Red

Classy Dames on .50 cal machine guns. Wet dreams ahoy!

This one goes out to my main man Jimbo (who probably hates me calling him Jimbo), who puts up with my childish squeeming and whinging, even if he is a big mean jerkface

Holy shitpoop in a nun’s hat. This movie almost gave me a coronary.

2010’s Red is to film what Donald Trump’s hair is to ridiculousness. It is the very definition of maximum. Before watching this film I’d only really heard one thing about it, which was “It has Bruce Willis.” And that, of course, was enough for me. But when I sat down to watch it my mind almost exploded with the unlimited possibilities of the words appearing onscreen before me: Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Karl Urban and Brian Cox. Every movie needs more Cox, if you want my opinion, which you do, because you’re here. There is also that moderately hot woman from Weeds, but if the previous list doesn’t get your mouth watering then you are either Helen Keller or an Amish person with a massive beard. Either way I don’t like you because you have no taste in movies, and you dress funny.

There is also an appearance by Ernest Borgnine, who I’m sure wasn’t actually cast in the movie, but just showed up on set one day and refused to leave. In my mind the conversation between the director and stage manager went something like this. “Who’s that?” “Ernest Borgnine.” “He’s in this movie?” “No. He just showed up for the free coffee and biscuits.” “Can we get him out of here?” “Already tried, he just grumbled and threw his refuse at me.” “OK guys; let’s just shoot around the crazy old bastard.”

The story revolves around Willis, who is retired Black-Ops agent Frank Moses (branded R.E.D – Retired, Extremely Dangerous) and who has a crush for the quasi-hippy woman that sends him his cheques. It’s retiree-romance. So the first 10 minutes is spent watching Bruce call her up, talk, drink coffee, listen to her talk about shitty romance novels... it’s all pretty gay. But then, KAPOW! He kills like 10 people in about 60 seconds.

Why? Because he’s Bruce motherfucking Willis. Don’t ask stupid questions. Bruce Willis kills people like my mum cries while watching 'Always' on VHS. Uncontrollably. Christ mum, that movie is 20 years old, like you don't know Richard Dreyfuss is going to die every time you watch it, you emotional, menopausal mess.

So he goes to talk to Morgan ‘best supporting actor’ Freeman to find out who they were and is told that the people he killed were a South African wet-work team sent in to ‘formally retire’ Willis. Amateurs. Back to the point, Moses decides to go put his old team of 60+’s back together to get to the bottom of this case. This is where we get Malkovich, playing the crazed and paranoid type that he probably is in real life, Brian Cox playing a KGB officer who’s about as stereotypically Russian as Graham Norton is gay, and Helen Mirren who, despite being 65, carries an M16 sniper rifle with the same familiar ease that a woman from Logan with eight teeth carries her fifth child through the queue at Centrelink and has a rack that not only seems to defy the very laws of gravity, but makes me want to dive head first into her soft bosom (Helen Mirren that is, not the bogan minger with a clown car for a vagina). She plays a great role, which is basically Martha Stewart with a machine gun. I find this worryingly desirable.

 I’d totally butter her scone, if she had a scone and had asked me to butter it, and I had access to said condiment (and in the case of a spread, butter is considered a condiment, not an additive). And by butter her scone I mean I would... well, let’s just say I’d be bragging that I’d ‘taken tea with the Queen’.

Red also stars Julian McMahon, who for whatever reason annoys the shit out of me, as Vice President Stanton, and James Remar who has seemed played the same the cranky police detective since some point in the mid 1980’s. There’s a career to be proud of Mr Remar.

OK, so the story goes that Willis and his gang of bingo playing Senior Citizen Xs band together to try to figure out who wants them all dead, and the conspiracy behind it all. There is plenty of action, explosions, light hearted comedy, bad Russian accents and just a whisper of romance to keep the woman you dragged along to the cinema happy (as long as you also promised you’d have dinner with Greg and Stacey next Tuesday, and also to take her to that thing that she likes next weekend, even though you’d rather go have a vasectomy than sit through 2 hours of interpretive dance). It’s kind of like a meal with the whole food pyramid, but on polyester film instead of a plate, and a gun-toting Bruce Willis instead of a gun-toting side of lamb.

Although I hear rosemary goes great with Bruce Willis. It had better, if it knows what’s good for it.

If you were to ask me whether or not you should see Red right now I would tell you, “If you haven’t seen it already then you’re probably a communist, or you prefer movies with Bill Paxton – which is arguably worse than your red loyalist habits."

Once again I must apologise to my mother, just as she has been apologising for me for the last 25 years.

The A-Team

Posing... a threat, bitches.

This movie is like Pamela Anderson’s vagina, it’s absolutely action packed. Plus it’s got four actors in it at the same time, and you wouldn’t show it to your grandma.

That comparison worked out better than expected.

I’m not new to the ‘A-scene’ as I like to call it now. I’ve seen a few episodes in my time, and you know what? They’re good. They aren’t about to win any Tony Awards, and the plot gets a bit repetitive, but who cares. They have a formula that works; can you blame them for sticking with it? Women don’t seem to tire of my Johnson, even though I always use the same one. You see what I’m getting at here.

The casting agent for this movie was a genius. Liam Neeson is a god, as always, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson actually plays the part of B.A. Baracus pretty well, Bradley Cooper is an oiled up sex machine and Sharlto Copley (of District 9 fame) has a surprising range of accents. Oh, and Jessica Biel is in it, and if you can’t appreciate that, then you may be of homosexual orientation, you squealing nancy. 

There are a few little things that make this movie that little bit tastier, if you manage to pick up on them. For example, in one scene they are watching a movie and the original A-team music starts playing. There are also many references to the original cast (name tags on uniforms and such) as well as roles they played outside the series. Oh, and the van is there, and she is beautiful.

This movie is also a goldmine for great quotes. I won’t give away too many, but I think you need to hear these. Really, just try to visualise this exchange.

Baracus: Why we in a fallin' tank?
Murdock: Because the plane exploded!
Baracus: What, when?
 Murdock: Recently.

Yeah, it is just that good.

This is the kind of film that is just enhanced by a beer or two. In fact, I think it scales proportionately with the amount of alcohol imbibed. Ah, the great mysteries of the universe. I would be happy to put my seal of approval on The A-team. I went in wary, and came out enriched, and with a new appreciation for fine Cuban cigars and loose interpretations of military regulations. 

This film is admittedly one for the boys, but if you grew up loving the TV series then I’d say give it a go. It’s so manly that the opening credits have been reported to induce orgasms in 8 out of 10 women, and 2 out of 10 men, who then became heterosexual at the mere sight of Liam Neeson and made babies with those women for like 6 hours.

I’d very strongly recommend seeing this with a friend and a 6 pack of your favourites for maximum enjoyment. To be taken with or without food. If homoerotic behaviour persists, consult your therapist.

I give it 8.5 spontaneous boners out of 10.

The Sound Of Music

Oh my god this movie is so gay.

 Skipping: the most effective way to flee Nazis.

It's so gay that it gets invited to Elton John’s birthday parties. It’s so gay that if Clay Aiken saw this movie he would be say, “Man, this movie is really gay”. I got about 20 minutes in before I wanted to go moisturise and put on some cherry flavoured lip gloss. Seriously, this is a painful film to sit through. The Von Trapp family singers? More like the Von Crapp family singers, am I right? I’ve never seen a bunch of kids I’d like to strangle more

The Sound of Music is a movie based upon actual events (though seemingly to have taken poetic licensing to the extreme) about a former naval officer, his 7 billion kids and their mentally unstable nanny. And while this concoction would normally taste pretty good (involving World War II and Nazi Germany), it decided to be a musical – which is not unlike your daughter deciding she’s a vegan now and that meat is murder, Dad. In short, this movie is about as much fun as a bag of dicks.

What sane person would willingly sit through this film? And it’s not as if it was short. This piece of shit runs for 3 fucking hours. I could have learned Sanskrit in the time it took to watch this utter piss-storm. And what’s with all the singing? I know you’re a musical, movie, but do you really need to sing about everything? You’re about as excitable as an incredibly stupid puppy.

Oh, and I may have failed advanced physics but I’m pretty sure sunlight doesn’t come in ‘drops’, you raving cretin. Did you take science lessons from Sarah Palin?

If I have one gripe with this movie (which I don’t, it’s a lot more than one) it’s this; if the geological structures upon which you are standing begin to come alive your first reaction should not be to sing about it. I mean, if a mountain becomes suddenly animate you should probably run like a black man from a paternity test result, not write fanciful lyrics. Shit woman, a fucking hill has spontaneously come to life and for all you know is planning to eat your stupid arse and all you can think to do is gleefully prance about and inform the audience through song. No survival instincts whatsoever.

