≡ Category: Action, Drama, Essential, Hong Kong, Martial Arts | ≅ Leave a Comment
Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Martial Arts/ Drama/ Action
Director: Jeng Cheong-Woh
Year: 1972
Rating:
TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
How can you not love 5 Fingers of Death AKA King Boxer?
The first big laugh comes seconds into the picture when composer Wu Da-Jiang appropriates a snippet of the theme music from the old Raymond Burr television series Ironside (now we know […]
≡ Category: Action, Comedy, Essential, Hong Kong, Martial Arts | ≅ Leave a Comment
Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Martial Arts/ Comedy/ Action
Director: Liu Chia-Liang
Year: 1978
Rating:
TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
Normally, I’m not a big fan of 70s Shaw Brothers flicks, but Heroes of the East won me over in the first ten minutes or so.
As Heroes Of The East begins, Ho To (Gordon Liu) is digging in his heels, refusing to […]
≡ Category: Drama, Essential, Korea, Romance | ≅ Leave a Comment
Country: Korea
Genre: Drama/ Romance
Director: Cheol-su Park
Year: 2005
Rating:
TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
I’ve been watching Asian cinema for about 30 years now, and during that time I’ve seen countless explicit sex scenes, but watching Green Chair, I actually found myself getting turned on. That’s a first.
Mun-hee (Jung Suh) has been sentenced to a short prison term, followed […]
≡ Category: Drama, Essential, Mainstream, Suspense, United States | ≅ Leave a Comment
Country: United States
Genre: Drama/ Suspense/ Mainstream
Director: John Schlesinger
Year: 1990
Rating:
TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
Pacific Heights plays like a yuppie horror story.
Patty Palmer (Melanie Griffith) and Drake Goodman (Matthew Modine) decide to invest in a Victorian in Pacific Heights. They’re overextended financially, but they figure they’ll make up the difference by renting out the two […]
≡ Category: Action, Drama, Essential, Hong Kong | ≅ Leave a Comment
Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Action/ Drama
Director: Dick Cho
Year: 1991
Rating:
TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
During the Golden Age of Hong Kong (1985-1995), producers treated their movies like disposable product, to be dropped into theaters for a couple weeks for a quick buck and then forgotten. Nobody had the foresight to realize that these films would matter a generation […]
≡ Category: Essential, Fantasy, Romance, Suspense, United States | ≅ Leave a Comment
Country: United States
Genre: Romance/ Fantasy/ Suspense
Director: George Nolfi
Year: 2011
Rating:
TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
It’s difficult to come up with more than a handful of movies that explore the relationship between (the Christian) God’s omnipotence, his plan, free will, and the problem of evil. There’s Bruce Almighty, but it mostly functions as an Christian apologia, a way […]
≡ Category: Essential, Horror, Satire, Suspense, United States | ≅ Leave a Comment
Country: United States
Genre: Satire/ Horror/ Suspense
Director: Richard Franklin
Year: 1983
Rating:
TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
I remember being impressed with Psycho II when it came out back in 1983, but it’s taken me the intervening 27 or so years for me to fully appreciate how brilliant it is. It also underscores for me how critics, like most people, […]
≡ Category: Action, Comedy, Essential, Hong Kong, Martial Arts | ≅ Leave a Comment
Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Action/ Comedy/ Martial Arts
Director: Jackie Chan
Year: 1983
Rating:
TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
I must have gotten out of the wrong side of the bed the day I first saw Project A because I remember not being very impressed. I seem to remember that the print was totally washed out and the subtitles were unintelligible, […]
≡ Category: Action, Essential, Horror, Satire, Suspense, United States | ≅ Leave a Comment
Country: United States
Genre: Action/ Suspense/ Satire/ Horror
Director: Robert Rodriguez/ Quentin Tarantino/ Rob Zombie/ Eli Roth/ Edgar Wright
Year: 2007
Rating:
TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
Normally, when I review a movie, I’m focused on stuff like cinematography, plotting, characterization, acting, martial arts choreography and so on, and to a certain extent, that’s true of Grindhouse, too. But all of […]
≡ Category: Art, Drama, Essential, Italy | ≅ Leave a Comment
Country: Italy
Genre: Drama/ Art
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Year: 1988
Rating:
TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
I can count on my fingers the number of films that make me sob uncontrollably — that’s a good thing, by the way. A great film can engender empathy to an extraordinary degree, and Cinema Paradiso fits the bill.
Toto (played by three of the most […]
