eric brochu

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• Man of the Century (1999) 3.5/5

  2006-10-02 23:31

  

  A reporter straight out of a 1930s screwball comedy lives life inexplicably and blissfully unaware that it's almost the 21st century. A really charming little film that deserves to be better known. So go rent it.

  2006-10-02
  0.3

• Ruang talok 69 (1999) 3.5/5

  2006-09-13 21:23

  

  A cute Thai crime thriller/dark comedy in the Tarantino mold. A bit derivative sometimes, but with lots of original and unexpected touches. The director went on to make Last Life in the Universe, which I really loved.

  2006-09-13
  0.3

• His Girl Friday (1940) 3.5/5

  2006-09-09 11:41

  

  Howard Hawks, Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are all great, but this film still has that kind of untra-stagey kind of feel Hollywood movies had in the 1930s -- lots of tripod-mounted two-shots and jarring edits, and very sharp dialogue recited very fast, very loud and very flat.

  2006-09-09
  0.3

• Little Miss Sunshine (2006) 3.5/5

  2006-09-08 10:09

  

  This kind of "indie lite" comedy, where everybody is charmingly quirky, can easily become groan-inducingly precious (*cough cough* Garden State). But this movie mostly manages to deftly step up to the cliche cliff and then zip off in another direction. Plus, this demonstrates my thesis that no movie with an unexpected musical number has ever been bad. Except some musicals.

  2006-09-08
  0.3

• Mean Creek (2004) 3.5/5

  2006-08-17 00:03

  

  A modest little film about a group of kids who take a bully on a boat trip to teach him a lesson. Great performances from all the child actors, but the story seems to kind of lose its momentum as it goes on. Still, I liked it quite a bit.

  2006-08-17
  0.3

• The Pianist (2002) 3.5/5

  2006-08-07 23:40

  

  Yes, I'm rating this moving testament to survivors of the holocaust the same as Miami Vice and lower than the zombie rom-com and than the movie with the donkey sex. And still I contend it is perfectly reasonable to rank all movies along a single line that goes from Manos: The Hands of Fate to Seven Samurai.

  2006-08-07
  0.3

• Miami Vice (2006) 3.5/5

  2006-08-01 23:26

  

  “Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them” -- Pauline Kael

  2006-08-01
  0.3

• Hunger (2008) 3/5

  2010-11-08 20:09

  

  Unfortunately, I come in with no knowledge of the historical events fictionalized here, and the film has no interest in actually engaging the viewer. In fact, it's so stark, insular, and obsessed with the bloody price of martyrdom that it kind of becomes a kind of IRA Passion of the Christ. I can appreciate it as an exercise (and there's clearly genuine talent here), but not as a film.

  2010-11-08
  0.3

• Constantine (2005) 3/5

  2010-10-23 18:43

  

  You know, if you ignore the comics the movie is based on and pretend that Keanu is playing a two-fisted exorcist anti-hero who happens to be named John Constantine, it's really not too bad a film. Some good set-pieces, well-cast supporting roles (especially Tilda Swinton as the angel Gabriel) and a nice gothic-pulp look. However, if you look at it like Hollywood's once chance to adapt everything that is awesome in Hellblazer, it's a crushing disappointment.

  2010-10-23
  0.3

• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) 3/5

  2010-08-24 09:48

  

  2010-08-24
  0.3

• Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story (2007) 3/5

  2010-08-07 23:17

  

  2010-08-07
  0.3

• Drag Me To Hell (2009) 3/5

  2009-10-25 16:13

  

  Sam Raimi isn't the most subtle of directors, but he sure can direct a scene. Thing was, after the truly embarrassing Spider-Man 3, I was starting to have serious doubts about his ability to direct a movie. Fortunately, there's no real doubt that Drag Me To Hell is pretty well-done, even though the over-the-top teen horror movie isn't a genre I'm especially fond of.

  2009-10-25
  0.3

• Standard Operating Procedure (2008) 3/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Mongol (2008) 3/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• The Darjeeling Limited (2007) 3/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Fiend Without A Face (1958) 3/5

  2009-10-10 21:30

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Kitten with a Whip (1964) 3/5

  2009-08-12 22:38

  

  The closest I ever came to seeing anything starring Ann-Margret was her tedious lullaby-singing appearance on The Flintstones. I still have only the vaguest idea why she was famous enough to merit inclusion on the show -- it's definitely not her acting. But aside from her scenery chomping, Kitten is actually one of the better drive-in juvenile delinquent films I've seen. Margrock is a teenaged reform school runaway who breaks into the home of a local politician, and then uses the compromising position of her very presence to blackmail him. Soon he's forced into helping out A-M's whole gang, lead by a bizarre Zen-monkish beatnik-thug. It's pretty ridiculous, but at least it tried hard to entertain, which is enough to put it ahead of a lot of these kind of films.

