Three Bad Movies

Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012)
This is the second movie released in 2012 that I saw! I'll get to the other 2012 films I've seen in my next few posts. Of course while I saw those in theaters, this movie made its premiere on the SyFy Channel!
Jersey Shore Shark Attack is both a Jaws rip-off and parody of MTV reality show Jersey Shore at the same time. I don't think it will surprise anybody that this movie has poor acting and terrible special effects. However, I didn't expect that Jersey Shore Shark Attack would feature two actors from Goodfellas: Tony Sirico and Paul Sorvino! Both actually do a good job in their roles here considering the material. I would hope that they are getting better offers than this, but maybe these guys just have a good sense of humor.
I must mention that Joey Fatone, formerly of boy band 'N Sync, has a great cameo appearance!
Jersey Shore Shark Attack was produced by Fred Olen Ray who has directed and produced tons of low budget B-movies and exploitation flicks. I've never seen an Olen Ray movie before but keep in mind this is the guy who brought us Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers and Reptisaurus!  
Jersey Shore Shark Attack is not really a horror movie but more of a comedy with jokes that are hit or miss. Some scenes like the one with Joey Fatone or the line "Is that spaghetti sauce?" (referring to blood) are hilarious. However, others attempts at humor fall flat or too padded with boring scenes.
The writing was actually better than I expected in terms of the parodies and jokes. We even have some character development and a use of Chekov's Gun, or harpoon in this case. Unfortunately the basic rule of "show, don't tell" us violated in a major way once. I guess the reason for that is that the budget didn't call for a flashback so a character just tells a long story about what happened instead!
Our main characters are Jersey Shore knock-offs who are almost as unlikeable as their real life counter-parts. Despite this face it seems that the movie thinks we should actually root for them. The attempt at solving this problem of main characters who are easy to hate is that the villains are annoying snooty, rich, yuppies but I just wanted to see everybody eaten by the albino sharks!
While this is not a good movie, I must give it some credit for being entertaining enough. Too many bad movies are just plain boring so when a dumb fun one comes around I can't hate it too much. I could even see Jersey Shore Shark Attack getting a cult following someday, though I think this movie will be forgotten about once the popularity of Jersey Shore fades away.
Oh, and I love the tagline on the above poster: "Forget The Avengers, we have a new contender for best film of the summer." That must be a joke, taken out of context, a fake quote, or the critic just got really drunk!
I'll finish this review the same way the movie ends:
Fin
3/10

No Holds Barred (1989)
I'm not a wrestling fan but have always found it interesting. Professional wrestling features good guys, heels, larger than life personalities, a mixing of reality with fantasy, has always had a large dedicated fan base. If you think about it like that it is no different from the world of film!
Although Hulk Hogan made his film debut in Rocky III as Thunderlips, No Holds Barred is the first movie to feature Hogan in a leading role. Not surprisingly Hogan plays a professional wrestler (named Rip) who is not much different from Hulk Hogan himself. A rival TV network tries to get Rip to wrestle for them but Rip refuses to break his existing contract at any price. This leads Brell, the sleazy head of the World Television Network (played by Kurt Fuller who was in Wayne's World and many other movies), to start his own wrestling competition called "Battle of the Tough Guys." This wrestlers are extremely violent and play by no rules. For some reason they even have a midget in a cage over their ring! Eventually a mysterious huge guy named Zeus wins the tournament and demands to fight Rip. Fuller's performance as Brell reminded me of Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation but as without the god powers and more of a scumbag. Brell likes to call Hulk Hogan a "Jock Ass" which is pretty funny though it gets irritating after a while. Besides Hogan and Fuller, Jesse Ventura has a cameo (as himself of course!) and I also recognized David Paymer who has been in tons of films and TV shows.
The most outrageously hilarious scene of the movie features the now infamous line, "Dookie?!"
Check it out here!
As you can tell from that clip, a lot of dialogue is grunting and yelling. I guess it makes sense in a movie about wrestling. I wasn't expecting Shakespeare, but its still pretty funny.
This is the 3rd Hulk Hogan movie I've seen after Santa with Muscles and 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain. I have reviewed all on this blog and as you could probably guess, this is my favorite Hulk Hogan movie so far!
The weekend No Holds Barred came out in theaters in 1989 it debuted second in the box office behind Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!
The first act is hilarious and engaging but the movie looses steam purely from an entertainment standpoint after that. These are still some amusing parts but after that the pacing slows down and the fighting gets repetitive. Although No Holds Barred is a bad movie its still a lot of fun. I watched it with a friend who is a wrestling fan and we have a blast. This is Hulk Hogan's Bloodsport though I still prefer that Van Damme flick to this one!
4/10

Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (1996)
Ernest Borgnine died last week at the age of 95. He is one of my favorite actors as I love his roles in The Wild Bunch, Escape from New York, and many more films and TV shows. In honor of the late, great Oscar winner I watched the MST3K episode Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders with a friend.
The framing story of this movie features Borgnine as a grandfather telling stories to his grandson. The first story involves a couple with fertility problems who meet Merlin at his store. The husband doesn't believe he is really a wizard so Merlin gives him a book of spells to prove it. The man messes up the spell, fights a cat, then turns into a baby which his wife decides to raise. Then the grandfather tells another story about a toy monkey that can kill people when it clangs its cymbals which was stolen from Merlin's shop. Merlin tries to find the toy monkey before too much damage is done!
This movie is a stinking mess but at least there is an explanation. Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders was made out of the per-existing films The Devil's Gift (1984) with new footage stitched in. The monkey story obviously looks older than the other footage. The segments with the monkey is also said to rips off a Stephen King short story and I can't say I'm surprised.
Both stories are surprisingly violent, especially for what appears on the cover to be a family fantasy film.
Although this movie is terrible, its a great MST3K episode. This one is from Season 10 so its a Sci-fi Channel Mike episode. I loved the re-curring riffs on the infertility subplot and the geriatric grandfather.
2/10

Even though all these movies sucked, at least I enjoyed watching them for different reasons!
Next Up: Summer TV shows

Spring Wrap-up Part Three

I just realized that my blog has been up for over a year! Yay! Well since I just figured this out now and am over a week late I don't have anything special planned. Maybe I'll do something next year... if I remember! But in the spirit of this blog here is another post on three very different movies as my seemingly endless quest to get caught up continues!

Saved! (2004)
Saved! reminded me of Heathers as both movies are satires that take place in high school. Jenna Malone's performance even recalled Winona Ryder in that movie. But Saved! takes a different route as it's about religion, specifically fundamentalist Christians. However I never felt that the movie was mean spirited as there are some religious characters at "American Eagle Christian High School" who are perfectly reasonable.
Saved! features one of Macaulay Culkin's first film appearances since 1994's Richie Rich. Culkin's comedic timing was very good and its nice to see him acting again even though he hasn't done much since.
Pop star Mandy Moore has a major role in the movie and she did a good job, especially for somebody who is not primarily an actress. I am surprised she would accept a villainous role given her image, but commend her for taking the risk here as it paid off.
I quite liked Saved! and found it pretty funny but I felt that its biggest weakness was its shift in tone at around the midpoint. The first half of the movie is a satire while it turns into a straight-up teen dramedy for the last half.
7/10

Alice in Wonderland (2010)
I came into this movie ready for great special effects but not much else. I pretty much got what I was expecting, although to be honest it was a little better than I thought it would be.
I liked the angle of an older Alice coming back to Wonderland. In this sense it feels more like Return to Oz meets The Chronicles of Narina than an Alice in Wonderland movie made by Tim Burton. There are already tons of TV and movie versions of this story so I guess they tried to put a different spin on it while not making it too dark, which has already been done anyway. I'm only familiar with the Disney animated version, which I love, and have never read the original Lewis Carroll stories.
When it comes to the acting Crispin Glover (who has a surprisingly large amount of screen time) did a nice job, as did Helena Bonham Carter who played the Red Queen. Christopher Lee, Alan Rickman, and Stephen Fry all provided voices which was a lot of fun. Of course this movie was advertised as a Johnny Depp film but he isn't in the movie quite as much as you would think and wasn't as over the top as I was expecting for the Mad Hatter.
Alice in Wonderland won Oscars for art direction and costume design. It was also nominated for best visual effects but lost out to Inception. Lighting and Compositing technical director Brian Blasiak also worked on Avatar (among other movies) and worked his special effects magic for this film as well. Alice in Wonderland looked fantastic in High Definition. It was marketed as a 3-D film even though it was not filmed in 3-D but was instead converted in post-production.
Usually I have some issues with CGI but this is exactly how it should be used. The real world bookend scenes were done well made and are a nice contrast to the CGI world of Wonderland. The Jabberwocky was CGI but its design appeared to be influenced by the designs of Ray Harryhausen's monsters.
While this is not a bad movie, it's not very good either and is a movie I probably will never watch again. Still, I enjoyed it more than Burton's weaker efforts like Mars Attacks! or his 2001 Planet of the Apes remake.
I was surprised that Alice in Wonderland made so much money (11th highest grossing film of all time without adjusting for inflation), especially since it didn't come out in the summer or around Christmas. I'm don't think it deserved to make $1 billion worldwide but if you look at how much those Transformers movies made I guess I'm fine with it! It was rated PG so I could see it appealing to families with older and/or younger children as well as adults which is probably why it hauled in so much dough.
6/10

