Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Tuesday, May 1st, 2007
After reviewing Franco Nero in the white ninja movie ENTER THE NINJA, I got some suggestions to check out THE HUNTED. I’m pretty sure at least one person tried to get me to review this a long time ago, so I hope you will enjoy this and forgive me for taking so long.
Christopher Lambert plays a white businessman who, along with his colleagues, has just wrapped up a big sale one night in Tokyo. Don’t get too excited, he’s not a ninja businessman, just a regular one in a suit and tie. Christopher decides not to go utilize some geishas with his buddies, instead going to a bar to drink by himself. But he sees Joan Chen (ON DEADLY GROUND), drinks some sake with her, ends up going back to her hotel with her. At first he’s very shy and polite, doesn’t go inside, but she invites him in for traditional Japanese hot tub sex. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christopher Lambert, samurai
Posted in Action, Reviews | 12 Comments »
Tuesday, May 1st, 2007
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. I haven’t watched my Jodrowsky box yet. Part of it is just time. I haven’t had a chance. But part of it is also because I almost don’t want to watch them. I’ve waited so long for these to be on DVD that now that I have them, I almost don’t want to ruin it by watching them and finally having an opinion about these films, so often discussed, so rarely seen. Leave it to Vern to more than man up for the task. This is a fantastic Vern piece, and a reminder of why he’s one of my favorite writers about film anywhere:
‘If all mankind shitted from a two-meter high toilet, we could have all the electricity we wanted.’
–Alejandro Jodorowsky, HOLY MOUNTAIN commentary
My friends, we will have peace in the Middle East. We will find cures for cancer and AIDS. The honey bees will return to their hives. Michael Bay will apologize and surrender himself to movie jail without incident. I know these things are possible because the impossible has happened: director Alejandro Jodorowsky and producer/Beatles manager Alan Klein have ended their 30 year feud. Everybody’s friends again, so Anchor Bay releases their THE FILMS OF ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY box set Tuesday.
This is literally the Holy Grail of DVDs. When Jodorowsky ditched plans to direct THE STORY OF O thirty years ago, Klein paid him back by shelving his other movies. So EL TOPO and HOLY MOUNTAIN have been legendary cult movies, but have not received the wide home viewing they deserve. You could never get these from corporate sources like Blockbuster or Netflix, because the copies in circulation were bootlegs. Jodorowsky supplied the materials to the pirates himself just to get the movies seen. (I wonder what section Blockbuster will put EL TOPO in?) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Jodorowsky
Posted in AICN, Reviews, Western | No Comments »
Saturday, April 28th, 2007
HOT FUZZ is the new British comedy picture from S. Pegg/N. Frost (lead comedy actors) and E. Wright (director). They are the same individuals responsible for SHAUN OF THE DEAD, the zombie comedy from a few years back that is known to be so potent that just the mention of it causes a boner on any film fan under the age of 27 residing within a 50′ radius, even if they don’t have the equipment.
Well, I’m gonna lose some credibility with my friends and colleagues in the nerd community by saying this, but I think these movies are a little overrated. I do not by any means think they are bad movies. They are fun movies, they have laughs, they are fairly original, and they are very sincere about their love for the genres they are paying tribute to, it’s not some Leslie Nielsen style “spoof.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Edgar Wright, Edward Woodward, Jim Broadbent, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Simon Pegg, Timothy Dalton
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 73 Comments »
Saturday, April 28th, 2007
This is a 2004 documentary about two stunt women. One is a veteran, Jeannie Epper, double for Lynda Carter on WONDER WOMAN. The other is more of a newcomer, Zoe Bell, double for Xena the warrior princess. And of course now we know her for playing herself, Zoe Bell, stuntwoman, as the heroine of Tarantino’s DEATH PROOF. But this was before.
The movie splits between telling the stories of these two women. Jeannie is in the US, having a harder time getting jobs at her age, also involved in organizing younger stunt women and helping them out like a mom. (In fact, one stunt woman she helps is her daughter.) Meanwhile, Zoe is in New Zealand worried about her future because XENA is about to end. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Zoe Bell
Posted in Documentary, Reviews | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 25th, 2007
SPOILER ALERT !!
My friends, I write to you with a heavy heart to admit that the prestigious WWE Films banner is starting to lose its luster. They have three movies under their belt now (get it, belt – that is a wrestling pun in my opinion) but the record now is 1 in 3. And the one I’m counting as good is SEE NO EVIL (click for review!) , the slasher movie about a big bald sexually repressed muscleman poking out people’s eyes in a scary hotel. So your mileage may vary. (mileage is a car metaphor, that is no longer wrestling related, sorry.)
