"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Tron (plus Tron Legacy on the blu-ray)

tn_tronBruceBoxleitnericonThis might end up lost to history, but I feel that the internet’s lead-up to the release of the TRON sequel could be characterized as a “nerd frenzy.” Breathless reports described every onscreen visual and audience sound during the comics convention’s high profile promotional screenings of test films and trailers. Websights covered every angle of every advertising gimmick, poster or still. They wrote about promotional “Flynn’s Arcade” tokens like they were frozen Jesus tears.

Then the movie came out and you didn’t hear about the excitement anymore. I don’t know if it was a PHANTOM MENACE (they didn’t like it as much as they hoped) or a KICK-ASS (every single person who would like that type of movie was inside that convention). And it probly didn’t help that the original TRON didn’t exactly set the world on fire either. Until the sequel got announced I honestly didn’t realize there were people who were passionate about it.
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Source Code

tn_sourcecodeSOURCE CODE is a fun thriller with a clever sci-fi premise: what if for some reason they remade GROUNDHOG’S DAY as a DE JA VU type thriller, and instead of Bill Murray it’s the guy who looks like the guy who used to play Spider-man and instead of having one day to cover the weather he has 8 minutes to figure out who planted a bomb on a train? That would be kinda cool, right? (read the rest of this shit…)

Hunt To Kill

tn_hunttokillStone Cold Steve Austin (THE EXPENDABLES) plays Jim Rhodes, badass Border Patrol agent and former FBI partner of Eric Roberts (THE EXPENDABLES) who has to save his daughter when she’s taken hostage by a group of ruthless thieves, including Gary Daniels (THE EXPENDABLES). Also he has a bow and arrow.
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S.W.A.T. Firefight

tn_swat2S.W.A.T.: FIREFIGHT is the straight to video sequel to the movie everybody kinda forgot about, based on the TV show that people only know of if they know the fucking awesome theme song. So before we get into this particular movie, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the one and only reason for the continued existence of the S.W.A.T. franchise of trademarked intellectual properties and likenesses and what not: (read the rest of this shit…)

Stand By Me

tn_standbymeSTAND BY ME is Stephen King’s latest chiller, a spooky tale of kids going on a long walk singing TV show themes. Okay, I guess it’s more of a coming of age drama type deal, and it came out in 1986, and I don’t generally use the term “chiller.” This opening paragraph could use some work actually.

It’s hard to review a movie like this that everybody has seen and knows backwards and forwards, but I watched it on the new 25th Anniversary Oh Jesus We’re Old Edition blu-ray. It holds up, it’s a good movie, and I thought it was worth some words and sentences and shit.
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Sucker Punch

tn_suckerpunchSUCKER PUNCH is such an extreme movie stylistically that I feel like I oughta have an extreme reaction to it. Something along the lines of either I want to set up a bunch of traps to torture this movie while I preach to it through a series of self-aggrandizing recordings and puppet displays or I am currently giving this movie an erotic massage and we’ll see where it goes next but spoiler alert it’s not gonna be Biblically approved. Unfortunately I am too much of a centrist. Actually I feel kinda similar about all of Zack Snyder’s movies so far: it doesn’t entirely work, but it’s kind of awesome, I enjoyed it. I guess he’s consistently inconsistent. (read the rest of this shit…)

Merantau

tn_merantauMERANTAU is a simple, straight forward martial arts movie from Indonesia. Iko Uwais plays a young man named Yuda (I know, make a Yoda joke, or “Yuda man” or something) who goes on his merantau, his journey to find himself and become a man. He lives out in the boonies practicing his silat, he figures he’ll take a bus into Jakarta and try to get a job teaching it, see how that goes. But he gets sidetracked.
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The Resident

tn_residentYou know Hammer, the production company over there in London that did the old Dracula and Frankenstein movies with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing? Well, they’re back, or at least somebody’s using that name again. I wouldn’t take it too seriously except that the first official theatrical release of the new Hammer was LET ME IN, and that was an extremely well made movie. It even seems to kind of make sense that the studio that did their own version of Dracula would do their own version of Let The Right One In. So I was willing to be down with these guys.
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Kill Zone (SPL: Sha Po Lang)

tn_killzoneBefore Wilson Yip directed Donnie Yen in the IP MAN series the two had already done a bunch of movies together. Their first collaboration was the 2005 crime movie SPL: SHA PO LANG. The title has to do with Chinese mythology and every man’s capacity for both good and evil. That’s hard to translate for Americans so the Weinsteins called it KILL ZONE. It’s about a zone of killing.
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Wheedle’s Groove

tn_wheedlesVisitors to Seattle, and people who talk about us on TV and stuff, have a certain stereotype of Seattle as white, latte drinking liberals, fish throwers and Space Needle polishers, Bill Gates personal assistants and sasquatch poachers standing in the rain talking about Nirvana doing a cover of Jimi Hendrix doing a song about Bruce Lee’s posse being on Broadway. All of it is true, but do they also know about our past as a hotbed of soul and funk music?

Alot of people didn’t until 2004 when the great local label Light in the Attic Records released Wheedle’s Groove, a compilation of songs by forgotten Seattle groups from 1965-1975, many of them with corny names like Black On White Affair, Robbie Hill’s Family Affair or Cold, Bold & Together. A cratedigging DJ named Mr. Supreme had discovered a few funk 45s with Seattle addresses on them, did some research and learned that a whole scene of talented musicians had thrived in Seattle’s Central District in the ’60s and ’70s, only to be forgotten because they never quite hit outside of our isolated encampment here. This documentary extends their story into a visual medium. (read the rest of this shit…)