Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was, box-office-wise, the apex of the Star Trek film franchise (although The Motion Picture sold more tickets). It’s amazing to think that this is the only Trek film to have grossed more than $100M at the box office. This is particularly notable today, when just having […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Carry on Sergeant is the first in the series of “Carry On” films, but has very little in common with the series as it would come to be known.
Much has been made of the fact that one of the bawdiest series in film history began with this very straight army comedy. Starring William […]
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 know I’ve mentioned Valiant a few times since my original review. It’s the perfect example of a film that doesn’t impress too much on first viewing , but slowly, inexorably creeps into one’s consciousness.
At this point, I really like Valiant. Sure, it’s formulaic and lacks the polish and storytelling skill of 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 […]
When Toho made the 1995 film Godzilla vs. Destroyah, they intended it to be the final Godzilla film for awhile. They had recently licensed the character for a big-time Hollywood film, so didn’t want to get in the way of that proposed new franchise. Well, the Hollywood version of Godzilla, though performing well […]
When I saw Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery in the theaters, I was extremely impressed. As I have mentioned before, I’m a big fan of 1960s sci-fi and adventure movies like Barbarella and Casino Royale with their big sets and peculiar point of view. It was clear to me that writer/star Mike […]
I found Troy to be a great movie from a lot of different angles. It is beautifully shot. The performances were much better than I expected, and I was particularly impressed with how the filmmakers had a healthy disrespect for the story as it previously existed, and instead told the story they wanted […]
Bananas is Woody Allen’s second full film (after the re-dubbing of 1966’s What’s Up, Tiger Lily? and 1969’s Take the Money and Run) and it’s the first to make major use of Allen’s “loser” character, the guy who has everything go wrong, but still gets the girl in the end somehow. Of course, being […]
Viewed December 26, 2006
Hitler: Dead or Alive is a propoganda film that portrays what would happen if there was a successful attempt to assassinate Hitler in the early days of World War II. That this attempt is put together by gangsters due to a $1 Million bounty tags it as Hollywood through and through.
The […]
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 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 18, 2006
GoldenEye is about as perfect an introduction to a new James Bond actor as anyone could ask for. The last Brosnan Bond that I needed to see, I finally sat down to watch it during the opening week of his successor’s first film, Casino Royale*. (I’m holding off watching that one […]
Viewed November 5, 2006
One of the biggest hurdles that most Disney straight-to-video sequels have to clear is maintaining the tone of the original film. Some fail spectacularly (The Lion King 2), while others are surprisingly strong (Alladin and the King of Thieves, Bambi II). Of course, some ignore the original tone completely and […]
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 8, 2006
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the airing of the first episode of Star Trek, I watched the only theatrical film that I had not yet seen: Star Trek: Nemesis. Now, I’m not a big fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation (sorry, Earl), so I didn’t have high expectations. […]
Viewed August 10, 2006
War Babies is one of a series of short comedy films made by Educational Pictures in the early 30s. The idea behind the series was to parody popular films with small children (about aged 3 - 5) in the roles instead of adults. They are most notable today for being […]
Viewed July 7, 2006
Okay, so here’s the idea: a big-budget film based on a theme park ride. Sounds crazy? that’s because it is. Until the success of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, I daresay no one thought this notion could possibly work. Yet it does, and […]
Viewed May 26, 2006
G.I. Joe: Ninja Battles is little more than a promotional film for the G.I. Joe line and the commercial DVD release G.I. Joe: Valor vs. Venom (2004). It’s “animation” is limited to mildly animated still drawings and occasional clips either lifted from Valor vs. Venom or done during that production. […]
Viewed May 14, 2006
I only decided to watch Timeline because I had recently finished listening to the book on tape and was interested in how they would adapt it. Unfortunately, they did everything one expects from Hollywood, and that’s not a good thing.
The story revolves around a group of archaeologists who get sucked into […]
Viewed May 11, 2006
Combat Academy, also known (or more likely, unknown) as Combat High, is a monumental waste of many talented actors. Perhaps if any of the truly talented ones were in the lead roles, things would be different, but this made-for-TV movie just can’t be supported by the lightweights who get the screentime.
The […]
Viewed April 23, 2006
Hero has a lot going for it. There is exciting action and strong drama, good characters and beautiful camerawork. Unfortunately, somehow it never quite comes together as well as it should.
The story is actually pretty simple: a nameless warrior (Jet Li, actually called “Nameless”) has apparently defeated three deadly assassins. […]
Viewed March 22, 2006
G.I. Joe - Spytroops: The Movie was a free giveaway with the purchase of certain G.I. Joe 3 1/4″ action figures back in 2003. While I like the G.I. Joe line, I was never that big into it, so I didn’t get this at the time. However, late last year […]
Viewed March 12, 2006
Hell Is For Heroes marked Steve McQueen’s first significant starring role as the troubled Pvt. Reese, but the strong supporting cast means he doesn’t have to support the whole film himself.
McQueen doesn’t stretch much here. He never establishes exactly why Reese has taken his strange attitude. He’s just angry all […]
Viewed February 16, 2006
Private Snuffy Smith is based on the long running comic strip Barney Google and Snuffy Smith and mines some of the same hillbilly territory covered by the more famous Li’l Abner, which had made it’s own leap to the big screen two years earlier.
It’s a fun little movie, from a time when […]
Viewed February 14, 2006
Now You See Me, Now You Don’t is the story of a man trapped between the world he inhabits and the one he hopes for (but probably isn’t really for him, anyway). General Lui rules over a section of China and is despised by his people. His wife ignores him (instead […]
Viewed February 7, 2006
Okay, David Hasselhoff as Marvel Comics’ hard-bitten World War II veteran Nick Fury. There. The worst conceptual aspect of Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD is out in the open and it’s not as bad as you think. It’s not very good, but given Marvel’s track record circa 1998, there […]
Viewed January 23, 2006
With the release of the Disney / Pixar film Toy Story in 1995, the era of the computer generated animated film was born. Although films such as Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Aladdin (1992) had utilized computer imagry, it was Toy Story that proved that the technique could carry an […]
Viewed January 4, 2006
Carry On Jack is the eighth in the classic “Carry On” series of British comedies. Known for their wacky humor and bawdy jokes, the “Carry On” series ran from 1958 to 1978 and spanned 29 films (plus one more in 1992). The main draw of the series was the regular […]
Viewed January 3, 2006
Okay, Alone in the Dark is a bad movie. It has a ridiculously convoluted plot, a lot of the acting is sub-par and none of it really comes together in the end.
That being said, I’ve certainly seen worse movies. I’ve sat through The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961), for heaven’s […]