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Kill Bill: Vol. 1, a review by DJ Doena

Kill Bill: Vol. 1



Uma Thurman    ...    The Bride
Lucy Liu   ...    O-Ren Ishii
Vivica A. Fox   ...    Vernita Green
Daryl Hannah   ...    Elle Driver
David Carradine   ...    Bill
Michael Madsen   ...    Budd
Julie Dreyfus   ...    Sofie Fatale
Chiaki Kuriyama   ...    Gogo Yubari
Sonny Chiba   ...    Hattori Hanzo
Chia Hui Liu   ...    Johnny Mo

A member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, Black Mamba, gets killed by her suqad during her wedding. Her husband, the guests and her unborn child also gets killed. Only that "the Bride" didn't die but lays in a coma for four years until she wakes up. And then she takes revenge.

My opinion:
Great movie. I am a fan of samurai swords and movies in which someone figths with them. And the massacre of the Crazy 88 is perfectly choreographed.

The benefit of the Japan cut is that is fully colorized and it is slightly longer, e.g. one learns how and why Sofie lost her second arm. The drawback is that no subtitles are shown when they speak japanese. Watashi wa nihongo ga hanasemasen.

(From Tarantino-Mini-Marathon on February 5th, 2008)

Ghost Town, a review by Jon

Ghost Town
3 out of 5



Ricky Gervais plays dentist Bertram Pincus, who briefly dies during a small operation. This gives him the ability to see ghosts and they, like most people, really annoy him. Especially Frank (Greg Kinnear) who wants help making sure his widow (Tea Leoni) doesn't remarry.

This is a cute film. In some ways it can't help but repeat old ground from Ghost, but there's just a hint of [British] irony to stop it being purely sentimental mushy rubbish. Though there is that too. Greg Kinnear is great as Frank, trying to right the wrongs of his life, but he would have been lost without straight-man (for the most part) Gervais. It's another miserable bastard variation for him to play, but he does very well and I'm always pleasantly surprised at the mileage he gets out of what is essentially the same routine. There's a nice twist on his usual trick of pretending not to understand a question when a Doctor does it to him, brilliantly. I'm certainly never bored by him and he has some cracking lines that made me laugh out loud, especially when he's dealing with the various ghosts begging him for help (which of course he refuses). I'm not sure his character would have been that witty, but he saves it mainly for scenes with or about Tea Leoni's character so we can easily claim she's having the effect on him as he falls for her. I enjoyed her character and the two work very well off of each other, and all three leads flesh out what could easily have been very thin roles. Leoni on particular has always had a slight unpredictability, which is essential in a film like this.

Because yes, this is fully-certified, middle-of-the-road, completely harmless rom-com, and as should be, it is very predictable. Heck, think really hard for a couple of minutes and I bet you can work out the broad plot without seeing the film! Don't do that though, it is worth seeing, because like all good rom-coms, it knows how predictable it is and generally gets on with it. I do wish the middle section had been shorter so there'd have been more time in the last act. A couple of very funny ghosts fall by the wayside, which was a shame. Still, it's occasionally moving, occasionally hilarious, if dependably obvious.

EDIT: Btw, this is worth seeing on Blu-Ray. New York looks absolutely gorgeous, especially just on the cusp of winter. And there's some nice time-lapse effects that I'm sure would have been lost a little bit on DVD.

(From Jon's Marathon of Horror! 2009 on October 3rd, 2009)

Angel Marathon, a review by addicted2dvd

12. Calvary
Original Air Date: 2/12/2003
The gang rush to confront Wo-Pang about the missing soul, but he doesn't have it. When they arrive home they find Lilah on the cameras, talking to Angelus about 'taking care of The Beast'. They follow her and discover the information that Wolfram & Hart stole from Lorne's head.

Guest Stars:
Stephanie Romanov
Vladimir Kulich

My Thoughts:
We are really on a role with some excellent episodes! Another one I loved every minute of. Lilah shows back up in this episode. And we also learn who it is that is working with The Beast. And a nice surprise that is.

My Rating:

(From Angel Marathon on March 17th, 2010)