"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Outlaw Johnny Black

To date I have not seen Kevin Costner’s HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA – CHAPTER 1/?. I want to see it, I’ve heard good things, and I’m sure it will happen eventually, but there’s another independent western passion project by an actor/director that’s more important for me to catch up on: Viggo Mortensen’s THE DEAD DON’T HURT. Which I also haven’t seen, because there’s another one that’s even more important than that, and it’s Michael Jai White’s OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK. Of the three he’s the actor I follow the closest, and I even have a t-shirt for this movie because I donated to its IndieGoGo a million years ago. But then it didn’t play theaters in Seattle and when it came to DVD I kept putting it off because it was 135 minutes.

Yeah, I don’t usually complain about length, but this is a comedy western that’s as long as THE WILD BUNCH, and longer than UNFORGIVEN. It sounded like a mistake, and I think it was. But I’m glad I finally saw it. Maybe it’s indulgent, but it has heart. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 10th, 2025 | 13 Comments »

Street Trash (2024)

Yep, they made a new STREET TRASH in 2024, it recently had a limited theatrical release, it’s produced by Bloody Disgusting and Screambox so it’s probly on there, and also it’s on blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome. When I say “a new STREET TRASH” I’m intentionally being vague about how it relates to the 1987 slime epic of the same name, like those entertainment reporters who announce an upcoming “reboot” and the more you read the more clear it is they didn’t ask if it was a remake or a sequel or what, so they’re just using a term that has been bastardized into meaninglessness and hoping nobody notices that they don’t actually have any information.

This could qualify as a remake, but a very loose one, using part of the premise and spirit of the original, but otherwise being totally different. Or it could be a sequel if you figure that the biological weapon called “Tenafly Viper” is a militarized version of the deadly spoiled wine from the first one. At any rate, it’s a movie called STREET TRASH that has a few similarities to the previous film, including the only important one: a bunch of people melt horribly, and a variety of beautifully colored liquids pour out of them. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 6th, 2025 | 6 Comments »

Wicked: Part I

WICKED: PART I starts near the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ. The Wicked Witch of the West is dead, felled by a well-aimed bucket of water. The celebration commences. Glinda the Good Witch (Ariana Grande, DON’T LOOK UP) arrives in her bubble to address the crowd, and somebody asks her if she knew that dead lady. So she tells us (part one of) the story of her days as the college roommate of the would-be wicked witch.

I’m gonna start this review with a flash forward too. I thought this movie was okay. I didn’t hate it. I don’t really get it. Stay tuned for details.

I sometimes say I’m not a musicals guy, but really I’m just not a Broadway guy. It’s not as much the “I’m gonna start singing now” format as it is the specific modern Broadway style of storytelling, tone of melodrama, sense of humor, and especially musical styles that don’t appeal to me. Case in point: huge crossover hit and cultural phenomenon Hamilton (Disney+ version). I swear I tried to watch it with an open mind, but I just don’t know how to stop wincing. It sets off all my too-corny defense systems.
(read the rest of this shit…)

February 5th, 2025 | 36 Comments »

Here

Hey guys, it’s me, member of a small club of people who enjoy post-2000 Robert Zemeckis, the guy who has gotten carried away with digital technology and always finds something weird to do with it, whether or not it works, and whether or not society approves (which it usually does not). HERE is a movie that would only, maybe could only be made by that person. And that’s what I want to see out of art.

The bigger selling point, to the extent that any effort was made to sell it when it came out last year, is that it’s a FORREST GUMP reunion. It stars Tom Hanks (THE LADYKILLERS) and Robin Wright (HOLLYWOOD VICE SQUAD) and he wrote the screenplay with Eric Roth (YEAR OF THE DRAGON) and obviously the score is by Alan Silvestri (THE DELTA FORCE). Like FORREST GUMP it tells a story that seems to be about American culture at large, because it takes place over a stretch of years with many emblematic incidents touching on moments in history and representing societal changes. But it does this with a very particular gimmick, taken directly from the graphic novel of the same name by Richard McGuire: it’s told from one static camera shot. It spans from the time of dinosaurs to the present, but the camera just sits there in the same spot the whole time.

(Actually, at times it kinda reminded me of ADULT SWIM YULE LOG.) (read the rest of this shit…)

February 4th, 2025 | 12 Comments »

Antiviral

There’s a point in Brandon Cronenberg’s first movie ANTIVIRAL (2012) where a TV interviewer asks a CEO if our fascination with celebrities has become unhealthy. Generally I hate when a dystopian satire has to have characters point out that it’s a dystopia (see ROBOCOP 3), but I understand why Cronenberg couldn’t resist – in his world fans are paying to be infected with celebrity illnesses. Their obsession is literally unhealthy!

Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones, THE DEAD DON’T DIE) is a creepy man-bunned sales associate for the Lucas Clinic, industry leader in celebrity pathogens due to their exclusive line with Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon, DRACULA UNTOLD, FERRARI). One of Syd’s colleagues, Derek (Reid Morgan, CASINO JACK) gets samples directly from Geist, and the lab alters it to be non-contagious. Copy protection. Then Syd sits down with clients and lustily describes how something that touched their idol’s lungs will touch theirs, an ultimate form of intimacy. 
(read the rest of this shit…)

February 3rd, 2025 | 4 Comments »

Last Straw

If you’re in a movie and you live in a small town then you bet your ass you’re a waitress at an old timey diner. In the case of LAST STRAW (2023), the dinerest movie I’ve seen since LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY, it’s called the Fat Bottom Bistro, and it’s one of those cool looking ones with metal walls inside and out, like an Airstream trailer. According to IMDb it was filmed at two diners in New York, and I believe the exterior is one in Germantown that has been closed for a while and likely maintained specifically to rent to productions like this. I bet the old fashioned jukebox with disco lights really works. You always gotta get a shot of those records inside.

This one (which I found on Shudder) centers on Nancy (Jessica Belkin, American Horror Story), a young woman trying to decide what to do with herself after graduating high school, other than drinking hard at parties and working at the diner owned by her dad (Jeremy Sisto, CLUELESS). She just found out she’s pregnant, father to be determined, or not, because it’s nobody in her life. As if that wasn’t bad enough, her car breaks down on the way to work, so she has to walk until her co-worker Bobby (Joji Otani-Hansen), a nice guy who clearly has a crush on her, can pick her up on his bicycle. When she finally arrives her dad tells her someone’s sick and she has to work the late shift alone with Jake (Taylor Kowalski, MAXXXINE), who she hates. (read the rest of this shit…)

January 30th, 2025 | 3 Comments »

Don’t Mess With Grandma

DON’T MESS WITH GRANDMA (which played Fantastic Fest as SUNSET SUPERMAN, written in a better font) is a new Tubi original from writer/director Jason Krawczyk. I’ve kept an eye out for him since I saw his great Henry Rollins horror/crime/comedy HE NEVER DIED (2015), but I probly would’ve watched this anyway because it stars Michael Jai White.

It’s also figuratively made for Tubi – a modest, agreeable time that fuses the MJW action persona with the MJW comedy chops. I suppose you could also say that of BLACK DYNAMITE, but this does it in a different way. White plays JT, a Kosovo-era army ranger who has left that life far behind. He works as a driver for a Meals On Wheels type service called Trusted Trays, and regularly makes a 2 hour drive out to the boonies to take care of his “Granna” (Jackie Richardson, MAXIMUM RISK). Today he’s going up there to fix her sink and maybe, if he can get up the nerve, try to convince her to make his life a whole lot easier by moving into assisted living closer to him. (read the rest of this shit…)

January 29th, 2025 | 1 Comment »

Talking Rumble in the Bronx with ‘All ’90s Action, All the Time!’

I swear I didn’t plan to be overexposed on podcasts this month, I just take them when I can get ’em and this is how it works out sometimes. When All ’90s Action, All the Time! invited me to come on this season I thought a great movie to talk about would be RUMBLE IN THE BRONX. Obviously it was one of Jackie Chan’s big breakthroughs in the west, even more obviously it is by far the most realistic depiction of New York and gangs ever put on film, including documentaries filmed in New York about actual gangs. It was an important movie to me and sums up some things about the personality of the decade.

KICK HERE TO LISTEN

January 29th, 2025 | No Comments »

Dancin’ – It’s On!

I found out there was a 2015 movie called DANCIN’ – IT’S ON!, so obviously I had to see it. Primarily for the title, secondarily due to my affection for modern dance-off movies, thirdarily because it co-stars Gary Daniels (FIST OF THE NORTH STAR) and is co-written by David A. Prior (KILLER WORKOUT). I’m happy to say that it lives up to the goofiness you’d hope for from that combination of factors and is also more interesting than expected.

My favorites of the genre are STEP UP 2 THE STREETS and STEP UP 3, both directed by Jon M. Chu. Those have just the right mix of ludicrousness and actual style, cleverness and dancing. At times there could be debate about how much you’re laughing with it and how much you’re laughing at it, but it doesn’t really matter because you get caught up in the whole joyous spirit of the thing. DANCIN’ – IT’S ON! is definitely a cheaper, less cool and less competent version of that type of experience, with a cast made up of So You Think You Can Dance contestants, most of whom have not acted before or since, and give some very stiff line readings. But all of those things, combined with an element of sincerity I’ll get into later, make it a really fun time.
(read the rest of this shit…)

January 28th, 2025 | 13 Comments »

Dracula Untold

If DRACULA UNTOLD isn’t forgotten, then it’s kind of notorious. From what I remembered it was the start of the Dark Universe, the planned shared universe of action-oriented Universal Monster reboots. The public scoffed at that whole idea, then everybody (besides me) hated THE MUMMY and the whole thing got scrapped and became a punchline.

But it wasn’t originally intended to be part of that anyway. The script had been around for a while. I remember reading about it years earlier when it was gonna be an Alex Proyas movie called DRACULA: YEAR ZERO. Sam Worthington was to star. It wasn’t about starting anything, it was about prequelizing Dracula as a thrilling 21st century fantasy adventure character – to give the iconic cape-wearer a heroic backstory, or at least good intentions and motives. Basically it asks what if before he was the Count we all know, he was what I call a Fantasy Sword Dude: the pretty cool, unevenly charismatic hero of a digital era studio b-movie. (read the rest of this shit…)

January 27th, 2025 | 23 Comments »

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