Giallo (2009) *

Giallo has to be one of the dumbest thrillers I've witnessed in a long time. It's a meandering piece of drivel filled with the typical cliches and twists that have filled the genre for the last fifty years, culminating in a climax that is not fulfilling and brings the film screeching to a halt you'll glad to achieve after the 90 minutes of claptrap. The film is about an ugly yellow killer, killing models while being pursued by a cop from New York (Adrian Brody). Add in some gore and a crappy script and you get the idea. I can't say much more about it other than it sucks. Cheers.

The Fog (1980) ***1/2

Antonio Bay is your typical water front town with all of its rich, vibrant history and colorful characters. The town is getting ready to celebrate it's 100th anniversary. Little does anyone know is that the towns founding was built on broken promises and murder. Tonight is the night for that revenge as a fog bank rushes into town, not causing a couple of fender benders and a terrible night for catch. This is a fog that carries those poor souls that were screwed over by the founders of Antonio Bay and boy are they upset.


The Fog is John carpenter's follow-up to Halloween and in many ways it follows the basic premise of that film in that this is a film that takes a generalized legend and builds a story around it. Halloween was basically about The Bogeyman and The Fog is about those sea legends that abound coast towns east and west. It's a simply film about a simple town populated by simple people such as the town priest (Hal Holbrook), the local DJ (Adrienne Barbeau), the town cheerleader (Janet Leigh), the town playboy (Tom Atkins), and who can forget the town drifter (Jamie Leigh Curtis). 


It's a basic ghost story film that is really interesting, yet fails at times , especially as we get closer to the ending. It doesn't stand up to Halloween, but it is a film that will keep your attention as the fog rolls into Antonio Bay. It's not perfect, but The Fog is an entertaining thriller.

Happy Birthday To Me (1981) *

Another entry into the early 1980's horror genre, Happy Birthday To me follows Virginia (Melissa Sue Anderson) and her group of friends who start getting killed off one by one in this lovely body count film from the people that brought you My Bloody Valentine. Poor Virginia has that age old problem of repressed memories and these images start coming to her just as her friends start dying in ways only available with latex and corn syrup. 


Not as bloody as its brethren of the era, this film is more psychological than gory horror as Virginia continues to crack up time and again. And guess who her doctor is? It's Glen Ford! What the hell is he doing in this garbage? Everyone needs a check. That's what this film is- garbage. A cheap exercise in cashing in on Halloween and Friday the 13th that fails to captivate like those movies did. This movie isn't even Prom Night. It's a little long for what it's worth and there is no real pay off throughout the film. Trans Am enthusiasts will be in awe over the 1976 T/A that says Turbo in the rear spoiler, yet has a standard shaker. Yeah, I know.

Jonah Hex (2010) **

Jonah Hex is almost like the little engine that could.It tries so hard to be a good movie, yet it fails to deliver. The film stars Josh Brolin as the title character, a scarred bounty hunter hired to stop his arch nemesis Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) and his plans to bring down a reign of terror on the United States. With his trusted prostitute Lilah (Megan Fox) Jonah uses his powers of talking to the dead to stop whatever evil has in store.

Deep down I feel that this movie could have been so much better than the finished product. Obviously, the script is what fails in this film. It clocks in 81 minutes, telling us that this was a rush job. there was no care in making this movie, just throw Brolin and Malkovich at each other and let her rip. The dialogue that we get is beyond terrible. The story is so full of holes and jumpy that it just feels empty, like something is missing. Megan Fox isn't horrible in this, but she isn't great either. Be it her acting or the script, we'll leave that one up in the air.

Jonah hex does have its moments here and there, although don't be surprised if you hate it. It's far from a good movie but it is an interesting take on the western genre. Enter this at your own risk.

Shoot The Hero (2010) 1/2

When Nate (Jason Mewes) and Kate (Samantha Lockwood) go into a jewelery store to buy a ring all hell breaks loose in a confusing and dull film that I can only describe as what happens when morons try to make Pulp Fiction. This movie clocks in at a little over 80 minutes. 80 minutes is the length for a film to officially be considered a feature. Watching the movie you can see where they padded to push that extra fifteen seconds out to make a full length film. The bad part about it is that it feels like 180 minutes. It's a mish mash mosh of nothing that falls on its face in the first few minutes. This movie is bad. bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. With a capital B.

Another 9 1/2 Weeks (1997) 1/2

I am not a fan of the original 9 1/2 Weeks, the film that made the term Skinemax an American institution of Pay TV naughtiness. It was soft core smut with a doily for a plot. 

It's no surprise that its sequel is an even worse piece of garbage than the original film. This is a film where they obviously said "We can get Mickey Rourke cheap!" The film follows John (Mickey Rourke) as he obsesses over Kim Basinger's character from the first film. He goes to an art sale in Paris where he meets Lea (Angie Everhart), an associate of his true love who knows too much about him and obviously wants to get it on with Johnny. Cat and mouse ensues featuring fully clothed sex scenes. Yeah.

From a script that is thrown together crap and acting that is just above a five year old reciting lines from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this film doesn't even deserve to be made, let alone viewed by the public. Rourke is a shell of an actor and the face to show it. if you feel like you're getting old check out Mickey in Angel Heart, then compare to this flick, then wrap it up with Iron Man 2. There is no grace in that movement. Angie Everhart can't act her way out of a paper bag. She's an eye candy actress, which is why she got the role in this clap trap. The problem is that she has to have lines and that's where the failure comes into play.

This movie is a good laugh from time to time. I left to use the bathroom and returned to a naked woman on an over sized roulette wheel getting wax poured on her. I could of checked into the explanation, but who cares. I just wanted to get it over with. Avoid this film at all costs.

Survival of the Dead (2009) ***

George Romero has spent a lifetime telling us the story of the day that the dead walked the earth. The original Dead trilogy (Night of, Dawn of, and Day of) are all classic films in a genre Romero literally created. There is more to them than brainless zombies consuming what's left of humanity. They're character pieces. How will certain people react to a situation like this. These are great movies. 

The last few Dead films from Romero have been lacking in the story or just the way they were made and the director has rounded out another trilogy of zombies with Survival of the Dead, a film that off shots from Diary of the Dead and represents something closer to Romero's original commentary style. 

The film begins on an island where one group is exterminating anyone who has become the undead while the other segment of the small population believes that they can be trained and saved. Eventually the leader of the pro-killing group is expelled from the island . In the meantime a rogue group of military personnel are looking for a place to hole up and stumble on this old man and his party robbing people and sending them to the island, because "they hate strangers". They return to the island and begin a struggle to determine who will be the dominate group of the island itself.

The film is a very basic premise and delivers its message that seems focused on our own belief systems. It's all there in black and white and as happens in most of these films, no one wins in the end. Except possibly the zombies. The main problem with the film is that there isn't much build-up. Most movies over do it to the extreme, whereas Survival of the Dead seems to be running too fast to its conclusion. It could have been built a little slower and a little better. 

Otherwise, this is a Romero film and it is still light years ahead of some of the slop coming out today. Anyone can do a zombie movie. Only George Romero can do a thought provoking film that just happens to have flesh eating dead people running around.

