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last updated: 10/24/01
It's been a while, so these are the movies I've seen in no particular order over the past
three months!
Castaway
I was rather suprised by this movie! We rented it on a whim, thinking hey, thousands of people can't be
wrong...they have been before, but our new local video store has a limited dvd collection...
Tom hanks is a successful
fedex exec who flys around the place handling overseas fedex facilities. He has a girlfriend whom he leaves on a fatefull
trip on a doomed airplane which crashes in the ocean. He winds up marooned on a deserted island (*singing* this is the tale
of a castaway, marooned on a desert isle...with gilligan..oh wait, wrong island) and is forced to learn to survive on his
own. He befriends a volleyball named wilson who begins the movie with only a bloody handprint for a face, and ends up all
painted up with grass sticking up out of the top for hair, I'm assuming....the movie centers around his survival and his relationship
with wilson. There is plenty of life threatening injuries, one sustained while madly paddling after a ship far off the coast
and he is plunged off his raft and a nice big piece of coral jabbs into his leg *cringe* and he gets an absessed tooth which
he removes with a rock and ice skate blade (quite possibly the grossest part of the movie) As he is planning his escape he
has already long begun a verbal repetiore with wilson....he's busy calculating how much rope he needs to make, conversating
with the volleyball, and screams "I know it's unlikely (finding a ship on the open sea) but I'd rather die out there
than spend my life talking to a volleyball!" and chucks poor wilson out of his cave. He freaks out and starts calling
for wilson, dashing down the beach in search of his friend, crying and apologizing for being so mean. He repaints his face,
looks at it: "I know you...I know you....There...we cool?"
He finally makes it off the island, using a port-o-potty
side that washed ashore as a sail and shelter. During a storm the sail is lost, and he wakes to find wilson floating away.
Believe it or not, it's rather sad as he flails in the open sea bawling for his retreating volleyball. He lies on his battered
raft and sobs like a child for his long lost wilson when days later, near death, he is rescued by an oil tanker. He returns
home to find his girlfriend has married his orthodontist and has a child, and they almost run off together, but they realize
she can't. How depressing. This broad's memory was all that kept him alive for three years and he loses her all over again.
But he meets a hottie while returning the fedex packages he brought with him from the island that washed up, so I guess all
is good now.
I give this movie a suprising three bats!
Ed Gein
This was GROSS. It's the real life story of ed gein, the maniac they modeled such characters as norman bates,
leatherface, and the killer in silence of the lambs after.
Quiet, disturbed ed was known as the creepy town simpleton,
who lived with his mother until her death (and after...dug her up.) Throughout this movie she's there, whispering in his
ear, coaxing him to kill, giving him motive, on the end of phones that don't ring to anyone but him....memories of his abusive
childhood that made him the madman he is today.
It starts with simple grave robbing, and turning skulls and bones into
household items, and progresses to murder of local women. There is even a disturbing part where he has succeeded in making
his womanskin coat and dancing about in the yard at dusk with the boobies and face and pants made out of girlie. He gets
caught of course, and the police take pictures of the fingers floating in jars with eyeballs, of brains on the stove, of a
womans peeled off face in a pile of laundry....
it's sick, it's disturbing, it's right up my alley.
Four bats.
Hannibal
Ah, the sequel to silence of the lambs. A copout or a genuine thriller gorefest?
I go for option two.
I loved it.
I think what I like the most about the hannibal lechter character is the carefree, almost laughable little
traits.
"I'll help you with these bags...they're heavy as bodies"
Or when he's about to disembowel and hang
a man whom he's found to be doublecrossing him...he gets the answers he wants out of him, then puts on his gloves, grabs the
dolly cart he's strapped to and simply takes a breath "Okeydokey, here we go."
Anyway, once again clarice stark
is on the case, tracking lechter whom in this movie seems to have a sort of love for her. He kidnaps her, drugs her, dresses
her up and "invites" her to dinner where the snotty bigoted asshole boss of hers is the entre, the top of his head
neatly sawed off like the top of a pot, and portions of his brain are made into little cutletts, lightly sauted, and fed to
him. He is then wheeled into the kitchen for the final "preparation". Drugged, clarice follows unsteadily with
a club or a candlestick or something, and tries to stop hannibal. They have a knock down drag out in the kitchen. She is
thrown against a fridge and he cleverly opens the door (her ponytail falls in) and slams the door on her hair and yanks off
the handle. I LOVED that. He's at her throat with a butcher knife and says "tell me clarice, would you ever say to
me 'if you loved me you'd stop'" She replies "Never in a thousand years"
"That's my girl"
Then
a click...she's cuffed him. He goes ballistic, slamming her hand to a butcherboard and places the cleaver on her arm.
"Tell
me, above the wrist, or below the wrist"
Her answer is silence, and the camera moves back to his face. A tear falls
from his eye "this is really going to hurt, you know." and the cleaver falls.
Next shot he's on a plane...with
one hand.
OOOOOOOH AXE MURDER ROMANCE!!! I love it!
A lot of people took a shot at this movie saying it replaced
plot with guts, but I disagree. I liked it. A lot. Even though some of the gore (especially feeding that guy's brain to
him while he's still alive *gak*) was almost too much for me.
I give it four bats!
