First movie of the new year is a little sci fi/horror movie called Deep Rising,
starring Treat Williams(when he was still relevant) and Famke Jannsen(before her x-men days).  Williams stars as a driver for hire but his mode of transportation is a boat and his current job maybe his last.  Cheesy, yeah I know.  He is carrying mercenaries with the destination of the most luxurious cruise liner in the world.  But when the team gets there, they find that everyone has been killed by some unknown creature that is still lurking in the ship.  Let's get this out of the way, this is not a great movie nor is it an oscar worthy movie, but it is an entertaining movie with a good bit of action, decent special effects and surprise, a decent story.  Definetely a popcorn type of movie, you know the kind you watch and you can actually eat popcorn to. Unlike a sappy drama or raunchy comedy.  But I do give it 3 beers out of 5.

Another scifi movie makes it in the six pack this week.  1994's Puppet Masters starring Donald Sutherland.  Not to be confused with the Puppet Master series of cheesy horror lore, think more along the lines of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  The invasion in the this movie starts in a small town in Iowa and the "masters" are alien life forms that attach themselves to a host's back and stick a prong in the brain stem to control the host thus creating a "puppet".  The film was actually really good, surprisingly.  The story keeps you guessing and you are never sure who is real and who is a puppet.  Sutherland plays an FBI agent who is in charge of containing the outbreak and finding a cure.  If you have never heard of this movie you are not alone.  I remember seeing a trailer for it a long time ago but could never find it, to my surprise found it for 5 bucks on blu ray and I thought, what the hell?  Movie get 3 beers.

This movie could be the most perfect movie of 2012.  The Dark Knight Rises does a superb job of mixing action, emotion and story to weave one of the most entertaining 3 hours of the year.  Christopher Nolan returns to direct his third Batman installment and he brings with his familiar faces Christian Bale as Batman, Michael Caine as Alfred, Morgan Freeman as Lucious Fox and Gary Oldman as Commisioner Gordon.  Newcomers to the trilogy is Marion Cottilard, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman.  But the best newcomer is definetely the new villian, Bane.  Played by Tom Hardy with such verocity that he may be the best Batman villian ever put on screen, sorry fans of the Joker.  Bane is such a physical specimen that even Batman is no match for him and his network of underground terrorists have Gotham in the palm of their hands.  This is one of the must see films of the year and does deserve an oscar nod for best picture.  I also feel that Michael Caine should get a best supporting actor nod but I know it won't happen.  Caine was terrific as the butler Alfred yet again.  He is in the movie for only a handful of scenes but his emotion stretches over the entire film.  One of my favorites, 5 beers.

Burke and Hare is the true story about a couple of Irishmen who discover a new line of work in Edinburgh, Scotland, they deliver corpses to the medical universities who pay top dollar for fresh cadavers.  The only problem is the supply is somewhat limited so Burke and Hare decide to take matters into their own hands.  Burke played by Simon Pegg falls in love with an actress played by Isla Fisher and he decides to finance her latest play.  Hare is played by Andy Serkis(Gollum) and he is blackmailed by his wife to keep doing it.  The movie is funny and witty and deserves to be watched.  It is available on instrant stream on netflix so check it out sometime.  4 beers.

Now time to get to some crap.  Mountain of the Cannibal God starring Stacy Keach and Ursula Andress.  Wow.  I watched a special feature of the movie and the director was talking about how the movie is not pornographic or erotic is anyway.  Really.  I watched when Ursula Andress, possibly one of the worst actresses I have ever seen, gets "tied" up and the women of the tribe proceed to remove her clothes and rub her in some kind of muddy substance.  And they also decide to rub each other in this mud and while '70's porn music is playing.  This movie was really bad and basically it was trying to capitalize on the genre of the time.  I feel bad for Stacy Keach who was a respected actor, but how can the man act opposite a tree named Ursula.  For most of the movie she looks like she is reading off a card and has to be told when to talk.  Apparently she was a sex symbol in the '60's and posed in playboy but again Playboy does not ask her to act.  I have seen better acting on WWE wrestling. Sad.  Please avoid this movie unless you want to get drunk during this movie.  Take a shot whenever the camera shot is of someone's feet.  No beers.

Now for some more crap.  Honestly this is the reason why I write these blogs, to ridicule crappy movies like this, Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver.  The deadly Gingerdead Man is sent back in time to 1970 something and gets trapped at a roller skate rink during a disco boogie party.  Yeah.  Cheesy acting and cheesy death scenes are the epitomy of this movie.  The bad acting I expected, the bad story I expected also, but it was so bad that even I was shocked at the crappiness of the movie.  Really bad one liners and very cheesy death scenes and with these kind of movies you really only watch for the death scenes.  Very unsatisfying deaths.  Could have been so much better and cheesier.  Still gets 0 beers.  Go watch a Troma film instead.