“Do I get the job, or should we move right onto the shark infested waters test?”

So, digging into the category of “movies I know for certain almost nobody but me has ever heard of” I present to you one of the formative film experiences of my youth: 1983’s Twice Upon A Time, a fractured kind of fairy tale featuring a rare (or at least uncommon) animation style called “Lumage.”

Story
Well, dreams come from two places. Good dreams come from Frivoli and nightmares come from The Murkworks. The residents of both places refer to the real world as Din and us humans as “rushers,” on account of how we’re always concerned about this thing called “time.” The ruler of the Murkworks, unrepentant jerk Synonamess Botch (Marshall Efron), hatches a plan to freeze this “time” and explode a bomb in Din that would effectively cause permanent nightmares. Its up to several Frivolians to put a stop to his mad scheme. Recruited by a particularly cynical Fairy Godmother (Judith Kahan) they are: Ralph, the All-Purpose Animal (Lorenzo Music), Mumford (who doesn’t speak so much as make sound effects), Flora Fauna (Julie Payne) who’s looking for her uncle Greensleeves (Hamilton Camp) who works in Din making sure dreams get distributed, and eventually Rod Rescueman, a superhero still on his learner’s permit (James Cranna). Oh yeah, and there’s also Scuzzbopper, Botch’s head writer at the Murkworks. (also James Cranna).

Visuals/Effects
Directed by John Korty & Charles Swenson, the real draw here is the Lumage style animation. What that means is they used cut out pieces of paper (or plastic in this case) and animated them over a light table. The result is a very unique “illuminated” feel to the film that also looks like moving watercolors, if that makes sense. Also of special note are the credits of Special Photographic Effects by David Fincher (yes, THAT David Fincher) and Sequence Director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline)

Writing
Screenplay & Story credits to Bill Couturié, Suella Kennedy, and John Korty. Written by Charles Swenson. The story takes a standard heroic plot, mixes in a bunch of fairy tale tropes and then turns a lot of stuff upside down. There’s also two versions of the film, one marked by saltier dialogue that mixes in occasional mid-level potty words.

Sound
Original music by Dawn Atkinson and Ken Melville. There are also several songs by Maureen McDonald and one by Bruce Hornsby. The soundtrack is very "early 1980s," but not in a bad way.

Conclusion
Twice Upon A Time is another one of those “movies I love deeply but you’ve probably never heard of.” Which is a shame, because I can guarantee you’ve not seen an animated film that looks quite like this AND has a surprisingly sophisticated sense of humor. Its also unfortunate that its kind of caught up in a legal snarl between the director and producer, since this really deserves to be on DVD. I don’t normally recommend finding movies through less than legal sources, but since it would take a miracle to get this thing re-released, do so (and if it actually DOES happen I vow to pick up a copy on day one). VHS copies exist and the internet has copies of both versions circulating around.


Not a trailer, but it shows plenty of scenes, so good enough.

“Get your ass to Mars.”

Rounding out the impromptu Arnold trifecta (yes I'm counting Commando from last month), we turn to 1990’s Total Recall, which is a thoughtful meditation on self-identity, memory, free will and destroying mining equipment with oversized power drills.

Story
Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is an otherwise happy construction worker who’s haunted by strange dreams of being on Mars with a woman, Melina (Rachel Ticotin) who’s not his wife Lori (Sharon Stone). He turns to Rekall Inc. which sells “mental vacations” by implanting memories into clients. Something goes wrong and Douglas Quaid remembers being a secret agent/freedom fighter named Hauser affiliated with the Martian resistance. Chased by agents of Martian dicator/CEO Vilos Cohaagen (Ronny Cox) and his right hand man Richter (Michael Ironside), Quaid/Hauser tries to track down his missing past, surviva Cohaagen’s men, find resistance leader Kuato (Marshall Bell), find Melina and along the way he teams up with a cab driver named Benny (Mel Johnson Jr.). And of course, there’s the three-breasted prostitute, because you can’t discuss Total Recall without mentioning her.

Or Quaid is stuck in Rekall’s memory machine and only thinks that he’s a former secret agent trying to liberate Mars. It’s deliberately left vague.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Paul Verhoeven, the movie looks great and the movie jumps from action scene to action scene at a high clip. The effects are also solid, with a lot of practical prosthetics for the Martian mutants and so on. Some of the vehicles though, are a little goofy looking.

Writing
“Inspired” by the Philip K. Dick short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale.” Screen story by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, & Jon Povill. Screenplay by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon and Gary Goldman. The story is actually surprisingly thoughtful for a big action movie, what with the refusal to be clear on whether Quaid really IS Hauser or merely imagining all of these things as part of his “mental vacation.”

Sound
Original music by Jerry Goldsmith, and appropriately, its quite good.

Conclusion
Compared to the previous two Arnold films, Total Recall is easily the classiest, most sophisticated of the three. If you feel like thinking, it actually has a lot for you to find, such as the “is it real or just in his head?” question. If you don’t feel like thinking, its got plenty of “Get your ass to Mars” and “Screw YOU!!” moments to satisfy your barbarian urges.

“I’ll live to see you eat that contract, but I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to ram it into your stomach and break your god-damn spine!”

More Arnoldy goodness. This time its 1987’s The Running Man.

Story
Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a former cop who was wrongfully convicted of firing on unarmed civilians during a riot. He gets sent to prison, breaks out with some fellow inmates, but when he makes it back to the city, he runs into Amber Mendez (Maria Conchita Alonso), a woman who eventually turns him back over to the authorities because of his reputation. Richards is given over to Damon Killian (the gloriously hammy Richard Dawson), our villain and host of the hit show THE RUNNING MAN (DUN DUN DUN) where convicted felons are given the opportunity to fight their way to freedom through strange levels while being chased by the Stalkers, a bunch of gimmick oriented goons that include: Captain Freedom (Jesse Ventura), Fireball (Jim Brown), Buzzsaw (Bernard Gus Rethwisch), Subzero (Professor Toru Tanaka-- he was a wrestler, I checked) and Dynamo (Erland Van Lidth).

There’s also cameos by Mick Fleetwood & Dweezil Zappa. For some reason.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Paul Michael Glaser, the movie follows standard 80s action movie principles in visuals. The sci-fi elements lead to a lot of glowing lights and computer screens. As for the costumes…well, that’s where things get really goofy. The jumpsuits for The Running Man contestants are a bit silly, but they pale in comparison to the outfits of the Stalkers. Of particular mention is Dynamo, who is a fat guy who sings opera in a costume made out of LED lights and drives around a go-kart also covered in LED lights.

Writing
Based on the Steven King (under the pen name Richard Bachman) book and screenplay by Steven E. de Souza. I haven’t read the book, but I’m fairly certain that a LOT of liberties were taken. Still, the movie’s fun, we get plenty of Arnold one-liners and its fun waiting for what new craziness awaits around the next corner.

Sound
Original music by Harold Faltermeyer, the score is INCREDIBLY 80s with a lot of electronic cues.

Conclusion
The Running Man is another goofy slice of Arnold-y goodness. Its got a dystopian future setting where convicts fight in an arena that’s like Super Smash TV against a group of bosses that look like rejected He-Man toys. Its great!

“You're a funny man, Sully, I like you. That's why I'm going to kill you last.”

Ah Valentine’s Day. A day for love, romance, chocolates and gettin’ some. A day like today needs something just as sweet and romantic as the spirit of the holiday. Something like 1985’s Commando.

Story
A former special forces agent would like nothing better than to live in his mountain cottage with his daughter and cut lumber, eat ice cream and feed wild deer. Sadly, a deposed foreign dictator wants him to assassinate a political rival and kidnaps the daughter. This does not go according to plan.

Characters
John Matrix: Arnold Schwarzenegger is our one-man killing machine who will shoot the population of a small country to get his daughter back.

Jenny Matrix: A REALLY young Alyssa Milano plays Matrix’s spunky, resourceful daughter who gets kidnapped by the bad guys. So yeah, she’s kind of just a plot device here.

