Archive for the ‘Thriller’ Category
Friday, July 21st, 2006
Every once in a while I’ll get in a gentlemanly argument with a motherfucker about whether Michael Bay single-handedly ruined the future of action cinema forever, or whether he’s just an asshole. And invariably a Bay-defender will claim that although his movies are not fun to watch and you don’t know what’s going on while you watch them, Michael Bay “blows things up real good.” I think the idea is supposed to be that Regular Folk like to watch a big fiery explosion with no brains involved and if you got a problem with that you must be some kind of snob.
Well I am not a snob and I think you guys know that. The problem is that in my opinion he DOES NOT blow things up good. He blows things up and then by the camera placement and quick cuts forces us to wonder whether we are in fact watching an explosion or a closeup of Billy Bob Thornton’s shoe or perhaps the reflection off a bead of sweat dripping down Josh Hartnett’s adam’s apple. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Al Leong, Carl Weathers, Craig R. Baxley, Vanity
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 19 Comments »
Saturday, July 15th, 2006
This is part 2 of the Underworld saga and unfortunately I’m less sold on this Len Wiseman individual after part 2. I gotta admit, I had hopes for this one. From the trailers it looked more exciting than the first one. I thought maybe after a little practice and with a bigger budget this guy was gonna make a movie that was more fun. Now I’m not gonna say that Len Wiseman has destroyed my faith in the human spirit and man’s knack for overcoming obstacles with innovation and hardwork, but the guy was definitely trying to. We, as a people, can do better than this.
This is one of those rare part 2s where if you haven’t seen the first one, you will have no clue what in fuck’s name is going on. Also, if you have seen the first one, even if you have seen it recently, and if you are me, you also will have no clue what in fuck’s name is going on. The movie starts with a long flashback to 1602 or something, where you find out all this new information about how there were two twin brothers who were the first vampire and first werewolf and the werewolves were attacking villages so the vampires were trying to kill the first werewolf and then they caught him and his brother didn’t want to kill him on account of them being brothers but the vampires were assholes and got mad so they locked the werewolf brother away forever. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Len Wiseman, vampires, werewolves
Posted in Action, Fantasy/Swords, Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Thursday, June 1st, 2006
ONE MAN’S JUSTICE aka ONE TOUGH BASTARD
from the director of Equilibrium
starring Brian Bosworth
This 1995 Bozploitation vehicle is on the more enjoyable end of the DTV action pictures I’ve seen. It’s not as awesome as Bosworth’s theatrical starring role STONE COLD, but director Kurt Wimmer’s slightly pretentious touch gives it the feel of an authentic ’80s action picture that Seagal or Chuck Norris might’ve made. Not the usual unwatchable crap you get on DTV, this is solid cable level filmatism.
The plot is a variation on a HARD TO KILL type of revenge deal. Bosworth is a drill instructor/hand-to-hand-combat teacher for the Army. Whether or not he will ever find a practical application for these fighting skills is anyone’s guess. He’s estranged from his wife but planning to work things out, and he has a little blonde daughter. Unfortunately, wife and daughter happen to be at a gas station where an ugly motherfucker named Marcus (Jeff Kober, the same guy who played Beserko in COYOTE MOON) is making a nefarious arms deal. The daughter witnesses the arms deal through the bushes so, under cell phone orders from a mysterious boss (all we see is the hoop ring on his nose) the bad guys massacre everybody at the gas station. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Kurt Wimmer, The Boz
Posted in Action, Reviews, Thriller | 7 Comments »
Saturday, May 6th, 2006
I like this “Mission Impossible” series. The first one, by Brian DePalma, is the best, a real tight and stylish twisty thriller with amazingly tense suspense scenes and cinematic tricks and surprises. And the occasional show offy special effects action scene. The perfect combination of Brian DePalma and summer event movie.
