Rooster99 की समीक्षाएं

I just watched the 83 minute version, and it was AMAZING! This film was a great martial arts picture. The DVD I bought was the "Ultimate Edition", so it also came with the much longer (110 min) International version. I can't wait to check that out, and see if any good fight scenes were edited out of the US version. The scene where Tony Jaa is climbing the stairs, and fighting bad guys all the way up, was simply stunning. Best steady cam scene I have ever seen. And it was captured in one continuous 4-minute take, very impressive.

I have been a fan of Martial Arts movies for years, but this one truly stands out. Unfortunately, with the success of the Once Upon a Time in China series of films, most of the martial arts movies emerging from Hong Kong these days are following the same tired formula; heavily wired, invincible good guy performing impossible stunts, and far too many moronic sidekicks having Ernest-type moments. What ever happened to serious fight scenes? Why does there always have to be some bozo grabbing his toes and hopping around while making ridiculous faces? Why does Wong Fei Hung always have to perform incredibly obvious wire stunts instead of at least attempting to keep it realistic? The answer to all of those question is Tony Jaa. All of his fight sequences in this movie were incredible, and none were wire-guided. There were no 3 Stooges moments, instead they kept the tone serious. He was also a vicious fighter; in many movies they go to great lengths to show how bad the bad guys are, but then the hero merely knocks them down. Here, Tony Jaa shows no mercy at all. He breaks more bones than 10 Jet Li movies combined. He drives his opponents mercilessly into statues, breaks them in half, and cripples them. No punches are pulled, this is all out war.

A fabulous Martial Arts film, one of the best I have ever seen.

R.

Very solid Bond outing, it is unfortunate that some Bond purists revile this entertaining film merely because of the legal hurdles it was forced to jump through in order to get made. Essentially, it is a remake of Thunderball, as the result of the lawsuits stipulated that was the only rights Kevin McClory had to the character. He did change the story significantly enough that you can discern the similarities, but in no way is it like watching Thunderball again.

This Bond is very entertaining. The Bond girls are excellent, the action is non-stop, and best of all, the puns are few, witty, and add to the overall experience as opposed to horribly mangling it as in most of the later Moore films. Whereas the Danjaq production company had Roger Moore portray Bond in a much more Ernest-like manner in the horridly flawed Moonraker, View to a Kill, and other post Live and Let Die films, Never Say Never Again sticks to a much more rugged portrayal of the secret agent. He is tough, ruthless, and unstoppable.

Starting with Spy Who Loved Me, and ending terribly with View to a Kill, Moore's Bond got increasingly effeminate, 3 Stoogish, and ridiculous with each movie. Although Spy remains a pretty solid effort, you can start to see how the producers had decided to stray more into the Home Alone type violence with cars ending up in trees, hit men biting through cable car cables, and action scenes more commonly found in Ernest movies than in Bonds. Puns started to overshadow the action, groaners revealing not the slightest shred of wit (culminating in the wince-inducing Die Another Day). Never Say Never Again fortunately returns to Bond's roots, providing great action sequences without the Bond-as-a-Dandy approach. The result is vastly more entertaining than the shockingly bad Moonraker, or any other 80's Bond picture.

I bought this movie at the same time as U2's Rattle and Hum. I had thought they were more or less the same type of "concert-film". Unfortunately, that is not the case. Rattle and Hum is one of the best concert movies I own, but I doubt I will ever watch "Some Kind of Monster" again. It is a documentary on Metallica's creation of their latest album, "St. Anger". And what is very surprising, it shows over and over again how puerile the members of the band are. Lars is nothing more than a baby, constantly whining about things which would only concern kindergarten kids. It is absolutely no surprise that he so vigorously pursued Napster after seeing how he is in "real life", it was completely in line with his character. James Hetfield is not much better, although he would equate to a primary schooler rather than an out-and-out baby. He would pick fights for the smallest slight, and he and Lars would argue like pre-schoolers.