Cindy: Rae Dawn Chong plays a flight attendant/stewardess who gets caught up in all of this madness when Matrix boosts her car (with her in it)

General Arius: Dan Hedaya is the deported dictator of a small island nation who wants Matrix to assassinate his replacement. This really doesn’t go according to plan. He’s got an army of mercenary goons, including Sully (David Patrick Kelly) and Cooke (Bill Duke) that provide little more than speed bumps for Matrix’s bloody revenge.

Bennett: Vernon Wells plays a former member of Matrix’s squad now working as Arius’ second in command. Bennet has…questionable taste in mercenary clothes (he wears a vest with what looks like a hammock sewed on) and a very…passionate desire to kill Matrix.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Mark L. Lester, the movie is a giant vehicle for action sequences. Ridiculous, over-the-top and thoroughly insane action sequences. It does them well.

Writing
Screenplay by Steven E. de Souza with story by Jeph Loeb, Matthew Weisman and Steven E. de Souza. The plot is goofy as all hell and the dialogue is chock full of Arnold one-liners, and for a movie like this, that is EXACTLY what is needed.

Sound
The original score by James Horner is full of 80’s era driving beats, but also a lot of steel drums. This is both weird and awesome at the same time (which can be said of the movie as a whole, actually).

Conclusion
Pleasures really don’t get much guiltier than Commando. If you want Arnold spouting one liners and single-handedly killing off the equivalent of a small island’s population, this is exactly the movie for you. Its not good cinema. It’s awesome cinema and should be watched alongside Swayze’s Road House.

“They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That's* the *Chicago* way!”

I got tired of people giving me funny looks when I told them I hadn’t seen 1987’s The Untouchables. Well, now there’s one less reason for them to give me funny looks.

Story
Prohibition Chicago, a city effectively ruled by crime boss and bootlegger Al Capone (Robert De Niro). A young Federal Agent named Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) arrives in town intent on enforcing the law and bringing Capone to justice. He has a rough time of it until he assembles a hand-picked team of not-dirty cops to help him out: Jim Malone (Sean Connery), Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith) and George Stone (Andy Garcia). Together, they become known as The Untouchables (Dun dun dun) for their incorruptibility.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Brian De Palma, the movie is really well shot with excellent pacing and some really impressive action set pieces. About the only thing I really, really didn’t like was the shootout near the end, the famous “Odessa Steps” remake in the station. I know, I know, its an homage to one of the great scenes of the silent era and I can respect that, but here its such a gigantic shift from the rest of the movie that it felt a little, I hate to say it, out of place.

And if you feel like seeing just how many times said Odessa Steps sequence gets homaged/referenced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH1tO2D3LCI

Writing
Screenplay by David Mamet and “suggested by” the book “The Untouchables” by (the real) Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley. Naturally the screenplay takes a lot of liberties with history (there were more than just four Untouchables, Capone’s lieutenant didn’t die like that, etc) but that doesn’t really bother me since 20th century history isn’t my area. The dialogue is sharp, the characters well defined, and the story keeps moving at a good pace.

Sound
Original music by Ennio Morricone, and the music is very, very good.

Conclusion
The Untouchables really surprised me. In the best possible way. The cast all do a solid to excellent job with their characters, the writing and plot are incredibly solid despite the liberties they take with history, and the visual feel of the movie is incredibly stylish and well done (with one exception that I mentioned above). Awesome movie though, and heartily recommended.

“It’s like living with a six year old.”

I don’t know how to preface 1986’s Three Amigos! so I won’t.

Story
The Three Amigos are Lucky Day (Steve Martin), Dusty Bottoms (Chevy Chase) and Ned Nederlander (Martin Short), three big time actors in Hollywood who get a little too big for their pay scale and get fired for demanding too much from their cranky boss (Joe Mantegna and Jon Lovitz & Phil Hartman as his henchmen). Unknown to them, a lovely woman from Santa Poco, Mexico named Carmen (Patrice Martinez) has seen one of their films and thinks they’re real gunfighters. She writes them and invites them to drive off a bandit that’s been terrorizing Santa Poco, and they comply, thinking it’s a paying gig. That soon changes when they run into the murderous El Guapo (Alfonso Arau), his sidekick Jefe (Tony Plana) and their gang.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by John Landis, the movie is both solidly shot and brings a lot of sight gags to the table, both of which are very important to comedy. Of note is the fake Three Amigos movie shown at the beginning, which is shot just like an old silent short.

Writing
Written by Steve Martin, Lorne Michaels & Randy Newman. The beginning is a little slow and a few early jokes miss the mark, but when the movie gets up and running, its great. Martin, Chase and Short are all funny (as expected), but some of the funniest scenes in the movie come from El Guapo’s exchanges with Jefe.

Sound
Original music by Elmer Bernstein and “The Ballad of the Three Amigos” written by Randy Newman (who was also the voice of the Singing Bush). With that kind of pedigree, you better believe the music is excellent.

Conclusion
Yet another movie in the pile of films that Kes loves unabashedly. Three Amigos! makes up for what it lacks in originality (let’s face it, it owes everything to The Magnificent Seven) with bizarre, tongue-in-cheek hilarity.

"Greetings, Starfighter! You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada."

CGI is a given for modern movies, but in 1984 it was a new and largely untapped medium. The Last Starfighter was a modestly budgeted science fiction flick that took the bold step of using computer effects instead of models.

Story
Alex Rogan (Lance Guest) is a teen with ambition. Unfortunately for him, he lives in a fairly run down trailer park. Alex has two things going for him: his girl Maggie Gordon (Catherine Mary Stewart) and he’s something of a whiz with the Starfighter arcade box in the park. One night, Alex breaks the high score record of the game and some time later a strange man in a strange car arrives looking for Alex. His name is Centauri (Robert Preston in his last film) and he invented the game.

Centauri takes Alex up to Rylos where he gets recruited (with a lot of reluctance) into the Star League, which is fortunate, because Rylos is under attack by the renegade Xur (Norman Snow) & Lord Kril (Dan Mason) of the Ko-Dan Armada. Alex tries to quit and goes home, but after an alien assassination attempt, goes back to space to fight for the galaxy (a Beta Alex robot (also Lance Guest) is left behind to cover for him). Alex and his alien co-pilot Grig (Dan O’Herlihy) find that their entire squadron has been effectively destroyed, leaving their remaining Gunstar fighter the last starfighter (Dun Dun Dun!) capable of defeating the Ko-Dan Armada.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Nick Castle, the movie is for the most part a typical 80s kind of ADVENTURE! movie. On the other hand, it was also the first major movie to go for computer generated, photorealistic visual effects. Photorealistic is the key here, since Tron already had been out for two years, but the effects there were more abstract and surreal. Nowadays, the spaceships are quite obviously digital, but the designs are still solid and some of the digital shots are still quite nice, especially considering that they were pretty much figuring this stuff out as they went. And the Gunstar is still a really badass design.

Writing
Written by Jonathan Betuel, the plot follows a pretty standard Hero’s Journey storyline, but the writing is competent, the lines generally witty and the delivery is excellent, so hey, nothing wrong with that.

Sound
Original music by Craig Safan, and it is full of epic ADVENTURE! fanfares, but also some sweet down-to-earth themes too. Its fun when the two merge together.

Conclusion
Yeah. I love The Last Starfighter. I always have. There’s something about the goofy premise of a trailer park teen who’s good at an arcade game (and one specific one) being selected to join an elite fighting force to SAVE THE UNIVERSE! that appeals to me on a primal level. Star Wars knock off? Sure. But it’s a good Star Wars knock off.

“I was partial to tragedy in my youth. That was before experience taught me that life was tragical enough without my having to write about it.”

Ray Harryhausen. If you know anything about special effects, you know about this man. He was THE stop-motion special effects guy of the mid-twentieth century, and made a lasting contribution to cinema. He’s also still alive as of this writing, though he retired from films after his last movie in 1981. That movie? Clash of the Titans.

Plot
We are in Ancient Greece during the time of heroes and gods. Our particular hero of the day is Perseus (Harry Hamlin), son of Zeus (Sir Laurence Olivier) and as far as Greek heroes go, a pretty decent guy too. If you happen to lack a liberal arts education, Perseus’ mother was locked up by her husband and Zeus came to her as a golden ray of light or a shower (depending on your fetish, I suppose) and after the kid was born, he and his mother were put out to sea to punish her infidelity. They survive, the husband (and king of Argos) is killed by Zeus and Perseus grows up. Other gods are also present on Olympus, and its fun to note that the original Bond Girl, Ursula Andress, plays Aphrodite (and has all of two lines in this movie).

