In an effort to prove we do nothing else but watch movies...

Halloween: Resurrection - stars Mike!, Jamie Lee Curtis (contains spoilers!!!)

All hail Mike Myers, he's the MAN!!!  I love the Halloween series, its tops, did you guess that already?  This got 5 stars before I even saw it, lol.  No seriously, I'm a fan so they couldn't really make a bad one in my eyes.  Setting aside all things continuous between each of them - if you read far enough into the series you'll find that ep's 3, 4, 5 and 6 don't even tie in with the rest yet people are trying to logically link them.  Prepare yourself for an obviously bias review.

As mentioned above, I can't get into this without spoiling some rather crucial bits, so beware reading on.  The story goes, if you haven't watched any of these, that Mike Myers as a 6 year old decided to knife his older sister a million times on Halloween night.  Not unbelievably, she ended up dead and he was sent to a mental asylum where he didn't speak a word until one night he escapes and comes home to seek out the rest of the family, chopping up anyone else who gets in the way.  What a guy!

This being part 8 in the series, he's pretty much gone through the immediate and extended family, then in part 7 (Halloween: H20) he tracks down his last remaining sister (Laurie Strode, faithfully rejuvenated by Jamie Lee Curtis) and gives it the what-for but fails at the death.  So here we are, part 8, we all thought Mike was gonsies but sure enough, he's back.  In an ironic twist of fate it is Laurie Strode who sits in the asymlum, apparantly catatonic and looking pretty battle weary.  But she's expecting Mike, and he delivers.  So its a finale in the first 10 minutes.  And what do you know it, they kill off Laurie straight away.  What the...?  I'm gutted (as was Laurie by the way), I mean where does this go from here, Mike's mission in life (undeath?) is to axe the fam, but whose left?  There are some, but that's another story...

Fast forward to Dangertainment, a handful of students have been invited to participate in a live webcast from the Myers' house, where it all began.  They're job is simple, just stay one night locked in the old house and look for clues about the mythical mass murderer Michael Myers, see what they find.  And what they found, nobody expected!  Mike's in the building, much death and fun ensues.

So how does it wrap up?  Well not bad, I mean its got Mike so that's a big plus to start.  The death scenes are typical Mike, the music is back to the classic Halloween anthem.  And although it looks to me like they've tried to trivialise the Halloween legacy, I honestly believe they failed simply because Mike's one of those characters that holds more than today's vacuous teen-slasher flicks portray.  There is mystery behind the madness and if a Halloween movie is going to fail, it will be because those making it haven't delved into the past.  In saying this, I reckon today's audiences are going to be disappointed.  The occassional Halloween fan or the one-off viewing of the Halloween legacy will leave people wondering "what the...?"  And understandably so, if you don't know Mike's story, you'll just think he's another madman in a cliched mask.  The director says "this is the next part of the Halloween series, but it will stand on its own with audiences".  I say, nuh, you're kidding yourself if you think that.  Imagine watching The Godfather 3 first, where would you be?

So where can the series go from here?  How much family is left?  Well I'll need to go back and watch 4, 5 and 6 again (which I can't wait to do now!) to confirm this hazy knowledge, but there are at least two family members left.  Laurie Strode had a son (as introduced in part 7) and there is at least one niece and/or one nephew still out there as well.  Will we get a chance to see Mike go after them?

I'm hanging out for a DVD box set.  By jingos they better!  4 stars.

Behind Enemy Lines - stars Owen Wilson, Gene Hackman

I have reviewed this fairly recently, in the last 12 months at least, but I wanted to reprise the memory on DVD.  Briefly on the plot: pilot goes down after being shot out of the sky in a demilitarised zone.  They weren't meant to be there, but then again neither were the SAMs.  In an effort to avoid scandal, said pilot must navigate on foot to a safety zone for pickup, that's where things get sticky.

Three things remain consistent from the first time I saw this.  1.  Gene is terrible, do your best to ignore his character if you watch it.  2.  Owen Wilson can't be taken seriously.  EVER.  He's mis-cast here.  3.  The action scenes are the best ever put to film, and there just isn't enough of it!  Imagine putting Spielberg, Woo and Stone behind the camera and imagine the best they could come up with combined.  Here it is.  Wanna get spun out?  Director John Moore went straight from Director School (whatever they call it) to this, earning himself 40 million bucks in the process.  Cool huh.

Anyhoo, the storyline suffers at the hands of action emphasis and as above, the cast and characters fail.  So skip to the good bits where its too loud to talk and they just have to shoot eachother!  3 stars.

The Banger Sisters - stars Goldie Hawn, Susan Sarandon, Geoffrey Rush

Two friends seperated by time are re-united in suburban Pheonix - one still living the rock'n'roll groupie lifestyle they both shared 20 years earlier in LA, the other having moulded herself into the white-picket-fence wife with 2.4 kids and a people mover.  Let the fun begin.

The Banger Sisters fails on one point - it sets wheels in motion but doesn't see the movement through.  Everything seems halted, just when you're getting into a scenario, it ends, and so do the sub plots that went along with it.  Personally I would've loved to have seen more time spent exploring the family.  The two neurotic kids and a dolt of a hubby are screaming to be opened up.  Remember when Robin Williams played Mrs Doubtfire and the scenarios that were taken from start to finish and then some - the resturant scene comes to mind straight away.  They saw it through, yet I'm feeling left a little high and dry here.

