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

Point Men (2001) Movie Review

It is my theory that by the time he makes his 50th movie, actor Christopher Lambert (Highlander) will be completely mute and unable to speak a line of dialogue. Before you call me crazy, consider the last movie you’ve seen with Lambert, and ask yourself if you can understand anything the man was...

March 10th, 2002 | Read More

The Tai Chi Master (aka Twin Warriors, 1993) Movie Review

I can’t tell you how many Hong Kong period martial arts movies I’ve seen, and I can’t tell you how many of those involves strangers joining a group of good rebels to fight the evil Imperial [insert imperial title here] in a country town. It’s all been done before, so much so that...

March 8th, 2002 | Read More

The Order (2001) Movie Review

Let me preface my review of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s new movie, The Order, by saying that I hate chases that takes place in movies. I generally don’t like car chases, people chases, or even spaceship or airplane chases. Why? I don’t know, I just find myself very bored while watching...

March 8th, 2002 | Read More

Donnie Darko (2001) Movie Review

I can’t get enough of time travel movies, or TV episodes involving time travel. Some of the best episodes of “Star Trek” (in all its various incarnations) have all involved time traveling. Why do I like time travel so much? I don’t know, but if I had to guess, I’d say it...

March 8th, 2002 | Read More

Whispering Corridors 2: Memento Mori (1999) Movie Review

“Memento Mori” is a South Korean movie that doesn’t know what it wants to be, and when it finally decides what it should be, it makes the wrong choice. “Memento mori,” for those who don’t know, is a Latin phrase that, loosely translated, means “images of death.”...

March 7th, 2002 | Read More

Waking Life (2001) Movie Review

You know how when you’re talking to someone and instead of saying what they think or feel, they recall what they’ve read that someone else has said, and recite those sayings to you, as if hoping you’ll somehow miraculously forget that they’re regurgitating someone else’s...

March 6th, 2002 | Read More

Croupier (1998) Movie Review

I know a lot of people like the ones that appears in Mike Hodges’ Croupier, a movie about a novelist who takes a job as a casino dealer (or croupier) when he runs out of money. The people in Croupier are losers. There’s really no other way to describe them. Everyone is a loser in one form...

March 6th, 2002 | Read More

The Straight Story (1999) Movie Review

In a state as big as Texas, where I am from and is currently living, it’s quite impossible to travel between two big cities without having to cross hours of open country in-between. Most of the time I never bother to look out my driver’s side window. I usually stare ahead at the road, counting...

March 5th, 2002 | Read More

Meet Joe Black (1998) Movie Review

The question of rather you will enjoy or hate Martin Brest’s Meet Joe Black is dependent on rather the movie’s premise intrigues and fascinates you. The premise is this: Death, wishing to taste life for the first time, decides to take the form of a recently deceased young man and uses a dying...

March 4th, 2002 | Read More

The Dead Hate the Living (1999) Movie Review

After finding a dead body stuffed inside a strange-looking coffin in the basement of the condemned building they’re using to film their horror movie, our group of intrepid low-budget filmmakers decides to use the body as part of their film. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is the sort of “smarts”...

March 4th, 2002 | Read More

Hannibal (2001) Movie Review

Novelist Thomas Harris, the man responsible for the bestsellers “Black Sunday,” “Red Dragon,” “Silence of the Lambs,” and now “Hannibal,” is the kind of writer Hollywood suits absolutely hates. He’s wildly successful despite being the antithesis of...

March 3rd, 2002 | Read More

My Sassy Girl (2001) Movie Review

The oddest thing about Jae-young Kwak’s “My Sassy Girl” is that its entire premise of a young, 20-something woman acting outrageous and going against the norm of how a “young woman” is supposed to behave is not, well, all that outrageous. Perhaps in Korean society, which...

March 3rd, 2002 | Read More

Session 9 (2001) Movie Review

After having to sit through the “so stupid it might actually be good” Bones, it’s something of a revelation to voluntarily sit through Brad Anderson’s Session 9, an independent horror film that was overlooked by the box office because it was not heavily promoted. The box office...

March 2nd, 2002 | Read More

Bones (2001) Movie Review

The pitfall of reviewing movies such as Bones is the risk of being labeled as someone who doesn’t “get” it — with “it” being the movie in question. Mostly it’s the people who really, really like the movie that throws the label at those who claims not to like...

March 2nd, 2002 | Read More

Dragonfly (2002) Movie Review

Dragonfly is the kind of movie that gives me fits. It’s not all that great, but it’s not all that bad, either. It’s mediocre, but it moves at such a nice pace and the payoff is very good, but then it’s, well, so mediocre. I hate movies like Dragonfly because they’re so hard...

March 1st, 2002 | Read More

Tomb Raider (2001) Movie Review

To say that movies based on videogames have not had any luck is an understatement. Popular videogames made into feature-length movies have been box office disasters because gamers and the general populace seem to hate them equally. Take the failures of Street Fighter, Double Dragon, and just recently,...

February 28th, 2002 | Read More

Guns and Talks (2002) Movie Review

There is very little doubt that writer/director Jin Jang (”No Comment”) has a firm technical handle on his new movie, “Guns and Talks”, but I doubt if he knew what he wanted to say, or if he had anything to say at all. “Guns and Talks” is a South Korean movie that...

February 27th, 2002 | Read More

High Heels and Low Lifes (2001) Movie Review

I have very low expectations of movies I’ve never heard of. This may be why I’m usually very surprised by the superior quality of a lot of low-budget films (or independent films) that have been ignored by the general populace by their lack of publicity. Look at it this way: when you have...

February 26th, 2002 | Read More