Matt’s Week in Dork! (8/17/14-8/23/14)

    Not a heck of a lot going on in the realm of Dorkness this week.  Just a bunch of movies.

Lo:  Not at all what I was expecting…and not really my kind of thing.  A low budget horror comedy.  Kind of handled/written like a play.  I guess they’re going for a sort of Faust thing (which they reference a bunch).  It’s got some funny bits, but overall, the humor felt a bit too college writing class for my taste.  The acting has that feel, too.

Rango:  A wonderful homage to Spaghetti Westerns, as well as a meditation on the nature of heroes and their quests, Rango is far more than a simple kids film.  Sure, there are lots of clever references for adults to pick up on, but there are also deeper lessons that will help children and adults grow.  This is the best sort of family entertainment.

Scanners:  With a look and feel similar to that of Cronenberg’s Rabid, this look at good intentioned science gone horribly awry is pretty cool.  I like how, similar to British horror/sci-fi films of the 70s, everything is accepted.  Nobody questions the existence of Scanners (a new race of psychic mutants).  It just is.  They are.  Then the movie rolls on.  Psychic warriors, corporate conspiracy, weird science, and yes, the ascension of a new Humanity.

The Expendables 3:  I’ve said it before, and sadly, I’ll probably say it again.  Don’t make violent action films PG-13.  And don’t make sequels to R rated films PG-13.  It didn’t work with Aliens VS Predator.  It sure as hell didn’t work here.  Though not as bad as I was expecting, this sanitized actioner lets you focus more on the dreadful acting and script.  Without all those body parts flying by to distract you, you can almost smell the smoke from the brains of these meatheads when they’re trying to remember their moronic lines.  That gives the movie its own charm, frankly.  Antonio Banderas is far and away the best part of the movie.  He’s awesome.  The rest?  Meh.  And Ronda Rousey?  Wow.  She’s impressively bad.  So uncomfortable in front of the camera, she can’t even act ‘standing around’ right.  Yikes.

The Hundred-Foot Journey:  There’s nothing especially challenging or game changing about this movie.  It’s a very cute, very nice romantic film.  It’s funny and warm, and it’s sweet.  If you’re in the mood for that sort of thing, check it out.  The cast is charming, the locations pretty, and the food looks great.  A good companion to Chocolat, The Big Night, or this year's other big food-porn film Chef.

Cowboys & Aliens:  I like Weird Westerns, and this mash-up of alien invasion film and classic Western makes for a fun viewing.  It looks good, moves at a good pace, and features plenty of nice genre bits.  If you like a little weird mixed in to your Western, check it out.  I feel like this would pair well with Valley of Gwangi or maybe John Carter.

Duck Soup:  Well, now I’ve seen a Marx Brothers movie.  Did I like it?  Well, I liked parts of it.  But the film is a jumble.  The plot is, at the very best, secondary.  It primarily serves as a frame to hang various bits and gags on.  Some of those bits and gags are funny, others are…less so.  Groucho is fun to watch do his fast talking retorts and insults.  Chico has a kind of gutter charm.  Harpo is as annoying as I’d always assumed he’d be.  And Zeppo doesn’t seem to have much to do.  It’s all nonsense, and as such, I suppose it’s fine.  Not my cup of tea, but fine.

I Love Maria:  Pretty good practical effects bolster a too zany comedy script.  The film is goofy, the humor broad, and the English subtitles (only option) are nearly gibberish.  A very, very young Tony Leung makes you wonder how he became such a fine actor.  Director Tsui Hark gives a surprisingly good performance.  But the movie sinks under the weight of its silly parts.  By the end of it, I didn’t care who did what or who made it out alive.  I was just glad the antics wound down.  Not horrible.  But not recommended.