THE CONDEMNED sort of stars Steve Austin, formerly known as Stone Cold Steve Austin, but maybe he dropped that after he got fired from wrestling for getting arrested for wife beating. I’m not sure. Austin is the most sympathetic of ten convicts that an amoral millionaire buys out of prisons in third world countries, puts on an island and forces to kill each other for one of those live streaming internet shows they have in horrible movies (see HALLOWEEN RESURRECTION). They have bombs attached to their ankles so they can’t escape, and if one is able to be the last one remaining he or she will be set free. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: post-action, Stone Cold Steve Austin, WWE Films
Posted in Action, AICN, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Saturday, April 21st, 2007
Ever since this movie played some film festivals it has gotten great reviews, especially here on the internet where people tend to fall for this sort of shit. Of course you know I am a fan of the horrors and it’s always good to see somebody try a different approach, so I was hoping they were right. But one thing I noticed was every review I read would explain the premise, which sounded like a stupid idea that would never work. But at no point did any of the reviews say, “I know, this sounds like a stupid idea that would never work, but somehow they managed to pull it off.” Instead they talked about this idea like it was a good idea. A really good idea.
Here is the stupid idea that would never work: BEHIND THE MASK is done in a fake documentary style (or fakeumentary). It takes place in a world where the iconic killers of horror movies (Freddy, Jason, Michael Meyers and Chucky are specifically mentioned) are all real. A grad student who looks kind of like Sarah Polley is doing a documentary about a guy who calls himself Leslie Vernon, a guy who is an aspiring slasher. And he explains to the camera his whole made up horror backstory, how he picks out his victims and what he plans to do with them, all of course based on the formulas of slasher movies. And there is lots of jokes about how he has to work out alot to be able to chase people while it seems like he’s just walking, and corny shit like that. So it plays off of all these archetypes or cliches and then at the end it switches from documentary to “real movie” as he tries to kill his victims in scenes inspired by FRIDAY THE 13TH 2 and 3 (the Steve Miner years). And according to the vast majority of the critics, who really liked this movie, it gets genuinely scary at this point. (read the rest of this shit…)
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 9 Comments »
Thursday, April 19th, 2007
This week I followed an anonymous tip to take a look at an individual name Sho Kosugi. This guy starred in a series of ninja movies and was said to be a missing link in my badass studies to date. I looked him up and found that ENTER THE NINJA is also known as NINJA 1 because it begins a series, so I started with that.
The movie opens promisingly with the badass in question, Mr. Sho Kosugi, in full ninja uniform, standing in front of a black void, demonstrating every weapon he knows. Nunchakas, throwing stars, arrows, daggers, grappling hook, blow gun. You name it, he spins it around or shoots it. The guy is obviously good and it’s kind of cool how he is basically doing show and tell for you throughout the opening credits. It might as well be some Ninja How-To video. But then all the sudden a ninja in all white flies onto the screen and “kicks” him in the head (although it doesn’t look like he makes contact at all). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Franco Nero, Menahem Golan, ninjas, Sho Kosugi, white ninjas
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007
ZWARTBOEK
Paul Verhoeven has always been one of the top weirdo-pervert directors in my book. (Literally – in my book 5 On the Outside I had a review of THE HOLLOW MAN in chapter 9, “WEIRDOS, CREEPS & PERVERTS.”) Less pedophilic and more of a crowdpleaser than your Larry Clark, Verhoeven is a true original. Even making a studio movie about a cyborg he manages to tell a story with a strong point-of-view about the state of the world. Throughout his years in Hollywood, Verhoeven made many great popcorn movies that outrageously pushed the envelope of violence and sex and sneakily snuck in some subversive politics. And that’s pretty much my favorite type of movie in the world is one that does that. It’s like some poor sucker buys a box of Mike and Ike’s and doesn’t realize somebody tossed a couple MATRIX red pills in there. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Paul Verhoeven
Posted in Drama, Reviews, Thriller, War | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007
Until recently I was the guy who had never seen POINT BREAK. But the other day I busted my cherry on that matter, pardon my French, so I’m some other guy now.
I’m sure you’ve already seen it but let me refresh your memory: Keanu Reeves plays the perfectly named Johnny Utah, college football hero turned fresh-faced FBI rookie teamed with Gary Busey (in one of the first roles of his Crazy Post-Motorcycle Accident Period) to track down a gang of bank robbers who Busey (correctly) theorizes are surfers. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Busey, Kathryn Bigelow, Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Sport, Thriller | 19 Comments »
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007
I don’t know how familiar any of you are with Payback, the 1999 Mel Gibson-starring adaptation of Richard Stark’s The Hunter. That’s the same book that inspired one of the all time canonical works of Badass Cinema, Point Blank.
Well, Mel Gibson is no Lee Marvin and writer/director Brian Helgeland (A Knight’s Tale) is no John Boorman. But I think Payback is an underrated movie. It’s a good balance of vicious and funny. It’s got a bit of a ’70s throwback feel and lots of weird touches to make it an indistinct time period. There are rotary phones, and primitive credit card technology that makes fraud more convenient, and the film is washed out with bleach making everything have a pale blue tint to it. You’re not sure when this is supposed to be taking place, which in a weird way reminds me of the experience of reading the books. Most of it reads pretty modern but obviously you are dealing with armed robbers, there is money, communication and security technology that would make some of the stories impossible today. So I sometimes have to check the copyright dates to be sure when this would’ve happened. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Helgeland, Donald Westlake, Mel Gibson, Parker
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Other Sites, Reviews | 6 Comments »
