Bedazzled (1967)

Though Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are cleverer than Kevin Smith, this still comes across as an our-parents’-generation version of Dogma. Moore plays a down-on-his-luck schmuck mooning over a woman he doesn’t have the guts to approach about a date. Enter Cook as a smart-alecky devil tempting our hero with seven wishes in exchange for his soul. Of course all of them go awry as deals with the devil tend to. Along the way, however, we get a lot of stand-up-comedy-style musing about theology. Some of it borders on witty, but a lot of it is just precocious and silly. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 11/30/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bedazzled

Here’s a big budget Hollywood remake of an old Peter Cook and Dudley Moore movie about a guy who sells his soul to Satan, with Brendan Fraser as the hapless, lovelorn nebbish and Elizabeth Hurley as the Beastmaster (or is it Beastmistress?). The plot runs our hero through predictable paces, granting him seven wishes in exchange for his soul. Naturally they all go sour on him, teaching him that true happiness can’t be obtained by ... well, you know the rest. I guess as brain candy goes I’ve seen worse. At least the star power and production values provided a little entertainment value to this otherwise trite, predictable and (especially at the end) preachy bit of nonsense. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bedford Incident

It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen a movie with a surprise ending that actually surprised me. But this one did. More about that I won’t say for obvious reasons. A journalist (Sidney Poitier) goes out on a ride-along with a Navy destroyer prowling the North Atlantic. The captain of the vessel (Richard Widmark) is an intriguing character, neither a weak-willed Queeg nor a cruel Bly. Nonetheless, he is most intent on messing with a Soviet sub caught lurking where it oughtn’t. The psychological drama that plays out between the characters is well scripted with just the right balance of tension. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 6/15/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

This is a relic from the not-really-trying age of Disney live-action-and-animation combos. And that’s a shame, because the source story might have been turned into a better picture. In the early days of World War Two, a spinster (Angela Lansbury) living in the English countryside attempts to master magic via mail-order lessons in order to aid the war effort. Her practice is disrupted when three kids evacuated from London are dropped into her care. High jinks ensue. The strictly live action parts of the picture are okay despite an excess of musical numbers. But around midway through the production is marred by the inclusion of an animated section of the cheapest quality. Cut that out and this would have been a better experience. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Fantasy

Date reviewed: 11/1/2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bedlam

Val Lewton’s presence in the producer’s chair helps make this low-budget Boris Karloff picture into something that’s actually worth a look. An actress runs afoul of the head of the Bedlam insane asylum by suggesting reforms in the patients’ treatment, so he convinces her benefactor to have her committed. Some of the scenes of patient abuse inside the asylum are downright creepy, all done with the same eerie lighting and imply-rather-than-show technique employed to such good effect in Cat People. It’s a corny as any other movie made in the 1940s, but it’s chilling and thought-provoking at the same time. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 12/16/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bedtime Stories

As this was supposed to be a family-oriented picture, I was on the edge of my seat until I was reasonably sure it wouldn’t turn out to be as offensive as previous Adam Sandler effort You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Though it was nowhere near as disgusting, unfortunately it was every bit as dumb. Sandler plays a ne’er-do-well stuck babysitting his niece and nephew. Miraculously the events they describe while making up bedtime stories actually come to pass the next day, at least after a fashion. Sitcom-worthy hilarity ensues. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 9/9/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beetlejuice

There’s a fair amount of charm in this Tim Burton film about a ghostly couple (Geena Davis, who’s never been more tolerable, and one of the Baldwins) trying to get rid of the new tenants of their house. I guess that Michael Keaton, as the “bio-exorcist” title character, is supposed to be the star of this film, but the real star is probably the art direction (a little past Pee-wee’s Big Adventure but not quite all the way to The Nightmare Before Christmas). Oh, and unless I’m mis-remembering things, this isn’t the movie that first gave us Wynona Rider, but it is the one that first put her on the map. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Ghost

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before I Hang

Once again the folks in front of and behind the camera for The Man They Could Not Hang and The Man with Nine Lives team up to spin a gripping yarn about a mad scientist who cheats death. This time around the fresh twist is that the good doctor (Boris Karloff) injects himself with a serum made in part from the blood of a brutal killer. So now every time he becomes upset he’s overcome with the desire to strangle whomever is in the room with him. If you like movies in this vein, this is a fine example. Otherwise it’s a bit dull. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Mad Scientist

Date reviewed: 12/16/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Begotten

Okay, let me see if I can sum this up for you. Some guy sitting in an empty house cuts his own guts out. They dribble all over his feet accompanied by the sound of flatulence. A woman appears from behind his chair. She gives the corpse a hand job and impregnates herself. She gives birth to a skinny, bald adult who seems to really enjoy flopping around in the mud. Black Sabbath (or is it the bad guys from Phantasm?) shows up and starts hitting Flopsy in the crotch with sticks while he honks up buckets of guts. Mom shows up and drags sonny off, but Black Sabbath catches up to them. They kill Mom, pummel her crotch with giant Q-Tips and make her into a stew. Then they come back for Flopsy. Then something else happened, but by that point the movie had already used up more than an hour’s worth of grainy black and white film stock, a healthy dose of nerve-grating ambient noise, and pretty much all my patience. The guy who directed this went on to make Shadow of the Vampire, which should give hope to talentless indie art posers everywhere. For the rest of us this is fertile mockery bait but not much else. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Art

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia

It came from the crappy action movie box and went straight to video. American commandos are abandoned in Columbia (so it isn't just a catchy title), framed for an assassination attempt on drug lords and military officials. If you find yourself entertained by plot-free gunfights in the 4:3 aspect ratio, then prepare to be entertained. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 6/12/11

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the Burly Q

This is a reasonably good documentary about the origin and heyday of burlesque shows. The filmmakers managed to track down a lot of the bigger names, not only the dancers but also the comedians, novelty acts and other folks in and around the business. One thing I noted in particular was how down-to-earth most of these elderly women were about their "misspent" youths. Many documentaries about the arts are marred with tedious boasting from talking heads, "I invented graffiti" or "we were the first punk band in Boston." The closest any of the subjects here come to that kind of annoying nonsense is an occasional "she tried to steal my act." Overall this picture does a solid job of covering a topic I didn't know much about. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: Art

Date reviewed: 7/3/11

 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the Red Door

A photographer (Kyra Sedgwick) gets roped into caring for her estranged brother (Kiefer Sutherland) as AIDS slowly claims his life. He’s an arrogant jerk, a personality trait that supplies most of the plot points, particularly when he starts to mellow as he nears death. Just about the only story beyond that is a half-baked domestic violence murder mystery involving the siblings’ estranged father (there’s a lot of estrangement in this). Though the direction is terrible and the performances mostly mailed in, the real champ of terribleness is the script. Most of the dialogue is so awful it sounds like it was written by a high school student trying desperately to pass a theatre class (and probably not succeeding). Overall this is a pointless tear-jerker arriving a decade or two too late to say anything profound about AIDS. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Mystery

Date reviewed: 4/28/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being Elmo

This documentary about Kevin Clash – the puppeteer behind Sesame Street’s immensely popular Elmo – turned out to be a lot less cloying than I expected. To be sure, a lot of it was fairly Muppety-cute. But Clash managed to take a childhood obsession and turn it into a viable career and a legitimate performing art, qualities brought out well by the filmmakers. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: Art

Date reviewed: 3/3/12

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being John Malkovich

If schizophrenics wrote screwball comedy, the result would no doubt be something along these lines. Clearly one of those low budget films that everyone in Hollywood wants to be in, this is hands-down one of the most bizarre movies ever to make wide release. The plot involves a collection of hapless people who find a secret door leading to the inside of John Malkovich’s mind. Though things get a little silly toward the end, for the most part the film succeeds on the strength of its own strangeness. You’ll probably need to be in the mood for quirkiness before you watch this one, but if such a mood does seize you then you should leave with your craving well sated. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Art

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being Lincoln: Men with Hats

As “Hey, look at the crazy people” documentaries go, this one isn’t too terrible. As the title suggests, the picture focuses on guys who dress up like Abraham Lincoln. Apparently this involves a range of activities from grade school appearances to an annual get-together complete with Linc-off to determine the year’s best Honest Abe. The impersonators are sufficiently different from one another that you can give them nicknames as you go, such as “Fat Lincoln” or “Young Lincoln” or “Crazy Lincoln” (actually, that last one probably applies to more than one). The one thing that surprised me – and set this crowd apart from fringe folk profiled in other pictures – is that they seem to lack the nasty competitiveness of superhero-beggars and Scrabble junkies. Indeed, when they get together they actually seem to help each other out, sharing wrong-size jackets, used hats and the like. In the words of the great man himself, “party on, dudes!” Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: None

Date reviewed: 4/6/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being There

If this had been Peter Sellers’s last movie, there wouldn’t be a curse named after him. Certainly this is the last good movie he made, and it’s a quiet, subtle, high-quality capper to a legendary career. Sellers plays Chance the Gardner, a gentle, elderly, mentally-differently-abled gentleman who finds himself cast out into the cold, cruel world after the man he’d served his entire life passes away. Through a series of coincidences he ends up the toast of Washington, houseguest to a terminally-ill captain of industry, object of the old guy’s wife’s affection, advisor to the President, and accidental political pundit. Throughout he maintains a genuinely touching sense of innocence and simplicity, something that I usually find annoying but here found compelling. The odd yet oddly charming ending helped seal the deal. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 7/7/2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

Believe

I believe I should have watched something else. The box art made this look like something menacing might be afoot, but the story turned out to be some silliness about kids trying to track down a ghost. The “heartwarming” ending was particularly hard to take. This is one for the after-school special crowd. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Ghost

Date reviewed: 7/31/12

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Believers

Martin Sheen’s character has troubles. He recently lost his wife to an accident involving a coffee maker. His son is having trouble adjusting. He’s got a full load at work counseling cops with mental problems. He’s trying to spark a rebound relationship with his landlady. And on top of everything else, a Santeria cult wants to use his kid as a human sacrifice. Naturally the cult leader and the bulk of his followers are people of color, and the protagonists are caucasian. Racist aspects aside, I guess I’ve seen worse horror movies. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Demon

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bell Witch Haunting

Found footage movies and Amityville Horror reheats don’t make a good combination. As if anyone was really curious about that. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Demon

Date reviewed: 1/24/14

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below

Submarines and horror. I guess I’m honor-bound by disposition to love this movie. The submarine part of it works pretty well. The horror part strays a bit too far into the ghost story, which rarely ends up working for me. Even so, it does have its moments. The production values and special effects aren’t bad at all for a low-budget production. Even the acting’s not the end of the world. The script tends to meander a bit in the middle, not clearly moving from one point to the next. I’m also a little disappointed they left out a couple of the deleted scenes (if nothing else, I thought the alternate ending actually worked better, though the difference between the two wasn’t just real drastic). I can’t say much about the story without giving away the suspense the production relies heavily upon. So suffice it to say that as haunted ship movies go this is one of the better examples of the genre. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Ghost

Date reviewed: 4/19/2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

Belphegor: The Phantom of the Louvre

Though this isn’t a terrible movie, the quality doesn’t quite justify the effort required to read subtitles. Instead it comes across as a strange middle ground between French comedy and SyFy horror. Though normally I don’t like to criticize movies by claiming I could have done better, in this case I genuinely believe that if I’d gotten permission to shoot in the Louvre after hours that I would have conjured something better than this. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Ghost

Date reviewed: 5/20/13

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Benchwarmers

More than once while watching this movie I had to ask myself if I was really seeing a picture about three grown men vindicating the rights of nerds everywhere by playing baseball against little league teams. Despite my disbelief, that’s exactly what this turned out to be. Just about everyone here has done better work elsewhere. I was particularly disappointed in David Spade, who can usually be counted upon to supply a few good lines even in the worst of productions. I’ve seen some bad baseball movies in my time, but this one sets a new standard. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 11/29/2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beneath Loch Ness

In the immortal words of Groundskeeper Willie: “Ach! Back to the loch with you, Nessie!” Seriously, a legend as potentially cool as the Loch Ness Monster deserves a much better horror movie than this turned out to be. It’s not that this is a terrible movie or anything. The monster’s kind of scary as cheap CGI creatures go. The suspense sequences are ineptly executed, but every once in awhile there’s a minor thrill to be had. The acting’s not great, but for a horror movie it’s not the worst I’ve ever seen. In other words, this isn’t an actively terrible flick. I just think that given what they had to start with they could have come up with something better. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 6/23/2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beneath Still Waters

For an odd little Spanish production (with scenes shot in English, at least for the U.S. version) this isn’t half bad. The premise has promise: 40 years ago a village became so overrun with evil that the locals built a dam and flooded the whole valley, submerging the town in the middle of a lake. Unfortunately the leader of the cult that caused the problem to begin with managed to escape. And four decades later he’s back for revenge. This has a few slow spots, but it also has a few solid chills that make it worthwhile. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Demon

Date reviewed: 7/18/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beneath the Planet of the Apes

So this is what the apes have been sweeping under the planet all these years. Okay, seriously, this is the second best of the Apes movies (Conquest is still #1 in my book). It’s got a lot going for it. Human-hating gorillas. A spooky Forbidden Zone guarded by eerie optical illusions. The post-apocalyptic ruins of New York City inhabited by creepy psychic mutants who worship an A-bomb. Still more heavy-handed, simple-minded, 70s-era social allegory. A whopping disaster ending. Heck, it’s even got the best part of the first one (the end) tacked onto the beginning. Of course seeing the first one will help a lot if you’re trying to figure out what’s going on this time around. Otherwise, however, for my money the second time is more of a charm. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Sci fi

Date reviewed: 6/25/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ben-Hur

If someone went through and cut out all the closet case gay stuff and all the Jesus wheezing, this would be a much shorter movie. Of course, that shorter product would also be a much more action-packed movie. When the film focuses on spectacular galleon battles or the famous chariot race scene, it’s a pretty good production. Even the parts of the drama that set up the big scenes are worth watching. But then (especially after the race) the plot devolves into a lot of preachiness about how our angry protagonist (played with usual scenery-chewing aplomb by Charlton Heston) finds peace in his heart through a personal relationship with Our Lord and Savior. Fans of the movie will probably respond that the Jesus stuff is the real point of the movie and I just don’t get it. No, I get it. I just don’t want it. When I’m in need of spirituality, Hollywood and Heston aren’t my sources of choice. I’d rather they focused on what they do best: entertainment. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Historical

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

Benito

Somebody must have told Antonio Banderas that making Reds got people to take Warren Beatty seriously. Otherwise why would he ever have agreed to star in a five-hour-long Italian movie about left-wing radicals in the first decade or two of the 20th century? Of course this is Reds with an evil twist: the protagonist is Benito Mussolini. So we get two DVDs worth of Mussolini’s early career as a leftist, only to have the show come to a screeching halt just as the story starts to get interesting. Honestly, if I want to spend hours listening to liberal radicals jabber on about the minutiae of their causes, I’ll go hang out with my dad and his friends. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Historical

Date reviewed: 1/22/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beowulf (1999)

First the Abrams Star Trek and now this thing. This just isn’t my week for “retrofits” of classic tales. This one drags everyone’s favorite Geat kicking and screaming into a nebulous, Beyond Thunderdome-y future or alternative reality in which humanity doesn’t have cars or firearms but still possesses loudspeakers and crimping irons. A platinum blonde Christopher Lambert plays the hero, doing battle first with a sometimes-invisible, Alien-looking monster and then its boobs-blurred-out-for-SyFy mother. This was almost enough to make me want the Neil Gaiman version back. Almost. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 12/3/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beowulf (2007)

With a script co-written by Neil Gaiman, this should have been a much better movie. Indeed, a production with no script at all except for the original text would have made a superior product, even if it had been shot entirely in undecipherable Anglo-Saxon. Once again I find myself wondering why oh why movie folk feel the need to take a classic story and “improve” it. Here we learn that Grendel was mad at the Danes because their loud parties hurt his sensitive ear-like-object. We also learn that the monster’s mom was a smokin’ hot babe with a prehensile ponytail, and Beowulf himself was a morally weak braggart who tended to luck into his successes. Add to that the just-real-enough-to-be-creepy computer animation, and this turns out to be a colossal disappointment. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Animation

Date reviewed: 3/15/2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

Berlin Correspondent

Between September 1939 and December 1941, Europe was fighting a war that the United States wasn’t formally a part of. This spy picture takes advantage of the awkward state of affairs faced by American journalists working in Germany at the time. Though not officially at war, the hostility between the two countries and their respective ideologies was clear. As our hero tries his best to secretly incorporate the truth into his heavily-censored broadcasts, the Gestapo is hot on the trail of his information sources. In keeping with the spirit of 1942 when the picture came out, the drama is corny and the preachy propaganda gets laid on thick. But in a way it’s kinda comforting to know from the outset that truth and justice are going to prevail and the bad guys are going to get what’s coming to them in the end. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Spy

Date reviewed: 7/21/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Berlin Express

The shambles of Germany in the wake of World War Two provides the background for this spy mystery. An international (British, French, German, Russian and of course American) group ends up stuck together when a dead body turns up in their railroad car. The ad hoc squad must put their differences aside and cooperate to figure out what’s going on and expose a plot by unreformed Nazis. The story is one of those twisting, turning, don’t-let-your-attention-drift-or-you’ll-miss-something espionage pieces. However, my favorite parts were the exteriors, which were shot amidst the rubble of bomb-damaged Frankfurt and Berlin in 1948. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Spy

Date reviewed: 7/31/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Berserk

No matter how mean she was to Christina, Joan Crawford didn’t deserve to end her career making movies like this. Here she plays the owner of a circus plagued by a series of deadly accidents. Most of the screen time is devoted to soap-opera-worthy shenanigans, many involving an awkward romance between our heroine and a substantially younger performer. The scheming occasionally takes a time out and we get some footage of a circus act here and there. The production also serves up one of the worst musical numbers I’ve ever seen. For the most part, however, this is just melodramatic and dull. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 7/19/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Defense

Okay, start with the premise that there’s a defense contractor somewhere that’s pressed for cash and laying people off just because the company can’t make a working product. If only implausibility was this movie’s worst problem. Instead – as is typical with Dudley Moore movies – the worst problem here is Dudley Moore. He plays a loathsome little engineer (who was probably supposed to have come across as cute and endearing) whose job is on the line until he steals tank part plans and passes them off as his own designs. Uninteresting intrigue ensues. The high point of the picture are the brief flash-forward scenes in which a hapless tank driver (Eddie Murphy) struggles with the final product. Even there, racism makes it a little hard to enjoy the comedy (not to mention that the notion of Iraq invading Kuwait several years before it actually happened seems a little eerie in retrospect). Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 7/9/2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best in Show

Christopher Guest and associates are back in a slightly-too-self-conscious attempt to recreate the success of Waiting for Guffman. This time around rather than a small town’s civic pageant it’s a big-time dog show, but otherwise it’s the same “we’re not laughing at you we’re laughing near you” pseudo-documentary approach to the world of obsessive losers. Despite the somewhat labored nature of the production as a whole, most of the jokes are amusing and the acting is solid. Fred Willard does an especially good job as the former pro athlete turned inept commentator. Heck, even the dogs are cute. If you’re trying to choose between this one and its predecessor, definitely go for Guffman. But if you liked the original you should get a kick out of this one as well. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Parody

