Movie Reviews

Home ›

 

 

 

Wanted: A Cure for Freemanic Paracusia

Submitted by corwin on Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:53am
in
corwin's picture
Image of Wanted

A little while back, Dustin told me he had a comic I just had to read, as it was written specifically for me.  His recomendations have always been spot-on, so I took a gander at his copy of Wanted and was immediately hooked.  It's the story of a world where the supervillians finally banded together to wipe out all of the superheroes and took over.  A hypochondriac office worker discovers that he is the son and heir of The Killer, a super-villain assassin.  Finding that society's laws and morals no longer apply to him, he finds time to take his revenge on everyone who ever wronged him before setting on the trail of the man who killed his father.

Dustin was right, of course, I loved it.  But when

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stuck (2007)

Submitted by corwin on Sun, 5 Jul 2009 8:30pm
in
corwin's picture

Over the weekend, Dustin and I discovered we both had Stuck in our instant viewing queues, so we decided to go ahead and watch it as part of our regularly scheduled movie night.  Stuck is Stuart Gordon's take on on actual events that took place in Fort Worth, Texas.  After a night of partying, a nurse's aide named Chante Mallman hit a pedestrian while driving home.  Instead of stopping and calling for help, she panicked and drove home with the man lodged headfirst in her windshield, bleeding profusely.  She parked the car in the garage, and went inside to go to bed while the man bled to death.

This isn't the first time I've seen this particular plot dramatized.  It's a favorite of crime shows; I've seen it on CSI and one of the Law & Orders.  But it's a whole different beast under the directon of Stuart Gordon.  He cut his teeth on H. P. Lovecraft adaptations like Re-Animator and From Beyond, and gave us the inimitable Dagon a few years back.  Stuart Gordon doesn't pull punches.

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shark Attack in the Mediterranean (2004)

Submitted by corwin on Thu, 2 Jul 2009 4:24pm
in
corwin's picture

Ever since Jaws first left me with the sure knowledge that we are, in fact, going to need a bigger boat, I've loved shark attack movies (and books).  Despite the fact that I know going in that most Jaws ripoffs are huge steaming piles, I still watch them.  Occasionally, I am pleasantly surprised, as was the case with Samuel L. Jackson's motivation speech cut short by a surprisingly early death in Deep Blue Sea, but more often I am left with something that would find it difficult to compare favorably to Jaws: The Revenge.

Shark Attack in the Mediterranean, unfortunately, fell into the latter category.

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Legend of the Bog (2009)

Submitted by corwin on Thu, 2 Jul 2009 12:48pm
in
corwin's picture

Once in a while, I rent a movie based solely on the title and box art.  The Redbox has definitely fed right into this habit.  I'll wander up to the machine and glance over the selection until a movie or two catches my eye.  Thus did I end up taking home Legend of the Bog, starring Vinnie Jones.

When I got through the previews to the DVD menu, I could already tell I was in trouble.  Scenes of a big, bald man in what looked like a sack cloth tunic running across the countryside while the least appropriate music for a horror movie played dominated.  I started to wonder if this was a Lifetime Movie Network film about a misunderstood man living in the bogs, rather than the horror/action movie the cover promised.

Knowing I was in for some pain as I hit play, my first thought when the FBI warning came up was that it should say something along the lines of "Any duplication, authorized or otherwise, will result in a taint on your very soul which can never be absolved."  I grabbed my laptop and decided to share the pain by typing my thoughts into Twitter as the movie progressed.

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009)

Submitted by corwin on Mon, 8 Jun 2009 9:04pm
in
corwin's picture

Once in a while, a movie comes along for which I am the target audience.  Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus was just such a movie.  It was obvious to me from the title alone that the fine people  at The Asylum sat down one day and asked themselves the all important question: what would corwin like to sit down and watch?  They clearly know my long-standing love of giant shark movies, and the way I'll run head-long into a "versus" movie.  And, in a stroke of marketing genius, they took a like from Snakes on a Plane and gave it a title from which anyone can immediately tell if they want to see it.  And from the moment I heard of Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus, I wanted to see it!

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Man on Wire (2008)

Submitted by corwin on Thu, 23 Apr 2009 9:06pm
in
corwin's picture

When I went through and revised how my movie review posts are handled on the site, specifically when I added a page to list them by rating, I realized that I watch way too many awful movies, and have reviewed far too few good ones.  So when I sat down to watch Man on Wire on Dustin's suggestion, I knew I finally had something good to write about.

On August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit set out to do the impossible.  He and an international group of accomplices snuck into the World Trade Center to string a wire between the Twin Towers so Philippe could walk across.  After years of planning (Philippe had know he had to do this since the day he saw an article about the start of construction of what was to be the tallest buildings in the world), numerous setbacks, and a harrowing night on the roof, they pulled it off.  A quarter of a mile above the streets of New York City, one seriously crazy Frenchman walked a two-hundred-foot tightrope for the sheer beauty of the act.

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Underground Comedy Movie

Submitted by corwin on Sun, 12 Apr 2009 5:56pm
in
corwin's picture

A little while back, I heard that Vince Offer, the infomercial guy who sells the Sham-Wow and the Slap-Chop, had a more interesting background than I would otherwise have thought.  He had apparently made a movie once upon a time, but had been ruined financially when the Church of Scientology kicked him out and, according to him, launched a smear campaign against him.  He managed to use his skills marketing a vegetable shopper to pull together enough money to finish producing the movie, then marketed it in infomercials to sell over 100,000 copies.  He then used the profits to turn around and sue the Church of Scientology.

This story sounded interesting enough that I figured I ought to take a look at The Underground Comedy Movie.

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surviving the Game (1994)

Submitted by corwin on Sun, 5 Apr 2009 9:57am
in
corwin's picture

Richard Connell's classic 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game" has long been a favorite of mine.  I've seen several film adaptations, as well as coming across versions of the story in nearly every format and genre.  The hunter becoming the hunted is a plot that always strikes a chord with me.  So it was only natural that Netflix recommend Surviving the Game to me, especially given it's star-studded cast.  Sadly, Netflix was grossly mistaken in assuming I'd give this one four out of five stars.

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Movie Reviews by Rating

in

-1.00 Bolls -1.00 Bolls
-0.80 Bolls -0.80 Bolls
-0.70 Bolls -0.70 Bolls
-0.60 Bolls -0.60 Bolls
-0.50 Bolls -0.50 Bolls
-0.20 Bolls -0.20 Bolls
-0.10 Bolls -0.10 Bolls
0.10 Bolls 0.10 Bolls
0.30 Bolls 0.30 Bolls
0.40 Bolls 0.40 Bolls
0.50 Bolls 0.50 Bolls
0.60 Bolls 0.60 Bolls
0.70 Bolls 0.70 Bolls
0.80 Bolls 0.80 Bolls
0.90 Bolls 0.90 Bolls
0.95 Bolls 0.95 Bolls
0.99 Bolls 0.99 Bolls

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chill (2007)

Submitted by corwin on Mon, 10 Nov 2008 8:00pm
in
corwin's picture

There seems to be an unspoken rule among filmmakers that if you're completely lacking in talent or budget, H. P. Lovecraft is the writer to go to for your inspiration.  With a few notable exceptions, the movies based on or inspired by his work are pretty awful.  I don't understand this, as Lovecraft, like Poe, is a fantastic source of good horror.

Take, for instance, his story "," written back in 1926.  It's a good little story, tightly written, that could have supported a short film of some kind (which, as I look now, it did back in 1999).  Unfortunately, it is also the inspiration for the unspeakably awful . Spoilers ahead....

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Syndicate content