I put Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the same disadvantage I give most sequels; I watched its illustrious (and not so illustrious) predecessors. I always watch the Indy films now in chronological order starting with Temple of Doom. (This has the advantage of getting the bad one out […]
Easily one of the most over-rated films of the psychedlic era, I found Easy Rider to be ponderous, slow, boring and ultimately empty, without any point to hold the whole mess together.
I suppose if I, like so many fans of the film, first saw it stoned, I might have a different opinion. The plot, […]
Jabberwocky was Terry Gilliams’s first solo outing as a director, following his collaboration with Terry Jones on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Filming from a script he co-wrote with Charles Alverson, Gilliam spins a rather personal tale around the “nonsense poem” by Lewis Carroll.
The story revolves around Dennis Cooper (Michael Palin), and apprentice…cooper […]
Song of the South is a 1964 Walt Disney production that has never seen the light of day on home video in the United States due to issues of political correctness. Is the film broad and offensive in its treatment of black Americans? Not particularly. The problem seems to come down to […]
Having watched all the Superman films, I decided to follow that up with a review of the “90s” Batman films. * This encapsulates Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.
To kick things off, here’s my famous quick and dirty guide to the Batman films:
Batman: directed by the artsy Tim Burton, produced by […]
Having watched the previous Superman cinematic outings one at a time, I decided to watch the entirety of Christopher Reeve’s output in the character in one go. Including both versions of the second film, this runs to five: Superman, Superman II, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest […]
For Ratatouille, I present my first (and possibly last) one of those “podcasts” the kids are always talking about these days. Apologies for the sometime wonky audio and the fact that I had a sore throat the day we recorded.
It doesn’t speak well of Destination Moon that when I sat down to write this review I couldn’t remember a single thing about the movie. Now, as you should know by now, I’m behind in writing these reviews so there’s a bit of a gap between the time I view them and the time […]
Night at the Museum was a surprise hit late in 2006. Many had marked the box office race as completely settled, when out of the blue, Museum had not only a strong opening, but incredible legs. It’s always a question whether phenomenon like this deserve such success, but in this case, it certainly […]
I get a lot of flack from certain quarters for my fandom of the Fantastic Four film series (on display in my review of the first film). Perhaps I’m more forgiving because I love the original comics so much. But whatever the reason, I also really enjoyed the sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of […]
The Notorious Bettie Page tells the story of the rise to fame of the well-loved pinup girl. It follows her as she leaves her home and hooks up with a successful publisher of “educational” and “specialty” photographs, eventually becoming one of the most famous “non-famous” people in the country. (Bettie may not have […]
Hollywoodland takes a fictionalized look at the events surrounding the death of George Reeves, best known for his iconic portrayal of the Man of Steel on The Adventures of Superman.
It accomplishes this by introducing a fictional detective, Louis Simo (Adrien Brody), hired by Reeves’ mother to look into the actor’s death. As he investigates, […]
Chicken Run marked the feature film debut for Aardman Studios, the animation house best known for the Wallace and Gromit shorts. It tells of a group of chickens desperate to escape the farm on which they live. Their attempts always fail, but the erstwhile leader, Ginger (Julie Sawalha) perseveres. When a hotshot […]
As I stated in my original review, Mulan is a strong entry from Disney animation at a time when they were really blowing hot and cold. The story still has a lot of the formulaic problems that marked Disney films of the day, but it is at least executed very well, with good songs, […]
Pink Floyd The Wall is director Alan Parker’s fever-dream adaptation of the well-known rock opera/album. Now, Parker was (and is) no stranger to films with significant musical content, having directed Fame, Birdy, Evita and The Commitments, to name a few. With The Wall, however, he actually hit a wall named Roger Waters and […]
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is the theatrically-released pilot for the similarly named television show starring Gil Gerard as Buck and Erin Gray as Col. Wilma Deering. As I mentioned in my review, Flash Gordon (made around the same time) tried to recreate the comic strip on the big screen. Buck, on […]
I am probably unduly fond of Graffiti Bridge, Prince’s 1990 sequel to his groundbreaking Purple Rain. On almost every level (except the music - mor on that later), Bridge is inferior to Rain. The story is more convoluted, the dialogue more stilted, the sets look more fake. But there’s something deep inside […]
I don’t have a whole lot to say about Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. It has always been my least favorite of the original crew “Star Trek” films. This is mainly because it feels to me like an obligatory film, not one that grew organically.
