Devil May Cry: The Animation – vol. 3, Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage, vol 1, Glass Fleet Vol. 6, Shuffle! vol 5. — anime dvd reviews

And, we’re back. I’ve finally had time to sit down and watch a few of the anime titles sent us, and you know what? There were actually some great shows this time around. Some shows I’ve reviewed previously only continued to derail, but the vast majority of the others surprised me with their quality. [...]

The Wolves (aka: Shussho Iwai) — dvd movie review

Director: Hideo Gosha
Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Noboru Ando, Tetsuro Tamba, Kyoko Enami
Genre: Yakuza
To be completely honest, I’ve about worn myself out on Yakuza films. In fact, I really had to push myself to finally sit down and watch The Wolves (aka: Shussho Iwai). Sure, I knew it was a Hideo Gosha picture, and starred [...]

Burn After Reading — movie review

Director: Coen Brothers
Starring: George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton
Genre: Comedy

Sorry this is so late…and we saw it early, too.. nuts. It’s hard for me to write mainstream movie reviews sometimes… especially if I feel lukewarm about the subject. Well, that just gave it all away, didn’t it? Well, [...]

Summer Catch-Up 3: The Death of Summer (Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express, etc)

This has been the busiest Summer I’ve ever experienced. Seriously, things have been insane. And, so far, Fall’s shaping up to be even more intense. Since my last update I’ve actually seen surprisingly few things, most of my free time being spent reading, researching, chilling with Kris, or simply indulging in old DOS games. When [...]

Chef Mavro — restaurant review — Hawai’i

In college, en route to work, I rode many times on The Bus past Chef Mavro, a cute little building with a continuous frosted wave of etched glass ebbing and flowing around its perimeter, hugging the “sandy” apricot-colored walls, a pleasant oasis amidst the low-rise tenements and eyesores of another era lining busy King Street [...]

Starship Troopers 3 — Highlander 2 — The Devil Dared Me To — Rogue — movie reviews

You know, I’m kinda digging these shorter reviews. I’ll have a third Summer round-up in the next few days, complete with blurbs on everything from The Mummy 3 and The Visitor to Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder. Also stay tuned for coverage of Uwe Boll’s Seed, Hideo Gosha’s The Wolves, and a few other surprises [...]

Freesia — Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea — movie reviews

So, I figured some of you guys might be wondering what’s going on with our coverage of Japanese films. Well, I’ve got you covered. Read on for brief reviews of Freesia and Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea.
Freesia: Icy Tears (aka: Freesia: Bullets over Tears) . It’s the old samurai-western feedback-loop, [...]

Sex and Death 101 — Lost Boys: The Tribe — Watching the Detectives — dvd movie reviews

Sex and Death 101 Buy it at Amazon.com
“Topless girls are all I need” should be a running quote for movie critics who wholeheartedly recommend fodder like this. It’s not funny, it’s not interesting, it’s horribly miscast, it’s a complete disaster. It’s hard to believe, I mean really hard to believe this came from [...]

The X-Files: I Want to Believe — he-said, she-said — movie review

Director: Chris Carter
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson
Genre: Drama, Supernatural

HE-SAID
X-Files: I Want to Believe. Color me pleasantly surprised. I know that this film has been receiving quite a bit of flack from the general viewing populace, but I’m finding that for the most part, the people who are upset or disappointed by the film are casual [...]

My Blueberry Nights — movie review

Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Starring: Jude Law, Norah Jones
Genre: Drama, Romance

Whaa–t? What’s wrong with blueberry pie? In Wong Kar-Wai’s Hollywood effort, My Blueberry Nights, the homely dessert is the one cast off by customers every night, an icon for the discarded, much like the fishbowl melange of housekeys left by jilted non-pie eaters in Jeremy’s [...]

Chris’s Summer Catchup 2008 Part 2: The Revenge

While most people look toward Summer as a period of relaxation, my Summer has been anything but. So, in another effort towards cleaning house, I bring you Summer Catchup 2008 Part 2: The Revenge. What follows is the briefest of brief looks at numerous films, books, and shows I’ve tackled over the Summer, but [...]

Shogun Assassin 5: Cold Road to Hell (aka Kozure Okami: Jigoku e Ikuzo! Daigoro) — dvd movie review

Director: Yoshiyuki Kuroda
Starring: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Akihiro Tomikawa, Junko Hitomi, Renji Ishibashi, Koichi Sato
Genre: Japan, Samurai, Action
So, after our reviews of the previous four Shogun Assassin DVDs, I’m pretty sure you know what to expect with Shogun Assassin 5: Cold Road to Hell: loads of awesome swordfights, tricked out machine gunning baby-carriage antics, and more arterial [...]

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead — movie review — Screener!

Director: Lloyd Kaufman
Starring: Jason Yachanin, Kate Graham
Genre: Cult Cinema, Exploitation, Horror
San Francisco Premiere: July 18 at the Roxie Theater [Buy Tickets]

If Grease was gross, it’d be Poultrygeist. Of course, it’d also have topless lesbian activists, explosive diarrhea gags, racism, gore, zombies, and bestiality by a pseudo Dustin Diamond (Screech), not to mention a Ron [...]

Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro — dvd movie review — early!

Director: Katsuhide Motoki
Starring: Eiji Wentz, Mao Inoue, Yo Oizumi
Genre: Action, Fantasy, Manga
US DVD Release Date: October 28, 2008

GeGeGe no Kitaro tries too hard. It tries to be enchanting but relies too heavily on floppy CG (nearly 700 shots). It tries to be a comedy without wit. It wants to be an action [...]

Hana (aka: Hana yori no maho) — dvd movie review

Director: Koreeda Hirokazu
Starring: Junichi Okada, Rie Miyazawa, Susumu Terajima, Tadanobu Asano
Genre: Japan, Samurai, Drama
Koreeda Hirokazu is the master of the saccharine. The man has managed to tackle such subjects ranging from dealing with the suicide of a spouse (Maborosi) to the prospect of life after death (After Life), and in each instance, rather than depressing [...]

The Fall — movie review

Director: Tarsem Singh
Starring: Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru
Genre: Comedy, Curious, Fantasy
I fell for The Fall. Hard.
And it’s not just the voluptuous visuals, although Tarsem and Director of Photography Colin Watkinson supply one sumptuous scene after another, with upshots of a swimming elephant, an M.C. Escher staircase grid o’ closing enemies, swishing swirling clergymen [...]

Origin: Spirits of the Past (aka Gin-iro no Kami no Agito) — anime — dvd review

Director: Keiichi Sugiyama
Genre: Anime, Action

In Origin: Spirits of the Past, the forest reclaims earth in catastrophic fashion and leaves human civilization devastated when an experiment in growing plants on the moon goes awry and the plants destroy the moon and extend to earth, tearing through everything in their path. In this post-apocalyptic world, [...]

Chris’s Summer Catchup — Theatrical films and DVDs

It’s been a while since my last update, so here goes. Kris and I’ve seen quite a few films this summer – far more than we can hope to cover even in a capsule format. In an effort to weigh in on these titles (both theatrical and DVD), I’ll simply provide a one to [...]