Fa Meg Pa, For Faen:  There are a million reasons I’m glad to be a dude.  Watching this movie about a young woman, living in the sticks, trying to deal with budding sexuality is an awkward, painful reminder.  The movie is cute, but so darned painful to watch.  Alma doesn’t always make good choices, but she makes the kinds of bad choices kids of her age do, with sometimes hilariously stupid results.  This is a realistic comedy, not the wacky antics of the American Pie series, or similar.  Everything here feels like it came from a real place in the filmmakers’ lives.  There are plenty of pitfalls for young men, don’t get me wrong.  And I think this movie even handles a few of those pretty well, if from the outside.  Artur does something powerfully stupid and tries to play it off like it didn’t happen.  Yet, he’s not shown as a one-note jerk.  The performances are good, even though many of the actors are not professional actors.  A good movie for those who like less gross-out in their teen comedy...Not that there aren't some gross things; they're just not handled in as childish a way as one expects from most contemporary comedies.

Only Lovers Left Alive:  The script has far too much ‘oh so clever’ references and nods, delivered with too obvious a wink or elbow jab.  And yeah.  I get it.  Blood means drugs.  It looks nice, and the cast is good.  There’s not much of a story, really.  And while I didn’t dislike watching it, I instantly forgot about it.

    On Saturday night, we got together for our graphic novel club, where this month’s reading was Beasts of Burden.  The book was pretty good, if not great.  But the gathering was spirited and fun.  Everyone seemed to be on, and in good spirits.  It was a good night, sitting around with a wonderfully diverse bunch of brains.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Matt’s Week in Dork! (3/10/13-3/16/13)

    I have absolutely NO idea who I managed to fit in so many movies this week, because I was really busy and I know I spent a lot of time not watching movies.  I know I was having trouble sleeping, but that doesn’t add up.  Anyway, considering how danged tired I am and stressed out, it was a pretty good week.

I need a hug, too.

    On Sunday night, I caught Life in the Year 2030 on NPR.  It was dealing with a bunch of stuff I’ve been reading about lately, including autonomous cars.  It also dealt with ‘smart’ clothing that could do more frivolous things like change color, but could also do things like protect people from getting malaria or keep them warm when it’s cold.  And there was stuff about robots.  Can’t wait for robots.

Nemesis:  Oh, Albert Pyun, you terrible, terrible genius.  Pyun is kind of a master of crappy movies.  He embraced cyberpunk like few others, making flicks like this and Cyborg, among others.  His movies get right into the genre, even when they manage to botch all the things that make movies ‘good.’  This film, for example, has an awful script and what seems to be intentionally awful acting you don’t normally see outside of The Asylum or a George Lucas film.  Like, it’s REALLY bad acting.  And not just because poor man’s JCVD Olivier Gruner can’t speak much English.  Most of the cast can, they just don’t.  Not in any natural way, anyway.  But in spite of it all, Nemesis is kind of a blast.  Lots of shoot-outs.  Lots of running around.  Nasty old environments.  Weird characters.  Bad cyborg effects.  Awesome.  There is an interesting question of gender in Pyun’s films.  I don’t know what his thing is, but he features a lot of women who dress like men, men with classically female names and vice versa, and other odd bits (like the female body builder in the three sequels to Nemesis that all have this film’s leading male character’s name with no explanation).  Is he getting at something with it all?  Or like much of his work, is it just random and accidental?  I don’t know.  I don’t really care.  Just something I noticed.  I can’t believe this movie doesn’t have a blu-ray two disk special edition.  I actually had to get a bootleg, recorded form VHS version, because as far as I can find, it has never been put out on DVD (this needs a 2 disk, digitally remastered, unrated director’s cut!).

Double Trouble:  “Seventeen will get me 20.”  It’s not Elvis VS. Elvis like the movie poster implies.  Instead two dames want to get a ride on the E Train, but he’s a busy cat.  Unfortunately, one of them is a touch on the young side and he (rightly) tries to run the other way.  Comic misadventures and a tour of Europe quickly follow.  And all the while, some weird dudes are trying to knock off the young girl.  It’s enjoyable enough, but totally forgettable.  The girls are cute, but not especially captivating.  The songs aren’t up to snuff (it’s bad when the best one is a reworking of Old McDonald’s Farm).  I guess it’s worth a watch, but it’s no classic, that’s for sure.

Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell:  “I hope you go insane with loneliness!”  The final chapter in the series starts out in a snow covered landscape with a Blaxploitation waka-waka guitar setting a crazy tone.  Man, this series is nuts.  A sure fire sign that East and West were doing a heck of a job influencing each other.  The Lone Wolf series is as much Spaghetti Western fantasy as samurai film.  Over the top everything.  Music, acting, blood, and style.  Dropping Night on Bald Mountain into a 70s style rock tune?  Crazy.  Who would have thought, watching the first film, that we would see a massive, James Bond movie type, ski battle raging through the snowy mountains?  Maybe it was inevitable.  It’s a weird ending to the series, and I would say not really a satisfying one.  I’m not sure why it ended here.  Did tickets stop selling?  Did actors want to move on?  Whatever the case, it doesn’t feel finished.  The movie does; the series doesn’t.

The Golden Compass:  “There will always be free thinkers…and heretics.”  You can make dozens of Christian themed movies and not hear a peep, but one movie based book with an atheist bent (the script leaves out 99% of that aspect of the book), and suddenly, Christians are being persecuted, and Hollywood is holding the whip; the End Times are upon us, and movies are a tool of Satan.  It must be exhausting, trying to find more ways to be offended and oppressed.  No wonder religious people tend to be so humorless.  Though visually impressive and well cast, the script sadly misses much of the novel’s better and more interesting elements.  Scientific inquiry in the form of dashing adventurer Asriel (Daniel Craig) battles the stodgy orthodoxy of the Magisterium.   Nichole Kidman plays the diabolic porcelain doll who embodies the hypocrisy and villainy of blind traditionalism.  I’d have liked to see a better adaptation, and I’d certainly have liked it to have been successful enough to see the rest of the books adapted.  If memory serves, the movie also ends early, dropping the book’s climax.  This makes its financial failure all the more frustrating.  Half of me thinks the movie’s PG-13 rating has more to do with the Christian crusade against the film than any content.  In fact, the only reason I could see for any rating stronger than PG is a sequence where a bear gets its jaw punched off.  That’s pretty brutal.  But I don’t think it’s enough.  It’s a PG movie.  Generally fine for the family, if occasionally scary (but no more so than most classic Disney or other family films from before the 90s).  It could be much better, but it’s still a pretty good family friendly fantasy adventure film.

The Thief of Bagdad:  “Fling him to the ape!”  This silent epic starts slow, but becomes quite the effects filled spectacle.  The sets are amazing and some of the effects would have been passable in movies up through the 80s.  The creatures are nuts (underwater spider!) and the stunts are wild.  Douglass Fairbanks is filled with smarmy bravado that is partly charming and partly off-putting.  He just seems like such a jerk in the first part of the film.  But he’s got personality, that’s for sure.  The princess is kind of a dud, but her various servants are more charming and more interesting.  Not the best silent film I’ve seen, by any means.  But it’s very good and entertaining.  Sort of a Summer blockbuster kind of thing.

South Bronx Heroes:  “If I want you to talk, I’ll throw you a peanut.”  Everybody keeps stabbing everybody.  This relentless view of human misery and crime is grueling and pointlessly sad.  Really crappy movie.

The Black 6:  “Hey man.  Watch out for the goat.”  They may be from different football teams, but the Black 6 can agree on their love of motorcycles, and their hatred of jive turkeys.  Six cool dudes ride wherever the wind takes them, being chill and helping out, and enjoying life (most of all, no hassles).  All they want to do, now that they’re back from the ‘Nam, is spread ‘peace and love, brother; peace and love.’  But honkies and crackers are looking to cause trouble.  This is one of the better ultra-low budget blaxploitation films I’ve seen.  It looks to be financially on the level with Brotherhood of Death, but a better film.  There were a few words, I’m assuming racial slurs, that I didn’t get or hadn’t heard before.  That’s something.

The Black Gestapo:  “Afternoon, black gentlemen!”  Either I was in a really, really different place 10 years ago, or I’ve been mistaking this for a different movie.  ‘Cause a) I thought I disliked it, but I have no idea how that could be true and b) I didn’t remember any of it.  So, I’m guessing I was just wrong about having seen it, and I’m glad that’s been rectified.  It’s crazy over the top.  Great bad dialog.  The characters are weird and extreme, from the wild-eyed Che wannabe second in command who puts together a cracker-killing death squad, to the laidback, sunglass wearing, racist crook, to the semi-gay crime lord.  And the ending.  Dang, man.  So glad I watched this (again?).

