Archive for the ‘Thriller’ Category
Monday, March 20th, 2023
Ronny Yu is a director whose work I’ve enjoyed since the ‘90s, when I first saw his beautiful wuxia film THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR. Part of what’s interesting about him is that he was so adept at making those lush martial arts fantasies, but he was on a trajectory to come to Hollywood and make something quite different, including two of the more notable and unusual franchise horror films of the late ‘90s and early 2000s.
But he started out in another place entirely – making raw, low budget Hong Kong cop thrillers like his very-hard-to-find first two films, THE SERVANT (1979) and THE SAVIOUR (1980).
Yu was born in Hong Kong in 1950. He suffered from polio as a child, preventing the type of physical play most kids take for granted, and leading him to retreat into his imagination, especially by watching movies. “In the dark I could forget about my problems. I could forget that I couldn’t walk so good,” he later said. He attended a boys school in England, and in the ’70s he wanted to go to UCLA and study filmmaking. His dad wouldn’t pay for that, and told him that to really understand the United States he should live in the heartland. So – figuring commercials were similar to movies – Yu studied marketing and communication at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, the alma mater of Paul Newman and Richard Dean Anderson. Other filmmaker alumni include Joe Eszterhas and Betty Thomas.
Becoming a director was kind of an accident, and it came, strangely, from being friends with a cop. Philip Chan had been a police officer for around 15 years before working as a consultant (and ultimately co-writer) on JUMPING ASH (1976) gave him the bug to be a movie star. He got a few bit parts, but his dream was to be a leading man in a movie about his experiences as a Superintendent in the Anti-Triad Squad of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. No one was giving him that role, so he had to create it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alfred Cheung, Gigi Wong, Hong Kong New Wave, Ken Cheng, Kent Cheng, Pai Ying, Ronny Yu, Tien Feng, Zero External Reviews on IMDb
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime, Thriller | 14 Comments »
Thursday, March 2nd, 2023
It’s weird that there’s a studio action-thriller starring Jeff Bridges (THUNDERBOLT AND LIGHTFOOT) and Tommy Lee Jones (ROLLING THUNDER) from the prime year of 1994, and I never bothered to see it before. I think I heard it was bad at the time, but when did that ever stop me? I think more recently I’ve seen people writing fondly about it, and I realized it was directed by Stephen Hopkins (following DANGEROUS GAME, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD, PREDATOR 2 and JUDGMENT NIGHT), so I got myself excited to see it.
I’m afraid the early rumors weren’t wrong, though – this is a laughable movie, and not entirely in the way that I enjoy. On the positive side, it will be fun to write about, and seeing this type of studio thriller craftsmanship did give me some of that particular warm nostalgia I was looking for. You know, you’ve got all this production value, on location shooting, glorious crane shots (cinematographer: Peter Levy, CUTTHROAT ISLAND, BROKEN ARROW, TORQUE), and composer Alan Silvestri (THE DELTA FORCE, PREDATOR, THE ABYSS) admirably does his thing without giving in to the temptation to just do a bunch of Celtic cliches. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Silvestri, bomb squad, Boston, Forest Whitaker, Jay Roach, Jeff Bridges, Joe Batteer, John Rice, Lloyd Bridges, Stephen Hopkins, Stephi Lineburg, Suzy Amis, Tommy Lee Jones
Posted in Reviews, Action, Thriller | 26 Comments »
Wednesday, February 8th, 2023
Recently, events converged to remind me there was a (sort of) remake of John Carpenter’s ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 back in 2005. Well, really what happened was that movie PLANE came out – the Gerard Butler one with the plane – and that’s from the same director, Jean-François Richet. He did a couple gritty French crime movies in the ‘90s and then his phone rang and Hollywood said, “Hello, this is Hollywood, would you be interested in remaking ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, or as you call it in France, ASSAUT?” I imagine he very thoughtfully said “Oui” and then hung up.
According to his commentary track they didn’t have the script yet when they hired him. He chose James DeMonaco to write it because he’d just seen THE NEGOTIATOR, a movie this does seem kinda similar to. DeMonaco had also written a film for Francis Ford Coppola*. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aisha Hinds, Brian Dennehy, Dorian Harewood, Drea De Mateo, Ethan Hawke, Gabriel Byrne, Graeme Revell, Ja Rule, James DeMonaco, Jean-Francois Richet, John Leguizamo, Kim Coates, KRS-One, Laurence Fishburne, Maria Bello, New Year's Eve, siege movies, Titus Welliver
Posted in Reviews, Action, Crime, Thriller | 12 Comments »
Tuesday, January 10th, 2023
ATHENA is an astonishing piece of filmmaking. I have no idea how they did it. I have one (1) huge issue with it, which prevents it from being one of my top movies of last year, but it’s a big ass spoiler that I will deal with separately at the end of this review. And you may disagree with me, so don’t worry about that for now. What’s important is that this is a thrilling cinematic experience and about as epic as a movie could feel while clocking in at less than 100 minutes. And it’s on Netflix – it’s one of the ones that actually wouldn’t exist if they hadn’t funded it – so it’s a very accessible way to get knocked flat on your ass by a concussion grenade of impeccable spectacle.
