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Posted : 2 years, 6 months ago on 5 July 2022 01:59
(A review of Ghost Rider)This demonic Marvel adaptation is visually groundbreaking, no doubt, but is not an easy ride. Ghost Rider's exaggerated tone and dialogue and hell-driven sequences provides many speed bumps on this less-than-anticipated ride.
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Punishingly Awesome!
Posted : 2 years, 6 months ago on 5 July 2022 01:12
(A review of The Punisher: Dirty Laundry (2012))I happened to stumble across this while checking out the recent stories from Comic Con 12. Wow! Am I glad that I did. This 10 minute short is absolutely superb!
It's dark, gritty, dramatic and has a sense of realism to it that makes it that much more enthralling. I always loved Thomas Jane as the punisher character Frank Castle but felt that the rest of the movie wasn't done as well as it could have been.
This short has the atmospheric tension and drama that the movie was missing, as the street thugs continue to run rampant the suspense and tension continuously builds until it gets to the stage where we know what must be done. Punishment.
Also some of the shots used were just sublime, the slow motion shot of Frank Castle crossing the street while throwing the Jack Daniels bottle in the air is awesome! You forgive the poor blood effects given it was made by Thomas Jane as a fan/tribute video but by god, did they do a fantastic job!
Have to give a nod to the acting in general, Thomas Jane is the punisher and performed greatly as expected but the surprise appearance by Ron Pearlman was terrific and his acting as nothing but a store clerk was amazing and very convincing.
If you are yet to see it, do yourselves a favor and get onto YouTube to watch it! I hope that this ends up being seen by the right people and Thomas Jane gets picked up to reprise his role as the most bad-ass vigilante to grace the silver screen.
"What's the difference between justice and punishment?"
It's dark, gritty, dramatic and has a sense of realism to it that makes it that much more enthralling. I always loved Thomas Jane as the punisher character Frank Castle but felt that the rest of the movie wasn't done as well as it could have been.
This short has the atmospheric tension and drama that the movie was missing, as the street thugs continue to run rampant the suspense and tension continuously builds until it gets to the stage where we know what must be done. Punishment.
Also some of the shots used were just sublime, the slow motion shot of Frank Castle crossing the street while throwing the Jack Daniels bottle in the air is awesome! You forgive the poor blood effects given it was made by Thomas Jane as a fan/tribute video but by god, did they do a fantastic job!
Have to give a nod to the acting in general, Thomas Jane is the punisher and performed greatly as expected but the surprise appearance by Ron Pearlman was terrific and his acting as nothing but a store clerk was amazing and very convincing.
If you are yet to see it, do yourselves a favor and get onto YouTube to watch it! I hope that this ends up being seen by the right people and Thomas Jane gets picked up to reprise his role as the most bad-ass vigilante to grace the silver screen.
"What's the difference between justice and punishment?"
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He's Gonna Take You Back To The Past
Posted : 2 years, 6 months ago on 5 July 2022 08:35
(A review of The Angry Video Game Nerd)Ah yes, what can we say about The Angry Video Game Nerd? Aside from having a nerdy shirt and a pocket pouch, James Rolfe is the star of one of the funniest shows a lot of us has ever seen. Everything about the show is hilarious whether it be the words he makes up to describe how much he hates the games he plays, or to see him take out his rage on the game by destroying it after he is done with it etc. Another reason why the show is so great is because of all the neat special effects that James does, and he does one hell of an awesome job. The theme song is catchy and funny too. I applaud him for all the work he puts into his show to entertain his fans. Great job James, your show is excellent.
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The most visually striking 007 ever made
Posted : 2 years, 6 months ago on 2 July 2022 05:41
(A review of Moonraker)Of all the Bond films, MOONRAKER is, imo, the most visually striking of the entire series. It looks like it cost a billion bucks to make. The sets by Ken Adams are amazing (he should have won an Oscar for them). The locations are stunning. The fx are well made and still hold up today. The women are above average gorgeous (they all look like supermodels before supermodels were in). All of this beautifully filmed by cinematographer Jean Tournier. I love watching MOONRAKER just because it's so damn gorgeous to look at. I don't know how many times I saw it at the movies when it came out just to appreciate the beauty of it all. Unfortunately, we are talking about a James Bond film and of course there has to be the usual formulaic stuff seen in every other James Bond film.
