Reviews
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Salma = Goddess
Everyone knows about this film, so I won't bore with you another bog-standard review. Instead I feel it is time that the true high point of this movie was discussed to the extent that it deserves - Santanicooooo Paaandemoniuuuum!!!
Although a mere 5 minutes long, Salma Hayek achieves complete Goddess status with a scene that will be forever etched into my memory. The outfit, the little shimmies from side to side, even the snake all pile up to compliment the indescribable gorgeousness of our Salma to produce cinematic perfection. Just to cap things off, the anthemic "After Dark" by Tito and Tarantula is spine-tingling rock perfection.
The only problem is that the scene is so good that its actually worn that part of the film out on my video. Just have to get the DVD I suppose...
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
Upsetting
With Resident Evil 2 being just about the best game ever, and the first resident evil being just about average, i thought that maybe, just maybe, this film might have provided some entertainment. Unfortunately, all it managed to do was shatter all of my wonderful memories of the classic playstation experience. So I'll keep this brief as it is just too painful.
The direction of this film can be explained in no other way than just plain irritating. Aimed at people with an attention span of roughly less than a second, the film never manages to stick with one shot long enough for you to actually take in anything, and the fight scenes are so jerkily shot that you have to simply take an educated guess that its the zombies who are getting beaten up. Awful dialogue is combined cleverly with worse acting to achieve a spectacularly terrible spectacle. To cap things off, Jill Valentine (an absolute legend from the games) is pathetically underwritten almost to the point of obscurity. Seeing her in that famous little blue top partially compensated though.
Maybe not up (or down) to the horrific computer game-to-movie standards set by Mortal Kombat, but Resident Evil:Apocalypse still managed to annoy, bore and upset me in equal measures. 3/10.
Rocky V (1990)
V is for vacuous
After four Rockys of generally decreasing quality, Rocky V managed to halt the gradual decline - by plummeting at a tremendous rate into the depths of horrendous film-making. Vanished is Sly Stallone's original, somewhat dim yet lovable Southpaw, and instead he is replaced with a philosophising loser who allows his son to walk around with some ridiculous girly piece of jewellery hanging from his ear. The Rocky we know and love would never have stood for it. That boy would have been out the door before you could say "ain't gonna be no rematch".
They really lost the plot with this fifth installment. And by them I mean everyone involved with the film. In comparison to its epic predecessors, this is just a complete waste of everyones time.
The horrific thing about this film is that I could forget how bad it is quite quickly if it were not for that one, immortal, headache-inducing line during the climactic final battle.
Rocky Balboa Jr - "Get him Dad, he took my room!"
Just writing it is enough to make me weep. Which is why this review is now finished.
Strange Days (1995)
These truly are strange days
Yes that's right, these truly are strange days we live in. Cosmetic surgery game shows, men marrying horses, and redneck buffoons trying to rule the world (all mostly American admittedly). But nothing surely comes close in strangeness terms to the bizarre paradox that we are met with in this otherwise decent film (another from the late night classic collection).
The hypocritically odd world of Strange Days is as follows. We are shown scene after scene of apparent chaos, with murders beatings and rapes seemingly occurring on every street corner, whilst our protagonist (and everyone else) drive past with out even a sideways glance. Fair enough, you might say. Why then, does the murder of one man not in any way connected to Fiennes suddenly bring life back to his previously soulless body, forcing him to conduct his own investigation to bring down the evil perpetrators of this savage crime. Maybe its because the victim was someone important, or because he was murdered by police, or because it was Fiennes' own marvelous SQUID technology that caught the incident in all of its horificness. All valid reasons I must say. Yet we are still treated to what surely must be hundreds upon hundreds of violent crimes happening, without fail, along every inch of every pavement and road that we see (and let's be honest, there must be more than a few murders along the way). And herein is the paradox - why would anyone pay even the slightest attention to this murder when the violence that reigns on the streets is barely enough to register in the brains of anybody driving past.
Apart from that its a pretty good film.
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Perfection
Cash Converters has thrown up some real gems in its time, but The Big Lebowski is without doubt the best £2 I have ever spent in my life. Once again the Coens showed their undoubted genius which, if I had my way, would result in the bestowing of an honorary knighthood upon both of them. And if I know our queeny, which I'm sure I think I do, then one look at the Dude, Walter and Donny and the decision would be made for her. Unfortunately I would imagine that snapped up the only copy ever to be seen in the Converters (what fool sold this? Put him in the stocks!), so she might have to splash out a bit more than I did.
Now, compared to their other classics (which is pretty much everything they've done), this may not have the original impact of Blood Simple, the sublime acting of Fargo (think William H. Macy and Frances McDormand), or indeed the insane imagination of O Brother, Where Art Thou. However, what separates Lebowski from the others is the almost unbelievable volume of hilarious characters. Every single character, without fail, is so funny that the only disappointing aspect of the film is that you can't watch more of each of them. Jesus Quintana (the brilliant John Turturro), is probably only on screen for about 5 minutes, yet he is quite possibly one of the funniest characters of all time - "You show your piece on the lane again, I'll take it off you and stick it up your a**e!". The Nihilists are scarily funny, no more so than when they are being taken apart by Walter, in a fight scene that tops even Motorcycle Gang. And though he barely says a word, you can feel nothing but complete sympathy poor old Smokey when, in a truly poignant scene and beautifully acted scene, he is accused of stepping over the line by Walter (unjustly I feel). But it is the Dream Team trio who stand head and shoulders and upper arm above all of them. Tragic, put-upon Donny (we will truly miss you son), scarred Vietnam war-hero Walter ("This isn't 'nam man, there are rules!"), and, of course, The Dude, who is quite simply a Dude.
