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Man with the Screaming Brain, a review by RossRoy

Original Title: Man with the Screaming Brain Year: 2005 Country: United States Director: Bruce Campbell Rating: NR Length: 90 Min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1, English: Dolby Digital Stereo, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo Subtitles:

What they say
Somewhere in Bulgaria, sleazy American industrialist William Cole (Bruce Campbell) is finalizing a tax scam that will earn him millions. Meanwhile, mad scientist Dr. Ivan Ivanov (Stacy Keach) and his demented henchmen Pavel (Ted Raimi of Xena) have created a drug that can connect human brains like Lincoln Logs. But when an illicit tryst with a sultry hotel maid leads to Cole's murder, Dr. Ivanov reanimates him by transplanting the half-brain of a former KGB operative into Cole's skull. Now, the capitalist and the communist must reconcile their differences to hunt down the beautiful gypsy freak who killed them both.

My Thoughts
I bought this movie solely on the strength of Bruce Campbell being in it. I like his work in Evil Dead, and I had recently seen, and liked, Bubba Ho-Tep when I bought this. And I liked it, but I guess I just had high expectations. I was expecting it to be really funny, but it was lacking in that department. Actually, it was even all too serious at times. Although, the restaurant scene with William Cole and Yegor fighting over what to eat and drink is really funny. But once they make the pact to hunt down the gypsy girl, it becomes rather bland and it's just a man hunting a gypsy. The dual brain part doesn't really get into it.

I'm also still wondering what the heck it was with the robots and why they were even in there! I guess it's part of the twisted humour of Bruce Campbell as a writer. Though the robots do look really creepy, making them basically the scariest part of the movie!


Rating:


(From RossRoy's Random Viewings on October 9th, 2008)

The Dark Knight, a review by Tom

Title: The Dark Knight
Year: 2008
Director: Christopher Nolan
Rating: 12
Length: 152 Min.
Video: Widescreen 2.41
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1, English: Dolby Digital TrueHD, Audio Descriptive: Dolby Digital Stereo, French: Dolby Digital 5.1, German: Dolby Digital 5.1, Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish

Stars:
Christian Bale
Heath Ledger
Aaron Eckhart
Michael Caine
Maggie Gyllenhaal

Plot:
The follow-up to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in his continuing war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective. But soon the three find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line bewtween hero and vigilante.

Extras:
Featurettes
Photo Gallery
Scene Access
Trailers

I am glad, that The Dark Knight was generally well-received. Chances that a sequel to such a well-regarded revisioning as Batman Begins is a disappointment is pretty high. But thankfully The Dark Knight did not put another end to the franchise as Batman & Robin did. It did the opposite and brought Superhero movies to an even broader audience.
That said, I am still surprised that it actually is that well-received. I did enjoy it a lot, but for some reason I cannot pinpoint, why exactly this movie is so highly regarded. Maybe the death of Heath Ledger has some influence on it after all. I wonder if this movie would have broken so many records, if it weren't for this? Would have Heath Ledger's performance been applauded as much if he was still alive?

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on January 1st, 2009)

Tom's Glee Marathon, a review by Tom

Glee
Season 2.05 The Rocky Horror Glee Show
Writer: Ryan Murphy (Created By), Brad Falchuk (Created By), Ian Brennan (Created By), Ryan Murphy (Screenwriter), Ryan Murphy (Story By), Tim Wollaston (Story By), Richard O'Brien (Original Material By)
Director: Adam Shankman
Cast: Dianna Agron (Quinn Fabray), Chris Colfer (Kurt Hummel), Jessalyn Gilsig (Terri Schuester), Jane Lynch (Sue Sylvester), Jayma Mays (Emma Pillsbury), Kevin McHale (Artie Abrams), Lea Michele (Rachel Berry), Cory Monteith (Finn Hudson), Heather Morris (Brittany Pierce), Matthew Morrison (Will Schuester), Mike O'Malley (Burt Hummel), Amber Riley (Mercedes Jones), Naya Rivera (Santana Lopez), Mark Salling (Noah "Puck" Puckerman), Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina Cohen-Chang), John Stamos (Dr Carl Howell), Meat Loaf (Barry Jeffries), Barry Bostwick (Tim Stanwick), Iqbal Theba (Principal Figgins), Harry Shum, Jr. (Mike Chang), Chord Overstreet (Sam Evans), James Earl (Azimio), Max Adler (Karofsky), Bill A. Jones (Rod Remington), Earlene Davis (Andrea Carmichael), Lauren Potter (Becky Jackson)

Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of my favorite musicals. And I love the soundtrack. So on one hand I was excited by Glee doing their version. On the other hand they can never get close to the original.

Mr. Shue is just really inappropriate for putting on Rocky Horror as a school musical.

To the characters they have assigned:
Kurt is a great Riff-Raff. Very fitting.
Mercedes is a odd choice for Frankenfurter but it is an interesting take on the character.

Brittana:
They play Magenta and Columbia. Most notable in the Touch-a-touch-me song scene.

Notable music:
All the songs are great of course. But I don't like how they botched up some of the lyrics because the original is just to risky for the network.
Especially Touch-a-touch-a-touch-me has horrible lyric replacements:
Video

John Stamos did a great Eddie in "Hot Patootie":
Video

Far away from Tim Curry's performance, but an interesting take on "Sweet Transvestite":
Video

"Time Warp" is also a fun number:
Video

Rating:

(From Tom's Glee Marathon on November 29th, 2012)