akatemple of reviews

Thought I would give a shot at starting my own review thread, I know there are already a lot on this site but just thought it can't hurt.

I am in the process of moving the reviews I have already posted on the Movie Tab thread and posting them here. The new reviews start at #51.

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Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Directed by Peter Jackson


Juliet Hulme and Pauline Rieper (later revealed in the trial to be Pauline Parker, as her parents never married) quickly become best friends when Juliet's family moves to Christchurch in 1952. They are both very creative and imaginative, they seem to use there imagination when they are dealing with harsh situations in there lives. They start to become lost in there fantasy and start to see Pauline’s mother as the enemy. The two girl’s parents try to separate them but the girls will do anything to stay together. Juliet and Pauline start thinking up a solution for this.



I am very new at writing reviews for films, but I think that’s all I can say without giving away to many spoilers. I really enjoyed this movie a lot which kind of surprised me as I am not the biggest fan of Kate Winslet, so I was very pleasantly surprised by her acting in this movie which I believe was her first actual film.



Melanie Lynskey (aka the stalker from Two and a Half Men) played a very scary and believably disturbed girl.



The fact that this is based on a true story adds a lot to the film while you are watching it wondering how anyone can be this disturbed. In my opinion there punishment was very weak, maybe that is just the law in New Zealand.

I really enjoyed this movie and would recommend this to anyone who has not seen it.

Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)

A gunslinger rides into a 19th century Nevada town inhabited by 2 feuding gangster clans, the Heiki and the Genji. The gunman (Hideaki Ito) offers himself to whichever clan will give him the biggest share of the rumored hidden treasure. The sheriff is in the pockets of the Heiki clan so the law in this town is nonexistent. The leader of the Genji clan (Masanobu Ando) has a holstered six shooter on one hip and a sheathed katana on the other. All the weapons in the movie are old-school, but the facial piercings and the emo haircuts bring a modern look to the characters. The story can be difficult to follow and demands that you pay attention to it. I had to re-watch several parts of the film because I was distracted by the bizarre nature of the film itself. The opening scene is amazing, Piringo (Quentin Tarantino) in front of a obviously painted background telling a animated story about a gunfighter while holding a blood red egg just removed from a snakes stomach while being held at gunpoint. It is hard to pay attention to the dialogue when the film is throwing these curve balls at you. This is not a complaint but just an observation.

Takashi Mike (Audition, Ichi the Killer, 13 Assassins) does a great job of Directing this Japanese take on the classic spaghetti western, the title actually refers to a classic Japanese dish called Sukiyaki, and Sergio Corbucci’s spaghetti western film Django.

The Ninth Configuration (1980)
(also known as Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane)

Written by William Peter Blatty (The Exorcist)
Directed by William Peter Blatty (The Exorcist)

The plot is a good one, and people who enjoy thrillers and mysteries will find enough action and plot twists in the film. But what makes this movie so special are the terrific performances (by Stacy Keach, Scott, Wilson, and Ed Flanders), the witty dialogue, and the religious undercurrents. Too often movies treat religious belief with sentimentality, but the Ninth Configuration deals with faith and doubt in with a dignity that isn't patronizing to either side.



It’s Vietnam and a number of soldiers have gone psycho, during the film you will find yourself trying to figure out if they are faking or are they really crazy. The soldiers are being held in a abandoned castle in a remote forest, top USMC Psychiatrist is sent in to investigate. For his part Kane is determined to help the men, especially their leader Capt. Cutshaw. The film has many confrontations between Kane and Cutshaw. There debates are mainly about the impossibility of a God with so much evil in the world.

Cutshaw: " You're on your way out! I'm acting on orders so to inform you. "
Kane: " Who ordered you Cutshaw? "
Cutshaw: " Unseen forces far too numerous to enumerate."

