I_can_get_you_a_toe Reviews

Children of the Corn: The Gathering (1996 Video)

But It Was All A Dream.....

[5/10 · 11 May 2011]

The movie starts off with a dream sequence. And get used to it – because this will be the 1st of at least 183 dream sequences this movie has.

Unfortunately my beloved Gatlin is nowhere to be found as they have set this movie in another fictional Nebraska town with rows of cornfields. Not that much time is spent in the corn seeing as everyone is too busy sleeping and having dreams.

A bored young woman named Grace comes home to NOT Gatlin to help take care of her nut bar mother and her much, much younger siblings and to look and seem bored. Soon after the kids get high temperatures and start becoming reincarnations of kids from way back. Or so I assume, it was easy to fade in and out of this movie. Bored Grace teams up with what's his face and they attempt to save the freaking day. Kudos to Grace for still managing to look bored even when faced with dead bodies and mortal peril. It's her thing and she's sticking with it.

One thing I love with the Children of the Corn series is that each movie comes up with completely different explanations for why the kids go crazy and He Who Walks behind the Rows. So far everything from Indian legend to Satan to child abuse and the black arts has been used, with this we have an origin story of a boy preacher in 1800's who was forced to stay young otherwise Coca Cola would take away his sponsorship. Faced with this horrifying aspect he turned eeeeeeevil and......*YAWWWWWN* I'm over it.

After a few more dream sequences and a few scenes of Grace turning up and looking bored, the movie thankfully ends; I didn't even have a favourite death. That makes me sad. I'm going to have to go watch Friday the 13th part 8 – Jason Takes Manhattan to make myself feel better.

Oh yea and Grace's sister turns out to be her daughter. Trust me, that's not a spoiler anyone could see that 'plot twist' coming from the get go. Just because it's a horror movie sequel doesn't mean that slack lazy writing needs to be the order of the day movie people.

Next up: Children of the Corn 5 – Sex and the Corn

A Return to Salem's Lot (1987)

Ugly Vampires

[2/10 · 11 May 2011]

A smart mouth kid and his absent a-hole father reunite and head to Salem's lot to reconnect, only to find that the entire town is filled with and controlled by vampires.

And oh dear lord this movie is bad.

The main protagonist is an anthropologist who likes. To.......talk. like this.....and........take. random. Pauses..................while talking.

Whereas his son smokes cigarettes, uses profanity and wears suspenders and pretty much tries to mimic Gordon Gecko except he's like 12 years old. And it's painful to watch.

Once in Salems' lot they are introduced to the local Vampires, by way of a young girl who shrieks and honks her way through her lines and thankfully gets her blood drained.

The father's outrage and horror at witnessing this lasts oh about 0.2456 seconds before he jumps into bed with a vampire girl he had a crush on when he was younger and subsequently knocks her up. Because dead girls can get pregnant apparently. And eat garlic and have reflections.

It seems the vampires want him to write a history / bible of their way of life – mainly living off the blood of cows and on special occasions feasting on humans. And his son decides to also become a vampire. But they meet this old man who wants to help them fight against the...........

Then I zoned out for about half an hour and just didn't have it in me to rewind and re-watch what I missed. I really don't think it was anything remotely resembling intelligent story telling so I'm okay with that.

In the end, Bad acting, cheapo effects, shonky music and a really stupid story are pretty much all that can be summed up from this movie.

And Tara Reid is in this. She must be so proud.

Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)

Fun For the Whole Family!

[5/10 · 11 May 2011]

The movie opens in Gatlin. Hello Gatlin! It's nice to see you again. Oh, hi corn! Glad you're here too.

A man comes out of a trailer, drunk and holding a scythe and starts chasing his son through the corn – for what I can only assume is to chop him up into little pieces and then eat them, or maybe sell them for money. I don't know. Son runs to his little brother who's half his size and gets him to deal with it.

