The Resurrected, dir. Dan O'Bannon (1992)

STEVE says:
Thus begins our week of HP Lovecraft adaptations. I haven't seen The Resurrected in over 10 years, but I remember liking it. Turns out, as it often does, that it's not as great in reality as in memory, but it wasn't a bad one to start off with.

Based on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, it probably sticks closer to the original story than any of the other, more famous adaptations of Lovecraft's work (Re-animator leaps to mind, as does From Beyond, nothing against Stuart Gordon), but I don't know whether that's good or bad. Lovecraft is so hard to film because he was maddeningly vague with description, and somewhat circular in his writing (at one point in the movie there's a flashback within a flashback within a flashback - no mean feat - and that's pretty much the way Lovecraft would have written the story).

The acting - while earnest - was more wooden that I remember, the effects - though nice and gory - were reminiscent of low-rent Rob Bottin, and the script - always interesting - could have used another pass. But O'Bannon and his crew still did a fairly good job. I was never bored during the film, and the pseudo-noir framework certainly helped in that regard.

Maybe not one of the best Lovecraft movies out there, but definitely not the worst.*

2.5/5

*Tune in later this week for The Curse, based on The Colour out of Space.

NIKKI says:
I think I enjoyed this a little bit more than Steve. Could be because what I got was exactly what I expected and nothing more -- dodgy, early '90s horror. An added bonus for me was the inclusion in the cast of Robert Romanus, who I had a mad crush on back in the day. I don't exactly know why my crush was as great as it was as he's not exactly a Jeff Fahey-type hunk-o-rama. So great was my crush, though, that I watched some of the worst movies ever simply because he was in them -- Dangerous Curves and Bad Medicine to name just two. He was probably one of the better features of this movie. Still, dodgy though it was, it was an okay start to Lovecraft Week.

Romanus's character works for a private detective who has been hired by a woman to find out just what her husband is up to in their garage at all hours of the night. He receives deliveries in body-shaped boxes, and there's a smell emanating from the building that keeps the birds well clear of the skies above. As the detective and his crew dig deeper, we discover that the guy in question -- Charles Dexter Ward -- is experimenting with the dead. Oooh -- not a hard guess.

The reason to see this film, really, is the special effects. This pretty much is one of the most outrageously gruesome films I've seen. Get this -- the experiments here involve human beings resurrected from the dead, but not quite all the way. When this happens, Ward simply discards the almost-remains. Ugh, are they horrid, but just about perfect when you think of Lovecraft's famous "too horrible to describe!" writing technique.

Not great, but not a total loss either.

2/5

Tremors, dir. Ron Underwood (1990)

NIKKI says:
We just wanted something fun this afternoon. We tossed around a few titles -- I was up for Wayne's World or something like that. Just something to kick back to, with our fish and chips, in the hours before I had to go to work.

Tremors turned out to be a good choice. We both hadn't seen it in ages, and it was still as funny and cool as it always was. We basically sat through it pointing out all the reasons why we like it, from the music right up to the decent non-digital effects. I, of course, love it for Kevin Bacon's hair, but who doesn't?

The movie just reminds of the simple days, when movies were fun, Fred Ward got leads, and the Jacoby brothers were go-to-guys whenever a movie needed a teenage brat.

I do think we should pick up the three sequels -- all of which my video store has. Steven Keaton takes over as the lead worm rustler in the fourth one, and you know that has to be good.

3.5/5

STEVE says:
I always kinda dug this movie. Must have watched it 50 times with my brother, quoting lines from it all the time. Our favorite came from Kevin Bacon: "See, we plan ahead, that way we don't do anything right now. Earl explained it to me."

I didn't realize at the time that it was a throwback to 50s monster movies, largely because I hadn't seen many at the time. In the 80s and early 90s I was stuck on slasher flicks and Universal horrors from the 40s. I'd yet to be acquainted with the likes of Them!, It Came from Outer Space or The Monolith Monsters.

Tremors works as more than just an homage to those movies; it's a good movie on its own. Well-written by S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock, with characters that you don't want to see killed and eaten straight out the gate (except for Bobby Jacoby), it's the rarest of animals in the horror genre - the horror-comedy done well.

But that still doesn't make me want to rush out and see the sequels. Or the TV show. Sometimes you just have to quit while you're ahead.

3.5/5

Iron Man, dir. Jon Favreau (2008)

STEVE says:
Hey, Fantastic 4, Punisher, Daredevil! See? That's how you do that.

I went into Iron Man knowing nothing at all about it: I've never read an Iron Man comic, and know nothing about the character, his origins, his nemeses, none of it, so I had no preconceived notions about what the movie should be, and could judge it only on what it was.

And what it was was absolutely fucking awesome.

4/5

NIKKI says:
Is it better if you go in with no idea what you're looking at? I have no knowledge whatsoever of Iron Man, the comic, its history, the villains, and heroes, and whatnot. I'm like Deb -- I hear the words "iron man", I think of the Nutri-Grain cereal: "Iron man food!"

Still, the previews for this looked really good. I felt after so many lame movies of this type (the Spiderman sequels, X-Men 3, Fantastic Four), we were finally looking at something ready to turn that around. It appeared smart, funny, and slightly subversive with Jon Favreau at the helm and Robert Downey Jnr in the lead. Those two guys are as far from comic book movie guys as one can get.

Turns out the previews didn't lie. This is probably the best superhero movie since the original Superman. It's fast, it's clever, it's got its adult audience firmly in mind, and it doesn't waste time on stupid romantic subplots or windbag on about the state of the world. It gets in there, does its thing, and we come out knowing who iron man loves, and how he feels about his country.

It's good storytelling, good direction, and filled with a cast of real actors. Oh, wasn't that just the best? Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow -- real actors and not just hotties ripped from hip TV shows or newbies I have no chance of relating to. Everything came together to make for a really cool experience. It had cute robots, good computer effects (for once), and Ralphie was in it, from A Christmas Story. I'll see it again, for sure.

