RIP Bob Hoskins

Unfortunately, the weather DID impact my plans today. I won't get into the whole story but it involved the power being out for an extended period of time (so I should blame the power company too) so my plans were flushed down the toilet, and after that happened I didn't really feel like trying to go somewhere else to see what I wanted to see. So, I did other things while out on the town.

Anyway, when I woke up today and saw that Bob Hoskins was trending on Twitter, I feared it was for a bad reason, and sad to say it was. As I had no idea he was in ill health that news was a shock to me. I've only seen a few of his movies but I was still disappointed by the news. I know him best from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which I last saw before I started this blog. I should try and rectify that this year sometime, as I still enjoy the movie as an adult.

The two movies of his I have reviewed for the site were his small role in Doomsday (the review of that is here) and what he said was the worst movie he ever did, Super Mario Bros. (the review of that is here). I think I'll be watching the former again, this time to talk about it on Letterboxd.

I will return Friday night and hopefully I'll have better luck than I've had the past few days.

My Plans For May

The way I felt today, I wasn't going to watch any movie. Besides, it was a dark and dreary day out today, so it means that instead I'll briefly mention what I hope to be doing in May.

I'd like to see some Godzilla films (including the original) before the new one comes out in 2 1/2 weeks. If nothing else I will see the original from 1954. I'll likely see some random older films; you probably wouldn't have heard of it, but that is OK. Aside from the new Godzilla movie, I definitely do not plan on seeing any other new theatrical movie. I couldn't care less about any of that. Hell, I don't plan on seeing much this summer as hardly any of it seems worth seeing. At least I have plenty of things to watch at home.

I will be back tomorrow night. Unless the weather is as crappy as it was today, I'll be watching something in the theatre. Hopefully I won't have the issues I experienced the last two times...

Red Sky

Red Sky (2014)

Runtime: 108 minutes

Directed by: Mario Van Peebles

Starring: Cam Gigandet, Shane West, Rachael Leigh Cook, Bill Pullman

From: Aldamisa Entertainment

Yep, it's been awhile since I've seen a movie from Ms. Cook so I figured this was the time to. Actually, what inspired me to do this: a few nights ago I had a dream involving her! No, it wasn't any sort of lewd or inappropriate dream. Heck, what I remember of the dream she wasn't even my girlfriend. Sigh... shortly after that I discovered that for the latest issue of People Magazine was their annual deal where they list beautiful women and they had a wacky article up which gave a silly excuse for several famous ladies to appear tastefully NAKED, from Laura Prepon to Stacy Keibler to Rachael herself. I saw the photo and needless to say I greatly enjoyed it.

Anyway, after all that I figured I should check out a movie that I am not sure has actually come out in the United States but has come out elsewhere around the world earlier in the year after being on the shelf for at least a few years. As it's a United States and Russian film, it could be a number of things that made it sit on the shelf for so long. I stumbled upon this copy of the movie (nevermind how) without even looking for it and I've held onto it until the time was right to check it out, and the time is now.

The plot, stolen from the IMDb: “Disgraced Top Gun fighter pilot Butch Masters leads a rogue squad in recovery of a WMD. Masters must navigate a fractured friendship, a love triangle, and must take to the skies to reclaim his military and personal honor.” To expand, the movie starts off with the squad being tricked into killing some civilians and destroying a weapon the military was looking for. That weapon involves changing the composition of oil, making it useless... pretty silly, yeah. Then again, freedom fighters are also involved, so that take for what it's worth.

Besides stating which movie of the past obviously inspired this film, I am glad it mentioned that the hero's name is Butch Masters, as that's a hilarious name. By the way, this is based upon some book I hadn't heard of before called KEROSCENE COWBOYS and that was the original title of the movie until they changed it. I should also mention that director Van Peebles has a key role in the movie, and another co-star is J.C from 'N Sync.

Overall, I'd have to rate the movie as average, and that may only be due to my Rachael fandom. Otherwise... it's mainly a drama, which is fine. Problem is, things don't always make a lot of sense. Yeah, it's one of those films. Then, there's asstagonist behavior. The rogue pilots are assisted on their mission by a random Russian lady, and they start off by acting like pigs while talking to her; I could have done without that. 

