Right now Nimrod Antal is a director-of-interest because they got him doing that PREDATORS movie. And I hadn’t seen his movies (like KONTROLL and VACANCY) but ARMORED is out on DVD this week so I decided to check it out. (And yes, every movie he’s directed so far has a one word title.)
I read somewhere that when Robert Rodriguez saw ARMORED it sealed the deal for Antal doing PREDATORS. I’m not sure what that says, because there’s nothing too wrong with ARMORED, but nothing too right, either. (read the rest of this shit…)
You know how these things start out. A little kid in some medeivalish village, frolicking in the sunshine, his dad is forging a sword, everything is happy. There could be a whole movie just about this worry-free childhood, or about hobbits jumping on a bed, but instead the band of savage marauders storm in on their horses shooting arrows, lighting shit on fire, throwing women on the ground. The pricks.
And of course they kill the kid’s family and drag him away to become a slave in a mine. Not to sound racist, but it seems like Barbarians are always trying to pull shit like this. I mean, not all Barbarians. There have been many great members of the Barbarian culture throughout their proud history, such as Conan the Barbarian and Theobald Boehm, the inventor of the modern flute. But SOME Barbarians act like a bunch of dicks, doing shit like this. That’s where the stereotype comes from. (read the rest of this shit…)
Man, you guys have been trying to get me to watch this one forever. Now I’ve seen it, so I’m not sure what’s next on the list. Paddy Considine plays Richard, a soldier back in the small English town where he grew up, planning some kind of a revenge. We know this because of the first line of the movie: “God will forgive them. He’ll forgive them and let them into Heaven. And I can’t live with that.” So he’s basically the Christ equalizer, the guy who goes around pre-emptively un-forgiving people before Jesus shows up to forgive them. It could be called THE UNFORGIVER. (read the rest of this shit…)
THE COLLECTOR is a new horror picture and although the title does refer to the villain (who collects people – sorry, I was hoping it was gonna be Beanie Babies too, but it’s people) it focuses much more on the other guy. Not that he’s a saint either. He’s there to rob the place.
The opening establishes that this guy is doing repairs on a rich family’s home and his interactions with each family member. But it also shows why he’s so desperate for money that he’d pull an asshole move like robbing their safe. He tells a crime boss (Robert Wisdom) that he’s the only guy that can get into that safe, but I think it’s a lie. He just has a little box he can use to listen to the clicks as he spins the dial – I feel confident that I could figure out how to use that thing if you gave me a couple minutes. But maybe he’s the only guy with one of those boxes, that’s why he said it. And because he knows the code to turn off the alarm. (read the rest of this shit…)
I have to admit I don’t really get the Boondock Saints. Haven’t seen it since it first hit video, but I remember it just being kind of a shitty Guy Ritchie/post-Tarantino wannabe tough guy movie. It just seemed delusionally confident about how cool it was. It probly had some good bits here or possibly there, but it mostly seemed to me like some guys saying unconvincing macho lines and then some techno music comes on and the camera rotates around. It’s like an applause sign lights up that just says “AWESOME!” on it and you’re supposed to take its word for it. (read the rest of this shit…)
ALICE IN WONDERLAND by Louis Carroll or whoever is one of the most beloved and iconic children’s literatures of our times. It has also been one of the most adapted, referenced and re-interpreted. Ever since the books Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and A2: Rise of the Looking Glass were first published in such and such a year, I myself as a child growing up was inspired by, blah blah blah and you know the rest. In 1951 Walt Disney, etc.
As an adaptation of the original book, ALICE IN WONDERLAND is not entirely faithful. Like many versions it combines characters from the first book and the sequel (Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum and Humpty Dumpty were from the second book according to Wikipedia, a popular websight). However it’s not meant as a straightforward translation of the book, but more a riff on the world of Wonderland, using our familiarity with some of the imagery and characters from previous adaptations and trying to be clever about re-interpreting them in a different context. (read the rest of this shit…)
This is not the romantic one where Christian Slater has a baboon heart, this is the dramatic one where Jeff Bridges may soon need a baboon liver, on account of his country singer lifestyle. I heard alot about CRAZY HEART being good only for Bridges’s about-to-win-an-Academy-Award performance. (Did you know he was also nominated for THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT?) But I thought the movie itself was pretty damn good too, let’s give it some credit please. (read the rest of this shit…)
Okay, my last two reviews brought out everybody’s expertise of mixed martial arts competitions and professional wrestling. Let’s see how you guys do with this sport.
RANK is another John Hyams documentary in the tradition of THE SMASHING MACHINE, but this one’s in the world of professional bullriding. In both sports Hyams has documented so far, the athletes break parts of themselves that they aren’t gonna be able to fix. And the filmatistic approach he used in SMASHING MACHINE ain’t broke so he doesn’t fix that either: it’s almost-direct cinema (just following people around, but they do talk to the camera sometimes), hypnotic score, themes that make themselves apparent and don’t need to be underlined. This time around it looks like he got better cameras, though. The cinematography is outstanding. (read the rest of this shit…)
I don’t know if you guys remember this, but one time I reviewed a horror movie called CHAOS, and the director of the movie challenged me to a wrestling match in the Ain’t It Cool talkbacks. The director was David DeFalco, a some-time independent circuit wrestler, director of the movie THE BACKLOT MURDERS, and guy who played Marquis De Sade in THE EXOTIC HOUSE OF WAX under the name “Bobby Young.” He was known for wearing spiked collars and Marilyn Manson style contacts and yelling things like “I’m a demon! I’m the king of violence!” during Q&As for his movie. The official CHAOS websight boasted that he had been banned from the 24 Hour Fitness gym chain. I guess after that he had to start working out at the L.A. County Morgue – that’s where the DVD extras show him flexing his muscles and yelling wrestling promo style taunts to Roger Ebert. So I was pretty excited to see his new one. (read the rest of this shit…)
THE SMASHING MACHINE is a documentary about Mark Kerr, at the time an undefeated fighter in UFC, Pride and other mixed martial arts competitions. The director is John Hyams, whose UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION was so unexpectedly great I felt compelled to watch everything else he’s directed. In fact, Van Damme’s admiration of this movie is apparently what got Hyams the gig on the ol’ UNISOL.