Zeus shows favoritism to his son, but punishes Calibos (played by Neil McCarthy when not a stop-motion puppet), the son of Thetis, a sea goddess (and played by Maggie Smith) for his wickedness by transforming him into a cloven-hoofed, horned and fugly monster. This is a problem, since before this, Calibos was to be married to the princess of Joppa, Andromeda (Judi Bowker). Put off by his ugliness, she calls the wedding off, and in punishment, Calibos makes her challenge any would-be suitor with an unanswerable riddle. In a fit of godly jealousy, Thetis plucks Perseus off of his own island and drops him in Joppa to see if he’ll get involved. In retaliation, Zeus grants Perseus a Helmet of Invisibility, a Mirrored Shield and a Vorpal Sword +3 against Gorgons. Naturally, Perseus falls in love with Andromeda. Perseus also gets guidance from the old poet Ammon (Burgess Meredith, who completely out-acts everybody else in the film and infuses everything he says with the right blend of gravitas and ham. Its incredible to watch him in this), and Thallo (Tim Pigott-Smith) a Joppan officer who turns out to be a real solid buddy.

The rest of the movie turns into one elaborate quest to get Perseus laid, as he has to find a way to slay the Kraken, a giant fish monster/Titan who will destroy Joppa if Andromeda is not sacrificed to Thetis. To do so, he has to tame Pegasus to fight Calibos and solve the riddle. Visit the Stygian Witches to find out how to kill the Kraken. Find Medusa, fight off her two-headed guard dog Dioskilos, then kill HER without turning to stone. Go for round two against Calibos (and three giant scorpions). Get back to Joppa with the help of Bubo, a clockwork owl crafted by Hephaestus, and THEN use Medusa’s head to kill the Kraken (oh like THAT’S a spoiler).

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Desmond Davis, but really, this is Ray Harryhausen’s baby. Officially credited as Visual Effects (and co-produced), this is a special effects spectacular that is loaded to the brim with lovingly crafted monsters: Pegasus, Bubo, the Kraken, Medusa, Dioskilos the two-headed dog, Calibos, Giant Scorpions and a Giant Vulture. And they really are lovingly crafted. They move with incredible energy and life, with the Kraken being one of the most impressive, but in my opinion, the best one was Medusa. She’s really creepy, imposing and monstrous, but with a definite touch of sadness to her. Its subtle, but even more impressive since this is done frame by frame in a torch-lit dungeon.

Also worth mentioning is the punishment of Calibos, since we don’t see it directly. Zeus takes a clay figure and puts it in his Action Amphitheater Playset (figures sold separately) and the camera zooms in on the shadow cast of the figure as it writhes and warps into its monstrous form. Not exactly the most complicated effect, but easily the creepiest and most evocative of the movie.

Writing
Written by Beverly Cross, the film is an interesting mix of faithfulness to Greek mythology and a blatant disregard for it. Pegasus was the mount of Bellerophon, not Perseus (and yes, I was able to spell Bellerophon off the top of my head). Dioskilos is something of a poor man’s Cerberus, and the Kraken here is neither Scandinavian nor a giant squid. Perseus’ origin and Medusa herself though are pretty much spot on.

What the movie lacks in faithfulness to the letter of Greek Myth, it makes up for in faithfulness to the spirit of it. The gods are petty, vain and quarrelsome, and they use mortals like playthings for their own purposes. Mortals are, for their part, extremely flawed and weak, but with spirit, determination and the favor of the gods, they can achieve great things.

Sound
The original score by Laurence Rosenthal is a grand, sweeping ADVENTURE! filled soundtrack that perfectly fits the feel of the movie. No complaints there whatsoever.

Conclusion
Clash of the Titans was Ray Harryhausen’s paen and damn did he retire swinging. It doesn’t really hew close to actual mythology (krakens are traditionally giant squids, not Titans and Perseus had nothing to do with Pegasus, among other things) but its such an energetic love letter to mythology that deeply understands the draw of ancient myths (unlike the recent remake, from what I hear) and what they say about the human condition and presented in such a wide eyed, “gee whiz” manner that the camp elements are completely drowned out by the sheer fun of it all. If you hate this movie, clearly you have murdered your inner child and there is no hope for you.

“He had even lost his chair at Königsberg University, where for a long time his colleagues used to refer to him as "The Nut".”

Sometimes you see a movie that has all the ingredients of a quality time and it just leaves you scratching your head at to why you didn’t like it. Which is exactly how I feel about 1967’s The Fearless Vampire Killers Or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck AKA Dance of the Vampires.

Story
Well, we have a disgraced academician, Professor Abronsius (Jack MacGowran) and his meek assistant Alfred (Roman Polanski) arriving in Transylvania in December in their quest to find genuine vampires. The village they stop in has a castle nearby and its pretty clear that there are vampires in the area. The innkeeper, Shagal (Alfie Bass), even hangs garlic all over his place to try to fend them off. Alfred falls for Shagal’s beautiful daughter Sarah (Sharon Tate) who is naturally taken away by the count one fateful night. With a vampire confirmed and Sarah’s life in danger, the two would-be heroes set out to the castle to rescue her from Count von Krolock (Ferdy Mayne).

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Roman Polanski with cinematography by Douglas Slocombe (who had a long and storied career), the movie certainly looks impressive. The exterior locations are nicely done and the set design of the castle is fantastic. The movie looks great and there are some really great shots and great visual atmosphere.

Writing
Story and Screenplay by Gérard Brach and Roman Polanski. On paper, the plot sounds fine. In practice, things are tremendously uneven. The main characters are simply unlikable and worse for a comedy, not very funny. I understand that this is a farce and characters rarely develop past the second dimension, but honestly, Abronsius and Alfred are simply too incredibly stupid to be sympathetic. Alfred in particular is an egregious example of obliviousness and an inability to perform even simple tasks. Easily the best things in the movie are Shagal (who is actually very funny as a lecherous Jewish peasant who becomes a vampire) and Count von Krolock (who is actually very charming and threatening in that classic movie vampire way). Sarah Shagal is quite radiant, but a distant character who just kind of floats through the movie. Its not a good sign when the side characters would make much more interesting story fodder than the main ones.

Sound
The original music by Krzysztof Komeda is adequate, but not particularly memorable. There are some choral flourishes that add to the general creepiness, which is a nice touch. Overall though, its neither here nor there.

Conclusion
I, uh, didn’t like The Fearless Vampire Killers OR: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck. Yes there are touches of great atmosphere and visual impressiveness. Yes there are some funny performances, but as a whole…its just not funny and just not scary. On the DVD, there’s a special short from 1967 promoting the movie that I got more laughs out of than the entirety of the movie itself. Maybe I wasn’t in the right mood at the time of viewing, but there is no way I am going to recommend this movie.


And if you're wondering, the cheesy sound effects from the trailer are not in the final film. Thankfully.

The Obligatory Lazy End Of Year Lists

Another year has gone by and its time for some more end-of-the-year filler-- I mean, a retrospective of what’s gone past. Yeah. That’s it.

Soooo, with that in mind (and the fact that updates were interrupted at a few points in time this year) here’s the 10 Best Surprises of the Year (because I‘m too lazy to dig up 20 this time). Like last year, it excludes all the stuff that I’ve watched multiple times in the past, like the Star Wars Trilogy and Ghostbusters. So, keep in mind, this is all stuff that I saw for the first time for this project this year and covered in reviews.


10) Legend of Drunken Master
Jackie Chan and booze. It’s a recipe for comedy. Definitely light on content, its heavy on slapstick and fight scenes and is a perfect kung fu ADVENTURE!

9) Flash Gordon
Thoroughly insane, campy as all hell and so British it shits the queen (pun not entirely intended), it manages to be an epic example of “so-bad-its-awesome.”

8) Stripes
Incredibly subversive yet warm and fuzzy at the same time. That’s impressive.

7) Lethal Weapon
Great characters, great chemistry between the leads, great action and some pretty despicable villains gives you a really well-made buddy cop actioner. And its a Christmas movie.

