Reviews

What a dog of a movie. Noni Hazelhurst's performance is quite good, but it sits amidst a jungle of abhorrent scriptwriting, mediocre direction and wooden acting from the bulk of the cast. Many of the characters are woefully miscast, particularly the ever overrated Colin Friels.

Very little works in this pretentious garbage. Much of the "character development" is done through a silly, angst-ridden voice over and frequently completely contradicts the behaviour of characters on-screen. In fact, it's hard to even figure out who the voice overs are talking about because they describe such different characters to who we see on screen! How are we meant to know Colin Friels (Javo) is meant to be an erratic, violent and unreliable junkie? One of these silly voice overs tells us. For crying out loud, the nature of his character is half the point of the movie and the only thing that lets us know is a flippin' voice over! The real killer is the characters. Everything about them. Their clothes are perfectly maintained and look fresh from the rack, despite the fact we are constantly reminded they are meant to be artsy paupers. They are all absurdly well-spoken for "junkies". None seem to have any real comprehension of life on the skids or on smack and yet this is meant to be the case with most of them.

Monkey Grip deserves no more attention than a weekday TV movie matinée. Crud like this, perfectly well shot and technically presented, but a cliché-driven angsty drama that shoots so wide of being plausible and meanders about for hours without really going anywhere. At least Noni gets down to her birthday suit at every given opportunity. There's no other sane reason to endure this junk.

It's hard to tell exactly how to approach this documentary. Even at face value it is hard to judge how honest this portrayal is and, particularly, how this small group of delinquents fits into a bigger picture. Even the most minimalist narrative could has solved this later problem, but all we are given are connivingly edited snippets of interviews with the children depicted. I would honestly be surprised if you could not find a similar sample of abused white trash street kids with similar lives in many western cities. I don't doubt that the problem is more prevalent in many of the economically collapsed Eastern European nations, but The Children of Leningradsky totally failed to illustrate this.

I find it very hard to see this documentary as anything but exploitative. The tragic events the documentary follows are depicted in a very one-sided manner and are edited in a way that seems purely designed to shock the middle class and further the careers of the film makers. I was more horrified that the filmmakers had the audacity to cash in on these kids than I was by the events themselves. Schlock documentary making at its worst.

All the marks I can give this are purely because I believe the schlock angle may scare some of the mediocre set to act on child poverty.

Minis are cool and they can go anywhere if driven with great skill. This is the moral of The Italian Job. An hour of random, illogical filler (admittedly with the odd spectacular car wreck) precedes the famous 20 minutes of watching minis do cool stuff and the final 10 minutes is only there to pad the movie to feature length, but the good 20 minutes is a must see!

Where does it go wrong? Characters (at least a dozen of them) are introduced from nowhere, appear for 5 minutes and disappear only to be seen at the end cheering or shaking their fists depending on whether they were good or bad. A lot of these characters seem to have jokes reliant on us knowing their personalities, but we don't! How do you get to know a character that's only got 3 lines (albeit stereotypical lines)? It's a case of quantity over quality. Tragic as most of the actors are fine in the quality department, but don't get a chance to demonstrate it. Even Benny Hill only has about 3 minutes screen time! A fin example of how to turn a great ensemble into a great jumble.

The first hour consists of random 5 minute bits that make sense within themselves, but don't have anything to do with one another nor do they logically flow. They do go in a general direction, but so much is touched upon , but never explored.

Not wanting to give too much away, I'll simply say that the ending is crap. It's a good idea for an ending, but is executed as though it were in front of a blind firing squad.

The cinematography is great, particularly for a 60s movie. When a film looks good today, you know it looked great then. The car wrecks look fantastic - proof that you don't need CGI for great action bits, provided you have the money to burn. Too bad what the were shooting was, for the most part, awful.

The best recommendation I could give: Skip the first hour, watch the minis do their stuff, then turn it off.

This has got to be the worst anime I have ever seen, and I've been watching all the anime I could get my hands on for the better part of a decade. The animation was smooth, but poorly drawn and unimaginative. The narrative of the story had no logical progression, it was just a bunch of cliched action movie scenes played in a random order.

There are no real characterisations, yet parts of the movie hinge on the depth of the characters.

The funny part is that I hired this because it was based on a game I'd played years earlier that had a great story and great characters! Whahappen?

Neither the English or Japanese dub matches the characters mouths - always a sign of something thrown together too quickly.

I reiterate, THIS IS THE WORST ANIMATED FEATURE OF ANY DESCRIPTION THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN. I want that hour of my life back.

...for all the wrong reasons!

This painfully long 60s cross culture romance is so offensive and poorly researched that it is hilarious! pretty much every major "Japanese" character is in fact a shorter white guy with their eyes three quarters closed. They all pronounce their 'l's as 'r's in absurd accents (that is when not slipping into british or american ones!).

The cultural references are also so bad they're funny! Basically the "Japanese" culture in this film is basically bits and pieces of a variety of Asian cultures put in a blender and then strained to an inconsistent mess! The stereotypes are absolutely hilarious too - especially the Japanese butler and businessmen!

