iannicholls Reviews

Basic (2003)

Aha!

[18 March 2004]

Just when I thought I had this movie worked out as complete garbage, it really annoyed me and started redeeming itself, then got silly again.

To me, John Travolta has always been a bit schizophrenic in his choice of movies. I'm old enough to remember when John Travolta was in movies that set standards and broke records,and he proved his wide range of talents as an actor, singer, and dancer to even the most critical. Sadly, since then I've almost dreaded watching his movies, and kinda get a kick when a good one comes along.

I mean .... the talking babies, the night-club in Russia, that jello-face thing with Nic Cage, the aliens ..... all things that are good to watch just after you've opened a vein in a tub full of hot water and you're having second-thoughts.

But then I watch Pulp Fiction, Swordfish, Primary Colors, or Get Shorty and all is forgiven.

*** Caution: There be spoliers beyond this point!! *** This flick just seemed like an excuse to get Sam Jackson and John Travolta back together in a film, but the longer the movie goes on the longer it looks like an effort to keep them apart.

It seems fairly stylized, with the requisite amounts of eye-candy, but the director was smart in keeping this to a minimum - a rare treat nowadays. Connie Nielsen holds up pretty well against a sometimes-polished/sometimes-not Travolta, who seems to have buffed-up a bit recently - I'm at least thankful they didn't try to cast a sumo-wrestler and make us believe he was a Ranger.... just about my only real beef with Apocalypse Now, the movie which appears to have been at least some of the inspiration for this.

Judging by the majority of what most people who watched this movie think, I figure I must be retarded or something, because I actually enjoyed it. I wasn't expecting Olivier and James Earl Jones, I was expecting explosions, gunfire, loud noises, and something to switch my brain off at.

This movie gave me just over 90 minutes of just that, and I'm content that there were no talking babies, aliens, or surgeons-with-master-plans.

Battle of Britain (1969)

Last real war-movie made.

[15 March 2004]

There's something about watching Spitfires tipping-over and savaging Heinkel formations that just makes your stomach roll a little.

This movie was made before filmstars demanded millions of dollars for cameo-appearances, and we are lucky that so many of the era's greatest actors were brought together for this last-hurrah for the British movie industry.

The cast reads like an Academy Awards Ceremony, and mixes the then younger-generation of actors with the likes of Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Laurence Olivier, and Trevor Howard to name just a few.

Modern television has innured us to war, making us forget that once upon a time, fighter-pilots had to get close enough to see the men they were shooting at, and while no movie could really capture that intensity, this movie comes closest of all in my opinion.

The real treat, however, is to see the "younger" stars of this movie early in their careers. Michael Caine, Ian McShane, James Cosmo, and Edward Fox look so young it's almost scary. Now they are the "elder-statesmen" of movies, being to young talented actors in modern films as Olivier, Patrick More, Robert Shaw, and Patrick Wymark were at the start of their own careers.

Maybe it's a good thing that movies like this are no longer made, allowing us to hearken to the days when a movie had to rely more on the talents of the actors than on the talents of the SFX Department.

Rates in my Top Ten favourite movies.

Pendulum (2001)

Movie-making 101.1

[20 January 2004]

There is very little good to say about this movie and I will not try to. Lots of bad camera-work, bad acting, bad script, and bad ideas all combine to make this into a truly awful flick.

I'm not sure who said that masses of ankle-shots were a good idea, and unless there are a group of sock-fetishists out there who have a penchant for bad lighting and jumpy camera work, this movie has NO validation whatsoever.

In a Just world, the makers of this garbage would be prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act for calling this a "Movie", and I really feel that my time would have been better spent in a coma.

Apparently there was a plot to this, but it was completely unfathomable, so good luck finding it.

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Full Metal Plate

[20 January 2004]

*** WARNING: Spoilers enclosed. ***

This movie came out around the same time as Platoon, and I made the mistake of seeing Platoon first. After sitting through THAT garbage-pretending-to-be-a-movie, I decided that a) I wasn't EVER going to get the time back, and b) I was done with Viet Nam movies.

