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Reviews
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
No Oscar for this!
Nothing will ever be made in our lifetimes like this trilogy, and ROTK is the best of the three. I just hope it doesn't win an Oscar, this movie can't be compared to anything else ever made in mankind's history and an Oscar would tarnish it and bring it down to the level of dreck that typically wins. Besides, the first two didn't win best picture which destroyed any shred of credibility the Academy ever had. What beat the first 2 films? A musical and a me-so-crazy flick, proof that this Oscar 'award' is a wart, not an honor. I cry for NO OSCAR, it would be a blemish on the cover of the DVD. This movie will be around LONG after the past winners are forgotten forever, you can count on that!
I suppose there is really no need to continue watching movies after seeing this, once perfection is achieved it is time to move on to another medium. Perhaps I'll learn to play an instrument or take up painting. See ROTK but DON'T watch the Oscars, the people 'honoring' it are not worthy enough to rub Peter Jackson's feet!
Hannibal (2001)
Why's everybody always pickin' on Hannibal?
I'm so sick of critics picking on Hannibal, go watch Driving Miss Daisy if you can't handle this. Critics don't speak for the horror fans, they never have and they never will. Hannibal is great! Everyone bashes it because it's supposedly too gory. Well hey gang, it's a HORROR MOVIE! The special effects are excellent, the plot is great, it's scary, funny, well acted, and a very worthy sequel to Silence. This movie is chocked full of brain eatin', face peelin', pig attackin' FUNTIMES! Good horror movies are few and far between, and Hannibal is definitely one of them. If you like horror movies you're gonna love this, if you don't like horror, why the heck would you watch it? Grab something with the delightful Whoopie Goldberg instead, she has never eaten a brain in her films, nor endured a wild pig attack. Also recommend Return of the Living Dead, the Shining, Re-Animator, Hellraiser, Jaws, American Werewolf, Friday the 13th pts 1-4, the Romero trilogy, Aliens, the Evil Deads, Chainsaw, Nightmare on Elm Street, Howling, Creepshow, Halloween, all that good stuff. Hannibal is for horror fans, NOT legitimate film critics, which we are not! Leave the poor little feller alone!
The Terminator (1984)
The holy grail of Sci-fi horror.
IMHO, you can't do much better than the Terminator. It is sci-fi horror at its finest. This movie introduces us to one of the best villains ever seen next to Darth Vader himself. Anyone who prefers the kinder, gentler Terminator over the monster that Arnold portrays here is a person with quite different tastes than mine. Watching that cyborg calmly slicing his damaged eye out and impersonating Sara's Mom are chilling sights that you won't soon forget! Arnold absolutely makes this movie what it is, it's true that he was born to play this role, although all others involved are excellent.
Most people of course think of the "I'll be back" line, which has become Arnold's catch phrase, and has become rather tired. Not here. The things that the Terminator says ARE often funny, but not in a yuck-yuck one liner type of way. The key is that the Terminator is not trying to be funny at all! He SEEMS funny because he simply makes demands or states facts, which is not the way real humans interact. So we laugh when the Terminator says, "I'll be back", not in a "Arnolds bein' funny" way, but in a nervous, "what's the heck is he talking about?" way. He truly appears to have no soul at all, and gives the performance of a lifetime. So for those who like Arnold's newer, funnier movies, be warned- don't expect anything pleasant here. There is no kid, no happy ending, no "everything will be all right" message. The Terminator is very bleak, very scary, very dark, and not for everyone by any means. But if you like sci-fi horror movies this is the holy grail and may never be topped.
P.S. -I don't know much about guns, but listen carefully to what the Terminator tries to order in the gun shop early in the film. Also notice that he stares downward while talking in this scene because he's reading the list off his eyeballs. Great attention to detail, great stuff!!
Starship Troopers (1997)
Just fantastic!
Yes, I have read the book and it's different. Yes, the acting in some scenes is wooden. Yes, it is completely over the top. But the fact of the matter is that this is a much smarter movie than many believe! Like most big fans of this movie I am of the school of thought that those who didn't like it simply didn't get it! The world's best and brightest go off to fight a war against a species that will definitely fight to the last mandible! The kids sign up voluntarily because of sickening (but funny) propaganda, and turn from cute 90210 types into killing machines, fighting until they're literally chopped to bits. The bugs are a truly hideous foe, and are much smarter than they initially appear. Upon repeated viewings you will catch many things that you may have missed the first time around, such as the crazy oath everyone takes, and the "benefits" of becoming a citizen. Johnny Rico is destined to command the roughnecks, as every other location he was considering going to upon his graduation gets destroyed! It should also be mentioned that this movie contains the best CGI I've ever seen, as the bugs interact with the humans in a terrifyingly seamless way. Far superior than anything else to come out in 1997, this movie along with Robocop and Total Recall elevates Verhoven to an elite level of sci-fi director, no matter what other projects he's been involved in. Hilarious, scary, endlessly quoteable and truly jaw-dropping, this is my kind of movie! Great job! 10/10.
