Sully: The Miracle of Tom Hanks
I want to hug Tom Hanks. His performance in Sully is perfection and I think it is so good that people won’t know how good it is. It is a subtle performance that commands respect and immediately makes you believes that Tom Hanks can do anything. What I love about Clint Eastwood directed films is how he allows his actors to shine. Between Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Letters From Iwo Jima, American Sniper, Mystic River and Unforgiven we’ve been given some amazing performances and I think Eastwood’s acting first style creates some brilliant performances.
I loved every second of Sully and I appreciate how Clint Eastwood was able to take to the story of an absolute miracle and find humanity, tension and heart. I am still amazed that pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger was able to land his plane on the Hudson river after double engine failure. No plane had ever experienced engine failure at just 2,818 feet in the air and 99% of the time the engine failure would’ve resulted in certain death. However, Sully and co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles calmly landed the massive plane on the Hudson river. All 155 passengers survived and the crew became overnight celebrities.
Eastwood’s film covers every angle of the water landing and focuses on the lives of the two pilots days after the miracle. Sully (Tom Hanks) and Jeffries (Aaron Eckhart) are thrust into the national limelight and become media darlings who are forced to relive the ordeal over and over for the press. Things go slightly awry when investigators releases the news that flight simulators successfully returned the damaged plane back to New York airports. What follows is an examination of doubt, friendship and great mustaches.
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Sully is an elegant look at a conflicted man pondering if he did the right thing. Time vindicated Sully but I can only imagine the stress he went through as he ran every scenario in his hand. Tom Hanks is perfect in the role and I love how effortless he makes everything work. I bet it was really tough for Hanks because Clint Eastwood’s sparse style and need of only a couple takes must’ve forced him to bring his A++ game. The most pleasant surprise of Sully is Aaron Eckhart’s charming performance. I’ve always liked Eckhart and thought he was great in Thank You for Smoking. Now that I’ve seen him in Sully I’m annoyed that he spends his time making I, Frankenstein and London Has Fallen. He is so good in Sully that it is frustrating because you want to see him get better roles.
Go watch Sully. It is a beautiful film that puts characters first and features some of the best performances you will see all year.
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Bad Movie Tuesday: Timecop (1994), Jean-Claude Van Damme travels through time and does splits.
MY CALL: More of a fun “action” movie than a “martial arts” movie, this is LOADED with cheeky lines and “most” of the JCVD staples. But if you seek jump spin kicks, you should watch his earlier movies instead. MOVIES LIKE Timecop: Other Van Damme movies, of course! Especially Bloodsport (1988), Lionheart (1990) and The Quest (1996), which all feature hush-hush Fight Clubs that can’t keep a secret. But maybe this movie isn’t bad enough for you and you want something a bit more “campy bad.” If that’s the case, try China O’Brien (1990), Outside the Law (2002), Night Vision (1997) or Only the Strong (1993) for your Bad Movie Tuesday.
Timecop boldly opens, challenging its viewers by posing the question: If a bunch of Confederate gold is highjacked by a time traveler during a wagon trail hold-up in 1800s Georgia, does anyone care? Well, since all that did was remind me of the displaced silliness of laser guns in Cowboys and Aliens (2011), I’m gonna’ say no. But honestly it was kind of a cool scene that, despite my joking, opened the movie with a bit of integrity.
But now we need to put on our serious faces and explain the “rules of changing the past” to set the urgency of the film. “What if Saddam Hussein time travels to steal our atomic bomb technology to become a world power” and blah, blah blah, end of mankind, “ripples” in time are bad… And now there’s now been a ripple when some terrorists (present day) were found brokering an arms deal with confederate gold.
Is that a Stargate?
So now it’s time to create the Time Enforcement Commission (TEC) to essentially police time travel…with “time cops.” From proposal of the TEC to appointing a chairperson takes about 6 minutes tops, making this the fastest act of legislation ever in the history of all things government—even the most insane dictators would think things over (like newly appointed commissions) during the course of a drink. I don’t think John Hancock signed his name in the time it took to convince a table of DC bigwigs that time travel technology was invented (without them knowing anything about it) and it “just happened last week!!!!”
They just nod like “sounds reasonable” after they are informed they “know” the gold is from the 1800s not just because of how it was marked (Property of the Confederacy or whatever), but because they carbon dated the aforementioned highjacked gold. But wait… Can you carbon date pure gold???? Guess what, writers of Timecop? You simply cannot carbon date things that don’t have carbon. You don’t get to waive your hands in the air and say we know “because SCIENCE that’s why!” As it goes, you can only “carbon” date things that have carbon in them. And since gold is made of…waiiiiit for it…GOLD (Au 79) and not CARBON isotope C-14, you can’t use carbon dating to estimate its age.
