Vengeance Is A Golden Blade (product link) Martial Arts / Action/Adventure I really enjoyed this movie. "Vengeance" is pretty standard Shaw Brothers fare, featuring a well-developed plot, and characters that you really understand by the time the movie is over.
The film develops a strong theme of family and honor, with a strong focus on "family" being more about relationships than blood. But not to worry, "Vengeance" features enough action to keep the die-hard kung fu fan entertained throughout.
The Machine Girl (product link) Action/Adventure / Girls With Guns This is one of those very rare "sit back and be a vegetable" movies. It is very violent, but the gore is all tongue-in-cheek and cartoonish, making this a fun movie to watch with friends. When I first received this movie, I watched it three times in two days, and have placed it on the "must-see" list of all my friends Watch this movie, and simply be entertained by a bloody, fun cartoon come-to-life.
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"Cartoonish" is a good word. This flick is insanely gory, but most of it is played for humor.
Dog Soldiers (product link) Horror / Thriller I love this movie. "Dog Soldiers" does not pretend to be any more than soldiers vs. werewolves, and that is exactly what you get: a team of Scottish soldiers battling a werewolf clan. The action is fast and very well paced, and the acting is mostly believable. This is director Neil Marshall's first feature film, and he manages action with greater ability and verve than most modern action directors with several films under their belt (I am looking at you, Michael Bay).
Give this a spin. It is a great movie for the casual or devoted horror fan, and hearkens back to the days of classic storytelling. The movie just tells a tale--no morals, no extraneous plotlines, just soldiers fighting like hell to survive the night.
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The best (and most fun) werewolf flick I can think of.
I love it too, definitely more than 3.5 stars for me. Great humor, great characters, wonderful and thrilling film. Too bad the director's subsequent films fell short IMO.
Battle Royale (product link) Horror / Thriller The first time I saw "Battle Royale", I was a little sick by the end. The sight of high school children forced to kill each other in increasingly brutal ways left me cold and a little depressed, but that should not put a viwer off this film. I have watched it several times since, and really do think it is an exceptional movie. The director manages to take several child actors, and unfolds a tale that swings from brutal violence, to genuinely heart-warming moments of friendship and affection.
It is very difficult to pay tribute to "Battle Royale". Despite the touchy subject matter, the film really is best seen as social commentary. How dos the 21st century handle increasingly unruly gangs of teenagers who refuse to conform, learn, or grow? The human story told here is worthy of my highest praise as these children face the challenges of survival, adaptation, ethics, and pain.
28 Days Later (product link) Horror / Thriller While the zombie schtick in modern movies is definitely wearing thin, this thriller manages to up the ante by creating fast zombies. Not the shuffling, slow-moving corpses we have all come to know and love, but mean, running, screaming flesh-eaters that probably move faster than you do.
The direction is a little rough, and the ridiculous rock video style jump cuts tend to obscure a lot of the action, but the film remains terrifying and pulse-racing until the climax. Worth a watch, even for viewers not enamored with the zombie genre.
A Nightmare On Elm Street [1984] (product link) Horror / Thriller An absolute classic of the slasher-horror genre. "A Nightmare On Elm Street" manages to be a terrifying movie, even with repeat viewings. The originator of the Freddy series thankfully avoids the bizzare humor that dragged the sequels down, and will make the casual horror viewer jump at least once.
The acting is rough, but this is an 80's teen horror flick, so that is not only forgivable, but expected.
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easily the best installment of the series. Pray a creep like Freddy doesn't enter your neighborhood.****/****
Freddy's taunting, wisecracking nature is definitely well established even in this first entry, but yes, it got wildly out of control in later films. Great film.
Let me get this out of the way before I review "Cloverfield": I love a diverse range of films, and I have a great love for Daikaiju films in particular. When I saw the adds for "Cloverfield", I wanted to love this movie. I really, really did. Then I went to see the film on opening night.
This movie was not bad, so much as it was not good. Throughout the film, I kept believing they could have given us so much more than what they did. The acting is hammy, but that is not unusual in a giant monster movie. The director works so hard to not let you SEE anything of the action. You get close-ups of the beast, but are never really gratified with full-on, decent shots. Also, the "found footage," "shaky-cam" approach really did not help the experience.
This movie felt like it should have been made in two parts. One part should be as it stands, another part showing an honest-to-God, straight-up giant monster movie. The movie ends with so many nagging questions (Where does the beast come from? What happened to him? Is New York totally obliterated? What is the story with the weird little parasites?) that a traditional format film to accompany this one would have made the whole "Cloverfield" experience much, much better.
All that being said, the movie is fine for what it is, and what it is is a found video camera after a disaster. Nothing more, nothing less. The filmmakers succeeded in making what they wanted to make, but sometimes that just isn't enough.
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I agree with your assessment that the low-budg shaky inconclusive thing left the film feeling incomplete, but that is what they set out to do...I'd love to see a proper big-budg re-take on this whole thing too. Great idea.
I keep hoping the "Dark Knight" furor will subside a little, as it has been difficult to be honest about how I feel about this movie. While the movie is well-acted, and brilliantly directed, I was left a little unsatisfied overall.
I am a Bat fan, and I did not care for the Joker in "Dark Knight". My issue is not with Heath Ledger's acting, but rather the character himself. I am a traditionalist, and I love the goofy clown Joker (such as Mark Hamill's take in the animated series) more than I like the darker, almost serious, Joker that Nolan created. Gone were most of the one-liners, squirting flowers, and bizarre humor-oriented crimes and killings. In their place we have just another sociopath who wears bad makeup, and only has one or two moments that are classically Joker.
Honestly, I felt the acme of this movie was Two-Face. Nolan brilliantly displays Harvey Dent's physical, and psychological, damage, giving real life to this character for the first time on any screen. I believe had Heath Ledger not passed away, the world would be discussing Two-Face as fervently as they discuss the other.
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