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Reviews
When Steptoe Met Son (2002)
an excellent, revealing & thoroughly engrossing documentary.
STEPTOE & SON is regarded as one of the greatest UK TV comedy sitcoms ever & this interesting, frank & highly watchable channel 4 programme certainly covers familiar ground albeit with a biting edge. the clips from the series make it worth watching alone & certain aspects IE homosexuality, infidelity & the shows humble beginning does indeed make great copy. wilfred brambell & harry h. corbett's personnal lives are looked into with terrific insight & the duos much publicised loathing of each other is also well documented. complete with insightful interviews by STEPTOE scriptwriters ray galton & alan simpson; one could hardly expect a better TV biographical treatment. sadly, this superb programme is to date unavailable on DVD & i luckily managed to obtain a private promo copy from it's makers: fulmar television & film limited. my only complaint is that i wish it were longer!
The Exorcist (1973)
"my idea of heaven is me as a headliner for all eternity, & they love me!"
this hilariously funny horror flick still stands up as a marvellous horror classic complete with swivelling heads, hefty vomiting, fabulous acting & marvellous product placement for green pea soup. who would ever believe that urinating on a carpet, punching your mom in the kisser, throwing yourself out of a bedroom window, rolling down a staircase & grabbing hold of a shrink's groin could ever be such fun? truly class dialogue ("we still think the temporal lobe..." "oh what are you talking about the temporal lobe for ******'* sakes? DID YOU SEE HER IN THERE OR NOT!? she's acting like she's out of her ******* mind?" lots of laughter!
The Two Jakes (1990)
lazy, ponderous, uninspiring and ultimately disappointing.
a long proposed sequel to CHINATOWN was always promising yet this lacklustre, below par effort hardly passes muster even as an inferior TV movie. cinematically and artistically, polanski's original stands out as a superlative classic yet it's hard to believe that it's original star and scriptwriter could not have bothered doing the same here. nicholson's bloated slob physique is an eye sore to begin with and he merely seems to be going through the motions with bland direction from a muddled screenplay. writer robert towne either lost the plot with countless rewrites or studio interference as the story never really holds the attention and the movie in no way captivates with any real involvement whatsoever. apart from some lavish production detail, a couple of entertaining cameos from tom waits and frederic forrest and a sterling performance by harvey keitel; it SUCKS!
Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
instinctively bloody awful.
quite how this lame, inept and ridiculous sequel ever managed to fail in all departments is a complete wonder and a testament that even modern day filmmakers can still assemble a bona fide turkey on such a grand scale when they really want to. sharon stone still looks good at 48 but her stale reenactment of evil diva catherine trammell now comes across as a stale party piece. David morrissey is totally wasted in the Micheal douglas role (albeit this time as a brainless shrink) added with a leaden script with even more holes in it than a piece of swiss cheese after the first film. Micheal caton jones is a worthwhile and competent UK film director but he seems to have either taken the money and ran or been asleep on the job to have ever been credited for this sorry load of cobblers. the ending is a total joke and it's so obvious that indeed gaping plot scenarious were left on the cutting room floor when the entire enterprise should have also been binned in the first place.
The Business (2005)
SEXY BEAST it certainly isn't and WHY does sammy (geoff bell) point an unloaded gun at the end?
marginally better than THE FOOTBALL FACTORY yet still a strictly average, unoriginal UK gangster flick albeit worth seeing for the fabulous Spanish scenery. featuring the usually flashy but tried gimmick throughout of frozen lead character's faces over dialogue borrowed from guy ritchie's LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING Barrels which borrowed from danny boyle's TRAINSPOTTING which in turn was borrowed from martin scorsese's originally superior CASINO and GOODFELLAS; our lead hood with a heart (a wooden danny dyer) moves in with fellow cockney heavy named charlie for a future career in illegal substances via sunny espana. similar to LAYER CAKE though thankfully not as truncated plotwise and minus sienna miller. so so.
Unleashed (2005)
more holes than a piece of swiss cheese.
OK now let's get real! to begin with, the entire movies set in Glasgow yet there's not one jock accent to be heard throughout. there's this Chinese bloke who attacks people when his 'owner' takes off his collar. the 'owner' let's him knock the 'beep' out of his adversaries yet all of a sudden the Chinese bloke meets a kindly blind yank geezer within the same vicinity of the Chinese bloke's 'owner' and pals who have never noticed because they've just been beaten up by somebody we never find out who. then the 'owner' and pals including the Chinese bloke are involved in a head on car collision (twice) and sprayed with bullets yet miraculously all survive. the Chinese bloke then gets taken in by the kindly blind yank geezer who also has an adopted white yank daughter schoolgirl who looks old enough to be his mum. then the 'owner' comes after the Chinese bloke as he's booked him to kill a couple of opponents at a fight club and...there you have it!entertaining and undemanding.
9 Songs (2004)
9 SONGS (& 8 shags).
maverick British director Micheal winterbottom (CRACKER, WONDERLAND, 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE etc.) has denied that this modestly, opulently shot but mercifully short, pretentious depiction of a young couples' sexually explicit encounter is not pornographic but an alternative portrayal of a sexually explicit encounter. complete with graphic oral sex and sexual intercourse; leads kieran o' brian and margot stilley spend practically the entire movie's duration on the horizontal position interspersed with quite dull live concert footage featuring primal scream, the dandy warhols and Micheal nyman celebrating/performing his 60th birthday with a BANG!
Spanglish (2004)
what a smug, patronising, boring, static, hopelessly schmaltzy and truly tepid load of cinematic tosh.
i thought i'd check this movie out at my local multiplex when i noticed it starred adam sandler who i loved in PUNCH DRUNK LOVE, ANGER MANAGEMENT and was directed by the same bloke who did BROADCAST NEWS which i sort of liked. i think i'd have had more enjoyment playing with the traffic or watching paint dry instead. what a hateful piece of high gloss excrement! there didn't seem to be any story and it features "tea up!" leoni giving one of the most irritating, over pitched, whining and hysterically over bearing performances i've ever seen as sandler's spouse who takes in a Mexican single parent and her daughter as some kind of housemaid or nanny (from what i could make out). from then on, a multitude of tiresome scenes ensue where all the above mentioned shout and cry at each other which is supposed to tug some emotional heartstring for the viewer but was about as dramatically challenging as tugging a toilet chain instead. adam sandler must have been pretty desperate to have appeared in this drivel as he wouldn't even make a non kosher gourmet chef for McDONALD'S whilst the rest of this utterly loathsome piece of cak was as annoying as the silly, inconsiderate and ignorant sod who was seated behind me who kept kicking the back of my seat every five minutes (i ended up having to move).
Creep (2004)
"and all because...the lady loves george clooney".
i suppose franka potente deserves some credit for agreeing to appear in this typically half baked, mediocre German/UK lottery funded run of the mill horror tedium about the perils of missing the last tube home though considering the fact that she was probably well paid then there's hardly any point! i was reminded throughout of a similarly creaky 70s tongue in cheek movie called DEATH LINE which pretty much covered the same theme but only better. the actual killer was completely absurd and laughable as was the poor acting and implausible script which pales in comparison to something wes craven would probably handle better in his sleep. are London underground rail staff so inadequate when they allow homeless people to sleep on the premises? why didn't franka's mobile work whilst she was almost at the exit of the station? and did george clooney bring a bottle of martini with him when he went to the party?