Archive for the ‘Thriller’ Category
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
If you’re a never-give-up Rocky Balboa type of dude, a real achiever, or if you have to carry heavy objects alot as part of a job or strongman competition, then you know this feeling: your body is exhausted, bruised, broken, covered in sweat, maybe some blood, your task seems impossible, but you’re too stubborn to give up. You keep going until you’re done, powered by the sheer force of will. That’s what the second half of SORCERER is about. Four guys, two trucks, a bunch of nitroglycerin, and miles of untamed South American jungle. They gotta drive the nitro without blowing up, because it’s needed to put out an oil fire, ON DEADLY GROUND style. The job is ridiculously dangerous so it pays well, and they’re doing it for the pay day. They’re all fugitives hiding out here for a wide selection of crimes and the money they’ll get represents a chance to start over somewhere nicer. (The first half sets all this up.)
So there they are, in a couple of fucked up trucks, rolling over craggy roads, along the edges of cliffs, through swamps and across the shakiest bridges you’ve ever seen. And who better to lead the charge than Roy Scheider*? I think he’s the right man for the job, and if you disagree I think you will change your mind pretty quick when you watch the movie. In one harrowing scene they come to a broken rope bridge in the middle of a storm. It seems logical to give up at this point, but Roy refuses. He has his partner crawl across the bridge guiding him inch by inch all the way across. It’s a terrifying ordeal that seems to take forever and then the second they’re safely across the movie cuts to the other truck getting to the bridge and having to do the same damn thing. No time to catch your breath. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: remakes, Roy Scheider, Tangerine Dream, William Friedkin
Posted in Reviews, Thriller | 4 Comments »
Saturday, December 15th, 2007
NOTE FROM THE FUTURISTIC YEAR OF 2021: When I wrote this review 14 years ago I was so damn close to being ahead of the curve on this movie and some of the issues it brings up. I got why it was interesting and I went off on a long rant on how I felt Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears were being treated unfairly. I’m proud that I recognized that and wrote about it, but in discussing it I still said a couple mean and ignorant things that embarrass me now. So this review stands as-is as a reminder that life is always learning and progressing and we always have room to grow even when we think we’re ahead.
* * *
Other than having a scene where a girl gets sadistically tortured, I KNOW WHO KILLED ME is nothing like the current generation of American horror movies. It seems less influenced by SAW than by Brian DePalma thrillers and “giallos” out of Italy – you know, the weird slasher mysteries where logic is not as important as atmosphere and vivid colors. That’s definitely the philosophy of this one. Logic is for losers.
The director, Chris Sivertson (best known as the co-director of the behind-the-scenes featurette on the remake of THE TOOLBOX MURDERS) has a lush visual style and is unhealthily obsessed with the color blue. You see it on Lindsay Lohan’s clothes and car, her school’s football uniforms, the rose her boyfriend gives her, the big Liberace ring her piano teacher wears, her dad’s glowing phone, the gloves that both the police and the killer wear, the hospital scrubs, the entire emergency room, the weapons the guy uses to torture her, even the gag in her mouth. Seriously, you’ll be pissing blue for a week after you see this. The only things missing are Otter Pops and blue raspberry Jolly Ranchers, otherwise every bright blue colored object or substance that ever existed appears in the movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: amputee, Chris Sivertson, Lindsay Lohan, Neal McDonough
Posted in Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 5 Comments »
Saturday, December 8th, 2007
Not to be confused with THE HUNTED (starring Christopher Lambert) or BENJI THE HUNTED (starring Benji)
Early in William Friedkin’s THE HUNTED we are introduced to its hero, L.T. Bonham (Steven Seagal), an expert in tracking, knife fighting and wilderness survival who used to train special ops soldiers in these skills. As he learned that the guys he was training were being sent to assassinate people for purely political purposes he grew disillusioned and quit. So now he’s in the BC wilderness where we see him track an injured wolf through the snowy woods, get the trap off of his paw, chew up a root and rub it on the wound as a homeopathic healing agent. Then he tracks the responsible poacher down at a tavern, bangs his head against a table and tells him never to do it again.
