"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Posts Tagged ‘Sonia Braga’

Immaculate/The First Omen

Monday, April 15th, 2024

I’m not a religious horror or nunsploitation connoisseur, but right now there’s a brief window of two new nun horror movies playing in theaters, and I’d heard good things about both of them, so I decided to do a double feature. IMMACULOMEN. IMMACULATE was already down to one show a day here, and I had to take the light rail up to Northgate to see it, but the timing worked out just right to get back downtown and see THE FIRST OMEN immediately after. As if by God’s will.

I enjoyed both of these movies, and they made a good double feature because they’re weirdly overlapping in their stories, but tonally and stylistically pretty different. Both are about an American woman who comes to Italy to become a nun and (mild spoiler?) becomes pregnant with something not normal. In one it might be Jesus and in the other it might be the opposite, and both happen as the result of a secret Christian plot that has been in the works for years, with many previous failures. Both have (spoiler) a not-up-to-spec c-section attempt, and a horrifying scene where a nun falls off of the roof of a convent. Also they have little insignificant similarities like I think they both have an extreme closeup of the protagonist’s eye when she wakes up, they have her peeking through a door crack or keyhole and seeing nuns torment someone, they have her get locked into a room against her will and then bang on the door and cry as the camera pans across the room, they have someone telling her how pretty she is before she takes her vows, they have a version of “Ave Maria” of course… the list could probly go on. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Rookie

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

tn_therookieTHE ROOKIE is a 1990 cop movie starring and directed by Mr. Clint Eastwood, that seems intent on passing the action movie torch to a new generation represented by… wait a minute, did I read this– yes, it says here represented by Charlie Sheen. From YOUNG GUNS. Huh.

But you know what, it only adds to Clint’s mystique that he so humbly shares the movie with this rookie and even allows the spotlight to shift over to him for a while while the old man is tied up in a warehouse getting raped by Sonia Braga (SPOILER). This is also the most DIRTY HARRY of Clint’s non-DIRTY HARRY pictures. In fact, it probly feels a little more DIRTY HARRY than SUDDEN IMPACT, the one actual DIRTY HARRY that he directed. (read the rest of this shit…)

From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter

Tuesday, January 18th, 2000

Well ever since Scream 3 I have been trying to see bad sequels to movies I haven’t seen in the first place. And this one holds a particular specialness to me because it is a part 3 and I am a scholar of part 3s.

Actually, this one isn’t all that bad, for one thing it can get away with not being in 3-D. Unlike Scream 3 it has an excuse because it’s straight to video, and I mean who the fuck wants to sit at home by yourself wearing 3-D glasses. I mean give me a fuckin break.

Anyway this western doesn’t really “hang together” as the famous shoplifting critic Rex Reed might say but it does have its moments which is a hell of a lot more than you can say for most straight to video part 3s in my opinion. The opening to be specific is very strong, with an obvious Sergio Leone influence. It’s in the desert with bright, bleached out photographication and lots of heightened sound effects. You hear the wind and the rattlesnakes and the incessant clicking of guns like you just hooked your hearing aid up to a car battery. (read the rest of this shit…)