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best Worst Movie

The thesis of this production is that Troll 2 is the worst movie ever made. Of course the folks who made this picture – particularly the former child star who directed it and the dentist who gets the bulk of the screen time – have an emotional and/or financial interest in promoting the Troll 2 cult thing. In the process we get a large dose of pseudo-adoring movie geeks, several embarrassed actors, a director who seems genuinely convinced that his movie didn’t suck, and at least a couple of genuinely mentally ill individuals who probably didn’t need to be made fun of. So a movie that seems laughably terrible to start just turns out kinda sad. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: Media

Date reviewed: 5/31/12

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Best Years of Our Lives

More than six decades later this tale of three vets home from the war is powerful stuff, so I can only imagine the impact it must have had back in 1946. Fredric March, Dana Andrews and Harold Russel play three guys having varying degrees of trouble readjusting to civilian life. March resumes his everyday job at a bank and suffers from what nowadays would be diagnosed as minor depression complicated by alcoholism. Andrews battles nightmares, swallows enough of his pride to go from Air Force officer to drug store counter help, and falls out of love with his wife and in love with March’s daughter. But Russel outshines them both as a former sailor learning to live without hands. Russel was an actual disabled vet facing the same challenges as his character, and his lack of slick Hollywood pedigree helped him bring an impressive honesty to the role. Despite a touch of the melodrama typical for the time, this still stands as one of the best movies ever made about the difficulties service members can face. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 9/21/12

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

The title alone tells you most of what you need to know about this: a wealthy woman’s pampered pet (voiced by Drew Barrymore) gets kidnapped and dragged off to Mexico, where she has various adventures with lower class dogs while trying to make her way home. Bad comedy and creepy talking animal effects aside, this is an unintentionally interesting exploration of racism. Though the picture tries to say something about American class structures and anti-Hispanic discrimination, it exploits so many uncomfortable stereotypes that it seems to miss the very point it’s trying to make. Multiculturalism doesn’t have to be all serious business, but it should at least be less empty headed than this. Still, at least its wee doggie heart was in the right place. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 7/27/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beverly Hills Cop

If you’ve got a term paper due and you just happen to be writing it about the genre of cop movies that feature a street-wise young maverick detective who plays by his own rules, then you’d better watch this one before you type up your essay and turn it in. Eddie Murphy wisecracks and fist-fights his way through a couple of hours worth of smarmy villains, expensive chase sequences and uninteresting plot twists. It’s a cheap thrill ride, some tunes that charted back when the film first came out back in the mid-80s, and not much more. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Comedy

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beyond Evil

The ever-so-brief swollen finger effect is nasty beyond description. The rest of the movie is beyond boring. An architect (John Saxon) and his wife (Lynda Day George) move into a haunted house, and she swiftly succumbs to possession by the evil spirit of the former owner. Matters weren’t helped much by the film-to-video conversion, which looked as if it was done with a Super 8 projector, VHS camcorder and a bathroom mirror. Verdict: see if really really desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Demon

Date reviewed: 1/29/13

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beyond Re-Animator

And at this point beyond my ability to sit through any more Re-Animator movies. Herbert West, now behind bars for his various and sundry crimes, is able to revive his “research” thanks to the assistance of the new prison physician, Dr. Howard Phillips (yeah, really). This picture starts out hard on the rats and ends up hard on just about everyone, including the audience. Especially the audience. Extra added bonus: a sexual assault even more brutal than the one in the original (though mercifully somewhat shorter). And the piece de resistance (and I do mean resistance) is the battle between the zombie rat and reanimated penis that adorns the end credits. Now that’s something everyone involved can be proud of. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 4/3/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beyond Sherwood Forest

Odd title, considering most of the movie takes place in exactly the place we’re supposed to be beyond. The rest of it is set in some kind of bizarre alternate world of darkness. This is the first time I think I’ve ever seen a movie that featured a were-dragon, so that part was at least novel. The rest, however, was the same blend of mindless revisionism – such as the legendary Robin / Little John stick fight this time taking place between Robin and Maid Marian – we’ve come to expect from the SyFy channel. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Fantasy

Date reviewed: 12/10/2009

 

 

Beyond the Wall of Sleep

If I was planning to make a movie out of one of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, I’m not sure “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” would top the list. And even if that tale was my target, I’m quite certain this isn’t how I’d tell it. Just for starters, this amateurish, straight-to-video hack job contains more jump cuts than I’ve ever seen in a single production. The terrible acting and even-more-dreadful script provide no distraction from the relentless editing mistakes. In the end the monster at the heart of the drama turns out to be so silly that Lovecraft fans – the only natural audience for something like this – are likely to end up alienated. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Lovecraft

Date reviewed: 7/27/2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bible

Thank goodness they only make it through Genesis (and even so only as far as the Abraham and Isaac sacrifice). If Dino DeLaurentiis and John Huston had actually tried to do the whole book, they’d probably still be shooting it. The Noah’s Ark sequence alone seems like it takes the full 40 days and 40 nights to unfold (plus Huston plays both Noah and the voice of God, so he ends up talking to himself). In a way it’s fun to see some long-familiar stories given epic Hollywood treatment. On the other hand, the original print versions are generally more edifying. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Religion

Date reviewed: 7/26/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bible According to Hollywood

Though this isn’t exactly the slickest documentary I’ve ever seen, it does a better job than expected at tackling the topic suggested by the title. Talking about religion is difficult, and throwing Hollywood into the mix makes it even harder. But the filmmakers walk a reasonable line between witless film historian praise and Bible-thumping moral condemnation. Sure, they miss some things here and there. Overall, however, this is a good introduction to the movie industry’s treatment of subjects from the Old and New Testaments. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: Movies

Date reviewed: 2/6/11

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bible Tells Me So

This documentary examines Christian and Jewish attitudes about homosexuality. The main focus is on how religious families react when their children come out of the closet. Reactions range from parents who accept and even advocate down to others who reject (including one woman who came to acceptance only after her rejected daughter committed suicide). The movie also examines various interpretations of scriptural references to homosexuality. I suspect that this might make good viewing for folks who find themselves torn between the love of their kids and the values they’ve learned from a church. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: Gay

Date reviewed: 10/10/2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big Bad Wolf

“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll rip your guts out!” Actual line from the movie. No kidding. That should give you some idea of what you’re in for. This was billed as a horror comedy, which normally I’d avoid. But I’m a werewolf buff, so I thought I’d give it a chance. Frankly, a horror comedy would have been a relief compared to what this turned out to be. About the funniest thing in the whole movie was a brief appearance by David “American Werewolf in London” Naughton. I’m sure the quip-spitting lycanthrope is supposed to be entertaining, but it made me wish they’d stuck with the tried-and-true werewolf that – at least in monster form – lacks the power of speech. The cast appears to be a mix of actors from other horror movies (including Kimberly J. Brown, who has grown up a bit since Rose Red) and refugees from soft-core porn flicks. While this was never going to be a three-star movie, it might have saved at least a point by not featuring a werewolf that appears to use four or five different suits depending on the camera angle. Or at least they could have avoided the graphic werewolf / sorority girl rape scene. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Werewolf

Date reviewed: 7/31/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Easy

When doing a lot of location shooting in New Orleans, film-makers should take care not to let the backdrops overshadow their productions. Of course with acting this mediocre and a script this bad, the movie doesn’t stand a chance. Ellen Barkin wasn’t too bad, but whatever good she managed to do was immediately cancelled by Dennis Quaid’s witless smirking and come-and-go accent. The story was some mish-mash about corruption in the New Orleans police force, which turned out to be just as uninteresting as it sounded to begin with. And the sex scenes … yeech! Beyond the street scenes, the only real entertainment to be found here is a brief cameo by Judge Jim Garrison playing Judge Jim Garrison (several years before JFK). Someone with enough insider knowledge of the city to make such casting and location decisions really should have come up with a movie that did a better job of living up to the subject. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 12/22/2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big Fish

This should play in a double bill with What Dreams May Come as a special treat for people who have too much happiness but not enough beauty in their lives. Tim Burton’s visual style is all over this movie, and when the focus is on the young Edward Bloom (Ewan McGregor) the story is charming if often a bit on the silly side. However, the bracketing story finds an aged Bloom (Albert Finney) on his deathbed while his adult son (Billy Crudup) struggles to come to grips with his father’s refusal to deal in reality. The message about the importance of fantasy – or at least the importance of telling a good story – is well made. It’s just sort of a depressing way to get the point across. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Fantasy

Date reviewed: 10/9/2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biggie and Tupac

If there’s anyone in the whole wide world who could make a documentary about the deaths of Biggie Smalls and Tupak Shakur and not find concrete evidence of a conspiracy, that director would be Nick Broomfield. But of course as usual he isn’t making a documentary about his subject. He’s making a documentary about how righteously indignant he is that nobody will talk to him. Nobody, that is, except for the usual collection of nuts, pathological liars and a handful of other folks with nothing better to do with themselves than waste time with Broomfield. Oh, and he does manage to get into prison to interview Sug Knight toward the end, but by then Nick’s forgotten his title subjects and instead interviews Mr. Death Row about some hyped-up feud with Snoop Dogg. Snore. Indeed, “snore” on the whole movie. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: Music

Date reviewed: 12/17/2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big Hero 6

Ugh, so much family member death. So depressing. At least the movie includes some sympathetic characters and interesting visuals. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Sci fi

Date reviewed: 3/31/15

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Lebowski

The Cohen brothers’ first post-Fargo effort, this one isn’t quite as tightly plotted but nonetheless contains more than its share of hysterical, offbeat humor. Of course, it’s got more than its share of plain old weirdness, too. But overall the film upholds the fine Cohen tradition. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Art

Date reviewed: 1998

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Red One

This movie should appeal more to World War Two buffs than to war movie fans. The story features several clever nods to actual events, such as Lee Marvin’s character getting shot in North Africa in a manner that mirrors the actor’s actual bullet wound received in combat in the Pacific. On the other hand, it has a few groaners as well, such as the use of Israeli-American tanks to play German Tigers. The plot is a relentless parade of WWII clichés. Still, at least it has a sense of fun largely absent from larger, more self-important productions such as Saving Private Ryan. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 8/20/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Sleep

I’ve seen this movie three or four times now, and I’ve completely given up trying to figure out what’s going on. Perhaps someday I’ll read the book so I can piece it together at my leisure. But then again, perhaps I won’t. The bewildering twists and turns are part of the pleasure, just like the hard-boiled dialogue and big-city-after-dark settings. Though I suppose The Maltese Falcon is considered the more perfect example of Bogart’s contribution to the film noir genre, in many ways I like this one better. Certainly the chemistry between the leading man and Lauren Bacall was hard to beat. So just as long as you aren’t trying to get it to make sense, this mystery is a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Noir

Date reviewed: 12/13/2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big Top Pee-wee

I guess if you subtract Tim Burton and Phil Hartman from the original, this is what you get. In other words, the circus version is pretty badly watered down, certainly Pee-wee on his way back down (a trip that, of course, ended in a porn theater not too long after Big Top came out, if memory serves). I suppose there are a couple of moments that work, but mostly the humor that seemed clever and quirky in the original just seems flat, odd, even dumb here. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Juvenile

Date reviewed: 1998

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big Trouble in Little China

Rare indeed is the movie that can combine this many different genres with any degree of success. But for the most part director John Carpenter actually manages to mash the Hong-Kong-style martial arts movie, the more traditional American action adventure flick, and the screwball comedy into a single film. To be sure, some parts aren’t especially effective. Sometimes the comedy gets in the way of the action, and Carpenter’s vocals on the end title theme aren’t exactly his finest moment. Overall, however, this is a thoroughly enjoyable diversion. Kurt Russell plays Jack Burton, a swaggering, obnoxious truck driver who gets caught up with no end of Chinese black magic, Tong wars and other similar doings. If you send your brain to bed early, you should find this one thoroughly amusing. True fans of the movie – and here I’m talking about folks who love it so much that they’d voluntarily sit through a Coup de Villes video or have always wondered just how Gracie Law got into the immigrant aid business – should certainly check out the collector’s edition DVD. If you like the movie, the extras are worth it. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Comedy

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Uneasy

Harry Shearer serves up a documentary about the mistakes that helped turn Katrina into such a colossal mess. In its better moments it’s a fairly interesting story of government incompetence and indifference to the lives of poor people. However, it frequently strays into less fascinating subjects, such as New Orleans residents carping about how they don’t get any respect. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: Political

Date reviewed: 8/13/12

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Who would ever have thought that there would be such a fine line between absurdism and simple stupidity? The concept here is that humanity’s future depends on whether or not two slackers pass their history class. So an emissary from tomorrow gives our heroes a time-traveling phone booth that allows them to collect a squad of historical figures and take them back to San Dimas to aid in the presentation of a make-or-break final report. To be sure, most of the jokes here are pretty dumb, along the same order as Wayne’s World and Beavis and Butt-head, though Bill and Ted came first by a few years. What saves this from being just another stupid slacker movie is the ironic interaction between the lofty icons of yesteryear and the lack-wit future of the human race. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Juvenile

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey

Though clearly intended to be more of the same from the successful original, this first (and no doubt only, considering Keanu Reeves’ lack of incentive to do another) sequel somehow lacks the charm of the “Excellent Adventure.” Maybe it’s that what works for history doesn’t work for theology. Maybe it’s that the humor here is even more juvenile than before (if such a thing can be imagined). Maybe it’s just that the joke’s worn a little thin. In any event, the picture features a few sincerely funny moments (most of which center around the Grim Reaper). But overall if you’ve seen the original you’ve clearly seen the best of the two. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Juvenile

Date reviewed: 10/13/2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

Billy Budd (1962)

Melville’s classic comes to the silver screen with Terrence Stamp in the title role. Yes, Stamp was actually young enough to play a youthful, idealistic sailor at one point. Peter Ustinov co-stars and directs, which helps to give this the earnest feel endemic to obsessive “vanity” projects. Nonetheless it turns out to be a fairly good movie. The allegory about good and evil is just as heavy-handed here as it is in the source story. Some of the plot twists remain implausible. But that’s okay. The audience needn’t demand strict realism from a picture like this. And the production designers’ attention to detail lends an air of authenticity that provides a pleasing contrast to the somewhat artificial story. Overall this is a must-see for fans of “heart of oak” tales and a rewarding experience even for viewers who aren’t devoted to the sub-genre. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Sailing

Date reviewed: 5/11/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Billy Jack

This classic from the early 70s is a bizarre blend of peace-loving hippiedom and standard revenge-intensive action flick. The kids at a ranch school for flower children keep coming to town and getting into trouble with the squares. One solution to this problem might be for the two groups to concentrate on separating. Another might be for both to practice more tolerance of one another. But more often than not we end up going with what’s behind door number three: every time a townie does something mean, up pops Billy Jack, a half-white half-Indian Vietnam veteran Green Beret with one hell of a bad temper. So what could have been a movie about peaceful co-existence instead becomes an often-tedious parade of escalating violence. The weak script – frequently giving way to Altman-esque improv sequences – doesn’t help matters. Ultimately the moral here appears to be if you’re going to make a revenge movie, just make one. Don’t try to toss a lot of peaceful protest and fake Native American baggage on top of it. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Martial arts

Date reviewed: 4/3/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss

I rented this movie sort of by accident, because somebody put the cassette behind one of the boxes for Burn Hollywood Burn at the video store. I usually take such events as viewing tips from the Fates, so I sat through it anyway. The Fates must have been in a cranky mood that night. This is an extremely self-indulgent film about the ins and outs of gay romance in Los Angeles. I’m sure the world needed this film for some reason, but that reason isn’t immediately apparent to me. On the other hand, it was better than Burn Hollywood Burn turned out to be. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bingo Long’s Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings

Baseball and civil rights: what’s not to love? I wish this movie had been made just a few years later, when meandering scriptlessness wasn’t quite so in vogue. Writing aside, this is a charming tale of a barnstorming baseball team’s attempts to make a living and have some fun in the days before Jackie Robinson. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Baseball

Date reviewed: 1/1/14

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birdman of Alcatraz

Vicious killer and bird expert Robert Stroud gets the Hollywood treatment in this occasionally-touching tale from the 1960s. The problem with casting Burt Lancaster in the title role is that he’s a bit too sympathetic. That may have been what they were going for here, but I would have preferred a more even balance between the kindly man who discovered cures for avian diseases and the murderer who was behind bars for a reason. This is more of a triumph-of-the-individual-spirit-over-the-system story, particularly the exchanges between Lancaster and Karl Malden as a by-the-book warden who pops in and out of the Birdman’s life. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Biography

Date reviewed: 3/31/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Birds

Though I suppose Psycho is Hitchcock’s most widely appreciated film, I’d like to put in a good word for this one as well. Sure, it’s a little uneven; the first half of the film concentrates on a lot of superfluous character development at the expense of the plot. But once birds everywhere turn on the human race and attack, the action takes off and it’s pretty good from that point forward. The movie features a couple of notable technical points, including the famous jungle gym sequence and the complete absence of added music on the soundtrack. So if you’re in the mood for an odd angle on the whole end-of-the-world thing, you should find this one a rewarding experience. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Birds 2: Land's End

Following the general trend in sequels made decades after popular originals, this is both dumb and largely unrelated to the Hitchcock classic (other than large flocks of angry birds and a brief appearance by Tippi Hedren). It also pretty much goes without saying that the picture is pretty hard on the birds. The family dog, too, though at least he gets a decent funeral (one of the few expressions of compassion for an animal I’ve ever seen in a horror movie). Further, the deadly birds don’t seem to supply enough of a plot to sustain the whole 90 minutes, so as filler we get the lead couple’s lame marital woes. Then the whole thing ends abruptly with nothing but set-up for an as-yet-blissfully-unrealized Birds 3. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 7/15/2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birds of Prey

The box for the DVD trumpets not the other triumphs of the director or the past accomplishments of the cast but rather the vita of the guy who did the aerial photography. I suppose that in a movie that’s mostly about helicopter chases, that’s a good thing. Certainly the chopper shots are the high point of this made-for-TV production from 1973 about an ex-Flying Tiger (David Jansen) now reduced to flying a traffic chopper. From his vantage point in the sky our hero witnesses a bank robbery. The robbers take a hostage and – as luck would have it – escape in a helicopter. The rest of the movie is chopper chase after chopper chase, punctuated occasionally by long stretches of pointless conversation. If you see this, consider fast-forwarding through the talking. Most of the dialogue is so stiff and contrived that it could have been written by Mamet and Tarantino, but only if both were having an especially bad day. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 3/17/2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birth

