Epinions Recent Reviews for peterbryan

Battle Royale: Battle Royale: Brutal Rites of Passage

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 23:05:21 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - “Life is a game. So fight for survival and see if you're worth it.” -Teacher Kitano “Battle Royale” is like an angry coming-of-age film, where everything else can be swallowed as a metaphor. But a John Hughes film this ain’t. It is...

V Stands For Victory: Viva la Revolution!

Tue, 29 Apr 2003 19:05:09 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - An explosion rips through the jungle as two insane journalists record the entire fiasco. The location is El Salvador and hard-bitten rebels are hurt, beaten---tired, but not dead. A government attack chopper strafes the rebel encampment, inflicting...

And Then There Were None...At A Motel

Sat, 26 Apr 2003 23:54:01 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - Perhaps it is "The Usual Suspects" that withholds the most information from the audience. It is a movie that spreads mythos, lies and deception as if it were common knowledge. We don't feel cheated when the movie drops the ball on us (and what a package...

Life According to Amelie

Sat, 30 Nov 2002 19:06:51 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - I've seen my fair share of films that try to get a rise out of me. But then there’s the oft chance of an influx in the movie biz that produces that special kind of film that makes you want to hug everything in sight. Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s pleasant...

From Hell: The Ripper, The Inspector, The Prostitute

Fri, 8 Nov 2002 21:00:49 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - The Hughes Brothers’ “From Hell” is a sickly exercise in grim bodywork, where during the inevitable crime scenes you’d swear you could smell a faint scent of dried blood. Its overwhelming morbidity is so distasteful that I found myself...

The Vanishing And The Man Who Would Not Forget

Wed, 23 Oct 2002 19:17:58 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - Perhaps the bigger mystery behind George Sluizer’s “Spoorloos” (or “The Vanishing” in its North American release) is that the plot is essentially about the mystery all along. There is no protagonist or even an antagonist, only...

Nattevagten: The Danish Box Office Hit Of 1994

Fri, 4 Oct 2002 23:33:15 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - Ole Bornedal’s 1994 Danish feature “Nattevagten” and George Sluizer’s “The Vanishing” are masterpiece specimens of a usually good filmmaker’s ironic vision. They were both remade into American versions, which were well...

The Only Good Stephen King 'Horror' Adaptation? Friday the 13th Write-off

Fri, 13 Sep 2002 21:01:00 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - There is a moment in David Cronenberg’s “The Dead Zone” (1983) that confirms why this is one of the only Stephen King adaptations that’s reasonably good. As a supposed psychic is putting his abilities to good use at a fresh crime scene, a sheriff hands...

MAFIA: Rated 'M' for Matured Violence

Sun, 1 Sep 2002 21:54:23 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - *this is the same review I used in PCGR.com, so there is no plagiarism btw.

For a game that started production before Rockstar’s now-classic criminal romp Grand Theft Auto III, Mafia has been widely addressed as a shadow hoping to cash...

Pray For Rosemary's Baby: A Symphony of Psychological Horror

Sat, 10 Aug 2002 22:52:40 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - "All of them. All of them. All in it together."

Says Rosemary Woodhouse, eyes sunken, cheekbones clear and visible. She mutters it to herself alone in a telephone booth, shut out from the rest of the city. Her tone of voice has that...

Dreadful Things to Come: "Signs"---The Epitome Of Venturing Into Movies. Until The Last Ten Minutes

Fri, 2 Aug 2002 23:52:03 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan -

“Signs” is a gem of pure filmmaking. M. Night Shyamalan, the writer and director, is a talented follower in the footsteps of Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis---two filmmakers seemingly inspired at one point in their childhood to read the...

John Woo Style, Part II: God of Guns And a High Body Count

Tue, 30 Jul 2002 23:34:46 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - If “The Killer” was an ode to the violence of Sam Peckinpah, the drama of Martin Scorsese, and the noir of Jean-Pierre Melville, then “Hard Boiled” is dedicated to the straightforward impulse of Don Siegel and cranks Woo’s technical mastery up a notch...

