Category: External Movie DVDs (Page 44 of 74)

Feast II: Sloppy Seconds

October 7, 2008 /

Never has the title of a movie said so much with so few words than “Feast II: Sloppy Seconds,” the clumsily made direct-to-DVD sequel to the 2006 cult film. Whereas the original “Feast” worked because it so boldly defied horror conventions (both in plot and tone), the second installment is an unequivocal failure because it falls right back into them. It’s the morning after the attack and the monsters have already begun to invade a nearby town. Some of the locals (including a tag team of midget wrestlers, a sleazy car dealer, his slutty wife, and the man she’s having an affair with) have bunkered themselves inside of a building, while Honey Pie (one of the original survivors) is disappointed to discover her nightmare is far from over. Meanwhile, Harley Mom’s twin sister, Biker Queen, pulls the old bartender out from the wreckage looking for answers. When he tells her that it’s Bozo who was responsible for her death, she takes the bartender hostage and heads to town with her all-girl biker gang to seek revenge.

Feast 2

How the bartender is still alive after having a heart attack and having his throat slit is beyond me, but it probably has something to do with the fact that he’s the director’s father. Unfortunately, that little tidbit is the least of your worries when it comes to “Feast II.” While the first film made the most of its limited budget, the sequel looks every bit as cheap as it probably cost to make. What’s worse, however, is that for all the comedy and gore that made watching the original “Feast” a blast, it’s mostly MIA in this installment. Instead, we get an entire sequence dedicated to a monster penis urinating on biker chicks while they vomit in disgust, and it’s every bit as absurd as it sounds. You can’t even look forward to cool death scenes, either, because with the exception of a handful of characters, no one dies until the final scene – which, of course, you don’t actually get to see. It’s all a big ploy to get you to watch the third chapter scheduled to be released next year, but honestly, if “Sloppy Seconds” is this bad, what’s the point?

Click to buy “Feast II: Sloppy Seconds”

External Movie DVDs, Horror Movies, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies

Pathology

October 6, 2008 /

Though it spends much of its time dealing with the dead, you’d expect a movie like “Pathology” to have a little more life to it. After all, it was created by the writing team behind “Crank” – quite possibly the most over-the-top movie ever made. Of course, with Milo Ventimiglia headlining the cast, it’s no wonder the film feels a lot duller than it should have been. The “Heroes” star does his best Hayden Christensen impression as Ted Grey, a brilliant medical student who’s just joined the nation’s most prestigious pathology program. When he arrives, however, he’s seduced into playing a twisted game with some of the other interns that involves them taking turns murdering strangers, while the others figure out how it was done. Think of it as Medical Clue, but much more boring than it sounds, because there isn’t a single horrific or suspenseful moment in the film, despite the fact that that is how it’s being marketed. Even worse is that the audience has no one to root for. Sure, Ted is supposed to be the good guy in the movie, but are we really supposed to forgive all of his faults (cheating, killing, using, etc.) as someone who’s simply taken a wrong turn in live? Puh-lease. Only Michael Weston is given a role with any real meat on it, but even his crazy antagonist is never given the attention it deserves. Now, if the film followed him around instead of Milo, maybe we’d have something interesting to watch. It might not be “American Psycho,” but it would definitely be better than this.

Click to buy “Pathology”

External Movie DVDs, Heroes, Horror Movies, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies

The Rebel

September 28, 2008 /

Earning the title of highest-grossing Vietnamese movie of all-time is sort of like a Vietnamese chef who’s renowned for the best American hamburger in his country – true, but not exactly as amazing as it sounds. Credit the makers of “The Rebel,” then, for not only delivering the first true Vietnamese actioneer, but actually making it good enough to compete with China and Hong Kong’s nonstop supply of martial arts films. “The Rebel” takes place in 1922 Vietnam where French colonial rule is being challenged by a group of resistance fighters. In response to the rebel activity, the French government has hired Vietnamese agents to track down and kill them, but when one agent (Johnny Tri Nguyen) becomes tired of spilling the blood of his own countrymen, he teams up with the daughter (Tranh Van Ngo) of the rebel leader and incurs the wrath of his boss, Sy (Dustin Nguyen, of “21 Jump Street” fame), who’s been promised a promotion if he can capture the traitors. Directed by Charlie Nguyen, “The Rebel” is just as much of a historical drama as it is a martial arts film, and as such, it has a pretty decent story to tell when its characters aren’t busy kicking ass. Of course, as with most Dragon Dynasty films, the main draw of “The Rebel” is the action, and believe it or not, there’s some really great stuff here. Johnny Tri Nguyen, whose biggest role to date is as Tobey Maguire’s costumed stunt double in the first two “Spider-Man” films, isn’t the greatest actor in the world, but he’s got moves that most action fans have never seen before, and that alone is worth the price of admission.

