selfparody Reviews

Transformers (2007)

Do Not Watch This Movie. Please

[5/10 · 6 July 2007]

I'm not a very big Transformers fan: I never owned the toys or watched the show. I did, however, watch the original movie. I greatly prefer campy commercial to this bloated commercial, here is why:

Sam & Company- As with that terrible GODZILLA remake, the producers apparently decided "Well, people came to see Transformers, but we have to tag this half-assed 'nerd fantasy romance' onto it and spend 80% of the movie on the humans." That would be well and good, if the humans were in some way unique or interesting. Instead, we basically get the same crappy types we've seen again and again (young fresh types overcoming authority figures, clueless parents ((think the parents in a very toned down version of American Pie)) and you have the human element. Plus a "soldier with a young daughter back home" subplot that pisses me off in the way only Michael Bay's lowest common denominator tricks can.

Autobots: I know I was supposed to be blown away by the fact Peter Cullen from the cartoon is the voice of Optimus Prime (God knows why that would impress a nonfan: his acting is not good) Well, I would have been fine having freakin' Steve Carell voice the character if he his dialogue was good at all. Instead, he spends half of his lines telling us how great Sam the lovable nerd is, and at least a quarter spouting the dumbest howlers I have ever heard. The other autobots got so little screen time that literally an hour after watching it, I only remember that there is a joke about one of them wizzing on a human as a joke.

Decepticons: Incredibly, they are even less developed than the autobots, barely getting to destroy anything or properly present themselves as a menace. I mean, there's EIGHT of them, and we see humans are able to damage them early on. You honestly get the impression the humans could defeat them without the autobots, even if they do use "the cube" (An idea so patently stupid it makes the cartoon seem like FIGHT CLUB) People complain about how indistinguishable the cartoon characters are? These guys are so close in design that Starscream and Megatron could stand up next to each other in a lineup and you couldn't tell them apart.

John Turtorro: He is in it, he has lines, and a lot of them.

In short, only watch this movie if you have no imagination. Everyone else is advised to just shut their eyes, and imagine what this movie would be like. You will probably dream up something much more watchable, and it will be all yours.

Outside the Knox (2006 Video)

Skip It

[3/10 · 4 November 2006]

It's Knox at his worst: when he just tries to be childish or stupid instead of funny. He tries for some effects that I suppose are supposed to be spoofs on artistic photography (Jason Steele has a long segment in grainy black and white, Robert's scenes outside are silent and blue tinted) but it just isn't entertaining. Still, even if this was any good anyway, Matt's presence in it would be the dead weight to sink the Titanic. Here's a quick opinion note for Benfer: awkward silences or slow segments are only funny when the rest of the story is fast paced (or when there IS a story) otherwise you just have tedium.

This is not is not to say "don't buy" Knox's new DVD. The other special features are good enough (especially the never-before-seen shorts) that it is worth your time. Pity Knox in person never entertains quite as well as when he has to pretend to be a klay character.

Slacker (1990)

Just read the Memorable Quotes

[10/10 · 31 January 2006]

Wow, this should have been better. Based on the scenes where characters say lines that are actually amusing, it's clear Linklater knew what was funny, but he wasted a lot of screen time with droning "philosophers." This movie does give you the drive to get up and go do something with your life so that you don't end up like one of these hippies for the 90s, but isn't good for much aside from that. I definitely do not recommend to film professors that they try to turn anyone on to Indies with this: this gives that breed of film a very bad name. Actually,I must admit that if you turn the commentary track on, this is actually a reasonably entertaining movie.

Martin (1977)

The Best Vampire Movie In Cinema

[9/10 · 10 October 2005]

Wow. It seems here that Romero took a small crew and churned out a great movie. It is just so effortlessly artistic, so simple yet works so well, and even possessing of a few good action pieces.

