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564,453 | 102,816 | 263,941 | 7 |
Needs an update .
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This is a real awesome game with great playability and is well worth a look . My only problem is with the graphics . They are so out of date that they ruin the game big time . Everything is fine when you are n your bike going real fast but as soon as you fall off the bike and walk slowly you realize all the houses , trees and even cars are so badly animated and pixalized . 1960's video games look better than this . If there were any back then . Electronic Arts should definitely re-issue this game with better graphics , sound and more adventurous courses . When you crash on the Pacific Highway course and fall off the cliff . . . man . . . talk about bad programming .
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563,810 | 102,816 | 159,097 | 7 |
A haunting film filled with beautiful imagery
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I know this movie may not be to all tastes but I liked it very much . A lot . If I didn't know any better I'd say it still WAS the 70s thanks to the unique atmosphere the movie creates . Cinematography was brilliant . There are many scenes warmly lit with orange sunlight and it is very pleasant on the eye . This made Kirsten Dunst seem even more beautiful than she is . Which is very beautiful indeed . Another thing about this movie is that the teen males are mature and behave in a dignified and respectful way . Not like most other teen movie these days when all they do is party , joke about diarrhoea and make love to pastries . That quality in The Virgin Suicides was new and refreshing to me . I know this film doesn't have a wide release so see it whenever you get the chance and you'll end up wishing that more films were made this way .
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564,337 | 102,816 | 385,761 | 7 |
A good Ben Dover DV
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There is a good selection of women on this Ben Dover DVD and it's worth the money for sure . The first girl is Carla , who's husband has set up a surprise birthday present for her . The surprise is a DP from Pascal and Mario . She changes into a sexy outfit , pisses on Mario ( this is cut ) and quickly moves onto sex , double vaginal and DP , which she loves ! Claire Brown ( better known as the classily titled Betty Swallocks ) is next . And she's pregnant . But that doesn't stop her from getting a DP from Pascal and some other Belgugese guy . She pretends she's never heard of a DP . Puh-lease ! Barbara Moulineux is next . She's not pretty and her scene is mercifully short . The anal lasts for about 5 seconds and there is no DP . Her husband watches , rather bemused , which adds a bit of uncomfort to the scene . Annie Adams is number 4 . She is ' surprised ' by Ben , Pascal and the other guy showing up at her work and pretends that her alleged ' husband ' doesn't know about the shoot . She's a good looking woman but her breasts are ridiculously fake-looking . The sex includes anal but no DP . Shannon is last . She's getting on a bit but is still really dirty and does a cowgirl double vaginal with Pascal and the other guy . There is no anal or DP . Her husband watches and she needs to erm . . . shave a wee bit .
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563,844 | 102,816 | 72,890 | 7 |
Dog ? Where ?
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I saw a bit of Dog Day Afternoon when I was about nine years old and left it this long before actually focusing on watching the whole film . Despite claiming to be the film expert that I am , I had little knowledge of what the film is actually about . Sonny and Sal ( that's Pacino and John Cazale ) and some other guy enter a bank in Brooklyn with the intention of robbing it . But they simply couldn't be less prepared . One second into the robbery the third robber chickens out and runs away , leaving Sonny and Sal to do it on their own . The staff are jaded and cynical but politely put up with their bumbling and are only too happy to see the back of them . But the police surround the building at the last minute and a hostage situation suddenly arouses . With nowhere to go Sonny can only make the usual demands but the media circus outside makes him a nationwide star and the crowds outside cheer for him whenever he makes an appearance at the doors . I guess that in the 70's ( a decade I never witnessed ) public morale was so low that a failed bank robber could actually be a kind of hero for even attempting to stick it to the man . Based on a true story , the dialogue is mostly improvised , giving it a raw , realistic feel . Despite this , the script still won an Academy Award . A young Al Pacino seems to disappear and you end up seeing him only as Sonny . Why he never won the Oscar for Best Actor that year is beyond me . But I guess they thought that Jack Nicholson as McMurphy was more iconic / important / worthy or whatever . In fact , One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest took almost all the Oscar's DDA was nominated for . Having never seen that film , I can't really judge if it deserved them . It was also competing with Jaws for Best Picture that year . Man , 1975 sure was a good year for movies . Something that simply cannot be said for any year in the past decade . One my favorite actors ( Lance Henriksen , the man with the coolest voice in the world ) has a small role as one of the FBI Agents . I never spotted him for a while ( he's still quite young in this ) and he has very little dialogue , but it still a pivotal role . It's hard to define the genre that DDA fits into . On the one hand it's a hard-hitting real-life drama but on the other it's a satirical black comedy that's not without several moments of laugh-out-loud humor . Not a film for action junkies , I assume this is more for film buffs of students more than anyone else , but it's certainly an important film and it marks one of the many turning points in Pacino's never-ending career .
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564,223 | 102,816 | 480,461 | 7 |
A pretty good mystery .
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Okay , we understand that a Scooby-Doo mystery is not going to be in the same league as a Citizen Kane mystery . But Scooby has good movies and bad movies just like any other Mega-Star . I'm pleased to say that Where's My Mummy is in the former category . Velma is assisting an archaeological dig in Egypt ( on the Sphinx no less ) when she finds a mysterious necklace which could be the key to Cleopatra's lost treasure . I've never heard of such treasure , but for the sake of the movie , we'll pretend it exists . The rest of the Mystery Inc . gang turn up to visit her but the site is promptly taken over by Amelia von Butch ( Christine Baranski ) , a gun-ho Lara Croft-type and her band of cohorts . Despite warnings of ancient curses she forces the Mystery Inc . gang and an obnoxious reality-TV host ( Jeremy Piven ) to enter the tomb with her to solve it's secrets and find the treasure . Immediately setting-off traps , Shaggy and Scooby are separated from the rest of the gang ( not on purpose for a change ) and get involved in their own mystery of a deranged Hotep ( Ron Pearlman ) and his followers who worship a strange God known as Scoobis and his servant Shagman . Both stories are kept lively and entertaining until they merge into one . There's not a moment of boredom and , as usual , a couple of cool original songs too . But sadly , no new version of Scooby-Doo , Where Are You at all . To compare it with similar films like Indiana Jones , Tomb Raider or even The Goonies would be pointless . Yes , we've seen this kind of thing before but animation is a medium that present more opportunities than live-action and there's loads of inventive set-pieces and imaginative locations that have become the standard of modern Scooby-Doo outings . And what do you know ? It even manages to provide a rather surprising twist at the end . We know it's far-fetched and unbelievable as always , but it ties together pretty well , thus making the film a little bit better a little bit more . As long as their is imagination behind this franchise , Scooby-Doo could go on forever . He may deliver a few duds from time to time ( Monster of Mexico was extremely crap after all ) but he still a very important character in modern animation and will always come out on top if we believe in him . Or am I taking this too seriously ?
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564,757 | 102,816 | 271,668 | 7 |
What the problem is ?
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I usually don't like Martin Lawrence and I find his anti-white humor to be quite offensive as well as his string of bad movies . But compared to his other movie of 2003 ( that would be the shockingly awful Bad Boys II ) , National Security is a rather easy-going and light-hearted cop comedy flick with quite a few good laughs . A lot of them , surprisingly , coming from Lawrence himself . Hank Rafferty ( Steve Zahn ) is a cop who is unfairly thrown in jail for apparently beating a black suspect ( Lawrence ) who just got kicked out of Police Academy . With his career in tatters he emerges from the slammer with only one job opportunity available ; a lowly guard for a lowly security company . Determined to follow up on the big case he was involved with before serving time , he crosses the path of fellow security guard Earl Montgomery ( Lawrence again ) and the two reignite their old conflict . The old love / hate buddy thing may be old and the plot may be silly but it's a great excuse for loads of action set-pieces and humor . The potentially dangerous comedy of black vs white never becomes offensive and is handled with such lightness that it never becomes an issue . Both men have their failings and bonuses and are as equal as each other . You really do feel a great partnership between them despite their arguing and fights . Give National Security a try . It's slick and fast-moving and is a helluva lot better than Bad Boys II . You'll probably be surprised at how funny Martin Lawrence is . I was . The DVD is in great looking 1 . 85 : 1 widescreen with pretty good Dolby 5 . 1 sound . The scenes where Lawrence uses his automatic pistol really pack a heavy punch in the . 1 LFE channel . The usual deleted scenes and commentary are included on the DVD but I was surprised the extended ending wasn't included in the film . It would have been better with it .
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564,231 | 102,816 | 378,918 | 7 |
Poor man's GTA is actually quite fun
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True Crime owes a lot , if not everything , to the Grand Theft Auto series . Indeed it is very difficult these days to have a free-roaming action game and not compare it to GTA but True Crime is so alarmingly similar that I'm surprised Rockstar didn't try to sue . The story of True Crime is right out of a direct-to-video action film of the late 80s . It starts out as your typical renegade cop shoots first and ask questions later kind of pulp but ends up being about ancient Chinese wizards , huge fire-breathing dragons and sewer-dwelling zombies . If it began far-fetched then what it ends up as is just plain weird . However , that's not to say you'll not have fun . The plot is spread out over 9 different stages each with about 10 individual missions . It's possible to replay your favorite missions too . True crime has 5 different styles of play . First their is the free-roaming bit where you can run all over LA solving street crimes . There there's the car chases in which you run bad guys ( and sometimes airplanes ) off the road . Third is the stealth missions in which you must sneak into places unnoticed and render unconscious anyone you see . Fourth is the one on one combat and fifth , my favorite , is the shoot-em-up levels , where you can do loads of stunts and diving through the air blasting away at bad guys . The slow motion as you zero in on the targets is brilliant . But I would have preferred if the game was bloodier . A few splatters here and there ain't enough . But much of this game is boring , aesthetically at the least . The geographically accurate LA is impressive but it's so unbelievably bland . The dullest colors are used to paint the environment and the city is pretty made up of grey-scale . The cars also cannot do stunts . Which is crap . How brilliant would it be to drive right off the freeway and fly into the sky before plummeting 100 feet ? Too bad , you can't do it because of the pointless invisible wall . Pros : Loads of action . Blowing up stuff is fun . Cool cut scenes with funny dialogue . Great tunes . Cons : Some missions are boring . No stunts . LA is bland and thoroughly NON-interactive . The fights with General Kim are IMPOSSIBLE ! Loads of very long loading times ! No matter how disappointing some parts of the game are I will still be getting the sequel , True Crime : New York City . But please do not make as boring as LA was and cut out those awful loading times ! Graphics Sound A Gameplay Lasting Appeal
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563,868 | 102,816 | 34,314 | 7 |
Get back to school !
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In this cartoon , which earned an Oscar nomination for best animated short back in 1942 , Donald is a truant officer hunting down local tear-aways Huey , Duey and Louie . They are all happily swimming down at the old waterhole until Donald finds and , tries his hardest , to put an end to their fun . The usual game of outsmarting each other follows as the ducklings evade Donald and set him up in traps . One particular trap involves duping Donald into believe he's roasted them in their gang hut with three cooked turkeys . Why would Ducks be cooking turkeys anyway ? Isn't that slightly perverse ? And why does their gang hut have a bed in it ? What exactly do those kids get up to in there ? The cartoon ends with Donald leading them back to school only to find out it's the summer holidays . Predictable yes , but lively and imaginative animation .
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564,258 | 102,816 | 361,596 | 7 |
Very important point . . .
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. . . but unsubtle , ungracefully and inelegantly made . But maybe now in a time of ignorance and superficiality such brazen tactics are the only way to make us understand . Perhaps Moore's critics don't understand that there is no REAL truth . Covering something from all angles , be it a war , an argument or a misunderstanding doesn't lead to pure truth , only confusion . It's no secret that Moore has an agenda with this film . And I agreed with it long before I saw it . The point is President Bush must not be re-elected . And Moore gives us hundreds of reasons why . However it's the manipulation of the editing and arranging of montages that prevent the film from having any real dignity or class . Sure there is a sense of humor and huge understanding of American politics ( you MUST pay attention to every last word ) but Moore's point is too biased to really connect with me . Not that I think Bush deserves any sympathy or a second ( or 1 , 345 , 456th ) chance . It's just that his intentions come across too forcefully . Yes , the war in Iraq is unjust and the biggest lie and waste of human life since the Vietnam catastrophe . And all for what ? For money , nothing more than paper . If we ever come through this will we trust the Government again ? Most ominously not . After watching this film will you ever trust the Government again ? I promise you . . . you won't ! There are some powerful scenes , a woman breaking down in tears reading a letter from her dead son who died in Iraq for Bush's greed , every Senator Moore meets refusing to sign their children up for the Army while poor black kids from the projects willingly sign up , the charred bodies of US soldiers being dragged through the streets in Iraq . But the most effective part of the film was also the most ingenious . The opening to Fahrenheit plays the sounds of planes crashing into the WTC on a black screen . Powerful effects without the use of images at all . Why ? We've seen it so many time we need not see it again . Because terrorism is blind . Out of respect for people sensitive for such images being exploited yet again . And to heighten our awareness of the horror of just screaming and panic and the cheapening of human life . There are parts of this film that will rile you up and enrage you , be it the skillful arranging of facts or the ignorant bystander calling the woman crying over her dead son ' staged ' . Sadly though , it wanders off the point in the middle and kind of sags . If it had been leaner then I wouldn't have gotten so impatient . But as it stands Fahrenheit is an unapologetic firestorm designed to rip right through the Whitehouse and the Senate . With any luck it will . We may not ever trust any new administration but we'll NEVER be fooled again . Lesson might be learned . But at what price ?
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564,237 | 102,816 | 92,938 | 7 |
Daffy Duck : Ghostbuster
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This Looney Tunes cartoon was one of the shorts edited into Daffy's feature length Quackbusters movie . He plays a Paranormalist , who deals with everything from ghouls and ghosts and goblins to aliens and UFO's . A possessed woman calls him up begging to be exorsized . Good job Daffy knows what he's doing for a change . It's a funny short as the possessed woman turns into a vampire creature whenever Daffy isn't looking . But Daffy seems right at home in this particular guise as he did Duck Dodgers or Dorlock Homes . I'd like to see more of this in the future or maybe even the Quackbusters DVD if Warner ever decide to release it .
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564,742 | 102,816 | 30,729 | 7 |
An odd choice
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Like me , Donald has the worst temper in the world . I get angry and worked up at the slightest of things and , guaranteed , if I were to sit out in the garden in a hammock , like Donald does in this cartoon , I would end up going mad with rage instead of relaxing . Even if it's just a simple caterpillar bugging me . The voice on his little radio promotes stress-reducing techniques . But come on , this is Donald Duck ! A pretty odd choice of fellow to be promoting relaxation tips to . Apparently counting to ten is a good way of not losing control . Trust me , it's not . Much as Donald proves to us in this cartoon .
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564,864 | 102,816 | 170,811 | 7 |
Calling it ' Stick Race ' would have been more appropriate
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It's Eeyore's birthday , but none of his so-called friends have bothered to notice . Pooh has made a new game involving chucking sticks into the river to see which one wins in a race . He calls it ' Pooh Sticks ' . Now , where I come from that particular noun means something completely different . When Eeyore comes floating along they realize that he is more depressed than usual . When he reveals why the day is supposed to be so special they all run off to find makeshift presents and prepare a party . It actually works , and he cheers up . A fine Winnie the Pooh short , with the great animation and wonderful backgrounds we've come to expect . It also keeps Christopher Robin to a minimum .
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564,718 | 102,816 | 34,547 | 7 |
Something new
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This is one of the first Tom and Jerry shorts that doesn't take place inside a generic 1940s house but inside , as the title would suggest , a bowling alley . This new environment allows for fresher gags and more imagination . There are some inventive sequences and it doesn't resort to the ancient clichés of Jerry plugging Tom's tail into a power socket or putting his tail in a mousetrap . There are no humans to be seen at all and it appears that Tom and Jerry at alone in the bowling alley . Which is good . I find that extra characters such as stray cats and unseen humans ( including the staggeringly un-offensive Mammy-Two-Shoes ) to be a distraction . New locations , new torture devices and no diversions would make Tom and Jerry funny every single time . Too bad they mostly never really turned out that way .
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563,888 | 102,816 | 59,598 | 7 |
So very tired
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The Pink Pather has stayed up way past his bedtime watching rubbish on TV . With his eyes totally bloodshot he decides to finally hit the hay . Only he can't seem to shut down . And counting sheep doesn't help . Things get worse when an annoying , a rather strong , fly buzzes into his bedroom . Nothing Pinky does seems to kill it or keep it out . It even manages to fly down the phone the line and come out the receiver as well as deliver a few powerful karate chops . Poor Pinky . Despite being very similar to the Donald Duck cartoon Early to Bed , it's still very funny with loads of laughs .
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564,207 | 102,816 | 138,703 | 8 |
Phantasm's End ?
