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Planet Terror, a review by Jon

Planet Terror
4 out of 5

I watched this in a double-bill with it's Grindhouse twin, Death Proof. It's great fun and actually far more successful as part of the experiment than Tarantino's contribution.

The story could just about work as a genuine stand-alone multiplex movie, but it's characters and effects frequently defy logic and could only work as seats of the pants grindhouse style filmmaking. I loved it. Rodriguez has long been a favourite of director for me because he's the sort of filmmaker who could make anything watchable. Send him two elastic bands and a milk bottle top and he'll give you something worth paying to see. His style has always been grindhouse exploitation and the 10 minute film schools you usually find on his DVDs are always a joy.

The story is... erm, something about some sort of chemical weapon... er... Sod it. Zombies. That enough for you?  Raging viruses, body parts swimming in gore, hilarious characters with fantastic dialogue and questionable ethics, it's just great fun. No motivation of any kind except to entertain and take the piss out of cliches. That said, on one of the Death Proof featurettes, they mentioned that they were inspired to hire Kurt Russell after thinking of this movie as the one Carpenter should have made between Escape From new York and The Thing. I know what they mean, and the spirit certainly is there, but surely he never made anything quite this mad?

Look, there's a girl with a gun for a leg. Think about it just for a moment. She could have stuck with the peg leg (hilarious sex scene because of that!) and used both of her working hands to aim and fire properly, but that would have been far too sensible. And just how does she fire the damn thing? Who cares? Watching her spin on her arse while blowing heads of zombies is far more important than mere logic!

Don't bother trying to follow the story. There's even a missing reel and when it rejoins the movie a fair bit seems to have happened. I know Pete reviewed this film before and was disappointed that so much effort was made on this score. But I really got what they were trying to do and I reckon I could watch this thing every week! It's not as good a film as Death Proof, but it's certainly more fun and more successful as a grindhouse flick.

 



(From Planet Terror on June 15th, 2008)

Excalibur, a review by Eric

Excalibur




Summary:My Thoughts: To my defense for what I'm about to write I must remind everyone that I am not a fan of fantasy movies.  I do enjoy true masterpieces like LOTR but it's not a genre I am particularly fond of.  I totally hated the first 20 minutes of that movie, to me it was preposterous and I actually laughed a few times at what I thought was gonna be 2.5 hours of complete ridicule.

The first battle scene however caught my interest.  There you see men fighting with swords in their armors but unlike what we're used to in movies they're not all gracious and impressive in their movements.  On the contrary they are slow to move and react, they are always out of balance and falling after hitting an adversary because the weight of their armors and weapons pull them forward.  I really liked that because it look real, in the 13th century these armors were probably extremely heavy and knights must have had limited movements because of them.  From that point on I stopped lauging at it and decided to give it a chance.

Although I would probably not watch this again I have to say that I liked it, I found some parts of it pretty annoying and long but other parts totally kept my attention.  Especially when Helen Mirren comes into the picture.  The movie is made in a style that resembles a theater piece but I found most (if not all) the other actors and actresses to be poor at it.  Mirren however does a great performance and her character is credible, most of her scenes made me feel like I was watching a play.  She does exactly as it's supposed to be done, with this "lyrical" way of saying things that you would expect from a Shakespeare play.

As I have never read any writings about Arthur I cannot say whether this movie is close to the actual legend or not but it covers all I know of it including the sword in the stone, the query for the grail, Merlin and Morgana (Mirren) and the final battle with his own son.

I must however question the choice of some of the scores.  It it mostly well suited but in most of the scenes where you see Arthur and the Knights riding their horses on their way to battle they chose Carl Orf's Carmina Burana.  That really bothered me as I find it totally out of place both geographically and in its significance.

Carmina Burana are mostly drinking and dancing songs written in German, French, Latin and some English by the Goliards, a group of clergy, in protest to the growing contradictions in the church like the failures of the crusades and the financial abuses.  In my mind there is absolutely no relation whatsoever between those songs and an army of Knights riding to battle to defend their King which they believe was made such by God.

My score: , I'm sure most people who like the Fantasy genre would give it a

(From Eric's DVD watching. on June 1st, 2008)

"Stargate SG-1" Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: The computer that controls the Earth gate doesn't implement all safety precautions a normal DHD has. This allows the SGC to open a Wormhole through a remote sun and this injects heavy elements into the sun's core. It starts with the sun going red but when the process can't be stopped the remote planet won't be able to support life any longer. SG-1 tries to undo their mistake.

My Opinion: A good episode about religious obsession and fatalism. I also liked how SG-1 tried everything to undo their mistake even against the resistance of the locals.

Synopsis: Cassandra has become a teenager but suddenly her body goes haywire. She produces large fields of electricity and she can move metal objects. But she gets worse and the only remedy can be found on her home planet - Niirti experimented on the entire population.

My Opinion: I also liked this episode because it showed how much Sam as well as her stepmother Dr. Frasier care for Cassie.

Synopsis: Daniel is still watching the Unas on the home planet of the Goa'ulds, especially Chaka, the Unas that kidnapped him once. But then Chaka is kidnapped by people from another planet and put to work as a slave. Daniel tries to rescue him.

My Opinion: I like this episode very much because Daniel does anything in his might to help a non-human. This shows perfectly how Daniel perceives the world. But it also showed how problematic it is to interfere in another world's way of living that are different to our own.

Synopsis: During the 37 days the russian Stargate program was active there has been an inoffical unit, too. They have gone lost on a planet and SG-1 and a russian team go after them in a joint venture.

My Opinion:

(From "Stargate SG-1" Marathon on March 31st, 2008)