Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Monday, April 25th, 2011
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALICE CREED is a simple story about two kidnappers and their hostage. And it’s not one of those stories where they become friends. It’s a simple, well-executed thriller and especially before the plot starts thickening this thing is deeply unsettling.
It had me right from the great opening scene: a montage of these two nefarious individuals (Martin Compston and Eddie Marsan) shopping at a hardware store and then preparing an abandoned house as a kidnapping hideout. It just goes through step-by-step as they add locks, cover windows, soundproof the walls, put together a bed with chains on it… it’s like a sinister version of one of those home makeover shows.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Eddie Marsan, Gemma Arterton, J Blakeson, Martin Compston
Posted in Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 20 Comments »
Friday, April 22nd, 2011
SOMEWHERE is a quiet, simple little thing, like a haiku or a bowl of strawberries. In a movie I usually like to see things like plot, momentum, music, etc., but this isn’t that kind of party. It’s Sofia Coppola trying out a new minimalistic style kind of like what seems to be her own personality: soft spoken and shy, but showing a subtle wit. Some of you would fucking hate it. I liked it though. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chris Pontius, Michelle Monoghan, Sofia Coppola, Stephen Dorff
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 120 Comments »
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
LITTLE BIG SOLDIER played at the Seattle International Film Festival last year, and I didn’t see it. Then a region 2 dvd and a blu-ray came out and I didn’t see it. Then it played at ActionFest, which was far away, so I rented the blu-ray.
To answer your question, no this is not the movie where Jackie is only 3 inches tall and then at the end he turns giant like Godzilla. That’s RUSH HOUR 3. And it’s not a remake of LITTLE BIG MAN either. The title I guess refers to the two lead characters, one a small–time foot soldier, the other a big time general and member of the ruling class. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Actionfest, Jackie Chan, Leehom Wang
Posted in Martial Arts, Reviews | 16 Comments »
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
(here’s another one I watched because it played at ActionFest this year)
Largo Winch (Tomer Sisley) is an unusual hero: he’s a globetrotting adventurer and/or vagabond, he knows how to fight and how to escape, he likes to rebel against authority, tends to fall for beautiful aid worker women helping the poor… and he’s the CEO of a huge Hong Kong-based international corporation called the W Group.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Actionfest
Posted in Comic strips/Super heroes, Reviews, Thriller | 20 Comments »
Sunday, April 17th, 2011
The SCREAM movies had their day in the sun. They arrived at the end of 1996, during what seemed like a horror drought. “Horror” was so out of sorts that the characters just call it “scary movies.” The actors, while promoting it on talk shows, called it a “thriller.”
We all remember that, but I thought it would be interesting to look up the specifics. According to my research there were only six other scary movie thrillers released theatrically that year: CANDYMAN: FAREWELL TO THE FLESH, THE DENTIST, THE FRIGHTENERS, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE* and THINNER. DTV releases included TREMORS 2: AFTERSHOCKS, CARNOSAUR 3: PRIMAL SPECIES and CHILDREN OF THE CORN IV: THE GATHERING.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Anderson, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Kevin Williamson, meta-slashers, Neve Campbell, slashers, Wes Craven
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 187 Comments »
Thursday, April 14th, 2011
This year’s ActionFest featured a tribute to the legendary stuntman Buddy Joe Hooker, and as part of the celebration they showed this light-hearted dramedy about Burt Reynolds as a stuntman who starts to see he might be getting too old for this shit. Hooker did some of the stunts for both the Hooper character and his younger rival/partner “Ski” Shidski (Jan Michael Vincent). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Actionfest, Adam West, Buddy Joe Hooker, Burt Reynolds, Hal Needham, Jan-Michael Vincent, stuntsploitation
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | 47 Comments »
Monday, April 11th, 2011
Hanna (Saoirse Ronan from ATONEMENT and THE LOVELY BONES) is a young girl raised by a single dad (Eric CHOPPER Bana). She grew up away from the city and was home schooled, so she’s different from other kids. And by that I mean she grew up completely isolated in a remote cabin near the Arctic Circle and spent all her time training in combat, hunting and the speaking of multiple languages. Her dad is a rogue CIA guy but instead of doing freelance work like Seagal he just spends all his time growing a Unabomber beard and turning this bright little girl into a murder machine. She’s the girl Beatrix Kiddo hopes Vernita Green’s daughter never turns into. Some day when Hanna decides she’s ready she’ll literally flip a switch that will set off a war with the bitch (Cate Blanchett) that killed her mom.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana, Joe Wright, revenge, Saoirse Ronan
Posted in Action, Reviews | 107 Comments »
Friday, April 8th, 2011
ELITE SQUAD is a 2007 Brazilian movie about BOPE (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais), the titular squad of Brazilian military police. They’re basically a special forces unit, but unlike in the U.S. their job is to go after their own citizens. If you saw CITY OF GOD you know how the drug gangs control the favelas of Rio, so you can imagine what the supercops would have to be like in that world. They wear berets and they got a logo straight out of STARSHIP TROOPERS. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brazil, Jose Padilha
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 27 Comments »
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
This might end up lost to history, but I feel that the internet’s lead-up to the release of the TRON sequel could be characterized as a “nerd frenzy.” Breathless reports described every onscreen visual and audience sound during the comics convention’s high profile promotional screenings of test films and trailers. Websights covered every angle of every advertising gimmick, poster or still. They wrote about promotional “Flynn’s Arcade” tokens like they were frozen Jesus tears.
Then the movie came out and you didn’t hear about the excitement anymore. I don’t know if it was a PHANTOM MENACE (they didn’t like it as much as they hoped) or a KICK-ASS (every single person who would like that type of movie was inside that convention). And it probly didn’t help that the original TRON didn’t exactly set the world on fire either. Until the sequel got announced I honestly didn’t realize there were people who were passionate about it.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Jeff Bridges, Michael Dudikoff
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 111 Comments »
Monday, April 4th, 2011
SOURCE CODE is a fun thriller with a clever sci-fi premise: what if for some reason they remade GROUNDHOG’S DAY as a DE JA VU type thriller, and instead of Bill Murray it’s the guy who looks like the guy who used to play Spider-man and instead of having one day to cover the weather he has 8 minutes to figure out who planted a bomb on a train? That would be kinda cool, right? (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Duncan Jones, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeffrey Wright, Michelle Monoghan, trains, Vera Farmiga
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit, Thriller | 82 Comments »
