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Reviews
1941 (1979)
Worth watching at least once.
1941 is a unique movie. 1 part of it is animal house-esque lowbrow humor, 1 part is B-movie love story, and 1 part stoic war movie, and 2 parts insane hilarity.
It is a weird mix to say the least.
First, the problems: 1. The first half of the movie is slow. It grinds on making you wonder why you're watching this movie.
2. The "Love story" subplot is poorly executed for what this movie is trying to do.
3. many of the actors are not used to their fullest potential (especially Dan Akroyd and John Candy) while others receive excessive screen time. (see: The slow moving love story sub-plot) But then there are the good aspects: 1. John Belushi is hilarious. He would have been funnier had he interacted with more characters rather than appearing in many solo shots, but he was funny.
2. The "Epic Battle" was great. It had me laughing as my sides hurt.
3. Slim Pickens: His appearance in the movie was truly where the movie stopped being slow, and the fun really started. He was great in his scenes and between the dialogue and his visual scenes, you can't help but laugh.
There's more, but in short, if you don't mind sitting through a slow build up, the payoff is worth the wait.
It's not the best movie ever, but in the barren entertainment landscape that is Weekend Television: Finding this movie can be like an oasis in the desert. It's solid Saturday afternoon fun.
House of the Dead (2003)
Who's fault is this?
I have never seen a worse movie.
It is possible to take a shootem up video game and make it into a decent movie.
Mistake 1: absolutely no connection to any of the characters. In this movie you don't bond with any of the characters because... you don't get a chance.
The only character that is sympathetic or even interesting is the Deck Hand: Salish as played by Clint Howard. Except for this unique character, the outcome of the movie is meaningless as all the characters were lifeless from the begining.
Mistake 2: the worst gunfight scene ever. I love gunfights. I love when the heros open up on the badguys and clean house. heck I even like to watch a badguy clean house sometimes. But this gunfight was weird I guess that the best way to describe it is "Apathetic" I've seen people shoot with more feeling and emotion while PLAYING THE VIDEOGAME. In this movie it looked and felt like the "Actors" were simply walking through shooting everything that moved without emotion.
Why? Where's the trash talking? where's the snarls of rage amongst the gunfire? These are supposed to be kids that got caught at a rave gone bad... but even real soldiers acting professionally and ruthlessly show their humanity.
If you want a GOOD horror movie about a secluded house full of monsters, I recomend Sam Rami's Evil Dead series. DO NOT see the disaster that is house of the dead. I hope that they burn the master and all copies of this movie.
Dead in a Heartbeat (2002)
Set Cliches to kill.
This is one of the most absurd movies I've ever seen. A madman who is going around placing bombs in pace makers, this movie combines the standard mad bomber movie with the standard medical chase movie and tosses in the cliche of the bad guy going after the family of the hero at the end.
The unique thing about this movie is that as bad as it is (and it is just wrong to make a movie like this) Judge Rinehold actually does one of his better acting jobs in this movie. (Imagine if Billy from Beverly Hills Cop 1 didn't go nuts and became a normal cop.)
The Pest (1997)
A different type of comedy
The pest is a unique movie in that it is ridiculous as possible, yet in all honesty I was entertained by it. This movie is a really bad version of the story "A Most Dangerous Game".
As bad as this movie is it is entertaining to some extent.
There is a great scene when the pest is being hunted by the Scottish mob regarding the birthday of a famous Scotsman which is just so absurd that I could not help laughing.
This is not a great movie... in fact it IS a bad movie, one that you're likely to see in the $5.00 bin at walmart. But for a cheap laugh (and with disturbing foresight into the future of slang) it's worth seeing at least once.
Captain America (1990)
Better than Previous Captain America Movies... But that's not saying much.
This movie was made in the early 90s before Marvel had a true understanding of how to make a good transition between comic and screen.
This movie does have a few benefits. First it does follow some of the generally accepted Captain America story background. (A great improvement over previous movies where the Captain America Character had nothing to do with the Comic Version (see the 70's era movie with the Captain with the clear plastic Shield.)
This is a piece of fluff and a step in the right direction. Hopefully sometime in the next decade Marvel will attempt a definitive Captain America Movie using the same style and control that allowed X-Men, Spider-Man, and Dare Devil to succeed. If the upcoming Hulk movie is as well made, then this movie should be forgotten and replaced.
Trigun (1998)
My review is made of Love and Peace.
This has to be one of the most amazing Anime series ever made. It combines some of the funniest and absurd physical and intellectual comedy with a powerful drama and sense of what I would consider to be Horror in the emotional sense.
Vash has to be one of the most contradictory characters in any anime. A Gunfighter who hates killing. Nearly Immortal, yet vulnerable. Power to destroy all life on a planet, but upset at the death of a bug... It really is amazing.
If I had to choose any series which has impacted my own sense of ethics, this would be it.
The concepts of Life and Death, Good and evil are brought to the line in the grey... Not the blurry grey area, but the pencil thin line within the miles of grey.
The goodness of Milly, the callousness of Nick, the pride of Meryl, the hate of knives, and the love of Vash... Though through it all, even the smallest character is "Fleshed out" with a multi-faceted personality. It really is amazing.
Though I would not recommend this for young children, I believe that rational adults people can only come out better people after seeing it.