This is one of those laconically-paced little art movies that seem to attract big-name stars specifically because they’re laconically-paced little art movies. Perhaps they think it gives them a chance to show off their acting abilities. For example, one shot of Nicole Kidman’s face runs for nearly two whole minutes. Just her face and dramatic music. No kidding. With stunts like that abounding, even a neophyte film student would have little trouble cutting this feature-length stinker down to a 22-minute Twilight Zone episode. Kidman plays a newly-engaged woman approached by a ten-year-old kid (Danny Huston) who claims to be her dead husband. So it might actually have been an okay TZ (assuming the icky Kidman/Huston sexuality joined the endless, vacant staring on the cutting room floor). It just isn’t a good movie. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Ghost

Date reviewed: 7/27/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birth of the Living Dead

If you’re interested in Night of the Living Dead (and if you care about the history of zombie movies, you should be), by all means take the time to watch this documentary. It provides extensive information about how the picture was made and originally distributed (including the sad tale of how it ended up in the public domain). Even the talking-head social-commentary parts aren’t too bad. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Documentary

Date reviewed: 7/4/14

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bizarre Rituals

If the idea of watching Spider Webb bite Annie Sprinkle so hard she bleeds really gets your motor running, then this film may be for you. This is ostensibly a documentary about anthropologist Charles Gatewood, a nerdy little guy who has made an entire career out of photographing piercing buffs, nudists, transvestites and the like and then shocking pretentious east coast intellectuals with exhibits and slide shows. It’s more than a little fitting that most of the back half of the film is devoted to the mutilation antics of Fakir Musafar, a San Francisco advertising executive who’s something of a minor deity among “modern primitives.” Aside from some interesting visuals, this movie offers little beyond an extended tour of kink, fetish and pseudo-sociology. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: Outre

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Book

It takes some doing to make the Holocaust the second most important element of a movie, but this one does it. Yet again a thriller becomes so obsessed with the twists and turns of double-crossing that it loses track of just about everything else. The story starts out earnestly enough: a young Jewish woman joins the Dutch resistance after her family is massacred by Nazi thieves. But from there it sinks almost immediately into a mire of who’s-on-which-side. Some minor league violence and sex help keep things somewhat interesting, but otherwise the whole thing is fairly dull. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Holocaust

Date reviewed: 11/17/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Black Dahlia

I’m willing to bet that James Ellroy really liked this production of his novel about the famous Hollywood murder. On the other hand, I thought it was episodic and largely uninteresting. The slaying of Elizabeth Smart is only peripherally part of the plot, the bulk of the screen time going instead to the usual Ellroy parade of tough guy cops with deep personal problems. The result is a much duller movie than might have been made about such a sensational crime. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 12/28/2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Death

This is one of those movies that left me wondering why they even bothered to make it. I watched it because it looked like they spent some money on it and the Netflix description identified it as a horror movie. The former was correct. The latter, on the other hand ... maybe it's just that "horror" and "horrible" sound alike. The central thesis here seems to be that life sucked during the Middle Ages, especially after the Bubonic Plague broke out in the 14th century. Sean Bean heads an ensemble of grimy witchfinders in search of a village that has magically been spared from the disease ravaging the rest of the peasantry. Before the end everyone (witchfinders, peasants, innocent young protagonist, etc.) manages to deftly avoid either a literal or a moral victory. So thanks, people who made this, for bringing a little pointless misery into my life. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 6/10/11

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Forest

SyFy digs up the creepy roots of well-known fairy tales and turns them into a typically half-baked horror movie. A group of random tourists gets trapped in a strange world where old folk tales are real and homicidal. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Slasher

Date reviewed: 4/30/14

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Friday

This has to be one of the all-time weirdest explanations for the Jeckyl-Hyde dual personality plot: when a surgeon’s friend is mortally wounded in a car crash, the doctor saves the man’s life by giving him a partial brain transplant from the other crash victim, a notorious gangster. Thus a mild-mannered professor by day is transformed into a brutal, vengeance-bent thug at night. The result is more boring than it has any right to be. Boris Karloff stars as the mad doctor, and Bela Lugosi puts in a brief appearance as one of the mobster’s double-crossing ex-cronies. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 7/25/2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Hawk Down

With such an interesting story to tell and such a gifted storyteller at the helm, this should have been a better movie. Visually this is Ridley Scott business as usual, with lots of jump cuts and heavy filter work. The MTV rah-rah should have made an interesting combination with the sad tale of an American military mission gone horribly wrong in Somalia. However, the story soon sinks under its own weight. Perhaps if the cast had been more tightly focused on a smaller group of characters, or at the very least not been so jam-packed with interchangeable 20-something white boy Hollywood hunks, it might have been easier to empathize with the protagonists. As it was, the whole thing comes across as stupid and random, accurate perhaps but not as genuinely tragic as it might have been. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 7/10/2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Black Hole

After Star Wars caused such a stir in 1977, other movie studios tried hopping onto the sci fi bandwagon. This was Disney’s less-than-successful bid to join the club. The cast sports some talented – or at least familiar – actors (Anthony Perkins, Yvette Mimieux and Ernest Borgnine, to name just three). The effects aren’t up to ILM par, but they’re good for the time. The script is bad, but the underlying story has a few interesting twists and turns. The problem here isn’t what the movie is, it’s what it isn’t. And what it isn’t is Star Wars. The characters, the robots, the villains, just about everything in the whole show finds a parallel in its more popular predecessor (except in the end, when it suddenly turns into 2001 for no readily-apparent reason). The result is a picture that screams “bargain basement” almost the whole way through. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Sci fi

Date reviewed: 11/19/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Hole

Thank goodness for the Sci Fi Channel. Without it, where would Judd Nelson find work? This time around he’s the I-tried-to-warn-you-all scientist in a battle against a black hole accidentally created by a science experiment. His efforts to keep the singularity from swallowing St. Louis are complicated by the presence of some kind of energy monster hopping in and out of another dimension via the title portal. Even the effects are bad, consisting primarily of animated electricity knocking stuff out in advance of the swelling event horizon. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Sci fi

Date reviewed: 9/17/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Legion

Humphrey Bogart takes on the Klan. Or to be more precise, his character joins a Klan-like organization in this ahead-of-its-time anti-racism piece from 1937. Bogart plays a machine shop worker who gets passed over for a promotion, which sends him into a hate spiral directed at the ethnically-different guy who got the job. The hate mongering is cartoonish, not quite Reefer Madness bad but in the same ballpark. Still, it’s fun to see such a pedantic cautionary tale told about the loathsome likes of pointy-headed bigots. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 7/16/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Magic Mansion

A group of juvenile delinquents (who never get naked, so if that’s why you’re thinking about renting this, don’t get your hopes up) on the lam from the law hide out in an old mansion that turns out to be the abode of a magician and his daughter. Somehow a demon ends up unleashed, with predictable results. I’ve also seen this under the title Cthulhu Mansion, and though the credits feature a nod to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, really there’s little Lovecraftiana to be found here. The credits should more honestly reflect the debt to The Evil Dead, from which the poorly-written script steals shamelessly. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Lovecraft

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Mask

The budgets are getting bigger and the effects, editing and choreography more sophisticated, but otherwise this Jet Li vehicle is still the same old martial arts soup Bruce Lee used to serve up. In fact, the Black Mask costume donned by Li is more than a little reminiscent of Lee’s character in the old Green Hornet series. The Universal Soldier-esque plot – little more than a cheap excuse to bridge the fight sequences together – involves a former member of an elite squad of super soldiers doing battle with former-comrades-turned-drug-gang-assassins. Hit the fast-forward button every time someone starts talking, press play again when they start hitting and shooting each other, and you should get the most out of this movie without enduring the bad dubbing and mediocre, rap-heavy soundtrack. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Martial arts

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Moon

This movie actually contains the delivered-in-all-seriousness line, “The natives are restless.” And that’s typical of the racial sensitivity – or lack of same – displayed throughout the picture. A white woman can’t wait to return to the Caribbean island where she grew up because she misses participating in voodoo ceremonies with the aforementioned restless natives. This puts her at odds with her wealthy husband and plantation-owning uncle, especially after her return to her voodoo ways places her daughter in jeopardy. “Once you go black you never go back” sexuality lurks just below the surface of the drama, though of course in the 1930s it couldn’t be an overt plot element. Fortunately for jilted hubby, his secretary (Fay Wray) is waiting in the wings to be a good wife to him and a good mother to his daughter as soon as wife gets her eventual come-uppance. Sheesh. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Voodoo

Date reviewed: 10/14/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Ops

I almost skipped over this one in the movie listings, assuming it would be just another mediocre action movie. However, what it turned out to be was just another mediocre horror movie. They try an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach, tossing in Navy commandos, a ghost ship, a genetically-engineered Nazi superman and a ton of other plot gimmicks of similar ilk. But with a script this bad and production values this straight-to-video, this one’s doomed from the start. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Zombie

Date reviewed: 4/3/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Rain

Combine crime drama, Ridley Scott, the 80s and Japan, and you get pretty much exactly what you’d expect. The visuals are slickly-produced, but the plot and characters fall a little short (particularly the lead role played by the perpetually-hammy Michael Douglas). The exception here is the villain, who is interesting in a manic sort of way. Also, some of the violence is well choreographed. I particularly liked the motorcycle/sword combo (about which I can say no more without ruining part of the story) and the finger-chopping scene. Otherwise this is a pretty picture but not much else. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 6/7/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Black Room

Boris Karloff plays twins in this clever thriller from 1935. The older (by a minute or two) brother inherits the family barony, but he turns out to be a killer, a rapist and a general, all-around jerk. Years earlier his younger brother fled in order to avoid a family curse that says he’ll kill his sibling by throwing him into a pit in a chamber in the family castle called the Black Room. But after younger sib is lured back, older sib appears to break the curse by murdering first. It’s a scheme with potential: win back the support of his rebellious people by pretending to be his kindly younger brother. Unfortunately he just can’t seem to give up his jackass ways, and he swiftly ends up right back in trouble again. This picture hits Karloff right at the perfect point in his career. The production doesn’t suffer from too many of the technical weaknesses of the early talkies, and he isn’t playing the mad scientist role into which he got typecast later in his career. Though nobody is likely to walk away from this thinking, “wow, what a brilliant movie,” it manages to be reasonably entertaining. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 12/15/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Sabbath

Sorry, kids. No Ozzy. This is an Italian anthology piece narrated by (and partially starring) Boris Karloff. Act One reminds us that if we’re charged with prepping the body of someone named Madame Zenovia (or really Madame Anything) for burial, it might be better not to steal jewelry from the corpse. Act Two pits a woman against the disembodied spirit of her dead brother, who keeps calling her up. In addition to more phone ringing than anyone should have to sit through in the course of an evening, we also get dialogue like “You’re dead! Don’t you understand? You’re dead!” Ah, but then we get Act Three, in which a family is devastated by a wurdalak, a Central European vampire that can only suck blood from loved ones. Karloff’s presence starts out as a plus, but then he has to deliver lines like “Woman, can I not fondle my own grandson?” Overall this is another one of those inept productions that steadfastly eschews every possible opportunity to be clever or interesting. At least it helped spare us from the spectacle of songs such as “Iron Man” and “War Pigs” being performed by a band called Earth. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Anthology

Date reviewed: 2/5/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Black Sleep

This movie has a few things going for it. It’s got a stellar horror cast, including Basil Rathbone, John Caradine, Tor Johnson, Bela Lugosi, and Lon Chaney Jr. (though the last three don’t have a single line between them). It has an intriguing premise: a mad scientist performs personality-destroying surgery on unwilling victims in order to figure out how the brain works. It even has a cool title, a reference to the death-simulating drug the good doctor uses to sedate his patients. If only the pace hadn’t been quite so laconic; I was nearly in a black sleep myself by the end of it. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Mad scientist

Date reviewed: 7/16/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Swarm

So here’s where Robert Englund’s career went to die, stung to death by killer CGI wasps. The local exterminator tries to rekindle a relationship with the widow of his dead twin brother while her daughter eats a peach grown by a mad scientist who works on genetically modifying bugs for bioweapons use, and the fruit transforms her into the queen of killer CGI wasps, and then … well, you get the idea. They might even have been able to pull this off in a limited way if only the wasps’ stings hadn’t transformed their victims into homicidal zombies. I don’t know why the zombie thing was the ridiculous twist that finally pushed it too far, but it did the trick. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 8/23/2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blackwater Valley Exorcism

Imagine a bizarre combination of exorcism movie, religious message piece, and soap opera. Now try to imagine why anyone would want to make such a production. The movie leads off with a solemn assurance that the exorcism scenes were put together under the close supervision of a Catholic priest to assure authenticity, and then we’re told that this is based on a true story. Lord, I hope not. I’d like to think that God and Satan both have better things to do than this. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Demon

Date reviewed: 8/20/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Widow

Wealthy single men beware! There’s a beautiful serial killer (Teresa Russell) out there looking to worm her way into your life, marry you, bump you off and walk away with all your money. Unfortunately for her, crypto-lesbian tendencies leave her vulnerable to a sassy little stalker (Debra Winger) who figures out her game. If only the stalker wasn’t a federal agent, things might have gone more smoothly for our sultry anti-heroine. As it turned out … well, as with all mystery thrillers you should probably watch the movie if you want to know how it turns out. Aside from the empty-headed Hollywood take on lesbians, this is a reasonably good example of the mystery genre. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 11/4/2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blacula

I think the Simpsons already did the “Hunchblack of Blotre Blame” joke, so here I’ll just add that another good one would have been “The Blummy.” As with a lot of blaxploitation movies from the early 70s, this production’s heart is in the right place. The tale of an African prince turned into a vampire by Dracula has some potential for exploring serious race issues. Further, horror from this era is what scared me when I was a kid, so I got at least some small thrills from some of the shock sequences. But overall this is just as dumb, cheap and packed with racist clichés as the title implies. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 4/3/2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blade

If you can figure out how to do it, try watching the first fifteen minutes and the last ten or so, and skip the rest. When screen time is devoted to fast-moving action sequences with plenty of exploding, melting vampires, this movie is pretty good. But all the meandering plot development, Wesley Snipes soul-searching, and vampire in-fighting gets the big who-cares. If you’re going to make an action movie, make an action movie for cryin’ out loud. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 1998

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blade 2

At least it wasn’t as boring as the first one, due for the most part to the wise decision to crank up the action and turn down the plot. The story – to the extent that there is one – has something to do with our intrepid swordsman hero joining forces with his sworn enemies the vampires in order to defeat a legion of some kind of super-vampire creatures. A lot of the comic book elements creep in at awkward moments, such as the presence of a vampire SWAT team where each member has their own weapon of choice and nerdy nickname. But let’s be honest. If you’re going to rent a movie like this, you’re doing it for the creepy bloodsuckers and the flying fists of kung fu death. And you get both of those in abundance. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 10/5/2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blade Trinity

Third verse, same as the first. New tricks this time around include a gaggle of gizmos ranging from anti-vampire viruses to iPods. Beyond product placement, however, this is more of that old, familiar, comic book plot and dialogue. If you liked the first two, odds are this one will have the same effect. If you didn’t like them, why are you still bothering with these things? Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 6/10/2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blade Runner

I can’t review this movie. It’s one of my all-time favorites, and the emotional ties run too deep for me to give you anything even vaguely resembling an objective opinion about it. So suffice it to say that this is one of the greatest triumphs the art direction department ever had in the world of cinema. Some of the acting’s a little stiff, but if you seek out the director’s cut you can at least avoid the hackneyed, pseudo-noir Harrison Ford voice-overs. Though you may have an entirely different experience from mine when you watch this one, I still highly recommend that you at least give it a try. Verdict: buy the disc.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Sci fi

Date reviewed: 8/17/2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blades of Glory

Zoolander on ice. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 11/10/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blair Witch Project

I guess if they’d called this “The Lost in the Damn Woods and Got No Smokes Project” they probably wouldn’t have been able to sucker as many people into paying to see it. The first few minutes aren’t too bad, and the very end would probably have been powerful stuff if the preceding hour or so hadn’t completely worn out the film’s welcome. The middle, unfortunately, plays like MTV’s “Real World” doing a version of those dumb ghost stories we all used to tell when we were kids. It’s a seemingly endless onslaught of three film students screaming at each other about how much they hate being lost in the woods and how much they all want cigarettes. Occasionally there’s a little less-is-more horror to be found, and my hat’s off to them for having the guts to keep it simple in an effects-intensive market, regardless of my suspicion that it was a creative decision motivated by finances as much as by aesthetics. But overall this is a tiresome, amateurish effort that in my opinion deserved little of the critical acclaim it received. I suppose that as long as film students have easy access to equipment and exposure to the works of Peter Watkins, this film was bound to get made sooner or later. If only it could have been later. Much later. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Ghost

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows

Just about the nicest thing I have to say about this effort is that at least it’s not quite as terrible as the original. But then what is? This time around we get a bigger budget, a slicker production, and a plot (or at least something that sort of passes for one). Once again a group of young folks heads into the woods in search of the supernatural.  At least this time they remember to take plenty of smokes and manage not to get lost. After suffering a series of mishaps our heroes return to civilization only to discover that the forces of darkness have taken possession of their lives. Like the first one, this outing’s clearly intended for the teen market, and even then only the more easily-amused members of the audience are likely to get much of a kick out of it. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Ghost

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blast from the Past

High on concept and low on content, this situation comedy promises more than it delivers. Brendan Fraser stars as a man who emerges in present-day Los Angeles after spending the first 35 years of his life living in a bomb shelter with his parents (Christopher Walken and Sissy Spacek). Our hero forms one of those ever-popular love-hate relationships with love-hate interest Alicia Silverstone as he wanders LA in search of provisions. It’s a cute if somewhat implausible idea, but it never goes anywhere. Almost all the humor derives directly from a highly contrived sense of culture shock, and it gets really old really fast. It’s not a terrible film, and if you’re in the mood for a no-brainer you could do a lot worse. But it’s nobody’s best work, and for Fraser and Silverstone that’s really saying something. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blazing Saddles

This time around Mel Brooks apparently sets out to accomplish two goals: parody the western genre and serve up a little comedic commentary on race relations in the 1970s. He accomplishes the first goal fairly well, though I imagine I probably would have appreciated the parody a little more if I enjoyed the targeted genre (or even knew much about it, which I don’t). Brooks meets and exceeds the second goal, which in a way is unfortunate because it makes this movie very much a creature of its own time and a bit hard for folks in more politically sensitive times to appreciate. Those aspects aside, this is standard Brooks fare, highly dependent on sophomoric gags, sometimes funny and other times merely lame. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Parody

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blended

Typical Sandler/Barrymore comedy. This time around they’re single parents who hate each other. But through a series of unlikely coincidences their families end up sharing a luxury vacation, which of course means they have to fall in love. Situations, plot twists and jokes are all highly predictable. Overall this plays like a 21st century redo of The Brady Bunch. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 9/25/14

