Peter's reel reviews

Death Race

2010-03-03T11:22:00.000-08:00

Oh Death Race.

What can I possibly say about this film? First of all, any movie with a title like Death Race is bound to get my attention. It’s short and straight to the point; I mean, even before you start watching you know that it’s basically gonna involve some guys racing to the death, right? I don’t think too many people were going in to this expecting Kurosawa or anything.

Second of all, once you hear who’s starring (why, Jason Statham and Tyrese Gibson? Get out of town!), you know that this movie isn’t exactly high art. You could probably even deduce that, in all likelihood, a respectable number of characters are going to meet an unpleasant end – either by automobile, car wrench, Statham fist, etc.

The storyline is quite basic – in 2012, the US economy has completely crashed, and with it, society’s standard of what is shown on television. Private companies have also gotten into the prison business, and with these two themes on a collision-course, a new TV show has appeared on America’s screens wherein prisoners in maximum-security lockup will race each other to the death on the small chance that they’ll gain their freedom. Sounds awesome, yes?

Our story begins with former race-car driver Jensen Ames (Statham) arriving at Terminal Island Penitentiary, the most maximum security jail on earth. Jensen is serving time for murdering his wife, which we soon learn is a crime for which he has been framed.

Within seconds of arriving at the jail, Jensen has beat to a bloody pulp at least 4 neo-Nazis and the head of a major prison gang. Seeing as how the life of an inmate is not one in which Jensen is likely to flourish, the evil Warden Hennessey (Joan Allen) offers him a deal: adorn the mask of “Frankenstein” (a previous racer) and race on Terminal Island’s race circuit. If he manages to win just one race (the previous Frankenstein fellow had won 4 out of the required 5), Jensen will be a free man.

Left without much of a choice, Jensen accepts. He is then introduced to his team, which consists of “Coach” and his assistants Gunner and Lists. Let me digress here for a second to say that Coach is played by none other than the great Ian McShane (Al Swearengen of Deadwood fame, also Lovejoy) in a role that just had me shaking my head. Isn’t this the type of role they usually offer to someone like Gary Busey? Then I remembered that McShane also appeared in Andy Samberg’s comic misfire Hot Rod, and it got me thinking: man needs a new agent.

Anyways…

Jensen and all the other drivers are also teamed up with navigators from the women’s prison, who, interestingly, all look like Centrefolds. In fact, when the bus stops and all the babes get out, we get sassy beat music playing. Hey, I never promised that this movie was realistic.

So we have this three-stage race on Terminal Island where 8 drivers are killed off one-by-one, in increasingly creative ways:

• Some essé’s head is literally smashed to smithereens.
• An Asian guy gets blown of out his car by a giant bazooka.
• Previously-mentioned leader of prison neo-Nazi gang’s head is twisted right off like a soda cap.
• A former Nascar criminal is sprayed with napalm and barbecued in his seat.

Jensen threatens to quit, but the Warden (who is supremely evil) tells him that if he ever wants to see his daughter again, he’ll have to participate. We then find out that it was the Warden and her evil henchman who had Jensen framed, in order to send him to their prison just so he would race! While insanely elaborate (why wouldn’t they just pick someone out of the thousands of inmates in their prison instead of going to all the trouble of setting up an innocent man?), it deepens our understanding of this evil bitch and makes us realize what’s at stake for Jensen.

The races continue. Of course, the only two remaining drivers for the last stage are Jensen and Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese). Machine Gun is an uber-badass motherfucker who has a huge hard-on for Jensen. However, in a major plot twist, the two scheme to break out of prison using the Russian heat-seeking missiles located on Machine Gun’s roof (don’t ask too many questions).

The Warden ain’t happy with this plan. In fact, she utters what has to be the most un-ladylike line in movie history:

“Okay cocksucker. Fuck with me, and we’ll see who shits on the sidewalk.”

I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean, but I have to admit that it’s pretty badass; but alas, by that point in time, Jensen and Machine Gun have escaped (along with Jensen’s supremely hot navigator) and all is lost for the evil Warden and her fortress of death.

Death Race, despite its flaws, teaches some real lessons. For example, in a massive, maximum security lockup (with an inmate population reaching into the thousands), one guard usually does all the work. Women in jail are of Playboy-calibre, and not of the butch variety. Female wardens are infinitely more evil than their male counterparts. A Ford mustang, despite being shot point-blank with at least a thousand machine gun rounds, will keep running. Heat-seeking missiles that cost millions can be out-manoeuvred by a skilled driver. And if there’s any sort of prison death race held in the near future, ethnic stereotypes will be the first to meet their maker.

See folks, I loved this movie and also hated it at the same time. Sorta like tequila in that sense – I guzzle it like a cheap whore one second, and then curse it like an Islamic iman the next. I know that it’s stupid as shit, but I couldn’t help myself from smiling throughout the whole ordeal.

Steven Seagal: Lawman

2010-02-08T11:32:00.000-08:00

So I was flipping around the tube a little while back and came to the stunning realization that, nestled comfortably between two episodes of Dog: the Bounty Hunter, a new show had hit the horizon. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen – Steven Seagal: Lawman is now a reality on the airwaves.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. This review could pretty much write itself, yes? I mean, the title alone provides unintentional hilarity. But for the sake of this pitiful blog (and because I’ve really got nothing better to do), I’ve decided to go ahead and attempt to send up A&E’s latest “reality tv” turd.

Now, before I delve into the meat and bones of this summary, I’m not unaware that Steven Seagal: Lawman is a TV show and not a movie. At the same time, Seagal is one of my very favourite action movie stars (I mean, who could not love Under Siege?), and I thought it only fair to pay some sort of twisted tribute to this fallen soldier.

Anyways…

The idea behind the show is fairly straightforward. Seagal, one of the ‘80s (and early ‘90s) greatest action stars, has actually moonlighted as a “Reserve Deputy” with the Jefferson Parish, Louisiana Police Department for the past twenty years. Only now, with his movie career pretty much flushed down the crapper, has he decided to bring this previously-hidden police career into the limelight, and A&E is bringing us along for the ride.

If the show has taught me anything (and it has driven this point home incessantly in spite of its relatively short run), it’s this:

Steven Seagal is a huge asshole.

In the show, our star sits in the front of a cop car while it patrols the mean streets of this New Orleans suburb; occasionally, they’ll stop and interrogate all manner of black folk, arrest drunks, write-up fender-benders…the usual 5-0 stuff. However, no matter the situation, Seagal feels the need to get up in someone’s grill and lecture them about something or other. For example, some poor guy nearly gets shot (remember, this is the ghetto), yet here we have the star of Out for Justice start to lecture the dude about avoiding a life of crime and whatnot.

Or, perhaps this is a better example – a car gets pulled over. There’s a black guy driving, so the cops are instantly suspicious (this is Louisiana, remember). Turns out the guy was doing nothing wrong at all, but his hands were in his coat, so it looked "suspicious". The police pull him over, interrogate him, and basically let him go. But not before Seagal gets in his face:

SS: “Man, you hide your hands like that compadre, it’s no-go time. It looks like you’re hiding a piece, man.”

Random black dude: “What the fuck! I din’ do nothing wrong.”

SS: “You gotta get down! We are the cops. When I say “get down”, I mean “GET DOWN!”

Random black dude: “Whoa…wait a second…are you Steven Seagal?!”

And so forth ad nauseum.