But as I was saying, things are average overall, from the story to the action you do see, the dialogue and how things are filmed. At least there was some unintentional humor. There is an end credits song, which was pretty crappy... and thus pretty funny. Also, Rachael (she plays a documentary filmmaker, of all things) helps someone near the end fire off a rocket launcher because he's injured. If little old her would have fired it off on her own... oh my God I wish that would have happened! That would have been amazing and I would have howled with laughter. As is, like I said this is average.

I will return Tuesday night.

Real Life Craziness

Who needs to talk about or watch a movie when...

Last night I had a dream about owning a brand new Porsche 911; oh if only!

Be at an open air mall not too far from where I live and be outside of Target when you notice about 5 cops arresting a young hooligan male (he looked and dressed the part, believe me) for what I presume had to be shoplifting, although maybe it was a more serious theft if they had that many cops around him.

Find out when you get home that on the same street that one of your sisters live in, there was an armed stand-off involving some crazy guy and the cops... including a SWAT team. Everyone ended up fine but yikes.

I will return tomorrow night and unless I am feeling absolutely atrocious then that will be the occasion for a movie review.

The Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments (1956)

Runtime: 220 minutes

Directed by: Cecil B. DeMille

Starring: Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson, Yvonne De Carlo

From: Paramount

Would you believe last night was the first time I had ever seen this classic film? Sure, I've seen the still great parting of the Red Sea effect but that was pretty much it. Several theatre chains are still doing the deal at some of their locations across the country of showing older films and this happened to be the latest one in the rotation. I figured my virgin experience should be watching it in an auditorium, and that's what I did. I wish it could have been an idiot-free screening but I don't want to go on a rant here.

From Letterboxd, the plot summary: "Escaping death, a Hebrew infant is raised in a royal household to become a prince. Upon discovery of his true heritage, Moses embarks on a personal quest to reclaim his destiny as the leader and liberator of the Hebrew people." In short, the movie is quality (I rated it 4 out of 5 stars on Letterboxd) and I am glad I finally saw it. The rest of the review is from what I wrote about it on Letterboxd, slightly expanded upon.

When I had the chance to see it on the big screen via Cinemark Theatres, it was an easy decision as I figured it was an epic spectacle of a film that was huge in scope and thus watching it in a theatre would be best, and turns out that it's true.

It's certainly bombastic and the opposite of subtle but no matter what you think of religion it is a greatly entertaining motion picture, and both "epic" and "spectacle" are perfect descriptive terms to use. It's a cast full of awesome old-school badasses (both male and female) and they all perform well, especially Heston, Brynner, Robinson as the perfect little sh*t-stirring weasel and Baxter as Nefretiri. There's also the likes of Vincent Price, John Carradine and a brief appearance by Woody Strode. All those guys are tremendous.

While the green screen effects looked kind of obvious on the big screen in 2014, I am OK with that as it's usually much preferable to CGI and the giant scope of the movie still came across well, and the legendary parting of the Red Sea scene is still awesome.

The movie's certainly long but for the most part it did not seem like it was almost 4 hours in length. There are some moments of goofiness and the dialogue is certainly flowery but I had no issues with that. They don't make movies like this anymore, that is for damn sure. If Hollywood got REALLY stupid and for some reason they tried to remake this, it'd be *so* bad and an embarrassment compared to DeMille's last film.

I'll be back late Saturday afternoon.

Storage 24

Storage 24 (2012)

Runtime: 87 minutes

Directed by: Johannes Roberts

Starring: Noel Clarke, Colin O'Donoghue, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Laura Haddock, Jamie Thomas King

From: Medient Entertainment

Here is something different from me. I could rant and rave on my own about this lame-ass British horror film concerning a goofy-looking bipedal creature on the loose in a storage unit and he's after a bunch of asstagonists (I saw this last night on Showtime Beyond) but instead I'll copy and paste what some dude on Letterboxd said about it, as he (or she) does it real well. The rest of this is from some person calling themselves SpectrumCulture. I will return tomorrow night with something completely different.