Another thing I don’t like about this movie was its ability to turn the entire Nazi movement into a punch of nancy woofters. Nazi’s don’t like to sit around and listen to songs about jam and bread and certainly not love songs. This movie seems to think SS meant Super Sassy. I know this movie was based very, very loosely around actual events, but you’d think they’d portray it more accurately. I mean, they make the Nazis out to be the bad guys.

And since when are nuns certified mechanics? I’ve never met a nun who could find the wheels on a car, let alone remove the starter solenoid from a 1939 Steyr 220 kabriolet in 4 minutes. With no tools. At night. All I can say is that if you are going to break down in Austria, break down near a convent. (This may be slightly influenced by the fact that I've never met a nun, period.)

This movie hurt my soul. After watching it all I wanted to do was read Danielle Steel and think that my clothes made me look fat. Then I had a woman’s period. The experience was... unpleasant. The only reason a man should ever watch this film is if he is going to get some serious poontang afterward, and even then it’s probably not worth it.

Avoid this movie like you’d avoid borrowing money from a Jew.

(Oh, and last I checked, organic earthen formations don't sing.)

And now, because I have an undeniable urge to; I will list my most enjoyed activities in lyrical form:

Movies with Sta-llone and milk with mint slices,
Gambling, drinking and other such vices.
Lurking on 4chan and Googling Bing,
These are a few of my favourite things.

Fuck you, movie. Fuck you. 

P.S. If I have offended any minority by leaving you out, I'm deeply sorry, and you are probably well shit anyway.

Machete

They fucked with the wrong Mexican.

Some look upon works of art for inspiration. Some gaze at the wonders man has erected throughout his time upon the earth. Some marvel at the inventions of science and medicine. Me? I just saw the true pinnacle of man’s achievement - Machete.

Anyone not familiar with Robert Rodriguez or his previous films might have no conceivable notion of what I am talking about, and I pity those people. So, for those shadowy husks of people out there, I will give you a brief explanation. In 2007, when Rodriguez was filming Planet Terror, he decided it would be fun to film a 3 minute trailer for a movie he wasn’t going to make. It was 3 minutes of pure sexplosions. And no, that isn’t a typo. This trailer ran before his segment in the double feature ‘Grindhouse’ which he did with Quentin Tarantino. Unexpectedly this trailer generated so much interest from fans around the world that it was decided that it would be turned into its own feature film. 

From the original trailer return Danny Trejo as Machete, Jeff Fahey as Booth and (unsurprisingly) Cheech Marin as Padre. New to the cast are Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan, Daryl Sabara, the (ridiculously hot) Avellan sisters, Tom Savini, some naked girl that looks like Eva Mendez, Robert De Niro, fucking Steven Seagal and our old friend ‘front-man for Tito and the Tarantulas’ Tito Larriva. So, as you can see, it’s a pretty all star cast. Well, if you don’t count Lindsay Lohan, Steven Seagal, Cheech Marin and ‘front-man for Tito and the Tarantulas’ Tito Larriva.

The story is a rather simple one, so it won’t make your thinker-box hurt when you watch it. Your eyes may burn or expel man-sauce, but that’s all explained in the warning at the beginning of the film. Basically De Niro is a racist US Senator that blames the illegal Mexican border jumpers for all of America’s problems. His assistant (Fahey) is in cahoots with a cartel drug lord (Seagal) who funds the senator’s campaign in exchange for secure borders for smuggling. In order to secure more votes for the senator, his assistant plays the sympathy card by hiring Machete (Trejo) to attempt to assassinate him. He of course double crosses Machete, shoots him and then ‘wings’ the senator and frames Machete for the whole mess. Machete doesn’t exactly take kindly to this, and proceeds to kill half of the redneck population. And at the end Danny Trejo and Steven Seagal have a sword fight. A fucking sword fight. I was like "what the fuck is going on?" and the movie is all like "Bam! unnecessary fight scene!" and I'm all "OMFG!". That's pretty much how it went.

This film has everything we have come to expect from Robert Rodriguez’s work – guns, knives, explosions, stupid amounts of violence and some of the greatest one-liners ever. In keeping with the theme for the original trailer – which was a grindhouse, 70’s B-grade movie feel – the whole movie seems kind of grainy and pale, and the green-screened scenes are painfully obvious. The whole look and feel of the film is one of shit, but it works well in its favour. 

I had a boner the whole time while watching this movie, and that’s not just because we see Eva Mendez’s look-alike’s tits, Lindsay Lohan’s tits (while she makes an amateur porn film with her mother), Michelle Rodriguez in a leather bikini and Jessica Alba’s sideboob. Mostly it was because my eyes drank in the pure, undiluted testosterone and my brain just couldn’t comprehend its power. I just sat there, drooling onto my tented jeans, unable to blink for fear of missing even 300 milliseconds it would take.

If this movie were a person it would have punched its way out of its mother and drank a 5^th of scotch for breakfast. It would smoke cigars and wear aviators and look like Mickey Rourke. It would start fights in seedy bars for no reason. It would be a badass. End of story.

You know how when you see a guy like Boy George and you think “that’s just too much”? Well, you watch this movie and you just think “this movie is too fucking much, but I want more”. It is so over the top ridiculous that it shits in a bag and punches cars. It’s like what I imagine giving meth to a monkey might be like, if you then let that monkey loose in the produce section of a grocery store.This movie has everything you could ever want; except maybe some gay stuff like love and feelings and men without moustaches. It makes do with casual sex and bullets.

Then, as if that wasn't enough for even the most lumberjack of men, we are told there will be, not one, but two sequels: Machete Kills and Machete Kills Again. This isn't some subtle feminine shit. This is balls-in-your-face hardcore. This movie doesn't fuck around at all. I really love the genuine simplicity of Machete Kills. You know exactly what you are in for from the start. Awesome.

Final verdict: If I had to describe this film in two words they would be "moustached action". This movie rocked my balls off and then told me I wasn’t man enough to handle it. It bent me over and had me, and made me whimper like a little bitch. Then it banged my mum, drank tequila from a hooker’s belly button, grew a handlebar moustache and got a job in an abattoir. Even the burliest of men will walk out of that theatre needing ladies tampons and wanting to watch 'The Notebook'.

Drop whatever it is you are doing now and go and see Machete. If you happen to be nursing a baby then take it along with you. It could probably use a good dose of balls to the eyes instead of being fussed over all day.

Looking back, that probably wasn’t the best thing to say about babies. A bit too Roman Polanski.

P.S. If you’re reading this and you’re my mum, apart from being fit to burst with pride, you may be a bit miffed at that part where I said the movie had its way with you like you were some cheap floozy. I’m sorry about that mum, but I think even movies have standards.

Waterworld

Set sail for fail!

Costner's reaction after watching this film.

1995’s Waterworld was about as financially successful as it deserved to be, which was very little. It opened in cinemas to a public not yet ready for a vision of acting gone so wrong, and a plot so poorly thought through, and a movie so full of suck. It held the distinction of being Hollywood’s most expensive film ever made at the time of its production, costing $175 million. The total gross at the Box Office, however, was a mere $88 million, giving it the dubious honour of being Hollywood’s all time Box Office Bomb.
Speaking of which, what the hell is ‘the Box Office’? Is it some sort of office where they store and sell boxes?

It was directed by Kevin Reynolds who is, sadly, most famous for making this very film. There is also no surprise that it was produced by Costner himself. This really seems the kind of film that only got off the ground as some kind of drunken bet. Like the Kevins were sitting in a bar and one Kevin said to the other, “Hey, how bad a film do you think we can make and straight facedly get away with?” And the other Kevin replied, “I’ve got just the script.” And proceeded to write that script on the torn off lid of a pizza box.

This monumental piece of syphilis was written by 2 men, Peter Rader (who has never written anything the least bit good) and – more tragically – David Twohy (who has). I mean, this guy wrote Pitch Black, The Arrival and The Fugitive. These are all good movies. So what the fuck did he do when they were writing Waterworld? Did he do a ‘Ben Affleck’ and just lay on the couch and smoke weed all day while that other stooge wrote the whole sad, pathetic thing? Probably, at least I hope so. Because if he didn’t, and actually took part in the obviously unholy act of penning this steaming bag of piss, then I have no faith left in the world of men.

The script is so badly that it breaks the 4th wall and makes the movie seem not only shit, but stupid and shit. At one point Kevin Costner says, “Nothing’s free in Waterworld.” Who talks like that? And why would it be called Waterworld and not Earth still? I don’t say “Nothing is free in Earthworld” because I would sound like a dick. And that’s exactly how you sound Kevin. Like a dick. A dick with ears and a bad haircut. Nice job there script. Haven’t you ever heard of the suspension of disbelief?

