Change Your Image
chamilton-10
Reviews
The Matador (2005)
See this movie!
I had no idea what to expect with this, but I borrowed the DVD based on liking Greg Kinnear and Pierce Brosnan. Little did I know what a gem this is! Great acting, great story with many unexpected turns, EXCELLENT music and even the cinematography was top-notch. I will certainly look for more from this director and now want to see The Hunting Party.
Movies like this are such a joy...where you have no idea where this story is going or when, but you get involved with the characters and just enjoy being along for the ride. Based on the first 20 mins or so, this could've easily turned into a cat & mouse thriller, a drama or a buddy comedy. There were elements of each, in just the right amounts. Too far in any direction would've been a mistake.
See this movie!
Day of the Panther (1988)
Little action for an action movie
I had zero preconceived notions about this one - just picked it at random from my Mill Creek "Drive-In Movie Classics" 50 movie DVD set. I'd never seen an Australian martial arts flick before. Now I know why.
The lead character is so untalented as an actor that he hardly is given anything to say. I was starting to wonder if he'd ever speak. Then he did, and I can't remember anything he said. He's got just THAT much charisma! As a fighter, he's top-notch, but he doesn't get to do much, nor does anyone else. I found myself quite bored watching this, which is probably the worst thing you can say for an "action" movie.
The pig-mask guy was certainly unexpected, but one left turn doesn't make an otherwise cliché-filled snoozer any better.
What It's Like Being Alone (2006)
I really wanted to like this show
When the ads first started running on CBC las year (?) I thought the show looked great. A creepy, silly fun stop-motion animation show for adults! Can it get any better than this? Well, yes it can, because after viewing a number of episodes, the beauty of the animation can only carry weak writing so far. Each episode had a few laughs (few being the main word) but overall, this is an unfunny comedy and that's the worst thing a comedy can be.
Yes, I get that the humour is supposed to be ironic and that the tragic lives of the characters are supposed to be sickly darkly funny. Sometimes they are indeed, but most of the time their just kind of bland, or boring or tedious.
I really wanted to support this show, to see it succeed as a cool new thing, and Canadian to boot, but sadly, what it's like is, well, dull.
Treasure of Tayopa (1974)
Boredom of Tayopa
This is a very strange movie from start to finish. We follow a bunch of characters that we know little about. We have no reason to root for them or hope they get the treasure/make it out alive/whatever. Then the leader (Rena Winters) goes out of her way to be distant, cold and boring. The other male leader of the group is just basically there for exposition, so the only character interaction is between the ridiculously bad overacting of a guy named "Sally". There is a fourth member of the team Phillipe, but rarely says or does much (or even appears in shots) unless they need a Spanish translator or a fourth vote.
Sally is supposed to be crazy, but he just seems to be an annoying idiot, but a harmless one at first. Eventually we learn a little about Sally and Phillipe, but not much, and not enough to care about either of their fate, or to justify or explain Sally's later actions.
There seemed to be at least one scene missing from my DVD (Mill Creek "Drive-In Classics" 50 movie pack) because Rena Winters' narration stops mid-sentence at one point and the scene changes. Maybe that was the scene where everything is explained so we care if she makes it out OK. The possibility of more missing scenes would explain why when our group of four meet a group of Mexicans, none of them acknowledge or seem to notice that they'd already met one of them in their travels, even though he'd been the source of much suspicion and discussion afterward.
The local Mexicans they encounter encompass every bad stereotype imaginable. I admit I've never been to Mexico, but I'm pretty sure that even by the 70's the stereotype of "banditos" with sombreros, covered in bullets and swigging tequila was already long outdated and offensive.
Pretty boring up to this point (I was about to give up) the movie suddenly jumps to unprovoked bloody violence. Back to total boredom for a while, then even more killing, beating, whipping until pretty much everybody is dead. None of the deaths really seem to have meaning or are presented with any sense of emotion at all.
Between all this oddity there's some pretty bizarre camera work with the "passage of time" montages using sometimes triple, sometimes quadruple exposures to have sunsets, mountains, closeups, and our four "heroes" walking all in the same frame. Pretty arty stuff for such a dumb movie.
The appearance of on-camera storyteller/narrator at the beginning and end was also very strange.
American Raspberry (1977)
Closest to Kentucky Fried Movie
This one feels like an even-lower-budget and less funny cousin to Kentucky Fried Movie. This has a loose storyline of the government and military officials gathering to deal with the problem of some mysterious forces tampering with the airwaves and airing all sorts of parody commercials, skits and telethons. I probably would've loved this if I saw it when I was 12, but it's clearly intended for adults, and juvenile ones at that.
There's some good tasteless laughs, but mostly pretty poorly paced sketches sometimes leave you guessing the punchline well before you see it. The shorter bits were the funnier ones. The LONG Charlie's Angel parody seems to go on forever since it's really a one-joke premise.
Watch for brief appearances by folks like Harry Shearer and author/musician/politician Kinky Friedman.
Ng goh haak gwai dik siu nin (2002)
Enjoyable on two levels
This movie has a few "so-bad-it's-funny" moments, which is what I was hoping to see when I picked it up. The subtitles were particularly frustrating/amusing since sometimes they're off by a long shot...the first line of a scene often appears in the previous scene!
I was surprised though that Mummy Aged 19 has some genuine laughs, some pretty good tension, and a few surprises that I was not expecting to see: I won't spoil anything, but there's one funeral gag that I'm surprised I've never seen before, even in all the seasons of 6 Feet Under! It's a very strange film and some of the gags and acting are WAAAY over-the-top, but I found that overall I was entertained by it's campiness AND it's quality. A rare accomplishment!
Is this a "horror-comedy"? Well, sort of, but I'd say it leans much more on the comedy, with only a few scenes that seem out of the horror genre. It's really more of a teen-angst comedy, just with a few touches of horror. The idea of a Mummy back to life is hardly original for a movie, but other than the basic plot, I can't think of another movie to compare it too as far as it's style and humor go.
Somewhere in there is an Asian teenage version of the classic The Mummy with hints of 80's teen comedy (Better Off Dead?) and a little Exorcist in there too, redone in a modern, fun way. Once you see it, you'll see how tricky to describe it is.