Tombstone - stars Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliot, Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn, struth, heaps!

Wyatt Earp was famous in the wild west. When Earp passed away, one of the pall bearers (is that how you spell it?) was a famous Hollywood western-actor, and he wept. Whatever. I recall seeing this on the big screen when it came out, all guns and action and stuff. Really mean bad guys - "I want your blood, and I want your soul, and I want'em right now" - and really ritious good guys - "You tell 'em I'm comin', and hell is comin' with me!" But something lacked back then I couldn't recall what. So I was overwealmed by myself to finally figure it out now that I've seen it again - not enough guns.

Its a western yeah, everyone has a gun, everyone shoots guns, hell most of them sleep with one eye open and the hand on a pistol. But what we get are almost-bar-brawls and testosterone fueled innuendo, but no shooting. Ok, sorry, there is a bit of shooting. But not enough for my liking. So to the story and Wyatt Earp and his two brothers decide to retire from law enforcement and move to Tombstone. Now its the wild west, do you really want to move to a town with the name Tombstone? To make a fresh start? You're kidding aren't ya??? They moved from Dodge City; frying pans, fires, anyone else seeing this? But I digress, they settle in running a gambling establishment and enjoying the fruits of life. Meanwhile a group of cowboys calling themselves, er, The Cowboys (glad this is a true story hey) are forever causing a rucous, the Earps step in and decide this town needs some law enforcement. Sheesh, fancy that.

I won't go on, the plot itself is as inspiring as war is to getting out of bed in the morning. What failed to impress me back then wasn't going to get any improved rating here. Annoying also was Kurt's character Wyatt, all he said the whole time was "Oh my god". Ugh. On the other hand, where I thought Kilmer's character Doc Holiday was a little out-there back then, I thoroughly enjoyed now. I mean how could you not love a TB sufferin', cigarette smokin', big drinkin', fast gunnin' gentleman...ok that's rhetorical in my head. "I'm your huckleberry."

From memory, this is the more straight forward, commercial, if you like, of the two Wyatt Earp stories that came out at that time. The other was originally titled "Wyatt Earp" and was starred in, directed and produced by Kevin Costner. He also fetched the coffee during filming. Probably. Not bad, go see American Outlaws if you want a decent western though, 3 stars.

The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion - stars Wooden Allen, Helen Hunt, Dan Aykroyd

Aaaaaarrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhh, Wooden Allen shits me to tears. I couldn't even sit through Ants, even though I couldn't see him. But don't take my word for it, go see it ;-) Just kidding folks, look I'm not a Wooden fan, I find him dry, placid, boring, and above all whiny. But he's harmless I guess. There's only one way I can describe this movie: comfortably boring.

Wooden plays C W Briggs, an investigator for an insurance company. Helen Hunt plays Miss Betty Ann Fitzgerald, an efficiency expert brought into the company to make things, er, more efficient. Anyway, this is getting too long already, so these two hate eachother, and during a hypnotism are controlled into doing some high profile burglaries. That hypnotist was a crook!

Minimalist sets and era-authentic attitudes and moods really do make this work. Everyone smokes, the men are oggling pigs, the women are all demure knockouts, and the boss always gets what he wants. I get a sense of fresh from the flick, and although we haven't seen one regress this badly into the social dark ages, there's something intriguingly rule-breaking about it. And then there's Wooden...

Where to start with this guy. He sounds like he's going to break into a chorus of "I want my mummy" every time he speaks. And his dialogue (he wrote this by the way) is so overbearing and long winded you just about lose breath waiting for people to finish their sentences. Unnasuming genius? I don't see it. Acquired taste more like. Case in point, when insulting someone, he turns "hope you don't choke on your lunch" into "hope you don't swallow a piece of sandwich slightly too big for your throat that you choke and fall down and have to call 9-1-1 even though you can't talk and someone finally finds you and gets you to emergency and even though they resuscitate you the lack of oxygen turns you into a vegetable". I kid you not dudes and dudettes, all the way through it.

If you're an Allen fan, you'll dig this. I swore I'd never watch another Wooden Allen movie again, my time starts...now. 3 and 1/2 stars.

Total Recall - stars Arnie, Shagsy (Stone), Michael Ironside

Just quickly on Michael Ironside, has this guy done anything other than borderline C grade flicks since this movie? I can't find anything. But prollific, jeez, in 2001 alone he carded 10 movies. Nice work son. Oh I've just had total recall, he was in Starship Troopers - was that a ripper or what! (pun totally intended there)

After our Minority Report war last week...or was it the week before...I forget. Anyway, we're in the vid shop the other day picking out our next batch, this pops out of the shelf at us. Not only did Stace grab it straight away, but put it top of the list to watch first. Tops. And she has no clue of the author and where it came from. Now Stace also hates Sci Fi with a passion. So for her to pick this up saying "Love this flick" has got to be saying something about the work of our author. Nicely.

