Reviews

Writer/director Matthew Bright, the co-writer and co-star of one of my all-time favorite cult films, FORBIDDEN ZONE, does a modern retelling of Little Red Riding Hood set, where else, in "The Hood." This was just Reese Witherspoon's fifth film and was her most mature role to date, playing a teenage runaway escaping foster care after her mom is arrested for hooking. She plans to make her way to grandma's trailer park, but is picked up by serial killer Bob Wolverton (Get it? The Big Bad Wolf?) and things get pretty crazy from there. The film is purposefully over the top with wildly campy performances and some hilarious dialogue, partially from Witherspoon's Vanessa Lutz, where she gets to do an exaggerated version of her natural Tennessee accent:

Woody Wilson: Why are you doing this?

Vanessa Lutz: 'Cause I'm pissed off and the whole world owes me. Give me your goddamn money!

OR

Vanessa Lutz: What are ya'll lookin' at? F--- all ya'll. F--- you, chipmunk face! And your f---in' skipper wife!

OR

Vanessa Lutz: Them's some big ugly f---in' teeth you got, Bob.

OR

Vanessa Lutz: You f---er! You killed my grandma!

Bob Wolverton: That's not all I did to grandma.

There's also a whole bunch of super inappropriate quotes I can't share here. Witherspoon is fantastic as Vanessa Lutz, playing a trashy type of character she has never played before or since. For a crazy little low-budget movie, it really is a star-making role for her. This movie wouldn't be anywhere as good without Witherspoon in the lead. She chews the scenery with the best of them, which is saying something when you've got Kiefer Sutherland as Wolverton and Amanda Plumber playing her hooker mom. You also have in the supporting cast Dan Hedaya as a detective, Brooke Shields and Wolverton's wife, Bokeem Woodbine as Witherspoon's boyfriend, and Brittany Murphy as a fellow juvenile delinquent. FREEWAY is a complete camp-fest and deliciously darkly funny, but the film works as well as it does because of Reese. Bright was quoted on working with Witherspoon, "Reese was the first person I ever directed and it was a revelation, like being in a small room watching Jimi Hendrix shredding on his guitar." Also of note, Oliver Stone served the an executive producer on the film, and Danny Elfman, who was a childhood friend of Bright, did the music. Overall, despite some unevenness of tone at times, FREEWAY is a movie that echos John Waters' "bad taste" in the most fun sort of way. Not for all tastes, but a real treat if you can get into the spirit of the film. BONUS RECOMMENDATION: If you'd like another fairy tale-themed modern-day crime film, check out RUNNING SCARED (2006), the one with Paul Walker, not the Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines one. It's not as campy as FREEWAY and is more of a straight crime film, but the fairy tale subtext is a lot of fun.

I think this franchise is unique in that the villain of each film becomes the hero of the subsequent film. George "The Iceman" Chambers was the villain of the first film but became the wrongly imprisoned hero who's forced to fight in the sequel. The villain of that film, Yuri Boyka, is now the hero of the third film, seeking, as the title suggests, redemption. Boyka now finds himself forced to fight in the first-ever inter-prison tournament but with a busted knee from the prior film. Director Isaac Florentine and the supremely underrated martial arts action star Scott Adkins deliver some very good fight sequences, but the stretches between fights are too long, and filled with dull stories and characters I did not care about. Still, the fight sequences and Adkins are so good that they make the film worth watching.

Two cute little teenybopper girls with a murder blog decide they want to become serial killers. The film starts with a Jason/Michael Meyers-style killer attacking a couple on a lovers' lane. The girl gets away and is chased by the killer when we realize she's led him into a trap, and that's when we learn about their plan to take over the killings happening in their small town, while at the same time gaining social media accolades for their scoops on the ongoing murders. Brianna Hildebrand and Alexandra Shipp are quite funny and likable as the death-obsessed teens, as they glibly plan out their reign of terror and obsess over their Twitter page. It's a pretty dark comedy, and although it's fairly graphic at times, it never achieves the cleverness of the original SCREAM or subverts sexist genre tropes as smartly as GINGER SNAPS or JENNIFER'S BODY. Still, Hildebrand and Shipp make the film fun and worth watching, though Kevin Durand also gets a shoutout for being both funny and scary as the town's real killer, who spends most of the movie tied up by heroines. Overall, not a classic, but fun to watch at least once if you're a horror movie fan. BONUS MOVIE TIP! If you do want a movie that is legit clever about subverting the slasher film genre, checkout BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON, a fake documentary that follows around the killer planning his night of terror.

