A Chinese action comedy directed by Sammo Hung, starring Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao.
5 men go to Japan to free their friend from mobsters.
Stupid, pointless and incoherent. I watched about an hour of the 1.5 hour duration and was still lost. I have a feeling that most of the humor that may have been there was lost in translation. I didn't see much action either. In accordance with my turn off policy, I rate this shit. Do not watch!
A British American mystery comedy directed by Blake Edwards and Bud Yorkin, starring Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom and Burt Kwouk.
A bumbling and clumsy detective solves robbery and murder cases.
The title in order are: The Pink Panther (1963), A Shot in the Dark (1964), Inspector Clouseau (1968) see notes, The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978) and Trail of the Pink Panther (1982). I tried to keep this to a coherent set of Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers films, but Inspector Clouseau accidentally got in there. It was directed by Bud Yorkin and starred Alan Arkin. More on this later.
The series as a whole was mediocre at best. I had tried to start watching them before, but the first film made no sense to me. It wasn't until film 2 that things fell into place and I comprehended what was going on. What was going on was a threadbare plot punctuated with visual gags. Clouseau falls down and breaks things for most of the duration. His next favorite thing to do is to mispronounce words and be misunderstood because of it. The cinematography was alright through the series and the audio was a little low, but not overly dynamic. I liked the accidental inclusion of Inspector Clouseau (1968) the most. Having a different director and star seemed to make it more coherent to me. Maybe I was just getting used to the pattern at that point. I also found it funnier than the others. I rate the whole set o.k. and don't really know who I would recommend it to. I do know that I would rather watch the cartoon.
An American Disney animated adventure musical directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, starring George Sanders, Sterling Holloway and J. Pat O'Malley.
A human child is found in the jungles of India, raised by wolves and becomes friends with a panther and a bear. His survival is threatened by a tiger.
Inaccurate. I read the book a while ago and the only things that Disney got right were the basic premise and main characters. Everything else in the plot was fabricated and sugar-coated. Derisive comments complete, I actually like this. It was made way back when Disney made movies worth watching. The very traditional animation style was similar to their other works from this time period, but that is good. There was comedy added that was not in the book and (although inaccurate) I liked that. It doesn't hurt review points that I watched this when I was very young on VHS. Mowgli's voice sounded very much like Arthur from The Sword in the Stone (1963), but Arthur was Rickie Sorensen, Richard Reitherman and Robert Reitherman and Mowgli was Bruce Reitherman. When He fell from the branch at the end, I was expecting "woah what woah", young Arthur's oft-repeated line. I rate this awesome for sentimental value and irreplacability.
A Canadian American drama directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Ciaran Hinds, Matthieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler and Geoffrey Rush.
A team of assassins try to kill a list of men for political reasons.
Political intrigue is less interesting to me than watching paint dry. I didn't care about the characters or the plot. Neither was able to hold my interest at all. I only made it to an hour and 46 minutes of the 2 hour 43 minute duration because I let it play while I was writing music theory notes. The only thing that I found remotely interesting were the contraptions made by one of the team members. One of them was a pressure sensor to go in a man's bed and activate a bomb when he was laying on it. In accordance with my turn off policy, I rate this shit. Do not watch!
A Chinese adventure directed by Wuershan, starring Shu Qi.
A trio of retired treasure hunters are living in New York City. 20 years ago, the 2 men narrowly escaped from a tomb, but lost the woman they both desired. Now one of them has returned to the area to search for the Equinox Flower. The other man follows and is accompanied by their female co-worker. The first man who returned is employed by a gang of some type and all of them enter a tomb which is rife with traps.
If you can read subtitles fast enough, this is really cool. It looked like a modern wuxia film, but there was no flying or swordplay. The sets and special effects are the main attraction here. The tomb has bridges that burn with green fire, zombies, collapsing floors and mummies which turn into poisonous dust. It doesn't matter that I could tell when the characters were in front of a green screen. The main characters were moderately developed and their back-story was revealed as the plot progressed. Somehow I was reminded of the Pirates of the Caribbean series. I rate this good and would recommend it for those who like big movies with good special effects.
An American drama directed by Bruce Beresford, starring Eddie Murphy.