  2009-08-12
  0.3

• Brüno 3/5

  2009-07-31 20:41

  

  What I liked about the Bruno character in Da Ali G Show were the segments that allowed Sasha Baron-Cohen to use his shallowness to make the arrogant and clueless confortable enough to expose their own vapidity. But instead of going that direction, the Bruno movie uses the character much more for shock value and confrontation. Problem is, Borat already did that, and did it a lot better. Bruno is funny -- sometimes very funny -- but it feels like a missed opportunity.

  2009-07-31
  0.3

• Public Enemies (2009) 3/5

  2009-07-31 20:39

  

  A lot of people seemed to be bothered by shooting a period gangster movie with handheld digital, but I think it was incredibly effective, especialy during the action sequences. There's nothing I'm less interested in seeing than that burnished, buttery glow we usually see in movies set in the 1920s and 1930s. Unfortunately, the cinematography is the best part of the movie. Particularly bad is the central relationship between Depp's Dillinger and the dishwater-dull Billie Frechette -- there is simply nothing in Marion Cotillard's underwhelming performance that would make you think Dillinger would ever notice her, let alone make her the central figure of his life.

  2009-07-31
  0.3

• Cloverfield (2008) 3/5

  2009-06-21 18:01

  

  So on the one hand, I really hate movies that expect you to care what happens to a bunch of boring yuppie douchebags just because they're cool and pretty and have nice clothes. On the other, giant monsters destroying major cities is undeniably cool. (Just try to deny it -- can't be done.) The fact that said giant monster kills said douchebags is what makes this passable entertainment. That, and the scene where the dbags are standing around in the street filming the monster while a fat dude does the smart thing and hauls ass in the other direction.

  2009-06-21
  0.3

• RocknRolla (2008) 3/5

  2009-05-18 18:54

  

  I fully believe that despite his decade-long string of flops, Guy Ritchie is a truly talented filmmaker who has some great films ahead of him. This is not one of them. Don't get me wrong: it's fun, but it's just a little meh, too.

  2009-05-18
  0.3

• Jurassic Park (1993) 3/5

  2009-05-03 11:29

  

  It's effective entertainment, and the scenes with the raptors hunting are great, but without the 1993 impressiveness of the computer graphics, it's not a terribly meaty film -- more War of the Worlds than ET. And don't get me started on the film's cartoonish anti-science message.

  2009-05-03
  0.3

• The Getaway (1972) 3/5

  2009-04-26 20:30

  

  An entertaining enough chase movie, and Steve McQueen is always great at being Steve McQueen, but even with Walter Hill and Sam Peckinpah behind the camera, this seems too safe, too studio, too out-of-touch. After seeing the period's thoughtful, existential road movies, like Vanishing Point, Point Blank and the incredible Two-Lane Blacktop, this slick, happy-ending actioner feels all the more like a missed opportunity.

  2009-04-26
  0.3

• The Big Heat (1953) 3/5

  2008-12-21 17:29

  

  Fritz Lang-directed gangster movie with a very young Lee Marvin as a cold-blooded thug. Glenn Ford plays an honest but vengeance-minded cop who is determined to take down the mob after they kill his beloved wife. The film is slick, violent, and so fast-moving that entire gunfights are glossed over with a single line of dialogue -- the better to propel the main story along. However, it's pretty standard for the genre: solid, but never groundbreaking.

  2008-12-21
  0.3

• Role Models (2008) 3/5

  2008-11-14 20:21

  

  2008-11-14
  0.3

• Paranoid Park (2008) 3/5

  2008-10-12 17:15

  

  2008-10-12
  0.3

• Gremlins (1984) 3/5

  2008-09-25 21:57

  

  2008-09-25
  0.3

• Tropic Thunder (2008) 3/5

  2008-09-02 18:28

  

  Not a great movie, but the steady hand of director Ben Stiller manages to compensate for the grating, unfunny un-performance of star Ben Stiller.

