NINJA SCROLL (1993)

Back in the day, a freelance ninja (Kibagami Jubei) is walking across a bridge minding his own business, when out of nowhere some bandit buttholes try to jack his shit, but instead he murders the fuck out of them fools. Skip forward a little bit and this totally badass stone guy (like literally made out of rock) brutally murders an entire group of highly skilled ninjas. Shit happens and the next thing you know, Jubei is being hunted by a mysterious group of freak monster assassins! It's awesome!

 

I remember first watching NINJA SCROLL on VHS back in the 1990's and thinking it was badass.  And it was.  Watching it again now (January 2021), it still starts out really strong, but definitely runs out of steam by the last act.  That said, it's 100% worth watching for anybody interested in animation and/or just looking for a good movie to watch.

AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER (1957)

The story (and director) is exactly the same as the one from 1939's LOVE AFFAIR. On a cruise ship, a penniless playboy engaged to an heiress falls in love with a penniless singer who herself has a wealthy fiancee. When the liner arrives in NYC they agree to meet in six months if they still love each other. She doesn't make it because she's in an accident and is too embarrassed to tell her beloved that she's now confined to a wheelchair.

Nice story, but I did not like Deborah Kerr. I thought she was an bore from beginning to end. In a perfect world it would have been the original's Irene Dunne reprising her role, but this time opposite Cary Grant. That would have been awesome! Especially if they would have deleted all those scenes of children singing. Oh, my fucking Satan that shit was torture!

Technically, AATR was a better film than the original, but it's still nothing special. Grant does a decent job, but honestly that script wasn't all that great the first time around and now on the second go through it's lost all of it's appeal. I can't recommend it. I know it's a popular romance movie, but I found it boring with zero spark between Grant and Kerr. Skip it.

It says "Terry" on the subtitle but it clearly sounds like he says "Hello, Debbie."

JAWS: THE REVENGE (1987)

The movie that killed the series (so far).  Is JAWS: THE REVENGE as bad as you've heard? Probably. It's pretty goddamn shitty.

The film opens with Sheriff Brody's youngest son getting eaten by a gigantic Great White shark in the waters off Amity Island. Soon afterwards, Ellen Brody says fuck this place and moves to The Bahamas to be with her eldest son Michael who is now a marine biologist. During all of this, Ellen has a strange sense of apprehension that the shark (who exactly is this particular shark by anyway?!) is going to follow her all the way to The Bahamas and eat her and her family.  What the hell?  On top of that, throughout the film she has some kind of psychic link to the shark.  Wow! Somebody got paid to write this? Anyway, it ends up that she's correct and the shark soon shows up and starts terrorizing her family.  He even knocks down an airplane!

Stretch that paper thin story into 89 minutes and you have the recipe for a truly bad movie. And how Michael Caine, just one year after his superb performance in HANNAH AND HER SISTERS got involved with this stinker would be a story better than the movie itself. He is quoted on Wikipedia as saying "I have never seen it [the film], but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific!", so I guess that explains that.

Should you watch JAWS 4? That really depends on how bored you are and how fine-tuned your sense of humor is, because this is not a good movie at all...but it is hilarious. I say go for it! But don't say I didn't warn you.

According to what I've read about the JAWS: THE REVENGE novelization tie-in the reason the shark was so intent on killing members of the Brody clan is because it was under the control of a witch doctor who was pissed at the Brody's. Makes sense.

Part 1 - Jaws (1975)
Part 2 - Jaws 2 (1978)
Part 3 - Jaws 3 (1983)

That background looks fake as fook.