Garzey's Wing (1996)
Technically this is not a movie but a three part OVA (direct to video) anime with each episode being 30 minutes long. Garzey's Wing was written and directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, the same man who developed the classic Gundam series. This is proof that even the best creators can have horrible misfires.
I'm not even going to bother describing the plot as Garzey's Wing is an incoherent disaster that is unintentionally hilarious due in part to a terrible dub. You can see what I mean here and here.
Garzey's Wing makes the infamous MD Geist (which I wrote about earlier) look like a masterpiece in comparison which is really saying something!
Despite being a total mess I must admit that Garzey's Wing is an enjoyable watch even though its for all the wrong reasons. If you want to watch a bad but fun anime with a group of friends this certainly fits the bill!
3/10

Three Christmas Movies

I had seen parts of all these movies before, but never watched them all the way through in one sitting. Christmas gave me an excuse to watch them again, and in their entirety!

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Both this and Mickey's Christmas Carol (nominated for an Oscar for best animated short) are the only film versions of A Christmas Carol that I have seen so far. However they are both excellent! While I usually like the Muppets more when they are playing themselves instead of characters like in this movie or Muppet Treasure Island, it works surprisingly well here. The songs are memorable as I remembered most of them while watching this again despite the fact I hadn't seen this film in years. Michael Caine plays Scrooge completely straight and would have put in the same performance without the Muppets. While this is a Muppet movie, it is also an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, and a surprisingly faithful one at that. The Muppet Christmas Carol was the first Muppet movie made after Jim Henson's death and it was great that the Muppets were able to continue at a high level of quality after his passing. This one ranks up there with The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper as my three favorite Muppet movies. I saw The Muppets (2011) recently and will be discussing it in my next post.
8/10

A Christmas Story (1983)
Every year A Christmas Story gets shown on TBS for 24 hours on Christmas Day. Like most people this was how I was introduced to the movie. And like many people I had never seen the whole movie in one sitting before. I decided to change that this year as A Christmas Story is firmly entrenched in popular culture and is even on Roger Ebert's Great Movies list. While the film has been overexposed with the Christmas marathons, a lot of people still tune in to watch it every year. Although I don't think A Christmas Story is the best Christmas movie ever, it is the best to air on a loop. The film contains many vignettes which are loosely related as they all follow Ralphie's family in the days leading up to Christmas. This makes it easy to start or stop watching whenever you want, which doesn't work with a lot of movies. Although I feel that A Christmas Story is overrated, its still an enjoyable Christmas movie. I usually don't like narration in movies but it works perfectly here and was a direct inspiration for The Wonder Years TV show. Darren McGavin, mainly known for his TV work such as Kolchak: The Night Stalker, puts in a nice performance as the father.
7/10

Santa with Muscles (1996)
I had seen the first third of this movie several years ago but couldn't bring myself to finish it. What can I say, Santa with Muscles is surprisingly boring for a Hulk Hogan flick. Armed with a group of friends who like to mock bad movies and my own higher tolerance for crappy cinema, I was able to make it all the way through this time! The plot is pretty ridiculous, the Hulkster plays a millionaire who gets amnesia and thinks he is Santa Claus. Some orphans then ask for Santa's help since a mad scientist wants to take over the orphanage for the crystals underneath the building. Mila Kunis plays one of the orphans in an early role. We also have Ed Begley Jr., Clint Howard, and Robin Curtis (Saavik from Star Trek 3 and 4). That '70s Show fans will notice that in addition to Mila Kunis, actor Don Stark (Bob Pinciotti - Donna's father) is in this movie as Lenny, Santa's elf and partner in trying to save the orphanage.
When it comes to Christmas movies, this is one of the worst. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Santa Claus are pretty damn bad but at least they each have bizarrely amusing moments. Santa with Muscles is probably better than those two but its not as fun to watch. That said, this movie is It's A Wonderful Life compared to The Star Wars Holiday Special or Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny!
2/10

Weekly Wrap-Up (12/4)

I have my final exams coming up this week so I'll keep this post a bit shorter than usual. This week I saw seven movies. One is a true classic, one is a true stinker and the rest are somewhere in between!

