An action fantasy directed by Rob Bowman, starring Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey.A boy visits his mother in the mine where she works when a drilling team hits a cavern. Dragons come out of the cavern and attack the city. Years later, the boy has grown up and is in charge of a fortress full of people, trying to survive in a land ruled by dragons. A group of dragon hunters show up and they work together to fight the dragons.What we've got here is a mediocre film with really cool CG dragons. The plot and characters are relatively shallow and the style leaves much to be desired, but damn are those dragons cool. I'm instituting a new rule that should have been old by now. I call it the "CG monster rule" and it raises the rating by one increment when the CG monsters are worth watching. Hence, I rate this adequate via the "CG monster rule".
A South Korean crime mystery directed by Park Chan-wook.A man is imprisoned for 15 years without knowing why. When he is released, he finds himself in a tangled web of conspiracy and violence.Let's talk about murky plots! I know the main character is supposed to be confused by the situation, but is the viewer to suffer this same condition? The characters were not very identifiable, as one Korean in a business suit looks much like another to me. Obviously the plot and characters don't get rated very well. The style was alright and the production value was good. However, I don't see what good that does for the film in this case. One of the redeeming factors was the creative violence. The main character rips some guys' teeth out with a claw hammer and ends up cutting his own tongue off with scissors. Pretty brutal! I'm rating it poor for murkiness of plot.
A comedy by Gregg Araki.A girl eats a whole plate of cannabis cupcakes on a day when she has lots of things to do. Nothing works out the way she planned and she ends up getting in trouble.For me to think that a comedy is funny is really something special. I liked the first half of the film and got the humor, but the end wasn't to my liking.Of course it was "new movie too perfect" in every way and most of the characters were shallow. We were allowed enough information on the main character to ascertain her incredible stupidity. I'm going to be nice and rate this adequate.
A South Korean drama by Kim Ki-duk.The life of a Buddhist monk is shown in 5 stages. He starts off as a child in the care of a monk and when he is a young man, he leaves the monastery. He later returns.The style was very good. There were lots of scenes of the monastery and the lake and forest around it, accompanied by traditional music of the region. The plot and characters were good and even though nothing outside the monastery was shown, the pace seemed to fit. This is one that you have to see to appreciate. I'm rating it awesome.
A science fiction drama by Shane Carruth.A pair of scientists invent a time machine and use it. They end up getting into arguments about how the machine will be/is/was used and what it is going to do/does/did to their lives.The film starts out with young men in suits discussing complex mathematical and scientific ideas. Eventually this becomes minimized when they discuss usage of the time machine, rather than theory and functionality. The plot gets a little convoluted and difficult to follow. The style is pretty good and the production value is decent. I'm rating this adequate.
A thriller adventure by Darrell Roodt.The children and new girlfriend of a businessman go on a safari in Africa. Their guide is killed by lions that follow their car until it gets stuck in a ditch.The cover looked so cool, but the film fails to deliver what this image promises. As expected. Everyone in the film is insanely rude to each other, but that doesn't matter because the characters are super-shallow anyway. The simple plot kind of worked out o.k. and the lion attacks (main focus of the film) were cool. The ending was extremely inconclusive. I'm rating this poor because it was badly made and just not a good movie.
An action film by Jonathan Hensleigh, starring John Travolta.When a man's family is killed, he hides with a shaman in Puerto Rico, making it seem that he is dead. When he leaves, he seeks revenge on the gangsters who killed his family.This isn't usually my cup of tea, but it turned out to be a decent film. Everything looked "new movie too perfect", but the action and fighting held my interest. I'm rating it adequate.
