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Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973)
Sinbad battles the creatures of legend in the miracle of Dynarama
Filmmaker(s): Gordon Hessler

Sinbad and his crew intercept a homunculus carrying a golden tablet. Koura, the creator of the homunculus and practitioner of evil magic, wants the tablet back and pursues Sinbad. Meanwhile Sinbad meets the Vizier who has another part of the interlocking golden map, and they mount a quest across the seas to solve the riddle of the map.

Arabiana Jones Boy, I’ll tell you that when this was new, it was great. This was before Lucas and Spielberg made it impossible to have a straight ahead adventure film with no winks at the audience. This was when special effects were more believable because...
Published November 20, 2022
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Funky Forest: The First Contact (2005)

An outrageous collection of surreal, short attention span non-sequiturs largely revolving around Guitar Brother, his randy older sibling, and the pair's portly Caucasian brother.

Visits With a project like this, it is as likely that it is a random goof as something with some structure. It could be both. As this was sent to me by a fellow viewer, and because I am so inclined, I tend to see...
Published November 20, 2022
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Fantastic Four (2005)
4 times the action. 4 times the adventure. 4 times the fantastic.
Filmmaker(s): Tim Story

During a space voyage, four scientists are altered by cosmic rays: Reed Richards gains the ability to stretch his body; Sue Storm can become invisible; Johnny Storm controls fire; and Ben Grimm is turned into a super-strong … thing. Together, these "Fantastic Four" must now thwart the evil plans of Dr. Doom and save the world from certain destruction.

Two and a half We are seeing a new genre be invented and the process is quite thrilling. No one really knows what the genre will actually be, what it will look like and what few things will characterise it. So dozens of teams take...
Published November 12, 2022
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The Great Wall (2016)
1700 years to build. 5500 miles long. What were they trying to keep out?
Filmmaker(s): Zhang Yimou

European mercenaries searching for black powder become embroiled in the defense of the Great Wall of China against a horde of monstrous creatures.

Jump! I am an admirer of this filmmaker, and he does better when he gets closer to a single soul or small collection of them. But for large projects he seems to be able to understand how to group extras and their CG equivalent for...
Published November 6, 2022
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The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
The battle for eternity is the fantasy of a lifetime.
Filmmaker(s): Rob Minkoff

An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself travelling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.

The Dance As a film considered the ordinary way, this is ordinary. It has a common framing device that folds the narrative: a wimpy kid rents lots of Kung Fu movies. Then he enters those movies which here are conflated with dreams. Pretty ordinary by...
Published October 23, 2022
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The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)
The man who tried to cheat the devil.
Filmmaker(s): Terry Gilliam

A travelling theatre company has more to it than meets the eye. It is an imaginary world commanded by the mind of Doctor Parnassus and the audience is in for more than just a show.

Imagination Imagine the standard paragraph here, the one others are writing about Gilliam’s grand ambition but lack of execution. The man made a very bad career decision, to try to map his very particular and limited imagination into film. He has two notions only. One...
Published May 20, 2022
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I-Be Area (2007)
Filmmaker(s): Ryan Trecartin

Dazzling and raucous, Ryan Trecartin's first feature-length video takes cues from chat rooms, social networking web sites, YouTube, John Waters, and Pee-wee’s Playhouse, and then turns them upside down and inside out to create an entirely singular video genre. In I-BE AREA, Trecartin intertwines the stories of an incredible ensemble cast to follow a day in the life of I-BE II, the rebellious clone of I-BE.

Gen R You should know that I have a great deal of patience for extreme films. I watched “The Falls” twice in one day. I dug through Matthew Barney, and patiently dug out some gems. I see merit in the early Jarman stuff. Korrine interests...
Published May 17, 2022
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I Married a Witch (1942)
No man can resist her!
Filmmaker(s): René Clair

Rocksford, New England, 1672. Puritan witch hunter Jonathan Wooley is cursed after burning a witch at the stake: his descendants will never find happiness in their marriages. At present, politician Wallace Wooley, who is running for state governor, is about to marry his sponsor's daughter.

Sullivan’s Possession Lake was a rising star when this was made, and it is clear that the story was engineered to highlight the charm of whoever starred. The previous year she did well in “Sullivan’s Travels”, something of a touchstone in film history. It was...
Published May 16, 2022
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Jabberwocky (1977)
Jabberwocky: the monster so horrible that people caught the plague to avoid it
Filmmaker(s): Terry Gilliam

A medieval tale with Pythonesque humour: After the death of his father the young Dennis Cooper goes to town where he has to pass several adventures. The town and the whole kingdom is threatened by a terrible monster called 'Jabberwocky'. Will Dennis make his fortune? Is anyone brave enough to defeat the monster?

Bonecrushing Display of Phosphorescence Rest assured that there is little relationship between this film and Carroll’s poem about his father’s crusade against French etymology. Instead, we have the first chapter in Gilliam’s quest for an appropriate vehicle for his imagination. That imagination isn’t comic in...
Published May 13, 2022
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Monster Hunter (2020)
Behind our world, there is another.
Filmmaker(s): Paul W. S. Anderson

A portal transports Cpt. Artemis and an elite unit of soldiers to a strange world where powerful monsters rule with deadly ferocity. Faced with relentless danger, the team encounters a mysterious hunter who may be their only hope to find a way home.

Lovers Back when I was doing this full time, I maintained a database of films where the filmmaker and actor (usually an actress) were lovers. It often imparts a situated intimacy, because you nearly literally see a soul through a lover’s eyes. Is there anything...
Published May 13, 2022
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