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After taking the series too far in the direction of horror-hokum , Don Coscarelli pushes Phantasm IV further into sci-fi than any previous film but brings back the narcoleptic approach the first that II and III were sorely without . In doing so , Phantasm IV becomes the most atmospheric and haunting one yet . Just don't expect long scenes of exposition or plot-details being unsubtly wrapped up , the mystery of the Tall Man is too strong to ever fully end . As you should remember , at the end of Phantasm III Mike disappeared into the darkness after the Tall Man did some kind of unnecessary brain surgery on him and Reggie was literally left hanging after being pinned to the wall by a dozen killer spheres . Well you can relax , the Tall Man knows that killing Reggie will achieve nothing and focuses on catching Mike , who has a plan to draw him out into the open by hiding in the desert . Reggie closely follows , driving through loads of deserted towns already pillaged by the Tall Man . And the ghost of Jodie ( now looking like the identical twin brother of Stellan Skarsgard ) comes back to offer some suspicious advice . It's all very , very minimalist and reminds me a lot of the Myst video games in regards to the overwhelming sense of abandonment and isolation , the journal-keeping , the doorways to other worlds , the stark silence of desert landscapes and the weird contraptions . The true identity of the Tall Man is finally revealed but the forces behind him are still kept in the dark . The answers are hinted at rather than announced and the dialogue sparse without being empty . Another cool thing about this sequel are the many eerie and haunting ( and haunted ? ) locations such as a lonely beach , spooky rock formations , a lifeless Wilshire Boulevard ( the biggest street in LA ) and barren salt flats that give it such an otherworldly and supernatural feel that the typical mausoleums and old graveyards of II and III didn't . Again the Tall Man steals the show from Reggie , who is putting up a harder fight to make it his movie . Both are great characters who shrug off the typical characteristics of villain and hero and become people who you can REALLY root for . Yes , you can side with the Tall Man ! It's a shame that Angus Scrimm has never really gotten any huge recognition outside of the cult-horror circles as his approach to the character is very unique and he takes his acting very seriously . Since Don Coscarelli shot so much unused footage for the original Phantasm film he incorporates some of it into the story , thus heightening the already warped space-time continuum the Phantasm universe exists in . As a result of this the ending may seem annoyingly ambiguous but can be interpreted in so many different ways . Since Coscarelli is busy with other projects right now it seems unlikely that the long-rumored Phantasm's End will happen any time soon . But when you enjoy a series of films so much do you really want to see it end ? The non-closure of Phantasm IV keeps the story alive after the credits roll instead of finishing it for good . Which is how I would prefer it . If you watch it with company , this tends to lead to much discussion afterwards , something more straight-forward horror films don't . I've always thought that if you wish to tackle something outlandish and imaginative that you must have an equally as strong counter-imagination to fully take it in and comprehend . If you prefer films like Bridget Jones and turn your nose up to Lost Highway then your probably best steering away from the Phantasm series . If you're better than that then you're in for one helluva crazy ride .
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564,109 | 102,816 | 462,495 | 8 |
Great beat-em-up indeed !
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This game really needs a re-release on the GBA . It's perfect hand-held fodder . But don't let that put you off if you see it in the arcade . It's a great button-basher , especially if playing with a pal . In 2-player mode you play as both Frank Castle and Nick Fury blasting your way through loads of the Kingpin's thugs through varied locations with mental power-ups and weapons ( guns included ) . Yes , it's the same old beat-em-up stuff you've seen in countless other games but this time around the comic-book edge and blood spatters make it worthwhile . The graphics are also very cool , mimicking Marvel comic-book artwork and every other time you punch someone the words ' POW ! ' or ' WHAM ! ' will flash up on the screen . You'll have a great time playing this Punisher game . It's probably somewhat overshadowed by the new Punisher movie and game ( which is a lot more bloodier and brutal ) , which means that a new console port is unlikely but I would still love to see this on the GBA .
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564,034 | 102,816 | 95,631 | 8 |
See you in L . A . folks !
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After starring in loads and loads of serious movies in a row , Robert Deniro needed to do something light and felt that Midnight Run was just what he was looking for . Originally a Paramount project , the suits wanted to team him up with Cher for some sex appeal ( oh , dear GOD no ! ) but director Martin Brest ( teehee ) vehemently opposed this idea and the project ended up at Universal . The role of Jonathan Mardukas ended up going to deadpan Charles Grodin ( though a young Bruce Willis auditioned ) since Martin Brest ( teehee ) felt that he had the best chemistry with Deniro . I'm glad he didn't make that compromise . Can you honestly imagine Midnight Run with Cher ? ? ? Deniro is Jack Walsh a tough , ex-cop bounty hunter who is offered $50 , 000 by a shady bail-bondsman to capture crooked accountant Jonathan ' The Duke ' Mardukas and escort him from NY to LA for a court appearance . The Duke embezzled millions of dollars from crime boss Jimmy Serrano ( the always great Dennis Farina ) and gave it all to charity so it's not just California justice who wants to get their hands on him . The FBI also want The Duke for their own purposes and The Duke is a clever and cunning enough to chuck as many spanners in the works as possible . So it's not just a simple matter of hopping on a plane . . . or an easy Midnight Run . With Marvin Dorfler ( John Ashton ) another sleazy bounty hunter after them too and loads of double crosses Midnight Run becomes a sort of action / comedy Planes , Trains and Automobiles character drama with enough F-words to give TV censors a nervous breakdown . Back in the stinkin ' early 90s the stinkin ' BBC dubbed out every stinkin ' swear word with the most hilariously awful stinkin ' choices . Why ? Honestly , this kind of thing makes me wonder what the hell is going on the minds of these censors . Do they honestly think that they're making the world a better place by not exposing full-grown adults to an ancient Anglo-Saxon word for making love ? But that's a separate rant altogether . Those familiar with Brest's ( teehee ) previous mega-hit Beverly Hills Cop will find a lot of Midnight Run's pacing and cinematography familiar . He is the kind of director that only makes a movie every five years or so but I have a feeling that Gigli has ended his career for good . Don't let that tarnish your feelings toward this film though . Even if Midnight Run didn't have a clever and funny script the chemistry between Deniro and Grodin is worth it alone . We've seen odd-couple buddy / buddy types before but they do it with class . Although it's nearing 20 years old , Midnight Run seems timeless in way ( despite the very liberal 80s attitude towards smoking ) , mostly because it knows it's nothing but pure entertainment that , for once , isn't dumbed down for the lowest common denominator . These days we get crap like Epic Movie and Talladega Nights . Where did the R-rated comedies go ? What grim times we live in . Not sure about Danny Elfman's score though . Totally the wrong choice of composer , my only complaint .
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563,821 | 102,816 | 316,654 | 8 |
Big Improvement
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It's no secret that I absolutely hated the first film . But Spiderman 2 has truckloads more excitement , pathos and humor . Almost every area where the first film lagged in improved upon . Though I'm still not keen on Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker ( not tall enough , too much of a geek ) he was better in the role this time around . Though I'm not sure why he's still a total nerd . This is not how Peter Parker is portrayed in the comic books and it's weird that in the movie he comes across more like Clark Kent . The CGI effects are miles better too . Some shots still looked a little iffy , but rest was so seamless I never noticed . Granted , it would be hard to get any worse than effects in the original but I was genuinely surprised at how good they were . A lot more time and care as been put into arranging them than before . Alfred Molina as Doc Ock was a hundred what Willem Dafoe's campy , power-ranger Green Goblin was . You could tell that underneath he really was a good guy who was just too carried away with his work . He really did have a menacing presence in any scene featuring him with his extra arms ( surely more resembling a spider Peter Parker ) . The earthquakes signaling his approach are very cool . The sequel has a more structured feel to it and has more inventive set-pieces . The first one felt like an empty showcase for effects but here they were integral to the story . I'm not keen on Kirsten Dunst though ( she looks far too much like my ex ) . In the comics she is an outrageously proportioned and glamorous woman . I just don't see that in Kirsten Dunst . However , she really did get into the character and I believed in her relationship with Peter this time as before it felt like rejected sub-Dawson's Creek trash . Spiderman 2 is also made in widescreen , which is cool as I was disappointed at Sam Raimi's inexplicably shooting the original ' flat ' . A movie of this scale deserves scope and size and this time we get what we should have got before . Considering how the movie has already earned $40 kabillion in 3 weeks you hardly need me to tell you to go out and see it . But for once the box office receipts are validated by a good movie . Look out for some funny in-jokes to Evil Dead and Bruce Campbell in a funny cameo as an obnoxious theatre usher .
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564,536 | 102,816 | 118,583 | 8 |
A MAJOR IMPROVEMENT
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This movie rocks . It looks and feels more futuristic than the first 3 and for once the characters weren't boring , annoying or blank . The space pirates , the mad doctors , the marines and the new , very sexy and very seductive Ripley are very appealing . The mad doctors wanted to bring Ripley back because of the Queen that was inside her . So she is cloned , but only the eighth copy ? works . All of the others crashed , like computers , and look way gross . She has partial memories of her past , has superhuman strength , has acid for blood ( cool ) and is connected to the creatures in a weird way . The mad doctors want more hosts for the aliens so they can breed them and train them for Biological Warfare . The space pirates bring a cargo full of frozen prisoners to them for that reason and bring with them Call , an android , who takes a large interest in Ripley . It was inevitable that the aliens would break loose and when they do , all hell breaks loose . This time round the Aliens seem cooler and smarter , unlike in Aliens when they were just there as a reason for gunfire , they can talk to each other and can figure out how doors and buttons work . Although they are mostly CGI , they still look scary and the swimming sequence in the flooded dinnerhall is cool to the max . Many critics disliked the ending immensely , but I think that the beautiful sunset over earth infinitely better than the ending in Alien 3 . The " Newborn " Alien is gross , creepy and way disturbing . I have no doubt that you will feel the same and the " death by suction " is sickening . I hope that there is another Alien movie that is as cool as this one . But it seems that the odd numbered Alien movies are crap and the even good . Or am I just talking nonsense ?
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564,719 | 102,816 | 118,571 | 8 |
Brilliantly done action
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It's easy to understand why Airforce One was such a big hit . The President saves the country . America has an honorable man as their leader and he's saving them from those no good filthy Reds again . Audiences walked out with pride in their hearts ( fuelled by Jerry Goldsmith's rousing score ) and they forgot about the LewinskyGate scandal that was going down with the REAL President . But the film is very good in it's own right too . Wolfgang Peterson creates a heavy feeling of tension , Ford a likable hero and Oldman a hissable villain who was actually quite scary . The film is also very well put together technically . The editing and sound is top-notch . But there are flaws . And one BIG flaw . Some of the dialogue really sucks . And Wendy Crewson is VERY bad as the First Lady . The only reason her character is even in it is because every President has a First Lady . Her role is totally useless . I predicted her EVERY line of dialogue before she even said it . I am not kidding . Even Oldman at one point tells her to ' SHUT UP ! ' I never thought I would find myself agreeing with a Russian terrorist but now I have . If you can overlook this minor , although highly irritating , glitch you will totally enjoy a high-octane action film with many , increasingly exciting , set-pieces . Very cool .
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564,628 | 102,816 | 118,548 | 8 |
Quite good , rather .
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When I first saw this movie I wasn't expecting anything great . I thought it was just going to be another ' corruption-in-the White-house-plot ' but it turned out to be rather different . At the time such films were popular thanks to the Lewinskigate scandal . Absolute Power is much better than other films in the sub-genre like Murder at 1600 . The plot and subject matter are handled with care and maturity and the direction was dignifying to the source material despite having some radical changes near the end . This was the second film I saw that Eastwood had directed ( after Perfect World ) and I was surprised to see that he is as good at directing as he is acting . Every scene is masterfully edited and framed . Even with a 121 minute running time the film doesn't drag at any point . I was most impressed with the opening of the movie . Despite the fact that Clint in on screen for the entire first 35 minutes he only has two short lines . I wonder why he didn't cut these out and say nothing until after the opening act as a way of giving the film a peculiar edge . Still , Absolute Power has an opening that has more class and masterful storytelling than most entire movies . There are three other main actors in the movie . Gene Hackman as the conniving President , Laura Linney as Eastwood's estranged daughter and Ed Harris as the investigating cop . Despite the scope of the film I thought it was brilliant how Eastwood kept the entire story between a handful of characters . Absolute Power focuses more on these characters and their motivations and feelings rather than giving us ridiculous reasons for set-pieces and shoot-outs . But the movie still has action and it is very well done indeed . I recommend you see this movie but try to see it in widescreen to fully appreciate Eastwood's great cinematography .
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564,634 | 102,816 | 134,273 | 8 |
Very deep and intense
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When I first saw this movie I hated the bad guys so much I walked out of the theatre angry . This is a good thing by-the-way . Not only are the bad guys repellent creeps they are also , in a way , pretty ordinary . You'll never look at a complete stranger the same way again . I thought Nic Cage did a very good job of portraying a squeaky-clean private eye Tom Welles ( he's just so innocent looking ) descending into the world of hardcore pornography and unknowingly letting it change him . Joaquin Phoenix plays wanna-be musician Max California who is also Welles ' sidekick . I'd never really seen him in any movies before this but now that I've seen him in a likable role , in a movie where there are very few likable characters , I look forward to his next movies . Some parts of this film to me are very disturbing , for example the first viewing of the snuff film where we see the girl cry or finale with the jumping record . Joel Schumacher certainly has redeemed himself over Batman and Robin ( shudder ) and should stop being the victim of nasty criticism by critics who are rubbishing this brilliant film only because Batman and Robin was terrible . If you like your thriller movies to be deep , intense and nerve-racking then watch this movie . In case you didn't know the movie was originally about 3 hours long and an alternate ending had Welles kill himself by driving into a wall .
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563,768 | 102,816 | 353,451 | 8 |
Another solid beat ' em up !
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If you're a Streets of Rage or Double Dragon fan then Final Fight will no-doubt appeal to you . I only ever played it in the arcade once about 13 years ago but I was a cool game indeed . This Gameboy Advance version is identical to the Arcade but with a few more touches added such as new cut-scenes and animations and a couple of hidden levels . Since I am such a wimp when it comes to games I did complete this on my fourth go ( on the easiest setting ) but I did notice a LOT of similarities between this and SOR in regards to the baddies , level progression and power-ups . That's not a bad thing but I only wish it lasted a little longer . Still it's a cool game and definitely worth getting . Graphics A Sound Gameplay B Lasting Appeal
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564,605 | 102,816 | 337,921 | 8 |
Leave a message !
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Isn't it funny ? A phone rings and it could be anybody . But a ringing phone must be answered . Those words were Kiefer Sutherland's closing lines in Phone Booth and they could easily be the last words in Cellular , too . It's interesting that the script comes from the writer of Phone Booth ( that would be Larry Cohen , the brains behind Maniac Cop and The Stuff ) , a movie about a man trapped in one tiny place on the phone to a complete stranger and yet Cellular is about a man trapped on the phone to a complete stranger who is free to go anywhere he wants . Only Cellular is a more wholesome and complete film than Phone Booth . It doesn't make any attempt at satire , or make fun of the media , but does have terrific energy and intelligence . No , Cellular is NOT a no-brainer . Ryan , played by Chris Evans ( no , not the ginger , speccy nerd from British TV ) , is a punk kid who never takes anything seriously and is far too laid back to keep his girlfriend happy . But his life crosses paths with a woman in trouble . Will he finally grow up when her fate becomes his responsibility ? Kim Basinger ( aging more gracefully than I previously assumed ) is that woman . She's being held in a spooky old attic by corrupt cop Jason Statham and painstakingly " repairs " a broken phone . She's about to reach out to somebody , anybody . The only number she manages to hook up to is Ryan's . He immediately takes the problem to the fuzz . The only cop who will listen is Mooney ( William H Macy ) , but he's too fed up and dismissive to take much notice . Not at first , anyway . As Ryan races around the city , overcoming difficult and dangerous obstacles , Mooney puts it all together and slowly realises things ain't what they seem . I had only ever seen Evans in the rather dull Perfect Score before this movie , but he made for a totally cool hero that everyone can relate to . Most actors his age irritate the hell out of me . I can only imagine how bad this film would have been with Seann William Scott , or Freddie Prinze Jr . , for example . Basinger does everything she can with her damsel in distress . It's usually quite insulting to an actress's intelligence to reduce her to such a cliché , though she manages to bring integrity and desperation to the role more convincingly than most actresses her age . And of course we all love and adore Jason Statham . He may be a skinhead with a funny sounding voice , but be it hero or villain he's dead cool and makes Vin ' Donald Duck ' Diesel look like a right poof . Director David Ellis races through the far-fetched plot without looking back and keeps everything fast-paced and exciting right up to the last minute . He's the man who made a good sequel out of a bad original ( that would be Final Destination ) and with many other directors the ludicrousness of the plot would be all too apparent . Here , we don't get a single breath to take it all in . The show-stealing is split two ways . Macy is great as the Ned Flanders-type cop , but Rick Hoffmann is hilarious as an obnoxious lawyer who stands in Ryan's way and gets his comeuppance not once , not twice , but thrice . There's not been a kidnapping thriller as gripping as this since Kurt Russell lost his wife in Breakdown . Cellular is definitely the right number . Oh , and in case it was bugging you , that movie the bad guys are watching is Final Destination 2
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564,318 | 102,816 | 118,771 | 8 |
BEST THRILLER EVER
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It doesn't need huge bombastics to be entertaining . Or any OTT elaborateness . No-siree-bob . This truly is a solid action thriller . Kurt Russell is very realistic as the distraught hubbie but even more believable and CHILLING is JT Walsh . He simply is THE greatest bad guy ever ( TM ) . No one could have made him Eviler . I try to impersonate him but I cannot come anywhere near as close to the cold-hearted coolness that he created in the role . When he denies ever seeing Russell or giving Quinlan a ride is like . . . so scary and cool .
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564,429 | 102,816 | 38,964 | 8 |
What if I sing to you ?
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Tom sneaks into a well protected garden to serenade a gorgeous female kitty . But first he has to tie up Spike ( here called ' Killer ' ) . His chosen song is actually ' Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby ? ' , which is actually very cool song . Too bad Jerry doesn't share the same sentiments . Tom's crooning is keeping him awake in his letterbox / bedroom and he just wants him to shut the hell up . Jerry actually only gets to torment Tom a couple of times in this cartoon . Most of the pain is dished out by Spike . And it is very , very funny , with great visual jokes and humor .
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563,914 | 102,816 | 453,556 | 8 |
A noble effort indeed .
