A diabolical douchebag finds a feral woman living in the woods. He takes it upon himself to capture her, lock her in his shed, and with the help of his disbelieving family; he hopes to civilize her. It does not go well.

That plot description of course does not do this movie justice, but then again, The Woman is a film where the less you know about it, the better off you are. The way director Lucky McKee nonchalantly allows the horror to build is rather masterful. McKee is a guy who has a knack for female-centric horror. The Woman, like McKee’s May or his Masters of Horror episode, Sick Girl; is another powerful outing from one of the most idiosyncratic voices in modern horror.

The Woman is a totally disarming horror film. That’s mostly because of the matter of fact way McKee presents the horror. The look of the film is akin to a Lifetime Movie. Because of the mundane manner in which the movie is filmed, it makes you let your guard down. Then in the final act, McKee pummels the audience with sucker punch after sucker punch. Also, the indie folk rock soundtrack is effectively out of place. By replacing your standard issue horror soundtrack with something as unassuming as a Jack Johnson knockoff puts the audience off balance.

A lot of what makes the movie work is Sean Bridgers' performance as the psychotic patriarch of the family. It’s truly the stuff of nightmares. The casual way he commits blood-curdling atrocities puts you in the mind of Michael Rooker in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Yes folks, he’s that good.

I do have to say that this movie is not fun to watch. McKee really puts you through the ringer. I can honestly tell you that I have no desire to watch it again anytime soon. It’s one of those rare movies like Deliverance where if you’ve seen it once, you don’t want to watch it again. I can’t say I “enjoyed” it, but I certainly admire the craftsmanship that went into it.

I’m going to tell you that overall, The Woman is not completely successful. Nitpicking the movie wouldn’t do a whole lot of good though. The fact is that this flick is just weird, eerie, offbeat, and original enough to make what qualms I had with it not amount to much. Just knowing that this flick left me fairly disturbed should be your cue to check it out ASAP.

Gary Daniels stars as a British marine named Hawk who comes to America to avenge the death of his half-brother. Hawk joins up with his late brother’s partner (Jayne Heitmeyer from Sci-Fighters) to find the men responsible. Together they uncover an organ harvesting plot by a villainous ex-marine.

As the plot of Hawk’s Vengeance slowly unfolds, you begin to realize that it is in fact, a sequel to Snake Eater! However, since Lorenzo Lamas’ role was recast and his character killed off two minutes into the film, it’s kind of easy to accept it on its own terms. Still though, how did the filmmakers think they could get away with killing off Soldier like that? The least they could’ve done was have Lorenzo turn up for a cameo so he could’ve passed the torch to Daniels in a proper manner.

As a Snake Eater sequel, Hawk’s Vengeance isn’t up to snuff. As a Gary Daniels vehicle, it’s a decent enough flick I suppose. The fight scenes are competent. I dug the scene where an intruder snuck into Gary’s house and beat him over the head repeatedly with a frying pan. There’s also a rather good fight involving broken mirror shards too. My favorite moment though was the scene where Daniels discourages a couple of bar patrons from hitting on Heitmeyer and threatening to leave them “crippled and toothless”.

Daniels is solid in the acting department here. On the action side of things, the film is an OK spotlight for his Kung Fu prowess. Heitmeyer, who in my opinion should’ve gone on to a better career is very good as his partner and has a couple of nice moments with Daniels. I also liked the bit where she shocked a chick using a defibrillator.

Overall, the pendulum of quality sways back and forth throughout the course of Hawk’s Vengeance. For every cool action bit, there’s an inevitable dull spot, most of which involves boring plot stuff. I will say that it deserves special merit for the scene where Daniels disguises himself as a Rabbi to get the drop on the bad guys. It’s scenes like this that make it impossible to completely dismiss this movie.

AKA: Hawke’s Revenge.

Required Reading:

Comeuppance Reviews’ review of Hawk’s Vengeance: http://www.comeuppancereviews.com/2012/05/hawks-vengeance-1996.html

Direct to Video Connoisseur’s review of Hawk’s Vengeance: http://www.mattmovieguy.com/2010/04/hawks-vengeance-1997.html

The Film Fiend’s review of Hawk’s Vengeance: http://www.thefilmfiend.com/2007/01/hawks-vengeance.html

Mark L. Lester has had an up and down career. For every Class of 1984 there’s a couple of Firestarters. However, because he directed Commando and Showdown in Little Tokyo, the man gets a Lifetime Pass from me. Today, we’ll be taking a look at three of his lesser works from various stages in his career.

First up is…

TRUCK STOP WOMEN (1974) **

Anna (Lieux Dressler) runs a brothel out of her truck stop and also makes money on the side by stealing rigs and selling the inventory. She naturally gets pissed off when her hot daughter Anna (Queen of the Drive-In, Claudia Jennings) falls in love with the Mafioso who’s trying to muscle in on her turf. Anna is eventually able to get some good ol’ boys to help her fight off the Mob, but is her money-making racket really worth losing her daughter over?

Truck Stop Women is a mostly dull melodrama parading as a drive-in exploitation picture. Most of the movie revolves around the dysfunctional relationship between Dressler and Jennings, and very little time is spent on the sleaze the audience came for. Sure, there’s a smattering of nudity here and there, but not nearly as much as you’d expect from a movie called Truck Stop Women. And the unexpectedly downbeat ending just does not work at all.

The thing that really stops the movie on a dime though is the annoyingly shrill performance by Dressler. Every time she opens her damn mouth, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. Luckily, Jennings is around to get naked every so often, which is about the only redeeming feature of the entire film. Uschi Digart also pops up (or should I say, pops out) in a bit part too, so that helps.

Occasionally, director Mark L. Lester will liven the proceedings up by tossing in an action scene or a car chase or two. I will admit that some of the action is handled fairly well, especially when you consider the budget. When the movie isn’t being totally boring, you can see glimpses of the greatness yet to come from Lester. Yet that’s about all you get… glimpses.

AKA: Highway Truck Stop. AKA: Road Angels.

MISBEGOTTEN (1998) **

Misbegotten is a late 90’s From Hell movie from director Mark L. Lester. It’s notable for three things. 1. It reteams Lester with Nick Mancuso, who previously collaborated with one another on another From Hell movie, The Ex. 2. It was written by Larry Cohen. 3. It’s the only Sperm Donor From Hell movie I know of. Other than that though, there’s no real reason to get excited about it.

Infertile yuppie couple Nick Mancuso and Lysette (Krull) Anthony receive a sperm donation from someone they think is a musician. Really, it’s from a psychopath (Kevin Dillon) who killed the donor and assumed his identity. When he learns the couple’s whereabouts, Dillon begins stalking them, with the intention to kidnap and torment Anthony.

I’m a sucker for a good From Hell movie and while I think the raw materials were there, Lester is just unable to make it all work. For starters, Lester takes an ungodly amount of time getting the ball rolling. Once things get going, the film offers one or two memorable moments, but the movie goes off the tracks after Dillon kidnaps Anthony. It’s also here when Lester unwisely and unsuccessfully tries to turn the flick into an action movie.

Another debit is the fact that Dillon is just kinda there as the villain. The role needed someone with a bit more menace. The upshot is that Mancuso and Anthony are very good as the couple. Their domestic scenes have a measure of believability to them and they have genuine chemistry together.

There is one great moment here that almost makes the flick worthwhile. It comes when Anthony opens a present at her baby shower and recoils in horror when she finds out it contains a severed head. (I definitely don’t think she put it on the registry.) This moment is just SOOOOO Larry Cohen. Too bad the same can’t be said for the rest of the movie.

GROUPIE (2010) ** ½

A rock band named The Dark Knights are famous for having the guitarist set his arms on fire during his guitar solos. One night, he winds up catching the arena on fire too, resulting in the death of one of their fans. During the band’s comeback tour, a slutty groupie (Taryn Manning) worms her way backstage and into the heart of the pyro guitarist. Pretty soon, she starts killing off the other groupies (including My Bloody Valentine 3-D hottie, Betsy Rue), the manager (Eric Fucking Roberts), and eventually the band members.

Groupie is a solid little thriller that hits all the usual notes you’d expect from a From Hell movie. If you’re a fan of the subgenre, you should enjoy the way director Mark L. Lester keeps the plot chugging right along. The flick clocks in at a scant 78 minutes (one minute less than Lester’s Showdown in Little Tokyo), so it never gets bogged down with useless subplots. It doesn’t overstay its welcome; it comes in, does its thing, and gets outta Dodge. For that and that alone, you’ve got to respect it. If however you aren’t particularly fond of From Hell thrillers, you’ll probably want to skip it.

I only wish the rockers were likeable or at the very least, played music that was actually decent. As it is, these guys aren’t worth stalking. And I do have to take points off for the lack of backstage rock n’ roll debauchery. Sure, we do get a couple shots of topless girls frolicking around, but with Betsy Rue in the cast, I was expecting a bit more.

Rue is very good as the main bitchy groupie. She and Manning worked well together as the competitive star fuckers. And of course, Eric Roberts (who was also in Lester’s Hitman’s Run) just killed it as the band’s manager. Because of their efforts (and Lester’s judicious pacing) Groupie is able to rise (slightly) above the formula.

A know-it-all college gal inherits a ranch and because she just got her degree in animal husbandry, she thinks she can tell the head honcho Gene Autry what’s what. So she and her girlfriends move out on the prairie and annoy the shit out of Gene and his sidekick Smiley. Predictably, some shady land snatcher wants to swindle her out of her deed, so Gene has to kick some ass.

Springtime in the Rockies is a good old fashioned war of the sexes comedy that just so happens to take place out on the prairie. And it’s a pretty funny one too. The way Gene gets back at the girls is pretty great. He puts them up in a dilapidated shack and tells them it’s their ranch. Then at night, he tells them the place is crawling with coyotes. When they go to sleep Gene does a shadow puppet on the wall while Smiley howls and they think a coyote is prowling around. That shit is classic.

Gene Autry is truly awesome in this movie. I loved the scene where he breaks up a fight by forcing the bad guy to sing at gunpoint because as Autry tells it, “It’s impossible to sing and not be happy”. C’mon, you can’t argue with that kind of logic.

The inevitable bad-guy-trying-to-steal-the-ranch subplot kinda slows things down unfortunately. Personally, I loved the movie when it was just Gene and the gals pulling pranks on each other. Still, the villain subplot doesn’t hamper your enjoyment of the film too much. It’s definitely one of my favorite Autry oaters.

PRAIRIE MOON (1938) ** ½

A villain gets gunned down and with his dying breath, he asks Gene Autry to take care of his kids. Gene, being Gene agrees immediately, without realizing that the kids are a bunch of disrespectful troublemaking juvenile delinquents. Meanwhile some other bad guys that are hiding out on the dead dude’s land conspire to get rid of Autry once and for all. Eventually the kids decide old Gene ain’t so bad and they agree to help him fend off the no good villains.

Prairie Moon is kinda like Gene Autry Meets the Bowery Boys. The kids definitely aren’t as funny as Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall or anything, but they do lend a different kind of energy to the film than the usual Autry flick. Because of that, it makes Prairie Moon memorable. Not “good” per se, but memorable.

The film’s biggest flaw is that it suffers from way too many songs that interfere with the narrative. Gene does get to do a sterling rendition of “In the Jail House Now” though, which is pretty much the highlight of the movie. The rest of the flick doesn’t quite live up to this scene, but at 59 minutes, the film moves along at an agreeable pace.

Thomas Ian Griffith made his big splash in 1989 as the evil Terry Silver in the immortal Karate Kid 3. Right away, I heralded the arrival of a new Legend of the Silver Screen. While Griffith has never quite lived up to the role that made him a star, he’s nevertheless carved out an impressive career starring in decent DTV action flicks, usually playing interesting multi-dimensional villains.

