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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Glaive Robber on Eenie Meanie: “BTW, I thought this might be relevant to the interests of some of you… https://scottmendelson.substack.com/p/big-good-and-bad-feels-at-the-2025 I did not know this…” Aug 27, 21:40
Glaive Robber on Eenie Meanie: “I have to say, I was looking for something really specific from this movie — beautiful woman in car chases…” Aug 27, 21:24
Handsome Dan on Eenie Meanie: “As a Packer fan who still has the occasional nightmare about the 2014 NFC Championship game, this much unexpected Marshawn…” Aug 27, 13:17
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Simon Underwood on Four Brothers (20 years later revisit): “I remember watching this on DVD rental and saying to my friend as they all gather on the ice in…” Aug 27, 01:11
CJ Holden on Nobody 2: “Haven’t seen it yet, but while looking up which RING OF FIRE cover was playing (I was hoping for the…” Aug 27, 00:00
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Skani on Nobody 2: “Treating this as a one-off lark / high-concept destination sequel, I thought this was a blast. Thoroughly disposable, but still…” Aug 26, 18:14
grimgrinningchris on Four Brothers (20 years later revisit): “I remember one thing about this movie. Exactly one. That I watched it in full in the “cardio-theater” in my…” Aug 26, 16:21
MaggieMayPie on Four Brothers (20 years later revisit): “There was a time in the distant past where I actually really liked Wahlberg. I think it was after the…” Aug 26, 16:13
Hammer Time on Four Brothers (20 years later revisit): ““Somebody call 911 or whatever the number is for Cinemasins.” *chef’s kiss* I have a soft spot for action movies…” Aug 26, 15:32
Palermo on Four Brothers (20 years later revisit): “I somehow never saw this movie. I almost went to it on a date but I talked her into seeing…” Aug 26, 11:52
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!”
