Reviews

Terror Toons, starring porn icon Lizzie Borden and Beverly Lynne, has a bad porn feel to it, only without the titillating sex and nudity. And cohesive plot.

Candy and Cindy are sisters left home for the night when their dad and "mom" leave for a wedding. Cindy receives a DVD called Terror Toons, which unleashes supposed cartoon characters Dr. Carnage and Max Assassin.

I'll give Beverly Lynne and Kelly Liu credit, they at least try to do a halfway decent job, but they are let down by their director and the special effects department. Joe Castro doesn't so much film as he just happens to keep a camera in the room as his story unfolds. The special effects would be laughable if they weren't so nauseating...not nauseating in the sense of "ooh, brains" but in the sense of "ooh, special effects goop."

It took one person to come up with the story, and three to come up with the script. What exactly took three people? The tired cartoon characters running through doors in a hallway? The cop who likes donuts? Strip Ouija?

This is a horrible, hateful little movie that will make you wonder about humanity's capacity to come together and put together something so unbelievably awfully. Stay away from it.

Where to begin? How about the careless slaughter of most of the movies non-leads? How about the only-when-convenient concern about where life forms go after the death of the hosts? How about the complete lack of competence of Natasha Henridge's character? How about the elements pulled directly from Supernova (star of Jackie Brown as captain, brutally killed in first few minutes of film) and Pitch Black (person responsible for prisoner has addiction problem; convict is hero of film)?

No one in this movie thinks straight, acts intelligently. I can't work up any compassion for any character, because none of the roles have any. And how on earth did intangible beings build metallic weapons and a large shaft? Why on earth would Whitlock know whether or not nuclear explosion would kill the beings? And what Manifest Destiny garbage was Natasha's character spouting when justifying genocide?

A bad movie.

Some Nudity Required is one of those documentaries that reveal as much as the person trying to create the documentary as it does the subject. What does it reveal about B movies? Odette Springer's focus is definitely negative about the industry, but it's the words of the B-movie mavens that do the most damage, revealing the rampant and violent mysogyny prevalent among makers of B movies. What does it reveal about Odette? A lot...and proves she has a lot that she has a lot that she wants to let out.

The story of Maria Ford was also telling, and another great reason to see the movie.

While seeming like a prospect of "Where are they now?" crossed with "Growing up Brady", this was an inventive format. Narrative with actors for some parts, presentations by the original actors for others, and vox populi for yet other parts, they all blended together to make for a trippy sort of special, especially when the staged narratives used original actors (Dawn Wells at Alan Hale Jr's funeral) and the presentations used the young actors (the questions about the professor getting off the island, why did they have so much clothing?). I won't say much about the actual content, but I was pleasantly surprised at the way they presented it.

I can't say too much about what affected me the most about this movie, as it would spoil the ending. Throughout most of the film, this is a nice breezy comedy with Favreau and Vaughn swapping their roles from Swingers.

Favreau is excellent here as the quiet, responsible guy trying to do a good job and rein in his buddy. Sean Combs is not very remarkable in his role, just adequate, but Peter Falk is entertaining. Vaughn gets most of the laughs, and shows he can just as easily play the annoying guy as the cool guy as the psycho killer.

Again, though, near the end there's a scene that is incredible out of place, but nonetheless effective and vital to the overall story.

This is undoubtedly a tough movie to watch for non-Kevin Smith fans; there's enough humor in the movie derived solely from past films to dissuade non-fans from enjoying this movie. But for those in the know, this is a fairly enjoyable breezy film. Unlike Dogma and Chasing Amy, this movie has no message; it has no serious side to it. It's a spoof-filled, parodying movie that comes off half-Airplane, half-Road Trip.

Kevin Smith lined up an impressive array of talent, and Ben Affleck deserves kudos as being completely self-effacing. Shannon Elizabeth proves herself to be an odd actress, with the glimmer of intelligence that the Wayans brothers and Smith himself both reported during the casting process hiding behind roiles that only allow her to play dummies.

Other cameos worth noting are Marc Blucas, Deidrich Bader, Judd Nelson, Carrie Fisher, Jamie Kennedy, and Mark Hamill. Chris Rock isn't as funny as he could be, but he parodies Spike Lee pretty well. Well worth it if you dig Hollywood inside jokes and Kevin Smith movies, but of questionable value if you don't.

