Joel's Reviews

I used to kind of dismiss it thinking it had a silly title, but I do love Forest Whitaker.

NINJA III: THE DOMINATION (1984)
Director: Sam Firstenberg

Where can I start about this movie? To me, it is one of the most important films I have ever seen and not because I am trying to be outspoken about some 80's b movie that is preposterous in premise, execution and everything else in between. Ninja III has so many great things going for it that despite its obvious shortcomings, it still manages to pack so much good stuff into it's 90 minute run time, that anyone looking for pure entertainment, and even some wonderment, will be taken care of. Big time.


The basic story is of a telephone repair woman who gets possessed by an evil ninja and must try and fight off the evil spirit. In the process she messes up some dudes that wronged her/him and everything goes crazy. That's about it. Keepin' it simple, just the way I like it.




We have hot bodies at the gym, chinese stars, car chases, foot chases, sword play, ninja arsenal of ancient secret weapon, backlit knife rack stowed away in a private cave, somewhere in the desert..the list goes on, and on, and on.




In this picture we get beautiful industrial/glam set design with analog goodness such as glowing arcade machines, glowing floating swords, fans on high blowing hair back, tilting sets like Poltergeist, demonic growls from beyond the 3rd dimension, extra sensory perception, inanimate objects coming to life, tomato juice used as a sexual elixir, hairy backs and arms, repellent 80's dance music. I need to stop now. There is so much goodness here. It drives me crazy.


I am not just saying these things because this movie happens to have all of the things most hipsters love to make fun of. Yes, there are tons and tons of things hipsters can poke fun at and use for a t shirt design. That is not the point. This is not a film for hipsters. It's a film for the child at heart with horny curiosity. A kid with a hunger for strange women who shouldn't be sexy..but are. This is a movie that survives off of its reckless charm, willing to throw everything at us that we'd need for a solid and highly entertaining action fantasy horror comedy film.

The music is comprised of several different composers; we have Rob Walsh supplying his epic Yamaha synthesizer theme used famously in Revenge of the Ninja, as well as a couple of other kids throwing down the remaining cues that pad out the rest of the film, usually of the electro drum pad driven rock speed, with chunky patch work keyboards over top. All of it works effortlessly. It was a more simple time where a few well dialed in sounds could carry the weight of an orchestra on the plastic ivory keys of a Japanese electronic.

If you are looking for a rewatchable thriller that does not take itself seriously, only rips off the best demonic films, and keeps the eye candy and repulsion coming in equal measure, you could do about ten times worse than this one here.

This is one my favorite films of all time just because it doesn't give a *****. It knows exactly what it wants to be and delivers itself onto the viewer like a giant fruit roll up shot out of a laser cannon.

NINJA III: THE DOMINATION....

You've been warned...




.................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... ...............

.................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... ...............

.................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... ...............



.................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... ...............

.................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... ...............
YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!...

I pretty much agree with the content of your review. I'd give it as a camp rating, but I recently gave it as a "serious" rating. Oh, and I sure don't think of myself as a hipster.

__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

I have used different ratings before, too, like you describe. I finally just settled on one system because I am so out of touch with other people's tastes, I figure I may as well stick to my own selfish rating system. I do still factor in great cinematography etc, even if a film is tedious, pretentious, boring, etc. But I've given up trying to sell a movie or make too strong an argument for one just because I rarely hear back from those people again looking for rec's lol.

A television transmission from the future haunts the dreams of science academics gathered together for a night at hell house in John Carpenter's 1987 horror film that is both brilliant and bad.

Seems as if writer Alan Quatermass (John Carpenter) had to get some metaphysical and religious monkeys off of his back and went ahead and got financing for this very tightly photographed, highly atmospheric, and subtly stylized dialog driven picture that is at once genuinely creepy and highly ambitious.

I don't believe in mumbo jumbo about the devil and armageddon. I feel as if evil is from the hearts and minds of man's imagination and only rules supreme if one is either consciously or unconsciously attracted to it's alleged allure. I am not. I am, however attracted to this film, as I find it very enjoyable from a relaxation standpoint. It moves at a snail's pace and keeps the music coming out of every celluloid pore for almost the entire run time.