Basically, MOONRAKER is a remake of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. I always preferred MOONRAKER over the schintzy SPY WHO LOVED ME, which was made just before this one. Lewis Gilbert directed those three Bond films and MOONRAKER is his crowning achievement. Personally speaking, Gilbert is a bad director. His films are always bloated and sorta soulless and yet still gorgeous. Aside from his Bond films, he rarely made an impression with his other films. In fact, he's the one who directed THE ADVENTURERS, which is a good looking film but it's really, really awful. I'm glad Gilbert stopped making Bond films. He was always too laid back for action films like this.
There ARE a lot of memorable scenes in MOONRAKER: the entire intro is now a classic and much better than the one in SWLM. Corinne being chased by dogs. The simulator scene. Bond fighting with Chang in Venice. My favorite scene is when Bond and Goodhead are stuck below a shuttle's rockets and are about to be burned alive. A near perfect action moment there. The climax in space is fun if improbable. I love the scene when they have to destroy those globes as they re-enter the atmosphere. Really suspenseful. But as good as those scenes are individually they almost don't register as a whole because the story and direction are so lackadaisical, so relax. It's like everyone was on vacation. There's absolutely no grit to this film. It's really sleek and smooth but nearly bite-less. The whole story seems to be just a preamble to the action set in space.
What really stands out about MOONRAKER are the many long moments with no dialogue. I'd say about 50 to 60% of the film has no dialogue. Just music and sound effects. It's almost a silent film. Moore didn't have a lot of dialogue to remember and this was an easy film to dub.
The story is as easy as connect-the-dots: The British owned Moonraker 5 disappears in mid-air and 007 is sent to California to investigate its disappearance. At the Moonraker plant in California (France really) Bond find blueprints of vials which leads him to Venice, where the vials are fabricated. And from Venice Bond goes to Brazil where the vials, filled with deadly nerve gas, are shipped to the underground layout of Drax (boringly played by the usually reliable Michael Lonsdale. Love the name "Drax" though). Oh and we learn that Drax wants to create a new race of super humans by killing everyone on earth by dropping those nerve gas filled globes from space while Drax and his super humans reside in Drax's space station. I actually like that part of the story and some of the grandeur of it (Drax wanting to be God) is actually achieved with the striking visuals and the amazingly lush score by the brilliant John Barry. Unfortunately, again, this is a James Bond film and thought provoking ideas are set aside for formulaic action.
I wish this wasn't a James Bond film. Take away all the Bond elements, the stupid humor, flesh out the screenplay and this would be a spectacular kick ass science fiction film.
Anyway, back to James Bond.
I really like Lois Chiles as Holly Goodhead. She's my favorite Bond girl ever. Beautiful and sophisticated but tough. She's no bimbo. I remember a lot of my friends in school didn't like her because they thought she was too tough for a babe. I guess Holly Goodhead was Girl Power before Girl Power was in. For me, Chiles epitomizes everything chic and sexy about the late 1970s. She's unforgettable in that black jumpsuit. But the Holly Goodhead role is a really badly written one. She's almost an afterthought to the whole story. They basically needed a character to fly the space shuttle and Bond into space (something 007 obviously couldn't do) and Goodhead was basically that: just a pilot. Then there's Corinne Clery who is truly gorgeous but sadly, again, her role is minimal. Then there's the not so beautiful Jaws. Jaws was so popular in SPY WHO LOVED ME they brought him back here. I don't mind this but they turned him into a good guy and he even falls in love with a ditsy girl. This part of MOONRAKER is *really* bad. Someone should completely edit that storyline out of the movie and its rating would go up exponentially. And like in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, the musical in-jokes were needlessly distracting.
