Reviews

Caught this in Cannes a few years back at a late night screening and still remember it very fondly. It's stupid and over the top but just simply very funny. Think Dumb and Dumber crossed with Dirty Harry and a load of great music and live performances from The Dictators, Mars Needs Women etc... - Joey Ramone pops up several times as a great club manager. The plot isn't that important but deals with a cop on the trail of murderer who is offing rockers and giving the victims embarrassing hair don'ts.

This flick reminds me of those movies we'd all rent continuously from our video stores back in the good old days of the 80's when the covers where always drawn pictorial montages (way back before photoshop) and there was a few spots of mild female nudity worth pausing the tape for. A less-cynical, wild, let your hair down era that is ripe for rediscovery.

Who will save rock n' roll? It doesn't need our help, it's place in heaven is secure. As for this movie, it needs all the help it can get and it deserves it, spread the word, catch it if you can, it's worth it.

I went to see BMX Bandits when it first came out with an eleventh birthday party gang of mates. We were mostly BMX fanatics and figured we'd be running out of the cinema pulling pretend stunts on our handy imaginary bikes but alas we'd kinda just wheeled out, a little let down. Cut to many years later and I catch it on saturday afternoon TV and that's when I flip. I was too harsh on the pic as a kid coz i thought it pandered to a younger audience but now looking back on my days as a kid it's got some innocent magic like those british children's film foundation pics. Nicole Kidman is a star and her fellow BMX bandits form a fun team but it's the pursuing criminals that steal the show with their manic and obviously improvised actions and dialogue. And hey, any movie that ends with a flour bomb fight on wheels and a huge explosion of foam [which always renders the baddies useless] it's just gotta be top!

Lost World was by far the best and most fun summer flick of 97. The top dinosaurs from JP are here only there's way more of them and they're loads more scary than before. This is much too scary a film for it's PG rating, I saw it with a bunch a kids and you would not believe the screams of terror and then the absolute silence when one character is ripped in half by two T-Rex's - Euu Yukkk!

The final sequence on the mainland is what these blockbuster films should be about - self-depreciating humour, a big stand-off and lots of people running about getting munched. When in 'Mars Attacks' Tim Burton dispenses with the cliched family dog - it's thought of as genius, here Spielberg does it much, much better. The dialogue ain't bad either with snappy interchanges from Jeff Goldblum and his assembled rescue team. The plot may be kinda hacked on but it sure isn't as completely rubbish as things like Godzilla or Armageddon. I honestly don't know why you couldn't enjoy this movie.

No one makes these suspense filled action set piece movies better than Spielberg... watch out for the bit with the glass and the other bit with the long grass - classic.