Well, the crazy sonofabitches did it. They made a 36-years-later-part-two to TOP GUN. Tony Scott had actually developed a script and scouted locations before he died. Eventually the duty fell upon Joseph Kosinski, who had previously directed Cruise in OBLIVION (2013) and who ushered in the age of legacy sequels with the 2010 smash hit cultural sensation TRON: LEGACY[This review’s factual accuracy is disputed].
I gotta admit that I was unreasonably excited just to hear the electronic beat of Harold Faltermeyer’s TOP GUN anthem over the production company logos – I love that synthesized gong sound – and it’s kind of comical how much they mine that type of nostalgia at the beginning of this movie. The original opening title card, the original theme, “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins, similar footage of jets landing on an aircraft carrier – is this just gonna be a re-enactment?
Then we reunite with Captain Peter “Pete” “Maverick” “Mav” Mitchell (Tom Cruise, THE MUMMY), fittingly working as an experimental test pilot. He dons his old patch-covered leather jacket and aviators (both kept in places of honor as if he understands their iconographic significance) and rides his motorcycle very fast to the hangar. (read the rest of this shit…)
Before TOP GUN: MAVERICK, director Joseph Kosinski did a movie with a few of the same actors that did not receive as much attention. Released in 2017, ONLY THE BRAVE is the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, an elite fire fighter crew in Prescott, Arizona specializing in clearing fire-fueling plants and starting controlled burns to cut off the spread of wildfires. Warning: the story is tragic, and this is a crier. But it’s a great movie.
It’s technically impeccable. As on his previous movies TRON: LEGACY and OBLIVION, Kosinski has Claudio Miranda as his director of photography. Miranda also shot THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON and LIFE OF PI, so obviously he has chops. I don’t know what amount of pyrotechnics vs. cg they use, but many fire scenes are much more convincing than THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD (though I liked that movie). It’s a high level of filmmaking craft, but the thrills and adventure and shit are honestly backdrop for a story about people, with uniformly strong performances and very effective characterization in the script adapted by Ken Nolan (BLACK HAWK DOWN and, uh, TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT) and Eric Warren Singer (THE INTERNATIONAL, AMERICAN HUSTLE, an episode of Æon Flux) from the GQ article “No Exit” by Sean Flynn. (read the rest of this shit…)
One night an amnesiac (Rufus Sewell, EXTREME OPS, JUDY) wakes up confused in the bath tub of a gloomy hotel in a gloomy city. The phone rings and some Peter-Lorre-sounding weirdy (Kiefer Sutherland, RENEGADES, MIRRORS) tells him he needs to get out of there because someone’s coming for him. Then he notices the dead lady with the spirals carved into her. Shit!
In the tradition of such films as FEAR IN THE NIGHT (1947) and NIGHTBREED (1990), Murdoch is unsure if he’s really a murderer. But we’ve seen stories like this before, so we figure he’s not. And it’s pretty clear that something unusual is going on here when the people the guy on the phone was warning about show up. They’re not cops, but “The Strangers,” a group of mysterious, pale, bald dudes in black coats and fedoras like a gang of Detective Nosferatus. They move strangely, have odd facial expressions and are a range of heights that make them look interesting walking around together. I’ll try to list them from tallest to shortest: (read the rest of this shit…)
Man, we’ve been hearing about James Cameron doing this manga/anime adaptation since 2005, well before AVATAR. We’re talking Obama’s first year as a United States Senator, Christian Bale’s first year as a Batman, three live action Spider-man actors ago, before the Marvel Cinematic Universe even started, when Chris Evans was still The Human Torch, George Lucas was still making Star Wars movies, Saddam Hussein was still alive, the word “sexting” was just invented, Youtube was just starting, and Twitter didn’t exist yet. A long time ago.
So I can’t say I was thrilled when, after that decade plus of hopes, Cameron announced “Just kidding, Robert Rodriguez is gonna direct it.” Fresh off of SIN CITY 2. But also I wasn’t stupid enough to scoff at it. Cameron co-wrote and produced the thing. The only other time he did that was STRANGE DAYS, and that turned out pretty good. (read the rest of this shit…)
a survey of summer movies that just didn’t catch on
June 19, 1991
THE ROCKETEER has all the right ingredients for an aw schucks old timey circa-1938 super hero yarn. The hero, Cliff (Billy Campbell, FAT KID RULES THE WORLD), is a pilot for air shows – small time enough to be an underdog, but cool enough to strut around in his brown leather pilot’s jacket and clock a guy when necessary.