The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Somehow I had never seen this film before even though I love Casablanca which also has Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet. Like in that film, the supporting cast here is fantastic and just as great as the leading actors. The story is good but it is the characters, dialogue, and acting that make this film great. The Maltese Falcon is important to film history, but it still holds up extremely well. The movie is always entertaining and it is easy to see why this film has made its mark on popular culture. The Maltese Falcon truly is the stuff dreams are made of!
9/10

Three Amigos! (1986)
Last week I saw The Blues Brothers so here is another John Landis comedy. I actually liked this one a bit better and at the moment it is my favorite Landis comedy. The basic plot of actors being confused for the people they portray has been done before and since. For similar movies I still prefer Galaxy Quest but liked this one more than Tropic Thunder. Although the movie meanders at points (the singing cowboy parody parts for instance, especially since these are silent film actors and that fad happened later) it is consistently funny and there are few movies that have made me laugh as much as this one did.
8/10

Coming to America (1988)
Since I have liked pretty much every John Landis movie I have seen so far (Into the Night was mediocre and its hard to judge his work on Twilight Zone: The Movie because of the infamous helicopter accident and the fact that its an anthology film) I plan on eventually seeing all his 70s and 80s movies. It seems that Landis came down with John Carpenter syndrome and couldn't make a good film after the 80s ended.
The plot of Coming to America is that Prince Akeem defies his arranged marriage to find a woman who will arouse his intellect as well as his loins, to paraphrase a line from the movie. Akeem and his servant travel to Queens, NY disguised as poor goat herders to find Akeem's true love. While this basic story has been done many times before, Coming to America puts a new spin on the material and does its own thing. Prince Akeem may be Eddie Murphy's finest film role. Like Landis, Murphy also lost it after the 80s ended. Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, and John Amos steal every scene they are in. There are also early roles from Samuel L. Jackson and Louie Anderson. Murphy and Hall play several roles throughout the movie, including the hilarious barbers. Coming to America is quite funny, but it also has heart and makes you care about the characters.
7/10

Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)
I just realized that I saw two movies with America in the title this week, I didn't plan on that, I swear!
As a fan of the Beavis and Butthead TV show (and the brand new episodes!) I had been meaning to see this movie for quite some time now. Besides Mike Judge who voices the titular characters (as well as several others), Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Robert Stack, and Cloris Leachman round out the cast. Beavis and Butt-Head Do America is pretty short as it clocks in at 81 minutes and there is some filler.
If you like the show you will enjoy the movie, but Beavis and Butthead still works better in small doses as a TV series. Beavis and Butthead don't get the chance to mock any music videos which make sense for the movie, but was a bit disappointing as it was always a major part of the show. It doesn't matter too much as these two dumb metal heads will always make me laugh.
6/10

Pretty in Pink (1986)
Although I liked every John Hughes movie I had seen so far, I didn't care for this one. To be fair Pretty in Pink was only written by Hughes and he didn't direct it. However, it is usually considered one of "his" films since he wrote it specifically for Molly Ringwald. I knew this movie probably wouldn't be my cup of tea coming into it, but was surprised that I didn't like any of the characters. Part of this may have been because there was some confusion during production as Robert Downey, Jr. was almost cast as Duckie which would have been pretty different. I won't go into spoilers, but the ending was also changed at the last minute. The plot is your basic poor girl falls in love with rich guy story and doesn't really bring anything new to the table. The movie is competently made and held my interest, but I'd say it is Hughes weakest movie (scripted or directed) that I have seen thus far. Harry Dean Stanton put in a solid performance as Ringwald's jobless single father and I enjoyed James Spader's role as a rich jerk who looks way too old to be in high school.
5/10

Identity (2003)
Identity is a creepy atmospheric thriller with some nice acting performances by John Cusack and Ray Liotta. It is hard to discuss this film further without spoilers so I'll just say that I liked the way it progressed even though I wasn't blown away or thought it should not have gone that direction like some people did. I was impressed with the directing by James Mangold who also made Girl, Interrupted, Walk the Line, and 3:10 to Yuma so I'll have to check out some of his other films when I get the chance.
7/10

Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (1972)
Bad movies come in all forms and genres. This piece of crap is a terrible Christmas movie and a bad kids movie. Bad children's films often get a pass as people say "but it was only made for kids!" as some sort of excuse for a bad movie that is usually incredibly dumbed down. I have seen some awful Christmas movies before like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Santa Claus (1959) but this one takes the cake.
This excuse for a movie starts out with Santa's elves then switches to Santa on his sleigh stuck in the sand at the beach. There is no explanation given for what happened to his reindeer or how the sleigh got stuck there. A bunch of children find out about this (I don't know how) and bring different kinds of animals, including a guy in a gorilla suit, to pull the sleigh but nothing works. Somehow Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn observe all that goes on with Santa and the children even though they are fictional characters and the movie takes place in the present day real world. Since the kids can't get the sleigh out of the sand, Santa tells the children a story. This is when the movie suddenly turns into another movie about Thumbelina from the same production company. We even see the opening credits for that movie as Santa begins to "tell" the story! And the worst part is that the Thumbelina movie has its own framing story since its being told at an amusement park called Pirates World.
So to summarize, what essentially happens is that Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn eavesdrop on Santa telling kids a story about some people going to an amusement park who go into a room and hear a story about Thumbelina on a loudspeaker. Yes folks, that is how bad this movie is. The Thumbelina story is just as bad as the Santa story, except much creepier thanks to the animal costumes which are pure nightmare fuel. After the Thumbelina story ends, a bunny driving an old fashioned fire engine comes by and Santa hitches a ride with the bunny as the kids wave goodbye to him. Santa just leaves his sleigh on the beach and despite the title there is never any connection between this bunny and ice cream. Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny is one of the worst movies ever made and despite my description I don't think I can do justice as to how bad this garbage really is. I can't believe people actually paid money to see this movie in theaters as it is 96 minutes of hell unleashed upon the Earth. Luckily I saw the RiffTrax version from Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy of MST3K fame which hilariously mocked the movie. Check out a sample here if you think you can stand it!
Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny deserves a 0/10, but I do my scoring system on a 1-10 scale to sync up with my votes on IMDB.
1/10

Weekly Wrap-Up (9/18)

Note: This week I also watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Hands of Orlac. See my last post (blogathon entry) for an in-depth review of those two films.

Jerry Maguire (1996)

This movie had some false advertising. While I liked how the film depicted the business aspect of sports, I didn't care for it when the movie shifted its focus to Jerry's relationship with his secretary. I admit that this is a matter of taste. I enjoyed the behind the scenes look at sports agents and the discussions about morals and integrity. These parts were pretty funny and gave us the film's most famous line: "Show me the money!" However, about a third of the way in the film it turned into a romantic comedy. Eventually the movie shifted its focus back to Jerry's relationship with his last remaining client, the football player Rod Tidwell. But by this point it was too little, too late despite a satisfying ending. To be fair, the romantic aspects were probably why the movie did so well financially. Those scenes were well written and acted, just not my cup of tea and not what I was expecting. I wanted to see more of Jerry working with sports stars and trying to change how agents operate. I knew from the beginning that Jerry would start a relationship with his secretary, I just thought it would be a sub-plot and not the focus of the movie. Tom Cruise created a fascinating character who is fun to watch and received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading role. The movie also got Oscar nominations for best editing, best writing, and best picture.

Cruise wasn't the only bright spot when it came to acting as all the leads were good. Jerry Maguire helped launch the career of Renee Zellweger who played Dorothy Boyd, a struggling single mother who is Jerry's secretary and love interest. Cuba Gooding Jr. was Rod Tidwell and stole every scene he was in. Gooding even won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Tidwell's wife was played by Regina King who also put in a solid performance. Jay Mohr did well in a small role as the sleazy sports agent who betrays Jerry.

Jerry Maguire is now 15 years old and the film is kinda dated since the contracts players get in 2011 are much more ridiculous than what we see here. Agents like Scott Boras ignore reality and make unreasonable contract demands, but somehow get teams to pay up anyway. If Jerry worked with guys like Boras he wouldn't just leave his company, he would leave the business!

There were tons of cameos by sports players and announcers. The movie even used archive footage from Monday Night Football which also added a sense of authenticity to the film.

Jerry Cantrell from the band Alice in Chains had a cameo as a copy store clerk, although I'm not sure why. Maybe it was because they couldn't fit Alice in Chains on an already great soundtrack. Or the simplest explanation: It was the 90s!

This is the first movie I have seen directed by Cameron Crowe. However, I have watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High and its pseudo-sequel The Wild Life which were both written by Crowe. Crowe is certainly a good writer and his directing for this film was fine as well.

Overall I would recommend Jerry Maguire, just be aware that this is a chick flick disguised as sports-comedy movie.