This is how we are introduced to the hammy acting skills of Eli and his brother Joshua. Two brothers, who like all kids of Gatlin – kill their father. Thus sending Eli and Joshua to Da Hood.

They move in with their foster parents, Eli bringing corn with him – and it's all magic corn that kills people.

Eli and Joshua attend school and find themselves starting to grow apart, they're still sharing a bed mind you, and as Joshua proves himself on the Basketball court (where EVERYTHING counts) and makes new friends. Eli gets angry at his brother asking why he's not with him anymore and that he loves him so much and needs to be with him all the time and to never ever leave him. Well he doesn't exactly say that – but his eyes told me that's what he was feeling.

So apparently Eli is all evil and I think the movie was trying to push across that he was the devil? They really need to stop coming up with convoluted and over-reaching explanations when crazy religious kids who worship some corn demon works just fine.

My favourite death was of the foster mother, who tripped over a pole and impaled her skull with a piece of pipe. Awesome. The ick factor goes up slightly when you think that one of her last memories on earth were of her super young foster son tonguing her ear. Nice.

As Eli starts to convert the city kids to his cracked way of thinking and to start killing off their parents – Joshua heads back to Gatlin (Yay! Gatlin) which must be just around the corner from Chicago, to save the freaking day.

While no where near as crappy as Children of the Corn 2: Final Sacrifice, this only rates slightly above in terms of inventive deaths and gore. And really, set in the city? It's about CORN movie people; a 3 row corn 'field' at the back of an abandoned warehouse is not creepy at all. It's weird.

Charlize Theron is an extra in this movie. She must be so proud.

Next up, Children of the Corn 4: Space Corn.

Infection (2005)

What did I do to deserve this

[2/10 · 15 March 2011]

'What did I do to deserve this?' the lead actress wails and I can't help but wail that question alongside with her.

This movie was told through the perspective of a dashboard mounted camera in a police car, so if watching the view of headlights illuminating a dirt road in the middle of the forest for over an hour is your idea of entertainment, then this is the movie for you! The basic idea of this 'film' is sound, meteorites fall to the earth in a small town and one by one the residents are infected with some kind of alien slug thing deposited in the ear. However, you see none of this. What you do see is headlight illuminated grass with low rent sound effects playing in the background to give the illusion that something intense is going on.

I kept waiting for something to happen, and when nothing happened I kept waiting for someone to bludgeon me over the head for being so stupid as to continue watching this tripe.

If this quantifies as a film, then next time I'm stuck in motorway traffic and not moving for over an hour, I'll just film it and lay a soundtrack of machine gun fire and helicopters over the top and call myself a filmmaker.

Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992)

A Disney Classic!

[5/10 · 9 August 2010]

This movie doesn't quite have the awesome start the first one did – but I'll take a few decomposing Gatlin residents over nothing.

It's the aftermath of the downfall of the creepy munchkin Isaac, the Ginger Ninja Malachi, and He Who Walks Behind the Rows. And reporters and residents from Hemingford the neighbouring town have descended upon Gatlin, with the surviving Gatlin kids being farmed off to new families so the carnage can start again.

Coming to join the corn party is a teenage boy with a horrible haircut, Danny, his daddy issues and his daddy. They stay with 'attractive hostess with no real story' who has taken in a Gatlin kid called Micah, who also has daddy issues, so of course a friendship springs up between Danny and Micah that eventually leads to sacrificing people, as is the natural course of things.

Nothing much really happens after that. The Gatlin kids shuffle around town in a group staring at stuff. I've decided that Micah is the best starer – he really tries at it. And blah blah blah – people start dying. I'm bored already.