But let’s try to forget for a moment that our writers failed their 8th grade Physical Science midterm and focus on the story. Our hero is Max Walker (Jean-Claude Van Damme; Bloodsport, The Expendables 2, Universal Solder: Day of Reckoning), a cop with an incredibly American sounding name, an incredibly unexplained Belgian accent, an incredibly beautiful wife and an incredibly unbelievably huge house for his civil servant job in the greater DC metro area.
“Read it.”
“Wolverine…?”
“Between the lines.”
“I should get the Fuck outta here.”
We meet Max playing out some fantasy roleplay in the middle of a mall with his wife (Mia Sara; Legend, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) when he pulls an awesome little scene out of nowhere with a steady kick held in a rollerblading purse snatcher’s face. Some ostentatiously crooked looking goons oversee the event and seem unimpressed with his obvious glute strength and balance. It’s a pretty iconic scene—that and the washer/dryer jump split make for some exquisite trailer moments.
Thank you, by the way, to the writers and Mia Sara and Van Damme for acknowledging and playfully mocking Van Damme’s English. “He read my mind…With your English he didn’t have much choice…Hey, I know all the good words.”
On that note, this movie is loaded with some great 90s action movie lines…
“Is this TEC work dangerous?”
“I don’t bake cookies for a living.”
But Van Damme’s movies are known for more than thick European accents being applied to American characters delivering cheeky lines. He’s also known for his surprisingly tender love scenes that might just be presented as much for the ladies as the men (e.g., Double Impact, Bloodsport). JCVD’s Kenny G-scored love scene comes complete with iconic Van Damme bare butt shot for the ladies, some Mia Sara nudity for the bros, and soft lighting for the production geeks. On top of that, it’s filmed and scored like softcore porn on late night Skinemax.
Director Peter Hyams (A Sound of Thunder, Sudden Death, The Relic) knows how to deliver what Van Damme fans want! And that does not include a very sound story. We are rich with clichés as the bad guys kill his wife and needlessly explode his giant house, the time travel portals conveniently appear wherever they are needed and smack of the subsequent show Sliders (1995-2000 Sci-Fi Channel; which may have copied Timecop, in fact), and I don’t even have an explanation for Van Damme’s hair.
When I see her face it reminds me…
of when Quaid wanted Cohaagen to give the people da’ air!
The thing that really makes this highly rewatchable movie work is that Van Damme is clearly having fun with this role—as he often does with his cheeky charm. This is most evident during his first time travel fight scene in Wall Street. His cheeky lines, his sudden straddle dodge, his stick strike to the nuts—sometimes I imagine they had to do extra takes because he’d burst out into laughter. The kicks in the face are numerous, so are the gunfire evasive dive rolls, and I’m happy for Van Damme. His career never saw paydays like Schwarzenegger or Stallone, but he always seemed to embrace his characters (at least, up until this point in his career).
About now I’d like to pause and assess how we know this is a bad movie (as if it wasn’t yet obvious):
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How was there not a single jump spin kick in this entire movie!?!?!?! That’s JCVD’s thing! Also, much to my surprise, there is very little in terms of sweaty biceps shots. #JumpSpinKickFAIL
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This takes place in “the future” in 2004. Man, I can’t wait for 2004! The cars may look like Back to the Future’s DeLorean and Total Recall’s Johnny Cab had a mutant baby… but they drive themselves! And the TV and voicemail in his house are voice-command.
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There are these two goons with matching death metal hair and giant twin hoop earrings. Shouldn’t goons of high level criminals be more discrete?
So was this like a thematic rematch of sorts? 
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After being found guilty of “time travel with the intent to alter the future” a guy is sentenced to death. But the death is carried out by letting him fall from a building in 1929 where he was impersonating a Wall Street investor. Wouldn’t that alter the future? When 1929 cops cannot link this supposedly wealthy investor to anyone who actually existed? Isn’t that sort of a big ripple. Oh, and he did already buy 100,000 shares of oil stock. What about those ripples? Jobs, the economy, increased financial disparity between classes…? Jobs and money affecting if certain parents ever met and had kids…like so the kid who grew up to invent time travel would have never been born because his dad didn’t get “that” job and meet “that” woman at “that” time.
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The evil presidential hopeful slams his consultant’s head into a car window for giving him bad news. I love this!
