Posts Tagged ‘Michael Rapaport’
Monday, April 8th, 2013
I only gave this a chance because I knew Zoe Bell was in it somewhere and I thought it starred Billy Bob Thornton. Turns out both are pretty small parts. And the opening has alot of signs that this is one of these post-GRINDHOUSE prefab exploitation movies that I can’t stand. It uses that old stylistic device that has pretty much never been used in a cool way, the freeze-frame-turns-into-shitty-Photoshop-tracing-that’s-supposed-to-look-like-a-comic-book-panel. The titlated outlaws are three crazy gunhappy berserker redneck brothers, the unshaven type with greasy hair and fetishistically dirty tank tops, ugly tattoos, biker jewelry, of course a rebel flag on one of them. #1, I don’t understand why these type of characters are so appealing to people who make movies like this, and #2 are we at a point where SMOKIN’ ACES is actually an influential film? Holy shit. I thought I was the only one who liked some parts of that.
But you know what? This BAYTOWN OUTLAWS isn’t bad. It won me over. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andre Braugher, Billy Bob Thornton, Clayne Crawford, Daniel Cudmore, DTV, Eva Longoria, Michael Rapaport, post-Grindhouse, rednecks, Travis Fimmel, Zoe Bell
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 28 Comments »
Monday, February 11th, 2013
I guess when THE 6TH DAY came out I was less loyal to Schwarzenegger than I am now. I thought it looked shitty, so I skipped it. And I kinda forgot I never watched it. But now I feel bad that nobody’s going to see the new Schwarzenegger and Stallone movies in theaters so I wanted to show my appreciation for their works by watching a movie from each of them that I skipped before.
With these low expectations THE 6TH DAY worked out well. It’s enjoyable lesser Arnold, clearly better than COLLATERAL DAMAGE and arguably more consistent than ERASER or END OF DAYS. It takes place in “the near future – sooner than you think,” when cloning is a thing. Cloning humans is illegal, but Re-Pets (clones of your dead pets that you can buy) are popular and Dr. Griffin Weir (Robert Duvall) has made strides in cloning human organs for transplants, though not without protest. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Arnold Schwarzenegger, clones, Michael Rapaport, Michael Rooker, Robert Duvall, Sarah Wynter, Terry Crews, Tony Goldwyn, Wendy Crewson
Posted in Action, Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 53 Comments »
Monday, September 17th, 2012
I always thought COP LAND was a sequel to WESTWORLD, but I guess it’s actually a police drama about a small town in New Jersey set up by the mob to shelter corrupt New York cops outside of the city limits. Could use some out of control robots obviously but otherwise it’s a good movie.
As the movie opens Freddie (Sylvester Stallone) is in a small diner where cops hang out, playing a cop-themed pinball machine. That’s how he spends his birthday. He’s drunk and can’t stop playing, is so into it he takes his sheriff keys to go open up a parking meter and get more quarters. This is him, playing a game at being a cop, watching the city cops talk, they get mad that he’s looking at them. And he can’t even hear what they’re saying anyway because he went deaf in one ear saving a drowning girl when he was young. It keeps him off the NYPD and makes him have to keep having people repeat things to him.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Annabella Sciorra, Debbie Harry, Edie Falco, Harvey Keitel, James Mangold, Janeane Garofalo, Malik Yoba, Method Man, Michael Rapaport, Paul Calderon, Peter Berg, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Robert Patrick, Sylvester Stallone
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 99 Comments »
Monday, August 20th, 2012
TRUE ROMANCE is an entertaining, uniquely textured crime movie, a celebration of youthful love, kitsch, Asian exploitation cinema, and great character actors. At the time it seemed like a new feel, especially coming from Tony Scott. Now it’s more notable as a record of young, undisciplined Quentin Tarantino manning the word processor. (Roger Avary was hired to restructure the original non-linear story and write an ending where the hero doesn’t die – yeah, that sounds like young QT all right.)