If Rat Race were made by more cyncial people, it may have been a better movie. It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World workerd because it showed what people would do for money.

Rat Race tries, but fails, to show what depths people will sink to. There's some amusing stuff with Jon Lovitz's character in that vain, but the other characters derive humor from being put into funny situations solely because they are trying to get to Silver City.

The ending was very weak, and definitely needed a rewrite. It's too schmaltzy, too mushy, and again reveals the lack of cynicism in human nature that this movie needed.

Seth Green and Vince Vileuf are enjoyable, as is Amy Smart.

Unhappily Ever After is in syndication where I live, and watching it these days, it's clear that while it based itself on Married...With Children, it was also trying to be innovative in how it told its story, how its actors interrelated, and how it treated the show itself.

Obstensibly, the show was about a family of five: a divorced couple, a sexpot daughter, one idiot kid, and one not-so-much an idiot kid. The show however also tended to treat the fourth wall as their urinal, frequently breaking out of character to be themselves, talking to the audience, bringing in studio executives, etc.

This was one of the good points of the show: in one episode, Nikki Cox and Kevin Connolly are faced with having to get rid of the actor who plays Ryan, because he wasn't written into the script and refuses to go away.

The cheesecake factor here is high -- but the cheesecake remembers to laugh at itself quite frequently. The acting for the most part is wooden on Nikki's part, but the actor who plays Jack manages to get the Al Bundy down without all those annoying characteristics Ed O'Neill slowly added to the role.

It's a stupid show, but it's supposed to be stupid, and there are some genuinely funny, and occasionally vicious moments in the show.

Panic is an extremely badly titled about a professional killer facing a midlife crisis. There's no grand mystery, no bizarre plot. Just superb acting from Neve Campbell, William H. Macy, Tracey Wullman, and Donald Sutherland.

The story has a very non-Hollywood feel to it, and some viewers may be offput by the ending. For those who do, think about the last line of the movie, and the movie's message becomes clearer.

Scary Movie 2 isn't that much different than Scary Movie -- the level of humor is the same, the grossouts are truly grossouts, and the basic premise is there. It's worth nothing that this movie is not a sendup of horror movie sequels, but of a different set of horror movies than the first.

Funny bits include parodies of Hollow Man, Charlie's Angels, and The Exorcist. Unfunny bits include Chris Elliott. Unfunny bits always include Chris Elliott. But that goes without saying.

I give a lot of credit to the creators of this field for the atmosphere and concept (and I realize other's don't like it -- that's fine -- but they did achieve what they set out to do). I did like Bill Murray's Polonius, Julia Stiles' Ophelia, Ethan Hawke's Hamlet, and mostly Kyle McLachlan's Claudius and Steve Zahn's Rosencrantz.

But the strict use of the play's original language ended up feeling more of a distraction that an enhancement. It felt like the filmmakers wanted to have it both: both the close tie and 'legitimacy' of the old language and the moderness of a current setting.

What bothered me most about the pretentious parrot dropping from the usually fertile mind of John Waters was what Steven Dorff's beef essentially boils down to.

In the first shot of the movie within a movie, Adrian Grenier's movie owner is very sad about no one showing up at the film festival for Passolini. Instead, all the people have opted for the cineplex instead.

So Adrian, with wife and daughter in tow, conduct a guerilla warfare campaign again popular movies, targetting schlock like a sequel to Forest Gump and a director's cut for Patch Adams.

The argument therefore becomes: My favorite film director isn't popular. I hate what's popular. Therefore I should destroy and force my taste down everyone else's throat.

I have no problem with the legitate argument against mainstream movies that most are shallow, have no depth, are made by committee or by cookie-cutter with only financial incentives motivating the producers. High quality, intelligent independent movies still get made; some get squashed. But instead of Waters focusing on these types of movies, he essentially gives us the cinematic version of George Bush Sr's presidential campaign (The other guy is really evil and horrible, so vote for me.)

That's why this movie didn't ring true: the struggle between mainstream media and independent movies isn't a popularity contest, and shouldn't be depicted as one.

I didn't have high hopes for this time travel movie, but I was surprised. The movie's plot helps overcome its low production values and occasional unbelievable coincidences. The characters are for the most part believable (especially the 'villians', who are more desperate people driven to desperate measures.) But fans of time travel movies should enjoy this movie.

