TRUE VENGEANCE is a 1997 Daniel Bernhardt movie that I bought specifically because it was written by Kurt Johnstad. I think I was looking him up because he wrote ATOMIC BLONDE, and I remembered that he was the guy who wrote 300, 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE and ACT OF VALOR. I saw all of those in the theater and liked all of them, and it turns out his only other movie is this earlier DTV one that never even came out on DVD in the U.S. It’s directed by David Worth (KICKBOXER, LADY DRAGON 1 and 2), and I think you can understand why that combination of people made it something I needed to see.
Benhardt plays Griffin, who was a Navy SEAL and then a hired killer of some kind but after the death of his wife he quit the life to take care of his daughter Emily (Tessa Sugay, “Club Girl (uncredited),” TOKYO DRIFT, “Dancer (uncredited)” THE SOCIAL NETWORK). After a brief, incoherent sniper prologue we meet him cutely joking around with his daughter pretending he doesn’t know it’s her birthday. So yes, she is going to be kidnapped.
He has an older guy he calls his best friend named Sam (Harrison Young, Ryan as an old man in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN), who I think runs a garage and kind of seems like he could be the landlord like the guy in ROAD HOUSE? He’s involved in a great bit of b-movie flavor when he’s doing a crossword puzzle, asking for a word for “something that haunts.” Griffin suggests ‘ghost,’ but Sam says it has to be four letters, and just then a scary dude named Adachi (Keo Woolford, “Airport Worker,” GODZILLA) steps in looking for Griffin, who dramatically declares that “The Griffin you knew… is dead.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Burt Reynolds is Sharky, sometimes just “Shark.” I think it’s his last name. He’s an undercover cop, seemingly beloved on the force, but he gets into trouble when a drug bust turns into a public transportation shootout after this dipshit Smiley (Darryl Hickman, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, voice of “Pac-Junior” on the Pac-Man cartoon) drives up to say hello and blows his cover. Everybody thinks it’s bullshit and calls Smiley a fuckin asshole as they whisk Sharky off to his new job in the vice squad. There’s a great bit about how that department is located in the basement and his old partner is only willing to walk him halfway down the stairs.
Before the 2019 awards season dissipates entirely from memory I want to get my thoughts down about one of the movies I watched. As I’ve said before, one of the reasons I like following the Oscars is to get myself to watch a few things that I wouldn’t otherwise, for a little of the ol’ BoH (Broadening of Horizons). I always bring up the example of when I had no interest in 
BIRDS OF PREY AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN is the movie that says “Okay, we fucked up that 
We owe this review to 1-900-MIXALOT, who was kind enough to recommend THE STUNTWOMAN in the comments for 
Maybe it’s sacrilege to remake a David Cronenberg movie, but if somebody’s gonna do it it’s fitting that it’s weird Canadian twins. I really liked Jen and Sylvia Soska’s extreme-surgery underworld tale 
TIGER ON BEAT is a 1988 Chow Yun Fat cop movie that’s not an untouchable masterpiece like 
The Oscars are this Sunday. This is my traditional pre-Oscars post, and also my best of 2019 post. So there will be a high volume of opinions, recommendations and review links in this one.
MARRIAGE STORY seems like kind of a cheeky name for a movie about a divorce. I first learned of writer-director Noah Baumbach by seeing his fourth movie as a director, 
Shortly after Taika Waititi’s JOJO RABBIT was nominated for best picture I started to see people cast aspersions. Before that I had mostly heard that it was only okay. And that was kind of what I expected, because I first knew Waititi from WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, and that’s one of those movies that I saw and thought was pretty funny but when five years passed and people were still talking about it like it was the first time they fell in love I couldn’t relate.