4.5/5

The Blob, dir. Chuck Russell (1988)

NIKKI says:
I haven't watched this movie since I was about 12, and thought Kevin Dillon was cool, but felt bad for him that he had so much to live up to as another brother of a big star. Lots of them popped up in the '80s: Don Swayze, Chad Lowe, Billy Baldwin, Chris Penn, Charlie Sheen... some faring better than others in the fame department, of course. I love them all... obviously.

Kevin does well, though, to pull off the tough guy with the heart of gold. He's all rough and ready, smoking, wearing a leather jacket, rocking the hugest mullet ever. But when people start getting swallowed by a big giant pink slimy blob, he's ready to be the hero.

What a great movie this is. I had no idea is was such a good time. It's actually really effective, horror-wise, and the writing is good, which means the characters and story are engaging. I expected to sit and make fun of it, but I got so into it. By the end, the only thing I wished had been different was Kevin's hair.


Actually, I take that back. Man, the '80s were awesome.

My most favourite bits in the movie mostly had to do with the blob swallowing things. The effect was just really good. The blob would grab someone, squish him or her about in it's blubber, and invariably, the person would try to escape by running through the blob. It never worked. We just ended up seeing a strained, icky version of the person as the acidic blob walls shredded their skin. Eeew. The effects were just great.

So, a great horror adventure, a decent remake, and proof that computer effects are for lame-os.

3.5/5


STEVE says:
The remake of The Blob is neither as bad as it's supposed to be, nor as good as it could have been.

But more on this later...

3/5

The Attic, dir. Mary Lambert (2008)

NIKKI says:
It looked like it could have been a nice little gothic thriller. A girl moves into a new house with her parents and think she has a twin sister living in the attic. It's all very M.R. James. But instead of offering creeps and ghost-y scares, this one provides only boredom.

There's really nothing to say about it. You'll guess the ending before you get there and it won't mean much that you do. I also felt, from the very start, that this one was off-key -- as in, you know how there's a beat to a scare? Set it up, give us a fake scare (cat jumping, window slamming, tree rustling), let us calm down, then... one, two, three, REAL SCARE. This tried to scare us like that, but seemed about three beats off where it needed to be.

So without good thrills, without a decent script, and with actors who should fucking not need to pay rent this bad (John Savage?!?!?), it makes for a gigantic mess.

.5/5

The Ex, dir. Jesse Peretz (2006)

NIKKI says:
This one has been on my highly anticipated list ever since we saw the trailer back at the old place. Reason? Jason Bateman is just so funny. While that remains an obvious and indisputable, the movie wasn't as drop-dead funny as I had assumed it would be. The old colleague sabotage gag, turns out, was too old and crusty for even Bateman to breathe life into it.

Zach Braff and Amanda Peet have themselves a new baby, and decide to move to the suburbs. Zach takes a job at Amanda's dad's ad company, where he is forced to work under Bateman, a wheelchair-bound former cheerleading partner of Amanda's. They compete at work, and we find out that Bateman is deliberately sabotaging Zach at every turn in the hopes that he will win over Amanda. Zach is on to him early, and goes about trying to catch him out.

And, at 78 minutes, that's about it. I liked Bateman more when I thought his character was a dick, but he actually becomes quite evil in this. That wasn't really fun. The movie took on a really mean spirit towards the end, and really lost its zing.

So, lots of funny bits with Bateman, Charles Grodin says "Ah, fuck!" at one hilarious moment, and that's about it. Enjoyable, but no classic.

2.5/5

Fade to Black, dir. Vernon Zimmerman (1980)

NIKKI says:
I expected a lot from this and got just chump change, really. It's all about a guy obsessed with movies who begins to take on the personae of his favourite movie characters. He haunts cinemas as Dracula, a fairground as Hopalong Cassidy, and when he wants to get tough, he all but becomes James Cagney in White Heat.

He does all this not out of love for the movies, really, but because he is actually quite mental and he can't otherwise correctly control his emotions. Great premise, right? Well, it doesn't really work, because the writing is really quite poor. There's Eric, the mental guy in question, and he's running about pissing everyone off with his smarmy attitude, which has taken over his actual personality as well as his fake ones. Then there's a doctor on his trail, that reackons society has ruined him with it's film imagery of violence and whatnot. Then there are the cops that (rightfully) want him out of the way -- he is murdering people, after all. Then there's the Marilyn Monroe lookalike who gets caught in his weird web, not once, but twice (and once in the shower).

All of these elements jumble about to create a confused, convoluted film. What should have been a story about a kid gone mad after confusing movies with real life due an horrendous upbringing (his mother/aunt is a beast), becomes more like a guy obsessed with film trivia just being weird. Dennis Christopher's performance gets stranger and stranger as the film progresses. He lacked the heart I think his character needed in order for me to sympathise with him as much as the doctor was. I don't know, therefore, who the hero was. Eric was annoying, killing people, and generally not inviting of my compassion at all.

It was fun, though, to look back on a movie like this. It's from 1980 and really tries to say something about life imitating art. It just needed a more skilled writer to pull it all together.

2/5

STEVE says:
Wow, what a massive let-down this was. I'd seen it before, something like 17 years ago. Doug brought it over and I remember thinking it was pretty cool at the time. Whether I actually thought it was cool is something else, but my memory is that it was a tight, clever thriller.

Not so.

The script is just bad, there's no way around it. Eric Binford's introduction consists of a few minutes of impossibly expository dialog delivered by his crazy, Norma Desmond-like wheelchair-bound aunt as she rails on about how his "poor mother" died in childbirth and it's his fault that she's in a wheelchair now, and blah blah blah. Backstory database type stuff that could actually have been introduced later - through the art of storytelling - rather than thrust upon us in the first few minutes.