  2008-09-02
  0.3

• Triad Election (2006) 3/5

  2008-08-24 20:15

  

  2008-08-24
  0.3

• My Kid Could Paint That (2007) 3/5

  2008-08-04 20:16

  

  2008-08-04
  0.3

• A Colt is my Passport (1967) 3/5

  2008-08-04 19:21

  

  2008-08-04
  0.3

• The Jerk (1979) 3/5

  2008-07-11 17:32

  

  2008-07-11
  0.3

• Where the Green Ants Dream (1984) 3/5

  2008-06-15 22:02

  

  2008-06-15
  0.3

• American Gangster (2007) 3/5

  2008-05-07 19:10

  

  2008-05-07
  0.3

• Devdas (2002) 3/5

  2008-04-22 21:56

  

  2008-04-22
  0.3

• Predator (1987) 3/5

  2008-03-16 11:29

  

  2008-03-16
  0.3

• Be Kind Rewind (2008) 3/5

  2008-03-02 11:39

  

  2008-03-02
  0.3

• Manhattan (1979) 3/5

  2008-02-16 20:04

  

  I've seen this movie before. More than once, even. And loved it. In fact, it was on the short-list of my Top 100 Films list. So imagine how disturbed I was to find that some reason, this time around, I'm not sure I even liked it. I wonder if the perpetually overrated Allen's films are becoming as irrelevant as the man himself. It's certainly an increasingly uphill struggle for me to care about his rich, self-absorbed, pseudointellectual bobo baby boomers, even in his best films.

  2008-02-16
  0.3

• Apocalypto (2006) 3/5

  2008-01-20 19:39

  

  An odd film, in an odd key. Clearly conceived as a straight-up action-adventure yarn, and it delivers on that front with spectacular chase and fight scenes. But it is also clearly fascinated by its own setting -- the declining Mayan empire -- with long scenes of family life, the Mayan economy and the details of life in the jungle. Unfortunately, fascination doesn't equal insight, and in the end, we get an interesting, but off-balance actioner that can't quite hold up under the weight of its ambitions.

  2008-01-20
  0.3

• Hellboy (2004) 3/5

  2008-01-08 19:52

  

  Entertaining movie with some brilliantly-directed scenes, and Ron Perlman is brilliant as Hellboy, but the story and editing are so choppy that by the end you pretty much have to give up on making any sense of what's going on or how anybody got anywhere. Still, del Toro is unquestionably a brilliant filmmaker, and I'm really looking forward to Hellboy 2.

  2008-01-08
  0.3

• A Better Tomorrow II (1987) 3/5

  2007-09-30 20:50

  

  Ramps up the action, the melodrama and the sheer preposterousness of the first movie, frequently to an overbearing degree. The action scenes are spectacular, but the rest of the film takes frequent trips into insane soap-opera WTF?-land. Still entertaining, but John Woo and Chow Yun Fat would go on to do a couple of films that were a whole lot better. "If you have any dignity, apologize to the rice RIGHT NOW!"

  2007-09-30
  0.3

• Mystic River (2003) 3/5

  2007-09-10 10:58

  

  The first two-thirds -- where you don't know where it's going and can enjoy the performances and direction -- are excellent. But then we get to a completely and utterly implausible third act, followed by a series of tacked-on epilogues that rob the movie of any remaining poignancy or ambiguity. (And am I the only person that thinks Sean Penn isn't much of an actor? I never once thought I was seeing a character rather than "superstar actor Sean Penn". And not just here...)

  2007-09-10
  0.3

• Breach (2007) 3/5

  2007-09-09 10:41

  

  Interesting little film, based on the real case of an FBI mole. Chris Cooper completely dominates the film with his entertaining portrayal of the mole Robert Hanssen as a prickly devout Catholic, but we never actually get his point of view -- it's all from the point of view of the agents building the case against him. At the end of the film, I had no idea why or how Robert Hanssen would come to be "the worst spy in history", and I didn't feel anyone involved with the film (including Chris Cooper) did, either.

  2007-09-09
  0.3

• Three Days of the Condor (1975) 3/5

  2007-08-19 09:48

  

  It was interesting to see this classic spy paranoia conspiracy thriller immediately after watching The Bourne Ultimatum. Both have CIA agents on the run from ruthless rogues branches of their own agency, and incriminating documents as the McGuffin. Both are very stylish and high-tech (Condor's CIA buildings are full of teletypes, blinkenlights computers and awesome burnt orange wallpaper). But whereas Bourne's Matt Damon is the baddest of the bad, looking for redemption, or at least answers, Condor's Robert Redford is a naive analyst who is shocked to learn that the CIA might be up to no good, and, if anything, would like nothing more that to unlearn it. And in another sign of the times, Condor has a completely superfluous (and borderline misogynistic) love story via the miscast Faye Dunaway.

  2007-08-19
  0.3

• Sunshine (2007) 3/5

  2007-08-12 20:59

  

  I'm pretty torn on this film, about a group of astronauts on a mission to re-ignite the dying sun. The first two thirds ranges from good to terrific, with excellent performances, Danny Boyle's typical concern for how tightly-knit groups of people fall apart, and a truly amazing and terrifying spacewalk scene. But the last third is so weak, it can't help but leave a sour taste and make you think about how great it could have been.

