Archive for the ‘Drama’ Category
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
First of all I gotta note that it’s weird this movie exists at all. Walter Hill’s prison/boxing movie UNDISPUTED is not exactly a title that appears in everyone’s home library. It was not a box office hit, it did not catch on huge on video, it does not hold a nostalgic place in anyone’s heart, it did not inspire other movies or hip hop videos or launch a catch phrase. I think I know one guy besides me who saw it, he liked it, I didn’t. He hasn’t seen part 2. I never saw it until now. There’s your audience.
The original got a brief theatrical release, the sequel was straight-to-video. Maybe they could’ve gotten Wesley Snipes to return, since he’s stuck in straight-to-video lately. Instead it stars Michael Jai White – you know, the guy who was cut out of KILL BILL who everybody on the internet thought should’ve replaced Wesley in BLADE: THE SERIES. So that’s cool. Except Wesley’s character is not mentioned – White is playing Ving Rhames’s villain character George “The Iceman” Chambers. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, DTV sequels, DTV sequels better than theatrical originals, Isaac Florentine, J.J. Perry, Michael Jai White, Scott Adkins
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Sport | 11 Comments »
Monday, February 18th, 2008
I haven’t been big on Ridley Scott post-ALIEN, but when I saw he was doing the real-life gangster epic starring Denzel Washington – the one I already wanted to see when it was Antoine Fuqua that was supposed to direct it – man, I was excited. And the trailer looked great. And then it came out and without exception everybody I knew who saw it said “yeah, it was… pretty good.” Suddenly there was less urgency to see it, and I watched other movies, wrote some stuff, maybe took some naps, ate some food, and then it was gone.
Well, maybe it was for the best. Now I watched it with lower expectations, in its 20-minutes-longer UNRATED EXTENDED CUT (4 minutes shy of 3 hours) and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I see your “yeah, it was… pretty good” and raise you a “it was… pretty fuckin good.” I am proud to review it alongside such other great American films as AMERICAN PIMP, AMERICAN PSYCHO and AMERICAN NINJA. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Armand Assante, based on a magazine article, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cuba Gooding Jr., Denzel Washington, Fab 5 Freddy, John Hawkes, John Ortiz, Josh Brolin, mafia, Norman Reedus, Ridley Scott, Roger Guenveur Smith, Ruby Dee, Russell Crowe, RZA
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | 6 Comments »
Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
As much as I agree with Vern’s take on the wretched DIARY OF THE DEAD, I disagree with him here. But I’ll get into it when I publish my review later in the week. For now, here’s Vern, who has been Sweded.
You might know the premise. Mos Def works at an all VHS video store. Jack Black is magnetized (long story). (No, come to think of it, short story. He climbs into a power plant and gets shocked.) Jack Black’s brain erases all of the videos in the store, and Mia Farrow demands to watch GHOSTBUSTERS. So they dress up, go to the library and tape their own ridiculous home-made version of GHOSTBUSTERS directly onto the tape. Because they don’t want Danny Glover to know they fucked up. And it goes on from there. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Jack Black, Michel Gondry, Mos Def
Posted in AICN, Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
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…)
Tags: crazed veterans
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
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…)
Tags: crazed veterans, revenge, Steve James, vigilantes
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 10 Comments »
Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
Recently a reader named David Lambert sent me a very accurate email:
“…I’ve loved your site for almost a decade now, but my one complaint is the almost complete lack of reviews for Westerns.
The Western is the most bad-ass genre out there and it’s a huge hole in your ‘reviewography.’
How can a guy calling himself ‘Outlaw’ Vern not represent the genre that the term ‘outlaw’ comes from?”
You got me, David. I knew he was right so I pledged to “at least review RIO BRAVO or something,” and he gave me a variety of other suggestions that could come in handy if I am to strive for this particular type of excellence. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Howard Hawks, John Wayne, siege movies
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Romance, Western | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
A guy I know told me a funny anecdote about renting this in the early ’90s when he was a teenager. He said he got it at a tiny little mom and pop store in a suburb of Seattle. You don’t really see stores like that now but they used to be around, especially in the ’80s, before Blockbuster and Hollywood were everywhere. This one had a nice old man who ran it (the pop) and when this kid and his little sister brought up BAD LIEUTENANT the old man got excited. “My niece is in this movie!” he says.