That Evening Sun (2009) ****

Abner Meecham (Hal Holbrook) is old school. His ideas and ways of thinking are his own and progress isn't going to change that one iota. The thing about old school is that it gets put out to pasture to eventually die and rot. That's what happened to Abner, shipped off to a nursing home to wait for his heart to give out. But being the old school kind of guy that Abner is he packs his suitcase and walks back to his farm; his home. It's at home that he realizes how far out to pasture he has been dumped because his farm is really his anymore. His son has leased it to Lonzo Choat (Ray McKinnon), an individual that Abner had little use for to begin with. Choat and his family are trying to make a start with something, though it's unclear whether Lonzo has the skill and drive to get anywhere with being a farmer. It's a kind of role reversal with Lonzo taking the main house and Abner refusing to leave the old sharecropper's shack because this is his home.


What That Evening Sun boils down to is a pissing contest between Abner and Lonzo. For Abner it was enough for his son to lease the place out from under him, but to this piece of trash it was a pure betrayal. In Lonzo's eyes Abner is still the same stuck up old fool that isn't willing to give him a chance and move on. It's time for him to be somebody instead of a drunken joke of a man. These two men banter back and forth trying to find a way to push each other over the edge and claim what they believe is theirs by rights. The sad part of the whole affair is that Chaot's wife (Carrie Preston) and daughter (Mia Wasikowska) are caught in the middle, balancing a drunken husband/father and a cynical old man out back. 


At the core of That Evening Sun is what is their to hope for? Are either of the sides in this pissing contest right? Does one deserve their prize over the other? Does deserve even have anything to do with it? In the end it isn't even about the farm. It's about who the competition represents. Holbrook and McKinnon play out their fierce struggle not with fists or weapons, but with words and a few actions that get close to the edge but never quite go over. They play off each other perfectly. 


The film could be about a great many things. Holding onto the old traditions. Passing the torch. What it boils down to is who believes they're owed that torch more. Each player has a hand on the bat, but neither are willing to let go. This is a nice film shot in those Tennessee farmlands that I just drove through a few weeks ago, though this film captures a lot more of the spirit as compared to my view from the highway and the Stuckey's. Holbrook is the core of this film and delivers a performance that will be akin to the other aging actors that have started playing the ages in recent years. A very good film that you've probably never heard of.

The 41 Year Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall And Felt Super Bad About It (2010) 1/2

I'm not going to waste a lot of time on this. It's one thing to do parodies of epics or horror movies, but this is a movie making parodies of comedies. How the hell do you satirize satire? The 41 Year Old Virgin proves you can't. Take any Judd Apatow related film from them last five years, get some bad actors, find a 9 year old to write the script and you have this fucking awful film. Thank god it was a freebie.

Dorian Gray (2009) *1/2

Young Dorian Gray (Ben Barnes) has come home to take over the household he was once tortured in. He meets an artist. He meets a lord (Colin Firth).He makes a deal with the devil where his evil goes into a painting of himself and he'll live forever. He turns into Wilt Chamberlain. The end.

 This is an excruciatingly dull film that goes nowhere other than Dorian's pants. It's almost an exercise in seeing how long you can stand watching this film that is steeped in jack the Ripper references but ends up going nowhere. I never read the original story but this film version is a boring two hour endeavor that eventually comes to the predicted climax. An honest to god waste of time.

The Killer Inside Me (2010) ***

The Killer Inside Me is a film that when it works works great, but when it stumbles it falls flat on its face breaking its nose and glasses. I pulp noir story centered in the middle of nowhere, the film is about Deputy Lou Ford (Casey Affleck), a public servant that appears to be a by the book kind of guy, doing his duty in the small town that needs him. What people don't see is that Lou is a troubled soul with demons in his past that are finally ready to boil over into his everyday life. This all starts when he's asked to remove a local prostitute (Jessica Alba) from town because of her indiscretions with a prominent businessman's son. Lou gets involved with her. Then an idea for revenge springs up. And then the demons appear and send Lou's life and sanity spiraling out of control.
The first half of the film has all of its ducks in a row as we see Lou degenerate from local savior to psychotic killer. The story could border on parody but doesn't and leaves a grim sense to the viewer that blends very nicely with the construction of the film. It's in the second half that the film falters into a mess that culminates in an ending that is executed in such a messy and unbelievable way that it almost ruins the picture.

Highly violent and provocative The Killer Inside Me is a nice piece of small town noir that builds to a climax that never arrives. It goes from being a great sleeper film to being filed away in movies you'll forget in a month.

Fred: The Movie (2010) no stars

Looking back I've realized how much time I've wasted on garbage movies that I'll never get back. I paid for a seat to see Showgirls. And Batman and Robin. I've sat through numerous blights on society that should have never been released to the unsuspecting public. I cringe thinking back on all of them. Every single one. All that background and all of those bad movies never prepared me for the bloody stool that is Fred: The Movie. 


I was not familiar with the whole Fred phenomenon before sitting down to watch this masterpiece of garbage. Fred is a You Tube legend that got his own movie, further proving that Hollywood is fucked. Fred is a screaming ass that ruins a perfectly good blank screen for one hour and twenty-two minutes. That entire time is Fred screaming. There's some plot about a girl and bullies, but that's in the background of this asshole screaming all the damn time. He does not stop, even to take a breath. My head hurt so much after viewing this calamity I though I had a tumor. I thought Fred gave me a tumor, aaaaaaarrrrggghhhhhh! I was cheering for the bullies to beat the shit out of this kid and I'm not talking a school yard beating. I wanted a Joe Pesci beating with broken guns and a fucking shine box.


What really amazed me was that Nickelodeon made this movie AND this dip shit as his own show? AND they're talking sequel!?!?! What the fuck is going wrong with this world? People talk about politicians being the anti-Christ, look at this nim rod that children are worshipping on-line and on TV. This is shit. Pure and simple. I can't even give this half a star. It deserves nothing, including the time I wasted on it unwillingly.

Diary of a Nymphomaniac (2008) *

Diary of a Nymphomaniac. That name just says it all, doesn't it? It's from IFC. It's a foreign film. I'm supposed to feel good about myself because I watched a foreign film, not all dirty and everything. This is art. Right?

Val (Belen Fabre) likes to screw. There's you're plot right there. No need to look deeper into the soul of this movie. This is European Skinemax. OK, you want more plot. How about very uncomfortable conversations with her grandmother about sex. "Grandma, was grandfather a good lover?". It was the worst case of the creeps I have experienced since watching The Exorcist for the first time. Need another plot point? Val decides to become a prostitute because of her need. That is the truth.

Of course all of this is presented in a nice, presentable manner that makes you feeling like you're watching this deep, heartfelt film. You are watching soft core porn. The plot is just thrown in to create some kind of story that fills in the gaps between sexual encounters. The dialogue is laughable at best, though that may be due to the translation. It's an after 11 woopee film. 

While She Was Out (2008) 1/2

What a piece of dog shit. This has to be the cheapest, most thrown together movie I have seen in a very long time. It's like crap sandwich week around here. If you like garbage, you're going to love this rotten movie.

Della (Kim Basinger) is a housewife. It's Christmas Eve and after her asshole husband comes home, commits some domestic violence, she goes to the mall to buy wrapping paper. The kids are in bed so either the kids go to bed at six o'clock or she lives near the only mall that stays open all night on Christmas Eve. She gets harassed by a group of thugs led by Creepy Witness Amish kid Lucas Haas, leading to them murdering a rent-a-cop before her eyes. She gets chased to the trashiest sub division under construction I have ever seen. There is just shit lying around everywhere. OSHA would have a field day in this place. She takes a red metal tool box with her and it's a fight for her life, though most of the film ends up in the woods. Blah, blah, blah.

