A Fistful of Lone Wolves! (Matt’s Picks)

    After watching Late Phases, and thinking about how cool Nick Damici is in the film, I figured I’d put together a fistful of Lone Wolves; folks who strike out on their own to take care of business.  There are a lot of really good ones, to be sure.  But these are five of my favorites.

5. Foxy Brown (Foxy Brown):  Foxy is tired of drugs, tired of corruption.  Nobody is going to keep her down, or locked in a shed.  A nasty, nasty movie, it puts the titular character through the wringer, but she comes through it.  And most of that blood she’s covered in isn’t hers.

4. Zatoichi (the Zatoichi film series):  A blind masseuse, Zatoichi just wants to be left to his own devices, enjoying a nice drink and some gambling.  But someone’s always gotta start something, and Ichi is there to finish it with a flick of his sword cane.

3. Dan Evans (3:10 to Yuma):  He can’t stand by and watch injustice.  Pushed too far, he stands against the mob to bring a bad man to proper justice.  He’s scared and nervous, but he’s going to get the job done.

2. John Matrix (Commando):  There’s an island full of bad men, and Matrix is gonna kill the hell out of every last one of them until he finds his kidnapped daughter.  Commando revels in violence in a way few films ever have, while being pretty darned funny along the way.  Let off some steam, kill Sully last, and have a Green Beret for breakfast.

1. Walker (Point Blank):  We’ve talked about Walker at great length on this blog, and I won’t go into much more.  He just wants his money.  And NOTHING is going to stop him from getting it.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Brad's Week In Dork! (3/23/14-3/29/14)

This may have been my Favorite Week of the Year so far.  I'm fully entrenched in Ed Brubaker's Captain America run, and I'm seriously enjoying this mash of espionage & spandex.  It certainly has it's ups and downs, but I can't think of a better example in mainstream comics that expertly balances nostalgia for the Silver Age with proper forward momentum of character (hmmmmm...maybe a case could be made for Grant Morrison's Batman).  It's just a miracle of comics that Brubaker could take a tired concept of Back From The Dead & transform it into gut-wrenching super hero drama.  And then just when you're getting used to the idea of Bucky Barnes - Winter Soldier, they go ahead and kill Steve Rogers!  Yet another eye rolling Dead's Not Dead cliche written to exception.  The arc is not without its irritants, but having now read 2/3rds of Brubaker's Cap, I can safely say that it's my favorite run in all the Marvel Universe.

The Wife has been a busy lady with work & play rehearsals, so I found myself with a lot of time on my hand this week.  We only managed to spend one evening together, and knocked out one film in our Marvel Studios Marathon - The Avengers.  Ah, but what a movie.  Love nearly every second of it.  It brings great giddy gobs of joy to this stunted youth, and it fills my heart with fuzzy warmth since The Wife also squees squishy enthusiasm for Earth's Mightiest Heroes.  She's a real sucker for Team Whedon.  Can't blame her, right?

When I wasn't reading comics or feverishly anticipating next week's The Winter Soldier, I was doing what I do best - watching movies.  Made only two trips to the theater this week, and both to The Alamo.  On Thursday I caught The Grand Budapest Hotel again since the Draft House was giving away Crossed Keys pins.  I'm never one to pass up swag.  And on Friday I caught Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest, Sabotage.  Yeash.  What a pile of steaming...shit.  Can't hide it.  That movie was terrible.  Easily the worst film I've seen in 2014.  Time for Arnie to hang up his boots, retire into the realm of character actor.  Sad to type, but true.  It's certainly time for me to give up on David Ayer.  That guy is simply an atrocious filmmaker.  And speaking of atrocious filmmakers, I saw Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac (in the safety of my own home thanks to VOD).  I just don't get this guy.  Shockmeister?  Art fiend?  Provocateur?  Boring, I say.

As much as I want to claim this week for Captain America, probably the biggest event was Wednesday's Godzilla-A-Thon.  Thanks to Co-Dork Matt & Kevin from Big Planet Comics, I was able to knock out a good chunk from my Cinematic Resolutions.  I've still got a few Godzillas to go before the remake hits on May 16th, but I'm feeling more confident that I'll get there now.  Outside of Shat Attacks & Hest Fests, this is the first full day Marathon we've done in years.  Dork Thug Life.  Anyway, enough with this rambling, on to the rest of the mini reviews...