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Watch out for the knife fight in the kitchen fight scene. They replay the same set of attacks/parries 2-4 times back to back really fast as if we wouldn’t notice…just like they replayed the same jump spin kick footage (vs Chong Li) in Bloodsport…just like they replayed the same stunts (vs China) and punch combo (vs Khan) footage in The Quest. This wasn’t the only Timecop offense, the girl’s (Gloria Reuben; Robot, Falling Skies, Silk Stalkings) palm strike and some rainy finale punching were replayed, too. Was this common in 80s and 90s action movies, or does Van Damme just get too tired to film more moves? Adding insult to injury, the Asian knife fighter outspinkicks Van Damme’s spin kick! #SpinKickFAIL #KnifeFightFAIL #ReplayFAIL
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Also during that knife fight Van Damme seems to “parry” several attacks in a row by simply holding the knife perfectly still in front of his face as if it was a powerful magnet! LOL. Terrible! #ParryFAIL
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Evidently if you expose water to 50K volts of electricity, it can hold the charge and electrocute someone several seconds later. #PhysicsFAIL
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I don’t think their time travel launch car ever hit 88 mph! #BacktotheFutureFAIL
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Did they rip off the launch car from The Running Man (1987).
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“Never interrupt me when I’m talking to myself.” An incredibly silly line delivered by the villain with an incredibly straight face.
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No one can deny that the liquid nitrogen arm shatter scene was a blatant (and playful) rip-off of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Not gonna’ lie, I laughed.
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Okay, I am now CERTAIN that Van Damme gets the giggles over hitting people in the balls. In The Quest the Chinese fighter monkey punches the Brazilian in the balls and the Scottish guy loses to a punch to the balls right under the kilt from the Turk. In Bloodsport the Sumo wrestler gets punched in the nuts by the African monkey boy and a Van Damme split testicular uppercut. And now in Timecop, Van Damme whips a guy in the balls with a stick and then two guys get shot in the balls during the rainy rooftop finale.
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“The same matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time.” Three times we are informed of this! But at least by the third we got some awful effects as the bad guy ate it and melted into pink ooze.
For the most part, this is not a movie for technical fight choreography snobs who live for the likes of Tony Jaa (Ong Bak), Scott Adkins (Undisputed 2-3, Universal Solder: Day of Reckoning), Michael Jai White (Undisputed 2, Blood and Bone), Jason Statham (Mechanic: Resurrection), or Iko Uwais (The Raid: Redemption). There’s nothing particularly wowing about the martial arts. However, a few stunts steal the show. We mentioned the washer/dryer jump split, he makes good use of a towel and an over-the-arm kick to the face, and the quality of the fights was highly satisfying. But I’d call these “action movie fights” more than “martial arts movie” fights, if you feel my drift.
Van Damme ends up saving the day by stopping an evil time travelling senator from buying the presidency and, along the way, he hits 3 out of 4 on the Van Damme staples: a Belgian butt shot (with Mia Sara), splits during a fight (x2), tandem jump spin kicks (sadly absent), and a sappy closing scene with the subject of his motivation (his son whom he meets for the first time).
Most of Van Damme’s pre-1995 movies have high rewatchability, and this is no exception. In fact, this JCVD movie had quite a bit of Schwarzenegger style and appeal to it, making Van Damme feel like a more typical action hero than normal. I highly recommend it to anyone who ever liked pretty much any Van Damme movie.
If you enjoy this stuff please buy it, watch it, then join our nostalgia by listening to our Van Damme podcast episode!
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John’s Horror Corner: Tourist Trap (1979), where Psycho meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
SPOILERS
MY CALL: If Norman Bates and Leatherface had a telekinetic lovechild with a fondness for mannequins, this lunacy is what you’d have. It’s not scary or gory, but it trumps the deck in the weird and creepy department. MORE MOVIES LIKE Tourist Trap: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), House of Wax (2005) and Psycho (1960, 1998).
Also released as Horror Puppet, this cult classic leaps right into the deep end of its own lunacy. We’ve barely met our group of victims when one of them, approaching a sleepy and perhaps abandoned gas station (a la The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), wanders into a sort of elaborately rigged funhouse loaded with evil mannequins. The scares are cheap and numerous, but they should crack a grin.
I have no idea why this poster depicts a naked women (there is no nudity) or why her nipples emit beams of light (that obviously doesn’t happen).
This is a terribly misleading poster.
And while we’re at it, what is with this raunchy poster pose?
It’s oddly similar to Evils of the Night (1985)
The humor may not be entirely deliberate, but I finda sort of sick slapstick nature to it as the mannequins cackle and random objects jettison through the air at our victim.
This may make some horror lightweights a bit uncomfortable. Writer/director David Schmoeller’s (Puppet Master, Netherworld) first feature length undertaking sets the stage much like its successors The Evil Dead (1981) and The Funhouse (1981).