Our first TIG flick is…

HOLLOW POINT (1996) ***

Hollow Point begins with a rather terrific opening scene in which Tia Carrere’s would-be husband reveals to her on their wedding day that his father is a big time kingpin. At the altar, she tells him she’s a Federal agent and tries to arrest the old man. Because all the mobsters left their guns with the coat check girl, no one is able to stop her from escaping the church with her quarry. A rival Fed, played by Thomas Ian Griffith, shows up and manages to snatch him once they leave the church. Naturally, Griffith ends up losing the mobster and he and Carrere grudgingly decide to partner up in order to get him back.

Normally in most movies like this, things go downhill once they start showing a bit of promise. Fortunately director Sidney J. (Iron Eagle) Furie is able to keep the surprises coming at a steady clip. The flick especially livens up once Griffith and Carrere form an alliance with an insane hitman played by Donald Sutherland in order to stop a crime lord played by John Lithgow. Furie gives us a lot of clever tweaks on the usual action beats that help make the film memorable. I particularly liked the scene in the finale when Griffith hops in a forklift, puts the pedal to the metal, and guns it towards Lithgow’s hideout. In most movies, Griffith would’ve burst down the door and got the drop on Lithgow. In this one, the forklift doesn’t even make a dent in the door and Griffith is forced to find another way inside. It’s little quirky touches like this that make you thankful that Furie wasn’t doing this thing by the numbers.

Sutherland is a real joy to watch. He manages to make his character creepy yet likeable at the same time. Only someone like The Don could pull a character like this off. Lithgow is really good too and he plays off Sutherland quite nicely.

Our boy Thomas Ian Griffith is a true badass in this. He’s the only guy I know of that’s badass enough to jump up and say, “Missed me!” when a bad guy almost shoots him with a machine gun. He also gets a great scene where he steals a cop car in order to get himself arrested so he can get close to Sutherland. My favorite moment of his comes when he does a Billy Jack impersonation for a bad guy before kicking his ass.

Griffith also has genuine chemistry with Tia Carrere. There’s a nifty little moment when they piss each other off and they start shooting one another in their bulletproof vests. If you can’t already tell, this is definitely not your average romance.

Hollow Point runs on a bit too long and doesn’t know how to quit while it’s ahead, but it’s still a highly entertaining action flick, especially considering it came from Nu Image. TIG fans will be happy to see Griffith popping painkillers, busting heads, and impersonating Billy Jack for 100 minutes. I mean what more could you possibly want from a film?

Sutherland gets the best line in the movie when he sings: “They’re going to find Uranus on a mountain on Mars!”

Our next Griffith flick is…

KULL THE CONQUEROR (1997) ** ½

Kull the Conqueror was supposed to be Hercules’ Kevin Sorbo’s big shot at movie stardom. As we all know, it didn’t work out. I still sorta like it though. The fact that it has Thomas Ian Griffith, as well as his Hollow Point co-star Tia Carrere as villains certainly helps.

Sorbo stars as Kull, a refugee from Atlantis who gets roped into a scheme by Griffith to dethrone his father (Sven Ole Thorson). When the King is slayed, he names Kull his successor with his dying breath. This naturally gets Griffith’s panties in a bunch and he sets out to awaken an ancient sorceress (Carrere) to kill Kull.

Kull the Conqueror was released at a time when nobody was making Sword and Sorcery flicks, which probably explains why it flopped. As a genre piece, it more or less delivers. It’s got wizards with fucked-up faces, hairy monsters, and extras that look like they wandered in off the set of a Deathstalker sequel. Despite the financial failure of the film, I saw it in the theater and remember kinda digging it. My feelings haven’t really changed all that much from my initial viewing. The flick gets off to a solid start, but it stumbles pretty badly around the halfway mark. Still, the finale where Kull has to kiss an ugly hell beast in order to save the kingdom is pretty damned funny.

Directed by John Nicolella (the man who directed the immortal Don Johnson music video movie, Heartbeat), Kull the Conqueror tries for that good old-fashioned fantasy epic feel. Because of Nicolella’s extensive background in television, the flick winds up looking like an overlong episode of Hercules. For some this won’t be a bad thing. For me… well… I just wish it was a little more badass. The flick also suffers from a truly awful musical score that consists of nothing but out-of-place heavy metal guitar riffs. Seriously, a would-be epic like this needed a good traditional Sword and Sorcery score to beef things up a little bit.

Sorbo was his usual solid self. As always, he’s an extremely likeable hero. If only he was more Conan and less Hercules. (The scene where he refuses to bed a hot slave girl definitely isn’t the sort of thing you’d expect from a barbarian.)

As for Griffith, he’s not quite up to the Terry Silver level of villainy. Then again, a villain like Terry Silver is almost surely impossible to top. I still dug him though and thought his flaming swordfight with Sorbo was rather decent. And I have to give props to the casting department too. Whoever thought of putting Harvey Fierstein in a Sword and Sorcery movie was a goddamned genius.

And our final TIG joint is…

BLACK POINT (2002) **

Thomas Ian Griffith co-wrote and co-stars in this ho-hum thriller as a bad guy who likes to smack his hot wife around. When he goes away on business (i.e. recover a bag full of stolen money), it opens the door for David Caruso to come around and romance her. Of course, when TIG gets wind his wife’s been unfaithful, things turn rather violent.

Black Point starts off as a fairly decent Battered Woman Looking for Love movie. Usually that sort of thing is not my cup of tea, but the performances are strong and the dramatics never veer into Lifetime Movie territory or anything. About halfway through, there’s a pretty good plot twist and the flick morphs into a neo-noir type of thriller. It’s here though when the tension flatlines and the suspense drains completely out of the movie.

Caruso is solid here. I’ve always liked Caruso (going way back to his First Blood days) and I think he got a raw deal from Hollywood. Black Point actually has the distinction of being Caruso’s last feature film (to date) before his newfound success on CSI: Miami.

The movie really belongs to Griffith though. He gives a nuanced portrayal of what; in lesser hands could’ve just been a forgettable one-dimensional baddie. Likewise, without him the film could’ve been forgettable and one-dimensional. He doesn’t quite save the movie, but he makes a valiant effort.

Next week’s Legend: Martin Lawrence.

A drunk and penniless Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack) spends most of his time either conning bartenders into giving him a drink or trying to get into the pants of his girlfriend (Alice Eve). When a madman starts offing people by using elements from his stories, a detective (Luke Evans) enlists Poe to help find the killer. Naturally, the killer makes things personal when he kidnaps Poe’s gal.

The Raven admirably, albeit unsuccessfully tries to graft a ho-hum whodunit mystery onto a fairly absorbing speculation tale of how Edgar Allan Poe spent his final days. The results are decidedly mixed, yet if you squint hard enough you can find a decent movie hiding at the seams. The opening scenes are actually very well done. I highly enjoyed the scenes of Poe pounding drinks and getting kicked out of bars. I think if the whole flick was nothing but a Barfly remake but with Edgar Allan Poe, it would’ve been pretty sweet because I liked hanging out with the dude.

That’s mostly due to John Cusack’s performance. He’s not the first guy you’d think to play Edgar Allan Poe, but he does an impressive job. Cusack acts pretty manic when he’s hopped up on the hooch and gets a great little oddball moment when he’s teaching a poetry class for lonely maidens. He also gets a lot of good lines, especially when he’s looking down his nose at common folk. (“You mental oyster!”) I also loved the scene where he meets Evans for the first time. Evans asks him to sit down and Cusack responds, “I’ll stand… it makes it easier for me to leave!” If anything else, Cusack shows he could probably give Nicolas Cage a run for his money in the off-kilter eccentric performance department.

The movie itself isn’t great. Once the film veers away from a quirky character piece it becomes a thoroughly disposable period mystery movie. It’s just like every other goddamned whodunit; except… you know… it’s got Edgar Allan Poe helping the cops. And to make matters worse, the kills are all pretty weak and feature way too much fake looking CGI blood.

It also doesn’t help that director James McTeigue films things in a rather flat and pedestrian manner. He doesn’t show any of the style and pizzazz he gave to V for Vendetta or Ninja Assassin and as a result, the flick just lumbers along in the third act when it really should be heating up. And speaking of the third act, the finale is a real letdown. Seriously, it’s the pits.

It would’ve been really cool if the flick ended with Edgar Allan Poe blowing away the bad guy and saying “Nevermore!”

But it doesn’t, so fuck this movie.

If it’s true what they say that horror films are the Grimm Fairy Tales of our time, then Donkey Punch is one that young ladies in the audience need to pay close attention to. It’s all about what can happen to you when you and your girlfriends go on a yacht in the middle of the ocean for some sex and drugs and other assorted debauchery with a bunch of jackasses you don't know. I’m not going to divulge any more details than that as this is definitely one flick you should see cold. If you know what the title refers to, you can probably guess what happens.

Usually, I’d be all like, “Oh if these girls are stupid enough to get on a boat with a bunch of jackasses they just met, they get what they deserve.” However, now that I have a daughter, I kinda view things from a different prism sometimes. If this movie scares just one impressionable female viewer into not getting on a boat with a bunch of jackasses she just met, then the film will have done its job.

As a horror film, Donkey Punch is well crafted and benefits from some believable performances. It also features some really strong death scenes. There is a rather brutal death by flare gun that is as painful to watch as any I’ve seen recently. If it has a flaw it’s that it draws out things a bit too much and runs on far too long. But as a cautionary tale, it serves its purpose quite nicely. I for one hope my daughter sees it before she starts getting interested in boys. It will make my job as a parent a whole lot easier.

Next week’s movie: Dread.

Gary Daniels is on his way home from dropping his daughter off at a sleepover when he gets abducted by some shady scientists who want to turn him into a human lab rat. They shoot him up full of Crazy Juice and pretty soon, Gary is kickboxing the shit out of anything with a heartbeat. Naturally, the sinister agents behind the experiment want to put Daniels down like a dog, but with some help from a nosy reporter, Gary eventually turns the tables on his tormentors.

Rage is a rather spectacular (well, for a PM movie anyway) Gary Daniels vehicle. It’s got tons of action and plenty of goofy scenes to make it memorable. We get a pretty great tanker truck chase as well as a fun scene where Daniels plays chicken with a bus. But while the action is solid through and through, it’s the bizarre little asides that make Rage so much fun. My favorite moment came when Daniels sneaks into someone’s home to use their phone. Little does he know it’s the home of a dominatrix and her sissy slave. What follows is probably the greatest Dominatrix and Her Sissy Slave vs. Gary Daniels fight in cinema history.

Daniels is off the chain in this movie. He’s charming and likeable in the early scenes and a total badass once he becomes a drug-induced kickboxing madman. If you’re a Daniels fan, you really owe it to yourself to see him in this, if only for the incredible scene where he kickboxes the crap out of people while trapped in a straightjacket.

For the first hour, I thought Rage was going to be a classic. Sadly, it loses lot of its traction once the gratuitous TV reporter subplot takes over. It’s here when the movie tries to make a statement about the media and the nation’s inclination to condemn somebody of a crime before they’re proven innocent. Well, a movie like Rage doesn’t need any heavy-handed messages like that. It just needs Gary Daniels kicking the snot out of people for 94 minutes.

Sure, the movie makes some missteps in the third act. That was to be expected I guess. However, the shootout in a video store finale pretty much makes up for it. I especially loved the fact that the store’s inventory consisted of nothing but movies from the PM back catalogue. I think if more movies ended with a shootout in a video store, the world would be a much better place. Don’t ‘cha think?

AKA: Speed Rage.

Required Reading:

Comeuppance Reviews’ review of Rage: http://www.comeuppancereviews.com/2012/05/rage-1995.html

Direct to Video Connoisseur’s review of Rage: http://www.mattmovieguy.com/2009/09/rage-1995.html

MonsterHunter’s review of Rage: http://monsterhunter.coldfusionvideo.com/2009/08/rage-1995/

Faithful readers of The Vacuum know that I will give any movie directed by Jim Wynorski and/or produced by Roger Corman a chance. I actually gave Camel Spiders a chance and a half and it still didn’t do a whole lot for me. It’s not boring and it’s consistently watchable, yet it’s far from the high water mark for either man.

