Friday, March 30, 2012

Catching up on what I've watched

I've fallen behind on review my netflix instant viewing so I am just going to give brief reviews on a bunch of films and not post any youtube trailers.
The Lost Son - England, 1999. Daniel Auteuil is a private detective that gets involved in a missing person's case that ends up in something much worse. Not much action but the plot moves fast and twists. Good cast.

Lilyhammer - Season 1 USA/Norway 2011. Little Steven takes his mafia character to Norway. I liked that there was a fair amount of subtitled dialog. 8 episodes was the right length. Anymore and it would become to familiar. Nice showcase for Norwegian rock bands.

Who Took The Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour USA, 2010. Nice tour documentary and live footage. Not much new information about the band if you've read any interviews. Go buy their records.

Salvage England, 2009. Effective low budget horror film about a mother trapped in her house while a SWAT team searches her housing estate for an escaped monster. Definitely worth checking out and only 73 minutes long.

My Kingdom China, 2011. Mainland film about Peking Opera and kung fu. Some good action choreography from Sammo Hung and it is always nice to see Yuen Biao on screen. The plot seems to condensed with characters that you would expect to have more time or fights left to the wayside.

1911 China, 1911. Jackie Chan's 100th movie. Most of the action in the film is gritty war battles/gunfights filmed in a "Saving Private Ryan" dirty, bloody sheen. The film covers a lot of important Chinese history but will probably be too confusing to most western viewers. For example, half the movie is devoted to Sun Yat Sen's role in founding the Chinese Republic but the Imperial government refers to him as Sun Wen. Jackie Chan co-directed the movie and it is nice to see him branch out.