These characters would stand alone without a decent script and still entertain for the entirety of the film. But this is the Coen Brothers, who write such consistently, and astonishingly funny scripts that you wonder how they keep doing it. When they are on top form, which they are pretty much permanently, they make films of near perfection that other directors and script-writers could only dream of.
The Big Lebowski may lack the supreme cleverness of other Coen films, but it is undoubtedly their funniest, and all you can do is watch in awe at the onslaught of brilliant characters. The day they stop making films will truly be a mournful one.
The Sweetest Thing (2002)
Awful
Before I begin this review, I admit that I saw this film with a headache and a bad mood, which is not a great combination for watching a movie. However, the blame for my complete lack of enjoyment of this film I rest entirely with the film itself. It is in all honesty the least funny comedy I have ever seen, and quite easily the worst film that I have actually paid money to watch.
This isn't just a comedy with few laughs, most of which are unintentional, it also contains numerous elements that made me hate every second that I had to spend in the cinema watching it. To begin with, the three main characters are so dislikeable as to completely detract from the point of the film. Cameron Diaz's character is shown in the opening sequence to be quite a nasty person in the way that she treats her boyfriends, and so it is surely impossible to sympathies with her in any way when the same thing happens to her later on. Christina Applegate's transformation from a cold heartless maneater to all loved up is brushed over so quickly that it seems a bit of a pointless afterthought by the writer, while Selma Blair only serves to fill up time that could really be spent doing something more interesting, like not watching this film perhaps.
All of the films shortcomings could perhaps be overlooked and wiped from the memory, if it were not for the excruciating "Penis Song", which only served to double the pain of my headache, beg for mercy, and ask the heavens what crime I had committed to be subjected to such a travesty of film-making. I still have nightmares to this day.
I concede that this film is definitely aimed at the female race, more specifically men-hating "girl power" types, making it unlikely that I was going to get much out of it. That doesn't stop it being a pile of crap though.
Motorcycle Gang (1994)
Late Night CLASSIC
It was a dark, cold evening at 48 Hawthorn Avenue, with only my young Asian friend to keep me company. The night seemed to be innocuously drawing towards an uneventful conclusion, when all of a sudden a last desperate bout of channel-hopping produced a remarkable result - Motorcycle Gang. A superbly crafted piece of modern cinema (although it wasn't actually released in theaters - a travesty!), this film merely serves one purpose - to overawe the viewer with sheer class from every quarter, and it succeeds! Much better than others from the Late Night Classic collection such as On The Line (see review), it features another Oscar worthy performance from Jake "son of Gary" Busey, showing once again why he is widely considered to be superior in every way to his great father (watch starship troopers(1997), which is excellent, and the foot shooting party(1994), which is also probably excellent, for further evidence). The Directing is spot on, with John Milius finally rediscovering the flair shown in Conan the Barbarian (Phew, I hear you gasp in relief. The world is a better place with Milius on top form). But in all honesty, the finale is the pinnacle of this epic. The showdown between the gang and former Army man Cal is quite possibly the best fight scene in history. Cal takes on four, yes four, motorcyclists, and takes each one out with chilling yet breathtaking efficiency, and no little style, saving his pretty young daughter from the grasps of the evil Jake, Crab, Volker and Kincaid. You truly have to see it to believe it.
As you can imagine, that cold dark evening was infinitely warmed up by this unexpected gem of a movie, and if it were up to me, this film would be released on the cinema immediately, opening it up to the wider audience that it surely deserves. Masterpiece!
On the Line (1997)
What the hell?
Not expecting much from a BBC 1 midweek late night movie was the right approach when engaging with this film. And i wasnt disappointed. As well as the complete incoherence of the multiple storylines, at times I wondered if the director got bored of each storyline, or merely forgot about them. I took serious issue with the amount of undue force used by the detectives, especially when interrogating the rape suspect. "My turn", says the detective. A sexual reference, i wonder? I feel the complete ineptitude of the entire production scene is best illustrated when, in the 'climactic' final robbery scene, the director decided to fade the screen to black, hence stopping any flow that the scene might have had, amateur production. Maybe, in the editing process, the director found this new toy of fading out, and couldnt resist using it. Or maybe he's just crap. The only selling point was Linda Hamilton rugby tackling a criminal through the hedge, and being called a ho by a tramp. Even the twist ending, with her partner being shot in the bar by random drunk man, managed to make the film even more ridiculous. Overall, dont waste your time, other than to be amused by its atrociousness. Watch Motorcycle Gang instead.