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blessed

Rosemary’s Baby gets a 21st-century reheat in a production suited primarily for the Lifetime Movie Network. Heather Graham stars as a woman who seeks help from an upstate fertility clinic. Unfortunately for her and her charming husband, the place they pick has a bit of a side-line going: cloning embryos from a blood sample left behind by Lucifer and planting them in unsuspecting women in order to bring about the apocalypse. Through various dull twists and turns they manage to stretch this meager thread out to an hour and a half. The only point of interest here is that the audience ends up in the awkward position of hoping everything works out okay for Graham and her unborn twins despite the fact that we know they’re evil. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Demon

Date reviewed: 7/15/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bless the Child

Demons leave those kids alone. This time around Satan’s minions are after an especially blessed child who, though only six, appears to be destined for a career as a great power of good. When a demon-worshipping self-help cult tries (with varying degrees of success) to snatch the kid from her aunt (Kim Basinger), the social issues hit the stage. We get custody hassles. We get cult deprogramming issues. We get satanic crime investigation. And so on. Further, Hollywood seems to be trying to make it up to the Catholic Church for Stigmata, because the forces of good are heavily identified with organized religion. The highlights, on the other hand, include some cool CG demons and a small supporting role for Christina Ricci. Hey demons, leave those kids alone. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Demon

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary

Here’s a documentary made compelling solely by the identity of its subject. The movie is two or three videotaped interviews with Traudl Junge – one of Hitler’s personal secretaries from 1942 until his death – spliced together into an awkward production that nonetheless remains fairly fascinating throughout. I know I’ve probably complained about the excessive use of this sort of thing elsewhere, but here it actually would have been nice for the talking heads to have been intercut with historical footage or at least some old stills showing some of the people and places being discussed. But even the minimalist approach chosen by the director does a solid job conveying the chilling normalcy of life inside the Third Reich’s high command, particularly in its final days buried in a bunker in Berlin. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: Historical

Date reviewed: 11/15/2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blind Swordsman's Vengeance

Our sightless hero Master Zatoichi is once again up to his old tricks, drawn against his will into defending helpless villagers from yakuza gangsters. This is your typical mix of swordplay, philosophical musings and other genre clichés. Nearly the only novel twist this time around is the bad guys’ attempt to flummox the protagonist by attacking him while playing extra-loud thunder drums so he won’t be able to hear them coming for him. Of course it doesn’t work, but it’s the thought that counts. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Samurai

Date reviewed: 1/26/2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blob

Despite the wooden acting and dated dialogue, this remains one of the ultimate drive-in horror flicks. Sure, it has more in common with the goofy old juvenile delinquent movies with which it shares an era in film history than it does with the festivals of graphic sex and violence to come. And sure, the villain here looks like a great big wad of tomato soup concentrate, which in odd moments actually manages to provide a chill or two. But it still has its good points, not the least of which is a very young Steve McQueen doing his level best to muddle through. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Sci fi

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blob (1988)

The original was an entertaining movie, and I think it could provide a solid basis for a good sequel or remake. Unfortunately, this ain’t it. The effects are nothing to write home about, though they are better than the 50s version. The monster’s origin as an out-of-control bioweapons experiment wasn’t bad, certainly in keeping with the mid-80s milieu. But the time period that spawned this picture also supplied its downfall: the movie is stuck in the John-Hughes-esque mire of well-scrubbed teenagers who lead quirky little lives. It also doesn’t help that everyone who lives in this world looks like they’re fresh from the set of a Calvin Klein photo shoot (except for the soldiers, who are of course sporting the mandatory paranoid-fantasy bio-suits). If you collect movies about deadly goo from outer space, you’ll want to add this one. Otherwise there isn’t much to recommend it. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 5/9/2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood and Chocolate

These werewolves are almost boring enough to be vampires. That’s no big surprise, given that this was produced by the same folks that created Underworld. The art-direction-intensive, jump-cutty goth crap that worked okay for bloodsuckers and then only just sorta worked for the witches in The Covenant works not at all for werewolves. This production also falls into the same trap that snagged The Wolfen many years ago: actual wolves – especially if they aren’t special-effected up in some way – are way too cute to make menacing monsters. The case isn’t helped any by the use of the lamest transformation sequences of all time. I’ve griped in the past about the extended man-into-beast effects parades that stop stories dead, but even that would have been better than the twinkle-intensive soft fade leap that does the trick here. Are these savage, flesh-tearing beasts or extras from Barbie Fairytopia? Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Werewolf

Date reviewed: 7/18/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood Bath

A better script might have turned this from a bad, low-budget horror movie to a good one. The concepts behind the vignettes in this anthology piece aren’t bad, but the dialogue and action are so stiff that the plot gets lost. The bracket also loses focus around midway through. That notwithstanding, there’s some entertaining stuff here. Actor-wise, keep an eye out for supporting roles played by Doris Roberts and P.J. Soles. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Anthology

Date reviewed: 7/12/2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blood Beast Terror

The parts with the moth/human hybrid monster are some fun. Sadly that’s less than two minutes out of the total 88. The rest is a weak re-heat of the plot from The Reptile. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 5/14/13

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood Creek

Throughout big chunks of this movie I had the nagging feeling that I’d seen it before. Perhaps it was because I’ve seen so many cheap horror movies that they’re starting to blend together in my memory. Or maybe I started watching it sometime in the past, got bored or frustrated, gave up on it and then forgot about it. That certainly would have been an understandable reaction. A couple of rednecks and a family of immortal German farmers square off against an evil Nazi zombie-vampire-whatever trying to use a rune stone to grow a third eye and rule the universe from beyond the grave. The production ruins itself by paying only the scantest attention to plot and character, instead dwelling on fight sequences that seldom rise above a lot of flopping around on the ground. Oh, and violent animal death. Lots and lots of violent animal death. I don’t know why a good horror movie with Nazi occultist villains is so hard to make, but once again the goal proves elusive. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it. CHLITM: 28 minutes.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 10/1/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood Diamond

The whole time I was watching this movie I just kept thinking how much better it would have been if it had been a small, independent production rather than a big-budget Hollywood mess. To be sure, a couple of scenes – such as the refugee camp – were helped by hefty doses of the studio’s cash. But for every place the money was put to good use, two or three other parts are actually damaged by presence of big stars – especially radically-miscast Leonardo DiCaprio – or other expensive baubles. Of course part of the problem is that the movie wants to be a criticism of the international trade in conflict diamonds; it aims and aims but somehow never quite seems to pull the trigger. For example, when rattling off the roll call of nations playing this particular game, both South Africa and Israel somehow escape mention. And the “what have we learned?” title cards at the end advise us that we can do our part by insisting that the diamonds we purchase be conflict-free (ignoring the assurances earlier in the picture that blood diamonds are indistinguishable from their more politically-correct cousins). The result is a couple of hours’ worth of pricey paving stones for the road to hell. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 3/24/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood from the Mummy's Tomb

Once again Stoker’s “Jewel of the Seven Stars” gets whipped out for another flogging. Ancient curses. Artifacts stolen from a tomb. Beautiful woman possessed by the spirit of an Egyptian princess. Blah blah blah. Some of the “scary” sequences are kinda fun in a creepy, Hammer sort of way. But most of the rest of the production moves between predictable plot points in a not particularly interesting path. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Mummy

Date reviewed: 1/14/2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood Gnome

Rubber monsters need to feed on blood, their hunger satisfied by killing members of the blood fetish sub-stratum of the BDSM scene. If you’re shocked or titillated by nudity, bondage or crappy rubber puppets, then they finally made the movie you’ve been waiting for. Sadly, that’s all this picture has to offer. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 2/25/13

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood in the Face

American Nazis reach the height of their entertainment value when they're being run off a bridge. But if you feel the need to dig deeper into this hideous subculture, this documentary will give you at least a taste. The production is a good mix of interviews and archive footage. It also has a nice companion book. On the other hand, the subject at hand is downright ugly. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: Political

Date reviewed: 2/23/11

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bloodlock

This is one of those movies that I forget almost literally as soon as they're over. It's a guy-with-a-video-camera-and-some-friends-who-can-kinda-act production about a not-happily-married young couple who move into a house with a vampire locked in the basement. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 6/13/11

 

 

 

 

 

 

BloodMonkey

I guess if they called this “ButtMonkey” it wouldn’t have sounded as scary. Actually, what they should have called it was “NoMonkey.” The first half of the picture is all set-up (group of college students ventures into the jungle at the behest of an anthropologist who’s more than slightly off his rocker), and the last half hour is all screaming and running. That left about ten minutes sandwiched in the middle that might have been good except it wasn’t. The real surprise was that the title monsters don’t actually appear on screen until the final seconds of the show. Honestly that was for the best, because the computer animated gorilla-of-menace seriously didn’t work. Oh, and what evil befell F. Murray Abraham to knock him off the pedestal of respectable roles and reduce him to this lowly state? Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 2/28/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bloodmoon

 

Aside from a couple of small details, this is yet another run-of-the-mill slasher movie. Unlike most others this one’s Australian, and the weapon of choice is a peculiar garrote made of barbed wire. But otherwise our friends down under prove that they can hold quite strictly to the conventions of the genre. Teenagers have sex (somewhat graphically in a couple of spots). They’re butchered by the psycho-killer. Then the antagonist is done in by his obsession with slaughtering the “good kids,” the ones who are truly in love and aren’t actually having sex. The production is competent enough (aside from sporting a dreadful soundtrack and dragging just a bit toward the end) and should prove more than able to satisfy any craving one might have for this sort of thing. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Slasher

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood Moon

 

When you’re looking at a straight-to-video horror movie starring Tim Curry, Grace Jones and Leslie Ann Warren, it’s reasonable to assume that it’s going to be some cheap, exploitative crap. Thus I was pleasantly surprised when – in addition to the cheap, exploitative crap – the flick also featured a plot, characters and – wonder of wonders – a point. Sure, the theme here is familiar: the denizens of a traveling freak show square off against the “normals” (Todd Browning, anyone?). But there’s more to it than that. The protagonist’s genes have left her fur-covered, and thus she headlines the show as the Wolf Girl. Tormented by some of the locals who come to see the show, she befriends a loner from town who just happens to have an experimental depilatory drug he’d like to test. Trouble is, the more our heroine looks like everyone else, the more savage she becomes. Stir that in with the show’s exploration of sexual deviance and the plot’s eventual uncovering of the normals’ secret freakishness, and this tale’s a lot more thought-provoking than it appeared at first blush. I could have done without the animal research subplot (particularly the scene where the test rabbit gnaws itself to death), but the rest of it’s as entertaining as your average low-budget horror movie while at the same time going a lot farther toward keeping things interesting. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Werewolf

Date reviewed: 6/25/2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet

 

I’ve seen literally hundreds of horror movies that start with some promise but end up slain by one failed element in the production mix. Most often it’s bad directing or bad acting, though it can be any combination of elements on the low budget horror don’t list. However, this picture’s a novelty, because it’s ruined almost entirely by the writers. The production is competently assembled, and the acting is downright solid by sub-genre standards. But the dialogue? Ouch. It’s like listening to an hour and a half of a witless what-are-you-doing-dunno-how-bout-you cell phone conversation occasionally punctuated by attacks from a naked slasher ghost. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Slasher

Date reviewed: 3/16/13

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood of Dracula (1957)

 

This thing’s got almost no blood and even less Dracula (unless you count the fact that some of the characters refer to vampires as “Draculas”). Instead what we get is the bizarre tale of a rebellious teenage girl who gets sent to a boarding school. There she falls under the hypnotic influence of a twisted chemistry teacher who tries some kind of bizarre mind control experiment on her. As a result she’s transformed into a bloodsucking fiend, and things go downhill from there. The script and acting are awful in equal measures, making this play out like an old John Waters movie (only Waters was parodying productions like this, whereas I’m pretty sure these folks are serious). It also sports a parade of JD movie clichés, including a dreadful musical number. Though film students in the 1950s might have been able to consult this production as an example of how not to make a movie, by now even that small value is gone, making this little more than a relic of an age that has fortunately passed away. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 8/17/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood of the Vampire

 

Isn’t there some kind of FTC regulation that says if a movie has “vampire” in the title that there has to be a vampire in the movie? If not, there should be. To be completely fair, the villain in this dreary little English picture is prolonging his life by consuming human blood. But beyond that he’s really more of a mad scientist than a traditional bloodsucker. He performs experiments on the “patients” at the mental hospital where he presides, drafting a wrongfully-imprisoned inmate with medical training to become his unwilling assistant. A mistake, as it turns out, because the assistant’s desire to escape proves to be the undoing of the whole operation. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 9/6/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood on Satan's Claw

 

Particularly early on, this picture features a few genuinely spooky moments. As one might expect, it suffers from many of the defects endemic to British horror movies from the 60s and 70s: it’s slow, the production values are bad, the acting is melodramatic, and so on. Indeed, this tale of an evil presence that lures the young folk of an English village into a coven turns out to be more graphic than many other productions from this time and place. A graphic rape sequence stands out as a strong example of the sort of thing that wouldn’t show up the average edited-for-television Hammer horror flick. However, the film-makers wisely decided not to use the makeup effects too far beyond their usefulness. The result features several scare spots that end up subtle enough to actually be scary. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Witch

Date reviewed: 4/5/2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

BloodRayne

 

It’s all in what letter you capitalize. If they’d called this movie BlooDrayne, it would have been a much funnier outing. As it was, this is purely a case of Uwe Boll grabbing another video game and making another craptacular horror movie out of it. This time it’s about some kind of half-human, half-vampire midriff who joins a band of medieval commandos in a war against bloodsuckers everywhere. The result is something that’s merely time filler for the Sci Fi Channel (once a couple of extraneous boob shots are cut out, of course). Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 4/6/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

BloodRayne 2: Deliverance

 

If you ever wondered what happened to the guy who played Scut Farcas in A Christmas Story, he shows up here as a bloodsucking Billy the Kid. Actually, I IMDB’d the guy, and apparently he’s been in a lot of stuff since he was a kid. Well, his agent should have steered him clear of this one. Our heroine from the first one (here played by fresh meat) takes to the Wild West to save a town from marauding vampires. Uwe Boll once again makes a movie as cheap and dreadful as he can (and that’s saying something, as the man has a prodigious talent for sucking). The only “deliverance” we get comes 90 minutes later when the credits finally roll. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 4/7/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood Simple

 

This early effort by the Coen brothers does an astonishingly good job of playing out the theme suggested by its title. What starts out with a sleazy bar owner mad at his wife for running off with a bartender ends up as an impressive parade of scummy characters doing the dumbest things imaginable thanks to a simple inability to cope with their own culpability in a domino line of crimes. If nothing else, it’s fun just to watch the number of obvious finger print specimens everyone keeps leaving everywhere. The humor here isn’t as broad as it is in some of the Coens’ later work, and there’s plusses and minuses to that. Overall this is a delightful little white trash thriller of murder so stupid you’d almost swear it had to be a true story. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 11/14/2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bloodsport

 

Here’s the flying-fists-of-kung-fu-death masterpiece that helped Jean-Claude Van Damme launch his auspicious career as an action movie hero. This based-on-a-true-story tale of the first westerner to win the legendary Kumite martial arts battle is packed with more feel-good clichés that a kiddie-oriented Christmas special. Much of the fight choreography seems amateurish by later standards, but it’s still entertaining in a guy movie kind of way. And as out-of-date as the flick is technically, it undeniably predates the Ultimate Fighting craze by at least half a decade. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Martial arts

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bloodthirst

 

“Legend of the Chupacabras” indeed. I think they should have gone ahead and called this one “Goatsuckers.” That at least would have been more in keeping not only with the monster in question but also with the cheap, video production values. Actually, I kinda hate to say anything bad about a movie that – however amateurish – seems so gosh darn sincere. Everyone involved clearly appears to be giving 100%, so who am I to fault them for coming up a bit short? And as amateur productions go, I’ve seen a lot worse. Sure, the script has problems (stiff dialogue, too many characters and subplots) and the effects aren’t very special. But honestly my only serious gripe is that with a folklore base as potentially cool as the chupacabra, it would have been really nice if they’d come up with something better than zombie vampires for bad guys. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 4/26/2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bloody Sunday

 

My hat’s off to the folks who put this together if for no other reason than this is the only time in recent memory that anyone’s managed to do the whole Peter Watkins fake-documentary-recreation-of-historical-event and actually pull it off. And goodness knows they aren’t the only ones who’ve tried. I can’t accurately describe this as an entertaining movie, because the subject matter is too damn depressing and the recreation of the events surrounding the Bloody Sunday Massacre is too vivid to make this any fun to watch. I suppose that pro-English critics might point out that this is an Irish production and thus may not exactly do justice to the British paratroopers who shot unarmed marchers. Of course, that might raise the question about what exactly would be justice for the paras. I found it helpful to turn on the captions, inasmuch as the accents, frequently heavily laced with slang, are sometimes difficult to understand. I also thought including all of an extended live performance of U2’s song about the massacre at the end of the movie (which required keeping a black screen up even after the credits finished rolling) was sort of excessive. Otherwise this is an outstanding film. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Political

Date reviewed: 6/24/2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blow

 

I think this is the movie Traffic secretly wanted to be. Down deep it has the same “just say no to the decadent life of a drug dealer” ethos, but it manages to sugar-coat this boring pill with a thick veneer of faux coolness, including a host of “edgy” actors (including Johnny Depp, Paul Reubens, and a brief appearance by Bobcat Goldthwaite). This is the sad, supposedly “based on a true” story of a kid from small town Massachusetts who grows up to be the biggest coke dealer in the United States. His rise to power is amusing in a Scarface sort of way, but his subsequent decline drips far too much cheap sentiment, particularly when the protagonist starts mooning around about not being a good father to his little girl. Overall I guess I’ve seen worse drug movies. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blown Away

 

This one’s worth it just for Tommy Lee Jones’s Psycho Killer Dead Crab T.S. Eliot Puppet Theater. Unfortunately, that’s about all it’s worth it for. A retiring expert with the Boston PD bomb squad (Jeff Bridges) is drawn back into the fold when an old terrorist acquaintance (Jones) turns up with revenge on his mind. Though Jones’s frantic over-acting is a sight to behold, the rest of the picture is a run-of-the-mill thriller. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 8/4/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blow Out

 

This is vintage Brian DePalma, complete with plenty of awkward editing, clunky script and Nancy Allen. A movie sound expert (played by John Travolta back when he was still capable of playing roles other than John Travolta) is out in a park recording night noises when he witnesses a car accident involving a prominent politician and a call girl (Allen). His recording of the incident reveals that the car’s tire was shot out by an assassin (John Lithgow). And on things go from there, our hero trying to get the truth out while keeping himself and his new girlfriend out of the clutches of the killer. Some of the sound editing sequences were fun in a trip-down-the-pre-digital-memory-lane way, but the rest of it is mediocre stuff. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 5/21/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue Demon

 

I cast you out, Blue Demon! Seriously, how can anyone make a movie chock full o’ sharks without a single scary moment in the whole thing? Realizing that they were going to fall way short of decently aping Deep Blue Sea, the folks who made this stinker decided it needed to be a tongue-in-cheek horror comedy. And as usual with such efforts, it wavers between dull and offensive without ever approaching entertaining. For example, a government-funded project to create super-smart killer sharks is being run by the Air Force (most likely because the production company already had Air Force uniforms on hand). Then there are the midget jokes. Then there are … well, you see what we’re dealing with here. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 4/2/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blue Lagoon

