THE FAN is one of those movies I saw at the time, thought was pretty decent, didn’t think much about for 30 years, watched again, still thought was the same pretty decent. In fact, I might have to bump that up to pretty good.
One good thing about it is the same thing that happens when you watch many of the Tony Scott movies, even lesser ones: you remember that god damn, movies used to look good. The cinematographer is Dariusz Wolski, who’d just shot CRIMSON TIDE for Scott, but also he’s the guy who did THE CROW, and later DARK CITY, and then he did some Gore Verbinskis and Tim Burtons, and then a whole bunch of Ridley Scotts. A high ranking cinematographer of my lifetime, in my opinion. So here he’s doing those hazy orange Tony Scott skies, he’s making shots of the most routine shit look god damn beautiful, he’s staging business meetings in conference rooms with magic hour light shining through slit blinds, just ridiculously beautiful shots in a regular ol’ stalker thriller.
In his followup to CASINO and HEAT, Robert De Niro stars as Gil Renard, a very serious fan of the San Francisco Giants. Not just a guy who watches the games and has the hats and bobbleheads and shit (though of course he does), he’s also a regular sports radio caller, apt to defend his team, for example when radio personalities Jewel Stern (Ellen Barkin, MAN TROUBLE) and Bernie (Kurt Fuller, MIRACLE MILE, NO HOLDS BARRED) are a little too hard on the highly paid new player Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes between WAITING TO EXHALE and MURDER AT 1600). (read the rest of this shit…)
THE ODYSSEY. Good movie. Christopher Nolan (executive producer: ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE) gives us his take on the ancient poem, as filtered through his heavy duty filmatism, shot on IMAX film, with some of his beloved non-linear structure, a ridiculously stacked cast and a weird Ludwig Göransson (THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN) score. It’s classic Nolan material but with the welcome addition of some monsters and horror, because it’s set in “a time of apparent magic.”
Nolan has joined the category of Spielberg and Eastwood, where I’ll see anything he makes and know I’ll probly like it even if it’s something I wouldn’t otherwise be interested in. Even if it seems like homework. Obviously THE ODYSSEY sounds like more of a popcorn movie than DUNKIRK or OPPENHEIMER, but I sure do feel like I’m supposed to already have opinions about Homer and epic poems. By the time I saw the movie the discourse revolved around a lengthy takedown in the London Review of Books by classicist Emily Wilson, whose 2017 translation Nolan cites as an influence. But even regular movie critics seem to be full of thoughts about The Odyssey and The Iliad and what not.
In my (mostly embarrassing) review on The Ain’t It Cool News, I jokingly called George A. Romero’s LAND OF THE DEAD “the actual, genuine most anticipated movie of the summer,” despite all the excitement over the Batman one and the Star Wars one. I don’t know if that was true even for me, but it was certainly a long-awaited event. In the review I mentioned there had been other recent zombie works including 28 DAYS LATER and Zack Snyder’s DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, but my love of zombies was really more of a love of George Romero movies. There had not been one of those since BRUISER in 2000, there had not been a good one since THE DARK HALF in 1993, he had not been involved in a zombie one since the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD remake in 1990, and hadn’t directed one since DAY OF THE DEAD in 1985. Twenty years. And now it’s been twenty years since that.
I really liked LAND OF THE DEAD at the time, and for a while after. But when I last watched it in 2017, having bought the Scream Factory special edition, I wasn’t as into it. I was hoping that would change this time, but I’m sorry to report that LAND OF THE DEAD just doesn’t do as much for me these days. And that’s a shame because it has plenty of cool ideas, and its central theme of the powerful living in luxury locked safely away from most of the world (including the people who actually do all the work they got rich off of) is somehow even more relevant now than it was then. (read the rest of this shit…)
THE MENU (2022) is part of the 2020s wave of “rich assholes go to an island and something fucked up happens there” movies (see also: GLASS ONION, BLINK TWICE, TRIANGLE OF SADNESS [though they end up on the island by accident there]). Juror #2 Nicholas “Nux” Hoult plays Tyler Ledford, a food-nerd who proudly paid $1250 a plate to bring his less-interested date Margot, played by Furiosa #2 Anya Taylor-Joy, to a private island where celebrity chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes, THE AVENGERS) presents extravagant themed meals for exclusive clientele. Right away you know Tyler sucks because he calls Margot “babe” and lectures her about her palate, and that Margot is the final girl because she’s the only one looking back to see the boat leaving and the doors closing behind them. We side with her anyway because when Tyler raves about the lemon caviar and raw oyster with mignonette and mansplains that alginate is made of algae she says, “Yeah. Pond scum.” (read the rest of this shit…)
Recently, events converged to remind me there was a (sort of) remake of John Carpenter’s ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 back in 2005. Well, really what happened was that movie PLANE came out – the Gerard Butler one with the plane – and that’s from the same director, Jean-François Richet. He did a couple gritty French crime movies in the ‘90s and then his phone rang and Hollywood said, “Hello, this is Hollywood, would you be interested in remaking ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, or as you call it in France, ASSAUT?” I imagine he very thoughtfully said “Oui” and then hung up.
