Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Wednesday, May 17th, 2023
Some years ago I appeared on a podcast called The Suspense is Killing Us to discuss RICOCHET and two other Denzel movies. (Here’s the episode.) These are my real life friends but I think even if they weren’t I would endorse this podcast because it has the great goal of analyzing the kind of thrillers that were so big in the ’90s but don’t exist much anymore, and because they make me laugh out loud all the time.
That was episode 7, and 107 episodes later I’m finally returning. They do sometimes stretch the definition of what type of movie they can cover, and they wanted to do THE GLIMMER MAN (Seagal’s closest to fitting the type of movies they usually do). Tasked with choosing two other Seagal pictures for them to watch I went with one of the more definitively good ones (HARD TO KILL) and one of my favorite crazy ones (BELLY OF THE BEAST).
I really haven’t revisited Seagal’s movies much in recent years so it was great to have an excuse to do it and find that I can still enjoy them. Theirs is also the only podcast I’ve been able to do in person, which obviously is a different experience from calling in. I really recommend this podcast in general, it’s always a fun time, check it out.
Tags: podcasts, Seagalogy
Posted in Reviews, Blog Post (short for weblog), Seagal | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, May 16th, 2023
I was very excited to buy the beautiful new IN THE LINE OF DUTY I-IV blu-ray box set from 88 Films. If you’re not familiar with the series, they are contemporary 1980s Hong Kong movies about female police officers. They call the subgenre “Girls with Guns,” but I like that they’re about the kind of police work that involves high flying martial arts and stunts more than shooting.
IN THE LINE OF DUTY is not as much a series as a brand name – none of them are connected. I had actually only seen two of them – the absolute classic YES, MADAM!, which was the breakthrough movie for both Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock, and ROYAL WARRIORS, starring Yeoh (as a different character) with Hiroyuki Sanada. Now I’m happy to see and review for you the first of the other two included in the set. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arthur Wong, Brandy Yuen, Cynthia Khan, Dick Wei, Digital Native Dance, Hiroshi Fujioka, Hong Kong action, Hua Yueh, Kin-sang Lee, Melvin Wong, Michiko Nishiwaki, Paul Chun, Richard Ng, Sandra Kwan Yue Ng, Stephan Berwick, Stuart Ong
Posted in Reviews, Action | 19 Comments »
Monday, May 15th, 2023
We all agree here, unanimously, to a person, that Ari Aster is a great director with two undeniable modern horror classics to his name. And it goes without saying that A24 is a cool company that has produced many good and/or interesting movies*, and even if you weren’t into those it would be weird to have some kind of a grudge against them. Since we have always been on the same page about those things, I’m sure we also agree that it’s cool that the company now let Aster step outside of horror for a much more niche dark comedy with a budget the armchair bean-counters say they won’t be able to make back. And that it was worth every penny.
As much as I loved HEREDITARY and MIDSOMMAR, I actually didn’t think BEAU IS AFRAID was a sure bet for me. When I saw the trailer it looked visually impressive, but seemed to be going for a Charlie Kaufman/Michel Gondry type of thing. I love those two filmmakers (both together and separate), but it’s their one-of-a-kindness that makes them great. Even the best imitators of their stuff tend to feel hollow and disposable. Was Aster going to go from an original in horror to a copycat in… whatever genre this is? (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: A24, Amy Ryan, Ari Aster, Denis Menochet, Joaquin Phoenix, Kylie Rogers, Michael Esper, Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Patti Lupone, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zoe Lister-Jones
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 23 Comments »
Thursday, May 11th, 2023
This year for my traditional summer movie retrospective I’ve decided to look back at the summer movie season of 1983. If you know your basic math, you can figure out that this is the, what, 40th anniversary of that summer? Sounds right. I was in the single digits at the time and from what I can remember only saw two of these in the theater that summer. So as always it will be fun to watch them in order of release and try to get a picture of what that time was like from an adult perspective.
I don’t really have a thesis for this one other than it had alot to live up to. The summer before saw the release of hits like CONAN THE BARBARIAN, ANNIE, ROCKY III, POLTERGEIST, STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, and E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, plus two flops that are now beloved classics (BLADE RUNNER and THE THING) and some other interesting stuff like THE SECRET OF NIMH and TRON. It’s widely considered the greatest summer movie season of all time, a claim I’m not inclined to argue against. So good luck trying to follow that, 1983. I’m sure you know what you’re doing.
They also all knew they were coming out against RETURN OF THE JEDI. That was the guaranteed biggest movie of the summer, and some of the others seem to have wanted to ride that wave. We’ll see if they can stay afloat. Anyway, that’s why I’m calling this series…
(Note: yes I did the research and I know that “love” in Ewokese is actually “nuv,” while “nub” is just half of the phrase for “freedom,” but I thought this would make people laugh more because they just know the song is called “Yub Nub.” Apologies to the Ewok community, who I have nothing but the deepest respect for.)