“Really?”
“Yeah! Watch for the scene where he pulls over the two teenage girls. She’s one of the girls!” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abel Ferrara, Harvey Keitel
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Monday, January 7th, 2008
First of all, don’t get your hopes up. There won’t be that much blood. I was very disappointed.
Second of all, Paul Thomas “the ‘Thomas’ means I didn’t direct MORTAL KOMBAT” Anderson’s THERE WILL BE BLOOD has the feeling of greatness. It has the smell of greatness, the texture of it. It flirts with greatness. I’m pretty sure it even left the club with greatness last night but there is no way yet for us to know if it got lucky with greatness. We can only catch up with it later and ask it. If it turns out later that it was only faking it I’ll have to admit it had me fooled. Here’s why.
It has an epic feel, an epic length, a supreme filmatic confidence. It has long stretches with no dialogue, because it don’t give a fuck. It knows what it wants. If it wants to show an emotional reunion scene from all the way across a field it fucking will. It has authentic period detail. A classy, tension-building score. Nothing noticably digital. Hubris. Oil. Madness. Mustaches. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Paul T. Anderson
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Monday, December 17th, 2007
This movie was written by Diablo Cody! She was a stripper for a year! Then she was a blogger! A stripblogger! She quit stripping in time to avoid the heroin addiction and was not necessarily molested as a child like many other strippers! It’s just something she did one time! Her name is really Melinda Cartwright or Heather Daniels or some shit but she calls herself Diablo Cody! I bet she has some fire or a sexy devil or something tattooed somewhere on her, that would be awesome! She loves lip gloss! The director is the son of the guy who directed GHOSTBUSTERS and produced all the early Cronenberg movies! This guy also did the movie THANK YOU FOR SMOKING! Get it because it’s like thank you for NOT smoking, only it’s thank you FOR smoking! It’s hard to explain but I love it! THANK YOU FOR SMOKING!
As you can see I have been witness to some of the excruciating advance hype on this year’s LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE or NAPOLEON DYNAMITE or FULL MONTY or whatever the fuck you want to say JUNO is, and I will literally punch the next article I see about Diablo Cody. I will punch it until my knuckles bleed and I will ask it for an apology. This guy Laremy who sends me lists of possible topics for film.com articles included the topic “If I see one more ‘Diablo Cody was a stripper’ article I’m gonna hang myself.” I liked the topic but there was no need for an article, the headline said it all. This was like a week and a half before they had one on the front page of the Seattle Times. So there is a newspaper that does not care about the suicide rate. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Diablo Cody, Ellen Page, Jason Bateman, Jason Reitman, Jennifer Garner
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | 6 Comments »
Saturday, December 8th, 2007
Not to be confused with THE HUNTED (starring Christopher Lambert) or BENJI THE HUNTED (starring Benji)
Early in William Friedkin’s THE HUNTED we are introduced to its hero, L.T. Bonham (Steven Seagal), an expert in tracking, knife fighting and wilderness survival who used to train special ops soldiers in these skills. As he learned that the guys he was training were being sent to assassinate people for purely political purposes he grew disillusioned and quit. So now he’s in the BC wilderness where we see him track an injured wolf through the snowy woods, get the trap off of his paw, chew up a root and rub it on the wound as a homeopathic healing agent. Then he tracks the responsible poacher down at a tavern, bangs his head against a table and tells him never to do it again.
Oh wait, did I say Steven Seagal? Actually L.T. Bonham is played by Tommy Lee Jones. I was surprised how much of this movie reminded me of Seagal, though. The story is about a special ops badass (Seagal– er, I mean Benicio Del Toro) who comes back from Kosovo totally wacked out and kills some guys, and Tommy Lee Jones (UNDER SIEGE) is the guy who trained him so he has to help catch him. So I thought it was gonna be like FIRST BLOOD meets THE FUGITIVE. Not Steven Seagal meets Steven Seagal. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Benicio Del Toro, Tommy Lee Jones, William Friedkin
Posted in Action, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 7 Comments »
