The good old Hollywood Bandwagon. A surprisingly successful movie will (or at least would – copyright lawyers are a bit more active these days) frequently spawn legions of imitators. This happened with Jaws back in the late 70’s, and became common enough so that any movie that even so much as vaguely resembled a previous one got stuck with the “knock-off” or “rip-off” label. Sometimes this was deserved, sometimes it wasn’t. With Starcrash, an Italian space opera, it wasn’t. Sure, there’s the opening shot of a long slow pan across a giant spaceship, light saber-like weapons, and there was that one version of the movie poster that looked like a MAD Magazine parody of a Star Wars poster, but that’s about it. Not everything brown tastes like chocolate…
Tag Archives: Movie Review
MOVIE REVIEW: Ginger Snaps (Canada, 2000)
It’s rather odd that among all the many werewolf movies over the decades, there are very, very few that make the connection between lycanthropy and a certain biological situation.
Think about it for a minute. You suddenly find yourself undergoing unwilling changes. Your body alters, and so does your personality. Every month, like clockwork, you lose control of your body and it practically rebels against you and your will. On top of the physical changes, your personality may undergo radical changes.
If this sounds like puberty and menstruation to you, give yourself a cookie.
MOVIE REVIEW: Gymkata (1985)
Just as one can argue that there are different types of good movies, there are also different types of bad movies. They can be bad due to directorial overreach, inane dialogue, inept acting, or awful effects. However, the worst sin a movie can commit is to be boring. Movies are inteded to entertain – when a movie fails to do even that, it is irredeemably Bad.
Boring movies are not the ones that attract legions of followers. It’s the others, the ones that fail on technical levels. The ones where we, the audience, can either point and laugh at the great heap of failure on screen, or gape open-mouthed in disbelief at what we have just seen. Those are the ones worth watching. And sometimes, even as we slog through the mountain of garbage, we discover something that makes us say, “You know, that bit wasn’t completely awful.”
MOVIE REVIEW: The Quiet Earth (1985, New Zealand)
A middle-aged man, Zac Hobson (Bruno Lawrence), awakens in bed wearing nothing more than an ID card on a lanyard. He doesn’t look in the best of shape; and neither does his alarm clock which seems to be taking far too long to go from 6:11 am to 6:12. He calls his job to let them know he’s going to be late, but gets no answer. When he does get on the road, the streets are strangely deserted. Vehicles are abandoned willy-nilly, and there’s no one at the gas station when he stops there. The bathroom door at the station is locked, but when he bends down to peek under it, he doesn’t see anyone inside. Growing more puzzled by the minute, he arrives at his job – which is at some sort of research facility. The place is completely empty, except for the badly burned corpse of another researcher at a control panel. Checking the facilities’ computers, he finds that something called “Project Flashlight” was activated at about 6:11 that morning – and he cannot get a single response from any of the project’s other installations around the world.
Just what the heck is going on?
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Pure Blather 