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I had my reservations about this new TMNT movie . As a HUGE fan of the original comic-books and a hater of the animated show I found the 1990 movie a fair compromise of both . This one however feels closer to the Turtles from the black and white comics of the mid-eighties . Taking place soon after the first movie ( perhaps the second too ) and completely dismissing the awful third one , the story goes the Ghostbusters II , Scooby-Doo way of having our heroes split up and go their separate ways before coming together to fight evil again . Leonardo goes to South America , Donatello runs his own IT Support Centre , Mikey is a party clown and Raph does his own brand of street justice , dressed in iron armour , calling himself the Nightwatcher . April and Casey are together now and are involved in her antique business and a businessman has hired her to transport mysterious statues into NYC and it appears he is also involved with the Foot Clan . What it all builds to is a VERY Ghostbusters-like ending , but it's still damn entertaining and miles better than most family-orientated movies these days . First and foremost , TMNT is about the characters . The action is very well done and creative , but I feel it takes a backseat to getting to know the Turtles and Splinter again . The CGI realization of the characters is perfect , as are the voice actors , especially Mako . Though it would have been nice to have Corey Feldman return as Mikey . But Raph will always be my favorite . It was cool that Casey also bore some resemblance to Elias Koteas , since I liked him in that role . The locations are pretty damn atmospheric and the animation is top-notch . I was worried that it might just look like an extended video-game cut-scene , but those fears were soon proved incorrect . This is a film I am very much looking forward to seeing in HD . This is a film we need a sequel to . Now ! Sorry about the badly written review , I'm not really in a writing mood but I felt the need to praise this film .
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564,463 | 102,816 | 37,090 | 8 |
Come up and see me sometime .
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Despite the rather generic title ( there had already been a T & J short called Dog Trouble ) this Oscar-winning cartoon proves that it's worth the Academy Award by being very funny and inventive . Mouse Trouble has Tom order a book on how to catch mice ( from Random Mouse Publishing nonetheless ) and follow the foolproof instructions exactly as printed no matter how many times they prove to be completely ineffectual . Naturally they all come back to bite him in the ass . Poor Tom , he gets so beaten up in this one but never lets the pain lessen his enthusiasm . Plenty of visual jokes and laughs in this one .
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563,997 | 102,816 | 475,675 | 8 |
Best adventure game on the C64
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' BURN FOUL FIEND ' Anyone who played Nythyhel will know what I mean by that . Most young gamers today will be completely unfamiliar with text-based adventure games . The ones where you had to type in commands and read detailed descriptions of the environment to look for clues and solve puzzles . Primitive they certainly were but they were loads of fun and helped pave the way for much more advanced adventure games of today like the Resident Evil series . Though released way back in 1986 , I never played Nythyhel until 1992 . I was a fan of text adventure games but never really had many to play . Of those that I did have , Nythyhel was the best . You play an Occultist investigator who is on a mission to find a missing Doctor or something ( my memory is a little rusty here ) in a case that takes you across London , to the quaint English countryside , on a plane ( that you have to bail out of ) and a French castle . Along the way you encounter demons , collect artifacts and pick up clues . In fact the game was so big that it was spread out over both sides of the tape ( man , remember loading up tapes ? ) . Quite unusual for an adventure game . What made this game better than others in the genre is that almost every command that you typed in had a response instead of ' I do not understand ' . The graphics were alright but there could have been more of them , most screens are just filled with text and description . I don't really know what it is about these games that made them so appealing but I am sure they really only appealed to geeky Dungeons and Dragons types of kids . In fact I'm such a geek that I can safely say if Nythyhel was remade today as a Next Gen game then it would surely rock .
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564,438 | 102,816 | 39,017 | 8 |
The Whisky Train
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Holmes has been hired to protect a man carrying a priceless gem as he travels from London to Edinburgh by night train . A sinister and suspicious lot of passengers surround them in their carriage and before long the man is dead and the gem stolen . With Lestrade ( who just happens to be there ) and Watson ( who almost misses the train ) to ' help ' , Holmes views each and every passenger with suspicion as the Scotch Express ( the what ? ) rockets through the dark countryside . There's plenty of atmosphere and even a little bit of claustrophobia but director Roy William Neil makes full use of his literal train set and isolated setting . It may be a bit too short , but it's certainly one of the best Rathbone / Bruce movies .
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564,141 | 102,816 | 457,430 | 8 |
Ofelia Dreams
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Don't get muddled up . This is not a movie in which a cute American girl dances with she-man David Bowie and makes pals with huge cuddly toys . No , this is one of those eviler fairy tales with baby-eating monsters and bloody carnage . The kind of stuff that Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro is best at . Ofelia and her mother move from the city to a large mansion in a rural area of 1944 Spain . Mother has remarried , since the death of her dad , to the cruel and wicked Captain Vidal . A man who only wants her for her womb and unborn child , with no interest in Ofelia at all . Vidal and his men use the mansion as a base to fight against the Republican rebels . Not the best of environments for an 11-year-old to be in , Ofelia stumbles upon the Labyrinth of Fauno ( Pan , the Goat God , has nothing to do with this film , so I don't understand the English title ) in the expansive mansion garden . Deep inside she finds Fauno , a sort of . . . well he's a mix of a lot of things . Imagine Darkness from Legend crossed with Mr . Tumnus , The Predator and Davy Jones . Fauno tells her that she is really the Princess of some Magical Kingdom . Her father , the King has been searching for her and has opened many portals to Earth . Fauno believes she is the one and tests her by ordering the completion of 3 bizarre tasks . The real world around Ofelia crumbles as Captain Vidal goes psycho , brutally murdering and torturing almost anyone he can . The rebels close in and her mother becomes very sick . Preferring Fauno's ghoulish tasks to witness murder on a daily basis , Ofelia becomes increasingly involved in her enigmatic Labyrinth world . In this respect it is very much like Catherine Storr's novel Marianne Dreams ( and then the movie Paperhouse by Bernard Rose ) . Even Javier Navarrete's wonderful score sometimes reminded me of Hans Zimmer's score for Paperhouse . Definitely a CD I will have to get when it comes out ! Despite the adult rating I would still take kids to see this . And by that I mean intelligent kids who are not addicted to Playstation and who don't mind subtitles . With so many crappy kids movies featuring talking animals a horror / drama shot from the point of view of an 11-year-old girl may just be the perfect cure .
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563,852 | 102,816 | 260,264 | 8 |
Junkie ?
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Is it just me or is Pac-Man a metaphor for taking too many ecstasy pills ? Think about it , you've got some happy little face stumbling around in the dark munching as many pills as he can get but when things go bad he's chased by ghosts all over the place until he can get more pills . Either this is really subliminal subtext by designer Toru Iwatani or it's just an amazing coincidence and I'm reading far too much into it . Either way Pac-Man is like THE biggest ever arcade game , which is quite amazing since many more advanced and technologically superior games came out after this . And it has one funky little theme tune !
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564,350 | 102,816 | 66,249 | 8 |
Feels like there's something missing
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And there is . This film is infamous for having much cut from it by Billy Wilder himself . And while I appreciate his choices I am annoyed with the fact that they are not featured as extras on this DVD . I'm not exactly sure what the deleted scenes ( or should that be plots ) are but I can't shake the feeling that the first 30 minutes are completely redundant in relation to the rest of the movie and perhaps it might not have been if the movie were longer . Cutting a movie down to size is always a very tough thing to do . The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes suffers , but still manages to be entertaining . Complaints aside , I really do enjoy Wilder's bizarre approach to Sherlock Holmes . Robert Stephens plays him with more a touch more humor and pathos than most other actors and comes across as a mix between Alan Rickman and Rick Mayall . It's definitely the most pleasant I've seen Holmes . The mystery he gets involved in may be huge , though it's not exactly exciting . Wilder seems more interested in having every element of the story fall into place than give us something with a sense of urgency . And for a film over 2 hours long ( it was meant to be 3 ) it's not cool to have every scene presented at its own pace . There has to be some compromise . The photography is excellent . The 2 . 35 : 1 widescreen frame is used expertly and one can only imagine the horrors of this film being presented in pan and scan . The anamorphic picture looks fine for a 33 year old film and the Mono sound is completely adeqequate . Extras consist of a trailer , an interview with the editor , deleted sequences ( not the all of them ) and a photo gallery .
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564,652 | 102,816 | 90,021 | 8 |
A fun , low-key horror
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Silver Bullet is my favorite of Steven King's horror adaptations ( yes , I do like this better than The Shining ) . King even penned the screenplay himself ( from his short story ' The Cycle of the Werewolf ' ) , but since he was also responsible for the awful Maximum Overdrive , that's no solid proof of quality . But it a damn cool movie . What makes it so different and unique is that it's horror movie told from a child's perspective ( though I admit that the retrospective narration seems out of place ) and has a brother / sister dynamic that's quite cute and makes you really care for the characters . Corey Haim plays Marty Coslaw , a young boy who is confined to a wheelchair for reasons unknown . His older sister Jane is forced to take care of him and throws tantrums whenever the mum and dad take Marty's side ( which is always ) . But the chair doesn't stop Marty from being mischievous . Especially when his manic , reckless Uncle Red ( a fat Gary Busey-absolutely brilliant , as always ) builds him a motorized wheelchair / bike called the Silver Bullet . There is killer in their small town who strikes every month when the moon is full . The townsfolk gradually become more and more weary as autumn rolls on and Marty takes a personal offence when his best friend is murdered , his best girl is run out of town and a fireworks display is cancelled . Then he witnesses what the killer really is . But who is going to believe a kid's story of a werewolf ? Despite the red-herrings , it's easy to figure out who it is before the main revelation . But it's still a fun mystery . Filmed with the little-used JDC-Scope process , Silver Bullet has brilliant cinematography by Armando Nannuzzi and a wonderful score by Jay Chattaway . There's not much horror to it , but I don't think it was ever the intention to dwell on the violence . Even though I would call this film suitable for kids ( despite the 18 / R-rating ) it's still way better than the PG-13 junk we get these days . The film is also notable for Everett McGill ( so evil as the baddie in Under Siege 2 ) , an under-rated and under-used actor in a typically eccentric role as a charismatic Reverend . Doesn't he look like a cross between Christopher Reeve and David Hasselhoff ? A perfect Halloween movie or any night with the curtains drawn and lights off .
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564,729 | 102,816 | 38,977 | 8 |
A spring in his step .
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Jerry wakes and figures it's going to be another day of being chased by Tom . Thinking giving Tom a big kick in the ass will get the action started he's surprised to find Tom unresponsive . The reason ? Tom is in love with Toodles , the girl cat across the street . He's too head over heels to care about chasing a mouse . Jerry then thinks of a cunning plan to tear his attention away from Toodles by faking a love letter to local alley-cat Butch . It's turns out Butch is more adept at making Toodles swoon and Tom is soon out of the picture as far as dating is concerned . With quite a few inventive moments and loads of visual gags and a nice twist ending , this is certainly one of the better T & J shorts .
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564,731 | 102,816 | 97,742 | 8 |
His bad side is a dangerous place to be !
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Being the most surreal entry in the Bond franchise , LALD only used about half of Ian Fleming's novel to make up the script . The rest was recycled into Licence to Kill and , although different actors assume the role , it can be seen as an interesting companion-piece due to the many similarities . But don't let that put you off . The low-Box Office was simply because they never made a great poster , changed the title during production and it did have to face-off against the uber-popular Batman in that particular summer . As a 10-year-old kid , when I finally did see it ( on pan and scan video ! ) I was surprised to learn that it was rated 15 , something that no other Bond film was . Instantly I knew that this promised more gore and nastier deaths and that it was excuse to finally journey into Bond's dark side . He'd been too clean-cut for a while and needed to get rough and tumble . When CIA Agent pal Felix Leiter is mauled by a shark and his wife murdered right after their wedding ( think of Bond and Tracy Di Vicenzo in OHMSS ) Bond goes renegade and plans to bring to justice heartless cocaine kingpin Franz Sanchez in a clever Yojimbo way . This takes Bond to Mexico ( most of LTK is shot on location instead of the usual fake-locations somewhere in England ) where he and gorgeous CIA babe Pam Bouvier ( who I had a big crush on as a kid ) team up to bring Sanchez's empire down from the inside . Dalton never really got enough time to really shine as Bond , which is a shame since he is light-years ahead of Pierce Brosnan . He is simultaneously sophisticated and rough , calculating and impulsive . LTK showed a side to his character that we'd not seen before . As much as I like Roger Moore , you'd never see him pitching Benicio Del Toro into a cocaine grinder or incinerating Robert Davi . For some reason , John Barry passed on this movie ( he'd scored 14 Bonds previously ) and the scoring duties were left to Michael Kamen . Not only was Dalton taking Bond in a new direction but Kamen took the sound of the film to another ( not necessarily better ) interesting level . It's a shame it's not available on CD as it's really something . Even if it does sound a bit too much like Die Hard sometimes . I feel that LTK has a bad rep and it really doesn't deserve it . In fact it's up there with the best Bond entries and no one should really turn their nose up at it .
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563,915 | 102,816 | 39,338 | 8 |
Don't make me angry !
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In this Acadamy Award-nominated cartoon ( it lost to Tweety Pie ! ) Tom is tired of sharing his daily bowl of milk with Jerry and nothing he seems to do stops him from getting at it . So he makes up a poisonous white liquid from household chemicals and serves it to Jerry , hoping to kill him . Unfortunately it merely gives him great strength and he proceeds to open a can of whoop-ass . Trouble is , his powers come and go at sporadic intervals . So Tom decides to drink the potion himself . It's very funny and you'll certainly be laughing all the way through . The twist ending is the best laugh of all . I won't ruin it , but it was my favorite one yet .
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564,220 | 102,816 | 80,120 | 8 |
A review of the Director's Cut
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As you are probably aware , so called ' unseen editions ' and ' extended editions ' are pretty common on DVD and are usually lousy films with some extra filler thrown in to fool unsuspecting buyers . This is not the case with The Warriors . This is one of those ' director's cuts ' that really makes a difference to the overall film . First and foremost are the comic-book transitions and the new opening . Walter Hill felt that his original presentation of the film was a little lost on the audience of the time and it's subsequent cult status on video . This new cut of the film draws parallels between the Greek legend of Anabasis in the 4th century BC . It was the story of an army of Greek mercenaries who were left stranded after their leader Cyrus the Younger was killed . If they could make it through 1000 miles of hostile territory to the ocean then they would be safe . The Warriors , as you know must make it through all the tough neighborhoods of NY to Coney Island after they are wrongfully blamed for the assassination of mega-gang boss Cyrus . A loose , but truly inspired connection . Back in the 70s there weren't just certain neighborhoods in New York that you avoided . The whole damn city was infested with crime and vermin . The gangs were plentiful and they really did OWN the streets . The scenario of all gangs joining together to form one big Uber-gang may seem far fetched now but if Mayor Gulliani left the city to decay then NYs future could well have ended up this way . But the fact that the Big Apple is a helluva lot safer these days doesn't lessen the overall impact of The Warriors . As I mentioned , the Greek history inspiration is clever . But the film is actually also based on a 1950s novel by Sol Yurick and Walter Hill took a comic-book approach to bring it to life . He was aware of the film's silliness but coupled with the sense of adventure and episodic battles , a pulp fiction take could make it seem believable . But for all we know , maybe there was a gang called the Baseball Furies who went about with painted faces beating invaders to a pulp . They were wild times . This new cut of the film also makes the photography and editing more apparent . Hill frames the movie to look like comic-book panels and , as usual , Freeman Davies ' ( Hill's favorite editor ) cutting gives The Warriors a sleek and fast-paced look on top of Hill's already muscular direction . Walter Hill is an action director of considerable talent who is often overlooked . Films such as 48 Hours ( and it's under-rated sequel ) , Southern Comfort , Trespass and Last Man Standing have never been massive hits , so his hardcore style is only familiar to fans of his work rather than general movie audiences . Which is a shame ! Now is the time to rediscover The Warriors and be reintroduced to a cult classic with this director's cut . I know a lot of people are purists and will decry this as a cheap stunt to make more money but I honestly think it's the superior , definitive version . Judge for yourself and might just agree with me .
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564,047 | 102,816 | 83,907 | 8 |
Join us !
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Released in the years before cable TV and before video cassettes made low budget schlock available to the average viewer , Evil Dead found its audience with the midnight movie horror festival crowd . No way did it get a nationwide release . Privately owned cinemas bought prints and slowly the film spread from coast to coast and even made its way to Britain . But by this time videos were gaining popularity and it was released on cassette at the same time as a very limited theatrical release . Critics and censors dismissed it as trash and not long afterwards it was relegated to the video nasty bin and banned . As silly as this may seem , that was the logic of the BBFC . The fact that it is inventive and well directed was lost on them . And until recently only cult audiences appreciated its value . With Anchor Bay's new DVD we can all finally enjoy the uncut , definitive and best-looking presentation possible . Originally released in 1981 as The Book Of The Dead , this was a feature length re-make of Sam Raimi's short film , Within The Woods . The plot ( excuse ) and story ( violence ) involves a quintet of friends , enjoying a few days of quiet at a remote cabin in the Tennessee woods . These are not Friday the 13th goofballs who want nothing but sex and skinny-dipping . They are realistic . And it all goes nicely until Scotty ( Hal Delrich ) finds an ugly-looking book ( with a face ) and an old reel-to-reel tape recorder in the basement . The tape is of an archaeologist explaining how he resurrected demons that took over his wife in the very same cabin . The professor is nowhere to be found , but the haunting burial rites and incantations written in Sumerian text in the ugly book , The Necronomicon Ex Mortis-Book Of The Dead , are on the tape also . Sheryl ( Ellen Sandweiss ) freaks out . She hears a demonic voice out in the woods . " Join us ! " Foolishly going out to investigate , she is raped by a tree . Although this particular scene isn't so hard to watch , the film still has the power to disturb and make you squirm . Once Sheryl returns , all hell breaks loose and Raimi has a helluva time firing torrents of blood of varying colours throughout the cabin . Limbs are hacked off with carefree abandon and poor old Ash ( Bruce Campbell ) has to take them all on at once . The supernatural hijinks were repeated to a much lesser effect in the sequel , but here Raimi creates an atmosphere of dread and whatever that force is out in the woods - it's scary . It does have some humour , but first time around the filmmakers obviously wanted horror first . You'll wince a few times , no doubt . The raw tone goes hand-in-hand with the low budget and Raimi's bizarre , hardcore cartoonish style is much in evidence . More time is spent building character . Ash loves his girlfriend and a simple little scene between them makes us totally root for him . He is still to become the hapless buffoon , as he will repeat in Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness . At the very least , Evil Dead is so popular that it can no longer be regarded as a cult movie . It's not a classic . Not yet . But it is highly regarded and definitely worth several viewings .
