This time we continue with “The Yakuza Papers” with Part 2 – “Deadly Fight in Hiroshima” Continue reading
Tag Archives: Film Review
Video Review: The Yakuza Papers – Part 1
After my written reviews of the Yakuza Papers series, I’ve adapted them into a series of video reviews. Continue reading
Film Review: Captain America – Civil War
Civil War, as a Comic Event, was something of a spectacular failure. I haven’t been good at doing video posts on my blog the past few weeks (something I’ll try to fix shortly), but this past week I did a video post on YouTube about Civil War, the comics, event, and how that could have been fixed.
The film version of Civil War has none of those problems. Instead, it’s one of the top films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. There will be some minor spoilers in this review (below the cut if you’re reading this on my blog). Continue reading
Movie Review: Megazone 23 – Part II (and a little Part I)
Megazone 23: Part II is a more violent film than its predecessor, but it does a good job of providing closure to the franchise – which is almost unfortunate because three years after this film came out we got part III.
Film Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, suffers the same array of problems that the Michael Bay directed Transformers films have suffered. The film takes emphasis away from the title characters of the film to put an increased focus on the human characters. To the film’s credit, it doesn’t clutter up the film with the samedegree of human characters as the Transformers film did, but those elements of the film distract from the main thrust of the narrative. Further, the rest of the film’s action is so cluttered and chaotic that it can’t compensate for the rest of the film’s weak points. Continue reading
Movie Review: The Yakuza Papers – Final Episode
It’s odd how much polish a film series can undergo over the course of two years. The first installment in the Yakuza Papers series of films came out in 1973. This film, the final installment in the tetralogy came out in 1974. Kinji Fukasaku was already an accomplished director when he made the first film, but over the course of two years he quickly came up with a very definitive style to this series. Continue reading
Film Review – Deadpool
When I heard that a Deadpool movie was in production, as a fan of the comics I was pretty pumped. That said, a situation like that is almost a recipe for disappointment – Star Wars: The Phantom Menace really shows how much high expectations can lead to equally high disappointment. Fortunately, there was no disappointment to be found for me in this film. Continue reading
Film Review: The Yakuza Papers, Vol. 4: Police Tactics
The problem with getting into the later installments of the Yakuza Papers series of films is that by the later installments Kenji Fukasaku has gotten into a stylistic groove when it comes to what this series of films are – what they look like, what they sound like, and how their action is presented. Continue reading
Film Review – The Spy Who Loved Me
There is one Bond film that, before today, I had not seen: The Spy Who Loved Me. I refer to official Bond films, as opposed to parodies like the ’60s Casino Royale, or knockoffs like Never Say Never Again (which I have seen), and spiritual ripoffs like Operation Double 007 (as seen on MST3K). Continue reading
Anime Review – Angel’s Egg (1985)
This is a gorgeous, darkly beautiful work of film that’s probably the most surreal work that Oshii has made (helped by the fact that Yoshitaka Amano did much of the art for the film and co-wrote the story). It is the first film I’ve seen that I don’t feel qualified to analyze. Continue reading
Film Review – TMNT (2007)
TMNT is a film that has the heart that the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film had (and the other two sequels lacked), but it falls short in a few significant places. Continue reading
Film Review – The Short Life of Charles Beaumont
This time I’m taking a look at the documentary, Charles Beaumont: The Short Life of Twilight Zone’s Magic Man. I was provided with a copy of this documentary at no cost for purpose of review from the film’s director at OryCon 2014. Continue reading
I’ve still got a pending copyright claim on my review of Jamie’s Food Revolution by Jamie Oliver’s production company, so I’m doing a vlog-style review of the Arnold Schwarzenegger film “Sabotage”. Continue reading
This week I’m reviewing another film in the Criterion Collection – the samurai film “Sword of the Beast”.
