People bitch about how video games get a bad rap, but these days so many action movies are built around this concept that make them live action video games. It’s impossible not to hate on video games when so many action movies want to convince us that they really could be if a studio tried hard enough. Take “Redline” a movie thankfully obscure due to a poor release date and terrible publicity, but is really just constructed like a video game. We have cut scenes, colorful characters, bosses, and various drivers all of whom are introduced with profiles and name inserts by heroine Natasha who takes great pains to give us back story without the script ever having to do the work to good old fashioned storytelling.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Next Caller (2009)
Beware skeptics. If you have a radio show and you’re daring to tap in to the supernatural, the odds are you’re going to get knocked the fuck out by some spooks and ghouls. That’s the case for Handsome Billy Bob Brown, the local shock jock in town who causes trouble by pissing people off and has been handed the duties of covering outlandish topics like UFO’s and the after life. Patrick Rea seems to be building a compendium of short films that could work as a horror anthology if given enough time and clout and I’d definitely buy it.
Cool Hand Luke (1967) (Deluxe Edition DVD)
The first time I ever saw “Cool Hand Luke” was on cable, on a Sunday evening, edited, and filled with commercials. And yet all of the quality managed to be retained in spite of the obvious differences a network version would possess. And it still managed to earn its place as one of my top ten movies of all time. Possibly one of the greatest movies ever made embodying everything that a good movie for men should be made of. From clever dialogue, male bonding, some of the most memorable sequences ever filmed (Newman really ate fifty eggs?), and social undertones that I take away after every viewing. Lucas Jackson is that embittered war veteran, the man who is considered a war hero and yet hates his country with every inch of his being.
American Pop (1981)
Ralph Bakshi’s “American Pop” is not so much about a story as it is about music and the power it holds. As trite as it is to say, Music is the soundtrack of our lives, and as such has a power over us to help us cope, help us think, and is the key to our memories and fates. “American Pop” is not so much the story of many men through history originating from a faithful Jewish man who refused to vacate his temple during the raiding of Russian Czars one day, it’s more the evolution of music and how the people in and around the transformation are but a mere microcosm. From a Canter to a Vaudevillian, to a piano player, “American Pop” may be the exploration of music but Bakshi also manages to convey how it’s served as a source of love and emotion for a long line of men craving some sort of love and affection in their lives.
London Betty (2009)
This is the same dude who did “Bikini Bloodbath”? While I’m always up for comedies that dare to be anything but the same old indie comedy crap, Thomas Edward Seymour can never really decide what kind of movie he’s making. At times he strives for Troma gross out comedy, then he tries for inexplicable touching sub-plots and then he’ll go for the bargain basement slapstick that was a lot funnier in his previous film. “London Betty” isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but I was definitely counting the minutes and waiting for it to end.
Babylon A.D. (2008)
Mathieu Kassovitz’s “Babylon A.D” is a very ambitious science fiction film setting down on a mainly foreign land where depression has hit all countries and crime runs rampant. The best way to sum it up would be Vin Diesel playing Riddick by way of “Children of Men” with a heavy influence of “Escape from New York.” In other words, there’s not much originality in this piece, and it shows. While derivations are a prerequisite these days, you can’t help shake the feeling that 20th Century Fox wanted a more commercial approach to “Children of Men” and that involved dispensing of the thick social commentary and replacing it with a more standard prophesized little girl with amazing powers of mind manipulation.
The Legend Of Billie Jean (1985)
This 1985 drama thriller is a gem, and one of my favorite guilty pleasures of all time. In spite of one of the cheesiest one liners in movie history: “Fair’s fair!” and having one of the coolest if goofiest theme songs of all time, somehow “Billie Jean” remains one of my favorite eighties gems. Back before I ever heard of cable television, I’d watch this four times a week on WPIX Television here in the Bronx and my what a classic we thought it was. And it still is, at least to me and a few other people out there. Billie Jean is just like every other girl her age, a wide eyed optimistic beauty whose only desire is to be left alone to have fun with her brother Binx during the summer.