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Posts Tagged ‘Armand Assante’

Blind Justice

Monday, July 1st, 2024

June 25, 1994

The day after WYATT EARP came out, HBO debuted a western of their own. BLIND JUSTICE stars Armand Assante (PARADISE ALLEY) as Canaan, a blind gunfighter who wears goggle-like sunglasses, enjoys cigars, and is introduced carrying a baby. When he’s surrounded by bandits he hands the baby to one of them and shoots the others. It made me think this was gonna be a western riff on ZATOICHI + LONE WOLF AND CUB, which sounds like a fun time to me, so I thought oh no, I’m gonna seem like a real heathen if I’m more enthusiastic about the cheap ass made-for-cable western of summer ’94 than the expensive theatrical ones by Richard Donner and Lawrence Kasdan. But I had nothing to worry about.

The baby isn’t his, and is too young to participate in the violence, as good ol’ Daigoro does in LONE WOLF AND CUB. This one’s an infant girl he doesn’t even know the name of because “the poor man” he took her from died before he could tell him her name. “It was a shame I had to kill him,” he says. But he promised to bring her to her mother in some town called Los Portales that no one has ever heard of. In his search he ends up in San Pedro, a border town where cavalry men are holed up, protecting a shipment of silver for the mint, unable to leave because the only road through the canyon is blocked by the sadistic bandit Alacran (Robert Davi, CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: THE DISCOVERY) and his men. (read the rest of this shit…)

Judge Dredd

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

tn_judgedreddHow are you gonna get em back on JUDGE DREDD with Sylvester Stallone when they’ve seen DREDD with Karl Urban? The new version is lower budget and streamlined and way better. It’s dedicated to the purity of this fascist character and the ugly world he lives in, and doesn’t worry about commercial considerations. (And sure enough did not do well commercially.) The new version is cool because it’s just about this larger than life character on one day doing one job. The old one, of course, had to be the story of the biggest thing that ever happened to Judge Dredd. It has all the weaknesses of calculated blockbuster type filmmaking, and only some of the strengths.

But you know what, it’s pretty fun to watch. There’s alot of good shit in here anyway, especially at the beginning. It’s a little better than I remembered. (read the rest of this shit…)

American Gangster

Monday, February 18th, 2008

I haven’t been big on Ridley Scott post-ALIEN, but when I saw he was doing the real-life gangster epic starring Denzel Washington – the one I already wanted to see when it was Antoine Fuqua that was supposed to direct it – man, I was excited. And the trailer looked great. And then it came out and without exception everybody I knew who saw it said “yeah, it was… pretty good.” Suddenly there was less urgency to see it, and I watched other movies, wrote some stuff, maybe took some naps, ate some food, and then it was gone.

Well, maybe it was for the best. Now I watched it with lower expectations, in its 20-minutes-longer UNRATED EXTENDED CUT (4 minutes shy of 3 hours) and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I see your “yeah, it was… pretty good” and raise you a “it was… pretty fuckin good.” I am proud to review it alongside such other great American films as AMERICAN PIMP, AMERICAN PSYCHO and AMERICAN NINJA. (read the rest of this shit…)