So, OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (2013) is Sam Raimi’s most recent feature film until DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS comes out in a few months. It’s like he accidentally took one too many drops of the potion and woke up in a whole new world.
But not really. In the interim, as always, he’s been producing movies for other people, including Fede Alvarez’s EVIL DEAD remake (also 2013) and DON’T BREATHE (2016). And of course he’s developed movies to direct that just haven’t gotten off the ground for one reason or another. There have been announcements of him directing movies based on the video game The Last of Us, the books Love May Fail, The Blade Itself, The Next 100 Years and The Kingkiller Chronicle: The Name of the Wind, plus a remake of A PROPHET. All of these seem to have fallen away, as such things often do.
Throughout his career as a director he’s also been prolific as an executive producer of TV shows including M.A.N.T.I.S., Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, American Gothic, Spy Game, Young Hercules, Jack of All Trades, Cleopatra 2525, Xena: Warrior Princess, Legend of the Seeker and Spartacus. But in 2014, about a month after OZ came out, he finally directed his first TV show. (read the rest of this shit…)
I only gave this a chance because I knew Zoe Bell was in it somewhere and I thought it starred Billy Bob Thornton. Turns out both are pretty small parts. And the opening has alot of signs that this is one of these post-GRINDHOUSE prefab exploitation movies that I can’t stand. It uses that old stylistic device that has pretty much never been used in a cool way, the freeze-frame-turns-into-shitty-Photoshop-tracing-that’s-supposed-to-look-like-a-comic-book-panel. The titlated outlaws are three crazy gunhappy berserker redneck brothers, the unshaven type with greasy hair and fetishistically dirty tank tops, ugly tattoos, biker jewelry, of course a rebel flag on one of them. #1, I don’t understand why these type of characters are so appealing to people who make movies like this, and #2 are we at a point where SMOKIN’ ACES is actually an influential film? Holy shit. I thought I was the only one who liked some parts of that.