 

Imagine growing up on an isolated island with no adults or social norms to help you make sense of things like sex. The premise has potential. Unfortunately the folks behind the cameras seem as naïve about movie-making as the two protagonists are about lovemaking. Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins get the bulk of the screen time, as one might suspect from their marooned status. Likewise the cinematography is predictably pretty. The script, on the other hand, is laughably dumb, like some horrible Harlequin romance version of Lord of the Flies. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Romance

Date reviewed: 10/11/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blue Max

 

If you just watch the battle scenes in this picture, it’s actually quite entertaining. Indeed, some of the aerial combat footage is downright spectacular, airplane choreography working smoothly with cinematography to produce excellent results. And though I have to admit that I’m a sucker for the whole World War One dogfighting thing, even viewers without an inherent interest should still be able to appreciate the quality of the work. Ah, but then the plot intrudes. George Peppard stars as a young German ace obsessed with achieving 21 kills so he can earn the coveted Blue Max medal. That much might have been okay, but then he gets tangled up with the wife (Ursula Andress) of a general (James Mason), and things go downhill from there. So just keep a finger close to the fast-forward button and hit it whenever no planes are on screen. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 6/18/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blues Brothers

 

I saw this movie during its original theatrical release, and at the time I thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. Of course I was in my early teens back then. Upon recent re-viewing, the scenes that stood out were almost exclusively the performances by actual musicians rather than John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. The Cab Calloway fantasy performance of “Minnie the Moocher” is a high point in director John Landis’s career, and the Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles sequences are also excellent. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the picture is silly, SNL-worthy screwball comedy (especially the self-parodying car chases). I still enjoyed watching it, but 30 years ago I probably would have given it a higher rating. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Musical

Date reviewed: 2/27/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue Sunshine

 

What’s the worst side effect of bad acid: that it comes back to haunt you ten years after you take it, that it turns you into a homicidal maniac, or that it makes your hair fall out? From this movie’s 1978 standpoint, I’m guessing it’s the hair. In the lead role, Zalman King’s acting is as stiff and ridiculous as the pay channel erotica that later made him famous. Overall this is a vaguely entertaining relic from an era when LSD and disco seemed like they would be important to society. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 6/21/12

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue Thunder

 

If you like car chases then step right up to the next level: helicopter chases. As action movies go, this is standard, almost formulaic fare. A heapin’ helpin’ of Roy Scheider as a PTS-suffering ‘Nam vet who flies choppers for the LAPD. A dash of Malcolm McDowell as a creepy government agent up to no good. A large dose of military helicopter converted to civilian use to aid with security during the 1984 Olympics. Coat with corporate conspiracy. Bake for 90 minutes. Let cool. Serve. Aside from some brief nudity and language, this might have worked quite well as a made-for-TV movie. However, the plot is too simple-minded and the chopper-centric action a bit too extensive for this show to provide much more than a few cheap thrills. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 4/28/2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue Velvet

 

David Lynch’s mainstream work – particularly The Elephant Man and Dune – tends to sport little “Lynchy” moments in which the director’s art school background shows through a bit too strongly. This is a whole movie made of such moments. Even simple, everyday dialogue takes on an odd, hallucinatory quality. Lynch-look-vaguely-alike Kyle McLachlan finds a severed ear in a field. Subsequent events tie him to an innocent girl next door (Laura Dern) and an exotic lounge singer (Isabella Rosselini). And his seamy affair with the singer in turn brings him into unfortunate contact with her nitrous-inhaling psycho boyfriend (Dennis Hopper, in what must be the role he was born to play). Frankly, the plot is an irrelevant detail, consistently taking a back seat to strange visuals, quirky characters and arty editing. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 9/6/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bobby

 

Wow, has it ever been my week for disappointing movies. First Night at the Museum and now this. The thought here must have been “ensemble piece,” but instead it comes across as a gaggle of Hollywood types (particularly “writer” / director Emilio Estevez) treating the hours before Robert Kennedy’s assassination as their own personal vanity project. As a result, what could have been a poignant story of the small lives affected by big events instead becomes a festival of the worst of the “look at me” school of acting. Combine that with a stiff – and in some spots downright stupid – script and some bad editing decisions, and this turns into a poor entry in the long series of movies made about the lives and times of the Kennedys. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Historical

Date reviewed: 6/21/2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Body

 

What if a body turned up in a tomb in Jerusalem, and what if all the evidence strongly suggested that it was the distinctly un-resurrected corpse of Jesus Christ? The concept alone is worth the rental price. To get much beyond the premise, however, you have to be willing to buy Antonio Banderas as a priest. Yeah, no kidding. I enjoyed the archaeology-driven parts of the plot, but I felt the film-makers’ attempt to keep things going with a lot of West Asian intrigue fell more than a little flat. The end also left me cold, but perhaps that was just because I was in an especially cynical mood when I saw it and thus was almost completely unreceptive to the movie’s touchy-feely conclusion. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Religious

Date reviewed: 5/20/2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bodyguard

 

They must’ve wanted someone besides Whitney Houston for this role. I mean, Kevin Costner does a pretty good job (mostly because I think he’s pretty well suited to the straight-laced, conservative stiff role). But Houston? Here she’s cast as an egotistical celebrity rather than the sweet girl-next-door that’s served her as a persona throughout most of her musical career. They must have wanted Madonna or something, but I guess that wouldn’t have worked out after the thing between her and Costner in Truth or Dare. In any event, the whole idea of the awkward relationship between the spoiled singer and her gritty bodyguard was a pretty good plot concept, but somehow it just doesn’t seem to work here. Again, my guess is bad chemistry between the stars. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 1998

 

 

 

 

 

 

Body Heat

 

Here we have Double Indemnity remade with a whole lot of steamy sex. John Hurt and Kathleen Turner star back in the days when they were still young enough to walk around onscreen with their clothes off. This is a good movie to watch when your A/C breaks down on a really hot summer night. That way you can really feel the sultry, stultifying atmosphere. Sadly, the whole Florida in the early eighties thing is the only thing that really works. The plot is yet another one of those twisted melanges of plots gone awry and conspirators engaged in an endless game of double-cross. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 2000

 

 

 

 

 

 

Body of Evidence

 

I’m actually sort of impressed by this. Who would have thought it was actually possible to make a movie even crappier than Basic Instinct? True, for all his ham Willem DaFoe can’t out-suck Michael Douglas. But Madonna has Sharon Stone beat hands-down. The pop singer’s wooden delivery is matched only by her willingness to strip at the slightest provocation. Other than the down-turn in talent, this might as well be the Douglas/Stone movie all over again. Sure, it has a new wrinkle or two. This bleached-blonde temptress does it for money, not for pleasure. And a lot of the drama takes place inside a none-too-convincing courtroom. But otherwise it’s strictly leftovers that didn’t microwave particularly well. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 6/10/2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

Body of Lies

 

Looks like Ridley Scott blew most of the money for this one on Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe and Crowe’s dialogue coach. Okay, maybe he saved a buck or two for some location shoots. Otherwise this is a mediocre potboiler about CIA meddling in Iraq, Jordan and Syria. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Spy

Date reviewed: 3/16/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Body Parts

 

This film originally hit the theaters right around the same time Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes were uncovered. Now, the film itself is a fairly uninspiring opus along the same lines as The Hands of Orloc, but for some reason the distributor decided to pull it out of Milwaukee theaters for fear of offending the public (and in anticipation of getting a lot of free publicity from such a magnanimous gesture, no doubt). Personally, I thought that if anyone should be pulling anything out of the Wisconsin market, it was Hunts Manwich. ’Cause a sandwich is a sandwich, but ... well, you know the rest. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Slasher

Date reviewed: 1998

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Body Snatcher

 

Val Lewton produces. Robert Wise directs. Boris Karloff stars. Bela Lugosi even has a small role. The source story was by Robert Louis Stevenson. And the best this team of greats could come up with was this dreary little piece about a med school teacher tormented by his association with a “resurrectionist” who turns out to be a bit too zealous in his procurement tactics. The syrupy-sweet paraplegic child is either an interesting contrast to the cynical world of body snatching or just a dumb cliché, it’s hard to say exactly which. But by the time the movie draws to its “telltale heart” conclusion, there’s no doubt about the weakness of the script. The wanton killing of a small dog also served to knock this one down a peg. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 12/15/2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

Body Snatchers (1993)

 

This time around they’ve stripped “Invasion of the” off the front of the title. Otherwise the clichés are all here. This time space aliens are taking over an army base, and only the intrepid teenage daughter of an EPA inspector and her chopper pilot boyfriend stand between the invaders and world conquest. Forest Whitaker and Meg Tilly were at one time respected actors, but now they’re just bit players, fodder for the pod people. The script and direction are mediocre at best, stealing (or maybe “borrowing” would be a nicer term) heavily from the previous entries in the body snatching sub-genre, including the point-and-scream shtick that helped make the 70’s version famous. The creepiest things in this whole picture were Gabrielle Anwar's nude scenes, because she looks like she's around 15 years old (thank goodness she was actually in her early 20s). Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Sci fi

Date reviewed: 2000

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bog Creatures

 

I admit when I rented this stinker that I was sort of hoping for something along the lines of The Legend of Boggy Creek. Though it became obvious almost immediately that so such thing was in store, I remained willing to meet this movie on its own terms. However, it didn’t exactly rise to the occasion. This is ostensibly the story of a group of college students who unearth some kind of evil Vikings who had been buried in a bog for centuries and become murderous zombies once they’re dug up. So the plot didn’t show a great deal of promise to begin with. But once a dreadful script, awful acting and almost nonexistent production values are added to the mix … well, there isn’t even an E for effort here. The only nice thing I can think to write is that I rented this piece of crap from Hollywood, a video chain that occasionally makes a practice of stocking versions of movies with at least some of the sex and/or violence cut out. I don’t know for a fact that such censorship took place in this case, but if the copy I saw was cut that might at least explain a couple of awkward scenes that play like the intros to sex often found in softcore pornography, except in this case no sex ever ensues. I can’t feature that smut would have made this a more worthwhile viewing experience, but it might at least have made it flow a bit better. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Zombie

Date reviewed: 3/21/2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boggy Creek

 

When I was a kid, I was way into the whole Boggy Creek monster thing, due mostly to the classic “documentary” about the creature. Honestly, that was the only reason I decided to give a chance to what looked like yet another parade of stupid twentysomethings falling victim to a monster/slasher/whogivesacrap. The beast looks like Saruman bred Orcs with Ewoks. Even so, the creature’s greatest fault is that it can’t kill the witless, whiny “heroes” fast enough to make this a shorter ordeal. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 10/17/12

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bogus

 

A kid (Haley Joel Osment) loses his mom in a car wreck and has to go live with his mom’s childhood friend (Whoopi Goldberg), a situation complicated by the tyke’s imaginary friend, a Frenchman named Bogus (Gerard Depardieu). This raises an obvious question: is the worst thing that can happen to you as a kid a.) losing your mom in a car wreck, b.) being adopted by Whoopi Goldberg or c.) being stuck with Gerard Depardieu as an imaginary friend? Naturally this turns out to be a cliché-ridden pile of “inner child” drivel, incompetently scripted and indifferently acted. The big mistake here is betting the farm on “poignant” and then failing to pull it off. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Drama

Date reviewed: 9/18/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boiler Room

 

Here once again is the faux macho world of stock swindlers. This time around it’s a “boiler room” full of cold-calling eager beavers selling worthless shares as part of a scheme that’s a little too complicated to even try to summarize in a quick review (not that I understood it super well to begin with). The hero is the usual earnest young man trying to make it big so he can impress his tough-love father. The big problem here isn’t the story itself, which wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen. The problem is that it gives us little beyond genre clichés, recycled characters and plots from more entertaining movies. On the positive side, however, is that one of the swindle victims actually has a name and a face, so it seems less like a victimless crime. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bollywood Hero

 

Wow, all that hype on the Independent Film Channel, and this was all it was? Seriously, the network put up ad bugs for this thing so big that they actually covered up parts of subtitles in other movies. Don’t get me wrong: this wasn’t a terrible movie. Chris Kattan does an acceptable job as Chris Kattan, a comedy star lured to India by the promise of a dramatic lead. It works just fine as a garden-variety romantic comedy. It just wasn’t worth all the promotional noise. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 8/16/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bomb It

 

This documentary about graffiti artists does a couple of things right. First, it employs an international perspective, exploring the similarities and differences between artists in the States, Japan, South Africa and elsewhere. Second, parts of the movie show the painters at work. Indeed, the extra footage on the DVD of three murals coming into being is actually more interesting than the movie itself. That’s at least in part because when they start interviewing these folks many of them turn out to be as tedious as their art is interesting. We get plenty of the usual reminiscing about days gone by, a lot of “I remember painting this” and “I almost got my ass kicked doing that.” And of course the ever popular “I invented graffiti,” a claim that simultaneously assumes that anyone can truly be said to have invented a fundamental human impulse and that the interview subject was present the first time someone tried it, which would of course make the artist several thousand years old. Beyond the usual pitfalls, however, this is a reasonably comprehensive and competent production. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: Art

Date reviewed: 2/7/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bone Collector

 

If you liked The Silence of the Lambs, Seven and Kiss the Girls, well, then you’re probably at least going to see this dog. And when you watch it the first time you’ll get the nagging feeling that you’ve seen it before. Indeed, it’s almost like the film-makers took little bits of other movies and mashed them together to make this one. Particularly ridiculous and disappointing were the death-by-rat sequence and the wrap-up to the non-mystery. Denzel Washington is more or less completely squandered as a quadriplegic detective. In short, one needn’t look too hard to find a better thriller. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bones

 

Oddly enough, for a Snoop Dogg movie this actually isn’t too terrible. Sure, it’s a handful of visuals wrapped in a thick blanket of hip hop false consciousness and grossly stereotypical (however sympathetic) portrayals of women and minorities. The story – a tale of a reanimated drug dealer who exacts effects-intensive revenge on his slayers – is nothing short of stupid. The dialogue is laughable. It’s clearly aimed at empty-headed teens. Despite all that, the production values are high enough, the gore clever enough (however fake looking), and the action constant enough to keep things at least somewhat interesting. Though clearly not a Palme d’Or candidate, this flick’s entertaining enough for a Friday night at the end of a long week. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Ghost

Date reviewed: 5/3/2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bone Snatcher

 

The Thing relocated to the desert. Here’s another batch of leftovers that didn’t reheat especially well. The characters aren’t especially interesting, and the plot meanders so much that after awhile I kinda lost interest. The basic premise is that a group of scientist (or technicians and hangers-on) unearth some kind of creature that’s approximately half Thing and half flesh-eating ooze. Some of the monster effects were bush leagues cool in a big-black-blob-of-goo-with-a-skull-for-a-head kind of way, but that’s about it. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 7/7/2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Boneyard (2009)

 

Technically I think this was originally a show on the Discovery Channel, but it used up as much of my life as a feature-length movie would have, so I’m going to go ahead and review it. In true high-band cable style, this is a made-on-the-cheap documentary liberally peppered with dramatic recreations of all of the least interesting parts of the story. In the early 80s a couple of losers – main perpetrator Leonard Lake and sidekick Charles Ng – tortured and murdered somewhere between one and two dozen people. Lake cheated justice by popping a cyanide pill shortly after his arrest. Because the evidence didn’t tie Ng as tightly to the crimes, it took a lot of time and effort to assemble the case against him and bring him to trial. This production dwells almost exclusively on the forensic investigation and the wrangling in the courtroom. In other words, it’s nearly as boring as a real trial. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Documentary

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 11/5/2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonnie and Clyde

 

Arthur Penn’s heavily sixties-ized account of the exploits of the Barrow gang takes a few liberties with the facts (not the least of which was that the real Bonnie Parker looked more like Popeye the Sailor than Faye Dunaway). But perhaps historical relevance is more important than historical accuracy, particularly when telling the already heavily mythologized tale of a couple of brutal killers and their various relatives and hangers-on. The film suffers from some technical trouble, such as absolutely dreadful shot continuity. Still, as a relic of the rebellious sixties, it’s worth a look. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boo

 

Boo crappy horror movie! Hooray beer! Seriously, I think we’ve officially reached the point where the Halloween-fake-haunted-house-turns-out-to-really-be-haunted thing isn’t even ironic in the Alanis Morissette sense anymore. And this is a particularly stale sample of the sub-genre. The abandoned asylum for the criminally insane provides fodder for a few cheap-yet-entertaining shocks, but there’s only the flimsiest excuse for a plot stringing the scares together. Dee Wallace-Stone puts in an appearance as a spectral nurse who tries to keep the spectral serial killer imprisoned. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Ghost

Date reviewed: 5/22/2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Boogens

 

Apparently in addition to avoiding swimming in shark-infested waters, falling asleep on Elm Street and summering at Camp Crystal Lake, the nubile youth of America should also steer clear of abandoned silver mines in Colorado. Who would have guessed? Is there nowhere in the world horny teenagers can go to get some peace from the forces of darkness? The premise at least had potential: efforts to explore an old mine let loose a cave monster that proceeds to get into folks’ homes through their basements. Sadly, the script itself is just as stupid as the title implies. If you fast forward through the ineffective romance and poorly-executed attack scenes, you’re left with a little background and a cheap rubber beast. The only notable points: two young people who have sex actually manage to survive to the end of the movie, and unless I missed something somewhere this film holds the record for the number of times a poodle is menaced by a cave monster before finally succumbing. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Boogeyman

 

Ever since the first Halloween I’ve been waiting for KC and the Sunshine Band to show up on the soundtrack of a movie about the Boogeyman. Skunked again, I’m afraid. But that’s about all I’m afraid of in this tedious borefest about a guy still battling the childhood nightmare that snatched his father 15 years earlier. The film-makers rely almost exclusively on those bone-jarring assaults of jump cuts that tear by at five or six frames per. The technique has been used to good effect elsewhere, but here there’s little in the way of plot or character to back it up. Compare this to that childhood classic, “The Golden Arm.” The arm works because it’s worked into a story and because the shock is only used once. Watching this movie was a little like spending 90 minutes being grabbed and having “You’ve got it!” shouted in my ear over and over. It gets old after awhile, especially with nothing else there to keep it interesting. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 6/21/2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boogeyman 2

 

Oddly enough, this one’s a little better than the first one. The original rolled the dice and came up empty. This one sticks a lot closer to standard slasher movie structures and conventions. The result is mediocre, but at least it isn’t totally annoying. The story is an unimaginative reheat of Nightmare on Elm Street 3, with most if not all the plot twists telegraphed a mile away as the Boogeyman slaughters mental patients using methods tailored to their phobias. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

Subgenre: Slasher

Date reviewed: 1/13/2009

 

 

Boogeyman 3

 

The formula for number two must have worked too well, because for this outing they went back to the approach from the first one: just string together a long series of booga-booga shots, and don’t worry so much about plot or character development or anything like that. Mistake. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Slasher