A platoon of troops in Iraq runs afoul of a nest of titular arachnids. When some of the spiders stowaway in the coffin of a fallen soldier, they wind up finding their way to a desert town in Arizona. There the camel spiders soon make short work of the townsfolk before a soldier (Brian Krause from Sleepwalkers) and the sheriff (C. Thomas Howell) finally put their foot down on the nasty beasts.

Camel Spiders is a perfectly serviceable CGI Killer Spider flick, nothing more, nothing less. It was fun for a while, but once the characters convened at the Diner of Never Ending Exposition, things went downhill. I guess my biggest beef with the film is that the kills offer little variation. Just about every death scene involves the victims falling down on the ground screaming while they’re slowly covered by spiders and CGI blood. At least Wynorski was savvy enough to end the flick at a drive-in.

Performance wise, I thought C. Thomas Howell was pretty good. The flick would’ve benefitted from him being in the lead instead of Krause, who’s a bit stiff. Not that you crave high caliber thespianism in something like this, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt.

I will say that I learned something from this movie. Before watching it, I never heard of camel spiders. I actually thought the movie was going to be about camels with six legs. Or at the very least spiders with two humps on their backs. Turns out they’re real. Who says you can’t learn something new?

Best line: “I’m a pacifist… chicks dig it!”

Writing this review is kinda like having an argument with your best friend. You know at the end of the argument you’re going to be cool because of your extended history together. However, there’s a lot of shit you’ve got to get off your chest first before you can fully bury the hatchet and move on.

Let me just say before we begin that I liked The Avengers. I really wanted to love it, but ultimately I had a lot of problems with the thing that very nearly threatened my enjoyment of the film. In some ways, the flick reminded me a lot of Jason Siegel’s Muppets movie. I had a lot of issues with the plot and the treatment of some of the major players, but in the end the movie wound up winning me over because of my love of the characters.

I guess my enjoyment was hampered a bit by the fact that this was a Joss Whedon joint. I can’t say I’m a fan of the man’s work. The only thing I dig of his is Firefly and that’s more because of Nathan FIllion than Whedon. With The Avengers, Joss has made a big budget version of his small screen shows where everyone speaks in irritating snarky tones and hot chicks fight the forces of evil. The hot chicks fighting the forces of evil stuff I can get behind, but the snarky pseudo-cool dialogue is a bit off-putting. If however you’re a fan of Whedon’s, then you should probably disregard this whole paragraph and automatically give it Four Stars. For me though, the whole thing was just too Whedon-y for my tastes.

Whedon’s script also suffers from simultaneously too much and not enough plot. For one, he spends far too much time setting up the MacGuffin of the piece (some damn Rubik’s Cube thingamajig). All he really needed to say was, “The bad guys want this thing!”, but whole scenes are devoted to pointless exposition about this fucking whatsit.

And speaking of which, the villains are some of the lamest you’ve ever seen in a big budget summer blockbuster. They’re basically just faceless aliens that ride around on flying jet skis. They’re pathetic. I mean you get the Avengers assembled for these lame wads? A Marvel Team-Up of Man-Thing and Howard the Duck could’ve probably taken them out. I will say that the final fight IS badass and then some, but really, the Avengers are just shooting fish in a barrel.

But honestly, the flick is more House of Dracula than Destroy All Monsters. And for some reason, the Avengers spend the first half of the movie fighting each other, which is odd. I guess this was to fulfill some fanboy’s need to see Who Can Beat Who, but most of the fights end abruptly and don’t really feature any cool moments. Like House of Dracula, it features an impressive head count of icons, but it really doesn’t make the best use of them.

In addition to the overly exposition-y opening scenes, the early scenes are hampered by Whedon’s need to re-introduce the members of the team to the audience. Seriously, if you haven’t seen Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America: Useless Subtitle, and Iron Man 2, you could watch The Avengers cold and not miss a single beat. In fact, it might be to your advantage since a lot of the character information in the early going is redundant.

If you saw Serenity, Whedon’s Firefly movie, you know he loves killing loveable characters off for no reason other than because he can. Well, presumably because it’s the only storytelling trick he has up his sleeve, he does that shit again here. And I have to say it pissed me off. I understand the character’s sacrifice serves as a wake-up call to the rest of the team, but I think it was totally unnecessary.

Like The Muppets. I was on the fence for most of the movie. I couldn’t quite decide whether I liked it or not. Then the finale kicked a whole bunch of ass, so that ultimately swayed my decision. Some of the action beats knocked my socks off and even the little character moments (like Hulk settling his grudge with Thor) had me in stitches. Again, I wish the heroes had a bit beefier of an opponent to test their mettle against, but the truth is the action in the last twenty minutes of The Avengers is unparalleled in the annals of Superhero Cinema. It is simply a comic book fan’s wet dream. However, I still have to take points off for the middling first half. If I were ranking these things (and trust me, I am), I’d say it was about on par with Marvel’s Thor and Captain America movies.

Speaking of ranking superheroes, I thought since the characters were the best thing about the film, I’d rank them in terms of who fared the best within the context of the film:

1. The Incredible Hulk. While Mark Ruffalo (who I guess is now the Ray Stevenson of the Hulk franchise) will never equal Edward Norton (or Bill Bixby for that matter), he did a nice job as Bruce Banner. Once he Hulks out though, things get off the hook. If you thought Hulk was cool in The Incredible Hulk, you ain’t seen shit yet. Everything Hulk does in this movie is badass. From crushing the shit out of UFOs to laying the smackdown on Loki, whenever Hulk smashes, the movie kicks it up to 11.

2. Black Widow. Surprisingly, Scarlett Johansson kicks tons of butt in this movie. We all know that she’s sexy as Hell, but she fares very well in her action scenes too. She’s especially good whenever she’s interrogating her enemies and using her feminine wiles to make them divulge their secrets.

3. Iron Man. The role of Tony Stark continues to fit Robert Downey Jr. like a glove. If anyone was worried he would overshadow the rest of the cast, you’ll be glad to know that he doesn’t. Sure, he gets some of the flashiest dialogue scenes, but he proves he can be a team member. (Of course, everyone on the team has to Learn to Work Well With Others; yet another gratuitous subplot in this thing.)

4. Captain America. Chris Evans does another fine turn as Cap, despite being given a crummy costume this time out. He’s really good at being a team leader in the late stages of the film. Too bad he spends half the movie as a glorified bouncer; breaking up all the petty squabbles and all-out brawls between his teammates.

5. Thor. I really loved Chris Hemsworth in Thor and thought his performance sold the movie. However, his main job in The Avenger seems to be to get his brother Loki to come to his senses and give the cube back. That leaves him little time for his hilarious fish-out-of-water antics and awesome boasting that made the character so endearing in the first place.

6. Nick Fury. Despite being the glue that keeps the team together, Nick Fury doesn’t do a whole lot in the movie. I thought he’d get a moment or two to showcase what a badass he is (especially since he’s played by Samuel L. Jackson), but no. Sure, he gets one or two good lines, but his basic function in the movie is to spout a bunch of exposition and use reverse psychology to guilt trip superheroes into getting their shit together.

7. Hawkeye. I really liked Jeremy Renner in this, but what Joss Whedon did to his character is a travesty. I hated the fact that right from scene one, Loki makes Hawkeye his bitch. Thankfully, Hawkeye snaps out of Loki’s spell about 2/3 of the way through and gets to show what he’s made of in the finale. (I dug how he was able to find the aliens’ weakness just from observing them in action.) Hopefully when Avengers 2 comes out, it’ll be a better showcase for both Renner and the character’s talents.

And since I watched the 3-D Avengers, I guess I should tell y’all how the 3-D was. We get:

• 3-D Scepter

• 3-D Gun Barrel

• 3-D Scepter (again)

• 3-D Scepter (again)

And that’s about it. Nothing great to be sure, but not a total waste either. I would’ve liked a little more variety in the 3-D effects, but at least SOME shit popped out of the screen.

I’m sure a lot of this review sounded like a lot of fanboy bitching, but oh well. The internet basically exists for fanboys to bitch about Comic Book Movies, so there. I reiterate that the finale is so badass that it partially redeems the spotty first hour or so. And plus, this movie features cameos by Powers Boothe, Jenny Agutter, and Harry Dean Stanton, which is more than I can say for a lot of other movies I’ve watched lately.

AKA: Avengers Assemble.

If you look up “cool” in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Steve McQueen. That same picture will turn up under “badass” too. In the Video Vacuum Dictionary, we have him filed under “Legend of the Silver Screen”.

Our first McQueen film is…

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960) ****

The Magnificent Seven is one of the most iconic westerns of all time. It is, of course, director John Sturges’ Wild West riff on Akira Kurosawa’s immortal Seven Samurai. The flick is basically the same plot-wise as Samurai. Just swap out swords and kimonos for six guns and ten gallon hats and it’s more or less the same thing. I’m not going to go on record and say that The Magnificent Seven is BETTER than Kurosawa’s film, but I will say that this flick has Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, and Eli Wallach acting like badasses and Seven Samurai… does not.

The cast is simply fantastic. The scenes early in the film where Brynner is gathering his team together are wonderful. I also loved seeing the camaraderie slowly building between them, especially between Brynner and McQueen. You can definitely tell that Steve-O was on his way to Legendary status because he just exudes a badass presence the rest of the cast is hard-pressed to match. Bronson and Coburn are equally memorable and are given their own moments to shine, but to me the film really belongs to Robert Vaughn. I loved that he’s the sole member of the Seven that is actually haunted by his past deeds. And the scene where he freaks out in his sleep is a classic. It’s just a terrific performance. (He also went on to star in another remake of Seven Samurai, Battle Beyond the Stars.)

Another thing The Magnificent Seven has on its progenitor is the fantastic score by Elmer Bernstein. Not only is it one of the greatest western scores of all time, Bernstein’s music is one of the most instantly recognizable themes in cinema history. Like The Dollars Trilogy, the music is in a class all by itself.

The flick does hit a lull in the middle section when the Seven start teaching the farmers how to fend for themselves. However, once Wallach comes into town to throw the gauntlet down, shit gets real and it gets real fast. The finale is pretty damned awesome too and helps erase the blemish of the saggy second act.

I think it also has to be said that The Magnificent Seven is a crucially important film for the genre because it provided the stepping stone from the overly Hollywood-y westerns of the 50’s to the cynical, blood-soaked oaters of the 60’s. The decade began with this, followed through with the Dollars Trilogy, and ended with The Wild Bunch. While The Magnificent Seven isn’t up to snuff with The Wild Bunch in terms of violence, the climax is rather shocking as some beloved characters bite the dust. In that respect, it was definitely laying the groundwork for things to come.

The Magnificent Seven is on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of 1960 at the Number 2 spot; right in between Psycho and The Little Shop of Horrors.

Our next McQueen flick is…

HELL IS FOR HEROES (1962) ***

A ragtag platoon of soldiers idly waste time while waiting for orders to return home during WWII. Instead, they’re given the task to hold off an incoming German force. Predictably, not all of them are going to come home alive.

Hell is for Heroes is a bit of an oddball kind of war movie. The flick starts off lightweight and goofy, but the film gets darker as it progresses, and by the end, things become rather grim. While the film doesn’t quite gel as a whole, there are enough strong scenes and eclectic performances to make it worthwhile.

First, let’s talk about the cast. Steve McQueen is excellent as the tough guy loner of the group. I absolutely loved the scene where he goes AWOL just to head down to the pub for a couple brews. It brilliantly showed that he had a defiant streak, but not so much so to make him an asshole. McQueen’s The Magnificent Seven co-star James Coburn is really good too as the mechanic of the group and Bob Newhart of all people is also in the platoon. (And he even finds time to do one of his famous phone routines!)

Director Don (Dirty Harry) Siegel does a fine job behind the camera, particularly in the gritty war sequences. There’s one scene where McQueen and Coburn have to crawl their way through a German minefield that’s hair-raising. The stark black and white cinematography helps to really sell the peril in this scene. It’s just a shame Siegel couldn’t get a handle on the more comedic portions of the film.