You see, with a title like Steven Seagal: Lawman, I was expecting – at the very least – some great one-liners. Like, how in Above the Law, he utters the classic: “I’ll take you to the bank, Senator – the blood bank!”. Hell, I’d settle for a good-ol’ fashioned ass-kicking of Jamaican drug dealers in a jewellery store à la Marked for Death. However, in Lawman, all we’re subjected to are clichés were he rails against poor kids from the ghetto about staying in school.

Not only that, Seagal also lectures the other cops! He tells them how to drive, how to properly shoot a gun, how to arrest somebody, how to read a perp their rights, and how to smash people’s bones (ok, he might have something on them there). Remember folks, this guy is a Reserve Deputy. That’s like having a volunteer firefighter teach the veterans about how to enter a burning building!

I guess that where I’m going with this is that in real life, our star isn’t really a Casey Ryback or a Nico Toscani…he’s just a washed-up movie star with a mysterious hairline trying to clean up the streets of a crime-plagued southern city. And let’s face it, people – you could make a show about Van Damme or Seagal learning to knit sweaters and I’d probably still tune it. At least this show tries to make our hero similar to the same person he plays over and over again in the movies.

You can take that to the bank, Senator - the blood bank.

Braveheart

2009-11-06T13:18:00.000-08:00

Years ago one summer, I was stuck tending bar at perhaps the un-classiest Yacht Club this side of the Ganges, a place people of the Hamilton tribe refer to as “Royal Hamilton Yacht Club”. It’s not a bad location, and the club itself is a nice enough place; but at the time, the manager in charge was a clattering doofus, incapable of tying his own goddamn shoes, let alone running a bar. And the clientele…jesus. You’d be hard pressed to find a more shameful group of adulterers, louses, charlatans, scumbags or freaks outside of a circus. Still, I enjoyed the job enough (mostly due to my frequent raiding of the bar’s booze), and my co-workers were decent folks.

To get to the point, one evening we were playing this game called “State Your Unpopular Opinion”. Now I’ll admit that I’ve got a few of ‘em – for example, I firmly hold that laws against midget-tossing should be repealed. However, I’ve never faced such inclement disgust as when I voiced my opinion on the 1995 Mel Gibson movie Braveheart.

“It’s not great,” I told my co-workers. “It’s really just a corny, stupid action flick.”

The crowd was not impressed.

“You’re a fool!” one of the bartenders gasped.

“I’ve just lost all respect I ever had for you as a human being,” another said.

So thus my review of this film – to justify my well-founded opinion on it, and to expose to others that Braveheart is a ridiculous, inaccurate, Anglo-phobic hoax made by an anti-Semitic fuckwad (but that it’s still a pretty entertaining action flick).

Oh where to begin. Well, I suppose the beginning of the movie is a good place to start, where a young William Wallace (Gibson), his father and brother fight against the hated English, who occupy Scottish lands. Gibson emerges from the battle unscathed, but his father and bro are killed, meaning that Wallace has to go off to some distant land to be raised by his uncle.

Flash forward a decade (give or take), and Wallace has returned to his beloved Scotland, only to see that the land is still ruled with an iron fist by the cruel English King, Edward I, or “Longshanks” (still one of the most badass nicknames a king can have).

Wallace falls in love with the village babe, Murron. As screenplay logic dictates, practically minutes after they’re married, evil English troops swoon in, with the local Lord demanding “primae noctis” – basically, the right of the local Lord to bone one’s wife before anyone else does. Now here’s the rub: there’s no evidence at all – zilch, zero, nada – that “primae noctis” was used by Longshanks, nor by any English army at the time. So in essence, Hollywood invented this completely. As well, the actor who plays the local Lord is about as appealing as one of the locals at the Hamilton Yacht Club, meaning he’s got the looks of a monkey with none of the intelligence. What would happen if said Lord were played by, say, George Clooney? Or better yet, Hugh Grant? Sigh…

Moving on, Murron gets killed for trying to defend her honour, Wallace loses his shit, starts a battle, and before you know it, a full-out war to gain Scottish independence is underway. No, wait…that doesn’t sound right. It’s a fight for Scottish freedom. No…hold on….not quite there…it’s a fight for FREEDOM!!!!

This type of bullshit line is used again and again throughout Braveheart. Wallace utters the word “freedom!” only 120 times or so, and even at the end of the film, when the English are mercifully gutting the simplistic goon, he manages to scream out “freedom!!” (In real life, Wallace’s last words were probably more like, “FUCK THIS HURTS!!!”)

See, the problem with Braveheart is that at its core, it’s just not true. Sure, William Wallace was a heroic figure who fought for Scottish FREEDOM!!!, but that’s about it. For example:

-In the film, Wallace and his men wear belted plaid. However, in the period in question, no Scot wore this, let alone kilts of any kind
-Wallace himself never met Isabelle, the French princess
-Wallace was actually a rich landowner, not a simple village lad
-Primae noctis was never used by King Edward, nor any of his armies

This probably only scrapes the tip of the iceberg.

Braveheart does get a few things right. Longshanks, for example, is a fantastic villain; in fact, I was rooting for him the whole movie. The supporting cast is appropriately stereotypical. And the French Princess, Isabelle, is a total babe.

As well, it is an entertaining film. If it was on TV right now, chances are I’d be watching it. It’s well-filmed. The acting is decent enough. The sets and the costumes and the fighting and everything else are truly top-notch.

But my main argument is that people think that Braveheart is on par with something like Schindler’s List or Citizen Cane. It’s not, and it’s a crime that it fucking won Best Picture and Best Director. I realize that year was a particularly weak one (seriously, Babe was one of the other contenders), but still…Se7en and Usual Suspects are both ’95 flicks…and those two are miles above and beyond this stinking hunk of Scottish bullshit.

Take Braveheart for what it is: an action movie – nothing more, nothing less. That, my dear readers, is my unpopular opinion.

Teen Wolf

2009-09-11T13:01:00.000-07:00

Been busy for the past lil’ while, so apologies for not updating this stupid blog. You know how it is – drinking, working…well, more drinking than working, but whatever.

Now to get down to business: Teen Wolf. I watched this fucking masterpiece a few days ago and couldn’t believe how awesome it is (except for the ending). Michael J. Fox as teenage loser cum werewolf? Sign me up.

I think that, problematically, this film often gets overlooked when we refer to stupid ‘80s flicks, and when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. The filmmakers all but admitted that this movie was released simply to ride on the coattails of Back to the Future’s success, and other than J. Fox, the rest of the cast are throwaways. Nevertheless, TW is a great addition to the 80s shit collection, with its campy soundtrack, dated styles, and over-the-top dramedy. Hey, if you’ve got nothing to watch on the tube except for a few episodes of Full House, it’s definitely worth a gander.

The movie opens up with a basketball game in which the hapless Scott Howard (Fox) watches his shitty team struggle to even land a single hoop against the visiting Dragons. Naturally, the Dragon’s team consists entirely of douchebags, with particular douchebagedness placed upon the character, Mick, a high school senior who looks closer to forty than seventeen (par for the course in these films, I guess).

Scott feels like crap that he’s such a loser and that his team sucks, and the hot chick (who is also dating Mick) won’t even look at him. We also get a glimpse into Scott’s life. His mother died when he was a young’n, and he lives with his super awesome dad. Scott’s hot next door neighbour, Boof (wtf kind of name is that?!) has a huge crush on him, but he’s too stupid to realize it. All in all, Scott’s social situation at the outset of the movie is one of pre-destined mediocrity and banality.