A bit later, we meet two women jogging on the beach. The leggy, Marilyn Monroe look-alike has come over from Australia to be an actress. Her friend, the shorter Linda Blair look-alike is only there to give Marilyn someone to talk to. So they decide to grab something to eat, which is when they meet Eric. He's sitting at the counter leering at Marilyn and, after insulting her friend, asks Marilyn on a date that night. Marilyn agrees, but stands him up for Peter Horton and is out of the movie for the next half-hour or so. Fair enough 'cos it's not her story - so why'd we need the introduction on the beach?

Tim Thomerson receives the same treatment: introduction, standard background via expository dialog, disappear until convenient. It was all rather embarrassing. Makes me cautious about watching anything I vaguely remember liking from more than 15 years ago.

2/5

Wrong Turn, dir. Rob Schmidt (2003)

NIKKI says:
We had this idea to re-watch some of the movies in our collection -- from the beloved classics to the the ones that, for some reason, long ago, we decided we should own.

Wrong Turn falls into the latter category. I remember thinking it was a fairly cool horror flick with a few scary mutants. And we both have a thing for Eliza Dushku, so it's basically win-win. It was okay to revisit, though I don't know if we would have bought it had this been our first viewing.

Still, it's reasonably enjoyable considering it's one of those horror movies, riding the ever-growing bandwagon of new millennium horror. That is, it's got lots of freaky shit in it, some babes, some has-beens, and no real social message. But the frights are good, the horror is imaginative (at times -- girls cut off at jaw on tree, for instance), and you do actually like the characters, which is a major plus.

All in all, not a bad way to kill an evening. And it was the first movie we watched on our new projector and massive screen, so it will go down in history for us that way.

3/5

STEVE says:
Wrong Turn is kind of like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre meets Deliverance, only without the social relevance of either of those films, if you can dig that.

At a lean 84 minutes, it can't afford to waste any time, so it kicks in at the inciting incident and never slows down. We don't hate the characters (except for maybe Lindy Booth and Kevin Zegers, but they die first in true 80s horror movie post-coital fashion, which is kind of cool), but they're never really developed enough to get to know them one way or another. About 15 minutes after we meet them they're on the run from these crazy killer inbred mutants, who we never learn anything about either. It's just run-run-run, chase-chase-chase for the next hour.

On a personal note, I think I could watch Eliza Dushku stand against a brick wall for 84 minutes and read the phone book as long as she's wearing that White Tank Top of Authority, so I'm okay with the whole run-run-run, chase-chase-chase thing in lieu of plot or dialog.

Much as I hate it when movies are compared to rides, that's what Wrong Turn seemed like; an 84 minute long spook house ride. Once it gets rolling, it shakes you up for a bit and then deposits you safely back at the turnstile. It's not a great movie, but it is a good ride, and that makes it okay.

3/5

The Sitter (aka. While the Children Sleep), dir. Russell Mulcahy (2007)

NIKKI says:
I just wanted to watch something while I came down from an annoying day at work. This movie was perfect. Steve and I sat back, made some jokes, and because it was 3 in the afternoon, and we'd just had sausages, we didn't feel the least bit dirty. Campy, crappy, afternoon movies have their place, too.

So, this is another one of those bad babysitter movies, that usually involve a sexy sitter invading the home of a wholesome family either to seduce the husband or steal the children. I'm thinking The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, The Sitter (with Kim Myers) ... I'm sure there are others. Anyway... in this one, babysitter Abby is hired to live in with William Moses's family. We know she was neglected in her own childhood, so it's a matter of waiting 'til the rage comes out.

She kills Moses's best friend with a shovel through the neck, and off we go. The neighbours are on to Abby, and so she sets about offing them one by one, never once stopping to think that maybe her shady past and proximity to the deaths would arouse suspicion. But, then, she's crazy in love and just crazy -- so, who knows?

Eventually, she tries to off Moses' wife, Gail O'Grady and succeeds only in hobbling her. She has to come up with something a bit more imaginative to finally get what she wants. And, in the end, it's not so imaginative after all. And then it ends. It was everything it promised -- campy, silly, derivative, with awesome PG-rated horror effects. After it, I was ready to face the day. Perfect.

1.5/5

STEVE says:
This from the guy who directed Highlander and Razorback. Russell, what happened?

I didn't enjoy this one as much as Nikki; mostly just sat there waiting for the forgone conclusion of an ending to hurry up and arrive. Standard Crazy Babysitter fare, as Nikki pointed out, all stuff we've seen before, with harsher ratings and bigger stars, but always with the same outcome.

How many times can Crazy Babysitter story be told, anyway? And why does it keep coming back around? Is it based on some Greek myth I've yet to hear about, some tale that gets handed down from generation to generation in different forms? Where's the archetype for this particular story?

My guess is, we haven't seen the last of it. The good news is, it can only really get better from this point.

1.5/5

Starter for 10, dir. Tom Vaughan (2006)

NIKKI says:
The print ads I'd seen for this prior to its coming out on DVD didn't at all inspire in me a desire to watch it. It looked like one of those annoying British comedies like that speed dating movie that just came out. Didn't care at all.

And then I found out it was about a guy who dreams of being on University Challenge and I needed to see it right away. TV quiz shows, after all, are my favourite things after chocolate and boy bands. And it's set in 1985, and modelled on John Hughes -- so it just about has every ingredient necessary for masterpiece-dom.

It lived up to all that, too. The movie was really enjoyable. It's about a guy from the dead end of town who goes off to college and begins this great adventure, meeting girls, learning stuff, basically, as he puts it, he's "making something of himself". Along the way, though, his mistakes mount. He's so blinded by ideals that he screws up a great relationship, alienates his best friend from back home, and even botches his chances on the quiz show.

