Posts Tagged ‘Tony Todd’
Wednesday, January 3rd, 2024
SABOTAGE is a Mark Dacascos vehicle and it’s from 1996, so it’s pretty early in his career – a couple years after ONLY THE STRONG, a year after CRYING FREEMAN, same year as THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, a year before DRIVE. So, one of the first times he should’ve blown up.
This clunky and disposable b-movie isn’t half as good as any of those I just mentioned, but it has some good bits and an overqualified cast. It’s directed by Tibor Takács (THE GATE, MANSQUITO, ROCKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS) and written by Rick Filon (KICKBOXER 5: THE REDEMPTION, also starring Dacascos) and Michael Stokes (IRON EAGLE ON THE ATTACK, Paw Patrol). Dacascos stars as Michael Bishop, a bodyguard who used to be an elite special ops super military dude, which of course means it starts with a traumatic war experience prologue. But this was the ‘90s so it’s in Bosnia instead of Afghanistan. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Carrie-Anne Moss, Graham Greene, John Neville, Mark Dacascos, Michael Stokes, Rick Filon, Tibor Takacs, Tony Todd
Posted in Reviews, Action | 7 Comments »
Thursday, September 2nd, 2021
CANDYMAN (2021) is the first sequel in 22 years to CANDYMAN (1992), my pick for the best horror movie of the ‘90s. Though I don’t think this one’s nearly as good as Bernard Rose’s original, it’s much more worthy of the mantle than the previous sequels, Bill Condon’s New Orleans-set CANDYMAN: FAREWELL TO THE FLESH (1995) and (it goes without saying) Turi Meyer’s horrendous DTV CANDYMAN 3: DAY OF THE DEAD (1999). It’s nice that various trends have aligned to allow revisiting the subject decades later, minus any mercenary needs to strike while the iron is hot, and with the now-gentrified Chicago neighborhood where the first film took place providing a new angle from which to explore its still-relevant race and class themes. That seems to be the main point of interest for director Nia DaCosta (who did the excellent 2018 drama-with-some-crime LITTLE WOODS) and her producer/co-writers Jordan Peele (GET OUT, US) and Win Rosenfeld (executive producer of BLACKkKLANSMAN).
When the movie starts, the Universal logo comes on, so that globe spins around, and the letters come out, and then you realize they’re backwards. For half a second I thought something was wrong with the projection, but of course it’s referencing the importance of mirrors in the CANDYMAN films (where the titular restless spirit is summoned by chanting his name, like Bloody Mary). A couple of production company logos proceed to play backwards as well, so by the time the film proper started I had to look around until I spotted some numbers on a building and could finally be sure the movie was playing properly. Beginning the movie already off balance. Nice touch. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Chicago, Colman Domingo, Jordan Peele, Michael Hargrove, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Nia DaCosta, Rebecca Spence, slashers, Teyonah Parris, Tony Todd, Virginia Madsen, Win Rosenfeld, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 44 Comments »
Thursday, November 1st, 2018
FROM THE VERN VAULT: Don’t worry friends, I’m not about to start doing reruns all the time, but there are two pieces that were written for One.Perfect.Shot that disappeared after they were bought out by Film School Rejects. Prompted by Rumsey Taylor I located them on Internet Archive and I’m reposting them for posterity.
Maybe I’m full of it but it seems to me this piece from October 26th, 2015 was a little ahead of the curve. At the time I knew of no one else who considered CANDYMAN the best horror movie of the ’90s and I didn’t think people talked enough about its exploration of the legacy of slavery in America. I’m proud of this as well as my 2005 take on the movie. (It’s not dangerous until I review it five times, is it?)
P.S. I am responsible for the headline but that term “the racial divide” bugs me now – I wish I called it “WE’RE NOT COPS – WE’RE WITH THE UNIVERSITY.”