Sleep Dealer (2008)

Directed by Alex Rivera
Written by Alex Rivera and David Riker

Memo (Luis Fernando Pena) has always dreamed of leaving his small farming village, he accidently tunes into the wrong signal on his radio which turns out to be some kind of Top Secret government signal. The government finds out and kills Memo’s father accidentally. Memo runs to Tijuana to hide, he uses his time there to make money and send it back to what is left of his family. He gets a job as a plugged in worker, plugged in workers use a virtual headset to control machinery from south of the border with only a few side effects mainly blindness. Memo is contacted by a guilt ridden man who turns out to be the controller of the weapon that killed his father, the man is seeking redemption so they start planning the next move together.



This is one of those Sci-Fi movies that I can really see happening not to far off in the future. The use of machines being controlled from far away by people desperate for money seems like a very realistic future.

Stay (2005)

Directed by Marc Forster
Written by David Benioff

This movie did terrible at the box office and a lot of people still have not seen this film. The marketing and advertising for this film were almost non existent, what advertising there was does not do the film justice. The trailer that was released made this movie look like some kind of supernatural thriller, this film is not a supernatural thriller so the people that did go to the theaters to see the film were very disappointed.

Stay is a movie with really three main characters, Dr. Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor), Henry Letham (Ryan Gosling), and Lila Culpepper(Naomi Watts). The movie starts with Henry going to see Dr. Sam, Henry tells him that he is going to kill himself in 3 days. Pretty much from this point on you have to try and figure out for yourself what’s real and what’s not. About halfway through the movie scenes start melting together in a almost dreamlike way, this can get confusing and annoying.
I thought this was a great movie, I would not buy this but it is deffenitly worth renting and watching a couple times.



I know some people on this site do not like Ewan McGregor but even they should give this movie a shot.

The Odessa File (1974)
Directed by Ronald Neame
Written by Frederick Forsyth (novel), Kenneth Ross (screenplay)

1963, President Kennedy has just been assassinated, Egypt has missiles posed to annihilate Israel. Egypt is missing one part, the guidance system for the missiles. They turn to the Germans for the part they need.

Peter Miller played by a very young Jon Voight (does he ever look young), is a freelance German journalist. Peter gets a journal that the police took after a man is killed. The man who was killed turns out to be a Jew that survived the Nazi concentration camps, his journal is filled with horrific about what happened to Jews in these camps, also in the journal are the names of Nazi officers that were behind all this violence.

As Peter keeps digging deeper into the man who died and the names in the journal he uncovers a secret Nazi group still in existence called The Odessa. Peter must go under cover and try to gain access to this secret group so he can stop them and prevent the guidance systems from getting into the Egyptians hands.



This movie was really good, I have been avoiding watching this for a long time and I don’t know why but I wish I had of watched this years ago. I was worried that this would be a slow moving film, and maybe it was a bit but not enough to bother me in the slightest because I was really caught up in the story. I deffinatly suggest that anyone who hasn’t seen this movie should give it a shot and give your own opinion.

I like Ewan McGregor and I will deff give that movie a shot!!

The Thin Red Line (1998)
Directed by Terrence Malick
Written by James Jones (novel), Terrence Malick (screenplay)

I went and saw this movie in theaters when I was 18 and I hated this movie. I watched this again about a month ago and have a whole new take on the movie. When I was 18 I think I was expecting a super action packed movie instead of beautiful cinematography, a great story, and amazing acting from the insanely huge and great cast. Nick Nolte, James Caviezel, Sean Penn, Ben Chaplin, John Cusack, Adrien Brody, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, Jared Leto, John Travolta, George Clooney, Elias Koteas, and many more.



This is the battle for Guadalcanal Island, Nick Nolte plays a intense career officer not seeming to care about how many of his men die but just caring about getting the mission complete on his superiors time table. Nolte's anger is so convincing that you are sitting there waiting for him to stroke out in one of his yelling rants. The cinematography is amazing, every shot is a masterpiece. The scenes that stuck out the most to me were the shots of the sloping fields with the tall grass, those shots made me really not want to look away from the screen. If you are one of the very few people who have not seen this movie then definitely do.

Dogtooth (2009)
Directed by Giorgos Lanthimos
Written by Giorgos Lanthimos, and Efthymis Filippou

The director said that the idea for this movie started out as a science fiction movie about how in the future there would be these groups of people who would want to keep the idea of a proper family alive.



