"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Archive for the ‘Thriller’ Category

Death Wish II

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

For the first DEATH WISH sequel we trade down from Dino DiLaurentiis to Golan and Globus producing. Apparently Menahem Golan almost directed, but Bronson wouldn’t do it unless they got Michael Winner back. I bet he said “why get a loser when you can get a Winner?” Anyway we caught a lucky break there. I guess Winner must’ve broken up with Maria from SESAME STREET by this time so Herbie Hancock was out. Instead he got one of his neighbors to score, a neighbor who happened to be Jimmy Page. I was worried but there’s only guitar soloing on the beginning and end credits, the rest is standard old school score, not cheesy ’80s keyboards and rockin guitars and shit. So I’m not gonna complain.

It’s 1982 now, 8 years later, but they say it’s 4 years later. (The magic of cinema.) Paul Kersey lives in L.A. now. His adventures in Chicago (portrayed in the book Death Sentence) are ignored. He’s still an architect, h has a new girlfriend (Jill Ireland) and he’s moved his daughter to a hospital in California. She’s still so traumatized she doesn’t speak. (read the rest of this shit…)

Death Wish

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

After enjoying recent DEATH WISH ripoffs and spinoffs like DEATH SENTENCE and THE BRAVE ONE, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the source, and to see those sequels I never got around to watching. (By the source I mean the first Charles Bronson movie and not the book by Brian Garfield, which is apparently similar but clearly anti-vigilante in the end – that’s why he wrote the sequel Death Sentence, because he was so mad about the DEATH WISH movie.)

Charles Bronson plays Paul Kersey, New York architect, happily married father, “bleeding heart liberal,” Korean War veteran with conscientious objector status. A cool guy. Then one day a gang of hoodlums (including Jeff Goldblum in his first movie role) follow Paul’s wife and daughter home from the grocery store and rape them. Mrs. Kersey dies and the daughter is so traumatized she’s hospitalized in a near catatonic state. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Brave One

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

I’m not totally sure why she’s The Brave One, but Jodie Foster plays a public radio host who gets attacked in Central Park one night by some assholes. They steal her dog, beat her fiancee to death and leave her in a coma. All of which I’m against. Then she tries to get revenge. Good stuff.

Since the director is Neil Jordan, and especially since it stars Jodie Foster, I kind of thought it was gonna be a pretentious “serious” take on the vigilante genre, maybe even condescending toward it, looking down on these types of movies and trying to do the respectable version of them. But thankfully the movie doesn’t have that feel, and if you check the publicity interviews on the DVD they all check out. Foster states that it is in fact a genre movie, and Neil Jordan drops names like Don Siegel and Sam Fuller. I guess I forgot Joel Silver was the producer, he’s not gonna get all fancy pants on us. (read the rest of this shit…)

Until Death

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

It’s always exciting to hear that a Van Damme or a Dolph or a Seagal is taking a risk, so here’s an exciting one. Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a heroin addicted, womanizing, fucked up cop. (He’s not totally dirty though, he won’t take bribes.) Most of the other cops kind of hate him, especially the guy who blames him for the death of his fiancee in an undercover operation. Van Damme’s wife is pregnant from her new man. And his former partner (Stephen Rea, believe it or not) is the crime kingpin he just can’t seem to bust.

Eventually Van Damme gets shot in the head and goes into a coma. When he wakes up he’s sort of born again and tries to make amends. He gives his settlement to a schlub he got kicked off the force. He stops shooting heroin. His wife is taking care of him while he recovers and they start to repair their relationship. If you haven’t figured it out yet this is a genuine drama, not an action movie. He doesn’t do the splits once. (read the rest of this shit…)

Exterminator 2

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

The Vietnam Vet turned psychotic New York criminal assassinator is back, and still played by Robert Ginty, but now directed by part 1 producer Mark Buntzman. I was impressed that part 1’s very first shot was the hero flying away from a fiery explosion. No studio logos, even. Part 2 starts with the Cannon Films logo, but the opening shot is a good one: The Exterminator stepping out into an alley wearing a welding mask, he sprays his blowtorch into the camera and the title appears in the fire.

I didn’t enjoy part 2 nearly as much as part 1, but some bad movie aficianados may like it better. Part 1 is clumsy and raw, but part 2 is just cheesy and stupid. But it’s way more ridiculous. This time there’s no cop character, there’s just The Exterminator going around like a masked slasher killing criminals. In the first one I think he used a welding torch for a little American style perfecly legal and ethical interrogation techniques. In this one they act like a welding mask is his Jason mask and a blowtorch is his Freddy glove. The creepy part is he only appears after they’ve committed crimes, and it’s even said “it’s like he was waiting for us.” So you wonder why he doesn’t intervene before some gangsters murder an innocent elderly couple. Instead he just waits outside so he can light them on fire after they’re done. (Trivia: One of the first guys he lights on fire is played by Reggie Rock Bythewood, writer of GET ON THE BUS, director of BIKER BOYZ.) (read the rest of this shit…)

The Exterminator

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

THE EXTERMINATOR is a crude but enjoyable vigilante action movie from 1980. It’s kind of in the vein of ROLLING THUNDER but closer to the quality level of THE PARK IS MINE. Robert Ginty plays a troubled Vietnam vet whose best friend (Steve James, more on him later) gets paralyzed by a gang so he kills them in revenge, then decides to declare himself The Exterminator and go murder various criminals. Now that I think about it this is actually in the vein of THE PUNISHER (either version), but it came before those movies.

