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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Wool 100% dvd movie review

Director: Mai Tominaga
Starring: Kyoko Kishida, Kazuko Yoshiyuki
Genre: Japan, Curious, Fantasy
With the whimsy of The Shoe Fairy (which had the whimsy of Amelie) and the languid fluidity of a glorified French film spurns Wool 100%, a Japanese movie with a European pulse. Vivid visuals and an enigmatic aura enhances the stark lack of dialogue and [...]

Yaji and Kita: The Midnight Pilgrims (aka: Mayonaka no Yaji-san Kita-san) movie review

Director: Kankuro Kudo
Starring: Shichinosuke Nakamura, Tomoya Nagase
Genre: Japan, Comedy, Curious, Fantasy
See it at SF Indie’s Another Hole in the Head June 2008!
Everyone loves a roadtrip movie. Maybe even a gay roadtrip movie. How about a couple of Edo era gay samurai who are forbidden to ride their motorcycle (by famed Susumu Terajima, no [...]

Machine Girl movie review

Director: Noburo Iguchi
Starring: Minase Yashiro, Asami, Honoka
Genre: Japan, comedy, horror
This film will be screening at SF Indie’s Another Hole in the Head 2008, June 6, 12, and 14. Click here for showtimes.
Former AV director Noburo Iguchi’s latest picture will undoubtably be compared to Yudai Yamaguchi’s Meatball Machine — at least by those attending SF’s [...]

Exte: Hair Extensions (aka Ekusute) movie review

Director: Sion Sono
Starring: Chiyaki Kuriyama, Ren Osugi, Tsugumi
Genre: Horror, Supernatural
This film will be screening at SF Indie’s Another Hole in the Head 2008, June 5, 10, and 14. Click here for showtimes.
Sion Sono’s latest picture has been covered on so many other sites that I’m afraid this review might be a bit superfluous. As [...]

Shuffle!, vol. 3 anime review

Episodes: 9-11
Genre: romance, comedy, educational
Release Date: May 6, 2008

And the Shuffle! coverage continues. If you haven’t already, check out my reviews of volumes 1 and 2.
At the end of the last volume I was finding my interest in Shuffle! to be waning. Episodes 5 through 8 were interesting bits of animated relationship education, [...]

School Rumble vol. 6, Glass Fleet vol. 5, Wizards anime reviews

I just received another big batch of titles (Shuffle, Black Blood Bros, and more), so I’ll just take care of some of my pending reviews in one fell swoop. I’ll be back with a full review of Glass Fleet vol 6 in the coming weeks. On to the reviews.
School Rumble vol. 6
After seeing the [...]

Funky Forest: The First Contact movie review

Directors: Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine (aka: Aniki),and Shunichiro Miki
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Susumu Terajima, Kazue Fukiishi, Rinko Kikuchi
Genre: Japan, Comedy
I’ve come to dig the works of Katsuhito Ishii over the course of his three previous theatrical releases. Sharkskin and Peach Hip Girl was endlessly hilarious. Party 7 was a bit of a nosedive, but [...]

Shuffle!, vol. 2 anime review

Episodes: 5-8
Genre: romance, comedy, educational
Release Date: March 25, 2008
Those of you who read my review of the previous volume of Shuffle! will recall that I liked the series, but wasn’t able to put my finger on an exact reason why (If you haven’t already, check out my Shuffle! vol.1 Review). This time out, though, [...]

Wakeful Nights movie dvd review

Director: Masahiko Tsugawa
Starring: Junko Fuji, Takashi Sasano, Yoshino Kimura, Kiichi Nakai, and Ittoku Kishibe
Genre: Japan, Comedy, Educational
I’ve reviewed Masahiko Tsugawa’s Wakeful Nights previously, under its original title, A Hardest Night (aka: Nezu no Ban). However, the version I originally saw featured a completely different translation, AnimEigo having gone back and given the film the [...]

MOVIE REVIEWS . 10,000 B.C., Doomsday, The Hammer

We’ve seen a number of films in the past few weeks, but just haven’t had the time to write them up. As such, here are a few quick catchup reviews. Stay tuned over the coming week for brief looks at Margot at the Wedding, Nightmare Detective, and more. On to the reviews.
10,000 B.C. . So [...]

Be Kind, Rewind movie review

Director: Michel Gondry
Starring: Dante “Mos Def” Smith, Jack Black, Danny Glover
Genre: comedy, mainstream
Release Date: February 22, 2008

We saw this and I wrote this nearly a month ago, but I kept procrastinating, reluctant to shed negativity on such a wonderful person like Michel Gondry.. but I guess it has to be done.
I had high hopes for [...]

Teeth // he-said, she-said // movie review

I have a feeling that what I saw in Teeth was infinitely funnier, grosser, and better thought out and executed than anything in Sexual Parasite: Killer Pussy. In the vein of Frankenhooker, Heathers, and Donnie Darko, Teeth is a late-night crowd pleaser concerning a God-fearing girl cursed with a vagina-dentata (that’s a toothed vagina, for you non-Latin speakers). [...]