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Reviews
Strange Empire (2014)
Freakin' love it!
Perhaps the color palette is a little too desaturated and perhaps the dialog is a bit over the top, but I thoroughly enjoyed this show. The three female leads are fascinating and beautiful, and the actor playing the main villain does a great job as well. Cara Gee looks inspiring and formidable in that outfit! For sure, this show lacks any varnish and gloss, but that is part of its charm. The whole story takes a lot of unexpected turns. Sometimes it almost felt like no one was keeping track of story threads because characters like Caze and Mrs. Biggs would go from bitter and hateful to sympathetic and helpful depending on the episode. But this ambiguity felt both real and somewhat novel for TV. Mrs. Blithely asks at one point, would all these people be doing these horrible things if not for this place they find themselves in? I also liked it when Mrs. Blithely mused about how she and Mrs. Loving and John Slotter were all cut from the same cloth. They are, all three, scary people in their own ways. (Don't tell Mrs. Blithely that your heart belongs to her, as she will literally keep it in a jar on the shelf.) Really like the title sequence as well.
The Ambushers (1967)
Fun and not as bad as its reputation
I watched this Matt Helm movie after watching the other three because of its reputation for being subpar. While it is definitely the most campy of the four and starts off a little slow, it's a lot of fun. The Ambushers is the most sci-fi of the four and features an "electro-magnetic" UFO and some very forward-thinking exo-suits.
Dean Martin looks comfortable in the role (in The Silencers he looked like he didn't want to be there) and he actually shows up for location shoots in this one. He also has some interesting lines. (Girl: "Suspenders AND a belt?" Helm: "I have trouble keeping my pants up.") I love the gadgets (the fez-garrote, the belt-sword) and the humor. The firing squad scene has to be seen to be believed.
Janice Rule sparkles on the screen. Her character is so self-assured and beautiful-a great partner for Helm. The score is lush and fitting and the girls' outfits are to die for. Also, the film transfer, like the other Helm movies, is decent.
As a footnote, it has been said that the UFO and the columnar "control panel" seen in launch control are recycled from Star Trek (Lazarus' ship in The Alternative Factor, and the Romulan warbird bridge controls from The Balance of Terror). Simply comparing photos of each is enough to disprove this. Perhaps the interior frame of the UFO and part of the dome were re-used, but otherwise they are quite different in size and construction.
Doctor Who: Eve of the Daleks (2022)
So disappointing
I thought I would give "Eve of the Daleks" a try since I love time loop stories. I was very disappointed. How cartoonish Doctor Who has become! Why can't the Daleks hit anything with their weapons? Why did it take so long for the one Dalek to blast through a thin metal door? Why did that weird customer have a whole storage unit full of expired bean cans? No, seriously, why? Every encounter with the Daleks featured the same joke: "I'd like to complain about the customer service here..." "DALEKS DO NOT HAVE CUSTOMER SERVICE!" 'Kay, we get it. The doctor's big speech was just nonsense words strung together followed by "Now, you big beautiful Humans, let's do this!!" The script writer couldn't even write one inspirational speech? This feeble script made the old classic Doctor Who's look like Shakespeare. I will say, the lighting was pretty okay.
7 gwanggu (2011)
So, so clichéd.
I bought this for a dollar at a flea market because Ha Ji-won was amazing in the K-Drama "Secret Garden." The checkout lady was like, "Sector 7, that's a great film." I wonder what film she was actually thinking of? 95% of this movie is green-screen plus painful CGI. And the script is SO, SO full of clichés. Like, how many times are they going to play the "Monster is dead-nope, still alive!" card? I would avoid this film like the plague just based on the clichés alone! Ha Jiwon does more girl action hero shtick than actual acting, and the other characters are just there to be killed by the monster. And you can't convince me that oil rigs have a self-destruct!!!!! In the trailer, they even stole MU-TH-R's countdown voice from the movie Alien. How sad is that?
Sabishinbô (1985)
Some fun, and a lot of melancholy.
This film is a meditation on the memory of unrequited love that everyone carries around with them. Teen-aged Hiroki has a crush on a girl at his school, but is content to watch her from afar. At home, his mother nags him to study and practice piano, while is father, a monk, bangs on a drum all day. A mysterious and perhaps ghostly girl then appears in his life, who is equal parts silly and amorous.
There are some funny scenes, but mostly the film dwells on Hiroki's confusion as a teenager, that awkward stage of life when a person comes to terms with who they are and who their parents are. Curiously, everything is filmed through a very amber-colored filter. Bittersweet.
Joogoonui Taeyang (2013)
Worth watching..
Really great Korean drama, with excellent story and script by the irreplaceable Hong sisters. Everything here is good: production, actors, writing, music. Great mix of comedy, light horror, and romance. Most Korean dramas follow a very specific formula, as anyone who has watched them knows, but the Hong sisters are very good at injecting just enough novelty into their dramas that the show becomes engaging both because of the familiar drama tropes, but also because of the story's willingness to diverge from the norm. My wife has seen the whole series twice and wants to see it again! If you don't have tears streaming from your face by the end of the first episode, your emotion chip must be malfunctioning. Also, If you like this drama, you will probably like The Greatest Love, also written by the Hong sisters.