Moviecritic1990's Movie Commentary

I don't watch a lot of films that depict gangs but when I do, they're usually mediocre at best. But there's one film that I have enjoyed since I was a teenager and I remember playing the video game for hours, The Warriors. With a killer soundtrack and creepy background, The Warriors is truly one of the best films ever made. The script is phenomenal along with the acting. It may be a movie about gang life, but it's got some amazing acting performances. The pacing moves at warp speed. This is one of those rare moments where I wished this film had a sequel, but I'm glad it never did. The film is beautiful as it is and no sequel, no remake would ever come close to this. In conclusion, if you want to watch a great film about gangs, The Warriors is the one for you. I'm Jeff Roman. 5/5

Chris Farley may have had his reasons for not liking Beverly Hills Ninja. Me personally, it's a dumb comedy with a lot of laughs. It was said that around this time when Ninja was being filmed, Chris was getting tired of being the fat guy falling down schtick and wanted to change it up, but believed audiences wouldn't accept it. I believe that he wasn't confident in himself to show off his true self.  Farley may not have been John Belushi or John Candy, who were great at what they did. One thing can be said about his short career in film back in the day is he knew how to make people laugh just like Belushi & Candy. The script for Beverly Hills Ninja isn't the greatest, it's a typical 90's comedy with enough humor for me to give it a pass. Acting is decent for the most part along with it's pacing. I truly believe that had Chris not passed away, he'd still be working with Sandler & his friends or perhaps he would have gone the Robin Williams route a...

I'll be honest. I never played Silent Hill 2 for the original PlayStation, nor have I played the reboot as I've heard Return to Silent Hill is based on that. I don't normally comment on a budget for a film, but I feel the need to discuss this. The original Silent Hill was made for $50 million in 2006, Silent Hill: Revelation was made for $20 million in 2012. In both movies, They looked pretty good despite the wonky CGI which is to be discussed for another time. Return to Silent Hill was made for $23 million. Now, in both Silent Hill movies, you can see where the budget was spent. My question is this, Why does Return to Silent Hill on a budget of $23 million looks very cheap?  Watching the film, it feels more like a fan film than a studio film. Despite a pretty cool opening sequence, the movie is pretty terrible. The script is all over the place which results in it's bad pace. Acting is abysmal. Then again, when it comes to video game adaptations, when has acting ever be...

 After a fun start to this new trilogy in The Strangers: Chapter One, The Strangers: Chapter Two wastes no time in getting straight to the action. Picking up seconds after the last film ended. I was really hoping the film was going for a Halloween 2 vibe. But that's only in the first 15-20 minutes of the film which I thought was going to be the entire film which would have been awesome, but I was a little disappointed. Despite that fast pace, it does peter off a little bit in the middle which was expected but not bad. After all that, The Strangers: Chapter Two is still a fun flick with some awesome kill sequences that will make you laugh. The script is typical slasher fodder. All slasher films are the same in my opinion. Acting is alright. Anything with Richard Brake, good or bad, he does a great job. I'll be ready for the final chapter this coming February and I do hope it'll be just as good as this. I'm Jeff Roman. 3/5

Having enjoyed The Strangers & The Strangers: Prey at Night. I'll admit I was a little bit skeptical on this new trilogy thinking what more could be done with these characters. Having said that, I was surprised to learn that this trilogy was shot back to back. I found The Strangers: Chapter One to be an interesting start to the three films. Compared to the other two, the small town background is pretty creepy and upon watching, you could probably guess on who the killers are in the first 10-15 minutes of the movie. The script is pretty good. Typical of a slasher. Acting is what'd you expect from this kind of film, and pacing not bad, it moves at a decent speed.   All in all, a great start. Let's see how the other two fare. I'm Jeff Roman. 3/5

 Silent Hill: Revelation is a not so great follow up to the original 2006 movie. The cheese factor is not that strong enough in this sequel. It's just a terrible film from script, acting, to story. I'm curious as to why they didn't decide to adapt one of the sequel games as I felt that would have been a lot better. Ever since Avatar, horror movies back then really tried to cash in on the 3D craze, and by the time Silent Hill: Revelation came out, that format was already outdated. 20 year old me back then, wanted a 3D television just for the glasses and now old me can't stand the sight out of it. Overall, Silent Hill: Revelation is terrible from start to finish. Could have been a better film if  everything I mentioned was improved on. I'm Jeff Roman.  1/5

