Sunday, December 25, 2005

The best and worst of 2005

my top 10 of 2004 was this:

1. Haute Tension - perfect in every way
2. School of Rock - a joy, pure fun
3. Ong Bak - action is back
4. Save the Green Planet - best korean film ever
5. Immortel - best comic book movie ever
6. Gozu - first class takashi miike
7. Undead - way better than the over-rated Shaun
8. Nothing - little-known vincenzo natali scifi/comedy
9. Dawn of the Dead - cool remake
10. The Village - under-rated, surprising twist

my top 10 of 2005 is this:

1. The Descent - surprisingly fine british film
2. Sin City - stylish, entertaining ride
3. Hellevator The Bottled Fools - cube-ish japanese scifi, wierd but fun
4. Night Watch - engrossing russian fantasy
5. Team America - funny & ingenious
6. Born To Fight - no Ong Bak, but it'll do
7. The Aristocrats - over-produced, but can't ruin that joke!
8. Kung Fu Hustle - has its moments, despite the tedium
9. Star Wars 3 - poor first half, stirring conclusion
10. Batman Begin - great first half, generic second half

... and most of these wouldn't even have got in the top 10 of 2004! a terrible year. the biggest turkeys: Darkness, Drowning Ghost, Land of the Dead, The Card Player (sorry folks it sucked!)..... and worst of all.... KING KONG.

Review: Joe Dante's Homecoming (Masters of Horror)

absolutely brilliant, this episode alone justifies the series, funny, touching, and with *a point* other than just "hey look sex & violence!".

the show is the first to really make use of its tv medium, with lots of mock news reports and studio footage, not trying to make a cinematic film on a tv budget, but this doesnt prevent some incredibly eery scenes, the sight of dead bodies stirring underneath american flags is highly creepy and effective. 2 fantastic performances from the "ann coulter"-style right-wing bitch, and the snide presidential advisor played by the star trek guy, raise this one to a level above previous efforts from argento and gordon, they bring extra depth to their characters other than what is written in the script. and did i mention its laugh-out-loud funny? the evangelist claiming the dead are a "blessing from heaven", then after they vote democrat, that they are "demons from hell" is priceless! equally hilarious: "why dont they just *do* something? munch someones brains or something?".

dante piles in the references to other films in his classic style ( graveyards marked "john gilling" etc) and hammers home the real-life current events parallelling the on-screen action in a way that is both thoughtful and stirring, and never condescending and preachy.

joe dante proves he still has the magic he last conjured up 15 years ago in gremlins 2. his episode blows aways gordon & argento's efforts, and its equally unlikely that carpenter or miike will be able to get anywhere near close.

Review: King Kong

I'm not happy that KING KONG has been a box-office bomb.... i'm ABSOLUTELY ECSTATIC!!!!

KING KONG is one of the worst things i've ever had to sit through in my entire life! a completely worthless, self-indulgent, bloated, empty cgi-crap-fest juvenilia that sucks 3 valuable hours from your life and leaves you with nothing. If some idiotic universal studios exec want to give Peter Jackson free reign to play his schoolboy fantasies thats fine, but don't torture the general public with it!

i know now exactly why nobody wants to see this turkey, its far too long, slow and boring for kids (i could easily chop an entire 90 minutes out of this film without losing anything entertaining or significant) and its too empty-headed, childish and pointless for adults.

Seriously, if you've seen any other incarnation of Kong you don't need to see this. if you've seen JURASSIC PARK you don't need to see this. hell, if you've seen VAN HELSING you don't need to see this (in fact i thought i was watching VAN HELSING when T-Rex, Kong and the gang are all swinging from vines defying gravity).

TURKEY OF THE YEAR. KING KONG = KING BOMB.