6/10

Time Chasers aka Tangents (1994)

This Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode has good riffs and host segments. Time Chasers is perfect for MST3K as it is bad, but still watchable. Although the movie has poor acting, editing, and directing, the time travel story wasn't as bad as I expected. The ending even reminded me of the Denzel Washington movie Deja Vu (2006). There were some good ideas here which were ruined by poor execution. Time Chasers is one of those "so bad, its good movies" that are fun to watch with a group of friends. It is also one of the better movies featured on MST3K, which isn't saying much I guess!

Time Chasers was filmed in 1990 but not released until 1994. The movie finally broke even financially when MST3K featured the movie as an episode! The cast and crew of the movie had a reunion party to watch the first airing of the MST3K episode. While some people involved with making the movie took it with stride, others were not amused. What were they expecting?! I'm guessing some of them had not seen MST3K before. The Time Chasers MST3K can be seen on YouTube.

There were a ton of great riffs but I'll pick just one: "I'll WALK back to the past!" - Tom Servo

3/10

Weekly Wrap-Up

I'll start the Weekly Wrap-Up with movies I have seen this week but not reviewed yet. Some I have seen before and some I have not. After that I'll wrap up with the movies I have seen this week and already reviewed.

Heathers (1988)
Since my brother recently graduated from High School I wanted him to watch this movie as it is one of my favorite comedies both for its humor and how well it is made. Heathers is a satiric dark comedy about social cliques in high school, and really in life in general. Winona Ryder and Christian Slater are fantastic as the leads, but even the background characters are great such as Veronica's parents, the cops, and the minister. This time around I noticed that Heathers is even better made than I thought. Plot elements such as the Moby Dick book and the fact that Veronica can perfectly imitate Heather Chandler's handwriting are set up very early on. Also Veronica and all three of the Heathers have color schemes that follow them throughout the movie. Veronica is blue, Heather Chandler is red, Heather McNamara is yellow, and Heather Duke is green. Everything from their croquet balls, to clothes, to bedrooms and even the lighting around them follows this pattern. And when Heather Duke takes over Heather Chandler's place, she also takes over the color red! I absolutely love Heathers and its too bad its director (Michael Lehmann) and writer (Daniel Waters) haven't done much of note since. Lehmann has directed some movies but has mainly done TV work since, most recently directing some episode of True Blood. Waters wrote the screenplay for Batman Returns but has only worked on two movies since 2001. Also Heathers did not get much attention when it was first released, it now has a sizable cult following.
9/10

The Tree of Life (2011)
Before I get into my mini-review I just want to saw that I had the pleasure of watching this movie with Nate of Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear!
2001: A Space Odyssey is one of my all-time favorite movies. So when I heard that Douglass Trumbull who did the special effects for that film as well as Silent Running, The Andromeda Strain, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Blade Runner was involved with The Tree of Life I knew I had to see it! Directed by Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life reminds me of 2001 and not just for the "birth of the universe" segment. The two films complement each other and are both up to the interpretation of the viewer. The Tree of Life is about, as Douglas Adams would put it, life, the universe, and everything. I feel that an alternate title for the film could be "A Human Odyssey." As great as it was to see Trumbull back to work in a post-CGI world, the 1950s story was also done wonderfully with great performances by all, especially the child actors as it truly felt like you were watching home movies of their lives. Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain put in fantastic performances as the father and mother of the family. The Tree of Life is not for everyone since its events are not linear (we have one of the biggest time jumps in all of cinema!) and everything is not completely explained and tied up with a bow at the end. However, if you want a film that will challenge you, make you think and wonder in awe, then I highly recommend you go experience The Tree of Life right away!
10/10

Dreamscape (1984)
I have watched this before but saw it again with my brother who was watching it for the first time. My opinion did not change. I still like it and still think Christopher Nolan saw it before making Inception. There are a lot of recognizable actors in this movie from Christopher Plummer to Max Van Sydow to the guy who played Norm on Cheers! By the way, I love how this poster looks like an Indiana Jones movie, I guess because Dennis Quaid looks and acts like Harrison Ford. The movie isn't like that as it is a thriller about entering the dreams of others, mostly to help them get over psychological problems and bad dreams.
6/10

The Cable Guy (1996)
I had seen part of this movie years ago and since my brother wanted to watch it I felt it was time to see the whole thing. While I found the movie quite funny at times, it felt like it needed a re-write as the plot wasn't focused and the cable guy acted out of character near the end. It was hard for me to root for or against either Carrey or Broderick since they were at times sympathetic then did things which would make you not care for them. Broderick's character is generally considered the protagonist but the movie is named after Carrey's character so who knows. The Cable Guy was directed by Ben Stiller and I actually think it could have been better if he played the role which ended up going to Matthew Broderick. Although The Cable Guy performed well at the box office, I can see why it got mixed reviews and didn't do as well as Carrey's previous films. The Cable Guy has a quirky sense of humor as well as a large amount of film references which would not appeal to everyone. Despite its flaws I still found it funnier than most comedies.
6/10

