Poor The Rock. With his outsized charisma, cartoonish build and air of sincerity I’m still convinced he has the potential to make great movies. The problem is he doesn’t seem to hook up with any good directors. THE RUNDOWN is still his best movie and it’s a fun time but, come on, it’s no PREDATOR, or even COMMANDO. I believe we, as a society, can offer The Rock more than THE RUNDOWN. So I was excited when I found out the Rock would be one of the stars of this weird new movie from the director of DONNIE DARKO. “Should at least be interesting,” I thought, not bothering to knock on wood.
Trouble is I had writer/director Richard Kelly pegged all wrong. I liked DONNIE DARKO well enough, thought it was pretty original and enjoyable. Saw it once on video and once as the director’s cut at the Seattle Internation Film Festival, which is when I learned that some youths worship this guy. They traveled across the country dressed in DARKO-themed costumes to nervously stammer to him that he changed their lives. That’s weird, I thought.
Then he wrote DOMINO, one of my most hated movies of the last several years. But I blamed Tony Scott. I figured there could’ve been a good script in there, Tony Scott just ax murdered it to unrecognizable bits with his Guiness Book of World Records All Time Worst Editing Ever In the History of Cinema. But after seeing SOUTHLAND TALES I’m not so sure Kelly is clean on that one. In fact I bet he specified alot of that shit in the script. (read the rest of this shit…)
In any earth-shattering journey you’re gonna run into some unanswerable questions, some intractable dilemmas, some jokes without punchlines or words without letters. In my case I have encountered a catch-22 like you would expect to find primarily during time travel. On one hand, I have vowed to myself that if I see a movie with plans to write about it, but then I don’t feel like I have anything very interesting to say about it, then I won’t write a review. On the other hand I’ve vowed to myself to try to review every movie on the 
Timothy Olyphant (the bad guy from LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD [aka the killer from SCREAM 2 {SPOILER FOR SCREAM 2}]) plays a gentleman by the name of Forty Seven, who is a super badass hitman who does nothing at all in life except kill people for a secret organization that has something to do with the church and that raises orphans to be assassins and tattoos bar codes on their heads and makes them stay bald and dress like Dick Cheney. And although the movie has some enjoyable moments I feel like a movie that’s about that should really be more enjoyable than this is. And I’m sorry to say it but I think I have to throw some of the blame at the casting of Mr. Olyphant.
12,008 years ago this very day there was a man who, according to legend — well, the legend on the poster and trailer for this movie — was “the first hero.” He was part of a tribe that had been around long enough to develop hunting techniques, fire, tools, language, religion, jewelry, and eyeliner, but for some reason they hadn’t gotten around to heroism until now. This hero seems like a normal modern day white dude of average intelligence and waxed chest, except he has mud all over his face and nappy dreadlocks. Some time in the intervening years his people must have had a schism and split off into two tribes – the modern “douchebag” took the basic look and demeanor while the patchouli wearing, hackysack playing potheads took the hair and lack of hygiene.
Well, L.A. didn’t work out too hot for Paul Kersey. Might as well head home. So Part 3’s opening credits show Kersey taking a bus back into New York City, looking out the window to the tune of the most in-your–face, half cheesy/half cool blast of white-man’s-keyboard-rock meets jazz-fusion-’80s-cop-movie-establishing-shot-of-the-city theme this side of 
DREAM WARRIORS is the most popular of the Elm Street sequels, the one that set the pattern for most of them and, to be fair, the roots of everything that’s bad about them. It makes Freddy a little less mysterious, less scary, more jokey. The dreams become less surreal and more gimmicky. But still pretty good.
As you know I can enjoy a good neo-noir type picture every once in a while. It’s almost not fair to include THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE in this pantheon because it’s so spectacular and successfully retro that it makes the other ones look kinda lame. But other than that one it’s been a while since anyone succeeded at the modern film noir. I guess most independent filmatists trying to start out with a low budget crime movie have moved on from trying to make a BLOOD SIMPLE or a RED ROCK WEST to trying to make a RESERVOIR DOGS and then a PULP FICTION and then a LOCK, STOCK AND ET AL.
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
For the first DEATH WISH sequel we trade down from Dino DiLaurentiis to Golan and Globus producing. Apparently Menahem Golan almost directed, but Bronson wouldn’t do it unless they got Michael Winner back. I bet he said “why get a loser when you can get a Winner?” Anyway we caught a lucky break there. I guess Winner must’ve broken up with Maria from SESAME STREET by this time so Herbie Hancock was out. Instead he got one of his neighbors to score, a neighbor who happened to be Jimmy Page. I was worried but there’s only guitar soloing on the beginning and end credits, the rest is standard old school score, not cheesy ’80s keyboards and rockin guitars and shit. So I’m not gonna complain.
Technically Freddy already got his revenge in part 1 by going after the children of the people who burned him alive. In this one he’s just messing with a new kid who moves into the same house. It really is not revenge when you do it to a stranger who never did anything to you before and is not related to anyone who did anything to you before. Not to be pedantic but, come on dude, titles are important. Make ’em count.