Because of the shifts in tone, Hell is for Heroes has its various ups and downs. That’s okay though because I will remember the ups quite fondly. Especially the ending. I admired it because it was so abrupt. Usually, this is the sort of thing I’d be up in arms about, but the way Siegel does it makes it work. Without getting too spoilery, I’ll say that the flick ends right in the middle of the battle, yet the audience is still able to have closure. It’s almost as if Siegel is saying, the war may continue, but these men have done their part.

And our final McQueen film is…

PAPILLON (1973) ** ½

Steve McQueen gets sent to a hellhole prison for killing a pimp. There he meets an embezzler with coke bottle glasses played by Dustin Hoffman, who may have a fortune shoved up his ass. Steve eventually agrees to protect him if he can bankroll their escape. The two men then form an unlikely friendship that spans two prisons and multiple escape attempts.

Papillon is a long (150 minutes) and sometimes dull prison drama that really puts you through the ringer. Although it’s a well-made and well-acted film, it’s also unrelentingly grim. (You know you’re in trouble when the brightest moments come from a side trip to a leper colony.) I’m not saying it’s a bad movie, but it’s hardly what you would call “entertaining”.

For me, Papillon is worth a look just to see Steve McQueen in such an unglamorous role. The scene where he emerges from The Hole, scrawny and wild-eyed from starvation is particularly memorable. McQueen is often written off for trading in on his good looks, but those criticisms are groundless if you’ve seen him in this. Hoffman looks equally odd in his peculiar role that is in some ways similar to his Ratzo Rizzo character from Midnight Cowboy.

The flick is at its best when it’s examining the relationship between McQueen and Hoffman. I only wish director Franklin J. (Planet of the Apes) Shaffner had tightened up the pace. Because the flick is so damned long, you often feel like you’re doing time along with McQueen.

Next week’s Legend: Thomas Ian Griffith.

A space exploration team headed toward the moon gets last minutes orders to change course to Mars. During the extended voyage, the captain gets a touch of what Ren Hoek would call Space Madness. He suddenly finds religion, starts spouting Bible talk, and threatens to sabotage the “blasphemous” mission. His second in command, who also happens to be his son is the only man who can stop him, which is probably going to ruin their next family get together.

Conquest of Space is notable in that it reteamed producer George Pal and director Byron Haskin, the men behind War of the Worlds. While the film features some great special effects, costumes, and sets, it pales in comparison next to that classic. It’s basically one of those Good News/Bad New scenarios as the flick does just about as many things right as it does wrong.

The Good News: The awesome special effects make the movie immensely watchable. The best of these scenes involves a mini-rocket that tows the astronauts behind them on cables; almost as if they’re water skiing through space. I also loved all of the hilarious close-ups of the astronauts’ faces during lift-off.

The Bad News: None of the characters are very likeable. Nearly all of the scenes of the chucklehead crew bantering back and forth are pretty hard to take. On top of that, the alleged drama between our hero and his bat shit insane father isn’t involving in the least. And because Conquest of Space is a lame 50’s sci-fi movie featuring a bunch of guys in a rocketship together, you just know there’s going to be that one obnoxious dick from New York who keeps going on about how he can’t wait to get back to Coney Island.

And no matter how cool the effects are, the flick is marred by an unbelievably stupid ending. I mean the crew is saved when it SNOWS ON MARS! AT CHRISTMAS NO LESS! What the fuck were they smoking in the 50’s?

AKA: Mars Project.

Next week’s Thrift Store/Bargain Bin movie: Donkey Punch.

Gene Autry, The Singing Cowboy was different than a lot of the western stars in the 30’s in that he almost always played himself. He made over 90 movies in his time and they almost always had the same plot. Despite that, Autry’s good-natured charisma and his golden voice makes just about any film he’s in worth a look. This month we’ll take a look a bunch of films in his long career.

THE SINGING VAGABOND (1935) * ½

Gene Autry and his troupe of singing cavalrymen rescue a feisty chick. He falls hard for her, but she’s kind of a cold fish. Gene also gets framed for rustling horses and sets out to clear his name (not to mention win the chick’s heart).

The Singing Vagabond begins with a long gratuitous minstrel show that really has no bearing on the rest of the plot. I’m sure a lot of folks out there will have some very strong feelings about this scene. I will say however that this scene is about the only thing that makes the film memorable (albeit for all the wrong reasons).

No matter what your feelings are about the minstrel scene, the simple fact is that The Singing Vagabond is not a very good movie. The rest of the flick is routine, but nearly all of it is filler. In fact, the whole movie feels like filler. The film runs a scant 55 minutes, yet I think the plot takes up maybe 5 minutes of the running time. And since most of the movie is so damned dull, 55 minutes feels like an eternity. It also doesn’t help that the action finale is edited so sloppily. There are a lot musical numbers too; all of which are rather lame.

The lone saving grace is Gene Autry’s performance. He’s likeable and has some nice moments with his regular sidekick, Smiley Burnette. The movie’s biggest sin however is that it doesn’t feature nearly enough Autry in it for me. In fact, he doesn’t even show up until 12 minutes into the movie. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but when the flick in question is only 55 minutes long, 12 minutes seems like a lifetime.

YODELIN’ KID FROM PINE RIDGE (1937) ** ½

Gene Autry is smack dab in the middle of a cattle war between his family and a rival clan. When he falls in love with his competitors’ daughter, it severely complicates matters. During a big fire, Gene helps her family, which prompts his dad (Charles Middleton) to immediately disown him. Gene splits town and eventually goes on to become a popular rodeo star. Years later, Gene returns home as part of a Wild West show, which ruffles a lot of folks’ feathers and reopens old family wounds.

Yodelin’ Kid from Pine Ridge is a minor yet enjoyable oater. It gets off to a bit of a rocky start, but because of the tight direction and the good performances, it quickly rights itself. While no means perfect, I enjoyed the whole Romeo and Juliet/Hatfields and the McCoys aspect of the plot. It’s nothing earth-shattering, but the plot is definitely better than most B westerns of the era.

Once again, Autry does not disappoint. His songs are decent this time around and I yet again enjoyed his camaraderie with Smiley Burnette. The action is solid for the most part (I dug the scene where Autry stops a runaway stagecoach), but the film kinda descends into the usual ho-hum nonsense once Gene gets accused of murder. Still, there are enough bright moments here to sorta make it worthwhile.

The direction by Joseph Kane certainly helps. He dresses up the musical numbers by utilizing Dutch angles that at least make them seem more interesting than the stuff you’d normally see in these sorts of things. To me though, the coolest thing about the flick was that they got Ming the Merciless to play Gene Autry’s dad. That’s kind of badass if you ask me.

AKA: The Hero of Pine Ridge.

Karma is this hot mute chick on the trail of the white slavers who killed her sister. She tracks the bastards down to Toronto where they import Russian girls off the boat and force them into a life of stripping, prostitution, and drugs. Before long Karma becomes a one-woman army; murdering scumbag slavers and liberating imprisoned pole dancers in the name of justice.

Sweet Karma is a unique exploitation revenge flick in that it has a definite indie movie vibe to it. While most of these kinds of films nowadays trade in on the grindhouse aesthetic, this looks more like something you’d see on Sundance Channel. While the filmmakers take a different route than their predecessors, they still more or less arrive at the same destination.

The pacing is a bit erratic as the film has a tendency to bog down severely whenever Karma isn’t getting naked and/or dishing out justice. That’s mostly because the cast just isn’t strong enough to sustain your interest through the dialogue scenes. And the introduction of a sympathetic undercover cop in the third act pretty much takes the wind out of the movie’s sails.

However, whenever the flick is delivering the exploitation goods, it’s mighty fine. The highlight comes when Karma goes undercover as a strip club patron and has to get a lapdance in order to spy on the obnoxious owner. And the kills are all pretty decent as there’s a knife to the head, a death by 2 x 4, and a pencil to the neck. The best death though comes when Karma kills a dude via poisoned cocaine AND strangling him. Although Karma may not rank up there with other film females seeking vengeance like Ms. 45 in terms of sheer badassery; you’ve got to respect her for her thoroughness.

Second opinions from trusted sources:

Brian Salisbury’s review for Film School Rejects: http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/reviews/fantastic-fest-review-sweet-karma-bjsal.php

Dr. Gore’s review: http://drgorereviews.blogspot.com/2011/07/sweet-karma-review.html

I know I usually rag on low budget horror movies for their bad acting, horrible special effects, lethargic storylines, and witless direction. All of which can be said for The Legend of Sorrow Creek. Now I’m sure, the people who made this movie probably love the horror genre and gave it their best shot, but because of either their lack of budget or talent, the results were boring and borderline unwatchable.

But the fact is; talent is no barometer for success. These guys somehow got their crappy horror flick on a multi-movie pack with the likes of Prom Night, Below, and Killer Bong. How that happened is a mystery, but it did happen. Now their movie is in every Wal-Mart discount bin in the country, which isn’t too shabby when you think about it. I mean how many instantly forgettable no budget Canadian horror movies can boast that?

As you can tell, I’m trying not to actually review the movie. I myself have made several attempts to make a feature length no budget horror movie to no avail. No matter how much I bitch, these guys are one-up on me, so my bitching is a moot point. And if and when I do get my movie made and if and when it does get distributed and tossed into the Wal-Mart discount bin, I’m sure somebody with a movie blog will review it and trash it. Such is life.

But honestly, there really is no reason to recommend seeing The Legend of Sorrow Creek. That is unless you’re a fledgling filmmaker. Then it will probably serve as an inspiration because if these guys can get their movie made and distributed, then you probably can too. Besides, your movie can’t be any worse than this one.

Suggested Drinking Game: Take a shot every time the cast lets their Canadian accent slip. (They pronounce “Sorrow” as if it rhymes with Zorro.)

The prospect of Martin Scorsese directing a kid’s movie is a strange one. On one hand, you know the man can tackle just about any genre out there. On the other hand… a KID’S MOVIE?!? While it will never be mistaken for his best work, Hugo proves that Marty can make a kid’s movie a helluva lot better than Spielberg.

Hugo (Asa Butterfield) is a little orphan boy who lives in the clock tower of a train station in Paris. Before Hugo’s father (Jude Law) passed away, they were both working on repairing an old automaton together. While Hugo searches the station for the key to start up the automaton, he has to avoid a gimpy persistent cop (Sacha Baron Cohen) with a penchant for locking up orphans. Hugo also winds up befriending a little girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) and her godfather (Ben Kingsley), who just may hold the secret to the automaton’s past.

The first half of the film where the Hugo uncovers the mystery of the automaton feels like a period episode of Encyclopedia Brown. From there, Scorsese smoothly switches gears and the film becomes a love letter to silent cinema. Both halves are absorbing, but I have to say the second half was my favorite. It’s here where we get to see lots of wonderful clips of silent movies (most notably A Trip to the Moon) which will serve as a perfect crash course for anyone interested in the films of yesteryear.

I know I said at the outset that this was a kid’s movie, but it’s really a film for all ages. In fact, my two year old daughter sat in my lap and watched about 40 minutes of it until the lure of her Sesame Street dominoes became too much for her to bear. And just because it’s a family movie doesn’t mean that Scorsese rests on his laurels. He uses lots of breathtaking camerawork (especially in the opening scene) that really helps pull you into the story and gives the train station a life of its own.

And like any good family film, the themes are very rich. It’s a testament to the power of dreams, the whimsy of childhood, and every boy’s need for a family. It’s also a celebration of the cinema itself as well as a plea for film preservation. You won’t find that shit in most family films like The Squeakquel.

The film however is not flawless. The scenes of Cohen don’t exactly fit and seem like they belong in another movie because he plays his character so broadly. Nevertheless he’s still pretty funny and shows that he has some of the same gifts that the silent era comedians had. And while the movie runs on a bit too long; in the end (like Hugo’s automaton), Hugo is more than just a sum of its parts.

