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Reviews
Amour et chocolat (1992)
Straight up, this is a bad film
This is a romantic comedy about a Texan business woman (BJ Cassidy - Bo Derek) who sets off to France to purchase a dying French Chocolate Truffles company for tax offset reasons.
The owner and manager of the chocolate company is a moron "Count" frenchman with a sidekick jack-of-all-trades businessman (Eric - Robert Hays). The Count really is a moron, has no idea what he is doing and has no brain for business at all.
So BJ comes to France and is pursued by Eric and a fling ensues... with confusion and side plots and hijinks.
OK, so the basic plot outline sorta sounds OK-ish, but I tell you this film is boring and annoying.
I think the entire dialogue was dubbed over as the lip-synching was off and the sound effects and dialogue sounding unnatural. The acting is atrocious and numerous plot elements do not make sense.
For a high powered business woman managing a billion dollar company in cut-throat corporate America, BJ seems to find everything funny. Corporate fraud by the chocolate factory makes her giggle, getting her car run off the road makes her giggle, getting into a very corny fling with someone and getting lied to makes her just smile a bit less, when she should be upset.
According to this film, when BJ smiles she is normal. When she shows her teeth she is happy. When she just has a smirk, she is bitterly angry. There is no acting here...
Apparently all French people also speak English, even when talking to each other?? The supposed romantic scenes just left me bored stiff. So I actually paid some attention to the plot instead and was amazed by how stupid many plot twists are and how many things just don't make sense.
BJ wants to buy a company for $8m without any due diligence process (all she says is "there's holes in the books"). BJ falls in love easily for a rich high-powered business woman (i.e. stupid) even when the hero doesn't even do much. Eric knows business so well, yet he doesn't actually help the count to fix the company. Eric is plainly American even though his family has been servants to the Count's family for generations (so why is he then not French also??).
I didn't like any of the characters. French stereotyping (all passion and no brains and lazy), Bo Derek smiling at everyone, the hero of the film not actually doing very much, the script trying to be funny and failing badly and romantic scenes that are just boring.
I'm sure Vince Cassel would prefer you didn't know he was in this film. He plays a moron thug... badly coz he's not given anything worthwhile to do.
My sister bought this for me. I will notify her she has bad taste in films, coz she liked this.
This is a girl who thought Braveheart was boring....
In summary, the script is woefully unfunny and boring, plot holes and confusion aplenty, shocking acting, very corny and shallow.
Avoid as the bad score above suggests. 2/10.
House of the Dead (2003)
The dead walk... you eject the DVD...
This contains a summary of the plot and contains spoilers! I took a sickie off from work and took a trip to the video store to see if I could find a zombie movie to pass the time.
"Oh, House of the Dead, huh? Yeah why not?" Now I know why not.
OK, so the basic story is that a group of teenagers want to go to the "rave of the century" that's set on the island of death. They miss the main ferry and bribe Jurgen Prochnow and his cheesy sidekick Clint Howard ("It's eeeeevil!") to take them to the island (with Clint Howard getting flashed some rack on the way).
They get there are find the rave to be deserted.
So what do they do at a deserted rave of the century that's abandoned and only about the size of my backyard? Why, half of them start partying, and the other half have a look around to figure out what's going on.
It's gets dark quickly and a couple that decided to stay start making out, but the guy decides he needs to take a leak first. This is when the chick get attacked.
I don't think it's coincidence that it's at this point when a character goes to the toilet, that this film also goes down the toilet with the full flush button held down.
During the film, and throughout, short clips from the HOTD game are spliced into the film for no reason. Maybe to just remind us that it's a remake of the game, b/c otherwise you really wouldn't know.
The group meet up again (minus the attacked chick) and look around some more. They find a house. They go in and find other "partygoers" complaining that the "rave of the century" was, like, totally trashed and stuff, man.
By this time, the group includes an Asian chick in a stars and stripes skin tight outfit called Liberty (yes you read right), a George A Romero fan (shameless attempt at film street-credibility here), an underwear model, Ona Grauer and her ample chest, a coast guard armed to the teeth (why not?) and some other people I don't care about.
After travelling to the wharf to find the "Boat that wasn't there" (3rd favourite line in the film) to escape the island, zombies with bad make up attack!!! Liberty gets molested by one of them, but no worries, Jurgen Prochnow guns down all bad make up zombies and all is good again.
He even shows them a stash of guns he was smuggling and the group gets armed and dangerous.
So they journey back to the aforementioned house which is surrounded by zombies.
Now here is where it gets flat out stupid. They start gunning down the zombies in bullet time and Liberty suddenly discovers she knows Kung Fu.
This whole action sequence is annoying and the laws of physics fly out the window. None of the ravers miss a single shot (even though it's the first time any have used a gun), and as I said with Liberty, they all all-of-a-sudden know Kung Fu.
It's obvious that many of the zombies here were the same zombies gunned down before. Also, some of these zombies are ninjas. Classy.
Oh, Liberty dies while another guy looks on with a montage playing and the editing guy loving his job too much.
They finally make it to the house.
They barricade the door and my second favourite line in the movies emerges. Upon the underwear model finding an old book, he says "Hey, this book is really old. Maybe it can help us." Script, glorious script!!
Yep, that full flush button is still being held down
Some drama unfolds when one of the chicks says she thinks the underwear model is still attractive even though half of his face is covered in bad "I got acid-burnt" make up.
Jurgen Prochnow is dying at this point so he logically concludes he should venture outside and blow himself and the front door up. So the zombies storm in, and the party retreat deeper into the house. But not before underwear man does the typical-stand-around-and-hesitate-when-yelled-at-to-move routine and gets attacked and blows himself up too.
The party is reduced to 3 at this point and the venture deeper into the bowels of house. After having used up all their ammo before, an absence of bullets doesn't stop them from shooting more zombies anyway, but another chick dies in a pointless "Don't worry I'll handle them!!" scene.
Ona Grauer and her ex boyfriend remain at this point and push on.
They stumble into the lair of the main bad guy, and he tells them about his plan to reanimate the dead to achieve immortality. Hence is presented my favourite quote of the film when asked why he wants to be immortal: "To live forever" he says.
Oh, Joyous script!! Anyway, they fight and an explosion goes off.
Here is the only redeeming part of this film. Ona Grauer runs outside and you get a nice slow mo of her fun-bags bouncing around while she dives away with her bf.
Ona is stabbed and the bf survives after a useless sword fight with the bad guy.
And the movie finally ends.
The only way to enjoy this film is to have subterranean expectations and switch your brain off. Abysmal script, toilet-esquire acting (they look like they were reading cue cards as they went), rubbishy action and plot holes aplenty.
This film could maybe be fun it if was a spoof, but Uwe Boll takes himself seriously and thinks really he's a genuinely good filmmaker. This film just doesn't make sense and reeks of incompetent film-making.