Epinions Recent Reviews for Cassady

Middling Disney-Touchstone romantic castaway frolic.

Thu, 21 Nov 2002 17:46:54 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - Director Ivan Reitman, a veteran crowd-pleaser, steers this rusty vessel on a competent course through some lighthearted reruns of other movies (especially "The African Queen"). Maybe it will take a "Gilligan's Island - The Motion Picture" to...

"Sometimes I wish you were deaf. Then you'd be totally in my

Fri, 15 Nov 2002 18:44:36 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - One of the lesser-known 1997 nominees for a Best Foreign-Language Feature Oscar, Germany's "Beyond Silence" ("Jenseits der Stille") didn't receive the Oscar (and can't match the Netherlands' winner "Karacter" in terms of narrative drive or visual...

Did the Shaolin Temple ever have a normal day?

Wed, 13 Nov 2002 10:54:30 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - I watched this "digitally remastered" Jackie Chan action-comedy on tape, although picture quality and atrocious dubbing were just as lovably bad as ever. The flick starts off as a standard kung-fu thing; downtrodden Shaolin Temple disciple Jackie (whose...

September 11, the Movie - well in advance

Tue, 12 Nov 2002 10:29:46 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - The opening is out of a Tom Clancy technothriller, with the

skillful desert `extraction' of an Iraqi religious leader whose followers are responsible for horrendous terrorist acts. Cut to New York City, where an indeterminate number of the hostage...

After-School Special From Hell: "I was a Teenage Nazi"

Tue, 5 Nov 2002 11:47:50 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - From the opening of "American History X," with the bleak surf pounding Venice Beach and a wailing chorus on the soundtrack, one must expect Hollywood's notion of a drama of Great Seriousness, wherein a character will drop to his or her knees in artful...

"Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has just entered the soundstage"

Tue, 5 Nov 2002 11:37:59 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - By the time 21-year-old Elvis Presley made his movie debut in this sentimental western he'd had seven gold records and was a bona fide sensation; still, I got the feeling that filmmakers weren't sure whether he could carry the picture, so the King of...

Hyde and go seek.

Tue, 22 Oct 2002 09:02:23 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange

Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" holds a record as the

single most frequently-dramatized work of fiction. In

addition to the lavish London-Broadway stage musical

version there were hundreds of...

Voici le mindless action-adventure

Fri, 18 Oct 2002 12:53:00 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - In recent years there has been a financial depression in the French film industry that points to one inescapable conclusion - that not even the French enjoy French cinema anymore. At least not those mopey dramas that have come to be associated with...

"I'm hysterical! And I'm wet!"

Fri, 4 Oct 2002 14:32:09 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - This is the 1967 comedy hit creator Mel Brooks so profitably revived and re-imagined as a stage musical extravaganza that blitzkrieged the Tonys. Ironically, it's about a shady showbiz Broadway impresario (Zero Mostel) who browbeats milquetoast acountant...

It didn't en-Chan-t me

Wed, 2 Oct 2002 18:45:28 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - Any technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic. And the martial-arts slapstick antics of Jackie Chan, at his peak in, for example, "Drunken Master II" ("The Legend of Drunken Master") or "Rumble in the Bronx" are indistinguishable...

Presley and Potter - no Hawkeye or Radar

Fri, 27 Sep 2002 13:22:59 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - I had heard that all Elvis Presley's movies were lookalike,

cookie-cutter affairs, "Fun in Acapulco" being no different than "Blue Hawaii" or "Clambake" and so on. But the King would stretch every once in a while, and here's Elvis in a slightly...

The first appearance of "Coffin Joe"

Thu, 26 Sep 2002 18:06:51 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - "Night of the Living Dead." "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." "At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul." Three horror films that raised the bar for plunging the viewer into nightmares of violence and terror, but even die-hard Fangoria readers may not have heard...

Colorless Lee, Pale Green

Thu, 19 Sep 2002 18:12:58 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - MTV comic Tom Green's directorial debut in 2001's "Freddy Got Fingered" was such a critical and commercial bomb that it should rightly be on a UN inspection list: Weapons of Mind Destruction. Whole careers have been annihilated by less, but here is...

