neogamer Reviews

Borat (2006)

Andy Kaufman for the new generation? A "how-to view" review

[9/10 · 4 February 2007]

"Borat" is a very challenging movie in many ways, you can tell by the amount of criticisms and lawsuits it received.

==What is the film?==

What the film is is pretty simple, it's a mix of mockumentary and candid camera. Borat goes around doing some outrageous things that may be new to him, or is normal in his fictitious Kazakh homeland. He does so even when there are no joke targets, thus making the joke on him as well as on the participants.

==Mixed reviews==

Now, you may wonder why so many people are applauding it, whilst a whole lot are opposing it. The explanation is simple, it's too new of a concept to grasp.

When "Da Ali G" show came out, I was puzzled. It wasn't "ha-ha" funny, but more like "is he for real?" At this point in time, the humor is too new for a newbie viewer. However, after a couple of viewings and understanding the logic, flow and humor behind it, you find it to be a pretty clever work. The puzzlement placed by the "ignorant" participants and the absurdity of the comments by Cohen is just great.

If you are used to the new humor, you will love it. If you have lived in a nutshell in Death Valley reading the same book over and over again for the last 30 odd years, you may have no idea why this film is funny. To those who are that, it is important to look at the new things in life, for humor does and needs to evolve.

==Andy==

People may find him in relations with Andy Kaufman, the dada-esquire comedian of the 70-80's. No one gets the joke, unless you are in on it. Thus Cohen/Borat has revived the strange humor from the dead, and has succeeded it brilliantly.

By the way, this film contains one of the best fight scenes ever, in which I would like to award Ken Davitian for "Best Supporting Actor" for not breaking out of his role.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

Wait for the unrated version

[7/10 · 23 November 2006]

TCM:B is not bad compared to conventional crappy horror. It shows the "beginning" and birth of our favorite horror star Leatherface, and his mad family. (read plot summary for details). So here's the wrap-up: The good: Better gore, better use of the chainsaw by Leatherface, nice cinematography, nice story which underlays the first one.

The bad: more or less the same story, nothing original out of the ordinary. Ermey stole most of the madness, with less leatherface on screen The ugly: plot holes/gaps, bad editing, shaky camera at the end Now, the trivia in the IMDb says there were even more gorier scenes that was cut. This was sad. 'cos basically, the golden rule of a sequel to any horror is that it should be scarier/gorier/bloodier than the first one. Though there were some nice gore scenes, it wasn't enough to surpass the first one.

Anyways, wait for the unrated DVD if you want to see the gore. Otherwise give it a pass.

Hoodwinked! (2005)

Better of the CGI films

[7/10 · 6 August 2006]

A blend of the good ol' favorites with modern themes for a humorous mix.

The story: Not bad. Giving an adult-orientated crime theme to our usual bedtime stories. Much like Shrek, but this one plays more with current pop culture making it more easier to understand for the x-gen onwards. The crime-investigating scene was pretty interesting. It's kind of a treat to crime genre lovers because we haven't seen a who-dunnit movie in a while.

The CGI: Kinda crappy, but who cares. But then, the characters were cuter compared and more lively compared to the ones in Ice Age and so on...

Voice Acting: Not bad, even though it's mostly live-action cast and not voice actors. Stangely, Anne Hathaway was almost perfect for the role of Red.

Overall: If Pixar works are genius (Toy Story, Nemo and so on) and Dreamworks are crap (Shrek), this would be in the better-half section.

Spiral (2000)

creepy, but thats it

[6/10 · 11 September 2003]

firstly i understand japanese, so the poor acting really put down the atmosphere, this would automatically deduct 2 out of 10

secondly, not much of a scary scene, out of 91min, perhaps only about 5min max, was placed on the terror/horror factor.

but there are some good factors. one of them would be the theme; a spiral. it isnt much talked of, so it was interesting

second, the weird use of CG (such as the screaming woman and the twirling eyes)

but thats about it, which doesnt contribute much to the story so i think im gonna go read the manga for comparison

Avalon (2001)

eXistenZ meets matrix, and in some ways better (SPOILER)

[10/10 · 28 March 2001]

Face it, the CG in this movie is good, sometimes surpassing the matrix. The story is like eXistenZ, especially towards the climax in the last area. Acting was good i guess, perhaps because i dont understand polish. The director portrayed the different worlds nicely.

I give 7 for the movie, 2 more for the excellent CG, 1 to the director. totalling10/10

Being John Malkovich (1999)

why didnt they give the best script to this movie?

[10/10 · 28 March 2001]

American Beauty was good, but didn't this movie have a better plot? more original than any other movie of that year? It's as twisted as Alice in Wonderland, but modern and more surreal.

Many give the credits of this film to Spike Jonze, i don't know why, i prefer to give it charlie kaufman for his plot, his originality just stood out

everybody in the movie was strong and powerful, in terms of acting. Loved the scene with the chimpanzee's flashback.

gave it 10/10

Hackers (1995)

so-so start off, lousy climax

[5/10 · 28 March 2001]

nice try on how the writers try to incooperate the hacking society into a movie, but the climax is dumb. it became a lame comedy or cheap sci-fi from there. I guess the writers dont really know how the real world works

Clerks (1994)

Excellent plot

[8/10 · 28 March 2001]

despite the actings of Randall and Veronica, this movie stood out fairly well. I love the smart dialogues that come out often, spawned a new genre i guess.

the downside (apart from the thesbians), was perhaps the not-perfected camera work, but thats a minor problem

8/10

RoboCop 3 (1993)

uhm... not quite as good as u would expect

[4/10 · 28 March 2001]

1 was good, good gore-violence blended into a sf movie. 2 was ok, not that great, but enjoyable. 3 was dumb, crap. the cheapness of the CG could be seen in many parts of the movie, and i thought the age it was made in was far more advanced than the other two.

Akira (1988)

Best Japanimation

[10/10 · 28 March 2001]

I've seen a couple of Japanimation movies, but I guess I like this the best. It has everything a good sci-fi wants. There are many gruesome scenes, but that's what reality during war/anarchy is like, a bunch of gore. No animation has reached the standards of this movie yet (perhaps except for Miyazaki's movie).