Film #001 - Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Film #002 - Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Film #003 - Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Film #004 - Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
Film #005 - Star Wars: Episode V - The […]
Viewed December 29, 2006
Hellboy is a film adaptation of Mike Mignola’s cult comic book series. It tells of a demon brought forth by Nazis to be the key to a worldwide apocalypse, but is instead captured by American military forces and raised as a force for good.
When we meet up again with Hellboy (Ron […]
Viewed December 28, 2006
The Road Home begins with a young man named Changyu (Hao Zheng) learning of the recent death of his father. When he returns to his village, he finds that his mother wishes to have his father’s body carried home by the men of the village (an old custom), despite the difficulties […]
Viewed December 25, 2006
This version of The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe was made for the BBC in the late 1980s as part of a series dramatizing C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. The series was then edited into three TV movies, beginning with this one.
I suppose there’s no point in trying not […]
Viewed December 24, 2006
The sleeper hit of late 2004, The Polar Express was the latest example of director Robert Zemeckis’ fascination with computer imagry (following the toon/human work in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the history-melding in Forrest Gump). Here, he usues motion capture technology to record the movements of his actors (mostly Tom […]
Viewed December 20, 2006
Naughty Marietta marked the beginning of one of the most successful film pairings in history, that of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. MacDonald was already a popular film star when seh was paired with Eddy, who was a well-known (but not super-famous) singer. All that changed after this film and […]
Viewed December 19, 2006
Pokémon Heroes is the 2003 entry in the annual Pokémon film series (and the last to be released theatrically in the US). Like the TV series, it follows the adventures of Pokémon trainers Ash Ketchum, Misty and Brock as they learn about the world of Pokémon. This time, they come […]
Viewed December 16, 2006
Now, I’ve been surprised by better-than-average B-movies before, but Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory (aka Lycanthropus) is the last one I thought had a shot at impressing me.
The classic werewolf story (immortalized by Lon Chaney, Jr. for Universal) has always been one of tragedy. That a film like this would choose […]
Viewed December 12, 2006
The Road to El Dorado is another one of those films I have no excuse for not having seen. After all, I’ve owned the soundtrack since it came out, since the songs are performed by Elton John with lyrics by Tim Rice (of whom I’m a big fan). In fact, […]
Viewed December 11, 2006
The Year Without a Santa Claus is a remake of the classic 1974 Rankin-Bass production that details the events when Santa decides to give up the gift-giving, feeling he’s unappreciated by the world. Now, the smartest thing the producers of this movie did was not release it to theaters as they […]
Viewed December 7, 2006
King Arthur ’s subtitle is “The Untold True Story That Inspired The Legend”. By taking that stand, the film claims to portray the truth. And yet it gets an awful lot wrong. You can divide the wrongness into three distinct areas: failure against the Arthurian Myth (the least important), […]
Viewed December 2, 2006
Hoo boy. Santa Claus: The Movie . Well, I suppose this is what I should have expected. After the critical and box office disappointment of Superman III and Supergirl, producers Ilya Salkind and Pierre Spengler turned their attention to another iconic figure with this 1985 film. With its […]
Viewed December 1, 2006
Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas is an anthology film that tells three Christmas-themed stories in Disney style.
