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Reviews
Ed and His Dead Mother (1993)
Inane and unfunny
Steve Buscemi is not a name I associate with quality films, but I watched this anyway out of morbid curiousity. As it turned out, I was being too optimistic. Not only does it rip the premise from Peter Jackson's "Dead Alive" (Watch both movies & tell me I'm wrong), but it's a horror-comedy with neither horror nor comedy... discuss amongst yourselves.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988)
It made me a B-movie fan
It seems there are two kinds of people: those who love MST3K, and those who haven't seen it, I don't know of anyone who actively dislikes this show. As for myself, I began watching at around 13 or 14, and while it didn't change my life, it did significantly alter my viewing habits. MST3K taught me that watching bad movies can be a fun, even educational experience. It's a great show that brought some of the most obscure pieces of pop-culture detritus to the public attention (I even liked one of the movies), and though it may be gone, there will always be bad movies to snipe at...
Bottle Rocket (1996)
YES! Now that's what I call a movie!
When I first saw the print ads, I had a feeling this was going to be something special, but I wasn't expecting it to be this good. If you had opened up my mind and seen what kind of movie I wanted, it would look like this. Bottle Rocket makes me happy. It receives my highest recommendation, 20 out of 10.
Pump Up the Volume (1990)
Not just a teen movie
Ok, "message pictures" with a teen-age protagonist normally aren't my thing. But c'mon, this is a flippin' great movie! Great script, great acting, wonderful music, truisms up the yin-yang, it's the ultimate teen rebellion story, and so much more. BTW, I'm 19 now. I saw this 2 1/2 times on cable last year, and I'm ever so glad I did. The movie's aged really
well, too... in our post-Internet society, the ending is strangely prophetic. In other words, go see it!!!
Army of Darkness (1992)
I'd like to add one thing...
Yes, this movie is campy, escapist fun, like everyone says it
is, and I like the way Bruce Campbell alternates between tough guy and fall guy. However, there is one scene that I found really unsettling. When Ash meets his evil twin, and he calls Ash a goody-two-shoes, Ash blows him away and says ( I think you all know this one by now) "good, bad, I'm the guy with the
gun". This is heady stuff. Perhaps Raimi was just poking fun at the "hero by default" concept, but it made me wonder, does might really make right? How much control do we have over ourselves, anyway? And what does it say about Ash if his
"good" and "bad" sides are interchangeable? Maybe I'm reading too much into it... whatever it means, it's a great line.
Wizards (1977)
Underrated
Ah, Wizards. Now this is a movie that newsgroups love to pick apart. But look past it's cheapness and it's technical flaws, and you'll find an underrated gem of animation. Although oddly structured (our protagonists don't set off on their quest until about half an hour into the movie) and weighed down with exposition, Wizards tells a good story, the art is excellent, and it has one of the coolest animated battles I've ever
seen... think Ralph Bakshi does Braveheart.
Titan A.E. (2000)
It was the last best hope...
... for American animated blockbusters, and now I am convinced that animation will remain a niche genre in this country. The Japanese get Miyazaki, we get Don Bluth, hardly seems fair does it? Yeah, this is a formula movie all right. The plot is threadbare, characters are vanilla, and the villians (named "Drej", how clever) have it in for us Earthlings, apparently just because we're a spacefaring race (uh, what about all the other races?). Two semi-interesting locales are squandered in boring chase scenes, and the Titan itself looks more like a medium-sized space station (hence the Babylon 5 reference) than a potential planet. Sorry, but the whole experience left me as cold as one of those ice rings (and I *am* the Snow Dog, after all).
Future War (1997)
The movie that knocks boxes over!
"Ok, so we've got a guy from the future, and he's also from another world. But he's not an alien, he's a human slave of an alien race. These aliens took people from the present - our future - and dinosaurs from Earth's past... are you following me? Ok, here's what happens. One guy escapes and travels into the past - our present - to warn the people of Earth. What? How did he go back in time? Hell, I don't know! You're the producer, you think of something! Anyway, our hero is chased by this bad-ass alien, and his dinosaur pets, but no one will believe him cuz the dinos EXPLODE when they die! See, they have these special collars. Oh yeah, and it has street gangs and a nun in it. Waddaya say?"
The pitch for Future War (at least that's how I imagine it). I do believe that this is the worst mainstream movie you can buy. When I say that appearing in this is beneath Robert
Z'dar, that should give you some idea of how bad it is. Daniel Bernhardt may be a real kickboxer, but here, he comes off as more of a box-kicker (you'll see what I mean). I can't believe Anthony Doublin, who worked on the great Re-animator and From Beyond, directed this piece of trash. Just goes to show what can happen when you put an effects guy behind the camera...
Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994)
The weirdest and best one yet.
This much-maligned sequel has to be my favorite Phantasm so far, as there's just so much going on in it. Is it a zombie movie, a B sci-fi flick, or an existential road trip? Who cares, it's fun and thought-provoking, and that's all that matters. Mike Baldwin does a great job with material that, in the hands of a lesser actor, would come off as ridiculous, the Tall Man is enigmatic as always, and Reggie is, well, Reggie. But it's the eclectic, dream-like quality of the film that makes it such a memorable experience.