But it's all about lessons learned, right? And that's basically the gist here. The kid's learning. It's a smart, funny movie. James McAvoy is really entertaining, too. I really liked it, and I loved the Cure-heavy soundtrack.

3.5/5

STEVE says:
Something about this movie felt very familiar to me. Cheeky teens, 80s fashions, Brit-rock soundtrack. Yes, it smacked of mid-80s John Hughes which, apart from 60% of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and bits and pieces here and there of Sixteen Candles, I loathe. When Nikki told me it was actually written like a John Hughes film on purpose, it made me cringe.

But I did not loathe Starter for 10, largely because it wasn't a massive love-letter to the 80s as most Hughes films tend to be. It's like screenwriter David Nicholls filtered all the cheesy stuff out of Pretty in Pink (or, as Nikki pointed out, more likely Some Kind of Wonderful which, though directed by Howard Deutch, was written by Hughes), leaving only realistic, likable characters and a solid story.

Here’s my problem with Hughes: Of the myriad responsibilities unjustly thrust upon film makers, one of the least challenging is that they represent reality in such a way that, no matter how incredible the premise of their film — murderous doll tries to kill a nine year old kid; strange arctic discovery, marketed as a dessert, takes control of people’s minds; Julia Roberts finds Dermott Mulroney attractive — the rest must be absolutely believable. Hughes fails in this by creating a version of the ‘80s which never existed, throwing the level of believability right off.

Consider: The ‘80s were a very fluid decade, one fad replacing the next within fifteen minutes of its introduction. Consider, also: The production of a big studio film takes roughly two years, from conception to release. With these two things in mind, there’s no way a Hughes movie could even hope to be anywhere near an accurate portrayal! It’s pre-retro, to the point of being almost nostalgic. He takes the minority and makes it the majority. Some kid wearing those Back to the Future style sunglasses? Then all kids in his films must wear them! Jelly bracelets and a Swatch? The same for one and all!

That’s fine for a movie like The Wedding Singer or 200 Cigarettes, movies set in that period for no other reason, really, than the soundtrack revenues. But Hughes’s movies are period pieces made in the period! And, except for the occasional Oingo Boingo or Simple Minds song, the soundtracks generally blow.

Starter for 10, though it takes place in the 80s, doesn’t cram that fact down your throat. It realizes that the story is the most important part, and doesn’t waste time reminding you about fashion.

Though it did have a kick-ass soundtrack.

3.5/5

Naked Lunch, dir. David Cronenberg (1991)

Charlie Wilson's War, dir. Mike Nichols (2007)

NIKKI says:
Perhaps it's Aaron Sorkin's position in life to make complicated political language accessible to everyone? I thought this movie, based around Charlie Wilson's winning financial aid to assist Afghanistan in beating the invading Russians would go right over my head.

Instead, thanks to Sorkin's excellent technique of having characters talk politics as though they were discussing what's for lunch meant that few beats were missed on my side of the couch, and I managed to stay on top of events right the way through.

I'm glad, too, because this was a genuinely engaging piece of history. This and Under Fire have taught me more about politics in the early 1980s than any class at school. We see so many films and shows on the big wars -- Korean, Vietnam, even the Gulf. But we see so little about these other countries that struggle or have struggled to live freely.

Charlie Wilson's part in the Afghanistan/Russia issue was primarily to raise large amounts of cash to arm the Afghanis against the Russian attacks. He was inspired after seeing the poor manner in which the Afghanis were living in refugee camps and makeshift desert hospitals. It was something to see, this man used to strippers and wine and the best suites and cars suddenly in the middle of this poor country, talking to children without limbs, and families battling to stay alive.

Wilson remains stoic throughout his money-raising campaign, and uses his personality and gift of the gab to talk his way into getting what he wants -- something he never questions he'll be able to do. Tom Hanks is just excellent here. I'm going to have no trouble recommending this when it comes out on DVD here in a few months. Just a great drama, that sits, for me, alongside Lions for Lambs as the year's must-watch political films.

4/5

STEVE says:
The poster for this one did nothing for me. Not the biggest Hanks fan, ditto Julia Roberts. Philip Seymour Hoffman was interesting when only myself and four of my friends knew who he was, ("This is our concern, Dude") but now that he's Oscar-Winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, the shine is off. Bringing all three of them together for a movie called "Charlie Wilson's War" did nothing to raise my interest.

The I saw that it was a Mike Nichols film.

Hello...?

Written by Aaron Sorkin.

Hmm.

Okay, now you've got me interested.

I'm not one to pass up a Nichols film. He's right up there with Coppola, Scorsese and Woody Allen as one of the all-time American greats. And Sorkin... It took me a while to reconcile my mixed feelings for A Few Good Men (Brilliant Movie vs. Tom Cruise Sucks), but I eventually came to appreciate it based on the Whole instead of the Parts, and I believe that The West Wing will go down in history as one of the greatest shows ever to grace the airwaves.

Suddenly Charlie Wilson's War had a lot to live up to.

And it did. I enjoyed seeing Hanks play someone counter to his normal "nice guy" image, and was silently pleased when he used the word "fuck". Hoffman was typically Hoffman, but that's not a bad thing. And Sorkin's script and Nichols' direction kept me interested and wanting more all the way through.

And Julia Roberts... well, anyone could have played that part, to be honest, but I didn't roll my eyes every time she showed up, so that's gotta count for something.

3.5/5

Teeth, dir. Mitchell Lichtenstein (2007)

NIKKI says:
Wow, did I feel stupid. I really thought someone was seriously making a horror movie about a vagina with teeth. I didn't expect for a second that the film would be in anyway comedic or satirical. Steve says: "How could you possibly think they could do this seriously?"

Well...! I just don't know. Who knows what horror people will do these days. I figured on a Hostel-type thing, and got the sort of film Psycho Beach Party wanted to be, only with deeper, more compelling undertones.

