VHS Review: Ghoulies (1985)

By Brian
5/5

Ghoulies, has a little bit of everything which adds up to make a near-perfect horror-fantasy-comedy:  Puppets, sorcery, midgets, cheesy '80s lightning effects, and terrible acting are all crammed into 82 minutes of pure awesomeness.  Ghoulies is about a young couple who move into a giant mansion.  The man is overcome by a desire to obtain and control the magic forces that he finds in a necromoniconic book he finds in the basement magic room.    Ghoulies is relatively light on the gore, but heavy on special effects, which kept me thoroughly entertained the entire hour and twenty minutes.  The Ghoulies themselves are the best part, little monsters who cause mischief all around the mansion. Whoever designed the puppets put a lot of hard work into designing and creating them, and it shows.  I loved how the main character gains more and more power, very Dungeons & Dragons like, gaining mastery over increasingly powerful spells as he slips deeper into his obsession.  Lots of lame jokes and cliche horror movie themes ("I have to go off alone and find a match to light my doobie.") keep this movie light and easy to watch.  Time to start collecting sequels, 5 evil baby puppets out of 5.

Tuesday Review: Immortals (2011)

Poseidon was the coolest

Watch the Trailer here:
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2905447705/

Brian's 2-cents:
After we all agreed Tuesday is the best night of the week, the Movie Crew went to the fancy shmancy Zigfield theater, thus completing the trifecta of NYC Clearview cinemas. Immortals is the much anticipated movie made by the same dudes who did 300.  The movie is about a man named Theseus, who is trained by Zeus to be one badass fighting machine.  When King Hyperion, played by the scratchy voiced Mickey Rourke shows up and kills his mom, Theseus vows revenge.  Rourke's character is trying to find a magical bow so he can release the titans.  I'm going to let my fellow Crew members elaborate further and just go on to telling you the highs and lows.  The action was in true 300 style, with jacked dudes (and one lady) decapitating, impaling, bifricating and generally spilling blood all over ancient (Greece).  The most original concept in this film was how the gods fought with super human speed and did like 30d6 + 50  damage (that's a lot for you who don't play D&D) with every blow.  During the first divine intervention, Apollo comes down from Olympus and literally explodes all these soldiers' heads off (while using his super-speed) with his awesome hammer.  What took away from this film was the story.  I just didn't care about Theseus like how I did for Leonidus in 300.  Also, instead of colossal titans from the actual myths, each with different personalities and abilities, the titans in Immortals were human sized and all identical, and they didn't even talk or use magic.  This was an action packed and extremely visually stimulating movie, but in the end, I felt like I wanted a little bit more epicness.

Jelani's Take:
In this giant-sized spectacular edition of Movie Crew Tuesday, we saw an epic movie on an epic screen at the Zigfeld. Now, usually, I am a bit reluctant to see movies in 3D, seeing as any fast-paced scenes are totally lost in the blurry sea of shadows that the screen spews out at me. For the first time though, 3D really and truly worked wonders. The signature slow-motion, highly polished approach that has become synonymous with the director (Tarsem Singh) looks gorgeous in 3D, and the ancient Greek setting allowed for some stunning panoramic views throughout. Everything in this movie was BIG. Every shot was a widescreen painting, and the larger-than-life concepts at play felt right at home within this setting. What really got me from the beginning was the fight choreography. From the first flash of the blade, every battle sequence played out like a brutal ballet. Especially in the battle scenes towards the end, the large battle scenes flowed with a great balance finesse and action. The story was simple enough, and needed little reinforcement: Zeus raises this orphan because he thinks that he is cool. It is up to this guy, Theseus to take down this really brutal conqueror who is trying to Ghengis Khan the shit out of the world. The gods don't like this douche, but can't interfere in the goings on of man. Blah, blah blah. What got me was that these gods, although they possessed some pretty cool feats, were pretty toned down. They were just really jacked dudes. I was expecting some higher-level godly stuff, like, at least turn giant or something. Or command the elements, or something. Poseidon was by far the most badass, as he took out the most dudes and used his godly powers the most. Other than the not-so-great gods, this movie had it all. The whole 300 thing happened again, except there were gods involved. End. I'm happy. The pleasure of viewing such a meticulously crafted piece of motion art is worth the price of admission, as this guy knows his way around a fucking green-screen. If you liked 300 and Watchmen, you're in for a real treat with Immortals. For widescreen brutal beauty, 300 Part Deux gets 4 out of 5 stars.

