Manhattan Baby

aka Eye of the Evil Dead

On a trip to Egypt with her archaeologist father, a young girl is given an amulet by a strange woman. At the same time, while exploring a mysterious tomb, her father is blinded by some mystical lights. After returning home to New York, the young girl and her brother begin acting odd and people close to the family start to disappear. Lucio Fulci's Manhattan Baby isn't a particularly straightforward movie. The tone is all over the map and it's difficult to follow at times. It's also a little boring. The music is occasionally loud and discordant but will lapse into jazzy saxophone noodling from time to time to remind the audience that the movie is taking place in New York. There's very little blood and gore in the movie, except for a sequence where a man is attacked by some stuffed birds. Yes, you read that correctly, stuffed birds. It's actually kinda cool.

Rating: 52%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Killer

Ah Jong, an assassin, accidentally blinds an innocent woman during a hit. Wracked with guilt, Ah Jong inserts himself into the woman's life, hoping to help her get the expensive surgery needed to repair her vision. Meanwhile, Detective Li begins to investigate the killing. And, as he gets closer to finding Ah Jong, he begins to understand the assassin's methods and complicated moral code. But, soon enough, all hell breaks loose when the people who hired Ah Jong decide to get rid of him to cover their tracks. The Killer is probably John Woo's most popular and most imitated film and it should come as no surprise. It's a frickin' masterpiece. It has everything: guys falling off roofs, guys falling off balconies, guys falling off scaffolding, guys going through windows, guys going through windshields, car chases, boat chases, explosions and slow motion doves. It's a spectacular cornucopia of two-fisted, gun blazing action. While A Better Tomorrow will probably always be my favorite John Woo film, there's no denying that The Killer is fantastic. 

Rating: 84%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Cricket on the Hearth

I've never really been a fan of Charles Dickens. It's probably because I hated reading Great Expectations in high school. He comes up a lot at Christmas though. I actually have to go out of my way each year to avoid reviewing too many adaptations of A Christmas Carol. So it came as both a surprise and a disappointment when I learned that Dickens had actually written a number of books centered around Christmas. And one of them was the basis of the Rankin/Bass special Cricket on the Hearth. The special, which differs somewhat from the novella, is the dour tale of a widowed toymaker, his daughter and the cricket they invite into their home for some reason. When the daughter's fiancée is lost a sea, she goes blind and the family falls on hard times. They end up working for a heartless miser who wants to marry the blind daughter. There's also a bunch of talking animals in the special and some toys that come to life for a few minutes. It's weird. Not as weird as some of Rankin/Bass' other animated specials, but weird nonetheless.

Rating: Toy Elephant%

Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!

When I read the summary for Silent Night, Deadly Night 3, I had to ask myself, "wait, didn't Ricky die at the end of Part 2?" And the answer is, sorta. Ricky's reign of terror in Part 2 ended with him getting shot by the police. But just before the movie went to credits we got a shot of Ricky opening his eyes and smiling, followed by an unmatched shot of a knife being thrust at the camera. So, he lived, sorta. It would seem that Ricky's life was saved by some enterprising doctors who wanted to play God. This involved just barely bringing him back to life and chopping the top of his head off so his brain could be seen through a plastic bubble. Sounds like modern medicine run amok, yes? Well, what if I told you that he's brought back to life by a blind girl with ESP? It doesn't sounds so crazy now does it? No, I didn't think so.

Rating: 34%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Star Trek: The Next Generation - "The Mind's Eye"

Some Romulans reprogram Laforge's visor so they can control him into being an assassin and luckily he gets stopped though too bad nobody on the Enterprise learned their lesson since this is the exact way the ship will later be destroyed.

RATING: 78%

12 Days of Christmas Specials - #9: Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol has been adapted for films, television and the stage about a gazillion times. I could have easily done reviews for a dozen different versions of A Christmas Carol, but instead I chose to review the one with Mr. Magoo. In case you don't know/remember, Mr. Magoo was a delightfully senile and essentially blind cartoon character who appeared in a number of theatrical shorts and television specials from 1949 until political correctness came into fashion. At 53 minutes, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol is a lot longer than it needs to be. The special is padded out with way too many crappy songs and references to razzleberry dressing, whatever the hell that is.

Rating: 4 Calling Birds%

(Image from dvdnear.com)