Reviews

I have a certain respect for Rob Zombie. His love of the classic cult grind-house horror of yesteryear is very endearing and I believe him to have a certain integrity rare amongst film personalities. Unfortunately House of 1000 Corpses, while certainly expressing Zombie's love for old school shock horror, is simply too convoluted, elaborate and often boring to send a single shiver up the spine.

It is obvious that painstaking care was taken in the aesthetics of the film but unfortunately it has failed. For the most part the film looks as if the lighting and makeup designers had just come from a job on The Bold and the Beautiful with gaudy colours and super smooth skin on characters who have supposedly been on the road for days detracting greatly from any attempts at a gritty atmosphere. Even in the supposed house of 1000 corpses the production design resembles a piece of theatre more than a disturbing pit of hell and mayhem. I understand the burlesque inspiration here but even with that considered the sets shouldn't look so staged. The special effects makeup also looked more like paper mache than deformed skin, apart from Dr. Satan, who does look very effective but is unfortunately severely underused.

The acting for the most part is excruciating. Sid Haig is fun as always and completely steals the show but apart from him there is not a single character here who the audience will feel strongly for or against simply because they are all 1 dimensional stock standards played in the fashion of a high school drama class. One very disappointing aspect of the performances is that the older members of the sicko family are obviously played by college age kids and the poor makeup and acting is unable to hide this. The dialogue is obviously aiming to be quotable, and is therefore so ludicrously overwritten that it does little but add to the amateur theatricality of the film.

By the time we get to the juicy horror stuff the film takes the action in a completely convoluted direction until the audience no longer cares what this sick family is hiding or what kind of back story there may be. Simplicity is the key stroke to the art of the horror film but obviously Rob Zombie wanted to do away with that trend in House of 1000 Corpses. The same can be said of the cinematography. Negative colourization and crash cuts to grainy newsreel style footage of what is happening in another room are amateur tricks at best and more at home in an MTV music clip. To add insult to injury these tricks are overused to the point of exhaustion.

I watched this film with a friend who I consider a kindred spirit in horror fandom and we both are well watched and researched on the genre. I'm sad to say that half way through House of 1000 Corpses our silence could no longer be held and my friend finally had to open the floodgates with "Ugh, this is so bad!" Yes, it is. Kudos to your vision Mr. Zombie, but your execution is in dire need of tuning.

Saw sets off with a very interesting premise and from there grows to a very intense thriller that will keep you glued to the screen. The gritty aesthetic of the film sets in in the first shot and keeps up throughout the entire film, placing you in a world that is uncomfortable and unsettling. The well written plot moves along at a good pace, keeping you interested and the inevitable twist works well.

The film is not without its flaws, however. My biggest gripe with this movie is that the camera work is simply too fancy in several places, particularly the flashbacks (of which there are many in the first act of the film.) Tricks like fast motion and circular camera tracking belong in MTV music videos and not in psychological thrillers. The acting is also not fantastic. Neither of the two main characters are all that likable and at the start of the film the actors playing them seemed to be unsure of which direction to take them. However, by the end of the film when the real intense stuff kicks in the performances are cranked up and improve a great deal.

Saw is definitely worth seeing. It is an often grisly, always unsettling and carefully made thriller that packs some punch and is, most importantly, very entertaining.

This show really is dreadful. The writing is banal, the performances are forced (the actors seem somewhat embarrassed) and the humour is so incredible infantile that you'll wonder how it got the green-light in the first place. There's been a lot of awful comedy on Australian television lately, with Peter Helliar and Corinne Grant running amok and lowering all our IQs with their ridiculous banter. This dreck steals the show however. It does not get much worse than The Wedge. What is most grating about this tosh is that they expect to hold on to our attention by showing the exact same gags over and over and over. The fact that this has a prime time spot on channel 10 while Chris Lilley's ingeniously created We Can Be Heroes went by practically unnoticed by the general public is a sad tragedy. Please do not watch this show, if the ratings drop enough maybe channel 10 will put it out of its misery and look for something decent to put on. There is honestly nothing about this program to praise.

We Can Be Heroes is the greatest Australian comedy to be released in the past decade. Many would give Kath and Kim that credit but Chris Lilley truly goes above and beyond in this masterpiece. Every character he plays has the perfect blend of subtlety and caricature. His characterization stays sharp all throughout the series, which is full of hilarious situations and even some sad ones. Every Australian who watches this show will feel as though they have met the characters personally, so astute is Chriss Lilley with his observations and performances. The production values are high throughout with the show looking just like an ABC local interest documentary series. I truly hope that Chris Lilley will go from this project on to many more and keep showing all Australians how funny we really are.

This film is ridiculous. It is a fine example of how Hollywood is willing to grab out at a popular name with a fanbase behind it and totally deface it for the sake of a quick several million. Nothing about this film speaks quality. Inane script, dreadful acting and kindergarten programing style production values is what you can expect from this dreck. There is nothing in here that will speak true to any D&D fan. The worst and most irritating aspect of this horrible film is the stereotypical black jive talking' sidekick character. Think of him as Jar Jar Binks without any impressive animation to admire. Do not see this film, particularly if you are a D&D fan because it really is insulting to its source material.

