Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Sunday, August 15th, 2004
(aka MUAY THAI WARRIOR)
You see, there’s this small town in Thailand somewhere (possibly called Ong-Bak, unless that is only the name of the buddha statue there, but the subtitles led me to believe it was the name of both). Anyway, there’s a young man there named Ting (played by Tony Jaa) who is working hard to prove himself as a master of Muay Thai Kickboxing, or Thai Fist. That’s quite enough bullshit for a young man to have on his mind but then some other asshole has to sneak in and cut off the head of their buddha statue so he can sell it. All the old ladies start crying that the town is not protected anymore so before you know it this little old country boy is headed for big bad Bangkok to get the shit back. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Prachya Pinkaew, Thai action, Tony Jaa
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | No Comments »
Friday, August 13th, 2004
Actually, not bad.
This is the story of a world not too far off where everything is similar to now except that Converse All Stars are rare and robots are common. Instead of the other way around. These robots are used to walk dogs, clean the house, chop the vegetables, etc. Everybody loves them, the same way assholes today love their cell phones and their iPods. And they got these new ones coming out pretty soon, the US Robotics corporation is making a big deal about it. These ones talk more like humans and have cute little rubber noses and they are see-through like my iMac. When they talk you can see little dealies moving around inside their heads. Good job on that detail, computer animators. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Tudyk, Alex Proyas, Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, Chi McBride, Isaac Asimov, James Cromwell, robots, Shia LaBeouf, Will Smith
Posted in Action, Mystery, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit, Thriller | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 10th, 2004
I don’t know if you guys have ever heard of this one. It’s a weird crime movie starring Fred Ward as a cop with fake teeth, Alec Baldwin as a crook who steals his teeth, and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Baldwin’s dumb hooker turned naive fiancee.
From the cover you’d assume this is just some boring cop movie, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it’s something completely unique. Or don’t take my word for it. Let me explain to you a little bit about the plot, and see if that waxes your mustache.
See, Alec Baldwin (back when he was young and skinny, and made the gals swoon) gets off a plane in Miami, steals somebody’s luggage, and heads for the exit. At the bottom of an escalator he is approached by a hare krishna, who asks him what his name is. He says, “Trouble,” breaks the guy’s finger, and leaves. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alec Baldwin, Charles Willeford, Fred Ward, George Armitage, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews, Romance, Thriller | 14 Comments »
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004
SPOILER ALERT !!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with one of the most entertaining reviews you’ve likely read in the last few weeks. Vern-o is one of a kind… God’s own prototype. Anyway, he gives a good look at what to expect from the Third and last (maybe?) GINGER SNAPS flick… I personally didn’t care too much for GINGER SNAPS BACK, but I love the first film. I like what I’ve seen of THE BEGINNING, so I’m very optimistic… but you don’t care what I have to say! This is Vern’s show and if I don’t hand over the floor I’m likely to wake up with a strangled ant-eater in my bed. You don’t want to get on Vern’s bad side… I learned that years ago… So, here he is!
Boys –
How’s it goin. Hope those of you who went had fun at your comic book convention. Who did the delegates end up nominating anyway? Was it batman? I tell you with these volatile times, I thought it was gonna be the ’68 Comic Con all over again, guys dressed up as stormtroopers running through the streets beating up Xena and Catwoman with plastic swords, rolling robots, setting dragons on fire. But it sounds like it was peaceful. I didn’t read any of that crap you guys wrote about it but I bet it was good. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Canadian, Grant Harvey, JR Bourne, werewolves
Posted in AICN, Fantasy/Swords, Horror, Reviews | No Comments »
Sunday, August 1st, 2004
What could be more badass than Steve Mc-Fucking-Queen in the true life story of a world famous bounty hunter?
Well, it turns out alot of things could, but that’s not a complaint. Maybe it wasn’t the gritty action thriller I pictured when I saw the cover, but I still really enjoyed this goofy movie. It starts out real promising with a bounty hunter named “Papa” Thorsen (Steve) driving a big ass boat of a car into a neighborhood, having a hell of a time parallel parking it, right in front of a crowd of people. Bumping a Cadillac right in front of the owner. Then he goes inside a bar and picks up young Levar Burton, who is wanted for some petty crime. He brings the kid in, gives him some tips for dealing with the judge, and goes home. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Buzz Kulik, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen
Posted in Action, Reviews | No Comments »
Friday, July 23rd, 2004
From the same director, producer and cast as Romeo Must Die and Exit Wounds comes another exciting pile of disparate elements squooshed together into the same basic shape as an action movie. It’s really more of a booger sculpture than a movie, but for a booger sculpture, it’s not that bad, I guess.
