The Halloween franchise, compared to Freddy and Jason’s series, is probably the most uneven of all the slasher series. Nothing will ever top the awful unconnected mess of Halloween III, which is why part four was such a welcome return to form, but this entry, while still at least a somewhat competent entry in the series has a whole crapton of WTF moments. The movie … Continue reading Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers Review
Notorious dream slayer Freddy Krueger has been dormant for years now in the little neighborhood of Elm Street. Business just ain’t what it used to be as teenagers just don’t really seem that afraid anymore, which, as the story goes greatly reduces his powers. Not one to take this lying down, he decides to lure old Hockey Puss himself out of hibernation to get the … Continue reading Freddy vs. Jason Review
That final chapter idea of part four thankfully was an empty threat. However, until ‘Jason Goes to Hell’ came out, Friday the 13th Part 5 was the closest thing this franchise had to a “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” type installment—basically, one that most fans of the series tend to purposefully ignore. If you only edited so that the killer actually was (spoiler alert … Continue reading Friday The 13th Part 5: A New Beginning Review
If the first film in this series was “respectable schlock” this one was just pure schlock, and the series itself was still in the midst of finding its niche. Friday the 13th Part 2 is as straight of a by the numbers slasher flick as you could imagine. The introduction of the Jason Voorhees character (in unexplained grown up form) is the most historically relevant … Continue reading Friday The 13th Part 2 Review
Watching this film is like going to a high school reunion and getting cornered by that guy who was the class clown twenty years ago, and discovering he has not changed his clothes, or bothered to learn any new material in the intervening decades. You find you are amused just by their appearance and the nostalgia factor for a bit, but you quickly make an … Continue reading Dumb and Dumber To Review
Hey, North Korea, you really could have saved yourself a lot of time and trouble and just let this one pass. It likely would have fizzled out based on its’ own merit rather than having the help of an entire news cycle controversy to drive up sales. James Franco and Seth Rogen belong in better movies than the likes of this. They’re both fine actors, … Continue reading The Interview Review
James Bond is on a quest for revenge against the evil doers who blackmailed his former flame—Vesper Lynd, from Casino Royale, a pursuit which leads him to the discovery of one Dominic Greene, a guy with a private army capable of being nearly anywhere it seems, but who is bent on controlling the water resources of Bolivia because, hey, that was a trendy news story … Continue reading Quantum of Solace Review
Peter Travers, in his review of “Tomorrow Never Dies” wrote “If Connery was Sexy Bond and George Lazenby was One-Shot Bond and Roger Moore was Geezer Bond and Timothy Dalton was Bored Bond, then Brosnan should be Posh Bond.” This kind of sums up my feelings on Brosnan as well, who was probably the most glittery of all the men to sport the 007 moniker. … Continue reading Tomorrow Never Dies Review
This is one of my favorite horrible movies. It has every bad movie cliché in the book, a ton of gnarly character actors, questionable acting, awful writing, pointless plot twists galore etc, and is centered around a bunch of guys dressed like Santa trying to rob a casino. What’s not to like? To attempt to explain the plot in full with all the spoilers would … Continue reading Reindeer Games Review
This is strictly a matter of personal taste, but I prefer my shoot em’ up style action flicks to be light on the preachy politics and heavy on the ass kicking suspense. Now, I realize any movie starring Sean Penn is going to be heavy on the former. I found I could mostly ignore that though. Penn here plays a government assassin who has been … Continue reading The Gunman Review
I was up late the other night and caught this movie on TV and was surprised I had not heard of it before. Then while watching it, it occurred to me just how easy a movie this would have been to forget. 1990 was a very important year in Kevin Costner’s career for reasons that have nothing to do with this film. This was the … Continue reading Revenge Review
Paul Kersey is headed west, again for the fourth installment of the Death Wish series. This time around there is a bit more plot, but still just as much action including what is admittedly a pretty awesome finale involving a bazooka. That said, Bronson really started looking to old and worn out for the part by this time and obviously could not have given a … Continue reading Death Wish 4: The Crackdown Review
Death Wish goes west is probably a more appropriate title to this sequel. As a kid in love with macho badasses Charles Bronson was, of course, one of my heroes. And in retrospect it is Bronson’s presence alone that saves this one from being a nearly complete dud, that and cheesy lines every now and then such as “Do you believe in Jesus? (Punk says … Continue reading Death Wish 2 Review
There’s a fine line between inspirational and cloying, and this movie teeters dangerously on the brink the entire film. I found that half the time I went along for the ride, while the other half I had to distance myself from the main character. Walter Mitty is a really old character updated here as a writer for Life Magazine during the period when they were … Continue reading The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Review
As a former employee of Walmart, watching this movie gave me vague flashbacks to those awful corporate brainwashing “orientation” videos we were forced to watch in our first few days on the job that basically informed us that A: unions are the devil and will kill your children, and B: Sam Walton was the greatest person to ever walk the face of the earth sans … Continue reading Saving Mr. Banks Review
It had completely escaped my memory that both Liam Neeson and Jim Carrey (in yes, their only movie together) appeared in the fifth and final installment of the Dirty Harry franchise known as “The Dead Pool”. Those are two of my favorite actors for very different reasons, and if any modern actor was going to take over the mantle of Dirty Harry right now Neeson … Continue reading The Dead Pool Review
This movie, while both a critical and box office failure, is to me a good hidden gem example of a fun “garbage movie”. Take the preposterous plot that involves a large group of Elvis impersonators robbing a Vegas casino and then wind up turning on each other (have mercy!) leaving the two alpha males to fight over the remaining prize. (They just could not go … Continue reading 3,000 Miles to Graceland Review
Sometimes it’s best to leave childhood favorites in your childhood. This might have been one of those cases. I would have been around ten to twelve years old when I first saw “Beyond The Law”, which also would have been my first exposure to the idea of biker gangs and such, and at the time I thought it was just about the coolest film ever … Continue reading Beyond The Law Review
Here’s the main thing that bothered me at the end of Winter’s Tale. How in the hell did Russell Crowe and Colin Farrell get drawn into what is essentially Twilight for history buffs? This movie is helmed by Akiva Goldsman, an uneven director in the past who has given us both the wonderful ‘Cinderella Man’ and the ambulance chasing would be cash cow “The Da … Continue reading Winter’s Tale Review
First things first, fans of current day WWE will not be able to watch this movie without mistaking Jason Momoa for wrestler Roman Reigns. In fact there have been reports that when WWE showed the advertisement for this film during their live events, that many in the crowd assumed it was Reigns as well in the lead role, and with the way he is positioned … Continue reading Road To Paloma Review