Three go-go dancers are drag racing through the desert when they challenge a teenager and his girlfriend to a race. After he loses the girl leader, Varla, gets into a fight with the teen and kills him. They then hold hostage the girlfriend when the trio learns about a crippled old man and his two sons, one of them a dangerous musclebound halfwit, who has a hidden fortune stashed somewhere on his remote desert property, that they now intend to rob. From writer/director/producer Russ Meyer, this is his career high point (though there could be an argument made for BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS) that features sex and violence that is both shocking, lurid, and extremely fun. Filmed in gorgeous black and white, Meyer tightly edits the action and the story moves along at a crisp pace that is never boring and always exciting. Meyer is pure grindhouse and has no pretense that he was making a film for the art house, though there are intellectual treatises on his work. His films are action-packed, sexy, and fast-paced, and this one is easily his best. Tura Satana as the karate chopping, all dressed in black, and fast car driving Varla, owns the film. You've never seen a character like her before. Is she the hero? Is she the villain? It's hard to tell at times, but either way, the audience is enthralled by her. With her black leather gloves, she gives some of my favorite movie beatdowns of all time! Even if you've never seen the film, her image and likeness from this film have entered the cultural zeitgeist and will be immediately recognizable, even to the uninitiated. References to the film can be seen in everything from the music of Rob Zombie or The Cramps to Janet Jackson and Spice Girls music videos and the films of John Waters and Quentin Tarantino. Even PEE WEE'S BIG HOLIDAY has a glorious reference to the film when he is kidnapped by three female bank robbers! Meyer also gives Varla some of the best lines and Satana delivers them in the most wonderfully aggressive manner.

"You've got a weird sense of humor" "Try again, I get funnier" "Look, I don't know what the hell your point is, but..." "Point is of no return and you've reached it.

Hollywood tried to make these types of bad girl female characters before, such as Ann-Margret in KITTEN WITH A WHIP, but they were always tame in comparison to Meyer. This is a movie that needs to be seen to be believed and no words can fully capture the kick-ass majesty of Tura Satana's Varla. The film is rightfully considered a cult classic, though it has since gained some respectability, clocking it at number 377 on the Sight & Sound "Greatest Films Poll" critics poll. However, this is not a film for all tastes, but if you like Quentin Tarantino's film sensibilities and/or enjoy 60s and 70s exploitation flicks, you'll probably dig this one if you can find it (sadly it's long out-of-print in the US and rarely streams anywhere outside of janky YouTube copies).

With the prequel film FURIOSA out, I decided I wanted to rewatch FURY ROAD one more time before seeing the newest entry in the Max Max Franchise. I don't think I have much to add to my review from before, but I have upped my rating to 5 out of 5 stars. FURY ROAD is such a rich film and does world-building so much better than any other film of recent years. This most recent rewatching of FURY ROAD only confirmed my belief that it is the best action film of the 21st century. JOHN WICK 4 may be a close second, but second nonetheless.

Related, I recently came across an internet conspiracy theory that I love, which is that Tom Hardy's Max is not the same Max that Mel Gibson portrayed and is in fact the Feral Kid from THE ROAD WARRIOR all grown up. Hints that this is the case is that he's seen with the Happy Birthday music player Mel Gibson's Max gave the Feral Kid, that Hardy's Max hardly ever speaks, and when he finally says his name in the film, it's almost as if it's the first time he's said it aloud. George Miller confirmed that this is not the case, but he did say he loved the theory.

5-22-15 Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) ****1/2 Not as good as "The Road Warrior" but a close second and better than "Max Max" or "Thunderdome." The action in this fourth installment of the Mad Max series is an absolute knockout! My palms were sweating through nearly the entire film. Besides director/creator George Miller's exciting direction and gorgeously stark photography by John Seale, who came out of retirement to shoot this film, I think the action greatly benefits from most of it happening in-camera and was not redone later with CGI. As good as CGI has gotten, there is no substitute for seeing someone actually fighting on top of a fast-moving vehicle, or seeing a vehicle really wipe out. In this film, Max finds himself helping Charlize Theron in her plan to free the "wives" of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played Toecutter in the original Mad Max") in a stolen War Rig. Immortan Joe sends all of his forces after them and the rest of the film is one long chase scene that never lets up. Nearly 15 years in the making, Miller had years to think about this film and story and it shows in all the details (the man-powered wheel to raise and lower vehicles into the mountaintop fortress, the tattoos given to Max after his capture, the Doof Warrior with his fiery guitar, the steering wheel tree, to the War Boys' near-religious belief system ("May you always be chrome and shiny"). Lesser films might have taken up a great deal of time to dwell on these elements, but Miller fills his film with so many of them that he's created a vastly rich universe that could fill several movies (Miller has said he already has two more completed scripts). Tom Hardy steps into the Mad Max role that Mel Gibson made famous and does an adequate job. He lacks Gibson's charisma and even though his name is in the title, he has the film stolen out from under him by a new character, Imperator Furiosa, played by a one-armed Charlize Theron, who I've always thought was a fine actress despite her looking like a supermodel. Nicholas Hoult is also a standout in the film as a War Boy who ends up siding with Max and the escaping wives. The story was co-written by Brendan McCarthy, which I found interesting because he worked for British comic 2000AD back in the 70s before the original "Mad Max" film. What's interesting is that Judge Dredd, the most regular character to appear in 2000AD was occasionally set in the "Cursed Earth" which is an apocalyptic wasteland between the Mega Cities that line the East and West Coast. In the cursed earth, it's a lawless land that's filled with mutants, crazies, and assorted villainy, much like the world of Mad Max. I've never heard Miller mention 2000AD or the Cursed Earth, but I've always wondered about the connection and I found it interesting that a 2000AD illustrator found his way into this picture. But I digress. Fury Road deserves to be considered an action classic and in an age when reboots and remakes are a dime a dozen, this is one of the few to live up to and even surpass its predecessors.