Under the guise of what was presumably once a half-baked Alien fan fiction story, Storage 24 is a yawn-inducing derivative work stricken with so many narrative and structural issues it’s confounding–and useless-to begin listing them all. Shlock material at least offers the potential for worthwhile deconstruction–it’s so bad, it’s interesting–but Storage 24 can’t even live up to those nether expectations.

Set in a storage facility that suggest labyrinthine quarters but lack a budget or imagination to conjure it cinematically, the film follows the recently-heartbroken Charlie (Noel Clarke) and his best friend Mark (Colin O’Donoghue) into Storage 24 to gather belongings Charlie once shared with his now-ex-girlfriend Shelley (Antonia Campbell-Hughes). She happens to also be retrieving her items from the locker with her friends Nikki (Laura Haddock) and Chris (Jamie Thomas King). Following a military aircraft crash in the building minutes before they arrived, the lights, security and telephone systems become erratic and/or dysfunctional and a huge portion of central London shuts down. The feuding, unlikely team is locked into the facility with an insect-like alien baddy–a hodge-podge of Alien, Predator and their infinite number of ripoffs–that rips into human flesh with abandon for no intuitive reason, omits almost-cute snorkeling sounds and is perplexed by animatronic toys. Charlie, whose characters motivations include being whiny, bellicose, and self-absorbed about his relationship troubles becomes the film’s unlikely, unlikeable hero once the bickering adults realize that a heavily-CGI’d alien monster is on the loose.

How the film builds up to the group’s somber realization of their fate is one of its immediately noticeable shortcomings. Throw-away characters present at the facility at the time of the crash are immediately forgotten or eaten by the monster in belabored scenes. It takes a painstaking amount of time before Charlie, Mark, Shelley, Nikki and Chris have their initial awkward meeting; until then, other characters act as unnecessary nebulous victims for the alien. The film posits that the viewer surely must want to see some random gore before the establishment of Characters We Are Supposed To Care About, and yet it fails to arouse much interest, horror, or suspense once it shows the alien in all its bad-CGI glory. This clunky transition to the group is indicative of the film’s many structural issues.

As characters devise plans to get out and protect themselves from the alien a whiff of misogyny cannot be ignored. Shelley is more of an object in the film than a character–onto whom Charlie can pin accusations of ex-girlfriend bitchiness and marital deception (for which there is nary an explanation or foregrounding), onto whom the alien can express a kind of extraterrestrial lust that conveniently gets in the way of his disemboweling her, and onto whom the viewer should grudgingly accept as flawed, but savable. Shelley is at least endowed with a non-sissy attitude when it comes to the alien, though her friend Nikki–gussied up to look more feminine, naturally–is prone to bouts of hysteria and fussing about over messy toilets. It’s a heavy-handed way of suggesting that the split-up couple once made a good pair with common traits. Perhaps they can discuss their mutual bravery in fighting aliens in marital counseling one day. Exes are treated with so much vehemence in Storage 24 that David (Ned Dennehy)–a crazy squatter the group befriends for only 10 minutes–faces off with the alien because it reminds him of his ex-wife, and naturally he must yell at it.

For all its contrived comparisons to Alien, Storage 24 is actually closest to Attack the Block in terms of ambition. The film wants badly to be a suave and witty little British horror flick imbued with a resonating subtext about something, anything. Middle-class relationship woes? Sure–the setting of a storage facility makes sense, given that ex-partners tend to become particularly territorial over once-shared belongings. On a more metaphorical level, the emotional baggage accrued over an ending relationship can also be found in stored-away items that can open a Pandora’s box of emotion for its owner upon their rediscovery. Unfortunately, Storage 24 blunders its potential to do anything remotely interesting or coherent with this high premise.

Thank You, Premium Cable

Unless complications happen, that will allow me to watch something I wanted to see on Netflix Instant but wasn't able to due to running out of time back during the times I had the service. It will start in about a half hour so the review for that will go up tomorrow afternoon.

At least for the rest of the month I have my movie schedule pretty well mapped out and hopefully I'll be able to stick to it.