Anyway, this movie sucked so much shit through a straw that it was nominated for 4 Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Kevin Costner) and Worst Director. The final nomination resulted in a win with Dennis Hopper taking Worst Supporting Actor. He refused to accept the award.

The film opens with a shot of Kevin Costner pissing into a jar, and it might as well have stayed there for the next 136 minutes, because that’s an apt representation of the film as a whole. A jar of piss. Kevin Costner’s piss, served fresh. It really doesn’t get any better than this scene. Count this as a goddamn highlight. Next up we have bad acting, followed by piss-weak CGI that looks like it was made for YouTube, and a story so predictable you’d have thought it a bad case of déjà vu. I don’t think they needed Dennis Hopper in this one; Kevin Costner seemed to be able to sink this ship (figuratively speaking) on his own. He stars as a mutant fish-man in the future – stardate: the year 2500 – when the polar ice caps have melted flooding the entire earth in about 300 feet of water. Dirt is the most valuable thing in existence now, save for fresh water – which they annoyingly refer to as ‘hydro’ like it’s some fashionable cocktail metrosexual hipsters would drink. The whole film Costner wears ridiculously tight pants and has the worst case of ‘obvious comb-over’ ever caught on film when his hair gets wet, which in this movie is all the time.

Long story short: Dennis Hopper plays Deacon, a pirate lord who wears a fashionable eye patch while trying to find a little girl with a map on her back which leads to dry land. He leads a gang known as ‘smokers’ (because they smoke) and kills his way through any and all resistance with a lovable roguish charm. Costner plays a mermaid who sails around salvaging and selling junk to poor people and happens to help the previously mentioned little girl and her whorish foster parent escape Deacon’s smokers. He then tries to trade the little girl to a paedophile for some old paper and kills a sharkwhale with explosions. The end isn’t really important, so I’ll gloss over it and just say that is was shit. I am a poorer person for having watched this shit-tastic fuck-piss of a cock-fart. I’d rather watch the Holocaust filmed in the format of Candid Camera. If this movie were a person it would be Kevin Ferderline – both in keeping with the Kevin theme and also for generally being really shit in all measurable aspects.

Oh, and there is a cameo by Jack Black. He sits in the background of one scene throwing what appears to be trash at a wall. Well done Jack. A proud moment for you, no doubt.

The tagline for this film was “Beyond the horizon lies the secret to a new beginning” which I believe can safely and more accurately been changed to “Beyond a sea of shit lies the secret to a horrible movie”. I don’t have the words to tell you how bad this movie was. It’s not that I lack the necessary vocabulary. Perish the thought. It’s that words – in all their infinite majesty – cannot describe it to the degree I would describe as sufficient. These words, which I currently lack, have not even been thought into being yet. We, as humans, have never had the need to broach the subject of these words. Let’s just say that I would need to resurrect a dead tongue to spit them out for you to hear, and by dead tongue I mean a dead man’s tongue reanimated, not an old language.

Speaking of languages – Kevin Costner tells his bitch of a companion that he can speak “Portu-Greek”. I wouldn’t be surprised here if Kevin Costner thought that was a real language.

I would rather fuck an electrical socket than watch this movie again. I saw it when it first came out 15 years ago and it hasn’t aged well. Some movies, like Saving Private Ryan (1998), mature much like a fine wine – very well. This movie, however, has aged about as well as Keith Richard’s face.

Ok Kevin Costner, so you made a bad movie, now what? How about follow it up with one that is equally rubbish? Oh, you did? It’s called The Postman? Fantastic. I hope you die poor and in a gutter somewhere, you smug sack of shit.

I can’t believe I just sat through that. This movie was utter piss. I feel like I need a tetanus shot or something.

Double Dragon

This film needs less Scott Wolf.

This video game to movie adaptation from 1994 was born from the joining of divine inspiration and incomprehensible genius, by which I mean ‘it sucks more dick that Elton John would in George Michael’s bathroom at a New Year’s Eve party’. If I was this movie’s mum I’d be so disappointed.

Directed by an absolute imbecile named James Yukich, who has - before and since - only ever directed live concerts for TV, it was spat straight out on VHS in a time when going straight to tape was something only porno films did. So obviously this over-qualified artist was the right man for the job.

This movie sees the untalented and rather homely Scott Wolf as Billy Lee, twin brother of Jimmy Lee (played by Mark Dacascos). They are martial artists who are prophesised about in the legend of the Double Dragon.  The role of the main villain is filled by Robert Patrick. Robert, having portrayed the T-1000 only three years previous, decided to channel that menacing bad guy persona that served him so well in the past. He plays Kogo Shuka, a dickhead with a stupid name and an appearance that can only be described as Vanilla Ice with a goatee and worse dress sense. Words, no matter how mocking or scornful, cannot do justice to the ludicrousy of this dude’s looks. It’s just that bad. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

They also cast Alyssa Milano as Marian, mostly as an excuse to check out here arse for 6 weeks during filming, I’m pretty sure. They certainly didn’t hire her for her talent or personality. Then again I don’t think they hired anyone in this movie for their talent. And as if having Scott Wolf wasn’t bad enough we get a cameo by Andy Dick, the least funny man in all of television. Julia Nickson stars as the-terribly-thought-out-Asian-name Lotus Flower, who is something of a caretaker to the two boys. Julia also seems to be the only Asian in all of Hollywood able to play the female support role in a terrible martial arts B-movie. I’m almost surprised they didn’t also cast Pat Morita or Mako just to show how serious about Kung-Fu this movie is. Which is very little.

As I look this movie up on IMDB I realize that the entire cast of this movie are people you wouldn’t invite to your mum’s Sunday barbeque. One thing I find almost laughable is that this phenomenal piece of shit actually took four writers to produce. Four fucking writers. Four. That is four more that they needed. The incredible lack of skill of these 4 morons is somehow compounded until it’s so dense you’d think it belonged to Steven Seagal. Really Hollywood, you are giving the task of writing a video game adaptation to FOUR FUCKING PEOPLE? Might I remind you that the story was already written in 1987? What the hell where these four assholes doing then? That’s like giving a packet of crayons to a class full of retarded kids and expecting not to end up with some paper smeared with shit and glitter and a drawing of a dog that looks like it’s in serious need of being taken out the back and shot. It’s so bad it is beyond being funny.

If I had any part in the making of this film I would have killed myself from the dishonour long ago. At one point they actually kick an old Double Dragon arcade machine and break it, and I find that scene pretty much sums up the whole movie rather aptly. What they did here was kill fond memories and the dreams of the young.

This movie makes House Party look like Schindler’s List. They actually named the two evil Asian henchmen ‘Huey’ and ‘Lewis’. This is thankfully only taken advantage of once in the whole film when the Liquid Metal Man asks “Huey, Lewis. What’s the news?” This is just to show you the kind of dialogue we are dealing with here. There is also a femme fatale who carries around a leather whip as her weapon of choice. So can you guess what they named her? Linda Lash. Yep, you can see the thought process for that one. Pure genius.

This movie is a huge shit sandwich sprinkled with false hope and a cheap video game tie in. Besides, anyone who has ever played Double Dragon can tell you that Billy should have blonde hair and that the brothers are twins. How the fuck, then, can Billy be white and Jimmy be Asian? I swear by the end of it all I wanted to do was punch Scott Wolf right in his smug, stupid face.

The fashion of this movie will make your eyes bleed; it’s so horribly 90’s. This is amusing because the movie is set in New Angeles, 2007. This movie was set 3 years ago, and everyone looked like they just stepped out of an episode of Saved by the Bell. There is one scene near the end where the brothers actually appear in their signature outfits, except they look like gay Kung-Fu rhinestone wearing clones of Seigfreid and Roy, only gayer. The script is poorly written and the one-liners contain more cheese than your average American’s diet. It fills me with an intense feeling of disgust, mixed with just a pinch of shame, to have watched it in it's entirety. Given the choice I’d rather munch on a bowl of dicks than sit through it again.

This movie sucks so hard I’m surprised Bill Clinton didn’t hire it for secretarial work. It’s like watching your own baby slowly choke to death on the other side of an unbreakable window. Sure, there are some laughs, but mostly it’s painful to watch its pathetic struggles and you feel somehow numb and empty by the end of it.

The final verdict: this movie deserves to die from AIDS and fire.

And AIDS that are on fire, or maybe fire that has AIDS, somehow.

The Expendables

This shot says everything you need to know about this film.

I'm still having a hard time genuinely believing that this is a real movie and not just some dream from an alcohol induced coma as a result of last night. This isn't to say that I think it's ridiculous or a poor choice for any studio to produce, quite the opposite in fact. It's just not your average movie in these times where everything made is suitable for my mother. At least somebody at Millennium Films had the massive cock and balls required to give The Expendables the green light.

