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Posted on April 12, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Director Quentin Tarantino has apparently had enough of delivering fans films that are mash ups of genres he loves and instead seems to want to challenge his audience the older he gets. Any artist grows the older they become and Tarantino has grown, exploring cinema that’s gradually more polarizing and alienating as time goes on. Quentin Tarantino hasn’t lost his ability to tell a story and unfold an interesting narrative, as he’s hellbent on exploring a character piece that’s less action and call backs to past genres, and more of an implementation of certain genres to create what has been his most divisive film to date.

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The Revenant (2015)

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

With “The Revenant,” Alejandro González Iñárritu pulls off a wonderful vision with amazing cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, posing the wilderness of South Dakota as something of an omnipresent force that works against every single character from the moment we step on to the snow covered woodlands. “The Revenant” works around a simple tale of revenge and enduring the elements all to convey the sheer unforgiving world that protagonist Hugh Glass has to venture across simply to avenge his own son. The weather and terrain holds no prisoners and garners zero bias, enduring the war of man and being covered in the blood of the violated while offering as much punishment as it’s dealt. Director Iñárritu’s “The Revenant” is a grueling epic that views what lengths main character Hugh Glass is willing to go through to ensure justice is served.

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The Ridiculous 6 (2015)

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Felix Vasquez

You can’t even be mad at Adam Sandler anymore. If he’s not trying to break out of his comfort zone, all we can really do is watch the slow painful death of his career, while he brings Netflix down with him. Sandler silently stumbles in to “The Ridiculous 6” with an obvious bored, half asleep performance, and leaves the film with a cool pay day and the hope that at least one or two of his remaining fans will love what he’s put out in the form of this hideous western comedy that doesn’t even try to re-invent the wheel. Netflix doesn’t seem to be demanding much from Sandler, so it’s apparent here that Sandler isn’t even working toward offering nothing we haven’t already seen in the last fifteen years ad nauseum. Almost like a contractual obligation, “The Ridiculous 6” is a greatest hits compilation of no brainer Sandler tropes that fill up the required two hour run time.

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Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Felix Vasquez

If you ever wondered what “The Hills Have Eyes” would look like remade in to a cheap C grade Western, look no further than “Bone Tomahawk.” It’s hard to believe such a rank amateurish and awful film could attract a cast like Patrick Wilson, and Kurt Russell but here we are watching two genuinely excellent performers slumming it in a movie fashioned around sets that look as if they were stolen from an off Broadway period play. “Bone Tomahawk” fashions itself a horror western, but I’d be hard pressed to brand it horror. I’d be hard pressed to brand it a movie, to be honest.

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Ghost Town (1988) [Blu-Ray]

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Felix Vasquez

Empire and Charles Band always had a knack for creating Westerns, but the type of Westerns that just were not as traditional as you might think. They had every opportunity to deliver us a normal western, and yet they went the odd route delivering creative amalgams like 1994’s “Oblivion,” and mediocre fare like “Ghost Town.” Richard Governor’s “Ghost Town” watches more like an extended episode of a mediocre anthology horror show, and when you get right past the whole supernatural tropes, it’s another ordinary western that we’ve seen a thousand times over. It’s not a gem of the Empire/Band library, but it’s a unique diversion.

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The Rover (2014)

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

If there’s anything more I love than post apocalyptic films, its post apocalyptic films with substance and meaning to them. “The Rover” is a slow boil drama thriller set in Australia where the continent has now economically collapsed. Set ten years after an apparent apocalypse, Australia is the Wild West where law is so corrupt that its citizens have zero respect for those in blue. Director David Michôd thrives on ambiguity by introducing a cast of characters with their own moral codes that conflict with everyone else’s. “The Rover” garners nothing but slime balls and the amoral, but that doesn’t stifle the utterly compelling storyline.

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Near Dark (1987)

Posted on October 22, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

What I love about Kathryn Bigelow’s “Near Dark” is that it doesn’t glamorize vampires. It doesn’t paint them as pop stars, millionaires, or aristocrats. In reality the group of vampires that roam the South here could be mistaken for dangerous transients. Their lives are a series of contradictions that paint them as despicable but somewhat empathetic villains. They have immortality, but burst in to flames in natural sun light. They have fantastic powers, but they have literally no choice but to roam the world looking for new prey. “Near Dark” is very much an eighties relic like its lighter counterpart “The Lost Boys,” and still hasn’t shown its wrinkles. Draped in glorious shades of blue and gray and given a haunting score from Tangerine Dream, “Near Dark” is a vicious vampire film about a young man trying to maintain his soul and keep his humanity in tact.

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