Movies I have seen this week and already reviewed:
Fright Night Part 2 (1988)
Solid horror comedy sequel. I wrote more about this movie in Summer Round-up Part 3.
6/10


Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Fun horror movie with some dark humor. Check out my full review posted Wed. June 29th.
7/10

First Blood (1982)
good action thriller that is not like the Rambo sequels. Check out my full review posted Fri. July 1st.
8/10

Summer Movie Round-Up Part 2 of 3

This will be the second of three posts covering the movies I have seen so far this summer. Each post will include 8 brief reviews. On Monday I'll finish up with Part Three.

Sherlock Holmes (2009) is first of four recent movies in this round-up. It has been awhile since I have read any of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but it feels that, like the recent James Bond and Star Trek "reboots," this is Sherlock Holmes for people who don't like Sherlock Holmes. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing as I am all for a different spin on an old, or in this case, public domain, character. As long as you don't go in expecting Doyle's version of Holmes, you should have a lot of fun. The stylish cuts and flashbacks with sepia toned newspapers do a good job of giving the film its own flavor. Robert Downey Jr. is entertaining as usual and he does a great job of playing off straight man Watson (Jude Law) and love interest Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams). I didn't really care for the villain, Lord Blackwood, who from my understanding was made up for the film. However, I did like how everything turned out, including how Moriarty was set-up for the sequel. The main characters were fleshed out well, although overall I felt the story could have been better. A pretty good start for this series, but hopefully the sequel will be an improvement. The follow-up, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is set for a December 2011 release date with Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes!
Sherlock Holmes deduces a 6/10!

Long before the video game Angry Birds there was Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963)! I haven't seen too many Hitchcock films yet but I really like what I have seen so far. The directing and cinematography was top notch and the acting was fantastic. Tippi Hedren puts in a fascinating performance as Melanie Daniels, a young heiress. Rod Taylor was great as Mitch, Melanie's love interest. I recognized Taylor from The Time Machine (1960) and an episode of the Twilight Zone. Maybe its just me but I always thought he looks like Robin Williams! Veronica Cartwright was excellent as Mitch's younger sister. This scream queen was also in Alien (1979) as the other female character! The special effects are outstanding, especially for its time. The Birds isn't exactly likeable, but that is the point since it is a horror/thriller film about birds attacking people and how it affects the human characters. I'll have to watch more Hitchcock movies, but so far Rear Window is still my favorite.
The Birds flies into a 8/10!

Somehow I hadn't gotten around to watching Independence Day (1996) until now. ID4, as it is also known, was the top grossing movie of 1996 and made over $300 million. Independence Day is an entertaining summer movie that helped revive interest in science fiction films at a time when they had gotten a bit stale. Independence Day also helped bring back disaster movies since many films such as Volcano (1997) and Armageddon (1998) came in its wake. This is the movie that transformed the "Fresh Prince" into movie star Will Smith, although it was the Men in Black series which would make him a superstar. As for the actual movie itself? The special effects still hold up pretty well and it is a crowd pleaser. However, there are a lot of characters to follow and therefore a lot of back and forth between different plot lines. Some of these are interesting (the President of the USA, played by Bill Pullman) and some not so interesting (a pilot who claimed he was once abducted by aliens, played by Randy Quaid). I loved Brent Spiner's (Data from Star Trek) cameo as an Area 51 scientist. Jeff Goldblum was great in the role of the computer geek, although the scene in which he hacks into the alien computer with a Macintosh laptop is even more ridiculous in 2011 than it was in 1996. And don't even get me started about how Will Smith's dog made a jump right out of Space Jam. Independence Day is a fun but flawed action movie that is also a bit of a throw back to 50s alien invasion movies like The War of the Worlds (1953). However, when it comes to 90s sci-fi epics directed by Roland Emmerich, I prefer the movie he made before this, Stargate (1994).
Independence Day attacks a 6/10!
      

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) is based on the comic book series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. When I first heard about Scott Pilgrim I loved the concept of the main character having to defeat seven exes in order to go out with the girl of his dreams. That said, I went into this movie without having read the comic book so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Although I can't say whether or not Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a good adaptation, I did think it was a good movie with interesting characters. Of the seven exes my favorite was Chris Evans as the movie star! I enjoyed the stylish visuals, sound effects, and video game references. I also liked how the world is generally realistic, but goes straight in to fantasy at times. While in some cases this could be disastrous, it worked with the quirky feel of the movie and it was nice to see something different.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World scores a 7/10!