I'm just going to list the problems with this movie. Just a list of shit I noticed while viewing it. 

1) This is the most ethnically diverse gang I've ever seen. You have the Hispanic guy, the Asian guy, the Black guy, and the Amish Kid. Does Affirmative Action count for street toughs?


2) The fact that said group of thugs are more like The Three Stooges than The Warriors. There is one scene where one of them falls and rolls like a damn bowling ball into the others that follow. I shit you not. We also can't forget that wonderful scene where one of them says "Let's split up." and they all go into the same fucking house! And who can forget how the first thug bites the bullet in this thing.


3) In the woods, why does Della keep following the flashlight? Wouldn't you go the other damn way? How many times does she have to stop and eavesdrop on what's going on? She's not Rambo or MacGyver. Run the other damn direction Vicki Vale.


4) Dead cell phone battery=cheap screenplay ploy on eliminating technology that would have ended most thrillers made before 1995 end in 20 minutes.


5) Finally, I'm going to talk about the damn tool box. That red metal toolbox she feels the need to cart around with her throughout the film. Now I own two tool boxes just like Della's. I'm hear to tell you that they are the loudest fucking things on the planet, especially when someone is trying to kill you. You look at them funny and they make banging noises from the tools inside. I challenge anyone to go for a run through the woods with one of these sons of bitches and try to hide from some sadistic guys wanting your head on a pole. It can't be done.And there can't be many tools in it either because she flings it around like it's her purse. 


Add in the crap acting, direction, and everything else you get a waste of 90 minutes. It's a good movie to make comments during, but other than that it's shit. Dog shit.

In Cold Blood (1967) *****

Truman Capote was sent to Kansas to write an article about the senseless murder of a family in their farm house in the middle of the night. What he brought back was the timeless novel In Cold Blood, telling that story and the stories of the two young men that were going to the gallows for that crime.

I've never read the source material, but I've seen both adaptations of Capote actually researching the novel (Capote with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Infamous with Toby Jones). Both docudramas are powerful pieces in their own right, but it's this film that is a masterpiece. It stars Robert Blake as Perry and Scott Wilson as Dick. These guys have both been to prison, each of them with dreams to follow. The thing about dreams is they need working capital, like a business. So in the dead of the night they follow a prison tale of a farmer and his safe, driving to the rural Kansas home. The next morning the family is dead. No safe. No money. No dreams.

We continue to follow the pair as the haphazardly make their way to Mexico for a little bit, but they come back because those dreams are so damn good. The inevitable happens. They make the mistake and Lady Justice takes over.

Before this film there were movies that followed the antagonists point of view, but In Cold Blood makes you sympathize with these two young murderers or in the very least Perry. Here's two men that slaughtered an entire family in their own home and we feel pity for them. They're lifetime losers and this was where the road they shared was heading for a long, long time. They were ticking time bombs. They were two chemicals that mixed together and tragedy followed. 

The movie is filmed as bleakly as the characters it shows us. Black and white in 1967 was very rare, but for this film it works for an added effect that would later be used by Scorsese in raging Bull and Spielberg in Schindler's List.There is no color because this life is colorless. There are no bright spots. Darkness is at the end of that tunnel, not that great light that everyone is talking about. This is a very beautiful film from director Richard Brooks.

This is one of those wonderful gems from the late 1960's that teetered between the old Hollywood and the new. This was before the ratings system, so hearing the word "bullshit" was an awe inspiring experience (this is the first Hollywood production that used it). In Cold Blood is a groundbreaking film that broke new ground and even though it didn't quite open the door for those great films of the 1970's we can say that it turned the latched and cracked it open a bit. This is one of the great films of the '60's.

Boogie Woogie (2009) *1/2

I

I am so sick of these fucking ensemble films. It was fresh and new in the '90's. Well here's a damn news flash: the '90's were ten years ago. Let's try to do something different or at least use a different structure. Instead we get a handful of people whose stories intersect each other at various times and places. I'm not complaining about that. I'm pissed because it's used to try to make a movie better than it actually is, which is the case with Boogie Woogie. Here's the plot: Christopher Lee owns a painting called the Boogie Woogie. Everyone wants to buy it in one way or another. All of those other people screw each other, literally or otherwise. That's the extent of this picture. Screwing. Everyone comes out screwed. The characters and the audiences. I spent a dollar and forty cents on this garbage and feel shafted myself. 

I'm not going to go over the cast because I just don't want to. Let's just say that they are too good to be in crap like this. It's becoming more and more common for high end Hollywood stars to do garbage by third rate studios in between big budget movies that have actually been nurtured. I'm not defending Hollywood, but let's face it.Going through reviews the low end films have been just as bad as the Hollywood product. Boogie Woogie follows in that trend. It's a movie about art that tries to be provocative, but it's not. It's just a slow, boring process where we run a title sequence, people act badly with bad dialogue and plot points, finally ending with the end credits and you can finally turn it off.

I try to avoid turning anything off. I will do myself by falling asleep, but that doesn't count. I'm talking about getting up and turning off the TV or leaving a theater. I can't do it. There's a movie sitting in my Blu ray right now that I said was a piece of shit a third of the way in, yet I'll probably finish it because I just have to know how bad this is going to be. It's like being a masochist. 

Sorry for going off on a tangent. Boogie Woogie is crap. You'll need a scorecard for the infidelity. You'll need a drink when it's over. You'll wonder how much bullshit was shoveled for so many good actors to be in a piece of shit like this. 

Just Wright (2010) *

Just Wright is a mess of a romantic comedy where the biggest star in the NBA Scott McKnight (Common) ends up inadvertently meeting physical therapist Leslie Wright (Queen Latifah) leading to McKnight to fall in love with... Wrights God-sister Morgan (Paula Patton). They are in love and get engaged. Then it hits. Scott's knee is screwed. He's laid up and Leslie becomes his physical therapist while Morgan dumps him because she really wants to land a superstar NBA player. I don't need to continue the rest of the plot because the rest of the film is cliche central.


Just Wright tries to be more than a romantic comedy by weighing it heavily with the basketball plot. I think they figured that guys would scream "Hey! It's Marv Albert!" when he's on screen (of course I thought "Hey, there's the guy that bites hookers!") It fails unless you're a hardcore NBA fan. Otherwise it opens well enough and then falls into the standard fold of fall in love, misunderstanding, redemption. You've seen it all before and you'll see it again.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) ***1/2

This year has been full of those movies with hunked out dudes trying to save sacred objects and stop creatures of the gods. Percy Jackson, Clash of the Titans, and now Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, a movie that is surprisingly better than these other two AND it is adapted from a video game, which is the kiss of death in the film world. 

Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) is an orphan who is adopted into the royal family and, as time passes, becomes a major warrior in the Persian army. He ends up being accused of murdering the king, who was the father he never had while learning the powers of a magical, time traveling dagger and the beautiful keeper of said dagger (Gemma Arterton). The goal is to redeem his name to his brothers and uncle and figuring out this royal conspiracy.

