Frank Martin is back and is in deep doo doo for the third go around in the “Transporter” series. Now retired and taking a long needed vacation, fate comes crashing down his doors as he’s confronted with a colleague who is killed in the middle of what was supposed to be his job all along. When Frank is taken off guard he awakens to learn that he and his car can not be separated or else he and the enigmatic women in his co-pilot seat will go up in a burst of flames. “The Transporter” series has been one of my favorite knock offs of “The Driver” this millennium and Jason Statham is a wonderful successor to Ryan O’Neal as this man with tones of gray allowed more breathing room this go around.
S.W.A.T.: Firefight (2011)
By now it’s a pretty quick assumption that we may never get a truly great movie about “SWAT” the television show. What was a gritty violent and often disturbing show about life on the business as a SWAT officer became a pretty high budget and meek blockbuster vehicle for a cast of B listers who were more GI Joe and less “Heat.” Now with “Firefight” the studio behind this star-less vehicle ups the ante by pretty much assuring we’ll never see a reboot ever again with a competent cast. Which is not to say “Firefight” is a bad movie. It’s not. In fact it’s a very well made and steadily paced “sequel” that takes every precaution to do what it can with the cast of D listers who take up spots that once belonged to up and comers like Colin Farrell and Jeremy Renner and veterans like Samuel L. Jackson.
Ninja Assassin (2009)
While I appreciate the inherent ambition behind the script written by Matthew Sand and J. Michael Straczynski, any and all potential for absolute entertainment is wasted in the first fifteen minutes. Folks looking for a splatterific ninja quest will find the prologue to be one of the most grotesque and twisted openings to a ninja film. And then it goes downhill from there. It seems like the writers just aren’t happy enough with exploring the quest of ninja Raizo, but they instead want to focus on back story after meaningless back story.
Ninja Cheerleaders (2008)
You know what? “Ninja Cheerleaders” is trash but it’s trash you can admire. It’s a mixture of “3 Ninjas” with some “Bikini Carwash” for good measure, a veritable knock off of TMNT where director David Presley replaces teenage ninja turtles for teenage ninja cheerleaders. Starring three gorgeous and often cute young women, “Ninja Cheerleaders” tries for nothing more than pushing the limit upon with our actresses are willing to go. So while there is innuendo, there’s never any sex, and the women here are never sure if they want to be feminist icons or trashy slutty molds for what the movie begs. The plot is nothing you haven’t seen a thousand times before.
The PC Thug: Grinding Better Than the Pros
For a long time I’ve boasted that if you want to see what’s happening in the neo-grindhouse movement, the best thing you can do is go look for the independent filmmakers and see what they’re up to. Because whether it’s “The Hood Has Eyez,” or “Foxxy Madonna vs. The Black Death,” the odds are it’s better than the entirety of “Grindhouse.” Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed “Grindhouse,” I did. I thought it had a lot of creativity to it but felt more like a throwback than an attempt to mimic the actual grindhouse motif. Because even the most ardent grindhouse fans will tell you that the best grindhouse films have a lot going for them: One is that they’re usually comprised of zero budgets, and two, they’re often tedious. “Thriller: A Cruel Picture” is one of my favorite cult films of all time, but mid-way it lags with gratuitous sex scenes with Christina Lindberg, and her ultimate plot for revenge.
Sucker Punch (2011)
You have to appreciate Zack Snyder’s ambition for at least trying to tell a story. The man has proven himself in many regard, and with “Sucker Punch” he tries his best to deliver crowd pleasing entertainment that won’t polarize his fan base. The problem is, he never lets us in on the fact that deep down “Sucker Punch” is just a teenage melodrama disguised as a genre film. Sure it’s a journey of the self, and the mission of a group of young women to take on robots and monsters, but they’re all just metaphors.
What If They Lived? Hollywood's Lost Stars and the Futures They Never Had (Paperback)
“What if they Lived?” is written with such an impression of profundity and grace that it’s hard to imagine it being anything other then such an eloquent piece of speculative non-fiction. “What if They Lived?” is a lengthy tome of work that could have very well been exploitative nonsense as if drummed by the hackiest writers South of TMZ, but with two genuine movie lovers at the helm, “What if they Lived?” results in a four hundred page oath to the rising talent and quickly destroyed stars that were taken from us much too soon. From Jean Harlow, to James Dean, right down to Brandon and Bruce Lee, “What if they Lived?” speaks with experts and historians and examines a life had these talented thespians and ingénues been given just a little more time to shine on and explore their career options rather than fade away in to a sad and often tragic demise.
One of the chapters I skipped to immediately was Brandon Lee a man capable of hitting all of the high notes his father Bruce Lee once did, and while the one real caveat within this chapter is not exactly pin pointing all of the roles he had impending (including a role in “Mortal Kombat” and an inevitable running for a key role in “The Matrix”), we’re able to see much of what he had optioned and what he was capable of.