From Paris with Love
A beautiful movie in terms of cinematography, the shots shown in between the explosions and gunfire are absolutely gorgeous but sadly the rest of this movie falls short of setting the bar on anything. If there was a cookie cutter method to creating action movie, From Paris With Love is the result of it. All it seems to take is a shallow story, a super-human badass , a semi-normal sidekick in tow and a few hot chicks to deliver the sex. Mix in a host of bad guys with horrible aim and make sure lots of things blow up to ...
Edge of Darkness
I've come to the conclusion that Mel Gibson and violence are never without each other in movies. Now typically when you see the word action as part of a movie genre, you assume that there will be a bit of blood, people getting shot and a lot of fighting. Having followed Mel through his years as Mad Max to his direction of The Passion and We Were Soldiers, I have learnt to expect a harsher level of violence when dealing with this man. Edge of Darkness is no exception to this as the gunshot wounds and bodily fluids are of ...
The Book of Eli
When you go in to see The Book of Eli you probably will do so with an empty slate, unless you have dug up the plot and secrets from an online source or big mouthed friend. The trailers don’t give us much, we just know there is a book and Denzel Washington cutting down bad guys on a barren landscape. The draw for this movie as opposed to my article on A-list actors not filling seats, is of course mister Washington again. A man’s man in 100% of the roles he plays, Denzel is an actor who despite his stringent ...
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Partially a farewell on film to Heath Ledger and partially a satire on the modern age and the phasing out of imagination. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus will no doubt confuse many audience members as it requires one to read between the lines to pull forth a moral to the story. Director Terry Gilliam brilliantly contrasts the old world traveling show of Dr. Parnassus and company with a world of cellular phones, video games and automobiles. Now granted I write this review after a single viewing when a movie like this will take multiple doses in order to digest the ...
The Lovely Bones
A girl dies by the hands of a serial killer who lives next door to her house. We are shown the aftermath of this tragedy through the ghostly eyes of that little girl herself as she observes life moving on without her in it. Fans of the book by Alice Sebold will absolutely hate this movie and demand the firstborn of Peter Jackson for sacrifice. Going into The Lovely Bones I had no idea what to expect and as I squirmed in my seat wishing it would end already with 30 minutes left, I felt the same way I did when ...
Daybreakers
It always feels good to see writers shoot for a different twist to the over-saturated vampire genre. 2009 while being a positive year for movies in general, was also a bad year for monster movies as the popularity of the Twilight series spawned a ton of badly written scripts in the form of would-be vampire flicks. As a fan myself of the classic novels and the movies that followed – Nosferatu, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Vampire Chronicles, I was more than a little annoyed by the Twilight clones. When I saw the trailer to Daybreakers there was something that ...
The Latest News and Reviews:
From Paris with Love
A beautiful movie in terms of cinematography, the shots shown in between the explosions and gunfire are absolutely gorgeous but sadly the rest of this movie falls short of setting the bar on anything. If there was a cookie cutter method to creating action movie, From Paris With Love is the result of it. All it seems to take is a shallow story, a super-human badass , a semi-normal sidekick... [Read more]
Edge of Darkness
I’ve come to the conclusion that Mel Gibson and violence are never without each other in movies. Now typically when you see the word action as part of a movie genre, you assume that there will be a bit of blood, people getting shot and a lot of fighting. Having followed Mel through his years as Mad Max to his direction of The Passion and We Were Soldiers, I have learnt to expect a harsher... [Read more]
The Lovely Bones
A girl dies by the hands of a serial killer who lives next door to her house. We are shown the aftermath of this tragedy through the ghostly eyes of that little girl herself as she observes life moving on without her in it. Fans of the book by Alice Sebold will absolutely hate this movie and demand the firstborn of Peter Jackson for sacrifice. Going into The Lovely Bones I had no idea what... [Read more]
Thunderball (1965)
Since Goldfinger was a figurative home-run in the James Bond series, it was expected that Thunderball would carry the mantle and surpass it through a bigger budget and even bigger plot. The problem however is that the largely water-based story ended up a bit less interesting than Mr. Goldfinger and his memorable quotes. S.P.E.C.T.R.E. comes back in full force for Thunderball, demanding over... [Read more]
From Russia With Love (1963)
Tatiana: “Oh James will you make love to me all the time in England?” James Bond: “Day and Night”. I absolutely love James Bond in this mission, not only is he having a good time but we see him in a different light than the one-dimensional spy version that follows this movie. We see James as a man of honor to his dear friend Ali Kerim Berey (Pedro Armendariz), allowing him to take... [Read more]
News: How does Spicy Movie Dogs rate movies?
In the James Bond 007 area you can see why a certain movie ranks a certain score based on the Bond-O-Meter. For blockbuster releases and older favorites I have neglected for far too long to point out how I judge a movie and why certain movies may score a lot differently than other movie fanatics across the internet. When I first sought out to do this I would judge movies based on gut feeling,... [Read more]
The Spiciest Movies:
Black Dynamite
“But Black Dynamite I sell drugs in the community!” Dynamite! Dynamite! Before I get into this review of possibly the greatest spoof to cross the silver screen in the last decade or two, I feel that I should explain blaxploitation. After watching Black Dynamite and hurting myself beyond hope with laughter, I thought about why it is that I found the movie hilarious and why younger,... [Read more]
District 9
District 9 is sci-fi perfection. There is a satirical human parallel to it (for those of you who are really itching to find one), there is nothing forced with it’s direction and there is no clear-cut good or evil. What we are shown is a documentary about one Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) and his work, going from being promoted to being the central focus of a huge episode in human... [Read more]
The Hurt Locker
Beyond war movie and beyond another critically acclaimed movie, The Hurt Locker is the living definition of thriller. Rare is it that I find a movie that has me breathing unevenly whilst gripping my seat wondering what could happen next. The direction is simple but brilliant in it’s own right, the acting is compelling and the reality of the so-called “War on Terror” is very... [Read more]