These bad aspects about MOONRAKER are almost negligible though because the film is such a visual (and aural) feast. Whether it's one of the best or worst of the series, I really don't care. I can positively state though that this is THE best looking Bond film ever, with an actually cool science fiction story somewhere in it. I give MOONRAKER 10 stars for the look of it all but 5 stars for the laid back and sometimes silly direction. So an average of 7 stars.
Basically, MOONRAKER is a remake of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. I always preferred MOONRAKER over the schintzy SPY WHO LOVED ME, which was made just before this one. Lewis Gilbert directed those three Bond films and MOONRAKER is his crowning achievement. Personally speaking, Gilbert is a bad director. His films are always bloated and sorta soulless and yet still gorgeous. Aside from his Bond films, he rarely made an impression with his other films. In fact, he's the one who directed THE ADVENTURERS, which is a good looking film but it's really, really awful. I'm glad Gilbert stopped making Bond films. He was always too laid back for action films like this.
There ARE a lot of memorable scenes in MOONRAKER: the entire intro is now a classic and much better than the one in SWLM. Corinne being chased by dogs. The simulator scene. Bond fighting with Chang in Venice. My favorite scene is when Bond and Goodhead are stuck below a shuttle's rockets and are about to be burned alive. A near perfect action moment there. The climax in space is fun if improbable. I love the scene when they have to destroy those globes as they re-enter the atmosphere. Really suspenseful. But as good as those scenes are individually they almost don't register as a whole because the story and direction are so lackadaisical, so relax. It's like everyone was on vacation. There's absolutely no grit to this film. It's really sleek and smooth but nearly bite-less. The whole story seems to be just a preamble to the action set in space.
What really stands out about MOONRAKER are the many long moments with no dialogue. I'd say about 50 to 60% of the film has no dialogue. Just music and sound effects. It's almost a silent film. Moore didn't have a lot of dialogue to remember and this was an easy film to dub.
The story is as easy as connect-the-dots: The British owned Moonraker 5 disappears in mid-air and 007 is sent to California to investigate its disappearance. At the Moonraker plant in California (France really) Bond find blueprints of vials which leads him to Venice, where the vials are fabricated. And from Venice Bond goes to Brazil where the vials, filled with deadly nerve gas, are shipped to the underground layout of Drax (boringly played by the usually reliable Michael Lonsdale. Love the name "Drax" though). Oh and we learn that Drax wants to create a new race of super humans by killing everyone on earth by dropping those nerve gas filled globes from space while Drax and his super humans reside in Drax's space station. I actually like that part of the story and some of the grandeur of it (Drax wanting to be God) is actually achieved with the striking visuals and the amazingly lush score by the brilliant John Barry. Unfortunately, again, this is a James Bond film and thought provoking ideas are set aside for formulaic action.
I wish this wasn't a James Bond film. Take away all the Bond elements, the stupid humor, flesh out the screenplay and this would be a spectacular kick ass science fiction film.
Anyway, back to James Bond.
I really like Lois Chiles as Holly Goodhead. She's my favorite Bond girl ever. Beautiful and sophisticated but tough. She's no bimbo. I remember a lot of my friends in school didn't like her because they thought she was too tough for a babe. I guess Holly Goodhead was Girl Power before Girl Power was in. For me, Chiles epitomizes everything chic and sexy about the late 1970s. She's unforgettable in that black jumpsuit. But the Holly Goodhead role is a really badly written one. She's almost an afterthought to the whole story. They basically needed a character to fly the space shuttle and Bond into space (something 007 obviously couldn't do) and Goodhead was basically that: just a pilot. Then there's Corinne Clery who is truly gorgeous but sadly, again, her role is minimal. Then there's the not so beautiful Jaws. Jaws was so popular in SPY WHO LOVED ME they brought him back here. I don't mind this but they turned him into a good guy and he even falls in love with a ditsy girl. This part of MOONRAKER is *really* bad. Someone should completely edit that storyline out of the movie and its rating would go up exponentially. And like in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, the musical in-jokes were needlessly distracting.