Date reviewed: 6/4/2009

 

 

Boogie Nights

 

This saga of a small corner of the porn industry in the late 70s and early 80s turned out to be more grim than the ads made it appear. Still, as a whole this was a really good movie, with impressive acting (surprisingly impressive from a couple of cast members, specifically Burt Reynolds and “Marky” Mark Wahlberg). The high points, however, were probably the music and the art direction, which combine to travel beyond mere kitsch to really re-create the time. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Decadence

Date reviewed: 1998

 

 

The Book of Beasts

 

I need to set up a macro that will automatically type “Typical Sci Fi Channel fare.” Lame story, bad acting, cheap effects, 90 minutes worth of harmless brain candy. This time around it’s the children of the original Camelot crew – giving the production a Medieval Muppet Babies quality – up against Mordred and a magic book that makes beasts appear. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Fantasy

Date reviewed: 6/1/2009

 

 

Book of Blood

 

If the end had been cropped off, the rest of the movie condensed down into around ten minutes, and then followed with decent productions based on three or four of Clive Barker’s short stories, two effects would have been achieved. First, the structure would have more closely mirrored Barker’s Books of Blood collections, particularly the brief introductory tale that gets blown up to an hour and a half here. And second, it wouldn’t have sucked anywhere near as bad as it did. This tale of ghosts who write their tales on the skin of a hapless man is solid horror, but all the filler, cheap shocks and red herrings ruin a picture that in more competent hands might have had some potential. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Ghost

Date reviewed: 10/21/2009

 

 

The Book of Eli

 

I really loved two aspects of this movie. First, the fight scenes were impressive. Really good choreography, especially for a Hollywood production. Second, the backdrops were great. I was particularly fond of the flattened cityscapes with big nuclear bomb craters here and there. Unfortunately, the rest of the picture wasn't so hot. The hero got on my bad side from almost the very first frames by killing a cat. But far worse was the plot, a relentless parade of hah-I'll-bet-you-weren't-expecting-that moments (especially the big twist at the end). They should have just stuck to fighting. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Sci fi

Date reviewed: 5/24/11

 

 

The Book of Life

 

For some time now I’ve been waiting for a good kids movie about Hispanic culture. Guess I need to wait awhile longer yet. This isn’t a terrible picture. But given the richness of the source material the filmmakers had to work with, they should have been able to conjure something better than this often-confusing reheat of the Orpheus myth. The animation could have been better, too. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Animation

Date reviewed: 3/9/15

 

 

The Boondock Saints

 

I don’t even know where to start. Unintelligible Irish hooligans (and they’re the heroes). Willem DaFoe in drag. Brutal, pointless slaying of a cat (by the heroes, no less). The list goes on and on. The director appears to have put a lot into his production. Sadly, all he seems to have to offer us is a bargain-basement Tarantino doing the revenge-on-mobsters plot Don Pendleton wore out decades back. I guess maybe he thought re-working it as an ultra-violent caper movie would somehow make it less dull. Um, nope. Guess not. Only a brief appearance by Billy Connoly (as an Irish hit-man, for crying out loud) saves this stinker from the very bottom of the ratings heap. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

Das Boot

 

This should be more than enough grim, cynical, German U-Boat movie for anyone, even those of us who are inclined to look favorably on such endeavors. The realism is impeccable, to the point that one can almost smell the pent-up stench of diesel fumes, rotting food and sweat. In fact, the devotion to historical accuracy occasionally overwhelms the film’s dramatic sense, particularly during the de rigeur depth charge sequences, which seem to go on and on and on. That notwithstanding, those with a taste for submarine movies should find this one of the best examples of the genre. Years ago I saw the original U.S. theatrical release, and for this review I watched the “director’s cut.” I also understand there’s an even longer version out there, but I haven’t seen that one. Whichever version you watch, you’re in for an unflinching tour of the lot of the men who sailed the semi-suicidal missions in support of the German battle for control of the Atlantic during World War Two. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 2000

 

 

Borat

 

This one has some moments, but they’re few and far between. The scripted parts are actually fairly funny. For example, I liked the stuff set in Kazakhstan. I liked some of the interactions between our hero and his sidekick. And I loved Oksana the Bear (especially when they drove her around in an ice cream truck and scared a bunch of kids). Further, I thought that here and there the film-makers made some good points about prejudice (particularly anti-Semitism) in American society. However, most of the movie seems to be made up of Cohen and cohort doing the Borat routine around oblivious – sometimes even unwilling – participants. Even when this works it seldom provokes more than a chuckle. And frequently it fails. There’s nothing wrong with an improv actor coming up a bit short sometimes. It happens to the best of them. But the stale segments when Cohen flounders for something to keep a conversation going … that sort of thing doesn’t go into the final cut. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Mocumentary

Date reviewed: 6/1/2007

 

 

Bordello of Blood

 

Tales from the Crypt really puts the bore in bordello with this stinker. In the fine tradition first pioneered in “Demon Knight,” here we have another parade of stupid vampire clichés trotted out as a cheap excuse for a plot. “Borrowing” from other flicks – especially From Dusk Til Dawn – is also plentiful. Cast-wise, Chris Sarandon has already demonstrated his willingness to play along with crap like this. But Dennis Miller? When this first came out, his career was on a high note. Desperate for attention? Expensive coke habit? Only Miller knows for sure. Beyond his mailed-in performance, there’s little or nothing here for anyone besides a humor-impaired, date-free, horny teenage boy. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

Borderland

 

If they’d just made an unembroidered version of the actual events upon which this is ostensibly based, it could have been a much better movie. Instead what we get is yet another slash-intensive warning to young white people to stay away from Mexico because all – or at least most – of the “foreigners” who live there are out to sacrifice tourists to their Santeria gods in order to protect their drug smuggling operations. The final nails in the coffin are the long passages where nothing happens. If you’re going to make a slasher movie, at least don’t make a dull one. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Slasher

Date reviewed: 1/14/2009

 

 

Bordertown

 

This might have been a better movie with fewer big stars in it. Jennifer Lopez in particular is distracting in the lead, doing a better job as herself than as her character. And that’s a shame, because this movie has an important story to tell. The movie’s thesis is somewhat complicated: NAFTA made cheap manufacture of consumer goods for the U.S. market a particularly lucrative business in Mexican border towns such as Juarez. Women who flock to the factories in search of work are easy prey for serial rapist/murderers who waylay the workers when they’re trying to get home after a late shift. And of course the police and evil capitalist overlords want it all hushed up so as not to interfere with business operations. Enter a crusading journalist (Lopez) who finds a woman who miraculously survived an attack but must now be protected from her assailants and the authorities seeking to silence her before the story gets out. The picture develops third act problems as the filmmakers try to plot a course between an ending that’s too happy and an ending that isn’t happy enough. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 6/2/2010

 

 

Born into Brothels

 

A photographer gives cheap cameras to a handful of kids in the red light district of a big city in India, and the rest of the movie pretty much makes itself. This production is priceless proof that Social Darwinism – particularly the notion that poor people are miserable because they’re stupid and talentless – is a lie. The subject matter virtually guaranteed that this documentary would turn out to be uplifting and extremely depressing at the same time. Emotional swings notwithstanding, the most impressive thing about these kids’ stories is just how good some of their photos turn out to be. I wish my photography students got results that compared. Maybe I should show them this movie the next time I teach photojournalism. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Documentary

 

Subgenre: Art

Date reviewed: 3/25/2006

 

 

The Borrowers

 

It’s rare to find a really solid piece of family entertainment, something that’s neither too sophisticated for the kids nor too simpleminded for grownups. Many will recognize the plot from childhood reading to the series of books upon which this film is based: a whole society of tiny people called Borrowers lives among us, and they’re responsible for all the items that go missing every day. The script is well-paced, and the actors do an admirable job of pulling it off. Even the effects hold up pretty well, with the scale remaining fairly consistent between that miniatures and the oversized sets. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Juvenile

Date reviewed: 1998

 

 

 

The Boston Strangler

 

Two things stand out about this telling of the tale of Albert DeSalvo, accused of raping and strangling 13 women in the Boston area in the early 1960s. On the positive side, director Richard Fleischer’s use of split screen editing – while visually jarring – works better than such gimmicks usually do. On the other hand, the production doesn’t stick as closely to the truth as most true crime stories at least attempt to. I don’t necessarily need a thorough examination of every aspect of the investigation, though at least a mention of the questions about DeSalvo’s guilt might have been nice. But the storytellers here make some details up out of whole cloth, such as the notion that the killer suffered from Multiple Personality Disorder. Tony Curtis as the strangler and Henry Fonda as the chief of the task force convened to catch him both bring plenty of talent to the table. But the section that should have been tailor-made for them to shine – an extended dialogue between the two that takes up most of act three – instead falls victim to lackluster writing. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 12/3/2010

 

 

Bottom Feeder

 

Apt title. A scientist invents green goo that regenerates damaged tissue. The problem is that it requires a lot of nutrients to do its work, and unless it’s fed with the scientist’s special blue goo, it causes its host to transform into whatever it eats. And because it makes the host extremely hungry … well, in short order we end up with a rat-dog-guy-monster stalking the tunnels under an abandoned hospital. That’s some bad luck for the maintenance crew and small gaggle of bad guys locked down there with it. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 6/23/2009

 

 

The Bounty

 

This time around we’re being treated to Mel Gibson’s Fletcher Christian and Anthony Hopkins’ Captain Bly. It’s a wonder that all the ship-board scenery chewing didn’t end up drowning the entire cast. By the time this version of the classic mutiny drama came out, film-making conventions had evolved to the point where it was possible to shoot fairly graphic depictions of nudity (mostly female) among the Tahitians and the brutal violence of shipboard discipline. Otherwise what we’ve got here is a simple, straightforward, standard version of one of the low points in British naval history. If you’re looking for a little heart-of-oak drama, you could probably do worse. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Historical

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

The Bourne Identity

 

Ever wonder what an espionage intrigue movie would be like if they didn’t use the same old formula to churn it out? Well, don’t expect to have that particular curiosity satisfied by this outing. This is standard fare from beginning to end, complete with everything from exotic European locales to expensive car chases right down to cliché dialogue like “we’ve got a black ops agent off the reservation.” Matt Damon is a little too aw-shucks goofy to play an assassin, even one who’s got amnesia and can’t remember who he is or what he’s done. But the production quality is good, the action sequences are entertaining (except for the extended car chase, which is as boring and predictable as most car chases), and the plot keeps moving. And that’s the real beauty of formula-based film-making: you know what you’re getting, and generally you get what you pay for. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Spy

Date reviewed: 6/21/2002

 

 

The Bourne Supremacy

 

They must have heard me griping last time that the plot was too much of a cookie-cutter spy yarn. Now the pendulum swings to the other extreme, and the second one barely has a plot at all. Needless to say, that’s even more fatal to an espionage thriller than the formulaic route. Matt Damon returns as Jason Bourne, dragged out of amnesiac retirement when the j-random forces of darkness kill his significant other and frame him for a hit on a couple of CIA agents. While this might seem like the set-up for an old-fashioned, linear revenge tale, instead it becomes a meandering game of cat-and-mouse in which Bourne and his former taskmasters swap the feline and rodent roles back and forth. A good revenge flick should leave audiences with the word “dude!” on their lips, but this one merely left me with a “huh? so that’s the end?” Oh, and this thing has a car chase that went on so long that the audience was actually laughing by the end of it. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Spy

Date reviewed: 8/27/2004

 

 

The Bourne Ultimatum

 

Third verse, same as the second. Honestly, I’m surprised this was ever a novel. The whole thing seemed to be one chase scene and/or gun battle after another. Occasionally a minor plot twist would get stirred in here and there, but for the most part it’s wall-to-wall action and not much else. If number two floated your boat, this one will keep you sailing merrily along. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Spy

Date reviewed: 7/2/2008

 

 

The Bourne Legacy

 

Here we go with a new operative same as the old operative. They’ve replaced Matt Damon with Jeremy Renner, and they stirred in some nonsense about a virus. The IMDb notes indicate that Paul Greengrass, the director of the first two Bourne sequels, suggested that this round be called The Bourne Redundancy. Which hits the nail squarely on the head. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Spy

Date reviewed: 2/12/13

 

 

Bowling for Columbine

 

Michael Moore is mad, but he seems to be having some trouble figuring out exactly what he’s mad about or whom he’s mad at. Americans kill each other with guns, something that seems to peeve Moore to no end (as well it might). But he’s so excited about pinning this on large corporations that he shorts or bypasses altogether a lot of the root causes of violence. At least I didn’t hate this as much as I thought I was going to, except of course for the ambush nagging. And that brings me mindful of the “South Park” summary of American history, in particular the part that theorizes that early European immigrants shot the Indians due to fear, omitting the property aspects of Manifest Destiny. This inspired me to plan a documentary in which someone shows up unannounced at Moore’s home with a camera and a sad photo of Indian children, demanding that the Limbaugh of the Left deed his property over to the people from whom it was stolen. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Documentary

 

Subgenre: Political

Date reviewed: 1/28/2005

 

 

The Box

 

Was this really based on a Richard Matheson story? I haven’t read “Button, Button,” but I have trouble imagining it being as terrible as this movie. The basic premise could have been turned into an acceptably mediocre horror movie. A mysterious stranger shows up at a suburban household with a box that sports a single button. If our heroes push the button, they get a million bucks and somewhere in the world someone dies. However, the copious early references to No Exit should have been a leading indicator that “pointlessly strange” would be the theme for the evening. Before we’re through, we get NASA, the NSA, space aliens, brainwashed minions and no end of expensive, go-nowhere visual tricks stirred into a messy stew with no greater purpose than unfocused paranoia. I went in dreading the obvious conundrum – would you kill someone you didn’t know in exchange for financial security? – but left wishing it had been that simple, straightforward and entertaining. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 3/19/2010

 

 

The Boxtrolls

 

If Coraline had been really depressing and preachy, it might have been something like this. A town hires a creep and his creepy henchmen to rid the place of the harmless trolls who creep about after dark. Though the animation is fine, the script doesn’t measure up. The trivia notes on IMDb were more interesting than actually watching the movie. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 3/25/15

 

 

Boys Don't Cry

 

The forces of the independent film world come together to tell this grim story about a gender-dysphoric woman who falls in love in rural, white-trash Nebraska, not exactly an environment famous for its tolerance of alternative sexuality. The acting is good, the script well-crafted, and the production values high for an indie (managing to avoid most of the arty conceits that frequently dog such productions). If the film suffers from a serious fault (aside from the extremely graphic depiction of rape, which I guess was integral to the plot), it’s the obvious tension that infects the entire plot. Will the other characters discover the protagonist’s secret? If and when they do, how will they react? Further, those who know a little about the true story that served as the basis for the film go into it with the knowledge that it isn’t likely to have a happy ending. Tension aside, however, this is a good if more than a little depressing morality tale. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 2000

 

 

The Boys from Brazil

 

The concept of this movie is intriguing in a tabloid sort of way: Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck) is generating clones of Hitler from a secret lab in Brazil. They’re being raised by couples with personalities akin to Der Fuhrer’s actual parents in the hope that the right combination of nature and nurture would produce a squad of potential dictators. Laurence Olivier plays a Simon Wiesenthal-like character who learns of the plot and tries to thwart it. Despite a fair amount of overacting, for the most part the drama works. It even manages to eke out an occasional chill, particularly in the brief shots showing Mengele’s hobby of making blue-eyed “Aryans” out of South American children. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

Brain Dead

 

The name says it all. I’m surprised that Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman haven’t pooled their funds and bought up all the copies of this muddled bit of nonsense. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Slasher

Date reviewed: 1998

 

 

The Brain Eaters

 

This movie has a lot of odd, unintentional touches. For example, Local Hero fans may get a small snicker from the credit for screenwriter Gordon Urquhart. The governor’s name is Clinton. Otherwise, however, this is just another piece of 1950s body-snatching paranoia. A large metal cone appears in a small Illinois town right around the same time several of the local residents go nuts. The connection turns out to be small critters – kinda cute when they aren’t attaching themselves to people’s spines – who’ve bored up from the depths of the earth to sneak into our brains and take over. And yes, the whole thing tastes a lot like leftovers. The score in particular is arbitrary stuff gleaned from other sources; I even noticed a few bars from Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky cantata at one point. One has to pay attention to catch small touches like that, but overall the picture doesn’t reward the attention required. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 6/25/2009

 

 

Brainscan

 

Normally I’d lead with some kind of “it came from the 80s” remark, but this one actually proved that this kind of picture lingered on at least until 1994. Once again Hollywood schlock-meisters try to get a Freddy Krueger thing going. This time the bad guy goes by The Trickster, and he lives in a video game that bores into the player’s head and creates an ultra-realistic virtual reality where the idea is to kill without being caught. Unfortunately the scariest thing about the bad guy is the terribleness of his punk hairdo appliance. Overall this plays like a violent version of Drop Dead Fred. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Slasher

Date reviewed: 5/10/2008

 

 

Bram Stoker's Dracula

 

Francis Ford Coppola serves us a muddled mess of a film suited primarily for the goth crowd. Minor kudos for some of the dramatic effects, in particular the creepy shadows that behave differently from the characters ostensibly casting them. If this had been a little less obtrusive, a little more subtle, it would have been much better. But subtlety is not the strong suit of this particular flick. Instead we are bombarded by the histrionics of a cast (Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins in particular) chewing the scenery with as much gusto as they chew each other. But even a less “earnest” group of thespians would have been sorely challenged to eke anything from the script besides a seamy stew of stunted sexuality. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

Bram Stoker's The Mummy

 

Here’s a mummy movie almost as boring as spending three or four millennia imprisoned in a sarcophagus. The script, effects and acting are in a race to see which can be worse. The plot is the usual parade of grave-robbing, creepy curses and bandaged bad guys. You have to really go out of your way to disenchant me with a mummy movie, but this sad offering manages to do the trick. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Mummy

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

Brave

 

Those who’ve met me could probably guess that I’m not exactly a Disney Princesses kind of guy. But I genuinely enjoyed this movie, at least in part because it wasn’t the typical Disney Princess experience. Our protagonist doesn’t need a handsome prince to self-actualize; indeed, the plot gets rolling with her refusal to submit to an arranged marriage. It was also nice to see Pixar getting a bit more comfortable dancing around the “uncanny valley” (not to mention sporting a female lead for a change). Politics and image quality aside, this is a charming picture that manages a delightfully even mix of comedy, drama, action and character development. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Animation

Date reviewed: 5/2/13

 

 

Braveheart

 

In the grand tradition of Celts versus the English melodramas, here we have yet another festival of histrionic flopping about the nobility of rebellion against Great Britain. Mel Gibson takes the helm of this epic about Scottish rebel William Wallace and his struggle against the crown. Some of the battle scenes are impressive; as an action movie, this works quite well. Sadly it’s a bit too long for an action movie, and the historical drama wedged in between the carnage isn’t really all that interesting (and in places not all that accurate, or so I’ve been given to understand). Further, the end is too silly and sentimental by far, especially for a torture sequence. But as historical dramas go, I guess I’ve seen worse. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Historical