Wattstax:  In 1972, seven years after the Watts Riots, Stax Records held a concert at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as a means of tragic commemoration and cultural celebration.  Often cited as the African American answer to Woodstock, I'll always choose to spend my time with Rufus Thomas or The Staple Singers over the hippie smoke of The Grateful Dead.  Has there ever been a label as consistent as Stax?  Doubtful.  But this is not simply a concert film.  Director Mel Stuart intercuts the funk with interviews from various Watts citizens, and their words offer a sizzle to the nation's political temperature.  What has been will always be, and as one man says "Somethings are better, somethings are worse, somethings never change."  You can watch the entirety of the film via YouTube, and whether you're craving the cool of The Bar Kays or the wisdom of Richard Pryor, you owe it to yourself to give Wattstax a spin.  At the very least, this film has sent me down a rabbit hole of funk this week.  I've been blasting my car stereo with Johnnie Taylor, Booker T, and James Brown.  Nothing makes you feel cooler at a stoplight than Stax Records.

The Punisher:  "There is a limit to revenge."  I'll always remember the day I forced my parents to swing by Video Library after school to snatch me a VHS copy of Dolph Punisher.  It was the first Direct-To-Video I was ever aware of, and it was my first lesson in harsh cinematic disappointment.  A good bit of training to prepare me for The Phantom Menace.  Doesn't matter how much you love a character, he can let you down.  Dolph Lundgren's Punisher is not really the man you found in the Marvel Comic.  But as I sit here, a 34 year old fanboy, I have to admit that this film gets more right than Thomas Jane's later incarnation.  Dolph Punisher feels like a genuine broken mind.  He's covered in sweat, dirt, and he lives a drunk hobo's lifestyle down in the sewer.  And this is not the clean, eat pizza off the floor kinda sewer often seen in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  No, this is the type of lair where you spit hate at God while you sit naked in your own excrement.  That's pretty much how I want my Punisher.  A psycho.  A killer.  A big F.U. to the government.  Sure, the Yakuza plot is stupid, dumb, and often dull.  But Dolph Punisher is ugly.  I'll take it.

Nymphomaniac Volumes 1 & 2:  "I don't understand this self hatred."  Four hours.  Ugh.  Stellan Skarsgard discovers a beaten-to-a-pulp Charlotte Gainsbourg on his way home from the groceries, and offers her solace in his barren apartment.  There she recounts her life story as a sex addict, a self-loathing but proud Nymphomaniac.  The film really just feels like an excuse for director Lars Von Trier to explore his jollies.  Sadomasochism.  Gang bangs.  Pedophilia.  Udo Kier.  Every kind of sexual degradation. It's all here.  There are moments of humor that had me chuckling.  There are moments of absurdity that had me chuckling.  Mostly though, I was bored.  I keep going back to Von Trier because critics drop his films on Top Tens, and I feel the need to be a part of the conversation.  But outside of some interesting visual trickery, the guy is just not my kind of filmmaker.  Still, I didn't hate this in the same way I did Melancholia.  I just won't ever watch it again.

The Punisher:  Cribbing a few details from Garth Ennis & Steve Dillons's comic, the 2004 version of Marvel's Death Wisher offers a few rays of light, but stumbles into idiocy thanks to some shoddy direction and abysmal acting.  Thomas Jane sure looks the part, but this too-long origin story gives too much sympathy to the character, and attempts to drape a cape over a vigilante rather than portraying a real mental monster.  I understand the temptation.  Marvel Comics = super heroes right?  Not always.  There should be nothing heroic about Frank Castle.  He's a murderer.  He just kills "bad guys."  It's a fine line the comics haven't always understood, but it's weird to me that they chose to snatch from Ennis who so obviously understood Castle's demented desires.  And John Travolta???  Dear god no.  That pipe.  That hair.  That smile.  Chew, chew, chew sir - ya suck.  I do love the brawl with The Russian.  Too bad director Jonathan Hensleigh intercuts it with apartment baffoonery.  Head shake, this Punisher is best left forgotten.