Velvet Smooth:  “Later, Papa.”  Oh, man.  This is LOW budget.  Bad writing, worse acting, horrifying clothes, porn sets, crappy music.  Charming.  There are a lot of extended, not especially inspiring martial arts fights.  The kind where people probably got hurt, because they weren’t choreographed very well.  I was reminded of some of the stuff from Black Dynamite.  I love when the you can see the recording microphone aimed at the actors from below the camera.  It adds a little something to conversations to have a white tube pointing at whoever’s talking.  This is also the second movie in a row (the first was Black Gestapo) to feature a friendly fire, accidental throat-cutting by one bad guy against another.  That’s odd.  The finale is pretty good.  But again, this is bargain basement.  Kind of like if the crew behind Land of the Lost decided to do a blaxploitation film.

Disciple of Death:  “No doubt, we all shall meet again… …In HELL!”  This Hammer wannabe fails on every level, except to produce a few unintentional laughs.  The villain is so hammy, the rest of the cast so amateurish, and the almost rap like way the music is mixed, it’s hard to do anything but laugh.  It’s like the UK equivalent of Ed Wood saw a random Hammer film and said, ‘I can do that!’  He was wrong.

Doctor Who: Time & the Rani:  Ugh.  An inauspicious beginning to Sylvester McCoy’s tenure.  Lots of clowning, Mel, the Rani pretending to be Mel (terrifying), goofy green bird people, that new ultra-electronica opening music.  With Colin Baker, I think they were trying to recapture some of Tom Baker’s style.  With McCoy, I think they were trying to go for something of a Patrick Troughton thing; more the loveable vagabond clown, less the slightly mad trickster.  Man, I wish Mel could have spent more time screeching like an injured bird.  ‘Cause that isn’t terribly annoying.  Ace can’t get here soon enough.  And while I think the Rani was conceptually interesting, like the Master, she ends up being so foppishly, scenery-chewingly evil as to be more silly than scary or cool.  The bat creatures had potential, but they don’t work.  I think if I were a BBC exec, watching this story, I’d be thinking about cancellation, too.  I’ll say this about the episode.  Some of the effects, especially some of the composite images, where models are combined with live action, are pretty good, and show some of the places effects could have gone, if the show weren’t so close to its end.  The CG animated opening featured ground breaking technique, but I don’t like it very much.

Silent Hill: Revelation:  “I know the Darkness is coming.”  I’ve been saying for months that the entire reason this project even happened is that someone realized Sean Bean lived through the first film, and that could not stand.  I’m probably one of like 8 people who actually enjoyed the first Silent Hill, and I was very surprised they even bothered to do a second.  I’ll give ‘em this, they don’t screw around waiting to get into the action.  It’s pretty balls-out weird from the beginning.  And everything is sort of taken for granted.  Not a lot of effort trying to explain why reality is broken, or what there are monsters or what have you.  It reminds me of the Hellraiser films, especially the more mind-messing Hellraiser II and the later Nightmare on Elm St. films.  In fact, the whole movie felt very 80s.  It’s really strange.  So, does Sean Bean manage to slip through the cracks again and defy the odds by surviving?  I’ll never tell.  Is the end of the movie a bit of a cop-out?  Yes.  But I enjoyed it far, far more than I expected.

    Thursday night took me away from my comfort zone when I visited with friends Paul and Sarah, and got to hold their new baby, Joseph (totally named that because it’s my middle name…totally).  I haven’t been around kids very much, even when I was one, babies even less.  And, it’s true, I have a lump of coal running my body instead of the more traditional blood pumping muscle known by some as the heart.  Still, it’s a danged cute baby.  His rubber face makes some fantastic expressions.  I can’t imagine the soulless little monster I’d spawn.  Handsome, sure.  But that Thomas Ripley sort of handsome.

