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Reviews
Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002)
Annoyingly unfunny
The first few minutes of this movie is quite funny, then it gets really annoying after.
The concept and technical aspect of it is ingenious, however, the material is really not funny enough. More so, when Oedekerk tried hard to be Mike Myers.
Blue Crush (2002)
Not bad surf movie
This movie is about surfing, the waves, beautiful beaches, surfer chicks, exhibitions and a little drama that goes with it.
The waves and the sound effects are brilliant. The sound that you hear when you are underwater is captured here very well.
Kate Bosworth and Michelle Rodriguez were not bad at all.
Swimfan (2002)
Get drowned by its shallowness!
I rented this video because of the cast, two of whom are Soderberg alumni, Jesse Bradford (King of the Hill) and Erika Christensen (Traffic), they were great on those movies, but not on this piece of crap.
The story is so derivative and worn out. The characters lacked depth (I'm not expecting it really). The bad girl, Madison Bell looks like a chubby version of Kristanna Lokken, whacking people around.
Abandon (2002)
Abandon this one!
If you see this in a video store for free, abandon it.
The pace is so slow, and it gets repititious that you don't care about it anymore and when the story unravels, you won't know it, because you're already fast asleep.
Days of Heaven (1978)
Visually stunning!
At the opening of the film, Mallick's visual style is quite imminent. A bunch of factory workers working their asses off and then two of them got into an argument, one of whom is Richard Gere. The two of them exchange words but you don't hear what they're talking about because of the din of the bustle of the factory. The said argument terminated into Richard Gere's character got the other guy killed. No words but the images were so succint that you don't need it. And such style goes on until the end of the film. This is a kind of film that presents a visual imagery with minimum of words thus it does not insult the audience by explaining it so much just like most films today are made of.
Cinematography was great, the Americana landscape seemed painted with Leonardo's fine brushes.
Ennio Morricone's score is also worth mentioning.
Blood Work (2002)
Bloody Adaptation!
Though the novel by Michael Connelly is the usual run of the mill thriller, it does not deserved to be botched and lobotomized like this.
The first half of the film copied the book verbatim, like a word for word copy, Connelly deserved a credit for it. Even Eastwood delivered the lines like he's reading (he's not conversing actually, he's like reading!) from the book. Then halfway through, Helgeland turned the novel upside down. Nothing much actually, he just changed the identity of the killer, who was a good guy in the book! I remember when Tom Clancy was very angry with the way "The Clear and Present Danger" (a character was killed, who is present in Clancy's succeeding novels)was adapted, if I'm Connelly, I would be similarly mad.
This is for me a botched job, if you read the book don't watch this.
Cradle Will Rock (1999)
Woody Allenesque
This movie feels like a Woody Allen film. The characters are rich and keep on talking and when they don't, they're singing.
It's about a play called "Cradle Will Rock" but with Tim Robbins at the helm, you expect that this will go loudly political and it is.
The actors were really great, you should watch the Tenacious D (Jack Black and Kyle Cass)part, very hilarious.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
A bad episode of "Raymond"
This film is made up of stand-up punchlines tied together by a very weak plotline and cliched fairy tale story. Furthermore, some funny scenes are hammed up so they came out not funny and it may be realistic but still not funny.
I heard this will be turned to a TV show....Goodluck.
Raymond rules!!!!!
Schock (1977)
A B-movie that really scares!!!!!!
This is the first Mario Bava film that I have seen and I'm sure this won't be the last.
Though "Shock" has all the elements of a B-movie, it doesn't pretend to be otherwise. The basic ingredients of cliched story, bad acting, cheap make up, "hand on the shoulder" scares, tomato catsup blood and "why-don't-you-get-the-hell-out-of-the-house-already" response from the audience are abundantly present. And the wonderful thing is, the film makers don't give a rat's ass.
Instead, Bava presented patches of visual delights in a horrifying way that will surely be stored in your memory bank for nightmare purposes only. The dream sequences and the violent ending have been haunting me for a few nights now, so beware!!!!
Trainspotting (1996)
A junkie film that bites
I've seen a lot of films that are either pro or most of the time anti-drugs, this film is neither.
The film makers just want to tell a simple story of a junkie, Renton, played very well by Ewan McGregor, who struggled to get out from Glasgow's drug scene and in the process fighting the gravitational pull of his friends and the drug itself. No preaching and that made this film wonderful.
The portrayal of drug use and effects of its depravity are disturbing and surreal and fresh owing to Danny Boyle's style of shaky camera movements.
Robert Carlyle's performance as Begbie is brilliant, even though most of the times I don't quite understand what he is talking about because the dialogue is extremely "Welsh" (from author Irvine Welsh).
Worth watching: 10/10
Buffet froid (1979)
Could have been a masterpiece...but, no!
This could have been a great French black comedy. The shots particularly on urban life are well executed. The story progresses into just right pace with unexpected twist in it. However, when the film nears its end, it devolved into a rubbish piece of French cinema. I imagined that the people making this film got a good start and then suddenly got bored with it and quickly finished it with a very bad ending. Great acting and cinematography were wasted unnecessarily.
Ringu (1998)
Minimalistic horror at its best!
The best thing about this movie is, I don't expect anything from it because the summary, credits & cover are all in Japanese language, so I had no idea what will I see. But while watching the opening sequences, I was immediately hooked. What is so exceptional about this film is, it creates an atmosphere of eerie feeling without the gory details (the supposed monster's face wasn't even shown). Instead, the director masterfully utilizes lighting and camera movements to produce the effect, not to mention the music. I can feel the hair on the back of my neck really standing up when the "mysterious" video was shown (the first & last it was shown, specially the latter).
I highly recommend this movie to any horror fan.