Dawn is the leader of a chastity group in her hometown. She doesn't believe in sex before marriage, and is content to remain a virgin until she finds the right guy. When the right guy appears to come along, Dawn's hormones begin to rage. She decides a little closeness with her boyfriend might not be so bad. A little closeness becomes a lot of teasing, and her boyfriend takes out his frustrations by raping her. Unable to cope, Dawn's vagina clamps his offending penis and snaps it clean off.

Dawn is horrified to learn she embodies the Greek myth of the vagina dentata, and requires a hero to free her of this evil curse. But is it such a curse? What if Dawn could learn to control her condition? What kind of heroine could she become?

It's easy to dismiss this film as a sick and twisted tale of perversion. I made the mistake of skimming the IMDb board responses to it and most of them missed the point entirely (as they usually do about everything from I Spit on Your Grave to, say, Transformers). This is not a genital mutilation fantasy, so much as a female empowerment story. It's about owning one's body, taking charge of what Dawn calls her "gift". It's just a mildly weird way of getting that message across.

But I'll tell you -- the bitey-vagina is a horror angle I've never seen before. And in a genre that craves originality, there's a win right there. It also gets points for a brilliant female lead, who balances so well her dramatics and campishness to make her believable in such an unbelievable role.

3/5

STEVE says:
Teeth wasn't nearly as uncomfortable to watch as 98% of the reviews out there would have you believe. Only because you see it coming. Once the Vagina Dentata is revealed - and that's in the opening five minutes - it's only a matter of time before some penises start getting chomped off. It becomes a waiting game.

And when the waiting is over, it's effective because of the storytelling - by this point, you pretty much want to see this particular kid get his penis (or his 'dick', or his 'rod', or his 'johnson') cut off - but it's not all that squirm-inducing because the nature of the story prepped you for it. (And if it didn't, you just weren't paying attention.) More effective is the bathtub scene in I Spit on Your Grave. No way could you see that coming, so when it does, you're shocked. With Teeth, not so much.

Lichtenstein definitely took a More is More approach here. Getting graphic wasn't necessary because - especially in a case involving denticular castration - the more you leave to the imagination, the better. Instead, we're treated to bloody shots of penisless groins over and over again, as well as one completely unnecessary shot of a dog swallowing the, erm, "other half", let's say. To what end? I don't know. I think Less is More would have made me squirm.

Apart from all that, it was a good movie - again, because of the story and not because of the special effects.

3/5

The Maltese Falcon, dir. John Huston (1941)

Alvin and the Chipmunks, dir. Tim Hill (2007)

NIKKI says:
This movie worked for exactly the reason I expected it to: The chipmunks were adorable. Usually, I'm anti-CGI and might rail against such a movie for not using real chipmunks like they used real pigs in Babe and just CGI-ed the mouth movements. But these little guys were so well animated that I never once stopped to shake my head at the fake-ness of it all.

Be cuter than the chipmunks!

The story, however, was ultra-standard, and would really have benefited from even the slightest bit of edge. There was, maybe, one or two jokes aimed at an older audience, but, the most part, this was purely little kid territory. Even the usually sardonic David Cross kept his performance tightly within the film's G-rated confines.

The premise is this: Struggling songwriter Dave can't get a job to save his life. Then he accidentally brings home a basket full of chipmunks who sing in perfect, if screechy, harmony. He sees his meal-ticket. So does evil Jett Records producer, Ian, played by David Cross, who proceeds to turn the chipmunks against Dave.

By this point, Dave is starting to view the chipmunks like his kids and Ian's scrupulous vision for them does not suit him at all. Of course, the chipmunks are digging the success and they side with Ian. It doesn't help Dave's case that early on, he resisted the chipmunks living with him in a family-type situation.

Dave must win them back, by proving that he does, in fact, see them as family.

It's a blueprint for kid-movie success, if ever there was one. There are plenty of happy, funky moments with the chipmunks playing games and dancing about. This is measured by a heavy dose of hug-happy sugar. But it's hard to resist the ultra-cute and cuddly chipmunks. They are just so ridiculously cute and I was with them all the way through.

So, that's another staple of our childhood up on the big screen. I'll sit back now and wait for the Jem movie.

3/5 (for cuteness)

Definitely, Maybe, dir. Adam Brooks (2008)

NIKKI says:
Ryan Reynolds in a romantic comedy meant I was in. I still don't know how much I enjoyed the premise. Basically, Ryan and his wife are divorcing and his little daughter, played by Abigail Breslin, wants to know how he came to fall in love with her mother.

He proceeds to tell the girl three stories of his three great romances, and she has to pick which one is her mom. Slightly creepy, considering all the making out, but still...

Now, you would think that reliving this story might make him realise that he does indeed still love her mother and will perhaps amend whatever it is in their relationship that broke so severely. This, of course, would make the little girl happy, and isn't that whats all movies like this are about?

Well, not in this case. Here, we find out that the woman Ryan is divorcing and the woman he really, truly loves are two different women. This almost renders that third story superfluous, and it ends up meaning very little, if anything at all. I can't remember exactly what that story teaches Ryan, but I know it meant for some overlong scenes with Kevin Kline that could have been chopped to make this movie the 90 minutes it should have been.

Now, doesn't the fact that he ends up with another woman mean that he was never meant to be with the mom in the first place? And doesn't that then mean that the daughter was conceived within a partnership doomed from the outset? Nobody brought this up. The daughter was happy to send the mother off knowing the dad was supposed to be with someone else. I just don't think that works. And if it was playing with convention, it should have let me know somehow.

Still, Ryan Reynolds is always enjoyable to watch. And I did like the political setting. Ultimately, if didn't work because too much was going on, and the focus was all over the place, and I don't think it had a clear vision of what Ryan wanted and needed. The supposed great love he ends up with feels like just another turn down just another road, not necessarily the right one.

