With THE AVENGERS still going around punching the shit out of every box office record stupid enough to make eye contact with it maybe it’s time to take a look at the other important Marvel Comics films. Obviously we’ve already gone over the most culturally and historically significant ones (BLADE, BLADE II, THE PUNISHER, THE PUNISHER, and THE PUNISHER’S WAR ZONE), but one that we have not addressed is 1986’s HOWARD THE DUCK, from the creators of STAR WARS and AMERICAN GRAFFITI. I don’t see how this one could wrong.
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Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Howard the Duck
Tuesday, May 15th, 2012El Gringo
Monday, May 14th, 2012
The first After Dark Action Fest started Friday. Five action movies that I’m gonna have to qualify as pretty-much-DTV since they’re only playing 10 cities for 1 week. Maybe if one of those cities was Seattle I would feel different. But they have the “same day video-on-demand” option, which I’d never done before, but I decided to do it. I demanded it. I oughta upgrade my cable, it probly looks better for most citizens of the 21st century, but for me it looked okay. (read the rest of this shit…)
Mother’s Day (2012)
Friday, May 11th, 2012
Remember everybody, Sunday is Mother’s Day. If your old gal is still around and on speaking terms you might want to send her some flowers or a fruit basket or whatever. Or if you got one of these mothers who’s real big on SAW II-IV, REPO THE GENETIC OPERA and 11-11-11 then I definitely recommend surprising her with the DVD or blu-ray of this new sort-of-remake from director Darren Lynn Bousman.
Demolition Man
Wednesday, May 9th, 2012
Isn’t DEMOLITION MAN a weird one? Sci-fi/action moosh up, Sylvester Stallone plays cryogenically frozen supercop Jack Spartan, cryogenically unfrozen Captain America style to capture his arch-nemesis Simon Phoenix (Wesley G.D. Snipes) in a jokey future society of wimps.
Spartan is a typical non-iconic Stallone character – mumbly, down-to-earth, see-through-the-bullshit everyman, except when he goes into battle, then he’s so prone to blow shit up that he’s nicknamed Demolition Man against his wishes.
Safe
Monday, May 7th, 2012
I think SAFE is easily one of Jason Statham’s best starring vehicles so far. It’s a less cartoonish tone than the TRANSPORTERs (and obviously the fuckin CRANKs) but still firmly planted in the world of action movies, where one guy if he’s tough enough can use his brains, fists and guns to take on two warring gangs and a corrupt police force. So it’s probly somewhere in between THE MECHANIC and BLITZ on the seriousness charts, but a little more fun than either of them.
I don’t know if it’s clear – I’m not talking about the Julianne Moore one, I’m talking about the Jason Statham one.
The Avengers (2012)
Saturday, May 5th, 2012
spoilerish
As much as I enjoyed Uma Thurman and the teddy bear costumes in the original AVENGERS, this one is an improvement. It’s a fun super hero movie with lots of colorful super-characters like in the X-MEN pictures, but with more of a disaster-movie-level of spectacle. Instead of just fighting 1-3 supervillains they’re fighting an alien invasion. As you know this teams up characters from IRON MAN 1-2, THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008) (arguably), CAPTAIN AMERICA and THOR under the direction and writing of Joss Whedon (SERENITY, Buffy the Vampire, all that). If they had had some guy from Doctor Who in there and based it on a video game or anime it would’ve had the monopoly on all of the existing nerd audiences. But also it’s fun for all of us.
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Police Story 2
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012
POLICE STORY PART II (as the opening credits call it) begins with a montage of all the highlights of part 1, set to the theme song, sung by star/director Jackie Chan.
The sequel directly follows part 1. Chan’s character Chan Ka-Kui, in the great tradition of movie hero cops, is demoted to traffic patrol for being so awesome and busting the drug lord. His boss and uncle return, and although they develop a stronger friendship over the movie it starts out with him being chewed out for all the property damage his famous part 1 stunts caused, including driving over the shantytown and sliding down the weird Christmas tree looking thing in the shopping mall: “Why didn’t you use the stairs? Did you have to destroy the chandelier?” (read the rest of this shit…)
The Wicker Tree
Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
For years Robin Hardy, the director of the original non-mega THE WICKER MAN, has been trying to make this movie based on his novel Cowboys For Christ. It’s supposed to be a “spiritual sequel” dealing with the same themes but not the same characters or story. I expected a barely watchable but hopefully interesting mess, but that’s not what it is. Without being directly connected to THE WICKER MAN it pretty much takes the WILD THINGS approach to sequelizing: kind of a loose paraphrase with all the details changed. It’s clunky at times and always completely unnecessary, but surprisingly compelling. (read the rest of this shit…)
Snake Eater III… His Law
Monday, April 30th, 2012
“I come for the girl. Now kindly dismount and offer her your most sincere apology.”Part 3 came in 1992, but was not as emblematic of its times as part 2 was. So the best graffiti I could read said “PISS ON MY FACE.” Timeless.
One of the best things about SNAKE EATER III… HIS LAW is that it’s called SNAKE EATER III… HIS LAW. I’m not sure how many movies there are with an elipses in the official title, but whatever ones are out there I’m sure SNAKE EATER III… HIS LAW is in the upper percentile. (read the rest of this shit…)
Snake Eater II: The Drug Buster
Friday, April 27th, 2012
Part 2 in the SNAKE EATER saga came a couple years later, in 1991, and has a definite early ’90s vibe. In part 1 the goofiest obviously-painted-by-Canadian-production-assistants graffiti I noticed was the one that said “SUPER RAD,” in this one it was “RAP HEADS.” So times are a changin’. It opens in a school gym full of African-American youths in Nike “Just Do It” t-shirts doing double dutch while others practice kung fu nearby. All the kids are being overseen by a paroled ex-troublemaker named Speedboat, played by Larry B. Scott (he played Lamar, the gay guy in REVENGE OF THE NERDS). Speedboat tells all the kids they gotta get ready for “the tournament,” and we never find out if it’s a fighting tournament, a jump-roping tournament, or some combination of the two. Two of them suddenly fall down and die from some bad coke, and the shit is on. (read the rest of this shit…)
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