——Mad Monkey Kung Fu——

(A-)

A great title and an appropriately great kung fu film. A gangster falls in love with the sister of a stage performer and invites them both to a party where he gets the brother ripping drunk so that he can pass out with the gangster’s girlfriend and she can make it appear that they are sleeping together. The gangster acts shocked and demands the brother’s death. The sister then offers her self as his concubine if he spares her brother. The gangster agrees, but not without crippling the brother’s hands.

The brother becomes a street performer with a monkey, where he meets a man named Monkey who just loves monkeys. Street thugs muscle him for bribes, to which he gives in to, but Monkey won’t have any of that and he starts fighting the thugs himself. He doesn’t know kung fu though, so he gets his ass kicked several times. Finally after his monkey is killed the brother agrees to teach Monkey mad monkey kung fu, which makes for some really cool training sequences and then some simply amazing fight sequences at the end of the film. The monkey style fights are just so damn cool and they float along like well-choreographed dance numbers. The fact that there are some really amazing sets doesn’t hurt the movie any, either. I totally recommend this movie to everyone.

——Duel to the Death——

(B+)

This movie is hilarious. The basic plot is simple: every ten years the best Chinese sword fighter and the best Japanese sword fighter meet to have a duel to the death to determine which countries fighting style is the best. That simple premise is made hilarious though, by the numerous ninjas that populate the film. There are exploding ninjas. Flying ninjas. Kite ninjas. Kamikaze ninjas. There are 12 feet tall super ninjas that explode into six normal sized ninjas. Limbs fly off, ninjas get split in half. And the overdub is so hilariously bad that you’ll be laughing throughout the whole movie. Add to the ninjas some of the most beautiful location shooting I have ever seen and while you don’t necessarily get a great movie, you do get a surprisingly entertaining swordplay movie that you won’t be able to turn your eyes away from.

——Ninja Checkmate (AKA The Mystery of Chess Boxing)——

(B+)

The American title is a little misleading, since there are no ninjas in this movie. There is a lot of A+ kung fu though. I would guess that at least half the movie is made up of fight scenes, and they are ALL amazing. I mean, I haven’t even seen female gymnasts do this many backflips and splits. The skill levels of these fighters are just at the top of their games. The plot doesn’t quite live up to the fights though, and if I never see another rice gag in my life I will still have seen too many. Still, since this was an independent film made in Taiwan there are a lot of details to this movie that go contrary to the traditions at the major studios and make this movie very exciting to watch. Add to that the fact that the Ghost-faced Killer kills seemingly random people at random moments throughout the film, and we don’t actually know WHY he is killing them until like halfway to three-quarters of the way through the film and this movie is super cool to watch. Highly recommended.

——Secondhand Lions——

(C-)

This movie is fun enough, but it is also cheesy as all hell. Despite the fact that there is some beautiful photography going on the director still decides to shoot the movie like a cheap direct to video weepy. The dialogue is frequently terrible, the story structure almost never works, and for every moment that makes you smile there are three that make you want to stab your eyes out. Haley Joel Osment can’t really decide whether he wants to keep with the cute kid schtick or move onto puberty. There is also basically no real story. My parents got a real good kick out of this movie, but I give it a pass.

——Camp——

(A-)

When this came out, although it got some good reviews from the major critics it was pretty much ignored by the major media outlets. I doubt that for many people it came out in a theater near them, which is a shame because this movie is actually pretty good. It’s about a summer camp for drama kids and how they try to overcome their almost freakish behaviors by acting and showtunes.

Although this story has been told a million times before, there is just something about how this movie was made that makes it feel really fresh and new. All the actors are nonprofessionals and the director never tries to shove them into a Hollywood framework so that their performances come off as much more natural and their beats feel really weird (in a good way) compared to a normal Hollywood film. This loose, almost documentary-like story structure allows the actors to act and makes the movie so much more interesting to watch. The whole thing is almost surreal. It just feels different from most anything you’ve seen before. The actor who plays Vlad is especially interesting to watch, since throughout the movie you are trying to decide whether you are suppose to like him or despise him. He does a great job blurring those lines. This is definitely a recommended film.

——Starsky and Hutch——

(B)

It’s not the greatest film ever (more than a few jokes kind of fall flat) but it does do a really great job of recreating that 70’s exploitation spirit, and while I couldn’t follow their crime solving chain of thought to save my life there were enough good laughs in there to make me happy. Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson play up the “are they gay or aren’t they” thing perfectly, a lot of the 70’s cliches are done really well, and Will Ferrell is hilarious as a gay, dragon loving inmate who gives Starsky and Hutch some clues to tracking down a coke dealer after making them act out weird dragon sex poses (don’t ask). I was a little disappointed with Snoop Dog’s Huggy Bear, but otherwise while not a great movie, it definitely is a fun movie. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

——Joe’s Apartment——

(D)

There is something charming about the quirky humor of this movie and its extreme view of New York City, but quickly all that charm flies away in the face of awful, horrible writing. Way too many musical numbers too. I’m surprised I made it all the way through this one.