  2007-08-12
  0.3

• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) 3/5

  2007-08-02 23:10

  

  It's hard to fault this film's social message about the brutality of 1930s chain gangs. The chain gangs of Cool Hand Luke look like the model of enlightenment by comparison. And the performance of Paul Muni as the eponymous escapee is nowhere near as stagey as most 1930s acting. But in most other ways, this has all the problems of melodramas of the period: boring photography, extreme overacting from the supporting cast, and a story with the level of subtlety that would later be associated with Oliver Stone and daytime TV. I know, it's a classic, and it's a lot better than most films of the era (in that it's watchable), but the era kind of sucked, and here at Haiku Factory, we don't grade on a curve.

  2007-08-02
  0.3

• Kicking and Screaming (1995) 3/5

  2007-07-29 15:53

  

  The IMDB plot summary simply reads, "Following graduation, a handful of college students do nothing and talk about it wittily." And that truly is the film. There is not much of a plot and the only character distinguishable from the rest is Eric Stolz as a 9th-year undergrad. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though. A lot of the dialogue is pretty witty, and I like witty. Though by the end, you mostly just feel that Noah Baumbach took his "writing thoughts" notebook and filmed it.

  2007-07-29
  0.3

• Spartan (2004) 3/5

  2007-07-08 01:28

  

  I really don't want to say too much about this film because the way to see it is as I did: knowing nothing except that it is a tight, gripping David Mamet thriller. But I will say this: the title is not just a reference to the main character, Val Kilmer's ultra-efficient Ranger. It's also an apt description of how the film is made. There's nothing superflous or showy about it -- it's lean, and it's mean.

  2007-07-08
  0.3

• Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) 3/5

  2007-06-28 10:24

  

  This film is much better than you would think from its title. And premise. And its box office results. And critical reputation. And lame 80s-comedy musical montages. And laboured attempts at comedy. And the presence of Meg Ryan. And the fact that Meg Ryan plays three different characters. Not that it's really all that good -- it's just better than all those things would lead you to believe. Which, to be honest, is kind of a minor miracle. Can you imagine how bad it could have been?

  2007-06-28
  0.3

• Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004) 3/5

  2007-06-17 10:51

  

  Not a great film, but I have a weird fondness for goofy road movies. This one gets surprising milage out of simply having two Asian stoners as the heros and a genuinely funny scene with Neil Patrick Harris as a horny e-tard version of himself.

  2007-06-17
  0.3

• The Man from Snowy River (1982) 3/5

  2007-05-08 11:56

  

  As far as Australian Westerns go, this is no The Proposition. It's a sweet, cheesy romance about a boy, a girl and a horse, with some breathtaking shots of wild horses running through the mountains of Victoria.

  2007-05-08
  0.3

• Casino Royale (2006) 3/5

  2007-04-09 13:42

  

  James Bond as female abuse-victim fantasy. He's a rich but brutal and manipulative bad boy sociopath, who really, is just waiting for the one woman who can break through his armour and tell him what a good person he is, at which point he will become sweet and sensitive and completely change himself for her. As long as she doesn't step out of line -- but at that point it's really her own fault for making him hurt her, and she damn well knows it. Unfortunately, the "she" is the painfully dull Eva Green, whose flat line delivery literally made me cringe. But at least it's a competent action movie, which is a damn sight more than you can say about almost all the other Bond flicks.

  2007-04-09
  0.3

• The Towering Inferno (1974) 3/5

  2007-02-26 13:23

  

  Instead of watching the Oscars, Ty, Abhi and I watched this. It's just as bloated and stupid, but a lot more fun. Plus, it was nominated for 8 Oscars (including Best Picture) and won 3, so obviously it represents the best that Hollywood had to offer, right? Also, is it just me, or did Hollywood really, really hate women in the 70s? All they do here is run around shrieking and falling off the building and endangering the brave men trying to rescue them.

  2007-02-26
  0.3

• Tôkyô nagaremono (1966) 3/5

  2006-11-26 21:24

  

  Tokyo Drifter. A strange and stylish gangster pic from Japan, at the height of Euro-jazz chic. At times, it reminded me of Le Samourai, For a Fistful of Dollars or Point Blank, though without the gravity of the first, the rawness of the second, or the overwhelming coolness of the third.

  2006-11-26
  0.3

• The Prestige (2006) 3/5

  2006-11-18 14:34

  

  A clever, slick and enjoyable way to kill a couple of hours. Nowhere near deserving all the hype it's getting, though I felt that way about Chistopher Nolan's Memento and Batman Begins, too.

