Archive for the ‘Comedy/Laffs’ Category
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
This guy Don’s been bugging me to review 92 IN THE SHADE since he nominated it for the BADASS 100 update and nobody else had seen it. And it clearly sounded worth seeing but I think the title had bad associations for me because it reminded me of a porno this dude I used to work with liked to watch. That one was called 92 AND STILL BANGIN’. Don’s movie is alot better, in my personal opinion. Your mileage may vary.
The title probaly could describe the heat in Key West where it takes place, but the movie never really shows or mentions it being that hot. So it could also describe the tensions between the young man (Pete Fonda) back in town resuming his job as a fishing guide and his main rival (Warren God Damn Oates). That’s a hell of a ’70s cast already, and then you also got Harry Dean Stanton as another rival, Margot Kidder as Fonda’s girlfriend, William Hickey as his dad, Burgess Meredith as some other dude, even Joe “MANIAC” Spinell as a client. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Harry Dean Stanton, Warren Oates
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Friday, September 28th, 2007
Well, I guess now it’s officially a pattern. The pattern goes like this:
- small independent horror movie plays a few small film festivals.
- People on the internet go ape shit because they got to see it first.
- Buzz spreads for a year or so.
- Anchor Bay (#1 releaser of horror movies in the VHS days) buys rights, gives tiny theatrical release.
- I see it on DVD.
- god damn it, why don’t they make good ones anymore
This pattern started with BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON and fortunately this one is not as asinine as that one. It’s not terrible, but it doesn’t cut the mustard. Believe me, I wish it did. I see mustard everywhere and I want nothing more than for that mustard to be cut by a movie like this. But just being above the standards of the DTV giant snake movies is not a horror resurgence. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Green, Joel David Moore, Kane Hodder, slashers
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Horror, Reviews | 20 Comments »
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
Perhaps the single most important piece of film criticism we’ll publish this month. You don’t have to like me or Harry in any way to love Vern. He’s always been one of the most distinct voices we publish here, and there are certain films where I look forward to his opinion in particular.
I know a lot of you wanted to read a HALLOWEEN review from him, and he’s published one at his fantastic world-famous blog now. But I think it’s more important to be able to present his review of the film by Michael Davis that we’ve been talking about for a while now. Vern’s a stubborn, passionate fan of action films, and I knew that he’d approach this movie wide open to it. Seems like he really got it, too, enjoying it for any number of reasons and on several levels. This was a great read, Vern. Thanks for always raising the bar with each review.
We all know HARDBOILED is one of the greatest action movies of all time. This has been discussed, voted and agreed upon officially. But for all the time dedicated to honoring that movie, not much has been set aside for the HARDBOILED poster. Remember the first time you saw that, before you saw the movie? What more did you need to see? That simple, perfect, iconic image of Chow Yun Fat (whether you knew who he was then or not) holding a gun in one hand and a baby in the other – that should’ve been enough. It doesn’t tell you everything about HARDBOILED, but it tells you alot. The theory of badass juxtaposition at its most basic symbolic level – one man holding life and death. Good and evil. Innocence and violence. Machine and flesh. Yin and yang.
More importantly, the guy is holding a baby in one hand and a gun in the other. Forget what it means. Concentrate on what it is. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Clive Owen
Posted in Action, AICN, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 5 Comments »
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
Merrick here…
How does one even begin to introduce the inimitable Vern?
I’m not sure.
So…well…here he is…
My friends I am here to tell you about a new comedy called SUPERBAD. What this is about is two young gentlemen named Seth and Evan. Seth is a fat guy with curly hair. Evan is taller and skinnier and wears a hoodie. The story begins with a phone call. Evan answers while opening the refrig– ah, fuck it, you guys already know what it is. I just want to agree with the whole world that it’s on the top shelf of comedies in recent years. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Greg Mottola, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Seth Rogen
Posted in AICN, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Thursday, August 9th, 2007
YOJIMBO
and
FISTFUL OF DOLLARS
and – why the hell not –
LAST MAN STANDING
I’ve been doing alot of themed movie-watching lately and I don’t want that to grow stale, so I decided to mix things up a little. Three movies starring my favorite badasses, but from different years and different countries. Just a real variety of material here. YOJIMBO is about this bad motherfucker who wanders into a small town torn apart by two warring gangs, and he goes back and forth working for them, plays them against each other, rescues a woman from them then gets beaten up real bad but escapes and hides out and then tricks them some more and also I forgot to mention there’s alot of good jokes about the town coffin maker getting business from his activities. FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, on the other hand, is about this bad motherfucker who wa– hey, wait a minute! (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce, Bruce Willis, Clint Eastwood, Kurosawa, Leone, samurai, Toshiro Mifune
Posted in Action, Bruce, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Reviews, Thriller, Western | 16 Comments »
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
COMMANDO is a rare commodity – a Schwarzenegger picture on a low enough budget to feel like the early Seagal and Van Damme pictures. The good ones, though. Schwarzenegger plays John Matrix, the perfect name for an ex-special forces muscleman who lives in a cabin out in the woods with his daughter Alyssa Milano. (Who is the boss, anyway? I never did figure that out.) She doesn’t want him going on dangerous missions anymore so he stays home and spends his days chopping wood and feeding deer with her. Luckily, before he gets too bored with this Snow White lifestyle some other soldiers he used to be knee dip in the shit with kidnap his daughter as a way to force him to assassinate some South American leader or other. So he gets to go to war. And to be honest he looks more comfortable running around with camoflauge paint on then he does feeding a deer. We all have our little things we’re good at, you know. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark L. Lester, Val Verde
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Thriller | 15 Comments »
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
In James Cameron’s idea of a romantic comedy Schwarzenegger plays Harry Tasker, an agent for the “Omega Sector” secret spy agency who protect America from terrorism and are led by Charlton Heston with an eyepatch. He has one eye on the enemy, the other eye on infinity. Or something. The opening shows that Harry is willing to blow shit up but is more of a suave James Bond type than the usual Schwarzenegger character. He gets his way through trickery, wears a tux and even does a tango with Tia Carrera. (Remember when she was supposed to be a big deal?) He just happens to be a muscleman under that tux but nobody seems to notice in the movie, it’s not really relevant to the character.
