“This one’s for connoisseurs of the ‘totally preposterous crap’ school of fantasy cinema. You know who you are: You have all the Warlock sequels on Laserdisc, the complete Leprechaun series on DVD, and go see Uwe Boll movies on opening weekend.” — Luke Y. Thompson of L.A. Weekly

Release: 2007
Runtime: 1 hour, 30 min
Genre: Action, Drama, Fantasy
Language: English/Korean
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Starring: Jason Behr, Amanda Brooks, Robert Forster, Jack Craig Robinson, Aimee Garcia

Amazon Link: Dragon Wars

SYNOPSIS: A young woman possesses the reincarnated power to transform a legendary giant serpent into an omnipotent, celestial dragon with her ultimate sacrifice. But the forces of darkness are out to seize the young woman while her reincarnated lover and his aged mentor stand in their way.

When viewing Dragon Wars, it should be noted to leave your brain at the door. That way, when you start hearing things involving good and evil dragons, reincarnated warriors, and such, you’ll just smile and watch the eye candy. This film is geared toward the sensibilities of young kids. In other words, my six and eight year-olds loved it. The story, what little there is, isn’t of much concern here. For the most part, Dragon Wars is actually kind of enjoyable, in a really dumb, cheesy kind of way – think of a Sci-Fi Channel original movie. As a matter of fact, the only uniquely interesting thing about the movie is that it isn’t an American production, but an Asian one, specifically South Korea.

Supposedly based on an ancient Korean legend, a 200-meter-long evil serpent called Buraki is denied a chance at immortality when two young lovers, who are to perform the ceremony, run away and leap to their deaths in 1507 AD. 500 years later in Los Angeles, the man is reincarnated as American news reporter Ethan (Jason Behr), who as a child was given a powerful pendant by an elderly antiques dealer named Jack (Robert Forster) and now has to find the reincarnated woman, Sarah (Amanda Brooks), before her 20th birthday.

“D-War” is a film that looks and sounds amazing, in theory, but the execution is so poor that you’ll rightfully feel that you’ve been cheated by the time the credits roll. The film’s human players are paper-thin caricatures and deliver cheap, insipid dialogue in scenes that rarely connect. More importantly, when you pay to see a movie called Dragon Wars, you expect it to, at least, live up to its title. The biggest flaw of Hyung-rae Shim’s film is that it barely even does that, focusing most of its energy on a mumbo-jumbo plot about destiny: Dialogue about fate and destiny peppered with more weird names than you can shake a stick at takes up about half the running time, and it just plain confusing. On more than one occasion, a character asks another, “what are you talking about?” and you get the impression that no one really knows the answer.

But you don’t come to a movie called Dragon Wars for the story or the performances. You want to see some tail stomping and some flame throwing. And for a few minutes in the final reel, D-Wars delivers. There are two sequences – an attack on Los Angeles by the armies of evil and the final battle between the good and bad dragon – where D-War finally delivers. In fact, the attack sequence is clearly what the entire film was built around; an impressive battle between flying creatures and helicopters that almost feels like it was transported from a better movie.

“D-War” unfortunately comes off as cousin to the American adaptation of “Godzilla” (1998) than anything that is uniquely Korean. Also, the story seems to take itself a little too seriously, the acting and direction seem mediocre at best, and the execution is flawed; maybe the director was trying to do too much without really working out the material in greater detail first.

All in all, Dragon Wars is what it is, and if you’re interested in it for whatever reasons, then chances are that you know what you’re getting here: Another “B”-grade monster movie. With no blood or nudity, virtually no bad language, and monsters galore, Shim’s picture is suitable for youngsters and delivers enough goofy fun to keep adults from getting too restless. When asked why they liked the movie, my children replied, “because it has giant dragons,” and for kids that’s a perfectly fine rationale.

Goozlepipe Rating:Liked it

Popularity: 5%

Peace is an accident, war is natural. Old men start it, young men fight it, everybody in the middle dies, and nobody tells the truth.

Synopsis (IMDB): Vietnam veteran John Rambo has survived many harrowing ordeals in his lifetime and has since withdrawn into a simple and secluded existence in Bangkok, where he spends his time salvaging old PT boats and tanks for scrap metal. Even though he is looking to avoid trouble, trouble has a way of finding him. A group of Christian human rights missionaries, led by Michael Burnett and Sarah Miller, approach Rambo with the desire to rent his boat to travel up the river to Burma. For over fifty years, Burma has been like a war zone. The Karen people of the region, who consist of peasants and farmers, have endured brutally oppressive rule from the murderous Burmese military and have been struggling for survival every single day. This is the time when medical assistance and general support from the Christian missionaries is needed most. After some consideration, and due to insistence from his mentor, former military man Ed Baumgartner, Rambo accepts the offer and takes Michael, Sarah, and the rest of the missionaries up the river. When the missionaries finally arrive at the Karen village, they are ambushed by the sadistic Major Pa Tee Tint and a slew of Burmese army men. A portion of the villagers and missionaries are tortured and viciously murdered, while Tint and his men hold the remainder captive. News soon reaches the minister in charge of the mission and with the help of Ed Baumgartner he employs Rambo to lead a rescue effort. With five young and highly diverse mercenaries at his disposal, Rambo has to travel back up the river and liberate the survivors from the clutches of Major Tint in what may be one of his deadliest missions ever.