2.5/5

Suburban Girl, dir. Marc Klein (2007)

NIKKI says:
I know I say this a lot but ... it started out so well. Associate editor meets big-time publishing magnate and started perhaps an ill-advised romance. He ends up helping her with her work, until she discovers he is rather intensely flawed. She must then question her own wants and needs. In effect, he becomes her editor, fixing her flaws, and, as he says, making her better.

Great premise, and the literary references throughout had me positively shivering with glee. (Why don't we ever meet people who can quote Dante?)

Problems! Oh golly, the problems. Basically, it all begins to unravel when Sarah Michelle says "Who's Jackson Browne?" She not that young. I think it was at this point that we began to pick the movie's large faults. Basically, Sarah Michelle's character is set up as wonderfully smart, and yet she is so blind to her surroundings, and acts, at times, so horribly immature that she becomes hard to take seriously.

Take, for instance, her reluctance to quiz Alec Baldwin (who plays her older man) on his past relationship with her new, feisty boss. Instead of just asking him why he kept such information from her, she opts to get wasted at a society event and make a damned fool out herself, which works only to demonstrate to Alec how young his girlfriend really is. This doesn't seem to faze him all that much, though.

Which begs another question -- how did she not realise that the relationship was not going to be long-lasting? She even peruses a photo album in his home filled with young women he's been in relationships with. It's impossible to think that Sarah Michelle didn't figure herself another notch on a particularly long belt.

But then the movie wants us to think that even for Alec, Sarah Michelle was something special. Only she is so immature, and a little dumb. She criticizes him for being self-involved when he rails at her for her lateness: "Don't blame me for you being a bad father!" she yells. I wanted him to scream back, "Then don't blame me for you being a stupid brat at that party!" The guy is going through massive alcohol-fuelled family-trauma, and she's having a go at him for saying exactly what's within his right to say. To what real end?

Anyway, the movie's got issues. I liked its main point, that people can be edited and shaped, but I don't think the older man/younger woman thing was necessary to make that point. It just brings up too many complications. And we hated that Alec, at 50, was made out to be as old as Moses when visiting Sarah Michelle's family. Fifty is not that old. Even Sarah Michelle does it by calling Alec and his friend "the cast of Cocoon". O ... kay.

So much potential that went so far astray. Still, it was generally entertaining, and it was nice to see Alec doing his gravelly-voiced thing.

2.5/5

Night of the Living Dead - 3-D, dir. Jeff Broadstreet (2006)

STEVE says: I'm almost embarrassed to tell y'all this... but I didn't hate this movie.

In fact, I kinda enjoyed it.

I was prepared to hate it, of course. A remake of Night of the Living Dead? This is hallowed ground; real "Where Angels Fear to Tread" territory. And in 3D, no less. Throw Sid Haig in there and it loses its last shred of credibility. (Nothing against Sid, but he's clearly here for his camp value and nothing more.)

So 33 minutes in, when I was still not hating the movie (even though they'd opted not to use the line from the original, possibly the most iconic lines in horror movie history, "They're coming to get you, Barbara!"), I decided - better late than never - to give it a chance.

It was not a masterpiece, by any stretch of anyone's imagination. And it was only very tangentially a remake. It had all the elements of Night of the Living Dead but it used them in different ways. One is tempted to call it a "re-imagining", but it's closer to the truth to say they pulled a Lawnmower Man with it: there was an already valid, interesting story here, into which the film maker's decided to shoehorn a bunch of references to Night of the Living Dead - characters named Barb, Johnny, Ben, etc.; farmhouse; Zombies - and they needn't have done because the story was fairly solid on its own.

After being attacked by zombies at her aunt's funeral, Barb is rescued by Ben. They head off to the Cooper farmhouse where we meet Henry and Hellie, their daughter Karen, and Owen the "hired help". Seems the Cooper's have quite a good crop growing on their farm, and Ben was coming around to make a purchase. Already, we're so far removed from the original that you have to be asking yourself why, apart from name recognition, they bothered at all.

Once we wade through the obligatory first few minutes of disbelief, everyone gets on the same page and they work together (kicking the original movie's "basement vs. upstairs" argument and Ben and Harry/Henry's antagonism right out the window). Haig stops by, here playing the guy who runs the local cemetery, and we learn that this whole thing is pretty much his fault. He's afraid of fire, y'see, and he hadn't cremated any bodies since his dad died two years back. And when the experimental chemicals he was also supposed to burn accidentally leaked into the mortuary...

See what they did there? New characters; an explanation for the Zombie outbreak; a fairly contained area instead of a global epidemic. This so easily could have been its own movie, and once I put the original out of my mind, it was easy to kick back and enjoy it.

The 3D pretty much sucked, though. Apart from the money-shots, it was like watching a regular movie. (Still, better than fucking Amityville 3D in my opinion.) So, as much as I'd love to rate this a 3, it's losing half for masquerading as a remake of a classic, for not living up to its potential, and for improper use of a gimmick.

2.5/5

NIKKI says: Wow, it really didn't suck. It was a masterpiece, either, but it held my interest. I am, however, starting to get very suspicious of this whole 3D thing. This was worse than AMityville in terms of it's 3D design. At least the master shots in Amityville had depth of field. This one didn't seem three dimensional at all. I could see the red and green outlines, but with my 3D glasses on, nothing changed. Nothing jumped out, nothing looked even remotely 3D.

So, that was monumentally disappointing, especially considering how much just the 3D-ness of a shit movie like Jaws 3D can make me love it. This movie was actually okay, so some good effects would have bumped up who knows how many stars! Instead, it stays on 2.5 because it gypped me.

