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564,812 | 102,816 | 279,113 | 6 | It's not a comedy | Even though it stars Jennifer Aniston of the thankfully canceled , obnoxious , fake sitcom Friends and it's written by Mike White , who wrote Orange County this is not a comedy movie , a romantic movie or a chick flick . More of a bleak drama with the feel of an independent movie . In some dead-end Texas town a supermarket checkout girl longs for a more exciting life , stares off into space with a disconnected look and moans a lot . In one of her stares she connects with Holden ( Jake Gyllenhaal ) , a lonely , borderline insane young writer . A much needed affair breathes some life into her existence . I wasn't entirely satisfied with the film overall . There wasn't a good explanation for Justine actions and decisions in the film's climax . Who's baby is she carrying ? Why did she betray Holden ? She's not a good girl . Not by far . So I'm assuming the title is meant to be an ironic one . Anyone expecting Friends or Picture Perfect or Along Came Polly or Object of My Affection or any of the endless incarnations of Rachel Green be warned . . . it ain't that way . Probably the most mature work Jennifer Aniston has done . But there's still an incomplete feeling to it all . Worth watching with no pre-judgments . |
564,085 | 102,816 | 61,508 | 6 | And who , may I ask , is the father ? | Desperately hungry , the Pink Panther does a Yogi Bear-style theft of a picnic basket from a huge family of campers only to discover that he's actually stolen a baby instead of food when he finally settles down to eat it . He runs all the way back to return it but the family have already taken-off , apparently forgetting about their newborn . Pinky tries to leave the baby with other animals and with local Indian tribes but has no luck and the baby is promptly handed back each time . And that's about it really , he doesn't do much else . There's only a couple of laughs but they're good enough to warrant a . Otherwise , it's below average . |
563,831 | 102,816 | 59,898 | 6 | Still Looking | The last time we saw the Pink Panther was in Pink Pajamas , in which he was desperate for a safe , warm place to get his head down . Nothing has changed as in this cartoon he stows away in Gamble's department store for a cozy night . But the night janitor is suspicious of their uninvited guest and ends up being the butt of old Pinky's usual jokes and tricks . It's pretty funny stuff as both of them race from department to department trying out avoid and outwit each other . The Pink Panther is very cool and very cute and this is one funny cartoon . But can someone explain the title to me ? |
564,076 | 102,816 | 34,753 | 6 | A fairly average early Tom and Jerry short | Tom is listening to a spook story on the radio ( a form of entertainment I wish was still around ) and is so wound up by the possibility of ghosts , that he jumps in fright at every sound . Taking advantage of this for his own personal fun , Jerry tries to freak Tom out by playing pranks on him , the main one being sticking a white sheet on a vacuum cleaner and pretending it's a ghosts . Obviously Tom becomes aware of Jerry's cruel tricks in the end . It's very mildly funny though nothing really spectacular happens . I can really only recommend this to very young children as there is no real intelligence or wit to entertain an adult . Tom still looks a little rough , as he did in the early stages of his characters animation . Mammy-two-shoes shows up , but on the version I saw she was dubbed to make her sound more PC , as was common with Tom and Jerry cartoon manipulation in the early 90s . |
564,308 | 102,816 | 28,981 | 6 | Typical hijinks | While on vacation in Hawaii Mickey , Minnie , Donald , Goofy and Pluto get up to the usual mischief . This short mainly focuses on surfing Goofy ( in a ridiculous beach outfit ) and his many failed attempts to catch a decent wave break and Pluto who just runs about on the beach getting shells stuck on his head . Donald doesn't do much other than burn his tail feathers in the fire and Mickey just serenades Minnie with his ukulele . Not that funny ( actually a bit boring ) but vividly animated , as usual , which keeps your attention from drifting completely . Not the best Disney cartoon by far . |
564,432 | 102,816 | 472,043 | 6 | Mel Gibson and the Temple of Doom | Take Gibson's ego . Add an several tablespoons of Aztec . Mix with 2 parts Indiana Jones and 1 part Predator . Blend for 139 minutes and you get Apocalypto . Is that even a real word ? As hyped-up as it is , it's really nothing you ain't seen before . Jaguar-Paw and his tribe-folk live in a quaint corner of the Rainforest . One day some evil er . . . people turn up for some good old rape and pillage . Whoever is not slain is taken captive and led on a long journey to some Aztec city where they are either sold as slaves or sacrificed atop massive pyramids for the viewing pleasure of the friendly locals and the satisfaction of the Gods . Jaguar-Paw just happens to be part of a silly prophecy uttered by a dying girl and he will bring death , vengeance blah blah blah to the baddies . This scene really does belong in another movie altogether . But sure enough , just as Jaguar-Paw is about to have his heart ripped-out Mola Ram style there is an eclipse . The Aztecs believe that their God's blood-lust has been quenched so they let him go . Kinda . Jaguar Paw mutilates the Head Honcho Evil Dude's son as he begins his escape back to the destroyed village . His pregnant wife and kid are hiding at the bottom of a pit and he promised to get back to them . But Head Honcho and his bunch of psychos don't take too kindly to losing one of their own so the hunt begins . At this point the movie is basically , in many ways , the last act of Predator , only without a 7-foot tall Rastafarian or Arnie shouting ' GET TO DA CHOPPA ! ' Jaguar Paw sets several traps for the hunters and they all die one-by-one in various gory ways . You'll find something VERY familiar about all of this . It's an entertaining , if thoroughly pointless film that makes no particular statement whatsoever . Mel clearly exaggerates Aztec history to the point of the film becoming some kind of bizarre science-fiction fantasy . I really don't know where the inspiration for this film came from but if he wanted to make a timeless epic then shooting in 1 . 85 : 1 HD was a mistake . I doubt Laurence of Arabia or even his own Braveheart , as period pieces , would have been so fondly cherished if they have been shot this way . I don't see any Oscars in Apocalypto's future , but at least Mel has stayed away from offending any contemporary religions this time . |
564,136 | 102,816 | 36,656 | 6 | And I will always ha-ate yooooooo ! ! ! | Tom and Jerry are involved in a chase , as per damn usual . Jerry , when hiding , springs Spike loose from the Pound Van . As a reward , Spike says he will help-out Jerry whenever he is in trouble . All he has to do is whistle and Spike will be there to save him . So the chase continues and just when Tom has him in his clutches , Jerry whistles for Spike and Tom gets a clobbering . Not so imaginative and the chase is kinda generic . There are a couple of sneaky tricks when Tom tries to stop Jerry from whistling but it's nothing special at all and the final gag isn't that great . A thoroughly generic cartoon . |
564,409 | 102,816 | 59,800 | 6 | Not much going on here . | Thunderball may have nice locations and pretty seaside scenery but there's a shocking lack in set pieces or excitement . The evil SPECTRE organisation nicks a warplane and lands it in the ocean . Within minutes they've spirited away the nuclear warheads and are demanding a ransom or they'll blow up a major city . Sounds like Broken Arrow huh ? Well the British Government are none too happy about this so they send - 007 after them . Bond has been ' relaxing ' at some sort of health farm where the culprits just so happened to be doing evil deeds so he's already way ahead of the game . Off he goes to the Bahamas ( how come super-villains never have lairs in Liverpool or Coventry ? ) to track the missing plane down and , with any luck , get the warheads back . But not before he scuba dives about a zillion times , goes to the casino and shags loads of women . Isn't he on a time limit here ? His gadgets are not THAT fancy , the action not THAT impressive but maybe I'm guilty of double standards here . I've always thought that the latest Bond movies were guilty of being nothing but spectacle and loads of SFX . They don't feel real and are increasingly being pushed into sci-fi rather than super-spy . Sp if you've had enough of the xXx style Die Another Day , something Thunderball will balance it out . But there are better Bonds than this , though it does have some nice widescreen photography and the constant sunny seaside locations will make you want to go on holiday immediately . |
564,199 | 102,816 | 1,110,280 | 6 | Fun , but repetitive and lacking in thrills | As much as I enjoyed Super Paper Mario , I just wasn't impressed by any part of it . It's a cute Mario game ( as they all are ) but I never felt like I was really playing an RPG and the endless dialogue bubbles really slow the game down . The levels are colorful and bright and look absolutely gorgeous . The music is pleasant enough but the trademark Mario theme barely gets a mention . As for the gameplay , well . . . it's standard Mario platform stuff with the new addition of flipping to 3D and some unique abilities with the Wii controller . It's nothing to write home about . For 20 hours I stuck with this game and by the bitter end I felt like I could have used that time to do something better . Honestly nothing in this game impresses and if I didn't have a photographic memory I'd be completely forgetting about it in a week . If that makes any sense . So . . . very . . . very . . . slow . I don't like video games like this . If I wanted to read a book I'd read one . In the end , it's the endless dialogue that cripples SPM . Pros : Very nice graphics . Incredibly cute . Easy to control . Giant Mario from NSMB returns ( though it's equally as brief and pointless ) Cons : Cut-scenes take FOREVER ! Way , way , waaaaaaay too much dialogue . Flipside missions are very boring . Gets tedious and repetitive about halfway through . |
564,154 | 102,816 | 337,563 | 6 | Better than Big | For some reason people hold Tom Hanks ' BIG in high regard . I did not find it funny one little bit . And the supposed irony of him growing up to play with toys for a job annoyed me even when I was 8 years old . I knew adult life wasn't like that . For all of it's ridiculousness , 13 going on 30 is much better . Plus it's more of a time travel movie than body-morph . It examines who we are as kids and how we end up as adults . It deals with relationships and lost innocence . Something far more interesting and relevant than anything BIG ever did . Plus Jennifer Garner is more easy on the eye than Tom Hanks . I wasn't keen on Mark Ruffalo being in this ( I will NEVER forgive his moustache in IN THE CUT ) but his character was ( intentionaly ) blank and emotionless enough for his performance to be unintrusive and he did a good job with it . It's difficult to care for a statue . The Gollum guy playing Jennifer's boss was pretty much stereotyped and none of the other characters had much depth . There was no reason to get involved when you know their problems will become undone by the time-travel plot . A nice way to spend a rainy afternoon . Just don't expect to remember it five minutes after it's finished . The DVD is in 1 . 85 : 1 anamorphic widescreen with unengaging Dolby 5 . 1 sound and a bunch of extras I care not for . |
564,743 | 102,816 | 372,784 | 7 | The best Batman film by far | Tim Burton did a good job on the first 2 movies but Joel Schumacher turned the franchise into bold-faced gay fantasy that had pretty much nothing to do with Batman at all and more in common with the camp-as-hell 1960's TV series . I can see why 8 years and a restart of the franchise is necessary in order for Batman to be taken seriously again . Christopher Nolan brings a lot of integrity and realism to the world of Bruce Wayne and is not afraid to take the action out of Gotham for long stretches of the running time . The casting is perfect too . Christian Bale is an actor I really like but hasn't been in many good films ( Equilibrium and Reign of Fire are not good films ) so I was pleased to see that he finally got a lead role worthy of him . Michael Caine was brilliant as Alfred and Morgan Freeman , for such a small role , was not wasted and his talent still shone through . Zillions of other actors turn up in smaller roles such as Rutger Hauer , Gary Oldman , Mark Boone Junior and Cillian Murphy as the Scarecrow . I never figured how the Scarecrow villain would be realized on film but it comes through as believable and , believe it or not , scary . Liam Neeson also turned his character into one of those villains you kinda half hate and half root for . However , Katie Holmes just seemed flat and boring as Rachel . Hans Zimmer's score , while appropriately dark , just seemed like every other mass-produced score he's done in the past 5 years . And no matter how much gritty realism the plot became rather stupid towards the end and was a bit too much like the ending of the original Batman . The MacGuffin device that evaporates water was ridiculous and was like something out the Adam West Batman . And can someone explain how it didn't evaporate the water in the human body and just , conveniently , the water in the sewer ? Since there are already 2 sequels confirmed I can only hope and pray that they get better . The revamp of the franchise is already off to a great start but please Warner , NO MORE ROBIN ! EVER AGAIN ! ! ! |
564,631 | 102,816 | 120,524 | 7 | Should have been longer | I think the basic premise of this movie is quite entertaining and the movie as a whole is way better than most of the teen-based horror flicks of late . The effects may be a bit hokey and the direction lackluster but this is a way cool movie that received far less than it deserved . The plot focuses on the Djinn , that's Wishmaster to you , and his efforts to take over the world . As you can see . . . it's pure hokum but it's the gory bits in between and the Djinn's wisecracking that make this movie worth the money . The acting is bad all round , all except Andrew Divoff who ravages the role of The Djinn / Demerest with 200 % enthusiasm . I hope they release a second and more higher profile sequel soon as this is a franchise I wouldn't want to see be killed off before it's reached it's peek . I give this movie . |
564,058 | 102,816 | 384,537 | 7 | Pulls you head-first into unfathomable depths of mystery | I knew literally nothing of Silent Hill before I walked into the cinema , as I have never played the game or read anything of it . So I was almost free from bias or prejudice . However , video games have had a terrible history when made into movies ( Super Mario Brothers , Double Dragon , Tomb Raiders , Doom , Resident Evil ) , especially in recent years with hacks such Paul Anderson and Doctor Boll laying waste to the genre . So no matter how good I thought Silent Hill was , it still suffers with the stigma of being a video-game movie . I fear a lot of people might unfairly judge film in association with all these terrible movies even though it is millions of miles ahead of them . Since the plot of the film has been recited a zillion times before I will only give a brief outline . A narcoleptic girl has visions of a ghost town named Silent Hill . Her mother drives to this town to figure out the connection but the girl goes missing . Suddenly three separate timelines begin to exist at once and things become very confusing . But not to the point of incoherence . Christoph Gans takes the material very seriously and never once sells himself out or disrespects the story by making it simple . The amount of atmosphere he forges is incredible , but I only expected this from the director of Brotherhood of the Wolf . The cinematography is often perfect and world of Silent Hill is so vividly realised that you might get a shock when you walk back out into the sunny real world . It is , at once , both beautiful and horrifying . Gans ' original cut is rumored to have been over 200 minutes long . If so , that is one Director's Cut DVD I would love to own . Mystery and horror go hand-in-hand and in Silent Hill we get ample amounts of both . Most of it is kept in the dark and never fully explained to the audience , which keeps us on our toes and just as perplexed as the characters living in the movie . The complex storytelling is involving but never so sophisticated that it will alienate an unthinking audience . But I didn't like the ' big explanation ' at the end . While it certainly doesn't explain everything , I felt that the images used in this brilliantly conceived scene were enough without the narration . But like all good mystery movies , Silent Hill continues it's fantastical darkness after the credits role by ending on a very curious and intriguing note . Go see and judge for yourself . You'll be surprised at how much this movie is by far the best mystery AND horror film of 2006 so far . |
564,175 | 102,816 | 388,426 | 7 | Good to see Sonic back in his 2D form | While I liked Sonic Adventure I was not very keen on it's sequel or Sonic Heroes . The blue hedgehog and his pals simply do not belong in a 3D world and I was more than eager to get this game as it is a return to good old days of Sonic's previous incarnations on the Genesis . Everything you would have liked about the old Sonic is back . The level designs , the power-ups , the cool music and gameplay that next-gen consoles lacked . However fun the game is to play , it doesn't have much replay value . There are secret entrances in every level to the special stage and I only found one of them . Sorry , but I'm not going to replay every level looking for the special stages . The special stages themselves are kinda hard and there's no way I'd be able to get through all of them . Although turning into Super Sonic , as a result of winning them , would have been cool . Included on this cartridge is the Chao Garden . If you have a link cable to your Gamecube and you have Sonic Adventure 1 or 2 , you can transport your Chao onto your Gameboy and keep it as a sort of Tamagochi . When transporting them a pipe will appear on both screens and suck them up and plop them down . It's really quite cool and one of the few reasons to keep going back to the game . Still , I will without a doubt be getting Sonic Advance 2 and 3 , regardless . Graphics A Sound A Gameplay A Lasting Appeal |