Martin is a teenager in Pennsylvania who seems slightly out of it as he deals with a modern society. He has been convinced he is a vampire, but clearly isn't, as he has to take blood with razors. His crazed relative, the one who convinced him, offers to cleanse his soul then kill him (a message about outdated religious concepts being forced on youth... no, I'm reading too much into it I must inform you though, that this movie is NOT scary. The scenes where Martin is putting the razor to someone's wrist are unsettling, but you will not be scared.

The movie is sad. Deeply depressing. Somehow despondence and unhappiness seems to be everywhere as Martin walks through town, and the music sounds like a woman crying. In a good way.

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991)

Proof positive that behind-the-scenes documentaries aren't very interesting

[6/10 · 6 October 2005]

APOCALYPSE NOW is my favorite war film that tries to deal only with the combatants. Coppola was one of the best directors of the seventies (though I think Godfather is a bit overrated) That did not convince me this was a good documentary.

There is so much potential here that is wasted. Take the famous helicopter attack, a scene filmed in the middle of an uprising against Marcos. While we do get the humorous scene of FFC complaining about a war taking priority over his movie, the treatment of the rebel situation is painfully slim. Was their uprising justifiable? Was Coppola potentially in the wrong by working with Marcos? What was the end result? That was not dealt with. It's a very suspicious omission, and seeing the whole story would have greatly enhanced the scenes power.

Another part that irritated me was the showing of the deleted scenes (the Bunnies and the French Plantation) These were very justifiably cut scenes which provide nothing but impatience, but they were restored for the REDUX. This convinced me that this is nothing more than a promotional piece.

The Toxic Avenger (1984)

70% great, 30% lame

[7/10 · 4 October 2005]

This movie is exciting. This movie is entertaining. But it is not the classic it is said to be, and it is certainly not Troma's best movie. In fact, it has way too much 80's influence, and not enough of the satirical, meanspirited hilarity of their 90s ventures.

The opening parts in the health club and after with the irritating Melvin Furd(played in an irritating performance by Mark Torgol, who still must have been a real trooper to work under the conditions he had to) aren't that good. But as soon Melvin gets the Toxic Treatment, the action pumps up and things start to work. A few times, the movie seems borderline arty in its color scheme and lighting.

So it's entertaining in it's second 2/3, and pretty creative, but don't buy ALL the hype.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

Unentertaining: does not deserve cult.

[3/10 · 9 September 2005]

This movie desperately wants to be a cult flick: it tries to be unpredictable, strange, and unique. It isn't. It's predictable, uncreative, and annoying.

An object flies near a small town in classic ripped off 50s style. We meet our array of Old Man, Good/Bad Cop, Good Kid Hero/Vaccous Girlfirend, and worst of all, ODIOUS Comic Relief. It all sucks to high heaven, and you're bored before the Klowns show up.

I have read many reviews calling the Klowns Scary. They're not. They're Skary. They never say anything, and have no personality. Maybe if the clown's had some kind of personality, this would have been good, but it's really dull.

After we get the model of a Klown skene established (Klown will show up, do something kind of clowny, and then kill someone) we get that repeated over and over again. Ouch.

This movie, despite what you might hear, was not made for nothing. 2 million dollars is not nothing. That's more than twenty ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES. Think what you will of that movie, but you have to admit it's way more original than this eighties crap.

God Told Me To (1976)

Entertaining, but dated and cheap.

[8/10 · 9 September 2005]

Unless you have very open-minded friends, don't show them this movie.

While the acting is very good in many parts and the story is compelling, this is very much an eighties film. The styles, the look of the film, and especially the portrayals of black people smells of the seventies.

That said, this is way more intriguing than Kevin Smith's DOGMA. It raises some religious questions that you could linger on for some time.

How many exploitation flicks were made with the balance of brains and chutzpah to do that?

Definitely in the B+ category, bordering on A-.