John Woo Style: Fast and Furious Gunplay, Not to Mention Some Akimbo

Thu, 25 Jul 2002 20:03:14 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - It’s no surprise that John Woo hates violence. His films teeter into bullets and bloodshed the way Sam Peckinpah operates his slaughters in “The Wild Bunch.” The action sequences unfold so much more above a certain ‘cool factor,’ and become a sort of...

A Finely Paved Road of Golden Entertainment: See It.

Sun, 14 Jul 2002 21:14:12 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - Is Michael Sullivan really a bad guy? Topped in a shadowy fedora, draped in an ominous gray overcoat and brandishing a Tommy-gun locked away in a beaten old suitcase, he’s almost the quintessential Grim Reaper touring the Great Depression. When his boss...

Memoirs of a Rushmore Hater

Fri, 12 Jul 2002 22:36:21 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - For all the good feedback Wes Anderson’s second film received, I just couldn’t bring myself to enjoy “Rushmore.” I thought there was something wrong with me. The movie was a stylistic gem in all respects, filled with kinetic scenes going to the flow of...

Happiness Where Are You?

Wed, 10 Jul 2002 04:47:54 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - There are two very different types of happiness people can have. No wait, I take that back. There are three different kinds of happiness. Number one is happiness in the truest sense of the word, the emotional sort, I mean. We know when we’re really truly...

Volume One: Lonely Peoples

Mon, 8 Jul 2002 21:44:18 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - **NO SPOILERS GIVEN**

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1. Night of the Meek

2. The Invaders

3. Nothing in the Dark

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...

The Forensic's Guide to the Parson's Tale

Wed, 3 Jul 2002 02:04:40 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - On a rain drenched night, a cab driver asks, “Where are you headed?” Shaking his head in disgust, a confused detective mumbles: “Far away from here.” The character portrayed by Morgan Freeman in “Se7en” is a shadowy polarity to most other movie crime...

Lilo & Stitch: Disney Being Cute and Unconventional at the Same Time

Wed, 26 Jun 2002 15:54:40 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - “Lilo and Stitch” is the perfect antonym to the tension between their blooming animation rival Dreamworks SKG. It has no usual Disney stereotypes, no song and dance numbers, and no picture-perfect setting either. Instead we’re shown multi-cultured...

MINORITY REPORT: Halfway Masterpiece

Fri, 21 Jun 2002 22:47:33 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - *My number three most anticipated movie of 2002*

Few movies give me the torque to find time to describe in detail one of its moments:

The scene is a back alleyway and Detective John Anderton finds himself at a dead end...

Early King

Fri, 21 Jun 2002 00:15:34 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - ***1/2

Introduction

Reading an essay by Stephen King not a long while ago, he describes human tragedy almost like a classic pie in the face. Along with its naturally cruel tendencies, the human mind is a puzzle box of joy...

I Am Jack's Useless Title

Mon, 17 Jun 2002 00:00:58 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - ‘Was I asleep?’

-The Narrator

As a film enthusiast, quoting movies has its ways. You could say it is a built-in habit. Movie dialogue are sometimes above themselves, sometimes echoing like wise proverbs coming out of the...

Better Than Episode One? Yes. Second Best to Episode Five? ...Nah.

Sun, 19 May 2002 00:02:19 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - ****

I was part of the crowd thoroughly disappointed with “Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace.” Sure, it had the sharp visual touches to please the eyes, but there was a certain banality to it that lingered in every bluescreen...

On the Origin of the Species: The Near Masterpiece Of An Ape Planet (1968)

Mon, 13 May 2002 22:35:37 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - ****

There was a voyage that departed some time ago in late 1831. Charles Darwin accepted an invitation to come along as an unpaid naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle, whereupon he toured the Galapagos Islands as a part of the five-year scientific...

Cookie-Cutter Imitations

Sat, 4 May 2002 11:10:54 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author peterbryan - **1/2

I remember S.E. Hinton’s novel about troubled youth some time ago. It was called “The Outsiders” and dealt with normal youngsters who happened to be on the wrong side of the tracks. Reading it in my seventh grade year of junior high...