Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Tuesday, February 19th, 2002
Every so often a picture comes along that is so good as a concept, who the fuck cares if it works as a picture. This is a type of picture that may not be that great to watch, or may even get boring as hell by the end, but you are so happy it exists that you want to own it, memorize it, hang it up on your wall, make it into a t-shirt. You want to tell everybody it’s your favorite movie even though you’d be lying your ass off, because you fell asleep at the end and didn’t even feel compelled to rewind and see what you missed. But still, you loved it.
That picture is, of course, Shaolin Dolemite. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Robert Tai, Rudy Ray Moore
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Martial Arts, Reviews | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 19th, 2002
Harry here with that drunken hillbilly bastard named Vern. Now this Vern fella went and got himself one of those new fangled rubbery editions of EVIL DEAD. Now ordinarily I would be all against rubbery editions, but this is a rubbery edition that looks like the Book of the Dead… and cooler still, I’m apparently contained inside the Book Of The Dead as is the beer room of the Alamo Drafthouse, beneath the projector room…. whilst showing EVIL DEAD 2! That’s a mighty freaking cool feature to contain in a special rubbery edition. Anyway, I just ordered mine Click here to order your The Evil Dead (Book Of The Dead Limited Rubbery Edition)!!!!
Dear Harry and Moriarty,
Have you ever had a dvd that smelled kinda like rubbers? I have and it was called EVIL DEAD: BOOK OF THE DEAD EDITION from Anchor Bay. What this is is a new fancy ass, show off type version of the old Elite edition of THE EVIL DEAD. It comes in a mooshy rubber Necronomicon package sculpted by Tom Sullivan, who also made the book you see in the movie. You flip it open and it has pages from the Necronomicon (also drawn by Mr. Sullivan) and of course the dvd inside a nice little padded sleeve. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi
Posted in AICN, Horror, Reviews | 3 Comments »
Saturday, February 9th, 2002
Well once again the conventional wisdom turns out to be right. You would think that as dumb as a movie like this would probaly be, it might be enjoyable. Well, I would think that. But I would be wrong.
I’ve never seen the original, and I always meant to. I understand that it is kind of a satire of sports and american society’s thirst for violent entertainment. The great DEATH RACE 2000 was made to cash in on the same themes but is generally considered to be better. Anyway the approach that John McTiernan, the director of DIE MOTHERFUCKIN HARD 1 & 3, took was to set it in pretty much the present, since wrestling and ultimate fighting become more ridiculous and lurid than anything filmatists of the ’70s could’ve imagined. But there really aren’t new points to be made here. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chris Klein, Jean Reno, John McTiernan, LL Cool J, Rebecca Romijn, remakes
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit, Sport | 4 Comments »
Friday, February 1st, 2002
I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. Here I am battling the IMDB for a prestigious award, I’m trying to prove myself worthy and this is all I have to offer you. Fucking Slackers.
I couldn’t tell you how it happens. Every time I set out to see a particular movie. I mean there are three movies in particular I want to see right now. There’s Little Otik, the Czechoslovakian cartoon about some folks raising a tree stump as their baby. There’s Brotherhood of the Wolf, where the frenchy who directed Crying Freeman mixes French history with kung fu and, I guess werewolves maybe. Who knows. And there’s also Storytelling from the pervert who made Happiness. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Devon Sawa, Jason Schwartzman, Jason Segel
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Romance | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 30th, 2002
You wanna REALLY outrage your parents, kids? Take them to see Bully. Don’t ask me how you get them to go to the arthouse theater to see an unrated movie, that’s your job.
“Mom, this movie is what my generation is about, and I want you to understand.” Trust me, that’s what you should say.
This kind of seems like a love it or hate it movie, except I’m not sure which side I’m on. It’s an ugly, violent, nihilistic, pornographic, cynical story about unsympathetic, idiotic, pot smoking, acid sucking, trick turning, nymphomaniac, sadomasochistic teens in Florida who decide to kill their asshole friend. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bijou Phillips, Brad Renfro, Larry Clark, Leo Fitzpatrick, Michael Pitt, Nick Stahl, Rachel Miner
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews | No Comments »
Friday, January 25th, 2002
I don’t know what you’ve heard about this one, but I keep hearing that it’s a pile of shit. That Todd Solondz has gone from a visionary manipulator of our deepest taboos and human flaws, to some kind of shock value asshole just trying to get a rise out of people. That this is just a big fuck you to the audience with no sense of humanity and etc. etc.
Well none of that is true. I’m not gonna say this is a perfect movie. It feels a little short (apparently they cut out one of three stories, and that seems like it mighta been a mistake). But if it weren’t for all the shit I heard from contrarians waiting to pounce on their former hero, I would say that anybody who liked HAPPINESS would like this one too. Because it’s the same kind of feel – a deep probing of the things that make individuals the most uncomfortable. It’s not as sad as HAPPINESS but it has that same feeling that it is daring you to laugh. Come on motherfucker. Laugh at this. I fucking dare you. Remember, you’re in public here. Do you have the balls to let everyone else in this room know that you think that’s funny?
