Nutless. A group of woodland creatures tries to infiltrate a nut shop and heist its nuts for the winter after their supply in the park is accidentally blown up. Uncute, unlovable animal characters populate THE NUT JOB, an animated feature that aims for excitement, romance and danger and never pulls off any of it as successfully as the uncute unlovable … Read More
CONAN THE BARBARIAN 2011
Muscles, magic, tits and blood. Just how much blood can spurt out of a human body when it’s slashed with a sword? Seems like you could fill a good-sized mopping bucket… CONAN THE BARBARIAN adheres dutifully to the sword and sorcery flow chart: big-chested Hero, big-chested Damsel, magical Villain seeking unlimited power; sword fights, quest for vengeance, damsel in distress, … Read More
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS
The Film That Stares Into Space. Your tax dollars at work. A few years ago, I read about the U.S. military exploring “paranormal combat techniques” in George W. Bush’s Fake War On Terror: using goats as test subjects, the Amerikan Military were trying to train soldiers to kill terrorists by staring at them to psychically stop their hearts. No, it’s … Read More
FIRE DOWN BELOW
Fire Nowhere Near. In the unfocused environmental actioner FIRE DOWN BELOW, Steven Seagal (as undercover EPA federal agent Jack Taggart) strides from one fist-fight into the next with that same expressionless expression, and with a startling command of aikido. (I was unaware you needed a 7th dan to investigate spilling of toxic waste.) Into the backwoods of the Kentucky hills, … Read More
PUBLIC ENEMIES
Small time crooks painted larger than the criminals in any given corporation. An insipid telling of the fast life and crooked times of America’s first Public Enemy Number 1, John Dillinger. PUBLIC ENEMIES makes all the right moves, with all the right stars wearing all the right hardguy overcoats, but it somehow lacks grip. Set in the 1930’s Chicago crimewave … Read More
AVATAR
Electra Glide in Jungle Cat Blue. For the protection of the good, for destruction of evil, and for the establishment of righteousness, I come into being from age to age. — Lord Krishna, avatar of Vishnu, The Bhagavad-Gita. Forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those Who trespass against us… — Yeshua, avatar of Elohim, The Lord’s Prayer. Hubris. Conquest. … Read More
TOMBSTONE
When The West Was Huckleberry. The PULP FICTION of westerns, with its vivid dialogue and firestorm set pieces, TOMBSTONE roars like a stallion on steel hooves, in a hail of Peacemaker gunfire and very real handlebar moustachios. TOMBSTONE is another retelling of the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, but presented in such an epic, revisionist manner that the ill-fated … Read More