Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Thursday, September 26th, 2024
A sequel to BEETLEJUICE was first announced when part 1 was still in theaters. Director Tim Burton started developing it in earnest, went through a couple different ideas, it seemed like it was really gonna happen in the early ‘90s until he and Michael Keaton shifted their focus to BATMAN RETURNS. In my opinion that’s one of Burton’s best movies and one of the great sequels – it’s a continuation but reinvents so much of the first movie’s approach that it feels completely fresh and even more potent.
A bit of the song “Macarthur Park” echoes hauntingly over the production logos of the BEETLEJUICE sequel we finally got 36 (!) years later: “I don’t think that I can take it / ‘cause it took so long to bake it.” But after all that time in the oven, BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE is no BATMAN RETURNS. It’s more of a getting-the-gang-back-together type of sequel, not as much of a shift as it probly would’ve been back then, or that it would need to be to be a new classic. To me it feels less aggressive about nostalgia than most of these types of things, but I gotta admit it’s built more on “remember this?” than “hey, check THIS out!” It returns to the afterlife but mostly just the same bureaucracy/waiting room stuff as the first movie. We get another sandworm, another non-consensual lip synch, another wedding. All fun stuff, but wouldn’t all-new stuff be better? I bet younger, hungrier Burton would’ve brought us somewhere totally different. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alfred Gough, Catherine O'Hara, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Michael Keaton, Miles Millar, Monica Bellucci, Sami Slimane, Santiago Cabrera, Seth Grahame-Smith, Tim Burton, Willem Dafoe, Winona Ryder
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Horror | 22 Comments »
Tuesday, September 24th, 2024
A while ago I reviewed BABY ASSASSINS, the really fun 2021 Japanese action-comedy about two teenage assassins forced by their organization to get an apartment and day jobs. It has a bunch of top notch martial arts action choreographed by the great Kensuke Sonomura (MANHUNT, HYDRA, BAD CITY), but it’s mainly about the friendship, personality conflicts and growing-up-struggles of these two goofballs who have fun killing people but mostly enjoy laying on the couch eating desserts and talking about anime and stuff.
There’s actually a part 3 coming out, it played the New York Asian Film Festival in July and Fantastic Fest yesterday and I’ve seen more than one person saying it’s one of the best action movies of the year. Also, in Japan it’s already continuing as a TV mini-series called Baby Assassins Everyday (I watched the first episode on Youtube, and it’s a delight). So, shit, I better get caught up by finishing my review of part 2! (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Akari Takaishi, assassins, Joey Iwanaga, Junpei Hashino, Kensuke Sonomura, Saori Izawa, Tatsuomi Hamada, Yugo Sakamoto
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 6 Comments »
Monday, September 23rd, 2024
You bet your ass I’m gonna go see a theatrically released Dave Bautista vehicle directed by action legend J.J. Perry. THE KILLER’S GAME came out during the week I was traveling and it’s already down to limited showings but I got in there in time. I’m glad I did, but I gotta admit I can already feel it dissolving from my memory as I type this. I didn’t know it was based on a book and that it’s been in development since the ’90s (more on that later), but coming now it’s very well-worn material within the familiar Wacky Assassins mode of action filmmaking (think THE BIG HIT, LOVE AND A BULLET, THE TOURNAMENT, SMOKIN’ ACES, BULLET TRAIN, POLAR, ACCIDENT MAN and its sequel or HOTEL ARTEMIS, which even features both of THE KILLER’S GAME’s leads).