So it was my misfortune that I had to wait until after this movie came out on video and I had a raging case of influenza before anyone could get me in the same room as this was being shown.

It may have been the NyQuil, or it could have been the other non-prescription "cold-remedies" that did it, but I actually laughed so much at this movie I almost puked!

Okay, so I sobered up and watched it again a while later (didn't take me a while to sober up - just to watch it again!) and the funny thing was that I enjoyed it as much the second time - after I was able to hear the parts I roared with laughter at the first time I watched.

Everyone has said something positive about R. Lee Ermey's performance, and I'm not going to be different - I didn't think it was possible to hear so much invective from one man in one sentence and keep a straight face, and even as jaded as I am, I can only look on in wonder and admiration at the passion he put into his part.

Quick synopsis: Bunch of kids from all over the USA are sent to Parris Island for Marine training, most of them get through it, they go to Viet Nam, and some of 'em die.

And if that was all the movie was about, it would still be a reasonable flick.

Watching the characters develop, deciding who to hate and who to like, listening to R. Lee Ermey ("Here, you are all equally worthless" and "Were you born worthless, or did you have to work at it?"), and finally seeing them become Marines were all very entertaining, but this was only the under-card for the main event: Viet Nam.

Of course, through all the death, destruction, and carnage all around, we were still treated to moments that were so on the dark-side, they were actually hilarious.

Papillon Soo was our "introduction" to Joker's life "In-Country" and apart from the much-quoted attempts to pick up the G.I's (Me love you LONG time), she was actually one of the most poised and least forced-looking of the cast, but even her appearance has a nasty undercurrent that took me two viewings to see.

The black humor is more prevelent as the movie gets toward the end, and there are moments of pure madness that are so obscenely ridiculous they are probably closer to the truth than the more "acceptable" scenes, but probably the funniest lines of all are from the second section of this movie ("You know there's not a single horse in the entire country of Vietnam? There's definitely something wrong with that." and the ever-colourful Animal Mother's ideas on Patriotism: "If I'm gonna get my balls blown off for a word, my word is poontang."

All-in-all, this was funny, disgusting, sad, hilarious, sickening, and moving - all the things a great movie should be.

The final scene, however, was probably the most poignant of any war-film made in a VERY long time - a bunch of kids with rifles marching through devastation singing and whistling the theme to the Mickey Mouse show .... we always revert to that which is most comfortable in times of greatest stress, and for this movie to end any other way would have weakened it to the levels of Platoon and Tour Of Duty.

We Were Soldiers (2002)

A Salute To Heroes.

[12 January 2004]

Not too many movies are made about the time America grew up and lost its soul, so when I saw how much flak this movie was catching, I HAD to find out why. The true story of Ia Drang is more harrowing than even this movie managed to depict, and those watching this and belittling it, and the actions of a few hundred men in fighting a battle few people knew or cared about until recently is the proof that America's Innocence died in 1965.

Personal thoughts on the Viet Nam war notwithstanding, this IS the era that America turned from care-free and innocent to cynical and selfish. The decade that started with Kennedy and the Camelot Administration and ended with Watergate, Kent State, the Chicago Convention, and Altamont were the years that Americans should mourn more than any in their history. We went from "Can-Do" to "Screw You", and this was the main reason.

While most people alive today weren't even born at the time the events in this movie took place, their prejudices and mind-sets are those instilled by the last "innocent" generation (their parents usually) ..... and those who howl most and roll their eyes at "yet ANOTHER Viet Nam movie" would also do well to remember that what they are really peeved about is not that another movie has been made about a war, but that a movie has been made that points out just what was lost to America and the world during this conflict.

Until the events depicted here took place, Viet Nam was just another place where America was deploying troops. The days surrounding these events and the subsequent distress-call of "Broken Arrow" brought home to the America and the world just how real the conflict was and how savage savage it would become.