These bad aspects about MOONRAKER are almost negligible though because the film is such a visual (and aural) feast. Whether it's one of the best or worst of the series, I really don't care. I can positively state though that this is THE best looking Bond film ever, with an actually cool science fiction story somewhere in it. I give MOONRAKER 10 stars for the look of it all but 5 stars for the laid back and sometimes silly direction. So an average of 7 stars.
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The second weakest of the Craig Bonds
Posted : 2 years, 6 months ago on 2 July 2022 04:26
(A review of Spectre)Although 'Casino Royale' is often considered the best Daniel Craig Bond film, my personal favourite is actually 'Skyfall'. That said, 'Casino Royale', after liking it well enough, fared much better on re-watch. 'Quantum of Solace' however was a major disappointment, and for me deserves its distinction as one of the worst of the series.
While the James Bond series has had its highs and lows, most of the films have been very enjoyable. At least three or four of Sean Connery's Bond films are among the best of the series (my personal favourite of the lot being 'Goldfinger'), with the only big misfire being 'Diamonds are Forever', despite one of the series' greatest theme songs. 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' is also very good'. Roger Moore's films are mostly entertaining enough, though for me the only great one was 'The Spy Who Loved Me', with 'A View to a Kill' and 'Octopussy' (an unpopular opinion though) being two of the series' weakest. Wasn't crazy about Timothy Dalton's two entries, 'The Living Daylights' is the better of the two but is only decent. Pierce Brosnan's are not very popular with some Bond fans, for this viewer they're not bad; loved 'Goldeneye' and 'The World is Not Enough', liked 'Tomorrow Never Dies' and while 'Die Another Day' has enormous problems (especially Madonna's theme song being in the top 5 worst Bond themes, some cringe-worthy puns, over-silliness in the second half and an overload of CGI that was also pretty awful), I don't consider it that irredeemably bad, because it started off strongly and most of the performances were good, especially from Brosnan, Dench, Youn, Cleese and Pike, the only real sore spot being Madonna's cameo.
Starting with what is good about 'Spectre' it is mostly very stylishly made with great use of atmospheric and beautiful locations. Some of the action sequences are exciting, particularly the train sequence and the supercar chase through Rome. The Mexico City pre-credits sequence is also pretty epic. Sam Mendes' direction has its moments, with evidence of style, elegance and thrills. There are also some good performances. Daniel Craig is as charismatic and debonair as ever, handling the dramatic and action moments well, though there was a slight sense of him starting to get bored of the role (nowhere near as bad as Connery in 'Diamonds are Forever' though). Christoph Waltz is very good- if also rather underused- as the main villain, a role that suits him to the ground, playing him with smarmy, sinister relish. Ralph Fiennes is enjoyably starchy, David Bautista conveys some menace as assassin Hinx and Ben Whishaw brings genuine spark to Q.
However, for me, and other viewers too, 'Spectre' does suffer from some major problems. It particularly suffers from a confused tone, with a mix of violent action, humour with in the in-jokes and spy clichés, thriller and romance. While there are moments like some fun to spot references, neither component come off consistently or even that successfully. A good deal of the action is overblown and cartoonish rather than exciting (only the Rome chase and train sequence are memorable), with some the violence gratuitous. The humour is misplaced and border on parody that would have been more at home in something like 'Austin Powers'. The thriller elements do lack suspense and tension, due to parts that feel too recycled which gave it a real over-familiarity. Lastly, the romance is not interesting or developed at all, and has no natural or obvious chemistry.