Prior to the Roger Corman blogathon I watched a couple of Corman directed movies, including The Haunted Palace (1963). Vincent Price, a Corman favorite, hams it up as warlock Joseph Curwen as well as his descendant, Charles Dexter Ward. Ward moves into the same town over 100 years later because he has inherited his great-grandfather's mansion. When it comes to Corman films I still prefer X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, but this one is a lot of fun. Even though Price dominates the movie (which isn't a bad thing!) Debra Paget and Lon Chaney Jr. both put in solid performances. It was also interesting to see Corman do a Lovecraft story instead of adapting Edgar Allan Poe which he was more known for. However, the movie does get its title from a Poe poem. The screenplay was written by Charles Beaumont who wrote over 20 episodes of the original Twilight Zone series.
The Haunted Palace scares up a 6/10!

Into the Night (1985) was directed by John Landis (Animal House) and stars Jeff Goldblum. I first heard about this movie as a fan of Jeff Goldblum (two Goldblum movies in this post!). The basic plot is that Ed Okin (Goldblum) is an insomniac who gets involved with a beautiful young jewel thief (Michelle Pfeiffer). There are over 20 cameos by directors and screenwriters! Everyone from Jim Henson to David Cronenberg to Lawrence Kasdan can be seen in this movie. While it was fun looking out for these faces, it was also distracting from the main story. The best cameo was David Bowie as a British hitman since not only is Bowie a surprisingly good actor, but also because this subplot fit in perfectly with the story and didn't feel like an inside joke as many of the other cameos did. Landis himself appears as one of the Iranian henchmen after the jewels. While the film is enjoyable and competently made, it certainly could have been better. John Landis made Into the Night two years after he directed the first segment of the Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). During filming of that movie, actor Vic Morrow (father of actress Jennifer Jason Leigh) and two child actors were killed in a helicopter accident. Landis went to trial and eventually settled out of court with the families of the victims. I'm not going to demonize or exonerate Landis, but clearly he had other things on mind while making this movie.
Into the Night gets into a 5/10!

Like the other recent movies in today's post, Repo Men (2010) was one that I thought about seeing in theaters before I heard it got mixed reviews. I don't always see films in theaters, but when I do I drink Jose Cuervo... I mean, I make sure its going to be pretty good beforehand! The idea of having artificial organs being sold by companies and then repossessed if the buyers could not make payments sounded like a fascinating concept. Even though Repo Men was based on a 2009 novel by Eric Garcia called The Repossession Mambo, I have heard that the plot is similar to that of Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008). While I liked Repo Men, it could have been a lot better. One of the main problems was the pacing. We know from that trailer that Jude Law's character is a repo man who will in turn get an artificial organ that will need to be repossessed. Unfortunately it took way longer than necessary to get to that point and I felt like I was just waiting for the movie to progress. The ending is interesting to say the least. Without giving too much away, I bet that a lot of people felt cheated as they walked out of the theaters. I kinda saw it coming but didn't think the movie would go in that direction since the idea had nothing to do with the themes of this film and simply felt out of place.
Also I just realized there are two Jude Law movies in this post. I didn't plan the double shots of Goldblum and Law so consider yourselves lucky!
Repo Men repossess a 5/10!
       

If a movie is not filmed in 3-D, don't see it in 3-D! I watched Clash of the Titans (2010) in glorious 2-D and had a lot of fun. However, I heard that the 3-D version, which was done as an afterthought to cash in on the recent 3-D trend, was horrendous. Sam Worthington of Avatar fame stars as Perseus in this remake of the 1981 Clash of the Titans, which is in turn based on Greek mythology. Although I haven't seen the 1981 version, which has special effects by Ray Harryhausen, I did enjoy this as a fun popcorn movie. The acting was fine given the material. Mads Mikkelsen and Gemma Arterton put in nice performances as Draco and Io respectively. Liam Neeson hammed it up as Zeus with his famous line "Release the Kraken!" Speaking of which, why was the sea monster even called the Kraken? The Kraken is from Norse mythology... are we setting this up for a crossover with Thor?! Despite its flaws I found this to be an enjoyable movie. Hopefully the sequel, due out in spring of 2012, will be even better.
Clash of the Titans releases a 6/10!

On Monday I will post Part Three, in which I review a film from 1932, a Bill Murray movie, and the first film made one of my favorite directors!