Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Thursday, July 8th, 2004
Scroll up a little bit and you can read about POINT BLANK, Lee Marvin’s great Richard Stark adaptation. Directed by John Boorman, an obvious influence on THE LIMEY, one of the classics. Well here’s another one in the same tough guy vein. But it’s less arty, less thoughtful, and has a weird ass meat theme to it.
The movie starts with a slaughterhouse montage showing cows going from cows to sausages. Like the e-coli version of the opening credits to WILLY WONKA. Along the way a dead dude gets thrown in there, chopped up, ground and turned into links, then a big sweaty dude says, “Special order,” packs ’em up and mails ’em to the guy’s boss. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gene Hackman, Lee Marvin, Michael Ritchie, Sissy Spacek
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews | 5 Comments »
Thursday, July 8th, 2004
I’m sure alot of you out there have that Criterion edition of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. Yeah, me too. So you may remember a special feature on there showing Hunter S. Thompson filming his cameo for the movie, and that footage was actually an excerpt from this movie, BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER. The same movie I am now reviewing as we speak.
Well that was a pretty good special feature, but as a movie it’s even better. What this is is a “cinema verite” or “direct cinema” or “not narrated” type documentary about the famous maniac/journalist. The directionist followed Dr. Thompson for several years, often acting as his road manager so as to get a chance to film him. Of course this is shot in recent years so there is a heavy emphasis on the making of the FEAR AND LOATHING movie. He celebrates anniversaries, receives honors (including a party from his old friends at Rolling Stone) and reunites with Ralph Steadman, who has come to support him and do some real high quality court room drawings as he fights a phoney charge of drunk driving. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Hunter S. Thompson
Posted in Documentary, Reviews | No Comments »
Saturday, July 3rd, 2004
Well from what they tell me “The Punisher” is a Marvel Comics type super hero character. In the comic strip he’s a sadistic bastard that goes around “punishing” people. What this means I guess is not spidermanning them with webs or hulking them or whatever, what he does is kill them in horrible painful ways. He does not wear a cape or fly but he wears black spandex and a picture of a skull on his chest. Basically he is the guy from Rolling Thunder as a super hero. Without super powers or a hook hand. Superman’s morally questionable co-worker.
Guys who like The Punisher are not guys I can relate to. They like the violence and sadism and revenge aspects. They have a lot of anger in them and they enjoy getting it out. So far so good. But for some reason their idea of a bad motherfucker is a super hero in a comic strip. They think the right guy to get the rage out is a guy who wears a super hero costume. They can’t just watch Charles Bronson movies like everybody else, they gotta put the guy in a fucking uniform. That was one of the reasons they hated the earlier PUNISHER movie starring Dolph Lundgren. He didn’t wear the uniform. He doesn’t count as the Punisher because he wears different clothes. (maybe the movie takes place on laundry day. Huh? Ever thoughta that, asswipes?) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: John Travolta, Jonathan Hensleigh, Rebecca Romijn, Thomas Jane
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 81 Comments »
Friday, July 2nd, 2004
The disappointment of that Planet of the Apes remake nonsense got me thinking about the old days. How you used to be able to make movies about talking gorillas that were still intelligent type pictures. You got all the rubber makeup and the spaceships and the fighting and what not that the nerds love but you also got some social commentary in there or some politics or some insights about our world and what not. You got vietnam and the civil rights movement going on in the real world and the apes really strikes a ball or whatever with people because of the obvious parallels. These were expensive studio movies but they were willing to give something back instead of just selling a product and then running like hell.
Then out of the blue I got an anonymous tip, telling me Vern, there was a movie in the mid-’90s which attempted this same thing. You got the rubber makeup and you got the sci-fi nonsense. It’s even a remake of an old movie based on a classic book, just like the apes picture. The one catch is that everyone in the world claims this movie is a worthless piece of utter garbage. but you should still watch it, Vern. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: John Frankenheimer, Mark Dacascos, Marlon Brando, Ron Perlman, Val Kilmer
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit, Thriller | 25 Comments »
Monday, June 28th, 2004
You might find this shocking. But I like Michael Moore. Fuck it man, I love Michael Moore. Not that I ever met the dude but I love his pictures and his TV shows. I think he is a great satirist who finds goofy ways to illustrate his points and make them sink in better (like the time on The Awful Truth when he hired an actual pimp to turn out the bitches and hoes of congress, or the time he handed out fluorescent orange wallets to black New Yorkers so they wouldn’t get shot by cops like Amadou Diallo did).
I have heard this story on the internet and what not about how Michael Moore is a dangerous dude, his movies are big scary manipulative propaganda lies. And he has these legions of loyal zombie followers who don’t understand humor, irony or the art of motion picture editing. They watch his movies and they think they are a direct uplink from objective scientific reality into their brain. They don’t know how to process the information for themselves. They take it all as literally as these numbskull republicans do, and they don’t ever read or hear about the topic again. They are permanently brainwashed to unquestioningly believe Michael Moore’s crazy, bizarre, venomous hate filled extreme left wing conspiracy theories. Like the one about how everyone deserves affordable health care, or that one from Bowling For Columbine about – get the tin foil hats ready man – I mean, this is almost too crazy to even say out loud – we should try to figure out why our society is so violent. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Michael Moore
Posted in Documentary, Reviews | 5 Comments »
Sunday, June 20th, 2004
I had no problem skipping this one when it came to theaters, but it was on DVD where the problems came up. Sure, I tried, but then motherfuckers kept recommending it to me. Saying it was “actually good” and “alot of fun” and all that kind of nonsense. After a while I figured well why not, give this Rock dude a shot. I skipped his mummy pictures, so all I know is he was in BEYOND THE MAT and he seemed like a nice guy. Goes by the name of Dwayne, I believe, in everyday life, but for wrestling and movies it’s last name Rock, first name The. No relation to Chris.