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564,661 | 102,816 | 856,828 | 8 |
Classic old-school beat-em-up
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A chick has been kidnapped ! It's up to you to defeat the punks and rescue her ! : The plot synopsis to pretty much EVERY side-scrolling beat-em-up of the late 80s and early 90s . Which was a magical time for arcade fans . I found a Vendetta machine in an arcade when I was on holiday with my girlfriend and we spend over and hour fighting our way through it . It reminded me of when I was a kid , when arcades were more abundant and the games were almost always iconic of the era . Vendetta contains all of the typical ingredients of the genre . Side-scrolling levels containing slum streets , construction sites , Manhattan backdrop , power-ups , bonus points , usable weapons dropped by generic but nonetheless cartoonish bad guys wearing typical thug outfits or biker costumes with muscles upon muscles , eccentric end of level bosses about 3 times the size of any normal human , the need for dozens of continues so the machine swallows every Quarter you've got and more . I could go on . Yes , the games were phenomenally hard , you sweated like a pig hammering the buttons and yes , they were sexist and differed from each other in ever decreasing ways but they were brilliant . If you find it somewhere or if you have MAME on your PC then give it a try . It may not rank as highly as Double Dragon , Final Fight or Bare Knuckle ( Streets of Rage ) but it's still a damn fine beat-em-up !
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564,158 | 102,816 | 342,172 | 8 |
We'll never know the truth !
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Because there is no evidence to prove either way . The fact that 2 long prison sentences were still the result of all this is shocking . If I were innocent of a crime I did not commit ( especially one as horrible as this ) , I would NEVER give in and plead guilty just to bargain with the judge . I have no respect for Jesse Friedman in this regard . Let me make it clearer . Andrew Jarecki was just making a documentary about New York Clowns when he met David Friedman , the best party clown in New York . David told him of his past and provided Jarecki with hundreds of reels of family home-movie footage . The Friedmans captured every moment of their lives on film it would seem . The story that unfolded in these films was something Jarecki could never even dream of . Arnold Friedman was a troubled man . After the death of his 9-year-old big sister his father left and the family was torn apart . His mother moved into a tiny apartment with him and his brother and all three of them shared a room . The mother would bring back male partners and shag them in full view / earshot of her sons . Wouldn't that disturb you ? But it gets even worse . He was a merry man , slightly camp and married a woman who was as about as sexually responsive to him as a blow-up doll . They may have had three sons and lived a ' happy ' existence as an upper-middle class Jewish family in a well-to-do part of the state , but underneath it all Arnold was hiding a secret . He was a huge paedophile and he liked really young boys . He would order kiddie fiddling mags from Europe , but one of them was seized by customs and he was investigated . Arnold also taught computer class and the cops made a list of all the names of the kids he taught and made a point of interviewing them with some truly dodgy , unclear , unprofessional techniques . Many of the kids said that Arnold and his oldest son Jesse had been sexually abusing them . And not a simple one-at-a-time deal either . Apparently they had made them all strip naked in class and play a horrible game called ' leap frog ' in which each and everyone of them would quickly and systematically be anally raped . Is this disgusting ? Of course it is ? Do I believe it ? No ! There is no way that this could have continued for as long as it did without someone noticing . Other kids in the same class said nothing like it ever occurred . And if it did then where is the evidence ? Without meaning to sound crude , anal sex is a pretty difficult thing to get right as an adult . For terrified , unwilling children who are being mass-raped where was the tissue damage , the blood , the tears , the agony and the reluctance to ever go back to Mr Friedman's class ? Even for adults it's not simply like sticking a hot dog through a donut . This whole allegation that they did anal-rape as a game of leap frog is absurd and totally far-fetched . Did Arnold Friedman have wicked thoughts about his students ? Probably . Did he involve his then 18-year-old son ? Hmmm , I'm not sure about that one . Let me just say that the Friedman household is one I am glad I am not part of . There always seems to be an atmosphere of unnaturalness or ' something ain't quite right here ' about it . Jesse Friedman says that his dad never hurt him . Jesse Friedman's Defence Attoney says otherwise . This is a particular trick Jarecki uses to show the conflicting sides of the story . One person says black and immediately another person says white . The documentary is nothing but contradicting stories and polar opposites . While I do not believe the entire innocence of Arnold Friedman ( the man clearly WAS a paedophile ) , I do NOT believe the word of the Cops , the FBI or any other authority interviewed . The Judge , one Abbey Boklan , said she was sure of Arnold Friedman's guilt the second she saw him . In my view , she's openly admitting to Gross Professional Misconuct . How dare she , a judge , a stern , responsible authority figure , make such an outrageous , unfounded remark without hearing ANY kind of evidence first . And like I said , there IS no evidence . Only the claims of the children . Nothing in this case was based on evidence because evidence didn't exist . Doesn't that strike you as being really , really odd ? The Cops claimed that hypnosis was used to get answers out of the kids . As well as pressure from the parents ( oblivious to the fact that their kids are undamaged physically ) to tell the proverbial awful truth and encouraging embellishment of perhaps slight truths and instances to the point where this whole ridiculous leap frog game is created . The trial is not the only focus of the film . The complete and utter breakdown of the family is also caught on camera . The sons hate their mother with a passion at her refusal to stand by her man . I can understand their anger , but what woman would ? She had no evidence to persuade her either way , but she always found an unnaturalness to Arnold and the allegations probably confirmed her fears I guess . Arnold killed himself in prison in 1995 so Jesse , also imprisoned for 13 years despite no evidence , could benefit from the $250 , 000 insurance policy . Mrs Friedman re-married but the family name is stained forever in my opinion . So too should be the word of all the unprofessional authorities and lawyers involved . No one in this documentary comes away without tarnish . It's a sick , sad and sorry story that will confuse as much as it enlightens . Make up your own mind .
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564,381 | 102,816 | 59,026 | 8 |
Will stand the test of time
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Even though this TV is now almost 40 years old , it has surely stood the test of time and is still relevant today . Basically , Charlie Brown is upset that Xmas has become too commercialised . He wants to enjoy it but can't because of the shallow , money-grabbing opportunity he sees all around him . The gang try to cheer him up by letting them direct their Xmas play . He finds it a major stain at first but soon finds it easy being an artistic tyrant . But they need an Xmas tree and the only one Charlie can afford is practically a twig . It needs a lot of love , which the gang sure do give it . Also this TV special also features something damn rare in Xmas movies these days ; an actual dedication to Jesus . Now , I am not a puritan Christian but there are sooooo many movies that try to find the TRUE meaning of Xmas but none ever mention the birth of Jesus . Weird eh ? Definitely one of the better Xmas specials and miles better than Mr Magoo Xmas Carol or Denver the Last Dinosaur Save Santa .
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564,016 | 102,816 | 54,698 | 8 |
A quirky and slightly absurd comedy
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Years before The Coen Brothers unleashed their trademark eccentric characters and even before Woody Allen got on the scene with his endless talkies , Blake Edwards gave us this subtle but weird comedy that seems to be overlooked by most audiences desensitised by films like Mud in Manhattan , Hitch and the latest Bridget Jones crap . What most of these films lack is a strong sense of character and involvement in their world . You really do feel drawn into the relationship between Holly Golightly ( Audrey Hepburn ) , a teenage runaway who ended up a high-class escort in New York and Paul ' Fred ' Varjak ( a youthful George Peppard ) a writer / gigolo who has had nothing to inspire him of late until Holly came into his life . The only time caricature comes into the film is Mickey Rooney's Japanese landlord ( and he's not Japanese ) , but he hardly features that much for it to be annoying . The film has a lot in common with There's Something About Mary , which I am sure owes most of its ideas to . Almost every man who meets Holly falls head over heels in love with her but it takes someone just like her for Holly to love back . Both Holly and Paul are struggling to make their own way in the city . Both have to sell themselves to the opposite sex in order to make ends meet . While Paul just wants to be a successful writer , Holly is desperate to marry a rich millionaire to snag some of the fortune for herself and take care of her brother once he leaves the army . Her escort girl lifestyle is taking its toll on her so much that 6am is only the end of the night for her and not morning . As a result she eats a fast food breakfast on a deserted street while longingly window-shopping at Tiffany's , a shop she'll probably never afford to buy from . However you just know that , despite not having much money , Holly and Paul will take good care of each other by the end of the movie . What gives this film a unique charm on top of the performances are the many oddball moments and quirky touches . Most of them supplied by Holly's cat , known simply as Cat . And Henry Mancini's score ( before he and Blake Edwards teamed up for the famous Pink Panther ) seems right out of a Broadway musical and plays a strong part in making the movie what it is . There's no generic piano cues or pop songs here . I haven't read the book so I cannot compare like so many other people here have , but the film certainly does stand up on it's own . No film sticks entirely to the books they are based on anyway .
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564,465 | 102,816 | 37,198 | 8 |
Woofbark .
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Tom is chasing Jerry , for the usual reasons I guess , until the mouse seeks refuge in a dog pound , where Tom's biggest enemy , Spike , is living . Not letting this get in the way , Tom nicks the head from a hollow dog-statue and sneaks inside in disguise to continue the chase and tricks . Puttin ' on the Dog is a cartoon I remember watching as a kid and it is very funny . A lot of T & J shorts I forget as they can be quite generic at times . But not this one . There are loads of visual gags and it's fun watching facial expressions change as Tom and Jerry fool everyone . There's a lot of inventive humor here and you will laugh out loud a good few times .
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564,723 | 102,816 | 116,365 | 8 |
Strong fantasy-mystery but see the director's cut
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Peter Jackson approaches his own script with the kind of technique most Hollywood directors wouldn't ever even imagine . Jackson has his own and unique brand of movie-making and this is a perfect example of how to make an original and superior film . Michael J . Fox ( who looks like he did some working out for the role ) plays Frank Bannister , a Psychic investigator , who pursues a strange and sinister cloaked figure who seems to be terrorising both the physical and supernatural world . That's all I'm going to tell because I don't want to ruin it for you . Universal tried to sell the film totally on it's wonderful SFX . But this was in a year when audiences were wowed by the superficial FX of ID4 and didn't really care about a bunch of ghosts . The Frighteners is criminally under-rated and underseen so I suggest you run down to your local store and either buy the DVD right now . You'll love it . It's a shame that Universal won't release a DVD version of the laserdisc SE ( complete with the 4-hour documentary ) and the 124-minute director's cut of the film . You'd think with their willingness to do 86 different releases of American Pie and with Peter Jackson's massive success with the LOTR films they'd cash-in on The Frighters . But no ! Idiots !
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564,329 | 102,816 | 101,076 | 8 |
When there's trouble you call Dee-Dubya
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Of all the Disney franchises my favorite has to be Duck Tales . Many people think that Duck Tales was merely an 80s TV show and never went further than Saturday morning but in reality it has a very rich history going back decades and if you think that it spoofs Indiana Jones you'd be wrong because it's actually the other way around . Darkwing Duck was a spin-off of Duck Tales , taking place in the same universe but transplanting the action from Duckburg to St . Canard . The only regular returning character was bumbling pilot Launchpad McQuack but he was my favorite , though Gizmoduck does make a couple of appearances . Darkwing himself , ordinary Drake Mallard by day , is a sort of cross between Batman , The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Shadow . He's a crime-fighter with absolutely no abilities other than his determination to beat the bad guys though his is utterly confident in himself and craves media attention . With Launchpad as his sidekick and the occasional help from his daughter Goslyn he tackles a variety of strange villains , winning usually by chance . I've often thought that a hero can only be measured by his nemesis and unfortunately none of the Darkwing Duck bad guys are up to much , but that's fine since Darkwing himself is sort of incompetent . Episodes set during the daytime contradict the noirish nature of the show and the best episodes are the ones set in the shadows and dark alleyways . I know that this is a kids show and is not necessarily in the same league as the Batman animated series but it does seem to be selling itself short in this regard . Duck Tales frequently had very dynamic and imaginative stories while Darkwing Duck is sort of hit-and-miss . That's my only complaint though . Darkwing Duck still has loads going for it , including a brilliant theme song and his memorable signature catchphrase ' Let's get dangerous ' ( or ' It's gonna get scary big-time ' as they say in France ) . There still life in this bird yet and with the Scrooge McDuck universe still popular to this day then we might just see him return some time .
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564,593 | 102,816 | 301,470 | 8 |
So much better second time around
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Like 99 . 9 % of the Earth's population , I too think that the latter half of Jeepers Creepers was nowhere near as scary as the first . But this ' un maintains great suspense and excitement all the way through . Victor Salva's direction is kind of like M . Night Shyamalan gone nasty . This sequel is so much more of an in improvement over the original . Plus is has the benefit of being filmed in widescreen which captures the lonely rural landscape wonderfully . Set a few days after the first , The Creeper ( truly a great villain ) is still out on his feeding frenzy and this time he's set his sights on a bus full of High School Basketball jocks and cheerleaders . The bulk of the movie takes place on their broken down bus and manages to provoke the maximum amount of tension from this situation as possible . Kind of like what Joel Schumacher did with Phone Booth . In an interesting side story , Ray Wise ( who I will always remember as being one of the bad guys in Robocop ) plays a farmer out for revenge on the creeper with a truckload of homemade weapons . He makes for a great hero and you'll definitely be rooting for him . Also , The Creeper is so much cooler . The opening scene of him disguised as a scarecrow is wicked bad and gone are the ridiculous acrobatic stunts with him jumping over cars and stuff . Instead now the movie focuses on his impressive wingspan and flying skills . He also gets more screen time to show off his sinister personality , which can only be a good thing . Freddy vs Jason deserved to be knocked off the No . 1 spot only by a good movie . And this is it . Jeepers Creepers 2 has great action scenes and a macabre sense of humor . You must go see .
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564,499 | 102,816 | 105,226 | 8 |
Fantastic , low-budget film noir
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Red Rock West is a perfect example of how good a film can be with practically no budget . All you need is a smart script , good actors and loads of atmosphere . RRW delivers all these and more . Nic Cage plays an ex-marine , injured in Lebanon , who is down to his last 5 dollars after being refused a job on an oilfield because of his bad knee . He roles into Red Rock and is mistaken by bartender Wayne ( JT Walsh , not quite as his most menacing-but still evil ) for a hit-man from Texas . He pays him to kill his wife and make it look like burglary . Only when he gets there , just to check her out . She offers him double to kill Wayne . Cage just wants to get the hell out of town with his free money and leave the sparring lovers be . But a series of mishaps and setbacks results in him yo-yoing in and out of Red Rock , back and forth . Eventually this leads to a run-in with Lyle from Dallas ( a cheeky and somehow sympathetic Dennis Hopper ) , the REAL hit-man from Texas who offers to help without knowing he's making the plot more complicated . RRW never had a big release , thus most of it's audience discovered it on video or on cable TV showings . Viewing it in such a way might make it seem like a TV movie but it's bigger than that . The slick , slowly-timed direction , moody score and howling desert wind would have all made for a great movie in theatres but the best you can do these days is watch the DVD on a big HDTV . The only weak point of the movie I can think of is Lara Flynn Boyle's boring femme fatale with the nasty dyke-ish hairdo . I certainly wouldn't fall for her but if you assume that Nic Cage's character is in to militant lesbians then you'll accept it nonetheless .
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564,460 | 102,816 | 70,328 | 8 |
Positively surreal Blaxploitation Bond
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And none the worse for it , since every Bond film needs a fresh spin on the same old formula . Roger Moore's first outing as JB is , in equal measures , comical and action-packed . You'll never get bored . But it's definitely the weirdest Bond ever with loads of utterly bizarre moments . It begins with M turning up at JB's house in the early hours while he's pumping some Italian agent for information ( don't you just love his initialled dressing gown ) . Before sending him to America to investigate a Harlem pimp known as Mister Big he delivers some gadgets from Q-Branch , including a very useful watch . Q himself , or Major Boothroyd if you want to call him by his proper name , doesn't make any appearance in this one . Standing out like a Muslim in an airport , almost every single black person JB encounters in Harlem is on Mister Big's payroll . And they've got a seemingly endless bag of tricks to play on him . The funny thing about Moore is that he's very proper and British and doesn't think anything of walking into a tough Harlem bar while dressed up like the Duke of Edinburgh . His stunned reactions when they mess with his head are seriously funny . The action then moves to Lousiana and a savage Caribbean island as JB uncovers a massive heroin plot . There's a particularly long speedboat chase across a bayou where JB encounters Sheriff J . W . Pepper , the most stereotypical southern redneck ever . Think of Texas Businessman from The Simpsons and you get the idea . JB also gets to dodge a hundred hungry Gators and do , many times over , Solitaire , Mister Big's Tarot card reader . I'm not sure what kind of formidable villain uses a Tarot card reader to help him do business but when you also surround yourself with a hook-handed maniac called Tee-Hee , a quiet fat guy called Whisper and a seemingly unkillable voodoo high priest called Baron Samedi then you really do become a serious baddie . Right ? He even goes on a big speech about how his master plan works before attempting to kill JB slowly . Obviously this makes much more sense than just shooting him right away . When will they learn ? Despite being the oldest actor to debut as Bond ( at 46 ) , Moore does look younger than Connery . And while Sean was gruff and Scottish , Moore is perpetually calm and refined , even in the face of danger ( fingers being chopped-off , snake in the bath , being eaten by gators / sharks ) . Everything that the British once thought they were . He has a certain sarcastic edge that the other Bond actors lacked . While some of his films may have been the sillier of the franchise , Moore has always been my favorite . And the massive revolver and holster he uses at the end is so much more masculine than the usual , wimpy as hell , Walther PPK . And , as much as I am no fan of Paul McCartney , you gotta love that theme song ! Exciting and iconic at the same time . And also yet another juxtaposition in the weirdest Bond movie ever . MI6 , Harlem , Pimps , Paul McCartney , Gators , Heroin , Voodoo , Snakes , Sharks , Clairvoyance , Rednecks , Afros , Fake Afros , Fillet of Soul , Human Scarifice , Scarecrows and a small-headed man in a Top-Hat who lost a fight with chickens . Is this a Bond film or did the whole world just go insane ?