‘CANDYMAN’ AND THE RACIAL DIVIDE: WHY ONE OF THE BEST HORROR FILMS OF THE 90S IS EVEN MORE RELEVANT TODAY
“These stories are modern oral folklore. They are the un-self-conscious reflection of the fears of urban society.” –urban legends lecture by Professor Lyle (Xander Berkeley)
“What if a person had this thing done to him and what if he had the opportunity to come back and say, ‘Watch out!’ to the world that created this person and the conditions?” –Tony Todd to Fangoria Magazine, March 1995
American horror movies have played off of all manner of primal and societal fears: tensions between social classes, the invasion of the sanctity of the home, the dangers of trespassing in forbidden places. But leave it to a couple of British artists – writer/director Bernard Rose and executive producer/short story author Clive Barker – to explicitly tie those themes to the racial atrocities of our history, creating a truly American horror story. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bernard Rose, Clive Barker, Kasi Lemmons, Philip Glass, racism, slavery, Tony Todd, urban legends, Virginia Madsen
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 14 Comments »
Monday, October 8th, 2018
HELL FEST is a mainstream horror movie released on 2,297 screens by Lionsgate, but I never saw a trailer for it and only heard of it because Brian Collins recommended it on Twitter (he also interviewed the director). So I guess social media can still work for good old fashioned word of mouth, not just Russian disinformation campaigns.
For people who like horror but get bored of formula and cliche, this is probly nothing special. But for horror fans like me who enjoy variations on tradition, it’s a surprise treat: a slick, well-made straight-ahead slasher movie with some cool ideas, production value, a solid cast, even likable characters. I honestly thought they couldn’t make movies like this anymore – it seems straight from the post-SCREAM slasher revival, except without any meta stuff (other than we’re having fun being scared while the characters are having fun being scared). Also, no big names in the cast. The only face I recognized besides cameo-ing Tony Todd was Bex Taylor-Klaus from Scream: The TV Series. (But maybe others would be known to me if I was younger.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Akela Cooper, Amy Forsyth, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Blair Butler, Christian James, Christopher Sey, Gregory Plotkin, Halloween, Matt Mercurio, Reign Edwards, Roby Attal, Seth M. Sherwood, slashers, Stephen Susco, Tony Gardner, Tony Todd, William Penick
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 39 Comments »
Thursday, June 7th, 2018
“Look, you’re a tough guy, but you’re also a good guy.”
“I ain’t that good, mate. You saw what I did to that lad, didn’t ya?”
Yeah, I know, you’re all aware that Scott Adkins is the reigning king of DTV action. That’s not new information. You’re all well acquainted with UNDISPUTED II and III and 4 and UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING, if not HARD TARGET 2 or EL GRINGO or the other ones.
What hasn’t been discussed as much is that our favorite English martial artist has hit a new stride in his string of collaborations with director Jesse V. Johnson. Last year they did SAVAGE DOG, a weird and brutal period piece, followed a few months ago by the smart-ass assassin tale ACCIDENT MAN. Adkins gives honestly great performances in stoic roles like Boyka, who grunt almost as much as they speak, and I love those types of characters. But as co-writer and producer of ACCIDENT MAN, he not only gave himself a ton of great fight scenes, but all kinds of witty dialogue and first person narration that no other onscreen kicker could handle. And his latest continues the trend of retaining his Englishness and showing great charisma and verbal dexterity while still living up to the action expectations of a marquee-name martial arts star. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Jesse V. Johnson, Louis Mandylor, Luke LaFontaine, Michael Pare, Sarah Finley, Scott Adkins, Tony Todd, Vladimir Kulich
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews | 40 Comments »
Thursday, April 6th, 2017
As I’ve mentioned once or twice, CANDYMAN might be my favorite horror movie of the 1990s. And I remember director Bernard Rose’s PAPERHOUSE being very good too when I watched it in the 1980s. But most of his movies have not been horror. Didn’t seem to be his thing. So I was intrigued when I found out that all the sudden in 2015 he did a new version of FRANKENSTEIN.