Ryan's Retort:
Immortals was everything that I've come to expect from a big budget blockbuster based on a Greek myth. It had action, romance, suspense, slow motion decapitations, and a lot of really silly hats. I mean, the minotaur wasn't even a minotaur. Just a big dude wearing a bull's head mask made out of barbed wire. Which was cool, but nowhere near as cool as an actual minotaur would have been. The same can be said for all of the mythological entities depicted in this movie. When you think of deities such as Zeus and Poseidon, I'm sure you picture big, burly men with huge beards and long, flowing robes. However, in Immortals they look like this:

That's Poseidon. Look at how fucking silly his hat is! Every single one of the Greek gods is played by an overly attractive young actor wearing close to nothing, much like the gentleman pictured above. Which doesn't make much sense to me, but whatever. It's fine. I can look past it. But what I can't look past is how Theseus, the main character, does absolutely nothing throughout the entire movie. From a screenwriter's standpoint, I know for a fact that that is the reason why this story does not work. Your main character needs to have a goal, a purpose of existence. And they need to make decisions that will ultimately effect whether or not they achieve that goal. In this movie, Theseus' goal is to exact his vengeance upon Mickey Rourke. Which then somehow transforms into finding the magical Epirus bow that shoots these awesome light arrows. Which then somehow transforms into making sure that the Titans don't get released from their prison box, located in the secret basement of this one mountain. As you can see, things get a little muddled. And to top it all off, Theseus never makes one decision on his own. Besides wanting to brutally murder Mickey Rourke of course. Every time an obstacle is put in Theseus' way, one of those overly attractive young Gods comes crashing down to Earth to save him. There is nothing about Theseus that I find interesting or likable at all. "Oh, but he's a good fighter and he loves his mom." So fucking what? I know lots of people that are good fighters who also love their moms and I don't see them starring in any movies. Be that as it may, I did honestly enjoy watching Immortals. There's this one part when this dude gets his penis crushed by a huge mallet wielding cow-man. How could you not love that? Also, blood splattering all over the place in slow motion AND in 3D? Yes. Immortals may not be a "good" movie, but it is fucking awesome to look at.

Overview
Rating: 4 out of 5 silly hats
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: No.

Parents House Review: Green Lantern (2011)

by Brian

Green Lanturd was one of the few movies the Movie Crew failed to see this year so I decided to put five dollhairs on my parent's cable bill and check it out.  This movie got a bad rep, but I felt it was enjoyable enough to be deserve a slightly better than average score.  What is Ryan Reynolds up to this time?  As hard headed test pilot, Hal Jordan, he completely fucks over his company's big military deal and blows up a brand new plane just for funsies, then he gets a magical ring from an alien, Green Lanyard business, whatever.  The coolest part was the final battle when Reynolds makes all kinds of awesome constructs like a big ass gun and a catapult.  Also when he turned that helicopter into a hot wheels car it's fucking sick.  This movie needed a lot more action and a lot less about Hal Jordan's love life.  I'm making an official request to Hollywood to make a single superhero movie where the main character has absolutely NO LOVE INTEREST WHATSOEVER, make him a eunuch or something, I don't care.

Rating: 3 Ryan Reynolds being bad at their jobs out of 5

Head to Head VHS Review: "Merlin vs Excaliber" by Brian

Both of these movies focus on the story of King Arthur so I decided to double up the review.  Merlin was actually a TV miniseries, but I didn't realize that until I researched the film.  Merlin starts all the way from the beginning, from the conception of Merlin, how he grows up and learns magic.  Merlin stars Sam Neill, the poor man's Kevin Costner, who just want to go hang out with his love Nimue, but always has to go save the world from douche bag kings who always think with their little heads and not their big heads.  Excalibur is a much more brutal and interesting movie, and it even has my boy Patrick Stewart, being a total badass as usual.  In Excalibur, Merlin isn't all pussy and righteous, and helps out others for his own gain.  Excalibur definitely wins this head to head because all the characters wear crazy spiked shiny full plate everywhere! they even fuck in full plate!  Excalibur has some righteous super long medieval battle scenes, but goes a little too long.  The costumes make this movie.

Final Ranks:
Merlin- 3 out of 5
Excalibur- 4 out of 5

Special Recomendation Movie Review "Dagon" by Brian

5 NHCS out of 5

[N.H.C.S.]

This movie was recommended to me by my Movie Crew accomplice, Ryan.  It is based on H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow over Innsmouth and they kept it accurate to the story, except for the setting.  The fish people look creepy and slimy, just as they should.  This movie had it all: tentacles, naked hot chick sacrifices, and a whole church destroying scene.  I would totally watch this one again, 4 apples, not one fucking worm.  Cthulhu Fhtagn!