Reviews

Thank God for the SciFi Channel. Once ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox finish with and then cast aside some very good shows, they slowly find their way to the SciFi Channel, well most do anyway. Wolf Lake belongs on DVD and should be right there with shows like Tru Calling, American Gothic, The 4400, Point Pleasant, Dead Like Me and The Kindred, but it looks as if Wolf Lake will be stuck waiting in the wings with Special Unit-2.

Wolf Lake with stars and stars on-the-rise, such as Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Sophia Donner), Lou Diamond Phillips (Noah Cassidy), Sharon Lawrence (Vivian Cates), Mia Kirshner (Ruby Cates), Scott Bairstow (Tyler Creed), Tim Matheson (Sheriff Jack Kohanek), Graham Greene (Professor Duke Joseph ), Carmen Moore (Deputy Molly), and more, should have been given a longer run than 9 episodes, but I guess in 2001-2002 the networks were gearing up for a series of fake reality shows. Without giving too much away the premise starts out like many other shows, both good and bad, boy meets girl, girl leaves for Chinese food, something strange happens, boy looks for girl and then it gets good. While in search of his lost girl-friend he ends up in a town full of werewolves. I won't say anymore about the show so as not to give away anything, but I will say it had it's life snuffed out too soon. It started out very good and could have had a decent run given a little time. If you liked any of the shows mentioned in the first paragraph, try to catch this one. Right now SciFi is showing it.

I just rented Year Of The Dragon on DVD as I had worn out my VHS copy that I purchased as soon as it hit the market back in 85 or 86 and it was as great as I remembered it to be. First of all, I have to admit to being a Mickey Rourke fan, loving good police movies, loving Asia and falling for Ariane. So yes, this review will probably be somewhat bias. Mickey Rourke does an outstanding job as Stanley White, police captain assigned to China town. Stan is still a tad angry over the Viet Nam war and losing it, so he is determined to not lose the war in China town.

Ariane who plays Tracy Tzu is an American born Chinese girl who is a reporter that Stan turns to for help with the Chinese gangs and for a bit of comfort after Stan and his wife, Connie White, played by Caroline Kava have a falling out over many things including the fact that Stan is always working. I really didn't care for that story line, to me it slowed the pace of the movie too much. There is however plenty of action as Stan works to bring down Joey Tai, played by John Lone, who is trying his best to take over China town from his elders, two of which are played by Joey Chin and Victor Wong, a couple of well known faces to movie fans. I am not a technical movie critic, I am a "I know what I like" critic and I happen to like this movie very much. Directed by Michael Cimino and based on the novel by Robert Daley, with the screenplay by Oliver Stone. It was released on Aug. 16th, 1985 and stood the test of time very well. It has it all, parades, gun-fights, drugs, gangs, romance, tiny bit of nudity, wire-taps, fights, murder, and mayhem. One of the bad things about not being a honest to goodness critic is trying to figure out why someone as beautiful as Ariane, who can act, at least as well as some of the current day actresses, didn't end up doing more than a handful of films. IMDb show her last entry as 1993. One note: It is sheer BS that her performance was wooden. Buy or rent this one if you have not seen it.

Hammett was produced by the sadly, now defunct Zoetrope Studios of Francis Ford Coppola. Hammett is a great movie that will most likely achieve cult status over time, especially with the folks who love the old 30's and 40's type crime and mystery movies. If you are a fan of this genre, you will most certainly notice the scenes which are very similar to scenes from the Maltese Falcon, but that is understandable as Dashiell Hammett penned the novel and Hammett is a who-dunnit which places the writer right in the thick of things as an old friend and mentor returns to San Francisco to seek help from Hammett played by Fredrick Forrest (The Rose). The old friend and P.I., Jimmy Ryan, played by Peter Boyle (Joe) seeks Hammett's help in locating one, Crystal Ling played by Lydia Lei aka Lydia Lei Kayahara. Crystal ran away from a brothel owned by Fong Wei Tau played by Michael Chow. I won't go any further with this as I don't wish to add any spoilers to this review, but I will say that Marilu Henner (Taxi) plays Hammett's neighbor and drinking buddy, Kit Conger/Sue Alabama. While she doesn't have the biggest part in the world, she does a good job with the part she does have and the sweater beret and black shiny coat that she was wearing at the end of the movie, well, made me long for the good old days. Other old time favorites show up here as well. Roy Kinnear plays English Eddie Hagedorn and Elisha Cook Jr.

plays the taxi driver Eli. Hammett's nemesis in this movie is Lt. O'Mara played by R.G.