Having said all that, I was actually prepared to hate this movie just on account of who was in it and how much I disliked their more recent disastrous forays into the big-screen.

Looking at the cast list, I was half-expecting this to be another garbage, high-budget movie whose cast was only there for their box-office appeal (Titanic, Braveheart, Signs, Vanilla Sky, etc.) and this was one of the reasons I resisted watching it.

I was impressed with the choices for the main players - Sam Elliot as a tough old Sergeant-Major was quite a treat, and Mel Gibson has always been better in action-flicks. Seeing actors one usually doesn't associate with action/war movies wearing uniforms is something of a shock, and at first I thought that they would appear out of their depth, but Greg Kinnear gave a good performance as Major Crandall - I've always thought helicopter-pilots were a little unzipped anyway, and I found his performance to be the most believable of all.

There were moments that the movie didn't really need, and the syrup was laid on a little thick at the beginning, but all that aside, I enjoyed this flick.

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

Setback Of The Clowns.

[18 December 2003]

Well, this movie did for Star Wars what Rocky did for Artificial Insemination.

The real problems with this film are not the things everyone hated about it - why should they have been surprised after the last diabolical piece of crap that Lucas threw to us like scraps from a table?

This is another example of Hollywood Scizophrenia and too-big budgets.

For whatever reason, instead of producing a Sci-Fi classic reminiscent of the Days Of Yore, Lucas gave us some kind of treacle-dripping love-story that was neither central to whatever plot there was or necessary for anything other than adding length and "Depth" to what is otherwise an empty movie.

For example, we are treated to a scene that seems to have been made for no other reason than to show what looks like a pteradactyl being piloted through a rainstorm ..... I guess it helped to pad out the almost 2 hours until the real Star Wars flick began .... what is truly unfortunate is that even the 6 or 7 minutes of "real" Star Wars was overshadowed so completely by the schmaltz, wooden acting, see-through "plot", stilted dialog, and completely-unnecessary "love-interest".

To save everyone a lot of time, they should have showed "Pretty Woman" and then trailers for the Return Of The Jedi .... that's pretty much what this film came down to being in the end, and much as Star Wars purists hated it for the movie it never really was, I hated it for the movies that it was trying to be instead of trying to be a Star Wars which I thought was the whole idea of this multi-million dollar serving of warmed-over vomit.

I look forward to the final episode almost as much as my next prostate exam with the almost certain knowledge that visiting the doctor WILL be less painful both to my body and my psyche.

Formula 51 (2001)

Better with each watching. (CAUTION - HERE BE SPOILERS!)

[8 December 2003]

I see this movie quite a lot. Not because I'm a no-life stalker with an unhealthy fixation for one of the actors, but because most of my pals here in California use me to translate the dialog.

Few people outside the UK understand what true sports-rivalry is until they have seen a football (soccer to foreigners) match between Liverpool and Manchester United, and the fact that this movie revolves around that among other things just makes it more enjoyable once the stuff on the peripheries becomes clear.

There are a lot of things that baffle non-Europeans in this movie - the small cars, skinheads, narrow roads, lack of armed police, etc. and the obsessed football fans ("There blokes shaggin' their mother-in-laws to get tickets for the match") are the most noticeable, and as the movie progresses and the story unfolds around Robert Carlyle's attempts to get his promised tickets and at the same time find someone with $20 Million to buy Samuel Jackson's drug formula, we are treated to a lesson in cursing in the British manner (with explanations thrown in so that foreigners will understand what most of the cursing is about.)

This was a most entertaining movie because I wasn't expecting anything going in. Those looking for another Resevoir Dogs or Snatch would be better off elsewhere ... this movie stands on its own without needing to be compared to others, and looking to slot it into a neat little "genre" cubbyhole is an insult both to the movies you wish it to be like and the movie that it actually is.