House by the cemetary
This is a great flick I found at fred meyer in the 4.99 halloween dvd bin. A family travels
to the country for a vacation/research trip where this guy is investigating the studies and mysterious death of a professor
of his. The town is full of wierd people, and they set up residency at this old house for rent. Well, it's haunted, and
they have this creepy housesitter named ann with big eyebrows and green eyes that doesn't talk really. ANd they let her watch
their kid. He's this irritating lad of 7 or so with a big blonde bowl cut and obnoxious voice. I was praying the whole movie
he'd get it first. No such luck. Through this movie he has a wierd little ghost girlfriend with a funny voice who keeps trying
to keep him out of the house.
The first to go is the lady who lent the house out, who goes in to check on the residents...but
they aren't there, and the cellar door is opened. She is walking down the hall where an old evil doctor is burried, when
the tomb cracks open and grabs her leg and holds her there till the monster can come and stab her up like a veal cutlett and
then drag her bloody corpse down the hall.
In the morning, ann is mopping up the blood trail when the missus comes in.
Somehow the dumb broad doesn't notice the huge bloodstain at the cellar door. "Oh hi, anne, how are you? What are
you doing"
speaks ann. "I made coffee."
ooooookaaaaayyyy....
Well, it comes out that an old evil
scientist was working on some sort of surgical eternal life bit, and killed several townspeople in the cellar to prolong his
life, where he was eventually burried, hence the joint being haunted and all. Next, ann is looking for the irritating boy,
and the cellar door is open. She heads down, stupid move, everyone knows all the bad stuff is in the cellar and the attic...sheesh....
She gets locked in and her head gets cut off. The kid hears her screaming and well what do you know. The door is open
again, no sign of ann. SO he goes down, and runs up the stairs when ann's head goes bouncing down the stairs like a basketball
and lands at his feet. His arm get's stuck and the monster almost gets him.
WHen he tells his mom, she doesn't believe
him, so he goes down alone to find ann and THIS time he gets locked in nice and tight, and his stupid mom can't get the door
open 'cause she's a stupid 70's housewife and is useless. The monster throws the kid down the stairs and chases him around
while the dad hacks at the door like a weenie little puss with an axe. They confront the evil doctor who's all defunct and
rotting and stuff, and he takes a shot at him with the axe, and the monster overpowers him and rips his throat out. I mean
hell, guy, the damned thing only has one arm. You have two. What the hell is wrong with you anyway?
Next mom and jr
are trying to escape through the crack in the tomb above them on the hallway floor (all the while I'm thinking dammit lady,
you couldn't get a door open, now you're going to be able to move a concrete slab?)
She dies, but jr. manages to escape
with his little ghost girlfriend and her ghost nanny and the movie ends.
But the wierdest thing is after the ending this
quote pops up over the house that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
"It will never be known whether monsters are
children, or children are monsters."
WTF? Come again? Did I miss some deep meaning to the movie or was this meant
to totaly and completely throw you off?
I give it two bats, but it's fun to watch, so I recomend it.
Carnival of souls
This was okay, also a great fred meyer 4.99 dvd bin find...
A young girl and her friends are
driven off a bridge by an unruly driver in a small town, of which she is the only survivor. She is a despondant and kind
of bitchy, but learns to play the organ and is sent on a job to be a church organist in salt lake city utah. She starts seeing
this wierd dead guy everywhere she goes, and is strangely attracted to this old carnival site in the middle of nowhere that
was turned into a dancehall before being abandoned years and years ago. Strange things beging happening, like at times she'll
be invisible and no one will be able to hear her or see her, and she starts to go mad, seeing dancing dead folks in that old
abandoned carnival. She eventually goes out there to satisfy her curiosity after being fired from the church, and the dead
are indeed dancing there after all, on the carnival grounds. They chase her down outside onto the sand flat where an old
lake was, and she disappears. The police are called, and they see a crowd of footprints decending from the carnival to a
single spot and then nothing.
Meanwhile, back at small town x, they finally find the car that was run off the road, and
rush to recover the bodies of the poor dead girls, and who is in the front seat with her girlfriends than the "survivor"
herself...dead all this time. A 1950's "sixth sense" sort of...
Strange, not that good though.
Two bats.
Horror Hotel
Nothing gets my fancy like good old fashioned spooky untraveled small town devil worship!
I liked
this one, a bonus movie on the carnival of souls dvd. A pretty young girl is attending lectures on the history of witchcraft,
when she decides to go to a small new england town that executed a witch in the trials of the early 1800's for research on
her project. She stays appropriately at the towns only hotel, the RAVEN INN (*enter dramatic music*) She picks up a hitchhiker,
a YOUNG vincent price, to my suprise, whom disappears when she arrives at the inn. She acquires a room, and after two days
of research, she leaves her room to find herbs tacked to her door and a bird with an arrow through it on her pillow. She
is then kidnapped to a subterrainan chamber and sacrificed by a cult of devil worshippers (whom are lead by a man and woman
executed in the town in 1800 for witchcraft) on the 13th hour of the witche's sabbath.
An investigation is sent by her
brother and her boyfriend, whom gain the help of a new resident, a pretty girl who was in the spooky old town caring for her
blind preist grandfather, and they soon find she is their next victim for the approaching candlemas. All done out in campy
satanic regalia, this film is so ridiculous it is utmost enjoyable. Only the shadow of the cross can kill the evil satanists,
causing them to burst into flames!
Good wins out of course *booooo*, but I really enjoyed this movie.
Three bats!