This is a modernized take on Mary Shelley’s story. The monster is not some stitched together green guy, he’s just a regular full grown man (Xavier Samuel, THE LOVED ONES, FURY) suddenly born in a secret lab through unexplained genetical engineering type methods. Victor Frankenstein (Danny Huston, THE WARRIOR’S WAY, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, BIRTH) is there, but it’s his wife Elizabeth (Carrie-Anne Moss from the fucking MATRIX!) doing the important work now: cuddling him, shushing him, feeding him with an eyedropper. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bernard Rose, Carrie-Anne Moss, Danny Huston, Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, Tony Todd, Xavier Samuel
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 23 Comments »
Tuesday, November 19th, 2013
I still love the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, a nice, moody little cinematic play about differences of opinion between strangers hiding out in a farm house during the first ever worldwide zombie epidemic. I believe I watched it Halloween night of 2012 and I realized I’d kind of worn it out, it was too burnt into my brain and I’d need to take a break from it for a few years at least so I could appreciate it more next time.
But I was really jonesing to watch DAWN and DAY of the dead before Halloween this year so I decided to do a historically inaccurate color trilogy by substituting the 1990 remake of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, which I hadn’t watched in some time. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Moseley, George Romero, good remakes, Patricia Tallman, remakes, Tom Savini, Tom Towles, Tony Todd
Posted in Horror, Reviews | 33 Comments »
Tuesday, February 26th, 2013
I know they say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but a movie is not a book and a cover is not always the same art as a poster so I sometimes feel okay writing off a movie because of its poster. And these days when a movie has kind of a quasi-retro poster with a sort-of-old-school-ish illustration and attempted ’70s font, I assume it’s just some bullshit by somebody who liked GRINDHOUSE like I did and thinks if they know about old movies they can make a movie like that even if they don’t have the chops. But some of you said I had to watch SUSHI GIRL, so I gave it a shot. I forgive you.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Andy Mackenzie, Cortney Palm, Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey, Kern Saxton, Mark Hamill, Michael Biehn, Noah Hathaway, Sonny Chiba, Tony Todd
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 182 Comments »
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
No man, I don’t got a problem. I just watch Michael Bay movies recreationally. I don’t gotta watch them when I wake up or nothin. It’s just every once in a while. I only watched PEARL HARBOR ’cause I was doing all the summer of 2001 movies. And TRANSFORMERS 3 because I thought it would be funny. Then people said I should watch this one. It’s not a big deal, man. That’s not that many. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aaron Sorkin, Bokeem Woodbine, David Morse, Ed Harris, Jim Caviezel, John C. McGinley, John Enos III, Jonathan Hensleigh, Marshall Teague, Michael Bay, Michael Biehn, Navy SEALs, Nicolas Cage, Philip Baker Hall, Quentin Tarantino, Raymond Cruz, Sean Connery, Tom Towles, Tony Todd, William Forsythe, Xander Berkeley
Posted in Action, Reviews | 107 Comments »
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
EXCESSIVE FORCE is a pretty generic cop-who-can-kick action movie from Jon Hess, the director of ALLIGATOR II: THE MUTATION. That would be funny if it was the same guy that did NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, but I guess that was Jared Hess. It’s written by and stars Thomas Ian Griffith.
Griffith reminds me a little bit of Jeff Wincott. He’s a slim guy, not muscled out like Van Damme or somebody, with long hair and a dangly earring. He tends to wear long coats and scarfs, looks more like somebody who would play a troubled musician than an angry cop. But he’s a real martial artist who’s apparently good at kicking, so (much like Van Damme and his splits) he’s always looking for openings to kick guys in the face, just so you remember he can do it. I’m surprised he doesn’t use his feet to open doors, turn lights on and off or scratch his nose. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Burt Young, James Earl Jones, Lance Henriksen, Thomas Ian Griffith, Tony Todd
Posted in Action, Martial Arts, Reviews | 44 Comments »