564,430 | 102,816 | 39,045 | 7 | Not falling for it . | T & J are chasing right from the beginning in this one and Tom is having his usual no luck on catching him . This time he decides to call an exterminator company , hoping that they might have some more elaborate traps handy that Tom could never dream of . They send a cat to catch the mouse ( naturally ) but , like Tom before him , Jerry his just not falling for his game of death and turns the tables on them . It's absolutely nothing fancy but the visual humor and imagination make it funny . You can tell how it's going to end but you never really expect Jerry to end up dead do you ? There is also dialogue in this cartoon but no one is credited for it . |
564,610 | 102,816 | 95,647 | 7 | Interesting story of pointless bigotry and hatred | I remember seeing this movie back in high school in RE ( that's Religious Education for you folks who didn't have the ' privilage ' of going to a strict Catholic Fundamentalist school ) and thinking it was a pretty good movie . Despite the fact that we were 14 and the film is rated 18 over here in the UK , which was totally illegal and would never be allowed now . The other thing I remember was Trevor Jones ' really cool-sounding Ry Cooder inspired score . Since this film was loosely based on the 1964 killings of 3 Civil Rights activists , one of whom only got sentenced a few days ago , 40 years after the crime , I thought it would be appropriate to check the film out again . It's got a good story and is well acted , especially by Hackman , who is one of my fave actors ( Dafoe is too but he's not in much these days ) . They play two FBI Agents , who don't get on ( a popular cliché at the time ) , down in a backwoods southern town looking for three kids who have probably been killed by evil KKK members . The villains are despicable and Brad Dourif once again uses his wild eyes to great effect . But I was a little disappointed that none of them really got what they deserved ( even though in real life it took 40 years to get justice ) and got let-off with minor sentences , none of them over 10 years for the brutal killing of three people and all the mass-destruction and arson they did . I was let-down by the ending and really wanted more red-neck , dirt-faced , hicka-billies getting their heads kicked in . And , judging from the recent televised court-case , attitude towards African-American's hasn't changed much since then . Which is pathetic . |
564,410 | 102,816 | 99,180 | 7 | I like it better than the first . | Remember the end of the original ? Dr . Herbert West was being strangled by a rampaging intestine . But don't worry , he's not dead . The zombie responsible didn't have the guts for it . Now , five years after the massacre at Miskatonic University , he's in some South American hell-hole in the middle of a civil war using his re-animation serum on dead or wounded soldiers . As soon as the conflict boils over into revolution he legs it out of there with the naive / loyal Dr . Cain and heads back to Arkham Hospital . Acting as if none of the previous carnage ever happened , they return to their normal jobs . Dr . Cain grows attached to a young girl dying of cancer and West is secretly stealing all the best body parts to make his own complete woman using the heart of Cains dead girlfriend . A nosy Detective interferes and starts poking around as well as delivering the head of long dead Dr . Hill to Dr . Graves , the new Chief Pathologist at Arkham ( there sure are loads of Doctors in this film huh ? ) . Graves reanimates the head of Hill but refuses to do his bidding and chucks it in the bucket . A move he will come to regret . The hokum goes into overdrive for this sequel . There's more atmosphere and more potential to be really scary . It's never fully realized as the film is too blackly funny to be frightening . But there's more going on in the climax as all the factions and body parts come together . The allusion to Frankenstein is much more apparent and the Freudian subtext of 2 men creating life without the use of a woman adds a curious depth to the mayhem . You could call Bride of Re-Animator lots of negative words like corny , cheesy , dumb etc . But you'd be missing the point . Yes , it's a bit too pulpy to truly echo H . P . Lovecraft's original work . But the numerous zombies , monsters and demons are something I reckon Howard Phillips would love . Gore fans will really dig the blood and make-up effects . There's loads of gruesomeness and severed limbs and guts spilled all over the place . It's the kind of thing Fangoria magazine would have an 8-page feature of . Plentiful amounts of puss and nastiness from the KNB Effects Group and Screaming Mad George respectively . If you like the first you will surely want this movie in your collection . There is yet to be a decent DVD of it but hunt it down and prove me right . I can only hope that Beyond Re-Animator will be just as good , if not better . |
564,238 | 102,816 | 95,737 | 7 | A rather mild cartoon | This late-80's cartoon is quite easy-going but not that funny . Still , it's Daffy Duck and he's very cute . It begins with Daffy reading a horror comic book ( having already read his Mad Magazine ) and going crazy when he can't find the second issue of a two-part cliffhanger . In his desperate search a heavy clock falls off his bookcase and whacks him on the head . Now begins a dream sequence in which Daffy is a lounge singer for all the classic movie monsters including Dracula , Frankenstein's monster and his bride , the wolfman , creature from the black lagoon , Leatherface and er . . . Alfred E . Neuman . Daffy gets over his nerves by swallowing a few cloudbursts of voice tonic , which does wonders for his lisp , thus turning him ( almost ) into Frank Sinatra . He then sings an easy-going song called ' Monsters Lead Such Interesting Lives ' which seems to make everyone happy . As his dream ends he finds his missing comic and all is well . A strange , offbeat Looney Tunes short indeed and a rather somber note for Mel Blanc to go out on . This cartoon was part of Daffy's feature-length Quackbusters cartoon . |
563,795 | 102,816 | 41,757 | 7 | No winners here | This short begins with Tom using Jerry as a yo-yo for his own pleasure before Mammy-Two-Shoes ( dubbed to appease the PC Brigade in the version I saw ) orders him out of the house for the night , despite the fact that it's pouring with rain . Why does she insist on torturing him like this again ? Anyway , Tom pretends to be ill so he can stay indoors , by the fire . But Jerry is having none of it . He convinces Tom that he has measles by paining dots on his face and proceeds to ' cure ' him using a wide range of gruesome anecdotes , which make up the visual humor of the cartoon . In the end , they both pay for their untruths . An amusing cartoon . |
564,256 | 102,816 | 36,932 | 7 | Seaman Goofy | This is actually a rather funny cartoon that details the history of man on the oceans . From the first log and paddle to the battleships of today . All demonstrated by Goofy and for once he's entertaining . The narration is quite sarcastic and makes fun of Goofy at every turn . He's just an ordinary sailor up to endless hijinks on the seas . But , being a war propaganda cartoon it does turn to Xenophobia at a certain point . In once scene Goofy is fired out as a torpedo and blows up several ' Jap ' submarines . The manner in which this is delivered to us would NEVER be allowed today . Even in the current political climate , Disney wouldn't produce a cartoon like this . Still , it's funny and full of silly humor . |
564,689 | 102,816 | 72,687 | 7 | Many Broken Hearts | No one seems to have a good time or find love in this Peanuts TV special . Charlie gets no Valentine cards , Linus misses out on his opportunity to give chocolates to his favorite teacher and Shroeder vows to never marry Lucy , much to her anger . It's kinda downbeat for a Valentine's TV special . So much so that kids from all over America sent Charlie Brown a Valentine's card out of sympathy . Which is quite sweet when you think about it . As long as they were all girls . Still , it's another funny and timeless TV special that you should definitely make the effort of watching if it comes on this Feb 14th . Though it might depress you if you yourself do not receive any Valentine's card . |
563,802 | 102,816 | 103,060 | 7 | Pretty good sequel | This film opens with tremendous confidence and energy . The humor of the Turtles may be so 1990 but I still dig it . The opening scene in the shopping mall is way funny and a great way to introduce is to the sequel . At the time the style of the Turtles wasn't so stale , so the plot may seem a bit childish or dumb now . I have no doubts that if this movie were made today it would not be subtitled ' The Secret of the Ooze ' . One can hardly expect high art from a movie called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II but they could have subtitled it something a little less crass . Apparently taking place right after the first movie ( where's Casey ) it wastes no time bringing back the Shredder and the rest of the Foot Clan . This time Shredder aims to steal the cannister of ooze that mutated our heroes so he can make his own monsters to avenge his defeat . The result is Tokka and Rahzar and it seems like a half-attempt at a live-action version of Rocksteady and Bebop . As you can imagine , this plot isn't very clever . But the movie never really lulls so long as our heroes are on screen . Look out for a cameo by Vanilla Ice ( looking alarmingly like Dolph Lundgren ) at the end . It's so dated it may be difficult to watch but as long as your alone you won't have to cringe . The DVD has wonderful motion menus as well as a great 1 . 85 : 1 anamorphic picture with Dolby 5 . 1 sound . Extras are thin but still it's a great buy . |
564,497 | 102,816 | 99,253 | 7 | Sorry Jack , Chucky's back ! | Universal must have realized the potential this franchise had and quickly snapped up the rights from MGM after the first movie came out . Writer Don Mancini also must have figured out that his creation of a foul-mouthed killer doll was too good for just one film . The Chucky series would seriously evolve and change over the years but even in this first sequel things are already looking quite different . Now that the cat is out of the bag and we know that Chucky really is alive and it isn't just Andy's imagination , our killer doll gets much more screen time and his wicked personality has more time to develop . The animatronics have improved and a lot of Chucky's character comes through in his wild facial expressions . Director John Lafia shoots the film with a bright , playroom color pallet with a higher quality film stock , giving it a more sophisticated sparkle . He's also fully aware of how silly the killer doll concept is and seizes the opportunity for a little bit of that self-aware , sometimes sarcastic humor seen in the later films . Graeme Revell usually does the most generic horror scores , especially in recent years , but surprisingly he gives Child's Play 2 the best score of the series . With a full orchestra at his disposal , he doesn't hold back on the action cues and even delivers a couple of pretty good themes . So much better than the rotten score to the first film and probably one of the best horror scores of the early 90s . There isn't much of a story to Child's Play 2 however . It's just the same as the first , with Chucky going after Andy , who is now staying with a foster family , once more . The body count is higher and there are some good kills . I've heard people complain about the ' silly ' spanking death of the schoolteacher . Well , this ain't true . Chucky is actually hacking at her . If you look closely you'll see the blood all over the yardstick . The slick quality and silly nature of CH2 is probably what prompted Universal to stick with the franchise for good and 15 years later the Chucky films are still coming out . To think that if MGM held on to the rights , we may never have had them . |
564,045 | 102,816 | 120,390 | 7 | Completely mad | Turbulence is just plain stupidity from beginning to end . But there is so much fun to be had in the madness that it's always worth a mindless watch . Our silly plot has Ray Liotta and Brendan Gleeson as serial killer and bank robber breaking loose from their captors aboard a virtually empty cross-country flight , killing the pilots and FBI before the runaway plane flies into a hurricane . Liotta promptly eliminates Gleeson and chases after stewardess Lauren Holly . All on Xmas Eve . Yes it's highly ridiculous . But director Robert Butler brings strong , vigorous direction piles on loads of wild atmosphere and lets cinematographer Lloyd Ahern get carried away with his consistently stunning , crisp photography . Action movies today nearly always have some ironic or political edge . Turbulence is just violence and action just for the sake of it . And why not . This is not a film made to change your life . It's just renegade entertainment . Ray Liotta isn't quite scary as the serial killer as he goes way over the top . But , thankfully , is never campy ( always a mistake when playing serial killers , coughhannibalcough ) . If your into movies about nasty Xmas ' then this , Gremlins and Silent Night , Deadly Night are the movies you ought to watch . The R1 DVD is in very cool Dolby 5 . 1 and is shown in the incorrect aspect ratio of 1 . 78 : 1 ( 16x9 enhanced ) instead of the theatrical 2 . 35 : 1 . The R2 DVD however is in Dolby 2 . 0 Surround but shows the film in the proper ratio of 2 . 35 : 1 . |
564,209 | 102,816 | 110,823 | 7 | A mixed bag , but still a lot of fun ( or should that be phun ) | When we last saw Mike and Reggie the Tall Man had cornered them on a lonely highway and seemed to have gained the upper hand . For some reason , he's interested in kidnapping Mike for his own evil purposes . Reg threatens to blow them all up unless the Tall Man backs offs . He agrees , but threatens to strike again in the near future . Badly concussed , Mike falls into a coma where he has a vision of his dead brother Jody telling him that he must choose to live in order for the cryptic game plan of the Tall Man's to work out . At that moment Mike wakes to find a demonic nurse about to drill a hole in his head and sentinel sphere buzzing around in the hospital . Reg intrudes on the scene saves him , but not without getting a mouthful of puss , and they hide out in his desert base where they can come up with a plan before the Tall Man's next strike . But before you can say ' boooooooooooy ! ! ! ' he's back and spirits Mike away to another dimension , leaving Reg knocked out on the floor . Not knowing where he is or what happened Reg takes off across country with the burned-out sphere from the hospital as his only clue . It appears that the Tall Man has harvested the dead from dozens of towns across the Pacific Northwest , leaving entire counties to crumble . He teams up with a resourceful kid and an ex-army chick to find Mike and continue his hunt for the Tall Man while dwarfs , sentinel spheres , gravediggers and zombies are all on their trail . The following hokum will seem very familiar as it's almost exactly what happened in Phantasm II , so while it's certainly not original in this respect I still found it to be loads of fun as the pace just doesn't let up and new characters and locations keep popping up to keep things interesting . Don Coscarelli answers some questions we've been literally dying to ask but there seems to be a conspiracy going on and the Tall Man is keeping his mouth shut . We know there's more story developing that what is obvious but good luck trying to figure it out . The mystical , foreboding nature of Phantasm is a bit stronger here than it was in the first sequel . Unfortunately , so is the humor . The distinct lack of anything funny is what gave the original film such a weird edge and the series ' increasing tendency to be an Evil Dead gorefest isn't entirely appropriate . The gore is gruesome and plentiful but not exactly chilling . I don't feel that Don Coscarelli has found the perfect mix of action , sci-fi and horror with this film to best suit the series , but it is entertaining . It seems like he's pushing his luck just a little bit in trying to cram out another film without developing too many ideas . Unimaginative is certainly not a word you could use to describe the Phantasm franchise , but this film does seem like a lot of recycled scenarios from Phantasm II . On the plus side , A . Michael Baldwin ( the original actor ) returns as Mike as well as Jodie so we now have the entire original cast back . Reg is just plain brilliant and while he may not be up to the wacky standards of Ash he's still a hoot to watch and seems to balance the serious and the jokey very well . But , as always , Angus Scrimm scores the most points as the Tall Man . He's cool , he's evil and his mysterious nature makes him all the more scarier . Unforgiving horror fans may not like it very much as it does kind of follow the typical path of other horror franchises but there's still enough energy and weirdness to keep Phantasm fans happy and it does move very fast . All I'm going to say is that Don Coscarelli better come up with some new and shocking ideas to keep Phantasm IV fresh . |
564,761 | 102,816 | 154,003 | 7 | Pleasant journey | After the extremely dull Perils of Cupid this next adventure of Young Indiana Jones is a helluva lot more interesting . His first adventure takes place in Russia , where his parents are staying in a castle with a bunch of important people . Indy gets into trouble and his dad gets furious . Tired of his parents ' rules he runs away and meets an old man who just so happens to be Leo Tolstoy , the famous author of War and Peace . As they both try to flee from their families across the Russian countryside both Indy and Tolstoy learn from each other and develop quite a touching relationship . In the end they realize that going home is the best thing to do , but not before an interesting trade . In the second half Indy travels to Athens where his tutor takes ill . His mother whisks her away to a spa leaving Indy all alone with his dad . Not knowing how to deal with the boy on his own , Henry Jones Snr . takes Indy to all the important historical sites Athens has to offer . At first he's strict and hard , as per usual , but as soon as Indy starts to take in all of the lectures he lightens up and they have their own crazy adventure after a flock of sheep eat their clothes while skinny dipping . I've said it before but Lloyd Owen really does do a good impersonation of Sean Connery and , eye color aside , he convinces as a younger version of the Henry Jones Snr . we saw in The Last Crusade . It still doesn't have any definitive imagery , unlike the movies , but makes for entertaining viewing on a wet afternoon nonetheless . |