Léa Seydoux is a rather vapid Bond girl with very little to her, while Monica Bellucci is pretty much wasted in a too-brief appearance. Hinx is for personal tastes rather underwritten, but David Bautista does do what he can and as said conveys some menace. Andrew Scott's C is an obnoxious character and played every bit as obnoxiously. The film is far too long by half an hour, drags in the second half, ends ridiculously and anti-climactically and contains a muddled script with clumsy over-congratulatory in-jokes and hackneyed, dreary dialogue and feels very overblown in places. Mendes shows a gift for visual style and drama but forgets the suspense and tension unfortunately, while the editing (though not as bad as 'Quantum of Solace') is enough to make one confused and seasick. Thomas Newman's score is somewhat repetitive, and Sam Smith's theme song- like most- did absolutely nothing for me and one of the most undeserved Oscar wins in recent years, for me it is certainly the most undeserved in the category that there's been too and one of my least favourite Bond themes. It's ballad-like feel is at odds with the style of the rest of the film and feels like there are more than one climax that never happens when it's meant to. Smith's singing does not fit the song either, it's a song that sounds like it requires a more powerful voice and more emotional connection, the falsetto (a sound and technique that in all honesty I've never liked) was completely out of place as well and made Smith sound like a wimp.
All in all, not as awful as it has been made out, and it is a better film than 'Quantum of Solace' but disappointing (especially with 'Skyfall' having been so good) and Craig's second weakest Bond. 5/10 Bethany Cox
While the James Bond series has had its highs and lows, most of the films have been very enjoyable. At least three or four of Sean Connery's Bond films are among the best of the series (my personal favourite of the lot being 'Goldfinger'), with the only big misfire being 'Diamonds are Forever', despite one of the series' greatest theme songs. 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' is also very good'. Roger Moore's films are mostly entertaining enough, though for me the only great one was 'The Spy Who Loved Me', with 'A View to a Kill' and 'Octopussy' (an unpopular opinion though) being two of the series' weakest. Wasn't crazy about Timothy Dalton's two entries, 'The Living Daylights' is the better of the two but is only decent. Pierce Brosnan's are not very popular with some Bond fans, for this viewer they're not bad; loved 'Goldeneye' and 'The World is Not Enough', liked 'Tomorrow Never Dies' and while 'Die Another Day' has enormous problems (especially Madonna's theme song being in the top 5 worst Bond themes, some cringe-worthy puns, over-silliness in the second half and an overload of CGI that was also pretty awful), I don't consider it that irredeemably bad, because it started off strongly and most of the performances were good, especially from Brosnan, Dench, Youn, Cleese and Pike, the only real sore spot being Madonna's cameo.
Starting with what is good about 'Spectre' it is mostly very stylishly made with great use of atmospheric and beautiful locations. Some of the action sequences are exciting, particularly the train sequence and the supercar chase through Rome. The Mexico City pre-credits sequence is also pretty epic. Sam Mendes' direction has its moments, with evidence of style, elegance and thrills. There are also some good performances. Daniel Craig is as charismatic and debonair as ever, handling the dramatic and action moments well, though there was a slight sense of him starting to get bored of the role (nowhere near as bad as Connery in 'Diamonds are Forever' though). Christoph Waltz is very good- if also rather underused- as the main villain, a role that suits him to the ground, playing him with smarmy, sinister relish. Ralph Fiennes is enjoyably starchy, David Bautista conveys some menace as assassin Hinx and Ben Whishaw brings genuine spark to Q.
However, for me, and other viewers too, 'Spectre' does suffer from some major problems. It particularly suffers from a confused tone, with a mix of violent action, humour with in the in-jokes and spy clichés, thriller and romance. While there are moments like some fun to spot references, neither component come off consistently or even that successfully. A good deal of the action is overblown and cartoonish rather than exciting (only the Rome chase and train sequence are memorable), with some the violence gratuitous. The humour is misplaced and border on parody that would have been more at home in something like 'Austin Powers'. The thriller elements do lack suspense and tension, due to parts that feel too recycled which gave it a real over-familiarity. Lastly, the romance is not interesting or developed at all, and has no natural or obvious chemistry.
