If a DTV movie comes out and it’s called FREERUNNER, it’s gotta have some parkour stunts in it, right? So what can you do, you give it a shot. Or at least I do. I remember a couple years ago Channing Tatum from FIGHTING was supposed to star in a movie called PARKOUR. That never happened but I guess we have its would-be-counterpart here, starring the guy from NEVER BACK DOWN.
I forgot all about it after Michael Jai White’s NEVER BACK DOWN 2, but the star of part 1, Sean Faris, looks and acts an awful lot like Tom Cruise. But FREERUNNER is pretty low-rent for Tom Cruise even when he was younger. It’s not good, but it’s not the usual type of churned-out-dispassionately bad DTV, it’s more of a scrappy independent we-gotta-get-this-shot-somehow production. It’s artisan crap. (read the rest of this shit…)
Hey everybody, please join Mr. Marvin in a toast to a fresh new year of badass cinema, outlaw criticism, mega-acting theory, fight brotherhood, badass juxtaposition, Seagalogy available for Kindle if you’re into that although I gotta question it but never mind no judgment this is a new year, appreciation of the finer things in life, appreciation of the shittier things in life, maybe a couple Dolph Lundgren movies, steady cameras, Gina Carano on the big screen, Tony Jaa and Jija Yanin in 3D, Tarantino vs. our nation’s racist past, getting along, following our dreams, accomplishing shit, relaxing sometimes, feeding the hungry, ending the wars, a baby panda in every home (not as meat).
I can’t claim COLOMBIANA is anything special, because I’m not a fuckin liar. But I enjoyed it as a solid Luc Besson production, a retelling of the good ol’ cliches about elite assassins and avenging the deaths of parents, but with the novelty of an up and coming star we haven’t seen in this type of role before.
Word of warning: THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN is really only about 1 (one) specific adventure that this guy Tintin has, it’s not about all of his adventures. I don’t know if that was a typo or a mistranslation or what but it’s fucking bullshit.
Why do we gotta prequelize everything? We already know the backstory in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, does it really gotta be spelled out for us who the guy’s mom was and what the tax rate was when he was born and all that shit? I mean come on.
RARE EXPORTS is this year’s hottest Christmas horror movie. It’s a killer Santa movie but not in the SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT sense – in this one Santa is a monster. It’s kind of like THE THING – an American team finds him frozen in a block of ice under a small mountain. They say it’s actually a burial mound. They dig him up and this might cause some repercussions that could put a damper on the season.
Part 4 director Brian Yuzna returns as co-writer for part 5, but hands over the directing reins to first-timer Martin Kitrosser. I never heard of the guy but I should’ve because he wrote a movie I love, FRIDAY THE 13TH 3D, plus the story for FRIDAY THE 13TH: A NEW BEGINNING. He started as a script supervisor on the first two FRIDAY THE 13THs and has also worked in that capacity on all of Quentin Tarantino’s movies. So maybe that’s how that one thing happened where Tarantino came in for a meeting about doing a FRIDAY THE 13TH even though he wasn’t serious about it but the rumor got our hopes up. I’m discovering alot of Tarantino-SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT franchise connections here.
I’ve enjoyed the sleazy, creepy original SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT several times over the years, and the hilariously awful half sequel/half recap PART 2 almost as many times, and tried to convince myself that Monte Hellman’s PART 3 was kinda interesting two or three times. But I never got around to the straight to video parts 4 and 5. UNTIL NOW.
This review, should you choose to read it, contains some spoilers.