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brad Pitt, Bronson Pinchot, Chris Penn, Christian Slater, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, James Gandolfini, Michael Rapaport, Patricia Arquette, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, Saul Rubinek, Tom Sizemore, Tony Scott
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 43 Comments »
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
Despite the prestigious WWE Studios logo I had no reason to believe in this crime thriller starring the long-haired pro wrestler now credited as “Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque.” I looked up the director (Artie Mandelberg), he’s a TV guy going back to Moonlighting. The writer (Dylan Schaffer) had no credits before this one. I almost didn’t rent it, but I thought it was funny that ’90s indie queen Parker Posey was in a WWE movie. I forgot she’d already worked with Triple H in BLADE 3. Could they be on their way to becoming this generation’s William Powell and Myrna Loy? (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce Dern, DTV, Michael Rapaport, Parker Posey, Triple H, WWE Films
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 24 Comments »
Friday, February 5th, 2010
This is the kind of story that’s best to go in dark and just watch how things unfold. But I’m gonna have to describe some of it to explain the movie. At the start Jimmy (David Caruso) is on parole, he’s got a young daughter, and he and his wife (Helen Hunt) are both recovering alcoholics. She got a babysitter so they could go to a meeting together but he didn’t know that was the plan so he already went to a meeting by himself earlier. While he stays home watching the baby his cousin Ronnie (Michael Rappaport) shows up and begs him to come drive a truck loaded with stolen cars. Jimmy tries to throw Ronnie out (“I could go to jail just for talking to you”) but Ronnie has a broken finger and convinces his cousin that somebody’s gonna kill him if he doesn’t find a driver. And Jimmy’s the last on the list. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Barbet Schroeder, David Caruso, Michael Rapaport, Nicolas Cage, Philip Baker Hall, Richard Price, Samuel L. Jackson, Ving Rhames
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 52 Comments »
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
(this review has more spoilers than usual because there’s alot to analyze.)
BIG FAN is the directational debut of Robert Siegel, known obviously to most Seagalogists as the writer of THE ONION MOVIE. He was the editor for The Onion comedy newspaper, then left to write scripts. This one caught the attention of Darren Aronofsky, who was gonna direct it for a while until he decided to have Siegel write a wrestling picture instead.
This one does have some things in common with THE WRESTLER. Both are smartly written, observant, bleak dramas about working class dudes in sports subcultures that don’t usually get much respect. The premise sounds like a comedy: an obsessive sports fan has to decide what to do after getting beaten up by his favorite player. I can imagine the Adam Sandler or Rob Schneider vehicle they could make out of that, but this is more of a drama with some squirmy, uncomfortable chuckles here and there, kind of a minimalistic TAXI DRIVER type character portrait. And for those of us who have written extensively about aikido masters it brings to mind some disturbing hypothetical scenarios. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Kevin Corrigan, Michael Rapaport, Patton Oswalt, Robert Siegel
Posted in Drama, Reviews | 14 Comments »
Monday, August 19th, 2002
Hey folks, Harry here… I’m not allowed to say anything further about Vern, under penalty and threat of death… Knowing the rumors I’ve read about what Vern can do and organize to be done, I have great fear for the man known as Vern. Beware of Vern. Be Afraid… He’ll hurt you with laughter sometimes… sometimes with sledgehammers… You’ll see…
Dearest Harry and Moriarty,
I thought for a second there I discovered a movie you didn’t know about. But after a thorough study of your “search engine” device I found out that some other individual reviewed COMIC BOOK VILLAINS once when it played at Cannes (a popular french film festival). I read over the review though and I disagreed with almost every point he made. I’m not saying it’s BLADE 2 or even CITIZEN KANE, but it is a surprisingly good small straight to video type picture and I have reason to believe that Harry and others would enjoy it when it comes out September 3rd on the video and dvd type mediums. By others I mainly mean Moriarty, I guess. But I will get to the movie after this next paragraph which is just rambling and bullshit, etc. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Cary Elwes, Donal Logue, DTV, James Robinson, Michael Rapaport
Posted in AICN, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | No Comments »
Monday, October 16th, 2000
INTRODUCTION
Well this week it’s nothing but controversy in the world of arthouse type Cinema. Discussion and debate riddles the lobbies of select theaters nationwide. Limited releases bring unlimited disagreement in a platform type pattern across the great land of america.
Audiences are divided over which movie is more divisive, Dancer in the Dark or Bamboozled? Many love Dancer in the Dark, many hate it. Bamboozled has been called both a career destroying debacle and the year’s best film. However some feel that Bamboozled is really more provocative than divisive. Maybe Dancer in the Dark is dividing audiences, but is it provoking them? No matter how divisive it is, can it be as outrageous as Bamboozled? As explosive?
Well shit I don’t know. Personally I’m divided on both of these. I love ’em and I hate ’em. I think I love Dancer in the Dark a little more than I hate it and hate Bamboozled a little more than I love it. But I mean who knows I am so divided and provoked and outraged at their explosiveness that I don’t even know up from down anyway. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Björk, Damon Wayans, Jada Pinkett Smith, Lars von Trier, Michael Rapaport, Spike Lee
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Reviews, Vern Tells It Like It Is | 2 Comments »
