Four Brothers (2005)

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I was surprised to discover how much I really enjoyed “Four Brothers.” Even for a remake. “Four Brothers” is a worthy successor to the original film, and with a dose of cheese every so often it really accomplishes the slight camp from the original film. What made it a more enjoyable experience is that Singleton and the writers turn this in to a modern western. Gladly, this is a modern western in every sense of the word with some great elements from the genre, and some of Singleton’s style thrown in for good measure. Like a cowboy on horseback, Wahlberg’s character Bobby makes his entrance in to the inner-city of Detroit with old school soul playing in the background. Wahlberg becomes the basic drive here (the replacement for John Wayne) who enters back in to his stomping grounds from a life of business to mourn the loss of his foster mother who was killed viciously in a store robbery.

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Venom (2005)

venom-2005-dvdKnow this film? You probably don’t. As a matter of fact, not a lot of people really know what exactly “Venom” is and that it had a very short run in theaters. And bombed in spite of its good cast and Kevin Williamson helping to fuel the film. Once called “Backwater”, then called “The Reaper”, and now “Venom”, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t as bad as I’d heard. It’s no masterpiece, but hey, it beats “House of Wax” by a couple of inches.

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Serenity (2005)

serenity01Brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, I am here to preach the gospel, the gospel of “Firefly”, can I get an amen?! Like you I was once lost and now I was found by Joss Whedon’s amazing and brutally bastardized television series “Firefly” which was taken much too soon before its prime, can I get an amen?! Much like you, I was turned on to the “Firefly” series by word of mouth. A friend told a friend who told me, and I gazed upon the glory that is “Firefly” and I am now a brown coat, one of legions of fans, can I get an amen?! I then spread the word and made it my mission to do so! What, you dare doubt the power of “Firefly”?! Well, I cast you in to the damnation of “Harry Potter” fandom you heathen, and I tell you, that “Firefly” is the beginning, the middle, and the end of what a masterpiece is and should be! Can I get a fucking amen?!

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Bram Stoker's Way of the Vampire (2005)

wotvVampire movies are perhaps the easiest of the horror genre to make aside from zombie films. Some fake fangs, contacts, immense over acting and voila (watch the actors here attempt to mutter their lines through fake teeth!). You can go to an online store and simply type in “vampire” and you’ll come up with about seventy to a hundred vampire films. What’s rare about vampire films though, is that it’s extremely difficult to find a vampire movie that’s actually worth watching. I can think of only a few. “Bram Stoker’s The Way of the Vampire” is no exception to this rule.

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D.E.B.S. (2004)

DEBSI wasn’t expecting a masterpiece with “DEBS”, and when I was done, I received just what I was expecting. I’ve seen material that have spoofed the spy genre with women from “Charlie’s Angels” and “She-Spies”, and “DEBS” doesn’t stand out among the others. In spite of its homosexual twist, it’s still the same old trash we’re exposed to that attempts to be clever and tongue-in-cheek, when really it’s basically just tired and yawn-inducing.

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Cold Mountain (2003)

cold_mountain-001“Cold Mountain” wants to be grand. Oh how Minghella wants it to be a grandiose civil war epic, this generation’s “Gone with the Wind”, but sadly, it will never reach those heights, and throughout the running time it never reached those heights because it is such a short-sighted piece of filmmaking, it could never reach the possible limits that Minghella wanted it to. After viewing this, it was plainly obvious this was so utterly manufactured for Oscar, it was nauseating. But “Cold Mountain” is not underwhelming because of that fact, it’s underwhelming simply because it’s so utterly short-sighted in its stories and characters.

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Doom (2005)

doomI don’t play video games anymore. Yes, call me a freak all you want, but I’m not the one spending over five hundred dollars for a ridiculous new game system that will be obsolete in two years. Either way, I used to play video games, but the game “Doom” was never my milieu. It was too much of a fast-paced game and I never gained interest, but I know the basic gist of the narrative involved. So, you can imagine my dismay with the utter abysmal alterations made to the storyline turning it from nihilistic action horror to cookie cutter action science fiction (and don’t feed me that “But it’s based on Doom 3” crap).

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