| Movie | Rating | Review | Date | Your Rating | Match | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| An American Carol - PG-13 |
'An American Carol' is a retelling of the Charles Dickins classic fable A Christmas Carol but this time, instead of an old, greedy miser named Ebenzer Scrooge being visited by a group of spirits, exploring the meaning of Christmas, we get an anti-American filmmaker named Michael Malone (played by Kevin Farley) being visited by the spirits of 3 American heroes, presidents John F. Kennedy (Chriss Anglin), George Washington (Jon Voight) and General George Patton (Kelsey Grammer), and a country singer, oddly enough (Trace Adkins, as himself), in order to rediscover the meaning of patriotism (which, in this case, means supporting the war on terror) and the 4th of July. As a comedy, the film falters from its lack of originality. David Zucker (veteran director of classic parody films like 'Airplane!' and 'The Naked Gun') has lost his touch. The film is hoping that the target audience would get a hoot from seeing a thinly-veiled Michael Moore caricature being slapped silly over and over, but it gets old. And the film does try to find a balance between the few somber moments where it pays tribute to the men and women in the military and the many screwball comedic pratfalls by Farley and a number of disabled children. These somber moments feel out of place, and kinda stalls the film. As a political statement, it seems like it misses the point. The main target for satire in this flick are anti-war protesters and liberals, but it sounded like the message of the movie was that you're not a patriot unless you regularly yell out "God bless America!" and listen to country music (which I don't necessarily agree with, seeing that I hate country music, myself). The film's message seemed as aimless and disjointed as a Sarah Palin speech. It was done much better in the Matt Stone/Trey Parker comedy 'Team America: World Police'. |
November 27, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Ninja Assassin - R |
'Ninja Assassin' tells the story of a young man named Raizo (played by Korean pop star Rain) who rebels from his ninja clan and helps a Europol agent named Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris, of '28 Days Later' and the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' trilogy) uncover a series of mysterious assassinations done by the Ozunu clan, led by his ruthless "older brother", Takeshi (Rick Yune, from 'Die Another Day') and his merciless master (Sho Kosugi). 'Ninja Assassin' is basically what you'd expect from a movie with the title 'Ninja Assassin'. The plot is barely there, and the movie observes a lot of martial arts film cliches. However, the fights themselves are the highlight of the film, and there's plenty of those to go around. The films starts off in a graphic fashion, as a lone ninja takes out a group of yakuza, and continues on throughout with limbs and heads flying off and blood shooting out as if their bodies contained a mixture of Diet Coke and Mentos. Of course, all of this makes for a good time for me, an action junkie and gorehound. The movie is a lot of fun, but I could see some people being turned off by the gore, and more attention given to the fights than the story itself. |
November 27, 2009 | N/A | |||
| All About Steve - PG-13 | November 27, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Saw VI - R | November 27, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Fourth Kind - PG-13 | November 27, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Men Who Stare at Goats - R | November 27, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Old Dogs - PG | November 27, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Dracula cerca sangue di vergine... e morì di sete!!!, (Andy Warhol's Dracula) - R | September 10, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| In the Loop - Unrated | August 16, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| District 9 - R | Brilliant movie | August 16, 2009 | N/A | |||
| G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra - PG-13 |
So, one month removed from "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen", we are treated to another big summer blockbuster action film based on a line of 80's action figures by made Hasbro. This time it's "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra". The story focuses on two young soldiers, named Duke and Ripcord (played by Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans, respectively), who are ambushed while escorting a set of very dangerous missiles. They are saved by a group of highly trained military specialists called G.I. Joe, led by Heavy Duty Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje), Scarlett (Rachel Nichols), Snake Eyes (Ray Park), and General Hawk (Dennis Quaid). The bad guys, on the other hand, are led by the Baroness (Sienna Miller), McCullen (Christopher Eccleston), Storm Shadow (Byun-hun Lee), and the mysterious Doctor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and the two engage in fierce battles with lots of explosions. Really that's all there is. Not much happens as most of the movie focuses on an outstanding number of flashbacks focusing on most of the characters' back stories. The battles are pretty entertaining, and focuses a lot on the technological aspects of the weapons, aside from the ninja fighting styles of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow (which leads to a somewhat thrilling, if not, anti-climactic fight scene). However, this is pretty much the type of movie that would be considered a good Michael Bay flick. Director Stephen Sommers (The Mummy, Van Helsing) isn't really known for these types of movies, but still manages to pull off something that classifies as "big, dumb fun". Really, nothing wrong with it, but it is better at being that than Bay's own "Transformers" sequel, even if it does run a bit long (just a bit under two hours). I will say, if you liked "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen", you should like this one, and maybe even like this one better. |
August 9, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Coraline - PG | Add a review (optional)... | August 7, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Messengers 2: The Scarecrow - R | August 7, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Sherlock Holmes - PG-13 | August 3, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Postal - R |
The current king of bad filmmaking returns with yet another videogame adaption. This time its "Postal", based on a video game series with the same name, where an unnamed young man (played by Zack Ward), puts up with a number of horrible things, such as his wife cheating on him, being verbally assaulted by people on the street, dealing with a number of random shoot outs that for some reason pop up for no real reason, makes up a get rich scheme that involves robbing a German themed amusement park for a toy that is supposedly worth thousands. And for some reason, the Taliban is there, too.
Really, there is no real plot to this. The movie probably managed a chuckle from me, but I spent the majority of the film with my head buried in the couch wishing for it to end. The comedy mostly comes from an overdose of gratuitous violence, where they show a number of people, usually bystanders, getting shot. One shoot out, that takes place in the German theme park is essentially nothing but little kids getting shot. I guess there had to be a reason for that scene. Besides all that, there appears to be a bit about Boll trying to inject a bit of topical humor in it as well, where he shows Osama bin Ladin palling around with then-president Bush, as being co-conspirators, and at the end of the movie, shows Osama and Bush, skipping, hand-in-hand into a mushroom cloud in a ham-fisted attempt at either art or controversy. Perhaps the only thing I did like about the film is Uwe Boll's self realization that he is generally not very well liked. He is portrayed by himself as wearing lederhosen, claiming he is financed by nazi gold, attacked by the lead designer of the game "Postal", before getting shot in the balls and dying. Overall, Boll has made yet another bad movie. Not as bad as, say, Alone in the Dark, but is not better than Bloodrayne, which is still a terrible movie. I have to give it to Boll, he has made some films which has actually been painful. I think a little bit of me dies when I see them. |
August 2, 2009 | N/A | |||
| St. Trinian's - PG-13 | August 2, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II - Unrated | August 2, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - Unrated | August 2, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Alice in Wonderland - Unrated | August 2, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Little Fockers - Unrated | August 2, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Wolfman - R | August 2, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| The Road - R | August 2, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Where the Wild Things Are - PG | August 2, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| New York, I Love You - R | August 2, 2009 | N/A | ||||
| Shutter Island - Unrated | August 2, 2009 | N/A |
1617 ratings
153 reviews