I spent seven days in isolation with a group of monks in Morocco in preparation for this event.
I ate nothing but live goat and drank nothing but milk - fresh and straight from the breast of a suckling nun. I slept upon a bed of rocks and wild grass in only the skin of a bear I had killed with nothing but my fists and had to climb to the top of the highest mountain to gather fresh raptor eggs for breakfast every morning. And still my body was ill prepared for this movie. In hindsight this may have been because I had gone out and got solidly liquored up the night before. Either way it was so good it nearly blew my balls off from 100 paces.

This film was a dizzying masterpiece constructed entirely out of the dreams of every young boy who grew up in the 80's and 90's. It is a montage of excellence and ass-kicking; delivered, like swift justice, by a size 12 boot to the head. The Expendables stars pretty much every action star to ever roundhouse kick an ethnic villain in the head while in some shithole banana republic. Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren - the list goes on, and on. And so will I. Action film wash-up Mickey Rourke, pro wrestler-turned-bad actor Steve Austin, that angry guy from the Old Spice commercials Terry Crews and the next President of the United States Arnold Scharzan...Shwartzs... Arnold Swayze... The Terminator. It's got the Terminator in it. And they are all in a motorcycle gang together. Truly the manliest of men.

The movie is a revisit to our childhood days of wonderment at Stallone's ability to kill every Russian within a 3 mile radius, or Dolph Lundgren's tendency to turn into a bad guy, or even Terry Crews' power to block odours for 16 hours with nothing but biceps and a dangerously short towel. It's a timeless classic, a throwback to the good old days of shitty pyrotechnics and a lot of bad guys jumping in the wrong direction to the explosions. That's not to say that it is without special effects, it's not. But it uses them moderately and wisely, for instance to blow a guy in half with a shotgun, or detach a guy's hand and head with a knife. Only the important stuff.

The opening credits reveal the true genius behind this epic tale of machismo. Written by Sylvester Stallone. Directed by Sylvester Stallone. Casting by Sylvester Stallone. Starring Sylvester Stallone. Frankly I'm surprised he didn't just call the film "Sylvester Stallone as Sylvester Stallone in - Sylvester Stallone: The Movie (This film is my apology for making 'Stop or my Mum will shoot').

Speaking of the casting, as I have about two paragraphs ago, it is awesome. You cannot get a better cast for an action movie than every actor who has ever been in one. Throw in a Chuck Norris and a Van Damme and you just might end the world as we know it. From what I've read Stallone actually asked Jean-Claude to be in the movie, but the muscles from Brussels wouldn't, stating the script wasn't 'socially conscious' and instead gave Stallone a more PC friendly rewrite, which Stallone merely mocked, and then set alight and used it to then set fire to a $10,000 note, which he then in-turn used to light a cigar. It may not be a terribly efficient method of lighting a smoke, but he swears by it, so who am I to argue. I prefer to strike a match across an adversaries face, or tread on the neck of a kneeling orphan and strike it upon my boot heel.

I seriously doubt that any movie could come along and dethrone this affront to decency from the stone dais it stole off Thor. There is something beyond our world and our dimension at work here, forces we do not yet understand and shouldn't be toying with. This is holy ground in digital print, a beacon for retired action stars and B movie wash ups everywhere. There is hope yet for a comeback.
Stallone is awesome, and still looking good for 63, and it was something special indeed to see Stallone and Lundgren back together in the one movie, a spectacle that hasn't been seen since 1985's Rocky IV. Who in the cinema wasn't secretly hoping they'd fist fight?

If I had to sum this movie up in one sentence, it would be "Necessarily unnecessary, and utterly justified in its flagrant fan-service". Because it was. It didn't have too little or too many explosions. It had just the right amount to keep your balls tingling, yet left your eyes wanting only more. "More!" they screamed, and it was so delivered. And Man saw it, and he saw that it was good. There was a good pace to the action that kept you engaged in the slight story that passed for a plot in my mind. Honestly, it could have been these guys in a bar talking about the movie they were in for 90 minutes and I still would have payed to see it. There was no foreseeable way that this could go badly. It isn't mathematically possible.

There is a theorem that a movie's greatness is equally proportional to the masculinity of its hero divided by the dickholery of its villain multiplied by the hotness of the damsel in distress, with additional points given for unexplainable tit shots.

I'm not going to waste your time here attempting to explain the plot, because you're going to see it anyway, and if you aren't then I hope you have a good time at your hairdressing salon getting a perm, you glittery queen. Real men watch movies to see people get punched and shot, and sometimes - during a lull in the fighting - a story-arc will break out.

And Steve Austin? Steve Austin can't act. All he does is look ugly and grunt a lot. Why does this guy keep turning up in action movies? Hasn't the casting agent seen any of his films? There are livelier rugs out there.

Anyway, basically what I am trying to say is go and see this. If you are in the middle of your mother's funeral then too bad, it's not like she's going anywhere anyway. Go and see it now. Leave your kids at your parent's place or the nearest paedophile's house and go.

This movie made my life better. Alcohol tastes sweeter upon my lips, women appear generally more attractive and I now hunger exclusively for the meat of infant animals. As IGN said, "If testosterone could mate with an explosion, this movie would be its offspring." And that is as true today as it was when it was written, which was yesterday.

Crime Spree

Zero, Bum-nose and Charlés Bronson looking cool.

2003 called, they want their relatively unknown movie back. Which is sad, in a way, because Crime Spree is actually a pretty good film.

Crime Spree, or Le Film de Merde as it is known in it's native French, was written and directed by Brad Mirman, who was previously known for writing and/or directing such masterful additions to film history as Gideon, Knight Moves, The Piano Player, Absolon and the famously shit-tacular Highlander 3: The Final Dimension. I’m going to let that sink in for a minute. Highlander 3.

How does a man with such a terrible fucking resume still get to make movies? You wouldn’t give a homeless man a credit card. No, because he made some pretty shit choices. Would you give Michael J. Fox a license to perform delicate brain surgery? God no. So why, after fucking Highlander 3, did anyone agree to give this arse-hat money to make a goddamn movie? Not even fucking Zues himself could answer that. But do you know what? I’m glad they did. Because – apart from the obvious fact that this guy kept Christopher Lambert employed throughout the 90’s – he went on to write and direct this movie.

Crime Spree is in many ways comparable to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. I say comparable here, although I really mean ‘blatantly ripped off entire segments from’. The whole first scene could be mistaken for that particular scene in Lock, Stock (which came out 5 years before Crime Spree) where those two bumbling idiots try to steal the something from the mansion and the old man with a double barrel shotgun who is trying to fend them off not just for the two morons in a mansion trying to steal something, but also because of the old man who tries to fend them off with a double barrel shotgun.

Are you picking up what I’m putting down here, folks?

Other than that it shares a few other similarities to Guy Ritchie films, not so obviously, in the style, pace and multiple converging storylines which I feel only enhance any movie – Ritchie or not. Now, I don’t think I’m just making random connections here because, eerily, when I looked this movie up on IMDB all four NewsDesk articles were about Jason Statham. Coincidence?

I should probably talk about the movie at some point. The story revolves around 6 French criminals who are sent to Chicago by their boss to steal a precious jewelled necklace for him. Leading them is Daniel (Gerard Depardieu), with Marcel – a man that looks more like a French Charles Bronson than Charles Bronson would in France – as the muscle and the Algerian pretty boy Sami as the man who knows the layout of the area. With them are Zero – the man who only refers to himself in the third person – as the shooter, Raymond – the sensitive 40 year old who lives with him mother – as the driver and finally Julien – The idiot sidekick – as the idiot sidekick.

On an unrelated note Julien looks so much like Hugh Laurie that for half the movie I thought I was watching House being a badass, although the speaking French thing was, in retrospect, an early warning sign.

The job doesn’t exactly go to plan as they find themselves tying up and robbing the underboss of the Chicago mafia – Frankie Zammeti (played by Harvey Keitel). Unfortunately for them Zammeti’s house is under surveillance from the FBI and a particularly corrupt Agent Pogue (Shawn Lawrence). All the while the car they stole for a getaway vehicle belongs to the leader of the local Hispanic gang.

Now they have the FBI, the Chicago mafia, the Hispanic gangs and a corrupt FBI agent after them. I believe the technical term for that is ‘fucked’.

The ending isn’t exactly one of those surprising mind-fucks, but by the same token it isn’t very obvious, and I think it works very well in this case. You grow genuine feelings for these half-wit criminals, thrown into a situation as scapegoats for greedy and corrupt assholes.

And that poor deaf guy.

