To Bond or not to Bond. NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN is the Bond film that confuses everyone and gives Cubby Broccoli heartburn. Released just 4 months after OCTOPUSSY – the “authorized” Bond film from Broccoli’s EON Productions (starring Roger Moore) – NEVER was produced by Orion Pictures and, from what I can tell, was made out of spite by writer-producer … Read More
GHOSTBUSTERS II
Why am I drippings with poo? A river of slime threatens New York and brings the Ghostbusters out of retirement. Any excuse to touch tips again… GHOSTBUSTERS II finds original Ghostbusters Ray Stanz (Dan Aykroyd), Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) and Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) reluctantly re-donning the taupe onesies and re-shouldering those unnecessarily heavy ecto-gun backpacks to save New York … Read More
STAR WARS: EPISODE VII – THE FORCE AWAKENS
I willfully waited for the fervor to die down. So I wouldn’t have to deal with ubergeeks in Wookiee masks and errant lightsabers up the nostril, while trying to sit comfortably surrounded by idiots wearing Imperial armor or a three-man rancor costume. I succeeded, and EVENTUALLY saw the movie whose hype exceeds its content, in a bare cinema where I … Read More
THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD
The Most Tedious Story Ever Told. Oh God! THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD is so far up its own arse that Satan called the filmmakers and thanked them for turning so many people off Christianity. While choirs of angels provide the soundtrack, God speaks through Jesus Christ, his only begotten son whom he sent to Earth to take away the … Read More
SHUTTER ISLAND
Just dropped in – to see what condition my condition was in… The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. –John Milton, Paradise Lost. What a beautiful, sophisticated, mind-leveling thriller! SHUTTER ISLAND is not “scary,” but creepy, disturbing and filled with enough tension and intrigue to drown a plush … Read More
CONAN THE BARBARIAN
Save a Barbaric Yawp for me. CONAN THE BARBARIAN opens with a Nietzsche title card: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Oh, so it’s a focus on the philosophical struggle of mankind. Well, actually it’s more a focus on the “kill” and “stronger” bits. For an action-adventure fantasy epic, CONAN THE BARBARIAN sure is painfully slow, padded … Read More
ROBIN HOOD 2010
Everything’s Archy. GLADIATOR and BRAVEHEART had a baby and they called it Russell Crowe. This ain’t Errol Flynn, this ain’t Adam Ant, and it’s certainly not Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore, riding through the woods… This ain’t your daddy’s ROBIN HOOD; no swinging from vines in the forest, no star-crossed lovers, no archery competition, no “splitting his competitor’s arrow in twain,” … Read More