Punisher - War Zone:  "Sometimes I'd like to get my hands on God."  This third try up to bat embraces the exploitation roots of the character, and delivers a violent Lionsgate Horror Show that erupts into a kill crazy crowd pleaser.  Former stuntwoman turned director Lexi Alexander cares little for plot or character development, and simply revels in the violence of Frank Castle's lifestyle.  This is probably the best version of the character we're ever going to get on the silver screen.  Ray Stevenson is a brute.  A man with a hole in his heart, impossible to fill with vengeance, but he'll kill & probably die trying.  Dominic West is LAAAARGER THAN LIFE as mob goon turned super villain Jigsaw, but Doug Hutchinson's little brother is even more fun as he chews through scenery and corpses alike.  Gore Guts Galore.  Heads are chopped, throats are slit, parkour wannabes go BOOM!  Certainly not for everybody, but that's always going to be The Punisher's problem.

Mothra:  "There's no need to fight on a scientific expedition."  A few years after Gojira stomped his way through Tokyo, a scientific expedition crashes on a Lost World and discovers a tribe of giant moth worshipping savages...as well as a couple of teeny tiny sing songy ladies.  A riff on King Kong, Mothra is a perfectly weird trip into Kaiju Kraaazy.  How do you even conceive of this stuff?  A couple of Lilliputians get tired of the showbiz lifestyle and use the power of music to call down a giant moth to typhoon destruction until a smug businessman cries uncle.  WTF Goofy.  I love it.

Mothra vs Godzilla:  When a giant egg washes ashore, and after an evil businessman (those guys again!) lays claim on this obvious moneymaker, those teeny tiny sing songy ladies show up to warn our world of Mothra's rage.  Meanwhile, everyone's favorite mutant dinosaur (is that what he is? I'm still not sure, Godzilla is just Godzilla, right?) emerges from underneath the beach to wreak havoc. The good scientists & reporters of Japan work together to convince the sing songy ladies to pit Mothra against Godzilla and save the world another Kaiju headache.  Their plan more or less works out.  A fun entry in the Godzilla saga, but not nearly as werid as the original Mothra or as fun as some of the other Godzillas we watched Wednesday.

Invasion of Astro-Monster:  Until this movie, I had no idea that the Godzilla series even dealt with outer space, or at least alien civilizations.  Fuji & Glen, a couple of friendly astronauts travel to Planet X and discover a race of man living in fear of the three headed monster, Ghidorah.  A plan is hatched between the two worlds to transport Earth's troubles, aka Godzilla & Rodan, to Planet X where the three monsters will undoubtably fight it out to the death.  Ah, but you should never trust a Planet with an X.  So far, with the exception of the original, this is probably my favorite of the Godzillas I've experienced. I love the introduction of bonkers 60s sci-fi with all those silver space suits and zappy ray guns.

Godzilla vs Megalon:  "If you're so damn clever, why steal our robot?"  If Astro-Monster is my favorite, than Megalon is certainly the most ridiculously cheery.  I had caught bits and pieces of this before from its MST3K ribbing, but frankly, this film does not need commentary to add to its wonderful comic absurdity.  The Undersea Kingdom of Seatopia is fed up with those dwelling above them, and they decide invasion is the only path to happiness.  Seatopia unleashes Megalon onto the poor folks of Japan.  Thankfully a couple of scientists and their kid sidekick have concocted a badass robot called Jet Jaguar, and this Ultraman knockoff is ready for a showdown.  And of course, Godzilla is now living peacefully on Monster Island and is always ready to help out the good people.  And then Gigan shows up to the party.  There is a whole lot of mondo plot going on in this film, and I could barely keep up with all the whacky and hilarious destruction.  Godzilla vs Megalon is simply a joy to watch.  Just what you expect and want from a Kaiju film.

Terror of Mechagodzilla:  "Even if you're a cyborg, I love you!"  Apparently this picks up immediately after Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla, but since that film seems impossible to find at the moment, I just had to go with it...not too hard really...while attempting to salvage the wreckage of Mechagodzilla, a Japanese submarine is assaulted by a Kaiju called Titanasaurus.  This beasty is apparently controlled by an evil scientist named Shinzo Mafune.  The mad doc is determined to destroy man with the help of not just his robot daughter, but the alien simians responsible for the construction of Mechagodzilla.  Thankfully man has the OG on his side, Godzilla comes to the rescue handing both baddies their rubber asses.  Fun, but maybe not as much as Megalon or as weird as Astro-Monster.