Now one short, four twenty-somethings remain including Jerry (Jon Van Ness; X-Ray, The Hitcher), the anxious Molly (Jocelyn Jones; The Enforcer), the bold Eileen (Robin Sherwood; Death Wish II, The Love Butcher), and the foxy Becky (Tanya Roberts; The Beastmaster, Sheena).
The classic tropes are on display, that’s for sure. When our four victims go looking for their missing friend, they go down a road passing a sign with a vulture perched upon it that reads “closed to the public.” Maybe read between the lines, folks.
This won’t end well.
The friendly backwoods landowner Slausen (Chuck Connors; Soylent Green, Summer Camp Nightmare) catches the girls in his swimming hole and kindly introduces himself, explains the regional history and warns that they leave before dark. He ran the now out-of-business “local museum” and offers them a ride to pick up some tools to fix their broken down car.
Things get really troped up and really suspicious really fast…and the short shorts get really short. The phones don’t work, he warns them not to wander around, he gives cryptic answers to simple questions like “who lives in that house” and Slausen wastes no time separating the group.
Random objects break, shatter or shutter about adding little of substance to the haunted house atmosphere. It feels cheap and desperate. What does work are the creepy mannequins’ shifting eyes, moving on their own, and blatant nods to a slack-jawed, eerily masked Leatherface-like villain with some Norman Bates issues.
The death scenes are pretty hokey. Scarf strangling by ghost (or telekinesis or something), a projectile pipe stabbing, asphyxiation by plaster…they sadly do not comprise the highlights of this flick. But it’s charm is instead found in the antagonist’s mania as our murdered victims are added to a creepy mannequin menagerie.
This split-personalitied maniac and his romantic proclivities clearly inspired Motel Hell’s (1980) sympathetic Farmer Vincent character, who also echoed Leatherface and other aspects of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).
For whatever reason or coincidence, this outfit makes out villain look like Tony Clifton!
Tony Clifton is for real gonna’ murder this chick!
I’d recommend this to seasoned horror fans—who have already seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Psycho (1960)—who like digging deep to observe the roots of subsequent horror themes.
Before.
After.
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The Best Horror Workouts, Part 1: Killer Workout (1987), Death Spa (1989) and Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
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Working out in the 80s…in horror movies?
You guys know this is gonna’ be a bit dirty!
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Ready to sweat out the sins of watching too many horror movies? Well throw on your halfway shirts, short-shorts and tube socks and let’s get to it!
Killer Workout, aka Aerobicide (1987)
Pretty classy poster, right?
Killer Workout, aka Aerobicide (1987) is easily one of the most TnA-rich raunchy throwbacks I’ve ever seen. Hardly horror at all, this was deliciously cheesy to the point of hilarity. Watch this to remind yourself of what it’s like to be a teenage boy. Brace yourself for sweaty hard bodies, ass-choking leotards, hot pink tights and excessively inappropriate camera angles as we are introduced to Rhonda’s (Marcia Karr; Maniac Cop, Savage Streets) gym. Despite a recent series of in-gym homicides people keep coming to the gym as if nothing happened and never seem to wonder what happened to their training partner. This may sound bad, but we came to laugh as people get killed with random gym apparatuses. What this flick lacks in knives in cleaving sweaty cleavage, it makes up for with extra cheese in your post-workout shake.
We get our raunchy cheese, as any cheese connoisseur would have it, in a variety of forms. But the real highlights here are aerobics montages to remind us that back in the 80s women pretty much dressed like hookers when they worked out. We learn that the camera man understood his instructions loud and clear as we are bombarded by tandem close-ups of sweaty bouncing aerobic boobs, thong-wedgied butts and leg-spreading crotch shots. No joke–the aerobic routines are more than a little slutty and there’s an inordinate amount of this. Every 10-15 minutes it’s like the director was just filming hooker tryouts. SIX TIMES we get these bouncy slut montages encored by a highlights reel during the closing credits. LOL. We even see a scarred up burn victim’s bare breasts in more than one lengthy scene!!! That’s an awful LOT of screen time for TnA even in a raunchy horror flick.
Nope. That’s not a prostitute walking up to the Bunny Ranch in that ass-choking leotard. That’s an aerobics instructor in her classiest uniform hitting the gym.
I have no clue what this move is called. But I think I love it.
Yup. This really happens in this flick…a lot
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Death Spa (1989)
Death Spa (1989) lets us sweat out the toxins with some bad 80s horror at its best. A sultry Flashdance routine immediately warns of the quality of the movie to come. Our flashdancing spa exhibitionist is Laura (Brenda Bakke; Nowhere to Run, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight) and she is nearly killed when the gym sauna spews caustic gas out of some pipe–clearly in an effort to murder her…because spas “do that” in this movie. But have no fear, she judo chops to safety through a window and then passes out naked and sweaty before our eyes.