6) Road House
It ranks up there with the guiltiest of pleasures. A story about the two-fisted adventures of a philosophical bouncer is about as dumb as it sounds, but its also way more awesome than it has any right to be.

Top 5
5) Reservoir Dogs
Simple and made on the cheap, Tarantino’s debut is witty, disturbing and gritty as hell and totally worth watching. Liked it more than Pulp Fiction.

4) Layer Cake
Its like Snatch., only not astronomically overrated.

3) Black Dynamite
Oh yes. Oh. Hell. Yes. And its getting an animated series on [Adult Swim]

2) Murder, My Sweet
Quite possibly my new favorite film noir movie because of the engrossing characters, killer dialogue, and some clever hallucinatory effects. Nothing but love for this.

1) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Take 1 part Robert Downey Jr., 1 part Val Kilmer, 2 parts Shane Black, add film noir to taste and you get one of the funniest movies ever made.


And now once again, its time for the Bottom Ten Biggest Disappointments of the year, because who doesn’t want to end the year on a list of downers?

Honorable Mention since I haven’t officially reviewed it yet.
Troll 2
One of the true claimants to “Worst Movie Ever Made,” it rightly deserves its place in the pantheon of schlock. However, actually watching it creates a kind of narcotic effect where your mind gets numbed to the pain and all you can do is laugh at the madness on the screen lest you go insane yourself. Come to think of it, that’s probably how Elder Gods make movies.

10) Horrors of Spider Island
Terrible. Truly awful in that wonderfully bad sort of way. Watched this and riffed on it before I was even aware that MST3K had done the same already.

9) Robot Monster
Same reason as above. It’s dreadfully bad and ineptly made, but still manages to have a grim, bleak and weirdly absurdist quality movie. And there’s a gorilla costume with a diving helmet. And a bubble machine.

8) The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
Badly made (and consisting mostly of flashbacks to the previous movies in the trilogy), the Aztec Mummy Popoca is oddly likable and the villainous The Bat is a gleefully hammy mad scientist. Terrible but oddly fun, and what’s more: A boxed set of the Aztec Mummy Trilogy exists, I have it, and I am waaayyy more enthused than I should be about it.

7) Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines
While Arnold is still fun to watch as the future-sent kill robot and the effects are overall very impressive, this movie in an egregiously unnecessary sequel and considering its subject matter (the activation of SkyNet and the triggering of Judgment Day) completely fails to deliver any kind of dread at the inevitable devastation of the human race. Judgment Day happened, and I wasn’t invested in it.

6) Beowulf & Grendel
Beautiful landscape cinematography and some good performances are not enough to elevate the ponderously boring script that manages to completely misunderstand the reason why the Beowulf story is so popular in the first place. Hint: Its because Beowulf is supposed to be awesome and great at killing monsters, not a navel-gazing existentialist wondering if he’s wrong for wanting to kill a monster.

5) The Brothers Grimm
Talk about wasted potential. What could’ve been a great way to reconstruct the horrific elements of classic fairy tales falls flat due to some face-palmingly bad script/story decisions and sketchy CGI. I didn’t expect it to be great, but I definitely hoped more of Gilliam’s crazy-man genius would shine through.

4) Zardoz
While not the worst movie ever made, it is certainly one of the most incomprehensible science fiction films ever. The core of the story is simple enough, but so much drug-fueled insanity is tacked on that it completely buries whatever it is that the filmmakers were trying to say. Stuff like this should be used by D.A.R.E. to keep kids in line. “Don’t do drugs kids, or else someday you might make Zardoz”

3) Jungle Goddess
Now this one’s just an offensive and bland product of its time. I’m not really one to judge the past for being the past, but a bad movie that’s both blindly racist AND boring has no redeeming features.

2) Robot Holocaust
So bad I keep forgetting that I sat through this piece of dreck. That’s how much my mind wants to erase this from my memory. It’s a bad Star Wars AND Conan rip off.

1) Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women
No movie since Napoleon Dynamite has filled me with such seething vitriol as this waste of time. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Fuck. This. Movie.

“Integrity is something you sell to the public.”

1968, a year before Michael Caine and 3 Cooper Minis went on a merry chase through Torino in The Italian Job, Steve McQueen took his Ford Mustang through the streets of San Francisco in Bullitt. You bet your ass its time for the greatest car chase in cinema history.

Story
Lieutenant Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) is a tough detective, a man who’s known to get results, even if he is a bit of a loose cannon at times. That reputation for results at any cost is what brings him to the attention of ambitious District At tourney Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughan), a man looking for dependable cops to protect a key witness against the mob, a key witness who also happened to run off with a large chunk of said mob’s money. Bullitt and his team are put on babysitting duty, and then it all goes to hell. The witness ends up dead and one of Bullitt’s men is in the hospital. Frank…doesn’t take it well, and he makes it his personal mission to find the guys who killed the witness and along the way uncovers a few interesting twists and turns. Bullitt is clearly a cowboy cop, but this isn’t an action movie. There’s a lot of investigation, a lot of angry scowling, and a lot of really thick tension as we watch Bullitt blur the line between doing his job and going rogue.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Peter Yates, the obvious thing to talk about is the almost ten minute long car chase ¾ of the way through. In it, McQueen (who did his own driving in the scene) chases after a Dodge with two shotgun toting hitmen in it. It lacks the flash and busy editing of modern car chases, but more than makes up for it in narrative punch and character moments. Yes, a car chase with no dialogue and not much music is able to tell a self-contained story of cat & mouse between two cars while still being exciting. It starts off slow, builds and ultimately explodes onto the freeway. It sounds kind of silly to always look to Bullitt as the best car chase ever, but after having seen it (and in the context of the movie), I’m inclined to agree. Yes, its an impressive set piece, but its also building tension and moving the plot forward without words. There should be a “Car Chases 101” class for this kind of storytelling.

And that’s really something the movie does well. It escalates tension in a methodical and deliberate way. This isn’t a “blink and you’ll miss it” action movie. Some scenes, like a chase through a hospital, seem to go on for a very long time, but its all tightly calculated to keep you guessing and wondering.

Writing
Screenplay by Alan R. Trustman and Harry Kleiner. Based on the novel “Mute Witness” by Robert L. Pike. The story is full of interesting details, and much like real police work, the majority of it involves investigation and a lot of boring legwork occasionally peppered by violence. The medical scenes (a lot of the movie takes place in a hospital) are also quite interesting to watch, since you get a decent look at medical practice in the late 60s. And yeah, there’s a really interesting twist along the way.

Sound
Original music by Lalo Schifrin, and my only complaint is that there wasn’t enough of it. Seriously, Schifrin was an awesome composer, but there really wasn’t a lot of music in the movie. It is surprisingly quiet and restrained.

Conclusion
Bullitt has a well deserved reputation for having one of, if not THE best car chases in movie history, but that same reputation works against it, since it makes you think its an action movie. It is not. In a lot of ways it’s an early Neo Noir where you have a deeply flawed protagonist finding himself falling deeper and deeper into an ugly situation where there’s no easy way out of. Taken with that mindset, the movie is an incredibly taut thriller and totally recommended.

“What I do not give, you must never take by force.”

Remember Hero and House of Flying Daggers? (Oh, crap, haven’t reviewed House of Flying Daggers yet. IGNORE ME!!) Well, that same director, Yimou Zhang made yet another period martial arts movie, this time with Chow Yun-Fat and a grandiose sense of scale that would make Cecil B. DeMille jealous. Here’s 2006’s Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia aka Curse of the Golden Flower.

Story
Take a whole bunch of plot elements from Shakespeare’s Tragedies, throw them into ancient China and wait for the body count. Explaining it further will simply complicate things, but here goes. Emperor Ping (Yun-Fat Chow -- using the names as they appear on IMDB here) is a bearded badass warlord who rules with an iron fist. He’s got a beautiful wife, Empress Phoenix (Li Gong), whom he is poisoning daily in order to drive her insane (he can’t kill her outright because her father is a powerful lord). Thing is, she knows he’s poisoning her and she’s planning a coup to get her revenge. Between the two of them, they start manipulating the three Princes: Prince Jai (Jay Chou), Crown Prince Wan (Ye Liu) and Prince Yu (Junjie Quin) like pawns on a chessboard. The plot gets heavy.

