Posts Tagged ‘Tom Wright’
Monday, December 30th, 2024
I’m not fully acquainted with the filmography of John Sayles, but I’m pretty sure THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET is an outlier. It was 1984, so Sayles had already had his Roger Corman/exploitation beginnings (writing PIRANHA, BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, ALLIGATOR, THE HOWLING and THE CHALLENGE) and moved into directing his indie dramas (RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS 7, LIANNA, BABY IT’S YOU). Here he makes his only ever sci-fi movie as a director, but it’s not all that commercial. Supposedly the story came to him in a dream.
The most sci-fi part is the opening cockpit lights and bleeping sounds as the mysterious extra-terrestrial played by Joe Morton (CURSE OF THE PINK PANTHER) crash lands on earth. He loses a leg in the process and hops around in an abandoned church until he somehow grows it back. Since he’s missing one shoe we see that his feet have three big clawed toes, like a dragon, but otherwise he looks human. In the city he finds a replacement shoe in a garbage can and I wondered if he understood that was garbage or if he just assumed Earth has public shoe dispensers. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Cobbs, Caroline Aaron, Daryl Edwards, David Strathairn, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ernest Dickerson, Fisher Stevens, Giancarlo Esposito, Harlem, Jamie Tirelli, Joe Morton, John Sayles, Leonard Jackson, Liane Curtis, Michael Mantell, Reggie Rock Bythewood, Steve James, Tom Wright
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, February 9th, 2022
ALPHABET CITY is a unique, stylish little 1984 crime drama directed by Amos Poe, a New York City legend best known for co-directing the 1976 punk documentary THE BLANK GENERATION. This one’s only about 70% story and 30% ambience, but I kind of loved that about it.
It stars Vincent Spano (already in OVER THE EDGE, THE BLACK STALLION RETURNS and RUMBLE FISH, but still very young) as Johnny, a hot shot drug dealer who zooms around in a white Trans-Am (25th Anniversary Daytona 500 Edition according to Wikipedia) lording over the small area of the East Village named after its Avenues A through D. His license plate says “CHUNGA,” and I don’t know what it means, but it’s also his password when he knocks on the door at the crackhouse. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Amos Poe, Daniel Jordano, Fun City Editions, Jami Gertz, Kate Vernon, Kenny Marino, Michael Winslow, Miguel Pinero, Nile Rogers, Raymond Serra, Tom Wright, Trans Am, Vincent Spano, Zohra Lampert
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 1 Comment »
Monday, November 7th, 2016
“This ain’t a funeral home. It ain’t the Terrordome neither!”
Here’s a movie that’s very much of the ’90s. After BOYZ N THE HOOD, STRAIGHT OUT OF BROOKLYN, NEW JACK CITY, SOUTH CENTRAL, JUICE and MENACE II SOCIETY established the genre of the “hood movie,” FEAR OF A BLACK HAT director Rusty Cundieff decided to mix it with the format of the anthology horror movie. Like those other movies it’s a low budget indie movie trying to get across messages about issues facing the black community, but with Twilight Zone type ironic morals and some crazy special effects and stuff. Spike Lee (whose CLOCKERS came out the same year) acted as executive producer to help get it made.
The wraparound story takes place in Simms Funeral Parlor, where three young drug dealers meet with the crazy-eyed, puffy-haired, organ-playing weirdo (Clarence Williams III, PURPLE RAIN) who runs the place. He claims to have found a bunch of drugs in an alley, but before they can make a transaction he starts opening up coffins and telling them the stories of the occupants’ deaths. As you do. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: anthology, Corbin Bernsen, Darin Scott, David Alan Grier, De'aundre Bonds, Duane Whitaker, Joe Torry, Michael Massee, Roger Geunveur Smith, Rosalind Cash, Rusty Cundieff, Samuel Monroe Jr., Screaming Mad George, Spike Lee, Tom Wright, Wings Hauser
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 19 Comments »
Thursday, August 23rd, 2012
Do you guys know about this one? How come I never knew about it? Not that PAST MIDNIGHT – a 1991 thriller starring Natasha Richardson, Rutger Hauer and Clancy Brown that went straight to video in ’93 – is very good, but it holds an important enough place in cinematic history that I figure I should’ve heard of it before.
On his commentary track for TRUE ROMANCE, Quentin Tarantino talks about the time before he sold that script and directed RESERVOIR DOGS. He mentions a job at the production company CineTel, where he says he would do punch ups on scripts “which were really page 1 rewrites.” I don’t know if he’s exaggerating that part or not, but I’m sure it’s true that he rewrote a line here or there. So did any of those ever end up getting produced?
Yes, at least one did, and it is PAST MIDNIGHT, Tarantino’s first film credit besides production assistant on Dolph Lundgren’s MAXIMUM POTENTIAL workout video. Associate producer Catalaine Knell thought his contributions to the script were important enough that she shared her credit with him.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Clancy Brown, DTV, Natasha Richardson, Paul Giamatti, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Yeoman, Rutger Hauer, Ted D'Arms, Tom Wright
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 26 Comments »