The second one, by John Woo, is a horrible piece of shit that finally made America realize what they had done to John Woo. But if you don’t hold it to the standards of “being a good movie” it’s pretty fucking funny. The amazing motorcycle chest bump scene comes to mind. In the John Woo filmography I consider this in the same dumb-action category as HARD TARGET and BLACKJACK. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: based on a TV show, Jay-Jay Abrams, Michelle Monoghan, P.S. Hoffman, Tom Cruise
Posted in Action, Reviews, Thriller | 49 Comments »
Monday, April 17th, 2006
SPOILER ALERT !!
Merrick actually looked up how to spell “shittiness”…
Vern just sent in this review of Steven Seagal’s new MERCENARY FOR JUSTICE.
Wow…what a sad title. Ever notice how the shittiness of titles seems commensurate with a project’s budgetary considerations, release plans, etc.? Someone should develop a “Historical Scale of Titular Shittiness” to see if this theory holds.
Seagal once broke Sean Connery’s wrist while training him for NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. Let’s see if he now breaks Vern’s heart…
Hello, my name is Vern and I am currently rated one of North America’s top three or four practicing Seagalogists, as well as one of the top two Verns on google. I am the man to come to for the inside dope on every new Seagal picture. However for the last one, BLACK DAWN, the guy who gets me the early screeners fell through and I had to rent it after it hit the shelves just like anybody else. No big deal, I can take my lumps, but there’s a few guys out there – I remember Fat Paul was one of them, and a few others – they’re asking me if I can hook them up with the early review. And as someone who strives for excellence, I got no choice but to come through.
I missed my screener for MERCENARY FOR JUSTICE too but I managed to score the actual DVD just 48 hours before they hit the streets, and I’m here to share my preliminary findings. It’s an Easter miracle. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: DTV, Seagalogy, Steven Seagal
Posted in Action, AICN, Drama, Reviews, Seagal, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 12th, 2006
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hey folks, Harry here… I feel it’s my duty to bring this Vern review – as I was amongst the first to herald the genius of Paul Verhoeven’s HOLLOW MAN… sadly the version I saw well in advance of the release of that film is not the film that everyone else saw. I still like the one that was released, but no where near the longer edit which I feel was far far better. Well here’s Vern with a look at the much needed sequel! Here ya go…
Boys–
Like most DTV sequels, the title HOLLOW MAN II immediately brings up a question: who the fuck are they making HOLLOW MAN II for?
Well in this particular case, I am gonna have to step forward. I am the guilty party. They are clearly making this movie for me, and I can prove it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christian Slater, DTV, DTV sequels
Posted in Action, AICN, Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit, Thriller | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, April 5th, 2006
I was excited about this at one point, but I missed it when it was in theaters. I thought it was a diamond heist movie starring Billy Bob Thornton, but it turns out Billy Bob is the co-star and there are no diamonds. The ice in the title is literal, because it’s winter. Christmas Eve, to be exact. There’s not snow though, just frozen rain, which is not something you see in Christmas movies very often, and rings true to me since here we’re lucky to even see that. (I don’t know about Kansas.)
It’s not exactly a heist movie because like RESERVOIR DOGS or something you never see the theft itself. John Cusack (the rich man’s Scott Baio) is a Kansas mob lawyer and Billy Bob Thornton (ON DEADLY GROUND) is his partner in skimming. They have just stolen upwards of $2 million from their boss, but can’t leave town yet due to the ice. The movie is about them trying to hang out and play it cool for a few hours before they can leave. They figure the boss won’t know about the missing money until they’re gone, but this seems to be incorrect since Cusack keeps seeing an enforcer played by Mike Starr (ON DEADLY GROUND) going around town looking for them. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Christmas, Christmas crime, heists, John Cusack
Posted in Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 4 Comments »
Sunday, March 26th, 2006
As you may remember, I fucking DESPISED the Texas Chain Saw remake, but I thought the Dawn of the Dead one was fun. I can definitely be a purist at times but not always. I just calls it like I sees it. For me THE HILLS HAVE EYES is a remake with alot of potential because the original is a movie that I like alot, but I know it’s flawed. It’s got these great archetypal type themes, a perfect setup, lots of great horrible gruesome fun, but it’s pretty sloppy and cheap looking, and not always in a good way.
