About this Website
For Christmas 2002, I got a new state-of-the-art Hyundai DVD player. It came with 50 films from Prism Leisure, worldwide distributers of DTV ‘classics’.
You know what I mean: Roger Corman films, exploitation movies, badly-dubbed martial arts flicks and, the most curious of all, the misleading boxes. These featured a recent photo of a big star. If said star appeared more than fleetingly in the movie, then it was certainly a long, long time before the cover photo was taken.
Here are all 50, with an indication of the ‘star’ featured on the cover art:
- Alien Intruder - Billy Dee Williams
- America’s Dream - Wesley Snipes
- Armageddon - Rutger Hauer
- Black Eagle - Jean-Claude Van Damme
- Bloodlines: The Lord Lucan Story - no star featured
- Bram Stoker’s Legend of the Mummy 2 - no star featured
- Call of the Wild, The - Rutger Hauer
- Corrupt - Harvey Keitel
- Cyborg 3: The Recycler - Malcolm McDowell
- Dark Side of the Sun, The - Brad Pitt
- Darrow - Kevin Spacey
- Def By Temptation - Samuel L Jackson
- Dollar for the Dead - Emilio Estevez
- Fire on the Amazon - Sandra Bullock
- Fist of Fury II - Bruce Lee
- Gulliver’s Travels - Richard Harris
- Hammers over the Anvil - Russell Crowe
- Home Team - Steve Guttenberg
- James Dean: Race with Destiny - Robert Mitchum
- Justice - James Belushi
- Kickboxer - Jean-Claude Van Damme
- Kid Called Danger, A - no star featured
- Klansman, The - Lee Marvin
- Lawnmower Man, The - Pierce Brosnan
- Lost World, The - Patrick Bergen
- Magic Bubble, The - George Clooney
- Man and the Myth, The - Bruce Lee
- Massacre in Rome - Richard Burton
- Master with Cracked Fingers - Jackie Chan
- Molokai: The Forbidden Island - Sam Neill
- Muhammad Ali: King of the World - no star featured
- Nightmaster - Nicole Kidman
- Peacekeeper, The - Dolph Lundgren
- Primal Species - Scott Valentine
- Red Surf - George Clooney
- Return from the River Kwai - Denholm Elliot
- Riot - Sugar Ray Leonard
- Robocop: Crash & Burn - Leslie Hope
- Robocop: Dark Justice - Leslie Hope
- Robocop: Meltdown - Leslie Hope
- Robocop: Resurrection - Leslie Hope
- Rumble in Hong Kong - Jackie Chan
- Shepherd, The - C. Thomas Howell
- Skeleton Coast - Oliver Reed
- Split Decisions - Gene Hackman
- Tiger Warsaw - Patrick Swayze
- Titanic (animated) - no star featured
- Train to Hell - Hugh Grant
- Treasure Island - Jack Palance
- Whistle Blower, The - Michael Caine (see CitizenCaine)
So, the self-imposed challenge was to watch all 50 films and review them within one year.
That sounds easier than it was. Some of the films were half-decent, some were passable, but most—like Bram Stoker’s Legend of the Mummy 2—were really hard-going.
Over that first year, I managed to watch 18 all the way through and to review 12. And I promise you, I lost a lot more than 30 hours of my life. There were others which I tried to watch and just couldn’t put myself through it (Cyborg 3, for example). I also gave the martial arts DVD away to a better home, so bye, bye Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.
I then started doing other reviews of movies which were not related to Michael Caine and stuck them here as well. Then I promptly did nothing with the site for 15 years.
So, these are some reviews of mostly twentieth-century films from mostly 15+ years ago, and there’s no real reason for me to have preserved them, other than some are linked from other places on the internet.
Enjoy!
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