Bautista (MASTER Z: THE IP MAN LEGACY) stars as Joe Flood, elite assassin who in the opening scene kills an arms dealer in the balcony of an opera house. All he really has to do is come in wearing a tux and kill a couple guards to get up there. It’s kind of funny that this is the last role before Bautista decided to slim down from his giant wrestler body, because his huge size seems like a disadvantage in this job (along with his attention-grabbing hand and neck tattoos). That’s not a complaint, though! I enjoy improbable muscleman characters – Schwarzenegger playing scientists, etc. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Balazs Lengyel, Ben Kingsley, Daniel Bernhardt, Dave Bautista, Drew McIntyre, Felix Betancourt, George Somner, J.J. Perry, James Coyne, Jay Bonansinga, Justin Yu, Lee Hoon, Marko Zaror, Pom Klementieff, Rand Ravich, Scott Adkins, Sofia Boutella, Terry Crews, Troy Robinson, Wacky Hitmen
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime | 10 Comments »
Thursday, September 19th, 2024
REBEL RIDGE is the latest from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier, who’s now five for five in my book. He did the gory art world satire MURDER PARTY (2007), then broke through with the revenge deconstruction BLUE RUIN (2013), followed by the punks vs. skinheads gem GREEN ROOM (2015) and the eerie Alaskan Gothic HOLD THE DARK (2018). Like that last one, REBEL RIDGE is a straight-to-Netflix movie, but it already seems to be more of a crowdpleaser (being their number one movie for a week) and I appreciate that I’ve been able to watch it twice already, even if I would’ve loved to see it in a theater. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aaron Pierre, AnnaSophia Robb, C.J. LeBlanc, David Denman, Don Johnson, Emory Cohen, Jeremy Saulnier, Zsane Jhe
Posted in Reviews, Action, Thriller | 46 Comments »
Wednesday, September 4th, 2024
STRANGE DARLING is a lower budget horror-adjacent thriller currently playing in theaters. It’s one of those movies that premiered at Fantastic Fest, it had a cryptic trailer and some buzz, so I checked it out without knowing much, and that went well for me.
It starts off kind of winkingly pretentious. The first thing you see after the production logos is a card saying “FILMED ENTIRELY ON 35MM FILM.” I laughed out loud. It seems that others have written off the entire movie for that boast/marketing hook/disclaimer/joke/whatever. Pardon my French, but you’re being a bunch of fuckin silly billies. Did you ever see the opening title of UNBREAKABLE? Of course you did, and maybe you joked about it later but it wasn’t the one thing you had to say in any discussion of the movie UNBREAKABLE. Back then you knew how to let things like that go.
Next is a riff on the narration from THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, leading into the type of knock out opening credits sequence that warms my heart (with an “in” between the actors and the title, even). Then it says “STRANGE DARLING – A Thriller In 6 Chapters.”
I really like this type of storytelling, laying out at the beginning what the approach is gonna be. Oh, okay. Six chapters. Got it. Thanks for the heads up. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barbara Hershey, Ed Begley Jr., Giovanni Ribisi, JT Mollner, Kyle Gallner, Willa Fitzgerald
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Thriller | 37 Comments »
Tuesday, September 3rd, 2024
Well, my friends, it’s after Labor Day. Time to stop wearing white shoes according to Serial Mom, and time to wrap up the summer retrospective according to me. Some interesting movies that were released at the end of the summer include Richard Rush’s COLOR OF NIGHT (yet another legendarily hated movie at the time time, I thought it was kind of interestingly crazy when I watched it years later) and Roger Avary’s KILLING ZOE (which I’ve always sort of liked but never nearly as much as I wanted to), both released on the 19th. The 26th gave us another Tarantino-connected movie that was a huge deal at the time, Oliver Stone’s NATURAL BORN KILLERS.
I previously reviewed that one so thoroughly that I not only covered the movie, but the earlier script and the making of book, so I’m not going to rehash it much here. I do want to note that Oliver Stone was one of the directors most associated with boomer self analysis – rightly or wrongly, his movies were a big part of the way people my age conceived of the Vietnam War, the JFK assassination, and of course The Doors. But here in the summer of GUMP he was more interested in being contemporary, cutting edge, of-the-moment. I found the movie’s hyperactive collage style annoying at the time, but I can respect it more now, and it was obviously influential for other movies I initially and/or still find annoying like DOMINO and CRANK. His choice to recruit Trent Reznor to produce the soundtrack album proves that the movie is more Lollapalooza than Woodstock. It was also an early foray into cinema for the future Academy Award winning composer (though of course we all know he was in Paul Schrader’s LIGHT OF DAY in 1987, plus “Head Like a Hole” was in CLASS OF 1999 and PRAYER OF THE ROLLERBOYS and “Dead Souls” was in THE CROW).