This spa looks like the 80s vomited all over it. Super short shorts on allegedly straight guys with feathered hair, girls in provocatively snug unitards, lots of hairspray, tights, promiscuity, legwarmers and a strangely wardrobed black dude (Ken Foree; Dawn of the Dead, The Lords of Salem, Halloween) who the director clearly decided was “tough” because he’s a tall black dude who works out in a robe!
As the “spa” continues to strike, its assaults include tampering with a diving board, scalding hot showers, projectile bath tiles flying at naked women, a busted hot water pipe melts the face off of some chick and a needlessly deadly chest-fly machine.
Not surprisingly it only takes a few free months of gym memberships for gym rats to remain loyal to Brother Iron and Sister Steel while several people have been serially killed or injured in the past week! Later some dude has his face squeezed off (the only real latex effort in special effects), a chick’s hand gets blended into a protein shake while it’s still attached to her and there’s a random zombie fish attack…yes, one zombie in the entire movie and it’s a fish. They’re rich in omega-3’s, bro! This movie even includes death by tanning bed–which is the second time this ever happened on film (Killer Workout (1987) was the first), later copied by the I Know What You Did Last Summer and Final Destination franchises.
Shower scenes and wet bodies abound in this extra cheesy flick in which a HAL-like gym security system takes it upon itself to kill its members like they kill their triceps. I’d like to see this remade by Eli Craig, Joss Whedon or Sam Raimi…you know, like the minds behind Evil Dead (2013), The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Final Destination 5 (2011), Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010), Drag Me to Hell (2009), and of course Evil Dead 2 (1987) and The Evil Dead (1981).
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Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
Grin-worthy 80s lameness abounds in this gory flick. The deaths range from ho-hum to laugh-out-loud hilarity. But my favorite kill involves giving a mean spot while someone is doing bench presses, which of course reminded me of Killer Workout (1987; aka Aerobicide) and Death Spa (1989). But unlike the other two mentioned flicks, Happy Birthday to Me (1981) features but a single gym-related death.
After any good workout you gotta’ eat right to get those gains! PROTEIN!!!! And if you’re a gym rat, you know muscles are made in the kitchen. So whether your forcing kabobs down your throat or prepping your girlfriend’s severed head, get to it! The pay off is so worth it.
I know you’re full, bro. But take it down like the lion does the gazelle. GET THOSE GAINS!
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We hope you enjoyed these three gory sets of horrific muscle-building reps from the 80s. Stay tuned for The Best Horror Workouts Part 2!
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The MFF Podcast #71: Star Trek, Past and Beyond
You can download the pod on Itunes or LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
Summary: This week we discuss the Star Trek reboot (2009), Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013), the latest release Star Trek: Beyond (2016), and reflect back on the Star Trek captains of the past, TV series and movie franchises.
We answer the tough questions in this podcast! For example…
“Old Khan or Cumberbatch Khan?”
“Does Quinto Spock do justice to Nimoy Spock, and is it fair to compare them?”
“Did Eric Bana and Tom Hardy make convincing villains?”
“Is Chris Pine the greatest Captain we’ve ever had, or perhaps one of the TV show captains?”
LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO,
or head over iTunes, and if you get a chance please SUBSCRIBE, REVIEW, RATE and SHARE the pod!
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10 Films to Watch Before the Fall Movie Season Starts
Fall is coming and that means we will soon be inundated with Oscar hopefuls and big budget blockbusters. Before you watch all the prestige pictures and superhero/wizard flicks here are 10 smaller films that you should see before you get too busy wondering how the Death Star plans will be stolen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. These films are incredibly different but exhibit a whole lot of greatness. I totally recommend them and hopefully you can get to a few before the fall movie season starts.
Watch these movies!
1. Everybody Wants Some!!
Everybody Wants Some!! is the best film of the year (s0 far) and I will probably watch it again after I finish this post. Don’t be thrown off by the baseball playing lead characters because you will miss an absolute charmer of a comedy. Director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise) has mastered the ensemble film and somehow finds a way to make everyone likable, unique and cool. Watch it now and recommend it to everyone!!
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2. Green Room
Green Room is the best thriller of 2016 (so far) and it proves that director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin) is an amazing director. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time and I love how Saulnier makes violence look so ugly and realistic. Nothing is glorified and you will find yourself incredibly nervous for the trapped punk band. Also, Patrick Stewart is awesome as the Neo-Nazi leader because he looks like your nice uncle but he would kill you without a thought.
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3. Sing Street
Sing Street is pure bliss. Director John Carney (Once, Begin Again) has created another fantastic musical yarn that will put a smile on your face. If you are into good music, likable characters and more good music it doesn’t get any better than Sing Street.
