Remember TRON? The 1982 live action Disney fantasy from director Steven Lisberger (ANIMALYMPICS, HOT PURSUIT) about a dude magically sucked into a video game to play frisbee and ride bikes? It’s memorable for its only-in-1982 approach to design, its one-of-a-kind black light type look, its pioneering computer effects (which still look surprisingly cool today) and a weird electronical score by Wendy Carlos (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE). The only major problem I have with it besides it being boring is the entire silly premise of a guy going inside a computer and the “programs” are alive and they battle each other.
Believe me, I’m a man who knows how to suspend the ol’ disbelief. I suspend that shit all the time. I’m about this close to banning it for life. But Jeff Bridges getting shrunk and playing games with tiny neon people who live in a city inside a computer chip is just not compatible with my brain, in my opinion.
And besides, if video games are gonna come to life then why don’t you put Pac-Man in there? I’d like to hear what Pac-Man has to say for himself.
The Steel Frontier is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, alot like the place in ROAD WARRIOR, but filmed in California. It’s the kind of place where you might find a legless man out in the middle of the desert and have to put the poor guy out of his misery. Or you might find a small town where everybody acts kind of like they’re in a western, and a bunch of asshole bullies on motorcycles and souped up post-apocalypse-mobiles might drive into town and start fucking shit up and laughing about it.
That’s exactly what happens here, this guy General Quantrell (Brion James) rolls in with his “desert scum,” goes into the barber shop and gets a nice warm shave while his boys terrorize the place. (read the rest of this shit…)
They got this new extended cut of AVATAR coming out on the DVDs and blu-rays today. On the ad they showed Jake Sully in a crowded earth city, which I’d like to see. I’ve seen AVATAR twice – once in Imax 3-D when it first came out and a second time in Imax 3-D when they re-released it in the Extended But Not As Extended As the Upcoming Extended DVD and Blu-Ray Cut.
I believe that’s where they introduced the fact that the N’avi fuck by plugging their ponytails together. I didn’t really care about that though, I just liked seeing the movie again because I hadn’t given it much thought since the first time and I forgot how exciting it was gonna be when it gets into the big battle and all the great badass villain moments and everything. It’s no ALIENS but it’s a fun movie and a unique spectacle.
But because I enjoyed it so much that second time I think I need to give it more of a waiting period before I check out the new, longer version. I don’t want to wear out AVATAR. So now I’ll stick to something that is not AVATAR, and THIS AIN’T AVATAR, due to the title, is the only movie I could feel 100% confident was not gonna be AVATAR. (read the rest of this shit…)
I liked VISITING HOURS so much I figured I should follow the ol’ auteur theory with its director, Jean-Claude Lord. I know it’s a French theory, not French-Canadian, but I think it still applies. It’s 1986, only four years after VISITING HOURS, and the poor guy is already doing THE VINDICATOR.
THE VINDICATOR is the story of Carl Lehman (David McIlwraith, who played Andrew Card in the TV movie DC 9/11), genius scientist and soon-to-be-father who goes in to confront the famed rich guy Alex Whyte (Richard Cox, who played Alan Dershowitz in the TV movie AMERICAN TRAGEDY) who cut off his funding just when he knew he was on the verge of a huge fucking scientific breakthrough. What could go wrong? He’ll probly be very persuasive and the two will work out a compromise to continue the research, support each other and work together for the betterment of mankind. I’m sure everything’ll be fine. (read the rest of this shit…)
SPLICE is a monster movie by Vincenzo Natali, the guy who did CUBE all those years ago. Remember that one? Really good concept, pretty good execution, but you really want to like it so it gets by. Same thing here.