If you were a wrestling fan in the late 80’s/early 90’s, you had to love The Ultimate Warrior. This guy came out of nowhere to become one of the most popular figures in the WWF, but he wound up fizzling out just as fast as he blew up. Whereas many wrestling superstars went on to have flourishing movie careers (Rowdy Roddy Piper, The Rock and Hulk Hogan among them), The Ultimate Warrior (AKA: James Hellwig) never quite attained that level of cinema stardom. In fact, with the exception of a small role in Odd Jobs, The Warrior never made another movie besides Firepower. In that respect, it’s a one of a kind motion picture experience.

In the near future, the city of Los Angeles sticks all of its worst criminals in “Free Zones” where lawlessness reigns (the thinking is that they’ll wind up killing each other). A crazed muscle-bound psycho named “The Swordsman” (The Ultimate Warrior) evades the cops and enters the Free Zone where he becomes the champion of a to-the-death fighting tournament called “Death Match”. Two cops (Chad McQueen and Gary Daniels) defy orders and infiltrate the Free Zone to take The Swordsman down. That naturally means they’ll have to pose as Death Match fighters in order to get close to him.

Chad McQueen is pretty good in this and Daniels (sporting a sweet ponytail) is his usual solid self. They make a great team, but the real reason to watch Firepower is for The Ultimate Warrior. He basically acts like he did in the ring, except he wears Mad Max reject clothes and is missing his trademark face paint. Warrior makes for a credible action star. His fight with Daniels is a highlight, although I had a hard time believing that Chad McQueen could take him one on one.

Overall, Firepower is a not-bad mash-up of Escape from New York, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and Kickboxer, but after a while the movie just circles itself, repeating the same damn notes over and over again. Despite that, there’s some good stuff here. I liked some of the futuristic touches (like UPC’s on the prisoners’ wrists) and thought that some of the fights in the electrified ring were pretty cool. I just wish The Ultimate Warrior’s character didn’t disappear for a good chunk of the movie.

And as an aside, I must say I’m not quite sure why the movie was called Firepower. I mean McQueen and Daniels didn’t really use heavy artillery or anything, so I have no idea what’s up with that. Death Ring would’ve been a much more suitable title if you ask me.

AKA: Fire Force.

Stephen McHattie (who probably would’ve been Lance Henriksen if there already wasn’t one) is a drifter who witnesses a crooked sheriff gun down his deputy in cold blood. He and his gal pal Kay Lenz hightail it out of there in the sheriff’s car, prompting a statewide manhunt. Blamed for the murder, the couple asks a freewheeling lawyer played by Eddie Albert to help them out of their predicament. That’s easier said than done however when the sheriff has given his men orders to kill the couple on sight.

Moving Violation (which shouldn’t be confused with the stellar 80’s comedy starring Bill Murray’s brother John) suffers from a convoluted plot that relies heavily on contrived conveniences (like the scene where the sheriff falls and knocks himself unconscious on a rock). Once McHattie and Lenz put the pedal to the metal, things improve as lots of cars get smashed up. Cars are ran through gas stations, oil rigs, tractor trailers, billboards, and even outhouses, so it’s got that going for it. While the chase scenes lack the finesse of a Hal Needham picture, there are enough of them to keep things from getting dull.

Even though Moving Violation is more or less the usual kind of country fried drive-in fodder from producer Roger Corman, it owes more to Sugarland Express than Smokey and the Bandit. And in some ways it’s kinda similar to First Blood in that McHattie is a drifter who gets run out of town by the sheriff and comes back to blow lots of shit up. I will say that McHattie’s transition from low key drifter to outraged tough guy fugitive feels a bit rushed, but that has more to do with the abrupt editing in the final scenes than his acting ability.

Speaking of which, McHattie is solid as the leading man, but the script fails to give the character any quirks to make him stand out from the countless other heroes found in your run of the mill 70’s Car Chase Movie. Lenz on the other hand is very good and I’m not just saying that because of her excellent shower scene. Eddie Albert helps add some spark to the movie late in the game and Dick Miller has a funny bit as crazy motorist.

Bottom Line: I’m not going to give Moving Violation a ticket, but I will let it off with a stern warning.

Further Reading: Johnny LaRue’s Crane Shot’s review of Moving Violation: http://craneshot.blogspot.com/2011/05/avenger-on-wheels.html

Soundtracks are made to promote movies. Purple Rain is one of those instances where the movie was made to promote the soundtrack. Now, I didn’t see Purple Rain when it first came out, but I did hear all the songs from the soundtrack on the radio and saw all the music videos on Empty-Vee, so that almost counts. Having finally watched the damned thing I now know that all I had to do was watch all the music videos from the Purple Rain soundtrack back to back and that probably would’ve sufficed. I’m not saying it’s a bad movie or anything, but I think there was actually more plot in the music videos than in the actual film.

Prince plays “The Kid” a struggling musician from Minnesota who is on the verge of losing his gig at a local dive. He falls in love… err… make that degrades, teases, smacks around, and bones an up-and-coming singer named Apollonia (Apollonia). When she decides to be managed by Morris Day (Morris Day), a performer who happens to be more famous, cooler, a better dancer, funnier, and all around a more decent human being than The Kid, it drives a wedge between her and The Kid. And by “drives a wedge between her and The Kid”, I mean The Kid smacks her around some more. Everything gets resolved in the end though because The Kid sings the title song, which was written by his bandmates Wendy and Lisa (Wendy and Lisa), which apparently shows that he’s a caring and sharing kinda guy.

If I was to sum up this movie in one sentence it would be: Purple Rain has some electrifying musical numbers punctuated by highly uneven (often misogynistic) “drama”. Prince performs “Let’s Get Crazy”, “Darling Nikki”, “When Doves Cry”, and “Purple Rain” and Morris Day and the Time do “Jungle Love”. That right there is almost enough to save the movie. Then again, you can just watch the music videos and spare yourself about 111 minutes.

The flick was directed Albert (American Anthem) Magnoli and his direction befits a music video. He employs lots of smoke, quick-cutting, and flashy camerawork to dress up the thin plot. And speaking of “plot”, I have to say that all that stuff with The Kid’s abusive father (Clarence Williams III) seemed like filler. I guess they were trying to “explain” why The Kid was abusive to Apollonia, but all of that could’ve been explained with one line of dialogue. (Like say, “You know… that Kid is a dick!”)

On stage, Prince is dynamite and shows why he is one of the most influential artists of his time. Offstage he just doesn’t have much acting chops. His soft spoken lispy delivery and overall kookiness doesn’t really gel with his character’s supposed bad boy image. It also doesn’t help that his character is thoroughly unlikeable. Consider the scene where Apollonia buys him a brand new guitar. What does he do? He pulls a ratty old earring from out of his ear and puts it hers. Eww. Then he smacks her around. I guess I can say this much for his performance: He makes it believable that the only person he could beat up was Apollonia.

Speaking of which, Apollonia gets naked, so that may be one reason why you should actually just see the movie instead of watching the music videos.

I’ve got to say it, Morris Day runs away with the movie. He’s funny, charismatic, and just plain fun to watch. I was secretly hoping Apollonia would drop The Kid and shack up with Morris instead. I guess if the movie was called Jungle Love, it would’ve happened. Since it’s called Purple Rain, I guess she’s got to go with The Kid. I’m kinda sad Morris Day never got his own spin-off movie. He does a pretty great Abbott and Costello style routine with his partner Jerome. It just goes to show you that he could’ve carried his own movie without any help from His Purpleness.

Overall Purple Rain is a fairly unpleasant drama filled with unlikeable characters (save for Morris Day of course). Luckily, it’s got some great tunes to save it. And I have to give credit where credit is due: The “When Doves Cry” sequence is one of the best montages of the 80’s.

TRUE STORIES (1986) **

Talking Heads’ frontman David Byrne stars as a nameless narrator who wanders through a Texas town introducing the audience to assorted oddballs and eccentrics. This one broad (Swoosie Kurtz) never leaves her bed, another dude (Spalding Gray) hasn’t talked to his wife in over a decade (despite having dinner with her every night), and this big lug (John Goodman) will do just about anything to get married. The narrator eventually strikes up a friendship with the latter and even tries to find him a woman.

True Stories is at its best when David Byrne is front and center spouting folksy wisdom in his low key “aw shucks” demeanor. Most of the funniest scenes happen while Byrne is driving in his car and talking directly to the camera. Since the town weirdoes range from annoying to forgettable (with the exception of maybe John Goodman), it’s almost enough to make you wish Byrne kept his car on the road and never stopped in the damned town to begin with.

Because of the film’s offbeat and scattershot nature, the results are predictably hit and miss. When it hits, it’s fairly funny. When it misses, it’s pretty grating.

Thankfully we get some great music from Talking Heads. I say SOME great music because they only sing “Wild Wild Life” and “Love for Sale”. The rest of the songs are done by the cast members who pretty much ruin them, although I will admit that Goodman wasn’t bad. In fact, Goodman and Byrne are so good together that it almost makes you wish they’d reteam for a much better movie.

Byrne gets the best line of the flick when he says, “You know, things that never had names before are now easily described. Makes conversation easier.”

(Special Note: This actually turned out to be an ideal double feature with Purple Rain since Jerry Harrison has a cameo as a Prince-like singer in the Wild Wild Life segment.)

Charles Bronson is a Legend of the Silver Screen. If you disagree with me, I have a remote controlled soccer ball filled with explosives with your name on it. Our first Bronson joint is…

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1969) *** ½

After his highly successful Dollars Trilogy, Sergio Leone returned with another wildly indulgent and overlong Spaghetti Western. But whereas The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was sprawling and epic, Once Upon a Time in the West is meandering and overblown. It’s not as rambling and uneven as Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, but it definitely lacks the punch of his earlier work.

Claudia Cardinale plays a hot ex-hooker who comes to town to discover her new husband has been shot dead by Henry Fonda. He was hired by a slickly money-grubbing bastard who wants her dead hubby’s land. Since ownership of the land reverts to Claudia, Fonda naturally targets her next. Luckily for her, a scraggly gunman (Jason Robards) and a harmonica-playing badass (Charles Bronson) come to her aid.

Once Upon a Time in the West runs a long 165 minutes. Contained therein are some truly breathtaking moments as well as plenty of badassery by the male cast. Leone moves the film along at a deliberate pace, but he often waits too long in between the good stuff. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of scenes that work. It’s just that a lot of the gratuitous scenes in between the good stuff could’ve been trimmed down a bit.

There are some sequences where Leone’s lackadaisical pacing pays off. None more so than the brilliant opening credit sequence. It’s here where three gunmen wait at a train station for Charles Bronson to arrive and fritter the time away by shooing flies. Once Bronson finally enters the picture, there is a rather magnificent shootout. What makes the shootout so great is that Leone has built up the tension perfectly by drawing out the preceding scene. Leone tried to let that feeling carry over into the rest of the film, but in most instances, he leaves the audience hanging a bit too long. The memorable opening isn’t the only thing Leone has up his cinematic sleeve though. Bronson’s verbal square-off against Robards is appropriately tense and Bronson’s final showdown with Fonda is vintage Leone.

Charles Bronson is so badass as Harmonica that you kinda wish the whole story had focused on him. It’s definitely one of his all-time best performances. Fonda is quite stellar too. Much has been made about him being cast against type as a villain in this, but if you ask me, a really great actor can play any kind of role, so it kinda goes without saying that Fonda would be great. Robards does a fine job as well and it was fun seeing him playing a down and out character. Unfortunately, Claudia Cardinale is the weak link here. Although she’s plenty hot and all, she just doesn’t have the chops to hang with the likes of Fonda, Bronson, and Robards

Once Upon a Time in the West also features a great Ennio Morricone score that perfectly complements Leone’s vision. Come to think of it, when don’t you see the word “great” immediately before the words “Ennio Morricone score”? The flick was also co-written by none other than Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento. If that alone doesn’t scream “must see”, I don’t know what does.

Once Upon a Time in the West is on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of 1969 at the Number 8 spot, which puts it right in between The Curse of the Crying Woman and Succubus.