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4. The Neon Demon
Do you like Nicolas Windin Refn films that aren’t Drive? Is you answered “yes” than you will really appreciate The Neon Demon. It is empty, violent, weird and extremely beautiful to look at. It won’t leave you feeling happy or fulfilled but it is truly original and features some insane moments that will make you squirm.
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5. Love & Friendship
Love & Friendship is a breath of fresh costume drama/comedy air. Jane Austen’s unpublished novella is in perfect hands with director Whit Stillman and the two seem beautifully suited for each other. Kate Beckinsale is a delight, and I hope she is remembered come awards time. She is perfection in the film and it bums me out that she had been stuck in the Underworld world so long.
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6. High-Rise
Ben Wheatley (A Field in England, Sightseers, Kill List) is a maniac director who has eluded the mainstream and thrilled cinephiles. His movies cannot be described, and what I love about High-Rise is that it keeps his sensibilities intact. This isn’t some big budget yarn featuring Tom Hiddlesston. High-Rise is a bonkers J.G. Ballard adaptation that is tough to watch and awesome to experience.
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7. Don’t Breathe
Don’t Breathe is a blue-collar horror film that features realistic scares and a badass villain. The camerawork is stellar and every time violence breaks out you feel the pain. I love that it is tearing up the box office because this is a film that deserves to be watched. It gives the audience what they want and features likable characters and almost too much suspense (I’m a wimp).
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8. The Lobster
The Lobster is weird, violent and hilarious. It might be one the best comedies released in years and I really hope that Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz are remembered come awards time. If you are into movies that use toasters as evil punishment devices you will love every second of The Lobster.
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9. 10 Cloverfield Lane
10 Cloverfield Lane is a terrifying chamber thriller that features career best performances from Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman. It manages to do a lot with little and proves horror films don’t need masked killers or insane violence to be tense.
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10. Midnight Special
Jeff Nichols is my favorite director (right now, might change tomorrow) and I’ve loved his films Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter and Mud. What I love about Midnight Special is that is feels like an Amblin film, but it doesn’t rip off Amblin film. Midnight Special is beautifully original and very touching. Watch it now!
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31: Rob Zombie’s Most Dangerous Game
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31 is Rob Zombie going full “Rob Zombie” and turning everything to 11. He came up with the idea in a few seconds and the 20-day production schedule felt rushed and unnecessary. Nothing is fleshed out (except the exploding flesh) and it feels like a study in style over substance. What I loved about his prior films (Devil’s Rejects, Lords of Salem) is the craftsmanship in creating a great script and the molding of great performances. The characters do terrible things but they spout solid dialogue and go down in a brilliant blaze of glory. There is a reason that The Devil’s Rejects was voted to be one of the top 21 horror films of the 21st century. The reason Zombie’s film appealed to outsiders and horror hounds is he created something that balanced violence, gore and character.
Nothing about 31 is surprising or fun. I left the theater feeling disappointed that my soul wasn’t hurting. I couldn’t even enjoy Richard Brake’s solid performance as the uber-killer Doom-Head because he was too busy spouting self-satisfied Rob Zombie dialogue. The character looks awesome but he is so smug and in love with pontificating that I began to dislike the guy.
31 tells the story of five carnival workers being trapped in a game of death. The game is called 31 and is headed by three rich bored people who bet money on who will live or die. The five people are drugged, separated and told they need to survive the next 12 hours inside a massive funhouse/factory/deathtrap. This leads them to being chased by a Nazi Dwarf who speaks Spanish and several other violent caricatures. Throughout their brutal ordeal they are stabbed, hacked, prodded, punched and crunched. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m pretty sure you can guess who the final survivor(s) are.
They don’t look like this at the end. via
I really wanted to like 31. I’ve always felt like Rob Zombie has a unique voice and I’ve appreciated his past works. However, I sat in my theater seat bored as all the ultra-violence unfolded in front of me. 31 reminded me a lot of the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. The films are crazy violent but very boring because there is nothing surprising or unique. If you are going to spend the time spilling blood at least create likable characters (think Hush) or villains so evil you actively root against them (think I Saw the Devil). I hate to say this but one word rang out as I exited the theater.
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Don’t watch 31. Check out The Devil’s Rejects or Lords of Salem instead.
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Love & Friendship: Whit Stillman + Jane Austen = Pure Joy
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Love & Friendship is the most refreshing film of 2016. Drawing inspiration from Jane Austen’s novella Lady Susan, writer-director Whit Stillman (The Last Days of Disco, Damsels in Distress) has created a wonderfully modern 18th century costume drama that will entertain everyone. Austen’s unpublished novella has been perfectly translated to the screen and it is the type of script where you hang on every word because most of them are brilliant. I had a permanent smile on my face as Lady Susan (Kate Beckinsale = amazing) schemes her way through the polite society of upper crust England. Love & Friendship is the cheekiest film you will see all year and it will make you wish Kate Beckinsale escaped the Underworld series and embraced her comedic side more often.