Wrath of Khan had proved that Star […]
The Bride and the Beast is another film for which Ed Wood only wrote the screenplay. That he didn’t direct this particular opus doesn’t take away from its Woodian flavor in the slightest.
This film tells the tale of newlyweds Dan and Laura Fuller (Lance Fuller and Charlotte Austin). Dan is a hunter, basically […]
I’ve said about all I needed to say about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in my original review. There’s little to add, really.
But I would like to point out that like a lot of the films that have become personal favorites, there’s always something that I notice each time I watch it. This time, […]
The Beastmaster was one of the rare early-eighties attempts at bringing the sword & sorcery genre to the big screen. Unfortunately for its box office, it released the same year as the much higher-profile Conan the Barbarian. Beastmaster quickly faded from theaters. But it was one of the first films to really […]
Hang ‘Em High is my favorite Clint Eastwood Western. Yes, most would choose a true spaghetti western like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly or A Fistful of Dollars, but Hang ‘Em High is an American film through and through. And if there is a genre that benefits from true American roots, […]
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, while not a faithful adaptation of the books on which it is based, captures the essence of those books and translates it to the big screen with flair.
It’s impossible to discuss Unfortunate Events without pointing out that, as mentioned, it doesn’t really follow the books. It takes […]
Batman (1966) is my favorite Batman movie. There, I’ve said it and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I know a lot of Batman fans hate the 1960s Adam West TV show and (by extension) this movie, but I simply cannot agree with them.
“But it debases all that defines the character” the […]
A lot of people would cry “foul” at my including a film like Shenmue: The Movie on this blog. For one thing, it was not released to theaters in the United States. For another, it is made up almost entirely of in-game footage from the Sega Dreamcast title Shenmue, rather than being a […]
Ah, The Killer Shrews. One of my favorite episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 used this film and it stands up pretty well on its own.
The films tells of a young shipping boat captain, Thorne Sherman (James Best) who lands on an island with his mate, “Rook” Griswold (Judge Henry Dupree) to make a […]
Cool World is a crazy quilt of animation and sex jokes, put together by the bad-boy of feature animation, Ralph Bakshi. It stars Kim Basinger as Holli Would, a “doodle” (as cartoon characters are known) who wants to make it with a human in order to become real. Her human of choice is […]
Chariots of Fire is a somewhat fictionalized account of the 1924 British Olympic track & field team, their struggles (both personal and professional) and how they navigated these difficulties to bring home glory.
The focus is on two members of the eventual team, Irish missionary Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) and the Jewish Cambridge man Harold Abrahams […]
Over twelve years ago, I visited my brother who was then living in Pennsylvania. He was going to school, so, naturally, he had a computer. After spending several days getting to know the machine, I came away with two bits of knowledge. First, I didn’t think I’d ever wrap my head around […]
Superman and the Mole Men is the first Superman feature film (though it runs under an hour). It features the debut of George Reeves as the Man of Steel and Phyllis Coates as Lois Lane, both of whom would reprise their roles in the Adventures of Superman TV series. In fact, Mole Men […]
Fugitive Girls a.k.a. Five Loose Women a.k.a. Hot on the Trail a.k.a. Women’s Penitentiary VIII* is almost certainly the best of the Ed Wood / Steven Apostolof collaborations. Filled with everything you’d expect from the two, with a “women in prison” theme on top, it’s actually a satisfying film on many levels, although still […]
Dr. No initiated the James Bond film series and, while not the first appearance of the character*, it established many of the standard features that would carry the series for over four decades. That being said, there is much about this production that makes it more in line with the most recent film, Casino […]
Melody Time is the next-to-the-last of Disney’s “package” films (The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad would end the era). It has a larger number of individual stories than most and, being music-based, it has more in common with Fantasia than the other package films.