Armstrong, while the ever present bad-boy punk is played to perfection by David Patrick Kelly (The Warriors)(Last Man Standing). Sylvia Sidney plays Donaldina Cameron and is only given a small part as is Elmer Kline who plays Doc Fallon. Jack Nance plays Gary Salt. The movie goes back and forth between what our main character has written and what is actually happening, but the two are pretty much the same. Dark and brooding as this film is, it is still worth your time and it is available, at least for now, so grab a your copy while you can as it is worth it to have it in your collection. Too bad that it seems that Lydia Lei only had an 11 year run in movies and TV. I thought she played her character wonderfully. According to the information on IMDb she started in 1977 and her last entry was 1988.

Only Hollywood could make Santa Clarita, California look as if the setting was somewhere south of Hell and filled with refugees from Deliverance. Come to think of it, that might have been a better plot than this comedy of horrors. When you combine Eric Jungmann (Adam) and Justin Urich (Harley) you have the recipes for disaster. Urich must not act, just be himself, as he was a dumb ass in "The Rage-Carrie 2", 1999, as well. I just hope he didn't screw up Lake Placid 2 (2007) (TV) (post-production), as the first Lake Placid was a pretty good movie. Monster Man-2003 is one of the first movies that I can't say hardly anything good about. If they had picked two better actors for the lead, then they may have turned the movie around, but they really need to drop all the comedy crap, as it didn't work. The best thing about the whole movie was when Aimee Brooks (Sarah) was seducing Adam. Aimee Brooks took what little they gave her and did an OK job with it. There really isn't anything I can say about a monster man driving a monster truck and chasing two nerds. In the end I was rooting for the bad guy. I love B_Movies, I even buy and save good B_Movies, but thank God this one was on the SciFi Channel or I would have ask for my money back, which is a very rare thing for me, as I can find something good in nearly every bad movie. But this one only had Sarah.

OK, let's take a look at "Kaw." First, it is a direct descendant of Alfred Hitchcocks "Birds", which is not a bad movie to clone, but "Kaw" seemed to act as though it lost interest right after it got started. I won't rehash what my fellow reviewer wrote, but there are a couple of things that are lacking in this film. I will buy the premise of a Sheriff in a small town of around 600 wanting to leave and I will buy the idea that his last day should be the pits, but here is what I view as some drawbacks to this film. Without giving anything away, I noticed in the beginning of the film, an Amish lady delivers milk and cheese to Betty played by Michelle Duquet at what else but Betty's Diner. Now you are probably wondering about the significance of this, but once you see the end of the movie and all is explained, you will wonder about this as well. One correction I would like to make that a fellow reviewer noted is that the bus was not full of children, but contained one bus driver played by Stephen McHattie, one girls basketball coach played by Amanda Brugel, one Whitney basketball girl played by Ashley Newbrough, one Amish girl played by Megan Park and one other girl played by Renessa Blitz. By my count there were 3 girls, 1 coach, and 1 driver for a total of 5 people, which is a far cry from a "bus load of children." On the return from the basketball clinic, the bus breaks down. At one point, Doris, the Whitney gal, decides to walk to town. The driver, Clyde, points toward the rear of the bus and tells her that town is four miles that way.