Clerks (1994)

Should have been called POSERS

[1/10 · 20 August 2005]

There are a lot of people in this movie trying desperately to look cool. The main character does several times, Randal does constantly, and Jay and Silent Bob are poster boys for trying to ber cool. And lets not credit how the biggest kiddie superego, Kevin Smith, tries to sell this image of how cool he is. But the fact of the matter is that it all looks really quite foolish: if this movie hadn't been hyped so much, it would be the flick that if Smith showed it to his friends, they'd point and laugh AT it, instead of with it. Nothing here works right. Several attempts at romantic subplots just don't seem convincing because they don't sound real at all. Smith apparently has some philosophy that apparently all women are sluts or sexually maladjusted. The non-story isn't very compelling because Dante and Randal, our resident leads, repeat what has happened over and over and over again, just in case we might have missed the nothing we've been watching. Another way Smith shows arrested development is that, frankly, the guy has some weird animal views: a cat is shown in a litter box for absolutely no reason aside from pleasing the stoners, and a dog is shown drinking from a toilet. This sort of scatology made me want to stop the tape twice, but I was sure with the reputation this has, something "smart" has to happen. I have heard so much about this movie's intelligent dialogue. I'm sorry: I've read wittier stuff in bathroom stalls. It isn't very natural sounding when characters break out in prepared monologues, and how several characters speak exactly the same.

If this is the movie that defined Generation X, Generation X was a joke.

The Groove Tube (1974)

Unfunny material that just won't stop!

[2/10 · 19 August 2005]

After two long, long opening skits, one of which my brother saw the conclusion coming of and the other totally joke free, we start the fast-forward fest that it GROOVE TUBE proper. Naturally, uber-stupid frat boys who still mainline JACKASS or Tom Green will find the idea of fecal matter coming out of the some tube, SEX OLYMPICS(I really don't need to give you details, do I), and a clown who basically does the "not very endearing clown" bit I think I've seen approxiately ninety times now will eat this up like dung beetles: well, more power to you.

I just want to express that, despite what you've heard, this movie was in no way a model for the many infinitely funnier movies like KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE or what not. The skit movie had already been done in AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX, and so on. And done way better.

Wild Man Blues (1997)

Why?

[2/10 · 18 August 2005]

A suspiciously pleasant portrayal is made of Allen in this documentary, which has absolutely nothing to say aside from "Woody Allen can play the clarinet fairly well" and "He also can crack wise." A very select collection of interviews try to establish him as still having a significant fan base, but there's a reason his movies don't do to well these days.

Coming from the extremely skilled and seemingly quite compassionate Oscar-winner Barbara Kopple, maker of such credits to the documentary medium as HARLAN COUNTY U.S.A., this is an extreme disappointment, and I have to wonder how she decided to waste her time on this.

Life Is Beautiful (1997)

Italian Neo-Realism Flipped on it's head...

[2/10 · 15 August 2005]

...And it's skull cracked as it landed. Instead of feeling real in any way, this is the most contrived, artificial thing I've ever seen. Instead of being a powerful portrayal of a problem that touches us all, this is a weak attempt to show people overcoming a threat that is portrayed very badly.

After a somewhat effective opening scene establishing Guido the main character, we start story A. "Guido(who is so poorly portrayed that you will never for a second stop thinking its Roberto Benigni) meets a beautiful woman who has to abort her wedding and go off with him." Forget the fact he is able to meet her only through an extremely belief-straining series of coincidences which really aren't that funny, but the idea that she feels compelled to even cope with, much less love, a guy who flails his arms like he's on fire and speak like a kid on crack to her is impossible to believe.

Story B: the over-hyped holocaust comedy section. People wonder how Guido manages to keep his son in the dark about what's going on around him (which is very questionable in and of itself ethically) The answer is that what happens simply does not reflect the holocaust properly. There isn't the hideous lice problem that existed, offices are left unattended so that Guido can go in them and make a disgustingly sweet moment by playing a record to the camp, piles of dead bodies do not result in the stench simple logic requires they would have, etc.

Forget being indignant, just the irritation was reason enough not to waste your money.