Last Updated: 7/18/01
Jurassic Park III
I never imagined that the original movie would have carried this
far. I liked Jurassic Park I...I liked Jurassic Park II....I also liked Jurassic Park III. The only thing that lacked was
the dry humor of II, which I liked. The movie begins with a young boy parasailing off the coast of Isla Sorna off the coast
of Costa Rica with his mothers boyfriend. The two are coasting along as the speedboat goes into the fog....commotion ensues,
boat comes out of fog chewed up and void of captain and mate. damn.
They cut loose and parasail onto the island.
Enter
two characters not seen since the first movie, Dr. Grant and Ellie. Dr. Grant and understudy Billy are taken to the island
on a "sightseeing" tour by a supposedly rich adventerous couple...but they have other things in mind. They land
the plane and reveal that they are there to recover their son eric, who had disappeared 8 wks ago while parasailing near the
island. They also reveal that they aren't rich. oops.
They eventually find their son who had survived the whole time
in a crashed watertanker near the main compound, and make their way to the coast, fending off a huge fucking angry dino with
a sail on it's back that ate one of the guys who had a sattalite phone...they hear the phone ring and turn around to find
big and nasty standing there :) They also have to fend off big rotten pterodactyls and all sorts of stuff, but I have to
say that there were not enough dinosaurs in this movie...too much of the big fucker and too many raptors. Not much else :)
Dr. Grant digs the phone out of big fucker's poo and calls Ellie at her home in the states while big fucker is trying
to drown/eat the surviving four in a river.....and as they reach the beach, the national guard and navy are arriving with
all sorts of landing vessels and guns and man-stuff.
I hate to admit it, but dinosaurs are SCARY. The hardest part for
me in these movies is sitting still, 'cause watching people getting chased by dinosaurs freaks me out.
I liked it though,
but feel that The Lost World was a lot more fun humor/gag wise...especially when T-Rex (no, the beast, not the band) went
loose in LA like Godzilla in Tokyo. The lightness and mix of suspense made it easier for me to watch...took the edge off
my nerves instead of making me run out of the theater screaming "the dinosaurs are going to eat me!" like a retarded
mad woman.
I don't know why dinosaurs freak me out.
It's a good movie. Go see it.
Three bats!
7/18/01:
Unbreakable
I was pleasantly suprised by this movie. It begins with a child, elija (samuel l jackson)
born with broken limbs....a genetic disorder that causes brittle bones that break very easily. He grows through childhood
sad, dispondent, not wanting to leave his mother's house. "they call me mr. glass, the kids at school. Because I break
like glass." His mother leaves a present out on a park bench across the street to get him to leave...a comic book.
"I bought a whole bunch. There'll be one every week whenever you want to go out and get it."
Fast forward to
a man (Bruce willis) and his wife, separated in the same house with their son. He's a security guard at a local stadium,
being unable to play football because of a college car accident that injured him and almost killed his girlfriend, now his
wife, ending his football career.
He is on a commuter train heading home from a job offer in new york when it derails...killing
all 300+ passengers, except for him. He walks away without a scratch.
Elija is now an adult, a wealthy and successful
comic art dealer. He contacts Bruce's character, asking him all sorts of questions about the wreck...did he ever remember
being sick. Did he ever get hurt. Elija is looking for a certain man....he figured that he, at the far end of a spectrum
of humanity, being so fragile, that there would be one at the opposite end...unbreakable. He determines that Bruce's character
is the one he seeks..but the he doesn't believe him. He finally realizes his ability and saves a family being held hostage
in a house nearby, and he and Elija meet again, in a room behind his latest exhibition. There are newspapers posted all along
the walls of disasters all over the country. "You don't know how long I've looked for you. How long I've tried. The
sacrifices I've made, OTHERS have made to hear those words ....only one survivor, and he is miraculous." Elija had caused
several massive disasters...and office building fire, a plane crash, etc....and the derailment of the commuter train, to find
the one person that would survive unscathed. His opposite the spectrum. "in comic books the villain and superhero often
have a lot in common, but are opposites...sometimes they are even friends, like you and I!" he shouts at the retreating
bruce willis "THEY CALLED ME MR.GLASS!" He's put into a mental institution......
You really have to watch it
to get the full jist of it...and my fiance and I found the ending rather profound. It's an interesting movie....sort of the
beginning of a comic book brought to life. I recommend it :)
Three bats!
Last updated: 7/17/01
Rosemary's Baby:
This is a twisted tale of a happy young couple apartment searching
in downtown new york. They are shown around an old old building, and rent one of the rooms. Everything is happy and quaint,
other than the fact that everything going on in the apartment adjacent to theirs could be heard loud and clear. Things are
going well, until a young woman that rosemary met in the laundry room committed an aparent suicide by flinging herself out
of the apartment window of an elderly couple that had taken her in off the streets. The elderly couple, a well traveled and
educated man named roman and a bizarre old woman named minnie, befriend rosemary and guy, her actor husband. Nosy old people.
