Team America: World Police

Note: I did a review of this movie on my other blog when I first saw it. I watched it recently on DVD, so I’ve modified the original post to reflect DVD viewing.

Title: Team America: World Police
Year: 2004
Director: Trey Parker
Voices: Trey Parker, Matt Stone
Rated: R

Reel Reviews Rating:

South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone switched from computer generated animation to old-fashioned marionettes in this 2004 film to deliver their political message with their usual razor sharp wit.

The Black Hole

Title: The Black Hole
Year: 1979
Director: Gary Nelson
Starring Cast: Maximilian Schell, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux, Anthony Perkins, Ernest Borgnine; voices by Roddy McDowall and Slim Pickens
Rated: PG

Reel Reviews Rating:

The Black Hole was apparently Disney’s pathetic attempt to cash in on the Star Wars phenomenon. However, it comes nowhere near the quality of Lucas’s magnum opus.

Mononoke Hime

Title: も���姫 (Princess Mononoke)
Year: 1997
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Voices: Yoji Matsuda, Yuriko Ishida, Yuko Tanaka (Japanese version); Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver (American version)
Rated: PG-13

Reel Reviews Rating:

Unlike the cute and cuddly Tonari no Totoro, Mononoke Hime is much darker and carries a serious message about the delicate but strained relationship between human technology and nature.

Kaze no Tani no Naushika

Title: 風�谷�ナウシカ (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind)
Year: 1984
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Voices: Sumi Shimamoto, Goro Naya, Yoshihiko Sakakibara, Ichiro Nagai (original Japanese version); Alison Lohman, Patrick Stewart, Uma Thurman, Edward James Olmos (American version)
Rated: PG

Reel Reviews Rating:

Frank Miller’s Sin City

I actually did this review last year, but for my other blog. I edited it to match the other reviews on this blog.

Title: Frank Miller’s Sin City
Year: 2005
Director: Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez (and Quentin Tarantino for one small scene)*
Starring Cast: Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson
Rated: A nice, big, fat R

Reel Reviews Rating:

Merlin

Title: Merlin
Year: 1998
Director: Steve Barron
Starring Cast: Sam Neill, Miranda Richardson, Martin Short, Isabella Rossellini, Helena Bonham Carter, Rutger Hauer, James Earl Jones
Rated: PG

Reel Reviews Rating:

Technically speaking, this wasn’t an actual movie that came out in theaters, but a made-for-TV miniseries. This translates into about 4 hours of hell for me. However, because my boyfriend foolishly rented it, and because I stupidly watched it, I’m doing this as a sort of public service announcement so you can avoid my fate.

Dark City

Title: Dark City
Year: 1998
Director: Alex Proyas
Starring Cast: Rufus Sewell, Keifer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt
Rated: R

Reel Reviews Rating:

Dark City is one of those well made, underrated science fiction films that now seems dated since the advent of The Matrix. A disenchanted viewer may look at this DVD and think, “Oh, great. Another sci-fi movie in which our reality as we know it may not be what it seems. Yawn. Been there, done that.” But the thing is that Dark City came out a year before Neo learned that there is no spoon. In fact, there are so many similarities between the famous Keanu Reeves movie and Dark City that I’m willing to bet that it was a major influence on the Wachowski brothers when they wrote their story about the Matrix.

Fight Club

Title: Fight Club
Year: 1999
Director: David Fincher
Starring Cast: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter
Rated: R

Reel Reviews Rating:

The first rule about Fight Club is…you do not talk about Fight Club.

The second rule about Fight Club is…you do NOT talk about Fight Club.

Looks like I’m going to have to break this rule