    Friday night was the latest meeting of the Justice League of Extraordinary Book Club, where this month’s selection was the hard cover collection Blacksad.  It was an odd meeting, as I think it was the first time everyone was pretty much on the same page.  Everyone liked it.  Everyone liked the art.  We basically just talked a lot about the various things we liked about it.  And there was some question of why fish would still be animals in a world populated by anthropomorphized animals.  A good meeting.  Just oddly agreeable.

Monster X Strikes Back: “‘Guilala hot cakes’ are selling like hot cakes.”  Attack at the G8 Summit:  Super goof-tastic, I guess this is a satire.  A giant monster from space (‘cause of those dang Chinese!) attacks the G8 Summit, and with the instigation of the American president, all the world leaders decide not to run, but to stand and fight.  Ace reporter Sumire, of Tokyo Sports Daily is gonna get a scoop.  Each daring and well thought out plan that somehow manages to fail, leads to more comic weirdness.  Usually I’m not a fan of non-English comedy because I miss too many cultural references and what is funny is lost on me.  I think I get most of the jokes in this movie…they’re just not that funny.  The inspirational, worshipful dance is very impressive, though.  I assume everyone will be doing it someday.  And I have to admit that I saw some things I never thought I would, like a giant kaiju god sodomized by a nuclear missile.  That was something.  I can only speak to the English speaking actors, but dang, they’re bad.  I assume the Russian, German, French, etc. are on par.  Though the Russian guy seems like he might actually be an actor.  It seems pretty clear the casting call went out for any Western actors they could find.  Heck, the UK rep has an American accent.  But holy smokes; almost every woman in the movie is either super cute, or smokin’ hot.  The array of translators?  Yowzah.

Lady Snowblood:   On a cold winter night, a baby is born; a mother dies.  Thus opens Lady Snowblood, another Japanese samurai-type film about vengeance, betrayal and murder.  20 years later, that baby is a beautiful woman with a sword in her umbrella, killing her way to satisfaction.  Welcome to Japan in the 1890s.  Another blood-soaked film in the tradition of the Zatoichi and Lone Wolf and Cub movies.  It too features some strange uses of music that gives it a fascinating vibe, even when the film itself isn’t amazing.

Doctor Who: Paradise Towers:  “Hail Pex.”  Sylvester McCoy is considerably less annoying in this story.  Mel is just as annoying as ever.  The super-80s, 2000 AD/Judge Dredd nightmare future world is weird fun.  Episodes like this are so off the wall.  Lots of creepy and strange characters, garish colors, disturbing behavior.  The two old ladies…Yikes.  Pex.  Pex, man.  If only he could have joined the Doctor.  Pex and Ace would have made one serious badass pair of companions.  Look out Daleks.  I really enjoy the set design.  I mean, it’s super simple, but effective.  This is just all around a better story than the first.  The guest cast in this one is quite good.  The DVD features an alternate score which was dropped and given to a different composer.  Frankly, I kind of prefer this alternate, original version.  It was interesting that the writer for this arc was in part inspired by the J.G. Ballard novel High Rise.  That is a novel I became aware of through a book about cities in science fiction, and took me years to track down (I don’t think it was even printed Stateside until recently).  When I’d read the original description of the book, I’d been reminded of some stuff from my youth, including this very Doctor Who story.

Black Pearl (aka 10,000 A.D.: The Legend of the Black Pearl):  “When you are feeling most lost and disheartened, smoke this.” Even if our world ends, society collapses, and eight thousand years pass, I don’t think dreadlocks or tongue and eyebrow piercing on a skinny white dude will ever be acceptable.  Though the fact that the movie opens on our Burning Man cast-off getting the crap kicked out of him, only to be saved by a Veronica Mars look alike makes more sense.  Brad Pitt wannabe hippie-warrior Jesus seems to spend his life a day late and a dollar short.  Maybe he should try washing his hair.  My hat is off to the people who made this movie.  It’s beautifully shot and goes for it, balls out, heart exposed.  And it absolutely looks silly as hell a lot of the time.  Hippie, New Age, martial arts, Native American, Hawaiian (?), and mumbo-jumbo of every sort.  But it doesn’t mess around with trying to be mainstream or approachable.  This film has more heart in it than a dozen big budget films.  Sadly, it doesn’t have any more brain.  It’s kind of like a whole movie set in that nasty future from Cloud Atlas, or some post-Fall science fiction setting from the 60s, but filtered through a couple New Age books with crystals and dreamcatchers and paintings of wolves.  I don’t know who I would suggest this film to.  I’m sure there are people who would like it, but I only have one person in all my circle of friends to whom I’m going to recommend it.