563,882 | 102,816 | 277,296 | 7 | So he's . . . the bad guy ? | Okay , I'm confused . The Mummy Returns portrays the Scorpion King as some evil tyrant who wants to take over the world by smiting any and all civilizations in his way . But that's exactly the opposite of the same character in his very own movie . In fact he struggles to overthrow an evil ruler for those very reasons . So when , and why , did he become bad ? I'm afraid I'm not following this . The movie , however , is entertaining , if rather short and silly . Chuck Russell tries to cram in loads of fighting and hokum as he can . It works and The Rock is very cool as said King ( or Mathayus ) and former Jason victim Kelly Hu is gorgeous as the scantily-clad Cassandra . Grant Heslov and Michael Clarke Duncan fill out their usual roles as ethnic comic-relief and big , muscley guy . The film has slightly less integrity to it than the Mummy movies . This is evident with the fun and lively , but completely inappropriate , score by John Debney . I'm not expecting anything like his Passion of the Christ score but blaring death metal guitars seem kinda out of place in a movie set 3000 years BC . But this movie is a cheeseburger , not a 17-course dinner . So why bother complaining . After all it's a prequel of a sequel of a movie that was a re-make of a movie that was made in the 30's . But it's well made and loads of fun so just go along with it and you'll enjoy . Filmed in Panavision the DVD is in perfect 2 . 35 : 1 anamorphic widescreen with very loud and thrilling Dolby / DTS 5 . 1 sound . The extras are fluff , but that's to be expected . |
564,768 | 102,816 | 91,225 | 7 | Howard , forever the Underduck | Let me tell you something about film critics . It's easy to pick faults in someone else's work , even if you do not have it in your power to create an equal work of art . The average film critic , by his very nature , is just a pretentious know-it-all who is quite frequently talking from the wrong end of his alimentary canal . When HTD came along in 1986 it was the first true victim to the pop culture critic . For 22 years it has been called ' the biggest flop of all time ' and other such terrible labels . Well , it cost $30 million dollars ( nothing compared to today's budgets ) and took $37 million worldwide and that's not even counting the higher-than-you-think rental revenue . Add it altogether and HTD is most definitely NOT the flop it is accused of being . But since it was a rather eccentric family comedy ( an easy target ) and one of the first films to significantly under-perform at the domestic box office ( George Lucas expected the returns to be astronomical ) it became a scapegoat for bad studio spending and taste . I guess that the world needs something or someone to blame when pop culture goes wrong and the jackass critics I mentioned already seized upon Howard's failings to make a name for themselves . Derogatory soundbites are easy to come up with and everyone who hated the film used some kind of duck-themed insult to put it down and make themselves feel clever . But , when you think about it , these are basically the same people who will deliberately give a bad film a great review just to see their own name on the poster ( yes , I am talking to you Paul Ross ) . The film also suffered a further bad rep when George Lucas publicly disowned the film . It's under-performance forced him to sell off a part of his company which went on to become Pixar ( think of how much he could have earned if he didn't ) and it really made him quite angry . Wouldn't you be ? Me ? I am a huge fan of the late Steve Gerber's comic-books . HTD was basically the first BIG comic-book movie and came surprisingly soon after he found success in his own series . Howard first appeared in an issue of Man-Thing and starred in a few other issues of Conan and even Spider-Man before getting his own wings in the late 70s . The comic-book stories are the most surreal , archaic and satirical I have ever read and it's a shame that they had to tone it down for the movie , but that's to be expected . As an ordinary duck working for an advertising company on his home planet of Duckworld , Howard is blasted across the universe right out of his living room by an experimental laser developed by Dr . Jenning ( Jeffrey Jones ) . He lands in Cleveland , where he meets Beverly Switzler ( Lea Thompson ) a singer who takes him under her wing . . . I mean arm . Now trapped in a world he never made the one attempt at sending him back home unleashes the forces of the Dark Overlord of the Universe on earth through the possession of Dr . Jenning and he intends to bring more of his demons through the portal . Yeah , that sounds pretty heavy . I'm actually a sucker for duck-related stuff . I don't know why . Donald Duck , Daffy Duck , Duck Tales , Darkwing Duck , Duckman etc . The list goes on and on . What I particularly like about the HTD movie is how most people seem to be completely at ease at talking to a humanoid bird . Some of the fairer critics claimed that the film might have been a bigger hit if they had used CGI or traditional animation to bring Howard to life , but I must disagree . Part of the appeal of Howard is the fact that he is actually physically there and not some ghost who has been photo-shopped in afterwards . I love the duck suit , to me it is completely convincing and Chip Zien's voice work is perfect . I'd totally love to have Howard as a pal . No joke , this film has a unfairly notorious history and a totally wrong perception by the general public or those who turned their noses and beaks up when it came out in 1986 . Clear your head of any preconceptions that you might have and enjoy it on its own level . Though we really could have done without that silly narration over the opening title . |
564,476 | 102,816 | 120,347 | 7 | Brosnan's best Bond adventure | I was never very keen on Brosnan as James Bond . He always seemed like he was trying to be a smart-ass instead of a hard-ass . I remember when Goldeneye came out back in November 1995 the media were raving about it being a new Bond for a new era but to me it actually felt quite regressive . After the angry , extremely tough Dalton Bond we went back to big , dumb set-pieces , maniacal villains bent on world domination and crude sex jokes . Thankfully Tomorrow Never Dies was significantly better , though it's far from being brilliant . The main problem with TND is that it's clearly just a bunch of action scenes with a thin plot concocted to string them together . I guess this is acceptable since not every Bond movie has to be a 2-hour + affair and it does feel very fast-paced in contrast to the slow , lumbering dinosaur that was The World Is Not Enough which followed two years later . Teri Hatcher gets to look pretty as Bond's former squeeze now married to Elliot Carver , a man who is very much insane and plans to take over the world with his tabloid newspaper that is so sleazy it would make the Daily Sport look like Dickens . Unfortunately , she's not got much to do after her husband finds out and has her killed . Then we're left with Wai Lin , a clumsy Chinese agent who isn't the kind of woman who instantly throws her helpless self into Bond's arms . I like tough women and there's a lot of fun to be had in watching her beat up random bad guys . It's a shame that Brosnan's scripts got even worse after TWINE . Die Another Day is affront to the franchise and among the rubble of three dull movies ol ' Pierce only got to shine in this one . Dante's Peak was good though . |
564,111 | 102,816 | 457,444 | 7 | More of the same | Yes , the original R-Type was brilliant . And of course a sequel was more than welcome . But the sequel we got was just far too similar to the first . It feels more like an expansion pack than anything else . The first level of R-Type II is virtually the exact same as before . Even the music hasn't changed . Level 2 did feature a cool , and very hard , underwater stage and there were a couple of new power ups for that crazy force orb . But it was all just too samey . IREM didn't put much imagination into this game at all . On its own , when not standing next to the first , R-Type II is still a great game but is no-doubt a rip-off when regarded as a sequel . With all of the pale imitations of R-Type that followed the original's release then they should have tried harder to make this something special . |
564,632 | 102,816 | 156,182 | 7 | Cool sequel . . . | . . . that improves on the original in almost all areas . The franchise is still low profile but worth attention . Wishmaster 2 chucks in some new ideas and mythology but only retains one cast member . And that is Andrew Divoff in the role of The Djinn / Demerest . Once again he is simultaneously witty , evil , cunning and wisecracking . There are a few more recognisable faces in this one . Like Tiny Lister and that guy from Devils Advocate . I'm sorry I can't remember his name . Wishmaster 2 has more humor than the first and it's a welcome relief among the demonic goings on to have some jokes . Especially when they come from the timing-perfect Wishmaster himself . I give this movie |
564,017 | 102,816 | 33,268 | 7 | Deja vu | This cartoon reminded me a lot of a previous Donald short called Clock Cleaners . The same high rise / vertigo gags are used but that doesn't stop it from being funny . Donald is washing windows while Pluto down on the ground sends up fresh buckets of water . But he's to busy napping and ignores Donald when prompted with a hook to the head . Instead Donald snares a bucket of bolts ( why would a window washer have a bucket of bolts ? ) and smashes a huge pane of glass with it . But his troubles aren't over as a bee makes it his mission to sting Donald for soaking him . Despite some erection / impotence imagery at the end with the bee struggling to make a decent sting , it's amusing . |
564,514 | 102,816 | 28,378 | 7 | Very Imaginative | After falling asleep reading Alice Through the Looking Glass , Mickey dreams about walking through the mirror and entering and opposite world where almost everything is alive and has a personality . Sort of in the same way as all those annoying , singing teacups in the awful Beauty and the Beast movie . There are many references to Alice in Wonderland of course , some subtle , some obvious and some intelligent . Though it's all great fun and wildly imaginative . It's these sort of cartoons that made Disney Studios and Mickey Mouse legendary . In a way , it's the success of cartoon like this that are to blame for the existence of stuff like The Haunted Mansion . But that's just the pessimist in me . |
564,338 | 102,816 | 416,165 | 7 | You don't like pussy on the hair ? | Pierre Woodman's laughable attempts at English don't seem to curb his cool when he is seducing women and ' auditioning ' them for porn . The first has a girl called Baby Lou do a scene with Pierre , which includes anal . But it's boring and not worth watching . The second scene stars Sunny Blue , who is absolutely gorgeous . She takes on 3 guys but there is no anal or DP . What a rip-off ! The third has Gaby Black and Monica take on 3 guys . They include boring vibrator action ( so not interesting in the slightest ) and eventually , after what seems like hours , get round to DP . It's good but Monica moans too much . Fourth has Pierre and James Brossman ' bump into ' and ' pick-up ' a random chick in the mall . They take her to a hotel room where , upon revealing her heavily tattooed and hairless body Pierre utters the line of my review title . The sex involves condoms ( boo ! ) and includes okay anal . Next , up is Dita . She's not much to look at but has a great body and gets a vigorous DP from James Brossman and another guy . Last is Anne Kiray , she's nice looking and looks rather seductive swimming around in a Turkish spa naked but the sex and DP that follows is a bit boring . Every scene is introduced by the beautiful Vivienn , who wears loads of different clothes but never actually gets naked ! ! ! A bit above average as a whole . |
563,912 | 102,816 | 97,733 | 7 | They're back , they're bad . He's black , he's mad . | The topical plot of Lethal Weapon 2 may seem a little dated now , but Soud Av-ree-gan villains are always despicable and who doesn't love to them get blown away . In this second installment in the LW series , Riggs and Murtaugh babysit FBI witness Leo Getz ( a wimpy , eager to be friends Joe Pesci ) , much to their displeasure . Stuck with nothing much to do , they decide to investigate the criminals Leo is testifying against-a rude lot of Soud Av-ree-gan diplomats with immunity to commit as many crimes as they want . Riggs also takes a fancy to their secretary Rika ( Patsy Kensit ) , but obviously their romance isn't going to last . She might as well have a death-clock counting down on her forehead . Richard Donner seems more involved in making LW2 a better film than the original . This time he shoots in Panavision ( why he didn't do this first time around I don't know ) , allows more time for character development and tries hard to make a political message out of the South African Apartheid situation . Even in his previous film Scrooged , which came out a year earlier , he had anti-apartheid messages . And , if you're really sad like me , you'll notice that Riggs and Rika bang their heads together when they first meet in the exact same way that Frank Cross and Claire Phillips do in Scrooged . And his then pro-NRA posters are still hanging around in the background . Donner later reversed his opinion on this organisation . I always felt that the original Lethal Weapon was far too plain and straight-forward . It lacked spark in every way , but LW2 introduces more characters , has more sophisticated action and a better plot . Michael Kamen however pretty much cuts and pastes his score from the first and even rips-off his own Die Hard score in a couple of cues . This got worse in LW3 . The ending could have killed the series off had Riggs died , which is what Shane Black originally intended . We would have been spared the awful LW3 had this been so . But instead Riggs manages to fight off death and stay alive in Murtaughs arms despite being shot about 86 times . A nice touch having Bob Dylan's " Knockin ' On Heaven's Door " playing over his potential last moments alive though . After this the series became too comical and diluted . They SHOULD have killed him . |
564,427 | 102,816 | 167,190 | 7 | Stops short of being a great comic-book movie . | As far as most comic-book movies go , they usually follow the same-old path of showing us the origins of whatever hero for about 45 minutes before getting into a real ( but usually superficial ) plot . This can lead to a never-ending list of deadbeats such Hulk , Spider-Man and Catwoman and rarely ends up with a good movie ( Batman Begins is one rare example ) . Guillermo Del Toro seems to make a compromise of introducing Baby Hellboy during the end of WWII and then flashing forward 60 years to adult HB ( though genetically he's barely out of his 20s ) working for the Government . The Beurau of Paranormal Research uses Hellboy as a weapon against the forces of evil . Being a demon from Hell himself , but preferring to fight for the good side , HB works with Abe Sabien ( a very likable sort of fish-man ) and his pyro-kinetic would-be girlfriend Liz . Raised by Professor Broom ( John Hurt ) he regularly has fallings out with his human father and even hides his cigarette smoking from him . I find the stroppy teenager attitude a unique character quirk that works well . What's even cooler is HB fondness for cats . Which not a typical characteristic of a demon born in Hell . The world's last living super-evil Nazis resurrect the mad-monk Grigori Rasputin and aim to bring about Armageddon by awakening sleeping Lovecraftian Gods , frozen in time at the edge of the universe . A tough job , even for HB , but it's all in a days work for the Beurau of Paranormal Research . Del Toro works wonders in bringing to life atmospheric sets ( check out the flooded subway station ) and horrific creatures but stops short of making Hellboy a dark epic . The CGI is impressive and the visions of Hell are interesting but there's just some intangible element that seems to be missing and the film feels incomplete . Even the Director's Cut still feels a bit alienating . However the action and humor is quite entertaining and the villains ( especially 107-year-old , crazed assassin Kroenen ) are definitely the kind you want to see die horribly . Enjoy it for what it is , even if you feel it's not entirely wholesome by the end . |
564,483 | 102,816 | 1,213,568 | 7 | Just go to bed with them already ! | What is it with Indy and only kissing the girls he likes ? Bond would have them naked in a heartbeat . After escaping Mexico with Remy in tow Indy travels to Ireland and ends up in the middle of a catholic / protestant stand-off . It interesting to get an early 19th century perspective on this conflict but most of it takes a backseat to Indy's pointless romance with a boring girl who mistakes him for a millionaire and wants to go shopping all the time . I would demand sex in return for this but Indy just lets them use him . If there were nothing in it for me I'd show her the door . Luckily she's gone by the second half . After that Indy and Remy go to London to sign up for the Belgian Army and he meets the feisty Victoria Prentiss ( Elizabeth Hurley , when she was an actress and not a . . . whatever she is now ) , a suffragette bus conductor who clashes with his old tutor Miss Seymour . The romance doesn't last ( or get as far as the bedroom ) however as Indy is soon whisked off to the front lines when he is called for duty . Not exactly packed with adventure but still worth a watch . |
