Archive for the ‘Drama’ Category
Tuesday, August 10th, 2004
I don’t know if you guys have ever heard of this one. It’s a weird crime movie starring Fred Ward as a cop with fake teeth, Alec Baldwin as a crook who steals his teeth, and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Baldwin’s dumb hooker turned naive fiancee.
From the cover you’d assume this is just some boring cop movie, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it’s something completely unique. Or don’t take my word for it. Let me explain to you a little bit about the plot, and see if that waxes your mustache.
See, Alec Baldwin (back when he was young and skinny, and made the gals swoon) gets off a plane in Miami, steals somebody’s luggage, and heads for the exit. At the bottom of an escalator he is approached by a hare krishna, who asks him what his name is. He says, “Trouble,” breaks the guy’s finger, and leaves. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alec Baldwin, Charles Willeford, Fred Ward, George Armitage, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews, Romance, Thriller | 14 Comments »
Friday, July 23rd, 2004
From the same director, producer and cast as Romeo Must Die and Exit Wounds comes another exciting pile of disparate elements squooshed together into the same basic shape as an action movie. It’s really more of a booger sculpture than a movie, but for a booger sculpture, it’s not that bad, I guess.
Joel Silver originally announced this as Untitled DMX Project, supposedly a remake of Fritz Lang’s M. If that was the case, then I guess Tom Arnold (our generation’s Peter Lorre) would’ve been playing a perverted child killer whose killing spree had caused the police to clamp down so hard that organized crime would be pretty much put out of business. So the leaders of rival gangs (DMX, Jet Li, Mark Dacascos) would pool their resources to catch Tom Arnold so everything could go back to normal. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andrzej Bartkowiak, Anthony Anderson, DMX, Jet Li, Kelly Hu, Mark Dacascos, Randy Couture, Tom Arnold
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 12 Comments »
Thursday, July 22nd, 2004
The first thing you see in this movie: “inspired by a true story.” The last thing: “Dedicated to the memory of Sheriff Buford Pusser.”
In between, you got nothing to do with Buford Pusser, except a sheriff with a stick. See, that’s what happens when you raise an entire generation on nothing but Diff’rent Strokes and Duran Duran. They get confused. They grow up, they start running things, but they got heads made out of oatmeal. It’s like letting a dog mow your lawn. If you train it right, it might be able to push the mower around, but it’s gonna do a really bad job by human standards. These kids today, they don’t understand reality. To them, “reality” means you have to eat bugs and stab your best friend in the back to win money. So let me explain it to you knuckleheads. MOVIES ARE NOT REALITY. Because a movie was made in the ’70s does not mean that it actually happened. If you make a remake of Saturday Night Fever or Star Wars, you can’t say “based on a true story.” You have to say “based on a movie you already saw.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Johnny Knoxville, Neal McDonough, sort of remakes, The Rock
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Sunday, July 18th, 2004
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Can you believe that? Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Has there ever been a better title for a film of Badass Cinema, because I don’t think there has. Leave it to Sam Peckinpah, that lovable old drunk who spent his whole career fighting with studios and filming innocent kids standing by the side of the road watching as horrible atrocities took place in slow motion to come up with a title like that. I don’t think that one will ever be topped.
I really like Peckinpah, especially one that I guess is not generally considered one of his best, The Getaway. I like that this is a guy who makes violent westerns and crime movies but instead of trying to dazzle the audience with explosions and car chases, he seems to pour his filthy old grizzled alcoholic soul into it. All of his frustrations, problems and paranoid delusions seem to end up in there somewhere. He knows that a good personal film is not necessarily about some dude reading poetry and being misunderstood by the ladies. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Kris Kristofferson, Sam Peckinpah, Warren Oates
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller, Western | 8 Comments »
Thursday, July 8th, 2004
Scroll up a little bit and you can read about POINT BLANK, Lee Marvin’s great Richard Stark adaptation. Directed by John Boorman, an obvious influence on THE LIMEY, one of the classics. Well here’s another one in the same tough guy vein. But it’s less arty, less thoughtful, and has a weird ass meat theme to it.
The movie starts with a slaughterhouse montage showing cows going from cows to sausages. Like the e-coli version of the opening credits to WILLY WONKA. Along the way a dead dude gets thrown in there, chopped up, ground and turned into links, then a big sweaty dude says, “Special order,” packs ’em up and mails ’em to the guy’s boss. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gene Hackman, Lee Marvin, Michael Ritchie, Sissy Spacek
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews | 5 Comments »
Friday, June 18th, 2004
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
Vern rarely writes to us about genuinely great movies, so when he sets aside his insane Steven Seagal fetish to write a review like this, I have to take it seriously:
Dearest Harold,
Vern here and for once I’ve got the genuine article for you. Not just a better than average straight to video-er or something. This is an actual great theatrical film that you haven’t much covered yet and that I know you boys are gonna love. Guaranteed. I saw it here at SIFF and I know it’s played some other film festivals and it’s coming soon to a theater near some place or other. And if nobody goes to see it, well then, fuck those guys. They obviously don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.
