GLASS shatters… expectations! It’s like – broken glass; You get cut before you see it, So open up your eyes!… — Ronnie James Dio, “Stand Up And Shout” Things don’t always turn out the way you want them to, chillun! Not even for superheroes… The three protagonists from two previous M. Night Shyamalan thrillers gravitate toward one another like atoms … Read More
UNBREAKABLE
Irresponsible Force meets Unbreakable Object. Quentin Tarantino provided the best logline for M. Night Shyamalan‘s UNBREAKABLE. In his characteristically compelling storytelling way, he puts it – even better than the actual ad campaign – “What if Superman was here on Earth and didn’t know he was Superman?” That’s UNBREAKABLE broken down. If there is, in fact, a “super” gene, it … Read More
THE LAST EXORCISM PART II
Not really “Last” and not really “Exorcism.” This movie’s predecessor, THE LAST EXORCISM (2010), had a great hook: an exorcist who knew he was only placating the superstitious with his staged exorcisms, but if it helped the redneck families who believed this guff to regain their lives, it was beneficial – until he ran up against a real demon. THE … Read More
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT 2009
Ingmar Bergman is spinning in the last grave on the left… What pisses me off about THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT is that nowhere do the filmmakers mention – not in advertising, not in screen credits and not even in the Special Features on the DVD – that this movie is ripped straight from Ingmar Bergman’s THE VIRGIN SPRING … Read More
GLADIATOR
Unleashing Helle. Truly GLADIATOR is the stuff of great fiction; a story so well-orchestrated and superbly told, there might well have been in Roman history a general who became a slave, a slave who became a gladiator, a gladiator who won an Oscar. But – as they used to say in ancient Rome – “only in Hollywood…” Russell Crowe is … Read More