Movie Diary 2018 by pahaK

Marked for Death (1990) R

Steven Seagal destroys Jamaican drug posse and shows he has bigger magick than their leader Screwface.


Seagal is an undercover cop and former DEA agent who decides he's had enough and tries to retire. He ends up pissing local Jamaican drug dealers who mark his whole family for death. Apparently the only solution to this is to kill the Jamaican bossman Screwface and mr. Seagal delivers.

Marked for Death is not Seagal's best film but it's still OK. There is not that much martial arts in it and lots of the kills are made with guns. Most of the hand-to-hand action is great though and while not completely realistic it still looks believable enough (I still hate how the bad guys are using knives). Seagal's fights break the usual formula in many ways; he's often completely unchallenged by his opponents, he uses lots of grappling and some throws, he's a big man often just overpowering clearly smaller opponents, etc. I like that and it really separates him from other martial arts stars of his era.

Storywise the film is very basic. Seagal is a cop who's using questionable methods and who gets burned out for losing the war on crime. He seeks peace from his family but the trouble follows and he needs to return to his old ways. Characters are paper thin and Seagal himself acts with expressiveness of a log. Screwface is kinda interesting villain but we don't really get to know him.

Basically the film is an average action film in every regard but Seagal element elevates it a notch.

The Dragon Lives Again (1977) N

So Bruce Lee is dead and wakes up in the Underworld. The place is ruled by an incompetent king. There's also a group of villains who seek to overthrow the monarch and take control for themselves. It gets little weird once we learn that these bad guys include people like James Bond, Clint Eastwood, Emmanuel and Dracula. They're lead by an exorcist of some sort and it doesn't take too long for these scum to get into collision course with Bruce Lee.


First of all I give the film thumbs up for its completely insane plot. It gives that rare WTF feel when you're watching it without any prior knowledge. Unfortunately it fails to keep things interesting outside of the initial confusion and soon becomes very boring. There are nice concepts like Dracula and his zombies but there's almost zero effort to utilize them in any interesting or funny ways.

If the story drags severely then so does the action. I'm not a particular fan of the old kung fu films but the fights in The Dragon Lives Again are very badly choreographed, often too long and completely uninteresting. Only decent moments are the stupid gimmicks like zombies and mummies. Cinematography sucks as well and it completely fails in its attempts to mimic the styles of the villains (like the spaghetti western close-ups during the fight with Eastwood).

Great concept ruined by unimaginative script and terrible technical execution. A film like this should be fun, not boring.

Bleach (2018) N

Live action anime usually doesn't deliver. I haven't read almost any manga so I don't know if it's the source material or just the films that suck but for some weird reason I still end up seeing quite a few of these.


Ichigo is a high school student who can see ghosts. One night he meets Rukia, a girl who's soul reaper. Things go badly and she ends up giving him her powers to destroy a monstrous hollow. She tries to teach him to be a reaper but Ichigo is reluctant. Soon things get more complicated though.

The concept, while cliched and all, is something that I like. For some reason I'm into these powerful, immortal but still vulnerable girls. I think it's a sexist thing In all it's naivety the relationship of the main characters is cute. Also Ichigo's past is decently woven into the story. Sadly there's not much more positive in the film.

Personally I hated the the whole politics / family feud of the reapers and it didn't seem to bring anything good into the movie. Just like the protagonists it's also one huge cliche but this time it's just one of those I don't like. Because of this the final fight dragged on and on (which is a shame because the initial part with the Grand Fisher was good).

Acting was quite terrible. Fights against the hollows were nice (especially the spider thing and Grand Fisher) but man vs man (or reaper vs reaper) were pretty lame. Rukia looked very pretty and she was OK with the sword. Most of the jokes weren't funny (though I liked Rukia living in Ichigo's closet).

Yet another poor live action anime film that had sympathetic protagonists and some good action but way too much stuff I hated.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) r

Guy Ritchie's debut feature film is a story of four friends who try make some money in illegal gambling but the plan fails leaving them with a debt of 500k pounds and one week to pay. They learn about a robbery of weed sellers by accident and attempt to rob the robbers to make the money they need. There's a ton of other players involved and very few things go as planned.


Even being his debut film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is already a vintage Ritchie; wild and obscure characters, funny and foul dialogue and lots of visual gimmickry. Technically it's still little rough around the edges but the script is brilliant and while the actors aren't exactly the best they manage to bring their characters alive almost like they've been tailored just for them.

