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hfong
Reviews
Red Hill (2010)
Nice movie, but not original at all
All the stock characters are there, including rookie with a past, hard-boiled boss, scary somewhat indestructible bad guy, and a town full of folks with incredibly bad shooting skills (miss 6 shots at point blank???) and poor judgement (bad guy is silhouetted in the door and you have a rifle, so just hide noisily???). And of course, about half-way through the movie you'll pretty much figure out the rest of story. Just very predictable. The characters, as I said, are no surprises. Not to say it was not a fun movie to watch, even if just to see that your original guess at the ending is correct (trust the force, Luke, it is what you think). Nice filming location, but sometimes the accents are a tad thick too (watched most of it with subtitles).
The Andromeda Strain (2008)
Lame, lame and lame
The Andromeda Clichés. Holy moly, just check them off: Govt conspiracy, heroic "journalist", evil military, arrogant humanity, do-gooder environmentalism, blah, blah, blah. This was such a piece of crap it's hard to believe Ridley Scott had anything to do with it. It's such a mishmash of half-assed developed stories, you'd think that it was written in 10 parts, with none of the writers knowing what the others wrote. They must have had some pretty compromising photos of Crichton doing a dead donkey to get him to agree to this abomination. Save your time and dime and just rent the original. It is a straight up presentation of what might actually occur in a "Wildfire" situation, not the sappy, crappy Lifetime special that A&E slapped together.
Barbie in the Nutcracker (2001)
Not as insipid as you might think
I have seen or heard this movie at least 50X. Why? I have 2 year old twins (boy/girl)...say no more. Nonetheless, this is a pretty good movie. both my daughter and my son enjoy this movie (she likes barbie, he likes the mouse king, a.k.a. Christmas Rat). I strongly suggest this flick. Not cloying like say, Dragontales, not annoying like Barney. Tim Curry must have had a ball making this movie. And even though is does play fast and loose with the traditional Nutcracker, it still has great music and wonderful, albeit animated, ballet dancing.
Race Against Time (2000)
Uh, how'd he get there?
Speaking of continuity problems (see the "amazing sliding gun barrel" comment), how did Gabriel and Alex get from the tracker car to the elevator? Poof, molecular transport?
Also, concerning the risky high iron work in the beginning, I know the foreman says there aint no unions and their aint no unemployment, but there aint no Fed OSHA either?!? Now that's real fiction.