"Dead-Alive"

"X-Files: Fight the Future"

I sit down to write this knowing full well how socially insignificant both the movie is, and my review will be. If you haven't seen "The X-Files: Fight the Future" yet, then chances are you had little to no interest in the first place, and that hasn't changed, nor will it change, based on my review. If you have seen it for that matter, nothing I say here will change your point of view about it; I have no new insights or much original to say about its cinematic validity.

"Tetsuo: The Iron Man"

"Tetsuo: The Iron Man" has always been infamous for being a unique, gut-wrenching experience, but no amount of talk could have prepared me for what I endured. It is so painful to watch that I have no words to accurately describe it. It has the aesthetic of nails on a chalkboard, and a soundtrack that quite literally sounds like that. It plays out like a cruel trick on its audience, daring you to watch further. And if you get used to the choppy black and white 16 millimeter, stop-motion style, you will never get used to seeing what is happening on screen. Just when you think you've seen the worst of it, Tsukamoto ups the ante, and twists the knife he has imbedded in your soul just a little more.

"Terminator Salvation"

You know, out of all the films that were coming out this summer, I was, oddly enough, looking most forward to this film, "Terminator Salvation". It had a lot of good things going for it; it was finally going to take the film series to the future in a post apocalyptic setting (so many themes and Sci-fi fun can be made from that), put the very talented Christian Bale as John Connor and the underrated Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese, and finally was going to tell the story of the war of man vs the machines. I was sooooo looking forward to this movie for the last year, ever since I saw the trailer before seeing "The Dark Knight". But then the bad omens started showing up. A few months ago I discovered the film was going to be directed by McG, the guy who did the God awful "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" movie and then even worse, just hours before seeing the movie, I discovered that the writers for "Catwoman" had done the screenplay for this film. Yet still I said to myself “Oh c'mon it can't be that bad,” unfortunately I was very wrong.

"Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country"

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of watching J.J. Abrams splendid and beautifully crafted reboot of the 'Star Trek' series. Since it's release it has been widely critically acclaimed and said to be one of the best, if not the best 'Star Trek' film of all time. Now with this said, obviously a debate has started within the Sci-Fi community of which Trek film really is THE Trek film. The most famous and obvious picks were the ones debated for the top spots, like "Wrath of Khan" and for me "First Contact", but then I heard people say "The Undiscovered Country" also deserved a top spot. Now up until this last 'Star Trek' film I had actually never seen "The Undiscovered Country", to be honest I haven't even seen the first yet either (I have seen just about every other though). So I thought why not give this one a try, since I am of course a big 'Star Trek' fan and it's only fitting that I should know all of my 'Star Trek' films. So I set a course for my video store, WARP 10, and picked up a copy and popped it into my DVD player. Well after seeing it I would have to say this film was more of a turn off than two Klingon girls in heat!

"Star Trek"

It is very rare that a film exceeds my expectations so drastically as J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek", which really is a perfect Hollywood blockbuster. I recently watched "Wolverine", and while I wouldn't quite say that it was a steaming pile of shit, it was most certainly not good. However, at the same time, it wasn't quite bad enough for me to extend my thoughts on the film. It was simply there, and amidst the incredibly cliched story and action set-pieces, was a film that was pure and simply forgettable. It seemed to exist for no particular reason, as the film's climax served to disprove the relevance of any of the events that occurred throughout the film.

"Robocop 2"

Again, the entire earth confuses me. "Robocop 2" is absolutely reviled by critics, and I have no idea why. Zero idea. Nada.

I could see if these critics also hated the first "Robocop", but they don't. Verhoeven's "Robocop" was extremely well-received, despite having precisely the same characteristics as its first sequel. I am at a loss. And to top it all off, these same critics go further in praising the third installment of the series, saying that even though it lacked the polish of the first two, it at least had some of the heart and intelligence that made the first such a success. There is no question, in this reviewer's mind, that "Robocop 3" is easily the worst of the bunch, as it completely lacks the punch of the first two, and seems more like a direct-to-video production than a valid sequel.

"District 9"

I find that I usually agree with the critical consensus when it comes to recent releases (more often than not, anyway), yet my previous two reviews have both differed quite drastically from the popular opinion. I viewed "G.I. Joe" as an excellent summer popcorn movie that accomplished exactly what it attempted – to be an action extravaganza without forcing things, like unnecessarily complicated character development or a plot that attempted to be too smart for its own good, down our throat. It was based on a beloved 80's cartoon, and I felt it stayed very true to its origins. ("G.I. Joe" has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 37% at the time of this writing.)

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (2008)

"Hancock" was one of the big summer blockbusters of 2008, and took home over $600 million worldwide on the strength of the charismatic Will Smith. But critics were lukewarm about it, saying that it seemed flimsy and unfocused, as though there were too many writers taking the film in too many directions. It didn't know if it wanted to be a rollicking comedy, a straight comic-book film, or an emotional drama. I argued that "Hancock" knew precisely what it wanted to be (satire of the standard comic book film). It played it straight and despite my skepticism about it, managed to be smart and entertaining. When there are actually too many people steering any particular film in too many directions, the result is never a distinct sequential split of genres. It ends up something along the lines of "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

"Body Snatchers"

With the current trend of horror remakes currently bludgeoning the movie theaters, and my personal unsurprising disgust of that trend, I am often asked if there has ever been a remake that I consider to be as good, or better than the original. It seems as though I have a blind bias against the idea of remaking the classics (and occasionally the not-so classics) so regardless of what these movies may do well, I never recommend them.