The Grand Budapest Hotel:  I keep looking at my Top Ten List from last year.  If The Grand Budapest Hotel had come out a few months earlier, would it have taken down Only God Forgives as my favorite? Hmmmm...hard to say.  I could just be riding high off this very fresh feeling of Movie Joy.  Ralph Fiennes is certainly the star of the show, and 90% of my Budapest love is due to his obscene gentlemen, but the emotional beats are won from F Murray Abraham's brief screentime.  His eyes.  They pierce, but in a very soft way.  Willem Dafoe's werewolf monster killer - jesus - Wes Anderson proves he can be scary as much as whimsical.  The Grand Budapest Hotel is all over the map, but in a very, very, very good way.  I see myself hitting the theater at least one more time for another rewatch.

Sabotage:  To quote Roger Ebert, I hated, hated, hated this movie.  Was The Last Stand more uninspired?  Sure.  Was Escape Plan more dull?  Absolutely.  But Arnold Schwarznegger's Sabotage is just straight up terrible storytelling.  Is Mr Universe to blame?  No.  I actually appreciate the attempt at something different here.  This is the kind of dark role Arnie should be doing.  But writer/director David Ayer must be stopped.  His constant abuse of law enforcement is more than just tiring, it's gross and hateful.  His obvious reliance on improvised tough guy acting is laughable.  Hey Sam Worthington, Terrence Howard, Mireille Enos - SHUT UP!  You guys are not badasses.  You're lame wannabes, and your performances are as about as strong as hide & seek during recess.  The film does not get interesting until the last five minutes, when Arnold ventures down into Mexico for some cowboy revenge.  Ditch the tough act, start the film there, and maybe, just maybe you'd have a fun movie.  Probably not though, as Ayer attempts to squeeze blood from an orange - fails every time.

Red Sonja:  Wow.  This movie is bad.  As a kid I watched it a lot.  When I was tired of Conan The Barbarian, and I couldn't suffer Conan The Destroyer, I watched Red Sonja.  I can't do it anymore.  This film is just too, too bad.  Not even in that fun, enjoyably crappy kinda way.  After the shite of Sabotage, I was craving an Arnie from a better era, and since Red Sonja is technically the second big screen Marvel Comics adaptation (she first appeared in Marvel's Conan the Barbarian #23) it seemed like the appropriate pick.  I was wrong.  It did nothing for me.  A head shake here, an eye roll there.  Brigitte Nielsen may have the sexiest she-mullet around, but her acting chops are about as strong as wood - AND! that's saying something since she's standing next to Arnold's lackluster Conan thievery.  Nostalgia lost this round.

Captain America Lives! by Ed Brubaker & Various:  After Steve Rogers is assassinated on the courthouse steps (thanks to the event's of Mark Millar's Civil War), James Barnes, Nick Fury, Sharon Carter, Tony Stark, and Sam Wilson race to catch the man responsible...of course, it all leads back to The Red Skull.  Brubaker weaves a complicated perfectly comic booky plot involving time travel, mind control, and cold war secrecy.  In the absence of Steve Rogers, Fury & Stark manipulate Barnes to take up the shield and I'm still thinking that Bucky Cap might simply be my favorite star-spangled asskicker.  His adventures with the Shield not only pit him against Rogers's greatest enemies, but also the dark mirror of the crazed 1950s Captain America Clone.  All very silly stuff on four color paper, but Brubaker makes it all work.  There's as much character development as plot, and when the inevitable road to Reborn starts, you're actually dreading the retcon.  When I first read the Reborn event in singles, I pretty much hated it, but on this readthrough, I found myself incredibly engaged with the literal Man Out Of (or Stuck In) Time story.  Bryan Hitch's art is obviously glorious with its widescreen action, and sock-knocking splash pages.  Dr Faustus, Arnim Zola, Crossbones, and Sin - Daughter of Red Skull.  These are some pretty silly shenanigans, but Captain America is never more badass when he's in the hands of Ed Brubaker.  Absolutely Essential Comic Book Reading.

