Letterboxd — Your life in film

Woo adds style (maybe too much style to take seriously) to what would otherwise be a paint-by-numbers late 80s/early 90s action flick, with Van Damme as a decorated Cajun combat vet up against Lance Henriksen's "rich guys pay to hunt homeless combat vets" ring. Stupid but enjoyable; the moment where Wilford Brimley becomes "Wilford Brimley, Combat Grandpa" is worth the price of admission on its own, provided the price of admission is clicking on the little Hard Target box on Netflix Instant watch.

Great dancing, great sets, great costumes. The comic relief actors really hit it out of the park. The romance? The plot? Less so. Bandini was robbed.

Korean made sci-fi anthology film. Each part, in its own way, deals with the end of everything. The first is a standard zombie movie enlivened only by its coming from a different cultural context. The second is a thoughtful piece that deals with a robot finding Buddhist enlightenment, and it is by far the best. The third has a child accidentally order up the end of the world via Magic 8 Ball, but is really more about the relationships throughout. None of the stories is great, but all at least have the interest factor of coming from outside Hollywood.

I'll let the Baroness take this one: Offensive on every level. The acting, the plot, how they mistreated the ideas of the original, the politics, the gender politics, everything.

It gets two stars only because, in a void, it's a passable if completely empty and stupid action movie, and Chris Hemsworth would have been a good Patrick Swayze stand-in if the movie around him didn't suck so much.

Oh, and Josh Peck? Somebody pull this guy's SAG card, or at least stop him from taking anything other than comedy roles in the future (presumably he can handle that, though I don't know for sure). Worst lead in a movie in years.

Strange combo of Mad Max and maybe an over-long, over-preachy Twilight Zone episode wherein a young buck goes with his girl to a drive-in in the dark, near future, only to find that it's basically a trap (duh duh duh!) where the young unemployed are left to rot watching drive-in movies with 30 meal tickets a week for junk food. Everyone else accepts this situation but the plucky hero, who holds on to his vision of a world outside the drive-in and will do anything to escape. The social commentary becomes groan inducing when the government starts trucking in wrecked cars full of Asian (refugees?) and the downtrodden residents unite against the newcomers who are going to steal their space, their stuff, and rape their women. Some interesting ideas and stunt work but not enough to support a feature length film-we're given too much time to wonder how this whole system was supposed to work. Still, gets points for trying to be different.

Delicious weirdness and comedy with two schlubs finding themselves thrown into an almost Burroughsian world of fighting beings from another dimension as only two schlubs from the Midwest can. Only marred by a slight let down of a third act and the occasional ambitions outstripping resources. Coscarelli makes movies no one else does these days and should be treasured.

Sort of the ur source of all the other Robin Hood movies and shows I've seen, though I suppose that could just be that it used the most popular stories of Robin Hood. Beautiful technicolor, sometimes garish costumes, a joyous performance by Flynn as the man himself that brings out Robin's trickster nature, Basil ever solidly the bad guy as Sir Guy, great fighting in the end, sumptuous sets, solid comedy relief from Friar Tuck and Una O'Connor and her miller boyfriend, Rains at his most fey and villainous as Prince John. The standard by which all other Robin Hoods should be judged.