Oh wait, did I say Steven Seagal? Actually L.T. Bonham is played by Tommy Lee Jones. I was surprised how much of this movie reminded me of Seagal, though. The story is about a special ops badass (Seagal– er, I mean Benicio Del Toro) who comes back from Kosovo totally wacked out and kills some guys, and Tommy Lee Jones (UNDER SIEGE) is the guy who trained him so he has to help catch him. So I thought it was gonna be like FIRST BLOOD meets THE FUGITIVE. Not Steven Seagal meets Steven Seagal. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Benicio Del Toro, Tommy Lee Jones, William Friedkin
Posted in Action, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 7 Comments »
Monday, December 3rd, 2007
Revisiting THE DEAD ZONE for the first time since the ’80s is kind of a trip. I didn’t know who David Cronenberg was back then so I didn’t know it was one of the most commercial movies he’d ever make. No weird phallic lumps, all vaginas presumably in the right spots. It’s an eery thriller with a cold, wintery atmosphere and a good idea from Stephen King. If you don’t remember, Chris Walken is a guy who gets into a car accident, wakes up from a coma and soon starts having premonitions. Sometimes when he touches somebody he finds himself in some traumatic future event. So he uses this to save children, catch a killer, etc., and becomes a local hero.
Walken of course is real good. He’s such a weirdo, but he gets to joke around, be kind of a charmer, and also be pissed off at this turn of events that people tell him is a “gift” even though it’s ruined his life. Cronenberg plays up the tragic love story. Walken and his old girlfriend still love each other, but while he was in the coma she got married and had a kid. So it’s tough. Not much you can do there that’s gonna make you happy in the long run. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Cronenberg, Stephen King
Posted in Horror, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | 4 Comments »
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
The original THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR is not one of my favorite Steve McQueen pictures. It’s stylish and well-made, I can see the appeal of it. But first of all, as much fun as he may have had doing it, McQueen was not meant to play that kind of upper crust character. And secondly, as cool as you want him to be because he’s played by Steve McQueen, Thomas Crown is not a very cool character. He’s The Man. A rich guy who has other people do his work and then takes credit for it. Just because he picks up the money out of the garbage can after all the real work is done he gets to call it his Affair? There’s no justice in that movie.
John McTiernan’s loose remake takes care of those problems, while introducing other ones. While I’m much more fond of Steve McQueen, Pierce Brosnan is a way better choice to play this character. He’s smooth, he’s handsome, he looks kind of like Fred MacMurray but more girly, he has an accent. And there’s no way to imagine him working with his hands or having dirt on him or his hair unkempt. He IS Thomas Crown. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: John McTiernan
Posted in Crime, Reviews, Romance, Thriller | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
Not funny ha-ha, though. This is a very simple, solid, unsettling Austrian picture from 1997. The director is Michael Haneke, who has since become real respected due to movies like CACHE. In this one a couple and their son arrive at their vacation home. We know they’re well-to-do not only because of the vacation home, but because they listen to opera music in the car and have a boat. Right after they get there father and son are putting the boat in the water, mom is talking on the phone, cooking some steaks, and a young man shows up at the door to borrow some eggs. He dicks around for a bit but before too long there are two young visitors, eight broken eggs, one broken leg and the family held hostage.
So most of the movie is spent in the house with the family sitting helplessly as their smug home invaders talk about games and bets and pretend that they’re being friendly. It is not graphically violent or shock value oriented like CHAOS or something. The cruelty to the characters and audience is mostly psychological. The most horrible stuff happens off camera. One scene focuses on one of the tormentors walking into the kitchen and calmly making a sandwich while the horror goes on in the other room. (read the rest of this shit…)
Posted in Crime, Drama, Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 3 Comments »
Saturday, November 24th, 2007
A guide for enthusiasts of Badass Cinema
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is one of those movies that’s so quiet it can be uncomfortable to watch with an audience. Alot of scenes all you hear is the wind blowing lightly over the wide open Texas plains, or the cars driving past outside a motel room, along with every squirm, every sigh, every shoulder crack in the theater. At the end when I saw the music credit for Carter Burwell I honestly couldn’t for the life of me remember any point in the movie where there was music.