Bittersweet Motel (2000)
I must watch it again and again.
Well if you love Phish you really should get this DVD, but you knew that! It has plenty of full length extras on it (PYITE, BBFCFM) and is quite hilarious at times. The complaints that I hear about this movie are sound, however. I didn't like the interviews with the fans, and the songs ARE clipped for time. I don't know why they bothered clipping the songs to make this movie run a lean 84 minutes, in most cases they should have just let them play and made the movie 2+ hours. Everybody is going to have a list of songs that they wish had been included, so I'm not going to complain about certain songs that I believe should definitely be in any Phish movie but were left out. I certainly love this movie and will watch it a hundred times if this first week is any indication of things to come.
This thing is worth buying for the killer NYE and Great Went footage alone.
Jaws 2 (1978)
Thoughts on the attacks, and cut scenes...
This movie is missing everything that made the original so great. Everyone knows that the chemistry and acting is worse, so I'd like to comment on the shark and attack scenes. The shark looks much worse. If you thought it looked fake in the original wait 'till you see this thing. It looks very rubbery, the top center of the mouth has a point, and it seems to be able to close its mouth completely with no teeth showing, like a human. That is forgivable and I'd still take this shark over any CGI, but the kicker is that we don't really see it eat anybody! Even the last attack of the movie is shot from behind the shark's head so we never actually see an attack! When compared with the graphic detail of Quint's death in the original, this movie seems very tame, like a Jaws for kids.
Many of us have now seen the additional footage of the helicopter pilot underwater after his helicopter gets flipped. The shark menaces him for a few seconds. Now why on earth was that cut out? This is not like the stupid unnecessary cut footage from the original, this is shark head footage here! It could be argued that this is the best scene in the movie, the poor guy is forced to drown himself because if he exits the helicopter he'll be eaten. I would've liked it even more if the shark took him, but oh well.
That brings me to my last gripe about Jaws 2- not enough teens get killed! It's like watching a Friday the 13th movie where all of the annoying teens survive, and the ones that are killed are done off-camera. I can't recommend this, but it's leagues better than Jaws 3 and 4. Obviously I don't hate it that much or I wouldn't care that the DVDs coming in a few days, with a "making of" and I intend to buy it for that alone.
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
A true gem
I'll start by asking, why don't they print this movie anymore? Whoever owns the rights to this has gotta realize that they're sitting on a goldmine; that millions of zombie-heads WANT THIS MOVIE! I'm fortunate enough to own a copy, but if you don't have one, tough! When I think of all of the horror garbage that you CAN buy at any video store it puzzles me to no end why one of the greatest horror films ever made is basically not available.
The first half of the film involves the employees of a medical supply warehouse and their "little problem"- a canister of "245tri-oxin" leaks onto a cadaver causing it to come back to life. The employees deal with this problem, but in turn cause a much bigger one- an army of rotted, brain eating zombies. From there the movie escalates into an all out war between zombies and humans, and centers around the small group of punks and scientists who must escape the raging battle.
I LOVE the Romero trilogy, but honestly this is just as good. The quotable dialogue, the zombie effects, the action, the horror, the jokes- it just all comes together in a way that really has never been duplicated. There are some scenes that are so...CRAZY, that you don't know whether to laugh or scream. If you're ever at the video store and they actually have a copy of this, offer to buy it from them right away, as you won't be able to return it. Avoid the stupid sequels.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
May never be topped
There may never be another movie as good as this one. People are crying for Indy 4, but I don't really understand why, we all know that no matter who is attached to the project they'll never top this movie. 20 year old, with countless action/adventure movies made since, it is still the greatest of all time. A few thoughts on the beloved Raiders:
-Great, dark villans. Great rivalry between Belloq and Indy.
-Allen and Ford are great together, and the score is wonderful.
-Wisely holds back on the supernatural until the very end.
-Indy seems like a semi-real person. He's not a kung-fu master or anything stupid like that. He gets hurt and shows fear, although he sure gets punched in the head a lot without getting knocked out.
-Great locations, Cairo is really mysterious place and is a perfect setting for this sort of thing.
-Stunts and battles are great, without any CGI assistance.