Do you? (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Paul Giamatti, Robert Wisdon, Selma Blair, Todd Solondz, Xander Berkeley
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
Now days people are always going ape shit over a movie that they think is too amoral. Rosie O’Donnel busted a few veins over 1999 Outlaw Award Winner for Best Picture since I got out of prison Fight Club, and this American Psycho deal is already getting people up in arms. They think that your average joe on the street is some kind of retard who can’t see somebody do something in a movie and make their own judgment of whether or not it’s the right thing to do. At the same time these pricks are all cock of the walk, thinking they’re immune to the might powers of the Cinema. They saw fight club and THEY didn’t go out and blow up a building but GOD SAVE US if any of those subhuman cavepeople who DON’T have their own tv shows or politician husbands ever see the movie. We’ll all be in for it.
Somebody told me that when Payback came out, the slogan was “Get ready to root for the bad guy,” as if that was some new technique. These motherfuckers don’t remember that it’s okay to make a movie about a guy you wouldn’t necessarily want to leave alone with your daughter. Everbody has to be a damn boyscout unless they’re a cop, and then it’s okay for them to torture people and play by their own rules because they’re a “good guy.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: gorillas, mad science, Michael Gough, primate horror
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
No, my father is not a hero, but that is the name of the movie so in my opinion I had no choice but to write it. The truth is my father was an abusive drunk and a loser* and he is where I get many of my qualities. Maybe that is why this picture starring Jet Li, 1999 Outlaw Award winner for Black Mask, broke my damn heart. True, it is a karate picture, and there are a couple of really great fighting and shooting action type scenes. However what I loved about this movie was the sentimentality in its story of a young boy. It will make you cry.
More than any other karate picture I have ever seen, this is a sad, sad movie. I mean it will grab you by the nuts and pull your heartstrings. You see, this little boy who is a junior martial arts champion idolizes his father, Jet Li, but he hardly ever sees him. Jet is a caring father and has fun with the boy when he sees him, but he’s still a fuck up. He is off getting in spectacular kicking fights and he is always late. He is late for the martial arts tournament, and then after he gets there he gets in a big fight with some criminals. The boy intervenes and gets declared a hero. But then Jet doesn’t even make it on time to see him get a plaque presented for his heroism. But still, the boy forgives him right away. Because to him at this age he will always be dad, the hero. He can be hurt by what dad does but he won’t realize that his dad is a fuck up. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anita Mui, Corey Yuen, Jet Li
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
Well here’s another American classic from AMC, the british version of The Mummy. Chris Lee plays the mummy and Pete Cushing plays the British archaeologist who gets bit on the ass by the mummy’s curse. I mean I don’t mean the mummy bites him on the ass or anything, that never happens. But after Pete, Pete Sr. and Uncle Joe unearth the princess Ananka in Egypt (best line: “There’s something evil in there Uncle Joe, I felt it. Oh well, let’s get it open.”) this angry Egyptian follows their British asses home and starts reading scrolls at em. Next thing of course the mummy’s come back from the dead and the Egyptian is commanding him to kill the party of three who fucked with the princess’s tomb.
This isn’t that good of a setup though, really. I mean you got one stiff, stumbling mummy, three potential victims, two of them old, one of them bedridden, the young one with a gimpy leg, and you know the mummy’s never gonna get Pete anyway. So I mean how much can possibly happen here? This is so little to work with that they have to spend about 10-15 minutes in the middle with Pete narrating a little educational film about ancient Egyptian burial rituals. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christopher Lee, Hammer, mummies, Peter Cushing
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 68 Comments »
Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
disclaimer from the future: Back in ’96 when BOUND came out and then in 2002 when I wrote this I really believed the movie to be the work of two men who were horny to watch lesbian sex and trying to pass it off as enlightenment. This turned out to be not so accurate! But I will leave this review as-is for the historical record.
Well I saw this picture a long time ago, but now with all of America waiting anxiously for THE MATRIX PART 2: RETURN OF THE MATRIX and THE MATRIX PART 3: BEYOND MATRIXDOME, I thought it would be a good time to go back and take another look at the Wachowski brothers first picture, this stylish neo-noir with a side of lesbians.
It’s funny to think that these guys have now done 3 MATRIX movies in a row, and the only other movie was this one, which they made only to prove to the studio that they could direct THE MATRIX. At the time nobody knew what the fuck the Matrix was so they just thought they were trying to be like the Coen Brothers when they made their first movie BLOOD SIMPLE or the Dahl brothers when they made their first movie RED ROCK WEST but really they were just being the Matrix Brothers doing a demo reel. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Gina Gershon, Jennifer Tilly, Joe Pantoliano, Wachowskis
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 5 Comments »