I know, I know. By hearing the plot the movie sounds like B-Grade trash, but it actually works very well on the screen. Prince of Persia doesn't fall into that typical video game adaptation cliche of looking like the video game. I'm sure there are some homage shots, but they don't glare out at you like other films (Doom) that feel the need to look like something at an arcade. Do they still have arcades other than Chuck E. Cheese?

The acting isn't bad and when you realize that Ben Kingsley is in this you're amazed out how everyone else can at least keep up. The effects are well done, yet they don't over power the film except during the end when it's almost like a hard drive exploding on the screen. It's a techno mess trying to figure out what the hell is going on. This is really the only problem with the film is the ending. It gets a bit messy.

It's a nice action/adventure piece that isn't as bloated as the other two films that I mentioned earlier. It has a simple plot, simply shot, and it works more than those films. It's a nice popcorn flick that doesn't try to be an overblown piece.

Catwoman (2004) 1/2

Wow. I was stunned watching this movie. It was mesmerized. I was in awe. How in the hell can a studio make a film that is sort of a spin off to a dead franchise, yet has nothing to do with the rebooted franchise. That's the first major problem with this film. How can you do a film featuring a Batman villain without Batman? You can't. It will fail every time. 

The other major problem is the film is crap. I'm talking legendary crap. From 2004 on people have said "I'm going to go take a Catwoman!" when going to the bathroom to defecate. The plot is silly as hell with Catwoman (Halle Berry) being resurrected by cats after being murdered by a poor man's Bond villain (Sharon Stone) who runs an evil cosmetics company.

Yes, I said evil cosmetics company. Shit. Pure shit.

So she's Catwoman. Revenge. The end. I have never seen such putrid garbage. Shot like a crap MTV video with seizure like qualities, there is no direction in this film. Just a bunch of cuts with crappy acting and even crappier characters. This film is such a waste of time, money, neurons, anything that went into this film was a waste. Somewhere in this world someone died in a car accident going to see Catwoman and that is the worst fucking tragedy in the world. No, there is another tragedy. Dying on the way home from seeing Catwoman. 

Love Is The Drug (2006) ***

Jonah (John Patrick Amedori) is like a lot of kids out there. He's one of those kids that goes to a private school because his mom works here ass off so that he can get into a good school. He's not really an outcast, he's just not there. Once the school year has ended Jonah gets the nerve to go to an end of school party and actually talk to the girl he was quietly in love with throughout his time in school, Sara (Lizzy Caplan). Sara is part of a small clique with her boyfriend Troy (Jonathon Trent), the typical high school asshole Lucas (D.J. Cotrona), and her best friend Erin (Jenny Wade) where drinking and doping like a rock star is standard practice. They slowly allow Jonah to cling to their team after they find out about his job at a pharmacy. His status grows within the group as he supplies the party supplies and gets pulled into the excess of a teenager in Los Angeles. Things come crashing to the ground when Troy overdoses and the questions over Jonah's intentions toward Sara begin to fester.

Initially the film starts as a basic kid fitting in film where Jonah uses his position to get in with the in-crowd. As the film passes it becomes something darker with characters that get creepier and creepier as the movie unfolds. It actually becomes an interesting movie, even though it does get a bit melodramatic at points. Some scenes are very good, meanwhile others are almost laughable from a dialogue standpoint. There are a few points that will leave you scratching your head, such as the what I can assume is a detective that Troy's parents hire to figure out who gave their son the drugs. This guy seems to have free reign throughout the film to stalk people and walk right into homes. For kids who are rebellious and such I would expect a big F-off to this guy, yet they cooperate more with him than with each other.

Borrowing a name from a Roxy Music tune (I'm assuming that the film makers got sued because it has been re-titled as Addicted To Her Love) the film is interesting and develops quite well, yet there's a ton of little things that just drag it down. Once it starts getting real good, there's something ridiculous that pulls you right out of it again. The way we remake stuff, this would make good fodder in about a decade. It just needs a bit of polish.

Dick Tracy (1990) **1/2

Dick Tracy was an answer to Tim Burton's Batman. "We can do comic book movies, too. Hell, Tracy was older than Batman. Give the guy a chance. So Disney backed legendary playboy Warren Beatty in making Dick come to the big screen.

The film is a buffet for the eyes with some great backgrounds and set design that just jumps out and screams "look at me!". The costuming is also very good, though they did go a bit overboard with the primary colors. Then there's the wonderful make up effects. Don't forget that Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman are in this, too. So what could be the problem?

The main issue with Dick Tracy is the title character, or we can go deeper and say it was the portrayal of said character. Beatty really doesn't give us much with the role. It's more like "Hey, I'm the guy on the poster, look at me!" The thing is that I got dulled by Dick Tracy. He really doesn't do much except get into traps and get into more traps and get into some trouble to boot. That was ok in the serial world, but as a full length movie it falls flat quick. If your title character sucks, then there isn't much hope for the movie as a whole.

It is a good film for the kiddies to see, unless you're offended by the almost spanking scene. Like I said, it's a colorful piece that is an achievement on that front. It's almost the mirror image of that 1989 Batman movie. This is colorful while that film is dark and gray, but the characters in Batman are actually interesting, whereas in Dick Tracy they're just there. And this must be the film where Pacino began yelling all the time, too. 

The Burning Plain (2008) ***1/2

The Burning Plain opens with a trailer in the middle of the desert that is engulfed in flame. It just sits there, an inferno with a background that John Ford would be proud of. We come to find out that there were two people in the blaze: Gina (Kim Basinger) and Nick (Joaquim de Almeida). They were in the throws of passion when the propane tank exploded. The two were married. But not to each other. Out of the ashes Nick's son (J.D. Pardo) and Gina's daughter (Jennifer Lawrence) develop a romance after satisfying the curiosity of what each lover was like. As time passes we're introduced to Sophie (Charlize Theron), a restaurant manager whose life has turned into a series of meaningless sex acts and self mutilation. 

The funny thing about The Burning Plain is how it surprises you.  You expect the main focus to be Basinger's relationship or Theron's loss of life, but at the central core of the film isn't a couple playing in the desert, put how their children help each other cope and eventually create what was destroyed in that trailer in the desert. That's the most interesting story. Through all the odds and animosity they hold it together. 

Even though it's not a perfect film, it does hold ones interest with a story that spans time and how it will catch up with you . It is more tragedy than romance, so don't go into this expecting Nicholas Sparks garbage. This is actually well written and acted with a sense for detail. A nice film.

Powder Blue (2009) **

Powder Blue is one of those films that takes a group of separate people, tell their story, and then tie it all together in the end. It all started with Magnolia and in the last decade plus everyone wants to do it. The thing about Powder Blue is that it tries to be one of those films, but the structure is haphazard at best. The core character in the film is Rose Johnny (Jessica Biel), your typical stripper with a drug problem who also happens to have a dying son in the hospital. Next we have Jack (Ray Liotta), a guy that just go out of the clink, picks up a briefcase full of bills, and goes out to right the wrongs that have happened in his life. Attach to that Qwerty (Eddie Redmayne) the son of a dead mortician who is drowning in bills. Finally we get to Charlie (Forrest Whittaker) who is driving around seedy areas of town carrying fifty grand for the one person that will shoot him in the heart.