-Comedy is present, but it's not "in your face". Funny things happen, but they aren't "jokes" like one liners. Plus all of the comedic events still stick to reality. Toht gets two great laughs and he is by far the darkest character in the film.
So how can a movie have comedy, romance, horror, adventure, action and suspense, and not be stupid in some way? Well, it CAN'T- this movie is a miracle, it shouldn't have turned out this well. The sequels, although entertaining and better than most sequels are, don't even approach this movie. Basically, the odds of anything even close to this coming out in our lifetimes is one in a million.
Friday the 13th Part III (1982)
One of the best!
As a newer user of the IMDB I find myself reviewing more and more Friday movies. I didn't plan to do this when I signed up, its just kinda ended up this way. I guess it's because I'd rather review movies that the critics pan instead of Shawshank-type masterpieces.
Many people can't tell one Friday the 13th movie from another and that's always kinda peeved me, so let me start by saying if you're gonna watch any of these you should limit yourself to the first four, of which this is the worst. But when you consider that there are nine+ of these movies that's not bad at all.
Jason is alive in this one, and by that I mean he's not a bullet-proof, maggot-faced zombie who could take on 50 armed guys and not break a sweat. I will always prefer this version of Jason to the latter, because every character actually has a CHANCE of beating him at his own game. The main character in this one hands him the worst beating yet, and it's always entertaining to watch little Dana Kimmell fight the massive Richard Brooker and win time and time again. She hits him with a shovel, a log, a knife, books, and an ax, and Jason really seems frustrated at his own inability to catch her. The murders that lead up to the chase scene are hot-cold, ranging from the awesome handstand death to the very lame electrocute the hippie.
So watch F13-3 and see Jason do his thing before he could take 100s of bullets, teleport, possess people and breathe underwater. When the series granted him these super-powers it basically turned him from a mountain-man psychopath into some sort of alien, and it's a change for the worse. You'll find that he has more character in these early films, and part 3 has more of the original Jason than any of the other films. By the end you'll be itching to see what happens next, and you're in for a treat- part 4 is even better! But stay away from parts 5 through 9 in which Jason basically turns into the Shape from Halloween with a hockey mask.
Evil Dead II (1987)
Who's laughing now? I am!
Man, I love ED2. If you've heard of this and are researching it on IMDB, then odds are you've already seen it, so there's no need to explain what it is about. It follows the first rule of a horror/comedy which is don't make the monsters funny, make the characters funny. When the monsters become funny, the horror is lost, and a stupid movie is born. Funny things can happen TO the monsters, but they themselves cannot be the source of the laughs, and that's the case with ED2! The deadites are truly menacing and there are some great scares, but Ash the hero is the one who draws the laughs. Scared out of his mind and a bit on the slow side, Bruce Campbell acts the way a normal person probably would under these circumstances, namely he screams in terror and fights for his very life. The best horror/comedy ever made.
Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Arnold's best movie!
Well either this or T1. Forget Gladiator, THIS is a swordfighting movie. This movie really gets you pumped! Watch Arnold rise from a wheel-pushing idiot to the strongest warrior in the land. The definitive "guy movie" with a thunderous score, amazing sets, buckets of blood, and dialogue that really holds your attention. Conan may not speak very much, but when he does his words will knock you out of your chair! This movie packs more testosterone than anything else ever made. Conan is an opponent to be feared- he's a monster, a butcher, an animal, and he's the GOOD GUY! How great is that?! As all reviews end, I close with the immortal words, "avoid the sequel."
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)
2 cents from a Friday fan.
I love horror movies. I've seen 'em all. My video library is 90% horror. We horror fans are as a whole quite forgiving of our genre. I can watch a movie like Evil Dead 2 and know that the acting is bad, the effects are bad, the plot is stupid...but I LOVE IT ANYWAY! So for a horror movie fan to hate a horror movie, well that says more than a drama fan hating a drama. And boy, oh boy, did I hate this.
It chokes me up that people see this and think that Jason is some sort of body-jumping demon that can only be killed with a magic dagger by a relative. That is a complete betrayal to all of the fans who keep going to Friday movies! Did they really think this was going to be good? Even with its gory kills and hidden 'tributes' to other horror movies, it still sits with Halloween 3 and Jaws 4 among the very worst horror films of all time. See parts 1 through 4 and STOP.
The critics pan all of these movies equally but horror fans know...part 4 is the best, part 9 should never have been made. Even though this series has been on a SEVERE downward spiral for the past three chapters, I'll still be at Jason X opening night, ticket in hand, hoping for a miracle, even though the idea of Jason in space makes me cringe. That's the kind of fans we are, and Cunningham should consider himself darn lucky that we haven't abandoned all hope after this mess.
