Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Tuesday, March 18th, 2025
ZEIRAM is a goofy but entertaining Japanese sci-fi movie from 1991. I always thought it was based on an anime or manga, but now I’ve learned that the six episodes of Iria: Zeiram the Animation were a tie-in that came out the same year, like CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK: DARK FURY or VAN HELSING: THE LONDON ASSIGNMENT. But obviously there is some anime influence going on with some of the futuristic armor and weird creatures and stuff, which are given more consideration than the plot, so it might as well be a live action anime adaptation.
Zeiram (Mizuho Yoshida, who later played Gojira in GODZILLA, MOTHRA AND KING GHIDORAH: GIANT MONSTERS ALL-OUT ATTACK) is the name of a villainous alien on a rampage. He looks like a guy with a Boushh-style slit mask and a wide brimmed hat. The hat has a little kabuki-white face on the front that sometimes looks like a doll head, but in closeup appears to be a living person. Sometimes it extends on a long wormy neck. Eventually it’s revealed that he’s a “forbidden biological weapon,” and the “hat” is actually Zeiram, the rest is a biomechanical attachment. He’s basically a manta ray driving a mech! Spoiler. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Japanese sci-fi, Keita Amemiya, Kunihiro Ida, Mizuho Yoshida, Yukijiro Hotaru, Yuko Moriyama
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 6 Comments »
Monday, March 17th, 2025
DIRTY ANGELS is not the newest Martin Campbell joint – that’s CLEANER starring Daisy Ridley – but the one from 2024, now on DVD in Canada. I don’t exactly know the events that shifted Mr. Campbell from A-lister who kicked off the last two eras of 007 and did the motherfuckin MASK OF ZORRO to journeyman in the trenches making barely released, mostly generic but pretty cool female-driven action movies, but I’m not gonna knock it. There are many worse trajectories to take in life.
This one is Afghanistan War Movie #562 (set as the war is ending, like most of them now), but the female stars and commando nature of the conflict do make it stand out a little. You have your vicious terrorist leader (George Iskandar), local contacts and lack of trust, but there are no raids on houses, it’s low on desert, and it’s about rescuing hostages ISIS abducted from an all girls school in Pakistan. Can’t object to that cause. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Afghanistan War, Alissa Sullivan Haggis, Aziz Capkurt, Christopher Backus, Edmund Kingsley, Emily Bruni, Esti Yerushalmi, Eva Green, Gene Quintano, Jojo T. Gibbs, Jonas McCord, Laetitia Eido, Maria Bakalova, Martin Campbell, Reza Brojerdi, Rona-Lee Shimon, Ruby Rose
Posted in Reviews, Action | 4 Comments »
Thursday, March 13th, 2025
SING SING is an unusual movie with a simple appeal: it’s about a theater program in a prison, and most of the cast is made up of actual graduates of the program playing versions of themselves, so there’s an unmistakable feeling of authenticity completely outside of a normal Hollywood production. We see interjections of unscripted or documentary scenes – auditions, video of real plays – but mostly we just see very natural performances by actors/characters speaking or drawing from their hearts in ways that cut deep.
One of the familiar actors in the movie is Paul Raci (DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY) as the director, Brent, a mentor character similar to his Oscar nominated one in SOUND OF METAL. I forgot exactly what Raci’s background was and fell for the illusion that he was pretty much a real guy going into social worker mode. There’s a scene where as an acting exercise they close their eyes and imagine their happiest place, then they go around the circle and describe what they thought about. They’re all talking about their childhood or about being with their kids or about the pain of their lives in isolation. When Brent notes that men don’t usually get to be emotionally vulnerable like this it could be a scripted line, but it doesn’t feel like one, it feels like just honestly running the exercise and appreciating how it goes. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: based on a magazine article, Brent Buell, Clarence Maclin, Clint Bentley, Colman Domingo, Greg Kwedar, John H. Richardson, Paul Raci, prison, Sean San Jose
Posted in Reviews, Drama | 19 Comments »
Wednesday, March 12th, 2025
This is just me but when I found out there was
1) a new Milla Jovovich picture directed by her partner in life and filmmaking Paul Warm Sweater Anderson that
2) co-stars Dave Bautista and
(bonus points) is a post-apocalyptic western fantasy, I transported myself to the next matinee. It’s called IN THE LOST LANDS and the advertising hook (to the extent that they’re advertising it) is that it’s based on a short story by Game of Thrones creator George Ruff Ryders Martin. So it’s worth watching for the middle initials alone.