Douglas Quaid (Arnie) is a quiet, unnasuming gargantuan of a man who works in construction and dreams of a life on Mars. His wife, Lori (Shagsy), doesn't. Doug see's an ad for "fake" memories and decides it'd be a cool thing to do. Enter chaos.

This is really well done, and although you think you know when his implanted memories begin, you really do question whether or not it is actually happening. I watched very closely to the people around him this time, before the whole trip to Recall, and sure enough, I've convinced myself that everything that takes place IS real. Don't you love an open ender?

Arnie's Arnie, no questions there. Shagsy's nothing special. She was going through her must-take-clothes-off-for-director-need-fame phase, later in life she started acting. Actually there really wasn't anything much to do for any of the actors. It was just a case of having the right look for each character, end of story. The effects are great, it won an Oscar for it incidentally - not much to talk about these days though is it.

I wouldn't say flawless, but there are very few hiccups in this mega-action humdinger. I feel it was a little too tinged with that 80's excess along the lines of character naivity and overacting. Still, can't fault it for anything else. A sci-fi spesh! 4 stars.

Blackhawk Down - stars bloody everyone

Since we got the DVD player both Stace and I have pledged to see this again. Both of us saw it on the big screen, and we were both pretty impressed. So how did it go second time around?

I actually enjoyed it more. I'm still shitty that the Lt. Col. heading the Humvee convoy just walks around in a hail of gunfire talking to people and shaking hands, but that aside yeah, much better the second time around. I don't know if you've noticed this (and its probably just me, but don't tell anyone ok) but when I watch a movie for the second time, it seems to go much quicker. Why is that? Is that because your brain knows what's coming and completely shuts down, terminating that space of time in your mind and hence shortening what was the original time frame in your head? Talk about time spent that you'll never get back. Actually my brain is evil enough to do that to me as payback for all the crap I put it through. We'll have chats later me and brain. Probably.

For those who haven't seen it, its a surprisingly good [Bruckheimer] re-enactment of a battle that took place on October 3, 1993 (correct me if I'm wrong there, I missed the blurb) in Mogadishu, Somalia. We see 10's of thousands of people experiencing severe famin thanks to the war lords cutting off the food supplies in order to keep their troops fed and watered. The Americans decide this can't go on and that the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid should be taken out of the equation to restore aid to the people, insert trumpet here.

Game plan, insert troops via hellicopters, extract prisoners with Humvee's, retreat to base. Total time, "not more than 30 minutes". Ah, the human factor. It was like the insertion of troops in "Once we were soliders" into a 4000-strong VC area in Vietnam, strategically challenged me thinks. Aaanyway, far be it for this clueless battle tactician to get involved in that stuff.

Visually it picks up where Saving Ryan's Privates left off, vicious, bloody, agonisingly real depictions of war. And it doesn't stop, once they hit ground zero, thats it for the next two hours of film. Ridley (director) kept the quiet spots to a minimum and made sure his entire cast got covered in dirt and blood. Great job. The one thing that continues to annoy me time after time with American war movies, do you have to have a southern accent to be in the Marine Corp??? Despite a modicum of Hollywood and a dead average "Making Of" included on the disc, I'm giving this 4 stars.

Gladiator - stars Russell Crowe, Joaquin Pheonix

Pathetic! The only reason I watched it again was to bag it out, oh and some of the fight scenes are pretty cool too. Oooohhhhh, poor tiger, hate it when the animals get killed. Should've eaten him dude! By the way this was last night on TV, I've never enjoyed ads so much, lol.

Russell Crowe "My name is Maximus Tendonitis Frogfaceus" didn't deserve an Oscar for this movie. Where is the acting component of his character here? You can imagine the director "Russell, just frown a bit...ok great, that's a cut"..."But I didn't do anything Rid"..."Great, that's what we want".

Joaquin Phoenix "My name ith Commoduth Thpeach Impedimentuth, I am wuler of Wome". Need I say any more? "Ok Joaquin, act like a 4 year old, go...greeeeaaaat, how did you get the voice to sound so stupid?"..."Umm, that'th how I orwayth talk Rid"..."Greeeeaaaaat...<whispering> who hired this guy again?"

Hollywood...2 stars.

BH