The Five Obstructions (2003)

A warning away from art films

[2/10 · 15 August 2005]

Remake a film several times, with several restrictions (they really aren't obstructions: they seem so minor that they shouldn't stop him from finishing the films) For a director who seems to love the medium as much as Jorgen Leth seems to, it should be interesting to see him go through the progress of overcoming the challenge...

if the film were challenging to make.

The film in question, The Perfect Human, is the sort of art film that has made the word "art" so reviled to audiences. It features a guy doing nothing so interesting as walking on a pure white set, jumping, shaving, etc. as a narrator drones on. It says absolutely nothing. Give anyone a 35 millimeter camera and some money to waste, and I guarantee you they could make this film, shot for shot.

Not to sound like an action movie junkie, but maybe if there was something that happened in this movie that was hard to do, or a story line, it would have met with my approval. But no, we have a remake of absolutely nothing over and over again.

The remakes are, or course, just as shallow and pointless, but, notably, they look great: lots of polish. But it's like polishing a ball of shoe polish: there is no reason to look at it.

Occasionally, unintentional humor surfaces, such as when Lars tells Jorgen to go Bombay, and make it there without letting the surroundings, which are chosen specifically for their awfulness affect the work. In essence, " go make your shallow film surrounded by infinitely more interesting material" and, of course, Jorgen does let a little local flavor in, and this pisses Trier off a little.

Ordinarily, I'd just give this a two or three for being full of itself and pointless, but I'm knocking it down further for one little scene: for no reason, they leave in a moment of Leth and Trier eating caviar with some drink. This, an obvious attempt at trying to show themselves as sophisticated, just rubs in the audience's face "we're so rich that we freely waste money on overpriced crap." It made me think of all the poor, struggling filmmakers who want what would be pocket change for these guys, but no, the rich have to waste it on their own egos.

It was nice to see Leth give a woman in Bombay with a child a few quid. So I'll give it two instead.

Repo Man (1984)

Painful

[2/10 · 10 August 2005]

Emilio Estevez's OTHER bad mid-80's movie (the other being MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE) has no plot that pushes things forward and barely anything interesting happening other than Estevez's "I'm so cool I don't have to do anything interesting" schtick. Harry Dean Stanton tries desperately to be another Cult Movie type father-figure guy, but's he's just not memorable. The movie tries to appeal to teen audiences by making some jabs at suburbia, but the effort is simply too small.

But the real weaknesses are the way the Sci-Fi elements are shown and the main character. I know I'm going to seem like a square for saying this, but there simply is nothing to like about the guy. He acts like some punk, but he himself admits he's a bored suburban kid, he treats his sexual partners like trash, he doesn't do anything to help anyone else. Just a waste of life who oddly gets rewarded at the end, probably to appeal to the worthless sections of teen audiences.

The Sci-Fi bits really just seem tacked on and very weak. It all boils down to a trunk and a rotten flying car! Geez, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had better Sci-Fi.

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Bergman's use of theatricality shoots himself in the foot

[2/10 · 8 August 2005]

What could have been the best movie of the 1950s is mitigated by not sticking with what it did right. Bergman could have documented the effects of the plague on citizenry of Sweden with a harsher, more real tone and had the religious issues be discussed, but instead he reversed that, and a much weaker movie is the result. (The hideous plague is simply not established strongly enough: one corpse, while a nice quick scare, doesn't establish enough since so many other people just seem to go about their business fine, never mind that roughly one fourth of them are supposed to be dying) The extremely moody opening: waves, rocky beaches, barren, a a knight drained of strength sprawled on the beach, a great attention grabber. And then, the appearance of a dark caped, white faced man, and BANG, the movie hits a huge snag.