Léa Seydoux is a rather vapid Bond girl with very little to her, while Monica Bellucci is pretty much wasted in a too-brief appearance. Hinx is for personal tastes rather underwritten, but David Bautista does do what he can and as said conveys some menace. Andrew Scott's C is an obnoxious character and played every bit as obnoxiously. The film is far too long by half an hour, drags in the second half, ends ridiculously and anti-climactically and contains a muddled script with clumsy over-congratulatory in-jokes and hackneyed, dreary dialogue and feels very overblown in places. Mendes shows a gift for visual style and drama but forgets the suspense and tension unfortunately, while the editing (though not as bad as 'Quantum of Solace') is enough to make one confused and seasick. Thomas Newman's score is somewhat repetitive, and Sam Smith's theme song- like most- did absolutely nothing for me and one of the most undeserved Oscar wins in recent years, for me it is certainly the most undeserved in the category that there's been too and one of my least favourite Bond themes. It's ballad-like feel is at odds with the style of the rest of the film and feels like there are more than one climax that never happens when it's meant to. Smith's singing does not fit the song either, it's a song that sounds like it requires a more powerful voice and more emotional connection, the falsetto (a sound and technique that in all honesty I've never liked) was completely out of place as well and made Smith sound like a wimp.
All in all, not as awful as it has been made out, and it is a better film than 'Quantum of Solace' but disappointing (especially with 'Skyfall' having been so good) and Craig's second weakest Bond. 5/10 Bethany Cox
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91. Inigo Montoya
Posted : 2 years, 6 months ago on 27 June 2022 08:13
(A review of Inigo Montoya)Appearance: [Link removed - login to see] (1987)
Creator: William Goldman
Performer: Mandy Patinkin
Defining moment: “I want my father back, you son of a bitch!” Inigo’s moment of revenge is perfection.
Fascinating fact: Patinkin bruised a rib trying not to laugh at Billy Crystal’s Miracle Max.
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92. Inspector Clouseau
Posted : 2 years, 6 months ago on 27 June 2022 08:12
(A review of Inspector Jacques Clouseau)Appearance: [Link removed - login to see] films (1963-2009)
Creator: Blake Edwards, Maurice Richlin
Performer: Peter Sellers, Alan Arkin, Steve Martin
Defining moment: “I suspect everyone and I suspect no-one!”
Fascinating fact: Sellers and Edwards announced that they could never work with each other again after A Shot In The Dark opening the way for Alan Arkin to play the role.
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93. Wednesday Addams
Posted : 2 years, 6 months ago on 27 June 2022 08:10
(A review of Wednesday Addams (Christina Ricci))Appearance: [Link removed - login to see] films (1991-1993)
Creator: Charles Addams
Performer: Christina Ricci
Defining moment: At a costume party as herself — “I am a homicidal maniac. They look just like everyone else.”
Fascinating fact: The character takes her name from a line in a Mother Goose nursery rhyme: "Wednesday's child is full of woe."
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94. Legolas
Posted : 2 years, 6 months ago on 27 June 2022 08:08
(A review of Legolas)Appearance: [Link removed - login to see] and [Link removed - login to see] trilogies (2001-2014)
Creator: J. R. R. Tolkien
Performer: Orlando Bloom
Defining moment: With the rest of the Fellowship bogged down in a snowdrift, Legolas walks across, not leaving a mark.
Fascinating fact: Among his myriad talents, Legolas can talk to stones. A passage in Fellowship Of The Ring sees the nimble elf listening to the lament of grieving rocks. A useful skill if ever there were one.
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95. Maximus
Posted : 2 years, 6 months ago on 27 June 2022 08:07
(A review of Maximus Decimus Meridius)Appearance: [Link removed - login to see] (2000)
Creator: David Franzoni, John Logan, William Nicholson
Performer: Russell Crowe
Defining moment: Rousing the troops with his immortal line, “What we do in life, echoes in eternity!”
Fascinating fact: Original choice Mel Gibson pronounced himself too old, opening the way for Russell Crowe and establishing his and Ridley Scott’s legendary collaboration.
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