A cook goes to help a woman who is dying of cancer and her daughter. The daughter becomes friends with the cook and after her mother dies, she goes to college, gets pregnant and seeks refuge at the cook's house.
So sappy and repetitive. I get the sappy part and I understand the decision of having monologue lines from the beginning come back at the end. What I dion't get is the main characters being so static. It seemed to me that the main character (Charlie Brooks) was still 10 years old at the end and exactly the same as she started. Mr. Church didn't change either. Oddly enough, I had a friend named Charlie Brooks and I couldn't stop myself from thinking of him being in the lead role of this film. Also oddly enough, he was a static character. The cinematography, camerawork and editing were all great, but a lot of good it did with writing like this. I rate this bad. I would recommend it to those who disagree with all of my other reviews.
An American adventure directed by Bob Rafelson, starring Iain Glen.
Two men go to Africa in search of the source of the Nile. One of them thinks that he found it, but has no proof. Upon returning to England, they have a misunderstanding and disagreement.
What a long pile of bullshit. 2 hours and 10 minutes is too long for an inconclusive story. The adventures of the team in Africa when they meet various tribes and villages were alright. There were fights, lack of supplies, sickness and various other perils to brave. If that had been all it was, it would have been really cool. About an hour was African adventures, but then there was all of this drama crap in England at the beginning and end. I understand the need for exposition and conclusion, but those should have been shorter. If a movie is this long, it should be better than this and more worth the time. I rate this tolerable. If you have nothing else to do or watch and want to waste 2 hours, this would be for that situation.
An American TROMA slasher horror directed by Charles Kaufman.
Three young women go camping and are attacked by deranged hillbillies.
For most of this, I was thinking "This is why I don't watch TROMA". 10 minutes before the end, that changed. It became worthwhile because of a plot twist (I won't spoil that). It almost needs 2 separate reviews for the fist hour and 20 minutes and then the last 10. Most of it was poorly written, acted, shot and edited, but then the change happened. My main thought is that this plot twist should have happened earlier. That would have made this a great film and totally worth watching. Because it cannot be changed now, I rate it poor. My only recommendation would be to see if you can find the ending on youtube and just watch that.
A French Italian science fiction directed by Lamberto Bava, starring Gianni Garko and William Berger.
An underwater monster and a criminal gang are killing people. Scientists try to stop the monster.
Total B movie. The acting was terrible, the monster was unconvincing and the plot was shallow, but the writing was the worst. Casting did a great job of selecting an "Itty Bitty Titty Committee" for the female roles. MST3K mocked it (probably mercilessly). Not much else to say. I rate this bad.
An American drama directed by John Schlesinger, starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman.
A cowboy moves from Texas to New York City and tries to work as a male prostitute. He meets a small time criminal/hustler and they become friends.
I would say this was "middle of the road". The plot was fairly straightforward and clear. The 2 main characters were moderately developed. There was really not much that stood out to me. The only thing that I will mention is editing. There was a party scene and a set of scenes near the end in which different images were edited in a non-consecutive fashion. There was a little clip of something, clip of something else and then back to the original or something else again. I'm rating it o.k. because it was so average.
A Brazilian drama by Hector Babenco, starring Willem Dafoe.
A man with cancer has trouble with his wife and brother. On a side note, he meets a Hindu boy in the hospital.
The title must be a joke because that boy was only in probably less than 10 minutes of the 2 hour movie. The non-linear plot threw me off and I watched it twice, thinking that I might understand it better. Nope. At least, I think it was a non-linear plot... Willem Dafoe is a great actor and can basically do no wrong, so he was doing a good job all the way through. I thought it was a little gross to see him with his shirt off though. The camera-work was brilliant and the editing was good, unless it was supposed to be a linear plot. Then the editing was the worst I've ever seen. Overall, it was pretty decent. I rate it adequate and would recommend it if you really, really like Willem Dafoe.
A South Korean wuxia directed by Park Heung-sik.
A female warrior seeks revenge against 2 other warriors and there is political upheaval.
Total nonsense. I watched the first hour and could barely make any sense of the plot. Questions like when things are happening should not come up. It was very pretty though. It looked as a modern wuxia post-Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon should look. The costumes, sets and lighting were all beautiful. Some of the camera-work was good, but much of it happened in shots too short to appreciate. I have to rate this shit because I turned it off.