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

The Brave One

 

Here we have a post-feminist remake of Death Wish. Everything’s okay for a woman (Jodie Foster) who does a radio show about the streets of New York. Too bad she and her fiancé decide to take the dog to Central Park after sunset. After the predictable mugging puts her in the hospital and her boyfriend in the morgue, the slow road to recovery leads to a pistol purchase and inevitably to a series of vigilante slayings. The gender reversal from the standard revenge flick allows the protagonist to have a more emotionally honest reaction to her rage and fear. It also allows romantic tension between the killer and the cop on her tail (Terrence Howard). Otherwise this is a typical specimen. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 5/23/2008

 

 

Brazil

 

With all due respect to his Monty Python days, I think this is Terry Gilliam’s best work. Jonathan Pryce stars as a white-collar drone trying to get by in a strange fantasy world almost completely taken over by brainless consumerism and inept bureaucracy. The art direction is the real star of the show, blending studio-financed dystopia with Gilliam’s low-budget aesthetic. The first time I saw this, I was working in an office not entirely unlike the place where the protagonist starts out. And to this day I’m fond of the rebel air conditioning repairman played by Robert DeNiro. Though it’s a bit silly in spots, overall the production is both entertaining and thought-provoking. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Fantasy

Date reviewed: 5/18/2009

 

 

Breach

 

I would not have guessed that the biggest espionage case in American history would be so gosh-awful boring. Here we get the story of FBI administrator Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper) as seen through the eyes of a young clerk (Ryan Phillipe) placed in his office to spy on him. The result is a strangely superficial examination of one of the most serious cases of treason our country has ever faced. We get the standard spy thriller twists and turns. We get a lengthy portrait of our villain as a conservative anti-Communist, fanatical Catholic and good family man. We’re also given a portrait of the same man as an arch-traitor, paranoid nut and sexual deviant. What we never get – and what this movie desperately needed to give us – is any idea how one man could embody two such radically different lives. Absent any meaningful insight, this is nothing but a run-of-the-mill espionage picture, and a laconically-paced one at that. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Spy

Date reviewed: 7/21/2007

 

 

Breaker Morant

 

There’s moral ambiguity aplenty in this film about the legal repercussions for the horrors of war. The story is a true tale about three Australian officers who were court-martialed by the British Army during the Boer War for illegally executing prisoners. In the end nobody comes off especially well. The Aussies seem like basically honorable men made cruel by circumstance. The English come across as scheming politicians eager to sacrifice the rank and file to achieve their selfish ends. And everyone seems to have little qualm about lying under oath during the trial. You probably need to be in the mood for a military justice movie, but if that mood has in fact struck you then you could probably do a lot worse than this choice. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Courtroom

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

Breeders

 

Once again Mars appears to need women. Once again the aliens are inflicting themselves on the blonde-haired, blue-eyed female college students of Earth. Once again someone managed to get a budget for a dull miasma of poor script, bad acting, and pathetic effects. Honestly, I’m willing to bet that the opening credits cost more than the whole rest of the film, particularly because most of the production appears to have been shot in abandoned sewers, basements and steam tunnels. Further, most of the minimal content this film does boast appears to have been pilfered from other movies. The monster itself in particular bears so close a resemblance to the alien from Alien that H.R. Gieger should have sued. If he didn’t, I can only assume that his lawyers figured film-makers who create something this dreadful are highly unlikely to be worth much when it comes time to pay the judgment. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

Bride and Prejudice

 

Jane Austen gets an awkward Bollywood makeover in this musical romance. Producers would obviously love to create a movie that successfully employs the look and feel of movies made for the huge Indian market while at the same time luring audiences in the United States by shooting in English and using American and British actors. Unfortunately if this production is any indication, the two may be at least somewhat mutually incompatible. I can’t speak from the perspective of audiences in India, but as an American movie it has some problems. The musical numbers are full of pretty choreography, but they’re awkward and the lyrics are dumb. The story is sometimes hard to follow, either because the script is trying to follow Austen too closely or because it’s just ill-conceived on its own. The result is fluffy and cute but not especially satisfying. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Musical

Date reviewed: 1/11/2010

 

 

Bride of Chucky

 

For some reason I thought maybe this umpteenth sequel to Child’s Play would be improved to view-worthy status by the inclusion of Jennifer Tilly as the diminutive demon’s former girlfriend turned plastic paramour. No such luck. Instead, this is just the usual parade of nubile teens, pointless violence and humorless gags. Unless I missed something somewhere, this film enjoys the distinction of being the first relatively mainstream Hollywood movie to portray two dolls engaged in an act of sexual intercourse (mercifully shown only in silhouette). Aside from that freak show dimension, however, this picture has little to recommend it. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Slasher

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

The Bride of Frankenstein

 

This first sequel to the legendary original overcomes many of its predecessor’s technical shortcomings while retaining much of the atmosphere of menace. Some aspects of the film have become clichés; for example, it’s difficult to hear Karloff deliver the “Fire bad!” line without thinking of the Frankenstein routine Phil Hartman used to do on Saturday Night Live. Other aspects are more than a little odd, such as the scene with the tiny people in jars. Overall, however, this is both a worthy follow-up and a piece of horror movie history in its own right. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Mad scientist

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

Bride of the Monster

 

Bad script. Bad acting. Terrible production values. Bizarre editing. Bela Lugosi. Tor Johnson. Must be an Ed Wood movie! In all honesty, this isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It lacks the charm of Glen or Glenda? and the renown of Plan 9 from Outer Space. But in a way that actually makes it easier to watch. One can set aside the greatest-cult-movie-ever hype and just enjoy it for what it is: a delightfully incompetent attempt at a picture about a mad scientist with a giant squid problem. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Mad scientist

Date reviewed: 9/11/2008

 

 

The Brides of Dracula

 

No Dracula. Not really much in the way of brides. Instead Hammer serves up a muddled mess of a picture, one of those things that looks like it was torn apart at some point in the production process and never sewed back together quite right. Ingénue gets stranded at an inn and then taken in by a baroness who keeps her handsome-yet-creepy son chained in his room. Do I even have to say that he’s a vampire, and when our gullible heroine unchains him a festival of sucking (literally and figuratively) commences. Even Peter Cushing can’t do much to save this one. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 7/31/2008

 

 

The Bridge

 

So I guess if you point a camera at the Golden Gate Bridge long enough, you end up with footage of someone jumping. Or several someones jumping. Then follow up with friends and relatives, and you’ve got a documentary. The concept is enough to carry the picture, not to mention creating a considerable amount of controversy. Many of the interviews fail to shed much light on the possible motives of the jumpers, but they do fill in some sometimes-dull, sometimes-touching back-stories of the people whose deaths we watch. Overall this comes across as a combination of Errol Morris and Faces of Death, which oddly enough sort of works. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Documentary

 

Subgenre: Psychology

Date reviewed: 9/6/2008

 

 

The Bridge on the River Kwai

 

For a war movie, this is an exceptionally morally ambiguous production. On the one hand we have an English officer (Alec Guiness) who seems like a decent, upstanding sort of guy. Yet he gets so deeply into cooperating with his Japanese captors that he actually ends up improving their chances of building a bridge that will carry troops and munitions to the front lines of the fight against the British. On the other hand we have William Holden as an American POW with distinct similarities to the character he played in Stalag 17. So who’s the hero, the noble traitor trying to build the bridge or the selfish commando trying to blow it up? The end helps resolve matters somewhat, but it’s still a strange journey getting there. It’s also a trip that could have been a bit shorter; the picture includes a lot of long, drawn-out sequences that don’t really contribute all that much to the plot. Overall, however, it’s an interesting relic from a time when war was more vague. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 11/28/2007

 

 

 

 

Bridget Jones's Diary

 

As chick flicks go, this one’s not half bad. Despite criticism largely from the British press (who apparently didn’t like the idea of an American woman playing an English character), Renee Zellweger does a superb job as the slightly-overweight heroine of this tale of a thirty-something woman’s search for happiness via a fulfilling relationship with a man. And yes, it should be noted for the record that the plot of the movie diverged from the story told by the popular source novel, giving it a less realistic and more man-centered (though presumably happier) ending. That aside, however, the script is well-written, the dialogue clever, the characters compelling, and the film-making polished. I’m not famous for liking movies of this particular ilk, so perhaps it was just that I was in the right mood in the right place at the right time. Whatever factors were to blame, I really did get a kick out of this. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

A Bridge Too Far

 

And at least an hour too long to boot. Like The Longest Day, this is one of those ensemble war epics that feature just about every actor in Hollywood in the appropriate age bracket (in fact, at least one or two of these folks are veterans of the aforementioned picture). Unlike D-Day, however, here we have a tale with a much sadder ending. Rather than emphasizing the heroic nature of the Allied assault on Germany’s Fortress Europe, the main idea this time around is that the airborne attack on Holland in 1944 was at best poorly planned and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of a lot of men. So sing “war is hell” rather than “dulce et decorum est.” Even as long as the movie is, we never really seem to get enough of any one particular story to make the characters fully fleshed-out and sympathetic. Indeed, several of the many subplots seem almost beside the point. Still, if you like this approach to storytelling then you should walk away happy. This is a fine, well-made example of the type. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 1/9/2006

 

 

Bright Lights, Big City

 

This should be Big 80s. It has the cast; Michael J. Fox alone should have been enough to assure it a spot on the decade’s Q-list. Add a lot of drinking and cocaine, and you should be getting a good picture of upper-middle-class white America thought about itself at the time. Trouble is, it’s so damn boring that it’s hard to stick with it long enough to draw much of a cultural look-and-feel from the experience. The plot is pure soap: Fox plays an under-employed yuppie trying to party away his dissatisfaction with life. His wife leaves him for a more glamorous life as a fashion model. His boss is a jerk. His best friend is a jerk. He’s still trying to come to grips with the death of his mother. And half of New York (with the audience along for the ride) has to play therapist as he shares his life story with anyone who will at least pretend to listen. I’m genuinely astonished to find myself typing this, but Less Than Zero was actually a better movie. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Decadence

Date reviewed: 11/19/2007

 

 

A Bright, Shining Lie

 

Once again Hollywood gives us the Vietnam War as a backdrop for one American man’s personal struggle to make sense of life. If anything this one’s actually worse, because it has the nerve to masquerade as an honest portrait of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Oh, if only we’d been nicer about winning hearts and minds we wouldn’t have needed to burn so many damn huts down. And if only protagonist John Vann's mother hadn’t been a prostitute he could have gone to West Point instead of becoming a washout and a pervert. Whatever. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

Bringing Godzilla Down to Size

 

This documentary about the behind-the-scenes history of the Godzilla franchise was an unexpected bonus on the DVD of Rodan. Indeed, this turned out to be better than the main feature. The production features extensive interviews with just about everyone from the guys who wore the Godzilla suits to the guys who made them to the guys who made the miniature cityscapes that got stomped time and time again. To be sure, the story would have been a bit more interesting if it had included more backstage footage or at least more clips from some of the older pictures discussed by the interviewees. Nonetheless, this is fun and fascinating stuff. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Documentary

 

Subgenre: Movies

Date reviewed: 1/17/2010

 

 

Bringing Out the Dead

 

Martin Scorcese returns to the mean streets of New York to follow a Travis Bickle-esque EMT down the road to madness. The plot also borrows heavily from other angry-young-men classics, including Catch 22. Despite the occasionally effortful direction and a chemistry-free, go-nowhere romance between the protagonist (Nicolas Cage) and the love interest (Patricia Arquette), Scorcese manages to recapture enough of the look and feel of Taxi Driver to keep the production rolling. Odd bits of quirky humor, particularly in the scenes Cage shares with Ving Rhames, round out the show nicely. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Comedy

Date reviewed: 2000

 

 

Bring It On

 

A cheerleader movie? Well, at least I didn’t go into this with real high expectations. Thus I can’t honestly say I was disappointed when it turned out to be an empty-headed, teenage exploration of issues ranging from artistic integrity to race relations. Kirsten Dunst stars as a newly-elected cheerleading squad leader who faces no end of problems with boyfriends, parents, rivals, the usual collection of adolescent woes. If you’re of an age appropriate for this kind of thing, then you may well enjoy it immensely. Otherwise it’s sort of hard to find any redeeming value among the clichés and melodrama. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Juvenile

Date reviewed: 2001

 

 

The Brink

 

Here’s a departure from the low-budget norm: a solid concept paired up with a reasonably good execution. An ex-engineering student uncovers plans for a Thomas Edison invention that was designed to communicate with the dead. She enlists the aid of some former classmates and sets the thing up in a house that stands a reasonably good chance of being haunted. To be sure, this isn’t a masterpiece of the cinema arts. But the script isn’t terrible, nor is the acting. Things keep moving nicely, and at just over 70 minutes it doesn’t overstay its welcome. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Ghost

Date reviewed: 5/13/2009

 

 

British Intelligence

 

Despite the oxymoronic title, this is actually fairly clever for a spy movie from 1940. Unlike many of its contemporaries, this picture actually features some elaborate twisting, turning and double-crossing. It also helps to have Boris Karloff play the bad guy (or is he?). Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Spy

Date reviewed: 11/25/2008

 

 

Broadcast News

 

The parts of this movie that are actually about the title subject are quite good. In many ways it makes the transition between the days when Network was a ridiculous farce and the new era in which Network is a grim reality. Watching the characters wrestle with the complexities of their jobs and the ethical demands of their profession is tremendous fun for a journalism nerd like myself. Watching them wrestle with the complexities of their tangled personal lives, however, was less enjoyable. Though the Albert Brooks romantic comedy angle puts a serious damper on things, overall I’m still not sorry I saw it. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 9/21/2009

 

 

Broadway Melody of 1936

 

This musical romp appears to have been the original source for a big chunk of the songs that would later appear in Singin’ in the Rain. Thank goodness the producers of the later musical didn’t decide to use the “Sing before Breakfast” number – or much of anything else performed here by Buddy Ebsen. There’s some talent in this picture, particularly Jack Benny in one of the lead roles. Some of the musical numbers are cleverly staged. However, for the most part this is a goofy farce that alternates between charming and grating. I mean really, was the guy who can do dozens of different kinds of snores considered high comedy even back in the comparatively less sophisticated days of the 1930s? Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Musical

Date reviewed: 7/7/2007

 

 

Brokeback Mountain

 

If this was a movie about heterosexual cowboys, I can virtually guarantee that nobody would have gone to see it (assuming it even got made to begin with). For that matter, several years ago I recall seeing Desert Hearts, a western about lesbians. That production didn’t make anywhere near the noise this one did. Of course Ang Lee didn’t direct Desert Hearts, nor did it star Heath Ledger or Jake Gylenhall. But the real hook here is the open exploration of the gay underbelly of one of the most ultra-macho genres around. The concept had some potential. But aside from the novelty of the theme this is an extremely boring movie. Even the landscapes, which should have been consistently breathtaking, are only rarely put to good use. Throw in the de rigeur animal suffering, and this is by far the worst of the best picture contenders this year. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Romantic

Date reviewed: 2/4/2006

 

 

Brokeback Mountain

 

If this was a movie about heterosexual cowboys, I can virtually guarantee that nobody would have gone to see it (assuming it even got made to begin with). For that matter, several years ago I recall seeing Desert Hearts, a western about lesbians. That production didn’t make anywhere near the noise this one did. Of course Ang Lee didn’t direct Desert Hearts, nor did it star Heath Ledger or Jake Gylenhall. But the real hook here is the open exploration of the gay underbelly of one of the most ultra-macho genres around. The concept had some potential. But aside from the novelty of the theme this is an extremely boring movie. Even the landscapes, which should have been consistently breathtaking, are only rarely put to good use. Throw in the de rigeur animal suffering, and this is by far the worst of the best picture contenders this year. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Romantic

Date reviewed: 2/4/2006

 

 

Broken Arrow

 

Though this scrupulously follows the John Woo formula – two men pitted against each other in an action movie with plenty of macho stand-offs and explosions – I expect the director’s fans may find themselves at least somewhat disappointed. It’s just not as stylish or clever as some of the movies he made on the other side of the Pacific. The story’s simple enough: the bad guy (John Travolta) steals a pair of nukes, and it’s up to his young protégé (Christian Slater) to chase him around the desert trying to get them back and then hide them once they’re recovered. Travolta seems to genuinely enjoy playing villains, so it’s too bad he sucks at it. His version of “dangerous psycho” comes across as a cranky version of Danny from Grease. Overall if you like watching stuff blow up then you’re in the right place. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 7/10/2009

 

 

The Brood

 

Our buddy Frank has trouble. His wife is crazy. She’s been institutionalized in the clutches of a cult psychotherapist, played to a smarmy T by Oliver Reed. His daughter has been abused, probably by his wife. If that was the sum of his worries, he’d probably make it through. Unfortunately for him, the mad doctor has figured out how to make his wife’s irrational rage externalize and become homicidal midget creatures that vaguely resemble his kid (particularly when they’re stuffed into snow suits). As one might expect from a David Cronenberg movie (especially one from the eerie, atmospheric period early in his career), things go downhill from there. The concept’s cool enough to place this a cut above your average slasher flick, and particularly later in the movie there’s some good gore and a couple of solid scares. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 8/17/2002

 

 

Brother Bear

 

Jeez this movie has a lot of death, even for a Disney production. The studio continues to make its way through the world’s various ethnicities, here ostensibly telling an American Indian story of a young man transformed into a bear. The production has an amusing touch here and there, such as Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis voicing a pair of distinctly Great White Northern moose. Otherwise this is more depressing than it is entertaining. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Animation

Date reviewed: 11/2/2007

 

 

Brotherhood of Death

 

It must have been really tough for black guys who served in Vietnam to return home and have to deal with open, brutal racism. Though this exploitation picture is by no means a serious consideration of the situation, it is nonetheless emotionally gratifying. Our three heroes avoid a Klan plot to lynch them by enlisting in the Army. In Vietnam they become experts in guerilla warfare. And when they get back to their small, Southern hometown, at first they try to avoid trouble. But after a couple of killings and a graphic rape scene (which cost the picture a rating point), they whip out the old combat training and go to work on the bed-sheet-wearing moron brigade. This isn’t exactly a contender for an Academy Award in screenwriting, acting, cinematography or editing. But it is nice to see the Ku Kluxers met with a response more direct and effective than the usual, liberal “can’t we all just get along” stuff. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 12/7/2009

 

 

Brotherhood of Satan

 

This is one of those movies that in the beginning seems like it might be unusually innovative and artistic but turns out to just be unusually inept. A coven of aging Satanists needs to swap their bodies with 13 of the local youngsters, so they begin murdering their way through town in order to gather up the requisite kid count. Though this production fails on many levels, the editing is a real stand-out. The pacing is laconic at best, with little attention to meaningful plot structure or even logical shot sequence. The casting is also odd, with most of the male characters played by uniformly tall, skinny actors. Strother Martin – as the Satanist-in-chief – is at least an exception to the no-name beanpole coterie, but he turns in an okay-hail-Satan-hail-Satan-if-you-need-me-I’ll-be-in-my-trailer performance. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Witch

