The Book of Eli

Pretty non-descript post-apocalyptic nonsense. I really don't see what's the big significance of the Bible here. As it is, it just becomes another book on the shelf in the ending.

Lots of contradictions. Water is already scarce, why then still got fuel to power bikes and cars? Given the main character is blind, how can he shoot arrows? And what is it with hand tremors after eating human flesh? There were, and still are, cannibalistic tribes on this Earth and I never heard of any of them getting the shakes. Is there really a "Ring My Bell" (Anita Ward) 78 record? And does it take 30 years to cross America on foot?

Slow moving as well. Best thing is the opening shot of a hairless cat being shot with an arrow.... If only the rest of the movie looked this good. Also, pretty fantastic soundtrack as well.

I thought the whole movie would be ultraviolent like the beginning but no....

Anyways, my gf said it would have been better to have watched "Just Another Pandora's Box", which is a nonsensical Hong Kong Chinese movie....

Watched these over the last week:-

Tales of the Black Freighter

The Watchmen spin-off. The comic within a comic bit. Disappointing, though. It doesn't have the Joe Orlando-ish art touches of the comic and is basically a verbatim retelling, much like the movie. It was effective only in that I only slept three hours when I watched it and the gory bits put me in despair. Otherwise, why bother, the comic version was good enough already. My copy didn't come with "Under the Hood" (the original Nite Owl's reminiscents of the 40s Minutemen era) but I'm non too plussed as it has the same actors as that crap movie.

Superman/Batman : Public Enemies

What a way to not do a graphic novel adaptation. Based on the Jeph Loeb/Ed McGuinness graphic novel, this one has Saturday morning-style animation and a really flimsy plot. Why would an ex-con (Lex Luthor) be elected president? Why would the rest of the Justice League just follow him blindly? The best bits are the camaraderie between the two titular characters and a royal rumble with just about every major villain in the DC Universe. Otherwise, a blardy waste of time.

Vanishing Point

Got this mostly because Death Proof infers it a lot. But it's a cracking movie. Quite similar in feel to Two Lane Blacktop, this one is about the post-hippie era malaise and one man's quest to drive to forget his past. As is the norm with 70s movies, there are boobs just for the heck of it. And I love the car chases. They have a more natural look and feel to them than most car chases these days. There seems to be an existential theme running throughout the movie but I'll be damned if I elaborate on that aspect.

Two Evil Eyes

Modern retellings of two Poe short stories, one by George A Romero and the other by Dario Argento. Both not really that good. They are:-

The Facts in the case of Mr. Valdemar

Basically a cautionary tale about greed. However, Romero makes it into another reanimation tale in the vein of his "Dead" movies, even though the zombie here is quite intelligent. I find however the fate of the two "protagonists" here to be really not a summation of their ill-doings. Do they really deserve their respective endings, when all they did was fraud and forgery? I think not. They didn't even murder Valdemar. Pretty boring. And just when you think Adrienne Barbeau is gonna show some tits, she doesn't. Arrrggggghhhhhhh!

The Black Cat

A "stylish" (?) re-boot of the classic story. Splicing some gory shots of crime scenes is all well and fine but Argento doesn't really capture the psychological creepiness of the original story. There is again some Argento delirium, present in the dream sequence but otherwise, there's nothing good about this episode. Why does he even bother? He's never gonna recapture the peaks of his "Suspiria" days and he should just leave well enough alone and go direct kid's movies like Fulci or something....