The first is a story featuring Donald Duck and his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. It has some similarities to the classic film Groundhog Day as the nephews wish that every day was Christmas and […]
Viewed November 30, 2006
Like many, the first notice I gave Gumnaam was when I saw it’s opening dance number included in the film Ghost World. But far from the wacky 60’s romp that the number seems to indicate, Gumnaam turns out to be a somewhat altered re-telling of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians (uncredited, […]
Viewed November 29, 2006
It’s All True began as a project by Orson Welles back in 1942. He was sent to Brazil as part of the US’s “good neighbor” policy (which also resulted in films like Disney’s The Three Caballeros) to make what was thought to essentially be a high-end travelouge. But they sent […]
Viewed November 28, 2006
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut is a project I feel like I’ve waited for my whole life. (In reality, I only learned about it five or six years ago.) I could go on and on about why I loved this movie and why it’s so much better than the […]
Viewed November 27, 2006
The African Queen is an unquestioned Hollywood classic. The pairing of Humphrey Bogart as riverboat captain Charlie Allnut and Katherine Hepburn as missionary Rose Sayer trying to make their way down river to attack a German boat during WWI is as famous for its own merits as it is for the […]
Viewed November 21, 2006
Election is one of those “dark comedies” that are so popular with film critics (less so with audiences). The fact that it takes a decidedly negative view of just about everyone explains why critics thought highly of this film. But unlike other dark school comedies (like Heathers, for instance), virtually […]
Viewed November 14, 2006
Even if my pig-headed need to see every movie based on a comic book didn’t require it, I still would have watched Man-Thing because of the character’s connection to one of my favorite comic book characters, Howard the Duck. Now, Howard was the star of his own, highly celebrated film back […]
Viewed November 12, 2006
Boy, I didn’t care for The Iron Giant. I thought I would, given that it was directed by Brad Bird, who would later direct The Incredibles. But whereas The Incredibles is an intelligent look at what defines individuality in the world, The Iron Giant (which shares some of the same […]
Viewed November 11, 2006
So here’s another one. I’d never seen Highlander before I watched it for the project. I know. I know. It’s an all-time cult classic, so why hadn’t I seen it? To be honest, I missed it the first time around (who didn’t?) and by the time I […]
Viewed November 8, 2006
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter would probably qualify as the strangest western I’ve ever seen if I hadn’t already seen Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (made the same year by the same production team). These were the last two films directed by William Beaudine, whose career stretched back to 1915. […]
Viewed November 4, 2006
Okay, this is another one of those circumstances where I really should like a film, but somehow it just doesn’t connect with me. I expected to like Kung Fu Hustle, since it plays into a lot of things I enjoy, yet it somehow missed the mark.
For one thing, it’s not nearly […]
Viewed November 3, 2006
Okay, so what the heck is the big deal about High School Musical? What should have been just a typical Disney Channel Original Movie burst onto the scene as a minor cultural phenomenon. The CD is the best-selling album of the year. The DVD sold like hotcakes (and there’s […]
Viewed October 27, 2006
House of Frankenstein sees the Universal Monster series crawling towards its end. Only House of Dracula reamains and it’s not looking too promising.
Well, HOF has one thing going for it, the return of Boris Karloff to the series. Unfortunately, he’s not playing either the Frankenstein Monster, nor his other major […]
Viewed October 26, 2006
Okay, so a little background information here. Back in 1998, Pixar Animation Studios and rival-in-the-making Dreamworks Animation both debuted films about ants. Disney released Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, of course, but about a month earlier, Dreamworks released Antz.
Inevitably, with two films of such similarities going head-to-head, they end up being […]
Viewed October 24, 2006
Mark of the Vampire is one of two classic films in which Bela Lugosi seemingly returns to the role of Count Dracula, but does not bear that name. (The other, Return of the Vampire, is apparently even closer in feel than this one.)
Mark of the Vampire was directed by Dracula director Tod […]
Viewed October 21, 2006
You know, I don’t know what I expected from Gilda. I mean, I knew it was considered a classic, but I guess I just never really got a sense of what the film was all about. I’m not sure what I expected, but I rather think itwas something much darker […]
Viewed October 20, 2006
In 1872, a ship called the Mary Celeste was found adrift off the coast of Portugal. The ship was completely abandoned and no trace of the crew was ever found. It was one of the great mysteries of the day and continues to spark the imagination and interest of authors […]
Viewed October 18, 2006
Mulan is a film that was created in the middle of Disney’s “second dark age”, the period following the release of The Lion King, the film considered by most to be the pinnacle of the “second golden age”. And it must be said that it suffers from some of the lackluster […]
Viewed October 13, 2006
Freddy vs. Jason is exactly what you think it is: no more, no less. It’s a virtual non-stop parade of death and mayhem, with only a light sprinkling of thought and character.
Now, this is a film that was developed by focus group, if ever there was one. There’s clearly no […]
Viewed October 11, 2006
Vampire Effect is, in many ways, a typical Hong Kong actioner with little originality or truly interesting aspects to make it stand out from a sea of lookalike films.
