I mentioned this classic in Ground Zero and decided to revisit it.  The opening sequence in Fort Zinderneuf, with all the dead manning the walls, remains a masterpiece of the teaser opening: no way you can’t keep watching.

FF=0

What a glorious mess this is.  All the spaghetti western clichés mixed with all the yakuza and samurai flick clichés in a surreal neverland.  Do not expect a lot of sense, but it’s visually arresting and never dull.

FF=1

A romantic comedy a la “Topper” with Ricky Gervais playing his misanthropic self.  On most days I would have thought it a bit slow, but I was in a mellow mood and simply sat back and watched.  Easygoing fun.

FF=0

A paranoid thriller a la “Enemy of the State.”  Farfetched, straining even my well-exercised suspension of disbelief, but the action never lags, and the film adds a new twist to the de rigeur car chase.

FF=0

Very enjoyable.  I loved Heath Ledger’s Joker.  And I think what people have been telling me since the summer is true: Somebody somewhere along the line, in researching the character, had read “Definitive Therapy” (which you can read here: http://www.wattpad.com/story/18499153-definitive-therapy)

FF=0

Incredibly dumb.  Try as I might, I simply couldn’t give a damn about Edward Norton’s Bruce Banner.  Even the “Mighty Joe Young” homage (rip-off?) couldn’t save the finale.

FF=4

Goofy fun.  A guy gets fired from the CIA.  A woman decides she needs plastic surgery.  These two unrelated incidents set in motion a complicated story that leaves a lot of people dead.  It meanders, but I was engaged.

FF=0

Richard Jenkins, a supporting actor in “Burn After Reading,” stars in this sad but charming film.  It’s deliberately paced, but the characters captured me and I never felt it dragged.

FF=0

One of those films where you might say, “I shouldn’t be enjoying this, I really shouldn’t…just a couple more minutes and I’ll turn it off…just a couple more.”  Now, I never said that once because I like mindless action, and this has it non-stop.  Has some laughs too, but the biggest follows the last frame: After an hour and a half of cars throwing bombs and napalm and shooting 50-caliber bullets at each other, the disclaimer pops up and says, “The motor vehicle action sequences depicted in this film are dangerous.”  (Ya think?)

FF=0

I know, I know…movie masochism.  I wish I could say it’s so bad, it’s good.  But as that great philosopher Huey Lewis once said, “Sometimes bad is bad.”

FF=3 (would have been higher but for the film’s occasional stun-ray effect)