The Frozen Dead

Oh, how I love bad horror films! This one takes the eternal baddies, the Nazis, to good use. One Dr. Norborg has been working on a secret project to revive bodies that have been frozen for up to 20 years. An interested party of two Nazi sympathizers come to have a look at the doctor's progress and are very disappointed when they learn that even though the bodies have been revived, there have been some hick-ups with the brain function.

This is demonstrated through recent failed revivals, one subject is eternally crying because his brain appears to be stuck in a sad moment of his previous life, another is constantly bouncing an invisible ball, a third - this the doctor's own brother (played by the only actor of note in the whole thing, Edward Fox) - has been rather violent since he was defrosted, constantly trying to choke people.

This brain problem is of very great concern to the visitors, as they came to inform the doctor of their plan to revive 1500 frozen heads of Nazis of prominence. They wish to see results soon and the doctor feels he will need some more time. To speed things up, the doctor's assistant stages a murder.

Let me explain. The doctor's niece Jean makes a surprise appearance with a friend. Jean is the daughter of the now violent brother. That friend is drugged by the assistant and left for the brother to choke to death. He tells the doctor that OMG! I heard a noise and came in to see your brother kill the poor girl. But wait! Don't panic! How about we cut off her head and see if we cannot revive her brain properly? Wouldn't that be awesome?

And so they do. This causes a bit of a chain reaction, because Jean is looking for her, they make up an elaborate lie of the friend having left for London on the morning train. Jean will not let go and asks uncomfortable questions. The two Nazi visitors put more pressure on the doctor to get his shit together so that they can get on with their evil plan of trying for world domination once again.

It is as ridiculous as it sounds, which is to say, quite awesome.

(see also: Nazis at the Center of the Earth, a film with similar themes)

4/10

The Book Thief

What a wonderful book The Book Thief is. I remember that when I read it (it's been a few years) I absolutely loved it. The idea of the story being told by Death himself (I always thought of the narrating Death as a he and apparently so did the people making the film) was different and interesting. All the bitterness and hope that the story held made it a very rewarding reading experience, however sad the book may have made me.

Of course, they would make it into a film. And even though this is a valiant effort, there are just so many little things that didn't sit well with me, which took away immensely from the experience.

My biggest problem, one that almost made me turn off the film several time during the first half hour or so, is that most of the dialogue is in English - with German accent. Why? Can filmmakers please make up their minds. If you want to be realistic, you will have to have German speaking actors and subtitle the film. Or, if you want to tell the thing in English than fucking do so. Nobody needs to hear a German accents (and at times a bad imitation of one) to know that the people portrayed in the film are supposed to be Germans. I hated that!

And if you find a girl that can play the lead role and sort of master the accent (just imagine, they got an actual German boy to play a German boy!) why don't you give her anything to do but look at everything and everyone like a deer in headlights. She can do wide eyed. Bravo! Beyond that, we have no idea whether or not this girl can act.

All of this made me enjoy the movie far less than I should have, because it was a constant source of annoyance that kept me from actually getting into it.

Read the book instead.

3/10

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Dopey is the best of the dwarfs. Hands down.

Let's just get that out of the way.

So, there is a lot of singing. That was to be expected. But Snow White does not only sing, she also speaks in rhyme. And she whistles (while she works)! Also, she is very ditzy. But the girl knows how to keep house, you have to give her that.

The evil presence - the nemesis, if you will - is the step mother and/or witch. Cleverly disguised as, well, a witch she comes to call upon poor innocent Snow White to take care of the girl herself, after her trusted huntsman failed to kill the princess. That sap!

This film was made in much more innocent time, when animated films were aimed at children and the bad people could only be a little scary. It foremost is a kids film, what with all the cute animals and sweet songs and adorable dwarfs.

Beside the queen, the dwarfs and the animals you have everything else of the original fairy tale - the talking mirror, the fake heart, the poisonous apple, Prince Charming. And in the end, good prevails and the scares are kept to a kid friendly minimum.

Well worth seeing, if only for the historical value.

8/10

R.I.P.D.

You know what? This is not actually as bad as it is said to be. Sort of like a new take on Men in Black, only instead of aliens you have bad dead people that somehow escaped their final judgment. The job of the Rest In Peace Department is to bring them back where they belong.

