Reviews »
Lilo and Stitch (2002) Movie Review
“Lilo and Stitch” is a new animation film from the house of the Mouse (re: Walt Disney). As such, it has all the trademarks and “touches” of the Mouse, namely manipulation of emotions, a...
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Independence Day (1996) Movie Review
Filmmaking duo Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich have built their inseparable careers by making big-budget Hollywood summer event films. For those who don’t know, “summer event films” are Hollywood big budget movies that arrives...
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Time Machine (2002) Movie Review
My enthusiasm for time travel movies is unending. Even after watching Simon Wells’ adaptation of novelist H.G. Wells’ famous novel, “The Time Machine,” I am still enthusiastic about the genre and look forward to...
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Kamikaze Taxi (1995) Movie Review
I’ve always found Japanese culture to be intriguing, not by what’s “out there” but rather by what’s hidden “under the surface.” And oh my, there are just so much under the surface when it...
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Dragonheart 2: A New Beginning (2000) Movie Review
Doug Lefler’s Dragonheart: A New Beginning (or Dragonheart 2), is a fantasy movie set sometime in the Middle Ages, and is a sequel to 1997′s Dragonheart. The original probably owed its modest success to...
Read More »Left Behind (2001) Movie Review
As a mea culpa, let me say that I’m a Buddhist — and a sometimes too lapsed one at that. What does this have to do with the movie Left Behind? For those who...
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Electric Dragon 80,000 V (2002) Movie Review
The most curious thing about writer/director Sogo Ishii’s Electric Dragon 80,000 V is just how well it starts, only to go drastically downhill. Ishii’s Electric Dragon is approximately 55 minutes long, including both opening...
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Impostor (2002) Movie Review
Consider the evolution of “futuristic” sci-fi movies. Just a scant decade ago filmmakers would be thankful if they could just render a futuristic cityscape that looks something like their vision. Models and matte painting...
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Rollerball (2002) Movie Review
Rollerball stars Chris Klein as Jonathan Cross, an extreme sportsman who achieves superstar status in Rollerball, a futuristic game where people skate and motorbike around a small arena throwing steel balls at a target...
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Spider-Man (2002) Movie Review
The major treat of all “Golden Age” comic book characters is the simplicity of their Origin Story. Superman is an alien who came to Earth as a child and was raised by a kind...
Read More »The Mothman Prophecies (2002) Movie Review
The Mothman Prophecies is based on a novel of the same name by John A. Keel, a real-life journalist who supposedly wrote about “true events” that occurred in the small town of Point Pleasant,...
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Bad Guy (2001) Movie Review
There has been so many South Korean and Japanese gangster films that they deserve a subgenre of their own — the Traditional Asian Gangster films, which exists only from South Korea and Japan. Why...
Read More »Way of the Gun (2000) Movie Review
Christopher McQuarrie’s Way of the Gun is a hard movie to take. Not hard because it’s a bad movie — in the sense that “bad” movies are unwatchable — but because its subject matter...
Read More »Legend of Speed (1999) Movie Review
As the saying goes, it is a stupid man who keeps coming back for more punishment from the same source. I am that stupid man, since Legend of Speed is the second movie directed...
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The Duel (2000) Movie Review
I don’t give out 1-star ratings often (and in fact, I can count all the movies I have given 1-star ratings to on one hand), because I usually reserve them for special occasions. Andrew...
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Last Witness (2001) Movie Review
Chang-ho Bae’s “Last Witness” is a Crime Drama that deals with the Korean War (1950 — 53), a favorite subject of many South Korean films. I can only guess that the North Koreans favor...
Read More »Jason X (2002) Movie Review
Jason X is actually the 10th installment in the Friday the 13th series, which garnered mass appeal in the “˜80s with its heavy themes of teenage sex, bloodletting, teenage sex, more bloodletting, and even...
Read More »Kate and Leopold (2001) Movie Review
It’s no secret that I review films that fall into the Romance category with great leniency. I never expect too much except to be entertained. No deep thinking required here, please. Romance films, for...
Read More »First Shot (1993) Movie Review
Back in the “˜80s and “˜90s, you could walk into a Hong Kong video store and walk out with a dozen movies like David Lam’s First Shot. You could go back the very next...
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Dog Soldiers (2002) Movie Review
The new British Werewolves Attack film Dog Soldiers is most interesting for fans of American horror films who have ever entertained this thought: “Gee, I wonder how other countries would approach these [insert film...
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