The Hidden Blade (2004)

The Hidden Blade (2004)

Directed by: Yôji Yamada

Starring: Masatoshi Nagase, Takako Matsu, Hidetaka Yoshioka

Man… have they made a bad samurai movie? Like, REAL samurai movie, none of this Samurai Cop or Kill Bill shit. A movie about actual samurai that was a drama. Because I’ve only seen good ones. Including this. This is a good one. One being movie. In this case.

A samurai goes to a village to teach the farmer/soldiers how to use the new rifles that are all the rage in warfare right now. He falls in love with a girl, but then his friend samurai does some bad samurai things like slight the emperor by not attending a party of his and then holding a family for ransom. Our hero samurai must use his secret sword technique ‘Hidden Blade’ to defeat his friend… but the secret of his technique is that it doesn’t work at all in real combat!

It’s actually a lot better than I’m trying to describe it for the sake of what meager comedy I can squeeze out of this review. It’s got neat samurai stuff, only one fight in the whole thing and it’s at the end (because it’s a huge part of the main character that he’s never been in an actual fight). Also, the traditional Japanese romance subplot is kinda nice. It’s interesting to see the cultural differences in courting so starkly portrayed. Or… something. I’m going to bed now. No thinky good.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher (2011)

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher (2011)

Directed by: James Hawes

Starring: Paddy Considine, Peter Capaldi, Tom Georgeson

I have no idea how I ended up with this movie (I hadn’t heard of it and it doesn’t have a funny name! Those are the only reasons I watch movies!) but it was actually pretty good. So… hooray!

An infant is killed in a small town in Sherlock Holmes times, and a detective from Scotland Yard is sent to solve the case. He has a tough time dealing with the locals for various reasons (mostly because they’re rock stupid villagers), but eventually builds a case that unravels naturally. Also, he’s constantly hampered by real detective problems, like not having material evidence or reliable witnesses. That was cool.

It’s a mystery. I like mysteries, even mediocre ones. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher isn’t the most action-packed film in the history of the world, but despite not a whole lot going on, it stays interesting and emotionally gripping. And you figure out the clues along with the character, that’s a really tough balance to hit. I recommend it.

Cleopatra (1963)

Cleopatra (1963)

Directed by: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison

I’d never seen this movie before, but I’d heard of it. It’s a classic, right? Even though it lost an insane amount of money and was a critical failure when it came out? I’m pretty sure it’s a classic. It’s not bad!

Cleopatra was this Egyptian chick who lived during the waning years of the Roman Empire, and who banged both Caesar and his best friend. There’s… something else to this story. Hm… Nah, that’s good enough.

The acting is magnificent in this film, which is pretty important for a theatrical drama like this. Rex Harrison plays old, sad Caesar perfectly, and is probably how I’m going to be thinking of Caesar from now on. Also, Elizabeth Taylor is great at these man-eater roles. If acting isn’t enough for you, there’s also a shitload of awesome scenery and costumes, and the cinematography is that really awesome 60’s high-quality style that looks beautiful. Is that not enough for you still? Well… okay. I understand that not being enough to want to watch a four hour long movie.

Supergirl XXX (2011)

Supergirl XXX (2011)

Directed by: Robert Black

Starring: Alanah Rae, Sunny Lane, Andy San Dimas

Welp, only a month left in 2011, I better get to watching as many movies made this year as I can… BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!! Movies like… yet another awful porn parody. God damn it.

Supergirl is the last surviving person from the planet Krypton (except for her cousin and about a billion other people), and she sets out to blend in on Earth by joining a school for girls. The evil headmistress wants to use her powers for evil in some vague way, and… uh… sex. The end.

It’s kinda weird, but this is not all that unfaithful of a parody of that Supergirl movie from the 80’s that also sucked. Even down to the retarded villainess and her evil plan that makes no sense. Also, the acting is stereotypically bad for a porn film with a plot. Like, it’s the sort of thing you would see someone making fun of porn with. It actually happens exactly like that, apparently.

James and the Giant Peach (1996)

James and the Giant Peach (1996)

Directed by: Henry Selick

Starring: Paul Terry, Susan Sarandon, Richard Dreyfuss

I don’t know if there is a more three-stars-ish film than James and the Giant Peach. It’s exactly halfway on the scale from good to bad! It’s based on some decent work by a great writer, it has some great stop-motion by an extremely talented director, but it’s overshadowed by the constant live-action bits melded into it, the acting is good enough… Right in the fuckin’ middle.

The titular James is an orphan boy who lives with his two evil aunts (in Roald Dahl’s world, this is the childhood of every single human being), and who gets some magic worms from a weird old Pete Postlethwaite. As expected, the aunts throw out the worms, but they get into an old peach tree and cause it to grow a giant, magical peach. Inside the peach are several bugs who have grown human-sized and intelligent, and they turn the peach into a blimp and fly James to New York City.

It’s pretty much as generic of a kid’s story as you get with Dahl, but that means it’s still got some interesting characters to it. Miss Spider is actually kind of an unusual archetype for this kind of kid’s adventure flick, and she helps make the whole group seem more interesting. I guess my biggest complaint with this film is that they spend SO MUCH TIME with live-action stuff (where you can really tell the kid actor can’t act. He does a decent job in the voice-only parts, though. MIDDLE). At the time, all I wanted to see was a sequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas, artistically at least, and it’s just too short.