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563,800 | 102,816 | 32,953 | 8 |
Jasper and Jinx ?
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I prefer them to be called Tom and Jerry . This cartoon was made way back in 1940 and features the very first appearance of the troublesome twosome . Though they look rather different . I guess Hannah-Barbera didn't know , at the time , what a massive franchise they had in their hands . Puss gets the Boot almost seems like a one-off short . Granted , Tom and Jerry never really did anything else than chase , and that's exactly what they do here . It also features the Tom's owner ( or owners slave ) , the highly racist and so un-PC black woman with the stripey socks . This would never be allowed today unless in satire . How glorious the early 20th century was .
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564,421 | 102,816 | 120,696 | 8 |
Great action movie
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This movie worked best in the cinema . It's too bad it flopped because the big screen is where it deserved to be seen . Too many folks have seen and criticised this film from TV viewings that do the scope of the action no justice whatsoever . The action scenes are incredible and this movie is very well made . The bouncing , shaking , wobbling camera was an innovative idea and if you like the slow-motion fire-fights of John Woo movies but hate the gun pornography of trash like Bad Boys II then you'll get a kick out of Hard Rain . And the music was just totally awesome too . Chris Young's score is the orchestral sound of violence , mayhem and nature taking over . Seriously , it's great stuff and you really ought to get the score CD . Christian Slater also makes for a better action hero in this than he did in hard rain . Randy Quaid and Morgan Freeman were very good too but I don't think Minnie Driver did a convincing American accent . Don't be to hard on this film . It isn't supposed to be Citizen Kane . It's a pure action film with the minimal of plot to get in the way . It was originally called The Flood and had numerous other characters in it and had many daylight scenes . But because of an abundance of disaster movies at the time it was re-shot as an action movie that was set totally at night . And practically in real time too . Sadly the Region 1 DVD is in Dolby 5 . 1 and is letterboxed at 2 . 30 : 1 . It's not the best DVD of the film . If you have a multi-regional player then I suggest that you get the Korean Region 3 box set with a beautiful anamorphic transfer , DTS 5 . 1 and the script book included .
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564,086 | 102,816 | 116,261 | 8 |
Interesting and realistic
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Directed by Tim Blake Nelson , most recently recognisable from his performances in Holes and The Good Girl , Eye of God is a story of doomed love and loneliness told out of order . Martha Plimpton is Ainsley Dupree ( a name I think sounds quite cool and have since used in stories of my own ) a waitress who falls in love with a dangerous ex-con ( Kevin Anderson ) . After wondering what the hell she has soon married into she seeks comfort with lonely teenager Tom . I liked this movie a lot and the performances were very good all round . Especially Holbrook , he was just so believable as an old sheriff who's seen it all . Nick Stahl is much better here than he was in Disturbing Behavior . I think the last few scenes with him and Martha Plimpton were quite intimate and it really made the whole movie totally enjoyable for me . Highly recommended but quite a rare film to come across in stores or on TV .
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564,839 | 102,816 | 39,251 | 8 |
Encore !
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In a departure from the usual household mayhem , Tom stars as a classical concert pianist . Dressed in a tailcoat and hammering out Hungarian Rhapsody Number 2 ( which you might recognize as the tune played by Daffy and Donald in Who Framed Roger Rabbit ) he is bothered by Jerry , who just happens to live inside the piano . Cue loads of tricks played on poor Tom , who is desperately managing to stay in tune as Jerry runs amok . This cartoon actually won an Academy Award back in the day and it's easy to see why . The editing and timing are dead on , as is the imagination . A lot of laughs to be had here and one of the best Tom and Jerry shorts .
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564,552 | 102,816 | 100,758 | 8 |
Should have been better !
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This movie has elements of potential greatness to it . If more were made of the Jim Henson animatronics and if it had stuck closer to the comic-book source instead of giving us a live action version of the awful ( let's be honest ) 80's animated show then it could have been a classic . Not what we get . The original black and white comics of TMNT were a-maz-ing ! The depth , the mythology , the subtext , the endless Lovecraftian allusions and the overall coolness of it is something so great I am sure it can never be done again . The 80's animated show was a travesty . We got robots instead of humans in the Foot Clan , the friendly Utrom aliens were made into a bad guy ( Krang ) , Rocksteady and Beebop ! , the Technodrome ! , underground drilling machine-thingies and those awful , awful surfer dialect words . Who can honestly NOT cringe when they hear ' Cowabunga ' , ' bodacious ' or ' excellent ' in this day and age ? The plot loosely matches that of the first issue of the comic-book . Only it's toned down and it's too heavily influenced by the TV show . The Shredder has a tamer ' death ' compared to the comic book ( he was thrown off a roof while holding a live hand grenade-BOOM ! ) . Though I am glad the Turtles ' origin is told in flashback instead of starting right at the beginning like so many other comic-book movies . Steve Barron's direction ( Merlin and erm . . . Coneheads ) brings some integrity to the film . I like the grainy and gritty look to some scenes and he seems to take the animatronics more seriously than the directors for the later sequels . Speaking of which , the animatronics are actually still quite good and if made today I'd still be impressed . The real human cast is a bit of a letdown . Judith Hoag is awful as April O'Neil , in the comics she was a lab assistant to the evil Baxter Stockman but the TV show inexplicably changed her to a News Reporter . That's what she is here . And the ginger kid who plays Danny is pretty bad also . However , Elias Koteas is totally brilliant as Casey Jones . I can't imagine anyone being more perfect in this role . The humor , minus the surfer drawl , is still funny . I especially like Raphael ( my fave-he has a BAD attitude ) coming out of a cinema showing ' Critters ' and saying ' Where the hell do they come up with this stuff ? ' And John Du Prez's ( who ? ? ? ) score may sound heavily dated in parts but it keeps the action scenes moving along nicely . The fights may look incredibly staged and false but at least they have a nice beat . It's still superior to the sequels and plenty fun . Just don't grit your teeth so hard at the silly , completely out-of-place and out-of-time surfer words and appreciate the darker tone the sequels ditched in favor of kiddie-friendly rubbish . The DVD gives a 1 . 85 : 1 anamorphic transfer of the movie and it's very grainy and dirty ( as the film was shot ) but the Dolby 5 . 1 soundtrack packs a loud punch with plenty of bass . Extras are minimal . New Line should re-release this as a Platinum / Infinifilm Special Edition . And just for the record , there will be NO 4th turtles movie . There was talk of it years ago but the guys who were interested in making it ended up choosing to produce the Bulletproof Monk movie instead .
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564,247 | 102,816 | 399,146 | 8 |
Don't make me angry
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Fate and destiny intertwine and connect in ways you can't imagine . What can two mass-murderers travelling across country possibly have to do with old crime syndicate grudge from almost 20 years ago ? The answer is a man called Tom Stall . An average family man living a quiet life in a peaceful country town . Had these two murderers simply passed on through his town instead of stopping at his café then hell would not break loose . It's a million to one coincidence , but life is like that . Tom responds with sudden , unexpected lethal force when the men try to hold up his café . And before you can say ' wowzer ' both men are dead with their guts and skull fragments all over the floor . Tom is hailed as local hero and his picture and story is soon all over the news . But gangsters watch the news too . And hideously scarred Carl Fogaty ( the very cool indeed Ed Harris ) recognises the pictures on TV not as Tom Stall , but as Joey Cusack . A man to whom he owes a serious ass-kicking . Carl and his goons promptly show up in town and quiz Tom over his new identity . Obviously he thinks they are crazy . All could have been okay if they just left , but their constant watching and hounding slowly brings back to life a side of Tom that died a long time ago . Without continuing to give away the whole plot , a major bloodbath follows . The violence is short , sharp , to the point and jaw-droppingly brutal . Just the way I like it . This is not some PG-13 kiddie's movie . A film condemning violence only to not show it in it's full , bloody gory glory would only be hypocritical . Tom does not like what he is doing . But when his life and the lives of his family are threatened , the only way to successfully respond is to put them bad guys down as quick as possible . There is no gun pornography or ballet-dancing here . The lesson of the movie is that a man can change . Violence will only lead to more violence and ultimately , when you really think about it , it doesn't solve anything . Yes , I know it's an old cliché but there are not many movies out there that make an attempt to prove it true . Cronenberg , in a change of pace from his usual body-horror and mind-games movies , directs with perfect timing and encourages flawless performances from the whole cast . It would be too much to call it Cronenberg's best work as all of his films have a lot of class to them , but it's definitely one of his most important .
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564,113 | 102,816 | 408,903 | 8 |
Excellent for what it was
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I only ever-played this game on the Commodore 64 and for an 8-bit machine the graphics and sounds were surprisingly very good . It was a bit like Saboteur ( 1984 ) ( VG ) in a way as you would control your little secret agent guy as he ran around in a massive industrial complex going up and down elevators , doing huge somersaults and dodging the evil robots while trying to solve a cryptic puzzle on a huge musical chess board and searching for clues . The baddie , who I never once actually saw during the game , was the outrageously named Elvin Atombender . Every now and again he was start talking to you or ordering his robots to zap you . It was mental . And the funniest part was definitely when you fell down an airshaft and the character would do that hilarious scream . I never actually finished the game as it was just too difficult ( it really did live up to it's name ) but it's still a cool game and recommended if you ever come across it .
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564,306 | 102,816 | 332,280 | 8 |
Who doesn't like a love story ?
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I must stress to you my belief in that the ' romantic comedy ' is pretty much the worst creation of mankind . Some may argue that religion or the atom bomb are more destructive but the romcom ( ugh ! ) is consistent proof that the public are idiots willing to fork over cash multiple times for the same old , same old crap . We very rarely get a sincere romance film , they kinda died out in the forties and have struggled for breath since . I liked A Walk to Remember a lot and felt obliged to check this out ( because it's from a book by the same writer ) . That obligation turned out to be quite rewarding as this sober , mature film was everything zillion dollar attempts to make us cry ( I'm subtly referencing Pearl Harbor ) were not . It's all about character and the guts and imagination to tell a good story . Noah is a simple 17-year-old lumberyard worker . He's cocky , arrogant but very good-natured and he quickly attaches himself to Allie , a girl from the city , from Old Money and a fussy family who condemn her relationship with Noah . This is all told in flashback as old Noah ( James Garner ) reads from his book of youthful memories . Yes , this part is nothing original but the conviction by the cast make it astonishingly real and believable . The performances all round ( but especially from Gosling and Rachel McAdams ) give The Notebook a strong edge over most attempts at romance . You can literally feel their urge for each other and are involved with them all the way . ' Will she or won't she ' plot lines have been done to agonising death so credit must be given Nick Cassavetes ( who you'll probably best remember as Castor Troy's bald pal from Face / Off ) for pulling it off so eloquently . I strongly recommend that you give The Notebook a try . Even if your a hardened 300-pound muscle-man who's afraid to love it's still worth it . But I must warn you , if your the kind of person who breaks down in uncontrollable crying at the end of Bicentennial Man ( err . . . ) you must know that The Notebook ends very similarly . So if your lip quivers easily , watch it alone . The DVD is in gorgeous-looking 2 . 35 : 1 anamorphic widescreen that perfectly shows off the wonderful cinematography and warm color pallet of the film . The Dolby 5 . 1 soundtrack is most unsophisticated but considering the nature of the film , that is to be expected . Extras include , 2 Commentaries by director Nick Cassavetes and writer Nicholas Sparks , 12 Deleted Scenes , featurettes on Cassavetes and Sparks , ' Locating The Notebook ' Featurette , Casting Noah and Allie Featurette , Rachel McAdams Screen Test and the Trailer .
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564,291 | 102,816 | 60,834 | 8 |
Very funny !
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In this Oscar-nominated cartoon , The Pink Panther turns up a the building site of his new house and replaces the boring blueprint of the ordinary house with an exciting pinkprint of a much fancier one . The single teamster working on the house is having none of it and sticks to making the boring house . The typical game of outsmarting and tricky follows but the gags and visual jokes that defy the laws of physics are all very imaginative and well done . For a six minute cartoon there are loads of laughs crammed into such a short running time . And the twist at the end is the funniest of them all !
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563,873 | 102,816 | 33,668 | 8 |
The bird keeps birds
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As I can't help nitpicking I do find it a little odd that Donald Duck , who is himself a bird , keeps loads of hens . In this cartoon he learns of the skyrocketing price of eggs ( there must be a shortage of hens then ) and rushes out to the barn to prompt them into laying loads of them with some upbeat music . But the barn Rooster has other ideas and insists that the eggs stay put . Why would Donald allow the Rooster to push him around so much ? And why would the Rooster really care what Donald does with the eggs ? It's not like he's going to be doing much with them himself . Despite these moans , the cartoon is very funny and Donald's irritable , persistent personality mixes well with the hijinks .
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563,932 | 102,816 | 327,850 | 8 |
Surprisingly Good
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And very funny . I can honestly say I seriously doubted I would like this film and I only went to see it because it was on and I was there . I'd never seen a movie with The Rock before or even watched any wrestling so I was kind of dubious as to whether or not he would be any good . In fact he was a great actor , full of personality and charisma , willing to make fun of himself and was great with the action . The Rock is definitely the next Arnie . Vin ( Donald Duck ) Diesel is the next Jean Claude Van Damme . Seann William Scott was also pretty funny in a rare NOT Stifler performance . As an actor he does have genuine talent that's usually wasted in low-brow teen sex comedies . The Rundown is a sort of Indiana Jones-lite movie . The Rock plays a bounty hunter / chef who is sent to track down Seann William Scott south of the border . Against his will The Rock ends up on a trek through the depths of the Mexican jungle looking for some ancient artefact . Unoriginal it may be but director Peter Berg keeps it moving with plenty of stunts , action and laughs . Christopher Walken's villain is a bit of a cardboard cut-out but how evil are you allowed to be in a PG-13 ? I look forward to the next movie starring The Rock . With talks of a third Conan movie I can only imagine him being the best choice . And keep a lookout for Arnie in the nightclub at the very beginning . ' Have fun ' is his only line . And fun The Rock will certainly have as the next BIG action hero . Keep a lookout for Scottish actor Ewan Bremner ( a zillion times the ' star ' Ewan MacGregor is ) in a funny role as a slob pilot .
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564,106 | 102,816 | 462,266 | 8 |
Not a sequel , just an expansion
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I was a bit confused when I first saw it in the shops . It's real obvious that this is an ' expansion ' and not a sequel . The gameplay is EXACTLY the same . While more of Dungeon Siege isn't a bad thing , THIS much more does get kind of repetitive , especially when you kill the 4 billionth skag / skitter / skitterskag . It's fun to begin with but it soon becomes infuriating . There's pretty much no reason to use anything but mêlée weapons during the whole game . Magic is totally useless and up until the last level , range weapons are pathetic too . And just after the halfway mark you can just forget about collecting gold . It's pointless . I finished the game with about 500 , 000 in gold . But there's nothing to use it on . Why even have gold to collect if you can't use it ? And the weapons and armour you can buy with it are just rubbish . They don't give you much of an upgrade or boost . They just look different from each other . There's nothing of any great use . The controls desperately need rethought . You click in one direction and sometimes the characters will run away in the other . What's the deal with that ? And it's far too , way too easy to get lost . You spend hours wandering around the labyrinthine levels without a clue where you should go . There's a megamap button on the screen but when you click on it you are presented with a black rectangle . Wow ! That's useful . There's not much of a pay-off when you finish the game either . Once you kill the bad guy you just switch the game off as there is nothing left to do . Boy , am I glad I stuck it out to the end . The good parts are just the re-used elements of the first game . The music is great ( why is there no score CD ? ) . The plot developments are interesting ( tho they go nowhere ) and there is a great atmosphere to many of the exotic levels . My best hint in regards to playing the game is to NOT allow Nardulo to join your team . He's weak , dies easily and will use up all your health potions . Is this worth getting if you already have the first game ? Definitely not ! But the original Dungeon Siege is included in the 3-disc pack ( no switching the CDs is necessary , the whole game is loaded all at once-quite impressive ! ! ! ) so if you really love bashing in goblins and love it just as much after bashing the 50 zillionth , gillionth , thrillionth , trillionth , billionth , millionth goblin then go right ahead and play both games in a row . I can't imagine it would be healthy tho .
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564,241 | 102,816 | 29,943 | 8 |
At last a good Mickey short
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This time Mickey is starring all on his own , with no back-up . And for a change he's actually got a good story instead of the usual ' disaster ' plots . In this cartoon , he plays a tailor who , through a series of misunderstandings , is sent on a mission by the king to take out a giant who is about to pound on their village . Princess Minnie is his reward so obviously he's going to oblige no matter how impossible that mission may be . Shock horror , there are actually some laughs and Mickey manages to hold our attention instead of making us drift away . The gimmicks and imagination are very good and the ending in which the villagers use the sleeping giant as a power source is very clever . Definitely one of the best Mickey shorts .