564,115 | 102,816 | 407,142 | 7 | What is the aim of the game ? | Okay , this was one of those really , really dated adventure games on the C64 . The kind that was made entirely of text written on a screen and you typed in what you wanted the character to do . How on earth people managed to play these ( me included ) is beyond belief . Especially as this game was nigh-impossible . The game began with Bruce Banner tied hand and foot to a chair , for some reason . How do you get out ? Type in ' bite lip ' . This makes Bruce get mad and turn into the Hulk . Obviously breaking free from the chair . But gas floods the room you are in , for some reason , and you turn back into Bruce . There is a ring on the floor but it's too heavy to lift . There is a button on the wall . I can't remember what it's for . If you walk out of the room ( actually a big glass dome , for some reason ) you will suffer the mercy of high gravity , for some reason , and be crushed and die and go into a state of limbo . For some reason . It was infuriating . My best pal and I puzzled over this game for far longer than it was worth . I remember once actually being able to get outside of the dome but ants came along and ate the Hulk , for some reason . Since no one ever remembers or has heard of this game I guess no one will ever , ever read my review . |
563,794 | 102,816 | 41,592 | 7 | Good Mousekeeping | Despite winning an Oscar the PC Brigade still managed to have this short censored to keep us sheltered people in the 21st century safe from whatever material was appropriate in 1948 . Jerry babysits little Nibbles for Thanksgiving , trouble is the baby mouse likes to eat a bit too much , and after they help themselves to Tom's milk a small war begins with Nibbles and Jerry dressed as settlers and Tom dressed as an Native American . The dinner table ( set for guests unknown ) is their battleground and the cutlery are their weapons . The cuts made to this cartoon are very noticeable , but it doesn't distract too much from the overall enjoyment . |
564,319 | 102,816 | 120,784 | 7 | Enjoyable pulp nonsense . | Mad Mel is Porter , a crafty crook out for revenge on his wife and cohorts after they betray him for a meagre amount of stolen money and leave him for dead . Five months later , a not-dead Porter returns , recuperated and motivated by pure rage . He wants his end of the stolen money ( $70 , 000 ) , nothing more . And he's prepared to start killing off Syndicate Thugs one by one , working his way up the food chain until he gets to boss Kris Krisopherson . If only they would part with their petty $70 , 000 ! Shot and narrated in a very pulpy style , Payback almost seems like a gritty 1970s revenge thriller . But it doesn't seem to go all the way and injects humor into the proceedings , which contrasts with the genre . The humor is entertaining and works as a breather between the action scenes , but it would have been a better and more original film if it was tough all the way through . I guess that the producers wanted Payback to be more of a Lethal Weapon movie rather than an homage to Point Blank or Death Wish . It can't be written-off though . For what it is , it's very entertaining , fast-moving and witty . Just not the kind of film it was aiming to be . |
564,667 | 102,816 | 457,486 | 7 | Play it in the arcade | Remember the movie Re-Animator , based on the short stories by HP Lovecraft ? Remember the crazy Doctor Herbert West , played so wildly by Jeffrey Combs ? Well it seems that Doctor West has been dabbling some more into bad science and has created an army of freaks and monsters . He's long since vanished but the monsters still live in his mansion . You play a college nerd called Rick Taylor who has to rescue his girl ( a popular feature in beat-em-up games at the time ) from this house of madness . Rick is aided in his mission by a special Aztec sacrificial mask which gives him superhuman strength and powers to go zombie-bashing . Splatterhouse is a very hard game to across . Either you play the arcade machine ( now very , very hard to find ) or you buy a Turbo-Grafx PC Engine and get the home-console version , which is so horribly censored that it even deletes the cut-scenes . Thus making the game completely storyless . Still , it's a cool-looking game and one can really tell where a lot of Resident Evil's influences came from . At one point in the game , the character of Rick walks through a giant vagina and battles evil foetuses . As a side-scrolling beat-em-up it's pretty weak . There's no real impact to the fighting and the controls feel somewhat sluggish . Seriously , the Arcade is the only place to go if you want to have a go at Splatterhouse . The Turbo-Grafx version neuters the game to the point of no-fun-ism . |
564,387 | 102,816 | 384,819 | 7 | Bloodier than a butcher's bathroom . | I pretty much enjoyed everything there was to Azumi . For a 2-hour plus film , I never once really felt the running time . It just seemed to pass in a breeze . The only films that feel this way for me are films that have one great scene after another and Azumi delivers exactly that . Character development , while not slight , takes a backseat to the action and atmosphere . Azumi is an orphan raised by a Samurai master to be an assassin of evildoers . Set in feudal Japan , there are many warlords for Azumi and her fellow assassins to eliminate so they can bring peace to the land . You might think that you've seen enough Sword-fighting movies in the past few years but Azumi really does out-do Kill Bill , House of Flying Daggers and The Last Samurai . Those movies lacked the atmosphere . Despite a few moments of overblown sound-effects , Azumi is filled with mainly silent sound design with no more than quietly blowing trees or howling wind in the background . The remote wilderness settings and wonderfully balanced photography certainly go well with this irregular sound design . So many movies are all about noise and chaos , it's refreshing to come across one that goes against the grain . I totally recommend Azumi and I am looking forward to seeing the sequel . I do wish I saw the 143-minute Director's cut however . Don't let subtitles put you off , you're ignoring a whole other world of good movies if you do . |
564,744 | 102,816 | 457,473 | 7 | The best Shinobi game | After ' Revenge ' the Shinobi games went downhill quite bit with the rather tepid Shadow Dancer . I know I'm not the only person in the world who was disappointed with the Genesis port because the arcade version ( and even the Commodore 64 version ) was so much better ( and almost completely different ) . Shinobi III goes back to the gameplay of ' Revenge ' and gives us more of the same only with improved graphics ( great stuff for a simple 16-bit Genesis ) and different locations . A rather cool horseback and surfboard level is included too . We also get a new climbing ability , which is quite cool . And the bad guys still explode when you kill them , for some reason . It starts out quite easy but gets rather hard towards the end . You'll be screaming with anger in the rockfall and aircraft levels . However , the bad guys still do nothing but wait for you to kill them and the worst thing for you is simply falling down bottomless pits . Anyone who enjoyed ' Revenge ' will no doubt get a kick out of Shinobi III . Graphics A Sound B Gameplay B Lasting Appeal |
564,874 | 102,816 | 338,348 | 7 | A non-obnoxious and sober family movie . | I'm sick of arrogant animated movies that force us into thinking they're great even though they're classless exercises in poor taste and franchise milking . Recent examples include Finding Nemo , The Incredibles and , worst of all , Shark Tale . Dreamworks seems to be the worst among all this . Their basic logic is ' Let's see what Pixar is doing and copy that ' . Come on ! Pixar gave us A Bugs Life so Dreamworks gave us Antz . Pixar do Finding Nemo so Dreamworks do Shark Tale . Pixar do Monsters Inc so Dreamworks do Shrek ( which turned out to be quite good ) . But that's beside the point . There are 2 main concerns for all studios involved in making computer animated movies . The first is to make each more realistic looking than the last . I don't care about this . I don't care how fancy the computer you made the film on is . I don't care how long you spent making it . How about some actual story or dignity ? None of these films have that . Sure they have some moronical done-to-death a thousand times before messages that masquerade as a stories and can easily fool a 3 year old but the one thing they all have in common is tastelessness . The second concern is the merchandising . Where the REAL money from the movie is made ! I would like to say the Polar Express is different but I dread the forthcoming Polar Express toys , books , pyjamas , monopoly set , happy meal / kids club meal , rucksack , video games , legal forms , stationary sets , airships , warheads . . . Christ almighty in 1987 Mel Brooks was only kidding when he mentioned the Spaceballs Flamethrower ( a fave with the kids ) but merchandising really is going this far . Too far . If Warner can resist this temptation with The Polar Express it will give the film an everlasting integrity that immediately ranks it higher than all the other aforementioned movies . The film itself is good , if not great . It borrows heavily from Kenji Mayizawa's Night on the Galactic Railroad in regards to the constant quietness and sense of mystery ( oh and the big magical train that comes out of nowhere ) . My only problem is with the awkward boy the story focuses on . Yes , I know he's only a computer animation but he is extremely ugly and has an inhumanly awful , constantly blank expression . He's becoming a bit of Scrooge / Grinch . He doesn't believe in Xmas anymore and is even trying to convince his little sister of the physical impossibilities of Santa being real . As he tries to sleep Xmas Eve away a massive steam trains parks outside his house . It's the Polar Express and its final destination is Santa's Workshop . The train is filled with other kids ( the reasons for them being there are never defined ) and led by a wise old conductor ( Tom Hanks in one of many roles ) who is determined to restore the boy's faith in Xmas . Robert Zemeckis ' direction is mature and well-paced . There is particular attention to the sound design and narrative that no other recent animated movie has . Sound design is not all about chucking in loads of bass , a loud score and zany sound effects as a story is not just an excuse for events in the film to happen . This is something Zemeckis understands and he floods the film with warm colors , atmospheric landscapes and sense of magic that very nearly comes together but does not fully gel . There's something missing in The Polar Express that I can't put my finger on . Even Alan Silvestri's wonderful , lively and enchanting score falls a couple of notches short of brilliance . It's one of his best but it's just missing . . . something . Still it's far better than any other Xmas movie for the past 10 years ( Bad Santa not included ) . Puh-lease Warner , don't sell out this film . I don't want a Polar Express toilet seat . Let this film transcend the common stock . It's already one of those special Xmas movies that you can watch every year and I'll surely buy the DVD when it comes out . But I won't buy the toilet seat . An important animated movie for sensible grown-ups and well-behaved kids . Braindead adults and hyperactive brats can go see the Incredibles . Keep them away from Polar Express , they won't enjoy . |
564,218 | 102,816 | 61,044 | 7 | Is it a bird ? Is it a plane ? | No , it's a large , anthropomorphic pink cat . The Pink Panther is sitting in hammock reading a super-hero comic-book and wishes to be one himself . He nicks a pink cape from a nearby washing-line ands sets about rescuing and helping people in need . Only he's really , really bad at it and would be better off not interfering with them at all as pain and suffering are about the only things he's good for . Some of the visual gags are funny and each bad situation as a fair amount of invention to it . It adds up to an above average cartoon and no matter what he does , Pinky is my hero . |
564,153 | 102,816 | 32,339 | 7 | Funny ! | I remember watching this on BBC2 when I was about 8 years old and finding it hysterical . So , much to my pleasure , Universal has released it on DVD ( Region 2 only ) along with many other Laurel and Hardy movies . I chose to watch the black and white version as that is how I originally saw it . There is an extended opening featuring a remake of 1928's ' From Soup to Nuts ' short in which Stan and Ollie cause havoc at a swanky dinner party before being employed as street sweepers . During their sweeping lunch break they inadvertently foil a bank robbery and as a reward they are sent to Oxford for a good education , perhaps finally getting them out of the gutter . Once there , the students ( including a young Peter Cushing ) play all sorts of pranks on them and Stan loses ( or restores ) his memory when he is hit on the back of the head . Now he's Lord Paddington ( I must add he does brilliantly with the accent ) and he gives Ollie some amount of grief for his weight . Very funny indeed , I suggest you check it out whenever it comes on TV . |
564,202 | 102,816 | 106,519 | 7 | DePalma shoots himself in the foot with the dumbest opening scene ever . | Fortunately the rest of the film is good enough to make up for it . The opening shows Carlito Brigante , former criminal , being hauled away in a stretcher , covered in blood after being shot . Well , now I know how the film ends . The suspense of the film's climax is ruined if we immediately know his fate . Duh ! Pacino ( surely more deserving of an Academy Award here than he was for his overrated performance in Scent of a Woman ) narrates us through the last week or so of Carlito Brigante's life as he is let out of jail after five years out of thirty for mitigates circumstances coming to light . Determined to go straight , Carlito shrugs off all advances from crooks old and new but is eventually drawn back into a quagmire of trouble by his cokehead lawyer ( Sean Penn dressed up as Disco Stu from The Simpsons , who also deserved to take home a Best Supporting Actor Oscar ) The 145 minute running time passes in a breeze and there's loads of interesting story developments to keep you hooked . But DePalma's sterile widescreen photography and sets reek of the crassness of Scarface . This film is miles ahead of that junk ( but let's not get into a debate about that ) though I do think that a more vivid production design and cinematography and slicker editing would have stopped the film from looking so bland . I don't think DePalma is a great director but I do enjoy Carlito's Way , The Untouchables and Snake Eyes . The fact that he has also directed such godawful sludge like Carrie , Scarface and Mission to Mars only proves how unpredictable he is . |
564,638 | 102,816 | 130,414 | 7 | Could have used more magic and less politics | There have been zillions of incarnations of this particular story and who knows which one tells it in the truest form . In this version the legend is told from Merlin's point of view , from his creation to his old age . There's no way of verifying how much of this is true but I imagine that Queen Mab and Frick are just made up characters . Originally a 2-parter TV movie , hence the abrupt fade-out halfway through , the three hour running-time is a bit too heavy to take in one sitting so I recommend watching one half , then the other , over 2 days . Sam Neill is rather good as Merlin but he's acted off the screen by Martin Short and Miranda Richardson ( who looks seriously sexy as Queen Mab ) . Merlin's magic never rises above hand tricks , while Mab and Frick are doing wild , imaginative thingies all over the place . A bit of a bad move in the writing there . Mab is also the main villain ( even though I'd be on her side ) and she still out-ranks the campy , grown-up Draco Malfoy dude who plays Mordred ( who we're supposed to hate the most ) . Rutger Hauer , James Earl Jones , Helena Bonham Carter and John Gielgud pop up in smaller roles and they do what they can with the weak script but there is no excuse for Isabella Rossellini being in this . She is absolutely awful ! The script does suffer heavily from poor dialogue but good actors can cover this up with good acting , every single word that comes out of her mouth is worse than noise of beating a penguin to death with an old violin . Eesh ! While the first half has a fair amount of magic and atmosphere the second half is bogged down in endless ' Arthur ' scenes . He's not developed as an interesting character and is it any wonder his wife goes and cheats on him ? The secondary female characters seem to be played by the same woman as they all look the same and don't do much than sit around . Even Nimue seems content to sit on Avalon Island forever while her boyfriend Merlin visits her every 30 years or so . And they don't age . Thanks to these implausibilities it's easy to lose the time line . Steve Barron ( who did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ) does give us some lovely shots and the occasional moment of atmosphere . The sets range from enchanting to plastic and fake ( Camelot , whatever it may have looked like , always looks like crap on film-ALWAYS ! ) and SFX range from convincing to cheap . The one consistent part of the film is Trevor Jones ' absolutely great score with makes up for all the magic missing in the talking scenes . The new special edition DVD has a brand new full frame ( as it was shot ) transfer that looks bright and colorful . The new Dolby 5 . 1 soundtrack adds a serious amount of bass to the voices and sound effects but can pronounce the sporadic ADR a bit too much . A new commentary by Steve Barron , a featurette and some SFX breakdowns are also included . |
564,257 | 102,816 | 292,520 | 7 | Who needs a life ? | In this TV special Jon is the one who needs a life . The highlight of his day is counting the tiles on the ceiling and rearranging his sock drawer . Not content with this forever , Jon takes Garfield to a self help group in order to meet people . How many people will be interested in a loner 20-something who's best friend is a cat ? After several failed attempts at getting a girl , including one cringeworthy dance scene that rivals David Brents ' fusion of Flashdance and MC Hammer in The Office ( Disco's dead ? , says Jon ) , he is more than shocked to find a cute girl who is as much as a jerk as himself . Naturally , they get on but Garfield is worried that John will forget about him and prefer having kids to a cat . Fortunately Jon's new girlfriend is allergic to cats . With slicker animation than past TV specials , this feels like a longer episode of Garfield and Friends . |