* * *
May 13, 1983 saw the release of a pretty crazy take on the police thriller: BLUE THUNDER, from director John Badham (SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, DRACULA), working from a screenplay by Dan O’Bannon (DARK STAR, ALIEN, DEAD & BURIED, HEAVY METAL) & his first-timer writing partner Don Jakoby. It’s one of those movies that says, “Hey guys, check out this special police unit, it’s pretty interesting.” And the unit is the people who fly the police helicopters. Since I was a kid at the time I can only assume it did for police helicopters what SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER did for disco. I don’t know if some of it is based on research or if it’s complete horse shit, but in this they go around fingering people on the streets as drug dealers and rapists and shit, spot abandoned cars and report them, even do detective work in the sky. They don’t just look for and shine the spotlight on the guy making a run for it (although they do that too). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Candy Clark, Dan O'Bannon, Daniel Stern, Dean Riesner, Don Jakoby, helicopters, John Badham, Malcolm McDowell, Roy Scheider, Warren Oates
Posted in Reviews, Action | 37 Comments »
Wednesday, May 10th, 2023
The 2019 film THE INTRUDER – not to be confused with the 1989 horror movie I like called INTRUDER (let alone the 1914, 1933, 1939, 1944, 1953, 1956, 1962, 1975, 1986, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2016, 2017 or 2020 films called THE INTRUDER) is a pretty good example of the classic American tradition of the domestic stalker thriller, specifically the subset kicked off by OBSESSED in 2009, that pit an upper class African American couple against an enjoyably over-the-top white villain.
In this case the couple are Scott (Michael Ealy, MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA) and Annie (Meagan Good, HOUSE PARTY 4: DOWN TO THE LAST MINUTE) Howard, who after a big deal goes through decide it’s finally time to buy a house in Napa Valley like they’ve always talked about. The one they find is so old and fancy it has a name (Foxglove). They buy it from Charlie Peck (Dennis Quaid, JAWS 3-D), who inherited and lived there his whole life and is very protective of it. In fact, it turns into kind of a CABLE GUY situation where he uncomfortably works his way into their life – they keep finding him, like, mowing their lawn and shit well after he was supposed to have moved to Florida. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Loughery, Dennis Quaid, Deon Taylor, Joseph Sikora, Meagan Good, Michael Ealy
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, May 9th, 2023
AS GOOD AS DEAD is a 2022 straight-to-VOD Michael Jai White vehicle that I caught up with when it came to DVD back in March, but I was deep into Ronny Yu studies so I held off on telling you guys about it. Sorry about that.
Back in 2009 when White made the stone cold classic BLOOD & BONE we wondered why he wasn’t getting theatrical releases, but what was considered low budget then seems like sheer extravagance compared to many of the independent action movies today. I’d love to see White making a couple mid-sized action vehicles a year like Jason Statham used to do, but instead he’s gotta cut in a couple scenes of Mickey Rourke or Tom Berenger just to shoot something small out in the desert. Despite this injustice, AS GOOD AS DEAD is a great time because it’s written by the person who best knows how to showcase Michael Jai White – the same man who wrote and directed NEVER BACK DOWN: NO SURRENDER – Michael Jai White. So it’s a solid traditional action structure where he gets to glory in his own badassness, have some good fights, some inventive moves, and get a few laughs. Honestly it has most of what I hope for in a movie like this except for a strong visual style or atmosphere.
White plays Bryant, a gruff American loner who moved just over the Mexican border to escape some mysterious past. He lives alone in a trailer on a humble patch of land, works as a surveyor, comes home and practices fighting on a wooden post with tires attached. When he does that he notices a young man named Oscar (Luca Oriel, Shameless) watching from a hill and shadowing his moves. Later, while having lunch in town, he notices the same kid hiding behind a car to avoid some gangsters in a lowrider, and feels sympathy for him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Art Camacho, Guillermo Ivan, Louis Mandylor, Luca Oriel, Michael Jai White, R. Ellis Frazier, Tom Berenger
Posted in Reviews, Action | 14 Comments »
Monday, May 8th, 2023
SISU is a simple, gory, cannonball blast of an action movie about what happens when a platoon of Nazis fuck with the wrong god damn Laplander in the waining days of WWII. It’s the new one from RARE EXPORTS writer/director Jalmari Helander, and it’s only his third movie. The second was BIG GAME (2014), which apparently I didn’t review for some reason, but it was a pretty enjoyable English language debut, kind of a DIE HARD type scenario where Air Force One is shot down over the wilderness of Finland and a 13-year old kid on a deer hunt as a rite of passage ends up protecting the president (Samuel L. Jackson) with his bow and arrows.
