Zombie Strippers (2008)

A zombie virus ends up in Robert Englund’s (Nightmare On Elm Street) strip club. Jenna Jameson (I Love Lesbians) is the first to be infected, and the disease enhances her customer appeal and increases her lust for men. Although not in a sexual manner. Bloodlust and mayhem are the club's new theme, until the military arrive to clean up the mess. Good, clean fun. Okay, maybe it’s not so clean, but it is fun, and it is a film that delivers on it's promises. Damn it, it exceeds your expectations. Imagine From Dusk Till Dawn on Viagra and vodka. Remember never to accept a lap dance from a zombie stripper.

Otis (2008)

Otis is large, 40 years old, and lives in a fantasy world where he tries to be his brother. Or what he believes his brother to be. This mostly involves kidnapping cute, blonde, high school girls to re-enact the high school prom. When one of the girls escapes his clutches, her family stop cooperating with the FBI and take justice in to their own hands, making matters more complicated. It was labelled a comedy, but it is entertaining and amusing rather than funny.

Teeth (2007)

Teeth is another boy meets girl, coming of age, love story. Except this grrl, Dawn, is the member of a sexual abstinence group, lives next to a nuclear reactor, has a lustful stepbrother, and has teeth in her vagina (vagina dentata). Dawn’s teeth come in to action when the boys in her life do things they shouldn’t be doing. It’s not really a comedy or a horror film, more an unusual tale of empowerment.

Death Sentence (2007)

Kevin Bacon’s son is killed by a gang and, disappointed in the legal system, Bacon decides to take matters in his own hands, and the situation quickly escalates out of control. There is no glorification of the violence and no martial arts, the fights are crude and brutal. The film is a little heavy on emotion, but the action and surprises compensate for that. It’s clever, nasty and captures the sense of desperation Bacon feels, even if it does become a little too much like Taxi Driver towards the end.

Diary Of The Dead (2007)

George A Romero has abandoned his legendary zombie chronology (Night Of The Living Dead to Land Of The Dead) to start afresh. The zombie virus escapes and spreads while a group of film students (cameras in hand) run, hide, fight, and try to survive, with a little help from a dynamite wielding Amish guy. After all the ground breaking work Romero has done in the genre, here he becomes formulaic. More engrossing than most zombie films, but not astounding.

Dragon Wars (aka D-War) (2007)

If you think this movie looks interesting. You will be disappointed. If you think it will be as rousing as Reign Of Fire. You will be disappointed. If you think this movie will, at least, be as funny as Mammoth. You will be disappointed. Dragons appear in contemporary America in a mix of Korean mythology and Lord Of The Rings. It is unforgivably atrocious.

The Dark Knight (2008)

Christian Bale is back as the Batman, aka the Dark Knight Detective, aka Bruce Wayne, with an updated costume that allows him to turn his head. He also updates his love interest with Maggie Gyllenhaal replacing Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. Other new kids on the block are Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, aka two Face, and Heath Ledger who plays the Joker as a cross between Jack Nicholson and Caesar Romero.

The Joker is making a mess of Gotham, Batman is making a mess of his personal and vigilante life, and Dent’s presence is making matters more complicated for both of them and Rachel. In the comics, Batman uses brains and cunning to outwit his enemies. In this film he doesn’t, relying on technology and brute force instead, and that becomes boring very quickly. The end result is a long violent movie with too many people talking in gravely voices. That is not the end of the problems with this film.

Why does the Joker, who claims he doesn’t like plans, have so many of them? Why is Batman’s suit so bulky and restrictive? It makes his fighting slow and cumbersome. He is as mobile as a medieval knight and his fight scenes are almost as bad as Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 2 or Matt Damon in The Bourne Ultimatum. Scriptwriters are becoming way too lazy with logic and character development in their films and are relying on explosions and effects instead.

Batman Animated remains the cleverest and most accurate moving portrayal of the caped crusader.

Eternal Blood (aka Sangre Eterna) (2002)

A group of college students in Chile become so involved in Eternal Blood, a Dungeons and Dragons style game about vampires, it becomes unclear to them what is reality and what is fiction. I saw this film dubbed into English by what sounded like the team that does Iron Chef. The voices were comical and made the film like a Latin American soap opera. I watched it again in Spanish and that gave it a darker, more surreal tone. Eternal Blood has some fresh ideas, the exploration of the goth scene in Chili was interesting, and the ending is not what you may expect, which is always a bonus.