This finale to the Summer of ’94 series will focus on a triptych of movies with this sort of generational torch passing as part of their plot. They are stories about young people and the lessons they learn from older mentors. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Boaz Yakin, Casey Siemaszko, Chris Conrad, Constance Towers, Ed Harris, Giancarlo Esposito, Hilary Swank, Malcolm McDowell, Melanie Griffith, Michael Cavalieri, Michael Ironside, N'Bushe Wright, Pat Morita, Richard Benjamin, Samuel L. Jackson, Sean Nelson, Walton Goggins
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Drama | 11 Comments »
Monday, September 2nd, 2024
I’ve seen THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT before, but haven’t reviewed it, and it’s one of those ones that I might come up blank trying to say something fresh about. It’s extremely well known and appreciated, I’m not sure who out there would need to know about it who doesn’t already, and I’m not qualified to speak on it either as a drag/trans film or as Australian cinema. But it was an unlikely international hit and has stood the test of time, so it would be a shame not to say a few words about it in this series.
Written and directed by Stephan Elliott (FRAUDS starring Phil Collins), it was released on August 10, 1994 in the United States (about a month before it came out in Australia, I guess?). It’s the story of three drag queens in Sydney who get a bus (Priscilla) and travel to central Australia together for a gig at a hotel. Bernadette (Terence Stamp, ALIEN NATION) is a wry older trans woman who ordinarily would avoid this sort of thing, but wants to take her mind off the recent death of her husband. Adam (Guy Pearce in only his fifth movie) is the diva of the group, kind of a pain in the ass but takes it well when they tease him. It’s Tick (Hugo Weaving, RECKLESS KELLY) who got the gig, and he’s nervous as hell because, unbeknownst to his friends, he used to be married to and have a kid with the owner of the hotel (Sarah Chadwick, GROSS MISCONDUCT), and he doesn’t know how it’s gonna go. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Australian cinema, Bill Hunter, Dave Foley, drag queens, Guy Pearce, Hugo Weaving, Jim Emerson, Julia Sweeney, Kathy Griffin, SNL, Stephan Elliott, Terence Stamp
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 10 Comments »
Thursday, August 29th, 2024
For generations, legends have been told of an impending English language remake of John Woo’s THE KILLER (1989). Walter Hill and David Giler wrote one for Richard Gere and Denzel Washington way back in 1992, with other versions announced over the decades, some sounding more promising than others. At times Woo himself was involved as a producer, for most of the last decade he’s been attached as director, and now he’s finally succeeded… as an exclusive to the streaming service Peacock. But what are you gonna do? At least it exists and I’ve been able to watch it twice already.
THE KILLER (original recipe) is an untouchable classic (I personally hold it closer to my heart than THE CROW, which crazily had its also long-gestating remake released on the same day), but I think it’s a perfect movie to loosely remake. It could really be like YOJIMBO in that its story is so elemental, it’s obvious what basics you take from it and the rest is up to you. So that’s what Woo does: he returns to his original idea of a hired assassin who accidentally blinds an innocent singer during a hit, decides to turn against his organization to protect her, meanwhile sparring with a detective on his trail, as the two find out they don’t want to be enemies. Then he changes up all the details and context around that, and tells the story in a whole different style and tone. He’s not pretending to be the same as when he made the first version. This is a Woo who is now nearly 80 and has experienced setting a template for Hong Kong action cinema that influenced movies all around the world, coming to Hollywood and becoming a major director, getting burnt out on that and returning to Asia to make historical epics, and recently coming back to the States to play around in the world of slick mid-budget action goofs.
