Valentine |
Vampires |
Velvet Goldmine |
Vertical Limit |
Very Bad Things |
A View To A Kill |
Virus
Valentine (2001)
(R)
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Someone is killing young adults who used to go to school together. The movie attempts more of the same that recent teen slasher movies have been doing, simply trying to be as hip and cool as it can while staring at people getting killed. This movie never managed to grab my attention, and never brought anything new to the table for this type of film, leaving it as a boring movie with nothing really notable about it. For "Scream" knockoff lovers only.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Film.com's Review
San Francisco Chronicle's Review
Vampires (1998)
(R)
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A group of vampire hunters find a vampire "nest", where they fight a group of vamps and kill them, but don't find their leader. That night, the leader finds the hunters and kills most of the group, but the group's leader and his friend survive as well as a woman who was bitten. Because she was bitten, she has a telepathic link to the vampire who bit her. The two surviving hunters use her to track down the vampire that bit her and killed their group, who also happens to be the first person to ever become a vamp, making him the strongest one in existence. The movie is rather gory, but has good acting and the story is suspenseful at times. When the characters aren't fighting the vamps, though, the movie tends to get a little bland.
Velvet Goldmine (1998)
(R)
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This film is set up like a Citizen Kane for the MTV generation. A journalist, trying to figure out exactly what was going on when a rock singer faked his own death, has to revisit his youth in 1970s Britain during the "glam rock" period of British music. The movie presents a good example of what it was like to have lived through this time period, but loses the story somewhere in the music. Instead of spending the whole movie advancing the story, about half of it is dedicated to staged concert footage of 70s music. The switching back and forth between the plot and the music is a little distracting, and because they spend so long just watching people sing, the movie tends to drag and become rather boring. The plot that is there kept me interested, but, to make a good movie, they needed more of it.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Vertical Limit (2000)
(PG-13)
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A group of mountain climbers attempt to rescue other climbers trapped high up on K2, one of the highest mountains in the world. The movie is primarily a thrill ride adventure film with survival movie and soap opera elements thrown in. It does succeed at creating a tense, thrilling ride. The only dramatic tension it used to do this, however, is to show people almost die every ten minutes or so, and in order to really succeed at this in a movie, the audience needs to care about the characters. The characters were decent, but were a little underdeveloped to get me to care as much as I would have liked. They movie should also have focused more on the characters and less on attempting to kill them. On the positive side, the actors did a fairly good job with what they were given, the special effects were great, and the movie as a whole was entertaining enough to be mildly enjoyable.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Sean Means' Film.com Review
Robert Horton's Film.com Review
Roger Ebert's Review
Very Bad Things (1998)
(R)
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A group of guys go to a bachelor party in Vages, but one of them accidentally kills the stripper. They then attempt to hide the body in the dessert and pretend that it never happened, but bad things keep happening to them. This movie has a very sick sense of humor and is very hard to digest, but was done very well for the style. Definitely only for fans of sick dark comedies, but if you do like them, this is a must see.
Links:
Official Studio Site
A View To A Kill (1985)
(PG)
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Roger Moore's last outing as 007, but not his worst. Industrialist Max Zorin (played by Christopher Walken) intends to monopolize the computer chip market by destroying Silicon Valley with an earthquake (!?). Bond enlists the help of a beautiful (but dimwitted) geologist to thwart Zorin's evil plans. The action sequences include a foot chase up the Eiffel Tower, a car chase in Paris, and a fight on the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. It's worth watching this film just to see how old Roger Moore looks (many people agree that Octopussy should have been his last). The title song is by English pop group Duran Duran; it's widely regarded as one of the best songs in the long running series.
Links:
007.com
Virus (1999)
(R)
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An alien life in the form of electricity takes over a Russian research vessel, which a crew of a stranded American tug boat use for cover from a storm. They discover that the alien has killed all but one of the research vessel's crew, but is confined to the ship. The movie is very generic, and almost seemed like an excuse to show off the effects in the film. The effects are decent and the acting is good, but the story seemed a little too hollow. Over all, it could have made a good corny b-movie, but it shouldn't have taken itself as seriously as it did.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Dark Horizon's Page
Virus: The Movie - Unofficial Site
Roger Ebert's Review
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