Sweeping up, Part 1 of 6

We've seen a ton of movies in 2011, reviewed a bunch of them, and yet we still have so many that we never talked about. There's plenty of reasons as to why we don't review certain movies; sometimes we're lazy, sometimes we don't have much to say that tons of other sites haven't said already, and sometimes we just get tired of sounding negative.

So with 2012 rapidly approaching, we're going to take a quick look at some of the movies of 2011 that we've ignored.

These are going to be quick and fairly to the point, although in all fairness, our points may suck. Then again, our points seldom suck.

The Dead- Quick, name the last great movie you saw that was set in Africa. Go ahead. I'll wait... Nothing coming to mind, huh? Well here's one that will forever fill that troubling void for you, and it's a zombie flick.

The Dead is basically about an American Air Force Engineer who is stranded in Africa, just as Zombie Apocalypse is breaking out. He meets up with some pissed-off looking black soldier, and together they head across the dry, barren, desolate, dry, hot and dry landscape of Africa, killing zombies left and right.

It's a road movie. Like Hope & Crosby, Thelma & Louise, or even Tango & Cash, our mismatched heroes set off on a cross country trek with guns blazing! Alright, so maybe Hope & Crosby never had any blazing guns, and maybe Tango & Cash never left LA, but you get the idea.

The Dead is a movie that repeats itself a lot; it seems as if the movie basically follows the formula of walk/drive, shoot zombies, repeat. It's not terribly deep as far as character development goes, and the plot isn't very rich with detail either. What The Dead is though, is a really good zombie flick that brings back the glory of the slow moving undead.

The Master Says- B+ The Dead is a slow and repetitive movie at times, but it's also bloody and filled with all kinds of zombie goodness. In a day and age when "Zombie Movie" means a bunch of infected people chasing a small band of survivors around, it's nice to see a zombie flick that feels a bit more old fashioned.



Julia's Eyes- Produced by the Uber-Awesome Guillermo Del Toro, Julia's Eyes is an interesting little thriller, that felt rather Giallo-ish at times.

It's the story of a woman who is slowly losing her eyesight who, after finding her twin sister swinging from a rope, is tormented by a mysterious "Invisible Man."

It's basically a Cat-and-Mouse guessing game of a movie, in which some mysterious man/woman with creepy motives has murdered one sister, and seems to really want to off the other one too.

Visually it's a great movie, very dark and shadowy, as any movie about failing eyesight should be I guess. The only real issue we had with this one was that the plot got a bit over complicated as it went on. Not that it was hard to follow or ridiculous, but had the movie played things a bit more straight forward, it would have been better for it.

The Master Says- B What we have here is an interesting movie that manages to maintain a pretty decent level of tension and a creepy mood throughout, that loses a bit of its luster towards the end. It's entertaining enough though, and should satisfy most of you who decide to watch it. I just really wish the ending had been a bit better. Have you ever notice that a lot of most Non-American market movies tend to end on a down note?

The Rite- The Rite was one of those movies that we wanted to love, because Anthony Hopkins and his awesomeness just inspires us to love, but in the end it just fell flat. It's one of those "crisis of faith" movies, intermingled with the backdrop of exorcism. Good exorcism movies are hard to come by; sure, there's a good or decent one now and then, but none have really ever come close to doing what The Exorcist did.

It's always a treat to watch Sir Anthony do his thing, isn't it? Even when he's starring in a movie that doesn't quite hit that high level of "good", he's always interesting to watch. It's no different here, as he plays a controversial exorcist that performs very controversial exorcisms.

We like a lot of this movie, but it was the last reel that threw us off. We wont spoil anything for those of you still waiting to catch this one on DVD, but it just lacked the impact that it should have had, especially with Hopkins in the driver's seat, so to speak.

The Master Says- C+ As exorcism movies goes, this one was pretty good, although once again, it kind of lost the grip it had on us by the time it started winding up. Still, flaws or not, it's always good fun to watch Sir Anthony do his thing, especially when his thing is creepy. He's getting older, you know, so we are happy savoring what he gives us, while we can. That sounded morbid... Anywho, The Rite makes for a decent rental, or and even better "wait until it comes on cable" type of experience.


*Part 2 of 6 is coming later today