skip to main |
skip to sidebar
FULL TIME KILLER-2001-Two hit men Tok (Andy Lau) and O (Takashi Sorimachi) clash and decide to take each other out in this over long Hong Kong action drama from the director team of Johnny To and Ka-Fai Wai (MY LEFT EYE SEES GHOSTS). Both fall for a young Taiwanese house cleaner (Kelly Lin). Simon Yam plays a police officer determined to bring them both down. Though it might have been shorter it contains some terrific action scenes.
Thanks for reading!
28 WEEKS LATER-2007-Terrible sequel to the already overrated 28 DAYS LATER finds London admitting people back into the city but thanks to a woman “carrier” who infects her husband the cannibal zombies are back. So is the irritatingly shaky camera work. The infected woman’s kids are the lead characters. The US Army is the real villain here murdering both infected zombies and innocent humans. They even use napalm. It’s much gorier than the original, which might satisfy undiscriminating viewers.
The director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (from Spain) had previously only made films in his native tongue. Maybe he should have done this one in Spanish.
Thanks for reading!
LOST IN SPACE-1998-As movie remakes of TV shows go this is pretty good. Gary Oldman is great as Dr. Smith. Dr. Robinson (William Hurt), his wife (Mimi Rogers) and their three children rocket off into space in a ship piloted by Don West (Matt LeBlanc). Heather Graham is older daughter Judy, a real egghead. Smith is a reluctant stowaway. They wind up being blasted into an alternate future where they meet an adult Will (Jared Harris) and his robot assistant Dr. Smith! Metal alien spiders figure in the plot.
Original series cast members June Lockhart, Mark Goddard, Marta Kristen and Angela Cartwright also appear. Edward Fox also has a small role.
Director Stephen Hopkins previous made PREDATOR 2, JUDGEMENT NIGHT and THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS. He later made THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS.
Thanks for reading!
BRUCE LEE WE MISS YOU-1976-A martial artist who worships the original Bruce and acts a little like him too (wannabe Lee clone Bruce Li who made many Hong Kong movies with the name Bruce in the titles) is devastated when “the great one” dies. He decides Lee was murdered and investigates. There are a lot of fights (the last fight goes on very long) and not much else. At one point he fights a gang of Asian thugs made up to look Black.
Star Li (from Taiwan) later directed a couple of movies. He retired from acting in the mid ‘80’s.
Thanks for reading!
ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY-1945-Two stupid publicity agents (Alan Carney & Wally Brown) get in trouble with a gangster (Sheldon Leonard) when they promise a real life zombie will appear at the opening of his nightclub and then can’t deliver. He sends them to the island of San Sebastian to get a real zombie and they meet a mad scientist Dr. Renault (played by Bela Lugosi) who’s trying to make his own “scientific zombie” in his lab.
Darby Jones (from I WALK WITH A ZOMBIE) is Renault’s living dead servant. Also with Anne Jeffreys, Ian Wolfe and Frank Jenks.
Brown & Carney made a series of RKO comedies between 1943 and 1946. They are usually described as a “lower case Abbott & Costello” but are more like a lower case Bud Abbott & Curly Howard!
Lugosi would be in the team’s GENIUS AT WORK the next year too. Director Gordon Douglas later helmed the giant ant fest THEM.
Thanks for reading!
REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES-1943-More WW2 /zombie fun from Monogram. John Carradine is Dr. Max Hendrich Von Alterman, a Nazi scientist working in his jungle lab to raise an zombie army that will win the war. He also has a zombie like wife (Veda Ann Borg) who strolls around. Gale Storm (the future MY LITTLE MARGIE TV star) is his secretary.
Cowboy star Bob Steele (the future Duffy on TV’s F-TROOP) plays an undercover agent. Robert Lowery who later played Batman in the second serial based on the comic book plays the male lead but once again Mantan Moreland steals the show! Hungarian born director Steve Sekely later made HOLLOW TRIUMPH and THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS.
Thanks for reading!
KING OF THE ZOMBIES-1941-Hokey horror fun from Monogram. The three man crew of a small plane crash lands on an island where the mad scientist Dr. Sangre (Henry Victor) is using voodoo and black magic to raise the dead. Actually he wants to transfer the mind of a US admiral into the body of his niece to obtain secret government information!
Dick Purcell (who’d play the lead in the Captain America serial 2 years later) and John Archer try to figure it all out. Mantan Moreland is Purcell’s (usually sacred) butler but despite the racial stereotype Moreland’s character is the only one who actually knows what’s really going on, has the funniest lines and helps save the day! Victor had played Hercules the strong man in FREAKS.
Thanks for reading!