Terrifically fun fifth entry in the Max Max Film Franchise! I've been obsessed with this film series since I was a kid, first watching a TV-edited version of THE ROAD WARRIOR that I'd recorded on a VHS tape and watched over and over. The franchise took a huge leap into the 21st century with MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, featuring stunts that rivaled the earlier films and a ferocity of unrelenting action not seen in any prior Mad Max film. FURY ROAD was probably the best action film of the past 20 years. Charlize Theron stole that movie out from under Tom Hardy's Mad Max, so it's not surprising that the follow-up film would be a prequel telling her character's backstory. Anya Taylor-Joy is every bit as good as Theron, taking over the part of Furiosa and telling her life story leading up to the events of FURY ROAD, starting with Furiosa as a young girl kidnapped from her people and sold into slavery. It's almost an hour into FURIOSA before we see Taylor-Joy as the grown-up Furiosa, working for Immortan Joe, protecting shipments of goods between the rival wasteland factions. Taylor-Joy makes quite an entrance with the standout action setpiece of the film, with an utterly jaw-dropping road battle that demands to be seen in the theater and on the big screen. But as great as Taylor-Joy is as Furiosa, it's Chris Hemsworth as rival wasteland tribal leader Dementus, who has his eyes set on taking over all the wasteland factions, that steals the movie. Hemsworth always seemed rather bland of an actor to me. He was fine as Thor or in the Extraction films, but he really gets to chew the scenery in a way in FURIOSA I have not seen before, and made me want to see him take on more interesting parts in the future. Still, as much as I liked this film, THE ROAD WARRIOR is still my favorite of the franchise. Sure, the stunts and production design in THE ROAD WARRIOR aren't as wild, but I love the grungy grindhouse-style violence that THUNDERDOME, FURY ROAD, and FURIOSA lacked. There was a level of ugliness and savagery to THE ROAD WARRIOR that none of the subsequent films ever had. The lack of polish in that film is what made it all the more frightening. Still, FURIOSA is a knockout of an action film and probably has more heart than any of the other Mad Max films, which is what sets it apart in the franchise. Probably not for all tastes, but if you're a fan of FURY ROAD or any of the other Mad Max films, this one is a must-see!

A comic book artist's demonic drawings start to come to life, causing all sorts of terrors. I'm a sucker for Charles Band-produced films, such as TRANCERS, PUPPER MASTER, ZONE TROOPER, etc. But it was his films during the Empire Pictures days that are his best. During that time he'd bought the decrepit De Laurentiis's Studio in Italy and was able to get some great production values with his bargain basement budgets. At Empire, he made RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND, ELIMINATORS, TROLL, and a number of classics. CELLAR DWELLER is not in that category, but director John Carl Buechler (TROLL, FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART VII) and writer Don Mancini, who'd later go on to create the Chucky/Child's Play franchise, made an entertaining film nonetheless. With some familiar faces in the cast, including Jeffrey Combs, Yvonne De Carlo, and Vince Edwards, and some fun old-school practical special effects, I was entertained and charmed by this rather ridiculous horror flick.

Writer/director/star Dev Patel (star of CHAPPIE and SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) delivers a film that's an interesting mix of social commentary and some seriously badass beatdowns. Taking on the caste system of India, Patel plays a lower caste member of society who makes a living working as an underground fighter who wears a gorilla mask and takes some savage beatdowns from more popular fighters. Patel figures out a way to infiltrate the upper caste power structure to exact his revenge on those who wronged him and his family in the distant past. MONKEY MAN is incredibly political when it comes to themes of how the ultra-wealthy class treats common folks and holds them in contempt. India's caste system is an extreme example of this, but wealth disparities are something that translates across cultures and political systems. On a more visceral level, the film delivers some exceptionally well-done fight scenes. It takes a while for the action to kick in and the movie trailer led me to expect more action than there was, but once the fighting gets going, it's John Wick levels of kick assery! Jordan Peel signed on as a producer for the film and just like his films, MONKEY MAN is a well-done mix of smart social commentary and entertaining genre filmmaking.

