Author Archives: Dennis

Van Helsing

Van Helsing [2004]

Director: Stephen Sommers
Actor: Hugh JackmanKate Beckinsale

This is a popcorn movie. Mary Shelly fans run and fucking hide because they’ll leave not one thing standing of your beloved books. Van Helsing, who really is a cross between Buffy the Vampire Slayer, James Bond and Batman fight the Forces of Darkness (capital F, capital D), not one at a time, no…all at once! If you’re hoping it sounds worse than it is, tough luck. It really is pretty shite, story-wise. It’s fun-filled and action packed, but the story is as flimsy as the clothing on Dracula’s brides.

Good things? Sure. The single coolest thing about this film is the atmosphere, which is rich and beautiful. They had a lot of money and they sure used it. It looks beautiful, even if some of the CGI wasn’t always up to snuff. The Victorian atmosphere is almost Burton-esque, and very well maintained. Too bad Van Helsing – who’s name is Gabriel, and not Abraham for some reason – is walking around with hand-powered circular saws and a gas-powered, high velocity, full automatic…crossbow. It’s just a little weird.

Another good thing about the film is Richard Roxburgh’s acting, which is rather good, if comical at times. He certainly lends some credibility to the acting department.

Another good thing is Ms Beckinsale’s hot body. Yes, she does it again, she never ceases to satisfy. After Underworld and Van Helsing, she should beware of being type-cast, though.

Shite, but amusing.

Monster

Monster [2003]

Director: Patty Jenkins
Actor: Charlize TheronChristina Ricci

This is a biographic story about a highway prostitute who was executed for killing several men in the state of Florida during the 80s. Aileen Wuornos, or Lee, is played by Charlize Theron, whom you won’t recognise after her make-over and the extra 30 pounds she’s carrying around. Her performance is absolutely astounding, and I fully support her getting an academy award for this part, handed to her on Febuary 29th, which is, incidentally, the Aileen Wuornos’ birthday.

The story picks up when Lee and Selby – whose real name was Tyria – meet while Lee is even further down on her luck than she normally is. They fall in love and Lee is determined to provide for Selby. She does so by doing what she’s been doing since she was 13; hooking. During an encounter with a man set out to rape her, she kills him in self defense, takes his money and car and goes back to Selby. During the following few months she kills more men in a two-fold act of earning some money, as well as taking revenge on the men who raped her when she was young, and the men who used her throughout all her life.

A very strong film about a beaten woman desperately clinging on to her one true love while running from the police and fighting her own deamons.

Gothika

Gothika [2003]

Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Actor: Halle BerryPenélope CruzRobert Downey Jr.

Miranda [Berry], a young and upcoming psychiatrist at a large Arkham Assylum-like psychiatric facility for the criminally insane finds herself working the curious case of a girl named Chloe, who says she’s being raped by the Devil. Chloe doesn’t seem to have all her marbles straight and in session gone bad manages to “infect” Miranda with the same problem, for on her way back home one stormy evening, while taking a detour, she almost runs over a girl. Upon inspection the girl seems to be unhurt by the near-collision. She’s naked, confused, and bleeding. When Miranda offers her a coat she grabs her, and they are both engulfed by flame. The next thing Miranda knows, she’s locked up in the psychiatric facility, accused of brutally hacking her husband apart. She tries to retrace her steps, to figure out what’s going on. Who’s the girl? Did Miranda kill her husband? And what has Chloe got to do with it?

This film deals, very accurately, with the concept of trust, when everyone thinks you’re crazy. You can’t trust people who think you’re crazy, because they don’t believe you’re telling the truth.

Good film. One of the few horror films I actually found compelling and frightening.

Identity

Identity [2003]

Director: James Mangold
Actor: John CusackRay LiottaAmanda PeetAlfred MolinaJake BuseyRebecca De Mornay

When a nasty storm hits a roadside motel in the middle of Nowhere, Nevada, ten strangers are all forced to get to know eachother while they ride out the storm. There’s a former hooker (Peet), going home to Florida to start a new life exploiting an orange grove, there’s a small family, mother – injured in a car accident at the start of the film – and her almost autistic son, and his step father, an incredibly nervous man who looks like a door-to-door salesman. Then there’s the ex-cop turned bodyguard/limo driver (Cusack), who, together with his client, a washed out actress, was driving LA when he hit the aforementioned mother on the road. There’s a newly wed couple, who got married for all the wrong reasons, the girl being insecure and the guy being a hot head. There’s teh motel manager, who later turns out to be anything but. And there’s the cop (Liotta), who’s escorting a prisoner (Busey).

When one by one they start dying, they find out that they’ve got more in common than they originally thought, and that the last one to remain will determine the outcome of a courthearing, deciding the fate of a death-row serial killer at the eve of his execution, which is taking place in another place and time.

The film is really very well done. It’s a “whodunnit” film with a nice twist. It’s well worth the rental fee.

Zatôichi

Zatôichi [2003]

Director: Takeshi Kitano
Actor: Takeshi Kitano

A traditional Japanese film, misunderstood and under-rated, with people leaving the cinema half-way, and snorting derisively at the last scene, a large tapdancing act, featuring most of the actors and seemingly unrelated to the rest of the film.

Zatôichi, a sword saint – or kensai – is walking the earth like Caine from Kung Fu, hiring out his services as a masseur and spending his nights in gambling dens. He’s blind, and nobody knows that his walking stick is really a well disguisedkatana, the samurai’s sword. He keeps his profile low, and his identity hidden, known only as “old masseur,” presumably because otherwise he’d be challenged by everyone who could lift a sword.

He comes upon a small village where two yakuza clans are fighting it out for supremacy over the village, and is taken in by one of the widowed peasant women, living just outside the village. Her nephew spends his time by the old masseur’s side in the gambling dens at night, terrible at gambling and riding the wave of luck and fortune that the blind masseur seems to hold. They get caught up in the gang-war as soon as Zatôichi exposes the gambling den for cheating.

Meanwhile, a wandering ronin, a disgraced or masterless samurai, and his wife walk from village to village, looking for the man that disgraced him in a fight, causing him to lose his rank as samurai. His wife is ill, and in order to pay for all the expenses, he hires his sword out to the highest bidder, as a soldier, bodyguard or assassin. He finds work with one of the warring yakuza clans.

During the same time, the old masseur meets up with two geishas, who were orphaned a decade ago when their parents, and family were murdered by one of the warring yakuza clans in the village as they were looking for the riches of their father, a wealthy rice-merchant. They used the money stolen from their family to start their criminal operations in the village. The two, a boy and a girl, survived by pretending to be geishas and plying the men with alcohol and robbing them afterwards. They are looking for revenge.

All in all these three stories converge at the same time, in the same village, during the same gang-war.

I loved this film, and it’s the only film that can get away with the appaling CGI that makes up some of the sword fighting. Daki, go see this film.