It is garish. It is ridiculous. It is stupid (of course it is).

But it also has Kevin Bacon. So there is your saving grace. He plays a bad guy (kind of a douche bag, really). He eventually turns out to be the big cheese among the dead ones on earth, even though you go through a big portion of the film before you find out that he is, in fact, dead. There is a reason for him not looking like the rest and - more importantly - not smelling like them. But there is no need to get into that.

What I found funny was that the R.I.P.D. duo of Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds look very different to the living. They have earthly Avatars. Roy (Bridges) is a hot blonde bursting out of her dress and Nick (Reynolds) is an elderly Chinese man.

Also the dead people look rather cool once their fake mortal shell has been busted (through the help of Indian food or, more specifically, cumin).

Not a milestone, to be sure, but entertaining nonetheless.

It is what it is.

5/10

Quicksilver Highway

A fun way to knit together a random Stephen King tale with a random Clive Barker tale is to have Christopher Lloyd tell them to strangers. Lloyd, dressed up in the weirdest garb (sort of looking like an elderly goth chic), is a traveling 'collector' (of, pretty much, every strange item and or body part you can imagine) and he chances, first, upon a new pregnant bride waiting for her husband to return from alerting someone of their car trouble (poor guy almost makes it back) and, second, to small time crook Charlie, who makes his way through an amusement park picking pockets.

First story, based on Stephen King's Chattery Teeth.
I dimly remember the story from reading it a lifetime ago. Not the best of his short stories, but by no means the worst. It is about a traveling salesman and a set of mechanical chattery teeth with legs. They are said to be old enough to still be made of metal. Our traveling salesman Bill picks up a hitchhiker against his better judgment and we all know how that ends in the hands of Mr. King. Rather than give up his money and car to the guy calling himself Bryan Adams (in a very Keyser Soze way, he had a glance at Bill's CD collection before introducing himself), Bill speeds up until the car turns over and the two are trapped - Bill because he is still strapped into his seat and cannot get the seat belt off and Bryan because he is being attacked and killed and eventually pulled off into the desert by the set of teeth.

Second story, based on Clive Barker's The Body Politic.
This is a short story from the great Books of Blood collection. A surgeon's hands decide to free themselves of the tyranny of the body and start a revolution. This means that one will chop of the other and run off to recruit other hands to join the revolution. Now, this may be the most ridiculous premise, like, Idon'tknow, ever, but let me tell you that Matt Frewer's (Max! Headroom!) hands fighting the rest of his body is fascinating to watch. There are a lot of people running around holding their stumps with their left-over hand and a lot of Thing T. Things running around, following their 'Messiah', who is the hand still attached to the surgeon.

The stories are probably better suited for something like Tales from the Crypt. Wish that still existed.

5/10

Patriot Games

I am about to give you some sad news and you have to be very strong now...Sean Bean dies.

Cause of death: impaling by anchor, followed by explosion (for good measure).

Now to the actual story of the film.

A group loosely affiliated with the IRA is making an attempt to kidnap one Lord Holmes, cousin to the Queen of England. What they did not factor in is that ex-CIA agent Jack Ryan would leisurely stroll by and throw himself in the middle of it all to not only save the Lord and his family but also take out a few bad guys while he's at it. One of them is little Patrick Miller, whose brother Sean (this is Sean playing Sean) is right there to witness his baby brother killed.

He is incarcerated, he swears revenge, his friends get him out of jail and while they still have their sights set on Lord Holmes, Sean has his eyes set on Jack Ryan. Yes, one of the members of the group of IRA guys going rouge is about to go rouge.

Shoot-outs, training camps in North Africa, a few explosions, cars forced off the road, a boat chase and the ultimate fight to death on a speeding, burning boat in the middle of a storm (because it wouldn't be an action sequence without there being a storm, obviously).

Yes, this is mostly standard action fare. Only, this has a way better cast than your random action movie. The original Jack Ryan is Harrison Ford. You also have James Earl Jones, James Fox, Richard Harris, Samuel L. Jackson, a very young Thora Birch - and those are just the supporting players. And of course there is Sean Bean and his brother in arms (until he falls victim to Sean/Sean's blinding revenge) is Patrick Bergin (whatever happened to him, I wonder).

6/10