And then ninjas show up. Yes, this is China, but damn it, the Emperor has a small army of guys who dress in black, strike from the shadows and generally behave exactly like typical movie ninjas.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Yimou Zhang and cinematography by Xiaoding Zhao, the first thing that strikes you (and continues to strike you throughout) is the sheer volume of color that explodes onto your eyeballs. Gold figures prominently, but next to that, there’s a dazzling rainbow that is constantly assailing your brain. I imagine if you this movie was combined with LSD, heads would physically explode.

Color saturation overdose aside, the movie, like Yimou’s other films, is strikingly beautiful. The fights are breathtaking and brutal and have a punctuate the narrative nicely.

Writing
Written by Yimou Zhang and based on the play “Lei yu” by Yu Cao, the plot really does feel like Shakespeare’s Tragedies were stitched together into a Byzantine framework of subterfuge, betrayal, rebellion, tyranny, lust, incest, poisoning, shocking revelations and so on. All that’s missing is cannibalism. I’m saying this is a bad thing, since the end result is a complex but coherent creature with its own personality. Just don’t go into it expecting a happy ending.

Sound
Original music by Shigeru Umebayashi. The score is quite appropriate for a movie of this grandeur, with the action sequences being accompanied by a thunderous score.

Conclusion
Curse of the Golden Flower is one hell of a visual trip, and its helped by a significantly deep storyline that is full of crazy twists and turns. It begins as a slow boil, but by the time shit hits the fan, it REALLY hits the fan. Very recommended.

Also: THE COLORS!! THE COLORS!!!

“I refuse to be embarrassed by a car that looks like a Trapper Keeper.”

2008’s Sex Drive gets judged a lot by its title. After all, it kind of indicates that its going to be a raunchy teen sex comedy along the lines of Superbad, full of awkward teens trying to get laid. Having seen Sex Drive, that’s really not what its about. I mean, it is, but its not, but it is, but its not. Its a kind of Shroedinger's Cat situation.

Story
Ian (Josh Zuckerman) is a senior in High School, a nice, fairly shy guy and still a virgin. He’s not happy about this, but there is a spot of hope in his self-conscious life: He’s been chatting up a hot blonde online who goes by the handle “Ms. Tasty” (Katrina Bowden). He’s been lying about being on the football team and owning a badass car to her and she (if it is a she) invites him to Tennessee to “give her the D,” as it were. Ian ultimately decides to go through with it, and steals his older brother Rex’s (James Marsden in an epic show of scene stealing hamminess) Pontiac GTO “The Judge” and drive down from Illinois to Tennessee with his best friend Lance (Clark Duke). Along the way, his hot female (Friendzone) friend Felecia (Amanda Crew) joins them and they set off on the road for ADVENTURE!

Along the way they run into Ezekiel (Seth Green) an incredibly sarcastic Amish man who knows a great deal about car repair and cameos by Brian Posehn and David Koechner (trust me, you’ve seen/heard them before)

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Sean Anders, the movie certainly looks fine but doesn’t have a whole lot of “gee that’s awesome/new” visual elements. It is however, a solidly told road movie with a lot episodic moments that all kind of come together. Also, that donut costume you see on the poster? Yeah, that gets used in a really hilarious way.

Writing
Screenplay by Sean Anders and John Morris, based on the book “All The Way” by Andy Behrens. The story certainly IS about sex, but its also, interestingly, about exploring teen angst, sexual frustration, shyness and lots of other not-exactly-raunchy concepts. There’s a lot going on under the surface of this movie, and I appreciate that. Also, it makes the Amish cool and Rumpspringa really funny.

Sound
Original music by Stephen Trask. We’ve also got Fall Out Boy appearing as themselves at the Amish party. And The Judge appropriately enough gets AC/DC associated with it.

Conclusion
I really enjoyed Sex Drive. A lot. It’s a surprisingly heartfelt examination of teen angst about virginity and a look at relationships and the lengths people will go to for some really stupid reasons. That’s high school in a nutshell right there. It doesn’t hurt that the movie is wickedly funny as well. Sadly, the movie didn’t find an audience in theaters, and I’m noticing a curious trend about modern comedies that the ones I enjoy the hell out of are the ones that don’t find an audience in theaters, while the ones that DO prove to be commercial giants (like The Hangover, which I thought was just okay), I’m significantly lukewarm about. Okay, I realize that I sound like a major snob right now and I’ll stop.

“You weren't listening. We never give anything away. What we do is bargain, trade.”

In case you haven’t noticed before, I’m a little bit… off-center in a lot of matters regarding taste. Case in point: while many who’ve read fantasy turn to the big named series as their preferred series (I’m talking about The Lord Of The Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Dragonlance Chronicles (yes, I’ve read it, I have no excuse), Harry Potter or even The Inheritance Trilogy Cycle (no, I haven’t read it and need no excuse)) the series I look to with the most fondness are The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. Long story short, it’s a high fantasy series of five books that are based (somewhat loosely) on Welsh Mythology. It’s a tremendously underrated series that manages to cram in a lot of heavy themes and is just as deserving of the cinematic adaptation treatment as the others.

In fact, the series has already received the movie treatment back in the 1980s from no less than Disney itself with The Black Cauldron in 1985. Unfortunately, its got a reputation as the black sheep of the Disney animated canon. Let’s explore!

Story
Well, uh, considering it’s a movie based on the 2nd book of the series, its really radically different from the books aside from some of the core characters and themes. There is a legendary evil cauldron that can create invincible undead soldiers and a powerful evil lord is trying to find/use it to take over the world. Our hero, Taran (voiced by Grant Bardsley), is an orphan who grew up in a wizard’s remote cottage/estate and serves as Assistant Pig Keeper to an oracular pig. Taran is a headstrong youth who dreams of great heroic deeds and mostly by chance he gets caught up in ADVENTURE! Along the way, he encounters the Horned King (voiced by the ever-awesome John Hurt) (an amalgamation of the books’ villains Arawn Death-Lord and a warlord named the Horned King), the Princess Eilonwy (voiced by Susan Sheridan) (who sadly doesn’t have her signature red-gold hair, here its just blonde), Gurgi (voiced by John Byner) a short, furry, cowardly…thing, and Fflewdur Fflam (voiced by Nigel Hawthorne) a old bard (probably the saddest change from the books where he’s a young king of a distant land who prefers to go wandering around as a bard because ruling his kingdom is boring).

Right, so the storyline of the movie really diverges from the books, but I really don’t think they could’ve done otherwise back in the 80s, since animated movies didn’t really get sequels or series. For what it is, the changes from the book are a bit disappointing, but nothing actually deal breaking.

Visuals/Effects
Here’s where things get really interesting. Directed by Ted Berman and Richard Rich, the movie’s art direction and animation are right up there with the rest of the accepted Disney canon. The Black Cauldron looks gorgeous. Not just gorgeous, but there’s a lot of creepiness involved too, with the Horned King being one of the most malevolent looking villains I’ve ever seen in a Disney movie aside from maybe that guy from Night On Bald Mountain in Fantasia. And the guy gets one hell of a villain death scene (like that‘s a spoiler. It‘s a Disney movie for crying out loud). It’s not a fully unified artistic direction however, what with the Fair Folk looking and behaving like your standard Disney fairies (Doli is supposed to be a Dwarf, not a Pixie), but overall, the art department really brought their A Game to the movie, and it really made me nostalgic for traditional cell painted animation.

Writing
Okay, this is going to be long. Based on “The Chronicles of Prydain” by Lloyd Alexander, story by David Jonas, Vance Gerry, Ted Berman, Richard Rich, Al Wilson, Roy Morita, Peter Young, Art Stevens and Joe Hale; additional dialogue by Rosemary Anne Sisson and Roy Edward Disney; and additional story contributions by Tony Marino, Steve Hulett, Melvin Shaw, Burny Mattinson, John Musker, Ron Clements and Doug Lefler. Whew. The writing is not bad but struggles with trying to cram in and adjust two books worth of material into one movie. That’s really the biggest flaw of the film. Characters behave like they should, but the whole thing feels very rushed, which is unfortunate. Still, the general theme of Glory and ADVENTURE! carrying a much heavier price than those who would seek it out understand are right there from the start, and there are a couple of misty-eyed moments to be found by the end. Its quite dark for a Disney animated movie.