564,267 | 102,816 | 405,422 | 7 | Surprisingly good | I missed out on this film during its cinema release as I figured it to be yet another sex-comedy with gross-out gags . While the film does contain a little of this it is way more character based and the humor comes from more absurd situations than disgusting . Never judge book by its cover eh . Andy Stitzer ( Steve Carrell ) is a 40-year-old virgin . His life is made up of working in the returns department of an electronics store , collecting toys of movie characters and watching reality TV with his OAP neighbors . The touch of a woman is foreign to him and he is yet to educated in their mysterious ways . Though he does have the bonus of not having to put up with their moaning , tantrums and bitching ' because they can ' ! When his secret is wrenched out of him his work buddies make it their mission to help him pop his cherry and think of a zillion , wacky , hair-brained schemes . But Andy is interested in Trish ( Catherine Keener ) the woman from the store across the road . Only he's really intimidated and arranges a weird no-sex policy with her that originally makes her relax at not having to live up to expectations but eventually makes her want to explode . Can he keep his secret from her too and perform the dirty deed with apparent expertise of your average porn stud ? I'm so cynical of all these ' extended cuts ' that are appearing on DVD at the moment . Most are completely unnecessary and give us only a couple more minutes of pointlessness , but The 40 Year Old Virgin gives us a staggering 17 extra minutes and bulks up the films running time to an incredible 133 minutes . For such a thin premise , the film gets an impressive amount of mileage and you never really feels like it's dragging along . With decent characters and story that just breezes along , without being superficial , the best long movies seem like very short ones . 40YOV is definitely one of those . And I promise you this is not a ' rom-com ' or a ' sex-com ' . Despite some crude humor here and there this is more of a light-hearted ' drama-com ' . Carrell also proves he a far more talented actor and comedian than Will Ferrel or Adam ' Pissbag ' Sandler . Three stars are for the movie but it gets an extra bonus half-star for including a wonderfully , wonderfully top-heavy actress as Trish's daughter . Man , with women this big-boobed you just know there is a God . |
564,570 | 102,816 | 59,102 | 7 | Safe House | Probably still looking for a place to get some sleep , the Pink Panther has strangely chose a safe in a random building to catch some Zs . But some burglar dude turns up with the intention of breaking in . Old Pinky has fun changing locks and tormenting him , as usual . The little burglar dude can hardly believe his eyes when he finally sees whats inside , but the hijinks don't end there . Cleverly , Pinky convinces the burglar to take away the safe even though he suspects a bomb is inside . There are plenty laughs to be had in this cartoon and by this point Pinky's cleverness was beginning to match even that of Bugs Bunny . The Pink Panther is a great character and I love him . |
564,253 | 102,816 | 63,456 | 7 | Poor guy | Poor Anthony Perkins . He played one psycho and then another within a few years of each other and the guy got typecast for the rest of his career . I must say that Pretty Poison's Dennis Pitt is to Psycho's Norman Bates what a firecracker is to the big bang . Orphan Pitt is fresh out of jail after spending some time inside for burning down his aunt's house when he was a kid . Unfortunately for him ( and her ) she was inside the house when it went up . It was only an accident but his weird personality is what really damns him . He fancies himself as a bit of a Billy Liar . His life is boring and uneventful out of jail so he concocts elaborate fantasies to keep himself going and to make people interested in him . With the exception of his concerned parole officer , it works mostly for people who come and go . That is until he meets pretty high school senior Sue Ann Stepanek and goes a bit too far with his fibbing . This time he says he's in the CIA and his mission is to stop a local factory from polluting a river . It's a noble plan but once he involves Sue Ann she becomes homicidal and takes too much pleasure in offing a security guard . Obviously freaked out by the turn of events Pitt is unsure what to do , especially since Sue Ann has just declared her undying love for him . Any sensible guy would head for the hills but Dennis is just a bit too naive . You'll definitely feel sorry for the guy . He even gets roped into helping the increasingly mad Sue Ann carry out even more dirty deeds . It's obvious that the film isn't headed for a happy ending and it's not even an easy watch getting there . Perkins is brilliant as Dennis Pitt and you'll be on his side the whole time and really feeling for him and his huge innocent eyes and nervous twitches and ticks that become more and more obvious . His only real crime is falling for the wrong girl . Once again , it's his weird personality that ends up damning him . If you're a guy the lesson is don't fall in love with wrong girl no matter how pretty she is . It's the pretty ones that end up being the most poisonous . Trust me , The Gator knows . If you're a girl the lesson is don't be a bitch . Pretty much all guys are innocent until a woman comes along and screws them up . Prove me wrong kiddies . Prove me wrong . |
564,018 | 102,816 | 32,402 | 7 | Getting away from it all | Donald is on vacation in what appears to the a forest in the Pacific Northwest . His boat doubles as a tent ( why does Donald need a boat ? He's a duck ! ) and is stuffed with supplies of every kind . One of which is a cryptic folding deck chair . As Donald naps on this difficult contraption a bunch of very cute chipmunk come along and steal his picnic ( a really clichéd cartoon gag , but at least it's not thieving ants this time ) . Donald , obvious infuriated by such theft chases them but only ends up enraging a local bear and fleeing his camp for good . It's funny but I have no idea why Donald complains that the chipmunks have no respect for humans when Donald isn't one . And besides , he's invading THEIR space . |
564,116 | 102,816 | 37,303 | 7 | No relation to Peter Parker | The police are baffled after a series of suicides in which a bunch of men , wearing their pyjamas , throw themselves out of high windows or blow their brains out . The city needs Sherlock Holmes on the case but he's too busy being on holiday in Scotland with Watson ( cue the tune to Take the High Road as the film fades from London to the wilderness ) . But Holmes suffers a dizzy spell and plummets to his ' death ' off the top of a waterfall . Watson returns to London and grudgingly begins to pack up all of Holmes's stuff . But it was all just a decoy and Holmes promptly returns and begins to unravel the mystery of the Pyjama Suicides undisturbed . He works out a single common denominator ; a psychotic seductress has been involved with each of the victims . There's an old saying that a hero is only as good as the villain . Well , I happen to agree with that most of the time and it certainly proves to be true in this film . We've seen Holmes match wits with various enemies over time but this is the first one where he really seems to have met his equal . Adrea Spedding ( played by Academy Award-winning Gale Sondergaard ) comes across as more calculating and efficient than Moriarty or any of the Nazi villains . The story also takes elements from a few of Conan Doyle's works , including The Speckled Band and The Sign of Four . It packs a hell of a lot into it's running time and is surely one of the most entertaining of the Rathbone / Bruce series . Still not too keen on the ' modern ' setting though . |
564,573 | 102,816 | 390,521 | 7 | Well duh ! | Morgan Spurlock's kamikaze documentary seems to be under the impression that the whole world hadn't a clue McDonald's was bad for you . We all knew that , man . But the criticisms his methods have met with are unfair . Many people have complained that over-eating is bad for you no matter where you eat from . But Spurlock does not over-eat . He only has 3 square meals a day . Breakfast , Lunch and Dinner . And still he became very unhealthy , rather alarmingly so . The point seems to be lost on most of us though . I don't eat from McDonalds and I won't . But those who do won't stop because they've seen this movie . I'm going to assume this will be the attitude the world over . McDonald's did abolish their Supersize option shortly after the film came out but claimed it was nothing to do with Morgan Spurlock in an attempt to distance itself from this documentary . Spurlock even tries his absolute hardest to get an interview with a high-ranking McDonald's executive but fails miserably . Which only serves to prove , even further , how faceless and careless McDonald's is when it comes to public relations . Though Mickey D's is not the only monster to be skewered here . America's health issues and obesity problems in general are tackled by Spurlock . All in a rather cartoony , easy to follow fashion . If overbearing documentaries like F put you off the genre then don't worry . Supersize Me is lighter but still as sophisticated and darkly comical . The extras on the DVD are actually quite good . The deleted scenes in particular . One of them focuses on decomposing food , trust me . . . you'll NEVER look at McDonald's Fries the same way again . The DVD is in 1 . 85 : 1 non-anamorphic widescreen and Dolby 2 . 0 sound . |
564,705 | 102,816 | 409,182 | 7 | Actually quite good , but could have been nastier ! | Poseidon runs a surprisingly brisk 99 minutes , which I think is the film's only failing as it's a full 20 minutes shorter than the original . The set pieces the film has to offer are all nail-biting and intense , but I just felt that there wasn't enough of them . I'm not such a big fan of the original . I liked it as a kid but viewing it as an adult I'm turned-off by the soap opera drama and dated effects . Back in the early 70s this may well have been fine but perhaps such advances in movie effects is why remakes of these kind of movies are not so unnecessary . The characters are all likable and even though the set-up and introduction is pretty quick , we get to know enough and grow attached to them before the big wave hits ( no longer a tidal wave caused by an underwater volcano for obvious reasons ) and what a set-piece that turns out to be ! The initial capsizing of the ship is a brilliantly edited destruction derby in which many , many human lives meet violent deaths . If there would be just one thing the film has to offer it is plenty of dead bodies . But why not go one step further and show some really heavy gruesomeness ? I would have liked that ! The idiots ( there are usually loads in disaster films ) stay behind in the ballroom while a bunch of more sensible survivors decide to escape by going up ( down ) to the engine room and out through the propeller tubes . Only because everything is inverted , there are loads of obstacles , including a race-against-time in a very small and very cramped air vent . Not all of them make it ! It's a shame that Poseidon didn't do better at the box office but it has faced stiff competition . It is however better than crap like The Break Up and The Da Vinci Code and The Omen 666 . Give it a chance , I did and I was pleasantly surprised . It will definitely be a film I pick up on DVD when it comes out ! |
564,501 | 102,816 | 120,684 | 7 | Fairly decent character drama | Although it's nothing but dialogue and character study this film passes by in what seems like a few minutes . It is very well acted and directed with some great cinematography . But I would have liked to see more on Whales ' troubled childhood , that part would appeal to me . The bit where he's talking about ' pan-dripping ' made my stomach turn . Brendan Fraser shows he can do serious roles as well as the usual hunk dufus and Ian McKellen was so good as James Whale that I almost saw completely past the actor . It really shows up on these OTT trashy Hollywood movies and deserved more Academy Awards than just the mere one it received . |
564,054 | 102,816 | 79,945 | 7 | As far from the restrictions of TV as it could possibly be . | Oooh , a difficult one this . Very difficult indeed . Unless you are particularly patient , or are a hardcore Star Trek fan this is going to take some effort to stick with . It doesn't seem like a Trekkie movie . Nowhere near as much fun as Wrath Of Khan , or First Contact . Not as much humour as The Voyage Home . In fact , there is no humour at all . Something that cripples the film badly . Everything is very straight-faced and sincere . To introduce someone to Star Trek with this film would be a bad idea . Being the first Trek product since the original series one might expect the familiar campy story lines and beaming down to " M-class " planets - a bit of desert 10-minutes drive from LA - but there's none to be had . Veteran director Robert Wise has crafted a film very much in the style of his original version of The Haunting . His w-i-d-e-s-c-r-e-e-n compositions are beautiful and he really manages to lift Trek from the small screen to the cinema screen . It was a hard undertaking , but he set the standard for nine sequels to date . The plot has a giant alien force destroying three Klingon ships on its direct course with earth . If the Federation doesn't stop this thing , it will blow up the planet . Admiral Kirk leaves his sunny San Francisco home to assume command of the Enterprise from Captain Decker and stop the alien menace . But Decker has a chip on his shoulder . The new Enterprise is not finished yet and he doesn't appreciate Kirk moving in on his territory . Very slowly the original crew return and are in command of their posts again and there is a weird new navigator , a bald-headed , celibate alien woman named Ilia . Decker seems to have a thing for her . For some reason . Once they reach the mysterious alien mass , the crew learns its name is Vger . Ilia is kidnapped and replaced with an android . Spock is driven to tears as he finds TOTAL logic in Vger actions and motivations . This is all sub-subtext and the actual explanation behind Vger might not come as a surprise to most . Once they fly inside Vger's mass of clouds and orifices it takes a healthy hour for the damn thing to be fully revealed . To criticise a film for its length may be an ignorant thing to do . Audiences today are too satisfied with any plot lasting less than 100 minutes . This is not a good sign . Films with the scope and , dare I say it , class of Star Trek : The Motion Picture need their full and proper running time . Coherent story lines can be sacrificed for fast paced , exhilarating storytelling , or a dull , seemingly endless narrative can be the result of a big story being fully fleshed out . It's difficult to achieve both length and pace . Sadly , this film doesn't . But it looks very good , is well directed and has the balls to bite off more than it can chew . |
563,771 | 102,816 | 83,798 | 7 | Mostly fun , but loses its way a bit | DMDWP is a black and white film noir comedy that uses footage from real film noirs from the 40s and 50s and inter cuts them with the plot to make it appears that Steve Martin is really talking to / acting with the likes of Humphrey Bogart , Bette Davis , James Cagney etc . The effect is almost seamless but for a movie made in 1982 it's quite impressive . Martin plays the wonderfully named Rigby Reardon , a typical , gritty private eye who narrates the story with sarcastic observation and gets involved in the usual femme fatal plot and a conspiracy surround the death of a cheese maker . Yes , it's nonsense , and towards the end it becomes a bit hard to follow and the silliness gets out of control . But it's all played straight and for most of the film you could believe you were actually watching a classic film noir . Steve Martin should have done more of these movies . Rigby Reardon was a great character and could have lasted for a few more movies . The humor is frequently hilarious and he certainly retains a lot of the integrity he has lost in recent years since he went the way of Eddie Murphy and sold himself out to family audiences . Either way , I say you should give this movie a go if you're a fan of his older work . The DVD is sadly in non-anamorphic 1 . 85 : 1 widescreen with Dolby 2 . 0 surround . It still looks quite good for a black and white film and the sound has that limited sound space effect to it to make it fit in with the older footage . A Dolby 5 . 1 remix would have been totally unnecessary . Some boring extras ( trailer , cast bios ) are included . |
564,203 | 102,816 | 85,936 | 7 | No acid rain , drug addiction , international terrorism or freeway killers in this one | Scrooge McDuck rather fittingly plays Ebeneezer Scrooge in this Disney version of a story that TV writers have been milking for years . To me , the only good movies based on Charles Dickens ' classic novel are this one , Scrooged and Muppet's Christmas Carol . Though I do remember seeing something as a kid called The Stingiest Man in Town that was very similar . Or did I dream that ? As usual with Disney animation , this 25-minute short is wonderfully detailed and cosy . But I feel that it may not have as much lasting power other feature length movies . It's just not long enough . The story feels very rushed but it's no less effective . Originally produced to precede the re-release of The Rescuers in 1983 I reckon that Mickey's Christmas Carol is a classic in it's own way , even if it only familiar to Disney fans instead of the average kid who has been raised on Toy Story and Dinosaur . I do believe that it could have been a feature length film but as a big fan of Scrooge McDuck I can just turn to Duck Tales if I want more of him . This was also his second screen appearance after appearing in a Donald Duck short years before . He's an underrated Disney character and deserves a comeback . |
564,252 | 102,816 | 32,470 | 7 | It just never works out | Donald is another name for disaster . Why do you think Cockney rhyming slang uses Donald Duck for bad luck ? In this cartoon Donald is a Fire Chief and his nephews his staff . Being such an incompetent leader he soon sets fire to the station-house itself and cannot save it for the life of him . Whether tackling raging hoses , falling through the sky or pumping gasoline into fire Donald suffers the worst of everything as Huey , Duey and Louie duck ( pun intended ) for cover . The cartoon features some cuteness not often found in Disney shorts . I never really believed that was something he ever intended . The vivid animation always seems to be first and imaginative mayhem second . This short has all three . |
