Movie Reviews
The Beasts (1980) Movie Review
Originally unleashed back in 1980, “The Beasts” is a nasty piece of exploitation cinema that has been lurking around and gathering a quite reputation for itself over the years, now finally re-issued on DVD. The film was the second from director Dennis Yu, who also gave the Hong Kong horror genre a couple of high [...]
May 11th, 2008 | James Mudge | 0 comments | Read MoreFatal Move (2008) Movie Review
With the awesome “SPL” still fresh in the memory, it’s hard to imagine any Hong Kong action fan not getting excited at the prospect of “Fatal Move”. Boasting a cast reunion of Simon Yam, Wu Jing and the legendary Sammo Hung, and bringing in familiar faces such as Danny Lee, Tien Niu, Lam Suet and [...]
May 11th, 2008 | James Mudge | 0 comments | Read MoreGumby: The Movie (1995) Movie Review
You may approach Gumby: The Movie with some trepidation, and rightly so. After all, that little green glob of clay might represent a memorable period in your early television watching days. And who would ever want to stain such a sacred viewing landmark? The good news is this Gumby revisit does not replace the Play-Do [...]
May 8th, 2008 | Dan MacIntosh | 0 comments | Read MoreKinky Killers aka Polycarp (2007) Movie Review
In the early 1980’s, the then-new home video market needed product to sell in between the release of major films. Video companies turned much of the time to independent directors and small production companies who were not able to get major theatrical distribution secured for their films. By directly targeting the consumer with this “straight-to-video” [...]
May 7th, 2008 | Kevin Nickelson | 2 comments | Read MoreParanoid Park (2007) Movie Review (Tartan Blu-Ray Edition)
Gus Van Sant is one of the few directors who have successfully managed to keep one foot in the mainstream and the other in the art house, balancing the likes of “Good Will Hunting” and his bizarre “Psycho” remake with smaller scale and more personal projects. His last few films, including “Last Days” and his [...]
May 7th, 2008 | James Mudge | 0 comments | Read MoreThe Cottage (2008) Movie Review
The British already know that writer-director Paul Andrew Williams is one to watch. His feature film debut, “London to Brighton” (2006), saw him being nominated for a BAFTA, as the Carl Foreman Award for the Most Promising Newcomer. He may have lost out on that one to Andrea Arnold for “Red Road,” but he didn’t [...]
May 6th, 2008 | Bodhi Grrl | 0 comments | Read MoreThree Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon (2008) Movie Review
Daniel Lee’s “Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon” is the second of the big-budget Chinese epics that I’ve seen, including the very underwhelming “An Empress and the Warriors”. It is also the first of two movies based on the epic Chinese novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” by Luo Guanzhong. There are two other Chinese [...]
May 6th, 2008 | Nix | 0 comments | Read MoreKite Liberator (2008) Movie Review
The original “Kite” was a controversial, yet fascinating exercise in style and mood. Thematically similar to Luc Besson’s near-classic “Le Femme Nikita,” which was, at its core, a remake of the classic tale ‘Pygmalion,’ “Kite” explored the dark and seedy subjects of child abuse, emotional deconstruction, sexual perversion and revenge. The ugly thematic [...]
May 5th, 2008 | Gopal | 1 comment | Read MoreIron Man (2008) Movie Review
Hollywood has been mining the comic book shelves for quite some time, but has been hitting it particularly heavily over the last decade. Everything from the classics to the new-age stuff has been tapped at one time or another (several times, even), but they’ve met with mixed results. For every “Batman Begins,” there [...]
May 3rd, 2008 | Gopal | 2 comments | Read MoreTre (2006) Movie Review
Let’s start this review with just the facts. Tre is an eighty-seven minute movie from Cinema Libre Studio coming out on DVD May 6th, 2008. It stars four promising actors and takes place, mostly, in a house in Calabasas in the mountains above Los Angeles. It’s rated R for language, sexual content, drug use and [...]