The Avengers:  To quote myself, I love, love, love this movie.  From the "I'm Always Angry" to Cap's reflection of Iron Man's repulsors, to "There's Only One God And He Doesn't Dress Like That," and Thanos's courting of death.  Joss Whedon and Team Marvel get everything right about their Justice League.  And I'm sure all you out there are tired of us fanboys praising the miracle of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  I'm sorry to all you non-believers, but we're just over-the-moon in love with The Avengers.  We've suffered decades of Made for TVs, Direct-to-Videos, and bonehead adaptations.  Now is our time.  We're gonna be jerks about it.  Phase One is complete.  Seems like the world is Marvel's Oyster, but have they fully utilized it with Iron Man 3 & Thor 2?  I'll be rewatching those very soon, and I dig em, I really do, but Guardians of the Galaxy seems like it's going to be the real test for fanboy love.  Will everyone show up for the talking raccoon?  Are they ready for Ant-Man?  Time will tell.  I'm loving what they've accomplished so far, and I have faith.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (10/27/13-11/2/13)

    This time of year just isn’t fun for me.  The holidays, sadly, lost all charm when I started working in corporate retail back in 2001.  It’s just a brutal slog through frustration, anxiety, exhaustion, punctuated by occasional soulless expenditures.  Is that cynical?  Sure, I guess.  But whatever, I’m tired.  Still, my Dork Life gives me some joy, and this week had a lot of good in it.  And it started early Sunday morning when I watched an unexpectedly good Robert Redford (Zzzzzz) movie.

All is Lost:  With all of maybe five lines of dialog, this movie is about watching Old Man Redford in a Series of Unfortunate Events.  Some bad choices and a lot of bad luck send our hero into a spiral of diminishing options as he battles nature and the refuse of Man.  The movie looks really good and has some thrilling adventure bits.  It also doesn’t tend to drag, as a film like this might easily do.  Near the end, things get a bit tiresome, but it’s still not bad.  I did find myself nitpicking a bit.  Why wait until everything was going horribly to start making preparations for it?  That tool you’ve got has a hook/lanyard on it for a reason, why don’t you have it secured?  It’s raining and you’ve got no power; why aren’t you collecting water?  Still, overall, the movie is quite effective, and if you can turn off that over-critical part of your brain (I usually can, and honestly it only started to come out a few times during the film), it’s very tense and frightening.  Yet, there are scenes (that shot of him steering during the storm) that make me want to brave the elements for a bit.  That said, if I ever sailed around the world or whatever, I’d still follow the Buddy System.  Not gonna do that sort of thing alone.

War of the Gargantuas:  Another fun Toho slice of kaiju madness, this is a really weird sequel to Frankenstein escapes.  A lot of the usual notes are hit, but it’s a lot of fun, and there are some crazy fights.  It’s interesting to see slightly smaller kaiju, so the structures they’re bashing are comparatively larger.  They can actually hide behind trees and buildings, for example.  The titular Gargantuas are powerfully ugly, hairy things, but human than many Japanese monsters.  I guess this lends them a bit more personality …maybe?

Escape Plan:  If this were 1991, and Escape Plan was the latest straight to video movie featuring Christopher Lambert and Lorenzo Lamas (no doubt Lance Henriksen playing the villain), then the world would make some sense.  But this is 2013, and Escape Plan is so off the mark, it’s like a cautionary tale on how not to do a movie.  The script starts bad and gets worse.  The one-liners, the ones that make any sense, suck.  The plot is like an episode of Silk Stalkings or Viper.  And the two leads…well, they’re just not acting their age.  If you know me, you know I love watching old dudes kick ass.  But in an old dude way.  These two are trying to play it like the young guys, and it just looks bad.  And as with Bullet in the Head and The Last Stand, it commits the cardinal sin.  It’s boring.

The Counselor:  Sometimes you see a movie, and it’s just so danged odd that you know you’re watching something special.  Maybe not something good, but something special.  That was the case with The Counselor.  It’s a darned peculiar film.  One thing you’ve got to know is that it’s an extremely, intensely mean spirited movie with an exceptionally ugly view of people that does not let up.  So if you think that might bother you, skip it.  There’s also a tendency toward obscure speeches.  Oh, and much of the plot or whatever is not explained, much less who most of the people are or what they’re doing.  But every frickin’ moment of Javier Bardem is like pure distilled mountain genius being pored into your brain.  I can see why people weren’t thrilled with the movie.  It’s challenging, and not just because it’s hard to follow or figure out.  It’s an ugly, rough, tough movie along the lines of late Peckinpah, where there are no good guys, just a bunch of unhappy people doing unkind things.