First up is “Once Upon a Wintertime”, a short, unmemorable […]
Well, we hit one of my favorites again. This time, it’s my favorite Woody Allen film: Broadway Danny Rose. As far as I’m concerned it’s the perfect balance between the two sides of Allen’s filmmaking. It is a film steeped in show business, has lots of humor, solid and believable drama, and […]
Incubus is, in many ways, a typical 1960s era pseudo-Bermanesque horror film. It deals with the story of a beautiful succubus* named Kia who tires of gathering souls of the already damned. She longs to capture the soul of a truly good man. Ignoring the warnings of her fellow demons, she pursues […]
The serial Batman and Robin is a mixed bag as far as improvements over its predecessor are concerned. While it sticks closer to the source material (no need for war propoganda in 1949), its plot and characterizations aren’t nearly as strong.
First of all, Batman and Robin shows the dynamic duo (Robert Lowery and Johnny […]
I’ve previously covered 2005’s King Kong and wrote a full review here, but I thought this time around I’d do a kind of contrast and compare, tale of the tape kind of thing alongside the 1998 version of Godzilla. So let’s see how they stand up to each other.
Approach
Godzilla took the more common road […]
S.O.S. Coast Guard is a fairly standard action serial that is saved from total obscurity by a few high profile cast members. But it’s never able to really rise above its basic nature and become something truly memorable.
It tells of Lt. Terry Kent (Ralph Byrd - the same year he would debut as Dick […]
I’m Gonna Git You Sucka is writer/director Keenan Ivory Wayans’ Airplane!-type parody of 1970s “blaxploitation” films.
It tells of soldier Jack Spade (Wayans) who comes home following the death of his brother Junebug. He learns from his mother (Ja’net DuBois) that he died from an “OG” (Over-Gold - basically too many gold chains), leaving behind […]
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is the single greatest piece of Star Trek material ever created. I say that without fear of serious contradiction. It does everything that made the original Star Trek television series work and engages in none of the excesses and fanwank that marked later films and series.
And […]
After a long, strange journey from stage to screen, Evita finally reached theaters in 1996, twenty years after the original concept album was released.
I think things really started going with the selection of director Alan Parker. With a strong background in musical films that are not really musicals (Pink Floyd: The Wall, Birdy, The […]
Night of the Ghouls is classic Ed Wood. In fact, it suffers from more classic Ed problems than just about any other film. It’s got the usual wacky dialogue, questionable acting by Ed’s usual bunch and Ed’s poor camera skills. It even has that old Ed standby; recycled footage. (In this […]
Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster us best known for serving as the turning point of the original series as far as Godzilla is concerned. He makes the turn from villain to hero in this film, teaming up with established characters Mothra (already a hero) and Rodan (villain of his own film) to defeat a new […]
Slap Shot is part of the great 1970s sports film tradition of showing the seedy underbelly of the sports world, this time through small-town hockey.
It stars Paul Newman as Reggie Dunlop, player/coach for the Charleston Chiefs, a minor league team that is down on its luck, as factory closings have diminished attendance. When he […]
Dick Tracy is Warren Beatty’s big-screen adaptation of Chester Gould’s famous comic strip character. Coming only a year after Batman, it is easy to see why it was kind of overshadowed by that much higher profile film. But despite some similarities (composer Danny Elfman, for instance), they are very different projects with very […]
Mmmmmmmm. Orgy of the Dead. The slightly pungent smell of soft-core pornography is all over this one. This is Ed Wood’s first real foray into porn (though he dabbled a bit with The Sinister Urge). It also marks the beginning of his long collaboration with director Stephen Apostolof, a man who had […]
No film has ever f-ed with my head the way Time Bandits did. Now, if you haven’t seen this film, I won’t go into exactly what about it f’ed with my head, but suffice it to say that I think the marketing guys who sold this as a children’s film shouldbe in line for […]
The suits over at Disney must have been feeling pretty good about themselves when they released Aladdin. They had just come off the enormously successful Beauty and the Beast (the only animated film ever nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture) and seemed to be on a roll. With much of the […]
Meet the Robinsons is the second film in what was meant to be Walt Disney Feature Animation’s new direction: CGI. After the monumental failure of Treasure Planet and the less than thrilling performance of Home on the Range, Disney was no longer going to produce traditionally animated films, instead they would produce “CGI” films, […]
Okay, I’ve tried writing seriously, I’ve tried being clever, I even tried being ultra-cute. But no matter what I do I can’t seem to wrap my head around writing a review of Manos: The Hands of Fate.
