Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
All I wanted for Christmas was NINJ*. But it doesn’t come out in the US until March, so I ordered it from Thailand. It’s a Christmas miracle!
Over the last year or so, while sci-fi nerds all over the world were dreaming of the possibilities of AVATAR, a much smaller, more specialized band of connoisseurs – DTV action fans – were dreaming of NINJ*. It showed promise because of three reasons:
1. Isaac Florentine. The Israeli martial artist turned filmatist is the only reliable DTV auteur I know of. His movies usually have a fun tone and always have great, well-staged fights with energetic camera movements (and sound effects whenever somebody moves their arm or turns their head). He’s made distinctive vehicles for Dolph (BRIDGE OF DRAGONS), Michael Jai White (UNDISPUTED II) and Van Damme (THE SHEPHERD: BORDER PATROL – although he disowned that one. But I liked it.). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, Isaac Florentine, ninjas, Scott Adkins, Tsuyoshi Ihara, white ninjas
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 33 Comments »
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
When I came out of AVATAR I had a nice free feeling that I wasn’t even gonna write a review of it. I figured what it excels at is self-evident and what it fails at isn’t really worth dwelling on, and every motherfucker with a computer already wrote way too much about this thing anyway so what’s the point? I wouldn’t have much to say.
Then a couple days later I had written this behemoth. Hopefully there are one or two things here that haven’t been said before. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: James Cameron, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 193 Comments »
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
Some movies you hear about for so long that you almost don’t really believe you’ll ever see it. You always think of it as being something far off in the distance somewhere, then next thing you know it’s there and you weren’t even ready. Everybody’s rushing to get their thoughts online, but I’m a little slower than some people because I want time to process it. I know alot of people are curious what I think about this highly anticipated sci-fi release. I’m sure opinions will be all over the place, but I gotta say that no matter whether you are disappointed or blown away it’s really exciting to see an old favorite coming back, trying to give the fans something new. It’s quite a time to be a fan of these types of movies. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Burt Reynolds, Gary Busey, Jeff Wincott
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 33 Comments »
Friday, December 18th, 2009
Man, you guys were right about VAMPIRE’S KISS. You really can’t judge a DVD by its cover. I always imagined it was a typical dumb ’80s comedy, but it’s something totally different. The year was 1988, Nic Cage was in his early 20s and hungry – so hungry he ate a live roach on camera. And appparently it wasn’t in the script, it was his idea. Planned in advance though – he didn’t improvise it. That would’ve been even more impressive. But even separate of this roach-eating what this is is a grade-A example of mega-acting. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: mega-acting, Nicolas Cage, vampires
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 93 Comments »
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
Episode 5: Firearms of Fury
There’s a 911 call about a disturbance with a gun, so the Squad is called in and get the suspect out of his car. Seagal keeps asking where the gun is and eventually the guy admits that it’s in the back of the car – a .44 with the hammer pulled back so it could’ve easily gone off and hit somebody. Seagal instructs another officer on how to pick it up safely.
It’s unclear what happened exactly – apparently an argument between cousins, the guy claimed he’d never point a gun at his cousin, but then why did his cousin call the cops? Seagal says afterwards, “I’m not happy that this happened, but at least we got one more gun off the street.” Sometimes LAWMAN gives me an impression of police work like it’s an old school video game. You gotta keep going around a maze grabbing all the guns you can find but they keep piling up faster and faster until you can’t keep up and then the game is over. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Seagalogy, Steven Seagal
Posted in Crime, Documentary, Reviews, Seagal | 13 Comments »
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
UP IN THE AIR looks like a good candidate for the LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE of the year – the one I like but I’m kind of baffled by how intense the praise is during Critic’s Christmastime, the Season of Bountiful Awards and Lists. If I didn’t foresee that possibility I might not even review it – after all I recently discovered I didn’t even do a writeup of SNIPER, why would I bother with this? But this way if I start resenting it I can read this and get some perspective. I’ll have a record that I thought it was a pretty good movie.