  2006-11-18
  0.3

• Three Extremes (2004) 3/5

  2006-10-13 22:45

  

  Three Extremes. A trio of short indie art-house Asian horror/drama films from Fruit Chan, Park Chan-Wook and Miike Takashi. The latter two are among my favorite directors (I haven't seen any of Fruit Chan's films), but of the three only Takashi's nightmarish series of beautiful and horrible images is really successful. Fruit Chan's benefits from good performances and Christopher Doyle cinematography, but doesn't have anywhere to go from its premise, and Chan-wook Park's just rather does suck.

  2006-10-13
  0.3

• Land of the Dead (2005) 3/5

  2006-08-18 22:33

  

  Disappointing at times, but I do love zombie movies, and this one has Dennis Hopper as a venal fat cat, Canada as a zombie-free paradise and a director who pretty openly has more sympathy for the dead than the living, all of which score points with me.

  2006-08-18
  0.3

• C.H.U.D. (1984) 3/5

  2006-07-31 23:52

  

  The eponymous Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers are feasting on the good people of Reagan-era NYC! Not remotely what you would call a "good" movie, the darn thing just tries so hard it ends up being a lot more entertaining than it should be.

  2006-07-31
  0.3

• Repulsion (1965) 3/5

  2006-07-31 01:37

  

  I know it's a classic, and it has some great scenes, but the New Wave-inspired "la femme brushes her teeth and then the phone rings" scenes have aged about as well as the dime-store psychoanalysis. Catherine Deneuve is incredibly hot, but she's such a vague cipher that I never really cared what happened to her. Polanski did another psychological horror movie, The Tenant, which is less famous, but which I liked much, much better.

  2006-07-31
  0.3

• Willard (2003) 3/5

  2006-07-28 01:56

  

  Crispin Glover plays a weirdo. Surprise! Though as always, he does it really, really well. This time, he befriends, controls and is betrayed by an army of intelligent, cat-eating rats. There's a tacked-on human love interest, but the real relationship is Glover and his rats.

  2006-07-28
  0.3

• Logan's Run (1976) 2.5/5

  2011-01-02 12:27

  

  2011-01-02
  0.3

• District B13 (2004) 2.5/5

  2010-10-24 23:36

  

  So in District B13, the Paris of 2010 is overrun with murderous politicians, walled suburbs, and gangs armed with parkour and military-grade hardware. Meanwhile, the real Paris of 2010 is overrun with striking workers protesting a slight increase in the retirement age. That's not even close, District B13. Not even close.

  2010-10-24
  0.3

• Avatar (2009) 2.5/5

  2009-12-27 17:15

  

  Just finished Avatar. Graphics rocked, awesome level design, but the cut scenes were pretty tedious. Still, kept me involved until the fight with the final boss. Wait... what? We were watching a movie!?

  2009-12-27
  0.3

• Control (2007) 2.5/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Lars and the Real Girl (2007) 2.5/5

  2009-06-06 21:21

  

  I think it's to Ryan Gosling's credit that his characters is not far more annoying. He plays a lonely, small town sad sack who turns to a realistic sex doll for companionship, which he starts treating like a real person. This is pretty creepy, but the movie is much more interested in being "heartwarming" and "whimsical", so instead of having him committed, the entire town inexplicably has nothing better to do than indulge Lars while he works through his none-too-subtle personal issues. The one saving grace is that Gosling manages to make Lars and his interactions with the doll sympathetic instead of cloying, but that only makes the movie watchable, not good.

  2009-06-06
  0.3

• Secret Honor (1984) 2.5/5

  2009-03-23 22:38

  

  Do you love the over-the-top scenery devouring at the end of There Will Be Blood, but wish that it had gone on for 90 minutes and also that it had been about Richard Nixon? If so, this is the movie for you. Philip Baker Hall plays a cartoonish, ranting, borderline-insane Nixon in what is essentially a one man play. It's directed by Robert Altman, so it has some cinematic cred, but I've been reading a lot about Richard Nixon lately, and I've never really seen him as the kind of guy who spent his post-Watergate years drinking, talking to his dead mother, barking like a dog and raving about global conspiracies. I guess it was probably gratifying to liberals who lived through the Nixon era to see him portrayed that way, though.

  2009-03-23
  0.3

• Clash of the Titans (1981) 2.5/5

  2008-11-08 16:50

  

  I love, love stop motion, especially Ray Harryahausen, and the effect here are probably some of his best. However, there is a point at which the film around the effects becomes slick and/or dull enough that stop-motion, no matter how good, can't keep up. Clash is just on the wrong side of that boundary -- it's simply impossible for me to believe in the creatures here in the way I could in the less-slick but more-compelling Jason and the Argonauts, say.