The film manages to tie up its multiple storylines together nice and tight (i.e. it doesn't feel forced but things seem to flow naturally). Characters are either stupid, weird or both and the British dry and non-PC humor worked for me. In a way it reminded me of early Tarantino done with British style and with far less pretense.

All in all very solid debut that has aged well. I'd wish Ritchie would still make movies as good as this.

The Bad Seed (2018) N

A TV movie remake of the 1956 film with same name.


Emma is a nine-year-old girl who's seemingly charming and adorable but hides very different face from the world. Her father needs to face the truth when too many bodies start to pile around her; Emma is cold, selfish and calculating psychopath (or has psychopathic tendencies as I believe the actual word isn't used with children).

Lets get the mandatory comparisons between remake and original out of the way first. The parent involved is changed to father which changes some character dynamics and allows the introduction of a sexy nanny who pretty much takes the role of the caretaker in the original. Plot is essentially the same and even the murders and their reasons are very similar (though I'd remember Emma has one more kill than Rhoda). The ending is little different but it still has clear resemblance to the original.

I'm not sure if the remake was really needed because there's so little new in it but it's not bad by any means. Acting is pretty good and Emma is pretty creepy little psycho. Writing has some issues like the murder by wasp nest and generally the behavior of the father doesn't feel as suitable as the mother in the original. It also looks pretty decent for a TV film.

Little modernized remake that has solid acting but little weak writing. At least the ending is better than the original's.

The Good Son reminds me so much of the Bad Seed...

I should actually watch that at some point too.

You haven't seen that? Im surprise!

Yeah, I guess Macaulay Culkin has something to do with it. Not that I actually hate him or anything but I just subconsciously think all his films are like Home Alone I've kinda known about The Good Son for years but it keeps slipping from my mind.

Incendies (2010) N

In present day Canada two young adults, twins named Jeanne and Simon, are hearing the will of their recently passed away mother. The will puts them on a quest to find their brother (who they didn't know exists) and father (who they've assumed dead). To solve the mystery they must go to their mother's homeland, Lebanon, and uncover her hidden past during the bloody civil war.


There's basically two stories in this film that are tightly connected but still separate. First is the present with the twins attempting to fulfill their mother's will. This part of the film doesn't really work too well. Motives of the characters remain unclear and it's hard to imagine what either the twins or their mother felt they could achieve (movie tried to sell the mother's promise to her newborn boy as her motive but I don't know, it just felt off). Also the whole mystery solving is omitted and replaced by the second narrative.

The story of Nawal, the mother of the twins, during the Lebanese Civil War is much better. It paints very bleak and cruel image of the era and unlike Hollywood it doesn't spare even the children from the horrors of war. Maybe it's just me but I see the film somewhat anti-religion as it clearly emphasizes it as the cause of the conflict (being anti-religion is a positive thing in my books, by the way). Nawal's journey through the years seem plausible and I'm happy that Villeneuve didn't try to show her as a flawless hero.

Visually the film is very nice and uses the beautiful scenery to full effect. I don't think the Snyder-like slow motion scenes with rock music fit the film that good and the usage of chapter titles in movies is almost always bad (especially when they don't even do the obvious and clearly separate the two narratives - couple of times it took me a while to notice the film had changed from mother to daughter because they looked so similar). Acting was mostly good and especially Nawal was great.

I'm still torn between 3 and 3.5 popcorn. At the moment the flaws of the present narrative seem to weigh the rating down but it's really close to being good.

Cherry 2000 (1987) r

Sam lives in happy relationship with his Cherry 2000 robot. When this pre-war marvel breaks he's broken too and eventually hires a tracker to find himself a replacement from the old robot graveyard in the middle of the desert, far away from the civilization of Anaheim. Tracker, E. Johnson, happens to be pretty hot redhead and how things proceed shouldn't surprise anyone.


Cherry 2000 is your typical romantic adventure movie set in (kind of) post-apocalyptic scifi environment. It's like Romancing the Stone with robots, settings and factions that would fit perfectly in a Fallout game and reversed gender roles. It doesn't manage to build the romance too well but it's still kinda easy to ship them.

Other than the actual romance the writing is very uneven. Some of its "predictions" don't seem as absurd today as they must have been back in the 80s (like the legal agreement for a date with a detailed description of what's been agreed to) and it has sort of interesting and memorable villain. The world itself doesn't make any sense and the technical stuff related to Cherry 2000 is embarrassingly stupid.

