Now that GI JOE: RETALIATION has become GI JOE: PROCRASTINATION that means the big Bruce Willis movie of the summer to hold us off until EXPENDABLES 2 will have to be Wes Anderson’s MOONRISE KINGDOM. Bruce plays Captain Sharp, head of the Island Police, New Penzance Township, charged with the task of capturing a fugitive – Sam (Jared Gilman), a disturbed young orphan gone AWOL from the Khaki Scouts of North America, Troop 55, to run away with his also disturbed pen pal/girlfriend Suzy (Kara Hayward).
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Moonrise Kingdom
Prometheus
Okay, we’ve had high hopes for this movie for a long time. We’ve tried to avoid finding out too much about it. We have a sense of trust because of its connection to an all-time great movie by this same director but we also hope this is gonna be something new we’ve never seen before. So it has this weird combination of known quantity and total mystery.
Well, it’s a little more familiar than I was hoping but I also think you should just see it fresh so come on man, don’t read this review until you’ve already seen it. This is gonna be all SPOILERS.
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We Need To Talk About Kevin
You know what, I’m not sure we do. I don’t want to give that little bastard the satisfaction.
Director Lynne Ramsay’s gritty reboot of the PROBLEM CHILD franchise is a beautifully shot, cryptically edited suspense story about a woman (Tilda Swinton) who just can’t seem to connnect with her son (Ezra Miller). Even as a baby he’s a total asshole, almost Michael Meyersian in his silence and lack of emotion. Nobody else seems to notice – the doctor says “I wouldn’t worry about it,” the dad (John C. Reilly) seems to think she’s being paranoid. (read the rest of this shit…)
Poltergeist III
POLTERGEIST III is not a very good movie, but I will go out on a limb and say that it’s a decent try, considering the circumstances. They only have Heather O’Rourke and Zelda Rubinstein returning, not the rest of the family. But at least they found a way to mix it up in location and filmatic style.
The director is Gary Sherman (VICE SQUAD). He co-wrote it with Brian Taggert (VISITING HOURS). IMDb also says that Steve Feke (WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, MAC & ME) worked on it uncredited. In this installment Carol Anne has gone to live with her mom’s sister (Nancy Allen), who is newly married to Tom Skerritt, who also has a pouty teenage daughter (Lara Flynn Boyle). They all live in a fancy new skyscraper in Chicago, which Skerritt is the bigshot manager of.
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Poltergeist II: The Other Side
Well, POLTERGEIST was a movie that people loved, so the best thing to do is to get the surviving cast members back together four years later (the actress who played the older daughter had been murdered), but not Spielberg or Hooper. The director this time is credited as Brian Gibson (WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT) but I bet Tobe Hooper secretly was uncredited director to make up for not getting full control last time. You can’t disprove it so go ahead and add it into wikipedia if you want.
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Poltergeist
Back when I was doing the Spielberg marathon somebody suggested I should review POLTERGEIST, and I thought it was a good idea. Oh shit, today is the 30th anniversary of the movie’s release! I guess we’ll do it today.
It definitely fits in with the Spielberg marathon. Tobe Hooper is the credited director, but Spielberg was a very hands-on producer and writer, and it seems way more like his directorial works than his other productions do. It has good, natural performances by kids and adults, smoothly choreographed camera moves, a suburban mid-west setting, state-of-the-art-at-the-time visual effects, people looking in awe at glowing light. Like E.T. (which came out one week later) it has a little boy with a room full of STAR WARS toys. The score is by Jerry Goldsmith, but is used similar to how Spielberg uses John Williams. There’s a group of scientists in a specialized field (like JAWS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, even JURASSIC PARK). There’s not as much that reminds me of Hooper – just TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2’s Lou Perryman in a bit part as a guy working on the house, and a pit of rotting corpses at the end. That part seemed like something he’d be into.
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Destricted: ‘Impaled’ by Larry Clark
When I was working on my DEMOLITION MAN review recently I noticed that one of Marco Brambilla’s few directing credits was on DESTRICTED, an anthology of experimental shorts that got some attention in 2006 when it played Cannes Critics Week and was an official selection at Sundance. The official websight describes it as “the first short film collection of its kind, bringing together sex and art in a series of films created by some of the world’s most visual and provocative artists and directors. They reveal the diverse attitudes by which we represent ourselves sexually.” The cover says “WARNING: Contains strong real sex and strobing effects.” (That last part is ’cause Gaspar Noe did one of the shorts.)
Anyway I always heard the Larry Clark part was good, and now that I knew Brambilla did one I could review it and say “from the creators of KEN PARK and DEMOLITION MAN.”
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Kingdom of Heaven (director’s cut)
I remember when this movie came out everybody said it was terrible, then the longer director’s cut came out and it started to build up a reputation as underrated. Just to be safe I wanted to allow some time for that rep to foam over and then dry up and harden into a solid surface. The effects of oxygen on the polished surface create the ideal viewing circumstances. So I watched it 7 years later. (read the rest of this shit…)
Bullet in the Head
I don’t think I’ve seen John Woo’s BULLET IN THE HEAD since the early ’90s. It was a double feature with HARD BOILED, and I remember seeing a guy walk out during a scene involving American P.O.W.s. I thought it was crazy that after the unparalleled gun violence of HARD BOILED there would be violence in the next movie that somebody couldn’t take. But obviously with the historical context it cuts a little closer to the bone, especially if that guy was a vet. That’s what’s amazing about this movie: made after THE KILLER but before HARD BOILED, it has the fun, brotherhood and crazy action of the best Woo while feeling more personal, more emotional than any of them.
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You wanted it, you got it: the outlawvern.com forum
If you look over on the sidebar there is now a “forum” link. It takes you here. It is a forum where you can jibber jabber to your heart’s content.
I hope people will still comment on the specific reviews, but for any of the other topics you want to bring up such as Batman, wrestling, Batman, or obviously Batman, there’s now a more organized way to do it.
I don’t really know what I’m doing so I made up some initial topics there. Please let me know if there’s a better way to do it – other topics I should add, topics I should remove to make it work better, whatever.
Please give your ENORMOUS THANKS to Clubside Chris, who set this up for me and also transported the old potpourri threads into there so we could retain those for future civilizations to look back on.
1. Patreon
Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!
2. Buy my books from your local bookseller or somebody
click here for my Amazon author page (NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)
EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.
4. My exciting line of fashion and leisure products
(I get a couple bucks per item, you get a cool t-shirt, mug or lifestyle item)
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