I think of this as one big extended John Carpenter music video. Shot in Carpenter's usual anamorphic way, we get a very glassy surface and saturated colors all around the premises of this contained evil liquid. Yes, liquid. The devil is in liquid form, kept in a large glass vat, comprised of green and black pearlescent texture, ready to drip, spray and metamorphisize into anyone's mouth or eyes at any given moment to possess them as the devil himself, in the flesh. Scary stuff.

Not entirely...

But it can be creepy, if not horrifying. This director still had his chops before selling out to haphazard fare like Ghost of Mars. He kept the tension going with deliberate pacing, guttural music score, dimly lit outside locations at night, and interesting close-up work and camera tricks, not to mention some choice moments of disgust and sound design/foley that further punched his intentions through the screen into our psyche. I always watch films with headphones. I don't believe a film is worth watching without reference quality headphones. There's art in the mix if you don't have too much distance between it and your ears. "Prince of Darkness" seems to know this. Carpenter makes his films with as much care in visuals and atmosphere as he does his sound.

I cannot say that there is too many characters that I connect with because I do not believe that I connect with one single person in this movie. I will say that this does not seem to matter. The people in POD are merely here to get us from point A to point B. I did not mind the casting choices. In some strange way, everyone seemed appropriate, and there were even a few moments of high comedy relief, one involving the use of a word only a toddler might say, left to ring out in the air after a repeat of this word as an afterthought of it's original come forthance. "Ca-ca". Really the only complaint I had with casting versus comedy was the direction of Dennis Dun getting too silly near the end, which took away from the terror. His comedy didn't really fit, but didn't make me hate the film or anything, either.

When I first saw this movie back in 1988 on VHS I thought for sure that Carpenter was all done. I dismissed it as boring and tedious and not having many scares or action. Something about it stuck with me, though.

Decades later, I rediscovered it, and am very glad that I did. It may be JC's last truly John Carpenterish film. I know, I know, there is still "They Live". That's another story. That movie had a brilliant premise but a half assed execution.

"Prince of Darkness" has a 1/2 butted premise and a 1/2 butted execution but still comes off as semi brilliant to me. Brilliant and bad. It's more slick than They Live, it's more enjoyable to me. I am fond of it's meditative state throughout. It is shot very nicely and doesn't try to say too much. Well, I mean, it does try to say too much but it has no idea how to say enough so...for that I am thankful.

THE MARTIAN (2015)
Director: Ridley Scott (seriously?)

I'm not going to save any surprise rating for the end of this review like The Martian saved it's payoff for me. This movie kind of sucks and I'll tell you why I think that.

The following text in red are the notes I was keeping on my smartphone, while I watched;


The martian

Jeff daniels on toilet dumb and dumber- couldnt take him seriously
"Im a botanist"
Clumsily convenient with video journal exposition. Makes me like "Moon" that much better.
Tonally awkward. Lighthearted is ok but not 140 mins worth. Hello netflix series. Just checked the remaining time counter..ugh..yup 140 mins and still a while to go
Bereft of actual emotion
Kids pretending to have feelings
Common trait in current wave of want to be actors. Zero charisma. Make pretend intellect. Wonder if the writer is really happy aside from the money? Who cares, it isn't even good writing. It's "just ok" writing.
Plays like a tv series
Ridley is done
Too long/bloated
Semi smartly written but starving for a better cast of capable unknowns
Self congratulatory at every turn
"First man here on mountain" - "I colonized it" etc...
Film's bad qualities didnt even leave enough room to fill in the blanks like an old b movie cuz they "kind of did ok with the sets"
Highlight so far is abba song
Totally shouldnt have used bowie
Jeff daniels on the potty pooing a squeak and laughing with frazzled hair and legs jacked out in front if him.
Chick from halt and catch fire was an annoyingly familiar touch to casting
Film has a big ego about itself
I stopped caring early on but still marched through the duration
Do i get a prize?
Still marching, lets find out...

OK, so I get to the end and guess what?

It's more self congratulatory nonsense.

This makes me wonder whether or not watching "The Right Stuff" again will change my mind about NASA based movies. Maybe I'd better keep the memory alive with a positive recollection and not watch it. Actually, who am I kidding? I won't dare compare the two.