The opening got me right away because it’s a voiceover on top of fight footage, and something seems wrong. The gentle, almost nerdy voice that’s talking to us doesn’t seem to match this muscleman we’re watching use his bare hands and feet to take flesh that God shaped in His own image and reconfigure it into an ugly pile of of bruise and injury. If Mark Kerr called you on the phone and said, “I’m the Smashing Machine,” you’d hear his voice and you’d never believe him. You’d hang up. But it’s true, he’s the Smashing Machine. And also a nice, thoughtful guy. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
geoffreyjar on Psycho Killer: “PSYCHO KILLER is a better movie for being bad. If it were competent, it’d be a forgettable police vs serial…” Oct 22, 04:54
Dreadguacamole on Pulse (2001): “I love this movie – one of my favourites and yes, I like it a little more than CURE (which…” Oct 22, 02:20
The Winchester on Psycho Killer: “Psycho killer is fine and all, but have you caught Psycho Granny yet?” Oct 21, 16:22
grimgrinningchris on Hallowarrior / Bloody Tennis: “Wait!!! A real, LIVE Shannyn Sossamon?!?! In the wild!??!? WOW!!!” Oct 21, 13:02
billydeethrilliams on Pulse (2001): “I also heavily endorse Cure. Watched it earlier in the year and it’s easily the best movie I’ve watched in…” Oct 21, 03:26
Dooley the Gravedigger on Pulse (2001): “I like PULSE a lot. Please please please watch his CURE next, and avoid all trailers and reviews as much…” Oct 20, 14:10
Dan the Man on Pulse (2001): “I wholeheartedly second Hammer Time’s position on Cure. It’s Kurosawa’s masterpiece and one of the all time great horror movies.” Oct 20, 10:46
The Humaniac on Pulse (2001): “I know just what you mean, Hammer. That stunt in Pulse is a jaw-dropper. And is there a better movie…” Oct 19, 20:17
Hammer Time on Pulse (2001): “I take it back – the stunt I was thinking of came from this movie, Pulse (2001). Still, you gotta…” Oct 19, 12:05
Hammer Time on Pulse (2001): “Yay! Vern covered one of the greats! I don’t have much more to say beyond what you said and I…” Oct 19, 11:28
VERN on Lee Cronin’s The Mummy: “It’s really more of a hatred for the Fraser one than a love for the Cruise one. But Cruise’s is…” Oct 18, 21:55
KayKay on Lee Cronin’s The Mummy: ““the best modern mummy movie (the Tom Cruise one).” Sigh…Vern’s love for Cruise MUMMY which runs in parallel with his…” Oct 18, 18:08
Dustin on Psycho Killer: “Glad you liked it, Vern! Happy to be of service.” Oct 18, 17:43
Skani on Psycho Killer: “I’ve been within striking distance of buying an on sale digital copy of this from jeffbezos.net on a couple of…” Oct 18, 07:27
CJ Holden on Evil Dead Burn: “(Not sure why I accidentally keep calling the movie BURNS though)” Oct 18, 06:17
Right now Nimrod Antal is a director-of-interest because they got him doing that PREDATORS movie. And I hadn’t seen his movies (like KONTROLL and VACANCY) but ARMORED is out on DVD this week so I decided to check it out. (And yes, every movie he’s directed so far has a one word title.)
You know how these things start out. A little kid in some medeivalish village, frolicking in the sunshine, his dad is forging a sword, everything is happy. There could be a whole movie just about this worry-free childhood, or about hobbits jumping on a bed, but instead the band of savage marauders storm in on their horses shooting arrows, lighting shit on fire, throwing women on the ground. The pricks.
Man, you guys have been trying to get me to watch this one forever. Now I’ve seen it, so I’m not sure what’s next on the list. Paddy Considine plays Richard, a soldier back in the small English town where he grew up, planning some kind of a revenge. We know this because of the first line of the movie: “God will forgive them. He’ll forgive them and let them into Heaven. And I can’t live with that.” So he’s basically the Christ equalizer, the guy who goes around pre-emptively un-forgiving people before Jesus shows up to forgive them. It could be called THE UNFORGIVER. 
THE COLLECTOR is a new horror picture and although the title does refer to the villain (who collects people – sorry, I was hoping it was gonna be Beanie Babies too, but it’s people) it focuses much more on the other guy. Not that he’s a saint either. He’s there to rob the place.
ALICE IN WONDERLAND by Louis Carroll or whoever is one of the most beloved and iconic children’s literatures of our times. It has also been one of the most adapted, referenced and re-interpreted. Ever since the books Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and A2: Rise of the Looking Glass were first published in such and such a year, I myself as a child growing up was inspired by, blah blah blah and you know the rest. In 1951 Walt Disney, etc.
(pretty big spoilers in this one, sorry)
Okay, my last two reviews brought out everybody’s expertise of mixed martial arts competitions and professional wrestling. Let’s see how you guys do with this sport.
I don’t know if you guys remember this, but one time I reviewed a horror movie called 
THE SMASHING MACHINE is a documentary about Mark Kerr, at the time an undefeated fighter in UFC, Pride and other mixed martial arts competitions. The director is John Hyams, whose 
