Haunting Incompetence. It’s not the fact it’s a remake of the Vincent Price comedy HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL from 1959; it’s not the fact the ghosts are real now, instead of manufactured by the unbalanced host; it’s not even the fact Chris Kattan is here, who, on an acting scale of Chris O’Donnell to Gary Oldman – is a Minus … Read More
GAMERA 3: THE REVENGE OF IRIS
Shell Shocked Ex-shell-ence! Daikaiju Maniacs, if you seek a Japanese creature movie better than the recent 2014 GODZILLA Hollywood puffball, I recommend whole-cukedly the 1990’s GAMERA trilogy, GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE (1995), ATTACK OF THE LEGION (1996) and THE REVENGE OF IRIS (1999), all written by Kazunori Itô and directed by Shûsuke Kaneko. Created during a period of Godzilla downtime … Read More
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
True Horror: no budget! Give a shout out to marketing. And synergy. Internet in its infancy, Reality TV exploding, indie film, unknown actors, creation of a new genre (“found footage”) – THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT hit the sweet spot of horror movie history during a perfect storm of cultural upheaval. Filmed for a buck-forty-five on hand held cameras with three … Read More
QUEEN: GREATEST FLIX III
Emotional, Unique, Majestic… like the band itself. Compiled by The Torpedo Twins (Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher – DoRo Productions – who seem to have had their hands on the whole Queen video vault since the late ’80s), QUEEN: GREATEST FLIX III, is another excellent offering of various video clips from the diverse Queen library. (Suprisingly in 2015, it is … Read More
THE HAUNTING 1999
The terror of bad direction, editing and acting. Not to be confused with THE HAUNTING OF HELL HOUSE, released in the same year, THE HAUNTING is the tiresome, overlong, yawnfest remake of the 1960 movie of the same name. The only reason it’s terrifying is that it illustrates how low the bar for horror movies has sunk. Dr. Marrow (Liam … Read More
GODZILLA 2000
Rebooting the unbootable. Lotta talk on GODZILLA 2000 being Toho Company’s rejoinder to Tri-Star Pictures’ GODZILLA 1998 (directed by Roland Emmerich), the red-headed step-child of Godzilla canon. (Maybe Godzilla would have been revived anyway, as there was a five-year hiatus since his demise in DESTOROYAH.) Insofar as comparing this 2000 version to 1998, the storyline is about the same level … Read More
CHRIS ROCK: BIGGER AND BLACKER
The Biggest and Blackest! The shot across the bow was BRING THE PAIN (HBO, 1996). A rising comedian then, now Chris Rock has honed his standup act to a knife-keen incisiveness in his third HBO Special, BIGGER AND BLACKER. On the famed Apollo stage in Harlem, New York, attired in shiny black leather, Rock paces like a jungle cat, spitting … Read More
FIGHT CLUB
Fight is Right. This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time. –Tyler Durden, FIGHT CLUB. First rule of FIGHT CLUB: You do NOT talk about Fight Club. So I’m gonna get my head kicked in for writing this. Because I’m also breaking the Second Rule of Fight Club: Do NOT talk about Fight Club. Don’t tell … Read More
DETROIT ROCK CITY
God of Blunder. “If you’re down in the dumps – and you need sumpin that’ll bring ya uuuuup… sumpin that’ll bring ya uuuuup?… There’s only one thing that’s gonna do it faw ya…” No, not this movie – go dig out your record player and spin Rock And Roll Over. Named after a classic KISS song (the marauding opener from … Read More
EYES WIDE SHUT
Pants Wide Open. Stanley Kubrick directs EYES WIDE SHUT with his pants wide open. Elegant somberness, lurid themes, disturbing visuals, foreboding music, screaming colors. And tits. Tits tits tits. Not banana teats, cow udders or raisins either, but perfectly-rounded, gently-sloped baseballs to cantaloupes. On women ivory-legged, flat-bellied, pear-buttocked, butter-smooth, hungry-lipped, not one a notch below 9. Call it art. Call … Read More
A CIVIL ACTION
Justice IS blind – so can’t see Truth. In movies, the good guys always seem to win court cases. Over an ingratiating orchestra swell, no less. But in reality, good or bad has nothing to do with the outcome of court cases. It’s how you play the game. If you can afford to be in the game in the first … Read More
VIRUS
Inhuman Immunodeficiency Virus. I feel like vomiting and I’m getting a headache and maybe even diarrhea. I’ve either got a virus. Or I’ve just watched the movie of the same name. But here’s the twist. VIRUS isn’t about some little animalcules that infect your blood and make your nose run. It’s about an alien entity that uses electricity for energy … Read More
TOY STORY 2
Toying with our emotions. One of the best-reviewed sequels of all time, TOY STORY 2 continues the tale of the toys from Andy’s room, adding a few characters, upping the chase ante and breaking our hearts with animated toys that are better actors than people. Cowboy Woody (voice of Tom Hanks) is stolen by Al the toy collector (Wayne Knight, … Read More
THREE KINGS
KELLY’S HEROES without the ragtag. War is not just Hell. In THREE KINGS, it is confusing as Hell. Four American soldiers behind enemy lines on a mission; they’re not here to fight a battle, they’re here to rob a bank. If the plot sounds familiar, it is KELLY’S HEROES for the morally ambiguous generation. THREE KINGS is a stunning, ferocious … Read More
RAVENOUS
Tasty! Guy Pearce is beefcake. No – literally. Pearce is Captain John Boyd, an American soldier in the 1847 Mexican-American war, transferred to a desolate outpost harboring a troop of military misfits, one of whom is discovered to be a cannibal. Jeffrey Jones is Colonel Hart, leader of this band of stir crazy soldiers, which includes Jeremy Davies, David Arquette … Read More
BANGKOK DANGEROUS
I was a Teenage Hitman. As a dead man’s blood seeps across bathroom tiles, the opening titles to BANGKOK DANGEROUS appear in it. From its first scene, this movie is art. Writers-directors-brothers Danny and Oxide Pang launch BANGKOK DANGEROUS at us with the intensity of an adjective incorrectly following a noun, in the story of a hitman who finds redemption. … Read More
TRUE CRIME
The true crime is this movie’s shallowness. TRUE CRIME has the potential to be a powerful thought experiment, exploring the psychology behind the perception of what True Crime truly is. Aside from implicit racism, no real issues are broached in this dialogue-driven Clint Eastwood actioner. From an Andrew Klaven novel, directed by Eastwood, TRUE CRIME is merely the tale of … Read More
STAR WARS: EPISODE I – THE PHANTOM MENACE
A Legend Unravels… Twenty years ago, I liked Michael Jackson. Everyone did. Twenty years ago, I liked STAR WARS. Everyone did. Look what happened to Michael Jackson. Look what happened to STAR WARS. Both these entities were done in NOT by lack of funding, backstabbing competitors or unbalanced advisors. Ironically, they brought their downfalls on themselves through a surfeit of … Read More
COME ON GET HAPPY: THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY STORY
The Trials of Talent, The Farce of Fame (oh, spare me!). When David Cassidy complained about being exploited in the Partridge Family, just who did he think was playing the instruments and writing the songs he mimed to? Narrated by the real Danny Bonaduce (in between jail time and radio airtime, we presume), COME ON, GET HAPPY: THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY … Read More
LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS
LOCK, STOCK comes at us with two smoking barrels. “Right! Let’s sort the buyers from the spyers, the needy from the greedy and those who love me from the ones who don’t…” Bacon (Jason Statham) and Eddie (Nick Moran) work a street crowd with their hot merchandise. Cops. They flee. When the film suddenly crashes into super-slomo, and a hard, … Read More
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