  2008-11-08
  0.3

• Rambo (2008) 2.5/5

  2008-09-01 21:30

  

  Here's Rambo's greatest strength and greatest weakness: from the title alone, you know exactly what you're gonna get. And you get it. Sly Stallone single-handedly kills dozens of deserving foreign baddies. It delivers. Unfortunately, it's also all you're gonna get. (Unless you're really, really into bad CGI blood and gore, in which case, boy howdy, you are in for a treat.) None of this is bad or unsurprising. It's just a little... empty-leaving.

  2008-09-01
  0.3

• Rocket Science (2007) 2.5/5

  2008-08-24 20:13

  

  2008-08-24
  0.3

• Bangkok Dangerous (1999) 2.5/5

  2008-04-05 11:35

  

  2008-04-05
  0.3

• Gamera vs Guiron (1969) 2.5/5

  2008-02-25 00:24

  

  2008-02-25
  0.3

• Poltergeist (1982) 2.5/5

  2008-02-17 02:16

  

  I remember when I was a kid, this movie was a huge deal. Maybe if I saw it at the time, there would be more of a nostalgia factor. But seeing it for the first time now -- it's not a bad film, but it's not a particularly ambitious or challenging one, either. There are some jolts and jumps, but never anything too upsetting, and the film is careful not to ever do anything that would drive anyone away.

  2008-02-17
  0.3

• The Boondock Saints (1999) 2.5/5

  2007-11-09 22:43

  

  A movie that feels like somebody gave an ambitious -- but not terribly original -- film student a few million dollars. There is exactly one good thing about this movie -- Willem Dafoe's charismatic turn as a brilliant but utterly eccentric FBI agent. The rest... at best, it's a second-rate Tarantino rip-off. At worst, a second-rate Punisher rip-off. Never unwatchable, but rarely compelling.

  2007-11-09
  0.3

• Addams Family Values (1993) 2.5/5

  2007-08-26 20:59

  

  The first Addams Family movie suffers for trying (and failing) to emulate the TV show. The second one mostly forgets the TV series altogether and goes for the macabre, black-humoured gags of the original New Yorker cartoons by Chas Addams. It's still not very good (the main storyline about a murderous nanny marrying Fester for his money is a bore), but there are a lot more dark chuckles to be had.

  2007-08-26
  0.3

• Days of Being Wild (1991) 2.5/5

  2007-08-20 09:43

  

  I used to think I liked Wong Kar Wai movies. More recently, though, I've come to the conclusion that what I really like is his cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and his leading lady, Maggie Cheung. These are the ones doing all the emotional heavy lifting, not the ponderous, humourless WKW. Not that Wong is a bad director or writer (except when he is, like in 2046), but he's really a one-trick pony: as soon he steps outside his "sensitive bad boys and the jealous women who love them" safe zone (as he does with the ending of this film), it's obvious he has no idea what to do. If he hadn't hooked up with Maggie and Chris early on, I doubt anybody outside a few Hong Kong aficionados would know his name. Also, is it overly cynical of me to speculate that WKW really makes these movies just to get laid? Because I always think that while I'm watching his films, even the ones I like.

  2007-08-20
  0.3

• Curse of the Aztec Mummy (1957) 2.5/5

  2007-07-27 23:11

  

  (Thanks to Blim's Evil Film School for screening this "classic" piece of luchadore insanity!) El Ángel is a silver-masked Mexican wrestling superhero, who single-handedly takes on rubber snakes, a portly middle-aged scientist and some inept goons, with the eponymous Aztec mummy mostly around to bat clean-up in the last five minutes of the film. El Ángel wears a mean cape, bounds up stairs three at a time, and wrestles like Esau himself, but somehow manages to repeatedly get captured and forced into the world's lamest death traps. (Escape from one involves rolling his head a few inches to the right, and another requires him to phone a small boy to come over and poke him with a stick while he dangles from a light fixture.) It's all inane, inept and totally entertaining.

  2007-07-27
  0.3

• Road House (1989) 2.5/5

  2007-07-22 15:50

  

  Boobs, bullets, bar fights and a bare-chested Patrick Swayze as a mullet-wearing world-famous bouncer/philosopher. Plus, Ben Gazzara as the oddly wry villain with a monster truck, and enough unintentional hilarity and homoeroticism for any three Joel Schumacher films. Truly, this is the movie with something for everyone. "Pain don't hurt," sayeth the master. No, Patrick, it sure don't.

