Q: Neither the total disaster the UK critics claimed nor the misunderstood masterpiece its few fanboys insist, Revolver is at the very least an admirable attempt by Guy Ritchie to add a little substance to his conman capers. But then, nothing is more despised than an ambitious film that bites off more than it can chew, especially one using the gangster/con-artist movie framework. As might be expected from Luc Besson's name on the credits as producer, there's a definite element of 'Cinema de look' about it: set in a kind of realistic fantasy world where America and Britain overlap, it looks great, has a couple of superbly edited and conceived action sequences and oozes style, all of which mark it up as a disposable entertainment. But Ritchie clearly wants to do more than simply rehash his own movies for a fast buck, and he's spent a lot of time thinking and reading about life, the universe and everything. If anything its problem is that he's trying to throw in too many influences (a bit of Machiavelli, a dash of Godard, a lot of the Principles of Chess), motifs and techniques, littering the screen with quotes: the film was originally intended to end with three minutes of epigrams over photos of corpses of mob victims, and at times it feels as if he never read a fortune cookie he didn't want to turn into a movie. Rather than a commercial for Kabbalism, it's really more a mixture of the overlapping principles of commerce, chess and confidence trickery that for the most part pulls off the difficult trick of making the theosophy accessible while hiding the film's central (somewhat metaphysical) con.

The last third is where most of the problems can be found as Jason Statham takes on the enemy (literally) within with lots of ambitious but not always entirely successful crosscutting within the frame to contrast people's exterior bravado with their inner fear and anger, but it's got a lot going for it all the same. Not worth starting a new religion over, but I'm surprised it didn't get a US distributor. Maybe they found Ray Liotta's intentionally fake tan just too damn scary?
A: positive
Q: This film, originally released at Christmas, 1940, was long thought lost. A very poor copy has resurfaced and made into a CD, now for sale. Don't buy it! The film is unspeakably terrible. The casting is poor, the script is awful, and the directing is dreadful.

Picture Roland Young singing and dancing. And that was the highlight.

Perhaps this movie was lost deliberately.
A: negative
Q: "Creepshow 2" is little more than a pale imitation of the original, designed with little purpose other than to cash in on the name of the previous film. It even amplifies the flaws of its predecessor, which was often predictable and heavy-handed. Still, the first time around, there were enough thrills to make up for it's periodic lulls, resulting in an uneven but overall fairly entertaining effort. The sequel has few worthwhile moments, so the transparency of the stories are even more apparent. Once in a while, it delivers, but most of the time, it just lingers there.

As in the original, all the stories revolve around the common theme of revenge and just desserts. A wooden Indian comes to life, wreaking vengeance upon the killers of its owner. Teenagers are devoured by an aquatic monster. A hitchhiker returns from the dead to pursue a careless motorist. None of these premises are inherently bad in themselves, but they are utterly lacking in inspiration. There are few surprises and no scares. This a textbook example of unmotivated, by-the-numbers filmmaking. It doesn't help that this cheap-looking movie suffers from a flat directorial style, although to be honest, there wasn't much to work with. In the end, the second story comes off best, but not by much.

For the most part, the performances are okay at best. George Kennedy, as the ill-fated general store owner, does an adequate, if not particularly inspired job. Dorothy Lamour, on the other hand, is quite good as the guilt-ridden motorist, evoking sympathy for her plight despite the predictable, redundant material. However, most of the characters are pretty thin overall.

One would think that "Creepshow 2" would have turned out better. George Romero, who directed the original, returned to pen the screenplay, based on more of Stephen King's stories. Makeup effects artist Tom Savini turns in some good, gory work. So why is the film a letdown? I guess Romero didn't really want to make a second film, but was forced to do so for financial reasons. It was a decade of horror sequels, clones, rip-offs, and whatnot, so this one was certainly inevitable. I can imagine the guy writing the script in a hurry, picking up his paycheck, and running off. I guess he had to do what was necessary to get his own projects financed; we can't blame him.

Rating: *1/2 (out of ****)

Released by New World Pictures
A: negative
Q: i realize this review will get me bashed by the expert film critics patrolling this site, but i will defend this film.

The Dentist is actually a really good film. The acting isn't always top notch, but the thrills are good and the story's good. Plus you see Linda Hoffman's boobies. Not that I'm an expert in this field, but the direction seems good and the plot makes sense. Corbin makes a great creepy dentist. It does to dentists what Jaws does to sharks...ish. It obviously had a fairly limited budget, but they did well with it what they could, and developed the characters well (those that count).

the end.
A: positive