Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Saturday, March 10th, 2012
Enough about premaquels. How about a good old fashioned straight up remake? Kinda refreshing!
I guess I never saw the original FOOTLOOSE before, ’cause I always thought it was about a town where you’re not allowed to dance because they’re real religious. In this remake by Craig Brewer (yes, HUSTLE AND FLOW, BLACK SNAKE MOAN Craig Brewer) the ban happens in response to a great tragedy, when five promising high school teenagers are killed in a head-on collision after a dance. In other words, this movie is about the Patriot Act. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Craig Brewer, dancing, Dennis Quaid, good remakes, Kim Dickens, remakes
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 12 Comments »
Friday, March 9th, 2012
Well, here’s the thing…
(get it?)
Let’s say you love John Carpenter’s THE THING so much you want to make a prequel to it explaining what led up to the dog running from the burnt up base. And you’re very careful to stay true to the tone and style of the 1982 movie, and to make all the little details match up. Then what do you call your movie?
Well, THE THING, of course. To mimic THE THING and take its place, like a Thing. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Joel Edgerton, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, premaquels
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 100 Comments »
Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
BOUNTY HUNTERS is a low-rent but likable b-or-maybe-c-movie that is the movie debut of Trish Stratus. I didn’t know who that was to be honest, but she was the 7-time Women’s WWE Champion, which it turns out is a thing they have. Stratus plays a bail enforcement agent named Jules who, along with her boss/special friend Ridley (Frank J. Zupancic) and wiseass partner Chase (Boomer Philips) get into some trouble when they make an unethical choice while picking up a bail jumper.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Actionfest, bounty hunters, DTV, Trish Stratus
Posted in Action, Reviews | 35 Comments »
Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
“You killed him?”
“Technically it was the explosion that killed him.”
In his latest, RECOIL, Steve Austin plays a little bit darker version of his usual screen persona. A little Stone Colder. He’s still an ex-cop who knows how to beat the shit out of people, still a stranger drifting into a small town and getting into trouble with the local criminals, still a scary-looking regular working man with a no bullshit attitude and an inherent sense of decency, but at least at the beginning he’s more of a Terminator than usual. He drives into Hope, WA in his black 1968 Plymouth GTX with 12 score marks burnt into his arm, apparently representing the number of killers and rapists he’s executed in his travels. He’s way ahead of the FBI, who want to put “24 hour surveillance” on a child killer before they figure out Stone Cold already “made abstract art out of him” 2 days ago. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Danny Trejo, DTV, Keith Jardine, Noel Gugliemi, Serinda Swan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, vigilantes
Posted in Action, Reviews | 16 Comments »
Monday, March 5th, 2012
I never knew about HEAT until I read that Brian DePalma’s doing a new version with Jason Statham. [UPDATE FROM THE FUTURE: DePalma didn’t end up directing but it was pretty good and called WILD CARD.] It started as a book by William Goldman, who also wrote both movie versions. This one stars Burt Reynolds (with mustache) as a likable Vegas low-life-for-hire. We don’t really get an upfront explanation of who he is or where he comes from, but over time we learn that he dreams of moving to Venice, he’s a familiar face to organized crime, he has been extensively profiled in Soldier of Fortune, he’s a gambling addict, and he’s an expert in the use of edged weapons. So much so that the only reason another character can think of for him to use a gun is because nobody would ever believe it was him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Burt Reynolds, Diane Scarwid, Dick Richards, Howard Hesseman, Karen Young, Peter MacNicol, William Goldman
Posted in Action, Reviews | 33 Comments »
Saturday, March 3rd, 2012
J. EDGAR is the work of an unlikely biopic all-star team: Leonardo “The Aviator” DiCaprio playing the notorious FBI director (even though he’s an old man during alot of the movie), Clint “Bird” Eastwood directing, and Dustin Lance “Milk” Black on the keyboards. This topic required calling in the pros because J. Edgar Hoover was an asshole and a weirdo, but not in a charming or funny way, like Larry Flynt or somebody. And even though he was (according to many, including this movie) a minority – a closeted and tormented gay man – there is nothing anti-establishment about him. He’s not a guy who bucked the system. He created the damn system. Hard to make that glamorous in a movie.
In fact, that’s kind of a reoccurring theme, he keeps complaining about movies glamorizing the “radicals” and “hoodlums” he fights against and is happy when they finally make ones that make kids want to grow up to be G-men. But this won’t make kids want to grow up to be FBI director. Sorry, J. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Armie Hammer, biopic, Clint Eastwood, Dustin Lance Black, Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 19 Comments »
Friday, March 2nd, 2012
ACT OF VALOR takes the covert-military-mission subgenre that we know so well from the works of Cannon and Nu-Image and puts a new spin on it: it’s a special ops procedural. Directed by 2005 Baja 500 winner Mike “Mouse” McCoy and stuntman/documentary editor Scott Waugh (together known as commercial directors “The Bandito Brothers”), it combines the old “elite team of warriors have to stop a mad bomber” formula with sort of a Soderberghian approach, building the movie around non-actors and taking advantage of their real life skills and unpolished presence. Except for the abducted CIA asset they have to rescue (Roselyn Sanchez from RUSH HOUR 2) the heroes are all played by actual Navy SEALs. “Active duty,” the ads and press releases like to say, so their last names are left off the credits.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Navy SEALs, Roselyn Sanchez, valor
Posted in Action, Reviews | 40 Comments »
Thursday, March 1st, 2012
After I saw MANDRILL I was looking at Marko Zaror’s filmography and realized there was one I hadn’t noticed before, a starring vehicle that he did in Mexico instead of his native Chile. IMDB lists it as a 2009 release, after KILTRO and MIRAGEMAN, but from the looks of it I’m pretty sure he filmed it before those (it seems to have played a Mexican film festival in 2007, and the trailer says “introducing the Latin Dragon Marko Zaror”). It’s credited to his Mandrill Films and Zaror Brothers companies, but directed by one-timer Peter Van Lengen instead of his better known partner Ernesto Diaz Espinoza. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Marko Zaror
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
“You must be Mandrill. Who else would be so fearless as to kiss my woman in my pool?”
MANDRILL is Chilean vehicle #3 for martial artist Marko Zaror, and in my opinion his best so far. In KILTRO he played an overgrown man-teen with dyed hair and baggy pants, in MIRAGEMAN he was an emotionally-stunted wannabe super hero who barely talked, so it’s surprising to see how well he fits the more standard super-suave badass role. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Celine Reymond, Ernesto Diaz Espinoza, hitman, Marko Zaror, revenge
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 16 Comments »
Monday, February 27th, 2012
KILTRO was the first Marko Zaror movie I saw, but for some reason I never reviewed it. Maybe it’s for the best, because I liked it then, love it now. It improves with age and extra viewings, like a wine that’s flavored by people looking at it (I don’t know). Later I did review MIRAGEMAN and of course UNDISPUTED III (where he’s the lead villain/opponent) but it wasn’t until seeing a screener of his finally-coming-to-video-this-week latest MANDRILL that I decided to revisit KILTRO. I’ll have a review of that new one up soon but first let’s examine the prototypical Zaror vehicle here. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Ernesto Diaz Espinoza, Marko Zaror
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 14 Comments »