My favourite death (so few times you get to start a sentence that way) would be the old lady under the house, with all her howling and honking and crappy acting I was hoping one of the five year olds would just run up and start kicking her in the stomach – alas not to be, but she was crushed and the kids stood in their group and stared. Followed closely by the man who just started haemorrhaging blood all over the church. (Micah did some of his best staring in this scene – watch out for it) During this time, Danny has found love with a pretty young girl called Needy McNeederson. His daddy starts making sweet sweet love to 'attractive hostess with no real story' and there's some weird back story stuff thrown in about the corn and poisons and old Indian legends etched into rocks. None of it really makes any sense – doesn't fit in with the story in any way but it is told by a wise old American Indian man – so that lends some serious weight to what is being said.

It all ends where it should – in the corn. Attempted sacrifices are abound, professions of love and apologies are made. Micah's yelling all over the place and doesn't seem to be staring as much which makes me sad. He Who Walks Behind the Rows turns up briefly and does his thing. It's just another day with the Children of the Corn.

All in all, a pretty crappy sequel – but if you watch one, you gotta watch em all. Next up; Children of the Corn 3 –Gangsta Corn.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)

What a Marshmallow

[7/10 · 19 November 2009]

I was dragged to see this with my younger sister, even after telling her in no uncertain terms there was 'No way in hell I was going to see that stupid sparkly vampire movie' I had seen the first movie - found it okay if a bit ridiculous.

New Moon definitely has a different look and feel to the series. From the music to camera angles - it's comes off as very polished. I personally preferred the grittier low budget feel of the first movie but with the CGI involved with this one they wouldn't be able get away with it.

Some of the dialouge is horrendous. The classroom scene where Edward talks about suicide and Romeo and Juliet made me feel like gagging. But Robert Pattinson's slow motion walk through the parking lot kinda sorta made up for that.

Kristen Stewarts acting has gotten better. I'm not saying she's good - but she's definitely improved. That is, until the scene when Edward is fighting one of the Volturi and her horrible scream 'NOOOO!!!!' left me embarrassed and ashamed for her as a person.

Eye candy is aplenty, I wasn't the only one in the theatre that softly sighed when we're introduced to the shirtless wolf pack.

There were quite a few unintentionally funny moments - where the director seemed to be painfully striving for seriousness. One memorable scene was when Bella gets a tiny cut on her head and Jacob whips off his shirt. Really? the whole shirt for a cut the size of a small pea? couldn't just dab it with the bottom of the shirt? Ugh and the slow motion running Edward and Bella do *cringe* - when you see it you'll understand. And Jasper's hair, something was going on there - looked like a dead cat flopping around up there.

I didn't like the music, but that could just be me - my sister enjoyed it. I felt that the use of 'slow mo' was used abit too much.

I did however, love, love, love the Volturi - so freaking cool. And a great montage scene leading up to Bella jumping off the cliff. And did I mention the wolf pack? Sigh.

All in all a pretty decent movie for what it is. I was told by my sister that it was extremely faithful to the book. She also noted that movie Jacob is ten times better than book Jacob who comes off as whiney apparently.

Center Stage: Turn It Up (2008)

She's breaking all the rules....

[1/10 · 20 May 2009]

I went into this movie with some very low expectations and was not disappointed.

Kate is a rebel ballerina, who eats chocolate and drinks beer, and who is pursuing her dream of dancing for one of the best Ballet Academies in the world - even though she's never had, you know, any kind of training. 'She has such passion' Why? because she smiled once during the audition? Yep, that's some hardcore passion right there.

The acting, or whatever the hell it was those people were doing, was absolutely atrocious. Probably some of the worst acting I've seen in awhile and I watch porn. Some white gay ballerina dude walking around saying 'Sick', 'Dope', 'Banging'. bleugh.

This movie was choc full of horribly contrived moments. What kind of club owner hires a girl as a waitress because she moves her ass in time with the music? How is it OK for her 10 year old sister to just get on a bus and travel to New York? It's all very stupid.

But not as stupid as the cringe-worthy 'dance' by the water fountain. It was the most horrible horrible thing I had ever seen, I prayed to the gods to strike me blind so as to never see that terrible thing again.