It's a fine cast. That's not really the problem.  It's just that we've seen it all before. The stripper trying to save her kid. The father that regrets a life of not being there. The main core of the film is standard film fodder, leaving the morticians story, which isn't much of a story at all other than finally serving its purpose in the third act of the film. This brings us to Charlie's saga that is pasted to the rest of the film near the beginning and then refusing to intersect again. It's an interesting story, but what it has to do with the rest of the film is a mystery to me. It would have made a fine separate film instead of being an added attraction to the club standard that the rest of the film appears to be.

This is a basic, paint by numbers film that doesn't really do anything above and beyond the norm. There is a very creepy Patrick Swayze in this that blows the mind in his filth and vulgarity that could interest some. Otherwise this is a film that tries to be more than what it is and fails at it. 

Across The Hall (2009) *

Shall I be honest with you? I think I will. There's a plot twist in the middle of the movie. The thing about this plot twist is that I guessed said plot twist reading the back cover of the DVD. This is a better move than my Matchstick Men trailer prediction. So be warned for some predictability.

Across the Hall follows the adventures of Terry (Danny Pino) as he sits in a hotel room across the hall from his fiance June (Brittany Murphy) who is engaging in carnal knowledge behind his back.  Julian is hung up on this girl to the point that he steals his friend Julian (Mike Vogel) gun and plans on using it on the happy couple. It's up to Terry to keep Julian calm over the phone until he can arrive and help defuse the situation.

This was originally a short film expanded into a full length feature. I haven't seen the short but it probably works better than this mess. I'm willing to bet that you can guess the twist from my synopsis above. That's fine. I tried. 

This is low budget suspense at its finest, meaning it sucks. Horrible acting and characters doing stupid things all around. Let's be honest- if a guy comes into your hotel and demands the room across the hall from the woman that he was checking the ledger for you should just take his money and then call the cops because they're just going to show up anyway. It's used as a plot device later in the film (poorly) so let's not spoil it. I could say that the acting is horrendous, but I can't tell if it's the actors or the script. This is expanded garbage that tries to be inventive but outsmarts itself by not remembering that audiences are looking for that twist. This isn't 1980 anymore. It's a new millennium, act like it. If you like to play an easy guessing game then this is the film for you.

St. Trinians (2007) **1/2

St. Trinians is a private school for girls. Bad girls. Very bad girls led by their very bad head mistress (Rupert Everett). They make their own vodka, place bets, cheat, steal, and not quite kill. It's the last resort when your daughter's been tossed from every other boarding school in Britain.

Of course the usual things happen in a movie like this. A new girl (Tallulah Riley) shows up and isn't accepted, then accepted by her classmates. There's a dilemma in which the school's going to be closed unless they pull off a master plan. Hilarity ensues. Typical plot for a story such as this. It is a little comical with all of the Colin Firth references, considering he's in the movie as a minister of education. 

The film also features Russell Brand and Stephen Fry, but since this is a PG-13 film Brand can't rock out with his junk out as with Sarah Marshall and Get Him To The Greek and Fry's character is basic fodder for a game show sequence.

One thing I will say for St. Trinians is that everyone appears to have had fun making the film and it shows on the screen. That helps it a bit, but it still can't dig itself out of the fact that we've since this before countless times. St. Trinians is a nice film for pre-teens and is mildly enjoyable for adults, but it's nothing special.

The City Of Your Final Destination (2009) **

The City Of Your Final Destination is a flat, dull film that spends its entire running time sitting in neutral, refusing to go anywhere at all. Omar (Omar Metwally) wants to write an autobiography of a famed one hit wonder writer, but needs the authorization of the dead writers wife (Laura Linney), brother (Anthony Hopkins), and mistress (Charlotte Gainsbourgh). They send him a letter and refuse. Now this should be then end of the movie because you then write the unauthorized biography like Kittey Kelly. Omar's a nice guy and decides to travel to Latin America from Kansas and plead his case. The wife is quite cold, the brother is on his side, and the mistress falls in love. Conflict ensues. Oh, did I mention Omar already had a girlfriend (Alexandra Maria Lara).

There are two problems with this film. The first is that the script drags like the muffler of a 1983 Chevette. It just sits there like a great gob of slime, jiggling all over but not going anywhere. There are some nice scenes and some really bad ones. The premise of the film is inane in the facts that it wouldn't matter of he had their permission anyway. It's not like they offer up much help in the first place, other than showing him the gondola in the boathouse. And what about that title which has nothing to do with the film, unless you can tack it onto two of the supporting characters. I don't know if The Gondola was already taken or not, other than being a nice sandwich at Avanti's in Bloomington (shameless product placement). It's a weak story that tries to be an epic. An epic what? It's not quite a coming of age story and it's not quite a romance. It's just a movie. A boring one.

The second problem is in the acting. If you're going to cast Laura Linney and Anthony Hopkins in a movie please get a cast that can at least keep up with them. Some of these scenes are an embarrassment for the actors that have to share screen time with either of the two. Linney's character is rather cold so we don't miss her as much when she's off screen, put Hopkins' portrayal leaves us missing him when he's not there and we're left with the hacks. It's very painful to watch.


So other than a couple of decent performances in this film it's an overall waste of time. It's not the worst film I've seen in awhile, but it's not even close to being one of the best either. Weighing it totally, this film is a boring, forgettable piece that will probably be a minor asterisk in the careers of a couple of good actors and the peak for a couple of bad ones.

 

Solitary Man (2010) ****

Solitary Man opens with Ben Kalman (Michael Douglas) at his peak. Life is good and it's only going to get better for the BMW dealer of the greater New York area. He's at the doctor, bragging about his wife (Susan Sarandon) when he finds out that he needs some tests. There's some concern about his health. 

We jump to six years later. Ben is divorced. His dealerships are all gone, lost in a scheme that almost sent him to jail. He's reduced to borrowing money from his daughter and playing gigolo to rich divorced women for their connections. When his current flame (Mary-Louise Parker) gets ill, Ben is recruited to accompany her daughter Allyson (Imogen Poots) to a college interview at a school that just happens to have a library named for him. If things couldn't get any worse for Ben, it's this trip to his old school that really tests the way his life has turned out and the direction he is going. 

Solitary Man is the story of one mans mid life crisis. There seems to be a point in everyones life where they decide to say "Fuck it" and do what they want to do or, in some case, what they think they want to do. It's the life is too short attitude for Ben. The only problem is that his choices have been crap, even though he appears to be living the dream with a good line of bullshit to boot. The question that Ben never asks himself throughout the film is "was it worth it?". Did going to the extreme benefit his life in any way? Was the grass really greener? Ben may be surrounded by people and have a good line of BS, but he's really all by himself. His crisis has created a shell that nobody gets through. Michael Douglas is perfect in this role and the entire film is a great piece of film making that I feared that was a little over burdened by its cast and subject matter. My worries were unfounded  with this good film. It's one of the better things to see in 2010.

Helen (2009) ***

Helen (Ashley Judd) is an accomplished music professor. She has a wonderful daughter (Alexia Fast). She has a great marriage to her lawyer husband (Goran Visnjic). Even with all of these things going for Helen, she feels like her life is spinning out of control. At first it's a chore to get out of bed. That soon turns to it becoming a chore to be alive at all. As Helen crumbles so does her life. She loses her wonderful job. Her ex-husband refuses her a chance to see her daughter. The relationship with her husband crumbles. She is in a perpetual spiral with no way to hit the brakes, allowing everything to go down the drain. The only thing that seems to help is a former student (Lauren Lee Smith) who knows what Helen is going through. She helps her get through the bad times unlike anyone else in her life.