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564,770 | 102,816 | 45,315 | 8 |
Big hairy monster
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Bugs sleeps through a flood and is washed out of his Rabbit hole , down the river and floats by a spooky old castle . Unfortunately for him , said castle is the , not so subtle , residence of a mad scientist who needs a brain to put in his new robot . He chooses Bugs as that brain , but Bugs is having none of it . His escape is made difficult by the unleashing of that big , orange furball thing . How cute is it really ? Bugs pretends to be a camp hairdresser and fancy up Things hair . But uses sticks of TNT instead of curlers . Mere seconds later Thing has quit after Bugs shrinks him down to the size of a mouse using a magic potion . After breaking a ether potion both Bugs and the Mad Scientist go on a trippy chase that results in Bugs falling asleep and being washed away in the river again . He wakes up in his hole believing it all to be a dream . But the little Thing sez otherwise . An above average Bugs cartoon with the always lovable Thing .
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563,796 | 102,816 | 26,094 | 8 |
And the band played on . . .
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In this , first color , Mickey Mouse short , he stars as a music conductor at a country fair . His band are playing , in the most average way , The William Tell overture . It gets worse though when Donald ( playing a loudmouth ice-cream vendor ) comes along and muscles in on the band with his flute , playing a bizarre alternate take on the music and causing the band to stray off course . Mickey gets mad ( I like it when Mickey isn't always the clean-cut good guy ) and tries his best to silence Donald . Once that's out the way a bee torments each and every band member , causing further collapse of Mickey's conducting . Once Mickey turns the page on his music script a rather difficult segment of music ( called ' The Storm ' ) is revealed . How appropriate , at that very moment a twister tears thru the countryside . The band are so lost in their performance that they don't even realize they're sucked up inside a tornado . It's the highlight of the cartoon , with some truly inventive animation and technically brilliant for it's day . Mickey doesn't actually say anything in this one but his facial expression do all the acting . Like I said , I like it when Mickey isn't always the opposite of Donald ( IE not moody and easily frustrated ) and this is their pairing here in this cartoon .
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563,838 | 102,816 | 60,550 | 8 |
Merry Halloween !
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While the rest of the Peanuts gang are preparing for their usual Halloween rituals , Linus is busy writing his letter to ' The Great Pumpkin ' , a figure who is seems to be a cross between Santa Claus and Pumpkinhead who he believes gives Halloween presents only to kids that really deserve it . He is ridiculed by everyone apart from Sally who is the only one who will join him in the pumpkin patch . The trick-or-treating goes well for everyone apart from poor Charlie Brown who is only given rocks . That's probably what would happen to me if I went trick-or-treating as a child . Meanwhile , Snoopy dresses up as a WWI fighter pilot and pretends to be shot down behind enemy lines . But there's not enough of Pigpen , who is my favorite character . A great TV special indeed . Kids back in 1966 didn't know how good they had it . With all of today's CGI technology I guess we have forgotten that , sometimes , the simple stories and animation can be the most endearing .
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563,836 | 102,816 | 37,794 | 8 |
The Great House Detective
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After a double homicide involving a gentleman's club , Holmes and Watson are dispatched to a spooky castle on the west coast of Scotland to investigate . It appears that the victims were delivered five orange pips while at dinner with the rest of them before they met their untimely deaths . Already disbelieving the story , Holmes is viewing them all with suspicion as soon as he arrives . Like a typical Friday the 13th film , the bodies start piling up in increasing gruesome fashion and the culprit is narrowed down . But Holmes still ain't convinced and secretly builds his own theories and tactics . Again , House of Fear has the best kind of mystery atmosphere . I love the dark and spooky Scottish castle with the ever-howling wind and labyrinthine structure . I'd love to own a house like that . Watson comes across as a bit more buffoonish than usual but he still entertains . And despite reading the Adventure of the Five Orange Pips a few years ago I was still surprised by the twist ending . One of the best Rathbone / Bruce movies .
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564,710 | 102,816 | 404,777 | 8 |
Wildly imaginative and funny .
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I ain't no fan of chop-socky Asian martial arts movies . You could run off a list of any of the 1000 films Jet Li made before going to America and I'd say , ' Um . . . Kiss of the Dragon ? ' So , that's how bad my knowledge and devotion is . It was surprising therefore to discover that Arahan is actually a very funny and very exciting movie that zips along loud , fast and funny . Sang-Hwan is a lowly beat cop . He's clumsy , accident prone and bumbles more than the average bee . He doesn't believe he has any special powers , but when he makes friends with a group of five old masters , they recognise his potential and recruits him to help preserve the balance of the world from evil . . . or something . Which is great timing , because an ancient bad guy has come out of a long , long hibernation to seek the key to the ultimate nirvana and spread order over the whole world . . . or something . Yes , it's gobbledygook . In fact , it's alarmingly similar to Bulletproof Monk , only not total crap . There are loads of laughs to be had . Arahan has a great sense of comic timing and the ability to jump from silly gags to serious action in just a few seconds . When it comes to plain old hands-and-feet fighting , Hollywood movies seem to be lacking of late . It's all CGI and spandex . Eye candy it may be , but it's good to see something filled with practical fighting effects , despite the final showdown going on a bit . The one bad thing that costs it half a star is the nasty Eighties synthesised score . Doesn't Korea have anything better than those shoddy Yamaha keyboards that I used in music class in high school ? Hell , I could do better myself . You can criticise the film for being mindless - hey , just because it's subtitled doesn't mean it's artsy fartsy - but for two hours of fun , Arahan will do nicely .
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564,868 | 102,816 | 43,037 | 8 |
Quite funny , well above average
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Tom , now a cowboy ( or cowcat ) on a farm somewhere in Texas is involved in his usual pursuit of Jerry when a gorgeous girl cat arrives . He is immediately smitten and falls in love , hoping to impress her with a tough guy act , and serenading her with a mimed song . Not taking too kindly to being treated as a slave in his love game , Jerry messes up Tom's plans and gets him on the wrong side of the farmyard bull . It's a pretty funny cartoon , especially when Jerry tampers with the speed of the record Tom is miming to , and there's quite a bit of inventive visual humor too . I just wish that Tom would get the girl for once .
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564,811 | 102,816 | 418,141 | 8 |
Better than the last one
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Scooby Doo and the Monster of Mexico was no doubt the weakest of the modern Scooby Doo animated features . Loch Ness Monster is a considerable improvement . This time the gang head off to Scotland to see the Highland Games and visit Blake castle , Daphne's ancestral home . And wouldn't you know , the castle happens to be in the ' quaint ' fishing village of Drumnadrochit , on the shores of Loch Ness . During their stay they meet a few interesting folks . First there is Fiona Pembrooke , a scientist who has drowned all of her money into finding the Loch Ness Monster . Sir Ian Locksley , the boss of the National Heritage Museum of Scotland , he is staunch non-believer of Nessie . The Haggarts , the own a cozy Inn on the shores of the loch . The sons are a couple of local jokers , always into mischief . Del Chilman , a wild , paranoid hippie dude who is convinced the monster is out there and will stop at nothing on find her . And finally , Duncan MacGubbin , the dock master who has seen Nessie too many times to count . Most of these characters are stereotypes , which gets a bit annoying as this is teaching younger audiences a load of crap and giving the wrong impression . However if you can immune yourself to it you'll be alright . Being from Scotland I can't help but wince at the awfully mimicked Scottish accents . Fact : We DON'T sound like that . Soon enough Nessie , looking rather more demonic than ' usual ' , shows up and causes havoc . Looks like the gang have another mystery on their hands . The usual chase scenes , clues and Shaggy's wacky disguises follow . There are plenty of laughs . The animation is splendid , with some atmospheric scenes and locations . And the plot a lot better than Monster of Mexico . The only bad thing this time around is the music . I miss Louis Febre's scoring and the songs here are pretty rotten too . Where are the Hex Girls when you need ' em ? The region 2 DVD is in crystal clear 1 . 78 : 1 anamorphic widescreen ( the region 1 ain't ) with Dolby 5 . 0 sound . Some okay extras are included . Definitely worth getting .
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564,595 | 102,816 | 309,593 | 8 |
Better than the first
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Anyone who knows me knows how much I loathed the first movie . It was truly wretched . Though this one was surprisingly good . It had better ( or just less annoying ) characters that you don't want to die ( the first movie made the mistake of being populated with awful characters ) , more inventive death attacks and developed the idea of death having a design more interestingly . Clear Rivers ( Ali Larter ) is the only remaining survivor of flight 180 and has now willingly committed herself to a rubber room to escape death's shadow . But lets herself out into the world when learning of a new disaster . A teenager ( AJ Cook ) on a trip with her pals has a premonition of an incredibly violent freeway pile-up ( so more inventive than a distant boom in the sky ; the first movie's disaster ) and stalls traffic in her lane . Sure enough the pile up happens and all the drivers who she stalled should be dead too . So death begins to stalk them . But no one has any time for the warnings Clear Rivers has to offer and so death offs them in increasing gory fashion . It's lowbrow and pure popcorn fun but you'll definitely enjoy it . If only the first one didn't exist then this would be more unique experience . Still , buying this DVD would be cool because the 1 . 85 : 1 anamorphic picture and the DTS 6 . 1 sound are incredible . Extras consist of Audio commentary , three documentaries , Deleted / alternate scenes , Infinifilm behind-the-scenes footage , and DVD Rom stuff .
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564,578 | 102,816 | 41,142 | 8 |
Aw , shucks
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Honestly , who in their right mind would turn down Charlie Dog ? He's so cute and lovable . And his desperation to be loved as much as he loves back just makes him even cuter . I would love to Charlie Dog as my pet . Why does Porky Pig feel such a strong resentment towards him ? You guess is as good as mine . After Charlie stowaways in a bird cage to infiltrate Porky's apartment this get out of control . The usual game of cat and mouse ( or dog and pig ) follows as Charlie takes to increasingly insane measures to prove to Porky that he's a loyal and trustworthy pet , far better than any bird . Unfortunately it doesn't work out in the end . But Charlie , I'll have you any time you want .
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564,596 | 102,816 | 293,662 | 8 |
Loads of action , without the nasty violence .
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The Transporter has oft been compared to the dreck that is xXx . And it always comes out on top . Why ? Well , both of them star a bald-headed man , cut to be the next big action star , and feature stunts galore , as well as babes , foreign locations and cool cars . But Mark " Silly Voice " Vincent is no more than a pile of ten-chinned , dolphin-faced , ugly muscle , who is out to show off and proudly wear the heavily Eighties crown of Action Hero upon his brow . Jason Statham , however , reeks class , cleverness and cunning . He keeps his cool and remains silent , whereas Vin Diesel would say something stupid in a silly voice . Also , Statham can actually act , which always helps . The plot is basic , but who cares ? It's an excuse for action . And when the action is this cool , what more do you want ? If it's pretentiousness , or delusions of grandeur , you're after , then go check out The Black Dahlia . The Transporter may be simple , but nothing feels mechanical . Frank Martin ( Statham ) is a retired SAS soldier , who has shacked up in the South of France . He works as a courier for the underworld and uses three simple rules to stay as impartial as possible in his dealings . One day , when a package starts squirming , he opens up a can of worms , breaks all his rules and ends up in big trouble with dozens of evil thugs , headed by the sinister Wall Street ( Matt Schulze ) . Much like Kiss Of The Dragon , also written and produced by Robert Mark Kamen and Luc Besson , The Transporter features our hero taking on impossible odds and winning . Legions of goons come after Frank but he has the awesome talent of genius fight choreographer Cory Yuen to rely on . Props and sets become improvisational weapons and the goons don't stand a chance . Just check out the container fight , or the bus barn rumble for evidence of this . Even the crazy opening car chase echoes Besson's own Taxi movies . And if you're a fan , au fait with his action output of the last few years , this won't disappoint . There are a couple of drawbacks ; it simply isn't long enough and the ending is too sudden , with not enough plot being wrapped . But compared to the awful sequel , I can forgive Transporter for it's follies .
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564,265 | 102,816 | 412,672 | 8 |
Highly engaging and extremely hard .
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Wow ! What an amazing game . You better make sure you get off to a good start and select the right characters and weapons for your quests because if you mess it up your in for a hard time . The gameplay is wonderful and never gets boring and the graphics are very detailed and atmospheric . The monsters and enemies can sometimes be a bit generic and it's not as gory as I would like it to be but this and the constant difficulty reduce this from a 5-star rating to 4-star . I would recommend that you have a Pentium IV processor and a decent graphics card if you want the best performance out of this game . And decent speakers would be appropriate for when you cast those BOOMING spells . Like most games these days this is designed for the most powerful and advanced machine . If you are fortunate enough to have one then buy this game to make the most of it . Even if you are not a big RPG fan the fun never ends . And neither does the game apparently .
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564,597 | 102,816 | 90,264 | 8 |
What a view !
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Okay , I'm going to lose a lot of fans by saying that I really liked Roger Moore as James Bond . He was the quintessential 007 . Timothy Dalton was the most realistic . Connery is overrated and Brosnan is just a show-off . I'm looking forward to seeing what Daniel Craig can bring to the character . However , by the time Moore got to View To A Kill , he was definitely looking like a tired old warhorse . There's enough fun in this instalment to balance it out , thankfully . Christopher Walken stars as Max Zorin , a purebred Nazi baby all grown up into a psychotic capitalist madman . He plans on destroying the key geological lock underneath the San Andreas Fault , resulting in a massive flood that will drown Silicon Valley , thus allowing him to corner the " chip market " . Throughout the course of the story , Bond involves himself in a number of set pieces and makes the odd joke or two . There's a neat scene of a Ruskie being chucked into a big fan , a memorable firetruck chase and the showdown on Golden Gate Bridge that is way cool . All the Bond clichés are here - the practically meaningless title , the encounter with the bad guy before there are any hard feelings , the bad girl who is either tamed or a double-crosser , the shy girl who is driven wild by Bond's double entendres and the gadgets which always seem conveniently to come in handy . Nothing's changed , huh ? If you're a fan of the contemporary Bonds , it might feel a bit odd going from smart-ass runt Pierce Brosnan , bedding the ladies , to a leathery 60-something Moore , bedding shrieking androgynous Amazonian Grace Jones for no apparent reason . That scene has always been rather uneasy on the eye . John Glen is a veteran of the world according to Ian Fleming . Nowadays , every movie is directed by someone else , in order to keep a fresh perspective . But they all look the same when there are no explosions , or car chases . And such scenes are directed by second unit , anyway . Glen keeps a balance between the plot and the action that is believable . The modern Bonds , especially the last two , seem to invent the set-pieces first and then think of some ludicrous storyline to tie them together . Of course , you can argue that ALL 007 movies are ludicrous and should be taken as nothing but total male fantasy . The believability has always been next to non-existent , but it's in the way that the story is presented that has the ultimate effect . Older Bonds were not about being loud , or having fancy effects . They were about a cocky Brit , who liked to sleep with as many women as possible , without having to worry about STDs , paternity cases or what M would have to say about it all . This is the mid-Eighties model and Moore's last appearance . He was certainly getting old , but was still cool enough . And look out for Dolph Lundgren , then Grace Jones's hunk , as a KGB heavy .
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564,663 | 102,816 | 395,413 | 8 |
A show that could never be anymore
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If The Trap Door were to debut in 2006 then it would be low-grade CGI crap with no atmosphere or icky moments . What does that tell you about the current crop of PC-trash children's programming ? As it is , The Trap Door was an icon of 80s children's television . ' ooever knew that plasticine models could be so effective ? But it wasn't just that . The castle that Berk and Boni ( and the Thing upstairs ) lived in was such a brilliant , atmospheric set . The ' owling winds , the dead trees and the constant dark and fog really did add a lot to it . Berk was some kind of blue creature and was also a butler / servant to the ever-unseen cockney-voiced Thing , ' oo would always complain about the noise or being ' ungry . Whenever Berk would turn his back an ' orrible monster would creep out of the Trap Door in the basement . The Trap Door led directly into the catacombs beneath the castle where an infinity of worms and diabolical nasties dwelled . They'd cause no end of trouble for poor ol ' Berk . You'd think he'd learn to keep it shut . The theme song , despite sounding very 80s , was pretty damn cool too . One particular episode devoted its entire running time to an extended version of it . But that's one of my gripes . The running time was only 5 minutes ( barely ) for each episode , which was a bit annoying since it always seemed to end just as it was starting . It only lasted for two seasons for some reason . But even though they only made a handful of episodes , The Trap Door has remained popular for over 20 years and that more than you can say for children's TV of today .
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564,406 | 102,816 | 62,125 | 8 |
Hayfever ?
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Some gardener is filling his land with rows upon rows of yellow flowers , but The Pink Panther , who is hanging around nearby prefers his own color and replaces them without the gardener knowing . This freaks him out and causes him to doubt his own vision . One by one he replaces all the pink flowers with yellow flowers , unaware that Pinky is right behind him replacing yellow flowers with pink flowers . It's almost identical to the Oscar-winning ' The Pink Phink ' from 1964 but it's so damn funny that I don't care . The gags are thick and fast and all the while Pinky maintains his trademark cool and doesn't miss the opportunity to get the last laugh in the amusing twist at the end .
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564,332 | 102,816 | 1,043,842 | 8 |
Great sci-fi fantasy
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I enjoyed the 80's version of Appleseed when I was a teenager and when I learned of the 2004 reboot I immediately went out and got myself a copy of the DVD . It was pretty damn good and figured that it was a one-off . But now we have this sequel which proves that there is actually loads of potential and imagination in the Appleseed universe and certainly enough to warrant further sequels . Denaun Knute and her mostly robotic , rabbit-eared boyfriend Briareos are still working for ESWAT in the Utopian future city of Olympus when a new personal device , a sort cross between a cell phone and a holographic visor , goes haywire and turns the population into a bunch of techno-zombies . Briareos suffers seizures of his own too and a duplicate of his old human form has been recruited to work with them and save the city from this mysterious evil . Yes , it's nonsense . But entertaining nonsense and a weird cross between Robocop , Star Trek : First Contact and The Matrix ] . But the animation is gorgeous and the story and action absurd enough to keep your attention . Come on , John Woo , give us another ' un .