It takes place in the far future, after a nuclear war. Much of the earth is now “The Lost Lands,” where people don’t generally go on account of monsters ’n shit. Most humans live in one tall but small city built around a cool skull face, sometimes but not always speaking in florid language. It’s a monarchy ruled by a Queen (Amara Okereke) and I guess her husband the Overlord (Jacek Dzisewicz), but he’s bedridden, and anyway the real power seems to be a Christian order who make giant crosses out of machinery and spread the word of Jesus by terrorizing and behaving in ways that could not possibly be further from anything that dude ever represented. So, pretty similar to what we’re dealing with now. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arly Jover, Dave Bautista, George R.R. Martin, Milla Jovovich, Paul Haslinger, Paul W.S. Anderson, post-apocalypse, Simon Loof, witches
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Western | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, March 11th, 2025
SON OF GODZILLA (1967) is Godzilla picture #8, coming one year and one day after EBIRAH, HORROR OF THE DEEP and from the same director, Jun Fukuda and same writer Shinichi Sekizawa, this time with co-writer Kazue Shiba, whose only other credit is a war movie called ZERO FIGHTERS. Masaru Sato also returns as composer, with some goofily upbeat themes to represent the title character.
When I reviewed EBIRAH I learned that it was set on an island so they could build fewer models and save money. This one continues that trend but seems even more economical, without any city scenes at all. The only man-made structures are a science lab built on remote Sollgel Island. Sometimes they’d cut to a shot of a tower and I’d think I was watching Thunderbirds. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Akira Kubo, Bibari Maeda, Godzilla, Jun Fukuda, kaiju, Shinichi Sekizawa
Posted in Reviews, Monster | 12 Comments »
Monday, March 10th, 2025
LEGENDS OF THE CONDOR HEROES: THE GALLANTS is the unwieldily titled new Tsui Hark joint, which I was grateful to be able to see in a theater. (This puts my lifetime Tsui Hark theatrical screenings at four, after DOUBLE TEAM, KNOCK OFF and FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE 3D IMAX). Based on a famous story by Jin Yong (whose books also inspired the SWORDSMAN trilogy), it’s the type of thing I hope for from Tsui these days: a wild and extravagant wuxia epic, expertly put together at a swaggering blockbuster scale. A great time at the movies.
It opens with narration by a guy talking about witnessing many famous battles of Genghis Khan (Baya’ertu, CREATION OF THE GODS I: KINGDOM OF STORMS) and the Mongol army. As you watch these enormous conflicts on screen you wonder how the fuck a guy was witnessing it without getting chopped to bits, and then you find out: he was perched above on a cliff. When the Mongols spot him they shoot arrows at him, but he seems to repel them with some sort of energy shield trick. Okay, good, we got a real one here. This is our protagonist Guo Jing (Xiao Zhan, THE ROOKIES), a martial artist who aspires to greatness and has an interestingly convoluted backstory. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ada Choi, Alan Aruna, Baya'ertu, Hu Jun, Jin Yong, Tony Leung Kai-fai, Tsui Hark, Xiao Zhan, Zhang Wenxin, Zhuang Dafei
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 5 Comments »
Thursday, March 6th, 2025
THE VOURDALAK is a 2023 French vampire film that’s pretty simple and classical but it has this one fucking fantastic choice that jumps out at you: the vampire is portrayed by a puppet. Not a muppet, but a human sized rod puppet or something that kinda looks like how Hellboy‘s Mike Mignola draws desiccated corpses. He’s a spindly nosferatu type but he’s in his ‘80s so he tries to act like that’s all it is. No, hey guys, I’m fine. I didn’t become a vourdalak (type of vampire from Slavic folk tales) during that dangerous trip where I told you if I return after six days I’m a vourdalak. I just look this way ’cause I’m old.