In SISU it’s an old man, and he’s protecting his gold. Jorma Tommila (also in RARE EXPORTS and BIG GAME) stars as Aatami Korpi, a grizzled and stoic loner living alone with his dog and horse in the Laplands, panning for gold. One day he finds a large deposit of it, spends the day digging it out, and heads off with a bag full of nuggets. But then he runs into these Nazis. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aksel Hennie, Finland, Jack Doolan, Jalmari Helander, Jorma Tommila, Mimosa Willamo, Nazis
Posted in Reviews, Action | 21 Comments »
Thursday, May 4th, 2023
It wasn’t until 2013, a full seven years after directing FEARLESS (and four years after not directing BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE), that Ronny Yu released another film. In interviews he credited the hiatus to only being offered horror scripts in the U.S. “I don’t want to do this kind of thing anymore,” he said. Instead he wanted to “learn more about my Chinese roots.”
Written by Yu with Edmond Wong (DRAGON TIGER GATE, IP MAN 1-4, MASTER Z) and Scarlett Liu Shi-Jia, SAVING GENERAL YANG is based on The Generals of the Yang Family, a famous set of stories about a real military family that lived early in the Song Dynasty. (I didn’t figure this out while watching, but EIGHT DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER comes from the same story, as do THE 14 AMAZONS and several other films.)
Adam Cheng (SHAOLIN AND WU TANG, ZU WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, SEVEN WARRIORS) plays the titular General, and this is the story of his seven sons (deliberately cast with hearthrob actors, many of them pop stars) coming to rescue him during a battle. But in the opening scene he’s at home, about to whip Sixth Brother Yanzhao (Wu Chun, 14 BLADES) and Seventh Brother Yansi (Fu Xinbo of the boy band BoBo) for “breaking Family Law.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Cheng, Ady An, Bryan Leung, Edmond Wong, Ekin Cheng, Fu Xinbo, Kenneth Mak, Ronny Yu, Shao Bing, Stephen Tung Wai, Wang Chun-Yuan, Wu Chun, Xu Fan
Posted in Reviews, Action, War | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023
While Ronny Yu was promoting FEARLESS, he talked up his next movie: a live action adaptation of the 2000 anime BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE. So, a Hong Kong director in Hollywood remaking a Japanese movie originally made mostly in English because many of the characters were American. When Yu mentioned it while talking to Martial Arts Entertainment the interviewer asked if it was “sort of a wuxia movie.”
“Maybe. Sort of. You’re right!” Yu said. “It’s sort of cross-cultural, because the whole thing takes place in a U.S. Army base in Japan. Yeah. It’s like a cross-cultural wuxia.”
Alas, it was not to be… exactly. Instead of Yu it was made by French director Chris Nahon, known for helming one of Jet Li’s English language films, KISS OF THE DRAGON (2001). Yu was credited as a producer, but I’ve found no evidence of him staying on during filming in, say, a George Lucas or Steven Spielberg capacity. I suspect he left but got the credit because he’d done so much of the pre-production that Nahon built off of. Yu is not mentioned or shown in a 20 minute making-of featurette on the DVD and blu-ray, but I think it’s reasonable to assume Nahon kept a decent amount of what he put into place, since the sole credited writer Chris Chow and the cinematographer Hang-Sang Poon are both holdovers from FEARLESS. Yu was also still reported as director when Korean actress Jun Ji-hyun, credited as Gianna, was cast as the main character, Saya. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Allison Miller, Chris Nahon, Colin Salmon, Corey Yuen, Jun Ji-hyun, Khari Payton, Koyuki, Larry Lamb, Liam Cunningham, live action anime, Ronny Yu, vampires, Yasuaki Kurata
Posted in Reviews, Action, Horror, Martial Arts | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023
BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE (2000) is a 48-minute anime film, telling the straight forward tale of a being who looks like a Japanese school girl slaying vampires on an American military base in Japan. Though it became very successful and inspired many spin-offs, it was really kind of a practice film. It was conceived by “Team Oshii,” Mamoru (GHOST IN THE SHELL) Oshii’s production study group, which writer Kenji Kamiyama says in a making-of featurette “was designed to give us young directors the practical know-how to implement a project plan.” Kamiyama pitched a story about vampire hunters, Junichi Fujisaki had one about a young female warrior named Saya, and Oshii suggested they combine them. Hiroyuki Kitakubo was chosen as director, and he commissioned cartoonist/illustrator Katsuya Terada to design the characters.
It’s set in Tokyo in 1966, and begins with a moody scene on a moving subway. A young girl carrying a tube, like an art portfolio, looks across the empty car at a tired businessman. Suddenly the lights go out, and she runs at him and slashes him with the sword that was inside that case, splashing blood against the windows. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: anime, Hiroyuki Kitakubo, Junichi Fujisaki, Kenji Kamiyama, Saemi Nakamura, Team Oshii, vampires, Youki Kudoh
Posted in Reviews, Cartoons and Shit, Horror | 1 Comment »
