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Reviews
The Jacket (2005)
Genius!
Oh how I wish that I could give this a ten. I have just watched "The Jacket" for the first time, and am enamoured with it. When I read the synopsis of the film, it seemed a bit far fetched, but Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley's performances are outstanding! Yes, the main character is suffering from the effects of a head wound in the gulf war, but then when he returns to America he is wrongly convicted of a murder he didn't commit. The film raises questions about reality in the way that the Matrix did, it raises questions about memory in the way that Memento and Donnie Darko did, and it raises many questions about America - least of all, the eternal question, What Is Sanity? This film doesn't attempt at answering this question, and nor should it. Accept it at face value, or at any level and this is a film of absolute class. I don't want to give it a ten based purely on the fact that I have only seen it once. When I buy it (which I definitely will) then I can make an accurate decision whether or not it is worthy of the sought after 10 out of 10.
Graduation Day (1981)
its all been said before
Okay, I won't go into the storyline too much, as there have been two and a half pages worth. I will write about the bits that make me enjoy this movie. It is not a well made movie by any means. However, there are enough things to help give it 8 in my opinion. The song features the Felony song "Gangster Rock", which is 7 and a half minutes long. But I can't get enough of it. It's a shame that they never did a proper studio version of the song. The rest of the soundtrack is good as well (even the shoddy singalong of "Graduation Day Blues". Hahaha! I see what they did there! Then there is the amusing ways in which people die, I particularly like the fencing sword through the throat - so fake it made me laugh. The most inventive way was when the pole-vaulter falls to his death onto spikes hidden under the mat. Genius. I don't know why I like this movie so much, as it was made 5 years before I was born. But it is certainly enjoyable. Any remakes would be a travesty. No one could do it justice.
A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (1990)
yes yes yes
Everyone seems to be missing the point of the movie. It is a work of comic genius BECAUSE it is terrible. On the DVD the opening trailer is hilarious. Admittedly it doesn't reflect the movie, but I don't care, because I still love this movie, no matter what anyone says. I bought it for a £1. It was on a double disc with "Graduation Day", another film I actually quite like. They both have interesting story lines, shockingly poor production values, terrible acting, cheesy lines, but are still enjoyable movies.
She is not a nympho, there are more mutants than dinosaurs, and the man has a mullet, but what can you do? That was the way that movies were made back then. I don't know much about Troma Team movies, but I know I love them.
The Waking (2001)
Oh dear....
I was duped I tell thee!! It wasn't too bad I suppose. There were some bits that were ridiculous in it, but there were also some unexpected turns in the story that I didn't expect, which helped keeping me watching it. Luckily I did only rent it, as the summary on the DVD case promised so much. It was a good idea for a movie, it was just let down by bad everything else (script, actors, directing, etc.), there could have been a greater emphasis on the Keeper of Souls himself or his cult, rather than some woman's dreams.
Didn't expect her to kill her husband at the end though....that was nice, and it helped to put a bit of variation on the film. I thought it had been made much earlier than 2001 however, as the production values are similar to that of "Mutant" (aka Night Shadows) from 1984, as they have similarly bad trailer trash hair in this movie. The skinny bloke in this film really was quite a stereotypical inbred deep south, and that let the film down, with a lot of other things as well.
But like I say, the film was tolerable.