Cowboys and Aliens:  “What kind of man goes around blowing up another man’s cows?”  Science fiction has had a long tradition of mixing with the Western.  Singing cowboys have traveled to the center of the Earth; rustlers have captured T-rexes; and they’ve all gotten mixed up in time travel too many times to count.  Not to mention how many times they’ve been exported to other planets.  This time, an amnesiac, an ornery old cattle man, a bar tender, a mysterious woman, a Native chief and a bunch of others are set upon by kidnapping, gold loving aliens, and they aren’t gonna take it sitting down.  Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford are perfect Western actors, handsome but grizzled with steely stares and barely checked rage.  The aliens are weird, the effects pretty good, and the action well handled.  It is an unabashed mix of sci-fi action and classic western.  And Olivia Wilde…Dang.  She’s weird looking, but in the best way.  Is this an amazing, world changing movie?  No.  But it’s solid entertainment.  Harrison Ford should be in more Westerns.

    My landlord installed a new fireplace thingy, so for the first time ever, I’ve got a working fireplace, which is fun.  I’ve found that I suck at fire.  Still, it’s cool to have.  And as this winter doesn’t seem to want to let go (I think it’s usually in the 60s or more by this time here, but the 30s and 40s won’t stop), it’s nice to have options.

-Matt

Brad's Week in Dork! (4/22-4/28)

Man.  Maybe it was the intensity of last week's #AvengersFest or the anticipation of next week's actual release of The Avengers, or the upcoming Shat Attack V (it's almost here!!!!), but I could not get excited about anything in the world of Dork this week.  I pretty much just meandered about, watching a tv episode here, a movie there.

I continued on with the Police Academy films, but part 4 kinda grated my nerves and I feel like I'm just watching them to watch them at this point.  I finished Shout Factory's Roger Corman Nurse collection and even though I really enjoyed them I wasn't over the moon with the whole set.  I did finish the Guns, Girls, & G-Strings Andy Sidaris collection and that was definitely worth the $4.99.

But at the end of the week the only two movies I was completely enamored with were Timecrimes (a rather creepy, clever Spanish time travel story) and Safe (Jason Statham's shockingly enjoyable action flick).  And if you haven't already, you should check out my latest Western Review of The Shooting over at cineAWESOME!  And listen to their latest podcast of Crazy Sam Neil double featuring two of my 90s favorites Event Horizon & In The Mouth of Madness (obviously ITMOD loves that film).

TV OF THE WEEK!

The Six Million Dollar Man 3 Pilot Movies:  This was the first time I've ever watched the first three pilot movies that begin the Six Million Dollar Man series.  They're kinda typical of the era, a lot of interesting ideas plotted out but they're obviously still working out the kinks of the series and there's a lot of drag to the pace of the three stories.  Lee Majors is test pilot Steve Austin, and after a pretty horrific crash he's pieced back together by Darren McGavin (the Night Stalker disappears after the first tv movie and is replaced by Richard Anderson).  After a lot of stalling, Steve Austin agrees to help out the government with some special assignments.  Using his new found cybernetic powers he kicks many a terrorists ass.  Having now gotten over the hurdle of the first three movies, I'm looking forward to the actually tv show.

Star Trek "Charlie X":  Matt hates this episode, but it don't bother me none.  Charlie is an annoying omnipotent pre-teen reeking havoc all over the Enterprise cuz Yeoman Rand doesn't know how to deflect his creepy mindbending flirtations.  Lots of perfectly lit extreme closeups and lingering sweaty stares, but I appreciate Captain Kirk's stern father routine as he brings the brat back to his people.  Charlie's a punk, but a pathetic sorry sort of punk.

