The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976)

7.5/10
The acting was terriffic but I found some of the plot to be more than slightly implausible - where did the priest come from and how did he know all this stuff was going to happen? How could Damien's parents go five years without noticing their son has a "666" birthmark on his head? Anyway I much prefer Rosemary's Baby in the canon of "devil child" films.

Ride in the Whirlwind (Monte Hellman, 1965)

4/10
Early Monte Hellman western featuring Jack Nicholson (who also wrote the movie) wasn't nearly as good as I was hoping. It had a very weird pace, the standoff in the cabin was dragged out far too long and the rest of the movie seemed to have to rush to catch up.

The Wild One (Laszlo Benedek, 1953)

7/10
I didn't like it as much as I hoped I would but it was still entertaining, and I'm coming to enjoy pretty much anything involving Brando.

Cobra Verde (Werner Herzog, 1987)

7/10
Probably my least favorite of all the Herzog/Kinski collaborations. I had a hard time following the plot in this one but admittedly I wasn't paying too much attention. The last scene with Cobra Verde trying to pull the boat into the ocean was great though.

Batman & Robin (Joel Schumacher, 1997)

1/10
There must be some reason I stick around to watch this every time Teletoon replays it so I'll give it a 1...but good lord it's bad on so many levels. Every time I see it I think "it's probably not as bad as I remember" yet it's even worse. The entire dialogue is horribly lame, cheesy one-liners. Everything is so ridiculously unbelievable. Schwarzenegger's performance has to go down as one of the worst ever put to screen in a major motion picture.

Day of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1985)

7/10
Not really what I was expecting after having seen Night, Dawn and Land. Day is more about humans' reactions to zombies living amongst us, so it was interesting from that POV. The message is pretty clear (humans are a greater danger to humans than any outside force) and for the most part it's well-acted...I found the scenes where the Professor was "teaching" the zombie Bub to be a little corny, and the ending felt like a bit of a cop-out to me. Also it didn't bug me much but I can see where some people would be disappointed with the lack of true zombie-on-human killing action (until the end, of course). As of now my Romero zombie hierarchy goes Dawn > Night > Day >>>> Land (haven't seen Diary yet).

Incident at Loch Ness (Zak Penn, 2004)

8.5/10
Werner Herzog again manipulating the documentary genre...the story is that a cameraman is making a documentary on Werner Herzog called "Herzog in Wonderland" and it follows him as he prepares to direct a documentary on the Loch Ness Monster called "The Enigma of Loch Ness". The production quickly turns into a comedy of errors centering around the bumbling producer Zak Penn who appears to only want to have a role in the project because his name alongside Herzog's will give him some real credibility. As he, Herzog and the rest of the small film crew take to the high seas to shoot the documentary, all kinds of revelations are made along the way, tempers flare, people drown, guns are pulled, and the boat is attacked by the actual Loch Ness monster itself...

It becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly (and I even knew it beforehand) that the entire thing is a sham - there is no "Herzog in Wonderland" doc and there is no "Enigma of Loch Ness" and everything you see happening is carefully scripted by Herzog and acted out by real-life people (e.g. Zak Penn really is a Hollywood producer), but it blurs the lines between fiction and reality so well, and it's hilarious to watch everything unfold. I have no idea why this movie got some poor reviews and a score as low as 6.6 on IMDB - maybe people were expecting a real documentary by Herzog on the Loch Ness Monster? Nevertheless it's a really well done look at the genre and an interesting watch to boot.