Booboo and Fivel Stewart together at last! I’m glad they waited for that right cinematic project to get together and reveal their inner strength as an on-screen duo. Granted, Fivel Stewart is adorable, but “Warriors of Witchcraft” is one of the most uneventful knock offs of 2013. Especially for a movie with such a low budget, and the casting of Eric Roberts as a the school’s overly eager headmaster. The titular characters Jonah and Ella attend after Jonah is kicked out of his old school for fighting. Feeling the need to look after him, Ella follows Jonah to his new school, and before long discovers that this posh mostly bland private school is being run by witches.
Tag Archives: Adventure
TekWar: The Movie (1994)
Boy can your memories lie to you. I fondly remember watching “Tekwar” back in 1994 when I’d watch literally anything that was on TV. The station WPIX in New York launched a slew of television movies that were destined to become television shows in the immediate future, and “Tekwar” was one of them. Based on the novels by William Shatner, “Tekwar” began as a series of television movies, then it became a comic book series (I was never that desperate for comics), and inevitably became a television series. Since watching it twice in 1994, I only fondly remember the robotic hockey player who, at one point, has to battle Greg Evigan’s shady police officer character in a hockey rink.
Frankenweenie (2012)
As far as animated efforts from Tim Burton goes, “Frankenweenie” isn’t such a bad bit of fan service. Director Tim Burton has always expressed interest in remaking his short film “Frankenweenie,” and it’s a shame since the original short isn’t a bad movie. All things considered, it’s short, sweet, and to the point. Not to mention it’s cute, sad, and has that Burton American Gothic whimsy we’d later see in “Edward Scissorhands.” With 2012’s remake of “Frankenweenie,” director Tim Burton is able to do pretty much whatever he wants, while expanding on an already interesting twist on Mary Shelly’s story.
The Expendables 2 (2012)
Oh no! A woman! She has no testicles! She’s going to PMS all over us! What a wacky new dynamic in the Expendables! What’s up for part three? A dog? Kids? I wish “The Expendables 2” was a great follow up to the fun original film, but sadly it isn’t. It has this idea that including a woman in the group will somehow stir things and create tension, but it feels hackneyed and ancient. Plus, with a female version of “The Expendables” waiting in the wings, this plot device feels forced and trite. It also sadly feels like a way to derail a lot of the homoerotic tension between Jason Statham and Sly Stallone’s characters, and that’s a shame. Their bromance makes for some good dialogue and interplay, and to wedge a woman in between them feels like over compensation of the worst form.
Django Unchained (2012)
In the tradition of “The Legend of Nigger Charley,” and “Boss Nigger,” director Quentin Tarantino tips his hat to the exploitation cinema of the seventies with his own epic tale of slavery, freedom, and avenging those that have been unjustly murdered. Quite possibly Tarantino’s boldest and most courageous cinematic undergoing, “Django Unchained” is yet again another wonderful love letter to classic exploitation cinema, and one that Tarantino revels in soaking with adoration, providing viewers with one of the few African American western heroes with a back story that taps in to the tropes of the hero’s journey. While many did decry “Django Unchained” as exploitative and hyper violent, Tarantino definitely has his finger on the pulse and knows full well what immortalized the classic blaxploitation westerns. They thrived on hyper violence and slavery revenge fantasies and Tarantino holds nothing back with a relentlessly violent and entertaining love letter to his favorite sub-genre.
Robo Formers: Star of Fear (VHS)
Back in the nineties, I spent many a day trying to build up my own movie collection, and for poor folk, that’s tough. Imagine my surprise when after receiving my allowance I retreated to the local dollar store and saw some VHS movies for me to purchase with my own money. Granted, they weren’t blockbuster films, but they were public domain cartoons, and some pretty interesting gems that only bargain hunters discovered.
Dredd (2012)
What’s sad about director Peter Travis and writer Alex Garland’s “Dredd” is that it’s the comic book movie of the character Judge Dredd, that fans probably deserve. And they may not get a sequel at all, since its release in 2012 did little to stir the franchise potential of it all. The ingredients are all here for “Dredd” to kick off a wonderful series. There are a people behind the movie who take the material seriously, there’s zero camp, star Karl Urban plays Judge Dredd as an anti-hero and not like a clown, there’s no comic relief, and Judge Dredd never once takes his helmet off during the movie. To compensate for his lack of face time, Urban scowls and emotes more zealously than his prior roles for Dredd, and it pays off without an inch of over the top dialogue delivery to be found.