Lima

Three busty damsels looking for a bit of fun in the California desert kill a guy and take his girlfriend hostage. Their journey takes them to the ranch of an old man and his two sons, where they try to find out where the old man has money hidden, and it all comes to a final dramatic climax… Throughout the film, my attention shifted from looking into the unmissable cleavages to the brilliantly written dialogue. It's definitely not an action-packed sex ride, but it's fun and not boring if you don't have high expectations. The black-and-white cinematography is great, and the soundtrack is excellent, alternating jazz motifs with head-banging saxophone and orchestral music, plus a wonderful title song in the style of 60s rock ‘n’ roll. Those 80 minutes flew by pretty quickly.

At least as endearingly naive and entertaining as Ed Wood's greatest hits. A rescue expedition flies to Mars to retrieve a stranded crew, only to discover on the way back to Earth that they have a Martian on board. This unleashes a ruthless and thrilling fight for survival :). The alien itself is about as frightening as Alf. It is terribly funny to see an actor dressed in a kind of sackcloth, with a mask on his head, waving his paws and running around the deck like a madman. Not only is it unearthly strong, but its scratch infects humans with a bacillus that instantly causes leukemia. Facing it, there’s the crew armed with pistols and rifles. There are also traps with grenades and even an anti-tank gun (in a rocket, lol) There are lots of memorable moments, including walking on the rocket's shell with magnetic boots as the actors feign weightlessness, as well as incredibly banal dialogues, terrible acting, funny visual effects; in short, a joy to watch. And most importantly, you don’t get bored for a second, it’s royal fun.

If you are waiting for some real carnage, zombie-filled shots and wholesome splatter moments, skip the first hour, which only features long dialogues where you'll learn that a group soldiers and scientists hidden in an underground base are getting on each other's nerves. Each group has a different take on how to proceed against the zombies and so they talk and talk and the minutes tick by and by. And just when it looks like something might be happening, one of the scientists takes the floor and has a somewhat long pseudo-philosophical dialogue with his colleague. This makes it look like a terrible borefest, but it isn’t. Thanks to the good actors (I mean "good", but after a few of D'Amato's gems I find every other actors good) it's bearable. The proper fun starts twenty minutes before the end with very good splatter scenes, ending with a hearty zombie feast. All this plus the likeable actors gives me a weak four stars. And one more thing. If you believe zombies can't fall in love with humans or even shoot a gun, Romero will disabuse you of the idea.

Delon, a released prisoner, is harassed by the paranoid Commissioner Goitreau, and the dispute, which at first seems subtle, escalates to unsuspected proportions. The character of the commissioner, played by Michel Bouquet, is one of the most repulsive and annoying creatures ever to appear in a film. The film's dark climax is unforgettable, comparable in emotion and tone to Robbins's Dead Man Walking.

In a nutshell, Total Recall is a great movie. I'd even go so far as to say that after Blade Runner, it's the best film adaptation of a Dick novel, this time with a superb performance by the brilliantly perverse Paul Verhoeven. His direction is dynamic and his relish in lots of blood and violence that is typical of him is irresistible in a way. The story is properly Dick-esque, dark with an ambiguous ending and that's how it should be. The visual effects are fantastic for their time and were deservedly rewarded with an Oscar. And I must not forget to highlight Jerry Goldsmith's imaginative soundtrack, which is impossible not to listen to and which is one of the best that the Master has composed. A sci-fi gem for the connoisseurs.

We, the audience, are lucky that no one has offered Arnold the role of James Bond yet (a terrible idea), but here he fits the role of a secret agent very well. He tryes to act and it doesn't look bad at all. The script is good, the storyline with the irresistible "super agent" Bill Paxton is funny and Jamie Lee Curtis is a born comedian. The horse and motorbike chase is excellent and especially the whole final half hour is one big action orgasm. Arnold should kiss Cameron’s feet.

Just solid, brainless action fun, with a funny parachute scene. I wasn't bored and I didn't expect more. Yeah, and those cute crocodiles :)

Nostalgia’s a bitch. I loved this movie when I was little; an irresistibly naive echo of the Cold War. It's impossible not to root for an American who has to lift a log and run across a snowy landscape to train, as opposed to a Russian who is groomed by a team of physiotherapists in top-notch conditions. I almost felt like pulling out the American flag and cheering Sly on at the top of my lungs :)

I have a lot of nostalgic memories of my childhood, when the "forbidden" Rambo was a myth for me and my friends during the Bolshevik era, a film that circulated on poorly dubbed cassettes. I'll never forget how we watched it at a friend's house and I felt like the biggest dissident under the sun, or like Rambo. When I saw it again years later, I had to laugh at what a naive but still brisk action film it is, and the fond memory of the weird 80s, full of bad taste :)

A great show throughout, except for the ending when Sly flexes his musculature, machine gun in hand, giving a hint of what's to come in the following episodes. Otherwise, Stallone is very believable, and in the moments when he wages his uneven guerrilla war hidden somewhere in the woods, it’s impossible not to root for him.