SF and Fantasy Movie Reviews Starting With N
Naked Lunch (1991 Canada) 
Genres: F Dra
What Alice in Wonderland might be like if Alice were a middle-aged gay drug-addicted paranoid writer living in the 1950's who has probably accidentally shot his wife. But there's no cute songs :(.
Near Dark (1987)
Genres: Hor
A pod of vampire hicks race around the back country perpetrating mayhem. A comely farm lad reluctantly joins them after being turned, but has trouble adjusting. It has good points and bad points.
Good points: Nice enough atmosphere except for the young bad-boy vamp. The director must have thought he was the coolest thing with fangs because he has so much of him strutting.
Bad points: Are hicks really this stupid? And what about the audience? What happens to the protagonist in the end, the whole resolution, is not explained. It just happens. And nobody wonders why it worked.
New York Stories (1989)
Genres: Com MR
There's three stories; the one by Woody Allen is pretty cute. I don't remember liking the other two. The rating applies only to that one.
Nightmare Castle (1965 Italy)
Genres: Hor
A wealthy lady had married a scientist having had no idea scientists were so despicable. It turns out they torture frogs in the basement for some sort of ridiculous and disgusting experiments. So she takes up with the handsome stable lad. So far so good.
But this scientist turns out to be especially fiendish. He discovers their little affair and, well I'm not quite sure. He practices some sort of dreadful concoction of science upon them after whipping them some. He likes electrocutions apparently, possibly because scientists love to torture frogs with electricity. So he electrocutes them to death (these are some sort of magic electrocutions though; they don't work quite as you'd expect), but after that it gets nebulous and complicated.
The dialogue is really silly (but that's arguably part of the atmosphere) and it's all less gruesome than you'd like, mostly concentrating on women whining a bunch because they are variously disturbed by terrible secrets that are not revealed to you in much detail at all. And the ghost is like the most mundane ghost ever; it's just a bitchy woman, basically.
This movie was sort of enjoyable actually. And relaxing. It's consistent about the bizarre surreal take it has on reality, science, and logic in general, which is really important in a fantastical work. So it's nice for background, like mood music. Sometimes it's nice when you don't have to pay much attention to the screen. You can just relax on the couch (if you have one; I make do with the floor, it has carpet) with the movie excuse. If you have someone else there on the couch to cuddle with, you're all set.
Ninja Wars (1982 Japan)
Genres: F Act Adv Rom
It's boring and silly, and has bad dialogue, but I'll give it a dispensation because it's a ninja movie, and they're all like that. And it does have some neat stuff. As with all foreign crap, even if it's pretty crappy, at least you gain some insights. For instance, there's apparently a third acceptable pitch of Japanese speaking besides barking manly and meowing ladylike: sorcerer, a kind of squeaky tenor. And, all ninjas must learn to slice through bamboo groves with their palms, since if you don't trim the trees they get full of ninjas. Also, you pick up a sense of Japanese religion: at first glance it seems the most boring service ever, with that interminable monotonic monk chanting, but then hordes of evil monks burst in and fight and set the temple on fire. So in fact the religion's interestingness is simply uneven, because despite the usual boredom monks are all martial artists and there's regular violence. You should learn to have patience and take delight in learning about other cultures through their cultural output, like movies, instead of dismissing them because they don't conform to your set ideas about what movies should have, like hunky male leads, brisk pacing, and decent plot resolution.
The Ninth Gate (1999)
Genres: F Hor Mys
Roman Polanski, Johnny Depp. Don't remember much but recall it's slow, boring, and silly.
Nomads (1986)
Genres: F Thr Hor
Pierce Brosnan is a French anthropologist who may have run into more than he could handle somewhere in his researches. Aside from his French accent coach. That is one obnoxious French accent. Apparently he can't help it; he also speaks in totally incomprehensible Russian as James Bond. His forte is looking so piercingly smug people figure it's they who have the incorrect pronunciation. He looks somewhat less smug in this movie though.
Of course he's still a tremendous jerk, because he's French. He treats his wife like dirt. But his wife is French and French women are evolved to love men who do that. All the man has to do is blow them off and look deranged and they melt. Only men who act like that can satisfy them, in fact, because that kind of behavior bespeaks a highly passionate nature.
The movie is sort of scary and has a decent premise but it's badly executed because the characters are so stupid. It's hard to sympathize with characters who are being chased because they do things like when they see a gang shoving the body of a guy they just killed into a dumpster, they jump out from behind cover and yell "No! Stop that!" with a bad French accent. And they're always doing something, anything -- chatting, staring off into space, going to sleep, sightseeing -- instead of getting away from the danger.
On the other hand it's possible that what appears to be stupidity is part of the evil spirits' effect; the propensity to dick around instead of leaving may be part of the derangement they engender.
There is a scene with nudity. There's breasts, albeit small ones because the lady is French, and Brosnan's butt. It's a longish shot, and in the murky light it's hard to distinguish whether anything is distinguishable there right beneath it. He stands with his legs slightly apart and shifts a little, and it might be shadows or nothing or something. Then he slowly turns around and the question becomes moot. That's effective directing. Probably all the Frenchness led to this inspiration.
Please note that all material on this page is Copyright © 2005 by D. Aline Lurie.
Movie Reviews
| # | A | B | C | D | E | ||||||
| F | G | H | I | J | K | ||||||
| L | M | N | O | P | Q | ||||||
| R | S | T | U | V | W | ||||||
| X | Y | Z |
Series Reviews