Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Wednesday, February 15th, 2023
THE RED-WOLF (just RED WOLF on the DVD cover) is a 1995 movie directed by Yuen Woo-ping that’s kind of like his take on UNDER SIEGE and/or SPEED 2. Thieves infiltrate a cruise ship and kill the captain in a plot to steal uranium from the boat’s safe; a lone security guard (with help from a waitress/pickpocket) must stop them. It’s far from Yuen’s best directorial work, but of course it has some very good action in it, and I can’t help but enjoy seeing him inject his style into a favorite subgenre of American action.
It takes place on New Year’s Eve (the December one, judging by the number of Christmas trees around) on a luxury cruise ship called the White Whale. That’s a literary reference in my opinion, but most of its influences are cinematic. If you know your important filmic art you know that in the film UNDER SIEGE the captain of an aircraft carrier is killed by one of his underlings, who’s working for a guy who gets on board disguised as the singer for a corny blues rock band. This is kind of a variation on that – the ship’s captain (Steve Brettingham, KNOCK OFF) is a sleazeball who expects to hook up with singer Elaine Wong (Elaine Lui Siu-Ling, THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR), so she gets into his private quarters to whoop his ass and steal his security card. She’s working with the ship’s treacherous first officer (Collin Chou, THE MATRIX RELOADED), who kicks in the door and helps. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christy Chung, Collin Chou, Die Hard on a ____, Digital Native Dance, Elaine Lui, Habby Heske, Hong Kong action, Kenny Ho, Mandy Chan, Mary Hon Ma-Lee, Mike Miller, New Year's Eve, Robert Samuels, Roy Filler, Steve Brettingham, Wu Fung, Yuen Woo-Ping
Posted in Reviews, Action, Martial Arts | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, February 14th, 2023
“My dad died fighting Nazis in Germany, but he died fightin the wrong ones, huh?”
THE FINAL COMEDOWN is a 1972 drama starring Billy Dee Williams as an angry young militant who leads some sort of small uprising. It has been categorized as blaxploitation, and that makes sense – it’s a low budget movie with a funky soundtrack, and a sex scene (maybe to please producer Roger Corman), and it co-stars that bad D’Urville Martin (director of DOLEMITE, played by Wesley Snipes in DOLEMITE IS MY NAME) and Raymond St. Jacques right after COOL BREEZE. But despite having many bullets fired and quite a few falling-off-a-building stunts, it’s not exactly an action movie or empowerment fantasy. It’s a very earnest issue movie, with the unvarnished rage and radicalism of THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR, plus an editing style and non-linear storytelling that seems more in the arty vein of stuff like SWEET SWEETBACK and TOP OF THE HEAP than all the ones that were trying to cash in on the success of SHAFT and SUPER FLY. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Allan Arkush, Billy Dee Williams, Celia Kaye, D'Urville Martin, Ed Cambridge, Grant Green, Maide Norman, Oscar Williams, Pamela Jones, Raymond St. Jacques, Roger Corman
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime, Drama | 2 Comments »
Monday, February 13th, 2023
See, this is why I continue being a best picture completist – it gets me to watch some good movies I was planning to skip. This year when they announced the ten nominees I had already seen six of them and was planning to see another three. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is the only one I’d had no desire to see. In fact I’d been hoping it wouldn’t get nominated, and felt a little resentment that according to my self-imposed rules I was gonna have to watch it.
I have no familiarity with the 1929 novel by Erich Maria Ramarque, the 1930 film version by Lewis Milestone, or the 1979 tv version, so my skepticism was not about being a purist. I just had heard an impassioned argument that it’s a movie with cool battle scenes that turn a powerful anti-war story into some SAVING PRIVATE RYAN shit about heroism and sacrifice. And that didn’t sound like something I wanted to see. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Albrecht Schuch, best picture nominees, Daniel Bruhl, Devid Striesow, Edward Berger, Felix Kammerer, WWI
Posted in Reviews, War | 27 Comments »
Thursday, February 9th, 2023
EL DIABLO is a mediocre 1990 made-for-cable western that I watched because it’s based on an old John Carpenter script. As a Carpenter-once-removed movie I thought it would make a good followup to yesterday’s ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 remake review.