1408 (2007)

1408 is another Stephen King adaptation. John Cusack writes books on hauntings, although he doesn’t believe in the supernatural, and goes to Samuel L Jackson’s hotel to investigate Room 1408. It doesn’t take long for the thrills to start once Cusack is in the room, and the tension doesn’t let up once it does. Had this film stopped 5 or 10 minutes before it did (at the point where Cusack makes an important decision in the room) I would rate his film highly, but the actual ending weakens the movie and is hopelessly cliched.

Deathmatch (aka Ring Of Death) (2008)

Prison movies only have one plot - a innocent man (either wrongly convicted or an undercover cop) is sent to jail to expose something illegal that is happening there. Johnny Messner (Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid) is sent undercover to prison to investigate claims of cage fights between inmates that are being broadcast on the internet. The story is mundane, the fights are okay, but Stacy Keach is fantastic and steals every scene with his demented and excessive performance as the warden (perhaps parodying his role on Prison Break).

Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp DVD

Children’s television in the sixties and early seventies was bizarre. Really bizarre. I don’t know if drugs were involved, but reflecting on shows like Batman, The Magic Roundabout, Banana Splits, HR Pufnstuff, and even Sesame Street, makes me think they were. And in large quantities. Perhaps the oddest of them all was Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp, which was produced from 1970 to 1972. Mike Marmer and Stan Burns, probably inspired by the success of Get Smart (where they were writers), Planet of the Apes, and Mr Ed, had the idea to create a spy series using talking Chimpanzees. The cost of creating costumes and sets in perfect scale for the apes made it the most expensive Saturday morning children's show of its time. And it looks fantastic for the effort.

The show centred around Link and his love interest, the glamorous Mata Hairi, who were spies for APE (Agency to Prevent Evil). APE were in a continual war with CHUMP (Criminal Headquarters for Underworld Master Plan), headed by Baron von Butcher (voiced by Bernie Kopell who played Siegfried in Get Smart). Each show also included Lance and friends performing as The Evolution Revolution, who were the coolest band of the time (much cooler than Josie and the Pussycats or The Monkees).

The impact of Lancelot Link has meant primates have appeared regularly on television ever since, as villains (eg Mojo Jojo in the Powerpuff Girls) or heroes (eg Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!) and advertisements (PG Tips). Imagine suggesting a live action tv show involving talking chimpanzees to a tv producer today. They would laugh you out of their office, unless the chimps were sharing a house and you could vote them out.

Balls Of Fury (2007)

Sports comedies are a hit and miss affair and, like my batting, mostly miss. Balls Of Fury avoids the obvious sports, like football or baseball, and goes for the lesser known, but very honourable, sport of ping pong. Unathletic looking Dan Folger is Randy Daytona, a down and out ex-Olympic table tennis player recruited by the FBI to compete against the evil Feng (Christopher Walken as an James Bond style Asian supervillain) in an Enter the Dragon style competition. This film is beautifully absurd, with overacting, overblown stereotypes, and just a little romance. It does for table tennis what dodgeball did for dodgeball.

The Invasion (2007)

I wonder who decided that Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (the book that gave us the term ‘pod people’) needed to be filmed again. Nicole Kidman (The Stepford Wives) is trying to save her son and her boyfriend, Daniel Craig (James Bond), from being taken over by an alien spore. This version plays like a zombie movie, with the “heroes” on the run from the pursuing aliens, and is yet another War On Terror (how do you tell who the enemy is) piece of paranoia. I must be watching real krud lately because I thought it was okay, despite Nicole’s usual wooden acting and the film lacking any sense of suspense or dread. I wonder if Nicole is a replica human.

Eko Eko Azarak (aka Wizard of Darkness) (1995)

Misa Kuroi is a schoolgirl with a working knowledge of magic, some protective charms, and a history of people dieing around her. Will she be able to stop the person who is attempting to summon Satan with a pentagram drawn in blood and 13 young sacrifices?

I like that the Japanese used western mythology for this film and, despite the inclusion of some distinctly Japanese fetishes, a fairly typical western approach to horror/splatter. I prefer this approach than the newer style of Japanese horror that was popularised by Ringu (Ring) a few years later. A nerdy wizard would also appear a few years later, but Misa Kuroi is way cooler than Harry Potter. There is a manga and a mass of sequels as well.

