Archive for the ‘Thriller’ Category
Friday, April 12th, 2002
[Originally Written for The Ain’t It Cool News – received no response]
HARRY — A while back you were real excited about a french picture called VIDOCQ. It’s directed by the fellow Pitof, who did special effects type work for CITY OF THE LOST CHILDREN and ALIENS RESURRECTED and the joan of arc picture with Milla Jovovich. Also Marc Caro – the only man in the world who can say he directed DELICATESSEN but has never done a romantic comedy – designed the look of the characters. It’s based on some old detective character called Vidocq, who I guess must be the french Sherlock Holmes although americans have never heard of him on account of his name is spelled weird. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: French, Gerard Depardieu, Pitof
Posted in Crime, Fantasy/Swords, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
Friday, March 29th, 2002
As you all know Mr. David Fincher is one of the best young filmatists we have. Somehow he made a giant leap from being a madonna video director and the guy who did Alien Part 3, to being DAVID FUCKING FINCHER. This is his followup to 1999 Outlaw Award Winner for Best Fuckin Picture FIGHT CLUB which in itself was the followup to THE GAME which you must admit is one of the best american thrillers of the past ten years if not the past 100 years of Cinema. thanks for agreeing.
PANIC ROOM is a lesser work from Mr. Fincher but still a worthy one. It won’t be the NORTH BY NORTHWEST in his filmography but you’ll still want to pull it out every once in a while like you do ROPE. Which come to think of it I watch more than NORTH BY NORTHWEST anyway. What’s the deal with that man.
It’s a simple set up for a taut thriller type deal. Jodie Foster and young daughter buy new house, in house is reinforced concrete bunker with video cameras in case of home invasion, that night there is home invasion, Jodie and daughter are in panic room, but home invaders want in because money is in there. what will happen? nobody knows. Suspense! (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Fincher, Dwight Yoakam, Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
Friday, March 29th, 2002
I guess you have to be suspicious of a movie made in 2002 that is making fun of Barney. Which was a children’s show that was popular for a while a couple years back. Barney is one of those things that everybody in the world hates, but then some people think they are the only ones who hate, and that they are being subversive by complaining about it. But hating Barney is as unique as liking pizza or chocolate. “No way! You like pizza too? I can’t believe this!” There’s not really anything subversive about connecting a lovable tv icon and murder. It’s old. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Edward Norton, Robin Williams
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
Monday, March 25th, 2002
Earlier this week I saw a highly anticipated sequel, based on an old comic book character, a half man/half vampire who has become the best vampire killer there is. He travels the world, even during sunlight, cloaked in black, wielding a sword, slaying vampires. This time around he is after the same prey as a macho team of fighters who are both his rivals and reluctant allies. Their quest takes them to the seat of vampire royalty, and along the way – against his nature – he forms a tender friendship with a female on the rival team of fighters, and stays with her until the end.
That wasn’t Blade II though, it was some cartoon called Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Actually that’s what it says on the box, but the title screen just calls it Vampire Hunter D. (Just like the ticket stub for Blade II called it Blade II: Bloodhunt, but the title screen just called it Blade II.) This movie has rightfully been praised for its cartoon drawing, which is very detailed and elegant. Much more interesting than that blue hair, big eye japanese stuff certain musty smelling individuals can’t get enough of. But what surprised me though, I thought the story was real good. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Guillermo Del Toro, Kris Kristofferson, vampires, Wesley Snipes
Posted in Action, Comic strips/Super heroes, Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 26 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 »
Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
Hey Harry and Father Geek, it’s me, Vern.
Well you know what guys I am going through some tough times in my life, sort of an introspective type deal, and what you do in this type of situations sometimes is you want to relax, go to an activity such as a barbecue, titty bar or film festival and get your mind off of things.
So that is what ol’ Vern did yesterday, I went and saw the BLOOD SIMPLE movie that every motherfucker has been recommending to me left and right. “Vern, see Fargo. Vern see Blood Simple. Vern, see Big Lebosky.” Well Blood Simple was playing at the Seattle’s International Film Festival, a film festival here in Seattle. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Coen Brothers, Dan Hedaya, Frances McDormand, M. Emmet Walsh
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
Well god damn here’s an action picture like I’ve NEVER seen. This is a must see for ANY action fan and I am not fucking joking. I mean you don’t have to see Payback, you don’t have to see Die Hard with a Vengeance or any of these other movies I talk about but in god and mary’s sweet name of christ jesus, you OWE it to yourself and to the lord to see this chinese picture Hard Boiled.
I mean don’t get me wrong I like the van dammes and what not but this is on a whole other plane flying way up in the sky. It will forever change what you expect from an action picture in my opinion although I only saw it this afternoon so what the hell do I know. But it is to shootout movies what Godfather is to mob movies or Jaws is to shark movies. Don’t take this the wrong way but it is such a leap ahead it is like die hard times ten. It is WAY, and I mean WAY more violent than anything you will see in the US of A but at the same time the characters and story plot are far more developed. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Wong, best movies ever, Chow Yun Fat, John Woo, Tony Leung
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 54 Comments »
Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
This is a nice little 1967 action picture starring Lee Marvin and directed by John Boorman, the sick fuck who made the movie deliverance I think you know what I’m talking about, oink oink.
Lee Marvin plays Walker. Not Walker the Texas Ranger, this walker is a Badass criminal type who is betrayed by his partner and his wife and left for dead. But he resurfaces, sees his wife die of a drug overdose and then works his way through his ex-partner and a crim corporation called The Organization, trying to get back the $93,000 that was stolen from him. As you can tell the plot is very similar to 1999 Outlaw Award winner Payback. There is even one scene in Payback that seems to be a direct lift from Point Blank, and believe it or not alot of the characters even have the same last names! An even stranger coincidence is that both films are based on the same book, “The Hunter” by Richard Stark. I mean what are the chances of something like that happening it boggles the mind, in my opinion. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Angie Dickinson, arthouse badass, John Boorman, John Vernon, Keenan Wynn, Lee Marvin, Parker, Richard Stark
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 13 Comments »
Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
If you ever wanna see a really good horror picture that perfectly melds the classic horror type feel with the modern Psycho and later type feel, this is a good fucking start. It is a french movie from a gentleman by the name of Franju. Now I am familiar with this individual because I also watched a documentary by him called Blood of the Beasts. I don’t know what I was thinking man that is what the kids call “some fucked up shit.”
You see the documentary starts out showing the beauty of Paris, young lovers holding hands strolling through the park, etc. Then it zooms into a slaughter house and shows some motherfuckers killing horses, cows, sheeps, etc. For real. These tough motherfuckers smoking cigarettes and singing as they casually chop these things heads off, pull off the skin and what not. Lining up a big row of sheep and slicing their throats halfway through. Shooting a bolt into a live horse and watching him drop like a brick. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Georges Franju
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 1st, 2002
Both of these pictures are real good pictures that happen to be inspired by the Leopold and Loeb murder case. Who those two are is two rich kids who thought they were smarter than everyone else and above the law and decided to kill one of their cousins and destroy the body with acid just for the thrill of it.
Rope is Alfred Hitchcock’s picture which started the real time gimmick where you try to make the movie look like it was all done in one shot. The movie is actually done in 8 shots because you can’t put that much film on a camera I mean gimme a break, it’s too much. So they shoot until the roll of film is about to run out and then they zoom into the back of a guy’s jacket and then zoom out from the jacket on the next roll of film and you pretend it’s continuous. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Dean Stockwell, E.G. Marshall, Hitchcock, James Stewart, Orson Welles, Richard Fleischer
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 1 Comment »