Date reviewed: 4/7/2008

 

 

The Brotherhood of the Wolf

 

Somewhere between the atmospheric horror movies of Cocteau and Polanski and the frantic action flicks of Luc Besson lies this odd tale of an 18th century French village terrorized by a ravening Beast. As a mystery movie it doesn’t work at all, but fortunately the film-makers appear to recognize this shortcoming and compensate by throwing in a fair measure of sex and gore. Production values are solid, and this might have been a better picture (with a slightly better rating) were it not for the decision to include racism of a sort even Hollywood has started to move past, sexism that wasn’t even consistent with the plot, and oh way far too much animal suffering. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Werewolf

Date reviewed: 11/2/2002

 

 

The Brothers Grimm

 

The movie dreadful. This is the exact opposite of what we’ve come to expect from Terry Gilliam. There’s almost no plot at all here, the story consisting almost exclusively of fairy tale sub-references and sight gags. And even these elements frequently don’t work on their own, let alone as part of a larger production. The acting was terrible; why oh why did Matt Damon feel the need to adopt a highly-ineffective English accent in order to play a German character? And don’t even get me started on the animal cruelty. Even the theme is unnecessary. As ever, Gilliam makes a valid point about the importance of imagination. But this is a subject he’s explored to much better effect in other productions ranging from Time Bandits down to Baron Munchausen. Because I was in a fairly good mood when I wrote this, the movie managed to escape an “avoid” verdict. But just barely. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Fantasy

Date reviewed: 5/6/2006

 

 

Bruiser

 

What happened to George Romero? At one point he was at the cutting edge of the horror movie business. Now he seems content to work only occasionally, and if this outing is any indication of what we can expect from him in the future then he might want to consider staying retired on a more permanent basis (sorry George, but Dawn of the Dead is apparently far behind you). This is the ham-handed allegorical tale of a white, middle-class guy who wakes up one morning to find that his face is gone. Thus liberated from his identity, he goes on a killing spree that plays like an arty version of Falling Down. Despite a nod or two to Poe in the end (and a cameo by the Misfits), this outing’s a pale shadow of Romero’s former brilliance. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Slasher

Date reviewed: 1/9/2002

 

 

Brüno

 

After Borat, I was expecting something more biting and less Zoolander. Sacha Baron Cohen gets up to his usual tricks, playing a foreign character who pulls outrageous stunts. And every once in awhile he strikes a legitimate social nerve. But for the most part “dumb Austrian gay guy” isn’t that funny a schtick. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 10/28/12

 

 

Buck

 

I haven’t seen The Horse Whisperer, so I don’t know what the fictionalized version of Buck Brannaman’s story is like. But the real guy is unusually interesting. Coming from a childhood of abuse, he developed the notion of treating horses with kindness and respect rather than “breaking” them with indifferent cruelty. The unintrusive documentary style of this picture does a great job of telling his touching story. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Documentary

 

Subgenre: Biography

Date reviewed: 10/8/11

 

 

The Buddy Holly Story

 

The most remarkable thing about this biopic is that prior to a lot of hard living and a bad head injury or two, Gary Busey actually had some talent. Holly’s music seems pretty tame by 21st century standards, so this story is a good reminder of just how radically brilliant his work was and just how much nonsense – racist and otherwise – he had to go through just to be heard. Unfortunately the final sequence – his very last show – serves as a chilling reminder not only of how tragic his loss was but also how greatly his music suffered when it was overproduced and robbed of the simplicity that made it so great. The production values of this picture are fairly mediocre, but the subject is sufficiently fascinating to carry the day. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Biography

Date reviewed: 10/13/2010

 

 

Buffalo '66

 

Meaningless, meandering script? Mindless preoccupation with alienated people in dysfunctional relationships? Grainy film stock? Brutal animal violence? Must be another GenX indy director bamboozling the critics into thinking he’s profound. Honestly, actor-writer-director Vincent Gallo actually includes a scene in which another character tells him what a large penis he has. You can’t get too much more self-indulgent than that, and most of the rest of the film is just about as bad. Why oh why do mainstream critics who really should know better keep falling for this kind of nonsense? Gallo has a reputation for attacking critics who talk bad about him, so maybe that has something to do with it. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Art

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

 

To this day it completely astounds me that this later became a successful television series. I never saw the TV show, but the movie that spawned it is pure sitcom. We’re given a 50 / 50 mix of valley girl high school comedy and vampire picture. The surprising thing is that the mix works fairly well. Perhaps it’s just that both of the spawning sub-genres are so dumb that their collective lack of wit blends easily together. In any event, despite a clever line or two and a handful of appearances by actors who would later become famous for other roles (not to mention two or three folks whose careers were headed in the opposite direction), for the most part this is just as terrible as the title makes it sound. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Vampire

Date reviewed: 8/31/2007

 

 

Bug (1975)

 

I should have bailed on this one right after they burned the cat to death. Either they really did it or the effects used for that sequence (and the subsequent cat corpse) greatly exceeded the quality of the rest of the movie. Further, this represented the most dramatic volume ramps I’ve ever had to do between the whispered dialogue and the nerve-grating racket of the monster attack scenes. And yet I stuck with it based on a faulty memory from childhood that assured me this was a lot better than it was. Maybe watching roaches set stuff on fire with their butts was more entertaining back when I was nine years old. Bradford Dillman plays an entomologist who goes off the deep end after subterranean fire bugs incinerate his wife. He eventually captures one of the critters and forces it to breed (despite the fact that we’ve already been told they don’t have sex organs) with a common cockroach. The resulting spawn turn out to be super smart and psychically connected, swiftly learning to arrange themselves into words on the wall. He should have crossed them with the screenwriters. That would have provided them with much more limited intellect. This is director Jeannot Szwarc’s worst movie ever, and in a catalog that includes Santa Claus The Motion Picture that’s really saying something. It’s also the last movie William Castle ever produced. What a sad end to an illustrious career. Verdict: avoid at all costs.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 4/15/11

 

 

Bug (2006)

 

Small cast. Single location. Stiff dialogue. No special effects to speak of. Yep, it’s yet another bad play transformed into a bad movie. Actually, for all I know this might have worked well on the stage. But on the screen? No. Here it’s an annoying hour and a half about a woman who takes in a drifter only to discover that he suffers from a bizarre delusion about bugs. Or is it a delusion? Before we even got to the bug part, I’d already stopped caring. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Thriller

Date reviewed: 11/23/2007

 

 

Bugs

 

This starts out as a Mimic mimic but then segues into an Aliens rip-off. A multi-million-dollar subway system is jeopardized when it turns out to be infested with giant, prehistoric bugs. Sending in a SWAT team doesn’t help matters much, either. Cheap. Stupid. Dull. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 5/22/2008

 

 

A Bug's Life

 

The old tale of the grasshopper and the ants gets a work-over via the magic of Pixar and a big dose of plot transfusion from The Seven Samurai. Like most Disney animations, this film’s got its share of impressive graphics and cute moments. But also like most Disney animations, it features a few cute characters, a lot of feel-good moments, and the notorious happy ending. The romance between the ant princess and the hapless hero doesn’t work for me, perhaps because I didn’t sense much chemistry between Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Dave Foley, even as computer-animated bugs (or maybe they were just too close to their counterparts in Antz, which suffered from equally bad chemistry between Woody Allen and Sharon Stone). Not bad as an opening feature for video night, but not much more. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Animation

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

Bull Durham

 

Here we have one of the great moments in baseball cinema. This has got to be one of the sappiest, most pseudo-intellectual bits of fluff ever committed to celluloid. In other words, it’s a perfect example of the genre. Kevin Costner speechifies, Susan Sarandon misquotes Blake, and Tim Robbins looks awkward. Despite all that, this film occasionally manages to be clever. And beneath all the goofy humor, romantic posturing and other clap-trap, the film’s saving grace is that it does manage to convey a genuine love of the game. Verdict: worth seeing.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Baseball

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

Bulletproof Monk

 

Chow Yun Fat once again lends his talents to an all-too-Hollywood martial arts action movie slash goofy buddy comedy. This one wasn’t quite as bad as Rush Hour in the offensive ethnic humor department, and a lot of the choreography wasn’t half bad. But it’s still the story of an Asian kung fu master who takes a westerner under his wing for no readily apparent reason other than potential box office receipts. If they’d left the dumb white kid out and just focused on the Tibetan monk (Chow) pursued by an evil Nazi and his mercenary henchpersons, this would have been a much better movie. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: Martial arts

Date reviewed: 7/28/2004

 

 

Bulworth

 

Here we have either a brilliant little bit of absurdism or a miserable failure of a message piece comedy. Toward the end, it starts to look more and more like the audience has been subjected to the latter. Warren Beatty wrote this one himself, so he really doesn’t have any excuse for appearing in such a dreadful production. This is a bizarre tale of a senator who has a nervous breakdown and begins to speak candidly and publicly about power politics in America, particularly the racial and economic components thereof. Although it features a couple of amusing moments, for the most part the jokes fall flat and the message becomes tedious fairly swiftly. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Political

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

The Bunker (1981)

 

Hitler is an impossible role to play. If you try to understate the character and avoid the obvious cliché mannerisms, you don’t convince the audience or do justice to the role (not to mention that if you want “understated” then you probably shouldn’t get Anthony Hopkins for the part). On the other hand, if you play him true to form, you come off looking like a mocking impersonation. Every time I see a performance like this, I can practically hear Chaplin raving about “der sauerkrauten und der rooten tooten.” Fortunately the lead role isn’t exactly the death of this overall disappointment. The script trots out the usual “wisdom” about the final days of the Third Reich (Hitler was a nut, Bormann was a jerk, Speer was trying to do the right thing, and so on) without adding any nuance or new information. The subject itself is inherently somewhat interesting, but the production never rises above the level of appeal that any death-of-Hitler show would have commanded. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 11/12/2010

 

 

The Bunker (2001)

 

I just don’t get it. War movies rock. Horror movies rock. But for some bizarre reasons the two combined seem to cancel each other out. To be fair, this isn’t a bad movie. Indeed, among “weird war” movies this one stands out as one of the better examples of the sub-genre. German soldiers fleeing the Allied assault in late 1944 take refuge in an anti-tank bunker. It’s their bad luck that the place is connected to a series of tunnels that lead to some sinister stuff. It’s a fastball wind-up, but it turns out to be a slow-moving knuckleball of a pitch. If ever there was a time to not go the strictly-psychological route to chills, this was the moment. The script is good. The cast is good. The production values are good, especially for a low-budget picture. It just never quite manages to pan out. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 2/3/2008

 

 

The 'Burbs

 

Though in general I like director Joe Dante’s work, this one’s just a bit too silly for my taste. Tom Hanks – back when he was still small enough to play roles like this – stars as a guy whose quiet week of home-bound vacation is disrupted by the sudden appearance of creepy new neighbors. The plot consists of a long series of set-ups for bad physical comedy. Overall the whole quirky-suburbanites-versus-the-Addams-Family thing comes nowhere near sustaining the picture’s running time. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Comedy

Date reviewed: 5/23/2009

 

 

Burn After Reading

 

This isn’t a bad movie, but the combination of espionage and the Coen brothers should have been better. Frances MacDormand and Brad Pitt both do great jobs as health club employees who stumble onto a disc full of government secrets. Their bumbling attempts to profit from their discovery bring them into contact with several “beltway insider” types and no end of screwball situations. The comedy-of-errors stuff is done to a Coen tee, but unfortunately that’s about all we get. If this had somehow involved some kind of actual spy drama running parallel to the comedy threads, it might have been more fun to watch. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Spy

Date reviewed: 12/24/2008

 

 

Burn Hollywood Burn

 

The long version of the title for this movie starts off with “An Alan Smithee Film,” indicating not only that it’s a movie about a director who wouldn’t put his name on a film but also that, blending fantasy, reality and hype, the guys who made this particular movie decided not to put their names on it. Despite the fact that I can’t really blame them for wanting their names off this stinker, I strongly suspect that it was all a big publicity stunt. I mean, like Joe Esterhas has any pride to begin with. Please. Whatever the case, this production is notable primarily for some cameos that were nowhere near as funny as they were supposed to be, amusing performances by Chuck D and Coolio (and you know when Coolio is one of the highlights that you’re talking about a pretty dim movie), and proof absolute that screenwriter Esterhas only manages to be funny when he’s not trying to do so. Burn, video, burn. Verdict: wish I’d skipped it.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Parody

Date reviewed: 1999

 

 

The Burning

 

How sad it must be to have no greater ambition in life than to make a cheap knock-off of Friday the 13th. And yet here it is, the inevitable consequence of the surprise profitability of the first chapter in the Voorhees saga. In this effort the killer is a burn victim seeking revenge for ill-treatment at the hands of campers. Tom Savini did the special effects, bringing his usual stylish-yet-cheap aplomb to the various hackings and slashings. Otherwise the picture is notable only for the before-they-were-famous appearances of several actors, including Holly Hunter and the bald guy from Seinfeld. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Slasher

Date reviewed: 3/23/2008

 

 

The Burning Bed

 

Farah Fawcett turns in one of the first "if I de-glamor myself will you take me seriously as an actress?" performances in this at-the-time-groundbreaking drama about domestic violence. She plays Francine Hughes, a lower-class woman from Mississippi stuck in a long-term relationship with an abusive man (Paul Le Mat). When family, friends and authorities all fail to help her escape the rising tide of violence in her home, she takes matters into her own hands and sets fire to the guy while he's asleep. Her subsequent murder trial (not to mention this movie and the book it's based on) did a lot to draw national attention to a serious problem. Unfortunately, that makes it a bit of a creature of its own time, important in 1984 but now at least a little dated. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Crime

Date reviewed: 6/30/11

 

 

Burnt Offerings

 

The only thing getting burnt around here is the amount of weed you’d have to smoke to make this into an entertaining experience. Oh, and also whatever you spent renting it, money going up in smoke. This isn’t a finest moment for anyone involved. And while “finest moment” for Oliver Reed may be strictly relative, just about everyone else has done better work elsewhere. This is particularly disappointing coming from Dan Curtis. The guy who came up with Trilogy of Terror and the Kolchak series has a much better idea about what’s scary than he shows anywhere in this boring stinker. Honestly, when the biggest shocks in the whole thing are achieved by agitating water in a swimming pool and lighting Reed with an orange spot, you know you’re in for a dull experience. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Ghost

Date reviewed: 3/21/2009

 

 

Burn, Witch, Burn

 

I have the same problem with this movie as I do with the old TV series Bewitched: if you found out your wife was a practicing witch who could actually do magic, why the hell would you tell her not to? A woman who can zap steak dinners onto the table and Cadillacs into the garage? What’s not to like? And in this case the question is even more urgent, as the practices to which hubby objects so strongly are the only things keeping him from being torn apart by evil spirits conjured by a work rival. Originally released as Night of the Eagle (which makes it sound more like a war movie), this dreary little English horror picture plays more like an episode of The Twilight Zone than an actual feature. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Witch

Date reviewed: 1/11/11

 

 

The Burrowers

 

Impressive. I’ve long thought that horror and the western would make a good combination, though I’m surprised at how seldom I’ve been proven right. But boy does this ever. The thesis here is that the open prairie is inhabited by a strange kind of monster known to the locals as the Burrowers. They paralyze their victims, bury them alive, wait for them to soften up a bit, and then return to eat them. The protagonist’s pursuit of his Burrower-kidnapped fiancée leads through no end of interesting situations as western staples – particularly anti-Indian prejudice – get in the way of efforts to unravel the mystery. The beasts themselves don’t actually put in an appearance until late in the picture, but they’re worth the wait. The story is hard on everyone involved – including horses – and isn’t likely to win any feel-good awards. But that just makes it all the better. Verdict: buy the disc.

 

Genre: Horror

 

Subgenre: Monster

Date reviewed: 4/30/2009

 

 

Burton and Taylor

 

Celebrity bios aren’t my cup of tea, particularly when the subject is a pair of prima donnas whose egos prevent them from finding happiness. But I was lured in by the chance to see Dominic West as Richard Burton and Helena Bonham Carter as Liz Taylor. The production delivered what it promised, showing the ultimate Hollywood couple struggling to work together on the Broadway stage in the months prior to Burton’s death. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Biorgraphy

Date reviewed: 2/11/15

 

 

Bush's Brain

 

Everything you never cared to know about Karl Rove. Here we’ve got a key player in a regime responsible for thousands upon thousands of unnecessary deaths and a shameful and in some ways unprecedented erosion of American society. Yet Rove’s critics – or at least the ones recorded here – seem a lot more worried about the little creep’s affinity for dishonest campaign tactics. Further, it’s the usual liberal line: hand-wringing and sob stories. The problem with devoting a huge chunk of screen time to the sad tale of a Marine killed in one of Bush’s cooked-up conflicts is that it’s an argument against war in general, not the latest conflicts in particular. If this is the best case that can be made against scum like Rove, then someone isn’t trying hard enough. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Documentary

 

Subgenre: Political

Date reviewed: 1/16/2009

 

 

But I'm a Cheerleader

 

Imagine a John Waters wannabe directing an After School Special about teenage homosexuality and you’ve got some idea of what you’re in store for here. This picture’s heart is clearly in the right place, and it raises some important criticisms of society’s treatment of teenage sexuality, particularly the camps designed to “de-gay” kids who seem to be straying from the straight and narrow. But most of the humor depends on kitsch and/or cliché, and the serious moments frequently come across as stiff and contrived. Still, I’ve seen worse movies. And if I was a gay teenager I might find some comfort here. Verdict: mildly amusing.

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Subgenre: Situation

Date reviewed: 3/20/2006

 

 

The Butterfly Effect

 

I had a solid block of hate going for this movie until the last five minutes. For the most part this is an Ashton-Kutcher-intensive parade of violence inflicted on helpless children and animals. And on top of that, the story is the tried-and-tiresome canard of the guy who tries to go back in time to make things better only to screw them up even worse. Frankly, I could have done without the whole mess. But then at the very end it turns into a hilarious parody that Frank Capra has had coming for decades. I’m not sure that’s what was intended, but the result is solid nonetheless. Overall this isn’t worth looking at, but if you do sit through it you’ll have to sit through it all before it rewards your attention. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Drama

 

Subgenre: Sci fi

Date reviewed: 2/23/2008

 

 

By Dawn's Early Light

 

If a real nuclear war was this big a cluster fuck, that’s just one more reason why it’s a good thing we never got around to having one. In this drama the whole mess gets sparked by a mysterious missile attack on a Soviet city, and things go downhill from there. Before the end of the movie, NORAD has been wiped out, the country is being run by the Secretary of the Interior, and just about every officer in the entire military has disobeyed orders in one way or another (ranging from simple incompetence to high treason). Overall this is a made-for-HBO reheat of Fail Safe that came along just in time for the Cold War to end and render the whole thing moot. Verdict: see if desperate.

 

Genre: Action

 

Subgenre: War

Date reviewed: 6/16/2008