In preparation for the release of Ti West's third film in his X trilogy, MAXXXINE, I'm revisiting sleazy 80s crime thrillers, such as 10 TO MIDNIGHT, ANGEL, and VICE SQUAD. I'd never seen this one and it was nowhere as good as those previous films, but it's a solid little thriller about a female cop going undercover as a striper to catch a killer who's targeting LA exotic dancers. From director/co-writer Katt Shea (POISON IVY) and producer Roger Corman (the guy who gave Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Damme, Joe Dante, and many others their start making biker flicks, women-in-prison films, and monster movies), I was expecting an incredibly lurid 80s thriller, but STRIPPED TO KILL was much tamer than I'd expected based on the title and poster art. There was certainly plenty of stripping, but with a female director, the film did not feel as exploitative as most Corman productions of this ilk. For the most part, Shea is telling a pretty straightforward crime picture and simply then does a lot of cross-cutting between the strippers doing their thing and the cops doing their thing. That way she can tell the story she wants and producer Corman can get his requisite amount of T&A. The story isn't very original, but Kay Lenz gives an earnest performance as the undercover cop (Lenz complained publicly about the film's editing and "exploitative" ad campaign) and the film has a clever ending. Overall, STRIPED TO KILL is nowhere as good as VICE SQUAD, but it was entertaining enough.

I'm a huge fan of Walter Hill's underappreciated 2002 prison boxing film, where Wesley Snipes plays the prison boxing champion when the cocky world heavyweight champion Ving Rhames, basically playing a Mike Tyson analog, is sent to prison when an incarcerated elderly mafia boss uses his influence to make a match between the two happen. That film was a complete throwback to old B-pictures of the 40s and 50s and something you could have easily seen coming out of RKO and starring someone like Lawrence Tierney or Charles McGraw. This low-budget sequel takes elements from that film but turns it into a martial arts action flick more along the lines of BLOODSPORT, where it's more just a series of fights leading to a showdown between rivals. Rhames' character, George "The Iceman" Chambers, returns, but is now played by the underrated Michael Jai White. Chambers is wrongfully imprisoned in Russia and the Russian Mob wants him to fight the prison no-hold-bared fighting champion, Boyka, the extremely underrated Scott Adkins (he played the fat guy in JOHN WICK 4). The story is just as you would expect, a series of prison fights leading to a showdown between Chambers and Boyka. As with most movies with Adkins, the fights are amazing and this film is no different. Although the production values are minimal and the writing and dialogue are poor, the fights are fantastic and the film is never boring. For fans of martial arts flicks, this is one to check out for sure, but for anyone who's a fan of the original UNDISPUTED (of which there are hardly any), this is a sequel in name only and pretty much a completely different movie.

Jason Statham is indeed a beekeeper at the start of the film, but when the kindly old woman he rents a barn from is swindled out of all her life savings by online scammers, he then unleashes a roaring rampage of revenge, because he's, of course, actually a retired government assassin. While the setup has the very contemporary topic of online scammer tricking gullible old folks into installing "helper software" to take over their computers, the film is completely retro in its execution. This film is an utter throwback to muscular action films of the 80s and 90s in the best sort of way. Josh Hutcherson plays the main villain behind the cyber scammers, but it's Jeremy Irons as his wealthy connected father who steals the show with some terrific supervillain speeches and classes up the film way more than it deserves. Overall, THE BEEKEEPER offers nothing you haven't seen before but director David Ayres (STREET KINGS, FURY), writer Kurt Wimmer (EQUILIBRIUM, ULTRAVIOLET), and Statham deliver the goods.

Do you remember that Demi Moore film version of Nathaniel Hawthorne's THE SCARLET LETTER where they added sex, violence, and a happy ending? If you do remember that, this movie is pretty much the same thing. It's a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic 1954 film about four desperate men transporting highly volatile nitroglycerine over rocky terrain to extinguish a South American oil drill fire. That film was intelligent, well-crafted, and featured some of the most suspenseful scenes in film history. This remake takes that masterpiece, dispenses with any subtext, and pours on muscular action in the vein of THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS franchise. As dumb as that sounds, it's entertaining enough. Also, I'll admit to having a soft spot for the ridiculous Demi Moore Hawthorn films (it may have my favorite John Barry score), but if you want an actually good remake of the Clouzot film, check out William Friedkin's 1977 version, THE SORCERER, which manages to equal Clouzot's original in both intelligence and nail-biting suspense.

