recent purchases

[Jimbo]

The Good, The Bad, The Weird (GBW) is, IMO, the best Korean movie I've seen, action-wise, and one of the best action movies out of Asia in some time. The cinematography is also beautifully done. Not only is the name similar, but it actually is an updated, 'Eastern' retelling of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly; but instead of Civil War-era U.S., the story is moved to 1930s Manchuria. Jung Woo-sung is placed in the "Good" role, and he has by far the least charisma of the 3 main stars. The other two leads more than make up for that. Song Kang-ho is excellent in the 'Weird' role as a seemingly bumbling thief. And Lee Byung-hun is equally excellent as the 'Bad'; every good action movie needs a good villain and he does not disappoint.

Of course, there have been other 'Eastern-Westerns' that have come before, namely Magnificent Warriors with Michelle Yeoh, and Shanghai Express (a.k.a., Millionaire's Express, with Sammo Hung). Both of which were also epic in scope, but except for the MA fighting and stunts in Shanghai Express, neither film really stacks up story-wise and action-wise as well as GBW does. I'm not even going to count movies like The Warrior's Way or Blood Money as being in the same category (or league).

8.5/10.

[jethro]

Are you saying you aren't a fan of Blood Money? What's better than a movie about women's asses?

I’ll have to pick up Good bad and Weird. I passed on it at BB yesterday. I think it was only $9.99.

I saw Drag me to Hell recently. I remember you liked this one I think. I thought it was good but not great. Best scary movie I’ve seen since Red Eye.

[Jimbo]

Oh yeah, I do like Blood Money, I guess I should've just said it's not in the same category as GBW. I got GBW for $9.99 at BB, and at first was a little "on the fence" if it would be a good purchase or not. I've had mixed reactions to Korean movies in general; some I really like but lots of them are so-so. But I really enjoyed GBW more than I could have expected.

Drag Me to Hell is a pretty fun movie. It's one of the more entertaining horror films in recent years, IMO. Like you say, good but not great. But at least Sam Raimi can still direct a fun horror film and hasn't really lost his touch since the Evil Dead series.

[jethro]

The Expendables- ok at times, but overall a big pile of crap. If it would have had some good fights, then at least there would have been something good about it, but they couldn't even accomplish that.

[Jimbo]

IMO, the only really decent scenes in The Expendables are two involving Jason Statham: First, the basketball court fight; and second, where he's hanging outside of the plane strafing the dock with the machine gun. But it would have been much better if it had been made in the '80s.

Speaking of the '80s, I picked up Predator and Back to the Future. Two films that were so good they would have been even better without sequels. They still stand up today. I had never noticed before, or I had always taken it for granted, but the story, acting, effects and cinematography in Back to the Future were outstanding. If it were made nowadays, most of it would have been CGI animated. Which is fine to a point, but sometimes CGI can be overdone. Or if CGI isn't done well enough it just looks cheap. Ironically, just like in the '80s people thought the '50s were ancient and quaint; now the '80s are seen in the same way (Hot Tub Time Machine).

[jethro]

Inception- Christoper Nolan outdoes himself once again. Memento and Following were my favorite films from him, in that order, and Inception tops those.

Zombieland- disappointed with this. It was average, no more, no less. The one good thing is Bill Murray. When he hits the screen, it becomes a great movie, and when he exits, it goes back to being average.

Death Race with Jason Statham- total waste of time.

[Brule]

General Stone

Finished watching this last night. Older kung fu flick and i forget who stars in it. The basic premise is a young fighter loyal to Tang has his mother kidnapped by the imperial guards. After falling into a well, he refines his kung fu from the stone soldiers dwelling in the well, which is below the Tang emperors tomb. Turns out one of the Stone soldiers is his dad. He beats the stone soldiers and is released, basically a right of passage to see if his kung fu is good.

The fights aren't that great, there is some mention of magical powers used by some but it doesn't really go further into that part of the story. The camera work was horrible. Half the time when two actors were having a dialogue, you would only see half of their faces or the space between the two.

I would only give this a 3/10

I'm watching Young Tiger now, hopefully it's a bit better.