All posts by Nix »
Anna in Kung Fu Land (2003) Movie Review
“Anna in Kung Fu Land” is the second 2003 film from Hong Kong that sports an asinine love story wrapped around a martial arts tournament. The other was “Star Runner”, which looks like a...
Read More »Hope Springs (2003) Movie Review
I suppose it’s hard to go wrong with a Romantic Comedy. The conventions of the genre are so firmly established, and all the archetypes etched into stone, that it takes a really bad director,...
Read More »
Ghost System (2002) Movie Review
Although it clocks in at just a shade over 70 minutes, writer/director Toshikazu Nagae’s “Ghost System” really has no business being a feature-length film. Or, in this case, a pseudo feature-length film. Aside from...
Read More »Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2004) Movie Review
The good news is that Quentin Tarantino is back after 7 years. And apparently he took the lengthy hiatus post-”Jackie Brown” to learn how to stage and shoot action scenes like a pro, and...
Read More »Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2004) Movie Review
Billed as the final installment in writer/director Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi trilogy, “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” takes guitar-slinging, gun-toting, drug dealer-killing musician El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) back to Mexico, where he has...
Read More »Whispering Corridors 3: Wishing Stairs (2003) Movie Review
I suppose the producers of the “Whispering Corridors” series figured it was too late to do anything different with the franchise now that they were at part 3. Which may explain why 2003′s ”...
Read More »Wishcraft (2002) Movie Review
It used to be that I could watch 100 Direct-to-Video movies in a row and not find a single good one in the bunch. At least not good enough to ever get over the...
Read More »Dragon Fighter (2002) Movie Review
You can’t really say that Dean Cain, the star of “Dragon Fighter”, has fallen on hard times by appearing in this Made-for-TV film because, in truth, he never achieved much beyond the status of...
Read More »Whispering Corridors (1998) Movie Review
If South Korean movies set in high school have thought me anything, it’s not to go to high school in South Korea! If the teachers aren’t beating the living hell out of you on...
Read More »Time Quest (2003) Movie Review
Robert Dyke’s “Time Quest” is one of those movies that really had the potential to be something special. But alas, the film’s second half is a combination of silly happenstance and, in the last...
Read More »Underworld (2003) Movie Review
Post-”Blade” (and its even more influential sequel) vampire movies have gone the way of Asian horror films. Despite all the innovations of the genre up to this point, every film about vampires have been...
Read More »Cube Zero (2004) Movie Review
Ah, the boot. A cube prisoner’s best friend. Aside from the vast usefulness of something so minor, “Cube Zero” offers up your usual crop of bickering characters, a strong female lead, a psycho waiting...
Read More »Machines of Love and Hate (2003) Movie Review
A big problem with the current crop of low-budget filmmakers (and we’re not talking about those faux “low-budget” films ala Miramax here) is that they usually come in only two forms: fans of simplistic...
Read More »Warriors of Heaven and Earth (2003) Movie Review
If John Wayne was still alive and making movies about the divine might of the U.S. of A., he would probably make something like Ping He’s “Warriors of Heaven and Earth”, which is, in...
Read More »
Lord of the Rings 3: The Return of the King (2003) Movie Review
While Peter Jackson’s “The Return of the King” is certainly a marvel of moviemaking, it lacks the newness of “The Fellowship of the Rings” and the proper narrative structure (and flow) of “The Two...
Read More »Xanda (2003) Movie Review
“South Park” once did an episode where they made fun of Sports Movie cliché, including the biggest clich’ of the genre, the inevitable Big Game (or Big Fight or Big Race, etc.). The second...
Read More »Cabin Fever (2003) Movie Review
As was the case with Rob Schmidt’s “Wrong Turn”, you must have an easy familiarity with Teen Slasher movies in order to fully appreciate what Eli Roth’s “Cabin Fever” does right, because the movie...
Read More »Infernal Affairs 3 (2004) Movie Review
2002′s “Infernal Affairs” was, in many ways, a seminal work in Hong Kong cinema. Not only did the film come out during a period when the industry was mired in bubbly nonsensical comedies starring...
Read More »Ghost Rock (2003) Movie Review
“Ghost Rock’s” biggest failing is that it never allows the audience to believe, for even a single second, that it’s an actual western. The music, the martial arts, the poor sound foley, and even...
Read More »