Action is quite lackluster but the whole sequence with the crane is so hilariously silly that I can forgive other technical limitations. Johnson's car was pretty cool (and I'm not even into cars). Acting was quite mediocre but Melanie Griffith looked hotter than I remembered (for me the choice between her and Cherry 2000 would have been an easy win for the flesh).

I'm not going to say that this was a good movie but it surely had its moments. As basically a romance it's not really my cup of tea but it was moderately easy watch anyway.

The Innocents (1961) N

A woman is hired to govern two young children in a large country mansion somewhere outside London. Children's peculiar behavior and the dark events in the mansion's recent past soon convince her that something foul and supernatural is going on. She must save the children from the evil that haunts the place.


On paper everything should be fine with The Innocents; solid cast, great setting, traditional Gothic ghost story and a fitting black-and-white presentation. But somehow it barely falls short on every one of these. In addition it doesn't manage to be creepy or suspenseful at all which is kinda bad for a horror film.

The house itself looks terrific but I don't think it's utilized nearly to its full potential. There are occasional shots and scenes that look great but too often it's just a little bland. Same with acting; the children are very good but Kerr is again just a little off and basically feels like she's acting. The story, as it's told to us, gets weaker the more we know (more about this later) and the hints of something more daring and perverse are in the end just brushed away.

The best thing in the story is its ambivalence, how in the end the viewer can't be sure if the haunting is real or the governess has just lost her mind (this is based on one viewing, maybe there are hints one way or another when one knows to look). The children are easily the best characters in the film and the only thing that has some positive creepiness and weirdness. I was disappointed by the ghostly possession theme as I was hoping that the malevolence would have come from Miles and Flora themselves.

All of the above sounds terribly negative but it's just me focusing on the bad stuff. As a whole The Innocents doesn't miss good rating by much. Based on its reputation it was a disappointment but it belongs to upper end of mediocrity.

Cross of Iron (1977) R

Cross of Iron takes place in the Eastern Front after the German progress has halted and Russians are starting their major offense. German commanders already see the impending defeat but a new aristocratic captain Stransky arrives with more personal goal, he wants an Iron Cross. His pursuit of personal glory makes him and disillusioned sergeant Steiner the best of enemies.


While Cross of Iron is definitely an anti-war movie it's not that in your typical Hollywood sense of the word. It's not just a cautionary tale about the horrors of war but one of the most nihilistic and pessimistic big budget films ever made. It doesn't offer easy and naive solutions for peaceful future but makes war ultimately a human condition. It's depiction of humanity is bleak yet painfully accurate.

Peckinpah does focus little too much on the actual combat and due to lengthy war scenes the narration does drag, even considerably at times. Other than that directing and editing are great. His signature slow motion violence is used well and surprisingly often without excessive amounts of blood. The dreamlike hospital sequence and both credits do underline the pessimism of the film (Steiner's laughter over the pictures in the end is macabre).


Acting is generally very good and while the characters are basically typical archetypes they don't feel lifeless. Action is well done (especially the scenes with tanks look good) but there are some minor issues (like that Russian soldier in the factory - how did he get there?) and the scenes last too long.

One of my favorite war movies. It's not a perfect film but it's well made and sufficiently different from the competition.

The Editor (2014) N

I like gialli and I suppose the makers of The Editor do as well. At least I can't figure out any other reason to make this tribute. Unfortunately these people were feeling insecure about their abilities and instead of making a proper movie they decided to go the intentionally bad joke of a movie route. I don't bother describing the plot because it doesn't make any sense so let's just settle with it being a murder mystery.


I personally hate it when the tribute films copy the technical issues from their idols. Gialli aren't good because of bad dubbing and occasionally bad acting so it's totally pointless to pay tribute to these features. There are visually nice scenes in the film but again why straight up copy some scenes from the old films (like the dog bringing back the hand from The New York Ripper)?

Everything in this reeks of fear; fear of failure and fear of being criticized. To avoid these "issues" the makers didn't even try. What makes this even worse is that there's some clear talent in this film (unlike for example Jack Frost). When it tries it looks pretty good (though it probably helps that it copies so much) and the effects are fine.

Pretty much the kind of B-movie I hate. Half popcorn extra for some nice visuals, occasionally good soundtrack and good special effects.

Sector 7 (2011) N

A crappy Korean Aliens rip-off. There's a stupid CGI monster aboard an oil rig, terrible acting, lots of copied scenes from Aliens and almost nothing good (well, the leading lady looked pretty). Wasted 50 minutes on this before I decided to quickly skim the rest. Only recommendation I can give is to avoid.