The original script was written in the ‘70s, and was reportedly set to be Carpenter’s directorial followup to THE FOG, but he got nervous about doing a western. I couldn’t find any mention of the project in John Carpenter: The Prince of Darkness by Gilles Boulenger, but the last question in that great interview book is about why he never directed a a straight western. “There is a part of me that worries about making a western, that worries about the horses, that worries about ending up in a film I wouldn’t understand,” Carpenter said. “I don’t know why. I can’t explain that. Maybe people who had made westerns intimidate me. I don’t really want to compete with them. Perhaps I’m a coward, but I feel more at ease competing in the horror genre than competing with Howard Hawks or John Ford or any of the greats.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Edwards, Bill Phillips, Branscombe Richmond, David Dunard, Debra Hill, Joe Pantoliano, John Carpenter, Johnny Crawford, Kristin Harmon, Louis Gossett Jr., Luis Contreras, M.C. Gainey, Miguel Sandoval, Nancy Wible, Nick Castle, Peter Markle, Robert Beltran, Sarah Trigger, Tommy Lee Wallace
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Western | 20 Comments »
Wednesday, February 8th, 2023
Recently, events converged to remind me there was a (sort of) remake of John Carpenter’s ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 back in 2005. Well, really what happened was that movie PLANE came out – the Gerard Butler one with the plane – and that’s from the same director, Jean-François Richet. He did a couple gritty French crime movies in the ‘90s and then his phone rang and Hollywood said, “Hello, this is Hollywood, would you be interested in remaking ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, or as you call it in France, ASSAUT?” I imagine he very thoughtfully said “Oui” and then hung up.
According to his commentary track they didn’t have the script yet when they hired him. He chose James DeMonaco to write it because he’d just seen THE NEGOTIATOR, a movie this does seem kinda similar to. DeMonaco had also written a film for Francis Ford Coppola*. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aisha Hinds, Brian Dennehy, Dorian Harewood, Drea De Mateo, Ethan Hawke, Gabriel Byrne, Graeme Revell, Ja Rule, James DeMonaco, Jean-Francois Richet, John Leguizamo, Kim Coates, KRS-One, Laurence Fishburne, Maria Bello, New Year's Eve, siege movies, Titus Welliver
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime, Thriller | 12 Comments »
Tuesday, February 7th, 2023
THE THOUSAND FACES OF DUNJIA is a 2017 FX-laden wuxia movie from the super team of director Yuen Woo-ping (TAI CHI MASTER, WING CHUN) and writer/producer Tsui Hark (A BETTER TOMORROW II, VAMPIRE HUNTERS), their first collaboration since 2002’s BLACK MASK 2: CITY OF MASKS (which was directed by Tsui with Yuen as martial arts director).
This is a type of modern Chinese blockbuster that seems to be very off-putting to some people because it’s absolutely slathered in digital bells and whistles: fiery bombastic credits, virtual camera pulling back from a spider’s leg to an asteroid in outer space, humans morphing into animated monsters, magic shit twirling around all over the place, clearly designed for 3D. Also it has lots of broad humor, cartoon physics, exaggerated facial expressions – the kind of stuff Stephen Chow perfected and nobody else, even these legends, can easily match.
It’s not my very favorite type of movie, but it’s something I can have fun with. The unbridled joy for putting cool and/or preposterous things on screen – fantastical shit for the sake of fantastical shit – always makes me smile, even if I can’t follow all of it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aarif Lee Chi-Ting, Da Peng, Ni Ni, Tsui Hark, wuxia, Yuen Woo-Ping, Zhou Dongyu
Posted in Reviews, Action, Fantasy/Swords, Martial Arts | 4 Comments »
Monday, February 6th, 2023
THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN is last year’s best picture nominated movie from writer/director Martin McDonagh, and I think my favorite from him so far. (The other best is his debut IN BRUGES, and he also did SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS and THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI). This one is set in 1923 in a small island village of Ireland, and concerns the simple topic of two old friends after one of them decides they shouldn’t have any contact with each other anymore. It’s not in response to some specific action, it’s a decision to redirect his life, and a rejection of the value of spending any time with this other person. It’s a sad movie and also a really funny one. Since it didn’t make me cry, despite my middle age status as an easy crier, I say it’s more funny than sad. You may disagree.
The rejected party is Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell, DEAD MAN DOWN), who opens the movie in comical obliviousness, walking into town saying hello to everybody he passes like it’s a damn Disney movie. There’s even a rainbow. But when he knocks on Colm (Brendan Gleeson, TURBULENCE)’s window Colm won’t acknowledge him, and later at the pub won’t sit with or talk to him. And after some pushing Colm tells him the friendship is over. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barry Keoghan, Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, Gary Lydon, Ireland, Kerry Condon, Martin McDonagh, Sheila Flitton
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Drama | 14 Comments »
Thursday, February 2nd, 2023
When I first encountered the trailer for INFINITY POOL I spotted Mia Goth, who gave one of my favorite performances last year in PEARL, so I knew I would be seeing it. Then I noticed Alexander Skarsgård, star of one of my other favorite 2022 movies, THE NORTHMAN. And at the end I learned it was the new one from writer/director Brandon Cronenberg, whose 2020 film POSSESSOR really knocked me on my ass, so this was a first show opening day kind of deal for me. And it lived up to my hopes.
