We're P. (him) and K. (her).
We may tell you a bit more about ourselves later on, but for now, let's get to the reviewin'. We're using the letter grade system, by consensus (of two) ("it's unanimous!" says she). These are the three most recent movies we've watched:
Beast of the Yellow Night
Grade: B/B-
Moody, atmospheric, surprisingly sharp little quasi-werewolf movie (though you wouldn't know it at first). Plot was a little bit hard to follow, but not as much as other reviewers have suggested -- this seems like a genuinely underrated little labor of love, with few exploitative/campy moments. The acting and dialogue are also better than others have claimed. The female protagonist looks like "some tennis player's ugly girlfriend" (says K.) -- tall, blond, thinnish, but kinda man-faced.
P. reluctantly admits that he didn't realize that the blind ex-bandit dude was, um, blind until late in the movie. Oops. He took inordinate pride in figuring out that it was set in the Philippines, though.
The Day The Sky Exploded
Grade: D
It's "Armageddon", circa 1958 and without Bruce Willis or, more importantly, Steve Buscemi. Talky, dull, stock footage all over the place. Romantic subplots that go nowhere, and weren't likely to make us care even if they had. It's not all bad -- its heart is in the right place, and the dubbing and camerawork are pretty good given the budget -- but the end result is mostly boring, with long stretches of sheer tedium. Too bad. Bonus points for being set in Australia and not being heavy-handed about it.
K. liked the closing sequence with sparkly missiles everywhere. P. half-heartedly wanted to give it a better grade, but then he remembered that he slept through the last fifteen minutes of the movie and had to rewind it to see the sparkly missiles.
Alien Species
Objective Grade: D-
Extra Credit for Entertainment/Camp Value: A-
Net result: C+
Now this, on the other hand -- this is a baaaaaad movie. At least The Day The Sky Exploded has some dignity about it; this, by contrast, is the very epitome of "straight-to-video piece of crap." A shameless ripoff of Independence Day, without the Goldblum to make it all worthwhile (well, tolerable at least). Bad acting (with a couple exceptions), lousy dialogue, very good makeup and set design, horrendous CGI.
The good news, however, is that it has camp value galore. To pick but a few:
- the imminent arrival of the flying saucers, depicted as something like a out-of-focus black blob moving across an astronomy screen saver;
- the cow getting beamed up, followed by
- the scene with the chick who gets beamed up, in which the director apparently couldn't decide between "make her dematerialize" and "drag her out of the window", so he hedged his bets and did both;
- the prisoner with the heart of gold who, as one reviewer aptly said, looks like at least two of the Red Hot Chili Peppers...
- ...and offers up lines like "Time for an attitude adjustment!" and "Why do I get the feeling we're not in Kansas anymore?" -- the latter being particularly egregious as, though it sounds plausible at first, once you think for a moment it makes no freakin' sense whatsoever;
- the nerdy character, named (we kid you not) Max Poindexter, with the Speak 'n Spell laptop that magically talks to alien hardware.