Guy suddenly takes a bizarre interest in minnie and roman, visiting often and long. By the way, her husband is an
asshole. He is fighting to get a part in a play coming up, not a significant part, but one that "gets you noticed"
and loses out to another man. His visits to minnie and roman increase. The man who got the part originally all of a sudden
goes blind...and guy gets the part. He neglects rosemary, the recants and tells her they should have a baby. On their special
night, during dinner, minnie drops by with two cups of special chocolate mousse...rosemary eats some, then decides she dislikes
the "chalky undertaste" and throws it away. She then gets dizzy and passes out. During her drugged state, she
has a bizarre dream sequence where all the old folks from the building, her husband included, are partaking in a satanic ritual
with her at the center.....and she gets lucky with Old Scratch. The aforesaid Old Scratch being....*drumroll* ANTON LAVEY...in
the flesh....only disguised in a beard, but there is an evil close up of the demon's eyes during the rape and you cannot mistake
those eyes, or the trademark wicked eyebrows. She wakes up groggy and covered with cuts and scratches, a little miffed that
guy would take advantage of her when she was out cold. She then discovers that she is pregnant Guy tells minnie and roman,
who send her to an upperclass doctor, a class act jerk, who tells her not to listen to friends, read books on pregnancy etc.
Her pregnancy is fraught with health problems and horrible pain, the doctor all the while telling her "it'll stop any
day"...she grows freakishly thin and drawn, and paranoid, hearing strange music and voices coming from minnie and roman's
apartment. She recieves a book from a friend of hers after he dies mysteriously the day she is suposed to meet with her and
tell her something very important...the book is "all them witches". Rosemary reads up, freaks out, convinced that
minnie and roman are satanic witches, with everyone in the building in their "coven", including her husband....and
that he's promised their child in exchange for his sudden success. After trying to unsucessfully escape, she gives birth....she's
told that the baby died, but hears a baby crying next door. She finds a hidden door connecting her apartment with the freaky
old peoples apartment...where the child's cries are stronger. She grabs a knife and slips through the passage, finding a
room full of devil worshiping old folks, and her husband. She finds her child, in a HUGE black draped basinette with a silver
inverted cross hanging above it like a mobile. She looks in at him, and shreiks. "what have you done to him! what
have you done to his eyes!" to which minnie replies "he has his father's eyes" and she screams "guys
eyes are nothing like that...what have you done to him" to which the old hag replies again "satan is his father".
she screams no, no it's not possible to which they reply "look at his hands! His feet! Hail satan!" and a bunch
of stuff about his conquests to come over mankind and god...the antichrist is born.
"come, be a mother to him"
encourages roman..."he needs a mother". She walks slowly over to the cradle, begins to rock it, and smile.
this
is a great old film...I definitely recommend it.
Its a great suspenseful plot, and keeps you guessing wether roman and
minnie are evil, with rosemary's husband in on the evil plot, promising his first born in return for success, or if rosemary's
lost her marbles...
see it. It's cool...FOUR BATS!!!
Last updated 6/20/01
Pearl Harbor:
Pearl Harbor sucked. I wish I could smoke in movie theaters. I wish
they served alcohol in movie theaters.
Why didn't that stupid mousy brunette get shot....why do all the leading men
have buttchins and girlish features....why do people think that ben afflick is cute...why did it take three goddamned hours
for japan to catch us asleep at the wheel and a fucking ship to sink....why do people look at me meanly when I try to salvage
my sanity in a sorrid constipated turgid rotting movie by pretending I'm in mystery science theater...
Pearl Harbor sucked.
Fuck Pearl Harbor.
Fuck hollywood.
last updated: 4/14/01
Spike and Mike's Twisted Festival of Animation:
I can't go fully into depth into all
the short films, but if Spike and Mike come through your area, YOU MUST GO SEE THIS. I've never laughed so hard nor been
so disgusted in MY LIFE. Offensive? YES. Crude? YES. The most politicaly incorrect thing I've ever seen? YES.
My
favorite has to be "bowlin' fer souls"....a digital animation of the devil cruisin' through hell in a hotrod, bowling
down souls....it's HILLARIOUS.
Also, I recommend "radioactive crotch man"....RCM is plagued by his arch nemisis
Butt Pirate (a pansy fop in pirate/ren outfit...limp wrist and all) and when he traps RCM, he sucks his superpowers out and
puts them into a big pink "uber-crotchbot 2000" which lays havoc to the city. He calls in the Keen squad, a comatose
commander, an old man in a jet propelled wheelchair and liverspots of doom, and NIPPLE man, with supercharged erect nipples.
I laughed so hard.
There is also a HILLARIOUS film with some guy's penis bobbing up and down, and they take the little
pee hole and make it lipsync to a song and it looks like it's dancing. It's so goddamned funny.
These are just a few....you
can check out the rest and order merchandise and videos at: http://www.spikeandmike.com
FOUR BATS!
last updated: 4/10/01
The Crow: Salvation
Curiosity killed the bat...or bird...or whatever...
I
have to say that this movie was suprising. Not too many trenchcoats, not to many goofy "goff" characters and such.
Enter Eric Mabius as Alex Corvis, previously deadcrowboy#3, who was PREVIOUS to that an angry young man executed on his
21 st birthday (oooh, mine's coming up...*crosses fingers*) for the murder of his girlfriend. Of course, he's innocent, if
he wasn't there wouldn't be much of a movie, would there? Anyhoo, he get's a good southern deepfry ala ol'sparky and wakes
up in the prison morgue (top of MY list of places I DON'T want to wake up) and after peeling off his fried face *EWWIE*, he
begins to pick off the people responsible for planting him on death row. Of course, to blame are leigons of crooked cops,
Alex himself looking in particular for some creep with surgical steel implants in his arm. He runs amok, killing evil cops
and trying to convince dead girlfriend's little sister (kirsten dundst) that he didn't in fact kill her. Little sister finds
out daddy is a crook, and that his underminings are what got her sister killed, and that he lied to put the blame on her boyfriend.
