Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Revisiting RD was as entertaining as I'd hoped. It’s still an excellent film, proving that it wasn't just riding on a timed wave of counter-culture hype.
If you didn't already know, it’s a heist movie but whereas most films focus on the planning and preparation, only getting to the actual theft in the last half hour, Dogs focuses on what happens afterwards, when it all goes sour.
Outfitting bad guys in matching suits was a striking image before QT’s time and it still is today. And having the action take place primarily in locations that rarely change means the remainder of it hasn't visibly dated.
The importance of music is felt even though there’s no actual score; any music in the film is heard by one or more of the characters.

4½ Super Sounds of the Seventies out of 5

Rush Hour (1998)

A buddy cop movie that teamed the inimitable Jackie Chan with the irritating Chris Tucker for some culture clash shenanigans.
It's Jackie at his most basic level: the comedy fish out of water character that takes a bit of a hammering during a fight but ultimately wins through sheer endurance. The only challenge he seems to have been presented with was the English dialogue.
Tucker on the other hand challenges the viewer in every scene. He's the flamboyant, loveable fool that I'd no love for. He was as welcome as an ex-girlfriend at a funeral.

2½ assumptions out of 5

FIST OF THE NORTH STAR [1995]

Hellraiser II director, Tony Randel brings the popular manga Fist Of The North Star to the screen and it stinks.

With some hokey but fun gory effects and some low-budget yet interesting sets, Fist was obviously made with some genuine love for the source material but that love got lost somewhere during the production. The painfully annoying characters spurt out loads of flat dialogue, the editing is completely nonsensical and the story is so predictable you'd think it was a Saturday morning cartoon.

Christ. *shakes head*

1 "mullets...so many mullets" out of 5

The Darwin Awards (2006)

Darwin Awards are an ironic award given posthumously to people "who improve the species by accidentally removing themselves from it!" A police profiler seeks employment at an insurance company by using his Boy Scout skills to identify those kinds of idiots. Non-hilarity ensues. You know you've got a shitty movie when David Arquette is the most heart-warming thing in it. Winona was pretty, as always.

1½ Lars Ulrich is an asshole out of 5

Pale Rider (1985)

A nameless preacher aids a group of gold prospectors by taking on the town bully and his cohorts. In most of Eastwood’s westerns the plot is secondary to watching him bad-ass his way through town, cleaning out the trash with a pistol while still remaining character studies and not crossing over into action movie territory. PR is like that, but it's a film of parts, some that are fantastically Kurosawa-esque and others that are plain awful and unintentionally laughable. Nevertheless, it entertains which is what I wanted. Clint is, was and always will be the quintessential movie cowboy.

3 jingly jangly spurs out of 5