The casting is fabulous, so fabulous you’ll have to pretend in saying ‘fabulous’ with my wrist limp and my leather pants tight. Gerard Depardieu is both funny and well suited as Daniel, and plays his dramatic scenes quite well. Zero, also played by a man with only one name – Renaud, is great, just great. He is so self assured and cool, it kind of makes me want to be French. And may God strike me down if I ever say that again. Hell, even Abe Vigoda makes an appearance. And if you don’t know who Abe Vigoda is may the lord have mercy upon your soul because I will come down on you like the fist of a righteous god.
Fucking Abe Vigoda. He'll make an appearance in anything these days, ever since the decline of 'goodfella' mafioso movies.

The movie also plays on the culture shock of these frog eaters coming to America for the first time. There is a funny scene where they are in some shithole diner ordering lunch and one of them asks to ‘see the wine list’. It’s that kind of clever humour that is halfway between jutting brow stupid comedy and brilliantly satirical and mocking wit, which is a hard line to walk.

Gerard Depardieu’s nose looks like a bum though, and that can get pretty distracting at times. And, while this paragraph does seem broken and out of place, I didn’t really have anywhere else to put it.

If you are looking to waste a couple of hours with a good show and a few laughs, then I would strongly recommend watching Crime Spree. Plus you will be helping Brad Mirman keep such great actors as Christian Slater, Christopher Lambert and Harvey Keitel in work. And I think we all know that that is a fucking essential.

After watching this movie I developed an affinity for fine wines, cheeky reds in particular.

And remember: Guns don’t kill people, Mario Van Peebles.

Avatar

I'm blue da ba dee da ba die...

I really don’t want to review this movie. It's not that it's bad in anyway, but no matter what approach I take here, no one is going to be happy. But at this stage I really don’t care. I just sat through like 3 hours of movie.

James Cameron’s Avatar was about as expensive to make as a movie gets, somewhere in the vicinity of $300 million, and it’s not hard to see that most of that has gone into digital effects and some sweaty virgin with a distinct feline fetish and a MacBook Pro in a dank basement somewhere. Robert Rodriguez could have done this movie for $8.65 in change and a tin of blue paint. Lucky for Cameron this, along with that snore-fest ‘Titanic’, became the two highest grossing films of all time. That’s a lot of faith we have in someone who dresses like Steve Jobs.

Avatar went on to win a total of 31 awards, including 3 Oscars, and roughly 5000gb of internet praise and e-jizz, and it’s difficult to see why. It wasn’t a bad film, at least not by most standards, but it’s a far cry from wowing me in any sense. Certainly not as good as idiots are raving it to be. Yes, cinematically it was nothing less than a work of art, but this movie was about as original a concept as sex in the missionary position. Don’t get me wrong here; it’s certainly not a bad movie. It’s just not especially good. There is nothing that sets this movie apart other than the fact that it is about 90% computer generated, which places it somewhere next to The Lawnmower Man. You could play a game where you take a shot every time you see real footage in this film and stay dead sober. It relies far too heavily on this CG world to fill in the gaps for bad screen writing and terrible acting. Fuck, will people stop hiring Sam Worthington. He cannot do an American accent to save his fucking career.

The plot to this movie is anything short of original. He could have called it “James Cameron’s FernGully” and been just as accurate. It is set on the moon-planet of Pandora – a word which is about as heavily used as any word that begins with ‘Re’ these days – which is home to the Na’vi, who look as if someone bread Smurfet with Azrael and fed the spawn copious amounts of steroids. The Na’vi (hey, listen!) are massive hippies, believing their deity Eywa to be within every living thing in the universe - a bit presumptuous, but whatever. The premise for human habitation of this world is that scarce, and very valuable, mineral called ‘unobtainium’. Yes, that’s right. Unobtainium. Like they sat in the office asking, “What can we call this mineral that humans travelled a billion light years to harvest. Surely it must be unobtainable elsewhere otherwise... hey, that’s it!” So basically we decide to take their land because we want its natural resources. This is a recurring theme in human society, it seems. At least offer them guns in exchange for corn first. This movie is a racist. Really, you could have painted the Na’vi red and it would have been the American frontier all over again.

(Queue Iron Maiden's 'Run To The Hills')

The massive conglomerate (and it is always a greedy conglomerate) RDA corporation is mining the planet so that its shareholders might actually turn a profit. How dare they, the bastards. Leading this company is Giovanni Ribisi, who plays Administrator Parker Selfridge. Parker hires a private military force, called Sec-Ops (because Spec-Ops was taken, presumably) to protect his workers and his profits and to kill any blue people that stand in the way of a quick buck. Sam Worthington plays Jake Scully, a cripple who takes control of an Avatar - a laboratory grown Na’vi body - and uses it to be about a big a dickhead as is humanly possible in a non-human body. Long story short he falls in love with a Na’vi named Neytiri and decides he’d rather live as one of them than a human. This doesn’t sit well with Neytiri’s probably suitor, Tsu’tey, who looks like the Na’vi Mr. T, and he decides to push Jake’s initiation ceremony. But this only speeds up Jake’s acceptance into the clan, where he proceeds to bed Neytiri in what would be a furry’s wet dream. This doesn’t sit well with the military types, who decide they’ve been patient enough with the Na’vi and decide to blow up Pocahontas’ village. This evolves into an all out war for the planet and it’s very special Tree of Souls.

Pandora itself is a giant rave party. Everything that grows here is either an orgy of fluorescence or has six legs. Even the Na’vi have glowing dots over their face and body.

There are too many stereotypes to name in this film. There is the smarmy junior administration to a multi-million dollar business. There’s the evil grizzled military commander who hates nature and loves war, played by Stephen Lang who seems to always play this part. We also have the native beauty who wins the heart of the hero. Joel Moore, playing Joel Moore, is the pathetic yet lovable sidekick. Michelle Rodriguez plays the tough Hispanic chick, always a winner. There’s the strong female role played by Sigourney Weaver (surprise, surprise. James Cameron hires Sigourney Weaver... again). I could go on. And I will. The Indian scientist, the jealous native suitor, the wise oracle, the clan leader who is also the father of the Beauty, the macho military grunts. It’s all very cliché and uninspired.

This movie goes for 165 minutes. That’s 2 hours and 45 minutes. And not a single original thought occurs that whole time. I half expected to see Tim Curry come in as a villain at some point and sing about ‘toxic love’. This is another spiel in film form about how greedy humans are destroying worlds for their own gain, whether that world is their own or someone else’s. Blah blah blah. We’ve heard all this before.

Overall this was a watchable film. Nothing comes as a surprise, as the plot is predictable from about 0.4 seconds in, but it’s very well executed and just incredibly well done. The environment is beautiful and the wildlife is amazingly thought up and thought through. Things look and move as they should. There was obviously a lot of research that went in to making the world look as alive as possible, and it shows. It does however lose points for constantly hinting at blue tit while never actually showing blue tit. Fucking cocktease.

James Cameron is a brilliant man, and as creative as they come. He wrote and directed one of my favourite film franchises of all time – the Terminator series, by which I mean Terminator and Terminator 2 ONLY. He also wrote and directed Aliens, another incredible film. He seems to have been on the forefront of pushing film technology to its limits. Like George Lucas did with Star Wars and ILM, Cameron has redefined how things can, and probably - in future - will be, done. Terminator 2 will very shortly be celebrating its 20th birthday and it still looks amazing, even by today’s standards. I’ve seen far worse made far more recently. Though he does have a habit of using the same actors over and over again, much like Tim Burton overuses Johnny Depp. Pvt. Vasquez is John Connor’s adoptive mother. Bishop is Det. Hal Vukovich. Cpl. Dwayne Hicks is Kyle Reese. You get the gist of it.

If I had to describe this movie in one sentence, it would be this: FernGully meets Dances with Wolves. But since that isn’t very good (while being pretty accurate) I’ll steal Dave Price’s masterfully constructed thoughts:
“Riveting Rousseauian war-porn, set in a gorgeous hi-def Azerothian CGI landscape, ironically itself a gem of the technological civilization it decries.”

I’m worried now that I have a sexual appetite for 12 foot tall, blue cat-women.

Hannah Montana: The Movie

Clearly two completely different people.

I can’t begin to describe how much I didn’t want to watch this movie. Let’s just say it was a lot, somewhere between incalculable and infinity. But, I’m a man of my word, occasionally, so I sucked it up and sat through it. My life is forever changed.

Our movie opens with Billy Ray Cyrus shaking his head and a look of stern disappointment on his face, and that really sets the tone for the rest of the film. We are then privy to watching Miley Cyrus commit several felonies, including – but not limited to – Grand Theft Golf cart, and proceed to be a snobby bitch for the next twenty minutes.

Seriously Billy Ray, ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ I could forgive, but having Miley Cyrus and NOT aborting when you had the chance is something else entirely. It’s bad enough you haven’t worked since 1992, you’re now cashing in on your daughters fame by starring in her movies and TV series cleverly disguised as “Bobby Ray”. Genius, no one will ever see through that guise. Dickhead.