The protagonist is a goofy dork and diplomatic envoy for the king of France named Marquis Jacques Saturnin d’Urfe (Kacey Mottet Klein, GAINSBOURG: A HEROIC LIFE). I love how he’s unseen in the opening sequence, seeking shelter after losing his horse and companions during a robbery. He’s being turned away from shelter through the barred window on a door, but every time lightning strikes we see the shadow of his big ol’ historical-French-guy hat.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: A.K. Tolstoy, Adrien Beau, Ariane Labed, Claire Duburcq, French horror, Gregoire Colin, Hadrien Bouvier, Kacey Mottet Klein, puppets, vampires, Vassili Schneider
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, March 5th, 2025
THE ORDER (2024) is a gritty, not too showy but completely riveting true crime movie about neo-nazi bank robbers in the Pacific Northwest, circa 1983. The protagonist is an FBI agent, but one of his specialties is going after bigots, and I support him in that. Anyway it’s kinda like DEAD BANG – he’s a total mess, and he’s pretty much all we got against these guys.
Terry Husk (Jude Law [EXISTENZ] playing a fictional character only a little bit based on the actual lead agent of the case) shows up in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho to reopen an abandoned field office. Sheriff Loftlin (Philip Granger, also the sheriff in JUGGERNAUT, TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL, SECRET LIVES, and LITTLE BROTHER OF WAR) kinda laughs at him for coming to what he considers a quiet farm town, and tries to steer him away when he asks about some white power flyers he saw, and if they’re related to the local white nationalist preacher, Richard Butler (Victor Slezak, ABDUCTION). From his reaction I assumed the sheriff was one of the racists, but we later find out it’s that other cop thing: he’s just an idiot who doesn’t recognize the threat. “It’s just talk” is what he says. “They mostly keep to themselves.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alison Oliver, Geena Maszaros, Jude Law, Jurnee Smollett, Justin Kurzel, Marc Maron, neo-nazis, Nicholas Hoult, Odessa Young, Philip Granger, true crime, Tye Sheridan, Victor Slezak, Zach Baylin
Posted in Reviews, Crime | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, March 4th, 2025
Lately, with reality increasingly losing its appeal, I’ve had more desire to lose myself in fantastical worlds of animation. Even when those places are horrible in their own right it feels like an escape, because at least they’re made of nice drawings and paintings. NINJA SCROLL transports us to a mystical past of deadly assassins, some with magic powers, others just so skilled that they might as well have ‘em. This is from 1993 and it was legendary in that decade for providing extravagant violence that seemed novel to us Americans when delivered in cartoon form. It still kinda works as that, but more importantly I think it holds up as a pretty entertaining movie.
The writer/director is Yoshiaki Kawajiri, and though I never really made the connection that it was the same guy, I’ve written about several of his works. I talked a little about VAMPIRE HUNTER D: BLOODLUST (2000) in my original BLADE II review, I covered THE ANIMATRIX (2003) when I was revisiting that whole franchise (he did the “Program” segment), I really liked his DTV/OVA HIGHLANDER: THE SEARCH FOR VENGEANCE (2007) when I did my review series Highlanderland. Also he wrote the live action AZUMI 2: DEATH OR LOVE, though unfortunately I was disappointed in that one. I do like his stories on the other stuff, but it’s obviously the drawing and movement that makes them fly (often literally). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: anime, ninjas, Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Posted in Reviews, Action, Cartoons and Shit, Martial Arts | 14 Comments »
Monday, March 3rd, 2025
THE GORGE is a movie with an appealing, simple premise, strong execution, great tone, and a fun mix of elements you don’t usually see together but that feel perfectly natural. It’s a romance within a monster movie, or vice versa, but not in a a jokey way at all (though that worked for LOVE AND MONSTERS). It’s funny because its two main characters know how to make each other laugh, but its outlandish situation is taken seriously.
It’s also a movie star movie, as most good romances are, with its two leads reaching new levels of onscreen charisma, though for some reason Apple made this for the small screen only. I guess that’s none of my business. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anya Taylor-Joy, Atticus Ross, C. Robert Cargill, Miles Teller, Scott Derrickson, Sigourney Weaver, Sope Dirisu, Trent Reznor, William Houston, Zach Dean
Posted in Reviews, Action, Horror, Monster, Romance, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 12 Comments »