I also like the Sid Haig twist. I couldn't believe it when he lifted that shovel! But, Steve's right -- with that twist, it could have just been its own movie. It didn't need to be a remake or a reimagining of George Romero's film. That is all.

2.5/5

The Jammed, dir. Dee McLachlan (2007)

NIKKI says:
I had minimal interest in this one until I read a snapshot review in The Age that referred to it as "the best Australian film of 2007". That same day, a reasonably decent (ie. foreign film hirer) customer at the shop told me it was superb film. My interest certainly grew.

I love a good Australian film. I used to be one of those people who turned away from local productions due to the lack of good work out there. For every Noise, there's about 10 You and Your Stupid Mates, and that takes its toll after a while.

Lately, though, there's been a lot of good stuff out there -- or at least stuff that does its best to rise above the standard. The Jammed is one of those movies. It's not excellent, but it is sincere in its efforts to tell its awful story. Technically, it's excellent. On a story level, some tightening and focus might have helped.

My main problem had to do with a lack of understanding on behalf of the exploited women. The film is about a Melbourne woman, Ashley, roped into helping a Chinese mother find her missing daughter, Rubi. Rubi has fallen victim to human trafficking that sees young immigrant women forced to work in brothels to "pay debts" incurred by the securing (actually false) of immigration papers. The trick is, the women believe they owe these traffickers money, and if they try to get help they will be deported or held in detention. So, that's their catch-22 -- which is the better of two evils, as presumably the situation they leave is worse than the one they're now in.

Or is that in fact the case? The film doesn't really go into that. Is Vanya, the Russian immigrant, better off working as a prostitute in Australia? What was her situation back home? There's never an opportunity to understand these women. They never really even comment on what they are forced to go through, why they came out here. Because they don't speak English, we never hear from them, and just shake our heads in shame as they get repeatedly raped and tortured. But what do they feel? Horrible imagery -- Vanya getting urinated upon, for instance -- is one thing, but I wanted to know these women, not just see them abused. Violence and abuse of this magnitude would no doubt go on in regular brothels, exploiting Aussie women, so how is this different?

I think the film failed to give insight into the lives of these women. The film's dealing with them felt very surface to me. As far as Ashley's crusade, perhaps that needed to be the film's focus. The bureaucracy, and politics. Instead, we have two halves of a story that culminate in a poor ending that sees one dead (no police visited that death scene?), one locked up, and the other free to wander the Melbourne streets. Then Ashley rings her mum and is reminded that she doesn't have it so bad.

To what end? The message rings loud and clear -- this happens and there's nothing you can do about it and you should be thankful you don't have it so bad. It almost trivializes the situation rather than offering solutions, or even daring to leave Ashley hopeless, which is essentially what we are in these circumstances.

A good effort that falls short.

2.5/5

Bug, dir. William Friedkin (2007)

NIKKI says:
Probably one of the weirdest films I've ever seen, and that's why I liked it. It challenged everything in me. It was crazy, horrible, and dirty. Nothing was fully explained. It was dream-like. Ashley Judd was in it. Everything existed here to turn me off, and yet, I found myself glued.

I learned watching the making-of on the DVD that this is a movie about paranoia. I figured that, but I was looking for something more. I felt through much of the film that I was missing some grand point. Turns out I wasn't -- Friedkin talks about it as a paranoia piece, while the actors talk about it's love story elements. Michael Shannon says he wants everyone to walk away from it loving each other a little bit more.

To find the love story here is dig through a lot of grit, blood, and screaming. But he's right -- it's there. At the core of it, Ashley Judd's character needs something to believe in after the disappearance of her child. She blames herself, and in walks Michael Shannon, this stranger who thinks there are bugs in his brain and that's he's being controlled my the military. She think she's nuts, but his belief is so fierce that she starts to believe it, too. Eventually, his weirdness becomes hers and she uses his theories to explain her situation. She can deal with her loss. But, more importantly, she believes Michael Shannon. He is insane, but she believes him. That's the love part. Sure, she's kind of insane, too, but watching as they decide to take vengeance on their controllers is so fucked up it's actually kind of beautiful.

Bizarre, challenging, and fascinating.

3.5/5

Prey, dir. Darrell Roodt (2007)

NIKKI says:
Technically, Fulci picked this one. We selected three horror movies from the to-watch pile, laid a treat in front of them, and waited. Prey it was. Fulci spent much of the movie running up to the screen to bark at big animals, so something tells me his selection was far from informed.

So, Peter Weller marries a women 25 years younger then him and takes her to Africa with his kids -- one cute, one snotty -- and sends them on safari while he stays back at camp to build something. The new wife and the kids wind up trapped in a truck with savage lions lying in wait nearby.

The movie is basically 90 minutes of them in the car trying to figure out what to do. There are tense moments, sure, but it's mostly just boring. And I hated seeing the lions so callously gunned down -- it was a bit exploitative. As I always say in movies like this -- the lions were there first!! Leave them alone!!

Not a great movie, not utterly horrible. Just ... boring.

1.5/5

The Tattooist, dir. Peter Burger (2007)

NIKKI says:
Honestly, I wasn't expecting much. This was, after all, on a preview disc with Children of the Corn IV. It was a fun surprise, then, to discover an engaging movie.

The rundown is this: Jake Sawyer travels the world learning various forms of tattooing. In Singapore, he encounters Samoan tatau, which looks like it really fucking kills. He's into it, so much so that he carelessly steals a tatau tool. Little does he know, that tool was used in a tatau gone wrong, and when Jake accidentally stabs himself with it, a spirit is released that torments and kills anyone Jake's hand tattoos.

Of course, Jake only realises there's a problem after he gives his new girlfriend (Sina, one of the tatau artists) a lotus flower on her back.

