Posted in Uncategorized on February 27, 2008| Leave a Comment »
No reviews recently, as I’ve loaned out a Netflix rental to a family member, my Netflix queue has slowed to a crawl through the mail and I seriously doubt anyone is interested in a review of Murder, She Wrote: Season 1, Disc 1.
Hopefully I’ll get another movie shortly, and I’m endeavoring to see Be Kind, Rewind this week.
Posted in Action, Review on February 23, 2008| 1 Comment »
What. The. Hell.
This is a movie that best describes the old adage “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Someone started out to make a decently fun action flick and fucked up seriously along the way.
There is nothing redeeming about this movie. Even as a moviegoer who can suspend disbelief for just about anything, this movie borders on insane. There’s no fun here, only exhaustion. By the third time someone dies by carrot (yes, you read that right) you’re waiting for something fun and or interesting. Instead you get the same, tired shlock you’ve come to expect from bad action movies, just with a patina of snazzier set up and effects, with newfangled ways of killing people that just wear on the viewer.
This movie sucked, pure and simple. Every single cast member phoned it in; Clive Owen acts like he’s a block of wood or something. He doesn’t suck, but he’s not good either. I struggled with this one, mainly because I’d been wanting to see it for quite a while and I wasn’t willing to give up on it — my hand touched the remote power button several times while I debated whether or not to turn it off.
This movie sucked SO HARD I want to find Clive Owen and wring two hours of life out of his body in exchange for making me sit through this mess. When Crank looks like a more believable movie than this, your movie has problems.
Verdict: I can’t express in words how bad this movie was. Redneck Zombies is finer cinema than this. Forget it even existed. Ever.
Posted in Review on February 20, 2008| 11 Comments »
Okay, I have a relatively minor confession to make here.
I’ve never actually seen Pumpkinhead. As someone who could watch horror movies every day for the rest of her life and probably never complain once, I’m sure to some this is an inexcusable crime.
Apparently, I haven’t been missing all that much, really.
The story of Pumpkinhead is really very simple. Quiet, simple rural type has a son he loves dearly. Son gets killed in a tragic accident by some stupid teenagers from the big city. Father seeks revenge by visiting the scary-ass witch up in the one section of woods in bum-fuck West Virginia (or wherever this movie takes place). Witch releases this crazy Pumpkinhead thing upon unsuspecting, stupid big-city teenagers who promptly die in horrific ways. Father has sudden attack of remorse and tries to stop the supernatural creature from killing everyone.
In many ways, it’s quite a lot like someone took the worst of Pet Sematary, The Evil Dead trilogy, and a Hallmark movie about rural folks and shoved it into a blender. Lance Henrikson doesn’t have a “down home” kind of feel because, hey — if you didn’t already know, Lance Henrikson is fucking creepy as shit! You start and end the movie totally repulsed. (Sorry, Lance.)
The plot and the storyline are predictable to any moviegoer. The real disappointment is the special effects. Stan Winston conducted them here, and he’s notable as writer/director as well. Pumpkinhead itself is some weird meld of special effects from the Alien franchise, with it’s strange walk, weird shoulder bone protrusions and semi-elongated head. The thing looks like it eventually would evolve into a xenomorph.
I’m sure at the time Pumpkinhead was pretty fresh, but it sucks nowadays.
Verdict: Avoid at all possible costs. Thank god for Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” feature or I would have wasted more time waiting for a new movie to come in the mail
Posted in Netflix on February 20, 2008| 1 Comment »
You check your Netflix queue and you have 425 movies sitting in your queue, and you’re about to add more.
Seriously. Four hundred and twenty five movies. I won’t be able to watch all of that this year. Granted, some of them are multi-disc special interest series or documentaries (Ken Burns’ films probably take up about 40 spaces in my queue alone) but still.
I’m kind of saddened by my own movie insanity here.
#1418 should be up shortly for that horror classic, Pumpkinhead.
Posted in Review, tagged Planet Terror on February 19, 2008| Leave a Comment »
I should hate Planet Terror.
No, really. It’s a schlocky, gory mess that’s far from original – right down to the “Missing Reel” frames that were practically ripped right off of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” video. I love horror movies and moreover, I love zombie movies so I already lean too much toward this one.
Nothing about this movie is original, from the fake pops and scratches on the film to the fake trailers that run in the beginning; for example, the advertised “Machete” with Danny Trejo didn’t exist until Robert Rodriguez decided to make it — after they had already premiered Grindhouse.
Even through the bad-on-purpose dialogue and predictable plot, you still find youself rooting for the one-legged girl with an automatic weapon for a fake leg. You still get caught up in the drama.
You start out thinking this movie’s incredibly bad and by the time it ends, it’s sucked you in.
Verdict: Worth the rental; Netflix it!
Posted in Uncategorized on February 17, 2008| 2 Comments »
Hopefully, I’ll have some stuff up in the next few days…
1416 and Counting 