In 1979 a low-budget Australian film called Mad Max was released starring an almost unheard of actor named Mel Gibson. Made on a tiny budget, the film would go onto to become a box office success, leading to the option for follow-up films being taken. In 1981, it's sequel, the more modestly budgeted ($4m) Mad Max 2 (titled The Road Warrior in the USA) introduced the world to … [Read more...]
Review: Point Break (1991)
[pullquote cite="" type="left, right"][amazon text=Amazon&template=carousel&chan=that film guy&asin=B004MW57HS][/pullquote] To pigeon-hole Point Break would be to call it an undercover-surfing-crime-drama-action film, and while that sounds ridiculous, it is an accurate way to describe what on paper should be a ridiculous film. Director Kathryn Bigelow was given the … [Read more...]
How I Spent my Summer Vacation (2012) review by That Film Guy
Of all the megastars of the 1980s and 90s, none have seen a decline in popularity quite like Mel Gibson. A series of public relations disasters and a mixed bag of directorial and starring films, critically and commercially have seen the star of Lethal Weapon become something of a relic in modern cinema. It's rather apt then that his latest starring role, How I Spent my Summer … [Read more...]
American Pie: Reunion (2012) review by The Documentalist
After a 9 year hiatus and a string of terrible straight to DVD spin offs, the American Pie franchise returns with all of the original cast in American Pie: Reunion which, as the title suggests, revolves around the Class of '99 East Falls High School reunion. Opting to arrive a couple of days early, the main characters of Jim, Kevin, Oz and Finch reunite in their home town to … [Read more...]
Face/Off (1997) review by That Film Guy
Released around the same time as Con Air and The Rock, Face/Off completes a trilogy of action films in the late 1990s starring Nicolas Cage. Directed by famed Hong Kong action film connoisseur John Woo, it represents one final hurrah for the seemingly dying breed of action films that were so popular from the late 1980s. In coming years comic book films would surpass the modern … [Read more...]
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012) review by That Film Guy
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is the sequel to the 2008 film Journey to the Centre of the Earth. It retains lead teenage actor Josh Hutcherson but replaces his father Trevor played by Brendan Fraser with a step-father, Hank played by The Rock. Like the original it is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Jules Verne, but treats the novels as non-fiction. It was more … [Read more...]
Dreams of a Life (2011) review by That Art House Guy
In January 2006, the repo men arrived at Joyce Carol Vincent's bedsit in Wood Green, north London. She was heavily in arrears in her rent and they had come to collect. When there was no answer, they broke the door down, and inside, they found a skeleton lying on the sofa. Joyce had been dead for almost three years. The television was still on and there was a small pile of … [Read more...]
Predator (1987) review by That Film Guy
In the aftermath of Aliens, but before Die Hard came a film that combined the iconic alien killer with the tough as nails action hero to create a cult classic action film. The story of the Predator, it is claimed, began properly on a plane flight to Japan. Artist Stan Winston was working on the design of a creature created by script-writing brothers John and Jim Thomas and to … [Read more...]
Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) review by That Film Guy
When John MacClane (Bruce Willis) battled the legendarily villainous and perfectly coiffured Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) in the original Die Hard, it was a battle between two of the most charismatic characters in action film history. Two sequels later and have defeated Gruber and his sub-par follow-up Col. Stuart (William Sadler) in Die Hard 2, MacClane is taken back to his … [Read more...]
American Pie: The Wedding (2003) review by The Documentalist
With American Pie 2 scoring another big box office return, a third installment was somewhat inevitable and arrived after another two year gap in 2003. Also somewhat inevitably, American Pie: The Wedding continued the slide in quality between 1 and 2 and proved to be the end of the main franchise. Some ill advised spin offs starring none of the main cast followed this one but … [Read more...]