It’s just so painful to sit through. Honestly, I couldn’t remember any of the major points I wanted […]
The Lion King is the perfect culmination of all that had been ocurring at Disney Animation since the renaissance begun with The Little Mermaid. With each project, the visuals had become more lush and the stories had become more universal and more widely appealing. But it took the masterstroke (conceived by lyricist Tim […]
The Little Mermaid is another film that I could go on about for days if given the opportunity. The main thing that sets it apart from the Disney animated films that preceded it was the focus on music. This is not surprising, as lyricist Howard Ashman also served as a producer on the […]
If Snow White is the film that made Disney studios, Dumbo is the one that saved them. You see, after the success of Snow White, Walt Disney set his sights a bit higher than just making entertainment. He made Fantasia. It was an enormously expensive undertaking that proved financially disastrous. Now, […]
Ah, The Sinister Urge. The last of the “classic” Ed Wood movies. While Ed would do another movie with Criswell (Orgy of the Dead) and one more with stalwart Duke Moore (Take it Out in Trade), this is the last time he would assemble a large group of his “stock company” and is […]
“The one that started it all and still the fairest of them all!” read the ad copy for the DVD release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And, frankly, it’s hard to argue with that statement. Sure, there have been a lot of technical and artistic advances since 1937, but Walt Disney […]
It’a hard to properly cover the influence of a film like Tron. While it was not a huge box office success, it provided inspiration for a generation of filmmakers who were taken by its innovative use of computer genertaed graphics.
But let’s ignore the film’s legacy for a moment and look at it as a […]
They really don’t come worse than The Beast of Yucca Flats. You know all those things people always cite when they talk about how bad Ed Wood was as a filmmakers? The cheap sets? The bad acting? The nonsensical dialogue? Night/Day transitions? Well The Beast of Yucca Flats has […]
“If you go to only one concert this year… the Prince movie is the one!” said the posters for Sign “O” the Times. And it certainly does give the viewer a sense of what it was like to attend a Prince concert in those days, when he was, perhaps, at the height of his […]
In the history of Walt Disney Feature Animation, there has only ever been one film to get a true sequel (that is, a narrative film followed by another narrative film). The Rescuers was a surprisingly successful, quirky, little adventure film. Years later, straight-to-video sequels would be the order of the day, but the […]
Willow was George Lucas’ first “epic” creation since the Star Wars saga and, I feel, suffered undeserved negativity because of the comparison. That, and th accusation that it is just warmed-over Tolkien meant that it was not highly thought of for many years after its creation (a situation that has somewhat reversed itself in […]
For me, Prince of Space and Invasion of the Neptune Men will forever be linked due to their connected appearances on Mystery Science Theater 3000.* They both feature groups of children who befriend a mysterious outer space super-hero type, who helps save the world from invaders from space.
First up, Prince of Space tells of […]
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is a brilliant film by writer/director Tom Stoppard based on his play of the same name. If you are unfamiliar with the work, the basic premise is that the film follows the activities of Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) and Guildenstern (Tim Roth) as they weave their way in and out […]
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is my favorite film by director Terry Gilliam. In it, I feel that his growth as a filmmaker since his work on Monty Python and the Holy Grail finally came to fruition. After essentially making three films with the same focus and worldview (Jabberwocky, Time Bandits and Brazil), […]
Treasure Planet should have been a big, fat success story for Walt Disney. It’s based on one of the best adventure stories of all time, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, it has incredible visuals and it features a strong voice cast. But, in the end, it was all for naught as the film […]
Although the character had previously appeared on radio, the 1937 serial Dick Tracy marked his live-action debut. It was produced by the kings of the form at Republic and their mastery of the genre shows, even if it is lacking in accuracy in the details.
First of all, they moved Tracy from being a loc