The plot (or rather what we will jokingly refer to as ‘the plot’) is that Miley has to go to Tennessee for her grandmother’s birthday. Miley, of course, doesn’t want to go to some bum-hick shithole town in the middle of Jesus country to visit her family. She is fooled into going by her achy breaky father and does nothing but piss on about it for a good hour. She refuses to succumb to her hill billy roots and so we are bombarded with country music and hick talk for an unimaginably long time. She makes fun of these small town folk, and they are folk, and southerners in general, and as we all know you shouldn’t pick on retards. This is where we get such classic lines as “don’t squish the squashes”. How do they do it?
After a good talking to from her grandmother Miley starts to realise she was being a stuck up cunt and starts to appreciate her more yokel side. Gingham. Lots of gingham. No one can make this stuff look good. This is where we are subjected to a ‘becoming a hillbilly’ montage. Great.

At some point I reached the halfway mark and needed to take a break. It is at this juncture I realised that if I could somehow blind myself I would be excused from watching anymore. I would rather have my eyes fucked out, with dicks, than be subjected to any more country flair.

There are no surprises in this movie. If you don’t see a plot point developing from 15 minutes ago then I have some bad news for you. You’re either 6 years old or fully fucking retarded. Dribble-on-yourself-in-public retarded. There is naturally a love interest that appears to show no interest, the best friend who knows Miley’s secret and the equal opportunity black mayor. Yes, they claim that the mayor of Crowley Corners, Tennessee is a black man. Dream on Martin Luther, last time I checked this was still the south.

Don’t you just know it, Crowley Corners needs to raise money to save their meadows from corporate America but don’t have any way of raising it in time. Bam! Hannah Montana fundraiser concert. Like I said, the ‘plot’ in this movie was originally written by a kid who still uses safety scissors. Anyway, the dinner with the mayor, which Hannah must attend, just happens to fall on the same night as her dinner with her new crush, and she also must be there. Be in two places at once? As two different people? Without anyone finding out? Asking a fourth question in a row? That sounds like something only Miley Cyrus can do. Like you didn’t see this coming. Then, lo and behold, everything goes wrong and her prospective cunt-stuffer finds out that she’s really Hannah Montana and that he has been duped. Gadzooks!

Of course, they all make it to the concert and Miley admits that she is actually Hannah Montana and then breaks into a completely unrehearsed song and dance number. For a song she had only recently made up. That the band just happens to know. And the back-up dancers just happen to know all the moves to as if it had been previously choreographed, perfectly. The movie ends with everyone in the whole town agreeing to keep her secret identity safe and they continue to sing until the town makes enough money to keep the meadows. Even though the townsfolk are the only ones at the concert. So it would seem they actually did have the money all along. Jerks.

When the world ends there will be only a room. A white room void of everything save an unidentifiable light source. No windows, no chairs and no time. In this room will be the most terrible people in all human history. Gavrilo Princip, Walt Disney, Judas, and the man who decided to make this shit into a movie. There will be no end and no beginning to their punishment.

In the time it took to get through this movie, which looking back seems a lifetime, I took 5 pages of notes. Looking at them now I can see that very little of them is useful material and that the vast majority appears to be gibberish, insane scratches in dead languages not spoken by a human tongue since the time of Christ, written in blood. Blood that we have yet to identify. Some pages are filled with poorly drawn doodles. Some with snippets of clearly formed thought, “Oh God, Billy Ray is singing.” Others yet with just once sentence, repeated again and again until the writing becomes illegible. “Please fuck each other”

This movie is chock full of slap-stick comedy, the lowest known form. The jokes are bad, unintentionally so, and the dialogue is childish and poorly written. And why can no one tell that Hannah Montana looks exactly like Miley Cyrus would with a blonde wig on. Everyone in the whole world is nose-pickingly dumb. Like you’d expect from a shamelessly self plugging movie, the ENTIRE FUCKING SOUNDTRACK is Miley Cyrus. It’s like a constant reminded that you are fucked for the next hour and forty two minutes.

I am certain that this movie was recently discovered after a scholar, working on historical texts, uncovered a previously unknown and thought to be rumoured final page of Dante’s Divine Comedy, the tenth level of Hell. It is an empty cinema, with no popcorn and a broken slushy machine, and the only thing showing is Hannah Montana, over and over again. In High Definition.

“We left him there, and more of him I tell not;
But on mine ears there smote a lamentation,
Whence forward I intent unbar mine eyes.”

Hell Ride

Anyone got some chapstick?

I honestly believe that this movie is responsible for the deaths of two of Hollywood’s most terrible actors. Yes, I know Dennis Hopper died from cancer of the dick, and that David Carradine hung himself in fishnets for kicks in a Thai hotel, but really, it was because they were in this movie. Hopper probably ate plutonium and fucked a nuclear reactor for a month after seeing this movie at its premier, and we all know that Carradine was actually just trying to kill himself and was so embarrassed about starring in ‘Hell Ride’ that he masked his suicide as accidental suffocation “as a result of autoerotic asphyxiation”.

OK, that might be a bit harsh and ruthless, but really, this movie eats crayons and drools on itself. If it were a person it would eat dirt and boogers, and have knitted mittens pinned to it's jacket in Winter. The funny thing is it’s not actually all that bad a movie, from a narrative stand point. It’s just pulled off so poorly. It’s as if someone gave a Mexican a video camera and 700,000 pesos (about US$6.50) and asked him to recreate the history of his country, only with bikers and Americans instead of donkeys and illegal Americans. The acting is just so shitty. I can’t really stress that enough. It’s fucking terrible. Like they picked their cast from a special school for extra special people with poor acting abilities.

Larry Bishop (who actually wrote and directed this massive turd-stain) stars as Pistolero, el president of the Victors biker gang. He talks like he has a terrible head cold while trying to talk about three billion octaves lower than normal. It sounds like Martin Short trying to impersonate Vin Diesel. Anyway, his gang is in a bit of a kerfuffle with another bikey gang called the Six Six Sixers, which sounds about as dangerous as an eight year old girl on a tricycle. They are led by, and I’m not making this up, Vinnie Jones – who pulls off THE SINGLE WORST AMERICAN ACCENT EVER. Worse, it’s a southern accent. Seriously, I can’t watch the scenes with ‘Billy Wings’ in them because it sounds as if they found a deaf Pakistani man who didn’t know any English and asked him to read from the script. My ears bleed just thinking about this. If you thought that Serbia’s ethnic cleansing of Kosovo was an atrocity against man, then you’ve never heard Vinnie Jones try (and I stress try) to pull of being an American. In all honesty, give me Kosovo any day. The Albanians are just lucky this movie hadn’t been made yet.

As I mentioned earlier this sloppy grogan of a film also stars the late and not that great Dennis Hopper as ‘Eddie Zero’, the man with a stupid name and a more stupid jacket. He is a former Victor and old enemy of the corpse formerly known as David Carradine, who plays some badass called ‘The Deuce’, even though he is clearly only one person. Another superstar in this almost blindingly star filled epic is Michael Madsen, who only seems to get work if there is ‘A Band Apart’ film being made. Michael Madsen is shit, and got lucky once in Reservoir Dogs as the lovingly insane Mr. White. In this film he plays ‘The Gent’, a handsome vagabond biker with a love of loose women and of shooting people. And of talking like Michael Madsen. Fuck, who keeps hiring this guy. Michael Madsen is the kind of actor that could have made it big in the 90’s, but didn’t, and we can see why.

The story revolves around a dead native American girl named Chipolata or Jeep Grand Wrangler or - wait... it’s Cherokee – who is killed in 1976 and had a kid or a ‘food stamp maker’ and, well, it gets kind of muddy at this point. But that’s sort of necessary because the story isn’t overly complex. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good, and would have made a fantastic movie if it had been done well. But it wasn’t, so it isn’t.

My manliest man-crush – Tarantino – actually produced this film as, what I can only assume was, a favour owed. There wasn’t enough rape and/or head explosions to really give it that Quentin taste, but it certainly reflects a mix of Kill Bill, From Dusk Till Dawn and Desperado.

Alright, I admit that I may have been unnecessarily harsh on this movie, but it’s just that I see a lot of good and potential overshadowed by a cast of Hollywood’s C grade actors. Really, Vinnie Jones, in the unlikely event that you are reading this I would strongly recommend going to your kitchen, locate the cupboard under the sink, find a bottle with a warning label on it and drink that fucking thing. You disgust me. If you aren’t doing Guy Ritchie films I don’t want to see your Frankenstein-like arse anywhere near my TV. You were my main gripe with this film. Your acting was crap, your accent worse, and everything you did was way over the top. Go back to licking dead cunt, you tinsel faggot.