Hold the Dark (2018) N

A young woman contacts a writer and wolf expert Russell Core. Her six-year-old was taken by a wolf and she wants Core to kill the animal. He finds the pack but he also finds something else. When boy's father returns from Iraq things start to get really twisted.


Hold the Dark has all the ingredients to be a marvelous movie but it in the end it fails on the (for me at least) most important matter, telling a story. It starts slow and reaches a sort of climax in the middle but the answers I was waiting for never came. Actions of the characters seem incoherent and it's very difficult to get involved when you don't understand why anything happens. Maybe that was the point but for me it just doesn't work.

There's lots of good in the film too. Cinematography is mostly good and the settings are truly beautiful. There's a bleak and foreboding atmosphere that's amplified by outstanding soundtrack. There are events that I couldn't predict and they would have been great if only I had understood them after the film. Acting is also very good.

This is pretty much an example of a film where the whole is less than the sum of its parts. It's definitely not bad though and not even that far from being good. If only it would have made little more sense afterwards.

Darkland (2017) N

Zaid is a surgeon in Denmark. His family immigrated from Iraq some 30 years ago. His younger brother hasn't been as successful and is involved in criminal activity. When little brother is beaten to death the police seem unable to catch the perpetrator and Zaid ends up taking the law into his own hands.


Darkland is pretty typical vengeance / vigilante film at heart. On the other hand it's not what I'd typically expect to see when I watch a Nordic film. In a way it's a little more realistic than most of the US films with similar plots but it's not wholly consistent in that either (especially the final fight doesn't really fit the tone of the film). I also need to say that many people would deem this movie racist if it wasn't made by a son of Iraqi immigrants.

Story moves rather slowly and there isn't any big surprises but I have a thing for this kind of films. Most of the action is well done except the final fight I already mentioned. Technically it's solid but soundtrack is way too generic. Acting is pretty good but Zaid is perhaps little too stoic (he also reminds me a lot of Lior Raz from Fauda).

Slightly above average vengeance film that stumbles little in the final parts but is mostly entertaining.

The Changeling (1980) R

A pianist and composer loses his wife and daughter in an accident. After several months of mourning he moves to Seattle and takes a teaching job. He moves to an old huge mansion where he spends his spare time composing new material. Soon he finds out that there's an unknown presence in the house.


The Changeling is slow and quite traditional ghost story with more melancholic than scary atmosphere. Especially the first half of the film is built upon John's grief and there's profound sadness in the haunting as well. There's no tangible threat and the way John reacts to everything doesn't seem to be inspired by fear at all.

In some way The Changeling reminds me of Ringu even though they're stylistically very different. There's just so much similarities in the stories. The similarities get more profound in the latter part of the film when it focuses more on the mystery solving and trying to help the ghost to find peace.

The film looks very good. There's not any wild and weird cinematographic trickery but slow, calm shots of magnificent settings (I was surprised to read that there really wasn't the house but it was a facade built over a regular house and interiors were shot in a studio). Soundtrack is beautiful with lots of sad piano melodies that fit the themes perfectly. Acting is solid with George Scott and Melvyn Douglas giving the best performances. The hauntings are also well made.

Solid ghost story that doesn't offer anything exactly new but delivers entertaining yet sad movie experience.

This sounds really good. You might be interested in The Eclipse (2009) if you haven't seen it.

I've recently become a fan of the writer A. M. Burrage and his ghosts aren't always threatening.

Black '47 (2018) N

Feeney, an Irish man who's served in British army overseas, returns home and finds famine stricken Ireland. Most of the locals are suffering and Brits running the things are only making things worse. Feeney's mother has died after being evicted into the cold and his brother has been hanged for resisting the eviction. Feeney's decides to seek justice for his family.


Black '47 is your typical story about a man seeking revenge or justice and being hunted by the law. It's like one of many westerns, First Blood or John Wick set in mid-19th century Ireland. There's the mandatory history between Feeney and one of the men chasing him, there's some lecturing about historical wrongs and endless supply of predictable turns of events.

Writing is lazy and there's no real attempt to build any characters beyond couple of adjectives. Actions is OK but especially the knife fights would have needed more blood (I don't like clean violence in otherwise gritty films). Soundtrack is definitely Irish but also quite bland and forgettable. Settings are great and some of the scenes look really beautiful (like the one I took the picture from).

Concept is interesting but it would need better characters to work. Now it's just a mediocre B-action film that (probably) pretends to be something more.