May 1st, 2008 | Jodie Bass | 0 comments | Read More88 Minutes (2007) Movie Review
I must confess to being skeptical when Hollywood produces a suspense thriller these days. Generally, they tend to be very slick but overtly superficial time-killers. These films have dog-eared scripts (or, in some cases, a script that Rover left his mark on) dressed up with all the frills that $80,000,000 can buy. The average fan [...]
May 1st, 2008 | Kevin Nickelson | 0 comments | Read MoreThe Cinema of John Carpenter: The Technique of Terror (2004) Book Review
John Carpenter has been variously labelled a “maverick”, a “horror director”, an “auteur”, even “the last genre filmmaker in America.” Unlike some of his more talkative and self-reflective colleagues like David Cronenberg or George Romero, he has always remained rather tight-lipped when it came to deeper analysis of his motifs, themes and ideas, preferring his [...]
May 1st, 2008 | Dejan Ognjanovic | 2 comments | Read MoreLe Grand chef (2007) Movie Review
Although cooking may not sound like the most exciting subject for a film, Stephen Chow’s hilarious “God of Cookery” aside, “Le Grand Chef” from director Jeon Yoon Soo (previously responsible for “My Girl And I” and “Besa Me Mucho”) proved to be a big hit at the Korean box office. The reasons for this soon [...]
April 28th, 2008 | James Mudge | 0 comments | Read MoreCops and Robbers (1979) Movie Review
Originally released back in 1979, “Cops and Robbers” marked the debut of Hong Kong New Wave director Alex Cheung, who went on to helm other thrillers such as “Man on the Brink” and “Danger Has Two Faces”. A tough slice of police drama that was a big winner at the box office, the film was [...]
April 27th, 2008 | James Mudge | 0 comments | Read MoreOnce Upon a Time in Corea (2008) Movie Review
“Once Upon a Time in Corea” sees the return of director Jeong Yong Ki, previously responsible for the second and third instalments of the hit comedy series “Marrying the Mafia” as well as the ghost story “The Doll Master”. Here, he tries his hand at period set action, with a tale of high adventure mixed [...]
April 23rd, 2008 | James Mudge | 0 comments | Read MorePunch Lady (2007) Movie Review
“Punch Lady” is the new film from Korean director Kang Hyo Jin, who previously worked on the script for the popular hit “My Wife is a Gangster”. Here, she returns to familiar feminist territory, though tackling the more serious topic of domestic violence. Taking a literally hard-hitting approach to the subject, she offers up the [...]
April 23rd, 2008 | James Mudge | 1 comment | Read MoreThe Backwoods (2006) Movie Review
John Boorman’s “Deliverance” gave birth to a new subgenre of films featuring middle class white men who desire the stoicism of life in the wild and of a more direct conflict for survival outside of the office cubicles and golf courses. It also established the genre’s archetypal characters: the posturing weekend warrior outdoorsman who talks [...]
April 20th, 2008 | Brian Holcomb | 5 comments | Read MoreStreet Kings (2008) Movie Review
Movies like “Street Kings” are sitting ducks in a shooting range for film critics who laugh all through the movie only to condemn it for being so damn entertaining. Most movies are so sedated by studio interference, creative indifference, or artless craft that when a movie comes along with style and a real no prisoners [...]
April 20th, 2008 | Brian Holcomb | 0 comments | Read MoreThe Saviour (1980) Movie Review
Although he has recently become a familiar name the world over thanks to big budget hits like Jet Li’s “Fearless” and Hollywood blockbuster sequels “Bride of Chucky” and “Freddy vs. Jason”, Hong Kong director Ronny Yu actually has a body of work stretching back nearly thirty years. A number of his early efforts from the [...]
April 20th, 2008 | James Mudge | 0 comments | Read MoreThe Wig (2005) Tartan DVD Review
Whether Korean horror “The Wig”, receiving a somewhat belated DVD release through Tartan, is seen as yet another in a never ending series of films about malevolent yet inanimate objects, or as a bizarre offshoot of the never ending long haired female ghost cycle, it is hard not to come to the initial conclusion that [...]
April 18th, 2008 | James Mudge | 0 comments | Read More