STANDER is the true story of Andres Stander, a police captain turned legendary bank robber in ’70s South Africa. At the height of the revolution he noticed that with all the police on riot duty to stop uprisings and protests, there weren’t enough police to really guard the banks. So he started robbing them, then pretending to investigate his own crimes, until he was caught and then busted out of prison and started his own very successful gang. Seems like a pretty good guy. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: bank robbers, South Africa, Thomas Jane, true crime
Posted in Action, AICN, Crime, Drama, Reviews, SIFF | 1 Comment »
Monday, June 14th, 2004
SPOILER ALERT !!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with gobs of reviews from the SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, which seems to have been kicking all kinds of ass lately. Below you’ll find our man Vern’s look at a flick from Clooney and Soderbergh’s production company, Section 8, called CRIMINAL. I love me some John C. Reilly and Diego Luna is fast becoming one of my favorite young actors after his groundbreaking performance in Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN and his love-struck puppy dog character in THE TERMINAL… Not that I have seen that yet… ahem… Here’s Vern for more on this damn cool sounding flick!
Boys –
I’m sure you’ll get more reviews on this one so I’ll keep this one short. Also because I’m a chump and haven’t ever seen NINE QUEENS, the picture from the land of Argentina which this is a remake of. Anyway CRIMINAL is the americanized version which premiered tonight in Seattle. The movie stars John C. Reilly (who was there) and Diego Luna. It’s directed by this guy Greg Jacobs, who was assistant director on an assload of Steve Soderbergh movies, but this is his first as a non-assistant director. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gregory Jacobs, John C. Reilly, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Posted in AICN, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Drama, Reviews, SIFF | No Comments »
Thursday, June 3rd, 2004
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
Okay, kids, this is the one you’ve all been waiting for, and only Vern’s got the goods:
Hey boys, it’s Vern again, sitting out the film festival for a few days or weeks because something much more important came up. Today I managed to get my hands on the video screener I wanted more than any other. You guessed it: Steven Seagal’s new picture, OUT OF REACH.
So obviously, you know, FUCK the Seattle International Film Festival. As one of North America’s leading Seagalogists, I will be watching this many more times as part of my research. But I thought it would be good to share some of my initial thoughts with you and your readers.
Seagal may be at a crossroads in his career right now. As you have no doubt read, he is planning to do a comedy, parodying himself with the help of one of those Zucker brothers. I shoulda known that Mountain Dew commercial was a harbinger of doom. I’m sure this comedy will be one of the least funny pictures of his career, but still, the fact that he is trying to make fun of himself is probaly some kind of a landmark. Once he has acknowledged the ridiculousness of his persona, will that mean he can no longer make serious movies anymore? Because I don’t see Leslie Nielsen doing any movies where he doesn’t dress up like characters from other movies and then that’s supposed to be funny, I guess. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, Seagalogy
Posted in Action, AICN, Drama, Reviews, Romance, Seagal, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Monday, May 31st, 2004
SPOILER ALERT !!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a couple more looks at the Seattle Film Festival’s premiere of Richard Kelly’s DONNIE DARKO: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT. First up is AICN’s own bad boy, Vern. Now, Vern has brought it to my attention that not only was Jena Malone in attendance, but so was Drew Barrymore… Being as Vern was in the same general space as two of my dream women, I think it’s safe to say that he deserves nothing less than a slow and painful death at my hands. Some of you negative retards below can disagree with me about the radiance of Ms. Barrymore and that’s fine. Less people I have to fight against in my ongoing struggle to woo this vixen! Anyway, here’s Vern-o!!!
Dear Harry,
Hey bud this is Vern. I don’t want to be a squealer or nothin but fuckin Moriarty man, that dude put me on his spam list and keeps dumping my reviews. I wrote a review of Cruel Intentions 3 to name one example of a review that the world obviously needs to see but he threw it in the trash with the p.enis enlargements and the v~icodin. I mean I understand the guy is busy, but come on. I can’t imagine he’s staying up all night polishing the dialogue on that thing. I’ll give you a hint bud: Scorpion says “Get over here.” Don’t be writing any monologues for him or anything. And then you’ll have a few extra minutes for dusting your flatscreen and putting up my reviews. So anyway that’s not the point, the point is this. I’m not going to as many SIFF movies this year, but I did manage to see Donnie Darko’s Director Cut. The world premiere. NOT the press screening which was already reviewed by “Gooter.” I don’t do press screenings. I saw it with the people. That’s just the kind of guy I am. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Patrick Swayze, Richard Kelly
Posted in AICN, Drama, Mystery, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, May 18th, 2004
I don’t know how familiar anybody is with William Lustig. The guy is no genius. He made the MANIAC COP series. He made the picture UNCLE SAM which is a decent holiday slasher picture with subversive Gulf War themes, but it’s kind of a bummer because there is almost no use of stilts after the initial appearance of the Uncle Sam costume in a parade. Anyway after many years of directing bad horror pictures this guy started that company Anchor Bay which put out alot of better ones on video and DVD.
But there are some pretty good ones in his filmography, especially the first one, MANIAC. That was a sleazy, brutal horror picture about a sweaty New York pervert who kills women, staples their scalps to a mannequin, handcuffs himself to the mannequin and cries. Then during the daytime he puts on shades and tries to make it as a hip fashion photographer. It’s a real sick movie with ridiculous gore effects by Mr. Tom Savini. Not recommended for anybody unless they like that kind of crap, which in this case I do. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Fred Williamson, Joe Spinell, revenge, Robert Forster, Steve James, vigilantes, William Lustig, Woody Strode
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews | 4 Comments »