Happy Easter

I decided to relax today on this holiday so I will return on Tuesday night. I hope everyone had a nice Easter today on what is also 4/20.

Koyaanisqatsi

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

Runtime: 86 minutes

Directed by: Godfrey Reggio

Starring: This is a documentary without narration

From: IRE Productions

This is the reason why I watched Baraka again a few nights ago. I have never seen any of the films in the Qatsi trilogy and I was contemplating watching something completely different from the norm for me, and this fit the bill. I've known about those films for many years and I've had the Blu-Ray set for months now, so I thought I should finally get on it.

Like with Baraka, it is a narration-less experience where a variety of images are seen and they're matched perfectly with a trippy unique soundtrack, this time from Philip Glass. As the back of the individual Blu-Ray case described the film, it “wordlessly surveys the rapidly changing environments of the Northern Hemisphere... it shuttles viewers from one jaw-dropping vision to the next, moving from images of untouched nature to others depicting human beings' increasing dependence on technology.”

While I do say it is a little bit less than Baraka, that is no shame given that on Letterboxd I gave Baraka a full 5 stars and I think I'll rate this 4 ½ stars. It's still a very different experience watching something like this. The visuals are pretty stupendous. I don't want to give much away about the experience as it is another one of those deals where you can decide on your own what the movie is about (something the director has admitted to being the case); the title is a Hopi Indian term meaning “life out of balance” and that is a theme which is easily seen throughout. It's man vs. nature to me and how man has an obvious impact on nature. And heaven knows how true in 2014 the idea is that humans are dependent on technology; that idea was ahead of its time.

I know that this is a short review but like I said... I don't want to give too much away. When I talk about it tomorrowe on Letterboxd I'll likely have some more to say about it, after I spend the night processing it all, you know. I can say that the often-time minimalist score from Glass is pretty rad, and there is plenty of slow motion and sped-up film. Plenty of it. It's done for a good reason. The movie is still effective and it works, even 32 years later.

I will return Sunday night, come hell or high water.

You Know What Happens When You Assume...

Yeah, what I wanted to watch on that Encore channel was again in fullscreen (i.e. black bars going vertical on the right and left of the screen) even though it's a classic 70's film... that made me pretty pissed.

I decided to watch something on Blu-Ray instead; it relates to what I hope to start watching soon. I rewatched Baraka. I talked about it before and you can read that review here. It's still an awesome film and it's better seen than described, and the picture quality is by a good amount the best I've ever seen on a home television. You should get the disc if you want to show off the best of what your home theatre can be.

To make up for last night's snafu, I will return tomorrow night.

My Schedule For The Next Week

I know that when I do these they're not always accurate (I didn't go to the Florida Film Festival because of reasons... and me being annoyed or outright disgusted at humanity in general during last weekend) but for the upcoming week, I plan on watching something late tonight and then I'll be back tomorrow night to review that. In order to get ready for attending a live UFC show on Saturday, for the next few days I'd like to watch various matches from the "best-of" Blu-Rays I have, so that'll occupy my time. After tomorrow night I don't plan on posting here again until Sunday night.

By the way, I was expecting to watch something on an Encore channel last night and review it for tonight. I tune in and see that the print looks terrible and it wasn't even in widescreen on the HD channel (i.e. there were black bars on the sides) so I said "forget it". For what I plan on watching tonight on an Encore channel, I shouldn't have that problem.

Disco Godfather

Disco Godfather (1979)

Runtime: 98 minutes

Directed by: J. Robert Wagoner

Starring: Rudy Ray Moore, Julius Carry, Hawthorne James, Jimmy Lynch, Jerry Jones

From: Generation International

Due to time reasons, I'll copy and paste what I wrote about the movie on Letterboxd, along with some additional info.

This is a film I had seen before, but that was back like 11 or 12 years ago and I only remembered small bits and pieces of it. When I saw that TCM Underground would be showing it late at night Saturday night, I figured it was the perfect time to revisit that film.