One other thing worth mentioning here, because it's so totally unimportant to the plot overall, is that Samuel L. Jackson is now officially the coolest man ever to wear a kilt in a movie ....

Mel Gibson may have been acceptable to most people riding around painted blue, wearing a dress, swapping from being Scottish to Welsh to Irish to whatever the hell his "Braveheart" accent was supposed to be a representation of (Who the hell could tell??), but Samuel Jackson just plays Samuel Jackson .... this will one day be recognized as the day directors stopped trying to change him into the character instead of creating the character around him - an honour accorded to maybe John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Paul Newman.

The supporting cast includes MeatLoaf and Rhys Ifans playing unbalanced criminal loonies, and some of the best British actors and actresses you've never heard of - mainly because soaps and sit-coms from the UK rarely travel well abroad.

The wise-cracks are thick and fast, so much so that if you don't pay attention you really will miss something and there is lots of bad language that most non-Brits will have difficulty understanding and this may be the only area in which the movie suffers. Not the amount of bad language, just the fact that most people have no clue what most of it means :-)

The reason most people appeared not to like this is because they had difficulty in categorizing it. Was it a comedy, action, video-nasty, or stoner-flick?

What a shame they didn't use their two or three braincells to just watch the movie first and THEN decide what kind it was instead of trying to find something to compare it unfavourably to.

Then again, these are probably the same vacuous sheep that thought Pearl Harbor was such a "Masterpiece", and gladly that appears to have been just the type of the director was trying to avoid.

Full marks to Ronny Yu for taking us on this wild, weird, disgusting odyssey from Los Angeles to Liverpool and for doing what most directors seem to have forgotten how to do - letting the success or failure of the movie rely on the skills of the actors rather than the Special Effects Department.

I even gave it extra points for not pandering to the brain-dead masses by throwing in some talentless hacks with better "name-recognition" to be the eye-candy.

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

The worst kind of garbage.

[5 December 2003]

Knowing beforehand who was in this movie and who directed it I was expecting a masterpiece of a movie, to rival the likes of Beetlejuice or Batman - instead, I had to sit and watch Johnny Depp do a reasonably good impression of a man with too many valium inside him and an over-abundance of "mood-lighting" and misplaced SFX.

It seems that everyone on the planet who has given an opinion but me loved this flick, and I think it must be something they were putting in the food at the time it was released or something, because nearly 14 years after I first saw this film, I am still trying to find something not to hate about it.

I guess this is the culprit for allowing over-produced schmaltz to become "blockbusters" and as such, Tim Burton should be sent immediately to Movie-Jail (without passing "Go" and without collecting umpty-zillion dollars so that this kind of crap can NEVER be inflicted upon the world again!) After all, if the public would swallow this crap, they'd swallow ANY garbage that has a great director, a great producer, great cast, and a script that was written by a bunch of chimpanzees on Ecstacy.

For more examples of the "Written-By-Monkeys-On-Drugs" movies, I can highly recommend Titanic, Pearl Harbor, Cutthroat Island, and maybe Vanilla Sky or Batman & Robin ..... As an alternative to watching Edward Scissorhands or any of the other above-mentioned films, I could suggest laying in the road and letting someone beat you with a baseball bat as a better way to spend your time .... probably less painful and better for you in the long run.

Signs (2002)

A new low in Hollywood Hype.

[2 October 2003]

This is another gruesome Hollywood tale of awesome talent put to awful waste. I knew nothing about this movie going in, apart from that it had Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix in it - usually that would be enough to make a good flick. This time, however, all that transpired was about two hours of constantly waiting for something to happen.

I'm not going to waste my time with an outline - after all if the people who made it didn't bother giving it a recognizable plot, why should we bother trying to find one? Maybe I missed the bits that were "scary" or something, and I DEFINITELY missed finding any real point in this meandering odyssey to nowhere. The only redeeming thing about this movie is that hopefully the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys might one day give this garbage their special treatment.