Flash forward to later that evening, and Scott notices some weird shit starting to happen to him. He’s sweating like a dog. His ears are getting pointy. He suddenly has giant teeth. But this being a movie, Scott doesn’t do what most rational people would do (which is to get to a goddamn doctor asap), but instead heads to the big party. And what a party this is! Really, this scene made me miss high school so much…well, at least the Hollywood version of a high school party, which is probably a hell of a lot better than real life.

Anyways, at this party Scott starts feeling really weird. While locked in the closet with Boof (they’re expected to make out), he tears the back of her shirt with the lust and depravity of a man-dog. She freaks out, he’s aghast (because he’s too much of a pussy to ever act like that), and he runs off into the night. When he gets home, he locks himself in the bathroom, and that’s when the transformation kicks in – Scott’s full-fledged change into the Wolf.

The best thing about this scene is that Scott’s dad is pounding on the door for his son to open up, and when he relents, he finds that his dad is a werewolf too. “Why didn’t you tell me?!” he demands. “Well, son,” he replies. “Sometimes it skips a generation.”

And so it goes, Scott soon begins to enjoy his new-found Wolf-dom. He excels at basketball, bringing his team to the final game (against who else but the Dragons?) despite the fact that said team is peopled with either buckwheat-thin crackers or fat tubs of lard (there’s actually a fat dude character called “Chubby” – I love 80s movies). His best friend “Styles” – a guy who looks about 35 and is clearly ripped on blow the entire film – brings him into the cool crowd and pimps Wolf merchandise, making Scott a legend at school. The hot chick who previously treated Scott with the same disdain as a used tampon now wants to fuck his brains out. So all in all, everything looks pretty hunky dory for our protagonist, right?

Wrong – for several reasons. You see, the Wolf ain’t the real Scott (or so his dad says). Because when Scott’s the Wolf, he’s a terrifying, badass motherfucker, unlike the human Scott, who sucks at basketball, can’t land the dream girl, and probably masturbates a lot. But at the same time, the Wolf (you can tell I love italicizing this word) takes over. And the more the Wolf comes out, the more Scott ceases to be Scott.

So in typical Hollywood fashion, instead of just being a fucking Wolf and enjoying life and bagging hot broads and vanquishing/slashing enemies, Scott decides that he just has to be himself. And somehow, when he resolves to just be Scott, he leads his team to a decisive win over the Dragons, and chooses Boof over the heartbreakingly hot chick. Thus we get the happy ending that everyone wants, Scott gets the girl, and the fore-mentioned douchebag Mick gets his comeuppance (well, sort of, but not really).

See, I like this movie. It’s great, it’s campy, and, well, it’s just plain entertaining. But my preferred ending would be for Scott to just stay a Wolf and rip Mick’s throat out, eat his aorta and get on with things. But Hollywood has to jam the “be yourself” message down everyone’s throat. It’s too bad.

By the way, I don’t recommend Teen Wolf Too – the hideous sequel. Now that movie is just plain ridiculous.

Encino Man

2009-07-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

The fish out of water theme is always a Hollywood favourite, and there’s really no better example than the 1992 comedy Encino Man, in which a caveman, frozen for millennia in the backyard of a duo of stoners, thaws out and reverses their fortunes in popularity and babedom.

While many have vehemently accused Encino Man of being a stupid movie (of which it most certainly is), I can’t help but deny that it possesses a certain charm…a certain charisma…a certain je ne sais quoi. Whether it’s early in the morning or late at night, if this flick is on the tube, I’ll be watching it.

The movie starts out back in caveman times, with the main caveman (suitably played by Brendan Fraser) and his cavewoman becoming victim to what looks like an ice age flash flood or something. Skip forward to 1992 Los Angeles, where friends Dave (Sean Astin) and Stoney (Pauly Shore) are digging a pool in Dave’s backyard, and what do they come across? A giant block of ice with what appears to be a Neanderthal trapped inside, of course. (How a mammoth-sized block of frozen water could survive for thousands of years beneath the searing heat of Southern California is never clearly explained, but we’re not exactly talking about the most scientifically-accurate movie now, are we?)

Anyways, Dave and Stoney unearth this thing, bring it inside, and next thing you know, a pre-civilization caveman is running around their house, making paintings on the wall with his shit, eating dog food, and starting fires in Dave’s room.

As screenwriting convention would have it, the two friends temper this wild guy and manage to dress him in all the latest fashion treads and tell Dave’s folks that he’s an Estonian exchange student named Linkovitch Chomofski (Link – get it?). Dave’s folks fall for this nonsense and within days, Link is the toast of the school, bagging chicks and becoming best buds with everyone from AV geeks to the “hip-hoppers” (man I miss the ‘90s).

There’s only one guy standing in his way – Matt, a popular jock who just so happens to be dating the hottest babe in school…a babe with who Dave is madly in love. Matt doesn’t take too kindly to Link’s rock-eating and hard-partying ways, and several episodes throughout the film illustrate just how much a prick Matt actually is. Luckily for all of us, he gets his comeuppance in front of the whole school, with Dave, Stoney and Link taking the throne as coolest kids on the block. Dave even manages to get the girl in the end, too, despite being an ugly, hapless bonehead. Ah, the movies.

There are a few great things about this film, first among them being Pauly Shore. The guy is clearly baked out of his mind the entire time, and as the audience, we can join in appreciating this. Shore obviously knows what a silly premise this film is, and just rolls with the stupidity by injecting as much fun into the roll as possible. This isn’t so much acting as it is hitting the bong and then just showing up to a film shoot. He also delivers some memorable Pauly Shore lines, such as “munching some grindage”, “chasing the Weaz”, and so forth.

The other great part of this ridiculously stupid movie is a bar scene where Pauly Shore and Link get black-out drunk with a couple of tough guy Latinos. I suspect that this wasn’t in the original screenplay, and was probably just an excuse for Shore and Fraser to drink on studio time, but the director clearly saw how priceless the scene was and they kept it. As an aside, I love how in Hollywood movies, whenever underagers get into a bar in the middle of the day, it’s packed.

There’s plenty of holes and gaps in logic in Encino Man, but one must take it for what it is: a cheap thrill. Sure, it’s one of the most dated films from that period (the other being Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead – god, I used to love that movie), but the kitsch factor is pretty good. It’s also funny how Brendan Fraser and Sean Astin have gone on to become huge stars while Shore had to make a movie ten years later about what a washout he’d become.

To finish off this review, I thought I’d share a dream of mine.

I’ve secretly (well, not-so-secretly) always wanted to pen a screenplay called Blackbeard Collegiate. The idea for this film was to basically rip off the entire plot of Encino Man, but replace the caveman with a pirate. The film would start out with a 17th century high seas chase between a British navy schooner and a rogue pirate vessel, in which of course the pirate vessel would hit a time-warp and for some reason be flashed-forward to the present, where a couple of nerdy high school kids would discover it. I had all the details of the plot nailed down, too. For example, one of the kids would be a little chubby and clearly masturbates a lot, but is really cool deep down. The other friend would be a huge insufferable pothead that always busted out quotable one-liners (an example – main nerdy, Sean Astin-stock character: “The pirate just tore open my mom’s brassiere, threw her down the stairs, and violated her!” to which Pauly Shore-modeled character quips, “Dude, after 400 years without any poonani, wouldn’t you be a little eager to savage the beaver?” Everyone then laughs). There would be bullies that the pirate would obviously tear to shreds, and there would be a dreamgirl who the main nerdy guy just couldn’t land until a cold-hearted buccaneer joined the fray. I even thought it would be a great idea to have the Captain of the British navy ship and the ever-suspicious high school principal played by the same actor. At the end of the film, the vicious pirate has obviously been welcomed with open arms by the entire community (who conveniently and hilariously fail to notice this psychopath’s trail of blood and pillaged wenches), and our two anti-heroes are awash in the much-sought-after gifts of high school popularity and teenage pussy. Maybe one day…

Jason X

2009-06-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, a movie is released to an unsuspecting public that defies all logic and rational thought; a film that must have been contrived, one assumes, whilst the writers were on peyote. Everyone knows what I’m talking about: that rare – albeit endemic – roll of celluloid that has no fucking business ever appearing on a cinema screen.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have seen such a movie (well, many of them, actually).