This is easily the worst film I have ever seen. When I saw the first I was 15 and like most low to mid teen males I found it funny although looking back it really was a stupid waste of time. This sequel, however, is absolute tosh. The production values are unbelievably atrocious and not in a funny or camp way. Everything looks as though it was strapped together with duct-tape. The jokes are not funny in the slightest. The spoofs are unjustified and every single gag is just plain gross, opting for the lowest common denominator every time. Toilet humour is the name of the game and toilet humour is practically all you are going to get. I actually felt sorry for the actors in this film as I can not imagine how degrading and career destroying it must have been to appear on such unbridled trash. It is a sad tragedy that such films can make it to cinemas. Do not see this film, it physically hurts your eyes and brain to do so.

For me HULK was somewhat of a letdown even though I couldn't admit it until several years after seeing it. I am a fan of the character and the very theme of dual natures striving for supremacy in a person as well as the exhilaration of throwing civilized inhibition to the wind and going for a mindless rampage. The problem with this film is that it tries to be so deep and human in these themes that it loses balance because the hulk sequences feel like an afterthought and the drama of Banner's turmoil is not dealt with very well at all.

The build up to the first transformation is nothing short of boring. Bruce Banner is supposed to be a distant guy but he comes across as two-dimensional. I have fond memories of watching Eric Bana on Australian TV and in the filmic masterpiece that is CHOPPER but in HULK he seems bored and confused with the material. His lines are delivered very flatly and all complexity in the character is gone. To me, Bruce Banner/the Hulk is a modern Jekyll and Hyde and the Hulk is the engine of destruction through which Banner's darkest feelings of hurt and rage can burst forth loose his demons upon the world. It is a shame then that when the Hulk is unleashed he comes across as an afterthought. The rampages seem really tacked on. They look awesome for the most part but you don't get the feeling of a manifest personal demon taking revenge on a harsh world, you see a direction-less blob of CGI doing stuff that looks cool for the camera. This would have been fine if it wasn't so jarring to the pace of the film, which needs a good kick in the tail pipe. Personally I blame Ang Lee. Hulk is a drama and is supposed to be but the sterile character direction and development, along with the painful dialogue and stagy flashbacks that should have been very personal and harrowing but instead came across as sterile and storybook make for a slow burn that is resolved with abrupt disappointment. The end of the film is awful. Nothing is resolved, there is an ugly, bland and unfathomably abstract battle with a villain that is a mockery of it's original comic book counterpart (Absorbing Man) and you are left feeling as though the last pages of the script were written in a mad rush to finish a film that wasn't heading anywhere to begin with.

Ang Lee has a great art-house drama kind of sensibility that has created some beautiful films but in the context of HULK it comes across as totally sterile. The abstract desert imagery spliced with CGI jellyfish and other such puzzlements add nothing but pretension to a film that should have been kept simple. In blending art with pulp we are left with a mess that could have been polished into something both entertaining and thought provoking but was sadly left as a mess.

I give this film a 6 for ambition, some nice CGI and action sequences (although they're better watched separate from the rest of the film), some fair performances (particularly from the lovely and talented Jennifer Connely) and for the fact that it tries to take the bland genre of comic book movies into a new direction but unfortunately it failed to do so. It is hard to explain why this film felt so awkward and wrong so i suggest all who are curious just see it and make up your own minds.

Words can not do justice to the experience of watching this film. All those who first hear the summary and think the film would be absolute tosh can never truly understand the films greatness until they have sat and watched it.

First and foremost, Bruce Campbell as Elvis is a performance that should be studied in acting classes. He is not some whack-job comedian doing a feature length Elvis impersonation, he is Elvis. Even the most hardcore Brue Campbell fans (myself included) will have forgotten that it is their cult hero up on the screen and will believe that they are watching an aging Elvis Presley. All those out there who do not understand all the ballyhoo over Bruce will be converted. The late (and great) Ozzie Davis is also wonderful as JFK.

The one liners are sharp, the visuals have a distinct run down aesthetic and the bizarre plot is a joy to watch unfold. This film is simply not one to miss. See it now, whoever you are.

I love this musical. I am a huge fan of all things Jekyll and Hyde (particularly the original novella by Robert Louise Stevenson) but this production of the musical really did not work. I sometimes get out my copy and watch it for a laugh just because David Hasselhoff is so bad. David seemed to have a lot of potential, don't get me wrong. He looks great as both Jekyll and Hyde and his acting even was OK, although it was a little too hammed up for my taste. The problem is his singing. It seems as though he is racing the orchestra, who are having trouble keeping up with him. Because of this, all meaning in the lyrics is stripped away and the songs are left as merely a shell of what they should be. His style of singing is also a tad strange. His notes just don't sound right. It also seems that he relied more on lighting and hair to differentiate between the characters of Jekyll and Hyde. However, like I said before, when he is acting without singing he's not all that bad, though I doubt he would do a better job than Bob Cuccioli or most other Broadway leading men who have taken the part. The rest of the cast do a fine job but it seems that none have that great a grasp on their characters. A real problem is accents. None of the accents sound quite right and it is really irritating. The best performance would have to be from Coleen Sexton as Lucy. She sounded great, looked great and acted OK.

The set and lighting of the production are quite impressive and each do a good job of setting the mood of the production. The orchestra is great but unfortunately has the hard task of keeping up with Hasselhoff (maybe after all the slow motion in Baywatch he took a vow to do everything at super speeds.) This production is worth seeing for any fan of the musical who is yet to see a professional production of it but I refuse to believe it is the best that Broadway has to offer of Jekyll and Hyde.