Cleanup on Aisle Dirty. Classic! Explosive, action-packed, funny and filthy, THE DIRTY DOZEN is the best Boy’s Movie of the millennium! If you’re between 14 and 24, you will be inspired by this movie; it was the HALO 3 of its day. In World War II, twelve American military convicts, each a different flavor of crazy, are snatched from the … Read More
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
All quiet when it comes to war. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is arguably the first true anti-war film. An American production that follows a young German soldier through senseless World War I trenches, it is epic in scope, yet intimate in its emotional impact. There were others that flew the flag of anti-war – CIVILIZATION (1916), J’ACCUSE (1919), … Read More
MIGHTY JOE YOUNG
If KING KONG and Disney had a deformed baby… Ever seen one of those tragic movies that you loved but just wished wished wished it could’ve ended differently? Like SCARFACE or KING KONG or ROMEO AND JULIET? Well, if you wondered how KING KONG might’ve looked with a happy ending, look no further than MIGHTY JOE YOUNG. Produced by the … Read More
THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE
Upside Down On Fire! Produced by Irwin Allen – the godfather of disaster movies – imagine how his ears must have pricked up when he heard the pitch for THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE: “Ocean liner capsizes from a tidal wave and floats upside down as a few passengers struggle their way to the bottom of the ship in the hope of … Read More
12 YEARS A SLAVE
Twelve Thousand Years A Slave… and Counting… 12 YEARS A SLAVE is a great movie on its surface, is a horrible story when viewed in context of American history and is unspeakably terrifying when placed against the larger sociological canvas. I’ll explain all this in a moment if you’ll just stop fussing about the n-word… on the surface 12 YEARS … Read More
JFK
Conspiracy Clearly. To sin by silence when we should protest, makes cowards out of men. –Ella Wheeler Wilcox. When it comes to 9-11, or John F. Kennedy, or Jesus Christ, no one cares what you think. They know what they know. And no one’s gonna tell ’em otherwise. Oliver Stone doesn’t care what you think. He directs JFK with the … Read More
SKYFALL
Bond-fall. James Bond returns in SKYFALL – and is immediately killed… Trending in movies: heroes do not just fall – everything they know is compromised; everything that makes them a hero is called into question. They fall from the greatest height possible (is this the play on words in sky fall?), to make their rise all the more sexy (as … Read More
LIFE OF PI
The Gripe with Pi. Get rid of all the religiosity and Ang Lee‘s LIFE OF PI would be an intriguing adventure and unique thought experiment. But with the muck of God pervading every second line of dialogue, it makes me want to crucify somebody. Indian teen Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma) is onboard a ship, journeying with his family from India … Read More
MARY POPPINS
Super-Wanky-Capitalistic-Excreta-and-Atrocious! An antique anachronism like MARY POPPINS should best be viewed through the eyes of Innocence. So for the benefit of young children everywhere, this movie will be reviewed not only by Poffy, but also by Poffy’s dolly, Pliffy. MARY POPPINS is wonderful adventure for kids like me, because I don’t think. It is colorful and magical and British. I … Read More
GRAVITY
GRAVITY is all force, no weight. Isaac Newton can at last rest easy in the grave he’s been turning in since STAR WARS brainwashed everyone into thinking it was a space movie even whilst failing to exhibit one iota of any attribute of being in space. GRAVITY showcases Newton’s laws of gravitation and physics in magnificent ubiquity. It’s as close … Read More
LINCOLN
When Republicans bore resemblance to the human species… A bunch of old, out-of-touch white guys babbling about slavery. The Republican Party hasn’t changed much. Well, back then, as the party of LINCOLN, they were trying to free the slaves; nowadays, they’re working to get them all back. My main question about this ambitious film is: With all the camera operators, … Read More
TOP GUN
Highway to the Gayer Zone. TOP GUN – the movie that wrested the crown from MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR as the Gayest Movie Ever Made. Tom Cruise is Maverick, the pop gun let loose in billion dollar taxpayer war machinery, one of the best fancypants F14 Tomcat pilots stationed onboard an aircraft carrier, though so smug, irritating and … Read More
SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Couldn’t find the silver lining. SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is a teachable moment in filmic history. They showed us how to cure bipolar disease. You just need to get laid! Two damaged people Meet Cute. They pretend to hate each other. By movie’s end, they love each other, which apparently means they’re not damaged anymore. Yay. All it took was sex. SILVER … Read More
ALIEN
A Little Extra Extra-Terrestrial. The slogan for ALIEN is embedded in pop culture: “In space, no one can hear you scream.” Even so, there’s an awful lot of screaming going on… A deep space mining crew investigates a distress signal from an uncharted planet, and inadvertently takes onboard a malignant alien life form. What could possibly happen next, but grisly … Read More
THE LONGEST DAY
The Longest Fey. A German soldier tells his commander “Some sort of rubber dummies have been dropped by parachute!” – and he wasn’t talking about the Americans. THE LONGEST DAY has the distinction of revealing many interesting World War II tactics even to jaded modern, post-RYAN audiences. Such as the British dropping 3-foot-high dummies as night decoys, made to shoot … Read More
ZERO DARK THIRTY
Zero Dork Skirty. Not exactly propaganda, not exactly lies, not exactly conspiracy theory. ZERO DARK THIRTY, the story about the American hunt for Osama bin Laden, is maybe a touch of all three… According to real life grunts, the title ZERO DARK THIRTY is bollocks. The military pronounce the “zero” as “oh”; and it doesn’t mean 12:30 a.m. (as the … Read More
SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME
The Passion of the Goombah. If you can get past Paul Newman‘s insufferable “schoolyard Italian” SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME is… well, it’s still pretty mediocre. It’s a tribute to boxing legend Rocky Graziano, his street youth, his thug life, his Army AWOL, his boxing career under the name “Graziano” (real name Thomas Rocco Barbella), his insipid love life with … Read More
ARGO
The Year of Living Hollywoodly. When your facial hair says yes and your fashion sense says no – that’s ARGO. Ben Affleck does battle with his beard for top billing as CIA “exfiltration” expert Tony Mendez, trying to extract six American fugitives from Iran during a political insurgency. (When is there NOT a political insurgency in Iran? Can someone call … Read More
NETWORK
Don’t get mad – get a News Show. A washed-up newscaster (Peter Finch) is about to be fired from a television network for being over the hill and losing ratings. Until he does something that shocks the network executives, forces the viewing public to take notice, and rockets his ratings. He starts telling the truth. Sidney Lumet‘s NETWORK is a … Read More
TORA! TORA! TORA!
Rising Sun over Despising Sam. Next to Viet Nam, Pearl Harbor must be one of the most shameful failures in American military history. We can understand why the American meme has been twisted into “surprise attack by the Japanese”; otherwise, how was the vaunted United States war machine caught with its pants so low around its ankles? TORA! TORA! TORA! … Read More