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564,250 | 102,816 | 34,295 | 8 |
She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes
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Donald is off on a trek through the wilderness following a railroad track with one of those red polka-dot sacks on a stick ( what is the deal with that ? ) . And he's very hungry . He comes across Pete's shack ( big , bad Pete appears to be some kind of railroad worker in this cartoon ) and tries to steal some dinner . But Pete catches him and forces Donald to do some lumber-jacking . It doesn't sound like much of a set-up but there are quite a few laughs and it's as close to a Looney Tunes cartoon as Disney gets . The anarchic animation and gags are all funny for a change with no misses . I think this is due to the fact that in this short Donald's wise-ass attitude doesn't make him do dumb things . He just wants to escape Pete . Look out for the bit where Donald is blown up with dynamite and tell me how much he looks like Daffy . And am I wrong or has Pete used Donald's bill as an ashtray before ?
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564,304 | 102,816 | 119,349 | 8 |
Great film about relationships and character
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From this excellent movie . Ang Lee perfectly and convincingly captures the look and feel of two dysfunctional families in 1970s rural America . The acting is so good that in some scenes you cringe when ignorant characters make fools of themselves . The film is split right down the middle . First of all we have the story lines of the two affairing families and second of all there's the story of their children's ' relationships with each other . Although Tobey Maguire does the voice-over on this film he is not really in it much but his scenes add some light-relief to a movie that is otherwise dark in tone . The only ( tiny , little ) gripe I have is that you never find out why Sandy Carver is a little strange . Or maybe you do and I'm just not concentrating enough . See this movie the next time you get a chance and it'll change your opinion of all those souless blockbusters out there that give you only visual effects rather than a real story .
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563,833 | 102,816 | 88,993 | 8 |
Good Day
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While the original Dawn of the Dead is , undoubtedly , the zenith of Zombie movies , I must admit ' Day ' is my favourite so far . It would be hard to follow-up Dawn with a superior film and Day met with much apathy on its release . Which really isn't fair . Shorter ( Dawn was extremely long ) and easier to swallow in one viewing , Day is brighter and clearer than Dawn ( naturally ) . Now the Zombies have total world control . There are very few survivors of the apocalypse . Once such group ( half Army , half government scientists ) have made a base in an abandoned Florida missile silo . The Army are a thoroughly unpleasant lot and there's no way to root for them . The scientists and nicer though and have better intentions . But the show is stolen by Bub , the tamed zombie . He's totally brilliant ! Wouldn't he make a great pet ? I even got a bit teary when he got his big scene at the end . Tom Savini ( sadly missing from the cast this time around ) does incredible work on the make-up and gore effects . The zombies look better than they did in Dawn and the bodies being ripped apart are about as graphic and realistic as you can get without doing it for real . For a low-budget film made 20 years ago it's astonishing how good Savini's work is . Dawn had a bleak ending tinged with the slightest bit of hope ( unlike the remake ) but Day has a calmer , more relaxed fade out . Stay alert for a few references to Dawn including a return of the ' Zombie March ' theme . This new 2-Disc DVD from Anchor Bay marks the 2 , 345 , 205th release of this film on DVD . But you couldn't ask for a better , more definitive version . The 1 . 85 : 1 anamorphic picture has been put through Anchor Bay's Divimax process and it looks absolutely stunning and crystal clear . The sound has also been remastered into strong Dolby 6 . 1 , DTS ES sound . There are zillions of extras and actually worth your time too . The DVDs also come in an extremely cool digipack featuring the highly lovable Bub on the front . Bub rules !
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564,814 | 102,816 | 71,679 | 8 |
Really Sweet
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The peanuts gang are up to their usual mischief in preparation for Easter Sunday , but no one seems to be listening to Linus . He swears that the Easter Beagle will come and make the celebrations complete . Typically no one listens to him , he is little bit ' Ralph Wiggum ' remember . Though Snoopy ends up being that very Beagle , he's far too busy trying to help out Woodstock . The poor little bird is freezing in his cruddy little nest full of cold water . So Snoopy goes off to the mall ( already advertising Xmas goodies ! ) to buy him a bird house . With hilarious results . After much hijinks and endless trips to the mall for eggs ( Marcie keeps smashing them as she doesn't know how to do egg-painting ) Snoopy saves the day and proves Linus right after all . Sigh ! They don't make ' em like this anymore . I'll take Snoopy over Spongebob any day .
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564,713 | 102,816 | 387,575 | 8 |
You can't keep a good guy down !
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The Chucky films have had a curious consistency in the decline of horror and the incline of humour . Child's Play was played straight for chills . Yes , it was ridiculous but had a rather mean-spirited edge to it that made you forget how silly it was . Child's Play 2 was less savage but with a touch more humour . Child's Play 3 ( a film that had an unbelievably bad reputation thanks to moronic tabloids in the UK ) found the right balance between laughs and scares . Chucky was downright evil , but you began to root for him more and more because his one-liners and easily irritable personality became rather er . . . cute . Ronny Yu's Bride Of Chucky , while very gory , simply was not a horror film at all - an entertaining black comedy that was ridiculously over-the-top , yes , but not a horror . Now , fifth time around , series creator Don Mancini steps behind the camera , cranks the bad taste all the way up to eleven and delivers the most intelligent dumb film you've ever seen . The horror is non-existent but the gore is plentiful and the humour sicker than a syphilitic junkie . He rips out all the stop signs with such carefree abandon and directs with such hedonistic pleasure that you can't help pity other directors who take their own material far too seriously . The child born at the end of Bride Of Chucky ( voiced by Billy Boyd ) has been picked up by a gruff English new age traveller and made to act in a fake-ventriloquist circus show , thanks to his bizarre doll-like appearance . He knows he's not normal , suffers terrible nightmares of killing and slaughter and is eager to find his real parents . In Hollywood , a new movie called Chucky Goes Psycho , starring Jennifer Tilly , based on the Chucky urban legend is in production and when the young orphan sees a behind-the-scenes clip of what can only be his real mum and dad on TV , he escapes to Tinseltown to find out why they abandoned him . The obligatory chant to the almighty voodoo god Damballa resurrects Chucky and Tiffany , who are more than delighted to be together with their own child . Trouble is , they can't decide whether he's a boy , or a girl - a Glen , or a Glenda . However , the killer dolls are still keen to get out of their plastic bodies once and for all and be human again . Obviously Tiffany is partial to Jennifer Tilly's body and Chucky aims to switch places with rapper / actor / director Redman who is planning a new Jesus Christ movie . As you can imagine , many deaths occur along the way , much to the distress of Glen / Glenda . It sounds same-old-same-old , but let me assure you that Mancini crams as much daft humour and sick jokes in as possible . John Waters - the King of Bad Taste himself - has a hilarious extended cameo as a sleazy tabloid photographer who happens to snap a silhouetted image of Chucky hammering one off to a porno mag . How crazy is that ? Chucky himself is a wonderful comic character . You just can't help but love him . Don't you think that he and Tiffany make a cute couple ? He may be short but he's far scarier than Michael Myers ever was and his mere presence makes every scene a riot . Seed Of Chucky is not a film for everyone . You have to be pretty open-minded to endure the morbid humour , but it's the guiltiest pleasure you're likely to have for a long time . The self-aware Hollywood references never become intrusive and the convoluted story never becomes confusing . Still , as I have said , it's not easy going entertainment if you're a stuffy conservative . All fans of gore and brainless amusement must see . Oh , and in case you recognise the actor playing Jennifer Tilly's lawyer , that's Nicholas Rowe , better known as Young Sherlock Holmes .
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564,547 | 102,816 | 100,224 | 8 |
An atmospheric thriller quickie
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Peter Hyams ' remake of Richard Fleisher's 1952 The Narrow Margin focuses more on atmosphere and scenery than it does film noir . It does make for a cool , if a bit too short , movie . Gene Hackman is the loudmouth Deputy DA desperate to get a big daddy mob boss behind bars . And when a shy book editor witnesses a mob assassination he treks out to Middleofnowhere , Canada to drag her into court to testify . Problem's arise when the bad guys show up in the wilderness and blow the crap out of her cabin . A brilliant , rustic car / chopper chase down the sheer slopes of a mountain forest follows . It's a great scene with some cool shots and sharp editing . Once they reach the bottom of the mountain they find a train station and board the train for a private cabin . The bad guys follow , only they still don't know what their witness looks like . Many scenes of hiding and seeking make up the rest of the movie . It doesn't sound like much but Peter Hyams ' widescreen photography is used to the max to promote a sense of claustrophobia and even the quieter scenes are dominated by the sound of the train charging through the dark Canadian wilderness . One particular scene at Monashee Station really does take advantage of the ' middle of nowhere ' feeling . Bruce Broughton's score is kind of okay , but nothing as loud and exciting as the score he originally created . Peter Hyams disagreed ( as he often does with his composers ) and chopped up Broughton's work in post-production . Thus , the music in the movie is more of an underscore with much of the more action-based cues missing . I wish it did last longer and with more scenes on the train ( coz trains are cool ) but , for what it is , Narrow Margin is a tightly wrought thriller with Gene Hackman on top form as always and having fun playing the older guy in the suit who can still get into fights and car chases as if it were his everyday job . Filmed in Panavision the DVD is in 2 . 35 : 1 anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby 2 . 0 soundtrack . Though 5 . 1 would have been better there is still some surround use . The R2 DVD by Universal also has better cover art than the R1 .
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564,299 | 102,816 | 150,662 | 8 |
Realistic and involving
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This film is called ' Show me Love ' in the culturally repressed UK for obvious reasons . It is a really cool movie that I enjoyed a great deal . It focuses on 2 Swedish teenage girls and how they fall in love with each other but can't bring themselves to admit it . An assortment of awkward situations prevent that from happening too easily . The film is shot in 16mm with a hand-held camera that gives the film a documentarian look to it . It works very well . Together with the perfect acting this film doesn't seem like a film at all . It seems like an authentic slice of real life . Although not a strictly a comedy the film does have plenty of laughs and you cannot help but feel for the 2 girls . Because it is a foreign language film the release it VERY narrow . So check your local art-house theatre every week or hope that Criterion release it on DVD soon .
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564,184 | 102,816 | 46,908 | 8 |
So cute !
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I love the Tasmanian Devil . Isn't he so cute ? So what if he eats everything ! I found Bugs ' tricks rather cruel , after all a Taz Devil has to eat right ? In this cartoon , his first appearance , he comes across Bugs in his usual hunger rampage and wants him for dinner . But Bugs has other ideas and resorts to his old schemes and traps . Standard fare but funny and Taz is wonderfully hug-able . His TV show from the early 90's was terrible but as a character he is great . There are not a lot of Looney Tunes characters with so much potential as their own franchise but Taz is to Warner what Winnie the Pooh is to Disney .
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564,082 | 102,816 | 443,536 | 8 |
Far , far superior to Shrek !
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I think that CGI animated movies are stuck in a pretty bad rut . Before going to see ( the rather boring and uneventful ) Monster House the other day I was tortured to endless trailers for CGI talking animal movies . We already have Shrek , Shrek 2 , Finding Nemo , Over the Hedge , Ice Age , Ice Age 2 , Shark Tale , Madagascar , The Wild and Chicken Little . Now we can look forward to the likes of The Barnyard , Open Season and the highly gay-looking Happy Feet in coming months . Are studios and writers incapable of coming up with anything else ? All these movies really say to kids is that the world is a happy , colorful place filled with fun and joy . Well , that's a lie . CGI animation opens up so many , many exciting possibilities for dynamic , subjective and otherwise impossible stories . Why are we constantly stuck with talking animals ? Kids are not stupid , but in this world we are endlessly insulting their intelligence with moronic PC crap . Children have more potential than adults give them credit for and they deserve a better range of movies . The only good CGI animated kids movie I can think of in recent years is The Polar Express ( okay , it's motion capture and not animation , but you know what I mean ) , but that's about to change with Hoodwinked . Most of you might unfairly dismiss Hoodwinked as a Shrek clone but it completely stomps all over anything our Scottish Ugly has to offer ( which is nothing more than endless pop-culture references anyway ) . Beginning at the tail end of the story , Hoodwinked is told mostly in flashback , through Police interrogation , to the events leading up to Little Red Riding Hood discovering the Wolf in Grandmas bed . But this is not a story you've heard before . The Wolf is actually an investigative journalist ( that's Chevy Chase's Fletch : same clothes , same personality , similar theme tune , same disguises and even some of the same dialogue ) who has been tracking clues leading to a sort of corporate takeover of the forest . Someone has destroyed a lot of local business and plans to cap it all off with stealing Grandma's secret cookie recipe . Told from Red's , Wolf's , The Woodsman's and Grandma's point of view , all three versions of the events connect in clever and unique ways . Every one of them filled with loads of laugh-out-loud moments and some pretty cool action that never feels forced or contrived . There is not a single annoying character ( rare for a kid's film ) and it's hard to say who steals the show but if I HAD to choose , it would be Japeth the Goat . From a technical point of view , Hoodwinked looks more like Jimmy Neutron than it does Cars ) , but you'll hardly notice it . The story is what counts and when it's as sophisticated and funny as this , it's only a minor , minor quibble . Made for a meagre $15 million ( compared to $70 million for Cars ) , they might not have had the best animators of Pixar behind them , but it still all good . There's never a dull moment in Hoodwinked and kids will love it . It is , in one word , brilliant ! The best kid's movie in ages and probably for the rest of the year . This is one franchise I really want to see more of .
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564,118 | 102,816 | 486,657 | 8 |
Great TV show+Loads of potential+Cancelled = Typical
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There was so much about The Dresden Files that appealed to me . I like noir-ish detective stuff and fantasy fiction . This show crossed them both perfectly and offered an interesting new story with every episode . So what do the execs at the Sci-Fi Channel do ? They cancel it . And it's not because the rating were low either . It was because they were not reaching the correct demographic . What IS the correct demographic exactly ? The show revolves around a wizard named Harry . . . Dresden ; a Chicago-based Private Eye . He helps out the police with their bizarre , head-scratching cases without ever revealing his powers . Armed with a hockey stick sceptre and a drumstick wand , his methods occasionally rouse The High Council , the magical governors who are always weary of Harry since he used Black Magic to kill his uncle . It can be accused to ripping-off anything from CSI , Buffy , Charmed or even Law & Order , but I think that The Dresden Files stood well on its own two feet . The cold , wintry ( often Xmasy ) feel to the show and the naturalised look sits well with the supernatural element and there is a dynamic range of characters . Though my favorite has to be Bob ( Hrothbert of Bainbridge ) , the ghost of a gentlemanly wizard cursed to live the rest of eternity inside his own skull when he's not helping Harry with his latest case . He's played by Terrance Mann , who you may remember as Johnny Steele , singing ' Power of the Night ' in the original Critters movie . I am sad that The Dresden Files never made it past a single series . But I will surely be checking out the books that they are based on in the future .
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564,830 | 102,816 | 144,120 | 8 |
Well hello Dolly !
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After being stuck in an evidence locker for 2 years , Chucky is freed by corrupt cop Bailey , sent by his girlfriend Tiffany . Officer Bailey is quickly offed and Chucky is taken home . He's in quite a state , but then so would you be if you were diced in a giant fan . Using bits off her massive doll collection Tiffany manages to bring Chucky back to life using another chant to the mighty Damballa . As soon as he's on his feet Chucky does yet another killing to get the circulation going . Tiffany is excited and can't wait to get Chucky into a human body so they can get hitched . But Chuck is dead against marriage and laughs in her face . Dejected , Tiffany locks him in a play pen while she blows off some steam . Not taking kindly to being locked up , Chucky breaks out and kills her by knocking a TV into her bathtub . Another chant to Damballa brings her back in the form of one of her many dolls . Angry with the loss of her nice , fleshy body and being stuck in a short , plastic one , Tiffany starts researching ways to help herself without Chucky's aid . Tough luck , the only way out is with the help of an amulet that was buried with Chucky's human body years ago . Conning a couple of local lovebirds , hick Jesse and well-to-do Jade , into driving them to the graveyard in New Jersey , Chuck and Tiff begin a cross-country killing spree , leaving a pile of dead bodies in their wake that the cops assume are the work of Jesse and Jade . Marital disputes between couples both flesh and plastic follow . Don't laugh , it's good ! The formula of Child's Play was wearing mighty thin by the end of the 3rd film and really needed a fresh new spin to keep it alive . Don Mancini struck the nail right on the head when he turned it into a post-modern horror . Remember , this was back in the days when post-modern horror was all the rage so it might seem just the tiniest bit dated now . But compared to the endless Urban Legend , Scream and I Know yadda yadda films Bride of Chucky seems to have the sharpest wit , the slickest direction and strongest production values . Director Ronny Yu gives us plenty of eye-candy and shoots the film with loads of darkness and deep blacks . A horror series like this needs technical superiority and imagination when it comes to direction and Ronny Yu soars over Jack Bender's mundane approach to Child's Play 3 . Composer Graeme Revell returns and delivers a more sophisticated , if slightly generic , score to those awful death-metal guitar / synthesizer cues to Child's Play 3 . His main theme from Child's Play 2 comes and goes briefly and he forgets the huge orchestral mayhem he did before . But he does introduce a very cool Twin Peaks-style love theme for Chuck and Tiff . An alright score overall that really should get a release on CD . Katherine Heigl is very easy on the eye as is Jennifer Tilly ( as a human ) . Plus it also features one of my favorite actors , the Late John Ritter , who died in 2003 . Margot Kidder's gorgeous niece Janet also has a small role and Kathy Najimy ( that's Peggy Hill for you King of the Hill fans ) cameos as a distressed Motel Maid . My only problem is that the film should have been longer , with a more satisfying ending . Chucky has done the Damballa chant so many times now that I just want to see it work for a change . In the DVD commentary Don Mancini said that the film originally had Jesse possessed by Chucky and that the final showdown had more to it . I would have liked to have seen this instead of the weak ending that wound up in the film . For such an elaborate and imaginative horror movie , Bride of Chucky goes out with a whimper instead of a bang . That said , it was still the best of the post-Scream horror films that surfaced in the late-90s and the best of the Chucky series . The subsequent Seed of Chucky was still pretty damn good , but felt like it belonged in a different genre .