Sister died 'cause she knew too much. Bummer.
Once you manage to choke your way past the "city of angels"
esque setting and word play, it actually gets a bit better, more bare bones down to good and dirty crow action. Less cheezy
shit, ditches the damned trenchcoat, and starts whoopin'. It becomes some sort of strange twist between "city of angels"
and dee snider's "strangeland". Especially for kirsten, once she drops the silly dramatics, she actually does a
very nice job. I was actually more dissapointed that I was NOT dissapointed. Do you follow? I was really expecting a bomb....I
didnt' get a bomb. More of a mild kaboom....ending was good, not too mushy, just a quick "I'll always be with you"
and adios and deadboy is off to deadland to hook back up with deadgirl. The end.
This is a good movie if you like to
pretend you are sitting in mystery science theater...there are lots of shots to be made...I'm going to avoid jenny jones remarks
right now...damn...I couldn't....
I'm glad the boxoffices learned their lesson from "city of angels"....not
a bad movie, but not one for the theaters. I believe that poor brandon lee has slowed his grave spinning by now....let's
just hope this is it...UNLESS someone gets a freaking clue and bases a crow movie DIRECTLY following "lazarus heart"
by poppy z. That's the only one I would look forwards to.
I give this movie one bat 'cause it didn't make me want to
drink bleach.
last updated: 4/2/01
Bless the Child
Mankind's savior...or worst nightmare...has just turned 6.
Cody, a young slightly autistic girl, is
abandoned at birth by her strung out mother Jenna at her sister's home, where she is raised and cared for, her unusual behaviors
diagnosed as "slight autism" by doctors. The child exhibits other strange abilities...spinning and rattling things
with her mind, healing a wounded bird, and seems to be listening to things that aren't there.
Children all over the
world begin to show up murdered, all born on the 16th of december 1992, all branded with a symbol of the left hand path, of
satanism. Enter charismatic cult leader...or founder of the New Age church, a rehabilitation center for druggies and runaways,
which is actually a ruse to cover the diabolical operations of a satanic church, bent on finding the one child that will lead
the world to god....and either turning them to satan, or killing them. The leader MARRIES Jenna to get at cody, obviously
the child they've been murdering and searching for....they kidnap her and subject her to the "tests" to see if she
is the one. As much as I hate happy god endings, I really didn't want to see this kid die, and was hoping SOMEONE would kick
the cult leader in the balls. HARD. The special effects in this movie are cool, especially two or three scenes, one when
christina ricci is getting beaten to death in a subway surrounded by a flurry of clubs and swooping demons, and second, the
evil church with something out of fantasia's "hell mountain" with demonic beasts circling the steeple, and also
when satan apears in a swarm of converging evil rats. I'm a sucker for cool satanic effects. See this movie.
Three bats.
last updated: 3/28/01
Enemy at the Gates:
This is a great WWII film. It stars Ed Harris, Jude Law, and Rachel Weiss.
The premise of the
movie is the battlefront of Stalingrad, Russia in the heat of Nazi Germany conquest of europe and asia. A farmboy is put
into battle as a regular foot soldier who, trapped between the slaughter of German bullets and Russian bullets (they shot
any of their men who tried to flee a battle), he plays dead amongst the heaps of his fallen comrades and is joined by a journalist
who's jeep is blown up. He then picks off 6 german officers before they knew what hit them, and was published as the great
russian hero to boost the morale of the troops. He is promoted to sniper and his fame and body count begins to pile up.
To end this threat, the nazis send Ed Harris as a German Major, a feared sniper, to kill him. This movie is a suspensfull
game of cat and mouse, with a little bit of love story for good measure, but thank goodness it doesn't overcloud the plot.
I hate it when it does that. Rachel Weiss, a stalingrad native and rifle toting asskicker, is the woman of the show, adorable
but tough, and doesn't get in the way....like so many love interests in movies tend to.
This movie is so well written
and has good "flow"...you know what I mean. It was about two hours, and usually I have a hard time sitting for
anything that long, but I was just GLUED to the screen the whole time. I was also pleased with the ending, which is rare.
I like the fact that Vassile such and such is a real russian historical figure, and this movie wasn't just pulled out of
someone's ass..built upon, but still historical. It wasn't the horrifying blood and carnage of "private ryan",
but since it's a sniper film, everyone get's it in the head. And the portrayal of the horrors of war was well done without
overdoing the gore. I loved this movie!
I give it four bats!
last updated: 3/10/01
Salem's Lot:
This isn't bad for an old made for TV movie. If it had followed the book more closely, it would have been
fantastic, but as it was, if you hadn't read the book, it wasn't bad at all.
A small town in maine is host to several
things....small town gossip, small town affairs....and a creepy old house *enter dramatic music*
An eccentric antiques
dealer Mr. Striker purchases the house, his partner, Mr. Barlow, an unavailable enigma. Then a small boy disappears inexplicably
in the forrest.
A writer comes to town, to revisit his childhood. He falls in love with linda, a local woman. Then
the missing boy's brother becomes striken with some bizarre malady....then the boy's mother...then the gravedigger....then
the doctor...all neck wounds, all die (of course). With some investigation on his part, the writer comes to find that VAMPIRES
are to blame...go fig. The master vampire (barlow) looks like the play-doh monster factory vampire, all blue with red eyes
and yellow curly fangs....It's really not a bad film at all. They come into the company of a young boy, who sets off to kill
barlow when his parents are murdered by the vampire, but is followed into the evil house by linda who tries to stop him.
