Reviews by shawn tomorrow

goda a successful director comes home to his girlfriend of 10 years who has committed suicide with a pistol. he begins a long journey of obsession over a particular gun; the chief special. meanwhile a local gang beats him up and robes him and he is also scammed by people he is trying to by a gun from. eventually he makes a gun which doesn't really work and then eventually he is given a gun by a woman who wants him to kill someone. the gun ends up in the gangs hand and then back to him. fights etc. its not terribly difficult to follow but there doesn't seem to be well developed characters here. even the main characters are rather shallow.
its a decent film but in the end it left me wanting. it wasn't satisfying. though i wouldn't be against watching it again. its that sort've middle road.

this is a "zombedy" as the movie claims. so you can't expect seriousness. you can however expect comedy and it doesn't entirely deliver on that. its mild. a little slapstick. a few puns. thats about all.
still its not a bad film and its interesting enough to keep you watching. it is however a tad slow overall.

Geronimo curses the white man at his death. this somehow turns one random man into a zombie. that man kills his wife and daughter. the sheriff jails him and sentences him to hanging. meanwhile a newcomer arrives in town and immediately gets into a fight in front of the sheriff who jails the two men fighting. the sheriff also takes the new man's cash and the deputy steals his boots. of course the two men break out and the deputy ends up in the cell next to the zombie who then bites him. and soon after there are zombies chasing the men into the wild west. the two men have a run in with an indian woman who happens to be an ny educated daughter of geronimo. she traps them, steals their money, and then offers it back for information on where the army is located at. we find out the new man was an army deserter. before long however the sheriff's zombie posse has caught up with them and now they are fleeing. only to get caught by the army....who are somehow already overtaken by zombies. so on and so forth. theres no real surprises here and i'm not really giving anything away thats important. there nothing really important. its just a light hearted zombie comedy in a western style.
its not great but its fairly good. worth a watch.

is i a bad idea to remake a classic? probably, but it could work. unfortunately it doesn't here.
yes its a remake of hitchcock's "the birds" no matter how you look at it. and no it doesn't even come close. there's sadly some hope along the way but too many mistakes sink it in the end.

you should realize how sloppily this is put together right from the start. in the opening scenes we see a farmer attacked and killed by ravens in his barn. the sheriff, on his last day, gets the call and tells his wife "something terrible has happened" over at such and such's place. cut to next scene, the sheriff arrives at the barn and discovers that the man has been killed. so apparently the writer, the director, the actors, the editors, the studio, and no one else happened to notice that the only thing "terrible" that happened was the man being killed but then after the fact he discovered dead. basic error.
the cg and every special effect is bad for film school quality. every effect is used on the birds and not a single one looks convincing. flat out sucks.
the worst offender however comes later when the birds attack a school bus by dropping rocks at it. yes i said at it. because somehow we are suppose to believe they are doing this with enough force to break windows out easily. honestly if i saw this in the editing room, i would've cut the entire scene as a loss.
ok so the thing it has thats new is a group of mennonites whose cattle got mad cow disease and they tried to cover it up. but the ravens ate the cow flesh and now have become killers. interesting spin. and how do you kill off a huge flock of ravenous ravens? you don't they just die quickly. end. yeah thats the spoiler i'm sure i ruined it for you! oh wait theres a 80's "ha, got cha" ending when the sheriff and wife return home....lame.

the music is eerie which i did like and most of the actual filming is nice enough. so a few things make you want this to work but its a disaster of a film. it would've been better to turn it into a comedy.

an earthquake brings ancient cockroaches back to the surface from the depths of the earth. and they can start fires! but its ok because the sudden pressure change gave them the "bends" and is going to kill them all anyways...
except a scientist decides to save one in a diving helmet turned into a depressurizing chamber. then he adds a male cockroach to his ancient female's habitat and....you got it jurassic park! sort've.

like jurassic park these thing evolve really quickly. unlike jurassic park its not really scary and more just awkward and less scientific than silly.
nothing bad but nothing memorable.

to be reviewed as watched

disc two:
nester the long-eared christmas donkey: another rankin/bass stop-motion animated film. its short at 24 minutes and much more religious than some of their more popular titles. plus for the little ones it has a "bambi's mom" moment. the story is about another misfit; a donkey with unusually long ears that makes him the butt of jokes and generally a useless nuisance. he is eventually cast out and then at long last finds his use in life, which is to carry the very pregnant mary to bethlehem. there's a creepy 70's doll angel that helps him on this journey. and the story is told by a "modern" donkey descendant of nester who also happens to live in the stable with santa's reindeer.
overall its a bit heavier on the message and less rounded of a movie than most rankin/bass. probably why its not as popular. still its good and short and the little ones will enjoy it. if you're religious, you may even prefer that its clearer about the meaning of christmas.