Power Play (2003)

Move Over Ed Wood.

[15 September 2003]

I thought this was a spoof of old 1970s disaster-movies for the first 10 or so minutes I was watching it ... the script seemed to be pretty much as cliche-ridden as "Scary Movie" or even "Police Squad", so I was settling down waiting for the comedy parts to start .... they just never started.

Then it became like having a loose tooth that you can't leave alone with your tongue and just have to keep playing with - I became obsessed with watching it to the bitter end, no matter what the cost to my psyche or my HMO for Therapy afterward. I HAD to find out if there was anything remotely redeeming about this film, but I was sadly disappointed.

The main characters were insipid and disappointing, with Dylan Walsh looking like he was on Quaaludes most of the time, and Alison Eastwood appearing uncomfortable delivering hackneyed lines to their uncaring cast-members on sets that must have cost all of $9 (Nine Dollars) to build.

In future years, this film may achieve cult-status alongside the likes of "Plan 9 From Outer-Space" or "Santa Claus Conquers The Martians", but all-in-all, your time may be better spent laying under a bright light having root-canal.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)

Lots of fun

[28 August 2003]

Ever wonder where "Star Trek" and all the other Sci-Fi series got there starts?

I used to watch the series as a kid back when the UK only had 3 television channels, and they were offline more than online back in the 1960s when this was the State-Of-The-Art.

Now, over 40 years after it was made and most of the cast are either dead or retired, this movie is still standing the test of Time.

The plot is a little silly, with glaring holes that submarines could be driven through, and the acting is a little on the hammy-side sometimes, but for an entertaining look at how movie-makers in the 50s/60s thought the future might look, this is an excellent peek into how Hollywood was thinking at the time.

The cast seem to mesh well together around stilted dialogue ("Military Police swim like fish - it's part of their training"), and the prodigious talents of the likes of Joan Fontaine and Peter Lorre are somewhat reined-in, but overall this movie is still great to watch over four decades after they made it.

Tripping the Rift (2000)

Laugh? I almost coughed up my lower-intestine!

[10 June 2003]

This was hysterical!

I'm not sure whether it was the snappy (and oh, so beautifully profane) dialogue, or the idea of Sci-Fi Heresy that caused the tears of laughter; either way, this animation was a refreshing change in an area that is fast-becoming homogenized.

From start to finish, I was helpless with laughter .... I pity you if you see this and don't have the same reaction.

The Prophecy 3: The Ascent (2000 Video)

Leave your expectations in the box.

[27 May 2003]

Caution: Here be spoilers.

Things not to do or say in movies 101.

1. Never include the line "He's the only thing in this whole f****d-up universe that I care about" or similarly over-used lines.

2. Never park your stolen motorcycle miles away across the desert from where you need to be to take on a Supernatural Being.

3. Never allow strange men who you can't kill by shooting, stabbing, or impaling on a wall with a five foot length of pipe into your car.

4. If your boyfriend takes 13 bullets in the chest and comes back to life - RUN!!!!

Apart from some of the more silly moments (mentioned above) this movie is a really nice way to switch off your mind for a little and be entertained.

Christopher Walken was a treat to see (as always) playing Christopher Walken(no typos here), and the script-writers showed some flashes of genius by not feeding him too many dumb lines to deliver.

On the whole, this was a weak-sister for the previous two films and it shows in the supporting cast, who seem ill-prepared to be on the same set as Walken.

Not a classic, and not even a "cult" flick like the first Prophecy movie, but at the end of the day, it IS a Christopher Walken flick, and most of the time that's all it NEEDS to be.

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Time to stop badly rehashing old ideas.

[18 May 2003]

Warning : Here be spoilers.

Any movie that gets "Thumbs Up" from Ebert and Roeper is, for my book, generally going to be garbage.

Having witnessed the rage of the Trekkies, however, I decided to give this one a shot.