According to his commentary track they didn’t have the script yet when they hired him. He chose James DeMonaco to write it because he’d just seen THE NEGOTIATOR, a movie this does seem kinda similar to. DeMonaco had also written a film for Francis Ford Coppola*. (read the rest of this shit…)
When I first heard that the trusted manufacturers of sturdy action cinema at 87North Productions were making a Santa Claus movie, I misunderstood. I pictured sort of a BAD SANTA meets DIE HARD – a serious action movie where it’s some deadbeat mall Santa who’s in the wrong place at the wrong time and has to save the day, hopefully using a velvet sack’s worth of seasonally themed methods.
So when I realized that the Santa Claus played by David Harbour (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN) in VIOLENT NIGHT is the actual Santa Claus, having his Christmas Eve deliveries interrupted by hostage takers and using “Christmas magic” to fight back, I was disappointed at first. Sounded corny, I thought.
I was wrong. I want to apologize to Santa. VIOLENT NIGHT is an admirable and solid take on a type of movie I treasure: the genre mash-up that knows it’s ludicrous to combine these particular types of movies but moves forward trying to deliver on both genres as well as the unique opportunities offered by their combination. So it has the trappings of a DIE HARD/UNDER SIEGE scenario (ruthless mastermind, elite mercenary force, carefully planned heist, hero mixed up in it by mistake, shocking deaths of innocent people, bad guys picked off one-by-one with stolen or improvised weapons) but also a heartwarming holiday tale (little girl wavering in her belief in Santa, family having trouble getting along, lessons about selflessness). It’s a comedy, but not a spoof. It tries to deliver faithfully on the mission of each genre. (read the rest of this shit…)
a survey of summer movies that just didn’t catch on
WARNING: Somehow I forgot that I already wrote about SPAWN eight years ago, but now you’re in for a more detailed look.
August 1, 1997
It’s weird that one of my least favorite movies in this series so far is the one that stars Michael Jai White! Thank you Ralph Bakshi for making sure it’s not in last place.
White plays Al Simmons, an amoral elite counter-terrorism black ops super badass who gets betrayed by his boss Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen, FIRESTARTER, who took the job because his grandson told him Spawn was cool). He’s set on fire, blown up and recruited by a crude CGI giant monster devil (voice of Frank Welker) to be a soldier for Hell. Returned to earth five years later as a burnt up demon called Spawn, he lives among the homeless and learns how to use his new demon powers while pining for his wife Wanda (Theresa Randle, CB4) and plotting revenge on Wynn.
I made that sound like a story, if I do say so myself. The movie’s not as interested in that. Faithfully adapted from the top-selling comic book of some parts of the ’90s, here is a visually dark, Marilyn-Manson-on-the-soundtrack slog that makes THE CROW: CITY OF ANGELS look like a masterwork of storytelling craft. And at least CITY OF ANGELS was nice to look at. Despite the participation of the great cinematographer Guillermo Navarro (DESPERADO, JACKIE BROWN, PAN’S LABYRINTH), this thing looks like shit! Rarely has there been a worse case of CGI overreach – shockingly sub-par, MORTAL KOMBAT-level monsters, fire and transformations are slapped all over it like a big-screen CD-ROM game, and even the straight-ahead action movie scene at “Military Air Base, Hong Kong” looks like a ’90s syndicated TV show where cops raid warehouses and dockyards every episode. (read the rest of this shit…)
a survey of summer movies that just didn’t catch on
“Are you tellin us that you’re gonna arrest a guy for bein a plumber? Get outta here!”