Growing up in the 80s, I always liked the Rambo movies. He was a character that resonated uniquely with me as a teenager. Stallone’s Rambo taps into many people’s deep-rooted feelings about war, loyalty, veterans, and national pride, and managed to do it in both a smart and heartfelt way. Now in his fourth movie, Rambo attempts to reconnect with U.S. audiences again for one last hurrah.

John Rambo trailer:

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Rambo 3 trailer:

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Rambo First Blood Part 2 trailer:

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First Blood trailer

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And finally, a list of ‘Rambo stats’ sent to me by a friend:

Popularity: 1%

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) communications protocol. BitTorrent is a method of distributing large amounts of data widely without the original distributor incurring the entire costs of hardware, hosting and bandwidth resources. Instead, when data is distributed using the BitTorrent protocol, each recipient supplies pieces of the data to newer recipients, reducing the cost and burden on any given individual source, providing redundancy against system problems, and reducing dependence on the original distributor. — Wikipedia

Torrentfreak reports that “TV-shows are by far the most popular files on BitTorrent sites. On Mininova alone, some episodes are downloaded more than 2 million times. Movies are a good second, with over 500.000 downloads for the most popular titles.”

The data used for these lists is retrieved from Mininova and considered to be a representative sample.

Movies & number of downloads in 2007:

1. Transformers (569,259)
2. Knocked Up (509,314)
3. Shooter (399,960)
4. Pirates Of The.Caribbean At World’s End (379,749)
5. Ratatouille (359,904)
6. 300 (358,226)
7. Next (354,044)
8. Hot Fuzz (352,905)
9. The Bourne Ultimatum (336,326)
10. Zodiac (334,699)

TV-Shows & number of downloads in 2007:

1. Heroes (2,439,154)
2. Top Gear (1,217,923)
3. Battlestar Galactica (706,209)
4. Lost (705,724)
5. Prison Break (608,487)
6. Desperate Housewives (457,805)
7. 24 (524,303)
8. Family Guy (522,839)
9. Dexter (435,670)
10. Scrubs (427,420)

Popularity: 1%

Prophecy (740-680 B.C.): Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Isaiah 7:14

Fulfillment: But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
Matthew 1:20-23

Popularity: 1%

Suburbs: The endless sprawl of identikit mass produced housing that surrounds most towns and cities in the western world. Lacking the rural tranquility of the countryside and the spirit, history and community of the inner cities they are designe to enduce a life numbing stupor into it’s inhabitents to keep the ‘prolls’ under control. Also known as concrete deserts, they are the loneliest, most soul destroying and down right dull places on the face of the planet.

Since World War II, North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years, so too has the suburban way of life become embedded in the American consciousness. Hollywood has been quick to capitalize on the suburban lifestyle and the angst and fears of its inhabitants. Here is burbia.com’s list of the Top 10 Movies with ‘Neighbors from Hell’ part 1 and 2.

The 10 Best, part 1

• Rosemary’s Baby (1968), neighbors = Devil worshippers
• Arlington Road (1999), neighbors, the Langs are right wing nut-job domestic terrorists.
• The Stepford Wives (2004), all the neighbors are decidedly not your friends unless your desire is to be turned into a robotic (lobotomized) “yes, honey” wife-oid.
• Disturbia (2007), neighbor = monster serial killer?
• Cujo (1983), dog is out of his mind nuts, rabid and hell-bent on maiming and killing.
• Neighbors (1981), Freakazoid gun-toting, carousing, constantly interfering next door neighbor
• Barton Fink (1991), Next door neighbor is really not such a good friend; in fact he’s a bad friend, actually evil, and, as Satan as his witness, is going to make sure things don’t end well.
• Rear Window (1954), Unhappy neighbor realizes he’s been watched and naturally wants to “take care” of the snoopy, suspicious voyeur.
• A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984), Another neighbor you’d just assume live – and sleep – without.
• Pacific Heights (1990), Menacing neighbor and tenant is determined to destroy his “friends’” marriage, break them financially and otherwise do whatever is necessary to steal everything from them.

The 10 Best, part 2

• American Beauty (1999), Wired-too-tight Marine officer with issues: repressed rage, overwhelming confusion at the social changes around him, and some serious (and, for him, intolerable) and explosive sexual dysfunction and identity problems.
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Predatory aliens who ooze out of pods and who want to do the same to you?
• Funny Farm (1988), Country folk aren’t as Hallmark advertised; they’re as small-minded, mean-spirited, unfriendly as your local traffic cop trying to fill his monthly ticket quota.
• Psycho (1960), Norman Bates lives in a house just behind the Bates Motel – definitely a bad neighbor
• The Burbs (1989), Cannibals, folks who come out only at night, neighborhood dogs crapping freely on lawns, a naked gardener, and a gun –obsessed freakazoid.
• Dawn of the Dead (1978), Zombies, however cool and trendy today, normally don’t make great neighbors.
• Halloween (1978), Michael Meyers, incurable murderer, escapes from a mental institution and returns to his home town.
• Duplex (2003), Little old lady who, it turns out, is the ultimate unrelenting neighbor from hell.
• The People Under The Stairs (1991), Horrible next door neighbors are one thing. But evil freak neighbors who abduct kids, maim them, and stash them under the stairs are totally unacceptable.
• Shaun Of The Dead (2004), More zombies invade the neighborhood and, as usual, they’re not good neighbors.
• Beetlejuice (1988), The folks living upstairs are ghosts and they’d really like you to leave.

Popularity: 1%