"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Robots

What this one is about is robots. It’s a movie about robots, so they called it ROBOTS. You see how that works? Movie is about robots = title is ROBOTS. That is the level of imagination and innovation we are working with here in America circa 2005. Ain’t life beautiful.

Before I go on, I gotta warn everybody, just because a movie is in IMAX doesn’t mean it’s in 3-D. I saw GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS and POLAR EXPRESS there and the 3-D made those worthwhile, and I swear on THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST: RENAILED that is the one and only reason why I went to see this ROBOTS. Now obviously I would prefer if a 3-D movie was a horror or a part 3, something where either a shark or an eyeball is gonna pop out of the screen at some time. But I have accepted that now 3-D is for kids movies only so a man’s gotta settle. I didn’t mind payin my ten bucks but then when I walked into the theater and there was no goggles, I realized that I was finally suffering the consequences of my ignorance about Imax. I knew this day would come. ROBOTS is not in 3-D. Sheeit. (read the rest of this shit…)

March 11th, 2005 | 4 Comments »

Be Cool

This is the sequel to GET SHORTY. Based on another book by Elmore Leonard, but this book was made after the GET SHORTY movie and with the idea that it would become a movie too. So this is a movie about sequels based on a book that was a sequel to a movie based on a book. Which means there’s all kinds of metapostmodernistical type business running around calling attention to itself. Hey, look at me, I’m a character in a sequel talking about how sequels are bad. Now I’m a character in a PG-13 movie talking about how if you say fuck twice you get an R.

(John Travolta, as badass loanshark turned movie producer Chili Palmer points this out and says, “You know what I have to say about that? Fuck that.” And if only he had repeated “fuck that” again for emphasis I guess he would’ve gotten the R and I could’ve seen this movie in a quiet theater full of adults and not a fuckin high school cafeteria. But that’s a subject for a separate rant.) (read the rest of this shit…)

March 8th, 2005 | 2 Comments »

Catwoman

Well I picked this one up ’cause there was alot of hype, it just won a bunch of awards recently and they were making a big deal about Halle Berry showing up and making a tearful speech. Somebody warned me though, turns out “the razzies” are some kind of sarcastic or ironical type award where they give it to the WORST movies, or at least the ones that are not really the worst but that got a bad time in the media and they probaly haven’t even watched them but they pretend it’s the worst and everybody has a good time pretending that they have seen it and that they were surprised how bad it was.

So I realized this was actually a notorious movie, a legendarily bad movie, and I started to worry. What if I like this one? What if I’m the one guy? You know how I am, I tell it like it is. I say what’s what. I kind of liked The Punisher and I shouted it to and from the god damn roof tops. To this day I would die for the two Charlie’s Angels movies, or if not die, then at least admit that I enjoyed both of them alot. What if this is actually a misunderstood work of camp genius? Am I really ready to go to bat for Halle Berry wearing a big leather football with ears on top of her head? (read the rest of this shit…)

March 3rd, 2005 | 8 Comments »

The Next Karate Kid

Two time Oscar winner Hilary Swank, hailing from Bellingham, Washington, stars in the explosive finale to the Karate Kid quadilogy. This one was Swank’s first starring role and came out in 1994, when movies were just as crappy but not quite as funny as their ’80s counterparts. The director is Christopher Cain, father of Dean Cain and director of The Amazing Panda Adventure.

Swank plays Julie, a pouty, sullen teenage girl who lives unhappily with her grandma after the death of her parents. Anything anybody says to Julie, she takes offense and throws a hissy fit. You know how old people are, they try to be nice but they don’t really understand where your teenage mind is coming from, so they offer you some lemon bars or something and you’re like “GOD DAMN IT WHY CAN’T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?!” and run out of the room crying. So then Julie goes in and stabs grandma to death in her sleep, while jerkin off. Or was that a different movie? I can’t remember. (read the rest of this shit…)

March 3rd, 2005 | 3 Comments »

Vern braves and endures Wes Craven’s CURSED!

SPOILER ALERT !!

Hey folks, Harry here to bestow upon you the glory and the greatness that is the mighty Vern. He wades through films and text like the Grim Reaper in a Corn Field…. shitting out the husks of material that dreams of better days. Now he turns his excellence at Wes Craven’s troubled latest. A film left hemorraging from the Dimension process, but with a pedigree of cool otherwise. Let’s see what Vern says…

Harry –

Don’t know if you’re sick of me yet this week but I just saw CURSED one day early, so what the fuck man you know what happens next. A review, some belligerent talkbacks, etc.

This is the new one from Wes Craven, who in my eyes at least still has some small amount of credibility. I know he tries his damndest to piss it away on executive produced projects like DRACULA 2000, WISHMASTER, WES CRAVEN’S SO-CALLED CARNIVAL OF SOULS, etc. And he’s done some bad ones all throughout his career. Like DEADLY FRIEND and DEADLY BLESSING. I forget which one is which. One of them involves a robot. And VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN. And THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 25th, 2005 | 11 Comments »

THE DAY I KNEW WHO DEEP THROAT WAS

Yesterday I was talking to a guy – I don’t want to say his name, so we’ll just call him BARELY LEGAL ALL STARS #3. And he asks me if I’ve heard “the rumor about Deep Throat.”