Weird premise, yeah, but it was actually handled with great sophistication. The characters were intriguing, there was some classy writing going on (particularly the banter between Jake and the girlfriend), and the horror was genuinely affecting. As was the emotional ending involving the spirit in a mirror. I was simultaneously creeped out and on the verge of tears -- something about beauty and horror, blood and art, and all the juicy contradictions tattooing evokes.

A good film, about a fascinating subject, with some really awesome New Zealand actors (and Jason Behr, who was also very cool).

3.5/5

The Lookout, dir. Scott Frank (2007)

NIKKI says:
The pacing of this one stuck out the most. It very steadily tells its story, and I think it's testament to how well-written parts of it are that the pace doesn't drag it down.

It's quite slow getting going, but it's character driven, and perhaps atmosphere driven, that it works to build this dark world in which these dark people move about. The story isn't especially compelling, but the mood of the piece is at times.

If that makes sense...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is turning into Heath Ledger more and more with each film. Not only does he look like Heath, he's developing Heath's intensity. He's turning into a smart actor, and I enjoy watching him in most things.

So, the movie... Chris has a car smash that kills or severely injures his best friends. Following the accident, his brain is fucked up and he can't remember things properly, so writes down everything in his life in a little notebook. He can't connect with people, and lives with his blind friend, Jeff Daniels, while working as a bank janitor.

Chris's job makes him the target for a group of bank robbers. They cajole him into assisting with their robbery plans by taking him in, offering him friendship, and making him fall for a girl. He realises the benefits of the extra cash and goes along with the scam. But all, say it with me, is not as it seems...

It's a movie about a guy who deals with a poor decision by making poor decisions. It's about a lack of connection, about attempts made to steer straight. I enjoyed it, though I didn't love it. One of my main concerns was how movie-like the final reel was, with the shootouts and things. Something about those crisp, choreographed battle scenes just distracted me from the story.

What am I trying to say? The dude with the glasses, the all-out killing machine -- he only exists in movies. Look at Dog Day Afternoon -- now that's more realistic. These caricatures of evil men don't work for me -- even Matthew Goode's character was over the top and unrealistic. It was his connection to Lukas Haas in terms of his look and actions here that made me think of Brick. This was far more accomplished than Brick, but suffered from some cheesy bad guys.

Still, smart enough and dark enough to be enjoyable.

3/5

Amityville 3-D, dir. Richard Fleischer (1983)

STEVE says:
I went 25 years without watching this fucking thing. A quarter of a century; 67.5% of my life - possibly longer than I've ever purposefully not watched any other movie. Tonight the streak was broken, and the wait more than completely justified.

There really was no excuse for this movie. The story, as it was, deftly side-stepped that set-up in the first film, choosing instead to go with some ghostly tom-foolery, and then went nowhere for what seemed a really long time, but was in fact only 89 minutes. Long enough, I suppose.

Adding insult to injury, the 3-D isn't used to any particular effect. The occasional "shock-shot" of a hand reaching out toward the screen, yeah, but how many times can we see that in the same movie and still be bothered to care?

.5/5

NIKKI says:
Just when I thought I'd never watch another non-3D movie again... This was just horrendous. I'm starting to think Jaws 3D was actually a shameful film that blinded me with its fish effects.

I said to Steve, perhaps I would have been blind to this film's dumbness had the 3D effects been better, It would appear we had a slightly colour-skewed print, so not all of the 3D worked. This was bad. The main shots were good -- people and walls and stuff were very 3D, but the money-shots -- pole going through car window, hands reaching out, flies and ghost-forms buzzing around -- all split the red and blue in two. So, instead of seeing something coming at us, we just saw it big and twice, as though we had a weird double-vision.

So, that was disappointing.

Not as disappointing, though, as the movie itself, which was stupid, boring, and made very little sense. That is all.

.5/5

Corey Haim: Me, Myself and I, dir. William L. Boyd, Brooke McCarter (1989)

NIKKI says:
So, I wake up in the morning, come out to the computer, flick the monitor on, and I see this. Well, I see Corey Haim, crayon in hand, writing his name on a wall. It's Corey Haim's video diary from 1989. Little does Steve know, he has just found my Holy Grail.

Or perhaps he did know... And, to be honest, my Holy Grail became something far different as of about 1992. Still, watching this "film" so many years after my Haim-obsession was just brilliant. It was everything I thought it would be and more. So, so much more.

I told Steve I had the most success with this when I stepped back into my 1989-self, back when I was going to marry Corey and would save all my pocket money to buy Teen Beats with his picture on the front. I could more easily view this as I may have then, loving Corey as he played tennis and drive his Alfa Romeo down Sunset Boulevard. I needed to put myself back there, because this really is a sad, sad piece of work.

I don't blame Corey. He was 17 at the time, and probably spent much of his teens being told he was the shit, and that everybody loved him, so he acted like it. He really does love him some self here, parading for the camera, saying stuff he thinks is funny or deeply profound, and spending much of his time getting pampered and primped by make-up girls. It's no wonder he acts the way he does.

Research informs me that this video was not a fan piece, but a PSA from Corey Camp that he was off drugs and ready to start his adult career. Apparently, he'd had some law troubles at this time, though I don't remember hearing about that in my only source of Corey news: the teen mags. Funny that. At the end of the movie, Corey tells us to stay in school and avoid "getting messed up". It's all so sincere, and then a make-up girl comes out. Well, maybe she doesn't, but she may as well have.

As ridiculous as this movie is -- it's 37 minutes of Corey playing sports, winking for the camera while floating in his pool, hitting some keys on his synthesizer, doing a fashion show, and talking about how can't wait to live in a mansion in Tahiti -- it's a product of its time, and really shows how blinded we fans were to the lives of our fave stars. There was no Internet, no YouTube, no E! Hollywood Story -- just the teen mags and the movies. We could believe in our favourite stars' innocence for a lot longer than kids can today. I think that was a good thing.

1/5 for content;
5/5 because my life is now complete.

Steve did not view.