Living in a house with no contact to the outside world and not being able to leave. A father and mother who appear to be psychotic in there methods of punishment and reward. The father brings a woman home who he has payed to have sex with his son to satisfy his sexual needs. But that was not enough for this director, the amount of incest and sexual awkwardness was hard to watch.



The part that bothered me the most was thinking that somewhere in the world there might be a family like this. The scene with the cat being disemboweled, or maybe the fact that the father and mother teach the children that cats are the most evil animal in the world and will brutally kill you if given the slightest chance was bizarre(so deffinatly watch this movie if you are a cat lover, you can thank me later) as were all of the ways that the parents made there children to scared to even try to leave there fenced in property. I thought the film Castaway taught all of us a good way to remove a tooth, but this movie one ups Castaway and teaches an entirely new technique in how to safely remove that annoying little thing.

I loved the part showing the correct usage of a VCR during a fight. Also some good tips on what to do with those old VHS tapes laying around as long as you have some good duct tape.[/size]

Bob Dylan: DON’T LOOK BACK (2011)
Directed by D.A. Pennebaker
Written by D.A. Pennebaker

DON'T LOOK BACK is a fly on the wall point of view of both the private and public life of Bob Dylan. When documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker (Monterey Pop, The War Room) filmed Bob Dylan during a concert tour of England in the Spring of 1965, I do not think that he knew he was going to give everyone such a personal and intimate look into a very young Bob Dylan.

The scenes with Dylan and the reporters are my favorite parts, it must be so hard for someone to just get asked the same questions all the time and Dylan just throws it back at the reporters and makes them answer the questions often tripping up the reporters, some of the scenes I do not understand what point he was trying to get across other then he was tired of being called a folk singer. One of the best parts is after one of Dylan’s shows a reporter is phoning in his report and sais that Dylan is sermonizing rather than singing, but the people are so caught up on seeing Dylan that all they hear is the singing and not the sermon.



Personally I am not a huge Bob Dylan fan however I really enjoyed this film, the concert footage and the sound quality is excellent especially since this was filmed in 1965. You can see the change in Dylan’s music, starting in the beginning as Folk music and starting to progress more towards Rock and Roll by the end of the film.

Cold Fish
Directed by Shion Sono
Written by Shion Sono and Yoshiki Takahashi

THIS MOVIE IS INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS. The movie does not even have an innocent beginning, from the start you realize that something is wrong. When Shamoto’s teenage daughter is caught shoplifting they meet a man who is very cooperative in helping them out. A man who owns an exotic fish store driving a Ferarri, that was a red flag to me. The man offers to let there daughter work at his store and help put her on the right track in life, at first the Shamoto is all too happy that someone is going to help her. Very soon in Shamoto discovers that all is not right and then finds himself too far in to get help, the man uses Shamoto’s family to get him to help with his dirty work.
When someone is killed and all evidence is destroyed they call it making the person invisible, the man offers take Shamoto as an apprentice and teach him how to do this, let the killing begin.



This is not a Japanese ultra gore movie, there is plenty of blood in this film but not enough to put people off of watching it. To think that this is based on a true story is enough of an upset, they do not need to add all of the extra gore.



This film is well made and the story is very strong, basically a story of a week willed person versus a strong willed person and the week usually crumble under the circumstances. If you don’t mind sub-titles, and you enjoy a very suspenseful film then I strongly suggest watching this.

Blue Sunshine (1978)
Directed by Jeff Lieberman
Written by Jeff Lieberman

This film is a classic from the late seventies indie horror scene. Blue Sunshine starts with a group of people having fun at a party, while singing a duet Frannie Scott’s (Billy Crystal’s brother) wig get’s pulled off revealing a bald head with long tufts of hair speckling his scalp, that teamed with his crazy eyes make for a very scary psychotic looking killer. It turns out this is not an isolated incident, more people are suffering from the same affects as Frannie, hair loss, headaches and finally psychosis. Jerry Zipkin (Zalman King) is an innocent man on the run from the police, trying to put together what these people have in common. As he digs deeper and deeper he starts to piece together the clues such as everyone that is affected is a graduate from Stanford and all from the same time, also the two words Blue Sunshine keep popping up.