It's best altogether to stay as far away from this crap as possible.

Going Greek (2001)

For some strange reason....I liked it.

[6/10 · 7 May 2006]

I went into this movie with some really loooow expectations, but the cast, Dylan Bruno, Oliver Hudson, Susan Ward and more actors whose faces i recognize convinced me to hire this out.

And for some strange reason...i liked it.

Jake is a failed football star who decides to help his geeky cousin get into a fraternity, and while this movie doesn't really teach us anything that we all haven't seen before, i have to say that it is the first time i have ever seen a 'Soggy Biscuit' as we call it in New Zealand, portrayed on screen.

Yes its stupid and immature - but i somehow get the feeling this was exactly what the filmmakers were striving for. Great acting, great cast and a sweet underlying message about friendship make this movie watchable at least.

My only complaints are firstly the tag line on the cover 'Animal House meets American Pie' Animal House is a classic and i don't think this movie will ever come close to the cult status Animal House enjoys. And secondly the lighting in this movie was grainy and horrendous, when i first started watching it my first thought was that i was watching a pirate copy and as the film went along i started thinking that maybe they were using hand held cameras from 1995.

But all in all, a decent movie to watch if you have the time.

Sleepover (2004)

Oh My God...

[1/10 · 26 April 2006]

I was recently sick with the flu and unable to move from the bed and because the movie channel repeats movies a certain amount of times in a twenty four hour period I ended up watching this movie 3 times.

It was the worst day of my entire life. If you wanted you could fashion a drinking game out of this movie - take a shot for every teen cliché they try to throw in (it comes to about 1 a minute)There were times when i had to literally squeeze my eyes shut to block out the all the stupidness.

Julie Corky is a fourteen year old girl who is 'blossoming' who complains about how awful her life and parents are because they wont give her a lock for her door, but they will provide her with a big ass house and trips to Hawaii - they're monsters i know. She decides to have a sleepover inviting 3 friends over, the redhead, the blonde and the fat chick thrown in to somehow give confidence to all the other fat chicks out there that they can get guys too, albeit chubby ugly guys while the skinny girls get the male models.

The next minute the popular girl (who wont hook up with her high school aged boyfriend - i thought the whole point to having a boyfriend was so you could hook up with him but whatever) is organising a scavenger hunt and as you can imagine, hijinks ensue.

Well the acting was completely awful, mika boreem who usually does so well is so completely wooden in this movie, Alexa Vega is only mildly attractive and unbelievable in the role of Julie Corky, the underage girl who manages to get the hottest senior in high school (and maybe the world) to like her after skateboarding past him in an unflattering semi squat position. The three skater dudes who so obviously have no idea what acting is, every time they are on screen you experience physical pain at having to watch them try to be funny.

After the scavenger hunt they all end up at the high school dance where Julie tries to inspire the girl taking the tickets to let her in by utterly insulting her - let me paraphrase "I know you, you're the loser who has to sit at the dumpster and no one talks to you cos you're so plain and you're the ticket taker at the dance because no one in their right mind would ever consider being with you. ever and if you don't help me i could end up just. like. you"

However this film had only one true intentionally funny part, when the jerk-for-even-thinking-of-kissing-his-girlfriend high school boyfriend and his new girlfriend are trying to win the dance contest, their slow jerky dance movements were the only bright spot in an otherwise idiotic film.

So potential viewers, stay away for the love of god stay away.

Tristan + Isolde (2006)

Not Bad.....But not good

[15 March 2006]

Tristan + Isolde is a movie about two lovers whose love ruined a kingdom. I went into this movie with quite high expectations, Historical setting, James Franco, battle scenes, young beautiful people in love - and while this movie did have all those things for some reason they just didn't seem to come together right.