And that movie is Jason X.

A little synopsis: In 2008, Jason Voorhees is captured by some scientists, who hope to use his “advanced cellular regeneration” to manufacture weaponry for the US military (of course). Only Jason escapes during some nonsense scientific procedure and manages to kill off a bunch of soldiers. The head scientist, obviously himself a smart man, somehow manages to lure Jason into a cryogenic chamber, and locks him in.

This freezes Jason to the point that he ends up on a spaceship in the year 2455. Earth has become too polluted, and all humans have moved to the brilliantly-named new planet called “Earth 2”. It’s only natural that in the process of ditching an entire planet, scientists would decide to bring along some ogre in a hockey mask.

I’d just like to interject here with a fun picture I’ve got in my head. It involves a number of high-paid studio execs sitting around a boardroom table somewhere in Hollywood, throwing around ideas for the new Jason movie.

Somebody says, “So what’s the new planet going to be called?”

Someone else, presumably with the intelligence of a canine: “How about Earth 2?”

The whole chorus of producers: “Brilliant!”

Anyways…

As the journey to Earth 2 unfolds, the unsuspecting crew begins to investigate the rather strange specimen in their cargo, and end up accidentally releasing his frozen corpse from the freezer room. Naturally, two teenagers (one named “Stony” – it seems stock potheads are still en vogue in 2455) decide to have sex in this cryogenic chamber room in which Jason is thawing, and what-do-you-know, Jason awakes and hacks the two lovers to pieces.

I’m not going to give away any more of the plot, but you can guess where this is going. Jason roams the spaceship slowly killing off the entire crew for no discernable reason other than the fact that he’s Jason. Somebody figures out a way to kill him and he is blown up in spectacular fashion, while simultaneously giving us clues that a sequel will be coming.

Whew! I’m out of breath. So I guess the question remains: Did I like this movie?

Well I’ve gotta admit that I was entertained. But really, I was more perplexed…I mean, how on earth did Jason X get made?

Sure, the recycled plot about kids lost in the woods at Camp Crystal was getting old, but seriously…who in the hell thought, “Jeez, you know, Alien is a pretty decent movie. Why don’t we just completely steal that film, scene for scene, and replace the Alien with Jason?”

Unbelievably, according to the credits, hundreds (if not thousands) of people, who made this film their bread and butter, thought it was a good idea. Stupefying, I know.

Would I recommend Jason X? That depends. If you were a Harvard literature professor, feminist, human rights activist, etc, probably not.

On the other hand, if you got your kicks out of mixing whiskey with Pennzoil, shooting birds off your trailer balcony, or your name was Peter Spadoni, I would go out and see this turkey.

Captain Ron

2009-05-20T06:57:00.000-07:00

This past long weekend, I took part in a few real Canadian traditions. One of these was going cross-border shopping in Pennsylvania to find some stellar deals not found north of the border. No sales tax means great prices, right? And on the way home, I toasted one of the other great Canuck long-weekend traditions by going way over my duty limit (in both merchandise and booze) and bullshited Canadian customs about it. No, bullshited is too light a word…I lied through my teeth.

Customs officer: “Where were you, son?”

Me: “I attended the Grammar Fair in Shnedictedy, New York, sir.”

Customs officer: “The Grammar Fair?”

Me: “Yes, sir. The best speller wins.”

Customs officer (rubbing his eyes in fatigue): “Spend any money down there?”

Me: “Why, only enough for a new dictionary and a spelling cap.”

Customs officer, sighing: “Dollar amount?”

Me: “About eight American dollars, sir.”

Customs officer: “Any booze or tobacco?”

Me: “Why, I don’t touch the stuff. I’m a teetotaler, as we say in the spelling business.”

Customs officer: “Go on your way, then.”

Meanwhile, my trunk was loaded to the gills with outlet shopping, fireworks, and contraband moonshine.

I love this type of nonsense, of course. I always find it quite humorous that while US customs treats everyone like a criminal and/or terrorist, Canadians are basically trying to bust their own citizens who spend too much on shopping. Perfectly illustrates the differences between our two countries.

Other than breaking numerous duty treaties, I did something south of the border that really should be a long-weekend tradition:

I got drunk and watched Captain Ron.

For the un-enlightened: Captain Ron was a mildly shitty box-office turd that Hollywood flushed onto an unprepared public in late September 1992. Needless to say, things have never been the same.

The plotline is fairly standard, and I have to hand it to the screenwriters for developing a delectably stupendous recipe. You take one part Martin Short (Hamilton’s favourite son) as a buttoned-down, hapless buffoon and mix it with a careers-going-down-in-flames Kurt Russell as a ne’er do well sea Captain…put them in the Caribbean…mix in a dash of pirates here, a sprinkle of Latin American revolutionaries there…and – bingo! – you’ve got yourself a masterpiece.

Short plays Martin Harvey, the head of a Chicago family that one day miraculously learns that they’ve inherited a yacht once owned by Clark Gable. Martin decides to bring the family down to the Caribbean and pick up this boat to sail back to Miami. However, once they get there, they discover the boat is a wretched piece of shit, and the only person in sight who they think can help them get the fair vessel back to the mainland is a shirtless hippy with a shortlong and an eye-patch. You guessed it: Captain Ron.

Only Captain Ron can’t read a map or drive a boat. He stares at Martin’s wife’s tits on every occasion, admits – over beers – that he jerks off in the shower to Martin’s 11-year-old son, ruthlessly hits on the barely pre-pubescent daughter, and just lazily hangs around getting drunk while Martin practically shits his pants over the family’s predicaments.

We’ve all seen Martin’s character before. Richard Dreyfus played him quite nicely in What About Bob? (a true classic), as the uptight dad who acts, quite rationally mind you, like a total prick when confronted with a lunatic. Meanwhile, the family falls in love with said lunatic while uptight dad just looks like an uptight dad. I gotta say that if some greasy hippy was grabbing my wife’s ass and admitting to my children about “hiding the salami”, I wouldn’t be none too happy, but screenwriting convention has to make this scumbag loveable, goddamnit.

And fall in love with Captain Ron does the family ever do, much to Martin’s chagrin. Why, one can glean this fact by just looking at the poster! Of course, by the end of the movie, Martin has come around. But not before Captain Ron rescues the family from pirates, revolutionaries, and those dirty, evil Cubans.

I have to admit that while this sounds terrible, at the same time (while intoxicated, remember), this movie was fucking fantastic. Sure, Captain Ron is a walking, talking cliché, but his scumbaggery is so endearing that it’s hard to see him for the pederast that he really is.