The film is  a very poignant piece displaying the way depression can literally eat away someones life like a cancer. The film is a bleak excursion so don't expect anything light hearted. There is no comic relief in this film. Ashley Judd delivers a high caliber performance as the title character and gets wrapped into the gray cocoon that is Helen's life. She pulls off a very good performance that many people have overlooked because this film didn't get to much exposure upon its release. 

Now while I thought the film was well acted, the story comes up short in many departments. Once again i have to go to predictability and cliched. What was a fresh piece that really hasn't been touched before is tarnished by many of those old age Hollywood throw ins that we can see coming a mile away, particularly the ending. There's also the treatment that Helen gets as she declines into the abyss. This is a woman who is clinically depressed and ready to end it all at any moment, yet throughout the film you never see her talk to a psychiatrist once. There's a woman in a lab coat that comes off more like a bitch than a therapist. Amazingly the only treatment they really push is shock therapy. We know that did R.P. McMurphy good. I would have been happy with a scene where Helen tells a therapist to go to hell instead of leaving that part of treatment out all together. For me that was a big point where the film stumbles on itself.

As a whole Helen is a middle of the road film. There's some great things about it and some failures, too. It's not a fun experience for sure and it does deliver an emotional punch.

Cabin Fever (2002) 1/2

I'm still trying to figure out Cabin Fever. Was it a horror film or a comedy? Someone explain this to me. The film has some great horror visuals, yet doesn't take itself seriously at all to the point that it seems like a parody film within itself leading to a dreadful experience that is more camp than horror.

Going through the movie you get a ton of homages to previous horror films. By a ton I mean a shitload. These winks into the past are OK occasionally, but when you stockpile them one like sale toilet paper it also gives the feel of a parody film. The plot is that five friends go into the woods to a cabin (Evil Dead). They stop by a rustic convenience store with odd owners (Texas Chainsaw Massacre). They encounter an odd child sitting in a swing (Deliverance) and eventually wind up fighting off a flesh easting something that slowly eats their skin away (insert any Romero film title here). 

Of course this is done very tongue in cheek. Or is it. It's hard to tell because some scenes are very good from a horror genre standpoint, but others are so campy it's like something from an Ed Wood film. If Ed Wood was alive today he would have made Cabin Fever. The characters are all stereotypical horror film stock, even the local yokels who are low rent Deliverance rejects. There are a few interesting plot twists that you don't see coming, but those are drowned out by scenes like the "Pancakes!" scene that is probably the stupidest scene I have seen in a film in a very long time. It's so out of place it looks like an out take. The main problem with the film is that it's full of these scenes. Just when you're getting into the movie for what it should be you get hit from some insanely idiotic scene that ruins it. Pancakes is the epitome of those scenes. 

There are parts of Cabin Fever that I really enjoyed. I really did. The thing is that the stupid portions of the film overshadow what was actually good about it. I don't know if the filmmakers were afraid they would be called an Evil Dead rip off if they didn't do something different. I hate to sound like a fuddy duddy but different isn't always better. I was contemplating give this zero stars, but it still had those glimmers during the film and I feel generous. If you enjoy a nice C-grade horror film that will give you the WTF face then enjoy Cabin Fever. It may still have a bit of a pulse because of it.

Marmaduke (2010) 1/2

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Marmaduke follows in the in the fine traditions of comic strip films such as Garfield. Yes, it sucks. It really sucks. Drunken falls down a flight of stairs are more enjoyable than this horrible film. It's true. It's true.

The film is narrated by our title character Marmaduke (Owen Wilson). He's a big, pain in the ass dog. Wait! Owen Wilson in a movie about a big, pain in the ass dog? Never seen that one before. His family moves to California and Marmaduke hangs out at a dog park, becomes a big shot, falls, has a party, and ends up bringing everything together in the end. 

Now dog movies are usually not good to begin with. Marmaduke takes the definition of bad and re creates it into something that was never intended by man or machine. I know it's a kids movie, but come on. The plot is just terrible. There is a surfing competition AND dogs playing a dancing video game. And where are all the other owners? The only people in this dog park appear to be Marmadukes owner and William H. Macy. Why did you do it William H. Macy!?!?! They have a garage filled with electronics equipment? It's seems as if they just took pieces of ideas and pasted them all together. With dung.

If you are into brainlessly staring at the screen for 88 minutes this is the film for you. Any film would be the film for you. In closing, it sucks.

Cemetery Junction (2010) ****

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Cemetery Junction is a coming of age tale that has this weird, slight hint of Stand By Me and another weird hint of A Clockwork Orange. Three friends (Tom Hughes, Christian Cooke, and Jack Doolan) cavort throughout a small English town raising hell and trying to get laid on a nightly basis. Each has a distinctly different personality: one is a rebel with a cause, namely rebelling against his fathers passiveness, another is obsessed with working a starting a future that has no future, and the third is the nerdy guy who can't compute around the female of the species. The thing about the three is that while each one of them is taking different paths they really don't know where they're going. They're basically identities that don't have an identity yet.


This is a well made film from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant that while it has some funny moments isn't really a comedy. There's some movie cliches in the film, but it's executed in a fresh way by the creators and the actors in the film. The message in the film outweighs some of the typical movie moments. A very good film from across the Atlantic.

 

Harry Brown (2009) ****

Movies are filled with people who are pushed over the edge. They've been through one hell or another and finally, through some event beyond their control they ultimately snap. The good guy ends up doing bad things and the audience loves every minute of it. It can be done well, such as with The Outlaw Josey Wales or Death Wish. It can be done poorly as in *gulp* I Spit On Your Grave. Once again, another name goes on the list of movie characters that aren't going to take anymore shit. 

Harry Brown stars Michael Caine as the title character who lives in a crime infested estate in London. Crime dictates life. It is something to be avoided in the neighborhood because when it gets right in your face it's never a pretty sight. Harry has just lost his wife to illness and his best friend (David Bradley) is murdered by thugs in a pedestrian walkway. The old adage rises: never cross a man who has nothing to lose. Harry begins to pick off the perpetrators in a professional, yet sadistic matter that he learned as a Royal Marine in Ireland. Inspector Frampton (Emily Mortimer) is the on Harry's trail, yet the support she gets is nil because, let's face it, Harry's an old man.

When you look at the basic plot of Harry Brown the first thing that will pop in your head is Death Wish 3. On the surface it is basically the same plot of a guy whose friend is killed by thugs and said guy does what he does best in eliminate the scum in the tenement. When you dig deeper than the trailers and the initial presumptions of the film the differences between the two become abundantly clear. Death Wish 3 is a comic book film where Charles Bronson is a perfect shot, a perfect killing machine with over the top villains and over the top weapons. Bronson, an aging man moves like a man in his thirties (not this man, but I digress). Harry Brown is a grittier film where our protagonist is flawed. Age has caught up with him and his ailments are his weaknesses. He's not perfect, but experience has allowed him to cruise out of a situation as opposed to being perfect all the time unless it helps forward the script. The thugs are kids who act like wild west gunman and the cops are just there except for Mortimer's character who is a righteous entity throughout the film. 