So for about an hour or so, I was left with a feeling of "What the hell is THIS?!?", and then the Star Trek bit began .... Romulan warbirds, Enterprise outclassed against a ship apparently the size of Nebraska, photon torpedoes, explosions, droll comments flying across the bridge....

Classic Trek stuff :-)

It seemed as if they were trying to tie up some (apparently) loose ends with this movie, and I'm sure that's why the Trek-Fundamentalists hated it so much; However, there did seem to be some glaring plots within the basic story-line that contradicted the previous movies and the "Next Generation" series in painful ways.

It was unfortunate that that the movie was so schizophrenic for the first hour or so, bouncing between mushy chick-flick and low-brow drama the way it did, but Redemption was finally achieved.

Overall, I'm glad I waited for the DVD to come out.

Deterrence (1999)

Ready for the "But ..... " ? (WARNING!!! CONTAINS SPOILERS!!)

[18 May 2002]

I watched this movie specifically because it has Kevin Pollak and Timothy Hutton in it.

Kevin Pollak is presented to us as a non-elected President (and formerly a non-elected Vice-President), and the movie establishes early on that he is "Non-Presidential". This is good, because on first glance, Yoda might have been a better choice for President.

Throughout this movie, Pollak plays a man clearly not up to the task of being "Mr President", and his interactions with Hutton convey beautifully this impression.

As the film unfolds and tension becomes palpable among the few characters we see, the promise of a great movie comes closer and closer into view.

The story intricately interweaves fact and fiction to build credibility in both Pollak and the events he is desparately trying to control, and as he talks to various world-leaders and Ambassadors, he conveys the desparation of the moment perfectly.

Unfortunately, this ends about 5 minutes from the end when the movie crosses the line between believable/possible to stupid/ridiculous.

I was almost offended at the ending, about which the kindest thing I can say is "anti-climactic".

Pollak seems to genuinely agonize about his decision on the one hand, and not understand what he is doing on the other; if this is what the director wished to convery, then it was done very well.

Sadly, the ending appears to be from a different movie altogether. Pollak turns from almost-statesman almost-clueless inside of about 3 minutes, and the 100 Mgaton bomb that we see supposedly being dropped on Baghdad looks suspiciously close to the ocean.

The one other thing the "researchers" could have done before this movie would have been to watch History Channel or something to find out how big of a hole in the Middle East a bomb of that size would make.

Yes, indeedie ...... and this is the REALLY sad bit: Pollak - who had been agonizing over the impending horrible deaths of "twelve million people trying to escape Baghdad" becomes so cavalier, it again seems like we are watching a different movie.

All in all, I sincerely wish I had died before the last 10 minutes of this train-wreck, then I would have gone to Heaven thinking I had just seen a great suspense-drama.

Instead, I am annoyed that I didn't do laundry or yardwork instead

The Fast and the Furious (2001)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

[15 February 2002]

Wasn't this movie called "Point Break" a few years ago? Had this movie been any more transparent I would have been able to see into the street through my television.

That kid Paul Walker even SOUNDS a bit like Keanu Reeves.

So I waited till it was in the video store till I watched it, and I'm glad I got it free ..... and I STILL feel robbed.

They kinda wasted the talents of Vin Diesel and a couple of others, but generally this movie came off like a bunch of highschool kids had been let loose with some expensive film equpiment and about 300lbs of horse-tranquilizers. The plot (such as it is) is held together with Bondo and Duct-tape, and the few chances we saw to develop characters were left like road-kill along the wayside by overuse of "mood" music shots of the sky!

If you haven't seen this flick: save yourself the time, or get some Nitrous for yourself .... it'll lessen the pain this movie will inflict on your psyche.

If you HAVE seen this film, then there are plenty of professionals trained to treat the trauma that experiences like this usually inflict on people.

Babe (1995)

AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!

[20 November 2001]

Don't we have laws about Cruel And Unusual Punishment in the U.S.A?

