Almost thirty years later, Sammo Hung’s “Wheels on Meals” is still one of the technically proficient martial arts films ever made. It’s just too bad there’s not much to it beyond the martial arts. Primarily it works as a comedy of two men fallen for the same woman whose entire antics are steeped in silent comedy that doesn’t club us over the head with obvious gags. But “Wheels on Meals” is sadly lagging and long in the tooth as an action film that professes mid-way to be nothing more than a romance comedy with martial arts back drops that do nothing to enhance the overall narrative.
Love and Class in Connecticut (2007)
The rousing Joanna Keylock plays Tina, a Bohemian young woman who has been purposely left out of her niece’s naming ceremony and she’s crashed the party to ensure that everyone notices her anger and discontent. Even the baby’s father. This sets up a rather classical indie dilemma where family must battle family and “Love and Class” ends up becoming a rather ambitious and admirably compelling little piece of work. Sadly, there is a lot that could use improving with “Love and Class.”
Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)
Jason Eisener’s “Hobo with a Shotgun” was such a long time coming it’s ridiculous. With a movie that’s dared to defy all expectations, it’s very much a twisted balance between Troma and pure unadulterated Grindhouse madness that has the potential to reach mainstream audiences with a wider theatrical release. With “Grindhouse” flopping, and “Machete” floundering at the box office, “Hobo with a Shotgun” is a breath of fresh air, a movie so utterly filled with mind-blowing grindhouse tropes and a genuinely interesting story that you can almost feel the piss stained theater floor under your feet, while watching what essentially adds up to being a tongue in cheek and darkly disturbing take on the class warfare in America. This is Jason Eisener’s America, a world where the battle of rich and poor amounts to trips in to Scumtown USA where we lay our scene.
Hop (2011)
Unpleasant, unfunny and uninspiring, “Hop” is so much more awful than I’d originally predicted primarily because it took my rock bottom expectations and dashed them by delivering an even worse movie than my optimism would have allowed. I had hopes for “Hop” originally, and I’d opted on giving it a fair shake, but found myself genuinely annoyed by every inch of this disingenuous holiday commercial that is about as much about the holiday as Garry Marshall’s “Valentine’s Day” was in 2010. “Hop” is such a corporate tool that it feels like upon its original conception it was marketed to Hallmark and American Greetings for the sole sake of EB.
The Breakfast Club XXX (2009)
Currently the two best porn spoof directors working today is Axel Braun, who is the Hitchcock of the finely timed comic jab set to the fuck fest, and of course Lee Roy Myers who not only directed some fine porn spoofs like “The Big Lebowski XXX,” but also managed to take one of the finest teen dramas of all time and turned it in to a damn fine porn spoof of its very own entitled “The Breakfast Club XXX.” Not only is this a film that ponders on the bigger questions behind the original 1980’s masterpiece, but also manages to delve in to the finer aspects of said questions. For example, what happened when Estevez saw the Goth chick now an average beauty queen? Why, he took her in to the back and fucked the ever loving god out of her, that’s what he did.
Moaning for Monstervision
I mean with respect to Gore De Vol and Penny Dreadful, without a doubt my favorite horror host of all time is Joe Bob Brigs, a surly and veritably undeniable force of nature. He was one who didn’t need gimmicks and or a costume to please his audience. Joe Bob Briggs presented the new wave of horror hosting. To where fun individuals like Dreadful and De Vol dressed up and engaged in props and plays for their audience, Briggs always seemed very aware of his mortality.
Coffee Break Screenwriter: Writing Your Script Ten Minutes At A Time (Paperback)
Pilar Alessandra is thinking about the busy writer, the writer who doesn’t have time to sit down every day and write their novels or screenplays. Some of us actually have a day job to pull, but also have the aspirations to write a screenplay. Too often have I’ve heard someone who aspired to create their own screenplay but just didn’t have the time or drive. Alessandra takes that aspiration and fuels it with the ability to write a screenplay in ten minutes at a time. Not only that, but she also teaches you to micro-manage your tasks and create small windows of opportunities to write your scripts within the ten minutes that can guarantee you a perfect script you always envisioned from the get go.
Where to go from there that’s up to you, but getting the script done is a step forward. Picking up the book will cost you ten minutes and fifteen bucks, matched with the ten minutes reading each chapter, along with the ten minutes writing the script after reading the chapters for ten minutes and you have a mathematical formula I couldn’t possibly figure out but is nonetheless an approach toward accomplishing the goal to get a script done.