Star Trek "The Naked Time":  A Star Trek classic that's more than just a collection of shirtless Sulu screencaps.  An away team beams back aboard the Enterprise and carries a deadly crazybrain disease back with them.  Leonard Nimoy shines here as Spock, getting his real first chance to display conflicting emotions.  Spock is badass and cool, but when he starts to crack he's a wonderfully sorry character.  And yes, the Sulu bravado of this episode is plenty fun with him hopping about with his pointy rapier.

Star Trek "The Enemy Within":  My all time favorite episode of the original series, Captain Kirk is split into two beings after one of those pesky transporter malfunctions.  One Kirk is meek, the other is full of rage.  For most of the runtime they battle it out, screaming demands for Brandy and strangling any skirt that should happen by--yes, Shatner has plenty of opportunities to ooze here and he excels at playing the creep.  "I'm CAPTAIN KIRK!!!!!!" indeed.

 MOVIES OF THE WEEK!

Mad Doctor of Blood Island:  "He began to show alarming side effects...strange eruptions of the skin...bits of melancholy, violence." I love the William Castle-esque opening Oath of the Green Blood and there are some amazing bits of crazy bonkers Z Movie dialog, but at 90 minutes Mad Doctor of Blood Island feels too long. The cheap, crappy charm wears out its welcome and the film never seems to take the Island of Dr Moreau concept to the exploitation heights of that era.

Return to Savage Beach:  "Whoa, that really hurt. I was shot, right? Where?" The final film in the Guns Girls & G-Strings collection does not disappoint. Julie Strain's L.E.T.H.A.L. Ladies partner up with The Day of the Warrior's Arch Villain (Marcus Bagwell) thanks to his accidental murdering of a serial killer. Together these top government agents will spend a majority of the run time getting in and out of clothes as well as tracking down Rodrigo Obregon's resurrected Two-Face. They're gonna have to pose as strippers and take down some pistol packing ninjas, but it's all in the name of convoluted justice. This series of T&A action has had its ups and downs, but the goofy joys of this Savage Beach sequel end the Malibu Express saga on a high note.

Cowboys & Aliens:  The film might deal in archetypes and cliches, but director Jon Favreau picks the right faces to fill his popcorn stables. Daniel Craig is a perfect man with no name outlawing his way into the hearts of a town plagued by battle toads. And it's great to see Harrison Ford spitting John Fordisms while making nice with the savages. I for one, am glad they didn't go for the goof of the title and made a serious as can be action film showcasing the most enjoyable tropes of the genre. Seeing Clancy Brown's shotgun preacher, Sam Rockwell's tepid doc, and Keith Carradine's long tooth sheriff makes me yearn for a modern era of cowboy pictures for these relegated character actors to excel on the sidelines.

Police Academy 4 - Citizens on Patrol:  Steve Guttenberg's final entry in the Police Academy saga is probably the film I've seen the most in the series; I remember watching this on loop as a kid, the hot air balloon chase the height of action cinema. Watching it now, it's hard to give the film my full attention. It starts off pleasant enough with David Spade's Skateboard menace and GW Baily's "Don't Touch My Balls" screaming but four films in and the antics are pretty darn tired. Still, nostalgia carries the day and I cannot hate on Police Academy too much.

Private Duty Nurses:  The second of Roger Corman's Nurse productions, Private Duty Nurses is more serious melodrama than sexual hijinks following the formula of three nurses discovering tragic romance amongst the patients and doctors. Personally I prefer the whacky antics of Candy Stripe Nurses to this far-too-serious narrative involving racist hospitals, Flashbacking Vietnam Vets, and Turkish terrorist gun battles. At the very least it could have used a little more kung fu.  But small roles from Paul Gleason (The Breakfast Club!) and the sniveling screeching Paul Hampton (More Dead Than Alive!) keep things interesting.

The Young Nurses:  "I wouldn't go out with your father if he was my father!" Similar to the other Corman produced nurseploitations, The Young Nurses is all over the map with its plot. You've got Sam Fuller's (yes, that Sam Fuller) drug dealing sea captain doctor, a daddy's boy romance, a medical malpractice lawsuit, and a couple of harpoon murders. At just 77 minutes, The Young Nurses is more akin to Candy Stripe Nurses with its whacky hijinks over its extreme melodrama. Drug Dealing & Murder is fun where as the Night Call Nurse suicides and bad acid trips are just damn depressing no matter how much T&A you throw in. Still, this four pack from Shout Factory's Roger Corman Cult Classics line is well worth its price tag.