Sound
The soundtrack is by the legendary Elmer Bernstein and it works brilliantly with the movie. Can’t complain about it. Also, in a departure from essentially every other Disney movie, there are no songs. Yep. Not. One. Song. That should tell you this movie means serious business.

Conclusion
The Black Cauldron has a large number of flaws. It also bombed in theaters and kind of drove Disney’s animation arm into the ground until The Little Mermaid, which is a damn shame really. The movie has some of the most impressively fluid animation work I’ve seen in a while and a story that, while divergent from its source material, isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty with some pretty dark themes. It’s definitely worth checking out if you get a chance, and it really makes me wonder what a big budget, live action, book faithful take on the series would be like. Hmm. Guess I’ll just have to become a famous writer and some time in the future adapt the screenplay. Obviously.

Curiously enough, its not easy to find the actual trailer for it.
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi93716761/

“My god! Do we really suck, or is this guy really that good?”

Guns, guns, guns, guns. That’s the be-all and end-all of Shoot ‘Em Up, a hyper-stylistic, hyper violent action flick that carries around a hefty dose of black comedy. Its kind of a one trick pony in that regard, lets see if it’s a good enough trick to last the whole movie.

Story
We have a pregnant woman being chased by gunmen who passes a homeless looking “Mr. Smith” (Clive Owen) who has a mysterious past, a surprising competence with firearms and a fondness for carrots. He intervenes in the struggle (by jamming a carrot through one thug’s head, which right there should tell you exactly what kind of movie this is). The woman gives birth but is killed and Mr. Smith ends up an erstwhile nanny for the baby. Turns out, it’s the baby the bad guys, led by Hertz (Paul Giamatti) want and we get one giant gunfight of a movie. Oh, and we also get an ally/mother figure in the shapely form of a prostitute named D.Q. (short for Donna Quintano/“Dairy Queen” and played by Monica Bellucci).

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Michael Davis (who also directed personal guilty pleasure favorite 100 Girls), the movie certainly moves at a quick pace. The gunfights are pretty fun and provide a hefty dose of visual comedy. Physics does tend to get broken over one knee in this movie FREQUENTLY, so if that’s something you feel very strongly about, you’ll probably hate this movie. A lot. Still, the fights just go on into increasingly bigger and more audacious scenes, and the fight choreography is really solid too.

Writing
Written by the above mentioned Michael Davis. The writing has some funny lines and moments here and there, but its really a weak point of the film. The plot, if it can be called such, is insanely convoluted AND contrived and by the end of the movie. I called bullshit a few times. As far as a “message,” I don’t think there really is one. There’s kind of a half-assed anti-gun bit, but the movie’s answer to everything is to add more guns, so really, I think its just intended as a big, loud, stupid action movie with a nihilistic tone its violence.

Sound
Original music by Paul Haslinger, but the licensed songs that go along with the action scenes are a huge part of the awesomeness of those scenes, particularly Wolfmother.

Conclusion
Shoot ‘Em Up isn’t a particularly great movie. The writing is crude and juvenile at a LOT of points, but the three leads give it enough weight to make getting from Point A to Point B a reasonably fun ride. The movie is at its strongest during the plentiful (if not the actual bulk of the movie) and inventive action scenes. The schtick was enough to keep me entertained, but I know of several people who absolutely hated it. Approach with caution, I suppose.

“Negative, I am a meat popsicle.”

Its kind of hard to preface a movie like The Fifth Element. After all, it’s a brightly colored, shiny, largely optimistic space opera/Adventure! that was released in 1997. And its got Bruce Willis in it.

Story
Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) is a former military pilot who’s now a down on his luck cabbie (in THE FUTURE!). His mom nags him, his wife divorced him, and he can barely afford to keep up with his traffic violations. He’s about to have bigger problems. See, there’s this ancient EVIL which manifests physically every couple of thousand years in an attempt to kill all life in the universe. So it falls to Commander Shepherd and his crew to--wait, sorry.

The only way to stop the EVIL is the lost “Fifth Element” (as opposed to fire, earth, air & water, oh, and DUN DUN DUN!). There is a faith based around this Elemental power, and its current priest, Father Vito Cornelius (Ian Holm) is desperate to convince the Earth government that the only thing that can stop the EVIL is this element. Some friendly aliens try to deliver said Maguffin, but get shot down by mercenaries. The Element is recovered and reconstructed by SCIENCE into Leeloo Minai Lekariba-Laminai-Tchai-Ekbat De Sebat (Milla Jovovich), a smokin’ hot little mama jamma fully capable of kicking anyone’s ass. She escapes from a hospital and falls (literally) into Korben’s cab, and a course is plotted for ADVENTURE!

I should add that along the way, we run into a DJ named Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker) and the villainous Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg (Gary Oldman), and it seems to me that the two spend their screen time trying to out-ham each other. I’m okay with this.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Luc Besson, the film is, again, very, very bright and colorful. It really jars against the more cynical and darker visuals of its contemporary sci-fi movies (like Dark City and The Matrix). There’s a lot of makeup, model work and wacky outfits, and all of it (aside from some of the weirder costumes) is really well done. And the fight scenes are really badass, which is a plus.

Writing
Screenplay by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen and based off a story Besson wrote back in the 70s. It’s got action, its got a LOT of comic moments and funny dialogue, and its got some reeaaalllly memorable characters. About the only complaint I have is that the ending is a little bit anti-climactic.

Sound
The original music by Eric Serra is an interesting blend of electronica, opera and a blend of international touches. It’s a bit hard to describe, but the one fight scene juxtaposed with the opera scene is easily one of the best in the movie.

Conclusion
Yeah, so I will admit to being late to The Fifth Element party. I’d seen clips here and there and thought it was cool and all, but never sat through it all the way before. I concede the awesomeness of the movie and feel a little ashamed that I haven’t experienced it until now. It’s good. Real good. One of the better surprises this year. Hell, if I had seen this back in the 90's like God intended, it might've become one of my favorite movies ever.

“You fight like a baby. A DEAD baby!”

Not a whole lot I have to say in prologue about this one other than I’ve got a fondness for ninja movies and a fondness for Flight of the Conchords. 2002’s Tongan Ninja happens to combine elements from both, considering it’s a ninja action-comedy-musical set in New Zealand.

Story
So we have two martial arts students on the island of Tonga, one a heroic, honorable and naïve student named Sione Finau (Sam Manu) and his childhood rival, the arrogant, cheating Action Fighter (formerly Marvin) (Jemaine Clement). Sione gets sent by his master to help out a restaurant owning friend who’s been beat up by the goons of the So-Called Syndicate. He gets to Wellington, New Zealand and finds the onwer’s daughter, Miss Lee (Linda Tseng), being shaken down by the So-Called Syndicate and of course, has to fight his way through a bunch of Mr. Big’s (Victor Rodger) goons, including Asian Side-Kick (Raybon Kan), Herman the Henchman (David Fane), Knife Man, Gun Man and a final showdown with Action Fighter. Its fairly standard martial arts plot stuff, but that’s the point of the whole thing.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Jason Stutter, “low budget” perfectly describes this movie. This is not a bad thing, since it helps the lowbrow comedy of the movie since a lot of otherwise “big budget” encounters are explicitly pointed out and denied to the audience. There is also a healthy dose of CGI which is comically obvious as well. Fight scenes are decent but also intentionally not very good.

Writing
The writing team of Jemain Clement and Jason Stutter are perfectly aware of the kind of low budget movie they are making and they’re also very aware of the genre they’re making fun of. There’s also a healthy dose of deadpan, self-deprecating Kiwi humor.

Sound
The original music by David Donaldson, Plan 9 and Steve Roche isn’t fancy but it gets the job done. The original songs on the other hand, especially the title song sung by an Elvis-dressed Jemaine Clement, are quite catchy.



Conclusion
It is easy to dismiss Tongan Ninja as a silly little fluff parody, and, well, it is. But its also a surprisingly clever little movie and a testament to the “can-do” spirit of independent filmmaking. I actually like it quite a lot, and it has a feel very similar to Black Dynamite (though lacking the production values) but I’ll admit its probably not for everyone.