For those who haven’t heard of it, ATHENA is an intense French action-thriller about a battle between riot cops and the predominantly French-Algerian residents of a housing project (in a Parisian banlieue, you know, like the parkour movie) after the death of a 13 year old kid named Idir. Idir’s oldest brother Abdel (Dali Benssalah, NO TIME TO DIE) is a straight-laced soldier who exits police headquarters and announces to the press that they’ve promised to investigate which officers were responsible for his brother’s death. He asks that the people of the Athena project please stay calm and peaceful. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Dali Benssalah, French action, long takes, Ouassini Embarek, riot, Romaine Gavras, Sami Slimane
Posted in Reviews, Action, Thriller | 25 Comments »
Monday, January 9th, 2023
RESURRECTION is an interesting 2022 horror-thriller you can find on disc, VOD or Shudder. I saw the trailer play before movies many times and found it kind of intriguing, but I could never remember the name. I must’ve confused it with the 1909 D.W. Griffith short, or the silent films from 1910, 1912, 1917, 1918, 1923 and 1927, or the pre-code Tolstoy adaptation from 1931, or the Italian one from the same year, or the 1943 Mexican film, or the 1944 Italian one, or the 1958 German/Italian/French one, or the 1960 Russian one, or the 1968 British one, or the 1980 one starring Ellen Burstyn, or the 1999 Russell Mulcahy one I still haven’t seen although you guys really convinced me I have to and then Vinegar Syndrome even put it out on blu-ray, or the one from 2001 or 2010 or the three from 2016. But this is a different RESURRECTION, the one starring Rebecca Hall (THE B.F.G.) and Tim Roth (THE MUSKETEER).
Hall plays Margaret, a successful, seemingly well-liked single mother living in Albany. Her daughter Abbie (Grace Kaufman, BAD TEACHER) is about to leave for college, and she’s protective of her to an annoying level, but they seem to be on pretty good terms. At first it’s funny how often Margaret will tell her daughter things like “you’re safe” and “it’s going to be okay” when she clearly has no use for such affirmations. At one point when Margaret says something particularly ridiculous, Abbie very astutely points out, “Mom, when you say things like that, I mean… that’s for you, not me.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andrew Semans, Angela Wong Carbone, Grace Kaufman, Michael Esper, Rebecca Hall, Shudder, Tim Roth
Posted in Reviews, Horror, Thriller | 5 Comments »
Friday, October 21st, 2022
WATCHER – not to be confused with the Netflix show The Watcher or the Keanu Reeves movie THE WATCHER or the early UPN anthology series hosted by Sir Mix-a-Lot The Watcher – is an excellent psychological horror/suspense thriller that’s a Shudder exclusive and also came out on blu-ray and DVD a few weeks ago. Maika Monroe (INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE) stars as Julia, a young woman who moves to an apartment in Bucharest with her husband Francis (Karl Glusman, THE NEON DEMON).
Francis is American, but his mother is Romanian, and he speaks the language, but Julia doesn’t. So she’s immediately out of sorts from having to have her husband translate what people say to her as well as to speak for her. Then the very first thing she sees when they pull up to their building is a creepy guy (Burn Gorman, PACIFIC RIM) looking out a window across the street. Of course their apartment has a huge window facing right at this dude, but at first she doesn’t worry too much about it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Burn Gorman, Chloe Okuno, Karl Glusman, Madalina Anea, Maika Monroe
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 7 Comments »
Thursday, October 20th, 2022
Though BODIES BODIES BODIES is one of this year’s crop of A24 horror releases, its slick filmatistic style, hedonistic twenty-something characters and aggressive electronical dance music soundtrack remind me more of non-horror A24 movies like SPRING BREAKERS and ZOLA than HEREDITARY or THE WITCH. And for good or bad it’s really not in that slow-burn/moody/atmospheric/symbolic vein – it’s pretty much an Agatha Christie inspired whodunit with some blood and some dark humor.
Sophie (Amandla Stenberg, COLOMBIANA, THE HUNGER GAMES) and Bee (holy shit why did I not recognize Maria Bakalova, Academy Award nominee for BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM?) are a new couple, together for about a month and a half. So it’s a big step that Sophie is bringing Bee to meet her oldest friends. There’s a hurricane coming, and they’re all rich kids, and apparently what rich kids do during a hurricane is hole up at somebody’s parents’ remote mansion and have a party. Honestly it seems like a great idea if you have the resources (events depicted in this movie aside). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: A24, Amandla Stenberg, Chase Sui Wonders, Disasterpeace, Halina Reijn, Kristen Roupenian, Lee Pace, Maria Bakalova, Myha'la Herrold, Pete Davidson, Rachel Sennott, whodunit slashers
Posted in Horror, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | 12 Comments »
Friday, September 30th, 2022
Just as the Weird Summer of 1992 was wrapping up, New Line Cinema gave us arguably the season’s weirdest wide release. Sure, it played half as many screens as its fellow August 28, 1992 releases HONEYMOON IN VEGAS, PET SEMATARY II and FREDDIE AS F.R.O.7., but I think it’s fair to call it mainstream. There was awareness, it was based on a recently popular TV show, and it at least opened bigger than FREDDIE. As far as per screen averages it came in 4th place for the weekend.
TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME is, of course, David Lynch’s big screen prequel to his pop-culture-phenomenon TV series Twin Peaks. I’ll get into my history with the show later, but for now I’ll just note that I’m unfamiliar enough that I watched this as pretty much an outsider, looking at it almost as a stand alone movie.
And at first it really does fit into the indie releases of ’92 – it makes sense as a contemporary of NIGHT ON EARTH, ONE FALSE MOVE, RUBIN & ED, and JOHNNY SUEDE. It tells the story of FBI Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole (David Lynch, ZELLY AND ME) teaming up stoic veteran Special Agent Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak, MARRIED TO THE MOB) and nerdy bow tie wearing rookie Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland, RENEGADES) to investigate the murder of a teenager named Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley, CHERRY 2000, HIGHWAY TO HELL) in the small town of Deer Meadow, Washington. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chris Isaak, continuation of a TV show, Dana Ashbrook, David Bowie, David Lynch, Eric DaRe, filmed in Washington, Gary Bullock, Harry Dean Stanton, James Marshall, Julee Cruise, Kiefer Sutherland, Kyle MacLachlan, Lenny Von Dohlen, Moira Kelly, Pamela Gidley, prequels, Ray Wise, Rick Aiello, Sheryl Lee
Posted in Horror, I don't know, Reviews, Thriller | 40 Comments »
Friday, September 23rd, 2022
Like POISON IVY earlier in the summer, SINGLE WHITE FEMALE (released August 14, 1992) is a quintessential, much-imitated suspense thriller of the specific type that reigned in the ‘90s. I rented it on VHS back in the day and I believe I liked it, but I have to admit to thinking of this type of thriller as pretty interchangeable and disposable. Watching it now I can see that this is one of the best of its type.
There are many factors to that. Director Barbet Schroeder (BARFLY) creates a tense and atmospheric slow burn of a character piece. The script by first-timer Don Roos (adapted from a book by John Lutz) nicely establishes layered characters in an uncomfortable scenario, plus numerous details to the apartment building setting that you just know will become relevant late in the movie when violence is afoot. And it looks great – credit to cinematographer Luciano Tovoli (SUSPIRIA, TITUS) and production designer Milena Canonero (also the costume designer, as she was for BARRY LYNDON, TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM, DICK TRACY, THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU, OCEAN’S TWELVE, MARIE ANTOINETTE – man, that’s a resume!). The score by Cronenberg’s guy Howard Shore is certainly a big part of setting the eerie mood. And I don’t really know how to measure it but I gotta assume the editing is crucial to the suspense, so I want to mention that editor Lee Percy comes out of the world of exploitation – he was the scamp who bastardized LONE WOLF AND CUB into SHOGUN ASSASSIN, and he did THE KILLING OF AMERICA, THEY CALL ME BRUCE, RE-ANIMATOR, TROLL, FROM BEYOND and DOLLS. Also BLUE STEEL. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barbet Schroeder, Bridget Fonda, Enigma, Howard Shore, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Lee Percy, Luciano Tovoli, Milena Canonero, Peter Friedman, Stephen Tobolowsky, Steven Weber
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 33 Comments »
Monday, September 19th, 2022
August 7, 1992 brought us the release of not only best picture winner UNFORGIVEN and feature length movie 3 NINJAS, but also one of the most joyfully deranged thrillers of the era, Brian De Palma’s RAISING CAIN. I reviewed RAISING CAIN a few years back… oh jesus actually it was 18 years ago what the fuck… and it’s an okay review as far as describing what the movie is like, but I could not in good conscience do a series on the weirdness of Summer ’92 and not revisit it. This is one of the top achievers in the field.
Five years earlier, De Palma had had a huge mainstream success with THE UNTOUCHABLES, a well-reviewed hit movie that nabbed four Oscar nominations and won best supporting actor for Sean Connery. He’d already cashed that in to make the acclaimed war drama CASUALTIES OF WAR (1989), and then his attempt at a big zeitgeisty literary adaptation, THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES (1990), had been one of Hollywood’s most notorious fiascos. So it might’ve seemed at a glance like a shrewd move to return to the genre he’d originally been known for – the amped up Hitchcockian thriller. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barton Heyman, Brian De Palma, Frances Sternhagen, Gregg Henry, John Lithgow, Lolita Davidovich, Pino Donaggio, split personality, Steven Bauer, Teri Austin, Tom Bowers
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 45 Comments »