99% of the time, movies based on video game adaptions never work. I'm looking at you Resident Evil. I've played the Silent Hill video games back when I was a kid, though I could never beat them as they were too difficult. The movie itself while I shockingly enjoyed it for what it was, it is cheesy at times. The script is pretty good. Acting is pretty good along with it's pacing. As I've mentioned, movie adaptions based on video games never work because the studios who make them have no clue what they're doing. I reference Resident Evil because I love zombies and the story itself should be very easy to adapt, but clearly, it's very difficult. One thing I will say about Silent Hill. In the video game, it was about a man searching for his missing daughter who winds up in the town of Silent Hill, in the movie, they decide to gender swap which I don't agree with. I'm not sexist in any way. But clearly they thought it was more believable for a woman to search ...

 After checking out the first two movies in the 28 Days Later series, I was keen on checking out this new trilogy of movies and while I did enjoy the first two. This one is a little bit different then the others. 28 Years Later doesn't show much of the creature attacks and when it does, it's pretty cool stuff, It tends to focus more on the human drama which I didn't mind that at times. But I feel it does take away from being a horror movie to becoming a drama. The script is okay, could have been a little better. Acting is decent, nothing bad about it and pacing is pretty good for the most part. I will say I did enjoy it the film and I can't wait to check out the second installment in this new trilogy, I felt it could have been a little bit better. I'm Jeff Roman. 2/5

I'm a huge fan of John Candy. I have all his films on DVD with the exception of a few. I plan on doing a commentary on his movies in the coming months. There isn't a bad John Candy film that I haven't seen. Well, actually there is, Wagons East. If you know the story, there was a week left in filming and John Candy had passed away from a heart attack. So, there are a few sequences where you'll notice that he's not in the film. For those of you who plan on checking Wagons East out, try to find those moments where he's not there. There's even a scene in the film where I read that it was the last scene he filmed. that alone made me a little disturbed. There's even a reused shot of John near the end of the film which is obvious. Wagons East is not a good film by a long shot. It's a terrible film and it suffers from not being funny. The script for Wagons East is horrible. I get that John didn't want to do the film but because of contractual obligations...

28 Days Later did so well when originally released, that a sequel was ordered and the results are a little mixed. You all know my stance on sequels, I still watch them, even though often times they are not needed. 28 Weeks Later is a good follow up to the original film but, it does suffer from pacing issues which I believe is the fault of it's script. The story for 28 Weeks Later isn't bad, it does a great job trying to do it's own thing. But I feel it goes down a bit because of pacing and that's after the crazy opening sequence. After that opening, the pacing slips a little and once the carnage happens, it wastes no time in doing what it does. Acting is decent for this type of film. Horror films are not known for it's beautiful acting skills. I certainly don't look for any Shakespearean acting in my horror movies. Despite all this, 28 Weeks Later is still a fun movie and I look forward to checking out this new trilogy. I'm Jeff Roman. 2 1/2/5

In preparation for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple which I will be doing a commentary on this Wednesday. I thought it would be fun to go back and rewatch the 28 Days Later series of movies. 28 Days Later was a film I'd only seen bits of, not having watched fully until this past weekend. With it's grainy film quality, one would think that Fox spent millions on a shot on video film. The script for the movie is very good. To me, 28 Days Later isn't written as your typical zombie movie. I disagree with the that it is one. Sure, people get infected by a bite or an exposure to blood. I feel it's more of a people gone crazy after exposure to a virus. I've always stood my ground when I say that zombies are slow moving creatures with no motor functions. Death isn't an energy drink. The acting in 28 Days Later is very good along with it's pacing. I kick myself for not seeing this earlier in my teenage years after being exposed to horror. Slashers & zombies took ov...