564,088 | 102,816 | 68,473 | 7 | Deliver us from evil | This film is probably notorious , or infamous rather , for one scene only . It's one of those movies that is always followed by a bad impersonation upon the mentioning of the title . Perhaps like Dirty Harry and ' Are you feeling lucky punk ? ' . I will try to avoid using the line ' Squeal like a pig ' in this review , even though I just did . I should also mention that the film is also forever associated with the Duelling Banjos scene with just about every generation . But I must stress that those who often try to be clever by mimicking both these unique , little features have probably never even scene the film . Four naive city boys take a break from playing golf and decide to canoe down the Cahulawassee River before the valley is flooded into a huge reservoir . It's not their territory , but their leader Lewis Medlock ( Burt Reynolds , looking like Steven Seagal's long-lost twin brother ) arrogantly assumes that he can deal with any challenge that comes his way . His friends Ed , Bobby and Drew ( Jon Voight , Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox ) reluctantly follow him , despite having their own doubts . The first day of the trip goes fine , but on the second morning Ed and Bobby stop to rest by a small stream . There they are approached by a couple of disgusting mountain men , that are not quite as close to the mutants seen in Wrong Turn but are grotesque nonetheless . Despite their attempts at keeping the peace , the yokels strap Ed to a tree and force him to watch Bobby being raped . Even though I have never witnessed something like this , it's a horribly realistic scene and Ned Beatty does it very well , he must have some guts to do a such a scene in this ; his first movie . Lewis shows up in the nick of time and kills one of the yokels but the other escapes . Drew is the only one who thinks that they should take the matters to the police and ends up having a sort of breakdown . In their attempts to escape the scene they crash the canoes and Lewis ends up with a nasty compound fracture . This leaves Ed as the only one capable of hunting down the remaining hillbilly who is preying upon them from the cliff-tops . It's a slow moving film that doesn't focus on the action so much as the horrors taking place in such a tranquil location . John Boorman's widescreen photography beautifully captures the Southern wilderness and comes across as rather haunting without resorting to cheap , slasher movie techniques . Boorman has spent half of his career on a high and the other half languishing in crappiness of Zardoz , Exorcist 2 and the horribly misjudged Excalibur . He has left a lasting impression filmmakers despite his failings . Deliverance is not for everyone and I certainly cannot recommend it to those who are only used to quick-fix MTV movies . But it is still a carefully measured , thought-provoking film . |
564,439 | 102,816 | 472,219 | 7 | If Looney Tunes did Batman . . . | Although it is rather serious in tone and deals with vampires and the undead , The Batman vs Dracula just seems to childish and too cartoony to be really effective . The color pallet is suitably drab and washed out and it does have a decent amount of atmosphere but I can't help but think that it could have been better if it just didn't seem toned down . I prefer the 90s series of Batman , which had an overwhelming amount of darkness and Gothic pathos . This new THE Batman series appears to be reconfigured to appeal to kids who weren't even born in that decade . I know it's a cliché to moan that animated shows were always better when my age-group were kids , but it's so true . The Penguin and The Joker ( now looking like a cross between Krusty the Clown and The Predator ) escape from Arkham ( there's something new ) and make their way to a hidden treasure trove in the cemetery . But the bird stumbles upon Dracula's tomb ( why he is in Gotham is not explained ) and resurrects him by accident . But The Batman doesn't approve of a Vampireman stalking his streets and a drawn-out conflict with a predictable and hokey ending fills up the rest of the movie . It's fun , it's entertaining , but it's just not the Batman I'm used to . |
564,486 | 102,816 | 349,818 | 7 | A furious button basher | I'm not really that familiar with the Metroid series . The only other one I have ever played so far is Metroid Pinball , so I'm totally not clued-up on the original that appeared on the NES back in 1986 . But I did go for this one because I heard that the original Turrican game was based partly on Metroid . And while the similarities are plentiful this is still a great game in it's own right . Old-fashioned 2D platformers are always brilliant and it's one of my fave genres . Fusion involves lots of running around in a huge , abandoned space-station , visiting my departments and sub-departments , blasting away at alien scum and trying to figure out what happened to everyone . The level designs are awesome , with loads of hidden extras and secret passageways . You'll still be able to memorise your way around though . The graphics and sound effects are dead cool but the generic music is a bit of a let-down . Some of the bosses are unbelievably hard and you'll end up having to stop yourself from smashing your Nintendo against the wall . Fight the urge , there is always a way , always a pattern to follow to kill them . But it's finding the courage to face it for the 86th time that really matters . Definitely one of the best games on the GBA , but perhaps a bit too short . I would have liked to have kept going and gaining more and more and MORE power-ups . But hey , it's still worth the money . Graphics A Sound B Gameplay Lasting Appeal |
564,548 | 102,816 | 120,616 | 7 | Bimbo | Fun , but dumb . That's how I'd pretty much describe The Mummy . Stephen Sommers has done some wild b-movies in his time ( Deep Rising ) and was a great choice to write and direct this remake of the old 1930s Universal horror show . Though I must stress that very little of this film is original . Basically it's an Indiana Jones rip-off with bits of Evil Dead and Hellraiser thrown in . Clichés are abundant and stereotyped , stock characters make up much of the supporting cast . Not only do we get a fair English maiden and a bumbling Brit designed to make the yank look cool but there are also gung-ho cowboys , stuffy professors , a cowardly weasel traitor ( who really gets what he deserves ) and a slimy slob prison warden . Argh ! There's no real point in complaining about this as they're just supposed to be easy identifiable characters for younger audiences to appreciate . There isn't really much scary about The Mummy , which is what the original was all about . Which brings me to the main problem of the film . I'm-ho-tep ( played by the wicked-cool Nicolas Cage doppelganger Arnold Vosloo ) is not really a bad guy . Everything he does is for love . Hardly the worst villain in history . In fact the greedy folks excavating his tomb , jeopardising the lives of everyone else for the sake of money are far worse , morally . The action is exciting and some of the plot elements , however copycatted , are imaginative and clever . The 2 hour + running time seems to fly by . It may be unoriginal but there's still more heart in The Mummy than in rubbish like Underworld . The DVD has a great looking 2 . 35 : 1 anamorphic picture with even better Dolby 5 . 1 / DTS sound . Loads of extras too , if you care . |
563,947 | 102,816 | 810,895 | 7 | What the Hellboy ? | Live action translates perfectly into animation in this feature-length Hellboy adventure . What makes it even better is that the main cast return to do the voices and Marco Beltrami's main theme is used . A lot of animated spin-offs in the past have proved to be just as good when taken seriously by the makers ( Animatrix , Spider-Man ) but , in my opinion , Hellboy : Sword of Storms was good enough for a theatrical release . A small one , like Batman : Mask of the Phantasm . The story has HB , Liz and Abe go to Japan where a local historian has gone missing and a priceless exhibit damaged . While at the scene , HB wanders off , following a strange Fox and ends up trapped somewhere in time . Liz and Abe have no idea where he is but have their own problems to deal with as the weather takes a turn for the worse . Stuck in ancient Japan , HB must deal with a bunch of vampires , demons and monsters in an effort to get home . Easier said than done . I liked the movie , but felt it lacked something . Still , it made me interested in the character , even though I have yet to buy a single Hellboy comic book . After watching this however , I can't wait to get some more of HB . The animation style follows that of the comic pretty closely and the color pallet ranges from very bright and very colorful to moody and atmospheric . It's very impressive and highly detailed . Don't expect ' saturday morning ' style animation here . If you are seriously into Hellboy or even if you are just a casual fan of the movie then you totally have to get this . I eagerly await Hellboy : Blood and Iron , due out this summer . In the meantime , I reckon I ought to get me some Hellboy comic-books . |
564,524 | 102,816 | 192,731 | 7 | Superior Sequel | I was perhaps a little too hard on the first when I reviewed it . When compared to the ' I know ' movies it seems much better but this sequel rocks . Although not completely different from all the other teen ( ? ) slasher flicks out there Urban Legend 2 seems to be fresher than I had expected . I was pleasantly surprised . The whole execution of the plot and the action seems to be a great deal more light-hearted and realistic . The photography and the setting looks very good on the big screen and the lead heroine is easy on the eye . She's way more talented and attractive than other scream queens . Not that I want to typecast her . The identity of the bad guy was a mystery all the way thru for me and the way John Ottman makes us point the finger at a number of different characters was done whole lot better and way more subtler than Wes Craven . And none of the characters were annoying or irritating as they normally are in this sub-genre . The humor was also spot-on . There wasn't much I didn't laugh at that I was supposed to and it didn't spoil the intense atmosphere . A certain joke in the mine was good enough for me annoy people with my loud laughing . They way the film was self-aware and in-jokey without becoming a parody was WAY more convincing and pleasing than any of the Scream movies . And the film students who refer to other movies and movie making was the kind of gimmick Scream 2 and Scream 3 could have benefited from if it were done properly . The presence of Joey Laurence just made a good movie even better . If you liked or hated the first I seriously do recommend this sequel to you as it way superior . The only gripe would be the lack of Chris Young's original score . |
564,481 | 102,816 | 431,641 | 7 | Less dynamic but still a worthy sequel | Despite the success of Azumi the makers appear to have cut back on the budget for this sequel and as a result we get much less in the way of innovative action and a LOT more of wandering around in the forest . The story picks up not long after the first with Azumi and Nagara still going after the warlords intent on seizing Japan . She soon meets a rowdy young rebel called Ginkaku who looks a lot like her dead boyfriend Nachi ( a weird plot that goes absolutely nowhere ) and joins forces with them to fight evil . Some nice fight scenes follow but they use waaaay too much CGI blood effects ( a horrible trend that is becoming more and more popular ) and none of them have the eccentric flair of the original movie . The ending doesn't amount to much either but I'd still watch a third if they were to make it . |
563,791 | 102,816 | 41,231 | 7 | Blow the man down , matey | The cartoon begins with Tom preparing himself with loads of ointments and lotions for a day of sunbathing at the beach . It's immediately ruined by Jerry coming along and bothering him . For a minute they do their usual chasing before Tom runs of the end of a pier and ' drowns ' . But at the bottom of the ocean ( all three feet of it beneath the pier ) he comes across a mermouse who also annoys him . Cue more chases , only with an underwater twist this time involving sunken ships ( three feet under a pier , a swordfish and an octopus . It's a welcome break from the generic house T & J shorts are usually set in . Some nice underwater animation earns this one a . |
563,975 | 102,816 | 392,728 | 7 | The first ever movie ! | No plot . No sound . No credits . But it was the first ever moving picture and it was directed by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince , a man who's dad was pals with the earliest of photographers . The film simply involves Le Prince's family standing in the garden of a large Victorian house , moving around each other in circles . They had to do something I guess . Mad isn't it , the first ever film and it's just people doing the first crazy thing that comes to their head . It's weird watching this 120-year-old film and seeing a more vivid look at life in those days . Le Prince disappeared of the face of the earth in 1890 and his vanishing was never solved . He never knew how much of a pioneer he was . |
564,059 | 102,816 | 295,700 | 7 | Nothing new , but does it with style | Youths being killed one by one , a killer in the woods , stalk and slash , mutated cannibals . . . it's all been done a hundred times before . But not always as effectively and brutally as Wrong Turn . It's all in the execution folks , quite literally . Chris Flynn ( the always intense looking Desmond Harrington ) is a Doctor on his way to an appointment across the other side of the country . A chemical spill and crash on the freeway means 2 hours of waiting in traffic and being late . Keen to avoid this , Chris takes a dirt road along Bear Mountain hoping to cut back onto the freeway some miles ahead of the jam . I bet he wishes he didn't . This wrong turn causes him to smash into an already wasted people carrier . The owners are a bunch of mountain bikers who have had their tires shredded by barb-wire lain by apparent hillbillies . Chris and three others ( Eliza Dushku , Jeremy Sisto and the very annoying Emmanuelle Chriqui ) decide to walk to the nearest phone while a moronic and deserving-to-die boyfriend and girlfriend ( Kevin Zegers and Lindy Booth , who also met a similar fate in Dawn of the Dead ) stay behind to guard the cars . That couple don't last very long and the only dwelling the quartet stumble upon is the disgusting house of a bunch of ferocious , inbred , cannibalistic mountain men . It's filled with the stolen belongings of people they've already massacred , but no one picks up on this until the men suddenly return . It's clear from the outset who's going to live and who's going to die . Chris is strong-willed and level-headed and responds to intense situations with logic and cunning , while most of the others do stupid things and do all but paint a bullseye on their forehead . Shot and directed with an atmospheric color pallet , a fair amount of tension , some grisly kills and lots of quick , nervous cuts ( without turning into confusion ) , Wrong Turn succeeds where most other wannabe horrors that fall into the same sub-genre fail . In the post-Scream world horror movies were all about irony and smart-ass . Wrong Turn wisely includes neither . Currently horror movies are all about remakes , with one remake coming out every other week . Wrong Turn isn't exactly a remake either , but , like I said it IS a story that's been done almost to death . In the end , it cannot be a great movie . But just a very-well done potboiler that does exactly what it set out to do . So many horror films fail because someone behind the scenes fails to take it seriously , I'm pleased to say that ain't the case with this movie . |
564,322 | 102,816 | 93,870 | 7 | Stay out of trouble ! | RoboCop could have been the start of a great franchise . Instead the brand name piffled-out after the sequel and has since languished in the hell of TV shows , animated TV shows and mini-series crap . Paul Verhoeven's multi-layered original provided a platform for so much potential and possibility , it's a shame we only got 2 good movies out of it . Alex Murphy is a deeply unlucky cop who has transferred into Detroit's ( actually Dallas ) worst precinct . On his first day on the job he is gunned down by the stupendously evil Clarence Boddicker ( a brilliant turn by Kurtwood Smith ) and his gang of nasty thugs . Resurrected as some kind of Frankenstien / Christ figure , Murphy returns as RoboCop-The Future of Law Enforcement . In the world of RoboCop big business rules and public servants can be bought as stock ( doesn't sound so unrealistic does it ? ) . A super-conglomerate called Omni Consumer Products has entered into an agreement to fund and run the Detroit Police Force . Wishing to create a cop who doesn't need to eat or sleep they have a choice of pursuing the RoboCop idea or going with Vice President , Dick Jones ' idea of ED-209 , a mech-like twin cannon on legs . The CEO goes with RoboCop , leaving Jones with a personal vendetta against poor Robo . It may have been satire back in 1987 but today we are all to used to doomsday news being delivered by smile by our news anchors only to cut to an ad feature some violent video game or movie . The violence , social commentary and horror of RoboCop can sometimes pale in comparison to real life . When you're 7 years old , RoboCop is probably just the most amazing thing ever . I swear , I must have seen this film about 100 times when I was a kid . I was word-perfect on it . Even erm . . . note-perfect on Basil Poledouris ' awesome , awesome score . I guess it's kind of unfair on kids these days that they are raised on braindead PG-13 crap while I got one bloody action movie after another back in the 80s . RoboCop is no doubt a classic . It's a shame it had such an indignant death . Still , I guess this is still a chance for re-resurrection . But please . . . no remake ! |