The setting is Los Angeles, so his girlfriend Jenny (Jennifer Connelly, CREEPERS, LABYRINTH) is an aspiring ingenue, the villain is suave, swashbuckling “#3 box office star” Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton, BRENDA STARR), and the experimental technology they’re fighting over was originated by Howard Hughes (Terry O’Quinn, THE STEPFATHER). Also involved are mobsters (because Sinclair hired them), Nazis (because he is one), G-men (led by Ed Lauter, DEATH WISH 3, THE ARTIST) and a giant named Lothar (former Austrian basketball pro Tiny Ron Taylor [ROAD HOUSE, SASQUATCH MOUNTAIN] made up by Rick Baker to look like Rondo Hatton).
The random way Cliff becomes a jet-packing hero is pretty cool. During a test flight of the craft he and his mechanic/mentor Peevy (Alan Arkin, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN) have been working on for years, he flies over a chase between the mobsters and the FBI. The mobsters think he’s with the feds and turn their tommy guns on him! Some kind of mixup causes the gangsters to get away without the jetpack they stole from Howard Hughes, but Cliff accidentally finds where they stashed it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Jennifer Connelly’s first movie was Sergio Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (as the young version of Elizabeth McGovern’s character). Her first starring role was Dario Argento’s PHENOMENA, aka CREEPERS. Then she did some normal teen movie, but the one after that was LABYRINTH, directed by Jim Henson, where she’s co-starring with David Bowie and about a hundred different puppets. That’s a crazy career already, years before she got an Oscar.
This one is pretty different from the Argento one. Yes, she still communicates with bugs, because there’s a worm in one scene who gives her a helpful tip and invites her in to meet his wife. But there’s no monkey going nuts with a straight razor, and no Goblin. Just goblins.
She plays Sarah, a teenage girl who one day during a bratty fit about having to babysit says some fantasy nonsense that actually summons goblins to take away her toddler brother Toby. Whoops. To get him back she has to make it through a labyrinth to the Goblin King (Bowie)’s castle in 13 hours. Except for the king, the goblins and the inhabitants of the maze are all puppets and special effects creations. Designed by artist Brian Froud (like Henson’s previous movie, THE DARK CRYSTAL), they still have cartoonish looks and personalities, but with more realistic texture and detail than Muppets. They seem like closer relatives to Yoda than to Cookie Monster. (read the rest of this shit…)
Here’s one of those beloved I.P.s that the studios are always looking to repackage and the fans get real excited for. It’s a high concept that’s practically a movie trailer already, it’s like LORD OF THE RINGS meets TITANIC meets DR. DOLITTLE. And just like with Batman or Superman there’s alot of great interpretations from different eras for the filmatists to draw from. You got the Bible version, you got the Quran version, you got the FANTASIA 2000 version. Alot of people grew up on the Noah property. But like THE LONE RANGER last year maybe the whole premise is a little bit too campy for today’s audiences. It might be a little too late for this to become a franchise.
Russell Crowe (NO WAY BACK, THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS) plays Noah, a survivalist living off the grid in the wastelands traveling with his wife (Jennifer Connelly from PHENOMENA) and kids, trying to avoid men and cities. I’m not sure if it’s the future or the past, but they dress kinda like the people of Zion in THE MATRIX. There’s a weird scaly dog like Riddick would be friends with. We see when he’s attacked by barbarians that Noah does know how to kick ass, but he and his family live by a monk-like code, or maybe a hippie one. They don’t carry weapons, they don’t eat meat, they respect nature, the women are allowed to wear pants. (read the rest of this shit…)
I always loved Ang Lee’s HULK. It was a blockbuster nobody else would’ve made, the Hulk movie that takes time for the Hulk to sit in the desert staring at the moss on the rocks. The weird one. The one that’s split between crazy action and subdued character drama. The one with Nick Nolte in mugshot mode as the villain, commanding a pack of mutant dogs, later turning into an electrical storm.
Well, I still love all that, but I’m disappointed to find that I don’t enjoy the movie quite as much 10 years later. At least not the pre-Hulk chunk of the thing. And I think it comes down to the very idea of it.
If you know your horror you know about Dario Argento, the crazy Italian fuck responsible for SUSPIRIA, DEEP RED and Asia Argento. Even if you don’t dig his movies or daughter you have to give him credit for putting together Goblin, the band who made the distinctive scores for alot of his movies as well as DAWN OF THE DEAD and that movie where Art Carney refuses to leave before Mount St. Helens erupts. I also really like INFERNO, the movie I brought up the most when trying to convince people that SILENT HILL was a surreal nightmare world and not just a moronic video game adaptation with stiff dialogue that made no sense like they thought it was.
I thought I had seen most of the big ones by Argento and I had kind of avoided this one PHENOMENA that didn’t have as good of a reputation. Maybe part of the problem is that it’s better known in the U.S. as CREEPERS, the version where they cut out about a half an hour. But at least in its uncut form I really dug this strange fucking movie about an American girl (Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly) sent to a Swiss boarding school during a murder spree. (read the rest of this shit…)
This week friends ol’ Vern has a few things he has to get off his chest. A little bitchin and moanin is what I gotta do. So let me run through a few of these points about how, you know, everything is all a bunch of horse shit, etc.
