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
Curt on Tron (plus Tron Legacy on the blu-ray): “I just saw TRON: ARES tonight and heartily recommend it to anyone who liked anything about the first two movies…” Oct 8, 19:26
Ben C. on A Better Tomorrow: “OK I am seriously late to the party on this one but jeezus kee-rist what a movie!! Just walked out…” Oct 8, 18:58
Dreadguacamole on Hell of a Summer / Clown in a Cornfield: “Like (most) everyone else here, I enjoyed CLOWN(S) IN A CORNFIELD well enough. It had some warmth, some fun bits,…” Oct 8, 15:19
Bartel on Jackie Brown: “Also: DEAD PRESIDENTS which has also one of those forgotten but great Chris Tucker performances” Oct 8, 11:28
Mitch on Play Dirty: “I’m not sure what version of Charley Varrick that Miguel Hombre saw but it is certainly very different to the…” Oct 8, 07:51
Skani on Play Dirty: “I recall liking Wahlberg well enough in the SPENSER movie, but I share the consensus that he lacks the gravitas…” Oct 8, 05:00
Skani on Cherry Falls: “I finally caught up with this one, and although it was not great, I liked the cast / performances (particularly…” Oct 8, 04:50
Skani on Hell of a Summer / Clown in a Cornfield: “Okay, well, you’ve piqued my interest enough that I will try it once I can find it at a bargain…” Oct 8, 04:46
walkerp on Play Dirty: “@Acid Burn, you don’t have to read the Parker books in order, but there is a subtle chronology to them…” Oct 8, 03:07
pegsman on Play Dirty: “Guys, I have to go back and correct myself. Of course Brian Garfield did not write the screenplay for THE…” Oct 7, 21:50
Mr. Majestyk on Hell of a Summer / Clown in a Cornfield: “It’s bordering on hilariously bad but doesn’t quite get there. It does do one thing that the SCREAM franchise should…” Oct 7, 17:43
Skani on Hell of a Summer / Clown in a Cornfield: “I agree that the reviews were a little misleading. This is the type of movie that would typically get maybe…” Oct 7, 15:01
Birch on Hell of a Summer / Clown in a Cornfield: “I saw Clown in theaters as well but seem to have had a much more negative reaction than anyone else…” Oct 7, 10:28
The Winchester on Hell of a Summer / Clown in a Cornfield: ““Like… I’d say eight or more.” This cracked me up way more than it should have. Thank you! I saw…” Oct 7, 09:47
jojo on Play Dirty: “Completely anecdotally: Walking out of Reservoir Dogs, it occurred to me it was basically a movie I’d watch with my…” Oct 7, 03:27
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!”
