Flipside Movie Emporium

[Danny Baldwin]

3/1 - 3/7

The Jacket (Maybury, 2005) - It kept me interested for awhile, but it ends up being stunningly awful. A movie without feeling should at least have a good plot-twist.

Paper Clips (Berlin, Fab; 2004) - Any movie with pro-American themes and historical reflection should be appreciated but, come on. There's nothing interesting, here! Middle-schoolers did a Holocaust project that worked out well. Good for them, but not exactly interesting viewing. Still, at only about 70 minutes it's tolerable enough. (I would seriously hope that the advertised 82 minutes is wrong, as I walked in about eleven minutes after the official screening started. Had there not been trailers, I would've been really late, but it seemed as though it was just starting to me.)

Get Shorty (Sonnenfeld, 1995)

Be Cool (Gray, 2005)

I disliked them both, equally. While the first has some good dialogue, it is all over the place and uninteresting. The second's problems are more character-related; sure, I liked John and Uma and Christina Millian, but Vince Vaughn and The Rock were so downright annoying that their superior co-stars became the least of my worries.
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Danny Baldwin

View My Reviews

[the night watchman]

2/28/05-3/6/05

Constantine (Francis Lawrence, 2005) - The story is half-assed, and while it monkeys around a whole lot with Christian theology it doesn?t go nearly far enough to do anything interesting with the permutations. What is interesting is how many movies of this type operate within the logic of Biblical good and evil, but never have the wit or courage to follow it to its natural conclusion. That said, I actually kinda liked the movie. The cinematography and special effects are visually exiting, and some genuinely disturbing imagery can be found early on. Reeves delivers a perfectly acceptable performance in a role that is well within his means, and Rachel Weisz is always a pleasure to look at. I also liked Tilda Swinton as the angel Gabriel and Peter Stormare as the devil.

Bartleby (Jonathan Parker, 2001) - I enjoyed this absurdist version of Melville?s story, but was ultimately disappointed by it, especially by the ending, which brings the story rather needlessly full circle. Still, I think it?s worth watching, and Crispin Glover is always fascinating.

Shock (Mario Bava, 1977) - Although the box art utilizes the cover art from my copy of Shirley Jackson?s We Have Always Lived in the Castle (and sneaks a bloody box opener into Merricat?s dangling hand), Shock has less to do with creepy little girls with witchy wind-blown black hair and everything to do with creepy little boys with curly blonde hair. This is an effective little creeper, with some really neat camera and editing tricks that I can?t believe other filmmakers haven?t ripped-off more often, and a pretty good (and coherent) story to boot. Bava gets an amazing performance from David Colin Jr., who plays the creepy little blonde boy. The movie suffers from the typical ailments of Italian horror cinema of this era--the dubbing is apathetic, and the story becomes dull and trite whenever it attempts to present ?normalcy?--but it soars during most of the spooky bits (even if it does too often utilize spectrally-manipulated inanimate objects, a generic trope that has never been particularly scary to me). Over all, extremely enjoyable exercise in the genre.

Possession (Anderzej Zulawski, 1981) - I?d heard about his movie for a long time and always figured it to be schlock with art house pretensions. After watching it, I discover it?s really art house with schlock pretensions. It makes more sense than most reviewers seem to think, but the histrionics and altogether bizarre behavior of the cast tend to distract from what is a rather straightforward story (if an utterly fantastic one). I cocked my eyebrow a lot, laughed more than once, and generally enjoyed myself; however, all the inarticulate screaming caused my wife to poke her head into the living room more than once and say, ?What the hell are you watching?? I recommend either watching the movie while you're alone in the house or turning down the volume.

Gave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988) - Here is a movie that achieves its intentions perfectly. It uses the medium of animation to observe tragedy while avoiding the distraction of gruesome special effects and make-up a realistic live-action movie would require. It also avoids sentimentality by showing us at the beginning of the movie the fate of the two central characters. The scene in which Seita finally allows himself to grieve for his mother (or simply grieve) is as heart wrenchingly beautiful a moment as ever I?ve seen in a movie.
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"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

[beltmann]

[the night watchman]

[Danny Baldwin]

Argh! Now I'm mad...

I RSVPed for a screening of In My Country tonight, and I just got my invitation now. There's no way I'll make it to the theatre with ample time to get a good seat in just forty-five minutes. People are so disorganized.
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Danny Baldwin

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[Danny Baldwin]

[beltmann]

[beltmann]

I just added The Rapture to my Netflix queue. Even if I have seen it before, it's worth checking out with eyes that are 14 years older and wiser.

Eric
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[the night watchman]

[beltmann]

[Michael Scrutchin]

Lots of catching up to do...

February 8 to March 6, 2005:

[Monkeypox]

Nobody laughs at my Keanu impression...

... that's how spot on it is.
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Rattlesnake's Texas Cobra, you sonofabitch!

[matt header]

Most hilarious line in Constantine (in Keanu's voice):

"Water is a universal medium. It acts as a lubricant between the planes."

Oh, okay! Now I understand! Thanks, Keanu!

I actually rather like him, in the sense that I usually enjoy watching his (often futile) attempts at acting. He's certainly an entertaining performer.
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"I don't like talking to people I know, but strangers I have no problem with." -- Larry David, "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

[Jim Harper]

[Jim Harper]

17/02/05-09/03/05

Ichi the Killer (dir. Takashi Miike, 2001)*

Fist Men in the Moon (dir. Nathan Juran, 1964)*

Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (dir. S.S. Wilson, 2004)*

The Keep (dir. Michael Mann, 1983)

Ginger Snaps (dir. John Fawcett, 2000)

Ginger Snaps Unleashed (dir. Brett Sullivan, 2004)*

One Missed Call (dir. Takashi Miike, 2003)

Jeepers Creepers 2 (dir. Victor Salva, 2003)

Strange Days (dir. Kathryn Bigelow, 1995)

The Boys from Brazil (dir. Franklin J Schaffner, 1978)

Dimension Travelers (dir Kazuya Konaka, 1998)*

Hellevator (dir. Hiroki Yamaguchi, 2004) *

Three? Extremes (dir. Takashi Miike, Chan-wook Park, Fruit Chan, 2004)*

The Devil Rides Out (dir. Terence Fisher, 1968)

Sisters (dir. Brian De Palma, 1973)*

The Virgin Suicides (dir. Sophia Coppola, 2000)*

Secret Window (dir. David Koepp, 2004)*

Blood from the Mummy?s Tomb (dir. Seth Holt, 1971)

Chronicles of Riddick (dir. David Twohy, 2004)

Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt (dir. Paco Plaza, 2004)*

Switchblade Romance (dir. Alexandre Aja, 2003)*

These past few weeks have been fraught. I could really have done with a slew of decent (and previously unseen) movies to distract me from the horrors of my life, but it didn't happen. Nonetheless, there were some good efforts there.

Romasanta and Switchblade were both well-made and highly entertaining, even if they weren't terribly original. I think Europe is producing some fine horror movies right now, and Switchblade is one of them: gory, tense and brutal. Despite what you may have heard, the 'twist' isn't half as catastrophic as it's made out to be.

Ginger Snaps Unleashed is a worthy sequel to the first film, somehow avoiding the almost-compulsory drop in quality associated with the sequel. It can't claim to be as original as Ginger Snaps, but it should still please fans of the first film.

The Virgin Suicides was surprisingly good, but I could have done without the accompanying depression...