The boy escapes, but linda is brought into the minions of the towns undead. The writer finds the boy, and they dispatch the
master barlow and burn the town.....then take off on the run from the survivors, picking them off as they are found.
Like
said, this movie is not all bad....like I also said, it would have been fantastic if it had followed the book more closely.
I give it two bats.
last updated: 2/12/01
House on Haunted Hill:
This is a remake of the original vincent price film of the same title, but with a teenage slasher
film twist to it. Millionaire theme park tycoon Mr. Price is hosting a party for his snotty and much loathed wifeypoo at
an old insane asylum that was closed years ago after a sadistic doctor and five of his cohorts were tortured and murdered
during a patient revolt at the hospital due to his performing vulgar vivisections on live unanesthesized mental patients.
Mr. Price shreds his wife's guest list, and invites five individuals, all related to the deceased doctors. He planns to
scare them Price style ala tits and ass and studmuffin teen flick. Lots of blood, lots of gore, lots and lots of neato looking
shock therapy and decrepite medical devices. Over all.....ugh. I knew I was in for a bad ride when I can hear "sweet
dreams" by marilyn manson within the first five minutes of the movie (and during the credits....booo....boo hiss...*throws
popcorn at the tv*)
Typical Typical TYPICAL! Don't waste your time. The only good thing about it was the liter of pepsi
and the pack of cigarettes consumed during as well as after to cope with the trauma of wasting over an hour and a half of
the bad acting screamfest.
No bats.....no way. I'm going to go take an alcohol bath.
last updated: 2/7/01
Dark City:
This was an unexpected pleasure! On my quest for a dvd to test out my new dvd player (yay!), I was SOOOO
dissapointed, I couldn't find ANYTHING. On a last minute ditch, I grabbed Dark City, remembering something good said about
it by a friend. Wow!
A man is on the run from the police for a series of brutal murders....only catch is, he doesn't
REMEMBER killing anyone. He spends the next several hours totally awake, and realizing something is wrong. Very wrong.
At the stroke of midnight, everyone falls asleep. Dead asleep.
A psychiatrist/doctor played by Keifer Sutherland,
tries to desperately contact this man.....that he has rejected his "memory" injection and that the experiment was
out of control. It comes to his realization that the city is no city, it's a controlled environment to experiment on people's
minds, run by a civilization of "strangers", aliens that look like off-blue nosferatues in mafia garb. They built
the city on a machine which channels their thoughts, so they may control and maintain and change this "city" as
they please...their goal is to learn the secret of human soul, so they may save their dying race. The strangers are phobic
of water, and sunlight, and are reeeally spooky, they can levitate or fly, and have a wierd language they speak to each other,
and each is designated a name of sorts, this little creepy one is named "mr. Sleep", a midget or a child or something.....ew.
"Welcome to Shell Beach" is everywhere...but where is shell beach? Everybody knows about it, but nobody goes
there, nor knows how to go there.
They put everyone to sleep at midnight and change everything, injecting new "memories"
into the unwitting citizens, so they may monitor how people react and act in different lives.....nobody none the wiser. This
man has somehow rejected the "memory", and found their secret of their city, and more importantly how to control
it. As he discovers the "strangers" secrets, he has to convince the police sargeant of the secrets of the city.
"When was the last time you saw the sun? Not some distant memory, or in a picture....when was the last time you
saw sunlight?"
This movie is sooooo cool. It's so creative and unusual and the effects are amazing. I HIGHLY
RECOMEND THIS FILM!
I give this movie four flapping bats!
last updated: 01/27/01
Shadow of the Vampire:
Okay, kids, BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR! Based upon the 1920's silent film, Nosferatu (basically made
on Brahm Stoker's "Dracula" only names and plot changed slightly because Stoker's widdow would not release rights
to his novel), only the premise is, what if the nosferatu in "Nosferatu" was REALLY a nosferatu? (Swallow THAT!)
The most brilliant german director of all time played by John Malkovich sets out to film the most realistic vampire film
ever made in the remote hills of Slovakia....but the clincher is he uses a REAL vampire, "actor" Max Schreck (last
name in german means "terror"...how appropriate), and pulls this off by telling his crew that he is an excentric
and demanding actor who sumberges himself totally into character for his films. Things begin to fall apart as filming begins
and crew members start dropping like flies, Max being unable/willing to control himself. "How DARE you destroy my photographer!
Why not the SCRIPT GIRL?!" "No member of my crew is expendable!" "The writer...." ponders max..."You
don't REALLY need him....." clicking filthy long nails.....
This deal with the devil turns terribly awry....his
bargaining chip the beautiful leading lady. This movie delves into the obsessive nature of the director, his movie will be
made....at any cost. The "Death Scene" in Nosferatu is actually Max's final moment....finnished with filming, he
is finnished off by deadly sunlight in a rather moving moment of absolution. "I think we have it...." whispers
the director as max writhes in the radiation....
Max Schreck is played to such astonishing realism by William Dafoe you
almost believe in the actor playing the vampire playing the actor playing the vampire.