We need more of this type of Beckinsale.
Love & Friendship revolves around a recently widowed woman named Lady Susan bouncing around her relatives homes and causing chaos. Susan is trying to marry off her daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) to the rich suitor Sir James (Tom Bennett = hilarious) while trying to find a rich man for herself. She is aided by her American friend Alicia (Chloe Sevigny – reunited with Last Days of Disco costar Beckinsale) and the two attempt to manipulate everyone, cover their tracks and avoid being sent back to Connecticut.
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Kate Beckinsale is an absolute delight and I hope she is remembered come awards time. She is so good it is annoying because she has either been terribly miscast by Hollywood or enjoys wiping out werewolves whilst wearing tight leather clothes. Her performance is a revelation and she is able to spout the rapid fire dialogue with ease while owning the room and confounding everyone around her. You can tell she loves the role and relishes every bit of the delicious dialogue.
What I love about Whit Stillman is that his personality always shines through his films. His films typically revolve around intelligent/weird people who argue and debate about random issues. In Love & Friendship, Stillman has found a perfect muse in Jane Austen. Austen wrote the novella when she was 19 and there is a capriciousness to the text as it unfolds unpredictably. Her characters are always interesting and there is a reason why Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Sense and Sensibility still work today. What I love most about Stillman’s adaptation is that it you get the sense of both artists in the work. It feels like she wrote the novella, didn’t publish it and knew some eclectic director could bring it to life in the future.
Watch Love & Friendship now! Don’t be afraid of the costume drama trappings. Embrace a modern take on an old story.
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The Lobster: A Wonderfully Weird Film That Needs to be Watched
The Lobster is a weird film that defies expectations and features some of the biggest laughs of 2016. It has been described as an “absurdist dystopian comedy-drama” and I actually agree with that summation. I love The Lobster and consider it to be in the top five of the year (so far) alongside Everybody Wants Some!!!, Green Room, Love & Friendship and Hail, Caesar!. I guarantee you won’t find a funnier or more original film released this year.
The Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth – another weird film) directed film tells the story of single people having 45-days to find a partner or they get turned into an animal of their choice. The singles are taken to a beautiful Irish resort where they are forced to mingle and cohabitate with other desperate and unique people. The rules are strict and the only way they can stay at the resort longer is if they successfully hunt and tranquilize “loners” who live in the forests. A problem arises when our “hero” David (Colin Farrell) falls for a short sighted loner (Rachel Weisz). The two have a tough go of it as they are hunted by the singles and horribly punished by the Loner Leader (Lea Seydoux) if they exhibit signs of passion.
Don’t mess with Seydoux.
Words can’t describe how weird The Lobster is and I love that fact. I had never watched a trailer and the pure cinematic experience was glorious. Director Lanthimos expertly blends humor, drama, absurdity, violence and insanity. The movie walks a tight-rope of eclecticism that feels like a miracle of script, direction and acting. You will see things in The Lobster that will absolutely shock your soul and make you laugh. There are moments of cruelty and ultra-violence that are legitimately funny. I wouldn’t recommend this movie to everyone because it won’t appeal to everyone. The Lobster is for cinephiles who embrace new wave cinema that doesn’t trifle with familiar narration.
I really hope that come awards time Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz and remembered for their beautiful work. The two actors embrace the weird and transform themselves into memorable characters who exhibit a whole lot of layers. Their chemistry is off the charts and I loved all of their acting choices. Weisz’s droll narration is fantastic and Farrell turns in his best performance since In Bruges.
If you are looking for a weird, brutal and hilarious film you need to watch The Lobster. You won’t be disappointed.
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Bad Movie Tuesday: Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), perhaps the campiest (yet still awesomely fun) action movie Jason Statham has ever done.
MY CALL: This sequel (to Jason Statham’s 2011 remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson classic) is extremely entertaining…and extremely campy. Expect top tier stunts, but the dregs of writing. MOVIES LIKE Mechanic: Resurrection: I thought The Mechanic (2011) was FAR better (and, in fact, “good”), so I’d start there. But, to be fair, Mark didn’t love it nearly as much as I did (Mark’s Review CLICK HERE).
This film answers the question on everyone’s mind.
EVERYONE: “Does Statham still look like this?”
THIS MOVIE: “Affirmative!”
