"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

Posts Tagged ‘Alex Essoe’

The Last Stop in Yuma County

Tuesday, May 14th, 2024

THE LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY is a new indie crime movie from rookie writer/director Francis Galluppi. I’d seen some good reviews, the trailer looked intriguing and I read that Sam Raimi saw it and hired Galluppi for an EVIL DEAD movie. The coveted Necronominod. So it seemed like a good thing to check out as soon as it hit VOD last week.

It’s a single location movie, and the location is a diner out in the middle of nowhere, Arizona on a sunny day in the unspecified past, probly early ‘80s. A traveling cutlery salesman (Jim Cummings, THE WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW) pulls up at the gas station next door, the owner Vernon (Faizon Love, BEBE’S KIDS, who’s very good in this) explains that they’re all out of gas, but the fuel truck is supposed to arrive soon. Also there’s not another gas station for 100 miles, but you’re welcome to wait at the diner next door. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Pope’s Exorcist

Thursday, October 12th, 2023

Okay, I successfully reviewed all of the THE EXORCIST movies, I’m ready to move past the topic of exorcising. But first I wanted to check out this year’s release THE POPE’S EXORCIST. I know what you’re thinking – The Pope gets to do his own version of THE EXORCIST? But in this case the title does not represent authorship, instead it refers to the title character being the official go-to exorcist for The Pope. Father Gabriele Amorth (1925-2016) was a real Catholic priest who was appointed an exorcist of the Diocese of Rome in 1986. In 2017 William Friedkin did a documentary about him called THE DEVIL AND FATHER AMORTH. I’ll save my views on the real guy for the end and say for now that I find him very entertaining as a jolly pulp hero played by Russell Crowe (THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS).

Crowe basically depicts him as a lovable Italian grandpa – generous with his chuckles, good with kids, full of corny humor (I never quite figured out why he likes to make a cuckoo clock sound at people?). He greets humans, statues and at least one desiccated corpse as “my friend.” Also his girth comically dwarfs the Ferrari scooter that is his preferred mode of transportation. (read the rest of this shit…)

Doctor Sleep

Monday, November 11th, 2019

As a young man I read a bunch of Stephen King. He was my favorite until I decided Clive Barker was more interesting – I don’t know if I was right. The point is I’m just another movie-watching asshole and can’t pretend to be a King scholar. I haven’t read The Shining (1977) or its 2013 sequel Doctor Sleep. I have, of course, seen Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING, and like everyone except King and the Razzies voters I think it’s a masterpiece. (I also just realized it’s the first horror movie I remember seeing.)

It almost seemed like a suicide mission for writer/director/editor Mike Flanagan (OCULUS, HUSH, GERALD’S GAME) to make a movie out of Doctor Sleep. How do you even make a sequel to one of the most unfuckwithable horror movies ever made – a fucking Stanley Kubrick movie – let alone try to please the author who famously hated the movie’s take on his very personal story about alcoholism? He tried to bridge the movie with the books, and I think he pulled it off! (read the rest of this shit…)