So it’s clearly a little arty, it’s not like anybody’s gonna mistake this for THE MUMMY RETURNS. Or for THE FRENCH CONNECTION for that matter. It requires a little patience. But there’s so much about it that’s so fuckin good that it will win over all kinds of people from all walks of life. At first. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Coen Brothers, Cormac McCarthy, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones
Posted in Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 20 Comments »
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
I always knew the title to this one, because of that song by Wang Chung. But I never knew what exactly it was about. Turns out it’s loosely based on a novel by this guy Gerald Petievich. He was in the Secret Service, and the book was inspired by some of his experiences. So it’s supposed to be about the weirdness of that job, where one day you’re protecting the president of the United States and the next day you’re working for the treasury department so you’re just chasing some dude with counterfeit twenties.
This movie has the thumbprints of great filmatism smeared all over it. It has the kind of opening I’m a sucker for, the kind that throws you in the middle of something, sets the tone, then goes into the opening credits. Like a preamble or an overture. The main character Richard Chance (William Petersen) is on security detail for a Reagan speech (you just hear Reagan’s voice off screen, they don’t have Martin Sheen or anybody playing him). The guys are just kind of killing time when he notices something odd that leads him to the roof, where he finds an Islamic suicide bomber. (oh, shit.) He’s not able to talk him down but his partner climbs up the side of the roof and yanks the guy by the leg so that he explodes in mid-air, like a big balloon full of blood and chunks of meat. Then the two sit on the edge of the building to think about what has just happened. Chance says, “Let’s go get drunk and play cards” and it cuts into a stylish opening montage showing various images from the movie and that represent L.A. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: car chases, William Friedkin
Posted in Action, Crime, Drama, Reviews, Thriller | 16 Comments »
Monday, November 19th, 2007
LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD: 2-DISC ALLOWED TO SAY ‘MOTHERFUCKER’ EDITION
“YIPPEE KI YAY, MOVIE FANS!” That’s what some dipshit wrote on the back of the new LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD dvd. But in the new unrated cut of the movie itself John McClane is allowed to live free and say the whole legendary, maybe-shouldn’t-have-become-part-of-the-DIE-HARD-formula catch phrase. Say goodbye to “Yippee ki yay mother(gunshot).” It’s out the window like Hans Gruber.
The new cut is not drastically, hugely or monumentally different. If you hated the theatrical version you’ll still hate this one. The story is the same, I didn’t notice any scenes removed or added, there’s no new narration or a corny shot of a unicorn that’s supposed to make you see the whole movie in a new light. McClane still doesn’t make good on his threat to beat Kevin Smith’s character to death – not even in a deleted scene, unless it’s one a them “easter eggs” and I just didn’t find it. I’ll keep looking. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bruce, Bruce Willis, Cyril Raffaelli, Len Wiseman, Maggie Q
Posted in Action, AICN, Bruce, Reviews, Thriller | 8 Comments »
Sunday, November 11th, 2007
I always wanted to watch all of Dave Cronenberg’s movies in order, or at least the ones I haven’t seen or don’t remember very well, and I’m finally giving that mission a shot. This is only #2 and #3 here though so don’t start congratulating me yet. But here’s a look at some early Cronenberg.
RABID is typical of Cronenberg’s early work, because it’s about a girl who gets all worked up and bites people to death with the vagina she has in her armpit. FAST COMPANY is the least typical of all Cronenberg movies because it’s about funny car racing. That wouldn’t be a surprise if they were funny cars shaped like vaginas, but these are just regular funny cars with wheels and seats and everything. Driving fast. On race tracks. Etc. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Claudia Jennings, David Cronenberg, Ivan Reitman, John Saxon, Marilyn Chambers, William Smith
Posted in Horror, Reviews, Thriller | 4 Comments »
