Is it possible that of all the B film action stars, Jean Claude Van Damme might be back on the way to the top again? For the most part, the rotation of action star pictures has cooled somewhat, but unlike his peers, Van Damme does appear in films which may be a notch short of reclaiming former glory, and “Wake Of Death” is a big step in the right direction.
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Exactly two years ago on this day, I started writing for Choking on Popcorn. I chose to start off with my favourite movie, La Haine (Hatred). Now, in order to ‘celebrate’ this event, I decided to review a movie that has a lot in common with La Haine: it’s shot in black and white, it’s poured in a (fake) documentary form, it’s French spoken and it depicts the darker side of society. Despite these big similarities, they are two completely different movies. This particular Belgian movie has sometimes been described as the most violent movie of all times. Loads of people were abhorred by the explicit nature of the violence and the seeming disregard for human life. I dare to say that those people haven’t understood one iota of this movie; it’s fucking brilliant!

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What’s up with Nicole Kidman? What has turned this mediocre actress into an omnivorous thespian, who is clearly on a mission to become the hardest working woman in the movie business? If you look at her impressively growing list of movies, you’ll see that the real Kidman Mania has only just begun: no less than 5 movies are due for 2006 to star the American-born Aussie actress. And I just happen to be just one of those people who doesn’t like her. She doesn’t annoy me as much as Renée Zellweger or Gwyneth Paltrow do, but I have the impression of seeing her everywhere trying all sorts of genres. Very understandable from her point of view and maybe courageous from an actor’s point of view, but she doesn’t excel in any one of them. I don’t care that she’s won an Oscar, she just doesn’t do it for me!

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This week, I’m calling attention to an excellent little bit of a B-movie that you may or may not actually find. But look for it–it’s worth it.

An amazing story of love, loss, and spooge cleaning comes through magnificently in “Swamper.”

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I still watch Steven Seagal’s films that go to DVD shelves from time to time, although there was also a time where I longed for the action star to be back on the big screen, and some of his recent efforts are more painful than being stung by a swarm of mad hornets. His latest effort, “Today You Die”, is not much of an exception.
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I don’t know about anyone else, but is this a bad pattern of events? Ever since the mixed bag that was ‘Blade Trinity”, Wesley Snipes has had -count ‘em if you dare- three direct to DVD films in less than a span of a year. Worse, Wesley Snipes,has been proven as a dramatic actor (Jungle Fever, The Waterdance) and he has had, in the past, decent action films other than the first two ‘Blade’ pictures, like ‘Drop Zone’. So my question is, why has he sunk to the abysmal depths of a piece of junk like ‘The Marksman’?
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With this movie, the cinematic debut of Paul Haggis is certainly no tripe. Okay, that’s a very lame pun, but the former TV writer, producer and director has left a nice calling card. It’s quite reminiscent of movies like Traffic, Magnolia and more recently 11:14; where different storylines of different people come together, seemingly bound by destiny. Haggis has the luxury of calling on an impressive cast with some nice cameos. And although this is by all means a very good debut, it’s not without flaw.

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At the risk of sounding like somebody in dire need of some Ego-deflation, I am hereby ordaining a new movie-category: The Rainy-Sunday Movie.
It’s the kind of movie that’s not really good, not really bad, not really a waste of time, but not really a good use of time either. It is the sort of movie you pass the time with when you feel too shabby, hung over, tired, weary or flu-ish to watch a film that you can sink your mental teeth into. A film for when your mind is working at 65% capacity and the weather is not good enough for going out and getting something done.
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This movie is a so-called Category-3 film. Don’t worry; I did not know what that meant either.
Category-3 is the collective noun for a relatively recent trend in Japanese and Hong Kong cinema that prides itself on extreme and explicit violence and gore, in what are not necessarily horror- but also Yakuza- or gangster movies. And believe me when I say that you will not want to see whatever is bearing the Category-3 label. In my opinion, people who enjoy this movie (or any other of its kind) are as badly in need of some serious therapy as Michael Jackson is.
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It’s 2095. Do you know where your asprin is? I wouldn’t call “Immortel [ad vitam]” one of the worst films ever made, but I didn’t enjoy the film, even though I wanted to. What comes from French/Yugoslavian comic-book artist Enki Bilal, who created the main character of Nikopol in French magna, is a nice looking visual feast of cityscape and some unusual and sometimes interesting sights, only to have the film fall apart due to a clumsy story and some CGI characters which are too unusual for taste.
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