Joel Silver originally announced this as Untitled DMX Project, supposedly a remake of Fritz Lang’s M. If that was the case, then I guess Tom Arnold (our generation’s Peter Lorre) would’ve been playing a perverted child killer whose killing spree had caused the police to clamp down so hard that organized crime would be pretty much put out of business. So the leaders of rival gangs (DMX, Jet Li, Mark Dacascos) would pool their resources to catch Tom Arnold so everything could go back to normal. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andrzej Bartkowiak, Anthony Anderson, DMX, Jet Li, Kelly Hu, Mark Dacascos, Randy Couture, Tom Arnold
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 12 Comments »
Thursday, July 22nd, 2004
The first thing you see in this movie: “inspired by a true story.” The last thing: “Dedicated to the memory of Sheriff Buford Pusser.”
In between, you got nothing to do with Buford Pusser, except a sheriff with a stick. See, that’s what happens when you raise an entire generation on nothing but Diff’rent Strokes and Duran Duran. They get confused. They grow up, they start running things, but they got heads made out of oatmeal. It’s like letting a dog mow your lawn. If you train it right, it might be able to push the mower around, but it’s gonna do a really bad job by human standards. These kids today, they don’t understand reality. To them, “reality” means you have to eat bugs and stab your best friend in the back to win money. So let me explain it to you knuckleheads. MOVIES ARE NOT REALITY. Because a movie was made in the ’70s does not mean that it actually happened. If you make a remake of Saturday Night Fever or Star Wars, you can’t say “based on a true story.” You have to say “based on a movie you already saw.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Johnny Knoxville, Neal McDonough, sort of remakes, The Rock
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 22nd, 2004
I’m not all that familiar with the films of Phil Karlson. Supposedly he did some good gritty crime movies in the ’50s, but I just know him from his later years, when he did movies like BEN and WALKING TALL (he did one more, FRAMED, after those two, and that was that), where you’re convinced at the beginning that it’s some crappy TV movie but by the end you’re surprised by how involved you somehow got.
Loosely based on an actual guy, WALKING TALL is the story of Buford Pusser (Joseph Donald Baker), a soldier turned professional wrestler who moves his family back to his hometown in Tennessee, only to discover that things have changed a little bit. You know, same way they always did in blaxploitation movies. Suddenly there’s a bunch of criminals running the town, selling (in this case) moonshine. You can’t go to a bar without getting in a fight and a woman can’t even step one tippy toe onto God’s green earth without a bunch of drunken yahoos doing donuts in a pickup truck yelling “whooo hoo” and trying to grab her boobies. (Not that this literally happens in the movie as far as I remember, but you know, it’s that kind of movie.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Joe Don Baker
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Sunday, July 18th, 2004
First off, I just want to say, I thought Charles Bronson was gonna play a mechanic in this movie. I’m not sure why. Maybe because THE FUCKING MOVIE IS CALLED THE MECHANIC. I don’t know, that may or may not be the reason.
Charles Bronson plays a mob enforcer, or a hitman, or an assassin, or a killer, or a mechanic, or a dentist, or whatever you think sounds coolest. Point is, he’s a guy who makes a living murdering people in fancy ways. And he’s real good at his job, by the looks of it.
The opening scene is one of them tours of force that you gotta be impressed by. For a good ten minutes or more, there is no dialogue, no narration, no explanation. Just my man Charles the Mechanic, spying on a guy, then going into the guy’s apartment, fucking with his teabags, putting explosives in his books, etc. Setting things up. Then blowing things up. All in a day’s work when you are a mechanic who doesn’t fix cars. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Charles Bronson, Jan-Michael Vincent, Michael Winner
Posted in Action, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Sunday, July 18th, 2004
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Can you believe that? Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Has there ever been a better title for a film of Badass Cinema, because I don’t think there has. Leave it to Sam Peckinpah, that lovable old drunk who spent his whole career fighting with studios and filming innocent kids standing by the side of the road watching as horrible atrocities took place in slow motion to come up with a title like that. I don’t think that one will ever be topped.
I really like Peckinpah, especially one that I guess is not generally considered one of his best, The Getaway. I like that this is a guy who makes violent westerns and crime movies but instead of trying to dazzle the audience with explosions and car chases, he seems to pour his filthy old grizzled alcoholic soul into it. All of his frustrations, problems and paranoid delusions seem to end up in there somewhere. He knows that a good personal film is not necessarily about some dude reading poetry and being misunderstood by the ladies. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Kris Kristofferson, Sam Peckinpah, Warren Oates
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller, Western | 8 Comments »
