The Latest News and Reviews:
The Wolfman (2010)
“Terrible things Lawrence, you’ve done terrible things” I am not typically a fan of remakes and new school takes to old school stories, but in cases like The Wolfman you have to keep an open-mind. You absolutely must see this if you are a horror/gore fan as Director Joe Johnston has given us a reason to fear the hairy monster once again. Benicio Del Toro is a perfect fit... [Read more]
Red Cliff (2008)
Director John Woo’s Red Cliff is a dramatically poetic movie based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms a historical novel written by Luo Guonzhang. If you aren’t familiar with the Three Kingdoms story – it chronicles the ambitions of three men, love and the wonderful Generals that followed their lead. The three men are Liu Bei, Sun Quan, and Cao Cao. While Liu Bei is often depicted... [Read more]
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 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... [Read more]
Southland – a fresh take on Police Drama
This isn’t The Shield, Law and Order or CSI, this is a dramatic take on the everyday lives of a handful of LAPD Cops and the atrocities they face in a gang nation. Southland offers nothing new in terms of police drama but that shouldn’t be a reason to avoid watching it as I found it to be a very well shot, well acted... [Read more]
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... [Read more]
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 –... [Read more]