To copy and paste part of the plot description from the IMDb: "A retired cop becomes a DJ/celebrity at the Blueberry Hill disco-- he's the "Disco Godfather!" All is well until his nephew flips out on a strange new drug that's sweeping the streets, called "angel dust," or PCP. Disco Godfather vows "to personally come down on the suckers that's producing this shit!" He takes to the streets, slaps drug dealers and even exposes a crooked cop that is covering for the dealers. In between, he still finds time to manage the Blueberry Hill and perform. "Put a little slide in yo' glide," he pleads to the patrons, "Put some weight on it!" (a phrase he says at least 2 dozen times).

It's a typical Rudy Ray Moore movie, both good and bad. The production was pretty low-rent and had plenty of mistakes. The acting can be pretty putrid. Yet, it is also fun to laugh at and with and enjoy the wacky things Moore said or marvel at his over the top outfits... or guffaw at the awfulness of the "martial arts" skills of Rudy.

While there are some slow moments, some things stand out, that being most loud and clear the disco theme; heck, Moore's character owns a disco club so you see people dancing, even on roller skates in one scene. What groovy music it has. There's also them trying to present a genuine warning about the dangers of PCP, which at the time was seen as a big threat. Sure, this movie ended up being goofy with a lot of unintentional humor, but at least they tried. How can you hate a movie with characters named SWEETMEAT and STINGER RAY? Stinger Ray is the villain, at that.

The real highlight is when you get to see the visions that invade the minds of those who are trippin' balls on PCP. They are wacky surreal and tickled me pink. Wait until you see Rudy Ray Moore trippin' balls, to give out a spoiler.

I know that not everyone can tolerate Rudy Ray Moore being loud and crazy Rudy Ray Moore. But, if you can and you laugh at how bad and yet how funny Dolemite is, then you definitely should see this out and enjoy its unique aspects... and put your weight on it.

I'll be back tomorrow night.

I'll Be Back Tomorrow Afternoon

I don't want to do this but in a half hour I want to watch something on TV (not movie-related) and between Friday being crappy in general and today having some nice moments but also some bad (being out in Florida traffic, dealing with rude disgusting women who constantly dropped F-bombs) and it'd be best if I do a review real late at night instead of now and just post it tomorrow afternoon. At least I do have an interesting older movie to talk about.

The Raid 2

The Raid 2 (Serbuan Maut 2: Berendal) (2014)

80% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 128 reviews)

Runtime: 150 minutes (no, not a misprint)

Directed by: Gareth Evans

Starring: Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian, Arifin Putra, Donny Alamsyah

From: Sony Pictures Classics

Here's a review from me that I copied and pasted from Letterboxd, only I have to take some stuff out along with adding it in. It's too long to explain why, as it's already going to be a lengthy review. I do have to spoil one thing in the review, but for me it's for good reason. I think it says a lot about what sort of movie this is.

To steal the plot description from the IMDb: "Only a short time after the first raid, Rama goes undercover with the thugs of Jakarta and plans to bring down the syndicate and uncover the corruption within his police force."

I loved The Raid; I saw it twice on the big screen and thought it was incredible; as a means of comparison, I gave it 5 stars at Letterboxd. I knew that the sequel would have en entirely different sort of plot and I was OK with that, as more of the same would just be repetitive.

I eagerly anticipated seeing this movie after all the extremely strong praise I've seen for it pretty much everywhere as it was released elsewhere before it finally got a wide release in the U.S. this weekend; I thought there was no way I wouldn't dislike this movie. I just presumed it would be something else I'd give 5 stars to and it'd be a strong candidate for my top movie of the entire year.

Unfortunately, I then saw the film. On Letterboxd I gave it 2 1/2 stars, mainly because of its action scenes.

As for the action, a lot of it is really great and some of it is simply incredible. Unfortunately, some of it is overkill to the point of me rolling my eyes, and while the first movie had one setpiece involving shaky-cam BS, this movie noticeably had more of that, which I found to be greatly disappointing.

But, the reason why I'm down on the film is the story. To me, this movie is just too damn long for the tale it's telling and I just thought it was never interesting. It's a bunch of sh*tty characters acting sh*tty and I was never given a reason to care about them. I still tried to follow along but the plot was too confused and too full of nonsense and dumb situations and too many moments where things just made zero sense. There are plenty of other crime dramas/gangster dramas which try to do a similar thing a lot better than it's done here.