It’s the story of Ryan Bingham, a guy who flies around the country to lay people off. He works for a company hired by other companies too chickenshit to swing the ax themselves. He has a whole rap about how you weren’t meant to be stuck in this job and you need to take this opportunity to follow your dreams. He’s good but, come on, people aren’t really buying it, except out of desperation. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Danny McBride, George Clooney, Jason Bateman, Jason Reitman, Vera Farmiga
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 27 Comments »
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Note: I’m numbering these by the order the air, although the official numbering is totally different on their websight.
Apology: Sorry this is so late. I need time to study these things.
Episode 4: Killer Canines
The Seagal Squad rush to the scene of a burglary. This time they don’t seem as annoyed by his navigating. When they get to the house an alarm is blaring and there’s damage to a door and a window. It seems obvious that the intruder is long gone, but for some reason Seagal and the Squad are convinced he’s still inside. They call in a canine and put him in through the window, and Seagal says, “I hope he didn’t cut his feet on that glass,” seeming to maybe even choke up a little. They don’t find the burglar (he “somehow faded into the shadows”) but they have demonstrated Seagal’s legendary love of animals. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Seagalogy, Steven Seagal
Posted in Crime, Documentary, Reviews, Seagal | 13 Comments »
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Hey, any of you guys ever seen TITANIC? It’s one of the later movies from the guy who did TERMINATOR. Bill Paxton stars as Brock Lovett, a deep sea explorer using THE ABYSS-style equipment to search the wreckage of the Titanic for a lost diamond. Along the way he meets Rose (Gloria Stuart), a 101 year old survivor of the famous shipwreck who teaches him valuable life lessons and what not. Also there are some flashbacks featuring Kate Winslet (HEAVENLY CREATURES ) as the younger Rose and Leonardo Dicaprio (THE QUICK AND THE DEAD), but don’t worry, he’s not supposed to be young Bill Paxton, he’s a different character.
Really, I’m surprised you guys haven’t heard of this. It was a pretty big deal at the time from what I remember. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Paxton, Billy Zane, disaster movies, James Cameron, Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio
Posted in Reviews, Romance | 82 Comments »
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Note: Nothing against this old review, but 14 years later I recorded a commentary track as a Patreon exclusive and that’s much better in my opinion
NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER is easily one of the best “bad” martial arts movies I know of. In the U.S. it’s only on VHS, and the import DVD cover shows a shirtless Jean-Claude Van Damme, like it’s KICKBOXER or BLOODSPORT. Actually, Van Damme only appears in the beginning and at the end as “Ivan the Russian,” the Ivan Drago of kickboxing, the villain who the hero has to beat. He doesn’t talk, but does a good robotic bad guy performance. He even wears a white suit, and if you wear a white suit you’re either a rapper, a Love Boat captain or a villain. In this case he’s mostly the latter.
The actual star of the movie is Kurt McKinney as Jason Stillwell, a dorky white guy but an actual martial artist at least. Something about his squareness kind of reminds me of Brandon Lee for some reason. His dad runs an L.A. karate school, but shuts it down and flees to Seattle after organized crime figures (with Van Damme as henchman) threaten him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Corey Yuen, JCVD
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 39 Comments »
Friday, December 11th, 2009
The ’64 version of THE KILLERS doesn’t have much to do with the original and even less to do with the Hemingway story. And maybe it’s not quite the solid punch to the nose you’d hope for from the combination of Lee Marvin, Don Siegel and that title. But on the other hand it might be some kind of subtle dim mak punch because it stuck with me and seemed better and better the more I thought about it. Anyway, it’s damn good.
After I wrote about the ’46 version I listened to the extra on the DVD where Stacy Keach reads the Hemingway story, and it explained alot. That movie was a good mystery, but nothing in the main story approaches the perfection of that opening, the tense scene with the two strangers coming into the diner, talking shit, then taking everybody hostage and saying, “I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna kill the Swede.” I know now that’s because the Hemingway story is only the opening, the rest is all extrapolated from there. In the story you don’t find out what the Swede did to get killed. Adding a whole story to explain the short story really goes against the spirit of the thing, because to quote Jack Skeleton about Christmas presents, “That’s the point of the thing, not to know.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angie Dickinson, Claude Akins, Clu Gulager, Don Siegel, Ernest Hemingway, Lee Marvin, Ronald Reagan
Posted in Crime, Mystery, Reviews | 30 Comments »