Harry spends alot of his time being followed in a van by his woman-hating loyal manservant Tom Arnold (before he sidekicked for Jet Li or Steven Seagal) and his GGWATBOADSINR (good guy who appears to be of Arab descent so it’s not racist) Academy Award nominee for GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK Grant Heslov. But when he’s not trying to stop terrorists from getting nuclear weapons he faces the much bigger problem of relating to his wife Helen (Jamie Lee “I cut off Michael Meyers’s head” Curtis) who thinks he’s a boring computer salesman. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Cameron, Jamie Lee Curtis
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Romance, Thriller | 25 Comments »
Saturday, June 23rd, 2007
Like I mentioned in my review of WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? that should be running on The Ain’t It Cool News soon, I’m on the mailing list for this Dark Sky DVD label. So I get all these nicely packaged Italian horror obscurities and what not, and to be honest I haven’t watched most of them yet. I loan them to my horror watcher friends and hope they’ll tell me I got a must-see there. But that doesn’t usually happen.
For the batch that comes out this week though I found time to watch them and I was impressed. The one I had the highest hopes for was WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? which is a creepy sun-drenched Spanish horror movie in the vein of VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED. But I already heard that one was good before, so a more impressive find is THE GLOVE, the b-picture in their latest “DRIVE-IN DOUBLE FEATURE” along with SEARCH AND DESTROY. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Joanna Cassidy, John Saxon, Rosey Grier
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Drama, Horror, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
It seemed like most of the world hated OCEAN’S 12. I always figured it was because it was too strange, but people say it was just too self-indulgent, they get mad watching all those guys having fun together and being cool. Which is weird because if that’s the case I’m not sure why they liked the first one. I mean what else are they supposed to do? Not have fun and wear cheap suits?
Anyway I felt lucky they were making a part 13, like they were doing it just for me and the elite few who still give a shit. But I was mistaken – actually they were making this for the other guys to make up for part 12. This is the same shit but dialed back a little, so they are having a little less fun and are not quite as cool because Matt Damon wears a fake nose in one part. It’s Steve Soderbergh’s most mainstream movie since ERIN BROCKOVICH, but not even as satisfying as that since it’s sequel number two and there’s no surprise factor at all. And you get a little sick of all their con man lingo and code words. For example, faking an earthquake is “an Irwin Allen.” I’m not sure what the name would be for making a fun but forgettable part 3, since most part 3s are widely hated except for Lord of the Rings or if it’s in 3-D. And they are in the problem of being a part 3 only I asked for (see the end of OCEAN’S 12 review above). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Steve Soderbergh
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
Saturday, April 28th, 2007
HOT FUZZ is the new British comedy picture from S. Pegg/N. Frost (lead comedy actors) and E. Wright (director). They are the same individuals responsible for SHAUN OF THE DEAD, the zombie comedy from a few years back that is known to be so potent that just the mention of it causes a boner on any film fan under the age of 27 residing within a 50′ radius, even if they don’t have the equipment.
Well, I’m gonna lose some credibility with my friends and colleagues in the nerd community by saying this, but I think these movies are a little overrated. I do not by any means think they are bad movies. They are fun movies, they have laughs, they are fairly original, and they are very sincere about their love for the genres they are paying tribute to, it’s not some Leslie Nielsen style “spoof.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Edgar Wright, Edward Woodward, Jim Broadbent, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Simon Pegg, Timothy Dalton
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 73 Comments »