There is not a single complete song heard in the movie despite many concert clips. Every song is cut-off about 30 seconds into it just to show some additional petty little fight the band is once again trying to work out. It is almost like Lars was only willing to give movie-goers a "free sample" of his music rather than the full song. I guess you also need to purchase St. Anger to hear the complete songs. It's the only "album-making-of" movie I have ever seen where you don't even get to listen to the songs! I am a fan of Metallica and have been since the days of "Kill Em All". I am also the opposite of most Metallica fans in that I think the Black Album is a great album. Metallica fans divide themselves along the Black Album / Bob Rock line; purists believe that only albums made before the Black album are any good, mainstream fans believe that ever since the arrival of Bob Rock has the band been any good. Personally, I like all of their music, from "Seek and Destroy", to "For Whom the Bells Toll", to "Master of Puppets". But I have to say that no album works as a whole as well as the Black Album, one of the finest pure rock and roll albums ever released. And if that makes me a Metallica "bandwagon heathen", then so be it. (For that matter, I also couldn't care less if Greedo shot first).

I don't think Metallica should have made this movie. It just made me think they were a bunch of spoiled children. I would have preferred to continue to think of them as rock and roll superstars. I understand perfectly why Jason left the band, it would have driven me insane after 14 years of putting up with all of that garbage. There is a particularly funny scene where Lars is selling some of his art collection "to let others share the artwork" as he states. He then goes on about how it is not about the money, but it is much higher than that. Of course he doesn't donate his newfound riches to an art museum or anything like that, but when he sees some of the paintings selling for millions, he is laughing like a spoiled little rich kid.

All in all, a waste of time. I expected a concert-movie, and instead got a documentary about a bunch of whiny children pretending to be adults.

The Omerta trilogy is the best series I have ever seen on television. It centers around the RCMP's attempts to take down the head of the Montreal mafia. It is hard-hitting, violent, realistic, and incredibly intense. It is one of the rare shows where I had to keep watching each episode in the DVD set one after the other, hoping I could keep fitting one more in before I had to go to bed.

There are 3 stories in the Omerta series; Omerta 1, 2, and 3. Omerta 1 and 2 are sequential in terms of the story, and should be watched in order. Omerta 3 introduces a new character, and follows his rise in the mafia. What is interesting is that the time-line in Omerta 3 covers both before and after the action in the first two, characters which had been killed off earlier can make appearances without causing plot holes. It was an effective way of creating a full series using many of the same actors.

I would have to say that of the 3 series, each became more polished until you arrive at Omerta 3, which is truly fantastic. There are 11 episodes in series 1, 14 in series 2, and 13 in series 3. I would highly recommend you watch them in order, although you can watch series 3 independently of the first 2 and still follow the storyline. All 3 are in French, and a very heavily accented Montreal French at that. Also, in the DVD sets that I watched, there was no English audio track nor any subtitles. If you can understand the language, I strongly urge you to check out this unique series which preceded the Sopranos by a number of years. You will not be disappointed.

R.

An excellent comedy, Vince Vaughn is a gifted comedian. He kept "Old School" going, was the only light in a dismal "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", and had a terrific debut lead in "Swingers". I highly recommend people considering this movie, to watch the extras on the DVD; there is a karaoke scene at an Asian wedding which will have you rolling. It is a shame it was cut from the movie, but as the director's comments stated, "They just couldn't find a place where it would fit." I was very pleasantly surprised at the number of times I laughed out loud, a rarity for me while watching comedies. The lines were witty, the delivery was crisp, and the jokes were mostly new and fresh. Rachel McAdams was stunning, an excellent casting choice to play the object of Owen Wilson's desire. Despite the more or less rehashed plot (two guys lie about themselves to meet women, only to find that they now have a dilemma when they find 2 they really like), the film is nonetheless novel and original. There are a number of obviously stereotypical characters, (drunken grandmother, artistic introverted son, psychotic cheating boyfriend, immoral mother, powerful father), but they work in this film. Particularly the grandmother, who is prone to drunken scatological exclamations, had me laughing my head off. It was quite unexpected.