Police Academy 5 - Assignment Miami Beach:  The Gute leaves the reigns of the franchise to newcomer Matt McCoy and the Police Academy story doesn't suffer for it; the graduates are still up to their typical antics with Jones kung fu dubbing his way into the hearts of Miami diamond thieves, Tackleberry fending off great whites with his magnum, and Captain Harris douching his way into the lamest academy pranks. Assignment Miami Beach is a pure dumb goof but if you've made it this far into the franchise than you're all in, plus who doesn't love a jet black Rene Abuberjonis running afoul of George Gaynes' clumsy buffoonery?

Bite The Bullet:  The Cannonball Run of Westerns from the director of The Professionals and starring the acting duo from the brutally grim The Hunting Party, Gene Hackman & Candice Bergen. Centering around The Western Press race of 1906, Hackman is an ex-Rough Rider who really loves horses but his good natured ways come into conflict with a batch of cow punching manly men like James Coburn, Ben Johnson, Ian Bannen, Jan Michael Vincent, and Dabney Coleman. It's a manic Western that jumps from kooky barroom brawls to attempted rape to PETA level moralizing with delightful ease and despite it's overlong narrative and misplaced third act chain gang, Bite The Bullet is an under appreciated flick that craves your attention.

Timecrimes:  You might want to check out that local science lab before moving into the neighborhood. Timecrimes cleverly and thrillingly explores the logic loops of the time travel genre when Karra Elejalde's peeping tom Hector follows a pair of forest breasts that leads to a masked slasher and a confounded scientist held up inside a mysterious compound. Hector might join the crazy of this science fiction a little too easy, but in accepting the adventure of this twisty time stream he allows writer/director Nacho Vigalondo a qucik, punchy runtime and an intense pace often lost with these speculative head scratchers.

Safe:  "But then the Russians showed up and started shooting everybody." Much more entertaining than it has any right to be, Safe belongs on the higher spectrum of Jason Statham action films despite its frustrating jump cutty close up fight choreography. Statham is the mysterious badass homeless cage fighter caught in between James Hong's triad goons, the Russian Mob, Robert Burke's squadron of corrupt cops, and Chris Sarandon's treacherous NYC mayor. All this violence has something to do with Catherine Chan's codebreaker brain and a safe full of ridiculous amounts of cash. Statham has fun with the brutality and a little of that Fistful of Dollars charm as he turns the rival gangs against one another in an effort to satisfy his own improbable revenge. And there are plenty of winky one-liners to satisfy the John McClanes of the world.  

COMICS OF THE WEEK!

The Left Bank Gang:  Yet another oddball sensation from Norwegian madman Jason. Does this guy even have a bad book in him? Paris 1920-something. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Pound, and Joyce are tired of raking in peanuts for their comic strips, so it's time to turn to a life of crime. As always, there's great charm to the proceedings with Hemingway schooling Fitzgerald on penis size, Gertrude Stein scolding brushstroke technique, and Zelda puppet-mastering behind the Kubrickian Killing heist. And after each new Jason book I consume I want to champion his work to the spandex loving masses. Yes, yes, yes, we all can't wait for The Avengers but lets save room for literature fetishists.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol 1 "Change Is Constant":  IDW comics and original TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman team up to relaunch the Turtles for a new comic book generation.  And it's okay.  Personally, I really don't need the TMNT origin retold or retooled.  I wish the series would have jumped right into the thick of it with new adventures rather than another story of Leo, Don, and Mikey trying to track down their moody brother Raphael.  But that's what this is.  There's hints of a diabolical General Krang and possibly Shredder but this first volume in the new series focuses mainly on bringing the family back together including the teenage Casey Jones.  It's fun, but not great.  And unless I hear some pretty fantastic things I don't think I'll be continuing with this series.

--Brad