This death character, which seems to be the most memorable aspect to the movie for most, is a grave blunder. He might resemble some folkish rendition from Swedish tales and icons, but that doesn't make him totally wrongheaded. His face makes him far too human, and too obviously an actor walking around. Concealing his face, if nothing else, until the very end to show that perhaps death is not a thing to fear, works much better, and embarrassingly, the Monty Python Meaning Of Life presents a much more interesting rendition of him, and it's their worst movie. YThis character is also far too clean: death is decay, the rot, often very slow: he shouldn't look like he just took his rob from the store this morning.

Also a great problem is the fact that this totally wipes out any ambiguity: death is revealed to be a force that actually takes you somewhere, hitting the audience on the head that there is some aftrelife, as opposed to just a body that doesn't function and decomposes.

A voice or a similar device would have served such purpose, since it might potentially just be the Knight's own cynicism working against him.

Then the knight and Death begin playing chess. Even if you don't count the fact that Death said five seconds before they start playing that he grants no reprieves, this is a transparent McGovern, just a way for us to know that this movie has a structure and is going somewhere.

More problems spring up as more characters make their way into the movie. There's the Knight's Sancho-type assistant, whose character simply isn't as interesting as Von Sydow. We get a travelling troupe, who are supposedly very important because of their biblical names, but frankly, do little more than stop the movie for a painful, irritating performance which is then paralleled with a bunch of wandering, chanting Christians in a scene so staged and pompous it seems to be begging for you to be glib about it. There's Odious comic relief in the shape of a woodsman and his cheating wife, which just goes to show, as good as Bergman is, the man is not capable of putting comedy on screen.

There is one subplot that struck me as really powerful: the girl said to be a witch who will be executed. Here is more of Bergman showing the skill that he is so famed of: we (well, certainly I) pitied the girl, and the fact the Knight doesn't seem interested in her except as someone to ask questions makes him seem more like a cold, layered human than just a whining agnostic. She is the only one who doom is believably hanging over her head.

If only Bergmna had made more of the movie in this vein....

Squeeze Play (1979)

PORKYS got the fame this deserved

[6/10 · 24 July 2005]

Okay, let me be blunt: about two thirds of this movie just flat out sucks, and many of the ideas in it are done to death. But the things that are funny are work like a charm. It's one of the very few 80s sex comedies that actually snuck a joke or two in that weren't about gay people to go alone with the pale, not very attractive TA. The feminism seems, looking at what Troma did after this, kind of like lip service, but it's still better than most competition.

The plot is a bunch of softball players generally irritate their significant others, and they form a female softball team.

And the music is great.

I Married a Strange Person! (1997)

Dear God, Why?

[2/10 · 13 July 2005]

I couldn't believe Plympton managed to get this mess past the drawing board stage. I admired THE TUNE for it's extremely bizarre but beautiful animation, but here, he throws all taste or thought out the window, and makes what I guess is about fifty percent a spy movie parody that makes AUSTIN POWERS seem high brow, and fifty percent random crap that show how apparently Plympton has not got over a childish glee of drawing naughty bits or internal organs. People in this movie are basically seemingly composed of organs held together by crazy glue, because almost everyone gets mangled in a way that lets the red stuff spill around. But this, initially nauseating for its gore, then becomes nauseating for its boredom and lack of drive. What really irritates me is that, well, there's some good dialogue. Plympton was fully capable of making an infinitely better movie, but got mired in his obsession with trying to gross the audience out.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

Send it back to that mental institution

[3/10 · 28 June 2005]

For most of it's length, this is a magnificently dull film. It has literally nothing to recommend it at first to anyone who actually expects entertainment from it. Jeanne of Arc is a fascinating character, but, frankly, showing a lot of pompous jurors and other court officals asking her questions and her just staring forward like a deer in headlights just doesn't work. It is true that some skill emerges if you wait long enough(The torture device, the revolt) but, frankly, I think it is a big mark against this film that we never see Joan doing any of the things that made her the important figure she is (lifting the siege at Orleans would have been nice, even if just in flashback for a few seconds)An insane person no doubt would be able to stand up to torture if they think they are in the right, so it weakens the image of Jeanne. I am not altogether sure that the revolt at the end was even real, and I am dead sure there are a lot of acronisms in it. That, to me, means the movie is tarnishing Jeanne's name with a propaganda slant.

