Like Water for Chocolate Movie Review

Movies that age badly are fascinating to me. What to make of a movie that was well-regarded more than two decades ago upon its release, part of the Weinsteins’ Miramax success blitz in the 90s, and even garnered some middling awards attention, but left me scratching my head in wonderment at how anyone in their right mind ever thought this was a good movie. There are movies I don’t like that get lots of good critical attention where I can at least understand what people have fallen for. In the case of Como agua para chocolate – or Like Water for Chocolate in English – it struck me as more than just failing to appeal to my taste, but flat out bad filmmaking on a nearly objectively technical level.

Important Anniversaries Marked in 2013

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Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday Movie Review

I rented this in high school not because I thought it would be any good or even because I thought it might scare me, but just out of some kind of loyalty to the series. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to see this thing through to the end. Wasn't scary in the least.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

When the torch for Friday the 13^th was passed from Paramount to New Line in the early 90s, the series had already gone from bad to worse before passing into Oh My God That’s Terrible. Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday pushes past the limits of “so bad it’s good” and falls into an abyss I would like to call “so bad it has virtually no redeeming value and should never have been considered and those responsible should lower their heads in shame as they fall on their swords.” It takes the whole mythos of the franchise, lights it on fire and then pisses on the ashes. It doesn’t even have the redeeming value of being movie at whose shortcomings you can laugh.

Cult Classic Movie Review: Army of Darkness

This is my BOOMstick!

This review is based on the Director's Cut DVD I own, a disappointingly poor transfer with additional and alternate scenes, most of which don't match film grade, spliced in.


Army of Darkness is the end result of what happens when a group of friends makes a marginally successful cult film and then a major studio gives them a serious budget for a sequel. It is the sequel to Evil Dead II, itself more a remake than a sequel of Evil Dead. It is what happens when a series of sight gags mostly inspired by "The Three Stooges" get stretched too thin until it lies gasping for air on the floor. Okay, I'm exaggerating to an extent, but I found myself a little bit bored through most of the final half hour.

It more or less follows on from where the previous film left off – with Ash (still portrayed by the dashing, self flagellating Bruce Campbell) being thrown back to the Middle Ages where he is prophesied to deliver the kingdom from evil.

The Age of Innocence Movie Review

Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence, has not really received its due praise. Perhaps because at the time it seemed such a departure for the director of quintessential New York stories of Italian Americans, often involved in crime. Now that 17 years have passed and Scorsese has gone on to create a body of work with much broader settings and themes (Kundun, The Aviator, Shutter Island), it’s fair to say there is little unusual about seeing it as very much a Martin Scorsese Picture.

Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) is one in a long line of Scorsese male protagonists trying to escape from the clutches of a world not of his own choosing. Consider Charlie in Mean Streets coming to terms with his lack of faith; Travis Bickle trapped in a sewer of crime; Jesus of Nazareth wrestling with the forces pushing him; Teddy Daniels in Shutter Island a prisoner of his own psychosis.