I don’t know why I never got around to seeing the THE CROW sequel from the director of SIX-STRING SAMURAI. Always was curious. Still took me 19 years. Lance Mungia’s THE CROW: WICKED PRAYER, just like the previous one, was meant for theaters, but I think it only played somewhere around here? Wiki(dprayer)pedia says its theatrical run was only in Seattle and only for one week, and I do remember seeing an ad for it and being confused, but I was thinking it was in Eastern Washington. Anyway, I didn’t go.
When I saw DOMINO on opening day in 2005, I really thought it was the worst shit ever. In fact, at some point I earnestly added a “the worst shit ever” tag to my review of it. Tony Scott’s most chaotic ever visual style and editing just scraped against me and took me out of the story (to the extent that there was one), and I fixated on that and raged against it in my review. This had happened to me only a couple of times before: first with CON AIR, then ARMAGEDDON, and later it would happen with TRANSFORMERS and DOOMSDAY. But DOMINO is the most stylistically aggressive of any of those, and arguably the most pretentious.
In my review I said Scott was trying to seem young and edgy, compared it to getting his ear pierced. In my mind at that time he was the guy who directed TOP GUN, and TOP GUN was a movie for jocks, military lovers and top 40 listeners. When that one came out I didn’t notice that its style was revolutionary, I just knew everybody loved it including my entire sixth grade class, which meant it was the height of mainstream popular culture about a year or two before I would start kneejerk rebelling against such things. So to have the TOP GUN guy, almost 20 years later, trying to do what screenwriter Richard Kelly calls on the commentary track “punk rock,” was just a joke to me. (read the rest of this shit…)
“He had an uneventful childhood. He played baseball with the other kids on the block, became fascinated with the antics of what later became his heroes – The Three Stooges, read Spiderman comic books, thought Jerry Lewis was hilarious and the Little Rascals even more so. What influenced Raimi to become the ‘horror meister’ of slash and gore films is not found in his past.”
—Dead Auteur: How a 20-year-old ex-college student carved out his horror niche in Hollywood by Sue Uram, Cinefantastique, August 1992
Immediately following Raimi’s very serious director period, his career changed drastically again. After so many stabs at the mainstream, he finally made the leap to genuine blockbuster filmmaking, bringing one of the most famous characters in the history of American pop culture to the big screen for the first time. This is not the use-Intro-Vision-to-stretch-the-budget-enough-to-try-to-compete-in-summer of DARKMAN and ARMY OF DARKNESS, or the work-with-huge-stars-but-scare-off-boring-people-by-doing-something-different-with-them of THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. I’m talking a super hero event movie with ten times the budget of DARKMAN, working with Sony Digital Imageworks to pioneer effects techniques that nobody was even sure would be possible, and finally sharing his talents with pretty much the widest audience possible for a movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
THE PAPERBOY is the new one from Academy Award nominee for Best Director Lee Daniels. That’s the guy that did PRECIOUS, BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE as well as SHADOWBOXER, BASED ON THE IDEA THAT HELEN MIRREN AND CUBA GOODING JR. ARE ASSASSINS AND SHE RAISED HIM BUT ALSO THEY’RE FUCKING AND SHE HAS CANCER. I feel like the critical community embraced PRECIOUS without really picking up on how nutty it was, or doing a background check on Mr. Daniels’s previous work. So they did cartoony “wh-wh-whUHHH?” double-takes when THE PAPERBOY played at Cannes and had a part where Nicole Kidman territorially pisses on Zac Efron from HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL. Because it’s a Lee Daniels movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
jeffg on Predator: Badlands: “Its “Sayara” for anyone looking for it, not Sayra, took me a minute.” Nov 17, 07:28
CJ Holden on A Cure For Wellness: “GORE VERBINSKI IS OUT OF DIRECTOR’S JAIL Y’ALL! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaSxNAZUKsM” Nov 17, 06:07
Miguel Hombre on Rambo: First Blood Part II: “As with so many old(ish) films from my youth – I was 15 when RAMBO 2 was released (in Canada…” Nov 16, 15:54
anthony sanchez on Predator: Badlands: “Trust me Vern you will love Sayara i havent seen anything this year that comes close. Another one you should…” Nov 16, 13:27
Dreadguacamole on Predator: Badlands: “I hated this one – it felt like a lousy saturday morning cartoon cash-in version of PREDATOR. Everything is just…” Nov 16, 09:04
VERN on Predator: Badlands: “I noticed that while browsing, wondered about it because of the MMA angle. Thanks for the tip.” Nov 15, 19:15
Anthony Sanchez on Predator: Badlands: “Hey Vern There is a movie on Prime to rent called SAYRA It’s from the director of BASKIN it a…” Nov 15, 10:43
Anne Billson on Road House (2024): “I had to stop watching this when Conor McGregor showed up. I will still watch films with or by Roman…” Nov 15, 01:02
Jeffg on Predator: Badlands: “And kudos to Elle Fannkng for taking on such a fun, wonky project. A lot of actresses of her caliber…” Nov 14, 12:44
jojo on Predator: Badlands: “People seem to like this, so maybe I’ll watch it on a plane or something because… Man, I am over…” Nov 14, 12:12
VERN on The Smashing Machine (2025): “Unfortunately it’s not available anywhere digitally so the price of the out of print DVD has gone way up. I…” Nov 14, 11:55
Mr. Majestyk on Christmas Bloody Christmas: “I wrote another story! The holiday season is upon us, and what better way to kick it off than with…” Nov 14, 11:18
Wolfgang Jahn on The Smashing Machine (2025): “FANTASTIC, absolutely amazing movie. ❤️ it. Anyone out there knowing where I can see the documentary? Trying to find it,…” Nov 14, 11:02
MaggieMayPie on Predator: Badlands: “Put me down on the side of this one being a lot of fun that I enjoyed immensely. With all…” Nov 14, 09:43
JeffG on Predator: Badlands: “Vern, Curious what you thought about “Bud”, the little CGI sidekick they pick up. Normally, I HATE this kind of…” Nov 14, 07:06
When I saw DOMINO on opening day in 2005, I really thought it was the worst shit ever. In fact, at some point I earnestly added a “the worst shit ever” tag to 
“He had an uneventful childhood. He played baseball with the other kids on the block, became fascinated with the antics of what later became his heroes – The Three Stooges, read Spiderman comic books, thought Jerry Lewis was hilarious and the Little Rascals even more so. What influenced Raimi to become the ‘horror meister’ of slash and gore films is not found in his past.”
“If anyone’s gonna pee on him, it’s gonna be me!”