The remake, by the same frenchmen who made HIGH TENSION, had a couple things here and there that bothered me, but I think it goes in the pantheon of the good remakes. It stays very true to most of what I like about the original, and in some areas it even improves. TEXAS CHAINSAW I felt like was made by people who had no fuckin clue what was great about the original; DAWN OF THE DEAD was a good action movie but had none of the substance of the original; also please note I used two semi-colons in this sentence, which I think is pretty god damned professional in my opinion. To me, THE HILLS HAVE EYES feels like a new production of the old classic, because it stays very close to the original story for the first half, and when it veers off in a different direction it still stays true to the themes of the original. Shit, I’ll say it: THE HILLS HAVE EYES = Shakespeare. Hopefully we’ll have many different versions of THE HILLS HAVE EYES – we’ll have it modernized, we’ll have it set during WWII, or in space, we’ll have it done entirely by puppets or animals or children. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alexandre Aja, good remakes, remakes, Wes Craven
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, March 15th, 2006
Here’s a weird fuckin movie written and directed by William Peter Blatty, the guy who wrote the novel of THE EXORCIST. I’ve been hearing the title for years so I know it has a cult following, but I think they had trouble selling it because all they could figure was “from the creator of THE EXORCIST” but it’s not like that movie at all. It starts out as a goofy comedy and turns into a sad essay about God, or something. I don’t really understand the meaning of the title, but it has something to do with a protein molecules and the existence of God. It’s mentioned in a dream scene where an astronaut finds a giant crucifix on the moon.
But now I’m making it sound stranger than it actually is. All I can figure to describe it is “ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST meets ROLLING THUNDER.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Joe Spinell, Moses Gunn, Neville Brand, Robert Loggia, Stacy Keach, Tom Atkins, William Peter Blatty
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 3 Comments »
Sunday, March 12th, 2006
It pains me to deliver this news, but Bruce’s new one is not too hot. It’s not terrible, it’s mediocre, which of course is usually worse.
The premise of the movie is that Bruce is a washed up, alcoholic cop who’s been up all night and before he can go home he has to deliver a witness sixteen blocks from the jail to the courthouse. He really looks like he could use a nap, but that never comes up in the movie. It would be cool if there was a suspenseful scene about whether or not he could take a nap without getting shot.
But despite the tiredness, this doesn’t sound like a hard mission. Right away you’re figuring geez, sixteen blocks is all? This is gonna be a short movie. You figure maybe 2 minutes to walk a block (that’s probaly being conservative), plus a couple minutes to get him signed in, it’s not gonna be longer than 40 minutes. You start thinking maybe there should’ve been a discount on the movie tickets. BUT THERE’S A CATCH. He drives him the 16 blocks instead of walking, and the traffic is bad. So it’s alot slower than walking. Also, he stops at the liquor store, so that causes a little delay. And also the witness is gonna bust open a huge police corruption scandal so all the cops are trying to kill him and Bruce’s character Detective Jack Moseley decides to do something right for a change and get this guy to his destination. Remember, he was a cab driver in THE FIFTH ELEMENT and maybe he has a little of that work ethic still in his sense memory. Anyway, because of shootouts and hiding and what not it takes longer than expected and it seems like they end up travelling alot more than 16 blocks overall. (they should probaly tell you in the corner how many blocks they are from the courthouse, kind of like EIGHT BELOW keeps telling you how many days the hero dogs have been alone in the snow.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce, Bruce Willis, David Morse, David Zayas, Mos Def, Richard Donner
Posted in Bruce, Reviews, Thriller | 5 Comments »