rudolph the red-nosed reindeer: a true classic. 1964 to today this story and its wonderful stop-motion animation is a joy to watch. its universal. its amazing.
this movie couldn't be made today. its true. it'd have to go through so many reconstructions it would be lose all of its quirks. yukon would likely be eliminated because he would "relate to kids today" and carries a gun which he never uses in the movie. hermey would likely have to fix the abominable snowman's tooth ache instead of pulling all his teeth to render him harmless. and god forbid you promote "misfits" and "independant" as good things. the seems on the characters and the camera shots would all need to be perfection. and ....well hell it should all be done CG anyways. there's not even product placement, sheesh! today we'd have to listen to the latest reality tv singer butchering xmas songs with pop crass and other "guest appearances".
and thats why we get to be thankful that it was made way back when and probably they never considered the impact it would have. it was a made for tv special, air it, and move on to the next project...done. i'm glad it lasted. it was made way before i was born but is one of my favorite of all time movies.
on this disk there are two (or three) special features. one is a scene that was changed after the first airing...and presumably changed back at some point. the song "we're a couple of misfits" was changed to "silver and gold". i remember both songs so i have no clue which was aired when. silver and gold wasn't original and isn't as good. i also have no clue why they decided to change it...perhaps for reasons suggested above. the second special is an intro by rankin, which is more or less a synopses. (and third if you want is a spanish language version.)
the one thing that did surprise me about watching the dvd version of the movie is that its surprisingly brief. i guess i've been accustomed to watching through commercials over decorating a xmas tree or making cookies. and without that its 47 minutes and then over...

box set reviewed as watched (again):

rudolph the red-nosed reindeer: a true classic. 1964 to today this story and its wonderful stop-motion animation is a joy to watch. its universal. its amazing.
this movie couldn't be made today. its true. it'd have to go through so many reconstructions it would be lose all of its quirks. yukon would likely be eliminated because he would "relate to kids today" and carries a gun which he never uses in the movie. hermey would likely have to fix the abominable snowman's tooth ache instead of pulling all his teeth to render him harmless. and god forbid you promote "misfits" and "independant" as good things. the seems on the characters and the camera shots would all need to be perfection. and ....well hell it should all be done CG anyways. there's not even product placement, sheesh! today we'd have to listen to the latest reality tv singer butchering xmas songs with pop crass and other "guest appearances".
and thats why we get to be thankful that it was made way back when and probably they never considered the impact it would have. it was a made for tv special, air it, and move on to the next project...done. i'm glad it lasted. it was made way before i was born but is one of my favorite of all time movies.
on this disk there are two (or three) special features. one is a scene that was changed after the first airing...and presumably changed back at some point. the song "we're a couple of misfits" was changed to "silver and gold". i remember both songs so i have no clue which was aired when. silver and gold wasn't original and isn't as good. i also have no clue why they decided to change it...perhaps for reasons suggested above. the second special is an intro by rankin, which is more or less a synopses. (and third if you want is a spanish language version.)
the one thing that did surprise me about watching the dvd version of the movie is that its surprisingly brief. i guess i've been accustomed to watching through commercials over decorating a xmas tree or making cookies. and without that its 47 minutes and then done. leaves me wanting more...
perfect movie. love it!

like most of curious george movies these are light-hearted affairs and is definitely family friendly . this really is straight forward curious george cartoon material interspersed with singing. yes, singing. and if you can imagine the voices of the standard characters singing then you can probably imagine that its not going to blow you away. they're great voices for clearly rendered talking, not so much for singing.
the story itself is normal george stuff to. george is excited about xmas and making a mess of everything. the man with a yellow hat is trying to figure out george's list which is a drawing of several shapes. george is trying to figure out what to make the man. and of course there will be bumps in the road. its all normal. and for xmas the man is visited by a ghost who shows him the past, present, and future so he can figure out the drawing.

why the low rating then? back to the singing. its not great, but then again its not bad either. the problem is not actually the singing but what they are singing. they're frankly the worst xmas songs ever. not catchy, not singable, and frankly weird. and it makes me sad. this could have been great. this could have been something like a charlie brown xmas, but instead you're left with nothing. not a single song that'll ever be classic and a movie that sort've less than the status quo. what should be a special episode is instead difficult to get into.
happy ending? of course. worth getting to it? not really.
for hardcore fans? sure.
for the little ones? sure.
classic? never, sadly.