The dialogue between Tristan & Isolde was either too flowery or too abrupt, the only time the actors seemed to connect was when they were kissing and to me i was quite mystified as to when they actually had fallen in love, which is always an annoyance in romance movies. And while the acting was very good, (kudos to James Franco for mastering the British accent beautifully) I was put off by the fact that Tristan spent half the movie crying - not the best image for a hero, and Sophia Myles faux Irish accent became too much to bear after awhile that you just wanted her to ditch it.

Unnecessary sweeping camera shots, awkward angles and some very unflattering shots of the actors, for example: there is a moment in the sea just after Isolde has sent Tristan back to Britain and she turns around just as a wave hits her - the corresponding look on her face made me wonder if this was an outtake accidentally left in, all conspired to bring this movie down, when it could have been an epic love story.

Even the ending didn't bring any kind of emotional response (and i cry during The O.C.)And the child actors leave much to be desired because unfortunately Dakota Fanning has set the bar too high.

However there are bright spots, Henry Cavill was good, Rufus Sewell was perfect - so perfect in fact that i was rooting for him to have Isolde over Tristan.

All in all i wish i had waited until this came out of DVD instead of forking out money to sit in an empty movie theatre with one other person who kept sniffing.

The Blues Brothers (1980)

Country 'and' Western

[21 February 2006]

I saw this movie for the first time recently after having no desire whatsoever to see it, but after the T.V remote broke and my T.V being a whopping 3 meters away i had no choice but to sweat it out and watch it.

I have to say i was pleasantly surprised, starting with the opening dialog of monosyllables between Jake (the wonderful Belushi) and Elwood (a surprisingly young and slightly sexy Dan Akroyd)to Jake getting hit with a stick by a nun because he swears and then it turning into a beating for both Jake and Elwood because each time the nun hits them they yell 'jesus' or 'christ', to Carrie fisher randomly turning up and pointing a rocket launcher out of her car window. I couldn't stop giggling.

However there were parts in the movie where i tended to lose focus, where it seemed to get a bit over the top - like when ray Charles is playing piano in the music store and 50 people start synchronized dancing outside the store. or the too long car chase in the mall, don't get me wrong, i love me a good mall car chase - just not one that seems to last 25 minutes. and i wasn't a big fan of the Aretha Franklin music number in the diner - at the time of watching i had no idea what Aretha looked like and as i was watching i couldn't help but note that the women singing was doing a bad lip syncing impersonation of Aretha - only to find out - it was Aretha franklin.

but for those small pitfalls - the acting and gags couldn't be better - i couldn't imaging anyone else as Jake or Elwood and there are too many good scenes to name but here are a few, in the restaurant scene (one of my favorites where Jake offers to buy the little girl ' how much for the little girl, i want to buy the little girl' classic), when the blues brothers are singing rawhide, the Nazis in the car ' I've always loved you', the end scenes where it seems all of Chicago are after Jake and Elwood and they just stand in the elevator calm as you please.

All in all you know its a good movie when you continually remember little bits here and there and they make you laugh - which this movie does. i know that from now on all costume parties i attend will be as one of the blues brothers.

Its also a movie that will make you wonder, i know it made me wonder... 'was that really Steven Spielberg at the end or was i just imagining it?' Enjoy

A Tale of Two Bunnies (2000 TV Movie)

Gee Whiz

[7/10 · 25 July 2005]

I was channel surfing one Sunday afternoon when i came across this movie and couldn't bring myself to stop watching it.

The movie is funny, sweet and the two leading ladies are great in their roles and while there were a few moments in this movie that made me cringe (anytime they showed the lady singing at the club for instance), and a few clichés (the black bunny named Georgia)I found myself getting strangely interested in knowing the dos and dints of being a playboy bunny and how much hard work it takes to wear the black bunny outfit and I liked the fact that this movie doesn't take itself too seriously, its not like it was made to be critically acclaimed.

That the film portrayed the sixties - an era i love, is an added bonus as the music soundtrack is great, i look forward to when they show this movie again.