The Baytown Outlaws (2012)

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

You know your cast has done a great job with their respective roles when they’ve successfully turned three dumb, ignorant, gun loving red necks in to charming heroes you root for until the bitter end. Surely enough, director Barry Battles’ grindhouse redneck chic romp isn’t an easy sell as, after the first ten minutes, I was ready to toss this aside and look for something better on my plate. But surely enough after spending time with it, “The Baytown Outlaws” eventually won me over, completely. In fact, I kind of fucking loved it, all things considered.

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Blue Ruin (2014)

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

When we meet Dwight, he’s already defeated. He has a beard and long hair, he’s homeless, he digs through trash behind a carnival for dinner, he sneaks in to people’s houses for baths when they’re out for the day, and he sleeps in his old shelled out car on the side of the beach. One night Dwight is picked up by the police, and informed that the man that ruined his life is being released from jail after a court acquitted him. And now Dwight has made a decision that will decide the rest of his life. Director Jeremy Saulnier’s “Blue Ruin” is one of the least glamorous revenge films ever made. It’s an ingenious and brilliant look at the actual repercussions of vengeance and how it can create a ripple of unintentional consequences and violence that eventually spirals out of control.

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Beanstalk (1994)

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

Director Michael Davis’ “Beanstalk” has a lot of balls in the air. It wants to squeeze in so many ideas and sub-plots and can never find a proper way to bring them all in to one coherent kids film. There’s a boy named Jack who lives with his mother and discovers large beans that form a humongous beanstalk. Meanwhile, Jack’s mom is going to lose her house, prompting Jack and his mom to go homeless. Meanwhile, there’s a nutty doctor (Margot Kidder is barely recognizable) who believes the mother goose tales to be real, and is preparing to climb the beanstalk, while an evil land developer is planning to knock down the beanstalk, steal Jack’s house, and develop land over the his neighborhood. That’s a lot story, for a movie barely eighty minutes in length!

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Blazing Saddles (1974)

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

You have to give credit to Mel Brooks for being so ballsy. In today’s day and age, a movie like “Blazing Saddles” would never get off the ground and become a mainstream comedy. Even with its material, Brooks runs the risk of becoming low brow, but thankfully manages to create the best comedy of all time. It’s my favorite from Brooks, edging out “Young Frankenstein” if only for the lead performance by Cleavon Little. “Blazing Saddles” satirizes the Western sub-genre, while also mocking its inherent racism, setting it in the middle of the slave era. Though the film is biting in its social commentary, it still manages to be incredibly funny, sidestepping the mockery of the slavery, and instead poking fun at the Caucasian characters.

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Blank Check (1994)

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

The early to mid-nineties were filled with movies that really wanted some of that sweet “Home Alone” cash, thus many movie studios pumped out their own versions. You could almost call these rip offs but they were given enough of a twist to where they felt original. “Blank Check” only had about a movie’s worth of story to it, but it tried very hard for the “Home Alone” audience, and really was just a mediocre to abysmal kids film that barely made a ripple upon its release. It’s yet another film about a child that drops in to an extraordinary situation and runs afoul hard nosed criminals that eventually confront him and are put through punishment through his own series of gags, quick thinking, and devices.

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Boiler Room (2000)

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

It’s a shame to see a movie filled with so much talent all to add up to absolutely nothing. “Boiler Room” trots out a who’s who of really good actors, many of whom were in vogue performers that eventually got their due. I’m especially a fan of Nicky Katt. That said, “Boiler Room” is a crummy retread of “Glenngarry Glenn Ross” sans the plays on “Death of a Salesman.” Ben Affleck appears twice to give a really raucous and loud speech to perspective stock brokers, and really you can’t help but think that Alec Baldwin did it better.

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Barefoot in the Park (1967)

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

The big screen adaptation of Neil Simon’s play is not only one of the best romance comedies I’ve ever seen, but is also one of the very few romance comedies to make me laugh hysterically. The pairing of Jane Fonda with Robert Redford is a master stroke, and the pair as lovelorn newlyweds reveal a hidden often underrated comedic timing that makes the movie as much of a slapstick comedy as it is a sweet tale of reality dawning on two just married lovers that find life rearing its head toward them slowly.

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