If you ever want to torture spies to get State Secrets out of them, just threaten them with this movie. If you are dying of an incurable disease, then watch this movie: It'll make every minute seem like an ETERNITY!!!

I know, I know .... it was a "nice" film made for kids.... NO! NO ! NO!!!

This is sadism with bacon!!

Who allowed the maniacs responsible for this garbage out of the Funny-Farm? Why did they do it? Is it too late to put them back?

Can we make sandwiches out of the star?

Okay; so see the film, read the book, eat the cast, then get into therapy.

If for no other reason, then watch this movie to get your appetite going.

There was ONE good bit in this movie .... the bit where it said "The End".

Unfortunately, by the time that happy moment had arrived, I was already out prowling around farms, hunting people who talk to their breakfast!

This movie had a veteran cast of awesome ability .... but even they were overshadowed by the walking commercial for Jimmy Dean.

For a "feel-good" movie, I guess it was okay .... but it came at a time when "feel-good" movies were more common than bad hair in a John Houston flick.

Overall, this movie should be condemned to Cinema-Hell and everyone in it treated with the contempt the General Public were by the over-paid, short-on-ideas bozos who delivered this train-wreck.

If ya want "nice" films, go watch Bambi, or Dumbo, or the host of other really great films that were ripped-off to make this cinematographic grafitti.

In fact, watch them and it will save you watching this.

It's almost like they let Michael Bolton write with the script, huh?

Red Planet (2000)

Tragic

[14 April 2001]

Even Val Kilmer couldn't quite save this movie.

Sad as it is to say, it's true nevertheless.

I thought: "Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss, Terence Stamp .... how bad could it BE?!?"

Just goes to show that one should NEVER judge a movie by its cast.....

The only movie this could be likened to is "Marooned" (the Apollo 13-like bomb from 1969).

The not-insignificant talents of all this movie's cast were completely overshadowed by bland, hackneyed screenplay and stilted, confused directing.

Watch this movie if you've just had some teeth removed:- When the effects of the novacaine wear off, this will bore the pain away.

I never thought I'd say this about a movie with Val Kilmer in it, but this was pretty crummy.

Heat (1995)

Fantasy-Movie-League has arrived.

[14 April 2001]

Val Kilmer, Al Pacino, Robet DeNiro, Tom Sizemore, John Voight, Ashley Judd.....

The cast of this movie reads like a page out of mythology for movie-goers.

I could wax lyrical about this movie for days without repeating myself, and STILL not do it justice.

Calculators and digital watches may go to Silicon-Heaven, dogs may go to Puppy-Heaven.

Heaven for lovers of outstanding flicks is Heat.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

Just ..... funny

[12 February 2001]

Okay, so maybe George Clooney has "grown up" in Hollywood?

How nice to see a cast of good actors in a movie that deserves their talents.

George Clooney, of course, just seems to get better and better. He has redeemed himself in this movie for all his sins involving the desert and any kind of uniform.

He couldn't have done it on his own (who could?), and it seems the Movie Gods were smiling on us all when this film was in production.

This is a polished movie that exceeds mere funny by several orders of magnitude, ascending to knew depths of depravity and new heights of humor often in the same scene.

If you haven't seen it, I'm not going to spoil it for you by telling you the plot. If you have seen it and didn't get it, well .... it's your loss.

Mission to Mars (2000)

Almost as painful as root-canal without anaesthetic.

[7 February 2001]

I hate to sound like I'm jumping on the bandwagon here, but does ANYONE know why this movie was made?

What a waste of some oustanding actors' (and actresses) talents.

The few worthwhile parts of this movie totalled less time than the average commercial break on tv, and even those parts were confused and hackneyed.

This movie does for Sci-Fi what butter does for quantum mechanics.

They Live (1988)

Dont they though?

[7 February 2001]

And the awand for "Best Gut-Laugh From A One-Liner" goes to Roddy Piper.

If you only watch this movie to see Roddy stand straight-faced and say "I have come here to kick ass and chew bubblegum .... and I'm all outta bubblegum" then you have done yourself a favour.