May 28, 1993
Okay, look. I’m not claiming to know a better way to make a live action movie based on a video game about an Italian plumber eating mushrooms, punching bricks and murdering hundreds and hundreds of turtles but also collecting coins while trying to rescue a princess. And seeing how directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel reimagine the world of the famous Nintendo game as a dystopic Manhattan in an alternate dimension where people evolved out of dinosaurs is the closest thing to fun this movie has to offer.
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…)
AMERICAN ULTRA is an action… I want to say comedy?… about what would happen if a totally unlikable stoner who works at a Cash ‘n Carry turned out to unknowingly be a brainwashed government super killer who has been missing and the CIA tries to take him out so he finds himself killing a bunch of dudes in self defense and doesn’t know why. THE BOURNE IDENTITY meets some dude you know’s unproductive early 20s.
But it’s not jokey like a Cheech and Chong picture or THE PINEAPPLE EXPRESS. Mike, the horrible loser protagonist, is played by Jesse Eisenberg (CURSED) with his usual cold distance, minus the intelligence. He’s not the funny or huggable type of stoner either, he’s just the kind that you’re supposed to like because he has a dream of creating a generic “underground comic” about a monkey (it could be this generation’s MONKEYBONE in my opinion) and mumbles quasi-deep philosophical bullshit comparing his life to that of a tree. In narration he humblebrags about being “a fucked up couple” with his long-suffering, oh-that-poor-woman, someone-really-needs-to-have-an-intervention-with-her-about-that-terrible-boyfriend-that-is-sucking-away-her-life-essence-every-second-of-the-day girlfriend Phoebe (Kristen Stewart, JUMPER). But, sorry bud, these two aren’t even Sid and Nancy, they’re just a guy who disappoints his girlfriend by saying they’re going to Hawaii and then instead having a panic attack and bringing her home to make her an omelette and then burning it. (read the rest of this shit…)
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August 16, 1996
One good thing about it is the same thing that happens when you watch many of the Tony Scott movies, even lesser ones: you remember that god damn, movies used to look good. The cinematographer is Dariusz Wolski, who’d just shot CRIMSON TIDE for Scott, but also he’s the guy who did THE CROW, and later DARK CITY, and then he did some Gore Verbinskis and Tim Burtons, and then a whole bunch of Ridley Scotts. A high ranking cinematographer of my lifetime, in my opinion. So here he’s doing those hazy orange Tony Scott skies, he’s making shots of the most routine shit look god damn beautiful, he’s staging business meetings in conference rooms with magic hour light shining through slit blinds, just ridiculously beautiful shots in a regular ol’ stalker thriller.
THE ODYSSEY. Good movie. Christopher Nolan (executive producer: 
June 24, 2005
I really liked LAND OF THE DEAD at the time, and for a while after. But when I last watched it in 2017, having bought the Scream Factory special edition, I wasn’t as into it. I was hoping that would change this time, but I’m sorry to report that LAND OF THE DEAD just doesn’t do as much for me these days. And that’s a shame because it has plenty of cool ideas, and its central theme of the powerful living in luxury locked safely away from most of the world (including the people who actually do all the work they got rich off of) is somehow even more relevant now than it was then. 
THE MENU (2022) is part of the 2020s wave of “rich assholes go to an island and something fucked up happens there” movies (see also: 
Recently, events converged to remind me there was a (sort of) remake of John Carpenter’s 
When I first heard that the trusted manufacturers of sturdy action cinema at 87North Productions were making a Santa Claus movie, I misunderstood. I pictured sort of a 
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 is the solid sequel we always hoped (in fact assumed) it would be. 
AMERICAN ULTRA is an action… I want to say comedy?… about what would happen if a totally unlikable stoner who works at a Cash ‘n Carry turned out to unknowingly be a brainwashed government super killer who has been missing and the CIA tries to take him out so he finds himself killing a bunch of dudes in self defense and doesn’t know why. THE BOURNE IDENTITY meets some dude you know’s unproductive early 20s.