Click to buy “The Rebel”

Action Movies, External Movie DVDs, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs

Vipers

September 19, 2008 /

Their movements seem simple enough, but snakes are hard to animate well. Heck, even the snakes in “Snakes on a Plane” looked dodgy, and they presumably had ten times the budget that the makers of “Vipers” had. Needless to say, any straight-to-video release about genetically altered vipers (who have super-potent venom and crave human flesh, dunt dunt duuuhhhhhh) has no choice but to look cheesy, and the snakes in “Vipers,” well, don’t look much better than this one.

That’s a far cry from the DVD cover, which shows vipers the size of anacondas, their mouths agape like the snakes in the old-school video game “Dragon’s Lair.” Tara Reid is the top-billed actor, and thankfully they don’t have her miscast as a doctor or scientist; in fact, she runs a greenhouse and is found to be growing weed, yuk yuk. After two early kill scenes, the movie plunges us head-first into some Eden Island melodrama. Teenaged daughter hates parents, parents hate each other, woman blames Tara Reid for breaking it off with her fiancé who ultimately signed up for the military and died, etc. None of it really matters after the halfway mark, because most of these characters are dead. Corbin Bernsen pops up here and there as a different kind of viper, the corporate exec who is tight with Homeland Security and willing to bomb the island in order to save his company’s bottom line. It’s all very Sci-Fi Channel (and makes it debut on that channel this Sunday), though the DVD release features some ramped up gore, language and boobies. If you need a snakes-run-amok movie, seriously, go rent “Snakes on a Plane.” It’s not great, but it’s better than this.

Click to buy “Vipers”

External Movie DVDs, Humor, Movie DVD Quicktakes

Brand Upon the Brain

September 16, 2008 /

It’s over-simplifying, but there’s no way around it: Winnipeg surrealist Guy Maddin works the same general territory as David Lynch. But while Lynch is still, in his unique way, a creature of Hollywood, Maddin has remained a Manitoba miniaturist whose films are both overtly psychological and proudly melodramatic. Oddly enough, Maddin’s movies are often more accessible than Lynch’s – at least partly because the filmmaker is an unabashed fan of the primal storytelling style of silent movies. “Brand Upon the Brain” builds upon the director’s fandom by being Maddin’s second actual silent film, and was originally presented as a theatrical event with a live orchestra, sound effects artists, and narrators. This typically lavish Criterion DVD includes both studio recordings and crisp live audio tracks with seven different narrators, including Isabella Rossellini (“Blue Velvet”), professional weirdo Crispin Glover, and the great nonagenarian character actor Eli Wallach (“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”).

The movie itself combines elaborate fantasy and confessional filmmaking, at least on the level of metaphor – the main character is named “Guy Maddin” and the director has described the film as “97% true.” It’s not a drag, though – there’s a pleasing and funny jumble of genre elements ranging from teen detective to grand guignol horror, some nudity (both the sexy kind and the not so sexy kind, in this case involving a male corpse) and Ms. Rossellini’s narration is literally a scream. Featuring a deliberately herky-jerky editorial approach (a new wrinkle for Maddin that I’m not wild about), “Brand Upon the Brain” works for the most part, but for me this doesn’t quite add up to Class A insanity. I would have happier with a bit more melodrama and a bit less psychosexual metaphor.

Click to buy “Brand Upon the Brain”

External Movie DVDs, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Dramas, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies, Reviews

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