The Martian thinks very highly of itself, there is no mistaking this with anything else. That is the blunt truth. Was it entertaining? A few moments early on intrigued me, like when he figured out how to grow his own food and some of his brain work about planning for the future. But it didn't keep up with that same ingenuity. I struggled through this movie.

I had a very high confidence for The Martian when I did a blind buy of this blu ray I am looking at right now, about to literally crack in half with the butt end of a steak knife. I really did think that this would be a solid purchase and that I would have faith restored in Ridley Scott as a true visionary director for this decade, back in peak form. I do not know for the life of me why I thought this, but I did. I think Ridley has done his "big" work and is just enjoying the studio system now and letting the kids run wild. But it hurts me to witness this. I still expect a good movie. I do not trust his sensibilities anymore. It's official. Where is Walter Hill and Co when you need them? Just kidding. Not really, though.

Luckily I only payed 8 dollars with free shipping for this blu ray, so shattering the disc won't hurt as bad as my valuable time did with a weeknight movie watch timetable.

Honestly, I'm being dramatic. It's fine, ...whatever.

What can I do about it?

Nothing.

It just wasn't a good movie.
]
Boo hoo.

I would never want to see The Martian again, but I thought it was fairly decent.

That's what bothered me the most, that it was "fairly decent". Sometimes I get more saddened by a movie being ok then if it were totally hopeless. Hard to explain.

If I make it through a movie without bailing out, I am pleased enough.

Don't get me all wound up, Stirchley. The Martian was a bad movie. It's a scientific fact. I happen to be a scientist and according to my tests, it checks out positive for being trashy cinema.

Think that is due to the hype?
In other words... it would be easier to accept people just being dead wrong (or that they're able to see something as "so bad that it's good") than accepting so many viewing mediocrity as something fantastic?

Hard to say. I wasn't aware what the consensus was before I watched it. I had a feeling it had high ratings based on accidentally seeing a few blurbs and trying to block them out so I went in fresh. I think it was just my experience with it. My expectations were calibrated way differently than what the movie turned out to be. What it turned out to be seemed like a Ron Howard movie mixed with an SNL mentality and it just didn't do anything for me. But viewing mediocrity as something fantastic seems to be the prognosis haha. Not to damn and generalize a cast majority of people but just from my own personal standpoint and opinion that The Martian may be a bit, oh, how you say?, overrated?? (ducks rolls and scurries into next room)

I enjoyed it because I like "realistic" sci-fi. But I didn't enjoy it to the degree I thought I would based on the hype, i.e. yes, overrated. Would have enjoyed it much more if it had an under-2-hour run time (my usual criticism for many modern movies) - it was a very simple story that didn't require 2 hours and 24 minutes to tell - the lengthy runtime made it long and slow to the point where after the 2 hour mark you begin to stop caring. So many movies could go from "okay" to "very good" with a little editing on the time.

Yep, pretty much. Way too long and that made it come off as self important. I have other gripes, too but I'll spare you the details because I don't want to sound like I am insulting anyone who likes it. I had just seen a lengthy interview with Matt Damon on "Off Camera", and he comes across super focused, intense and smart, which he is (I think?). My expectations were high. I suppose I am partly to blame for the movie being such a big piece of dog poop. If I had known what to expect, I would've skipped it for a rainy day instead of literally setting the mood lights for it as Ridley Scott's latest long overdue masterpiece.

Loved your review Joel, very colorful! Guess what I agree to. I reviewed it too. Just an excerpt...

Thank you, Citizen. That was refreshing, and no offense Cap'n Steel. But yeah..your review is about to get repped haha. You just said what I couldn't put my finger on. Remember when I said this movie made me like "Moon" that much better? That was exactly what I meant by that. You nailed it. We don't get enough solitude. At almost 2.5 hrs, why the hell didn't we get more solitude? Oh..I know..because it's a comedy! (foghorn sound)

I was thoroughly entertained both times I watched it. Especially at Meth Damon screaming.

Both times? Well, god bless ya!

It's a shame you didn't enjoy it but come now, that scream was superb. Great set of lungs. Even better than the Tom Cruise scream.

How dare you compare The Martian to the greatness of trash cinema?