Then, there's some side characters which are seemingly introduced only to fill out the long runtime and don't really matter too much in the thick of things. Some other characters are just too cartoony and preposterous for what otherwise is a crime drama you can almost believe could actually happen. Hammer Girl has some sweet moments, but is in no way what you'd encounter in real life.

Then, there's how the violence at times comes off as being repellent, as if everyone's trying to top themselves from what was done in the first movie. It unfortunately reminded me of the really repellent violence in Only God Forgives, a movie I downright hated and thought was pretentious douchy garbage. However, with the violence at times and there being a few "colorful" scenes I couldn't help but think that.

Also, there are a few times where I was wondering if I'm watching a dream sequence but it was never identified as such. The biggest example is the scene that starts off at a dance club with throbbing music from a DJ.

That scene starts off well, then it just gets... strange, to the point that I am questioning the setting of the film. Most of the time it looks to be set in Indonesia but that scene greatly puzzled me once I realized it made zero logical sense and all I can figure is that it was totally pretentious horsesh*t only done to make things "look cool", and in this sort of movie it stood out in an awful way and I think that was a turning point for me... 

The movie was disappointing to me to a point but once that scene happened and it left me at first puzzled and then angry, I don't think there was any turning back. But I guess most other people are happy with or are willing to accept there being SNOW in INDONESIA in September... or at any month of the year in that tropical country and a scene set in a large city instead of a mountaintop or what have you...

Really, if it wasn't for the action scenes I'd rate this lower, that's how much I didn't care for the story and how it played out. It's a massive disappointment to me and I can NOT believe such a thing ended up happening, but I am being 100% honest here. I wish I could love it like almost everyone else.

While I am crushed this motion picture did not work for me, at least I still have the first movie to watch and enjoy; my memories of this movie won't taint the original.

I thought I'd be going out Saturday night to see another film but now that likely won't happen. There were idiots at the screening of this movie; that and this day being crappy in general... I likely will stay in for the weekend and I can just watch one of a plethora of films at home. Either way, I'll be back Sunday night.

Dragon Missile

Dragon Missile (Fei Long Zhan) (1976)

Runtime: 82 minutes

Directed by: Meng Hua Ho

Starring: Lo Lieh, Tony Liu, Nancy Yen, Han Chen Wang, Terry Liu

From: Shaw Brothers

I did not discover this until early yesterday, but my local cable provider now has the El Rey Network, i.e. the network started up by Robert Rodriguez and as of now it regularly shows either old TV shows, that From Dusk to Dawn TV show, or old movies of the grindhouse style, including Shaw Brothers films. I was able to watch one of the two movies on the channel tonight, which was this one.

The rest of this review is from what I wrote on Letterboxd, but expanded upon. Note that the dragon missiles referenced in the title of this film has nothing to do with anything lewd. Rather, it's a pair of bladed boomerangs that I will call magical, as they spark whenever they hit anything, even if it's wood. Goofy.

This tale is about an assassin (Lo Lieh) who has to retrieve a special medicine to treat the wacky-looking skin cancer his corrupt Governor has acquired, or the Governor will soon die. He is accompanied by some fellow assassins (of course this is done for the sake of a double cross), including one lady who has blades that extend from her fingertips as if she's a distaff Wolverine. Stuff like that was also wacky... or how the medicine is a root that can't get wet, as if it's a Mogwai, only that it won't work instead of it turning into a dangerous creature.

It's only about 82 minutes long and there is a lot that happens so it's never boring. There are plenty of double-crosses and people turning against each other, and the interesting aspect to me is that Lieh's character always follows orders, even if it's from some A-hole characters, so you can question whether he's the guy you want to root for or not.

Sure, his boomerangs (the weapons that provide the title of this movie) are pretty cool but he flat out murders some people just because he's told to and they didn't really deserve it. I mean, the main thing that happens with the boomerangs... decapitations. You see plenty of that (the network shows movies uncut; sure there's commercials but if that allows for such an alpha male network to be on, I won't be complain); the movie even briefly has bare breasts on display. Anyhow, those looking for revenge against Lo Lieh's character may be the ones you want to root for instead, but it's up to you.

