Tag Archives: Gangster

Jungleground (1995)

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I really enjoy Roddy Piper as an action star. The man had screen presence, charisma, an could turn any clunky role in to a bonafide winner. The 1995 cheapie “Jungle Ground” is a two pronged vehicle for Piper, acting as his own custom tailored “Escape from New York” and “Die Hard.” It’s Piper as an average cop stuck behind enemy lines in a lawless gang warzone who has to fight his way out and save his wife. He even gets to shoot down a criminal declaring “Hi Ho, Silver.” Too bad “Yippee Ki Yay, Motherfucker” was taken.

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The Ref (1994)

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It’s only fitting that a comedian so devoted to working against the norm would star in a Christmas film that’s very much against the idea of the holiday. “The Ref” is very much a hilarious and laugh a minute dramedy about familial dysfunction and the idea of Christmas being much more of an obligation than a time to celebrate the loved ones and family.

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Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman (Criterion Collection) (1962)

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If you’re like me, you’re a fan of “Zatoichi” and know all too well how expensive the movie series can be to purchase. Zatoichi garners almost thirty films in his movie series, two of which are released separately. The first twenty five are, of course, often released in box set form and are sold at terribly expensive prices, and immediately go out of print. If you want to collect all of the movies individually online through a purchase, good luck finding an online seller that won’t charge an arm and a leg. Back in the early aughts I attempted to buy as many “Zatoichi” films as I could, and only ended up finding four. I never could bear to buy the rare box sets at almost five hundred bucks. Thankfully, Criterion comes to the rescue, offering a deluxe box set of one of my favorite action movie series of all time, “Zatoichi.”

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Pulp Fiction: The Complete Story of Quentin Tarantino’s Masterpiece [Hardcover]

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We fucking love Quentin Tarantino. And odds are if you’re thinking about buying “Pulp Fiction: The Complete Story of Quentin Tarantino’s Masterpiece” from Voyageur Press, you fucking love him, too. At two hundred pages in length,. the giant tome written by Jason Bailey (with essays from movie historians and critics) doesn’t just fill you in on “Pulp Fiction,” but on everything Tarantino. This is the big Kahuna of Tarantino knowledge, and it’s a hell of a fun book to sift through.

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EXO Man (1977)

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Why wasn’t “Iron Man” turned in to a movie or TV Series until five years ago? Watch “EXO Man” to see how horribly a live action Iron Man could have turned out back in the seventies. To make things worse, this is one of those low budget superhero films where it’s almost ninety minutes in length, and we don’t see the actual EXO Man until an hour in to the movie. “EXO Man” is one of the dozens of movie pilots that was aiming to be a superhero television series, and thankfully never developed beyond a movie.

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Sleepers (1996)

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Director Barry Levinson’s 1996 “Sleepers” is a rich and compelling movie that straddles many genres from the coming of age, to courtroom, to the thriller, to revenge. “Sleepers” is a movie for anyone with a taste for cinema that explore childhood innocence and the end of it at the hands of pure evil. Director Levinson’s film tells the story of young boys in the 1960’s slums of Hell’s Kitchen in Queens. Bonded due to their religious loyalties and their relationship with patriarchal Father Bobby (DeNiro in one of the last great roles of his career), they often find themselves constantly walking the line between saintly and pure criminal.

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American Mary (2012)

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The crux of “American Mary” depends on the performance by Katharine Isabelle. While the film itself is a unique and very entertaining tale about revenge, madness, and masochism, the lead performance of Mary is most important. Almost any other actor probably would have played the character of Mary Mason completely over the top, but Katharine Isabelle’s turn as a slowly unraveling sadist with revenge on her mind is incredible. Even brilliant.

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