1. HALLOWEEN
First off, last Tuesday was Halloween. And I want to know why you motherfuckers decided it was cancelled. I’m driving along at 7:45 pm, it’s been dark for more than hour and I don’t see a jack o’lantern, I don’t see a trick or treater. I don’t even see those little fuckers smashing my pumpkins. All I see is churches and schools with signs that say “Harvest Festival. Games and Food. October 31st.” (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
MaggieMayPie on Trigger Warning: “I watched this the weekend that REBEL RIDGE came out. I went into Netflix to watch that and I saw…” Nov 20, 20:46
Matthew B. on Trigger Warning: “Anyone get the feeling that large chunks of act three went missing here? The big confrontation with Anthony Michael Hall,…” Nov 20, 18:24
Felix Ng on Trigger Warning: “I thought this was okay as well. Like an early 2000 Van Damme DTV.” Nov 20, 13:49
Skani on Dragged Across Concrete: “Yeah, this fucking guy’s a real trip. Sounds like his words “engendered” a lot of feelings, and I won’t even…” Nov 20, 13:04
Mr. Majestyk on Dragged Across Concrete: “That’s the sad part. All the ingredients are there for something great, but Zahler’s technique just pisses it all away…” Nov 20, 12:54
Crudnasty on Dragged Across Concrete: “Majestyk – I salute you for making it to the end to confirm that the entire runtime earns your contempt,…” Nov 20, 12:34
Mr. Majestyk on Le Samourai: “I want to thank everybody for the kind words. Sometimes I doubt my role in this ecosystem, as it seems…” Nov 20, 12:04
Mr. Majestyk on Dragged Across Concrete: “Sing it, Crudnasty. This remains my least favorite movie of the 21st century. Possibly of all time. I literally sold…” Nov 20, 11:51
Crudnasty on Dragged Across Concrete: “Benefit of the doctor = benefit of the doubt Apologies for the consequences of my furious swipe texting, but this…” Nov 20, 11:34
Crudnasty on Dragged Across Concrete: “Just started watching this on a whim, based on seeing the comments pop up and having seen Cell Block 99…” Nov 20, 11:32
Skani on Dragged Across Concrete: “I defended the movie at the time, but I do think Zahler is a weird dude, and I think Mel…” Nov 20, 10:24
CJ Holden on Trigger Warning: “When it came out, I joked on social media about this being actually a standup comedy special in which Jessica…” Nov 20, 10:13
Ishmael on Ebirah, Horror of the Deep: “One thing that always amuses me about Godzilla movies is how often between films people lose track of Godzilla. The…” Nov 20, 09:19
VERN on Dragged Across Concrete: “Both the violence and the racism depicted in the movie are fictional. I did not feel it was committing acts…” Nov 20, 09:15
Well, the crazy sonofabitches did it. They made a 36-years-later-part-two to TOP GUN. Tony Scott had actually developed a script and scouted locations before he died. Eventually the duty fell upon Joseph Kosinski, who had previously directed Cruise in OBLIVION (2013) and who ushered in the age of legacy sequels with the 2010 smash hit cultural sensation TRON: LEGACY [This review’s factual accuracy is disputed].
Before TOP GUN: MAVERICK, director Joseph Kosinski did a movie with a few of the same actors that did not receive as much attention. Released in 2017, ONLY THE BRAVE is the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, an elite fire fighter crew in Prescott, Arizona specializing in clearing fire-fueling plants and starting controlled burns to cut off the spread of wildfires. Warning: the story is tragic, and this is a crier. But it’s a great movie.
One night an amnesiac (Rufus Sewell, EXTREME OPS, 
Man, we’ve been hearing about James Cameron doing this manga/anime adaptation since 2005, well before 
Jennifer Connelly’s first movie was Sergio Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (as the young version of Elizabeth McGovern’s character). Her first starring role was Dario Argento’s 
Here’s one of those beloved I.P.s that the studios are always looking to repackage and the fans get real excited for. It’s a high concept that’s practically a movie trailer already, it’s like LORD OF THE RINGS meets 
If you know your horror you know about Dario Argento, the crazy Italian fuck responsible for SUSPIRIA, DEEP RED and Asia Argento. Even if you don’t dig his movies or daughter you have to give him credit for putting together Goblin, the band who made the distinctive scores for alot of his movies as well as DAWN OF THE DEAD and that movie where Art Carney refuses to leave before Mount St. Helens erupts. I also really like INFERNO, the movie I brought up the most when trying to convince people that SILENT HILL was a surreal nightmare world and not just a moronic video game adaptation with stiff dialogue that made no sense like they thought it was.
This week friends ol’ Vern has a few things he has to get off his chest. A little bitchin and moanin is what I gotta do. So let me run through a few of these points about how, you know, everything is all a bunch of horse shit, etc.