'Nuff Sed.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Sorry: No special effects

[7 February 2001]

Once upon a time, the Brits knew how to make movies .... This movie proves it beyond any shadow of doubt.

Not a movie that everyone will enjoy, this ..... no, for it relies completely on the cast's ability to act.

Following the life of a venerated schoolmaster through his own eyes, feeling his fear, revelling in his joy, grieving his loss; this film engenders all these emotions and more.

Okay enough of the cliches.

This is just a great movie.

A warning to all: Make sure you have plenty of Kleenex near you before watching this, and double-check that the door is locked.

It's always difficult to explain to your friends/family why you're crying like a lawn-sprinkler.

Godzilla (I) (1998)

Well ........

[5 February 2001]

I dunno .... there's this poor lizard (sex unknown) swimming around a couple of big old oceans looking for some food.

Okay, so he/she needs fish in quantities of about 35 tons at a time.

All the poor thing wants to do is go see the Big Apple, kill a few New Yorkers, and eat some sushi.

Where's the problem?

New Yorkers do it every day, and nobody fires heat-seeking missiles at THEM!!

Why didn't the Sierra Club protest THIS movie? ... huh?

Where were the millions of (un-informed) protesters that picketed and protested outside "Dogma" ?? Why weren't the rights of the 3,000 ton homicidal lizard protected?

And what about the genocide in the stadium, huh?

Actually, this movie was reasonably good if you just wanted to turn off your mind for a few hours.

I like Jean Reno and Matthew Broderick both (the reason for watching it) and having Maria Pitillo in the movie did it no harm whatsoever.

Contrived and silly in parts, stunningly funny in others. The best scene in the entire movie, though, was Ralph Manza (The old fishing guy Joe) making what is surely the biggest catch with a rod of all time.

Independence Day (1996)

Funny funny funny

[5 February 2001]

I almost got thrown out of the cinema for laughing at this movie.

I don't think I was SUPPOSED to be laughing uproariously for the first 25 minutes of the movie, but it was just so silly!

Let's look at this for a few seconds, and mayhap you will understand.

There's this very large alien ship "A quarter the mass of our Moon" according to one scientist.

It then arrives in orbit around our wee blue rock and proceeds to dispatch loads of smaller ships (about the size of New York City) to destroy the major population-centres on Earth.

After releasing the Death-ray which levels the world's largest cities with one shot, the U.S Air Force send (*gasp*) Will Smith and his squadron of F-18s up at them.

Not only do the Sidewinder missiles completely fail to bring down this flying megalith (remember, it's bigger than some countries!!), but everyone is surprised .... nay, shocked! when the missiles fail to even HIT the damn' thing!

Who would have thunk that a species with the technology to build a ship of such awe-inspiring size, fill it with billions of genocidal aliens, and catapult it across the Galaxy would never have heard of force-fields ?!?!?!?!?!?!?

So .... that kind of sets the tone for the entire movie.

It does have it's high-points however.

Bill Pullman and Mary McDonnell appear to have been born for their roles in this movie, and the Will Smith/Jeff Goldblum double-act was well worth watching a few dozen times.

Randy Quaid was the man to whom this movie belonged, however. Few people can make you howl with laughter and choke with tears in the same scene.

A lot of schmaltz seemed to have been added in for no apparent reason, Bill Pullman quoting Dylan Thomas for example, yet I think that maybe even Thomas would have been moved to want to destroy the Alien Scum after listening to 'Mr President' talking to Humankind.

One has to remember that when this movie was made, America was in political turmoil and needed to "feel-good" about itsself, and this movie delivered the goods.

From the young president with the beautiful wife (who wasn't messing around with the help) to the howlingly funny Will Smith beating up on "his" alien in the desert, this movie will continue to make people laugh for years to come.

The real low points, though, were the capricious use of the dog and the children.

Otherwise a fun movie.