Next up is…

THE STONE KILLER (1973) **

Charles Bronson stars as a tough New York cop who gets a lot of bad press after he guns down a young perp in self-defense. He gets transferred to LA and before long he discovers a Mob war is brewing on the streets. Turns out, Mobster Martin Balsam is hiring Vietnam vets as muscle to settle a score that dates back to the 30’s. Naturally, Big Chuck has to stop it.

Director Michael Winner was trying for a slow burn kind of build-up here, but he winds up taking too long to get to the goddamn point. Although there are some decent action moments sprinkled throughout (the finale is solid), the plot is just too leisurely paced and unfocused for you to have much of a stake in it. And I definitely could’ve done without the long scenes of hippies doing God knows what. If Winner really wanted me to give this a higher Star Rating, he should’ve had a scene where Charlie busts some hippie skulls.

Speaking of Chuck, he does a fine job, but you probably could’ve guessed that. My favorite moment of his came when he beat the snot out of a suspect in the interrogation room. Bronson’s no-nonsense approach keeps you watching, although the film itself disappoints more often than not.

And the supporting cast is pretty good too. Balsam turns in a nice performance and Norman Fell is quite good as Charlie’s partner. John Ritter also has a bit part as a cop, so it’s cool seeing them in the same movie years before they were in Three’s Company. And of course, Bronson, Winner, and Balsam all returned for the iconic Death Wish 3 twelve years later.

The next film in our Bronson-ography is…

CHINO (1976) ***

Chino (Charles Bronson) is a horse breeder who keeps to himself. Jimmy (Vincent Van Patten) is a young orphan who gets work on Chino’s farm. Chino eventually takes a liking to the boy and slowly becomes a surrogate father to him. When Chino starts messing around with his employer’s sister (Jill Ireland), it gets him in a lot of hot water. He then has to decide whether or not it’s worth losing his livelihood over a woman.

John Sturges (who also directed Bronson in two of his best films, The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven) directs the film with an assured hand. Although the pacing is laid back, I kinda dug that the film was more of a character study than an out and out western. I’ll admit that the lovey-dovey stuff with Bronson and Ireland isn’t as engrossing as his scenes with Van Patten, but they have their own rewards; chief among them is the hilarious scene where Bronson gets romantic with Ireland at the same time a couple of horses are getting it on in the background. Chino also strikes a nice balance between quirky scenes like that one and sequences of pure badassdom. I liked the scene where Chino walks into a bar and the bartender tells him, “I just got the place fixed up!” before thugs try to jump him and he mops the floor with them, busting up the joint in the process.

And much to my surprise, the central relationship between Bronson and Van Patten is actually kind of moving. Usually when Bronson gets saddled with a kid the results can be kinda dull (like Guns of Diablo), but I didn’t mind it here because their interaction seemed genuine. This also allowed us to see the softer side of the Bronson persona, which was kind of refreshing. I especially enjoyed the touching moment where Bronson reveals to Van Patten that he’s a big softie and then immediately snaps at the kid, “If you tell anybody, I’ll cut your ears off at the root!”

AKA: The Valdez Horses. AKA: The Wild Horses. AKA: Valdez the Halfbreed.

And our final Bronson flick is…

THE WHITE BUFFALO (1977) **

In the wake of Jaws’ success, there was a glut of Killer Animal flicks. Some of these movies had their moments of weirdness, but none of them were probably as odd as The White Buffalo. It’s basically a Wild West version of Moby Dick. Instead of Captain Ahab trying to kill a giant white whale, we have cowboy Wild Bill Hickok trying to kill a giant white buffalo. Did I mention Wild Bill Hickok is played by Charles Bronson?

This premise should’ve been aces, either as a legitimately awesome movie or as unintentional camp. Somehow, director Lee J. (Death Wish 4: The Crackdown) Thompson never quite brings it all together. The buffalo attack scenes are very atmospheric and feature lots of fog (which was probably only there to mask the seams in the animatronic buffalo). Some of the attack scenes of the rampaging albino buffalo are so stylized they look like they came out of a Japanese horror film (like the scene where it runs around goring Indians). However, whenever Bronson and company veer of the trail of the buffalo (which is often), the flick comes to a complete halt.

The White Buffalo is definitely an odd duck of a movie. I wouldn’t exactly call it good, but you don’t get many opportunities to see Charles Bronson going Mano y Buffalo-o. So I wouldn’t exactly fault you for checking it out. Too bad nothing else in the film is as memorable or striking as the buffalo attack sequences.

The supporting cast is littered with familiar faces. Jack Warden co-stars as Bronson’s one-eyed partner in crime and Will Sampson plays Crazy Horse, who helps them slay the buffalo. We also get bits by Kim Novak, Clint Walker, Stuart Whitman, Slim Pickens, Ed Lauter, John Carradine, and Martin Kove too.

If anything, now I can finally say I’ve seen all of Charles Bronson’s NINE films he made with J. Lee Thompson.

AKA: Hunt to Kill.

Next time on Legends of the Silver Screen we return to the usual three-movie-a-column format. Our subject will be Steve McQueen, but if you can’t get enough Charles Bronson, you’ll be happy to know that he’ll make an appearance in one of the featured movies. See you next time, Vacuumers.

A vampire stripper named Morella (Debra Mayer) needs to kill three more people in order to become a vampire queen. Her stripper minion Spyce (Raelyn Hennessee) helps Morella lure customers to her home where they drain them of their blood. Her other helper, Sugar (Jill Michelle) is a goody-two shoes vampire that’s in love with a human who gets a midget vampire hunter (Phil Fondacaro, wearing basically the same outfit he wore in Bordello of Blood) to help him slay the buxom biters.

I saw Decadent Evil 2 a while ago, but it took me a long time to play catch-up. Just from going off my hazy recollections of that film, I’d say this one is probably slightly better than Part 2. It’s definitely not bad as far as most Charles Band productions go. In fact, the movie actually has some pretty good parts. I enjoyed all the scenes in the strip club (especially the girl-on-girl lapdance) as well as the scenes involving Marvin, the little red hand puppet monster that Morella kept in a cage. My favorite moment though came when Marvin got loose and started licking on some naked chick’s boobs.

Most of the movie though (especially the love subplot with the human), is dull. It also suffers from a lack of gore and the low the breast count. (Seriously, half of your movie takes place at a strip club and only two chicks get naked? What’s up with that?) I dug the fact that the running time was only 67 minutes, but it actually might’ve benefitted from a longer running time because a lot of the scenes (especially the prologue) are so choppily edited that you never quite get your bearings.

Then again, how many movies can boast “Starring Phil Fondacaro” in their opening credits?

The DJ at the strip club gets the best line of the movie when he says, “The more green they see, the more pink you see!”

AKA: Decadent Evil Dead.

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE (1989) **

Burt stars as an ex-cop with a hot temper that gets arrested for murder. His hot public defendant (Theresa Russell) posts his bail and she tries to clear his name. Together, they discover a tangled web of muddled Matlock-level mystery nonsense.

Despite the presence of Burt Reynolds and the fact that the film was directed by Michael (Westworld) Crichton, Physical Evidence is a rather dull and lifeless thriller. The flick is particularly stale and slow moving whenever Russell’s tracking down leads and interviewing possible witnesses. When the action moves into the courtroom, things only get worse.

Overall, the film just has too many red herrings, loose ends, and plot cul-de-sacs for you to care. And let’s face it, Burt’s so likeable that he’s gonna get away with it; guilty or not. I mean if you were on a jury, would YOU convict Burt Reynolds of ANYTHING?

Burt does a fine job imbuing his slightly sinister character with his usual Burt-isms. However, the flick suffers greatly whenever he isn’t on screen. That’s mostly because the normally feisty Theresa Russell is a bit of a cold fish in this movie. Plus, it doesn’t help that she doesn’t have much chemistry with Burt. I can say however that I enjoyed seeing frequent Burt collaborator Ned Beatty turning up as the prosecutor. Probably the best performance though came from none other than Ted McGinley has Russell’s dickhead boyfriend.

It says a lot about the quality of your courtroom thriller when Ted McGinley steals the movie.

But it’s Burt who gets the best line in the flick:

Asshole Detective: “He had a rap sheet longer than my dick!”

Burt: “Oh… so he had never been arrested?”

TEMPTED (2001) **

Tempted finds Burt Reynolds playing a rich man from New Orleans who hires a young stud carpenter (Peter Facinelli) to romance his wife (Saffron Burrows) to see if she’ll stay loyal. Naturally, she gives into temptation and pretty soon nails aren’t the only thing he’s banging. This of course sets off a predictable chain of events involving blackmail, deception, and murder.

If you’ve seen any Neo-Noir DTV movies made in the early 90’s-late 00’s, then there’s no real reason to see Tempted. That is unless you want to see Burt Reynolds sporting a hilarious Cajun accent. I’d say about half his dialogue is unintelligible. Burt’s funny accent aside, there isn’t a whole lot to recommend here.

The Burt scenes early in the picture are pretty good and the plot set-up is handled fairly well. But once he drops out of the picture (about twenty minutes in), things go downhill fast. Especially odd is an inexplicable subplot involving Facinelli’s gay friend (The Crow 3’s Eric Mabius) murdering the governor’s son. This whole subplot throws a monkey wrench into what could’ve been a halfway decent three-character noir piece.

Then again, it’s hard to say one way or another since Facinelli and Burrows have very little chemistry together. On top of that, the sex scenes aren’t very hot and she only shows her butt, which is hugely disappointing. Oh well.

Bottom Line: Watch it for Burt’s hilarious Naw-Lins accent. Skip through everything else.

Next month’s Palooza participant: Gene Autry.

A hot babe’s Jeep breaks down in “the sticks of Kentucky” and she gets kidnapped off the side of the road by some Mutant Inbred Rapist Cannibal Hillbillies (or MIRCH’s as I like to call ‘em). These guys are rather organized compared to the ones you usually see in most MIRCH movies. Instead of just capturing, breeding, and eating fertile females, they make the girls they’ve captured fight one another to the death and then; the gal left standing is considered Grade A breeding stock.

So it’s basically The Hunger Games Meets The Hills Have Eyes 2 (’07 Version).

Everyone knows I’m a sucker for a good MIRCH movie, so Bloodlines was right up my alley. But while the girl fighting subplot helps to make the film standout from the rest of the pack, Bloodlines is curiously low on the other thrills normally found in the subgenre. Despite a decent opening scene, the rest of the movie is fairly light on gore. It also doesn’t help that the make-up on the gnarliest of the hillbillies looked like masks left over from Walgreen’s Halloween clearance sale. To make matters worse, the flick gets low marks in the skin department. (As in girls who take their top off; not girls that wind up being skinned by the cannibals.)

Bloodlines does find a few ways to tweak the standard MIRCH formula. In addition to the aforementioned duels to the death, I liked that the ringleader of the clan looked like your average Joe. And his incestual relationship with his hot looking sister is definitely unique to the genre.

But just because Bloodlines is DIFFERENT from most Mutant Inbred Rapist Cannibal Hillbilly movies, that doesn’t necessarily make it BETTER. Not only is the gore disappointing and the nudity lax, but the finale runs on way too long. And the ending where (Spoiler) everyone lives is beyond corny.

Best line: “Shut your cocksucker!”

Next week’s Thrift Store/Bargain Bin movie: Conquest of Space.

Reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell) buys an old model ship at a swap meet with his dog Snowy. Pretty soon, people start crawling out of the woodwork trying to steal it. The evil Sakharine (Daniel Craig) finally swipes it and Tintin teams up with a drunken sailor (Andy Serkis) to get it back; and possibly find a shit load of treasure.

The Adventures of Tintin marks Steven Spielberg’s first foray into the realm of motion capture computer animation. Sometimes the motion capture looks a bit jarring (like when there’s a lot of camera movement), but more often than not, it’s kinda cool. As a technical achievement; I guess it’s okay. As an entertaining movie; it leaves something to be desired.