564,690 | 102,816 | 62,513 | 7 | Chuck's first crush | Charlie is in love with ' the little red-headed girl ' , the very one he fancied in ' Be My Valentine , Charlie Brown ' . But he's not got the courage to talk to her and frequently makes a laughing stock of himself with every attempt . Plus , everybody is making fun of him and Snoopy is not lending a sympathetic ear , as usual . The emotional turmoil Charlie suffers is alarmingly true . Everybody remembers their first crush and how awkward it made them feel . It's little touches of reality like this in the far-fetched but wonderful world of Peanuts that make it so timeless . Though it was made in 1967 there is nothing in this TV special that dates it in any way . |
564,865 | 102,816 | 76,363 | 7 | A cute , cosy cartoon , but not a classic | The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh are actually three separate theatrical shorts stitched together with some new footage ( in much the same way as Daffy Duck's Quackbusters ) . Because of this , there is no consistent story from beginning to end other than the usual hapless , hijinks of the animals from Hundred Acre Wood . Disney certainly don't make cartoons like this anymore , they're too busy with soulless rubbish like Meet the Robinsons . TMAOWTP was certainly one of their last greats of old-school animation . The seasonal colors of Hundred Acre Wood and the backgrounds are rather enchanting and atmospheric . I actually had a huge poster from Winnie Pooh and the Blustery Day on my bedroom wall when I was a kid and I could literally look at it for hours as there was so much detail to it . I'm not too keen on Christopher Robin though , he's just a bit too effeminate for me . I hear that Disney are planning on replacing him with a tomboyish girl for future Winnie the Pooh projects . Well , I'm fine with that . The Disney-fied Pooh deviates so far from AA Milne's creation that one more alteration is hardly significant . And why don't they ever call him Winnie ? |
564,415 | 102,816 | 60,839 | 7 | No catfood ! | The Pink Panther is staying a mountain cabin for the holiday season but gets barricaded inside when a massive snowfall blocks his every exit . Since the snow doesn't melt until March , he's left with no option but to scour the cabin for anything edible . But he has to put up with a pesky mouse who is also out for a bite to eat . The mouse quite fancies a bite out of Pinky , who himself is frying pictures of fish cut out of magazines . And Pinky don't quite like having his tail devoured . The usual cat and mouse ( literally this time ) game follows and is topped off by a pretty amusing twist . An above average cartoon . |
563,792 | 102,816 | 41,450 | 7 | Just for the Hell of it | Tom chases Jerry for no particular reason , and the cartoon seems to be giving us the usual fare until Jerry flattens Tom with a piano , killing him . A quick ride to heaven on an escalator brings him to the pearly gates , where some kind of train conduction is a cat version of Saint Peter . The Heavenly Express leaves in an hour and if Tom can get a signed document of forgiveness from Jerry he's free to enter . If not-HELL ! Now it's Tom's chance to be as nice to Jerry as possible , but he's having none of it and refuses to sign , sealing the cat's fate forever . It's a funny cartoon , with some nice moments . Though I was a little surprised to see the three dead kittens drowned in a bag at the gates of heaven . |
564,876 | 102,816 | 43,376 | 7 | Poor Sly | I can't believe Sylvester's owners are cruel enough to go on holiday without him , never mind leaving him locked in the house for 2 weeks without any milk . Luckily our fave cat finds a massive stash of tinned tuna . But wait . . . no can opener . The mouse has stolen it . But instead of being nice to Sly the mouse taunts him endlessly with an ever-just-out-of-reach can opener . Why ? Why not be nice ? The more he starves Sly the more likely he is to just eat the mouse . Sylvester's plans and attempts at getting the can opener echo many Tom and Jerry cartoons . But when he finally gets his hands on the prized object the mother of all twists is revealed . Poor kitty . |
564,433 | 102,816 | 64,757 | 7 | The World Is Not Enough . | Always the underdog and never the Top Dog , OHMSS has a bad reputation that it doesn't deserve . I honestly don't know what Bond fans really want in their movies as they hate anything that has too many gadgets and set pieces ( like the uber-crap Die Another Day ) and turn their nose up at anything that represents Ian Fleming's true vision of Bond . Lazenby , like Daniel Craig , suffered a press backlash before the film was released that swayed public opinion against OHMSS . Fortunately this was not the case with the more recent Casino Royale but this entry also deserves the same regard . The story has Bond taken off the Blofeld case after failing to apprehend him twice and sent on a 2-week holiday . He soon falls in love with Contessa Tracy Di Vicenzo who's daddy is the boss of one of Europe's largest crime syndicates . Daddy , has a deal for Bond . Make his daughter happy and he'll point him in the direction of the elusive Blofeld and give him a £1 , 000 , 000 bonus . An offer he can't refuse huh ? It turns out that Blofeld ( Television Savalas , the best incarnation of the character ) is hiding in the Swiss Alps and Bond goes undercover as Geneology expert Sir Hilary Bray to smoke him out . Bond just happens to be a bit of a Geneologist himself ( this movie has him discover that the Bond family motto is ' Orbis Non Sufficit ' . . . interesting ) and reckons he bluff his way through it . Blofeld's world conquering plot this time around is kinda Austin Powers-ish but it's thankfully played down . Bond , stripped of his stupid gadgets , must rely on his cunning and wits to outsmart Blofeld and defeat his evil schemes . I particularly like the scene where Bond is locked in a cable-car gear-room and his attempts to escape . Despite the obvious rear-projection a ski-chase , car chase and bobsleigh chase are all very well done . John Barry's score is also noteworthy and his main OHMSS theme is brilliant . If there was ever anything that could come close to replacing the signature Bond theme while still retaining that familiar sound then this is it . Hunt it down , check it out . The scope cinematography is also a standout and often has some nice , atmospheric shots . Something not often seen in a Bond film . I first saw OHMSS when I was a kid and I remember reading about how it was a flop when it was released in theatres . Which is actually a total lie , it DIDN'T flop . The mediocre review in the horrid tabloid newspaper I read made me , as a 10-year-old , dislike the the film . I don't feel that way now though . And despite remembering how it ended I was still pretty shocked when it came . It's far more dramatic and memorable than typical Bond endings . Is this what turns most people off OHMSS ? Who the hell wants same-old same-old ? Yes , there are a few continuity problems , such as Bond and Blofeld not recognizing each other but since their only face-to-face was with Connery and Donald Pleasance ( the most parodied Bond villain performance ) it would be absurd for Lazenby and Savalas to be familiar with each other . Too bad Lazenby didn't come back for Diamonds Are Forever . It would have been better for him to be given a nice little double-feature instead of Connery returning one last time . The youngest Bond actor ( he was 29 at the time of filming ) , he certainly looked athletic and believable but apparently his youthful cockiness onset ruffled the producers feathers too much and his own doubts in the series and himself as an actor prevented his return . Don't let the ancient bad rep put you off . OHMSS is just as worthy as another other superior Bond film . |
564,613 | 102,816 | 30,068 | 7 | How old is Donald ? | Coz in this he's still a kid going to school . Or at least he should be going to school . He doesn't feel like getting out of bed and his devil side wants to lie in but his angel side convinces him to get up . Then there's the dilemma of either going to school or having fun . Should he go fishing or go to class ? Should he smoke a big cigar or do the intelligent thing and refuse it ? Obviously the devil and angel start fighting it out with each other instead of bothering with Donald himself . And in the end he does end up going to class . But really , how old is Donald and is he really still in School ? Whatever the answer is , it's a funny cartoon . |
564,851 | 102,816 | 412,305 | 7 | How far we've come | I got the demo of this game in Dec 1997 and for months me and my best friend did nothing but play it ( yes , nothing but the demo ) . Some months later I actually saved up enough to buy the full game and at the time it seemed so cool and interesting . I'd never played anything like AoE ( I had just gotten my first Windows PC round about then ) and we were both totally addicted . Today , it seems dated and dull . Weird isn't it ? I have AoE2 and it is much better but that too already seems old hat compared with the screenshots of the forthcoming AoE3 ( can't wait ) . Even with all the expansion packs available for this game it will never come close to the complexity of the second sequel or even Age of Mythology . Buy it if you can find it dead cheap tho . |
564,395 | 102,816 | 39,497 | 7 | Where's Jerry ? | The cat and mouse are involved in the usual chases when Jerry dives into a bottle of invisible ink and discovers that it makes him vanish . Instead of seizing the opportunity to go spy on a girl mouse changing room or something , he uses his new-found invisibility to torment Tom . And it's pretty funny and quite inventive despite being a somewhat one-joke cartoon . And the action never leaves the interior of the house , which is usually the trait of below average T & J shorts . Still worth a . However , I'm not sure how an invisible mouse can cast a shadow on the wall , it defies physics and the very nature of being invisible itself . |
564,675 | 102,816 | 433,771 | 7 | I liked this a lot ! | Since Warners revamped the Scooby-Doo franchise in 1998 , feature length mysteries have been inconsistent . The first few had real monsters , with no rubber masks , but far too many disgustingly PC mommies in America complained and the Brothers Warner folded and went back to the " guy in a suit to scare away the locals " stories . A shame . What a surprise then that Scooby's latest adventure is actually quite good , despite its PC shortcomings . This time around the Mystery Inc . gang are in Hawaii , catching some rays and relaxation . Typically , this is the exact moment the local volcano starts brewing over and a big monster called the Wiki-Tiki rears its ugly head , scaring away all of the surfers from the Hunahana resort and kidnapping a local babe . If you are incredibly sad , like me , you will realise this is too much like the 1970 episode , A Tiki Scare Is No Fair . The usual long list of suspects includes a sleazy real estate agent , an ambitious mayor and an eccentric holiday rep ( Adam West ) . And just as soon as their mystery-solving begins , the real culprit is immediately noticeable . It's a poorly written whodunit , but what saves it are crazy set pieces and a varied atmosphere , which keep the mystery interesting , if obvious . Or , at least , obvious to a 24-year-old . It may well come as a surprise to an eight-year-old . Locations , such as the beach , the deep jungle , the catacombs and Auntie Mahina's cabin , are beautifully animated . The best thing about the modern Scooby is that production values are a zillion times what the original 1969 series was . Aloha , Scooby-Doo looks incredibly slick and the eye-popping colour schemes would keep you interested no matter how poor the mystery was . One could accuse the film of being slightly xenophobic and somewhat stereotypical in regards to its Hawaiian setting . But it's no worse than the unrealistic Scotland seen in last year's Scooby-Doo And The Loch Ness Monster . I was also surprised at how little of it actually relies on Scooby ( voiced by Frank Welker , who also does Fred ) . He barely gets a chance to do his thang . Most of the laughs come from the rest of the gang . But , as it is , Aloha , Scooby-Doo is still loads of fun and proves that while the story quality of modern Scoobys remains inconsistent , the animation just gets better and better . |
564,467 | 102,816 | 93,894 | 7 | The future IS the 80's | Of all Arnold's mid-'80s movies who would have thought that most relevant today would be The Running Man . A chilling and surprisingly realistic tale of reality TV gone mad . It may have been far-fetched back then but not so now . Not when you think about it . Currently , Reality TV shows are either scraping the bottom of the barrel or desperate to raise the bar . If the next one isn't more controversial as the last , it's a dud . How long will it be before we really do see shows like The Running Man ? How long before we have ' court-appointed theatrical attorneys ' or the entertainment division of the Justice Department ? There is so much satire and intelligence in this movie that may have been missed back in 1987 that is desperate to be seen again considering the current state of TV shows . The biggest message of all is ' You are being lied to ' . It's no secret that the Government and the media work in cahoots . And the masses believe what the media tells them to believe . It's a very scary state of affairs and unless more accurate representations of the truth emerge we may easily accept a brutal show like the Running Man in the near future . It's no secret that Reality TV is not very realistic . It's edited and reshaped before being aired and it's only what the networks want you to see . Usually it's far from the real truth . Although rather different than Stephen King's book ( the ending is completely changed ) the script does conform to the typical Arnie formula . Yes , he does have numerous and very corny one-liners and he does say ' I'll be back ' ( which he never REALLY said that often anyway , when you think about it ) in the most ironic situation yet but he's still a zillion times better in the role then Christopher Reeve or Dolph Lundgren would have been ( these two were considered BEFORE Arnie believe it or not ) . The director is none other than Dave Starsky himself ( Paul Michael Glaser ) . It may not be artistic but it is still strong enough to generate excitement and his use of neon and flourescent colors gives each individual set a pretty cool look . Andrew Davis ( not a director I particularly like ) was attached before Glaser , though no matter who directs , the film is still marred by a very heavy 80's feel . First of all , Harold Faltermeyer's score ( remember him ? ) is incredibly dated and robs the action scenes of any timeless integrity . And the fashion sense of the movie is far too excessive to be convincingly set in the future . Apart from the dated feel , the only other thing that bugs me is the poorly staged shoot-out that passes as the climax . This new DVD is a zillion times better than the original release . Gone is the horrid letterbox picture . In its place is a brand new hi-definition 1 . 85 : 1 anamorphic transfer . The colors sparkle and literally pop from the screen . The new Dolby 5 . 1 EX and DTS ES soundtrack are also amazing . There constant use of the surround channels to great effect and the bass is strong and powerful . Definitely one of the best re-masters I've seen so far . Two intriguing documentaries , a trailer and a ' Meet the Stalkers ' gimmick are included in this 2-disc set that comes in a rather neat slip case . |
564,200 | 102,816 | 804,555 | 7 | A surprisingly good movie . | Low-rent slasher sequels are usually garbage , I mean has anyone seen Hostel 2 , The Grudge 2 or Hills Have Eyes 2 ? As a result I really wasn't expecting much of this movie despite enjoying the first , not merely for the gorgeous Eliza Dushku either . The premise is nothing new , but the characters , gore and inventive kills make it well worth watching . The always cool Henry Rollins ( who I'd pay money just to see reading the bible ) plays a retired Army Colonel who is now hosting a faux-post apocalyptic reality game show . The setting : the woods . But not just any woods , this is inbred hillbilly territory and they are only too happy to devour a bunch of young city folks . Erica Leerhseen ( who seriously does not look as old as she is ) plays Nina , the cynical , jaded one of the group who keeps her cool when the guts start spilling . Usually with these movies you can tell exactly who is going to die and in what order , but Wrong Turn 2 still managed to seem fresh . I wasn't simply waiting for characters to die or wishing that they'd hurry up and meet a grisly end , since such fodder are usually highly annoying . The one thing that I didn't like was the utterly flat photography . The original had a dark , grainy and hardcore look to it but the sequel just seems so clean and bright and open . I think that if Joe Lynch was perhaps a more experienced director then the film would look tighter and more dynamic , as it is the cinematography does little to compliment the above-average production design . If you are a fan of the first movie then I totally recommend that you give this one a go . It surpassed my expectations and I'm usually quite a snob when it comes to movies . |
564,488 | 102,816 | 206,583 | 7 | One of the better film licences | I first played this game on the C64 when I was about 10 and I thought it was pretty damn good . The graphics were blocky but the locations were quite atmospheric and it was a great button basher . Later on I played it on the Mega Drive , which had a few extra levels added . But somehow it just wasn't as cool . The extra Mega Drive levels included action in the Batmobile and Batwing in which you would blast the Joker's clown cars off the streets of Gotham or destroy the balloons full of poison gas . The music was also much better . I mean it's been years since I played that game and I'm STILL whistling those brilliant tunes . But there was just something about the C64 version that I preferred . I can't really put my finger on it . Of course , as all movie tie-in platformers were at the time , the levels are bizarrely designed with pits full of spikes and exploding walkways but the gameplay and atmosphere make up for that . Graphics Sound Gameplay Lasting Appeal |
