Posts Tagged ‘Brian Thompson’
Thursday, May 5th, 2022
RAGE AND HONOR (1992) opens in black and white – first, grainy high contrast footage of the city, maybe 16mm, then camcorder footage with scanlines – following leather-jacketed Kris Fairfield (Cynthia Rothrock) in an empty high school class room, finishing up her day of work and heading home. I assumed this was a reference to the Michelle Pfeiffer tough-and-inspirational-inner-city-teacher movie DANGEROUS MINDS, which also opened in black and white, until I realized that this came out three years earlier. This is another TOP-GUN-coming-out-after-IRON-EAGLE situation. I got one very suspicious and insinuating eye on you, Mr. Bruckheimer. You’re on notice.
The biggest surprise about this movie is that after the opening it’s never relevant or mentioned that she’s a high school teacher. I was so confused by it that I reloaded the DVD two different times thinking I must’ve misinterpreted something. But it’s true – she has a classroom, a chalkboard, she leaves with papers to grade, she runs into a student named Paris (Patrick Malone, THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES) and gives him his paper, she seems to be his history teacher. It’s too bad they didn’t stick with the idea, because a Rothrock version of THE SUBSTITUTE or ONLY THE STRONG would be right up my alley. She really does seem like a cool teacher. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alex Datcher, Brian Thompson, Catherine Bach, Cynthia Rothrock, IRS Media, Matt O'Toole, Patrick Malone, Richard Norton, Stephen Davies, Terence W. Winkless, Toshishiro Obata
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, July 28th, 2021
July 31, 1991
HOT SHOTS! is the story of one Topper Harley (Charlie Sheen, THE ROOKIE, NEVER ON TUESDAY), legendary former jet pilot for The Navy. When Lieutenant Commander Block (Kevin Dunn, BLUE STEEL, MARKED FOR DEATH) tracks down Harley living in a teepee and breathing helium through a pipe, he agrees to return to the S.S. Essess aircraft carrier and join a team for Operation Sleeping Weasel, a mission to blow up a nuclear power plant. But he’ll have to contend with sabotage from high up and his own PTSD about his father causing a crash that resulted in a deadly hunting accident.
Of course not one second of this is done with sincerity, because it’s AIRPLANE! co-director Jim Abrahams doing a parody and/or spoof of the popular IRON EAGLE ripoff TOP GUN with co-writer Pat Proft (POLICE ACADEMY, REAL GENIUS). Abrahams was a writer and executive producer on the first NAKED GUN and then producer on the sequel released earlier in the summer. (Both were co-written by Proft.) This was Abrahams’ followup to WELCOME HOME, ROXY CARMICHAEL, which I don’t think I ever knew was directed by him, and that makes me more curious about that largely forgotten movie seen and thought to be pretty decent by all people of a certain age who felt a certain way about Winona Ryder. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Butler, Brian Thompson, Carey Elwes, Carmen Filpi, Charlie Sheen, homeless, Jeffrey Tambor, Jim Abrahams, Jon Cryer, Kevin Dunn, Kristy Swanson, Lesley Ann Warren, Lloyd Bridges, Mel Brooks, Pat Proft, spoof, Summer of 1991, Teddy Wilson, Valeria Golino, William O'Leary
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 69 Comments »
Thursday, June 24th, 2021
“Your world is pretty terrifying.”
Summer of ’91 origins: THE TERMINATOR
The only review I’ve written of the original THE TERMINATOR was in 2007 – so out of date it was combined into a review of the “trilogy” and framed as a response to THE TRANSFORMERS. There are some good observations and funny lines in that review, but I’m a smarter person now and I think there’s way more to say about the movie. So I thought I should take another crack at it before we get to its sequel in this Summer of ’91 retrospective.
In the fall of 1984, director/co-writer James Cameron exploded into filmgoer-consciousness with a stylish and imaginative little sci-fi chase movie called THE TERMINATOR. Made on about a fifth of the budget of the recent hit GHOSTBUSTERS and released by outsiders Hemdale (VICE SQUAD, TURKEY SHOOT) and Orion Pictures (MAD MAX, THE HAND, ROCK & RULE), it nevertheless immediately announces itself as a force to be reckoned with. The quiet, world-establishing text, the nightmarish glimpses of futuristic combat between man and machine, the absolute all-timer of a theme by Brad Fiedel (JUST BEFORE DAWN) and the slow reveal of the logo (title design by Ernest D. Farino, who later did GODZILLA 1985, CRITTERS, NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, ALIEN NATION, THE ABYSS and NEMESIS) all set the mood for a genre movie of unusual ferocity. Not bad for a guy who had only directed PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bess Motta, Bill Paxton, Brad Fiedel, Brian Thompson, Earl Boen, Gale Anne Hurd, James Cameron, Lance Henriksen, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Orion Pictures, Paul Winfield, Rick Rossovich, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Stan Winston
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 27 Comments »
Friday, October 27th, 2017
FRIGHT NIGHT PART II came out three years later, in 1988. Part I‘s writer-director Tom Holland had moved on to CHILD’S PLAY, bringing Chris Sarandon with him. Makeup FX genius Steve Johnson was doing NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4. It was the year of PUMPKINHEAD, HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II, THE BLOB, THEY LIVE, MONKEY SHINES, MANIAC COP, THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW, PHANTASM II and PAPERHOUSE. Maybe the world didn’t feel the need to rehash FRIGHT NIGHT. But somebody was gonna do it, and they got William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowall to come back as Charley Brewster and Peter Vincent.
In the opening, a quick clip montage (as was the style in those days) and Charley’s narration recap what happened in the first film, only for him to then say that he imagined most of it. Yes, Jerry Dandridge was a serial killer, but “vampires aren’t real.” Charley says he’s returning to “the real world” after three years so I thought he’d been hospitalized, but I guess he just means he’s mentally returning to a world where monsters don’t exist. He says he’s worried he’ll run into Peter Vincent, which is weird because in the next scene he goes to visit him. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Thompson, Greg Cannom, Jon Gries, Julie Carmen, Mark Metcalfe, Miguel-Tejada Flores, Roddy McDowall, Russell Clark, Tommy Lee Wallace, Traci Lind, vampires, werewolves, William Ragsdale
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, June 12th, 2012
Daniel Bernhardt is a Swiss martial artist and model who appeared in a Versace commercial with Jean-Claude Van Damme, then was hired to play the lead in the BLOODSPORT sequels. So it’s only natural that in 1997 he inherited Van Damme’s frequent collaborator Sheldon Lettich, who had already directed LIONHEART and DOUBLE IMPACT (plus the great Mark Dacascos capoeria-‘n-teaching movie ONLY THE STRONG). But I’m sorry to say the substitute is not as good as the real thing. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: a guy who looks like Steve Guttenberg, Brian Thompson, Daniel Benhardt, DTV, Robert Englund, Sheldon Lettich
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 40 Comments »
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
MIRACLE MILE is a really good and unique movie that would be better if you just saw it not knowing anything about it, which is how I first saw it. So here, let me just give you the quick sales pitch and then you can bail out if you want: Anthony Edwards hears a payphone ringing, decides to answer it, on the other end is a panicked guy apparently calling from a missile silo to warn his dad that a nuclear war has started and he needs to get as far east as he can before we get hit in an hour and a half. It sounds real, so he has to decide what to do with that information, how to escape, who to tell. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony Edwards, Brian Thompson, Mare Winningham, Mykelti Williamson, nuclear war, Steve De Jarnatt, Tangerine Dream
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 21 Comments »