So next long weekend, do yourself a favour. Grab some rum or a pina colada, say fuck it to the fireworks, and just sit at home with an old friend…the uber-tanned, eye-patched, mulleted Captain Ron.

Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot

2009-05-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

Ah...Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. Brings me back.

I remember pleading with my dad to rent this cinematic monstrosity around 1992, when I was about 10 or so.

"Look, dad!" I exclaimed, handing him the movie box while he perused more "erotic" selections.

"Hmm, let's see..." he said, and I could practically hear him groan as he read the back of the box. "Isn't there anything else you'd like to rent?"

"No!" I pleaded, on the verge of a tantrum.

Unfortunately for him, my dad relented, and sat through what had to be two of the more painful hours of fatherhood. I put my folks through a lot of shit when I was younger, but this had to rank somewhere near the bottom.

"So, dad, didn't you love it?" I asked him ecstatically when the movie finished.

The old man sighed. "Some things, son," he said, "you'll understand when you're older."

Well I finally got what Carl Spadoni was rambling about:

Kids are fucking stupid.

For the uninformed, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is a comedy starring Sylvester Stallone and Golden Girls star Estelle Getty, about a cop whose elderly mother meddles with his life to the point of going on raids and chases with him. Yeah, I know...it's pretty much the anti-Cobra in every possible sense of the word. (I can't even imagine Marion Cobretti having a mother. For all I know the man was born in a landmine explosion. Moving on...)

Back in 1991, Stallone, seeing how Schwarzenneger had parlayed his steely action stardom into cuter, more family-friendly roles (think Twins, Kindergarten Cop, and - shudder - Junior) decided he'd give it a shot. What resulted was one of the worst films of the decade.

And just how bad is this movie? Rest assured, it's bad. Fucking terrible, even. It's so bad that it makes Stallone's work in Over the Top seem Shakesperean in comparison. It's so bad, in fact, that I'd be surprised that anyone involved in even the smallest aspect of the movie - from the producers all the way down to the pimply-faced teens selling tickets at the cinema - ever had a future in show business again. I like to think that instead of waterboarding Al Qaeda and other terrorist suspects at Guantanemo Bay, the US just shows this film on a constant loop.

For a little backstory: Sly Stallone plays Sgt. Joe Bomowski, a tough-as-nails cop who's just been dumped by his Lieutenant. Taking pity on him, his frail older mother comes out to visit him and stay at his place, making his life an all-around misery. A couple choice scenes:

Stallone's trying to save some douchebag from jumping off a building. Mama Bomowski comes on the loudspeaker and gives Sly such a hard time about things that the jumper takes pity on him. Har-dee-har-har.

Or in another "hilarious" moment, she washes his gun in dish detergent.

The problem with the movie is not the premise. In reality, I actually think that under the right circumstances, it could work. But with Stallone at the helm and Getty at the ass, it's a god-awful mess bereft of laughs and, at less than 90 minutes, feels longer than a war.

Honestly, folks, there's not much more to say about this putrid wretch of a film that hasn't already been said by a million critics. I believe it was universally hated by nearly everyone at the time...

Except for a stupid kid back in '92, who between listening to the new Hammer record and fretting about which track pants to wear to impress the girls (Puma or Reebok?), gave this pathetic excuse of a movie a chance.

Commando

2009-04-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

On the subject of stupid-awesome films, there's Commando, and then there's everything else. This movie recently came back into my life after watching the great Taken (see last post). One cannot talk seriously about that film without understanding the older, campier, and generally more enjoyable Commando.

I remember seeing the box for this movie in Jumbo Video circa 1988, after "accidentally" losing myself in the adult section (for those of you that remember the pink room at the back of the Dundurn location, give yourself a pat on the back). The image of a rippling-muscled Arnold Schwarzenneger, dressed in a military vest and be-smudged with camo makeup, with the tagline "Somewhere, somehow, someone's goint to pay!" scared and fascinated me at the same time. Of course ol' Anne Spadoni took one look at the box and refused to rent the film, opting instead for some worthless family vehicle such as Turner and Hooch. Luckily, though, my corrupt older cousin happened to have a copy of Commando laying around in his basement, and one memorable Christmas, we screened this gem while our folks were busy upstairs getting into the vino.

Seeing the movie years later, nothing has changed. Obviously I laugh now when back then I would cover my eyes in horror. But still...

The plotline of Commando is all too familiar: a retired ex-special forces badass is forced to come out of retirement and knock some heads together to get his kidnapped daughter back. Sound familiar?

Schwarzenneger plays John Matrix, the former mastermind of an elite military squad. Matrix lives in some mountain retreat with his daughter Jenny, and during the opening credits, we're treated to some of the cheasiest tender father-daughter moments in movie history (which is admittedly out of place considering the movie's high body count). Matrix and Jenny just want to enjoy their privacy, go swimming, and feed deer. Yes, that's right - one of the opening shots is of Schwarzenneger actually feeding a doe.

Seems like someone isn't too thrilled about Matrix living peacefully, and has slowly been killing off all the former members of his team. The bad guys then kidnap Matrix's daughter, threatening to kill her unless he helps them assassinate the President of Val Verde. Standard stuff, really.

The head bad guy is a former member of Matrix's squad long-thought-to-be-dead, an Aussie named Bennett. This has been pointed out before, but Bennett constitutes what could seriously be considered the gayest looking bad guy in film history. Think about it: chain-mail vest, large moustache, leather gloves, tight leather pants, Australian accent...all that's missing is a whip and a bottle of KY. Nevermind, though, because Bennett's gang of colourful henchmen provide a full movie's worth of great deaths.

And boy does Schwarzenneger unleash in this film. He smashes noses, strangles necks, hacks limbs, drops people off cliffs, lifts cars, shoots and electrocutes and smothers and burns the poor badguys, an army of them unable to hit Matrix with a single shot. If the US Army had a guy like this on their side, not only would 9/11 have never happened, Osama would be safely in custody, and every enemy would be pissing blood.

The action in this film - for 1985, mind you - is top-notch. But what really sets Commando apart is the one-liners. Examples:

Matrix is dangling the slimiest bad guy, Sully, from his leg over the edge of a cliff.

"Remember when I said I would kill you last, Sully?" he asks.

"Yeah! That's right, Matrix, you did!" Sully pleads.

"I lied."

Matrix releases Sully, who falls to his death.

Or in another case, Matrix gets on an airplane with a huge Jamaican dude. They sit down in the seat, and Matrix slams his elbow into the dude's nose, then breaks his neck. He puts a blanket over they guy and places his hat over his face. The stewardess comes by:

"Can I get you two anything?" she asks.

"I'm ok. And please don't disturb my friend...he's dead tired."

Against my better judgements, I'm not going to point out any holes in the plot (of which, believe me, there are many). You see, Commando itself is basically one giant plot hole. It's action porn of the highest order, and if you're looking for a couple of hours to just kill and enjoy senseless mayhem, you could do no better.

As an aside, I heard that Gene Simmons was originally considered for this role. I just can't possibly imagine the lead singer of Kiss mowing down guys with a bazooka, but hey...someone in Hollywood thought about it once. Better Gene Simmons than Richard Simmons, I suppose. Gives me hope that I might be able to play the title role in the sequel...

Taken

2009-04-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

Hollywood loves the Commando plotline, and for good reason. Think about it: you have a hardened, "retired" CIA or Special-Ops killer who only wants to enjoy said retirement and spend time with his previously neglected daughter. Dude's buddies or former boss make an appearance at the beginning of the movie requesting that retired badass guy come back to the ass-kicking and terrorist-assassinating business, only to be rebuffed. "I'm retired," is always the line.