It is a great laugh though, and although it focuses on one Sister over the other, it focused on the right one.  Goldie's great, she steals the show by a mile, Susan's there but not there if you know what I mean, and Geoffrey's typically thorough as you would expect.  Thought they could've done more though, 3 and a half stars.

Impostor - stars Gary Sinise, Vincent D'Onofrio, Madeleine Stowe

Philip K Dick, you genius!  From the mastermind behind Blade Runner, Total Recall and The Minority Report comes a fourth screen adaptation of a Philip K Dick short story.  Written in 1953 as a short story by the oft-drug addled schizophrenic master of sci-fi, it has been faithfully brought to life by director Gary Fleder, though it will depend on who you ask.

The history behind the movie's making is fairly lengthy apparantly.  Director Gary Fleder originally produced it as a 30 minute short which was to be included in a Trilogy of some description - the project never got off the ground.  Dimension Films were so impressed with the piece however that they picked it up and had it made into a feature length movie.  Much dicking around ensued (no pun intended) with reshoots and special effects and in the end it had to make way for Fleder's "Don't Say A Word" before being released some 12 months later.  Well worth the wait in my book.

Spencer Olham (Sinise) is a respected scientist for the Earth Security Agency in the year 2079.  Earth is at war with the Centauri, an alien race.  When agent Hathaway (D'Onofrio) arrests Olham for being a Centauri clone designed to seek and destroy, and his pleas of innocence are lost, he must escape and discover the truth on his own.

Like Minority Report and the others before it, the gadgetry is to be marvelled at.  Stace wants the shower and I'm a big fan of the gun.  More than that though, it still blows me away that this kind've landscape and imagery has come from the 1950's, albeit under the influence of some fairly undiluted portions of something highly illegal.  I'll never cease to be floored by it.

Sinise makes a very good ordinary man under extraordinary circumstances, Stowe doesn't really get a run unfortunately, I don't mind her normally.  D'Onofrio is tops, but if you enjoy one of the fifteen current series' of Law and Order running at the moment then you'll know what I'm on about here.  He doesn't take orders, he doesn't take shit, and he always gets his man.  Or does he?  Go find out as soon as you can, 4 and a half stars.

Talisman - stars noone

Cunningly disguised in a slick cover with the words "If you enjoyed Warlock, you'll like this more".  Something.  I enjoyed Warlock and Stace is into all things witchy and warlocky, we took it home.  We're taking it back as soon as we can get our shit together!

It starts in the middle with absolutely no introduction, talk about a Memento moment!  You know how with vids, if the previews are bad then its a fair bet the movie's gonna suck too?  No early warning signs here as no previews where shown at all.  The acting in it is actually ok despite there being no depth to the characters and the lack of storyline, but considering this thing was released in 1998 and filmed about 5 minutes before that, the special effects are like something out of a bad 70's sci fi flick with cut scenes to show things appearing and disappearing.  Flash those lights people, we need to make something disappear.  "Cut...now don't move...somebody take that thing off her...aaaaaaand ACTION!".

Story goes something along the lines of a piece of jewellery having a hell of a lot to do with an insane dude coming back to life and bringing about the end of the world through a ritual of some sort.  Ok wait, there's a school with like only seven students in it and something about a chick who doesn't talk.  Ah, something.  What's more amazing is that we sat through the whole thing, what were we thinking?  Did we honestly think it would get better?  We were probably just deleriously tired and not able to cope with those tele ad thingies.  For saving us that pain, it gets 1 star.

The Escapist - stars Johnny Lee Miller

Miller plays Denis, a man with the world at his feet.  A beautiful wife expecting their first child and a job flying planes, what more could he ask for?  Certainly not what he got.  A simple robbery of his house goes horribly wrong when his wife is shot and killed.  They save the baby but its not enough for distraught Denis, who decides revenge is the only way back to a reality he can live in.  Ricky Barnes, his wife's killer, gets sent away to an island prison, the toughest in the country, making him seeminly untouchable, but Denis isn't phased.  He resorts to a life of crime to infiltrate the jail system and ultimately, a showdown with the man who took his wife away!

That sounds awfully blurby doesn't it, this isn't meant to be a sales pitch.  This is average if a little bit good this flick, nice break from the norm to see our hero getting himself into prison to hatch a revenge plan.  Johnny Lee Miller made his name in Trainspotting and the very underrated Plunkett & Macleane (coincidentally along side Robert Carlyle) but hasn't piqued the interest of the bigger production companies like his peers yet.  I don't see this effort getting him any closer to that.  The storyline's good but the acting, particularly Johnny's, is a bit thin.  The film seems to be structured very heavily around his character as well which doesn't help.

There's not enough gloom for old Blighty either, since when is it sunny over there in the winter anyways.  Best part of the film is Vas Blackwood's cameo, who strangely ends up in some of the same prisons as Denis' character.  You're half expecting him to come out of his shell and say "if I fink you're lying, I'll kill ya".  Instead he walks around telling everyone their mother's fat, but its all good if a little short.

My advice is wait for it to get off the new release shelf before hiring, 3 stars.

BH