mixed lot of movies on a xmas theme. will update as watched:

santa claus conquers the martians: a 1964 classic you haven't seen. really i'm not sure why this doesn't get shown on tv more. ok i'm kidding a bit but if you think a martian movie from 64 is anything like serious you're looking in the wrong direction. you should figure it out before the movie kicks in...the intro music is groov-a-delic! the movie is total camp, outrageous, silly, cheap, and yes fun! the leader of mars realizes his kids and the martian kids are hopelessly devoid of emotion. we see exactly no more kids in the movie than the leaders two, bomar and girmar...aka boy and girl...hahahaha..oh man. but momar...aka mom... and kimar...aka king (i assume) are not happy that their kids are bored and they decide mars needs santa claus...from earth. actually kimar takes the advice of some weird 900 year old mystic in a cave...but its an off moment in this film (if that can be). so kimar assembles his men, and the dofus dropo who stows away on the space ship, to fly to earth and kidnap santa accidentally kidnapping 2 earth kids while they are at it. voldar, one of the men, is the bad guy in the movie. he thinks bringing santa to mars will make mars kids dumb, he wants to kill the earth kids after they gain santa's whereabouts from them, and eventually he'll kidnap santa from the kidnappers...but...well watch and see.
the movie is lighthearted camp. it is fun and it kept my attention enough to watch despite the disk from this amc set being a disastrous copy. its clearly from film which doesn't bother me in the slightest even when it suddenly darkens. but the audio which also varies occasionally is just screwed up on my copy. it waivers and chops, constantly feeling like the tape track has broken or crinkled or something. its harsh to take. can't recommend this copy but the movie itself is recommended especially if you like cheesy 50's and 60's sci-fi or are somewhat obsessive about xmas movies. if both is true then this is a must see!!
rate: 7 movie, 1 amc's dvd transfer.

scrooge, a christmas carol: the box says this is the 1938 version but it is in fact 1935 version. seymore hicks plays scrooge, not (as in the '38 version) reginold owen. there is apparently also 2 different versions of the '35 film with one having edited scenes at the end. i can't say which this one is. i'd guess its the shorter version. there is also colorized versions of this now but i'm not sure why. it was filmed in black and white and is nice to see that way. the story everyone knows; scrooge is a mean old man only concerned about money and his hired help is made to suffer his cruelness. primarily in the story by working on christmas instead of spending it with his family. however scrooge is visited by 4 ghosts. yes four although most call it three. however the first ghost tells scrooge he will be visited by the past,present,future three. so he is and its a clever use of filming too. the ghost of past is a lighted angel like form, the ghost of future is a shadow mostly pointing about, and only the ghost of present is actually shown as a hefty and exuberant man. they show scrooge the wrongs of his ways and what will become of his life and then the finale; a change of heart. even though the film is in rough shape with scratches, flatness, and some haloing, it remains beautiful. the character of it enhances rather than detracts.
i haven't seen the new dvd which offers the color version as the primary copy and a copy of the black and white to watch as well. maybe that copy is better. i can't say. but this was fine for me and totally worth watching. its a classic done very well.
rate: 9

seriously?
you'd think after all the money they've made on these films they'd hire a writer, a director, and some actors. ok so i guess you can't jettison the actors in the middle of a story arch, but i bet they wish they could! and considering its based on a book you couldn't....well yes you could...hire a writer please.

after harry potter, its obvious they hired unknown actors hoping to cash in on them but whoever picked these dolts didn't have a clue what acting was. these pretenders had no potential and over the course of 3 movies now they've proven it. they've not developed at all. who ever picked the kids in harry potter picked 3 people that had the chops to develop and become better. with twilight we get less than after school special quality auditions as the main actors.

the plot: well twinkly ol' edward still gettin' his heroin fix with isabella swan (still one of the lamest character names ever). they're talking marriage now aka stay tuned for more crappy sexual tension to come. and hero jacob is sidelined again because....well just because good ol' bella wants to be dead aka vampire. oh and then theirs an army of new vampires coming to kill her. and the amazing fight scenes...are not. dramatic music doesn't equal good fight scenes sorry.
so for two hours they're protecting bella but then not. hiding her, using her as bait. falling in love but then not. but then yes but then no...and him but maybe not and then maybe yes...but maybe him instead..and..so on. by the end (actually well before) i hoped the redhead vampire behind the army would've ate her and ended the whole damned thing. but no such luck.

drizzle heavily with special effects filters, add dramatic score and middle of the road rockish soundtrack, and thats movie making for people who haven't seen good movies. which not coincidentally is who these are made for; tweens.

my girlfriend, who forces me to watch such boring trite fluff, had already seen the film. i said "you're making me watch it when you've already seen it?" and she says "i can't really remember much about it though". i can only hope to be so lucky!