The Last Legion (2007)

Colin Firth as a Roman Centurion sent to rescue a kidnapped boy? Firth is great in some roles but, like his nemesis in Bridget Jones’ Diary, Hugh Grant, an action/adventure star he is not. It’s a film with awkward fight scenes, a muddled script (reworking the Excalibur/Arthurian legend), and a clumsy, unneeded love interest (Firth with Aishwarya Rai in warrior mode). Ben Kingsley works well as the wizard, but he can work well as anything.

Patrick McGoohan (1928 - 2009)

I discovered The Prisoner (1967) on video when it was released in the eighties and it’s odd covers stared at me from the shelves. The show leapt to the top of my favourite programs list after viewing, dislodging Dr Who, Star Trek, Batman, Captain Scarlet, Twilight Zone, and everything else on the way. The Prisoner was the creation of Patrick McGoohan and, although he was responsible for quality work before and after this, it was to be his most lasting achievement.

The Prisoner starts with McGoohan (no character name given) resigning from the British Secret Service. He returns home where he is gassed and taken to The Village where he is known as Number 6 ("I am not a number, I am a free man!"). The series then revolves around Number 2 ("Who is Number 1?") trying to find out why McGoohan resigned, or McGoohan trying to escape or subvert the ‘utopian’ lifestyle of the Village. And the viewer trying to work out what is real and what is imagined, and who runs the village. The show is cerebral, surreal, subversive and unlike anything that came before it (and even after it). Incredibly influential, yet strangely obscure.

The Prisoner is worth watching, not just for the pure enjoyment, but to realise how often the show is referenced and how much it has influenced pop culture since it’s release.

In memory of Patrick McGoohan, watch it for free while you can at...

http://www.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner-1960s-series

As McGoohan said...
"We all live in a little Village. Your village may be different from other people's villages but we are all prisoners."

What is the Prisoner about...
"I suppose that it is the sort of thing where a thousand people might have a different interpretation of it...that was the intention."

And on being known for the Prisoner...
"Mel (Gibson) will always be Mad Max, and me, I will always be a Number."

Be seeing you.

Anaconda 3 The Offspring (2008)

The giant Anaconda has moved from the Amazon River (where it terrorised Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Kari Wuhrer, Jon Voight and friends in Anaconda) to the jungles of Borneo (where it terrorised noone of any significance in Anacondas The Hunt for the Blood Orchid) to end up as part of a genetic experiment in the USA in Anaconda 3. It escapes to wreak havoc and be tracked down by the beautiful and caring scientist (Crystal Allen) and the handsome (?) and ethically dubious snake hunter (David Hasselhoff). It’s all laughably bad (story, acting, effects) with plenty of blood and killing, an evil corporation, and an ending that leads in to the sequel, Anacondas Trail of Blood.

Pirates

Suspension (2008)

Daniel Bennett (Scott Cordes) survives the car accident that kills his family and, while watching home videos, discovers his camera can freeze time. This concept is vaguely similar to Click, where Adam Sandler has a remote control that he can use on the world, but Suspension goes off in much more interesting and unsettling direction. Click starts off with some mild amusement, before degenerating in to moralising and mediocrity, and becoming unbearable. Suspension starts off slow, focusing on the anguish and despair of Daniel, then picks up pace and intensity as he becomes obsessed with Sarah Kane (Annie Tedesco) the widow of the other driver in the accident. A clever and creepy, low budget film with an unusual premise, impressive effects, and a score by Jed Whedon (Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog).

Honest Bootleg

Pineapple Express (2008)

Pineapple Express is a story about marijuana and, like people on the drug, the movie is tedious and annoying. Every film about pot has people either searching for drugs or on the run from people with drugs. This time, Seth Rogen and Saul Silver are running away from Gary Cole and Rosie Perez.

At the start of this film, Rogen’s character says that smoking weed makes sh*tty movies better. Obviously I needed to be high when I watched this film, which has no reason to be 107 minutes long. Why can’t they make films about other drugs? Cocaine and speed have provided much better entertainment in the form of Less Than Zero, Scarface, and Requiem For A Dream.