Academy Award winner Adrien Brody and Academy Award nominee Sarah Polley play a married (?) team of scientists working to harvest useful proteins from a new species they’ve genetically engineered. They got two of them named Fred and Ginger (get it? They’re named after Fred Flinstone and Ginger Baker), two dog-sized lumps of CGI flesh shaped kind of like maggots but mostly like dicks. (read the rest of this shit…)
SHADOW FURY is a cheap-ass 2001 sci-fi action movie about clones. It has one of those inexcusable keyboard-pretending-to-be-an-orchestra scores and the acting and dialogue are at higher cheesiness levels than I’ll usually put up with, i.e. worse than a SCANNERS sequel. But I really liked this movie because it rarely goes more than a couple minutes without a really cool action scene, a clever concept or a (usually unintentional) laugh. It has a similar energy to an early Isaac Florentine, so it fits that the director, Makoto Yokoyama, did second unit and stunts for the Power Rangers. An IMDb search finds 7 specific episodes directed by Florentine with Yokoyama on 2nd unit. So let’s call him the 2nd unit Florentine. (read the rest of this shit…)
I confess: I didn’t really know who Gary Daniels was. Turns out he’s a British kickboxer who’s been in about 50 movies since the late ’80s. I heard the name before but never watched any of his pictures. A couple people gave me shit about it when I reviewed Seagal’s SUBMERGED and didn’t mention that Daniels was in it. I guess that was a historic meeting of martial arts stars, but I didn’t even notice because I didn’t know who the fuck that was. Sorry, fellas. Like Brakus I am human. I can be defeated. (read the rest of this shit…)
Wow, I must’ve really misread the ol’ zeitgeist. I thought for sure with that depressing new Ben Stiller indie drama having come out on DVD last Tuesday GREENBERG was gonna be all anybody had on their minds for weeks. But the comments thread there almost makes it seem like you guys are more interested in this “Inception” business.
Well, whattya know? PREDATORS really is a good old fashioned action movie in the tradition of PREDATOR. Whichever corporate overlord holds the deed to the PREDATOR licensed property seems to be taking a temporary break from the “make sure they know we just want their money” policy that was in place for the two cheesy movies where the PREDATOR predators and the ALIEN aliens all got humiliated together fighting that pizza delivery boy at the pool party or whatever.
The movie begins with THE PIANIST himself, Adrien Brody, dropping from the sky. He just wakes up mid-air, hurtling toward an unknown jungle, no idea how he got here, and luckily finds that he has some kind of small parachute contraption attached to him. We’ve all been there, so it’s a real relatable way to start a movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Stuart Gordon’s ROBOT JOX is the timeless story of some Robot Jox. It’s a post-apocalyptic world where the surviving factions of humanity fight over territories in sanctioned robot-on-robot battles. During the time of this story the Americans and Russians are fighting over Alaska. So this is the story of those robot battles and of the jox that jock the robots.
The robots aren’t alive, they are controlled by jox. Robot jox, if you want to be specific about which type of jox they are. These robot jox train in the martial arts and what not to prime their bodies to do moves that will be duplicated by the robot body around them. They have teams of course to build their robots and work on new weapons and help train them. So it’s like a futuristic cross between UFC, NASCAR, and war. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
The Allusionist on Æon Flux: “Hey Paramount, release the Kusama cut of Aeon Flux, you cowards.” Apr 13, 18:18
RRA on The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas: “Alex R – people forget that Scrappy Doo probably saved the Scooby Doo cartoons from getting cancelled in the 80s,…” Apr 13, 13:36
Aktion Figure on Æon Flux: “And at the least, couldn’t they have done the episode where she makes the heist, gets away and steps on…” Apr 13, 13:01
Aktion Figure on Æon Flux: “This was a phenomenally disappointing one. As a kid, sneaking up at night to watch Liquid Television and catching these…” Apr 13, 12:57
pegsman on A Working Man: “How cool wouldn’t UNDER SIEGE have been if Ryback was just a cook…” Apr 12, 22:14
CJ Holden on Blade of the 47 Ronin: “Randomly watched it today and while it isn’t a DTV all-timer, I had quite fun with it. It really felt…” Apr 12, 13:14