Not quite as good as I remember (and nowhere as great as Gregg Allman's magnificent mane of blond hair), but strong performances by Jason Patrick and Jennifer Jason Leigh as undercover Texas NARCS make the film compelling. The film is also greatly aided by a cast populated with terrific dirtbag characters. Gregg Allman is a standout as the near-mute local drug dealer they are trying to take down, but my favorite dirtbag is an overall-wearing William Sadler as a creepy pill popper who wants to "party" with Leigh in a very uncomfortable scene. But you also get Max Perlich, who I totally forgot about but who seemed to be in everything in the 90s, along with Sam Elliott, and everyone's favorite sweaty redneck Dennis Burkley, who was in everything from WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE to STEWARDESS SCHOOL to classy stuff (still playing a dirtbag) like MASK or THE DOORS. And Special K. McCray is super memorable as a terrifying velour wearing drug dealer who forces Leigh into shooting up, but looking at his filmography, he only ever appeared in two other movies. Overall, the performance by Patrick and Leigh makes the film, but watching a 1990s recreation of the 1970s if also pretty fun, even if the film is a little too "this is your brain on drugs."

I was pretty excited to see this movie. I'd just recently rewatched Mario Van Peebles' first film as a director, NEW JACK CITY, and it was much stronger than I remember. I enjoyed NEW JACK CITY when it first came out, but found it over-directed, though I did appreciate that its core was straight out of classic Warner Bros gangster movies, ALA Cagney and Bogart, but updated for a modern political context, particularly among the African American community. Van Peebles followed that movie up with the western POSSE, which also had an activist political edge to it. Nearly 30 years later, Van Peebles returns with OUTLAW POSSE, not a sequel, but maybe a spiritual sequel (probably due to a rights issue), playing another equally cool and anachronistically hip cowboy who returns after 20 years to seek a hidden cache of stolen gold before assorted other bad guys can get. The film starts strong with a cool spaghetti western vibe, but that quickly fades as the story slows to a rather dull pace. Still, Van Peebles brings some exciting visuals to the proceedings and many uber-cool actors appear in bit parts, probably more as a favor to Van Peebles than for a paycheck in this modestly budgeted film, which is pretty cool of them. Whoopi Goldberg, Cedric the Entertainer, Edward James Olmos, Allen Payne, Neal McDonough, and M. Emmet Walsh in his final film role all appear in bit parts. Overall, OUTLAW POSSE is worth watching for fans of westerns and/or fans of 80s/90s throwback nostalgia, but it's nothing brilliant and I'm not sure I'll ever feel the need to rewatch it.

I love how this film is not a loving homage to the Mad Max films like DOOMSDAY was, but is instead a loving tribute to the many low-budget ripoff films, like EXTERMINATORS IN THE YEAR 2000 or BATTLETRUCK or my personal favorite WHEELS OF FIRE. I loved these moves as a kid and love them just as much today. Author Brian Keene had a great observation that these warriors-of-the-wasteland films offer the same sort of wish fulfillment to Gen-X that westerns offered Baby Boomers, with a man alone in a lawless world finding their way. This film taps into that more than any other by making the main character a teenager and somehow manages to be a film you could describe as "sweet" which is not how you would describe almost every other Mad Max ripoff, which were nearly all decidedly pretty rough. Anyhow, this film is an unbelievable treat for anyone who loves these types of films. Below is my review from the first time I watched TURBO KID in 2016.

5-14-16 Turbo Kid (2015) **** A love letter to 80s post-apocalyptic films is kind of "Mad Max" meets the "BMX Bandits," though I think this film was likely more honoring goofy post-apocalyptic films like "Solarbabies" or "Hell Comes to Frogtown" than "The Road Warrior." Regardless, this tale is set in the distant future of 1997 when acid rain makes drinkable water a scarce resource, our teen hero finds a special red outfit and decides to become a superhero of the wastelands. He meets a cute girl named Apple, who then gets captured by the evil Michael Ironside, who plays Zeus (in a very similar role to what he played in "Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone" as Overdog). The film is slickly made and presents a beautifully shot acid rain-soaked wasteland. Probably best of all is a terrific 80s-style score by Le Matos, which I plan to listen to repeatedly (and that theme song is 80s AMAZING!). My main complaint about the film is the unneeded gore. I consider myself a bit of a gorehound and quite enjoy some Tom Savini or Rob Bottin special effects now and then, so it isn't that I'm opposed to a gory movie, but the tone of this film was so light and silly (very nearly a family film) that the blood and gore seemed very out of place, even when it was done in a very comic Peter Jackson over-the-top sort of way. Also, most of the warriors-of-the-wasteland films to which this movie is paying homage were never all that gory. Yes, they were violent, but they were rarely what I would call gory. Still, that's a minor quibble considering warriors-of-the-wasteland post-apocalyptic films of the 80s are probably my all-time favorite subgenre, anytime a film is wanting to revisit this unique setting, I'm all for it! I can't wait to see what comes next for writer/directors François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell (which apparently is a short film called "Ninja Eliminator 4: The French Connection").