The Librarian The Curse Of The Judas Chalice (aka Librarian 3) (2008)

The first Librarian movie was good. The second was even better. The third is not as good, and that is hard to believe since it has vampires. I thought everything was better with vampires.

Noah Wylie is still appealing as the gifted, but not too serious librarian who recovers metaphysical and historical artefacts for the Metropolitan Public Library. Bob Newhart and Jane Curtin are again entertaining as his superiors. Stana Katic provides an exotic touch as this movie’s female lead/love interest, albeit with a dark side. And Bruce Davison is here as a good guy, or perhaps a bad guy, and he brings a touch of distinction with him. The story this time involves a search for the cup, made from the 30 pieces of silver paid to Judas Iscariot, that can be used to raise Vlad the Impaler and an army of vampires.

The film starts with some action unrelated to the main plot, and then spends too much time on Flynn Carsen’s (Wyle) identity crisis, rather than focusing on the core theme of the story. The movie also becomes too juvenile in places, and that doesn’t fit with the sense of doom generated by the threat of an army of marauding vampires. The scene involving the playful Excalibur is so trite it should be in Harry Potter, not The Librarian. When the story is in full swing, it’s okay, but it takes too long to reach that point and then takes illogical turns. If you are in a locked room, why would you bother blowing down the door without trying to open a window first? Still, it is better than Indiana Jones 3, or the Mummy 3, or National Treasure 3 (which hasn’t been made yet but I know it will be bad, even if it has vampires).

The Bank Job (2008)

Jason “Transporter” Statham leads us through a re-enactment of the 1971 Baker Street bank robbery in London, with liberties taken to make the story more complex and action packed.

Saffron Burrows is blackmailed by MI5 (or maybe it is MI6) and recruits a bunch of likely lads (including Statham) to break in to a branch of Lloyds Bank. The MI boys need her to recover some incriminating photos of a Royal from a safety deposit box, but her cohorts know nothing of her nefarious plans are in it for the cash and jewels. The robbery is a cleverly planned and is over half way through the movie, leaving the rest of the film to deal with the aftermath.

It’s an appealing premise, although including the overlapping story of Michael X (a Malcolm X wannabe) adds nothing of value. I thought that Statham was going to go the whole movie without fighting anyone, but he managed to sneak in some violence of his own towards the end. It is set in the seventies, and the most noticeable aspect of that is the women lacked fake tans, implants, and excessive waxing. It is nice to see a caper film that is old school in approach (so old school I kept expecting Michael Caine to appear) and not hyperactive, like those by Guy Ritchie, or overly glamorous, like Oceans 11. - fabulous sebastian

Sometimes I think sebastian leaves stuff out of his reviews so no one will think that he really IS the film geek he pretends not to be. Failing that, I think he just leaves stuff out purely to annoy me.

First, let me just say, that i really enjoyed this film too. Hardly life changing material, and not exactly the "veritable documentary and realistic whodunnit" that some mouth-breather has opined over on IMDb, but still an entertaining little flick nonetheless. And why wouldn't it be? The credentials of the team behind it alone are enough to make you practically moist in the general pant-al area. Writers Dick Clements and Ian La Franais were the men behind some of my favourite tv shows of all time ( Auf Wiedersehn Pet, Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads, and of course Porridge ), and the director Roger Donaldson helmed Sleeping Dogs and Smash Palace in his home base of NZ, before hopping off to America to direct such filmic greats as Species and No Way Out.

And while we're here, I must tell a little anecdote from the set of "Bank Job".

Roger Donaldson said in a recent interview, that filming the brothel scene was one of his most difficult days of filming ever. The scene called for the women to be walking around wearing only garters... I know, hardly seems like hard work so far, but bear with me. Donaldson said that when he went to film the scene he discovered that most of the women had shaved their genitals, which would have been anachronistic, not to mention highly unlikely, in 1971. So the actresses had to wear pubic wigs, or "merkins", as they are known. Seriously, you've got to watch this scene, because it appears pretty bloody obvious that these girls are sporting something more akin to one of Richard O'Sullivan in "Man About the House's " sideburns down there, rather than anything home-grown. The big problem it seems, was that the merkins were hard to secure in place (think velcro but with only one side), and kept slipping, causing Donaldson much aggravation (is it any wonder so many Hollywood types turn to drugs?? Those poor bastards...)

Come on... you know you're gonna watch it now. -mister J.