We have to start with the writing! The writing was soooo awful. This is like 80s action movie awful when Stallone or Schwarzenegger would get a phone call, light a cigar and, the next thing we know, BOOM: they’re in Prague or somewhere else in Eastern Europe killing bad guys by the dozen standing out in the open, raining jingling automatic weapon ammunition to the ground in slow motion while not one of their 86 Communist assailants can aim a gun at a shirtless patriot whose glistening muscles practically make them a glowing target.
But you know what? JASON STATHAM! That’s why we’re here isn’t it? The truth is… we just don’t care. If you asked anyone waiting in line to buy their movie tickets if they thought the writing would be good, the dialogue convincing or the plot points sound—no one would nod “yes.” They’d silently pause, look at their date with a smile and make that “pshhht” sound.
And Jason doesn’t care either. Look how happy he was in this interview as he laughed answering the question “Why do you think people like seeing you kick bad guys’ butts?”
He knew this wouldn’t be an Oscar contender.
No. This one’s for the bros! 🙂
As it turns out, founder of Movies, Films and Flix, film data analyst and Bad Movie Tuesday expert (Mark) wrote a Movienomics article that accurately predicted 18 months ago that this sequel would suck. The data suggests his apparel—read to learn why.
However, with this alternate poster, the audience scores might increase.
The opening fight sequence features Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham; Spy, Homefront, Safe, Parker) executing some of the most perfect Matrix-like martial arts ever to cheese up the screen. His character is every bit as perfect as Statham’s ego is tremendous–very much like his roles in The Transport series (2002, 2005, 2008), Furious 7 (2015) and The Expendables movies (2010, 2012, 2014).
Bishop always knows what to do, his kicks and bullets never miss, their bullets always miss, he always has exactly what he needs or can find it unreasonably fast, and everything works out to plan against astronomically improbably odds…and also with such “yadda yadda” writing that he just seems to teleport across the globe and have the entirety of the knowledge of the world uploaded into his brain for ease of assassination planning. Bishop is basically the smartest man alive—but he grunts like Jason Statham.
Admittedly, I loved this scene.
He must’ve scienced the shit outta that.
Jessica Alba (Little Fockers, Stretch) has been cast as his completely unconvincing love interest. Their “sex scene” is innocently clothes-on and uncharacteristically giggly for our gruff hero, she reprises her underwater naughty bikini butt-cam shots from Into the Blue (2005), and her initial placement in this movie is more forcefed than a dog being fed its heartworm pill. Like the dog we resist and want nothing to do with it, but we accept that we have no choice and swallow. It didn’t help when Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Sunshine), in her worst role ever, suggested that Arthur save her from some domestic abuse—while for the sake of his own survival he’s trying to lay low as an assassin who’s supposed to be dead and some bad people had just discovered he was alive…and he beat the crap out of them…hence the LOW PROFILE—and then insinuate that they were a “couple” almost immediately.
That’s right, we saw Michelle Yeoh calling us over with our favorite bacon-flavored treat, we saw that evil white medicinal pellet embedded in it, and we let her jam that nonsense down our throat! Yuck, I feel dirty now.
I guess there are worse things I could have forced upon me.
The bad guy couldn’t be more Eurotrashy slick. He’s always smug, he demands impossible tasks with unreasonably proximate deadlines, and never ever cares when a dozen of his men get shot in the face during a 2-minute action sequence that should be called “Bishop’s Lackluster Murder Revenge Marathon.” Don’t these henchmen realize that he doesn’t care about their well-being…like…at all? They should really listen to our Podcast Episode #43: Advice for Movie Henchman. It baffles the mind how readily these goons jeopardize their lives against the most impossibly talented assassin their employer knows.
Oh, and keep an eye out for Tommy Lee Jones’ most annoying role ever.
I feel like they told the people in wardrobe:
“Just make him look like an asshole.”
Let’s be clear, folks. I LOVED The Mechanic (2011). LOVED IT! Even though Statham did everything perfectly and was perhaps unreasonably knowledgeable and lucky then as well, we saw him patiently put in the effort and occasionally get frustrated. The plot points made sense, the antagonist was credible and motivations were clear. Even if you disagree, you’d have to give me that compared to part 1 these comparisons hold true.
This one features abhorrent writing and a nonsense premise while Statham prances around The Matrix knowing all and never missing. He wakes up and pisses excellence. In fact, if his urine stream were to cross a bad guy’s neck, he’d surely be decapitated. Resurrection is an excellent fun bad action movie with great action sequences and I highly recommend you see it on the big screen for some bad-yet-awesome-action popcorn fun. But as a “film” this script should be crumbled fodder for a hobo’s garbage fire.
Just keep expectations low and you’ll be dazzled. Expect the next Mission Impossible plot and you’ll be pissed. Cheers!
Movies, Films & Flix 