There's a wide variety of different scenery/settings to see, including action at a beach and several different villages. That makes things colorful. While things may be nonsensical at times, it's just a fun movie to watch. I am glad the El Rey Network exists, and I now am able to watch it.

I'll be back around this time the next night (i.e. 24 hours from now) as I already know what I'll be watching Friday evening.

My Schedule For The Next Month

No, I did not see anything so no review. I won't be back until a week from today. This weekend I'll be in Tampa for several hours on Saturday, and as Wrestlemania is on Sunday, I'll be watching old shows on the WWE Network (I've been putting that off when I shouldn't have) so I'll be doing that... and I'll watch some old favorites so I can write about it on Letterboxd.

In terms of seeing movies in the theatre, next weekend The Raid 2 is supposed to be wide release (how wide, I have zero idea; I have no doubt I'll be able to see it, at least) and I'll be there with bells on as it's among my most anticipated movies of the entire year. There's also the Florida Film Festival and I'd like to see at least one of those films. And, some old movies will be on the big screen the second part of this month and the first part of next month; getting to see one or two of them would be interesting; they'd also be amongst the longest motion pictures I've seen on the big screen.

Like I said, I'll be back Friday night, April 11.

Final Score

Final Score (1986)

Runtime: 87 minutes

Directed by: Arizal

Starring: Christopher Mitchum, Mike Abbott, Ida Iasha, Dicky Zulkarnaen, Zainal Abidin

From: Rapi Films

Here is something random I heard about on a messageboard. More than once this film was brought up; it's from Indonesia and it's from the director of the hilariously bad/great The Stabilizer. As that movie is also on YouTube, it was easy to watch this tonight and I didn't have to go into the bowels of the Internet to check it out. As for what I did yesterday, I went out and had more to drink than expected, then I decided to drink some more at home. Watching something then talking about it wasn't in the cards, despite what I promised last night. This would be pretty great to see while trashed, though.

To steal the plot from the IMDb: “Richard Brown, a decorated Vietnam War veteran now living in Indonesia, discovers that gunmen invaded his home, murdered his son, Bobby, (preparing to celebrate his 8th birthday), and gang-raped and murdered his wife, Florinda. Vowing revenge, he begins to track down the culprits, learning in the process that they're in the employ of a business rival named Hawk.” Note that Mr. Hawk is a random white guy with a great pornstache and despite being from England he's dubbed and his deep voice is rather wacky. Then again there are plenty of wacky voices to be heard from the dubbing. Only the star provided his own speaking voice.

The gang rape scene, while not as awful to watch as the similar scene in Death Wish 2, is still pretty gross and we really did not need to see such a thing. The story is flimsy (they attack Dick Brown because he runs a computer chip company and they want to take him out so they can get in on the business and it would cover up their illegal activities, or some such nonsense) and it almost seems like there's too much shooting out and explosions and carnage. Still, a lot of stuff blows up and there's so much wackiness to enjoy... The Stabilizer is better but if you enjoy such things you should also check this out. Among the highlights:

* Indonesia had a lot of crappy-looking vehicles from the 70's that were driven around in the 80's. At least I hope they weren't 80's models... really, they looked so bad.

* Most of the time Robert Mitchum's son is literally killing hundreds of people while wearing a sweet Fila jacket.

* It doesn't take long before Dick Brown has rebound sex with someone. Admittedly she was an attractive lady...

* The director has some trademarks; I know this from seeing two of his films. There's such things as gratuitous usage of slow motion, dudes getting wrecked, and warehouses getting blown the F up.

* The dialogue they gave the many henchmen usually involves yelling and cursing. Some of it was so goofy I had to laugh.

* Dick Brown has some goofy one-liners.

* A bad guy gets a small bomb placed right by his crotch. This is as he's tied up in a chair.

There's definitely more but I don't want to give everything away now. I will return Friday night.

I'll Return Tomorrow Night

I'll explain things more in depth tomorrow night but I just don't feel like doing a review tonight, yet I do plan on watching something while I am in the buzzed state I am in now.