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563,765 | 102,816 | 31,431 | 8 |
Disney on ice
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I'm always partial to the Disney cartoons set in winter with the quaint Victorian looks to the countryside and enchanting atmosphere ( such as 1935s ' On Ice ' ) . It looks brilliant here in this cartoon and I'm pleased to say it's one of the more inventive and clever Donald Duck shorts . This time round the irritable duck is skating around on a frozen lake when his nephews appear for a game of hockey . He shows off to them his hockey trophy ( kept in his jacket ) and brags about how he's the best hockey player in the world . As you can guess already , he gets too big for his boots ( err . . . webbed feet ) and Huey , Duey and Louie play no end of tricks on him . If only he would keep his big mouth shut once in a while huh ?
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564,466 | 102,816 | 92,666 | 8 |
Blind Dated
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This is one 80's movie ! Which is fine considering that particular decade gave us so much nostalgia . I just feel weird giving Blind Date 4 stars because , even though it's great , it does contain a highly distressing ' disco ' scene that will make you cringe . Walter Davis ( Bruce Willis in his first movie ) is a stressed workaholic who must bring a date to a business dinner to impress a Japanese client . In desperation his brings his sister-in-laws cousin Nadia ( a brunette , and prettier Kim Basinger ) who is very cute , but has a drink problem . Despite warnings not to get her drunk , Walter buys her champagne and , like some sort of human mogwai , she transforms into a crazed party animal . Things go very bad for Walter as Nadia proceeds to wreck his life . Not only that , but her totally mad ex-boyfriend David ( John Larroquette ) is stalking them at every turn . William Daniels ( the voice of KITT from Knight Boat ) even has a funny role as a disgruntled judge and the late ( great ) Phil Hartman plays Walter's brother . Filmmaking legend Blake Edwards ( The Pink Panther , Breakfast at Tiffany's ) is the man behind the camera . He brings a lot of class and experience to what could have been a generic romantic comedy . His widescreen compositions and long , moving camera takes add a touch of sophistication , it's a shame it just had to end up being so 80's . There are loads of hilarious moments and I suggest you pick it up whenever you see it . Just use 80's block factor 1000 . The DVD is in 2 . 35 : 1 anamorphic widescreen with average Dolby 2 . 0 sound . A trailer is included .
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563,974 | 102,816 | 343,112 | 8 |
Second movie ever ! ! !
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Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince filmed this epic the very same year he gave us Roundhay Garden Scene . Instead of his family walking in circles he filmed , as the title would suggest , traffic crossing Leeds bridge . And when I say traffic I don't mean cars , trucks and buses . I mean people walking a couple of guys who were lucky enough to have horses and carriages . Since Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince was the ONLY director to release any films in 1888 it proves he was the best director of his era . He didn't need big actors or loads of effects or a computerized ape . Just a camera and a bridge . And he was the man who gave birth to cinema . Not literally , that would be hideous .
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564,624 | 102,816 | 185,708 | 8 |
Not as cool as SF2 but cool enough
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Even though I am a bigger fan of the FATAL FURY franchise than I am of Street Fighter I still recommend this to anime and video game fans . The quality of animation in this entry is quite stunning . A lot of time and care has been put into making this look like a work of art and some scenes and shots are definitely way past cool . The sound design is also more sophisticated than most other anime video releases . Stereo separation and ambiance comes through with clarity and more authority than you would imagine . The DVD sound great in 5 . 1 . The story is stronger than I expected but still not up to the standards of SF2 . The bad guy just isn't nasty enough or threatening . And the movie kind of suffers as a result . M Bison is barely glimpsed and he looks kind of different . Gile is completely absent . Vega is gone too . I wouldn't really say that this entry takes place in the same universe as SF2 , which is a shame because it was so much better than the live action movie . Ken and Ryu's friendship is mostly the same , tho that is where any similarity ends . But there is a whole animated series to back SF Alpha up , so if you dig it . . . there's much more .
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564,262 | 102,816 | 35,858 | 8 |
Better than it's ever been before ?
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Donald is now quickly learning the drudgery of the Army ( um . . . isn't this supposed to PROMOTE it ? ) . He's now singing his little song anymore and is quite miserable . His platoon are on some kind of marching mission . A long , long , long trek across valleys , mountains and deserts . He's last in line and is not coping as well as the other troops . And when they finally make a camp Donald misses out on supper because he cannot make his tent . It is rather funny and I always have sympathy for Donald when everything goes wrong ( then why am I laughing ? ) and the music is rather creative , making the most of beats , drums and the marching motif . Quite infectious .
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564,647 | 102,816 | 495,741 | 8 |
Brilliant game with short lifespan .
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The original Outrun is a timeless classic . It's one of those video-games that will last forever and it came out of the golden era of wonderful arcade innovations , along with Double Dragon and Splatterhouse . Outrun was the first great racer , better than Pole Position on the Atari ! ! ! There have been plenty of sequels and spin-offs to Outrun from the kinda okay Turbo Outrun to the just plain stupid Battle Outrun . None really had that extra spark which made the original so amazing . Outrun 2006 may not end up a classic but is still a brilliant game in it's own right . Rekindling that hedonistic , free-spirited , just - get - in - and - drive - anywhere feeling and sacrificing all the modern racing features for just sheer joyriding pleasure , Outrun 2006 is just such an easily accessible game for anyone . As usual it's filled with gorgeous scenery , brilliantly blue skies and amazing music . The classic ' Magical Sound Shower ' ( a great , great tune indeed ) has been remixed but it also contains the 1986 mix for the purists . The only negative thing I can say about this game is that once you've finished it 5 times ( such as I have already ) there's not much point in going back to the same old courses . They could have included more . Ah well , it's still a game you should invest time and money in . Graphics A Sound A Gameplay A Lasting Appeal
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564,196 | 102,816 | 1,060,277 | 8 |
Stomps all over Roland Emmerich's Godzilla
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Only once in a rare while are we treated to a movie so innovative and unique . It's sad to think that there will only be so many film-going experiences like Cloverfield in my life while the void is filled with more generic fare . In terms of story it is very similar to the awful 1998 clunker Godzilla , but is a world apart when it comes to execution . Everyone by now knows the premise of the filming of a loft party being interrupted by the arrival of a giant monster in Manhattan , so I won't go into loads of description over that . I'm a firm believer in the fact that the camera is the eyes of the person watching the film and with Cloverfield ( like The Blair Witch Project before it ) we are put right into the central character's shoes as he stumbles around the darkest corners of the city with his ever diminishing group of friends . It's been repeated a million times , but I too believe that what we DON'T see is scarier than what we do . Once you bring the monster out of the shadows all the mystery and fear evaporates . For the majority of the movie we never really get to see all of the monster , perhaps a tentacle here or a foot there , but not much of the whole thing . We do get to see a lot of the ugly parasites that cling to its body however . There are some brilliant and eternally memorable scenes in Cloverfield , the best being hard to nail down but I loved the idea of entering a crooked skyscraper via the deserted tower that it's leaning against . What a truly unique set-piece . Of course the movie is going to have it's critics and there will be plenty who are not satisfied with the ending . JJ Abrams has said that he plans to do a single sequel from another point of view , but I feel this will ruin the magic . In fact , JJ Abrams ' marketing campaign and back-story has already tarnished the film for me a little bit . He has stated that the monster comes from the sea but I prefer to not know for certain where it comes from . I imagined it coming from outer space myself as the idea of a random creature arriving from the infinite darkness of space to far more terrifying than a monster from the limited environment of our own oceans . And the viral marketing is way out of hand . Let me put set it all straight . Rob Hawkins has been made vice president of a company in Japan . That company is the Slusho soft drink firm . Marlena is seen drinking plenty of Slusho at the beginning of the film . The parasites on the creature apparently eat the secret ingredient of Slusho deep in the ocean . They smelled this on her , which explains why she is the only one of the group who is bitten . The near-unnoticeable ' splash ' in the water at the end of the film is part of a satellite which has fallen out of space and apparently wakes up the monster somehow . What a load of garbage ! Is Rob Hawkins the centre of the universe or something ? Why is all this contrived crap revolving around him ? Why they came up with this drivel instead of leaving it all unexplained is beyond me . Nevertheless , I will still be looking forward to the sequel next year .
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563,992 | 102,816 | 99,700 | 8 |
EQUAL SEQUEL
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Gremlins 2 has a bigger scope than the first film . It takes place in Manhattan and deals with a lot more than the original did . The main difference is that Gremlins 2 is kind of a spoof of the first . With frequent references to it ( even by Leonard Maltin at one point ) and only 2 characters ( or 3 if you include Gizmo ) it's not really continuing the Gremlins story but using it to make fun of early ? 90s big city culture . There are a gazillion in-jokes and dozens of cameos all over the place . Including Jerry Goldsmith who's music is even better in this movie than in the first . It is such a cool and catchy little theme . I love it . The Gremlins seem cuter and funnier in this one . My fave Gremlin is Daffy , he's insane . The other main ones are George ( the frowner ) , Lenny ( the dumb one ) and Mohawk ( the one with the uh ? mohawk ) . And of course there's Gizmo . I wish so much that Mogwai were real because he's so cute and adorable . Rent this movie or catch it on TV . If you like it wait for Warner to release the DVD . The opportunity for extras and invention is endless . One last thing . Stay with this film until the end of the credits .
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564,678 | 102,816 | 413,221 | 8 |
Splendiferous
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The original Sabre Wulf was made for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 back in 1984 . It spawned 3 sequels called Knight Lore , Nightshade and Underwurlde ( plus 2 further sequels that never got released called Pentagram and Mire Mare ) . Now arrives the 4th sequel , once again called Sabre Wulf . Sabre Man ( our hero of the franchise ) is now quite old but still has that spirited Indiana Jones / David Attenborough fondness for adventure about him . In this game he is camping in the forest outside of Blackwyche Village when the evil Doctor Dolittle-Goode sets the imprisoned Sabre Wulf free to wreck havoc up on the innocent citizens . Our hero jumps to the rescue . This is where we take over . The gameplay of Sabre Wulf is a mix of RPG elements and platforming action . As Sabre Man you wander all over a relatively large map covering locations such as Mount Knightlore , the Underwurlde Mines , Blackwyche village and docks and Karnath Jungle . In each of these areas are entrances into the 2D platform levels in which you must rescue treasure , useful objects or people from the Sabre Wulf using good animals to cancel out bad animals . For example the ' boomer ' is a small dragon that can blow up almost anything , the ' blubba ' is a fat bear you can bounce on to reach higher levels and the Bigfoot will give a nasty rock a kick to smash it . Obviously there are many more creatures to help you . Each level offers a learning curve . You must attempt the harder ones a good few times , memorising the dangers within , in order to complete them . It sounds repetitive but the gameplay is easy to pick up and totally addictive . The graphics look gorgeous , the sound effects just as good and even the music can be quite atmospheric and impressive when it's not busy being cute . There are some side missions to give the game a longer life when you're done with the Sabre Wulf too . Definitely a game that shows off what the GBA is capable of and one to look out for . Graphics A Sound A Gameplay A Lasting Appeal
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564,053 | 102,816 | 271,367 | 8 |
Not so Itsy Bitsy
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It's depressing to think about God-awful abominations , such as Men In Black II and ( wa wa wicky wicky ) Wild Wild West , making over $200million at the US box office and yet something as original and refreshing as this barely earning back its budget . Perhaps an autumn release would have suited ELF . But then any movie opening opposite MIIB and taking a portion of its audience is fine by me . While he may not be the best director in town , executive producer Roland Emmerich knows what makes a good movie and his hobby seems to be lampooning paranoid Fifties sci-fi . Think of Independence Day ( a War Of The Worlds update ) or Godzilla ( another radioactivity created monster ) . Do these movies want to be taken seriously ? No , of course not . They were made to entertain and that they do with reckless abandon Eight Legged Freaks is another take on Fifties paranoia . Don't mistake this for an Arachnophobia clone . ELF does not make the goof of creating small monsters . They are massive . The cause for this mutation ? Radioactivity . Only , when these suckers bite you they won't turn you into Peter Parker camping it up in a bad Sam Raimi movie . David Arquette plays goofball Chris McCormick , who returns to his hometown of Prosperity , Arizona , only to find it on the verge of bankruptcy . The only chance the town has of making money is to agree the storage of toxic waste in the abandoned gold mines . The shady mayor - is there any other kind ? - is already in league with the chemical companies . But unknown to anyone , a rogue barrel has somehow ended up in the lake . Tom Noonan makes a cameo appearance as the weirdo Spider Farm owner , who feeds his little babies food caught in said lake . A couple of weeks later . . . BAM ! ! Spider City . Ellory Elkayem's feature debut is an expansion of his short movie Larger Than Life . He handles the far-fetched hokum very well and with a constant sense of humor - the cat being eaten off-screen is hilarious . It's weird that a film with a 12 / PG13 rating can get away with so much death . Many , many extras are offed by the ELF , which squirt multi-coloured puss and goo everywhere when they are squished . Perhaps the movie's only failing is that it kills off too many innocent people . While not graphic , there's no big fun in human death . The script is better than you would expect . There is enough character , situation and invention to elevate beyond its roots . It's hard to pull off a B-movie making fun of B-movies , but ELF ends up being a better film than mainstream crud , such as Minority Report or Reign Of Fire . Think of it as Tremors with spiders and having the imagination of Gremlins - only better . Plus , it stars Kari Wuhrer ( oh baby ! ) .
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564,603 | 102,816 | 114,369 | 8 |
I hate Brad Pitt but I like this movie .
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After the abysmal failure of Alien 3 , David Fincher held his breath for three years and made a new start with Se7en . His signature style of direction is all over it . The plot explores the extreme pitch-black side of the human psyche and was entirely the creation of one writer . Andrew Kevin Walker , a former Tower Records employee , conceived , in hell , a heinous story of a serial killer who offs his victims in the style of the Seven Deadly Sins . What was he smoking when he came up with that idea ? Brad Pitt plays David Mills , a semi-experienced detective who is way ahead of himself . He uproots from a decent precinct , dragging his suffering wife ( Gwyneth Paltrow ) with him , to transfer to the worst in town - an unnamed , rainier-than-Glasgow Los Angeles - for no other reason than " to make a difference " . Good luck . Morgan Freeman is William Somerset , the most jaded and world-weary cop on the force . He only has a few days with Mills before retiring to a simple life in the country . Mills could learn a lot from him , and if he had any sense , he would . Sadly , this does not happen . In Fight Club , Fincher exposed the rotten underbelly of a free society , the seedy flipside of American culture that most people pretend doesn't exist . Somerset says the only way to deal with a world this bad is to be apathetic . Mills is morbidly self-confident and believes he can make the world a better place . Se7en is filthier than a dead stray dog at the bottom of a New Jersey toxic waste dump . It looks so miserable that people nailed to crosses seem happier . Few scripts make for good reading , but Andrew Kevin Walker's writing is one of the film's many strengths . He explored dark , character-driven horror / drama in shockers such as Brainscan and 8mm , but this is the meanest - and 8mm was very mean indeed . The irony of each victims ' death is made entirely justified by the killer's logic behind the madness . Of course , he does not believe he is insane . Just the world he lives in . Haven't you ever felt like that ? It is important for such movies to have an atmosphere and Se7en is so rank that you can smell it . Pitt and Freeman deliver great performances , although Pitt should learn to breathe through his nose and not have constantly pursed lips . It becomes quite annoying . Se7en is definitely the film that kick-started Fincher's career . Had he made The Game right after Alien 3 , there would have been no Fight Club , or Panic Room . For that tiny minority who knows nothing of the film , it's high time you checked it out . Even if you don't enjoy , you cannot deny its power and effect .
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564,581 | 102,816 | 244,353 | 8 |
The best story
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King Arthur movies are a dime a dozen . Not only do we have this , but also Merlin , Excalibur , Lancelot and Guinevere , Knights of the Round Table , Prince Valiant , Merlin of the Crystal Cave , Quest for Camelot , the awful First Knight and the apparently even worse ( and imaginatively titled ) King Arthur . Mists of Avalon is the best I've seen so far . After the rather childish Merlin and the just plain weird Excalibur I was pleased that this film was more grown-up and with better characters who you can actually connect with . I've not seen Julianna Margulies in anything else aside from Out for Justice ( yay ! ) and Ghost Ship . But damn , she was totally gorgeous as Morgaine , a character previously portrayed as a villain . Though I have the book by Marion Zimmer Bradley , I have not yet read it ( I'll get round to it ) . But I can tell you now that her version of events tells it from the point of view of the women and how their conspiring and unloyalty brought about the end of Camelot . For a legend with so many incarnations this angle was quite refreshing . It's far from a woman's film though . It does , however , a lot of love story in it . But it's the kind of love story where you know what the characters are thinking and what they feel rather than just something rudely stapled on to appeal to the women . Mists of Avalon is also wonderfully shot and has many scenes of unique atmosphere . All of this , obviously , is backed up by Lee Holdridge's utterly beautiful score . A dozen great themes and moods played out to various emotions . Definitely one of the best scores ever , methinks . Like I have said , there are loads of movies to choose from regarding this legend . But Mists of Avalon is the best I have seen so far . So I recommend that you choose this ' un . The DVD is in great-looking 1 . 78 : 1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5 . 1 sound . Some slight extras , including deleted scenes , are on there too .
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