Although many of the situations could come off as contrived, they were secondary to the excellent repartee between Wilson and Vaughn. Their comic pairing worked to a T.

R.

Man, what a film. As a fan of 70's martial arts movies, it was great to see all of the references. I also thought the use of B&W throughout was extremely effective. The cartoon sequences seemed a bit much, but did fit in with the overall feel of the film. I have seen many people posting about the sheer amount of blood and guts, but you have to remember this was Tarantino's homage to Bruce Lee-era action pictures. In those movies, the stories were very similar epics of revenge, and they never had much of a budget for good "gore" effects. It was more or less "throw some fake blood on the guy who just got killed" type of effects, which were duplicated accurately by some of the deaths in this movie. The plot also followed closely the plot of most 70's Kung Fu movies; something despicable happens to the weak hero (whole village razed, family slaughtered, etc..) and the hero goes away for years to learn the secrets of a particular style of Kung Fu. All of these movies contained the "secret move" which the master normally does not teach, except of course, in this rare instance. That move, as depicted in Kill Bill Vol. 2, is always used on the evil leader of the clan whom had brought death and chaos to the hero.

Kill Bill was a terrific modern take on those movies which were always set in ancient China. I was very impressed with Uma Thurman's swordplay, at no point did I feel that it looked scripted or fake. Even when fighting against more than 50 Crazy 8's, it replicated admirably the incredibly one-sided fights from some of the best martial arts movies made 30 years ago.

All in all, a great and original film! R.

It is truly incredible that Joel Schumacher could wreck a franchise so completely with this unfathomably bad movie. You really have to see it to understand just how awful it is as words can't describe this fantastically pathetic film. What in the world happened to Tim Burton's dark vision????? It was replaced by Ernest Goes to Gotham City!!! The plot is moronic, the one-liners must have been written by a 5-year old, and the action makes The Three Stooges look like Barishnikov. The acting is also beneath contempt, who in their right minds can ever believe again that Alicia Silverstone can act??? (Ok, did anyone actually believe it in the first place?) Right from the outset, the director does not pull any punches. He firmly establishes that this movie will be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, that it will be the Mel Brooks of superhero movies. From the ridiculous stunts, poor camera work, terrible CGI, there is nothing good about this film! Even the Batmobile looked like a Tonka toy! It now has a disco ball for an engine!?!! And what got into Robin? He wants his own signal like the Bat signal??? HAHAHAHAHAHA! Who is ever going to say, "Commissioner, the Robin signal!" HAHAHAHA! Robin is such an incredible wimp, such a baby, I wish Mr. Freeze had frozen him permanently. And taken BatGirl with him! What a travesty. What was Clooney thinking? He must have known the movie was terrible... And the incredible groaners, one after the other, these lame puns throughout the movie, all of them were incredibly obvious with absolutely not a shred of wit. It was simply sad that a director could actually release a movie this poor. And what idiot green lighted 110 million for this tripe????? There were so many things wrong with this dismal effort, that I simply don't have enough room to list them all. All those terrible puns about things cold; cold heart, sending me to the cooler, hell freezes over (twice), the snowman, he's hibernating, the entire evil hockey team?????? etc... ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!..... Gotham city looked like a joke! It was incredibly poorly rendered. And the entire scene racing down some giant statue's hand in the middle of the city, about 100 stories up??? What was all of that about? Or the whole surfing down from outer space? What the f....??? And did the Freezemobile not look like a big hair dryer? There was NOTHING at all good with this movie!!! NOTHING! It stunk! It's a dog! It's pure and unadulterated CRAP! It makes Pluto Nash look like Gone with the Wind! 1/10 (why can't I choose negative numbers?) R.