Francis Ford Coppola (THE GODFATHER, APOCALYPSE NOW, THE CONVERSATION, BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, etc.) is an inarguable master filmmaker. Since 2000 he's only made four films and I haven't seen any of them until now. Originally released as TWIXT, this version, B'TWIXT NOW AND SUNRISE, is a re-edited director's cut of the film that's shorter than the original. I never saw the original cut, so I can't compare, but I can say I enjoyed this oddball low-budget film. Val Kilmer plays a barely famous horror writer stopping by a small town for a book signing and then becomes intrigued by a local murder mystery involving a young girl and possibly vampires. Kilmer is good, as always, and Bruce Dern plays the colorful over-the-top sheriff (and wannabe horror novelist). There's also a great supporting cast that includes Elle Fanning as a ghost/vampire/murder victim, David Paymer as Kilmer's agent, and Joanne Whalley (Kilmer's real-life ex-wife) playing his ex-wife, which is delightfully meta and funny. The entire film feels like Coppola is doing a goof and just having fun. After watching the behind-the-scenes documentary by his granddaughter Gia Coppola, I feel even more convinced of that or maybe it's just that Coppola runs a very casual relaxed set. It doesn't feel as substantial or weighty as his other work, but Coppola is a master filmmaker and you can see it in his frame compositions, the way scenes cut together, and the dreamlike quality he brings to the film, even if the material seems rather light and inconsequential. Overall, I'm not sure I'd recommend this film to anyone outside of Coppola or Kilmer die-hards, but I count myself as one on both parts, so this film worked for me.

Grim slow-burn Southern Noir is just too grim to enjoy or to enlighten. A down-on-her-luck single mom is hooking her way across the south going from truck stop to truck stop, daughter in tow, trying to get back home to Mississippi. When she's arrested and then assaulted by a dirty cop, she shoots him in self-defense and then goes on the run. As with most noir thrillers, things spiral downward from there. There are loads of secondary characters and subplots that probably worked for a novel but should have been eliminated or trimmed down for a film, which is probably a result of the novel's author adapting his work and not wanting to let anything go. However, in the film's favor, Willa Fitzgerald, who plays the hard-luck single mother, and who is a new actress to me is fantastic. Even though I felt somewhat distant from the material, she draws the audience into her character and is now an actress who I can't wait to see in more films. I also very much appreciated the look and style of the film and director Nadine Crocker's choice to focus on actors and atmosphere over showy camera stylistics, which is atypical of most neo-noirs. She too is someone who I want to see more of and plan to watch her one previous film. Mel Gibson is another standout, playing the religious father of a recently released ex-con. Overall, DESPERATION ROAD is well crafted and features some stellar dialogue by Michael Farris Smith, but is rather meandering, so unrelentingly grim it was hard to enjoy, and a slow-burn film that failed ever catch fire. Still, it's worth checking out.

Not as bad as I was expecting. Nowhere as good as I was hoping. Slightly better than meh. Director/Co-Writer Zach Snyder (DAWN OF THE DEAD, SUCKER PUNCH, MAN OF STEEL) originally pitched this to Lucasfilms as a new Star Wars trilogy, but when they declined, Netflix took him up and produced this lavish space opera, telling the story of a small farming village on the outskirts of the galaxy coming under the heel of a fascist high tech galactic empire. When the villagers decline help the empire (here called the Imperium) they are told they will return at the end of the season, take all of their crops, and leave them to perish. That's pretty much the same set up as THE SEVEN SAMURAI, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN , and even Roger Corman's excellent Star Wars knockoff BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (which a young James Cameron did the special effects for). A young village woman, who turns out to be a former high ranking Imperium soldier hiding out after betraying them, goes on a mission to find mercenaries to help the villagers fight the Imperium. This sets in motion a set of vignettes, just as the earlier mentioned films did, where each warrior gets their scenes to show off their skills before being asked to help the village. Snyder as a director doesn't seem to bring much original to his material in therms of story, plot, or character, which is certainly true here, but he does have a strong visual flare he brings to all of his films, so they're never boring to look at, even if the materials is rather tepid. I'll be curious to see where this story goes following this film and plan to watch Part Two when it comes out, but I doubt REBEL MOON is definitely not going to be the next Star Wars.

Mild-mannered minister's wife Barbara Crampton (RE-ANIMATOR, CHOPPING MALL) gets bitten by a vampire and all sorts of horrors and dark comedy ensure. What this film does well is it finds a new take on the oft-told vampire tale. The story of Crampton getting bit and slowly turning into a vampire stands in for a story about infidelity and mid-life crisis (she was about to make out with an old boyfriend when she got bit). Crampton finds a new zest for life as a vampire but comes to realize it's at the expense of her 30-year marriage. When she and her husband argue about how she's ashamed of what happened but likes who she is now and how she has changed works perfectly in parallel as if they were discussing her cheating and not wanting to go back to the way things were before. Will she choose a new life with The Master or will she and her husband work together to overcome what happened between her and the vampire? On a pure horror level, I loved the design of the vampire, which reminded me of the rat-like vampire of the 1970s TV mini-series version of Stephen King's SALEM'S LOT (and naming the locale "Kinski County" was a nice nod to NOSFERATU THE VAMIRE (1979). The movie also delivers plenty of fun practical gory special effects. And music by composer Tara Busch is fantastic, and this is her first film credit. Released by Shudder, they are really on a roll for making consistently smart, low-budget horror films. They're like the scrappy underdog version of Blumhouse. JAKOB'S WIFE is not going to be for all tastes, but it is a lot of fun for fans of off-beat horror.