The political cover up in this movie is very fitting for today as the congressional candidate is talking about unemployment and trying to make more jobs for the people. Zipkin believes the politician is involved in some way and starts pushing forward trying to uncover the truth, but will he be able to in time to save everyone else?

Since this was a low budget film I think they made the right decisions to keep the gruesomeness at a minimum. I would not categorize this film as a horror but more of a mystery/thriller. Even though this movie was made in 1978 I think it can still hold its own against the newer movies coming out in the same genre.

This is the Sept. 20 2011 Dvd release, the only thing that has been added is an interview with Jeff Lieberman.

30 Days of Night: Dark Days

Directed by: Ben Ketai
Written by: Steve Niles and Ben Ketai

I’m not sure what I am more disappointed in, the fact that I wasted 92 minutes of my life or that I wasted time waiting for this to arrive from Netflix. The story is about Stella, the only survivor from Barrow’s Alaska (30 Days 30 Nights) as she tries to get people to believe what happened. She soon meets 3 people who have had similar run ins with Vampires.
There is a queen in this movie of course, A queen which they must kill in order to stop the Vampire attacks from happening. Getting to the Queen will be difficult and matched with equally horrible CGI Vampire scenes. The only good CGI scenes in this movie are from the flashbacks from the original movie.



Seriously don’t waste your time with this movie. In my opinion it is just a pathetic excuse to make money off of a movie that was good. You will never get this time back so just go and do something you enjoy for about 92 minutes. The only redeeming part of this movie is Stella (Kiele Sanchez) she is really hot and that’s all I have to say about that.

My Left Foot (1989)
Directed by: Jim Sheridan
Written by: Shane Connaughton and Jim Sheridan
The Novel was written by: Christy Brown

This is the true story of Christy Brown (Daniel Day-Lewis) who is born with crippling Cerebral Palsy, he can only control his left leg and foot. Christy is born somewhere in the middle of his 13 brothers and sisters, they are a very poor Irish family, even with Christy’s disability the family never seems to give up hope even though there are some very rough patches that they go through. They cannot afford a wheel chair for Christy so they rig up a wheelbarrow to push him around in. The family seems to think that Christy is mentally handicapped, this is way before there was all that much known about Cerebral Palsy. I really liked the scene where he gets a piece of chalk in between his toes and writes MOTHER, his dad carries him on his shoulders into the local bar and sais: “This is Christy Brown my son the genius”.



As Christy grows up more adult problems start to affect him, the main one is seeing everyone falling in love. The restaurant scene where he confesses his love for the Dr. is one of the most uncomfortable scenes that I have watched in a very long time. Watching Daniel Day-Lewis play Christy makes you hurt, he is so convincing that it is hard to believe that he is acting and not actually suffering with Cerebral Palsy.

These are my favorite lines from the movie.

Dr. Eileen Cole: “Christy, if you like we can work here.”

Christy: “F**k off”

Dr. Eileen Cole: “With speech therapy I could teach you how to say f**k off more clearly.”

In such a serious movie it is always good to have the comic relief just at the right times. Like the quoted lines above which made me laugh, there were other funny spots in the movie, just enough to keep it from being to overwhelmingly serious. The ending is fantastic and tear jerking but that’s all I think I can say about that. If you have not seen this film then please go out and get it however possible.

Conan O’Brien: Can’t Stop

When all the S**t hit the fan at NBC Conan was not allowed to appear on television or radio for 6 months, So he got the idea to do a tour called The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour. Of course the title refers to Conan’s settlement with NBC.



I have been a fan of Conan O’Brien for as long as I can remember. This film is great not only because it is freakin hilarious but also because you get to see the family side of Conan playing with his kids and being a dad. It is so great getting to see the uncensored Conan, even though he can get away with quite a bit on his old show and new one. He has a very dark comedy side of him that you get to see and you will find yourself rewinding over and over to see certain parts again. Sona Movsesian is Conan’s assistant, the way they treat each other is hilarious, and sometimes almost seems cruel even though you know they are just joking with each other, it also seems like he wouldn't know what to do without her. You also get to see what a tour like this is like and how much it takes out of the person and how much is asked of them, it seems brutal.



