Beyond watching the movie marathons every summer on the local television stations as a child, I never really considered myself a fan of the Godzilla movies. Granted, I love the character of Godzilla, but I never actually cared about the mythos, the supporting characters, or any of the spin offs. But at one time I really cared for characters like Gamera, and Ghidorah, and Jet Jaguar, so the endless recommendations on the part of movie geeks insisting this was a very different Godzilla movie swayed me enough to want to see what “GMKG” was actually about, and surely enough it’s a very good Godzilla movie that takes all of the monsters and makes them villainous threats once again.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience (2007)
I was admittedly very skeptical with Robbins’ war time documentary for the simple fact that I’m frankly tired of seeing war time documentaries that attempt to sway me one way or the other. I’m either watching a cleaned up war through the eyes of the soldiers who beg for sympathy, or through some pundit bemoaning the Iraq War endlessly and harping on our doomed country in a war that may not end too soon.
Automaton Transfusion (2006) (DVD)
Take a recycled concept, grab some cliché characters, put them in a brutally horrendous situation and what do you get? A creative director providing one of the most exciting and horrifying independent zombie movies in years. “Automaton Transfusion” has the chips stacked against it from the beginning with a plot that could either be really good or really bad, but the entire film works and it’s barely ninety minutes. There’s not much plot to be taken here, which really isn’t a caveat.
Day of the Dead (2008)
As a buddy once said: The Only thing worse than a bad horror movie is a boring horror movie, and “Day of the Dead (2008)” unfortunately didn’t bore me. In fact I had fun in a guilty pleasure mindset watching these idiotic zombies adhering to whatever principle that would grant story progression. As well, these zombies are much more energetic and entertaining than the ones in the “Resident Evil” movie incarnations for the fact that they actually act like zombies and provide some sense of menace and terror even when they’re bursting into flames and withering out like cigarette ash.
Spiral (2007) (DVD)
Many people think that I’m much too hard on “Hatchet,” and unnecessarily punish it for being the victim of gross over hyping by a hyperactive press who stroked themselves to Green’s premiere debut. In actuality, I liked “Hatchet,” because it’s tough to disappoint me with a slasher film, and Green has a charisma about him that guarantees to win me over sooner or later. “Spiral” is a step in the direction where Green will definitely win me over as a fan if he continues at this rate.
3 Steps 2 Abducting Awareness in Love (2007)
I thought it was my computer and I tried to replay “3 Steps 2 Abducting” twice and it was still occurring. Right around the climax, the movie just stops playing and nothing is resolved, nothing develops and we’re left with a feeling of abrupt closure that just doesn’t answer any questions. “3 Steps 2 Abducting” definitely has the right idea, it just doesn’t know what it wants to be.
Pencil Fighting: The Life and Times of Team Balderdash (2007)
I wanted to really like “Pencil Fighting.” I mean, granted, in the end the concept is interesting, the scenes are humorous, and the direction is tight, but beyond that “Pencil Fighting” left me generally apathetic to the entire story and I just didn’t really know what I thought of it. Then watching it a second time, I realized that I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to. While you have to really appreciate what director and writer Fro Rojas is getting at, often times “Pencil Fighting” left me unsatisfied, especially since there seemed to be so much more that could have been done with the concept and story.