Michael Caine delivers a great performance. Early in the film he exhibits his pain over the two deaths he has to deal with and the contemplation over what to do next. He never planned on any of this and shows what the character would be feeling at any given moment , including the cold, calculating bastion of vengeance as the film carries on. Yes, Caine is a bit old for a film of this sort, but he pulls it off perfectly because he doesn't try to be that vengeful gun slinger on earth. Just as Clint Eastwood did in Gran Torino, Caine understands that a man of his age has to know his limitation and shows them on screen.

I have been looking forward to seeing Harry Brown ever since seeing the initial trailers months ago, but never made it to theater because a foreign film never plays around here. Hell, The Departed on played here for a week and it was an Oscar winner. Harry Brown delivers as a film without being unrealistic and too preachy. A good action piece that actually features great acting and a plot that has been used before buy told from a point of view that is fresh on the screen.

Furry Vengeance (2010) 1/2

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I was looking at some trivia for Furry Vengeance and noticed that Steve Carell was attached to this film at one time, but stepped away to do something else. Steve, you are one lucky bastard. You missed out on what is easily on of the worst films of the year. This is a movie so awful it deserves to be sent to either the bottom of some sea trench, never to be seen again or shot into the sun, burned in amazing flames as it draws nearer and nearer. We can forget that this ever happened and gain something to watch that would be much more enjoyable than the film itself. If they handed out statues of just Oscar's ass then this would win top prize.

The plot: a developer (Brendan Fraser) heads out to the sticks to destroy a forest and replace it with a sub division. The animals get pissed and go to war, the end. Simple plot. Something we've seen before. How can you screw this up? Oh, ladies and gentlemen, you can screw this up. You can bathe it in toilet water. You can pour gasoline on it and pray that in some small way nature will do the rest so that you don't have that responsibility hanging over your head. 

So how do you screw this up? This is a kids film? How can you blow a kids film? The way you screw up a film like this is the animals are not very approachable. You never root for the animals because they appear as sadistic as they act. Think about Bugs Bunny for a minute. He does some sick things to people, heinous things that would have him locked up with Hannibal Lecter and Paris Hilton. The thing is that he gets away with it because he's Bugs Bunny. He's likable. You can root for Bugs to cause Yosemite Sam to shoot himself in the head. The animals in Furry Vengeance do not have that going for them. They almost looked diseased in a way, like they're dead inside. Hell, maybe it's bad CGI but when you lose the audiences sympathy to the animals plight you might as well be making a You Tube video. It's a failure.

I wish that I could say that at least kids will like this one, but they don't. There are more interesting things for children available, like Civil War documentaries and watching the grass clippings turn brown. I started this film with five people and I was the only one left either in the room or awake by the earth shattering climax of this film. This is a crap film that is a pure, dismal failure. Enjoy.

Group Sex (2010) 1/2

Let's face it. The only redeeming thing about this film is what I can do with the title. "Hey, I'm writing a review about Group Sex!" "I saw Group Sex at the video store!" "I watched the Fonz and Tom Arnold involved in Group Sex!" Other than making cheesy sentences using the title like a 13 year old boy there is nothing really worth noting in Group Sex.

The first thing that should be a dead give away that a film is going to be crap is when you're watching the credits and see the name Tom Arnold on the screen. That belief holds true throughout this horrible film about a guy that sees a beautiful singer at a bar, stalks her to a group meeting for sex addicts. This is your typical recipe with out hero being a nice guy, his roommate who is a sex maniac, and all of the typical horned up people you would expect at a sex addicts support group, such as the fun with foods woman and while we're on the food topic, there's the chronic masterbater who uses everything from relish to white out to work his mojo. The problem is that it's not funny. There isn't one laugh in this film other than myself laughing because I saw this piece of shit for free. I feel bad for you suckers out there that actually paid to see this movie. This film is a waste of time and wear and tear on your viewing equipment. Let me just say that if this film was released on VHS I would leave it laying out in the car on a hot summer day to put it out of its misery. You can do better than this flick. Make a flip book out of a post it note pad or something. Stick people are more entertaining than this.

City Island (2009) ****

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The Rizzo household is full of secrets. Vince (Andy Garcia) is out "playing poker", but he's actually too embarrassed to admit that he's taking an acting class. His wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies)thinks he's having an affair and lets it drive her crazy. Vince's daughter Vivian (Dominik Garcia-Lorido) is home from school on break, not alerting her parents that she had been suspended and was saving up for her tuition by stripping. Their son Vince, Jr. (Ezra Miller) is into looking at chicks on the internet. Sounds normal? Well, he likes looking at overweight girls being fed. Add on top of all this the con Tony (Steven Strait) that Vince brings home on an early release that he feels is his duty due to something way back in his past. You know that this many secrets are going to unravel at some point. 

The other star in the film is City Island itself, a small fishing village that sits between Manhattan and the Bronx.It's like Martha's Vineyard between these two great seas of humanity. You get a closed in feeling as the characters keep running into each other, almost spilling the secretes each one bears. The cast is particularly good with Andy Garcia deliver one of his best performances in years (yes, better than Pink Panther 2) playing the prison guard/struggling actor. City Island is another one of those ensemble comedies that hinges on its cast. The cast in one of these films can either make or break it and City Island scores because of its cast and a nice little story that isn't preachy, isn't too ridiculous, and can be moving at times without being a total sap fest. It's one of those little films out there that outshines the schlock Hollywood is deliver in brown paper bags every Friday.

The Expendables (2010) ***1/2

Let's journey back 25 years ago. It's an era where every action movie had a (insert geographic location here) dictator was ruthlessly dictating people who couldn't defend themselves. So it came down to big, muscular good guys to swoop down there and kick the living hell out of the dictator and his cronies. What would follow is an orgy of violence and mayhem for about an hour and forty minutes the likes you had never seen before. Aah, those were the days.

Now we'll return to today and a film called The Expendables that returns to those glorious days of yesteryear in which small, forgotten countries who have become overrun with political failures and ruthless governing are once again getting their ass kicked. The main difference is that instead of one guy, as was the case in the 1980's, you have a team of bad asses. The Expendables are led by Barney Ross (played by '80's one man army Sylvester Stallone). They're mercenaries that pull off jobs for the bread, if the bread is right. The remainder of the team is filled out with an action film who's who: Jason Stratham, Jet Li, Steve Austin, the legendary Dolph Lundgdren, and who can forget the cameos by Bruce Willis and a certain governator we know from back in those days. They're main objective is to take out a third world dictator (David Zayas) and the agency man that controls this puppet (Eric Roberts). Explosions ensue.

The Expendables is not going to be up for any Oscars or Golden Globes or anything like that. It's an action piece- an old school action piece that has very little in the way of plot, yet is entertaining as hell. It's nice to get an action film in this day that doesn't involve either a gimmick or some kind of plot twist during the film. Every '80's action movie film cliche is in this movie so you won't be surprised if you have ever spent any time wading through that decade. This is a movie that doesn't make you think, it's a movie that will mesmerize you like an infant with its loud noises and numerous colors and explosions. It is an orgy of violence. I've used that term to describe A Clockwork Orange, so let me elaborate. Clockwork uses violence like a surgeon uses a scalpel, perfectly placed where needed. This film uses it like making a margarita in a blender- just hit the button and let it be. 

So while it's not the greatest film out there The Expendables is a nice piece of entertainment that succeeds in what it promises to deliver. No more and no less.

