Review – 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea

So this is supposed to be 1.5 times as good as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? It actually turns out to be around 30,000 times worse. In this brain-dead modernization of Jules Verne’s classic tale, Captain Nemo (Sean Lawlor) is out to destroy all surface-dwelling life on earth and start everything over in Atlantis. To complete his evil scheme, he needs giant air bubble technology developed by a Navy officer (Lorenzo Lamas, who looks like he should switch to Just for Men Who Aren’t Fooling Anyone if he hasn’t already). Everyone ends up upstaged by bad CGI giant robot squid. Usually one must turn to SyFy for this kind of experience, but for some reason this showed on one of the Starz/Encores. See if desperate

Review – 1000 Journals

Portrait of a good idea gone wrong. Someguy (an artist in San Francisco) came up with the notion of purchasing 1000 blank journals and sending them out into the world with notes asking that people contribute something to them, update their status on a web site and then pass them along to someone else. Of course the whole thing quickly succumbs to human “foibles” as some of the journals get hoarded or vanish entirely, participants start defacing each other’s entries, and squabbling over turns commences. Of course that’s all part of the art. Still, I can’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t have been a better experience if everyone acted like they had some sense. The documentary features interviews with a number of people who’ve ended up with the journals, and it even shows a few moments where the journals move from one person to the next. Mildly amusing

Review – Pippi on the Run

This is my favorite Pippi Longstocking movie. Sure, it lacks the freshness of the original. It doesn’t have big adventures in pirate strongholds or anything like that. Indeed, she and her two sidekicks don’t even make it out of Sweden. Instead, Tommy and Annika decide to run away, and their parents grant permission as long as Pippi’s with them (Swedish child welfare enforcement must be different than what we’ve got in the States). But what it lacks in exotic locales it more than makes up for in dumb. I was particularly impressed with the scene in which, in order to obtain “money and blood,” the trio pretend to be “Turkish orphans” and do a ridiculous dance until people throw money at them. The whole picture is worth it just for that. Mildly amusing

Review – The Missouri Breaks

As of this writing I’m planning a trip to Montana, so I got this movie from Netflix so I could get a good look at the Hollywood picture of the landscapes. Though it made a pretty picture, it took an unfortunate back seat to some bizarre storytelling. A rustler (Jack Nicholson) and his band of hippie-goofy friends steal from the wrong land baron, and the old guy hires a weird-ass hit man (Marlon Brando) to hunt them down. Good thing the locations supply a lot of scenery, as the two big names chew ruthlessly through it while the rest of the cast stares helplessly on. This might have eked a slightly higher rating if not for the excessive ill treatment of horses and a rabbit. See if desperate

Review – Uzumaki

At least by the end of this you’ll have the Japanese word for “spiral” permanently cemented in your head. The box billed this as “from the land that brought you Ringu,” which is a little like selling a picture like Friday the 13th as “from the land that brought you The Exorcist.” Two teenagers try to cope as their village and their families are slowly consumed by a supernatural mania for things with spirals on them. The set-up is good even if it never goes much of anywhere. I also liked the effects, though some of them suggest that someone’s seen the video for Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” too many times. Mildly amusing

Review – Jigoku

The last 30 minutes of this movie take place in Hell, and the 60 minutes preceding them only seem like they do. For the first hour the characters engage in no end of evil deeds ranging from the hit-and-run death of a drunk to cheating on a dying spouse to feeding tainted fish to old folks in a rest home. Though faithful film students will sit through the extended set-up, I promise not to rat you out if you skip to the good part. Even Hell – or the Eight Hells or the 16 Hells or however many it is – is more strange than scary. For example, the hero’s girlfriend (who turns out to also be his sister) is pregnant when she dies, sending him on a quest through the nether regions for a crying baby floating on a lotus down a river of blood (a blend of Anne Geddes and H. G. Lewis that’ll linger with you for awhile). Director Nobuo Nakagawa has a reputation as one of Japan’s finest horror directors, but this picture didn’t exactly send me out in search of his other work. The movie has also been released in the United States as The Sinners of Hell. Mildly amusing

Review – Batman (1966)

This brought back some pleasant childhood memories of the kids in the neighborhood gathering around a TV set and watching the old Adam West / Burt Ward Batman series. Nostalgia aside, however, this is almost pure camp. If you’ve seen some of the recent Batman movies but not this outing, imagine the polar opposite of The Dark Knight and you’ve got a clear picture. This is goofy, corny, cute, harmless, completely safe for kids, basically everything 21st century Batman isn’t. I expect any adult who doesn’t remember this stuff fondly will lose patience with it fairly quickly, but I got a kick out of watching it again. Mildly amusing