But it seems that since evildoers and terrorists get little to no pension, they gotta keep working. Meaning this previously unstoppable killing machine will have to go back to his brutal ways in an attempt to save his virgin daughter from unspeakable perversity.

Take Taken, for example. Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a "preventer" who is now retired and living in Los Angeles, trying desperately to make up for lost time with his daugher Kim, who, as screenwriting convention would have it, still desperately loves her Daddy despite his lack of presence in her earlier years. Bryan's wife is now married to an effortlessly rich dude - a beau so wealthy he gives Kim a pony on her birthday (compared to Bryan's comparatively shitty karaoke machine present).

Bryan, it must be mentioned, is utterly, utterly badass. To illustrate this point, we have him working security for some pop diva at the beginning of the movie. Out of nowhere, a knife-wielding attacker jumps from the shadows, only to have Bryan quickly dispatch him by snapping his bones like a twig.

Flash forward to the next day, and Bryan's virginal-innocent daughter wants to go to Paris for the summer. Bryan is skeptical, because after all, he knows the world isn't a safe place, especially for this innocent American tourist stereotype. Bryan's bitch of an ex-wife scowls in his face and utters half-truths about his old-man ways. "We'll be spending our entire time in museums!" Kim pleads, and shockingly (remember, this is a guy guy who is supposed to have been a serious bone-smasher in the intelligence community), he believes her, albeit reluctantly.

Well, we've all heard the "I'll-be-spending-all-my-time-in-a-museum" excuse before, and unsurprisingly, it turns out that little Kimmie will be spending her vacation moving around Europe following U2. Bryan ain't happy - he knows that Paris is extraodinarily dangerous, and that young girls will do just about anything sexual in the presence of rock stars.

I guess the filmakers lost all irony that the characters are based in LA, a city with an insanely higher crime rate than any European capital, and that milquetoasts U2 are basically the Disney-channel equivalent these days to a rock band. Now, if it had been heading to Beirut to follow Motley Crue on tour circa 1984, I'd be worried...but following U2 in Europe in 2009? Come on, Dad. Aren't you overreacting? But alas, Bryan's hands are tied, and Kim goes gallavanting off to Paris with her slutty friend Amanda in tow.

Of course, as soon as they get off the plane, the girls are be-friended by a charming French slimeball who sees them to their apartment, and quickly radios in their location to a secretive group of baddies. Kim, conveniently on the phone with Dad as the kidnappers arrive, gives all the details she can about her abductors, and from this extremely limited set of clues, Bryan finds out all he has to know to get to Paris and start his quest to get back his daughter.

What we learn about the bad guys had me wringing my hands with glee. Through one of his old contacts at the Company, Bryan discovers that these aren't any just run-of-the-mill villains. No sir, they're Albanian sex traffickers! Western tourists are kidnapped in European capitals, and then force-fed drugs until addicted, and then sold to high-rolling Arab sheiks or crooked Chinese investors as sex slaves. Bryan is told that he has 96 hours to find his daughter before she "disappears forever", giving us a convenient timeline for him to get to France and start knocking heads.

I would just like to mention here that I love the fact that the screenwriters chose to make the baddies Albanians. Albania doesn't get trashed often enough in cinema these days, and it was refreshing to see these despicable dogs of Eastern Europe get the comeuppance they so deserve. It was especially great for Bryan's CIA buddy to remark, "Not even the Russians deal with trash like this". You hear that, Mom? Not even the Russians will deal with them! That must make them especially evil.

Thus ensues a solid hour of scrotum-smashing and femur-cracking that had me on the edge of my seat (well, not really). Predicatably, Bryan goes through just about every avenue possible to find Kim, from posing as an undercover cop, to putting bullets between the eyes of just about anyone who even said hi to his daughter. An old French spy buddy who now sits behind a desk warns him not to make a mess, which of course Bryan does within seconds of touching down in the City of Lights.

I did enjoy this movie. Are there plot holes, though? Obviously. For example, Bryan is frequently references as having done a hell of a service for his country (the good ol' US of A), yet he inexplicably has an Irish accent. Despite the fact that Bryan can't speak a lick of French, he has no problem posing as a Parisian cop and interrogating people. And this vague, mysterious coven of rich, twisted villains who buy and sell young women? Sure, I suppose these guys exist...but it just seemed pretty phoney...like an excuse for Liam Neeson to kick the shit out of a bunch of random people. I've obviously got no problem with that at all.

It must be mentioned that with any other actor (Steven Seagal, for example), this film would go right to the bargain bin at your local Giant Tiger. But with Neeson cast as the main character - even if it is a paycheck role - the film never loses its momentum.

He just looks like a guy you wouldn't want to fuck with, and in Taken, a bunch of dirty Albanians find that out in spades.

Terminator 2

2009-03-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

Imagine, for a second, that you've just won the lottery. You're on your way to pick up your winnings, when a smoking hot blonde approaches you, and (she doesn't know you're rich yet), asks you out to a steak dinner at her house later. Then, God comes down from the sky and hands you your worst enemy - tied up - and a red-hot coal poker, and instructs you to do your worst, because for some reason this will end all war and poverty in the world. So, in one fell swoop, you've become a multi-millionaire, sealed the deal with the woman of your dreams, dispatched of your worst enemy and solved humankind's greatest problems. Sounds pretty sweet, doesn't it? Well, if you added all these things together with a fucking cherry on top they'd still not amount to how amazing Terminator 2 is.

I first saw this movie when I was about 9, and it left quite an impression on me. I wouldn't shut up about it at school, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. For example:

Teacher: "Ok class, who can tell me who the first black president of South Africa is?"

Me: "John Connor."

Teacher: "No, Peter. It's Nelson Mandela. He was in prison during apartheid for opposing the racist government. Do you know what apartheid is, class?"

Me: "It's a wing of Cyberdine systems, Miss. When Miles Dison created the prototype from the crushed arm of the original Terminator sent back in 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, he -"

Teacher: "No! Go to the corner!"

And so forth. You see, Terminator 2 is more than just a film for me. It's a frikkin' religious experience.

The movie opens brilliantly with a voice-over by Linda Hamilton detailing how several billion human lives ended on August 29, 1997, and the survivors of this nuclear holocaust lived on to face a new nightmare, which we all know is the war against the machines. The camera pans across the bleak landscape of a burnt-out Los Angeles circa 2029, and then stops on a skull - only for it to be crushed by the titanium foot of one of the robot soldiers! Religious experience, indeed.

The narrator goes on to explain how the original Terminator, sent back to 1984 to kill the mother of the future resistance leader, failed...but now, another, more complex and terrible killer is sent back to kill the child John Connor in approximately 1996-97. However, the humans have a trick up their sleeves, too, for they are sending a protector for John, a Terminator in his own right...and it's just a matter of which one will reach him first.

Now, first of all, there are obviously some problems with the logic of this plot, and even as an impressionable fifth-grader I had to point them out. Take the fact that in each Terminator movie, the killer the machines send back in time is gradually more badass than the one before. Okay, fine - that makes sense. But why wouldn't the machines just send their most badass model all the way back to 1984 (or even before that)? Why do the machines send the T-X (the woman model from Terminator 3) to kill John Connor in like 2003, when he knows what to expect? Why wouldn't they just send her to kill him when he's in his diapers or something? Don't make no sense to me. "It's just a movie, son," my dad would say. Smart man, that Carl Spadoni.