You know this movie means business when the very first shot is the main character being tossed through the air by a huge explosion. There’s not even a studio logo before that, that is the very first shot. It starts out with a gruesome battle in Vietnam that explains why a dude would be troubled enough to become The Exterminator. There’s a very realistic and disturbing beheading in this scene. Stan Winston was one of the effects guys. It’s one of those action movie paradoxes because on one hand these things are what torments the main character, they are what cause him to go crazy and what he flashes back to when he’s murdering criminals. But on the other hand we think they are awesome. We want to see explosions and beheadings. As viewers, what’s worst for him is best for us. We are cruel gods. (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern didn’t think DIARY OF THE DEAD was that hot either!

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

Dear diary,

I saw George Romero’s new movie DIARY OF THE DEAD. It’s basically “NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD meets BLAIR WITCH PROJECT” or “CLOVERFIELD with zombies” or “CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST – cannibal + zombies but not ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST.” It’s not a sequel to the living dead movies but kind of a do-over with the zombie plague beginning in the present day and depicted in documentary form. Some film students are working on a crappy mummy movie (come on George, this is 2008, only Rob Cohen makes mummy movies) when they start hearing news about the dead coming back to life, and their director is compelled to keep filming. We’re told at the beginning of the movie that his footage was edited by another character along with clips they downloaded from youtube, some news and security cam footage. Also she admits that she added music. And, I’m afraid, she narrates it.

I feel bad saying this but since nobody is reading this and it’s only a diary I will come out and say it: this movie isn’t very good. I enjoyed watching it and will list many of the good things about it right here on these pages, in the interest of balance. And in case Harry reads this because he got real mad at Quint for not liking it and I pretty much agree with everything in Quint’s review. But in my deepest, most personal secret opinion this is a failed experiment for old George. (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern sees the DAY OF THE DEAD remake. But he’s not a role model. Don’t make the same mistake he did.

Monday, January 28th, 2008

Vern here…

Man, I try to be a nice guy. I try to be an optimist. I was ready to burn the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake at the stake, but then I saw it and it wasn’t too bad. It’s a hollow action movie version of the original, but it’s a fun one, and it’s pretty well executed. I’m not too much of a hardliner to admit that.

So if they already remade that and did okay I wasn’t gonna be too up in arms about a DAY OF THE DEAD remake. And I was rooting for Steve Miner too. He’s the director and I’ve seen people talk shit about him here, but I have a soft spot for him. He directed my two favorite FRIDAY THE 13THs (parts 2 and 3) which are fun and have a good energy to them. And he still had some of that spark when he did HALLOWEEN H20: H20 STANDS FOR HALLOWEEN TWENTY YEARS LATER. Nobody seems to like that movie, and to be honest the Michael Meyers mask looks terrible, but I think it’s a pretty good movie. The ROCKY BALBOA of the HALLOWEEN series. And it has that great chase at the end, you gotta at least enjoy that. Ignore that bullshit in the next one about how Michael Meyers switched clothes with a paramedic. That’s for conspiracy theorists. Anyway because of those three movies I figured if they had to do a fast running DAY OF THE DEAD then maybe Steve Miner wasn’t a bad choice to do it. (read the rest of this shit…)

Rambo

Saturday, January 26th, 2008

RAMBO: JUST RAMBO, NOT RAMBO FIRST BLOOD PART 2

Poor John Rambo. Drafted into ‘Nam, transformed into a killing machine, trained to eat things that would make a billygoat puke. He came home, butted heads with an asshole sherriff, fought a bunch of cops, got a pardon so he could rescue some POWs and “win this time,” lived at a monastery I believe, real good stickfighter, made some allegiances in Afghanistan that in retrospect were not so hot but you know what they say about hindsight. Now he lives in a shack in Thailand where he catches deadly snakes for a living. His first line in the movie is telling a guy to go fuck himself. He’s real cynical about the state of the world and the inevitability of bloodshed, but some Christian missionaries convince him against his better judgment to take them in his boat and drop them off in a war zone in Burma. You guys run along now, don’t get raped or blown up. Then when they don’t come back on time he has to go back and drop off the team of mercenaries the church hires to rescue them. I wish the team had a cool name like The Holy Rollers and had pictures of Jesus, Joseph and Mary airbrushed on their weapons, but no, they’re just regular guns for hire, they don’t give a shit about that stuff. They don’t even care about the money that much, so they’re gonna turn around when things look bad. But Rambo (to them “the boatman”) changes their minds. Using a bow and arrow. (read the rest of this shit…)

Sorcerer

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

If you’re a never-give-up Rocky Balboa type of dude, a real achiever, or if you have to carry heavy objects alot as part of a job or strongman competition, then you know this feeling: your body is exhausted, bruised, broken, covered in sweat, maybe some blood, your task seems impossible, but you’re too stubborn to give up. You keep going until you’re done, powered by the sheer force of will. That’s what the second half of SORCERER is about. Four guys, two trucks, a bunch of nitroglycerin, and miles of untamed South American jungle. They gotta drive the nitro without blowing up, because it’s needed to put out an oil fire, ON DEADLY GROUND style. The job is ridiculously dangerous so it pays well, and they’re doing it for the pay day. They’re all fugitives hiding out here for a wide selection of crimes and the money they’ll get represents a chance to start over somewhere nicer. (The first half sets all this up.)

So there they are, in a couple of fucked up trucks, rolling over craggy roads, along the edges of cliffs, through swamps and across the shakiest bridges you’ve ever seen. And who better to lead the charge than Roy Scheider*? I think he’s the right man for the job, and if you disagree I think you will change your mind pretty quick when you watch the movie. In one harrowing scene they come to a broken rope bridge in the middle of a storm. It seems logical to give up at this point, but Roy refuses. He has his partner crawl across the bridge guiding him inch by inch all the way across. It’s a terrifying ordeal that seems to take forever and then the second they’re safely across the movie cuts to the other truck getting to the bridge and having to do the same damn thing. No time to catch your breath. (read the rest of this shit…)