Watching “Something, Something, Something Darkside” is similar watching another episode of “Family Guy.” It’s boring, tedious and so intent on being funny it feels as if it has to point out almost every single joke it posits. “Ahaha, the giant chicken is Boba Fett!” says Peter. Get it? Because the chicken fights with Peter in these long drawn out unfunny fight scenes meant to kill time and hide the fact the show is short on actual story. “I’d give my right hand for this day to end.” Get it? Because Chris is Luke and Luke gets his right hand cut off by Darth. When Luke is hanging from Cloud City, Leia asks Luke to raise his right hand. Get it? Because Chris is Luke and Luke gets his right hand cut off by Darth. “Turn the Ship Around” is played when Leia asks Lando Calrissian to turn the ship around to save Luke. Get it? Because of the disco song. Does any of the target audience even know what Disco music is?
Tag Archives: Action
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
I was born in 1983, so most of my knowledge about “Star Wars” being something of a magical property at its time was because of my uncle who is a big fan of the series and recalls all the stories about watching the original film and “Empire Strikes Back” in theaters with audiences who managed to garner an amazing experience. These days there is no such thing as a genuinely thrilling experience at movie theaters anymore. “The Empire Strikes Back” is the height of the “Star Wars” trilogy, the movie that told audiences a genuine story and amped up its dramatic tension and suspense considerably by adding more depth to its heroes and even adding much more complexity to its villain Darth Vader by giving him a master to answer to who had large plans for the galaxy under his tyranny. “The Empire Strikes Back” is proof positive that without Lucas’ control, this series was destined to hit major high points that arguably faltered with “Return of the Jedi.”
Kick-Ass (2010)
One of the saving graces of “Kick Ass” is the casting of Chloe Moretz, a young girl who manages to completely and utterly steal the show from every single cast member here including Clark Duke, and she’s managed to spawn an unlikely legion of admirers who came to the movie to see a little girl mutilate everyone in her path. While “Kick Ass” never quite manages to muster up the sympathetic story it did in the comics, Matthew Vaughn completely wins over the crowd with Hit Girl aka Mindy, the most interesting character in the bunch who is given the most interesting conflict in the film as this character whose own life manages to play out like a typical hero origin. Little girl loses her mom after her dad is framed for a crime, she’s trained by him to become a killer, the dad dies and she avenges him in cruel and unusual ways. I assumed the girl would hit the big time after seeing her steal scenes from Joseph Gordon Levitt in “(500) Days of Summer” but here Matthew Vaughn shows that he takes the character very seriously and never dodges her sheer brutality in the face of schmoes who happen to come across her blade.
Spiderbabe (2003)
Misty Mundae aka Erin DeWright aka Erin Brown is an underrated performer. I’m a little hesitant to call her an actress, but she is a competent performer worthy of some acclaim if she ever manages to break free from the softcore porn/exploitation genre and approach an actual acting career. If you saw her in the “Masters of Horror” episode “Sick Girl,” she capable of vulnerable sympathetic solid acting. But that’s not to say I don’t love her in what she does. I’ve seen “Playmate of the Apes” where she’s in full on comedy mode leading the charge with a bunch of fake apes going to war, and I enjoyed her in “Lord of the G-Strings” where she engaged in mild girl on girl and petting with some brutally hot fantasy nymphs, so “Spiderbabe” was naturally a treat for me as Mundae explores her comedic talent and her ability to be both grating and charming at the same time.
Tombstone (1993)
I remember many years ago before Gene Siskel died where he and his co-host Roger Ebert were mulling the success of “Tombstone” and explained that originally “Tombstone” was not screened for critics. Usually when a movie is not screened early for critics it means the studios have no faith in their film. So what they did was not screen “Tombstone” while they screened “Wyatt Earp” pegging the latter for big success while the former they expected to come and go. The two films arrived in theaters in practically the same time. “Tombstone” became an instant Western classic while “Wyatt Earp” remained a not as widely accepted Western drama in spite of still being generally respected by movie critics around the world starring Oscar bait Kevin Costner. Let’s be honest here though, the reason why “Tombstone” is such a widely revered Western classic is because it’s a pretty stylized and embellished Western actioner.
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Where in we saw Tony Stark as a modern day Howard Hughes in the first “Iron Man,” a reclusive eccentric bachelor billionaire whose vision produced the iron man suit allowing him to achieve his brilliance and somehow benefit the whole of mankind, we’re now given a different view in to Stark by screenwriter Justin Theroux as Stark is presented as a modern day Oppenheimer whose creation and mind-blowing new discovery is about to become the property of the US government whether he likes it or not and will probably be used as a war weapon.
The Ten Best VHS Covers of All Time
I grew up in the Bronx where it was almost impossible to walk down the street without bumping in to a video store. There was one on every single block. They were the Starbucks of the bygone age. And nine times out of ten they were mom and pop stores. Low budget places just looking for a quick buck to make off of the big VHS craze of the eighties and nineties. This was before Blockbuster and Hollywood video began taking over these places and running them out of business. As a kid my parents were always off attending to financial affairs and on many occasions they’d leave me and my brother to spend the day with my cousin at the local video store “JR Video” (No relation). My aunt worked there for almost five years and we’d spend the entire day there running around the big store, watching low budget horror movies on the television mounted on the ceiling and playing in the back closet where they stored all of the VHS tapes and I could still remember looking out the back door in the end of the closet and seeing the poster for “Basket Case” glimmer in the sunlight. This is the place where I was basically exposed to movies of all kind.