The same plot holes, by the way, are present in the Back to the Future films. But moving on...

It's hard to put into words what I like best about Terminator 2.

For one, this is easily Schwarzenneger's best role (and to think, he made Kindergarten Cop in the same year!). His Terminator is a rock-solid, no-nonsense killing machine, and I love it when he walks into a bar, ass-naked mind you, and demands in the most deadpan manner to some random biker: "I need your clodes, your bike, and your moto-cycle." Stunning. The filmakers had the good sense to place his character firmly on a chopper bike, and the gun they give him - that one that he just twists around his hand to cock it - is so cool.

Or the T-1000. Forget the fact that Robert Patrick (a decent actor in his own right) will forever be known as "the dude that played T-1000". This was the role he was born to play. He steel gaze, his humourless manner, his ability to turn any part of his body into a fucking knife - this a truly great villain doth make.

The soundtrack is incredible. The da-da-da-da-da drumb beat is forever associated with badass-ness. Or the weird metallic sound that groans through our ears every time the T-1000 is on screen. And who could forget Eddie Furlong and that ugly red-headed mullet kid riding on the back of their dirtbike rocking the Guns n' Roses tune "You Could Be Mine"? (I thought it was a nice touch that GnR's video for said tune featured a be-sunglassed Arnold pointing a rifle at Axl, only to have the words "Waste of Ammo" flash across the screen).

Now I know there are some haters out there, and like any legendary film, there are some issues. It can be corny, yes (especially when the Terminator says, "I now know why you cry, but it's something I can never do"). John Connor as played by Eddie Furlong is as annoying as hell, too...but I think that mostly boils down to jealousy. I mean, who in their right minds wouldn't want to play that role?! There's also a strange scene in the back hallways of the mall where the T-1000 and the Terminator first meet: some random dude, drinking a Pepsi, jumps right into the line of fire. Never understood that one to be honest.

On the other hand, how can one possible bash a film that features so much action? There are no less than three incredible car chases throughout the film, the first one going down as one the most famous in movie history. Explosions, gun fights, helicopter crashes and people enduring unimaginable beatings are nicely peppered throughout. The dialogue is crisp and to the point, and with just a whisper of philisophical necessity, to get us thinking about our relationship with technology and each other in between fistfuls of popcorn.

If you haven't seen this movie yet, well, I only have one question for you: what the hell is the matter with you? And if this is so, get off your keister and go rent it. Because life is short, work sucks, but one thing is certain: Terminator 2 rocks.

That, and the fact that the next movie James Cameron made was Titanic. For shame, Mr. Cameron...for shame.

Cobra

2009-03-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

"Crime is a disease. He's the cure."

There's not a much more satistying film that I can think of than Cobra. Many have questioned its aspirations. "It's a right-wing fantasy," some have said. "It's a mindless excess of violence and profanity," others have whispered. "It's a no-good piece of shit written by and starring the most worthless actor/action star American cinema has ever produced," claim even more.

They're all right.

And it's awesome.

You see, Cobra, silly as it is, stands as a sort of time capsule - a relic of a bygone era where tight jeans, huge guns and body counts into the thousands attracted record crowds. Although there will always be films that are unintentionally funny (and Cobra is definitely one of these), few reach the level of sheer camp and hilarity that this Stallone flick enjoys.

For the uninitiated, the movie is fairly self-explanatory. Sly Stallone plays Marion "the Cobra" Cobretti, a rogue cop who doesn't play by the rules (of course). Throughout his adventures, he has to deal with a stupid chief, a liberal judiciary (that, according to the movie, releases pedophiles and mass-murderers into America's playgrounds), a blonde supermodel who he eventually falls for, and, unsurprisingly, an outfit of Satanist crazies who ramble on about some "New Order" whilst attacking innocent civilians.

Now if this ain't a recipe for the modern day equivalent of Macbeth, nothing is.

The movie opens brilliantly with a random psychopath taking over a supermarket. Dude is crazy: he blasts some kid with a shotgun for nothing, all the time going on about this "New Order" crap. To illustrate just how badass Stallone's character is, the police top brass whisper to each other, "We better send in the Cobra." That's right, kiddies...instead of a well-trained SWAT or anti-terrorist team going into save the day, the cops rightully believe that sending in - alone, mind you - the short greasy star from Over the Top will defeat the enemy. But the Cobra proves that balls alone will win the day.

"I'm gonna blow up this supermarket, man!" the crazy dude threatens.

The Cobra doesn't flinch.

"Go ahead," he says smoothly. "I don't shop here."

Un-befucking-lievable.

Besides the great one-liners (and in Cobra, the "writers" really went all out in this deparment), the movie features great action scenes, a hot babe (Brigitte Nielsen, in the days before Flavor of Love ruined all her credibility), and a tender-hearted partner who is always ready to chime in with some humor (played by Reni Santoni, aka Poppi of Seinfeld fame). But where Cobra really shines is when the bad guys are on screen.

And what bad guys they are! This group of misfits, psychos and lunatics make Charles Manson look like Lionheart from the Care Bears. Seriously, the lead bad guy, played by Brian Thompson, is so scary looking that if I saw him peering in my window, I don't think my sphincter would ever recover. Take a gander:

Their goal, as stated before, is to bring in some "New Order". The movie never really clarifies exactly what this means - on inspection, all the bad guys seem to do is bang axes together in some pseudo-fascist way and hack innocents to death. We also never get to delve into the mind's or philosophy of these clearly insanely evil people. All that matters is that they're out to destroy civlization and, (obviously), to be cannon-fodder for the Cobra's overly-eager gun. Interestingly, the movie leads us to believe that it's not just a few nuts in this Satanist cult, but that hundreds, if not thousands of Southern Californians are lining up to be led by a guy who is the real-life flesh-and-blood realization of the Dark Lord. Even - gasp - one of the cops is in on it!

What results from this army of tyranny (or evil, or Democrats cough-cough) is a shoot-out at the end of the film to rival all shoot-outs. As I mentioned, the cult's membership probably exceeds that of the YMCA, yet Stallone manages to gun down every single one of them at the end of the movie. This is a body count to rival Commando.

Let's be honest here, folks - Sylvester Stallone has made some pretty shitty movies. But if you're looking for the antithesis to Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, you could do a whole lot worse than Cobra.

Road House

2009-03-11T06:40:00.000-07:00

Back in university, I lived in what could best be described as a "guy's house". This place was classic, of course, with all the typical trimmings of the animal lodging: keg parties, pranks, late-night shit-talking and all other forms of general debauchery took place in copious amounts under our roof. The place possessed an undeniable charm, sort of the way an abbatoir holds morbid fascination for the sick. And while were weren't destroying our bodies with cheap swill and breathing in putrid air from overfilling garbages and overflowing toilets, we watched a lot of movies. In between cutting class, smoking thai sticks and drinking Lakeport Honey Brown, there were a lot of films - many ranging from fantastic to terrible - that my roomates and I watched. And for the most part, the majority of them were completely forgettable.

There is one flick, however, that will always stay with me, and no matter the time of day or business of my schedule, I find myself watching it and re-watching it.

I was sitting on the filthy couch in our hazy living room with my roomate Craig when a certain Patrick Swayze flick started up on the tube. This film was Road House.

"I've never heard of this movie," I casually remember remarking.

"You ain't never seen Road House?" he gasped, the evocation of the title alone adding an inflection of yokel to his accent.