I’ll be the first to admit that this sort of thing is not my cup of tea. I mean I didn’t even like The Adventures of Tintin cartoon from back in the day, so I really wasn’t inclined to enjoy this from the get-go. There’s a definite difference between a “kids’ movie” and a “family film” and this is a kids’ movie all the way. I don’t even think kids will enjoy it though because a lot of the movie (especially the beginning) drags like a sumbitch.

You know, I was kinda hoping this would be good, but The Adventures of Tintin is just further proof that Spielberg is in a slump. Even the fact that it was co-written by Edgar Wright and co-stars his Shaun of the Dead cohorts Simon Pegg and Nick Frost couldn’t save it. Too bad Spielberg and Wright couldn’t have collaborated on something that wasn’t so damned kid friendly.

At least the action sequences are less jokey than the ones in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Some of the action is lame (like the pirate duel), but the motorcycle chase that occurs near the end of the film (all done in one take no less) is pure Spielberg. This sequence is easily the best he’s done in a while. Too bad the rest of the movie is so damned weak.

Speaking of weak, Daniel Craig makes for a pretty asinine villain. I guess Spielberg didn’t learn from The Avengers that casting James Bond as your villain isn’t a great idea. The rest of the cast is just as bad, mostly because the animation obscures their “performance”.

Spielberg filmed the movie in 3-D, but I only saw the 2-D version on Blu-Ray. Even in 3-D I’m sure the movie still looked flat and unexciting. But even if the 3-D did look great, the story is two dimensional in every way.

Burt Reynolds stars as Ernest “Stick” Stickley, a badass who is released from prison and almost immediately gets caught up in a money exchange gone wrong. He hides out from the bad guys by becoming a chauffeur for millionaire George Segal who loves hiring ex-cons because it makes him feel tough. Stick also falls in love with a hot babe (Candice Bergen) and gets revenge on the black magic practicing kingpin who killed his buddy.

Stick was co-scripted by Elmore Leonard and it was based on his book of the same name. In addition to starring in the film, Burt also directed the picture and while he doesn’t exactly capture the essence of Leonard, he does get some of the flavor right. The Florida locations give the movie an authentic feel and the atmosphere is boosted by the colorful array of supporting characters.

Burt kinda dials down his usual shtick as Stick. I have mixed feelings about this acting decision. I know he was trying to stretch his acting muscles a bit here, but we watch a Burt movie (especially an 80’s Burt joint) for the classic Burt mannerisms (like his trademark laugh) and hijinks. There is some of that here, but not nearly enough to make it worthwhile. Likewise, the film feels like it has one foot in the Leonard universe and one foot in the Burt universe. Because it never really decides how to play things, Stick gets stuck somewhere in the middle.

I’m not saying it’s a total loss or anything. The film certainly has its moments. I liked the scene where Burt flushed a guy’s head in a urinal, his fight with an albino hitman, and the ending where he starts lighting up fools with a submachine gun and dropping scorpions on dudes is fairly badass.

Burt’s considerable charisma carries the movie whenever the pacing flags. He had good chemistry with Bergen and I enjoyed his scenes with Charles Durning. And wait until you see Durning in this. He looks ridiculous in his red wig and loud Hawaiian shirts. (He kinda looks like Phillip Seymour Hoffman after he got stung by a bee.) Also keep an eye out for Deanna Lund from Elves in a bit part.

And here’s a couple of second opinions on the film from trusted sources:

Comeuppance Reviews review of Stick: http://www.comeuppancereviews.com/2012/02/stick-1985.html

Johnny LaRue’s Crane Shot review of Stick: http://craneshot.blogspot.com/2011/02/whats-boomerang-that-doesnt-come-back.html

RENT-A-COP (1988) **

Burt Reynolds gets thrown off the police force after a drug sting goes bad and a bunch of cops get murdered. The sadistic killer (James Remar) responsible wants to kill call girl Liza Minnelli because she saw his face just before the massacre. After Remar’s first attempt to take her life fails, Liza hires Burt to be her full time bodyguard. Predictably, they can’t stand one another at first, but eventually they fall in love.

Rent-A-Cop is one of those deals where a Star Rating doesn’t do the movie justice. Sure, there is plenty of stuff here that will irritate the shit out of you (most of which has to do with Minnelli’s shrill performance), but if you’re willing to sit through a lot of nonsense, you’ll be rewarded with some rather cool stuff and/or just plain weirdness. Because of that, I’m just going to split the difference and give it Two Stars.

BUT…

(And that’s a big ‘but’ by the way), Rent-A-Cop is the only movie I know of that features:

A) Liza Minnelli playing a hooker.

B) Dionne Warwick playing Liza Minnelli’s pimp.

C) Burt Reynolds dressed up as Santa Claus and beating up shoplifters.

D) James Remar dancing in front of a mirror shirtless as a form of intimidation. (Plus, his name is “Dancer”, which makes it even weirder.)

E) James Remar donning a motorcycle helmet and body armor mowing down sumbitches left and right.

Then again, when you see the scene of Liza Minnelli roleplaying The Big Bad Wolf with a geeky client, you just might lose your lunch.

Burt is good in this movie, but Liza pretty much sinks it. They have some decent scenes together and some of their repartee is kinda funny, but for the most part, she gets on your damn nerves so much that it renders a lot of her good moments null and void. Thankfully, the supporting cast is top notch as we get to see such familiar faces as Bernie Casey, John P. Ryan, Robby Benson (who was also in The End with Burt), Richard Masur (who was also in Semi-Tough with Burt), and a young Michael Rooker.

The flick was directed by Jerry London, who worked almost exclusively in television. And it shows. Just about every scene in this movie is static and shot in a rather dull manner. Had there been a director with a bit more pizzazz up his sleeve, Rent-A-Cop might’ve really sizzled. As it is, it’s got just enough memorable moments to make die hard Burt fans take notice.

Harvey Keitel has worked with some of the greatest directors of all time. Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Abel Ferrara, Robert Altman, Paul Schrader, Dario Argento, the list goes on and on. Why do these guys flock to work with Keitel? Well, Harvey is one of those guys that consistently “brings it” in every scene of every movie he’s in. Even though a lot of his films are a uneven, the man is always a joy to watch thanks to his versatile range and intense characterizations.

Our first Keitel film happens to be the first film he ever starred in:

WHO’S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR (1967) ***

Who’s That Knocking at My Door is Martin Scorsese’s first film. Even though he was wet behind the ears, Scorsese showed a lot of command over the medium and created an impressive, albeit uneven flick. What’s especially admirable is that he was already peppering the film with little touches that would go on to be Scorsese trademarks. The flick is rife with bursts of unexpected violence, lots of oldies on the soundtrack, freeze frames, and cool camerawork. It’s not as good as the bulk of his output, but it’s nevertheless a tantalizing taste of things to come.

Harvey Keitel stars as J.R., a likeable young man with no ambition who is content with hanging out with his hoodlum friends. When he falls in love with a cute chick on a ferry, he finds himself torn between two worlds. One night she reveals to him that she had been raped, which drives a permanent wedge between them.

Who’s That Knocking at My Door almost plays like a French New Wave movie because of the black and white photography, characters talking incessantly about movies, and the unconventional use of flashbacks. Some of Scorsese’s cinematic gymnastics are a bit too showy, but they don’t detract that much from the overall mood. And sometimes the low budget shows as some scenes look like they came out of a nudie-cutie from Something Weird’s back catalogue. (After finishing my review I checked IMDB and found out that apparently the nudie scenes were added after the fact in order to secure a release. These scenes don’t really add anything to the movie, except of course provide an excuse for some much needed T & A.)

Harvey Keitel is excellent in his debut. His contribution to the film is every bit as important as Scorsese’s. His scenes with “The Girl” are sweet and tender and are curiously far more involving than the bits with his hoodlum pals. In these scenes, the film tends to meander way too much (like Harvey and company’s side trip to a small out of the way town), but thanks to Keitel’s performance, he’s able to keep the movie on track. Despite its shortcomings, Who’s That Knocking at My Door does serve as a promising look at two rising major talents.

AKA: I Call First. AKA: J.R.

Next up is…

MOTHER, JUGS, AND SPEED (1976) *** ½

Mother, Jugs, and Speed was kinda like an attempt to duplicate the success of MASH, but in an American peace time setting. (In fact, in some areas it was released as C.R.A.S.H.) To be quite honest, I actually like this better than MASH. The way it switches gears from comedy to drama (sometimes within the same scene) is a joy to watch. Add in my unhealthy obsession with Raquel Welch and you can see why I prefer this movie.

There isn’t really much of a plot here, but that’s actually beneficial to the movie as it’s more about the characters and how they interact instead of a linear storyline. The basic plot centers around the happenings and goings on at a ramshackle ambulance company. Bill Cosby plays “Mother”, the beer-swilling ringleader who gets his jollies by blaring his sirens at a bunch of nuns. Raquel plays “Jugs” (naturally), the switchboard operator who secretly gets a degree to be an ambulance driver, much to the chagrin of the owner (Allen Garfield). And “Speed”, played by Harvey Keitel is an ex-cop turned ambulance driver who melts Jugs’ icy exterior and gains the respect of the other drivers.

The great cast really carries the film. Cosby is excellent, showing a terrific dramatic range. He’s also very funny too (duh) and some of his wisecracks are downright hysterical. Raquel is quite good as well, although we never get to see the titular jugs. Keitel is low key because he’s essentially the straight man, but that’s okay because he’s more or less the glue that keeps the trio together.

And the supporting cast is equally fine. Probably my favorite performance came from Larry Hagman. He’s great as the sex-crazed ambulance driver with the hots for Jugs. Bruce Davison is also quite good as Mother’s drug addled ill-fated partner. This movie also contains what’s probably the quintessential Allen Garfield performance. If you’re a fan of the man, you’ll definitely get a kick out of watching him playing the harried owner of the ambulance company.

You know, if I had to pick my favorite Peter Yates movie it would probably be this one. Yes, I like it better than Bullitt, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, and dare I say, Krull. Like I said, this movie has the kind of balance between comedy and drama I love. Sure, the film is episodic in nature and some bits are better than others, but the movie hits bull’s eye more often than not. If anything, it gives you a good idea at what Bill Cosby was capable of before he sold out, started eating a mess of Pudding Pops, and began wearing stupid sweaters. (Of course, now that I think of it, he probably had to wear all those sweaters because he was so cold from eating the Pudding Pops.)

AKA: C.R.A.S.H.

Our next venture into Keitel territory is a trip to…

THE BORDER (1982) **

Jack Nicholson gets a job working the Texas border patrol and right away he has a tough time fitting in. His wife (Valerie Perrine) keeps spending all his money and his ideals don’t exactly gel with those of his fellow officers. Jack’s partner (Harvey Keitel) tries to get him involved in some shady activities, but Jack quickly proves he’s a man who can’t be bought. Pretty soon, Jack finds himself sympathizing with the Mexican immigrants and even helps one (Elpidia Carrillo, from Predator) find her missing baby. This of course doesn’t sit right with Harv, so the two have to have an inevitable shootout.

Jack is excellent in the lead, but his performance is just about the only thing that really drives the film. While individual scenes work; as a whole The Border is just too meandering and muddled to be compelling. It’s especially telling when his scenes with his money-grubbing wife are more involving and interesting than either Jack’s moral dilemma or the central mystery surrounding the missing baby.

My feeling here is that Tony (Tom Jones) Richardson might’ve been the wrong director for this material. He doesn’t handle the action very well and the dramatic stuff is pretty uneven. And the final showdown between Nicholson and Keitel is particularly disappointing and is edited in a choppy fashion.

It must be said however that Keitel and Nicholson are quite good together. Not as good as they were in The Two Jakes, but still rather sterling. I just wish their scenes weren’t so flatly written. And Warren Oates is in this movie too as their bigoted superior. I don’t know about you, but any movie that has Warren Oates in it is automatically better than any movie that doesn’t, so the flick has that going for it.