The Meaning of Life (1983)

The Pythons get too much money: This is the result.

[6/10 · 10 June 2005]

I have to be blunt and say this movie should have been a lot better, every Python seems to agree with that, but I think they are approaching it the wrong way. They have said again and again the thing needed a structure or plot, but with the attitude here, I don't think that would have helped.

This movie is just big and bloated indulgence. From musical numbers with barely a joke (The Christmas in Heaven bit and Dick song, I mean, the other two were done well enough) to looooonnnngggg bits that are sets up to rather small jokes, I got the feeling that Terry Jones just felt he could spend his way out of any problem.

The other two movies strike me as being more inventive and clever, and I have a theory that's because they were made by comparatively young men with so little money they thought with brains instead of checkbooks.

Though I completely love the Short Film, so maybe I don't have a point.

Either way, very uneven. There. A long, boring review and I finally get to the point... Just like this movie.

Suspiria (1977)

Colorful nonsense trying to pass itself off as horror

[3/10 · 7 June 2005]

Boy, what are all these nice reviews about? This is not an effective horror picture. It is a very gimmicky set up: "moron goes to alien place and weird, semi-violent stuff happens." That was done to death by the time HORROR HOTEL came out in the sixties. There's a quote from David Cronenberg's VIDEOROME that certainly applies here: a producer for station watches soft-core porn and says "No, we can't use this: it's too formal. That's bad for sex." It just doesn't work to spend lots of time showing dark shadows, playing creepy music, and basically shouting at the audience: "Hey you, this is going to be scar" The audience just gets bored, and when the scary thing finally happens, usually after a clichéd lull, we feel relieved that we got through that dull as dirt bit. Horror is much more shocking if stuff actually comes from no where, without a bleeding decade of setup (take the scene in THE EXORCIST where the priest just walks in on a desecrated statue, much creepier than the Linda Blair rubbish, or the popping out alien in ALIEN) This movie gets lot of credit for having "brilliant color use." Nonsense: it doesn't take "brilliance" to put gels on lights for a few scenes, or to place neon all over the place. Any disco or porn shop owner could hire a contractor to do that. On a related note, the sets don't add to the horror at all: they just look expensive and tasteless. BOOGIE NIGHTS was scarier in its color scheme than this.

And the murders? You could tell what was going to happen: you knew the main character was going to pull through well enough (so as not to alienate American audiences to this) and you knew the movie wasn't going to spend minutes on a chase with a killer and just let the character go: oh no, you were just shouting "die already" like people do at every slasher flick eventually. (You'll even see the death of the Blind man, the most tasteless and grueling of the deaths in the movie, coming.) Music: kind of creepy the first few minutes. But they played it over, and over, and over again: just irritating.

Streetwise (1984)

You might never want to watch "fiction" again.

[9/10 · 31 May 2005]

This is a depressing record of Seattle which reveals the innaccuracy of many views of street kids. It shows people like Kim, who try to stand up for other kids, despite the fact she barely has her own two feet to stand on. It shows pimps who call themselves "playboys," street performers, people beating each other like mad, and the sort of bonding that would somehow ring false in any work of fiction. I can only imagine how a commentary track on this would be one of the most fascinating listens I've ever had.

Highly recommended, though I'm sure some will view some scenes as having a lot of "kitsch."

Casablanca (1942)

Boy... was I disappointed to the point of mad

[3/10 · 29 May 2005]

This movie, frankly, does not deserve its high ranking.

The plot, such as it is, is that Rick is trying to run a cafe in Casablanca, refugee zone, where Victor Laslo and his spouse Ilsa, a former lover of Rick, show up during World War 2. Victor must get out, but Rick, who has accidentally gotten some papers of transit (which are widely known to be a nonsense concept in reality) Somehow, Victor's got to get those papers, and we're supposed to be entertained by a lot of people just standing around trying to be witty, and often (except Claude Rains a few times) falling flat on their face.