Lately, I've been going back to watch big blockbuster action films I skipped when they originally came out and this Tom Cruise / Cameron Diaz action comedy was one of them. I skipped this because Tom Cruise seriously bugs me, even though I usually enjoy his movies despite him. In this film, Cameron Diaz plays a regular gal who gets mixed up with disavowed secret agent Tom and comedy ensures ALA BIRD ON A WIRE or MR. AND MRS. SMITH. Cruise's secret agent is similar to Peter Falk's character in THE IN-LAWS, where you weren't sure if he was telling the truth or just full of it. Directed by James Mangold, who'd previously made the excellent COP LAND and WALK THE LINE, and who would later go on to direct LOGAN and FORD V FERRARI, so we're in good hands, though the script doesn't offer much in terms of character or story and it mostly just goofy action. Overall, it's not bad, but it's certainly not a film I'll ever feel the need to revisit.

Hands down the best Godzilla movie ever produced! What makes this one stand apart is that the parts between the Godzilla attacks are the best part of the movie, which is pretty much the exact opposite of every other Godzilla movie. Up until this point, GODZILLA FINAL WARS had been my favorite because it's essentially non-stop rubber-suited-Godzilla wreaking havoc. Without spoiling too much of the plot for this film, set in post-WWII Japan, it offers a bit of a wish-fulfillment storyline for the people of Japan to fight an honorable war and find redemption in fighting Godzilla instead of fighting on the side of the Axis Powers. In a town leveled to rubble by world war, a disgraced kamikaze pilot returns to rebuild his life, living in a shack and helping a woman who is taking care of an orphaned infant. It's a terrific melodrama and had me completely hooked. I could have cared less about when the next Godzilla attack came and just wanted to follow these characters as they put their lives back together. The brilliance of GODZILLA MINUS ONE is that when the people of Japan rally together in the face of Godzilla, the audience too can celebrate the main characters finding redemption and becoming whole again. I was completely taken by surprise by how invested I was in the characters, which is generally not why you go to a Godzilla film, but the Godzilla scenes themselves delivered the goods as well, right down to playing the original Godzilla rampage music, which was a nice touch. It is a CGI Godzilla, which I'm not a huge fan of and I do have a preference for a rubber-suit-Godzilla smashing miniature cities, though I'm not sure that would have worked for this film (if you do want that, GODZILLA FINAL WARS is my favorite film with rubber-suit-Godzilla-mayhem). I think my only rub on the film is that the post-war melodrama and kaiju monster movie mash-up felt incongruous at times, though both the melodrama and kaiju monster story and execution are excellent and managed to tie together nicely, they also felt like they were interrupting each other at other times. Still, GODZILLA MINUS One is a surprisingly moving film and can't believe I legitimately felt choked up at the end of a Godzilla movie. Check this one out on the big screen if you can!

I was fairly unimpressed with David Gordon Green's HALLOWEEN trilogy, so I wasn't going into this film with that high of expectations for this horror revival, especially given its tepid reviews, but I found this film truly terrible. It's an alright set-up, with two girls disappearing in the woods and when they return three days later with no memory of what happened to them begin to exhibit signs of being possessed and start what could be an intriguing mystery. Unfortunately, what does unfold is weak attempts at aping the best stylistics of the original EXORCIST film, underdeveloped characters, and nothing that felt remotely scary. Having recently rewatched the original EXORCIST, the original film had its power in the characters struggling with faith, but when you're not invested in the characters, it's hard to care about what happens to them and little to be scared for them about. However, it was a treat to have Ellen Burstyn return as Chris MacNeil (she initially turned down their offer, so they doubled it and she accepted and donated her salary to an Actors Studio scholarship fun), but even then, her character is pretty superfluous to the plot. This is a "requel" that I hope ends with this film and doesn't endure. FUN FACT! On William Friedkin's passing, writer and film critic, Ed Whitfield posted this on Twitter (X) and Facebook: "William Friedkin once said to me, 'Ed, the guy who made those new Halloween sequels is about to make one to my movie, The Exorcist. That's right, my signature film is about to be extended by the man who made Pineapple Express. I don't want to be around when that happens. But if there's a spirit world, and I can come back, I plan to possess David Gordon Green and make his life a living hell.'" Friedkin died two months before the movie was released.