This movie is also, most importantly,
so true to the original. It's funny too, but not slapstick, it's more subtle humor, facial expressions, slight actions and
motions that you have to be paying attention to (but not too hard, mind you) to catch, the appreciable kind but well worth
it.
I give this movie an unpresedented FIVE FLAPPING BATS!
SEE IT SEE IT SEE IT!!!!!!
last updated: 1/10/01
Lost Souls:
I saw this movie a long time ago and never got around to making a review, so here it is.
Boooooooorrrinnnnnnggggggg.....
Not so terrible, this movie's only saving grace is Winnona Ryder, an ex-posessed church living excorcism and research
aid who, with the help of a few renegade preists are searching for, and believe to have found, the antichrist...but the catch
is this guy doesn't know he is the antichrist and will become so through possession on the exact moment of his birth on his
33 or something birthday.
This mad movie takes many twists and turns through the bizarre entities in this man's life,
his carefully constructed incestuous birth and murder of his mother and her husband, his screwed up family and so on and so
forth. The ending leaves a bad taste in my mouth, though, and if not for Ms. Ryder, it would have been a total loss.
I
give this movie two flapping bats for her and her alone.
Last updated:01/05/01
Dracula 2000:
Well if you couldn't tell from the title, this is a NEW remake of the good old story of the transylvanian
prince turned bloodsucker. I had high expectations going into this film, it's wes craven afterall, kids. I have to say I
was dissapointed. I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. After all, how many times can you remake a film
without it becoming..oh, predictable? Campy? Retarded? You get the picture. The premise of the film is a good sort of
twist on the original story, a continuation, of sorts. Dr. VanHelsing has captured Dracula and is keeping himself alive by
dracula's blood filtered through leeches, so he can live throughout time to guard the undead we have all grown to know and
love. He keeps him in a vault below his lucrative antiques dealership (how original...an imortal person in the antiques business...Yawn.)in
a vault filled will all sorts of different vampire species skulls (shhh...be vewwy vewwy qwite...we hunting VAMPIRES.) in
a section of the catacombs in a sterling silver coffin where the unconscious corpse is restrained with a silver cross adorned
hanibal lechter mask and the coffin is filled with LEECHES.. EW! This vault is raided by a group of high-tech matrix geek
theives thinking all the skulls and the coffin are a scare tactic to hide the ultimate treasure. They make off with it and
learn the hard way that you don't mess with the undead. Dracula makes it to the modern day world of New Orelans (originality
again...geeze, where did they come up with this!)where he focuses his attention on a funny looking Virgin records employee
that is *gasP* vanhelsing's DAUGHTER who's blood was tainted with drac's through her father's leech meddling. Thus the attraction...incest
is the best! I don't like her, she has a perfectly round mouth that looks like a deflated lifesaver. This film features
an eclectic cast, singer (if you would call her that) Vitamin C as slutty and equally funny looking roomate lucy, the chick
who plays 7 of 9 from voyager for tits and ass, and the guy from That 70's show. Lots of sight gags, catch phrases..."I
never drink...coffee..." ..sigh, GOD. Cut it OUT.
Also features lots of trenchcoats (god, you would have thought
that in 2000 years he would have at least picked up an issue of Vogue...), lots of well meaning and over rehearsed vampire
floating and action scenes. Good for the roleplayer community, and thank god there was nobody dressed up for the movie, I
don't think I would have been able to control my heckling. I felt like I was sitting in Mystery Science Theater and had to
stuff my face through the whole film to keep myself from blurting out comic relief. Not worth the 15 goddamned dollars for
me and my boyfriend spent to see it....worth the popcorn and watermelon flavor sour patch kids, but what movie isn't? I give
this a dismal one flapping bat...just to be kind to drac's memory.
last updated 12/06/00
Being John Malkovich:
This movie was bizarre and spectacular. A messed up brilliant puppeteer with a spacy pet obsessed
wife working on the 7 1/2 floor of an office building as a filer discovers a hidden portal that sucks you right into the mind
of no other than John Malkovich. He partners up with the woman he is obsessed with and they charge people $200 bucks a pop
to spend 15min in John Malkovich's head, which then spits them out into a ditch somewhere next to the new jersey turnpike.
John finds out and goes nuts and tries to stop them. Then he enters his OWN portal and lands into John Land where every
word is "malkovich" and everyone looks like him. The crazy puppetteer's wife enters J.M.'s head and falls in love
with being a man, and most importantly, Maxine (the woman he's obsessed with) who will only love her in John's body. He
becomes insanely obsessed and jealous and figures out how to stay in J.M.'s body, the ultimate puppet. But the John vessel
is being spoken for by a group of old body hopping people who have attained immortality by ....well, hopping bodies. It's
a crazy insane movie full of bizarre twist turns and wierd shit. It's highly recommended and a must see, especially if you
are a Malkovich fan.
I give this movie four flapping bats!
Frequency:
This was also a suprisingly good movie. I rented it out of curiosity, or more just to get rid of the pushy
rental guy who was a little too overexcited about finding my fiance and I a movie. In this film a young troubled man finds
his father's old ham radio and begins to talk on it. I guess it had something to do with unusual aurora borealis (damned
cooky atmospheric stuff always getting in the way) and tunes in to his own, DECEASED, father thirty years ago who had died
fighting a fire. He saves his dad's life by telling him how he dies and "go the other way". This changes history
and sets dangerous things abrewin'. The man is a cop working on an old serial killer case, the "nightengale" nurse
killer. Since his father and he changed the course of history, he learns that his mother was murdered as well as an extra
7 victims, so he and his father race against time and history to stop the murder and save his mother from the hands of the
"nightengale" killer.