A bit of advice: If you have been poisoned, will only be living for a few more hours, and want to see the very best version of THE KILLER before you expire, please choose the original. If you’re not dying, but want to see a movie exactly like THE KILLER and not doing a whole different thing, also watch the original. But if your plan is to live for a while, watch countless more movies and be open to different experiences, THE KILLER (2024) is highly recommended. (read the rest of this shit…)
Posted in Reviews | 12 Comments »
Tuesday, August 27th, 2024
I don’t review that many straight up comedies, but sometimes it works out in these summer retrospectives, since there’s usually something to be said about them as time capsules and how their themes compare or contrast to other films of the season. After all, this series started with SERIAL MOM, and that’s one of the best movies of the summer. PCU wasn’t good, but it had some interesting things to analyze. Sometimes it’s worth my while.
But here we are in August, with its reputation as a dumping ground for shitty movies, and the ones I’ve been watching haven’t dispelled that notion. None of these felt like enough to write about on their own, but hopefully in the aggregate they might be worth reading about? I don’t know. I trust you to make your own decisions on that.
I am not up on the works of Paulie Shore, but I went into IN THE ARMY NOW (released August 12th) with an open mind. It starts with the sound of Bones (Shore) saying something about “pilgrim” in a John Wayne voice (always, always, always funny, I’m sure we all agree) and then bickering with his buddy Jack (Andy Dick, DOUBLE DRAGON) as they play a video game about tank warfare. It turns out they’re doing this while working their shifts at an electronics store called Crazy Boys in Glendale. Bones is about to get fired, then briefly averts it when his girlfriend (Fabiana Udenio, BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR) pretends to be a customer buying an expensive TV from him, but the boss finds out the scam because he tries to have sex with her in the back and Jack uses one of the video cameras to broadcast it on the wall of TVs. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Allan Arkush, Andy Dick, Damon Wayans, Daniel Petrie Jr., David Alan Grier, Esai Morales, Howie Mandel, Jenifer Lewis, John Doe, Jon Polito, Lori Petty, Lynne Thigpen, Max Perlich, Mike Binder, Nora Dunn, Paulie Shore, Rebel Highway, Renee Zellweger, Robert Folk, Robin Givens
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 29 Comments »
Monday, August 26th, 2024
Can you believe they finally really did it? They remade THE CROW! We don’t need to go into the whole litany of attempts, but they’ve been announcing versions of this for 16 years. And now they did it. And they released it.
The people I hear from online are, to put it mildly, not eager to welcome this new little birdy into the world. Many people hold the original 1994 movie, and sometimes the James O’Barr comic book it was based on, sacred. It’s a cool movie, people a little younger than me saw it as angsty teens, they feel connected to the soundtrack, and of course it’s a movie about tragedy that you can’t separate from the actual tragedy of Brandon Lee. There are people who instinctively pull out the torches and pitchforks for any remake announcement no matter what, but this one feels more religious, like when THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST came out.
It’s possible that’s an internet exclusive. When a real life friend brought up the remake a while back and I mentioned people being up in arms about it she was completely baffled. But now the reviews are out and critics too are acting like a pile of rotting garbage crawled out of a dumpster, rang their doorbell and asked if it could wear their favorite shirt. (It’s at 29 on Metacritic.) A movie as rejected and disreputable as its hero.
I’m posting from an undisclosed location, I know all the exits, I got my go-bag packed, so I’m gonna give it to you straight: I liked THE CROW (2024). Not just “it’s not as bad as they’re saying” – I honestly think it’s pretty good.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Skarsgard, Danny Huston, FKA Twigs, Isabella Wei, Jordan Bolger, Josette Simon, Laura Birn, remakes, Rupert Sanders, Sami Bouajila, William Josef Schneider, Zach Baylin
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Horror | 43 Comments »