Dennis Hopper wasn’t actually that bad. Much like in True Romance his character – who gives the best speech about Sicily – Eddie Zero is annoying but likeable. David Carradine does pretty much what he does in Kill Bill, play the cool bad guy in a Texan suit. Both good portrayals on their part, but the characters aren’t going to win awards for originality. I’m sure they just ask Carradine to play himself – a cool bad guy who dies. Maybe it’s from getting shot by Uma Thurman, or maybe it’s dangling from a rope in a hotel wardrobe. In ladies underwear. With an erection. In the world.

Sorry, I was channelling Jeremy Clarkson there. It happens from time to time.

Rounding up, this is a movie you’ll only ever want to watch once. If you can get through once, that is. It’s got action, comedy, manly grit, bikes, tits, guns and David Carradine. Everything you want in a movie. If it had cars it would be Deathrace 2000 all over again. But it’s not.

But it is similarly equal parts awesome and terrible. I’d recommend buying this movie if you see it for under $8 in a discount bin at Go-Lo.

Or steal it. Whichever floats your boat.

The Lost Boys

Hot Corey on Corey action. Radical!

Finally. A movie that is as good now as it was back in late eighties, which is not very.

Here is a prime example, caught on film for all time, of why the 80’s kicked so much arse. I mean, just look at this thing. It’s packed full with rockin’ tunes, radical haircuts and Hawaiian shirts. Gnarly.

In all seriousness though, this is – historically – a very important film. 1987’s The Lost Boys was the first pairing of Corey Feldman and Corey Haim. This dynamic duo, ironically known as ‘the two Coreys’ went on to star in such classics as ‘Dream a Little Dream’, ‘License to Drive’ and the self titled erotic thriller ‘Blown Away’, (not to be confused with the good movie of the same name) three films I know are in your DVD collection. The two Coreys went on to star in something like twelve movies together. Twelve, yes 12, as in ‘more than eleven’. Credit where credit’s due, the scriptwriters managed to fit not one, but two Coreys into TWELVE FUCKING MOVIES. That’s like trying to fit John Goodman into spandex, or Steven Seagal into a movie with a story arc.

I should probably start talking about the movie soon, but really, if you haven’t seen The Lost Boys by now, then you have no concept of culture or the arts and deserve to wait until I have finished my spiel on the two Coreys. Which I have.

The Lost Boys was a milestone in the careers of not only the two Coreys, but also Kiefer Sutherland - who also starred alongside Feldman in Stand By Me the year before. As I sit here writing this, I am holding the DVD in my hand, and you know what? It smells like the future. It smells pristine and almost other-worldly, and in it's reverse side, it's shiny fractal anomaly of an underside, I saw the face of God; my own reflection.

Ok, the movie.

The story revolves around a young boy, Sam Emerson (Haim), who’s family moves to Santa Carla, California from some dirt shithole in Arizona for some undisclosed reason. I think it’s something to do with his mum and dad getting divorced, but it’s hardly essential to the plot. They could have said that a horde of Eric Stoltzes had terrorised Arizona and it wouldn’t have mattered, at least not unless you are Eric Stoltz. Sam decides to hit the town with his older brother (Jason Patric – known only for his roles in Sleepers as a rape victim and Speed 2: Cruise Control as, well, you know what? It doesn’t matter). He finds his way into a comic book store where he meets the brothers Frog (Feldman and some Mexican) who tell him of the plague of vampires that have been harassing the town. It is never explained how these two are experts on vampires and vampirism, only that they read a lot of comics on the subject (which seems to be reasonable enough grounds for the scriptwriter for two kids to have some pretty serious knowledge on the occult and a will to use it). Michael, the older brother, decides to try his luck with some gypsy slut and is unwillingly admitted into the secret vampire clubhouse where the vampire’s gang leader, David (Sutherland), gets them all Chinese take away.

My god, the nerve of those vampires.

Michael slowly turns over the course of the film, much to the dismay of Sam, who has been brainwashed by the Frog brothers’ vampire hating cult into hating vampires (and vampire cults). This whole time their mum has been trying to get some dick off a guy who owns the local video store, Max. While Michael is off floating and eating Chinese food with his vampire buddies, Sam is becoming more and more suspicious of Max, who he thinks is the head vampire. His mum asks Max over for dinner so Sam and the Frog boys decide to help by putting a whole garlic bulb into the parmesan cheese and mirrors all around the house. This plan doesn’t succeed as it turns out Max likes garlic and has a reflection. At this point in the plot, Michael begins to fly a lot and the vampires eat a group of ‘surf nazis’. Star, the gypsy slut, tells Michael that she, too, is a vampire and that David wanted Michael to be her first kill. This makes him very cross and he decides to help his brother and the Frogs by leading them to the vampires’ super secret base. They go to the ruins of an old hotel and find the vampires... hanging from the roof. Yes, they actually did this. Anyway, here they manage to kill a vampire named Marko (who is actually Alex Winter of Bill and Ted fame. Man, this movie has everyone in it). Marko’s girlish cries awaken the other vampires (who look like rejects from an Adam and the Ants audition) and the group barely escapes.

That night the vampires attack Sam and Michael at their house, but unbeknownst to them, the boys, and the Frogs, are ready for them. They set about killing vampires with an unhealthy efficiency that would make polish labour workers look slack. Stakes, holy water bubble baths and even a mounted bucks head are all used as arsenal in this epic battle of good against evil. David and Michael cross swords and it turns out Michael’s is bigger. David is killed, but none of the vampires transform back to normal people, as the expected. This is a problem, because their mum is about to get home and they now have a house filled with the newly dead. Luckily for them though, their mum arrives home with Max, who is actually the head vampire, and who was trying to shag their mum to convert her to a vampire too so that she could be a mother to his ‘lost boys’.
Oh shit, did you see what they did there? Smooth.

At this point Sam’s hill billy grandpa crashes his jeep through the living room wall, causing a fence post to impale Max in the heart. Max dies, the vampires are transformed back into regular people and grandpa casually gets a beer from the fridge, proclaiming, “One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach...all the damn vampires". The movie ends on a high note, with a bit of a chuckle at grandpa’s massive understatement of the situation and life goes on better than before... Except now they have a house filled with freshly dead PEOPLE, not vamps. How the fuck do they intend to explain a half dozen mutilated bodies to the police? Talk about a plot hole.

This movie is a mix of shit and win, as hard as that is to imagine. It’s cheesy and tragically 80’s, but is one of those movies that has become something else. It is fondly remembered by entire generations of people, who then remember it un-fondly when they watch it again. It is definitely something you have to see before you die. The soundtrack is bodacious and the fashion is hilarious.

Thankfully we are now graced with not one, but two sequels. And do you know what? Corey fucking Feldman is back in both of them. Who cares if he hasn’t worked since 1992, the guy is fucking a playboy model on a regular basis. He is my idol. Cool Corey. They also managed to sign on Angus Sutherland for the first sequel. Yes, Angus, the younger half-brother of big shot Kiefer. Holy shit, how do they sleep at night? And who the fuck is Angus Sutherland? His only claim to fame was being a hot cum load from his infinitely more famous father Donald (who funnily enough also played a vampire in the made for TV Rob Lowe epic – Salem’s Lot)

Kiefer will always be my Sutherland.

From Dusk Till Dawn

Danny Trejo angry! Danny Trejo smash!

I’ve rambled on in the past about my obsession with Quentin Tarantino. I use the term ‘obsession’ here to describe my fantasies where we skip, hand in hand, through a golden field of knee-high wheat, the sun setting at our backs and the wind blowing through out hair. “Oh Quentin”, I would whisper as he gently massaged my shoulders. I’d wrap my arms about his waist and hold on tightly as we rode a white stallion along a sun-kissed beach. The smell of the salt water invigorating us as he lays me down onto the sand and kisses me deepl...

I think you’re getting the gist here.

1996’s From Dusk Till Dawn has it all, hot cars, hotter women, plenty of tit and, the current flavour of the month with thirteen year old girls (it’s not me, unfortunately), vampires! These vampires, however, are real fucking vampires. They don’t sparkle, they don’t ponce around with were-poofs and they don’t fuck animals (unless you count Kristen Stewart). No. These vampires will ruin your shit at the drop of a sombrero, because these vampires – like 40% of the United States’ work force – are Mexican.