Strange Days (1995)
Has become a cult classic. 10/10
I was originally going to type that this movie WILL become a cult classic, but it's darn near six years old and I think it already has. Here's another completely overlooked Sci-Fi movie to join the ranks of Dark City and Titan AE- the stunning, critically acclaimed movies that bomb at the box office. I don't like to give away precise plot lines, so generally this is a movie that deals with technology, addiction and Armageddon. Although it is EXTREMELY violent and dark, the body count is relatively low. Each death counts, each death shocks the viewer. This is pure genius since one of the movies themes involves the desire to watch sex and violence in as realistic a manner as possible, but when we see it, it ain't so nice. When I saw this in 1995 I nearly flipped out every time the masked nutcase made another appearance after his first.
Bigelow shows she can do a great deal more than make vampire movies in this one. With a perfect cast and gripping plot, this movie will have you thinking for days about the implications presented. The ending brings all of the elements together beautifully. This one's a real gem, and is best watched without any expectations or preconceptions. You're in for a shocking treat, a thrill ride for the mind. "Enjoy the party." hehe. One of the best ever.
Jaws (1975)
Most terrifying movie of all time. Here's why:
As of this writing there are 160 comments for this movie and it ranks an 8.2. I ask, where does it lose that 1.8 points? It's perfect, my favorite movie of all time. If I had to guess why some wouldn't like it, I suppose it could be because Bruce doesn't match the live shark footage in the film. Or maybe people prefer a CGI shark? I'm stumped. See Deep Blue Sea if you want that, and you'll see that CGI sharks don't make a movie. Besides, Bruce looks great in 90% of the shots, especially when he rises up under Brody during the last stand. I've often wondered- why is it that as the years go by and technology advances, the sharks in the Jaws movies just look worse and worse?
Everybody has seen this, so to summarize the plot is a waste of time. No other movie has terrified the world in such a way. The most terrifying films of all time don't get into your head like this. There are few people who are afraid of hotels due to the Shining, and even fewer fear demonic possession (Exorcist), or Zombies (NOTLD). Now these are among the scariest films ever made and I love them dearly, but they don't get to you like Jaws. I've heard that in the past some people feared the shower after seeing Psycho, but come on, Jaws kept MILLIONS away from the beaches, and people still fear the ocean to this day. That is true, irrational FEAR, spanning 25 years, especially since it is rather common knowledge that sharks are about as interested in eating people as they are logs. This movie had the same effect on cinema as War of the Worlds did on radio. It showed that the entire nation can be profoundly affected by what is on that screen.
So see this masterpiece again, and for heaven's sake, DON'T watch it on TV. The edited pan and scan version just doesn't cut it, and you don't even get to see what happens to Quint. As for my feelings about the DVD, I really enjoyed some of the new sounds, but overall the original is still the best. It doesn't matter though, only people who've seen this film hundreds of times like me will notice the new sounds anyway.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
By FAR the best, others not even close...
First of all, let me say that I'm a huge horror movie fan. Although these movies will never be considered "good" by the mainstream, any true F13 fan knows that nothing else even comes close to delivering the shocks, gore, and excitement of pt 4. Jason looks great, he RUNS which I find far more frightening than the zombified Jasons of later movies. Plus he's not bullet-proof; he's as tough as nails but not invincible. The Savini make-up still hasn't been topped. This is the hardcore, butt-kicking Jason Voorhees that fans of the series love, great job Zito! Too bad Ted White hated this type of thing and only did it for the money, he's the best Jason ever. But enough about 'ol hockey mask, here's what else sets this movie apart from the others:
-Gore, and plenty of it. Why watch this sort of thing without it? Only parts one, four and (ugh) nine have any gore at all.
-Production values are a big jump up from the first three.
-Some (gasp!) decent acting.
-The "Chase scene" is fantastic, as is the opening which re-caps the first three beautifully.
-The shocks. The first time you see this, turn off the lights and pump up the sound. If you don't jump you're not human.
I know about the Paramount/Newline deal, so I plea to Paramount, restore these films, put the gore back in, and re-release them! Think of how good part 2 could've been if it wasn't cut to ribbons. Fans of the series know what I mean. Anyway, I'd rank them 4, 1, 2, 3. They should've stopped here, there was absolutely no need to continue this series, the rest is c**p. The first four Friday movies ARE the Friday movies, rent them and witness a great horror saga. Rent the Scream movies if you can't handle real horror. If I had to rank the remaining ones, I'd go 6, 5, 7, 8, 9. I respect fans of part 6, but it's a little too funny for me. Let us pray that Jason X turns out better than it sounds...