 I've seen my fair share of action flicks dealing with the theme of cops & corruption and they're all the same to me. I can safely say that 1973's Serpico was introduction to that type of film and that movie is one of the greatest performances by Al Pacino. The Rip is a typical cop flick that doesn't add anything new to the genre other then it being a fun flick with great performances by Affleck & Damon. It's a such a shame that a cop movie like this having been done before by Hollywood or the DTV route, gets subjected to streaming instead of a theatrical release. I guess that's the way the world works nowadays. The script is pretty good. The story has been done before, nothing new added that I noticed. But it's been awhile since I've seen a fun cop thriller. Acting is pretty good especially from Affleck & Damon. Pacing isn't bad, no weak spots that I've noticed. All in all, I wish films like The Rip would go back to theaters. Not alo...

I love zombie films. In fact, I am what you may call a connoisseur of the genre itself. But there are 2  things about zombie movies that I don't like and can never understand why filmmakers do this. Zombies aren't meant to run. They're dead. They have no motor functions and most importantly, it cannot be a slow. I can't stand a slow burning zombie movie when nothing happens 20 minutes in. We Bury The Dead should have stay buried. I wouldn't classify this as a zombie flick. I consider this to be a drama with sprinkles of zombies added in for the horror fiends like myself. I welcome and support cool original ideas for a zombie movie. But if you make the film's pacing move like a snail, then you'll make me lose my interest. The script is okay, could have been better, acting's okay. The one thing that hurts the film is it's pacing. I was skeptical on checking this out and quite frankly, I wish I'd avoid it. I'm Jeff Roman 1/5  

It's very that I will watch a horror film depicting a killer animal. I'm not one for seeing animals getting killed in films as it's always been something that bothers me. To this day, I refuse to watch Cujo and it'll stay that way until my wife says I should watch all that. Despite all that, Primate is a fun animal horror flick that wastes no time in getting to the meat of the story. The audience we saw it with was laughing at the comedic moments and there was a few in terms of the kills, gasping at the horror sequences which had everyone including myself laughing, and applauding once the credits rolled. If you think about it. The script for Primate is pretty good which results in it's fast pacing. Acting is decent for the most part. My only qualm with the film is it's opening sequence which I felt adds nothing to it's overall story and could have been a little better. Overall, Primate was a lot of fun and I look forward to seeing what this director has in s...

Over the years watching many horror and thriller films, there isn't anything that I haven't seen before that changes the plot or makes it original. I've seen maybe a few films with the concept of a killer kid and while they can be good, they lack humor. But there's one in particular, that's so funny that I stopped & wondered if it was actually a comedy and not a thriller and that's The Paperboy. The movie itself, while not original and is certainly nothing I haven't seen before is actually a decent film with one teeny tiny thing that makes it hilarious, the actor playing the murderous paperboy Johnny. He plays it so over the top that while again it's a thriller, I just couldn't take the film seriously because it's so hammy. There's one scene where Johnny has a bizarre freakout that it didn't tune me out, it just made me laugh. Granted, in these type of films, we have characters that do crazy things to get what they want, Johnny's ...

The Howling, An American Werewolf in London, The original Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jr. are probably the best, if not greatest werewolf movies of all time. Dog Soldiers is in my opinion one of the best British werewolf movies of all time. Ever since seeing it for the first time back in 2002 when it debuted on the Sci-Fi channel. I've enjoyed this film immensely. The story is beyond good which results in a very good script. Acting is pretty good for the most part, no bad performances are singled out, and pacing is pretty spot on. I've always enjoyed the concept of a group of people having to survive the night battling some sort of threat. There aren't that many movies out there anymore that I've noticed with the same kind of plot. You'll be surprised that to know for years, I've wanted a sequel to Dog Soldiers. Thinking about it now 24 years later, I'm really glad nothing happened. Less is more. I'm Jeff Roman. 4/5

 When I finished high school in 2008. I celebrated by having a Steven Seagal marathon. At the time I didn't watch his theatrical stuff, I grabbed all of his DTV stuff and marathoned the hell out of it. The films were terrible, always the same plot just in a different setting, Seagal playing the same type of character whether it's a cop, special forces soldier, CIA, FBI, etc. with literally no emotion. I mean Jean Claude Van Damme who's also lackluster in his films, at least shows some type of emotion when he plays different roles even though it's the same character. While I consider the early Seagal films classics of their time, they are in my opinion so bad it's good for the reasons I mentioned above. The Glimmer Man is a film that was near the tail end of Seagal's theatrical run and into the DTV market. What I found most humorous about this movie is his character becoming a Buddhist and refraining from fighting. That didn't seem to last long as he started ...