    I watched some of the new SyFy series Defiance.  I kind of want to like the show, but they’re making it hard.  There are some very cool things, nice ideas, some nice visuals, etc.  But I can’t help noticing how often it falls back into typical, cliché plot-lines, characters, etc.  You’ve got the Romeo & Juliette couple, the mobster trying to go straight, the whore with the heart of gold, the rugged soldier whose only weakness is his kid, and that kid is an orphaned alien (or insert war-torn region’s ethnicity).  There’s the vision-plagued character who may also be the ‘chosen one’ character, who is also the emotionally broken, deceptively cute, tiny woman who is actually a badass warrior (and is also the afore mentioned orphaned alien…they really heaped the clichés on that character).  And the list goes on.  It’s also another Sci-fi mixed with Western thing, which wasn’t even close to new when Firefly did it a decade ago.  Oh yeah, and there’s an evil government from ‘back east’ that is trying to get its hands on the wealth and power of the independent city that is the center of the show.  And there are savage alien tribes out in the badlands.  I mean, it just throws the overused ideas at you left and right.  Yet, for all its many faults, I’m finding myself watching episode after episode.  I keep thinking back to how iffy the first season of Farscape was, and how good that got.  Can this do the same?

"Hi. You may remember us from a dozen other shows."

Monsters University:  It’s cute, and if you’re a fan of the first film, it’s fine.  But it’s also not all that interesting.  For a Pixar film, it’s kind of …meh.  Which, sadly, seems to be their new norm.  Sad.  The kiddies should find plenty to enjoy, but the adults might be a bit bored, as there’s precious little meat.

    On Saturday morning, my annual Charlton Heston film fest, HestFest began with Brad and I, and a basic breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee.

The Big Country:  Gregory Peck shows up in the middle of a clan war and is mistaken for an East Coast dandy.  Two families have been in conflict for as long as they can remember, and they don’t have any patience for a man who isn’t concerned with honor and appearances.  His romantic rival, Charlton Heston, thinks he’s a coward because he won’t brawl.  His fiancé is drowning in daddy issues.  And creepy rapist wannabe Chuck Connors thinks…well he doesn’t think all that much.  But Peck doesn’t care.  He just takes his time, does his thing, and rises above.  Peck plays one of those classic movie heroes whose lessons have been largely forgotten in our knee-jerk, anti-intellectual public arena, that morality doesn’t come from old books or from the opinions of others.  Morality is what you do when nobody, god or man, is looking.  The film also features one of the great cinematic fistfights.  Unfortunately, it’s about 40 minutes too long.  The final confrontation between families, ostensibly over Jean Simmons (but she’s just an excuse), drags and drags, and doesn’t really pay off.  For me, the movie is kind of over when Heston realizes what kind of a man Peck really is.  That’s the point of the movie, I think, and once it’s been made, there isn’t all that much more to say.

    For Khartoum, I broke out some horseradish chips.  …What can I say, I didn’t think to get anything for this movie.  Oops.

Khartoum:  There are things I really like about this movie.  But they are few and far between.  The location shooting is quite nice.  Heston is fine.  The ending stand-off is cool.  Otherwise, it’s kind of a dull exercise in hitting the expected notes.  It feels like a desperate grab at the success, four years earlier, of Lawrence of Arabia.  But I never found the film especially engaging, and (apologies to the rabid fans) Laurence Olivier sucks…bad.  Every scene he’s in grinds the film to a halt.  I watched the movie years ago when I picked up the DVD, and I remembered not being thrilled with it.  Sadly, my second viewing reinforces that opinion.  It’s not terrible, but it’s too long and not very exciting.

    Peanut Better sandwiches were served for a light lunch.  Peanut butter was a food Heston took with him whenever he traveled overseas, because, apparently, you can’t get it in many places, and it was something he had to have.  I also broke out the rum (pirates, man) and some sea-salt & cracked pepper chips…you know, ‘cause of the ocean and stuff.

The Buccaneer:  Yul Brynner as a pirate captain living in the bayou near New Orleans?  Charlton Heston as Andrew Jackson?  How could it possibly fail to be amazing?  Just watch and find out.  Brynner is an actor I generally love, even when he’s in bad films (The Ultimate Warrior!).  But he’s so boring in this movie, he seems to be sleepwalking through.  The middle part of the film, involving a boring love story and some back stabbing officials, as well as some pirate politics, is just dull.  The best parts of the film are when Heston shows up, but that’s just the first few minutes and then near the climax.  The film was originally conceived as a musical, and more than many movies of the era, it really looks like a musical.  The colors, the costumes, the sets.  The soundstage work is so unreal it felt like an artistic choice to lend the film a fantasy vibe, but that doesn’t make much sense with the film’s content.  Other than Heston’s Jackson, the movie’s only other major selling point is that it’s about the War of 1812, and how many movies can make that claim?

