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Reviews
Zombies Ate My Neighbors (1993)
Splendid
I've never been a big gamer, but it kind of seems like this movie was made specifically for me.
You go through 50+ levels fighting every single monster ever wielding a wide arrange of frequently ridiculous weaponry.
The inspirations are very obvious, and range from stuff like The Creature From the Black Lagoon and The Blob to Child's Play to Dawn of the Dead.
It really feels like you're playing a b-movie. And I mean that in a good way!
Plus, the gameplay is extremely enjoyable and the soundtrack is amazing.
A highly recommended title, especially if you have a soft spot for campy films.
Serenity (2005)
Can't stop the signal
I'm not sure why it took me so long to review this film. I saw it on the first day it came out, September 30th, and was completely blown away. I very rarely give a movie perfect marks in any kind of review, but this one deserves it.
For those who didn't know, Serenity is a continuation of the brilliant TV series Firefly, created by Joss Whedon, who's responsible for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (both movie and series). Now, I'll admit that I'm a huge fan of his, and was one of a select number of people who enjoyed the Buffy movie. But were I to review it, I would give it something like a 2.8/5, I admit it's not actually a good movie, even if I do find it somewhat entertaining.
The Buffy series was much better, but even it wasn't anywhere near as amazing as Firefly. Firefly was just plain brilliant, and instantly became my favorite TV series after I got the DVDs for my birthday and watched all the episodes.
Firefly was canceled before the story was finished, and Serenity is here to end this story. If summed up quickly, the story sounds typical, a government trying to control everything which turns out to have a big secret. But when you look further into this plot, it gets a little more complex and a lot more intriguing.
Serenity takes place approximately 500 years in the future, when humans have colonized other planets after the Earth's resources were used up. The Alliance is the major government, it was established when China and the United States, (the two superpowers of the world at this time), joined forces.
This is all covered within the first few minutes of the movie, along with a few other things I don't feel like getting into right now.
Then we find out what the situation is. The Alliance is secretly running a so called 'Academy' in which they trick people into enrolling in what sounds like an ordinary university program in order for them to be able to play with their brains. Though what their goal specifically was is never covered, we do know that they managed to turn somebody into a psychic with amazing martial arts skills. One of the students enrolled in the program goes by the name of River Tam (Summer Glau), coming from a rich family and a genius even at a very early age, she signed on to the program excitedly. Her brother, Simon Tam (Sean Maher), breaks her out when he realizes what's going on.
What he doesn't realize, is how incredibly important she is to the government.
Why? She knows something. She was in the room with some top members of government, who knew something they didn't want the rest of the world to know, apparently.
I could go on, because I haven't even gotten into many of the main characters yet, but I don't want ruin the movie for anybody reading this.
Those familiar with Whedon's work will probably be aware that he's great with dialogue. He's created MANY witty lines which still make me laugh after hearing them a hundred times.
The characters in Firefly (and also Serenity) are really great. You care about them, you care about what happens to them, you care about who dies and you care about who ends up with who.
As a huge Firefly fan, I was waiting impatiently for the movie for a while. My expectations were incredibly high. I don't think I've ever had expectations that high for a movie before, and that's probably a good thing since it's just a good way to set yourself up for disappointment, but in this case, I was blown away. My expectations were met, and then some. Serenity is now my favorite movie of all time.
That being said, I'm sure people reading this will want to know what a non-fan would think of this movie. Well, the film does a good job of introducing the whole complex world and defining every single character so as not to confuse those unfamiliar with Firefly.
But this movie is very compact. It crams a lot into just under two hours. So if you are a non-fan, and you see this movie when you're sleepy or aren't really paying attention, you'll probably have no idea what the hell is going on.
I'm sure some of you reacted to the amount of genres listed at the top of this review, but every last one of them is there, and it does well in each category. There is a lot of neat action sequences, if you like that sort of thing, and there are romances going on between very lovable characters if you like that sort of thing. There are times when you'll be creeped out, there are times when you'll be disturbed, there are times when you'll be sad, there are times when you'll be amazed, and there are times when you'll be laughing uncontrollably.
Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace (2004)
a damn good time
Okay, so a lot of people didn't like this movie because the plot (though existent) seemed to take a backseat as the film just displayed a string of incoherent and bizarre fight scenes.
However personally, I think this is the kind of film that though you may not admit to liking, you can easily enjoy it. It's the kind of movie which you'd pop in on a Saturday night when eating junk food with friends (drugs optional).
It's not going to win any awards. However it does what it's trying to do very well, and that is to make us laugh. You can't really judge a film fairly on what it's not attempting to be.
This is not, in my opinion, Lee's best film. It's not even all that close to the level of brilliance of Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, which not only worked even better as a popcorn movie, but actually had some very clever ideas and messages behind it as well if you cared to look for them.
This is more on par (although I can't decided whether it's directly above or below) the 30 minute short Harry Knuckles and the Treasure of the Aztec Mummy, a hectic mess of fun. And personally, I think Phil Caracas is Canada's Bruce Campbell. He does great things with camp.
Obviously you aren't going to find this at your average video store, however I'd say it's worth the $15 to buy it off amazon if you've enjoyed Lee's other work and/or you and your friends enjoy great b-movies.
Donnie Darko (2001)
wow
All I really want to say is that I have watched this movie 3 times in the space of a month, and plan on watching it many more. I found everything about it to be exceptionally well done, and it's impossible to just walk away from it after you're finished watching. It'll linger in your mind as you develop all sorts of theories about what happened.
But IMDb demands at least 10 lines of text so I guess I'll say more :P
The film has superb performances from all the actors as they spout extremely well written dialogue (it even rivals that of Joss Whedon at times) in order to portray their intriguing and well developed characters.
The film will make you laugh out loud, cry and potentially scream. But most of all it'll f*** with your head.
This is quite possibly my all time favorite movie.