle that walks around on bird legs. As per the director’s usual style, the plot takes no end of strange-yet-entertaining twists. To be sure, the picture has a few dark moments, especially when it’s trying to make a point about the destructiveness and stupidity of war. But overall it’s light-hearted and cute. I was particularly impressed by the inclusion of elements from the work of Albert Robida, one of my favorite artists starting way back when I was a kid. Buy the disc

Review – Alien Express

A meteor hits a car next to a railroad crossing. When a train stops to check for survivors, aliens from the meteor hop aboard and go to work on the crew. Meanwhile, a terrorist kidnaps a Presidential candidate in one of the train cars. The train, now running out of control because the aliens have eaten the engineer and somehow disabled the dead-man throttle, is set to collide with another train that just happens to be carrying nuclear waste. Poor Lou Diamond Phillips, having jumped onto the train from a helicopter mere seconds before it collided with a mountain … ah, by now I think you get the point. Most of the rest of the movie was screaming and bickering anyway. I don’t know if it would have helped to have had monsters that didn’t look like a cross between a toy T-Rex and a dirty sock, but it probably wouldn’t have hurt. See if desperate

Review – Devour

So there’s a computer game that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality for anyone who plays it? Good thing nobody already made that plot into a movie more than a decade ago. Or even did it again just four or five years back. Within the first five minutes we’re treated to a crappy Tool knock-off and a hunter shooting a cat. Nothing – and I do mean nothing – after that worms this back anywhere near the plus side. Cheap gore. People who screw with their pants on. Unconcealed racism. And perhaps worst of all, a cast of characters so uniformly annoying that I found myself anxiously awaiting their deaths. Something between a snore and a burp is the only possible appropriate response to crud like this. And not a "wow, that was a great meal" burp, either. More of a "better get a bucket, I'm going to throw up" burp. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Conjurer

When I started watching this steaming pile of turds, I figured it would be just another run-of-the-mill, medium-budget horror picture. The production values and plot – young couple moves into house haunted by the spirit of a dead witch – were certainly well-suited to the merely mediocre. But then things go downhill swiftly. Lead actor Andrew Bowen is especially dreadful. Honestly, is this guy physically incapable of closing his mouth? His omnipresent, slack-jawed gape makes him look like he’s got the brains God gave a peanut and significantly detracts from his ability to portray any emotion more sophisticated than constipation. At least Dukes of Hazzard alum John Schneider can breathe easy. For once he’s no worse than the second most idiotic member of the cast. The thing that pushes it to sub-zero, however, is our old favorite: cruelty to animals. The evil presence – in the form of a crow – makes short work of the couple’s cute dog. In revenge, the guy sets a steel jaw trap for it and then brutally stabs it once he’s got it snared. Though I did go ahead and finish watching it, the stupid thing had worn out its welcome by then. Avoid at all costs

Review – Thunderbird 6

These old British puppet shows have been eclipsed in notoriety by their own parodies, particularly “Go Lords” and Team America World Police. Still, they have a certain naïve charm to them. This time around our heroes are caught up in a plot involving a gigantic, lighter-than-air luxury vessel. I didn’t like this effort quite as much as Thunderbirds Are Go, but I think that’s because I remembered seeing the earlier movie as a kid, whereas this was the first time I’d seen this one. Mildly amusing

Review – Thunderbirds Are Go

I remember my grandfather taking me to a kiddie matinee of this movie at the Baron Theater in Pratt, Kansas, back when I was still young enough to appreciate such things. I remember loving it at the time. I think I even had a die-cast Thunderbird 2 for awhile. Sadly, I think now I’m a bit too far outside the target audience. Though some of the model work is still entertaining, the puppets are just hard to take. The plot – to the extent that there even is one – is trite. And big chunks of the art direction – particularly the nightclub sequence – are a bit “mid-century” by current standards. If you’re like me, you can muster enough nostalgia for the experience to make this a bit of fun. Otherwise you may well form a lower opinion of it. Mildly amusing

Review – The House on Carroll Street

Poor Emily (Kelly McGillis). Her lack of cooperation with the HUAC leaves her unemployed. And no sooner does she take a new job reading books to an invalid (Jessica Tandy) when she overhears a conversation between the neighbors revealing that one of them is a Nazi war criminal smuggled into the United States by the same creeps perpetrating the blacklist (headed by Mandy Patinkin). Now, if there was an explanation for what exactly our government planned to do with medical-experiment-perpetrating psychos (were we in a psycho-gap race with the Soviets?), I blinked and missed it. Doesn’t really matter, though. With the help of rogue FBI agent Jeff Daniels, our heroine prevails in the end. Mildly amusing

Review – Superman 3

Right from the start this installment proves to be stupid and offensive in approximately equal measure. For some strange reason they decided to abandon the formula that was reasonably successful with the original and the first sequel and instead turn the Superman saga into a moronic farce. Though poor Richard Pryor gets stuck with the most humiliating role – a ne’er-do-well who just happens to be a computer genius – nobody comes away smelling like roses. The first two may not have been great moments in the history of the superhero genre, but they were masterpieces of the cinema arts compared to whatever the hell they thought they were doing here. Though this isn’t literally the worst movie I’ve ever seen, it may well be the dumbest thing Hollywood ever spent actual money on. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Penny Dreadful

So when the word “dreadful” is right there in the title, does that render the review moot? Poor Penny is terrified of cars. Her shrink’s notion of taking her on a cross-country car trip to help cure her might have been smart if not for the whole picking-up-a-hitcher-who-turns-out-to-be-a-psycho twist. The first 40 minutes or so are script-intensive, which would have been a good thing except it’s dull stuff. The rest is screaming and yelling and stabbing and not much else. See if desperate

Review – Night People

Cold War paranoia runs like a current through this thriller from 1954. Gregory Peck stars as a tough, cynical Army officer charged with the responsibility of recovering a millionaire’s GI son from East German kidnappers. The dialogue is full of witty barbs and the plot takes no end of bizarre twists and turns. I’m fond of relics from this era, so if you don’t share my affection then you may not get as big a kick out of it as I did. Worth seeing

Review – The Cradle

This movie reminds me of The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror” parody of Poe’s “The Raven.” After Homer opens the door to find the hallway empty, Bart cynically asks, “Y’know what would have been scarier than nothing? Anything!” Former child star Lukas Haas plays a guy who moves to the country with his highly-neurotic wife and newborn child. Some kind of vague, supernatural menace starts to emerge from a neighbor’s backstory after an hour or so, but by then the young couple’s bickering and random wandering around have more than worn out the movie’s welcome. Wish I’d skipped it