The Last Hard Men:  Well, they’re men, and they’re hard.  Some brutal prisoners, led by James Coburn, escape a chain gang only to run into fresh-out-of-retirement lawman Charlton Heston.  What follows are a series of nasty confrontations and dastardly deeds, leading to a confusing and ugly finale.  The movie fully embraces the ugly meanness of the 70s, where even the heroes are scumbags, and the scumbags are worse than animals.  And unfortunately, Chris Mitchum.

    For The Agony and the Ecstasy, I served noodles with a meat sauce provided by Jill and Nero d’Avola wine.  Italy, man.

The Agony and the Ecstasy:  The lavish spectacle of the film competes with the lavish spectacle of the reality, in this adaptation of the classic novel about a genius artist and a bellicose pope.  Like many movies from this era, there’s a certain cleanness that I find slightly jarring.  Even its messes are clean.  The people are a bit too iconic, and some of their shades of grey were taboo, as the Hayes Codes were only just losing their grip on Hollywood.  But the issue at hand, the struggle of the artist with his benefactor, that created one of the most iconic pieces of art in history, is compelling, whatever the shortcomings of political and personal detail.  Italy during this era was a fascinating and multifaceted thing, a puzzle box of twisting history with connections and disconnects to birth countless stories.  I guess I can’t expect one movie to have them all.  Heston and Harrison play well off each other, and there are moments of emotional power, for sure.  My viewing of the film was not ideal, so sometime coming up, I’m going to have to give it another, more focused watch and see what I think then.

    With the beginning of Soylent Green, I broke out the seaweed snacks, which made for a good tie-in.  Those things are good, and so few people are willing to try them.  Still, more for the rest of us.

Soylent Green:  The world is winding down, burdened by the weight of too much Humanity in this ugly vision of a horrible, slow-death future.  Everything is bleak, social justice is dead, the world is burning up, and nobody’s got anything to eat.  The wealthiest few still manage to live in luxury, while the huddled masses suffer through drab, meaningless existence, and only those willing to sell their souls and bodies to the rich get any taste of fleeting happiness.  With the murder of a pampered rich man, a cop enters the world of the powerful and begins to unravel a mystery that is too much for most people to bear.  Everyone is a whore in this film, selling themselves for scraps from the table of powerful people; who are themselves driving the whole world into ruin, and willing to do anything, make people believe anything, to keep their positions of power, no matter what the cost.  Who’d have thought?  The film still resonates today.

    For next year, I need to remember to start the day with more chips.  Early on, every time I opened a bag of chips, it was gone in an instant.  But, by the time most people started showing up, and bringing more, the chip eating rate balanced out and all was well.  Next time, start with more.  I can do that.  Otherwise, I think HestFest 2013 went very well, and I feel pretty good about it.

-Matt

Dork Art: More Mondo Comic Con

For some of their new prints, Mondo is working a new method this year at Comic Con; these posters will actually be going on sale tomorrow through their website, but can only be be picked up at the San Diego Convention Center next weekend.  I like this in theory.  Especially for a high ticket item like the above Dark Tower print from Drew Struzan ($275).  Curious to see how fast these go - the usual ten seconds?  Or will we lucky Comic Con few be given five or ten minutes to score our copies?  I won't hold my breath, but I will be in the queue tomorrow.  Martin Ansin's Conan The Barbarian is pretty killer too, and much more reasonable at $50.  I dig the Olly Moss Miyazaki prints, but I could not care less about those movies.  Sorry nerds.  Mondo will still have other surprises at their booth this weekend, but if you want these prints you better pay attention to Twitter tomorrow morning.

--Brad

New Release Tuesday!!! (5/21/13)

Today is a crazy mixed bag of releases.  We get my favorite film of the year tossed in with two of 2013's greatest disappointments.  And then we have a trilogy of releases from Shout Factory that just should not exist.  Frankly, I'm just happy there are more than one or two titles to talk about.  I've been ducking out on this column because the releases of late have failed to excite.  Hope you like sad, downer movies cuz this Tuesday will have you contemplating the abyss.  Keep out of reach of hand guns.

MUST BUY DVD OF THE WEEK!

