Movie Weekend Wrapup.....

UNDEAD - Zombie flick from Australia. While the special effects and photography were suprisingly good for a low budget splatter flick, the story was too convoluted and rambling.
Watching the uninteresting characters run from place to place for almost 2 hours became too redundant to bear. Not a complete waste, but could have been much better with a little tighter direction.

KNIFE IN THE WATER - Roman Polanski’s directing debut. Taunt and edgy thriller with just 3 characters. A couple pick up a hitch-hiker and take him along on their sailing outing. Polanski enjoys slowly upping the tension on the (very) small boat between the three of them. It all build up to not much......but it’s still a ride worth taking. An impressive debut.

BATMAN - Tim Burton’s Batman that is. Still entertaining after all these years. Don’t know why so many people didn’t like Michael Keaton’s Batman/Bruce Wayne. Burton is obviously going for a dual personality storyline and Keaton seems to be the obvious choice for Jack Nicolson’s foil.

HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK - Nasty drive-inn grindhouse exploitation madness from notorious Italian director Ruggero Deodato. Very ugly film. David Hess abducts a housefull of yuppies and gives them a dinner party they won’t soon forget. Bizzare twist ending which is surprising for Deodato, whose films usually don’t try this hard to be good.

SAW 2 - Typical modern day horror. A couple of good performances, but other than that it’s the same old cookie cutter story with some twist ending trickery of it’s own. Average at best.

THE PIANIST - Not hard to see why Polanski won the oscar for directing here. While this story of a pianist in Nazi occupied Warsaw could have rambled this way and that, Polanski keeps the storyline and focus sharp and straightforward. Great survival tale.