You might assume he was talking about a rumor that the landmark pornographical work DEEP THROAT was getting an arthouse re-release to tie in with the already released documentary on its making and cultural impact, INSIDE DEEP THROAT. But I knew that was not a rumor, it was an actual fact, so it could not be what he was talking about. So I figured it was that rumor about that other Deep Throat, the mysterious whistleblower who gave Woodward and Bernstein the tips about Watergate, changing our country’s view of government forever and creating an annoying suffix for all future government scandals. (Just wait until there’s a scandal involving fences, so that every wiseass in the world will think they’re the first one to call it Gategate.) (read the rest of this shit…)

February 24th, 2005 | No Comments »

Vern sees the alleged sequel to John Carpenter’s THE VAMPIRES called VAMPIRES: THE TURNING!

Hey folks, Harry here with another wondrous piece from the mangod we collectively worship named Vern. This time, he’s tracked down a sequel to John Carpenter’s VAMPIRES. Now I love that film. That came out back in Europe back when I had crazy PLANET HOLLYWOOD writing money – and I flew to Paris just to see it cuz it looked as if it was going to end up butchered in the U.S. Great trip, and had a wonderful time with the film. “That’s it padre, FUCK WITH EM!” Heh. Let’s see what Vern thinks of the sequel…

ATT.: HARRY DEPT.

RE: VAMPIRES: THE TURNING

Warning: this is a long and overly detailed review of a straight to video sequel to VAMPIRES. Do not read.

It all started in 1998, in the Mexican desert. A Vatican sanctioned SWAT team of ultra-macho, leather jacket wearing vampire slayers faced down a Euro-trash “master vampire,” wiped out his nest and shut down a prophecy. Much shit was talked, at least one innocent naked woman was degraded, many many heads were cut off, and quite a few vampires were dragged screaming by tow cables into the desert sun. JOHN CARPENTER’S VAMPIRES is a sleazy, amoral good time, maybe his most underrated, and definitely his most successful mix of western and horror. And gorey. I remember one scene, the master vampire crashed a hotel party full of drunken vampire slayers and jiggling whores, walked right up to Mark Boone Junior and tore him in half using one hand. Much fun was had by all. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 24th, 2005 | 3 Comments »

Maria Full of Grace

This is a movie about a beautiful teenage girl from Colombia who works a shitty job dethorning roses, gets in an argument with her boss, one thing leads to another and suddenly she’s pursuing other opportunities. Around the same time she finds out she’s pregnant, gets in an argument with her boyfriend and they announce they don’t love each other and begin a new journey of life travelling on separate paths. (A convenient way for the guy to avoid responsibility. Well played, deadbeat. Well played.) Also she meets a new guy and this guy has some connections with drug traffickers. Which leads to an exciting new moneymaking opportunity.

You probaly already heard of this movie so you know what it is. She becomes a drug mule. She swallows something like a dozen balloons of heroin, has to carry them on a plane to New York. She’s part of what they call “shotgunning” where they send a bunch of mules at the same time, figuring if one of them gets caught it will create a distraction for the others to get through. She knows some of the other mules (one of them is her whiny, pouty best friend) so it puts them in sort of an uneasy alliance/competition. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 17th, 2005 | No Comments »

LAY OFF CHRISTO, YOU ASSHOLES

“So motherfucker, can’t you see
I pity the sonofabitch that fucks with [Christo]”
–Rudy Ray Moore

Dear America,

I am Writing to inform you that I am at my last straw with you assholes making fun of Christo. It would be fine if you knew what you were talking about and were just giving him some shit, some snaps, some good natured ribbing and what not. But I’m afraid that ain’t the case.

Don’t give me that dumb look like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Christo, the legendary/infamous “environmental artist” whose work is usually described as “wrapping things in plastic.” Throughout the last several decades this dude and his wife/partner Jeanne-Claude (who never gets made fun of because the people who make fun of Christo don’t even know the basic facts of his work) have performed such epic feats as building a giant curtain through a valley, building a giant fence through Sonoma county, turning several islands into giant pink lilly pads, and wrapping up the Pont Neuf bridge over there in France. This week they finally unveiled a project in Central Park that they’ve been trying to do forever. Since it’s a big deal in New York and most of the American media is based there, now we gotta deal with a bunch of ignorant fuckers making fun of him on all the TV shows. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 16th, 2005 | 1 Comment »

Vern snuggles with CONSTANTINE!

Hey folks, Harry here in my geek recovery ward. Been getting a lot of reviews of CONSTANTINE in and it seems the more familiar with the comic the reviewer is, the more they dislike the film. Personally – other than seeing a lot of the covers, I’ve never been a big HELLBLAZER reader, and I found myself liking the film quite a bit. Almost exacly like Vern here, only less literate. Here he is…. on your knees, for he speaks…

Dear Harry,

Here is a review of a movie I saw starring Keanu Reeves (guy from the Matrixes)

Okay, first I got a warning for some of you comic strip wise guys out there. If you like the comic strip this movie is based on, DON’T WATCH THE MOVIE. It’s just not worth it, man. You’re gonna be mad because, according to my sources, in the comic strip the dude is British, and even if he wasn’t British, he wouldn’t be Keanu Reeves. Hey man I’m a purist too sometimes, I understand this. I’d be pissed if they made DIE HARD into a comic strip, but they got John McClane wearing shoes or something. Or playing a guitar. It’s gonna be hard to get past what they did here so forget it man, save your time, save the stress. Go get a massage or something. (read the rest of this shit…)

February 16th, 2005 | 3 Comments »

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