Saturday, January 22, 2011

WITHOUT WARNING (1980)

[Update 03/02/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

I'm not sure where, but somewhere along the way I got it into my handsome brain that this was an action-packed alien invasion extravaganza, but I was obviously incorrect because this movie is boring as a bitch!

A tall alien (who gets maybe two minutes of screen time) is lurking around out in the woods hunting humans. His only weapon is a kind of parasite/frisbee that he throws at people. It latches on and bites you to death or something. That sounds exciting, but it's not because the vast majority of the movie is people wandering around talking and talking and talking.

The cast is impressive (Martin Landau, Neville Brand, Jack Palance, Ralph Meeker and David Caruso), but you've got to give them something to do. I'd be more interested in seeing what went on behind the scenes...I can just see Jack Palance snarling grizzledly while arm-wrestling Neville Brand as Landau laughed maniacally in the corner. It would have been awesome!!!

Zero nudity, almost zero action, really short shorts on David Caruso, lots of scenes shot in the dark, completely random PSYCHO reference. Skip it. The only reason to watch this movie is the scene where Jack Palance charges the alien while yelling "ALLLLLIIIIEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNN!!!!".
Could David Caruso's shorts be any shorter?!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

THE TOWN (2010)

A bank robber (with a heart of gold) falls in love with a woman (with a heart of gold) and even though he wants to go straight, he can't because he's too deep into the hoodlum lifestyle. That's the story to about 66 million crime/film noir movies over the years. Still, for some reason, despite the unoriginal story, the two dimensional characters and the pedestrian direction I liked this movie. I guess I just like this story.

Ben Affleck plays Ben Affleck with a Irish accent. He was raised in a shitty neighborhood and now he's a bank robber. During one robbery they kidnap a girl then let her go on the other side of town. He fears that she can I.D. them, so he goes to see what she knows. They instantly fall in love. Didn't see that coming.  [Rolls handsome eyeballs.]  When he's not all blinking butterfly lasers at her over pineapple pizza he's out robbing shit and shooting cops.

Entertaining shootouts, exciting car chase, zero nudity, lots of cussing, endless macho posturing. Enjoyable movie, worth a watch, but we've seen it all before.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

BATTLE ROYALE II (2003)

This movie is ridiculous. A new group of students are kidnapped and forced to fight to the death, but this time they're given military weaponry, some small boats and told to invade (D-Day style) an island and kill the leader of a group of terrorists (Tatsuya Fujiwara from Part 1). That might sound cool, but it's terrible. The introduction alone takes 26 minutes, then when we finally get to some action (a beach invasion) it's filmed in that weird shutter speed thing they did in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. It gets real annoying real quick.

Eventually, they make their way to the terrorists compound and they talk and talk and talk forever. At well over 2 hours, this movie was torture. I can't think of any reason to ever watch it. Except maybe to giggle at Riki Takeuchi's insane overacting. His facial expressions are always the best.

Skip it.

Part 1 - Battle Royale (2000)

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

BATTLE ROYALE (2000)

[Note: This review is for the 122-minute Director's Cut.]

In the near future, the economy is all fucked up and unemployment over 15%, so instead of doing something like taxing religious institutions, legalizing minor drugs, making community colleges / trade schools free and introducing Universal Income...the government picks a random 9th grade class, drop the students off on an abandoned island and order them to all kill each other.  Not sure how that is going to solve high unemployment, but whatever.

I love the idea of a bunch of crazy teenagers running around slaughtering the fook out of each other, but unfortunately BATTLE ROYALE is weak.  The story doesn't even make sense, but even worse is the unforgivable amount of boring flashbacks.  It feels like 20% of the movie is sad ass flashbacks.  When we do get to the action, it's weak as well.  There are a few short bursts of violence that grab your attention, but for the vast majority of the film I was bored.

Uneven pace, zero nudity, distracting CGI blood, lots of falling and tumbling all over the joint, neat looking island, disappointing ending, okay acting, a lot of screaming and crying, one guy with a machine gun that has to have the worst hit / miss percentage in all of movie history...I think he hit somebody for like every 50 bullets he shot.  It's not going to hurt you to watch it, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Part 2 - Battle Royale II (2003)