Cinematic, Vol. 4

More reviews for your amusement.

Legend: Jet Li kicks people around, badly dubbed. As far as I know the only three stars in Chinese action cinema are Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and Michelle Yeoh. (**1/2)

A Fistful of Dollars: Part 2 of 3 in Sergio Leone's man with no name trilogy. But it's a copy, scene for scene, of Yojimbo. Down to the lines used. Well done anyway, but exactly the same. (**1/2 if you've seen Yojimbo, ***1/2 otherwise)

A History of Violence: A minimalist drama that people who aren't me will find very disturbing. Very real, and very well done. (****)

Serenity: Joss Whedon's finally made a fucking movie! Whoot! It's good, too. A Western in space. His lack of big budget works to his favor, and all those years scripting fight scenes works to his benefit. (***1/2)

The Life of Brian: Always look on the bright side of life... Not the Python's funniest outing in my book, but hilarious nonetheless. (***)

The Fog: A worse remake of the John Carpenter original. The fog machine does a good job, but that's about it. (*1/2)

The Pink Panther Strikes Again: It's things like this why Peter Sellers is regarded as much as he is. Slapstick through and through, but classic. And somewhat classy, too. (***)

Domino: The movie is less real than the real thing. Write that down, because it's the only time it will likely ever happen. Unique cinematography and an excellent score. And Kiera Knightly does a good job, even if she does look nothing like Domino Harvey. (***1/2)

Wallace & Grommit in - The Curse of The Were-Rabbit: Claymation awesomeness! Fun for the whole family. (***1/2)

Psycho: Alfred Hitchcock deserves his accolades. He has excellent cinematography and storytelling skills. It hasn't aged all that well, unfortunately. The story's still good, but the rest isn't so much. (***)

The Brother's Grimm: Terry Gilliam + horror + action + special effects + comedy + romance + good actors = Brazil! No, wait, that's not quite right. It's a good movie, though. And very hard to pin down. (***1/2)