Few television programs hit the airwaves with the impact of “Rowan & Martin Laugh-In.” With its rapid-fire skein of zany sketches, topical humor, hipster catch phrases, go-go dancing, and zeitgeist-hugging mod fashions and pop-art production design, the program defined the spirit the free-wheeling and often chaotic late 1960s and early 1970s.
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Director William Lustig’s “Vigilante” is a lot like “Death Wish” on steroids. It’s a bonafide mix of a prison movie, it’s a drama about PTSD, a parable about political corruption, and a surefire revenge thriller to the very end. While the aforementioned ends on a twisted note, “Vigilante” is something of a contradiction. It seems to celebrate the idea of vigilante justice and revenge, but it ends on such a low, bleak note where our hero gets his vindication but literally has nothing left in his life.
If you don’t remember that there were two movies prior to “Paws Unite!” then I personally don’t blame you. The first two movies basically took a painfully derivative premise and did a pretty okay job creating a talking animals’ action movie for the whole family. The third film in the series that no one asked for, “Paws Unite!” pretty much works as a loose sequel. It’s loose because it’s apparent that the screenwriter never actually saw the original films.
You could almost blame “Ghost Ship” of false advertising, as it’s a movie that almost promises to deliver a new kind of ghost movie, and then backs out after the prologue. Steve Beck’s horror movie begins on a very gnarly note with easily one of the most memorable horror movie openings of all time. Beck directs this hook brilliantly and you’d feel bad for not seeing the entire movie through. Once Steve Beck’s ghost film progresses, it’s sadly more of the same.
After the excellent release of the limited edition 2018 print, Code Red delivers a wider and more broadly available upgrade for the highly deserving “Savage Streets.” The 1984 cult classic is still a marvelous gem of eighties exploitation. It channels the classic Youths Gone Wild films of the fifties, and is filled with gorgeous women, roughneck teenagers, and an insanely sexy Linda Blair wreaking pure vengeance against the men that victimized her sister. She does it all with a bitchin’ crossbow, to boot.
Superman’s legend is constantly being re-invented for a new generation and it’s always retrofitted for a new sensibility and new crowd of potential comic book buffs. Thankfully while DC has rebooted Superman a few times in their animated universe they’ve managed to stick to what makes the man and the myth so exciting and awe inspiring. Even in the rare misfires, Superman is almost always Superman and it’s great to see him return yet again in this re-invention of the character’s lore.
If you want to know how much of a tedious experience “Giant from the Unknown” is, it clocks in at barely an hour and twenty minutes, and the monster doesn’t show up until forty minutes in (!). Before that it’s an absolute slog to sit through. When the monster is not on screen there’s the vapid romance between characters Janet (Sally Fraser is absolutely wooden) and Wayne, one of whom is always a damsel in distress. For a movie that advertises a giant, it’s disappointing when it does rear its head, as it tends to look a lot more like a muscle bound Bela Lugosi from “Son of Frankenstein.”