564,404 | 102,816 | 424,421 | 7 | Great concept but falls just short of the mark | Second Sight has a brilliant story and a great idea behind the gameplay . You take on the role of John Vattic , who wakes up in a secure hospital / research facility with a battered , scarred body and a killer headache . He has no idea how he got there or what these people want with him . But he soon learns that he has extraordinary psychic powers such as telekinesis , self-healing , astral projection and the ability to possess baddies . So begins your quest to find out the whos and whys . Obviously there's a huge government conspiracy behind everything but the game has a unique storytelling twist as you play one level in the present and the next in the past , at the beginning of the story . It's a unique way of developing interest and involving you more in the mystery . It's very cool being able to sneak up on the baddies and tossing them around like ragdolls with your telekinesis . Chucking them through windows , off high ledges , slamming them into walls and ceilings is loads of fun . But I think this could have been taken further as it was a great opportunity for some cool , gory deaths and the simple blood splatters weren't really enough . The levels vary between hospitals , Siberian outposts , apartments , more hospitals , offices , sewers , labs and even more hospitals . For the most part they are pretty generic and ludicrously over-sized to make the game longer . It can get a bit boring wandering around for ages , avoiding torrents of gunfire , anxiously awaiting a quiet moment to pull yourself together . The music also walks a thin line of being atmospheric or generic . Sometimes it can get on your nerves and sometimes it can add to the tension of a scene . The voice acting is a cut above most games however and John Vattic's accent kinda grows on you . There's also a twist , which I won't spoil for you , that makes the game's complicated plot perfect for a theatrical film . It's fun , but it's long and there are a few annoying bits . And if Second Sight was more developed and detailed it would be a classic . As it is , it's merely fast food . Graphics B Sound B Gameplay B Lasting Appeal |
563,884 | 102,816 | 41,380 | 7 | The first , of many clones . | I'll be totally honest . I was never a big fan of Pepe Le Pew . Every one of his cartoons is the same . For some silly reason a cat will end up a white stripe on it's back and Pepe , a smelly skunk , falls in love with her . His foul scent is so strong that when he grabs her and unleashes an endless barrage of kisses , she can only become like butter in his arms with a dazed look on her face . Occasionally she will try to escape and Pepe will fob it off with something like ' You are play-eeng hard-to-geet ' . Blah , blah , blah , they are all the same . Grant , this one was the first and it won an Oscar . But that was probably the reason they made so many more . This one does have a funny twist at the end when Pepe's love falls into a barrel of water and emerges like crack-addicted rat and the tables are turned . But it's still not really THAT funny . Pepe was only ever a supporting character and never strong enough to carry a whole cartoon . He IS very cute though . |
563,879 | 102,816 | 41,391 | 7 | Cutesy penguin | Not the Danny DeVito penguin I assure you . Bugs is on his way to Miami beach but , like usual , he cannot read a map to save his life ( it must be kinda tough to do underground I guess ) and ends up in the South Pole . After inadvertently saving the life of a cute little penguin from an Eskimo hunter ( in the south pole ? ) the penguin becomes too attached to Bugs to let him leave . Though Bugs cannot bear to look into the Penguin's sad little eyes he shoves him away to get back to his vacation to Miami . Only the little Penguin falls right into the hands of the hunter again and Bugs must use his old tricks of outsmarting and extreme cunning to save his life again . Funny ? Yes . Cute ? Yes . But still not as many laughs as you're used to getting from Bugs . |
563,815 | 102,816 | 117,826 | 7 | The reason TFTC died | While the first film was a solid , self-contained horror flick with a touch of humor and a fair amount of sophistication and imagination , Bordello of Blood falls apart under poor direction and a far too free-spirited nature . While it is a failure as a sequel it manages to entertain only as a brainless time waster . Dennis Miller does his best with the weak material and ad-libs a lot of humor . A little too much , taking the film even further from it's already vague ambitions . But worry not , his humor is still free and easy , unlike his cryptic ( no pun intended ) football commentaries . Erika Eleniak is marginally engaging and Corey Feldman is well underused . The weakest performances come from Angie Everhart as the ancient vampire Lillith and Chris Sarandon as the outrageously stereotyped southern TV evangelist . It's these performances that keep the film eternally low brow . It's sad that Tales from the Crypt totally died after this movie but the powers behind it went on to found the Dark Castle production company ( check out those movies they're actually quite scary and effective ) . The new version of Bordello of Blood is by Universal and is presented in it's proper aspect ratio of 1 . 85 : 1 anamorphic and is in Dolby 5 . 1 . The cheapo snapper case has been replaced by a sturdy keepcase and a new cover art . The only new extra is a trailer . |
564,560 | 102,816 | 356,202 | 7 | Play it in Fall or at Xmas | This sequel to Mickey's Castle of Illusion may have been far too easy but the level on animation ( at the time ) was wonderful and it had a strong Autumn atmosphere . The plot this time is that both Minnie and Daisie have been kidnapped by an evil witch ( the one from Snow White I think ) and it's up to the mouse and the duck to rescue them . I played as Donald of course as he is much better than Mickey . You should definitely pick this up if you find it ( and it you were clever enough to keep your Genesis ) . It's a simple and cute game but wonderfully nostalgic . The Genesis really was the best wasn't it ! |
563,857 | 102,816 | 35,503 | 7 | Happy Duck Soldier | After being instructed to paint a huge cannon in camouflage colors Donald paints it in very noticeable spots and stripes . His drill sergeant obviously goes mad at him . Told to repaint it , Donald goes for a wander and comes across some experimental invisible paint . He wasn't told NOT to use it so why not ? Sure enough the paint works and he has a mighty good time fooling the Sergeant with typical invisible prankster tricks and singing his ' Army is not the Army anymore ' song . Yes , it is another one of Disney's wartime propaganda efforts . Making it seem like the Army is nice and friendly ( not an institution that goes on killing sprees ) and that invisible paint really is something that they mess around with . Good for a few laughs , not to be taken as a snapshot of actual army life . |
564,022 | 102,816 | 24,184 | 7 | Excellent considering it's age | For a 72 year old film , The Invisible Man has rather faultless special effects and still seem impressive in this age of CGI . The story is quite simple but it's wonderfully directed by James Whale and has a rather cool atmosphere and enough menace about it to make it a rather good thriller . Just like the more recent Hollow Man , the story is of a mad doctor ( Claude Raines ) who creates a serum that can turn a man see-through . As all mad doctors do , he experiments on himself and discovers the hard way that with transparent molecules comes insanity and a murderous streak takes over . Since I've not read HG Welles ' novel I don't know how true to the source material this film is but it's loads of fun and rather timeless . Don't let it's age put you off watching it . But some please gag that Innkeeper's wife ! ! ! |
564,160 | 102,816 | 60,451 | 7 | Rather imaginative | Pinky is out for a stroll when he comes across a talking lamp ( why they call Genie Lamps ' lamps ' is beyond my understanding as they are clearly old-fashioned kettles ) that tries to sell him the pros of being a genie ( the life and soul of the party and so on ) . Pinky falls for it and crams himself into the lamp ( it's a kettle ) , eagerly awaiting his first wishmaker . But instead of being the life and soul of the party the lamp / kettle is kicked around , stomped on and thrown away by everyone it encounters , giving Pinky inside a rather rough ride . It's quite funny and I did feel sorry for Pinky . He only wants to entertain . And that he did , though by accident I think . |
563,956 | 102,816 | 31,744 | 7 | An honest copper ? | Well , not really . Donald plays the incompetent Officer 13 who cannot apprehend Tiny Tom , a wanted local criminal . In an effort to sneak himself into Tiny's dwelling Donald disguises himself as a baby , abandoned child of Tiny's pal trigger . Being the generous type ( ? ) Tiny takes him in and , amidst lots of suspicion and almost exposures , Donald tries in vain to slap the shackles / cuffs / ball and chain on him . Trouble is , Tiny wants to play with him too much . In the end Donald does manage to do the impossible and succeed at something by taking Tiny into custody ( by default ) but it's a funny cartoon with an unusually bleak-looking color pallet . |
564,107 | 102,816 | 439,576 | 7 | Incredibly silly but a good effort | You could criticize Freddy vs Ghostbusters for being amateurish , but that would be missing the point . Hank Braxton did a wonderful job with the material and pays loving tribute to both franchises . To be fair though , it's mainly a Ghostbusters film . The plot has Freddy tormenting the dreams of Denver kids again until the nephew of Egon Spengler turns up in town with his Ghostbuster Jnr . pal . After busting a nasty poltergeist in a bar they make it big in Colorado ( a brilliant montage follows ) and decide to investigate the rumors of Freddy Kruger . Will they be able to bust the dream demon once and for all ? Watch and find out . The only thing that really bugged me was the fact that the cinematography is far too static . Movies are supposed to move and too often the stillness of the scenes frustrated me and my attention wandered . It's really the only thing I can complain about . The actors were great and although they weren't hardcore professionals they still made me laugh . |
564,147 | 102,816 | 27,994 | 7 | Pack your bags | Mickey and Donald are way behind in their rent money . Sheriff Pete ( so tough he spits nails into the wall and hammers them in with his fist ) wants his house back and decides to sell their furniture to make up for the debt . As soon as the mouse and duck start to pack up their meagre belongings all hell breaks loose , as it usually does in a Disney cartoon . Ice Deliveryman Goofy is stalked by a runaway piano , Donald gets a plunger / goldfish bowl stuck on his behind and Mickey has trouble fitting everything into one suitcase . Obviously the Sheriff ain't so keen on this last minute buffoonery but he gets what he deserves in the end . |
564,843 | 102,816 | 78,346 | 7 | Miles better than the 2006 disaster ! | I had only ever seen the TV version of the original Superman movie until I bought the HD-DVD . So , as you can imagine , on TV it was in hideous pan and scan and with several scenes missing . In reality , I have never seen the ' full ' movie until now . And I have to admit , it's far , far superior to Bryan Singer's self-indulgent mess of Superman Returns . It actually takes quite a while to get going , but there's so much going on that the running time certainly doesn't seem two and a half hours . Richard Donner shot it back to back with Superman II , so there's an extended opening act that establishes the plot of the sequel at the same time . Anyone who doesn't know the story of Superman must be from another galaxy , but for those people I will give you a quick soundbite . Kal El is the orphan of the planet Krypton , which has recently blown up . He comes to Earth as a baby and lands in Smallville where he is quickly adopted by a farmer and his wife and renamed Clark Kent . His dense molecular structure and his ability to defy Earth's gravity give him advantages over humans and ultimately he becomes . . . SUPERMAN ! But who doesn't already know that ? Clark Kent assumes an exaggerated , clumsy , meek newspaper reporter persona to distance himself from the Superman guise . Somehow everybody , including secret love Lois Lane , falls for it even though the glasses and the hair are all that is different . Hypervillain Lex Luthor ( Gene Hackman ) doesn't take well to the man of steel as he might interfere with his plans for Real Estate Domination ( the modern term for World Domination ) . But does he really think he can win ? Hypervillains never know when to be humble . Just about everything that was terrible about Superman Returns is completely right about this one . The cinematography , the music , the editing , the pacing . I won't call the SFX fake , since it doesn't ever take you out of the film , so I'll just call them ' quaint ' . For 1978 they're good and even though they are all done optically it's still better than the CGI crapfest of Singer's interpretation . Christopher Reeve's ultimate fate does kind of upset me , so it's good to see him in his prime and being made immortal in a way . The cast of this film does have a lot of big names . Along with the huge scope and spectacle , such a large cast adds to the epic feel of it . Marlon Brando , Gene Hackman , Ned Beatty , Margot Kidder , Terence Stamp and Glenn Ford just seem like a far more dynamic bunch of actors than Kate Bosworth and Kal Penn . Don't you think ? It's been 29 years since this film was released and people still make a big fuss over it today . In 29 years , will be still be talking about Superman Returns ? Outside of ridicule , I think not . |
564,391 | 102,816 | 932,912 | 7 | Get it for Sandra | You know the problem with buying porno DVDs is that too often you are just buying it for one scene . I guess if you could pick and choose which scenes you want to watch instead of being stuck with a bunch of girls you're not interested in it would be better . Perhaps this is why downloading specific scenes off the internet is gaining popularity . The one scene I recommend this DVD for is most definitely the last scene with Sandra Brown and her ( surprisingly large-bushed ) pal Kimberly . Sandra is such a gorgeous girl and so incredibly dirty she makes any scene arousing , even if she were just reading the bible fully dressed in frumpy clothing . Both her and Kimberly do regular sex in various positions on an outdoor sofa as well as anal ( oh , what a wonderful , wonderful ass she has ) . Sounds bland , but since it's her it's the best scene on the DVD . Please do more porn Sandy ! |
564,205 | 102,816 | 89,092 | 7 | A film that almost never was | I hate being nostalgic about movies , but I do remember a time when imagination was evident in every part of a production , when film posters were dynamic , visceral and iconic , when films looked like they were shot on film and not an HD camera with a sunset tint , when scores were done by orchestras instead of synthesizers and death metal guitars and , most important of all , when the lack of CGI technology forced the filmmakers into achieving visual effects through more practical means . The 1980s were filled with such movies and , looking back , I am glad that I grew up in that decade . Children now are exposed to altogether soulless movies . Set in the late 21st Century , Enemy Mine has humans reaching out into the depths of space after achieving world peace . But a rival species , the alien race of the Drax , don't take to kindly to humans poking about the galaxy and an interstellar war kicks off . A human pilot ( Dennis Quaid ) and a lone Drac ( Louis Gossett Jnr . ) crash land on a remote desert planet and learn , the hard way , to stick together if they want to survive . Despite their ultimate conflict they discover that they are not all that different from each other and neither yet both are to blame for the war . Enemy Mine suffered from severe problems during production . Apparently the original director , Richard Longcraine ( Wimbledon , Richard III ) , shot the entire film on location in Iceland before being replaced by Wolfgang Petersen who re-shot the whole film all over again but changed the story somewhat in the process . So , in reality , there are two completely different versions of Enemy Mine . One which was released into cinemas that has become a classic in its own right and another that only exists in the vaults of Twentieth Century Fox . I would love to see this alternate cut . The fantastic photography and production design look very , very good for a film from 1985 . Some of the effect shots and matte paintings are simply gorgeous and the cutting between desert locations and desert sets is almost seamless . This isn't like an episode of the original Star Trek series in which the cast simply take a half hour drive to a bit of desert outside of LA , the desert locations with the matte painting backgrounds look utterly authentic . If you like the look and feel of films like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth then you'll appreciate the fantasy of Enemy Mine . I know I am going to sound like an old coot but they just don't make films like this anymore . Everything these days seems to be geared towards the average ASBO teenage boy . In ten years time I honestly think that films will be no more than a test card that offends and stimulates no one . I will consider myself lucky that films like this were once made and that they were a part of my formative years . |
564,824 | 102,816 | 113,568 | 7 | What the hell is going on ? ? ? | Is a question I asked myself many times thru-out this movie . The plot lost me somewhere along the line when they mention a guy called the puppet-master . After that I hadn't a clue what to make of it . But that doesn't mean the film doesn't have some cool set pieces or that it's not worth watching . There is a cool moment when the girl is fighting a spider-like tank in an old deserted building . The music and the atmosphere of that scene is way cool and gunfire looks and sounds awesome . But there are some bad scenes too . Like the one where a character is wandering thru a street market and the music is made up of psalm singing . Ugh ! That scene is awful and I have no idea why the director allowed it to be in the movie . There is another scene which is also a direct rip-off of Predator with an invisible camouflaged villain being chased by an Arnie-like good guy hero . But although it was a rip-off it was still enjoyable . Only Manga fans and those who like to be REALLY involved with a movie should watch this . For all others it is just way too confusing and has too much influence from another culture . But anyways . |
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