Acid Burn on A Working Man: “Honestly, I wouldn’t question it.” Apr 11, 08:35
CJ Holden on Prayer of the Rollerboys: “RE: Mel Brooks producing SOLARBABIES. Sadly they don’t mention it in the excellent HBO documentary about Brooks, but somewhere else…” Apr 11, 07:45
Curt on Prayer of the Rollerboys: “Maybe a triple feature with GLEAMING THE CUBE, the Christian Slater skateboarding movie with a sci-fi-sounding title.” Apr 11, 05:48
Mr. Majestyk on Prayer of the Rollerboys: “Yeah, any hack can think up a fake movie about rollerblading punks, but you really gotta give a shit to…” Apr 11, 05:19
CJ Holden on Prayer of the Rollerboys: “I kinda spent the last day marveling over this title. This is something that sounds like a made up movie,…” Apr 10, 21:53
Acid Burn on The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas: “It’s very funny to me that Vern’s above-linked RI¢HIE RI¢H review also bemoans the film’s disastrous mistake of omitting Irona.…” Apr 10, 21:23
Mr. Majestyk on A Working Man: ““How badass is he?” speech and it’s just “He worked a double shift at a Waffle House Memorial Day weekend.…” Apr 10, 19:27
Acid Burn on A Working Man: “I do love the “they were in the military” trope Vern mentions, films seemingly existing in a world where day…” Apr 10, 18:40
Acid Burn on Jurassic World: Rebirth: “…for a contractually obligated three-week window before hitting [remaining streaming service TBD]” Apr 10, 17:58
Remember TRON? The 1982 live action Disney fantasy from director Steven Lisberger (ANIMALYMPICS, HOT PURSUIT) about a dude magically sucked into a video game to play frisbee and ride bikes? It’s memorable for its only-in-1982 approach to design, its one-of-a-kind black light type look, its pioneering computer effects (which still look surprisingly cool today) and a weird electronical score by Wendy Carlos (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE). The only major problem I have with it besides it being boring is the entire silly premise of a guy going inside a computer and the “programs” are alive and they battle each other.
The Steel Frontier is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, alot like the place in ROAD WARRIOR, but filmed in California. It’s the kind of place where you might find a legless man out in the middle of the desert and have to put the poor guy out of his misery. Or you might find a small town where everybody acts kind of like they’re in a western, and a bunch of asshole bullies on motorcycles and souped up post-apocalypse-mobiles might drive into town and start fucking shit up and laughing about it.
They got this new extended cut of 
I liked VISITING HOURS so much I figured I should follow the ol’ auteur theory with its director, Jean-Claude Lord. I know it’s a French theory, not French-Canadian, but I think it still applies. It’s 1986, only four years after VISITING HOURS, and the poor guy is already doing THE VINDICATOR.
SPLICE is a monster movie by Vincenzo Natali, the guy who did CUBE all those years ago. Remember that one? Really good concept, pretty good execution, but you really want to like it so it gets by. Same thing here.
I confess: I didn’t really know who Gary Daniels was. Turns out he’s a British kickboxer who’s been in about 50 movies since the late ’80s. I heard the name before but never watched any of his pictures. A couple people gave me shit about it when I reviewed Seagal’s SUBMERGED and didn’t mention that Daniels was in it. I guess that was a historic meeting of martial arts stars, but I didn’t even notice because I didn’t know who the fuck that was. Sorry, fellas. Like 
Wow, I must’ve really misread the ol’ zeitgeist. I thought for sure with that depressing new Ben Stiller indie drama having come out on DVD last Tuesday GREENBERG was gonna be all anybody had on their minds for weeks. But the comments thread there almost makes it seem like you guys are more interested in this “Inception” business.
Well, whattya know? PREDATORS really is a good old fashioned action movie in the tradition of PREDATOR. Whichever corporate overlord holds the deed to the PREDATOR licensed property seems to be taking a temporary break from the “make sure they know we just want their money” policy that was in place for the 
Stuart Gordon’s ROBOT JOX is the timeless story of some Robot Jox. It’s a post-apocalyptic world where the surviving factions of humanity fight over territories in sanctioned robot-on-robot battles. During the time of this story the Americans and Russians are fighting over Alaska. So this is the story of those robot battles and of the jox that jock the robots.