The story tells of a vampire hunter named Reeve (Ekin Cheng) who has not had much luck with assistants (they keep getting killed). […]
Viewed October 8, 2006
Anyone who thinks Bela Lugosi was a one-hit wonder just needs to see Son of Frankenstein. Not only does it sport a ripping good story and beautiful sets, it features one of Lugosi’s greatest characters (and one that people seem to seldom remember he created): Ygor. But he’s no […]
Viewed October 7, 2006
In Old Caliente is a formulaic western starring a pre-Dale Evens Roy Rogers and his usual sidekick from this era, George ‘Gabby’ Hayes. The most interesting aspect of the film is the portrayal of racial tensions between the Hispanic populace and incoming white settlers.
It’s basically a typical story of treachery and […]
Viewed October 6, 2006
The Little Matchgirl is a straightforward adaptation of the sad story by Han Christian Anderson that tells of a poor girl, unable to sell her matches, who uses them to transport her to a better place.
This short is included on the new “Special Edition” DVD of Disney’s The Little Mermaid and it […]
Viewed October 4, 2006
Dracula’s Daughter is the surprisingly good follow-up to the classic 1931 film Dracula.
The story picks up almost immediately after the destruction of Count Dracula at the end of the first film. (Although John and Mina Harker have disappeared). Professor Von Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) is found with the […]
Viewed October 3, 2006
Faust: Love of the Damned has got to be the worst comic book based film I have ever seen. Of course, the original Faust comic book was one of the worst comics I ever read, so I really shouldn’t be surprised.
The story, such as it is, involves an artist named John […]
Viewed October 1, 2006
Ever since I started this project I planned to watch a lot of horror movies during October. So, naturally, when the month rolled around, I promptly forgot and watched Sherlock Holmes in New York. Not that I mind, because I quite liked it. It’s just I had meant to […]
Viewed September 30, 2006
I can’t even begin to go into the long, strange history of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation.* The short version is that in 1982, three kids of about twelve or thirteen years of age began remaking Raiders of the Lost Ark, shot-for-shot. Finally completing the film in 1989, […]
Viewed September 28, 2006
Bambi II is a film I honestly never thought they would make. I mean, it’s one thing to trot out The Lion King 2 or The Little Mermaid II or even Cinderella II: Dreams Come True. But a sequel to Bambi? Well, I prepared myself for the worst and […]
Viewed September 24, 2006
What dooms Catwoman is straying from the source material. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times (and will say it a thousand times more): stick to the source mateial and you’ll be fine. There’s a reason that characters like Catwoman have stood the test of time. […]
Viewed September 23, 2006
I really wanted to like writer/director Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown. When he’s on his game, there are few actors better than Sean Penn and everything seemed to point to a solid performance here as fictional guitar great Emmet Ray. But it’s not from Penn that the great performance comes.
It […]
Viewed September 21, 2006
There are three reasons I bought Brother Bear. First, I’ve been buying a lot of Disney films lately and this one popped up during by searching. Second, it features songs by Phil Collins. Even if I didn’t like the film, there’s a good chance I’d like the songs. […]
Viewed September 16, 2006
Daredevils of the Desert is one of the “Young Indiana Jones” TV movies. Now, I can’t be sure if it’s an episode of the TV show expanded into a film or a film that was later condensed into an episode, but creator George Lucas refers to it as a “film”, so […]
Viewed September 14, 2006
Okay, that’s two overrated Bill Murray vehicles I’ve watched this year. (I’m sure you understand that dissapointing though it may be, Garfield cannot be considered overrated by any means.) Despite the best efforts of the cast, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou lacks any kind of cohesion that could make […]
Viewed September 10, 2006
Bholi Bhali Ladki is a story of love and loss. It is, in many ways, a typical Bollywood film, full of drama, music and themes of faith. Although filled with all the standard elements of many of the Bollywood films I’ve seen, Bholi Bhali Ladki is at least able to […]
Viewed September 4, 2006
Cards on the Table is a recent TV Movie featuring David Suchet as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. Now, I’ve read plenty of Christie (and seen a lot of Suchet’s Poirot on his show and other TV movies), but I’m not familiar with Cards on the Table. A bit of digging […]
Viewed September 3, 2006
The idea behind Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda is a simple one. Depending on the teller, the same story can be a tragedy or a comedy. It all depends on the point of view.
