Blade (1998) Movie Review

The new trend for horror films, or movies dealing with the traditional creatures of horror films (vampires, werewolves, monsters, etc.) has been, for the last decade or so, to find a new “twist” to the story. Every movie with any horror element in them has been doing it. The Forsaken sought...

March 25th, 2002 | Read More

Plunkett and Macleane (1999) Movie Review

Jake Scott, the director of Plunkett and Macleane, is the son of director Ridley Scott (Gladiator and Black Hawk Down), and this may explain why he, a young man without much of a resume, was given the chance to direct a feature length movie when his only previous credits was an episode of a TV show and...

March 24th, 2002 | Read More

Alt.sex (2001) Movie Review

Alt.sex is an independent comedy, and as far as I can tell, it was shot on 16mm film, although I could be wrong since the copy I saw had a terrible transfer and much of the colors bled. When I finally popped the movie in on a Sunday night, hoping to ignore the stupidity and self-importance that was the...

March 24th, 2002 | Read More

Once Upon a Time in China and America (1997) Movie Review

As was the case with the original Once Upon a Time in China (heretofore known as OUATIC) I don’t expect a lot of historical accuracies in Chinese movies dealing with the “outside world.” It’s unfortunately a common problem with a lot of movies regardless of country of origin when...

March 23rd, 2002 | Read More

Paranoid (2000) Movie Review

Like some people I know, some movies think they’re more interesting than they really are. This is the case with John Duigan’s Paranoid. Paranoid stars Jessica Alba (TV’s “Dark Angel”) as Chloe, an up-and-coming fashion model who travels to the country home belonging to...

March 23rd, 2002 | Read More

Gen-X Cops (1999) Movie Review

At one dangerous point in Benny Chan’s Gen-X Cops, the movie’s 3 protagonists, all undercover cops, find themselves surrounded by men with guns aimed at their heads. One of the cops, thinking fast, grabs the gangsters’ boss who is standing nearby and uses him as a human shield. The...

March 23rd, 2002 | Read More

Sorum (2001) Movie Review

I was hesitant to watch Sorum, simply because I’ve seen too many Asian horror films that just didn’t, well, horrify me all that much. The Slow Bore Horror genre, in particular, is wearing thin, and I’ve gone out of my way to avoid them. I suppose it’s a case of too much hype and...

March 20th, 2002 | Read More

One Hour Photo (2002) Movie Review

Photos are curious things. I don’t particularly go out of my way to take photos, but when I do take them I sometimes (and I believe most of us do this) act “happier” than I really am. Rather it’s brandishing a big, fake smile, or a big, goofy smile, or doing something silly, I...

March 20th, 2002 | Read More

Resident Evil (2002) Movie Review

I once played Resident Evil 2, the sequel to the original Resident Evil, on a Playstation for 8 hours straight, completely obsessed with beating it. I did finally beat the game, and had some sore thumbs and fingers for my efforts and a painful knot in my neck. As I have often mentioned in other reviews,...

March 18th, 2002 | Read More

Uzumaki (2000) Movie Review

Uzumaki is the story of highschooler Kirie, who opens the film with a brief voiceover introduction. We learn that Kirie lives in a small rural Japanese town with her father (her mother has passed away), and that young Kirie has a crush on her childhood buddy Shuichi, whose father is starting to act very...

March 16th, 2002 | Read More

The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) Movie Review

You either love Film Noir or you hate them. There really is no in-between. You either love the use of shadows, the black and white, the voiceover narration, the “me versus the world” themes, or you don’t. I happen to like Film Noir, so Ethan and Joel Coen’s The Man Who Wasn’t...

March 16th, 2002 | Read More

The Dish (2000) Movie Review

It’s 1969 and Neil Armstrong and the crew of Apollo 11 are about to land on the moon, and everyone in America is waiting with bated breath. What we didn’t know back then, and most of us still don’t know now, is that the fine folks in Parkes, a small rural town in Australia, were also...

March 15th, 2002 | Read More

No Man’s Land (2001) Movie Review

The Serbian Conflict, as it’s most widely known, involved various sides for around 8 years in what is the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. There were the Serbs, the Croats, the Bosnians, and various other ethnic groups who sought independence from each other. Most of the times the other groups gang...

March 14th, 2002 | Read More

Once Upon a Time in China (1991) Movie Review

Jet Li’s 1990s Hong Kong career had him reprising two parts, Fong Sai-yuk and Wong Fei-hung, in a series of films starring either character. Both are supposed to be real historical figures, although I’m quite sure that like Americans Billy the Kid and Jesse James, both Fong and Wong’s...

March 14th, 2002 | Read More

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) Movie Review

I will first grant you that I find the main premise behind Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within to be just a little silly, with its focus on the Earth as a “living being” with a spirit and other such New Age nonsense. Then again, what did you expect going into a movie called Final Fantasy? A...

March 14th, 2002 | Read More

Komodo (1999) Movie Review

Creatures Attack Movies are not my cup of tea. I usually prefer Zombies Attack or Aliens Attack Movies to creatures any day. Why? Most of the time I find the “creature” in a Creatures Attack Movie to be, well, dumb. Take movies where the creatures in question are bats, bees, snakes, birds...

March 13th, 2002 | Read More

Ring (aka Ringu, 1998) Movie Review

Let me preface my review by saying that I saw the sequel to “Ring”, “Ring 2″, before I saw the original. Of course this means a lot of things were lost to me (while watching the sequel), one of which was the unanswered question of why people considered this series “scary”...

March 12th, 2002 | Read More

My Wife is a Gangster (2001) Movie Review

The most extraordinary thing about My Wife is a Gangster isn’t how well it manages to balance its serious side, its comedy side, and its action side, but how effective the whole thing is. As Gangster opens, we hear someone telling a story about one rainy night when a legend was born. It’s...

March 12th, 2002 | Read More

Meet The Parents (2000) Movie Review

Robert De Niro is really making a name for himself as a comedic actor. It seems inevitable that a movie star of DeNiro’s stature, known for gangster and tough guy roles, would want to expand into other avenues to prolong his career. After all, you can only play a certain type of character for so...

March 11th, 2002 | Read More

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1998) Movie Review

A movie like Hiroyuki Okiura’s Jin-Roh is why the Japanese are considered the pioneers of animation. Over the last decade or so the shortcomings of American “cartoons” and animation have become painfully obvious when one looks at what’s coming out of Japan now — and even...

March 11th, 2002 | Read More