This movie is full of twists and turns and suspense. It was well written and intriguing!
Not a must see, but well worth the three clams to watch it at home.
I give this movie three flapping bats!
Evil Dead:
The movie that started it all! Bruce Campbell plays Ashley, who, with five buddies go camping in this abandoned
and of course, haunted as hell, cabin in the middle of nowhere. Wierd stuff happens, and one of the girls is possessed.
For an old movie, it is suprisingly scary and well written. They find the tape recorder with the evil words from the book
of the dead that release the evil forces. The first girl possessed gets locked in the cellar after beating the hell out of
everybody and stabbing her friend in the ankle with a pencil (look out she's going to give you lead poisoning!) gross! One
by one his friends and girlfriend fall prey to the evil dead and the movie has a suprising ending that pisses me off. Nothing
like the evil dead II, the remake. This is a ligitimate horror flick, and is wonderful..Rent all three evil dead movies,
make some popcorn and check in for the night!
I give this movie four flapping bats!
Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn
This movie is dead hillarious. Not slapstick like army of darkness but developes alot
of the catch phrases that make Army of Darkness a hit. Ashley and his galpal Linda drive to a secluded spot in the middle
of the woods to make it in some abandoned archaeologist's cabin. After opening the gates of the damned by listening to a
tape of the dead guy's translations of the book of the dead, Linda is possessed by the evil force. She attacks him and he
is forced to kill her and decapitate her. Then enjoys her dancing headless and nude through a peephole in the door. A headless
naked Linda attacks again, and he dismembers her with a chainsaw and that about finnishes it. Until the evil force occupies
his hand, and you get to watch this evil little appendage torture him by grabbing him by the face and not letting go, smashing
dishes over his head, punching him, and driving him insane. He takes the chainsaw and cuts his own hand of, then spends a
good deal of time "hunting" the hand on the loose. Then dead guy's daughter and her boyfriend arrive with two hillbillies.....and
then the mayhem begins. More bodies to possess, chop up, and throw cheap slapstick humor and violence at. He then fits the
famous chainsaw to his handless arm and proceeds to kick some monster ass (starting the saw...dramatic wild eyed shot..."groovie").
This movie is wonderful...my favorite part is when the evil thing in the cellar (the dead guy's wifeie poo) gets out and
he chainsaws off her head, which rolls on the floor chanting "gonna swallow your soul! swallow your soul! swallow your
soul!" The dead guy's daughter finds that she has to open a portal to bring the evil to the flesh and then suck it into
a portal, but she dies before she can close it and he gets sucked into it...leading into army of darkness!
I give this
movie four flapping bats! Easily!
last updated: 11/21/00
Army of Darkness:
If you haven't seen or heard of this movie before, you must watch it with this in mind.
Not to be taken seriously.
The first two movies are ligit horror flicks (and the exact same move, part II is a remake
of Evil Dead), but this one is just not scary...it's hillarious. This movie is goddamned funny! An S*Mart employee (Bruce
Campbell....you know, "Brisco County Jr.")has an evil force take over his hand, so he chops it off with a chainsaw
and makes a fitting for the chainsaw to the stump....how perfect. He gets sucked into a portal and sent back into time to
battle the army of darkness with a bunch of medeval wacks. In one of the first scenes he is dropped into "the pit"
by some king where he battles this wicked ass bitch and some gruesome looking monsters. He gives her the royal treatment
with is chainsaw and makes a marvelous escape. the stunned spectators gape at him as he crawls out of the pit and holds up
his shotgun and starts yelling at the crowd "this is my boom stick!! it's a 45 caliber blah blah blah titanium barrel
with oak blah blah blah.....shop SMART! shop S*Mart....GOT IT?!" and fires over their heads. He gets in on their good
side and is sent to recover the necromicon from this cemetary to return him to his time. He accidently releases the leigons
of the dead with endless antics and slapstick fight scenes. The movie is jam packed with fabulous catch phrases....."yo,
shebitch...come get some." and "oh baby, that's just what we call pillow talk" (explaining to some medeval
chick why he said the 'things' he did the 'night before')
You really must watch this movie....nothing but good times
and side splitters. I give this movie four flapping bats.
last updated 11/17/00
The Grinch:
The classic Dr. Seuss story of the Grinch who stole christmas finally made it to the big screen. As
I am not much of a Jim Carrey fan, I can't imagine anybody playing the Grinch than him. This story is obviously added upon,
otherwise the movie would have been short. Way too short. In the big screen version, you get the tragic tortured childhood
of the misunderstood Mt. Crumpet resident. The movie was a little to kiddish for my tastes, but was full of some really great
scenes and some damned good laughs. I got to experience this movie in a theater full of kids....who would have thought that
everybody had the great idea of seeing a noon matinee. I'm a cheapskate.
It's a fun movie, full of rhymes and sight
gags. If you don't want to listen to kids trying to talk along with the parts they know from the book or have some little
squirmy brat almost spill pop on your arm, I recommend this on video. The merchandise for this movie is alot better than
the theater experience. Go get a big fuzzy Grinch and wait for this to go on video....
For now this movie gets two flapping
bats....the rating will probably go up when I can watch it in the privacy and safety of my own living room.
last updated: 11/10/00
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