GODZILLA meets BRAVEHEART in a battle to the Kim Jong-il. Downtrodden villagers in feudal Korea are aided by a giant magical beast called PULGASARI that feeds on iron, and, through its appetite for swords and spears and cannon, helps them overthrow the tyrant king. However, Pulgasari continues to consume iron, eating the villagers out of their farms and livelihoods, in … Read More
PALADIN OF THE LOST HOUR | TWILIGHT ZONE | S1E7
Finding time to be greater than itself. A young man rescues a “very old man” from muggers in a cemetery, and is befriended by the old man, whom he discovers is a paladin, a guardian of a timepiece that has stopped ticking, holding in limbo the last hour of the universe. Written by the great Harlan Ellison, and screenplayed by … Read More
PROJECT POWER 2020
Survival of the Pillest. There’s a new black market pill on the streets of New Orleans. It’s called “power.” Gives you five minutes of a super power. But you don’t know what that power is until you take it. You might get super-strungth, become fast as a cheetah, or become invisible like a camouflaging chameleon. Or it might just blow … Read More
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
No Plan. Hubcaps terrorize process shots of Los Angeles, while aliens try to save humanity from itself by turning dead people into bad actors. PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is filmwanker Ed Wood’s love letter to science fiction plagiarism, its premise stolen directly from 1951’s THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL – that of aliens warning Earth to stop advancing … Read More
THE PERFECTION
Classical music is torture. Lust, jealousy, lesbianism, diarrhea, rape, dismemberment, torture, body horror and classical cello. No wonder this movie is called THE PERFECTION. Perfection – it’s what young cellist Lizzie now has, under the tutelage of mentor Anton, from the prestigious Bachoff Institute. It’s what Charlotte once had, under the same tutor whom she left a decade ago, to … Read More
THE PIANIST 2002
Szpilman’s Liszt. THE PIANIST follows Jewish concert pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman as he hides out from Nazis during the invasion of Poland. It’s not a story about heroes, rather, the story of a Polish man who avoided being one. And lived to play another day. 1939. Wladyslaw “Wladek” Szpilman (Adrien Brody), whom many contend was “the most accomplished pianist in Poland, … Read More
PARDNERS
Partners, Buddies, Pals… at least, onscreen. Jerry and Dean in the Wild West! PARDNERS, the penultimate musical comedy from Martin and Lewis opens with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis as two aged cowboys named Slim Mosely and Wade Kingsley, in a shootout to retain their property against the marauding Dan Hollis gang, who want to take it by force. Their … Read More
PAIN AND GAIN
Get Rich or Die Lifting. Colors straining against the filmstock like a 2-sizes-too-small t-shirt straining against pectorals, muscles thrumming like rippling duck butter, and planning as meticulous as a grade-schooler trying to get to second base, the whey-protein dramedy PAIN AND GAIN is a flamboyant recounting of a true crime story involving three Florida bodybuilders who kidnap a wealthy restaurant … Read More
THE PURGE
Knife-kill disguised as social commentary. Blessed be the New Founding Fathers for letting us Purge and cleanse our souls. Blessed be America, a nation reborn. — opening titles, THE PURGE. It is 2022 in America. The country is doing well, if the opening titles are any indication: unemployment at 1%, crime at an all-time low. And there is one night … Read More
THE PROPHECY: FORSAKEN
Hells to the No. Again with the boasting: “I could whisper a suggestion and have you step in front of a subway train, I could force a neighbor to hurl you down a flight of stairs. I can put a baby in your belly that would rip its way out of your womb in three days–” Okay, I wanna see … Read More
THE PROPHECY: UPRISING
My gorge is up rising. There’s this “anti-bible,” see? And the Big Man Himself is narrating it even at this moment, burning the ancient Aramaic into the pages. He’s putting the finishing touches on The Book of Revelations because it went to the printer too early the first time, apparently. And – like all three previous PROPHECY movies – it’s … Read More
THE PROPHECY 3
Turning Cities to Salt, and Movies to Shit. Christopher Walken, former angel of death, returns in THE PROPHECY 3: THE ASCENT and does nothing, except walk around with a spectacular mullet, wearing his pants a little too high. Oh, and he’s the Angel Gabriel, mystically powerful villain of two previous films. He’s the guy who could “turn cities to salt” … Read More
THE PROPHECY II
The Angelic Boast. Angel Gabriel (Christopher Walken) is thrown out of hell by Lucifer, and proceeds to cause hell on Earth by starring in THE PROPHECY II. Dying at the end of the previous film (THE PROPHECY) meant nothing to Gabriel, as dying at the end of this movie will mean nothing as well. Why then, expend all this effort … Read More
THE PROPHECY
Angels In The Outhouse. Angel Gabriel comes to Earth to extract a soul and destroy heaven. Like the catholic religion, THE PROPHECY is confused as hell. A spine-shivering opening sequence: camera pans down on a lone figure standing over a charred skeleton – of what appears to be a human with wings, bird-like appendages scorched into the ochre stone ground. … Read More
PARKER
Easy revenge, hard injuries. He’s Jason Statham. He beats people up. As usual. But in PARKER, what isn’t so usual is that Statham, in the title role, actually gets hurt while beating people up. Like “real life” hurt. Hurt bad. That’s the best element in this stock actioner where Mr. Statham (THE MECHANIC 2011) and director Taylor Hackford (RAY) take … Read More
POWER AND TERROR: NOAM CHOMSKY IN OUR TIMES
The times they are a-changing, with the crimes they are a-staging. Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. There’s a really easy way: stop participating in it. — Noam Chomsky. Not so much a documentary as a dialogue, POWER AND TERROR: NOAM CHOMSKY IN OUR TIMES is a companion piece to Chomsky’s 2002 book titled 9-11, which offers an alternate/political-insider view to … Read More
PLANET OF THE APES
A Planet where apes evolved from overactors. POFFY VIDEO REVIEW available only. END PLANET OF THE APES (Apr 1968) | G aka: MONKEY PLANET. Director: Franklin J. Schaffner. Writers: Pierre Boulle, Rod Serling, Michael Wilson. Music: Jerry Goldsmith. Starring: Charlton Henston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore, James Daly, Linda Harrison, Robert Gunner, Lou Wagner, Woodrow Parfrey, … Read More
POSEIDON
The Boat, The Wave, The Snake. One scene in POSEIDON will live with you long after you’ve dried off and found your land legs: Kurt Russell actually drowning. Literally. In a move that is half-Method/half-Madness, Russell lets his lungs purposely fill with water to achieve what looks like someone actually drowning. And actually drowns! It was arranged that lifeguards retrieve … 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
PRIMAL 2010
Fear and Loathing and Shark-Teeth. It’s like bad-delicious candy. You know it’s not healthy, it’s not educational, and it will probably destroy a few brain cells. But you eat it anyway. It’s PRIMAL. This bad-delicious Aussie candy is mindless, gory, indie – and effective. Six college-age kids visit an Aboriginal rock-painting deep in the Australian bush; cut off from civilization, … Read More