The Losers (2010) ***1/2

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The Losers are one of those military outfits that none of those know about and members of Congress shouldn't ask about. There's the Colonel, Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the tech geek Jensen (Chris Evans), the bad ass Roque (Idris Elba), the driver Pooch (Columbus Short), and the sharpshooter Cougar (Oscar Jaenada). They're your typical, well rounded covert operations unit. The thing is that during a routine mission to take out a drug lord they end up getting burned by their CIA handler named Max (Jason Patric), who is also a psychopathic arms dealer. Thought to be dead The Losers leech onto society in Central America until Aisha (Zoe Saldana) gives them the opportunity to get even with Max and his operation.

First things first, The Losers is based on a comic book so you're going to have to suspend reality a bit when watching this movie. This isn't a built up political thriller and it doesn't need it. That would just water down what this film is, which is a hard boiled action film. This is the kind of flick that you grab some popcorn and just bask in its glow. It's not a pure orgy of violence, but it's a fun movie to watch that doesn't bore you nor preach to you until you want to bury your head in the popcorn bucket. I will give some props to Jason Patric as Max, who plays what could have been a great James Bond villain. In comparison he beats all the Bond baddies since Christopher Walken played another Max 25 years ago.

The Losers is like a great roller coaster that has no redeeming value except to entertain. it doesn't try to be more than it really is and it delivers a fast paced action film. Sure it's cliched, but sometimes that's not a bad thing when executed right.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) **1/2

Any edge that the first two Mad Max films had was dulled to nothing in this third chapter of George Miller's apocalyptic saga of scavenging for fuel and Aussie accents. In this installment Max (Mel Gibson) ends up in Barter Town searching for his stolen camels. He ends up working for Aunty Entity (Tina Turner), the Hillary Clintonesque leader of the village. She wants Max to eliminate her competition called Master Blaster, which happens to be an old midget riding on the back of a retarded giant. They have a little tumble in Thunderdome, the Judge Judy of Barter Town and when Max gets a tad bit of humanity back and refuses to kill this defenseless big guy, he's forced into the desert tied to a mule to die. He stumbles onto a group of kids ala Lord of the Flies who want to go to Tommorrowland (I hope they get Park Hopper) and it's up to Max to save them for their trip to wherever the hell it is they want to go.

The simplicity was what let the first two films be so damn good, especially the second act. They were basic. A lone guy out on his own trying to maintain himself, yet he allows a certain moral code to prevail. With Thunderdome we get that political undertone which always kills a movie that isn't set in Washington (Phantom Menace anyone?) The idea that these kids are sitting around waiting for their great savior isn't much of a plot point and certainly has no place in a Mad Max movie. What's the formula for a Max movie? Car chase-crash-plot point-crash-crash-conundrum-repeat. They complicated the formula to mixed results. And why in the hell is Tina Turner in this?

The Back Up Plan (2010) 1/2

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The Back-up Plan takes every pregnancy cliche in the history of human procreation, smashes it all together, then stirs in a loving does of romantic cliches delivering a predictable, dull, poor excuse of a film that doesn't even get a guffaw, let alone a full blown laugh. Damn, that's a long sentence. 

Zoe (Jennifer Lopez) is a busy, career minded gal who always finds faults with every man she meets. She wants a baby, Robert Klein does the deed artificially and BAM, we have a bun in the oven. But guess what happens on the way home from the procedure? Yep, she meets Mr. Right (Alex O'Loughlin) and they begin a relationship of disdain that soon turns into sex in a barn full of cheese. Hilarity ensues as she proceeds to eat everything, complain about her ass size, and he goes nuts. There's the obligatory break up and- well, you know the rest.

There's no sense wasting anymore time one this, the movie is crap. No one in the film can act, especially our two wonderful leads. If either of them did anything that was either A) funny or B) involving I might have been interested, but this film is just a waste of film or information depending on how it was shot. This isn't even a very good date movie, so watch out guys you may get a back fire. When the funniest scene in the film involves a four year old holding cat shit you know we're screwed.

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) ****1/2

In my review of this films predecessor I called it an apocalyptic western that follows the course of a reluctant law man who is forced back into his profession of killing for the honor of others. You can call Mad Max the Gary Cooper of the series. The Road Warrior is the Clint Eastwood. A mysterious stranger that rolls into town for his own gain, yet winds up helping the locals against the tyranny of a menacing force. Think A Fistful of Dollars.

After a little explanation on why in the hell this guy is driving around the desert in a mid '70's Ford Falcon the film opens with a chase. This is no Smokey and the Bandit chase unless Buford T. Justice is sporting a mohawk and assless chaps. Max (Mel Gibson) disposes of his foes in his usual style and proceeds through the wasteland he wanders since the death of his family. He eventually stumbles on an oil and gas refinery that is being terrorized by a group of marauders led by a muscle bound freak in a hockey mask (this was pre-Friday the 13th Part 3 by the way). They want the "juice". The people inside want to keep it. Max devises a plan where they can move their gas while filling up his tanks. You just know that means massive crashes and extraordinary deaths. This is Mad Max we're talking about.

Grittier than the first film, The Road Warrior is a fast paced, high octane monster that comes roaring out at you from its first moments until the massive climax at the end. As I said before, the story is old and basic, but the visuals and especially the stunt work and driving move this beyond the many B westerns that used the same plot devices. Even after multiple viewings this is still an amazing film to watch just for the pure excitement of it. Perfectly executed by director George Miller, some may be turned off by the S&M wardrobe and lack of dialogue from the lead. It doesn't matter. The Road Warrior is a fire breathing monster that will keep you on the edge of your seat with a nice script, beautiful direction, and some of the greatest car chase sequences ever put to film.

Mad Max (1979) ****

A few years from now anarchy will reign supreme. Oil shortages will make V-8 engines virtually non existent. The infrastructure has collapsed due to the over burdens on the system. Public works is just a pile of ruble. The price of human life is very little. Wow, it almost seems like we're on our way to roving motorcycle gangs and meat trucks.

The title character in Mad Max (Mel Gibson) doesn't represent the thin blue line. there is no line anymore. It's just a bunch of guys who do a job they are disillusioned with for a variety of reasons. One guy does it to get off on the violence, another to get the chicks. Max does it because it's a job. He's good at the job, but he's disheartened by it and the mayhem it causes. His job is to stop renegades on the road without any concern to anyones safety, including his own. That's a tall order considering that he has a wife and son at home. There's a strong urge to leave, but deep down he knows that even if he left the Main Force Patrol, there would still be a kicking and screaming animal wanting another piece of him.


Mad Max is first and foremost an action film. The stunt work and crash sequences are magnificent. If you don't understand just check out the motorcycle crash at the end of the picture when one of the riders is scraping across the pavement only to be hit in the head with another riders motorcycle. You've heard of gorilla film making, this is gorilla stunt work. These sequences alone are worth the admission/rental/download price, but there's also a story here, too. It's your basic western set ahead of our time. A law man pushed to the brink, yet pulled back into the fray by circumstances beyond his control. You know he will saddle up one more time.


Directed by George Miller, this is a well made film for being so cheaply made by quite a few first time film makers. That's probably why it's so much better than standard fare in that it pushed the envelope because it was a low budget film. Mad Max is a classic apocalyptic tale that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the final explosion.