"No, man," I replied.

"Well...you are in for a treat."

Boy, was he right. For the next two hours, I was enthralled.

For those unfortunate enough to have not seen easily the best film in the Swayze canon, Road House is about Dalton, "the best bouncer in the business", who is sent to the rough-and-tumble bar, the Double Deuce, to calm things down and enforce justice. Unfortunately, Dalton will have to deal with more than just a rough bar. The town's evil henchman, Brad Wesley (played wonderfully by Ben Gazarra, the same guy who plays Jackie Treehorn in the Big Lebowski), controls everything, runs drugs, extorts from local businesses, and is a general all around prick. What ensues is basically the most ridiculous film ever written - and I loved every single second of it.

For god-knows-what reason, Dalton's character is made deeper than just a simple ass-kicker. Why, partway through the film we find out that he's got a degree in philosophy from NYU, and there's a dark secret from the past lurking beneath his tough-guy surface. This comes in really handy when he goes to see "Doc", the film's female love interest. Doc (the character is so underwritten that she doesn't even have a name) sleeps with Dalton on what appears to be the first date, and is ooed and awed by his deep philisophical meditations on life. Because, you see, Dalton just ain't no regular Joe - he's a wise old soul beneath that steel exterior. But the thing I love about Road House is that all that moral and philosophical shit goes out the window when the fighting really starts.

And there's a hell of a lot of fighting in Road House. Probably no more than five minutes goes by without a massive bar brawl, replete with smashed glasses, broken tables and chairs slamming across people's backs. Pool cues (I don't even think the Double Deuce possessed a billiards table) were of course meant to be snapped around some poor sod's back. If a stool is in site, of course it's going to be breaking over someone's head. In reality, of course, no one would walk away from a fight like this (especially a 5-9" runt like Patrick Swayze), but Dalton always walks away with nary a scratch on his face or a ruffle in his sprayed-up mullet.

It's hard to choose what I like most about this film. The one-liners are fantastic ("pain don't hurt", "take the biggest guy in the world, shatter his knee and he'll drop like a stone", and my all time favourite, when some waitress asks Dalton if he's got a name, all he replies is, "yeah" and walks away). The Double Deuce's house band, led by the fantastic musician Canuck Jeff Healey, is genuinely good for the soundtrack and only adds to the film's camp value. And the supporting baddies are appropriately deferential to Brad Wesley (seriously, outside the movies, what street toughs actually call people Boss?)

There are of course problems with the film, which I have (and will continue to) overlook. For example, Brad Wesley "runs the town", but this town appears to be no more than one bar, a car dealership and a convenience store. Hot babes crowd the Double Deuce, despite the fact it makes Baghdad look like a safe place. But to point out these gaps in logic is to do the movie (and yourself) a disservice.

For Road House, at its heart, is an escape, a break from the monotany of everyday life. Nobody questions Hamlet, either.

Death Wish 3

2009-03-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

Ever been pushed around on the subway? Ever been out for ice cream and had your wallet taken by a bunch of thugs whon then show up at your house later on and rape your wife and daughter and beat you to a bloody pulp? Ever gone to the police after an event like this only to have the stupid chief shrug and say, "they have a good lawyer"? And have you ever secretly wished to order a massive gun through regular-delivery mail and to hunt said punks down, night after night, and enforce sweet, righteous justice? I know I have.

If you're like me, then you can definitely empathize with Paul Kersey (played by Charles Bronson), the main character in each of the Death Wish films. It seems that in each sequel, he's re-married or gotten a new "friend", only to have them die a terrible death at the hands of society's worst offenders. Faced with an uncaring judicial system controlled by liberals, Kersey goes about getting vengeance the only way he knows how: by wantonly blowing away all responsible.

Which brings me to Death Wish 3.

I watched this gem last weekend on AMC, somewhere between Commando (a huge personal fave) and Cobra (ugh...Stallone at his right-wing worst. Sign me up!).

The first thing that I noticed about this movie is that Charles Bronson looks old. I mean, the motherfucker is pushing 80 in this flick and still manages to 1) wipe out a gang of multi-cultured street toughs a quarter his age, and 2) bed a woman young enough to be his great-granddaughter.

Old though he may be, by jove is this guy badass. Seriously, Chuck blows away punks, thugs and ghetto urchins with the zeal and lust of an SS Sturmbanfuhrer. Mug an old Jewish couple? You're taking a board of nails across the kisser. Steal a purse from an innocent old lady? You'll get blasted by an elephant gun - an elephant gun!

At one point in the film, Bronson unveils his weapon of choice...a gun so big it would make Schwarzenneger blush. "Is...th-th-that a magnum?" asks one of the neighbors that Bronson is reluctantly protecting from the criminals. The look on Chuck's face can only be described as disgust. "No," he says. "Magnums are for pussies" (well, he doesn't really say that, but he might as well of). I was reminded of the scene from Crocodile Dundee where Mick's girlfriend, in the process of being held-up, is like, "You better give him your wallet, he's got a knife" at which point Dundee whips out a massive machete ("That's not a knife," he remarks to the terrified street kid. "Now this is a knife.") But I digress.

Much has been said about Death Wish 3's...how shall I put it...lack of "artistic vision". Sure, the special effects suck. Bronson's phoned-in performance could just have well been done by a wax dummy. The ghetto of "New York" looks suspiciously like the British countryside. Large portions of the story are missing, and massive gaps in logic appear at the most inopportune moments. And the script is a mess, written no doubt by a committee of Reagan-era studio hacks. Still, DW3 possesses a charm and wit not found in many other 1980s action flicks - and coming from an era of absolutely classic filmaking, that's saying something.

Take the stupid police chief, as played by the great Ed Lauter. Now, in the hands of a lesser man, this role would be hackneyed, predictable, and above-all, laughable. But Lauter lets us know he's in on the joke. A smile here, a wink there. Next to Chuck's wooden part (and let's face it, folks...in Bronson's long career, he's definitely been worse), Lauter's role is downright Oscar-worthy.

Or the "gang" of criminals that are terrorizing this hapless burough of NYC. I mean, where outside of the Death Wish series can one find a criminal enterprise comprised of such colourful characters? Black, white, purple...they're all together. It seems that the only requirement to enter into the gang is a propensity for evil. Rapists and murderers hang out openly with shoplifters and pot-smokers. Equal opportunity, affirmative action punks, they are. It's like the filmakers, more than half-a-decade before the end of apartheid, said, "We shall overcome". Their heartwarming vision of a multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-faith gang living harmoniously is an inspiration to us all. And I thought it was a nice touch that Bronson blows away all of them in equal measure. None esape the barrel of his gun.

So all in all, if you're in the mood for a rather mindless yet hilarious trip down Bronson lane, look no further than Death Wish 3. For Charles Bronson - that great purveyor of cinematic vigalante justice - this is his greatest bloodbath, and DW3 is surely his greatest work.

First post...

2009-03-10T11:02:00.001-07:00

Well damn, lots of people have blogs. And most of them, forgive me for saying it, are damn boring. I read this blog this morning of some broad in Cheektowaga (or some equally hell be-gotten place) about cocker spaniels. Seriously, cocker spaniels? Not interesting.

This is gonna be different, though. That's right, peeps of the web, this blog is gonna blow your f'n' mind. I'm going to detail a whole bunch of wacky stuff that only my unique pop culture sense can pick up.

So, let me get down to my first real post (coming up)...why the "Death Wish" series are the unsung masterpieces of American cinema...