George Clooney stars as Seth Gecko, a recently escaped criminal and full time bad-ass who, along with his sex-offending brother Richard Gecko (Tarantino), must make it across the border into Mexico to meet with their contact and establish a new life south of the border. In their way is the US border patrol and a shit storm of Texas Rangers, Walker not included. Seth ‘acquires’ the help of Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel), an ex-minister who hates God and now travels across the country in a motor-home with his Chinese son and sweet little daughter (Juliette Lewis).
Jacob gets them all across the border into Taco land where they are to meet their contact in a trucker bar called the ‘Titty Twister’. They sit down for a few drinks to pass the time while waiting for Carlos and watch the gorgeous Salma Hayek do a very erotic dance when shit suddenly goes all kinds of bad. All Hell breaks loose, literally, and our rag-tag band of unlikely heroes must survive until dawn.

Directed by Robert Rodriguez, best known for his desperado trilogy and the unfortunate Spy Kids series, this movie has his usual Tarantino appearance, granted a much bigger appearance than usual. In Planet Terror he was a rapist, in Desperado he was a drug cartel’s errand boy and in this film he is, as previously stated, one hell of a sex offender. Also, as always with Rodriguez’s films, you can expect to see Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin – apparently Mexico’s chief export – who plays at least 3 different roles. Are these two guys the only male actors in all of Me-hee-co? Or did all the other actors already jump the border?
Also appearing from other Rodriguez movies are special-effects legend Tom Savini as ‘Sex Machine: the man with a crotch gun’, the ‘destined to always play a Texas Ranger’ Michael Parks as a Texas Ranger and, finally, ‘front-man for Tito and the Tarantulas’ Tito Larriva as Tito Larriva, front-man for Tito and the Tarantulas. Surprisingly we also see John Hawkes, that Jew from Deadwood. But that’s another story.

Ok, so I’ve covered the premise here, but what about the cast? Well, the cast is fantastic. Harvey Keitel is like a fucking god, so cool and collected. The man just drips with grizzled bitterness and a distinct lack of being an emotion-showing pussy. George Clooney is a rebel, the kind that sets women’s loins afire with sweet passion. He plays the part of this hard-arse crim with a solid set of principles that he doesn’t break for anyone, and he pulls it off very well. Quentin Tarantino’s character scares the shit out of me. He’s sick in the head and with annoying little brother syndrome and he is a source of many a chuckle of the ‘humor negro’ variety. Also, how fucking weird is that guy’s head? It’s like a weather balloon ran into the back of his head when he was a kid and just decided to stay there. I mean, shit, his forehead looks like it could fit a second pair of eyes with room to spare. Christ man, wear a hat at the very least. That shit is distracting.

The props department came up with a fantastic array of vampire fighting weapons and tools for this film. We see a holy water super soaker, holy water condom water bombs, a pump action crossbow and, my personal favourite, a jackhammer-based auto staker. You’ll have to see this baby in action to truly appreciate its vampire killing capabilities. Also, as previously mentioned, you will see a crotch gun. This consists of a black leather cod piece which hides single barrel, twin cylinder revolver style set up where the two cylinders sit just below, and to either side, of the six inch barrel. Why would anyone wear this? Who designed it? These are all valid questions to which I have only one answer. Tom Savini.

To sum things up neatly, this is a fantastic movie which I strongly feel belongs in the cult section of any video store. It has everything you could want all wrapped up in one tasty package. And while it’s kind of horror, it’s kind of comedy and it’s certainly kind of action, I can’t just stick one label on it and be satisfied. It’s all of them and so much more. It’s a film made for fun by people who enjoy what they do. It’s made for them as much as it’s made for the fans. It’s a little nod of a tribute to the B grade horror movies of the 80’s and 90’s. It is almost worth watching entirely just to for the line "What's in Mexico?" "Mexicans." and to hear George Clooney refer to himself and Quentin as "a couple of real mean motor scooters". Fuck, did he just say that shit? What a bad dude he is. I loved this cult classic, but then I love George A. Romero films too.

If you asked me of my personal opinion about this film, and let’s face it – you are – I would describe it as “rockin’”. Watching this movie caused my dick to grow sideburns and made my beer 26% more delicious. I give it four and a half burritos out of a possible five enchiladas.
This movie has something that the whole family can enjoy, especially if your whole family like vampires, gore and tits.

I’d take my mum to go see it. You might not want to take my mum, she’s pretty judgemental.

Kick-Ass

Give me 9mm, and make it hurt.

Bear with me here folks. My vocabulary may not be all it could be right now, I’m still reeling from the tremendous blow that this movie gave my bean bag. It’s as if someone crept into my room at night with some sort of brain scanning equipment and recorded a combination of my greatest dreams and darkest sexual fantasies, because that is what I just watched; a twelve-year-old girl in a schoolgirl outfit – complete with piggy tails – crying tears and then shooting the shit out of a group of Mafioso men. Is this a common male fantasy, or is it just me and Roman Polanski?

Now, I’ve not read the comics that this fine piece of film history was based on, but I am terribly interested to now, though I hear the film differs from them on a few key points. Honestly though I don’t give a fuck. I couldn’t give half a fuck, even had I procured several free fucks to give, and I was paid to pass them out, like coupons to a pizza place down the road, while I stood on the corner dressed as a giant pizza with my array of toppings spelling out the word 'fuck' in black, overcooked letters stinking of pickled olives. That’s about as little as I care that it differs, because if it’s even 1/8th as awesome as the film adaptation was then it will be what I like to call ‘Rad-to-the-Max’, or ‘Radical-to-the-maximum’, for those of you who aren’t down with abbrev’s.

I had the chance to sit down and watch this today with a dear, dear someone-who-was-here-at-the-time, and I’ll tell you, we were almost wet with perspiration and lactate. I had to change my pants three times and my jumper once. He had to change his shoes as well, and it’s best not to ask why. Let’s just say that we were both a bit too involved and far too pumped, and too ill-prepared for the results of such a sexually charged concoction of manliness and radical.

I’m not going to sit here and give out spoilers or plot points to this movie. Mainly because I really can’t be fucked writing it out for you, but also because I don’t want to give away anything this sick-fest has to offer. All I am prepared to say is that if you haven’t watched this movie them you may be a homosexual. I’m just saying that if you don’t want to go and watch this film right now then there is an increased risk of you putting a dick in your mouth like you’re sucking on a 9mm in preparation for blowing your brains out all over the wall. Except the load you’ll be taking won’t be lead-based.

I will say that it is a super-hero movie with a near self aware, knocking on the fourth wall kind of attitude. It makes reference to super heroes as being comic book fantasies and purposely crushing the vengeance driven vigilante stereotype. It’s a story about a kid who’s just had enough of the shit, and is tired of being one of those people who just watch, and don’t act, when witnessing a crime. There is a lot of the movie's story that is based around this concept of a hero who is just a normal guy. No super powers, no billionaire trust fund development teams, no murdered parents. It makes a few jokes about conventional comic book heroes like Spiderman, Batman and Superman, and that these characters even exist in the films universe is funny to think about. There’s even the line “The difference between Peter Parker and Spiderman? Spiderman gets the girls.” So it’s hard to tell if this movie is fully aware that it’s based on a comic, or if it’s all just some clever ‘this shit will freak their minds’ kind of homage. Either way, it’s just having fun with it.

There is so much fighting captured on film here, and it’s done extraordinarily well. Usually with a fight scene the editor has an epileptic fit and all we are given is a hastily cut, mish-mash of half-second shots of faces and fists, and occasionally you’ll see the two connect. But in Kick-Ass the direction is as good as the editing. We see whole fights lasting minutes at a time. We see heads explode as .45 ACP rounds exit the skull in an eruption of colour and mist. We see people getting their shit righteously fucked up, with broken limbs and stab wounds aplenty. It is arousing to say the least.

The casting was done well. The main character is a reasonably unknown actor and it works to the films advantage of having an ordinary boy as the main star. Chloe Mortez, the little ninja on steroids, is fantastic as Hit-Girl. She has the mouth of an angel and the vocabulary of a trucker, and would get Woody Allen very arrested. And I never thought I’d see the day when I wanted Nicolas Cage to get more screen time. Seriously, how fucked up is that? I actually enjoyed him so much I needed more, and like a junkie looking to score a fix, I put Gone in 60 Seconds in my DVD player and cried myself into a near comatose state. His acting career is like a teenage girl’s mood swings. Snake Eyes, up. The Wicker Man, down. 8MM, up. Ghost Rider, very down. More down that a person with Down’s, whom I’m told, are really super down, bringing new meaning to the hit song ‘Get Low’.

So, my verdict is this. Go and see this fucking movie you commie wuss, because if you haven’t gone to see this ‘Buffet of Win and Epic’ then the only conceivable reason is that you were too fucking busy getting a manicure. And if you have seen it, see it again Princess. My friend saw it three times in the cinema and now he looks like Gung-Ho from the G. I. Joe cartoon. His dick has grown a moustache and he eats iron bars with milk for breakfast. I’m envious of his unbridled manliness.

Kick-Ass kicks so much arse it needs to wear specially designed gum-boots and uses bowels as socks.