This was another grind house era women in prison movie. I suppose the twist here is that Pam Grier is the bad guy in this one. Despite the obvious sleeze factor here, I found this to actually be a rather well plotted and entertaining film. The acting is, hands down, some of the worst I have seen… And I have seen Troll 2. Nonetheless, I like this one.
With the demise of Drop.io I have had to find a new place to offer MP3s of my musical project, Martian Law. In the process, I have rearranged the site a bit and given all my releases their own pages: The Exciting Sounds of a Compaq P133 and Upgrade Downgrade. I have also added a new track for download from the 2002’s Lumpenwave 80s cover compilation.
This was a slight twist on a typical teen slasher movie. A very, very slight twist which you will see coming from a million miles away. These are some of the most grating, annoying and dumb film teenagers since Hostel. Hostel at least made you root for the frat-boys, despite their dickheadedness, with pure adrenaline infused tension. This movie just lumbers along with no suspense or horror to drive the plot along. Better casting may have made this one work, but, as it is, yawn.
Once again, I am off in search of fantasy books to match the greatness of the A Song of Fire and Ice series. Amazon seemed to think this book was up to the challenge, so I decided to give it a try. While it has some of the gritty edge of Martin’s books, this novel really fell short. The plot is at times very dull and lacks any sort of larger story arc that one would expect from an epic trilogy. Most of the time is spent establishing the characters. That’s fine and all and it may pay off in later books, but I found myself wanting them to just do something, anything besides wander about and use the F-word.
This film was next in line in my recent rash of bad movies: Troll 2… Birdemic. Unlike those Legendary crap fests, this made-for-TV feature is a little too self aware. Sure the stilted love affair between Debbie Gibson and the Japanese scientist is epic, and the submarine battles defy all logic, but there is just a general lack of enthusiasm from the cast which keeps this from being at the same level of cheese as Plan 9, Birdemic, and the like.
I finally got around to watching this highly regarded Mario Bava film and it is definitely one of his better efforts. I am not sure I love it as much as some his other films, but his work tends to grow on me with subsequent viewings. There is a lot to like about the style in this movie. The colored lighting and mood is, as usual, fantastic. Christopher Lee’s hands should get a lifetime achievement award at the next Oscars. The only real downside for for me is that the ghost story plot just is just not as interesting to me as the killer-on-the-loose story that is more typical in his giallo films.
A typical post-Shrek CGI animated feature. This was the first modern 3-D movie I have seen in the theater. 3-D doesn’t add much at all except in making the glass look more realistic and substantial. The character design is awful, especially for the Megamind character himself—looks like a Star Trek alien design as imagined by an 11-year old fan. The story is cliche but entertaining. If I see another computer animated cartoon that ends with a pop song and dance number I’m throwing my 64oz drink at the projection booth.
This book presents a history of the current financial crisis thingy in a way that tries to be as plain-spoken as possible. Some of the early banking and monetary policy issues are still a bit above my head but the book did provide some clarity for me. Remind me to never give out sub-prime home loans to deadbeats.
How’s this for a novel concept: the reason Poles were able to defend their realm against the invading armies of Genghis Khan was that they had the super-human help of Hercules! This is one weird movie. Seing a muscle-bound man in a tiny loin cloth thing fighting alongside crusades era knights is quite jarring, as is the cast of burly white men playing the Mogol Asians. There is a great Hercules vs. rubber crocodile scene.
This is nothing you haven’t seen a hundred times before in war movies. The Russian perspective of Afganistan is a bit of a change though.