“Why, my Uncle Thumper had a problem with HIS probate, and he had to take these big pills, and drink lots of water.”

Been a while since we’ve dipped into the inky black pool of Film Noir, but 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a good solid twisting of the genre into a curious balloon animal shape.

Uhh, that was a weird metaphor. Let’s just get right into it.

Story
Take bitter, drunken hard-boiled private eye Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins doing an incredible job hiding his British accent) and have him working in 1940’s Hollywood. Pretty noir-ish so far, right? Now add Toons, living, breathing cartoon characters that are a staple part of the entertainment business. Eddie, who very clearly does not like toons (for the simple fact that one murdered his brother by dropping a piano on his head) is hired by studio mogul R.K. Maroon (Alan Tilvern) to do a little snooping on the wife of Maroon Studio’s star player, Roger Rabbit (voiced by Charles Fleischer). When Valiant shows Roger pictures of his wife Jessica (voiced by Kathleen Turner) playing literal patty cake with the recently murdered Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye) owner of Toontown, the plot starts adding up and all signs point to the sinister Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd hamming it up BIG TIME) having something to do with the murder. And then hilarity ensues.

The live action cast is very solid and really gets it done, but since this is a hybrid live action/animation film, the real scene stealers are all the toons that populate Hollywood. And the movie does the near impossible feat of getting all the various companies to grant permission to include their characters in this one film. So you get Betty Boop, Woody the Woodpecker, Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse and so on. What this also means is that the movie features quite possibly the most impressive collection of voice actors ever assembled on screen. In addition to voice work god Mel Blanc (in one of his last performances), you get guys like Frank Welker, Nancy Cartwright, Jack Angel, Tony Pope, Jim Cummings, Wayne Allwine, Russi Taylor, June Foray, Joe Alaskey, Mae Questel (in one of her last performances) and more. You probably don’t recognize any of those names, but I guarantee that you’ve heard them plenty of times. Look them up and you’ll realize just how much respect is due to these incredibly talented people.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Robert Zemeckis with cinematography by Dean Cundey (who worked with Zemeckis on the Back To The Future Trilogy). The movie has two objectives: Look like the 1930s and blend live action with animation. It works brilliantly. Yes, its in color, but they had color back then (Adventures of Robin Hood, Snow White) and it fit’s the, well, cartoonish nature of the population.

Writing
Based on the novel “Who Censored Roger Rabbit? By Gary K. Wolf (bet you didn’t know that) and screenplay by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman. The snappy dialogue is really what cements the movie together, since it effectively blends the madcap cartoon wordplay with the double-entendre of noir. The plot itself is pretty tight and includes the obligatory third act twist.

Sound
Original music by the always solid Alan Silvestri. Also, the movie gets major props for including a dueling pianos act between Daffy and Donald Duck that is entirely in character for those two hotheads.

Conclusion
A love letter to film noir, the Golden Age of Hollywood and old school animation all rolled into one. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is just about perfect.

“Your knowledge of scientific biological transmogrification is only outmatched by your zest for kung-fu treachery!”

Arguably the most (in)famous exploitation subgenre is Blaxploitation. It arose in the 1970s and essentially comprised gritty crime plots, shootouts, sex and frequently martial arts starring a predominantly black cast. The soundtracks were funky and/or groovy, production values were generally low and the acting was spotty. In short, perfect fodder for cult films (and believe me, brother, we’re gonna get to some of them in due time). Today’s subject is actually 2009’s homage/parody of the films, Black Dynamite.

Story
This is gonna get complicated. It starts with the mob killing a police mole. That mole turns out to be the younger brother of Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White), a kung-fu master who’s a veteran of the Army AND CIA who sets out on an investigative rampage of revenge to get the bastards who killed his brother. Along the way, he recruits a team to help him: Cream Corn (Tommy Davidson), the rhyme-spouting Bullhorn (Byron Minns) and a group of Black Power militants led by Saheed (Phil Morris). He also starts up a relationship with community activist Gloria (Salli Richardson-Whitfield). Black Dynamite and his crew proceed to wage a ruthless war on drugs and uncover a conspiracy that connects to the mad science of the Fiendish Dr. Wu (Roger Yuan).

If I say anything else, it’d be spoilers of the worst kind, and that would be a real shame. Suffice it to say that there is no shortage of gunfights, car chases, kung fu, boobies and dirty words.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Scott Sanders with Cinematography by Shawn Maurer, the film is shot in the old Blaxploitation style and set in the 70s, so it really plays up the color saturation and so on. Some of the greatest gags the movie offers are visual, where all manner of “errors” (like bad editing, continuity, and crew goofs) abound intentionally. It is outstanding how they’re integrated, like when Black Dynamite is giving a serious speech and occasionally looks up at the boom mike dangling into frame but keeps talking. Stuff like that.

Writing
Screenplay by Michael Jai White, Byron Minns & Scott Sanders. The screenplay is just as solid of a parody as the visual style and acting are. The plot starts out simple but spirals into something sublimely ludicrous. The dialogue is fantastic, even when it’s not spinning new and exciting variants on established profanity.

Sound
Original music by Adrian Younge and it is FUNKY in the best possible way. Some of the songs provide hilariously unnecessary exposition as they narrate what’s going on. Black Dynamite himself has an audio sting that hits whenever he does something incredibly badass. It’s good stuff.

Conclusion
Black Dynamite is a work of genius because it works as a comedy and a straightforward Blaxploitation film. I can’t sing my praises for it enough, and the many people I’ve forced to watch it can attest to it. And every one of them has walked away satisfied. Watch this movie ASAP.

“Hey, its wet-willy time”

1993 brought about one more Turtles movie. Only this time, the Jim Henson Creature Shop was not involved. And… Well… nobody really likes it. Like, at all. Sounds like a good enough reason to take a look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.

Story
April O’Neil (Paige Turco) visit’s the Turtles spacious underground digs and tells them she’s going on vacation. She also brings some gifts for the gang and an antique scepter that for some reason, starts glowing and April gets thrown through time to Feudal Japan and replaced with Kenshin (Henry Hayashi), the son of a powerful daimyo with daddy issues. Why? Through the age-old storytelling crutch of an ancient prophecy, of course!

Anyway, our heroes Leonardo (Mark Caso & voiced by Brian Tochi), Raphael (Matt Hill & voiced by Tim Kelleher), Donatello (Jim Raposa & voiced once more by Corey Feldman) and Michaelangelo (David Fraser & voiced by Robbie Rist) resolve to use the scepter to go after April and bringing four samurai warriors to New York in the process. Can Splinter (voiced by James Murray) and Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) keep these five samurai out of trouble? Hilarity of course is supposed to ensue (and well, kind of does, since Koteas’ Jones is a welcome return to the series)

Moving on, the Turtles end up in Japan circa 1603 and find out that April’s been captured by the daimyo’s men because of the whole magic thing. The Daimyo, Lord Norinaga (Sab Shimono) is apparently a bad dude, since his army is putting down a rebellious village for…being rebellious I guess. It’s really vague, but it’s the kind of movie where “rebels = good because that’s what Star Wars did.” Anyway, Norinaga forms an uneasy partnership with a much more clearly bad guy: the Englishman Walker (Stuart Wilson, who was the bad guy in Lethal Weapon 3) and his thugs. Walker’s a bit of a dandy and a gun for hire that is really in it to make a profit. He’s got a crew of thugs, led by Niles (John Aylward as one of the funnier characters) and there’s Whit, a dissenting member of the crew that kind of latches on to April that reminds her of Casey Jones (and happens to be played by Koteas as well). The Turtles (who are regarded by the Japanese as fearsome kappa demons, which actually makes a fair bit of sense) rescue April, escape to the village and team up with the rebels and their leader Mitsu (Vivian Wu) who is also Kenshin’s lover. And you can see where the plot goes from here.