At a camp, absurd level this is an absolute classic - it embodies every racial prejudice of 60s America and is completely oblivious to it! If it's ever on TV watch a bit for a kick, don't even think to attempt watching the whole thing - at 2 and a half hours it's painful!

Set on the last two days of the Creepers 23 day feeding frenzy, only a few days after the original Jeepers Creepers, a re-vitalised the Creeper is out to make the most of the time he has. Enter a school buss full of teenagers and a ticked off farmer...

Jeepers Creepers 2 is a very different movie to the original, in more good ways than bad. I know it's hard to believe there is such a thing as a teen horror sequel that isn't just a re-tread of the original! Jeepers Creepers 2 focusses more on group hysteria (kind of Lord of the Flies Lite), instead of just one or two people on the run, and goes for more action oriented killing scenes. The Creeper is a bit different too - he/she/it spends most of it's time flying (something reserved only for small doses in the original).

The hero of the movie really is the Creeper, sure there's people running from him and trying to kill him, but they really just come across as fodder. I love a good horror movie where the whole audience is rooting for the bad guy (and not just me)!

The one thing that really bugged me was the lack of the Jeepers Creepers song when the Creeper is about. In fact, the only song in the credits was a dodgy chant the basketball team were yelling in the bus!

Overall, a fun movie to watch, but it could have used more killing! Man, that creeper is a fussy eater! You'd probably get more out of this if you'd seen the original first, but it's still a good popcorn movie for anyone that feels like some light-weight scares.

Perfect Strangers is an unfortunate example of the third rate product government film finance initiatives can churn out. Essentially, it's a case of too few plot ideas stretched to 90 minutes by a poor screenwriter. As a result I really enjoyed 2 of the 5 reels of film, but almost fell asleep during the other three.

What started out as an interesting, plausible story quickly degenerated as the story rapidly grew more and more irrational. Ultimately, two thirds of the film was spent aimlessly tracking over stale ground. The major points of the plot are tenuously linked together through a thin and illogical thread.

Hands down, Perfect Strangers contains the worst acting of Sam Neil's erratic career (which is a shame as it also contains some of Rachel Blake's best).

I was bitterly disappointed in Perfect Strangers.

A refreshing black comedy starring some of Australia's finest. In the same way that Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels captured the funny side of London gangsters, Two Hands rips through the Sydney underworld. It wouldn't be so funny if it wasn't so close to the bone.

An Australian classic. If Australia could pull more rabbits like this out its hat it might actually have a film industry worth keeping an eye on.

The Hard Word is the result of what happens when you take a bunch of OK ideas, string them together and just hope the rest falls into place. Unfortunately it doesn't. the film tries to be a character driven piece, but never bothers developing its characters. This film is hard to connect with. At no point does it actively engage its audience. A bunch of stuff happens, but you just don't care.

The script is second rate at best. More often than not, trite contrivances drive the story and characters do completely illogical things (often going out of their way to do so) for no reason. I've heard more better conceived and more logical storylines from my 6 year old nephew. Half the characters could easily be written out of the film without affecting the film in any negative way (take Rachel Griffiths character; half her involvement in the film seems like an afterthought - something they came up with when the producers realised they had a "real" actress on board).

Acting is a highly mixed bag. Most of the characters aren't too bad, but some are awful. The character "Frank" had the worst timing for delivering lines I've ever come across in a major character. Many of the extras or minor characters are crap.

A poorly directed mess, which at the same time is not unwatchable. wait until it's on TV, or if you're really keen to see it video. Certainly not worth the time or money on the big screen. 4/10

This movie was appalling. A masterfully written book was turned into a clumsy script. That script was acted terribly, filmed even more poorly, then edited by a drunken monkey. Hell even the lip synch was frequently out!

The direction was stilted. Every scene was a cliche. It's fair to say that the book created many things we think of as cliches in story nowadays, but the monte-cristo by numbers direction was a joke.

The cinematography backward and arkward. Shots were frequently out of focus (it wasn't the projector, you could see the focal point was on nothing in particular), and in no artistic way. camera motion was awkward and often early or late. No compensation had been made for differing light conditions between shots. If this was my baby I'd seriously consider wrapping it in a blanket and dumping it in a river.

The acting of the lead cast was befitting daytime television at best. In fairness, most of the support cast were very good. Particularly Richard Harris and the pirate crew.

The story was very rushed and frequently lacked explanation. What made this film the most painful was that you could see it came from a solid original story. The horror, the horror.

I really had to wonder why everyone involved in this production when this story has been done far better countless times before.

This really was an awful movie.

Woody Allen manages to write some great stuff, but he's just way too past it to pull most of it off. Curse of the Jade Scorpion is a fine example. Story: good. Script: a little arkward, but good. Acting: pretty hammy for the most part, except Allen. Allen comes off as little more than a geriatric doing his best to remember what day it is.

I'm usually a big fan of any detective/private eye type movie, but this was painful. I had to go home and watch "LA Confidential" again just to restore my faith in the genre.

As for comedy; If you're into sparse and absurdly arkward one-liners this may be for you. Otherwise, steer clear.

Definately one for hardcore Allen fans only.