And our final Keitel flick is…

DANGEROUS GAME (1993) **

Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant is one of the best movies of the 90’s. The idea of having him reteam with that film’s star, Harvey Keitel must’ve seemed like a surefire bet at the time. But whereas Bad Lieutenant was a focused and unflinching no holds barred drama, Dangerous Game is a confusing, tedious, and overall sloppy bit of pretentious monkey business.

Harvey Keitel stars as a movie director trying to film scenes with his two stars, Madonna and James Russo. Sometimes we’re watching the film-within-a-film, and other times we’re watching Keitel taking the actors aside to discuss their motivation and shit. Naturally, their personal lives start crossing over into their work until the characters (and sometimes the audience) don’t know where real life ends and reel life begins.

Ferrara was trying to do one of those art-imitates-life numbers here. It had the potential to work (especially with this cast), but because neither the film-within-a-film scenes nor the behind-the-scenes narrative is really that interesting, we end up not caring about any of the characters. What’s more, the so-called “drama” in the film basically boils down to nothing more than a bunch of repetitive shouting matches between the cast. It also doesn’t help that all the nonsensical “motivation” Keitel feeds Russo and Madonna is nothing but line after line of head-scratching horse shit.

It’s not all a wash though. The scene where Keitel verbally berates Madonna off screen to mindfuck her into giving a better performance crackles with tension. Had this scene been more of the rule instead of the exception, Dangerous Game could’ve been a real winner. And I’ve got to say that James Russo gave a tireless performance here. Not too many dudes can go for broke shouting and screaming with such stamina like Russo, but he really pulls it off. And I thought the Richard Belzer cameo was kinda funny too. Other than that, Dangerous Game is basically headache-inducing.

AKA: Snake Eyes.

Next week’s Legend: Charles Bronson.

Before I start this review, I have to bring it to your attention that this movie represents two milestones for the It Came from the Thrift Store column. First, it is by far the newest movie I’ve ever picked up at the Thrift Store, and second, it is by far the worst movie I’ve ever picked up at the Thrift Store. (Yes, worse than American Anthem, if such a thing is possible.)

The plot is so muddled and boring that I’ve already forgotten most of it, which is lucky for me I guess; so forget I said anything okay?

The whole movie suffers from a cheap look and a nonexistent budget. It looks like it was filmed at a Wild West theme park using all the props and actors from said establishment. It was also shot on a cheap digital camera which only enhances the film’s budgetary shortcomings. From the awful fast motion fight scenes to the atrocious looking CGI blood squibs, everything about this movie reeks of bargain basement filmmaking.

What budget there was probably solely went into Michael Madsen’s back pocket. He’s the only name actor and his classy professionalism further magnifies the amateurish thespianism found in the rest of the cast. Whenever he’s on screen, the flick is at least semi-watchable. Whenever anyone not named Michael Madsen is front and center, the flick is a painfest of the highest order.

I will say that these guys DID somehow manage to convince a Reservoir Dog into starring in their awful no budget western, which is more than a lot of filmmakers can say.

If anything, A Cold Day in Hell works as proof that Madsen will star in ANYTHING. At least the title is accurate. It’ll be A Cold Day in Hell before I ever watch it again.

TOOTH AND NAIL (2007) ***

I only saw a couple of the first wave of After Dark Horrorfest movies. They were beyond bad, so I immediately jettisoned the rest of them from my Netflix queue. I guess I shouldn’t have been so hasty to judge because Tooth and Nail is miles better than the most of the films under the After Dark banner. I’m not saying it’s great (it isn’t, trust me), but it has its moments and a solid cast of dependable actors.

The flick takes place after the apocalypse (it was one of those "we ran out of gas and starting killing each other" apocalypses). A professor (Robert Carradine) and some of his students have barricaded themselves inside an abandoned hospital where they try to remain as civilized as possible. While out foraging for supplies, the students attract the attention of a family of feral cannibals (including Vinnie Jones and Michael Madsen) who follow them back to the hospital and pick them off one by one.

I kinda liked the blending of genres here. It’s basically The Hills Have Eyes Meets 28 Days Later. Although Tooth and Nail doesn’t exploit its potential to the fullest, I still liked it enough so that its shortcomings didn’t bother me so much. And while the gore is pretty mellow for the most part, there is a nice face melting scene that makes up for it.

I guess the thing that knocked it down a couple of notches for me was that the “twist” halfway through the movie was predictable. It’s kinda one of those deals where the audience sees it coming a mile away. The characters on the other hand aren’t so astute, so they pretty much get what they deserve. The final little twist at the end however, was kinda cool though and helps redeems whatever missteps came before.

The cast is pretty great for this sort of thing and they help raise the bar slightly. Rider (Cabin Fever) Strong is good as the dick in the group and Nicole DuPort makes for a likeable Final Girl. And while somebody had the right idea about casting Vinnie Jones and Michael Madsen as cannibals, neither gets a whole lot of screen time, which is a tad disappointing. Seriously, somehow Madsen actually has LESS screen time here than he did in A Cold Day in Hell. I did like it when Madsen whistled “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” before killing his prey though.

I’m actually shocked to say that I’m all out of Thrift Store movies. It’s been slim pickings lately, which is kinda disappointing. I debated about whether or not I should put this column on hiatus. Then I thought what the heck, I’ll keep on trucking. Even though the next couple of movies in the series didn’t come from the Thrift Store, they did come from the FYE bargain bin, Blockbuster store closings, or various other sources, so the spirit will still be the same. The bottom line is, any DVD on my To Be Watched Shelf that cost me less than $5 is going to be fair game.

Our next It Came from the “Thrift Store” movie will be… Bloodlines.

It says a lot for the talents of director Gareth Evans and star Iko Uwais that after seeing The Raid, I almost immediately tracked down their previous collaboration, Merantau. Surprisingly, it’s very nearly as good as The Raid. If The Raid is their Hard Boiled, then Merantau is their The Killer.

Iko Uwais leaves his family behind to go on his Merantau (spiritual journey to find himself). When he stops to get a bite to eat, a punk kid picks his pocket. When Iko tracks him down, he discovers the kid’s sister has been kidnapped by some despicable slavers. Iko then proceeds to kick some serious slaver butt.

What I dug about Merantau was that Evans’ style was so totally different than The Raid. Whereas The Raid had a minimum of camera movement, Merantau has lots of swooping almost Scorsese style camera moves. The only similar shots are the ones where the camera follows Uwais as he picks himself off the floor. Other than that, both films seem like they were made by two different directors, which is a testament to Evans’ versatility behind the camera.

In fact, Merantau is a completely different animal than The Raid. The biggest difference is that instead of a bare minimum of plot before the action kicks in, Merantau has a very slow build-up. Usually this is the sort of thing I take points off for, but the deliberate build-up actually works in the movie’s favor. Evans allows us a little time to get to know and identify with Uwais before he starts dishing out ass-whoopings. And once he finally starts whooping ass, he never stops.

And speaking of which, this movie contains some rather amazing Kung Fu action. If underlying theme of The Raid was all about people lying in the floor quivering in pain, this one is all about people getting fucked up with lead pipes. In addition to all the scenes where dudes get lit up with pipes, we also get an incredible fight in a go-go bar, a badass brawl on a scaffolding, some heated action in an apartment building (which almost seems like a dry run for the action in The Raid), and a gnarly beatdown in an elevator. My favorite moment though involved a dude leaping from one rooftop to another and Iko greeting him with a bamboo pole to the chest. This scene is so brutal that it hurt me to watch.

Seriously, if you loved The Raid, you owe it to yourself to check out Merantau. Or, if you haven’t seen either film, you should probably see this one first and then check out The Raid. At any rate, you can’t quite call yourself a self-respecting action movie fan if you haven’t seen either one.

For a second opinion, check out friend of The Vacuum, Saturday Night Screening’s review of the film: http://saturdaynightscreening.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/merantau/

If you happened to catch that newfangled Clash of the Titans remake, then there’s no real reason to see Immortals. I take that back. The only real reason to see it is to get a look at Henry Cavil fighting the forces of evil before he becomes Superman next summer. Plus, it’s got Mickey Rourke and Stephen Dorff acting like badasses, so right there, it’s automatically better than the new Clash of the Titans.

I’m not going to get into the plot, because I basically forgot about it already. Something to do with Superman trying to get a hold of a magic bow so he can get revenge on Whiplash for killing his mother. Again, this movie was so similar to Clash of the Titans that the plot didn’t matter much. The basic difference between Immortals and Clash is that no one releases the Kraken in this one. Plus, Immortals was filmed in a faux-300 style, so that will help you tell them apart.

It was directed by Tarsem, so that right there tells you a lot. This is the guy that made The Cell, so we know not to expect much. I will say that Mickey gives a pretty good speech about humping so many villager women that an entire generation will look like him. Then he orders a dude to get a sledgehammer to the balls. Because of these two quintessential Rourke-ian moments, I can’t completely hate this movie.

Cavil is good in some scenes (like when he’s rallying his troops), but is kinda bland in others (like when he’s romancing that chick from Dumb Dog Millionaire). I think he may make a good Superman. Probably not as good as Christopher Reeve, Brandon Routh, Dean Cain, George Reeves, or Kirk Alyn, but he might be OK.

If anything, Immortals contains a record number of scenes where dudes in togas hurl something in slow motion, so if that’s your sort of thing you may dig it.

I have a rule about Spoilers. Usually, I tend to remain spoiler-free when reviewing really good movies and I tend to only spoil really bad ones. Is The Cabin in the Woods bad? Well, if it’s any indication; I’m about spoil the shit out of this movie. In my defense though, you can’t even really talk about the plot of this movie without spoiling it in some way in mid-sentence.

Basically the plot has five college students going to a cabin in the woods where they unleash some zombies that go around killing them. But as the cast thins out, the survivors slowly become aware that some other forces are at work. They do some digging and find out that an office full of 9 to 5 paper pushers are really controlling everything from a remote installation hidden underground. The survivors then make their way into the compound and set out to give the workers a taste of their own medicine.

All of this might have made for an OK episode of Amazing Stories, but at feature length, the flick is pretty much a train wreck from start to finish. I admit the central idea is okay, yet the execution leaves something to be desired. My major complaint is that the film plays all of its cards way too soon; almost immediately as a matter of fact. Had the film waited about an hour to reveal the “puppeteers” pulling the strings, it could’ve been a doozy of a plot twist. By letting the audience in on the joke from frame, it one robs the movie of any suspense or fun. And once you know the set-up, just about every twist and turn from there on out becomes predictable (yes, including the bit with the merman). Also, the constant cutting back and forth between the cabin and the control room pretty much ruins the entire flow of the movie. And the last minute Sigourney Weaver cameo doesn’t work at all either.

Even the finale, when the heroes liberate the hundreds of evil beasts from their prison is seriously lacking in fun. You’d think seeing a bunch of crappy CGI monsters running around an office building killing hundreds of people would be cool, but the filmmakers (the dudes responsible for that Buffy bullshit) drop the ball there. Although I will admit the killer unicorn bit was pretty badass. Because of that, I can’t simply write this movie off as a One Star affair.

And I have to say the ending rings completely false. You honestly want me to believe that the Final Girl would rather let the Stoner Dude live and unleash Total Evil on the world than kill him so the planet could survive? Didn’t she have family or friends worth sparing? Why let the whole world end just because some dope smoking degenerate won’t take one for the team? I call bullshit on that.

And seriously, could that Stoner Guy be more annoying? If anything, the most painful death should’ve been reserved for that guy. I know they were trying to “turn the genre on its ear”, but the character is too thinly written and shrilly acted for you to give a shit about him. I mean you know you’re in trouble when his elaborate bong passes for “character development”.

A lot of people have taken it upon themselves to hail The Cabin in the Woods as a new classic of the horror genre. I pretty much felt insulted the whole time. Almost as if the movie was chastising me for wanting to see some T & A and blood and guts.

And all the scenes with the puppeteers just didn’t work for me. I guess if you can get into that aspect of the story, you’ll dig it. Just ask yourself this question: Would you rather go behind the scenes at Disneyland and see how everything works or would you rather ride the fucking rides? Me? I’m a Space Mountain riding motherfucker.