A friend rented out a theater the week before Christmas for a big screen viewing of this holiday classic (I dressed up like a minor character Uli) and it was fantastic to get to see this on the big screen once again and with an audience, which I hadn't experienced since high school when I saw it in the theater with my dad back when the movie first came out. The crowd was filled with quite a few twenty-somethings who'd never seen the film before (which seems unbelievable to this old Gen-Xer) but that made it even more fun to experience the film with an audience laughing and reacting to all the right parts in this almost 40-year-old movie! Everyone laughed at Theo and Karl betting in the background whether Mr. Takagi could give up the computer passcode or when Asian terrorist Uli takes a candy bar out of the display case. You could feel the audience squirm as John McClane pulled glass out of his feet. They laughed at all the right parts and cheered at all the right moments. It reminded me of how movies are best enjoyed as a communal experience. When DIE HARD first came out, everyone rolled their eyes at Bruce Willis being an action hero. Up until that point, action heroes were musclebound unstoppable he-men along the lines of Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Sure there were some non-musclebound ones too, like Clint Eastwood or Harrison Ford, but they were certainly not comedians, which is what Bruce Willis was primarily known for at this time. Before DIE HARD, he was really only known for the hit TV series MOONLIGHTING (if you haven't seen it, it's on Hulu right now) and one Blake Edwards comedy (which wasn't a box office hit). The studio originally offered the part of McClane to Stallone and Schwarzenegger, but the film is a classic because of Willis. He made McClane a vulnerable character, who does get hurt and who could be killed. Willis eventually became an unstoppable action hero like Sly and Arnold, which may be lost on audiences watching this film for the first time now, but back then, Willis was just that goofy guy from TV trying the best he could to save people from bad guys.

But I haven't said anything about DIE HARD itself. Everyone knows the story, so I won't summarize it here, but if you somehow have never seen it before, stop what you're doing right now and watch it! Bruce Willis is effortlessly funny, vulnerable, and heroic all at the same time, which is a nice contrast to most action heroes of the 80s who would only wisecrack one-liners and would never dare to be self-deprecating. Though as great as Willis is, Alan Rickman steals every scene he's in as lead bad guy Hans Gruber. He gets some great lines and character touches from the script, like complimenting Mr. Takagi on his suit or when he pretends to be a hostage, but it's Rickman's refined air that elevates the film. The class Rickman brings to his character is a fun contrast to Willis' blue-collar hero. And what a killer supporting cast, that includes Reginald VelJohnson as Sgt. Al Powell, Paul Gleason playing another jerk, this time the clueless Deputy Police Commissioner, William Atherton as a nasty TV reporter, Hart Bochner as a coke-snorting executive, Alexander Gudunov as terrorist Karl, the great Al Leong (you've seen him in just about every iconic 80s action film), Robert Davi & Grand L. Bush as Agents Johnson and Johnson, and De'voreaux White as Argyle, who I don't remember from anything else, but who was apparently in THE BLUES BROTHERS and TRESPASS when I looked him up on IMDB. DIE HARD is a a witty and clever script from Steven E. De Souza and Jeb Stuart, who both mostly write passable dreck unless their films were made by solid directors like Walter Hill (48HRS), Andrew Davis (THE FUGITIVE), or John McTiernan here with DIE HARD, so I'm giving McTiernan credit to making this film what it is. Credit also has to go to ace cinematographer Jan de Bont, who shot such classics as BLACK RAIN, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, and BASIC INSTINCT, and would later go on to direct himself, with SPEED being his one standout film. Top it all off with a memorable score by 80s mainstay composter Michael Kaman (LETHAL WEAPON, THE DEAD ZONE, ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING, HIGHLANDER, BRAZIL, etc.) and you have the makings for a classic. Overall, DIE HARD is an absolute 80s action classic, and yes, DIE HARD is a Christmas movie!

This was my first Scott Adkins letdown of a movie, but I think that's because even though he is featured prominently on the cover art for the film, he's barely in it and only has about two fight scenes. The story is basically a DEATH WISH setup that takes place in Bangkok, with an ex-covert operative, Dustin Nguyen (the Asian guy from the original 21 JUMP STREET series) hunting down the people responsible for killing his daughter. I had hopes for this movie since it featured an interesting cast that included martial arts regular Gary Daniels (THE EXPENDABLES), Kane Kosugi, the real-life son of 80s ninja movie mainstay Shô Kosugi (ENTER THE NINJA, REVENGE OF THE NINJA, NINJA III: THE DOMINATION, NINE DEATHS OF THE NINJA, etc.), and also Adkins (ACCIDENT MAN, JOHN WICK 4, who I have been binging on lately. The fight scenes are well choreographed but poorly shot, with too many cuts and not giving the audience a clear picture of what's happening. Unless you're a die-hard 21 JUMP STREET fan or a Scott Adkins completionism, skip this one.