If you are a fan of Conan then you have to see this film.

Infection (2004)

Directed by: Masayuki Ochiai
Written by: Ryoichi Kimizuka and Masayuki Ochiai



This is a horror movie but with more of a thriller/mystery feel too it, the gore is less then you would expect from a Japanese horror movie. So in a nutshell: A decaying hospital (as well as healthcare system) is the setting for this nicely done thriller. Fear of illness, infection, hospitals, the dark, doctors.... they're all covered here. A botched death at the hands of doctors, a mysterious patient dropped off at the E.R., a hospital with very dark rooms and corridors, an aggressive virus that dissolves its host. The movie really builds tension, and the payoff does not insult the viewer. Most horror films today are pretty silly, and this was a nice little gem to discover. I Highly recommended watching this film.

The Kennedys (2011)
Directed by Jon Cassar
Written by Stephen Kronish

I thought I knew a lot about the Kennedy’s from what I learned in school and TV programs that I have watched. It turns out that I knew a lot about John F. Kennedy but not about the Kennedy’s. This mini- series really gives a great look into the family starting with Joe Sr. (Tom Wilkinson) as a ruthless father who believes everyone has a price, John F Kennedy (Greg Kinnear) portrayed as a womanizing man that never really wanted to be president, Bobby Kennedy (Barry Pepper) who’s main job it seems is cleaning up after his brother’s sexual indiscretions, Jackie Kennedy (Katie Holmes) as the long-suffering but dutiful wife and first lady. What is odd is that Edward, Kathleen, Eunice, and Jean Kennedy are nowhere to be found in this mini-series.



The Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Marilyn Monroe, the Mafia, drugs, and being the first Catholic president are just a few of the reasons that I think John F. Kennedy had one of the most interesting presidencies. It is important to remember that this is not a Documentary but a dramatized look at the Kennedy family. A lot of this film seems more suited to a soap opera then a serious drama, still this mini-series is addictive once you start watching making it really hard to press the stop button until you are all the way through.

Rammbock: Berlin Undead (2011)
Directed by: Marvin Kren
Written by: Benjamin Hessler

Rammbock is a really great Zombie film from Germany and comes in at a astounding 59 minutes long. This being a very short film there was a lot of action and the storyline never lagged. The movie is about Michael a man who goes to Berlin to find his ex-girlfriend and instead finds a plumber’s assistant named Harper. Things happen very quickly and Michael and Harper find themselves being two out of the very few survivors in a apartment complex surrounded by Zombies.



These are fast moving zombies, very fast moving zombies which mean’s the problem of survival for the characters even harder. They come up with a creative way to get by the Zombies, but that’s all I’m going to say on that. If you like Zombie films then I do not think that you will be let down there is enough action and gore to satisfy any fan.

It's the classic story, man falls in love with girl, girl dumps man, man goes to get girl back, man finds Zombies.

R-Point (2004)
Directed by: Su-Chang Kong
Written by: Su-Chang Kong

R-point takes place in 1972 Vietnam. A radio transmission comes through and is identified as a South Korean Platoon that disappeared six months ago. Lieutenant Choi Tae is given the order to go to R-point and find the missing soldiers. When they get to R-point they find a marker saying that one hundred years ago the Chinese killed a lot of Vietnamese and dropped them into a lake, then built a temple over top of the place becoming a sacred place to the North and South Vietnamese.



While trying to find the missing Platoon the soldiers find what looks like a abandoned southern style plantation house. Weird things start to happen, seeing ghosts and becoming possessed are just a couple ultimately leading to overpowering paranoia and violence.



This not a huge budget movie but it still looks nice and has a good story that will not bore you. I have seen a lot of Asian ghost movies and this one is unique in that it takes place during wartime in Vietnam. If you like Asian Horror/supernatural movies then you should watch this one, just don’t expect to be scared that much, the movie focuses more on violence and blood then the ghosts.