Elvis Presley's "Star Wars" connection revealed!

Mon, 26 Aug 2002 19:23:55 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - This legendary TV special supposedly marked Elvis Presley's first appearance in front of a live audience several years; hence it's considered his "comeback," even though the King of Rock and Roll was never exactly away - he was just off cranking out...

Daughters of the beach

Mon, 19 Aug 2002 16:47:32 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - The surfing drama (not, perhaps, an oxymoron, but certainly a dubious linkage of words) "Blue Crush" arrives with something of an illustrious pedigree, being based on a nonfiction article by "Orchid Thief" author Susan Orlean, "Surf Girls of Maui." One...

Just a low-orbiting trifle.

Mon, 19 Aug 2002 16:42:24 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, as author Robert Heinlen titled his classic sci-fi novel. Indeed, a lunar setting certainly does Eddie Murphy few favors in the lackluster "Adventures of Pluto Nash," whose premise that must have sounded great on the drawing...

Not a pretty picture

Sat, 17 Aug 2002 12:29:02 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - This mean-spirited satire depicts small-town America as a bunch of stupid, gun-toting, stupid, churchgoing, stupid,

beer-guzzling, stupid yahoos. Hey, it could be worse, you

Hollywood heroin addicts. We midwesterns, at least, don't make all...

Jackie Chan defeated his worst foe - movie vehicles like this

Fri, 9 Aug 2002 03:17:06 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - This was one of the American movie industry's early, faltering attempts to introduce Hong Kong superstar Jackie Chan to American audiences - it's actually a Hong Kong production, but in English, with an American director (James Glickenhaus) who simply...

Piggy in the middle

Thu, 1 Aug 2002 18:42:47 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - Kermit and Fozzie Bear are twin brothers (they look nothing

alike) who are newspaper cub (and frog) reporters. Their jobs on the line, the duo fly to London seeking to interview celebrity fashion designer Lady Holiday (Diana Rigg), victim of a...

There Are Giants in the Sea: Monsters & Mysteries of the Depths Explored: A great beach read - even if it keeps you from the water.

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 10:25:27 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - I've always been intrigued by yarns of sea monsters, unknown lake animals and weird tales of the deep, and I fell for BBC-producer Bright's book hook, line and sinker. Much of it recapitulates famous sea serpent sightings, with generous reproductions of...

Elvis Presley does Miami Nice

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 10:20:06 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - I guess it was just my destiny one day to find out why on Earth an Elvis Presley movie would be entitled "Clambake." Surprise, surprise, it's not half bad - r what it is. What it is, basically, is Elvis, who delivers on the charm, magnetism and the...

International Austin-Mini of Mystery

Fri, 21 Jun 2002 10:58:34 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - You get the feeling that any international-airport-construction blueprints automatically include a book rack featuring paperbacks of Robert Ludlum's 1980 novel "The Bourne Identity" (and its two sequels), as ideal reading for those long, transcontinental...

Jet-powered period kung-fu, of proud heritage

Fri, 21 Jun 2002 10:50:57 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - This is a big-budget remake of the Bruce Lee classic "Chinese Connection" (also known as "Fist of Fury"), with Jet Li stepping in to fill Bruce's formidable shoes as the hero Chen Zhen. The first movie cruised on an interesting vibe of the arrogant
...

Mediocre seriocomic spy-jinks

Mon, 17 Jun 2002 11:33:53 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - Here's a bad sign about _Bad Company_; half the ads for

the new Joel Schumacher potboiler marketed the flick as a

straight-ahead thriller, the other half a jivey odd-couple-cop comedy. In fact, the feature's about an even mix, both parts...

Without a Trace: Flotsam and jetsam

Sat, 1 Jun 2002 11:38:19 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author Cassady - This was author Charles Berlitz' quick followup to "The Bermuda Triangle," a smash bestseller in 1974 that told people that mysterious, possibly otherworldly forces were snatching up ships and planes in the Atlantic, off the Florida coast, with no...