In order to be able to view this better, picture your TV and see the front of the bus pointing toward the right of your screen. The rear of the bus is to the left of your screen and to the left of your screen is their town. Question is, how come the bus is heading away from town when they are on their way back into town? Another odd thing is after Clyde tells Doris the way home, she walks right past him and continues in the wrong direction. A bit later, the Sheriff, Wayne, played by Sean Patrick Flanery, shows up from town and is heading in the same direction as the bus, which would confirm that the bus is heading in the wrong direction. During this time the light bar on the Ford Bronco gets broken, yet once he turns around and heads back toward town, the light bar is fine. The Sheriff and passengers are in a four wheel drive, full size Ford Bronco, yet when the highway to town turns into a muddy road, he gets the Bronco stuck in a corn field. Even for such a small town, you see a few folks in the diner for breakfast, but once breakfast is over, you don't see anyone, other than a kid on a bike toward the end of the movie.

To be fair there are two Amish men that appear, one is the father of Gretchen, who is on the bus.

One is at the Amish farm. There is of course the town doctor, played by Rod Taylor and Betty played by Michelle Duquet who owns the diner, which is a central place in the movie. And finally there is the wife of the Sheriff, played by Kristin Booth, who really has no purpose in the movie other than to get stuck in a well with a dead cow.

My final rating to this movie would be 6 stars out of 10. For the SciFi Channel, it was just an average movie that could have used a few more actors and a few less ravens. Worth watching once at least, but it doesn't make the cut when it comes to adding to my B_Movie collection.

I can't say I agree with the writer from England, but then we may have a different view on this film. To start with, I feel that this was one of Tatum's best performances of her film career. While only 17 during filming, she showed the acting ability of an "old soul" and her depth of feeling, not to mention her wit, was outstanding. Richard Burton played his part in an appropriately low keyed manner, which only added to the romantic air of the whole movie. The subject matter is hard for many people to swallow, but the fact of life is that while justice is supposed to be blind, love most certainly is and it can play hell with those involved. If it weren't for the age difference, we would be discussing a later version of Love Story. Maybe the O'Neals are trying to corner the market on love stories. One other item that I disagree with is during the nude scene, Tatum didn't actually offer herself to Richard, but she asked that he paint her in the nude as he had done with a prior lover. Be ye male or female, A Circle Of Two, is certainly made for those die-hard romantics, so if you have seen Love Story and didn't much care for it, then you won't care for this one either. No sex and the nude scene is very brief, so don't watch it for either of those items. However, if you love a good love story and you aren't put off by peoples age, then pull up and chair and rent this one, if you are lucky enough to find it.

Let's see we have Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as producers. We have Navi Rawat (now appearing in Numbers), Chanuntae Davies, Krista Allen, Jenny Wade and even veteran actor Clu Gulager, so this might be a real chance for a decent horror movie, but to me, it falls just a bit short. Living in Texas, I have seen bars way at the edge of town, even some almost in the middle of nowhere, but this bar seems to be really out in the middle of nowhere, but it does have the usual assortment of bar-flies, both male and female. Now out of the blue, monsters appear and wish to either eat the patrons or have sex with them, not too sure at this point. At one point it looks like the old lady, played by Eileen Ryan(Grandma) might just have a clue as to the history of the monsters or at least some campfire legend that she will share with the rest of us, but alas, it is not to be, so we are stuck with a bar in the middle of nowhere, monsters that come from nowhere, and well you will just have to see for yourself. Not one of the best B_Movies I have ever seen, but not one of the absolute worst either. Add a little background on the monsters and a nude scene or two and it might even make 2 1/2 stars out of five.

I won't waste your time on repeating what the others have said, but I will repeat that this is the best of the best when it comes to modern mini-series. What I would like to see instead of all the stupid reality shows that plague T.V., is a series based on the James Clavell books starting with Shogun A.D.1600, then Tai-Pan A.D. 1841, then move to King Rat A.D. 1945, Noble House A.D. 1963, and finish with Whirlwind A.D.1979. The dates are from WhirlWind, the fifth novel in the Asian Saga. Since this will probably never happen, pick-up Shogun, Tai-Pan, and King Rat as they are all available in either DVD or VHS. Richard Chamberlain and Yoko Shimada are truly terrific together. They play their parts so well, that you can't help but to be drawn into their lives. Having lived in Japan for three years, Shogun had special meaning to me, but anyone who loves action and a good romance will not be disappointed. Please check it out. No flaws in this one.