If this movie were more about Piper Perabo's character and less about the bar, this might have been halfway decent. Piper's Violet Stanford and Karen Friendly (Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle) both have a virgin kindegarden teacher quality to them that's endearing. Here's hoping she'll find a better movie to be in.

One of the worst vampire movies I've ever seen, this movie feels like it was written at random with no consistency whatsoever from scene to scene. The actors sometimes do their best, but the lead vampire reads every line the exact same way.

The camera work is claustrophobic, usually zoomed in way too close on the actors. At one point, we're supposed to believe something is happening because the camera is being shaken while the actors flop around.

This could have been an interesting movie, if someone had taken the time to edit the script for continuity and give the characters more believability in their actions. Sadly instead, they released this piece of garbage.

When this first came out as a song, it was amusing, a light chuckle along the lines of Weird Al's Christmas at Ground Zero. That was over a decade ago. Now someone's decided that we need a 50-minutes explanation of the backstory behind the song.

The storylines not bad...it's the sort of Christmas special that seems naggingly familiar, from the courtroom scene (Miracle on 34th Street) to the tycoon buying a locally run store (Gremlins 2). The animation is crude though, with a cookie-cutter feel to it. The producers apparently felt that we needed more songs by the same artist, all of which are lethargic one-verse ditties devoid of humor.

One thing I'll give credit to: The 'evil tycoon' at least is written by the books. But overall, this novelty of a video makes a better bookstop than anything else.

If you seen Rodney Dangerfield's previous movies and performances, you'll recognise several of the jokes made in this odd piece of dreck. Written like a sitcom, this movie fails to strike any sort of likeable chord throughout, from the self-help doctor played by the aways sexy-as-chopped liver Molly Shannon to the 'I'm fat, and therefore funny' John Linette. The 5 wives themselves are likeable enough, and if this had been done as a pilot for an action-adventure series, it might have worked. Instead, it comes off like a male fantasy that's trying hard not to be politically incorrect.

Pitch Black is an interesting piece of film in the 'group of people picked off one by one by killer or monster' genre (cf. Deep Blue Sea, Virus, any Friday the 13th movie). There's a great big implausability in the movie (they land right around the eclipse that comes along once every 23 years) but otherwise, this is a decent picture.

A brilliant, gritty thriller more in the style of an American film noir than anything else. This film, more a statement on the appeal of violence in the media than anything else, deserves credit for the way it handles the characterisation of Angela, Chema and Bosco. Without giving away too much of the plot, this is a film that is not a mystery, but an indictment of our own human fascination with snuff films and death. The message communicated by the last scene should be as subtle as a full moon, but feels natural.

Trey Parker has shown one thing very well...he can compose showtunes. Cannibal, while debased by the typical Troma level of special effects, is a funny movie throughout with great music from Trey. He's shown he can compose songs that are the same level of quality as Rodgers and Hammerstein or Sondheim, but retain a hilarity unique to Parker.

I finally watched this on video, and found it extremely amusing with several laugh-out-loud moments. Yes, there is a plot; yes, there is some amusing dialogue; yes, there is some characterization. It's no American Beauty, but for what it is SUPPOSED to be, it does a reasonable job.

Seth Green deserves a lot of credit for his performance here, as does Devon Sawa. An earlier review commented on his physical acting, and I agree; when he still has the hand, his interaction with his possessed self is magnificent.

A number of people commented on Evil Dead 2, but this is actually more of a spoof on The Crawling Hand, a B/W sci-fi movie with a hand running around murdering people, and a young man being the responsible party.

Enjoyable, with just enough plot to make it interesting, but not so much plot it interferes with the sex. Stacy Valentine is wonderful as usual, but the actress playing Commander Cat deserves a lot of credit as well.

Definitely not a comedy for everyone, this odd farce is enjoyably funny that includes humor beyond the slapstick. Brooke Shields shows off her comedic side well before her Friends appearance, and Alex Winter deserves credit for his portrayal of the deformed Ricky.

Sure, a guy with a commodore 64 and an airplane could build a time machine. Implausible, but there is an underlying message regarding actions having consequences (hey, it may sound obvious but how often does that hold true in the cinema). Very low budget.

James Woods, Oliver Platt, and Lou Gossett Jr. all are perfect in this con operation involving 10 consecutive boxing matches. James Woods especially is at his best as the mastermind with more at stake than just the money. A poor ad campagin really hurt this in the theateres, but catch it at your local video store the next time you can.