Posts Tagged ‘Franco Nero’
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…)
Tags: Alex Essoe, Chester Hastings, Daniel Zovatto, demonic possession, Evan Spiliotopoulos, Franco Nero, Jeff Katz, Julius Avery, Laurel Marsden, Michael Petroni, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, R. Dean McCreary, Ralph Ineson, Russell Crowe, Screen Gems
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 13 Comments »
Monday, February 13th, 2017
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 is the solid sequel we always hoped (in fact assumed) it would be. The first film – already a certified modern action classic – had a perfect combination of elegant high concept (legendary assassin comes out of retirement to avenge some dipshits who killed his dog) and interesting world (a society of killers with their own rules, services and even currency). Rehashing the former would make for diminishing returns, so returning screenwriter Derek Kolstad (ONE IN THE CHAMBER, THE PACKAGE) digs deeper into the latter, showing us more about the operations and codes of the Continental Hotel and its affiliates as Wick is forced to repay a debt, getting himself into more and more trouble and testing the limits of his unkillableness.
He’s still trying to retire. The movie has a sense of humor about it without undermining his sincerity. Moments after he finishes cementing his weapons back into the basement floor the doorbell rings and you think “Jesus, what now?” Well, it’s Italian gangster Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio, THE BEST OF YOUTH), who helped him escape the business and now is cashing in his favor to drag him back in. Wick would have to get into the Vatican to assassinate Santino’s sister Gianna (Claudia Gerini, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST). Throughout the movie Wick finds himself backed into corners and all he can do is keep killing his way out of them. And the more killing the more corners. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chad Stahelski, Claudia Gerini, Common, Darrin Prescott, Derek Kolstad, Franco Nero, Ian McShane, J.J. Perry, John Leguizamo, Keanu Reeves, Lance Reddick, Laurence Fishburne, Peter Serafinowicz, Peter Stormare, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ruby Rose
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 110 Comments »
Thursday, December 27th, 2012
A couple weeks ago the studio “lifted the embargo” as they say, and all the online critics unchained their DJANGO reviews even though non-critics wouldn’t see the thing until Christmas. I think that’s a silly ritual because I wasn’t gonna read that shit! This is the new Quentin Tarantino movie, you go in fresh. I already know I want to see any movie he makes, I don’t gotta read everything about it first. In case you’re different I’ve tried to mark the biggest spoilers in this review, but as usual I recommend seeing the movie first.
DJANGO UNCHAINED is the most straight forward movie Tarantino has ever made. It follows one main character from first scene to last, doesn’t cut away to another story or even jump around in time other than some very traditional flashbacks. There are alot of long conversation scenes, but it’s generally pretty clear what they have to do with the main plot of the freed slave Django (Jamie Foxx, STEALTH) becoming a bounty hunter and trying to rescue his wife (Kerry Washington) from a plantation. And that’s not a misleading description, that’s really the movie, a racially charged western (or “Southern,” Tarantino likes to say) in the tradition of those CHARLEY movies I just reviewed.
So in a way it feels uneventful for a Tarantino movie, the first time he made one that was pretty much what I expected from the commercials. On first viewing it seems low in my rankings of the QT filmography, but that doesn’t say much. Tarantino sure knows how to entertain, and I happen to love this genre of badass black cowboys out for frontier justice against practitioners of the slave trade. For his first straight up genre picture that’s a good genre to pick. I love this movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: blaxploitation, Christoph Waltz, Don Johnson, Franco Nero, James Remar, Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Parks, neo spaghetti western, Quentin Tarantino, Samuel L. Jackson, slavery, Tom Wopat
Posted in Reviews, Western | 227 Comments »
Tuesday, July 10th, 2012
“Hey shithead. What’s the big idea, bringing this coffin here?”
So there are around 30 spaghetti westerns (and one Tarantino movie) that use the name “Django,” but none of them are official sequels except 1987’s DJANGO 2: IL GRANDE RITORNO, aka DJANGO STRIKE AGAIN or DJANGO RIDES AGAIN or D2ANGO. Franco Nero returns as Django. Sergio Corbucci was supposed to return as director, but backed out and just got a story credit. The director is Nello Rossati, who doesn’t seem to be a big name director but did direct a movie called DON’T TOUCH THE CHILDREN!
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Donald Pleasence, Franco Nero, spaghetti westerns
Posted in Reviews, Western | 11 Comments »
Monday, July 9th, 2012
Django is a little more demonic than most of your spaghetti western anti-heroes. Obviously those guys are never fuckin Roy Rogers. They’re dirty and scary and sometimes even the titles of the movies are trying to warn you about them (GOD FORGIVES… I DON’T!, RUN, MAN, RUN!, IF YOU MEET SARTANA PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH, GO AWAY! TRINITY HAS ARRIVED IN EL DORADO, etc.). But this guy Django…
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Franco Nero, Sergio Corbucci, spaghetti westerns
Posted in Reviews, Western | 46 Comments »
Thursday, April 19th, 2007
This week I followed an anonymous tip to take a look at an individual name Sho Kosugi. This guy starred in a series of ninja movies and was said to be a missing link in my badass studies to date. I looked him up and found that ENTER THE NINJA is also known as NINJA 1 because it begins a series, so I started with that.
The movie opens promisingly with the badass in question, Mr. Sho Kosugi, in full ninja uniform, standing in front of a black void, demonstrating every weapon he knows. Nunchakas, throwing stars, arrows, daggers, grappling hook, blow gun. You name it, he spins it around or shoots it. The guy is obviously good and it’s kind of cool how he is basically doing show and tell for you throughout the opening credits. It might as well be some Ninja How-To video. But then all the sudden a ninja in all white flies onto the screen and “kicks” him in the head (although it doesn’t look like he makes contact at all). (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Franco Nero, Menahem Golan, ninjas, Sho Kosugi, white ninjas
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, December 21st, 1999
MCCLANE. JOHN MCCLANE. THE WORKING MAN’S JAMES BOND
BRUCE WILLIS’S DIE HARD 2
Well hell man I guess for those of you who read the title there’s no point in explaining my premise here. You see I just watched Die Hard part 2 for the first time since you know what and I realized that John McClane is a James bond for OUR people. The people who AREN’T rich and who don’t always get the breaks this motherfucker james gets.
Bond is the ultimate secret agent, who the government agencies go to for help. McClane is just a badass that happens to be there when the shit goes down, and the government agencies try to STOP him from helping but they can’t do it cause like the title says this mother fucker is HARD.
Bond has connections everywhere and can go anywhere and do just about anything he wants, but McClane has to save the whole fucking airport just to get these motherfuckers to let him out of a parking ticket. Bond drives snowmobiles and sports cars provided by the government and jumps off of them and blows them up. McClane steals the snowmobiles he uses but also jumps off of them and blows them up. Even when he drives a car at the beginning, its a piece of shit borrowed from his mother in law, and that one gets impounded.
Bond wears expensive suits and dapper uniforms. McClane wears a dirty maintenance man snow jacket he BORROWS from somebody else. If McClane was EVER in a casino, he’d be wearing a sleeveless undershirt, it would be on the Indian reservation, and he’d be losing. My man john doesn’t know the MEANING of the word dapper. He’s a rough and tumble type dude, and if I didn’t know he was a cop i’d swear he done time, cause this is the type of motherfucker that knows how to bite a guys hand during a fight. thumbs up for that one mcclane. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce, Bruce Willis, Christmas, Dennis Franz, Franco Nero, Joel Silver, John Amos, Renny Harlin, Robert Patrick, Val Verde, William Sadler
Posted in Action, Bruce, Reviews | 11 Comments »
