Rating THE EXPENDABLES According To Their Individual & Current Awesomeness.

So the publicity for The Expendables 2 is ramping up.  I’ve been seeing a new mini-trailer in front of movies at the theater recently, which we should talk about.  For one thing, am I the only person who thinks it looks like they majorly skimped on the cinematography budget?  Seriously, dude. Expendables 2 was shot [...]

Cult Classics: BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986).

Today we celebrate a great American.  Oh totally, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but also: John Carpenter, one of my very favorite filmmakers of all time.  Here’s something I wrote on February 11th, 2009:  I recently received in the mail the limited edition 2-disc score album for John Carpenter’s Big Trouble In Little China.  It’s a [...]

31 FLAVORS OF HORROR #6: TREMORS (1990).

Tremors begins with a man peeing off a cliff and ends with a freeze-framed kiss set to a Reba McEntire song.  Movies that commence with urination are a very limited sub-genre, best represented (appropriately) by Waterworld, and if movies concluding in Reba McEntire tunes are their own genre I’m not the guy to ask.  But these [...]

Cult Classics: PUNISHER: WAR ZONE (2008).

      PUNISHER: WAR ZONE & THE SAD STATE OF THE CINEMATIC SHIT-KICKER. So I was one of those strange people who watched Punisher: War Zone during its brief theatrical run.  If you’re a fan of left-field action flicks and intentional unintentional humor, I’ll tell you it’s definitely worth that late-night rental.  If you like [...]

Cult Classics: BLACK DYNAMITE (2009).

In recommending Black Dynamite, the temptation is to get caught up in the spirit and get silly.  Let me go another way, keep it relatively serious, and promise that this is the funniest movie currently playing in any movie theater – that is, unless you’re heading to the multiplex this weekend to make fun of [...]

Now On DVD: THOR.

Hey, what did the beat-up boxer say when his trainer asked him how he was feeling? THOR! So Thor‘s out on DVD and Blu-Ray today.  My review was pretty funny, if I do say so myself.  And I do. “So myself.”  Anyway.  Thor.  Let’s go back there together, shall we?’ ______________________________________________________________________________ Here’s what I liked [...]

From The Archives: MIAMI VICE (2006).

#10.  Miami Vice (2006) I’m sure that there are people who will roll their eyes or sneer at my inclusion of Michael Mann’s Miami Vice feature in my top ten of the entire decade, but that’s fine.  I never started compiling this list with the intention of sounding smarter or cooler than anyone else. These [...]

From The Archives: TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE (2004).

And now, my top ten favorites of 2000-2009 starts to get explosive, with #6.  Team America: World Police (2004) It was a strong decade for comedy, or maybe I just enjoyed comedies more because I needed them so much.  (Depressing-ass decade.)  But of the dozens and dozens of comedies I saw between 2000 and 2009, [...]

Cult Classics: THE STUNT MAN (1980).

    There’s a whole lot of strange business right up from the very start of The Stunt Man, Richard Rush’s brash, bawdy, throroughly virtuosic “lost film” from 1980. It begins with the image of a buzzard, which literally comes to life off the title logo, swooping down to a busy road, where a mangy [...]

Movie Review: SUCKER PUNCH.

Let’s talk about the fetish movie for a second. Not the X-rated variety, but instead the strain of cinema where very talented filmmakers get away (or don’t get away) with indulging themselves with recurring elements that are arguably inessential to the various stories they’re telling. What I mean is that some filmmakers obsess over images [...]