  2007-07-22
  0.3

• Death Wish (1974) 2.5/5

  2007-06-24 16:40

  

  Or, "Un justicier dans la ville" in French, which is an awesome name that maybe could have been used for Deathwish 2: Vigilante in the City. Actually, given its crypto-fascist reputation, it is a surprisingly entertaining and effective piece of entertainment, and actually has non-trivial things to say about law and lawlessness. In a way, I think its the ambiguity of the film's attitude that has led to its reputation -- all those westerns about good-guy gunfighters coming into town and killing the bad guys draw far less criticism simply because they depict vigilante justice as an unabashed and unquestionable good. Not that Death Wish as all that complex: all the muggers Charles Bronson kills are clearly bad guys. Though none of them are despicable as the rape-and-murder gang that sets him off in the first place (and whom, interestingly, he never comes close to tracking down or punishing).

  2007-06-24
  0.3

• Cars (2006) 2.5/5

  2007-06-02 11:03

  

  The Incredibles is a brilliant film, and an impossible act to follow, no question. And that just makes Cars still feel even more like an artistic misstep for Pixar -- a bland, safe, kid-friendly cash-machine, complete with fart jokes and characters that look like they were designed as happy meals toys first. It's frustrating not because it's bad, but because you know everyone involved can do better.

  2007-06-02
  0.3

• Blinkende lygter (2000) 2.5/5

  2007-05-02 21:49

  

  Flickering Lights. This Danish pastiche of US indie films isn't going to win any awards for originality, but as wacky gangster comedy psychodramas go, it's fairly entertaining, even if it doesn't really add up to much in the end. Though there are a couple of bits of "wacky" xenophobia that leave a sour taste behind when it's over.

  2007-05-02
  0.3

• Idiocracy (2006) 2.5/5

  2007-02-04 00:16

  

  A real cult has grown up around this film already, based on the studio's decision to order reshoots, then shelve it, then dump it straight to DVD with no publicity. In some quarters, it's been hailed as a buried masterpiece, and The Guardian (predictably) posits a conspiracy based on the supposed subversive power of the film's anti-corporate message. Unfortunately, while it has some pretty funny moments, there are some long, dry stretches of Hollywood hokum between them, and the satirical jabs are hardly devastating. Which is kind of disappointing -- Mike Judge really nailed the whole "laughing at retards" thing when he did Beavis and Butt-Head.

  2007-02-04
  0.3

• Radiant City (2006) 2.5/5

  2006-10-11 09:39

  

  This is probably the most artistically interesting movie I saw at the film festival, using a mockumentary-style approach to looking at Calgary as a stand-in for suburbanization generally. Unfortunately, it kind of turns to shit in the last 20 minutes with the "ha ha we tricked you" moment, following which the actors break character and start to talk and talk and talk and talk. And talk.

  2006-10-11
  0.3

• Root of All Evil? (2006) (TV) 2.5/5

  2006-10-02 23:54

  

  A Channel 4 TV show in which Richard Dawkins attacks religion and makes arguments against both extremism and religious moderates (who he chides for being both irrational and inconsistent). His feelings on the subject are very similar to my own, but the film is basically just an abridged version of his books on the subject, with a few far-too-brief interviews with practitioners of various stripes.

  2006-10-02
  0.3

• Duck, You Sucker! (1971) 2/5

  2010-10-23 18:48

  

  There seems to be an attempt to re-evaluate Sergio Leone's last western as, well, not a lost masterpiece, exactly, but an unfairly forgotten work, at least. But with all due respect, its not. I admire the intent -- a scathing critique of both revolutionaries and their targets, but the pacing is too languid, the action is uninspired and it's metaphors too thuddingly simply and obvious. It's bravado cynicism of the "*I* don't believe in *anything*" sort, rather than icy gaze of an jaded observer like Jean-Pierre Melville.

  2010-10-23
  0.3

• Kabluey (2007) 2/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Paprika (2007) 2/5

  2009-10-10 21:33

  

  2009-10-10
  0.3

• Reprise (2006) 2/5

  2009-06-26 06:44

  

  Mark my words, "write what you know" will be the epitaph of the 20th century. A young novelist-filmmaker made this film about two young novelists and their awesome girlfriends and wacky circle of friends. It's pretty much the same too-cool celebration of writerly angst you've seen and read before, with plenty of Dogme 95 and "homages" to Truffault thrown in.

  2009-06-26
  0.3

• Sukiyaki Western Django (2008) 2/5

  2009-06-06 20:51

  

  Prolific Japanese crazyman Takashi Miike's take on the spaghetti western mixes gunslingers and martial arts in a comic-book universe of ridiculous marksmanship and phonetically-spoken English, but ultimately doesn't amount to much. The problem is, I never felt Miike has any special affection for -- or understanding of -- the genre, and as a result, the film seems both wrongheaded and smug. Casting Quentin Tarantino as a gunslinger-sage doesn't help.

  2009-06-06
  0.3

• Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1996) 2/5

  2009-05-03 11:38

  

  I was watching this movie (again) and wondering if it might not have been better if Dave Foley was in it for more than five minutes (again). And where is Dave Foley now? Doing nude scenes in Uwe Boll movies, that's where. Life is funny, isn't it?

