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That's Entertainment!

REVIEWED BY BILL HARDING

Hannibal

The Gift

Proof of Life

The Watcher

Meet The Parents

Way of the Gun

The sixth day

Unbreakable

Bedazzled

Space Cowboys

Wonder Boys

Gladiator

Stigmata

Circus

Double Jeopardy

Toy Story 2

The Beach

Chicken Run

Frequency

Deception

The Next Best Thing

Shanghi Noon

Cherry Falls

American Beauty

Snatch

Blair Witch 2

Skulls

Shaft

....like an old, vanished friend.

You always know where you are with a Jackie Chan movie-movie, not film, you notice-and exactly what you'll get. Shanghai Noon, his latest, has not only the mandatory falls, crazy stunts and cartoon dialogue, but it's welcome to anyone-like me-who misses the Western like an old, vanished friend. Shanghai Noon ain't no classic, pardner, but it has enough of the necessary ingredients and references to Oaters good, bad and ugly to make the return of more cowboy yarns a tempting proposition. It even rips off the grand, swelling theme to How The West Was Won. What's wrong with that?

....built on the sweating backs of, you guessed it, coolie labour.

The gossamer-thin story kicks off in The Forbidden City in China and switches quickly to the US of A, where the noble Chinese princess who Jackie was supposed to be helping to look after has been captured by a Chinese railroad baron whose business is built on the sweating backs of, you guessed it, coolie labour. Jackie has tagged along to rescue her, but his only lead is that she's in Carson City, Nevada.

"John Wen? That's a lousy name for a cowboy,"

Jackie falls in with a hopeless bandit gang led by a dude with delusions of grandeur (OwenWilson) and encounters Indians, gamblers and a drunken horse straight from the set of Blazing Saddles. The screenplay hits all the right notes-the greenhorn learning to fire a Colt .45, the bar room brawl and a nice dig at the greatest hero of them all. "John Wen? That's a lousy name for a cowboy," says Jackie's sidekick. It turns out that he's called Wyatt Earp. Jackie, aka John Wayne, isn't over-impressed with that monicker, either.

It's fun all the way, and not just for JC fans.

The scenery in Alberta, Canada, looks magnificent and Shanghai Noon loves its genre to death. It's fun all the way, and not just for JC fans. The marshal's called Van Cleef and there's a smattering of welcome non-pc lines that wouldn't have slipped through in a straight Hollywood movie.

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"Pop Your Cherry at Cherry Falls,"

Cherry Falls is another post Scream teen slasher with a silly idea and is extremely well shot, much better than its concept and story demand. The whole shebang would have worked better as an out and out comedy, but "Pop Your Cherry at Cherry Falls," to give its unofficial subtitle, falls apart at the end, when it becomes downright ludicrous.

High school kids who haven't yet cracked their shells are being offed by a peculiar nutter who can't stand virgins. One of these is the daughter of the local cop, and, natch, the high school is cut in two by the growing number of stiffs and relative lack of stiffies.

....believability disintegrates quicker than a pair of paper underpants

The cast is B rather than A, with Candy Clark whatever happened to her after The Man Who Fell To Earth? as the heroine's nicotine-addicted ma. The lack of names helps, with everyone blending in as they would in a small community. The story keeps you guessing as you tick off the suspects one by one until; it couldn't be, could it? Then the "hymen holocaust" kicks in and believability disintegrates quicker than a pair of paper underpants. Still, if you're a mild rather than a hardcore sicko and you're not a virgin, you'll like this one.

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