There aren’t any really terrible performances, but there aren't any really good performances either.  You can kind of tell that there’s not much heart being poured into it. There aren’t even that many fight scenes compared to the first two films. Still, Michaelangelo & Raphael get some character development spotlight, which is not a bad thing.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Stuart Gillard, you can tell the budget was much lower than the previous outings. The animatronics and Turtle costumes are a definite step down from the Henson creations. There’s also the infamous falling scene from the end of the movie where a character drops off the fortress into the water below and simply vanishes through the miracle of bad editing (though there is a splash sound).

Writing
Characters created by Eastman & Laird and screenplay written by Stuart Gillard. The story runs along on rails rather predictably and the Turtles’ schtick is wearing kind of thin at this point. Some of the comedic bits hit, but more often than not they don’t. Such as all of Donatello's increasingly grating catchphrases and one-liners.

Sound
Original music by John Du Prez yet again, which amps up the Japanese musical cues and the soundtrack also includes ZZ Top’s “Can’t Stop Rockin.”

Conclusion
There’s no way I can ever call Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III a good movie. HOWEVER, it isn’t really as bad as people say it is. It’s bad, but compared to dreck like Robot Holocaust, it’s totally watchable. I will admit that part of it might be nostalgia goggles (I did watch this one quite a few times as a kid), but honestly, I don’t hate it at all, but it does get quite annoying at times.

“First, we must observe the ancient ritual of the, uh, uh... traditional pre-fight donut!”

Turtle Power was still in really high gear in 1991 and a year after the first movie, there was a second: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze.

Story
Now that the characters are established, we can get into the meat of the plot. The Turtles are regarded as urban legends in New York City, still doing random delivery work and eating pizza, rescuing a delivery boy/martial arts enthusiast Keno (Ernie Reyes Jr.). After their home got trashed in the last movie, they’re staying with April O’Neil (Paige Turco) and the apartment is a little crowded for six people/mutants. April covers the story of a company, TGRI, and its efforts to clean up some of their old radioactive messes, led by Professor Jordan Perry (David Warner in a surprisingly non-villainous, non-sinister role) Splinter (voiced by Kevin Clash again) informs Leonardo (Mark Caso & voiced by Brian Tochi), Michelangelo (Michelan Sisti & voiced by Robbie Rist), Donatello (Leif Tilden & voiced by Adam Carl) and Raphael (Kenn Troum & voiced by Laurie Faso) that TGRI was the company that created the Ooze that made them. They set out to discover the secret of the Ooze (DUN DUN DUN!) but so does a revitalized Foot Clan, led by a returned and decidedly un-squished Shredder (François Chau & voiced by David McCharen) who gets some Ooze for himself and uses it to make some new mutants, Tokka & Razhar (both voiced by voice over legend Frank Welker).

Like the first movie, this one throws a LOT of plot at the audience and manages to keep things moving. Since its Science oriented, Donatello gets a lot more character development as he & Dr. Perry swap techno babble.

Oh yeah, and wrestler Kevin Nash is in it as the Super Shredder, for all of 30 seconds.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Michael Pressman, the movie lacks some of the visual “edge” of the first one. This one’s cleaner, more polished, less gritty. A bit goofier than the previous one, though the fight scenes remain one of the high points, though its more fist fighting than using weapons.

Writing
Eastman & Laird get creator credits and screenplay by Todd W. Langen. The script really amps up the more cartoony aspects of the series than the comics to be more in line with the target audience. But here’s the rub, we seven & eight year olds at the time liked the first movie because it was gritty. Because it was, by our standards, “hardcore.” Sure, we still liked the sequel because it was the Turtles, but we all noticed the toned down violence and wondered “what the hell?”

Sound
Original music by John Du Prez again, but really, what’s going to stick out in your head is the on-screen “impromptu” rap performance of “Ninja Rap” by Vanilla Ice & Earthquake. And it will Never. Ever. Leave you.

Conclusion
Eh, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze is, ultimately okay. It’s not great. Not even as good as the first one. But it’s kind of charming in its harmless stupidity.



And because YOU DIDN'T ASK FOR IT, NINJA RAP:

“Wise man say forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza.”

1990 was Twenty Years Ago. Which just makes me feel old and arthritic just thinking about that tidbit. But there’s a bright side to this trip down memory lane, since it gives us a chance to look back at the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a film that was essentially tailored to my seven year old movie going self. That’s right kids, I saw this beeyotch in theaters. Let’s see if it’s aged well.

Story
To those of you not clued in to just how big of a phenomenon the Turtles were in the late 80s-early 90s, the premise revolves around this radioactive stuff called “Ooze” presumably a byproduct of nuclear…scientific…sciencey…things. Anyway, this Ooze is capable of rapidly (and nonlethally) mutating anything that comes in direct physical contact with it into some kind of anthropomorphic creature/monster. Because comic books, that’s why.

Anyway, it also involves the backstory of a guy named Hamato Yoshi getting killed by Oroko Saki and Yoshi’s pet rat getting covered in ooze. The rat mutates into a human-sized puppet named Splinter that’s voiced by Muppeteer Kevin Clash (the voice of Elmo) who takes up residence in the New York City sewer system. Some time later four baby turtles were abandoned and exposed to the Ooze and Splinter adopted them, taught them, trained them in ninjutsu and named them after famous Renaissance artists: Leonardo (David Foreman and voiced by Brian Tochi), Donatello (Leif Tilden and voiced by Corey Feldman), Raphael (Josh Pais and voiced by Josh Pais) and Michaelangelo (Michelan Sisti and voiced by Robbie Rist). Because comic books, that’s why.

Anyway, this all leads up to 1990, where a crime wave of theft & burglary has the city paralyzed and the police stymied. The thieves strike and vanish without a trace, and there’s only one reporter in town willing to ask the hard questions and get to the bottom of this: April O’Neil (Judith Hoag).

Yadda yadda yadda, turns out the thieves are a legion of maladjusted teens that are taken in by the Foot Clan, a criminal group of ninjas led by the Shredder (James Saito). April runs afoul of them, is rescued by the Turtles, they eventually get joined by a sports themed vigilante named Casey Jones (played by a gloriously hammy Elias Koteas) and ADVENTURE! ensues.

So the plot is complicated and out of the Turtles, it’s really Raphael that gets the most development. He’s angry. A lot. Which causes him to go off on his own and get his ass kicked by the Foot (ba-dum-tsh). After clashing with Leonardo (who’s the Responsible One), Raph ends up learning more self control and how to play better with others. It’s actually fairly well done. The cast all handle their roles pretty well and despite the really cluttered plot, it stays coherent.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Steve Barron, the film is competently shot, but the art direction does end up straddling that line between “realistic” and “cheesy” with some of the sets (like the Foot Clan’s ludicrous-but-awesome-if-you’re-seven indoor arcade & skate park). However, the movie moves along very quickly and the fight scenes are generally pretty good. The most pleasant surprise is that the special effects have largely aged well, and I credit this entirely to the Jim Henson Company for their work on Splinter & the Turtles. Again, it’s all fairly well done.

Writing
Characters created by Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird, story by Bobby Herbeck and Screenplay by Todd W. Langen & Bobby Herbeck. It manages to juggle the origin and a surprising amount of plot quite well. The characters are all recognizably so and (having never read the comic so I’m not 100% sure) but it seems to blend the catchphrase spouting style of the cartoon with the darker visual look of the comics. Which sounds like it shouldn’t work, but kind of does. The movie is not starved for one-liners and a surprising number of them are pretty good though there are also quite a few stinkers that are heavily dated to the period. And Raph screams out “DAMN!!!” at one point, which, when you’re seven, leaves an impact.

Sound
Original music by John Du Prez (UHF), and the score, while heavily influenced by digital touches, does work well and there are some eastern influenced “ninja” style cues. There’s also a licensed soundtrack that includes “This Is What We Do” by M.C. Hammer and “T-U-R-T-L-E Power!” by Partners In Kryme as the end credits song. It’s cheesy, but catchy.

Conclusion
While the nostalgia goggles probably helped in watching this, I have to admit I was a little afraid to revisit Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’m glad that it still holds up pretty well on its own merits. Yes, it’s extremely cheesy. Extremely cheesy. But that’s kind of the charm of it too. It’s not great, but its definitely way better than it could’ve been.


And yeah, the dubbing on the trailer doesn't match up the finished movie. It's likely the trailer was cut before all the voice over work was done.