Well, you can't go frightening off average viewers with "Chinee gurls 'n' furrin' dancin' 'n' a whole mess o' crazy eye-dears".

A good car(t) chase, though, would really have spiced things up... ;)

Or that all non-Asians think all Asians are one-and-the-same. Well, that's what Hollywood seems to think.

One thing that always bugs me is that all Asians are required by Hollywood Law to always have an accent, even if they speak perfect English.

And if there is an Asian actor who is half-Caucasian, they will be given the larger roles while "pure" Asians are relegated to thugs and lesser roles, a la the Chris Farley classic Beverly Hills Ninja.

But back to topic, I saw Hostel, and man, it was brutal. It wasn't the gore, it wasn't the atmosphere, it was the poor guy's screams as he sat strapped in the chair being tortured. Very convincing job, even made ol' TJ cringe a bit. I can easily stomach those surgery shows and I always know I'm watching a movie, so I can usually take this stuff (though the tongue cutting scene in Ichi the Killer was a bit hard to take).

Overall, not a bad production, though not really scary, not really original, and not really effective as a horror flick. They just try to gross you out instead of getting inside your head, which is where the best horror movies go. Definitely not for the squeamish or faint of heart, nor those who prefer their horror movies to be more cerebral and less visceral.

The Fast and the Furious - I love this movie. Maybe it's my age (probably) but I love fast cars. Writing isn't great, but at least it's a somewhat original story. Nothing beat's the first film.
PQ is excellent for this flick. It received top honors on many sites in DEC 2001.
Sound is incredible! I have the original DVD release with DTS, and that pounds. Crank it up and enjoy the sounds!

[QUOTE=Tom_Joad]One thing that always bugs me is that all Asians are required by Hollywood Law to always have an accent, even if they speak perfect English.
And if there is an Asian actor who is half-Caucasian, they will be given the larger roles while "pure" Asians are relegated to thugs and lesser roles, a la the Chris Farley classic Beverly Hills Ninja.

The same type of racial stereotyping was displayed in "Bomba, the Jungle Boy" and the early "Tarzan" series e.g. the "African Jungle Princess or Queen" was always portrayed by a very light-skined, pretty black girl with processed straight hair while her bodyguards were very much darker skinned men with huge Afro hairdo's and white warpaint. They also had the Afro-American men yelling "Un-gow-wah" and "Bula, Bula" and other demeaning fake phrases!
In WW11 movies, German soldiers when talking to one another, always spoke with a heavy accent that sounded more like the Katzenjammer Kids from the comic books than any German person that I know. Some enlightened directors now will often have two German officers speaking to one another in German then switch to perfect English minus any accent which I think this is a much better technique.IMHO

I just finished "Hostel" myself. I liked it (if you can say such a thing)
Maybe "like ' isn't the right word, and "enjoyed" certainly isn't.....but I thought, for what it tried to be, it was well done.

I agree with Tom Joad, the atmosphere was just plain creepy. The acting was much better than alot of films of this genre....and what scares me is how I'll bet this isn't that far from reality somewhere.

Brrrrrrrr....

Watched Sound of Thunder last night starring Edward Burns and Ben Kingsley. Its a time travel story where something is changed in the past which in turn changes the future. I recall reading the Ray Bradbury book many years ago and was totally enthralled. Can't say the same about this movie. While the acting talent was there, the script and direction sucked in my opinion. While it was ok, it could have been way, way better.

Brokeback Mountain - Two cowboys share a forbidden and unrequited love.

Aside from a couple of passionate moments between the two men and some beautiful scenery, my wife and I felt that the movie fell far short of both the hype and the accolaides it received.

The "gay cowboy" theme notwithstanding, the story was quite ordinary, the acting was decent but unexceptional (although Ledger did outshine Gyllenhaal) and, unfortunately, neither of the main characters was particularly sympathetic. (We kept waiting to really feel for these guys...but they never gave us any reason to.)

If it weren't for its controversial theme, I don't think this movie would ever have received any special attention. It's okay, but that's about it.

Jarhead - Another Gyllenhaal movie. Liked this one. Showed me just how scary the military really is. PQ was good, Audio was descent. Would have thought the few war scenes would have been louder, but it wasn't bad. I would suggest this movie most definately.

I was gonna pick up Jarhead but decided to wait for the HD DVD version (comes out in May). It will be the first HD movie that I don't already own on DVD.

Red Eye - Decent little flick that kept me interested throughout its entire length.

...which was about 70 minutes....

I was gonna pick up Jarhead but decided to wait for the HD DVD version (comes out in May). It will be the first HD movie that I don't already own on DVD. It should look great in HD. Especially the scenes with the oil wells burning in the Kuwaiti desert.

We watched 'Hostel' last night unaware of the graphic content.

It is quite disturbing.

Watching the 'making of' featurettes afterward was comforting to put the film in perspective. I rarely watch extras on a flick, but this one warranted it for my own piece of mind.

The Cave - Better than i thought it would be. Great sound effects are used to mimick the sounds inside the cave.

I'm new to surround sound with the recent purchase of a system and this movie was pretty cool in 5.1 sound.

Over all not bad.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, $7.99 at Costco. Nothing dramatic, just a light entertainment. Gwyneth Paltrow added nothing to it, however...

AEonflux: OK ??? wife liked it ,I was less then enthusiastic

A Sound of Thunder- Was a pleasent little suprise, enjoyed this
one, maybe because I was expecting a
More B Budget movie . and it turned out to be
not a bad little Sci fi flick.

The Fast and the Furious - I love this movie. Maybe it's my age (probably) but I love fast cars. Writing isn't great, but at least it's a somewhat original story. Nothing beat's the first film.
PQ is excellent for this flick. It received top honors on many sites in DEC 2001.
Sound is incredible! I have the original DVD release with DTS, and that pounds. Crank it up and enjoy the sounds!

This film came out while I was in college and I remember everyone raving about it...I picked it up last year as part of a 2-pack with Scarface. I wasn't expecting much from it and surprisingly it delivered even less! Bad acting, bad writing, completely predictable...other than the cars and the sound...brutal.

Cold Mountain - An odd and shockingly dull film - set during the American Civil war - in which a mish-mash of uninteresting stuff happens. Thank goodness for the FF button...

Hostel - I would rate this 3.5 out of 5 stars... includes cameos by Quentin Tarrentino which of course means lots of gory scenes (not the cartoony type this time).