It’s the story of novelist James Foster (Skarsgård, 13, BATTLESHIP, THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, GODZILLA VS. KONG) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman, STEP UP REVOLUTION, IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON) on vacation at a resort in the exotic foreign land of Latoka. It’s a beautiful place on the sea, but it’s creepy – fenced off with guards, tourists aren’t allowed to leave, so the closest thing to visiting the locals is going to restaurants in the resort’s fake downtown area. James is already thinking he was an idiot to believe this trip could break his six year lack of inspiration since publishing his one obscure and poorly reviewed novel. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alexander Skarsgard, Brandon Cronenberg, Cleopatra Coleman, clones, Jalil Lespert, Mia Goth, Thomas Kretschmann
Posted in Reviews, Horror, I don't know, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 19 Comments »
Wednesday, February 1st, 2023
WOMEN TALKING is the new best picture nominated film from writer/director Sarah Polley, who is minor-key beloved as an actress for people around my age (THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN, GO, EXISTENZ, DAWN OF THE DEAD, SPLICE), but these days is more known as an acclaimed filmmaker (she directed AWAY FROM HER, TAKE THIS WALTZ and STORIES WE TELL). Now I’ve finally seen one of the ones she directed, and it lives up to her reputation. It’s based on a novel, but I would’ve guessed it was based on a play, because it’s one of those stories with a really concise but heavy-duty set up to put a top shelf ensemble of actors into a limited location (in this case a hay loft) with much to discuss, debate, and decide. Kind of a 12 ANGRY MEN deal, except there’s very intentionally only one man with a speaking part in the whole movie. And he’s way more sad than angry.
Canadian author Miriam Toews wrote the novel as a “reaction through fiction” to a real thing that happened in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia. So bear with me – this is awful. In an isolated religious colony (here seemingly in the U.S.) women and even young girls have, for some time, been waking up bruised and covered in blood as they have been repeatedly knocked unconscious by cow tranquilizer and then raped. For years they’ve been told by the elders that they imagined it or it was the Devil or a ghost or a punishment from God or all that kind of bullshit. But before the movie begins our young narrator Autje (Kate Hallett) and her friend Neitje (Liv McNeil) caught one of them running away, they got him to name the others, they were arrested and taken to jail. The men of the colony have gone to the city to bail them out, and given the women 48 hours to forgive them, or they will be excommunicated. Can you believe that shit? (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: August Winter, Ben Wishaw, best picture nominees, Canadian, Claire Foy, Frances McDormand, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Kate Hallett, Liv McNeil, Michelle McLeod, Miriam Toews, Rooney Mara, Sarah Polley, Sheila McCarthy
Posted in Reviews, Drama | 12 Comments »
Tuesday, January 31st, 2023
I guess time flies, because I’ve kind of wanted to see GEOSTORM since it came out, and I didn’t realize that was more than five years ago. It’s the theatrical feature directing debut of Dean Devlin, former writing/producing partner of Roland Emmerich. Devlin wrote the script with Paul Guyot (two season 2 episodes of something called “Felicity”; also Chow Yun Fat’s assistant on THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS).
In my household Mrs. Vern is the fan of disaster movies. The best ones make her giggle. She loves the broad stereotypes, the corny speeches, the cataclysmic destruction, and especially the montages where different countries set aside their differences to save the world together. Unlike me she likes INDEPENDENCE DAY, but she’s not one of the people who considers it to be an actual well made blockbuster movie. She just finds it a little more hilarious and alot less annoying than I do. So she’s the reason we saw and got a kick out of 10,000 B.C. and 2012 in the theater and MOONFALL on video. I skipped THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW and she still gets excited and explains to me what’s happening when we come across it on cable. So although I would like to take credit for reviewing this as part of some post-PLANE Gerard Butler study, it’s really because she spontaneously decided the time had come to watch it, and I agreed it was a good idea.
Butler plays Jake Lawson, the chief architect of a web of climate-controlling satellites built through international cooperation in the futuristic year of 2019. Nicknamed Dutch Boy (a term I really got sick of hearing), the system successfully neutralizes climate-change-exacerbated weather events. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Abbie Cornish, Alexandra Maria Lara, Andy Garcia, Daniel Wu, Danny Cannon, Dean Devlin, disaster movies, Ed Harris, Eugenio Derbez, Gerard Butler, Jerry Bruckheimer, Jim Sturgess, Julia Denton, Laeta Kalogridis, Paul Guyot, Richard Regan Paul, Richard Schiff, Talitha Bateman, Zazie Beetz
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 12 Comments »
