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zodden1970
Reviews
The Captains (2011)
A great look back
I have found Shatner to be a great interviewer. He really knows how to get insightful responses from those he questions. In this documentary I found the best parts of it were when he was talking about his own career and looking back and when the person he was interviewing was asking him questions too. You get a good sense from the interviews the personal sacrifices that the "Captains" on each Trek show had to make and how their jobs were certainly different than the rest of the cast.
The highlights were his conversation style interview with Patrick Stewart at Stewart's home as well as his interview with Kate Mulgrew in a theater in New York City.
Overall though the best part of this documentary is Shatner himself. As he describes his long life and career and even discusses his thoughts on the end of life and his closeness to that end. That gave the documentary a slightly sad and nostalgic feel to it. It felt in some ways almost as if he were saying farewell just slightly. I say just slightly because as you will see when watching that Shatner has a zest for living that few his age can muster. He truly is a marvel to watch and I wish him many more years.
If you are a fan of Trek and of Shatner then this documentary is a must see. You will enjoy it immensely.
Goodfellas (1990)
One of the best movies of the past 50 years
With Martin Scorsese getting a lot of acclaim this past year due to the amazing film "The Departed" its a good time to go back 16 years earlier and revisit his epic masterpiece Goodfellas. This film, which was robbed of the Oscar for Best picture in favor of Dances With Wolves, stands out as a movie that people will be talking about for decades to come. Its not just that the script and every performance by the actors was Oscar worthy, its also the directing by Scorsese that puts this film over the top. Any film school worth its weight will spend many hours taking this film apart frame by frame. The Camera work, the editing, the placement of music- this film stands out as one of the greatest films of all time. Can anybody forget the scene where Hill's character is ushered through the nightclub with his date? Can anybody who hears the chorus from Layla by Eric Clapton ever not think about the amazing scene that accompanies it? The performance by Joe Pesci is one of the greatest of all time. The character is revolting and yet compelling at the same time. Its very hard to get an audience to feel both emotions and when it works, its brilliant.
Now add to this the fact that this story is based on the true life of a real person named Henry Hill and it makes this movie even more interesting to watch. If you have not yet seen this movie, do your self a favor and go rent it. You won't regret it.
House of the Dead 2 (2005)
A movie to watch when there's nothing else on
So many of these types of movies out these days. This zombie flick falls into the major "cheese" category unlike the far more polished dawn of the dead, and day of the dead. In all fairness those 2 movies were major studio releases with big budgets behind them. But they were also good movies. A low budget movie can still be good if only they would stop accepting and using the worst scripts around. Whoever wrote this movie must have been drunk the whole time.
This movie had so so special effects and a very un-even plot line. The one major difference from other movies of its type is the time it takes for people to transform into zombies. In this one, it seems to take just seconds for them to die and then turn into a zombie. Yet with the ease this "infection" spreads you can have zombie blood all over you and not even seem to be at risk for infection, and believe me the people in this one get covered in blood.
The main problem I had is that our 2 main stars at times were walking around dozens of zombies and didn't get bit. When everybody else turns into zombies amazingly quickly these 2 were swarmed by zombies when they were even unarmed and were able to come out of it without a problem. Our hot chick star even survived a missile strike on the building she was in. I was laughing out load at that point. Unarmed, having like 10 zombies on her and a missile hits the building yet she manages to get out without a scratch? OK sure....
Also whoever advised these people on how special forces behaves obviously never spent any time in the military. They should have watched a movie like Blackhawk down first to get at least an idea of how they behave in combat situations.
One soldier was a fat overweight SPECIAL FORCES private. LOL that was a good one. Another kept going up to zombies thinking they were survivors, even putting his weapon down at one point. These guys are in there to fight zombies and they were acting like the soldiers from the movie Stripes. Special Forces, lol...
Then they get to the point at which they try to explain the zombie girl in the rubber room and the whole thing gets very confusing. The explanation is muddled and does not even follow the first movie. It made no sense at all.
The only thing I liked was the Anti Bush jokes. The military lady at the beginning told them that the order came down from the Vice President to the President and at the end it was the Vice President from an "undisclosed location" giving the orders. That was the best part of the movie for me.