Side Effects:  A few weeks ago, I thought that Iron Man 3 had moved to the top spot of my favorite films of the year so far.  But upon reflection, that film has faded a little bit from my memory and as enjoyable as it was I can't really claim it as anything special.  So it's Side Effects that remains the highlight of 2013.  This seems to surprise a lot of my friends (specifically my blog buddy Matt), but without going into too much detail, I can tell you that Steven Soderbergh's latest and possibly last cinematic endeavor is a real gem of a thriller.  "Thriller."  It's a genre classification I don't like to use as it really doesn't classify anything in particular - shouldn't all movies thrill?  Isn't Top Secret a thriller?  I will say is that Side Effects is not what it seems on the surface.  Channing Tatum is released from prison and is greeted by a wife suffering from crippling depression.  Their relationship shatters when Jude Law's doctor enters their lives with a fancy schmancy new prescription drug.  Steven Soderbergh makes a film Alfred Hitchcock would have helmed if he were still around.  I cannot think of higher praise.

BUY!

The Burning:  Imagine Friday the 13th but populated with the oddest cast of New York actors.  Jason Alexander! Fisher Stevens! Brian Backer! Ned Eisenberg!  And it's got an even odder slasher at the center of it all.  Beware burn victims and garden shears!  Really looking forward to the blu ray transfer along with all of Scream Factory's in-depth supplements.  This certainly isn't a film I ever thought would get a Special Edition treatment, but that's the geek paradise we currently inhabit.  Yay for us.

Captain America (1990):  One of the absolute worst Comic Book movies I have ever seen, but that's an opinion based on an 11 year old kid's reaction.  Made on a shoestring budget by a bunch of people who have no understanding of why the flag wearing badass is so dang cool.  I remember almost nothing about the plot, but I do recall The Red Skull looking very rubbery.  Here's another flick I never thought would get the high def treatment, but the success of The Avengers has 'em coming out of the woodwork.  I probably shouldn't buy it, but I just can't help myself.

The ABCs of Death:  One of the best anthology films out there, what makes The ABCs of Death work is its never wavering dedication to its gimmick.  26 various horror directors tackling 26 ways to die.  Each is given a letter of the alphabet and 3 minutes to tell their story.  Guys like Jason Eisner (Hobo with a Shotgun) and Nacho Vigalondo (Time Crimes) take on "Y is for Young Buck" & "A is for Apocalypse."  As with all films of this sort, some stories work and some stories don't.  But just when you're fed up of a lame tale here comes a new one to replace it.  At the very least, The ABCs of Death leaves you with some rather grisly, but memorable images.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown:  Here's another film that I know I saw but I don't really remember much about.  I remember it getting namechecked in Wes Craven's Scream and I know it's got a really cool killer covered in a spooky hood.  And it's another film being brought back to life by The Scream Factory.  Those guy's are doing God's work.  Ben Johnson heads up the cast and I'm really hoping he gets some serious screentime.  My Peckinpah love needs to see him crush some slasher heads.

AVOID!

The Last Stand:  The first big disappointment of 2013 has hit the dvd shelves and it's a real bummer of a flop for this die hard 80s action fan.  After some Expendable flirtations, Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to the big screen market with this spectacular thud.  The Last Stand offers little excitement as Korean blockbuster Kim Ji-Woon splatters gobs of CG blood across the Texas canvas and this wannabe modern Western struggles to find intensity with Arnie's lumbering bravado.  And what the hell is Forest Whitaker doing in this movie?  Dragging ass, that's what.  His brief appearances distract audiences and grind the narrative to an absolute halt.  I really wanted to see King Conan return in a big way, but it looks like old Arnie is going to have to find love through one of his big franchises instead.  Terminator 5 coming up.  Groan.

Parker:  And here's my least favorite film of 2013 so far.  This horrid adaptation of Richard Stark's utterly brilliant revenge novel, The Hunter gets everything wrong about the character you (or is it just I?) loved.  Jason Statham's good thief butts heads with Michael Chiklas' bad thief, and there's little action as the two B Movie Lightweights snarl at each other.  Jennifer Lopez pops up to provide minimal romantic distraction, but where this movie should be hard and brutal it's really just a limp noodle.  Time for the Stath to get back on track and leave this dud behind.  A real shame given ITMOD's burning desire to see Stark done right on the big screen.

--Brad