This has got to be the worst possible way to approach a story about World War Two. It's about a LOVE STORy, and, of course, a Hollywood type where affairs are justified so long as the parties are attractive enough. No real explorations into what was going on at the time are made, and frankly, the "All Nazis Are Bad, But We Allies Can't Help But Be Good." stance frankly was old by then: it's TRIUMPH OF THE WILL reversed only not as well made. I mean, yes the Nazi Party was the most blatantly evil in existence (maybe the Japanese one was as bad if you study what happened in China) but that doesn't mean every nazi was ready to shoot at a moment's notice, and not every officer a more arrogant version of Colonel Klink.

Wrapping up: This movie is obsolete trash not worthy of your time.

Persona (1966)

Neat looking but hollow

[6/10 · 6 May 2005]

My take on this film is that Bergman didn't make it: Sven Nyvist did. The story frankly isn't interesting: an actress can't talk, and meets with a boring nurse who won't shut up, and allegedly, they strike up a relationship. Bergman himself said he didn't know what his point was. The good stuff is happening off to the side of that, but is good only if you like looking at footage. A hand being nailed through, the footage of the Buddhist monks in Vietnam burning themselves, etc. Those are the things that you remember, but that's really not much better than the video shown in Ringu in terms of film-making, to be blunt. I have heard some good reviews of that monologue where the nurse talks about her sexual encounter on the beach, but I frankly was saying "they have sex with random guys who walk up to them on the beach? Wow, I'VE got to go to Sweden."

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

A step down from NOTLD but still good

[8/10 · 1 May 2005]

Romero, saddled with a small budget but enough energy and ingenuity to run all of Indie World for a few years follows up the horror of Night of the Living Dead and Martin with an action film that seems to draw quite a bit from THE CRAZIES. Yes, I stand fully behind the idea that, even though there are acres of zombies wandering about, it's more an action film than a horror. There're just too many tussles, shoot outs, gags, and near-misses for it to be anything else.

Which is fine: it's certainly a more interesting action film than the entire Indiana Jones series combined. I would have given it a nine except for one thing: the biker gang. Sure, it was nice to see Tom Savini getting a well-deserved appearance, but really, that gang just completely ruins the segment that they are in, but luckily, Romero gets it back together at the last minute, and overcomes his lapse in judgement.

You probably know the basic story: four people from varying backgrounds get stranded in a mall, and survive for a while.

Chasing Amy (1997)

Kevin Smith meets Woody Allen

[5/10 · 20 April 2005]

This is easily Kevin SMith's most over-hyped film. CLERKS drew much of its quality and fanbase from the sense of identification many viewers had with Dante Hicks and the convenience store job hell anyway. Unfortunately, apparently Smith both bombed with MALLRATS and got called an artist a ton, so he figured "I've got to make a movie about artists!" I never understood the alleged romantic draw of these movies: The Alleged "love stories" of artists differ so greatly from those of anyone who works for a friggin living is so great I can only imagine that people WANT romantic comedies to not reflect reality. This one sure as hell doesn't. Once you get past the gimmick of "He's in love with a lesbian!"(Tee hee, tee hee) You'll probably see that this is not really that new: a relative straight character(Affleck, or Banky Edwards) has to put up with an irritating bastard (Jason Lee) as he looks into his girlfriend's past. Joey Lauren Adams is a mind-bogglingly bad actress: making Jason Mewes look like he kinda knows what he's doing, that's how bad she is. I'll say no more on that. I couldn't have cared less if she ended up with Banky or threw herself onto the train tracks. I will concede that Jason Lee had, by my count, one fairly good sight gag, but it wasn't worth the nearly two hours this thing lasts.

Avoid unless you are an "artist,"