Before I watch a film, I would research and read up on the behind the scenes. To me, it's fun & fascinating to learn things about the films I like or thinking of checking out. Sliver is a film that sounded rather interesting to me after reading about the turmoil behind the scenes from both Sharon Stone & William Baldwin that you would think it would be a good movie....Right? No. it's not good. As I've mentioned, Sliver had a lot of issues behind the scenes from Sharon Stone's egomania, script problems, test screening disasters, alot of crazy stuff that the final film suffers from it. I personally think that the massive success of Basic Instinct, went to Sharon Stone's head which caused Sliver to fail. The script is terrible. I don't know how many rewrites were done on this movie, but my god, it's terrible. I mean for an erotic thriller, they really tried to up the eroticism thinking they'd capture lightning in a bottle twice. I guess in the 90...

To me, George A. Romero is the godfather of the zombie genre. In some alternate universe, George Romero made the first Resident Evil movie and it was a lot better then the 2002 movie. I still cast shade at Capcom for rejecting his script. I've always enjoyed Romero's zombie movies as far back as I can remember.  But I've also enjoyed his other non-zombie films like Creepshow, & The Dark Half. The main difference between his zombie films and the films I just mentioned above is that his zombie films were made indie style. Creepshow, The Dark Half, & Monkey Shines are studio films and I know Romero has gone on record saying that making Monkey Shines for Orion resulted in him sticking with indie films rather then the studios. Creepshow had no studio interference as far as I know. The Dark Half had none as well despite Orion's money issues & Timothy Hutton being difficult to work with. Despite the studio problems with Monkey Shines, it's a decently made film....

IMDB has Kill Me Again listed as an erotic thriller. I question that genre description because there wasn't a single ounce of erotica in Kill Me Again that I noticed. You know what I did notice? A good thriller. With the recent passing of Val Kilmer & Michael Madsen who deliver great performances in this movie. It makes me miss their presence. I'll probably have to search out more of their films and really do a deep dive. The story has been done before. Nothing new, nothing original. It almost feels like Kill Me Again was an attempt at Film Noir which did well in the 30's-50's. Here, it's updated in the 80's to make it seem cool & hip. Val Kilmer tries to do his best impression of a noir detective and at first I couldn't take it seriously until I kept watching. He's done some good work over the years in various films and do I think he was a good Batman? No, not by a long shot. I like him as a character actor and I'm glad he stayed that way an...

  I have a question for people who watch horror movies? When you read the plot description whether it's on IMDB or whatever film site, do you stop to think that the film sounds cheesy? I had that in my mind after reading the plot for Nightbeast. When I finally watched it, it confirmed not one, but two things. The movie itself is pretty bad & it's cheesy. The monster in Nightbeast is pretty hilarious, I'm not sure if they were going for a 1950's monster movie tribute. So ,the FX group did a great job at making the monster look funny. Gotta love practical effects. The acting is what made me go for this movie. After watching the trailer, I could almost taste the cheese in how bad the acting sounded and it is indeed bad. The script is so dumb that anything else that I could say about Nightbeast would be an insult to Plan 9 From Outer Space. Despite all that, I did enjoy the campiness of the film itself. I don't want people to think that this commentary is me trashin...

In all my years of collecting & watching horror movies, I've skimmed through a lot of indie horror checking to see which ones I think would be interesting and or decent to check out regardless of who I recognize or the plot itself. 99 times out of 100, they're cookie cutter crap and or the acting itself is horrible with no actors that I recognize. Kombucha stood out for me as an interesting story because I work in a grocery store and I stock Kombucha products and I've heard from various people that a lot of bartenders use kombucha to dilute their drinks. I've had Kombucha only once and it's touted as a healthy drink to support gut health. I doubt that as I found it to be disgusting and after watching this movie, I'll refuse to have Kombucha. But I'm not here to give a commentary on my work or the product itself, I'm here to talk about the movie Kombucha. The film itself is pretty interesting which surprised me because the story does sound original fo...