It’s pretty funny that Tommy Lee Jones and William Devane who star in “Rolling Thunder” do their best to prevent talking about the elephant in the room for the extras in the “Rolling Thunder” Blu-Ray from Shout! Factory. “Rolling Thunder” is one in a line of post-Vietnam films about the defeat of the war and its effects on its veterans. “Rolling Thunder” is a bleak revenge film about a soldier that went to war for nothing, only to come home to nothing. DeVane gives a compelling performance as Major Charles Rane, a man who was imprisoned in a POW camp for seven years with a few other soldiers. Finally freed, he and the group return home to Texas to receive a grand welcome, but they’re unsure how to respond. They’ve lived like savages for almost a decade, and, as Rane admits, he gained something of a Stockholm effect. Not just for his captors, but for the torture inflicted on him and his men every single day.
Tag Archives: Suspense
Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990)
I’ve always had this idea that the sequels to Tobe Hooper’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” were just glorified remakes of the first film. While it’s true they’re all very similar, filmmakers didn’t start to remake Hooper’s horror film until “The Next Generation.” The Hooper fueled sequel, and “Leatherface” are different films from the first film with finales that are in fact nearly identical to the end of the first film. It’s almost as if the writers never really know where to go once they’ve had their fun, and just go back to the whole dinner scene where the heroine screams bloody murder for thirty minutes. Wherein the second film in the series had poorly developed story, “Leatherface” really has little story.
Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013)
So, the sequel to Tobe Hooper’s “Texas Chainsaw” wasn’t the sequel. They were sequels, but perhaps there’s a parallel Sawyer family out there somewhere. Maybe there’s a Leatherface A and a Leatherface B? The stories from parts two, and three in the eighties that followed Tobe Hooper’s original “Texas Chainsaw” were all nonsense that–I’m presuming–were just Nam flashbacks told by a hippy or something. Maybe there were “What If?” storylines. Or perhaps they were scenarios about what became of the Sawyers after Sally managed to escape Leatherface’s clutches. In truth, it’s just hackey studio tinkering that works best if you ignore it. At this point the “Texas Chainsaw” series is more convoluted and confused than “Halloween” and “Nightmare on Elm Street.”
I Do (2013)
Director Patrick Rea has a great skill for misdirection, where you think you’re going somewhere in a story, but suddenly you’re in a completely different avenue, plot wise. Patrick Rea delivers another really fine short film called “I Do” that begins like every Patrick Rea movie to date. Something is amidst, and the minute we enter in to the scenario, we want to know what is happening. When we finally do, it’s outstanding.
Ten Reasons "Hush" Is the (Second) Best Buffy Episode Ever Made
1. You can tell a story without dialogue – Go in to any movie catalogue and rent a silent film, and the best silent films will tell you that you don’t need dialogue to tell a good story. “Modern Times,” “The Gold Rush,” “Laugh Clown Laugh,” all amazing stories without dialogue. Human expression, body gestures, idiosyncrasies, they can do so much that dialogue can’t. And “Hush” dares to defy the stereotype that “Buffy” is not funny without the clever one-liners, and it succeeds. You do not need to club us over the head with dialogue to let us know what we should feel, and it’s flawless in its delivery.
Mama (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet) (2013)
I can see why Guillermo Del Toro would be attracted to a film like “Mama.” While it is a horror film in nature, deep down it is a tragic drama about the power of love and the lengths we’ll go to preserve it. “Mama” is the first fantastic film I’ve seen in 2013, a film about spirits and how immense love can be. After their dad murders their mother in a murderous rage, sisters Lily and Victoria are taken to an abandoned cabin where their father looks to mercifully murder them. There, they’ve found something that is not only intent on keeping them safe, but in maintaining their innocence. Years later, the daughters are discovered much older and in a feral state, clinging to a presence they call Mama. Their uncle Luke and aunt Annabel seek to take them back home and establish a life free from the pain of their original lives. But the girls find it impossible not only to adjust, but to display physical affection toward the young couple. Jessica Chastain gives a strong performance as the unkempt Annabel who finds her loyalties lying with her husband Luke when he fights to take care of his nieces Victoria and Lily, and transforms in to a bonafide mother figure of their very own.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986)
From what I’ve read, Tobe Hooper pretty much had to make a sequel to his masterpiece “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in order to make films he wanted. And the sequel to his slasher classic is exactly the type of film Hooper has to make, It’s forced, tired, and a complete retread of the original film. To add to the utter lack of entertainment value, there’s even plots that are completely unresolved or unfinished that I would have enjoyed seeing explored expanded just to give this film the feeling that it was an extension of the first film rather than just a retread.
In spite of the family hiding in the outskirts of Texas and hunting travelers for meals, now we learn that the head of their family is a local celebrity thanks to his entering of his prize winning chili and wonderful meat that he keeps a secret. Dennis Hopper is Lefty, a mysterious cowboy hunting the cannibal family and trying to uncover their secrets and put an end to their chaos. And in the opening the two unlucky schmucks that get killed by Leatherface are dismissed as accidents, in spite of one of the two getting his head sawed off. Nothing is ever really expanded or realized beyond these nuggets of ideas.