The movie was pretty much what I expected when I first succeeded in skipping it. Unfortunately when they’re trying out action heroes that have not yet convinced the Hollywood suits, they have to team them with some company man as his partner/buddy/”comic” relief sidekick. For example they pulled this shit on Chow Yun Fat in BULLET PROOF MONK and here they have the same fucking narc, Sean William Scott from the AMERICAN PIE teenage pictures, saddling down The Rock, making sure he stays in line and doesn’t pull anything funny like making a great movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christopher Walken, Ernie Reyes Jr., Peter Berg, Rosario Dawson, Seann William Scott, The Rock
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Thriller | 4 Comments »
Friday, June 18th, 2004
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
Vern rarely writes to us about genuinely great movies, so when he sets aside his insane Steven Seagal fetish to write a review like this, I have to take it seriously:
Dearest Harold,
Vern here and for once I’ve got the genuine article for you. Not just a better than average straight to video-er or something. This is an actual great theatrical film that you haven’t much covered yet and that I know you boys are gonna love. Guaranteed. I saw it here at SIFF and I know it’s played some other film festivals and it’s coming soon to a theater near some place or other. And if nobody goes to see it, well then, fuck those guys. They obviously don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.
STANDER is the true story of Andres Stander, a police captain turned legendary bank robber in ’70s South Africa. At the height of the revolution he noticed that with all the police on riot duty to stop uprisings and protests, there weren’t enough police to really guard the banks. So he started robbing them, then pretending to investigate his own crimes, until he was caught and then busted out of prison and started his own very successful gang. Seems like a pretty good guy. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: bank robbers, South Africa, Thomas Jane, true crime
Posted in Action, AICN, Crime, Drama, Reviews, SIFF | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 17th, 2004
I don’t know if you ever saw PITCH BLACK. It was a low budget ALIENS type movie about a bunch of space-people who get stranded on a planet where nasty monsters come out and eat everybody at night. And then if I remember right there is an eclipse, so it’s gonna be a long fuckin night. So they’re pretty much fucked except luckily they have this dude Riddick on board. He is a prisoner actually, a scary mass killer type, but he has surgically altered glowing eyes so he can see in the dark. So with him being good at killing and seeing in the dark, he is a good guy to let loose in this situation. So the murderer becomes some sort of a part time hero when faced with alien monsters, he saves some lives and possibly leaves his old self behind.
Personally I thought the movie wasn’t so hot. It starts out good but the aliens just aren’t all that convincing or scary and I lost interest after a while. But this Riddick character, played by the then unknown Vin Diesel, was a cool idea and memorably played by Mr. Diesel. The great Keith David is in there too playing a preacher named Imam, but I guess not as memorably, since I forgot he was in it until I saw him in this sequel. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Twohy, Judi Dench, Vin Diesel
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 6 Comments »
Monday, June 14th, 2004
SPOILER ALERT !!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with gobs of reviews from the SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, which seems to have been kicking all kinds of ass lately. Below you’ll find our man Vern’s look at a flick from Clooney and Soderbergh’s production company, Section 8, called CRIMINAL. I love me some John C. Reilly and Diego Luna is fast becoming one of my favorite young actors after his groundbreaking performance in Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN and his love-struck puppy dog character in THE TERMINAL… Not that I have seen that yet… ahem… Here’s Vern for more on this damn cool sounding flick!
Boys –
I’m sure you’ll get more reviews on this one so I’ll keep this one short. Also because I’m a chump and haven’t ever seen NINE QUEENS, the picture from the land of Argentina which this is a remake of. Anyway CRIMINAL is the americanized version which premiered tonight in Seattle. The movie stars John C. Reilly (who was there) and Diego Luna. It’s directed by this guy Greg Jacobs, who was assistant director on an assload of Steve Soderbergh movies, but this is his first as a non-assistant director. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gregory Jacobs, John C. Reilly, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Posted in AICN, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Drama, Reviews, SIFF | No Comments »
Thursday, June 10th, 2004
This one’s from ’92 and I guess it’s most famous as the movie that introduced the world to Snoop Dogg. Not as an actor, but the young Snoop is “introduced” on a Dr. Dre song that plays on a stereo in the movie and then on the end credits. But this is a pretty good one, a serious undercover cop movie directed by Bill Duke, made memorable by a great performance by Mr. Laurence Fishburne.
Laurence plays one of those straightlaced cops whose dad was a junkie shot in front of his eyes and ever since he’s walked the straight path, stayed 110% clean and fought to clean up his community, stop the drugs, etc. Against his better judgment he signs up to become an undercover cop, working for a sleazy white fuck, looking the other way when people are murdered and selling drugs to kids and pregnant mothers – all because of the carrot at the end of the stick, the chance to bust a guy near the top of the pyramid bringing drugs into the country. But not the guy at the very top, a politician, because that guy’s off limits. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Duke, Jeff Goldblum, Laurence Fishburne
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 4 Comments »