Allen frames this conceit with a device he has used before: people sitting around talking. He […]
Viewed September 2, 2006
Note: Click here for the full image.
Viewed August 23, 2006
As subtle as a sledgehammer to the head, as nuanced as a 500 lb. naked man streaking through the Louvre, Touch of Evil does little to deserve the reputation it has gained over the years.
Now, I have nothing but respect for Orson Welles. I think he is one of the greatest […]
Viewed August 22, 2006
CQ is a love letter to 1960s European cinema by Roman Coppola (son of Francis Ford Coppola). It takes place in 1969 France and tells the story of Paul, a young filmmaker who has come there to make “important” films. His major work is a document of his life, where […]
Viewed August 21, 2006
Kull the Conqueror is actually an adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Conqueror. But when filmmakers approached Arnold Schwarzenegger about reprising his starmaking role, he declined. So, rather than cast someone else as Conan (seen as untenable at the time), they changed the part to Howard original barbarian hero, […]
Viewed August 15, 2006
Now, I’m not a big fan of the X-Men films. But, then again, I’ve never been a big fan of the X-Men. I’ve never been able to buy the central conceit that mutants can be compared to other oppressed groups (take your pick). The problem with the comparison for […]
Viewed August 13, 2006
BBC America is currently showing a series of films under the banner “ShakespeaRE: told”, where classic Shakespeare stories are reworked into modern settings. This week, I watched Macbeth, and it couldn’t have been more wrong-headed if they tried.
First of all, they set the film in a restaurant. Joe Macbeth is […]
Viewed August 11, 2006
Back in 1992, when Quentin Tarantino was the poster boy for “new cinema” with his groundbreaking film Resevoir Dogs, I was more impressed by Robert Rodriguez’ film El Mariachi. There’s no question that Resevoir Dogs is more professional (especially the acting talent) and slicker. But El Mariachi showed that Rodriguez […]
Viewed August 9, 2006
Shattered Glass tells the true story of Stephen Glass, an up-and-coming young journalist at The New Republic who was found in 1998 to have fabricated facts, quotes and even people in many (if not most) of his articles.
Glass is played by Hayden Christensen (best known as Anakin Skywalker in Episodes II & […]
Viewed August 6, 2006
The number of things that go wrong with V for Vendetta are almost too many to count. It is wrong-headed from the get-go. Now, to be fair, I was never a fan of the original comic book on which this film is based. It seemed to me to be […]
Viewed July 31, 2006
Cohabitation is a Hong Kong film that revolves around the love lives of two friends. The story is pretty standard soap opera-type stuff. The trobules of the two couples aren’t really that original or interesting. There aren’t even any twists to the stories, just the typical variations on the […]
Viewed July 29, 2006
Pony Express Days tells the tale of the brief lifespan of the Pony Express. George Reeves plays Bill Cody and much of the focus of the short is on his desire to ride for the Express. Things come to a head when secession talk in California leads to a desperate […]
Viewed July 28, 2006
Well, I’ve already watched the original Love Affair and its first remake, An Affair to Remember. Unable (so far) to track down a copy of the Warren Beatty / Annette Bening version of Love Affair, I’ve moved ahead to the most recent take on the story, the Bollywood film Mann, which […]
Viewed July 13, 2006
There was a time in the late 80s when there was no cooler person on planet Earth than Andy Sidaris. I mean, here’s an Emmy Award-winning sports television director who throws it all away to make action films starring Playboy Playmates. And for a while there, he had a nice […]
Viewed July 12, 2006
Honestly, I can’t imagine why Reefer Madness has gained its cult following except that people just target it because its anti-marijuana. It lacks all of the typical touches that make a “good bad film”.
The plot is fairly straightforward and lacks the convoluted twists and turns that make the “best” of this […]
Viewed July 10, 2006
I’m not going to lie to you. Movies like Nicholas Nickleby are not particularly high on my ‘to-see’ list. (I know, looking at what I’ve seen so far this year, you’re shocked.) It’s not that I have anything against “costume dramas” or anything. As Sense and Sensibility proved, […]