  2009-05-03
  0.3

• Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977) 2/5

  2009-04-15 23:37

  

  2009-04-15
  0.3

• Australia (2008) 2/5

  2009-01-11 04:24

  

  My girlfriend is Australian, which kind of obligates me to see this. It actually starts out not too bad, with a campy, over-the-top half hour of outback heroes and moustache-twirling villains. But then the earnestness sets in, and it becomes an endless slog which leaves you waiting for the Japanese to show up so that Darwin can get blowed up and the damn thing can finally end. (And for the record, Janelle liked it only slightly more than me, and only because she likes Nicole Kidman slightly more than me.)

  2009-01-11
  0.3

• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) 2/5

  2008-05-25 22:21

  

  2008-05-25
  0.3

• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) 2/5

  2008-05-25 22:18

  

  2008-05-25
  0.3

• The Crazies (1973) 2/5

  2008-05-07 19:10

  

  2008-05-07
  0.3

• Spider-Man 3 (2007) 2/5

  2008-03-23 11:18

  

  2008-03-23
  0.3

• About Schmidt (2002) 2/5

  2007-09-09 10:53

  

  I have to say, I can enjoy slow, ponderous films quite a bit when they have something interesting to say. This one is mostly just boring, cliched, and, frankly pretty elitist -- this is a middle America populated entirely by one-dimensional characters we're supposed to chuckle knowingly at (look, he has a mullet! she talks in feel-good platitudes! heh). I guess it's good to see that Jack Nicholson can still not overact when he wants to, though here it just means he acts boring -- pretty much any decent actor his age could have done what he did with the role.

  2007-09-09
  0.3

• The Addams Family (1991) 2/5

  2007-08-23 11:06

  

  The 1960s TV version of the Addams family is my ideal of the family unit: utterly unconcerned with society's expectations and values, but completely accepting and loving. This invariably puts them at odds with the more traditional characters -- stifling, small-minded figures, concerned with appearances and threatened by the Addams' nonconformity. The movie however, takes a different approach. Here, the Addams family are the outsiders, and the audience is in the role of the normal people gawking at them. The family not only knows how odd they look, they revel in their weirdness. So, instead of being subversive, like the sitcom, it's a freakshow, albeit an affectionate one. On the plus side, though, Raul Julia and Angelica Huston are terrific as Gomez and Morticia, and Christina Ricci is perfectly cast as Wednesday (even though she's a very different Wednesday from the TV series).

  2007-08-23
  0.3

• Les Choristes (2004) 2/5

  2007-08-15 10:03

  

  "Serious" French cinema these days is inevitably either pretentious academic wanking or sappy middlebrow nostalgia. This "acclaimed" film -- kind of a Dead Poet's Society-meets-Sister Act -- is decidedly in the latter camp. What the hell happened to you, French cinema? I used to able to at least pretend to respect you.

  2007-08-15
  0.3

• Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (1995) 2/5

  2007-07-29 15:29

  

  A rare misfire from Werner Herzog. Gesualdo was a 17th-century Italian prince, who was also an alchemist, a masochist, a murderer and a composer (not necessarily in that order). His compositions have been praised as radically ahead of their time, and his life has given rise to an entire cottage industry of lurid and implausible legends. It's easy to see why this would appeal to any documentarian, let alone Herzog. Unfortunately, while there are a few brilliant Herzog touches, most of the film looks like it could have been made by any documentarian, with Herzog touring old palaces and interviewing pompous talking heads (the choir leader, especially, is clearly more in love with the sound of his own voice than Gesualdo's music). Worst of all, though, a good third of the film is made of up performances of Gesualdo's madrigals, and they are all rather boring and indistinguishable. There are a couple of great moments, but nowhere near enough to save the film.

  2007-07-29
  0.3

• Look Back in Anger (1958) 2/5

  2007-07-16 22:46

  

  For a supposed "classic", this is a bad, bad film. So bad, in fact, that it's good, like a Plan 9 from Outer Space of socially-conscious 1950s British cinema. Based on a play respected at the time for its "realism", it combines typically artificial stage writing with an hilariously over-the-top performance by Richard Burton as the middle class-hating "angry young man". Burton's overacting is so extreme, and so sustained that it starts out painful to watch, and then becomes funny, and then becomes a special, painful kind of funny, like watching Ricky Gervais dancing in The Office. Best of all, Burton clearly thinks he's delivering the performance of a lifetime. Which he is, in a grotesque way. God, I hate "serious" theatre. But hey, at least it's better than Tape.

  2007-07-16
  0.3

List generated by WP Movie Ratings.